The Devil's Alphabet

“There’s all kinds of theories. People think there was another Change, before Switchcreek. Completely covered up. Or maybe more than one-China in the sixties, Russia in the eighties. Or in the States, the usual secret military base in the desert. All that Area Fifty-one shit.”

Pax said, “So this picture-”

“Doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

“What?”

Deke held out a hand, and Pax gave the paper back to him. “It’s a hoax, P.K. Urban myth, like Sasquatch. There’s dozens of pictures like these on the web. Hundreds maybe. It’s all done with computers, people jackin’ around.” He folded it up and placed it back in his wallet. “Argos in Mexico, betas in the northwest, chubs hanging out with Elvis. This ain’t even one of the convincing ones.”

“But if Jo gave it to you she must have thought-”

“Jo wanted to be fooled as much as anyone, Paxton. No one wants to think we’re alone out here. It’s the town disease.”

Chapter 10

THE SMELL OF the house was driving him crazy.

His father’s scent seemed to have infused every surface: the carpets, the cloth of the furniture, the walls. The smell couldn’t have been much different than a few days ago, but it seemed worse to him now that he knew the taste of fresh vintage. Now Pax could smell only the decay, the corruption of the pure product, like a fruit farmer attuned to the taint of rot.

He opened all the windows and set up fans in the front and back screen doors to start a cross-draft, but the humidity only seemed to give weight to the odor, turning it into something physical that shifted in strength and intensity, moving from room to room like an animal.

He tried to ignore it. He went through his father’s pile of mail, sorting junk from bills and bank statements, with the idea that he should figure out if his father was in financial trouble, but he quickly lost concentration. He couldn’t even watch TV; the scent of his father was strongest there by the couch. Finally he fell asleep in the guest room with an arm thrown over his face.

When he awoke the next morning he was damp and aching and the scent was still with him.

I should leave now, he thought. Get dressed and drive out of Switchcreek as fast as I drove in.

He went to the bathroom, stripped, and sat on the edge of the tub for a long time waiting for the water to get hot. Despite the hollowness in his stomach he had no appetite. Finally he stepped under the shower, steadying himself with one palm against the tile.

Leave or go, he thought. Back to Chicago, or sink back into the life he’d left when he was fifteen? There was hardly anything calling him back to the city. He’d probably been fired from the restaurant by now. And there was no one back there who’d miss him, not really. He had coworkers, and people he got drunk with, and coworkers he got drunk with. Had even one of them called him to see if he was okay? Okay, his cell phone was dead and he hadn’t packed the charger, but even if they had called, was there one of them he would have felt compelled to call back? People around him fell in and out of love affairs-some of them even got married-and he had no more interest in their dramas than he did for his father’s Discovery Channel documentaries. Fuck or don’t fuck. Move in together or not. Don’t dress it up in all this costume emotion to make it seem important. There’d been a few women and a couple of men who’d wanted more from him, who wanted a relationship. But Jesus, no. He’d never had to do much to drive them away. He didn’t have to be mean, or push them away. He simply shut off whatever part of him he’d let slip, whatever glimmer of him that made them think they knew him. Once he sealed that crack, soon enough they went away on their own.

He dried off and walked naked down the hallway. He knew there weren’t any clean clothes left in his suitcase; he’d only expected to stay a couple of days. He walked past the guest room to his father’s room and pushed open the door.

The room looked much as it had a dozen years before: a long, mirrored bureau, wood veneer bedside tables, the long gauzy drapes his mother had liked. The bed was unmade, the bedclothes pushed against the wall. The box spring had been lifted off the frame and reinforced by a row of two-by-fours, but his father’s weight had still pressed a hollow into the mattress.

A pile of clothes lay on the floor beside the bed. Pax picked up a huge white T-shirt. He rubbed it through his hands, then lifted it to his face. He inhaled, breathed out, and inhaled again. The smell of the vintage swam thickly into his nose, his lungs.

He dropped the shirt over his head. The wide neck hung lopsided on his shoulders, open to his collarbone; the hem reached to his knees. He held out his arms and looked down at himself. The shirt was as big as a tablecloth.

He imagined his father laid out on some bed at Rhonda’s Home, staring down the expanse of his body. Waiting.

He took off the T-shirt, went to the closet. He pushed aside hangers until he found his father’s old clothes, from before the Changes. He pulled on a striped button-down shirt-several sizes bigger than what he wore, but in the realm of the wearable-then went back to the guest room to find his jeans.

He realized he had his father’s T-shirt in his hand again. He spread it across the bed like a blanket.

His father loved him. His father needed him. The terms were indistinguishable.

He went back to the guest room and looked under the bed for the stack of papers Rhonda had given him. They weren’t there. He sat on the bed, looking around at the bookshelves. He’d signed them that night, then-what? He remembered falling asleep, but he couldn’t recall putting the papers away.

It didn’t matter. He’d find them later, and burn them.

The gate was closed, of course. He leaned out of the window of the Tempo and pressed the intercom’s call button. “Hello?”

After a long pause a male voice came back. “Can I help you with something?”

“Hi, this is Paxton Martin. Is this-” He couldn’t remember the name of the security guard he’d met. Barry? Brian? “I’m here to see my father.”

“Oh, hi there, Paxton,” the voice said. Genuinely friendly. “I thought that was you. We met the other day.”

Pax looked at the gate, then spotted the camera sticking up above the wall. Paxton lifted a hand in a wave. Another five seconds passed. “So if you could open the gate?”

“Rhonda’s not here right now,” the guard said. “You want to leave a message?”

“No message. I’m just here to see my father. Harlan Martin.”

“Rhonda always tells me if we’re going to have visitors. Did you call ahead? Visitors need to call ahead.”

“Well I didn’t do that.” Pax struggled to keep his voice level. “So if you could just let me in, I need to talk to my father. It’s important. Family business.”

“You really need to call ahead.”

“Listen-what was your name again?”

“Barron.” Cold now.

“Barron, open the gate. I never signed anything, so you’re holding my father illegally. I’ve come to take him home. You can’t stop the next of kin from seeing him.”

“You’re going to have to talk to Aunt Rhonda about that. Now if you can give me your phone number, I’m ready to write it down.”

“Open the fucking gate, Barron.”

“Son, there’s no call for cussing.”

“Open the fucking gate!”

No answer. Pax pressed the call button, then pressed it again.

He switched off the car, got out, and marched up to the gate. He grabbed the iron bars with both hands and yanked, but they didn’t move.

He stepped back, looked at the stone walls that adjoined the gate at each side. They were about ten feet high, made of big stones set into the mortar. Maybe climbable, if his legs didn’t already feel like Jell-O. An argo could