Chapter Ten

Downtown Houston glowed under a blanket of snow. Paige stepped outside, covered her eyes and checked her phone for a signal that didn’t exist. The professor warmed up his old white van as the others slowly trickled out of the club, yawning and rubbing their eyes. They drove about a block down Montrose to check on Paige’s car and move it off the curb, but after turning the ignition for the third time, she admitted defeat. Old Faithful was dead. Forced to leave it behind where a dozen other vehicles sat stranded, they drove through the deserted streets taking last minute detours along the way. Checkpoints appeared around every curve. The roads thick with snow, Professor Faraday disregarded street signs (even the ones with arrows pointing ONE WAY) and plowed through the city sludge, tagging a few curbs along the way. Either by luck or mad skill or both, he found the freeway entrance ramp without a run-in with the authorities, without a vehicle search and without a trip to jail.

Kendal rode up front with the professor while Abbey and Michael stretched out in the two long backseats. Paige and Ashley sat together in the rear of the van, which was cluttered with blankets, towels, pillows and a red ice chest. Still uneasy around Ashley, she now found herself alone with him. The professor shouted from behind the wheel as they traveled on the already crowded freeway. It was ten o’clock on a Saturday morning and although the city resembled a ghost town, without even a convenient store open for business, the freeways crawled with traffic. The calm before the storm, Paige thought.

“I’ve heard a solar storm could take out vehicles!” the professor shouted. “Could be the case up north, certainly not here! Paige, you okay back there?”

Smiling, she answered, “Fine! It’s roomy back here!”

“What?” he yelled, hitting the brakes. “We’ll stop later! Got to get through this traffic first!” Professor Faraday left just enough room for motorists to cut him off and slide on in, a driving style familiar to Paige.

“You drive like my dad!” she shouted. Ashley laughed, but Michael’s bandaged wrists shot up from the backseat.

“Can we please quit shouting?” he asked.

“Second that,” Abbey said from the next seat up. Suffering a hangover from last night’s drinking binge, he assured his father it wouldn’t happen again, and much to Paige’s surprise, Ashley calmly recommended he lay down in the van. Michael was the last person out of bed. His health deteriorated overnight and Ashley cracked the whip to get everyone up and going. After bandaging Michael’s wrists for the second time that morning, he helped him to the van and covered him with a blanket before crawling into the back with Paige.

They rode in silence listening to the groove of the road collide in tune with passing traffic. Held prisoner by her thoughts, Paige relaxed into the highway lullaby and gazed through the back window letting her eyes cloud over and lose focus. She had the dream again last night, but new details emerged rounding out her memory with subtle clarity. She’d been in a panic as she charged down a rain-soaked sidewalk with the woman in the red dress following behind. People in masks and painted faces gathered in the streets where high-spirits haunted the atmosphere, but Paige aggressively pushed through the growing crowd. She tried to run, but couldn’t, her legs dragging and pulling her down as if boulders adorned her ankles. The woman in the red dress stayed on her heels using a gold-handled walking cane to help her along. She clutched a gold pocket watch and shook it into the air shouting at Paige, but like a silent movie void of subtitles, her words were lost in the dream. The dark club teemed with ax murderers, vampires and clowns as Paige squeezed past the bar toward the back courtyard. The woman in the red dress appeared on stage, yelling into the microphone and holding up the gold watch, and then Paige saw him. Ghostly white and unsteady on his feet, Gabriel stumbled out of the bathroom, disappeared through the backdoor and into the courtyard. Paige followed, her legs dragging and pulling her down as she reached out and screamed in aggravation, waking herself up.

Music played at a moderate level as she gazed through the back window. She held onto the dream, locking in every detail until the silent movie felt more like a solid memory than a sleep-induced hallucination. Ashley peered over the seat to check on Michael and then settled back down, leaning on a pillow against the side of the van. Paige smiled and nodded as he stared at her through bloodshot eyes. His hair disheveled and suit a wrinkled mess, Ashley’s distinguished good looks were only amplified by his unkempt appearance.

“I should apologize for being so rude when we met,” he said. “Guess I get carried away sometimes.”

Paige felt a deep sadness from Ashley, like an overdone clown with painted tears and an exaggerated frown, she read it all over his face, or maybe it was just his eyes. She accepted his apology and asked if Michael would be okay, but Ashley only sighed and shook his head, his pale blue eyes glimmering against his dark hair, his strong jaw line slightly quivering. With quiet reserve resting on a short fuse, he appeared to be on the brink of suffering a breakdown, but to Paige’s amazement, he opened up.

“I hate New Orleans,” he said, “always have, but my son, he loved it. The art, the music, the French Quarters, he’d get lost in it. He’d get lost and I’d go find him.” Ashley reached into Michael’s backpack and pulled out the green ski hat. “Green was his favorite color, and this here, this was his favorite hat. Such a simple piece of fabric, don’t you think?”

Paige nodded.

Ashley leaned forward and lowered his voice, “Let me ask you something, how are we supposed to handle death? Someone like myself, who’s never believed in heaven or hell, what then?”

“I don’t know.”

His blue eyes paralyzed her. She fought an impulsive urge to flee the van and jump to her inevitable death, but he finally broke his stare, looked down at the hat and gently pulled it over his head. “I lost my son in New Orleans twenty-seven years ago, and I didn’t find him until it was too late. I hate New Orleans, and the only reason I’m going is to make sure that Michael will be okay.”

Paige reached for her purse and pulled it into her lap. “Gabriel Cross was your son, wasn’t he?” she asked, digging around for the piece of paper.

Ashley studied her, his bloodshot glare warming the cold van.

“Well I, I just assumed,” she said, holding the torn page in her hand. “See, I found this in the trunk in the attic, and I, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” She held out the piece of paper for him to take, but Ashley motioned for her to put it away.

“You keep it,” he said. “He’d want you to have it.”

“Well, thank you,” she said, stuffing it back into her purse. “I just, I’m a huge fan, that’s all.”

“Are you now?”

“Yeah, I am,” she giggled, fidgeting with her hands.

“Something funny?”

“No, not at all,” she said, “but, I don’t know, I think I’m more than just a fan, I think I might be a bit obsessed.”

“Why’s that?”

Hesitating, she answered, “Because I keep dreaming about him.”

Ashley sighed and looked away. He pulled the avocado green curtain closed on the side window and turned to meet her gaze again. “I’d like to hear about your dream,” he said. “Tell me what you can remember.”

Paige explained her reoccurring dream and Ashley fluttered his eyes when she described Gabriel leaving the bathroom. Covering his face with his hands, he dropped his head and held his fingers over his eyes.

“The woman in the red dress, what did she say?” he asked.

“I don’t remember,” Paige answered, “but I also saw her in the bathroom at the Blue Star. She told me Gabriel wasn’t supposed to die.”

Ashley listened intently as Paige revealed her brush with the paranormal. Pensive and lost in contemplation, he stayed quiet after she finished, and Paige held her tongue, preventing herself from nervous chatter. She waited. Unsure of his mental state and bracing herself for some sort of explosion, be it laughter or a chain of expletives, she waited until Ashley broke his trance and acknowledged her existence.

“Why do you think she would tell you that?” he asked. “You, of all people, who is, after all, only a fan. Why you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Give it a whirl,” he said, adjusting the hat.

Paige dropped her eyes and examined her hands. A familiar song vibrated the speakers and she thought again about her meeting with Vincent. She relived the moment, his black eyes and long skinny fingers, his tooth-filled grin, his gold pocket watch—she cringed at the sound of his grainy voice. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the page from Gabriel’s journal and read through it again. She read the last sentence on the very bottom, where the pen ran out of ink and the words ran dry, she read the line for the first time and then stuffed it back into her purse. She steadied her shaky hands.

“Because I’m all over the map, that’s why,” she answered.

Ashley nodded. “And why do you feel so compelled to go to New Orleans?”

“To find truth,” she said, “and because there’s something I need to see to believe.”

He nodded again. “The big picture coming into focus?”

Paige searched his tired eyes and saw more than the permanent imprint of sorrow. She saw a weak glimmer of hope, though faint and teetering on desperation, that hope seemed dependent on her understanding.

“I’m trying my best,” she said, “but no, the picture is abstract at best.”

“These things take time,” he sighed, “and who knows if this is the best way to go about it. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Distracted by the music again, Paige listened as the instrumental gave way to a sad song about life and death and the distance between, sweetness follows, the male voice sang—somber, heart-felt and jarring to the troubled mind. These things take time, she repeated in her head, I’m a slave to time.

“The best way to go about doing what?” she asked.

“Waking you up,” he answered. “You’ve gone through the looking glass. You wouldn’t believe the truth if we told you.”

“Try me.”

“No.”

“Listen, I know something’s not right. The CMC’s, the solar flare, the snow,” she gestured, “none of this feels right to me.”

Ashley frowned and grilled Paige with his silence. She caved.

“I’m sorry, but this is just too much. No one will tell me anything, and I’m stuck in the back of some van with a bunch of telepathic–”

“Keep your voice down,” he snapped. “You chose to be here. I know you saw something on that piece of paper. I know that spiral notebook from front to back, and I know what you saw, but–”

“Ashley, how is it possible that Abbey–”

“But,” he said, holding up his hand, “there’s a time and a place, and this is neither.” Leaning back, he stretched out his legs and smirked while admiring his black leather boots. “Gabriel loved The Beatles,” he said. “Lennon was his favorite of course, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what his favorite album was.”

“Abbey Road?” she asked.

“Still can’t listen to it,” he answered. His eyes glossed over again and his mood quickly plunged as he removed the hat and held it in his lap. “I felt him die,” he said. “That Halloween morning, I felt it happen. I was in New York when I got the call, and I knew, before Michael even said anything, I knew. He was at the hospital in New Orleans, told me Gabriel overdosed. I just, blacked out.” Ashley stared at the hat and brought it closer to his face. Picking at a snag in the fabric, he tugged on the loose strand of yarn until the thread un-looped and caught the next notch. “See how easily things unravel?” he asked.

Paige nodded.

Laughing, he stuffed the hat into Michael’s backpack. “Let’s test your skills,” he said. “I was thirty-one when Gabriel passed away twenty-seven years ago. How old am I now? What’s the math on that?”

She attempted to add up the numbers in her head, counting on her fingers and carefully carrying the one, but Ashley put an end to her misery before she could answer.

“I’m fifty-eight.”

“You look my age,” she said quietly.

His bloodshot eyes burned as he moved in closer. “Do you know about the beached whale?” he asked.

Paige leaned back and shook her head.

“Remarkable really,” he said. “Its family will sometimes beach themselves because they can’t leave it behind.”

She nodded and looked to her hands for comfort.

“Gabriel told me that,” he smiled, “big animal lover. We once saw a beached whale when he was a little boy, didn’t see any family members, just the young whale, dead on the beach with onlookers hovering over it, some even took pictures.”

Her throat swelled as she blinked away tears. We go on, she thought out loud to herself. Lifting her head and catching Ashley’s tormented eyes, she said more directly, “I think we go on. You asked me, how do we handle death, I think we meet on the other side, and I think Gabriel will be waiting for you.”

Ashley scoffed and leaned over the seat to check on Michael. “You and I have never been the religious type, Paige.”

She handed him the First Aid kit from the backpack and turned to look through the looking glass. Snow melted away and drained off the back windshield as she watched the world behind her disappear into the past. Dead grass, collapsed buildings, fallen trees, road kill; she left them behind and moved forward with the traveling van, but if we go in reverse, she thought, does the raccoon get a second chance? Can the trees dig in deeper? She looked through the looking glass and saw Gabriel, running beside her and falling behind, she felt him reach out and graze her fingertips. She saw him stumble and fall. Out of step yet graceful and flawed, he fell into her arms as she kissed his forehead and tamed his out-of-control hair. She was exactly where she needed to be, out of step yet right on time–we’ve been down this road.

“Paige?”

“Huh?” She jumped at the sound of her name.

“Did I scare you away?”

“Not yet,” she answered. “I was just thinking about things we leave behind, like the whale, and Gabriel, and if maybe the hand of fate gets it wrong sometimes.”

Ashley wiped blood from his hands and kept the First Aid kit close by his side. He gazed past Paige, the glimmer of hope she’d seen earlier absent as the blood settled into his pores. He spoke without breaking his trance, fixated on the red cooler sitting next to her.

“Those are some deep thoughts for an eighteen-year-old girl.”

Nodding, she replied, “I’d like to know about Gabriel.”

Ashley blinked and diverted his eyes—the red cooler off the hook, and Paige, the idle target. She held his glare and searched for the glimmer of hope, the sparkle that seemed to keep him going, that held him together, and she found it. As soon as Ashley opened his mouth to speak, the spark returned.

“Gabriel had a heart of gold,” he said, “and you’re right, he didn’t deserve his fate. He was a peacemaker, a jokester, and a deeply tormented soul.” He rested his hand over his lips and stared into space as he described the nightmares his son endured as a young child. “Gabriel used to wake up crying, screaming that the devil was coming to get him, something he feared until the night he died.” Paige, unable to stop herself, probed a little deeper.

“Who was his mother?” she asked.

Ashley drew open the avocado green curtain, cracked the window and lit a cigarette. Exhaling smoke through the small opening, he motioned for her to lean in closer, “The man with the green army boots,” he said.

“What?”

“Gabriel came from me and Michael, and since he always called me daddy, naturally, that would make Michael his mommy.” A loud thud came from Michael’s seat. Ashley grinned, his thumb rotating a silver band around his left ring finger.

“Michael and I raised him,” he said. “Gabriel didn’t have a mother, just the two of us. The son I never thought I could have, he stole our hearts and we want him back.” Another loud thud came from Michael’s seat and Paige thought she saw the impression of an elbow poke through.

“But how is that possible?” she asked.

Ashley smoked his cigarette and peered through the side window. Paige figured her question would go unanswered until his voice spoke in her head, he was a test tube baby, genetically engineered. She remembered her conversation with the professor and connected another dot. On the bottom of the page she’d torn from his journal, Gabriel had written, with knowledge comes great sorrow, and below that, a birthdate. She was on the cusp of understanding, but the numbers still didn’t add up. Gnawing on her bottom lip, she spread her arms and jumped off the cliff.

“Is that the case with me?” she asked. “Am I a test tube baby?”

Ashley nodded and held his finger to his lips.

“Why can’t we talk about it?” she asked. “I have the right to know.”

Because they have eyes and ears everywhere, Paige, and certain people don’t want you to know.

“I don’t care,” she said, “I want to know the truth. Do I also come from you and Michael? Is that my connection to Gabriel? Because I know there is one.”

Ashley extinguished his cigarette and held her gaze. He sat with his legs bent and knees up, his sleeves rolled back to his elbows and his dark hair tousled in all the right places. She saw Gabriel’s tormented soul in his father’s eyes. His stubborn and fearless nature lived in Ashley’s brooding mouth and thrived in the dark blue light surrounding him. His spirit grew stronger with each mile marker they passed.

“How’s that picture coming along?” he asked.

You’re the artist, you tell me, Dad.

Ashley grinned and leaned back against the side of the van. “I think I’ve painted a pretty good picture myself.”

Paige winced. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“My apologies.”

The music distracted her again as a sad song gave way to a poppy, upbeat number. The southern sounding vocalist reached a crescendo and his voice cracked with passion as he sang about a man on the moon while backing vocals echoed the familiar lyrics. Paige knew the song well, but the band’s name escaped her. She dug deeper, tormented by the unknown artist and desperate to silence the incessant tapping of her father’s restless foot.

“Did he know what he was?” she asked. “Did Gabriel know what he was?”

“He hated what he was,” Ashley said, hypnotized by the traveling asphalt. “His talent, beauty, intellect, didn’t matter to him. Doesn’t come naturally, he used to say. I don’t blame your parents for keeping that from you. It’s difficult to grasp.” Breaking his trance, he rubbed his face and looked up to meet her gaze, his pale blue eyes begged for understanding. Paige turned away. The traveling asphalt curved its way out of sight and the fallen trees laid waste in the forest. She examined her hands again. The creases on her palms interconnected and branched out like forks in the road with each path leading to the same place.

“What does Vincent want with me?” she asked.

To be at his mercy.  

“Well that’ll never happen,” she said. “Whatever deal he wants to make, whatever he’s got up his sleeve, he doesn’t control me.”

Ashley lit another cigarette, popped his head over the seat and then settled back down. He motioned for her to come closer. “The ghost in the bathroom,” he said, “you actually think that was a real ghost? You saw Vincent in the club last night, which should’ve been your first indication.”

“I don’t under–”

“She was a projection, Paige, a hologram, a product of the wonders of technology.” Looking over his shoulder again, he lowered his voice and continued, “Vincent wants the same thing we want, but for different reasons. He’s playing with you, like a mouse in a trap. We’re trying to set you free.”

Broken white lines blurred and mended into a single stroke as Paige studied the road, weather-torn and in need of restoration. The further they traveled the more cracks appeared—she regretted her decision to come along. “I don’t want to go to New Orleans anymore,” she said. “I’d like to call my Dad at the next stop.”

“Can’t, phones are dead.” Ashley reached over, dipped into the red ice chest and pulled out two bottles of orange juice. “We’re on your side, Paige, and so was Gabe.”

Paige fell back into the corner and sipped her juice as she read over the journal entry again. She thought about the documentary. Gabriel had been on humanity’s side. Meant to enlighten viewers, the film cautioned against political scandals and secret oaths taken by an elite organization. It disclosed their plans to crash global economies and gain control of natural resources, like food, water and gas, under the pretense of saving mankind. According to his findings, the elite organization would someday dictate every corner of the globe and eventually depopulate the earth. Corporatists, fascists, and in Gabriel’s view, Nazi-Satanists.

“Do they really want to kill us?” she asked. “The documentary I mean, do you think Gabriel was right?”

Ashley finished his orange juice and stuffed it into a plastic bag. Tilting his head, he smiled and answered, “They intend on destroying the useless eaters, Paige, not us.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest, put away the piece of paper and examined the floor of the van.

Ashley reached out and touched the bottom of her chin, “You and me, we don’t believe in the devil,” he said, “but if he did exist, he’d be the head of The Council of Six.”

She dropped her knees and scooted in closer.

Ashley chain-smoked as he explained the details surrounding his son’s death. Gabriel had been under pressure not to release his film, warned by Vincent to shelve the project, he refused to back down, a decision that Ashley believed led to his death. Plagued with threatening phone calls, Gabriel also found dead cats on his doorstep and complained he was being stalked, hunted by a group of individuals of a much higher caliber. The others, he called them.

Ashley hung his head down and ran his fingers through his hair. “Gabe knew what was coming, he just didn’t care.”

Paige devoured her thumbnail and attacked the next victim as Ashley talked in a low voice and peered out the side window rarely making eye contact. He questioned the accidental overdose and insisted his son had been sober at the time of his death. Although Gabriel openly struggled with addiction, he’d been clean for the past three months, an undisputable fact according to Ashley, who kept his son under tight surveillance.

“They hot-dosed him,” he said. “We believe somebody slipped something in his drink that night. The amount of drugs in his system, he knew better than to take that much.” Crushing out his half-smoked cigarette, he grabbed the First Aid kit and reached over to check on Michael. Paige rested her chin on her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.

Leaves scattered across the highway as an eighteen-wheeler plowed through the drifting flock. She observed the speeding traffic, each motorist controlling their own speed, changing lanes and flying past each other in a swarm of useless eaters, accidents waiting to happen—unwitting participants in a game of organized chaos. She felt Gabriel’s presence. Pushing her along and guiding her into danger, she could almost hear him whispering in her ear, simple and to the point, the answers she couldn’t see. Gabriel, the brother I never knew, she thought, and wondered how many more of them existed. She was a science experiment, along with everyone in the van, she figured, and Vincent was the creator, the mad scientist, the illusionist. She thought about her reoccurring dream and wondered if that too was his handy-work. The music played on repeat as Paige heard the first song of the album start over again. The familiar melody stimulated her mind and awakened some sort of spark in her memory as she absorbed the music, its lyrics antagonizing her sixth sense, gnawing at her instinct and revealing holes in her brain.

“This was one of Gabriel’s favorite albums,” Ashley said, settling down next to her. “One of the best from the early nineties. Classic American band.”