Hands on hips, I tilt my head to look through the circuitry-like maze of branches and leaves at the bright sky. “My handler had one!”
All I have to do is return to the mineshaft and pray I can get the device to work. Northwest from here and the climb might take an hour. He never intended for anyone to easily find Simon Tarrant’s body. First thing I’m yahooing? The date of Simon’s death.
If what Hailey said is true, if he is already dead, am I even in the same world as I was, or the same time?
Damn.Eww.The wallet was cleaner. I have to extract the phone from his bloody pocket that is stiff and stinking. I’m not keen on smelly fingers but it has to be done. A mask and gloveswould’ve been sensible. Or something stuffed up my nose. The light reflecting into the tunnel is enough for me to see his face is distorted but not badly, and I’m muttering curses as I try to move him enough so that the phone can view his face.
Doesn’t work.
I end up dragging his body onto the mineshaft rubble and positioning him so the meagre light from above catches his features. It also illuminates the knife holes in his clothes, reminding me of the act of killing.
The thuds. The giving thrusts.
His squeals and cries.
Like sex, but not as good.
Murder has a certain thrill to it.
This seems an epiphany. For a few seconds I stop what I’m doing, with the passing of time measured by the drift of dust motes in the slanting rays. It’s quiet down here. Enjoying murder is not normal. I’m not normal. At least, I don’tthinkI am, but I’m only guessing. My handler lies, propped on the dirt heap, still, head angled sharply left, his mouth closed.
“No opinion on this?”
He’s annoyingly silent.
I lay aside the theory. It will have to wait.
The phone has charge but if this fails, I guess I could steal another? I scrub the screen on his cleaner clothes. Try again. Finally, it unlocks.
No signal? Not a problem. It’ll be the depth. Being fifty yards underground will cause interference. I change the passcode and turn off facial recognition before towing the body back into the tunnel to conceal it. Five minutes of climbing brings me to the surface. Careful not to lose the phone, I haul myself out then arrange the rusty steel cap over the hole sothat it covers the opening. I palm my pocket, and the phone is still there, along with the wallet. Having to climb down to retrieve the phone again would be ridiculous.
Yellow rays streak through gaps in the canopy, and leaves flutter to the ground like congratulatory confetti while I stand among the greenery, turning in a slow circle, offering the phone, like it’s a gift to the forest, like I’m a priest praying to the web gods for a signal. I’m looking for a few bars, and I hold the phone higher.
Just one? No?
Nothing?
Maybe the blood is still messing up whatever internal aerial these things have. Rubbing it cleaner and picking something out of the charging port makes no difference.
Before I trek back to Revenant, I look through the phone’s apps and folders, the ones I can get open, and I note the date—February tenth. In a document section, I hit gold. One file is called Simon Tarrant. When I tap it open, the first part is simply a list of his attributes from birth and height to his current job at the Revenant Institute and his current address in Jordan Street.
Staring at the text doesn’t make it make more sense. Hailey said he is dead.
According to this, he is not. They even have the times he starts work each day for the next week, and one surveillance video shows him buying a coffee and walking across Main St, Revenant. The date stamp? Yesterday.
“Was she lying?” I ask the trees. No. Those tears, her accusation when she asked if I had anything to do with his murder. Underline thatnoin red.
He’s dead and has been for the past six months.
The video doesn’t lie either.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.I’ve a feeling I’m not in Kansas anymore. Who said that?
“Oh. Yeah. Her.”
More shocking is that this also says his daughter, Hailey, isn’t alive.
Did I remember the wrong woman? How could I have known her?
