Haunted Humans Part 13

"How could he know that if he wasn't Gary?"

"Maybe he's psychic."

"You accept psychic but you don't believe in spooks?"

"I don't know what I believe." He stared at Morgan. "Gary?"

"Buford?"

Harley cringed. "Don't call me that!"

"Heh heh heh." Gary wolfed his doughnut. "Okay, Harley."

"You used to be a sensible guy," Harley said after a pause. "How . . . the h.e.l.l . . . are you surviving this? Surviving. Is that the word? If that is you in there, isn't it driving you crazy?"

Gary frowned and stared at the rug. After a long silence, he said, "I woke up."

He glanced at Harley. "You know how I died?"

"Heard," said Harley.

Gary looked at D.J., then shrugged. "I never wanted to feel anything again. The sleep was such a relief. I think I stayed in it for a while. Fact, Clift tells me I was gone, nowhere, null, a couple weeks, before I woke up.

"Probably the last thing I was thinking about besides pain was Doro. I knew the boyfriend was looking for her, and I had aimed him right at her. I opened my eyes, and there she was. There you were," he said, looking at D.J., "at least the top of your head, over that wall. Hair color and style changed, but then you looked up, and there were those eyes. Never forget 'em."

She stared at him, a trembling smile surfacing.

"I couldn't figure out how that happened. Which was the dream? Death, or waking up? Then all these people started talking to me, all these strangers, big blonde woman, little baby girl, professor type, black kid, a whole bunch of them, saying 'Settle down! Settle down, brother, let us explain.'"

He sat still for a while, staring toward the curtains, then frowned and glanced down at his hands. "Well, it was one wild explanation. But you know . . ." He looked up at Harley, smiled. "It's nice in here. Never been close to so many people. I was a loner before, and I thought this was my worst nightmare, but actually --"

Harley shuddered. "More power to you."

Gary burst out laughing, leaned against D.J. She smiled, finding his joy infectious.

"Know what?" Gary said when he had stopped laughing. "I can't even buy a beer."

Harley frowned. "Do you want one?"

"Not especially. It just strikes me as --" He shook his head, smiling. "And voting. Boy. Can't wait to see how we handle that. And registering for selective service?" He frowned. "We do that yet?" He listened to something D.J. and Harley couldn't hear. "Oh, of course, we'd qualify for an exemption." He shook his head. "Kid's been in therapy for three years already and he's only nineteen.

n.o.body gets a normal adolescence."

"Cut to the chase," Clift said.

"Sorry," said Gary. "Right. The point is to stop the boyfriend."

"Already a lot of people working on that."

"We have certain resources they don't have."

"Like what?"

Morgan drew in a deep breath, sat up straight, licked his lips. Afra said, her voice tight with pain, "My name is Afra Griffin. He came to my apartment."

Harley's eyes went wide. He hunched his shoulders.

"His hair was different. Blond. It was the middle of the night, and I was asleep. I had my gun on the bedside table, on a shelf you couldn't see without being in the bed. He didn't know. He taped my mouth. He tied me . . . " She glanced at D.J., stopped. She looked at Harley. "Gary said it was his standard M.O. They probably told you all that. I got a hand free, but by that time he, well, I couldn't aim as well as I used to. Shot him in the arm. Right forearm.

Stopped him. He had to go tie a bandage around it, and then noise came from upstairs. Shot woke up the Lutzes. So he scampered out of there."

Her eyes closed, and her face tightened, as if suddenly Morgan were all cheekbone and temple. She opened her eyes. "He asked me things at first. Where D.J. was. He'd rip the tape up off my mouth so I could answer, then put it down again. I told him you went with the police. Then, when I didn't have any more answers, then, he just . . . "

She shook herself. "Here's what I remember. He was wearing gray pants, a white s.h.i.+rt, red suspenders. He had bleached his hair platinum blond since the day before. By the time he left, his s.h.i.+rt was b.l.o.o.d.y and his pants were too. So he would have had to change them, either dump them or clean them. He had a big army overcoat he took off before he started on me, and he wrapped up in it before he ran away. I heard that beetle noise, like Saul said. VW Bug. So. You're looking for a blond who drives a VW and wears a full-length army jacket, olive drab.

He's got a gunshot wound in his right forearm."

"I'll phone that in."

Gary said, "What are you going to tell them when they ask where you got the information?"

"A witness." Harley struggled to his feet. "Don't worry. I can make this fly somehow. I'll be right back."

D.J. turned to look at Morgan, took his hands.

"You told me he did impressions," Afra said, and smiled.

"That sounds more believable than the reality, doesn't it?"

Afra rolled her eyes, something D.J. had seen her do a dozen times in her previous incarnation. It meant what a world, what a world. She said, "You see, I've been telling them Harley's right. We could put an act together, if we had the right script. Did I ever tell you I used to be in the theater?"

"You never did," said D.J.

"Morgan doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up," Afra said. "From what he tells me, he's just sampling various cla.s.ses in school. I think we have a future in stand-up, but I haven't convinced any of the others."

"A bit too public for my palate, sugar," said Valerie, distaste in her voice. "I would vastly prefer it if we just kept our little oddities to ourselves."

"Yes, but we never do," said Clift.

"That's because of Timmy and Saul," Valerie said. She wrinkled her nose. "I wish those boys would observe a few civil niceties. And you, Cliffie, have the lecture habit."

"I don't think I could give it up if I tried, Val."

"Oh, I don't know," Valerie said in a considering voice. "I just think we haven't found the proper motivation yet."

Harley wandered back in. "Well, they took notes when I talked to them. Seems like they think insanity is contagious, and that I caught it from you, Morgan.

Somebody'll be along soon with some real breakfast, D.J."

"Good," she said, her stomach chiming in with a rumble, even though she had tried to quiet it with the doughnuts. "I forgot to get any dinner yesterday."

"McNamara will bring us something good. Wonder what's on TV." He went toward the television and D.J. had a terrible sense of deja vu: watching the news Sunday morning, hearing about the attack on Afra. What if the news this morning brought more evil? Whom had she forgotten to protect this time?