Unhaunting The Hours Read Online Free

suspected that I was a monster and that I’d killed
someone.”
    The Father snorted. “Don’t kid
yourself. You’re no killer George. I can tell you that
much.”
    “ With Abdera, you start to
think anything’s possible.”
    “ But you’re no killer. And
welcome back.”
    “ I like you, Father, but I’m
not joining another church.”
    “ I never said you
were.”
    * * * *
    I stood on the chapel steps again. The
streets were busy now with morning traffic. That time of day
reminded me of how detached I was from the usual rhythm of daily
life. I slept a few hours here on one day and different hours on
another. Class times differed on Thursdays versus Fridays, and work
times differed on Mondays versus Wednesdays, and on through varying
intervals that I filled with chores and eating. I was a thread
woven through the waking world, often surprised at where I poked
out of the fabric. I stopped and I stared at the suited
professionals descending the escalator from the train. And there
was an old woman, tubes yoking her face to an air machine, hustling
change for herself and her seven children. Last time it was five.
The tank was a cheap prop; I’d seen her assembling it once at the
beginning of a shift. I’ll never know how such brilliance comes
reduced to pan-handling.
    I bounded up the stairs to the train,
passing the tired legions going the other way. I took an outbound
train to the Berm. It was as empty as the first one I’d taken – and
absent the red-haired fellow traveler. I watched the stops go by,
and then I found myself counting down – not to the Berm – but to
the Forest Look stop.
    “ No.” I whispered to myself.
I sat on my hands.
    But I couldn’t take it. Forest Look
came and I bolted out the door. I was on a platform that ran along
the top floors of warehouses and tenements. The brick faces sported
ads, some stretching from building to building, each peeling around
the windows that interrupted them. I climbed onto one of the roofs
at a point where they came close to the tracks and I sat in the
trestle beneath a water tower. It was a good vantage point for the
windows of the next tenement over.
    Molly’s blinds were drawn, but from
this angle I could see alternating stripes of vinyl and skin. The
sound of a jazz trombone reverbed against the window panes. Molly’s
voice reached just above it. She was preparing her shower,
completely starkers and singing along to the music. Then the phone
rang. She listened, said nothing, and slammed it back into the
cradle. She was still. She hung her head and pushed her palm hard
against her brow. She was trying not to cry. She went into the
bathroom and closed the door.
    I know that watching her was wrong. For
a moment I had the pistol out again, pressed against my chin. I was
toying with it, or maybe Major Tuck was. It didn’t matter; the damn
thing wasn’t loaded.
    “ No, Tuck.” I said to
myself. “This isn’t addiction. Think of who might’ve called
her.”
    Was creepy okay, if I looked out for
her? Whatever was on that phone line was worse than me. Does what I
did matter here, in a city of 12 million, where you have to expect
that someone might witness even your most intimate moments? Where
in every shop and at every bank machine and at every intersection
there’s a camera broadcasting your every move to god-know-where?
With patience, a clever hacker could piece together even my own
irregular schedule. But all those watchers were anonymous. Who knew
what sat behind those millions of glass eyes?
    I wasn’t anonymous.
    * * * *
    When I got back to the Berm, there was
a cop car parked outside my building. Three cops approached, none
of them Healing. One was plain-clothed and on either side of him
was a uniform.
    He said, “I’m detective Wes Balder.
First, let me assure you that you’re not under arrest.”
    He held his hand out as if he expected
me to give him something. He waited. He gave me that look that told
me he knew that I knew exactly what he