Dead Roots (The Analyst) Read online

  Tom stopped himself from reaching for another smoke. He looked over at Artie, who cast him a curious look. He swiftly stopped giving a fuck and drew a new cigarette, lighting it as he prepared to hang up.

  “All right.”

  “You better believe it, all right.”

  It took all of his reserves of tact not to quip back in anger. He handed the phone over to the bartender and sighed, taking the ashtray with him back to the table. Behind him another roar rose from the crowd around the flat screen

  Tom sunk heavily back into his chair, resolving to finish his smoke and then leave. Artie chided him gently.

  “You get the shark, or the mermaid?”

  “Fuck you. What's the address?”

  Artie drew his phone, clicking his tongue to scold his friend. He was halfway through his new beer. “Oh, easy. Fifteen Fern Crescent, your GPS'll take you right there. Twenty, thirty minutes.”

  “Fern Crescent... right. You know, Artie, I was about to say, you're not as great as—”

  “Waitress back there?” Artie cut him off, motioning at the young server now making her rounds of the far end of the bar. She sauntered from table to table with a tray in one arm, delivering wings and fries to balding blue-collar schlubs and clearly enjoying every second of their drunken leering.

  “What about her?”

  Artie sipped his beer as he nonchalantly plugged at something on his phone. “Possessed. Aberration. Class-IV, probably, just here on a routine possession. Personal trip, I bet.”

  “What the fuck.”

  “Watch her.”

  Tom watched her hand sweep down her side and it drew his attention up to her breasts. He tried to think like Artie, and noted her thighs rubbing slowly together as she walked.

  “New body,” Artie began, drawing little circles in the air with his index finger while pointing at her. “Watch how she touches herself.”

  “Huh-huh,” Tom indulged a juvenile chortle.

  “Brushing the hair, rubbing her hips... Probably never been on this side before, at least not in a female. She told me her shift finishes in an hour—probably gonna try and take home one of these married morons and take in all the new sensations, but first she's gonna come over here...”

  Tom watched in silent indignation as the waitress, true to Artie's call, started making her way to their table. She caught eyes with Tom and grinned, brushing her hair out of her face again.

  “And she's gonna try and take you first, because sadly enough you're the best looking guy in here, or if nothing else, the least out of shape.”

  “Artie. Fuck you. She's just seeing if I need a refill.”

  “Hi again,” the waitress greeted warmly. “Can I get you a fresh one, Mr. Bell?”

  “No, thank you, I'm on my way out,” Tom replied, flashing Artie a smug look. Artie glugged down a mouthful of his beer. “But my friend here will take another one.”

  “You're leaving?”

  “Yeah, I have... I have a plane to catch, evidently.”

  “When?”

  Artie's mouth turned up in a small grin. He didn't make eye contact with either of them. Tom pursed his lips and turned back to the waitress to reply.

  “In, um, about four hours.”

  The waitress looked back and forth. She bit her lip and ran a fingernail across her chin. Her hand swept down across her hip. Tom was starting to find these little tics rather infuriating.

  “Listen... I'm kind of new in town and I finish in an hour. If you maybe want to hang out a bit before your flight...”

  Tom resisted the urge to frown, as well as the urge to text Margaret that he was quitting right then and there. He shot Artie an annoyed, defeated look. Artie just smiled before masking it in another sip of beer.

  “I'm sorry—um, what was your name?”

  “Serendipity.”

  Fake. Absurd. Definitely a Class-IV. Tom choked down another irritated frown.

  “I'm sorry, Serendipity. I'm married.”

  “That's a shame.”

  “You're not married. He's not married, he's not wearing a ring,” Artie exclaimed. He pointed enthusiastically at Tom's hand. Tom tried to hide it quickly under the table.

  “You're not married?” Serendipity asked curtly, pouting.

  “Well—I am still, legally, but—”

  Artie came to the rescue.

  “Hey, miss. You said you're new around here?”

  “That's right,” Serendipity responded coolly. She gave another playful flick of her bangs.

  “So you're... what, on a pleasure trip? A little weekend getaway to the surface world?”

  “No, I have a job. I live here now,” the waitress replied with a frown.

  “What class are you?”

  There was a pregnant pause. Serendipity ran her tongue over her lip and fidgeted. She eyed Artie with a subtle, but obvious coldness—obvious to anyone who was looking.

  “I really have no idea what you're talking about.”

  “We're DPSD, miss,” Tom responded. Her look darkened.

  “You're... what?”

  Tom responded by drawing his wallet and opening it to display a badge. It read Federal Agency for Domestic Investigation-- a “fabricated front organization, to be invoked by an agent in the field to ensure seamless movement and activity in Objective/Visible scenarios, and any situation involving civilians,” as it was stated in the Department of Paranormal Study and Defense training manual.

  “FADI?”

  “It's a front. We're with the US government's paranormal agency. If you're here legally, you've heard of us.”

  The waitress bared her teeth. She leaned down to Artie, placed a new beer on the table heavily, and looked him coldly in the eyes.

  “Don't fuck this for me,” she spat quietly. She stood back up and folded her arms. Her fingers scratched at the skin of her forearms. “I'm not haunting,” she snarled. “I'm registered.”

  “Ah, so you have heard of us,” Tom said shrewdly.

  “I'm just busting your balls, sweetheart,” Artie replied. He ripped into another toothy laugh.

  “This body doesn't have balls,” the reply came swiftly. Serendipity stomped off back to the bar, almost knocking over a table in her wake. She returned to the other customers with considerably diminished pep.

  Tom turned to Artie, who grinned as he recovered from a particularly good laugh. The gap in his teeth showed.

  “You're a shithead, Artemis.”

  “You have a flight to catch. Enjoy the double shift, movie star.”

  Tom didn't even bother to swear at him.

  ********

  The house was in one of those cream-and-reddish, vaguely Mexican-looking developments that more-or-less defined Californian suburbs. Tom's rented hybrid car rolled to a stop in the wide driveway, silently switching off.

  Tom took in an eyeful of the line of uniform houses laid out to his left. Christmas lights in the winter, July fourth barbecues—these were comforting thoughts, in this fucked-up parody of a life he'd found himself living nowadays.

  Tom walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. There were no footsteps coming from inside, nor any lights. This had to be the right house, and no one was dead asleep by nine. Other houses down the road were still bright. At least one had people on the front porch talking about the same football game that had dominated Kickoffs.

  Tom reached for a smoke and lit it grumbling and turning away from the door. He either had the wrong house or was early—or late. He hoped it wasn't late.

  “Please finish that before you come in.”

  The instinct to jump when startled had been trained out of Tom years ago, but he found that he missed jumping—it felt more natural than just letting a cold shock flow through him and start his heart playing drum and bass.

  A pale-skinned Asian man stood in the doorway. His hair was tied back into a slick ponytail, and he wore a tight black turtleneck and black jeans. Had they met on the street, Tom would probably have figured
him for a pretentious art gallery type, or a homosexual. The man wore a docile smile.

  “Sure, sure.” Tom grunted, taking a long drag off of the cigarette and then dropping it early. He stubbed the not-even-half-finished butt out on the concrete.

  “Mr. Bell? I am Shinichiro Keda. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Tom replied curtly, taking the man's small hand and giving it a cursory grip before taking his own hand back earnestly. “Keda, you said?”

  “That's right. Come inside.”

  “I've heard the name. You're a Medium, right? Where do you want my shoes..?”

  “Leave them on. Yes, I've been with the DPSD for some years now.”

  Tom figured it couldn't have been too many, as this guy looked younger than he. Keda led him through the darkened house. As near as Tom could tell, there were no lights on—nothing except the glow of what he presumed were some candles coming from behind a door ahead of them.

  “So you're here to help with Aki?” Tom inquired.

  “To help you get him home, yes.” Keda's speech was stiff, the textbook English of a well-studied, but non-native speaker. His voice was deep and even.

  “You coming on the trip with us?”

  “Naturally. I will be hosting the entity.”

  Keda pushed the door open and Tom was welcomed with a scene practically out of The Exorcist. It was a nicely furnished bedroom—queen bed, bookcase, full-length mirror-door closet, a window out onto the street with the curtains currently drawn.

  The youth he had shot earlier was lying on the bed, looking exhausted. Tom only just then noticed a tall, solid, suited black man standing to his right as he walked in—there was that urge to jump again. He swallowed it down.

  “Hey there, Tom.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Rod. You're the size of a damn house. How do you do that?”

  A smile came from underneath the man's thick, dark mustache. He folded his arms.

  “You my backup?” Tom asked, watching Keda close the door behind him.

  “Don't think anything bad's gonna happen. Keda's been in this gig since he was a teenager.”

  Tom mused in silence that this Keda guy didn't look that old. He wasn’t very reassured.

  “How are you feeling, Aki?” Keda asked pointedly to the youth. The shut eyes lolled open. The kid gurgled something out, probably obscene. Keda broke into a confident smile.

  “How bad did you have to drug the host?” Tom asked.

  “About three or four tranquilizers before he stopped going apeshit,” Rod responded quickly. “Really isn't looking forward to going home.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Aki feels free here,” Keda added calmly, “But I am trying to convince him it's best.”

  “Yeah, good luck,” Tom jibed, adjusting his collar.

  Keda began to disrobe in front of the bed. Tom averted his eyes. “Fuck. What is he doing?”

  “Has to be naked for this one,” Rod responded, “To be as similar to the original possession as possible. It happens. It's common practice to strip naked for séances and summoning too. You haven't been to too many of these, have you?”

  “Never. You know, how old is that kid, fourteen? Catch this on camera and we'd all be going to prison.”

  Rod laughed. “Somehow I don't think that's the worst thing you'd be filming. First time, you said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Heh. Well, I'm sure you've seen worse.”

  “What do you...?”

  Tom went quiet as he watched Keda, pale and thin, standing nude by the bed. Tom noted that he had particularly sharp hipbones and shoulders, and little body hair, leading Tom to again wonder how old the Medium could possibly be. Keda had his fists balled up at his sides. They started to shake.

  It started very suddenly. Sounds of popping joints emitted from the Asian youth on the bed. His head jerked in random directions, far faster than any human could move his neck. A low scream gurgled up from his throat and threatened to fill the room.

  Keda shushed the youth firmly. The scream remained trapped in the kid's throat. His body began to rise off the bed and Tom was reminded of earlier that afternoon. The body swung in the air to face Keda, hanging upside down just like before.

  Tom felt as though the candles illuminating the room took on a red hue, though he was sure he was imagining things. His thoughts about the color of the room quickly vanished as Aki’s mouth distended, and Tom watched that familiar great eyeball rise up from the depths of his throat.

  Keda's eyes opened—they were rolled up into the back of his head. He said something in Japanese, his voice now raspy and nothing like the smooth baritone he had heard at the front door.

  The floating body said something in response, the voice tearing the air with no obvious source. With its arms and legs hanging and chest up to the air, it jerked back and forth, up and down. It was as if something inside was moving. The eye disappeared back into the mouth.

  “What in the...”

  Rod put his hand on Tom's shoulder, urging him to remain silent.

  Something emerged from the kid's mouth with a wet sliding sound: raw flesh against itself. Tom would have taken the long, wriggling appendage for a tongue, were the actual tongue not clearly visible just above it. The kid started making sounds as if he were dry heaving.

  Keda was making them now, too. His mouth was open wide, and spidery veins lined the skin around his eyes. His opened his maw wider.

  The appendage slid out further from the floating body, closing the gap between it and Keda. It then plunged itself into Keda's mouth and straight into his throat, causing him to gag and jerk like the kid floating before him. It was an ugly red protuberance lined with veins, and was made of mottled red skin like a tongue rubbed raw with sandpaper. It plunged deeper down Keda's throat, moving along in spurts like a great earthworm. It grew thicker as it forced itself deeper and deeper into Keda's stomach until finally it filled the mouths of its two hosts from jaw to jaw.

  Tom noticed that the curtain just beyond Keda was slightly open. He could see clearly out onto the street, meaning the people on the porch across the road could see in, should they catch themselves looking this way.

  “Shit,” Tom said weakly, moving swiftly past Keda and throwing the curtain shut. As he turned around he caught a good, close look at the giant eye, embedded in the long thick red thing connecting the two mouths. Their gazes locked. It blinked at him slowly before disappearing down Keda's dislocated gullet.

  Tom opted to look away for the rest of the ritual. It was over in another two minutes. The sounds persisted loudly the entire time.

  Tom could tell it was over when the kid, Kenichi, started coughing loudly, expelling red phlegm from his throat. Rod handed him a box of tissues. Keda stood silently where he had been, eyes closed and head turned back.

  “Is he almost done?” Tom almost begged.

  “I am finished,” Keda said abruptly, his eyes opening. They had returned to normal. He bent down and put his pants back on first, slipping his turtleneck on while speaking.

  “I apologize. As Rodney explained, the transfer works best when the new host is as close to the, shall we say, original conditions as possible. I am Japanese, and I am young, like unfortunate Kenichi here,” Keda said, patting the young man on the back to help him clear his throat.

  “Are... Kenichi. Are you alright, kid?” Tom asked, genuinely concerned. Kenichi nodded wordlessly. After a moment, he broke the silence.

  “I'd like to go home,” he rasped.

  “I'm afraid you'll have to return to the hospital for now. Rodham here will take you.”

  “We'll pick up a bite to eat on the way there, all right, kid? And some Valium,” Rod added under his breath. “You like Dairy Queen? Huh?” Rod and Kenichi left the room. Tom was jealous.

  “Our flight is in about three and a half hours, now,” Keda said coolly, addressing Tom while putting on his shoes. “Are you packed?”

  “Fuck no. I'll have to buy some n
ew clothes once we arrive.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that.”

  “So you're... you're holding now, aren't you? Holding Aki?”

  “Hosting Aki, yes.”

  “I'm not sure I'm very comfortable about that.”

  “I am a professional, Mr. Bell,” Keda responded, smiling. “If you wish, I can request to sit away from you on the flight.”

  “No, no. I have to be near you in case anything happens.”

  “You have not travelled with a Medium before?”

  “Not after... not after seeing the ritual. I'm sorry, I just need a minute.”

  “I will wait for you in your vehicle. Please be sure to blow out the candles,” Keda said curtly. He left the door open as he went. Tom noticed the Medium pause in the hallway. Keda took a deep, gasping breath and his head jerked quickly from side to side before he continued walking.

  Tom sat down on the bed, taking a deep breath and wishing he could sink into the mattress and fade away. The airport, and a safe time for him to pop another Xanax, were another forty minutes away.

  ********

  “If I may, I have questions for you, now,” Keda said matter-of-factly, as Tom shut a heavy steel door behind him. He rubbed his head, groaning.

  “I think I've had enough questions for one night.”

  “Did it not go well?”

  “I'm still here, aren't I?”

  “I can stay my curiosity a bit longer.”

  “No, no, go ahead.”

  “Do you have a wife?”

  Tom set off down the long walk to the boarding gate. He grunted in response.

  “I'm not really comfortable talking about that,” Tom said curtly, zipping up his jacket. Keda nodded in acknowledgment, starting off after him. His satchel bobbed rhythmically as he walked.

  “Your job, then: do you consider it difficult?”

  “Better than working retail,” Tom jibed. He looked at his watch, then at the margarita bar, then back at his watch. He considered many swear words but couldn't decide on one. There was no way he had time now.

  “Do you work with many demons like Aki?”

  “Work with? No. I flush them out and then subdue them so someone like you can take them back where they belong, or I just force them out of our plane entirely.”