Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

“Remarkable,” he said, allowing the floor to trickle out between his fingers. “Belly, do you see this, too?”

He turned to his friend and was stunned to realize that Bell was gone.

So was Nina.

Walter was all alone in a huge, empty room with no windows. The room was so enormous that its distant walls were hazy and indistinct. There was no furniture. No detail. Just miles and miles of this strange liquid floor.

Walter had never thought that solitary confinement sounded like particularly bad punishment. He enjoyed his own company, had plenty of mental games he liked to play, and a wide variety of intriguing theories to contemplate. In fact, the idea of being locked in a small room seemed kind of comforting. Almost womblike in a strange way.

As a child, Walter had always sought out small hiding places as temporary refuges from bullies.

But this vast empty room was the loneliest, most awful place he had ever been. Its dimensions were soul-crushing, making him feel as small and irrelevant as an ant in the middle of a salt flat. An ant without a colony, banished to die alone.

His mind immediately seized on this metaphor and when he looked down at his wet hands he saw that they had taken on the elongated, dual clawed form of an ant’s bristly pretarsus. It should have been terrifying, but the very spook-show scariness of this newest twist had an opposite, pacifying effect on Walter.

It’s not real.

The image of his creepy ant-hands was nothing more than a standard, slightly silly hallucination. A day-glo carnival, haunted house kind of fear, rather than the all too real fear of loss and loneliness evoked by the huge empty room.

Ant hands, he could handle. Pun intended.

Walter was a scientist. A veteran user of consciousness expanding substances of all sorts. He wasn’t about to let himself be distracted by irrelevant mental trickery. He needed to focus.

And just like that, the huge room was gone, and Walter found himself standing up to his knees in Reiden Lake.

Only it was more like a soundstage dressed to look like Reiden Lake. The trees looked flat, like they’d been painted onto the walls in a harsh, stylized manner meant to read well on black and white film. The reeds and brush around the edge of the water seemed monochromatic and papery, and there were only three different groupings, repeated over and over all along the shore.

The red Coleman lantern was there, too—the one they had been using the night of their first encounter with the Zodiac Killer. But instead of a flame, it was just a lick of flapping orange-and-yellow fabric. The water around his legs was the only thing that seemed real.

But what was still really bothering him was the fact that Bell and Nina were nowhere to be seen.

“Belly?” he called. “Belly, are you here?”

Nothing. No reply. He was still alone.

This seemed wrong somehow. It seemed impossible that their first use of that particular blend had evoked such a power empathic connection, and yet this time, Walter was off on his own disconnected trip, unable to even see his friend. Could they have gotten the mixture wrong somehow? Could one of the ingredients have been tainted, or of questionable quality?

It was an annoying and frustrating setback, but there was nothing Walter could do but ride it out, record every aspect in detail, and then go back to the lab and try again.

That’s when the gate started to open.

At first, it just looked like the kind of subtle bubbling under the paint that might be seen when there was water leaking behind a wall, only it was the air itself that was bubbling and peeling away. Rather than being directly in front of Walter, the way it had been that first night, the budding gate was slightly to the left and lower down, tilted at a tipsy angle. As it started to split and gape open, Walter took an involuntary step back, green lake water sloshing around his shins.

Where the hell is Nina?

Nina and her gun were supposed to be watching over Walter and Belly, waiting for the appearance of the gate and any new, potentially dangerous visitors that might come through. But she wasn’t there, leaving the unarmed Walter alone and unprotected.

Then it occurred to him that it was possible Nina could hear him, even if he couldn’t hear or see her.

“Nina,” he said. “Nina, I hope that you can hear me. I’m going to do my best to verbalize what I’m experiencing.”

He paused for a moment, wishing desperately for a reply, even though he was sure he wouldn’t get one. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t.

“Alright,” he continued, determined to articulate as much information as possible. “I seem to be inside a kind of artificial environment. Almost like a... a simulacrum of Reiden Lake.”

When he said the word simulacrum, the lake, trees and sky around him suddenly fluttered, like a painted curtain rustled by a passing breeze. He ignored the disturbing ripple and tried to focus on the gateway.

“The gateway has opened,” he said, “but it seems smaller. Crooked, almost unstable. If I were to try and pass through it, I would have to do so on my hands and knees.”

That’s when he was struck with a notion so compelling, he felt physically staggered by it. A notion so simple and obvious that he couldn’t believe it had never occurred to him until that moment.

What if he did just that? What if he went through the gate?

Of course, it was a terrible idea. He could almost see the raised eyebrow on Bell’s disapproving face at the very thought of it. After all, they had absolutely no idea what lay on the other side. Would the atmosphere be breathable? Would there even be an atmosphere at all, or would he find himself in some purely theoretical dimension? One of pure thought and energy, where mundane functions of the human body—such as breathing—would be rendered meaningless and irrelevant.

But, could he truly call himself a scientist if he were to pass up such a unique opportunity? What about all the potential knowledge that might be gained on the other side?

What about the danger? What if, in passing through, he was transformed into a radioactive monster like the Zodiac Killer?

Walter stared, mesmerized and silent, at the glistening gate. He was locked in a profound inner war with himself. He knew he would be crazy to take that kind of risk, but he’d also be crazy not to.

He reached a hand slowly toward the gate.

Gracile, reaching tendrils started forming around the edges as the gate pulsed, widening, then narrowing, then widening again. It would be a tight fit, and Walter would need to time himself precisely to push through when the gate was at its widest.

He took a sloshing step closer, fingers less than in inch from the undulating opening.

That’s when he heard a terrified scream.

He jerked his fingers back—convinced that the gate itself had screamed—and stood, unmoving and silent, for several heartbeats, waiting for something to happen. The only sound was the gentle lapping of the water against his legs.

Then a thud, followed by the sound of breaking glass. As if reacting to the sound, the gate shrank and curled in on itself like a salted slug, and then it was gone.

Another scream, this one even more drawn out and intense. Walter spun toward the sound...

...and found himself standing in the middle of Nina’s bedroom. Disoriented and swirling with vertigo, he sat straight down on the suddenly normal, solid wood floor, pushing a shaking hand through his hair and struggling to pull himself together.

He looked around and spotted Bell and Nina together on the other side of the room. They were kneeling, facing each other, holding hands and staring, enraptured, into each other’s eyes. Nina’s gun was on the floor beside her, forgotten.

Walter jumped, startled when he heard another reverberating crash, this time coming from behind the left-hand wall, from the house next door. It sounded as if someone had knocked a television set off its stand. The floor actually shook with the impact.

It was followed by a shattering of glass. Bell and Nina didn’t seem to notice.

“Belly,” Walter said. Excited agitation obliterated any tactful desire to leave the two of them alone in their clearly intimate moment. “Belly!” He reached out and shook Bell’s shoulder. “I saw the gate! Just for a fleeting moment. But now the majority of the hallucinogenic effects have dissipated, other than a lingering audio component that sounds like screams and crashes.”

“Crashes?” Bell shook his head, as if he’d just been woken up from a deep sleep. “I hear that, too.” This puzzled Walter, for he felt none of the empathic link.

Nina also shook her head, looking down and quickly letting go of Bell’s hands, flushing crimson with embarrassment.

“How peculiar,” Walter said. “Our minds failed to sync up telepathically this time, and yet we are sharing this minor auditory...”

Another resounding howl of human misery. Nina leapt to her feet, gun in hand.

“Jesus,” she said. “That sounds like Mrs. Baumgartner! She and her husband live in the basement flat next door!”

The howl came again from the neighboring house. Actually it was more like crying now, ongoing sobs that ebbed and flowed like a tide.

“You hear it, too?” Walter asked.

“Of course I do,” she snapped. “It’s real!”

“It sounds as if someone has been hurt,” Bell said. “We’d better see what’s happened.”

14

Once they were outside, they realized that night had fallen while they were tripping. Nina led them down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door onto a wooden porch that looked out over a wild, overgrown yard. There was a locked and rusty gate between Nina’s yard and the one next door, and she unlocked it with a small key.

The yard next door was nicer, better kept, and full of robust rhododendrons and camellias, as well as a small leggy patch of pumpkin vines with only a single, softball sized pumpkin. There was a large mossy birdbath guarded by several stone bunnies in various poses.

A set of concrete steps led down to the door of the basement apartment. As they stood there, anguished wails continued to come from within.

The phosphorescent lushness of the bougainvillea that crowded the doorway and the way Nina’s knock caused light to flash in the corners of Walter’s eyes let him know that he had not yet fully come down from the trip. The cries from within the apartment were also unnaturally intensified, seeming to bore their way into the soft tissue of his hypersensitive brain, like hungry maggots.

He shook his head to escape the image.

“Mrs. Baumgartner!” Nina called. “What happened? Are you okay?”

The wailing stopped, replaced by a faint, papery voice with an old country accent.

“Help me. Please, God help me...”

Nina tried the door. It was unlocked. She pushed through it into a neat little kitchen that smelled like a jarring combination of onions and cloying rose-scented air-freshener. Walter wrinkled his nose at the warring odors.

The room was decorated in porcelain kitsch. Milkmaids and bakers and sad-eyed praying children. Cows with strangely human smiles on their bovine faces, and dapper pigs in waistcoats. The sound of canned television laughter came from further into the apartment.

“Mrs. Baumgartner?” Nina called. “Where are you?”

Another sob instead of a reply, and Walter and Bell tiptoed behind Nina as she crept through the dim kitchen and then into a narrow, cluttered dining room that lay beyond.

They all had to turn sideways to inch past the massive antique table that filled the entire room. There was one single place setting at the far end, with a small, neatly folded pile of papers and clipped coupons beside it. The rest of the table was covered with another platoon of ceramic figurines, all rallying around a giant gaudy centerpiece of plastic fruit and candles that had never been lit.

At the open archway to the living room, Nina stopped and gasped, then stepped back involuntarily into Bell. He took her shoulders and looked around her into the room.

“What...” Bell whispered. “What happened?”

Walter came forward and peered around them.

“My God.” He winced and turned his head.

The living room was as clean but cluttered as the kitchen and dining room had been, with too many doily-covered end tables, overstuffed velvet chairs, and a coffee table crowded with glass dishes full of ribbon candy and butter mints. There was a brown floral couch with a single pillow and a crocheted afghan, as if someone had made their bed there. A black-and-white TV was nattering away, some kind of a game show.

Here the scent of fake roses was underscored with the bright iron reek of blood.

In the center of the room sat an old man in a wheelchair. He was as scrawny and helpless as a baby bird, his frail, wrinkled neck barely up to the job of supporting his large, bald head. He wore oversized blue pajamas, a threadbare plaid bathrobe, and a bulky, hand-knitted scarf. His skinny, coat-hanger shoulders were stooped, his hands tucked under a faded yellow blanket on his lap.

The old man was staring with wild, jittery eyes at a small, plump woman in a floral dress and pink cardigan, who lay cowering against the baseboard near a birdcage. She looked as if she had been mauled by a tiger. Her face, her hands, her forearms, and shoulders all had deep, ragged gashes in them, some nearly to the bone, all seeping blood into her already crimson-soaked clothes.

She looked up at Nina with terrified eyes.

“Help me,” she whispered. “Please.”

“Mrs. Baumgartner!” Nina crossed the living room and knelt by the old woman, calling orders over her shoulder like a field medic. “Walter, Bell, make sure Mr. Baumgartner is okay and then check the rest of the apartment. Whoever did this may still be here. Then call an ambulance and bring me any first aid stuff you can find.”

Walter and Bell glanced at each other, neither one relishing the idea of being the brave hero who found the escaped tiger in the bedroom. Finally Bell pulled a sturdy walking stick from a stand near the front door and started for the archway that led to the bathroom and bedroom. Walter went over to the wheelchair and put a gentle hand on the old man’s knife-blade shoulder.

“Are you okay, Mr. Baumgartner?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s me,” the old man hollered, his voice shrill and cracking. The suddenness of it caused Walter to pull his hand back involuntarily. “Me! It’s me! It’s me! It’s me!”

Clearly the poor old fellow was suffering from some kind of dementia, but he seemed to be more or less unharmed. Walter left him and went to check the front door. It was locked, chained from the inside. He grabbed a pink, floral print umbrella as a sorry excuse for a weapon and followed Bell into the bedroom.

There was nothing. The room contained a single hospital-style bed with metal rails on each side, a motley assortment of outdated medical equipment, an army of pill bottles, and a bulky stainless steel bedpan.

The bathroom had a shower with a yellowing plastic stool and a thick, blue rubber mat stuck to the tile floor by suction cups. On the toilet tank was a copy of Reader’s Digest and a doll with a crocheted pink-and-white dress that hid an extra roll of toilet paper. There was no tiger. No intruder. No signs of a break-in.

Walter found a well-stocked first-aid box in a bedside drawer and brought it to back to Nina. Bell appeared seconds later with a stack of clean towels. He handed the towels to Nina, and then followed the cord to the tipped over telephone.

As he dialed 911, Walter brought a pot of hot water from the kitchen, then squatted alongside Nina and tried to help her dress and bind Mrs. Baumgartner’s wounds. The old woman moaned and flinched at their touch. Walter took her cold hand and squeezed it.

“Please try to calm down, Mrs. Baumgartner,” he said. “I realize that you have experienced an awful shock, but it’s vitally important that you tell us what happened. Who attacked you?”

Mrs. Baumgartner started sobbing again.

“I...” She clutched at Walter’s shirtfront. “I don’t know! There was no one! No one!” The tone of her voice was swiftly ratcheting up into hysteria. Walter squeezed her hand again, firmly but gently.

“Please, Mrs. Baumgartner. Slow down and start from the beginning. Think it through. Do you mean you were attacked from behind?”

The old woman stifled another sob and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I mean there was no one. I was sitting on the couch, watching The Match Game, you know? And then... then I got dizzy. Like maybe I was going to faint. Then something... something hit me! In my face! This thing, it kept on hitting me! Cutting me! But I couldn’t see it! There was no one there! No one!” She looked up at Walter as if it was all his fault. “Who was hitting me? Who?”

A sob came from behind them. Walter looked up. There were tears running down the old man’s face. He was staring at Walter.

“It’s me,” he said again. “It’s my dream. Don’t you see. My dream, it got out!”

Walter turned to him as Nina continued to work.

“What dream?” Walter asked. “Did you see what happened?”

“Try to think,” Bell said, hanging up the phone and sitting on the arm of the couch beside the man. “Did you see who did this?”

“It’s me,” the old man said again. “Me! I did it. It’s me!”

“He’s obviously not in his right mind,” Nina snapped. “Can’t you see that?”

The old man pulled his hands out from under the blanket. Only there were no hands. Just old, long-healed stumps.

One stump was slightly longer than the other, and seemed to contain a functioning wrist joint so that its tapered tip curled and straightened as he held them out to Walter.

“It’s me!” he shouted. “ME!”

Nina let out a derisive snort.

“See,” she said. “He couldn’t have done this.”

The old man squinted at Nina, suddenly canny.

“In my dream I can,” he said. “In my dream, I have hands. With claws.”

Walter stared at the old man, a flock of terrifying thoughts suddenly crowding into his head unbidden. Sweat prickled his brow.

He turned to Bell.

“Belly?” he said. “Do you think...?”

“I don’t know a goddamn thing.” Bell turned to the door, showy anger like a stripper’s feather fan not quite covering his underlying fear. “Anyway, it’s not our job to figure out what happened. That’s for the police. I’m going to go outside and wait for the ambulance.”

Walter watched as he went out the front entryway and up the shadowed stone stairs to the street, leaving the door wide open. Walter turned back to Nina. She looked up from binding a wound on Mrs. Baumgartner’s arm.

“What?” she asked. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to say it out loud. I...” Walter shook his head. “I want to be wrong. I want this all to have a reasonable...”

Footsteps brought his head up again. Bell was coming back down the stairs, his pace slow and measured. He stopped in the door. His face was a cold mask.

“Walter,” he said. “You’d better come up and have a look at this.”

15

Walter rose from the old woman’s side, frowning.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You’d better come and look,” Bell repeated.

Walter looked down at Nina. She waved him on.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ve got it here. There isn’t much more to do for her at this point anyway.”

He nodded, then crossed to the door and followed Bell up the stone steps. At the top, Bell stood aside and spread his hands at a scene of chaos and destruction.

“I believe this is the source of the smashing sounds we were hearing earlier.”

Walter stared, stunned. All around in the glow of the street lamps lay scattered and smashed pieces of furniture, kitchen appliances, record albums, books, shoes, clothes. A broken TV had caved in the roof of a white Mustang. An upright piano lay on its back in the middle of the street, split open like a dead whale and blocking traffic in both directions. A painting in a gilded frame was impaled on the spikes of the iron fence of the building next to Nina’s place. And in the midst of it all stood a middle-aged man and woman in their bedclothes, arguing violently.

He was a large, portly man with a thick crown of blond curls and a meaty, square-jawed face that had probably been handsome twenty years and way too many three-martini lunches ago. A high-school quarterback gone to seed. His cheap, gaudy robe had been haphazardly tied and was gaping open to show his bare chest and hairy belly.

She was an aging model type, strawberry blond with a rail-thin, cocaine physique under a floaty sheer tangerine baby-doll negligee. She wore heeled gold mules with marabou on the toes and her long, horsey face was shiny with night-cream.

“No problem,” he was saying. “We’re gonna be okay. We’re insured.”

“We are not okay!” the woman screeched at him. “What exactly are you planning to put on the claim? Act of God?”

“Would you shut up for one second and let me think?”

Just then a young man in blue jeans and a western shirt ran out of a building across the street and jolted to a stop beside the caved-in Mustang, his jaw hanging open.

“Who did this?” he shouted. “Who the hell did this to my car?” He looked up at the man in the pajamas, who was pointlessly trying to match up jagged fragments of shattered records. “Is this your stuff? Is this your TV? Did you drop your goddamn TV on my brand new car?”

The older man backed up as the car owner advanced menacingly toward him.

“I didn’t do anything!” the older man said, empty hands held out like a peace offering. “It just happened! My wife and I were just getting ready for bed, and all of a sudden, everything in the room starts shaking and flying around, smashing through the windows and dropping to the street. It must have been some kind of an earthquake.”

“There was no earthquake!” The angry young car owner looked around at the gathering crowd. “Did anybody feel an earthquake? No. Did you?” He shook his head. “You’re talking out of your ass, pal!”

“So what are you suggesting?” the wife said, getting fearlessly in the young man’s face, stabbing his chest with a pointy red fingernail. “Do I look like I could have thrown a goddamn piano out a window?” She waved her hand. “Does he?”

Walter turned away as the argument continued, and looked up at the building. On the third floor, the floor directly adjacent to the room in which Bell and he had just taken their trip, all of the tall, elegant Victorian bay windows had been smashed out, casements splintered, sills shattered, revealing the insides of an apartment that now looked as if it had been hit by a tornado.

Furniture was upended, draperies sagged off broken curtain rods and flapped in the wind, pictures hung crooked on the walls. And standing in the middle of it, his hands in tight fists at his sides, was a staring, teenaged boy, sharp-featured, mop-haired, dark-eyed, and utterly and absolutely terrified.

“In my dream, I have hands,” Walter repeated softly under his breath.

“What did you say?” Bell looked around at him, frowning.

For a long moment, Walter didn’t reply, just pursed his lips, thinking.

“Belly,” he finally said, “I know that you’re familiar with the latest theories of poltergeist activity.”

“I was afraid you were going to come to that conclusion,” Bell replied. “Yes, of course I’m familiar with those theories. The repression of rage, of frustration, building up in the hormonally charged cortexes of pubescent adolescents, is thought to manifest itself in telekinetic storms that are often mistaken for the work of malicious ghosts.”

Walter nodded.

“And perhaps in demented old men, as well.”

“What are you saying?” Bell asked. “You believe the two events were different occurrences of the same phenomenon?”

“I’m afraid I believe more than that,” Walter replied.

“We can’t know that,” Bell countered. “There’s no reason to cast blame on...”

“Oh, come now. It can’t be a coincidence.” Walter waved a hand at the wreckage that surrounded them. “This kind of event is so rare as to be the stuff of myth. Modern science has never managed to verify that it has ever truly occurred. Ever! And yet we have just witnessed not just one instance, but two. Two! And both happening at the exact moment when we were in the middle of...”

“Keep your voice down, Walter,” Bell hissed. “We don’t want to add to the already considerable panic.”

He took Walter’s arm and led him back down the steps into Mrs. Baumgartner’s apartment, and then out through the kitchen into the back yard, where things were quiet and calm and green, and the world didn’t seem quite so crazy. The cement bunnies remained serene and unaffected by the chaos.

“What the hell is going on out there?” Nina called from inside the apartment.

Walter hardly heard her. He was still trying to make his point.

“There must be some correlation,” he said. “There has to be!” Then he remembered what he’d seen when he first came out of the trip. Bell and Nina kneeling face-to-face, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Belly,” Walter said. “You linked minds with Nina, didn’t you?”

“Well,” Bell began, unable to meet Walter’s gaze.

“Embarrassment has no place in scientific method!” Walter said brusquely. “Anyway, never mind all that, tell me—did you or did you not link minds with Nina, instead of me?”

“Yes,” Bell admitted. “I have no idea how it could have happened, when she wasn’t even tripping.”

“Clearly she was the one who was foremost in your thoughts in that moment,” Walter said. “Not that I blame you, given her apparent aversion to brassieres, but that’s something for us to analyze later. What’s far more important to consider is the fact that both times we used this particular blend, a powerful psychic link was created. The first time it was you and me, then later on, with the killer as well. This time it was you and Nina. Am I correct?”

“Yes, you are correct,” Bell said. “Okay, so...?”

“So, she wasn’t tripping with us, but somehow our own heightened psychic abilities caused any latent power in her to be activated, as well.”

“What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is this—what if our special blend not only enhances our own abilities, but also causes some kind of psychic pulse that radiates outward. We become, for lack of a better word, amplifiers, like the ones in a radio set. Perhaps, in our heightened state, we pick up weak psychic energy around us, such as the angst of a teenager, for instance, or the unfocused rage of a demented old man, and amplify it a hundredfold.”

“Or maybe it was the gate itself that activated and amplified the phenomenon,” Bell countered.

“Could be,” Walter said. “But either way, this amplification of latent psychic power occurred, and all of a sudden the repressed frustration hidden inside the affected individuals explodes outward in a storm of psychic fury and... and...” Walter paled as something occurred to him. “My God, Belly. We are very fortunate that no one was killed.”

Bell gave him a cold look.

“You’re acting as if you believe this is our fault.”

“Of course it’s our fault!” Walter was almost shouting now. “Maybe it was a side effect of the way our minds were enhanced, or maybe it was caused by the gate that we opened by using the special blend, but ask yourself this: Would any of this have occurred if we hadn’t done our experiment?” Before Bell could reply, Walter continued. “It would not! We are directly responsible for that poor woman’s wounds, and for all that property damage on the street.”

“I told you to keep your voice down, dammit.”

“But...”

Bell grabbed his arm.

“Listen to me,” he hissed into Walter’s ear. “We can analyze what went wrong and discuss our own responsibility or lack thereof in private, but shouting that we are responsible out here, where that angry mob out front can hear us? That’s a very bad idea.”

Nina came out through the back door of Mrs. Baumgartner’s apartment.

“The paramedics have arrived,” she said. “Want to fill me in on what the hell happened out there?”

Walter looked from Bell to Nina and back again. He nodded.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s go back inside.”

As they stepped in through the back door of Nina’s house, Roscoe and Abby were coming in through the front door.

“Man,” Roscoe said. “Looks like somebody bombed the building next door!”

“I don’t think anybody was hurt,” Abby said, looking back over her shoulder. “But, oh, that poor piano!”

“Crazy, huh?” Nina said, hustling Walter and Bell up the stairs. “We’ll see you later.”

Walter heard Roscoe’s voice echo up after them.

“What’s with them anyway?”

Then Abby’s faint response.

“Are there any more Ding Dongs? Little Bobby is starving.”

Nina shut her bedroom room door and then ran over to the windows, peering out into the street below.

“This formula we’ve created is obviously extremely dangerous, and unpredictable,” Walter said. “I can’t help but wonder if we will be causing more harm than good by continuing to experiment with it.”

“But how else can we hope to send that monster back where he came from?” Bell asked. “I just don’t see any other way.”

“We could just shoot him,” Nina suggested.

“Maybe so,” Walter replied. “But putting aside the moral ambiguities of vigilantism, do we even know that he’s human? Maybe he can’t be killed, in the conventional sense of the word.”

“He definitely seemed human,” Nina said.

“I still think we need to stick to our original plan,” Bell said. “We brought him into this world, it’s up to us to send him away.”

“Walter,” Nina said. “Before all of the craziness, you said you saw the gate, didn’t you.”

“Yes,” he said. “But it was smaller than the first time, and seemed kind of... I don’t know... unstable. I’m fairly certain that, because Belly was distracted and wound up linked with you instead of me, my own chemically enhanced ability wasn’t strong enough to keep it open single-handedly. Or, should I say, single-mindedly?”

“So,” Bell said. “We need to figure out a way to link our minds together deliberately, rather than leaving it to chance.”

“What about some kind of biofeedback?” Nina said. They looked at her, and she continued. “I know a guy doing cutting-edge research on the use of biofeedback to regulate organ function. We should be able to borrow equipment from him.”

“Biofeedback?” Bell grinned. “Yes, yes, a portable biofeedback setup might work as a basis for the type of machine that we would need. We’d need to find a way to synchronize our alpha waves and link our minds together during the trip, so that we can concentrate on holding the gate open long enough to force the killer through.”

“We’ll need to make some slight modifications to the standard rig,” Walter said, grabbing a piece of paper from Nina’s desk and swiftly sketching out a schematic. “See here, if we can eliminate the need for wiring each person in individually, through the use of multi-wave broadcasters like this...”

Nina turned away and began to leaf through the newspaper as Walter and Bell brainstormed ideas. But without warning, she leapt up with a gasp of excitement.

“Guys,” she said. “You need to see this.”

16

With a feeling of apprehension, Walter accepted the paper Nina thrust under his nose.

“Here,” she said, pointing out a classified advertisement about a third of the way down the page. “Look at this!”

“Regarding incident at Reiden Lake,” Walter read out loud, pausing to exchange a significant glance with Bell. “Meet me at the northwest corner of Alamo Square Park at midnight 10/23. Crucial new information has come to light. A friend in the Bureau.”

“A friend in the bureau?” Nina said.

“Iverson,” Walter said.

“Who else could it be?” Bell replied. He looked down at his watch. “But it’s nearly 11:45 now!”

“Right,” Nina said. “Come on!”

They dropped everything and went thundering down the stairs.

“Hey,” Abby said as they barreled past her, holding a large wooden spoon slick with some kind of sauce. “Do you want some...”

Whatever she was offering, they were out the door before she could finish her sentence.

* * *

The small park was bordered by colorful Queen Anne houses and seemed nearly deserted at that hour, except for a single older man in a trench coat and long, bright green plaid scarf, walking a large slobbery sheepdog.

The northwest corner featured a break in the low wall that surrounded the park, marked by a pair of rounded stone posts like silent sentinels. A sloping path, bordered by whispering pine trees and willows, led up into the dark interior.

There was no sign of Iverson.

Walter nervously toed a crushed bottle cap while Bell alternated between scanning the street and looking at his watch. Since Iverson didn’t know Nina, and might be spooked by the presence of a stranger, she had decided to keep an eye on them from her Beetle, parked across the street. Walter couldn’t see her face, just the glowing tip of her cigarette.

“Where is he?” Bell asked.

“Do you think something might have happened to him?” Walter asked anxiously. “Latimer? Or maybe...”

He didn’t finish that sentence, but didn’t need to. He could see that Bell was thinking the same thing.

Had the killer gotten to Iverson somehow? Was yet another person dead because of them?

Still, they waited. A young couple passed them, holding hands, all oblivious dreamy smiles and leaving behind a trail of pheromones. An old Chinese woman passed, going the other way, bundled up against the night like an Arctic explorer on a grim race to the North Pole.

Still no Iverson.

* * *

They waited nearly two hours, but it was becoming increasingly clear that, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to show.

“Now what?” Walter asked.

Bell shrugged.

“It’s not like we don’t have work to do,” he said. “We still have the deadline from the killer’s notebook. Even though we don’t know the exact date and time of his next murder, we do know that it will be sooner, rather than later.”

“Very well,” Walter said. “Right. So we continue our experiments on getting the gate open and stabilized. But in the meanwhile, we should watch the classifieds, in case Iverson tries to contact us again.”

Walter looked up and down the intersecting streets one last time.

Nothing.

No one.

He couldn’t help but speculate what it was that Iverson wanted to tell them. Some new breakthrough regarding the gamma radiation? Or maybe something to do with the true nature of the killer? Or the nature of the gateway.

Of course, this kind of speculation was a waste of mental energy, and he knew it. All they could do at that point was watch and wait.

The two of them returned to Nina’s Beetle with slumped shoulders and glum expressions.

“What the hell happened?” she asked, flicking the butt of her latest cigarette out the widow to join its slain brothers in a pile on the sidewalk. “Why didn’t he show up?”

“No idea,” Bell answered. “He just didn’t.”

“All we can do right now is go back to your place and get some rest,” Walter said.

“Yeah,” Bell agreed. “I think we’re all feeling a little punchy.”

“All right,” she responded, cranking the ignition and putting the Beetle in gear. “But I don’t like this. It seems, I don’t know. Weird.”

Walter climbed into the back seat, hoping again that Iverson was okay.

* * *

From the safety of a stolen Volvo station wagon, parked down the block, Allan lifted his binoculars and watched the two hippies and the red-headed bitch get out of her car and cross over to enter a Victorian row house that had seen better days. The bitch’s house, presumably, but he jotted down the address so he could check up on that.

He’d had a dark, angry moment when he thought they might not have fallen for the ad he’d placed in the classified section. So angry, in fact, that he’d almost driven away and headed directly to Miranda’s house to execute her parents and take her that very night, rather than waiting for the perfect moment, like he’d planned.

But lucky for pretty little Miranda, the hippies from Reiden Lake had showed up at the very last minute, all out of breath and wild-eyed and tumbling out of a brand new green Volkswagen Beetle. Allan wrote down the license plate number and then settled in to watch.

They never once even looked at the Volvo, let alone at him, but he pulled the wool cap down over his forehead and slouched low in the seat, just to be on the safe side.

He found it tremendously exciting to be so close to them without them knowing he was there. He only wished the redhead had gotten out of the car to wait with them. He felt no boredom, nor desire for time to pass more quickly as they waited, together but not together.

In fact, he felt perfectly calm and content, studying every detail of the pair while composing taunting letters in his head, which he would send to them later. It was going to be extremely difficult to make himself wait for the right moment to let them know he was watching. Almost as difficult as waiting to be with Miranda. He was dying to see the fear in their faces as they realized he’d been watching.

Eventually the pair gave up waiting in the park and led Allan back to their home base, just like he knew they would. And now he would be able to start stalking them in earnest. Getting to know them. Learning their routines. Connecting with them the way he’d connected with Iverson. Because although he could easily take them out from a distance, like hunted deer, it would be so much more fun to torment them. To terrorize them and watch them squirm.

This was the best part.

17

Back at the house, Nina watched Walter stagger into the living room and plop down on one of the sofas beside the purring fur throw pillow that was Cat-Mandu. But Bell lingered in the hallway, hands stuffed in his pockets and that charming little half-smile on his face. The same smile that had caught her attention when they first met back in March, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Neurochemistry in New Orleans.

They’d both been involved with other people at the time, but the neurochemistry between them had been difficult to ignore. It was a wild weekend, full of all kinds of drunken misadventures in the French Quarter, but somehow the two of them had never found a way to be alone together. On the last day, she’d given him her card and told him to stay in touch. She had figured she’d never see him again. Until he showed up on her doorstep with this wild tale of psychic gateways and atomic murder.

When she looked over at him, his smile faltered slightly and he looked away. Things felt so strange between the two of them now, ever since the strange psychic link that they’d formed during the ill-fated acid trip.

The thing that had been so astounding about that link was that, while it was the most profoundly intimate connection she’d ever experienced with another human being, it was neither romantic nor sexual in nature. It was this powerful sense of commonality. Something not unlike the discovery of a spiritual twin, of intertwined destinies and an unshakable life-long connection.

All her life, Nina had found that nearly everyone she met was put off by her naked ambition. Men tended to feel threatened, and women were intimidated, but looking into Bell’s mind that night was like looking into a mirror, and Nina had seen her own voracious ambition reflected back at her with flawless synchronicity.

But it wasn’t just some kind of hippy-dippy soul mate “spiritual bonding” thing. Because, underneath it all, there had been something very dark and ominous about their connection. A connection that seemed to propel them both into some terrible unknowable future in which the fabric of their universe would be torn asunder by their twin ambition.

Yet that shared ambition felt stronger than ever in the face of such awful knowledge. And it was that understanding—that they were both willing to pursue their ambitions without regard for consequences—that had cemented the inexplicable bond between them.

Nina had experimented with a wide variety of hallucinogenic substances before, and many of the trips she’d experienced had presented her with images or ideas that seemed immensely weighty and significant at the time, only to be revealed as trivial and silly in the sober light of day.

In a way, she wanted desperately to believe that the dark bond she thought she had shared with Bell was just like that. An amusing figment of her chemically enhanced mind, like the time she became convinced that the paisley pattern of a friend’s shirt revealed the secret formula for a new clean-burning fuel that would revolutionize global transportation and make her a millionaire.

But every time she locked eyes with him, she could feel herself resonating inside like a tuning fork, hungry for the success that she knew she wouldn’t be able to achieve without him. The success that he would not be able to achieve without her.

And in the midst of all this impossibly weird mayhem, that small sliver of weirdness was the one that preyed on her, making her feel vulnerable and off kilter.

Standing there with Bell in her darkened hallway, she knew that he felt it, too.

“Crazy day,” she said softly, stepping deliberately forward into his personal space.

“Yeah,” he replied. He didn’t step back. “Listen, about last night...”

She reached up and pressed the first two fingers of her right hand against his lips. His breath was warm against her skin.

She hadn’t planned to sleep with him yet, even though she’d wanted to. Now, it seemed so much safer— and simpler than facing the true nature of the connection between them.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

He just looked down at her for a long, weighty moment, some kind of private war going on behind his dark eyes. She turned away and headed silently upward.

There was a moment where she thought maybe he wasn’t going to follow her, and she paused halfway up, heart beating too fast. Then she heard the sound of his footsteps on the stairs behind her. She smiled and continued to her room.

In her bedroom, she didn’t bother to turn the light on. She just walked over to the pool of yellow streetlight pouring in through her sheer curtains and, without turning around, pulled her sweater off over her head. Her hair crackled with static as she tossed it aside.

She was very aware of Bell standing close behind her for a silent minute. Then she felt his big hands on the curve of her waist, tentative at first, then pulling her back against him and sliding over her belly and braless breasts. She leaned into him, feeling as if she was melting. All the madness, all the mayhem, all the strange and heavy events of the past twenty-four hours were melting, too, washed away in warm, dopamine oblivion.

She turned to face him and pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him just like she’d wanted to so badly, back in March. Pretending they were in the French Quarter, happy and buzzed and laughing like nothing mattered. Holding on tight to the solid physicality of his long, lanky body. To the simple biological imperative of their desire. The smell of his skin, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his hands on her body.

All these things were so simple and so real.

It was exactly what she needed.

They tumbled together onto her bed, wrestling with buckles and buttons. Still half-dressed, but unable to hold back another second, they made love like over-eager teenagers. Graceless and hungry, as if it was the end of the world. Which didn’t seem all that far from the truth.

* * *

Afterward, Nina lay with her cheek against the black fur on Bell’s chest, listening to the slow, even rhythm of his heartbeat and dozing breath. She felt warm and satisfied, but all the questions and uncertainty about the true nature of their connection still lurked there in the background, like wind rattling the windows of a cozy room.

It was a long time before she slept.

18

When it became clear that the hippies were tucked in for the night, Allan decided he needed a little recreation. Something light hearted and non-committal.

A quickie.

One of the inexplicable side effects of having passed through the gate and into this strange and wonderful mirror world was that he rarely slept. His body and mind seemed fueled by the arcane energy burning inside his flesh, and the only time he ever felt tired was when he had gone too long between killings. As a result, he found that he got twice as much done, and became intimately acquainted with the fascinating, ever-changing rhythms of the twenty-four-hour city.

The graveyard shift was his favorite time of night. The feeling of passing between building after building packed full of sleeping, vulnerable citizens made him feel like a kid in a candy shop. And those who were awake and walking the streets were a fascinating blend of the wild, the lost, and the forgotten. Very few of whom would be missed if they were to meet Allan in a dark alley.

Still wanting to be thoughtful and pragmatic about his spur-of-the-moment plan, he figured it would be wise to head down into the Tenderloin, and not leave a dead mouse on the redhead’s doorstep. He didn’t want to spook his real prey.

He took a long, roundabout stroll down the hill, zigzagging along random streets and occasionally doubling back when the mood struck him. He wasn’t in any rush, just open for suggestion. Polk to Myrtle to Larkin, then Olive back to Polk again and up to the tawdry circus of O’Farrell Street.

The seedy single-room-occupancy hotels and low-rent apartment buildings in that neighborhood were like vending machines filled with victims. An embarrassment of riches. It was almost too easy.

A young couple leaving the O’Farrell Theater caught his eye, making him feel a warm, gentle nostalgia for his lover’s lane phase. She was bleached blond and fat-bottomed in gold-lamé hot pants and cheap boots. He was a male model type on the skids, still handsome but a little too thin inside his barely buttoned eye-searingly tacky shirt.

Following them for a few blocks, Allan started to get the feeling they were more likely just co-stars in the live sex show on offer at the theater, rather than a genuine couple. Which didn’t bode well for any kind of added emotional torment when he made one watch the other die. He was about to give up on the pair and start looking for inspiration elsewhere, when a female voice called out to him from a shadowy doorway.

“Hey, man.”

He turned toward the voice, which belonged to a skinny brunette with a pixie haircut and a silver raincoat. Her bony shoulders were slumped and defeated. Her eyes were already dead. She wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“Hey,” he replied.

“Got a light?” she asked, raising an unlit cigarette to her chapped lips.

He pulled a disposable lighter from his hip pocket, cupping his hand over the flame, and lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply, gaze flicking up to him for a fleeting second, then away again.

“So,” she said. “You wanna...?”

She tipped her chin back toward the door behind her.

He nodded.

She led him past a row of warped, pried open and broken brass mailboxes, then into the dim and stinking lobby. She paused for a second, her back to him, then toed a crumpled Chinese takeout menu on the octagonal tiled floor. He thought maybe she was having second thoughts. Rightly so, considering what he planned to do to her. But then she plunged her cigarette into the dirty sand that filled the tall steel ashtray and motioned that he should follow her up the cracked marble stairs.

Her single room was on the third floor, at the end of a long, crooked hallway that smelled like urine, roach-spray, and despair. From behind one of the doors there came a vociferous argument going on between two drunks of indeterminate gender. This might be a good thing for Allan, because it would mask any sounds the girl might make during their encounter. Or it could be problematic if it became too violent and attracted the police.

Allan smiled to himself at his overly cautious thinking. After all, how often did the police get called by the denizens of a place like this? Not unless someone was dead, Allan surmised. And by that time, he would be long gone.

Inside the girl’s room it was dank and shabby. The kind of room that was destined to be immortalized in a crime scene photo. The only decoration was a torn and peeling black light poster of a topless woman with an afro and a pet panther. The bed was a spavined, overworked wreck that sagged in the center. The colorful Navajo blanket thrown over the worn-out mattress didn’t do a very good job at hiding the stains.

The girl’s name was Desiree, or that’s what she said it was anyway. Allan honestly could not have cared less. What he did care about was the impression that she was a woman who had completely and utterly given up on life. Under her raincoat, she wore only a bra and panties, both of them cheap and mismatched with worn-out, sagging elastic.

Her emaciated arms and legs were peppered with weeping, infected track marks. She moved as if hypnotized, face mask-like and eyes far away. Going through the motions, like a person who was already dead and just didn’t know it yet.

Like a Casanova who sees a frigid woman as a challenge, Allan found himself profoundly aroused by her indifference. How sweet it would be to torture her and make her want to live again, only to see that fresh, rekindled hope die in her eyes as she realized that wasn’t going to happen.

“Why don’t you lie on the bed,” he told her. “On your stomach.”

She did what she was told.

He took out his knife and smiled.

19

“Institute for the Advancement of Bio-Spiritual Awarness,” Walter read off the small, unassuming sign above the buzzer in a urine-scented Berkley doorway, between a delicatessen and a head shop. “Sounds intriguing.”

“Sounds like some kind of cult,” Bell said. “You know, like est, or the Moonies, or something.”

“Doctor Raley’s not a guru,” Nina said, pressing the buzzer. “He’s a scientist. You’ll like him.” A muffled buzz and a click, and Nina pushed the door open. Walter and Bell followed her through.

Inside was a clean, modern waiting area with several groupings of orange and white plastic chairs and low Lucite tables strewn with a variety of interesting scientific journals and magazines. It looked not unlike an ordinary doctor’s office. A slender young Asian woman in a lavender pantsuit was sitting behind a desk and reading a dog-eared copy of Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.

She stood when they entered and greeted Nina warmly.

“Hi, May,” Nina said. “These are my friends William Bell and Walter Bishop. They’re in town for the ABS Conference.”

“Nice to meet you both,” she said, reaching out a delicate hand to shake first Walter’s, then Bell’s. “I have a background in biochemistry myself.” She smiled, revealing gapped teeth. “I did my thesis on the circular dichroism of helical polypeptides, but more recently I’ve become interested in the use of biofeedback technology to regulate what up until now has been considered involuntary organ function.”

“Fascinating,” Walter said, utterly charmed by this lovely and studious young lady. “My colleague and I just presented a very well-received paper on hepatic microsomal drug-binding sites. Have you had any success using biofeedback to regulate other kinds of liver function? Perhaps we could compare notes sometime.” He reached into his pocket. “Necco wafer?”

“Walter...” Bell warned.

“Is the good doctor in?” Nina asked, suppressing a grin.

May reached out and selected a clove-flavored purple wafer from the roll. That was his favorite.

“Thank you,” she said, popping the candy into her mouth with what Walter swore was a flirtatious expression. Though he was the first to admit he was often wrong about such things. “Doctor Rayley is in the lab working on a new experiment. You can wait for him in the observation room, if you’d like. This way please.”

At that point, Walter was prepared to follow May anywhere, but he was disappointed to find that she had no intention of joining them. She just showed them to a door at the end of a long hallway, and then returned to her desk.

“I think I’m in love,” Walter stage-whispered to Bell, taking a lime Necco wafer off the roll for himself, before putting the package back in his pocket.

“I hardly think this is the time for sexual liaisons, Walter,” Bell said.

Nina said nothing, but her subtle smile and arched brow made Bell stammer and blush.

“Well,” he said. “I mean...”

“Come on,” she said, opening the door and ushering the two men inside.

The long narrow room reminded Walter of the viewing area adjacent to an old-fashioned operating theater, where medical students would observe various procedures, back before sterilization and the invention of closed circuit television cameras. There were three rows of stadium-like riser seats facing a large one-way pane the size of a movie screen. And, like an old-fashioned operating theater, there was a small group of enraptured young people with notebooks—students, presumably— observing the procedure occurring on the other side of the glass.

Walter stepped up to the glass to see what was going on in the adjacent room.

There were two subjects, both male and Caucasian, but that’s where the similarities ended. The man on the left was young and gangly, with an unfortunate beaky profile and long, sandy hair. The man on the right was older and pudgy, with a gleaming bald head and a weak chin hidden beneath a steely gray goatee. Each man was hooked up to a heart rate monitor that displayed the function of that organ for the students to observe.

The two were laid out on the sort of low-profile, bedshaped couches you might see in an analyst’s office, heads toward the middle of the room. In the center, sandwiched in the narrow space between two folding rice paper screens, was a third man.

He was in his mid-forties, with a thick shock of unruly white hair, large square glasses, and a jovial, slightly mischievous manner that reminded Walter of Willy Wonka in that film that had come out a few years back. He was dressed in a lab coat and was fiddling with a toaster-sized machine that sat on a spidery steel table. This, he assumed, was Doctor Rayley.

“What is he working on today?” Nina asked a young, redheaded man with a spare mustache and a Dr Pepper T-shirt.

“He’s synchronized the subjects heartbeats,” the young man said, “and is now seeing if one is able to control the frequency of the other.”

“Any success?” Walter asked.

“More luck with slowing than raising,” the Dr Pepper kid replied. “They tend to go out of sync once they go above a hundred beats per minute.”

“Well,” Walter said, “that’s still quite impressive, and potentially relevant for our own study. I’m particularly interested in the fact that he is able to achieve synchronization of subjects without the use of wires or electrodes to connect them either to the biofeedback machine or to each other.” He turned. “We must speak with him at once, Belly!”

“We can’t just barge in on an experiment in progress,” Bell replied.

“I suppose you’re right,” Walter admitted, chastened.

“It’s been an hour and forty-five minutes already,” the Dr Pepper kid said. “Shouldn’t be much longer now.”

Walter sat down on the far end of one of the risers, studying the machine in the center of the room and trying to work out its various components and functions. Trying to think of ways it might be adapted to serve their purpose. He unfolded the schematic he’d sketched out for Bell, and started making a few modifications.

Before he knew it, the experiment was over and the two subjects were attended to by nurses who checked them over thoroughly and helped them sit up. They both seemed upbeat, excited by their accomplishments and impatient with the nurses’ poking and prodding. Doctor Rayley embraced each of his subjects as if they were family, before allowing them to leave the lab.

He then disappeared through a hidden door and reappeared in the observation area, greeting each of his students by name and taking time to thoughtfully answer all of their questions. Bell had to grab Walter by the back of his collar to prevent him from barging over to accost Doctor Rayley with a hundred questions of his own.

But Nina had more subtle ways of attracting Doctor Rayley’s attention and within minutes, she’d drawn him into her gravitational field without even trying.

“Miss Sharp,” he said, arms wide. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“I have some friends from out of town who are very interested in your biofeedback studies,” she said, allowing herself to be embraced and yet somehow not fully participating in it, like a cat tolerating a hug while waiting for food. “Walter Bishop, William Bell, this is Doctor Jeremey Rayley.”

“Yes, yes,” Rayley said extending his hand to both Bell and Walter. “A pleasure, indeed.”

“We are currently conducting a series of experiments not unlike your own recent work, involving the synchronization of multiple minds,” Walter blurted out. “We were hoping that you might allow us to borrow one of your devices, to test their use under very specific field conditions.”

“If it were anyone but Miss Sharp,” Rayley said. “I wouldn’t even consider letting one of my patented machines out of the building. But what you say intrigues me—I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been very interested in the use of biofeedback to control various brain functions. Particularly the more esoteric ones, such as...” He paused for dramatic effect, waggling his considerable eyebrows. “Telepathy and telekinesis. I know for a fact that those are specific topics of Nina’s personal studies.” He cast a glance in her direction.

“We will gladly share the results of our research,” Walter said, ignoring Bell’s warning glare. “As scientists, we are all in this together, aren’t we?”

“Ah, yes, quite right,” Rayley said. “Science, like love, should be free for all.”

20

They left the Institute for the Advancement of Bio-Spiritual Awareness with two large cardboard boxes filled with equipment and supplemental parts. There was barely enough room in the back seat of Nina’s Beetle to fit everything so Walter ended up having to hold one of the boxes in his lap for the drive back in to San Francisco.

He didn’t complain, though, and when Nina looked up at his reflection in the rearview mirror, she could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes. He almost looked happy. She wished that she could share his enthusiasm, and sincerely hoped that this crazy plan of theirs would work, but all she could see were flaws and weaknesses.

They returned to the house, and Walter and Bell immediately went to work on modifying the biofeedback rig to Walter’s specifications. Nina tried very hard not to be bothered by the mess of wires and solder they made in her pristine bedroom, which offered a much more effective working space than the crowded basement.

After a time, she decided to go out for cigarettes.

Outside, the mess had been cleared out of the street, but the neighbors’ house was still in chaotic disarray, the missing wall along the front of the top floor covered by a flapping tarp. The place looked deserted, no sign of the family—the McBrides, she thought their name was. They must have gone to stay with relatives or friends.

She felt a slight twinge of guilt over what had happened to them, and to Mrs. Baumgartner, too, but quickly sloughed it off, focusing instead on planning ahead, running scenarios in her mind and picking them apart.

As she turned and headed down the block toward the liquor store, she lit the last cigarette left in the pack. The street seemed weirdly empty for midday. An occasional car trundled up the hill and past her. The only person in sight was a colorful bum that she saw almost every day, an eccentric local character nicknamed “Circles” by the people in the neighborhood.

He had a dozen colorful ribbons braided into his dirty beard and had earned his nickname because of his strange way of walking. Instead of moving in a straight line, he got from place to place by walking in a chain of tight circles. Sometimes it took him two or three hours just to travel the length of one block.

When he saw Nina, he executed a couple of agitated circles in her direction, waving his skinny arms.

“The man wants you!” he shouted. “You watch out! He’ll do it to you! I know!”

“How you doing, Circles?” she said with an indulgent smile, wrinkling her nose against the scent he emitted. She held up her cigarette. “I’d give you a smoke, but this is my last one. How about I give you one on the way back from the store, okay?”

“The man!” he said again. “He doesn’t think I know, but I know.” He tapped his temple with a black fingernail. “Nobody’s gonna tell me what I know!”

Clearly she wasn’t going to get through to him.

“See you later, Circles,” Nina said, waving with her cigarette hand and walking away, smoke trailing behind her.

Even though the streets were relatively empty, there was a small line at the liquor store, including an elderly woman who wanted to get input from everyone about which lottery numbers “felt most lucky.” Nina was about ready use a bottle of Tab to conk the old biddy on the back of her bouffanted head. But she wasn’t confident that the bottle would make a dent in that blue Aqua Net helmet.

The woman finally got her lucky numbers sorted out, and Nina finally got her two packs of Virginia Slims and her diet soda.

On her way out the jingling door, she stuffed the soda and one of the two packs of cigarettes into her purse, and then started to peel the cellophane off the second pack. She was planning to give one of the cigarettes to Circles, like she’d said she would, but as she turned to walk back to her house, she didn’t see him anywhere.

Strange, she thought.

Circles was so slow that it took him ages to get anywhere, and he had been in the middle of the block when Nina had talked to him. Yes, it had been a longer wait then she’d expected at the liquor store, but not more than ten or fifteen minutes. It would usually take Circles at least an hour to cycle his way from the middle of the block to one of the cross streets.

No one on the block would have invited him into their house or car, smelling the way he did. The only place he could have gone was up the driveway on the left side of the shabby apartment building across the street from her place.

Curious, she waited for a car to pass, then headed over, open pack of cigarettes in her hand. But when she reached the mouth of the driveway in question, she paused.

It was broad daylight, and while her neighborhood certainly wasn’t the safest in the world, it was hardly a crime-infested war zone. There was no reason why she should hesitate about entering the alley.

But she did.

It just didn’t feel right.

Circles wasn’t visible from where Nina was standing, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in there. There were a large dumpster, some stray trash bags, and a stained, discarded twin mattress down at the far end. He easily could have been behind the debris. Probably just taking a piss. Or worse. And that was nothing she needed to see.

Nina looked down at the pack of cigarettes, then turned on her heel, tucking the smokes into her purse and heading back home.

* * *

“Aw, don’t go,” Allan whispered. “Come back and join us, Miss Nina Sharp.”

But she didn’t, and with conflicting emotion, he watched her walk away. On the one hand, he knew that the time wasn’t yet right for him to have her, and any deviation from the plan made him anxious, as if it might spiral wildly out of control. But there was another part of him that yearned for her without regard for all his cautious preparation.

He still knew next to nothing about the two hippies from Reiden Lake, but Nina Sharp, she had been easy to research. Starting with her registration for the cute little green Volkswagen Beetle, Allan had leapfrogged through her paper trail, eager to learn everything he could about her.

Nina Louise Sharp was twenty-eight, never married. Middle child of three daughters, born here in San Francisco to Sullivan and Marie Sharp. Abandoned by her philandering father and ignored by her overworked mother, Nina seemed to have thrown herself into achieving academic excellence. Her school records showed that she was a straight-A student and the valedictorian of her graduating class at Balboa High School.

From there she went on to be accepted at Stanford with full academic scholarship.

Allan had been surprised to find that Nina owned not only the ugly lavender house she lived in with those insufferable musicians, but also a second rental property that was bringing in a tidy little income. She had substantial resources, as well, from a variety of shrewd investments. Miss Nina Sharp was not only ambitious, she was extremely good with money and while she was far from wealthy now, he could see that she would be in the future.

Too bad she wouldn’t have a future.

Beneath Allan’s boot, the bum with the stupid ribbons in his beard writhed and choked, blood bubbling from the necklace of stab wounds around his filthy throat. He clutched weakly at Allan’s pant leg, and Allan kicked his shaking fingers away. Torturing the human vermin had seemed mildly amusing for a few moments, but now the bum’s agony just seemed pathetic and irritating.

He knelt down beside the useless bum and stared into his contorted, uncomprehending face. So much of the joy of killing was watching his victims come to the understanding that they would not survive. Torturing a mentally incompetent person like this man was never satisfying on that deeper level, because they had no idea what was happening to them.

Allan looked down at his hands. They were completely normal, not even the faintest hint of the sparks below the skin. The bum’s suffering had failed to invoke any reaction whatsoever.

With a weary sigh, he slid the blade of his knife into the creature’s right eye. He held it there for a moment, until the body stopped moving. When he was sure that the bum was dead, he pulled the knife out, wiped both sides of the blade on the man’s filthy purple shirt, and put it back in his jacket pocket.

Time to go see what Miss Nina Sharp and her two boyfriends were up to.

21

“Everything okay?” Bell asked when Nina walked back in to her room.

“Sure,” she replied, shrugging. “Just went for cigarettes.” She peered over his shoulder. “How’s it going?”

“Excellent,” Walter said, patting the newly assembled machine sitting on greasy newspaper in the center of her bedroom floor. “I could probably continue to play around with a variety of optional modifications, if time were not a factor, but I feel that the prototype is ready for its first trial run.”

“Here’s the thing,” Bell said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to open the gate again in this house. This neighborhood, it’s just too densely populated.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Walter said. “We should try to find a different location, a place that is both secure and relatively isolated.”

The two of them looked over at Nina.

“Right,” she said. “I’m thinking...”

“Think faster,” Bell said. “We mustn’t forget that the longer it takes us to figure out how to reliably open that gateway, and keep it open long enough to put the Zodiac back where he belongs, the more time he has to act on his murderous impulses.”

“Yes, of course,” Walter said. “But that doesn’t justify risking the lives of innocent bystanders.”

“I’ve already said as much, Walter,” Bell responded brusquely. “There’s no need to belabor the point.”

“I’ve got it,” Nina said. “Roscoe and his band have a rehearsal space over in India Basin. It’s big, secure, and was specifically chosen because there are no neighbors to complain about the noise. The few neighboring buildings that have active businesses all close down before 6 p.m. and that block isn’t zoned for residences. It’s perfect.”

“The place where Violet Sedan Chair rehearses,” Walter intoned. “I would love to see it.”

The three of them packed up their equipment, piled into the Beetle and headed down to India Basin.

* * *

The Violet Sedan Chair rehearsal space really was perfect. It was inside an unmarked and unremarkable brick building on Spear Avenue, across the street from an abandoned shipyard. There wasn’t a single vehicle parked on the street, no sign of a living soul. Unless one wanted to include the fat brown wharf rats Walter spotted trundling over the piles of scrap.

They entered the building through a smaller door cut into a huge metal rolling door the size of a drive-in movie screen. Nina flipped a huge switch that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Doctor Frankenstein’s laboratory. For such an impressive switch, the resulting illumination was somewhat disappointing. Just a few motley antique floor lamps with red and blue bulbs, a single black light that made their teeth and eyes glow, and a small lamp illuminating the keyboard of a majestic old grand piano.

There was a giant Persian rug that made the rough shape of a stage in the center of the concrete floor. The piano and a garish, fluorescent green and orange drum kit were situated on it, as if the door were the audience. Along the back edge of the rug stood a wall of amplifiers that made Walter’s ears hurt just looking at them.

There were also several battered couches and chairs situated as if to observe performances on the rug-stage. A streamlined, 1950s refrigerator was off to one side, and a portable heater plugged into a long, snaking extension cord on the other. When Walter peeked into the fridge, he discovered that it was empty except for a single lonely can of beer and a package of Ho Hos.

Directly above the rug-stage was a large, grimy skylight.

“Yes,” Walter said. “Yes, I think this will be ideal.”

“It’s a bit chilly,” Bell noted, waving his fingers through the pale steam formed by his breath. He set down the canvas messenger bag that he had used to carry the alpha wave generator.

“Clearly that’s what this is for,” Nina said, cranking the knob on the heater and releasing a dusty hot electric train smell.

“I wish we’d opted for hot coffee instead of cola for the mixer,” Bell said, setting down the small cooler at Walter’s feet.

“Absolutely,” Walter agreed, opening the cooler and taking out a bottle. “But we want to keep as many variables consistent as possible.”

Bell took a bottle for himself, and then pulled out the tiny vial of their special blend. He dosed both of their beverages with the exact same amount as the previous experiments, then placed the vial and syringe on top of the cooler.

“Okay, boys,” Nina said, pulling her gun and a stopwatch from her purse. “Where do you want me to be?”

“I think it would be best if we lay down here, on this rug beneath the skylight,” Walter said, taking a swig of his medicated cola. “We can place the biofeedback machine in the center and Nina, you wait there by the piano.”

“We don’t know exactly where the gate will open,” Bell said. “But I can’t imagine it would be more than a few feet away.”

“What if I can’t see it?” Nina asked. “What if only altered minds are able to perceive the gateway?”

“Well, we have no prior data to assess,” Walter said, casting a meaningful glance in their direction. “So we won’t know until we try. That’s why we have to experiment like this, in a controlled area, so that when it comes time to confront the killer, we’ll be ready to put him back where he belongs.”

“But for now,” Bell said. “We’ll do our best to articulate what we’re seeing. That way, even if you don’t see it, you’ll know exactly when it opens and where it’s located in relation to us.”

Walter and Bell clinked their bottles together and drained their dosed colas, then went to work setting up the small, battery-operated biofeedback rig they’d modified to sync their alpha waves during the trip.

When everything was set, they lay down on the faded carpet and waited.

Walter concentrated on the soothing hum of the wireless machine, working on staying as calm and open-minded as possible, then focusing on the rhythm of Bell’s breath and trying to slow his own to match.

* * *

He was just starting to experience the first hints of hallucinogenic onset, simple geometric shapes hunching along the edges of perception like bulky, glowing inch worms, when the band showed up.

“Hey, Nina!” Roscoe said, a big inebriated smile on his usually dour face. “Great to see you, babe.” He paused, a comical look of surprise supplanting the grin. “Is that a gun?”

Nina plunged her gun hand into the suede purse.

“Um... no.” She took her now empty right hand from the purse, and ran it over her hair. “What are you guys doing here? I thought you usually rehearsed on Thursdays.”

“You know how it is,” Chick said, the sticker-covered guitar case in one hand. “Some times you just get bit by the inspiration bug.”

Two other men whom Walter hadn’t met yet came in behind Chick, both with guitar cases of their own. He didn’t need to be introduced to the other two members of Violet Sedan Chair. He instantly recognized Alex Chambers and Oregon Dave Ormond from the photo on their album cover, and his tripping mind painted their skin with the appropriate psychedelic colors and organic paisley shapes.

From an experimental standpoint, this was a disaster, but he couldn’t suppress his childlike excitement over the appearance of the whole band. He wanted to jump up and greet them, but he was surprised to find that his body had melded with the weave of the dusty rug beneath him, making it impossible to get up.

He watched Chick hug Nina, lifting her off her feet and spinning her in a circle. Her shimmering red hair and green suede heels left spiral trails in the air, distracting him until Roscoe found the vial of their special acid blend on top of the cooler, and held it up for the rest of the band to see.

“Check this, man,” he said. “This looks like some pharmaceutical grade shit right here.”

“You put that down,” Nina said, lunging at him.

Roscoe tossed the vial to Chick, like big kids playing keep away from a smaller child in a schoolyard.

“Look at these two,” Iggy, the drummer said, gesturing to Walter and Bell splayed out on the carpet. “They’re tripping balls!”

“Far out,” Roscoe said. “We need to knock off a piece of that action.”

Chick grabbed the syringe and started to fill it from the vial while the other laughing musicians kept Nina back.

“Chick, don’t...” she began, but it was too late. He squirted the dose directly into his mouth.

Nina threw up her hands, disgusted, as Chick passed the vial to Roscoe.

“Don’t be so uptight, Nina,” Roscoe said, dosing himself. “You need to loosen up. Live a little. Share the wealth.” He went from person to person, dosing the rest of the band like a mama bird feeding her chicks.

“Okay, look,” Nina said. “We’re conducting a scientific experiment here.”

“My kinda science,” Alex said, opening his mouth wide to receive the chemical sacrament.

“Just shut up and listen,” she snapped.

The band members settled down, like unruly kids brought to heel by a feared teacher.

“Since you’ve already helped yourselves,” she continued. “The least you can do is help us in return. Right?”

“Help you how?” Iggy asked.

“The experiment,” she said, “is in telepathy and shared experience. My two colleges are attempting to sync minds using a combination of the hallucinogenic compound you just ingested, and enhanced biofeedback technology.”

“Far out, man,” Dave said. “What do you need from us?”

“Why don’t you guys lie down in the circle here,” she suggested. “And see if any of you are able connect your minds with them. The image that I want you to picture in your minds is a gateway, like a portal in the air. Okay?”

Brilliant, Walter thought from within the depths of his trip.

She’s brilliant, Bell’s mind echoed inside Walter’s head. Brilliant and ruthless.

If the musicians were on the trip with them, linked in and working in synch, would it not naturally strengthen and enhance the gate? It might even allow the gate to stay stable, and open even longer. And while Walter had never even considered involving anyone else in their experiment, due to the risks involved, Nina didn’t bat an eye. She just saw an opportunity to take advantage of an unexpected situation, and took it.

Walter could feel Bell’s mind reaching out to her again, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. A flame like her red hair, falling coquettishly around her face like shimmering waves of liquid autumn.

Walter shook his head, feeling himself drawn to Nina, as well. But they needed her on the outside, now more than ever. They needed to stay focused, and so did she. Especially with this sudden and unexpected influx of unknown individuals.

Belly, he said, or thought, or just imagined that he thought. Focus! He reached out to Bell with his mind, calling him back into the loop of their own intimate connection. Reluctantly, Bell allowed his attention to be turned away from Nina and back to the task at hand.

The band members settled into a rough ring around the biofeedback machine, heads toward the center. At first they were snickering and goofing around, but as the acid started to kick in, they all settled down and grew quiet.

Roscoe’s mind opened itself to Walter first, revealing an intricate, endless Fibonacci spiral, like a transparent nautilus, each tiny chamber haunted by a treasured fragment of music. Then Chick and Alex joined the psychic orchestra, light and dark twins blown like autumn leaves on the wind of Roscoe’s music. Then Dave, a quiet, soulful presence defined by simple pleasures like sunshine and a girl’s laughter and pancakes and memories of a childhood dog. Then Iggy, his strong, comforting thoughts as regular and steady as his drum beats, creating order out of the tripping chaos.

And Walter, feeling like a conductor, poised with baton held high above the orchestra pit.

“Now,” he said. Or maybe he just thought it.

And the gate opened.

* * *

Allan peered down through the skylight of the warehouse at the tremulous shimmer that had boiled to life like steam from a kettle in the middle of the circle of musicians. He had seen that light before, on the same night he had first seen the two hippies from Reiden Lake. The same night the pigs and their dogs had chased him into the water. The same night he had tumbled through the strange gateway and found himself in another world that was so like, and yet so unlike, his own.

He had always wondered what had opened the gate that brought him to this world, but he had never been able to formulate any kind of concrete theory. It had all happened too quickly, and in the middle of such chaos, that he hadn’t been able to objectively observe the phenomenon.

He’d turned the mystery over in his mind during his idle hours, and had even considered the possibility that it might have been his own desperate desire to escape that had somehow opened up a hole between worlds, and granted him his wish.

But here was a much more convincing explanation. He had just seen the entire assemblage take acid and arrange themselves in a circle around this weird machine, to participate in some sort of communal trip. And out of that trip had risen the shimmer.

It must have been the same at Reiden Lake. He was tripping, and those kids must have been tripping, too, linking the three of them into a mutual experience that had opened a hole in the fabric between their worlds, and allowed him to fall through.

Allan’s heart clenched like a fist in his chest as it all became clear. Those two seemingly harmless, bumbling idiots had come to San Francisco not just to stop him, but to send him back to the world of his birth.

He stood and stepped back from the skylight. This could not happen. He could not allow it to happen.

As he drew his gun and turned back to the edge of the roof, he paused. There was smoke in the air. And the sound of screaming.

22

The trip was breaking up, fading fast. Above them, the shimmering gate was dissipating as well, its long, reaching tendrils breaking into watery fragments that spun away into misty nothingness.

Roscoe sat up beside Walter on the Persian carpet and looked up at the skylight.

“Oh... wow, man,” he said. “That thing, it was... wow... I think I got enough material out of that trip for an entire concept album. We need to jam. Right now, while the juices are still flowing!”

Roscoe leapt to his feet and staggered over to the piano. Walter blinked and looked up—he had been completely focused on Bell, trying to hold open the connection for as long as possible.

In the background, he registered sounds from outside, but they were too far away for him to identify their nature.

“B-flat,” Roscoe said, fingers playing over the keys with a funky little riff.

Walter ignored the ecstatic singer and looked over at Nina, who still stood by with her handgun and stopwatch, just outside of the circle.

“How long?” he asked. “How long was it open.”

She checked the watch.

“Thirty-seven seconds,” she said. “Maybe thirty-eight.”

Iggy the drummer sat up, scratching his beard and wearing a dreamy expression. Beside him Chick Spivy was suddenly reanimated by the sound of Roscoe’s playing, and responded by rolling over and unlatching his guitar case.

“That’s it, man,” he said, unwrapping a length of cord and plugging into the wall of amps. He prodded the prone base player with the toe of a battered Frye boot. “Come on, Davey! Get in on this.”

A blast of wailing sound hit Walter like a tidal wave as Chick strummed out a set of heavy power chords.

“Alone I was only able to open the gate for a few seconds,” Walter hollered, gesturing wildly at Bell and shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard over the music. “And together, you and I kept it open for what, ten seconds? Fifteen?”

“It’s so obvious, I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner.” Bell rolled away from the drum kit as Iggy mounted up and started banging out a back beat. “More people. Longer time. And having the alpha wave generator helped us all synchronize minds and stay connected. It allowed us to link minds and share the same trip. We opened the portal together, wider and longer than ever before.”

Bell scooped up the alpha wave generator and slipped it into the canvas messenger bag he’d used to bring it in.

“But this is excellent.” Walter grabbed one of Bell’s arms with his right hand and one of Nina’s with the left, and dragged them toward the door, away from the wall of throbbing sound emanating from the happy and oblivious musicians. “Thirty-eight seconds, even twenty-eight, would surely be enough time to goad our quarry through the rift. All we have to do is gather another similarly sized test group.” He shouldered open the door and shoved Nina and Bell through. “Then lure the killer to the spot as the trip reaches its—” he slammed the door “—peak.”

The shouted word peak echoed down the street, way too loud now that the music was muffled by the closed door.

“Is that all?” Nina said, raising a sarcastic eyebrow. “And how do you propose that we set it up? Who do you suggest we...”

Walter frowned, held up a finger, and looked around.

“Does anyone else smell smoke?” he asked.

They scanned the length of the block, and spotted flickering orange light playing over the brick and corrugated metal skins of the buildings at the far end of the block. The night was suddenly thick with the stink of burning plastic, and filled with frightened shouts. From the shipyard across the street came a sound like bridge cables twisting in a high wind.

“Oh, dear.” Walter closed his eyes. “Not again.”

“I thought there weren’t any people in this neighborhood?” Bell said.

“There weren’t supposed to be,” Nina said. “Not on this block, anyway. But if more trippers equaled a longer duration for the gate, maybe it also equaled a wider psychic blast radius.”

“Did you notice the tendrils spreading out from the edges of the gateway?” Walter asked.

“Yes!” Bell replied. “Clearly that’s the moment when the psychic bleed through begins. Nina, do you remember how long the gate was open before the tendrils became visible?”

A scream from an alley three buildings to the left cut off her reply.

“Get ’em off me!” A high, tremulous voice echoed through the alley. “Get ’em off!”

Walter and Bell exchanged a look and ran to the mouth of the narrow passageway. A few yards in, a homeless man was crabbing backward out of his bedroll as if there was a snake in it, and pressing against the dumpster that had been serving as a shelter.

“Get ’em off!” he screeched.

“The DTs?” Bell suggested, brow arched. “Not uncommon in alcoholics.”

Walter took a few cautious steps closer to the squirming man.

“No,” he said. “Look!”

Under the harsh glare of a security light, he could see the man’s naked, grime-caked torso was covered in what looked like rat bites. He was bleeding from more than a dozen crescent-shaped punctures.

Walter ran and grabbed the bottom of the roll and pulled, helping the man shuck clear of the bedding, then threw it away and knelt beside the man.

“Are you alright?” Walter asked. “What was biting you? Was it rats?”

But the man was still twisting and swatting at nothing.

“Get ’em off me!” he cried. “Get ’em off me!”

As Walter watched in horror, more bites appeared in the man’s flesh, bloody holes torn in his arms, belly, and neck, though there was nothing visible attacking him. It was as if he were being savaged by an invisible swarm of some sort.

“Maybe it really is the DTs,” Bell murmured. “Only they’ve been psychically amplified by our experiment.”

“Dreams made flesh,” Walter whispered, half to himself. “But what can we do?”

“I...” Bell shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“But this is our fault, Belly,” Walter said. “You can’t deny it this time. It’s our fault, and our responsibility.”

Walter buried his head in his hands.

“This is terrible,” he said. “Terrible.”

* * *

From the shadows of the alley across the street, Allan peered through his rifle sight, and watched the agitated group. He had several clear and easy shots, including the lovely redhead, Miss Nina Sharp, but he didn’t take them. After all, it would be completely pointless to kill them now. They would die like slaughterhouse cows, too stupid to understand what that big bolt gun was for.

No, he wanted time to taunt them, time to play with them and show them who had the upper hand. But Nina and his two special friends were alone now. No witnesses, except for the crazed bum.

Allan was a man who liked to stick to the plan no matter what. Yet here was such a tempting opportunity. He could kill the tall one first, to show the other two he meant business, then threaten Nina and make the curly haired one beg him to spare her life. It would be interesting to see how far the kid would debase himself to save her, and then whether or not he would plead for his own life once she was dead.

He moved toward the mouth of the alley and was about to raise the rifle to his shoulder when running steps to his left checked his stride. A policeman, young and redfaced, with a sad attempt at a mustache like a smudge of ash on his sweaty upper lip. He was running down the sidewalk, gun drawn and staring ahead at the glow at the end of the block.

Allan stepped back into the shadows. The cop glanced into the alley after him, then ran on. Allan let out a long, slow, relieved breath.

Too soon.

The cop skidded to a stop and looked back, then raised his gun and started edging back toward the alley, raising his high-pitched and strident voice.

“You in the alley,” the young cop called. “Put your weapon on the ground and kick it out where I can see it, then step out.”

The glowing sparks had already begun their gleeful dance under the skin of his hands and forearms. The stupid little piggy was ruining his perfect moment, and now he would have to be taken care of, too. But not out on the street.

Allan took a step back. And then another.

* * *

A voice rose above the moans of the bleeding homeless man, and pulled Walter’s attention back down toward the street. A young cop with a mustache was aiming his gun at the mouth of the alley on the far side, and calling for someone to come out. Walter looked into the alley and stiffened in shock. There was a man in the shadows.

A man with a gun, backing away.

Although the retreating man’s body was shrouded in darkness, his arms and his hands glowed as if lit from within, the mesmerizing dance of sparks reflecting in the squared lenses of familiar glasses. Walter’s heart kicked into double-time at the sight. He knew those sparks. He knew that face.

“The killer.” Walter took a step back and stumbled into Bell. He pointed. “The Zodiac Killer. He’s there!”

“But how?” Bell frowned, disbelieving.

“He must have followed us!”

Nina grabbed them both and shoved them behind the dumpster.

“Let the cop deal with it,” she hissed. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Walter and Bell ducked down behind the metal bulk and peeked over the lip.

“Is this it?” Bell asked, incredulous. “Is this how it ends?”

“I hope so,” Walter replied. “Lord, I hope so.”

“Come on,” Nina whispered. “Be a good little piggy and shoot that bastard.”

* * *

Allan took another step back, his teeth clenched in annoyance. Why wasn’t the cop coming into the alley? He couldn’t shoot him if he was standing out in the street.

Why wasn’t he following?

Then he understood. He needed to put himself into the unevolved animal mindset of the cop brain. Prey that faced him required caution. Prey that fled triggered the instinct of the chase. If Allan ran, the cop would come after him. The primitive protocols of his hindbrain would give the dumb animal no choice.

So Allan ran, and was instantly rewarded by the sound of shouts and footsteps entering the alley and echoing after him. Predictably, the cop had taken the bait and was following him to his doom. Allan scanned ahead of him, looking for the place to turn and fire. He couldn’t keep on luring the little piggy forever.

“Stop,” the young pig cried. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

There was a mountain of garbage bags, piled up around an overflowing dumpster. They were already primed for an avalanche. Pull one down as he went by, and the cop would be stumbling through a landslide of trash. It would be simple then to shoot him before he recovered, then finish him before anyone came to investigate.

Suddenly Allan’s foot slipped in some foul slime dripping from the dumpster, and instead of grabbing at the mountain of garbage bags, he crashed into them. He came up again, in an instant, flailing for balance, and turned toward the office, rifle in hand.

Blam!

Pain flared hot in Allan’s left shoulder, and he staggered back, grunting as fear and rage melded with the pain, and transmogrified into something more than the sum of their parts. The unnatural sparks of his strange sickness melded together and blossomed out like a miniature mushroom cloud, enveloping the cop, the alley, and the buildings to either side in an eerie glittering light.

And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the glowing cloud was gone—and so was the cop, reduced to atoms by the radiation exploding from Allan’s body. Half the trash bags were gone, too, vaporized. The other half were on fire. The metal of the dumpster had melted like candle wax. The bricks in the walls of the buildings to either side were charred and smoking.

Allan knelt in the center of it all, hissing through his teeth and clutching his shoulder. The pain was overwhelming, blurring his vision, numbing his mind. He forced himself to focus. He’d never been shot before. It was... illuminating. Interesting to be on the other side of things, for once.

Now, however, was not the time to dwell on it. He had to get to safety. See to his wound. Regroup.

“I seen you!”

Allan looked around. There was a woman, coming out of the darkness at the far end of the alley, wearing the filthy clothes of a vagrant. The glare from a parking lot security light showed him the side of her face as she passed. It was bright red, as if she had stuck half of her head in boiling water. Her hair was smoking.

“I seen what you done,” she shrieked. “Blew that cop up. Blew my goddamn hair right off my head. I seen you!”

Allan ground his teeth. Another witness. This situation was becoming untenable. He had to extricate himself.

He raised his gun.

The woman squealed and ran. Allan pulled the trigger.

It didn’t fire. He looked at it. All the moving parts had fused into a single gun-shaped lump of metal. He cursed and started after the woman, wincing as his shoulder wound jolted him with every step.

The far end of the alley was blocked off by a fence, and the vagrant woman was flailing against the fence like a trapped insect, too stupid to realize that she could climb.

Coming up behind, Allan grabbed her around her waist. She was rail thin, light as a box kite, but panic made her strong. She tried to bite Allan’s arm, but her loose, wobbly teeth fell out of her burnt and bleeding gums. The skin on her birdy little ribcage sloughed off in Allan’s grip like the skin of a boiled tomato.

Disgusted, he threw her down on the ground and knelt on her chest, crushing her throat with one shin. She scrabbled and kicked furiously for what felt like forever, but eventually the life ran out of her and she went still beneath him.

There was no joy for Allan in this kill. No thrill, no sparks, just a grim sense of duty, underscored by the same annoyance and resentment he’d felt when putting down that stinking bum with the ribbons in his beard.

He had no idea how the hell things had gotten so far out of hand.

23

Walter rose cautiously from behind the dumpster where he and Bell and Nina had ducked when the eerie flash had happened. He looked down the alley across the street. It was dark again. There was no more unnatural light. There were no more sparks. In the murk, he couldn’t tell if the killer was still there, or if he was gone, or dead.

He couldn’t see the cop, either.

“Did you see it?” he asked. “Did you see what happened?”

Beside him, Bell nodded, but didn’t seem able to speak. Nina answered for him.

“The cop, he just vanished. He fired his gun, and the guy screamed, and that light came out of his body, and...”

“Gamma radiation.” Bell finally found his voice. “When Iverson told us about that, I found it very hard to believe. But I have no choice but to believe the proof of my own eyes. Incredible!”

“Maybe it was the shock of being shot,” Walter said. “Or perhaps the pain of it. Either way, his reaction caused the radiation to spike, and... my God!”

A third of Nina’s face was as pink as rare roast beef, from her left ear to a little less than halfway across her left eye. The line of demarcation between the pale, unaffected skin and the burnt skin was mathematically perfect. He took Nina’s chin and turned the inflamed portion of her face toward Bell.

“It’s like... like a sunburn,” he said to Bell. “And you, too. The left side of your face.”

Bell looked back at him.

“And you too, Walt,” Bell said. “You got it the worst out of all of us.”

Walter reached up to touch his own face. More than three quarters of the skin felt hot and tight, sore to the touch.

“A sunburn in the middle of the night,” Walter said, shaking his head.

“If we had been any closer...” Nina swallowed, pale but for the pink flush of her left side. “We wouldn’t be making sunburn jokes, we’d be gathering our teeth up off the pavement.”

Walter flinched, picturing the cop’s silhouette, vanishing like sand blown away by the wind. It was so much worse than he’d ever imagined.

“And we may have still been too close,” Bell said. “The long-term effects of such a blast, we might not know for years. It could affect our health, our children.”

Nina cut him off.

“Let’s not worry about our future offspring just yet,” she said. “We don’t know if that bastard died in his own blast, or not, but we’d better make sure.”

Bell caught her as she started toward the street.

“If we go into that alley right now,” Bell said, “those theoretical long-term effects will happen to us in the short term. Any residual radiation would kill us in a matter of days. Skin loss, organ failure, blindness, cancer.”

Walter nodded.

“Iverson said the radiation remained for several hours before dissipating,” he added.

“Yet another thing that seemed so hard to believe, at the time,” Bell said. “But now...”

Walter looked behind him. The alley they were in ended in a cul-de-sac. He started toward the street, motioning the others to follow.

“Come on,” he said. “We should get out of this area as quickly as possible, then warn the authorities about the radiation.”

It took courage to walk toward the area where the blast had occurred. Even though he was reasonably certain that the radius of the lingering radiation wouldn’t extend out to the street, his skin still tingled with psychosomatic itching at the very thought of the invisible poison in the air.

As they turned right and started for Nina’s car, shouts from down the block cut him off. He saw a young blond man in bell-bottom jeans and a bright yellow shirt turn the corner, running right down the middle of the street. He was maybe twenty-one, tops, with a sensual, girlish mouth that didn’t look like it belonged on the same face as his big shapeless nose and close-set eyes, half hidden under feathered hair.

He had a wild panicked expression that made a lot more sense when a shouting gang of men in workman’s overalls rounded the corner behind him and started chasing after him. The young man was faster than the bigger men, but he was tottering on a pair of precarious platform shoes, and as Walter watched, the inevitable occurred.

The blond man twisted his ankle in a pothole, and nearly fell. The front runner of the gang of work men, a huge, beefy but disturbingly baby-faced man with thinning black hair, caught up to the blond man, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, spinning him around and then hauling back a meaty fist.

“You set my goddamn car on fire!” he bellowed.

The young blond man cowered and covered up.

“I didn’t!” he screamed. “I was just trying to get away. It’s your fault. You pushed me!”

“Oh, so it’s my fault?” The man sneered at his cohorts “He says it’s my fault.” He turned back. “You want to know what’s your fault? This.” He laid a fist into the young man’s gut that doubled him up and sent him retching to the ground. “Don’t got much to say about that, do you?”

“Leave him alone!” Nina called.

She was striding toward the men, fearless, while Walter and Bell were hanging back. But before she had taken two steps, the young blond man screeched like a bird of prey and every parked car on the street exploded, as if a dozen bombs had been set off in perfect synchronization.

Walter, Bell, and Nina fell back, crashing into the warehouse wall and shielding their faces with their arms as great billows of flame erupted from the gas tanks of the cars, and bits of shrapnel pinged off the bricks around them.

The eruptions sent the workmen running back the way they came, swearing or praying—or maybe both. The young man in the bell-bottoms ran the other way, crying and covering his wavy blond hair as the cars blazed all around him.

“It wasn’t me!” he wailed. “I swear it wasn’t me!”

Bell sat up and stared after him, shaking his head.

“Amazing,” he said. “Poltergeist activity, pyrokinesis, phantom wounding, gamma bursts. All that potential power locked inside ordinary human beings, just waiting to be harnessed or released. We haven’t even begun to reach our full potential as a race.”

“Or our full potential as mass murderers.” Walter turned on Bell, furious. “We have unleashed monsters. Turned people’s own minds against them. Allowed frightened innocents to lash out at the pain of the world with the strength of gods! This is a nightmare!”

“Yes,” Bell said, “but imagine if one could harness these powers of the mind, at the same time as we were amplifying them. If the formula could be perfected and used in a more controlled setting, perhaps with younger subjects whose minds are still open. Think how powerful the human race could become.”

“Too powerful,” Walter said. “There would be a psychic apocalypse that would tear apart the very fabric our universe.”

Nina stood close by.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “What about the band? What’s happening to them?”

Bell laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re as safe as they can be, in the warehouse. It’s built to withstand tons of damage. And the way they were playing, I doubt they have any idea what’s happening out here.”

She nodded. In the distance, police sirens were wailing. Someone had called in the fires. She looked down the street in the direction the blond man had run.

“Come on,” she said. “We’d better try to calm that poor guy down before he blows up any more...”

Crash!

She stopped as a section of the wooden fence that surrounded the shipyard smashed flat to the sidewalk. They looked up to see what might follow.

An old boat, rusted and wrecked, with its engine missing and its hull smashed full of jagged holes, was hovering a few feet above the ground and slowly drifting as if caught in a lazy current. It had knocked down a section of the fence, and was now drifting into the next section, splintering the boards and snapping them off at ground level.

Bell swore.

“What now?” Walter asked.

Walter and Nina stared as they saw that the boat was not alone. Behind it, in the dark of the shipyard, other huge shapes floated and spun, all caught in the same inexorable current—propellers, anchors, heavy chains, rusted boilers, engines. It looked like a slow motion cyclone, with all the junk circling the center of the yard.

An army of terrified rats was fleeing down the street like a squirming brown river. Walter watched in horror as several straggler rodents were swept up into the whirlpool, squeaking and defecating in fear as they sailed through the air end over thrashing end.

“Oh, God,” said Nina. “It’s expanding.”

Just as she said it, the rusted out hull of a fishing trawler mashed into the wall of the welding shop next door. It glanced off again just as slowly as it had hit, and only dislodged a few bricks, but Walter saw that Nina was right. The entire whirlpool was getting wider, and more and more junk was going to start smashing into the surrounding buildings.

Walter started across the street.

“Someone’s in there, doing this,” he said. “We have to stop them. We have to bring them down.”

Bell caught his arm and tried to pull him back.

“Are you crazy?” he asked. “We could be crushed! We have to get out of here.”

Walter turned on him.

“You remember last time?” he asked. “You said it wasn’t our fault because we didn’t know what would happen. This time we did know what would happen, and we did it anyway. It’s our fault, Belly! The radiation. The fires. We have to do what we can!” He turned to face Nina. “Wait around the corner and warn the firefighters about the radiation in the alley. Say you saw a man with a weird kind of bomb, or a mushroom cloud, or something like that.”

“A weird bomb?” Nina rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that sounds believable.”

“Look I don’t care what you tell them,” Walter responded, “as long as you make them understand that the area must be cordoned off. I am going into that yard.”

Walter wrenched his arm out of Bell’s grip and hurried across the street. Nina gave Bell a hard look.

“Alright, Walter,” Bell groaned, then he raised his voice. “Alright. I’m coming.” He backed away from Nina. “Go home as soon as you talk to the firemen. We’ll meet back at your place.”

“Let’s just hope that my car isn’t on fire,” she said with a look.

24

Allan breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out of an underground parking garage. The woman had been dealt with, and already the sparks were subsiding.

This had not been a Zodiac killing. It had been another act of necessity. Not that he minded taking the extra lives, but he felt as if his talents were ultimately being wasted. The bum. The Chinese man at the warehouse. They just weren’t up to his usual standards. They would be reported as a simple street crime, nothing more. Not even his good friend Special Agent Iverson would know it had been him.

At least he had been able to share Desiree with Iverson. He’d written a long, detailed letter describing all the special moments, and speculating how many other human cockroaches had been taken out by the aftereffects of his little one-night stand. And when the time was right, he would write a letter to Iverson about Miss Nina Sharp and her little friends.

From that moment on, there would be no one in this world who would be able to stop him.

He jogged back to the street where the rehearsal studio it was located, hoping he would have a chance to reconnect with the Reiden Lake boys and Miss Sharp. He was suddenly desperate to see them.

He felt like a man in love.

There were sirens on the wind, but still far away. He needed to find the hippies before they fled the scene.

He stopped as he came around the corner. Only a moment earlier, when he had run from the cop, the street had been dark, lit only by the glow of a minor fire down the block. Now the whole street was ablaze with light and thick with black smoke. At least eight cars were burning like torches along both sides. What had happened? Had the boys done this? How could they? No, they wouldn’t have had the time.

What the hell was going on?

Then he saw them through the flames—two of them at least, the two boys, their silhouettes entering the shipyard across the street from the rehearsal studio. He increased his pace, then slowed again as a portion of the shipyard fence splintered and toppled onto the sidewalk. Something in the smoke had pushed through. Something large and dark. Was there someone in there operating some kind of wrecking equipment?

The smoke cleared for a moment, and he saw an old shell of a boat, spinning in a lazy circle, like a leaf in a river, as it floated five feet off the ground, flattening the fence as it went. More psychic disturbance. These fools were causing more chaos than he ever had.

That thought should have made him feel jealous or competitive, but instead it increased his desire to play with them. Finally, he had worthy opponents. Not equals, of course, but prey worth chasing. Prolonging the game, until they could share the exquisite moments of their own inevitable deaths.

He went on, more cautious now, and peered through a broken gap in the fence. The entire contents of the shipyard seemed to have lifted up into a slow swirl, like a cloud of rattle-trap asteroids circling some invisible sun.

No. Not invisible, just hidden. Whatever the gravitational center of this solar system of junk, it looked like it was inside a rusty airstream trailer that appeared to serve the yard as an office. And just as Allan suspected, his quarry were making their way toward it, picking fearfully through the moving maze of floating constellations of rubbish.

Allan slipped inside the fence and started after them.

* * *

Walter edged ahead and to the left as a bathtub started to float over his head, then he slipped between a chain fall hoist and a fork lift that looked as if they were dancing together. Bell tiptoed after him, holding his breath as if the slightest sound or movement would bring the whole impossible whirlpool crashing down around them.

There were smaller objects in the air, as well— batteries, springs, gas tanks, a coil of rope undulating like a snake. It was surreal and beautiful and terrifying all at once. A defiance of gravity and logic and science.

Walter wished that they might be experiencing these events under different circumstances, fascinated as he was by the hidden secrets of the mind that this amazing phenomenon suggested. Secrets that had to be explored, and he could imagine spending the rest of his life digging deeper into those mysteries. If only the risks weren’t so dire. If only the potential for destruction and death wasn’t so terrifyingly clear.

The rounded, silver airstream trailer stood just ahead, alone in a circle of empty air like the eye of a hurricane. Walter stepped up to the door with Bell at his side, each man letting out a relieved breath as they left the floating maze behind.

There were sounds coming from inside the trailer as Walter reached for the handle. An odd, arrhythmic thumping, and tortured grunting. Walter pulled open the door and peered inside. It was dim, but not black. The blue light of a TV flickered from the far end of the trailer, revealing that things were floating in there, too. Papers, books, lamps, pens, pots and pans, a pack of cigarettes. The calendars and posters of bikini girls on the walls rippled and flapped as if they were in a high wind, though the air was dead and still.

The thumping grew louder.

Walter stepped up into the trailer, pushing a floating stapler out of the way, and looked toward the back, toward the light and the noise. He stopped. The TV was on its side pointing at the left wall, a table overturned beside it. On the floor, bathed in the cathode glow, was a man.

He was an older black man with a round jowly face, dressed in coveralls and a knit cap. His back was arched and rigid, and he was twitching as if he’d touched a live wire, with froth bubbling between rigid lips and his eyes wide and staring. The thumping was his right heel kicking spasmodically against the linoleum, as his other limbs twitched and jerked.

“He appears to be in the midst of a grand mal seizure,” Walter told Bell over his shoulder. One of the man’s flailing hands was encircled by an engraved medical alert bracelet featuring the Hippocratic snake and staff, and the word EPILEPTIC in large red letters.

Bell squeezed in on his left.

“Do you think his epilepsy might have been triggered by our... event?”

“Undoubtedly,” Walter said, nodding. “And the electrical storm going on in his head is manifesting in the physical world as that psychic cyclone outside.” He started through the debris, ducking through flocks of flapping paper and slowly spinning pens. “But a seizure usually lasts less than a minute. No more than two. We saw that car flatten the fence at least four minutes ago.”

“A feedback loop,” Bell offered. “The psychic pulse triggered the fit which triggered a larger psychic burst which in turn...”

Walter knelt by the man.

“What can we do for him?” he asked.

Bell knelt beside Walter.

“Nothing,” Bell said. “Except maybe turn him on his side so he doesn’t choke on all that drool, and make sure he’s not going to bang his head on anything.”

“Ah, yes. We can do that. Although...” Walter looked up at Bell, uneasy. “I’m concerned about what happens when he comes out of it. Do the things in the air settle gently to the ground, or do they drop all at once? There could be a lot of damage. Someone could get hurt.”

“Not much we can do about that, either,” Bell replied.

* * *

Allan stepped under a floating boat hull and into the clearer air around the trailer. Only a few smaller things—wrenches, pipe fittings, and beer cans—drifted there. He glanced behind as the sound of sirens grew louder. It seemed so unfair that capricious circumstance would force his hand like this, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it would be best to take out the Reiden Lake boys right now.

They were too dangerous and could not be allowed to live. All the other connections to his old life, his old world, had been severed, all except these two. With them gone, the final tie would be cut, and he would be free.

But all the arbitrary killings were wearing on him, making him feel like a butcher, rather than an artist. This was not his destiny, not who he was meant to be.

Should he kill them? Or not?

He crept closer to the trailer door.

* * *

Walter put his hands on the man’s shoulder and hip, and pushed to rock him over onto his side. His body was so rigid that it was easier than he expected, and the man nearly flopped face first onto the floor. Walter grabbed awkwardly at him to save his teeth, and touched his hand—flesh to flesh.

All at once every floating object in the trailer dropped straight to the ground.

Bell gasped, and began to speak.

He was drowned out by a thunderous crash that shook the trailer. Walter thought he heard someone outside let out a stifled cry, but he couldn’t be sure. A bookshelf full of ring binders tipped forward and dumped its load on him, and the battering he received made every other sensation take a back seat.

After a few seconds of coughing and brushing off and sitting up, Bell squinted around, waving at the clouds of dust.

“So much for gently lowering anything to the ground.”

Walter looked toward the door.

“I thought I heard someone outside,” he said. “We should check. They might be...”

He cut off as the sirens they had been hearing in the background suddenly pushed to the foreground. They could see flashing red and blue lights through the windows of the trailer, and heard the slamming of doors.

“Or perhaps...”

“Wha... what the hell was that?”

They both looked down. The confused watchman was looking up at them, an expression on his face that was equal parts fear and embarrassment.

“I had another one of my fits again,” he said. “Didn’t I?”

Bell nodded, then shot another glance at the window.

“Er, yes, sir,” Walter said. “I’m afraid so. But you’re fine now, and there is an ambulance here to help you. We’ll just go let them know where you are.”

“Yes,” Bell said, edging toward the door. “We’ll send them your way.” He turned. “Come on, Walter.”

Walter didn’t want to leave the man alone. In fact, he wanted to question him, ask him about the experience. But trying to give the police a rational sounding explanation for what had happened here would be an exercise in futility. So he gave a guilty salute to the befuddled watchman, then edged around him.

“Right behind you,” he called after his friend.

* * *

Allan hurried away down the street, police sirens bouncing off the surrounding walls and painting the night in a wash of blue and red. He had been less than three feet from the trailer door and about to reach for the knob when all of the mysteriously suspended objects around him had suddenly lost their animation and dropped to the ground.

A large jagged chunk of rusty metal the size of a washing machine had dropped down an inch from his toes. So close that he could feel the wind of its passage. If he’d been reaching for the knob, his right arm would have been crushed, broken, or perhaps even severed.

He got the message. He was being impulsive, over-eager. He had been thinking of deviating from the plan. And look where that kind of thinking got him.

He would still have his special moment with those two, and with Miss Nina Sharp, as long as he stuck to the plan. He just needed to be patient. Let them make plans of their own. Watch it all play out, and act accordingly.

25

They got back to Nina’s house just as the sun was coming up. Pregnant Abby was curled up on a couch, dozing with Cat-Mandu. Looking down at her, Walter felt a pang of guilt for involving the father of her child in all this madness.

The three of them dragged themselves up the stairs to Nina’s room, mentally and physically exhausted.

“So what’s our next move?” Nina asked.

“Next move?” Walter ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know about you, but my next move is to collapse from exhaustion.”

“But what I want to know,” Bell said, “is how did he find us?”

Walter shuddered. He’d been thinking the same thing, and wasn’t happy with the conclusions he’d come to.

“There’s been something bothering me since last night,” Walter said. “But you know how bad my memory is, so I just told myself I was wrong.”

“What?” Bell asked.

“Well,” Walter said, “I’m pretty sure we never told Iverson about Reiden Lake.”

Bell got it. His eyes went wide.

“The classified ad,” he said.

“It said ‘regarding events at Reiden Lake,’ right?” Walter asked. “But we never told Iverson, or any other authorities about where the initial trip took place. There’s only one other person who knows that.”

“The killer,” Bell said.

“How could we have been so stupid?” Walter said.

“You know what this means,” Bell said. “This means he’s probably following us. He may be watching us right now!”

“But if he’s been watching us all this time, why doesn’t he just kill us?”

“Look,” Nina said. “It’s obvious that he wants to toy with you—with us. That’s his thing, right? Psychological torture, mind games, taunting letters.”

“Okay,” Walter said. “I see your point.”

“But what do we do now?” Bell asked.

“We beat him at his own game,” Nina said.

“Beat him how?” Bell asked.

“We’re no good at hand-to-hand combat,” she said. “We know that. But mind-to-mind combat, that’s a whole different ball game. Our ball game.”

“In theory, yes,” Walter said. “That’s likely to be a superior strategy.”

“But how...” Bell said again.

“Will you let me finish?” Nina asked.

“Right, sorry,” they both said simultaneously

“We talked about needing to get him through the gate, right?” Nina continued. “But clearly, even the rehearsal space isn’t remote enough. We need some place even more remote. I have a good location in mind, but then the problem becomes how to get him to that remote location.”

“Kidnapping seems a little more physically demanding than any of us are capable of,” Walter said. “Plus, we don’t know where he is.”

“Yet he knows where we are,” Nina said. “If he’s following us, we need to use that to our advantage.”

“You’ve lost me again,” Bell said.

Nina sighed like a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant student. She went over to her desk and slipped a blank sheet into the typewriter.

“Dear Special Agent Iverson,” Nina read aloud as she typed. “We want to warn you that the Zodiac has been imitating you in order to trick us, so be suspicious of any communication that is delivered by any method other than this, our previously arranged drop spot.”

“Excellent,” Bell said, catching on immediately.

“Brilliant,” Walter said. “The bit about him tricking us adds an extra element of credibility.”

“At this point in time,” Nina continued, “the danger has become too great, and for our own safety, we feel that we have no other choice but to return to the east coast. However, we have an encrypted notebook in our possession which we feel would be invaluable to your case.

“We will hide the notebook under the third flagstone from the left in the fireplace of a cabin up in Fairfax, CA. There is no address, but it’s the second building on a private, unmarked, and unpaved driveway off Iron Springs Road about 100 yards east of the junction with Timber Canyon Road.

“Please see included map.”

“Map?” Walter said.

“Yes,” Nina said, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a neatly folded map. She opened it and drew a neat red X to mark the location. “We can’t take chances that he might not find the cabin.”

“You are amazing,” Bell said. “Will you marry me?”

“Marriage is an outdated relic of patriarchal oppression,” Nina replied, arching a russet brow. “But if you ever need someone to run your business affairs, you just let me know.”

“Not to spoil your special moment,” Walter said, “but what are we going to do with our friend the Zodiac once he arrives? Chase him through the gate with harsh language?”

Nina reached into the box of chemicals that Bell had scored to mix the acid blend, and pulled out a large brown glass bottle.

“Chloroform,” she said. “As soon as he comes through the cabin door, we chloroform him and then toss him through the gate.”

“We’d need to seriously sedate him,” Bell said. “I mean, chloroform is fine for the initial knockout, but we’ll need to keep him under while we open the gate, and that will take time. It’s not like we can just flick a switch.”

“Definitely,” Walter said. “It’s been made terrifyingly clear that there’s a direct link between pain or heightened emotion and his strange radioactivity. We don’t want him going off like an atom bomb while we’re trying to put him through.”

“Agreed,” Bell said. “You go and drop off the trick letter and I’ll work on formulating an appropriate anesthesia blend for our friend. Meanwhile, Nina, we need you to talk to the band, and see if you can get them to join us at the cabin for another epic acid trip.”

“Free acid in a beautiful pastoral setting?” Nina smiled. “Won’t be that hard to convince them.”

“But...” Walter stood, pacing. He pictured dumb, sweet Abby sleeping on the couch downstairs. “I mean... well, it’s not exactly ethical to experiment on human subjects without making them aware of the potential dangers inherent to their participation.”

“It’s even less ethical to let this monster continue to kill without restraint, just because we got squeamish about ethics,” Bell countered. “This isn’t just an ordinary experiment, Walter.

“Besides,” he continued, “you were the one who always used to say that free acid for everyone would make the world a better place.”

“Nevertheless,” Nina said, “we don’t want to plant the note for the killer to find until we’re absolutely sure the band will be willing to participate in setting up our chemical trap. They have a gig tonight night at a club called the Downward Dog. We can talk to them when they get off.”

“Yes,” Bell said. “Meeting them after the show would be the best way to gather them all in one place and, more than likely, in an inebriated and agreeable mood.”

Walter remained silent. In spite of everything, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement at the prospect of seeing his favorite band live. While it was true that it would have been ideal to see them at the height of their fame, back in ’66, and that their psychedelic folk style was considered by many to be passé, his own inner teenage self was doing a little happy dance.

He hoped that they would play “Hovercraft Mother.”

Yet that excitement was tinged with guilt. He still felt that it was wrong to involve the band members in something so dangerous, and he would feel absolutely awful if something were to happen to one of his musical idols.

It was like mentally weighing the value of the band members’ lives against the lives of Miranda and all the other Zodiac victims yet to come. Could there really be a lesser of these two evils?

Unfortunately there was.

There was every chance that the band would come out of the experiment unharmed. But there was no question what would happen to Miranda if they didn’t send the Zodiac back to his own world.

“I suppose we don’t have a choice, do we?” Walter said.

“No,” Nina said. “We don’t.”

26

Having come to that decision about what had to be done, they still had a whole day to kill before the show at the Downward Dog. They were getting more than a little bit ragged around the edges, and Nina didn’t have to ask Walter to leave her bedroom so she could get some rest.

He staggered down the stairs and found Abby awake and bustling in the kitchen. He waved to her in a haze and collapsed on the couch that she had recently vacated. It was still warm from her body. Cat-Mandu snuggled up to him, seeming unfazed by this personnel change.

Within seconds, he fell soundly asleep.

* * *

He didn’t budge until Nina shook him gently awake several hours later.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s get some lunch. A little fuel to stimulate proper brain function. What do you say?”

Walter stood slowly, brushing an avalanche of cat hair off his sweater and pants. His brain felt as fuzzy as his clothes. He realized that he had slept in his shoes.

Nina took them to a restaurant called the Swan Oyster Bar. It was a narrow, almost claustrophobic place with a long marble counter and some of the smallest stools Walter had ever seen. He perched reluctantly on the tiny round wooden seat, not entirely confident that it would hold his weight.

The guy behind the counter was a jovial and burly fellow whose massive hands were surprisingly deft and delicate with the oysters. He shucked them from their rough shells with a practiced twist of the wrist, smiling and joking with the customers while he worked.

Walter himself was not a big fan of raw oysters, but he loved clam chowder and was pleased to see that they made it there just like they made it back home. He ordered a bowl, along with a large plate of Crab Louie. He tried to remember the last time he’d had a nice bowl of clam chowder, and couldn’t. It was as if his life had not existed before this whole Zodiac thing.

Nina and Bell shared a huge plate of oysters, and while Walter was tempted to make some kind of joke about the supposed aphrodisiac properties of the legendary bivalves, he just didn’t have the heart. In a strange way, this food felt almost like a last meal.

“I’ll tell you one other thing that is bothering me about all of this,” Bell said, pausing to slurp an oyster out of its shell.

One thing? Walter thought. More like everything.

“What’s that?” Nina asked, adding a dollop of horseradish to her cocktail sauce.

“Let’s say it works,” Bell said. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the band agrees to help us and the whole plan goes off without a hitch, and we send that bastard back where he came from. We will have saved an unknown number of lives, no doubt about that, but...” He downed another oyster. “We may never know exactly what he was or where he came from.”

“So what?” Walter said. “You’re saying we should be trying to capture him and study him? Try to turn him into some kind of profitable commodity? Or a weapon? Are we no better than Latimer?”

“I’m not saying that studying him is a feasible possibility,” Bell replied. “But aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about him?”

Walter looked down at the pink mess that remained of his Crab Louie, thinking of that heady moment where he’d actually considered going through the gate himself.

“Of course I’m curious!” he replied. “I couldn’t call myself a scientist if I wasn’t. I wonder about him constantly. Is he human? If not, what is he? What sort of world is he from? Another planet? Another universe? So many intriguing questions.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Nina asked, giving Bell an intense but wary look.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Bell said. “I realize that it would be impossibly dangerous to capture and study him. But I’m curious. That’s all I’m saying. I feel as if we’ve stumbled on something really astounding here. Something historic, on the order of splitting the atom. Something that I suspect might alter the course of all our lives, forever.”

He and Nina exchanged a complex look that Walter couldn’t even begin to interpret. He poked at a shred of crab on his plate, but he seemed to have lost his appetite.

He was afraid that Bell was probably right.

What was more, he wondered what would happen to that world on the other side, if they succeeded. Had he been radioactive before he came through the gate? Or were they saving their world by sending a killer to prey on victims in another?

He shook his head, but couldn’t dislodge the doubts.

* * *

They paid their bill at the oyster bar and headed back toward Nina’s house.

“Do you suppose he’s following us right now?” Walter asked, looking back over his shoulder.

“He must be,” Nina replied. “But stop looking around like that. We don’t want him to know that we’re on to him. If we tip our hand, he may go to ground or execute a preemptive strike against us. Possibly even kill us. The key here is to make him think that we are totally naive. Lull him into a false sense of security.”

“Yeah,” Bell said, elbowing Walter in the ribs. “Smile. Laugh. Act like you don’t have a care in the world.”

Walter cringed away from Bell’s prodding and then tried on a tentative smile for size. It seemed way too small, and tight in the corners.

“I just...” He started to look back over his shoulder again, but stopped himself. “It just feels creepy to know that someone is watching me.”

“Remember,” Nina said. “We want him to watch us.”

“If he’s not watching us,” Bell said, “then our whole plan goes right down the crapper.”

“Of course,” Walter said. “I understand. I just...”

They were passing an open-air newsstand, when all of a sudden, there was a loud rumble that shook the magazine racks. A spill of lurid men’s adventure and nudie magazines tumbled down and scattered across Walter’s path. He nearly jumped out of his skin, clinging to Bell’s arm like a scared little boy.

“My God!” he cried. “Is this some kind of residual telekinetic manifestation from the opening of the gate?”

Nina smiled and put a calming hand on Walter’s back.

“No, silly,” she said. “That’s just a garden variety earthquake. Nice one, probably about a four-point-oh. Welcome to California, boys.”

A pair of tall, broad-shouldered women in extremely high heels had been teetering toward Walter arm in arm when the tremor had hit. They’d paused for a moment, steadying each other against the concrete shimmy. When it was over, they exchanged knowing glances with Nina and the news vendor, an unspoken understanding shared between native San Franciscans and earthquake veterans, and then sashayed away down the street.

Nina and Bell both bent down to help the news vendor clean up his spilled inventory, but Walter had his hands full trying to slow his own panicked heartbeat. He’d never experienced an earthquake before, and couldn’t imagine that it was the kind of thing that he could ever get used to.

He looked up and down the block at the other denizens of the city. They all seemed utterly blasé about the whole thing. It was as if he was the only one who’d been the slightest bit scared.

He couldn’t help but wonder how the Zodiac felt about the quake.

* * *

Back at Nina’s place, Walter was playing with Cat-Mandu, dangling a piece of red and green yarn, when Nina came over to him carrying a shirt on a hanger and a pair of pants folded over one arm. The shirt had brown and purple stripes, big blousy sleeves and a large pointy collar. The pants were brown corduroy with a wale so wide he could have played with Matchbox cars in the grooves.

“You and Roscoe are about the same size,” Nina said. “He won’t mind if you borrow some of his threads for the concert tonight.”

“Oh,” Walter said, frowning at the flamboyant shirt. “Gee, thanks, but I’m okay like this.”

Bell appeared behind her in an entirely new outfit, a western-style shirt with red floral stripes and jeans that were a little too loose in the waist and a little too short in the leg.

“Walter,” Bell said, “she’s just too polite to tell you that you stink. Take the clean clothes and go have a shower, will you? And wash that hair of yours while you’re in there.”

Walter frowned, pulled a pinch of his sweater up to his face and sniffed it. It smelled fine to him, but he figured he’d better humor their hostess.

“I’m still going to wear my own jacket,” Walter warned, accepting the clothes. “It’s lucky.”

Bell rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Trust me,” he said to Nina. “I’ve been trying to get Walter out of that jacket for ten years. It’s a lost cause.”

27

The Downward Dog was a tiny hole-in-the-wall that was barely visible from the street, and made even less visible by the massive throng of brightly clad men and women waiting to get into the crowded disco next door.

Nina led Walter and Bell down a long, narrow stairway and into the basement club where Violet Sedan Chair would be playing. The powerful funk of old beer and smoke—both legal and otherwise—was as thick as the San Francisco fog in the low-ceilinged venue. A long bar ran the length of the right-hand side, a rococo, turn-of-the-century relic that might have been billed as “antique” if it wasn’t in such sorry condition. Its once sleek wooden hide was now scarred and patchy, disfigured with cigarette burns and scratched-in initials.

Behind it, the bartender looked just as old and just as badly treated.

All four walls and even the tin ceiling were covered by layer after layer of old posters advertising bands like Country Joe and the Fish, Captain Beefheart, Moby Grape, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Mothers of Invention. The posters were nicotine stained and curling at the edges, and the most recent of them was dated five years earlier.

There was something sad about the place, as if it had been shoved aside by its gaudy, more popular neighbor. The disco music from next door thumped through the walls, rubbing it in.

There was a small but devoted crowd waiting for Violet Sedan Chair to go on stage. Primarily single men, but a few couples and one large group of boisterous women who seemed to have come together. The men all had beards and granny glasses and colorful headbands. The women all had ironed hair, handmade patchwork dresses, and blissed-out expressions. This crowd was clearly immune to disco fever.

Walter fit right in.

Nina spotted Abby sitting on the corner of the stage at the far end of the room, smoking a joint and talking to another pregnant woman, a plump and pretty brunette with pale freckled skin and very pale blue eyes. She wore a white macramé halter-top under a weird, shaggy blue coat that made her look like she had skinned one of the monsters on Sesame Street. There was a peace sign painted on her exposed and swollen belly.

“Oh, hey,” Abby said when she saw them. “So great that you were able to make it. Roscoe will be thrilled.” She leaned in. “You know how he gets if there aren’t enough people at a show.”

She held out the joint. Nina waved it away, but Walter accepted it.

“Thanks,” he said.

“This is my friend Sandy,” Abby said. “We’re both due at the same time, around the end of next month. We were just wondering if we would have Libra babies or Scorpios. I’m hoping little Bobby will be a Libra. Scorpios can be so resentful.”

“Yeah,” Sandy said. “But Scorpios are so brooding and sexy! Charles Bronson is a Scorpio.”

“That just proves my point,” Abby replied. “Look how he went and killed all those criminals after his wife was murdered. That’s such a total Scorpio thing to do.”

“So,” Nina interrupted, looking vaguely annoyed. “Is the band set to go on soon?”

“They should be,” Abby said. “Chick is late again.”

All this talk about astrology was making Walter think of the Zodiac Killer, and how desperately they needed their crazy plan to work. It seemed like the marijuana was making him feel more edgy, and not less. He passed the joint to Bell.

Bell took a hit off of it and passed it back to Abby.

“You ladies want anything from the bar?” Bell asked.

“No, thanks,” Abby said.

“You should have a beer,” Sandy said. “The hops are supposed to help you produce more nutritious breast milk.”

“Really?” Abby said. She turned back to Bell. “Well, then, we’ll take two beers.”

“Nina?” Bell asked.

“Whisky sour,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Want a beer, Walt?”

Walter shook his head.

“No thanks, Belly,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Bell headed over to the bar to get the drinks while Abby wet her fingers, put out what was left of the joint and dropped the roach into her tiny beaded purse.

“Oh, look,” she said, pointing to a doorway at the back of the stage. “Here they come.”

The band took the stage to enthusiastic cheers from the small but vocal crowd. Roscoe was dressed in a dragon-print Oriental jacket with no shirt underneath and white bell-bottom pants. He winked at Abby as he sat down at the keyboard and adjusted the mike to the level of his smirking lips. Behind him, Chick Spivy was wearing a dark green suede suit and snakeskin boots, slinging his famous hand-painted Les Paul over his shoulder and waving, a big stoned grin on his beaming face.

Next up were Oregon Dave and Alex, dressed twinlike in jeans and matching shirts. Dave’s shirt was blue with red stars and Alex’s was red with blue stars. Last up was Iggy, resplendent in royal purple bell-bottoms and a ruffled white shirt, open to his navel to unleash his thick, brambly chest hair.

He sat behind his drum kit and looked over at Roscoe, who in turn looked over at each of the other members, then nodded. Iggy clicked his sticks together and then they broke into a slower, dirtier, funked-up version of “She’s Doing Fine.”

Walter cheered freely, so happy in that moment in such a pure and uncomplicated way. It was a miracle to him that something as simple as music had the power to take away all his worries and anxiety, and transport him back to a better place. He’d been a college freshman when he first heard Violet Sedan Chair’s seminal album Seven Suns, and it had opened his mind as surely as the acid he’d dropped for the first time that same year.

Life had seemed so different back then, so full of magic and potential. He’d been convinced that things were really going to change for the better, that love and music really could defeat fear and war. But then, somehow, it had all turned dark and ugly. Acid, mushrooms, and marijuana had been replaced with speed, cocaine, and heroin. Hippies were replaced by Hell’s Angels. The gentle, open-minded spirituality and self-exploration of the late sixties had degenerated into the hard-partying glitter and hedonism of the seventies.

Their musical idols were dying, and being steadily replaced by plastic corporate pop stars and super groups.

Yet here Walter was, basking in the musical genius of one of his personal heroes, on a par with Tesla and Einstein. The incomparable Roscoe Joyce was in rare form on stage, coaxing new resonance and meaning from old hits and exploring uncharted territory in selections from a complex and profoundly spiritual rock opera that Walter had never heard before.

He glanced over at Bell, unable to stop smiling, and noticed that his friend seemed a little bored by the concert, checking his watch and looking impatient as Iggy thundered off into yet another ten-minute drum solo. Didn’t Bell appreciate the layered complexity and meaning in this music? He’d seemed to like the band well enough when Walter had first played “Seven Suns” for him back in 1966. And he’d been intrigued by the rumor of the lost track “Greenmana” and its supposed hallucinogenic effect.

Now, he just looked annoyed.

Walter felt a sudden hot rush of embarrassment, and even guilt. Of course Bell was impatient. Walter should be, too. They weren’t in the club to enjoy music. They were there to convince Roscoe and the band to help them defeat a dangerous killer.

* * *

“Thank you!” Roscoe howled into the mike, fist in the air as he got up from his keyboard bench.

“Thank God,” Bell muttered under his breath as the band put down their instruments and left the stage. But Walter knew they would never end the set without doing “Seven Suns.” That was their one commercial hit, the one song that they were best known for. Besides, if they were really done, they would have taken their instruments with them.

Sure enough, less than a minute later the band came back up onto the stage, hands in the air. The small crowd made up for their lack of numbers with wild enthusiasm, cheering and chanting.

“Se-ven Suns! Se-ven Suns! Se-ven Suns! Se-ven Suns! Se-ven Suns!”

“You have got to be kidding,” Bell said, rolling his eyes.

“You can’t get rid of us that easy,” Roscoe said, grinning into the mike. “This song is a little ditty I wrote a few years back. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

Alone on the keyboard, he broke into the first bar of “Seven Suns” and the crowd went crazy, hollering and cheering. The rest of the band joined in and the crowd started to quiet down, swaying together as if hypnotized. Abby and her pregnant friend Sandy sang along, loud and off-key, as the song ebbed and flowed like a tide over the ecstatic crowd.

Bell and Nina were the only ones who were unswayed.

Walter found himself wondering if the Zodiac might have been so brazen as to follow them into the venue. He couldn’t see the bespectacled killer as he scanned the faces of the crowd, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

He wondered if the killer was enjoying the music, too, or if he was even capable of enjoying anything other than killing.

* * *

On the album, Walter was pretty sure that the song was about four minutes long, but more than fifteen minutes had passed and the band showed no signs of wrapping it up any time soon. He actually found himself getting impatient, and if that was the case, Bell must have been crawling out of his skin.

* * *

It was nearly a full hour and six encores later when the band finally gathered up their instruments and left the stage for good. With Walter and Bell in tow, Nina immediately pushed her way through the crowd and through a beaded curtain to a doorway that led backstage.

“Backstage” was probably a fancier name than the area deserved. The band was hanging out behind the stage, so Walter had to give it that, but his idea of what it might be like to be “backstage” with his favorite band wasn’t anything like this.

It was more like a vestibule with a crooked mirror bolted to one wall and crates of booze and beer kegs lining the other. A forlorn yellow plaid loveseat that was missing all but one of its threadbare cushions had been shoved into a corner, and a trio of spindly wooden folding chairs had been placed beneath the mirror.

The guys were all laughing and joking and putting away their instruments. Several joints were being passed both directions around the room. Two of the girls from the large group had found their way backstage and were giggling and flirting with Alex and Chick.

Abby was there, too, arms locked possessively around Roscoe’s skinny waist.

“Little Bobby loves ‘Seven Suns’,” she was telling him. “He always kicks when you play it.”

“Hey,” Roscoe said when he spotted Walter and Bell. “It’s the professors!” He grinned and passed a joint to Walter. “Did you dig that last song? It’s called ‘Gateway,’ and it came to me during that amazing trip we had with you guys. Just came to me, to all of us like it was already written. We barely even had to rehearse, we just knew it, man. We felt it—you dig?”

“That’s fascinating,” Walter said, taking a hit off the joint. “Do you have any plans to record it? I’d love to study the structure in depth.”

“Walter,” Bell said, taking the joint out of his hand and raising his eyebrows.

“Ah, yes,” Walter said with a slight frown. “Well...”

He had thought that Nina was going to talk the band into helping, since she was already friends with them. He’d had no idea that he would be called upon to do the convincing.

“Say, professor,” Roscoe interrupted. “You got any more of that righteous special blend of yours? I feel like ‘Gateway’ is just the tip of the iceberg, man. I can sense a whole concept album in there, just waiting for me to plug in, you know? I feel like this is exactly what the band needs to take us to a higher level.”

Walter looked over at Nina and Bell, shaking his head in disbelief. This was almost too easy.

“I tell you what,” Walter said. “We’re planning another telepathy experiment tomorrow.”

“We were wondering if we could use that old cabin that belongs to Chick’s parents,” Nina said. “You know, the one up in Fairfax?”

“Oh, yeah,” Chick said. “My folks never go up there this late in the year, it’ll just be sitting there empty.”

“Perfect,” Nina replied. “We’ll head up there first thing—what do you say?”

“That sounds groovy,” Abby said. “Can me and little Bobby come along?”

“Not for this one, Abby,” Nina said. “This particular blend has certain ingredients that may not be safe for unborn children.”

“Oh,” she said in small voice. “Well, I could just help out then...”

“While we appreciate your offer,” Bell said, using his deep, soothing voice to maximum effect, “in this particular experiment, we’ve had problems with preexisting relationships affecting the telepathic connections that are formed under the influence of the blend.”

“Yes, yes,” Walter agreed, thrilled with what Bell had contrived. “We can’t risk one of the subjects bonding with a mind outside the circle. For experimental purposes, we need to make sure that no external influences are allowed to skew the results.”

“It’s okay, starshine,” Roscoe said, pushing a lock of Abby’s hair behind her ear. “You stay here in the city and keep the home fires burning. And when I get back, I’ll sing you a new song.”

“Okay,” Abby said. “Can we get pancakes now?”

“Pancakes,” Walter said. “Splendid idea.”

* * *

Alex and Chick took off with their two new lady friends to hit a different bar down the street, but Roscoe, Abby, Iggy and Dave, along with the other pregnant girl Sandy, all walked a few blocks to an all-night diner called Plucky’s Waffle Inn. The place was jam-packed with disco queens and hippies alike, and the ancient and unflappable woman who was the only waitress in the place seemed equally amused by all of them.

Not that it really mattered to Walter, but over the course of their late-night, early-morning breakfast, he found himself trying to figure out which, if any, of the band members might be the father of Sandy’s child. She seemed equally flirty and friendly with everyone, including him. He wasn’t so uptight as to be scandalized by an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, but he had to admit he was curious.

Not curious enough to come right out and ask her, though.

Besides, it was far more enjoyable to discuss music and mind-expanding drugs. Roscoe was ferociously smart, and full of new ideas in how the two can be combined to intensify the effects.

“Music is primal,” he was saying. “It plugs directly into that central core of human consciousness. It goes beyond language, beyond any division between the self and the other.”

“There’s been some really exciting work done on the effect of music on catatonic patients, as well as those suffering from severe forms of dementia,” Walter said. “Are you familiar with the L-DOPA trials performed on patients with encephalitis, by a young neurologist named Doctor Oliver Sacks? He published a book about it, came out just last year. Absolutely fascinating stuff.”

“I’ll have to check it out,” Roscoe replied. “Who’s got the boysenberry syrup?”

“I do,” Walter said, holding up the little jug and giving his pancakes an extra drizzle before passing it over.

He would have been happy to stay all night in that diner, discussing a wide variety of intellectually stimulating theories and enjoying good, home-style food, but he couldn’t forget what they were planning to attempt tomorrow—today, actually. How everyone would be at risk, and how much was riding on their success.

Roscoe and the other band members continued to joke and horse around on the walk back to Nina’s place, but Walter found himself quietly introspective, lagging a little bit behind the others. Until he remembered that the Zodiac Killer was probably still following them.

He quickened his pace to catch up with Nina and Bell.

28

The next morning—more like afternoon, actually— Nina shook Walter awake again, this time with the typewritten note for the killer in her hand.

“It’s time,” she said. “You have to plant the note before we leave for the cabin, or none of this is going to work.”

“Right now?” Walter said, rubbing sleep from his dry eyes.

“Yes,” Nina said. “Right now. Remember, there is no prearranged drop spot, so it doesn’t matter where you leave the note. Just make it look like you’re trying to be secretive. Make sure you go slow, and be obvious enough to be easily followed.”

He sat up and noticed that Abby, bless her, had made tea for everyone. He helped himself to a steaming cup as he slipped his feet into his shoes.

“All right,” he said, shuffling toward the front door. “Right now. I just hope this works.”

* * *

Allan watched from across the street as the curly haired hippie in the baggy tweed jacket left Miss Nina Sharp’s house alone, and headed west. He hesitated, just for a moment, then followed. Of the three, this was the one who interested him the most. The one to whom he’d felt the closest that night at Reiden Lake. The one he planned to kill last.

The hippie was clearly up to something. He was anxious, constantly scanning the street and jumping every time a car passed, but Allan wasn’t worried that he would be spotted. He lingered nearly a block behind, blending into the crowd. They passed a busy hamburger stand, a beauty parlor, and a head shop, around a series of seemingly random corners, and then doubling back.

But Allan was a seasoned hunter, and couldn’t be shaken that easily.

Then the hippie suddenly dashed across the street and down a narrow alley. Allan followed at a safe distance, leisurely and unruffled as if he had all the time in the world to get to his destination. He strolled slowly past the mouth of the alley, peering casually down its length.

The hippie had his back turned to Allan, and seemed to be counting barred windows as he walked very slowly down the alleyway. When he arrived under the seventh window, he stopped, crouched down and slipped something under a concrete block. Then he stood and continued on until he was out the other end.

Allan waited a few beats before entering the alley himself, then made his way over to the seventh window. He lifted the concrete block and spotted a folded note and a wrinkled map.

He unfolded the note. Read it. Smiled.

Things just got a whole lot more interesting.

29

Walter was still so tired that he wound up falling asleep in the back seat of the rented tan Buick LeSabre, before they even made it out of San Francisco. When he woke they were on a narrow winding road, passing through deep, green woods. It felt almost like time travel, as if he’d fallen asleep in 1974 and awakened in pre-colonial times, before the intrusion of European industry into the primeval forests of America.

The day was sunny, the windows were down, and the sharp, piney scent of the clean crisp air was uplifting and refreshing. He found he could almost forget about all the pain and death and madness.

Almost.

Nina turned off the main road and onto a bumpy, unpaved dirt track that bounced Walter around like popcorn in the back seat. He clung to the back of Bell’s seat, peering anxiously over his shoulder. The brightly painted bus carrying the members of the band was no longer following them.

“Are you sure this is the right road?” he asked.

“We can’t very well park right in front of the cabin,” Nina said. “The killer would see the car and know someone was inside. Even though he wouldn’t recognize the rental, the cabin still has to look empty. So we’ll ditch the car down below, and walk up.”

“What about Roscoe and the band?”

“They’re headed straight up to the lodge up on the top of the ridge,” Nina said. “Once we have the killer bound and sedated, we’ll contact them via the walkie-talkies and have them join us for the gate-opening trip.”

Nina pulled the big beast of a car into a weedy turnout in front of the burnt-out husk of some kind of structure. She killed the engine, and the three of them just sat there quietly for a minute, listening to oblivious birds and the soothing shush of wind in pine branches. It seemed so strange to Walter that the world around them just kept on keeping on, everything ordinary and normal, as if they weren’t about to commit this unthinkable offense against the very fabric of reality.

He rolled up the window and got out of the car, slinging the duffle bag full of supplies over one shoulder.

The walk up to the cabin was steep and roundabout, zigzagging back and forth along the safest, most stable ground. Nina took the determined lead, with Bell right behind her and Walter bringing up the rear. The bag on his shoulder was growing impossibly heavy by the time they reached the low, sloping back yard.

It was less like the old-fashioned log cabin Walter had pictured in his mind, and more like a small, rustic house. It was long and narrow, with a mossy stone chimney, weathered, grayish siding and a tall, A-frame roof.

They followed Nina around to the front door, which she opened with a large, old-fashioned key.

Inside, it was dim and dusty, furnished with minimal, utilitarian furniture that included a pair of tough plaid chairs set next to an oversized fireplace, and a hand-hewn wooden table. There was a really hideous lamp made from antlers, but Nina stopped Walter from flipping the switch to turn it on.

“Leave it,” she said, taking a small flashlight from her purse and thumbing it to life.

The curtains were closed, so the light was dim. The weak yellow illumination from the flashlight made the interior of the cabin seem more gloomy, rather than less. Dust spun and danced in the beam as Nina crouched down in front of the fireplace and pried up the third flagstone from the left.

When it finally came loose in her hand, she blew away the dust and replaced the stone loosely and slightly crooked.

“So,” Bell said. “He comes in through the door...”

“Right,” Nina said. “He comes in through the door and goes right for the fireplace. We should wait there.” She pointed to a dark doorway. “In the bedroom. When we hear him come in...”

“I grab him from behind,” Bell said.

“And I’ll put the rag with the chloroform over his mouth and nose,” Walter said.

“Then I cuff him and bind his legs together with duct tape,” Nina said.

“While I prepare and administer the sedative,” Bell finished.

“What’s through there?” Walter asked, gesturing to a second dark arched doorway.

“Kitchen and back door,” Nina replied.

“So that’s that,” Walter said. “We are as ready as we can be. All we have to do now is wait.”

30

Waiting, however, turned out to be more difficult than they had anticipated. With no real idea of when the killer would arrive, and no way to watch for his arrival without exposing that they were there, the three of them were forced to sit in the bedroom, away from any windows, and try to remain on alert for what soon started to feel like an eternity.

For the first hour, none of them could relax enough to do anything but sit and stare distractedly at each other. Nina on the bed, Bell in an old rocker, and Walter sitting on an old leather trunk with a musty moth-eaten blanket folded to form a meager cushion. They jumped at every sound, the settling of the cabin or the creaking of a tree branch outside.

By the second hour, Nina was flipping through old issues of Field & Stream magazine that she had found on the bedside table, while Bell and Walter were playing chess on a pocket set Bell had brought. They were so distracted by listening to the sounds of the cabin that they kept forgetting whose turn it was.

By hour three, Nina lay on the bed with an arm flung over her eyes, though judging from her breathing and body position, Walter didn’t think she was actually asleep. He and Bell had finally given up on chess after three stalemates. Bell had read through all the Field & Stream issues and had resorted to searching for the hidden pictures on the back of a copy of Highlights magazine for children.

“Is that a fish?” he asked. “Or a water stain?”

* * *

Soon dusk fell over the little cabin, and Nina was anxious that any light would give them away. So they were forced to sit in the dark, waiting.

Walter tried to nap, but his brain would not allow it. Instead, he pulled the musty old blanket over his head and turned on the flashlight, like he used to do when he was a boy, up late and reading under the covers long past bedtime. He knew that if even the tiniest sliver of light appeared, Nina would take it away from him.

He took out the photocopies he’d made of the pages from the killer’s notebook and laid them on the floor around him, trying to figure out the key for that last fragment of text.

He got nowhere.

He had hoped that the keyword was in some way related to the word for the already translated page, whether phonetically, thematically, or structurally, but if it was, he could not discover the connection.

Then he went back into the file from Iverson, and starting reexamining the original cryptogram included in the August 1969 letters—the ones that had been sent to the newspapers. The code that had been solved by the teachers.

I like killing people because it is so much fun.

At the end of that message, a grouping of 18 extra letters whose meaning or significance had never been determined.

EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

Strange, when the rest of the message had been based on a relatively simple substitution code. But the way these last letters were grouped, there was no way they fit in.

In fact, the more Walter stared at them, the clearer it became that this segment had been created with a code so complex that each letter had more than one meaning. That first E was clearly an I, but then the second and third E seemed to have a totally different meaning.

I am? Could those first three letters spell out “I am?”

Walter concentrated on that third E. If there was a sliding key being used, then what was the numerical distance between the letter I and the letter M? Five. Move five more letters down the alphabet and you get R. But then at the fourth E, the key seemed to switch again, leaving him with a D.

Frustrated, he went back to the O-R-I, and after several false starts and aborted attempts, he wound up with S-C-H, which he added to the letters he’d already deduced.

I AM SCHR_D_________

That couldn’t be right. It seemed as if he was stuck with too many consonants in a row, and couldn’t think of any English words that began with SCHR. He decided to tackle the last three letters, I-T-I.

If the Es did not have the same value, then the Is must not, either. It seemed to Walter that the last I was actually a T, but the neighboring T seemed to be an A.

The number of three-letter English words ending in AT was enormous. Bat, rat, mat, sat, hat, fat, cat...

Cat.

I AM SCHR_D______CAT

Like lightning, it hit him. There was only one thing it could be, only one way to make those seemingly unrelated letters spell something. Something eerily apropos.

I am Schrodinger’s cat.

“My God,” he said out loud, throwing the blanket off his head and shoulders.

Bell looked up, squinting at the sudden light. Nina raised her head from the pillow and opened her eyes.

“Are you crazy?” she hissed. “Turn that off!”

“What is it?” asked Bell.

Walter ignored both of them and grabbed the photocopy of the final page in the killer’s diary, honing in on the final untranslated chunk. Using the word Schrodinger as the key he tore through the final segment, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle as he translated.

Walter held up the translation, his hands shaking.

“It’s details of his next murder.”

Nina took the translation from Walter and read out loud.

“I think I shall wait until the following Monday night. Pretty little Miranda Coleman, usherette at the Roxie Theater, works late on Monday nights. She leaves at eleven thirty and walks alone to the lot where she parks her car on Hoff street. She will die at 11:40 p.m. next Monday the twenty-fifth of September.”

And those same English words scratched furiously into the page.

BY KNIFE

Bell stood, setting the rocker rocking.

“Why that’s...” He looked at his watch. “A little more than two hours from now.”

Nina jumped up from the bed, letting Walter’s translation seesaw through the air and land at his feet.

“Then we have to go,” she said. “Now! We have to stop him!”

“But what about...” Walter gestured around with pleading hands. “What about the plan. The trap. He...”

Nina rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be a fool, Walter,” she said. “Why would the Zodiac disrupt his plans for us? Unless he’s desperately impatient, there’s no real reason he would need to come get the book today. If his next victim only works late one day a week, then he’d have to wait seven more days to kill her. Why would he do that, when he can just come up and get the book after she’s dead?”

“Nina’s right,” Bell said. “Having intercepted our supposed note to Iverson, our killer will be confident that no one will be coming for it. Which means he doesn’t have to hurry. He can retrieve the journal any time. Which means he’s going to kill that girl in two hours, and we’ve been waiting in vain for him to walk through the door.”

From the main room came the low, haunted-house sound of the creaky old front door swinging slowly open.

31

Walter jumped as if someone had stuck him with a cattle prod, and hooded the flashlight with his palm. Bell stepped back and nearly tripped over the rocker. Nina clamped a hand over her mouth then pointed at their tools.

“The chloroform!” she whispered. “Get it!”

Walter went to the duffle bag and traded the flashlight for the chloroform bottle and a rag. Soft steps and shifting noises came from the main room. He made certain the cap on the bottle was loose enough to open easily at the very last minute, but not loose enough that fumes could escape and overwhelm him.

His hands were shaking so badly, he was afraid he might drop the bottle. Nina grabbed the handcuffs and duct tape while Bell got out the syringe and started to prepare the chemical cocktail that would keep the killer unconscious long enough for them to put him through the gate.

“Ready?” Nina whispered.

“I suppose so,” Walter said.

“Come on,” Bell said.

Walter crept to the door, chloroform and cloth held together in one hand, reaching for the knob with the other. They had deliberately left it open a crack so that they would be able to surreptitiously peer into the main room and see when the killer was bending to check under the flagstone.

Walter looked through the crack.

The light had been switched on in the main room, but no one was at the fireplace.

Where was the killer?

There was a footfall just on the other side of the door. Walter stepped back, his breath catching, and bumped into Bell.

The door swung open and Chick stuck his head in.

“Hey, hey, cats and kittens,” he said. His gaze dipped to the handcuffs in Nina’s hands and he flashed a wink and a sly smile. “Oh, wow, kinky!”

Walter couldn’t imagine what he was referring to, but clearly both Nina and Bell did, since they turned matching shades of magenta.

Nina elbowed past Walter and shoved the newcomer back into the living room.

“Never mind, Chick,” she said. “What the hell are you doing down here? We told you to stay up in the main lodge until we called you on the walkie-talkies.”

Chick looked sheepish.

“Well, you know,” he said. “You told us we were gonna get some more of your special acid, but we were getting bored just sitting around waiting. You said it was only gonna be a little while, and it’s been ages. So we thought we’d come down and see how things were going. I didn’t mean to...”

“We?” Nina said.

Chick shrugged toward the front door. Roscoe and Alex were standing on the porch sharing a joint. Out in the rocky front yard, Dave and Iggy were playing with a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee, missing more often then they caught it. Alex had an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder and gave a little wave, smiling the slow sleepy grin of the perpetually stoned.

“We didn’t want to bug you, man,” Chick said. “But we didn’t want to miss the party either.”

The other band members snickered and elbowed each other, and Walter realized they were all stoned out of their gourds. While he and Bell and Nina had been down here in the small cabin, chewing their nails to the quick with tension, up in the lodge, the band had been getting apocalyptically hammered.

Nina started shooing Chick toward the door.

“I don’t care how bored you are,” she said. “You guys can’t be down here right now. We’re still getting things ready. Now go back up and wait until we...”

“Getting things ready with handcuffs and chloroform?” Some real worry was cutting through Chick’s stoned bemusement. “I thought this was supposed to be some kind of peaceful shamanistic mind-expansion thing, so we could see into...”

He was cut off by a booming megaphone splitting the quiet mountain air, and a voice as deep and loud as the cartoon voice of God.

“This is the FBI,” it said.

Walter knew that phony snake-oil-salesman’s voice. It was Special Agent Dick Latimer.

What the hell is he doing here? How could he have found us?

“The cabin is surrounded,” Latimer said. “Step onto the porch and stay there, keeping your hands where we can see them.”

32

The disembodied order elicited exactly the opposite of the intended effect. It was like firing a shot at a tree full of pigeons. The guys in the band flew every which way at once, their sleepy calm instantly shattered and twisted into pot-fueled paranoia.

Iggy, the drummer, shoved past Nina into the cabin, swearing and hurrying for the bathroom.

“Gotta flush my stash!” he said.

Roscoe and Chick raced back up the path to the lodge. Alex and Oregon Dave ran in the opposite direction, down the gravel road that led to the state highway.

Men in dark suits burst from the bushes and swarmed after them. The door of the cabin slammed open and two agents came in, guns drawn. Walter ducked back into the bedroom, but the two agents ignored him and started to bang on the bathroom door instead.

“Occupado, man!” Iggy yelled from the other side. “Occupado!”

Walter and Bell stared at each other in fear and disbelief.

“How... how did this happen?” Bell asked. “Our note to Iverson was a fake. And even if it wasn’t, the killer got it, right? Not the FBI.”

“He must have realized it was a trap,” Walter said, figuring it out as he said it. “He knew we would be waiting for him, and so he dropped a dime to the feds, so to speak. Telling them we were here, knowing we would have the acid.”

“Well, I’m not sticking around waiting to get arrested,” Nina said, pulling the gun from her purse. “Come on, you two. Put everything in the duffle and let’s go. We’ve got to get to the car.”

“But... but...” Walter stuttered. “But we’re surrounded!”

“They’re busy chasing after the guys in the band,” she insisted. “This is our only chance.”

Walter put the bottle of chloroform aside and then snatched up his photocopies, notes, and Iverson’s file, and stuffed them into the duffle bag. He checked around the room for any other personal items as Bell tossed in the cuffs and sedatives, zipped the bag up, and slung it over his shoulder.

“Right,” she said. “Through the kitchen and out the back. Let’s go.”

“The back? There are FBI agents...”

“I told you, they’ve got their hands full,” she said. “Come on.”

Walter almost forgot the chloroform and grabbed it at the last second before following Nina and Bell out of the bedroom.

She did seem to be right about the agents having their hands full, struggling with the vociferous Iggy inside the tiny bathroom.

“I got nothing, man!” he was shouting. “Nothing! See? There ain’t no call to be hassling a man while he’s on the crapper!”

Walter looked over Nina’s shoulder as she paused at the back door, peering out through the gingham curtains of a nearby window.

“Damn,” she hissed. “Two more out back.”

Walter looked out through the gap in the curtains. In the ambient light cast by the moon, he could see that she was right. Two more figures stood in the back yard, guns drawn, covering the back door. One of them was recognizable as the gray man who had picked up Walter and Bell at the Howard Johnson.

Walter still had the bottle of chloroform in his hand.

“Nina,” he said, holding up the chloroform. “Do you have any nail polish remover in your purse?”

“Acetone?” Her eyes went wide. “Genius!” She fished a small bottle from her purse and handed it over.

“Duct tape!” he called, like a surgeon asking for a scalpel.

Bell pulled out the tape and slapped it into Walter’s hand. Walter tore off a large strip and used it to bind the two bottles together. He loosened the cap on the nail polish remover in the hopes that even if the bottles didn’t break on impact, at least the caps would be knocked off, allowing the two chemicals to mix and react explosively.

The use of chemistry to make weapons flew in the face of his principles, so he’d never actually tried this before.

But theoretically it should work.

“Get the door on three,” Walter said to Bell. “One... Two...” His hands were sweaty, making the bottles slick and difficult to hold. “Three!”

Bell pulled the door open and Walter threw the makeshift bomb out into the back yard. The two agents dove for cover as the bottles came sailing out and plopped down in the center of the yard.

Nothing happened.

The agents got slowly back to their feet, cautiously eyeballing the object. Both bottles were intact but leaking, generating a thready plume of foul-smelling toxic smoke, but no big exciting explosion like the one Walter had hoped for.

“Good try, Walter,” Nina said, hand on his shoulder. “Now get back. Away from the windows.”

Walter did as she suggested as she aimed her gun out through the crack in the door.

“You can’t just shoot FBI agents!” Bell said. “That’s got to be a felony or something!”

“Who says I’m going to shoot any FBI agents?” she replied with a smirk.

She shot the bottle of chloroform.

That did it.

The resulting explosion rattled the old windows in their frames, and bathed the whole back of the cabin in bewitching blue-white light. The sound was flat and hollow, like someone dropping a fifty gallon drum off a skyscraper.

“GO!” Nina shouted. She shouldered the door open, jumped down the back steps, and started running straight for the woods. Bell was right behind her, and as scared as Walter was, he wasn’t about to be left alone.

Out in the scorched yard, the two agents were down on the ground, arms flung up to protect their faces. He couldn’t tell if they’d thrown themselves to the ground on purpose, or had their feet knocked out from under them. There was a large circle of grass burning in the center of the yard, and it looked almost cheerful, like they should gather around it and toast marshmallows. The fire turned their shadows into long leggy monsters as they ran.

They all made it into the trees with no shots fired.

“Which way?” Bell asked.

“Down and left!” Nina said. “Hurry!”

The two men plunged after her down the leaf-slick slope, dodging mossy trees and jutting boulders as someone—presumably one or more armed agents— thrashed through the ground cover behind them. Walter had no intention of looking back to see who it was.

He was glad Nina seemed to know where she was going. He remembered they had parked the car at the end of an overgrown track that led to that burnt-out shack, but he didn’t have the slightest clue where that was in relation to the cabin. It was hard enough to avoid getting lost in the familiar halls of MIT. Out in the dark woods, he was worse than useless.

From behind and above, Latimer’s voice squawked through the megaphone again.

“No point in running, Bishop! Bell! We know where you live. We know where you work. You’ve got no place to go. All you’re doing is prolonging the inevitable!”

“Just keep going,” Nina hissed.

Walter was panting like a dog, his heart hammering. The running. The panic. It was too much. He didn’t think he could take it anymore.

Nina slid down an embankment and stumbled on ahead. Walter and Bell crashed down after her, clinging to each other to keep from falling. When they reached the bottom, teetering and pinwheeling their arms for balance, an agent stepped out from behind a tree, flicking on a flashlight, his gun drawn.

He was surprisingly young, with lots of fluffy blond hair that vigorously defied whatever grooming products he’d used to try and tame it, but his face was cold and serious.

“Drop your weapons,” he said, tipping his chin at Nina’s pistol.

They were caught. Their backs were against the U-shaped embankment they’d just tumbled down, and the only way out was past the agent.

33

Nina let her gun drop to the leafy forest floor and slowly raised her hands. Walter felt a terrible desperation welling up like bile in his throat as he thought of Miranda, the usherette at the theater who would die in less than two hours if they couldn’t get to her first.

There was a quick blur of movement between the trees. The blond agent crumpled first to his knees, then awkwardly to his side.

Behind him was the shadowy form of Special Agent Iverson, trench coat flapping open and a gun held butt-first in his right hand. He knelt beside his pistol-whipped associate and checked his vitals.

“He’ll be fine,” Iverson said. “Go on.”

“Thanks!” Walter said. “How can we ever repay you for saving us again?”

“You want to repay me?” he asked. “Whatever you do, don’t let Latimer capture the Zodiac. He’s become obsessed, and can’t be reasoned with. He thinks Zodiac is the ultimate nuclear weapon, and all he cares about is controlling him. It’s up to you three to prevent it.”

The fallen agent groaned, eyelids fluttering as he struggled to regain consciousness.

“Now go. Run!”

The enormity of what Iverson was saying barely had time to sink in before Nina grabbed Walter’s hand and pulled him away.

“You heard the man,” she said. “Come on, Walter. Run! We’re almost there.”

A moment later, Walter could hear Iverson’s voice up above.

“They have another accomplice!” he cried. “Caucasian male, thirties, about six one and bald, with a beard. I saw him sap Davis, and then the four of them ran off, that way!”

There were more agents thundering through the trees, but farther back and up the slope to the left, misled by Iverson’s ruse. Walter lurched after Nina and Bell, chest heaving, as they dodged through a thick stand of young elms. He saw something dark ahead of them, beyond the trees, which quickly resolved itself into the blackened timbers and tar paper walls of the ruined shack. The nose of the rented car stuck out from behind its far corner.

They ran to it, hopping over charred debris, opened the doors and threw themselves in, Nina and Bell in front and Walter in back. Nina jammed the key into the ignition and cranked it.

The big V8 roared to life.

She dropped the shift into drive and stomped on the gas. It was too much. The tires spun in the leaf mold and mud, going nowhere.

Two agents were crashing through the elms. Walter could tell by the glint of moonlight that they had guns out.

“Easy,” Bell said.

“I got it,” Nina said. “Got it.”

She let up on the accelerator and tried again, more slowly this time. The wheels caught. They were rolling.

An agent grabbed at the car, catching a side-view mirror and smacking the driver’s side window with the butt of his gun, starring it. Nina sped up, roaring down the narrow track, and the agent let go as a tree threatened to scrape him off. The other agent skidded to a stop behind them and fired.

Walter and Bell ducked, but Walter heard no impact, and the next second they had taken a curve. The agents were out of sight.

“Not out of the woods yet,” Nina muttered.

Walter frowned, thinking it a very obvious thing to say, then realized that she meant it metaphorically.

“Those guys are going to catch us in a matter of minutes,” she said, “if we don’t find some way to slow them down.”

The paved road appeared ahead of them. Nina swerved out onto it in a spray of gravel, then rocked back into line and sped down the hill. Walter looked behind. He couldn’t see anything at first, but then he could. Headlights raced under the trees, reaching out for them.

“They’re coming,” he said.

Nina barreled down the gravel road at a terrifying speed. This was no Volkswagen Beetle, but she didn’t seem intimidated by the Detroit behemoth, and slung it along the twisting track with an admirable—if heart-stopping—fearlessness.

At last they came to the state highway. Nina bumped up onto it without braking, then roared west with her foot pinned to the floorboard. The highway was smooth and clean, but almost as twisty as the smaller road. They were screeching around the curves.

“This is where they’ll catch us,” she said.

“Then what do we do?” Walter asked. “What’s the point of running?”

“For a scientist,” she replied. “You have very little imagination.”

Another dirt road was coming up rapidly on the left side of the road. Nina glanced in her rearview mirror, then swerved toward it, killing the LeSabre’s headlights. Bell hung on with both hands. Walter grabbed the door handle and looked back. The FBI cars still were out of sight behind the curve of the highway.

The big car slammed down onto the dark dirt road at speed, almost smashing Nina’s head into the ceiling as the jolt sent her bouncing out of her seat. She drove forward about ten yards then hit the brakes and skidded to a stop in the muddy gravel.

She, Bell, and Walter looked back. A narrow sliver of the highway was just visible through the trees. One second. Two seconds. Three. Two sets of headlights howled by, and then two seconds later, a third.

“Is that all of them?” Bell asked. “How many were there?”

“I didn’t see,” Nina said. “But if there are any more, they’re probably still up at the cabin, trying to catch Roscoe and the boys. Time to go.”

She turned the headlights back on, put the LeSabre in reverse, and backed out of the side road onto the highway. But instead of going east, she went west.

“You’re going the wrong way,” said Bell. “The connector to the Five is west.”

“They’re going to turn around eventually, William. I don’t want to be behind them when they do. We’ll take the 101 back.”

“Didn’t you say that took longer?” Walter asked. “We need to get back to San Francisco as soon as possible.”

“That’s okay,” she replied. “I’ll just go faster.”

Walter exchanged a look with Bell, then put his seatbelt on. It was going to be a long trip.

34

Miranda was wrapping up her shift at the Roxie, sweeping cigarette butts and scattered popcorn out from under the seats and turning out the lights inside the candy display cases. She tossed out the last of the sad, mummified hot dogs that had been spinning on the hot rollers all day, and wiped down all the spigots on the soft-drink dispensers.

It wasn’t the best job in the world, but it certainly wasn’t the worst, and she got to see all the movies for free. She’d proved herself to be so reliable that she’d been given a set of keys, and the added responsibility of locking up every Monday night. She took that responsibility very seriously.

Monday nights were usually pretty dead, anyway. They were closed on Tuesday, and Wednesday was when they changed the feature, so by Monday night, pretty much everyone already had the current film.

Besides, who goes to the movies on Monday night?

This past week they’d been running this French animated film called Fantastic Planet, which she had to admit she didn’t really understand. Clearly she wasn’t the only one, since it hadn’t been very popular, and this last late show had been nearly empty—except for a young couple who were way more into each other than the movie. And that same creepy guy with the glasses who’d come in alone every Monday night for the past month.

For some reason, that guy had left early, twenty minutes before the end of the movie, and Miranda wasn’t sorry to see him go. She always had the feeling that he was watching her when she wasn’t looking.

As she reached into her purse to get the keys to lock up the theater, her fingers brushed against a bottle of Miss Clairol Born Blonde hair bleach. She’d been carrying it in her purse for a full week now, trying to get up the nerve to use it. On her way through the lobby, she paused to look at her own reflection in the mirror behind the candy counter.

Skinny, no kind of body at all beneath her polyester uniform. Freckles. Stick-straight brown hair. Such a blah-bland Breck girl. No wonder Matt barely even noticed that she existed.

Matt MacIntyre was the shift manager. He was twenty-five, and knew every single movie ever made. He had a bleach-blond shag haircut and an earring in one ear. He liked Ziggy Stardust and the New York Dolls, and made all his own clothes, or bought them from thrift stores and ripped them up, embellished them, and remade them so they looked way cooler than anything you could buy in the trendy boutiques.

She once complimented him on a purple scarf he was wearing and he’d smiled and wrapped it around her neck, telling her she could have it, that it matched her “Liz Taylor eyes.” That had been the best day of her entire life.

She wore that scarf every single day, and when it stopped smelling like him, she’d gone over to the Liberty House department store at Union Square and secretly doused it with the spicy cologne he wore—Halston Z-14 for Men.

When she went home, she wrapped that fragrant scarf around her face and listened to “Bad Girl” by the New York Dolls, over and over again, imagining that she was that bad girl in the song. The kind of girl that guys would beg to be with. A tough, sassy blonde, with glitter eye shadow and platform shoes, and attitude to spare.

The kind of girl that Matt would notice.

But every time she’d take that bottle of bleach out of her purse and set it on the edge of the sink, she’d chicken out at the last minute. What if it didn’t come out right? What if she ended up looking stupid, like Rita Bianchini back in eight grade, who’d tried to dye her black hair blond and turned it a terrible frizzy orange. Rita had to wear a hat for the whole rest of the year, and everyone teased her mercilessly about it. Miranda couldn’t take that kind of humiliation.

As she left the theater, walking alone down 16th Street toward Hoff, she decided that it was time to take the plunge. No more girly indecisiveness. She would bleach her hair that night, as soon as she got home. Of course, her mom would flip out, but so what? She was a grown woman now, just turned eighteen and ready to move out of her parents’ suburban house and find her own apartment in the city.

It was time for her to be her own person. She’d been a good girl for way too long.

Miranda was ready to be bad.

* * *

The ride back was a nightmare.

Nina drove like a maniac, flooring it the whole way, and Walter sat rigid in his seat, afraid at every second that she would wreck the car, or kill somebody, or attract the attention of the police. And he didn’t understand why she was trying. There was no way they were going to make it. It was too far, and there wasn’t nearly enough time.

Then, as they neared the city and he checked his watch, the nightmare got worse, because somehow she had managed it. She had driven so fast that the theater was within reach. As they came off the Golden Gate Bridge and started south into the steep hills of Divisadero Street they still had thirty minutes to spare.

That’s when they hit some kind of traffic jam that had everything snarled up for as far as they could see. Walter’s fingers dug into the seat as they crawled through the Fillmore district. Nina leapt at gaps, jerking the big car forward one second, then stomping on the brakes the next. But there was no point. There was nowhere to go.

Ten minutes later, they were only at Haight Street. And a few blocks later, when they turned left on 16 th, it got even worse, as a large multi-car accident was revealed at the intersection with Market.

He checked his watch as they inched past the pile-up and headed into the Mission District. Two minutes. Maybe the killer would be late. Maybe the girl wouldn’t show up. Maybe they would make all the lights and get there on time.

But four minutes later the bright marquee of the Roxie came into view. Nina pulled up in front and Walter jumped out of the back seat before the car had come to a complete stop, stumbling and catching himself at the last minute as he ran to the glass doors.

Locked.

He banged on the door, cupping his hands to peer inside, but he didn’t see anyone.

“Hello?” he called. “Hello!”

Nothing. No response. They must have just missed her.

Walter ran back to the car and dove into the back seat, rifling through the file for his translation of that last page of the Zodiac’s notebook.

“...she parks her car on Hoff Street,” Walter read out loud. “Where the hell is Hoff Street?”

“There,” Nina said, pointing through the windshield and stomping on the gas, cutting off a honking Dodge Dart. “Just a few blocks down.”

“For God’s sake,” Walter said. “Hurry.”

* * *

When Miranda turned down Hoff, a sudden cold wind whipped the ends of Matt’s purple scarf up into her face. She clutched it tighter around her neck and quickened her step, making a beeline for the parking lot where she kept the hated Honda CVCC she’d received for her birthday, instead of the cute Beetle she’d wanted.

“So much more practical,” her father had said. “And better gas mileage. Next time OPEC pulls another oil embargo, you’ll thank me.”

Which pretty much summed up the entire 18 years of her life so far. Practical. Carefully thought out in advance. She was so ready to break out of that expectation. To be extravagant and wild. To hell with oil embargos.

She had her hand half raised to wave at Dio, the friendly parking lot attendant, but when she looked over at the little booth where he always sat, she was surprised to see that it was empty, the door left hanging open. Maybe he’d gone to the bathroom or something, but it seemed kind of weird that he would just leave the door open like that.

She took a step closer, frowning.

Inside the booth, Dio’s little portable heater was running at the foot of the stool he sat on. His transistor radio played the crackly religious station he always listened to. There was a half-eaten Zagnut bar sitting on top of the radio. A faded snapshot of Dio’s five daughters had fallen off the shelf and landed against the grate of the little heater, dangerously close to the glowing coils within.

She figured that she’d better move that photo before it caught on fire, and was bending down and reaching toward it when she noticed the blood.

There was a small red smear, about the size of a man’s shoe, on the floor to the left of the stool. Could have been anything, ketchup or maybe raspberry jam, but it was enough to turn Miranda’s own blood to ice.