Babayaga

“Well, finding proper dosage levels and looking at the long-term impacts on the subjects; these drugs can put quite a strain on the system. I’m pretty sure that’s what took out Boris, his heart exploded. Then there’s the question of how you’re affected in the real world when you’re hit here. We’ve got more bodies buried in the basement than we have answers. Also, what if the effect isn’t lethal, if it’s only a crippling injury, then what? Then we get weird stuff like Ned’s muttering coma.”

Will stopped scraping his plate and looked up. “Ned? I thought she was working with the Russians.”

“Ned was working for Ned; every other loyalty she had died back in Spain when the Fascists shot all her friends. Since then, she’s been working with anyone who paid her. She would have betrayed this operation too if she’d had time to figure it out. I’m pretty sure that’s why Bendix gave her a funny dose. His methods are, well, like I said, the guy spooks me, but this is the new frontier, right? There is so much we don’t know. We need more experiments, you understand. Sorry.”

Wolfing down his food, taking in the surreal atmosphere (out the window a herd of bleating sheared sheep caught his eye meandering up Larned Street), Will had only been half-listening to Jake’s story. It was fascinating, but so was so much at the moment, his world had become a grand orchestra of overstimulating sensations, with every sensory section—horns, strings, percussion—all going at full tilt. However, Jake’s last point did catch Will’s ear, the way a perfectly chimed triangle can cut through a symphony, and at the word “Sorry,” he looked up to find Jake aiming a pistol directly at his head.

Without thinking, Will ducked and flipped the table up. Jake fired the gun into the ceiling as he tumbled backward with the remaining eggs, butter, bacon, and scalding coffee spilling, yellow and black, all over him. Jake aimed the gun again as Will dashed out the hallway. A shot hit and splintered the doorframe behind him as he dove out to the porch.

Leaping over the rickety stairs, Will took off down the walkway and ran across the street. Running past a pair of grazing goats, he heard another gunshot as the wig shop window shattered out in front of him. Not waiting for a second shot, he dove in through the revolving doors of the Penobscot Building, scrambled across the lobby with his head low, then ducked into the stairwell by the elevators, slamming the door shut tightly behind him.

Running up the stairs, Will thought through the weirdness and tried to form a plan. He realized that Jake was already an expert in this field, he had probably been hunting in this hallucinogenic terrain for some time. Jake also had a sizable advantage in that he had figured out how to actually get his hands on a weapon, he had a gun, while Will had only his wits, which at the moment were not nearly as focused as they needed to be.

Will reached the third floor and flung open the stairwell door only to find himself facing a rolling green pasture with a picturesque cardinal red barn standing on a knoll off in the distance. There was a creek, and a few yards beyond that a stand of ash trees. With no real notion except an instinct to keep moving, Will ran toward the grove, but the soil was boggy and his shoes quickly got stuck in the mud. Panicked and fumbling, he tried to correct his footing, but he stumbled and fell, slipping sideways on the ground. He started to right himself, but before he could get up, he felt the hard pressure of steel being pressed against his head. Slowly, he sank back down onto his knees.

“Well, pal,” smirked Jake, “you can’t say we didn’t give you a nice last meal.”

“Okay. But give me one minute more, just one minute, please.” Will shut his eyes and tried to prepare himself for what was coming next. He quickly thought of all the beautiful things he had known in his life: his parents, his mother’s two cats sleeping in the sun, Doris Day singing “Shanghai,” a glass of whiskey on a winter’s night, and the taste of the warm crêpe he had eaten the first day he was in France. Then, finally, Zoya, her eyes, her cheekbones, the nape of her neck, and the way her breasts and bare torso looked as she lay half uncovered on the bed, breathing heavily, exhausted from his kisses.

Will heard the click of the pistol. He opened his eyes and noticed that one of the Paris metro’s Art Nouveau entrances had risen out of the meadow. “At least I get to see some of Paris before I go.”

“What?”

Will pointed at the metro entrance.