Page 23 of Fear
But the book he’d grabbed—an English literature anthology by a dude named Norton—was thick and boring, and it was hard to concentrate when Tobias’s feet were right next to him, almost touching his thigh. He dropped the book onto the table and pulled over the Boulder newspaper instead, flipping idly through the sheets to get a feel for what counted as exciting in this town, before reading the articles much closer than he normally did. He didn’t expect to find anything supernaturally unusual, but it never hurt to be sure.
Once assured there was nothing out of the ordinary even in Boulder’s personal ads, he got up and started tidying. Not that anything really needed to be cleaned, but a lifetime of being anal about weapons and personal care—you never knew when one lazily washed wound could pick up a supernatural disease or contaminant—had made him willing to putter productively. Out of habit, he checked his weapons (weird to not have used a gun or knife in the past week, there wasn’t much to clean, sharpen or polish), wiped down the kitchen, and started a load of laundry. He still couldn’t believe he lived somewhere with an in-unit washer and dryer that wasn’t just a couple of glorified rust buckets.
Eventually, he got desperate enough to tackle the random stuff he’d thrown into the corner of his bedroom. He’d always planned on sorting it out some day—in the Hawthorne world, weapons and first aid took priority and everything else could go to hell—so why not today?
He focused on his room first, grateful to have a place he could retreat to where he didn’t have to worry how Tobias would interpret his expression—he straightened the picture of his mom on the nightstand, examined the hinges on the closet door, thought about ways to reinforce the bathroom with steel plating. Then he decided that he’d been away from Tobias long enough, so he grabbed one of the random bags in his closet (how had he accumulated so much crap so fast?) and headed back to the living room to dump it out over the coffee table.
The bag was full of crap. Receipts for the stuff he’d bought—normal people saved those, right?—old newspapers, skin mags, a tiny silver knife that looked destined for slaughtering weresardines or something. Most of it was pointless, random, or completely out of place, but some of it was unexpectedly useful. A couple of Boulder delivery menus, a few condoms with wrappers still intact, a TV Guide, and a crumpled brochure that turned out to be a visitor’s guide to Boulder. It seemed so long ago when he had started thinking about getting a permanent place here for him and Tobias, a time fraught with paperwork, panic, and nerves, but that was done now. Tobias was out, with him, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day.
Jake unfolded the brochure to find a detailed map marked with shops, restaurants, parks, museums, and random little smiley faces that seemed to be other attractions. His first instinct was to pin the map to a wall, see if anything on it turned out to be a supernatural hotspot. But then he realized it could also just be exactly what it was: a map.
“Hey Tobias!” He held it up. “Check this out!”
Of course, he could have kicked himself when Tobias nearly dropped the book and snapped to attention, almost bolting up from the couch. He only stopped when Jake jumped forward and crouched down in front of him with the map, ass on the coffee table, trying to preserve Tobias’s brief relaxation. Tobias froze until the map was resting on his knees, Jake’s hands holding it out.
Jake didn’t really need to look at the map again—he’d scouted pretty much everywhere in the town, and while he wouldn’t have been able to find the Boulder Museum of History, he certainly knew where the best bars were. Priorities, man. He handed the map to Tobias, who took it with the caution of someone just handed a live but nonpoisonous snake.
“I don’t know how much experience you have with maps . . .”
Tobias glanced up. “I—I’ve studied them,” he said softly.
“Cool. Well, this is Boulder, our town. I dunno if you wanted to take a look, get a feel for what’s here. See, that block, that’s where we live, right there. We’ve got downtown not too far away, and the big college—but yeah, you can see what’s marked out. If anything looks interesting, we can check it out. Whenever you want.”
Tobias didn’t respond, but he focused on it intently, so Jake decided the map was a decent success. He smiled and let go, getting up to finish clearing off the debris on the table.
About this time in the day, not having anything to do, Jake would step out to roam for girls or guys or go to a movie, a bar, somewhere out of his base camp. He would have been scouting the supernatural scene, reading up on local legends, interviewing people involved in possible hauntings. He would be keeping busy. But he’d done all that already—in the six months waiting for Tobias, if not that morning—and he wasn’t sure what the next step was. Was this when normal people picked up a hobby or something?
As a last-ditch activity, he went back to his bedroom and brought back out the laptop. He didn’t really like computers. He could never find anything on the web when he looked for it—except porn—and it was such a hassle. He’d met hunters who insisted the internet was the wave of the future, but Jake couldn’t see it. Sure, it was a great way to share info, but if the information wasn’t reliable and couldn’t be verified, what good was it?
Still, he had one—thank you, ASC Resources and Supply Program—and he could make it work. If not well.
He plugged in this cord and that cord, turned it on, fiddled, hit a couple keys—out of frustration when the thing took forever to turn on, or load, or wake up, or whatever it was that computers did—switched on the modem-thingy, and then signed onto the World Wide Web.
When the browser opened up automatically on the ASC website, Jake was grateful that he was facing Tobias and there was no chance he could see Jake’s computer screen.
The page contained the usual advisories for hunters: lists of monsters caught and where in the United States, ghost and demon hotspots, current bounties offered. But right at the top were the articles and notices for non-ASC personnel, normal humans who wanted to know more about the organization that protected them from the supernatural threat. He couldn’t avoid reading the headline, at least, and the letters were big enough that Tobias would have easily been able to see them.
monsters among us: what can you do?
Jake felt a weird sense of déjà vu, or maybe just nausea. That question was important. People had to know that sometimes disappearances, weird things moving, and light flickers were just random problems, fate kicking you in the balls, but sometimes it was freaky shit that had to be dealt with by professionals. Even though Jake wasn’t even legal to drink (though that had never stopped him, of course), he considered himself a professional. He had known about hunting as long as he could remember and had been hunting for most of his life.
But according to the head honchos who called the shots, Tobias, lying there on his couch, was a monster, one of the freaks about whom the article warned: can masquerade in the human form to manipulate and harm you or your loved ones. That idea was so wrong, couldn’t possibly apply to Tobias. But it was what Jake believed about every other monster.
He stopped reading. He got out of that page as quickly as he could. Tobias couldn’t see it, thank God, but Jake didn’t want to look at it anymore, afraid what Tobias would see on his face. As the sky dimmed to dusk through the living room window, Jake stood up and stretched, popping a few joints. His muscles felt stiff. Hell, he hadn’t been for a run or done any of his usual workouts since the day he’d picked Tobias up. No wonder everything felt out of whack, like the walls were closing in. This would all be a lot easier to handle if he could work out some of his stress.
Wandering into the kitchen, he debated how to bring that up. It wasn’t like he needed Tobias’s permission (or that Tobias would know how to grant it) to leave the apartment without him, but every glimpse of the bandages around Tobias’s hands reminded him, as they should, that nothing was as simple as it seemed. He didn’t actually have a clue what might happen to Tobias if he left him alone.
Jake was vastly relieved to see the white Styrofoam boxes inside the fridge. That made dinner plans easy. “Hey, I’m going to heat up our leftovers, okay?”
Tobias answered affirmatively after a short hesitation, but Jake only half heard. He was on a hunt for the tinfoil he could have sworn he’d bought. His first instinct had been to nuke the whole box in the microwave, but he knew that turned the fries rubbery, and Tobias deserved better. If Jake wasn’t going to cook, he could at least take the time to heat things in the oven.
Though that definitely took longer, especially since Jake forgot to preheat before he slid the wrapped sandwiches—on top of the pizza tray, at least he got to use that again—into the oven. He turned on a timer, then wandered into the living room to sit next to Tobias. He noticed Tobias had switched to the start of another book, though Jake was positive he’d seen him close to the end of it earlier.
Jake pointed his chin toward it. “How do you like ol’ Huck Finn?”
“Oh—it’s good. Really good.” He paused, considering. “Not nearly as informative or fact-based as the history book, I think. But that’s because it’s a story.” His voice rose tentatively at the end, like it was a question.
“Uh, yeah?” Even Jake knew The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wasn’t an autobiography.
