“So… anyone commit any Class A felonies lately?” I discreetly asked. “Particularly of the kidnapping or torture-murder variety?”

  Scary uncomfortable silence ensued, interrupted by the slow hiss of my beer fart, which I was sure no one heard.

  They sure smelled it, though.

  Chandler waved her hand in front of her face. “Fuck me. Did a sewer line break?”

  “Lots of disappearances in this town,” Toddy offered. “Been happening as long as anyone can remember.”

  “So what’s the deets? The hap-hap? The skinny? The tea?”

  “We don’t serve tea,” Toddy said.

  “Don’t be thick, man. This is a small town. There’s always gossip. Rumors. Scary neighbors that no one likes because they’re inbred cannibal rednecks. Crazy mutant siblings locked up in the basement. Why do you think people are going missing?”

  Toddy’s eyes narrowed, then he glanced at the suspicious dudes. They met his glance, then their eyes wandered around, appearing even more suspicious AF.

  “What triggered you?” I prodded. “The cannibal rednecks? The freak in the cellar?”

  It was definitely the freak in the cellar. One of these four guys was likely hiding some violent psychopath brother in the basement, who might also be their father slash cousin slash son slash sister.

  “This is just local folklore—” Toddy began, and the middle guy interrupted him with a low warning, “Toddy…”

  Toddy waved the guy off. “Quiet, Vern. Our parents told us never to talk about this with outta towners, because we’d scare away people who want to move here. But no one wants to move here. Town is dead. Best we get are these damn B and B renters. Fibbers coming in stay for three days and don’t give a rat’s ass about Lake Flathead.”

  “Fibbers?” Chandler asked.

  “Fucking Illinois bastards,” Jack told her.

  I shrugged. I always thought it meant fantastic in bed.

  “Got seventy people missing from ’77 to ’80, and we all knew what it was.”

  Serial killer. Had to be a serial killer. It’s always a serial killer.

  “Wolves,” Toddy said.

  Not what I was expecting. Unless it’s a serial killer who thinks he’s a wolf.

  Or a wolf who thinks it’s a serial killer.

  Or a rabid cow. Anything can happen in these stories.

  Oblivious to my inner thoughts, Toddy rambled on. “Lumber mill brought down the trees, took away all the shelter and hiding for the deer and coon and rabbit, wolves moved on to humans.”

  Chandler shook her head. “You said the bodies weren’t found. Wolves would leave something. Remains. Clothes.”

  “Pack of starving wolves will eat every goddamn thing,” Toddy countered. “Bones, skulls, jeans, even shoes. There’s proof, too. My father shot two of them. One was damn near a hunnert and forty pounds. Sumabitch is hanging right there.”

  He pointed to what I’d assumed was a bear skin stuck to the far wall. Closer inspection showed it was grey, and the head was more doggo than beary.

  “Damn,” I said. “Did you cut open his belly and the little Kitner boy spilled out all over the dock?”

  No one got the deep cut Jaws reference. I tried again. “This was no boating accident.”

  “You and I both know it wasn’t no ordinary wolves,” said the ex-con.

  “Shark,” I said. “We need to close the beaches. And get a bigger boat.”

  The creepy ex-con stood up, shoving his stool against the bar with a SMACK! “It was one of them wendigos! We were logging on Indian land, they cursed this town, and it ate everybody!”

  “A wendigo?” I queried. “Isn’t that when someone pulls the back of your undies up your butt crack?”

  “That’s a wedgie,” Jack said.

  I made a face. “No, a wedgie is when someone pushes your head in the toilet and flushes.”

  “That’s a swirly,” Jack said.

  I made another face. “No, a swirly is when someone tongue punches you in the corn chute.”

  Now Jack made a face. “That’s a tossed salad.”

  “Which reminds me,” Toddy said, “I gotta check on your food.”

  He waddled off.

  “A wendigo is hybrid demonic possession,” the ex-con continued. “Ash-grey complexion, looking like the resurrected dead. Half wild animal, half human being. Got the mouth of a wolf, antlers like a deer, claws like a bear.”

  “What kind of junk does it have?” I asked. “Horse? Chipmunk? If it was hung like a chipmunk, I bet it would be angry.” I lowered my voice for dramatic effect. “Small dick energy could drive a man to kill.”

  “You’d know,” Jack quipped.

  “Point taken,” I told Jack. “Your dick is bigger than mine.”

  “Wendigo kills for meat,” the weirdo went on. “It’s a cannibal. Hunts at night. Eats your body… and your soul.”

  “Plus it can have sex with a Cheerio with that chipmunk junk,” I added. “So which one of you is siblings with the wendigo locked up in the basement?”

  They all looked away, as if my insane accusation actually hit home.

  I’d been messing around, being my regular jackass self. But could my missing persons case actually be some kidnap/murder committed by someone in this bar?

  Or the crazy relative of someone in this bar?

  I leaned toward Jack and lowered my voice. “Let’s huddle up for a minute and discuss. I need to do a reality check.”

  “What’s up?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t like any of this, Jackie. It doesn’t make sense. Or it makes too much sense. Something’s off.”

  “You’re really worried about wendigos?”

  “I’m worried about the infodump we just endured.”

  “Infodump?” Chandler repeated after leaning in.

  “You know. The part in the story where the action awkwardly stops so the audience can be given important information that will come into play later.”

  “What audience?” Jack asked.

  “We’re the audience. Or life is the audience. Or reality is the audience. Who cares who the audience is? This is a bad story, Jackie. It’s got all the elements I hate. Too many characters. Check. And they’re all cookie-cutter stereotypes.”

  “Like who?”

  “It’s whom,” I corrected. “Like whom.”

  “Grammar Nazis are so sexy,” Chandler said. “Next start criticizing people’s posture. Or the music they like.”

  “Your posture is good, your generation’s music sucks.”

  “Get back to the stereotypes,” Jack said.

  I lifted my real hand and began ticking off fingers. “The tough ex-cop who wants to retire but trouble keeps knocking. The deadly spy with a heart of gold who secretly wants to be understood—”

  “Fuck you,” Chandler said.

  “—but is actually just a bitch. The super witty private investigator who has a TV show and a porn star penis. Then there are the victims. I’m sure they’re struggling to survive, right now, someplace nearby. Waiting for us to save them. And whatever hell they’re going through, we’ll be going through the same ordeal later. It’s by-the-book. Totally unoriginal. Like these hackneyed rednecks, who act as if they came from an out-of-print Jack Kilborn novel.”

  “Why’d Kilborn stop writing?” Jack asked. “He die?”

  “He got tired of trying to explain all the stupid clichés and coincidences,” I answered. “Like you two running into me.”

  “You ran into us,” Jack countered.

  “Equally ridiculous and improbable.” I raised another finger. “Then there’s the dialog that is too witty to be realistic. Which I accept the blame for. No one should be as clever as I am. It’s my burden. Along with my oversized dong, which looks like someone stuck an apple in the sleeve of a rolled-up pink T-shirt.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I hate that visual,” Chandler said.

  “But it’s more than just my quick wit and awesome jokes and my veiny love muscle. Look at our lives, Jackie. You were a cop, and you married a smoking hot criminal ten years younger than you. Your daughter is the smartest nine-year-old in the world. You and Phin have both survived certain death a dozen times. And then if we add in me, and Codename: Bitchface sitting next to you, we’ve survived death several dozen times.”

  “Hundreds,” Chandler corrected. “You self-obsessed jackass.”

  “Fine. Call it hundreds, says the Spy Who Hated Me. See how ridiculous that is? None of this crazy stuff happens in real life. I have a robotic hand and I own a penguin and a capybara. That can’t be real. We’re all stuck in a bad story.”

  “Are you high?” Jack asked.

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m dreaming. Or maybe this is all a simulation created by artificial intelligence. Or maybe I’m dead, and this is limbo, and I need to figure out the point to everything so my spirit can move on. Or maybe this is a drug hallucination. Or maybe we were all cursed by witches and we’re stuck in hell. Or maybe, like I said, we’re all just characters in a poorly written book.”

  “Or maybe,” Chandler said, “you’re an idiot.”

  I nodded. “Also a possibility. Maybe I’m not the main character. Maybe I’m comic relief. But I doubt it, because I feel like the main character.”

  “I’m the main character,” Jack said. “Sam said so yesterday.”

  “You are both wrong,” Chandler said. “If anyone is the protagonist of this shit show, it’s me.”

  “It could be all of us,” I said. “We’re a tritagonist. Three lead characters, each of us equally important. Except I’m a little more important than you two.”

  Chandler offered a thoughtful critique. “Your huddle-up discussion sucks, McGlade.”

  “It’s possible,” I shrugged. “We’ll see if the thing I hate the most happens.”

  “Which is?” Jack asked.

  “A staple of ridiculous storytelling. Jumping around in time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack made a face. “Nobody is jumping around in time.”

  “Would you know it if it happened? We are always living in the present, right? We live in the now. But the now can be any time at all. Every moment of your past, and every moment of your future, is considered now when it’s happening.”

  “This conversation is stupid,” Jack said.

  “Exactly!” I declared. “This conversation is so stupid it could never happen in reality. It has to be fake.”

  “Not to pour fuel on this dumpster fire, but there is a quantum mechanical possibility called superdeterminism that negates the many worlds interpretation of waveform collapse,” Chandler said. “It explains local hidden variable theory by postulating an unwavering, set, objective reality. Taking to one extreme, there is no such thing as cause and effect, so time doesn’t exist.”

  I nodded. “What Chandler said.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jack insisted. “Our lives are made up of stories, sure. But every life has some unbelievable moments. Some of it is boring. Some of it is amazing. Some of it is scary. And we’re all the hero in our own life. But this is real, McGlade. And we absolutely, one hundred percent, do not jump around in time.”

  CAPTIVE #82

  Her screaming didn’t last long.

  Or maybe it did.

  Time seemed to no longer have any meaning.

  She’d been in terrible situations before. Panic, though inevitable, wasted energy, and sometimes resources.

  I don’t know how much oxygen I have in this makeshift tomb.

  I need to slow my breathing, relax my muscles, and assess the situation.

  Her memory had returned, and she had a pretty good idea of how she got sealed in this concrete bunker.

  And also a pretty good idea of who did it.

  I may not be a cop anymore, but the instincts don’t fade.

  This is related to Harry’s case. And to the all the stuff we learned at the B and B.

  And, McGlade’s tritagonist bullshit aside, I have lost track of time.

  Panic flared, just a bit, when she wondered if her friends were okay.

  They have to be. I can’t believe anything else.

  According this serial killer’s MO, I won’t be able to escape on my own.

  My only hope is rescue.

  They’ll need to rescue me.

  Which means they need to be looking for me, and not sealed in cement coffins of their own.

  She closed her eyes, recalling the Fall Down Inn from earlier.

  We missed the clues. But now they’re obvious.

  Are my friends smart enough to figure it out?

  Can they stop the killer, and find me, before they’re killed?

  And what about the couple that Harry was trying to find? Are they still alive?

  So many questions. So many reasons to freak out.

  But I need to remain calm.

  That’s the first thing on my survival list.

  First, stay calm.

  Second, conserve energy.

  Third, make an effort to escape, or to alert my friends.

  Fourth…

  What was the old saying about no atheists in foxholes?

  She’d never been religious.

  But prayer didn’t seem like a bad idea.

  JACK

  While Harry was holding court in his jester style and the Greek chorus of four suspicious townies amped up their creepy factor, I noticed Chandler’s shoulders begin to shake. At first I thought she might be sobbing, but then she let out a huge guffaw.

  “You’re solipsist,” she said to Harry.

  “What is that?” he asked. “Does it mean well hung?”

  “It means you think the world revolves around you, and nothing outside of you is real.”

  “Not true. I think everything is potentially real. Including the wendigo.”

  “Wendigo is real,” Toddy interjected.

  The three men at the end of the bar raised their glasses and added their voices of approval.

  Chandler leaned over the bar to stare at them. “I’ve been trying to figure out what game you guys are playing. Trying to scare us? Just goofing around? Are you so thick you really believe it? But now I think I know the answer.”

  “And what’s that?” asked Vern.

  Chandler appeared uncharacteristically agitated, so I gave her a side look, which she ignored.

  “Listening to you, and to Harry, proves a hypothesis I’ve always had; nobody knows anything. We’re all clueless. We’re all floundering. Nobody knows who they are, or what’s going to happen, and all we can do is stumble along blindly and hope for the best. We’re idiots trying to fool ourselves into thinking we’re not idiots, which makes us even bigger idiots.”

  I couldn’t disagree with anything she said, so I stayed silent. So did McGlade, which was unusual for him.

  Our food came out, looking pretty good for pub grub and smelling even better, and I was about to tell Toddy to pack it up in doggy bags because I’d had enough of the local color and Chandler’s pessimism and McGlade’s unhinged rants, when the rapey guy at the end of the bar approached, leering.

  “So you think I’m an idiot, darlin’?” he asked Chandler, getting in our personal circle of space.

  “We’re all idiots,” Chandler answered, clearly and evenly. “Back up.”

  He seemed surprised by Chandler’s tone, but he didn’t move away. “Kitty’s got claws. I like a girl who fights back.”

  Harry guffawed. “Fights back? I’ve seen that look. You need to step away or she’s gonna kick you in the neck so hard your spine comes out the back. Can I have some of your curds, Jack?”

  “No,” I said.

  Chandler had a firearm, but she wouldn’t need it if things escalated. I wasn’t carrying, but I knew Harry always wore a gun.

  Toddy, for sure, had a gun behind the bar. I kept half my attention on him, the other half on the unfolding situation.

  Sex predator dude seemed really amused, which made him even uglier. “Kick my neck? This sweet thing?”

  He reached to touch Chandler’s face and by the time I planted my feet Chandler already had the guy’s wrist in her hand, twisting hard and sending him to the floor with an arm lock. It was so fast you couldn’t even call it a blur.

  He yelped. I didn’t blame him. Looked like it hurt like hell.

  Chandler placed her foot on his neck and told him, “Back up doesn’t mean you touch me. We clear?”

  “Jesus Christ you crazy bitch—”

  Chandler gave his arm a tweak and he yelled even louder.

  “Clear! We’re clear!”

  She removed her foot and stepped away. When he picked himself up his face was red and he seemed ready to cry.

  “You bitches are cops, aren’t you?”

  The bitches didn’t answer him, but we could see he drew his own conclusions.

  “Put it on my tab, Toddy,” he spat.

  The rapey guy got out of there, and the other two men at the bar followed him out, neither saying anything.

  “Way to clear a room, Chandler,” Harry said. “Now we’re all going to be cursed by cannibal wedgies.”

  “Apologies for Mick,” Toddy said, setting down our burgers. “He’s got that affliction where he’s an asshole to everybody.”

  Harry sniffed. “Poor guy. Must be tough on him. So… do I got fried cheese coming, or is someone back there milking a cow and waiting for the moo juice to curdle?”

  Toddy went back into the kitchen, and I wasted a full five seconds of my life wondering what karmic sins I’d violated to forever be crossing paths with Harry McGlade. I must have been some sort of brutal monster in a past life. Genghis Khan, maybe? That would explain a lot about my life. Like why I hate the aristocracy of the Khwarazm Empire so much.

  I have amusing thoughts sometimes.

  “We taking this to go?” I asked Chandler.

  “Do you think Toddy called the cops?”

  “Could be,” Harry said, grabbing a handful of our curds. “Or could be that Vern, Zeke, and Mick are going out to their gun racks and coming back in with shotguns.”