1.17 - Syd, Part 3

Hello listeners. It is midnight in Mercy Mountain once again and I, Julian Glass, am here to soothe your nocturnal souls.

[intro]

Tonight’s broadcast is the finale of a story. A story about local sharpshooter and newest Missing Persons Investigator, Syd Jones.

Syd’s mind was blank. Perfectly so. Ze barely comprehended zir surroundings.

Motion flickered in the corner of Syd’s eye, unlocking something in zir brain; zir thoughts started flowing.

The salesman had come. He had discussed something with Syd. He had sold zem something, hadn’t he? Then he had left…

Kalina Kamińska was at her desk, shuffling through some papers.

Syd wheeled over. “Did you see the salesman here?”

Kalina looked up. “No. Should I have?”

Nerves fluttered in Syd’s chest as ze admitted aloud what had just happened. “He was just here. He just visited me.”

Kalina paused. “Are you still considering your theory about him?”

Syd nodded, throat tight. How long do I have? ze thought. Ze checked zir watch. Not enough time to find everyone before ze disappeared as well. But enough to check out the haunted vacant lot on North Paris Green Street, where the mayor had seen the salesman before.

Mind reeling, Syd headed out to zir car and drove, rather absently, to the lot. Ze found a parking spot nearby, unable to park directly in front because another car was parked there.

A car with an Ohio license plate that said “SALESMAN.”

Syd’s nerves grew from a flutter into a quake. Ze wheeled zir way into the lot.

There was a patch of dirt in the center of the lot, about seven feet by three feet, give or take. The dirt looked freshly disturbed.

Syd leaned down and swept aside some of the earth, once, then again.

Something smooth emerged from under the earth. Something made of wood.

Heart in zir throat, Syd swept off dirt from the object until ze revealed a paneled door, made of pine, complete with a frame and a brass doorknob.

Syd’s eyebrows knit together in a bewildered frown. What the hell?

Open it, a voice in zir head urged.

Syd hesitated. Reached down. Turned the doorknob. Heaved upward.

Before Syd was a ramp leading down into blackness.

Is this where the salesman goes? Syd swallowed. Ze steeled zemself. And went down the ramp.

Even though ze was using zir flashlight, ze left the door open to give a little extra light. But the door closed itself behind zem. Syd swallowed again, but pressed on.

Eventually the ramp ended, leveling out into a dirty concrete floor.

Syd shone zir light on the walls, filthy, with chipping paint. There were no windows. But there was a door on the other end of the room. Syd opened it onto a hallway with a ramp at one end, a door at the top. Syd made zir way to the door and opened it with a note of apprehension ringing in zir chest.

The door opened onto another hallway, this one lined with doors.

Syd wheeled slowly down the hallway, observing the doors. Some had red catfish painted onto their faces. Some did not. Syd opened one that was bare.

Inside was a room with only a metal bedframe. Syd looked out the window to the world beyond and saw a forest. A trail wound its way out of the trees and disappeared back into it at another location.

Syd frowned. Ze thought ze knew where ze was: the Crags. The old insane asylum that was abandoned back when centers of the psychiatric variety were called insane asylums.

Ze turned back to the hallway and was about to open one of the doors with a catfish on its face when down the hall, another door opened.

And out stepped the salesman.

“Hello,” he said. “Long time no see.”

Syd found zemself trying to commit every little thing to memory: which of the salesman’s hands held the briefcase, the crookedness of his tie, and so on. “Long time no see,” ze echoed.

“I suppose you want to talk?” the salesman asked.

Syd nodded.

The salesman led zem to one of the rooms down the hall, which was only half as dirty as the rest of the place. He sat behind the desk in the center of the room with a sigh. “I suppose you found what I sold you?”

“What? No.”

“Check your pockets.”

Syd did so. Something that hadn’t been there that morning brushed against Syd’s fingertips. Ze withdrew it.

A glass sphere glinted in Syd’s fingertips. “A marble?” ze said.

“Not just a marble. It can hold energy.”

“What kind of energy?”

“All kinds.”

Syd turned it in zir fingers. Just clear glass, an inch or so in diameter. It made for one boring-looking marble.

“I need your help,” said the salesman.

Syd looked at him.

“I need some of your energy. If you put some of your energy into that marble, I can take it and use it to save my home from the light.”

“What do you mean?” Syd asked.

“There is a goddess attacking my town. I traveled away, trying to find a way to protect us. One of the doors here is a portal back to my home, but I don’t want to travel back before I gather enough energy to save it.”

Syd’s lips parted in the beginnings of an offer to help. But ze hesitated. What about all the missing people? Syd couldn’t very well just abandon zir task to find them. So ze asked.

The salesman hesitated. “People going missing is no fault of mine.”

Syd frowned at the wording. “Were you involved with any of the disappearances?”

“I asked them to help me,” the salesman replied.

Syd waited for elaboration.

“They…were supposed to give me some of their energy, but they couldn’t take it.”

Syd’s heart dropped. “Are they dead?”

The salesman shook his head. He brought his briefcase onto the desk and opened it. “They were swallowed by the marbles. Their strength wasn’t enough to keep the marbles from overwhelming them and pulling all of them in.”

A layer of padding was set within the briefcase, with indentations every couple of inches. Within the indentations marbles were nestled, these ones not clear like Syd’s but swirling blue or green or red or even cat’s eye.

Syd leaned over the open briefcase. These marbles were supposed to be the missing people? “Prove these are my missing folks.”

The salesman slammed the briefcase shut. “There is no way to do that.”

Syd shrugged. “Then I’m not helping you.”

The salesman’s face went red with fury.

Syd reached inside zir jacket pocket and gripped tightly what sat inside.

“You need to help me save my home!” he cried. “All I need is your energy!”

“Why don’t you use a little of what the missing people already gave you? And then you can release them, right?” As soon as the words were out of Syd’s mouth, ze realized why. Why the people were trapped. Why the salesman had kept them. “You need all the energy from all of us, don’t you? Not just some from one?”

The salesman leaned over the desk, hands planted before him. Hands planted a little too close to Syd. “Yes. I need to use the energy from forty-five different people to save my home. Now, please—” His hands shot towards Syd.

Syd whipped out zir slingshot, slipped the marble into the pouch. “Don’t test me,” ze snapped, aiming directly at the salesman’s left eye.

The salesman eased back warily. “I just want to save my town,” he murmured.

“So do I. Now give me the briefcase. Set it in my lap.”

The salesman did so, the marble still trained on his face. He retreated quickly.

“Now what I’m going to do is give you some of my energy. But you’re going to tell me when to stop so that I don’t get swallowed by the marble. And then you’re going to use my energy to help your home. Is that clear?”

The salesman glanced at the briefcase. “Your energy alone won’t be enough—”

“It will have to be,” Syd said firmly. “Or this marble is going straight into your eye.”

The salesman raised his hands, as if in surrender.

Syd slowly lowered the slingshot, pulled the marble out of the pouch. “How do I do this?”

“Imagine building a bridge from yourself, wherever your energy is held, to the marble. Imagine the energy flowing from one side to the other.”

Syd closed zir eyes and tried to do as the salesman said. Something flowing over a bridge? It didn’t feel natural. So Syd imagined digging a trench from zir core to the marble. Zir energy built up in the trench as ze dug it, until it swelled over the last part that had yet to be dug up and flowed into the marble.

It felt like a river, coursing from one place to the next, stronger and stronger the longer it flowed.

You need to stop, a small voice warned Syd. You can’t keep this up much longer.

Syd tried to stop the energy flow, but it was like trying to stop a creek with two hands. Weakness, emptiness began to swallow zem as ze disappeared into the marble.

You need to stop now! the voice cried.

How do I do that? Syd wanted to scream, but found ze couldn’t.

How do you stop a river? Build a dam.

As quickly as ze could, ze pulled together pieces of zir mind to hold back the current. Ze could feel zemself draining away. Just like the missing people.

Now they wouldn’t have anyone else to find them.

No, Syd thought. Ze could not abandon zir duty, zir responsibility.

Syd dragged more pieces to the dam, put them in place. Ze worked until the flow came to a trickle, then a stop.

Ze opened zir eyes with a sigh of relief. “Here.” Ze handed the salesman the marble, which now looked like a galaxy trapped in a sphere of glass. “Now tell me how I free the people.”

The salesman looked apprehensive. “I…don’t know.”

Syd glowered. “Then get out of here.” Ze put away zir slingshot as the salesman fled and pondered the briefcase.

44 marbles. 44 people.

Syd called Kalina.

[interlude]

Syd picked up a marble, examined it. Ze chewed zir lower lip as ze considered what to do. Then, as hard as ze could, ze threw it at the floor.

There it shattered, and the fragments melted into a mass bigger than the marble ever was, a mass that took the shape of a human.

Alton Davis.

Relief flooded Syd—ze had found a solution!

Ze smashed marble after marble until 44 people stood on the Crags campus.

At some point, the ambulances Kalina had called had arrived and were looking after the people Syd had freed. Somehow, some family members and friends of the found had heard what was going on—Syd suspected Julian Glass had to do with it—and come to the scene to reunite with their loved ones.

Syd watched as Penelope Dunlap and Theo Marshall embraced and kissed. As Julian tackled Shinji so hard that the pair fell to the ground. As the rambunctious Smiths cried tears of joy and relief over their rambunctious Noah.

[interlude]

Mercy Mountain is at peace once again. Families snuggle fondly. The self-proclaimed wizard Znerp sleeps, having finally defeated the kudzu taking over his porch. A stray cat brings a dead book home to her kittens. The salesman is nowhere to be found.

Stay tuned next for two uninterrupted hours of someone trying to squeeze out the last of the ketchup from the bottle. Have a wonderful rest of your night, Mercy Mountain.