The Influence(112)
He was there in ten.
On the whole, Ross tried not to be too judgmental, but as he pulled up to Kevin’s apartment complex on a trash-strewn street and saw broken overturned chairs on the dead lawn in front of the building, he thought that if he ever had a son, he would never let him live in a dump like this. Locking his car, Ross walked up to Apartment A, which, luckily, was on the first floor, and knocked on the door.
After a long moment, he knocked again.
And again.
Finally, the door was opened. Kevin stood there, eyes at half-mast, a small smile on his face. “Unc! How’s it going, man?”
The last time Ross had seen his nephew, Kevin had had short spiky hair dyed an unnatural blond. Now his hair was long and stringy and back to its natural brown. As always, he was wearing faded jeans and a torn t-shirt. Past Kevin, on the couch, a dirty young man of approximately the same age was typing on the keypad of his phone. The apartment smelled so strongly of marijuana that even the air fresheners placed on seemingly every flat surface in the room could not cover up the scent.
“I need to talk to you alone,” Ross told his nephew.
“I’m cool,” the roommate said. “Anything you tell him, you can say in front of me. I don’t mind.”
Ignoring the roommate, Ross pulled his nephew outside and closed the door. He took a deep breath. Here now, faced with explaining the situation, he didn’t know where to begin. “I need a favor,” he said.
“Anything, dude, anything.”
He decided just to come out with it. “I need you to start a fire for me.”
Kevin backed up, suddenly suspicious. “Is this a test? Did my dad put you up to this?”
“No. It’s legit. And I’m deadly serious.”
Something in Ross’ tone of voice must have conveyed the truth of his words because Kevin stopped his retreat, squinting at him. “What’s going on?” he asked guardedly.
“I know this is going to sound crazy,” Ross said. “But bear with me. Just hear me out.” He started from the beginning, with his move to Magdalena to live on his cousin’s ranch. He described what had happened on New Year’s Eve, and the gradually escalating weirdness around the town and the outlying countryside, finally telling of his trip to view the body of the creature in the shed. There were a lot of things he left out, but one thing he emphasized was the way that the creature’s presence had changed everyone’s luck. For good and bad. “People were finding gold and winning the lottery, or their kids disappeared and were found dead. Dave and Lita’s ranch was doing good, then their chickens stopped laying and their bees stopped making honey. Dave had a great relationship with his parents and was in need of cash, and both his parents were killed, leaving him money.”
“I never saw any of this on the news.”
“No, you wouldn’t. And that’s part of it, but…” Ross tried to put into words what he was trying to convey. “You know, I’d been out of work for well over a year, no job prospects at all. I’d used up all my money, was thinking of walking away from my condo because I couldn’t make the payments. Then someone bought my condo. And suddenly I had a ton of job offers.
“The reason I’m telling you this is because I want you to set that creature’s body on fire. I want it destroyed. And, not to offend you or anything, but you were a terrible arsonist. That’s why you got caught. And didn’t even burn anything. Although the attempted arson is probably what got you off. If you had succeeded, you’d probably still be in jail.
“But what I’m hoping is that your luck will change when you come with me to Magdalena, and you’ll be a great arsonist. You’ll know exactly what to do and how to set fire to this thing, and when you’re done, there’ll be nothing left but ashes. But even if that doesn’t happen, you’re still the only one I know who knows anything about setting fires, and right now, I think that’s the only way to take this thing out. It was shot out of the sky, dead as a rock, but it started to influence everything around it, and now, apparently, some sort of cocoon has formed around it to protect it while it transforms into something else, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. We need to get to it before it becomes whatever it’s becoming. We need to take it out once and for all.”
“I don’t know why I should believe that,” Kevin said. “But you’re the straightest dude I know. And you bailed me out and were there for me when I needed it, so I owe you, Unc.”
Ross smiled thinly. “Yes, you do.”
“Honestly? I don’t think we’re gonna find what you say we’re gonna find out there, but I’ll go with you to check it out. And if it turns out that you need it…I’ll burn something for you. I’ll burn anything you need.”