Headlights(26)

“But they’ve been gone so long, right? Bringing them back now—”

“When you kill an apex predator, it sets off a chain effect that can obliterate entire ecosystems. Now it’s a coyote problem, all of ’em sneaking into yards, eating dogs and cats, attacking kids. They’re everywhere. And it’s because we took out their predator and competition. Foxes are endangered because now coyotes outcompete them. Deer populations have skyrocketed. Too many deer leads to too little vegetation and an increase in illness—human illness. No wolves, more moose and elk, they eat all the saplings. No more aspen trees, whole forests taken out. Can you guess how much life a forest holds? Every time we tweak anything, everything is affected. We just do this everywhere all the time. Eradicate entire species, send shock waves through the earth. It’s hurting us, ultimately. But we can’t see it. We’ve just decided that of all the almost nine million estimated species on the earth, only one matters.”

I watch him a minute. I consider him. This.

I nod. After another moment, I say, “You were on your walk. On Sagebrush.”

He nods. When I don’t say any more, he says, “Sometimes I just want to see. You know? Like what is it all for? What matters so much more about us and the breaths we take and our wants and fears than those of any other living breathing creature? That hour before the curtains are shut in people’s houses, but the lights are on. Walking by, glancing in—not to be weird, or … to just … witness something. People sitting or playing on lawns, kids running, grandparents with a glass of wine or a cigarette or an iced tea. Human life, bonds, family units. It can be beautiful, this thing we’re destroying the world for. Sometimes I feel like I need to see that. Sometimes seeing it from the outside makes me realize.”

“What’s the exact last moment you remember before you were at the bar?”

“It was evening. I passed a house, saw a family cooking dinner. And then … There was no break in the walking. I picked my foot up in Rock Creek, and when I set it down again, I was still walking and it was full night. I wasn’t in my development or anywhere near my house. I was cold, my body felt, I dunno, sore, and exhausted. Terrible. Like I hadn’t slept in days, or maybe ever. My feet hurt. I looked around, and there was this one glowing building in the dark.

“It felt like the strangest dream. Me, in this dark cold endless night, and that bright warm building in front of me. Neon and Christmas lights. I could hear music, even. And the sort of dream logic just told me I had to get inside to the light, had to get out of the cold dark. I had a cloak around my shoulders, and I pulled it tight. I walked toward the neon sign and the lit-up building, out of the dark.”

“And then?”

Everett takes a breath. “Well, when I stepped inside, into the light of this bar, it felt … real. Suddenly not like a dream. Like stepping inside the building brought me back to this world, somehow. Woke me up. And there was a woman in front of me, the first person I saw. That agent. And she looked at me like I was a monster, which … made me look at myself. When I looked down, I saw blood. It—I guess I just started screaming. I can’t believe she didn’t shoot me. I would’ve shot me. Got lucky. Or probably unlucky … anyway. That’s … what happened.”

“Do you know now what happened in the time between walking near your house and ending up at the bar? Has anyone told you?”

Everett swallows. His voice breaks a bit when he says, “They said that skin I was wearing, that I killed that person. They said I … kidnapped a girl?”

“Do you know where you took them? What you did with them?”

“Can you imagine someone telling you not only that there are multiple nights of your life you don’t remember at all, but also that you somehow did things that are so unfathomably horrific, things that you know you are completely incapable of, that it all feels like some elaborate joke? And then they tell you they have proof that you did it? Proof that something you have no memory of happening at all, that honestly makes you sick to even hear about, actually took place, and now, suddenly, your life is just … over.”

“No,” I say, after a moment. “I can’t imagine.” But I know that we’re capable of so much worse than we think we are. War will show you that. Life, sometimes.

“There was a hair, tied into a knot, in your vomit at the bar. Do you remember there being a hair in your mouth?”

He stares at me. “What?”

“There was—”

“Is she okay? The girl?”

“How did you know her?” I ask.

“I’m telling you, I don’t even know her name, or what she looks like.”

“Your fingerprints are on the duct tape that was sealing her mouth shut,” I say.

He runs his hands over his face. “I don’t even know what the fuck hotel it was. Please,” he says. “Just tell me, is she okay?”

“Do you know who I am?” I ask.

“Daniel Stansfield. Tell me.”

“How did you know I was back in Denver?”

He shakes his head, distraught.

“She’s okay,” I say. “How do you know who I am?”

“Everyone knows who you are.”

“How did you know I was back?”

“I didn’t know you left.”