0113 - Untitled (Cooper)
an excerpt

Chapter 7

Cooper had managed to avoid dreaming, but that mostly just meant he hadn’t slept long enough to get to that stage of sleep... which meant he hadn’t slept long enough, period. After the third time Uncle Mark caught him staring into space, he had been told to go to the front and set up, and leave anything hot, sharp or complicated alone.

He jumped at the sudden banging, only to realize once his heart left his throat that it was just someone knocking on the door. He glanced at the clock, which said it was still half an hour before open, and called, “We’re closed!”

He dropped coffee grounds all over the counter when the next round of knocking started. At least he had just re-washed that counter for the day, and dried it, so he could sweep the grounds into a filter instead of having to throw them all out.

“Oh, for the love of...” He grumbled, as the knocking didn’t stop. He was now in sight of the door, so he looked up with a disgruntled glare.

Oh. Him. They made eye contact, and Brent gave a self-conscious wave before shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Who’s pounding on the door?” Uncle Mark called.

“Someone I know, apparently,” Cooper answered. “Sorry. I have no idea what he wants. Mind if I let him in?”

“A friend?” his uncle asked.

“I guess,” Cooper answered, a little unsure but...well, Brent had showed up here, and not run screaming, and Cooper had promised Samantha he would try to look him up, so he should probably let him in.

“If he’s a friend, open the damn door and get him a cup of coffee,” Uncle Mark said, a little too jovially.

Only as Cooper was crossing the room to open the door did he remember that he had been actively avoiding everyone Uncle Mark knew to be his friend since summer, so it was no surprise that he was happy to see Cooper willing to make some kind of contact.

Cooper unlocked the door with a strange, fatalistic feeling. For a few moments, he and Brent stood there, looking at each other, neither sure what to say.

Cooper did notice that Brent kept a good distance, and did not offer to shake hands.

Awkwardly, Brent said, “Your friend told me I could find you here.”

“What friend?” Cooper grumbled. Some of the guys from the team knew he was working here, since they had see him, but he had trouble picturing them talking to Brent about Cooper. Or about anything.

Very quietly, Brent said, “The girl. I think she was probably your... you know.” His gaze moved past Cooper, to Uncle Mark, who was standing in the doorway, flour on his hands, obviously wanting to make sure Cooper invited Brent in instead of telling him to go away.

“Come inside,” Cooper said. “I’ve got to finish setting up the front, but I can get you a coffee or something.”

“Thanks.”

As Brent stepped through the doorway, Cooper said, “Her name is Samantha, by the way.” Saying it, admitting out loud that she existed to another person, seemed like it lifted a weight off his shoulders.

“Samantha,” Brent repeated. “She’s... interesting, isn’t she.”

Uncle Mark had finally ducked back into the next room, at which point Cooper relaxed some. “Yeah. Kind of painful sense of color.”

“We’re definitely talking about the same girl,” Brent agreed, good humor in his voice now. “But she seems to care about you.”

“She’s a nice girl,” Cooper said. “Not big on privacy, but I think mostly it’s that she’s lonely. I’m surprised she isn’t here yet, actually. She normally chats all through the morning.”

“Huh,” Brent answered, as if just remembering that all this was really, really weird. Then he blinked, and shook his whole body. “Sorry. Did you say coffee? I’m not used to being awake at this hour.”

“Sit down. I’ll get you a cup. How do you take it?”

“Just... coffee-like. Black. I’m a Dunkin’ Donuts guy,” Brent said by way of explanation. “Complicated coffee freaks me out.”

“If you want to hang out with your friend, I have things under control,” Uncle Mark said, as Cooper poured Brent a cup of their house roast.

“Thanks.”

“You’ve been a bit of a menace this morning, anyway,” he pointed out, with a chuckle.

Cooper agreed, and met back with Brent at the table in the corner, as far away from the counter and back room- and Uncle Mark- as the could be. Brent took the coffee, but his expression seemed distant as he said, “Thanks.”

“So,” Cooper began, seated across the table, and having no idea where to begin.

“So,” Brent replied. “Since I’ve seen her, too, I’m going to work on the assumption that you are not crazy. I think that’s a good place to begin.”

Cooper nodded. “You don’t seem freaked out.”

“My life’s been pretty weird for a while now,” Brent explained. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get to that. What else can you tell me about Samantha, and about yourself?”

“You said you saw her?” Cooper asked, curious. “No one else has been able to see her before now.”

“I don’t think I normally can,” Brent said, “but right after whatever you did in the library- and we’ll get to that, too- I saw and heard her for a second or two. Last night I saw her when I was dreaming.”

Dreaming? Dear god, it was bad enough when she showed up while he was getting dressed or something. If that girl showed up in Cooper’s dreams-

“Calm,” Brent said, softly. “Wherever you’re going right now, it’s not a good place to go.”

Cooper’s eyes widened, as he focused back on Brent, and not on the nightmares.

“Your mind goes somewhere bad sometimes,” Brent said, his voice still smooth and careful. “It’s somewhere you don’t like to think about. It hurts. I would be shocked to learn it has nothing to do with Samantha and your ability to see her, but I’m sure I can’t deal with it or help you deal with it, so just don’t go there.”

“My parents want me to see a shrink.” The words had fled Cooper’s mouth before he could consider them.

Brent just shrugged, though. “Well... there’s definitely something wrong with you,” he said, after a moment. “But I’m better with computers than with human brains, so I’m not going to try to figure out what the issue is with yours. What I can do is recommend a witch I know. He helped me out recently.”

“Is that the ‘cult’ you mentioned?” Cooper asked, skeptically. By this point, he might take the help one way or anther, but he was still a little wary.

“It’s a weird group,” Brent admitted, “and they do some freaky stuff, but that’s the inner group. The leader, this guy named Ryan, doesn’t care if you stick around or don’t, or if you join that group or not. He’s mostly just about power- the paranormal kind, I mean, not over people.”

“So, what did he do for you?” Cooper asked. Brent had so far been very vague about whatever “problem” this group had helped him with. If he hadn’t mentioned that he had seen Samantha, Cooper probably would already have brushed him off as a quack.

Of course, he hadn’t exactly described Samantha, just agreed with Cooper’s description. He hadn’t even known her name. He had only talked about her as a girl, and Cooper knew he had referred to Samantha as a “her” during their conversation the day before.

He didn’t want to be cynical. He really didn’t want to be cynical, because he desperately wanted to be able to talk to someone about all this, but at least until Samantha showed up to confirm she had spoken to Brent in a dream the night before- something she had never done with Cooper, thank God- Cooper was going to remain a little suspicious.

“Well...” Brent hesitated, staring at his coffee. “I was hearing voices. Which turned out to be thoughts. At first I figured I was going crazy, but people kept saying or doing things I had just hear them think. It got bad enough I had trouble leaving the house. I couldn’t hide that I was having problems, and my parents took me to doctor after doctor. They did a million and one tests it seemed like. I wasn’t about to tell them I was hearing voices, so eventually they prescribed me medication for migraines, which didn’t work of course. Meanwhile at any chance I had I was checking out psychics, anyone in the area who said they had power. Most of them are complete charlatans, but eventually the fact that I was asking got around to Ryan. He walked up to me as I was in the middle of dismantling a hard drive- I worked as an IT guy during summer break- and just asked me outright, ‘What am I thinking?’”

Brent stopped there, at which point Cooper realized he was leaning forward, intrigued by the story. Brent might say he dealt with computers, but their talk in the library had given away that he fancied himself a story-teller, too, and now he was making good on that point.

“And?” Cooper prompted, as Brent took a slow sip of his coffee.

“And I was sick of all the BS I had gone through recently, so I looked. I really tried, and I got nothing. With most people, when I look at them, I get babble. Very few people have just one solid thought at a time. I get a lot of static when I try to read you, though; you have a lot of thoughts you’ve got shoved away, which makes the rest of your thoughts very focused, which is kind of pleasant compared to most people’s babbling. But trying to read Ryan was like I was looking at a blank wall: you can tell it’s there, but that’s the only thing you can tell about it.”

The bit about reading Cooper’s thoughts was a little creepy. Suddenly he was glad he didn’t have anything to hide except for the haunting Brent already knew about.

“And he didn’t decide you were a fake right then and there because you couldn’t answer him?” Cooper asked.

“I looked at him, and he stood there completely calmly as I got more and more frustrated,” Brent answered. “Finally, I told him the truth, that I couldn’t hear a damn thing. He smiled, and then sat down next to me and said he had heard that I was looking for someone to help me learn to control my ability. Then suddenly I heard his voice in my head, as clear as day, saying, ‘I can help you.’ I couldn’t read him because he’s used to spending time with people who can, so he knows how to shield himself. I I’d been a fake, or crazy, I would’ve bluffed or come up with something, so when I admitted I couldn’t hear anything he knew I had to be for real.”

“That’s pretty intense,” Cooper said, hooked now on the story... but still feeling that wriggle of doubt. “Would it piss you off if I asked you what I’m thinking?” To make it fair, he tried to focus on something particular. The number 42; that would work. 42.

Brent shook his head. “You don’t want me to answer that.”

“Sure I do, or I wouldn’t have asked,” Cooper insisted, his doubts growing as Brent stalled.

“Seriously, you don’t.”

Cooper had been starting to really get into Brent’s story, to really believe him, but now... “Seriously, I do.”

Brent shut his eyes, and said flatly, “Forty-two. And cars. Rain. Noise. Where’s Samantha? The cars again. Now the mirror. Scars. Samantha again. Parents want you to go to a shrink. Uncle Mark’s glad you’re talking to a friend- he’s actually humming in the back room, something from Fiddler on the Roof, which he saw with you years ago. At your eighth birthday. You had strawberry cake with chocolate frosting. It was a Colt Hatchback... 2003. Green... blue. Greenish blue. You argued with your mom over which it was. Rain, and-”

“Stop it!”

Brent opened his eyes, and then winced at what he said. “I won’t do it again,” he promised. “Calm.”

“Don’t you tell me to be-”

“Cool it!” Brent shouted. At least, it seemed like a shout. Cooper didn’t think Brent had actually raised his voice, but the word echoed in Cooper’s mind. “I didn’t do this to you,” Brent said, flatly, as Cooper focused on breathing. “Some day you’re going to have to square with those memories, those thoughts. For now, though, I just needed you to believe me. Do you believe me?”

“I believe you.”