Next of Kin (John Cleaver #3.5)
Dan Wells
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Ben Olsen, who told me to just let the bomb explode. Not in this book, in a different one—it’s not like I’m going to put a spoiler right here in the dedication. Come on.
Acknowledgments
This book exists because of the hard work and invaluable expertise of many people, foremost among them my assistant, Chersti Nieveen, who offered suggestions on the manuscript, designed the cover, and handled a thousand other business-related tasks so that I could have time to write. The editing and proofing were done by Angela Eschler and Heidi Brockbank, and the production was carried out in a ridiculous rush—yet with flawless precision—by Christopher Bigelow, Eugene Woodbury, and Ben Crowder. Other helpful advice was given by Steve Diamond, Maija-Liisa Phipps, and my lovely wife, Dawn Wells.
More than anyone else, this book owes a debt of gratitude to my grandfather, Lowell Alley Wells, who was one of the greatest men I’ve ever met, and whose mind was eaten alive by Alzheimer’s Disease. I don’t think I could have become a horror writer without living through that horror. Grandpa, I’m glad you’re in a better place now. Say hi to Grandma for me.
Part One
I died again last night.
His name was Billy Chapman, found in a snowbank in the streetlight shadow of a parking garage, and when I drank his memories, his death became mine. I remembered stumbling out of the bar, into the biting cold through a thick haze of booze; I remembered slipping on the ice and the sudden, sharp pain. I remembered all thirty-five years of Billy’s life: his job and his boss and his car that didn’t work and his wife Rosie.
Oh, Rosie. He loved her more than anything in the world, and with his memories, now so did I. And neither of us would ever see her again.
The police said we died of exposure, and that’s common enough these days. In a good cold winter like this, most of my memories come from drunks who never made it home, or homeless wanderers who never made it anywhere. In warmer weather I die in other ways, but year after year, my story is the same. I live from death to death, sometimes two weeks, sometimes three, holding on as long as I can while my brain slips away like sand in an hourglass, grain by grain, loose and crumbling, until I can barely remember my own name and I have to find another. I drink their minds like a trembling addict, desperate and ashamed.
In the old days, I used to kill them myself, topping off my memory whenever and however I pleased, but those days didn’t last long. The others called me a fool for loving them, these tiny mortals with their tiny lives, but they never understood that I was one of them now. That my mind contained a hundred thousand human selves, and whatever fragment was me—my true self—was lost forever in that overwhelming crowd. I’ve lived as a banker in Nebraska, as a soldier in the Confederacy, as a Portuguese sailor in the Age of Exploration. I wove silk in the ancient dynasties; I fought and died on the banks of the Nile. The memories sink and surface like flotsam, more painful every time. How can I kill my own heart? How can I hurt them when their joys become my own? So I wait for them to die, and then I drink in peace.
And my mind is full of death.
Sometimes I die peacefully, drifting away as I sleep. These are the easiest deaths, especially if I know it’s coming, and my family is gathered close, and we talk and we laugh and we think about old times, and then I close my eyes and smile and dream. These are the easiest, but they are far too rare to count on. Most of my deaths are full of pain and fear: five endless, desperate seconds in a rolling car, or five agonizing months in a chemo drip and a painkiller cloud. I’ve even been murdered, more times than I can ever remember. Every time, though, every single time, the death itself is never the worst part. Leaving is never as bad as the people you leave behind.
Oh, Rosie.
Part Two