Limbus, Inc., Book III by Jonathan Maberry

Author:Jonathan Maberry [Talley, Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JournalStone Publishing

The Unlearnable Truths

From the Case Files of Sam Hunter

By

Jonathan Maberry

-1-

Sam Hunter

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I picked up the phone on the fourth ring. Goddamn thing would not stop ringing. I’d let it go to voicemail five times and hadn’t listened to the messages and now whoever it was kept calling.

The caller ID said “unavailable.”

Since it seemed pretty apparent someone didn’t want me to sleep in on a Sunday morning, I finally reached out from under the covers, grabbed the phone, dragged it back in where it was warm, and punched the green button.

“Go fuck yourself,” I mumbled, and hung up.

I was on that edge of sleep where you know you can not only dive back in, but step right into the dream you’d been pulled from. This was a good dream. It involved a lot of Scarlett Johansson and not a lot of clothes.

The phone started ringing again.

If I was more awake or, possibly, smarter, I’d have simply turned off the ringer. I was neither, at least not in the moment.

I pressed the button.

“Seriously,” I said, “go fu—.”

“Mr. Hunter?” interrupted a voice. Very female, very smoky.

So, I said, “Yeah…?” But I left it a question in case I needed to pretend I wasn’t Sam Hunter.

“We need you,” she said.

“It’s Sunday. Need me tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow will be too late,” said the woman. I figured her for early thirties. There was a quality to her voice that made it clear that she was young but not a kid.

“If it’s that pressing,” I told her, my own voice thick with sleep, “call 9-1-1.”

“We don’t work with the police, Mr. Hunter. We prefer to work with you.”

I rolled over onto my back. It had been a very good dream and I had a very inconvenient morning erection. And a very full bladder. But the bathroom was on the other side of the arctic tundra that is my apartment.

“Who is ‘we’?” I asked.

And she said, “Limbus.”

I hung up the phone again.

She called back seven more times.

I had braved the tundra and was on the toilet when I answered. I told her that I was on the toilet, hoping that would disgust her into hanging up. Not so.

“We need your help,” she said, ignoring my comments and any pictures it might paint for us both to look at. “You’ve worked with us in the past and—”

“And regret having done so,” I told her, then held the phone near the tank while I gave it a courtesy flush.

“You did superior work for us.”

“Flattery doesn’t do much for me on a Sunday morning.”

There was a very brief pause. “What does ten thousand dollars do for you?”

I closed my eyes. I really hate working for Limbus. I’ve been messed up—inside and out—twice now. I made enemies in very bad places both times. I have nightmares. Yes, even people like me have nightmares, and not all of them are about taxes or middle-age prostate issues.

And, let’s face it, I have to work a lot of hours doing intensely boring shit to come up with ten grand.

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