The Nightmare Box and Other Stories by Cynthia Gómez

Author:Cynthia Gómez [Cynthia Gómez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eric Holt
Published: 2024-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

The next afternoon it finally came, the knock on his iron screen door. He peeked through his blinds to see the shadow moving, the shape of a long arm, at its end a round fist. A black-and-white cop car stood at the curb, the Orinda logo on its side.

“Mr. Salas?” He had never heard this voice before, he was sure. What was clutched inside that shadowy fist? Maybe a warrant, full of details cherry-picked and damning: the most violent excerpts from Roberto’s books, his driver’s license as the very last that the two cops had pulled. Possibly even the contents of their body-cam footage; with Roberto’s luck, it hadn’t been obliterated along with the cops but had saved itself to a cloud somewhere.

He heard his name again, but this time it was clear that there was only one voice, only one shadow stretching over the porch. Roberto breathed in through the second knock, breathed out through the third. And then a beat of silence, and a single set of boots thumped down the steps.

He opened the door to a white business card, tucked into the patched metal screen. An Officer Fuentes asked Roberto to call at his earliest opportunity. He had escaped whatever they had in mind, this time. It had been just a rookie on shit duty this time, leaving only a phone number behind. But next there would surely be more.

Where the hell were the changelings? Had they been found or not? “Send those things home,” he’d commanded Huitzol. But had Huitzol even known where those cops lived? Roberto could picture any number of places the changelings might be now, Huitzol’s blink essentially saying, “You didn’t say whose home.“ Were the conjured bodies rotting somewhere in the desert of Nevada, or floating somewhere in the bay? What was Roberto going to do: drive along every Lane and Court, calling out their names?

Oh, fuck. And where was Huitzol?

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