Drake & Griffin

It should have been difficult for the boy to clutch his sheaf of new hire paperwork, run to keep up with Griffin, and still manage to pepper Griffin with a nearly constant stream of words, but he appeared to be achieving it through sheer enthusiasm. “This is really a dream come true! I can’t tell you how amazing it is to get hired here, Mr. Griffin!”

But you’re going to try to tell me anyway, aren’t you, thought Griffin wryly. He noted that though the boy’s reddish-brown hair had been shellacked into obedience, an unruly curl had already sprung up in the back.

“When I was a kid—”

Griffin stirred his coffee and raised an eyebrow at that. When you were a kid, huh? How could anybody look at the knobby knees, the gangly arms, and the hero-worship so sincere it nearly radiated out of the boy’s freckles and not see childhood? No adult in the nightmare extermination business ever looked so excited. 

 “—our house wasn’t well sealed, and the night fumes used to seep through the chinks in the walls! It was horrible! The worst leak was in my room. But Drake came and stopped it—for free! Because we were low income—” The kid stopped. His eyes drifted to the letterhead on the documents he carried: Drake & Griffin. He blushed, “I-I guess you were there, too...”

Griffin allowed himself a brief smile. He never expected anybody to remember his greying, owl-eyed silence after Drake walked into the room, least of all an impressionable hero-worshipper like this one. “’S okay, kid.”

Relieved, but still red-faced, the kid hurried on, “His team totally sealed up the house. I never had another nightmare! It’s been my dream to work with you guys for years! I think I might be pretty good at it, because of my experience, y’know. And—you say he’s actually going to meet me?”

The boy’s face was lit up. Griffin paused, recognizing in himself a strange compulsion to march the kid back down the corridor and show him the door, protecting him from the reality of Drake and from this job. But no. Drake always met the new hires. And there hadn’t been many lately, not that the kid needed to know that.

“That he does.” Griffin said. And he swung open the largest door of the office, motioning the kid forward. 

“Drake.” he said, “New hire. Named Alex Thornton.”

“Welcome!” Drake boomed, shooting up out of his leather chair and extending a massive hand for Alex to shake. He was the kind of man that filled any room he was in, his shoulders straining against the constraints of his suit jacket, his voice booming out joyously. The bright blue eyes pierced whoever was looking at him, his white teeth flashing from inside his beard—everything about him shouted that this was a presence, a man’s man, someone you could trust.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome! I hear you’re our newest on-the-field apprentice! And I hear I don’t even need to explain to you that ‘nightmares’ aren’t actually nightmares—yes, you wouldn’t believe it, but some people still don’t know!” He let out a belly laugh. “You grew up just outside of Fizarro Recycling, though, right? I remember that job. You understand the whole wreck of a business; the scumbags who built the recycling centers wrong. You’ll be working directly with Griffin and I—so you can just know from the get-go that you’re the best of the best. We expect a lot, but we give you the training you need to really succeed. Alex, is it?”

Alex nodded, letting his arm get pumped up and down by Drake’s brawn. Griffin stayed at the door, noting clinically that Drake was really pouring on the charm for Alex. This was not a consciously manipulative thing, Griffin knew. Drake simply had an innate sense for when he could overpower another personality and he couldn’t resist taking advantage of it. That was really Drake’s greatest weakness, Griffin thought; simply that if he could do something, he would do it. And that was why Griffin was still part of Drake & Griffin. Somebody had to stick around who to make sure there were things Drake couldn’t do.

Drake sat Alex down in the chair opposite him and was booming along, painting the picture of the nightmare extermination procedure, throwing in a few funny stories, some touching antidotes. Griffin closed the door and left them to it. Alex certainly seemed happy to be there; they’d see how long he lasted.

Two hours later, Alex reappeared in the equipment room, still clutching his new employee paperwork, floating along with stars in his eyes. Griffin glanced up. “Ready to get started?”

“Yes, sir!” Alex said.

“I’ll take those.” Griffin removed the papers from his hands—of course Drake hadn’t filed them. “And we’ll get you fitted for your suit and started on the training modules. Have you ever used any of the store-bought sealants for minor repairs or anything? It’s caustic stuff.”

He noticed the overweening confidence on the boy’s face just as Alex cocked his head to the side and gave him a condescending smile. “Oh, Mr. Drake said he had a call he wanted me to come on today—I’m sure I’ll be able to fit the training in later. He said to tell you he’s the boss, if you complain.”

Griffin paused, his face impassive. Inwardly he was cursing. This was obviously foolish, even for Drake. “It’s three days of classroom study and an entire week of practicum before you should go out on the field. This is not a low-risk job, Mr. Thornton. I would highly suggest—”

“Nonsense!” Drake shouted from the doorway. “You don’t have my sense for things, Griffin. This kid grew up with nightmares, he wasn’t a country boy like you. Let’s suit up!”

Griffin flicked an irritated glance at Drake but did not waste time arguing. Nobody had as fragile an ego as Drake; challenge him and he might just start doing even stupider things. Griffin would manage. He always did.

Instead, as he showed the kid how to seal his suit, manage the gas mask, and quick patching tricks when the suit got torn after an attack, he kept up a quiet stream of instructions, “The suit keeps out the poison, but nobody has found a perfect seal against this stuff, and you will experience the effects, just in lesser amounts. It’s best to think of a song—something incredibly irritating and easy to get stuck in your head, and an image to focus on the entire time you’re in an affected house. It’s going to feel overwhelming at first. Stick close to us. Don’t do anything we’re not doing. It’s easy to become disoriented and possibly even see or hear things that aren’t there.”

“Got it!” Alex chirped, obviously more interested in examining the suit than listening. Griffin wondered if the whole “nightmare” colloquialism didn’t hurt more than it helped. He would have preferred the more technical name Monoxydiphenoalaxic Acid, but it was a tongue twister, and Drake had rejected it outright, preferring the drama of “nightmare.”

Drake, chuckled, zipping his own suit up. “Listen to Griffin, clucking like a mother hen! The kid’s a natural, I’m telling you! And he’s got us, right? Best in the business? He’ll be safe as a newborn baby!”  

In the truck, Alex snapped his seatbelt in place and looked eagerly between the two men. “Oh man, this is going to be awesome! So where are we going?”

“447 Cornica Place!” boomed Drake, opening the bay doors and pulling out into the evening air. “Only about 20 minutes. You’re lucky, kid, some of the jobs we get are three hours away.”

It was a hazy June night. One of those nights when the air is soft and still and even the crickets sound sleepy. The kind of night nobody could imagine insanity and destruction seeping into their house. Griffin looked out the window. It was the reality of the world now, imaginable or not.

For decades, electric car batteries had been dumped in special, safe, recycling centers designed to contain the toxic elements of the battery and recycle the usable parts. There were hundreds of them dotted over the country; all dedicated to responsible use of the electric car refuse. They weren’t going to make the same mistake they’d made with fossil fuels and harm the environment, oh no.

Then tens of hundreds of people began suffering horrible nightmares, delusions, tremors and sometimes even complete mental breakdowns. At first no one connected those symptoms with the recycling centers. At least they didn’t until the recycling center workers themselves began to go stark raving mad.

Investigations revealed that though the centers had been designed to contain the harmful gases, the rush to get “green energy” approved had involved skipping some or all the testing to prove that the centers could achieve their purpose. Then there were investigations and arrests, but the American people were left with the horrible reality that the entire nation was spotted with poison gas leaks, some of which were volatile.

So a whole new job was created; popularly dubbed “nightmare exterminators.” Griffin sighed at the inexactness of the American public. He pulled up the notes Drake had made on the 447 Cornica Way case.

And he immediately found problems. “This place is right out by the Clayton center, Drake…But… it sounds like it should be fairly straightforward,” he continued, scanning down the rest of the notes. “Single leak recurring in the back bedroom. Surprisingly small for that area, but if this family has a new leak, we might end up coming back for their neighbors pretty soon. We’ll do it standard.”  

“And you were worried,” Drake elbowed him, and then said to the backseat, “Right, buddy?”

“I can handle a leak, no problem!” Alex said. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Griffin, I am one hundred percent ready!”

Griffin watched as Drake swelled with his own importance, a proud smirk twitching up the corners of his mouth, the blue eyes twinkling, and felt a twist of foreboding.

447 Cornica Place was an unattractive split level done in shades of khaki, with lumpy boxwoods lining the front of the house.

“The family’s gone.” Griffin noted, looking at the drawn blinds and empty driveway. The crickets had stopped singing and the night was silent. A breeze fluttered the leaves on the trees above them, flashing pale undersides. “That’s not good. You took the notes for this one, Drake. Why did the family feel they needed to leave? A simple seal over the bedroom and some masks should be enough for a single nightmare.”

Drake and Alex shared a grin and Drake shook his head, tsking. “Worry, worry, worry. Yeah I took the notes and there’s nothing to worry about. You got to be confident going in and taking care of these things, Griffin. The kid knows, right?”

He was nearly vibrating with excitement. “Yeah, I got this!”

Griffin raised his eyebrow at the condescending smile his associate had on his face, pursed his lips and turned back to the truck to stuff a few extra cans of sealant in his bag. Don’t nag him, he’ll just get worse. Keep calm and maybe you can keep the situation in hand.  It was the mantra he’d lived by for years. He snapped the bag shut. It was a lousy mantra.

And then behind him, Drake proved why it was a lousy mantra. He thumped Alex on the shoulder and said, “Tell you what, sport? How about you head in and do a reconnaissance. Your first one, heh?”

Griffin stopped moving, his pack halfway to his back. After a moment, he spoke, and for the first time, his voice held an edge. “If it was safe for an untrained person to face down a nightmare, we wouldn’t have a job, Drake.”

“Just the initial sweep, Griffin.” Drake’s voice held its own steel. “Go on in there, Alex. Give us a general idea of the layout and find the target bedroom.”

Griffin turned around, a No expressed in every inch of his six feet of bulk. It went against his personal rules for handling Drake. He knew his objecting would make Drake even more bullish, but maybe he could scare the kid enough to back down.

His voice was steady and flat. “He doesn’t know focusing techniques. He doesn’t even know what a general idea of a layout is supposed to look like or what to be on the watch for. Maybe ten years ago you could send in someone untrained, but his is not a simple problem anymore, Drake. The leaks are getting stronger and more dangerous. Plus the family shouldn’t have left—the fact that they did says there’s something more going on here.”

But this time, Drake didn’t bluster. He didn’t get mad. “Has it come to this?” He replied, his tone quiet. “My oldest friend, not trusting me?”

It was that hint of vulnerability there at the end that did it, the sadness, the betrayal. He was a master manipulator, Griffin realized again, too late. He’d known he would never really be able to change Griffin’s mind, so he hadn’t tried. The kid, however, responded to the bait at once. “I trust you, sir! I’m going in!”

Without a backward glance, or a reconnaissance sweep, or a radiation sensor, he ran for the door. Griffin swore and ran after him, leaving Drake standing by the car. At the door he hit a wall of acid stench that made his entire body go cold and his legs began to tremble. This was not a simple leak.

“Drake!” He roared, “Get over here and help me! We’re going to need at least a full containment unit and some radiation spray! Call for backup!”

He looked back to see his partner, still standing by the truck, arms crossed, a small smile on his face. “No. And if you go in there, you might contaminate this entire neighborhood.”

Griffin turned around. “What?!”

Drake continued, his voice calm, the same small smile on his face. “I falsified the notes. It wasn’t a private family who called us out to this house, it was Nolan Clayton himself. The recycling center’s about to blow. You and I have known it for months. Well, he’s trying to save his hide, so he hired us to handle this house—he told me he wanted to make a good faith effort, you know, paid me extra since it’s so dangerous. What he didn’t know was that I know the entire pressure from the Clayton Recycling Center is behind this house—some pipe somewhere burst last week and they’re scrambling, but it’s not going to be enough.”

“But there’s no way we can clean this up, not if the entire center is leaking into it.”

Drake nodded. “He wants us to be his scapegoats—the idiot clean-up guys who blew up a house instead of cleaning it. When the entire neighborhood is contaminated, it’ll be our fault instead of his.”

Griffin felt a radiation spray can drop from his suddenly numb fingers as he realized what Drake was doing. “So you set up another scapegoat to take the fall for us.”

Drake nodded, his eyes drifting to the house appraisingly. “He doesn’t have much time left, I’d say, not with the stuff that’s in there. He’ll start hearing voices and do something dumb any moment now. We should probably step back.”

Griffin turned away from his partner, picked up the radiation spray can, doused himself from head to toe, and walked up the steps towards the tiny sliver of darkness through open door. He could not see the corrosion and fear and agony leaking out that door, but he knew they were there.

Behind him, Drake shouted, “What—what are you doing, you idiot?! If you disrupt things in there—get back here, right now!”

As the trembling seized his limbs again and the miasma of fear began to chill his bones, Griffin began singing to himself, “This is the song that has no end, it goes on and on my friend…” And he stepped through the door.

It was dark, in the house, and already the gas was having an effect; shadows darted from wall to chair, startling him even though he knew they weren’t there. Something rustled behind him. He had a brief hope that it was Drake, come to help, but he discarded that idea at once.

He pulled up the memory he kept stored for this very moment, a sunny afternoon, long ago, sitting by the bank of the river with his brother, dipping his toes in the water. It had been a moment of complete security. But when he looked up into his brother’s face, it had warped and shifted into Alex, screaming at him, “They’re eating me!” It was a surprisingly swift disruption of his memory and it sent a spike of fear into him. He reached for the blower on his belt but paused. He couldn’t risk using a blower on this place—the gas was too thick. It would ignite if he used electricity.

He shook off the memory and forced himself to see what was truly in front of him. Alex, lying in the floor in fetal position, moaning and twitching. He bent down to touch him, and the boy transformed into a monster—flashing teeth, claws, a ferocious attack. But years of habit stood him in good stead.  He ignored what his eyes were telling him and blindly wrapped his arms around the teeth and fear lashing out at him. His arms wrapped around a skinny seventeen-year-old boy, struggling and screaming.

Ignoring his thrashing, Griffin tossed him on his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and turned for the door. But where was it? The world had transformed into a twisted version of his river memory, the water turned to lava, things—dark things with red eyes, creeping out of the woods. His heart hammered so hard that he could barely breathe. His arms were numb. His legs shook. Alex was struggling, fighting his grip in an insane panic.

“It goes on and on, my friend…” He sang off key, not caring, and shut his eyes and walked straight forward. He hit a lamp. Fear bloomed again—he was trapped, he’d not find his way out—but no, he’d done a scan of the room. The tall floor lamp was only three feet to the left of the door. He altered direction, shut his eyes against the terrors that were warping and dripping into the room—Step. Step. Step.

The air cleared. The hectic swirl of images crowding through his brain relaxed. He opened his eyes to flashes of blue and red. Policemen in gas masks ran up to him and escorted him down the sidewalk. Two EMTs gently pulled Alex from his grasp and wrestled the screaming, thrashing boy onto a gurney.

“Sir,” said the policeman on his left, “Are you alright? Do you need medical attention?”

Behind them the military level professionals were covering the house in a tarp, moving quickly to cut off the leak so that the real work of slowly crushing the house into the ground and sealing it could begin.  

Drake came striding over. Griffin saw the panicked look in his eyes behind the mask of relief. He threw an arm over Griffin’s shoulder in a manly thump-hug. Griffin withstood the affection without budging and then stepped back to let the EMTs spray him down with radiation spray as Drake started talking.

“Griffin! Thank heavens—I didn’t think you’d get out alive!” He turned to the policeman, “Sir, we had no idea what the boy was thinking—when we realized how bad the leak was, I was in the middle of calling for emergency services as backup, but Alex,” he shook his head, dismay and distress all over his face. “He just ran for the door. He wasn’t ready, he was simply here to observe—” His eyes were boring into Griffin, demanding that Griffin keep silent, accept this version of events. Play along, Griffin, do what you’ve always done Griffin, don’t make trouble, Griffin. 

The EMTs finished with the spray. Griffin took off his facemask and helmet. And looking straight into Drake’s eyes, unwavering, he said to the policeman, “Sir, what he’s saying isn’t true. I’d like to make a statement.”