Cookie Cutter Man Read Online Free PDF

one, a doubtful one. It wasn’t a look that said “Hey man, I think
maybe that hit on the head really shook something loose up there.”
    But it was close. He could see it lurking there. Just below
the surface, like a crocodile of her mind.
    “I thought those bothered your stomach,” Echo said.
    “They do, but not as much as my head bothers the rest of
me.”
    “Oh. Well. I gotta go to work. You relax today, OK?” She
kissed him and waved as she went out the door.
    Daniel gave her a 10-count and locked it behind her, then
sat back down on the couch, waiting to see what this hall-pill would do to him.
What if it killed him? What if the juices in his stomach were working at the
coating even now, about to release a massive dose of cyanide or something? What
if Echo came home to find him once more on the floor, only this time instead of
a pool of blood around his head she’d find he’d died shitting out his
intestines or something?
    Or, Daniel thought, fuck me, but what if this is a gigantic
hit of LSD and I fry myself? What if I claw my eyes out or jump out the window
but only break my back and end up some goddamn blinded cripple in a nuthouse
somewhere?
    His pulse was up and he’d broken into a sweat, so he sat
back and closed his eyes and listened to his body. Daniel laughed to himself
when he realized that while he’d been sitting there imaging all these horrible
things, the pain in his head had broken like a poisoned wave on a beach and had
finally begun to roll back. Another 10 minutes after that and the blackness in
his head had faded out to gray, and then, finally, was gone.
    Daniel didn’t feel stoned, like on the other pills. His head
was clear for the first time in quite a while. It was this that convinced him
that what he was going through was real, but he would soon find it was far
bigger than he had reason to surmise.
    There had to be a way to get a hold of Jared. He thought of
the conversation he had with the TV last night ... a guy like that wouldn’t
exactly be in the phone book. But if precedent held true, Jared would be
contacting him.
    Contacting you? Who are you? Double-O Junky?
    Fuck off, why don’t ya?
    You need to get back to that doctor, man. That hit on the
head really shook something loose up here.
    Yeah, like what?
    Like me.
    Daniel pushed the stranger out of his mind and held the
original bottle of pills in his left hand, the bottle of hall-pills in his
right. They were identical, right down to the doctor’s name and the phone
number to the pharmacy. He opened one, then the other, gazing in at two
different galaxies. He shook a planet from each and studied them very closely.
He had been right; the hall-pills were a little rounder. He put them back, and
was about to recap them when he happened to look at the underside of the lid.
There was a word there.
    rub
    That was all it said. He looked at the lid from the original
bottle. Nothing. He let it drop from his hands. The bad pills landed at his
feet and scattered. Daniel set the bottle of hall-pills on the end table and
stared down at the lid.
    rub
    What the hell? He rubbed. The white coating on the
underside of the lid first smeared and then was gone, revealing more words,
tiny words.
    dannyboywhenit’s
    safepickupthephone
    Was it safe? Safe for what? He was alone in the apartment,
and that made him safe as any other time so he reached for the phone. He pawed
for it on the table before remembering how it had been obliterated.
    Daniel recapped the new bottle and pocketed it, then buried
the old pills in the bottom of the trash. He went to use the bedroom extension
and cautiously, as if expecting a shock, lifted the phone out of its cradle and
put it to his ear.
    Dial tone.
    What the fuck did you expect? Ave Maria?
    “Hello?” He felt a little odd speaking into a dead receiver
... or was that someone breathing, quietly, on the other end?
    “Hello?” Louder this time, more sure of himself.
    “Is it safe to talk?” The voice sounded