Authors: Aric Davis
CHAPTER 45
Darryl and Terry sat on either side of a couch in a hunting cabin that they’d broken into a few miles off of the highway.
There was no air conditioning, and the place was sweltering in the August heat, but it hadn’t seen a visitor in some time, and it had two beds and a working TV with rabbit ears. The TV had only taken a moment to lock onto one of the local channels, and before long the programming was exactly as they had known it would be: pictures of them; security footage of them leaving Des Moines; shots of Darryl at the gas station, the cop blurred out; and finally, video of the mess at the docks and the two of them dashing through the crowd with that baby stroller. Darryl watched it all with a lump of panic in his throat. This was far worse than the distraction they’d used to take heat off in Des Moines. This was being twisted to bring all the heat in seven states down onto their heads. Not a single mention of the two trigger-happy cops Darryl had bent in their escape. According to the woman on the TV, Darryl and Terry had shot their way off of the boat.
“The TV station might not have the whole story yet,” said Terry in an odd moment of prescience. “I mean, people did see the cop trying to hold us, and they did see us borrow that baby in its stroller. They knew we had
something
to do with what was going on, and it probably makes more sense that we shot those cops, so that’s what they’re going with. Not to mention they probably can’t talk about cops going crazy on a raid and killing each other. People would be scared shitless.”
“The media doesn’t know what I am,” said Darryl. “But the cops there do, and they were told to suppress information by some fucking black-suited government official and—”
“No,” said Terry. “You’re back to that conspiracy shit. You don’t know how many people like you there are out there, and you don’t know that the government is studying any of them, and you sure as hell don’t know they’re orchestrating some kind of black-ops nationwide dragnet for us.”
Darryl waved him off and stood, reeling from the onset of what was going to be a dinger of a headache. He couldn’t stagger into the bathroom, though, because there was a mirror there, and he knew what he’d see if he looked in it.
You need to unload this shit on him, and the sooner you do it, the better.
Darryl walked into the rudimentary kitchen in the cabin, grabbed a towel from a drawer, and then turned on the water. Nothing happened.
“Fuck,” said Darryl.
“I’m sure if we look we can find out where the hookup for that is,” said Terry. He’d trailed him into the kitchen. “It’s probably not far from here.”
“Yeah, so some asshole birdwatcher can see us and call the law,” Darryl spat, unable to keep the spite out of his voice. He felt himself bending under the weight he was carrying. He needed to be smart, play this all the right way, because it wouldn’t take much for Terry to tear away toward civilization, find some honky-tonk and start drinking, killing, and skull-fucking everything with a heartbeat and without the sense to get the fuck out of his way.
You could play it that way. Send him off on a rampage and then head the other way.
It was true: Terry was already packed with rotten shit, and after Darryl dumped off the rest of the crud into him, he was going to be one very loose cannon.
“I’m just saying, man,” whined Terry, stung by Darryl snapping at him. “We could turn the water on. Hell, at least we have electricity.”
Darryl shook his head. “I’m not sure that box is doing me much good. I have a seriously bad feeling about all of this, Terry. Whoever the hell’s after us knew we were on that boat, and I guarantee you they know that some of those cops were shooting at other police. And so does the media. Too many people saw it. That would make for a hell of a news story, wouldn’t you say? I don’t see any reporter suppressing that just because some Podunk chief said please. I’m telling you, it’s the feds—”
“Maybe it’s the feds, maybe it’s not,” said Terry. “Does it really matter? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of cops looking for us right now, and the chances of this having a happy ending are just getting slimmer and slimmer. You need to come up with something, Darryl. That’s what you do: you get us out of messes—and this is a pretty bad mess. We need to get out of this state, get you back in front of a computer so you can raise some hell, and then leave the country, in that order. I can’t make any of that happen, Darryl. I can be your friend, and I can help you do things, but I can’t get us out of this by myself.”
“All right,” said Darryl. He needed to focus, though that was hard when there was a woman on the television describing how Darryl and Terry tried to take over the boat, and when that didn’t work, tried to take hostages. He turned away from the TV and grabbed the sides of his head. “They want to catch me and throw me in some lab, man. I don’t want to get my brain dissected while I look at inkblot drawings and try and make someone piss across town. I’m not doing it. I’d rather just be dead.”
“So we don’t get caught,” said Terry. “You can get us out of this, I know it.”
Darryl sighed. Christ, what kind of trouble were they in if
Terry
was the fucking voice of reason?
“All right,” said Darryl after a moment of silence. “We’ll catch some winks, then hit the road at peak, right around eight. We’ll get to Grand Rapids—it’s the biggest city that’s both south and close to here—and we’ll get a room with a phone. I’ll land us a couple of kids, make us some money, and then I’ll get us another distraction. After that I’m not sure, but we’ll probably need more than passports and hair dye to get out of here. Terry, I honestly don’t know what’s worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if there is some secret squirrel group collecting people like me, they’re never going to stop looking for us,” said Darryl. “But if there isn’t, we’re still going to have a hell of a time getting out of here. We’re on the hook for three dead cops, and there’s no way that’s going to go away anytime soon.”
He shook his head and smiled a black smile. “Hell, if there’s some black-ops types coming after us, we might have a better chance of getting away. They’ll keep the police presence at a minimum. They know we need space, and they’d be more apt to give it to us so they can get us alive. If it’s just the cops, they won’t care if they get us alive or dead.”
“You’re just spinning yourself into the ground,” said Terry. “None of this matters. We’ll leave in the morning and do what you said, and it will either work or it won’t. I’m sorry I got us caught up in all of this.”
Darryl shook his head. “We both knew the game we’re playing at is for keeps, Terry. But I’ll tell you something else: if they think they can just catch us, they’re wrong. I’ll paint the streets red first.”
CHAPTER 46
It was like waking up to a dream.
One minute Pat was logging on to the net, and the next thing he knew he was in his old room. Only, it wasn’t really his old room at all. It was decorated with posters for popular current-day video games, he had a late-model TV with a PlayStation and VCR hooked to it, and a top-of-the-line desktop computer sat on the desk between the TV and his bed. Pat held up a hand to look at it. The scar from when he broke a glass washing dishes when he was twelve was there but still in its full, red, gory kid-era glory, running the entire length of the top of his hand instead of reduced to the pale, barely noticeable seam that marked his adult skin.
Pat walked to the desk, wondering if he was the one who’d decided to do it or it had been that man who was helping them, and then wondering if Frank could hear him wondering that.
It’s OK. You knew this was how it would be, remember?
Pat did remember, but that had been before he was here, thrust into this only half-familiar world. Pat sat at the desk, fired up the computer, then waited as it warmed up. It really was his room he realized as he looked around, just as a modern-era version of his kid self would decorate it. Instead of posters torn from
Nintendo Power
, the wall was decorated with images from
Fallout 2
and
Age of Empires II
, a pair of awesome games that Pat had logged way too much time with before Jessica had come along offering money to play a real game.
When the computer finished its boot sequence and the home screen flared up, Pat double-clicked the AOL button and then watched as the all-too-familiar logo appeared on the screen. Pat hadn’t used AOL in years, but this was the pool that Darryl and Terry had been fishing in, so that’s what he was diving into. Pat scrolled through the usual mess, slowly reacclimating himself with the system as he made his way to the chat rooms that featured video game chat.
Pat already knew the rooms Vincent and Tom had been messing around in—
Zelda
and
Resident Evil
, respectively—and he went to
Resident Evil
first and logged in as his old gaming handle, OICU812. Reminding himself that this was going to take some time, Pat eased in, making conversation, taking care to mention the spanking new NVIDIA graphics card that Pat’s new daddy had just picked up for him, an item that had recently earned slobbering reviews in several prominent PC gaming magazines. Not surprisingly, this honey drew flies. New young Pat was soon receiving all kinds of advice for other ways to spend Daddy’s money.
Pat was cautious, though. He made sure not to be too braggy, acting a little bored by all the toys his father’s money could buy if he desired them, and soon he and his new pals were diverted into a spirited discussion of frame rates and what would improve them. As the conversation turned to video games again, Pat eased out of the forum and picked a new one. The second chat room was centered on
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
, and Pat got to work planting seeds. Just as in the last forum, he and his father’s bank account made friends quickly. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 47
Mom picked up Cynthia after work, and now they sat on a park bench together.
Cynthia had always been close with Mom, but she felt funny sitting next to her. She felt an odd disconnect from her parent.
It isn’t because she’s working
,
thought Cynthia as she watched a dog catch a Frisbee across the lawn. Mom had always worked, and the separation Cynthia felt had nothing to do with Mom working more often now. The problem was the connection Cynthia had with Mrs. Martin, the connection she had with the rest of the world.
Cynthia knew that she could easily read the thoughts of the man playing Frisbee if she wanted to or could even make him chuck the red disc into the nearby river. Just looking at the man, Cynthia got a clear sense of how he was feeling. The man had pink and green threads pouring from his head. He was nervous about something, and though Cynthia had a feeling the man wouldn’t be pleased to know how easily she could read his thoughts, she did think he might find it interesting that his canine companion was sharing his worries.
As wonderful and interesting as this window into a stranger was, Cynthia found she hated knowing what Mom was feeling. She was doing her best not to look at her mother’s threads, and of course she wouldn’t even consider searching her mind. That would have been the worst sort of betrayal. And besides, what if she looked and saw something she couldn’t forgive? Being in the mind of someone who wants to do bad things was ugly—Cynthia had seen that with Patrick and his gun, and with the men who had come to collect a debt with their baseball bats. She didn’t want to think of her mom being anything like those men, but Cynthia had heard the glee in her voice when Mom told Aunt Laura that she intended to take all of Dad’s money—which, to make it even worse, Cynthia happened to know was Dad’s biggest fear.
Mom would only do that to hurt Dad, but she didn’t know how badly Dad was already hurting.
He was purple the last time I saw him
,
thought Cynthia, and she was terrified to imagine what his threads might tell her now, a little over a week later. She shivered despite the heat.
Then she was thinking of Dad and Linda, which made her feel queasy, like she was looking down from a really tall place. She knew Dad needed to get away from Linda, that just that one little thing would make Mom less angry. Cynthia liked Linda, or at least she had, but she didn’t like what Linda had done to Dad. And she didn’t like what divorce had done to either of her parents.
Cynthia hadn’t been able to see into their most private thoughts before, but she knew that they hadn’t wanted to one-up each other before all of this. They had cared about one another, laughing and smiling daily, and they never would have put money before their daughter.
“You all right, Cynth?” Mom asked, and Cynthia turned to her.
“I’m fine, I guess.”
Mom’s threads were red, pink, and just a little purple in places. She was stressed out, felt like she was doing everything wrong, yet was still willing to stay the course just to show Dad she didn’t need him. Cynthia knew all this without raiding Mom’s head like a teenager hitting a cupboard for a midnight snack. The evidence was on her face and in the threads atop her head.
“If you weren’t fine, you’d tell me though, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you weren’t doing well, or if you needed to talk, that I’m here to listen,” said Mom slowly, enunciating each word just so. “Is everything OK with Mrs. Martin?” Mom asked this question even more slowly, as if it were difficult for her to even speak about the older woman.
Is that something Mrs. Martin did? Something she’d left inside Mom to make it hard for Mom to talk about her?
Cynthia wondered this, but only for a moment. Mom might have a hard time thinking ill of Mrs. Martin due to the light nudges Mrs. Martin had given her, not to mention the free babysitting, but Cynthia didn’t think Mrs. Martin would have had a trick like that up her sleeve and not told Cynthia about it.
“Mrs. Martin is fine, too,” said Cynthia. “She’s always nice, and we have fun together.”
Cynthia could see the relief on Mom’s face. If it weren’t for Mrs. Martin, Mom would have to lean on Dad a little bit, and Cynthia knew Mom wanted to avoid that for as long as possible.
“Do you miss your friends?” Mom asked. “I could set up a playdate if you wanted. I don’t really want anyone else at the apartment yet, but I’m sure that if I explained the circumstances to your friends’ parents, then—”
“No, Mom,” said Cynthia with a grin. “I don’t want to see them right now.” Cynthia wanted to tell Mom exactly why—that she didn’t want to have to tell them about divorce—but she knew the information would just hurt her. “Besides, school will be here soon, and Maryanne’s birthday party ought to be coming up.”
“Crap, I need to call your father and see if she sent you an invitation,” said Mom, a screwed-up smile on her face that was more of a frown. “I’d hate for you to miss it.”
“I know, Mom, but I won’t. You’ll get the invitation if she sent one, and then we’ll see when it is.” Looking up as she spoke, Cynthia could see goldenrod threads pouring from her and weaving in and out with Mom’s damaged ones.
“Sure,” said Mom, a real smile crossing her face. “I’ll call Dad when we get home and see if the invitation has come.”
“OK,” said Cynthia, smiling herself as she watched the dog make another leaping Frisbee catch. The sun was shining, Mom was smiling, and there was nothing wrong at that moment.