Catacomb (4 page)

“Not sure the food’s agreeing with me,” Dan finally whispered. Just the smell of it made him sick now, anxiety turning his guts to acid.

Who would be cruel enough to play a prank like this? Certainly not Abby or Jordan, and as far as he knew, his twisted old roommate, Felix, was still locked away. He doubted the institution would let him have access to the internet, let alone social media. The only living person left who knew both Dan and Micah was Cal, a friend of Micah’s from NHC who’d been a total dick to Dan and his friends last
fall—to put it mildly. But according to Jordan, Cal had done a complete 180 in the months since then. Dan’s mind spun, coming up empty.

“Can’t blame you,” Jordan said. “That potato salad looks kinda rancid. Want some of my fries?”

“Oh, uh, sure, yeah.” He couldn’t go through this again, lying to his friends. They always seemed to find out anyway. He’d tell them later, when they were alone. Dan forced a smile and took one of Jordan’s fries. Then he rifled through his bag, grabbed his meds, and choked down one of the little blue pills with his soda. His disorder always got worse when he was feeling especially anxious.

“Long car rides make me sorta queasy, too,” Jordan added. Then, all at once, he seemed to realize that the look on Dan’s face had nothing to do with the food or the car ride. “Dan, what’s wrong? It’s something else, isn’t it?”

Wasn’t it always?

Dan scraped for an answer, his heartbeat speeding up. “I brought one of the files.” Glancing at Abby, he lowered his voice. “You know, the
files
? I know we sorted through most of it at NHC, but I had to make sure I had seen it all. Because of my family history, you know?”

Jordan went a little green, lowering his milk shake. His big, dark eyes grew bigger behind his curly fringe. “Oh.”

“Yeah. There’s stuff in there about my dad, maybe my mom, too, but I can’t be sure. I already went through it all, and I didn’t really find anything concrete, just more dead ends.”

“Why were their files mixed up in the professor’s things?” Jordan whispered.

Dan gulped. He really hadn’t meant to do this right here, right now, but now that he’d started talking, it was like this confession had been building behind a dam in his brain, waiting for the opportunity to be released.

“Remember how Professor Reyes said there were things I could see that other people couldn’t?”

“I don’t know—maybe? There was a lot going on that night.”

“Well, I . . . You know what, never mind.”

“Hey, I mean, if you need to talk about it,” Jordan started, but suddenly Dan wasn’t ready for that. This was not the right time, with Abby having a congenial conversation on one side and with hours still to go before another night in a tent.

“We should get going,” he blurted, looking outside to find the kind of countryside darkness that was so dense it felt oppressive, even through glass. “It’s late, and we wanted to get an early start tomorrow, right?”

Dan said it loudly enough for Abby to hear. She cleared her throat, glaring.

Luckily, Jordan was tired enough to yawn or loyal enough to fake it. “I’m beat, too, and we still have tents to set up.”

Outnumbered, Abby gave in, but not before thanking Fats for all his time and information. She frowned at the boys as if they were in on some conspiracy against her. Which, technically, they were.

Dan gave her an apologetic smile. “Oh, Mr. Buckhill,” he said, catching the man before he made it back to the kitchen. “Could you please give this flashlight to Jake Lee? We tried to catch him next door but the sign said he’d be over here.”

Fats smiled. “Well, I would if I knew who Jake Lee was.”

“Jake Lee . . . the mechanic?” Dan said, but his stomach was already twisting with dread. The realization dawned on him with sickening clarity: Jake had never asked them to pay for the tire.

“That man over there, Greg Mackey—if you need a mechanic, he’s your guy.”

Dan, Abby, and Jordan all looked at one another in silence. Gathering their bags quickly, they left the flashlight and a generous tip on the table before running out to the car and the night.

“S
o what’s our next stop tomorrow? You got any more side trips planned, Abs?” Jordan asked. They were trying to keep the mood light, but they were all thoroughly spooked. The headlights on the Neon picked up little beyond the oncoming road, the occasional sign, and the flashes of trees running just beyond the curb. “Not sure how much more of Tennessee I can take.”

“Alabama,” Abby corrected.

“Tennebamatucky, whatever. They all look the same at this point.”

“We’re still just outside Montgomery, Jordan, use your GPS,” Abby snapped. Then she took a deep breath. “I guess the scenery
was
kind of similar all day, but that’s what I’m going for with my project,” she explained. “I bet when I line my photos up next to shots from thirty, forty, even a hundred years ago, there won’t be much of a difference. I think it’s fascinating. Time goes on but nothing really changes in some places. Kind of a nice thought, right? That some things are actually permanent. Reliable . . .”

She trailed off, her voice growing a little sad.

“Sure,” Jordan said. “I get that. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t put me to sleep, but I hear you.”

“You had better be awake now,” Dan said. “You’re helping set up the tent when we make it to the campground.”

“I can’t wait to get to Mobile tomorrow.” Abby pressed on, slowing the car as signs for the Woods Campground flashed by in the headlights. “The Magnolia Cemetery is supposed to be a gold mine—so many incredible mausoleums there. Mr. Blaise said I can’t miss it. I promise we won’t stop long. I know we’re all anxious to get to New Orleans after . . .” Abby shivered. “Ugh, I need a shower.”

Dan sat silently in the back, wishing he knew the right thing to say to make everything okay again. But all he could think about was Micah’s message.

While they unpacked the car, Dan could feel Jordan’s eyes boring holes into the back of his head. He owed them both an explanation, he knew, but where to start? He hated to scare them any more tonight, especially before they went to sleep in a tent.

He wasn’t even sure if his friends would believe what he had to say. He had never been completely up front with them about his ability to
see
things. There’d been a time last year when the stress had left them all seeing and hearing things that weren’t quite there, but that was nothing like what Dan had come to think of as his power. He hadn’t just seen echoes of the past as visions—Dan had lived them, even interacted with them.

And if Dan didn’t come clean to his friends during this trip, he might never get another chance.

Under the glow of floodlights from the parking lot, they set to work putting up their tent, a job that Abby delegated expertly. Dan hammered the stakes into the moist ground a little harder
than was strictly necessary, but it felt good to hit something. In just over half an hour, the tent was as finished as it was ever going to be.

“Are you okay?” Abby asked, watching Dan unroll his sleeping bag. “You were hammering pretty hard there.”

“I’m fine,” he said, shrugging off the question.

“You’re obviously not.”

He didn’t know what to say, and he hesitated just a bit too long.

“Fine, you know what? Don’t tell me.”

Abby climbed into her sleeping bag, still in her clothes. Last night she’d used one of the campground port-a-potties to change into pajamas, but tonight Dan suspected her anger was at least partly to mask her fear.

“I know you’re ticked, Abby,” Dan said, lighting one of their Coleman lamps and sitting cross-legged on his bedding. A light gust of wind rattled the tent fabric, and distant campers laughed, one of them howling loudly at the moon.

“It’s not even a full moon,” Abby grumbled, turning onto her side and away from Dan. Jordan gave him an encouraging look, though of course he knew only a small piece of what he was encouraging.

“Just let me explain, okay?” Dan sighed and closed his eyes, trying to figure out the best way to put this. “You’re right. I’m not fine. There’s . . . Look, I want this trip to be fun, okay? I really do, and I wouldn’t spoil it for no reason. It’s been amazing so far. Being with you two is . . . Well, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had. I didn’t want to bring anything up that would ruin the mood.”

“So don’t,” she said woodenly.

“Hear him out,” Jordan said.

With a big, huffing sigh, Abby turned over, just her eyes and hair visible above the lip of the forest-green sleeping bag. “Fine. I’m hearing you out. Explain.”

Dan twisted and reached for his backpack, removing the thin, faded folder that held basically all he knew about his parents.

“Okay, well, part one is—I found something,” he said, pulling out the pile of papers with shaking fingers. He handed it across to Jordan, and Abby wriggled out of her sleeping bag enough to read over his shoulder. “That was all in Professor Reyes’s files. I went over everything in there with a fine-tooth comb, obviously, but there wasn’t much.”

Abby pushed her dark, feathery hair away from her face, squinting to read the police report on Dan’s dad. She froze.

“Is this . . . is this your father? God. I had no idea, Dan.”

“Neither did Jordan until I mentioned something at dinner,” Dan murmured. Abby had taken the papers from him and began reading everything carefully. Jordan didn’t try to stop her.

Abby picked up the postcard, the brief contents of which Dan had memorized months ago. The sepia-toned picture showed a looming brick building—one that wouldn’t have been out of place on New Hampshire College’s campus. The only parts of the address left were “HIGH STREET” and a city that looked like
ingt n
or
lington
,
and there was a message written in pencil that had been mostly worn away, too.

love you very

risk, but there is always

Dan’s fingers clamped down hard on the postcard as he pulled it carefully out of Abby’s hands. He wanted to believe that this was his mother’s handwriting, and that maybe this postcard had been meant for him—that his parents had
had
to go. That he wasn’t an accident or an afterthought.

A tight, cold feeling settled over his chest. Nine months after finding all this, Dan still wanted to know more. He looked at the front of the postcard again, running his fingertips lightly over the image. Someone had scribbled across the picture, but it was gibberish.

Abby had moved on to the heavily creased and stained map—a foldout road map of the United States, printed in 1990. A thin black line had been drawn in pen from New Orleans to Alabama, then Missouri, then up to Chicago, and finally to Pittsburgh.

The site of that little dot where the line ended jarred him. His town. His city. The year, 1990, wasn’t so far off from when he was born in 1996. In the story he’d constructed based on the evidence, his parents had been criminals on the run. That’s why they’d left him. Dan tensed, closing his eyes and wishing he had never found the folder in the first place.

“Dan . . .”

The tone in her voice was one of discovery, but right at this moment, he didn’t care if Abby
had
noticed something he hadn’t, he just wanted to be quiet and forget—to find a way to let go of his frustration before it sabotaged the trip.