In the Image of Grace (13 page)

“We can’t leave that ladder out there,” Clarissa said
stating the obvious.

We had Clarissa climb inside the house and Isabelle
and I pulled up the ladder guiding it through the window. Our only
problem was where to hide a large ladder in our room.

We decided to hope for the best and left the ladder
in Elizabeth’s room. On her door we taped up a sign that said,
“Please do not enter. We shall be respectful of the dead.” We were
hoping that our sign would ward off our father and even Ms.
Dunderfeltz because it seemed that she had a little bit of a big
mouth. She most definitely would have said something if she found a
ladder in Elizabeth’s room.

The next day we called our mother’s parents and they
hung up on us. We tried again later in the day and they hung up
again. We wanted to go see them, but we had no definite way to get
to Indiana. We also decided that we needed to pay Mr. Carl another
visit. We figured maybe we’d get something more out of him now that
we knew some of his secrets. I went to my room and called Jeremy
and told him all our woes. He told me that he actually had his
mom’s car for the day and he’d be over in about a half hour.

…………………………………………………..

The four of us were in Jeremy’s mother hatchback.
Jeremy drove, I was in front and Clarissa and Isabelle were in
back. Jeremy said he’d take us to see Mr. Carl first and then to
Indiana. We escaped the same way we did the other day, but at least
that day we had a ladder. We left the ladder on the side of the
house. We were starting to really not care if we got busted. We
weren’t just going to sit around the house. We wanted answers.

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” I asked Jeremy
repeatedly.

“Yes,” he answered each time smiling at me with his
tooth catching his lip.

We were on our way to see Mr. Carl first. We were
going to visit him at his home. I found it quite amazing all the
information you could find online.

“So you’re in a band?” Clarissa asked as we entered
onto the expressway.

“Yeah,” Jeremy replied while concentrating on
merging.

“What kind of music do you play?”

“I like to call it post pop punk.”

“Okay,” Clarissa said having the slightest idea what
post pop punk was.

“I didn’t come up with that. I stole it from this one
band’s website. I thought it suited our music, even though our
music might be post, post pop punk.”

“Cool,” Clarissa chirped.

We headed to the south side. It was Sunday afternoon
and traffic wasn’t all that bad. Before we knew it we were pulling
up in front of Mr. Carl’s building. Jeremy parallel parked the car
across the street and we all got out. The neighborhood was nice. It
was a mix of brick apartment buildings and houses. Mr. Carl lived
on the second floor of a two flat. We rang his buzzer and waited
for him to answer.

“Yes,” we heard.

I did a little cheer in my head when I heard his
voice because I was afraid he wasn’t going to be home. “Hello Mr.
Carl,” I said to his voice coming out of the little speaker below
his buzzer.

He immediately recognized my voice. “What are you
girls doing here?”

“We just came for a visit,” I answered.

“I’m busy.”

“We know what you’ve been keeping from us Mr. Carl
and you know that we know.”

There was silence. Then the door buzzed. I pushed it
open. We walked up the narrow stairwell to the second floor. It
smelled like incense. The door at the top of the stairs flew open
and there stood Mr. Carl in jeans and a tee-shirt. A look I had
never seen on him. It was strange seeing him dressed casually.

“You girls and guy can only stay for a couple
minutes. What is it that you want?”

“We want answers Mr. Carl. Why have been lying to
us?” I demanded.

“What do you girls know?” Mr. Carl asked standing in
his small entrance hallway.

“Oh, we know more than you think. We know all about
the Clonation Foundation and the Xtials and Grace and all this
cloning garbage. We know you were the one who posted the pamphlet,”
I said.

“Did you go to the gathering then?” He asked crossing
his arms over his body.

“Yes, why didn’t you just come out and tell us the
first time we visited you?” I asked taking a step into his personal
space.

“I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure what the repercussions
would be.”

“What happened to our mother?”

“I honestly don’t know. All your father told me was
that we didn’t have to worry about her anymore.”

“That sounds pretty sinister. We met her brother. We
know what our father did to her,” I avowed looking into his eyes,
which looked down with my news.

“It was for the better good,” Mr. Carl said
uncrossing his arms and crossing them again getting in a defensive
stance.

“How in the hell could it have been for the greater
good? Was getting rid of her for the greater good also? What did he
do to her?” I was starting to get peeved at him, even more so than
I was before.

“Girls I don’t have answers.”

“You’re a bastard,” I seethed.

“Girls I care deeply for you. That’s why I was the
one who tutored you all those years. You needed somebody there to
watch over you. You girls belong to all of us.”

“We belong to nobody.” I could feel my face turning
red. “So it’s true then. We’re seriously clones.”

Mr. Carl nodded his head. Jeremy placed his hand on
my back. Clarissa and Isabelle seemed to have been in a state of
shock. Both their mouths were just partially open.

“Jesus Christ,” I screamed. I covered my face with my
hands and tried to calm down. My heart was about to leap out of my
chest. “So what’s with this cult stuff?”

“It’s not a cult,” Mr. Carl said very calmly. “It is
a religious sect and people really do believe in it, in the image
of Grace.”

“You’re Nazi’s, trying to create a perfect human
race,” I sputtered out.

“That’s enough young lady,” Mr. Carl chided pointing
a boney finger at me. “We are trying to create healthy disease free
human beings. It’s survival of the fittest. What we could do with
this science is amazing.”

“You’re crazy and your Clonation Foundation is crazy
and all those cult people are crazy.”

“We’re not crazy; those people that belong to The
Children of Grace are our main investors in The Clonation
Foundation.”

“You and my father are con artists. Why don’t you
just do you’re little experiments at the university?”

“While cloning is technically not illegal, the
government will not fund it and the university receives government
funding.”

“So therefore you had to create some crazy scam to
get money and didn’t you ever think of the end result for us and
not just the science? Did you think you were going to manufacture
four perfect little girls and the fact that we’re freaks will have
no impact on us?”

“Girls, you’re not freaks. You’re scientific break
throughs. You’ll be in history books forever.”

I could not believe him. “We don’t want to be in
history books. We just want to be normal teenagers.”

“You girls are going to have to accept the fact that
you’re not.You girls are the image of perfection.”

“Bullshit,” I yelled. “And what about Elizabeth?
There was a flaw in the design there!”

“Girls, girls, I’m sure soon enough your father will
tell you everything. He’s planning a press conference in a few
days. I’m sure by then he will give you all the details.”

“I don’t think so, he’s evil. He’s kept us locked up
our whole lives. I don’t think he’s going to bother to sit down to
have a little chat with us.”

“That was for your own protection and rearing
Charlotte.”

“What, so we don’t mess up our perfect image? So you
all can keep your crazy experiment secret?”

“Girls, I think you should be going now.”

And with that Mr. Carl ushered us out of his building
and gave a little wave. Before we knew it we were back in Jeremy’s
mother’s car and on our way to Indiana.

“Can you believe any of this?” Clarissa shouted.
“We’re really supposedly clones, so you are like me,” she said
pointing to me. “And you’re like her,” she said pointing from me to
Isabelle. “And she’s like me,” she then said pointing from Isabelle
to herself. “Are we even real people? How in the hell does that all
work?”

I turned around in my seat and looked at her. She had
a frantic look on her face. Her eyes were wide open and she kept
darting her head around.

“Of course we’re real people,” I assured her. “We
were just manufactured instead of conceived the traditional
way.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” she
shouted.

“There’s no need to shout,” I chided.

“Yes there is. You just said it. We were
manufactured. I want to be me not you.”

“You still are you,” I said trying to calm her down,
but she did have a point. We were actually the same person, just
born at different times, so we weren’t really unique individuals,
were we? It was all so confusing. “Lets’ just focus on what we’re
going to do. We should hopefully learn about our mother, or who
exactly we were replicated after and maybe her parents would have
insight about what happened to her.”

“I know what happened to her,” Isabelle remarked.
“Our supposed father killed her. We just have to find out what he
did with her body.”

“Don’t be so morbid Isabelle,” I said. “We’re not for
certain. I’m hoping she’s alive and thriving well somewhere. Maybe
she just wanted to get away from all of this madness.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Clarissa sighed.

Jeremy didn’t say anything. He just concentrated on
driving. We had a good couple hours to go.

……………………………………………………

About halfway there we had to stop at a rest stop.
Clarissa really had to go, so we all got out and went in. Isabelle
walked across the palatial floor of the rest stop with Clarissa and
they both went into the washroom together. Jeremy and I looked
around at the food stands that lined the two sides of the stop. We
decided to go with the hot dog stand. I told Jeremy I had never had
an Austrian beef before and I think he almost tipped over.

“I can’t believe you’ve never had any of the city’s
most wonderful delicacies.”

“Well, I did have the Italian beef,” I pointed out
while we waited behind a large man wearing overalls. The pocket of
his overalls covering his large left buttocks cheek was falling off
and hung on with about three threads. The color of where the pocket
once actually rested was a more brilliant blue than the rest of his
dingy overalls.

We got up to order and Jeremy ordered us all hot
dogs, which he insisted that we all had to have, some crinkly fries
and some pops. We got it to go so we wouldn’t lose too much time.
Clarissa and Isabelle emerged from the bathroom and I went and took
my turn to be on the safe side. Jeremy followed suit.

………………………………………………..

Back on the road we all ate our food which made the
car smell like a big bucket of grease. I was quite surprised by how
tasty my hot dog was. Jeremy said that an Austrian beef was the
only way to go when it came to hot dogs. Jeremy ate his hot dog
while he drove and occasionally reached over and pulled out some
fries from the bag that I held on my lap.

“Do your guys’ hot dogs taste all right?”Jeremy
asked.

“It was pretty good,” I said looking at Jeremy who
stopped eating his.

“It was quite delicious,” Clarissa chimed in with
Isabelle agreeing.

“I dunno about mine. It kinda has a weird taste,”
Jeremy said scrunching up his nose.

“Like what?” I asked purely curious why his would
have tasted any different from ours.

“It’s kinda metallic tasting.”

“That can’t be good,” Isabelle surmised from the back
seat.

“Let me see,” I said holding out my hand so I could
inspect his hot dog. “Maybe they gave you something else.” Jeremy
surrendered his food to me. I took it from him and quickly realized
that there definitely was something wrong with his hot dog. “Uh,
the outside is kinda a greenish gray color,” I said purely
disgusted by the appearance of the hot dog.

“Uh, nasty,” Jeremy cried. “I really should learn to
look at my food before I eat it.”

I went on. “And the inside is kind of a hot pink
color.”

“Let me see,” Clarissa said with excitement in her
voice. For some reason it seemed that she found spoiled food
exciting.

I turned around and showed her.

“Oh gross,” she shrieked.

Jeremy made a groaning sound. “God, I ate an old hot
dog. If it’s greenish in color it has to be quite old.”

“Ancient,” Clarissa chirped.

Jeremy looked over at me and scrunched up his face. I
couldn’t help but giggle a little. He reached over and pinched my
cheek. I threw his old hot dog in the paper bag our food was in and
squished up the bag, putting it on the floor near my feet. I leaned
my head on the cool glass of the window and watched northwest
Indiana fly by. I dozed off for a while and was awaken when I felt
the car slow down. I didn’t realize how long I was asleep for
because I opened my eyes and we were turning down a residential
street. The street was lined with yellowing trees and ranch houses
with large front lawns. Jeremy was driving slow and looking at the
addresses. Clarissa and Isabelle also had fallen asleep and were
yawing and stretching as they were waking up.

“Over there,” Jeremy pointed out in a low
whisper.

I looked over at him. “Are you okay?” I asked,
suddenly feeling very bad about laughing at him for eating a green
hot dog. He looked very pale and his lips had no color.

“I don’t know,” he responded. “My stomach is killing
me.” He pulled the car up to the appropriate house and parked
across the street from it. He put the car in park and leaned his
forehead on the steering wheel. I rubbed his back which was all
sweaty.