Joe (6 page)

Chapter
Ten

Joe

In
case it’s not obvious, I’ll admit I was scared, but keep in mind that I’ve
never claimed to be fearless, and I’ve never claimed to be brave. The trouble
with this was that I did feel
obligated.
Though I surely had a choice in
the matter, I would have to participate in what I considered foolish behavior.
I would have to seek out the gunman, rather than running the opposite
direction. Foolish.

But even fools have to make plans.

I checked the clock on the wall above
the mirror. I had to be at work in two hours. That gave me enough time to
brainstorm, but not much else.

I didn’t end up making too many plans. I
sat straight-backed on my bed for ninety of the one hundred-and-twenty minutes
before my shift at the bar. My legs felt numb, and looking down at them
revealed that they were shaking.

I had found myself smack in the middle
of a thick pickle, and biting through it was proving daunting. The logical
thing to do would be to skip school for the next week. Stay out of harm’s way.
Maybe call in a bomb threat on Monday and Tuesday, have the school evacuated.
Yeah, there was a plan. A real pickle-puncher.

I stood, crossed to the bathroom, and
nodded once. Leaving the light switch down (there was a small window in my
bathroom, heavily dressed, but letting in enough light to see by during the
day) and spit into the toilet. My mouth had gone dry.

I knew a bomb threat was only a plan
that would delay the inevitable. I brushed my teeth, washed my face. No
solution. I had no solution.

I will tell you what was most terrifying
at this moment as I stood corpse-stiff and silent in my tiny, dim bathroom. You
may be surprised to know that it was not the obvious fact that people might
die, or that I might die. No Sir-ee. It was the
change.

It is so that we are built over time,
but this does not mean that change is slow. Sometimes it is, but that’s usually
the good stuff. The bad stuff is something as swift as air.

Here, I am also comforted by numbers. I
think the bad stuff finds all of us before the man in the dark cloak does. Some
of the bad stuff is training-wheeled. Like the first time you get physically
hurt for doing something stupid. The change here is pennies. Chances are you
learned that you never again would climb a tree at the top of the Grand Canyon
just to get a better view of the hole. Hell, you might never again climb any
tree. But if you do, you’re careful, cautious, and your heart races faster than
it had on your last innocent venture up the bark. You’re training wheels have
served their purpose, and thus been removed, but the six-inch-long scar on your
left thigh reminds you to move with caution. You are slightly different. There
is change here. Pennies.

Other change is paper, a few bucks or
so, but still training-wheeled, like the loss of your first love. You learn a
lesson there, too, and it changes you, and usually for the better. But, this
kind of change, the kind I was currently facing, held an indefinite value. No
matter what, come Monday, I would be different. Whatever happened would change
me forever. And, yes, that was scary, because who knew if it would be for the
better or for the worse.

On my way out of my apartment I found a
letter tucked under my door. It was from Mr. Landry. He wanted to know if I
would be available Sunday morning to help him unload a new shipment at his
tobacco store. I tucked the note into my pocket and got in my car. I had never
refused Mr. Landry’s requests before and I didn’t want to start now, but I only
had so much time to find a solution to my current problem before the crap hit
the fan. Not only that, but there was a strong possibility that Sunday would be
my last day on this Earth.

I started the car and headed to work,
knowing I would be there Sunday morning to help Mr. Landry at his shop, end of
my days or not. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it, anyway, or anyone
better to spend it with. As I’ve said, helping Mr. Landry has helped me in
personally atoning myself, and I have a lot to atone for. The least I could do
was not fail the old man, because there was also a very strong possibility I
would fail horribly on Monday, as I have in the past. I am certainly no hero.

Chapter
Eleven

Sixteen
years ago, Sunnyland Daycare

The
man whose face she’d drawn four days ago had been haunting her. The image of the
stranger’s sharp black eyes—more so, the look behind them—had nailed itself to
the forefront of her mind. Joe had forced herself to look at her sketch many
times over the last four days, even though it quite literally scared her stiff.
This was all still so new, and she was so young.

After that first day, on the ride home
with her mother, Joe had sat in her child seat and contemplated whether or not
she would show her drawing to her parents. Although she was only five years old
at the time, it still only took Joe a moment to know that it wasn’t an option.
Her parents already thought her strange.

Nancy Knowe was not a terrible parent,
but she certainly wasn’t a good one. Or maybe she just wasn’t a good one for
Joe. With light blue eyes and matching blond hair, both Nancy Knowe and her
husband, Jim, had personal issues with their one-and-only child, Joe. The girl
had been born with raven-black hair, silver-blue eyes, and snow-white skin.
Needless to say, she didn’t quite fit the description of their ideal offspring.

They had a DNA test performed at the
hospital after she was born. Jim had insisted on it immediately, his face going
bright red with anger. But, when the results came in, and it was undeniably
certain the raven-haired babe belonged to them, there could be no denying it.

It was not that the child was ugly. In
fact, she had an odd allure about her. It was that Mr. and Mrs. Knowe had
standards. They were as vain as two people can become, and not incredibly
bright, either. Also, Joe really was a strange child.

If Joe showed her parents her sketch of
the stranger, they would both adopt that
look
she hated so much. Then
they would insist on therapy or something similar. Joe knew all about therapy.
She thought it was nonsense.

“She’s just not…
right
,” her
mother would tell the doctors, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I think she
must have some sort of, you know…
mental affliction.
”

Joe’s parents had her tested for autism,
ADHD and every other thing under the sun. She tested brilliantly on every single
one of them. The doctors told them that it was just a speech impediment, and
that she would more than likely grow out of it. Joe even remembered one of the
doctors telling them she was “gifted” for her age. These were not the results
Mr. and Mrs. Knowe had been looking for. Something
had
to be wrong with
her, because she just wasn’t…
right.

So little Joe kept the drawing of the
stranger tucked away in her backpack, and didn’t remove it until she knew her
parents were asleep for the night. Then, she grabbed her Winnie the Pooh
flashlight, crawled under the covers of her bed, and unfolded the picture.

Her little jaw snapped together with a
click and the hair on her small arms stood up. The stranger’s face was so hard
to look at. It made her shake.

But it was important somehow. Joe knew
that it was. She could feel it in her stomach. Looking at the drawing gave her
the same feeling as when she “saw” things; the things that hadn’t happened yet.
Only, the drawing was somehow worse. She was compelled to figure it out, but at
just five years old, she didn’t have the tools to do so.

For four nights she stared at the
drawing, getting no closer to unmasking the mystery it promised. On July
fifth,
a Monday, all of her questions were answered. Joe was sitting at the same
table, in the same blue plastic child’s chair when it happened. She would never
forget a moment of it.

Her stomach dropped to the floor at the
same time as the chime went off in the play room. Joe knew the chime indicated
someone entering the front lobby of the daycare, and the stranger’s face
flashed through her head as a chill walked up her spine. Whatever her drawing
had been predicting was happening now. Even at five years old, Joe just
knew
it. In reality, she wasn’t so much strange as…
gifted.

One of the caretakers, Miss Teresa,
disappeared through the door that led to the lobby. Joe sat in her blue chair
and watched the door intently. Something was about to happen. Something big,
and something
bad.
She was too young to know just how very, very bad.

When the door to the lobby swung open
again, Joe was instantly frozen with terror. No air passed through her lips.
The blood seemed to stop pumping through her veins. Nothing moved but her
silver-blue eyes, as they followed the man who walked through the lobby door
and into the daycare’s main play room. The stranger was here.

“Emily,” Miss Teresa said. “Your uncle
is here to pick you up, sweetheart.”

Joe’s little heart lodged itself in her
throat. She watched as the stranger squatted down and held his arms out for the
little blond girl. She couldn’t take her eyes off his sharp, black ones. When
the stranger turned his gaze to Joe, as though he could feel the child watching
him, still she stared. She was an interesting one, the man thought, with her silver-blue
eyes and raven hair. But he’d picked out his prize. Also, Joe was too smart to
go along with his plan. You just wouldn’t know it.

The little curly-haired blond girl
looked up at the man, and no recognition played across her pretty face. Joe
finally removed her eyes from the man and watched Emily, praying that the girl,
her friend, would say she didn’t know the stranger. Joe knew the adults needed
to hear that. She already knew that her stranger was a stranger to Emily as
well.

But the pretty little girl really did
have the mental affliction Joe’s parents had Joe tested for. Emily was a sweet
child, but simple, and very used to obeying orders from adults. When Emily
stood from her spot in the corner, the same corner that she had waved from
shyly to Joe four days ago, true horror flooded through Joe’s veins. The girl
was going to go with the stranger. Unless Joe stopped her.

As Emily passed by, Joe’s small, pale
hand shot out and gripped the little girl’s forearm. Emily stopped and looked
at Joe, who was still seated in her blue plastic chair. For what seemed like a
very long moment, little Joe could not think of what to say.

She stared into Emily’s big brown eyes,
and would find out many years later that the memory of them would never vacate
her mind. Joe would remember every detail about Emily that day, from her
yellow-and-white flowered sundress to her crooked ponytails and frilly white
socks.

“Do you –” Joe began.

“Joe, let go of Emily. She has to go
now. You two can play tomorrow,” Miss Teresa said, cutting Joe off from asking
the question that could have changed everything.

Joe looked over at the stranger, who was
now watching her again, and couldn’t find the words to continue. In fact, her
mind seemed to escape her entirely and once more she was frozen with terror.
The stranger’s eyes, or rather that
look
behind them, demanded she keep
her mouth shut. He seemed to be silently challenging her, daring her to say
something foolish. At this point in life, Joe had yet to become a fool.

Poor Emily took the man’s hand and left
through the rainbow painted door that led to the lobby of the daycare, her
blond pigtails swaying innocently, her My Little Pony lunch bag dangling from
her hand, and little Joe just watched.

It took Joe ten minutes to come up with
her best solution, but that was ten minutes too long. When she arose from her
blue plastic chair and approached Miss Teresa she could barely get the words
through her lips.

“Muh-Muh-Mmm-Miss T-T-Teresa?” Joe said.

Teresa, a college kid with a love for
children said, “Yes, Joe?”

Joe took a deep breath, trying to force
the words out faster than they would come. “Eh-Eh-Emily told told told muh-me
that that huh-her mmm-ma-mother was t-t-taking her to a mm-m-movie today.
Sh-she said that that that they m-m-made sssspecial plans. That d-d-d-didn’t
la-look like her ma-ma-mommy,” Joe said. She was sweating now.

Miss Teresa looked down at the little
raven-haired girl and gave her shoulder a pat. “I’m sure Emily’s mother just
sent her uncle to pick her up because she was busy. Go play now, Joe.”

Joe felt like bursting into tears. She
didn’t know why, but somehow, it felt like time was seriously running out. She
grabbed Miss Teresa’s arm and locked her silver-blue gaze on the college kid.
Joe said, “C-c-call Eh-Emily’s m-mah-mother. P-p-pleeease.”

Later on, when the first policemen on
the scene asked Teresa why she thought to call Emily’s mother and yet hadn’t
thought to do so before releasing the child to a stranger, the college kid had
glanced over at Joe, who was still sitting in the blue plastic child’s chair.
Joe’s mother was the last to pick her up that day. For a moment, Joe thought
Miss Teresa was going to tell on her and her parents would end up finding out
about her sketch of the stranger, about everything. But the college girl didn’t
tell on Joe. She just said it struck her as strange after the two had left,
while sobbing and crying worse than Joe had ever seen. Over the next week, Joe
would see that spectacle trumped tenfold.

When Emily’s mother and father showed
up, Joe was still sitting in the blue chair. She was already horrified. She was
just too young to understand why. When the detectives took Joe aside to ask her
questions, it all finally began to sink in. Emily had been kidnapped. Before
that fateful Monday, Joe had never heard the word before in her five years of
life, but it was one of those that you only had to hear once.

During her brief interview with the
detectives, little Joe Knowe sat listening to the screams and cries of Emily’s
mother, who was in the front room of the daycare. The detective talking to Joe
had been a kind woman, and she placed a hand on Joe’s shoulder when a
particularly heart-wrenching wail from Emily’s mother came floating through the
rainbow painted door to the lobby. Joe gripped the sides of her plastic chair
and shut her eyes. Then she started crying, too.

The detective wrapped little Joe in her
arms, feeling sorry for the supposed simple girl she was holding, when she
should have been feeling sorry for the simple girl who’d just been stolen.
“Shh. It’s okay,” the detective said. “It’s okay. We just want to know if you
can tell us anything you might remember about the man who came and picked up
your friend Emily. Can you describe him to me?”

Little Joe’s sobs came harder and harder,
and she brought her pale hands up to cover her pale face. The detective decided
not to ask the poor girl any more questions. Joe sat crying that way until her
mother came and picked her up, her body shivering and shaking, with the sketch
of the stranger tucked firmly away in her Winnie the Pooh backpack.

At that point in her life, Joe had yet
to become a fool, but somehow, she knew she was already a failure.