The 17 (10 page)

He rubbed his eyes and felt like crying, but he would not give his jailors the satisfaction. Instead he stood, paced angrily for a few moments and then swiped a stack of papers off his father’s desk.

The papers tumbled to the floor. It gave Zack a small measure of satisfaction. At least he held dominion over that much.

As he looked down, he saw newspaper clippings pasted to thick white resume paper. One headline read: “Police still search for missing Farmington boy”

Another read: “Farmington teen presumed dead”

Zack knelt and pored through the papers. Some were newspaper and magazine articles describing his disappearance. Others were letters written to various politicians, urging them to keep the investigation and search alive.

There were other articles about missing teens from other states and countries. One was about a girl named Jenai Huber from East Brady, Pennsylvania, and how she didn’t come home from Karns City High School one day.

There was one about Brock Evers, an African-American teen from the streets of Detroit who was well on his way to making something of his life before his sudden and unexpected disappearance.

Gang violence was suspected.

There was one about Cassandra Pope of London, England. The article told the story of Cass, who had seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth without a trace.

And there was one about Eugene Harness, the class president at Trinty School in New York City, touted as the best private school in the country. As Zack read the lede of the story, he smirked.

Eugene Harness, a gifted cellist and a member of several charities, has been missing for nearly a year and authorities are no closer to solving the mystery of where one of Trinity School’s smartest and brightest has gone.

There was a picture of Harness holding his cello and grinning while he posed with Yo-Yo Ma, another Trinity graduate.

Zack’s father had collected these stories. He saw a connection there, it seemed, but the picture was incomplete.

If only he was here. If only this wasn’t some sort of cruel ruse concocted by my captors, I could tell him the story, the REAL story.

It was a futile thought. Zack knew it, but it stung nonetheless, stung right down to his core.

Zack stacked the papers neatly on the desk and walked to the front door. He swung it open and strolled determinedly into the bright morning sunlight.

It warms the skin real enough. No cars are driving by. No birds are chirping. No dogs are barking. This is just a shell of reality. A sham. My captors are flimflam men.

He walked to the house next door, stood at the front door and stared. Should he knock, he wondered? Then he realized it wouldn’t matter a bit if he did.

Zack turned the handle and the door swung open with a creak. He wiped his feet on the welcome mat—a force of habit—and walked slowly into the foyer and then into the living room.

Pictures hung on the wall behind an elegant couch. They were of kids of various ages. He stared at one in particular—a fetching young girl, seventeen, with the most haunting green eyes, red lips stretched into a stunning smile and a flow of golden hair.

Caroline.

Zack felt like calling out to her, but he knew she was not there. No one was there. This was his prison, and his alone.

He strolled to a bird cage that rested on a stand in the corner. It was the home to a parrot named Sam that knew an amazing array of words. The cage was empty, however, with just a single crimson feather lying on the newspaper that lined the bottom.

Zack’s feet creaked on the wooden steps as made his way to the second floor and the planks beneath him moaned even louder as he stepped to the bedroom door at the top of the landing. There was a sign that said “Keep Out!” under a picture of a sloth hanging upside down on a tree branch.

Zack pushed the door open into the sundrenched room and smiled at the décor. He always chided Caroline for her taste and her penchant for purple—purple curtains, purple comforter, and a lighter purple paint on the walls accented by an eggshell white. Even the cane that she despised using, but was necessary on occasions, was purple and rested against a rolling chair in front of her desk.

His eyes ran down a row of DVDs stacked in the corner. Casablanca was on the top. It was her favorite movie and she often coaxed Zack into watching it with her. He would object, but he secretly liked it. He figured she knew that, though. But it was a fun game they played. It made them smile.

Caroline enjoyed the old black-and-white movies. “When Hollywood was Hollywood,” she often remarked. She was very much born into the wrong era.

Her laptop—oddly enough without a trace of purple—was open and powered up, a rolling screensaver of a picture of Humphrey Bogart hunched over the bar stared back at him. Zack swiped his finger on the pad to wake it.

A Word document popped up on the screen. It was Caroline’s diary. No one actually wrote in a diary anymore. It was typed in computer files and Zack was leery about reading it.

It’s not really real anyway; why not?

His eyes rolled over the words.

April 23

I won’t give up hope. Everyone says Zack is dead, that he was kidnapped or ran away or was murdered and buried in Bonney Woods, but I believe he is alive, somewhere, and I will see him again.

I wish people weren’t so mean to him. He’s different than most of the other guys in our school, but I guess that’s why people don’t like him. People tend to not like you when you are different. I am different. I have a stupid limp and stupid cane, but people like me because I’m pretty. I wish they liked me for me. Like Zack.

I thought about going over to his house today to talk to his mom and dad. They have been so sad. I think they have given up. But I couldn’t do it. I watched them from my window as they sat on their porch and stared down the road. I think they were hoping he would come walking down it like nothing had happened.

I hope for that, too.

I just hope wherever he is, he is safe and knows that people back home still think about him.

I think about him all the time.

Zack closed the laptop, tears running down his flushing cheeks.

This was cruel, even for his captors.

He made his way home sullenly—he didn’t know where else to go.

As he closed the front door behind him and peered into his house that was now a lifeless tomb, he heard a cry, “Hello? Hello?”

It was coming from upstairs.

Zack ran so fast up the steps, he stumbled and fell with a loud thump. His knee bled quickly through the rip in his jeans. He pushed himself up and completed his desperate scamper to the landing.

“Hello? Hello?” He heard the voice again. It came from his room.

He raced around the corner and into his bedroom, his eyes searching for the source of the cries. He saw no one.

“Hello? Hello?” He heard again, coming from outside the window.

He jumped over his bed to reach it and saw a parrot perched on the branch of the eastern white pine that grew mere feet from his window.

It was Sam. He had cared for Caroline’s bird when she and her parents made their many excursions to the mountains or to Canada. He was a good bird with red and yellow plumage and a white crest. He had bushy feathers above his eyes.

“Hello” was always his favorite word to say.

“How did you get here?” Zack asked.

“Hello? Hello?” Sam answered.

“Do you think this is real? Am I really home?”

Sam cocked his head. “Hello? Hello?”

“You’re probably right. This is just another holodeck, just another fantasy.”

Sam cleaned his feathers with his curved beak and then repeated the same refrain. “Hello? Hello?”

“I did ask to go home.” Zack began to snicker. “I did ask for that. They listened, I guess. Not exactly what I had in mind, Sam, but they listened.”

Sam opened his curved bill. “Hello? Hello?”

“Do you think this will ever be over?”

Sam spread his wings and flew to the windowsill. Zack was taken aback as the bird landed and dug its talons into the wood frame of the sill. Sam’s black eyes stared at him. “That, Homo sapien boy, is all up to you.”

†††

A British accent announced, “The bloke is awake.”

Zack opened his eyes and watched Cass flick at her lip ring with her tongue.

He moved and felt a wave from the waterbed under him push him onto his side. Harness and Brock, both wearing blue jean overalls with one of the straps unbuckled, stood behind Cass with their arms crossed. They stared at him coldly.

“Where were you been this time, you little twerp?” Harness bristled.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Cass pushed on the bed, making the waves bigger. That prompted Zack to abandon ship and roll off onto the green shag carpet below.

Dry land
.

Cass laughed and pointed. “Well, you missed a whole bugger show.”

Cass wore an off-the-shoulder t-shirt with WHAM written in bold letters across the breast. She continued her diatribe. “We were in our cells, then in this godforsaken place and we had to go out hunting again. Jenai didn’t make it and she hasn’t, you know, regenerated or whatever.”

Zack stood quickly. He was wearing the same jeans and RELAX t-shirt from his aborted trip home. Dried blood covered the rip in his jeans over the knee. “Where is she?”

“In the shrine to all things 80s,” Brock quipped. “Follow me.”

Brock led him into the living room—well, more like corny disco hall. A silver ball hung high above a parquet dance floor and scattered light in a swirl all about the room. Wood paneling covered the walls. Orange couches lined the room on more olive green shag carpet. A jukebox was in one corner, and an old arcade Ms. Pac Man in the other.

Lying on one of the couches was Jenai. She wore a florescent yellow headband, wristbands of the same color, soccer shorts that rode up her thighs and legwarmers. She also wore roller skates.

Her pink tank top was stained with blood and her eyes were wide and fixed. Zack brushed her hair with his hand and whispered, “Jenai, you can come back now.”

Zill, who wore only a blue fleece robe, sat next to her, two fingers on her wrist feeling for a pulse that wasn’t there. “It’s never taken this long for someone to come back.”

Zack became panicked, his words quavered. “What happened? What happened?”

“You’d know if you were with us. Where the hell were you?” Brock asked, unusually annoyed.

“I was home. Okay? They sent me home, but it wasn’t my home. They are mad at me or something. That’s why they’re not bringing Jenai back. They are punishing me.”

Zack began to weep. “I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. I should have played along. They obviously don’t want me to do what I’m doing.”

Zack blubbered and then looked up at the sterile vaulted ceiling. “You hear me? I’ll do what you want. Just bring her back. I’ll do what you want.”

Jenai still stared blankly.

“We need to take care of this before she starts to rot and stinks up the place,” Harness said coldly. The others looked at him angrily.

“What?” Harness blurted. “You know I’m right.”

“C’mon,” Zill said somberly. “Come back to the room with me while Harness and Brock bury her.”

Brock sullenly walked to Jenai and scooped her up into his arms. Harness followed behind and they pushed their way through the beaded curtain into a small foyer and through a door to the outside. Zack could hear the rushing of water of a creek before the door slammed shut.

Zill reached out and grabbed his hand and led him back to the room with the waterbed. Zack sat on the edge of it, peering down at his hands which were damp with his tears and with Jenai’s sweat.

“She asked me to tell you something before she, um, like died for real, I guess,” Zill said in a sweet voice—well, as sweet as she could make it. “I think she had a feeling she wasn’t coming back from this one.”

“What did she say?” Zack said, barely audible.

“She asked that I tell you to stay true to yourself, like you were with the Gorn.”

Zack began to cry again. “I don’t think I can.”

“Well, like, that was the message. I think you should listen to it. We have too many asshats here already. Mizuki is like a zombie. Cass is losing her shit. Harness is batshit crazy half the time and Brock acts like he is soooo cool and collected, but he’s shutting down, too. You are our best hope. That’s your deal now. Your deal is hope.”

With that Zill left Zack to grieve.

†††

They sat at the table, silent, sipping water and eating Hot Pockets.

Zack didn’t have an appetite. The others—the ones who were left, anyway—weren’t so hungry either.

The rules had changed. Zill had hidden a deep wound to her shoulder beneath that blue robe, but she couldn’t hide it now as blood soaked through a large white bandage.

“You have to clean the wound again,” Brock said with deep concern. “It could get infected.”

Zill nodded, stood and left to find another bandage. The rest of them stared at their Hot Pockets and contemplated the radical rule changes imposed by their captors.

The dead would not be resurrected. The injured would not be healed. This was all too real now.

The safeties were off.

The ante was raised and Zack didn’t feel much like playing.

“We’re all gonna bloody die now,” Cass grumbled.

Harness slammed his hands on the table, rattling the plates and the glasses and the silverware on it. “Shut up. Just shut up. Good, I say. Great. At least it will be over one way or another. I’m tired of this crap.”

Brock began to drone on. “They are taking the gloves off. They want us to know it is serious, that there are no second chances now. Kill or be killed. Survive or die. We have been lulled into a sense of security, knowing that if we did die, we would just come back. No harm done. They want us to feel fear. They want us to feel our mortality.”

“They want me to fight,” Zack interjected. The others stared at him.