“Hey, Newt. That stuff you fell in…it’s some kind of chemical that removes lacquer and stain from wood.”
By now Newt was nearly nude and shrieking as he ran toward the street.
“Help, help! Someone hose me down! I’m on fire!”
His cries for help alerted a contingent of volunteer firemen who were putting out an electrical fire across the street. One of them heard Newt and pivoted with his hose on full blast, catching Newt in the flow.
The force of the water knocked Newt off his feet and rolled him across the ground.
Warren came running out of the lumberyard with an empty jug in his hand as a paramedic named Darrell jumped from the back of an ambulance.
“What’s wrong with him?” Darrell asked.
Warren handed him the jug. “He fell in a puddle of this stuff.”
Darrell quickly scanned the label, then waved off the fireman before dropping to his knees beside Newt.
Newt was soaked and trembling from both shock and pain, and gasping for breath.
“It’s Newt Collins, right?” Darrell asked.
Momentarily unable to speak, Newt just nodded.
Warren felt compelled to answer. “Yes, his name is Newt. He’s the bus mechanic for the school.”
Then Newt groaned. “It’s burning…. My skin is burning.”
Darrell glanced up at Warren. “See that ambulance across the street?”
Warren nodded.
“Go tell the driver to bring me a gurney. We need to transport him to the hospital ASAP.”
Newt panicked. He couldn’t go to the hospital. What would happen to the kid? It would be just like his landlord to get all nosy and go inside the trailer while he was gone. Lord, oh, Lord, that couldn’t happen.
“No. I don’t wanna go to no hospital,” Newt said, and then moaned. “Can’t you just give me some pain pills and some burn ointment?”
Warren frowned. “Those are chemical burns, Newt. They need—”
“Damn it! I’m not going to the hospital!” Newt shouted, then crawled to his feet.
He was sick to his stomach and shivering from the pain. Water droplets hung on his pale, hairy body like dew on grass, while the burned parts of his skin continued to worsen.
“Yes, you are,” Darrell said. “Warren, go get that gurney…now.”
Warren took off across the street as Newt continued to moan and cry. By the time the gurney arrived, the burns were blistering. At that point he quit arguing.
They loaded him into the back of the ambulance, where Darrell covered him with a sheet, then began to start an IV.
“Just hang tight. We’ll be there in no time.”
For Newt, it couldn’t be soon enough.
Bobby Earle was dreaming. In the dream, a dark, snakelike funnel came out of the clouds and dropped all the way to the ground. It was tearing roofs off of houses and trees out of the ground. And all the while it was happening, he and Mama were running, trying to get away. Suddenly he fell, and before she could help him up he was torn from her grasp. He was screaming her name as she disappeared from sight. And the moment she disappeared, he woke up.
The shock of the dream, coupled with the reality of his situation, was too much. He looked up at the ceiling as his eyes filled with tears. The cockroaches were still crisscrossing the surface like speeding cars on an expressway.
Suddenly one large roach just let go and dropped from the ceiling onto the bed. Horrified, Bobby shrieked and began kicking and bucking, arching his back in a frantic effort to get it away.
The cockroach skittered away as a feeble, high-pitched sound came out through Bobby’s nose. The frayed strands of nylon rope with which he’d been tied dug even deeper into his already abraded wrists and ankles. He immediately froze, willing the pain to stop.
His mind was racing, thinking of how worried Mama must be, and of his little room with the race-car bedspread and the pale green curtains at the windows. He thought of his teddy bear, Oliver, and of the chocolate cake he’d had for dessert at the church. He thought of his room at Daddy’s new house, and the puppy they were going to get. What if Mr. Newt never took him home? Who would sleep with Oliver? Would Daddy still get that puppy, even if Bobby didn’t live there anymore?
The trauma of his situation was setting in. The pain in his wrists and ankles was almost unbearable. The tape across his mouth stung his skin, and the smell of this house was making him sick.
Suddenly he caught movement from the corner of his eye and turned his head toward the light coming from the only window in the room. The blinds were partially opened, just enough that Bobby could see the limbs of a tree smashed against the window. Through them, he could see a small gray squirrel scampering about, obviously as displaced as Bobby. The little squirrel stopped, and for a moment their gazes locked. He held his breath, afraid if he moved the squirrel would disappear.
But the little squirrel stayed, and slowly Bobby began to relax. Time stilled as critter and child had their moment of communication. Then a sudden sound beneath the tree startled the squirrel, which quickly disappeared. In that moment, a part of Bobby’s consciousness let go of reality, and he became that little squirrel—running away, as fast and as far as he could go.
Newt was lying on a bed in the E.R., sheltered behind a curtain while the chaos in the emergency room continued to swell. He could hear doors slamming, people crying, others groaning. Someone called out for a wheelchair. The woman on the other side of his curtain was praying aloud.
His body had gone into shock from the pain of the burns, and he couldn’t stop trembling, even though the two nurses who were sluicing his body with a sterile solution were being as gentle as they could be.
“God, oh, God…give me something for this pain,” Newt kept begging, but the nurses didn’t waver.
“Doctor will be here soon,” one said. “Just hang in there, Mr. Collins. We’re almost done.”
“Oh, Lord!” Newt cried out, sputtering and spewing, and batting his eyes madly as they began sluicing them, as well.
He hadn’t known the true extent of his problem until they had cut off his underwear. Seeing his penis and testicles as swollen and blistered as the rest of his skin, he soon realized there wasn’t going to be any playing going on with Bobby Earle, not until all that healed.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, the curtains parted and a doctor walked in.
“Hello, Mr. Collins. I’m Dr. Luke. I hear you’ve suffered some chemical burns. Can you tell me what happened?”
Newt groaned. “I was helping at the lumberyard. I fell in a pool of solvent that was meant to remove lacquer and wood stains from furniture.”
“And it appears you’re quite sensitive to the compounds that were in it,” Luke said, as he began his examination.
“I need something for the pain,” Newt begged.
“Let’s see about your eyes,” the doctor said, then grunted with satisfaction as he checked them. “Is your vision blurred at all?” he asked.
“No, no. I can see fine,” Newt muttered. “It’s just the pain. Oh, God, Doc…it’s killing me.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Dr. Luke muttered. “They seem to be okay, which is good news.”
“Yeah,” Newt said. “Good news. What about the pain?”
The doctor scanned the chart, then looked up. “You have no allergies listed, I see.”
“I’m not allergic to anything,” Newt said, and then shuddered as another wave of pain swept through him. “Please, Doc…this is killing me. It feels like my skin is on fire.”
Dr. Luke gave one of the nurses an order, then moved to pat Newt’s shoulder, stopping as he thought better of touching his patient’s ravaged skin.
“I’m prescribing you some codeine. You’ll feel relief shortly.”
“Thanks,” Newt said, but he was thinking about Bobby Earle when he added, “how long will it take for all this to heal?”
Dr. Luke frowned. “I’d say weeks, possibly a month. Chemical burns are tricky. And there’s always the threat of infection. You’ll have to be supercareful and conscious of cleanliness during the healing process.”
Newt tried to remember the last time the trailer had been cleaned and couldn’t. This could be a problem.
“How much longer will this take?” he asked. “I need to get home.”
Luke’s frown deepened. “Oh, no. You’ll need to stay in the hospital, at least for a few days.”
Newt shook his head. “Can’t. Just give me some medicine and some pain pills. I’m going home.”
“Mr. Collins, use your head. The town is without power. You will not have water or electricity for God knows how many days. I do not advise it.”
“I don’t care,” Newt said. “I’ve got things to take care of at home. As soon as you’re done here, I’m leaving.”
Dr. Luke frowned. He had a room full of patients yet to be seen, and more were bound to be coming as the day wore on. He couldn’t make the man stay, and chances were he would be back on his own, anyway—in worse shape from infection than he was right now.
“It’s your funeral,” he said shortly, wrote briefly on Newt’s chart and left without a goodbye.
Newt frowned. So be it. It wasn’t like he could explain that he’d just kidnapped a seven-year-old kid and left him tied to his bed.
A short while later Newt was sitting on the side of the bed with a sheet wrapped around his torso, waiting for a nurse to return with his meds and instructions. Part of his clothing had been left behind at the lumberyard. The rest of it had been cut off his body when he’d arrived at the hospital. When he got to go home, he was going to be leaving in the sheet.
Thanks to the shot he’d been given, the pain was easing, and he told himself that this was the worst he was going to feel.
As he waited, the curtains between his bed and the next suddenly parted on a breeze. He couldn’t see who the patient in the bed was, but he recognized the woman beside it.
Penny Bates.
When Penny suddenly stepped aside for an approaching nurse, Newt got his first good look at the patient, then grunted in shock.
What were the odds that he would wind up in the bed beside the mother of the kid he’d snatched? For a moment he was flooded with both panic and guilt, thinking that if Katie Earle saw him, she would know what he’d done.
Then he took a closer look. There was blood all over her clothes, and she was covered in tiny scratches. When he got to her face, he suddenly shuddered. Except for the fact that her eyes were open, he might have thought she was dead. He wondered what had happened to her and if she was going to die, then realized what a stroke of luck it would be if she did. When Penny began speaking to the nurse, he tuned in to the conversation.
“Have you been able to contact Katie’s husband?” Penny asked.
“No,” the nurse answered. “The hospital is running on generator power, and both the cell towers and landlines are still down. We’re exploring other avenues, but for now, we’ve done all we can do.”
Penny looked at Katie. “What about Katie? What’s wrong with her?”
“From all she’s gone through, I’d say shock. Emotional trauma is a strange thing. Losing a child in such a violent and sudden manner is devastating.” Then she lowered her voice. “Have they found his body yet?”
Penny shook her head. “At least, I don’t think so.” She looked away and started to weep, unaware that the man in the next bed was far too interested in their business.
But Newt was more than interested. He was ecstatic. They thought the kid had blown away! That meant the only ongoing search for Bobby Earle was looking for a body. The urgency he’d felt to get the kid and get away had just been alleviated. Now he had time to heal. As soon as he was back on his feet, they would be free to leave without fear of pursuit. This had to be a sign!
At that point the nurse readjusted the curtain, and Newt’s glimpse into Katie Earle’s nightmare ended. A few moments later his own nurse came back and handed him a sheet of paper and a small sack.
“Okay, Mr. Collins. These are your instructions, and these are the pills to keep down infection and pain. Since you’re refusing hospitalization, you’re advised to come back to the E.R. every day for evaluation.”
“If I can,” Newt said, holding up his bandaged hands. “I’m not exactly able to drive.”
“Ask for help,” she said shortly. “There are all kinds of people in Bordelaise who will be glad to give you a ride.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Newt said, suddenly remembering he needed to be careful not to raise questions or give anyone cause to come to him.
He winced as he picked up the sack of meds, then slid off the bed, careful not to let the sheet come loose. It was the only thing between him and immodesty.
“See you tomorrow,” the nurse said, as Newt began hobbling toward the door.
He paused, then looked back toward the cubicle where Katie Earle was lying. Satisfied that she no longer presented a threat, he walked out of the hospital, stopped by a Red Cross station to get some sandwiches and bottled water, then caught a ride home. By the time he let himself into the trailer house, the codeine shot was beginning to wear off and he’d come to the conclusion that this wasn’t going to be such a smooth ride, after all.
Five
T
he front door creaked when it opened. It was a sound Bobby had heard plenty of times in his life. Things squeaked. No big deal. But nothing he’d ever experienced before had prepared him to be kidnapped, gagged and tied to a bed. So when the door suddenly squeaked, then slammed, his heart echoed the sound by slamming against his rib cage.
The man must be back! Maybe now he would untie him and take him home to Mama.
But when no one called out and no one showed up in the doorway, uncertainty turned to anxiety. Then he heard a shuffling sound and the rustle of what sounded like paper being torn. He didn’t know he was holding his breath until a low, angry growl echoed throughout the house.
His seven-year-old imagination immediately thought a wild animal had gotten in, and he began to scream. The fact that no one could hear him made his panic even worse.
Every step Newt took was agony. He wanted to cry but settled for a low, heartfelt sigh as he shuffled across the room to the kitchen table. He leaned over to let go of his packages, and as he did, a swift pain shot up his arm.