I COULDN’T WAIT IN MY bed any longer and so crept out of my room and downstairs as soon as light started to filter in through my window.
I stood vigilant at the stovetop, waiting to catch the teapot before it started whistling. From the window I could see my dad’s car was gone. He had finally gone back to work but even that wasn’t enough to cheer me up. The fight with Jordan played over and over in my mind. That he had a serious jealousy problem was obvious. But something else bothered me and no matter how I went over everything that was said I couldn’t get a fix on it.
Lincoln shuffled into the kitchen before I could get out with my cup of tea. “Hey,” he said groggily.
“Hey,” I echoed.
He wandered back and forth between the fridge and pantry before finally stopping next to me. “I’m sorry about last night, can we not fight?” he asked, not looking me in the eyes.
I wanted that more than anything but I had to ask. “Did you really mean what you said?”
“What?” he asked warily.
“That your friends don’t like me because they think I’m ... stuck up?”
“Bixby,” he said, exasperated.
“No,” I insisted. “You brought it up.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Yes, but you’re different now, so I don’t know anymore.”
“Different? So I used to be stuck up but I’m different now and they still hate me?” That felt great.
“No ...” Lincoln said, peering at me. “You seem more … outgoing? No, not that. More … confident. Yeah, that. Well, maybe just more that you don’t seem to be hiding anymore.”
“Hiding?” I was totally confused.
Lincoln shrugged. “Right. I mean, you’ve always been shy, so I think it was just easy to kind of hide behind me, you know? And now, you don’t. Not that you’re going out of your way to make friends or anything, but you just seem a little more involved, I guess. They’re not used to having you around and they’re also not used to having someone not begging to be in the group. I guess that’s what they don’t like.”
I stayed quiet for a minute, not sure how to take that and not sure how to respond. “You ever think maybe I was just too busy taking care of you and dad and Grandma to make a bunch of friends?”
“Don’t put that off on me,” he argued. “It’s not like you had friends when Mom was around. You’ve always been shy. And you made time for the sports you wanted to do. You could have done whatever you wanted.”
“Uh-huh. And who would have kept Grandma in check? And the house clean? And made sure there was food in the house and dinner was made?”
“You wanted to do that stuff,” Lincoln snapped. “I tried to get you to hang out with me and my friends and you never would. Nobody made you be Suzy homemaker.”
“That’s funny you say that now, cause you never offered to help, not even when Dad was bitching me out because the house wasn’t perfect when he got home. You were busy with your friends.”
“I can’t help it if Dad is a dick to you,” he said quietly.
“No, I guess not,” I said just as quietly.
“Look, are we fighting about my friends or something else?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Thanks for trying to include me last night, but I’m just never going to fit in with your group.”
He fidgeted with the one dial on the stove. “Maybe if you had more help with Grandma and the house and stuff you could find your own group of friends?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, surprised at his insightfulness. Definitely not like the old Linc at all.
He kept fiddling with the stove dial. “I gotta ask you something else.”
I sighed. “What?”
“Why didn’t you like going out with Brent?”
“You’re joking, right? That guy is a total jerk.”
Lincoln smiled. “I thought that’s what it was.”
I playfully punched him in the shoulder. “That’s nice. You set your sister up on a date with a jerk and you’re glad she didn’t like it?”
He laughed. “No, that’s not it. I mean, he can be a jerk but I didn’t know if that’s why you didn’t want to be there with him. Honestly, I thought …”
His silence confused me. “Thought what?”
Lincoln laughed again and shook his head. “I don’t know, I thought maybe you had a secret boyfriend or something, maybe that was why you didn’t want to be there with Brent.” He laughed again, each obnoxious bray grinding into my head.
I didn’t say anything for a long moment then asked, “So what’s the funny part, that Brent is an asshole or that I might actually have a guy interested in me?”
Lincoln’s jaw dropped open. “Whoa, that’s not what I meant. I just meant … I’m sorry you had a bad night.”
I nodded curtly, hurt by my brother for the second time in less than twelve hours.
“Want to go out to breakfast?” he asked, oblivious to my pain.
“Sure,” I said with a fake smile.
Grandma wasn’t happy to be woken up but seemed agreeable to pancakes.
The walk downtown was chilly and perfect. It smelled like autumn and the trees were gorgeous shades of red, yellow, green and gold. Linc gave a play by play account of Brent ending the night barfing over the side of the patio and his dad being called to pick him up.
But in spite of the perfect weather and peace with Lincoln and Grandma acting a little more like herself, I still couldn’t be totally happy. I wanted things to be okay between me and Jordan. Actually, more than okay; I wanted him to not be jealous and controlling, I wanted him to just make it clear what we were and I really, really wanted to be able to put my finger on what was bothering me the most about our fight.
But breakfast was still good, Grandma was happy to have pancakes and Linc joked around more like his old self than I had seen in weeks.
“You do seem different, Bixby,” Linc told me, munching on a piece of bacon.
“Yeah, you said that, but is it a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked, only half joking.
“Good, definitely good. You seem ... distracted, but in a good way, I guess. Honestly, “ he said with a laugh, “I really thought maybe you had a secret boyfriend or something, that’s kind of how you’re acting.”
I gave a fake little laugh and hid guiltily behind my coffee mug.
“I mean, really,” he continued, “is something different, is something going on?”
I wished I could tell him, I wished I could tell anyone about Jordan but that was impossible.
“I’m happy you’re home and okay,” I offered. He didn’t say anything but his face fell the tiniest bit. “You still are having a hard time?”
Lincoln fidgeted with his silverware, spinning the butter knife over his fingers. “I feel fine, physically. I just wish I knew what happened, that I could remember. I think if I did I wouldn’t still be having such bad nightmares, you know?”
“You’re still having bad dreams? About the same thing?”
He nodded. “But that’s probably just part of the whole hitting my head thing, or something, you know?”
I wasn’t inclined to think any dream was just a dream but I kept that to myself.
“Did I tell you when Brent leaned over the railing to barf he split his pants and he had on some weird palm tree underwear?” he suddenly asked, his face lighting up.
I left the restaurant happy and content, dreaming up different ways Jordan and I could make up and he could go back to being the perfect guy I wanted him to be.
I made it a third of the way down the block before I realized Linc wasn’t behind me. He was staring into a coin operated newspaper box outside the restaurant. I waited for him to catch up, but he didn’t turn from the box or even just bother to buy a paper.
“Linc,” I called and he didn’t answer. Looking closer his face I saw how pale he was with a shine of sweat on his upper lip. I started running back towards him. “Linc?”
“That’s him,”
he said, not turning to look at me.
Peering through the dirty glass I could barely make out a half a small picture. “Him who?” I fished a few quarters out of my pocket and bought the paper. Smoothing it open, I could see the picture was of an unsmiling teenage boy. Underneath the title read, “Police Ask Locals for More Leads.”
I quickly skimmed through the article, reading aloud. “After following several leads out to Montana, police have determined a local runaway is not there … Was last seen leaving for school … Foster family has not seen him since … Call the tip line with any information. Who is this guy, Linc? Do you know him?”
I was horrified to look up and see tears running down Lincoln’s face. His whole body was shaking and I had to help him to a bench. He took the paper from me and pointed at the picture. “He was in the car.”
Fear and confusion reigned, but I knew what he was talking about. “He was in the car when you had the accident?”
Linc nodded. He wiped the sweat from his brown and gulped loudly. “I remember now. He was new, he was a foster kid and started school late because … I don’t remember why, but he said,” Lincoln held his head in his hands with his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to remember. “And at his old school he was on the swim team. And … Liam was suspended from the team! Remember? He got suspended for … he cheated! No, he bought a paper off the Internet and got caught.”
Lincoln jumped up from the bench and began pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair. I was still frozen to my seat. Grandma sat next to me, totally unconcerned with Lincoln’s meltdown.
He continued, trying to force his memories back. “So we brought him with. Yes, we were screwed on a relay and this Cory guy, that’s what he swam at his last school.”
I chewed my lip, things still not adding up. “Okay, but they sort of identified you and Ben because your backpacks had your IDs in them. There wasn’t one for this other guy, or I’m sure they would have figured that out.”
Linc stopped, his face screwed up, eyes squeezed shut. Finally he said, “He didn’t bring his books out of school with him. He didn’t have a backpack.” Linc was quiet for minute then nearly shouted, “He just went to a new foster home! Some jerk had stolen his backpack that morning. He wanted to be on the team but didn’t think he could just join in the middle of the semester.” Lincoln was talking so fast I almost couldn’t understand him.
With his eyes squeezed tight, he kept going. “Ben asked him if we shouldn’t stop at his house and let somebody know and the kid said they were at work anyway. And he was old enough to have a driver’s license but never took drivers training because he kept getting bounced around. He had run away from a couple places because the people were real assholes, just looking to get the money … I let him sit in the front seat. Ben was asking him about swimming … I was looking for my phone, I had dropped it …”
I waited for more but there wasn’t any. “That’s it,” he said, looking defeated. “I don’t remember anything after going to pick up my phone.”
“You took your seatbelt off to get your phone?” I asked, clenching my hands to my knees to keep from shaking.
Lincoln nodded.
“So maybe you didn’t have it on when you crashed. You went”—I shuddered—”out the windshield and Cory and Ben were in the front seat, with your and Cory’s backpacks in the trunk.”
Linc picked the newspaper back up and said to the picture, “So you’re the one buried in my grave.”
With that I burst into tears. Knowing everything was somehow worse than not knowing. I didn’t want to know a real person had somehow died in Linc’s place and was lying in his grave.
We walked home, both of us in tears, and pulled out the detective’s business card when we got there. He showed up ten minutes after Linc called and stayed for nearly an hour, listening to Linc’s story and asking questions. Even Grandma listened on with interest for a few minutes before deciding to move our movie collection from the living room to the bathroom.
As the detective was getting up to leave, Lincoln asked, “So what happens next?”
“See if this kid has DNA on file and compare to what was exhumed. Obviously you weren’t going to be a match for DNA but we started running tests after you were found alive. It will take a couple weeks more. In the meantime, we’ll make sure the story checks out. If it all matches up, then we’ll close the case.” The relief on Linc’s face made him shine. “Call me if you remember anything more. And keep this to yourself until we can confirm anything.”
Lincoln took my dad’s call from the road that night. It was surprisingly short in light of everything that had been revealed, but that was my dad.
Grandma wandered in the kitchen as I cleaned up our dinner plates.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
I looked at her doubtfully. “We just ate.”
“I didn’t get any!” she snapped. “You ate without me.”
“Grandma, you did too. We had pork chops and squash. You said it was good.”
“No I didn’t!” she shouted, getting angrier.
“Fine,” I told her, not having the energy to argue. “You want me to heat you some up?”
“Yes,” she hissed, and slammed herself down into her chair.
I rolled my eyes and pulled the leftovers out the fridge. She didn’t eat much, seeing as she had just gotten done eating dinner, but it made her happy so I didn’t say anything.
Getting her to bed that night was a nightmare. She was copying recipes out of her cookbook into all the little blank spaces of a fishing magazine. Finally Linc convinced her she had more magazines with bigger white spaces up in her room and got her to go with him. Changing into pajamas and brushing her teeth was out of the question and I cornered Linc in the hallway as he came out of her room.
“You think it’s okay to go to sleep while she’s acting like this?”
He looked back into her room. “I think so, she’s pretty occupied. And we have to get some sleep. What do you think is wrong with her?”
I shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know. You think this is just part of the Alzheimer’s maybe? I mean, I know it gets worse as time goes on, but I didn’t think it went this fast.”
“Maybe you should get her a doctor’s appointment?”
I shook my head. “They gave me a hard time last time I took her in myself. We’ll have to wait until Dad is home for a few days.”
“Right,” said Linc. “Cause he’s so helpful with taking care of Grandma.”
“Right,” I repeated dully. “Hey Linc, you really don’t remember anything else after looking for you phone in the car?”
He looked hurt. “What, you don’t believe me?”
“No, no!” I protested. “I just meant, you had all those bad dreams at first. Were they just bad dreams, or maybe part of remembering something?”
Linc shrugged uneasily. “They didn’t have anything to do with car accidents or wandering around a city. They were just … like being locked up in the forest and something bad lurking around. Just dreams I guess. I don’t know,” he ended abruptly and pushed past me to go down the stairs.
“Sorry,” I called after him, but he didn’t turn around.
Despite my worry for Grandma and for Linc, I was totally exhausted. I lay in bed, snuggled under my quilt, my window open a crack, practically begging for sleep. But every time I drifted off, a noise from Grandma’s room brought me back. Twice I got up to check on her and both times she was rearranging everything in her dresser drawers. Sleep continued to evade me as she banged and shuffled in her room.
Sometime after midnight I fell into an uneasy sleep and woke up in the general store. I looked around in surprise.
How long since I had been to Nightmare Town? I thought back and couldn’t remember. The store was closed, the lights off and only the hum of the coolers to be heard. “Abe?” I called, just in case. No answer.
I let myself out the doors but couldn’t figure out how to lock them behind
me. Finally I just left. The dusty road leading down to my house was bright enough with the moonlight but totally deserted. I let myself in the side door where Linc could usually be found playing video games but he wasn’t there either.
I wandered back outside, stumped. Where was everybody?
Determined to find them, I took off down the dusty road again. I could see the glow of lights from the downtown area through the sparse trees. The stores were all closed but had soft light illuminating the displays in the windows. Clothing stores, a candy store and toy store lined the block I wandered down. At the far end was the glow of neon light from a high set window and thumping base rattled the metal door in its frame. Curious, I let myself in.
It was a bar, half filled with people. I let the door shut behind me and found myself in darkness illuminated only by the glow of lights over the neatly lined bottles of liquor. At the end of the dark wooden bar was Abe with a few other townies I recognized. No one looked up when I walked in the door and no one was talking, even though the music wasn’t nearly as loud as it had seemed from outside.
I half expected the bartender to tell me I was too young to be in there but she just glared at me and continued wiping out shot glasses. Uneasy, I walked over to where Abe sat. “Hey, how come you’re not at the store?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light.
“What’s the point?” he snapped. “If you’re not going to do your job why should I do mine?”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant but he just waved me off. Hurt, I looked to other townies I recognized. They wouldn’t meet my eyes, just glared off into the distance.
“Okay,” I muttered, looking around for a familiar face.
At one tiny table at the other end of the room sat Lincoln.
He didn’t look up as I walked over or even when I sat down. “Linc?” I finally asked.
He turned his face towards me and I was shocked. He was thin and pale with dark, angry smears under both eyes.
“Hey Bixby,” he said dully.
“Linc, what happened to you?” I asked. “In real life you’re doing so much better.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Oh yeah? Does he know what happened to us?”
Dream Lincoln had never even conceded there was another version of him. “Yes,” I said cautiously. “He remembers Cory now—”
“No! Everything! He has to remember everything! Because I do.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly chilled. “Okay. Well, he remembers Cory being in the car. He just doesn’t remember the car accident or how he got to the shelter or anything. What is it so important that he remembers?”
“Is he having dreams?”
“Yeah …”
Lincoln nodded savagely. “Then he knows what happened. His dreams are as real as yours.”
“But he said in his dreams he was trapped, or locked up by something.”
“In the woods, in the fog, with a demon always on the perimeter,” he filled in.
His description raised goose bumps on my arms. “What happened to you guys?” I asked, feeling sick.
“Ask your boyfriend,” he spat in my face.
Chapter 17