“No,” I said. “No service.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Simmons. “It’s always bad up in here. Wait till we get to the bottom of this road.”
I nodded. I leaned back against the seat. I was too tired to talk anymore. In fact, I’d never felt so tired in my life. I was hungry, too, really hungry now. I wondered if I could talk Mrs. Simmons into giving me some food or if I’d have to wait for my mom and dad to come get me.
In the seat behind me, the little girl, Angeline, began to sing. She had a doll back there she was playing with, and she was sort of singing to it and herself in a low voice. I guess it gets pretty boring strapped into those child seats.
I leaned my head back and listened to her rambling little song. I started to drift off into sleep, but then I felt myself strapped to the torture chair and saw the rat-faced guy coming at me with his syringe . . .
“Charlie!”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I sat up suddenly. A strap pulled tight against my chest, holding me in place. For a second, I thought I really was back in the torture chair, that my whole escape had been a dream . . .
But no. I looked around. I was still in the Explorer. Mrs. Simmons was sitting next to me. She smiled gently.
“You fell asleep.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“We’re here.”
I looked around, dazed. The car had stopped. We were in the driveway of a small house, a brown clapboard house on a wooded road. I could see a couple of other houses, but they were far away, all but hidden in the trees.
“This is where I live,” she said. Her voice sounded different now. It was nicer somehow, warmer. I guess she’d had time to think about it while I was asleep and had decided I was okay. “You can come in and use the phone inside,” she told me.
It felt strange to be inside her house—in a normal house where nice, regular people lived—it felt good. There were pictures on the wall and photographs of her and her husband over the fireplace. There was even a big old yellow Labrador who met us at the door, sniffed me up and down, and gave a throaty little cough of approval before slobbering all over Angeline and making her laugh.
The kitchen was especially nice, all homey and old-fashioned with yellow-and-white floor tiles and red-and-white curtains and a view of the forest through the window over the sink. It made me feel almost like I was at one of my friends’ houses or something.
Mrs. Simmons gestured to a phone that was standing in a charger on the kitchen counter. I went to it. Mrs. Simmons, meanwhile, told Angeline to sit down at the kitchen table. Angeline sat there and talked to her doll, and Mrs. Simmons went to the refrigerator to get her a snack.
“Do you want anything to eat, Charlie?” she asked over her shoulder.
I had to swallow a whole mouthful of drool before I could croak, “Yeah. Please.”
She stopped with her hand on the refrigerator and gave me the sympathy look again. Then, kind of quietly, she nodded at the phone and said, “Don’t forget to use the area code.”
I nodded. I dialed home. While I waited for the phone to ring, my heart started beating harder. I was crazy excited. Just to hear my mom’s voice or my dad’s . . . Just to know they were coming to get me . . . I almost didn’t care anymore how I’d gotten here or what had happened. Just as long as it was over. Just as long as I could go home.
The phone started ringing. Then my breath caught as the ringing stopped and a woman’s voice came over the line.
“Mom?” I said.
But the voice said only: “We’re sorry. This number has been disconnected. Please check the number and dial again.” It was a recording.
Confused, I looked over at Mrs. Simmons. She was setting a juice box and a Pop-Tart in front of Angeline.
“That’s weird,” I said.
She moved to the refrigerator again. “What’s weird?”
I didn’t answer. I redialed my home number, making sure I got it right. This time, the phone didn’t even ring. There was just the voice: “We’re sorry. This number has been disconnected . . .”
I lowered the phone from my ear.
“What? What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Simmons.
“They say the number’s been disconnected.”
Mrs. Simmons shrugged. “Might be some problem on the line. What about their cell phones?”
“I don’t know the numbers. They were on my speed dial—I never had to memorize them.”
“Well, why don’t you just call the sheriff ’s department? They’ll contact your folks for you. You’re going to need to talk to them anyway if there are all these bad guys you say are after you.”
“There are!” I insisted.
“Well, okay,” said Mrs. Simmons—she still sounded doubtful. “Then call the sheriff.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
I looked down at the phone in my hand. I hesitated. I could just imagine trying to explain to a bunch of policemen what had happened to me. Well, I went to bed and when I woke up . . . Right. I could just imagine how crazy I’d sound and the way they’d look at me, like I was some lying kid.
“Here,” Mrs. Simmons said, coming to me. “I’ll call them. My husband’s an assistant district attorney. They all know me.”
“Oh, great,” I said, relieved. I handed her the phone. At least she could tell them I wasn’t a bad guy.
“You sit down and eat something,” she told me. “I put some chicken out for you. You must be starved.”
She gestured at the table. I saw now she’d poured a glass of milk for me and put a couple of pieces of chicken and a Pop-Tart on a plate. The sight of the food just about blew everything else out of my mind. My mouth hung open as I sat down at the table. I stared at the food as if it were some kind of vision: a drumstick, a breast, a Pop-Tart with strawberry frosting. I said a quick grace in my head—very quick. My mouth was watering so much, I had to wipe it before I could start to eat.
“Jack! Hi, it’s Cathy Simmons,” Mrs. Simmons said into the phone. She went on talking as she carried the phone out into the living room. I couldn’t hear what she said. Didn’t matter. I wasn’t paying attention anymore anyway. I was lifting that drumstick. I was biting into it. For a second, the taste of the food was so powerful it made my head swim. I hesitated, afraid I was going to throw up. But then my stomach settled and I started eating for real. By which I mean: I ripped into that drumstick like Godzilla devouring a tourist. The drumstick, then the breast, then the Pop-Tart . . .
“You’re sloppy,” said Angeline, watching me from across the table as I gobbled the food.
I winked at her. “Hungry,” was all I could manage to say as I ate. Then I hit the glass of milk. It went bubbling down my throat in a single gulp.
A second later, Mrs. Simmons came back into the room. By then my plate was just about spotless. I was busy pressing my finger to it to get up whatever last Pop-Tart crumbs I could find.
Mrs. Simmons carried the phone to the charger and set it there. Her back was to me and she stayed like that another second or two. Then she turned around and smiled at me—only it wasn’t the same sort of smile as before. She looked different now. I noticed it right away. Some of the color was gone from her cheeks and the softness from her eyes. She looked pale and worried. Her smile was a forced smile.
“Well . . . um, Charlie,” she said. “Would you like to clean up a little? Maybe even take a shower. You’re about my husband’s size. I could put out some fresh clothes for you.”
I thought about it. A shower would feel awfully nice. Plus I wouldn’t smell so bad when my folks came for me. “Sure,” I said. “Is everything all right? Did you reach the sheriff?”
“What? Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, everything’s fine.” I could see Mrs. Simmons’s eyes go back and forth as if she were searching for the right thing to say. “The deputies are on their way. It’s a bit of a drive from town, but they’ll be here soon.”
“Great,” I said. “You thin
k I should wait to take a shower in case they . . .”
“No,” Mrs. Simmons said quickly. Then she did a strange thing. She went to the table and scooped Angeline up into her arms. She held her protectively, as if she were afraid of me again, afraid I might hurt them. “No, you just go on into the back room and take a shower like I say. I’ll lay some clothes out on the sofa for you, all right?”
I was kind of confused by her behavior, but I said, “Sure.”
The back room was on the ground floor at the other end of the house. It was a bright room with flowered wallpaper and a sofa. There was a small wooden table with a sewing machine on it. And there was an easy chair with a newspaper lying on it. I could see the headline: “Homeland Secretary to Meet with President on Terror.”
Still clutching Angeline in her arms, Mrs. Simmons pointed me to the bathroom on the room’s far wall.
“Right in there,” she said. “Go ahead, there are towels and everything, and I’ll bring you some clothes.”
Then she went out—hurried out, I thought—closing the door behind her.
I thought she was acting strange, but then the whole situation was so strange, I shrugged it off again. I went into the bathroom. It was pleasant and homey like the rest of the house. Big fluffy towels hanging on racks. A flowered shower curtain. White tiles on the walls with blue designs on them.
I got the shower going and started to unbutton my shirt. It would be good to get out of my clothes, wet and dirty and bloody as they were. As I worked the buttons, I turned without thinking to look in the mirror over the bathroom sink.
I stopped moving. I stood stock-still. My hand froze on one of the buttons.
My face. The face staring back at me from the mirror. It was me—I mean, I recognized myself, but . . . but I’d changed. A lot. My face was leaner, sharper, stronger-looking. And my beard . . . I looked like I hadn’t shaved for a day or two, but instead of the patches of fuzz I usually got, my beard was coming in all over, heavy and full.
I stood there staring at my reflection and this thought—this impossible thought—came into my head.
I was older. I looked older, anyway. I looked older than I did when I went to bed at home last night.
The shower went on running as I stood there. Steam began to seep out from behind the shower curtain. Slowly the mirror began to fog over, the white mist moving in from the edges toward the center. I watched as the reflection of my face was covered until only the eyes were staring out at me. Then the eyes were gone too. I was just a shadow in the mist.
That broke the spell. I turned away from the mirror quickly. I hurried out of the bathroom, out into the other room with the sofa and the sewing table.
There was the easy chair. There was the newspaper on it. I went to the chair. I picked up the paper.
“Homeland Secretary to Meet with President on Terror.”
Above the headline was the date. I could still remember the date from yesterday. A Wednesday in September.
An ordinary Wednesday. It ought to be Thursday now.
And it was. It was Thursday. Only it was October. I thought, Wow, a whole month has passed!
Then my eyes traveled just a little farther, and I saw the rest.
It was October, but a year later. A year had passed since I went to bed last night.
It was one full year since the last day I remembered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Police
I stood in the shower. The hot water streamed down over me. It felt good, really good. The heat seeped into my aching muscles, soothing them. It stung on my cuts and bruises, but it was a good sting, a cleansing sting. The stream drove the dirt and blood off me. I stood with my head down, watching as the dark, gritty water swirled down the drain.
I stared and I thought: A year! How was it possible? A year of my life had vanished. My eighteenth birthday had come and gone and I couldn’t even remember it.
I tried. I tried to remember. Something. Anything. I strained as hard as I could to bring any of it back. But there was nothing there. As far as my mind was concerned, I had gone to bed last night and woken up strapped to a chair. If a year had passed in the meantime, it was lost to me completely. I had no memory of it at all.
I put my hands over my face. I rubbed my eyes. I tried again to make some sense out of the events of the day, sifting through them for any clue I could find. I thought back to that first moment, the moment I had woken up in the chair. What had happened before that? Wasn’t there something? Anything?
I couldn’t come up with it. I turned off the shower. I stepped out and grabbed one of the towels and began to dry myself off. And now there was . . . just a trace . . . a hint, a whisper of a memory coming back to me.
It had happened when I first woke up. When I first found myself strapped to that chair. Everything was confusion and fear and pain inside me. But there were voices. I remembered now. There were voices talking just outside the cell door. What did they say? I tried to remember. Maybe there was a clue there—a clue to where a year of my life had gone.
I stepped out of the bathroom. Just as Mrs. Simmons had promised, she’d put some clothes on the sofa for me, a pair of jeans and a flannel work shirt. There were also some clean socks and a pair of old sneakers. There was even some underwear in a package that hadn’t been opened yet.
I started to get dressed. All the while, I was thinking, trying to remember, trying to call back those voices I’d heard.
Homelander!
Yes. That was something. It came back to me now. Someone had said the word Homelander. Homelander One—as if there were more of them, a lot of Homelanders. What did it mean? I had no idea.
What else? My name. Yes. Someone had said my name.
West.
I closed my eyes as I dressed, trying to bring back the scene, trying to bring back the words.
Orton knows the bridge as well as West.
My head was beginning to throb. That was all I could come up with for now. I finished dressing. I sat on the sofa and put the old sneakers on. Everything fit pretty well. I was grateful to be clean and grateful for the feel of fresh clothing.
I opened the door to the back room and stepped out into the hallway.
“Mrs. Simmons?” I called.
There was no answer. It was odd. The house had an empty feel to it suddenly. I waited a second. Then I started down the hall, calling as I went.
“Mrs. Simmons? I’m done with my shower. Are the deputies here yet?”
I came out into the living room. It was a big room, two stories tall with a cathedral ceiling. There was a fireplace against one wall. Chairs: a rocking chair, a couple of armchairs. Another sofa. A wide-screen TV.
But it was empty here too. There was no one around.
I was about to call out again—about to head into the kitchen—when I noticed something. There was this large picture window on one wall. It looked out at the front of the house, out at the quiet street and the forest across the way and the first dark of evening coming into the sky above the trees. The carport was around the side of the house out of sight, but you could see part of the driveway leading up to it. There were cars there now. Cars that hadn’t been there before. I moved closer to the window and looked out. There was a blue Cadillac and a red-and-white sheriff ’s department cruiser and another car in front of those that I couldn’t make out, and two more cruisers parked at the curb down the street.
Good, they’re here, I thought. But where? Where was Mrs. Simmons? Where were all the deputies from those cars? Where was everyone?
I turned around, starting to call, “Mrs. Simmons . . . !”
And suddenly I was looking down the barrel of a large handgun, pressed close to my forehead.
“Freeze, West!” a man shouted in my face. “You move and I’ll blow your head off!”
I froze. I gaped into the black bore of the gun barrel.
“Put your hands up! Put ’em up! Now! Now!”
I swallowed. I raised my hands. I was
scared—of course: someone points a gun at you and you get scared, that’s just the way it is. But I wasn’t as scared as you might think. I was really just startled mostly. I could see now that the man holding the gun was wearing a brown khaki uniform. He was a sheriff’s deputy, a lawman, one of the good guys. I realized there must be some mistake.
“It’s okay,” I said, holding my hands in the air. “It’s just me. I gave the gun to Mrs. . . .”
“Shut up! Put your hands behind your head!”
This was another voice. I turned to it. Another deputy was standing by the kitchen door. He had a gun, too, and it was also leveled at me.
“Do it! Do it now!”
Yet a third voice. A third deputy was coming out of the hall—where I’d just come from. Another gun was aimed my way.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Don’t shoot. I’m the good guys.” I put my hands behind my head.
And with breathtaking speed, the three deputies leapt at me.
“Hey!” I shouted.
They spun me around. One of them hit me in the back of the legs so that I dropped to my knees. Another one wrestled my hands down from my head and twisted them painfully behind my back. I felt a cold pinch of metal as he snapped handcuffs on my wrists.
“Ow! What’re you doing?” I said.
“Shut up! On your feet, West!”
Even as he was shouting in my ear, he was dragging me up off my knees, onto my feet. It was hard to maneuver with my hands cuffed behind me.
One of the deputies was murmuring into the microphone clipped to his shoulder.
“All clear. We got him!”
Through the window, I could see more deputies coming into view, coming out from where they’d been hiding behind trees and against the wall of the house. They were all wearing bulletproof vests. A couple of them were carrying assault rifles. Who’d they think I was? Osama bin Laden?
Everything was happening fast—so fast I couldn’t think, couldn’t figure out what was going on. The deputies were shoving me toward the door, shouting at me.
“Move! Come on! Move it! Go!”
They shoved me to the front door of the house. One of the deputies outside opened it. The others half shoved and half carried me through, outside into the evening.