Lost in Wonderland

by Nicky Peacock

  “Excuse me,” Hatter says as he pokes his head in the room, “we’re all done here. It’s time to go.”

  “Will I see you in here again?” asks the agent.

  “No, not me. But someone will come and fix you soon,” I reply as I snatch back my ID.

  “Time is wasting, tick-tock, tick-tock,” says Hatter.

  “Coming.” I smile sweetly, then quickly make for the door.

  “What were you doing in there? Nothing suspicious, I hope. I’d rather not have to hack the FBI twice in one day.”

  “I was testing my wings, seeing if I could be more than just bait,” I reply as we walk through the metal detectors.

  “You want to be a hunter?”

  Before I can answer his question, the guard moves forward and scans him, stopping my answer mid-thought.

  “Are you here with your dad?” she asks gently, patting Hatter down. “I didn’t realize it was bring your kid to work day.” Her lips curve into a mother’s smile. I try to smile back but it comes out more like a scowl.

  “Careful, she bites!” Hatter exclaims and the guard looks dubious.

  As we walk outside, he shakes his head. “What if the agent had found you out?”

  I stop, bend down, and pull out a glass knife from my boot. “I had a little sharp insurance.”

  “Good Lord, Mouse!”

  “It’s not my fault their security is woefully inadequate.” I shrug and replace the knife.

  Hatter shakes his head, then reaches into his jacket. For a moment I freeze, not knowing whether to touch my chip or grab my knife.

  “Relax, Mouse,” he says, handing me some documents.

  “What are these?”

  “They’re a gift for your brother. I created him a new identity.”

  “Thank you.” I flip open the passport. My brother’s new name is Lewis Carroll. I can’t help my smile. Maybe he could get better? Maybe Bob and Jon could help him, like they helped me?

  “Oh, and the files are nowhere near complete. I searched all missing women in the state of Alaska and there are over a hundred which fit the Abductor’s MO, including your mother.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Shilo

  With keen concentration, Shilo sits at Bob’s laptop, reading about the Kushtaka.

  “Look there!” exclaims Mr. Custard.

  On the screen is a small scan of an old book. Shilo enlarges it and Mr. Custard reads it aloud. “The Kushtaka can only be killed by its own talons and teeth.”

  “But we have to kill it first to rip out its talon?” The look of horror and disgust on Shilo’s face is only mirrored by that of Mr. Custard’s.

  “It’s unstoppable,” Shilo whispers.

  “Nothing is unstoppable,” says Mr. Custard.

  “What’s unstoppable?” Kayla emerges in the doorway, dressed in a suit. She still only looks fifteen, though.

  “We are,” Shilo says, closing the laptop. “Together we’re going to kill the Kushtaka. I’m not sure how yet, but together I know we can do it.” He gets up, stands in front of his little sister, and musters an unfamiliar look of defiance.

  “You look like you need the restroom,” whispers Mr. Custard. “Squint more.”

  Shilo does his best Blue Steel pose.

  Kayla smiles and hands him a bundle of documents. “Then you’re going to need these.”

  Shilo flips through the papers and grins at his new passport photo. He remembers Bob taking it one day last year. “We’re finally going to catch it. I have butterflies in my stomach,” he says.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have eaten all those caterpillars.”

  Shilo raises a nostril.

  “She’s joking, Shilo,” Mr. Custard says. “Tell her a joke back.”

  “Kayla, what’s black and white and red all over?”

  “Nun with a nose bleed?” she offers.

  “Gross, no it’s a newspaper. Get it, it’s black and white and read all over.”

  “Oh, it’s a riddle, not a joke. Okay, why is a raven like a writing desk?”

  He narrows his eyes as he goes only far enough into his thoughts to not get lost. “Is it to do with its beak?” He grins. “Oh, or is it something to do with Edgar Allen Poe?” Shilo looks at her expectantly.

  “Could be, I guess.”

  “See, she doesn’t hate you.” Mr. Custard moves to stand closer to Shilo.

  “We need to pack,” Kayla says as she takes the documents back out of his hands.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going home.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Mouse

  As I step out of the airport, a chilly wind smacks me in the face. The wide-open space of my home state lays itself before me, a land to be conquered, to understand and map. For a moment I breathe a little too deeply and my lungs begin to feel rigid and unyielding to my exhales. My breath becomes trapped and I have to stumble back through the airport doors to stop from being in people’s way.

  “I know where I am,” I say to myself. “I’m not lost. I’m home.” I know that my hometown of Little Bell is a three-hour taxi ride north of the airport and that we will be staying in the same house that Rabbit had rented. I pat down the sleeve of my overstuffed jacket but can’t seem to get a fix on my chip. Panic quickly coils around me again.

  “It’s okay, Kayla.” Shilo is running over to me from the luggage carousel where I had abandoned him. He reaches down and grabs my flailing hand. “I won’t let you go again.”

  I rip my hand from his and notice he’s wearing an old pair of Bob’s shoes. Seeing them makes me breathe easier. They may not be here in person, but my real family is all around me still.

  “I tried. Stop yelling at me,” Shilo says to a nearby stranger, who quickens his pace.

  “Who the hell are you talking to? It better not be who I think it is,” I yell at him. “Do you still see that imaginary friend of yours?” I shake my head and my hair falls around my cheeks, brushing away a stray tear. What was I thinking? Shilo is unstable. How will he help me find Rabbit when he can’t even find his own sanity?

  “Mr. Custard is not just my friend. He cares about you too, Kayla.”

  “Well, that’s fine. He can care about Kayla, because I’m not her anymore. I’m Mouse. Now stop acting like an asshat and start helping.”

  Shilo hangs his head and I feel my heart tug. He’s never grown up. He’s the boy I remember, but in the body of an adult man. There’s something both creepy and endearing about that. He’s familiar and foreign all at the same time. I realize that perhaps it was me that left him behind.

  “Look, just act normal, okay?” I say with a tentative hand on his shoulder. “They’ll know now that you’ve escaped. I’m surprised they’re not looking for you already.”

  “Bob and Jon called Hatter about that,” Shilo whispers.

  Of course, the delay in the hospital’s reaction was due to a computer glitch orchestrated by Wonderland. But it wouldn’t stick for long. People don’t just go missing and have no one look for them, or do they?

  We walk out of the airport and get into a waiting taxi. Shilo watches the scenery flash past our windows. The journey to the house takes hours but it affords me time to think through my plan, what there is of one anyway. Hatter had said that Rabbit’s chip was still sending; she could still be alive. I have her last coordinates. Looking at the map, I can see they were in town. I give myself a moment to daydream. It is a lazy habit I rarely indulge in, but I have the time. I think of Rabbit curled on a big leather sofa in a coffee shop, drinking hot chocolate and reading a book. She’d look up at me and I’d see she was wearing her zombie contact lenses. She’d smile and say, “What took you so long, Mouse? Pull up a chair at the tea party.” And I’d gladly curl up beside her and listen to how she killed the Alaskan Abductor and had decided to stay a little longer…

  “It’s good that it’s still light,” Shilo says.

  I glare at him, annoyed that his reality is interrupt
ing my fantasy.

  “I don’t like the dark.” He looks into the middle of the car seat, not at me. The mad bastard isn’t even talking to me.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Shilo

  He’s not sure what she expects to find. But he knows that they need to be ready. Before he’d left, Bob and Jon had found a website about the Kushtaka; the owner of which also owns a local museum.

  “We need to go into town,” he tells her.

  Kayla narrows her eyes at him. “How do you know that?”

  “Know what?”

  “Be careful, Shilo,” says Mr. Custard, “she’s in mission mode.”

  “Where Rabbit was last located?”

  “I didn’t. I just want to go to the local museum. We need to get a weapon to fight the Kushtaka.”

  Mr. Custard slaps his forehead. “Shilo!”

  Kayla’s face is unreadable. “I’m going there anyway, come on.”

  The town is strangely quiet. Snow crunches underfoot, and Shilo thinks back to that day in the woods. He reaches for Kayla’s hand, but she moves away and throws him a dirty look.

  “She won’t forgive me,” he whispers.

  “It’ll just take time. At least you’re here with her now.” Mr. Custard edges closer to Kayla as she reads numbers off her cell.

  “The museum is over there,” Shilo says, pointing to a door on the main street.

  “That’s odd. That’s on the coordinate list. Rabbit went there.” Kayla presses a few digits, then walks a few feet from her brother. He hears her whispers anyway. “Hatter, are these coordinates right?” Silence as her gaze darts around her surroundings.

  “She’ll figure out it was the Kushtaka who took her friend. Then she’ll kill it,” Mr. Custard says.

  Shilo nods, then moves closer so that he can hear the other half of the conversation.

  “Yes, but Mouse, the chip … it’s now dead. The chances of her being alive are…”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Hatter. We have these chips for a reason. I’m going after her.”

  “Good luck, little Mouse.”

  Kayla clicks off and walks through Mr. Custard before he can move out of the way. She shivers and for a moment looks right at him.

  “Kayla?” Mr. Custard moves his hand to her cheek.

  “Careful, you could hurt one another!” Shilo runs over to them but slips on the sidewalk. Kayla instinctively reaches out to steady him, but he’s too heavy and only takes her down with him. They both fall into the snow. Shock is suddenly overcome by laughter and Shilo rolls a small snowball and limply throws it at his sister. She giggles louder, scooping up some snow and pushing it over Shilo.

  Mr. Custard laughs too and Shilo looks up at him. “Look, it’s like when we were kids. I used to love the snow. I wish you could play with us.”

  “What the hell is your problem? Stop talking to someone who isn’t there.” Kayla gets up and puts her hands on her hips. In her black puff jacket sprinkled with powdery snow, she looked like a giant, frosted full stop.

  “What was I thinking … coming back here,” Kayla mutters.

  Shilo isn’t sure whether she’s referring to herself or bringing him home.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Mouse

  As we enter, a bell at the door announces our arrival but no one comes forward to greet us. It’s like a bizarre cocktail of dust, decay, and boredom. I’m not really one for museums. I’d watched Night at the Museum a few times, more because I’m a closet Ben Stiller fan than for any other reason.

  “This place is awesome,” Shilo says behind me as we move further in.

  Our senses are accosted by a crazy smell and a narrow walkway forcing us through displays of the indigenous people of Alaska. I pause at the Tlingit case. Random pieces of crap carefully arranged to seem important. Faded, once colorful clothing adorn strangely realistic dummies, all with expressions of slight horror, their glassy, unnatural eyes reminding me of why I am here.

  “Hello?” I call out.

  Shilo, too busy staring at the dummies, walks into my back and almost topples us both over again. I was just about to swear when a man suddenly appears in front of us, making Shilo jump and clutch at my arm.

  “Well, hi there. Welcome to Alaskan Mysteries,” he says with a strange grin.

  “Hi,” Shilo says behind me.

  The man smiles at Shilo over my head. “Well, hello there, young man. You two look like you belong to the Tlingit tribe. Am I right?”

  “How’d you know that?” Shilo asks, moving from around me. I still keep my arm up between him and the stranger.

  “It’s my job to know these things. I’m the curator of this museum.”

  “We’re not exhibits to be stared at,” I say. I really don’t like the look of this guy. My gut is flip-flopping like a circus performer. The whole place smells bad, and it’s only now that I realize it’s death I can smell.

  I quickly glance back at the Tlingit display. The woman in the diorama looks familiar. She looks just like my mother, my real mother.

  “Where do you get the dummies from?” I ask.

  “I make them.” He gestures at the display with a sly smile.

  Oh God, I’ve seen movies about madmen who turn dead bodies into wax works. This can’t be real? Can it?

  “They’re a pet hobby of mine. Keeps me busy in the dark hours. I base them on people who matter to me.”

  It can’t be right. That’s Hollywood madness, and it’s impractical and completely impossible. I shake that thought out of my mind and resign myself to question this weirdo.

  “You look pale, my dear. Are you okay?” he says, lurching toward me, his hands outstretched.

  “Don’t touch me.” I recoil from him, almost knocking down a nearby display.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he mutters. “So, why are you here?”

  “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir, because I’m not myself, you see.” I whisper a quote that Rabbit often used when she was nervous. Odd I should think of it now.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m looking for my friend who came here.”

  “To town?”

  “More specifically to this museum.”

  Shilo pushes past my outstretched arm and descends further into the bowels of the building. He is transfixed—and talking to his “friend” again.

  “What did she look like?” asks the curator.

  Did look like? She? I can barely think over the internal alarm bells this guy is setting off.

  “She’s Albino. You couldn’t have missed her.”

  “Oh, yes, I think I did see her…” He goes to say something else but stops, perhaps thinking better of it.

  “When did you see her?” I glance back at the case again. My mother’s face is stony inside as she perpetually holds a tribal flute to her lips. She’d never played an instrument in life; no, it’s not my mother. Concentrate, Mouse. I can’t feel my chip beneath the massive, insulated layers of my jacket. My breathing becomes rapid and I swear the scar on my foot is starting to throb.

  “Not sure, I’m not good with dates,” he says, his gaze wandering after Shilo.

  A museum curator who isn’t good with dates?

  Suddenly Shilo stops in front of a display case. I carefully watch the curator, how his body moves, the twitches below the surface of his ruddy cheeks, his round, cumbersome build. It’s him; I know he’s the one, the Alaskan Abductor. I have no evidence other than my gut, but I’d bet my life on it. I’m probably going to have to.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Shilo

  It’s right in front of him. Behind a thin sheet of glass it looms before his trembling form, watching him.

  “So that’s what the Kushtaka looks like,” Mr. Custard says, staring into the case.

  Over six feet tall, covered in matted fur and long, random animal hair. Talons that are absurdly large, sharp, and slightly curled. He pinches himself to ensure that he’s awake and hasn’t just slipped into a me
dication-induced day sleep.

  “Is that blood?” Mr. Custard looks into the case, his non-corporeal head drifting through the glass so that he can get a better look at the model of the creature.

  “Kayla?” Shilo calls back to his sister, who is still talking with the curator.

  “It looks weird, Shilo.” Mr. Custard edges closer to the mass of dirty fur.

  “So, you’re interested in my monster.” The curator has moved past Kayla and is now standing between them.

  “Have you heard the legends?”

  Shilo looks past him to his sister.

  “My brother could teach you a thing or two about the Kushtaka,” she says. There’s an odd look in her eyes. Pride, maybe?

  “You need to stop saying his name.” Shilo looks at Mr. Custard, who is still examining the display.

  “That’s right. He’ll come for you if you call him too many times.” The curator nods to affirm his point.

  “Actually, he’ll come for you if you’re lost. All the lost people belong to him. Or if he’s tasted your blood,” Shilo mumbles.

  “I’ve never heard that before, about the blood. Maybe you should come and work for me,” the curator says. He moves to put his hand on Shilo’s shoulder but stops when he sees the look in Kayla’s eyes.

  “I really need to close up now.”

  “Of course you do. I bet you’re really busy around this season. Shilo!” Kayla yells his name, making both men jump.

  “Such a loud voice from such a little girl,” comments the curator.

  “Something is wrong. This isn’t a dummy,” says Mr. Custard as he removes his head from the display case. “This is a costume.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Kushtaka