Joe doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe. I want to come back from the shadow house, but I need to say it all now, or I never will.
Elliot’s eyes were dead. His face was pale. There was so much blood I thought he would’ve passed out.
I didn’t know if he could see me, in the dark. Or if it was just his own reflection in the bedroom window. I like to think he didn’t know it was me, standing on the other side. That it was just a reflex.
“I ducked down quick, and I ran. I hid in the shed.” Not yet processing. The blood, my brother with a gun. The shots I’d heard. My phone was still in my room, left behind in case my mom checked my location, and the other houses were too far away, and I knew we needed help. He was Elliot, and he was not Elliot.
I picture the headphones on his desk and wonder what he was listening to. If there was something that made him…if there was some other explanation. Because there has to be. He’s my brother, and he wouldn’t do this.
Joe grabs my hand. He doesn’t ask first, he just does it. I squeeze back.
“I tried to call for help. The Internet was hooked up. But Elliot built everything. I didn’t know how to do it. I tried. Joe, I tried.”
“I know you did,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.
“I stayed there until I heard his footsteps racing past. I could tell he was heading for the park. I counted to two hundred, just to be sure. Then I went inside.” I crawled back through my own window, got my phone off my dresser, and called 911. “I never left my room, Joe. I didn’t open the door. I didn’t see. They asked what made me leave the room when I climbed back inside, but I didn’t. Not until the police arrived. And even then, I never looked.”
The police believed I saw them on the stairs and called for help, but I didn’t. From outside Elliot’s window, I could see the handprint, out in the hall. The one we’ve now covered with fresh paint. And I could see Elliot. There was so much blood. That, I could see.
I don’t know if I could’ve saved them. If I lost my mother because of my own fear, my own inaction. I don’t know if it was too late from the start. But I didn’t leave my room until the woman on the other end of the phone told me the police were at the front door. I kept my eyes closed, my hand on the other wall, as I made my way to the front.
It will always be a shadow house, kept hidden from my memory. Full of the horrors I can only imagine.
The net is closing in, everything slipping from our grasp. I can feel it, like something coming for me. In the email, tracked to the library, where I was supposed to be. In Kennedy’s words, echoing back in the signal. Like we’re stuck in a loop. Like the circle is us.
* * *
—
I sneak in through the side door behind the kitchen without my parents noticing. But I hear them talking to Agent Lowell in the dining room. Snippets of conversation filter up the stairs. Nolan’s computer. Library. Evidence. Official statement.
It’s wrong. It’s all gone so wrong. I can’t explain any of it. I am sure of nothing. None of the things happening in my house, surrounding my brother’s case, make sense.
But this is what I am sure of: My brother’s image appeared to me in the living room at the same time Kennedy was making that call for help. Her words reached me. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. That connection is the proof; yet there’s also nothing I can hold in my hands and show someone. Just this feeling, and December fourth. Everything circling around it.
I don’t know where to go from here. How to prove all the things I believe.
There’s only one lead remaining, and we have to follow it.
My room feels empty without my computer, and I keep looking for my phone, thinking I’ve misplaced it, before I remember that it’s gone. I pack a bag, stuffing it full of clothes, a toothbrush, the essentials. I sneak out the side door and drive off before they notice I’m home and take my keys. Before they bring me in for some sort of official questioning.
At least without a phone there will be no way to trace my path. I can disappear for a bit. I’m used to no one noticing the things I do, but now their focus is turning on me. Now they’re looking closely. They’re wondering what they’ve missed, these last two years, when they were looking for Liam instead.
* * *
—
It’s the kind of dark where even the animals have gone silent. The moon is covered by clouds, and the streetlights have gone dim in the haze. I worry, at first, that nobody’s home, but then I recognize Joe’s car in the driveway.
I’m not sure which window is Kennedy’s, but there aren’t too many options. There’s a light on in one of the rooms, and I’m going to have to take the risk that this one is hers. The blinds are pulled shut, but they’re vaguely familiar, like I’ve seen them on a video call, from the other direction.
Still, I tap gently before ducking below the glass, so I can pretend it was the wind, or some giant bug, if Joe looks out through the blinds instead.
But it’s Kennedy’s eyes peering out from between the slats, shifting side to side. I stand from my hiding spot, raise a hand sheepishly, hoping she’ll smile.
She frowns, raising the blinds. She pushes the window open so I can feel a gust of the air conditioning from inside, but the screen still separates us.
“Nolan?” she asks, even though of course it’s me.
“Hey, hi,” I say quietly. Then I’m at a loss. I don’t know what I expected, what I wanted. “I just wanted to tell you, I’m going to North Carolina.”
Her face scrunches up. “What?”
“North Carolina. The photo on the wall, of the missing kid. Hunter Long.”
She shakes her head sadly. “What’s the point?”
“Excuse me?” I say. The point is answers. The point is there was a signal, sent to both of us. The point is my brother, whispering across some impenetrable divide. And Kennedy’s voice, filling up the classroom.
She lets out a long sigh, resting her chin in her hand. Her gaze shifts behind me, but I can’t figure out what she’s looking for in the darkness. “Have you heard of the Fermi paradox?” she asks. I haven’t, but she must know that, because she continues. “In the history of the universe, there’s been more than enough time for life to develop somewhere else, and to advance. But there’s no evidence that any exists.” She frowns. “A scientist postulated years ago that the reason nothing has made contact with us in four billion years, the reason that there is no evidence that anything has colonized the universe, ever, in fourteen billion years, is simple, really.” She waits for that to sink in. “It’s because nothing else exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist. We’re a fluke, and we’re alone.”
“No,” I say, “my brother.”
But she continues as if she hasn’t heard me. “We’re in an echo chamber, Nolan.” I remember, then, her own voice echoing back. “A vast expanse of nothing, nothing, nothing. There’s no one out there. This is it. Even my call for help. It just…bounced back.”
But that’s not true, because it reached me.
Kennedy has changed somehow, like something’s been taken from her today. Some belief. I don’t know how to give it back to her, except with the truth. I need her to see.
“December fourth, my brother appeared.”
She brushes the comment aside. “I know, you told me.”
“And I couldn’t make out what he was saying,” I continue, my voice growing more animated. “Just the end. He said: Help us. Please.”
Her gaze shifts from the empty night, back to me. She blinks slowly. “What?”
“It sounds crazy, right? I had a dream, and he came to me, and he spoke in the corner of the room. Help us. Please. Just like you said at the end of the transmission. I think the signal was reaching out to me, even then.” Not just the signal. “I think it was you.”
She shakes her head. “That’s not possib
le.”
I place my hand on the screen between us, leaning closer. “None of this is supposed to be possible. That’s the point.”
“What’s the point, Nolan? I think I’m missing it here.”
I say the thing that’s been itching at the back of my skull. This feeling that’s been with me since that first day, when my device started moving against my brother’s wall, driving me to the computer to see what it meant. “I think I was supposed to find you.”
She doesn’t answer for a moment, and I think she’s mulling it over. I think she believes it, too, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. “For what?” she finally asks.
I’m not sure. Not yet. But I think we’re close. “For you to come to my house. For you to see that picture.”
I can see her thinking it over. “I thought that at first. But I don’t know, Nolan. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“What have we got to lose, Kennedy?”
“You mean, other than Joe completely freaking out?”
“Right. Other than that.”
She thinks for a second. “Give me a few minutes. I need to leave a note this time.”
“Now I know why you wanted me to come,” I say. “How were you planning to find this place, without me and my phone?”
Nolan grins, gesturing to the glove compartment. “Look inside.”
I pull out a pile of maps, folded up and labeled in sections with a highlighter. “Oh my,” I say.
“Yep. Stopped in a gas station to fill up the tank, bought these inside.”
“Admit it, though. You’re glad I’m here.”
He turns his face from the road briefly, his eyes meeting mine. “I am, Kennedy.”
It’s a long drive, and the highway twists through the mountains in the dark. I keep worrying he’ll fall asleep, or I’ll fall asleep, but both of us are on edge, antsy in our seats. And I think I understand: instead of waiting for answers, we’re driving after them. It fills me with adrenaline. I almost don’t need the second coffee. Almost.
* * *
—
I turn off my phone when we arrive on the street of the Long residence, just after dawn. Joe will be waking up soon, and he’ll see the note I left—Be back by Sunday, promise—and he’ll immediately start calling my number. Whatever tentative trust he’s placed in me, I’m sure I’ve shattered it with this move. But I hope he’ll forgive me. That he’ll understand.
Nolan’s car idles at the curb. There are two cars in the driveway, beside a white picket fence. The porch light is still on.
“It’s early in the day still. Maybe they’ll leave soon,” Nolan says.
“Let’s get some breakfast and come back,” I say.
“If by breakfast you mean more caffeine, then yes.” It’s then I notice the dark circles under Nolan’s eyes—mine must be the same. A string of sleepless nights, ending in this.
The residential area of town we’re in is just a scattering of streets in a grid. As we drive, the homes give way to brick buildings set farther back from the road. In the distance, a plume of smoke rises from the large chimney of a factory.
There are very few people, or stores, or restaurants. The sidewalks are half crumbled, the pavement buckling in sections. Beyond the residential area, this feels like a town of decaying buildings, with weeds pushing back through the concrete squares, like the earth is reclaiming it. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of food, just large, nondescript buildings with empty parking lots. But eventually we find a fast-food place with a drive-through on a corner next to a gas station, surrounded by nothing but empty space.
There are three other people inside the restaurant, all spread out, sitting at the farthest corners. No one looks up as I pass with the tray of food to join Nolan at the booth. Out the window facing away from the road is a ballfield surrounded by a chain link fence. But even the dirt has become overgrown with grass, like no one’s used it in ages.
I’m suddenly queasy, unsure of what we’ll find—unsure of what exactly I’m hoping for.
“You’re quiet,” Nolan says.
I guess I’m worried that everything means nothing. That there is no reason for anything, other than chance encounters, and chaos. The universe, heading toward more disorder.
But I smile at him instead. “Thought you could use the break,” I say.
He smiles back, but it’s like he knows I’m lying.
* * *
—
Two coffees and three breakfast sandwiches later, we head back to the house.
Both cars are gone. We linger at the curb, staring at the house. “I’m going to ring the bell,” I say, since neither of us appears to have a plan. “Go park somewhere else in the meantime. If someone’s home, I’ll meet you around that corner.”
Nolan leaves me at the sidewalk, and I enter the gate of their white picket fence, easing it shut behind me. It’s a modest home—two stories, older, but kept up nicely. There are brightly colored flowers on either side of the porch. When I ring the bell, it echoes inside. No one appears after a few moments, so I use the brass knocker, just in case.
Still nothing.
I look over my shoulder to see if anyone’s watching. It’s a residential street, but the homes are hidden behind larger oak trees, and I hope that obscures the view of me, if any of the neighbors are watching. Eventually, I hear someone walking up the driveway, and I prepare to come up with some excuse—selling something; looking for directions—but it’s only Nolan.
I shrug one shoulder at him and then check the obvious places for keys: under the flowerpots and the doormat. Out of luck, we circle around to the backyard. Here the curtains are pulled open, and I can see the darkened kitchen, the laminate surfaces, cleaned and orderly. Except for a coffee cup in the center. I freeze, wondering if someone’s there, or whether someone has just forgotten it.
Nolan knocks this time, and I stare him down. “And what exactly will you say to explain why you’re knocking on the back door?” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Lost Frisbee?”
Oh my God, I think, looking at the sky. He’s serious.
Thankfully, no one comes to the door, and I resume my search, checking the downspouts and around the patio furniture. There’s a metal planter on the patio, and tipping it to the side, I find a metal key, lined with dirt. “Hallelujah,” I mutter, wiping it off on the side of my shorts.
The back door creaks when I push it open, and the downstairs smells like syrup and coffee. It reminds me, suddenly, of home. And I can hear my mother and Elliot talking at the table—only now I can’t remember whether they sounded happy, or whether there was tension underneath. I remember Elliot saying, “You don’t see the other side of him, Mom,” but when I walked into the room, they stopped talking. I remember entering the room, my mother tucking her dark hair behind her ear, her smile when she saw me, the steaming mug in her hands—
“Kennedy?”
Stop. I have to stop. But I wonder if, even then, they were discussing Hunter Long.
“Coming,” I say.
The first floor doesn’t appear large—a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, maybe a bathroom out of sight. There’s a family photo on the mantel of the fireplace—a mother, a teenage daughter, and a younger version of Hunter, without his hair bleached white. He looks just like the image hanging on Nolan’s wall. There are other photos surrounding it, including a man, but Hunter isn’t in any of those pictures.
Nolan completes a circuit of the downstairs. “Come on,” he says, waiting for me at the base of a staircase. I follow him up the carpeted steps, the wood underneath our feet squeaking with every shift in weight.
There appear to be three bedrooms upstairs, all off a single hall—two with their doors open, which Nolan walks right by.
“It will be that one,” he whispers, pointing to the clo
sed door. Still, I peek in the other two doorways we pass—a room in purple and gray, clothes strewn across the floor, which must belong to the teenage girl in the family photo; the other room has a queen bed and an ornate headboard.
Pushing open the closed door, Nolan holds his breath, as if expecting to see something waiting for us.
But, as I could’ve told him, it’s only the emptiness. You can feel it, that the room has been abandoned. Someone has been through here, cleaning, organizing, so all that remains is a bed, neatly made, with a pillow on top; a dresser, all drawers firmly shut; and a closet door, also shut. You can see the vacuum marks on the rug, and I know we’re leaving a trail of evidence just by setting foot in here.
I’m thinking about how to cover it up—find the vacuum, maybe?—when Nolan walks straight for the closet, his footprints marring the pristine lines on the floor.
When he opens the closet door, an assortment of shirts faintly sways on the bar, disturbed by Nolan’s presence. He lets out a long sigh. It’s just an empty room, and I think he must be facing the truth, too: that there was nothing leading us here. This room belongs to a missing kid, but, like I learned when I was standing in the downstairs of Nolan’s house, there are hundreds, thousands, of missing people, all over the world.
There’s nothing on the walls. Nothing for us to find. Elliot and my mom were probably talking about someone else that morning, anyone else. We’ve driven through the night to look at the room of a random kid, who will end up meaning nothing to us. We’ve been trying to force the connection, seeing it everywhere, even in things that don’t exist.
This room feels like it’s hovering in the in-between, just like Liam’s room felt to me when I hid upstairs at Nolan’s house. Like it’s the ghost of a room, waiting for someone, with all the life sucked out of it.
Nolan frowns, looking around. “When you don’t have answers, you don’t know what to do….”
“Answers don’t always make things easier,” I say.
Come Find Me Page 18
