by Abe Moss
“Damn it… we were so close… so close…”
She was near crying herself.
“I’m sorry,” Emmett said.
“I know,” she said. “It’s all right. I’m sorry, too…”
She was already on her way downstairs. Emmett waited in the kitchen, a terrible, nasty guilt turning his stomach. When she returned, she had the book in her hands. She extended her free hand to take Emmett’s, to lead them both away, away from this gloomy, hollowed-out house.
“They have the same last name as us?” Emmett said.
“There’s no time…” she muttered. “We need to leave now. Come on…”
Like thieves they hurried through the night, or what remained of it. The old man was no longer in his driveway as they crossed the street. Back the way they came. Back home, to their tiny apartment.
Back, back, back, where—just as his mother promised—nothing would ever be the same.
✽ ✽ ✽
He opened his eyes and the room faded into view. Blurry and dark but getting brighter. She was there, hovering over him, and as her face started to make sense he was overcome with disappointment.
“You’re awake,” Dr. Marks said, as if he hadn’t known. “Good.”
She stood, casting irritable judgment on him with a horrid sneer.
“Sit up, please. And take your seat.”
“I dreamed I was there again…” he said, speaking not so much to her as himself. “It was like I was really there…”
“That’s nice,” she said. “Please take your seat.”
He felt mildly dizzy as he stood, and paused for a moment to get his bearings. He sat down with relief. It was easier to sit than stand.
“That’ll be two helmets, then,” she said.
He saw no sign of the helmet at first, until he turned and spotted it on the ground. It looked blacker than when she first put it on. Its bulbs were stained black from the inside.
“I hope you’re impressed with yourself.”
Kind of, he was.
“What happened?”
“I was hoping you might tell me.” She was taking her notes as per usual, only now her hand scribbled with an impatient fury. “What did you see before it malfunctioned? Must have been something rather intense…”
“I…” He recalled it with perfect clarity—remembered it almost better than he did the moments in her office leading up to the dream. “I don’t remember.”
Her pen slammed the notebook with a sudden clap! She leaned toward him over her desk, neck bent, her eyes like a dragon’s, focused on him with urgent, menacing purpose.
“I don’t need the helmet to know you’re holding back, Emmett. It’s useless to hide it from me. This is for you, remember. I already know the answers. Just tell me what you saw. Try harder to remember.”
He looked to the smoldering helmet on the ground. He felt the top of his head, checking for burns or anything at all, but felt nothing. Just his fingers along his scalp.
Tap, tap, tap.
Dr. Marks tapped her pen, waiting for his response. His mother’s trinket sat on the desk beside the notebook. Full of strength and magic.
“Can I hold it?”
She looked down, almost forgetting what he meant.
“No. Not until you tell me what you saw.”
“It might help me remember,” he suggested. He bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling at his own cleverness.
Those burning eyes narrowed. “I won’t be manipulated by a child.”
She opened her drawer and, dumping the necklace inside, then removed a metallic box. He’d seen it before, or one like it. He tensed at the sight of it. She popped it open and removed the vial, holding it so that he saw it fully. She took off the cap.
“No,” he said.
“Whatever you saw must have disturbed you too greatly. This should help.”
“No,” he pleaded. “I don’t want any more.”
“It’s not up to you, Emmett. I’m sorry. You’re overdue as it is. Supposed to be once a week. I can tell the last dose’s effect has worn off. You’re not thinking straight.” With the vial ready, she stood and made her way to him, standing beside his chair where he pressed himself fearfully, bracing for it despite the actual shot being painless. “You don’t remember what you saw?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I don’t want to.”
“All right. You give me no choice.”
He squirmed away as she moved the needles toward him. Having none of it, she seized him by the arm and pulled him toward herself, and pressed the vial to his bicep in the usual place. Then she returned to her desk, recapped the vial, and placed it inside the box. She took her seat.
Without looking up from her notes, she said, “That’s all for today. You may go.”
Both thankful it was over and plagued by the thought of having made a big mistake, he shuffled to the office door, stepping over the destroyed helmet on the way, and let himself out.
✽ ✽ ✽
That night was a rocky one. No refuge. Awake, he wished to sleep to escape the sick-hot twisting in his belly. Asleep, he wished to wake to escape the dreams of old, painful memories.
He dreamed he was with her again in that cold basement. She wrapped him in her arms, whispering strange words in his ear. A language which didn’t exist. As she squeezed him against herself, he watched in speechless horror as the pile of dirt shifted. Fingers grew out like weeds. Old, wrinkled, clawing fingers. They reached for him, pulling their cursed bodies from the hole as they crawled nearer, their cold fingertips dancing up his ankles while he could do nothing but feel his mother’s love…
He awoke with tears in his eyes. And a bubbling in his esophagus. He rolled from bed, shut his eyes against the white lights. He blindly raced for the toilet—he knew where to go, he’d done it enough by now—and arrived just in time to spew out the sickness.
When he felt it was over, he climbed back into bed, too haunted to sleep. So instead he lay for an hour until the sickness accumulated in him again, another promise to send him running any second.
—no more, no more—
—never again—
—wasting away—
Those memories stalked him in the darkness of his cubby whether he slept or not. He tossed and turned, sloshing the sickness around inside his belly, sloshing the past around inside his head. No escape.
No escape.
No escape…
Did he cry for sleep? Did he cry for relief? Did he cry for his mother? It was hard to tell. He just cried. Uncontrollably, desperately, until the sickness decided it was ready for him to stop and he fell out of bed a second time and dashed for the corner. He slid on the knees of his onesie uniform to a stop at the bowl, arms hugged around it as he heaved hideously into it, releasing more than he thought was left inside him. He paused, shaking, gasping for air, the stench of his breath making him scowl. His body stiffened. He lowered his face into the bowl and ached with another wave of it. When it was finished, he leaned back, sat on the floor for a moment.
He wiped his arm across his mouth, dirtying his sleeve with his…
…with his…
—red—
—oh god, it’s red—
There was blood on his sleeve. He shuddered. He gazed around the room, at the empty cubby beside him where no one had slept for days.
Now me, he thought.
The dread put an end to his tears, at least. His eyes were dry as stone. It sobered him—the blood. Now he knew. Just as he should have always known. Like anyone else in this place—this world—it could happen to him, and it would happen to him. It was only a matter of time.
There was noise nearby, outside his door, down the corridor. Leaning against the wall, he turned his attention to it, listening vacantly as it came nearer, louder. Gradually fuller. Bizarre and beautiful.
Music.
It traveled on its invisible legs, snaking through the air like a cloud. Ethereal strings. H
eavenly flutes. Haunting percussion. Vibrating, plucking, ringing, breathing. A life all its own, made up of instruments never heard before by earthly ears, played by appendages and limbs never seen similarly.
Alien.
The music swelled as it reached his door. Just for him. The quiet terror of it was a comforting one. All at once his woes and fears of death receded to their furthest, most useless corners, until all he was left with was the sound and its reverberations in his chest. Deep and lulling. He closed his eyes.
“Emmett.”
Out of the music a voice emerged. One he didn’t expect. A voice he knew. A voice he longed for. Hearing it, his stone-dry eyes welled up, brimming with disbelief. He perked upright, sat forward from the wall.
“Mom?”
There was no doubt in his mind, it was her. Not the usual voice which accompanied the music—that darker one he never recognized but had grown accustomed to. This was his mother’s voice. She was there, somehow, come to visit him in the night, traveling on the music. He crawled over the floor, toward the door. He sat against it, listening. The music pressed itself to the other side, beating through to him like a heartbeat. Warm and full.
“Don’t be afraid.”
He curled up to the warmth of her voice.
“Hold on,” she told him. “Everything will be all right. Soon. Just hold on.”
“Where are you?”
“We’ll be together again soon. Wait for me.”
“Where are you?” he repeated.
Ever-so-gradually, the music began to fade. The door grew cold.
“Don’t leave!”
He got to his knees, hands upon the door. He would give anything to go through it, to bleed through its surface as the music did, like his mother did, but it remained as solid and sturdy as ever between them. Soon the music faded entirely and he was alone once more.
“Come back,” he whispered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DESTINY CALLS
The following morning, Emmett woke well-rested, feeling in better spirits than he had in a long while. He sat with Clark at breakfast, saying very little as he ruminated about the previous night.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” he asked Clark suddenly.
Clark, chewing his food, thought it over.
“No, I guess not. No more than me.”
Emmett hesitated telling Clark anything more, but ultimately decided it would make little difference if he did.
“My mom came to me last night,” he said.
Clark, continuing to eat, said, “I’m listening.”
“I threw up blood. Like Zachary, before he died. I thought I was dying, too, and then… she came to me. She told me everything was okay, and that we’d be together again soon.”
“You haven’t been eating much. Or sleeping. Throwing up all the time…” He paused. “These places are basically designed to make us insane. Between the tests, and the drugs… it’s not surprising. None of that’s probably real. But it’s not your fault.”
“So you do think I’m crazy.”
“Right,” Clark said nonchalantly. “But they made you crazy. So… it’s not really that you’re crazy, you’re just… under a lot of influence. Get it?”
He understood what Clark meant, he supposed. What Clark didn’t know, however, was that these kinds of things happened to him long before The Cradle. Long before the tests and drugs and everything else.
For both their sakes, Emmett kept that part to himself.
✽ ✽ ✽
“You’re quiet today,” Clark said as they took a walk through the yard. “Which means I’m able to think more than I usually do, which isn’t a good thing…”
Emmett was so lost in thought he could hardly pick his eyes up from his feet as they walked.
“I can’t stop thinking about my mom.”
Humorlessly, Clark said, “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re going insane. Now you can talk to her whenever you like.”
Emmett looked up once, just to scan the yard around them, shielding his eyes from the sun overhead, when he believed he saw someone he thought he might never see again.
“Is that Tobie?”
“I hope not,” Clark said, not even looking.
“It is!”
He was sitting where he always did, against the building in the shade. Clark excused himself from saying hello.
“Just come with me,” Emmett said. “I bet he’ll be glad to see you.”
Clark relented. Together, weaving through the oblivious groups of children, they made their way toward him. Tobie never took notice of their approach. His eyes were unblinkingly trained on the fence in the distance. As Emmett got closer, he realized just how different he looked.
“Tobie?”
Tobie turned slowly, barely a change in expression as their eyes met.
“What happened to you?” Emmett asked. “I saw the guard taking you away days ago. Did they take you to Detainment?”
Tobie stared a moment longer, saying nothing. Emmett almost got the feeling he didn’t recognize him, and then his lip began to tremble. In another instant he caved into himself completely and covered his face with his hands. Emmett kneeled beside him.
“He’s gone,” Clark said from behind. “He’s a lost cause, now.”
“No, he’s not,” Emmett said. “Leave us alone for a minute.”
Clark gladly accepted the suggestion.
“Where have you been?” Emmett asked.
Tobie was determined to hide from him, to pretend he wasn’t there. Emmett waited a fair amount of time for him to come around, but he wouldn’t. He stayed shriveled and withdrawn, until a voice approached and interrupted their awkward reunion.
“Hey, you.”
Tobie looked up. His eyes doubled in size. Whimpering, he turned from them, scrambled from the shade and fled across the lawn in terror. Emmett watched him go in complete bewilderment. His friend was utterly broken, he thought. Clark was right.
The guard came to a halt behind him.
“Two-oh-six.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m here to collect you. Dr. Marks would like to see you.”
His stomach flipped. “Already?”
The guard nodded. “Come with me.”
Emmett searched the yard for Tobie and spotted him still running, all the way to the fence where he finally cowered onto the grass like a cornered animal.
He got to his feet and followed as the guard led him to the last appointment with Dr. Edwina Marks he’d ever have.
✽ ✽ ✽
Dr. Marks beamed as he entered her office.
“There he is!” she said. “The birthday boy!”
No matter the amount of gusto she injected into her words, she would never elicit excitement or joy from him so long as he was coherent enough to know who he was speaking to. He moved to the chair where he always sat, keeping his eyes on her with careful suspicion. Truth be told, he’d forgotten again his birthday was anywhere near.
“Oh, now,” she said, “Can’t we be friendly to one another?”
“You’re not friendly to me,” he said.
She did her best to continue smiling, but whether she knew it or not her smile drooped into a grimace.
“Of course I am. I like you, Emmett. I think you’re quite the clever little boy…” She opened her notebook, drawing her fingers down its pages to find her place.
“I was here yesterday,” Emmett said. “Why again already?”
She regarded him dismally.
“Is that such a terrible thing? To be here?”
“I just… didn’t think I’d be here so soon…”
“Well, excuse me for wanting to see you on your birthday…” she said facetiously, still clinging to the appearance of friendliness. “Also… I didn’t want to wait too long without discussing what happened yesterday. It’s important we explore these things while they’re fresh.”
“What things?”
“Past trauma. We’ve been thr
ough this before, remember? When we discussed the Holmes incident. Now we’re talking about something else.”
“I already said I don’t remember anything.”
She pressed her lips together, trying to maintain her lighthearted demeanor.
“We both know that isn’t true. You’re not doing yourself any—”
“It is true. I don’t know what I saw. I passed out.”
“Well then, let’s get straight to the point.” She leveled her eyes at him. “Do you remember that night, a little more than a year ago, when you and your mother broke into the home of an elderly couple—whom your mother murdered earlier that day—and vandalized their basement?”
His stomach did another somersault. Any more, he thought, and it would tie itself into a knot.
“I know you must remember, Emmett. We have it in our police records. You were seen at the residence. By a witness. A neighbor.”
“My mom didn’t kill them,” he said. “They were old and died in their sleep.”
“Is that what she told you?” Dr. Marks smiled, perhaps one of the few genuine smiles of hers he’d seen. “Because that’s not what she told us. Your mother never told you who those people were, did she?”
He shook his head.
“Those were your grandparents, Emmett.” She gave him a moment to absorb that information. “You thought you’d never met them, didn’t you? Thought they were strangers?”
She was lying, he thought. She had to be. It was true he’d never met his grandparents, but that was only because…
—do you know the Callahans?—
He felt on the verge of being sick.
“Your mother never talked about them much, did she? No, she wouldn’t have. I have her file here, with yours, and she told her doctors—during an appointment like the ones we share—that she preferred you never meet them. And honestly, if her statements about them are true, I can’t say I blame her. But regardless of that, murder is murder…”
“My mom didn’t kill anyone…”
“I don’t know what she told you, Emmett, but what I’m telling you is the truth. Police dug up those bodies you helped her to bury. The autopsies—do you know that is? It’s when a mortician—someone who handles dead bodies, you see—opens them up and does tests to decide the cause of death. And do you know what they found in your grandparents? Poison. Large traces of it.”
