by D. Melhoff
“Bet you wish you would’ve left this for Jimmy ‘The Whiz’ now, huh?”
“You kidding?” Charlotte said. “This place is the best thing I ever did with my life. Barring recent events.”
“Personally? I’m pretty ready for it to be over.”
“Of course you are.” Charlotte sniffed. She blew her nose and squeezed the tissue. “If we make it out, you can go wherever you want after this. But these guys?” She nodded at the ballroom. “Not a chance. They’re stuck in the same boat for another eleven, twelve years, some of them. The same foster homes, same inner-city schools, same dead-end neighborhoods. Here, at least you’ve got people who watch out for you. How basic is that? Having someone who notices you. Guaranteed ten kids in this room don’t have that back home.”
“Do you have kids?” Scott asked.
“No.” A look of hurt washed over Charlotte’s face, and then a tight-lipped frown replaced it. She fished her golden necklace out of her shirt and clenched the locket on the end. “My husband died six years ago when his vehicle blew a tire and swerved into the oncoming lane. This is all I have left of him.” A pause, another sniffle. “We were different in every sense—disagreed on almost everything—but he was a good man, a gentle soul. He always joked that I wore the pantsuit in the relationship.”
“I’m sorry,” Scott said. It was all he could come up with on the spot. Heart-to-hearts were never his forte.
“Me too. But I stopped praying for my husband’s help a long time ago. If he were here right now, he wouldn’t have a clue what to do, or the strength to do it. Sounds cold, doesn’t it?”
“Do you think we’re strong enough?”
“I may have had my doubts.”
“And that’s why you’re up here? Can’t sleep?”
“Familiar feeling, huh?”
Scott cracked his neck side to side, then his knuckles. “If you want my opinion, you can’t rely on someone else’s strength anyway. You’ve gotta dig it up for yourself. This is survival of the fittest, plain and simple.”
“What about the kids?”
“Them, too. If they’re strong, they’ll be fine.”
“If they aren’t?”
“It’s the only option.”
“You know,” Charlotte said, “I’m all for tough love. I ran a tight ship here for ten years and turned this dump around. And I always hated being the bad guy, believe it or not, but those were some of the best one-eighties you ever saw. Kids who get bullied by losers—the ones who make you think, ‘Nah, they’ll never stand up for themselves.’—just need the right role models. And if you crack down a little? Get them to realize there’s a bit of justice in the world after all? They start seeing the big picture, and then they don’t want to be the bad guy, either.”
Charlotte adjusted her legs on the lip of the stage and wiped her nose. Scott sensed there was more to her train of thought than that—something heavier weighing on her mind—so he stared at the floor and said nothing. As if reacting to his gaze, the floorboards creaked, and a few of the kids shifted sides and sent more cracks and groans echoing into the room’s rafters. It sounded like the inside of a ship at sea.
“I got a letter from a boy last year,” Charlotte continued. “Felix. He was eight years old the summer I took over the camp, which makes him eighteen now. God, a full decade ago. Anyhow, when I met him I remember thinking I’d never seen somebody so hollow. His little cheeks curved inward, and his eyes were like marbles in pinball sockets. Looked like one of those African kids in those Save the Children commercials they play at Christmas, you know? He didn’t say much, and he barely ate. Then I caught wind that some of the older kids were giving him a hard time, calling him crap like ‘Fetus’ and ‘Tar Baby’ and making him eat disgusting things at lunch and throwing his shoes in horse manure. All kinds of BS. So I told him, ‘You know what we’ll do? We’ll put them on trial.’ And we had one right on this very stage. Six little assholes were found guilty and forced to shovel horseshit for the rest of the day. Some of them were too small to lift a shovel, so I gave them a pair of gloves and told them to carry it. Punishment fitting the crime. If any parent tried to sue, I’d fight it. But no one did. I doubt a single kid tattled.
“So Felix sent me this letter last year saying thank you. Turns out his father was abusive—big surprise—and he said he’d never felt any justice in his life until he saw those bullies carrying crap in their hands from pile to pile. He told me he didn’t run away from home until he was fourteen, but he always kept that memory with him, and one day, it helped. If those kids hadn’t bullied him in the first place—and I hadn’t stuck up for him—where would he be now? At home? Still abused? Dead? Why do we need that?” She paused, exasperated, and massaged her whole face in her hands. “Why do we need the bad guys to make us better?”
Only coughs and sniffles answered back, and the shuffling of bodies against the ballroom floor.
“I have to ask,” Charlotte said, “for the safety of everyone here. Do you know what that note is about? Have you ever done anything you regret?”
Scott bit his cheek.
The teeth of the wolf gnashed into his mind again, and for a second, he was back in his nightmare. The creature leapt through the air, and its belly burst open, spilling out three young men in baggy T-shirts and pants down to their ass cracks. Two of them were bald, and one had dreadlocks. Scott watched them fan across the tracks from his hiding spot, unsure if he could hear their twenty-four-karat crucifixes jingling above the thundering locomotive or if his mind had fabricated that particular detail.
One of the thugs got right in little Desiree’s face. “Where”—his voice cut in and out—“go?”
Scott held his breath and shrunk farther into the shadows. To him, the scene was a one-inch strip through the gap of the rotting planks.
Desiree stepped back, frightened, shaking her head.
“Don’t—or we’ll—and your arm—”
The others were circling the girl too, cornering her against the tracks.
Desiree looked in Scott’s direction. He doubted she could see him, but he sensed that she knew he was watching. She turned to the thugs again and pointed at the train, making an “over” motion with her hand.
“Lying!” The punk with the dreads spit on her shoes. “Just saw—here—”
The rest was inaudible. The men, hopped up on meth or crack or some combination of both, closed in tighter.
Desiree took one more step back, then another. Scott couldn’t see her face anymore, but he could feel her fear rising with every threat, every inch backward. He craned his neck, trying to keep her in sight, but all he could see was her pink outfit…
Then the edge of her dress…
Then her runners…
Then…Then…
Scott tore himself back to reality.
“No.” He tried swallowing, but his mouth had dried up. “No. I haven’t.”
Charlotte bit her lip. She appraised him head to toe, fingers swishing her necklace while seemingly contemplating whether he was telling the truth. “All right.” She slid off the edge of the stage. “Follow me. There’s something I want to show you.”
____
Scott followed Charlotte to her office. When they entered the room, the supervisor strode past the bookcases and the wall of shelves behind her desk to a filing cabinet with the stone bust of Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother on top.
“I’ve noticed you and Ms. Gately have turned my playroom into your personal research den.” She yanked open the first drawer. “Here. A few things that might help.”
A folder labeled “INNER-CITY APPS (2003)” plopped onto the desk. Then “(2004),” “(2005),” and “(2006).”
“Do you think he’s after money?” Charlotte asked.
“No.”
“Neither do I. That said, there’s a greater chance he’s connected to a troubled household than a happy one. Look for the name ‘Bergman.’ I go through hundreds of scholarship applications every
year; I can’t remember every one.” She rooted deeper. A three-inch binder titled “RESUMES” thumped on the desk, followed by “FUNDING”, “REIMBURSEMENTS”, and “REFERENCES.” “That should be enough for a while. I only ask that you don’t take anything out of this room. When the police start probing, I imagine they’ll want to see every slip of paper I’ve ever scribbled on. Now, how long do we have?”
“Uh…” What do I look like, Scott thought, FBI brass?
“You don’t think it’s over, do you? Just because we haven’t seen anything lately doesn’t mean he hasn’t been busy.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure,” Charlotte mocked. Her hard-ass mien wasn’t totally gone.
“Well,” Scott said, “if we assume he knows the bus is coming, there’s not much time left. Maybe he’ll try something tonight.” A beat. “I’m worried he’ll use Stephy to get to Brynn.”
“And she’ll fall for it?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t I send her here, and the two of you can stay put and burn the midnight oil.” Another beat. “If Bruce turns up with Stephanie, should I let you know?”
Scott clenched and unclenched his fists, considering the delicate situation. “Not directly. Give me a sign.”
“All right.”
“Charlotte?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you hire him?”
“He had seven years’ experience at a national park and four in Orlando. He was perfect on paper.”
Scott looked at the binders and the heap of folders strewn across the desk. “Let’s hope you’re wrong about that.”
Charlotte nodded and stepped out of the room, leaving her crumpled-up Kleenex on the edge of her desk.
Scott slumped into the tall leather-back chair. He stared at the folders as the hands of a Hansel-and-Gretel-themed clock ticked from sprinkle to sprinkle and gumdrop to gumdrop. Ten gumdrops later, Brynn entered the room.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied, not looking up. As she took a seat opposite him, he slid the folders over and grabbed one for himself, flicking Charlotte’s Kleenex into the trash while hunting for enough strength to keep going.
23
Forty-eight…forty-nine…fifty.
Lance got to the top of his last push-up and put his knees on the floor. He drew in a deep breath, rolled onto his back, and started a third set of crunches.
One…two…three…
Beads of sweat bubbled out his pores as he stared up at the night sky from the fort’s roof and fixed his eyes on one of the stars. Maybe it was that special one, the North Star—Polaris or whatever—or maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t know, nor did he care. All constellations were bullshit as far as Lance Thompson was concerned, and anybody who looked at the sky and started pointing out rabbits and bulls and scorpions was either high on acid or out of their goddamn mind.
Fourteen…fifteen…sixteen…
He hadn’t checked the clearing in almost twenty minutes. Push-ups and crunches are more important anyway, he thought. If it ever came down to a fistfight with this psychopathic Bergman coward, he would be ready to drop that sorry sack of shit faster than the tri-state juggernauts he used to grapple with in senior wrestling tournaments. Guys two or three weight classes above him were never an issue, and this old fucker was sure to be a lot slower than them.
Twenty-seven…twenty-eight…twenty-nine…
“Lance!”
He stayed at the top of his last curl and turned to face the stairwell. Charlotte emerged from the doorway, storming toward him.
“What?” He jumped to his feet. “What is it?”
“Is Marshall up here?”
“Marshall?”
“Little white kid, glasses.”
“It’s just me.”
“Dammit,” Charlotte cursed. “Someone said he left the ballroom after another kid teased him for wetting the bed. Now no one knows where he went. Have you seen anything? Anyone leave the building?”
Lance massaged his pecs and triceps, breathing heavily through his mouth. “When?”
“Ten minutes ago, twenty tops.”
“It’s, uh, it’s dark,” he covered.
“Did you hear anything?”
“I don’t think so. But wasn’t Denisha watching them?”
“She was watching the insides of her eyelids last I saw,” Charlotte said, striding to the parapets. “And Scott and Brynn have been too busy playing Joe Hardy and Nancy Drew to notice squat in the last two hours. Has there been any movement? Flashlights? Shadows near the bathrooms? Anything?”
“Like I said, it’s dark—”
“I didn’t ask if it’s dark,” she snapped. “I asked if you’ve seen anything.”
Lance took another deep breath and shook his head. The veins and arteries in his neck were still throbbing from the reps. “No.”
Charlotte grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him toward the staircase.
“Hold on,” he said, pulling away. “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting him back. You can either help me”—she stepped into the fort—“or you can stay here and wonder what’ll happen to the poor kid who slipped out on your watch.”
Charlotte vanished down the stairs before Lance could respond. A sharp twinge of guilt needled his gut, and he dove after her, calling, “How about weapons?”
“Grab a torch off the wall,” she hollered back. “That’s all we have.”
No, Lance thought, flexing his arm muscles. We still have our fists. He reached up and grabbed the next torch that appeared in the staircase—his bloodstream surging with an arterial farrago of fear and exhilaration—and thought, I’m glad this Marshall kid got out. The idea shocked him at first, but then it settled. I’m glad. Open these doors. Let us at this motherfucker, and let’s see how tough he is face-to-face.
Lance soared down the tower’s stairwell and dove into the atrium where Charlotte was already standing by the wicket door, a torch clutched in her hand.
“It’s unlocked,” she whispered. “The brat must’ve climbed on something to reach it.” With the gentlest of taps, she touched the door, and it wafted open without a creak.
Lance stared at the exit, and his knuckles whitened around his torch. For a moment, the view of the clearing was enough to make him reconsider what the hell he was thinking. You can do this, a part of his mind assured him, but another part pleaded, Turn around, moron! You’re Lance Allan Thompson, not Clark Fucking Kent. As he stood there, paralyzed, Charlotte slipped through the door, and then he shook his head and followed her into the night.
____
Outside hummed and rustled. Cicadas chirped from the overgrowth, and crickets played backup with their violin legs, long notes of high-pitched tension punctuated by the cracks of branches beyond the clearing’s walls.
Charlotte crept over the lawn, and Lance followed. His blood pounded harder than ever. He felt the cold grip of reality on his neck—the same one, he thought, that creeps into your gut when you’re five years old and you’re standing on the edge of a diving board for the first time. You always survive the high dive, though. This is like walking the plank with a great white waiting directly underneath.
Charlotte halted.
“What is it?” he whispered.
She aimed her torch at the stables. Something was moving.
Could be a horse, Lance thought. Too far to tell.
The movement stopped.
This time, Lance stepped forward first, and Charlotte followed as they crossed the grass to the perimeter of the corral.
Straight ahead, the light by the barn flickered twice, then stabilized. The horses were lying at the far end of the pasture, eyes closed, black flies buzzing around their ears and manes. They’re sleeping, Lance thought. The horses are sleeping. Something else must have moved.
“Pst.”
He looked back, and Charlotte signaled him to the right. Lifting his torch—like a baseball player at bat—he st
epped into the corral. Pebbles crackled under his shoes, and Charlotte’s brogans crunched over the rocks in tandem. He made it thirty feet, then stopped.
The crunch of gravel behind him had disappeared.
He turned around—
Charlotte was gone.
The torch trembled in his hands, despite his considerable strength. “All right, motherfucker,” he whispered. “Come fight like a man.”
Whoomph!
The attack was quick and violent—something whickered through the air and struck Lance on the back of the head. The torch dropped from his grip, and then he crumpled to the ground, catching a brief glimpse of the twinkling stars and the arcane constellations before his entire vision went black.
____
“Found it.”
Brynn looked up from a stack of papers, rubbing her eyes. “And?”
“Bruce Bergman,” Scott said, scanning a resume. “Experience: General maintenance at Yellowstone National Park, 1972 to 1984, then cast member at Disney World until ’86. Last job was managing Mike and Melinda’s Garden Center in Cedar Creek, Wexford County, but that was in 2001. Am I reading that right? 03/05/01. Yeah. Looks like we’ve got a fifteen-year gap.”
“Anything else?”
“Two references. Jim Hetley and Melinda McDowell.” He snickered. “I wonder what they’d say if we phoned them.”
“‘Bruce Bergman?’” Brynn offered. “‘Outstanding man. Outstanding. Except for that minor serial killing habit of his, he’s a swell guy.’”
Scott continued studying the resume. It was brief—the job titles only had one or two sentences below them—and poorly formatted, which said something if he, Scott Mamer, King of the Turd CV, took notice of such things. Unnecessary line breaks, uneven bullet points, and unjustified headings littered the page. “‘Helped sister and brother-in-law with greenhouse.’” He shook his head and stuffed the resume back in the folder. “Useless.” Then he paused, checked the references again.
Melinda McDowell, Mike and Melinda’s Garden Center. McDowell…McDowell. Why do I recognize that name?
“Hey,” Scott said.
