He imagined himself in the gift shop, just behind the display of bric-a-brac. Slivers of blue light emanated from his fingertips, an electrical current traveling directly into the road-runner statue held by the woman. Electricity to bring life . . .
In the gift shop, Lillian let out a scream and dropped the road-runner.
“Did you remember something?” Stuart asked, eagerly.
“Lady, don’t break the merchandise,” the shop-owner snapped.
Lillian looked at the two men. “It burned me,” she cried.
“How could—”
Before Stuart could finish his sentence, there was a sudden rumbling, like the shock of an earthquake. The display case in front of them began to wobble.
Cursing, the shop-owner came running from behind the counter. “Get outta my shop, you troublemakers! Out! O-U—”
He never finished spelling the word. Suddenly, a stuffed mountain lion that had been set in the window came to life. It sprang forward with a might roar, claws ripping into the shop-owner’s chest. As the man screamed in dismay, its sharp teeth sank deep into his neck, sending a great gush of blood to the window. All around the shop, dozens of innocent toy animals began to come to life, howling, screeching, roaring. Road-runner statuettes zipped around the room in a bizarre, almost comical way, smashing into walls and chattering noisily. Armadillos rolled up into balls and badgers showed sharp teeth. Hissing, one of them raced toward Stuart.
“Let’s get out of here,” Stuart cried, grabbing Lillian by the arm.
“What’s happening?” Lillian demanded.
“I don’t know,” Stuart cried over the din. When the badger was within range, he gave it a swift kick and sent it across the room. It smashed against the wall and landed to the floor in a plush, lifeless heap. “Oscar!”
Oscar did not answer. Stuart turned to urge him out of the store. When he saw his father-in-law, his stomach turned flip-flops.
Oscar had collapsed against a display of gum and candy, his face striped by bloody claw marks. Something long and brown was hanging from his lip. Stuart realized to his dismay that it was a rubber rattlesnake. But this toy had somehow gained the poisonous qualities of the real thing.
“Oscar,” Lillian cried out, rushing to him.
“No, get out,” Stuart said. “Someone is doing this to us. Don’t you see the people in the terminal? None of them hears us. None of them sees the blood on the window. You get out and call Natalie. Let me help Oscar.”
Lillian had turned white as a sheet, but somehow she managed to stumble toward the doorway. An armadillo, only an inch long and made of glass, skittered across the floor. Lizards jumped from the shelves, landing in her hair. Lillian screeched and slapped at them, but continued on to the door.
Then, just as she was about to reach it, a steel gate rolled down from its recess in the ceiling and slammed shut. They were locked in.
“Help us,” Lillian cried to the people walking by. A flight had just come in and a large group was heading toward the baggage area.
“Please! We’re trapped! Help!”
As if she didn’t even exist, not one of the people turned her way. Lillian went on begging for help until at last she caught the look of a bedraggled teenager staring at her from across the room. His eyes were so full of malevolence that all fears created by the animated toys paled in comparison to the dread that suddenly arose in Lillian’s mind.
He knows who we are. He knows why we’re here, and he’s going to kill us.
She pulled away from the window, kicking at the road-runner puppets that were pecking at her ankles, drawing blood through her stockings.
“Stuart, what will we do?” she asked, her voice shrill.
“The window, Lillian,” Stuart said, hooking his arms around Oscar’s chest. He had managed to rip the rattlesnake away, and now trickles of blood poured from two puncture wounds in Oscar’s lip. The unconscious man was impossibly heavy, and Stuart had to muster every ounce of his strength to drag him toward the display window. It was free now of animals, who were either flying or crawling wildly. But the mountain lion that had attacked the store-owner lay on its side, inanimate. The lizards that had jumped on Lillian and the road-runners that had pecked at her were also strewn about the floor, motionless. A quick thought flashed through Stuart’s mind that, once the toy had been used, it was rendered lifeless again. But there was no time for that. He had to get them out of the store, fast. Whoever was doing this had already killed one man and seriously injured another. He lay his father-in-law down and picked up a magazine rack. Hoisting it like an awkward javelin, he threw it through the display window. Shards of glass flew everywhere.
And still the people in the terminal moved on, oblivious.
Stuart helped Lillian through the opening. Then he went to drag Oscar out, stepping carefully over the broken glass. He stepped backward through the window, his arms hooked around the unconscious man’s chest. Just as he was about to hoist Oscar through the opening, he heard Lillian let out a gasp. Following her gaze, he looked up at the window frame, impossibly, like a movie running backward, the glass of the window was flying back into place.
With a grunt of effort, Stuart tried to move on. But somehow, his feet were frozen to the ground. He let go of Oscar and tried to pull himself out. But his body was frozen, held in the window by some force. The glass was fusing itself together and he could not get out of its way. As it neared his chest, he cried out in dismay, begging for help.
“Lillian, for God’s sake, pull me out!”
The older woman just stood frozen, unable to comprehend the madness of what she was witnessing. It was all a dream, just a horrible nightmare.
“Help me! God, hel—”
The last words were followed by a loud gulping sound as the windowpane fought to heal itself in spite of the obstacle in its way. Molecules reconstructed themselves, created new glass where there was nothing, pushed the glass through Stuart’s waistline . . .
Behind him, Lillian screamed and screamed.
28
MICHAEL COLPAN WAS DOING HIS SCIENCE HOMEWORK when something like a balloon blew up in his chest. It suddenly felt as if his insides were being pushed away, leaving only empty space. The sensation was so painful that he tumbled out of his chair, holding himself across his stomach.
“Dad?”
He barely choked out the word. Then he remembered that his father was working late tonight and that Emilina had gone home. He was alone. The terrifying feeling that something very bad had just happened to someone who cared about him washed over the boy like scalding water.
He heard the little girl’s voice again, the same one he’d heard in a dream a while earlier.
They’re killing our father. Help him, Peter. They’re killing Daddy.
“Where are you?” Michael called.
But there was no answer.
The pain across his abdomen heated up to such an intensity that Michael sprawled across the floor and screamed. He doubled up, his eyes squeezed shut, crying out desparately for help—from his father, from the little girl, from God.
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Michael stared up at his ceiling, unmoving and dazed. If only his father were there . . .
She had said something about someone “killing Daddy.” No! Michael thought hard and felt that his father was still very much alive. But that horrible feeling, the sense that someone had been hurt very badly, was inexplicable. Michael tried again to call the little girl with his mind, but with no luck.
He had to talk to someone. Grabbing his hooded jacket from the end of his bed, he slipped it on and left the house. The children were forbidden to walk around at night, but Michael didn’t care. He needed to be with his father, and even if they threatened to lock him up in the watch tower, they couldn’t stop him.
He shivered and zipped up his jacket. The watch tower. It stood at one corner of the LaMane Center, where a guard kept vigilance to be sure no one broke in. Dr. Adams said it
was to protect them from the Outsiders. But he never explained why no one was allowed out of the center, either.
Nightmares about that tower had haunted Michael for most of his life. Alone on the darkened, road, with only the wind to speak to him, Michael was unable to resist the memory of his most recent dream.
He was dangling in midair, a sharp pain firing from the top of his head. Someone had him by his thick crop of hair and he was being held arm’s distance from an open window in the tower. The wind slapped him hard, and the ground below spun in circles.
“What’s your name?”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommmmeeeeee!”
“Tell me your name or I’ll drop you, kid. What is your name?”
“Peter . . . Pete-er Morse.”
“No!”
And suddenly he was falling free, down, down . . .
Michael shook his head hard to free it of the horrible dream. How many times had it come to his mind over the last years? It seemed so real, like something that had really happened. But he knew it couldn’t have. His name wasn’t Peter, it was Michael Colpan.
So why did that little girl keep calling him Peter?
He started to cut across the road to the main street, but he noticed a light on at Jenny Segal’s house. Jenny had heard voices too, he remembered. Maybe she could help him figure this out.
But Jenny’s mother wasn’t very nice, and if she knew he’d come here alone, she’d call Dr. Adams on him. Jenny’s father was okay, but Michael was certain the best thing to do was sneak into Jenny’s room through her back window. It was on the ground floor, the middle window of three. Michael hurried over to it and stood on tiptoes to peer in. Jenny was sitting on her floor, dressing a doll. She started when Michael rapped at the window, but smiled when she realized who it was. Hurrying to close her door, she came and let him in.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “If anyone finds out you’re out alone—”
“Jenny, I need to talk to you,” Michael said. He was shaking all over.
“Are you cold?” Jenny asked. “Want my comforter? You could sit in the chair.”
Michael shook his head. “Listen to me, Jenny. Those voices you hear. Do they ever make you hurt or feel scared?”
Jenny looked confused. “Not at all. I always feel safe and happy when I hear from that woman.”
She sighed, bending to retrieve her doll from the floor.
“Except now I’m forbidden to contact her. Our teacher heard me talking to nobody he could see, and he told my mom. She said if she ever heard of me making contact again, she’d—she’d—”
Jenny’s eyes squeezed shut and Michael watched helplessly as she fought with some unspeakable terror. Was it the same kind of feeling he had when he thought of the watch tower? He wondered.
“She said she’d stick my hand on the flame of the stove,” Jenny blurted.
“Ugh!” Michael’s eyes slitted. “She didn’t really ever do that, did she?”
Jenny shook her head. “I don’t know. I dream about it sometimes, and I’m really scared of fire, so I wonder if it could have happened. But I don’t remember.”
The way I’m scared of the watch tower, but can’t remember ever even being up there.
“Jenny, something bad happened to me a few minutes ago,” he said. He went on to describe the terrible pain and the feeling that someone he loved had been torn away from him.
“That girl I keep seeing said it was our father,” Michael said. “But my dad is alive, I know it. And what did she mean our? I don’t have a sister.”
“Maybe you do,” Jenny suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“When I see that woman,” Jenny said, “I sometimes see her with two little boys. And I keep thinking they should be my brothers. I keep thinking maybe they really are my brothers.”
“But you’re an only child, just like me,” Michael pointed out.
“So’s just about everyone else in this place,” Jenny said. “Did you ever notice that? There’s only one of us with a brother, and that’s because Ronnie and Ricky Gautier are twins. How come none of our parents ever had any more children?”
Michael shrugged. “Beats me. But what do I do about the little girl, Jenny? And what do you do about that lady? ’Cause I know you’ll contact her no matter what your mother says.”
“We’ll find them,” Jenny said without hesitation. “Go on back home, Michael. Start making plans. We’ll try to find a way out of here in three days.”
Michael backed away from her, looking at her as if she were crazy. “Out of here?” he echoed. “But, Jenny, it’s dangerous. The Outsiders.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “I’m so sick of hearing about those Outsiders! How bad can they be when my own mother wants to burn my hands? No, I’m going to find that lady, because she’s the only one who’s ever helped me. Tommy Bivers said he’s heard a voice too, from a woman who says that these people mean to hurt us and that we should get away.”
“My dad wouldn’t hurt me.”
The sound of a closing door cut off Jenny’s next words. Her father’s voice was heard through the closed door. He had been in the city that day, on an assignment he wouldn’t talk about, and Jenny hadn’t expected him back so early. She shook her head at Michael, indicating the window. “Hi, Daddy!”
When she left the room, she didn’t open her door wide enough for her father to see Michael scrambling through her window.
Outside, Michael ran through the Segals’ back yard. He paused for just a moment at the street, wondering if he should go home or to his father’s office. He needed his father now, so he headed toward his building. Once he was inside, he’d be safe . . .
A sudden movement up ahead made him stop short. Michael felt ice rushing through him and heard an inner voice commanding him to run. But he couldn’t move. He could only stare at the familiar, terrifying figure that approached him. It was the young man Bambi had been so cruel to the other day. He walked slowly toward Michael, staring at him with those white-blue eyes, his expression unreadable.
Michael realized he’d been caught disobeying one of Dr. Adams’ prime rules: no children outside at night. He wasn’t certain if this teenager would tell on him. But he was certain the older boy meant no good. And suddenly, his sense came back to him, as did his muscle skills.
He broke into a run, not looking back to see if he was being pursued. Fear was a great source of momentum, and in less than two minutes he crashed through the front doors of his father’s building. His sneakers thudded loudly as he raced down the hall, seeming to send a message: “Child outside! Child outside!”
Michael was crying when he reached his father’s office.
Ralph dropped the pencil he was drawing with and hurried around the drafting table to take his son in his arms. “Whoa, Michael,” he cried. “What’s wrong, son?”
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
Ralph hugged him, feeling the small body tremble violently. “Tell me what happened?”
“I—I got sick when I was doing my homework,” Michael said. “A really bad feeling, like something bad was happening to someone I knew. I thought it was you, Daddy.”
Ralph held him at arm’s length. “I’m fine, Michael,” he said. “Look at me. All in one piece.”
Michael didn’t reflect his smile. “Someone saw me outside,” he said. “That big boy who wears the fringe jacket. He’s gonna tell on me, I know it. They’re gonna put me up in the watch tower, and—”
“Shh,” Ralph soothed, hugging him again. “No one’s gonna put you in any damned watch tower. Not as long as I’m around.”
Someone knocked at the door. Panicked, Michael looked up at his father. Ralph leaned closer and whispered to him, “Go on in the bathroom and wash your face,” he said. “Don’t come out until you’ve calmed down, understand? I’ll take care of this.”
Michael did as he was told, listening to Dr. Adams’ voice through the door. He couldn’t quite make out the words, but knew the two
grown-ups were arguing. Splashing water on his face and drying it with paper towels helped calm him. He took a few deep breaths, then carefully walked into his father’s office.
“Hi, Dr. Adams,” he said sheepishly.
“How long have you been here, Michael?”
Michael looked up at his father. Ralph tugged his ear a few times, and Michael immediately recognized the number two.
“Two hours, Dr. Adams,” he said quickly.
“One of my staff said he saw you outside.”
“Then he’s mistaken,” Ralph said. “Michael’s been with me the whole time.”
Dr. Adams nodded, but there was something doubting in his eyes. “Just make sure you always obey the rules,” he said. He left the room.
Michael went to his father and hugged him. “Thanks, Dad.”
“That was close.”
“I don’t like that man anymore, Dad,” Michael said. “He scares me.”
Ralph didn’t express his own feelings, knowing Michael could read them very well on his own.
I’m scared, too, Michael.
29
JILL HAD REMAINED AT THE HOTEL THAT NIGHT, IN spite of the terrifying incident in the bathroom. It had been too late to go off in search of another place to stay, and she doubted anyone would be so bold as to invade her room again. Awake all night, she tried to figure out exactly how the intruder could have slipped out of a locked room without being seen. Finally, she came up with two possibilities. The first was that someone had slipped something to her in the restaurant, causing her to hallucinate. But the problem with that theory was that there hadn’t been time to plant a suggestion in her head as to what she would envision.
Her second idea made more sense to her. Somehow, when she wasn’t looking, the red-haired man—formerly a Wheaton, Michigan, cop—had set the intruder free. But whatever had happened, Jill understood now that Maureen had been right. “They” had been watching her all along.
Hear the Children Calling Page 17
