Splinters

by Matt Carter

  14.

  Breaking and Entering

  Ben

  Summer. We had to do this during the summer. At any other time of the year, there would have been almost no foot traffic on the street during the middle of the day. People would be at work, kids would be in school, and the street would be doing its best ghost-town impression, minus a tumbleweed or two. It would be a perfect time to plant illicit surveillance equipment.

  We had to make do in the middle of a heat wave in August. Someone next door was throwing a barbeque. Across the street two houses down, a group of kids played on a Slip ‘n Slide. The faint jangling sound of an ice-cream truck’s bells promised more visitors on the street in the next few minutes. I could have gone for some ice cream. Some barbeque. I could have even gone for some time on the Slip ‘n Slide.

  Instead I lay face down on the roof of the two-story Brundle house, trying to remain invisible as I wired together a webcam, motion detector, and battery above the front door. Nobody had noticed me so far, but I was looking forward to getting out of there as soon as possible. None of us knew how long the Brundles would be out running errands. We could have had ten minutes or ten hours for all we knew. Aldo was keeping an eye out for us, but between that and monitoring the computer, he could only do so much.

  Everything looked together. I hit the “on” switch, tapping the Bluetooth Mina had given me.

  “Everything working?” I asked.

  “I can see your shin just fine,” Aldo said. “Turn the camera a good one-eighty and it might actually be of some use.”

  I’d say I was beginning to think that Aldo didn’t like me—to be honest that was pretty clear from the start. Still, this was his realm. I wasn’t going to argue with him. I continued playing with the camera’s angle until he said it was all right, checking over my shoulder every few seconds for the cop car I was sure would come any moment.

  Thankfully, it didn’t.

  Carefully, slowly, I began climbing to the peak of the roof so I could plant the one above the back door. That would be a lot easier; you don’t normally have to worry about people staring into your backyards.

  I pushed the reusable grocery bag of cameras Mina had given me just over the peak and made sure it wasn’t going to fall before I climbed over after it. As I reached the top, I felt a brief, fleeting moment of triumph for having done this without getting caught.

  Then my left foot slid out from underneath me.

  I fell face-first onto the roof and began to slide down the slope toward the yard. Ever since that night with the deer, I’d been in constant fear of being killed by some monster. It never entered my mind that this might all end with me breaking my neck in Kevin Brundle’s backyard.

  The rain gutter saved my life. I grabbed it by my fingertips at the last second, hanging off the edge of the roof. If I didn’t think it would make me fall, I’d have laughed at that moment.

  The Bluetooth rang to life in my ear. Mina’s voice.

  “Ben? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied, looking down at the twenty feet of air beneath me. “Just took a tumble.”

  “And the cameras?” This girl didn’t miss anything. Pulling myself up in a chin-up, I could still see the bag where I’d left it on the roof.

  “Thanks for your concern,” I muttered.

  “Did I, or did I not ask if you were all right?” she asked with a hint of true confusion. “First, even,” she added.

  “They’re fine,” I said.

  “Good. Our time’s running out. Get the cameras above his bedroom window and the back door. I need to plant the rest of the bugs before the mission is complete,” Mina continued.

  Nope. She didn’t miss a thing.

  It was just as I was pulling myself back up onto the roof of the house that the question hit me.

  I tapped the Bluetooth in my ear, “Hey guys, just how many laws are we breaking right now?”

  “A lot,” Mina said.

  “It’s best not to think too much about it,” Aldo added quickly.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. Yeah, it was just another average afternoon of hanging out with Mina Todd. Breaking the law, indulging in conspiracy theories, nearly getting killed. It should have gotten to me. It should have made me feel wrong. Instead, I felt strangely exhilarated. At first I didn’t know why, but, as I placed the camera over the Brundles’ back door, it hit me. Ever since I had come to Prospero, I’d felt like I was being watched. There were eyes on me at all times, some human, some Splinter. For once, it felt great to be the one doing the watching. I knew it wasn’t foolproof, I knew we might find nothing that would implicate Kevin, but to do something, anything felt better than doing nothing.

  The second camera placed, I began to climb up the slope of the roof to what Mina claimed was Kevin’s bedroom window. I didn’t know how she knew which room was Kevin’s, and enough of me knew better than to ask. What I did know was that the window was now open.

  It hadn’t been when I first passed by.

  I climbed up the roof slowly, carefully, keeping an ear out for any movement inside. There was nothing. No movement, no voices, no sign that Kevin had come home early. I wanted to tap my Bluetooth to check in with the others, but if he had somehow made it home without us noticing, I didn’t want to give us away by talking. Instead, I crept up the roof and peeked inside.

  I didn’t see Kevin. I did see Mina looking at me rather intently.

  “Hi,” I said, confused.

  “Have you placed the other cameras yet?” she asked.

  “One more to go. I saw the window was open. I wanted to make sure everything was all right before I tried for this one,” I said.

  “Next time, call in before you do anything unplanned. You were lucky. I was checking if outside noise would interfere with the bugs. If he had come home early and opened his window, you might have just revealed our presence. We would have failed,” she said bluntly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just understand the stakes of what we’re doing here,” she said, heading back inside. I sat on the roof, catching my breath and taking in what had happened over the past few minutes.

  Then the Bluetooth rang to life in my ear, “Don’t take it personal. She’s like that with all of us when she’s on a mission.”

  I laughed. “Thank you, Aldo. I’ll take that under advisement.”

  I placed the third camera as quickly as I could above Kevin’s window before climbing inside after Mina. Much like Kevin himself, his room was an orderly mess. His walls were plastered with posters from dozens of rock bands I’d never heard of, mostly advertising benefit concerts for various charities. The potted herbs he kept just beneath his window were vibrant and well maintained, filling the room with an earthy, almost spicy smell. His bed was a simple futon rolled into the corner (skipping the bed frame so he could save half a tree, I’m sure), and I didn’t need to look too close to know the sheets had to be made of all-natural fibers.

  Mina stood by his desk, hastily screwing the base of a lamp back together.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Mina pointed to the laptop he’d left closed on his desk. “I expected him to still have a desktop that I could hide the bug in, but he must have upgraded recently. So . . . I had to improvise.”

  I didn’t need her to explain twice. She’d taught me earlier that despite what movies would make you think, bugs and other surveillance devices will need a steady flow of power if you want a steady flow of information, which is why it’s usually best to hide them in something that needs to be plugged in near where you expect important conversations to occur.

  “Do you have the others placed yet?” I asked, tossing her the empty grocery bag.

  She shook her head. “We’ve had some setbacks. Nothing devastating, but inconvenient. Kevin’s bicycle wasn’t in the garage. He must have taken it with them when they left. That will cut down on much of what we’ll be capable of. I was still able
to hide a bug in the kitchen and a camera in their garage door opener.”

  “Okay, what about his dad’s office?” I asked.

  Mina paused. She got that look on her face like she was holding back again.

  “I hadn’t gotten to it yet,” she said.

  “This one’s finished?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s get to it,” I said. I didn’t want to add that actually breaking into another person’s house without their knowledge made me a little uncomfortable (the roof was one thing, actually being inside . . .). Thankfully, I didn’t have to. Packing up her bag, she led me purposefully through the house, out of Kevin’s room, along the hallway, and down the stairs without the slightest hesitation.

  “Have you been here before?” I asked.

  Mina didn’t look at me when she answered, “A long time ago.”

  “Am I going to get any more than that?”

  Still, she didn’t look. She pinched the bridge of her nose, squinting as if fighting off a headache. “Not yet.”

  I sighed, adding this to the rather long list of things I wanted to ask Mina about in the future.

  If there was a future for us, at least.

  She paused at the entrance to Mr. Brundle’s office, taking in the room with wondrous, almost sad eyes. It was as if she had been expecting something else and was let down to find it just an ordinary, suburban home office. I was about to ask another question I was sure she wouldn’t answer when the buzzing in my pocket stole my attention. Mina shot me a harsh look. I raised a hand apologetically. She had told me to shut off my cell phone before we began setting up surveillance. I hadn’t forgotten, but apparently I had set my phone on vibrate instead of silent.

  I pulled the phone from my pocket, meaning to silence it. When I saw the name in the window, I winced.

  “I’m sorry, I have to take this, I’ll make it quick,” I said. Mina’s gaze could have cut through diamonds. Luckily she was too busy disassembling the phone on Irwin Brundle’s desk to stop me. I walked back into the hallway, pulling the Bluetooth from my ear as I took the call.

  “Hi, Haley,” I said. I’d been almost completely dodging her ever since Mina had brought me into the fold. I hated lying to her, constantly coming up with excuses why we couldn’t spend time together. It was the only way I could protect her, and maybe if I could clear her name with Mina, I wouldn’t have to lie anymore.

  “Hey, Ben,” she said. She was trying to sound perky, but she could not hide the sadness in her voice. No, sadness and something more. Fear.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked.

  There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. I expected her to hang up, to tell me that there was nothing to worry about and that she’d dialed me by accident even though she really just meant to see if I would take her calls.

  Maybe that would have been better.

  “You told me a while ago that if I ever wanted to talk to you . . . about what happened, that you would listen?”

  That was unexpected.

  “Yes,” I said. I looked back to Mina, who couldn’t have looked more irritated.

  “I think I’m remembering. I’ve only seen it in dreams, but it feels real, it feels more like a memory than a dream. I can remember the forest. I can remember a cave. . . .”

  Mina came at me quickly, eyes wide, “Hang up.”

  My eyes asked for an explanation.

  “Haley, look, I’ll be over in a couple hours, maybe we can talk this out—”

  She cut me off, “I can remember people from the town being there with me! People who’ve been watching me! Ben, there’s something scary going on—”

  Mina reached up, grabbed the phone from my hand and hung it up.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “We have to go, now!” she said as she stormed back into the office and began to quickly pack up her gear.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  She tapped the Bluetooth in her ear. “How soon?” She waited for a response, nodded and hastily set about putting the rest of the surveillance equipment in her bag.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Mina looked at me, irritated, “If you’d kept your Bluetooth in, you’d have heard Aldo telling us that Kevin and his parents are coming home, right now. They are about to enter the garage, right now. We have to get out of here, right now!”

  We should have run right then and there, but the look of defeat on Mina’s face gave me what was almost certainly a terrible idea.

  Plugging the Bluetooth back into my ear, I asked, “Do they have Kevin’s bicycle with them?”

  “Camera doesn’t have a good angle on them but . . . yes, it’s on the back of the car,” Aldo answered me.

  “Good,” I looked to Mina. “Do you still have that GPS unit you wanted to put in his bike?”

  She didn’t need my plan explained. “That’s too dangerous.”

  “So is living in this town, and we do it anyway,” I said.

  She looked at me, anxious. We could hear the low drone and thud of the garage door opening near us.

  “I can do this,” I said.

  Mina nodded. She tossed the small black cylinder, barely bigger than my thumb, to me. Then, as if a better plan had just hit her, she unslung the bag from her shoulder and gave it to me, pausing long enough to grab a battered yearbook from it.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Backup plan,” she said, “Come on!”

  She pulled me into a closet just off of the kitchen, closing the door just as we heard the Brundles coming in. To say the least, it was a tight squeeze.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she tried to shift into a more comfortable position.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “It’s a small closet,” she whispered again.

  “I know,” I said.

  Under normal circumstances, the fact that I was pressed uncomfortably close to her in a closet would have held my attention; these were hardly normal circumstances. My heart was pounding. We could hear them putting away groceries, talking, laughing. They sounded so normal, so human, that it was hard to believe that Kevin was very likely a monster.

  I just hoped there was nothing important in here they had to get in the immediate future because if they did, we were in trouble.

  Soon enough, though, they left the kitchen. We heard them walk down the hall, splitting up. We only had to wait a moment longer before Aldo’s voice rang in our ears.

  “Okay, I think you’re clear. Mr. Brundle’s in his office, Mrs. Brundle’s in the backyard taking some sheets down from the clothesline. Kevin’s gone out back, too. Looks like he’s dropping some garbage in their compost heap. The garage door’s still open, I think you can make it out that way pretty quick,” he said.

  I opened the closet door and peered outside. The coast was clear. Crouching low, I hurried across the kitchen with Mina right behind me. Her heavy bag slung over my shoulder made this maneuver awkward, and I wondered how it was so easy for her to carry all the time.

  We made it to the garage unseen. Kevin had taken his bike off the back of the car and leaned it up against the wall. It looked like he’d be using it pretty soon. I scanned the bicycle, trying to find a good spot to hide the tracker. I had no doubt that Kevin knew every inch of his bike, he would certainly be able to figure out if something new was attached to it, which only meant that I had to find some way to hide it inside.

  The seat.

  I grabbed the seat of the bicycle and twisted. With some effort, it came loose, and I found the base to be just wide enough to fit the tracker inside the hollow frame. It might rattle around a little, but maybe with some of the duct tape we—

  “Get out of there now!” Aldo hollered over the line. “Kevin just told his dad he was heading out for a ride. He’s coming for you. You’ve got twenty seconds tops to get out!”

  I looked at Mina. She looked at me. Though she looked worried for a fraction
of a second, the resolve on her face was clear. She pulled the Bluetooth from her ear and pocketed it, clutching the yearbook tightly to her chest.

  “Finish the job. Finish it right. Then run. Run away as fast as you can. We can’t afford you being caught. I will likely be in trouble for a while,” she said. Then, looking at me with what could have passed for a smile, she added, “You’ve done well.”

  Swiftly, she opened the door to the house and darted inside. I quickly tore a strip of duct tape from one of the rolls in Mina’s bag and used it to wedge the tracker inside the frame of Kevin’s bike. I could hear voices inside, surprised, yelling. Mina sounded defensive, Kevin upset. I screwed the bicycle seat back on, made sure it was locked tight. I shook the bike, the tracker didn’t rattle. It was perfect.

  The fight sounded more heated. I made for the door, went to rescue her. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know what I would say to make this right, but I had to get her out.

  Finish the job. Finish it right. Then run.

  I cursed Mina Todd for putting me in this position. I cursed her for making me fight against every instinct I had.

  Even more, though, I cursed myself for listening to her.

  I ran like mad from the garage, then down the street. Once I was out of sight and out of breath, I slowed to a stroll, trying to look normal. The kids at the Slip ‘n Slide smiled and waved at me as I passed. I waved back casually.

  I was clear. I’d made it. I’d finished the job, I finished it right, and I’d run away.

  The mission was complete. But at what cost?

  15.

  So This is a Social Visit

  Mina

  Sometimes I wondered if my mother knew the vague, erratic, uncomfortable way my mind cycled through events, favoring the most recent, when I was unable to work. If she did, she also knew she’d found a rare method of enforcing the order to “go to your room and think about what you’ve done.”

  The equipment was in place, and Ben was in the clear. Those were the two cycling thoughts that gave me hope whenever they came around, the ones I tried to hold onto the longest. They made time pass a lot more quickly than the thought that the equipment might not last long enough to be useful now that the Brundles had reason to be suspicious of me. Ordinary, uninformed people would just check that none of their valuables were missing and continue about their business with a lower opinion of me.