Russ had a point. She took Roman’s hand and left Russ to look after Edward. The forty-five-second walk down the stairs and to the kitchen was stressful enough without unfounded worries creeping into her brain. She strained her ears every other step for sounds of footsteps or breathing that was out of place.
If Roman wanted to be with her, he wouldn’t let Mathew near them. At least, that’s what she hoped. Mathew was crazy. That was apparent from the photo he left her last night. She poured Roman’s cereal and watched his contented expression as he ate. What if . . .? She didn’t want to know. What if Roman reached a point where he became just like Mathew?
Roman’s smile faltered, and he looked up at her. “Are you okay?”
Brina closed the cereal box top, not looking back at him.
“Brina?”
It took her a moment to bring the words out. “Roman, when I’m with you, I’m always okay.” She gave him a squeeze around his shoulders and put the box in the pantry.
Chapter 32
Russ, Roman, and Brina suited up and headed out. The snow lay under a coating of ice, crunching like stale cake frosting as they broke through the drifts. Roman grabbed up chunks, tossing the flat shapes across the yard. They crashed and slid with a spray of frost in their wake. Hank stood guard near the back door with his eyes and scarf missing, while the birds, which had lost their fear, now pecked at the ground and then winged to the woods with their bellies full.
“It’s too quiet,” Brina said. Russ, who was leading the procession, turned and looked back, waiting for her and Roman to catch up.
“There’s no telling where he is.” He looked at Roman, who in turn looked back with raised eyebrows.
“I don’t know where he is,” he said. Roman let go of Brina’s hand and started across the yard. The dead tree line dipped into the shade, with hunched-up snowdrifts covering the brambles. He stopped and pointed, much as he had the day before.
“Brina, man.”
“You want to make another snow man?”
“No-o-o.” Roman came back, grabbed her hand and began pulling her toward the back of the garage. “Brina, there’s a man.”
She stopped cold and pulled back, alarmed. Russ halted his trek to the garage door and watched Roman. He looked over to where Roman pointed and signaled her to stay put.
Brina pulled Roman back. “Stay here a moment and let us look.” She followed Russ, keeping a few yards behind. He kept to the side of the garage, breaking a path in the virgin snow.
As Brina neared the side door, she saw that the windows were covered with paper from the inside. The angle of the house would have kept them from noticing that unless they were close. Her eyes slid over the tree line, noting the shape and depth of the white mounds edging the yard. Not too far into the woods, the land dropped away with loose mountain dirt that crumbled with the freezing and thawing of each season.
“I don’t see anything,” Russ called from ahead.
“There’s a man there,” said Roman in barely a whisper. Brina turned to find him beside her. She waved for Russ to keep looking.
He placed a hand on the garage wall and worked his way to the far end. Shuffling his feet in the snow, he came up against something hard, which she watched him trace with his foot.
Finally, he broke the surface and pawed away the powdery under layer. By then Brina was there, watching as a green shirt came into view, then an arm, then a face. The name Cabot, from the park ranger’s jacket, flashed in her mind.
“I don’t understand,” she stammered. “The park ranger that came to the house looked nothing like this guy.”
Russ felt around in the man’s pockets, pulling up a brown, faded leather wallet that was cracking down the fold. He slid out a driver’s license. “Cabot McDonnell.”
“He killed the park ranger and Mathew.” She shook her head disbelieving, “Did Edward breed out morals? What kind of monsters was he making all these years?” Her hand swung out as she spoke, hitting Roman and knocking him to the ground.
“Oh, Roman!” She started to help him up, but he pulled away.
“I’m not a monster.” His eyes glared with hurt.
“Roman, I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m scared just like you. I’m sorry, I really am.” Her heart felt a sudden ache for the pain on Roman’s delicate face.
Russ crossed his arms. “Eventually, they’re all the same. He’s”—Russ nodded towards Roman—“better than the others. But he’s a wild card, at this point an exception to the rule we’ve become accustomed to.”
Brina ignored Russ and held out a hand. “Roman, please trust me. I won’t ever hurt you again. It was an accident.”
Roman rolled over in the snow and scrambled through the garage door. Her hand dropped to her thigh. “It was really an accident,” she repeated.
“I know,” said Russ, helping her up. “But like I said, he’s a wild card. You know what that means?”
She nodded. “But it also means he could turn out perfect, just the way you designed him.” She left him, his hand trailing from her shoulder, and followed Roman into the garage.
The air inside was already warm, much too warm for a turn-of-the-century barn turned garage. Black duct tape secured paper bags over the window, pitching the room into artificial night. She heard Russ behind her, and then the light came on. Russ swore a few names to hell, pushing past her.
A cot was made up, cooking pots and spoons were neatly stacked, and a yellow plastic lawn chair sat making up a cozy efficiency apartment in the back of the stone building. Russ walked between Mathew’s truck and a park service Jeep. Roman was sitting on the truck’s tailgate, swinging his legs.
“Roman, did you know about this?” Brina asked. The answer she got was a shrug, Roman’s favorite form of communication. He wouldn’t look at her.
Brina sat in the lawn chair and looked at the items assembled. Some of the missing food was stacked under the cot, along with the missing cookies. Beside the cot was a small table where a clump of pinkish rubber stuff was stacked. She leaned over for a closer look: there was a nose, a blob that looked like cheek implants, and a chin. She poked it with her finger, turning it over. “I guess now I know why the park ranger didn’t look like Mathew.”
“He must have been planning this for a while,” said Russ. He walked along the wall and began ripping the paper off the windows. “I wonder how long he’s been here.”
“Ask Edward.”
Russ replied through gritted teeth, “If Edward doesn’t die, I just might kill him.”
Roman walked the length of the truck bed, crossed his arms over the top of the cab, and looked over at them. “I’m hungry.”
Brina took a deep breath and reached under the cot. “Well, it’s your lucky day, because for today only, you can have cookies for lunch.”
She walked the box over to him. Roman looked at her a moment and then gave her a hug. “I know you’re sorry. I love you.”
“Oh, honey, I love you, too,” she answered, her lips brushing the top of his head. Brina closed her eyes and saw Mathew’s face and then Cabot’s. The monster was hunting them. Of that, she was sure. She looked over at Russ. “Let get busy.”
Chapter 33
For once Edward felt normal—that was, until he sat up. His vision blurred in runny spots that seemed to drift from left to right. Blinking just made it worse. He fumbled for his glasses, wondering how many times he’d put them on in the last twenty-four hours only to pass out and wake up blind again. The small miracle, which he was grateful for, was that Russ and Brina always put them on the nightstand.
With that now in focus, he grabbed up the white mug sitting beside the plastic water pitcher. He sniffed it. There was no smell, but he was sure it was laced with Tegretol. For that matter, the water pitcher was probably laced, too. Mathew was clever to get Roman to do his dirty work.
Edward tossed the mug against the side of the metal wastebasket, snapping the handle and chipping chunks from the round
ed lip. He stood, lifted the sash and shucked the plastic pitcher into the snow below.
Hot prickles of sweat dotted his neck and face. He tried to remember the abstract for Tegretol—how long would it take to vacate his system? As long as he was weak, Mathew and Roman would keep coming after him.
The room undulated in nauseous waves, which forced him to sit.
Edward hit the chair hard, thinking about the next course of action. He had been stupid. Russ wouldn’t be able to kill Mathew; he probably didn’t have it in him. Mathew would play with them and then kill them one by one until all that was left was Roman. Edward groped for another answer.
Slowly, he pushed himself back to awareness. The room was a prison. He looked out the window at the garage below. The door was open, and Russ and Brina shoveled snow from a four-foot-wide path. They had to know about Mathew by now. It was all turning into a goddamn mess.
The sun was sinking closer to the southwestern ridge, pitching more of the yard into shadow. They would be here at least one more night, he thought.
Movement by the roadway caught his eye. He pushed his glasses up his nose and studied the spot again. Sure enough, there was Mathew, sitting with no sign of anxiety or impatience. As if sensing he was being watched, he turned and looked directly at Edward. He pulled a gloved hand out of his pocket and popped two imaginary shots in his direction and smiled.
Edward used the miniscule amount of energy he had left to stand and snap the draperies shut. He stumbled back to the bed.
The gun. He had a gun somewhere. He struggled to keep his head clear and to focus on that single thought.
“Yes, I didn’t imagine it. Where is it?” His hand struck through his hair as his gaze darted around the room. “I have to take care of him myself,” he muttered. “Mathew is not going to kill me. I’ll take care of them all, and this mess will be over.” Edward envisioned himself in first class, flying somewhere, he didn’t care where.
A sudden scrape and shuffle above him broke his thoughts. The sun had warmed the house just enough to loosen the ice sheet that covered the roof. He heard another piece slide off with a haunting and hollow shriek.
He forced his legs to move him to the closet. Inside he pulled a pistol from the pocket of his jacket. It was small and looked more like a kid’s water gun than anything deadly. Edward braced his weight against the furniture as he made his way back to the bed and slid under the covers, the gun tucked out of sight by his side.
“Come and get me,” he whispered.
Soon enough they would all be dead, and as soon as he was strong again, he would walk out into the world and disappear. He briefly toyed with the idea of keeping Roman, but the kid was a liability. Anyway, what did it matter anymore? He thought about the professional reputation that he once coveted. That was what got him into this; twenty years of his life running after Mathew Roman’s ideas, twenty years of being outside the scientific community waiting to make this one great discovery. All they had discovered was how to make homicidal lunatics.
He fingered the cold sides of the gun, sweating as the medicine muddied his thoughts.
He just needed to stay awake long enough to win the game.
Chapter 34
The harder they worked, the faster the sun seemed to slip behind the treetops and toward the mountain ridge. The high elevation gave them a bit more daylight than the valley got, but only by minutes. Russ’s scarf and windbreaker were piled by the truck, leaving ice clinging to his wool sweater as he dug in, pitching snow and gravel off to the side of the drive. The snowblower would have done the job faster had it not been a couple of decades old and rusted.
Roman had taken to building up an ice wall with blocks he broke from the snow’s surface. He would stack them a few deep and then karate chop the edges into a smooth fortress. The pace of their work produced silence. Brina kept a close eye on Roman, watching for signals of conversation between him and Mathew, but Roman played like any other kid enjoying the snow.
Finally, she planted her shovel with a grunt, pressing a hand to the small of her back, and used the prop to straighten out the pain. She adjusted her gloves to dump the collected snow to the ground, giving a discouraged glance back at their work. They had managed to clear only a short space out from the garage door. It might be enough to get the snow chains on, but it didn’t look like enough space to get any traction over the snow mound.
“It’s not going to happen today, is it?” she asked.
Russ stopped, followed her gaze, and squinted at the dropping sun. He sniffled, wiping the back of his hand over his nose, trying to catch his breath. “We can still try. Half the battle is getting the truck moving. After that, you just don’t stop.” He looked at Roman’s fort. “You better take him in; his immune system is still vulnerable. Maybe he can sit in with Edward a while?”
Roman looked at them, following the conversation. “I want to stay with you.”
“He wants to stay with me,” relayed Brina. “Can’t say I blame him. Edward hasn’t exactly been nice to him.” She walked to the garage and set her shovel against the wall. Roman followed, skipping between the vehicles to the cot in the back. He flopped on his stomach and hung upside down, pulling out the goodies underneath.
“Roman, what are you into?” She tagged along and sat down next to him. His feet flailed as he righted himself and sat up. He handed her a box of crackers.
“I want peanut butter and crackers,” he said.
Brina started laughing, “I don’t think so.” She looked at her watch. “It’s almost dinnertime. Let’s go in.” She hoisted Roman onto her hip and walked to where Russ was still digging. “I’m taking your advice,” she called.
“Good. I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he smiled.
“You’re relaxed. Is that the effect of exercise?”
“It’s the effect of acceptance.” He looked around, taking in the garage, the house, and the path they had worn between the two. “All we can do is stay alive long enough to get out. We have the advantage.”
“How’s that?” she asked. Roman laid his head on her shoulder.
“We can hole up in Edward’s room and wait it out if we have to. We have heat, food, and each other to count on. We’ll get out. I’m not considering any other options.”
“I’m glad you’re not giving up,” she said.
Brina started out over the yard, kicking up snow and a sweat at the same time. She reached the back steps and set Roman on the stoop so she could open the door. Russ was still watching her. She shut out the cold draft and hung up their coats. Roman had already crawled into a chair and had propped himself high enough to reach the counter. “I want to cook.”
Brina flashed him a smile, “I have a better idea. Let’s play a game while I cook.” She pulled together the ingredients for a chicken casserole and assembled them with measuring cups and spoons on the counter.
“I bet you are just as great at counting as you are at talking,” she said.
Roman squared his shoulders before answering. “I can count, and not just to ten. I can count as high as I want.”
“Then you get to measure all the things I need.” Brina wasn’t sure what to expect. She had never broached numbers with Roman’s tutoring, and the most he ever heard from Edward and Russ would have been referring to medicine units, but they did say he would learn fast. With Mathew in his head, that seemed to be accelerating even more. But did knowledge also come with understanding? She wrote a few numbers on to a sticky pad and placed the first one in front of Roman.
“Ok, I need this much rice, and you can pour it into the pan.”
Roman looked at the fraction and the measuring cup. With barely a hesitation, he poured the rice from the box into the cup, eyeballed the grains to the line, and dumped it into the casserole pan.
“Okay, try this one for the water.”
He did the same with less hesitation, his movements confident, with very little of a four-year-old showing through, becoming a miniature adult
by the hour. She could imagine his performance on tests in a normal school. The system wouldn’t know how to categorize him, or even how to begin teaching him. Everything Roman encountered was filed away in his head with immediate comprehension.
Brina mixed the casserole together, trying not to give it much thought. There were enough problems on their plate without worrying about what Roman was capable of doing.
He touched her hand and she looked into his worried face. “I won’t let Mathew hurt you. He really just wants Edward and me.”
Brina came around the counter and sat in the stool next to Roman. “What does he tell you?”
Roman touched the worry line across her forehead, with curiosity.
“He wants me, so we can be a family, but he’s not always nice. I’ve already decided I’m not going with him.” He crossed his arms and laid them on the counter, kicking his feet against the wall.
“Good, because I don’t want you to.”
“Edward is mad about it. He doesn’t want me.”
“Did he tell you that?”
Roman shook his head, “I can tell.” He looked across the counter and laid his hands, palms down, on the counter with his fingers spread out. “Will I grow up?”
“What do you mean?”
Roman held his hand out and pulled at her wrist until her hand matched up with his fingers stopping short of her fingertips. Realization dawned on her, and she took in the other things about Roman that had been changing. His eyes were brighter, and his posture filled in his clothing with less length hanging below his knuckles. Everything about him was going through a spurt.
“I think you’re already growing. You won’t always be small, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He gave it some thought, “When I grow up, I’ll be nice and not hurt anyone.”
Brina cupped her hand under his chin, “I have no doubt that you’ll be a great grown-up. But until then, can you be a kid and have fun?”
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