The Truth of the Matter

by Andrew Klavan

  “Shut up!” Waylon shouted—and the handlebar guy did as he was told.

  Waylon’s face was close to mine. His fist dug into my throat. He grinned as I gasped and choked. Something stirred in my mind, some memory of him linked with fear. I didn’t know who Waylon was—I still couldn’t recover his image from wherever it was hidden in my brain—but it was there, all right, somewhere, and the memory was associated with terror.

  “But before I kill you, we’re going to have a talk,” he told me. “We’re going to finish the conversation we started before you ran away. And this time, there’s not going to be any escape. This time, you’re going to tell me everything.”

  “Waylon . . . ,” said the handlebar guy again.

  Waylon ignored him. He was enjoying himself too much. He was enjoying his threats, enjoying the fear he must’ve seen in my eyes, enjoying my fight for breath as he twisted his fist into my throat.

  But even as his threats and his rank breath washed over me, I understood what the handlebar guy was trying to tell him, I understood what was going to happen next, and I was getting ready for it.

  “There’s no one left to help you,” Waylon said. “All of Waterman’s friends have run off like the cowards they are. There’s only one other person who knows about you at all. And before you die—which will be in agony, by the way—you’re going to tell me who he is, and you’re going to die knowing that I’m going to kill him too. Because we’re almost ready to—”

  And then the bunker blew up underneath us.

  The time on the bomb had finally winked down to zero. The explosives went off and the blast was tremendous. Everything in that bunker—including Waterman’s body—must have been blown to smithereens.

  And it rocked the ground above as well. It shook under my feet like an earthquake had hit. The four guards staggered—but they’d been waiting for it—waiting and trying to warn Waylon that it was coming. But Waylon hadn’t listened. He’d been so completely distracted by his dealings with me that the noise and the rumble took him totally by surprise.

  His eyes went wide and he lost his grip on me, instinctively grabbing his gun to keep it secure as he stumbled a step to the side. It was only a step. He was about to recover.

  But before he could, I punched him.

  It was a full-force uppercut. I’d been ready to throw it, waiting for the chance. And, to be perfectly honest, it had a little extra charge in it because, for some reason, I just didn’t much like this guy. My fist connected with his jaw. He would’ve gone flying backward if I hadn’t grabbed hold of his arm with my left hand at the same time. Quickly, I twisted him around and wrapped my arm around his throat, holding him in front of me, between me and the other guards. I took hold of his gun and twisted it upward, jamming the barrel under his chin.

  The four guards had recovered from the force of the blast and had their guns leveled at me, but they froze when they saw me using Waylon as a shield.

  “Stay where you are,” I told them. “I don’t want to kill him, but I will.”

  And I would’ve too.

  Waylon was still heavy in my grasp, nearly unconscious from the uppercut to his chin. He was woozy and staggering. Only by using all my strength could I keep him in place in front of me.

  “You got nowhere to go, West,” the blond guard growled at me furiously.

  But I was already backing away from him, backing away from all of them, edging toward the trees that surrounded the ruins.

  “West!” the blond guard shouted in his fury and frustration.

  I kept going, backing away, holding Waylon up in front of me, holding his gun up under his chin. As I came to the edge of the ruins, there was some sort of structure standing there in the morning mist: the slanted ruin of a wall, I guess, with rebar sticking out here and there from the concrete.

  I slipped behind the structure, out of range of the guns of the other four guards.

  Just then, Waylon started to come around, started to struggle in my grip. I slammed him into the concrete. He grunted. And while I had him pressed dazed against the wall, I stripped the machine gun off his shoulder.

  I backed away from him, the gun leveled at him.

  He turned slowly. His dark face looked lopsided as it swelled in the place where I’d slugged him. His eyes were bright—nearly white it seemed with the light of the hatred burning in them.

  “Where do you think you’ll go?” he snarled at me. “The police want you. Your own people don’t know you. You can only bring danger to your friends. Even if you get away, I will hunt you down, so help me.”

  “Then maybe I ought to kill you here and now,” I said.

  Waylon laughed. “But you won’t.”

  I didn’t answer. I knew he was right about that. There was no way I was going to pull the trigger on an unarmed man.

  Now the other guards were coming into sight, moving around to get a bead on me around the side of the wall.

  “Call them off,” I said to Waylon. “Tell them to lower their guns. I won’t kill you if I can help it, but if they start shooting, I start shooting—and you’re the first to go. They can’t kill me quick enough to stop it.”

  Waylon glanced to the left and right where the guards were spreading out to surround me. I could see he didn’t want to give the order. But I could also see he didn’t want to die.

  “Lower your guns,” he shouted—barely able to get the words out through his clenched teeth. “Lower them.”

  I glanced at the guards. They were still aiming at me.

  “Do it!” I shouted. “Do it now or I’ll kill him!”

  One by one, the Homelanders pointed their machine guns at the ground.

  I started backing away from Waylon, backing away from the ruins, backing into the mist that gathered where the forest began.

  Rubbing the side of his face where I’d punched him, working his jaw against the pain, Waylon kept his angry eyes on me.

  “I’ll be seeing you, West,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. I was pretty sure he was right. We weren’t finished with each other.

  I felt a chill as I stepped into the deeper shade of the trees, as the forest mist closed around me. It was the chill of the damp and cold, but it was a chill of fear as well.

  With one last glance at the Homelanders standing there, I turned and sprinted into the trees as fast as I could.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The End of the Chase

  I heard Waylon’s furious shout behind me: “Go after him!”

  I looked back over my shoulder as I ran. I saw the guards coming into the woods, hunting for me. But they were moving slowly. Wary, watchful. I had a gun now, and they knew I could turn around any minute and open fire on them if they just charged blindly ahead. They were scanning the trees, pushing branches and brush out of their way to make sure the path was clear before stepping forward.

  I, on the other hand, ran full speed. I cut like a deer through the mist and shade, dodging under branches, leaping over roots and stones, flashing in and out of sudden patches of sunlight and large areas of deeper darkness, trying to put as much distance between myself and my pursuers as I could.

  When I looked back again, I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t see anything but the tangle of trees and forest vines. I stopped. I leaned the machine gun against a tree. I bent over, my hands on my knees. I was gasping, trying to catch my breath. For a moment or two, my panting was the only sound I could hear.

  Finally, when I could, I breathed more softly. I listened. Yes, I could still hear the Homelanders. I could hear their footsteps crunching on the forest duff. I could hear them calling to one another in the trees.

  “You see him?”

  “No.”

  “Wait. Here’s a trail. He went this way.”

  They were tracking me, following the places where I’d broken through branches and brush or turned over leaves. They were coming on slowly, but they were coming on steadily all the same. Their voices sounded closer every minut
e.

  I had to keep going, but I was tired. The agony of Waterman’s memory medicine . . . being trapped in the Panic Room . . . my escape from the bunker before it blew up . . . my tangle with Waylon and the guards . . . and then my run through the woods—all of it had worn me out. My legs felt weak. My energy was depleted. I knew I couldn’t keep running like this forever.

  I straightened and looked around. These woods were deep. No sign of an exit. Without a firm sense of my direction, I might find myself circling around in them until nightfall. I knew there had to be a road here somewhere, but I had no clue where it was. I needed a place to hide, a place I could rest and gather my strength and get my bearings.

  By listening to the voices and movements of the oncoming Homelanders, I could pretty much judge their location. I could tell they had spread out in a line—like a search party—in order to comb through the forest more efficiently. Instead of running away from them, I now began traveling across that line, hoping to get outside the reach of it. I had gone only a little ways when I found something—maybe just the hiding place I was looking for.

  I came to a small stream. A little ways beyond it, a steep formation of rock and earth rose about thirty feet into the air. Its gray and brownish color blended with the gray and brownish colors of the surrounding forest— the naked winter trees and the dirt. I hadn’t even known the formation was there until I was practically right beneath it. I thought: If I could get up on top of that, the Homelanders might pass right under me without even looking up. If they did look up and spot me, at least I could fight them from high ground.

  I paused at the stream, laid my gun aside, and knelt down to drink. The water was gritty and had a sour, coppery taste, but man oh man, I was grateful for the coolness of it in my hot, dry mouth, grateful for the sense of fresh strength flowing through me. When I’d had my fill, I stood up. I strapped the machine gun over my shoulder again. I stepped across the stream and attacked the rock.

  It wasn’t an easy climb. It was hard to find places to grab hold of. I dug my fingers into the moist earth between the rocks. I dug the toes of my sneakers in wherever I could. My arms and legs felt weak, but once I was six feet off the ground, there was no turning back, and no letting go. I climbed hand over hand until the slope grew a little less steep. Then I scrambled the last several yards to the top.

  Here, there was an outcropping of gray rock. I edged out onto it and lay down on my stomach. Now I had a good view of the forest below me.

  The morning was wearing on. The mist was thinning. Sunlight had begun to pierce through the needles of the high pines and the empty branches of the winter maples. It fell in beams with the mist swirling inside them. The shadowy tangles of the forest depths came into sharper relief as the light grew stronger.

  And there were the Homelanders. I could see four of them in a long, straggling line, moving slowly through the trees, their machine guns strapped to their shoulders and held at their sides. I could hear them talking to one another across the small distances between them, just the sound of their voices at first and then, as they got closer, their words.

  “He was running fast. He must’ve gotten pretty far by now.”

  “He’s gotta give out eventually. He can’t just keep going and going.”

  “I don’t know. He’s a tough kid. Lot of determination.”

  “He gave Waylon a pop, that’s for sure.”

  “Yeah, you don’t see that too often.”

  “Well . . . Waylon will take it out of him when we finally catch him.”

  They came closer and closer. I got out of sight, lying low on the outcropping, pressing my face to the cold of the stone, feeling the cold of the mist swirling over me. Now, the gunmen’s voices were practically right underneath me. When I peeked over the edge of the outcropping, I could clearly make out the faces of the two men nearest me.

  “I tried to warn Waylon that explosion was coming . . .” It was the guard with the handlebar mustache, shaking his head ruefully as he scanned the woods. “Dude wouldn’t listen.”

  The blond guard answered him with a nasty laugh. “Well, man, you should tell him that. You should just say to him, ‘Waylon, dude, I tried to warn you, but you were just too stupid to hear what I was saying.’”

  The handlebar guy gave a heavy laugh in return. “Right, I should do that,” he said. “Because my life just won’t be complete until I have a bullet in my kneecap.”

  They passed on, right by me. They never even looked up at the rock where I was lying. Soon, their voices were fading into the woods to my left. For now, at least, I was safe.

  Weary, I rolled over onto my back. I stared up into the thinning mist that clung close to my face. With the danger having temporarily passed, all the emotions of the last several hours washed over me. It wasn’t a good feeling.

  You got nowhere to go, West.

  Blond Guy was right about that, wasn’t he? For so long, it seemed, one idea had inspired me and kept me from giving up hope.

  You’re a better man than you know. Find Waterman.

  Ever since that moment when I’d been arrested, when the police had been leading me to the patrol car to take me off to prison . . . ever since that moment when someone had somehow unlocked my cuffs and whispered those words in my ear, my one hope had been that I might find Waterman, that he might tell me the truth about what had happened to me.

  Well, I’d found him, all right. And with the help of that drug the crow-faced woman had injected into my arm, I was beginning to remember the missing year of my life, beginning to get at that truth I’d wanted so badly. The reason I’d been convicted of Alex’s murder . . . the way I’d fallen in with the Homelanders . . . I hadn’t remembered all the details yet, but I could pretty well guess what they were. And Beth . . . my love for Beth . . . I knew it was there all along, but I’d forgotten it. How desperate I’d been to get that memory back again—and now I had.

  But what good did any of it do me? Waterman was dead. All his compatriots had vanished. If there was anyone left who could prove I wasn’t really a killer, I didn’t know who it was or where he was. Detective Rose and the rest of the police were still trying to arrest me for murder. The Homelanders were hot on my trail, guns at the ready. I still couldn’t go home, couldn’t go to my parents without putting them in danger. I couldn’t go to see Beth. What good was the memory of loving her now?

  I stared up into the mist, and I felt totally alone. I tried to pray. I did pray. At least I said the words, asking for guidance, asking for help. But my heart wasn’t in it. I could feel myself holding back somehow, keeping my distance from God.

  Somewhere in the Bible—I couldn’t remember where just then—it says you’re supposed to be happy about the hard things that happen to you, you’re supposed to be grateful for the “trials” you go through because they test your faith and harden your endurance. Well, I definitely wasn’t happy—or grateful. The truth is: I was angry, ticked off to the maximum. I was sick of trials, sick of being tested. I was eighteen, for crying out loud. I was supposed to be getting ready for college. I was supposed to be with my girl. I was supposed to be preparing for life. It wasn’t fair that things should be so hard for me, so dangerous. It wasn’t fair that there was no one to help me, that God wouldn’t help me, that I was all alone. I wanted my life back, my ordinary life. I wanted to go home. It wasn’t fair.

  What am I supposed to do now? I asked God bitterly, thinking about that horrible scene in the bunker lounge, Waterman lying there in a pool of blood, dead. No one left to help me. No one left who knew I was innocent.

  What am I supposed to do now?

  And the answer came back to me:

  You got nowhere to go, West.

  I let out a long, slow sigh. I rolled over and pushed up to my knees. I looked off into the woods and could just make out the four Homelander guards disappearing among the trees. The tendrils of mist curled around their vanishing figures. The sunlight fell in beams behind them, lighting patches of the
forest floor.

  Exhausted, heartsore, I moved to the edge of the rock and went down until it became too steep to keep walking. Then, I slipped over the side. Digging my fingers into the outcropping, I reached down with my feet until I found some purchase in the earth and stone. I began the climb back to the forest floor.

  Well, I thought, at least I’m safe for now. I suppose that’s something. I suppose I ought to be grateful for that.

  And just then—just as I thought that—I felt the pain flaring inside me again—that pain brought on by the drug Waterman had given me.

  I had time to think, Oh, no! Not now!

  And then the attack came full force, the writhing flame of agony twisting inside me.

  Crying out, I lost my hold on the rock. Suddenly, I was falling, falling, falling into darkness and memory.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Choice

  It was different this time. I had nothing like that feeling I’d had before that I was leaving my body. I was just suddenly somewhere else. I wasn’t even aware that it was a memory. I was completely there—completely present in the past without any idea that I had fallen from the rock, that I was lying on the forest floor now, writhing in pain . . .

  I was in school. I was sitting at my desk in English class. Mrs. Smith was in front of the room, sitting on the edge of her desk holding a book. Mrs. Smith was one of my favorite teachers. She was a young woman with a very happy, upbeat personality, always smiling and joking and laughing with the students. She was a little on the round side, but I thought she was pretty all the same, with long blond hair and sort of an open face that always looked pleasantly surprised.

  She was reading from the book in her soft voice—a play by William Shakespeare: “‘Between the acting of a dreadful thing / And the first motion, all the interim is / Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream . . .’”

  The kids in the class—including my friends Josh and Miler—sat around me at their desks, listening. Most of them—including Josh and Miler—looked pretty bored.