From the trunk I pulled Owen’s bag of tools, which I’d ordered him to bring. Metal clanked around in the canvas bag. I plopped it in the grass behind the trails of the car’s exhaust.
“So I guess that means you’re done being mad at me,” he said as he bent down for the handle. “Now that you need me.”
I slammed the trunk. The sound rang through the open air like a gunshot. I dusted my hands. “Yep. That’s pretty much the idea.”
I doled out three flashlights, and we each snapped them on. The yellow beams trickled through the dying sunlight. We crossed the tree line just as the day took its final breath.
The ground was a soft bed of pine needles. A few steps into the forest and we found a world emptied of sound. No birds chirped or squirrels chattered. I hadn’t set foot in the Hollows since my dad’s death, and I felt like I might see him pass through the spaces between the trees at any moment.
Adam held up a low-hanging limb for me, and I ducked underneath and shuffled through the leaves scattered half decomposed over the mud. Soil clumped onto the soles of my shoes, making them heavier. I passed a snapped trunk. Shards of charred wood poked out from either side like a broken arm, and I smelled the remnants of smoke.
We trudged in silence. I noticed Owen snapping his head left and right, searching. It was easy to create the story in our heads of the Hunter lurking and for it to begin to feel true. But there was no reason the Hunter would be here in this spot with us right now, so I ignored the distant snaps of branches and rustling of leaves.
With the tip of my finger, I brushed the bark. My skin came away with a black smudge from where lightning must have split the tree some time ago. After a short distance, I handed my flashlight off to Owen and cradled the GPS in both hands. The numbers on the screen glowed green, changing as we tracked east and north in the direction of the Arkansas state line.
I studied the shifting digits harder now and tried to match them with a few recognizable landmarks from my memory. A fallen log with a gaping hole in the center like a howling mouth. A red rock, flat on the top with three points.
The numbers told me I was getting closer. “This way.” I adjusted our course to veer left. The digits scrolled up. Closer, closer.
My pulse quickened and, with it, my pace. We picked through strands of spiderwebs that formed invisible nets between the trees and broke twigs from their boughs. Then, as the numbers bled one into the next, the thicket cleared, and we stumbled into an open space ringed by the warped trunks of trees. Here, I thought.
“Jesus…,” Owen mumbled.
This was it. The three columns of my dad’s lightning generators rose nearly twenty feet into the sky. Dormant gray orbs made a triangle in the secret circle. They stood like lost relics from a different era. A temple to the gods of science.
I separated from Adam and Owen and walked to the center of the triangle. Instinctively, I held my breath, feeling as though I was stepping onto hallowed ground. The carpet of pine needles was thick and undisturbed. I stared straight into the sky, where stars were beginning to prick holes into the navy blanket above. Thick white cables connected each of the generators. I traced their paths. The lightning cage, my dad had called it, and I missed the low-frequency buzz of electricity running through them.
I turned to see both Adam and Owen watching me. “You say you can fix anything,” I told Owen.
His eyes traveled up the length of the gargantuan generators. “You bet your ass.” He followed me and motioned for Adam. “Buddy, come here and hold the light,” he said.
Owen circled the first generator. Around and around he went, running his hands over the smooth cylinder from the base to as far up as he could reach. Then his canvas bag was on the ground, unzipped and puking out tools. Owen’s front teeth dug into his tongue. Adam held the flashlight over Owen’s shoulder while Owen kneeled in the dirt.
I could hardly see the tiny grooves, but Owen nestled the screwdriver tip into the screws and twisted two free until he was able to flip the lid. Inside, there were three switches, each pointed down and coated in thick rust. A beetle crawled up the side, and Owen flicked it off. For two years the monoliths had been in a coma. The outer build was cool to the touch.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Owen flicked the first switch, the second, and, finally, the third. Nothing happened.
“I suppose that would have been too easy,” I said.
Owen grunted and flipped the switches back down. He used the flashlight to discover four more screws and removed a plate that opened into a tangle of wires, like the generator had intestines. They were every color, and beside them were a series of cogs frozen in place with age, a thin ribbon wrapped around each cog and attached to the next, disappearing into the underbelly of the generator where I couldn’t see.
“Bingo.” Owen licked his lips.
I left Owen to tinker and Adam to help. Though I felt Adam’s stare stretch after me, he didn’t follow. I found myself drawn away not by an electromagnetic source, but by something deeper. I crossed over the invisible line created by the three generators to a spot just before the end of the glade where the tree line resumed.
My fingers tingled. I bent down and touched the nest of leaves. I could feel the place in the marrow of my bones. This was where it happened. This was where my life had changed. I closed my eyes and remembered. The smell of the rain. The splatter of droplets on glass. The static playing through the speakers … and him.
“Wait in the car,” my dad had said. I’d kicked my boots together over the floorboards of his dusty old truck and played with the lightning-bolt bracelet around my wrist, spinning it around and around in an endless loop.
My dad crawled out into the rain that was busy sliding over the windshield in great torrents, turning the world into an Impressionist painting. His yellow galoshes splashed in the puddles. He looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it made me mad that I couldn’t see it through the roof of the car.
He pulled the hood of his equally yellow rain jacket up and disappeared into the forest. Even though I knew it was strictly forbidden, I waited only thirty seconds or so before I followed him. The moment I stepped out of the car, the downpour beat against my cheeks, softening only once I’d crossed into the forest.
I’d been into the Hollows with my dad dozens of times before, but this time Dad seemed different. The printouts of his Doppler readings screamed with orange and red. The storm was coming. And now he wanted me to stay in the truck and miss the whole thing. I didn’t think so.
I stayed close to the trunks of trees to avoid being spotted but soon realized that my dad was farther in front of me than I thought. I became more brazen, hopping over fallen logs and undergrowth, hurrying so as not to miss the big event.
I was so consumed in reaching the clearing that I nearly ran straight into the middle of it without realizing. I came to a screeching halt at the edge when I saw my dad’s bright yellow gear and was brought back to reality. The rain masked any noise I made, and because I wasn’t supposed to be out here in the first place, I had no bright raincoat to give me away. On the other hand, my skin was soaked, and I was shivering down to my underwear.
Above us the generators were alive with the electricity in the atmosphere. A blue-white glimmer zipped across the cables. I stared at them, quivering, as if they were living beings. It was better than anything I’d ever seen at Disney World. Because these were real. These were science.
A roll of thunder shook the pine trees around me. I squatted behind a trunk. Dad pulled out a plastic-coated paper of some sort and eyed the sky, rotating in place, always looking up. The first fork of lightning split the clouds, making the raindrops appear like falling shards of light. It was close enough to smell the burn in the air.
My dad was smiling now, laughing. He thrust his fist over his head. He was yelling something I couldn’t hear. It made me want to laugh, too. But then the next streak of lightning burst through the clearin
g, and at first, I waited to celebrate, thinking that my dad’s experiment had worked. That was, until I saw his yellow galoshes on the ground, the toes pointed up. The rest of my dad lay sprawled on the ground. His hands and arms fanned out from his body like an angel.
I broke my cover. I no longer cared. I sprinted over to him and wrapped my small hands around his face and shook. He didn’t wake up. Frantic, I found the zipper of his raincoat and tore it open, bursting apart the buttons on his shirt, ready to try to perform CPR as I’d seen on TV. But I choked. There on his chest was a web of red scars, and they snaked all the way up to his throat.
I was frightened at once. I wanted for the night to disappear. I remembered skittering back on all fours, heaving, while inside the lightning cage bolts of lightning twisted and writhed, casting a luminous glow across my father’s dead body.
Something hard on the ground brought me back to the present. I’d been touching the leaves idly when, from the damp earth, I felt something cross my palm. I curled my fingers around it and turned my hand over. I sucked in a quick breath. There was a gold lightning-bolt charm threaded through a string of frayed twine. I pinched the ends and held the shiny trinket eye level. It was a gift from my father for my thirteenth birthday, and back then I never took it off, even to shower. The rope had unraveled and become threadbare until I realized that it was just gone. Sometimes it was my naked wrist and the missing charm, more so than my dead father, that woke me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, feeling like I’d lost something.
I used my teeth to tie the twine into a tight knot around my wrist. The lightning bolt bounced softly against the bulb of veins that gathered at the crease before my hand.
Behind me a motor clicked before shifting into a high-pitched whir like the sound of a plane engine taking off. I spun. A white spark spat from the first sphere’s surface, followed by a strand of light that started at the ball and looped in on itself.
“You did it!” I exclaimed, running back to join them. “You did it!” I threw my arms around Owen’s neck, and he toppled over.
“One down…” He stared up, smiling. The first generator was alive.
It took Owen an hour to jump-start the two remaining. Adam and I helped. Beneath the buzz of the generators’ electromagnetic pulse, I replaced the lid on each cylinder and screwed it tightly to the base.
I felt a swell of hope. My dad’s experiments were being resurrected.
Just as the last generator was issuing its first rusty roar and I was screwing the lid over the switches and wires, we heard a string of rapid breaks in the branches.
“Did you hear that?” Adam asked.
Owen swept his flashlight beam over the trees, but we couldn’t see past the border. “Yes.”
More cracks came from the other side. “It’s just the forest,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Probably a deer.”
Every few seconds another branch snapped. Owen rested a hand on my shoulder. It made me jump. “We should go.”
Slowly, I rose to my feet. I felt the cords on my neck grow taut. Owen shouldered his bag. Adam’s hand was on the small of my back. He drew close. I imagined a faceless Hunter watching us, casing us as his next victims in Hollow Pines, and my blood ran cold.
A rustle of leaves. It sounded close. A hush had fallen over our group. I thought I saw movement between the trees. “Come on.” I motioned to the others.
We tried to keep our pace calm and steady, but as we left the clearing, it continued to escalate. Twigs split within earshot. The three of us broke into a jog, twisting our chins over our shoulders to check to see if somebody was following. Then we were running. Our flashlights bobbed in and out of tree trunks. We sprinted back the way we came. Although I knew Adam could outrun me by a mile, he stayed a few inches behind, and I could feel his protective presence envelop me.
“It’s farther to the right,” I huffed.
“Are you sure?” Owen asked, but he followed me.
As we ran, I began to think of how the boys died. My mind jumped to the body in the field with the bear trap snapped around the anklebone, and I aimed my flashlight at the ground, scared at any moment one of us would feel the iron jaws clamp down on our foot. My heart turned into a wrecking ball hell-bent on destroying the inside of my chest.
We clambered through the woods until we couldn’t hear the snapping of branches. The trees thinned. I could see the road. One by one, we arrived at my car. I rested my hands on Bert’s hood and tried to catch my breath. Owen dropped the canvas bag and collapsed with his back to one tire.
“Are you okay, Victoria?” Adam put his hand between my shoulder blades as they rose and fell.
I nodded and looked back into the woods, wondering whether I should feel silly, if we’d let shadows chase us from the forest, or, instead, whether what we’d feared was real.
TWENTY-NINE
Stage 3 of the experiment has been initiated, but we will have to wait for the right set of conditions to apply it to the subject. For now, I’ve continued to monitor the subject through regular tests of his pH levels, blood pressure, platelets, and weight. Adam’s emotional range continues to progress as evidenced by careful observation of romantic behavior with the female variable.
* * *
The moon punched a hole in a clear sky of navy so dark and fathomless it seemed to go on forever behind the haloed glow of Hollow Pines High’s Friday night lights. I’d spent the last two days keeping an eye on the colorful blobs of green and red and yellow as they expanded and shifted along the Doppler radar images while the fifteen-mile radius around our town remained hopelessly blank. I stared up from my spot on the bleachers. Nothing.
Somewhere across the city line, three lightning generators buzzed with life. I now tracked the weather, charting storm systems in my notebook with the obsessive fervor of a Vegas bookie. Hollow Pines, Texas, could look forward to a weekend of clear skies and crisp fall weather. Lucky it.
Back on earth, the stadium benches wreaked havoc on my tailbone. I couldn’t imagine why anyone did this whole rah-rah school spirit thing for fun. The whole place smelled like artificial cheese and corn dogs, and, only five minutes in, I’d already stepped on an open mustard packet. I kept my knees pinched together and my hands folded in my lap. This seemed to be the safest position to avoid either touching the guy beside me whose face was painted orange or getting caught in one of those crowd waves I’d seen on television.
“Watch out. Coming through. Beep, beep.” I scooted left when I spotted Owen picking his way down the row toward me and balancing an overflowing bag of popcorn and a monster cup of soda. “I come bearing gifts,” he said, spilling a few kernels on my lap when he plopped down beside me.
“Excuse me,” I said, stuffing some of the fallen popcorn into my mouth. “But hell hath frozen over.” I leaned forward to get a view of the orange lettering on his hoodie. “Is that an Oilers sweatshirt?”
“When in Rome, right?”
“Sounds a lot better than here at the moment.” I took a long sip of Coke from the straw and squinted at the scoreboard. “How long do these things take, anyway?”
“Longer than a prostate exam, shorter than open-heart surgery.” He reached into the pouch of his sweatshirt and pulled out a Twix and a bag of Skittles. “Drugs to numb the pain.”
I snatched the Twix bar and unwrapped it, sinking my teeth into the crunchy chocolate and caramel. “I’m going to need, like, five more of these.” I stood up on my tippy-toes and leaned over the bleacher railing to see if I could spot Adam, but the players all looked nearly identical dressed up in tight pants and football pads. I worked to search out his jersey number. The freshly watered grass sparkled emerald green. Just because my Hollow Pines pride happened to be running on empty didn’t mean I couldn’t feel a tiny surge of satisfaction at the thought of my own brainchild on the starting line. To think, it’d taken Adam only some minor persuading to get me to come.
Suddenly, the band began trumpeting a version of “When
the Saints Go Marching In,” and the fans rose to their feet, clapping. I looked around, searching for the invisible clue I missed. “It’s starting? How do people know it’s starting?”
I jumped and plugged my ears at the sound of cannon fire.
“Get ’em, boys!” Owen whooped.
“What are you doing?” I pushed Owen’s arms down to his sides. “You’re one whoop away from starring in a beer commercial.”
A few minutes later, to the tune of “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” Knox kicked the football. It arced, end over end, landing a disappointing ten yards past the center to unified groans from the crowd.
The limp kick was an omen of things to come. It’d been a point of pride that I’d managed to live my entire life in football country without learning a single fact about the game, but by the end of the first quarter, I’d learned that a touchdown was worth six points plus a chance to kick a field goal for an additional one. And it didn’t take a girl genius to ascertain that we didn’t have any.
Adam barreled through the other team like they were dominoes. He was a force to be reckoned with, much like gale force winds and garlic breath, but halfway through the second quarter, we were still down by fourteen. Owen held his fingers to his lips and whistled.
When he caught me staring at him like his body had been taken over by aliens, he shrugged. “Must be the sweatshirt.”
Just after halftime, we earned a touchdown back. Adam bulldozed the defensive line, and Billy Ray was able to throw for a touchdown. Cassidy, Paisley, and the rest of the pom-pom brigade leaped into the air and twisted their legs into unnatural positions as though they were cheering for something other than our team’s ribs getting cracked by total strangers. It was barbaric. And okay, maybe a teensy bit thrilling.
Adam himself, though, was his own phenomenon. When we broke even, Owen yelled like a banshee. “Do you think it’s muscle memory?” I said, screaming over the crowd. “To explain, I don’t know.” I pointed down at the field. “All of that.”
Teen Frankenstein Page 22
