by Angela Hunt
The cop’s gaze fell on the pajamas. “Do you think he slept here last night?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“So maybe he went out. Could he have gone to a bar, someplace that stays open late?”
“No. I set the alarm when I went to bed, and I went to bed right after the professor went into his room. Dr. McKinney didn’t know how to disarm the system. If he had opened a door or a window, the alarm would have gone off.”
“Anyone else know how to disarm the security system?”
“My grandparents, but they’re in New York. So I’m sure the professor didn’t go out last night or this morning.”
Edwards flipped his notebook closed and narrowed his eyes as he looked around. “If everything you say is true, then your missing professor vanished into thin air. We’re missing something . . . because nobody ever vanishes without a trace.”
I bit my lip, restraining the impulse to tell him about some of the things we had experienced as a group. “Sometimes they do,” I whispered.
My cell phone rang just after I escorted the two policemen to the front door. My heart leapt in anticipation—maybe it was the professor—but caller ID identified the caller as Reuben Diaz, my neighbor.
“Andi,” he said, after I greeted him, “I thought you should know that someone else has run into one of those black-eyed kids. There’s a family at the hospital now; their little boy is upstairs in a coma. The wife saw a strange kid in her van and—”
“I read the story in the paper,” I told him.
“Not all the story,” Mr. Diaz said. “They didn’t report everything. I talked to the mother myself. The kid in her van had black eyes.”
I turned to face the others, who had gathered in the living room. Brenda, Tank, and Daniel were all looking at me, doubtless alarmed by the expression on my face.
“We’re coming,” I told him. “We’ll meet you outside your wife’s room.”
After talking to Reuben Diaz, we found the Hanson family in the pediatric wing on the third floor. Jay Hanson lay in a hospital bed, his face still and pale as a heart monitor beeped and an IV line kept him hydrated.
Mrs. Hanson sat in a chair behind her son’s bed, and Mr. Hanson was pacing in the narrow space between the end of the bed and the wall. A TV hung from the ceiling, but it was dark. Apparently no one felt like watching television.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hanson?” I asked, timidly stepping into the room. “My name is Andi Goldstein, and these are my friends Brenda, Tank, and Daniel.”
The Hansons looked at us without reaction, but their gazes lingered on Daniel. “Is he—does he know Jax?” Mrs. Hanson asked. “Is he in Jax’s class at school?”
I shook my head. “Daniel lives in California. We are here because . . . well, because the other day I had an encounter with two children with solid black eyes. I wondered if maybe we had . . . something in common.”
Mrs. Hanson gasped and gripped the sheets on her son’s bed. Her husband looked from her to me, then his face went a shade paler. “I wasn’t sure . . . her story seemed so far-fetched.”
“It’s true,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I’ve seen those kids twice, and there’s something sinister about them. I can’t explain it and I can understand why other people don’t believe it—”
“The reporter didn’t believe me,” Mrs. Hanson said, her chin quivering. “I told her about that boy’s eyes and she looked at me like I was crazy. She wrote down what I said, but she didn’t put it in the paper. What good is a newspaper unless reporters are willing to tell the whole truth?”
I didn’t have an answer to that, so I tried to change the subject. “Did the strange kid speak to you at all?”
“Not a word,” she said. “He got out of the car when I told him to, though. Then he just disappeared. I glanced away only for a second, and he just vanished. I haven’t stopped shaking since.”
As if to prove her point, she lifted her hand so we could all see the tremor that quavered her fingertips.
“Has there been any change in your son?” Brenda asked, taking a step closer to the bed. She reached for Daniel’s hand and held it tight as she looked down on the unconscious boy.
“None,” Mr. Hanson answered. “He just lies there, and the doctors don’t know why he won’t wake up. They’ve done all kinds of scans and blood tests, but it’s like something’s got ahold of him and won’t let go—”
Without saying a word, Tank stepped between me and Brenda, his gaze fixed on the boy’s face. “Would you mind,” he asked, not looking at either of the boy’s parents, “if I prayed for your son?”
Mr. Hanson looked at his wife, but Mrs. Hanson kept her gaze focused on Tank. “I wish you would,” she said, her voice heavy with unshed tears. “I don’t know how to pray . . . for something like this.”
I stepped back so Tank could move closer to the head of the bed, then we all watched as he placed his palm on the boy’s forehead. “Lord,” he prayed, “we know you are sovereign over all creation, over angels and demons, over all kinds of forces everywhere. We ask that you return this boy to his folks, binding whatever forces are keepin’ him from wakin’ up. Bring him back, Father, and wash his mind so that he don’t have any memories of anything bad or evil. I ask these things humbly, but in the mighty name of Jesus, who holds authority over everything on and above and under the earth.”
Silence fell over the room. Tank remained motionless, his hand on the boy’s forehead, and no one spoke. Tears glistened on Mrs. Hanson’s cheeks, and Mr. Hanson stared at his son as though he could bring his son back by the sheer force of his will. Brenda had bowed her head, too, though she might have been trying to hide her skepticism.
Daniel, on the other hand, was looking at the ceiling, his gaze traveling the width and breadth of the room as if he were watching creatures from other dimensions, forces who might be trying to steal this boy’s soul . . . or return it.
I lowered my eyes as someone took a sharp breath. Jax Hanson’s eyelids fluttered and color returned to his cheeks. His lower lip trembled, then his tongue darted over his lips and his eyes opened. “Mama? Dad?”
Tank lifted his hand and stepped back as a flush reddened his face and neck.
“Jax?” Mrs. Hanson rose and hovered over her son, her hands feeling his forehead, his cheeks. “Are you okay?”
“Where—what am I doing here?”
Jax attempted to sit up, but his father, who had rushed to his wife’s side, held him back with a restraining hand. “Easy, son, you don’t want to rush it.”
“I feel fine. What’s going on?”
Pssst.
I turned to see Tank in the doorway, already slinking away. Brenda stood behind him with Daniel, and they were waiting for me.
Leaving the Hansons alone with their son, I followed my friends down the hallway. “Wow,” I said, completely at a loss for words. “Tank, what you did—”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, gesturing toward the elevators. “Come on, we should get going.”
“If you didn’t do it,” Brenda countered, “then how in the heck did that kid get better?”
Tank didn’t answer, but smiled as he pressed the elevator call button.
Chapter Nine
My thoughts raced as I drove out of the hospital parking lot. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened in that hospital room, but I knew two things for certain: one, strong forces of evil were afoot in my neighborhood, and they seemed to emanate from two weird, smelly kids with black eyes; and two, forces of good were also at work, and they were even stronger, especially when wielded by men like Tank.
“I don’t get it,” Brenda mumbled in the back seat. “If those kids are stealing babies from pregnant women, what did they want with the Hanson kid? Are the two situations even connected? And what has any of this to do with the professor?”
I shook my head and slowed for a red light. “I don’t know.”
“The situations don’t have to be connected,” Tank said, rubbi
ng his temple as if he felt the approach of a headache. “Evil goes after innocence. Why would evil beings mess around with people who are already on a road to ruin? Evil wants to destroy the innocent—animals, babies, children. It takes little pleasure in bringing down someone whose life is already ruined.”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Brenda glare at Tank. “Feeling a little judgmental, aren’t we? Who are you talking about?”
Tank shrugged. “I think you know what I mean. God wants to lift people up, bring them out of addiction, crime, dangerous lifestyles. The forces that oppose God want to bring people down—keep them them addicted, drunk, and sick. Most of all, evil wants to keep people ignorant. They think they’re partying and having fun, but all they’re doing is setting themselves up for disaster. The man who gets drunk and visits a prostitute while he’s out of town—he’s destroying his marriage. The college girl who gets drunk at a frat party and ends up getting raped by a group of guys—she ends up with a venereal disease and comes to believe that men can’t be trusted. Evil demands a high price. It destroys people.”
Brenda crossed her arms and looked out the window, and when I glimpsed the pained look on her face I wondered if Tank’s words had awakened some painful memory from her past. We knew each other pretty well, but Brenda had kept a tight grip on some chapters of her history.
“I get what you’re saying,” I told Tank, “but right now all I can think about is the professor. If he’s not there when we get back, I’m going through his stuff—”
My mouth went dry when my gaze focused on the path beside the road. Walking along the edge of the sidewalk, dangerously close to cars whizzing by, were the two creepy kids. I recognized them instantly, even from the back, because something was obviously wrong about them. They walked together, their arms hanging straight down, their heads facing the road ahead, moving like two small automatons with no sense of life about them—
“Hey,” Brenda said. “Isn’t that—”
“Yes,” I answered, stepping on the gas. I sped up and passed the kids, then pulled onto the side of the road and shoved the gearshift into park. Without thinking I opened the door, stepped out, and crossed in front of the vehicle. Upon seeing me the kids stopped and stared. But when Tank stepped out of the car, the kids made a sharp right turn and hurried into an empty lot where weeds grew knee high and broken bottles glimmered among the wild grasses.
I bent and caught Brenda’s gaze through the car window. “Keep an eye on Daniel,” I warned. Tank’s warning about evil and innocence had given me the feeling that Daniel might be in more danger than any of us.
Then I took off after those kids.
With Tank jogging beside me, we tore through the empty field, picking up sand spurs and narrowly avoiding a couple of red ant hills and areas sprinkled with broken glass and rusty debris. I could see the horizontal strip of blue water on the horizon and beneath it, the swaying sprays of the sea oats. The sinister siblings—if that’s what they were—were nowhere in sight, but surely they had to be just past the dune that served as a windbreak between the beach and the waterfront houses on this road . . .
Tank and I reached a narrow walkway through the dunes and followed it, reaching the beach at the same time. Breathless, we looked north and south . . . no black-eyed kids in sight.
Lots of people were on the beach—older people, tanned as old leather, reclining on beach towels or reading books beneath umbrellas. Young mothers with their little ones, playing in the wavewash and looking for seashells. Lots of children, lots of innocents, only the active, loud, normal-acting variety.
The BEKs had disappeared again.
I heaved a heavy sigh and crossed my arms. Tank gave me a sympathetic look, then gestured toward the beach. “If you want, I’ll walk south a little way to see if I can spot them—”
“They’re gone,” I said. “They have a way of disappearing when they don’t want to be found.”
I turned, my heart feeling like lead in my chest, and followed the path we’d created in the tall weeds. “What is this stuff?” Tank asked. “Florida wheat?”
I gave him a smile, but only because I knew he was trying to lighten my mood. “It’s just weeds,” I said, “but I’d admit it does look a little like wheat—”
I stopped. “Hold up a minute—look how we flattened these weeds when we ran through here. Why didn’t the kids leave any kind of trail?”
Tank scratched his head and looked around. The weedy stalks around us stood straight and unbroken, stirring slightly in the wind. I couldn’t see any other places where they’d been stomped or broken, except for one small area about twenty feet away.
I walked toward that spot, wondering if the kids could be hiding in the weeds. That’d be a good trick, hiding right in front of us . . .
I caught my breath as we drew closer. The flattened area was circular in shape, reminding me of . . . .
“A crop circle,” Tank said, staring at the field with wide eyes. “Just like Brenda’s picture.”
I quickened my step. Brenda hadn’t drawn just a crop circle, she’d shown me holding something inside that circle—
I froze when I heard an unexpected sound among the snap and crackle of weeds beneath our footsteps. “Shh,” I said, stopping to hold up my hand. “Listen.”
I heard it again, a soft mewing sound, almost like a kitten. I rose on tiptoe, trying to see above the line of stalks along the edge of the circle, and what I saw turned my blood cold.
A baby. A pale, motionless infant, still shiny and wet with fluid and a smear of blood.
“Tank, call 911,” I told him, my heart rising to my throat. I didn’t dare voice my next thought: we might have found Mrs. Diaz’s missing baby.
Chapter Ten
To my surprise, the baby was still alive.
We followed the ambulance to the hospital, of course, and waited in a lobby while doctors checked the baby to be sure it was healthy and unharmed. I knew they’d also take blood and try to determine whether or not the child belonged to Mrs. Diaz. DNA tests took time, so we wouldn’t know anything for certain today, but with every passing moment I felt more certain that we’d found the missing child.
“Yea for us,” I murmured under my breath as Tank bought a candy bar from the vending machine. “We might have found the baby, but I don’t have any idea why or how.”
Tank grinned and offered me the candy bar. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”
“Not right now.” I shook my head. “I can’t focus on food when I’m upset.”
“That’s when I find myself craving sweets.” Tank fed another handful of quarters into the machine. “I think sugar fuels my brain cells.”
I sank into a plastic chair and closed my eyes, forcing myself to think. Where was the professor when we needed him? If he were here, he’d point out some connection I’d missed, something that tied the baby to the kids and that spot on the beach. If those kids had been responsible for taking the baby—somehow—then why had they brought him back? Had they been walking on that road to bait me? Had they purposefully lured me to that beach so I’d find that baby? Unexpectedly decent of them, if that was their intention—at least the infant wouldn’t die of dehydration or exposure from the Florida sun.
And how could anyone explain the time factor? That baby was still wet with fluids, but someone had removed it from its mother’s womb at least two days before. Of course, the baby could have come from someone else . . . but I doubted it.
“Didn’t expect to find you here.” I looked up at the sound of a familiar voice. Police office Chad Edwards stood across from me, his notepad in his hand. “The doctor said you were the one to find the baby.”
“We found him,” I corrected, pointing at Tank. “We saw those odd kids again, and followed them onto the beach. The kids disappeared, but on our walk back to the car we found the baby.”
“In the middle of a crop circle,” Tank said, narrowly eying Edwards. “As strange as that sounds.”
“Strange is r
ight,” Edwards said, “Considering that no one grows crops along the beach. Legal crops, that is.”
I smiled at his little joke, knowing that it wasn’t uncommon for more daring locals to be busted for growing marijuana plants in their backyards. “Is the baby okay?” I asked.
Edwards nodded. “The doctor said he’s in remarkably good condition, considering where you found him. Odd, though—he said the kid was still covered in amniotic fluid, which rules out Mrs. Diaz as the mother. We’re treating the case as an abandoned baby.”
“I wouldn’t—” I hesitated, not wanting to reveal too much about our world of bizarre and impossible situations—“I wouldn’t make the usual assumptions in this case. I have a feeling that you may encounter evidence that runs counter to the usual laws of science.”
“And reality,” Tank added. He gave the cop a deliberate smile. “We could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe.”
The cop gave us a skeptical look, then leaned against the wall. “The doctor did uncover something unusual in Baby Doe’s case. Seems they did a routine scan and found a metallic implant near the base of the child’s skull. Would you two happen to know anything about that?”
I shivered with a chill that was not from the air. An implant?
“What, like a microchip?” Tank asked, eyes wide. “Like a tracking device?”
The cop shrugged. “I don’t know what it is, and neither does the doc. He’s never seen anything like it.”
“Are they gonna take it out?” Tank asked.
The cop pressed his lips together. “Not right now. Something about its position between two nerves—too risky to remove it.”
I stood and walked to the candy machine, suddenly possessed of a nervous energy that made me want to run screaming through the halls. Where was the professor? If he were here he would have answers. If he couldn’t think of an answer, he’d at least point us in the right direction. He was the calm we depended on, the voice of reason, the one who was never swayed by emotion or whim or—
