Incarnate: Mars Origin I Series Book III

by Abby L. Vandiver

  I let him pull me into a slow trot, but stopped once I got to the other side. “Well?” I asked. I was trying to build up to telling him about my big secret. The world’s best kept secret. The truth. But he wasn’t making it easy.

  “Where did this conversation come from? You know, Ma, sometimes you scare me when you start talking weird.”

  “You mean like I’m losing it or something?”

  He grunted. I looked over my shoulder, and turned back to Micah. “I just want you to be a little scientific sometimes about things. That’s all,” I said.

  “Lawyers aren’t scientific. Usually that’s why they’re lawyers, they didn’t like math and science. And yes, I can argue different sides, but both sides have to be logical. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but it kind of sounds like science fiction and not science.” He looked over at me. “And can’t you walk and talk at the same time?”

  No Micah, I can’t, I wanted to shout. Because I think someone is following us. And it’s scaring the crap out of me!

  “What gives us the monopoly on brain power?” I said instead. “There’s no scientific evidence to show that people are smarter now than there were thousands of years ago.”

  “Yeah, Ma, there kind of is.”

  “In fact,” I said ignoring him, “there is some research that shows man is getting dumber.”

  “Mom, you of all people should know better. People are smarter now than they ever were. The caveman, Ma. No way were they smarter than us.”

  I tried to interrupt but he kept talking.

  “What you’re saying is not logical, not that I know what it is you’re talking about. But for the sake of argument, since that’s what you seem to want to do, do you have any evidence for what you’re talking about?”

  I opened my mouth to defend my point.

  “And you, as a scientist,” he continued, “should know you need evidence. Isn’t that part of the ‘scientific method’ or whatever it’s called?”

  He wasn’t letting me get a word in. It seemed he didn’t want to hear what I had to say. He wasn’t even giving me the opportunity to tell him that I did have proof. So I just let him talk.

  Maybe trying to tell him today wasn’t such a good idea.

  While he babbled on, I turned to see whether our stalkers were still on our heels. They hadn’t crossed with us, but the two that had been following on foot had stopped on the other side of Euclid. They were just standing at the corner. I pulled my glasses off the top of my head and put them on to try and get a good look at them.

  “Ma, are you listening to me? You’re the one that wanted to have this conversation.”

  The driver of the SUV was fiddling with a parking meter in front of the Falafel Café where he had parked. But instead of stuffing it with quarters, he seemed to be looking my way.

  I wish I could see his eyes.

  “Ma?”

  The “walkers” were dressed in jeans. One was burly, and not very tall. The other had a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was fair but had dark eyes, and much taller than his friend. Their outfits fit in with the campus crowd that walked the streets, but not their look. At least not to me. And my stomach that was now starting to turn somersaults seemed to agree with my assessment.

  Are these men the “they” that Elaina referred to?

  “Ma?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  Everything that Micah was saying now was getting lost in the haze of fear that had come over me.

  Micah and I, after crossing the street, had turned west toward Cornell, the direction we needed to go to get to the restaurant. But, the more we walked that way, and the more I watched those men mull around with no sense of purpose, the more nervous I got. I just knew they were watching me.

  We still had to get to Cornell and then walk three blocks down it to get to the restaurant. I was starting to think that it was too far to Club Isabella’s. I looked back at the men and then I looked at Micah still rambling on.

  I shouldn’t have ever started this conversation.

  Micah’s talking was exacerbating my nervousness. My heart had started to beat fast and wild. That made it hard for me to walk. So I just stopped. I stood still, and tried to still my heart. I couldn’t decide what to do. I just wanted to get into somewhere and get away from those men.

  I looked ahead in the direction we were going and then I turned back to look the way we’d come. I saw it. Back there. The MOCA. I could go in there. We’d be safe.

  “Ma! Where you going?”

  I’d made an abrupt hundred and eighty degree turn and ran right into a woman that had been walking behind.

  “Excuse me,” I mumbled and scrambled around her.

  “I forgot,” I said to Micah when he caught up. “I need to make a stop at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I need to see Johanna. Over there.” I pointed at the museum. “At the MOCA.”

  “The what?” He stopped walking. “Wait, Ma.” I kept moving. “Who is Johanna? I’m hungry. I don’t wanna stop. What are you doing? Can’t that wait?”

  He was lagging behind. I turned back for him and when I got close, took his hand. I pulled him close to me. Trying not to look at the three men across the street I nodded in their direction and said, “I think we’re being followed.”

  Micah turned to look and I tugged on his hand. “Don’t look.”

  “What do you mean ‘don’t look?’” He laughed. He wasn’t taking me seriously. “Why would someone be following us?”

  “Not us,” I tucked my arm around his, “me.” I pulled him in close. “I think . . . Well, I’m almost certain I’ve been seeing someone following us ever since we left my office.” He tried to turn around again, but I held him close.

  “See that’s what I mean about you acting weird.” He pulled his arm away. “No one would be after you, Ma. It’s not like you’re some kind of top secret scientist. You teach Archaeology. At Case.”

  “Yeah, but I know stuff.” I titled my head and nodded. Raising my eyebrows, I said it again with emphasis. “I know stuff.”

  He stopped and looked at me. “You know stuff?” His voice was chugged full of incredulity. “Stuff that would make people want to follow you?”

  “Yeah, I know stuff like that. But no one – well not many people at least – know what I know or that I know it. It’s what I wanted to tell you about.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If they don’t know what it is you know or that you know it. I think you’re safe,” he said with a smirk. He looked at me and must have noticed my expression, because his face changed. “If you believe that someone is following us then we need to get out of here. Get to a police station, or get campus security at your school. We can go back and get my car. If you feel like you need to leave from here.”

  I tugged on his shirt and started walking to the museum. I felt if I got there I would be safe. “Micah, I can’t run. I’m too old and too fat. We can’t make it back to your car. We’ll just go into the museum.”

  “Ma.” He stopped again. “We need to get to a car. We need to get you out of here if you’re that worried. Get you somewhere you can feel better. Safe. We need to get you home.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Dad.” He glanced at me. “I think there’s something wrong with you.”

  I looked over at my son. Here I go again, I thought. The more I try to deal with trying to get out what I knew, the more danger I seem to get into and now I was pulling him into my drama. I drew in a deep breath. “I can’t make it to a car.”

  “Yes. You can, Ma.” He was scrolling through his contacts.

  “Don’t call your father.” I swiped at the phone, almost pushing it out of his hand. The light had changed to cross Mayfield. “Let’s go,” I said. He looked up from his phone as I pulled him off the curb. “If people are chasing me, do you really think I can run from here back to campus where your car is parked?”

  “People?” He slowed in the middle of the street and
looked around. “There’s more than one person?”

  “I’m sure there is.” I grabbed his shirt and dragged him the rest of the way across the street.

  “But, you don’t know, right? I mean I can take one guy.” He stuck his phone back in his pants pocket as we walked toward the museum. “I can take two guys. But I don’t know about ‘people.’” He looked at me. “Why are people after you anyway? I don’t get this at all. And all this in broad daylight?” He started shaking his head.

  I walked up to the door at the MOCA and ducked inside the entrance, but as the door was closing I saw Micah still standing outside. He had taken his phone out again and was jabbing his finger into the touch screen. I reached back out the door and jerked him through. Stumbling in, he got his balance, looked at me, then looked around the museum’s foyer and back down at his phone.

  “I’m calling my Dad,” he said with what appeared to be a look of indignation on his face.

  Chapter Eight

  I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath.

  Maybe we would be safe here.

  I crossed the Gund Commons, the small foyer at the front of the museum, and stepped up to the Information Desk. I didn’t recognize the girl that sat there.

  “Hi. I’m Dr. Justin Dickerson,” I said. “I’m a professor at Case. I needed to see Johanna. Is she in?”

  I crossed my fingers that she was.

  “Yes, she is. She’s on four. In the Main Gallery.”

  I blew out a breath. Thank goodness.

  I thanked the girl and went back to get Micah. I heard him leaving a message for his father, something about me flipping out. I decided not to say anything to him and instead walked toward the entrance and peered out. I could see the space where the SUV had been parked.

  It wasn’t there anymore.

  I didn’t see the men either.

  Maybe they left.

  I sighed in relief. They hadn’t followed us into the museum.

  Maybe, Justin, I quipped quietly, no one was really following you in the first place. I shook the thought off. I swear this was like déjà vu. It was the same as the “Pizza Fiasco” as my husband, Mase, called it when I thought someone had followed me home from the pizza shop. And, it was the same as when Nikhil Chandra had told me that a man in a blue ford Taurus was always parked in front of my house. I began seeing that car everywhere.

  That should have been a clue that the men with the Ford Escape weren’t following me. It wasn’t possible that everybody that was after me drove a Ford.

  I sucked my teeth. I was too paranoid for my own good.

  I’m really going to have to get a hold of myself.

  I headed to the back of the museum to the elevator and pushed the ‘Up’ button.

  “Where you going?”

  I turned around to see my son. “I told you, Micah that I was going to see Johanna.” I figured I’d better go ahead and really see her. Micah was already questioning my sanity. Better try to hold on to my integrity.

  “I thought you were just saying that to get away from the people who were following you.” He curled two fingers on each hand, indicating that the word ‘people’ in his phrase was in quotes.

  Okay, so maybe I had already lost my integrity with him.

  “She’s one of the curators here.” I said.

  “Yeah and?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. Still didn’t even know what I was going to say to Johanna. Thankfully, he ignored me and looked over my shoulder. “I’ll wait in there,” he said and pointed to the MOCA Store. “That is, if you’ll be okay?”

  “Yes. I’ll be okay. I think they’ve gone.”

  “The ‘people’?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, the people.” This time I made the air quotation marks.

  I heard the ding for the elevator and told Micah I’d find him in the store when I came down. I smiled at him as the doors closed.

  When I got up to the fourth floor Main Gallery, I found Johanna in speaking with someone. I peeked my head in through the glass doors.

  “Justin! C’mon in.”

  “You’re busy.”

  “This is King Magnum. He’s got an exhibition here starting tomorrow. We were just looking over everything.”

  Swinging the door open further, I propped it open with my hip and stuck my hand in to shake Mr. Magnum’s. “Pleasure to meet you.” My eyes scanned the room. “Everything looks great.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “And this is Dr. Justin Dickerson. She’s an archeologist at the Museum of Natural History and teaches it over at Case.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, and smiled.

  “I’ll wait out here for you,” I said to Johanna. I didn’t want to get in her way especially since I really didn’t have anything to say to her. Anything important leastways.

  I went back in the hallway and sat down on the bench. The MOCA is an odd-shaped structure, small, with little spaces and nooks. In the hall where I sat, there was a stairwell that led up to landings where there was no art It seemed to me to be a bad use of space, When I had said that to Johanna, she had assured me that the design was art itself.

  Evidently, modern art was not my cup of tea.

  I sat between the elevators and four rectangular windows. The two glass doors that led to the small Main Gallery and the bench were all that made up the fourth floor.

  I put my hands in my lap and twiddled my thumbs. What was I going to say to Johanna? I sighed. And so did my belly. My stomach had started to grumble. I rubbed it. I was sorry we were missing lunch as Club Isabella’s. Maybe we could just eat at one of the restaurants near here, I thought. The guys are gone. We’re safe now.

  Feeling kind of claustrophobic, wondering which restaurants were close by, and not wanting to appear impatient, I walked over to the window. I could see up a block or so on Euclid Avenue. I looked on the opposite side of the street. “Potbelly’s. That sounds good. I wonder would Micah like that. Oh. There’s Barnes & Noble,” I spoke out loud. “They have a small café in there I think . . . Oh, I think there’s a Jimmy John’s on this side of -” I stopped mid-sentence.

  There they were. The men that I thought were following me.

  The ones that were following me.

  I swiped my hand over my brow and back over the curls of my hair.

  “Omigoodness.”

  Standing by the car parked on the street almost in front of the museum, the three men were huddled together. One appeared to be on a cell phone and one of the others kept peering over his should watching the museum.

  He’s trying to make sure I don’t escape.

  “Micah.” I whispered, “What if they come in after Micah?”

  I licked my lips and swiped my hands down the leg of my pants to get rid of the sweat that had covered my palms. I felt my knees starting to give out on me and I went back to sit on the bench.

  What was I going to do?

  I puckered my lips, filled my cheeks with air and blew it out. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I tried to steady my breath, which had started coming erratically. I let out a loud moan. Sitting here was only going to get me caught.

  Caught? And then what would they do with me? To me?

  “Omigoodness.”

  I got up and went back to the window. Just as I got there they broke up the huddle, one went around the car to the driver’s side and got in. The other two headed toward the museum.

  Me coming in here and bringing Micah was not a good idea.

  The door they were headed toward was the one closest to the elevator. And the one closest to the MOCA Store where Micah was waiting for me.

  I glanced in at Johanna. She was still talking to the artist. I couldn’t interrupt her. I ran to the stairs. They were steep, gray concrete steps. I guess that they were meant as artwork as well. Contemporary artwork and not a means of escape. I ran down a flight and it led me nowhere. There was no room or space to use as a place to hide. I kept going.

>   Would they really try to hurt me in here?

  “Oh my goodness.” I could hardly keep my balance on the steps. I stumbled and almost fell several times. There were no banister to hang on to, just a waist high wall that encased the steps. Standing on the landing going to the first floor I could see the door that me and Micah had come in only minutes ago. I was breathing hard, biting my lip and wondering if I could make it to that door.

  But then where would I go? I didn’t know, but I had to try.

  And what about Micah?

  Maybe they had already done something to him.

  I shook that thought from my head. They wanted me. Of that I was sure. They wouldn’t bother him.

  I took in a deep breath and headed down the steps as fast as I could move my little feet and overweight frame. As I neared the bottom of the steps I saw someone coming in the glass doors. Good, I thought, now I won’t have to take the time to pull the door open. I can slide right out.

  I would get out of the museum, try to make it over to University Hospital’s campus, which was only a half a block away and where I could easily get lost or seek help if I had to from their security. There I could call Micah and tell him to get away to safety.

  It was the best plan.

  Or so I thought.

  I got to the last step, and on my way to try and slip out of the door that was no more than ten feet away, I turned and looked directly into the eyes of the short, burly guy.

  “Oh shoot.” I choked the words out.

  I hopped through the door and started running in the opposite way of the hospital. Don’t ask me why. That’s just the way I went. Down the street toward the parked car, toward the place where those men had just emerged. I stopped, started to turn the other way, stopped again and turned back to continue the way I had started. I heard Micah yell for me. He was coming out the door. And then I saw him swing at the guy with the beard. It looked like the guy had stepped up to speak with Micah. I wasn’t sure. Should I go and help Micah?

  Then Micah hit him again.

  Walking backwards, I saw the bearded guy’s head snap back as it met with Micah’s fist. Bearded guy regained his footing and swung on Micah. I screamed but Micah ducked and bearded guy’s fist missed hitting him.