She collided with someone, and a pair of hands seized her arms. Bloodshot eyes appeared from the dimness.
“That you, Graves?” a sniffling voice asked.
“Sh-she’s crazy,” Janis cried in as low a voice as she could project, ducking her face. “She’ll kill us all!” Janis flailed from his grasp like a man fleeing for his life and continued her descent. The man didn’t follow her.
Janis burst through the stairwell doorway at a run. The soles of her shoes squeaked over the marble as she veered right and broke into the open lobby. The sky stared through the mezzanine windows, vigorous and blue. As she went, she shed her blanket, then the disgusting coat. Her arms and legs pumped at full speed. At the far side of the lobby, she pulled off the wool hat.
When she was nearly to the dining room, a spout of cockroaches shot up through a crack in the marble tiles. Janis screamed and cut hard to the right. She lost her footing and landed on her side. Gasping, she shoved her heels against the floor, trying to backpedal from her greatest phobia. The spout grew thicker and browner, oily wings filling the air. Janis covered her head with her forearms.
This can’t be real. It doesn’t make any sense.
Then why are you seeing it?
A phlegm-filled cough echoed through the lobby. Still on the seat of her jeans, Janis twisted toward the sound. The man shambling toward her looked like he’d been plowed by a Mack truck and then hastily reassembled. One eye squinted from the flat, bald side of his head, while the opposite eye bulged blood-red. Breath wheezed from a broken bulbous nose. When he coughed again, strings of snot swung from his nostrils and sputtered over his lips. Something in the way his crazed eye stared, in the way it seemed to reach inside Janis’s head and prod her gray matter, told her this was the man they called Trips.
“Stay back!” Janis cried, frightened by the fear in her voice.
She tried to concentrate, but the threads of light wouldn’t appear. It was the feeling of the man’s eye; it was the thought of the roaches filling the air. She turned back in time to see the marble floor shift and crack open. The hissing fountain of roaches became a chattering mound, pushing up from the ground, blocking the entrance to the dining room and spilling toward Janis.
She scrambled to her feet and searched the lobby for other exits. Her gaze latched onto a window whose boards she might be able to kick out. She glanced over at Trips. He was almost to the fireplace. Nostrils sputtering, he fixed his bulging eye on her. Something wriggled inside her mind again, the feeling reaching her gut and nearly doubling her over.
“Ungh!” she cried.
A new spout of cockroaches burst up in front of the window. Janis batted the air around her head. She spun to search for alternatives. One by one, fountains shot up before the remaining windows and doors until the entire lobby was a brown storm of hissing and flapping.
Trips proceeded toward her, his ragged right leg dragging behind, his blood-red eye pulsing larger.
This isn’t real, Janis told herself. He’s in your head. He’s manipulating your fears.
When an especially large roach landed on her sleeve, Janis resisted the urge to shake it off. She examined it, even as the rest of her body tried to shrink away. The roach appeared solid enough. But where its chocolate-brown back had consisted of three glistening segments a second before, Janis now counted only two. And its shape was becoming rounder, less slender. Before she could touch it, the roach flapped away.
Janis waved her arms through the air but felt nothing.
When Trips coughed again, flecks of mucus hit Janis’s skin. She wheeled from his grasping hand and oriented herself toward the dining room. The crawling mound continued to push up through the cracked marble, almost to the height of the mezzanine. She squinted as she broke into a run, anticipating the squishing impact, the sickly taste that found the back of your mouth when you stepped on one, to say nothing of hundreds.
“If you’re wrong about this…” she gasped.
The brown storm circled her head like a veil, and then she was at the mound. The chattering became a clamoring. She closed her eyes, forcing her arms and legs to keep pumping despite everything her brain was telling her: You’ll fall in the hole! You’ll be buried inside of them!
The ground squished beneath her feet.
When Janis opened her eyes, the dining room carpet stretched ahead of her. At the far end of the room, a blessed square of light shone out. She climbed through the window, her breaths booming from her chest, and looked back. The air inside the hotel was silent and still. Not a single roach disturbed the stale air. She wedged the board back in place, sealing in the madness.
Then she turned and began sprinting toward the chanting demonstrators.
* * *
Blake was waiting under the oak tree. He straightened when he saw her, a profound sense of relief replacing the squinting lines across his face. He lifted his arms as though to say, Where have you been?
“Did you see anything?” Janis shouted as she dodged around the cars on Monroe Street.
He shook his head.
She clutched his forearms. “Stay here and keep an eye out.”
“Where are you going?”
“To warn Star.”
Janis plunged inside the pack of demonstrators, the cadence of their chants cohering into words as she ducked beneath moving lips and pumping fists. “Who are we? Nuclear Free! Who are we? Nuclear Free!”
Beyond the signs, she caught flashes of Star’s spiked head. But the closer Janis squeezed toward her and the capitol steps, the more densely the demonstrators were packed in. “Excuse me,” Janis repeated. “Sorry.” Voices began to answer in protest as Janis wedged and wiggled her way past them.
And then she became stuck.
She peered skyward, the day a brilliant blue. The sign above her read NUKE THE NUKES. The one beside it, RADIATION KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES. Breath steamed from familiar faces.
My experience…
Janis’s gaze shot back to the steps, where Star’s head lunged toward the microphone in repeated thrusts. Janis could read the faded, crooked words on her shirt clearly now: NUCLEAR FREEZE NOW!
But her friend was still too far away.
“Please!” Janis cried. “I need to get through!”
No one heeded her. The sprint and struggle, not to mention the phobic crush of the crowd, had stolen the force from her words. The site of her old stab wound throbbed. All around her, the chants continued to grow as though sensing they were building toward some explosive, climactic moment. But only Janis and Star’s shooter were certain of that moment. And Janis was walled in.
“Star!” she cried, waving her arms toward the podium.
She’ll never hear you.
“Star!”
For an instant, Janis saw Star as she’d seen her on that last day in typing class: her flannel shirt unbuttoned, her stitched-together shirt with the hole between the breasts exposed, her face pale and stonelike. Blew her chest cavity to soup, she’d said in cold monotone.
Janis wriggled forward another two feet. God, please don’t let this happen again.
And then Janis realized Star was facing her, her dark eyes expanding slightly with recognition. But before Janis could signal for her to duck down, to get off the steps, Star clenched her face, raised her fist—
—and Janis pushed.
A screech of feedback sounded as the podium toppled onto its side. Star, trying to prevent the podium from going over, went down with it. The chanting broke apart, and the front row of demonstrators hurried up the steps to check on her and right the podium. Shuffling forward with the crowd, Janis cringed in anticipation of a thunderclap.
Instead, she heard laughter.
“It’s cool, everyone,” Star said in the microphone to applause. The crowd receded from the steps. “Let me just finish by saying that the fight for nuclear disarmament must prevail so that my sister’s fight was not in vain.” Star held the front of her shirt out as though daring someone to take aim
, said, “I love you, Raven,” and surrendered the steps to even greater applause.
* * *
“Maybe the sound you heard in your dream was the podium falling over,” Blake suggested, steering them back onto the interstate.
Or maybe the podium falling over prevented the shooter from pulling the trigger. But Janis didn’t sense that had been the case. She didn’t sense that there had been a shooter. Neither had Star. When Janis confessed after the rally that she’d come partly out of concern for her well-being, Star had rolled her eyes. “With the Soviet hardliners in control, the U.S. isn’t going to be able to shuck out money for new nukes fast enough. The freeze movement? We’re about as much of a threat to the weapons industry now as Tweety Bird.”
“Yeah, could have been the podium.” Janis said to Blake. “I don’t know.”
“I thought it was balanced a little precariously,” he said. “The important thing is nothing happened. Well, not nothing. We got a nice day trip out of it. Even if I spent part of it crawling through the bushes.” He grinned at her sidelong.
Janis tried to smile back but couldn’t. The day had wrung her dry. “I’m sorry I dragged you halfway up the panhandle.”
“Don’t be. I’m…” He adjusted his shades. “I’m glad we got to spend some time together.”
“Me too.”
“It’s been a while. And I know you probably would’ve rather spent today with someone else.”
When Janis looked over, Blake’s gaze was fixed on the road, the corners of his mouth tucked in what looked like sadness. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw you and Scott last night. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“No, Blake.” Janis closed her eyes. “It’s not like that.”
“You were dancing pretty close.”
“We were talking.”
He raised an eyebrow. “With your lips together?”
Janis felt her face flush. “That was…”
What, Janis? That was what? Scott had brought up Agent Steel, and the dream came back to her — the one where his body landed in front of her, the lenses of his glasses smashed. As they danced on, she experienced a blink-and-you-miss-it moment where she seemed to skip forward in time, to when that fate had befallen Scott, and then back to the present, where he was still safe in her arms. And she was overcome. There was no other way to put it. She was overcome by the idea that this person who knew her like no one else, whose imagination had grown inside her own — this person who overlapped with the most secret parts of herself — might become hurt, or worse. And she had kissed him.
“That was out of friendship,” she finished weakly. “I told you, we grew up together.”
“Or maybe there’s more going on than you’re willing to admit to yourself.” He took a breath. “Don’t get me wrong. Scott’s a good guy. I like Scott… a little geeky, maybe. But I need to know where I stand.”
“You seemed pretty comfortable standing with Amy last night.” Janis regretted the words even as she spoke them.
“Oh, c’mon, Janis. You don’t think… She came over to me, all right?”
Janis shook her head as though to erase the whole thing. “Yeah, I know. Look, do me a favor. Just… just be nice to her. She’s been through a lot, and I don’t think she even knows what she’s doing or why half the time. If she comes on strong, just smile and be nice. Not that you wouldn’t.”
He nodded and brought his fingers to his lips.
“You and I started out calling this a break,” he said after several miles. “Until things settled. Are they?”
Janis knew Amy would no longer act on her threat to talk to Agent Steel, yet she hesitated over Blake’s question. Maybe because she and Scott had found a way to communicate, finally, and there was so much she still needed to tell him. She thought about Trips, someone with powers — nightmarish powers, granted, but ones suggesting Oakwood did not have a monopoly on special abilities after all. That would certainly interest Scott. And what about her own powers? Stronger, certainly — much stronger — but also more disturbing. The way they seemed to feast off fear and pain… and blood. In that state, was she any different from those men? Any different from Trips? Something else she needed to talk over with Scott.
“Things are still a little unsettled,” she told Blake, who nodded without comment.
Besides, she had already promised Scott a second date. Something, she had to admit to herself, she was looking forward to on more than just an information-sharing basis.
But first she had a meeting with Mr. Leonard.
28
Scott waited until the sound of Blake’s car had receded from the Meadows before stepping outside. The light of the afternoon turned to needles in his brain. He stumbled to the foot of the driveway and squinted down the street to Janis’s house, where she’d just gone inside. There was something he needed to tell her, something he needed to warn her about. But he couldn’t think what it was.
A long shower followed by a stack of Log Cabin-drenched Eggos had restored his constitution, but the mental fog remained. Maybe the sight of Janis would help disperse the fog. Or maybe he was only telling himself that because he needed to reconcile (a) the mind-blowing idea that they had kissed the night before with (b) the gut-knuckling knowledge that Blake had just dropped her off.
Either way, he had to see her.
A car ground to a halt in front of him. The passenger door swung open. Creed, wearing some kind of back brace, grimaced and leaned his seat forward. Jesse hulked beside him, hands swallowing the wheel.
“Get in,” Jesse said.
Scott staggered backward. It was the same Chevelle all right, but the signature — his early warning system for the past two years — had changed. A gray hood had replaced the original black one, and Scott guessed it covered a different engine as well, one that puttered instead of chopped.
“I-I thought we were good,” Scott stammered. “I thought we were even.”
Creed’s face went wine red, and for a second Scott was certain that, back brace or no, he was going to leap out and perform impromptu surgery on him. But then Creed winced. “This ain’t about that. Jesus, you think I’m doing this for my health?”
Tyler’s face appeared from behind Creed’s jacked-forward seat. “We just want to talk,” he said.
Something in Tyler’s voice and haunted blue eyes reminded Scott of the night in the Grove when Tyler had asked if he’d been serious about the cameras. Scott shifted his gaze from Tyler to Creed, then he ducked to take another look at Jesse. What are these guys up to?
“Aw, shit.” Creed started to lever his seat back. “He’s not coming.”
“All right,” Scott heard himself say. “We can talk.”
There was no reading Jesse, but Creed didn’t look as though he was in any condition to start a fight. And Scott had come to trust Tyler. He peered over the Chevelle’s roof at Janis’s house, then squeezed behind Creed into the oily-smelling backseat. Tyler scooted over. Before Scott could snap his seat belt, the last car he’d ever imagined himself occupying gunned its engine, performed a squalling U, and sped from the Meadows in a storm of blue exhaust.
* * *
No one spoke. Not even Scott. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to make himself heard above the cold air blasting through the window, but there were also Jesse, Creed, and Tyler’s grim demeanors. The three looked liked they’d just awakened from the same bad dream. Neighborhoods and parks shot past, and then the shopping centers along Thirty-fourth Street. When the interstate overpass appeared ahead of them, the knot of bone near Scott’s right wrist began to ache.
Maybe they’ve decided to waste me, after all. I mean, I did K.O. Jesse and blast Creed thirty feet through the air. And these guys don’t forget. How many bones will they collect on this time?
If he’d had his own door, Scott might have taken his chances with the asphalt whizzing by. Instead, he watched the asphalt turn to shadow beneath the overpass, then sparkle to life again. Ou
t ahead of them, the dwindling road stood empty, woods and pastureland stretching to either side.
See where your curiosity got you? Same place as that stupid cat.
He peeked out the back window, looking for someone — anyone — he might be able to flag through the tinting.
Tyler leaned his head toward him. “I’ve been checking, too,” he shouted. “They’re not behind us.”
“Who?” Scott asked in confusion.
Creed labored to turn his head partway around. “The ones who jumped us.”
Scott’s brow creased. Jumped? He raised a finger, but before he could speak, Jesse cranked the steering wheel to the left, and the car rumbled up onto a rutted dirt road. All of them jerked around except for Jesse. Little detonations went off in Scott’s aching head.
“For Christ’s sake!” Creed cried. “Easy does it!”
The Chevelle huffed to a stop on the far side of a mound of tree debris. Through a haze of dust, Scott made out earth-moving equipment parked here and there like children’s toys left in a sandbox. Then Scott recognized where they were: the future site of The Links, a planned residential neighborhood and golf course that his mother had been babbling about for the past month.
But why were they here?
Jesse and Creed got out and levered their seats forward. Scott clambered from the back. Tyler appeared on the driver’s side, and the four of them gravitated toward the rear bumper, Creed limping on a cane.
“Who jumped you?” Scott asked.
Heads turned toward Tyler.
“Yeah,” he said, “I guess I remember the most.”
Tyler squinted toward Archer Road and rubbed the back of his neck. Then he told Scott about a night the three of them had driven out that same road, headed for the sticks. He told about the car behind them with the rectangular headlights, how he’d seen the same car across the road from where they’d turned off and parked, “except it was hidden in the grass, and by the time I got Jesse and Creed to come take a look, it was gone. But on the way back to town, it popped up behind us again, like something out of a damned Stephen King movie.”
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