He gave the lid a tug. It was locked, but he had expected that. He tipped the heavy wooden chest on one edge and reached his hand underneath. Immediately he felt the key his father kept taped to the bottom of the chest, and pulled it loose. After a few seconds he found the keyhole with his fingertips, and inserted the key.
Carefully, he lifted the lid of the chest, removed a few neatly folded blankets, and found himself staring down at his father's pistol-grip shotgun, which had been given to him four years earlier, on Christmas, by an old Army buddy who had a strong belief in home security.
The very sight of the weapon seemed to hypnotize Rick; it seemed to glow, almost begging him to touch it, to hold it. Carefully, he lifted the shotgun from the chest and set it down on the floor beside him. After a few more seconds of searching he removed a small box of ammunition. He held the box close to one ear and shook it. Judging by the rattle, he guessed there were at least five or six shells inside. He stuffed the box of shells inside his backpack, locked the chest, and returned the key to its hiding place.
Before he left he paused in the doorway, the backpack over one shoulder, the shotgun aiming at the floor. “I love you Mom and Dad,” he whispered aloud to the empty room. With that he turned and started for the front door, concealing the shotgun as best he could inside his denim jacket.
“When will you be home?” his mother called out from the kitchen.
“Tomorrow,” Rick said, wincing at the lie. “I'm staying over Mike's tonight.”
“Okay,” his mother said. “Take care.”
Rick left in a hurry.
When he reached the car, he saw that someone (probably Mike) had taken the liberty of opening the trunk. He carefully put the shotgun inside, then covered it with his backpack.
“Got everything?” Mike asked immediately as Rick got into the car.
“What the hell took you so long?” Max hissed nervously. “Did you get the money?”
Rick nodded and took one more look at his house. “Yeah, I got it.”
“See this shithole town later, right?” Max said, patting Mike on the shoulder. His eyes were wide and alert, but he sounded more nervous than excited.
Mike sighed apologetically. “There's one more stop we have to make, guys. I swear, it'll only take a minute.”
“I thought you said we were leaving!” Lou squeaked.
“Karen?” Rick asked. Rick knew that Mike would rather be arrested, would rather risk his life, than to risk hurting the girl he loved. Even though he was gambling with all their lives, not just his own, Rick supposed he couldn't blame Mike for following his heart's compass. Rick knew damn well that if Lori was still alive, he would have done the exact same thing, as reckless as it was.
Max opened his mouth to protest, but decided, rather wisely, to keep his thoughts to himself.
Mike nodded calmly, squinting into the darkness ahead, occasionally checking the rearview to see if they were being followed. He drove on, his thoughts on Karen. What was he going to tell her? He wondered how she'd react to their story, and once again the harsh reality of their situation slapped him in the face.
Five more minutes passed, but to each of them it felt like hours. Silence wouldn't leave them be, and it was driving them into crazy thoughts. Things were happening too fast. Almost too fast to comprehend.
“Are her parents home?” asked Max, as they arrived at the Sloan house.
“Naw,” answered Mike. “She said they were going to the movies. Can someone run up and see if she's home?”
Lou silently volunteered himself, anxious to escape the confined space of the Thunderbird. He got out of the car and sprinted across the driveway, the walkway, and up the three front steps. He rapped twice on the door and waited. A moment later the door flew open, and Karen Sloan stood before him in a rectangle of light.
“I knew you guys would come,” she said breathlessly. She reached out, fumbling at the lock, and hurried him inside.
Dressed in tan shorts, sandals, and a pink tank top, Karen should have been a vision of beauty. She was near Lou’s height, petite, with long, straight hair that seemed to shimmer like a black waterfall. Her skin was the color of caramel, her eyes the color of chocolate. The thing Lou liked best about Karen was her easy smile, but she wasn't smiling right now. Then again, neither was he.
“Lou,” she sobbed. Her cheeks were flushed and shiny, and there were dark gray circles around her eyes, where she had unknowingly smudged her mascara while wiping away tears. And she was trembling. God, was she trembling.
She tossed her arms around the boy's thin frame, and he all but wept as he held her.
On Mike's request Max squirmed out of the backseat and raised the Sloan's garage door with a tug. Mike pulled the car inside, maneuvering between the various piles of junk that cluttered the dusty interior, and Max slammed the door down behind them.
Mike jumped out of the car and headed for the door.
“I'll stay with the girl,” Rick called after him.
Mike gave him a solemn nod and disappeared inside.
Max followed Mike inside, where they found Karen and Lou in the foyer, both of them sobbing hysterically. As they entered, Karen tenderly withdrew from Lou. She looked at Mike, confused, and all he could offer her at the moment was a subtle shrug. Then he went to her and held her.
“What's wrong?” Mike whispered into her ear. At this point, he wasn't really sure he wanted to know. How much had Lou told her?
She pulled away a bit, looking deep into his eyes. “What's going on?” she demanded in a hoarse voice. She leaned into him, crying hard against his shoulder. He tightened his arms around her lovingly, and sighed a long, tired sigh. Mike loved her, and he knew she loved him in return, loved all of them in some strange, sacred, maternal way. She cared for them, nurtured them, and Mike knew she would make a great mother someday. She'd had a lot of practice, after all.
“What did Lou tell you?” he whispered.
“I didn't tell her anything,” Lou said, sniffling. “She already knew.”
Karen closed her eyes tightly. “She told muh-me that you're all involved in a...” She opened her eyes, mouth working but unable to find the words.
“A what?” asked Mike, with an urgency Karen had never heard before.
“Ma-murder,” she said at last.
Mike looked up at the ceiling, terrified, as an unfamiliar expression passed over his face: uncertainty. The others stared at Karen in disbelief at what she'd just told them.
Mike swallowed hard. “Who told you that?” he asked, still looking at the ceiling.
She raised her head, revealing her tear-filled eyes. Even with tears in her eyes she was still beautiful, with straight mocha hair, large brown eyes, and an unusually friendly smile (Mike had always thought she held a strange resemblance to the actress Demi Moore). But right now she was not smiling. “Ta-Ta-Trisha S-Saunders,” she blurted out. “Her fa-father has a police scanner. The-they were l-looking for all of yu-you. They sa-said they saw your c-c-car and...and...the...they ...f-found a body...and...oh, God...”
“Why the fuck are they blamin' us?” Max yelled, enraged.
“I don't know,” Mike said. “Maybe they found the wallet. Maybe that Punk Catcher found his way back there and found Lou's wallet with all our names and numbers in it. Then he discovered the body and reported it back to the station. Or maybe it was him... you know, that guy we saw. Maybe he found the wallet and then called the cops on us.”
“Why would he do that?” Max asked. “That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.”
“He knew we'd go to the cops, so he beat us to it. Now they'll be after us instead of him,” Mike said. “Did anyone see his face besides me? Max?”
“Sorry, man. Alls I saw was a blur.”
Lou shook his head. He could barely remember anything after the body.
“He was big,” Rick said, walking in from the garage. “That's all I remember. Everything jus'...just happened so fast...I can't really say for sure.
I was looking at the girl.”
“She still in the car?”
Rick nodded uneasily. “I managed to get the chains off her, but she went out like a light. I think she might've fainted.”
“Girl?” asked Karen. “What girl?”
Just then the phone rang. Lou jumped as though he'd been electrocuted.
“Let the machine get it,” Mike said.
They waited, but whoever it was hung up before the machine came on.
Mike's expression was grave. “Like I said, I think we gotta get out of here. If that's all we have for a description, who's gonna believe us?”
“Wa-waitta minute. What girl? What in the hell's goin' on here?” Karen begged. “What happened at that puh-place? Tell me. Now! Please...tell me...”
Mike took a deep breath as he prepared to speak. He wondered how she would handle such a bizarre story. Would she believe him? He wasn't even sure if he believed it himself.
Finally, having faith in her, he told her everything. Everything, that was, but the nasty little details about the body, and the man-monster that only he had seen; those were details she could live without.
“I can't believe this is happening,” she said when he was done. She half fell, half sat, on the arm of a nearby leather sofa, taking steady deep breaths in order not to pass out.
“That makes two of us,” Max muttered.
“So this girl you found, she's in your car right now?”
Mike nodded.
“So, why don't you take her to the police station...have her tell them what really happened?”
Mike shook his head. “She's...”
“Comatose,” Rick finished, though the word tasted awful to him. It sounded so permanent, so final.
Mike turned to Karen. “Karen, we have to go. If we stay we're putting ourselves and our families in danger. We'll have to sort this thing out later.”
“Wha-why don't you just ta-turn yourselves in?” she sniffled, wiping her tears away with the back of one hand. “Puh-please, just go to them and tell them what happened.” She seemed to be going through a series of breakdowns, composed one moment, hysterical the next. Her words came out in machine-gun bursts. She was breathing rapidly, and trembling all over. “If...you run...what then? How will that look ...to them?”
“They're cops. Cops never believe anybody,” Max said.
“And even if they did believe us,” Mike said, “the police might not find this guy right away. He saw my car. If he found the wallet, he knows our names. If he knows our names, then he can find out where we live. That's why we have to go. We'll call the police and tell them what happened as soon as we're all safe. Then we can sit back and wait for them to catch this bastard.” With that, Mike caressed her tear-stained cheek.
“Then you have to take me with you,” she pleaded. “He might know who I am. What if he knows I'm your girlfriend? Everyone knows it. Everyone...”
Mike glanced around the room, not needing to speak, not needing to ask, and found approval in the eyes of his friends. He also saw that, like him, they were anxious to depart. “Okay. You'd better bring some clothes. And some blankets. Just hurry, okay?”
Karen sniffled and nodded, tears squirting from her eyes.
“None of you have to come with us,” Mike told them in a soft and confident voice. “I want you to, because I think that's the safest thing to do, but I can't make that choice for you. I got $20 in my pocket and a full tank of gas and I'm asking you to trust me.”
Mike waited for an answer. He could feel his heart beating in his throat.
No one said a word.
“Understand, hon?” Mike asked Karen, and she nodded. He kissed her on the forehead, and lifted her chin with his hands. “Alright, then. Better get your stuff together. 'Cause once we're gone, there's no turning back.”
~Ten~
Shortly after nine that Thursday evening, five friends snuck out of Hevven with a girl whose name they did not know, and headed north on Route 24, beginning their journey for a remote New Hampshire town called Willow's Creek.
Karen Sloan had packed a few of her belongings—several changes of clothes, three heavy blankets, a sleeping bag, and some toiletries—into three green trash bags, working like an automaton, seemingly in her own strange little world. Rick had wrapped a blanket around the unconscious girl and placed her in the back seat beside Lou, who had stared at her timidly until he finally fell asleep with his head against her shoulder. Max sat quietly on the other side of Lou, his head against the window, staring into space. Hevven vanished behind them, swallowed by miles of darkness.
As they passed through Boston, Rick retrieved the pack of Marlboros and the Zippo from his pocket. He removed two cigarettes from the pack and lit one. Mike snapped his head in Rick's direction, surprised by the sudden burst of illumination.
“Smoke?” Rick asked, and handed his friend a cigarette.
Mike looked over at Karen, who was sitting between them with her chin against her chest.
“Don't worry, she's asleep. They're all asleep, I think.”
Mike placed the butt between his lips and Rick lit it for him.
Mike inhaled, squinting into the night through a puff of smoke. “Is that the lighter Kevin gave you?”
“Yep.”
“Hmmph. I miss that dude.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Outside and to their right, lights twinkled on the calm surface of Boston harbor, where waves lapped softly at the shore. Meanwhile, on their left, neon flashed and glowed, lighting up the city like rainbows in the night. Above the water, a dark cross with blinking red lights descended quietly from the heavens as a plane prepared to land at Logan Airport.
“I wonder what he's doing right now. Kevin, I mean.”
Rick shrugged, looking out his passenger window, observing the various out-of-state license plates of the cars that were clustered ahead of them before the car tunnel. Connecticut, New York, Maine, New Hampshire ...
“Whatever it is, it's gotta be better than this,” answered Rick. “This is one time he'll be grateful he's in rehab.”
Mike chuckled a little.
“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“What'll happen if he follows us somehow?”
They slipped inside the tunnel, where their faces appeared disease-stricken in the dim yellow glow of the fluorescent lights.
“Who? You mean...him?”
“Yeah. the Hacker, or whoever he is.”
Mike looked at him seriously, exhaling through his nose. “There's no way he'll find us there.”
Rick could only pray that Mike was right.
Just as Mike said this they emerged from the tunnel, and their features were once again eclipsed by the shadows that roamed over through the Thunderbird's interior in slanted rails.
Rick stared out the window for a minute more, losing himself in the heavens as the traffic let up and the city became a blur. “Sometimes...I wonder if things will ever be the same as they used to be. Sometimes I wonder if any of this bullshit is real. Like maybe this is all a dream, and...someday, I'm gonna wake up and find out everything is fake. I remember how easy it used to seem just to...just to live.” He paused and looked at Mike, who turned to him with a grim expression. Mike didn't speak; his silence alone spoke volumes.
“I wonder if, when we die, we get a chance to start all over again,” Rick continued, “to fix all the shit we fucked up in this life...”
“I dunno,” Mike said. “Sometimes I wish I could be Lou's age again. Sometimes there's almost nothin' I wouldn't give just to forget the things I know. Just to have everything be simple again.”
“It was a little easier back then, but it was never simple. Not really,” whispered Rick. “It only seems that way 'cause we're older now.”
“Yeah, maybe you're right, but it's been one hell of a ride, hasn't it? I mean, part of me never thought we'd make it this far.”
Rick smiled grimly. “Yeah, me either.”
Karen
sighed in her sleep between them, and Mike put an arm around her lovingly. Although he wished she had stayed awake to talk, he felt some sleep would do her well. He couldn't help wondering if he was making the right decision by taking them to Willow's Creek. They would be safe there for a while, but for how long? To this question, Mike realized, there was no definitive answer. Only time would tell. And what if they ran out of money?
His thoughts began to creep and crawl, asking him over and over again, Are you making the right decisions?
He stared straight ahead, where the world seemed to end in darkness. The voice in his mind continued. Are you making the right decisions?
Boston's light-speckled towers disappeared behind them, but the traffic persisted all the way to the Wilmington exit. After that Mike sped up a little, eager to reach the border. Rick was staring out the window again. Mike drove on in silence, trying to deal with all that had happened, trying to make sense of it all. Was there something he had missed?
Are you making the right decisions?
He could not ignore the question (or the voice in his mind).
I'm making the only decision that seems sane, Mike told himself. But the bothersome voice that spoke out his worries was not satisfied with that. It put forth another question, one that troubled Mike far worse than the first.
Are you sane, Mikey? Do you really think you lead a sane life? Lookit you. Lookit your friends.
He couldn't ignore the question, nor could he answer it. Since Lori had passed on and Kevin was sent away, Mike didn't know what sane meant anymore, and now this...He began to think about Rick. If anybody was insane, it had to be him. He had, after all, tried to kill himself. As if to confirm this, Rick mumbled something inaudible as he continued to stare out the window and into the night.
Yeah, Rick's probably crazier than that psycho at the Moody house, the voice informed Mike. He tried to off himself! Your best friend!
Rebel Angels Page 9
