Ruin Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  The seconds spinning out pricked her consciousness and she spoke. “Ally? Are you there?” Too sharp. She had to mute her tone.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes?” A quick hiss.

  “Is Grandpa the one who has all the corn?”

  “Yes,” Liz said again. Thinking, Goddamn you, Matthew …

  “Oh,” Ally said. It was her decided voice, her now-I’ve-solved-it satisfaction. “We’re not there. That was last vacation.”

  Liz frowned, unwilling to let confusion creep into her tone. She feared she might frighten Ally—alert her somehow that all wasn’t right—and who knew what that could lead to? There were too many unknowns; Liz’s brain scrambled with them. The fear that she might mess this up descended like a parachute.

  When Ally next spoke, her voice was heavy, weighted down with sorrow. “That was the vacation I lost Iz-Biz.”

  Liz clutched at the words like a lifebuoy. Here at last, in a missing sea of tasks, was something she could do, could give to her daughter. “Oh, sweetie, no, you didn’t lose her.”

  But Ally was so lost in her grieving that she didn’t hear. “Daddy made us hurry to take a nap. It was so cold down there.” A hitch in her voice. “And I don’t even take naps anymore!”

  As if that were the outrageous part.

  Had they been in the bunker after all? Paul must have enforced a rest period after absconding with the children in the middle of the night. The thought was oddly reassuring.

  “Ally, did you hear what I said?” Liz asked. “I found Izzy. You dropped her on the ground.”

  “I did?” It was the kind of screech only a child could make. “It was so dark out. I couldn’t see anything. Iz-Biz must’ve been so scared!”

  “She’s not scared,” Liz said fiercely. “I have her right here with me and I’m going to bring her to you.”

  Carried over the unseen cell signal, across an unknown number of miles, there came a weak, trembling sigh of relief. “Oh, Mommy. That’s good. That will be good.”

  “Yes,” Liz echoed. “That will be good.”

  Ally swerved back to her original train of thought. Liz had missed desperately the tilt-a-whirl pace of conversing with a six-year-old, but just now it was dizzying.

  “Grandpa got so mad!”

  “Grandpa got mad?” Liz asked. Too late she remembered that Ally hated this standard parental stall tactic. She’d either get angry, or turn it into a game, an endless succession of echoes they didn’t have time for.

  But Ally did neither. “Uh-huh. Yup.”

  “You mean at Daddy?” Liz said, her mind scurrying to keep up.

  “No!” Half-delighted at her mom’s mistakenness, half-veering toward impatience. “I don’t know if it was Daddy. I think maybe Grandma.”

  “Why did Grandpa get mad at Grandma?” Liz asked. Too urgent; Ally would shy away.

  A scenario born of vague, unformed images began to cloud her mind. Had Mary tried to intervene somehow, welcome Paul against her unforgiving husband’s wishes?

  “Mommy,” Ally said, both chiding and annoyed. “I said I don’t know.”

  Her daughter couldn’t get upset now. Liz had to make use of this chance, squeeze every drop of potential and sustenance it had to offer. She changed course.

  “Ally, sweetie, how’s Reid?”

  “He’s good,” Ally said, using her thoughtful tone. “He’s not afraid of dead people anymore. And he hardly steals hardly at all. Well, excepting for this phone.”

  Good job, Reid, Liz thought with a trembling smile. She wanted to hold her sweet, sturdy son in her arms so badly that they shook.

  “Sweetie?” she said at last. She should’ve done this first. But the sound of her daughter had been too precious to relinquish. “Let me talk to Daddy, okay?”

  “Mommy?” Ally said.

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “You sound funny.”

  “Oh,” Liz said lightly. “That’s just because I miss you, sweetie. I want to get to vacation right away.”

  “Yeah,” Ally said contemplatively.

  “Is Daddy there?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Liz’s voice rose and she fought to lower it. “Who is, then? Whose phone did Reid take?”

  There was a pause. Liz waited as long as she could, then spoke Ally’s name.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes, Al?” she cried. Her daughter was slipping away, Liz could tell, and now there was no fighting the panic.

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Don’t like who, Al?” Her mind spun, trying to keep up with her daughter’s. “The person whose phone you’re using?”

  “What?” her daughter said.

  Liz gathered breath. “I was just asking if you meant—”

  “What?” Ally said again, only now her voice reached a scaling note. “No, don’t!”

  Liz realized her daughter was talking to somebody else.

  “I said, don’t do that! Mommy, help!”

  There came another screech from her daughter, wordless, and utterly terrifying.

  Liz felt everything inside her come to a halt: thoughts, heartbeat, blood flow. There was not one thing she could say or do to make whoever was threatening Ally stop, and helplessness ground her from the inside out.

  She let out a shrill scream that joined Ally’s.

  The call dropped, or was ended.

  All was silent in the wake of the cutoff cries.

  Liz held the phone so tightly that its back panel popped out and skittered across the floor.

  In the sucking vacuum of silence, two words flashed on the screen.

  Signal lost.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  After the call ended, Liz became a wild animal trapped in a cage. She stalked back and forth across the length of the house—living room to front hall to parlor and back again—with no awareness of where she was. The urge to do something was so strong, it couldn’t be contained, and yet it was utterly futile. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t reach Ally, make sure her daughter was safe. Couldn’t learn who had caused her to let out such a high, awful scream, let alone get the person to stop. The flats of her hands hit a wall and Liz began to beat at it, rhythmically, furiously, as if she really were in a cage.

  The phone’s backing caught her eye and Liz dropped to the floor and crawled over to it. Her hands were lumpish, too swollen to reassemble the device. It wasn’t necessary. She dragged a thumb across the screen and the call log dropped down. Besides a few missed calls from Jill, there was only one other number, with its caller listed as Unknown.

  She stared at the command, whimpering, “Ally, Ally, Ally.”

  Then she touched the number on the screen.

  What was happening to her daughter right now?

  A mechanical voice intoned that the service provider was out of range.

  Liz began digging her fingers into the floor, curls of wood coming up, and the only thing that stopped her was the sight of blood on the boards.

  The front door opened in one swift move, and a gray-clad body entered the hall, its back to the wall, gun arm extended.

  Liz glanced at the landline, still off its base and lying on an end table. She had been hearing a series of knocks, possibly shouted instructions as well, for she didn’t know how long. She was sitting on the floor, legs splayed out, arms wasted, voice utterly gone.

  Tim Lurcquer’s eyes found hers amidst the wreckage of the room. Actually, there wasn’t all that much wreckage, not that was apparent. One dashed cell phone panel. A section of floorboard ribboned. And yet Liz’s whole world again lay in ruins.

  Tim was beside her without seeming to have taken a step. He hadn’t looked around or checked any of the other rooms. He leaned over, picking up both her bloodied hands in his, cradling them gently, like glass.

  “Liz, good God, what happened?”

  Seeping tears prevented Liz from seeing him.

  Tim spoke into his radio. “Two-oh-three all clear, I nee
d an EMT on-site.”

  Liz felt her useless fingers tremble in Tim’s palms.

  Tim said her name again.

  She opened her mouth and he dropped to her side. But then her lips clamped shut.

  “Liz, what happened? Tell me.”

  The words would poison her if she said them out loud.

  He knelt, not letting go of her hands. “Liz, please, talk to me …”

  It was the sight of naked fear in his eyes that got her. Tim didn’t know what had happened. He thought it might be something even worse.

  Burning embers seared her mouth, and tears dropped, scalding her cheeks. “Oh, Tim, Ally called. Ally called, and I think she’s being hurt—and Tim, I don’t know how to find her!”

  An ambulance arrived, and the medic examined Liz’s hands, removing shards of embedded wood, but deeming nothing broken. He used some kind of soothing ointment, broke ice packs over his knee and applied them, which provided relief Liz knew she didn’t deserve.

  Not when her children were out there, scared and alone.

  At some point the ambulance left, but Tim remained behind. He asked her to tell him about the call again and she recounted it from the edge of a kitchen stool, willing herself not to slide or fall back, her legs odd- and crumbly-feeling.

  Every word she had said and Ally had uttered in return was branded in her memory.

  Tim took notes, but his hand slowed as the paucity of information became apparent. He asked her a few more questions, then shook his head.

  Liz dropped her own in defeat.

  “You must—”

  “What?”

  Tim shook his head again. “Sorry. It was stupid.”

  “What?” Liz said again.

  Tim stared at his fists, balled on the counter. “I was going to say that you must hate him. You must just fucking hate him.”

  The statement was like a lightning rod for all her emotion; it was the best thing Tim could’ve done. Her response was cold and brittle enough to shatter.

  “Oh, Tim,” she whispered. “I hate Paul so much, I’m afraid that if I ever see him again, I’ll kill him before I get any answers.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Tim knew a guy named Mackenzie who’d recently moved downstate. He was a bit of a character, according to Tim, but an ace when it came to technology, and he was doing a training course in cyber crimes. Mackenzie might be able to recover the number Ally had called from.

  “But—I can’t be without my phone now. What if Ally tries again?”

  “You can port your number to another phone,” Tim said, sealing Liz’s cell away in a compartment on his belt. “Buy one of those pay-as-you-go jobs and use that.”

  After a moment, Liz nodded.

  “Mackenzie’s good, I promise,” Tim said. “He used to be on medication, and he was good then. But this holistic guy at the hospital weaned him off, and now he’s pretty damn close to a genius.”

  How ironic, Liz thought, tears welling. Paul would approve.

  “Liz,” Tim said. “Listen to me.”

  His face swam as she looked at him.

  “I don’t have kids of my own, but I’ve dealt with plenty. And I can tell you that they scream for all sorts of reasons. Not only fear. They scream in outrage. In protest. They scream because their brother is taking something away from them.”

  Tim’s face came into focus before her, then was replaced by an image of Reid and Ally fighting over a charm Reid had lifted from his sister’s wrist.

  “Ally may not exactly be having the time of her life right now, but she has access to a phone. She called you. She’s all right.”

  It occurred to Liz that Ally had started out the call on a fairly normal note, wondering where her mom was. Something had happened—to outrage her, as Tim said—but Liz could’ve been imposing danger on a situation where there was none.

  Something inside her started to calm, to settle.

  She took a breath and asked, “Did you get my message?”

  Tim nodded. “I remember that case. I was the same age as the guy who was murdered. But I didn’t know Paul was driving.”

  “Back then there wasn’t as much awareness about drunk driving, I guess,” Liz said. “They didn’t charge Paul.”

  “There was awareness,” Tim said quietly. “But this was an accident. Paul might’ve been drinking, but his level was under the legal limit.”

  “You checked?”

  Tim nodded.

  Liz felt raw and exposed. There was information about her life, her husband, available for the taking. And she had never known.

  “What do you know about the coach?” Liz asked. Briefly, she described her visit with him, leaving out the prison details Allgood had seen fit to share.

  “Liz, I don’t want to take away your options, but this one might be better left alone. The man was convicted of murder. And prison does strange things to people.”

  Remembering Allgood’s demeanor, the way he’d broken down at the end, Liz had to concede the wisdom of Tim’s words.

  “Do you think you could go talk to him, then?” she asked.

  Tim shook his head. “Not in any official capacity,” he replied, and when Liz looked up, hope sparking, he added, “And I can’t see what that would accomplish anyway.” He paused. “Let’s focus on this call from Ally. Try and make some headway there.”

  Suddenly Liz remembered. “Ally said she didn’t like him.”

  “Any idea who she meant?”

  Liz extended her hands helplessly. “They left the hotel with a man, according to the bellhop. Maybe that’s who Ally meant. But there are other people with them, too.”

  “There are?”

  Liz realized Tim had no idea what she’d learned about the site. She filled him in on what PEW stood for, and how the Lurkers thread had evolved into a conclave of its own.

  Tim folded his arms across his chest. “So Ally and Reid are holed up with a bunch of mostly moms who believe in making things as pure and healthy as possible?”

  Fifteen minutes ago, Liz would’ve said that she’d never smile again, but now she felt her lips quiver. “Tim.”

  His eyes held a shared flicker of amusement, and a fleeting image came to Liz: of their having met again for a completely different reason, in a world where there were such things as senses of humor and getting to know one another and a deepening connection.

  Then Tim was back to business. “So we’ve got some kind of utopia thing going on. That’s why they stole Paul’s books.”

  The missing journals from the night the window had been smashed. Liz felt something crowd her throat. “I guess so. And maybe they needed something from the farm, too.”

  Who knew what kinds of people Paul had chosen to make his companions in this? Some of them seemed all right—mothers, as Tim suggested—but meeting people online was inherently risky. What were they doing out there, wherever they were? How were her children living?

  “Ally didn’t say anything to give you any sense where they might be?”

  Liz stared at him, and Tim spoke with a note of explanation. “Sometimes if you ask a question twice, you get a different answer.”

  “I don’t have a different answer,” Liz said, her voice small. “I wish I did.”

  Briefly, Tim looked away. “Your two main options would appear to be somewhere around here—where Paul works and lives—and his hometown. Junction Bridge, right?”

  Liz felt a perilous dip. Junction Bridge. It was the last place she wanted her children to be.

  She addressed Tim with a quaver in her throat. “The phone Ally used was out of range when I called back.”

  Tim shrugged. “Doesn’t mean anything. There are cell pockets all over Wedeskyull.”

  Liz seized on his words. “So you do think it might be someplace nearby?”

  Tim hesitated. “Paul is the ringleader, and this is his territory. But when it comes to a search, to any kind of investigation, you don’t want to cut off possibilities prematurely.”
He leaned closer, gentling his tone. “Look, you’ve had the strange incidents here at the house. The mother and her child. The fake glass worker.” He paused. “That could suggest proximity.”

  Gooseflesh rippled over her, triggered by Tim’s reminder. Voices from PEW were loud and livid in her ears. One voice in particular. Liz ran for the stairs.

  Tim joined her as the site loaded, and Liz began to scroll through threads where the Shoemaker had weighed in.

  She looked up from the machine. “This might sound like a leap.”

  Tim folded his arms. “I’m all about leaps.”

  Liz nodded. “Okay. I think this man—his online identity is the Shoemaker—is the same one who came here. There’s something about his voice. It’s very precise. And he seemed to sense things about me, just like he figures stuff out about people on the site.”

  Tim peered down at the screen. “What the hell is a shoemaker?”

  “Somebody who makes shoes?”

  “Other than that,” he said, suppressing a grin.

  Liz surprised herself with another small smile back. “I have no idea.”

  “Let me give this to Mackenzie, too. See if he discovers anything. Can you get me the link and Paul’s password?”

  Liz opened a different window and entered the information, clicking Send and speaking with a bitter clip to her tone. “This email will come from Paul. If he’s checking his account, wherever he is, he’ll know I’m getting close.”

  THE SNATCHING

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Cody whimpered.

  “Oh, Bun,” Abby said sleepily. She was staggering between the coffeepot on the counter and the cereal box in the cupboard. One kind of cereal. Bill used to have her buy ten.

  The scarcity wasn’t only a function of Abby’s reduced standard of living, it was also a feeling of kinship with the people who would soon be housing Cody and herself. Americans were used to staggering numbers of things, Abby included, of course. But when you had to start from scratch as she would soon be doing, growing, harvesting, and ultimately contending with how everything broke down, then one variety was enough. Of cereal and most everything else.

  Whether they ate French toast or cereal, however, the morning routine was turning out to be surprisingly hard on both her and Cody. The earliness of the hour, the endless array of tasks it took to get one little boy off to school. Wake him up, impart some form of nourishment, make sure an adequate lunch was packed. Check and see if a permission slip, form, or piece of homework was missing while deciding on an outfit, tracking down the inevitable wayward sock/jacket/shoe, all before getting to the bottom of the hill in time for the bus to come around the corner. By the time Abby had squired Cody up those three ridged steps, she felt as if she had lived four lifetimes.