Where did three months go?
He stood in the doorway, a young man of maybe twenty, Hispanic, not a wrinkle in his fatigues or a hair of stubble on his face. A black band etched with the letters MP adorned his right arm. Patched above his left pocket was his name, Vasquez. A blond-haired male MP, Douglas, lingered to the side and tapped his fingers against his belt, beside the handle of a black pistol. A shadow soon crept over Emily until she felt the touch of her mother.
Vazquez lifted a clipboard below his nose. “Emily Heath?”
Emily swallowed hard. “Yes.”
He spun the clipboard around and showed her a copy of the consent form she had signed in Washington. “Do you concur this is your signature?”
Emily's tongue crawled into the back of her throat, and she pushed her chin down to avoid choking.
Vasquez nodded, apparently taking that as a Yes. “Do you agree that, although you may have been under a level of duress, you were of sound mind when you signed this form?”
Emily turned to her mother. Level of duress? she thought. Is he joking?
“No,” her mother said. “She was scared. She didn't get a chance to talk to someone beforehand.”
Emily didn't disagree.
Vasquez pushed the clipboard toward Emily and tapped his pen on a signature line. “Then sign here. An Army psychiatrist will assess your status upon our arrival.”
Emily's mother whimpered. “No.”
“Sign, please.”
Emily's hair seemed to lift off her scalp, seeking an escape. The thought of what might happen if she took his pen raced through her mind: alone with a stranger poking and prodding her, asking her questions—intimate questions she couldn't answer. “If I say no, can I change my mind later and still meet with someone?”
“No,” he said.
So much for keeping my options open. She looked at her mother. “I don't need to sign.”
Vasquez stared at the clipboard. “All necessities shall be provided by the United States Government. You are not permitted to bring any form of contraband other than medicines required for the next seven days.” His eyes crept above the paper. “Do you have anything that meets those needs?”
Before he could finish the word medicines, Emily was already digging inside the pocket of her sweatpants. She pulled out her hand and showed him the inhaler. Vasquez examined it. Emily did too since she couldn't remember the last time she used it.
Vasquez nodded. “The transport is waiting.”
Emily turned to say goodbye, when her mother's arms swallowed her. Tears dripped on Emily's shoulder, plastering the shirt to her skin.
“I'm so proud of you,” her mother said.
“I love you.”
Vasquez dug his fingers around Emily's elbow and dragged her through the door. “We need to go. Now.”
As he led Emily toward the sidewalk, her mother watched from the porch, hands cupped over her mouth. Mr. Thomas stood at the edge of the lawn, not saying anything, and he waved goodbye with the same emotionless gesture he delivered whenever Emily went on her walks. The little girl's squeals of delight resonated in the park. The driver of a black Camaro revved the engine as he sped down the street.
Emily was halfway to the transport when she heard the dull whomping sound of the little girl's red ball, which bounced off the park sidewalk, hopped again in the middle of the road, smacked the grass and rolled to Emily's shoes. She knelt, which freed her from Vasquez's loose grip, and picked up the ball. By then, the little girl was standing in front of her. Another car zipped past the transport.
Vasquez grabbed Emily's elbow and yanked her upright. “Give the kid the ball. I'm on a tight schedule.”
The little girl's mother stood on the park sidewalk, checking for traffic. “Her mom will be here in a second,” Emily said.
“I don't give a damn,” Vasquez said, and punched the ball. It sailed out of Emily's hands and bounced onto the street. The little girl's eyes widened, and she laughed, preparing to chase after the whomping ball.
Emily reached around the little girl's waist and stopped her from running onto the street. “Wait for your mommy, okay?” Vasquez yanked again, but Emily held tight to the child.
A green pickup truck sped toward Emily's house. The ball, now bouncing in the middle of the road, impaled on the truck's front grill, exploding in a hundred chunks of red rubber. “My ball,” the little girl cried.
Vasquez chuckled.
The woman crossed Emily's lawn and stared at the two MPs for a moment. She reached out her hands. “Let's go, honey.” The little girl climbed into the woman's arms. “Thank—”
Vasquez yanked Emily forward before the woman could finish her words. At the transport, Emily climbed up the back, forced a smile for the girl, who was now crying, and then took a final look at the neighborhood. Douglas followed Emily in first. Vasquez stood on the bumper, hit the green tarp with three quick slaps, climbed in and took a seat beside Douglas. “Let's move,” Vasquez shouted. The engine roared, drowning out the little girl's faint whimpers, and the transport lurched forward. A growing wind ripped through the rear opening as the sea of white houses and Jack McDonald's face vanished in the distance.
At the first stop sign, Emily's eyes watered, and she buried her nose inside her cupped hands. An odor of sweat and musk reeked from every fiber of the green tarp. Her neck tightened as her tongue tried to escape into the depths of her throat. On the opposite bench, Vasquez and Douglas studied the clipboard, seeming unbothered by the foul smell. A moment later the transport crawled ahead again. As it gained speed, wind circulated through the back and refreshed the air. Emily gasped, filling her lungs.
Vasquez looked at her and snorted. Then Douglas tapped the clipboard, and after Vasquez studied the papers, both MPs laughed. Emily leaned closer, trying to see what they found amusing, but Vasquez flipped over the clipboard. “Eyes forward, soldier.”
Emily stared at Douglas, expecting his posture to straighten.
“Soldier, are you deaf?” Vasquez focused squarely on her.
Emily slammed her back against the tarp railing. “No.”
“No? No, what?”
“No—?” She hesitated. “No—sir?”
“Get used to that word, soldier, because you're going to say it a lot.” He stared at her as if he waited for a response.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Vasquez examined the clipboard again. “Now, where were we?” He looked at Douglas. “Should I impress our new recruit with my fortune telling skills?”
Douglas chuckled.
Vasquez rubbed his temples. “I'm seeing…wait, it's coming. I see…I see a group…yes, a group of equally pathetic losers.”
“Five more to be exact,” Douglas said.
“I also see lots of complaining.”
“The list does have mostly chicks.”
Emily rolled her eyes.
“What else, Great Swami?” Douglas asked.
Vasquez continued to rub his temples, adding a low hum to the performance. “I feel a long trek exists ahead of us, and our young soldier will learn much about…about…I can't say it.” He exhaled an exaggerated breath. “The stress is too overwhelming.”
Emily crossed her arms. “Not funny.”
Vasquez cracked his fist against the metal bench.
“Sir!” Emily belted out.
“It's okay, soldier. You'd accuse me of joking even if I told you the truth.” He shivered. “Get chills thinking about it.”
Emily's stomach twisted. “You're messing with me—sir.”
The transport rattled as it slowed, and the engine sputtered lifeless. Vasquez, clipboard in hand, rose from the bench. “Am I?” His guttural laugh echoed against the tarp until he hopped off the back, down to the street.
Douglas, right behind Vasquez, paused at the transport rear. “He enjoys this too much, but he isn't lying.” He looked at Emily and chuckled. “The truth from a psychopath. Imagine that.” Douglas disappeared around the sid
e.
Emily rubbed her hands along the interior of the tarp. At least one previous occupant, she guessed, must have possessed some sense of curiosity rather than sit blind in the sweltering heat. A moment later her fingers snagged a frayed edge of the fabric, revealing a hidden slit. She stretched open the hole and pressed her face against the tarp.
Emily recognized this part of town, with its tiny houses separated by three feet of overgrown grass. In front of a white cottage, Vasquez read his statement to a girl whose black hair fell below her waist. A child of maybe seven or eight, probably a little sister, clutched the girl's leg, and behind them an older woman shook her head in an endless gesture of denial.
Once Vasquez finished his reading, the woman and girl shared a hug. Emily's soon-to-be companion then crouched to one knee and whispered something to the little girl, but before she could lean in for a goodbye kiss, Vasquez dug his fingers into her arm. He jerked her off the ground and dragged her toward the transport, a mane of black hair swinging to each side of her body. He shoved her to the curb, and inside she climbed.
Her frayed jeans snagged a splinter on the floor as Emily tried to read the vulgarities spoken by a green and yellow bird on the girl's t-shirt. She plopped down next to Emily, glanced at the swaying tarp and leaned forward. “Hey, assholes, we're in the twenty-first century. This truck has to be a hundred years old.”
Emily expected Vasquez to come running, ready to inflict a measure of pain on his newest victim. A moment later, when he hadn't appeared, Emily nodded. “I know, right?”
“And what the hell is that smell? Are they trying to make us puke?”
Vasquez tossed his clipboard on the bench. “I don't mind the chatter, ladies, but keep it respectful.”
The girl shrugged and extended her open hand toward Emily. “Sarah Winston.”
Emily shook it, and throughout the trembling of their joined hands, she looked at Sarah's face. The image burned into her mind with ease, a feeling—until now—she had forgotten. “Emily Heath.”
“Have you two met before?” Vasquez asked.
Sarah glanced over Emily. “Not—that I know of?”
“Sir,” Emily whispered. “He likes to be called sir.”
“Not that I know of, sir.” Sarah seemed to want her sarcasm noticed. “Hell, I didn't even remember my little sister when I got home.” She pointed at Emily. “That's why you're here, right? The bomb dot com?”
Emily nodded. “What a deal, huh? Allow me to save your life—or some semblance of it.”
“And later, we'll drive you off in some World War Two-esque truck to God-knows-where and subject you to daily anal probes.”
“You're alive, aren't you?” Vasquez asked.
Both girls nodded.
“So shut the hell up.” He chuckled. “Besides, anal probes would be letting you off easy.”
“He's messing with us, right?” Sarah asked Emily.
“No,” Douglas said. “You'll both go through an alternative training regimen.”
“For how long, sir?” Emily asked
“Six months.”
“That's it—sir? Then we can go home?”
“That's the plan.”
“Easy,” Sarah said.
Vasquez leaned close to Emily and Sarah. “I did one night of training. Just one night. For the next week, I ate painkillers like they were candy. You get six months of it. When you finish—if you finish—come back and tell me it was easy.”
“What do they make you do?” Emily asked.
Vasquez glared at Douglas, who stayed quiet.
“That's cruel,” Sarah said.
A short time later, the truck stopped, and the soldiers prepared their routine. Once they cleared the rear of the transport, Sarah and Emily pushed their heads together and shared the peephole. Foot-high grass swayed in the morning breeze, and aged oak trees cast a shadow over the ranch house's front deck. The interior was dark, lifeless.
Vasquez knocked on the front door and waited. No one answered. He knocked again, this time slamming his fist into the door. After waiting a few minutes more, he lifted two fingers toward Douglas. The soldiers went in opposite directions around the house
“Think they ran?” Emily asked.
“If my mom had the money, I would have.”
Vasquez and Douglas, still alone, reappeared from their trek behind the house and returned to the transport. Vasquez held a radio to his ear. “4801 Elm—yes—the Henrys—affirmative.”
The soldiers climbed inside and prompted the driver to head for the next stop. “Looks like we'll have one less traveler with us today,” Douglas said.
“She won't make it far,” Vasquez said as he wrote on the clipboard. “Half the country will be looking for that girl when every news network posts her face above a caption that accuses her of being a potential terrorist.”
“You would do that, sir?” Emily asked.
“Remember Susie Padgett?”
Emily nodded, having seen the girl's picture plastered on every channel for the last week. She had wondered how a star athlete and straight-A student could find herself accused of transporting nuclear secrets. “What happens if you catch the family, sir?”
“When we catch them,” Vasquez added.
“If they made an honest mistake,” Douglas said, “and only if they contact a base immediately, we'll issue an apology. Her parents will still get a fine from the federal government. Secretly, of course. But if they ran, in which case they'll probably get caught—”
“More than ninety-nine percent of them do,” Vasquez interrupted.
“—her parents will receive a mandatory sentence of ten years in federal prison. It will appear in the papers as conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.”
“It was a genius plan,” Vasquez said. “Kid runs. We put the parents in prison and still ship their ungrateful brat to base.”
“How often does it happen, sir?” Sarah asked.
“At least once a day. Those last people were smart. We get morons who stay home to inform us that their kid ran.” Vasquez laughed. “You should see the look on mom and dad's faces when the Feds show up and slap the cuffs on them.”
“Three more to go,” Douglas said.
“We might get one of those yet.”
Emily raised her hand. “Sir, can I ask a question?”
While focusing on the clipboard, Vasquez nodded.
“Why are you telling us this? Aren't you worried we might talk once we finish our six months?”
The question seemed to merit Vasquez's full attention, and he looked up from his writing and grinned, showing off the yellow stains on his teeth. “Not at all, soldier. If you go public, who's going to believe you, especially after you're accused of stealing state secrets or working with Al Qaeda? But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First you have to make it through the training.”
A few minutes later, the transport sputtered to another stop, where the sound of a violin resonated in the background. As the MPs exited to claim their prey, Emily closed her eyes and took in a brief escape from reality.
“These people are loaded,” Sarah said. “Look at this spread.”
Emily pressed her head against Sarah's and viewed the landscape. A Victorian-era house rested among an elegant façade of shrubbery, flower gardens and rolling hills. Streamers dangled from tree branches, and tables of food and sparkling gifts covered the wrap-around porch. When the two out-of-place soldiers strolled across the lawn, partygoers ended their celebration, their eyes now following the men. Douglas' hand inched toward his sidearm.
After Vasquez singled out the girl, he wasted little time reading the orders. Once finished, he grabbed the girl's arm and pulled her from friends and family. Adults and children reached for her, stealing hugs and touching her arms. Then a well-dressed and well-groomed young man near the outer edge of the crowd intercepted her. He held her around the waist and pressed his lips against hers. Emily watched with awe but not solely because the sight of a passionate kis
s. She expected Vasquez to lay out the young man and drag the girl to the transport by her hair. But he did neither, just stood there and waited.
“How sweet,” Sarah said, her tone beyond sarcastic.
As the girl approached the transport, Sarah and Emily spun back in position, acting as if they had remained seated all along. The girl climbed up, and her fingernails clicked against the metal frame and wooden floorboards. A ripping sound followed her to the bench. “Oh, darn,” she said, and stared at the tear in her floral-patterned, summer dress. Before the MPs could climb inside, she leaned out the back. “I love you. Have a good senior year.”
“Wasn't eighteen the cutoff age for the consent form?” Sarah whispered
“Yeah, so?” Emily asked.
“Her boyfriend is either an old senior or she's a cradle robber.”
“Two more left,” Douglas said, returning to the bench.
“My money's on only one actually being there,” Vasquez said. He slapped his hand against the tarp railing. “Move out.”
“I'm Emily,” she said to the new arrival, who claimed the bench near the back. “And this is Sarah.”
“Raven McDonald,” the girl answered, keeping her drab stare tight on the passing road. Shoulder-length auburn hair, a slim figure and quite a few hours in the sun made her a beautiful girl, but her eyeliner soon began a slow descent down her cheeks. Emily was thankful she chose not to wear any makeup, especially her dollar store brands.
Sarah, displaying her sly grin to everyone, shook her head and looked over Raven. “I don't think they have massages or manicures where we're going.” She studied Vasquez's hands. “Although this dude seems like he might prove me wrong.”
Douglas laughed, and Emily surprised herself when she did the same.
“Stow it, soldiers,” Vasquez said.
“Geez,” Sarah said. “I'm just trying to lighten the mood. Besides, there's nothing wrong with good hygiene. I kind of like a man who takes care of himself.” She winked at Vasquez. Then she slapped his knee.
Emily wondered if her jaw might actually reach the ground.
A blur of green zipped past her eyes, and Vasquez clamped down on Sarah's wrist, ripped her off the bench and pushed her to the floorboards. “Do it again and you'll lose your own fingers.” He shoved her clenched fist into her chest. Sarah slid back on the bench and slumped against the tarp, while Raven remained silent, as if she existed in her own private world.
Walking Ghost Phase Page 4
