by Aric Davis
Jessica clearly wasn’t happy about what she was hearing, but she really did appear to be listening to him. After just staring at him for a minute, she said, “I’m not saying I’m buying any of this, but OK, I do want to see where you’re going. Let’s say you’re right. Why does he send those two kids on a rampage?”
“Look at the dates,” said Pat. “Those kids killed all of those people the day after Darryl and Terry flew into Des Moines. My theory is that our two runaways wanted a distraction, and they figured that one in Des Moines itself might just bring more heat down, so they thought outside of the box. Assuming I’m right, we even know the idea worked. They are out of Des Moines, after all.”
Jessica wasn’t buying. “They are, but that doesn’t prove anything. There are a lot of other ways they could have bought some time, and even just a little bit of face-to-face manipulation can pay huge dividends for guys like this.”
“Agreed. This is a stretch, but like I said, a hunch,” said Pat, tapping the side of his head.
“A stretch is an understatement,” said Jessica. “Tell me what you’d need to follow up on this.”
“I need a warrant served so that I can see if those kids were online before they died, and if they were, the very last public communications space that they were using.”
And like that, he was back in the game. He’d gone from feeling like he was just trying to stay afloat, fighting to convince this woman that his idea had merit, to feeling right back in the thick of it. He was pitching a no-hitter in those stupid baseball games Dad had insisted on, scoring a hat trick in hockey, running back a kickoff for a touchdown, but all in his world.
But then she took another step back. “You really think this could happen through a modem?”
“I don’t know, and neither do you,” said Pat. “What I do know is that if I can prove that those boys were chatting in the same place, I should be able to get a lockdown on Darryl and Terry. Not an IP address, but something almost as good. If they’re feeding on children and we can figure out where they’re doing it, we can set them up.”
“Done,” said Jessica. “I’ll put in the order. Now get back to work.”
Pat couldn’t suppress a grin as he shook her hand before returning to the rest of the researchers, but the surprising part was that Jessica was grinning, too.
CHAPTER 37
Cynthia floated over North Harbor Apartments with Mrs. Martin. They were studying the map, and though there were no plans to go anywhere or try to help any of the other residents, Cynthia still found the bizarre place in the clouds to be incredibly invigorating. / Any place can be like this with enough practice / Any place, Cynthia / Cynthia felt a ripple across her face that would have been a smile if she were in her skin. She didn’t know how she could make a map like this, but she certainly liked the idea of it.
The school first and then Dad’s store. Cynthia wasn’t sure what she would do with maps of those two places, but she had some ideas, like influencing teachers to skip tests, or making Mom and Dad push past their petty differences. Her mind was drifting on in this direction when she felt the air run through her hair and then locked onto an unfamiliar car as it pulled into the lot. Cynthia had no intention of seeing who was in it, not at first, and then she noticed a red cloud dragging just after it. / NO / said Mrs. Martin in Cynthia’s head, but Cynthia was already there, locked on to the car before dragging herself inside of it.
Three young men sat in the aging sedan as it rolled into the North Harbor parking lot—two in the front and one in the back—and on the floor of the backseat there were three baseball bats and a shotgun. Along with the crowd of red strands, there were also a number of purple and pink. Mrs. Martin had been clear about the colors and their meanings: red was anger but did not mean violence; purple was unpredictability, the fight-or-flight instinct tearing at the person it was attached to; and pink was fear, cold, ugly, and inescapable for a person caught in its throes. Cynthia didn’t have the years or cynicism to predict what the men in the car were up to, but she knew instinctively that nothing good was going to happen when they got to their destination.
Cynthia stayed with the car as it drove through the lot and parked. The men inside of it were nervous but trying to act tough and brave. The man in the back handed up ball bats from the floor at his feet to the others, then grabbed one for himself. Then the one behind the wheel said, “Grab that shotgun.”
The one sitting next to him shook his head as the man in the backseat grabbed it. “No, don’t be getting that into this shit. We’ve got a bad enough situation as it is. Adding a gun won’t be doing any of us any favors.”
The driver looked frustrated, but Cynthia could see the pink strands in his hair fluttering, and she could read his thoughts as clearly as a book: / No guns, good / Last thing I need is to go to prison / The kids need me /
Cynthia watched as the three of them left the car, and then she drifted through after them, the car’s steel frame no more a barrier than the air outside. She watched them walk up to an apartment door, number 217, and she watched as the kid from the backseat rapped on the door with gloved knuckles. The three of them stood there like that for an eternity, bats held behind their backs as they waited for the door to open, but finally it cracked and a face appeared in the slit.
“Can I help you?” the man behind the door asked, and then the three of them barged in, throwing the door open and knocking the man to the ground.
“We need to have a talk about your loan,” said the driver, but then Cynthia was seized by another voice.
/ Now. Take them now / Take the driver and the man who lives here / Take them now /
Cynthia did as she was told, and all four of the men froze as if they’d been paused by some cosmic remote. Mrs. Martin was nowhere to be seen, but Cynthia could feel her in the room, could see the threads she was sending filling the room. As instructed, Cynthia had her hooks in the driver and the man who lived in the apartment, and now she sent yellow threads to intertwine with their pink and red plumes. Mrs. Martin was doing the same with the other two men, and Cynthia watched as three bats fell to the floor next to their terrified neighbor.
Cynthia could read everything from the man from North Harbor. He owed money from gambling and bad loans, he was a thief, he was depressed, and he had no one and nothing keeping him in Grand Rapids. Go, Cynthia implored him. Go and never look back. The man did as he was told just like that, never even pausing to marvel at what was happening in his apartment. The other three remained frozen, and Cynthia could hear a humming noise as Mrs. Martin told them to stay still, that soon this would be over, and they could tell the man they worked for that the person who owed him a debt was gone. Cynthia shared the same thing with her captive, too, but she also soothed him with thoughts of his children, telling him, You need to be careful for them. No one else is.
Finally, Cynthia and Mrs. Martin let go of the men and then winked out of the apartment. The last thing Cynthia saw of them was the third man reaching for his fallen bat and then tumbling to the floor in a heap, then all of them falling like puppets who had their strings cut. Cynthia’s next sight was of Mrs. Martin sitting across from her in Mrs. Martin’s apartment. One of the dogs was barking, and Cynthia yawned.
“I’ll get us some water.”
Cynthia stood, and Mrs. Martin smiled as she walked to the kitchen, then returned with two full glasses of water for them.
“That was very brave of you,” said Mrs. Martin after she’d taken a sip from her glass. “Very brave, but perhaps not very smart.”
Cynthia frowned as she drank from her own water, then set the tumbler in front of her on the table. “They were going to hurt that man,” she said. “They were going to hurt him, and they thought that was the right thing to do. That’s not OK at all.”
Mrs. Martin shook her head sadly. “No, it’s not, is it? Still, that was their job, nothing more, and tomorrow they’ll
catch a little sparrow that won’t be lucky enough to have us on hand to help him out.” Mrs. Martin smiled a sad smile. “Perhaps they won’t even wait until tomorrow. Scared young men are more apt to do something dangerous than just about any other fool, in my opinion, regardless of how scared they may be.”
“Well, even if they do hurt someone else, at least we could help that guy,” said Cynthia. “He was so scared, and he has no one.”
“He had very little,” agreed Mrs. Martin, “but now he has even less. Whatever price he might have paid today, he still would have been himself. Now, the rest of his life will be spent looking over his shoulder to make sure those men aren’t after him, angrier than ever from all of the searching.”
Cynthia felt her face flush. “I was just trying to help so that he wouldn’t get hurt.”
“And that is a very noble thing to want to do, my dear,” said Mrs. Martin. “Eventually you will learn to pick your battles. We have neither the time nor right to save everyone in need of help, and by helping people who wouldn’t help themselves we miss out on the chance to help those who need our help the most. Do you understand what I mean?”
Cynthia nodded. She did understand. “It would be like helping someone who could swim get out of the water while someone else drowns, right?”
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Martin with a curt nod. “Now, your mother will be here soon. I want you to tell me in detail why you decided you needed to do something about that particular car, all right?”
“I’ll try.”
CHAPTER 38
1945
The world is telling me that Katarina’s words about needing to run and hide are prophetic. The Allied planes bomb everywhere except within the walls of the camp. There is no way to know if this is a coincidence or if they have some knowledge that we’re down here praying for rescue, but it could end up not mattering either way. One errant bomb might do in an instant what takes the Nazis a week, and maybe that would be the best for all of us.
Edna Greenberg’s last moments have left me haunted. The final images she saw are what I see when I go to bed at night, and they are there when I wake. Only Katarina can help with this, but even her touch can only do so much, and I am left to suffer through most of these memories by myself. I was never the type of girl to believe in ghosts or spirits before my time in the camp, but now I know they are real. There is far too much evidence, far too much pain just hanging in the wind here. Ghosts may not exist as they did in old pictures, but they are very, very real. About that I have no doubt.
Katarina is gone all the time these days. Her work in the camp—whatever it is—has been stealing her freedom. I check in on her while she’s busy from time to time, looping into the sky over my much-improved map and then spying on her and watching what she does from afar. I’ve considered getting closer, jumping in behind the eyes of the commandant, who’s usually with her, but I’m too afraid to actually take that step. If I find out what Katarina’s real job at the camp is or she catches me spying on her, she might throw me in the showers herself.
One thing in the camp is as sure as the fact that the bombers will be back tomorrow, and that is the selections will happen every day. I’m not sure when they started, not precisely, but I can hear the explosions through the walls of this little room. What I haven’t done is take to the sky when the selection itself is taking place, for fear of being sucked into someone the way I was into Edna Greenberg. The last thing I need is another ghost haunting my thoughts, and I know that’s all that will happen if I go into one of them. Some secrets need to stay that way, but there are so many stories that are going to be lost in the rubble of this war. No one who lives through this will know what the final moments were like for people like Edna, just like how no one who isn’t here will ever understand what these camps are really like.
Not that I have any right to complain. If anything, I’m part of the problem. I could be the curator of all of these memories, and if I do manage to escape and survive, could write a book detailing all of the things that people shared with the blind girl. Writing about all of this would be the brave thing to do, the good thing, and the book would serve as another reminder to the world of why this should never be allowed to happen again, but I cannot do it. It would be too much like stealing, like another betrayal of my people, but of course there’s a more selfish reason. I can’t bear the thought of what I might see.
Crossing the room to pour myself a cup of coffee, I jump at the sound of an explosion. Diving under the table—a useless safety measure, but one that I cannot help—I realize that I cannot hear the airplanes. The planes are always audible before an air raid, but today there was no warning. How could that be?
There is no noise of planes because there are no planes. The thought is a slap in the face, and then there is another explosion, just as close as the last one, and that noise is followed by machine-gun fire. The shooting is a much quieter noise than the roaring thunder of the artillery that I have only just realized I’m hearing, and it is now that I understand that the greatest fear of the guards has come true. The fighting has come to Dachau. Soon we will be free, and that means Katarina and I must leave this place.
CHAPTER 39
1999
Both Terry and Darryl were shocked into silence by their first sight of the SS Badger. The thing was enormous, her back half-open to accept cars into her gaping maw. Built to continue US Route 10 across Lake Michigan, she looked her age. The Badger had been finished in 1953, originally for use as a railcar ferry, then converted to carry cars and their owners. Now she was a massive hybrid of old and new, her old steamship lines interrupted by the radar and radio gear piled atop her tower.
There was no issue with boarding the Badger. Darryl had initially balked at the nearly five hundred dollars to get them across the lake, and then he took money from a roll of cash and paid the man at the ticket window. They left the truck with a valet and then boarded the ship with a group of other passengers. Darryl and Terry exchanged a sideways glance as they made their way to the upper decks. The ship was huge, and neither of them was sure of where they wanted to go.
“There’s a movie theater according to that sign,” said Terry. “There’s a bar, too.” He grinned at Darryl. “Might be nice to knock a couple off and relax, don’t you think?”
Darryl did think so. It had been days since he’d had so much as a beer, and they’d been some of the most stressful times of his entire life. A cocktail or three didn’t just sound good, it sounded perfect, but it was not to be—not yet.
“Let’s go watch a movie and maybe catch a couple winks.”
“You don’t want to hit the bar? Come on, man,” pleaded Terry.
“A movie,” said Darryl. “We’ll watch a movie and maybe fall asleep.” He didn’t want to tell Terry that he agreed, a drink sounded perfect. It had been well earned, and there would be precious few moments for him to relax when they hit the shore and found a place to live. That was the biggest problem with needing to bend at a moment’s notice. He had to always be on, and there was no middle ground.
“Fine,” said Terry in a wounded tone. “Let’s go watch your movie.”
The hours on the boat burned by slowly. Even with all of the amenities on the SS Badger, Darryl and Terry were bored. They were road weary and had no bed to look forward to, no home to pine for. There would be a hotel and then another one and probably others after that before they eventually found a permanent place to stay. That wouldn’t be stateside, though. It could take months to get the paperwork together and to let a few new faces fill the top of the “Wanted” flyers that littered police stations.
Cheers erupting from the upper deck called Terry and Darryl to the top of the ship, where a group of twentysomethings were shouting and drinking beer. Terry pointed past the kids to where the shore was visible and growing by the second.
“Thank fucking God,” said Darryl. “Let me off this bucket and
into a hotel room.”
“You and me both, brother.” The pair watched the line on the horizon grow thicker and blacker and then begin to be filled with details. Voices over the loudspeaker told guests to prepare to disembark and where to find their cars, but Darryl was ignoring all of it. There was a man on the deck with them, standing by the door about twenty feet away, and from the look of him he was a cop or at least ex–law enforcement of some stripe. Even with the hard lumps visible at his waist, though, the man was but one concern as the ship neared shore.
“Oh fuck,” said Terry, and Darryl just grinned in the sunlight. The dock was littered with police, and there was going to be no way to get through it without some contact. “Do you think—” Terry began, but Darryl cut him off with a wave of his hand. Before Darryl could speak, though, the man behind him spoke up.
“Just have a seat,” he said.
Darryl turned to see a gun in his hand, pointed their way. “Just have a seat. No one wants anyone to get hurt.”
Darryl grimaced as Terry took a seat, all but admitting his guilt to this asshole. So fucking close.
“Is there a problem?” Darryl asked, and the man grinned at him.
“You bet your fucking ass there is. Now sit, before I make you.”
