The first number he dialed was the one he knew best—that of Agnes’s house, where Sylvia had lived before she moved in with him. He figured Agnes would probably be the easiest to reach since she worked from her home. The phone didn’t ring. Instead, a high-pitched tone sounded in his ear and a recorded message told him the number he had dialed didn’t exist.
He shook his head and then hung up the phone. Maybe Agnes had decided to get a new number. Or maybe she had moved somewhere with her wife and daughter. She had sent him a picture of Renee shortly after she was born; he had kept it on his cell wall next to a picture of Sylvia to remind him of what they would never get a chance to create because of him.
He still had the picture in the back of his wallet of newborn Renee on a pink blanket. Except now when he reached into his wallet, he saw the picture had changed. The little girl on the pink blanket still had pale skin, brown hair, and blue eyes, but those eyes no longer had that Asian look to them. The hair seemed lighter as well, closer to dirty blond than the dark brown of Renee’s. He turned it over to see the name on the back had changed to “Sophie.”
Who was Sophie? And how had her picture become that of Renee? He tucked the photo into his pocket with Emma’s blank letter. Then he ran a hand over his face and wondered if he were going crazy. Maybe his release from the joint had done something to his mind, something he hadn’t noticed until now. Maybe his grip on reality was slipping away. Or maybe he felt guilty that he’d ditched Emma and Becky at the diner and in the process alienated everyone he had known in Rampart City.
He took his quarters out of the phone to reinsert into the slot. Then he dialed the number for the Plaine Museum North Branch. Even if Emma was gone, someone there could probably tell him where she had gone—and when she might be back. Instead, he received the same horrible tone and automated voice that told him the number didn’t exist.
“What is going on?” he asked himself. He took his quarters from the phone again and decided maybe it was just a bad phone.
He walked next door to the Arby’s and again dialed Agnes’s number. He came away with the same result. He tried the Plaine Museum as well, just to make sure. Again he got the automated message. “This is weird,” he mumbled.
To change his luck, he inserted different quarters the next time. He dialed the operator and said, “Could you give me the number for the Plaine Museum North Branch in Westfield please?”
There was silence for a moment until the operator said, “I’m sorry sir, but I have no listing.”
“No listing? That’s impossible.”
“Is there another number you want me to try, sir?”
“Sure. Could you try the Plaine Museum in Rampart City?” Again the operator said she didn’t have a listing. Tim finally let out some of his frustration. “That museum has been there for a hundred years! How could you not have a listing?”
“I’m sorry, sir. Can I help you with anything else?”
“OK, can you look up Agnes Chiostro in Rampart City for me?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have any listings for a Rampart City.”
“What? Is this some kind of joke? Is someone putting you up to this?”
“I don’t know what you mean. If there’s nothing more I can do—”
“Hold on a minute. Are you saying you don’t have any phone numbers for Rampart City? A city of nine million people can’t just vanish—” He stopped himself and thought of Emma’s letter that had gone blank and the picture of Renee that had changed into one of a different child. “I’m sorry, operator. My mistake.”
He hung up the phone and then dialed in the number for the shop. “Hi, this is Tim. I’m not feeling good. I’m going home sick. Can you get someone to cover for me? Thanks.”
Something odd was going on and he would find out what.
***
Tim didn’t own a computer either. He meant to go to the flea market outside town to see if he could pick up some components to build one. Whether that would violate his parole or not he couldn’t be sure. He had supposed that as long as he didn’t use the computer to design any weapons of mass destruction he would be all right.
Instead of home, he took the bus to the public library. The library in Corwin City didn’t have a great selection of books—especially books on engineering, which he thought just as well—but it did have a dozen computers for public use. He had to sign a waiting list and pace impatiently by the dictionaries while a bunch of men used the machines. They were probably felons like him; they probably used the computers to chat with thirteen-year-olds online—or at least who they thought were thirteen-year-olds.
Just as he was about to grab one of the perverts around the neck and throw him out of his chair, his turn came. He sat down at the machine, logged on, and then opened the browser for the Internet. He typed “Rampart City” but came up with nothing. At least, nothing important. He found numerous links to sites about medieval walls and even one to a Rampart Security Company, but nothing about the city itself. How could one of the most famous cities in America—if not the world—suddenly disappear?
He brought up Google Maps and typed in his old address in Rampart City. The site came back with an error message. He got the same message when he tried Agnes’s house, the Plaine Museum, and the hair salon/gun range Sylvia had owned. They were all gone. Tim typed in the address for the Speedy Oil in Corwin City. Then he began the laborious process to move the map southeast to where Rampart City should be. Should be. Except the satellite images showed only patches of blue ocean.
Out of desperation, he logged off the computer and found the atlases. He flipped through the pages of various states, until he finally came to the right one. Nothing. Where Rampart City should be was only ocean, as if it had broken off and sunk like Atlantis. He tried another atlas with identical results.
Finally he went to the reference desk. A young woman with short brown hair asked, “Can I help you find something, sir?”
“Yes, you can. I’m looking for Rampart City.”
The young woman typed something into the computer. She shook her head. “I don’t see anything in the index. Is it a book or a movie?”
“No, it’s a city.”
The young woman stared at him blankly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean it’s a real city. Millions of people live there. You’re saying you’ve never heard of it?”
“I’m afraid not. Our atlases are over there—”
“I’ve already looked in the fucking atlases!”
“Please, sir, keep your voice down or you’ll have to leave.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He sensed everyone staring at him. “I’ll be going now.”
The bus dropped him off a block from the motel where he lived. When he’d first arrived in Corwin City, he hadn’t known how long he would stay, so he had checked into the Dandelion Motel for a few days. Those few days had turned into two months. In some ways it was better than an apartment in that he got free maid service, paid utilities, and he could leave at pretty much any time he wanted. And they hadn’t run a credit check on him either, which helped in his position.
He turned on the television as he sank onto the bed. He flipped from the local channels to CNN and Fox News for anything that might explain what had happened to Rampart City. There was nothing but the typical news about scandals in Washington and Hollywood. Usually there would be at least one story that would mention Rampart City. The sports report would at least mention the Rampart City Ramparts football team. But there was nothing.
Tim lay back on the bed and stared up at the water-spotted ceiling. Had he gone mad? Had there really never been a Rampart City? Had the whole thing been a figment of his imagination? What about Emma and Agnes—and Sylvia? Had they really existed or had he dreamed them up too?
He kept Emma’s letters in his nightstand, along with the Gideon Bible and Book of Mormon someone had left. He pulled out Em
ma’s letters only to see the envelopes blank just like the one in his pocket. To make sure, he took the pages out and saw that they too had nothing written on them. He balled these up and hurled them across the room. This was nuts. He needed to get some sleep; tomorrow things would make more sense.
He gradually fell asleep, aided by a glass of whiskey from the bottle he kept in the miniature refrigerator. The drinking was something he had taken up along with the cigarettes and beard. He found that a cup of cheap whiskey before bed usually helped him sleep. Otherwise he would toss for hours as he thought of Sylvia and those final moments before she had died. He could never be sure of what happened, but he always felt she’d kissed him and told him how much she loved him before she vanished.
When he closed his eyes this time, he stared up at a vibrant blue sky with puffy white clouds drifting by. He could feel warm, grainy sand beneath him. Was he dreaming of the beach? He and Sylvia had flown to Mexico one spring. He could still remember how gorgeous she looked in the green bikini that matched her eyes, the water dripping from her dark red hair—
A sneeze shook him from these thoughts. He sat up to realize he wasn’t on a beach. He was in a sandbox. There was a bucket next to his feet, along with toy trucks and worn dolls. The owner of these items sat on the edge of the sandbox. She was a little girl with coppery hair that hung to her waist, held back from her face by a plastic headband. “Emma?” he asked.
She shook her head. “My name’s Joanna. But people call me Red because of my hair.”
“Oh, sorry. You look like someone I know.”
“Emma is in trouble. She needs your help.”
Tim’s brow furrowed at this. Emma had never mentioned anyone named Joanna before. “Who are you? Where is this place?”
“I told you my name,” the little girl said. She punctuated this with another sneeze. “This is my mommy’s house.”
“How’d I get here?”
“I brought you here.”
“You?”
“When you went to sleep.”
“So this is a dream?” Tim pinched his arm and felt a stab of pain. “What’s going on?”
“I’m a friend of Emma’s. She’s in trouble and needs your help. You have to go to Rampart City and find her.”
“So there really is a Rampart City, isn’t there?”
“Yes. But she made it go away.”
“Who?”
Joanna shook her head. “I can’t say.”
“What can you say?”
The little girl rolled her eyes. “I already said it. Go to the city. I’ll send someone to help you when you get there. She’ll be able to tell you what to do.”
“Can you at least tell me what sort of trouble Emma’s in?”
“You’ll find out.”
With that, Tim woke up to find a layer of sand beneath him.
Chapter 2
Since he’d only been out of prison for two months, he didn’t have a lot of stuff to pack. Most of his clothes and other possessions he’d owned before he went to jail were still in Rampart City along with Sylvia’s things, like her collection of antique knives. “Why do we need those?” he had asked her when she unpacked the wooden box.
“You never know when you might need a good knife,” Sylvia had said and then kissed him. That had been her in a nutshell—tough on the outside, but sweet once you got past it.
What had become of all of Sylvia’s things? If that little girl Joanna was right, they might have simply vanished. She. Who had Joanna meant by that? He didn’t have any idea. With a sigh, he realized again there was so much he didn’t know about the world. He hadn’t known Sylvia was a witch until he found her trapped in a vault, aging rapidly as her magic drained away. Ward had fashioned that vault and Tim had certainly misjudged him. He’d thought Ward was interested in the same things he was—technology and progress—while in reality Ward had really only wanted to accumulate more power for himself. Nor had Tim known Emma Earl was the Scarlet Knight until they’d rescued the armor along with Sylvia from the vault.
Emma was in trouble. That was what Joanna had said. She hadn’t elaborated, though. He didn’t have any idea what he could possibly do against someone who could make a metropolitan area vanish. He didn’t have any magic powers or armor; he couldn’t even legally buy a gun. What was he supposed to do?
Well, he supposed the only way to find out would be to go there. How to get there became the first problem he had to solve. He checked the phone book for the numbers of the nearest airlines. As he figured, none of them had heard of Rampart City. “Is that in America?” one service representative asked him.
“Yes. It’s about four hundred miles from you.”
“Never heard of it.”
He met the same problem when he tried the bus and train companies. None of them had anything to Rampart City. The closest he could get was a bus to Warrensburg. That would still leave him a hundred miles away. Still, he supposed a hundred miles was better than three hundred. He booked a ticket for that night at midnight, the last one of the night.
The next problem was to get to the bus station. Tim didn’t have a car. His license had expired while he had been in prison and he hadn’t tried to get a new one yet. His old car was back in the city with the rest of the stuff, unless someone had sold it. In any case it wouldn’t do him any good now.
He called the one taxi service in Corwin City, but they didn’t want to send one of their drivers out on the two-hour round-trip drive to the bus station. With no one else to call, he picked up the phone and dialed the number for Ray Rosen. Ray’s wife answered the phone; loud music played in the background so that she had to shout, “What?”
“Tell Ray this is Tim! From work!” he screamed into the receiver.
“Hold on.”
Ray came on the line after he shouted, “Turn down that shit!” The music turned off and Ray growled, “What is it? You quitting?”
“No. But I do need a couple of days off.”
“For what?”
“Someone back in Rampart City is sick. I need to go help out.”
“Where?”
“It’s this little town where I used to live,” Tim said. He suppressed a tired sigh. “Look, I got a bus to take me, but I need a ride to the station. Right now. Can you help me out?”
“Yeah, I guess. Where you at?”
“The Dandelion Motel. Room 224.”
“Fine. I’ll be there in five.” Ray hung up the phone to leave Tim to throw his few possessions into a knapsack.
Ray arrived five minutes later. To announce his presence, he honked the horn of his Trans Am until Tim opened the passenger’s side door. Before Tim could even shut the door, Ray floored the accelerator. “So this is some kind of emergency?” he asked.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Who is this sick person?”
“My sister,” Tim said. He decided that would be better than to say his friend. His stomach churned as Ray ran through the last stoplight in town.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I’m not really sure. My mom wasn’t very specific. She just said I should come home right away.”
“Never good when they say that.”
“No, I guess not.”
“You and your sister close?”
“Not really.”
“I wasn’t with mine either. She died a couple years ago. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it sucks. But what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Tim said. He supposed he wouldn’t know what to do until he found out what sort of trouble Emma—and for that matter the rest of Rampart City—was in. Even then, he probably wouldn’t be able to do much about it. He tried to comfort himself by thinking this Joanna wouldn’t have asked him to go if he couldn’t do anything. That was unless Joanna was a figment of his imagination. The dream had seemed so real though, to the point where he had woke up to find sand in his bed. His imagination had never been tha
t good, not even in prison, when it was about all he had.
Ray got Tim to the bus station with an hour to spare. Tim reached across the seat to shake Ray’s hand. “Thanks a lot for this. And for giving me the job for that matter.”
“You earned the job. You’re the best oil jockey I ever seen.”
“Thanks,” Tim said, though he wasn’t sure that was entirely a compliment.
“Good luck with your sister. Give me a call once you know what’s going on.”
“I will.” He climbed out of the car; he barely had time to close the door before Ray roared off into the night. And then Tim was alone again.
***
The bus was late. Tim waited for three hours in the station with nothing to do except to read the same worn sports page from USA Today someone had left in the terminal. Despite that the paper was from three days ago, the Ramparts weren’t listed in the football standings. He wondered again what sort of power might have not only made the city itself vanish, but any mention of the city in print, online, and in people’s minds. Except for his.
Why he could still remember was another thought that bothered him. Was it that Joanna had somehow protected him? Or was it his connection to Sylvia, Emma, and others? Or was it just that this was his crazy dream?
Halfway into his wait, the population of the terminal doubled. A young Asian woman came through the door with a large black case behind her. Tim stared at the case and wondered what might be inside it. As if she read his mind, the woman said, “It’s a cello.”
“Oh. Are you in an orchestra?
“Jazz trio.” Her expression turned icy. “What, you don’t think Asian girls can play jazz?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.” Tim looked around the terminal. “What happened to the rest of the trio?”
“They made the flight to Boston. I didn’t. So I’m going to ride the bus all night to catch up to them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
The woman sat across the terminal from him and read a thin paperback while he could only read the same sports page until he’d memorized every word of it. He snuck a few glances at the woman, but she was engrossed in her book. Too engrossed really; she probably thought he was some creep.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 141
