by R A Doty
BILL WESTON STEPPED into his office and took the microphone from the console. He brought it up to his mouth and squeezed a button on the side. “Weston here,” he said.
After a second of dead air crackling with electronic static, a voice responded. “This is Chief Officer Brodie, sir. I just wanted to inform you that we lost the signal just before reaching the mainland. I tried to lock onto it again, but I’m not having any success. Do you have any suggestions, sir?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Weston murmured. He brought the mic to his mouth. “Did you try locking onto it from the boat and not the handheld?”
“I did, sir. It’s as if the target just vanished instantly. One second I had a signal, and the next it was gone.”
Weston sat silently, shaking his head. He raised the mic. “Keep searching the immediate vicinity to see what turns up. Report back to me daily to keep me informed.”
“For how long, sir?”
“Until the targets are located.”
A brief pause before a response. “Yes, sir.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
IT was the first week of October, and the scent of warm summer grasses had been replaced with dried stalks of corn and leaves about to fall from trees. A woodchuck sat contentedly in the meadow chewing on sprigs of alfalfa—one of a few remaining opportunities to fatten itself up before burrowing deep into the earth for its winter nap. A cooper hawk swooped down from the sky, grabbed a field mouse, and brought it to a branch of a sycamore. Having seen the hawk’s shadow, the woodchuck squatted briefly before going back to its meal. High above, one of the first flocks of geese crossed the early morning sky in preparation for cooler months to come.
April looked up toward the sky at the sound of the distant honks. She was that of a child who was experiencing everything for the first time. It was the first flock of geese she had ever seen, the first meadow she had ever walked through, the first morning fog to cloud her vision, and the first pond she couldn’t wait to touch. She hurried past Calla trying to refrain from running. She wanted to savor every step.
“Wait up,” Calla said, trying to keep up without tripping. Calla had already started to think of the baby inside of her and instinctively wanted to protect it, although she still hadn’t made up her mind if she was going to keep it. The decision occupied most of her thoughts and she understood that no matter what she decided, she would probably always wonder if she made the right decision. If she kept it, would she someday lose the child as Monica and Elana lost Josh and Jessie? And if she aborted it, would it haunt her dreams for the rest of her life? She was no closer to a decision and hoped that the problem would somehow solve itself. She stopped at the edge of the pond and looked down at April, who was cupping handfuls of water and slowly dropping them back to the pond. What if April was aborted and nobody ever got the chance to get to know her? What if she had never saved her from being harvested? Wouldn’t that be the same as being aborted? Either way, it would be destroying a human life for no good reason. But can she protect April from ever being harmed? Probably not. It was such a hard decision.
“Come feel it, Calla. It’s much warmer than the air temperature.”
“I’m not sticking my hands in that scummy water,” Calla responded with a laugh. “There might be deadly amoebas or some other kind of parasites in there. Not to mention leeches.” Calla trembled. “The idea gives me the willies just thinking about it.”
April cupped a handful of water and raised it to her face. She studied it carefully, eyeing every foreign particle that looked like it may move at any second. But it was just pond debris. Nothing living that she could see. She turned her head slowly toward Calla.
“Don’t you dare, April. You know how I feel about creepy parasites and bugs.”
April stood, both hands now cupped and holding the water. She advanced toward Calla.
Calla backed up. “I’m serious, April. I’ll never come here with you ever again if you do.”
April smiled and opened her hands. The water fell to the ground. She walked up to Calla and gave her a hug. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you.” She patted Calla’s back with both hands.
“April!” Calla screamed, pulling away. She bent down and grabbed a handful of dried grass. The itchiest, driest, dirtiest grass she could find. “You’re dead.” April started to run, but Calla grabbed her by the arm and jammed the handful of grass down the back of her shirt.
“Calla, stop!” It was too late. The itching began almost instantly. April lifted the back of her shirt and did her best to shake out the grass, which was a sorry attempt, to say the least, considering she couldn’t bend her arm far enough around.
“That’s what you get,” Calla said. After watching April struggling to remove the grass, her big-sister instincts kicked in and she gave her a hand. “Next time you better listen when I say ‘don’t’.”
With the grass all removed, and after receiving a good back-scratching from Calla, April said, “Thanks,” and patted Calla on the cheek.
“April!”
The girls spent the remainder of the morning exploring the Steinberg estate. They walked through the meadow, where April picked a handful of wildflowers, found the gravel bank and checked it out, and discovered a creek running through the woods behind the gravel bank. It was one of the few remaining warm mornings lingering from summer. The scent of decaying leaves had already begun to waft through the air, and unlike most everywhere else on the mainland, there was no smell of death. It was a private paradise, to say the least. They sat on a log beside the creek, doing nothing but listening to the sound of the water as it trickled over a cluster of rocks. April sniffed the flowers still gripped tightly in her hand and then turned back to the creek. Why couldn’t every day from now on be like this? She felt so fortunate to be experiencing these simple pleasures that life outside the kennel had to offer.
Her thoughts turned to the nutrimen she had left behind, as they sometimes do when she’s feeling guilty for enjoying anything. They would be waiting to be fed right about now. She wondered how she could have been so content and never question her existence. But the answer, obviously, was because she didn’t know any of this existed. She had only known the kennel, nothing more. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how fortunate she was that Calla came into her life. She reached over and touched her hand. Calla looked at her, and they exchanged a smile. “Thank you for giving me all of this,” she said. “You gave up everything for me, and someday I will repay you.”
“You don’t have to repay anything, April. I just wanted you to experience the things I got a chance to experience. It wasn’t right for them to keep you locked away from the world. I just want you to be happy.” Calla plucked a piece of grass. “You know, April, I’ve been thinking about it and realized you don’t have to keep the name April. You can choose your own name, if you’d like.”
April considered the thought as she watched a branch drift past in the creek; it bobbed up and down when it hit the current. “I like the name April,” she finally said. “It was the name that came to your mind, so I should keep it.” She looked at Calla. “It was meant to be. And what about you? You can change your name as well, if you’d like.”
“I like the name Callarina, but it does sound kind of like a doll’s name, don’t you think?”
“Maybe a little, but I think it’s pretty. It suits you perfectly.”
“Yours suits you, too. I guess it’s settled then. We’ll just keep the names that we have.” Calla noticed how high April’s jeans were above her ankle. “Aren’t your pants the same size as mine?”
April glanced at her jeans. “They were all the same size, remember? Why?”
“Because they look too small for you. Are they tight?”
“A little, I guess.”
Calla stood. “Come stand beside me,” she said, motioning for April to stand. She did. “April, you’re almost as tall as me. You’ve grown like three inches in about a week. Is that even
possible? Do you feel okay?”
“I guess so. I feel fine.”
“Maybe we should talk to Colton about this. He would know if it’s normal.”
COLTON NORTH WAS A man of many talents, and he seemed to always be prepared to handle any situation that may arise, but even he knew when it was time to shut down. To take a break from everything. The one thing he liked more than anything was to just notice things. He sat in an Adirondack chair behind the house and stared down at the meadow in the distance. The air was calm and there wasn’t a single sound indicating that another human being existed on earth. Just birds chirping somewhere in the trees and an occasional cricket in the grass. Maybe this is the way it was supposed to be and when humans got out of control, nature had a way of setting things straight again. His attention turned toward the wood-line when he saw Calla and April heading in his direction. He could hear them talking, but they were too far away to understand what they were saying. He heard Calla laugh. It was just a moment in time, but there was something about it that he would remember for the rest of his life. When the girls noticed him, they quickened their pace. Calla stopped next to him, breathing heavily. April, not so much. The walk had little effect on her.
“Hi, Colton,” Calla said.
“Hello, ladies. The estate’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s amazing,” April said. “I love that pond.” She turned to look at it.
“It’s right out of a Currier and Ive’s, isn’t it?”
“A what?” Calla said.
“Never mind. I sometimes forget how young you ladies are, or, more to the point, how old I am.”
“Do you have any idea why April’s growing so fast? Just last week I was taller than her and now we’re the same height.” Calla pointed to April’s legs. “Look at her pants.”
Colton looked at April, and acknowledged a difference from when he first saw her not more than a week ago. She was as tall as Calla, and definitely had more meat on her bones. That’s exactly what Weston wanted to happen, he thought. But at what cost? He stood to walk over to April, the chair just a little too low to the ground for him to get up easily.
“Do you feel alright, April?”
“I feel fine. Great, in fact.”
He noticed how full her face looked and how her legs were stretching out of her pants. She reminded him of Alice in Wonderland. To grow that fast in that short a period of time wasn’t good. Whatever Weston gave her seemed to be kicking in.
“Will she continue to grow?” Calla asked.
“I have no way of knowing. All we can do is wait it out and see what happens.” He wasn’t positive of where it would end, but he damned sure wasn’t optimistic about it, either. If she continued to age at that accelerated rate, her life would end much faster than he had originally expected. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except hope that the drug would somehow malfunction before any of her major organs gave out.
“So, what do we do, just sit back and wait?”
“I’m afraid we have no other choice, Calla.”
“Stop worrying, Calla,” April said. “I’ll be fine.” She smiled. “You’re not jealous that I might grow bigger than my big sister, are you?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
GUILT is a horrible thing. It can tear you up inside and consume your every thought until you have no choice but to relieve it in any way you can. Which, in Janette’s case, means righting a wrong. Ever since Cain arrived, he’d been the only thing on her mind. How could she have left him to die after everything he’d done for her? The question repeated itself over and over again on an endless loop that sometimes woke her up in the middle of the night. Most of the time, that is. You can always tell when a person’s holding something in because they begin to look sickly, like they haven’t eaten in days, or slept, for that matter. That described Janette perfectly. Her walk became lethargic and her demeanor sluggish.
It was time to come clean, she thought, as she walked down the hall to Cain’s room, which was strategically assigned between Luke and Dan’s; it would take some time for him to be trusted. She knocked on the door, but there was no answer. She knocked again, and the door creaked open. “Anybody home?” she said, peeking around the door. She stepped into the room. It was empty. She sighed, and then sat on the bed. She would have to continue to carry her burden of guilt that much longer. She noticed the black bag Cain always had for as long as she could remember, sitting on the floor beside the bed. She had already memorized its contents from snooping in it over the years, but when you have nothing else to do you repeat your actions. She reached down and grabbed it, and when she looked inside, a ten-year-old memory popped into her head. A memory that, in no way, helped to relieve her guilt.
She removed the ice-cube-shaped bottle of perfume and sat quietly, reliving the moment when she and Cain had first met. He had given it to her in an attempt to cheer her up, but it only made things worse. But how could he have known it would remind her of her sister, Amy? He at least tried, that’s more than she did for him. The tears came fast and hard. It was time to let it out, and out it came. She dropped down on the mattress and cried hard in the pillow. Her guilt for what she had done to Cain was compounded with the memory of her sister, who she too had abandoned. At first, she cried silently, but soon it became vocal. She thought of her parents and then the little cat she and her sister had found. Alley. What happened to it? Did it die soon after? She imagined it waiting for her and Amy to return, but they never did. She was the only one left out of all of them. And why? Because she’s a coward, that’s why. She felt so alone, as if the entire world had just gotten bigger. And then a hand touched her back. She turned over and it was Cain.
She jumped off the bed and hugged him tight. He held her head as she cried on his chest. “You wouldn’t be so comforting if you knew what I did,” she said, pulling away and looking at him. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her T-shirt. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you never acknowledged me again.”
Cain looked puzzled. What could she have possibly done?
“I was there when you got the arrow in your eye. I was with Dan and Colton. We came to the city to look for medicine for Monica. I went to the alley to go to the bathroom, and when I came around the corner I saw you lying there, but I didn’t do anything. I just walked away.” She shook her head, the tears starting again. “I’m so sorry. I just walked away.”
Cain held out his arm. When Janette stepped forward, he pulled her into a hug. He kissed the top of her head as she cried.
“I only left because I thought you were dead. I’m so sorry.”
DAN took it upon himself to maintain the fence around the estate. Whenever it needed to be repaired, he was on it. He walked the perimeter on a daily basis to examine every link and post. It made him feel important. Like he was in charge of something. It also gave him more exercise, which might just help him shed a few pounds. Something that was never really that important to him until Elana and her son, Steven, came along. Steven didn’t need to lose a few pounds. He was damned near perfect. At least to Janette, he thought. He noticed the way she looked at him. She acted differently around Steven than she did around him, more feminine and innocent. Not as tough.
When he was going down the hallway to inspect the fence, he saw her leaving Cain’s room, so he quickened his pace to catch up to her. “Hey, Janette,” he said.
Janette stopped. “Hi, Dan. What’s up?” Her eyes were red and puffy.
“What were you doing in there? Were you crying? Dan’s adrenaline kicked in. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Of course not. Cain would never hurt me. He’s like a big teddy bear.”
Dan was still curious as to why she was leaving his room, but he thought it best to drop the subject. “I’m gonna go check out the fence. You wanna come?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Within five minutes, Dan and Janette were walking the fence line toward the alfalfa field. The sun was beaming bright in a
light blue sky, and the morning chill had left the air and was replaced with the promise of an unseasonably warm day. A question was eating away at Dan as he tried his best to walk with his stomach pulled in and his chest out. It was the type of question that could either destroy a friendship or reveal his feelings. Both options terrified him, but he needed to know the answer. Sometimes asking is the only way. So, he did, reluctantly.
“Why you were coming out of Cain’s room? Were you two... I mean...”
Janette stopped walking. “Having sex? God no, Dan. Jesus.”
She started walking again. Dan followed.
“You knew him a long time at the church, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Did he ever force you or anything?”
She stopped again. “He’s like a father to me, Dan. That’s disgusting. The answer is no.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
They continued walking the fence line. Neither said a word. They passed four posts before Janette spoke.
“You’re a sweet guy, Dan. I know you just worry about me like my big brother. I like that. I never had a brother before.”
Dan smiled with a nod and let out his stomach.
Chapter Thirty-Four
BILL Weston expected to hear from Chief Officer Brodie by now. How hard could it be to bring back two young females? What trait could they possibly have that made it so easy for them to elude anyone that tried to find them? The other members of the Power Elite had already questioned what had happened to the other men that searched for the girls, so he couldn’t risk losing another team to the mainland. The men had only been gone for one day and night, but he couldn’t risk wasting any more time. He picked up the microphone and squeezed the button.
