by Sean Oliver
“They no send new ones?” the man said.
“Seven o’clock on a Friday?” George said. “Everyone’s gone.”
Olga and the other bus driver got in the back of the Uber.
“What did he say was wrong with them?” Olga asked.
“I can’t remember those big words, Olga. I wasn’t a science teacher.” She chuckled. George leaned in before closing the door.
“Get back safe,” he said into the back seat. Then George moved to the driver’s window. “Head back out this way, along Jefferson. Don’t go around the front of the school. I have like a hundred parents and kids crossing the street out there.” In reality, if the Uber had gone around the front his passengers would have seen two buses that were allegedly decommissioned heading out, filled with teachers and students.
The driver backed out of the dead end and was gone. George walked a few steps ahead and stopped beside the driver’s side door of Moore’s car. Moore rolled his window down.
“I’m going out front and getting in my car,” George said. “Then the buses will be heading out. Don’t let him out, no matter what.”
SEVENTY-FOUR
Honduras—April 5, 1961
LAWRENCE MADE SURE he was seated at the end of the line. The Circle of Tomorrow gathered in the center green—their meeting place, their spiritual center. It was there they shared and expanded their consciousness. And on this day, they would end their time there.
Markus came out of his cabin with Agatha by his side. He held a small paper bag. They stood down at the start of the line of seated Circle members, so Lawrence couldn’t hear what was being said. Markus was talking to the members near him. He turned to Agatha and hugged her. She then sat in the first spot, at the head of the line. Markus reached in the bag and handed her something. She put it in her mouth and washed it down with a sip from a canteen Markus held.
Lawrence looked away and listened to the sound of the birds lost deep in the foliage. It was really happening, and Lawrence became queasy. Dozens of people he’d come to know and care about were about to die beside him. They all sat and waited to be given permission to end their lives. Lawrence closed his eyes and found the sound of the breeze. He needed to disconnect from what surrounded him.
He opened his eyes and looked straight ahead. He was planning his path out of there. Surely he’d be pursued. He couldn’t outrun the Diaz brothers, maybe not even Markus. And Lawrence was certain he wouldn’t be able run through that terrain at full force for long. The arrangement with Lupe at the dock was loose to say the least. Evelio translated the whole thing and lately he’d seemed nervous and altogether out of sorts. It was more than a consideration that Lawrence would haul himself down through the hills and over boulders, only to arrive at an empty shoreline.
Lawrence could hear them. He was brought back to the Circle by the sounds of moaning. He couldn’t open his eyes; he would not look. He didn’t even know whom he’d sat beside. The only people he’d known for the past several years were writhing in the throes of death. He heard their bodies fighting to live, and all the primal sounds that made. He began to weep.
Markus was getting closer. Lawrence could hear him talking to someone.
“We are going to be together again,” he said. “We will continue this.”
He was a few people away now, and Lawrence was frozen in place. He should have been down at the water already. He was overcome with fear and grief. He didn’t know where he was headed once Lupe delivered him to safety. He didn’t have a life outside the Circle. But he could start one.
Someone was gasping down the line, like they’d just come up from underwater. Lawrence didn’t look but couldn’t help trying to place the gasps.
Agatha? It was higher pitched, female. What did the scene beside him look like? Were they rolling around, being choked from within? Did some just simply slump forward?
“Lawrence, are you ready to meet me tomorrow?” said the voice right above him. He opened his eyes and saw Markus standing, holding the paper bag. Markus was actually waiting for an answer. Lawrence’s mouth was so dry he didn’t think it would even open. The moans were becoming more prevalent and closer to him as the last few members served began to feel the trace effects.
Markus pulled a clear capsule from the bag. He extended his arm toward Lawrence’s mouth. He focused on the pill as it neared his mouth. It was sloppily connected, a little cockeyed, and there was residual powder clumped around its center seal.
“Open up,” Markus said, just above a whisper. “Join us.”
He didn’t open his mouth. He looked up into Markus Tarkay’s eyes—the eyes that took him when he was lost in the world. This was the man who allowed Lawrence to assume a leadership role in the Circle and act as a father figure to many of them. He was asking him to join them, to complete the promise of the Circle of Tomorrow.
“How do I know?” Lawrence said.
Violent coughing to his left shook him.
“How do you know what, Lawrence?”
“That you’ll be there for me?” He kept looking into Markus’s eyes. Markus smiled at him and it warmed him. Seeing Markus’s face light up flushed Lawrence with calm. He loved Markus.
“We will be together again at this very time, in another place. I promise you, my friend—we will all rejoin at this time in your life, the very age you are now, but in our tomorrow. You’re just stepping out of here, and into there.”
It felt okay. Everything seemed okay. Markus made things okay and he would give Lawrence a chance to pick up right where he was leaving off. It made sense.
“It burns!” A bloodcurdling shriek beside Lawrence jolted him into panic. “Mother of God, it’s burning me up!” A cold, sweaty hand clamped down on Lawrence’s right forearm. His eyes darted to the side threatening a peek at true horror beside him.
“Don’t look!” Markus barked from above. “Here.” He brought the pill to Lawrence’s lips. “Open.”
The nails of the dying man beside Lawrence dug into his forearm. His wails were rising in pitch to the point it might have been a child beside Lawrence.
The powdery pill was pressed onto his lips.
“Open,” Markus said again, with less song.
Coughing, gurgling—
Lawrence watched Markus’s eyes. They were less reassuring, displaying a hint of panic from the scene that surrounded them.
A deafening scream a few people down the line jarred them both. Markus took his eyes off Lawrence. The pill fell as Markus looked down the line toward the sound.
In that split second, Lawrence slid up into a crouch and thrust himself upward into Markus. The powerful football block knocked Markus backward and a few feet away from Lawrence, who was now standing. He charged right for the break in the foliage he’d scoped out when sitting and awaiting his fate. The moans and sounds of torture gave way to the crunch of the forest floor and the whip of branches and leaves across his face.
He’d gotten off to quite a burst and kept moving, even when unsure of direction. He knew only one thing—he needed to keep going down. Lawrence aimed for whatever tract of land sloped downward.
“Lawrence!” Markus was not far behind. He wasn’t in much better shape than Lawrence, so the defector knew if he could keep the current pace and Lupe was in place, with a good shove off they could get ahead of Markus.
Lawrence’s face was stinging from the thin twigs slapping and slicing him and he hoofed onward, recklessly. There was a stretch of ground so steep he actually stopped and tiptoed down. Falling would be disaster, and from the sounds of Markus behind him, it was a disaster that befell the leader.
A thud and a yell. It was fast and without dramatics, but Lawrence knew it hurt. Markus likely didn’t see the steep drop and had gone airborne, as Lawrence almost had. The thud could have been a thick tree stump, maybe a rock. Markus hit something and it prevented him from pursuing any farther. Lawrence didn’t turn, but he didn’t need to. There were no crunches or cracks of branches behind him
.
He slowed his pace. His chest was stinging and he was panting like an animal from keeping that speed for so long. The ground was leveling off. There was less than a mile of flat forest before the water. He walked it as the adrenaline gave way to the pains in his ankles and on his face. His breathing wasn’t coming back as he’d hoped, despite the slow stroll. He considered sitting but that could mean suicide. He slowed to a near shuffle and moved toward a sound he hadn’t even noticed until then—water.
Lawrence stepped out of the brush onto the rocky shoreline. He’d hit the sea. There were no docks near him so he stepped atop a rock at water’s edge. Sunset was graying over the sky and seeing any great distance was tough, but down the shoreline a hundred yards to his left he saw a misty figure. He ambled down off the rock and walked along the water to Lupe and his boat.
Once arriving, Lawrence was not in good form. He could barely speak. Lupe brought his guest several miles west to a more active coastline. Lawrence lay down in the boat for the entire journey. His head was banging and his breathing shallow. The time it took Lupe to get to safe haven wasn’t sufficient to get Lawrence back to normal. Lupe sensed something was wrong.
But Lawrence had gotten out.
The world now around him was filled with strange places and panicked voices speaking Spanish. Lawrence was falling in and out of consciousness. It was deeper than sleep. He was trying to talk to people that asked him questions in mangled English. He’d hit a couple of beds and was getting some medical care.
Truthfully, he didn’t know where he was or what the hell was being done with him. But he would live or die on his own terms.
SEVENTY-FIVE
GEORGE SAT IN his car directly across the street from the school parking lot. His heart was doing its best double-bass drum while he watched the idling school buses getting ready to pull out. He knew Moore had the back exit covered. The security guard’s car was in the perfect position with its front end just twenty feet from the street side of the open gate. It could be totally blocked in two seconds flat if Albrecht tried to drive out the back.
George saw Lorenzo wandering the lot, texting. It was time to leave and he should have been at the wheel driving toward I-78. Everything was set—the buses were packed and Albrecht was sitting in his car, ready to go.
Lorenzo was still standing outside the bus, pacing a bit against the stinging breeze. His third text in five minutes to Jared also went unopened. Doris Calhoun came out of the school and marched to Lorenzo.
“Nothing,” he said as she approached.
“Me, neither,” she said. “I called every number on his personnel file. He was absent from school today, too.”
“This don’t look good.”
The doors to the first bus opened and Mariana leaned out and put her hands up—what’s going on?
“One sec,” Lorenzo called to her. She leaned back in and closed the doors of the bus she was driving.
“That damn kid,” Calhoun said. “We cannot wait here. Mr. Albrecht and Mr. Anastas are driving their own vehicles. Maybe one of them can hang back and wait for him.”
Lorenzo got on his phone and called George.
“No problem,” George said slouching down in the driver’s seat of his car. “I’m still in the building locking up anyway. It’s a six-hour ride, you need to head out now. Those kids are going to need a pee break before you get out of the damn lot if you wait any more. I won’t be far behind.”
He hung up. Calhoun got on Lorenzo’s bus and the door closed. Mariana pulled her bus out the main gate and turned right, heading west toward Route 440. Lorenzo’s bus followed close behind, pulling toward the open gate.
George’s tension was interrupted by a solemn realization that he’d just engineered the kidnapping of sixty children at the hands of empty people, all of them having had a smoky possession overtake their judgment and thoughts. Elias Albrecht had secured a massive tract of land down West Virginia way somehow, and they were headed there.
He knew his instincts had better be right about how to end this. This had to work.
The buses moved down the block as Albrecht’s car came to life in the parking lot across the street from George, his headlights piercing the dusk. George angled his own car out of its parking spot. Albrecht’s car began to roll out of its spot in the lot. George cut across the street and flew into the lot, aimed directly at the front of Albrecht’s car. He thought of the kids—the only thought that was powerful enough to circumvent the instinct to avert the coming impact.
George gritted his teeth as he gunned the gas. His car shot through the open gate and plowed the grill of Albrecht’s car, pinning it back between the two cars in the adjacent spots. George’s front airbag deployed and pounded him in the face, causing his eyeglasses to gash his cheek. He felt around the seating area for the glasses as the bag deflated. He found them and put them on in time to see Albrecht slip out his car door. His nose was bleeding and he seemed to be unsteady as he leaned on the car and regrouped. He looked at George though his cracked windshield and made his way forward, through the smoke coming from the front end of his car.
Albrecht turned and trotted to the main entrance of the school. George allowed him that head start before exiting his car. Albrecht pulled the unlocked front door and disappeared inside.
“In the rat trap,” George muttered to himself as he gave chase. He blessed himself in the sign of the cross and ran for the first time in many years. He went up the front steps, entered the building, and ran behind the security desk. He hit the Lock All button and the doors complied with a sustained beep followed by a metallic thump. The entire building was secured.
George trotted down the first-floor corridor to the rear loading door, which he keyed open with his access card. The light on the door turned from red to green and he pushed it open. He leaned out the door and waved to Moore and Deanna, still seated in their car, ready to jam the entrance. Moore opened the car door and shrugged at George who waved at him to come closer. Deanna got out as well and they both headed through the gate to George.
"What’s up?” Moore asked.
“He’s in. Get in here.” George held the door open wide as Moore entered the building. Deanna followed.
“Dee you should probably wait—” George didn’t even get to finish it. She walked right in and followed Moore down the corridor. George pulled the door shut and caught up to them.
“Where?” Deanna asked.
“I don’t know,” George said. “He ran in and I hit the locks. We’ll flush him out.”
“Then what?” Moore asked. Deanna reached across Moore and into his jacket. She pulled out his gun.
“Then this,” she said. George flinched.
“Deanna.”
“Damn it, give me that back,” Moore said, snatching the piece out of her hand. He turned to George. “She doesn’t really seem the fighting type.”
“Neither do I,” George said. “But I really want to fuck this guy up.”
“We should split up,” Deanna said.
“I’ll start upstairs,” George said. “I’ll cover second and third floors. You guys take floor one and the basement.” They tuned their separate ways, but George paused. “Hey, Dee…”
She glared at him.
“Never mind,” George said. He went up the nearest stairway as Deanna and Moore continued down the first floor corridor. George’s pace was slowing a bit by the time he got to the third-floor landing. He stopped at the door to the hallway and bent forward, catching his breath.
SEVENTY-SIX
MOORE PULLED OPEN the door to the basement corridor. Warm, thick air blasted Deanna and him in the face. They’d covered the first floor to no avail. The classrooms were empty, as were the faculty room and main office. They crept down the basement hallway, listening intently. Every click and buzz in the old basement was cause to twitch. They neared the library door, which was ajar. The lights inside were on, and Moore and Deanna inched closer to it.
That easy? H
e that stupid?
From inside, a chair bumped. Moore and Deanna froze. He pulled the gun from his coat and looked across the hallway. They were near the boiler room door. Moore grabbed Deanna’s arm, dragged her to the boiler room and pulled the door open. They went in and she recoiled from the scorch of the room. The giant, rusted, green monster was burning full force.
“Wait here,” Moore said as he went down the metal staircase.
He was down beside the iron machine, so massive it had rivets and screw heads the size of his palm. He walked around the perimeter of it with his gun drawn, checking the corners of the room. He was only down beside the furnace for a minute or so before he was forced back up the stairs. It was too much just being beside it.
“Okay, it’s clear,” he said. “Stay in here while I check the rest of the floor.”
“No way. You wait here. Give me the gun.”
“Deanna, I got this.” He turned to leave the room but Deanna grabbed him by the arm and turned him around. She leaned into him, her eyes afire.
“Trisha was my friend. I have waited for months and now I have a chance to do something about it with my own hands. Give me that gun and let me out.” She reached for it, but he blocked her and grabbed her hand.
“Hang on.” He looked into her eyes. She didn’t blink. “Look, I understand. More than you’ll ever know. But let me find him first. You can have a shot at him. Promise.” She took a long moment to relinquish her grip on his sleeve. She stepped away from the door with a growl and allowed Moore to pass.
“You got five minutes,” she said. “Keep him alive. I need answers.”
“Five,” Moore said. He left the boiler room and crossed the hallway to the library. He grabbed the handle and yanked the door open. He slid in, gun drawn, and advanced through the center of the room. He moved down the bookcases on the sidewall. The library was so large, with plenty of nooks and bookcases—lots of opportunities for a surprise attack. He moved with caution.
