The Vanishing

by Bentley Little

  ‘‘Two tickets.’’

  ‘‘I think my kids are in there,’’ Andrew explained. ‘‘I just want to—’’

  The dwarf held out a small, chubby hand. ‘‘Two tickets.’’

  Robin could see the look of exasperation on her husband’s face. ‘‘How much are they?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Buy them from the ticket booth.’’ The little man pointed toward the front of the fair.

  ‘‘I just want to look inside and see if my kids are there,’’ Andrew said. ‘‘I’ll give you two dollars.’’

  ‘‘Five,’’ the dwarf countered.

  Andrew opened his wallet, handed over a five-dollar bill and quickly dashed inside the fun house. Robin waited and watched while he appeared and disappeared at the various windows and open ports in the two-story facade, the maddening music seeming to grow even louder.

  The dwarf grinned at her, wiggling his tongue lasciviously.

  Moments later, Andrew emerged, shaking his head. He hurried over. ‘‘They’re not there.’’

  It seemed hard to breathe. She imagined the two of them kidnapped by some psycho, held in a basement, tied up in the trunk of a car, left for dead in the forest.

  Where the hell were they?

  She looked over the throngs of standing, walking, jostling people, and suddenly she couldn’t help herself.

  She began to cry.

  Johnny and Alyssa followed the path to the lodge . . . then walked around the side of the building and took another path that led to town.

  It was the path Tony, Dexter and Pam had taken yesterday, and it led to the parking lot of the Tastee Freez. From there, they walked out to the sidewalk and down the street to the fair.

  It was wrong of them to have lied to their parents, and Johnny was not even sure why they had done so. Terry and Claire were safely in their cabin watching TV, and he didn’t even know if there was a slide show tonight in the lodge or, if so, what it was about. But he’d wanted to go to the fair.

  He’d wanted to see Tony, Dexter and Pam again.

  Tony, Dexter and Pam had invited them to the fair, and when they’d asked, Johnny had made it seem as though meeting there would be no problem. He wanted the other kids to think he and Alyssa were cool, and she’d played along with him. Terry and Claire hadn’t even been invited, and that made him feel even better, even more privileged, even more determined to make sure they went.

  There was no sign of Tony, but Dexter and Pam were waiting, as promised, in front of the mirror maze, leaning against a concave looking glass and blocking anyone else from seeing themselves in it. Pam was his age, but Dexter was a year or two older, and he looked around the fair disdainfully. ‘‘This place sucks,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Johnny agreed, trying to be cool. He, too, casually leaned back against a mirror, saying nothing for several moments, pretending to be nonchalant. ‘‘We could go to the Place,’’ he said, as though the idea had just occurred to him.

  ‘‘I have a better idea,’’ Dexter told them. ‘‘Let’s make fun of old people.’’

  Johnny was disappointed but tried not to let it show. The truth was that ever since the town kids had told them about the Place yesterday, it was all he could think about. They’d been playing freeze tag, all of them, in the open area between the cabins and the lodge, and when they’d paused to rest, Dexter had said, ‘‘You know what’s even more fun than this? Going to the Place.’’

  ‘‘What’s the Place?’’ Johnny finally asked.

  Pam chuckled in a sly adult way that made him feel tingly all over. Dexter and Tony grinned. ‘‘It’s something we do around here for fun.’’ Dexter gestured around at the trees and hills and town. ‘‘You may not’ve noticed, but this ain’t exactly the center of the universe. I don’t know where you all are from, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s bigger than this town. You probably got movie theaters and malls, places to go, things to do. Out here . . . well, we can either hang with tourists like you or go to the Place.’’

  ‘‘What is the Place?’’ Johnny repeated.

  ‘‘It’s a place. Where grown-ups go. Our parents might even go there, too, but that’s kind of gross to think about.’’

  ‘‘What is it?’’

  Pam chuckled knowingly again.

  ‘‘We have a secret spot. Where we can watch.’’ Dexter looked up into the sky. ‘‘It can’t be daytime. It has to be dark. Night. And then you wait and usually someone’ll go there. A man and a woman most of the time but sometimes just a man or just a woman. They have to be naked.’’

  ‘‘What happens then?’’

  ‘‘They have to invite one of them. Not invite exactly, but lure them out from the woods, the wilderness, wherever they hide, wherever they live. And if one of them does come out, they can do whatever they want.’’

  ‘‘Who is them?’’

  ‘‘That’s part of it. You don’t know until they come.’’

  ‘‘Are they other grown-ups?’’ Terry asked, worried.

  Dexter leaned forward. ‘‘They’re not people,’’ he whispered.

  They’d broken up after that: Terry and Claire running back to their parents like the wimps they were; Tony, Dexter and Pam heading back down the path toward town. But before they left, Dexter invited Johnny and Alyssa to hang out with them at the fair the following night. Johnny promised that they’d be there.

  He’d dreamed that night of the Place, and in his dream he and Pam had hidden together behind some bushes while they watched a woman take off all her clothes until she was completely naked and he could see everything.

  Now the four of them stood staring at those who passed by the mirror house. Groups of kids like themselves. Couples. Families.

  ‘‘I don’t want to make fun of old people,’’ Pam told Dexter. ‘‘I want to go to the Place.’’ She looked significantly at Johnny.

  ‘‘Okay,’’ Dexter agreed. He pointed at Alyssa. ‘‘But she has to come, too.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Johnny said firmly. He didn’t want Alyssa involved in any of this.

  ‘‘I’m big enough to decide for myself,’’ his sister told him. ‘‘Besides, what am I going to do, wait around here by myself until I get kidnapped?’’

  She had a point.

  ‘‘If you can do it, I can do it,’’ she said defiantly.

  That made him uncomfortable. She shouldn’t be here, he thought. He shouldn’t have brought her along in the first place. He was beginning to think that he shouldn’t have come either. All of a sudden, an evening lounging around the cabin watching TV didn’t seem so bad.

  ‘‘Come on,’’ Dexter said. ‘‘I know the way.’’

  With Pam practically dancing behind him, Dexter led them around the back of the fun house at the end of the midway and across a field of dried grass toward a line of trees. The town was very narrow here, like one of those in an old Western movie. There was no depth to it. No streets or homes or buildings lay behind the empty lot where the fair had set up, and immediately after passing the fun house they were in open country, noise and lights and life behind them.

  The woods ahead looked dark.

  He wasn’t going to let Alyssa see anything, Johnny decided. He was going to make her look the other way. If Dexter tried to push, they would just leave.

  Why didn’t they leave right now? Why were they even following Dexter and Pam?

  Because he wanted to see the Place.

  Pam was singing something as she danced, though it was not a song he recognized.

  If they went too far into the woods, he and Alyssa were going to turn around. Johnny did not want to get too removed from civilization. But to his surprise, they stopped just inside the line of trees. If someone from the fair had trained a spotlight in this direction, the four of them could probably be seen.

  ‘‘This is the Place,’’ Dexter said.

  Johnny glanced about. Moonlight filtered downward through the trees, and light from the fair and the town seeped in behind t
hem, granting sparse illumination to the area in which they found themselves. It was enough to show him that the clearing where they stood was overgrown with lush vegetation. It was like an oasis, he marveled. The bushes were huge and full, the grass tall, completely unlike what he’d seen elsewhere around Oak Draw.

  There were animals here as well, small woodland creatures like squirrels and chipmunks, robins and rabbits. Only they weren’t behaving the way normal animals did. They seemed more like characters from cartoons in the way they sat still in a semicircle around the side of the clearing, chittering, chirping . . . and watching.

  ‘‘This way,’’ Dexter said. He led them around the side of a particularly large bush. Behind it and under the branches was an indentation in the ground, what looked like almost a small room within the huge bush itself, where they could sit or even stand and watch whatever went on in the clearing. ‘‘We’ll wait,’’ he announced.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  Shortly afterward, a couple entered the clearing from a slightly different direction than they had come, looking furtively about as though afraid of being caught. They said nothing but merely looked at each other for several moments . . . and then started to remove their clothes.

  ‘‘They’re going to pee over there,’’ Dexter whispered. ‘‘It brings them out.’’

  The woman’s shirt and pants were already off, and she was squatting in the dirt where he pointed, urinating.

  ‘‘Let’s go,’’ Alyssa whimpered, tugging on his arm. Now she sounded scared.

  ‘‘In a few minutes,’’ he promised. Part of him wanted to leave, too, but part of him wanted to stay and see what happened. He hazarded a glance at the woman. She had picked up a handful of mud from between her legs and was rubbing it on her buttocks. ‘‘And everywhere that big cock went, this Sue was sure to go,’’ she said in a singsongy voice.

  ‘‘They like rhymes,’’ Dexter whispered. ‘‘Nasty ones.’’

  The man was taking off his clothes. Johnny definitely did not want his sister to see this.

  Alyssa gripped his hand tighter. ‘‘Let’s go.’’ Her voice was barely audible.

  The man was totally naked now. He put his hands on his hips, facing away from them, and started chanting. ‘‘My dick is here. It took a whiz. Eat it! Eat it! Here it is!’’

  All was suddenly quiet. Everything had gone silent, as though a soundproof bubble had descended over the woods. The noises of the fair, the town and the highway were gone, and only the sounds they made were audible. Johnny heard the crunching of leaves, the panting of breath, the slap of mud being applied to skin.

  Either the moon had grown brighter or his eyes had adjusted, but he saw now that the cute little animals on the side of the clearing were dead. Only . . .

  Some of them were moving.

  A rabbit thumped its foot. A squirrel wiggled its tail. A bird twitched its wing.

  The rabbit’s face had rotted away. The squirrel’s eyes were missing. The bird’s stomach had been ripped open.

  The sounds of the outside world were still missing, but from the trees came a sharp whistle, followed by a whooshing windlike noise. The branches of bushes began whipping back and forth as though in anticipation of the arrival of something big.

  ‘‘Run,’’ Johnny whispered to his sister, and he grabbed her hand. Before Dexter or Pam could stop them, they were out of the bush and dashing across a small section of the clearing, then back the way they had come. He hazarded a glance over his shoulder as they broke the line of trees and started across the open field toward the lights and noise of the fair. He saw the woman on her hands and knees, with something slimy and sort of human approaching her from behind. Where the man had been stood a creature that looked like Bigfoot, although a tree blocked part of its body.

  Then they were running and not looking back, keeping their eyes on the prize as they dashed desperately toward the fair and the town. They ran around the side of the fun house, the final attraction on the midway, and back into the mix of townspeople and tourists, grateful for the music, the voices, the lights. He thought of Dexter and Pam behind the bush, watching those summoned creatures enter the dark clearing.

  ‘‘Johnny!’’

  He jumped at the sound of the voice, startled.

  ‘‘Alyssa!’’

  Their parents were in front of the fun house and hurrying over. He saw wild relief on his mom’s face and, on top of that, bone-deep anger. His dad, too, looked at once relieved and ready to beat them both.

  ‘‘Where were you?’’ ‘‘You could’ve been kidnapped or killed!’’ ‘‘I told you you couldn’t go!’’ ‘‘What got into you?’’ ‘‘What in the world were you thinking?’’

  They were both talking over each other, shouting so loudly that other fairgoers were turning to stare, and though Johnny was dreading the punishment to come, he was absurdly thankful that his parents cared so much, that they were both there for him and Alyssa.

  His mom grabbed his shoulders ‘‘Where were you?’’ she demanded, her eyes boring into his.

  ‘‘No place,’’ Johnny said, looking away.

  ‘‘What were you doing?’’

  ‘‘Nothing,’’ he said. He glanced toward his sister, met her eyes.

  She stared back at him stoically, then nodded imperceptibly. ‘‘Nothing,’’ she agreed.

  Twenty-one

  Brian passed by Wilson’s cubicle, paused for a second to stare at the empty chair and dark computer monitor, then continued on to his own workstation. He was pretty sure his friend was dead, but the not knowing kept everything in limbo. That made it harder in some ways but easier in others, for while he remained in a constant state of tension, waiting for confirmation, he was at least spared the pain of grieving. Because as long as he didn’t know for certain, his emotions were reined in—and that was exactly what he needed right now.

  The important thing was to remain focused.

  It was getting harder, though. The police had found blood all over Wilson’s house, and though investigators speculated that the two distinct types belonged not to him but to his wife and daughter, nothing could be proved and theories abounded. Many had a murderous Wilson at the center, though Brian gave absolutely no credence to any of those.

  In his mind, a psychotic millionaire was behind it all, probably someone Wilson had covered for the paper, probably someone he’d known.

  The man had slaughtered Wilson’s family.

  And killed him as well.

  But Brian didn’t know that, and right now he didn’t want to know.

  He sat down at his desk, sorting through the notes and messages that had accumulated since yesterday. Earlier in the week, he had scanned and sent copies of both new letters to Dr. LaMunyon—the one his mom had been sent and the one he’d found in the house—but he had not yet heard back from the linguistics professor. He was about to call UCLA and see what was going on when the phone on his desk rang. According to the blinking light on the console, it was from the managing editor, and he quickly picked up. ‘‘Hello. Brian Howells. Newsroom,’’ he said, answering in the officially sanctioned manner that he was supposed to use all the time but didn’t.

  James Bieber—Jimmy—asked him to come directly to his office, and Brian picked up a notebook and pen and hurried immediately to the other side of the newsroom. He knocked on the wall next to the open office door.

  ‘‘Come in,’’ Jimmy said brusquely. He motioned for Brian to sit down in the chair opposite his and tossed a paper-clipped sheaf of papers across the desk.

  Brian picked it up.

  ‘‘I assume you’ve heard about Lew Haskell up in the Bay Area. Another rich lunatic. Not violent so far as we know, but he’d been abusing his wife and son, was arrested for human trafficking among other offenses. It’s all there. Public records, wire service story, local articles.’’ Jimmy leaned forward. ‘‘I know you and St. John were sniffing around this story—’’

  Brian looked up in surpri
se, but Jimmy waved him away.

  ‘‘Nothing stays secret in this building. And I think you’re on the right track. No one’s connecting these, but I want us to. We’re the ones who are going to figure out the jigsaw; we’re going to draw the map for everyone else. But until then, we need to keep up with everything that’s going on. To that end, I want us to have the best, most thorough, most well-written coverage of each and every incident. So we need to talk to that woman. The one who was dating him, the one who turned him in.’’

  Brian cleared his throat. ‘‘I’m not really assigned to that.’’

  ‘‘You are now.’’

  ‘‘But—’’

  ‘‘It’s your story,’’ the editor said. ‘‘Go with it.’’

  Brian nodded. He couldn’t believe his luck. But in the world of journalism, fortunes changed overnight. One mistake, and you were Dan Rather, out on your ass. One big break, and you were Bob Woodward, perpetual icon. He was sure he was making enemies in the newsroom over this. He wasn’t exactly a rookie, but he was new to the Times, and some of the reporters who’d been here longer probably resented his quick rise through the ranks. Brian knew that he would, were the shoe on the other foot.

  He only wished that Wilson were here, too. It was his story as much as Brian’s.

  But he was dead.

  Probably.

  Had he been killed because he was investigating these murders?

  It seemed likely, and Brian found himself wondering if he was targeted, too. And by whom. And why.

  It was the scope of it all that seemed so daunting. All of those rich men? Over all those years? And his dad as well? There was no common thread, no dots he could connect. And yet it was epic, quite possibly the biggest, most important story he would ever work on in his life.

  And he didn’t know what the hell it was.

  Jimmy explained in detail exactly what kind of coverage he expected, and spelled out the travel logistics. Airline tickets and lodging costs had already been preapproved, and once he made contact with the woman—Carrie Daniels—and set up a meeting, all he had to do was make reservations, grab a photographer from the pool and be at LAX by the proper time.