Lying there, I smell the richness of the soil and the mulch around the hedges, and I close my eyes and try to center myself. It’s not easy centering yourself. Now that I think of it, I don’t even know what it means, really.
I open my eyes, raise my head, and spot the cop. I can’t see his face, I can’t see his eyes, but I have to try to get in.
I rush at him. His mind is as hard as diamond. He’s lived in Maryland at some point. Either that or he’s Quincrux’s nephew.
Something arcs through the air, and I see Jack land on Dubrovnik’s roof. Jesus. The kid is like Spiderman or something. But that’s got to hurt.
The cop gives another laugh. Dubrovnik and the police officer shake hands, and then the cop walks back to the cruiser, gets in, and starts the engine.
So much for Raleigh’s finest.
I can see Jack perched at the apex of Dubrovnik’s roof, silhouetted against the early morning sky. He doesn’t look like Spiderman now. He looks like a kid with a backpack on trying to balance himself on the peak of a roof. But something in his stance makes it different.
Maybe it’s that he knows if he falls, he can save himself. A powerful thing, that—knowing you can save yourself.
Dubrovnik steps out onto the porch, that same sallow look even in the darkness. He lights a cigarette and watches the cruiser drive off. Then he remains on the porch, smoking, looking out into the night.
It feels like he’s looking for me. I hug the earth. I kiss the ground, push my face in. I keep my mind silent.
I touched him earlier. I went in deep, and I know I could have taken control. I could have worked him like a puppet. I could have. But it was so foul there, so full of horrible thoughts and memories, I couldn’t make myself do it. As much as I get into them, they get into me. I doubt if I could do it now if I tried. The truly scary thought I found is that Dubrovnik feels there’s many things he hasn’t been able to do yet. And while he knows what he’s done is wrong, those thoughts are diffuse and abstract and he’s not really concerned with the consequences.
He doesn’t even know the girl’s name.
And he doesn’t care.
Eventually he snubs out his smoke under his heel and turns back into the house.
Jack leaps again, streaking through the air, away from me and behind the house. After a moment I see him caroming through the air again, pinwheeling his arms, and he lands with a heavy thud on the peak of the roof.
The porch light comes on again, and Dubrovnik comes back outside.
He walks into the yard and cranes his neck to look at the top of the house. Jack flattens himself against the roofing, moving downslope on the far side.
Dubrovnik, blinded by the porch light, seems to shrug and goes back inside.
Now we have to wait.
God, I’m tired.
Before sunrise I find a bit of hedge far back from the road, secluded and out of sight from the neighbors and Dubrovnik. It’s quite the prickly, uncomfortable seat, but I imagine Jack isn’t faring much better on the roof. Despite the branches jabbing me in the back and scratching at my exposed skin, I manage to doze.
When I wake, the sun has crested the diminishing line of houses on Palm, and cars are on the street.
The neighbors whose yard I’m squatting in leave in two small sedans, the dad in slacks and a tie, the young kids squalling and complaining to their mother on their way to school. Damned ingrates don’t know how good they’ve got it. If I had a family like that I’d…
Who am I kidding? I’d be just like them.
After a while the street quiets, the traffic thins, and the sun rises higher over the line of houses. I could fall back asleep in my bed of mulch, but I see Jack’s head pop up on the roof and he points downward. I hear a faint clanking and clattering. Then the detached garage door rolls open and a dull brown station wagon, old and rumbling, rolls out and into the street and drives away.
Jack leaps. He arcs high in the air, keeping his arms out and palms facing down, and lands directly next to me on the lawn.
“Damn, man. You’re getting good at that.”
He lifts his foot and shows me the divots in the grass.
“I gotta get some cushier shoes. My feet are killing me.”
“Are you slowing yourself in the descent?”
“Of course. Otherwise I’d have broken legs. There’s no real way to control it without more practice. Just trial and error.”
I wonder if the anger, the outrage, helps him. Dubrovnik hasn’t helped my disposition any. I had bad dreams lying in the dirt. But I’ve never seen Jack as confident.
“You know what happens next, don’t you?”
He snorts. “Yeah. We go in.”
“Right.” I wipe away the dirt and mulch sticking to my clothes. “So you can jump like the dickens, but can you still do your explosive thing?”
He gives me a sharp look. Then he holds up his hands like a surgeon. “Still me, Shreve. Nothing’s changed. Just don’t stand behind me. And if things look bad, hit the deck.”
“Jack.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“Yesterday—at the train station.”
“Forget it.”
He knows what I’m talking about. If you’re a mind reader, you don’t have bad dreams without cause. Or maybe you always have them. Hell, I don’t know.
“I had to.”
“Didn’t you say that already?” Jack shakes his head and spits.
Seems like me and Jack ain’t best buds anymore. I don’t know if that hurts more than having to leave Vig, but it’s close. It hurts.
There’s nothing for it except to do what we came to do. The police won’t help. The girl can’t help herself. Anyway, we’re standing in the wide open, in the morning sun, and the conspicuous factor is rising fast.
“You check out the backyard?”
“Yeah. Patio, sliding glass door. Door to the garage.”
“Whatdya think?”
“What? I don’t know. You’re the thief. You tell me.”
I guess I deserve that.
“I think we should just blow down the front door, three-little-pigs style. Go in fast. Free the girl. Get out fast.”
Jack’s eyes narrow. He’s thinking. “Yeah. Maybe so. Hold on.”
He takes three steps and jumps, shooting into the sky and over the house.
A moment later Dubrovnik’s garage door rattles up, and Jack waves at me from the darkness inside. I dash across the street.
“Unlocked.”
Jesus H. Shoddy security for a monster.
For a moment I’m overwhelmed with fear: what if what I saw was just a false memory, a disgusting fantasy? I could be wrong. I’m new to this, and yesterday was exhausting. I could have screwed up. No monster would leave his back door open. He would guard it. Monsters have to hide, right?
Jack moves to the inner door. He puts his hand on it, looks back at me, and says, “I’m going first. Just in case.”
“Hold on.” I stop and take off my backpack. I dig out Marvin’s Taser. “Okay, let’s go.”
Jack turns the knob, and we go in.
SEVENTEEN
It’s a yellowing, shabby kitchen with patterned linoleum and flower-print wallpaper. It stinks of stale smoke.
For a moment I’m reminded of my mother’s trailer. But where her home is trashy, this one is immaculate, despite the smoke smell.
I turn to Jack and whisper, “She’s underneath the basement. He’s dug a room.”
“I remember.” It’s almost a snarl.
Right. I made him see. He’s never going to forgive me for that.
“I have no idea how to get into the basement.”
“Huh. We’ll have to search.”
Jack’s calling the shots now somehow. I don’t know whether that means we’re near the end of our partnership … our brotherhood … or whether it just means he’s in charge.
Why does everything have to
be so hard?
We start opening doors. A utility closet. A pantry. A closet full of coats. Jack looks at me, shakes his head. He points. Moves on to the hall. A bathroom, then another closet.
Then, suddenly, a man is standing in front of us. He’s a foot away from Jack, filling the dim hallway with his shadow. Dubrovnik. I know it’s him, even though I can’t see his face.
He swings something, and Jack jerks sideways, his head leading. The sound of the impact sounds like a branch breaking under the weight of snow, bright and resounding but wet too. A moist crack.
Jack hits the wall and slumps to the floor.
Dubrovnik steps over his body and advances toward me. Even in the dark, I can tell he’s smiling. This is fun to him.
It’s my job to make it not fun for him.
I raise the Taser and pull the trigger.
Two darts lance through the air and embed themselves in Dubrovnik’s chest.
He doesn’t jerk or fall or tense. Nothing. He just reaches up and yanks the darts out.
It’s been more than two months. The charge is dead.
Never have I felt anger like I feel now. Not when Moms abandoned us. Not when I think about Billy Cather and being shot. Not when I think about a father who never was. The anger is like an explosion in my skull, and I’m not even trying to invade Dubrovnik’s head.
I shriek and race down the hall at him, arms out, leaping.
He swings—a billy club, it looks like—but the walls are too close here. The tip bounces off a doorframe and hits me in the shoulder instead of the head. The pain is sharp but not unbearable. Unfortunately for Dubrovnik, I have a good head of steam, and inertia is a bitch.
I barrel into Dubrovnik, fists swinging. The first one clips him on the cheek, and his head rolls back. But he flings up an arm and blocks my left as he grabs me with a gnarled hand, unimaginably strong. I yelp as the bones in my left wrist grind together. A sound issues from his disgusting throat. It takes me a moment to realize he’s laughing. It’s a phlegmy, evil sound. But it’s cut off as his feet hit Jack’s inert body and he begins to topple. Backward. Taking me with him.
I bring up my arm as we fall. His head bangs on the hardwood floor, and my elbow smashes into his throat, hard. I feel the flesh of his neck and the gristle of his windpipe giving. I push down as hard as I can, shoving my forearm down like I’m bearing a shield, grinding it into his neck.
Dubrovnik begins to thrash. One of his big, gnarled fists catches me on the temple, and the world teeters and I see stars and I’m rolling away from him. When I get my sense of direction back, I spy the dull, blunt shape of the billy club—no, it’s a miniature baseball bat—and I snatch it up and scramble to my feet.
Dubrovnik is gasping, his hands clutching at his throat. He looks at me with wide, terrified eyes. Having a hard time breathing, are we? Let me help you with that.
It doesn’t bother me one bit that he’s looking at me right in the face when I clobber him with the bat.
“Fat lot of good all these superpowers did when he came at us,” I say, glancing at Jack. He’s woozy and unstable, and his scalp bleeds all over the place. He looks like a survivor of a terrorist bombing.
I take him into the kitchen and give him a glass of water. Then I grab a dishrag and mop up the blood oozing from his head. Once I get him on a kitchen stool, I search through all the drawers until I find some white nylon rope.
My head is a little woozy, too. I can feel my cheek swelling. I’m afraid the left side of my face will never be the same. First Ox smashing me into cinders, and now Dubrovnik. But at least Dubrovnik’s going to roast for it.
I trudge down the hall to Dubrovnik’s body. I check his pulse. Still here in the land of the living, the bastard. I yank his wrists backward, tie a tight loop around them, and then begin trussing the monster like a hog. Once he’s bound tight, I go back and check on Jack. He’s still just sitting there, gazing at the hideous wallpaper. It’s patterned with birds and pears and what looks like a cherub playing a lute.
That’s creepy, the cherub.
I’ve got to find the basement.
“Who was…”
Jack’s voice is slurry.
“So, who left? Who was the person in the station wagon —”
“Hold on, man. I’ve got to find the girl, quick.”
I race down the hall, throwing open doors. The one to the basement is the last on the left.
The stairs creak as I head down. I feel along the walls for a light. I can’t find one.
It smells moldy down here, and the air feels dank and cooler than upstairs. After a few moments my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I think I can make out a lighter-colored line above me. I wave my arms above my head and, sure enough, hit a string. Once it stops swaying, I grab and pull and I’m blinded by the glare of the single hundred-watt bulb.
I’ve never been in a basement before, since trailers don’t have them. But heck, all trailers have TVs. And this basement looks like what I think a basement should look like. I see a workbench and a wall of shelves holding preserves and boxes. The floor is concrete. A washer and dryer sit in the corner along with a treadmill.
What I don’t see is a door to a sub-basement.
I search the concrete, looking into all the corners.
No door.
“Can you hear me?” I scream. “Can you hear me!”
I send out my mind, leave the prison of my body, and try to find the light of another person down here. Nothing.
Oh no.
I scramble back up the stairs.
Can I have been totally wrong? Am I crazy? Is Dubrovnik innocent?
I stop, go back down the stairs, my heart doing backflips in my chest. My own breathing is deafening in my ears.
“Please! Answer me! Are you here?”
Nothing.
I move to the boxes in the corner. I throw them aside, breaking the dishes or glasses stored in them. I strip the shelves, throwing the pickled fruits and vegetables onto the concrete. Each one detonates with a low, liquid crash.
Behind the shelves there’s nothing.
Panic rises in my chest, and I feel like at any moment the world will end.
I’m whirling around when I see the extension cord. It’s orange and snakes from the single bulb, down the wall and underneath the stairs.
I follow it, tracking the cord with my eyes. A large chest lurks there in the shadow of the open stairs. I yank the chest away. The floor sounds funny and hollow.
Oh, thank you.
I throw open the trapdoor and see a rough clay and stone stairway. Dubrovnik made this with his own two hands.
At the bottom is a door with a combination lock.
Racing back up the stairs, into the dark hall, I find Dubrovnik still unconscious.
“Jack! Jack! I need your help! Bring water.”
No response.
He must have gotten a serious whack from Dubrovnik. Probably has a concussion. I dash down the hall, into the kitchen. Jack’s slumped over, resting his head on the counter like a bored student in class. Rummaging through the cabinets, I find a large pot, jam it underneath the faucet, and fill it with water.
I dump it all on Jack’s head. Spluttering, he jerks his body upright. Blood streams down his cheek and neck.
“Stay with me, Jack. Stay awake.”
He blinks. Nods once, tersely.
I fill the pot again and carry it back down the hall to where Dubrovnik lies. Did I see his hands move?
I kick him—as viciously as I can—in the stomach. He twists, and I dump the water on his face.
Dubrovnik gasps. I really did a number on his throat, I think.
“I know you’re awake, you freak. Look at me.”
Getting in his head is harder this time. My agitation may be to blame, or it might be his pain and discomfort from being hog-tied. I don’t know. This ain’t a science, I’m coming to understand.
“Look at me!”
He turns his head and opens one ye
llowed eye. I’m happy to report the other is swollen shut.
He’s fighting me, on the inside. He knows I’m in his head.
“What’s the combination?”
“Huh…” He voice rasps like sandpaper. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”
Just hearing him lie makes me furious again. So I go ahead and kick him in the stomach once more. I wish I was wearing boots. Tennis shoes aren’t the best for interrogation.
“What’s the combination?”
He smiles a bloody smile, the evil bastard. He’s still fighting me. But just by my asking, he’s thought of it. I guess he can’t help but think of the answer.
12-26-05.
“Where are your car keys?”
He shakes his head, but I get a clear image of them in a drawer in the kitchen.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
He’s not smiling anymore.
I dash back into the basement, down the steps, and get the lock open on my second try.
I push open the door.
He keeps her in the dark. I can hear her whimper and cringe as the door squeaks open.
We’re born into pain, our constant companion through life. There are things you see, things you experience that you can never wash away or rid yourself of—never. They’re like ink impregnated into skin, tattooed on your consciousness, malformed and dark and hideous.
There are things we see that we will never be able to unsee. They change us to the core.
What I see now in the pit, I will never speak of it, not the way Dubrovnik kept that child, not the evidence of the things he did to her.
Never.
She huddles in the corner of the cell. In the cold.
Looking at the girl, I fall to my knees on the roughhewn packed-clay floor. When the heaves stop, my breath coming in dim white plumes from my mouth, I can see again through my tears. I force myself to stand, force myself to go behind her eyes, truly terrified of what I’ll find there. I see things, things he’s done to her—
I’ll never speak of them. Never.
It’s as though she’s always been here. She has no recollection of light, or love, or her mother’s touch, or even warmth. This disgusting little hole in the ground is her world.
The Twelve-Fingered Boy Page 15
