“Okay, great. That’s my cue to go, then,” I said as I stepped back toward the booths and gestured at Marty and the girls. They were already getting up from the table. “I think you can handle it from here,” I said to Heather as I produced my wallet and handed her a trio of hundred-dollar bills. “That should cover everything, right?”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to pay a dime. All your meals are on the house,” she said, smiling at me. “It’s the least I can do after you saved me, and everyone here. But are you sure you don’t want to wait for the police? I mean you’re a hero! They’ll probably put your picture in the paper and everything, maybe even give you an award.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I have something I’m trying to take care of, and it’s time sensitive,” I said, not wanting to waste hours talking to the cops, or reporters, or anyone else who showed up. “But listen, you keep this.” I pressed the hundreds into the waitress’s hand. “Consider it a tip. You can split it with the other lady, or whatever.”
“Are you sure?” Heather said as she looked at me.
I nodded. “Positive.”
“Well, can I at least give them your name?” she said as she pocketed the bill. “They’re going to want to know who stopped these guys.”
“I’d rather not have my name mentioned. Really, I don’t want the attention,” I said as the rest of my group reached me. “But thank you anyway. We’re going to head out now.”
“All right,” Heather said with a little pout. “I’d sure like to know your name, though. Maybe I could look you up sometime and, um, we could hang out?”
“Tell you what. Give me a few days, and I’ll look you up,” I said, gesturing for Marty, Felicia and Cami to head outside. I trailed after them and waved to Heather. “Make sure you get those guys tied up tight, okay? See you around.”
I stepped outside and let the diner door close, and we headed for the Rolls just as the first faint siren sounded in the distance. “We’d better get out of here quick,” I said as I opened the driver’s side door and climbed in. “I don’t think the police are going to accept ‘I used a super hi-tech nanite weapon suit to knock them out’ when they ask what happened.”
Cami giggled as she got in the passenger side and closed the door, with Marty and Felicia jumping into the back seat at the same time. I was already starting the engine.
“I didn’t know I was making you a superhero suit,” Cami said as she buckled her seat belt. “That was really awesome, Roger. I loved it. You should totally go around fighting crime now.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said as I slipped the car into gear and pulled smoothly from the parking lot, headed for the highway. “I gotta admit, that was kind of fun stopping those assholes.”
But right now, I had a bigger asshole to stop, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Presley.
33
We almost missed the turnoff for Duckback. The wooden sign was badly weathered, the letters almost illegible, much like the rest of the town. Every house and building we passed was faded and worn, with a lot of boarded-over windows and tangled, weedy yards sprouting collections of various junk. The main drag consisted of a general store, a combination gas station and mechanic, a hardware store, and a grocery store about the size of a shoebox.
This place might’ve been one of those one-stoplight towns, except it didn’t even have a single stoplight. Probably because there was barely any traffic to direct. We saw a grand total of three other moving vehicles on the drive through town, all of them heading away from the place.
It took a while to find the address Agent Smith had given me, because it was at the end of an actual dirt road and miles away from any semblance of neighbors. The only good thing about the house where Henry Aaron used to live was that we didn’t have to fight through snarls of overgrown vegetation to get to the door, because there wasn’t any vegetation. No trees, no bushes, not even a single blade of grass. The entire yard was bare, powdery dirt, packed as hard as the road it stood on.
Actually, ‘stood’ wasn’t the right word for the place. It sagged on the patch of barren ground, the roof line bowed in at the center with a huge chunk of roof rotting away from the left side of the house and spilling debris in a landslide to the ground. Beyond a collapsed porch, the front door hung crooked on a single hinge. Every window in the place was either busted, or completely shattered and gone, leaving empty frames behind. And if the house had ever been painted, it was impossible to tell what color because it was all a uniform muddy gray now.
I parked the Rolls on the flattest part of the yard I could find, next to a pair of deep, cracked ruts that might’ve served as a driveway once. “Man, that house is going to fall apart if we sneeze on it,” I said, shaking my head as I killed the engine and popped the door open. “You guys don’t have to go in there. It looks dangerous as hell.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not staying out here and missing all the fun,” Felicia said as she opened her door and got out. “Maybe it’s haunted. I’ve always wanted to explore a haunted house.”
Marty let out a snort, exiting the car at the same time as me and Cami. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he said as he stared at the rambling shell of a house. “But there is such a thing as tetanus, and being buried alive under rubble, and rats.”
“Ew, gross,” Cami said, wrinkling her nose. “Do you really think there’s rats in there?”
“Actually, there wouldn’t be any rats,” I said as I took a few tentative steps toward the place, glancing at the random junk scattered around the non-yard. The rusting hulk of what used to be a classic car, an old washing machine, a pile of twisted scrap metal, a bent bedspring with a few ancient scraps of fabric clinging to it. “It’s been deserted too long, so there wouldn’t be any spoiling food left. That’s what attracts rats.” I looked at Cami and shrugged. “There might be bugs, though. And spiders.”
She shivered and made a face. “Yuck. But whatever, I still want to check this place out.”
“Yeah, all right. Let’s just be careful in there, okay?” I said as I started across the dusty ground. “I can’t use my pen to help you if anyone gets hurt.” I rubbed my chin. “But now that I’m thinking about it, maybe we could come up with an application of nanites coded to mend torn flesh, broken bones, and damaged organs.”
“You make an excellent point.” Cami nodded to me, suddenly lost in thought. “I’ll have to get with Maggie about it, but I think something like that might work.”
“Well, definitely move that up the list,” I said as we picked our way carefully across the rotted, jumbled pile of broken boards that used to be a porch. “Because that’s tech we absolutely need to develop.”
“Will do,” Cami replied as I grabbed the rusted door handle and tried to gently move it open. The remaining hinge snapped and the whole door thudded to the ground, crashing through boards with an explosion of splinters.
“Okay, then,” I said, gripping the door with both hands to set it aside. “I guess we won’t close up here when we’re done.”
I grabbed the frame and boosted myself up to the entrance, which was a good three feet off the ground without the porch to walk across, then held a hand out for the rest of them to wait while I tested the floor. When I was able to walk several feet without the whole thing giving way beneath me, I went back and helped Felicia and Cami up the rise. Marty pulled himself in behind them.
Not much sunlight filtered through the glassless windows, but it was enough to see that the house was mostly bare. No old furniture or discarded possessions littered the place, and most of the interior walls looked intact. But there were plenty of crushed beer cans and cigarette butts, and nearly every wall was scrawled solid with graffiti. Typical kid stuff like Tom Wuz Here and Jessie ’n Kevin 4 Eva and random profanity like fuck yo mama, interspersed with crude drawings and the occasional ultra-colorful spray-painted masterpiece.
Well, shit. I wasn’t that surprised by the vandalism, since the kids around here didn’t have anyth
ing else to do. Unfortunately, that probably meant they’d ransacked the place over the years and we’d find absolutely nothing here.
“Okay, so whether or not ghosts are real, this place is still kinda creepy,” Felicia said as she wandered a few steps into the room, turning slowly to look at the cluttered walls. “Damn. These are some seriously dedicated vandals.”
“They’ve had fifteen years to do all this,” I said, moving cautiously toward the far side of the room and the kitchen beyond. Despite temperatures in the seventies outside, it was chilly in here, like the emptiness of the place had sucked out all the warmth. “Not sure we should even try to go up those stairs,” I said as I passed the stairway leading to the second floor. “It looks like a bunch of them are broken.”
Marty moved to the other side of the room and rattled the knob of a closed door. He got it to turn, and the door opened with a squeal like rusty nails. A big swirl of dust billowed out from whatever was behind the door, and he coughed and staggered back, waving a hand in front of his face. “Just a linen closet,” he rasped, half-choking on the words as he reached out and slammed the door shut. “With, like, square piles of dust on the shelves. I think they used to be towels or something.”
“We probably should’ve brought dust masks, at least. But we’ll just make this quick,” I said as I took a closer look at the kitchen. “Don’t go too far, okay? I’m going to try the cabinets and drawers in there.”
“I’ll help you,” Felicia said as she came toward me. “This living room is creeping me out.”
“The kitchen’s not much better,” I said with a smirk.
There wasn’t much wall space in the kitchen, but that hadn’t stopped the local kids from marking the room with their version of home decorating. There were murals where the appliances had been torn out, names and slurs all over the narrow sections of wall between the upper and lower cabinets on both sides of the room, and the cabinets themselves had been tagged with most of the same stuff as the living room walls.
Someone had left a huge, thick glass ashtray on the left-hand counter, pushed back against the wall and completely overflowing with both cigarette butts and the nubby ends of hand-rolled joints. They were also building a multi-layered tower of empty beer cans, mostly Milwaukee and PBR, in the far corner where the fridge used to be.
I started opening drawers and cabinets, looking for anything that belonged to Presley or whatever family he might’ve had, and Felicia did the same on the other side of the room. I found some old, brittle newspapers lining a few of the drawers, a single plastic cup in one of the cabinets, and a matchbox car with a penny crammed through the tiny side windows in another, but nothing that could’ve helped me find Presley.
“Hey, I think I see something,” Cami called from the living room as I opened the last cabinet on my side and found it empty. “That ledge over there, it looks like a window seat.”
“Okay, yeah, that might be something,” I said, closing the cabinet to start back across the kitchen. “Hold on a second and I’ll—”
I heard a few footsteps, and then a loud, splintering crack and a thud as Cami let out a breathless shout. “Goddamn it!” she cried out. “My stupid leg just went through the stupid floor!”
I was already running.
Marty and I reached Cami at the same time, with Felicia close behind. Cami’s leg had gone completely through the living room floor to the top of her thigh, and her other leg was stuck out to the side at a painful-looking angle. Her teeth clenched tight as she tried to push herself out with her palms flat on the warped floorboards.
“Just don’t move, okay?” I said as I walked carefully beside her, feeling for more weak spots in the floor. “We’ll get you out. Maybe Felicia can check the—”
“Window seat. Over there,” Cami gasped as she waved a hand toward the far window, where the wall kind of boxed out beneath it. “It’s probably on a hinge at the back, and people usually keep sentimental stuff in those things. God, I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I’m stuck in this stupid floor.”
As Felicia stepped carefully toward the window, I knelt by Cami’s outstretched leg. “You’re not stupid,” I said. “Listen, I’m going to try adjusting you a little first, so you don’t crack your pelvis or something.”
“Good idea, because this really hurts,” she said through clenched teeth as her hands formed tight fists. “If I wasn’t so flexible, I probably would’ve broken something important.”
“Yeah, good thing you’re practically an acrobat,” I said, flashing a smile as I gently gripped her ankle. Cami could do things with her legs that I never knew were possible.
I started sliding her leg slowly across the floor, bringing it around in front of her until she gasped and shuddered with relief. “That’s way better,” she nearly groaned. “So, how do we get my other leg out?”
“Very carefully,” I said as I grabbed my phone from my pocket, turned the flashlight on, and directed the light at the floor where she’d gone through. I winced when I saw the blood staining the splintered wood around the hole. “How bad are you hurt?” I said softly.
“Not too bad, I think,” she said, drawing a sharp breath as she jerked instinctively, trying to pull her leg free. “I mean, I can still feel my toes and bend my knee. So that’s good, right?”
“That’s definitely a good sign.” I knelt in front of her and felt the floor around her thigh. The wood was spongy and bent when I pressed down, so I could probably break enough of it off to get her out. “Hey, Marty. Go around behind her and hold her, so she doesn’t fall further through while I loosen this crap.”
He nodded and circled around Cami to kneel behind her, and then wrapped his arms around her waist. “Sorry, Cami. I promise I’m not getting frisky or anything,” he said.
She laughed. “Just don’t let go, okay?”
“I won’t,” he told her.
“All right, I’m going to open this up,” I said as I ran a hand along the wood, looking for a place to slip through. I found a gap about an inch wide near the inside of Cami’s thigh and worked my fingers down. Splinters of wood scratched at me as I inserted my hand far enough to grip the edge of the wood. I pulled up, applying steady pressure until a handful of boards broke with a damp snap. Then I worked my way forward, breaking off small pieces of wood until the hole was big enough to pull her free.
“Think I got it. We’ll do this together,” I said, giving Cami an encouraging look before I met Marty’s eyes over her shoulder. “I’ll hold her leg steady, and you pull her out. Ready?”
“Just tell me when,” he said.
I braced her thigh with both hands and nodded to Marty. “Go.”
He started to stand slowly, drawing her up with him as I maneuvered her leg away from the jagged edges of the hole. It took less than a minute to free her, and she sagged back against Marty as her foot cleared the floorboards.
“Think I’d better sit down,” she said weakly as Marty maneuvered her away and lowered her to solid ground. “Damn, that hurt. I can’t believe I did that!”
I walked over and settled carefully next to her, looking at the blood that stained her leg. There was a long tear in her pants down the front of her thigh, and a deep, bloody gash beneath. “Well, at least I don’t see any splinters in there,” I said, putting an arm around her shivering form as she leaned into me. “But we need to get that cleaned and disinfected right away, so we should get out of here. Felicia, did you find anything?”
Felicia straightened away from the open window seat with a small, flat rectangle in her hand. “Actually, I think I did,” she said as she started toward us, testing the floor with each step. “There’s a bunch of papers in there, looks like old bills and school papers, stuff like that. And this.” She handed me the rectangle.
“You’re awesome. Thank you,” I said as I took a look.
It was a photo. Two kids sitting on the steps of what used to be the porch on this house, a boy and a girl who were probably somewhere between ten and
thirteen. I wasn’t sure, because I sucked at guessing how old kids were. The boy was dark-haired and kind of angry looking, wearing ripped jeans and a black Megadeth t-shirt with his feet shoved into battered sneakers. He had an arm slung casually around the girl, a little blonde thing in a yellow sundress with bare feet and a trapped smile, the kind that said eww, my brother is touching me.
I flipped the photo over. Written on the back in spidery cursive was Henry and Gladys at home, summer, age 12 and 11.
“Is that him?” Cami said, looking at the photo as I turned it back over. “The pissed-off kid?”
“Seems like it is,” I said, grinning as I tucked the photo into my pocket. “He won’t look like this now, but I bet Skye can age-advance the photo so we can get an idea of what he looks like now. Maybe then she can use facial recognition to find him or something. See, you didn’t fall through the floor for nothing,” I said as I squeezed her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have known that was a window seat.”
“Right, I’m a genius,” Cami said, giving a weak laugh. “Can we get out of here now?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said as I helped her up. At least we had something else to go on now. I’d just have to hope it would be enough.
34
“I’m fine. Really,” Cami said as she sat up in the bed and swung her legs over the side. “It’s just an ugly scratch, and I didn’t even need stitches. Maggie and Vanessa already cleared me. Come on, I’m dying to test the second suit and the mods I just made on yours.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” I said, smiling as I shook my head. We’d only been back at the base for a few hours, and after making sure Cami was in good hands with our doctors, I’d given Skye the photo we found at the house and asked her to work some magic. She’d said that the age advancement wouldn’t be a problem, but it would take a while.
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