On the playground, squeals of delight echoed, swing set chains squeaking, and footfalls on the wooden bridges spanning the play area.
They walked, shoes crunching on the trail’s crushed gravel. Lance had pulled away from her and walked ahead, tossing his ball in the air as he went, looking back occasionally to make sure Pamela was still close by.
As they rounded a bend and began to pass the pond, Lance stopped.
Pamela stopped too, waited. Sometimes—though rarely—Lance liked to watch the ducks splash in the water. But this interest had waned as he’d gotten older.
Pamela looked toward the water. She saw only a single other person nearby, a man on the opposite side of the pond, fishing pole cast and cooler at his side. The ducks—only three today—were near him, perhaps hoping for some tossed bread.
Lance was looking right, toward the other side of the pond, where there was nothing but grass and a small wooden dock that served hardly any purpose. He began to walk.
“Lance,” Pamela called, her voice barely above a whisper.
She could feel it. She couldn’t understand or articulate it, but she could sense something off in her son at that moment.
Rocking chair.
She followed Lance as he made his way toward the dock, doing her best to stay close, but also not interfere. She was curious, and a small part of her scolded her for risking her son’s safety to satiate her own curiosity. But she knew Lance, knew he was smart enough and well behaved enough not to do something to jeopardize his life.
Though there was now another part of her that was going to make absolutely sure and sign him up for swimming lessons at the local YMCA as soon as she got the chance.
Lance continued toward the dock, then slowed, veering slightly left and walking toward the water’s edge.
Then he did something that made Pamela Brody’s heart stop.
The water rippled as a strong gust of wind blew across its surface, and Lance raised his hand and waved.
Waved at nobody.
Waved at nothing but the empty pond.
Then he stood still for a full minute, the basketball once again tucked under his arm, his eyes locked on to the water.
And Pamela knew. She knew before he spoke a single word. Maybe it was her direct connection to her son’s mind; maybe it was a sudden full realization of what Lance’s abilities truly were. But she knew. All the same, she knew.
Lance turned and looked at her, his face pure innocence. “Mama,” he said. “That boy from TV is in the water. I think he needs help getting out.”
Alex Kennedy’s drowned body was pulled from the pond later that day.
Later that evening, a sheriff’s deputy who was only a few weeks on the job was sent to the Brodys’ house to ask questions.
His name was Marcus Johnston. He’d gone to high school with Pamela, and they talked for hours that night. Marcus left with much more information than he’d expected. Information he would likely take to his grave. Secrets he would keep for a girl he hardly knew.
Because for some reason Marcus Johnston couldn’t quite nail down, it only seemed to be what was right. And in a world so full of wrong, a little more right seemed like an okay thing to provide.
2010
“I’m telling you, Lance, it’s my bloodsucking ex-wife! Is the alimony not enough? She’s got to come steal from the store, too?” Nick Silverthorne’s face was the color of a tomato, and he pulled at the thinning hair atop his head. “I mean, I knew she was lowlife … trailer trash. But I can’t believe she’d have the goddam balls to come in here and steal from me. Like she didn’t get enough in the divorce? Bloody hell, Lance, never get married.”
Lance Brody leaned back in the musty chair in his boss’s office. Nick Silverthorne had owned the Hillston Sporting Authority for nearly twenty years, with two additional stores in surrounding counties. He’d done well for himself. A smart man who could always swing a deal and always turn a profit. He’d just happened to get caught up with the wrong woman early in life and then have said woman consistently increase his blood pressure while decreasing his bank account.
Lance’s mother had said she hadn’t been surprised to learn of Nick Silverthorne’s affair. “I imagine a man can only take so much of a particular blend of crazy.”
This was about as much of an insult as Pamela Brody offered toward anybody. Lance had smirked when she’d said it.
“Sir,” Lance said, “with all due respect, why haven’t you installed any security cameras in the store yet?”
The Hillston Sporting Authority’s security system consisted of deadbolts on the front and back doors, an in-floor safe in the back office where Lance and Nick Silverthorne were currently sitting, and the super complex password of Password456 on the store’s computer.
“Do you have any idea how much those damn things cost?” Nick asked. “I put a few in the new stores, you know, since I can’t always be there to keep an eye on things, and I about fainted when I got the bill. No, sir. We’ve never needed those things in Hillston, and we don’t need them now.”
“Sir,” Lance said, “we’re getting robbed. So—and again, I say this with all due respect—don’t you think we … well … sorta do need them now?”
Lance had worked for Nick Silverthorne since his freshman year of high school, and after three years of learning his boss’s nuances and tics and mood swings, he felt comfortable enough saying such things. Being on the Hillston High School varsity basketball team as a freshman had made Lance a bit of a local celebrity, and Nick loved bragging that Lance spent a lot of his off-season and after-school hours in the store, helping guests and keeping things running smoothly. Still, Lance felt the air change in the room slightly, and he uncrossed his long legs, bumping his size fifteen shoes on the front of Nick’s desk. He stood, stretching his back. At six foot six, he had a hard time with a lot of chairs, could never quite get comfortable.
Nick Silverthorne stared down at his desk and thought about Lance’s comment. He shook his head. “She’s not even taking that much,” he said. “It’s like she’s just doing it to annoy me.”
“Didn’t you get her key back? When you all … you know?”
“Of course I got her key back! Doesn’t mean the bitch didn’t make more before she returned it.”
“And you didn’t change the combo on the safe?”
Nick Silverthorne glared at Lance. “Why would I change the combo if I didn’t think she could get in the store?”
Lance glanced at the clock on the wall. He had to get going. He was helping set up for the girls’ volleyball game. All members of the basketball team had to volunteer to help at other sporting events, and tonight was his night to work. Not that he minded. There were worse sports to watch than girls’ volleyball.
Lance shrugged. “You’re right, sir. Of course. Have you called the police?”
Nick shook his head. “Not yet. But if she thinks she can just keep getting away with this…” He sighed. “I know, you’ve got to go.” He stood from behind the desk. “See you tomorrow?”
Lance nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ve got the morning shift.”
Nick was about say something but stopped, then said, “Thanks for letting me vent about the ex. I know it’s not your problem. Just nice to scream for a bit sometimes, you know?”
Lance thought about the many conversations he’d had with his mother over the years. Conversations he could have only with her. “Yes, sir. I do.”
Nick nodded. Smiled. “Okay, get out of here.” Then he held out his balled fist toward Lance, expecting Lance to bump it. It was a gesture that Nick Silverthorne appeared to be about a decade too old for, but Lance always obliged.
Only this time, when Lance and Nick’s knuckles met, Lance was hit with an instant flash of events, some deep-down and locked-away memory from the depths of Nick Silverthorne’s mind. Something the man obviously had no ability to bring forth into his current state of consciousness.
Otherwise, he would know everything.
Just like Lance did now.
Lance had to suppress a chuckle as he left the office and headed off toward the high school.
Lance had no idea why making contact with some people caused those instant-download moments. And often it was not a one hundred percent occurrence with the same person. Take Nick Silverthorne, for example. Lance had bumped knuckles, shaken hands, punched shoulders, and slapped high fives with Nick a thousand times over the past three years, and never once had he been gifted one of Nick’s memories or gotten a vision of some snapshot from Nick’s life.
It was unexplainable. Just like all Lance’s other gifts and abilities. The confusion and frustration that surrounded Lance’s talents sometimes caused him so much anguish he would sit awake for hours at night, asking questions to the darkness and always circling back to the heaviest of questions: Why me?
There was no answer. Not from his mother and not from the universe.
Lance supposed he could have asked his father if the man had any inclination as to why Lance was the way he was. But Pamela Brody had never even so much as told Lance his father’s name. She’d been honest enough about the situation—blunt, in fact—telling Lance his father was a one-night stand and that the man had literally run away after the deed was done. She always told the story with a laugh, but Lance was always left feeling empty. Not because he didn’t love Pamela and appreciate her ability to raise him as a single mother and make sure he had everything he ever needed in life, but because he still had questions. He always had questions.
He was left with nothing but simply accepting who he was. No further explanation needed. It was the only way to cope and survive.
Every night, though, he went to bed longing to be normal.
He’d seen things nobody should never have to see. He knew things that most people were never supposed to know.
Sure, his gifts came in handy, and sometimes even allowed him to have some fun, but there was a dark current running beneath all the light. Always there, always lurking.
The darkness was what scared him.
The following morning when Nick Silverthorne arrived at the Hillston Sporting Authority, he found the front deadbolt unlocked and the music already playing from the overhead speakers. Lance was behind the counter, sitting on a stool and staring down at a laptop Nick had never seen before. He had a bemused look on his face.
“Morning, sir,” Lance said, waving.
Nick walked to the counter. “You’re here early,” he said. “Your shift’s not for another hour.”
Lance shrugged, grin still on his face. “I wanted to show you something.”
Nick searched Lance’s face for an explanation. “Okay.”
“One of the girls on the volleyball team is in the A/V club. They help record all the school events and produce our truly terrible morning announcement pseudo-news show. She let me borrow this.” He pulled a clunky video camera from beneath the counter and set it down. “And this.” He pointed to the laptop.
“Okay,” Nick Silverthorne said again.
“I’m know I’m only supposed to unlock the store when I’m first one here in the morning, or if there’s an emergency,” Lance said, “but I thought I would try and help you figure out what’s been happening to the cash from the safe.” Lance looked sheepish, almost coy, as if there was something he wasn’t quite letting on about.
Nick’s eyes narrowed to slits. “So you came back here last night and what? Camped out?”
Lance smiled. “Sort of.”
“Why the hell do you have that stupid grin on your face?” Nick said.
Lance spun the laptop around so the screen faced his boss. “Press the space bar.”
Nick looked at the screen and saw a full-screen video already loaded. He hit the space bar and watched, slackjawed, as the on-screen version of himself strolled through the front door of the Hillston Sporting Authority wearing pajama bottoms, brown slippers, and a ragged Hillston High School t-shirt. He walked across the floor, moving in slow, almost exaggerated movements, shuffling his feet and teetering from side to side, almost as if he were drunk.
The on-screen Nick approached the door to the store’s office and the camera followed, keeping a good distance behind. After a minute, the camera got closer and peeked inside the door frame. On-screen Nick was hunched down by the in-floor safe, mumbling over and over to himself as he spun the dial. “Gotta pay the bitch, gotta pay the bitch, gotta pay the bitch.”
The Nick Silverthorne of the present widened his eyes as the on-screen Nick lifted the lid to the safe, reached in and retrieved one of the bank bags. He unzipped it and rifled through it, pulling out a handful of twenties and sticking the rest back in the bag before replacing it and the top of the safe. He spun the dial and stood up.
On-screen Nick retreated the way he’d come, exiting through the front door of the store and locking it.
Nick Silverthorne’s eyes looked slowly from the screen, met Lance’s. “What in the hell?”
Lance couldn’t help himself. He laughed at his boss’s disbelief. “You’re sleepwalking, sir. You’re stealing from yourself!”
Nick Silverthorne was quiet for a full minute, glancing from Lance and back down to the screen where the video sat frozen, finished. He blinked a few times, as if clearing his thoughts, and then started to laugh louder than Lance had ever heard the man laugh before.
“Why in the hell didn’t you wake me up, you asshole!”
Lance clutched his stomach, laughing so hard it started to hurt. “I … I think I heard somewhere you’re never supposed to wake somebody sleepwalking. It can screw with their head or something.”
Nick pointed at the screen. “How much more screwed up can I get?”
The two of them laughed some more, and when the raucous noise finally died off, Nick thanked Lance for solving the mystery before he went and called the police on his batshit crazy ex-wife.
“I coulda sworn it was her,” Nick said. Then he scratched his head. “Shit!”
“What?” Lance said.
“I know who the thief is, but I have no idea where I’m putting the money!”
The laughter broke out again.
Later that day, as Lance was finishing his shift, Nick called him back into the office. On top of the desk was a hiking backpack that sold for almost as much money as Lance made in a single paycheck. Nick pointed to it. “New models should be coming in in the next couple weeks. We need to dump the existing inventory, have a markdown sale.”
“Sure,” Lance said. “How much?”
Nick shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. But you take that one.”
Lance was genuinely surprised. “Seriously?”
Nick picked up the bag and tossed it to Lance. “Yes. Payment for keeping me from looking like a fool.”
Lance caught the bag and examined it, grateful. “Thank you, sir. I mean it.”
Nick nodded. “I know you do, son. I know. Now get out of here and go have some fun with the rest of your Saturday.”
2015 (I)
A few weeks into the fall of 2015, the temperatures had finally subsided from blistering ninety-degree days to a more acceptable seventy-five. When the sun began to set in the evenings, things cooled off even further, dropping to mid- to low sixties, creating that much-loved fall chill. The kind of chill that made you think of pumpkin spice everything and flannel shirts and brightly colored leaves. The kind of chill that made you snuggle up to your loved ones on the Hillston High School bleachers for Friday night’s football game and sit inside for your Saturday morning breakfast out at the cafés, instead of on street-side patios or courtyards.
An unmistakable change came when summer ended and fall began. Along with the change in weather came a change in lifestyle. People began preparing for the upcoming holidays—first a choice of Halloween costumes, then what size turkey to buy, and finally whose house would be hosting Christmas dinner and which church service would best fit a family’s schedule on Christmas Eve. The pools closed. Men who could usu
ally be found on the golf courses or out fishing on the weekends were suddenly self-sequestered indoors, huddled around television sets and devouring as much college and pro football and potato chips as their wives would allow. Women were rarely spotted in the wild outdoors without a cardboard-cupped latte or hot chocolate.
All these things happened almost instantly, an unspoken, natural transition. All these things were welcomed, especially after such a brutal summer of heat and dryness.
But in Hillston, Virginia, there was another big event to signify the beginning of fall: Centerfest.
Centerfest was a large celebration held in the downtown streets one day a year. The festivities were always held on the exact date Hillston had been founded. This year, it would be a Wednesday. A nuisance to some, but tradition was tradition.
Both local and out-of-town vendors set up tents and booths to sell every imaginable art or craft. Food trucks smoked and steamed and fried and grilled all variety of mouthwatering items, filling downtown with a mixed aroma of charbroiled sweetness that would cause even the fullest of stomachs to grumble for more. Carnival-like games were set up—the basketball hoops with overinflated balls, the impossible-to-knock-over cans, basket and ring tosses, balloon darts—all the expected entertainment displaying rows of large stuffed animals as prizes, which few people were ever spotted actually carrying away from one of the booths.
There was live music and face painting, and the local fire department put on safety demonstrations. There was a makeshift petting zoo sufficient for only the smallest of children.
Centerfest was Hillston’s biggest event of the year, and people always looked forward to it. Not because of the five-dollar sand art their kids could build or the three-dollar funnel cakes, but because the air was always cool and crisp, and the company was always good.
For Lance and Pamela Brody, this year’s Centerfest would be the day that would forever change their lives.
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