The massive man moved into my line of sight, blocking out the light like an eclipse.
“Last chance, boy. Who are you?”
A siren very nearby split the night. The man, whom I couldn’t work up the thought to nickname, twisted his neck and sneered. I couldn’t help but notice how tiny his teeth looked in his oversized mouth.
“It is not the time to reveal ourselves,” he said toward the wailing noise.
I opened my mouth to ask “who,” but nothing came out.
He leaned in closer and reached a massive hand towards my face, but stopped a foot away. He blinked, a moment of confusion flashing through his eyes. He curled his fingers into a fist. I expected another blow, but it retreated instead.
“Stay out of our way,” he said. His fist curled in tighter on itself. An internal struggle flashed across his face and he was gone.
I blinked at the streetlight shining on me again. The wailing siren came closer. I gathered up the strength to roll onto my hands and knees. I managed to crawl behind a set of concrete steps just as the police car squealed around the corner and screeched to stop. Two officers climbed out, pulling their service pistols. They cautiously approached the unconscious SuperTall, Bentnose, Longarms, and YellowTeeth. I scooted further into the shadows, hoping they didn’t take the time to search the area. I was in no condition to escape if they decided to.
Chapter 15
11:22 a.m.
I woke up in bed without any memory of how I got there and Mitchell standing over me with his cell phone shoved in my face. I blinked at the picture displayed on it. No matter how hard I tried, it just wouldn’t come into focus. All I saw was a blur of colors. Trying to focus gave me a headache on top of everything else. I closed my eyes and willed unconsciousness to take me away.
“You look like crap,” he said.
“Go away,” I mumbled. My head felt thick and my whole body felt like one huge bruise. I wanted to pull the covers over my head, but my arms flat refused to cooperate.
“Were you in a fight or something?” he asked. “Or were you playing baseball with your face as the ball?”
I knew I was sore, of course, but the reality that my body still showed signs from the beating I took snapped my hazy brain into some semblance of working order. Whoever that guy was must have really laid the smack down on me because other than being shot, my bumps and bruises normally healed by morning.
“Hello? Are you alive in there?” Mitchell’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “What are you doing in my room, Snotmuncher?”
“Came in here, ignoring the stench, to get you. Mom wanted you out in the living room. Some stuff is going down.”
“What stuff?” I asked.
“That’s the least of your worries,” he replied. “Mom is going to blow a vein in her brain when she sees you.”
I pried my eyes open and forced them to focus on the cell phone he still held up in my face. A picture of me graced the screen. A really horrible picture of me asleep with my mouth hanging open and both my eyes swollen and black.
“Oh, crap,” I muttered.
“Yeah, really,” he said. “What happened to you?”
“Um, I fell out of bed?” I tried.
“Then climbed back in bed and fell on the other side of your face?”
“It could happen?”
“Mmhmm. Mom’s gonna flip out. Well, more than she already is.”
I pushed myself up to an elbow, forcing myself to not wince at the dagger-like pain in my ribs. “What are you talking about?”
“Dad never came home last night.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“He probably just got stuck at work,” he said. “News is saying roads were closed last night.”
“Some of them, yeah,” I said, the faint memory of sneaking past a few roadblocks as I limped home slipped into my mind.
“Yeah?” Mitchell asked. “How would you know?”
I glanced at the picture on his phone. “It’s obvious. A natural police-y thing to do.”
“Mmhmm.”
I pushed myself off the bed. My body complained the whole way up.
“I wouldn’t go out there,” Mitchell said.
“Dad’s not home. What am I supposed to do? Hang around in bed because I have a couple of black eyes?”
“How did you get them?”
I stopped my search for a clean shirt and turned toward my brother. The tone in that question was a shock. It was the same tone Dad would get when he wanted to have a serious conversation about whatever was going on in life. I couldn’t remember a time Mitchell had a serious moment in his life. To say the twins always looked for the lighter side of life would be a gross understatement.
“Maybe I’ll tell you some day,” I said after a moment.
“Fair ‘nuff,” he said. “But seriously, don’t go out there looking like that.”
“But—” I started.
“I’ll tell Mom you’re holed up on the crapper with a monster case of ‘oh my, that is just totally nasty.’ No need to thank me.” He turned toward the door. “The way this room smells, it won’t be that hard to believe.”
He opened the door and stepped out. Just before he closed it, he stuck his head back into the room. “Oh yeah. The city is on lockdown. The National Guard was called in early this morning and have all roads leaving the city blocked off.” And he was gone, my door closing with a click.
“What?” I called after him.
The National Guard? Things were getting way too crazy around here. I wanted to find out what was going on but had no idea where to start. The one thing I could do was find my dad. I gingerly peeled my shirt off, pausing a moment to examine the bright green stripe across my ribs where I had hit the lamppost. I prodded it with a finger. My healing was kicking in finally. It looked a lot worse than it actually was.
I pulled on a new, clean-ish shirt and slipped through my bedroom window. I paused at the edge of the house. The street looked pretty much deserted so I took off down the road in the direction of Nathen’s house.
11:55 a.m.
“Dude.” Nathen’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates when he answered the door.
“Not now.” I pushed past him and glanced around the living room. “Is Carina still here?”
“Of course. She’s in the kitchen.” He dropped his voice. “She never got a hold of her dad and the police still aren’t caring.”
“Mine’s missing, too.” My voice cracked a little, but I covered it up with a cough.
“What? Oh, man.” He started pacing the short entryway. “This is gettin’ crazy! I’m glad my parents left when they did.”
“They’re not here?”
“Nope,” he said. “They left the day before yesterday before things really started gettin’ crazy. Went to spend a few days in a cabin up near Park City.”
“Why didn’t I know this?”
“I don’t know, man. Why would you?” he asked absentmindedly. “I should try to get a hold of them. There’s no phone up there, but my aunt lives up that way. I’ll call her.”
“You and Carina were here alone last night?”
If he heard the question, he ignored it. He was already making his way through the living room to get a phone. I glanced at the couch in the living room and images of him and Carina sitting there, sucking each other’s faces off tap-danced into my head.
“Conor.”
I nearly jumped out of my shorts. I turned to find Carina standing in the kitchen doorway. She still wore the clothes from the previous day and her eyes were red rimmed. A wave of guilt washed over me with all the gentleness of a bulldozer. Guilt from being more worried about going out to pick fights last night. Guilt from assuming my two best friends would spend all night making out while her father was missing.
I watched her eyes widen and she hurried across the room. “What happened to your face?” She reached up to softly touch my bruised face. It felt like the win
d from an angel’s wing blowing gently on my face. Or something equally cheesy.
“It doesn’t matter,” I managed. “My dad’s missing, too.”
“What?” She pulled her hand back but didn’t drop it. It just kind of hovered there a few inches from my face.
“He didn’t come home last night.”
“What are we going to do?” She turned away, but I saw tears building up in her eyes before she did.
It took a couple of hard swallows to get the lump out of my throat. “I’m going out to look for Dad. I’ll look for yours, too.”
“Is that what happened?” She turned to face me again, examining my face.
The sensible thing would have been to lie. Getting jumped while out looking for my dad would have made a perfect excuse. “No,” I admitted. Sensible wasn’t one of my strong suits.
“What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. I was thinking I need to start by looking where our dads work. Where does yours work and I’ll go there.”
“We.”
“What?”
“We will go there,” she insisted.
“No way,” I said. “There’s no way I’m going to let you go out there.”
Her brows drew together in a frown. “You think I’m just going to sit around while the police do nothing and let you go out alone looking for my dad when you’ve never even met him?”
“Well, I—”
“The answer is no.”
“Besides, you need somebody to drive your janky butt around,” Nathen added, walking into the room. He held up the cordless phone. “Talked to my aunt. Let her know I was okay. Apparently, she’s never heard of a cell phone and has been calling the land line nonstop. The ringer was turned off. She’s going up to the cabin to let my parents know what’s goin’ on.” He tossed the phone on the couch. “So, where are we going first?”
“No,” I insisted. “I really can’t let you two go. It’s freakin’ crazy out there and you two could end up hurt.”
“Unlike you?” Nathen asked. “Judging by your face, somebody used it for punching bag practice.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I can see that,” he said dryly.
“Lindström,” Carina said.
“What?” I asked.
“Lindström Research. That’s where my dad works. Yours works at Salt Lake Pharmaceuticals, right?” she asked, scratching at her shoulder. “Lindström is on the way there. We’ll stop by my dad’s work first and then head there.” There was a finality in her statement that didn’t bode well for arguments.
“But—” I tried anyway.
“Great, I have my keys. Let’s get going,” Nathen said.
I really couldn’t see a way to convince them not to go with me. I regretted going to Nathen’s in the first place. I knew I should have just gone out looking for my dad, but I wanted to help Carina and had no clue where to start. Now, I was going to have to protect both of them.
12:35 p.m.
Unlike the previous day, the streets were deserted as we made our way towards downtown. Well, devoid of cars anyway. For the most part. It seemed like all the sane people left in the area had either found a way to flee town or had holed themselves up in their homes. All that was left on the streets were the kids who had apparently gone insane and us. I wouldn’t have been able to argue for our sanity.
The closer we got to downtown, the more roaming groups of teens we encountered. For the most part, they ignored us as Nathen sped past, although a few threw random objects at the car. They didn’t make much of an effort other than that.
The streets abandoned their winding path, straightening out into a familiar grid. A sure sign we were getting closer to downtown. I pressed against the window, staring out at the chaos. Kids ran around pretty much everywhere. Garbage littered the streets and cars rested on their roofs. The fronts of business buildings and shops lay in ruin. Smashed in and looted. There wasn’t a policeman in sight and I was really second guessing letting Nathen and Carina come along.
Carina let out a squeal as a cabbage hit her window. A cabbage? Really?
“Fools better lay off the car!” Nathen said.
“Turn up here,” she told him. “If you can.”
“Oh, I can,” he said.
He dropped the gas pedal to the floor and the car roared to life. Well, as much life as a four cylinder could manage. The little Corolla’s tires even squeaked out a squeal as he took the turn at thirty-five miles an hour. A group of teens who were loitering at that intersection hurried to get out of the way or get run over.
“Nathen!” Carina yelled. “You could have hit those kids.” She turned to look back, reassuring herself Nathen hadn’t run anybody over.
I glanced out the back window. They yelled unheard words after us and waved one finger salutes. I didn’t care if my whole body felt like a well-tenderized chunk of raw steak, I really just wanted to jump out of the car and take out my frustrations on those little punks. All of them. I gripped the backseat harder. My fingers dug into the cheap fabric. Wrath filled my head and my vision blurred. I imagined punching one of them so hard that his face would cave in on itself.
“Conor.”
“Huh?” I turned, my vision cleared, and found Carina looking back at me.
“We’ll find your dad, okay?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded.
“Both our dads,” she added. “Your face is looking better already, by the way.”
I prodded around my eyes with a finger. She was right. The sharp sting of the bruises had waned. It was about time my healing kicked in full time. Whoever that guy was, he must have punched me with the force of a Mack truck or something. It had taken way too long to start healing fully. It was on par with being shot. A punch shouldn’t have been that bad.
“You’re right,” I said, finding my voice after the odd episode of rage had faded. “I’m sure we’ll find them.”
She smiled, but it hinted at a sadness that hid somewhere deep inside. “Of course.” The smile slipped from her face, leaving only the sadness. “I don’t know what I’ll do if something happened to him.”
I laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We will find them,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
She covered my hand with her own. I was surprised it felt rough on my skin.
Nathen swore. “When you two lovebirds have a moment, we got trouble up here.”
Carina dropped her hand from my and turned forward in her seat. “Oh, no,” she muttered.
I looked out the windshield. Up ahead, about three blocks away, a large group of kids, both girls and boys, were pulling four people out of one of the businesses—an Asian fusion place.
“We should do something,” Nathen said.
“What can we do?” Carina’s tone made me think she didn’t believe we could do anything.
Not that I blamed her. The laughing crowd of street punks was growing by the moment. They were crawling out of the woodwork. It reminded me a lot like sharks getting the scent of blood in the water. They all swam in to try to get a nibble on the kill.
Nathen stopped the car. He glanced around, but nobody paid any attention to us. They were intent on those four poor people.
I grabbed the headrests and leaned forward between the front seats. The crowd pushed the four adults, bouncing them around like a ball in a pinball machine. I felt my blood pressure rise.
A cheer erupted from the crowd as one of the guys finally lost his balance and fell hard to the ground. My muscles coiled and tensed.
“We should do something,” I said through clenched teeth.
“But, our dads…” Carina started. Her voice was strained and cracked.
Our view of what was happening became obstructed as more people joined the cheering crowd.
“We have to,” I said.
“Dude,” Nathen said. “All those people.”
Just then, the undulating crowd parted and a kid, not more t
han fifteen and wearing thick hipster glasses, step forward and slapped one of the women. The fleshy smack could be heard from our spot a block away in spite of the noisy crowd.
It was almost like I was the one who had been slapped. I jerked even as the woman spun and fell to the ground.
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