B003J5UJ4U EBOK

by Lubar, David

  I spun around at the sound of my name. The older guy snatched the photo from the other one and held it up. Even from a distance, I could tell that the picture was a grainy black-and-white shot, like the kind they show on the news after someone robs a convenience store. It was probably taken from a security-camera video.

  “We know who you are,” the guy with the short hair said. “We know where you live. We know everything.”

  No way. Nobody knew everything. Except my friends. And they’d never break our vow. I pressed a finger against the scar in my palm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shouted. “Leave me alone.”

  “You run now, you’ll be running the rest of your life,” the older guy said. “Is that what you want?”

  “I want you to go away.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” He stopped about six feet from me. “We saw what you did. We don’t care about the money. You aren’t in trouble. So relax, okay? This isn’t about the bank. We want to help you use your skills for everyone’s benefit. Cooperate with us and everything will be fine. Right now, we just want to introduce ourselves.” He took a step toward me.

  I backed a step away. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You’re too smart to believe that will work.”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  He shook his head. “It’s far too late for that. Listen, young man, you can trust us. We’re the good guys. USA all the way.”

  Just then, the guy with the short hair dove toward me. Flinch would have seen it coming, and Cheater would probably have realized what the guy was thinking. I didn’t have that sort of warning, but I reacted quickly enough to save myself. While he was still in mid-air, I slammed him down at my feet. I can’t lift a person very easily, but I can give someone a persuasive nudge when he’s already moving.

  “Wait,” the older guy shouted. “Don’t do anything stupid.” He dropped the photo, reached one hand out toward me, and shoved the other inside his jacket.

  That’s when I snapped all of his ribs. I wasn’t even thinking. I didn’t plan to hurt him. The most sickening sound shot through the air, like a string of firecrackers. The guy dropped to his knees and his face went pale. He opened his mouth. I thought he was going to scream. Instead, he let out a wet moan as blood gushed from his mouth.

  I wobbled back, sickened by what I had done. Something stung my neck. I looked down. The other guy, still on the ground, held a gun pointed at me.

  I ripped the gun from his hand and sent it flying across the street. But the rushing darkness told me it was too late. I realized I’d already been shot.

  “Sweet dreams,” he said. “You and me—we’re going to make history.”

  I tried to pull the dart from my neck. But my hand wouldn’t cooperate. Neither would my mind. Then something flipped a switch in my brain and everything shut down.

  AN INTERNAL FBI MEMO RECENTLY

  OBTAINED UNDER THE FREEDOM OF

  INFORMATION ACT

  To:

  All field offices

  Subject:

  Clarification of request from

  As covered in last month’s briefing, we have been requested to forward to all material related to any cases marked “unexplained.” Please note that this does not include instances where the perpetrator is merely unknown. has requested we provide reports of only those crimes where the means or method remains unexplained.

  a year before—a random act of meanness

  “I THINK YOU’RE about to learn a harsh lesson,” Major Douglas Bowdler whispered as he watched the little boy. He paused on the sidewalk and pretended to adjust the buttons of his jacket as he waited for his chance. Sure enough, the boy put the large box down on his lawn and went back inside the house.

  “Careless,” Bowdler said. That was the problem with the world. People were careless. They lacked discipline. Their minds were weak. Nobody took responsibility for anything.

  Bowdler walked to the edge of the lawn, where it was bounded by a waist-high chain-link fence, and looked into the box. Toy soldiers. Hundreds of them, each no bigger than a child’s thumb. Obviously, this was the boy’s treasure. It was nice to see that young people still admired soldiers, even if they didn’t understand discipline.

  He was pleased that he’d been in the neighborhood. He was looking for a location for the lab. The place he’d just checked out wasn’t right. Too close to other houses. Too many large windows. No basement. He’d had his doubts about the suburbs, but his partner, Thurston, had insisted on exploring various possibilities.

  Bowdler was sure the city would provide better choices than these outlying areas. Everyone minded his own business in the city. Not that it really mattered, since the lab would never be used to contain a human subject. They were hunting for something that didn’t exist. He wasn’t troubled by this. They were being well paid. Even though the property wasn’t right, the trip wasn’t a total loss. Not now that he’d spotted a target of opportunity.

  He scanned the perimeter in search of a way to dispose of the toys. There were always storm drains. But he found something much better. Traffic had backed up at the light. A concrete truck was right in front of him. Perfect. Bowdler hesitated for a fraction of a second as he imagined losing his own priceless collection of military relics. But sympathy was for losers and empathy was for the weak. And he would never be as careless as this boy. He leaned over the fence, snatched up the box, took five steps to the curb, flicked his wrist, and sent the toy soldiers into the slowly rotating muck of sand, gravel, and cement. Five more steps and he replaced the empty box.

  He didn’t bother to stay and observe what happened when the boy discovered that his treasures were missing. The immediate reaction—the wailing and crying—wasn’t important. What counted was the lesson. The lost soldiers would make an impression. The boy would learn responsibility. Maybe even grow up to be a soldier. It was possible to mold young minds into any shape one might desire.

  Pleased that he’d made the world a better place, Bowdler walked back to where he’d parked his car.

  OVERHEARD AT A CONSTRUCTION

  SITE LAST JUNE

  GUY # 1: Hey, what’s that in the concrete?

  GUY # 2: Looks like some kinda plastic.

  GUY # 1: There’s a bunch of it. Should we tell someone?

  GUY # 2: You want to pour the whole job again?

  GUY #1: Noway.

  GUY # 2: Me either. Besides, it ain’t a problem.

  GUY # 1: Yeah. Once this stuff sets, nobody will ever know.

  look it up

  EVERY MEMORY AFTER that moment when I got shot in the neck was a fractured piece of a fever dream. Fragments and snatches. All in that same room I’d just escaped from. I pushed the past from my mind and turned my attention to my present problem. I couldn’t face the bank. At first, the guy at the news stand wouldn’t give me change. I finally got him to give me three dollars worth of coins for a five dollar bill.

  When I got back to the phone, I called 411.

  “What city?” the operator asked.

  “Spencer.” I was glad I remembered that.

  “Name?”

  “Martin Anderson.”

  “We have no listing for that name.”

  Shoot. I realized the phone wouldn’t be listed under his name. “Are there any Andersons in Spencer?”

  There was a pause. Then she said, “Thirty-five.”

  “Thanks.”

  As I started to hang up the phone, I heard another voice from behind me.

  “Move the marble, Eddie.”

  I dropped the phone and spun around. The gorilla threw a shower of sparks in my face. “You’re starting to displease me.”

  I blinked hard and he vanished, leaving behind the smell of cinnamon. Even though my head was clearer, I still wasn’t completely a citizen of the real world. I needed to get off the street and rest for a little while. Somewhere safe. Somewhere quiet where I could think. And I needed information.

  I
knew my way around Philly well enough to find the library. It was just a couple blocks north, and then across Logan Circle. There were people at all the computers, but that wasn’t a problem. I spotted one guy who was obviously just killing time playing an online game, so I pressed some random keys. Then I made the mouse stick on the mouse pad. After that, I pressed a couple more keys. I was just about to play with the monitor’s brightness controls when the guy muttered something and walked away.

  I slipped into the empty seat, pulled up a white-pages search site, and got a list of phone numbers for anyone named Anderson in Spencer. Then I did a similar search for the last names of my other Edgeview friends—Woo, Grieg, Dobbs, and Calabrizi. I tried Dad’s name, too, just in case my parents had gotten a different phone number, but nothing came up.

  It was dark by the time I left the library, which made me feel less like a target. I wasn’t going to try to get any more change. I had way too many calls to make to be pumping a pocketful of quarters into the phone. So I swung into a corner store and bought a phone card. Then I went back to the pay phone and got busy. I called each Anderson on the list and had pretty much the same conversation.

  “Hi, is Martin there?”

  “Who?”

  “Martin.”

  “I think you have a wrong number.”

  “Sorry.”

  About halfway down the list, calling a Richard Anderson, I got a different answer.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m a friend of his. Is he there?”

  “He’s grounded. No calls.”

  “Can I leave a message?”

  “I told you, he’s grounded.”

  “Please? Can you just tell him that—”

  The guy slammed the phone down before I could say anything more. At least I knew I’d found him. Maybe there was more than one kid named Martin Anderson in Spencer, but the man on the phone was such a jerk I figured that pretty much proved I had the right number. Martin rarely talked about his parents, but from the few things he’d let slip, I got the feeling he had a rough time with his dad.

  So did I. But I didn’t care if I had problems with my dad. I wanted to go home. I wanted to put on my own clothes—my own broken-in sneakers and my own worn-out sweatshirt from the Dali Art Museum. I wanted to sit on the couch in the living room and watch television, or pull apart the paper just for the comic section. I even wanted to hear Dad talk about his business deals, or listen to Mom make endless phone calls to raise money for her favorite charities.

  I headed for 30th St. Station and caught a train to downtown Sayerton. It was just a couple blocks to my house from there. As I passed green lawns and flower gardens bathed in the whitewash of streetlights, I felt like a ghost, traveling streets I hadn’t walked since last winter. It seemed wrong that the trees weren’t bare and the wind wasn’t icy. It seemed weird that the air didn’t carry the heavy smell of burned firewood.

  My parents must have thought I’d run away or something. I tried to imagine how they’d react when they saw me. Mom would cry and hug me so hard I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Dad rarely let his feelings show. He was always doing huge business deals with people who didn’t understand the real value of the companies they owned. It was sort of like playing poker, except the stakes were way higher and Dad was the only one who could see all the cards. He wouldn’t act surprised when he saw me, but I was pretty sure he’d be happy.

  I was half a block away from home when a car pulled to the curb across the street from my house. Nobody parks on the street around here. Everyone has a garage. And visitors park in the driveway.

  “Idiot!” I smacked my fist against my leg.

  Obviously, this was the first place I’d run to. I moved behind a tree and peeked out, hoping I was wrong. Maybe the guy in the car really was visiting someone. But he just sat there, looking at my house. I was pretty sure he wasn’t one of the guys with the lab coats. That was bad. It meant Bowdler had other forces he could bring in to help with the hunt.

  At least he hadn’t spotted me yet. But I was trapped. I couldn’t go in the front door. I couldn’t even risk walking away. Once I moved out from behind the tree, he might notice me. I needed a distraction.

  I glanced back the way I’d come. A dump truck loaded with gravel was rumbling down the street. All I had to do was reach out with my mind and yank the steering wheel hard to the driver’s left. The truck would swerve and ram the car. That would definitely be a distraction. But the thought of someone getting crushed made me feel sick.

  There was an easier solution. I jiggled the truck’s steering wheel back and forth, just enough to get the driver’s attention. He stopped right next to the car, hiding me from view. I turned and dashed back to the corner, walked around the block, and cut through the yard of the house behind us. I went to my back door and tapped on the glass. I wasn’t sure whether my parents were there. But if they were, I didn’t want to startle them by walking in.

  There was no answer. I risked a louder knock. Still no answer. So I pulled the dead bolt with my mind, and went inside. “Mom?” I called. “Dad?”

  Nothing.

  I checked the house, making sure I didn’t walk past the front windows. The drapes were half closed. That was a bad sign. Whenever we went on a trip, Mom would leave them that way. She didn’t want them all the way open so people could see that nobody was home, or all the way closed, so people would know there was nobody home. So she left them half open. Dad and I both found that kind of a funny solution, but we kept our mouths shut.

  My bedroom door was closed. All the way. I was afraid what I’d find behind the door. An empty room? I wasn’t ready to face that. I headed down the hall and went to their bedroom. Their luggage was gone. So was a bunch of clothes. I searched for clues.

  I didn’t find out where they were, but I found out where I was supposed to be. The clipping was in Dad’s desk drawer.

  For the first time in my life, I understood what people meant when they said that their flesh crawled. I could feel my skin ripple as I read the article, like ghosts were running rakes across my body. According to the paper, Edward Kenneth Thalmayer, beloved son of Corbin and Pamela Thalmayer, had died last January. There was a small, private funeral.

  Apparently, I’d died in a fiery car crash in late January. Police figured I was joy-riding. My body had been so badly burned that the local police had needed the help of a federal forensics lab to make a positive identification. I stared at the clipping for a while, feeling a numbness that went far deeper than the drug-induced stupor Bowdler had used to keep me under control. Death by itself was too weird to think about. My own death was beyond weird.

  Oh man—my parents thought I was dead. I couldn’t even imagine what they’d been through. My throat closed up as I pictured my mom dressed in black, standing in front of a coffin.

  I kept hunting. There was no clue where they’d gone, except I couldn’t find their passports. I guess they’d left the country. Maybe they needed to get away from all the memories here. As far as they knew, their only son was dead. Worse, I’d died in a senseless, stupid way.

  As more funeral images flashed through my mind, I raised a bottle of perfume from my Mom’s dresser and hurled it at the opposite wall with my mind. Before it could smash against the wall and shatter, I stopped it.

  I sat on the edge of their bed until the anger faded enough so my whole body wasn’t trembling. Never act in anger. Another of Dad’s sayings. Whoever made up those sayings had never met Bowdler.

  I needed to find out what I was dealing with. Whatever agency Bowdler worked for must be pretty powerful. They’d kidnapped me and faked my death. I had no idea what else they might do. I figured I shouldn’t even try to e-mail Martin or Cheater or any of my friends. Stuff like that left too much of a trail. I didn’t use the phone or even turn on my computer. They could be watching all of that. I really wanted to get in touch with Martin. But that would have to wait.

  I also needed to catch my breath and ca
lm down. I felt like I was on an amusement-park ride that spun in every direction at once. I was so tired the whole world seemed fuzzy. I decided to stay here tonight and sleep in my own bed.

  When I went to the bathroom, I almost flipped on the light, but caught myself in time. That was the toughest part—watching every move I made. I wondered if that’s what life was like for Flinch. I hoped not. It was exhausting. Cheater had shown us a trick once. Ask someone to write a sentence without dotting any i’s or crossing any t’s. It’s almost impossible. We’re all bound by thousands of habits.

  Starving, I went to the kitchen, hoping there’d be something in the fridge. I unplugged it before I opened it, so the light wouldn’t go on. But it was empty. I guess my folks had cleaned it out before they left. I found corn flakes in the cabinet. There wasn’t any milk, but I didn’t mind dry cereal.

  It was strange moving through a darkened house. But at least I was home. Though it felt empty without my parents here.

  Tomorrow, I’d figure out what to do. Tonight, I just wanted to lose myself in mindless sleep and hope I was tired enough so that the dreams of snapped ribs and flowing blood would stay away.

  PART TWO

  where it is seen that

  trash isn’t the only one

  having an eventful Wednesday

  cheater misplays the

  hand he’s been dealt

  “I’LL TAKE TWO.” Cheater pulled the seven of clubs and the three of diamonds from his hand and slid them facedown toward the dealer. He was glad his nickname hadn’t followed him from Edgeview. It would be tough to get anyone to play poker with a kid called Cheater. And it would be impossible if they knew he could hear their thoughts. But that wasn’t a problem because these guys at the table—a group of older kids playing high-stakes dealer’s choice—had no idea what they were facing.

  He was also glad to be out of Edgeview. Now that he understood his talent, he was able to avoid trouble. Martin had shown him how. But his talents came with a price. Knowing what people thought—that was brutal. He still couldn’t believe how much the smart kids hated each other. It was like an undeclared war among a dozen small countries. They all wanted to see each other crash and burn. Even the nicest kids had terrible thoughts. Cheater admitted he wasn’t any different. Sometimes he’d think dreadful stuff, especially when the bigger kids pushed him around at school. But right now, the only thought in his mind was cleaning out these guys.