They

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Once the back door to Mike’s sedan was closed and the vehicle was locked, Mike turned to him. His face was ashen. “We’ve got to find Carol,” Mike said. The shock was finally settling into his system. He was limp, hollow-eyed, haunted.

  “That’s part of the plan.” Frank helped Mike into his car, then got in and drove away from the house. As he got on the 405 Freeway heading south to Irvine, he thought about calling Vince but decided against it at the last minute. I’ll call him later if we have to. Right now I’ve got to get Mike the hell out of here.

  And as he drove to the motel, taking back roads, driving in a way to shake-off pursuers, Frank kept checking his rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Mike Peterson was asleep. Thank God for Valium, Frank thought.

  Frank was seated at the small table by the bed. A lone sixty-watt bulb lit the room, providing enough illumination for him to work by. He’d been writing notes to himself since he got Mike to sleep. The Valium Frank had slipped into his soft drink was enough to put him out all night.

  He picked up a can of coke and drank from it. He needed the caffeine to keep himself going. He would get some sleep later. Right now he needed to think.

  The minute he got Mike to his motel room he’d told him to lie down on the queen sized bed. Mike had protested at first, repeating the same mantra. “Carol’s gone, they’ve got her, my God I’ve got to call the kids, the police, I’ve got to do something—”

  Frank knew he had to knock Mike out. The guy was driving him bugfuck and he couldn’t think while Mike was wigging out. He couldn’t afford to have Mike bring everything crashing down. One call to the cops and everything would be destroyed—their investigation, their secrecy, their security. The cops would automatically suspect Mike in Carol’s disappearance and would haul him in for questioning. Without Mike, Frank and Vince would be sitting ducks. The Children could then move in and do whatever the hell they wanted…kidnap Vince maybe, kill Frank. And in the meantime, whatever information Mike had gathered on the cult would be locked away. Anything he or Frank told the police would be met by healthy skepticism. They’d be damned lucky if they could get anybody to take their story seriously, even Mike’s friend Billy.

  He couldn’t have that.

  So Frank told Mike to lie down and chill out for a minute. He was going to get him a drink, then he could call his kids and the two of them would call the police. Mike seemed to accept this and while he lay down, Frank had gone to the soft drink dispensing machine outside the room and bought a Coke and bottled water. He’d let himself back in the room, poured Mike a small glass, then searched through his overnight bag for his box of pills where he kept aspirin and Valium. He’d poured a glass of water, dropped a Valium in it and waited while it dissolved, then had taken a tiny sip to make sure it couldn’t be detected. He’d watched while the former high school teacher drank the water down then lay back down. Ten minutes later he was asleep.

  Now Frank had to figure out what the hell to do.

  The first thing he thought of doing was calling his Aunt Diane. He hadn’t seen her or Charlie in over ten years and hadn’t spoken to her in at least a year. In the years since the breakin at their home twenty-three years ago—an obvious warning to cease their investigation into the disappearance of his father—they’d been reluctant to talk to Frank about his background. They’d shared some information with him when he brought it up, but it was like pulling teeth. It had taken them five years to open up enough to start talking about it. He’d stopped asking them about it, and then one day when he was visiting he’d started asking again. This was shortly after he’d gotten sober and was working on what was to become his first horror novel in five years, Things Inside. He’d tried to bring the subject up gently and they answered his questions in the same way, not offering any more than they’d given him the first time around. It was obvious they weren’t prepared, nor did they wish to revisit painful memories.

  Which was why he couldn’t go to them now. As much as he would have liked to pick up the phone right now and call Aunt Diane, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get her involved again. She’d been through too much already. And besides, what could she do about his and Mike’s situation now? How could she help them?

  Vince was the next person he thought of calling. He supposed it was time to get him involved more deeply. Frank picked up the phone and dialed Vince’s phone number.

  The phone rang three times before it was picked up. “Hello?” Vince sounded cautious.

  “It’s Frank.”

  “Yeah?” Now Vince sounded even more overly cautious. Nervous, even.

  “We’ve got trouble.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not over the phone. It’s serious, though. We’ve got trouble.”

  Frank could hear Vince on the other end of the line fumbling with something and muttering.

  “I don’t think we should be separated any more tonight,” Frank continued. “Can you get over here?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. Where are you?”

  Frank gave him his location and the room number. Vince said he was going to get some clothes on and he’d leave in ten minutes. Frank replaced the receiver and leaned back in the chair, his mind running with a thousand thoughts. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to talk about, or what kind of plan of action we’re going to take but we’ve got to do something. And we’ve got to stay together. No telling what could happen and it’s better to have strength in numbers tonight.

  Frank picked up the Coke and drank while he waited for Vince.

  “I’M SO SORRY,” Vince said for the tenth time since Frank called. He slipped into a T-shirt and rooted around in a dresser for a pair of jeans.

  “It’s okay,” Tracy said. She was sitting up in bed watching as Vince dressed. “These things happen.”

  “No they don’t,” Vince said, fastening the buttons on his jeans. “Normal boyfriends don’t have secret pasts that wreak havoc on their current relationships in the guise of kidnappings and attempted murders and—”

  “Vince!” Tracy’s tone was sharp and Vince paused. She was looking at him. “It’s okay. I understand.”

  Vince turned away and reached for his shoes and socks. “Well I’m glad somebody does, ’cause I sure in the hell don’t understand what the hell’s going on.”

  “I’m sure pretty soon you will,” Tracy said. She leaned forward, the sheets slipping down her breasts. “For what it’s worth, I think you need to stop listening to this guy Frank and not even go over there. In fact, maybe you should call the cops.”

  “I don’t know why he didn’t think of doing that himself,” Vince muttered, tying his shoes.

  “I’m serious,” Tracy said. Vince stopped dressing and looked at her as she continued. “Really, Vince, just look at yourself. You’re tired, you’re jumping at shadows, you’re getting just as paranoid as you say this Frank Black guy is. He’s almost gotten you killed already, and the police are after you in Pennsylvania. I think you’re in way over your head and you should just—”

  “Give up?”

  “Yes.” Tracy looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment, Tracy’s features stony, immobile. “Just…I’m sitting here watching as you…as you…just…I don’t know, this is just crazy!” Tracy threw her arms up in the air in defeat, her voice taking on a tone of frustration. “I hate seeing you like this, and I hate what Frank’s been doing to you!”

  “This isn’t just Frank’s doing,” Vince said, sitting down on the bed to pull on his shoes.

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s what happened to us when we were kids.”

  “And what happened to you?”

  Vince looked at her. Her questioning was starting to piss him off; she very well goddamn knew what happened to him. “What’s the point?”

  “The point is,” Tracy said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She reached for her clothes on the floor, “I’m going wi
th you.”

  “What?” Vince sat up in surprise.

  “You heard me.” Tracy started getting dressed. “I’m going with you. What’s your problem is my problem.”

  “But Tracy—”

  “Vince!” She looked at him with a stern gaze. Vince felt something stir inside him. As serious as she looked, there was something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in another woman since he was married to Laura. It was a sense of undying commitment and love.

  “You’re serious?”

  Tracy pulled the shirt she’d worn earlier in the evening over her head. Her hair, slightly ruffled from their bed-play, tumbled to her shoulders. “You bet I’m serious.”

  Vince briefly debated the implications this would raise if he brought Tracy to Frank Black’s motel room. He’s gonna have a fit, he thought. He’s gonna blow his fucking stack.

  As if reading his thoughts, Tracy said, “I know your friend is gonna be pissed the minute he sees me, but I don’t give a shit. He may not understand, but I care about you, Vince. These people almost killed me, too, and that makes it more than just your problem. It’s our problem.” Now fully dressed, she stood in the bedroom waiting for him to get up. Her eyes blazed with a fiery intensity. “Got me?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Vince said. He watched Tracy for a moment as she got dressed, his mind racing. There was no use in stopping her. He could tell she’d made up her mind. Tracy was going with him and she was just as involved in this as he and Frank and Mike were. He was going to have to find some way to convince them that Tracy was okay, that she wasn’t a threat. Besides, hadn’t Frank said that Tracy already checked out? That she had no ties to the cult?

  Tracy was dressed and waiting for him. “Let’s go,” she said. And with rising trepidation, Vince followed her out of the house to his car.

  FRANK LOOKED THROUGH the peephole of his motel room door at the sound of the knock on the door. When he saw Vince he almost opened the door automatically. But when he saw that he was with somebody it felt like he’d just been body slammed. He blinked and tried to focus in on the woman standing with Vince. He didn’t recognize her, had no idea who she was, but she was staring right at him through the peephole.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He threw back the bolt, unlocked the door and opened it. “Get in here.”

  Vince and the woman stepped into the room but Frank held her back. “Just you,” he said, glaring angrily at Vince.

  “Bullshit,” the woman said, shouldering her way past Frank.

  “Not so fast.” Frank tried to restrain her from entering and she pushed his arm away. A flush of anger poured through him as she shoved past. Frank darted after her as Vince followed her inside. “Who the fuck do you think you are to just walk in here and—”

  The woman whirled around, her features blazing with an anger to match his own. “Who do you think you are? Calling my boyfriend anytime you want to, calling him away on your goddamned—”

  “Now wait a minute!” He wasn’t even aware he was yelling.

  “No, you wait a minute!” The woman stepped up to him, thrusting her finger at him. He didn’t know who she was, but she was a bold little thing. He vaguely recognized her as Tracy Harris, Vince’s current fuck bunny; he and Mike had run a background check on her and some of Vince’s other friends a month or so back and had come up with nothing overtly suspicious. Still, he wanted Vince to steer clear of her for a while until this shit blew over. “I’m getting sick and goddamned tired of you ordering him around like he’s some puppet to your paranoid delusions of…of…”

  “Yeah?” It was taking all of his willpower to keep from screaming back at her. “You gonna spit it out or what?”

  It was obvious she was infuriated with him. Her green eyes blazed with anger. “I’m tired of all the goddamned secrets and acting like everything is like some fucking spy mission!”

  “Tracy!” Vince had closed the door and was trying to calm Tracy down. He took her shoulders, trying to hold her back. “Chill out, okay?”

  “Yeah, chill out,” Frank said. He turned to Vince and glowered. “And you!”

  “What?” Vince didn’t even look at him; he was trying to get Tracy to move further into the room, perhaps to sit her ass down.

  “You just don’t fucking get it, do you? After all we talked about, after all the shit we’ve been through.”

  “Cut the crap, Frank,” Tracy said, breaking away from Vince. “What about the shit I’ve been through. I was almost killed too! What about me?”

  Vince looked at Frank. “What about her, Frank? Don’t you think she deserves to know what’s going on?”

  “No,” Frank said, moving into the room. Mike was still conked out in dreamland. He crossed the room and peered out the window into the night beyond. “This has nothing to do with her. I don’t know why you had to make it her business.”

  “Because she’s my girlfriend and I love her,” Vince said. The tone in Vince’s voice made Frank turn around. Vince was standing with Tracy near the dresser. His arm was around her waist. Tracy had her hands on Vince’s hips, their bodies facing each other, faces turned to Frank. “They almost killed her that day at the airport. She’s known everything about what’s been going on since the day my mother died. She knew that my mother’s murder has something to do with all this. She was worried about me. When we left for Pennsylvania I wanted to call her; she knew I was planning to go back anyway. I called her from the hotel room the night you and Mike went back to Lititz.”

  “Shit,” Frank muttered. All the trust he’d felt for Vince, all the camaraderie, was crumbling away.

  “I didn’t do this to cause any trouble,” Vince continued, his voice steady. “She already knew something was going on even before you showed up. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Lie to her the way Mike lied to his wife,” Frank muttered. He couldn’t look at Vince.

  Vince was silent. He looked at Mike, who lay in bed conked out. Frank felt the weight of the world crashing on his shoulders. Suddenly the idea of lying to the one you loved the most didn’t seem like such a hot idea. Look where it had gotten Mike and Carol.

  With that came the thought of Brandy and the kids. They didn’t know anything. Oh, Brandy suspected, but he’d purposely kept her in the dark. Had that been the right choice? Would not knowing what to expect make her as vulnerable to the Children as it had made Carol?

  Shuddering, Frank reached for the chair behind him and sank into it. He felt so tired and angry and frustrated. He wanted to scream, he wanted to smash something. And for the first time in years he wanted a drink.

  “Frank,” Vince said. He approached warily. “What’s going on? You said something was wrong…”

  “It’s Mike,” Frank said, not even looking at Vince. Part of him was still fighting the urge to throw Vince and Tracy out of the room, but another part simply told him to let it go. So what if she knows? What the hell is she going to do?

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  Frank told him what happened. He spoke slowly, at first not looking at Vince as he began the story. But as he told it Vince sat down on another chair and Tracy sat on the desk next to Vince. They held hands, listening calmly and patiently as Frank told them about getting Mike’s frantic call, his arrival at the house, and Mike’s panicked state. He told them about the condition the house was in, the blood on the floor in the bathroom, the signs of a struggle. He told them about their search for the second key to the safe deposit box, about Mike’s frantic grief. “I brought him back here and put Valium in his drink so he would chill out,” he concluded. “And then I called you.” He’d straightened his posture around the middle of the narrative, but now that he concluded it he slouched down a little bit. “I didn’t think we should be alone tonight. Plus, I thought maybe we should go to Mike’s friend Billy with what we have now. We have enough documentation to take to him. It’s all circumstantial, but…” He shrugged. “I’m hoping it’ll be enough.”

  Tracy looked c
oncerned; Vince looked alarmed. “This is getting too big.” He looked at Tracy, his eyes wide. “The more this goes on the scarier this shit is getting. It’s like everywhere we turn something else is just hitting us.”

  “Okay, let’s put some of this in perspective,” Tracy said. Whatever anger she had had upon entering the room seemed mostly gone as her tone of voice became serious. She still ignored Frank as she spoke mostly to Vince, but Frank could tell she was including him in her observations as well. “You haven’t called the police yet, which is a good thing. I’ve got a feeling that if you did they might have put two-and-two together and hauled you in for the shooting back in PA. Two, there is the shooting investigation to still think about. Have either of you been watching the news since you got back?”

  Frank shook his head. “Not much. I scanned CNN a few hours ago and went online to see if there’s anything new and there’s nothing.”

  “Okay, so I guess we have to assume they’re still looking for you.” Tracy turned to Vince.

  “What about Mike?” Vince asked.

  “My first concern was getting him out of his house,” Frank said. “Far as I knew, they could have been waiting for us in there. It looked like whoever hit the place did it a few days ago. The house was locked up and had that stuffiness a house gets when it’s been closed up for awhile.”

  Tracy nodded. As much as Frank didn’t want to admit it, she was very much a part of the equation now. “So you think they broke in when his wife was home? You think they kidnapped her or something?”

  Frank shrugged. “Something happened. There was blood all over the bathroom and the master bedroom.”

  “No sign of forced entry, right?” Vince asked.

  “No.” Frank frowned. “Mike said he let himself in, just like always. The minute he walked in he saw the place was trashed.”