They

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Vince tried Frank and got a busy signal.

  “Well?” Vince said, pushing the antennae down.

  “Well,” Tracy said, looking out at the ocean.

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “You can’t get in touch with them?”

  “Nope.” Vince shook his head.

  Tracy frowned. “Hmm. Well…they did tell us to get a room nearby.”

  “And we have one,” Vince said. Before they stopped at the café, they’d secured a room at a Best Western half a block away.

  “We could go back to the room and keep calling,” Tracy suggested.

  Vince felt nervous. “What if we still can’t get in touch with them?”

  Tracy pursed her lips, thinking. “Mike did say that if we don’t hear from them, we should drop out of sight.”

  “Drop out of sight?”

  “Or we can go home.”

  Vince couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Aren’t you afraid of…of what might happen?”

  “What might happen, Vince?” Tracy looked at him. “You tell me. We’ve come here at Mike’s request, now he and Frank don’t show up. They fed us this bullshit that this spooky devil cult is on to us, and they can’t even so much as show up and—”

  “Suppose they got them?

  “And who is they?”

  Vince looked at Tracy as if she’d gone crazy. He didn’t know what to say; his mind was a jumble of emotions, all fighting to the surface. “You bug the shit out of me last night to get you involved and…and…”

  “Listen,” Tracy rested her hand on his forearm, her features softened. “I’m sorry. I know I was a pest last night, and I really was angry at being left out. I really did want to be included. But…what else can we do? We were given explicit instructions. Now things haven’t gone according to plan. They may have gotten to Frank and Mike, and if that’s happened we have to know about it. And the only way to know is to go back and—”

  “No!” Vince was adamant. He wasn’t going back to his home.

  Tracy’s grip on his wrist tightened. “Hear me out for a minute, okay?” She glanced around quickly and Vince looked around, too. Nobody was paying attention and he felt the tension slacken.

  Tracy leaned forward, her voice lowered to a whisper. “If they’ve gotten to Mike and Frank, we don’t know about it, right? So we go to our places and get our stuff, okay? We tell Brian we’re taking time off from work and we go into hiding. We go somewhere we know they won’t even think of looking for us. Montana or something. Hell, we’ll go to Alaska. Surely you’ve got to have enough money in savings to tide you over for a few years, right?”

  Vince nodded. Along with stock options, he was worth a couple of million dollars if he cashed out on everything.

  “Then we shack up together, live under a different name, whatever it takes to be far away from this place,” Tracy continued. “Maybe we’ll learn the truth and find out that Mike and Frank really just decided to drop out of the investigation.”

  “And not tell us?”

  “Why not?” Tracy took her sunglasses off. Her green eyes were reflective. “Maybe they tried contacting us. It doesn’t matter. Maybe they just decided the best way was to…just run away.”

  “Frank….run away?” Vince shook his head. Tracy Harris didn’t know Frank Black.

  Tracy ignored him. “And if they did, maybe that’s for the best. You know?” Her touch became soft now; her hand caressed his arm. “Maybe it’s best to leave things alone. What happened in the past is the past.”

  Vince wanted to argue the point, but for every argument he had, Tracy had a counterpoint. They continued the discussion on their walk to the Best Western. Once behind locked doors, Tracy slipped out of her clothes. “I’m done discussing this. Try calling them again and see if you get an answer. I’m taking a nap.”

  Vince watched her for a moment, sitting on a chair near the bed. Then he pulled the cell phone out and tried both numbers again. Neither man picked up.

  Vince closed his cell phone, but kept it turned on. Tracy slipped into bed. She fluffed a pillow and lay down on her left side, her back to him. Case closed.

  Vince sat in the chair for a while, watching her. Maybe Tracy was right. Maybe it was time to stop this mad chase. Where had it gotten him? Nowhere. He was no closer to finding out what had happened to his mother than he’d been last month.

  Besides, he thought, we were supposed to turn everything over to Mike’s friend, Billy something. This afternoon. So why haven’t Mike and Frank been in touch?

  Vince tried calling Mike and Frank again. Once again, neither man picked up. The calls didn’t even go through to voice mail, which Vince found odd. He sat in the chair and looked out the window, worry gnawing his gut as Tracy dozed in the king-size bed behind him.

  VINCE PULLED THE Volvo up to the curb in front of Tracy’s sprawling condominium complex the following morning at nine-thirty, feeling a weight settle in his chest.

  Tracy turned to him, looking radiant. “Well, this is it, I guess.”

  “Yeah, this is it.” He felt funny about doing this, but it had been decided this morning. They really were going to do it.

  Vince had dozed in the chair yesterday afternoon while Tracy napped. When they woke up, they got dressed and ventured out onto the boardwalk again. Vince tried calling Frank and Mike again. Tracy looked concerned and asked Vince what they would have wanted Vince to do should anything happen to them. Vince had shrugged. “They’d probably want me to go to that lawyer friend of Mike’s,” Vince had said.

  “Do you know his name?” Tracy had asked.

  “Billy something. Greck or Greek or something like that.”

  They’d spent the evening walking the boardwalk talking, debating what to do. It was obvious something was going on. Vince was positive that one of the first things Mike would have done was to take what they had to Billy. “What then?” Tracy had asked. Vince put forth the idea that maybe they would have all gone into hiding. Tracy countered that maybe Mike and Frank had already gone into hiding; maybe they’d taken their cumulative evidence to Billy, who had immediately put them into a safe house or something. “And nobody would have tried getting in touch with us?” Vince asked. He’d checked his cell phone, something he’d done all day and into the evening. “I don’t know if I buy that.”

  “Well, Mike did tell us that if we didn’t hear from them that we were to go into hiding,” Tracy had reminded him. “If you ask me, I think we should.”

  Vince had agreed, and after snagging dinner at a fast food restaurant, they’d headed back to the Best Western and remained inside for the remainder of the night.

  This morning they’d gotten dressed and packed, then checked out of their room. They had a quick breakfast at a Denny’s restaurant, and then drove home. Vince had tried calling Mike and Frank again and still got no response. Tracy suggested they head back to Vince’s home again, just on the off chance they might have stopped by. Vince agreed, and they’d made his house the first stop. There’d been no messages at home, and it was while they were sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast nook that last night’s discussion came up. “We’ve been here for thirty minutes and nobody’s tried to kill us yet,” Tracy had said, her voice bearing the faintest inflection of humor. “What does that say about your paranoia?”

  “That they’re waiting for you at your place?” Vince couldn’t help but grin.

  “You coming with me to scope it out?”

  “Of course!”

  They agreed on the plan of action on the five-minute drive to the condo. Walk her to her condo, check the place out, and once she was safe, he would go home and start making preparations to leave. In the meantime, she would pack as well. They agreed to meet up that afternoon at two, at her place. “In the meantime, do whatever you have to do,” she’d said. “Convert cash to traveler’s checks, take whatever you need. Pack lightly, but pack essential stuff. Anything you may have to further your research, take it. If yo
u have to call somebody to look over your house, get that taken care of as well.”

  That had sounded fine to Vince. Now as he followed her along the manicured path to her condominium, he felt his heart racing. The summer day was warm; a perfect, Southern California day. He could hear people splashing in the pool. They walked up the steps to her condo and Vince surveyed the complex as Tracy unlocked the door. She stepped in cautiously, and then glanced back over her shoulder. “Looks like the coast is clear.”

  Vince stepped inside ahead of her and took a quick inspection of the place. He quickly checked the kitchen and both bedrooms, opened the closets, and looked in the bathroom. “Looks like everything’s cool,” he said.

  Tracy looked relieved. “Good.” She held out her arms. “C’mere.”

  Vince went to her and they held each other for a moment. Her body felt warm and comforting against his and he kissed the nape of her neck, inhaling the scent of her hair. He didn’t want to leave her.

  “You should go,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

  He kissed her again and squeezed her hands. “I’ll be back at two.”

  She nodded, mustering a smile. “Two.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Once in his car, Vince felt a sense of urgency come over him. He glanced at his watch; it was almost ten a.m. That left him with less than four hours to get things rolling. Where to start?

  He started his car and thought about what he had to do; go home, call Brian and tell him he had to take an unexpected leave of absence—he would explain everything in a week or so. Hell, he might even be back home in a few weeks. He just had to get away from everything; the stress of his mother’s passing, dealing with her affairs, it was all taking a huge toll. Surely Brian would understand.

  He decided the best thing to do would be to head straight home. Maybe he would swing by the motel that Frank Black had stayed at, just to see if he was still there. It was very weird that both men would simply cease communications. It was almost as if they’d dropped off the face of the earth.

  Vince frowned. Maybe Tracy was right about getting out of dodge as soon as possible. Whoever it was that had tried to kill them back in Pennsylvania, as well as attacked him and Tracy at the airport last week, operated with stealth. Suppose they had gotten Mike and Frank? And if that was the case, suppose they were after him now?

  While Vince was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Adams and Harbor Boulevard, he dialed Frank’s cell phone again. He got no response. The light turned green and he continued east, pausing only once more at the next stop light to look up Mike Peterson’s number on the notebook he had on his dashboard and dial the number. Again, nothing.

  His thoughts darkened as he drove home. Even if The Children of the Night were a bunch of crazed lunatics, they were obviously very well connected and crafty ones. They were most likely behind his mother’s murder, as well as the crimes Mike and Frank had connected to them. It was obvious his mother had been involved with them, as were Frank’s parents. And it was also obvious his mother had fled with him unexpectedly twenty-five years ago in an attempt to flee the madness. As to why they were after him now, he was beginning to formulate some educated guesses, none of them based on paranoia, either. They’d finally tracked his mother down and had her killed. That much was evident. They’d also performed some kind of ritual around the same time—its end purpose still unknown to Vince. Next, somebody tried to kill him as he was arriving back home from his mother’s funeral, at John Wayne Airport. The fact that Tracy Harris had been with him was entirely coincidental. Then Frank Black pops into his life, claiming to have done extensive research on his own childhood, on Vince’s childhood, and tells him point blank that their parents had been Satanists. Mike Peterson supports Frank’s story, and tells him what happened to Frank’s father. And then they fly back to Pennsylvania and meet with Reverend Powell, go through the contents of his mother’s safe box and find additional supporting evidence that hints at other horrific crimes. Then while meeting with the local sheriff about other cult activity, they’re ambushed by strangers armed to the teeth. They get away, killing their assailants in the process, and manage to get out of the state. In the meantime, Mike and Frank find out more information about cult members that had been in Lititz prior to Vince’s mother’s murder, and they fly back to LA two nights ago to regroup. Meanwhile, Mike’s wife has gone missing while they were gone, and it’s obvious that the cult was getting closer on their trail, and now Mike and Frank were incommunicado.

  So now what?

  It was imperative that Vince and Tracy leave California immediately. If Mike and Frank had been waylaid by the Children, it meant they’d been followed. And if that was the case, somebody might be on Vince’s tail this very instant. Vince didn’t think they were—he’d been checking his rearview mirrors constantly—but he still wasn’t taking chances. When he got home he would pack quickly, gather whatever important evidence he had, make some quick phone calls, and then he was leaving. But first he would check the house out carefully and make sure it was secure. He still had the Glock that Mike had given him last night—he’d packed it in his luggage in Pennsylvania and had taken it with him to the house—so he felt somewhat better about having it. Now he had to get through the next few hours.

  When he entered his development he was on the lookout for anything suspicious. He inspected everything, taking in every car, every person he saw in his neighborhood. People that he was familiar with, that he had known for years, now came under close scrutiny as he passed by. When he pulled into the driveway of his home his heart was pounding. He killed the engine, reached to the seat next to him for his bag, and got out of the car. His senses were on heightened alert as he unlocked the door. He entered the house and closed the door softly behind him. All was silent.

  He set the bag down on the floor carefully. Then he reached for the Glock in his inner coat pocket and pulled it out. He felt sweaty and hot and he took a deep breath to calm himself down. Then, he took a step further into his house.

  He inspected the house with a sense of rising alarm, expecting danger at every step. The first time he threw a closet door open and pointed the gun inside, he felt like he was going to scream—he really expected somebody to jump out at him. But as he went from room to room checking under beds, behind furniture, in closets and cabinets, he felt his paranoia ease. It took fifteen minutes to inspect the garage, and when he was finished he checked out his backyard, looking at the space between his home and the fence that bordered his property with his neighbor’s. His yard was small anyway, and there was really nowhere for anybody to hide, but he checked it out regardless. He even stepped all the way out in his backyard and looked up on the roof and in the trees. Nothing there. When he went back in the house he felt somewhat relieved, but he was still nervous.

  He checked his answering machine and saw that there was one message. He rewound the tape and played the message. “Vince, it’s me, Frank.” Vince gasped at the sound of Frank’s voice; he detected a faint hint of fear in his voice. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to call you for three hours now, man. Turn your fucking cell phone on!” Then there was a click and a dial tone. End of message.

  Vince frowned. Frank must have tried calling him yesterday, but… what was this about asking Vince to turn his cell phone on? He’d had it on all day yesterday.

  Vince unclipped his cell phone from his belt and inspected it. Sure enough, it was on, and the juice was at the halfway mark; he’d recharged the battery last night, right before he went to bed. He remembered it being almost down to zero when he’d hooked it up because he’d had it on all day. And Frank was telling him to turn his phone on? It had been on!

  When it rang Vince almost dropped the cellular. He felt his heart shoot into his throat, and for a moment he actually felt the cell phone fly from his hands, as if its ringing had sent it zinging out of his grip. Vince fumbled with it, almost dropped it, then got a firm grasp
as it rang again. He held onto it, heart thumping in his chest as he tried to catch his breath. The phone rang again, spiking through his nervous system. Okay, already, I’m coming.

  He pulled the antennae out and hit the send button. “Hello.”

  For a moment, there was nothing, then a hiss of static. “Hello?” Vince raised his voice a little. It sounded like a bad connection.

  “Vince?”

  There was something recognizable about that voice. “Yeah?”

  “Vince…” A pause, a crackle of static. “Vince, it’s Frank.” It sounded like Frank was out of breath and calling from far away.

  “Frank!” Vince felt a wave of relief wash over him. He sighed, felt his body ease up as he started to sink into the sofa. “Man, I’ve been trying to call you and Mike for the past twenty-four hours. What’s—”

  “I don’t have much time, Vince, listen to me.” Frank’s voice was suddenly loud and direct, as if the connection was suddenly re-established. Vince frowned; there was something in Frank’s voice that gnawed on him. Something tha— “I’m hurt, Vince,” Frank said, and now Vince recognized the heavy breathing in Frank’s voice. He was panting, his voice tinged with an inflection of pain. “I’ve been…it fucking got me, man.”

  “What?” It got me? What got him?

  “Listen carefully,” Frank said, and now Vince detected the urgency in his voice. He felt his stomach roll in his abdomen. “They were one step ahead of us. I don’t want to get into it now, but I got away. I’ve…managed to elude them at least for a little while, and I had to call you…to warn you…”

  “Where are you?” Vince heard his voice, panicked, frightened.

  “I’m at a phone booth, somewhere in Fountain Valley…maybe Huntington Beach.”

  “Listen,” Vince said, thinking quickly. “Hang up now and call 911. I’m leaving for the hospital now—”

  “No!” Frank’s voice was a hiss of pain. Vince cringed; his nerves were on edge. “Listen to me…I know everything now…I put it all together and…I know why…why all that happened to us…happened…why we had the same dreams…why we…why we went through what we did when we were kids…”