by H. D. Gordon
Kyle wrapped me up in a hug as soon as I reached him, and I could feel rather than see Michael stiffen beside me. “You’re back,” Kyle said, finally releasing me. “Where’d you go, down to the cabin?”
I nodded and my words seemed to stick in my throat for some reason. Kyle and his sister, Kayla, had been my best friends since elementary school. They were the closest things I’d ever had to siblings, but I hadn’t seen either of them in months. Well, I hadn’t seen anyone in months, and they were used to it from me. My Aunt Susan, Mr. Landry, Kayla and Kyle were the only people in the world who knew about my ability, so by all means, this late night visit shouldn’t have been so awkward. But it was.
I opened my mouth to speak because for once, the silence was uncomfortable. “Michael, th-this is Kyle. He’s my f-f-friend,” I said. “Kyle, this is muh-my Michael.” I snapped my mouth shut and resisted the urge to slap my forehead. My Michael? I was such an idiot.
But my stupid introduction made Michael smile, and he held his hand out to Kyle, who shook it, but continued to stare at Michael with slightly narrowed eyes.
“Wuh-what are you doing here?” I asked, speaking slowly so my words wouldn’t stutter, again just wanting to fill in the silence.
Kyle’s face grew deadly serious, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “I need to talk to you about something,” he said. “It’s important.”
At this point, I didn’t think the situation could get much worse, but in the true fashion that is my life, I was wrong. The door across from mine opened and Mr. Landry stepped out into the hallway. “What’s going on out here, Joe?” he asked out loud. Silently, in my head, he said, “You want me to tell them to get the hell out of here?”
I looked back at Kyle. His dark hair had grown a little longer than he usually kept it, a thick beard covering his jaw, though he was normally clean-shaven. There was a sort of veiled desperation in his eyes. I sighed internally. He was obviously going through something, and though my plate was full enough to feed an army, I couldn’t just ignore his request. I’d known him for too long, and ever since we were children he has kept my secret for me. With some reluctance, I told Mr. Landry that shooing them away wasn’t necessary.
I turned to Michael. “Th-thank you for the ride,” I said, giving him an apologetic smile. “I’ll see you l-later?”
“Wait,” Mr. Landry said, and we all turned to look at him. His face had gone pale, and he ran his hand over his silver hair. I could tell just by looking at him that he had been rummaging through all of our heads, and whatever he’d found had clearly disturbed him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked silently.
“A better question would be, what ain’t wrong?” Mr. Landry spoke only to me. “Where’s the yellow flyer?”
My brow furrowed. I didn’t care that he had obviously looked in my head, but why was he asking me this now? Couldn’t he wait until Michael and Kyle were gone?
He answered this question as if I had asked it out loud. “Because this time you’re going to need help, Joe. Whether you like it or not, and these two young men here are going to be the ones to do it. If I’m right, this thing is bigger than even we thought.”
I shook my head, not caring that both Michael and Kyle were looking back and forth between Mr. Landry and me like we were crazy. “Absolutely not,” I said. “You being involved is bad enough. No way am I involving them.”
Mr. Landry gave me a look that I would assume fathers give to their daughters when they are being stubborn and ridiculous. “Oh, get off your high horse, soldier,” he snapped back. “You want to save those children, or not?”
“You know I do.”
Mr. Landry spread his hands and stepped aside, leaving the doorway to his apartment open. “We’ve got some things to talk about, children,” he said out loud.
Michael and Kyle both looked at me, and I could practically see the red in my cheeks reflected in their eyes. Mr. Landry could not be serious. He could not do what I thought he was going to do. A storm of emotions flashed through me in that moment. Fear was thick in my throat, fear of both involving them and of letting Michael in on my secret. At the same time, excitement and relief swirled in my stomach about even the possibility of sharing this burden with others. Then guilt over that excitement and relief. Then the fear all over again, and so on, like a tornado of fighting feelings.
As we’d been directed, we followed Mr. Landry into his apartment and took seats around his small table. I moved like a zombie, arguing internally with myself about whether or not I should disobey the old man, tell the guys to leave, and lock myself in my room until Mr. Landry’s apparent insanity subsided.
In the end, though, I trusted the old man. Partly because I just knew I could trust him, but mostly because he could read minds. This obviously lent him some insight I didn’t have. Considering the fact that he had let me go up against Daniel Deaton, who had wired explosives around the main campus of UMMS and had been carrying three semi-automatic weapons, all by myself, I had to believe that if he thought I needed help, I probably did. If the last situation hadn’t warranted outside help in Mr. Landry eyes, and this one did, one can see how that alone spoke volumes.
Once we were all seated around the table, Kyle opened his mouth to speak. He knew Mr. Landry in passing, but this was not a normal occurrence. The old man beat him to the punch. “Show him the flyer, Joe,” he said.
I kept my eyes on Mr. Landry as I placed the yellow slip of paper in the center of the table, letting the bold, black ink scream up from the page. My hands shook as I did so. Of all the things I was feeling, fear was unsurprisingly the strongest. I thought then that I might as well make friends with it, because it seemed to be one of the only constants in my life. I would come to find out that I didn’t know it as well as I thought, but by the end, fear and I would be on a first name basis.
Everyone stared down at the flyer. Kyle sucked his breath in sharply, and his hand came up and stroked nervously at his beard. Eyes wide, he stared around the table at us. “So you guys already know about this?”
Mr. Landry sat back in his chair, his blue eyes guarded. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about this?”
Kyle’s eyes narrowed, and he shot a questioning look at me. I gave him a tight smile. “Th-these are guh-good people, Kyle,” I said, gesturing toward Mr. Landry and Michael, who hadn’t said a word, but was listening closely. “Puh-please, it’s important.”
It took a minute for Kyle to pick up what was being put down, but once he did, the horror that passed behind his eyes was enough to flip my stomach. “Oh my God,” he breathed, and his hand reached across the table and gripped mine almost hard enough to hurt. “You saw something didn’t you?” His voice shook. “Joe, did you see something that had to do with this?” He asked, eyes boring into mine as he picked up the yellow flyer with his free hand.
Now my stomach wasn’t just flipping, it was wrestling itself into tight knots. The look on his face was so intense I almost didn’t want to answer. After a moment, I took a deep breath, eyes flicking briefly to Michael, who was sitting very still. I nodded.
Kyle’s hand tightened on mine further still. I was too shocked and confused to protest, but Mr. Landry must have heard my discomfort, because he told Kyle as much. Kyle softened his hold immediately. I knew he hadn’t meant to hurt me. Something was seriously wrong. Or I guess, wronger.
Kyle’s voice was barely a whisper now, his words almost choked. “Was it a drawing?” he asked.
I swallowed. I could feel all the eyes in the room on me, especially Michael’s. I nodded. Kyle knew that the worst of my predictions came as drawings…except for whatever had happened just a bit ago in the parking lot of my aunt’s bar.
“Then you have to show it to me,” Kyle said, as if he were asking for a simple cup of sugar, and not my most damning secret, in front of two other people.
Mr. Landry’s voice spoke in my head, an anchor to my tossing ship. “You don’t have to show him nothing, Joe. You say
the word and I’ll get these boys out of here and you can go about your life. You don’t have to get involved, but if you insist on doing so, you’ll have to accept the fact that these two are getting involved too…You do have a choice here. There is always a choice.”
I found that I could not speak. How had I gotten into this situation? How had I allowed Michael to be thrown into this situation? Had Mr. Landry lost his mind?
I must have been silent for too long, because Kyle gave my hand another light squeeze, drawing my eyes up to his, drowning me in the desperation there. “Joe,” he said, as if my name were his only hope. “You have to show it to me.”
When I just stared at him, he sighed and looked around the table slowly, as if this were harder for him than it was for me. What he said next argued that perhaps it just might be. “You have to show it to me,” he repeated, holding up the yellow flyer again, “because Kayla is with these people…and she took our mother with her.”
My swirling stomach plummeted. I swallowed hard. “Huh-who are these puh-puh-people, Kyle?” I asked, biting down on my lower lip because it felt on the verge of trembling. I knew good and well who they were. They were the things under the white sheets.
Kyle’s dark, bloodshot eyes met mine and held. “Followers of a devil,” he said, sneering as he spoke the last word. Then his face fell, as if he were too tired to maintain his anger, too exhausted. “It’s my fault. I knew something was wrong with the guy. I tried to tell Kayla, and she got all pissed at me, defensive over him, as if my disapproval of the reverend was…blasphemy or something, but I’m telling you, I knew, and if you drew something that has to do with this, I need to see the drawing so I can save her.” He smiled but it was more a grimace. His hand reached across the table and covered mine. Beside me, Michael shifted a bit in his seat. “I’m not asking you to get involved,” Kyle said.
Mr. Landry spoke my mind next, and I was grateful for the assistance. “She’s got every intention of showing it to you, son,” he said. “And every intention of getting involved, as you knew she would, but you’re gonna have to back up a bit so that she can get a grip on why she’s going to need all of our help,” he said.
Though I desperately wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to look over at Michael, who hadn’t said a word. I was afraid his face was betraying his reaction to all of this, and of what that reaction was.
Kyle’s eyes flicked over Mr. Landry and Michael and settled on me. “I thought only Susan, Kayla and I knew,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, as if the others couldn’t hear him just as well.
I shrugged. On top of everything, I didn’t need to think about the growing number of people who knew about my ability right now.
Kyle let out a deep breath. “About six months ago, Kayla called and told me she’d joined a political group at school. She sounded happy, and I didn’t think much of it because it sounded like any other club you can join in college…but then I started noticing that she was calling home less and less. You know how close we are. She usually would call every other day or so. Then it became once a week, then once a month, then she stopped calling altogether and wouldn’t answer my calls. After four months went by, I decided to just drive up to South Missouri State and check on her, ya know?”
I nodded and ran my tongue out over my dry lips.
Kyle continued, rubbing his hand over his shaggy cheeks again. He was only a year older than me, but he seemed to have aged ten years since I’d last seen him. “I found out she’d dropped all of her classes a month earlier, and that this ‘group’ she’d joined wasn’t affiliated with the university at all, but instead was a religious organization.” He put the tip of his pointer finger on the center of the yellow flyer. “This religious organization, or at least, that’s what they call themselves, but that’s not what they are.”
There was silence while I waited for Kyle to put a name to the nightmare heading over the horizon. “They’re a cult,” he said, and more silence followed. “And if I’m right, they’re following their leader down a road that goes nowhere.”
Again, Mr. Landry spoke for me. I thanked him silently, because I was sure I’d stutter every word if I attempted speech just then. I didn’t know much about cults, but I was about to get a crash course, and Kyle’s apt description of the strange vision I’d had when I’d touched the flyer was chilling. A road that goes nowhere. Indeed, chilling right down to the bone.
I reached into my pocket and removed the folded piece of paper that held my drawing. My heart pounded in my ears, my palms gathering moisture. I always kept the drawings with me until the events they showed passed, upon which I destroyed them. Now, I had to show it to three people. I had to, because I would find out soon that Mr. Landry was right. This situation was too dangerous to go into alone, and considering the events of my past, that was really saying something.
My hands shook as I unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on the table between us. Four sets of eyes traveled down and settled on it, my heart kicking up in pace with each inch of their descent.
For the first time since we sat down, Michael spoke, and I could tell by the way he said the words that they came out involuntarily. “Oh…my God,” he said, staring down at the Middle Man and all the human-shaped white sheets scattered around him.
Mr. Landry spoke in my head to soothe me. “Just breathe, soldier. Just breathe.”
Kyle’s hands were clutched into fists so tight the skin on his knuckles was transparently white. “I knew it,” he said, but not in a way that was gratified, but instead rightfully horrified. His wide eyes met mine. “One of those could be Kayla,” he said, pointing to one of the bodies. “Jesus, what are we going to do? That’s the guy. That’s the monster who calls himself a reverend. They won’t even let me near Kayla. What are we going to do?” He asked again, looking around the table with wide eyes, as if the answer was on our faces.
To my surprise and wonder, Michael’s warm hand covered mine, which was gripping my thigh under the table. He gave me a light squeeze and my fingers wrapped around his. It was such a sweet gesture, so needed right then, that I stupidly felt a little like crying. With this small act, Michael was telling me he would stand beside me, help me through this thing…that he not only accepted one of the most important parts of me, but wasn’t going to run in the other direction, either.
We didn’t know it yet, but soon Michael and I would lose our chance of running altogether, and in hindsight, I think it was his next words that licked shut the envelopes containing our fates.
Michael answered Kyle’s question, so certain and brave that my heart ached for him. “I guess we go to this service tomorrow and make acquaintances with this so-called reverend.”
“You don’t understand,” Kyle said. “I’ve spent countless hours studying these people who lead cults, and if I’m right, even being in the room with one of them puts you in danger. They’re master manipulators. They disarm you and brainwash you. There isn’t any room for weakness. Not an inch. If there is, this guy will latch onto it and exploit your vulnerability. It’s how these psychos begin to indoctrinate you.”
Mr. Landry spoke then, but his eyes held only mine as he did so. “If there’s one thing our Joe here ain’t, it’s weak,” he said.
I shivered. I didn’t know it yet, but that statement was about to be tested to its breaking point. We were all about to find out firsthand that the road to nowhere was littered with empty promises and paved in fool’s gold. Fool’s gold that had been spit-shined bright enough to blind.
For the first time in my life, I would be beyond grateful that I didn’t exactly need eyes to see, that even the thickest of blindfolds could not hinder my vision. I would come to consider myself lucky. Most others wouldn’t realize where the road was taking them until the last exit was long behind them.
And in their last moments they would be stuck wondering just how it had all happened, how they had gotten there, and where it had all gone wrong.
Chapter 8
Kayla, six months ago
She had gotten sixty-four of the one hundred questions on the biology test wrong. Hers had to be one of the lowest grades in the class, and the worst possible way she could have started out her college career. Now she would have to get really high marks on the rest of the exams just to get a decent passing grade. Or take the class again and risk getting kicked out of the nursing program. At this rate, she wouldn’t get her degree until she was twenty-five.
Kayla pushed the thoughts away as she moved toward the campus center, where she would sit alone and eat her lunch and stare out at the only thing she appreciated about this place, the green landscape. She couldn’t think about any of it right now. On top of the fact that she was finding the workload more than she’d anticipated, she was pretty sure her boyfriend, Brian, was cheating on her with one of the skanks at his college, which was four hours away. They’d gotten into a fight a couple weeks ago and he hadn’t called her since.