Those That Wake

by Jesse Karp

  Those That Wake

  Jesse Karp

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  ...

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART 1

  MAL

  LAURA

  ANNIE

  MOM

  BRATH

  GREY

  MIKE

  PART 2

  THE MOUNTAIN

  THE JOURNEY

  THE PRISON

  THE FIGHTER

  THE INTRUDER

  THE COOPERATIVE

  THE LIBRARIAN

  THE ROAD

  PART 3

  THE GUARDIAN WAITS

  MAN IN SUIT

  THE WORTHY LIFE

  FIGHTING THE NUMBERS

  WEAKNESS INTO STRENGTH

  PART 4

  WALKING TOWARD A FUTURE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  HARCOURT

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

  BOSTON NEW YORK 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Jesse Karp

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Harcourt, an imprint of

  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The text of this book is set in 12-point Garamond No. 3.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE.

  ISBN 978-0-547-55311-5

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  4500280634

  To Zoe and Verity.

  You give me hope.

  And hope is but a dream of those that wake.

  —Matthew Prior

  PART 1

  MAL

  MAL LOOKED IN THE MIRROR and saw a road map of mistakes. Scars traced a fractured route down his face, splintering across his torso. The worn paths were interrupted by fresh welts and discolorations, the result of his most recent misstep: three rounds, bare knuckles, with a guy who had ten years' experience on him. That was good for the deep yellow around the eye and the welt on the forehead. But it had been a sorry-looking mug to begin with, scarred across the bridge of the nose and along the cheekbone, crowned by dark, somber eyes. It fit poorly over the seventeen-year-old face; instead of lending it wisdom, it robbed it of something vital. Beneath the blue veins riding up his arms in relief and the taut flesh of his chest, the muscles were tight, but they ached with the echo of fierce impact. It wasn't a promising picture, so he smiled at it, showing teeth over his hard jaw.

  A crack ran through the reflected smile, making it into two dislocated halves of good spirit sloppily sewn together by some depraved surgeon. The mirror hadn't had a crack when he left just a few hours ago. It was just the mirror's time, he supposed. Like the glass, his smile cracked and then fell away.

  He touched the tender spots on his torso, figured he'd wrap his ribs with medical tape. He slipped from the gloomy little bathroom, down the short hallway. The limp he had just acquired did not help much in keeping quiet past the door of his foster parents' room. Were they light sleepers? He hadn't been with them long enough to know. His foster parents, who were named Gil and Janet Foster. It was ridiculous, but of all the foster parents in all the world, some of them had to be named the Fosters, didn't they?

  He made it into his own claustrophobic little cubbyhole without incident. He pulled the first aid kit out of his bag, but found he just didn't have the strength for it. He put it back in and dropped himself into bed.

  Sleep, ornery and evasive, eluded him. It was in the second hour of shifting position in the darkness that he turned and saw the message LED blinking on his forsaken cell phone. Already an ancient model at two years old, he had never bothered to learn how to employ most of its features, thus didn't have the cool, polite female voice to inform him that he had a message waiting. He'd slipped out of the apartment for the gym at 11:30 and never carried the phone with him to a fight. The call had come between then and his return at two a.m. No one called that late unless something awful had happened.

  He reached out and keyed for the message.

  "Uh, hey." A face he didn't recognize flickered onto the screen. "It's Tommy." Mal sat up straight in his bed. Tommy. His brother. Whose face he no longer even recognized. "Where are you at one o'clock?" Tommy paused for a long stretch, uncertain. There was the sound of strong wind, or something rushing, maybe water, but the image on the small screen was grainy and dark behind the face. "What am I doing calling at one o'clock, right? Maybe ... ah ... maybe you could call me when you get this? Doesn't matter what time it is. Okay, so ... you can give me a call." There was another long pause, but instead of a goodbye, the image flickered out and the cell voice informed him that the call had come in at "One. Twenty. Two. A. M."

  The geolocator app was being blocked from Tommy's end, which left no way to see where the call had come from. He dialed the number that showed on his screen and let it ring twelve maddening times before he keyed off and dialed again, this time giving it only six rings.

  He stared out the grimy window and listened to a garbage truck rumble away down the dark, dirty street. Far in the distance across the water, a large insectlike shape blotted a small part of Manhattan's silhouette of glittering lights. There was only one person who would know how to get hold of Tommy. So he got back in bed, because he wouldn't call anyone else at three in the morning. And he wouldn't call her anyway. Tommy hadn't seen Mal in over two years, had done just fine without him for a lot longer than that. Tommy would do just fine without him now.

  But if that was so, then how much trouble must Tommy be in to call a brother he hadn't seen for so long now, in the middle of the night?

  Mal sat up again and picked up the cell and stared at it. He gripped it so hard that his fingers and knuckles turned white, bringing the dozens of nicks and scars into wiry relief. He keyed the goddamned number. It rang twice and he closed his eyes tight when it picked up, the small screen lighting with a man's surprised and disheveled face.

  "Hello?" The face was dulled by sleep and the voice was thick and rough.

  "George, it's Mal," he whispered, for fear of rousing the Fosters, just a slim wall away.

  "What? Who is this?" George was squinting angrily into the screen.

  "It's Mal," he said stiffly. "I need to speak to Sharon."

  George's face gaped exhaustion, then shook in disbelief and moved offscreen. There was heavy breathing and then shifting and muffled voices. An ad for a sleeping pill, now available in extra-strength form, scrolled along the side of the screen.

  "Mal." Her face was heavy with more than just fatigue. Her voice was hoarse and he couldn't help wondering, despite the hour, if she was exhausted or hung over. Whatever the case, the syllable of his name came out with the same old mixture of impatience and barely contained disappointment.

  "I need to find Tommy and I don't have his number," he said without preamble.

  "You need to find Tommy at three in the morning?" Even pulled from sleep, her disgust with him was evident.

  "He called me up and asked me to get back to him as soon as I could, but he's not answering at the number he called from."

  She glared at him. He could see numerous responses cross her features.

  "Hold on," she finally said. Her attention shifted downward while she searched the cell for the information. George asked her something and her face turned. They went back and forth for a moment and his final comment was loud and w
heedling. Mal watched as the advertisement shifted, now offering medicated bandages that "soothed as they healed." There was more movement, and then she was back. "I have his number here." She gave it to him.

  "That's the number he left me," Mal said. "But he isn't there."

  "Well, that's the number I've got."

  "Have you spoken to him lately? Is he okay?"

  "I haven't spoken to him in months."

  "Months?" He hadn't meant to sound incredulous; certainly not, considering how long it had been since he'd spoken to Tommy himself.

  "He and George..." She sounded more tired now, in simply pausing, than she had when she first got on the line. "He and George had some trouble. He left, and I haven't heard from him but twice since then. Once to give me his new number and address and once to tell me that he was going to come by work and see me, but he didn't." She didn't seem very impressed with Tommy or, for that matter, with George.

  "He left?" Mal's voice was hard and accusatory, and he didn't bother trying to hide it.

  "Yes, Mal. He left. Figured he could do it all on his own, just like his brother."

  They stared into the screens at each other, far more distant than the miles of space that separated them.

  "Give me his address," he said.

  "You're going to go there now?"

  "No. In the morning. I'm sure he's fine."

  "Sure. He's always fine." She gave him the address, and they didn't bother with goodbyes.

  He slammed the phone down, punching it into the bed as hard as he could. He got dressed in the same jeans and hooded sweatshirt he had worn to go fight. Sneaking out of a foster home twice in the same night was no record for him, not even close. Now he was bone tired, of course. If he closed his eyes, he'd be out in a second. He took off.

  Getting to the address cost a long subway ride deeper into Brooklyn, but when Mal walked out onto the sidewalk again, there still wasn't a hint of light in the sky. It was a crumbling neighborhood of intermittent lighting and staccato bursts of human sounds from a doorway, around a corner, down a shadowed block. He kept his head up and walked as if he knew exactly where he was going; not a stranger, not out of place, not prey.

  The building was a wreck, and the lock on the gray metal door had been ruined long ago. The hallway was dirty; not heaped with junk, just dusty, grimy, not looked after. There were no bodies in it, though, no homeless wanderers who had lucked upon an open door and a night's refuge.

  Mal walked up the stairs, his feet whanging with uncomfortable volume from the thin metal planks. His thighs ached fiercely from the fight a few hours ago. Down the hall, lit by two dim bulbs, were three figures standing before a door that would surely turn out to be Tommy's. They saw him arrive and followed him with their attention as he walked over, making a cursory check at the other apartment numbers on the chance, the one-in-a-million, cut-me-a-break chance that they weren't standing at Tommy's door.

  He came to them, looked between their heads, and saw the number in fading black on the door: 302. Tommy's apartment.

  "Hey," he said.

  They were younger than Mal, dressed in massively baggy jeans and shirts that came down to their knees and jackets that swelled their bodies to three times their actual size.

  Mal noted how the wood near the doorknob looked rough and splintery, and his eyes shifted around to their faces. They looked back at him, committing to nothing.

  They watched him with an unnatural stillness. Mal knew guys like these, went to school with them, trained with them, fought them. Even sitting in a corner looking sullen, their aggression usually burned like hot coal. But not here, not now.

  They looked at him, not aggressive, not even curious.

  "Well," he said, "don't let me break it up, I just need to get inside three oh two there." He gestured at the door.

  "You can't," said the spokesman in a voice of quiet authority. No challenge, no verbal shove, nothing characteristic of his appearance. Just final, certain refusal.

  "Oh. So, you live here?"

  "No."

  Mal pushed out heavy air. He was bigger than they were, but there were three of them, and who the hell knew what they were hiding inside the vast clothes they were buried in? His knuckles, crosshatched with scars, were still red from earlier tonight. There were no sounds coming from inside the apartment—calls for help, clatter of a fight—but something in there was important enough to post three guards at the door.

  "I have to get in there," Mal said, tired of analyzing his odds.

  "You have to?" the spokesman asked, his features still indifferent, but his body coming to attention. His two companions shifted at the announcement. The hallway felt different now. Inexplicably changed from quiet, dim squalor into something... imminent.

  The door to 302 opened then, and Mal flinched at its suddenness. The dark apartment produced another guy, his scalp covered in a tight cloth. His stark white eyes passed over Mal with no particular interest, and he stepped aside, clearing the doorway.

  Mal nodded, stepping carefully between the four of them and into the apartment.

  "'Scuse me," he said, closing the door on them harder than a peaceful man would have. He stood on the other side, unmoving, wanting to hear their footsteps recede down the hall. After a moment, hearing nothing, he leaned up to the eyehole and looked through.

  All four of them stood in front of the door, staring at it. Staring at the eyehole.

  Mal pulled his head back.

  "Jesus," he whispered to himself. "What the hell?"

  A minute of silence passed. The lock fixture had been decimated, and without being able to lock them out, he felt like a hostage in this small place. He turned, gave up the door, and addressed his prison.

  It was a tiny place. There was a kitchen alcove, a sink piled high with dishes, and a refrigerator filled with cans of beer and soda. One corner of the apartment had a table with two chairs, and another held a bed with a lit lamp near it and a window with a spider web of cracks in it. Tommy's apartment, his own apartment where he lived by himself; no Sharon, no George, no Fosters. A fleeting squeeze of jealousy tightened Mal's heart.

  The last Mal knew of Tommy, he was charged with anger and it kept tripping him up. Tommy could always push things too far, but he could never stick with them; could always pick a fight, but always backed down when trouble really started. Mal was frankly surprised that Tommy could get it together to find and keep a place of his own.

  Tommy was not here to explain it, but a picture of him with his arm around a pretty girl at the beach was propped near the lamp. When Mal came to it, he couldn't take his eyes off it. At eighteen, Tommy was barely a year older than Mal, and he had Mal's young face, but without the mask of scars over it. Tommy's wounds were inside his head. He had Mal's dark hair, too, though it was long and shaggy on the older boy. But he'd never had Mal's ability to contain his anger and use it. Even without the scars, even with the boyish hair, Tommy's face looked hard, challenging, even in that moment, which must have been a happy one.

  The place wasn't exactly tidy, but it wasn't trashed, either. No one had overturned furniture or plowed through drawers. It meant those guys hadn't been looking for something Tommy had or something he owed them; they were looking for Tommy himself. This, in turn, meant that it was good Tommy wasn't here after all. Imagine, Mal thought, just imagine coming in and finding Tommy's ruined body. Mal's face grew hot, thinking about that.

  He stormed back to the door, pulled it open hard, clenching his fists. But the hall was empty, and in their wake they had left only the quiet squalor.

  He could go after them, see what they wanted with Tommy. But that would just get him into the fight he'd managed to avoid in the first place. He was here for Tommy, but all it took was a tick of the imagination and he was ready to throw down; eager to, even. And what good would that do Tommy? What good would it do Mal? Less than none, considering his condition.

  He closed the door, went back, and sat down on the bed a minute to thi
nk about it. He could wait here; maybe Tommy would turn up. Maybe that would mean not being back when his foster parents woke up. Go looking for Tommy now? Where did he hang out? Where did he feel safe?

  Mal hadn't seen him in two years, hadn't even really known him long before that. He couldn't answer those questions any better than he could come up with the name of the pretty girl in the picture. He looked back at the picture and smiled at her and Tommy. She was a nice girl, he would bet. Maybe she was what kept Tommy together, if he still couldn't manage it himself.

  He pulled his aching body off the bed and went back to the Fosters' house, where the guilt could eat him alive in peace.

  LAURA

  WHEN LAURA'S EYES OPENED, they were looking at the small pink clock on the table by the side of the bed. The hands of the clock said it was 4:20, though light streamed through the shades and lit the corner of the room behind the clock. If it was 4:20 p.m., then she had slept something like sixteen and a half hours. If it was 4:20 a.m., then—

  She shot bolt upright, crawled over the bed to the dresser, and grabbed her watch from the top of it. Her clock had broken at 4:20 a.m. Her watch told her it was 9:35.

  She was showered and dressed by 9:50, and only four minutes after that she was in the family car, speeding down the highway faster than her parents would ever have allowed. This left her one remaining minute to cover ten miles, find the right street, then the right address, and report for her interview.

  It took her twenty-five minutes before she stepped into the dry, climate-controlled outer office. The lady behind the desk was sour, aged beyond her years, dried out by the artificial, regulated air.

  "You're late," the lady said. "You're going to have to wait for the next slot."

  "Of course. I'm so sorry." Laura bowed her head low as she said it. You old bag was how that sentence ended in her head. She didn't bother making excuses; this wasn't the person to make them to anyway, and excuses to the receptionist would just make her appear tense.