“We don’t have time for this.” Jensen reaches for his belt.
“Put that thing away, or I’ll shove it where the sun don’t shine,” Rowena growls when he points the Taser at me.
“Stand down, Jensen.” Deputy Miller places his body directly between us. “I said back the hell off! I’ve got it covered.”
Jensen doesn’t make another move toward me, but he doesn’t put the Taser away, either. He just watches me over the deputy’s shoulder with eyes that grow more dilated by the second.
A bubble of static forms around my head. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle in response to some subtle shift around us.
Deputy Miller reaches for me. “Wait.” I pull free of his grip. “Do you hear that?”
“What are you—” His eyes widen.
The birds, the wind, even the distant sound of the ocean have gone missing, and the result is a silence so loud it echoes.
Rowena scans the woods behind Devil’s Tooth. “Something ain’t right.”
A breeze stirs, several degrees warmer than the chilly November air. The smell is sharp and faintly chemical. Like chlorine, but harsher. It lifts the rain-dampened curls from my face. Other than the slight wind, the air is the kind of quiet that has you searching the sky for lightning.
Music whispers through the trees behind Devil’s Tooth. At first, it sounds like a hundred voices singing over each other, but soon I realize it’s only one, playing over and over.
The whisper-music finds me again. This time, it touches something deep inside of me. My body strains toward it with almost physical force. The magnetic pull draws me forward. One step. Then another.
The voice. I know that voice.
I’d know it anywhere.
“Charlie.” His name comes out like a prayer. “Oh my God, Rowena.” I meet her gaze. “That’s Charlie. I hear him.” I try to pull away, but Deputy Miller has me in a death grip. “Let go!” I scream.
The deputy drags me backward. Away from Fort Glory. Away from Charlie.
The tightness in my chest becomes painful. My muscles contract like they’re trying to reach through my skin to grasp the sound of Charlie’s voice.
Deputy Miller offers me an apologetic grimace as his arms reach around my waist. Instinct takes over. My fist smashes into his face.
The deputy stumbles backward. Frozen, I watch the blood drip from his nose onto the collar of his shirt. He straightens to his full height, and suddenly, my aching hand and busted knee are the least of my problems.
The deputy is six feet tall and armed. Now he’s also pissed. Hysteria claws its way up my throat. All those years I spent following the rules. All that time I wasted watching my every move.
Gone in a second.
Rowena makes a warning sound. I look up just as Jensen lunges. My back hits the side of Devil’s Tooth, and the hissing end of his Taser sails past my ear.
Jensen’s lips twist in a snarl. He closes in again, and this time it isn’t a Taser in his hand.
It’s a gun.
My legs lock at the sight of the weapon. My insides run with liquid fear. He’s almost on top of me when someone steps between us.
“Go. Find your brother.” Rowena doesn’t look at me as she squares off against a man twice her size armed with nothing but a scowl. “I said run, girl!”
I don’t make her say it twice. I take off at a dead sprint. A muffled thud echoes behind me. I block it out and run toward the sound of my brother’s voice. With every step I take, the tightness in my chest grows stronger.
A narrow path opens up in front of me. It veers hard left. The forest beyond Devil’s Tooth is a maze of wood, leaf, and stone. Ferns clog the patches of earth between giant Douglas firs. Their boughs reach for each other hundreds of feet above my head.
Footsteps pound the ground behind me. Over my shoulder, I glimpse Deputy Miller’s face, bloody and determined. My lead dwindles with every one of his strides.
I’ve made it another few steps when the stink of ozone hits me. So sharp it cuts my lungs with every breath. What is it coming from? Where’s Charlie? I could’ve sworn he was somewhere up ahead, but now my chest is on fire, and my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. My thoughts jumble together until there’s only one thing I’m sure of anymore.
I have to keep running.
Branches break right behind me. A hand brushes my dress just as a warm wind rises up around me. A shrill whistle pierces my ears. The same whistling I heard in Maple right before all hell broke loose. Only this time it isn’t coming from the sky.
It’s coming from deep inside my head.
There’s a sound like a bedsheet tearing in half as the world is ripped out from under me. The forest rushes past in a blur of Light. Color. Sound. A scream is yanked from my lips as I’m wrenched sideways by the hook in my chest. A hook made of fire. It rearranges my insides and drags me down an invisible line into the dark.
Pain. Pressure. So much pressure. It breaks me down until I am nothing but millions of cells. Millions of thoughts, searching for the right way to come back together.
The last thing I remember before the darkness takes me is a burning flash of gold and the sound of Charlie’s voice, calling out my name.
SIX
CHARLIE
Black.
Not a color.
A place.
Dark ocean of music
roaring behind walls of the world
no one saw
but I could.
I know this place.
The secret it’s hiding.
Even here in the dark
I am not alone.
So I wait. I watch. When it comes, I am ready.
Twisting, shimmering. Golden thread winds through the shadows, running through me like a river. On that river is a song.
Charlie, it sings to me.
Charlie, where are you?
That voice.
Once upon a time it read the words and the words were magic. They belonged to her and she belonged to …
ME.
I
I AM someone, somewhere once upon a time she read the words and the words were Color …
Green fields.
Yellow sunflowers.
White apron over a Pink dress.
Silver rabbit and a bag of stale
Brown bread.
Once upon a time she read the words and the words were Music …
Wind-chime laughs
Strangling songs
Quiet prayers in the dark when she thought you were sleeping.
I remember.
I. Remember.
Slowly, slowly the thread glows brighter.
The Black Nothing moves.
It needs the memories in my head. The songs in my ears. My eyes that have seen Light.
I whisper, Not yet, and I give it what it came for.
An eye filled with colors
of the sky set on fire
spilling light through the leaves
dancing shadows across her face.
When the hurting’s over, I wind the thread around my hands until it burns.
I pull it.
Find me.
I need you to find me.
Remember.
I need you to remember.
The Black Nothing is quiet. It has my eye. For now, it’s enough.
I don’t mind.
The dark doesn’t scare me.
And I’ve never needed eyes to see.
SEVEN
A wall of darkness stretches out in front of me.
Behind it, Charlie hangs suspended. The only bright spot in a world of solid black.
Light shines from somewhere deep inside of him, making him glow like a candle flame.
We reach for each other, but our hands can’t push through the barrier between us. It comes alive. Separating into a thousand ribbons of shadow that slither around Charlie’s head. He doe
sn’t raise his arms. He doesn’t even try to protect himself.
No. That has always been my job.
A vise closes around my throat as I watch the strands of shadow wind tighter until their darkness is strangling him. When they strike his face, I can’t do anything.
I can’t even scream.
Searing pain rips me out of the nightmare.
My eye. It’s on fire.
Agony slices through me. I moan and curl in on my side. My hands lift to my right eye.
It’s gone. Torn out by the roots. That’s the only thing that could hurt this bad.
I brace myself for a gruesome discovery, but there’s nothing. Just feathery lashes and the smooth skin of my eyelid.
The relief lasts only until the next wave of pain hits. For a moment, I can’t concentrate on anything else. I just lie there in the dirt and focus on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Slowly, the burning fades to a lingering ache in my right eye socket.
Minutes pass. I’m afraid to open my eyes. If I can’t see, how will I drive? How will I work? If something happens to me, who will take care of my family?
My family.
I sit up so fast, my head splits. With a groan, I drop down and press my cheek to the cool earth. A dozen sensations find me in the silence.
The musk of evergreen and moss.
The clammy press of cotton against my skin.
The hoot of an owl.
My eyes open to total darkness. Slowly, the blackness fades to a hundred shades of blue and gray, revealing the texture and contour of dense forest. Everything comes back to me at once. The weird sound wave. The missing road. Devil’s Tooth. The town.
Oh God. The town.
I’m lying at the base of a massive tree. There’s a small break in the canopy above, giving me a direct view of a blue velvet sky, studded with diamond stars and streaked with the first hint of dawn.
Dawn?
This time, I manage to sit up. Nerves twitch in my weak eye. Between the dim glow of fading stars and promise of daybreak, I can make out just enough about this place to know I’ve never been here before. The last thing I remember is running from Deputy Miller and the odd sensation of being yanked sideways by my chest. Did the deputy hurt me? Did something happen to my eye when I fell? Either way, what am I doing in the middle of the woods? Why aren’t I locked up in some cell for punching a cop?
I punched a cop.
I pull the deputy’s jacket down over my thighs, and another pain shoots through me. This one from my leg. Rowena’s bandanna has slipped down to my ankle. My knee looks like a piece of tattered cloth stretched over hamburger meat. The sight turns my stomach, but for lack of a better option, I grit my teeth and retie the dirty rag.
Purple and pink threads wind their way through the scraps of sky between branches. I’d guess it’s around six in the morning. I don’t remember spending the night out here, or what happened before I passed out. All I know is that it’s been at least thirteen hours since I left Charlie standing outside of our trailer.
Every second that passes is starting to feel like an opportunity I’ll never get back.
The wind skates over me with icy fingers. I should pick myself up. I should move, but there’s a gaping crater in my chest where Charlie and Mom are supposed to be. I wrap my arms around myself, and it’s like I’m one of the paper snowflakes Charlie and I make every Christmas. Insubstantial. Full of holes.
Deputy Miller said the town was gone. He insisted there were no survivors, but what about the voice? I know my brother’s voice the way I know my mother’s laugh. The way I know my father’s plans. It was Charlie. He’s still out here somewhere. In these woods. Probably hiding out with Mom. The only thing that matters now is finding them, and to do that, I have to get up.
I struggle to my feet. The ache in my eye has tears streaming down my face. I lean against the trunk and call up the map of Oregon in my mind—the one tacked to the wall over the bed Mom and I share. I’ve been reading maps for her since I was old enough to sit in the front seat. Looking at them has always made me feel peaceful, and I could use some of that peace right now. Like my dad’s blueprints, maps are easy. They don’t keep secrets or tell lies. There are no unsolved mysteries. Every line has a meaning. Every question has an answer. You just have to find it.
West. I need to keep the sunrise behind me and head west. Eventually, I’ll hit the ocean and then it’ll be a simple matter of following the coastline north into town.
Dawn wakes the birds and gives the canopy a silver sheen. The air is pregnant with moisture that cuts right through my bones.
I’ve been walking for maybe two hours when a soft tinkling reaches my ears.
I follow the sound of running water to a small brook in the forest floor. I slip and slide my way down to the bank and lean out over the stream, getting my first look at myself since I left the Hands for Hearths office yesterday afternoon.
Dirt is streaked across my cheek, which has turned an ugly shade of purple. Scratches cover my neck and arms, but those barely register.
My eye. It looks completely normal. It isn’t even red.
My legs go wobbly. I sink down at the edge of the stream, right next to a large boulder. I reach out and cup the cold, clear liquid in my hands. I’m on my third mouthful when a flash of color draws my gaze across the stream.
Twenty yards away, a bit of yellow rope lies abandoned on the opposite bank. The line runs from the sand, up the slight incline, and over the top of the crest to—a hand. There’s a hand hanging over the ledge.
The instinct to flee is almost overpowering. I force myself to ignore it. Running now will only attract attention, and there’s a good chance whoever’s up there hasn’t spotted me yet.
Quietly, I pull on the deputy’s jacket and slide behind the boulder, where I wait for the thud of approaching footsteps. The only sounds are the soft hiss of disbanding mist and the gurgle of water. I risk another peek around the boulder. The arm is in the same position, hanging lifelessly over the edge.
It’s probably another police officer or one of the National Guardsmen who were supposed to show up yesterday. But what if it’s not? What if it’s someone else? Someone who needs help?
What if it’s Charlie?
I’m across the stream in two seconds flat. Rocks and sharp roots cut into my hands as I scramble up the gentle incline to the giant Douglas fir sitting on top of the ledge. I look around the trunk.
He’s lying facedown in the dirt.
Not my brother. A stranger.
My knees go weak. Disappointment. Relief. It all blurs together as I sink down beside the fallen hiker.
Yellow rope runs from his hand, down the long line of his body, back up into the branches of the tree I’m using for cover. A few yards to my left, a gray jacket lies neatly folded on a crag pack.
I let out a breath and shake one muscular shoulder. “Hello?” When he doesn’t stir, I ease off his ball cap. Initials are written into the fabric, drenched in blood and so faded, I can hardly make them out.
W. E.?
W. L.?
I drop the cap and focus on the guy wearing it. Dark hair is buzzed short, giving me a good view of the nasty lump on the back of his head.
I check his pulse. Strong and steady. Relief echoes through me for a second before reality sinks in. My small bag of first-aid tricks is no match for a major concussion. He needs help. The kind they provide in the ER. To get him that help I’d have to go back to the road, and that is not an option.
My shoulders droop. There’s nothing I can do other than leave him here and hope that he wakes up, or that somebody else finds him just like I did.
I’m returning the hand to his side when my chest muscles contract and spasm. Something tugs at my insides, and for one terrifying moment, I feel it happening again. The thing that happened when I was running toward the sound of Charlie’s voice behind Devil’s Tooth. I brace myself for the hook of fire, the searing pain in my chest, but the sens
ation of being yanked sideways doesn’t come. There’s just a soft, steady pressure that’s uncomfortable without being painful.
My hands press flat to my chest. The muscles are relaxed—normal. It’s like the thing with my eye. Only different, because this doesn’t make me feel someone has cut out a piece of me. It’s more of a pull than a pain. And unlike the agony in my eye, this feeling doesn’t fade. If anything, the tug grows stronger until it’s impossible to ignore. It makes me feel like a balloon on the end of a string, or a sweater with a loose thread that’s being gently tugged by … what?
My knees hit the ground beside the fallen hiker as I realize what this means.
The pain in my eye. The tug in my chest. I’m hallucinating. It could be a lingering effect of my fall from Devil’s Tooth. Then again, it could have something to do with whatever they set loose with the DARC.
A force that was turning regular people into psychopaths before the town disappeared.
Fear is a sour taste in my mouth as I look down at the fallen hiker. Soon these woods will be swarming with men trying to figure out what happened to Fort Glory. I need to be long gone before that happens. My family is counting on me, and this guy is a complete stranger, and whatever happened to him, it’s really none of my business.
Then whose business is it, Rosie?
Charlie’s voice hits me with a tidal wave of memory. It has four years rewinding in my head until I’m back on the side of a lonely Kansas road.
I remember it was evening. I’d been cruising down the highway for hours with no food, no license, and no real idea of where we were headed. I just knew we had to get away from the monster who’d left bruises on my mother. Bruises that spread like the shadows around us.
A rabbit darted across the road. I swerved, but with a few thousand pounds of trailer behind me and Rusty’s crap brakes, there was no avoiding it. When I pulled over, the rabbit was dragging its broken legs across the highway.
Charlie hopped out of the truck and carried the dying animal to the side of a sunflower field.
I collapsed on the ground next to Charlie, and the horrors of the last several hours caught up to me. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. My mother curled up on the floor. The marks on her body didn’t worry me nearly as much as the way she was lying there. Like the animal in Charlie’s arms, she was wounded but still breathing. Unlike the rabbit, there was no fight left in her.
Before I Disappear Page 6