Centralia

by Mike Dellosso

  Of course, the Lincoln would be found eventually. But Lawrence had thought ahead as he always did and registered it under an alias, Richard Barton from San Francisco. If the local cops put two and two together, they’d assume the abandoned vehicle belonged to the bald man in the brawl who had escaped on foot, and they’d begin a search down a long and endless path, looking for a man who existed only on paper and in various databases around the country and who had quite the history to muddle through.

  Setting out on foot, ignoring the pain in his face and hand, he made his way across town, keeping to side streets and alleyways until he came upon a supermarket. Behind the store he slid into an unlocked aging Chevy pickup and easily hot-wired it. By the time the owner discovered his truck missing and reported it to the police, Lawrence would be far out of town, and the local cops would be on the trail of Richard Barton.

  On the road, he headed east and an hour later entered the town of Stubbsville. There he found a small drugstore and grabbed antibiotic soap, two spray bottles of bacitracin, a large bottle of ibuprofen, and six rolls of gauze from the shelves.

  At the counter, the clerk, a shaggy-headed kid, said, “Dude, that burn looks nasty.”

  Lawrence forced a smile. “Got in a fight with a grill.” He didn’t want to spend too long in the store. He knew they had security cameras that had already captured his image. The agency would be on his trail soon. There were cameras on the exterior of the building as well, and they’d now know what kind of truck he was driving.

  The kid at the checkout scanned the items. “Looks like the grill won. You sure you shouldn’t see a doctor about that?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  The kid shrugged. “Whatever, man.”

  Lawrence placed two twenties on the counter, more than enough to cover the bill, and said, “The rest is for you.” He grabbed his supplies and made for the exit.

  The kid hollered after him. “You don’t want your receipt?”

  But Lawrence was already headed out the door.

  In the truck he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and cleared his mind. This was how he coped with the pressures and stresses common to his line of work. He quickly performed a mental inventory of every major muscle group in his body and concentrated on relaxing it. Tension seeped from his muscles; his circulation improved; his breathing calmed; the pain in his face and hand slowly dissipated.

  An image entered his mind, unbidden yet in a strange way welcome. He sat on the edge of a bed, his handgun ready, a round chambered, the safety off. He was going to do it. He was going to pull the trigger and end the torment. With the barrel to his temple, he rested the fat pad of his index finger on the trigger. He was that close. And then the phone rang. It was Patrick.

  Lawrence pushed the memory away, opened his eyes, and gripped the steering wheel. He needed to find a bathroom and a new vehicle.

  Back on the road, behind the wheel of the Accord, Peter drove east, pulled there not merely by his newly acquired knowledge of where Centralia lay on the map but by some unseen and barely felt force urging him onward, leading him as if with invisible guide wires. Was it God pulling him? Leading him? The thought came out of nowhere, like a puff of wind in the dead of a still night, but Peter was immediately skeptical. When had God shown up before? He hadn’t in the house; he hadn’t in the café. Peter had done that alone; he’d survived on his own. Again that distantly familiar feeling of abandonment was there. Apparently God had issues with showing up when he was needed most.

  The mysterious force pulled Peter eastward, toward Centralia, toward Karen and Lilly, and, he was sure, toward the key that would open that fourth room of his dream and reveal what wonderful or wicked secret it held.

  After several quiet minutes of being lulled by the drone of the wheels on asphalt, Amy finally said, “Where are we going now?”

  “Centralia,” Peter said and liked how familiar the word now felt on his tongue. “It’s a town in Pennsylvania.”

  “Pennsylvania?”

  “Yeah, Pennsylvania. Is that okay?”

  Amy shook her head. “Peter, none of this is okay. My home was broken into, my garage door busted up, my landscaping ruined; my truck is gone. We’ve been shot at and attacked. How is any of that okay?”

  They drove in silence another few minutes. Outside the car, fields of drying corn planted in perfectly straight rows stretched to the horizon, where they met a crystalline-blue sky. Looking out the side window, Amy said in a low voice, “I’ve never been to Pennsylvania before.”

  “I haven’t either.” At least, not that he could remember.

  “And you know how to get there?”

  “Of course. I have the map in my head.”

  “How?”

  “That woman back at the café—she had a map on her phone.”

  “Is that what that was all about?”

  He glanced at Amy. “Getting answers. Collecting information.”

  “And you memorized the map?” She sounded cynical.

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “No. I mean, sort of. You didn’t look at it for very long.”

  He’d studied the map for only a second or two, but that was all he’d needed. He remembered every road, every highway, every state park and Podunk town along the way to Centralia. He could see the map in his head just as clearly as if he were holding it in his hands. “Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah. Weird. Tell me something,” Amy said. “How did you know that woman would help you? I mean, a strange man approaching a woman in a café, asking her to look something up on her phone. How did you know she wouldn’t think you were a creep and tell you to get lost?”

  “Why? Do I look like a creep?”

  “No. It’s just, you know, nowadays you can’t be too friendly or you risk coming off like a creep.”

  Peter thought about that. Of course he’d considered the chance he was taking. He’d considered every risk he’d taken since he hid in Lilly’s room when the intruders had busted into his home. It was part of who he was now: analytical, calculating, constantly running a menu of options through his head, weighing them for the best outcome. But the fact of the matter was, there were risks to be taken. The woman in the beret could have gotten nervous and called the police.

  But he’d known she wouldn’t. “Did you notice anything about her?”

  “She was a woman. She was alone. She was looking at a magazine.”

  “Right. But did you notice anything else?”

  Amy shrugged. “She had brown hair, shoulder length. She wore glasses.”

  “She had a button on her purse that said ‘Have you hugged a librarian today?’ She’s a knowledge junkie and is into sharing knowledge, turning others on to knowledge. She’s married and has three kids, girls. She’s used to interacting with people, caring for them, helping. She carries pepper spray but isn’t anxious to use it. She had a canister on her key chain, but her keys were in her purse on the floor. She works out, sometimes at home, mostly at a gym. She’s confident, self-assured.”

  Amy sat in silence while, outside, more fields passed by in green-and-brown streaks. “You noticed all that from where we were sitting?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you know about the kids?”

  “Her wallet was on the table. It had one of those clear plastic fronts where you can put a picture. Karen had one just like it. Carried a picture of Lilly and me in it. That woman’s had a photo of three small girls, looked to be ages six to two.”

  “And how about the working-out part? Were you checking out her calves?”

  “Nope. The key chain again. She had a membership card to a gym. It was well-worn.”

  Amy glanced out the side window. More perfectly striped cornfields moved by. “Wow.”

  Peter ran a hand over his face. “Amy, how does someone do that? How did I even know to look for those things, to take notice? How did I know, of the five people in that café, she’d be the one to help us?”

  “Did y
ou notice stuff about the others too?”

  “Every detail. But I don’t recognize myself anymore.”

  “You’re Peter Ryan. Research assistant. Batman.”

  “Seriously, who am I?”

  “I guess now it’s my turn. I don’t know.”

  The door’s lock disengaged again, catching the woman off guard. She wasn’t expecting her daughter to be returned so soon. It was only two o’clock. She usually didn’t get back until closer to five, sometimes even later than that.

  A bar of light from the hallway widened as the door opened. Three shadows darkened the light, silhouettes of two men and a child. Her daughter entered the room, shoulders back and chin up, the same way she always did. The woman had once thought this posture was a sign of her daughter’s defiance, an outward expression of the unbreakable will within. But she soon learned that it had nothing to do with the girl’s temerity and everything to do with her faith. She held her shoulders back and her head up not out of rebellion to her captors but because of her reliance on her Lord. If he was for her, who could be against her?

  But the early return was not the only thing out of place this time; her daughter’s appearance bore signs that the “experiments” had gone physical. Her hair was mussed, and her upper arms were colored with a faint reddening of the skin.

  The woman lunged for her daughter and pulled the girl to her chest even as the door closed and the outside light was cut off.

  “Oh, baby, baby girl, what did they do to you?” Tears leaked from her eyes and the words squeezed from her constricted throat. She had to do something. What kind of a mother stood by and idly allowed her daughter to be abused?

  She pulled away and held her little girl’s face in her hands, scanning every inch of skin, searching for any other marks or wounds. How dare they touch her daughter! Anger rose in her like a lava flood, burning her from the inside. Leaving her daughter, she rushed to the door and pounded on it, venting the anger and hurt and pain that tore at her with hooked claws. “How dare you! How dare you harm her. You animals!”

  Turning around, she found her daughter there, arms relaxed, face turned upward. She was so innocent, so gentle, such a sweet, loving child. She did not deserve to suffer pain. “Oh, baby.” She hugged her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. What did they do to you?”

  The girl, though, appeared unfazed by the torment she must have received. If the woman had not noticed the tousled hair and reddened skin, and if she had not been privy to their current circumstances, she would have thought her daughter had returned from a common day at school or an outing with friends. “Mommy,” she said, suppressing a tremor in her voice, making it just as calm and even as earlier in the day, before she had been taken, “don’t cry for me. I’m okay. God was with me. He was right there, holding my hand the whole time.” She lifted a hand and wiped the woman’s tears from her cheeks.

  The tears still came. What kind of a God would stand by and let an innocent angel be hurt by grown men? “Did they hurt you?”

  The girl shrugged.

  The woman took her daughter’s face in her hands again. Such a sweet face. “Baby, listen to me. I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer me, okay? Tell Mommy the truth. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Did they touch you in your personal places?”

  “You mean my girl parts?”

  “Yes, honey.” The fact that she even had to ask the question brought a fresh wave of tears.

  Her daughter shook her head. “No.”

  “Have they ever?”

  “No.”

  She knew her daughter was telling the truth. The girl didn’t lie; it wasn’t in her, wasn’t woven into the tapestry of her soul. She might seem distant at times, and she’d become adept at avoiding questions, but she’d never outright lied.

  The woman drew her daughter close, hugged her, stroked her hair. She thought of what life would be like if circumstances had been different. If they were free; if her husband were alive; if they lived a normal life in a normal home in a normal neighborhood. If they were happy.

  “Baby,” the woman said, still holding her girl, “why won’t you tell me what they do to you?”

  “I can’t.”

  “But why? Why can’t you?”

  The girl hesitated, and the woman could tell she was wrestling with whether to answer the question directly or give another vague nonanswer.

  Stepping back and out of the woman’s arms, the girl said, “Because they said if I tell you, they’ll hurt you.”

  “Oh, my sweet girl.” Once more, the woman took her daughter into her arms. She didn’t want to let go of her. Ever. She wouldn’t let them take her again.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes?”

  “There is something, though. Something else.”

  The woman lifted her head from the girl’s hair and held her at arm’s length, hands on her daughter’s shoulders. In her sweet girl’s eyes she saw indecision and hesitancy but not doubt. Never doubt. “What is it?”

  Again the girl hesitated, unsure whether she could share what else she knew.

  “You can tell me,” the woman said. “It’s okay.” She knew the room was bugged and knew her daughter was taking a chance by telling her information that might land her in the lab too.

  The girl closed her eyes and swallowed. When she opened her eyes, there were tears in them. It was the first time the woman had seen her daughter cry since the news that her daddy was dead.

  “Baby, tell me. I’m right here.”

  “Mommy, there’s other kids.”

  Several miles from the Ohio–Pennsylvania line, Peter steered the Accord into the parking lot of a strip mall in the town of Abbey, a small village populated equally by Amish and Englischers. It was early afternoon and there were plenty of cars and a few horse-drawn buggies in the lot. They’d easily get lost in the crowd. The mall was neither new nor newly renovated and consisted of ten units with a large superstore anchoring the north end and a rather large furniture store boasting Amish-made wares on the south end.

  Peter shifted the car into park and let the engine idle. Heat radiated off the hood in tendrils that rose like watery fingers until they dissipated and became one with the cooler air. The sky was cloudless, a washed-out shade of blue.

  Amy looked around the parking lot. “Problem.”

  “I know,” Peter said.

  “You know what?”

  “Cameras. There.” He pointed at the gray security cameras mounted high on light poles scattered throughout the lot, eyes in the sky keeping watch over the entire shopping complex. “There and there. And no doubt the stores have them as well.”

  “So what are you gonna do now, Batman? You don’t have your mask.”

  Peter checked his watch. The day shift at the plant back in Marsville hadn’t ended yet, so the owner of the Accord wouldn’t have found it missing. They wouldn’t be looking for a stolen blue Honda for another hour. He surveyed the parking lot. A few cars away, a woman wrestled to maintain control of a stroller while lifting her child from a car seat. One row over, an elderly gentleman exited his car, looked around, smoothed his shirt, and headed for the front door. A woman met him there and gave him a peck on the cheek before taking his hand in hers.

  “They don’t know what we’re driving yet,” Peter said. “For all they know, we’re still in your truck.”

  “That’s to our advantage.”

  “Yes . . .”

  “But . . . ?”

  “But if they’re running this surveillance footage through facial recognition software, they’ll find us.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Run it in real time like that?”

  “I don’t want to underestimate their capabilities. We need to assume they can tap into any video feed and run it through their own systems.” Peter made a quick scan of the parking lot again, measuring the distance between the drop-off zone and the front doors and looki
ng for any sign of law enforcement or security personnel. He didn’t know if the home intruders and Baldy worked for the Feds or not, so until he had firm evidence either way, he’d have to assume they did. And if they did, they would have already circulated photos of him and Amy, public enemies one and two. Every local and state cop and security guard in eight states would have received one or gotten a special bulletin in their e-mail. That notion sent a chill through his blood. If the Feds were behind this covert manhunt, their resources were all but unlimited, and he was just one man with a tagalong.

  But if the Feds were involved, that led to a myriad of other questions. Questions he’d have to deal with later, though. Right now they needed a change of clothes, food, water, first aid supplies. They could get all that in the superstore, but Amy would be the best candidate to go inside.

  Peter turned to her. “You ready?”

  Eyes wide, she said, “For what?”

  “To get supplies.”

  “I’m going in?”

  “It’d be better if it was you. Let your hair down and hide as much of your face with it as you can. I’ll drop you off at the door. As soon as you get in the store, head for the sunglasses and the hats and put them on. Tell the clerk you just saw the eye doctor and he dilated your eyes. He can scan the tags while you’re wearing them.”

  “What do we need?”

  A gray-and-blue police SUV entered the parking lot and rolled slowly past the store’s entrance. They couldn’t have gotten a bead on Peter and Amy that quickly. It was impossible. Whoever was after them might have resources, they might have the ability to track and scan and survey, but they weren’t omnipresent. Peter waited until the vehicle meandered its way out of the lot and back onto the primary route that passed the mall.

  He turned his attention back to Amy. “Food. Water. Clothes. Get me a baseball hat and sunglasses. A pair of khakis and a couple T-shirts too. Pants, thirty-two waist; T-shirts, large.”