“You going back?”
“I think so. I’ll get a single monthly membership. This summer, if you want, I can upgrade to a family membership?”
“Sounds good, Dad. I’m going to get ready for bed now.”
“Goodnight. I’m going to pay some bills, hit the shower, and go to bed too. I think I’m really going to sleep good tonight after that workout.”
“I love you. See you in the morning,” Cole said and scampered out.
“I love you too. Stop worrying about Charlotte,” Mark said, his voice fading.
Talking to his dad had helped him feel a lot better. It wouldn’t surprise Cole one bit if Charlotte had changed her mind about meeting Brennon and had gone to the mall.
He admitted to himself that he had a wild imagination. It made perfect sense that he’d blow a situation like this way out of proportion.
Brennon had no doubt overreacted, too. Heck, the doofus had been drinking. That could only add fuel to the fire of his own imagination.
Cole brushed his teeth, turned off his computer, and undressed and got into bed.
The lights went out.
It was dark.
Darkness was not Cole Rainwater’s friend.
Chapter 17
Cole found himself in an empty hallway at school. His book sack felt like it weighed a ton, and he carried so many books in his hands that he thought he was going to drop them. The clock on the wall indicated that his science class was just about to begin. He was going to be late again if he didn’t hurry it up.
Books bobbled and threatened to spill as the weight of the book sack pounded his back with every step. Still, Cole kept his pace. Being late for Mr. Ritzman’s class had been an accident. Being late to Mrs. Thomas’ class would make the teachers see his tardiness as an act of disrespect. That’s the last thing he needed so close to the end of school. Cole knew that when it came time to give the final grades, that teachers rewarded good students favorably. He’d been close enough on a few occasions where his C+ had shown up as a B on his report card. Cole was an above average student, and he needed all the help he could get.
The door to his science room was wide open. He stumbled into the room, trying desperately not to drop the books, and came to a halt.
Everyone was at their desks, including the teacher. Everyone had their heads down, and none took notice of him, save one: Charlotte Meadows.
Princess Charlotte sat majestically in her chair and gave him the biggest, warmest smile.
Thank God! She was safe!
Mrs. Thomas lifted her head and gazed sternly at him.
Yeah, he got it. He was late or nearly late, and he needed to take his seat.
No sooner than he had dropped his book sack on the floor and his books on his desk, Mrs. Thomas rose from her chair and addressed the class.
“Everyone, I need your attention. I have some sad news.” Mrs. Thomas removed her glasses and wiped the corner of her right eye with a tissue. “Charlotte Meadows is missing.”
Cole felt iciness running down his spine. His head jutted to where Charlotte sat, two rows over and in the very front desk of the row. Her gaze remained transfixed on Mrs. Thomas.
Mrs. Thomas continued, “If any of you have information as to her whereabouts, you need to go to the principal’s office and give a statement.”
Cole sprung from his seat. The books on his desk crashed to the floor. He pointed at Charlotte, and said, “Charlotte’s right there.”
Mrs. Thomas glanced toward Charlotte and then gazed back at Cole. “Cole, there’s no one in her chair.”
“What do you mean? She’s right there. I see her. Charlotte, say something.”
Charlotte remained seated; her gaze locked toward the front of the room.
“There’s no one there. Charlotte Meadows is missing.”
“You’re crazy!” Cole said, and then looked all around. “Everybody, look. Charlotte’s at her desk.”He continued to point. “You see Charlotte right there in her seat, don’t you?”
The rest of the class stared back at him like he was a boy gone crazed.
“Cole. Do you know something about her disappearance? Do you need to go to the principal’s office and give a statement?”
“Me, no…I don’t know what happened to her. But she’s not missing. She’s right here in this room! What’s wrong with all of you?”
Charlotte finally turned her head toward him. She slowly rose from her chair, and said, “Help me, Cole, please. It’s up to you to find me.”
Before he could answer, Charlotte faded from the room like a character transported off the Starship Enterprise onto another planet.
“It’s your fault, Cole,” someone said from behind.
He whipped his head around to see who had said that, but then another voice said, “It’s your fault, Cole.”
“It’s your fault. It’s your fault,” the whole room chanted now.
Cole felt caged by the chorus of accusations. Even Mrs. Thomas joined in the cacophony of noise that grew louder in Cole’s head every second.
He raised his hands over his ears but only trapped the reverberating noise.
Cole screamed until his cry drowned out every other sound.
A haunting guitar playing from the radio rescued Cole from his nightmare. He sprang upright, feeling cold from the a/c unit vent in the ceiling blowing over his sweaty head and back. Taking a moment to bridge the outside reality from that in his head, he breathed a sigh of relief.
The radio pounded a steady beat. If Cole had been more awake, the rhythm might have energized him.
Then he realized the song that played: “Don’t fear the Reaper.”
The tune, mixed with the fog of his nightmare, filled him with incredible anxiousness unlike he’d ever felt before. Cole started breathing harder as if each breath took in less air than the breath before. In seconds he found himself heaving and feeling light-headed.
Is this what a heart attack feels like? Am I going to die? It certainly felt that way. A low roar built in his head. He felt vulnerable like a big monster was about to snatch him up and swallow him whole.
Panicked, Cole rolled off the side of the bed and laid near face-first on the floor. The wood floor was solid, an anchor point of security. It smelled a little dusty, irritating his nose. His gaze focused on the wood grain and imperfections, reminding him of lines on a map. Then he wondered if nature had left cryptic clues in things like wood grain that would lead to unknown mysteries the world had to offer. He had never heard of a theory like that before and now wondered if perhaps he had stumbled onto something that might break through the paradigm of normal.
The next song on the radio pulled Cole back out of his head into the present. “Eye of the Tiger” pulsed it’s inspirational beat giving him legs strong enough to stand and face the day.
When he made it to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, he thought of the dream again; how his classmates berated him, saying that Charlotte’s disappearance was his fault.
But Charlotte wasn’t really missing, was she? There was no way he was going to wait to get to school to find out.
He quickly hurried back to his room and called her cellphone. Like Brennon had said the night before, the call went to voicemail. Cole felt the onset of another breathing attack but fought back knowing that he had to keep it together if he was going to get through this.
Checking his Recent Calls on the phone, he pushed Brennon’s number, and the call went through.
“Hello?” Brennon said, sounding half-awake.
“Dude, it’s Cole. Did you find Charlotte last night?”
The pause lasted one hundred million years. Brennon said, “No,” his voice breaking in the end.
Cole had never felt more scared in his life. His nightmare was coming true! “What? Tell me what happened.”
“It was bad. Charlotte’s mom went into hysterics when I got there and told her the story. She called the police, and even though a lot of time hadn’t passed, they
sent an officer over. I had to stay there, and my parents came over there too. Pretty soon the place was swarming with cops. I know some went to Amy’s house to talk with her. The police took this seriously because of that other kid who had been abducted.”
“Any clues? Any information at all?”
“No, none. The police interrogated me for a couple of hours. I kept telling them the truth, and they just kept asking the same questions. Finally, they looked at the app on my phone that tracks where I go during the day—my parents made me put that on there so they can know where I’ve been. My story checked out, and they let me go around two this morning.”
“Sounds like you had a rough night,” Cole said, bewildered at what to do next.
“Yeah, and my head’s not feeling so good after drinking that bottle of prosecco.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Uh, I don’t know. What can we do? The police are handling it. We’re just a couple of kids.”
Not such a big man now, are you? Cole thought. It would have been easy just to leave it to the adults to handle the situation. But Charlotte’s words from the dream came back to inspire him: “It’s up to you to find me.”
“Brennon, the police haven’t had any luck finding Coach Jones’ nephew. We can’t just sit around and wait for them. This is Charlotte we’re talking about. We both care about her too much not to do something.”
“Okay, okay, I hear you,” Brennon said, his voice sounding stronger. “You gotta plan? I’m all in.”
Thinking a minute, the police shows on TV always got their clues from the scene of the crime. It was at least a place to start. “We have to go to the bus stop where you were supposed to pick up Charlotte. We’ll look for clues.”
“The police have already done that. They didn’t find anything.”
“I don’t care. It was dark. They had to use flashlights. There’s no telling what they have missed. They probably have written it off and won’t be going back there. Let’s do this, you and me. We’ll go and see if we can find any clues.”
“All right. Do you want me to get dressed and come get you now?”
Cole thought a moment and realized that there was no way his dad was going to allow him to skip school and chase after Charlotte. He hated to deceive his dad, but Charlotte depended on him. “We’ll both go to school. After first-hour, we’ll meet in the parking lot and head on over to the bus stop.”
“We’ll get caught when we skip class and get in trouble.”
“Yes, we will. But that won’t be until later. Brennon, we have to do this. The most important time to find a missing person is immediately after their disappearance. We’ve already lost a lot of time. Please tell me you’ll do this?”
“We might get kicked off the baseball team.”
The possibility did give Cole pause, but he said, “I don’t care. We have to do this. If you’re not in, I’m going to steal a bike after first-hour and head over there by myself.”
“No need to make the matter worse. Don’t steal anything. Meet me at my car after first-hour. We’ll be at the bus stop in twenty minutes.”
Cole breathed a sign of relief and then felt like the heavy lifting was just about to start. “Thanks, man. We’re doing this for Charlotte.”
“Yeah, we’re doing this for Charlotte, and we’re going to find her too. Later.”
The call ended.
Cole’s dad had often said that politics made strange bedfellows. Politics didn’t bring him and Brennon together, but now he understood exactly what his dad had meant.
*
Cole sat alone in his seat on the bus. He had last night’s podcast of Shore to Shore playing through his earbuds, but he had hardly listened to one word said.
He immediately told his dad about Charlotte’s disappearance when he heard him leave his bedroom. Cole had never seen his dad snap awake that quickly the first thing in the morning. Of course, his dad pushed him for the details, of which he had done his best to divulge all.
His dad cursed that he didn’t have Lori Meadows’ phone number, and made a beeline to the phone and called work. He told them that he was going to take a day of emergency vacation, and then told Cole he was going to get dressed and go over to Lori’s as fast as he could.
Cole considered giving Brennon a call, and maybe skipping school altogether to get a faster start, but decided against it. They had a plan and would stick to it. It would draw less attention and increase their chances of success.
His dad zoomed down the driveway, giving him a mindless wave as he careened down the street toward town.
Cole felt the weight of the world on his shoulders as time slowly ticked by while waiting for the bus.
When Mr. Tillus, the bus driver, stopped and opened the door for him to climb aboard, Cole almost blurted out that Charlotte Meadows was missing as he stepped his way up. He didn’t, though. There was nothing Mr. Tillus could do about the situation anyway. The man would just ask questions that he wouldn’t have the answers to.
So when the bus driver gave Cole his traditional introductory smile, he simply returned it, though his mouth didn’t stretch from side to side near as wide as usual.
The younger kids on the bus played their roles, lost in their own worlds, oblivious to Charlotte’s disappearance.
Life was strange, how people functioned every day caught up in a world created by their observations and experiences. Unaffected by the deadly unknown that might be down the street or even living right next to them, until their exposure enters reality.
Reality.
Cole had learned that everyone creates a different reality. He had once read of an experiment where a woman spoke before a group of people and a thief rushed in and stole her purse. The eyewitness accounts varied greatly, from the description of the thief, to even the color of clothes he wore. The article then delved into how the mind stored memories and ultimately the reliability of the memories recorded. After reading the article, Cole found himself questioning everything he believed in. How much of his memories were actually true events or some misshapen construct? Thoughts like those only dug deeper holes. He was forced to accept that his memories were his, and he just had to hope they were mostly the true way that they had happened.
That day, Cole came to the conclusion that reality is what you choose to believe, or are forced to believe by undeniable circumstance, is real. That’s the only thing that made sense. Because, how else could two people hear the same information and come away with two totally different opinions about what was said? That was why there was more than one political party. That’s why there were believers and atheists.
He was forced to believe that Charlotte Meadows was missing, even though he would have chosen not to. That bitter fact ate away at his insides as the bus bounced down the highway toward school.
*
The bus rolled to a stop around the curved driveway in front of the school. There were so many people scattered about, it looked like someone had kicked over an ant pile.
The police were there in full force, and a news van had men pulling equipment out and setting up. All the kids had pretty much been corraled into one area.
“What’s going on around here?” Mr. Tillus said as Cole stepped down the stairs onto the concrete.
Cole gazed wide-eyed at the kind bus driver, hearing the genuine concern in his voice. But, he said nothing, and turned and sped away.
It was windy, just like the night before. The unseen force blasted him head-on as if he were swimming against the ocean’s tide.
Mr. Ritzman, the teacher who wore all black, was among four other men dressed just like him. His left hand remained in his coat pocket, but the right pointed this way and that like he was giving different directions to a hundred different people.
There were many strange things about Mr. Ritzman that didn’t add up. But now seeing him with others of his kind, it was obvious that he fit in more with law enforcement than he ever had with the teaching staff. These men in
black could only be government agents from the FBI.
Standing at the edge of the crowd of kids, he stood on his toes and looked around for Brennon.
The kids’ chatter sounded like the ocean’s roar. As he concentrated to glean information about the topic, he quickly learned they all knew of Charlotte’s disappearance. No surprise, really. At least Cole no longer felt he carried the burden of her plight alone. Now everyone else knew. Maybe someone had a clue as to her whereabouts.
When Cole looked back over toward Mr. Ritzman’s way, he saw that Brennon was over there by him and the other men in black. Their collective bodies had hidden the baseball player earlier.
Ritzman caught his gaze, and he thrust forth a pointed finger directly at him.
Cole’s butt felt like it had melted and a black hole sucked the molecules of liquid flesh down a bottomless void. All of a sudden he felt like the whole situation was his fault; that Charlotte was missing because of him.
Two of the men in black by Ritzman sprang into action and headed directly for Cole as he stared back, practically paralyzed by the situation.
“Cole Rainwater?” one of the men coldly said as they approached. He and the other guy wore the same style of sunglasses, giving them an insect-like look.
“Yes, sir.” Cole went into automatic discipline mode. He would push out any errant thoughts and concentrate on any questions they had for him, and he would give nothing but the facts and the truth.
“We need you to come with us. We have a few questions regarding Charlotte Meadows,” the other man said. His words had been direct but did sound more like a request than an order.
“Yes, sir.” Cole watched the two men part, and one swung his hand in between them, inviting Cole to pass and lead the way.
Brennon looked anxious, standing by Ritzman, but didn’t appear to be scared. Good. Cole hoped that this delay wouldn’t interfere with their plans to leave school early.
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