The Home

by Scott Nicholson

  Vicky looked at Freeman and grinned. "Gym over?" she said to Isaac.

  "Some of the kids said Starlene Rogers went into Thirteen," Isaac said. "Kracowski's giving her the treatment."

  "No way," Freeman said. "Nobody's mat dumb, even a grownup."

  "I wonder if she saw the deadscape," Vicky said "You guys and your deadscape," Isaac said. "You're nutballs, did you know that?"

  "So they keep telling us," Freeman said. "Let's go see what happened to Starlene."

  "Wait," Isaac said. He stooped and picked up the penny from the floor. "Look what I found. Tail's up."

  "That means bad luck," Vicky said.

  "Is there any other kind?" Isaac said.

  Allen came in, frowning, as if they were up to something sneaky just because no grownup had been supervising them. A bell rang in the hallway.

  "You kids better hurry on to class," Allen said, disappointment in his voice. Probably wished he'd caught them smoking or something.

  They walked past him, Isaac flipping the penny in the air. Freeman wondered now many more pennies Vicky had stashed away in her pockets and if he had enough thoughts for each of them.

  THIRTY-ONE

  A man in a uniform stopped Kracowski's Nissan at the front gate. The guard had a clipboard tucked under one arm, his neck so closely shaven that the skin was raw. Kracowski let his window down and looked at his twin reflections in the guard's mirrored sunglasses.

  "What's the meaning of this?" Kracowski said.

  "Name, sir?" The guard's tone was even, almost bored.

  "You've got to be kidding." He pointed to the small walkie-talkie clipped to the guard's belt. "Let me speak to McDonald."

  The man shook his head, the shades giving nothing away. "We have no McDonald. Please give me your name, sir."

  "I have a better idea. Why don't you give me your name, so I can have your ass reamed for not knowing who I am?"

  Kracowski squeezed the steering wheel. McDonald and his damned spy games. How many other agents of the Trust had been scattered around Wendover that Kracowski didn't know about? Probably a couple in the basement, beyond the range of his surveillance system. McDonald himself had insisted on staying at one of the counselor cottages, the one vacated by the frightened cleaning lady.

  At least the guard didn't appear to be armed. It's a wonder the man didn't have a submachine gun strapped to his shoulder. Couldn't have any kids sneaking out, not with McDonald's secret superiors calling the shots. The electric fence was bad enough, but Kracowski resented this final humiliation.

  "I'm only following orders, sir," the guard said.

  "Whose orders?"

  "I'm not at liberty to say. I need to check your name against this list to make sure you're authorized."

  "I do the authorizing around here," Kracowski said.

  McDonald came from behind the stone fence and walked to Kracowski's car, a steaming Styrofoam cup in his hand. "What's the problem?" he said to the guard.

  "No problem, Mr. Lyons. I'm just explaining our security precautions to this man. No one in or out unless they're on this list."

  McDonald tapped the guard on the shoulder. "Good. I can vouch for this man."

  "Yes, sir."

  To Kracowski, McDonald said "Unlock the passenger door."

  "Don't be ridiculous. I'm on my way home. I was up very early this morning."

  "Yes. Arrived at 6:04 A.M., you were in your office with Paula Swenson until just before dawn; then we conducted an SST treatment on Starlene Rogers. You had lunch in your office: tuna salad yogurt, and diet Sprite."

  "Now wait a minute-"

  "Unlock the door."

  "Or what? Your rent-a-thug will write me a parking ticket?"

  The guard's blank expression didn't yield. McDonald said "This thing has gotten bigger. I just thought you'd like to be brought up to speed."

  "I thought this was on a 'need-to-know' basis. You keep changing your catchphrases on me."

  "Don't be a smartass, Doctor. Don't forget who holds he keys to your future. To your career. To your ass. One word from me and all your electronic toys go bye-bye."

  Kracowski looked in the rearview mirror. The stones of Wendover glowed in the sun, the windows bright with he afternoon. In those rooms were children who needed lis treatment. He had the power to make a difference in so many lives. And this group home was only the beguiling. If his theories played out as he believed then his lame would be synonymous with a new revolution in the field of behavioral health. Freud Skinner, Kracowski. A holy triumvirate.

  But every revolution had its bloodshed, every freedom its price. ESP was the genie that came out of the lamp of knowledge, and the deadscape was the mystery hiding behind that one. If the Trust pulled the plug now, Kracowski might never make the final breakthrough. He unlocked the door and waited for McDonald to slide into he passenger seat.

  " 'Lyons,' huh?" Kracowski said once his window was up. "Or is McDonald a fake, too? I'll bet your own mother doesn't even know your real name."

  "That's 'need-to-know,' and right now, you don't. Drive."

  "Where?"

  "Your house."

  Kracowski pulled through the gate. McDonald waved at the guard, who resumed his post, as stolid as the stone columns that supported the gate.

  "Why have you put Wendover under siege?" Kracowski said. "And don't you think the locals are going to get a little suspicious with all these changes taking place? They don't get many secret government agents in these parts."

  McDonald said nothing. He reached over and took Kracowski's briefcase from the back seat. "What's the combination?"

  "You can't be serious."

  "Listen, I'm not stupid enough to think you leave all your data on Wendover's computers. I want everything you have on Starlene Rogers."

  "I'm not keeping any secrets. You're the one blowing smoke all over the place."

  "Don't waste your breath. We searched your home computer, and we know all about the early experiments. The ones you hoped had been forgotten, snowed under by the bullshit system."

  "No charges were ever filed against me, and Bondurant-"

  "Bondurant's a drunken jackass. He's only useful in the event something goes wrong and we need somebody to finger. He's a born victim, anyway. But I guess you figured that out a long time ago."

  Kracowski licked his lips and kept his eyes on the gravel road. To the right was farmland that sprawled out in uneven humps, broken by creeks and patches of woods. Wendover was three miles from Elk Valley, which was useful when the clients ran away, because they always followed the main road straight into town. They became like animals that had been caged too long, their survival instinct lost.

  "The combination," McDonald repeated.

  Kracowski told him. McDonald flipped open the briefcase and rifled through the papers. He took the computer disks and tucked them into his pocket. "You're the trusting sort, aren't you? I figured you'd have a false bottom."

  "I told you, I have nothing to hide."

  "What about the data hidden on your hard drive at home?"

  Kracowski looked in the mirror. Far behind mem was a black sedan with tinted windows. Most people who used mis road drove pick-ups. Kracowski rounded a bend and lost sight of me sedan.

  "It's all theoretical, anyway. I would never have been able to prove it. Ghosts don't exist, McDonald."

  "You're starting to come up with some catchphrases of your own."

  "You can steal my disks and download my files and prowl through all the case histories, but you won't find a single shred of evidence that supports life after death."

  "Except for the evidence I've seen with my own eyes."

  "Eyes can lie, can't they?" He looked in the mirror. The sedan was still behind them, gaining fast. The farmland had given way to a planned development, big houses with landscaping and split-rail fences. The gravel road turned to asphalt and Kracowski pushed the accelerator.

  "Slow down," McDonald said. "This isn't a James Bond movie."r />
  "We're being followed."

  "No, we're not. We're just both heading for the same destination at high speeds."

  They reached the outskirts of Elk Valley, a smattering of gas stations and fast food restaurants mixed with ski rental outlets and roadside produce stands. The sedan dropped back to the speed limit as soon as Kracowski did, but maintained the distance between the two cars. Kracowski took a left and soon they were on the private road leading to the doctor's estate.

  The house came into view between two magnificent oaks. It was a Colonial, white siding with black shutters, far more space than Kracowski needed living alone. He'd bought the property because of its eighty acres of pasture and forest, his boundaries reaching over the ridge so that no one could build above him. The mountains had always given him a sense of security, as if the dirt and granite would repel all invaders.

  Kracowski parked by the barn and waited for McDonald. He'd decided that he would bide his time and see what kind of game the man was playing. McDonald waved to the sedan, which pulled to the front of the house. Two men got out of the car, the driver was dressed like the gate guard at Wendover, his familiar looking passenger in a rumpled gray jacket and tie. The back door of the sedan opened and Paula Swenson stepped into the sunshine. She wore sunglasses like the driver's.

  "Time to meet your new partner," McDonald said, getting out of Kracowski's car.

  McDonald led the way to Kracowski's house, fumbled in his pocket and came out with a key. Within seconds the door swung open and McDonald stepped aside so the others could enter.

  "I thought you secret agents employed more sophisticated methods to gain illegal entry," Kracowski said.

  "I've had a key almost as long as you have," McDonald said. "Thanks, Paula."

  Paula almost smiled at him, then her face went blank again. Kracowski stared at her, for the first time wondering if what he had mistaken for admiration and affection in her eyes was actually animal cunning.

  "Nothing happens by accident," McDonald continued. "You may think you moved here of your own free will, because of the important research you needed to conduct at Wendover, but didn't you ever wonder at how easily the red tape fell away? And why the Department of Social Services wasn't constantly breathing down your neck?"

  "I should assume my house has been bugged?" Kracowski looked at the corners of the living room with new interest. "With tiny cameras planted all over the place? Where are they? In the mantel clock, maybe?"

  "You're too trusting, Richard," Paula said. "You shouldn't have let me move in until you got to know me better."

  Kracowski studied the two men from the sedan. The guard wore an unreadable expression that looked as if it would break before smiling. He'd taken off his sunglasses, but the eyes were as blank as windows.

  The man in the gray jacket, on the other hand, had eyes that rolled in their sockets as if constantly on watch for phantoms. His face was wrinkled and pale, dark hair trimmed unevenly close to the scalp, sprouting out at the sides like some grotesque clown's. He smelled of institutional soap. His teeth worked together, chewing air.

  "I want you to meet the man who is going to help you prove the existence of life after death," McDonald said. "Someone who was working for us in a similar capacity before he had… personal issues."

  The anxious man nodded at the fireplace and picked a glass paperweight from a dusty hutch. He held it to one eye and squinted through it, his pupil made large and obscene.

  "Dr. Kracowski, say hello to Dr. Kenneth Mills, esteemed clinical psychologist."

  "A pleasure to meet me, Doctor," Kenneth Mills said. He turned abruptly and flung the paperweight into the fireplace, shattering it. Broken glass sprayed across the carpet. Neither McDonald nor the guard flinched. Swenson fumbled in her purse.

  Mills grinned, showing sharp incisors to Kracowski. "I look forward to working with you. By the way, how's the boy?"

  "Boy?" said Kracowski, blown off balance by the man's tempest.

  The grin grew wider and sharper. "My son. Freeman."

  THIRTY-TWO

  Starlene touched the wall again just to be sure that the world was solid and real. She was still dizzy from the treatment, though the ghosts had faded the moment Kracowski had shut off the energy fields. Or were the ghosts still there, only she couldn't see them? What sort of boundaries did ghosts observe? Was the deadscape confined to the basement of Wendover, or were the spirits at this moment running their invisible hands across her flesh?

  She felt safer here, in her cottage a hundred feet away and not in the musty bowels of the group home. She shared the cottage with another counselor, Marie, who was on vacation. Too bad, because Starlene could use some company, even if Marie was of that peculiar Baha'i faith. Marie's placid chatter would have been a welcome distraction from the memories of the ghosts.

  Starlene picked up the phone and called the main building. "Randy?"

  "Yeah," he answered, in the same cold manner he'd displayed toward her since the incident with the man at the lake. "What's going on?"

  "I need to talk to you."

  "You know I'm on duty."

  She was careful to keep her voice level. She hated signs of weakness or desperation in others, and she especially despised them in herself. "Can't one of the other counselors cover you for a few minutes?"

  Randy sighed and put a hand over the mouthpiece. She heard his muffled voice as he called out to someone. Moments later, he was back on the line. "Allen will cover. We're in between classes right now, so we should be okay. You at your cottage?"

  "Yes."

  "Wait there. This had better be good."

  She hung up and thought about calling her minister, to ask how ghosts fit in with God's plan for the world. What would Jesus do? If Jesus saw a ghost, what would He do? But the minister wouldn't understand, because his miracles were confined to the pages of the Bible.

  She sat on the worn vinyl sofa that might have been here since the 1950s. The rest of the furniture was just as outdated except for the few feminine touches she and Marie had injected. She picked up the cat-shaped throw pillow and hugged it to her chest. Something fluttered in me kitchenette and Starlene lifted her feet from the floor and tucked them under her knees.

  A mouse. Probably only a mouse.

  A knock came, and at first she thought it was Randy, although Randy usually pounded with the bottom of his fist instead of tapping.

  "Come in," she said.

  Another knock, softer than the first, and Starlene realized the knock had come from inside the house. The bathroom. No one was in there.

  No one.

  She could sit there scared half to death, waiting for Randy to come rescue her, or she could open the bathroom door and prove to herself that a ghost hadn't followed her from Wendover. Except you couldn't prove that ghosts didn't exist. Even when you had or hadn't seen them with your own eyes.

  She put her feet on the floor. A Bible sat on the battered coffee table, the King James version, the Gospel. She picked it up. Bibles worked against evil, didn't they? Or was that only crosses? But what if the ghosts weren't evil? They had to be evil, or else God would have given them a proper place in heaven.

  She pressed the Bible to her chest and went down the short hall to the bathroom. This was a job for Ecclesiastes. She sought scraps of remembered verse, something fortifying and enlightening. The knock came again, like an insistent whisper.

  Starlene clutched the door handle. The metal was cold as a morgue slab. She wanted to run, Randy would grab her and hold her, she could cry on his shoulder and everything would be okay and all the bad stuff would go away and Running would show a lack of faith.

  God in His mercy would never allow harm to come from the other side of the grave. And surely the dead were beyond sin. Even a soul damned for all eternity should have its license to harm revoked.

  Maybe these souls were good souls, Christian folk who had gotten lost on the way to Rapture.

  The knock came again, vibrating
the air of the room. The deadscape experience had been subjective, a strange and short nightmare, a contrived memory that would have faded with time. This was real. This was happening. Before she could talk herself out of it, she twisted the handle and let the door swing open.

  The boy was on his knees, his face as white as the porcelain sink. The hand that had tapped at the door was poised in the air, quivering. His dark eyes were wild and lost, his lips trying to form words. The sun cut an orange slash between the curtains, the light parted the boy's hair, specks of dust spun in the air.

  "Deke," she said. "Where have you been?"

  His mouth gaped. He was a beggar asking for impossible things. She wanted to reach out to him, but was afraid of what he might do. She had read his case history, and had even built part of it. Sociopathic behavior couldn't be flipped on and off like a light switch, no matter what Kracowski believed.

  The door to the linen closet was ajar. Deke must have hidden there since he'd gone missing the day before. The cottage windows were easy to break into. Starlene had forced her way inside several times after misplacing the house key.

  His silence was eerie, so she spoke in her authoritative counselor voice. "What are you doing here?"

  Deke still didn't speak. Sweat beaded the boy's skin, and though his face looked young and frightened, his eyes were those of a ninety-year-old man's staring down a terminal disease. The bathroom smelled sticky sweet with vomit. And something else.

  Starlene stepped forward, pores tightening on the back of her neck, the hairs like electric wires.

  Deke shook his head. "It wasn't me," he whispered, one eyelid twitching, his fingers trembling.

  Then Starlene saw what was in the bathtub.

  She put her hands over her face, trying to block the red images that spattered her mind. She backed down the hall, begging her legs to work, shouting at her feet to stop being so heavy, wanting nothing but the door and the lawn and a sane sky overhead and no more ghosts and no red things in the tub and Hands clutched at her before she reached the front door, two or a thousand. She screamed again and slapped the hands away.