Lucy

by Laurence Gonzales

  She reasoned that the only way they could have found her was with infrared. Perhaps they had followed her all the way from the house. How? Satellite? It didn’t matter. She knew that they must be detecting her body heat.

  She moved quickly from tree to tree until the mud of the riverbank was sucking at her feet. It sucked her sneakers off, but she kept going. The water rose past her knees, and then she was submerged up to her neck. It was cold, but she could stand it for a while. She put her head under water and let the current pull her quickly along. Periodically, she lifted her nose for a breath. She wasn’t sure how long she rode the river. She knew that she was going in the right direction and that was all that mattered. After a time, she passed under an old concrete bridge and emerged into the open in moonlight. She lifted her head to listen. The helicopter engine was far away now.

  But for how long? Maybe she should be trying to blend in with a crowd instead of moving at night on her own. But her clothes were a mess now, torn and muddy and wet. She couldn’t appear in public like that.

  She maneuvered her way to the bank and crawled out through the mud and into the forest. She listened intently: No helicopter. The Forest Preserve was a narrow strip of dense woods less than a quarter mile wide in places. It ran through neighborhoods and farmland all the way to the Wisconsin line. Shivering and wet, Lucy navigated east by the moon. She came to a road. She listened for traffic, then hurried across the street and into a warren of closely packed suburban homes.

  She crossed through backyards, quietly leaping fences and smelling the smells. Dog. Cat. Raccoon. Rabbit. People. The racket of air conditioners. House after house, she could smell the families sleeping. All the houses were dark except for a few with spotlights in the back. Staying out of the pools of light, she came upon a home at the end of a cul de sac a few lights shone inside. Three cars were parked in the driveway. Curtains closed. Air conditioner off. Lucy went to the back and smelled at the crack in the door. No one had been there for some time.

  She crossed a patio to a pair of sliding glass doors. The metal clasp gave way easily. She slid the panel back and stepped through the curtains. She stood for a moment to confirm that she was alone. Somewhere a houseplant was dying. She went through the house quickly. Den, kitchen, living room, dining room. Upstairs she found the master bedroom with a portrait of Mom and Dad and three kids framed on the bureau. Teenage girl with hair dyed red.

  Lucy went through the parents’ closet, but the clothes weren’t right. She crossed the hall to the teenager’s room. Her clothes were too large. She took a pair of sunglasses and a hat. And then she had a thought: She opened the girl’s bathroom door and rummaged through the cupboards. In the linen closet Lucy found tubes of temporary hair coloring in red and blue and green.

  Down the hall, she found the younger girl’s room. She held up a shirt that was about the right size. The sun was coming up as Lucy quickly stripped out of her clothes and went to the shower. She washed herself and shampooed her hair. As she let the water run over her, she felt a great sense of relief. She stepped out of the shower, and with her hair still wet, carefully began to color long strips of it, listening to the birds, detecting some sort of disturbance in The Stream. When she had finished with the dye, she had a multicolored head of red, green, and blue hair.

  She returned to the younger daughter’s bedroom and slipped into one of her thongs, her pink jeans. She wore her blue Crocs and a stretchy green halter top. She listened again. The birds had resumed their morning chatter. She took an iPod and put the ear buds in her ears. She put on the sunglasses and hat, then examined herself in the full-length mirror. She struck a pose and said, “Sweet.” She cocked her hip and threw her shoulder back, saying, “No way.” She felt certain that no one would recognize her now.

  The sun was shining on the quiet neighborhood as Lucy went down the sidewalk to the street. She stood for a moment inhaling the morning air. The lawns were wet with dew. The newspapers were wrapped in plastic. She felt a rush of confidence. She felt like a real American girl.

  At first she thought that she’d been stung by a bee. Then she looked down and saw the dart sticking out of her thigh. It had gone right through the pink jeans. She looked up and saw a blue van halfway down the block, a man in its open door pointing a rifle. He lifted his head from the telescopic sight to look at her. Lucy read the words “Miles Electric” and felt a buzzing dizzy sensation. She barely had time to be afraid. She was trying to put together the pieces of her world, which seemed to have broken apart. An electric van. A man. A rifle. What did it mean? Then her eyes wouldn’t focus and she sat heavily on the sidewalk, feeling a dreamy warmth flow through her. She flopped backward, and her head landed in the soft wet grass. The last thing she saw was the blue sky and a happy little cloud floating past.

  32

  ONLY SIX MEN SAT in the large conference room, where ordinarily twenty or more might have attended the morning meeting. They sat in high-backed leather swivel chairs at a vast table. The large skylight cast reflections on its polished surface. Carafes of coffee and pitchers of water had been placed at intervals. The chair at the head of the table was empty. The men waited without talking, scribbling notes or busying themselves with handheld devices.

  A broad white fireplace dominated the wall behind the head of the table. On its mantel, a Nobel Peace Prize medal was encased in Plexiglas, and a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback hung above it. Tall service flags hung from stands along one side of the conference table. A painting by Thomas Whittredge of the River Platte hung above a peach-colored couch and matching chairs. Lamps on end tables cast a yellow glow on the creamy walls.

  At exactly eight a.m., the men heard the door across the hall open and close, and a moment later, a short man with salt-and-pepper hair entered briskly, nodded at the room, and motioned with his hand to indicate that no one need stand. He sat at the head of the table. His eyebrows ran together over the bridge of his nose. His eyes were set close together, and his thin lips were compressed into a concerned frown. He wore a dark suit, a pale blue tie, and a small pin on his left lapel depicting the American flag. He hastily flipped through several papers in the leather folder before him and then put his hands flat on the surface of the conference table and pushed himself to a standing position. Now the others rose to their feet.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, “if we might welcome the Very Reverend Gerald Pinkus from Plano, Texas. Welcome, Gerry. It’s a blessing to have you here today. If you would do the honors, we can begin with a prayer. I think today is a good day to focus on the presence of evil in our midst.”

  The six men bowed their heads, and some folded their hands, interlacing their fingers. Pinkus began: “Dear Lord, we are humbled in your sight this morning as we sit contemplating this ominous sign that has appeared in our midst in these already troubled times. Dark clouds seem to be gathering at an accelerating pace, and we humbly beseech you for assistance in guiding us at this crucial time. And please, Lord, help to speed the noble work of our colleague, Senator Steven Rhodes, to free our hands for the actions that we will be required to take to dispel the evil that has come among us.” He lifted his head and nodded at the senator. Rhodes nodded and pushed a Bible across the table toward Pinkus and then bowed his head once more. “I’d like to conclude with a reading from two books of the New Testament.” He opened the book to a page marked by a red ribbon. “‘And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.’ Matthew twelve, twenty-seven and twenty-eight.” He paused, found a second passage marked by another red ribbon, and read, “‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God A
lmighty.’ Revelation sixteen, thirteen and fourteen. Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven …”

  33

  AFTER DR. MAYER HAD LEFT, Jenny made breakfast, but it was by force of habit only. Neither Jenny nor Amanda wanted to eat. The uncertainty was gnawing at them, not knowing where Lucy was or how she was getting along. Not knowing if her fears and Donna’s warnings were real. Jenny and Amanda took turns crying and comforting each other, and sometimes the stress would seem to reach a climax, and they’d fall into a fit of paradoxical laughter.

  At about noon the phone rang, and Jenny startled and leapt up. It was Harry. She was reluctant to say anything, fearing that she’d be overheard, so she pretended that everything was normal. He asked if there was anything he could do. Jenny told him no and rang off. And what happened next was the most maddening thing of all: Nothing. Nothing at all happened. The police didn’t come. The Nazis didn’t come. The world went on about its doggy business as if nothing were amiss. Jenny continued to receive requests to interview Lucy. She turned them down with the excuse that Lucy was working on her book.

  The weather was pleasant, and Jenny spent the long hours sitting on a lounge chair in the garden, a copy of Le Roi des aulnes unread in her lap. She found herself going over in her mind what she was like at Lucy’s age and what Lucy must be going through. At fifteen Jenny was a sophomore in high school. Her mother was vivacious and active, involved in every cause that caught her fancy. Her father had died shoveling snow in the middle of a blizzard, leaving his wife well off and leaving Jenny bookish and reclusive.

  Jenny discovered boys that spring but had no idea what good they were. A boy named Dylan gave her a copy of Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, and she devoured it in one sitting, feeling as if her mind had been blown open. Pattie Walinsky was her best friend. She was homely and the boys made fun of her, but Jenny loved her mind. Her father worked at the observatory, and one summer night she took Jenny there. She saw worlds being born and dying. Pattie went on to teach at Stanford. Jenny wondered, Would Lucy ever have the chance to develop her fine mind?

  Jenny heard a noise and turned. The sun was in her eyes. She saw a beautiful girl in a yellow bikini in a halo of light. Her heart leapt. Then Amanda’s shadow fell on her face, and she realized that it was not Lucy.

  “You’re wearing Lucy’s bikini.”

  “Yeah. It smells like her.” Amanda gave Jenny a weak smile and shrugged. “I know. Call me weird. I’m going to lay out.”

  “Lie out,” Jenny corrected.

  “Now you sound like Lucy.”

  Amanda lay in the sun and sent text messages. Days passed like that, in the garden or wandering the house when the weather was too cool. They went shopping for groceries and Jenny busied herself preparing elaborate meals that they barely touched. They saw a few movies. Amanda tried to teach Jenny how to play chess, but Jenny kept hanging her queen. Lucy’s absence was like a death in the family. Every day, more than once, Jenny checked Craigslist, searching for the coded ad that Donna should have placed by then.

  One day Amanda called Jenny into her room—Lucy’s room—and showed her a video on YouTube. It was a preacher named Gerald Pinkus from Plano, Texas, and he was saying, “One of the most apocalyptic events in the history of the world is in the Bible and is scheduled to happen very soon. There is a war coming that is going to kill two billion human beings. Now why would I think such a thing? It is the appearance at this moment on earth of the demon seed in the form of a cross between a human and an ape, namely the one we’ve all seen by now on TV and on the Internet who calls herself Lucy Lowe.”

  “Turn it off, honey.”

  “He’s saying that the only way to save humanity is to sacrifice Lucy.”

  “I know, honey. We already know there are crazies out there.”

  “But that’s the same preacher who was invited to the White House last week. It was in the Washington Post: Like, what is the president doing inviting this whacko preacher to the White House? So it’s not just the garden-variety crazies, Jenny—the people in charge believe this stuff.”

  “I know. But I don’t know what to do about that.”

  “Lucy should have gotten to Milwaukee and be somewhere in hiding by now.”

  “I know.”

  “I think we should talk to Donna.”

  “She said we might accidentally lead people to where Lucy is.”

  “But she should have contacted us, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We’ll go by back roads. We can make sure we’re not followed that way.”

  “I’m going crazy here,” Jenny admitted. The idea of getting out appealed to her. The idea of having something to do. “We could call that senator.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  Jenny had to think about that. Senator Cochrain had defended Lucy in public. On the other hand, he might have simply wanted publicity. Jenny felt that anyone who had risen that high in American politics had already slept with the devil. No one would ever know his true motives again. “No. I guess I don’t.”

  “We can’t just hide in the house like criminals.”

  They packed a few things and set out early the next morning through the vast wasteland of malls to the north and west. They took the interstate to Rockford and drove the state roads across the border into Wisconsin. They switched to county roads and wound their way north through rolling hills dotted with dairy farms and churches. In a little town called Helenville they found a diner beside a lake and had lunch. The trees were turning colors. They were the only customers, and no one who passed on the street gave them a second look.

  “How do you feel?” Jenny asked.

  “Good. I think we’re okay.”

  In the afternoon they traveled on deserted stretches of road for long periods. No one could be following them without their knowledge, Jenny thought. At last they turned the old Toyota wagon east and found their way into Milwaukee on city streets. They reached the edge of the heavily wooded compound and slipped into the zoo through a back gate. They made their way through the forest to the area behind the bonobo enclosure. There they waited for the better part of an hour until Donna appeared wearing blue rubber gloves, filthy rubber boots, and a canvas apron. When she saw them, Donna motioned for them to wait. She disappeared inside and a few minutes later emerged wearing jeans and a work shirt. She led them deeper into the woods.

  “I think we can talk here. What’s happened? Has something happened with Lucy?”

  Jenny and Amanda looked at her in confusion.

  “What do you mean?” Amanda asked. “She came to you.”

  “No,” Donna said. “I haven’t heard from her.”

  “You haven’t seen her?” Jenny cried out, louder than she had intended.

  Donna motioned for her to be quiet, then shook her head. “Haven’t seen her. Nothing. Tell me what happened.”

  “She left, saying she was coming to you. Through the trees, just like we planned.”

  “No,” Donna said. “When was that?”

  “Weeks ago,” Amanda said.

  “It’s been about ten days.”

  “Oh, crap,” Donna said. “They must have caught her.”

  “But wouldn’t we know?” Jenny asked. “Wouldn’t there be some news of it? I mean, if a person is arrested, there’s a record.”

  “This wouldn’t work like that. It’s too much of a legal gray area. Any one of a dozen agencies could have picked her up.”

  “And not tell someone?” Amanda asked.

  Donna shook her head. “You don’t know these people.”

  “Isn’t there some way we can find out?” Jenny asked.

  “I don’t know. I can try my contacts in the military. I can try to find out. I don’t know.”

  They stood there saying nothing, each wrapped in private thoughts. Jenny felt physically sick with worry at the thought that Lucy was a captive somewhere under conditions that were impossible to imagine.

/>   “I’ll do everything in my power,” Donna said. “If they’ve captured her she could die from the stress alone. We have to find her.”

  “She said she might have to kill someone,” Amanda said. “And then everybody who wants to kill her would have a reason.”

  They both stared at Amanda with blank looks.

  34

  LUCY WOKE WET and shivering on a concrete floor. She felt a deep pain in her thigh, and her head was throbbing. She smelled urine and feces. She heard the hum and hiss of electric lights high overhead but couldn’t yet open her eyes. They were seamed with dried scum. Her tongue and throat were so dry that they hurt. At first she thought that she was paralyzed. Even though her mind was telling her to get up, she couldn’t seem to make the first move. She curled her toes. She clenched her fists. Slowly her muscles began to remember. She felt sore from head to foot. She pushed herself onto one elbow and managed to open her eyes at last. Her heart jumped in her chest. There was blood everywhere. No, wait: It was blue and green as well as red. Then she remembered the hair dye. Some of it had washed off onto the concrete floor.

  As the world around her began to resolve into recognizable images, she realized that her clothes were gone. She saw that there were bars in front of her. Black steel bars. She turned her head. There were bars all around. She looked up into the blinding light. More bars. She was in a cage.

  “Oh, no.”

  Breathe, she told herself. Don’t go off now, not now. Just breathe and think. Breathe and think. She felt tears well up in her eyes, and her throat closed. She desperately needed water. She managed to fight back the tears. Be strong, she told herself. Don’t let your guard down. This is like the jungle now. Think, don’t just react.