by B. C. Tweedt
Greyson was helpless, stuck, screaming out. He screamed for his dad, but he didn’t come. Who could help him? No one was there. No one was ever there.
He felt the blade enter his stomach.
Greyson woke with a gasp and grabbed at his slingshot as Kit pawed at his side with sharp claws. He ignored the claws, collecting his thoughts as he struggled to wake fully. He put his face in his hands until his breathing slowed.
Kit nuzzled him with his wet nose.
“Okay, okay,” he said, pushing Kit’s snout away and beginning to pet him. “Good morning to you, too.”
Though he felt he could sleep another day, he had to get moving and stay moving. The dusk was fading into night, and the sun’s heat would go with it. Out of necessity, he had become nocturnal – traveling during the cover of night and sleeping through the heat of the day. It didn’t make for the best sleep, but he didn’t have much of a choice.
Groaning painfully, he managed to stand, rubbing at his sore legs and shaking off the nightmare – whatever it had been. He tried to pull at some of the clumps of dirt that had matted his hair, but it was pretty useless – and painful. Instead, he slipped his hat on over the mess.
He took a swig from his water bottle he’d filled from a farmer’s watering trough. The water had been meant for the farmer’s cows, but Greyson had been desperate. Though his lips were still cracking from being so chapped, his head no longer pounded as bad as it once had.
Kit smiled at him, panting. Remembering Kit’s needs, he poured him an inch of water in the bowl he’d made from two pieces of curved bark. With a little carving from his knife, he’d made two notches for them to fit together just right. It leaked a little bit, but Kit would drink from it so fast it didn’t have time to leak much.
Finally waking fully, he took a long look at the map and walked to the edge of the trees. Fields stretched both in the direction he had come and in the direction he was headed, though there were hills to the east finally offering an alternative to southern Illinois’ expansive plains. On the horizon, he could barely make out the light of a town beginning to glow with the new night, and listening closely, he could still hear the distant hum of a highway.
Though it had been a long few days, some of the longest he’d ever had, they had only traveled a few dozen miles. Sure, treading along the dried creek bed was not the fastest route, but he’d thought it was the safest by far. But now, he wasn’t so sure. Safety from captors was one thing, but safety from hunger and cold was another.
He had to find a faster way south. He’d lay awake for hours, just thinking. A bike. A horse. Jumping on the back of a semi. Finding a train. Even trying hitchhiking again had crossed his mind.
Kit whined and pawed at his fanny pack. Greyson gave in and rummaged through the remnants. Sadly, his fingers came out with the last beef jerky nugget. It was not only the last nugget – but the last of all their food. Six granola bars, trail mix, Skittles, and a package of jerky could only be rationed for so long with a ravenous teenager and a sizable dog.
Enjoy it, mutt.
He threw it to Kit and smiled as he ate it in one gulp.
“No more,” he said, holding up his hands, wondering if he knew what the gesture meant. “All out.”
Kit cocked his head and Greyson shrugged. Well, there is one more thing of food. But he hadn’t reached that point yet. The creamed corn was only for extreme emergency.
Suddenly his stomach growled at Kit so loudly that Kit growled back. The way Kit glared at his stomach made him laugh for a while, but the pain that followed sobered him. His stomach and Kit’s were in competition in a way that scared him. What if they didn’t find food soon? Would Kit walk until he couldn’t anymore, or would he turn on Greyson – making him dog food? Or…would Greyson ever eat Kit?
Shaking the stupid thought from his head, he destroyed his stick-shelter and scattered his leaf-bed. Once the evidence was gone, he swung his backpack around his shoulders with another painful grunt. The straps rested perfectly on the blisters from yesterday.
“Let’s go, boy. Maybe we can find some burgers tonight…with hot fries and ketchup. And a Dr. Pepper.”
Kit licked his chops.
“Have you ever had Dr. Pepper, Kit? No? Well, it’s frickin’ good. It’s even good hot. Tastes like cider. Did you know that?”
Greyson trucked along the edge of the field, eyeing the lights from the farmhouse up ahead. A thought perked in his mind, tempting him. If he’d already stolen someone’s dog and someone’s water, what would a little more matter?
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Orion ran his fingers along his crooked nose as if stroking a beard. Lost in thought, his brothers examined the scene with him. Tiny rubber fragments from where the tire had been punctured, a few plastic pieces from the remains of the two phones, and four sets of footprints. Two sets headed out to the fields but had returned to the same spot – the same size and tread marks. Another set headed diagonally, into the fields, but south. Smaller prints – size 9s. And then there was another set of print next to the size 9s. But they weren’t human.
“This is where it must’ve happened.”
One of Orion’s brothers, Glasses, sided up to him. “I agree. He could be close if he kept walking. Thirty miles maybe.”
“He’d keep heading south.”
Emory had not been angry with Orion when he had found out what happened, but he could tell that he was disappointed. Killing an FBI agent had been an unexpected spark to add to an already flammable situation. His father had gone into intense planning mode for hours, finally returning to him with a plan of action.
“Launch a drone. Follow that tree line. He’ll stay close to the highway for a reference point.”
His tall brother, Lanky, pulled open the trunk of the SUV and removed a large suitcase. The biggest brother, Buzz, joined him, taking the small vehicle from its protective packaging and unfolding its four rotors. Buzz switched it on as Glasses took the remote control tablet and checked the highway not far behind them. They waited for a few cars to pass, hiding the drone from traffic until the proper time.
“Now.”
Lanky and Buzz lifted the drone into the air and it whirred to life, hovering above their heads like a hummingbird. It was the size of large pizza and only armed with a central camera surrounded by the four rotors, but something about it was intimidating. When someone would see it, they wouldn’t know who controlled it or what it would do to them.
Most Americans hadn’t experienced the fear of drones yet. It was the terrorists overseas who were afraid of drones with names like Predator and Reaper. But that fear had just begun to come to America. Soon enough they would be afraid of blue skies.
With a sudden jerk, the drone burst away, into the night. Its silhouette was only visible as it blocked out the stars, whisking away at thirty or forty miles per hour.
“Infrared’s working,” Glasses said, watching the video feed from the tablet.
“What are those?” Buzz asked, pointing at red and yellow blobs on the screen as the drone zoomed over them.
Glasses scoffed. “Cows, genius.”
“Let’s go,” Orion commanded.
As they turned their SUV around to follow the path of the drone, Orion slowly stroked the curve of bone on his nose where Greyson had struck him. The jagged look had ruined any beauty he’d had. He looked forward to returning the favor.
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The jagged scars looked like melted wax had dribbled down his skin and hardened. Sam pushed at them, testing them for healing while watching in the hotel’s mirror.
Thin, leathery letters. Crinkled to the touch.
Ex Molo Bonum. Latin for ‘out of evil comes good’.
It was his back he was reading. His body was a message given to his dad – a scroll, written by knife with blood.
He smashed his eyelids down to try to hide the sparks of memory that haunted him. The knife that so easily sliced through his flesh. The searing pai
n. The bonds that tied him down, cutting at his wrists and ankles. The feel of his blood dripping down his sides and around to his abdomen.
He opened his eyes to stare at his face in the mirror as it hovered above the scarred back. His face was youthful, but his back looked so old. If he turned to the side, he was just another half-Asian boy. But when he exposed his back, he was a withered scroll. He was both at once. Boy and message.
He turned to face the mirror. This is what he wanted people to see. Even the mole on his cheek. Nothing hidden. He was just like everyone else. Happy. Confident. Proud. Handsome and winsome.
Politician.
From following his dad, listening to his campaign managers, and conversing with the other candidates’ kids, he was learning what politics was all about. Facing the public with your best foot forward. Showing them the side of you or the side of the issues you wanted them to see, and not so much the other side. You were supposed to talk about your opponents’ scars, but never your own. It’s not like you would lie about them – his dad said he never lied – but you were supposed to hide.
But not his dad. The only thing he would hide was something he thought the public did not need to know – like Emory’s message. If Emory had wanted to world to hear the message, Sam’s dad wanted the opposite.
Sam kept his front to the mirror, listening to the faint voices coming from outside the bathroom where his dad was speaking on the phone. He was talking to someone about the economy – one of President Foster’s major scars. And the scar was getting deeper. So deep that there had been tons of protests and riots – until the bomb. Even the rioters had sensed it wasn’t right to fight the nation while it was under attack. They had stopped rioting as if to honor the victims with a week of peace. But with the bomb had come a plummeting stock market and more bad news about the national debt. And they’d started rioting again.
Debt. That word came up all the time with numbers so large he could barely fathom them. His dad would strategize on how to show the public the scars, but also how to heal them. He was a problem solver, a doctor.
Maybe someday his dad could think of a way to heal his scars – to make his back clear, the color of the rest of his skin – the color his mother had given him with her Chinese ancestry. He didn’t want to have to hide half of himself.
“Sam?” His father’s voice came from the other side of the door.
“Uh – yeah? J-just a second.” He was frantically putting on his shirt and flushing the toilet to make it sound like he was finishing up.
“We need to talk about your new tutor. I’ll be waiting for you in the conference room.”
He ran the faucet, also buttoning his shirt. “Okay! Be right out.”
Before leaving, he took another look at himself in the mirror. His back was hidden again, beneath a pleasant exterior. Adding a smile helped even more. But it didn’t change what he felt about himself. He was hiding something besides his scars – the fact that he’d helped put Greyson in this mess. And hiding things wasn’t fun.
Whenever he had played hide and seek as a younger kid – mostly with babysitters – he had wanted to be the seeker. The one in control. Sometimes he hadn’t even looked for the hider. He’d helped himself to a cookie in the kitchen or got into things he wasn’t supposed to. He looked for them on his own time. In a way, the hider was at the mercy of the seeker.
Hiding was not who he was.
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Hiding behind a rusted grain bin, Greyson eyed the farmhouse, watching for any movement through the lit windows. There were only two lights on now, both downstairs in the two-story house. He might be able to sneak a peek in the windows to see how many were awake, but it would be smarter just to wait for them to go to bed and turn off the lights.
Until then, though, there was the dilapidated red barn to his left. It probably had a wealth of tools – and maybe, if it were still in use – it would have animals and their food. Maybe there would be blankets, or…if there were cows…there’d be milk.
Licking his lips, he worked up the courage to sneak to the barn through the thick grass, his eyes still latched on to the windows, ready to hit the deck if a figure would appear.
Kit strode confidently through the grass and approached the barn first. There wasn’t a back door, so they curled around the outside where some rusted equipment threatened to gash their shins. Thankfully there was enough moonlight to paint the tops of everything with a dull, blue hue, and they managed to avoid them with no trouble. They wouldn’t have that moonlight for much longer, though. A wall of thick, tumbling clouds hovered in the west, rolling closer every minute.
Finally, working their way to the barn’s front door, they found it open. Suspicious, he glanced toward the house. Empty porch. Lights still on. A long driveway stretched out to a gravel road that lay bare in both directions. No one was watching.
“Looks clear,” he whispered.
It happened in a flash. Kit went in first, and with a yelp, fell to the dirt as his legs were taken from under him. Greyson had just turned to follow when the trap barreled toward his face.
Chapter 16
Greyson’s face was frozen, staring at the wooden beam that had almost slammed into his teeth. He had jolted back just as the beam came down from the rafters like a pendulum. But his reaction would have been too late if it hadn’t been for Kit.
Looking down at Kit, who had gone before him, Greyson knew that Kit had saved his life or at least his teeth. The dog had tripped over the trip wire as it came through the doorway, triggering the trap that swung down over the dog’s head, but straight toward Greyson’s. If Greyson had gone in first, the heavy beam would have bashed his skull.
Though the trap itself had shocked him, it was the two words scrawled into it that had frozen him.
GO AWAY!
Whoever had etched those words had meant it.
But Greyson glanced toward the farmhouse. There was still no sign of anyone. Whoever had set the trap may not have heard the banging of the beam against the doorway. And more than likely, there was something inside the barn that he didn’t want trespassers to see. He would have to be quick, but the risk was worth it.
Satisfied he wasn’t being watched, Greyson ducked under the beam and stepped inside to examine the trap. Loose fishing line snaked on the dirt and wound up both sides of the doorway. Kneeling to pick up a strand in his hand, Greyson’s eyes followed the line to the ceiling where two dowels were still swinging. Scrunching his head in thought, he drew himself a mental picture of how it had worked. It was so simple. The trip-wire was tied to the dowels that had held up the wood beam like a swing. It had only taken a little push to jerk them free from their holes, releasing the beam to gravity.
A hint of a smile played at his lips as he gathered all the fishing line in his fist. In another minute he had found a dusty horse blanket with dinosaurs and the name Max on it, a small roll of twine, and some nails.
Stopping himself before zipping his bag closed, Greyson sighed. His conscience was creeping at his heart, reminding him of what he was doing. Stealing.
Taking a glance at Kit, Greyson nodded to himself. He wouldn’t steal. He would borrow. He could give it all back and more, once he had enough money to do so. He would come back and repay whoever owned these things – even though it was obvious the owner was not using them anymore.
He just needed a way to keep track.
Reaching into his fanny pack, his hand came out with a small Bible – the Bible that Pastor Whitfield had told him to give to Liam. It was a pretty convenient writing pad. He opened it and fingered through the thin, leafy pages. He felt guilty writing anything on the pages themselves, so he scrawled a few notes into the inside of the front cover. “One blanket. Twine. Four nails. Farmhouse.’
On his way out he would need to peek at the house’s address. He’d keep track of anything he had to borrow, and then, someday, he would pay them back for everything. It would be his payback list.
In bold,
capital letters, he wrote PAYBACK LIST on top of the page. Suddenly he regretted writing so big. His handwriting was horrible and almost filled half of the first page already. He flipped to the second page to make sure he’d have more room, but stopped.
What’s that? There was a message in someone else’s handwriting.
Liam, I suggest starting with the book of Luke. I hope you get to know Jesus more and more with each year.
- Pastor Whitfield
With each year…
Suddenly irritated, Greyson closed the Bible and pushed it into his fanny pack. He couldn’t think about Liam anymore. If he just pushed him out of his mind, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
CHUCK-CHICK! The distinct sound of a shotgun pump. Behind him. Just outside the doorway.
Kit was growling, his lips shaking over his sharp teeth as he lowered his eyes past Greyson’s shoulder. For a moment, Greyson debated his options, muscles tight as a spring as he knelt over his backpack. His fingers slowly wrapped around his slingshot.
Chapter 17
“Stand up slowly! And turn around.”
The voice was older – gravelly – but leaving no doubt to its power. Still kneeling, Greyson abandoned the idea of going for his slingshot. It would take far longer for him to load, draw, and shoot than it would for the man to squeeze the trigger.
Instead, he stood up slowly and held his hand up to Kit with the motion to ‘stay’. Both of them were edgy, hungry, and tired. But that was no excuse for being stupid.
“Turn around!”
Greyson turned to face the man. He stood in the darkness outside, just a silhouette, but still distinguishable as an elderly man, with a drooped back and a wobbly grip on the shotgun.
“I was just looking for –”
“I DIDN’T ASK YOU!”
Greyson startled at the booming voice that echoed in the musty barn.