by B. C. Tweedt
“You all are the same. You’re not looking for shelter – you’re trespassing. Not looking for food – looking to steal.”
Fear gripped his throat, but its grip was much looser than he remembered it being. He’d been held by gunpoint before – and he’d lived to tell about it.
“How old are you?” the man asked, taking a step closer.
He had to sound innocent. Unafraid. “Thirteen. You?”
“Are you blind? You got a seeing-eye dog, and you don’t seem to see this here shotgun pointed at you.”
“No, sir. Just hungry.”
The old man paused, the shotgun’s barrel still making a trajectory toward Greyson’s abdomen. “Are you alone?”
Greyson dropped the tension in his shoulders, trying to appear even more confident, though his heart pounded against his ribs. “Just me and the dog.”
“Are you armed?” The man’s eyes came into view as he stepped up to the doorway where the beam formed an upside down cross. His eyebrows were bushy and gray, and he was indeed wrinkled, but not as much as Greyson would have guessed.
Greyson swallowed the fear and took in a deep breath. “Yes,” he answered. “Two of them. Plus my dog’s four.”
The man sneered. “Think this is funny, do ya? I’d kill ya if I wanted. Bury you in the barn. Who’d miss ya?”
“Why kill me? You’d just have a mess to clean up and a body to bury. And less ammo.”
For the first time, the man seemed to lose his angry composure. But it was just a glitch. He quickly ducked under the beam and re-aimed the shotgun at Greyson’s chest. “I’ve killed before, son.”
“So have I.”
They examined each other in the light through squinted eyes like an old western duel, right before the cowboys would draw their weapons. Greyson’s hands were at his sides, but too far from his slingshot to stand a chance in this duel.
Mental note. Keep slingshot closer to hand.
“You that boy they’re looking for?”
Greyson kept his face blank. He had to lie better. “No, sir.”
The man jerked his shotgun up, now pointed at Greyson’s face. “What they want you for?”
His strategy was failing. He might actually shoot me.
“I…I…don’t know who you’re talking – ”
The man took another step forward. “Terrorism?”
“No.”
“Running a checkpoint?”
“No. I don’t…”
The man’s eyes had lost their kindness. “Then tell me!”
Tell. Tell. The word gave him an idea. It might be the only way out.
“Okay, okay. I’ll speak.”
At the command, Kit let out a sharp bark that reverberated in the barn. The old man jerked out of fear, turning to face the dog and raising the gun out of instinct to block the dog’s attack. But it was Greyson who attacked.
His left hand grabbed the gun’s barrel. His right found the man’s soft belly like a punching bag. In an instant, the man had doubled over and fallen to the dirt and straw. He coughed and grasped at his stomach; for a moment his eyes sparked with anger, but the longer Greyson stood over him, holding the shotgun away from him like it was a stinking diaper, the softer the man’s gaze became.
With gusts of wind sifting through the doorway and banging at the sides of the barn, the rain began as a soft patter against the wooden roof and then turned to a rushing downpour.
“S-Sorry. But I didn’t know if you were going to shoot.”
It took another few deep breaths for their adrenaline to fade. Their fears softened and the man sat up, supporting his elbows on his knees. “Well, now you got the gun. What you going to do with it?”
“I’ll give it back to you. Just promise to let me go. I’ll repay you for the blanket and the rope and the nails. I promise.”
The man stared him down, thinking. He didn’t know what to make of this boy.
Greyson took the opportunity to eye Kit. The dog had saved him twice now. “And some food for the road, please. Dog and human.”
The man laughed – an odd mixture of scoffs and guffaws – like he couldn’t believe what was happening. Greyson smiled and even laughed a little with him until he had finally settled down. “Fine. You earned it. Last time I got played like that was in ‘Nam.”
Nam? Should I know where that is?
“Uh…thanks.”
Not eager to hold on to the shotgun any longer than he had to, he laid it on the dirt and reached his hand out to the man. His heart began racing again, hoping he was right about him.
They grasped hands and, with a great struggle, he pulled the man to his feet. For a moment they were right next to each other. He smelled of smoke and old wood, but his grip was still strong enough to crush Greyson’s hand. If there were a fight, it wouldn’t end well.
But there wasn’t one. The man bent over to the shotgun, eyeing the dog. “Just in case you’d like to know, if the Feds want you dead, I want you alive. If they want you alive, I want you free.” He got real close and put his shaky hand on Greyson’s shoulder. Kit growled, but the man ignored him. “If I can take something back from the government, I’ll do it. They always take what they want; I’m getting sick of it.”
Greyson nodded, suddenly conscious of his chapped lips and his own body odor. But the old man didn’t seem to care.
“Now, let’s get you and Fido some food.”
Kit and Greyson smiled at each other. Food!
Greyson snatched up his backpack and followed the man to the doorway; but the man stopped suddenly and turned.
“How’d you avoid the deadfall?”
Greyson cocked his head. “Huh? The trap?”
“Dog set it off?”
“Oh, yeah. It almost got me.”
“Almost took your Georgia hat clean off?”
“It’s not a Georgia hat.”
“It looks like one.”
“Well, it’s not.”
The man shifted on his feet, still in the doorway. “Then what does the ‘G’ stand for?”
Greyson gave an annoyed look. “I don’t know. Everyone asks that.”
Squinting as if he were examining the hat, every scuff mark, every frayed edge, the man finally shrugged. “Then make something up! ‘What do you stand for?’”
Letting the question descend into his thoughts, Greyson nodded to himself. He’d always guessed the ‘G’ stood for ‘Gray’, but he had never asked his dad. When he saw him next, he’d ask him.
“It might be for my dad’s name. I stand for my dad.”
The old man nodded and gave a surly frown. “I was expecting ‘Guts’, ‘Glory’, or ‘Good’. But there’re worse answers.” He turned and put a hand on the trap’s beam. “Next time I’ll hook an extra arm on the bottom of the beam. It’ll swing up and out, right at the groin – just like Charlie did in ‘Nam.”
Greyson nodded like he knew who Charlie was.
“No more babies,” the man whispered with a smile. He muttered something else to himself as he ducked under the beam and into the rain. His figure hobbled toward the farmhouse.
Gritting his teeth as he imagined the pain of a beam to his groin, Greyson followed the old man into the darkness. His stomach was burning and hollow, but something nagged at him even worse. He stopped and turned toward the barn as the rain matted his hair and dripped down his brow.
“What did you call the trap again?”
The old man kept walking, speaking into the rain. “A deadfall. There’s bait, a trigger, and the trap. Bait shows the prey something it wants – the open door to shelter. The trap falls, then you’re dead. Deadfall. It promises life, but gives death.”
The man, seemingly unaffected by the rain, continued his walk toward the comfort of his home, leaving Greyson staring at the doorway.
“Come on. I have more inside. I’ll show you.”
A voice inside told Greyson to run. If a deadfall lured its prey by showing it something it wanted – then maybe he
was being lured right now. Bait – food. Trigger – the house. Trap – who knows?
Shaking off the thought and ignoring the voice, Greyson quick-stepped to the man and followed him through the door.
Chapter 18
The plane shuddered with a brief spat of turbulence, but Sam wasn’t concerned. He was too busy observing his new tutor, Calvin, at the table across from him. Calvin was odd, to say the least, but friendly. Sam couldn’t quite place what his oddities added up to be, except maybe immaturity. For example, he held his laptop to his chest in a death grip with every vibration of the plane. His small eyes were hidden behind small glasses, eyelids clenched tight like he was expending great mental effort to close them.
There were more examples – the way he drank Mountain Dew religiously, the time he blushed when Sam asked him about his girlfriend, and the skinny jeans he wore – and they all pointed to him being lost in his teenage years despite being almost thirty.
“So you worked for the NSA?” Sam asked, trying to stall the lesson as long as he could.
The tutor’s eyes unclenched and, being embarrassed, he gulped and released some of his grip on the laptop. “Uh…work, actually. I still do, I’m just on leave to help you.”
“On leave?”
Calvin’s eyes darted around. “Right. Temporary lack of employment.”
“Just to tutor me?”
His dad had told him that he was going to get someone younger, smarter, and more techy, and he’d kept his word. Only the best for his son.
“Well, sort of. I uh…am not really allowed to talk about it. That’s what got me in a bit of trouble the first time. Talking.” He glanced around the plane, though there were only a few other people around, and all were absorbed in their computers. It was a private flight – a fancy one reserved for the governor and his campaign team.
“What’d you do? Give up some of our nation’s secrets?”
That was a line he’d heard somewhere before. Most of what he knew about the NSA was that they were a highly secretive agency who many thought were spying on everyone – including Americans. Many, including his dad, loved them for protecting the country. Others hated them. But what was new? There wasn’t much in the country anymore that someone didn’t hate.
“No, no, of course not. Just asked some questions. But I – uh – didn’t ask them in the right way, I suppose.”
“Gotcha. Like when I ask my dad, ‘Can I please not waste my life studying lame stuff?’”
“Right,” he laughed. “May I ask to what stuff you were referring?”
Sam smiled and glanced out the window. The cloudless night sky and brilliant stars cheered him up, despite having to fly to D.C., and despite having to be tutored the entire way. “Grammar is horrible, but my dad says I need it for speeches. And history can be cool, but dad said my old tutor spent a little too much time focused on the Nazis. He got concerned.”
Calvin nodded and began to relax, though he was the type that seemed to always be a little on edge – a little paranoid he was going to say the wrong thing or look at someone the wrong way. “The Nazis were a little lame, though I can’t blame your last tutor for wanting you to know about them. Don’t want history repeating itself…”
The seatbelt light went off with a ding and it was like a switch went off in Calvin’s head. “Anyhoo, don’t you worry,” he said, unfolding his laptop on the table and starting it as if doing it were a well-worn habit. “We’re going to focus on the stuff that makes this world go round. The stuff that can take down nations and militaries with a click of a mouse. Kabam! It’s math, it’s art, it’s poetry, and yes, even a little grammar. But it’s computer language – not boring English.”
“Sounds cool.” Sam unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned in. “Did Dad tell you I know a lot already?”
Calvin ran his hand through his squirrely black hair and adjusted his glasses. “Yes, he did. And I’m quite aware of all you’ve done.” He smirked.
Sam squinted at him. What does he know? “Wh-what?”
Calvin jerked up, intently peering over his glasses. He paused, letting the seriousness of the moment come to a head. “Oh, everything you do online can be tracked. I know every site you’ve visited, every message you’ve sent, every image you’ve seen. I know everything you’ve done.”
Sam’s mouth sunk open and his mind raced as his tutor’s eyes drew even more serious. And then Calvin laughed and snorted, smacking himself on the knee over and over. Sam scrunched his brow, watching Calvin laugh and laugh. A few other men and women in suits watched them with sideways glances, and the stewardess gave him a nervous smile.
“Your face! It gets them every time!” He kept laughing, and Sam felt a weight come off his shoulders. He didn’t know. His secret was safe…for now.
“But dude…” Calvin said, taking deep breaths to calm down. “You seriously shouldn’t look at that stuff. It ruins your mind. Truuuuust me.”
-----------------
Greyson still didn’t trust the old man. He kept his distance, even as he offered him a seat at his kitchen table.
“Here. Dry off,” the old man said, throwing him a bath towel from the bathroom around the corner.
He’d need more than a towel to earn Greyson’s trust. Still, Greyson would use him as long as he could.
Greyson patted Kit’s face with the towel and then swiped at his fur, muttering something about making him feel better.
The old man had stopped outside the kitchen, watching them. He found it odd that the boy wiped the dog before drying himself. A hint of a smile worked at his lips before he returned to his permanent scowl and searched for a type of food a boy would eat. It had been too long.
Kit suddenly erupted into a full-blown dog shake, sending water spraying over the kitchen tile. Greyson laughed and finally used the towel on himself.
“You’ll clean up after yourself,” the old man said matter-of-factly.
Greyson finished drying his hair and instantly went to using the towel as a mop on the floor, crawling after Kit as he left muddy footprint after muddy footprint on the tile.
“Sorry, sir,” Greyson apologized.
The old man didn’t respond, as if he were lost in a memory.
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“What do you think it could be, female parental unit?”
Jarryd’s mom shook her head and glanced at him through the rearview mirror. “Jer-Bear, call me Mom or I’ll need to call you an ambulance.”
Jarryd pumped his chin at her. “Oh, I’m scared! But no, seriously. What’s with the traffic?”
It had been stop-and-go traffic for half an hour. They had been watching their GPS’s estimated time of arrival grow later and later. Most of the half hour they had tried sleeping, but only Sammy had been successful. He was leaned forward onto his lap, drooling into his half-eaten peanut container.
Nick was too concerned to sleep. Though he’d gotten out of the car to scan past the moving van that their stepdad drove ahead of them, he’d spent the last few minutes examining the billboard along the highway. The picture was of a half-burnt teddy bear lying amongst rubble. Behind the unfortunate bear was the silhouette of a ruined cityscape, smoking and burning. Big, bold letters stretched to the right of the teddy bear. NEVER AGAIN.
“Again, I don’t know,” their mother replied. “It might be another tollbooth, but it might be the Oklahoma border. Your dad said there are rumors of traffic stops…”
Nick rolled his eyes and shook his head to himself, gazing out the window into the Kansas plains. He knew they weren’t rumors. This was a traffic stop. But he couldn’t tell them that he knew. They would ask how he knew and then he’d have to lie again. If they knew he was still in contact with the Plurbs who he’d met at the SuperMart, they’d freak.
“Look, a warning sign,” Jarryd blurted.
Their car rolled forward another ten feet, slowly revealing the sign as it came into view from behind the moving van: Do Not Turn Around. Violators Will Be Fined.
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The traffic stop was just like Nick was told. First the traffic jam. Next were the signs warning them not to turn around.
Though he hadn’t spotted one yet, he knew there were drones out and about, tagging their license plates and watching for suspicious behavior. At one traffic stop, there had even been sightings of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
Maybe half a mile away, there was a dark green cargo container plunked in the middle of a farmer’s field. Nick could imagine a Bradley inside with its distinct tank-like treads, a gun turret with a short, thin barrel, and a box missile launcher. He’d never seen one in person before – only on TV. But perhaps it was there, concealed inside a green cargo container in a barren Kansas field instead of the war zones in the Middle East.
“Someone’s talking with Dad.”
Nick leaned over Sammy’s slumped back to where Jarryd was watching a police officer talking with their stepdad through the driver’s side window. Leaning back to his side, Nick noticed there was another officer on the passenger side holding something like an electronic squeegee, dragging it along the side of the moving van’s cargo hold. In the officer’s other hand was a computer tablet that he was examining intently.
“They’re x-raying our stuff,” Nick explained.
“Cool!” Jarryd took his turn leaning over the sleeping Sammy, using him as an armrest.
Together they watched the police offer make another sweep with the device, this time holding it higher. After the second sweep, the first officer came to the back, unlocked the padlock with the key their stepdad had given them, and rolled up the door to all their belongings.
“We have nothing to hide, boys,” their mom comforted. “Just stay calm and – ”
“Speak for yourself,” Jarryd interrupted. “I’ve got things to hide. Valuable things.”
“What? All your bomb-making supplies?” Nick remarked.
“Well, yeah. Hair-spray’s highly flammable.”
“True. And you do have a whole box of that kind of stuff.”
“Yeah. Secret stuff.”
“Right. Concealer, exfoliating cleanser, toner…what else?”
“There’s like ten steps.” Jarryd waved over his face. “You think this just happens? While you and the sun are still sleeping…I’m creating handsome.”