by P. T. Hylton
Mason glanced over his shoulder and frowned when he saw Frank falling behind. He slowed his pace.
Frank had so many questions and this man with the weathered face had the answers. He decided to start with something generic. “Tell me what you remember about him.”
Mason shrugged. “It wasn’t easy. Growing up here, I mean. My dad tried, but spending time with me didn’t exactly come natural to him.”
“Jake could be distant at times…I’m sure he cared about you.”
“There wasn’t a lot for us to do together. Like I said, the woods were different in those days. Dangerous. So he couldn’t exactly take me out for a hike. The one thing he did do was tell stories.”
Frank tilted his head, trying to picture Jake sitting on the end of a kid’s bed telling fairy tales. “What kind of stories?”
Mason chuckled. “Oh, King Arthur. Robin Hood. Luke Skywalker. Battlestar Galactica. Dune. All the classics.”
Frank let out an unexpected laugh. Though few knew it, Jake was a hardcore sci-fi geek.
“But you know what my favorite stories were?” Mason asked. “The ones he told about growing up with you.”
Frank stopped walking. “He talked about that?”
“Of course.” He waved his hand as if batting away the ridiculous idea that it could have been otherwise. “How about the time you two snuck out of the house to go camping? Carried the tent and the sleeping bags on your bikes. How old were you when that happened?”
Frank hadn’t thought about that in years. “I guess I was nine or so. Jake must have been eleven. We didn’t take anything other than the tent and sleeping bags. No food. No matches for starting the fire. Not even a flashlight.” They had left their bikes at the edge of the woods and hiked until they found a flat, half-way clear spot and set up camp. It wasn’t until the sun went down and the temperature started to drop that they began to question the wisdom of their plan. They’d made it through the night, huddling together against the cold and the dark, and in the morning they’d broke camp and exited the woods to find their bikes gone and their parents beyond frantic at their unannounced night out.
“He talked about you a lot,” Mason said. “I know he cared about me in his own way. I just wanted to make sure you knew he cared about you, too.”
Before Frank could respond, something over Mason’s shoulder caught his eye. It was so unexpected, so out of place, that he had to blink a few times before he was confident in what was right in front of him.
It was a man. His face was encircled in a wild nest of long hair, both on top of his head and growing out of his face. His eyes were a chalky gray, and there were deep lines around them. The rest of him was hidden in the foliage.
He looked at Frank with distant curiosity, seeming oblivious to the fact that Frank was looking back at him.
Mason squinted at Frank. His voice was quiet when he spoke. “Tell me what you see.”
“A man,” Frank said. “He has a beard and—”
As he was still speaking, the face disappeared into the foliage.
“He’s gone!” Frank said. He stepped toward the place he had seen him.
Mason grabbed his arm. “We have to go. Now.”
“You know him?” Frank asked.
Mason gritted his teeth. “I know of him. But he was banished back before my dad died. It seems to me you might have woken something up when you came through that mirror.”
CHAPTER TWO: SANCTUARY
1. Rook Mountain
Officer Sean Lee was the first on the scene, which was saying something considering the police station was a block and a half away. For some odd reason, nobody was rushing to investigate the jumper whose broken body was now lying on the sidewalk outside city hall. The memories of what had happened on that roof last March were still too strong. Many of them had been in the street below when the Unfeathered attacked and Zed and Frank Hinkle faced off on the roof of city hall.
Many of them weren’t sure how they felt about Rook Mountain rejoining the normal world.
Sean knew how he felt about it, though. He was damn glad Zed was gone. He hoped wherever the guy was now, giant bird creatures were pecking his eyes out. Even seven months later, you had to be careful saying things like that out loud. People didn’t wear their colors on their sleeves. You had your Zed Lovers and your Zed Haters, not to mention the closet Zed Lovers and the closet Zed Haters. Everyone had been toeing the official Regulation line for so long most Rook Mountaineers didn’t yet feel comfortable voicing their honest-to-God opinions.
That was fine with Sean. He’d never been one for over-sharing, even in the pre-Zed days.
The uncertainty of the situation made people uncomfortable. Most tended to shy away from anything the slightest bit controversial or any situation where they might be expected to voice an opinion. That was probably why the five cops on duty didn’t exactly pour out of the station when word came in about the jumper.
Sean had been three blocks away, playing with his radar gun and trying to get up the gumption to drive out to the exit ramp off the highway, park under the sign, and ruin speeders’ days.
The only thing he missed about the Regulations was the lack of speeding ticket quotas. Even thinking about radar gun duty made him glum. So, when the call came over the radio about the jumper, he answered double quick and hustled over to city hall.
There was a small crowd of five men and women standing around the body when Sean arrived. Of course, the dead guy was smack-dab in the middle of the concrete sidewalk. He couldn’t have landed in one of the many grassy areas around the building. Someone had laid a coat over man’s head and torso. Sean waved the spectators back, squatted down beside the body, and lifted the coat, using his body to block their view.
The man’s head was lying on his shoulder at an unnatural angle. His skull was misshapen, like the shell of a hard-boiled egg dropped from a great height. His eyes were open, and blood seeped around the edges. The building was only four stories tall; he must have landed headfirst.
Even through the blood, Sean recognized the man: it was Tim Rodgers. Tim worked over at the prison. The Rook Mountain police didn’t have a ton of interaction with the Correctional Officers, but a little bit of path-crossing was inevitable. There was the occasional training session the two services did jointly in order to save money. And there were annual training exercises that let them practice how their teams would work together in the event of an escape or a riot at the prison.
Sean had never liked the man. The other CO’s at NTCC looked at Rodgers like he was a big deal, and Rodgers looked at the Rook Mountain cops like they were all idiots. It had gotten a little better during the Zed years, when the police had been at least technically in charge of enforcing the Regulations, but it had never gone away completely. The COs had a complicated relationship with the police force. Many of them had aspirations of becoming cops. Some had even tried and been turned down. At the same time, the COs felt like they dealt with the worst of the worst everyday—which, in fairness, they did—while the police spent their time dealing with drunks and parking tickets. And Rodgers had been the worst of them.
Sean’s stomach turned at the sight of the familiar face under the coat.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to remember the correct procedures for this type of situation. It was difficult after eight years living under the Regulations to re-adapt to the laws and guidelines of the great state of Tennessee. The State had brought in people to retrain them and even stationed a couple of advisors at the station to help, but old habits were tougher to break than COs’ skulls. In the Zed years, Sean would have radioed for the hearse, had the body hauled to the clinic, and called Christine Osmond to give it a cursory inspection. Now there was probably some sort of investigation that should be done here at the scene.
He forced himself to take a hard look at the body. What he saw made him frown. By the time he covered it again, two other officers, Graves and Banks, were meandering up the steps of city hall. Sean felt his knees pop as he sto
od.
Graves and Banks nodded in greeting as they approached.
“Anybody we know?” Graves asked.
Sean gave the briefest of nods and leaned in close before he answered. “Tim Rodgers. The CO.”
“Shit,” Graves said.
“Listen,” Sean said, his voice even quieter than before, “we need to close off the building. And question these looky-loos. And, hell, I don’t know what else.”
Banks raised an eyebrow. “This procedure or you got reason to believe Rodgers didn’t jump?”
“He’s got dried blood on his chin and his neck. On his shirt, too. Not splattered on there. More like it was running down his face. Thing is, he landed head first. He’s on his side now. So unless blood runs sideways, we’ve got a problem.”
Graves’ eye drifted to behind Sean and suddenly grew wide. “Hey! Get away from there!”
Sean spun around and saw a teenage boy kneeling next to the body, his hand in Rodgers’ pocket. The three cops sprinted toward him. The boy sprang to his feet and held up his hands, showing they were empty. Sean recognized the kid.
“Colt, what the hell are you doing?”
“Sorry!” he said, his hands still in the air. “I thought he was someone I knew and I panicked.”
“So you went through his pockets?” Graves was in the kid’s face, practically yelling.
He grinned sheepishly. “I was looking for his wallet. Trying to ID him.”
“Christ, kid,” Graves said. “Step back, will ya? We’ll deal with you in a minute.” Colt lowered his hands and Sean saw the broken clock tattoo.
Sean nodded toward the tat. “I didn’t know you were one of those.”
Colt smiled a little more widely, showing his orthodontically straightened teeth. Must have gotten those braces off recently. “I didn’t know you weren’t.”
These young self-proclaimed Zed Heads were a new phenomenon in the past couple of months, and Sean wasn’t sure what to think of them. His general philosophy was to let kids rebel a bit, let them have their music and their edgy hair-styles—whatever edgy happened to be at the particular point in time. Kids needed to blow off steam and, as long as they weren’t breaking the law or hurting anyone, Sean was all for it, even if it did offend some of the more conservative sensibilities of the adult folks. Sean himself had dabbled in the rave scene in his younger days.
But this Zed Head thing seemed different. On the one hand, it was classic teen rebellion. Pick an icon that would freak out your parents and plaster him on your wall. On the other hand, Zed wasn’t some ruler of the distant past to be used for shock value. These kids knew Zed. They’d seen the impacts of Zed’s rule of law up close and personal.
And then there was the fact that most of these kids had been former students at the Beyond Academy. The government inquiry into Rook Mountain had taken special interest in the Academy, and terms like ‘brainwashing’ and ‘Hitler youth’ were thrown around in the media. Sean didn’t know everything that went on in that school, but he did know the curriculum went beyond the usual high school fare. Graduates knew the Regulations like the backs of their previously un-tattooed hands, and they weren’t slow to enforce them.
Sean had been spending a lot of time at the Osmonds’ house over the past few months, and he tried to ask Trevor about his experiences at the school once. The kid hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Like Sean could blame him. Everyone in this town was sick of answering questions by that point.
Whatever went on at that school, Sean did know two things to be true: Zed had spent almost as much time at the Beyond Academy as he did at city hall, and seven months ago the Beyond Academy kids had been fighting the Unfeathered while the majority of the town huddled inside waiting for it all to end. Now their guns had been taken away and they were supposed to go back to being normal kids. It was no wonder they were acting out.
Colt leaned forward and spoke softly. There was an odd light in his eyes that made Sean uncomfortable. “You find anything on that body?”
Sean squinted at him. “What? I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
Colt grinned again, showing off his perfect teeth. “If you have anything to give me, or tell me, now’s a great time. You’re not a Regulation breaker, are you Officer?”
Sean stared into his eyes for a long moment, trying to figure out what the hell the kid was going on about. Colt met his gaze without blinking.
A squad car rolled to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and Chief Yates climbed out of the driver’s seat. He left the lights flashing and trotted up the steps.
“Officer Lee, what did I miss?”
Sean nodded toward the building. “Our jumper might not have jumped. We need to search city hall.” By the time Sean looked back, Colt was gone.
2. Sanctuary
Sophie closed her eyes tight, whispered “Sanctuary,” and waited for impact.
The material against her face suddenly felt different. A moment ago it had been the cotton of Rodgers’ shirt. Now it was something else, something squishy. Rain pelted her back.
She opened her eyes, and what she saw caused her to experience the worst sense of disorientation she’d ever felt. She expected to see Rodgers in front of her and the bright sky behind him. Instead, she squinted into darkness. She was lying on her stomach, she realized. Her left hand still held the compass, but her right hand was resting on the muddy ground six inches in front of her face. Rain fell around her, splashing onto the wet ground with heavy plops.
She felt sick to her stomach, but she tried to rise. She quivered for a moment, trying to hold herself up through the shock, then gave in and collapsed in the mud below. She rolled onto her back and stared up in the sky. It was pure darkness. The smell of the rain was thick in her nose.
She breathed hard and let the raindrops splatter against her. Where was she? What was happening to her? She held the compass in front of her face. Did this have something to do with what had happened?
But she was alive. A smile crept onto her face.
A light fell across her, and a voice said, “What the hell?” Then, louder, “Baldwin, get over here!”
The man crouched down next to her. He was tall and thin, and he wore a headlamp strapped to his head, the kind Sophie used when she went camping. The light coming from his forehead made it difficult to look at him. “You okay?” His voice had a soft breathless quality that barely reached her over the sound of the rain.
Sophie groaned, then struggled to her hands and knees. It wasn’t easy with nothing but slippery mud to cling to and her mind still spinning.
“Where are we?” she asked.
The man scratched his head. “Lady, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Another voice came from the darkness. “Leonard?”
“Over here!” the man crouching next to her yelled. Then to Sophie, “You got a name?”
She nodded and started to answer, but then another beam of light fell on her.
The man next to her shifted the beam of his headlamp toward this new arrival. He was short and stocky, and he had an umbrella. He too wore a headlamp. He froze when he saw Sophie.
In the glow of the headlamps, Sophie was able to make out a bit about her surroundings. A tree stood next to her, a thick tangle of roots at its base.
“What the hell’s this?” the new arrival asked.
“That’s what I’m wondering,” said the other man. “She was lying here in the mud.”
The short man scratched at his nose. “We weren’t expecting anyone, right?”
The crouching man snorted. “You really think they wouldn’t let us know?”
He reached down and held out a hand to Sophie. “I’m Leonard. This here’s Baldwin.”
She squinted at the hand for a long moment before taking it. She gripped it hard, her hand slippery with mud. “Sophie Porter.”
Baldwin gave a little nod and then looked at Leonard. “Can we do this, please? You know how I feel about this part.”
&
nbsp; Leonard patted Sophie’s shoulder. “Stay strong for a bit. Things’ll be better tomorrow.” He looked back at Baldwin. “You want me to do it?”
Baldwin nodded.
Leonard rose to his feet. “Alrighty.” He cleared his throat. and when he continued it was as if he were speaking for an audience of a hundred people rather than a single woman less than five feet away. “Do you seek sanctuary and protection?”
She raised herself up on her elbows. “Are you telling me this is the actual real Sanctuary? Like in the urban legend?”
“He’s not telling you anything,” Baldwin said. “He’s asking you a question. Did you come here for sanctuary?”
Sophie thought for a moment. She’d said the word. In the stories, once you’d said the word, you could never go back. But it sounded like they were giving her a chance. “What happens if I say no?”
Leonard said, “We leave. You’re free to get up and go…wherever. I wouldn’t recommend it though. These woods aren’t the safest place. Especially after sun up.”
She gazed out into the darkness. If this was really happening, if it wasn’t some weird afterlife or hallucination, that meant Sanctuary was real. And if it was real, maybe Rodgers wasn’t as crazy as she had assumed. If Sanctuary was real, Taylor could be here. He might be in these woods at this very moment. And she had the compass. If it pointed to Taylor as Rodgers had said, she could find him.
“Yes. I want Sanctuary.”
Leonard cleared his throat loudly. “Your request is denied.”
The men stepped toward her.
Leonard said, “Until you’re accepted into Sanctuary, your belongings will be confiscated and you’ll be held for questioning.”
Baldwin bent down and grabbed her legs. She twisted, trying to squirm out of his grasp. At the same moment she felt another arm, it had to be Leonard’s, wrap around her waist.
Her arms flailed as she desperately felt in the darkness for something to hold on to. Her fingers laced around a tangle of roots at the base of the tree next to her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fight them much longer. Wherever they were taking here, they wouldn’t get the compass. That was her key to finding Taylor, and they wouldn’t take it from her. She shoved the compass under the roots just before Leonard grabbed her arms and wrapped them up under his own, pinning them to her side.