Tyler pulled open the bathroom door. The inside smelled like a wet shit, but except for a student at a urinal wearing an airbrushed Van Halen jacket, the room was empty. Tyler strode past him to the final stall, the only one with a working door. Inside, he slid the latch closed and crouched toward the toilet. He’d come up empty so many times that he was startled to feel a piece of paper between the tank and the tiled wall. As he drew it forth, his fingers shook from nicotine and nerves.
The urinal flushed. Through a crack in the stall, Tyler could see the Van Halen guy at the bathroom mirror finger-teasing his hair and singing in a head-bobbing whisper. Tyler lowered himself to the edge of the commode seat. Elbows on his knees, he unfolded the note.
Have you seen Police Academy 2? Supposed to be a riot. Plays this Friday at 7:30. Plaza Triple.
Tyler read the note a second time. Looked like a movie meeting.
He slid the folded note into the pocket of his jean jacket, debating whether or not to tell his brother and Jesse. Both had healed, more or less. Jesse could lift his arm, and Creed was out of his brace. They’d been pressing Tyler daily on whether he’d learned who’d messed them up. Their motive was revenge, but Tyler had far more at stake. Better to go to the meeting alone.
The warning bell rang. Beyond the crack, Van Halen gave his hair a final toss, beat the sink with his fingers, and pushed his way outside. Tyler flushed the toilet for effect and stood. As he rinsed his hands at the sink, he studied the bruising beneath his eyes from lack of sleep.
Maybe the meeting would spell the beginning of the end of the mental torment. Ain’t nothing comes for free, he heard his father saying. It used to be his answer for when Tyler or Creed wanted something, like a Matchbox car or a pack of gum at the store. Tyler closed his eyes. If push came to shove, would he use his powers? Even if it meant blowing his cover? Even if it meant linking him to the body in his backyard were someone to ever dig it up?
An eye for an eye, and a fry for a fry.
If using his powers meant getting answers, then maybe he didn’t have a choice. The alternative, not knowing what they wanted, not knowing whether they knew what he’d done, was turning his guts to chopped meat. He couldn’t keep living like that. Not even music offered an escape anymore, and that was bad. Music had been the final knot in his fraying rope.
Tyler pushed himself from the sink as the final bell sounded. He hurried outside and nearly crashed into a custodian’s cart.
“Whoa, there,” a voice said. “Tryin’ to spread my trash from here to Hawthorne?”
“Sorry.” Tyler ducked his face into his upturned jacket collar.
He recognized the aging black man in the blue coveralls, sleeves pushed up to his knotted elbows. Tyler only hoped the man hadn’t recognized him. It was the custodian who’d grabbed his hair in the tennis courts back in September and then pulled a garbage pick on Creed.
“Hold on there a second,” the man Creed had called “Geech” said.
Tyler peeked around. Geech studied him a moment, the skin between his eyes bunching into a knot. When the knot flattened, Geech leaned back and laughed like a preacher who’d been told a particularly good joke.
“Yeah, yeah, thought I recognized you,” he said, his eyes bright. “You live over there in that Oakwood.”
“That’s right,” Tyler answered carefully.
“I used to do work for Mr. and Mrs. Carter, live next door to you.”
Tyler suddenly remembered the same man used to putter up his street in a decaying brown station wagon, rakes and the long, weathered handle of his lawn mower poking out the back window.
Geech’s eyes drifted with what looked like nostalgia. “Been a few years, though. That Mr. Carter said he needed to shed some jelly from ’round his middle and start pushing the mower his own self. Can’t say I blame him. Anyway…” His gaze snapped back to Tyler. “I used to see you and your brother working in the next yard, raking them leaves into piles, then carrying them garbage pails of leaves around back, to dump, I ’spect. You was a hard worker. Kept that yard real nice.”
No matter his father’s blood-alcohol toxicity the night before, no matter how hard he had whaled on him or Creed or where he’d ended up sleeping, he would rap on their bedroom door at eight a.m., sober as a judge, calling them to Saturday morning yard work. Ain’t nothin comes free. And that had included living under his roof, apparently.
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “That was me. But I’ve gotta get to class.”
“Terrible thing about your father,” Geech said, pronouncing it turrible.
Tyler stopped cold.
Geech nodded grimly. “I seen the way the yard was falling apart, and the Carters tol’ me what happened, him leaving. I had them ask your mama if you needed any yard help, but she wasn’t interested. Not back then. I got room on my weekend, if she interested now. I do it all, pretty much: rake, mow the grass, weed and mulch ’round the bushes. And ’stead of payment, could work toward that truck you got sitting in the drive. She ain’t getting any younger sitting out there in the rain and shine, and Lord knows, I could use a big bed like that.”
The cuff of his work glove swam around his wrist as Geech canted his straw hat back. He squinted at Tyler.
Tyler studied the man’s dark-brown eyes. For an instant, he glimpsed a ring of blue, but when Geech blinked again, the effect vanished. This is all just coincidental, right? Him mentioning my dad and then talking about mulching the bushes. Or is he trying to send some kind of message?
“What are you asking?” Tyler said.
Geech peeked toward the sky as though he hadn’t heard. Then, with a sigh that suggested the day was getting away from him, he leaned into his cart. “Well, you can always find me ’round here. Or just flag me down in the neighborhood, you need me.”
Tyler watched until Geech disappeared beyond D Wing. When he swallowed, he grimaced from the sting of bile in his throat. His stomach had started bubbling like an active volcano — and for nothing, probably. Just an aging custodian looking for some odd work to make ends meet. Tyler loosened his notebook, which he’d rolled tight as a pool cue, and veered toward the remedial academics building.
Whatever Scott and Janis had planned couldn’t come soon enough.
32
The Meadows
Saturday, April 13, 1985
9:21 a.m.
Janis watched Scott jog down his driveway, the storm door beside his garage slapping closed. He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, the blue backpack he carried over one shoulder bulging with equipment. Janis waited in the street, in the same spot she’d stood four months before when she’d shaken from the cold and the certainty that something awful was about to happen. She drew her hands from her khaki shorts and tested her scar. For the first time, it no longer ached.
“I know, I know — I’m late.” Scott arrived in front of her, morning sun gleaming through his half-combed hair. He looked down the street and back with a hint of hesitation.
“Do I still want to do this?” she asked. “Yes.”
“Okay.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “We’ve got about eight minutes.”
They set off along the sun-dappled street that ran to the end of the Meadows. Somewhere behind them, a lawn mower droned. A family sedan cruised past, going in the same direction. Moments later, the Watsons, in their matching blue sweat suits, power walked into view from the opposite direction. They exchanged smiles and waves with Scott and Janis as they whisked by.
“Pretty sure they’re in my surveillance group,” Scott whispered.
Janis glanced around at “the Watsons,” the couple’s weight-cuffed arms and legs swinging in perfect unison. The Watsons were the ones who had presumably called 911 on the morning of her stabbing. More likely, they’d activated some sort of emergency response system within the Project. Janis faced ahead again. After everything she and Scott had learned, it amazed her that the neighborhood continued to appear so normal. Just another Saturday morning in suburbia.
/> “You didn’t tell your parents where we were going, did you?” Scott asked.
“Yeah, I said we were visiting the headquarters of a super-secret project but that I’d be back in time for lunch.”
Scott’s mouth jerked into a crooked smile. She couldn’t tell why, but every time the subject of her parents came up, a tension seemed to grow in his brow, worrying his eyes. She could feel it in the layers around him as well. But when she asked him about it once, he shook his head and mumbled something about her father making him nervous. Her dad could be intimidating, especially toward boys, but still… Scott was holding something back.
“No, they think we’re just out taking a walk,” she reassured him.
“That’s what I told mine.”
Janis raised her face to where the street climbed slightly before dipping along the final stretch of the Meadows. In her out-of-body experience the week before, she’d discovered Oakwood wasn’t a bottle after all. Another road led out. But only one house — the final house in the subdivision — could access it. The leaf-covered ribbon of cement appeared from a shed, slipped into the woods, passed through a gate in the levee, and exited onto Glen Springs Road. If Samson had allowed them to reach the end of the Meadows that summer day, she and Scott would have stumbled onto the road and started asking questions.
“You think Mrs. Thornton still lives there?” Scott nodded toward a red-brick house with a wide front porch and a pair of windows set in a steep gable. Even now, the house that stood sentry over the final stretch of their subdivision evoked a subtle fight-or-flight response in Janis.
“Dunno,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since I was ten or eleven.”
“Maybe they retired her.”
“Maybe. It’s not like she’d be able to scare us anymore.” Janis eyed the dark windows. “And at our age, we’re more prone to stay on the street, between the curbs. Kids, on the other hand… pfft. That was probably the Project’s worry. That we’d play hide-and-seek in their headquarters’ yards. So they put up psychological fences.”
“Effective, too. I had nightmares about Samson for months after our encounter.”
Janis glanced around, the quiet beginning to unnerve her. “Do you think they know we’re coming?” she whispered.
“They know we’re walking down the street, but they won’t know our aim until we actually set foot on the front walk.” He consulted his watch. “We should actually slow it down a bit. I’m synced with Tyler, and they’re not scheduled to be here for another three minutes.”
She and Scott had drawn out their plan on Monday evening. The steps were simple: (1) converge on the house at the same moment so it wouldn’t be apparent that they — Janis and Scott on their walk and Jesse and the boys out cruising — had a common purpose; (2) knock on the door; (3) request a meeting with the home’s occupant or occupants, not accepting no for an answer; (4) be ready for anything. Two additional points on which Scott had been adamant were that they not sneak around and that, no matter what happened, they stick together.
“Nervous?” he asked as they continued toward the end of the street. She was glad to feel his hand enfold hers. Ever since the dance, he’d been all business. Even now, she couldn’t tell whether his gesture was meant as affection or to further mislead those watching.
“Not as much as I thought I’d be,” she replied. “Before Operation Nut, my stomach was tied up in knots, but now it feels more like the uneasiness you get before a big test. Like maybe the teacher will throw a couple of curve-ball questions or add an essay portion you weren’t expecting.”
“I guess we’ll know soon enough,” he said, nodding ahead of them.
Set back from the street by a deep lawn with tall slash pines and a massive magnolia, the two-story house at the end of the Meadows grew larger and larger in their view. A brick walkway wound toward a front porch framed by a neat hedge. Plain white columns rose to the home’s eaves. Aside from being large, nothing in particular stood out about the house, which was probably just the way someone wanted it. Yep, plain and forgettable.
Janis listened for Jesse’s car. Except for the distant mower, though, the street remained silent. “Should we wait?” she whispered.
Scott released her hand to check his watch. He glanced back the way they’d come, his eyes squinting and then relaxing in recognition. “Let’s keep walking,” he said. “The Project probably knows something’s up now.”
She turned to see Tyler speeding down the street on a dirt bike, his gray-checked outer shirt beating the air behind him like a flag. Janis sped her pace to match Scott’s. They reached the curb in front of the brick walkway at the same moment Tyler skidded to a stop.
At the movie last night, he’d sat silently in front of them. She and Scott had whispered bits of the plan over his shoulder whenever the theater broke into laughter. As the final credits rolled and people began standing from their seats, Tyler had turned enough to nod before making his way from the theater.
He planted a scuffed hiking boot on the macadam. “It’s just gonna be me,” he said, out of breath. “Jesse and my brother wouldn’t go for it. Said talking was for…” He glanced at Janis. “They just wouldn’t go for it.”
“Your brother and my sister, both,” Janis muttered.
She remembered how Margaret had stopped her at the words surveillance teams, refusing to listen to “any more nonsense” — though she helpfully suggested that Janis be tested for post-traumatic stress, even volunteering to drive her to her appointments. It had taken four months, but the old Margaret was back.
“It’s all right,” Scott said. “Just remember what we talked about last night.” He hiked his pack. “Everyone ready?”
“Yeah.” Tyler dropped his bike against the curb.
Janis nodded, realizing this would be the first time the three of them had collaborated since the fort in the woods. Like then, Tyler’s presence gave her strange comfort, as though the blind spots in her and Scott’s planning had just become smaller and fewer. These are waterproof, she heard him saying, holding up the palmetto frond he’d cut with his dad’s knife. They’d be good for the roof.
When she smiled at Tyler, he looked back with a clear but troubled visage, like an S.E. Hinton character. His lips tensed as he lowered his gaze.
“Let’s go,” Scott said.
They hurried up the walkway. For a second, Janis expected the front door to swing open, as the Leonards’ had that morning in December, but it remained sealed. A shadow moved past the window to the left of the door. Janis concentrated toward the house, trying to feel someone, anyone, but her threads of awareness ended at the house’s white façade. A new uneasiness stole inside her stomach.
They arrived on the stone-tiled front porch and stood around the plastic welcome mat. Insects droned in the surrounding trees. Scott raised his eyebrows as though to say this is it and knocked on the door.
* * *
Scott knocked a second time until his knuckles stung. He looked down at his Nikes. Tyler’s battered boots stood to his right, and ahead of him, on the green welcome matt, Janis’s white sneakers shifted. Around them, bird songs were giving way to a rising hum of insect choirs. The day would be hot.
“They’re home,” Janis whispered. “I saw someone pass that window when we were walking up.”
Scott raised his face to the rectangular window, but all he could see was a translucent drape and two neat swoops of curtain bookending it. Well, so much for the element of surprise. And the more time that passes, the more time we’re giving them to assemble themselves.
Scott thumbed the doorbell three times.
“What now?” Tyler asked after the final chime faded.
Scott clenched his jaw. They hadn’t come this far for their plan to sputter out at step two. “We go inside,” he said.
Scott tried the door knob, but it wouldn’t turn. He looked up and down the door frame: a knob lock and two bolts. He reached into his pocket for the cloth wallet with his picking tools
before stopping himself. No more slinking around. Pulling one arm from his backpack strap, he drew the bag around to his front and unzipped it. The helmet with Wayne’s tube laser stared up at him.
“I suggest we retreat to the walkway,” he said, donning the helmet.
Twenty feet from the door, he clicked the power switch and craned his neck sideways until the beam lined up vertically with the locks. Whether from the position or acute self-consciousness, blood rushed to his face. In all of his issues of The X-Men, he couldn’t remember Cyclops ever looking so stupid. Scott concentrated along the near end of the beam, clenching his fists against the mind-crushing compression.
“Clear!” he bawled, and released the pulse.
The door flew open in a shower of splinters, rebounded, and rattled to a rest against the frame. As Scott straightened, Janis and Tyler swam in his vision. The process of concentrating and releasing the energy was happening faster and not leaving him as lightheaded as it had before.
“I guess it’s Plan B, then?” Janis asked.
“It’s find whoever’s inside and put some damn questions to them,” Scott replied, surprised at the hardness in his voice. But he was irritated with the way things were proceeding — or in this case, weren’t proceeding. Before they’d even arrived at the door, their numbers had been cut in half. But even so, he’d been convinced that when it became clear to those inside that Oakwood’s subjects were onto them, the command and control would want to talk. He hadn’t counted on the command and control completely ignoring them.
“Otherwise, we’re giving them time to choose angles,” he explained.
Janis nodded and the three of them approached the door. The bolts protruded from the frame like a pair of brass buck teeth. With the toe of a shoe, Scott pushed the door open the rest of the way.
The large living room held stiff antiquated couches and chairs and, beyond them, a glossy dining room table. Light reflected from plates in a china cabinet. Framed paintings of flowers lined the walls. A red ball of yarn speared with knitting needles sat in one of the chairs. Yeah, nice touch, Scott thought as he stepped into a tiled entranceway. Janis picked up some mail from a hall table.
XGeneration, Books 1-3: You Don't Know Me, The Watchers, and Silent Generation Page 57