by Susan Vaught
Stupid, stupid ass. This is all your fault. You’re a coward. Yellow, yellow, yellow. You’re yellow. Everything’s yellow.
The voices are so loud my fingers dig into the closet door. My regular pills are due, but if I send Dad for them or ask the colonel to go get them when she gets back with the FBI team, I’ll go to sleep. There’s no choice about that. Take fuzzy pills and zonk goes the Freak boy. I can’t help find Sunshine if I’m in dreamland, so I’m waiting, and it’s not that big of a deal. I can miss a day, or even two or three. The medicine stays in my blood a long time. Things get hard, but not too awful, at least when it’s not stressful.
Drip comes charging into the main area carrying his broom. His movements are jerky and twitchy and way too clumsy and fast, and I know his meds have worn off, too. His meds aren’t like mine—he takes anti-fuzzy pills to help him focus, but they’re only good for part of the day. Toward bedtime, he burns out and gets wild, then all of a sudden—boom—just goes to sleep wherever he is, whatever he’s doing.
“You think we should go to our spot?” Drip bangs into me as he tosses his broom into the closet and shuts the door. “I know it’s dark, but we could get flashlights and she might be there. What if she’s there?”
Drip’s talking too fast just like he’s moving too fast, and he’s sweating, and his eyes keep going left and right as his fingers twitch and jump. He can’t help it. It’s his alphabet, and the effects of his meds.
“Keep your voice down,” I tell him, glancing at the double glass doors leading into the VFW hall like the FBI might be right outside listening. They aren’t, but Chief Smith and Dad could hear him without a lot of trying.
Drip nods. His big round eyes study me.
“I don’t have a flashlight,” I tell him. Then I sigh. “Maybe we should tell Chief Smith and let him go with us—or send one of his officers.”
“To our spot?” Drip doesn’t like the idea. I can tell from the monumental frown. “If she’s there, she’ll be pissed and upset. That’s our place, Freak. It’s our secret place.”
“It’s a spot on the river. It’s not exactly secret.”
“But it’s ours.”
And what he means is, it’s hers and she shared it with us and—
Promise you’ll never show anybody else because this is where I come when I can’t take people and faces and voices anymore she says and we’re eleven the three of us and she’s kept this secret for years about her place and it’s quiet and beautiful and out of the way and we swear we won’t tell anyone and we thank her because it’s the perfect place for people like us and Drip goes in the water and she looks at me with those sad sad serious eyes and she holds her locket tight and she asks me do people ever get to be too much for you Jason and yes I tell her yes because they do they really do but I’m thinking that she won’t ever be too much for me because she’s as perfect as this place and she smiles and that just makes her more perfect and
—“We can’t tell anybody,” Drip mutters, but it doesn’t matter because right that second the double glass doors swing open and the colonel marches in with Captain Evans and behind them come a bunch of soldiers in casual fatigues lugging boxes and folding tables and chairs and some video screens and bulletin boards and chalkboards and behind them come five more people, three women and two men. They have on rumpled-looking suits, all of them, and they fan out, pointing and directing the soldiers.
I feel like Drip and I are shrinking, becoming less and less a part of this world as the VFW hall starts to turn into something else, some other place, and I hear the colonel barking orders and Captain Evans saying, “No, not here, Private. Over there.”
Then Chief Smith and Dad come into the main area and start shaking hands with people and introducing themselves, and the guy standing in the middle of the room seems to be in charge of the FBI team. I take him for around fifty years old. He’s about six feet tall, in decent shape, and he’s got short, buzzed gray hair like he might have been military a long time ago. When he thrusts out his hand to Dad and says, “Special Agent Robert Mercer,” his voice is deep and authoritative.
After he and Chief Smith exchange names, Agent Mercer gets right to it with, “Sunshine Patton is seventeen years old, and as with any adolescent, it’s possible that she left on her own, that she ran away. However, because of her mental illness, she’s considered a vulnerable child, and we’re treating this as a mysterious disappearance. You made a wise choice, involving us as quickly as possible. These first twenty-four hours are absolutely critical because after that, outcomes in situations like this aren’t good. My people will help coordinate with your department and state resources, and we’ll organize the investigation, searches, and technical aspects. If necessary, we’ll consult with the Behavioral Analysis Unit.”
“Don’t they do serial killers?” Drip whispers, only it’s not so much a whisper since his meds wore off and he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet and swinging his arms back and forth even though he’s sort of hiding behind me at the same time.
Special Agent Mercer’s attention shifts to us, and for a long moment, he regards Drip. Then he focuses on me. Even from halfway across the room, I feel the ice of his merciless gray eyes. He’s got this straight-line mouth that isn’t made to smile, and—
He knows it’s your fault. He knows you’re an idiot. Fool on the hill. Fool on the hill. He’s got cold eyes. Why does he have cold eyes? He’s probably a serial killer.
—“We can also access resources at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime Coordinators,” Agent Mercer continues, never taking those chilly eyes off my face, “and Crimes Against Children investigators. All operations will run through this command post—and the first thing we’ll do is set up a map of registered sex offenders in this area.” He turns to Chief Smith. “Your officers can start with canvassing those individuals, and we’ll call in state police if you don’t have enough manpower.”
He stops. I wonder if he’s taking a breath. Do men like him have to breathe? At least he finally stopped looking at me. I think I need to go to the bathroom.
Chief Smith seems stunned. So does Dad. The colonel and Captain Evans have gone silent, but their squadron of privates keeps worker-beeing in every direction, setting up the… command post. Jeez. This seems more military than the colonel’s job, and my stomach gets tight, then tighter and Chief Smith’s stun passes over to me, and all I can think on top of the never-shutting-up voices is:
She’s gone. Sunshine’s really gone.
“Registered sex offenders,” Chief Smith says, like it’s finally all sinking in and his brain’s starting to fire a few neurons. “What kind of radius are we talking about? Because we don’t have too many of those folks around here.”
“We’ll do a thirty-mile grid to begin with,” Agent Mercer says, frowning at a soldier who almost dropped a computer screen. “If that touches Fort Able, I trust that Colonel Milwaukee will assist in gathering pertinent information and setting up interviews.”
“Absolutely,” comes the answer, but it’s from Captain Evans, not the colonel. Weird. The colonel never lets anybody speak for her.
Dad notices this, too, because I see his eyebrows pinch and his eyes say, Who is this woman?
And I really need to go to the bathroom and I’m wondering, Why is she here?
Agent Mercer isn’t finished. “We’ll need to conduct our interviews as quickly as possible. Colonel Milwaukee tells me you’ve made an initial list of persons who might have key information, Chief Smith?”
Chief Smith stands motionless for a few long seconds, like he’s still having trouble processing all the hustle and bustle and this man’s firm, almost demanding tone, but then he clicks into gear and pulls his notebook out of his waistband. He holds it out to Agent Mercer, and the second the FBI man touches the paper, my heart thumps and pitches because it’s that notebook, the one Chief Smith had at Sunshine’s place, where he was writing down names and on his list, on the list of people to be i
nterviewed, I remember what’s first on that list.
My name.
The room’s low fluorescent lighting suddenly seems too bright, and I swear I can hear the whine of the bulbs right through—
He’s gonna know you’re a lying, stupid little shit. You’ve got no hope. Give up now. Quit now. Give it up, give it up, give it up. Give up what? There’s nothing to give up. Is there?
—“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Drip says over and over and over again in his not-really-a-whisper. “This is like a television show but it’s real and where is she, Freak? Where is Sunshine?”
My own voices are bad enough. If I had duct tape, I’d keep Drip from adding to them, but I know he can’t help it, and Agent Mercer is gathering two of his people, one man and one woman, and he’s asking Chief Smith to get them to Sunshine’s house to talk to Eli and her parents and Ms. Taylor.
Chief Smith gets on his cell, and a few seconds later, he says a deputy is on the way.
“I could take them to save time,” Dad offers, but from across the room, the colonel shakes her head.
“No,” she says, and it’s her most-colonel-voice-ever tone.
I flinch at the sound. So does Dad.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” says Drip, and—
You’re so dead. You’re stupid and YOU’RE DEAD and you might as well DIE NOW because you’re first and this bastard’s gonna grind you to dust. Dust in the wind. Dust in the wind. What wind? Who’s talking about wind?
—I need to go to the bathroom. More than anything, I wish Sunshine were here. If she were here, I’d talk to her and I’d stop being nervous because she could do that for me and—
I wish I could help you like you help me I tell her and I tell her you always help me calm down you make everything better and quieter and calmer and sometimes I think you’re magic and she says you can help me and we’re back to that and she says you can help me Jason and what am I supposed to say to her because I never could say no to Sunshine and
—Pain stabs at my head and my eyes water and Agent Mercer’s standing right in front of me, and his gray eyes are even colder than I thought, and the lines at the corners don’t soften them at all and I realize time skipped and he’s looking at me and I wonder if he said anything. Did he ask me something? I’d look at Drip to find out, but Drip’s gone, bouncing across the VFW hall and wiping his nose and poking at all the computers and screens getting set up, and Captain Evans is trying to keep him from breaking anything. Dad and the colonel are standing a few feet away, watching me.
“Well?” Agent Mercer says, and I can tell from his tone he’s repeating himself.
“Sorry,” I say, my face getting hot. “I didn’t hear you.”
His eyes get narrow like he doesn’t believe that, but he goes with it. “All right. Okay. Your mother warned me you get distracted sometimes.”
Idiot. Total fool. He’s going to know. They always know, people like him. People, people, here’s the church and here’s the steeple. Steeples go on churches.
I don’t cover my ears, which is a plus. “I do get distracted. But I’m listening now.”
“It’s my understanding that you have a close relationship with Sunshine Patton?”
Close relationship. Yeah. That covers a ton of ground. I think about my words for a few moments, and then I settle on: “She’s my best friend. Sunshine and Drip and me, we’ve been in class together since we were little.”
Special Agent Mercer raises Chief Smith’s notebook. “You’re the first name on the list.”
“Okay.” Deep breath. I’m ready. I need to do this. I want to do it, but before he can tell me where to go for him to talk to me, Captain Evans walks over to us, and the colonel’s saying something to Dad, and Dad’s pinching his eyebrows at her, then at Captain Evans.
Captain Evans beckons to my parents. The colonel comes toward us immediately, and Dad trails behind, one big pinch-face going on, but I don’t have time to wonder about that.
“Are you going to cooperate with me, young man?” Agent Mercer’s voice has dropped low, like he doesn’t want my parents to hear him.
Even though it’s hard for me to make out what he says over the roar of my voices and the pounding of blood in my ears, I come back with “Yes, sir.”
“It’s not typical that my first interview is with the son of the people who called me to ask for my help with a case.” Agent Mercer smiles, but it’s even less of a smile than the colonel’s when she’s about to chew off your head at the neck, and I realize for some reason, he doesn’t seem to like me, and I get the first glimmer of why when he adds, “It’s definitely not typical to have a JAG lawyer on the spot.”
My gaze jumps to Captain Evans. JAG? That’s the Judge Advocate General staff—a lawyer? The colonel brought a lawyer with her?
Without skipping a heartbeat, Agent Mercer asks, “Do you think you need a lawyer, Jason?”
“Agent Mercer.” Captain Evans has a head-chewing smile, too. “He doesn’t understand things like this. Let’s just get someplace quiet, and you can ask him whatever you need, so long as it’s relevant to finding the girl.”
She brought a lawyer. She knows. He knows. They all know. You’re so stupid. You’re such an idiot! Know, know, know your boat. You’re crazy. Please stop talking about boats.
Everyone’s here now, the colonel and Dad and Captain Evans and Agent Mercer, and I’m wanting to say, You think I need representation? Why? And I’m wanting to say, I don’t need a lawyer, and I’m wanting to say, Whatever, I’ll do whatever, lawyer, no lawyer, whoever, whatever, if it’ll help find Sunshine.
I glance from face to face. I try to breathe. I try to hear my own thoughts scattered between the shouts bouncing across my skull and through my ears and falling out my eyes. What I say is, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
That, at least, is the truth.
SIX HOURS
Twenty-four hours. That’s not a long time. Two tens and a four. Simple math. And it’s already been six hours. Twenty-four minus six is eighteen.
My gut seizes at the thought.
Eighteen hours really isn’t a long time.
This isn’t real.
I’m in a television show or a movie or a book and this isn’t real and my best friend isn’t missing and I’m not sitting with the colonel and Dad on my left and a JAG lawyer on my right, across a bare wooden table from an FBI guy with Chief Smith’s notebook, frost eyes, a wicked crew cut—and something like a bad attitude, directed straight at me.
“When was the last time you saw Sunshine Patton, Jason?”
His voice sounds hard. Almost angry. What did I do to him? Is it because of the lawyer the colonel brought? Does he not like how I look? What?
He knows you’re a freak. He knows you’re stupid. Freaky freak freak. Maybe he’s not mad. Maybe he is mad. Should he be mad?
The cinder-block walls make the room feel smaller and stuffier, but the lights are bright and I can see every tight line of Agent Mercer’s not-so-nice face. The air still smells like pine cleanser and bleach and my eyes water a little bit only maybe it’s not exactly water.
Crybaby. You’re such a weak little snot. You should hate yourself. Hate, hate, hate, hate. Hate is a terrible word. Nobody should hate anything.
“I saw Sunshine when we got off the bus.” Third time I’ve told him. He keeps asking the same stuff in different ways. I have no idea why, and no idea why he looks madder when my answers don’t change. Maybe he doesn’t look mad, but his face is melting, going empty in the center, or maybe that’s just my brain. My eyes lie to me when I’m stressed.
Where is Sunshine?
Stressed is a good word for right now.
“Jason,” Agent Mercer starts again with his melty face and his pissed-off eyes—
“Freak. Everybody calls me that. You can.” The words fly out and saying that makes me feel better. It makes me feel normal and it makes his face stop melting. Sunshine’s gone. How can anything be normal again? Maybe everybo
dy’s face should melt.
Agent Mercer’s thick eyebrows lift. “Freak,” he says, all surprised and slow. I can tell he doesn’t want to look away from me, but his eyes travel straight to the JAG lawyer. “You want me to call you Freak,” he says to me, but he’s really saying it to her.
Why?
Freak, freak, freak, that’s what you are, that’s what I am, spam, ram, ham, ham, Freakity-freak, spam ham. I could use some bacon.
“We’d prefer you call him by his proper name,” the lawyer says. I can see her reflection in the big glass window behind Agent Mercer, and she’s doing the head-chew smile thing while the colonel frowns and Dad bites the inside of his left cheek. He does that when he’s irritated. His eyes move side to side a little too fast, and that I haven’t seen before. Something’s bothering him, something more than all this, but I have no idea what it is.
“Why do people call you Freak, Jason?” Agent Mercer’s using a you-must-be-brain-dead voice, pronouncing things too much like I’m hearing impaired instead of an alphabet.
“Because I’m nuts,” I tell him, getting ticked, but the JAG lawyer puts her hand on mine. “I’m an alphabet. Alphabets are freaks. Everybody knows that.”
“Alphabets,” Agent Mercer repeats, obviously confused.
The colonel explains about the letters and labels, and then when Agent Mercer still seems confused, Dad adds, “It’s a word Jason and Sunshine and Derrick use to describe themselves as a group. It feels better to them than any of the disorder-disability talk.”