She tore around to the passenger door and flung it open. Moucher just launched himself into space and landed on her. They fell down on to the track together, laughing and squealing, Moucher practically wetting himself with happiness.
‘Eew,’ Genie laughed, rolling in the dirt.
‘Well that’s my good deed for the day and it ain’t even seven a.m. yet,’ Miller remarked. ‘You going to tell me what happened to your hair?’
‘Calm down, Mouch. Calm down,’ Genie said, doing her best to stop him licking her to death.
‘Took me a while to make sense of the message on my cell but I got it in the end,’ Miller was saying.
‘Mouch, back off now, back off.’
Genie struggled back up on to her feet, trying to brush the dirt off her clothes.
‘Get in, we can drive up to the house. Need to keep in earshot of the radio.’
Genie climbed in, picking up Moucher, who sat on her lap, proud as anything to be back with her and on his way home.
Genie was inspecting his head. ‘Oh, cute, little bit of fur growing already.’
‘He’ll be fine. Lucky dog. Luckier than you, I guess. I had to go see Rian’s mother about an insurance claim and there he was. Wasn’t about to be left behind either. Howled until I took him. Schneider do that to your head?’
‘Some woman called Helen Ulrich, she works at the Fortress. Lives in Spurlake, no doubt.’
Miller frowned. Ulrich. He knew the family. Had no idea one of them worked at the Fortress. How many other Spurlake people worked there? He was beginning to believe it was one heck of a lot.
‘I’m getting used to it. Don’t spend that much time in the shower any more and no more knots to get out of my darn hair,’ Genie smiled, looking at Miller properly for the first time. ‘Thanks for coming, I really appreciate it. Ri’s got coffee on the stove. I know you like your coffee.’
Miller nodded. ‘I’m just happy to find you alive. Never expected that.’
‘No one did. Got more surprises for you at the house.
How’s Marshall?’
‘He’s recovering now. Slow, but he’s over the shock, at least. He’ll be tickled pink to find out you’re alive.
You may not know this, but he’s really taken with you and Rian.’
‘Take a look in the cool room when you get inside.’
Miller was looking at the orchard as he slowed. There was a distinct absence of apples on those trees.
‘You picked the whole crop? You’ve been busy. Just the two of you? Impossible. There’s like hundreds of trees.’
‘We had some help,’ Genie replied with a little smile.
‘Dad’s recovery will be a whole lot faster when he finds out about this. Shock might kill him mind. Never picked the whole crop before. In the old days pickers would go from farm to farm to pick the apples in season. Can’t find people like that these days.’
‘We need a big truck and cold storage,’ Genie told him.
‘Today, if you can arrange it.’
‘I can fix that with one phone call. But who is “we”?’
‘You’re going to have a heart attack when you meet them, believe me.’
Miller looked at her as he slowed to a stop by the house and put the brake on. ‘Now I’m nervous.’
Moucher barked, struggling to get out. He was finally home.
33
Strategy
Miller couldn’t help staring at the kids. Denis Malone had been dead and buried, for God’s sake. Reverend Schneider had shed tears for the boy at his graveside. Yet here Denis was – and still the tiny kid he had been two years before. He’d not grown one centimetre. Miller thought he’d like to hear the scientific explanation for that! He’d wanted proof, well here it was. All he had to do was believe it. His dad hadn’t lied, hadn’t made it up – the Fortress had made a breakthrough, teleportation was apparently real. He drank his coffee and watched all these kids eating their breakfast in his father’s house and marvelled at it all. They all looked so well.
He didn’t want to think what they had been through, but just looking at them, it was like they were at summer camp and this was just a perfectly normal day.
The other sceptical side of his brain was telling him that these kids had been hiding some place all this time, but seeing Denis Malone and the size of him, seeing that Japanese girl, Miho, and realizing that she hadn’t
been kidnapped, as he had been told, was mind-blowing.
All the fantastic stories people had spun about why and where these kids were – and here they were, some, like Randall, changed beyond recognition, but alive and well. Each one would testify that Reverend Schneider was actively gathering up misfit kids and surrendering them to the Fortress for transmatter experiments . . .
it was sick. It had to be true. Their stories were identical. They were all completely convinced this had happened to them.
‘You do realize we have been subjected to slave labour conditions,’ Julia piped up, trying to get Miller’s attention.
‘I mean, who picks these apples normally? And I couldn’t call home. It’s like a prison camp here. There’s laws against this, y’know.’
‘Shut up, Julia,’ Renée told her. ‘We’re lucky to have a safe place to hide and you know it.’
‘Maybe you would prefer to be back in the Fortress, Julia?’ Denis asked. ‘He’s come to help us. After that mosquito attack, you know we can’t do this alone.’
‘Mosquito attack?’ Miller asked, looking at Genie.
‘I’ll explain later,’ Genie told him.
Miller scratched his head. ‘You realize that people in town are going to say this is mass hysteria or something.
They’re going to deny you were ever in the Fortress.’
Rian and Genie weren’t sure Miller was persuaded either.
‘We’re here, we’re alive and we can describe everything that happened to us. We can identify people. If it comes to a trial, we could point out everyone who works there,’
Renée told him. ‘We all can.’
Miller shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t get that far.
You’ve no idea what you’re up against. You’ll never convince anyone that you were teleported. It’s science fiction. Best you can do is claim they kept you against your will all this time and questions will have to be answered about that. Abduction and kidnap are serious charges. But about the other . . . it would have to be demonstrated – and they aren’t going to do that now, are they?’ He was looking at Rian. ‘Any particular reason your skin is blue, Rian?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Rian answered. He didn’t want to have to explain his failure to save Genie that night.
It was Renée who thought of a way to prove the Fortress was guilty.
‘Take him out to the forest, guys. Show him.’
Genie understood immediately. ‘Why not? Come on.
You got a camera in the truck?’
Miller nodded. ‘What are you going to show me?’
‘Something to change your mind.’ Genie stood up,
setting her coffee mug down with a bang on the table.
‘Moucher!’
Moucher led the way, with Miller, Rian and Genie following as they headed off into the woods, towards the ravine, the site of their great return.
‘Dad talked about what was possible,’ Miller was explaining as they made their way through the trees.
‘When he first arrived at the hospital and raved about some dog, I just thought he’d gone over the edge, y’know. I know you were afraid of Reverend Schneider, and you were dead right to be, but you have to understand my point of view. Even though I grew up with all my father’s crazy ideas about teleportation, I never believed it. It’s too fantastic. I’m a cop. I have to have evidence before I believe anything. I’m trained to be a sceptic.
Can’t help it.’
Neither Genie nor Rian said anything. They just concentrated on making their way towards the rocky outcrop by the ravine. Hoping th
at what they wanted to show him would still be there, not been eaten by wild animals.
Moucher stayed close to Genie. He was at home in the forest and happy.
They had been walking for twenty minutes or so now. Genie sensed Miller was getting anxious. ‘It’s near.
You should brace yourself.’
‘Brace myself?’ Miller asked.
‘It’s evidence,’ Genie said. ‘You’re not going to like this.
You too, Ri. You don’t have to look. It’s totally gross.
Here.’
Moucher hung back. Unsure, a low growl in his throat as he sniffed the putrid air. Genie didn’t want to look, but Miller had to be persuaded. Had to.
Miller stepped around Genie, not at all sure as to what he was going to see. He stopped in his tracks. The decomposing body was a shock. The fact that it was also inside out, just lying there, the organs rotting, made him feel instantly sick. He felt dizzy. The shape of a human form were plain enough, the inner organs still distinguishable, but decaying and mushy.
‘There’s another, over here,’ Rian pointed out, quietly fighting nausea. He looked away, took some quick breaths to regain his composure.
‘Half of one, further around,’ Genie added. ‘They must have bled out instantly. They wouldn’t have known about it, right?’
Miller couldn’t say anything, had to grip a tree to stand up. He was as pale as a ghost now. He’d seen dead bodies.
Many more since the flood, of course. He’d seen kids murdered, old women beaten, seen a man with an
axe stuck in his head, many terrible things, but this, whatever this was . . . was just horrible, horrible.
Rian had to take the digital images eventually.
Miller’s hands shook too much.
Genie patiently explained about the receptors Marshall had installed but forgotten, the lightning storm, and the arrival of the half-dog (even now his frozen head lay in the freezer) and how all the kids had been stored on the system. She explained about how she’d been abducted by Reverend Schneider from right outside Rian’s house, and about Mr Yates, Employee of the Month, and how he must have known all about what really went on in the Fortress.
And she talked about how she had thought that she too would die, but how there had been a fire, and then suddenly arriving here, in the semi-circle with Julia, Renée and others. She explained how some of the ones that didn’t make it probably wouldn’t have ever made it, being half formed, or inside out or like the half-dog, kinda melted together. She explained everything until there was nothing left to say.
The hardest thing for Miller was knowing that his father had been part of this until his accident. He always claimed he used inanimate objects, but if he hadn’t had the accident, would he be working there, knowing they used kids for experiments? He hoped not. God knows
how many times his father had tried to tell him what the Fortress was up to. He’d just blocked it out. He’d stopped listening to his father and that had been his big mistake.
Not only had his father figured what the Fortress was doing, but it seemed half of Spurlake knew. How could they not know? Spurlake’s own kids lured to the Fortress and Reverend Schneider’s sickening Church of the Free Spirits and community prayers for the missing. What an idiot he was, trying to keep order in a town living on a lie and endlessly searching for kids that were apparently utterly expendable. He felt sick at heart.
‘Is that all of them?’ he asked at length.
Genie shrugged. ‘We didn’t go looking for more.’
Rian handed back the camera. He didn’t want to look at any of the photos he’d taken.
‘You realize I can’t just walk away from this. I have to call it in.’
‘Cary says the Fortress monitors all our calls, yours too. They know exactly what everyone is doing and where and why,’ Genie told him.
Miller looked at Genie, and saw it was the plain truth.
That was when he realized that they had to bring in outsiders. Only Vancouver’s RCMP IHIT (Integrated Homicide Investigation Team) could handle something as big as this. They had the resources and manpower to do it
and none, as far as Miller knew, would be beholden to the Fortress. He’d send them the images Rian took. It would be at the very least a major investigation. This was real evidence – tying it to Schneider or the secretive Fortress scientists would be difficult.
‘This is Fortransco property around here,’ Miller said, realizing where they were standing. ‘Those bodies are going to be an embarrassment for them at least.’
Rian led them out of the forest towards Marshall’s boundary line. Each silent, each filled with their own thoughts and fears; Miller overwhelmed by new doubts and fears. He was beginning to realize the enormity of this crime.
Moucher had to be carried for the last part of the journey, but Genie didn’t mind. He was a tired dog who loved her and she’d always, always, wanted a dog that loved her. Never knew how much till now.
‘You’re right,’ Miller told them as they approached the house. ‘You can’t tell anyone you guys are back. We have to keep it secret for as long as possible. You’re all in danger.
I can see that now.’
Rian and Genie passed little smiles to each other.
Finally they were sure he was on their side.
34
Pick of the Crop
Miller touched his father on the shoulder and was happy to see him wake and look alert again.
‘You look good, Dad.’
‘Be better when they let me out of here.’
‘Tomorrow. Got something to cheer you up meanwhile.
I suggest you come to the window.’
‘What?’ Marshall frowned. ‘You got Schneider on a skewer down there? That I’ll look at.’
Max laughed. ‘Better.’
Marshall flung off his blanket, revealing he wasn’t wearing his prosthetic leg. ‘You’ll have to help me.’
Max was only too happy to oblige. He scooped his father up out of the bed and set his foot down on the floor. Marshall put an arm around his son’s shoulders to get support and together they moved towards the window.
‘Check out the car park.’
Marshall stood at the window and looked down. His eyes fixed on a huge refrigerated truck, with a trailer
behind it, loaded up with crates of boxed apples.
‘What?’
Max grinned and gave a signal. Nine heads popped up from behind his truck behind it and began cheering.
‘Rian. Who are the other kids? My God? Did they pick my whole crop? Where’s Genie? I don’t recognize her.’
‘The one with Moucher. They shaved her head.’
Marshall felt incredibly touched. They had done him a good turn and he felt quite emotional. He waved, not sure they could see him.
‘They picked everything. Pickard’s are taking them.
There’s a big demand for organic apples now. Couldn’t get it all in one truck. Got a good price too.’
‘They did all that? I don’t believe it.’ He watched them pile into his truck. ‘Who shaved her head?’
‘Get back into bed. I’ll fill you in. There’s going to be quite a showdown tonight.’
Marshall watched his truck being driven away. He was still feeling stunned. He had never managed to get his whole crop picked before. Those kids were amazing, but where they hell had they come from? At least two looked familiar.
Max was watching his reaction.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got Carl watching out for them.
About the only cop I trust in this town any more.’
‘Carl’s a good guy,’ Marshall agreed, then frowned, puzzled. ‘Who are the other kids?’
‘I’ll tell you, but I’m afraid the surprise might finish you off for good. Remember all those cuttings you kept on the bathroom wall?’
Marshall blanched. ‘No! You’re kidding. Genie said she was talking to some of them, but I thought she was hallucinating. It’s impossible.�
��
He could feel his heart rate racing as he considered the possibility.
Miller smiled. ‘I had a very hard time believing it too.
Now get back into bed. I’ll tell all I know.’
Marshall hopped back to his bed. This story he wanted to hear.
35
Showdown at Seven
The Church of the Free Spirits welcomes you: Witness Night – Tuesday 7 p.m.
Families and pets welcome – followed by Organic Coffee and HomeMade Cakes 9 p.m.
They watched Reverend Schneider’s Mercedes being towed away by RCMP forensics. The Vancouver-based investigators were waiting in their cars as people arrived for the Tuesday service, discreetly taking photos. Among them many strangers to the church, invited by Miller.
Parents of children known to be missing in Spurlake.
Some were about to get a big surprise.
Genie was worried. So many people were involved with the Fortress in Spurlake. Once the kids revealed they were back, they were immediately vulnerable. Anything could happen, including disbelief. How could they prove that they were used as lab rats? How could they prove they were held prisoner on computer servers? Even ones as powerful as theirs. Who on earth would believe that?
Most likely they’d laugh, it was so incredible. It was reluctantly agreed by all, that they would go home to Spurlake, say as little as possible to friends and try to get their folks to leave town. Leaving Spurlake was all they could think about and Miller tended to agree. They had all suffered enough.
He’d called all the big city newspapers and TV news people. It was a good story, kids claiming to have been abducted by a major corporation. Most promised to come.
This would be the protection they needed. Genie was concerned the choppers would fly over and they’d play the mosquito trick. But with journalists watching, it wouldn’t look so good if they all ended rolling on the ground screaming. First they had to confront Reverend Schneider at the Church of the Free Spirits. Then disappear again, real fast.
They gathered at the grand glass and steel structure on Fir Street that could accommodate five hundred souls. The Fortress had been very generous to its major conspirator.
The Repossession Page 28