Mapmaker

by Mark Bomback

  When I combed my hair with my fingers, I noticed my hands were shaking. They were still shaking when I left, the fat bald guy staring at me.

  I’d mapped enough towns to know that most had a police station, a post office, and a church, so I took my chances and walked toward the castle-like steeple. The night wasn’t cold, but I kept shivering. After a few blocks I hit Main Street: rows of impressive eighteenth-century buildings wrought with decorative stone, probably once banks or grand department stores, now mostly dark or boarded up. I knew this small-town story well. At MapOut we weren’t just putting new places, things, shops, and restaurants on the Map—we were also taking them off, erasing them. In some towns, Main Street vanished completely when a Walmart appeared down the highway.

  Above the massive double doors on the castle-like fortress, in line with the steeple high above, was a pair of stone engravings: ALTON TOWN HALL and POLICE STATION. Rows of small square windows made the whole place seem especially forbidding, and for a second I wondered if this were also a jail.

  Two girls sat on the steps, smoking. One looked up at me as I passed. She had blue eyes and blonde hair; she looked about my age or younger, and was very pregnant.

  I pulled open one of the doors, the smell of pine disinfectant reminding me of middle school. Inside, a small fluorescent-lit antechamber was packed with a half-dozen miserable people. One man held a bloodstained towel to his arm. Posters of missing children and sex offenders lined the walls.

  At the far end was a booth, protected by bulletproof glass. A plump woman in a police uniform sat on the other side, looking either angry or bored.

  “How can I help you?” she asked through the plastic grate.

  “I need to talk to a police officer.” My voice shook. “I need to report a crime.”

  “You need to report a crime,” the woman repeated. Her tone was flat. She reached forward, taking a yellow piece of paper from a tray of pastel-colored forms. “Fill this out,” she said, pushing it through an opening slot.

  “I have to fill out a form?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Can’t I just tell you what happened to me? Or talk—”

  “Fill out the form,” she snapped.

  I glared at her. I had been drugged, kidnapped, people had tried to shoot me. Now was the time for the law to come running to my rescue. I scribbled as quickly as I could.

  Name: Tanya Blue Barrett

  Date of reported crime: June 25

  Description of reported crime: kidnapping

  The details were barely legible, but I didn’t care. As soon as I was done, I slid it back under the bulletproof glass. The woman glanced at it and slid off her stool. After what seemed like an eternity, a side door opened and a male police officer stepped into the hall. He was greying, rugged, paunchy, maybe Beth’s age.

  “Tanya Barrett?” he grunted.

  “That’s me,” I said, my voice a cracked whisper. My heart raced as I followed him through a door marked DETECTIVE WARREN MORRIS.

  I followed him into the tiny office. There was no place for me to sit. He slumped down in his desk chair and glanced over the yellow report I’d filled out. My eyes wandered to a navy mug, printed with PROUD PARENT OF AN ALTON HIGH HONOR STUDENT. A gold-framed photograph of two children, a boy and a girl, sat beside it on his desk. In the picture the boy looked about twelve and the girl fourteen. She had a pretty face, brown hair pulled back, and a big smile with braces.

  “You reported that you were kidnapped, drugged, taken in a car, shot at …”

  He kept his eyes on the paper. His hands and face looked dried and weather-beaten.

  “It’s true.” I spoke quickly. The words poured out in a frenzied rush as I retold the story I’d summarized on the paper: how I’d been at MapOut working late when the electricity was cut off, and how I’d gotten into the car thinking it was my friend Blaney …

  “That’s enough.” He held his hand up to stop me.

  “What?” I felt myself fighting back tears.

  He pressed a button on the printer beside the computer screen, then leaned back in the chair and finally looked me in the eye. “Tanya,” he said. “Do you know there’s a warrant out for your arrest?” He picked up a white sheet of paper from the printer tray and held it out to show me.

  MISSING CHILD

  NAME: TANYA BARRETT

  Last seen leaving 46 Maple Street, Amherst, MA, at 9 P.M., getting into blue Volkswagen.

  Age: 16

  Hair: Brown.

  Eyes: Brown.

  Height: 5’6”

  Weight: 115 lb.

  Wanted for breaking and entering. Computer hacking and robbery. If anyone has information regarding this child, contact: Commissioner John Kelly of the Amherst Police Department, 413-880-8866.

  I stared at my face in black-and-white pixels, my class picture from last year. Then it hit me. Harrison had reported me to the police for hacking into my dad’s files. I flashed back to that terrible moment in his office when he confronted me about the incident, warning me that what I had done was a criminal act. I couldn’t breathe.

  The detective looked at me with a sorry expression. He folded his hands on his desk, leaning forward. “I have a daughter your age. I hate to see someone so young in this position. There are options for girls like you. Rehab is one.”

  “Rehab?”

  “You came from Massachusetts to these parts for a reason, I’d wager. You probably know as well as I do how much meth moves in and out of Alton.”

  My mind flashed to that crumbling red house at the edge of the woods, that sickly metallic smell wafting from its kitchen. He thought I was a drug addict, a runaway, a delinquent. “You don’t understand; this …” I tried to explain but choked on the words.

  He handed me a box of tissues. “We’ll have to keep you here in the holding cell until your legal guardian claims you. Your guardian or the court decides what to do.”

  For a moment I was too panicked to speak. I sniffed and wiped my eyes, fighting to remain calm. “Can I call my mom?” I managed. I wasn’t about to tell him both my parents were dead. That would help confirm the suspicion he’d already formed thanks to Harrison, that I was some street kid who broke into buildings to steal computers.

  I clenched the tissue in one fist as Detective Morris shoved his phone toward me. My hand felt clammy as I clutched the receiver, jabbing at the buttons with my forefinger. Thank God I could remember the number. It was my mom’s number. My dad’s number. The only number that had never changed. I pressed the black, heavy receiver to my ear. It smelled faintly of cologne. It rang once.

  “Hello?” Beth answered, her voice frantic.

  “Beth?”

  “Tanya,” she gasped. “Oh, thank heaven. Where have you been? Where are you? Blaney told me she was waiting for you but you never showed up …”

  “Blaney told you? You saw Blaney? She’s okay?” I let out a sigh of relief that echoed Beth’s.

  “She’s fine, but where are you?”

  “I’m at a police station,” I told her as calmly as I could. “There’s a warrant out for my arrest. They’re going to put me in jail.”

  Beth paused. “What police station? Where?”

  “Alton—”

  “Tanya,” a voice interrupted.

  I froze. Harrison. He’s with Beth. And I had said my location by name.

  “Tanya,” Harrison repeated. “Where are you?”

  I couldn’t speak. He spoke in the same quiet and commanding tone he’d used when speaking to my kidnappers through the computer in the car. My throat felt thick. Who were these people who supposedly loved me, who were meant to be looking after me, these people whom my father had trusted with my life? I slammed the phone down on the hook. I had nowhere to go. No one to go to. Home was not an option. Home didn’t even exist anymore, apparently.

  “Are you okay?” Detective Morris asked.

  “I’m sorry, I … um—I need the bathroom,” I stammered.

 
; A flash of what looked like sympathy crossed his face. He chewed his lip. “To the left, at the end of the hall,” he said. “Don’t take too long.”

  As if in a dream, I shambled out and headed toward the battered lavatory door. On my right, I passed a door marked JANITORIAL.

  Something in my brain clicked into gear.

  The janitor’s door was parallel to the entrance. It was exactly twelve feet from the front wall, where I’d noticed those strange prison-like square windows. I hesitated, remembering there had been nothing behind them; the glass was dark like water at night, which probably meant the room was empty. No one was watching me. I glanced back toward Detective Morris’s office, then tried the door handle as quietly as I could.

  It opened.

  In a flash, I shut the door behind me, engulfed in pitch-blackness.

  The air smelled of mildew and bleach, and worse. I felt the doorjamb for an inside lock but there was none. I knew I didn’t have time; I knew I’d be found. I blinked and squinted, willing my eyes to adjust. But even after several minutes, I couldn’t make out anything more than vague silhouettes, shapes at an indeterminate distance.

  Steeling myself, I backed against the door and walked forward slowly into nothingness, hands in front of me, blind. My fingertips brushed against something soft and plastic. Paper towels. Rolls of them. My hands dropped and landed on a shelf. Gripping the edge tightly, I moved to the right until I reached the shelf’s end. I was able to move past it, toward the outer wall. I was seven feet from those windows now. Hands back in front of me, I stepped forward.

  “Tanya?” Detective Morris barked from the hall.

  I froze as his footsteps pounded past the closet. He rapped loudly on the bathroom door. My heart thumped. I reached to the left and found the back of the paper towel shelves, then inched farther to the left. A foul stench tickled my nostrils. I made it six feet before I nearly tripped over a huge plastic mass of something.

  “Tanya, open up!” he barked.

  “What’s going on, Warren?” a female voice asked. It sounded gravelly, like the woman behind the bulletproof glass. But it could have belonged to anyone.

  “I let her go to the bathroom,” the detective grumbled.

  “Alone? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Just open the damn door, Beatrice.”

  I held my breath and heard the creak of hinges. “It’s open,” the woman spat.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

  “You left the side door open when you went for your coffee break, too. Remember that, genius? She’s probably hitchhiked halfway to Richmond by now.”

  “Shut up; she can’t be far. Check the supply closet.”

  Without thinking, I crouched down low.

  The door flew open, and the sudden flood of light made me wince. In an instant, I assessed my surroundings: I was huddled between two tall banks of cleaning supply shelves, right next to an industrial-sized bag of rotting garbage. No wonder this room smelled so bad. Hiding behind the bag was my only option. I straddled it and lay down on my knees, squeezing my ankles under my butt, prostrating myself so my forehead touched the dank stone floor. I knew from the size of the bag and the size of my body I’d be invisible to anyone who peeked between the shelves. Of course, if anyone bothered to look closely at all, I’d be caught …

  The putrid stench was overpowering. My pulse raced so hard that I barely heard the scuffling of the officer’s feet, up to the outer wall and back toward the hall again.

  “She ain’t here,” she called. “Jesus, it stinks. When was the last time you cleaned this place, Warren? What the hell is going on with you, anyway?”

  The door slammed shut, enveloping me once more in blackness.

  My breath came in gasps. I concentrated on relaxing the flow of awful-smelling air in and out of my lungs. I counted to seventeen over and over again—five, six, seven times. When I could no longer hear their voices or footsteps, I crawled back over the bag. I decided to stay low just in case the door opened again. Back on my hands and knees, I felt my way out of the passage between the shelves. The dank floor was sticky in places. I ignored the grime, ignored the smell, ignored my fear.

  Turning left I scrambled the last four feet eight inches to the wall. At the bottom I felt a draft from above. With it, relief washed over me. But when I stood and felt for the glass, my fingers bumped up against a square metal plate. The windows were sealed with some kind of latch. I ran my hand along the edge and felt a bolt. It was stuck.

  I pushed again. It wouldn’t budge.

  The sound of a police siren echoed outside. Why were the windows bolted shut? What would I do now? I was trapped. Hidden, but trapped. But of course I was. This was a police station. Detective Morris may have been careless in leaving a door open, but an entire police department wouldn’t be stupid. If they detained people in this building, they would seal off any room that could provide an escape.

  Calm down, I said to myself. Calm down and think. Think. The side door may still be open. Maybe I can get out that way.

  My hands went cold and I felt a pain in my chest. I couldn’t keep still, but there was no room to pace. That’s what panic does: it forces you further and further into danger, further into your own mind. I mustered all my strength, pushing against the bolt until my palms were blistered and sore. When I brought them to my face, they smelled of metal and rust. I screamed silently into my hands.

  The enormity of the situation hit. Even if I miraculously escaped, I wasn’t safe. Harrison was hunting me for a reason I couldn’t even begin to guess. Harrison, the man who was my “second dad.” What had I done wrong? I tried the latch again. This time, by some magical turn of events, it will open. I remembered Beth once telling me that the definition of insanity is when you try the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

  I slid down the wall. Squeezing my eyes shut, I rocked back and forth, wracked with silent sobs. My ankle ached again. It was swollen, hot to the touch, but massaging it made it feel slightly better. The temptation to give up and scream for help bubbled from some desperate place. There was no other way this could end. I’d be caught.

  When I jerked awake, my first thought was that I needed to use the bathroom. Badly. For a moment I forgot where I was. But the whiff of garbage and the cold grimy floor beneath my cheek brought me back in a queasy rush. I bolted upright, my eyes drawn to thin strips of light above me: sunshine peeking through the bolted metal shutters. I listened to the sounds on the street outside, birds chirping, the rumble of trucks, car doors opening and closing. In the distance, I could just barely make out the steady, unmistakable clatter of a train.

  It must have been Sunday, but I had no idea what time. My first thought was, I have to get back to MapOut by Monday morning for work. I imagined myself on my bike, riding into the MapOut parking lot. All those bright college kids would be locking up their bikes and getting ready for the day. Then, it hit me: that was not my reality anymore I wondered if any of those college kids had any idea who their boss really was. Would any of them notice I was gone? Would they ask about Connor? Would it even strike them as strange that we had both disappeared at the same time? Or would they just get their organic Sumatra coffee and plug their iTunes in their ears as they inputted data and wrote code? Did anyone have a clue about what was going on there? These were smart people, really smart people, did they know they were being clocked on their smart phones?

  I shoved the thoughts aside. I needed to get out of this building, out of this town. Harrison and Beth both knew where I was now. I kicked myself for telling Beth, but how was I supposed to know that Harrison would be there with her? For all I knew, Beth was on Harrison’s side. Maybe she’d told Alison to go ahead and shoot. I thought of the movie Rosemary’s Baby, one of Dad’s favorites. That’s the way my life felt right now: every person close to me was in on the same conspiracy. There was almost no one I could trust. And the few I could, like Rebs or Blaney, I’d jeopardize.

  The res
t, like my mom and dad, were dead.

  I pushed myself to my feet and gingerly tested my ankle. It wasn’t nearly as sore as it had been. But my joints were stiff and my back ached from sleeping on the floor. Using the lavatory was too risky, so I held my breath, ducking behind the sack of garbage where I’d hid last night. It was amazing how quickly my eyes adjusted to the tiny bit of sunlight leaking through those cracks. A moment later, I stepped out from between the two supply shelves—and my gaze zeroed in on a box beside the door.

  Written in black marker across it were the words LOST & FOUND. I rifled through it, tossing aside a brown flip-flop, a brown winter coat, a pair of sunglasses, a purple hair scrunchie. Did girls still wear scrunchies in Alton? A Frisbee, a Redskins cap, a purple-blue Alton High sweatshirt. I held it up; it was a little big but it would work. I pulled off my filthy grey hoodie and buried it in the bottom of the pile, then pulled the sweatshirt over my head. It smelled surprisingly clean, of detergent. I pressed the fabric to my nose, taking a deep breath. It reminded me of home, the home I no longer had.

  With a pang, I pushed my hair back, tying it up with the purple scrunchie. Then I grabbed the baseball cap and pulled the ponytail through the back. Not my favorite look, but whatever; I didn’t want to look like me. What I really needed was a new pair of pants. Mine were ripped, not in the right places, and mud-stained.

  Time to go.

  I was banking on two things. The first: Detective Morris probably worked the night shift, so his office would be deserted. I closed my eyes, picturing the route back to the main entrance. It was right there in my memory. I counted the steps through the halls and back into the foyer with the bulletproof glass. Not far: left, right, then left again—a total of 34 feet. The second: it was early, so maybe the police station would be quiet. Maybe that gravel-voiced woman would be home, too.