The Hunted

by Mike Dellosso

  Maggie dropped her brow and pressed her lips together. "Let's pay Stevie a visit, see if he's in the talking mood."

  Maggie slowly navigated her cruiser down the rutted dirt lane that led back to Stevie's abode. Gary followed her lead in his cruiser. They parked side by side in front of the trailer and climbed out of their cars.

  Stevie's trailer looked different in the daylight-it looked worse. The corrosion was more pronounced, a stark contrast to the dirty white and faded green exterior. The blue tarp on the roof was held in place by fraying rope that wrapped underneath the trailer and up the back. Torn garbage bags, bulging with refuse, were piled waist high, and rotting food and soiled containers were strewn around the small yard. Knee-high weeds grew up around the trailer, hiding the skirting that was falling off in some places and torn completely away in others. It wasn't much to look at, but Maggie knew it was all Josiah could afford. After all, it was out of his own benevolence that he'd taken Stevie in and raised him, then gave him a place of his own. Josiah paid all the utilities and taxes on the trailer, drove Stevie to doctor appointments, and brought him groceries every week. He was a real saint, that Josiah, even if he was a little unusual himself.

  Stevie was waiting for them at the front door. As they approached, he opened the storm door and stepped outside onto the wooden steps, shoved one hand in his pocket, and shifted his weight from leg to leg, back and forth, back and forth.

  "Howdy ho, Chief Maggie," he said, giving Maggie a quick smile and flick of the wrist. His eyes darted from Maggie to Gary and back to Maggie again. "What brings you to my neck of the woods?"

  He looked nervous. But then again, Stevie always looked nervous around other people. He suspected everyone of plotting some grand conspiracy to have him arrested or kidnapped or "knocked off," as he called it. Everyone was the enemy-except Maggie. She was his friend. That's what he called her. She was the only one who protected him and chased away his pursuers.

  "Hi, Stevie. Is it OK if we come in and talk?"

  Stevie looked at Gary again and narrowed his eyes. "Does he have to come too?"

  Maggie looked back at Gary and nodded. "Uh, no. He'll stay out here and wait for me."

  Stevie straightened his back and clicked his heels together, motioning toward the opened doorway like a ritzy hotel doorman. "Then right this way."

  When Maggie stepped inside Stevie's trailer, she quickly surveyed the kitchen area. Not much had changed since she last visited. The trash can was still overflowing with empty milk cartons and cat food cans. The place still reeked, and the clutter had only grown worse.

  Stevie let the storm door slam shut behind him. "C'mon in and have a seat."

  "That's OK," Maggie said, following him into the living room. "I can stand. I've been sitting in my car all morning."

  Stevie sat in his recliner and smiled a big open grin at Maggie. His teeth, what were left of them, were yellow and black and rotting. "Question?"

  "Stevie, I'm going to be straight with you. Officer Warren said you called him this morning and told him Woody Owen needed help. Is that true?"

  Stevie's smile vanished like a puff of wind had kicked up and blew it away. He shifted nervously in his chair, his eyes darting about the room like he was following the path of some invisible leaves blown about by the same wind. His face twitched, and he raked his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. "Uh, no, I don't think so," he said, trying desperately to avoid eye contact with Maggie. "The good officer must be mistaken."

  Maggie put her hands on her hips and looked down at Stevie like a mother would her rebellious child. "Don't lie to me, Stevie. I'm your friend, remember? I'm here to help you. I just want to know how you knew about Woody, that's all."

  "I, uh, I, uh, don't know what you're talkin' about."

  "Stevie." Maggie's voice was now stern and commanding. "How did you know Woody was hurt?"

  Stevie pulled his knees to his chest and began to tremble. "I ain't seen nothin', Chief Maggie," he yelled. "And I ain't talkin' anymore 'bout it."

  "OK, OK. Don't get all upset about it. Must have just been a misunderstanding, that's all." She knew he was lying. Stevie was one of the worst liars she'd ever seen, and she'd seen her fair share. But arguing with him would do no good; she knew that from experience. When Stevie had enough, he'd shut himself off and hide somewhere within himself that no one else could get to. "I'll just be leaving then."

  She spun around to leave, stopped in the kitchen, and turned to face him again. "How's your cat, Stevie?"

  Stevie peered at her from behind his knees. "What cat? I ain't got no cat."

  "Well, then, you've really taken a liking to cat food, huh?" She glanced at the trash can.

  He followed her look, and she knew she'd pushed a button.

  "Have a good day, Stevie."

  CHAPTER 17

  HE LIGHT IN Caleb's room was dim and soft, like the early morning glow just before the sun peeks above the horizon. But the dimness was not caused by the light of dawn but merely by the heavy curtains drawn over the large glass windows. Only a single shaft of sunlight snuck between the fabric, throwing an illuminated bar across Caleb's bed, but allowing enough residual light to cast the room in a muted blush.

  Sometimes, Rosa would pull the curtains, turn off the lamp, and enjoy the peace and serenity of the dim room. It reminded her of Caleb's bedroom at home with only the soft shine of the night-light to polish the sharp edges. At times, sitting here next to her son's bed, she could almost convince herself that they were home and he was only sleeping, tired out after a full day of school, homework, and play. She told herself that in a matter of hours he would awaken, stretch, yawn, and pad downstairs, hair disheveled, pajamas wrinkled, face sheet-creased, and enjoy a breakfast of eggs and toast with her before she went to work and he to school.

  Reality would then lift its misshapen head, and the room would lose its softness, its innocence, and become the sterile, clinical place it was, a place where her son lay in a coma, the victim of a heinous act of violence, with no guarantee that he would ever awaken.

  Rosa leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. The room was warm and quiet, as still as a summer morning. Beyond the closed door, only the occasional squeak of a sneaker or muted voice disrupted the calm.

  A soft knock came at the door.

  Rosa opened her eyes and said, "Come in. It's open."

  The door opened, and a pudgy man with a round face, smallish eyes, upturned nose, and full lips crowned by a thin mustache entered the room. In one hand he carried a clipboard, the other he put over his heart. "Good afternoon, ma'am. I'm Roger Lipinski, your boy's physical therapist."

  Roger's voice was high and nasally. Rosa guessed he was in his fifties.

  "Hello, Roger. I'm Rosa, Caleb's mother."

  Roger smiled, his eyes almost shutting, and bowed theatrically. "It's a sincere pleasure to meet you, ma'am." He then turned, placed the clipboard on the table, clicked the lamp on, and stood beside Caleb's bed. Placing a hand on the boy's forehead, he glanced at Rosa, then said, "Howdy, pardner, I'm Roger, your Wild West therapist, and I'm gonna get you moving a little, keep you nice and limber so when you wake up you can just hop outta this bed and jump on your horse and ride the range."

  "He loves cowboys," Rosa said.

  Roger nodded. "All boys love cowboys. There's something about riding a free range on the back of a horse that's mesmerizing to a boy. Do you talk to him? Tell him stories?"

  Rosa smiled. "All the time. I talk, sing, pray, anything so he knows I'm here."

  "He ever talk back?"

  Perplexed, Rosa said, "Talk back? I didn't know-"

  "Oh sure, some of 'em-sleepers, I call them-they talk like parrots. None of it makes sense, mostly just jumbled words. The poor family hangs on every word, but they don't mean anything of course, just words."

  Rosa had never heard of such a thing. "No, he's never talked."

  "Well, it's probably for the best. Like I said, the family usually takes it
too seriously and sets themselves up for disappointment." He wrapped his hand around Caleb's heel and pressed his forearm against the ball of his foot, pushing the toes toward the knee. "This stretches the calf muscle, the gastrocnemius. For instance, Mr. Gutswald, down the hall. He's been in a com-I mean, asleep for six months. Last week he started talking. He's been saying, `The sea tastes of chocolate,' over and over again. His family is going nuts trying to figure out what it means. But it doesn't mean anything. They said themselves, he never even liked the water, was scared to death-I'm sorry, bad choice of words-was scared witlessno-scared, just scared of it, and he's allergic to chocolate. Go figure."

  The light was there again, piercing the darkness, hovering high overhead but slowly descending in a spiral movement. The orange glow stopped just above Caleb's head and filled the hole with warmth.

  Suddenly, a tiny book was there, hovering before his face. It wasn't much of a book-no more than two inches by two inches and just a few crisp, worn pages.

  "Take and eat," the voice said.

  Eat?

  "Eat the words, My child."

  He reached for the book, snatched it out of the air, and placed it in his mouth. It tasted sweet, like honey, but quickly dissolved on his tongue.

  "Speak for Us."

  He didn't answer, but savored the sweet aftertaste of the strange book.

  "Speak Our words."

  I will. I'm Yours.

  Releasing Caleb's foot, Roger rounded the bed and proceeded to stretch the opposite calf, the gastrocnemius. "Anyway," he continued in his nasally, high voice, "Mrs. Gutswald, who's there every day, has something against me. Maxie, one of the night nurses, said Mrs. G complained about my physique. Said I'm too outta shape to be a therapist. Can you believe that?"

  He paused as if expecting an answer, but when Rosa opened her mouth to protest, he continued. "I thought that was pretty bold of her. Outta shape. I'm in shape. Round is a shape. I was just telling Maxie the other day-"

  He stopped and let go of Caleb's foot. "Hey, Mrs. Saunders, look at this." He was pointing at Caleb's right hand.

  Rosa stood and rounded the bed. Caleb's hand was twitching and jumping about, fingertips pressed together. "It did that this morning," she said. "It lasted a little while, then just stopped. The nurse, she said it was normal."

  "Normal?" Roger said, his eyebrows rising as if operated by hydraulics. "I wouldn't say it's normal. There's nothing normal about a coma, being asleep." He reached for his clipboard, placed a pencil in Caleb's hand, and held the board under it. "I saw this article once about patients like Caleb here who actually created art. They put pens, pencils, even paintbrushes in their hands when this happened and watched to see what happened. The article said they even sold a bunch of the art, donated the proceeds to medicine."

  In Caleb's hand, the pencil whispered across the paper, scribing circles and lines, angular markings and fluid scribbles.

  When his hand finally stopped and his fingers relaxed, the pencil fell from his grip. Roger glanced at the sheet of paper, slipped it from the clipboard, and handed it to Rosa. "There you go. A Caleb Saunders masterpiece. Hold on to that; he'll want to see it when he wakes up. A real keepsake."

  Rosa looked at the markings. At first glance they meant nothing, just a tangle of flowing lines and dashes and spirals. But the longer she looked, the more it started to make sense. She noticed the Es first, then an h, then an s.

  Then whole words formed.

  Then the picture cleared and it made perfect sense.

  Did her eyes deceive her? Her heart skipped, and the soft hair on her nape prickled. Written behind the scribbles was a message, clear as a flashing neon sign.

  Jo hold sEcrE.

  Joe rushed to Hillside Hall after receiving a call from Rosa saying she needed him there right away. She wouldn't tell him why, even after he repeatedly tried to pry it out of her. She said he had to see it for himself.

  When he walked into Caleb's room, he was fully expecting to see the boy awake and sitting up in bed, smiling at him with that crooked grin that made him look so much like his father.

  But when Joe saw Rosa sitting in the chair that now seemed to be a permanent part of her anatomy, and Caleb lying in the same place he was the last time Joe was there, his heart deflated like a punctured balloon.

  He looked at Rosa and twisted his face into confusion. "What's going on?"

  Rosa smiled wide. She held up a sheet of paper. "This. Look at this. It is a miracle, Joe."

  Joe took the paper and studied it. It looked like nothing more than a bunch of scribbles. Something a two-year-old may have done. "What am I looking at? Who did this?"

  Rosa stood. "Caleb. Remember when you were here this morning and his hand was jumping about and we thought it was spasms?"

  "Yeah." Joe looked at the paper again. Were the scribbles beginning to make sense now? Or was his mind getting so scrambled he was making sense where there was no sense to be made? He shook his head, trying to untangle the wires.

  "Well, Roger had an idea to put a pen in his hand. And this is what he wrote. It's amazing. They were not spasms at all. My son was communicating, Joe. It's a miracle."

  "Wait a minute." Joe was confused. "Slow everything down. Who's Roger?"

  "Caleb's physical therapist."

  "And you're saying Caleb wrote this... while he was in the coma?"

  "He did. It's amazing, yes?"

  Joe looked at the paper again. Now he could see letters and they formed words: Jo hold sEcrE. Incredible! But how could Caleb- "What does it mean?"

  Rosa pointed at the words as she interpreted the writing for Joe. "Joe holds secret."

  "What secret?" Joe was now really confused. His head felt like Jaws, the metal-mouthed villain of James Bond fame, was squeezing the noodle out of it with a garrote. What did Caleb's mauling have to do with him? What secret did he hold? Wait a minute! This came from a kid in a coma! Was it chance that random scribbles not only formed letters but words as well? A message?

  Rosa said, "I was hoping you could tell me."

  Joe rubbed his temples. Metal-mouth hadn't loosened any on the garrote. "Honestly, Rosa, I have no idea what this means. I don't have any secrets, especially regarding Caleb." He studied the paper closer. "This is incredible. How did he do this?"

  Rosa put her hand on Joe's arm. "Joe, have you reconciled your differences with God yet? I know you don't like to talk about it, but I care about you, and I care about your walk with God."

  Joe's defenses were suddenly raised. "What does that have to do with this?"

  Rosa lifted her chin and looked Joe in the eyes; her hands fell to her side. "Please, Joe."

  He sighed and dismantled the barricade around his heart. He knew his question had hurt her. "Rosa, I... 1, uh-" He let his shoulders slump and head drop. She'd respected his privacy long enough; now it was time to come clean. She deserved that much. "I'm sorry. I haven't. I know He's there, and I know He wants me to come back to Him, but I just don't feel I'm ready. That's it. That's the only excuse I have."

  "It's OK," Rosa said. Her voice was soft and soothing and put Joe at ease. "I understand. Just do one thing for me?"

  Joe looked at her but didn't say anything.

  "Do... " She paused and swallowed. "Do you remember when Caleb was born? You came to the hospital."

  Memories of the day flooded Joe like a tsunami. He did visit the hospital. They were all so happy. Rosa's little room was jam-packed with friends and family, and they were all talking and laughing so much a nurse had to ask some of them to leave. After about an hour, everyone had left except Joe. It was just him, Rosa, Rick, and little Caleb. He remembered holding Caleb for the first time. He had never realized how heavy a newborn was-and how fragile. Holding his brother's son stirred something deep inside him, and he remembered well how the tears streamed down his cheeks as he watched innocence sleeping in his arms. Before he had left the room, Rick stopped him. "Joe, I want you to promise me something."

&n
bsp; "Anything," he had said. Anything. His heart was right, but he should have known he could never deliver on anything.

  "If anything happens to me, I want you to be like a father to Caleb. Take care of him. Teach him how to be a man, but more importantly, teach him how to be a man of God."

  Now, back in the present with Rosa and the invisible can-crunching Jaws still trying to squeeze pasta out of his head, Joe's cheeks were once again wet with tears.

  Anything.

  He hadn't kept his promise. He would have been better off just keeping his big mouth shut.

  Anything.

  That word had haunted him for ten full years.

  Rosa placed a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward hers. Her dark eyes were moist and filled with compassion and concern. "It's never too late, Joe. You can still keep your promise. Start with talking to God about this message. It has to be important, but I have no idea what it means. Pray about it, Joe, and God will shed some light on it for you. I know He will. Pray, Joe... for Caleb's sake."

  Joe left without saying another word, but as he walked down the hallway leading back to the lobby, one thought echoed in his mind over and over again: for Caleb's sake.

  CHAPTER 18

  ERALD HELLER'S LIFE had taken a new direction. i

  A little over six months ago, his wife, June, discovered a lump in her right breast and immediately scheduled an appointment with her family doctor. Mammograms were ordered and a mass was detected, confirmed by subsequent ultrasounds. A biopsy followed, and after that the one word she'd dreaded from the moment she'd found the lumpmalignant.

  Her family doctor had referred her to a cancer specialist in Chambersburg who wanted to remove the mass. But June hadn't been thrilled about the idea of surgery, and with her husband Gerald's reluctant support, decided to pursue a natural remedy, but the shadow on the ultrasound only grew larger.

  Weeks turned into months, and finally, after much encouragement from Gerald, she'd agreed to the surgery. It was scheduled for a Monday morning, and by Monday night Dr. Sinahara was delivering the bad news: the cancer was extremely aggressive and had metastasized to lungs and brain.