Then he saw the body.
There, beneath the windowsill, laid out flat on the wood floor. Peaceful, almost.
Harden knew exactly who it was.
Bill.
Bill, the man who liked to answer questions as long as the person asking was willing to pay a price.
He was in his underwear, his skin as white as copy paper. A jagged wound erupted from his chest, and blood had pooled and congealed around the body.
“I didn’t want to do it.”
Harden spun and nearly lost his balance.
Across the room, a man was sitting on a tattered green couch. Harden had no idea how he missed him before, but there was no mistaking who it was.
Ben. Big Ben the frat bouncer. Friend of Coyote. Child of the Revelation.
He was casually cleaning blood off a hunting knife with a bandana. Harden turned his head, looking for a weapon, but there was nothing he could use. Certainly not before Ben sliced him to pieces.
“Don’t worry,” Ben said. “If there’s one thing I do well, it’s following orders. And my orders are to let you go. Unharmed.”
Harden found his voice.
“Where’s Emma?”
Ben seemed to consider whether or not to answer.
“She was taken out yesterday.”
“Taken by whom?”
“Others like me.”
“Where did she go?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Doesn’t seem like you’d end up with the answer in either case.”
Harden tried to swallow but found only cotton on his tongue.
“Who do you take your orders from?”
Ben looked up, mid-wipe. He didn’t answer.
“Were you the other Baby Face? Bill’s partner?”
The wiping resumed. “I was.”
“Why did you kill him?”
Wipe wipe.
“Because I was told to. Like I said, I follow my orders.”
Ben stood and sheathed the blade in a scratched leather holder fastened to his belt.
“I’m leaving now. Wait ten minutes after I drive away and then you can start walking.”
“Where are you going?”
Ben took a set of keys from his pocket. “Away.”
He started walking toward the door.
“Wait . . . wait a minute.”
Big Ben stopped.
“What does Coyote want with me?”
“I have to go.”
Harden took a step toward him, unafraid. “You owe it to me. After what you did to me, you owe me answers.”
Ben scratched the back of his neck. “I’d say it’s up to me to decide who I owe and who I don’t. I don’t owe you anything, Harden.”
“I need to know why,” Harden said. “Why he did it. Why he wanted me to write.”
Ben chewed on this question for a moment, seeming to decide whether or not to answer.
“Let’s put it this way. Coyote thought he knew Bill. Just from a few basic things Bill wrote down, Coyote thought he had him pegged. And he did, for the most part. Bill was a normalseeming dude who, underneath a mound of fat and muscle, was actually a fucking psychopath who got erections watching people bleed.” Ben tapped the side of his head. “Coyote got that about him—he saw it. Knew how to use his talents. But he didn’t know Bill couldn’t be totally obedient. He thought Bill would know not to play games. Not to talk to you. But Bill couldn’t control himself, and Coyote didn’t see that coming. Bill died because of that.”
“Bill died because he disobeyed,” Harden said.
Ben shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you, Harden?” Ben took a step toward him and Harden felt himself tense. “Bill died because he was unpredictable.”
“Like me.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say Coyote needed to learn from you. You were consistently unpredictable, and that made you worthwhile.”
“Yet he let me live.”
“I don’t think he’s done with you. Maybe there’s another act to this. One that he’s got all planned out for you. And when you see him again, you can ask him all these questions yourself.”
Finally, Ben pivoted and reached for the door. He opened it and Harden could feel a rush of air—real air—enter the room. The scent was instantly intoxicating.
“Don’t ever think you’re safe as long as Coyote’s alive,” Ben said. He placed one foot—clad in an old cowboy boot—just over the threshold to the outside world. “And don’t think she’s safe either, because she certainly is not.”
Harden started to speak, but Ben raised a hand.
“No more questions. Ten minutes. Then you can leave. Then you’ll be a free man, depending on how you see it.”
Ben walked outside and shut the door behind him. Moments later, the sound of a car rolling on dirt and rocks slowly faded until Harden found himself alone in a silence to which he had grown well accustomed.
Harden had no watch, so he had to guess at how long ten minutes would last.
The house was old. Barnlike. Small. Next to the kitchen was a small living room with nothing in it except a tattered couch and an orange floor lamp, its brightly glowing bulb highlighting the dirt and grime on the faded hardwood floors.
The walls had been plastered several times over, the most recent layers cracking and peeling like makeup on a decaying clown. Harden turned back to the kitchen and saw something he hadn’t noticed on his first scan. On the counter, partially hidden behind a large cardboard box, sat a computer monitor and a fax machine.
Harden pressed the power button on the monitor. The indicator glowed green for a moment before turning red. No source. A keyboard and mouse rested next to the monitor.
He looked down and saw the computer. Its power was off, but Harden knew better than to even bother turning it on. On the floor next to the computer was the system’s hard drive, the black central nervous system that contained all the data. Harden counted seven holes that someone had neatly drilled through the box.
He eyed the door to the left of the living room. That was the exit. To where, he didn’t know, but it went outside, which was a better option than inside. He didn’t think he could wait a whole ten minutes.
One more minute, he told himself.
Harden quickly checked around for a phone, finding none.
Then he turned his attention momentarily back to the cardboard box on the kitchen counter. He looked inside.
His manuscript.
He pulled out the pages, smelling the dirt, sweat, and blood that had embedded into the fibers. Everything he had written since his first day was there. Then he looked at the fax machine and understood.
This is how they were getting the pages to Coyote, he thought. Which means Coyote is nowhere near here.
Where the hell am I?
The impulse to run suddenly overwhelmed him, and Harden did one more thing before acting upon it. He opened the refrigerator, finding only a half-empty gallon of milk. He opened the cap and took four large gulps, thinking he’d never tasted anything so good before. In the cupboard next to the refrigerator, Harden discovered three PowerBars.
He put the milk and the PowerBars into the box with his manuscript, picked it up, and walked directly out the door Ben had left open.
A farm.
He was on a farm. Nothing but decades-old trees and long-abandoned crops filled his view, and Harden decided with little effort it was the most beautiful thing in the world. He was outside. He was free.
Harden felt a few more tears fill his eyes as he started to walk.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The air was thick and wet, and a squadron of buzzing insects circled Harden’s head as he made his way down a long dirt road. He turned and looked at the house. It looked so simple. So normal. Soaking it in, it was hard to believe that house had been his prison.
There were no cars, though tire tracks were still visible on the dusty path that stretched for a seeming eternity alongs
ide acres of crops disguised as weeds. Harden no longer cared about staying out of sight. He didn’t want to veer off this path and get any more lost than he already was. Wherever he was, Harden knew he was alone, and it sure as hell didn’t look at all like Tillman, New York.
His initial joy at seeing the sun quickly faded as the rays beat down upon him without mercy, preying on his blanched skin and weakened muscles. He took a greedy swig of milk and tore into a PowerBar, devouring it in seconds.
Less than a minute later he collapsed to his knees and vomited. His body simply wasn’t ready for any food different than what he’d been eating for so long. He stayed on his knees for a few minutes, wondering how long it was going to take to find someone. Or for someone to find him.
After wiping his chin, Harden resumed his walk. There was only one direction. Straight ahead. He didn’t care how long he had to walk. It was just what he was going to do.
After what felt like miles but was likely less than one, the road ended in a “T” and Harden had to make his first real decision. Right or left on another dirt road, this one with faint tire tracks in each direction.
Harden looked at the sun and decided it was afternoon, which told him where west was. He went right, which was west.
Another eternity passed. The crops faded into trees, some of which showed faded sprinklings of orange and red.
I was taken here on my birthday, Harden thought. That was June. Jesus, how long was I in there?
Something bit his neck and Harden slapped at it, peeling his hand away to discover a fat mosquito smeared on his fingers, its blood mixed with Harden’s. He wiped it on his filthy pants and kept walking.
He suddenly wished he wore a watch. He never had, but it seemed desperately important to know the time. He needed to be connected to something, even if it was just knowing the hour of the day. A watch with a calendar would even be better.
He fantasized about that for a bit, and then he started thinking about food. Real food. Hamburgers. Pizza. Homemade lasagna, with some spicy chorizo cut up and mixed in. Beer. An icy Rolling Rock in a bottle.
He flirted with a fantasy about how everyone was going to react when they found out Harden was alive, but he forced the thoughts away. He couldn’t go there. Not yet. He had no idea where he was, which meant he wasn’t safe. He wasn’t rescued. He was still lost—the only difference now was he was outside rather than inside. For all he knew he could be fifty miles from the nearest interstate or town, which meant he’d have to sleep outside. He had no idea how cold it got at night, and he had nothing to keep him warm. He might be free, but he was far from safe.
He had just started to digest this thought when he saw another road.
Actually, the first thing he saw was a stop sign, the familiar red octagon beaming at him like the face of a long-lost friend. It was a hundred yards away, give or take, staked into the ground where the earth sloped gently upward.
He stopped and stared at the sign. As he savored it, something even more beautiful whisked by. A car. A car had just sped past the tiny intersection, the small gray blur traveling north at a million miles an hour.
Harden started to run.
The milk sloshed in the container with every pounding step, and the pages threatened to bounce right out of the box as Harden halfran, half-stumbled his way to the stop sign. As he reached the sign, panting and sweating, he saw what he knew would be just over the rise.
A road. A real fucking road. Asphalt and everything. It was a two-laner, with a faded procession of white stripes stretching in each direction as far as he could see. There was even a street sign, giving Harden the first clue of his location.
County Road 7.
It didn’t mean anything to him, but it didn’t matter. It sounded like the most important road in the world, and he knew people liked to drive on important roads. The car he had seen was well out of sight, but where there was one, there would be more.
Harden wasn’t going to take any chances. He wasn’t going to stick out his thumb and hope someone would stop for a hitchhiker who looked like death.
Harden placed his box in the middle of the road and then sat down next to it, waiting for the next car to come barreling by.
It didn’t escape him that this was exactly how Coyote had caused that poor girl’s death.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
He watched the sun creep along the sign as he waited.
And waited.
He couldn’t believe no one else had passed along the road, but that’s exactly what happened. Nothing. The most important road in the world seemed to be closed for business. It had likely been less than a half hour, but in Harden’s mind there would never be any cars to pass this way again. He just started to think about walking when he heard the engine.
The truck was far away but visible. Heading south. Harden’s instinct was to jump up and start waving his arms, but that was too risky. The driver might swerve around him, thinking him insane. No, Harden had to hope that the driver would stop for someone who looked badly in need of help.
He stretched his body along the middle of the road, his torso bisecting one of the painted stripes. He watched as an old white pickup truck rumbled closer, showing no signs of slowing. It would either stop or it would run right over him.
As it barreled toward him, Harden wondered if this was a really stupid decision. He could just start to make out the outline of the driver when he decided to reach up with one arm, a zombie rising from the grave.
The driver finally slowed.
Instead of getting out, the driver pulled the pickup alongside Harden’s body and rolled down the window. A perfectly normallooking man. Midforties. Denim button-down shirt. Nicely combed hair, with a few streaks of gray just above the ears. A look of hesitation on his face.
“What the hell you doin’ in the road, son? You hurt?”
Harden wanted to jump up and hug him but didn’t want to scare him off. He slowly sat up.
“Please help me. I’ve been . . . I’ve been held captive and I just escaped. I don’t know where I am.”
“Captive? What do you mean captive? Like a prisoner?”
“Back there,” Harden said, pointing off in the distance.
“Only thing back there is Nathan McHurley’s old house, and that place has been abandoned for years.”
“Farmhouse,” Harden said. “It was a farmhouse. They kept me in the basement. Large basement. Locked rooms.”
“Maybe I should call the police.”
“Yes, yes. Please call the police. I need help. Please, call them. Call anyone.”
“Okay, then, son. Calm down and get your ass out of the middle of the road. No one comes down here much, but you don’t want to get run over.” He checked the rearview mirror and lifted the handset of a CB radio. “And stay where I can see you. I got a gun nice and handy here so don’t try anything stupid.”
“No. No, sir. I won’t.” Harden moved to the other side of the truck. As he did, he noticed the license plate for the first time.
Iowa.
He yelled at the man through the closed passenger window. “Is this Iowa?”
The man waved him off as he spoke into the CB. When he finished, he rolled down the passenger window.
“What’s that now?”
“Your plate says Iowa. Is that where we are?”
“Holy shit, son. You’re either stoned, stupid, or telling me the truth. Goddamn yes, this is Iowa. Carlyle County.” He stared at Harden a moment longer. “You really didn’t know that?”
Harden shook his head. “Last place I remember being was in New York.”
“New York?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the police are on their way. I’ll sit here and wait with you, but forgive me if I don’t invite you inside my cab. Stay where I can see you, and keep your hands at your sides.”
“Yes . . . yes, sir. And . . . thank you.”
“Well, wouldn’t be right if I didn’t do something.” The man turned his he
ad and spat a wad of something out onto the road. Turning back, he said, “Name’s Walter Hornsby.” He offered a small and not unfriendly nod.
Harden nodded back. “Harden Campbell.”
The man blinked, then drilled his gaze deep into Harden’s face.
“The student from New York?”
Harden nodded, his excitement growing. “Yes. Wyland University. You’ve heard of me?”
The man finally grinned. “Hell, the whole country’s been looking for you and a couple other kids.” He reached over and opened the passenger-side door. “Get in here. I can’t believe I just found myself a bona fide celebrity.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
SEPTEMBER 1990
Eighty-four days.
Harden still couldn’t believe it. Eighty-four fucking days he’d spent in that cell. For eighty-four days, people all over upstate New York were looking for three kids who had just graduated from Wyland University. The search now continued for Emma and Derek.
Harden took a sip of his water and placed the plastic cup back on the tray suspended over his hospital bed. The cold water made his stomach growl, and he yearned for real food. But it was only his second day in the hospital, and his doctor told him he was malnourished and had to work up to consuming larger meals. Another couple of days, the doctor said. In the meantime, all sorts of fluids and nutrients raced through an IV tube into his arm, making him have to piss every half hour.
The last two days had been little more than a blur. Walter Hornsby took a picture of Harden using a beat-up 35mm camera he kept in his truck while they waited in Walter’s truck for the police to show up, telling him he was going to send the photos to any news agency willing to shell out for it. It was Walter who told Harden how long he’d been missing, and the news stunned Harden into silence as they waited. Eventually a squad car came, followed by an ambulance and, for some reason, a fire truck. Harden was taken on an endless journey until he ended up in Cedar Rapids, where he was admitted to a hospital with the word “Memorial” somewhere in the name.
Revelation Page 23