The truck swerved violently, throwing me first against the door and then into Dobkin. I could feel the ground bumping beneath us and branches ripping the sides and belly of the truck as we careened off the road and sliced straight into the woods.
I tried to grab Dobkin—to hold on to him—to shield him from what was coming—
But suddenly there was a bone-jarring crash—the sound of ripping metal and shattering glass—
“Dobkin!” I screamed.
Then there was only silence.
16
Just what are you trying to prove?”
It was Jimmy Frank’s voice I heard through the darkness. It was so cold and so calm and so furious that it absolutely terrified me.
“Dobkin?” I whispered.
A hand grabbed my shoulder. There was blood on my lips. I could taste it when I opened my mouth, and I tried to wipe it off on my sleeve.
“Dobkin?” I called again shakily. “Dobkin, are you all right?”
“Damn,” Jimmy Frank muttered, and this time I realized his voice was trembling just below the surface of his control. “This can’t be happening.…”
Beside me Dobkin whispered, “I’m okay, Marlee,” and I wanted to burst into tears, but instead I burst out at Jimmy Frank.
“What the hell are you trying to do? Kill us? You jerk—just because you don’t want me at your stupid school, and you’re so narrow-minded and prejudiced—you—you—”
“You saw her, didn’t you?” Jimmy Frank broke in. “I would have run her down if I hadn’t swerved.”
My voice just stopped. I felt like an ice-cold hand had crept into my chest and was squeezing the life out of my heart.
“What?” I looked at him stupidly, barely even aware of Dobkin’s hand patting my arm.
“Suellen,” Jimmy Frank murmured. “There. In the road.”
I stared out the windshield. We’d hit a tree, and there were cracks running out in all directions, and it was getting so dark outside. I was afraid to turn around and look behind us. I was afraid Suellen Downing might be standing behind us in the gloom, looking like she’d looked in my mirror.…
“You must have seen her,” Jimmy Frank said again. His voice was as flat as a rock. “You said—”
“In my mind,” I answered before I even thought. “I meant …” I looked into his eyes and sighed wearily. “I meant … I saw her … in my mind.”
It was quiet for a long time. Nobody moved. When Jimmy Frank spoke at last, he sounded drained. Resigned.
“Your mind,” he repeated numbly. “Then you weren’t lying. You really are psychic.”
“Why would someone lie about that?” Dobkin asked, rubbing his head and looking from Jimmy Frank to me and back again. “Why would you want kids to think you’re a weirdo?”
I think Jimmy Frank nodded. It was hard to tell there in the dark interior of the truck. I would have loved to drop the whole subject altogether, but I was still trying to come to grips with what he’d just said.
“She … was in the road?” I gulped.
“Yes. Suellen. I mean …” He hesitated for a long time. “I mean, I know it couldn’t have been Suellen. Not really. But I thought …”
He leaned his head back, hitting it gently against the back window.
“It was Suellen. What are you, some kind of a witch?”
“How do you know it was her?” I persisted. “How can you be so sure, when you weren’t even willing to believe me?”
Jimmy Frank groaned. He sounded even more resigned.
“Because,” he said at last. “I’ve sensed her, too.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I turned away from him and stared out the window into the darkness, and I could feel beads of sweat popping out on my forehead, but I was chilled through and through. He’s lying … he’s lying and trying to play some kind of trick on me … but why? Why would he do that …?
“I don’t believe you,” I murmured.
“I didn’t believe you, either. So now we’re even.”
Dobkin didn’t say anything at all. I put my hand on his head and felt something sticky, and suddenly realized he must be bleeding.
“You told me you were okay,” I gasped, but he calmly pushed my hand away.
“It’s your blood,” he said. “I think you bled on me.”
I glanced down, searching for a rag of some kind, but Dobkin felt around on the seat beside him and silently slipped something into my hand.
It felt like a bandanna—Jimmy Frank’s, I guessed. I started to ask him if it was okay to use, but he was so intent on talking, that I didn’t want to interrupt. I pressed it to my lip, then gave it back to Dobkin.
“I’ve always had a feeling about this road,” Jimmy Frank went on quietly. “Ever since she disappeared. Sometimes it was so strong, I wouldn’t even want to drive this way. But I never could put my finger on it, no matter how hard I tried to figure it out. I even thought I was going crazy sometimes, feeling things no one else could feel, sensing things no one else could sense. I’d try to make them go away, but I couldn’t. And it’s not exactly something you can go to the police with, is it.”
It was a statement, not a question. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and even though I wanted desperately to tell him everything I’d felt and sensed and experienced, I just sat there and held it all in.
“If you tell anyone about this!” Jimmy Frank whirled on me. “I mean anyone—”
“No”—I was shaking my head and trying to stay calm—“no, of course not—”
“Damn!” He slammed his fist onto the steering wheel and glared at me. “Of all times to—of all people—”
“I’ve got to get home,” I whispered.
He shifted his gaze to the broken windshield. He bit hard on the inside of one cheek.
“Please,” I said.
He shifted the truck in reverse and put his foot on the gas, but the truck just groaned. It sat there smashed up against the tree, and I could hear the motor grinding and the wheels spinning, and after a few minutes Jimmy Frank snapped off the key.
“Nice night for a walk.” He sighed, shoving open his door. “Let’s do it.”
Everything about it was so dreamlike—the three of us climbing out of the truck and starting off down the road. The moonlight filtering down through the clouds in the sky, the road snaking off and disappearing through the trees. I had this eerie feeling that if we followed it, we’d just walk through the shadows and disappear off the face of the earth.
Just like Suellen …
My mind was going in a million directions at once. I kept thinking about what Jimmy Frank had said—what he’d admitted to me—but each time I sneaked a look at his face, his expression was so grim, I was afraid to bring anything up again. Maybe he didn’t say it at all, I tried to argue with myself. Maybe I blacked out for a minute in the wreck and just hallucinated everything.…
“Where are we going?” I spoke up as we came to a crossroads. He didn’t answer, and when I instinctively turned toward one road, he turned down another.
“Back this way,” he said.
“I thought town was this other way—”
“You have a terrible sense of direction, don’t you.” He sounded mildly annoyed. “I think I know which direction to go—it’s not like I haven’t been this way a million times.”
I clammed up. The route didn’t seem right to me, but I couldn’t very well not go with him. Not with Dobkin trailing along behind, trusting both of us to get him home. So I went, but I kept glancing back over my shoulder, thinking we should have gone the other way.
We walked a long time without speaking.
Dobkin kept up bravely, but before long I could tell his feet were starting to drag. I pretended to have something in my shoe and deliberately lagged behind so I could stay in step with him. Jimmy Frank stopped and waited for us to catch up.
“Come on, pal,” he said, and before I knew what was happening, he scooped Dobkin up in his
arms and started walking again.
“Hey!” I yelled. I thought Dobkin might freak out—number one, he hates being carried, and number two, he’s not that keen on strangers. But Dobkin looked back at me over Jimmy Frank’s shoulder, and though he looked slightly startled, he didn’t seem to mind the ride.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,” Jimmy Frank said, picking up the pace. “And it’s too far for this little guy to keep up.”
I hurried after them. It was so dark now, I could barely see the road up ahead. Trees rustled around us, whispering secrets, stirring shadows into weird, frightening shapes. I felt like there were invisible eyes watching from everywhere, and suddenly the image of Suellen’s watery face popped into my mind, and I gasped out loud.
Jimmy Frank turned around, and I ran up beside him.
“What you said back there,” I blurted out, “about Suellen!”
“What about it?” he growled, starting off again.
“You weren’t lying, were you? About sensing her?”
“Why would I lie about something like that?” Now he sounded really angry. “Just drop it, will you? I wish I’d never brought it up.”
“Well, wh-what I mean is,” I stammered, not knowing quite what to say, “is that I want to know what you’ve … you know … sensed.”
He didn’t answer, just kept walking. Dobkin’s head drooped down onto his shoulder, but Jimmy Frank didn’t seem to notice.
“I know what it’s like!” I insisted, trying to keep up with his long stride. “Knowing how crazy you’ll sound and being afraid people won’t believe you—how things pop right into your mind when you don’t want them to, and it makes you so scared …”
My voice trembled. I was afraid I might cry, and the last thing I wanted to do was to break down in front of him.
“Jimmy Frank, I’ve got to know!” Lunging for him, I grabbed his arm and forced him to a stop. He looked down at me, surprised, and I burst out, “I’ve got to know what you’ve felt about Suellen!”
He looked down at me for a long time. I couldn’t exactly see his face in the dark, but I could feel his eyes burning into mine.
“Come on,” I whispered. “I feel really alone in all this. Please.”
He started walking again, but more slowly this time, so it was easier for me to keep up.
“Not knowing what happened to someone,” he murmured. “There’s nothing quite so awful as that.” He was silent a moment, and then his voice grew hard. “Just having someone completely disappear without a trace. Nothing shakes you up like that. Not knowing if they went off somewhere … if they’re dead … what happened.”
I started to tell him I knew Suellen was dead, but he went on, so I kept quiet.
“Especially in a place like this—it shook up the whole town. You’ve got to understand, people here were never afraid before that. They never locked their doors or got scared about their kids or worried about being alone or getting inside before dark. And it made them even more suspicious of strangers.”
I thought about this a moment. At last I said, “So what do most people think happened to her?”
“There were a lot of outsiders around then. Because of the highway being built. Lots of drifters … guys looking for temporary work. At first everyone was so hopeful she’d be found … they just knew a clue would turn up somewhere. But then …”
The silence dragged on. From somewhere in the distance a dog howled at the moon.
“People started accepting the fact that she was gone for good.” Jimmy Frank sighed. “I mean, what else could they think? They figured some drifter passed through town—got rough with her—hid her where no one would ever find her again.”
I shuddered violently. I tried to keep the image of Suellen’s face out of my mind.
“But …” I pressed him cautiously, “you sensed her. When? Right away?”
Dobkin gave a soft moan. Jimmy Frank shifted him to his other shoulder before he answered.
“No. And it wasn’t a constant thing, either. Just every so often I’d get this …” He seemed to be groping for words, so I helped him.
“Twinge,” I said wryly. “A twinge of feeling—or emotion—or whatever you want to call it. Most of the time when you least expect it. Or want it.”
“You understand,” was all he said to that.
“Were you close to her?” I asked.
“No closer than anyone else. I went out with her a couple times. A lot of guys did. She hung out with some of the girls, but none of them were what you’d call best friends.”
The shadows pressed closer onto the road. I moved closer to Jimmy Frank.
“So what have you sensed about her?” I asked.
“Look,” he said, stopping and turning to face me. “I have to live in this town. I have to face these folks every day. They don’t like people who’re different. They don’t understand things like this. I know what I feel … and I know what I saw back there in the road. But if this ever got out—ever got out—”
“I swear,” I said, and I laid my hand gently on his arm. “I swear to you, I’ll never tell a single soul. I know what it’s like. I know how you feel. It’s something I’ve tried to hide—to deny, really—for a long time myself.”
He sounded suspicious. “What do you mean?”
“My parents died two years ago, and I knew when it happened. They had a car wreck and … and … I knew.”
Another long silence. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know.”
“Some people say it’s a gift.” I sighed. “But I think it can be a curse, too. Feeling other people’s pain and fear. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t want it. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
He seemed to mull this over. He started walking again.
“So you felt something about the road,” he said softly, “just like I have. Funny thing is, sometimes it’s as normal as can be. But other times, it’s like the air is charged. Like some kind of force is there reaching out to you. You expect something to happen.”
Dobkin made another sleepy sound, and I reached for Jimmy Frank’s arm once more.
“He must be getting heavy. Why don’t you let me carry him?”
“It’s okay. I’m not tired.”
“I wasn’t telling the truth back there when you found us,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t going to Tyler’s cabin. I went to Suellen’s house to see if I could pick up on anything.”
“I figured it might be something like that,” he threw back at me.
“But I didn’t sense anything. Not till we got to that spot on the road. And then it was so strong! I know she was there—with someone familiar that she trusted!”
“And you said it was the day she disappeared?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“And you think this person was … tied in some way … to her disappearing,” he said slowly.
“Yes. I’m sure of that, too.” I thought a moment and then looked up at him. “Don’t you have any ideas? A friend of hers? Some boyfriend she had? You must have some sort of clue!”
“Whoa.”
He stopped abruptly. He knelt down in the middle of the road and lowered Dobkin to his lap and gazed down into Dobkin’s peaceful face.
“Marlee …” he said slowly, “careful now. I don’t think you realize what you’re saying—”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. She wouldn’t have been with this person if she’d been afraid of—hey!” I shouted as Jimmy Frank hoisted Dobkin back onto his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong? Wait up!”
Jimmy Frank was striding away, like he didn’t want me to catch up with him this time, but I ran after him anyway and pulled on his arm until he finally turned around.
“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded. “Don’t you want to help her?”
“And how could I help her?” He sounded impatient. “Every single theory’s already been thought of! Edison and every other town within a hundred
miles of here were crawling with cops for weeks and weeks! What could anyone possibly come up with that they didn’t already think of?”
He shook me off, but I was just as stubborn.
“Come on,” I pleaded, “wait a minute!”
“You don’t understand how it is here!” he threw back at me, so angry now that his voice was shaking. “People have forgotten about Suellen and what happened to her—they want to forget! As far as they’re concerned, whatever happened to her can’t be changed, and she’s miles and miles away from here by now—otherwise she would’ve turned up when they went over this place with a fine-tooth comb! You start stirring things up again and making accusations, and I promise you, it’ll cause problems—”
“But I don’t think she’s miles away at all! I think she’s still around here somewhere!”
It popped out before I could stop it, and it shocked me more than it did him, but I still couldn’t seem to shut up.
“That’s the trouble with this town! They all want to pretend it never happened—they want to believe it was an outsider who did it! But you know what I think? I think it could have been someone right here! I think instead of being so suspicious of outsiders, they should start being suspicious of each other!”
“Christ,” he muttered. “You … you think she’s still around here somewhere? Here? Why did you say that?” He whirled on me, his face cold and furious. He took a step forward, and I backed up.
Suddenly there was the sound of a car coming, and in the next instant one raced around the curve of the road, pinning us with its headlights.
I felt Jimmy Frank’s hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of the way as a car screeched to a stop beside us.
“Hey,” Tyler said, leaning out the window of his Mustang. “Need a lift?”
I could see Noreen in the seat beside him, leaning across his shoulder, staring out at us with surprise.
“What’s the matter with you two?” Tyler laughed. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
17
I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened.
After Tyler and Noreen picked us up, I couldn’t think about anything else.
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