The Warning

by Patterson, James

  The boar still had some fight in it and shook me off roughly. It watched me get up, then came for me again.

  I timed my kick just right and connected with its head. The crack of the blow echoed through the woods as the animal collapsed onto the turf and lay there breathing heavily.

  If I had a gun, I would have put it out of its misery. But I didn’t, and this guy wouldn’t last long, anyway. Its breaths grew faster and shallower before they faded altogether.

  I felt bad but knew that this was a dangerous, deadly creature.

  In which case, I wondered, what did that make me?

  CHAPTER 34

  Maggie

  I HUFFED UP the four steps to the police station, all fired up. I stopped at the top, leaned against the cool brick, and took a few long, slow breaths. I had worked myself up into a tizzy on the brisk walk from school.

  When I stepped inside, I was surprised by what I saw, though I shouldn’t have been. The yellow-brick-and-concrete exterior, after all, had been power-washed to a brightness probably not seen since the place was built more than a half century ago. The interior had that new-house smell, with bright blue carpets and gleaming stainless-steel desks that looked fresh off the OfficeMax truck.

  Three officers, two women and one man, were working back behind the counter, and the male one at the closest desk said, without standing up, “You’re Renee Gooding’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, suddenly feeling stupid.

  “She handles the K-9 units,” this guy, a lanky fellow with dark hair and a bushy gray mustache, said to the other officers. “Veterinarian.”

  Were those two women new in town?

  “I’m here for—”

  “Let me guess,” he said, stepping toward me so I could read the name Erickson on his badge. “You want to know why we can’t make phone calls, right?”

  “W-well,” I said. “Yes. And why we don’t have internet and why no one can come in or out of town and why the newspaper has been shuttered.”

  One of the female officers stood up. “Last night an arsonist exploded a propane tank next to the Jefferson Bridge,” she said. “All the work they’d been doing to open up the south road is now wasted. We’re investigating.”

  “What?” I said. “That can’t be happening.”

  “Well, it did, and there’s nothing the fire department could have done.”

  “How did it blow up?”

  “Sorry,” Officer Erickson said, “we can’t comment on ongoing investigations.”

  “But that’s two propane-tank explosions, the other one at the Carters’.”

  “Like I said, we can’t comment.”

  “I’m with the school paper,” I improvised, digging into my backpack to pull out my math homework notebook and a pen. “This is in the public interest.”

  “We’ve released the names of the people who died,” one of the female officers said. Suddenly I recognized her from around the vet office, though I couldn’t remember her name; she had a beagle mix named Dixie. “Maybe you could go and interview people about that?”

  “Maybe I could,” I said with what I imagined to be the right level of journalistic world-weariness. “But in the meantime, please tell me: How many people died?”

  “The entire Carter family,” the woman responded as I found a blank page in my notebook. “I’m sure you guessed that, given that the tank was right next to their home.”

  “I’m not in the business of guessing, but thank you for the information,” I said curtly.

  “It was against code,” she added.

  “Angela,” Erickson said.

  “What?” she replied. “Anyone who knows building codes knows it was too close to the house.”

  Boy, this woman was a cold piece of work. Maybe that’s what you needed to become a cop these days, but jeez …

  “Right,” I said, “and propane tanks just blow up without explanation and incinerate homes every day.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Erickson said. “This is a great tragedy for our community.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  It made me sick to think about the poor Carters. There were four kids: an eleven-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, an eighteen-year-old, and … “Was Julie Carter away at college?”

  Officer Erickson shook his head and bit his lip. “No. She was home, too.”

  The other female officer, who had been quiet, spoke up. “We haven’t been able to identify the bodies, though. You saw the house. It’s just … gone, along with everything and everyone in it.”

  “Why aren’t you down there right now, then?” I asked. “Wouldn’t this kind of disaster demand a huge cleanup and an effort to recover any remains?”

  “The military took over the investigation,” Angela said. “Sheriff Byrnes is down there, but the army can bring in a hundred soldiers to sort through the debris. Technically, this whole town is under martial law.”

  “Martial law?” Wait. Yes, there were a lot of soldiers around, but martial law sounded a lot more ominous, something related to dictatorships. The cops looked at one another.

  “Okay,” Erickson said, “technically we’re not under martial law. Unofficially, well, I leave it to you as a hardworking journalist to see who’s calling the shots.” He smirked a bit, but I didn’t feel like it was aimed at me as much as the situation.

  “So what about the Allens?” I asked.

  “They’re good, thanks to you,” Angela said. “We heard about what you and that Conners kid did out there. Shame about the Moores.”

  “Did you find their remains?”

  Erickson shook his head slowly. “Again, the soldiers are investigating. We’re on the sidelines.”

  I scribbled something on my pad to give the impression I was taking studious notes. “Okay,” I said as if trying to get it all down. “And what’s the deal with the Sentinel? I went by there before coming here, and it—”

  “They got shut down,” Erickson said. “Carbon monoxide.”

  “Seriously?” I said. “Are they okay?”

  “They’re fine,” he said. “They’ll probably be back in the building by tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” I said, scribbling away. “One last thing: Why are we trapped in this town?”

  “We’re not trapped,” Erickson said. “People who have reason to travel out of the area can still take the north road.”

  “Really? I got stopped trying to take my friend to the hospital.”

  “Well,” he said, “I know there’s a list. Again, not our jurisdiction.”

  “What’s their motivation for keeping us inside?”

  “Panic,” Angela blurted out. “We don’t deny that strange things are happening. But we’re safe, and everything is fine. We don’t want people outside to freak out about something very simple.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Why would the people outside panic? What about the people inside?”

  The phone rang, and the other female officer answered it, then cupped her hand over the receiver and announced, “We’ve got another one.”

  “That’s the second in three hours,” Angela said.

  “Another what?” I asked.

  “Right, you’re the veterinarian’s kid,” Erickson said. “It’s another dog, though they’re saying this one might be a coyote. They should be able to tell the difference, I think, but whatever it is, it’s going crazy down in front of the library.”

  “We’ve been getting a lot of those calls,” Angela said.

  “What do you think is going on?” I asked.

  “Ask your mom,” Angela said with a shrug.

  Officer Erickson, putting on his jacket, said, “I heard they might be strays who got hungry and aggressive while we were evacuated and no one was here to feed them.”

  “My dog wasn’t,” I said.

  “Well, maybe this really is a coyote,” Angela said. “They’re dangerous, you know.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard,
” I muttered. Big help these folks were turning out to be.

  “Well, I’ll see y’all,” Officer Erickson said as he walked toward the door.

  “One more question,” I said, my pen poised over the pad. I thought of asking them about Ishango but decided to keep it more general. “You’ve got animals going crazy, a neighborhood blown up, a bridge blown up, the newspaper shut down for carbon monoxide poisoning, and a town that people can’t enter or exit. Should we really accept this as business as usual? And do you think the military is at all acting oddly?”

  “That’s two questions,” Angela grunted.

  Erickson, though, exchanged a thoughtful if wary look with the other officer. “Define ‘oddly,’” he said.

  I folded my arms. “However you want to interpret it.”

  He leaned forward with both palms atop the countertop and said in a low voice, “Between you and me, there’s something wrong with a bunch of ’em. Almost like they’re pretending to be normal, yet that makes them seem all the more off. Don’t quote me on this. You better not quote me on this. But, off the record, it’s almost like they’re pretending to be human. You know?”

  I nodded.

  “I do,” I said. “Exactly.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Jordan

  THE ADRENALINE PUMPED through my body as I pulled up at the tree line overlooking the valley where the power plant was. Mount Hope, where the town got its name, rose before me. Beyond ran the Sweetbay River, maybe forty or fifty yards across. Granite outcroppings surrounded the area, some higher and some lower.

  The plant looked functional. Steam rose from the cooling towers, and construction vehicles surrounded the pit in the eastern end. The parking lot was full, as always. I spotted my dad’s SUV down there. A new fence was in place, and replacing the barricades that the guards could raise and lower was a chain-link gate across the entrance to stop people like me from doing exactly what I had planned.

  I took a deep, nervous breath and strolled down to the two guards. Neither had been here the last time I’d visited the plant.

  “I’m Derek Kingsley,” I said with a smile, name-checking one of my school’s overachievers. “I’m a student journalist from Mount Hope High. I have an appointment to interview a member of your staff and get a tour of the facility.”

  “We don’t have you on the list,” the younger-looking soldier said, scrolling through an iPad screen.

  “That’s weird. I spoke to Hazel Rhodes about this last week, and she said to come by today.” I put on a puzzled look, as if the power plant’s longtime telephone receptionist had led me astray. “I know where her office is. Should I just go over there?”

  The other guard’s walkie-talkie squawked, and he cupped his hand over it; the only words I could make out were “shift change.” Then the two guards started talking in low voices while I smiled broadly, like I was the most patient dude in the universe. When the iPad guy caught my eye, I mouthed, “Can I go?”

  “Hold on,” he said to his partner, then eyed me closely and nodded oh-so-slightly, as if I’d passed the good-kid test. “The door to reception is right there,” he said, pointing. “Go directly to Ms. Rhodes.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, my heart suddenly thumping so loudly that I was afraid they might hear it. I quick-walked to the door and entered, striding right by Hazel, an exceptionally sweet, grandmotherly African American woman, as she sat in the office next to the reception desk. I’d heard that the key to getting where you weren’t supposed to go was to act like you belonged, so I lifted my chin and walked purposefully down the hallway. I knew where I was going. I’d visited my dad dozens of times over the years.

  But I didn’t care about seeing him. I wanted to see his office.

  Right. Left. Left. Double doors. Stairway one flight down. Right. Passing everyone with an air of belonging, nodding curtly as if almost bored. I was still dressed for school, yet the way I carried myself, I felt like I fit in with the other corporate drones seamlessly.

  Door on the left. There it was: JERMAINE CONNERS.

  I’d timed my visit to coincide with Dad’s afternoon break, which took place at 4 p.m. for years. He was a creature of habit, and even if unusual stuff was happening at the plant, he could be counted on to keep his schedule.

  I awakened his computer. His desktop wallpaper was still the family picture of us from a summer trip we’d taken to the Outer Banks: Charlie’s face flushed from a sunburn, Mom grimacing because she hadn’t fared well with our rocky canoe trip earlier in the day. A prompt asked for my dad’s password, and with a bittersweet pang I typed, “Jord4n&Charli3,” which unlocked our home laptop and I suspected would work here. I was correct. Creature of habit again. I appreciated that he had kept these reminders of family on his computer.

  I typed “Ishango” into the search field, and the results were fast and plentiful: lots of project documents in Microsoft Word and spreadsheets in Excel. I uncapped the small BB-8–shaped flash drive from my key chain—Maggie had given it to me on my last birthday—and stuck it into the USB port. The copying took less than three minutes.

  Success.

  I was on my way out of Dad’s office when a man in a beige shirt and barf-hued tie stopped me. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Jermaine Conners’s son,” I explained, trying to maintain my casual air as I noticed the man’s face flash on the mention of my dad’s name, which I immediately regretted uttering. “I was looking for him, but he’s out. I’ll come back later.”

  I started walking as the man said, “You shouldn’t be here alone. Come with me.”

  “That’s okay. I’m leaving,” I assured him as I slipped into the stairwell and started pitter-pattering up the steps like a slinky cat whose paws barely touched the surface. I heard the door open again behind me, and with a quick glance back, I saw that the beige-shirt guy was following me with a look that was far from lighthearted. I took the stairs two at a time.

  “Wait!” he called out as I exited the stairwell onto the first floor and power-walked toward the exit.

  As I reached Hazel’s door, I stuck my head in and said, “Hi, Hazel! Just dropping by to visit my dad. Good to see you!”

  “Hi, hon!” she replied, lifting herself out of her chair to step around her desk and envelop me in a vigorous hug. In contrast to the rest of this antiseptic place, she smelled like freshly baked biscuits. “You got so big! Let me take a look at you.” She stepped back and nodded approvingly.

  Meanwhile, my ugly-tie guy was standing in the hallway looking like he wasn’t sure what to do next.

  “Wonderful to see you, Hazel,” I said. “Gotta run!”

  I extricated myself, smiled at the beige-shirt guy, and said, “Hazel is the best.” I waved back to Hazel and out of the corner of my eye saw lurking in another office … Bud Winkle.

  I wasn’t sure whether he saw me, but I didn’t have time to worry as I dashed to reach the exit before the beige-shirt guy could react. When the door closed behind me, I exhaled loudly.

  The outside guard booth was manned by two different soldiers now, and I hoped they’d be as easygoing as the first two.

  “Name?” the taller, Asian one demanded.

  “Derek Kingsley. I was meeting Hazel Rhodes for a journalism project. I’m just going to grab my bike and leave.”

  That was a calculated risk, but I’d spotted my bike inside the gate from the last time I was there, and I wanted it back.

  “One second,” the Asian soldier said, gesturing to the other soldier, a pug-nosed short blond guy.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m late for marching band!” I announced as I darted past the guards toward my bike.

  “Halt!” the short guy shouted, which answered my long-standing question of “Does anyone actually say ‘Halt!’ anymore?” I pretended not to hear him, put my hands on the bike’s handlebars, and pushed it toward the parking lot.

  “I said, ‘Stop!’” the guy barked like he meant it, so I obeyed, still holding on to my
bike.

  “No, you said, ‘Halt’!” I replied as I turned to discover that the tall Asian guy had a rifle aimed at my chest. “Whoa, I didn’t realize that retrieving one’s own bike was grounds for shooting a teenager.”

  “Shut it,” the tall guy ordered. His diminutive partner was running his finger down the screen of a mini iPad. I cocked my chin back, trying to get a glimpse of what he was seeing.

  “Stay where you are,” the pug-nosed guy commanded, not looking up from his search.

  I evaluated my options, then took a step toward them with the bike. “Hey, is there a way I could get a message to my dad? He works inside, but I couldn’t reach him.”

  The soldiers looked at each other and then back at me. “The staff are working and have no time for visitors. It’s against protocol,” the short one said.

  “I get it,” I said, holding up my hands and trying to look young and sad, “but I’m just a kid, and my mom was hurt in that explosion a few days ago, and I really wanted to talk to him.” I leaned my bike against the open door of the guards’ booth, realizing that the talk-to-my-dad gambit and the Derek Kingsley gambit weren’t exactly compatible. “Let me see if I can find my ID.” I shuffled through my pockets, looking for something—anything—I could use as a weapon.

  “It’s against protocol,” the guard with the iPad repeated. He looked up at the tall one. “Clear. No Derek Kingsley.” He stepped one foot into the guards’ booth and placed the small tablet on a small table.

  The tall guy gestured to the road. “Just take your bicycle and go.”

  I was about to object, then realized I should appreciate this opportunity to escape.

  “Now,” he ordered, and turned his back and talked into the radio.

  I backed up the bike a bit into the guards’ booth to turn it around, saw the mini iPad just sitting there, and instinctively slipped it into my pants pocket. I swung myself onto my seat and pedaled toward the road. I realized I was holding my breath.

  “Stop!”