Mike pulled up in front of the house and Liana jumped out, running to the door. She disappeared inside, reemerging a moment later, looking up and down the street as if they’d just missed Mitch and Sophie. But they’d seen no one leave. There was no way of telling how long they’d been gone, other than Liana’s gut feeling that they had been here only a moment ago. They had been in trouble. And that trouble had moved on.
“Are you sure what you’re feeling is right? It’s not the dream or—”
“I know I’m right. I feel her, but she’s somewhere... dark now.” Liana stood on the porch with her eyes closed for a moment. She pushed out with her mind, trying to feel what she’d had after waking up on Mike’s love seat. The call across space to that place in her where the little girl she once was still lived. She searched for the feeling, starting to get angry with herself when she couldn’t find it. Her shoulders dropped and she opened her eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t...”
It was there, in the dark spaces in between her memories. The girl was moving farther away in darkness, and like her so long ago, was headed north.
“I know where she is. I think.”
“And?”
“And we need to get going. She’s moving.”
Part Four: Sophie’s Judgement
31
Perspective was capable of remaking the world. Standing outside an open car trunk with a suitcase in hand, it seemed large. Accommodating, one would say; more room than was needed. Staring into it with an eye toward climbing in oneself, it shrunk. The same space became frighteningly smaller and darker. And inside with the lid closed, it became smaller still, and even more terrifying in motion. The confined space was hot and the air was thin, tainted with exhaled breath and car exhaust. Lying on his side, each bump in the road and every acceleration and deceleration shifted the proportions of the space, jabbing Mitch in the back, forcing his head against the wall. It felt like they were on the highway.
He tried to inhale and was frustrated in the attempt. He coughed and gasped and coughed again as more of the invisible gas that filled the space invaded his body, denying him the simple satisfaction of a deep breath. In front of him, Sophie shifted. She whimpered in sympathy at his discomfort. He felt her sound through her back in his stomach more than he heard it over the engine and road noise. Through the seat and the bulkhead wall behind him, he could hear the faint sounds of a man’s voice. At first, he thought Junior was yelling at Violette, but it kept on, without pause. They were listening to something. Talk radio, he figured, as if they hadn’t just kidnapped people at gunpoint. He heard the muddy voice shout, “Amen!”
He held Sophie tighter and tried to soothe her, but was really comforting himself. She showed no outward signs of fear, just the same kind of concern for him that had been worthy of comment from so many who’d met her in the time before. “She is so empathetic,” they’d say. “I’ve never met a four-year-old who wanted to know how I felt.” Sophie had been a caring child. She still was, and that was how he knew she wasn’t just a living dead girl—a ghoul. Even if she didn’t play the way she used to, or eat, or even breathe much, she was still Sophie. She was still the child who crawled into his lap when she sensed he was feeling overwhelmed and afraid. Even now, she pushed back against his chest and belly, not to seek comfort, but to give it. No one had to tell him. He knew this one thing, more than any other.
“Hon,” he said. His throat was raw, and his breath shallow. She moved, hearing him above the noise that drowned out everything else. “Hon, can you... can you do that thing you did... with the lock?”
Her head turned and tilted back. He felt her trying to look at him. Maybe she could see him in the dark. He had no idea what her pale eyes were capable of. He couldn’t see her. Nothing was visible in the blackness of the trunk. Not even a line telling him where the seam between trunk and lid was.
“I don’t want you to open it.” The thought of the trunk popping open at eighty miles an hour on the highway terrified him almost as much as the idea of it staying closed and suffocating them. “Can you... make a hole in the side, so we can breathe?” Her shoulder shifted against him and he felt her reaching forward. A few seconds later, above the stench of exhaust, he smelled an unpleasantly musty odor like something left in the rain to decay, followed by a metallic iron smell that reminded him of blood, but he knew to be rust. A pinprick of light shone into the trunk, brightening the length of Sophie’s arm. It grew as she pushed against it, flaking away what she’d ruined of the trunk lid. The noise grew painfully louder, but more importantly fresh air rushed into the space, whipping around them. It wasn’t fresh like the air on the paths through the necropolis, or even the city park smell of Boston Common, but it was breathable, and he pulled as much of it into his lungs as he could.
“Thank you,” he said.
“We’come.” Her voice was scratchy and thin, and he barely heard her. He knew she didn’t breathe much, not like he did. But she did breathe. She wasn’t dead. She was alive. And if it could steal her breath and her voice, something like an enclosed trunk and car exhaust could hurt her body too. He pushed down the spark of anger he felt. Sure, he was barely holding on, sublimating his terror of confinement and trying to stay calm, so when the lid finally did open, he would have his wits. He was going to hurt Junior. He wanted to have her rot through the opposite wall into the cab of the car so he could crawl through and strangle the man from the back seat. Instead, he waited. Eventually, they’d stop, and he’d have his chance. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Sophie. Not on his life.
As if she knew what he was thinking, she pushed back against him and sighed. He counted the time before he felt her take another breath. Five minutes.
32
The car slowed and Mitch listened, trying to get a sense of where Junior had driven them, but there weren’t any echoes of activity he could hear that would help identify a place—not like the sound of gas pumps or a fast food drive-through speaker. He hoped this was their destination and not a casual stop, mostly because he was certain he couldn’t handle another hour or more locked in the cramped darkness without losing his already tenuous grip on reason. He was ready to go mad. His right arm and leg were numb from lying on his side. His hip hurt and his head was pounding. Even with his wits, he wouldn’t be able to spring out of the trunk to fight for his and Sophie’s lives. Wherever Junior had taken them, he hoped cooler heads awaited his freedom from the box. At least until he could get his feet beneath him.
The car turned and he heard a primitive road under the tires—dirt or gravel. Eventually they slowed and stopped. The radio shut off, and he heard a power window roll down and the sound of footsteps. There were a few exchanged words before a harsh voice outside the car told them to pull up to the main lot, promising he’d radio ahead. Junior said something in reply and the window hummed back up. The car lurched forward; Mitch hit his head against a bulge in the trunk and saw stars flash behind his eyes. His head ached with renewed throbbing. He couldn’t tell if his vision was blurry or if there was just nothing to see in the fading light through the rotted-out hole in the back of the car.
After another couple of turns, the car rolled to a stop and the engine shut off. Junior barked something at Violette that he punctuated by slamming the door. Footsteps crunched around the side of the car, followed by Junior’s angry howl: “The fuck did you do to the back of my car?”
The lid lifted and Mitch was barely able to blink the sun out of his eyes before the fist landed on his cheekbone. It drove down two more times before he heard in the haze behind his fading consciousness, “That’s not how we do things, Brother Wilson.” The owner of the voice told someone else to get Mitch cleaned up and take him somewhere. He missed what the man called it.
“Take the girl to the safe room.”
Blind, Mitch tried to keep hold of Sophie, but she was pulled out of his hands before he could find his grip. Then, hands were on him, pulling him upright. Junior said something about it being “the
only way to get them here,” and then Mitch’s head knocked against the side of the car as rough hands hauled him out and his vision blurred again.
He tried to stand, the ache in his hip spreading down his leg as stabbing pins and needles replaced the fading numbness. His balance was unsteady and his knee wanted to buckle. He heard someone say, “Hold him up.” The hands on his arms tightened painfully, as the men who’d pulled him out of the trunk tried to stand him up straighter.
A shape stepped in front of the late day sun. Mitch looked up into the blankness of the backlit giant until his eyes found details to resolve into view. The man was tall and athletic. He wasn’t misshapen with steroid muscle, but looked like a gym rat nonetheless. The kind of guy who wants to look like he might bust out of his tailored suits as likely as hang them up at night. Thick dark brown curls lifted up from his forehead above a hatchet face. His lips peeled back in a rictus grin revealing as much of his gums as teeth. When his cheeks raised in the smile, his chin seemed even more pointed, and his head became as triangular as a caricature of the Devil. “I’m Pastor Gideon Roper,” the big man said. “I apologize for the manner in which you’ve been brought here. Brother Wilson is enthusiastic, and, well, I understand you two have history.”
Mitch laughed once, triggering a coughing spell that hurt his throat and pulled a muscle in his side. The men on either side of him held him up, but Mitch could feel them leaning away, as if he was contagious. Pastor Roper’s eyebrows raised, but he didn’t offer Mitch a handkerchief or a drink of water. He waited, smiling, for the paroxysm to subside and said, “Nothing funny about forgiveness, Michel—can I call you Michel?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Will you pray with me?”
His throat was raw from breathing exhaust, and he tried to hold in another bout of coughing, barely succeeding. His ribs ached with the effort of speaking. “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”
Roper clicked his tongue as he shook his head. “I understand you spent time in prison. One would hope you’d’ve used that time inside to look for the light of the Lord.”
Mitch blinked his eyes clear and looked at the men holding his arms. They wore black shirts with a shiny gold cross that became a sword blade at the long end. Above and below the cross it read “GOD’S WARRIORS” in big red letters. They had long guns slung over their shoulders—not the MCI issue AR-15 rifles he was used to seeing in the tower, but something else he didn’t recognize. The weapons looked like the ones guys who led fantasy lives about the apocalypse preferred: black on black and with enough folding parts to be as much transforming toy as firearm. The men scowled at him, but they were soft-eyed. He knew them better than they knew themselves. They were the kind of guys who’d brag about having Special Forces experience and then end up in the prison infirmary over a tray of Tater Tots or a piece of cake. Fakers with superhero dreams but no smarts or heart. Problem was, guns gave guys like that a measure of the power they worshiped and didn’t have otherwise. And a man with a little power wants to use it; he just needs something to aim at. It didn’t take any kind of special insight to know Mitch was the only target around. “I did my time the way I did it,” he said.
Roper looked at him disapprovingly. “Well, we’ll have to have that discussion another time, I imagine. I’m sure you’d like to have a moment to relax and recover from your less than comfortable travel accommodations.” He nodded to the men holding Mitch and said, “Take him to the Parents’ Ministry.” He turned to go.
“Where’s Sophie?”
Roper stopped and turned. “She’s with the other children in her condition. Safe.” He walked away, leaving Mitch in the hands of the men holding him up.
“Welcome to the New Life Church,” Junior said.
“I’m not impressed.”
“You have to have faith in the Lord, Michel.”
“All I see around us are people, and what I’ve seen of them leaves me cold.”
“I understand jail must’ve been hard on you.” Junior smirked. “The sex-u-al abuse,” he said with a drawl suggesting he didn’t find the thought repulsive, at least not in the context of it being inflicted on Mitch.
“Nobody touched me inside. I’m not a punk.”
“Yes, you are.” Junior threw a straight right into Mitch’s face. The shot hit high on the bridge of his nose, halfway up on his forehead. His head rocked back and he saw stars again. As a boxer, he’d been hit a lot harder and a lot better, but not bare knuckled while a couple of goons held him still. He tried to brace himself for another shot, ready to drop his head and let Junior drive a fragile fist into the top of his hard skull, but none came.
Mitch tilted his head to get a better look at Junior. His vision was still a little blurry. “I thought you said you forgave me.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t still owe.” Junior grabbed Violette’s arm and dragged her off in the direction Roper had gone. Mitch saw him shaking his hand out, flexing his fingers as they walked, and he hoped Junior had at least sprained his hand if he didn’t break it.
“If anything happens to Sophie, what I did to you back then will feel like kisses from my sister!” he called after them. The “guards” spun him around and started to march him away. He shook his head trying to clear away the cobwebs. Sucker punch or not, the fight had been taken out of him and although his leg was feeling better, he was as weak as he had ever been. No matter how badly he wanted to shake the men dragging him away from the car, trying now wouldn’t get him anywhere. He looked around, attempting to make sense of his surroundings. The place seemed somewhere between a mall and a small university: a campus of buildings arranged around a central, modern mega-church style chapel. A garden courtyard with patterned brick walkways cut through the spaces in between buildings. He was led toward one on the periphery of the complex. None of the structures were marked with names or numbers like a university. They all looked alike, but his guides knew where they were taking him.
They might call it a church, but it felt like just another prison to Mitch.
33
The robot woman on the line directed Liana to leave a message. She disconnected, thinking that if Mitch hadn’t responded to the three messages she’d left already, a fourth wasn’t going to change anything. Especially if his battery was dead and he couldn’t access his voicemail. She hoped that was what it was—his phone battery was drained, and he hadn’t noticed yet that he had no service because he was driving and couldn’t look at his cheap-o prepaid flip phone. But then, Mitch didn’t own a car. He wouldn’t be driving anywhere. She thought back to driving him and Sophie home from the morgue, him in the back seat with her in his lap, the pair of them clutching each other. The memory made her worry more. He had agreed to ride like that because they had no choice about leaving at that exact minute with the child. She knew he’d balk at going anywhere else with Sophie without a car seat. But yet, they were moving. Or had been.
When she first felt the stab of fear, it was coming from Mitch’s place in Kingsport. Then, it moved. It headed north and she felt it growing more distant—but no less insistent—until they got on I-93 and drove toward the New Hampshire border. Then, for a while, it seemed like they were moving at the same pace together. Now, it felt as if the pull had come to a fixed point, and they were drawing nearer. Wherever Sophie and Mitch were going, they had arrived. If that’s what it really was, and she wasn’t just going mad.
She checked the volume on her smartphone again, making sure it was at its loudest setting, and slipped it back in her jacket pocket. Though she knew he wasn’t calling back, she kept a hand on it to feel for the vibration, just in case she missed the sound of her ringtone over the car noise. She looked out the window at the road, watching the scenery pass by in a blur. Everything felt like that. Since he’d asked her out, Liana’s feelings for Mitch had developed as quickly as the landscape moved, and everything else that followed upon kept the frenetic pace set by their first date. She was swept along in its wake like a lost feather cha
sing a passing semi-truck.
“Anything?” Mike asked. He’d asked the same question at the one mile notice of every approaching exit. She had only been able to say yes or no within a quarter-mile of any turn they needed to take. That meant they had to drive in the right lane so he wouldn’t have to cut across traffic at the last second, and that was slowing them down. It was better than blowing past the exit they needed, though. Liana’s sense was more like steering by stars in an overcast sky than it was like following a GPS. She’d failed to direct them off I-93 at the right exit and then spent almost an hour fidgeting and fighting with her seat while they moved away from her feeling at twice the speed they’d previously been pursuing it. Mike took an exit at Manchester and she directed him west, getting them back on track. Travel on the two lane state highway moved slower, especially when it took them through towns like the one they were passing through now. But they hadn’t “lost the signal” since getting on Route 101. Now, however, there were no warnings or exits. Only side roads and intersections. It was harder to predict where to go without having to backtrack.
“I don’t know. They’ve stopped moving and it doesn’t feel the same.”
“Stopped moving?”
“Yeah. The... pull... is... We’re getting closer, but I’m less certain about... Now! This one!”
Mike said, “Dublin Road?”
“Yes! Here!”
Yanking the wheel and standing on the brake, he skidded around the corner in front of the Dublin Fire Department, to the annoyance and insistent honking of the pickup truck following too closely behind them.
The new road was increasingly rural and the points of exit were even harder to see approaching in the tall trees and growing late afternoon shadows. Mike leaned forward in his seat straining to see. He slowed, taking the blind corners more carefully.
Come to Dust Page 15