by Marc Laidlaw
It was about time to check in with her, he thought. She had to be in her car by now. Did he need a better excuse for calling her?
Well, here was one: The headlights were failing.
Just like that, as if they were on a dimmer switch. Both at once, darkening, taken down in less than a minute to a dull stubborn glow. It was a minute of total helpless panic; he was saved from complete horror only by the faint trace of light that remained. Why didn’t they go out all the way? By the time he’d asked himself this, he realized that his wife had now lost her beacon. That was news. It was important to call her now.
He punched the redial number. That much was easy. The phone rang four times and the machine answered, and then he had to suppress himself from smashing the phone on the roof of the car. She wouldn’t be at home, would she? She’d be on the road by now, looking for him, cruising past dark lanes and driveways, the entrance to some wooded lot, hoping to see his stalled headlights—and there would be none.
What made all this worse was that he couldn’t remember the number of her cell phone. He refused to call her on it, arguing that she might be driving if he called her, and he didn’t want to cause an accident.
Should he…head away from the car? Blunder back along the dark road without a flashlight until he came in sight of the street? Wouldn’t she be likely to spot him coming down the road, a pale figure stumbling through the trees, so out of place?
But he couldn’t bring himself to move away. The car was the only familiar thing in his world right now.
There was no point breaking the window. The horn wouldn’t sound if the battery had died. No point in doing much of anything now. Except wait for her to find him.
Please call, he thought. Please please please call. I have something to tell—-
The phone chirped in his hand. He stabbed the on button.
“Yes?”
“I’m coming,” she said.
“The headlights just died,” he said. “You’re going to have to look closely. For a…a dark road, a park entrance maybe…”
“I know,” she said, her voice tense. He pictured her leaning forward, driving slowly, squinting out the windshield at the streetsides. “The rain’s making it hard to see a damn thing.”
“Rain,” he said. “It’s raining where you are?”
“Pouring.”
“Then…where are you? It’s dry as a bone here.” Except for the sound of water, the stale exhalation of the damp earth around him.
“I’m about three blocks from the light.”
“Where I was turning?”
“Where you got turned around. It’s all houses here. I thought there was park. There is some park, just ahead…that’s what I was thinking off. But…”
He listened, waiting. And now he could hear her wipers going, sluicing the windshield; he could hear the sizzle of rain under her car’s tires. A storm. He stared at the sky even harder than before. Nothing up there. Nothing coming down.
“But what?” he said finally.
“There’s a gate across the road. You couldn’t have gone through there.”
“Check it,” he said. “Maybe it closed behind me.”
“I’m going on,” she said. “I’ll go to the light and start back, see if I missed anything.”
“Check the gate.”
“It’s just a park, it’s nothing. You’re in woods, you said?”
“Woods, marsh, parkland, something. I’m on a dirt road. There are…bushes all around, and I can hear water.”
“Ah….”
What was that in her voice?
“I can…wait a minute…I thought I could see you, but…”
“What?” He peered into the darkness. She might be looking at him even now, somehow seeing him while he couldn’t see her.
“It isn’t you,” she said. “It’s, a car, like yours, but…it’s not yours. That…that’s not you, that’s not your…”
“What’s going on?” The headlights died all the way down.
“Please, can you keep on talking to me?” she said. “Can you please just keep talking to me and don’t stop for a minute?”
“What’s the matter? Tell me what’s going on?”
“I need to hear you keep talking, please, please,” and whatever it was in her voice that was wrenching her, it wrenched at him too, it was tearing at both of them in identical ways, and he knew he just had to keep talking. He had to keep her on the phone.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Whatever it is. I won’t make you stop and tell me now, if you don’t want to talk, if you just want to listen,” he said. “I love you,” he said, because surely she needed to hear that. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m just, I wish you could talk to me but—-“
“No, you talk,” she said. “I have to know you’re all right, because this isn’t, that’s not, it can’t be…”
“Sh. Shhh. I’m talking now.”
“Tell me where you are again.”
“I’m standing by my car,” he said. “I’m in a dark wooded place, there’s some water nearby, a pond or marsh judging from the sound, and it’s not raining, it’s kind of warm and damp but it’s not raining. It’s quiet. It’s dark. I’m not…I’m not afraid,” and that seemed an important thing to tell her, too. “I’m just waiting, I’m fine, I’m just waiting here for you to get to me, and I know you will. Everything will be…fine.”
“It’s raining where I am,” she said. “And I’m…” She swallowed. “And I’m looking at your car.”
Static, then, a cold blanket of it washing out her voice. The noise swelled, peaked, subsided, and the phone went quiet. He pushed the redial button, then remembered that she had called him and not the other way round. It didn’t matter, though. The phone was dead. He wouldn’t be calling anyone, and no one would be calling him.
I’ll walk back to that road now, he thought. While there’s still a chance she can find me.
He hefted the cell phone, on the verge of tossing it overhand out into the unseen marshes. But there was always a chance that some faint spark remained inside it; that he’d get a small blurt of a ring, a wisp of her voice, something. He put it in a pocket so he wouldn’t lose it in the night.
He tipped his face to the sky and put out his hand before he started walking.
Not a drop.
It’s raining where I am, and I’m looking at your car.
* * *
“Cell Call” copyright 2003 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in By Moonlight Only, PS Publishing, edited by Stephen Jones (October 2003).
FLIGHT RISK
They brought Foster to the boy by a route of back alleys and parking garages, changing him from car to car several times, until eventually, although he’d thought he knew the city very well, he found himself uncertain of his whereabouts. They were near the airport, he knew that much. Condemned buildings, empty shops, and the rumbling pall of jet trails over all. A massive extension of the runways planned, this part of the city had known it was doomed; the exodus occurred before delays set in. A perfect place to hide the boy without seeming to hide him.
The final car, a black sedan with dented doors and fenders thinned by rust, drew to a stop at the rear of a building that had too many windows to be a warehouse, too few to be a residence. The man riding shotgun stepped out and opened the door. Foster slid from his seat in back, clutching his worn black bag to his gut. Along the alley, tips of garbage poked through humps of snow. There was just enough warmth in the air to carry a threat of the sourness and rot waiting beneath the ice. A black wrought iron gate swung open in the rear of the building, and a third man, large and heavy browed, appeared there, beckoning. Foster recognized features of gigantism, but felt no thrill at the fact that he was seeing his first giant.
As Foster passed inside, the door clanged shut, cutting the rumble of a jet engine to something felt rather than heard. Foster saw a dim hall with access to a slightly brighter lobby just ahead. The giant held back the accordioned bars of an el
evator cage. Foster stepped in and waited for the giant to crowd in beside him.
“I’ll meet you up there,” the giant said, this voice thick with menace. “Don’t get off until I let you out.”
“No,” said Foster. “Of course not.”
The giant pressed a button and retreated, letting the doors clang shut. The elevator jerked and began a scraping ascent.
If the illuminated numbers above the door were to be believed, the elevator was skipping floors. More likely the lights were burned out. When the car finally ground to a halt, Foster knew only that he was somewhere above the seventh floor. He waited what seemed a full minute before he heard clanging, and then the giant appeared, hauling open the door and peering in at him. Out of breath and sweating profusely, he made scooping motions with his hands.
“Yes, yes,” Foster said, following him out and down the hall.
The giant stopped at a door with 909 painted on a frosted glass pane. He dug into his pocket until he found a ring with two keys on it. In the giant’s hand they looked like keys to a child’s diary or a toy padlock. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, making it clear to Foster that he should go in first.
Foster heard a hum of voices mixed with the rumble of another jet passing above. They stepped into what had been the waiting room of an office, more recently being used as a residence. The domestic touches were few: a small refrigerator, a microwave oven, a card table and several folding chairs. An old office desk butted up against a sofa bed. Pizza boxes, cereal cartons, dozens of paper coffee cups. A television with poor reception, volume almost inaudible–the source of the muted voices, probably.
There was another door on the far side of the room, frosted glass pane in its upper half. It was ajar, and through the gap he saw a mattress laid flat on the floor. On it lay small thin legs in parachute pants, bony feet in frayed socks.
The giant saw him looking, gave a shrug in that direction. “Go ahead. Look him over.”
The boy glanced up as Foster entered, wary and unsurprised, as if he had already seen many strangers come and go, Foster just another. A movement in the corner startled Foster. A second man stood up, tall and thin, so pale his face might have been a streak of light cast by headlights, sliding along the wall.
“Thank Christ,” the man said. “I can get the hell out of here.”
“He’s not your replacement, Gaunt,” said the giant, coming in behind Foster. “This is the doctor.”
“Doctor? So when do I get a break?”
“When this is all over.”
“When—“ Gaunt cut himself short, glaring at Foster. “What does he know?”
“I don’t know or care about your business,” Foster said. “I am here for the boy.”
The pale man laughed. “You’re not the only one. Wish the others were as prompt, though.”
“Shut up,” said the giant. “You need to learn patience.”
“That’s the doctor’s department. Go ahead with him, Doc. I think he needs a good worming myself. Where he comes from, they’ve got all kinds of crud. Little brat doesn’t know how good he’s got it here. No appreciation. All the toys we bought him, he just sits there.”
“Please,” Foster said.
“All right. I’m going out for some swill. Since the doctor’s here. If that’s okay with you.”
“Be quick,” the giant said.
The two men stepped out into the other room, leaving Foster and the boy all the privacy they were likely to have. The lock had been removed from the inner door. Foster knelt down next to the mattress.
The boy watched him carefully.
“I am a doctor,” Foster said. “Do you know that word? Do you speak English?”
The boy just stared. His hair was as much grey as brown, like the fur of a mangy wolf he’d seen in the zoo. His eyes were almost as feral, and far more aware of being caged. Foster tried to smile, but felt it might be misinterpreted. A smile could just as easily have foreshadowed cruelties in the boy’s recent past.
“Do…do you know if he’s had any inoculations?” he called back into the other room.
“What?” The giant’s shadow swam up beyond the frosted glass. “You mean, like, polio shots?”
“The usual vaccines. Measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus. Kid stuff.”
“They found him in an orphanage.”
“There must have been medical staff.”
“The place was a hundred years old. Rotting wood. A lot of the kids were sick from the same thing, but it was nothing you could catch. That plant in Belarus or wherever…the one where they had the leak…”
“Hell,” Foster said, leaning closer to the boy. “If that’s it, if he’s that sick—“
“No one’s expecting any miracles out of you. We just want to make sure he’s strong enough to make it until we’ve unloaded him. So you check him out.”
“If he’ll let me.”
“He won’t give you any trouble. Never has.”
Foster reached for the boy’s wrist, took his pulse. From his bag he took the stethoscope and listened to the boy’s chest through a thin sweater. The boy’s breath was warm and smelled of sugar and milk and something else, a smell remembered from youth, working on old radios and television sets. It was like the smell of electrical discharge, yet not quite ozone. And it was stronger, closer to the boy. He leaned in, nostrils flaring, and the boy reared back abruptly.
“Sorry,” Foster said. “Didn’t mean to—“
“Well?” It was the giant, having come up quietly behind him.
“He’s well enough. But he could use some fresh air, some exercise. It’s not healthy for a child to be shut up in a place like this.”
“It’s out of the question. He has toys, if he’d play with them.”
Foster hadn’t noticed the box full of jumbled plastic pieces pushed into one corner of the room. Decks of cards, sponge-rubber balls. No cars or planes or anything that would make noise. Nothing such a boy would be likely to have any interested in playing with.
Foster rose and walked to the window for a look at the icy day. He poked a few fingers through the dusty blinds. “Air,” he whispered.
The window ledge was brick, crusted with grime, mortar that had welled up like grey dough. Pigeons milled somewhere nearby; he could hear them cooing.
There was a very small playground across the street, between old apartment buildings, a few bare trees stretching up from muddy snow around climbing equipment the color of rust. Even looking at the iron bars put the tang of cold metal in his mouth.
“Down there,” he said. “There’s a playground. It’s totally deserted.”
“How do you think it would look, this boy, with the two of us?”
“I’ll take him myself. There’s nothing suspicious in that. He’s what…not even school age? No one will question.”
It was impossible to tell what the giant was thinking. His face gave no clue whether he was considering the situation, or had closed himself off to any possibility of compromise.
“I’ll take care of him,” Foster said. “You can watch from up here. And the other, your friend…”
“…eh…”
“Gaunt. He can watch from somewhere closer. In case you’re afraid the boy’s a flight risk.”
The giant made a dismissive gesture. “He has nowhere to run.”
Foster glanced over at the boy, who watched them intently, but seemed unable to decode their conversation.
“He speaks no English?”
“None. That’s another problem. How will you make him obey you?”
“How do you?”
The giant didn’t answer. There was no need. He was an irresistible force, albeit not as malevolent as he seemed. Because now he shrugged and opened his hands, palms upward.
“All right. But I’ll stay with you.”
“Fine.”
“We’ll be his uncles. If anyone asks.”
“Yes, good,” Foster said. “You have some warm clothes for him?”
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The giant slipped away and returned with a heavy coat, dark and thick, brand new. The boy was worth that much investment, to someone.
“Don’t want him catching cold,” the giant said with a shrug, and thrust it at the boy. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going out. The doctor thinks you need to play.”
“He’s a child,” Foster repeated. “Of course he needs to play.”
In the deserted hall, they kept the boy between them. His small face was hidden in the folds of the thick hood. Foster started toward the elevator, but the giant shook his head, wagged a finger. “Not that way.”
“You think I might run?”
“With this boy, I take no chances.”
The stairwell was not much larger than the elevator car. The boy went first, down to a lobby of cracked marble that reeked of stale cigarette smoke. The giant opened the front door and looked both ways, then waved them through. There were few cars in sight. He motioned at the empty playground. “Go ahead. I’ll wait in here. I’d rather not be seen if I can help it.”
“Come whenever you like,” said Foster. “It will do him good, I’m sure of it.”
“Go.”
Foster put his hand out, and was both surprised and gratified when the boy took it without hesitation. They needn’t run, there was no traffic, but Foster felt like running all the same. On the far sidewalk, he stopped with a hand on the low gate that opened into the park. He grinned down at the boy and was rewarded with a small smile. A hint of color was coming back to his cheeks. Foster truly saw his eyes for the first time, and they were blue. Blue as the sky that hid somewhere beyond clouds grey as the underside of a trashcan lid.
“Go,” Foster said, swinging open the gate. “Go play. You know play? You know fun?”
He clapped his hands and gestured at the swings, a roundabout, a teeter-totter. No wonder no one played here. The playground was an anachronism, full of archaic devices considered unacceptably dangerous by insurance brokers. The toys of his own childhood, and that of his own children. Fearful mothers and city councilmen conspired to tear these places down.