Duck Boy

by Bill Bunn

  Time to get to work.

  “Shannon Riley Pankratz, born 1929 in London, England,” he yelled into the fire.

  The soldier-like body of Aunt Shannon materialized on the shore of the fiery ocean in front of him.

  “Aunt Shannon,” Steve called. Her eyes refused to jump to life. Holding his Benu stone, he grabbed one of her hands as it hung limply at her side and shook it to wake her up. Nothing. She just stared vacantly. Though she still seemed like just a shell, she was otherwise unhurt. Steve paused for a moment to think.

  “My Benu stone won’t wake her up,” he exclaimed. “But hers might.” He thought for several moments, recalling as many specific details from Richard’s life as he could. He remembered Richard’s funeral, so many years ago.

  Steve stepped towards the flames and yelled into the fire. “Richard Ezra Bacon, who was born August 19, 1963.” A flame licked the edge of the ocean and deposited a little box, wrapped for Christmas. Steve picked up the box as he held his stone with his other hand.

  Steve turned with Richard in his hand and touched Aunt Shannon’s hand to the outside of the box. Her eyes fluttered as if she were about to faint. Then she looked around the landscape. When she saw the fire behind her she jumped back, knocking Steve to the ground. She whirled around with a wild look in her eyes.

  “Oh my goodness!” she yelled, almost losing her balance. “What are you doing here, Steve?”

  “I was looking for you,” exclaimed Steve, overjoyed at their reunion. He jumped to his feet and gave her a huge hug.

  The ocean behind her began to rock and rage as if something were about to rise from within its surface. “We’d better move away from here,” Aunt Shannon stated firmly. “It sounds like it’s waking up.”

  She surveyed the landscape around them and her happiness flattened into a grim determination. She grabbed Steve’s arm. “Now we’re both trapped here,” she sighed. “They’ll take me apart again. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “I can get out of here,” Steve grinned. “My notebook takes me out.”

  Aunt Shannon processed Steve’s words carefully. “The dictionary brings you to this world?”

  “Right.”

  “And your notebook takes you out of this place?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never thought of that. Of course!” Aunt Shannon eyes exploded with fire. The two of them heard a deep growl. The growl was so low that it shook the ground they were standing on.

  “Steve, get out of here,” Aunt Shannon ordered. “I’m stuck here, even though I have my Benu stone. I can’t leave.” She turned towards Steve. “Thank you for coming to visit me. I love you.”

  “You’re going to get out of here,” Steve exclaimed.

  “I can only keep them away for so long, but they will take me to pieces again.”

  “But I have your notebook here, too,” Steve said excitedly. He opened his backpack again and passed her notebook to her. A look of complete joy spread from one side of Aunt Shannon’s face to the other. “This will take you to your house, Aunt Shannon,” Steve explained. Aunt Shannon’s look of joy transformed to a look of understanding. “You stay at your place, and I’ll come over and meet you there in an hour or so,” Steve suggested. He passed her notebook and let her get a good grasp of it.

  As soon as she touched it she was enveloped in light, and she disappeared. Steve checked the ground to be sure she hadn’t left anything behind. Then he reached into the bag with both hands and grabbed his plaque and the notebook.

  The light whisked him back to his house again. The cool air of the house felt good on his skin. He bundled himself into his coat, reached into his pocket, fit his hat and gloves over his head and hands. The house still lay in ruins, and he hopscotched through the mess to the back door and out the back alley.

  The storm was breaking up. The morning light spilled across the snow. Steve could make out enough of the surrounding landscape to travel safely.

  The bus should be here any minute.

  He headed to the main road, slogging though the deep, heaped snow. The road had been plowed in the night, but there was still a slick surface of snow on the road. He walked down the bus route in the rut of plowed snow in the middle of the road. Out of money, Steve walked past the bus stop and aimed instead for a curve in the road up ahead. He knew the bus would need to slow down at the curve. He took up a position in front of a parked car, ducking down behind the front end, and waited.

  The cold didn’t hold anything back as he waited. It found all the holes in his clothing and froze him to the core. Finally, an old bus shunted and slowed in front of Steve as it lurched around the corner. Steve slipped in behind the bus and grabbed the rear bumper.

  Bumper surfing.

  The smell of diesel was thick and filled his nose. But Steve didn’t mind. It was a cold way to travel, but it was safer than riding on the inside of the bus. His heart burned bright, fired by his first success.

  Steve slipped and skidded over the snowy roads, dragged by the bus. He transferred to the bumper of another bus in the downtown core and made it most of the way to Aunt Shannon’s.

  He sneaked down the alley behind Lindsay’s house and entered the yard, peering over her fence towards Aunt Shannon’s house. The house looked clear and quiet. The patrol car that had been watching the house was gone, the police tape blown down and woven into the banks of snow.

  I won’t have to sneak into the house.

  Leaving Lindsay’s yard, he crossed the street and stood on the snow-covered sidewalk in front of Aunt Shannon’s, scanning the house for any kind of activity. Aunt Shannon’s pale face appeared in the living room window. She waved him in.

  Steve ran carefully under the police barrier and around the back of the house. The back door had been lifted from where it lay on the floor and propped into its frame. He slid the back door away from its resting place, slipped inside, and wedged it back into the opening as best he could. He turned toward the wreckage of the kitchen. Aunt Shannon stood at the far entrance to the kitchen, her eyes red with tears.

  Aunt Shannon moved toward him. He ran towards her, avoiding the piles of debris, and they met and squeezed each other in a fierce hug.

  “You’re back!” Steve muttered. “You’re back home!”

  “I’m glad to see you, too. What happened to our house, Steve?” Aunt Shannon asked, then broke into a sob.

  Tissue.

  He scoured the kitchen wreckage until he located a box of tissues, and retrieved a couple.

  Aunt Shannon surveyed the destruction of the living room, her ruined furniture, upset bookshelf, and smashed ornaments. “Tissue?” Steve offered. She nodded and took them from his hand.

  The two of them walked into the living room. They set the couch back on its feet and placed the slashed cushions in their places.

  “Have a seat, Aunt Shannon. This is a long story.”

  She took a cushion and Steve explained to her all that had happened since the day she disappeared. He described how Uncle Edward had been kidnapped and how the police thought it was he, Steve, who had done the kidnapping.

  At several points in Steve’s story, Aunt Shannon’s eyes filled with tears. Her eyes sparked with life when he talked about how he accidentally discovered a way to get to the other world and then back again.

  “Why did you rescue me first, Steve?” Aunt Shannon asked.

  Steve sat back for a moment. He hadn’t really thought about what he’d done. “You’re still upset with your mom, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I never even thought of trying her first. Besides, I don’t know what her Benu stone is.”

  “I think we can get her back, Steve,” Aunt Shannon declared. “But what are we going to do about Lindsay and Uncle Edward?”

  “I have a few ideas,” Steve stated. “You guessed right, from the very beginning.” He paused for a moment. “Remember when you told me that it was words, that words were the key to alchemy. That completely explains the diction
ary.”

  Aunt Shannon nodded. “The notebook, too,” she added.

  “Yeah, right. It’s all words, isn’t it? They’re somehow connected to us,” Steve said thoughtfully.

  “In one form or another,” Aunt Shannon added.

  “I told you about the day the kidnappers came, right?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Did I mention the ransom note?”

  “Right!” exclaimed Aunt Shannon. “Of course. That’s an excellent idea. It just might work.”

  “The only question is how we will get hold of it,” Steve sighed. “That won’t be easy. Detective Garner is probably still looking for me as we speak. He tried to shoot me,” he remembered suddenly, his voice rising.

  “What?” Aunt Shannon demanded, eyes wide.

  “Long story,” Steve answered, waving his hand. “He’s got the ransom note and he’s not likely to let us see it, considering what happened to the pictures we took from his file. We’ll never be able to get those back. The kidnappers stole the pictures, so I haven’t been able to give them back to him.”

  “Why did the kidnappers want the pictures?” Aunt Shannon asked with a puzzled look.

  “Lindsay thinks they overhead us discussing them on the phone, and they probably believed they held some secrets. They were looking for clues about how your discoveries would work. I mean this discovery is worth a lot of money to someone, wouldn’t you think?”

  “You’re right, of course,” Aunt Shannon said sheepishly. “I get so carried away with the discovery itself that I forget what it might mean to the wrong people.”

  “It kind of surprised me, too. It’s really thrown a wrench into the whole holiday.”

  “My goodness,” Aunt Shannon exclaimed. “I almost forgot, we only have a half a week until Christmas. My decorations have been destroyed.”

  “Your Halloween decorations are still on the front door,” Steve reminded her, smiling.

  “This feels more like Halloween than Christmas, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s a nightmare,” Steve agreed.

  “I guess we need to turn Halloween into Christmas before we bother decorating for it again.”

  Steve smiled at Aunt Shannon’s suggestion. “Turn Halloween into Christmas.” Steve repeated. “What should we do first?”

  “Why don’t we get Uncle Edward and Lindsay back where they belong before Christmas. You’re probably a suspect in Lindsay’s disappearance, too.”

  “We need to get a dictionary for you, Aunt Shannon. Unless you want this huge spare one I have.” He pulled the hefty tome from his backpack. “That way you’ll be able to get in and out of the other world if you need to. Actually, I’ll take this one, you take this one.” He placed the huge one back in his backpack and passed her the pocket dictionary.

  “Right.” Aunt Shannon pointed to his backpack. “I think I’ll get a big purse out of my closet to hold it all. It works well, does it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to call the police station and see if I can talk Larry into letting us see the ransom note.”

  “I’ll get your purse while you call Mr. Garner. Just don’t disappear on me again,” Steve quipped.

  Aunt Shannon rolled her eyes. “I’ll be here when you get back—I promise,” she said with a grin.

  Steve nodded and scooted down the hallway, sliding some of the big piles of debris out of the way to make a path. Aunt Shannon stood and wove her way to the phone. She thumbed through the phone book looking for the number and then dialed.

  “Hello, may I speak with Detective Garner, please?” Aunt Shannon asked pleasantly. A voice on the other end chirped a reply. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Oh, that’s terrible. Is he at home right now? I’ll try him there, thanks. Goodbye.”

  Steve returned with a cavernous neon-colored purse. He put Richard, her notebook, and the dictionary in Aunt Shannon’s purse and set it beside her near the phone.

  “Steve, we have a small problem. Larry isn’t working on the police force at the moment. He’s been suspended.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m not sure. We need to talk to him, though.” She pulled a phone book out of a kitchen drawer and returned to the phone. “Let me find his home phone number.” Her fingers scrambled through the pages. Aunt Shannon dialed the number and waited for a response.

  “Hello, is this Detective Garner?… This is Shannon Pankratz-Bacon calling… No, no, I’m fine. No, Steve had nothing to do with me disappearing. Wherever did you get such a story? …I don’t have the time to discuss that right now. I’m calling because I need your help. Can I drop by and talk with you? What’s your address? All right, I’ll see you in a half hour or so.” She hung up the phone. “Let’s get moving.”

  The two of them bundled up, double-checked the contents of the backpack and purse, and hopped into the car. As she started it, she looked quickly at Steve with a furrowed brow.

  “How did my car end up here?” Aunt Shannon asked. “Uncle Edward wouldn’t have driven it, and you’re too young to drive.”

  Steve smiled. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Try me,” she replied.

  “Uncle Edward told me to drive it back to your house,” Steve reported. “He insisted.”

  “Really?” Aunt Shannon sounded amazed. “What a wonderful surprise—absolutely wonderful. That’s so unlike him. My disappearance must have really rattled him. And my lovely car.” She patted the dashboard tenderly. “You didn’t dent her either.”

  Larry’s house was a half hour away from Aunt Shannon’s place. She drove carefully over the snowy pavement and parked in front of the detective’s house. She and Steve walked up to the front door and rang the bell. A tired, haggard-looking man opened the door wrapped in a wrinkled housecoat. When he saw Steve, his eyes opened wide with surprise—then narrowed in anger.

  “You…You… You’re the whole reason I’m here right now. I’m going to call the station and turn you in.” He wheeled from the door to find the phone.

  “Wait!” Aunt Shannon ordered. Larry froze at the strength of her voice, and turned around. “You’re the reason you are in this situation,” Aunt Shannon reasoned. “Steve and I tried to explain to you what was happening, and you ignored us.”

  Larry turned and reached towards the telephone sitting on a table in the hallway.

  “If you turn us in,” Aunt Shannon persisted, “you’ll wreck any chance you have of solving this case properly.”

  Larry’s hand trembled, hovering over the cradled telephone.

  “We came here because we need you.”

  His hand grasped the phone and pulled it off its cradle towards him. A faint dial tone underlined Aunt Shannon’s words.

  “We can help you solve this case. You can bring it to a close, arrest the right people.”

  Larry turned towards Aunt Shannon, meeting her eyes. Then he slowly set the phone back in its cradle. “Can you really help me solve this case?”

  “I think we can,” Aunt Shannon returned. “But you need us and we need you.”

  Larry sighed in defeat. “OK… come in,” he conceded.

  The three of them took seats in the living room. Larry began, his eyes on the floor. “I don’t know what happened that day when we were in the interrogation room, Steve. And I’m not sure I want to know. But whatever happened there, I ended up here, on the brink of losing my job—suspended without pay.” His voice choked through the words.

  “You disappeared and I took a couple of shots at you. The guards opened the door and found me lying on the floor with a few bullets in the wall and the case file scattered around the room. They thought I’d gone nuts. They accused me of letting you go, aiding and abetting a criminal, unlawful discharging of a firearm, and a few other things.” He paused and looked away from them towards the floor. “They don’t believe the story I told them. They don’t know what to do with me—let a psychiatrist examine me or prosecute me as a criminal.”

  “Would
they think differently of you if you solved part of the case?” Aunt Shannon asked.

  “I think there is no question about it. If I could come up with something, they’d at least have to admit that I’m half sane.”

  “Plus you might live down that awful nickname. What do they call you—‘Clueless’?”

  Larry winced and crossed his arms.

  Aunt Shannon continued. “Uncle Edward and Lindsay were kidnapped by a group of alchemists who want to exploit our discoveries and make lots of money,” Aunt Shannon stated.

  “Lindsay? Who’s Lindsay?” Larry asked as he tightened his housecoat belt.

  Steve took a few minutes to clue Larry in on the relevant parts of what happened to Lindsay, and the attempts made to capture him at the bus terminal. “We don’t know who they are, but we think we can find them, and we need your help,” Steve said.

  “What can I do?”

  “We need the ransom note,” Steve declared.

  “I can’t do that,” Larry said flatly.

  “We have a way of locating them once we have the ransom note,” Steve insisted. “We thought we could find the place where they’re being held, and then phone you so you can make the arrest or call in the information.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to arrest them for stealing alchemical secrets, which is what they’re really after, but you could arrest them for kidnapping.” Aunt Shannon’s voice rose and settled firmly on her last word.

  “I see what you’re getting at, Mrs. Pankratz-Bacon,” Larry said and he drifted into thought. “You didn’t bring the pictures from the case file, by any chance, did you?”

  “Ah, no. No, we didn’t,” Steve said sheepishly. “They were stolen when Uncle Edward was kidnapped. That’s why the house is a mess. I think they tapped our phone line, and I happened to mention the pictures to Lindsay in a phone call.”

  “She’s a neighbor who is an alchemist, like we are,” Aunt Shannon answered.

  “And she’s been kidnapped, too.”