I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, then rooted through the boxes until I found our books, and one book in particular. Out on the back porch were a couple of patio chairs, a wicker coffee table that hadn’t stood up to the weather very well, and a wooden barrel that I could rest my water bottle on. The house was surrounded by tall pines. The light was dim, and it was cold, but at least it was peaceful. Far in the background I could hear the ocean, only a couple blocks from here. I put up my feet and settled back with my book: the gigantic hardback of The 20th Anniversary Treasury Edition of Newton & Leeb.
Newton was a five-year-old boy genius, and Leeb was his robot dog, and together they made the greatest comic strip ever. The treasury edition collected the best strips, all in color. My dad had owned the book, and it became mine before I knew how to read. Now I didn’t have to read them, because I’d memorized them. I ate my sandwich and flipped through the pages, taking in bits and pieces. Newton creating a black hole by putting a star fruit in the trash compactor. Newton and Leeb playing hide-and-seek, showing up in other comic strips like Nancy and Pogo. Leeb arguing with a real dog about why bones were disgusting (Leeb preferred circuit boards).
After lunch I decided to make myself useful. I put away the food and kitchen stuff, then started in on the other boxes. It was boring, but at least it wasn’t making nets.
By seven o’clock Mom still hadn’t come home. That wasn’t unusual, especially not on the first day of field work. Back in San Diego, some days she was home by supper, but other days, especially when an article was due or she had to be out on the water, she worked until midnight for nights in a row. It wasn’t a big deal. I knew how to work a microwave. Mom always called before I went to bed, and I always told her the same thing: I’m fine. Go do science.
I picked up the house phone to make sure it had a dial tone (check). Then I made some canned soup and ate a cereal bar. It started getting dark around 6:30 P.M., which seemed way too early. I turned on the front porch light, then went out back where I’d eaten lunch, figuring it would be good to turn on that light too. I opened the back screen door and stopped.
Something was watching me from the trees.
I couldn’t make out the shape. But I knew something was there in the bushes between two pines, an extra shadow that didn’t belong. I stepped backward, and then noticed something else.
The wicker coffee table was empty. The Newton & Leeb anniversary edition was gone.
From the direction of the bushes came the smallest sound, leaves rasping on leaves. I jerked my head toward the noise. A dark shape darted away through the trees. It looked like an old man, skinny and dark-skinned and bald-headed, but moved quick as a kid, bolting like a frightened rabbit.
This punk stole my book! Suddenly I wasn’t scared; I was angry. And when I was angry I did stupid things.
I shouted at it, then leaped off the porch and hit the ground running. The shape dodged to the right. Pine branches blocked my way, so I plunged into them, arms up to shield my face. Then I was through to the other side and the dark shape was in front of me, running fast. He was naked from the waist up, dressed only in shorts. He clutched my book to his chest.
I leaped on his back, but my arms slipped from his shoulders; he was sweating so much he felt slimy. My momentum, though, was enough to push us both to the ground. I fell on top of him, but then he twisted and threw me off like I weighed nothing. I tumbled back into the bushes and came down on a rock. Pain blazed up my spine.
By the time I got to my feet he was gone. I could hear nothing, see nothing but the dark. But I was having second thoughts about chasing him.
When he threw me off, I’d caught a glimpse of his face. The skin was mottled, green and brown. Wide, glassy eyes, two slits for a nose … and a mouth full of sharp teeth.
* * *
Back in the rental, I walked into each room and turned on every light. There were not, I decided, near enough lights.
I don’t get spooked easily. I spend a lot of time on my own. I don’t jump at noises; I don’t worry about boogeymen. There’s only one thing that seriously freaks me out, but it doesn’t affect my day-to-day life.
But … those teeth. That skin.
I fell asleep on the couch with the lights on. And sometime later, I half awoke to find my mother shaking me.
“You worried about me, H2?”
I let her walk me back to the bedroom we’d decided was mine. Mom’s here, I thought. And with that I fell back asleep in an instant.
3
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.
Sometimes I wake up and I’m still dreaming.
I knew I was in bed. I was equally sure that I was standing in a snowdrift. My left leg was warm inside the blankets, but my right leg was naked and knee-deep in snow, and the cold was driving right into my bones.
I sat up, and the winter dream fell away, even if the cold in my leg didn’t. The length of air below my knee throbbed. Worse than yesterday.
Somewhere in the next room, Mom was yelling—but not at me, at least. I climbed out of bed and saw that I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. My prosthetic, also dressed in yesterday’s black sock and shoe, lay on the floor next to the beige liner. Mom must have taken them off me last night.
I left the leg on the floor and hopped out to the living room. I’m a really good hopper, even half-asleep. I was surprised to see two of the research buoys, Steve and Pete, sitting in the middle of the living room, Mom’s tools scattered around them. Somehow she’d gotten them in here by herself. Mom was talking on the landline phone, pacing as far as the cord would allow. “You know that I need four instruments deployed, not—” She listened a second, then said, “I know that’s not your fault. I’m not saying it is.”
I wasn’t sure how long she’d been up. It was possible she’d never gotten to sleep. She’d come home sometime around midnight, and the clock on my phone—pretty much the only part of my phone that was working out here in the eighteenth century—said it was just after seven.
Mom had found the coffee maker that had come with the rental and had made a pot. There were still a few inches of coffee left in it. I found a mug in the kitchen cabinet and took the rest. The coffee distracted me from the not-quite-phantom-enough phantom limb.
“I understand that, Mr. Hallgrimsson,” Mom said into the phone. “I know how you make your money. But you understood that when you agreed to take me out. Your father—yes, of course I know that, you don’t need to explain that to me of all people. But Erik—can I call you Erik?—I think you owe me the courtesy of—”
Mom looked at the phone, and then started cursing. “Aquele filho da puta sacana!”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He hung up on me!”
I thought, Big mistake, Erik Hallgrimsson. “Your lobsterman bailing on you?”
“That … that … Viking. He’s refusing to take me out! We only got Edgar and Howard set up yesterday—don’t ask, it was a nightmare—and now he says he can’t go back out, he needs to check his traps.” She slammed the phone down on the ugly, plank-style coffee table that had come with the equally stylish couch. “I’ve got to get down there before he leaves the pier. Can you help me load?”
I thought, How was your day, Harrison? How awful was that school? What do you think of staying here in the Wasteland? Seen any book thieves in need of orthodontia?
“Let me go get my leg,” I said.
I hopped back to the bedroom and scooped up the liner, a high-tech sock with gel on the inside and stretchy material on the outside. I’m supposed to wear a different one every day, but this one smelled okay to me. Well, it didn’t smell horrible. I rolled it on, then slipped my stump into the gray carbon-fiber socket. The liner has a black strap glued to the side of it, and that strap feeds through a hole to a ratchet lock on the outside of the socket. The sound of the ratchet tightening and locking into place has a military feel to it, like I
’m loading my weapon. Last I slipped a shoe onto my meat foot, just to keep balanced.
When I came back out of the room, Mom was waiting for me by the S buoy. She lifted it and waited for me to pick up the other end.
I hoisted the fat end of Steve. Together we carried it out the front door to the pickup.
“What’s that?” I asked. On the hood of the truck, a fist-sized rock was holding down a green piece of paper. While I tied down Steve, Mom went to get the paper. By the time I hopped down, she was angry—angrier than she’d been on the phone.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She crumpled the paper and tossed it through the open window into the cab of the truck. “A note from the neighbors.”
“Wait, who?” The rental was on a wooded lot, and all the nearby houses were set back from the road. So far I hadn’t seen anyone who lived in those houses. “About what?”
Mom does this thing when she’s thinking hard: Her eyes flick back and forth as if she’s moving puzzle pieces around. Then she looked up at me like I was a piece that Would. Not. Fit.
“When I get back tonight we’ll call Grandpa,” she said.
“Okay, but why?” Then I got it. “No. No way.”
“He’d be happy to have you.”
“I’m not flying to Oregon to live with Grandpa. I’m staying here.”
“It was a mistake bringing you here,” she said. “I can’t look out for you while I’m so busy.”
“You’re always busy,” I said. “That’s nothing new.”
“But this isn’t San Diego—there’s no one here to back me up. At least at home the school could—”
“I can take care of myself,” I said. And thought, There’s no way I’m telling her about the book thief now. “I’m fine. School is fine.”
We locked eyes. I could see that she’d already made up her mind—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t unmake it. We rarely argued, but when we did we went at it Samurai Scientist Style. “Opinions” and “beliefs” and “feelings” didn’t cut it—only the katana of logic, the plate armor of supporting data, and the dagger of extended metaphor. (Okay, maybe not the last one.) Yelling, though, immediately lost you the duel. I used to lose a lot of arguments that way.
Mom saw I was ready to throw down. She almost smiled. “We’ll talk about it when we get home,” she said. “Do you want a ride to school?”
“I need to take a shower and change clothes,” I said.
“Right. Showering is good.” She kissed me on each cheek. “You could shave, too.” She climbed into the cab of the truck. “Eu te amo, H2.”
“Love you, too,” I said.
The truck rumbled down the hill, Steve and Pete swaying in the back like happy children.
* * *
I got to the school fifteen minutes before first bell. I would have been there earlier if I hadn’t taken the time to pack a lunch. There was no way I was going to eat what they were serving in the cafeteria.
The atrium, though, was as empty as yesterday. From somewhere in the distance I could hear voices singing. I didn’t recognize the song, or even what type of song it was; the melody moved in mysterious ways. The sound echoed off the stone walls, and I couldn’t nail down where it was coming from.
I’d intended to go to the office and see if Miss Pearl had come up with a class schedule for me. Instead I walked toward the sound, passing the office door (closed) and the cafeteria (empty). I paused at an intersection of hallways. The singing seemed louder to my left, so I followed that corridor until it ended in a set of double doors that were slightly ajar.
The singing stopped as I reached the doors. I peeked through the gap and saw an auditorium. At least a hundred students sat in rows on metal folding chairs. Up on the stage, Principal Montooth stood behind a podium, reading in a low voice from a book that was open in front of him. A few feet from the podium was a short, scrawny man drowning in a suit many sizes too big for him. He nodded vigorously as Montooth spoke, clasping his hands with great sincerity.
Montooth paused, and the students chanted back. Neither the words that Montooth said, nor the student response, sounded like any language I’d ever heard.
The chant and response went on for several minutes. Then at once the students rose and began to sing in the same strange language. The melody veered and dipped at unexpected intervals. And when the students held a long note, the chord seemed to vibrate uncomfortably.
“May I help you, Mr. Harrison?”
I jumped. Mrs. Velloc had glided up behind me.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did I miss an assembly?”
“Voluntary is not for you,” she said. “This way, please.” She walked toward the big staircase. The singing continued behind me. When she realized I hadn’t followed her, she turned. “Off to class, Mr. Harrison. Unless you’re planning to leave even earlier than yesterday.”
So word had gotten around about me skipping out. I shouldn’t have been surprised. When I caught up to her I asked, “Voluntary what?”
“It’s a religious service,” she said, and resumed walking.
“Led by the principal?”
“Mr. Montooth is also pastor of our local congregation. Students are allowed to attend Voluntary at the beginning of each day.”
“You can do that?”
She hitched her skirt a few inches and started up the stairs. “Do what, Mr. Harrison?”
“This is a public school, right? You can’t have a principal who’s the pastor too.”
“Of course you can. We do.”
“But doesn’t that put a lot of pressure on the students to conform to—”
“Mr. Harrison.” She’d stopped on the first landing, in front of that cloudy aquarium. The creature inside churned in agitation. “We don’t worry about things like that in Dunnsmouth. We’re a small town. An old town. We do as we’ve always done. And if you find our traditions uncomfortable, perhaps you should move.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Slow that heart rate down, Harrison.
Mrs. Velloc raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to talk back.
“You know, my mother was just telling me the same thing,” I said. “But I’ve decided I like it here.”
“Indeed?”
Yeah, I thought. Indeed.
Mrs. Velloc led me into a classroom full of lab tables and high stools. There were no students, but a frizzy-haired man in a white lab coat was hunched over one of the tables, poking at something on a metal tray.
“Dr. Herbert,” Mrs. Velloc said. The man didn’t look up. “Doctor, I’d like to introduce you to a new … Dr. Herbert.”
The man’s head jerked up. Over one eye he wore an elaborate device that seemed to be part microscope, part kitchen appliance. LED lights sprouted from the side, and dangling below it was an articulated arm that ended in a clamp. It was secured to his head by thick black straps and looked much too heavy to wear comfortably. I’d seen people wear goggles, but this was the first time I’d seen someone wear goggle.
Mrs. Velloc said, “This is Harrison Harrison. He’s new.”
Dr. Herbert waved. This gesture was made a bit threatening due to the fact that he was holding a scalpel, and the sleeve of his coat was streaked with blood up to the elbow. His uncovered eye blinked wetly at me. “Have you taken biology?” the doctor asked.
“Freshman year,” I said.
“Oh,” the doctor said. He sounded disappointed. Suddenly he brightened. “Have you taken cryptobiology?”
I grinned. “In my family, cryptobiology isn’t a course, it’s dinner conversation.”
“I like this boy!” Dr. Herbert said.
He was the first person at the school I felt like I understood. Cryptobiology—AKA cryptozoology—was the study of animals whose existence had not been proven. Think Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch.
He gestured me toward the tray. On it was a creature in the process of being dissected. The skin was peeled back and pinned, revealing muscle tissue a
nd glistening internal organs. It might have been a salamander, except for the extra set of limbs.
“What is that?” I asked.
“I have no earthly idea,” he said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
The class change gong sounded. Mrs. Velloc said, “I leave Mr. Harrison in your hands, Doctor.”
“Wait,” I said. “I still don’t have my schedule.”
“I don’t know why you keep going on about that,” Mrs. Velloc said. “You’re in grade eleven. You follow the grade eleven schedule. Wherever Lydia goes—”
“I go. Right. But everybody’s not on the same schedule, are they? There’s got to be electives.”
“This isn’t a country club,” she said. “We concern ourselves with the fundamentals, and only the fundamentals.”
I thought, Cryptobiology is a fundamental?
* * *
Students entered the room, quiet as pallbearers. No one chatted or joked. Voluntary, it was clear, was no pep rally.
Dr. Herbert directed me to a high stool in the second row of lab tables, and the students silently took their seats. I recognized some of them from yesterday’s Practical Skills class. If I understood Mrs. Velloc correctly, these thirty or so students made up the entire junior class. Which meant there were probably less than 150 students in the whole school. About that many had been in the auditorium during Voluntary.
Two epiphanies: Dunnsmouth Secondary was smaller than I’d thought; and everybody except me was part of their religion.
I felt a chill, as if everyone was staring at me. I was used to being one of the few public atheists in school. But an army of one against the One True Faith of Dunnsmouth? I didn’t even know what religion it was. That morning service was like nothing I’d ever heard of.
Harrison Squared Page 3