Cries of the Children

by Clare McNally

  “She just took off,” Gordy said. “Spooky. I’m sorry, lady. But that’s the right word for it. You were like the waking dead.”

  “Walking dead,” Eric corrected.

  Gordy looked at him. “I mean ‘waking dead.’ She acted like she’d been dead asleep for a long time, then just woke up.”

  “I was here ten years ago,” Samantha said distantly, as if she hadn’t heard anything else.

  Wil looked at Samantha, who was staring out the window at a distant boat. Barbara was concentrating on her friend, while Rachel and Eric held each other. He made a decision to make his next move on his own, fearing he might put the others in danger if they joined him.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Samantha seemed to become aware of him at that moment.

  “I’m coming with you!”

  “No,” Wil said. “I’ll only be a few minutes. If what I’m doing is safe, I’ll come back for you.”

  He hurried off before anyone could question him. The others followed, moving more slowly as a group. They respected Wil’s instincts as a former cop. A few moments later he reached the property. On the off-chance that this place was under surveillance (provided it was connected with that explosion at sea), he didn’t want anyone else seen here.

  Gordy had been right, the place was overgrown. Wil was grateful for the workboots and long-sleeved shirt he wore, protecting him from tics. Not that tics were any great problem when compared with secret government agencies.

  He kicked around the weeds, his eyes searching for any clue at all. There were a few burned chips of wood, some broken dishes, and a doll that had been distorted in the heat. None of it offered any answers. Wil was about to give the whole thing up as a wild-goose chase when something caught his eye. He pushed aside stacks of sea grass as tall as himself and reached down to pick up a broken, rusted bucket. A little bit of the paint showed through, and he could tell it had once been red. There was a white spot in the middle of its side, and after careful study he realized it was a baby crab. His eyes widened.

  This was the bucket Samantha had said Julie put in her pictures.

  Wil tucked it under his arm and hurried back to the others.

  “Why did you make us wait?” Barbara asked.

  “Did you find anything?” Samantha wanted to know.

  Wil answered Barbara first. “If that is government property, it may be under surveillance. They probably have a picture of me right now. It’s safer not to get you involved.”

  “I think we’re pretty involved right now,” Eric said.

  Wil answered Samantha’s question now, by handing her the bucket.

  “I found it on the property,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s the one from the pictures!” Samantha cried. “The one I must have had as a child!”

  Eric shook his head. “Whoa, wait a minute. You said you thought you had come here thirty years ago. That isn’t thirty years’ worth of rust on that thing. Besides, if it was yours as a child, it would have disintegrated by now.”

  “I don’t think she was here as a child,” Wil said.

  Samantha looked up at him, the bucket held tightly in her hands.

  “What do you mean?” Barbara asked, as if speaking for her friend.

  “I mean, I think Gordy’s right,” Wil said. “I think you really were here ten years ago. I think you’re connected with that explosion somehow.”

  “But Julie’s drawings!” Samantha protested. “And the bucket . . .”

  Wil shook his head. “I don’t know what the explanation is for all that. But I do think we’re getting closer to an answer. It’s twenty minutes of ten. I’m going to head over to the factory now.”

  “I’m ready,” Samantha said.

  “No, Samantha, I’ve changed my mind,” Wil said. “Yesterday, it was a good idea to bring you as my assistant. But now that Rachel’s shown up, and has exhibited . . . extraordinary powers, I think it makes more sense for her to come. She’d be the one who could tell me if there’s anything to be found in the factory.”

  Samantha was disappointed, but couldn’t argue with Wil’s logic.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Barbara asked. “Just hang out?”

  Wil was about to answer when Rachel tapped his arm and pointed down the beach. The adults turned to look, and saw a small figure stumbling toward them. This particular section of beach was privately owned, so there were no other people blocking their view.

  “That looks like a little child,” Rachel said. “She’s coming to us.”

  Wil was about to ask how she knew this, but dropped the question.

  “I don’t think it’s Julie,” Samantha said, although she hoped she was wrong.

  “I know it isn’t Steven,” Eric said.

  “Maybe it’s just some kid who got lost,” Barbara said. “I feel sorry for her, but we’ve got our own problems. Wil, you’re going to be late.”

  Rachel held up her hand. “Please, wait.”

  She hurried across the sand to the child. The others watched from the road as she fell to her knees. The little girl threw herself into Rachel’s arms. Her hair was dripping and full of sand. Her wet clothes soaked through Rachel’s.

  “Rachel,” she whispered in a choking voice. “Your name is Rachel.”

  Rachel pulled back. She beckoned the others with a wide arc of her arm.

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “Steven . . . told me,” Lorraine said. “We were calling to you. Did you hear us?”

  Rachel hugged her close again. “Yes, yes! I heard you!”

  Lorraine held fast to Rachel, hardly able to believe she’d found her. The Demerol had worn off, but the effort of escape had left her as weak as a baby.

  The others had arrived. Rachel looked back over her shoulder.

  “She knew my name! She knows about Steven!”

  “They’ve got them locked up!” Lorraine wailed. “They tried to hurt me! I don’t know what they want!”

  “Are there others?” Samantha asked.

  “Just Julie and Marty,” Lorraine said. “He’s bigger than the rest of us. Older. But I’ve never seen him.”

  Samantha held fast to Wil’s arm. “Julie’s okay!”

  “I think she is,” Lorraine said.

  Wil knelt down to her level. “Lorraine, how did you get away?”

  “Marty told me about a secret tunnel.”

  “A secret tunnel?” Samantha repeated with surprise.

  “Can you show it to us?” Wil asked.

  Lorraine nodded. “Come on, follow me.”

  But when she tried to walk, her weak little legs gave out and she stumbled. Wil lifted her up into his arms. Lorraine pointed, and they started down the beach together. The adults were full of questions, but the tired look on the child’s face told them the questions would have to wait. They walked for nearly half an hour, until Barbara grew impatient enough to ask:

  “Is it much farther?”

  “It’s right over there,” Lorraine said. “See all that beach grass? There’s a pool of water there, and a secret entrance underneath.”

  “Water?” Samantha said. “You mean you swam out?”

  “Why would they build a tunnel under the water?” Barbara asked, not really expecting an answer.

  They reached the grass, and Lorraine showed them the pool of tidewater. They could barely make out the entrance to the tunnel.

  “I’d bet it wasn’t always underwater,” Wil said. “It must have been built for a purpose, and when they were done with it they covered it up. Nature took its course and finished the job.”

  Samantha touched Lorraine’s arm.

  “How far did you have to swim?”

  “Not too far,” Lorraine said. “I can hold my breath a few minutes.”

  She said this with some measure of childish pride.

  “But there was a door blocking the way,” Lorraine went on. “I got scared, but the others helped me. Marty h
elped me the most of all.”

  The adults looked confused.

  “How did he do that?”

  They expected to see another child emerge from the water.

  “He helped me . . . in my mind,” Lorraine said.

  Suddenly she clammed up. She wasn’t sure how much she was supposed to reveal.

  Everyone turned to Wil, who had become the unofficial leader of this expedition. He asked another question.

  “Could you give us an idea how big the building is?”

  “I went down a lot of stairs,” Lorraine said. “Maybe six or seven.”

  Wil thought about this. It seemed there might be secret subbasements in the factory.

  “What now?” Barbara asked.

  “First of all,” Wil said, “we get this little girl away from here. I’m sure they’re looking for her, and it won’t take them long to find out she got out this way.”

  “I can handle that,” Barbara said. “I’ll take her back to the motel.”

  “No, that isn’t safe,” Samantha said. “Take her to Haybrook’s. I’m sure Gordy won’t mind.”

  Barbara nodded, and took Lorraine into her arms.

  “Now, I have to stick to my original plan to enter the building as a safety inspector,” Wil said. “But two of you need to get in this way. Do you swim?”

  “I do,” Eric said. “I was a lifeguard years ago, and I’ve kept it up.”

  “I don’t know if I can swim,” Samantha said.

  “I can,” Rachel said. “Do you think I let Eric run off to the Y without me?”

  Wil nodded. “Then that’s that. You two go in this way. I have a feeling you won’t get caught, since Lorraine managed to get this far without being seen.”

  “Maybe it’s been so long since the tunnel was in use that they forgot about it,” Samantha suggested.

  “I hope you’re right,” Wil said. “But it won’t be forgotten for long. We’d better get moving.”

  They agreed on a rendezvous point, then went their separate ways. Eric and Rachel stripped down to their underclothes, using their belts to tie the bundles of their clothing to their backs. With a deep breath, they both plunged into the water.

  52

  FROM ALL OUTWARD appearances, Shoaling Aeronautics was not any different from any other factory. It was housed in a long brick-face building with a row of windows along each of its two stories. Armed with the phoney ID’s faxed to them by Wil’s former client, Wil and Samantha approached the front gate. Samantha’s heart beat so hard that she swore the man could hear it as he handed her a clearance badge. They were told to wear the badges throughout the building and to return them on their way out. They went inside, where they were greeted by a man named Wesley Kane.

  “You’ll only be allowed in certain areas,” he said. “Of course, you understand that in a place like this we do some very . . . specialized work.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Wil mumbled.

  Kane looked at Wil strangely. Then he led the two down the hallway. As they walked, Samantha wondered if the children really were somewhere in here. Did Wil have some kind of plan?

  They entered a room, where another guard took a look at their badges. Samantha noted a green border around the ones she and Wil wore, and immediately connected it to the green trim around the door. She wondered if this meant they would enter only rooms with green doors.

  Even though Wil and Samantha were authorized, everyone in the room hunched over his or her work to try to hide it. Some people actually stopped working, pushing parts aside and busying themselves with odd jobs like sorting nuts and bolts.

  “Why do the people in these places always stop work when I arrive?” Wil asked, as if he’d been doing this for years. “If I can’t see what they’re doing, I don’t know if they’re working within industry standards for job safety.”

  Kane gave an apologetic shrug.

  “I guess you do the best you can,” he said.

  He led Wil and Samantha through the room. Wil pointed out a few things that needed change, and jotted some notes. His former client had even gone so far as to send him the proper blank forms.

  At last the tour came to an end. Samantha felt disappointed as they headed toward the front of the building. She hoped Rachel and Eric had gotten through the secret tunnel and that they’d found out more than she and Wil had. As far as she was concerned, this whole episode was a waste of time.

  But Wil had a surprise in store. Although there were guards in the building, they weren’t everywhere. As soon as the three of them were alone, he pulled out a gun from beneath his jacket, as smoothly as a magician produces a scarf. Kane was so stunned that he stood staring at the gun barrel, blubbering.

  “Not a word,” Wil said. He tossed his head to the side to indicate an unoccupied room, a supply closet he had “inspected” just moments before.

  Kane moved inside. Samantha shut the door behind them. If her heart had been pounding loudly when they first entered the factory, it was ready to burst now.

  “Who are you?” Kane demanded.

  Wil didn’t say a word to him. He waved the gun at some rubber tubing and instructed Samantha to tie Kane up. With shaking hands she did so, in knots so tight it would take scissors to open them. Then she gagged him with packing tape.

  Wil removed his ID badge and pulled it out of its green-rimmed holder. He had noticed other badges on the shelf, and chose the one with the most colors. Samantha did the same. They now had access to any part of the building.

  “Come on,” Wil said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Wil took Samantha by the hand, and the two hurried down the hall. They reached a door marked “STAIRS” and entered a darkened stairwell. Wil finally tucked his gun back into its holster.

  “I didn’t know you had that with you,” she said.

  “Like I said,” Wil replied, “sometimes I need it.”

  He looked down the stairwell.

  “That little girl said there were at least six or seven floors here,” he said, “but these only go down one more flight. There must be a secret set of stairs.”

  “Lorraine said she found the entrance to the tunnel in a storage room,” Samantha said.

  The complex had been built according to a plan, and it was only a matter of minutes before they found an entrance to a new set of stairs behind some dusty old crates in a supply closet.

  “The tunnel must lead to one of these floors,” Samantha said as they descended. “I wonder if we’ll find Rachel and Eric.”

  “We won’t have the chance for that,” Wil said. “We can’t explore every story of the building. My guess is that if they’ve got anything to hide here, it would be in the lowest possible level.”

  They went down the rest of the way without speaking. On each floor they stopped to carefully look out the glass window on the door. They could see people moving quickly about, some with guns out. Samantha knew they were looking for Lorraine, but doing so in such a quiet manner that the people on the upper floors weren’t aware of the escape. Those people probably were no more than locals from the town. Kane might have been one himself.

  As she followed Wil, Samantha kept looking back over her shoulder, expecting to see someone coming behind them. But so far they were alone. No doubt these stairs were used only in emergency situations.

  When they reached the bottom floor, Wil pulled her back into the shadows and carefully looked out the window. The hall was brightly lit, and occupied by people in white space suits. Wil and Samantha had to wait five minutes before the way was clear for them to walk into the hallway. The sight of people hidden under helmeted white suits alerted them that they’d found something quite important. It also gave them a chance to take a look around incognito. Wil guessed that, like the floor where Kane was held prisoner, the storage room was right near the stairs. He found a pair of white suits, and they both pulled them on.

  “Wil, what if there’s some kind of disease down here?” Samantha asked worriedly. “What
if we put these suits on wrong?”

  Wil showed her one of the valves.

  “This is set for exhaust,” he said. “That means that the outside air is being protected from whatever germs might be emanating from you.”

  “From me?” Samantha echoed, staring at the helmet in her hands.

  “That’s right,” Wil said. “It’s a cleanroom suit. Air going out is filtered, not air coming in.”

  Samantha looked toward the door.

  “What are they trying to protect out there?” she wondered.

  Wil pulled on his helmet and latched it as easily as a man who had done this hundreds of times. Samantha made a mental note to ask him about this at a later date. She fumbled with her own, and Wil helped her. It gave her a slightly claustrophobic feeling, and memories of being locked up by her mother fought to surface. Samantha fought back, and they disappeared.

  Wil helped her with her gloves. In moments they looked like astronauts. More important, they looked no different from anyone else on the floor.

  “Can you hear me?” Samantha said.

  Wil answered, his voice sounding gravelly inside her helmet.

  “Yes, how about you?”

  “Just fine,” Samantha said. “Wil, how will you get your gun if you need it?”

  “I couldn’t use it anyway,” Wil said, holding up the fat fingers of his glove.

  They exited the storage room together. They could see two other people down the hall, but neither one turned to look at them. For the next ten minutes they explored as best they could, avoiding anyone else in case questions might be asked. Finally they came across a room marked “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

  “I wonder why there isn’t a guard,” Samantha asked.

  She saw Wil’s helmet shake back and forth. Carefully he pushed at the door. It was locked.

  “I hear someone coming,” Samantha said.

  They ducked into a broom closet. Wil watched a figure go by through the crack in the door, a white-suited figure like himself.

  The guard unlocked the door to the mysterious room and went inside. Guiding Samantha with a gentle push, Wil led the way back to the hall. This time the door that had stopped them stood slightly ajar.