Drawn

by James Hankins

  “Good luck with all that.”

  “You, too. Call me.”

  Kenny shut the door and Boone settled back into his seat as the cab pulled away.

  “We’re going to New Hampshire, right?” the cabbie said.

  “Right. Take Route Ninety-Three. I’ll tell you more when we get there.”

  “You’re in charge.”

  Boone knew he wasn’t in charge. Someone or something else was giving the orders, sending him on a mission. He hoped he was up for the task as he closed his sightless eyes and tried not to vomit.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  NATHAN WAS REALLY starting to regret doubling the dose of Burt’s sleeping pills. Burt had said that one pill knocked him out all night and kept him down for the count until the morning when Cassie woke him. Nathan, not wanting to waste another minute when Jeremy could be in trouble, had taken two pills. If one would put him under for an entire night, how long would two have kept him out if his nightmare hadn’t jarred him from his slumber? He should have rolled over and gone back to sleep, given his body a chance to metabolize the sleeping pills. But Jeremy was out there, alone, in danger, and Nathan was going to find him.

  But the sleeping pills were still having their way with Nathan. He’d been on the road less than half an hour and he’d already had two close calls. Once, he’d closed his eyes for only a moment when he veered onto the shoulder and was jolted awake by the ruts cut into the road for that very purpose, making it feel like he was driving over a giant washboard. The vibration rattled his Buick, rattled his bones, and rattled him back to his senses, even if only for a few minutes—because soon after, he was nodding again. The deafening blast of a trucker’s horn snapped him awake and he jerked the wheel, pulling back into his own lane. He breathed a sigh of relief as the massive truck rumbled past.

  Nathan opened both eyes wide. Despite the chilly autumn night, he lowered all the windows and let the wind howl through the car. The cold was bracing, the roaring wind was deafening. He should be able to stay awake now.

  He knew he was being irresponsible. He was a danger to himself and, worse, to others. But he sensed from his dreams that time was crucial now. If he pulled into a rest stop to nap, he’d probably sleep for two days, and he didn’t think he had minutes to spare, or even seconds to waste. No, he would push right through, all the way to his house in New Hampshire. From his apartment in West Hartford, it was only a three-and-a-half-hour drive. He could make it…

  NATHAN IS FLOATING, flying, soaring through tree branches, leaves whipping his face. As he flies, he looks down. Below him a younger man in a brown-and-tan camouflage uniform with a bloody stain on his side is running through the forest in a panic. Tree branches claw at him. A moss-slick log appears out of nowhere and Jeremy steps on it, twists an ankle, and goes down with a cry. Thunder sounds from somewhere not far behind, getting closer. Footsteps pounding, thunderous footsteps shaking the forest. Jeremy struggles to his knees, then his feet, favoring his injured ankle. Behind him, a huge tree cracks in half and the man-monster throws the top half aside like it’s a broken broom handle. Jeremy stumbles, crawls, limp-runs for his life. He hobbles into a clearing. There’s a house ahead. Nathan knows this house. Jeremy has to reach the house. He’ll be safe there. He’s halfway across the clearing, halfway to the house, when the trees behind him at the edge of the clearing part, their thick trunks snapping, the sound like twin shotgun blasts. The man-monster-thing with the torn cheek, with the blood running down his face and his neck and his chest, with his body covered in mud and slime from the lake, the creature bursts from the trees and pounds across the clearing, his footsteps shaking the earth so much that Jeremy has trouble keeping his footing. He stumble-staggers for the door of the house. He’s going to make it.

  He’ll never make it.

  The thing is too close behind.

  He has to make it.

  He will.

  He won’t.

  It’s going to be close.

  Nathan watches from above, unable to help his son. Jeremy grabs the doorknob, turns and pushes, but the door is too heavy. The man-thing is getting close. Jeremy must be able to hear his grunts, feel his breath. The creature reaches out with massive hands. Jeremy slams his shoulder into the door, which starts to give, rusty hinges shriek—

  A METALLIC SHRIEKING filled Nathan’s ears. He snapped his eyes open and almost wished he hadn’t. His car was sliding alongside another car, their metal bodies grinding together as they zipped along I-84 East at seventy miles per hour. The other driver veered away, swerved violently, then slid to a stop on the grass median separating the eastbound and westbound lanes. Nathan pulled onto the shoulder of the right-hand lane and slowed to a halt, the gravel crunching under his tires.

  Nathan’s heart was jumping in his chest. He’d nearly killed someone. He took a breath to calm himself but it didn’t work. He worried that he might have a heart attack, but if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to help Jeremy. He took another breath.

  “Hey,” someone said.

  Nathan turned to see a man scowling in at him through his open window.

  “You all right?” the man asked without a trace of genuine concern. Nathan didn’t blame him. He didn’t deserve any.

  “I’m okay. You?”

  “Yeah, fine. What the hell happened? You came right into my lane.”

  “I’m sorry. Just lost my focus for a second. It’s my fault.”

  “Sure as hell is.”

  The man was angry but it didn’t seem like he would get violent, so Nathan reached over, opened his glove compartment, took out the plastic folder in which he kept his vehicle registration, and stepped out of the car.

  “Anybody in the car with you?” he asked.

  “Just me. What the hell were you doing?”

  “Like I said, just lost my focus for a second. I couldn’t be more sorry. Nothing like this has ever happened to me,” he lied. The man shook his head. “I’m fully insured,” Nathan added, “and totally at fault. You’ll be taken care of, don’t you worry about that.”

  The man rubbed his neck. Nathan wondered if he was setting up a whiplash claim. He didn’t care.

  He said, “I’ll call Allstate first thing in the morning, tell them everything, ask them to move things along as quickly as they can to set you right, okay?”

  The man blew out a big breath. “Well, I think we should call the cops.”

  Nathan didn’t want that. He didn’t want anything to slow him down. He’d be more careful from here on out. This had been far too close a call. He’d pull into a rest stop for coffee, maybe buy a couple of those little energy drinks he’d seen on TV and jack himself up.

  Damn those sleeping pills.

  Without them, though, he might not have discovered where to go next. Now he knew. But he didn’t have time to waste talking with the police, waiting while they took statements, then wrote out a ticket for him, then maybe gave him some sort of field sobriety test, which he might fail. Even though he hadn’t been drinking, Burt’s sleeping pills had obviously impaired his faculties. The cops might notice that and not let him drive. And if that happened, what would happen to Jeremy?

  He looked down at his car. Scratches and dents along the driver’s side. Nothing that he thought would affect the vehicle’s function. Still, maybe a cop might question whether it was truly safe to drive. Nathan couldn’t have that.

  But he didn’t want to seem desperate to avoid the police. That might seem suspicious and the other driver might wonder if Nathan wasn’t, in fact, insured or maybe had some other reason for wanting to avoid the police. Hell, everyone watched those “most wanted” shows. For all this guy knew, Nathan had slaughtered his coworkers twenty years ago and had been on the run ever since.

  “Yeah,” the man said, “maybe we ought to call the cops.”

  Every now and then a car zipped past and Nathan knew that, soon enough, one of the cars that came along would be a state trooper.

  “Sure,”
Nathan said. “We can call the police. That’s fine with me.” He paused before adding, “But it’s getting late and after they finally get here, they’ll keep us here for a while. You probably have someplace to be. I know I do. Look, I can write down all my insurance info, you can check it against my registration, and we’ll let my insurance company work it out with yours.” He paused another moment, then said, “But I have no problem waiting, if that’s what you want. This was my fault, after all. You make the call.”

  The man seemed to be considering. He checked his watch.

  “Tell you what,” Nathan said, “I can write here that this was all my fault, that I came over into your lane and hit your car. Make it real clear for both insurance companies. Sound okay to you?”

  The man chewed on that for a moment. “Yeah, okay, you start writing. I’ll get my info from my car.”

  A FEW MINUTES later, Nathan watched the other driver pull back onto the highway. He let the taillights disappear over a rise in the road before starting his own car. He took a deep breath. He intended to do just what he thought of doing earlier—pull into a rest stop for a strong caffeine jolt. He needed to get to his house in New Hampshire, but he wouldn’t make it there if he got himself killed on the way.

  He had no idea why Jeremy was suddenly in such danger after all these years, but Nathan’s dreams seemed clear enough to him. Jeremy needed him and time was running out. Nathan had to hope that his son could hang on long enough for Nathan to reach him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “PULL OVER.”

  “What, here?”

  “Just pull over.”

  The cabbie jerked the wheel and the taxi slid to a stop on the shoulder of Route 93. Boone tugged at the door handle, lurched from his seat, and dropped to his knees in the grass at the highway’s edge. His stomach heaved once, twice, then a third time before a trickle of bile dripped from his lips. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he crawled back to the vehicle, dragged himself into his seat, and closed the door behind him.

  “What the hell was that?” the cabbie asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “I said no puking in my cab.”

  “I didn’t puke in your cab.”

  “You almost did.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  Boone’s minimal sight had returned a few minutes after they left Chelsea. Though an oppressive sense of anxiety constantly gnawed at him, the more serious symptoms of his phobia-related panic attacks had yet to return. But Boone could feel them lurking in the shadows the whole way, waiting to leap out and strike. He hadn’t been in a car in years. He hated it. It was wrong. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t home. He’d been thinking that he should be home, not here, not in a car, for God’s sake, he should be where he lived, where he was comfortable, not here in a car, on a highway, not out in the open like this—

  And suddenly an overpowering sense of dread and fear had swept over Boone in a rush, like a tidal wave crashing down on him, rendering him shaking and nauseated. He’d done his best to hide it, to shiver and cower in silence, but when the nausea grew too severe he had asked to pull over.

  “I told you I didn’t want you getting sick in my cab.”

  “I’m fine. It was a close call, I admit, but I’m fine. Besides, I’ve got nothing left to throw up, so don’t worry about it.”

  The cabbie grumbled something unintelligible and drove on.

  The moment of crushing dread had passed and Boone was back to feeling constantly anxious rather than on the verge of a total mental and physical collapse.

  He leaned his head against the cool window. He could feel the rumble of the road beneath the taxi as the miles flowed past beneath them, the distance between him and his home and his safety growing with every passing second. A small bubble of terror began to rise in his gut, but by breathing slowly, in and out, in and out, he was able to push it back down. He sighed and closed his eyes. A few minutes ago, before he’d had to pull over, he’d gone nearly half an hour without suffering a panic attack. He prayed the worst was behind him.

  TEN MILES LATER Boone was gripping the back of the seat in front of him with white-knuckled fingers. His eyes were squeezed closed. He was dying. He was certain of it. And if he wasn’t, he desperately wanted to be. He considered opening the cab door and hurling himself out while they were doing seventy-five miles per hour, hoping the impact with the pavement would end his torment. And if the impact didn’t, with any luck he’d be run over by several vehicles also doing seventy-five.

  He couldn’t take this. Not another minute of this.

  Someone had sucked all the air from the taxi. Boone now knew what it was like to die in a vacuum. The sweat ran rivers down his face. He burned bright and red-hot with hell-fever. His heart would burst any second—it had to, he was sure of it; it couldn’t beat this fast and hard without exploding eventually.

  He nearly cried out.

  He did cry out. He cried out and beat his fist against the door. He thrashed like an epileptic in full seizure.

  Before he knew it the cabbie had pulled over again. He leaped from the taxi and yanked Boone’s door open.

  “Get out.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Get out now.”

  “I can’t go…out there—”

  “I swear to God—”

  “Just give me a minute—”

  “I want you out of my cab. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but I want you out.”

  Boone shook his head weakly. Hands grabbed his shirt roughly, hands Boone couldn’t see, not even a little, as he’d gone completely blind again. He pushed the hands away but they kept pawing at him.

  “Get out of my goddamn cab.”

  “Leave me alone. Just give me a minute.”

  “Christ almighty, they don’t pay me enough to drive a nutjob like you around. Get the hell out right now.”

  The man grabbed Boone’s leg and started pulling him from the cab. Boone kicked wildly. A minute ago he’d wanted nothing more than to get out of the cab even if it cost him his life—especially if it cost him his life. Now the thought of leaving the relative safety of the cab, of being ripped from the sheltering cocoon of the taxi, was terrifying. He kicked with all his strength, pounded his fists against the hands grabbing at his legs. If he could get his fingers around the cabbie’s throat, he’d have choked the life from the bastard who was trying to tear him from the taxi.

  “Jesus Christ,” the cabbie said, shoving Boone and stepping back. “Jesus Christ, what’s the matter with you?”

  Boone let his head flop back against the seat. His vision, such as it was, was returning. The air was breathable again. His heartbeat began to slow. Focusing his mind on the fight must have distracted him from the thoughts that caused his panic in the first place.

  “Antonio?” he said. “That’s your name, right?”

  “Yeah,” the cabbie said. He sounded ready to go another round.

  “Get back in the car, okay? I’ll tell you what’s going on here.”

  Boone couldn’t make him out, but Antonio seemed to be thinking about it. A moment later, Boone’s door closed and the cabbie slid behind the wheel again.

  “We’re not moving till you tell me what the hell is wrong with you. And if it’s catching, you’re out on your ass.”

  “I’m agoraphobic,” Boone said.

  “What’d I just say? Get the hell out.”

  “It’s not catching. It’s a phobia.”

  “A phobia? That’s like a fear, right?”

  “Yeah, an irrational fear. People are afraid of different things. Some people are afraid of the dark. Some can’t drive over bridges. Cats cause some people mortal terror. People can be deathly afraid of clowns or spoons or feathers or nearly anything.”

  “Spoons?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I don’t like snakes,” Antonio said as he dropped the taxi into gear and pulled back onto the highway.

  “Who does?”

>   “I think my sister had the clown thing as a kid. They scared the holy hell out of her.”

  “They scare a lot of people,” Boone said.

  “I think she’s okay now, though. What was that you have?”

  “Agoraphobia. A fear of public places, open spaces. It can also be a fear of crowds. For me, I have to stay in my apartment building or on my block.”

  “And what, you just freak out when you’re anywhere else?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “How do you ever leave home?”

  “I don’t. This is the first time in six years.”

  “Damn.”

  They drove in silence for a while. Boone felt the open air pressing against the windows of the cab like a living, malevolent presence. Anxiety gnawed at him. Now and then he felt himself teetering on the razor’s edge of a panic attack but, by closing his eyes and forcing himself to slow his breathing, he was able to keep the symptoms mostly at bay—though, still, his heart would race from time to time, or the temperature of his blood would rise a few degrees, or he’d start to lose the last vestige of his vision. Despite all that, he was no longer praying for death, which was an improvement.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  MIGUEL’S HEAD THROBBED. Something rough rubbed against his cheek. He was lying on his side, curled up, and he was cramped. It was difficult to breathe.

  He opened his eyes. It was dark. The throbbing continued and Miguel realized that, though his head truly ached, the throbbing wasn’t in his head. It was below him. In a flash of panic, he knew where he was.

  He was in the trunk of Larry’s car.

  He tried to feel around for his backpack, but he couldn’t reach out. His hands were taped together. He tried to call out but his mouth was taped shut. He tried to kick out but his ankles were bound with tape, as well.

  That son of a bitch Larry. Miguel wanted to kill him. Then he realized that Larry probably wanted to kill him, too. He might do unbearable things to him first, but he would kill him. Miguel knew it with a dead certainty. It was in Larry’s eyes. It had been there all along but Miguel had chosen not to see it. Instead he saw money and a house in the woods and a boat on a lake, and he’d closed his eyes to the warning signs.