Surrender

by J. S. Bailey

  Shirley and John gave him glassy stares. Matt coughed a few times and folded his arms. “Your parents obviously trusted this Vance’s judgment,” he said.

  A vein pulsed in Thane’s temple. “I don’t even know the man. Why would he even think to tell them that? What would it be to him?” His eyes darted to each of the people seated at the table, and when nobody had an answer, he said, “Well?”

  “We don’t know,” Carly said even though she hadn’t wanted to say anything. “We’re just as clueless as you.”

  Thane banged a fist on the table so hard that his own glass of cabernet sauvignon toppled over, sending a purple puddle spreading across the white tablecloth. He stood up, shoved his chair back from the table, and stormed from the room.

  “That was unexpected,” Mia said once he’d gone. She popped an after-dinner mint into her mouth and sat up straighter in her seat. “Everybody stay here. I’m going to see what he’s up to.”

  She vanished through the same doorway through which Thane had exited. Carly and Matt exchanged uneasy glances. “I can’t move my legs,” Carly whispered.

  Matt frowned. “Neither can I.”

  INSTEAD OF taking the more roundabout way of following the curving lane, Thane trudged through the falling snow in a direct line toward Vance Peterson’s house, where lights glowed behind the distant ground-floor windows. He sent his thoughts outward as far as they would reach, but he could no longer detect the man as he had upon his arrival at the estate. Had he skipped town without warning? Why would he do such a thing?

  The wind nipped at his nose and ears as he blundered past tree trunks and through a gully, almost turning his ankle in the accumulating snow. He had to know what had possessed Vance to make his parents turn on him. Did he have some kind of mind-controlling powers like Mia? Is that what had convinced them to shut him away like a corpse?

  “Thane! What are you doing?” a voice called behind him. Thane gnashed his teeth together in irritation. Couldn’t she let him do this one thing alone?

  He slipped in the snow ascending a short incline and landed on his hands and knees. The sound of Mia’s panting breaths came up behind him as he struggled to his feet and brushed the snow from his palms onto his pants. “What exactly do you want?” he spat at her as he finally made it to Vance’s front walk and traipsed onto the porch.

  Mia jogged to keep up with his longer strides. “I said I want to help you.”

  He wheeled on her in the glow of the porch light, and she took an involuntary step backward. Flecks of snow dotted her dark hair, and her eyes were wide. Not surprisingly, she hadn’t worn a coat.

  “I fail to see how you’ve been any real help to me,” he said. “Your plans haven’t worked.”

  “I never said I was perfect.”

  Thane turned away from her, disgusted, and tried Vance’s front doorknob.

  It wasn’t locked.

  Thane pushed the door inward and stepped into Vance’s living room. He’d been inside the dwelling a few times as a child when the old caretakers had lived here, and to his surprise it didn’t look much different now. The old grandfather clock leaned against the wall as it always had, a forest green couch sat across from the fireplace, and a wooden coffee table was home to a stack of Time magazines.

  Frowning, he picked the topmost magazine off the stack that bore a picture of Bob Dole on the cover. It was dated July 1995.

  Thane’s skin prickled. Something wasn’t right, here. It was like he’d just walked back in time twenty years. He half expected to see Virgil and Millicent, who took care of the property for his grandparents, walk in from the kitchen and offer him a warm hello.

  “What’s the matter?” Mia asked, her interest piqued. “Don’t like vintage magazines?”

  “The caretakers who lived here when I was a teenager had a subscription to Time magazine. They always had a stack of them sitting right here.”

  “So?”

  He waved the magazine at her. “They retired twenty years ago. This issue is from twenty years ago.”

  Mia bit her lip. “Okay, maybe that is a little bit odd. But what does it matter? Why are you trying to find Vance?”

  “So I can kill him.”

  To his surprise, Mia blanched. “You can’t do that.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “But Vance never hurt you. He just gave your parents some bad advice.”

  Thane laughed, but it bore no humor. “That ‘bad advice’ led me to be shut away in a home with senile housewives who couldn’t even remember their own names. You’d want him dead, too.”

  “He’s going to hear you and call the cops.”

  Thane was surprised Mia started to show cold feet—perhaps she wasn’t as tough as she’d made herself appear. “Don’t worry; he isn’t here. I was hoping to wait for him to come back and kill him then.” Although since Vance was currently out of Thane’s range, it could have been hours before the man showed.

  Mia cleared her throat. “Did you forget about Bobby? He’ll probably be coming soon if he gives a crap about his friends.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “How are you going to kill him if you’re out here waiting for Vance?”

  “Did you forget I told you that my parents will be the ones to physically take care of Bobby? The moment they see him, they’ll be compelled to take him out. I’ve been feeding them those thoughts for days. Then I can call the police on them reporting a murder, and they can get to learn what it’s like living in a cell for years without end.”

  THE SKY had grown completely dark. Bobby left the interstate several minutes before and navigated harrowing curves winding through the wooded hills.

  “It’s coming up soon,” Randy said, consulting his phone. “Just a couple more minutes.”

  Bobby nodded and turned into another curve. No sooner had he done so when a male figure came into view standing directly in the middle of his lane.

  In the millisecond it took him to swerve out of the way, he realized it was his doppelganger.

  Kaori screamed. “What are you—”

  The Nissan spun out of control, and as much as Bobby fought to keep it on the road, it continued to slide in the damp slush coating the roadway. The view outside whirled in a dizzying blur of tree trunks and snowflakes, and the next thing Bobby knew, the car was rolling tail over teakettle down a wooded hillside.

  Something big smacked him in the face as the car came to a stop upside down a hundred feet below the roadway. It took Bobby a few seconds to realize that the airbags had deployed, albeit a bit late.

  He coughed a few times and heard a groan from elsewhere in the vehicle. “Everyone okay?” he croaked.

  “I taste blood,” Randy said. “I think I bit my tongue. Excellent driving, by the way. Most exemplary.”

  “I can’t find my phone,” Kaori said weakly from Bobby’s right. She slapped at her seatbelt buckle and dropped to the ceiling of the car, which was now their floor. “Oh, here it is. Screen’s cracked.”

  “So is the windshield,” Bobby said as wind gusted through the shattered glass. He felt a twinge of sorrow at the condition of his car. It was the only vehicle he’d ever owned, and it would be a miracle if it didn’t end up being totaled.

  At least nobody had died during their downhill tumble.

  “What were you even swerving for?” Randy asked as he extricated himself from his own seatbelt. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “It was my evil doppelganger,” Bobby said. He switched off the ignition. Something warm trickled down his cheek. He slapped at it, and his hand came away damp with blood. “It looked just like me. It wanted us to crash.” He undid his seatbelt, crouched on the ceiling, and reached for the door handle. It felt so disorienting to be situated in a vehicle in such a manner, like it was some twisted funhouse room.

  The glass had shattered in the door as well. Bobby pushed the door open an inch or two, but the sound of groaning metal told him it was too warped from the crash to open properl
y.

  Kaori shoved her door open with little trouble and clambered out into the thickening snowstorm. “Come out this way if you’re stuck,” she said. “We can walk the rest of the way. It should be less than a mile. Right, Randy?”

  Randy coughed. “I don’t know; I can’t find my phone.”

  Bobby crawled out of the car, followed by Randy. “Wait,” Bobby said. “I’m getting my flashlight.” He pulled it out of the glovebox and switched it on, then shone it over the wreckage. “Oh, darn.”

  His beloved Nissan bore a remarkable resemblance to an aluminum can that had gone through a crusher. He counted it a miracle none of them had been seriously injured during its tumble down the hillside.

  The three of them looked at each other, then at the incline they needed to ascend to get back to the road. Bobby wondered how long it would take a passing motorist to notice a vehicle lying upside down on the hillside.

  “As we were, then?” Bobby said.

  Kaori nodded. “As we were.”

  “I’M POSITIVE the map showed the driveway just around this curve,” Randy said ten minutes later as they walked along the narrow shoulder of the road. Only two vehicles had passed them during their walk so far, and if their drivers had felt any concern for the three haggard figures making their way toward the Bagdasarian residence, neither had stopped to show it.

  In more ideal circumstances, they could have used the GPS on a different phone, but Bobby didn’t own a smartphone and Kaori’s screen was too cracked to see anything on it. Randy had still been unable to locate his after they’d set off from the scene of the wreck, meaning it had probably fallen out of the car through a busted window during the downhill tumble and buried itself in a bank of snow. Bobby had called it several times with his own phone to try to hear it vibrate, but heard nothing.

  But no matter. They were on the right road. As long as they kept walking, they would get there.

  CARLY WAITED and waited for Mia to return to the dining room and tell them they were allowed to get up from their chairs, but it seemed the woman had left the building for good.

  She hoped it didn’t mean that Bobby had showed up already outside. Carly dreaded to think Thane had injured him somewhere while she was imprisoned without chains in a fancy dining room.

  She willed herself to move her legs to propel herself out of the chair, yet they still didn’t budge. She could wiggle her toes and move her feet and even cross one leg over the other, but the moment she thought about standing up, they became immovable as stone.

  And she really, really had to use the bathroom.

  Thane’s parents spoke amongst themselves as if nothing in the universe were amiss. Meryl came in and cleared away the dishes, and Matt drummed his fingers on the tablecloth while stewing in a brooding silence.

  “So,” Carly said. “Any ideas?”

  “None yet,” said Matt. “But I’m still thinking.”

  “I guess this conversation still applies as being civil, since we’re having it.”

  “I guess so.” Matt twisted around to look through the doorway behind them and let out a terse breath. “Do you think this Mia’s ability really isn’t demonic?”

  “I don’t know,” Carly said. “I’d have a hard time believing anything she says.”

  Well, except maybe Mia’s admission that she wiped memories. That much seemed to be true.

  “This ability she has…it’s monstrous,” Matt went on. “I would have thought that anyone she controlled would be unaware that she’s controlling them. I suppose that’s what I get for watching too many movies with Kaori.”

  Matt was right—it was monstrous. Carly felt like a prisoner in her own body. It would have been much nicer to be blissfully unaware of the control Mia had placed over her.

  More minutes passed. Shirley and John grew bored with their conversation and fell silent, opting to stare at Carly and Matt as if they were museum exhibits. If they knew Mia had controlled them, they showed no sign of it.

  “Well, this is awkward,” Carly said.

  The Bagdasarians made no comment.

  Then, from somewhere beyond the walls of the house, came what sounded like a scream. Her pulse quickened. Had Bobby arrived at last?

  AFTER WHAT felt like years of walking through the cold, a fancy stone wall with a gate came into view on their left. The trio crossed the road and paused at the edge of the cobblestone drive leading up to the mansion.

  “This is it, then,” Kaori said.

  Bobby’s mouth had gone dry. “Is it worth it?” he asked.

  “Is what worth it?”

  “Saving our friends.” He shivered. “Surrendering ourselves so they can walk free.”

  “We don’t even know that he will let them walk free,” Randy said. “I’m not usually too skeptical, but Thane doesn’t strike me as the type to keep promises.”

  Bobby gazed toward the immense house. Lights glowed behind several of the windows. He wondered if Thane was peering out at them even now like a carnivore monitoring its prey. “But say he does let them free. Is it worth letting the world burn?”

  Kaori cocked her head at him. “I don’t plan on dying tonight. Do you?”

  “I can’t say I do,” Randy said. “Bobby?”

  Bobby shivered again. The cold had seeped inside of him and taken root within his marrow. He didn’t know how he could ever be warm again.

  Trust me, the Spirit whispered.

  “We should keep moving,” Bobby said instead of answering. He stepped up to the gate and put a hand on it, and it swung open at his touch.

  So they were being watched. A gate in front of a home like this one would not stay unlocked for no reason.

  The three of them walked side by side up the cobblestone drive, either to their death or to their victory, and paused on a front porch flanked by white columns.

  “I guess we knock?” Bobby said, glancing between his two companions.

  “I—” Randy started to say, but a cry in the distance cut him off.

  Bobby whirled to his left and squinted toward the trees bordering the mansion’s yard, but the glow from the house’s outdoor lights prevented him from seeing anyone who might have been hiding among them. “You think we should check it out?” Bobby asked.

  “I’ll go take a look,” Randy said. “You go inside. Give me your flashlight.”

  Bobby handed it over to him. “Be careful out there.”

  “And you be careful in there.” Randy smiled. “I’m sure you’ve got this, Roberto.”

  Randy trotted off in the direction of the cry. His figure dwindled into the distance, swallowed up by the thickening snow.

  Bobby sucked in a breath, raised his hand to the door, and knocked.

  THANE FROZE as footsteps came up behind him in Vance’s living room, and Mia took a surprised step in reverse. Thane wheeled and found himself eye to eye with a man who had thinning brown hair and wore a heavy coat with dried blood smeared across the front.

  A coat that once belonged to Virgil, the old caretaker.

  “Hello, there, Thane,” Vance said with a smile. “You were looking for me?”

  Thane’s hands tightened into fists. “How do you know what I call myself? I never told you.”

  “Sure you have,” Vance said as he casually strode closer to him. “You just didn’t realize it. Now, what is this about wanting to kill me?”

  Thane frantically tried to probe the man’s mind but there simply wasn’t anything there to probe despite the fact he’d done so on the night he first came to the estate. Now Vance might as well have been a robot.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Vance asked with a cocked eyebrow. “You’re usually much more talkative than this.”

  “You—you ruined my life,” Thane managed to say, not bothering to ask how Vance could possibly know about his conversational habits. “You told them to put me in that nursing home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s what you needed to become who you
are. If you’d stayed under the care of your parents, you would have come to accept your pathetic fate in time like that woman you saw at the music store. You certainly never would have been granted your special little power, now would you?”

  Thane stared at the man, his mind struggling to process Vance’s words. Surely it couldn’t mean what it sounded like. “You mean you’re—”

  “I needed you angry,” Vance went on. “Not just angry about the accident—which wasn’t my fault, by the way; that deer stepped into the road of its own accord—but angry about the way you were being treated by those who were supposed to care. Anger breeds great things, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  Thane became aware of a loud ringing in his ears.

  “I can see you’re not taking this well,” Vance said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Thane,” Mia hissed from behind him. “Can we get out of here now?”

  Vance turned from Thane and smiled at Mia. “I don’t like you,” he told her. “I know what you’re up to, and you can lay off it now.”

  Mia’s cheeks flushed. “Are you going to kill me if I don’t?”

  “No, I’m sure I can find some other use for you once tonight’s done. But for now, you can scram.”

  Without warning, Vance dissolved into a black shadow with wings and swooped straight at the woman.

  Mia screamed.

  MIA BOLTED from the caretaker’s house before the creature could get her. Because that’s what it was: a creature. Not human. Not even close to human.

  She dashed through the trees back toward the house and screamed again when a man with a flashlight almost tackled her. She skidded in the snow and grabbed onto a tree trunk for support.

  “You will not hurt me!” she gasped, holding out her free hand to ward him off. “You will stay back!”

  She thought she could hear flapping in the branches above her, and she prayed she wouldn’t be sick from fear. Honest-to-God monsters weren’t supposed to exist, for goodness sake!