Finding Hannah

by John Kess

  “I wish I could claim it as mine,” Wiz said, “but the slumlords rent me a room cheap.”

  “Slumlords?” Molly asked.

  “Dictators would be more accurate.” Wiz licked both of his palms twice and then ran them through his hair in an unsuccessful attempt to get it to lie down. “Luckily, they’re both gone. They’re probably overseeing the beheading of our last housekeeper.”

  “What did the last housekeeper do?” Molly asked.

  “She used a bleach-based cleaner.” Wiz wiped his hands on his shorts. “It’s the third beheading this month. Can I get either one of you something to drink?”

  In all my years of coming to Wiz’s house, he’d never once offered me something to drink.

  “I’ll take a water,” Molly said.

  “Make it two,” I said.

  Wiz turned to face the kitchen. “Rosella! I have guests! Two waters and a chocolate milk, please! We’ll be in my room!”

  We climbed the stairs to Wiz’s room, which was such a complete mess it made my room seem clean. Stacks of video games and computer magazines leaned against one wall and a pile of dirty laundry lay in a heap against the adjacent wall. The massive desk next to Wiz’s unmade bed had six computer monitors in two rows positioned in a semicircle around his desk chair. The screensaver of two comic-book characters trying to kill each other, moved across all six monitors as one picture. The only hint of organization in Wiz’s room was a shelf with two dozen labeled clear plastic bins full of computer parts.

  Wiz looked around the room as if he was realizing it was a mess for the first time and his face turned red.

  “Cool setup,” Molly said. She walked over to the chair in front of the monitors and sat down.

  With Molly’s back to both of us, Wiz’s mouth hung open with amazement as he pointed at her. “Oh, my God,” he mouthed without making a sound.

  I ignored him. “Wiz has this flying game where each monitor is a different view out of the cockpit.”

  “Nice,” Molly said.

  “Yeah,” Wiz said. “I landed a Boeing 747 on an aircraft carrier this morning.”

  “That takes some skill.” Molly pointed at all the bins of computer parts and then down at a massive computer tower next to her feet. “Did you make your own computer?”

  “Yeah, it’s the only way. You’d have to join the military to use a more powerful computer than my Becky.” Wiz kneeled and hugged the computer tower. “She’s always warm.”

  Molly looked at him and then at me. “Becky?”

  “He names every computer he makes,” I explained.

  “There is nothing Becky can’t do, except maybe clean my room,” Wiz said. “I made Dylan’s computer for him. How is Louise doing?”

  “She’s working great,” I said. “Louise is the best computer I’ve ever owned.”

  “And the only one you’ll ever need to own,” Wiz said.

  Rosella appeared with our drinks and shook her head in disgust. She was a tiny Hispanic woman in her mid-forties and wore a pink dress that would have been more fitting on a 1920s maid. “What a mess. Let me clean up in here.”

  “That will be all, Rosella,” Wiz said, grabbing his chocolate milk and a glass of water he quickly brought to Molly. I was left to get my own water.

  Rosella switched to Spanish to continue her protest, and Wiz quickly countered with his own Spanish. I knew Rosella didn’t let Wiz push her around, and the two continued their argument as Molly and I watched with amusement.

  Wiz gently pushed her out and shut the door. “There’s going to be another beheading if she keeps that up.”

  “Molly,” I said, “would you pull up a map of New Hampshire?”

  The screen saver disappeared as Molly moved the mouse, and a picture of a beautiful woman in a bikini lying on the hood of a Porsche appeared on the main monitor.

  “Wow,” Molly said, “a Porsche. Wiz, is that your girlfriend lying on the hood?”

  “Ahhh … not anymore. We dated for awhile. She was too afraid of commitment.”

  “I thought you said she was using you for your body,” I said.

  “Well, of course!” Wiz said. “All my girlfriends do. That’s a given.”

  Molly pointed at the screen. “Is her name Becky, too?”

  “No, um … her name is … Jane.”

  “Jane Doe,” I said.

  Molly brought up a map of New Hampshire.

  I looked at Wiz. “Molly and I have something to ask you.”

  “Now I told you,” Wiz pointed at me, “I’m not hacking the FBI database for you again.”

  Molly looked at me to see if he was serious, and I shook my head.

  “We need your help,” I said. “They’ve called off the search for Hannah, but Molly and I are going to keep searching.” I pointed at the screen. “Over the past three weeks we’ve searched this area. Molly and I are going to search further out and we’re also going to search houses.”

  “What do you mean, search houses?” Wiz asked.

  “We’re going to watch them and try to determine if someone is holding her,” I said. “We’re going to do it at night.”

  “What, are you going to break in and look around?” Wiz asked.

  “If I think someone is holding her, then yeah.”

  “Oh, do you have a GPS unit?” Wiz asked.

  “No.”

  Wiz walked to his closet and dug around until he found one. “You can borrow my old one. It’ll work great.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And we want to borrow your night-vision goggles,” Molly said.

  Wiz looked at Molly as if she just asked to borrow Becky.

  “Why do you need those?” Wiz asked.

  “If someone is holding Hannah, they’re doing it in a house, probably in a basement,” I said. “We want to use your goggles to have a look around.”

  Wiz didn’t seem convinced.

  Molly stood up and walked toward him with a smile. “Wiz, think about Hannah, and how much this would mean to everyone if your goggles were the reason we found her.”

  I watched as Wiz cracked under Molly’s spell. “All right, if it’ll help you find Hannah, you can use them. Please be careful.”

  Chapter 3

  After leaving Wiz’s house, I suggested to Molly that we should stop and get her stuff and then we could start hiking from my house.

  “I have to apologize. The house is a disaster zone,” Molly said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “At least Tony should still be gone.”

  “Is he your mom’s boyfriend?”

  “Yes. I hope you never meet him. He’s a creep and a complete a-hole.”

  Molly and I turned off the highway down a gravel road. About a mile later we turned into a driveway I’d never noticed. Around a bend and tucked away behind a row of overgrown bushes stood a battered one-story ranch house. The lawn was so brown that, at first glance, I thought it was gravel. There was a large propane tank the size of a small car on one end of the house. The roofline sagged and the storm door hung on one hinge. The house numbers had fallen off long ago, and yet you could still read the numbers that had been baked into the side of the pea green paint.

  A blaring TV greeted us as we stepped inside. It looked like a tornado had gone through the living room. Newspapers, dirty clothes, and empty fast-food containers were scattered everywhere. A woman slept on a recliner in front of the TV. Four prescription bottles and a bottle of whiskey sat on the table next to her.

  “Oh, God,” Molly said, as she found the remote and turned off the TV.

  “I was watching that,” the woman mumbled, without opening her eyes.

  “I’m sure you were, Mom.”

  Molly’s mom turned her head and squinted at me. “Who … who’s this?”

  “Mom, this is Dylan.”

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Why, Molly,” she turned her head away from us, “he’s cute.”

  “He can hear you, Mom
.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, but she’d already gone back to sleep, or passed out. I wasn’t sure which.

  Molly’s embarrassment showed on her face. “Come on.” She grabbed me by the hand and led me down a hallway with stained and torn carpet.

  “It’s not as nice as Wiz’s room.” Molly sighed as she opened a door missing half of the wood laminate.

  She was right. Wiz’s walk-in closet was bigger than Molly’s room. The bed, desk, and dresser crammed into it left little room to move around.

  “Please, sit down.” She motioned to her desk chair.

  As I sat I noticed the whole floor noticeably slanted toward the back corner, as if the house was sinking. A bare light bulb and socket hanging from the ceiling by electrical wires illuminated the numerous cracks in the sheetrock that made her wall look like a jigsaw puzzle.

  “Do you like to swim?” I asked, pointing at the signed poster of the U.S.A. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team and another of a woman diving off a ten-meter platform, both hanging above her bed.

  “I love swimming,” Molly said.

  “Hannah is on the swim team and works as a lifeguard during the summer. She even has a few school records.”

  “Cool. In what events?”

  I had to stop and think. “Um, I know one of them is the fifty freestyle, and another is a relay of some kind.” I knew she had two more, but I couldn’t remember in what events. I felt like an awful brother for not knowing this.

  “I plan on joining the swim team,” Molly said.

  “You and Hannah will be teammates.” I realized as I said it that Hannah needed to be found in order for that to happen. I wondered if Molly was thinking the same thing.

  “I can’t wait,” Molly said. “I need to get back in the water soon. It’s been too long.”

  Molly’s room was remarkably clean, especially when compared to the living room. An old laptop sat on Molly’s small desk, and about twenty porcelain penguins of various sizes decorated the top of her dresser.

  I pointed at them. “I like the penguin collection.”

  “I love penguins. All of those were from my dad. Sometimes he’d bring one home when he was gone on business trips.”

  “Your dad sounds like a pretty cool guy.”

  Molly flopped on her bed. “He was. He died about two years ago, when I was thirteen.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” I looked at the only framed picture on her dresser among the penguins and saw a much younger Molly being hugged by a smiling bearded man. I pointed at it.

  “That’s him,” she said. Molly stood up and grabbed one of the penguins and handed it to me. Someone had hand painted it with great care. The bright yellow, black, and white colors matched what I had seen on the Discovery Channel.

  “My dad brought it back from Sweden, where my grandparents are buried.”

  “It’s beautiful.” I handed it back to her.

  “I’m going to Sweden someday. That’s where my dad was born.”

  “Cool.”

  Molly pulled her sleeping bag from her small closet. “I know it’ll be great. My mom told me she’d take me there someday, but now I think I’ll have to do it on my own.”

  “I’m going to hike the whole Appalachian Trail someday. Maine to Georgia.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  I sat in the desk chair as Molly tried on an oversized raincoat. She held her arms out. “How do I look?”

  “Like you’re ready for a monsoon,” I said.

  “It used to belong to my dad.” She took it off and dug in her dresser.

  A huge man with biceps bigger than my head appeared in the hall. He had to turn sideways just to make it through Molly’s doorway.

  “Ah, I see our little arsonist has made a friend,” the man said.

  The man’s white tank top had yellowed badly. The ace of spades was tattooed on one shoulder, and a broadsword with an engraved snake slithering down the length of the blade was on the other. My eyes were drawn to the large hunting knife hanging from the belt around his worn jeans.

  “Leave us alone, Tony,” Molly said.

  “And who might you be?” Tony asked, looking at me as if my presence had somehow offended him.

  “I’m Dylan Beachley.”

  Molly pointed out her window. “He lives down the road across the highway.”

  “Well, Dylan Beachley from down the road across the highway, since this is my house, the next time you want to come inside, I’d better know about it first. You got that?”

  I could see Tony was serious, and he stared at me, waiting for an answer. “Yes, sir,” I said, trying to put this fire out before it got worse.

  “Yes, sir,” Tony said. “You hear that, Molly? That’s the sound of respect. Dylan may be smart after all, except, of course, for the fact he’s hanging around a criminal like you. Wait a minute, maybe he doesn’t know about you yet.” Tony smiled, “Well, he does now.”

  Molly glared at him. “You are the biggest jerk I know!”

  “Keep up that tone with me, young lady, and you’ll be out the door.” Tony pointed at her. “Don’t think I won’t do it. And you,” he pointed at me, “if you’re half as smart as I think you might be, you make sure and keep your junk in your pants.” He pulled out his hunting knife and pointed it at my crotch. “If I catch you messing around with Molly,” he made a slicing motion, “I’ll remove it for you. The last thing I need is a pregnant teenager walking around my house.”

  Tony put the knife back in its sheath and looked at his watch. “I want both of you out of here in twenty minutes. And don’t start any fires while you’re out, either.”

  Molly’s mouth was wide open as Tony left.

  I’d known Tony for all of one minute and I already feared for Molly’s safety. Living here would be awful.

  Molly flopped down on her bed and buried her head into the comforter. The floorboards creaked as Tony walked back into the living room.

  She turned her head to look at me and spoke softly. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  “You want to get out of here?”

  “Yeah.”

  Molly finished packing and strapped her sleeping bag to her backpack. We walked into the living room, where Tony was opening his mail. Molly’s mom still appeared to be passed out on the recliner.

  “Claire invited me to stay overnight at her house,” Molly said.

  “Good riddance,” Tony said. “See if you can stay another night while you’re at it.”

  “I’ll ask. We’re leaving.”

  Tony returned to his mail. “Stay out of trouble. And Dylan …”

  Tony held up an envelope that he skillfully sliced open with his knife, then held up the knife and glared at me like I’d just insulted his mother.

  “Come on.” Molly grabbed my arm and pulled me out the front door.

  When we were alone I asked, “Who is Claire?”

  “She’s a friend I’ve made up so I can get out of the house anytime I want.”

  “Does it work?”

  “It just worked, didn’t it? Besides, with a mom who is always drugged up and Tony, who would be thrilled if I never came back at all, I don’t even need Claire.”

  * * *

  Molly and I stared at the map on the wall in my room. We picked an area outside the ring around my house that had already been searched by the volunteers. We’d hike the trail to the northeast and set up a base camp. Each day we’d loop in a different direction from camp. Once we searched the area, we’d move our base camp to a new location. I figured it would be about a three-hour hike to reach our starting point.

  I left a note on the dining room table: “Out searching. Be back in a few days. —Dylan”

  I marked the location of my house on the GPS as we left with our backpacks full of food, clothes, and supplies. I had a jackknife, tent, clothes, rain gear, spotting scope, Wiz’s night-vision goggles, and my sleeping bag. My baseball bat handle stuck out the top for easy ac
cess. Molly’s slightly smaller backpack had her sleeping bag bungeed under it.

  We’d been on the trail for an hour when we came upon the first of many streams, which were small, thanks to the lack of rain from the three-year drought we were experiencing. I was amazed at Molly’s determination as she methodically picked her way across the stream, stepping on stones, then jumping to the far embankment.

  We climbed to one of the many peaks on the trail overlooking the forest. This was one of those views I’d longed to see when I’d been sitting in class trying not to die from boredom, but now it brought no joy. The view gave a glimpse of how much ground we had yet to cover. I felt like it would take forever.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Molly put her hand on my shoulder.

  “There’s so much to search.”

  “Don’t lose hope, Dylan.” Molly gave me a hug. It felt like I’d just walked into a warm room after being out in the cold. I stood in her embrace for a moment, and then she placed her hands on my shoulders. “We’ll find her.”

  I returned her determined smile.

  We ate granola bars for lunch as we hiked. Every time we came upon hikers, Molly stopped them and gave them a flyer with Hannah’s picture and description. By midafternoon we reached the northwest corner of our search area.

  “Which way do we go?” Molly looked eager to continue searching.

  “Molly, there’s one very important rule we’re about to break when it comes to the Appalachian Trail.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ever leave the trail.”

  Molly smiled at me. “Are you ready to start breaking some rules?”

  “Oh, yeah!”

  I marked our location on the GPS unit. We walked west into the vast forest, leaving the trail behind. We wound our way around huge maples and dogwoods and then entered a valley full of birch trees. We spent the next few hours walking, dodging branches and stepping over logs. Our eyes kept searching for any signs of Hannah, just as we’d done with the search party the past few weeks.

  “Look at that,” Molly said, pointing at a moss-covered rock wall that came up to our knees. The wall formed a partially broken rectangle. A large tree grew inside it.

  “It must have been someone’s house a hundred years ago,” I said.