The Vanishing

by Bentley Little

  ‘‘I think we should go home,’’ Robin said. She hadn’t spoken since the kids had left, and her voice startled him.

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘You know why. Besides, what more is there to see here? Or do? Why don’t we start back and spend the extra time sightseeing along the way? We could check out Yosemite or the redwoods or even make a detour to the Grand Canyon.’’

  He didn’t answer. She was right. There was no real reason to stay and plenty of reasons to leave early.

  But he didn’t want to.

  It was an irrational position and not one that he totally understood. Despite the resurrected animals and Robin’s history here, he really enjoyed being in gold rush country, but that didn’t explain his firm tether to the place. For it was not just a vague connection he felt but a concrete attachment that stubbornly refused to acknowledge either logic or reality. From the beginning, it felt as though he’d been called here, and while he did not know how or why, he wanted to stay around and discover how this played out.

  That was wrong, he knew. He was a husband and a father, and his first priority should be his family. There was definitely something about this trip that did not seem safe, that was totally at odds with his duties as a spouse and a parent, but he felt all of this at a remove, as though he were underwater and hearing the muffled sound of voices from the surface.

  He’d been thinking a lot about Bill Fields on this trip. He hadn’t thought of Bill for years, and though it was only the notoriety of his murder that had placed him back in Andrew’s mind, the fact remained that there seemed to be some sort of link between his old friend and the feelings he had for this part of California. It was not something intellectual but instinctual, a below-the-radar recognition that there were connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of his life. A six degrees kind of thing.

  He had no idea what it meant.

  There was a pounding of feet up the steps and onto the porch. ‘‘Mom! Dad!’’ Johnny called, the screen door slamming shut behind him.

  ‘‘What is it?’’ Andrew said.

  ‘‘Are we doing anything today?’’

  ‘‘We went on a rafting trip. And—’’

  ‘‘No, I mean later,’’ Johnny said.

  ‘‘Why?’’ Robin asked suspiciously.

  ‘‘Alyssa and I want to go to the fair.’’

  Robin was already shaking her head.

  ‘‘Terry and Claire’s parents said they can go.’’

  ‘‘Only if we come with you,’’ Robin said firmly.

  Andrew saw the look of shame and embarrassment that crossed his son’s face, a look he remembered well from his own teenage years. He felt sorry for the boy, but he agreed with Robin. That cat—

  ‘‘Meow’’

  —was still out there, along with God knew what else, and it frightened him to the core of his being to think of his children encountering one of those resurrected animals. He could easily imagine the creatures attacking his children, making them pay for what their father had done, and that was something he could not allow to happen.

  ‘‘But Tony, Dexter and Pam are going to be there! They’re the ones that invited us!’’

  ‘‘And who are Tony, Dexter and Pam?’’ Robin asked.

  ‘‘Those kids from town we played with yesterday.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Andrew said.

  Johnny looked at him. ‘‘Dad . . .’’

  In his mind he saw a line of dead animals advancing toward his children while zombie birds zoomed in from the sky. ‘‘We don’t know those kids. Besides, you can go to a fair or carnival or amusement park anytime. Better ones than this. We’re here to learn about gold rush country and enjoy the sights of California.’’

  ‘‘From our room? We’re just going to sit inside until it’s time for bed.’’

  ‘‘I said no,’’ Andrew told him.

  Johnny left the cabin much more slowly and considerably more discouraged than when he’d arrived.

  ‘‘Let’s go home,’’ Robin said again. ‘‘Let’s get out of here.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Andrew said. ‘‘Not yet.’’

  Yet? Why had he said that? It made it sound as though he was waiting for someone or expecting something to happen.

  Maybe, he thought, he was.

  They had sandwiches for dinner. Robin hadn’t been in the mood to cook anything elaborate, and he didn’t feel like driving to the store to get more charcoal for the barbecue, so they made do with what they had. The kids didn’t seem to care. Johnny’s earlier disappointment had disappeared, and he and his sister chatted happily through the meal, retroactively making even the rafting trip fun.

  It was the kids’ turn to do the dishes, but afterward they came out on the porch where he and Robin were watching the sunset. The sky in the west had turned bright orange as the sun started to drop slowly behind the hills.

  ‘‘Can we go to the lodge with Terry and Claire?’’ Johnny asked. ‘‘They’re having a slide show about volcanoes.’’

  ‘‘That sounds fun,’’ Andrew said. ‘‘We’ll all go.’’

  Johnny looked crestfallen. ‘‘Dad . . .’’

  ‘‘This is supposed to be a family vacation.’’

  ‘‘But Terry and Claire get to go by themselves! And Claire’s the same age as Alyssa and Terry’s younger than me! Couldn’t you just hang out with their parents and let us go to the slide show?’’

  The last thing he wanted to do was ‘‘hang out’’ with Terry and Claire’s parents. But he understood his son’s desire for independence, his need to do things on his own. He glanced across the meadow at the lodge, which was clearly visible from the porch.

  ‘‘It’s more fun without you,’’ Alyssa said bluntly.

  Andrew had to laugh, although Robin didn’t even crack a smile.

  ‘‘It’s still light out,’’ Johnny said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice.

  ‘‘All right. You can go,’’ Andrew said gently. ‘‘But you have to stay with your sister and both of you have to come back right after the talk ends. Right after. Do you understand me?’’

  ‘‘But, Dad . . .’’

  ‘‘Then no.’’

  ‘‘Okay! I’m sorry! I won’t complain!’’

  ‘‘Andrew,’’ Robin said grimly.

  ‘‘They’ll be all right,’’ he reassured her. ‘‘It’s only the lodge.’’ But he thought of the cat sitting somewhere in the path on the way to the lodge and already regretted his decision.

  ‘‘Thanks, Dad!’’ Johnny said, grabbing his sister’s hand and running down the steps as if afraid he might change his mind. ‘‘I’ll watch Alyssa! Don’t worry!’’

  ‘‘Andrew . . .’’ Robin said.

  He knew how she felt. He felt the same way. But he forced himself to smile at her. ‘‘They’ll be fine,’’ he told her.

  Robin watched them speed down the path through the meadow. They were both getting so big. Even Alyssa. A lot of the women she knew missed the days when their children were babies. She didn’t. What she missed were the preschool years, when the kids were old enough to talk but everything was new to them, everything was exciting, everything was fun. Those days had been almost too hectic at the time for her to enjoy them, but she looked upon them now as the happiest of her life.

  If it were up to her, the two of them would have remained four forever.

  But time passed, kids grew up, and as much as she hated and feared Oak Draw, she was at least grateful to have the opportunity on this trip to spend time with Johnny and Alyssa. For most of her workaholic friends, family vacations were distant memories—they generally grabbed a three-day weekend here or there when they could, often without the children—and Robin knew how lucky she was that the four of them did so many things together.

  But she did hate Oak Draw.

  And she feared it.

  For the second night in a row, she’d had the same dream. Or nightmare. She was still not sure how to classify
it. She had been walking down a yellow-brick road, as in The Wizard of Oz. Only it was really a pathway lined with bars of gold, not yellow bricks, and it ended not at an emerald city but at a black mountain. There were monsters crawling all over the mountain, the same sorts of monsters who had raped her and her friends, and wherever they crawled they left behind trails of rapidly growing grass.

  Andrew walked back inside the cabin, bringing her with him, and closed the door behind them. He wanted to have some quick sex before the kids came back. She didn’t know what had gotten into him on this trip. He seemed to want it all the time now, despite what had happened to her here—

  Because of it?

  —and though she kept turning him down, he kept putting on the pressure. ‘‘Pull your pants down and bend over,’’ he told her. ‘‘I’ll do it really fast.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ she said.

  He pulled down his own pants, and she saw his erection. ‘‘Just suck it then.’’

  ‘‘No!’’ Robin went into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and stood there looking at herself in the mirror. She was shaking, though she was not quite sure why. She wasn’t afraid of her husband, and while she was angry with him, it was not to such an extent that it would cause such a physical reaction. She held a hand sideways in front of her face, watching it tremble.

  What was the matter with her?

  It was nothing; it was everything. It was this place, and she wondered why Andrew was so dead set on staying here no matter what. He was not usually so inflexible, particularly when it involved things that were important to her.

  But he seemed different on this trip, more tense, more secretive, and she wished she knew how to talk to him and break down those barriers. Since coming clean herself, she’d been feeling extremely vulnerable, and she wished her honesty had been met with a similar openness on his part, but exactly the opposite had occurred. They’d become more wary with each other, more distant, although she knew of no reason why that should be the case.

  She wanted this vacation to be over. She just wanted to go back home.

  Robin waited in the bathroom a few moments longer, until she’d stopped shaking and could at least pretend that everything was back to normal. Then she unlocked the door and walked out. Andrew was in the kitchen area with his back to her, but his pants were around his knees, and she strode over to where he stood, intending to find out exactly what was going on.

  He had masturbated into the sink, and she grimaced as she caught him washing a gob of semen down the drain. He pulled up his pants, embarrassed.

  ‘‘What is wrong with you?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ he said. ‘‘I . . .’’ He shook his head. ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  Through the open window came the meowing of a cat, and Andrew’s face turned pale. She shivered, too, thinking of that dead cat they’d seen on the trail—

  near the spot

  —and its doppelgänger who’d been hanging around the cabins today. She wasn’t sure why Andrew seemed so afraid of the cat’s meow, but he did, and some of that fear transferred to her.

  He chose not to talk about it, however, and she chose not to ask him about it, and the two of them pretended he had not done what he’d done in the sink. Sometimes denial worked, and it did in this instance. They retired to the couch, turning on the television. Lost in America was on one of the movie channels—a comedy Andrew had raved about but that she’d never seen—and they settled in to watch it, snuggling together as though nothing were the matter and they were home alone.

  The film was as funny as Andrew had promised, and at several points they were both laughing out loud, but somewhere in the middle of the movie she became aware that Johnny and Alyssa had not returned. They’d been gone a long time, and Robin glanced over at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace. It had been slightly over an hour since they’d left, and while the slide show on Sierra predators that they’d seen their first night had lasted this long and it was more than possible that tonight’s talk was still going on, she felt nervous. It was dark outside and . . . something . . . didn’t seem right.

  Andrew must have sensed it too, or perhaps she communicated it to him through her body language. Either way, he sat up and said, ‘‘Do you think we should check on the kids?’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ she replied with an exhaled sigh of relief. She’d thought she was going to have to talk him into it.

  ‘‘I don’t like the thought of them walking back alone in the dark.’’

  ‘‘Me neither,’’ Robin said. ‘‘Let’s go.’’

  She shut off the TV, he grabbed a flashlight, and they walked over to the lodge. In the meadow, chirping crickets silenced as they approached, though others farther away continued to sing. Above the noises of nature, Robin heard an oddly pitched voice singing something that reminded her of a children’s nursery rhyme or Mother Goose song. She couldn’t quite place it, but the sound of that voice carried on the slight night breeze caused a shiver to run down her spine.

  She reached for Andrew’s hand, held it tight.

  The lodge was open, its windows well-lit, but inside the building seemed curiously empty. Robin glanced into the big room where the previous presentations had been held and saw no screen set up, no chairs. Andrew walked directly up to the counter, where an older woman in a faded granny dress was reading a paperback romance novel. ‘‘Excuse me,’’ he said. ‘‘Our son and daughter came with friends of theirs to your slide show . . .’’

  The woman frowned. ‘‘There was no slide show this evening.’’

  Robin’s heart was racing. ‘‘But our son and daughter are here?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ the woman said slowly, shaking her head. ‘‘I don’t believe anyone’s come in here tonight at all.’’

  ‘‘Mind if we look around?’’ Andrew asked, but he was already doing so.

  ‘‘Go right ahead,’’ the woman said.

  Robin and Andrew went into the big room, checked the bathrooms and the coat closet, even went upstairs and looked at the balcony, but the lodge was empty.

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ Andrew said to the woman as the two of them headed out the door. Once out in the night, they looked around at the partially visible lights of the various cabins, arranged in a rough semicircle around the edge of the meadow and between the black silhouetted trees. Crickets were chirping, bats were squeaking, the underbrush was rustling, but wafting through the air, on the breeze, was that tune again, lilting, familiar, childish.

  She listened to it for a moment.

  Now she recognized the song.

  Oh, dear! What can the matter be?

  Dear, dear! What can the matter be?

  Oh dear! What can the matter be?

  Johnny’s so long at the fair.

  ‘‘Andrew!’’ she cried. But he had heard it, too, and it must have set off the same alarm bells in his head that it had in hers, because he was grabbing her hand and rushing toward the parking lot.

  Johnny’s so long at the fair.

  They fairly flew over the rough ground, the beam of the flashlight leading the way, and though that horrid cat sat in the center of the parking lot, meowing incessantly, they ignored it. Andrew clicked open the doors with the remote attached to his key, and they got in quickly. ‘‘He’s going to be in so much trouble,’’ Andrew said grimly as he swung the van around and sped out of the parking lot, but there was as much fear in his voice as anger, and Robin said nothing as they headed toward the highway and town.

  The fair was crowded. The small pay lot was full, vehicles were parked solidly along both sides of the highway for nearly the entire length of town, and the driveways of the other local businesses were staked with signs that read NO FAIR PARKING and PARKING FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY. Heedless, Andrew pulled into the lot of a dentist’s office, locked the car after they hopped out, and the two of them sped over to Oak Draw’s Summer Fair.

  They didn’t know where to start. Throngs of people were milli
ng about, buying fried food and waiting in lines for carnival rides. Johnny and Alyssa could have been anywhere. Holding hands so they wouldn’t get separated, the two of them went up and down the midway, through the crowd, looking for black T-shirts like Johnny’s or red blouses like Alyssa’s, distracted by the sight of every child or teenager who passed by.

  ‘‘Did they have any money?’’ Robin asked.

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Andrew admitted. ‘‘I don’t think so.’’

  She looked around at the rides and attractions, searching for one that Johnny and Alyssa might like to go on. Not the thrill rides. They were both too cautious. Not the merry-go-round. Too babyish. The mirror maze, maybe?

  The fun house.

  Yes. If they were on a ride, it was that one. As if on cue, she heard music above the noise of the crowd, the talking, screaming, laughing, crying crowd. It was a tape of a calliope over tinny speakers, and it was the song that had brought them here, though there was no voice singing the words.

  Oh, dear! What can the matter be?

  Johnny’s so long at the fair.

  It was coming from the fun house, and Robin yanked Andrew’s arm, pulling him through the squash of people to the far end of the midway.

  The facade of the fun house loomed before them with its gaudy colors and giant mirror-eyed clown head. A lifetime of moviegoing had made the sight seem automatically creepy, but there was something genuinely threatening about it, too, and Robin pointed. ‘‘I think they’re in there.’’

  Andrew nodded, not needing an explanation. ‘‘Wait out front here,’’ he said, ‘‘in case they come out or come by. I’ll see if they’re inside.’’

  A dwarf sat on a stool in front of the moving stairs that led up to the entrance of the attraction, collecting tickets. ‘‘Did you see a boy and a girl come through here?’’ Andrew began.