by Mike Nappa
At the same time, in response to Trudi’s pressing of the button, an electrical current flashed through both guest chairs in the office. The volts crackled through the exposed metal parts of Dr. Smith’s chair and held him in their grasp. After a few seconds, Trudi released the button and watched Dr. Smith sag into a heap, now sitting partly in and partly out of the chair.
Trudi was a little worried that the electric shock might have killed the old man, but Samuel didn’t hesitate.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Now.”
She heard a long gasp escape Dr. Smith’s opened mouth as gravity and inertia finally pulled him all the way to the floor.
“One second,” Trudi said.
She pulled open the lower desk door and unhooked the false bottom inside. She scooped out the hidden key and half sheet of paper, then quickstepped her way toward the door. On the way out, she heard the Ugly Goon moan. She glanced back long enough to see Samuel kick him, hard, in the side of the head, and heard her ex-husband mutter, “That’s for Truck. And believe me, there’s more where that came from.”
She saw Samuel hesitate, standing over Dr. Smith’s limp body. He started to reach down for the old man’s collar, then caught sight of Trudi standing in the doorway. “Another time, then,” he muttered. He rose and spoke to Trudi. “Go. I’m right behind you. I’m coming.”
Then she was outside, and Samuel was standing next to her, barely breathing hard.
“Let me get that for you.”
He said it like they were just two lovebirds out on a date for the Labor Day holiday. With a slight bow, he unlocked and opened the passenger door of his GT.
“Always the gentleman,” she murmured as she got inside.
Moments later they were speeding west on Interstate 20, neither one talking, neither one ready to start a conversation, at least not yet.
Still, Trudi couldn’t help but notice that both of them were smiling.
13
Annabel
Date Unknown
I don’t know how many sleep times and awake times I spent shuttlin’ back and forth underneath that bottom bunk. Maybe a day. Maybe a week. I really can’t tell.
In a place where there is no night, where battery-powered overhead lights never dim or brighten, you can’t gauge the way time passes. Do I feel sleepy because I need a nap? Or because it’s nighttime? Or because I just don’t know what else to do with the time? Am I awake because it’s noon? Or is it really midnight and I’m suffering insomnia? Did I sleep eight hours or twenty minutes? Was I awake all day, or just a few hours this time?
After a while, you quit trying to figure it out. You just assume that today is always now, and tomorrow, well, who knows when tomorrow is?
I do know that at some point in time, that dog stopped trying to herd me back under the bunk every time I came outta the potty room. And I know there was a moment when I realized this bunker weren’t quite as hot as it was the last time I noticed it.
Then, eventually, it actually felt too chilly to keep crawling under that bottom bunk to sleep. Before long, unrolling one of them sleeping bags seemed like a good idea. And eventually I seen why Truck insisted that I bring my coat down into this empty bunker. Buried deep underground like I was, with no heater to speak of, the ground around me was working as insulation from nature’s sweet sunshine. And yes, much as I’d complained about the heat before, now I lodged a few protests at the cold.
To nobody, of course. Just to that dog.
I wish Truck’d told me to bring extra socks. Guess he didn’t think about that.
I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I did at last explore every inch of this hidden place. Truck was right, there was plenty of food for me and that dog, though no way to cook nothing, no stove or hot plate or microwave. Guess that’s for the best, but Wolf brand chili cold outta the can just ain’t—isn’t—as great as you might think.
I made the mistake of feeding that dog a can of chili one day. I figured it was good enough for me, it was good enough for a dog. I repented of that decision when the animal started passing gas a few hours later. Yeah, sure, I was gassing it up a bit too, but as they say, a person don’t mind her own brand, if you know what I mean. Doggie digestion, on the other hand, ain’t—isn’t—nothing to take lightly. After that, I got smarter about feeding that dog. Vegetable soups. Bread and crackers. Beef jerky. That kind of stuff. The dog eats anything, so that’s good. But seeing that animal masticate its munchies also makes me want to be careful it don’t never get too hungry.
I also checked out that shallow drawer built into the table in the middle of the room. Inside it were two spiral notebooks, blank. Three ink pens. And a Walther PPQ semiautomatic pistol. Loaded. With two extra clips nearby.
A man’s gun, I thought, hearing Truck’s voice as I said it in my head.
There was a time, late last year, when Truck took me gun shopping with him way over in Atlanta. He always liked a good gun.
“Someday, Annie-girl,” he’d said to me, “sooner rather than later, we’re going to need to get you a gun of your own. Would you like that?”
I remember being excited about that idea and letting him know it in no uncertain terms. He took me to a warehouse-looking place where there was an old woman in a wheelchair showing off product. She had skin the color and texture of coffee grinds. And she had a nice, motherin’ smile, like she’d be fine takin’ to me if I decided I wanted to take to her. Truck talked to the woman like she was an old friend. Trusted. That was enough for me.
He let me handle a few of the pistols on display, but not one of the Walthers. “That’s a man’s gun,” he said to me. “Too big for you. Here, try one of these.”
I spent the next twenty minutes or so toying with smaller pistols and deciding that any of the Beretta shooters would be my favorite.
“I’m feeling mighty affectionate toward this one,” I said, admiring a Beretta Model 21 Bobcat. It felt warm and comfortable nestled in my hand.
“Put it on your birthday list,” he’d said with a grin. And then he bought something for himself and we left.
Looking at that Walther now, I see what he meant when he said it was a man’s gun. It seemed large, heavy. Hard for a young girl’s tiny fingers to handle. But it would fit nicely into Truck’s oversized palm. I could see that just looking at it. This must be Truck’s gun, I tell myself. And whatever Truck intended down here, he wasn’t gonna take any chances about who was in charge.
I took a notebook and pen out of the drawer and placed them on top of the table. I left the gun in the drawer.
Today, whatever “today” means, I studied the books Truck left on the shelf for me.
It wasn’t what I’d expected. There was a “collegiate dictionary” there. A Bible too, which was unusual given Truck’s silent arguments with God/no God. Maybe he expected to be down here with one of his religious buddies. I heard Kenny and Rendel talking about church from time to time, so maybe he brought it down for them. But then again, maybe he left it for me, just in case I was ready to get ’round to reading it. I held the book in my hands and flipped through the pages. Seemed long. I rifled the pages again, and a bookmark fell out. I stuck my thumb on the page where it fell from and saw text highlighted in yellow.
And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
“Well, ain’t that something,” I said out loud. But it didn’t mean much to me. Truck ain’t the Bible-reading type, and even though Rendel used to have me quiz him on Bible-memor
y verses sometimes, I can’t say I ever spent much time in the Good Book neither. But I heard about who Jesus was, and sometimes Kenny’d tell me stories too. I never heard this one, though. A man with a withered hand? What was that exactly? And why was people so up in a tizzy over him getting a little healing? I didn’t have no answers.
Something to read again later, I told myself as I returned the bookmark to its place. Then I went back to studying the shelves.
In addition to the dictionary and the Bible, there was also some books on history and philosophy, mostly stories of wars and such, including A History of the English-Speaking Peoples and The Art of War.
The last book on the shelf almost made me cry with happiness. It was a paperback edition of the Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe—a twin to match the copy I keep on the dresser in my bedroom. It ain’t much, I know, but this is our book, Truck’s and mine. He told me I got my name from his favorite poem in here, a poem called “Annabel Lee.” I think I read that poem a hundred times, even after I memorized it, even after I could recite it word for word with my eyes closed. Whenever Truck gives me a “safe” code, he pulls it from my poem, so I can always remember it.
There’s some scary-good stories in here too, one about a beating, undead heart, another about a woman buried alive in a haunted house, stuff like that. I used to read those stories, with Truck in the room, for the thrill of a good scare, but now that I’m down here in this underground box by myself, I think I’ll stick to the poems and some of the shenanigans of Detective Dupin instead.
The important thing is, this book is here and there’s no way Truck would’ve put it here but ’cept for me. For some reason, that makes me feel special.
There’s one other book I found down here, but it wasn’t on any shelf.
I was sleeping on the bottom bunk of a bed, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. When I woke up, out of habit, I kept my eyes closed and just listened to the world around me. Everything was very still. There was a slight hum comin’ from the battery lights, so slight I mostly never notice it. I could hear my own heart beating steady inside my ears. And I heard a stiff, staccato breathing comin’ from beside me on the floor.
I held my breath and suddenly felt my heartbeat pick up. My hand was hanging off the bed. Something warm and gritty-soft was moving underneath it, bumping lightly on my palm, then brushing delicately away every few seconds.
I opened my eyes and froze from my toes to my curls. That dog was lying beside the bed, pressed up against the wood plank that held the bottom bunk. And my hand . . . my hand . . . my hand was resting, almost touching, the animal’s side while it slept.
Every time the dog would breathe deep in, its ribs would expand just enough to brush dirty fur against my fingers. It hit me then, that I was never safe when I was sleeping. That dog had been sniffing my hand while I was out, liked it so much it’d crawled underneath it and put itself to sleep with my hand right in bitin’ distance.
I jerked my arm away, making a fist and tucking it deep underneath the sleeping bag. The dog stood up almost immediately, looking first at me, then at the door, then back at me.
“Geht,” I said to it, but my throat was dry from sleeping and it came out more like “Gegg.” I swallowed hard and tried again.
“Geht!” I said. Go!
The dog dropped its head and trotted away from me over to the table. “Sich hinlegen,” I said shakily. Lie down. The dog did as it was told, but my heart was still beating like a rabbit caught in a hollow when the coyotes is near.
I decided that from that point on, I’d only sleep in a top bunk, out of reach of a finger-sniffing animal that might like the taste of me too much to resist it. When I climbed to the top bunk, I felt a lump underneath the mattress. I dug under there and pulled out what I found.
It was a book. Not a normal book like you buy at a store. More like a diary, or a journal. It had a blank, black cover, no markings on it at all. A fat rubber band held the thing shut. I snapped off the rubber band, and inside, in crisp, clear handwriting, someone had filled most of the blank pages with words. They wasn’t English words, though. It took me a minute to get a feel for them. The first line read:
Die persönliche Rechnung Marelda Gregor, Psychiater, Biologen, Mystiker.
They was German words, and I knew some of them. I looked hard at ’em, trying to call back into my memory the vocabulary lists Truck had made me memorize at one time or another. I started picking at the words.
Biologen. I knew that one. It meant biologist.
Marelda Gregor. That had to be a name, somebody’s name. That had to be the name of the person who owned this book and filled it with German words.
Mystiker. I heard that in a fairy tale Truck told me once. About an evil emperor who used a . . . a Mystiker to cast spells on a kindly prince. Was it magician? Sorcerer? No, wait.
Mystiker. Mystic.
Someone who studied books of spells and stuff. Who believed in demons and magic and tried to control ’em.
Weird. How could this Marelda Gregor be both a biologist and a mystic? That didn’t seem to fit right.
I studied on the first line long enough until I could translate at least most of it into English: “The personal account of Marelda Gregor, Psychiater, biologist, mystic.”
I closed the book, thinking.
I ain’t got nothing but time down here in this empty tomb. And I am a smart, educated girl. Sure, I don’t remember everything Truck taught me right yet, but I know myself well enough to know that, if I work at it, it’ll come back to me. I never truly forget anything. I just forget where I hid it in my head sometimes.
So I made a decision. I’d start working at remembering more of the German language that Truck pressed into my brain. I’d keep working at it until it made sense to me, until I could read and understand the writing in this little black book I’d found.
And now I’m holding this book, looking at the words, waiting for the puzzles to resolve themselves in my brain. For some reason, it feels like this Marelda Gregor lady is gonna be important to me.
14
Trudi
Monday, September 7
Trudi watched the countryside flash by through the passenger window of Samuel’s Ford GT. Sitting inside the silent car made everything happening outside seem like a movie with the sound on mute.
She felt the adrenaline rush of attraction, of being back on an adventure with her strong, handsome partner, and then immediately tasted again the bitter disappointment of their failed relationship. She turned to look at him and despised herself just a bit for still loving him. But she’d been through that wringer before; she didn’t feel like going through it again.
“So,” she said at last. “Where are we going?”
He glanced over and smiled, a familiar expression that felt uncomfortably intimate to her. “Birmingham,” he said.
“What’s in Birmingham?”
“I’m hoping we can catch up to someone there. Someone who might be able to give me a few answers. And maybe some help.”
She nodded slowly. “I don’t know if you noticed or not, Samuel, but I’ve got nothing. No clothes, no money, no cell phone, not even my purse.”
“Ah, but you still have those movie-star good looks. A woman can go far with that nowadays.”
She hated it when he was charming.
“Seriously, Sam, if I’m going underground for a few days, even in Birmingham, I need more than a flirty smile and sexy makeup.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, smiling. “I’ll make sure you have everything you need.”
Trudi bit her lip. Samuel was a professional liar and a cheat, but he could also be trusted in an emergency. He’d proven that more than once.
“Okay,” she said, still thinking.
“Okay,” he said, smiling at her again.
“And what about you? There’s blood on your shirt.”
He cursed. “Why do they always have to bleed?” He took stock of his clothing. “At least there�
��s nothing noticeable on my coat. Well, no worries. I’ve got a bag in the trunk. Let’s get some miles between us and Atlanta, and then I’ll pull over and change.”
They let a few mile markers go by in silence, then Samuel glanced her way and said, “This is nice.”
“What’s nice?” she snapped. “The part where I was kidnapped by some weirdo and his goon? The part where they trashed my house? Or the part where I electrocuted an old man and ran away from my home, my business, and my life?”
“All of it,” he said with a chuckle. “Any of it. Whatever it was that let us spend some time together again without . . . you know. Just us being a team again. Being your partner. I like that. It’s nice. So sue me.”
Trudi felt like slapping her ex-husband, and like hugging him too. The pig.
“Well, maybe next time we could do it without the kidnapping.”
“So you’re saying there might be a next time?”
“Shut up, Samuel. You never know to quit while you’re ahead, do you?”
“Right,” he said. “Shutting up.” He paused, then raised his hand as if asking for permission to speak.
“What is it?” she said.
He dug into his coat pocket and fished out a cell phone. “Is there anyone you need to call before you disappear?”
“You’re thinking of Eulalie, aren’t you. Figures. She’s pretty, I agree, but a little young for you, don’t you think?”
Samuel ignored the jab. “You don’t know how long you’re going to have to stay out of sight. And you don’t know if—or when—Dr. Smith is coming back. Do you really want Smith and that goon of his to find sweet little Eulalie sitting at her desk next time he pays a visit?”
She sighed. “I guess I have to fire another assistant. Which is really annoying, because she was a good one.”