Throughout the cold night, she clung to that certainty more tightly than her thin rag of a blanket. Drifting in and out of sleep, she didn’t feel so terrible when she blinked awake in almost total darkness. Her eyes had adjusted to the absence of light, but it was still disconcerting to know they were in a place untouched by the cleansing power of the sun.
Peering through the bars of her cell, she made out Ryan’s curled and sleeping form, and even though Emma needed the contact with him, she decided to let him sleep. Poor little guy. He was small, but he was tough and smart. She wished she could be as strong as he seemed to be. She remembered that time when they were walking home from school and a stray dog attacked them. It had burst from the weeds of a vacant lot, growling and barking like crazy. Emma had just seized up, couldn’t move, but Ryan had unslung his backpack and swung it right at the dog’s muzzle. The impact sent the dog flying to the sidewalk and when Ryan yelled at it to “Git!” it scrambled to its feet and high-tailed it.
That was Ryan – he’d somehow known what needed to be done and did it.
Such were her thoughts when the space beyond the holding pens took sudden shape and definition as the lights went on. Not much light, but better than nothing.
“All right, you two! Got a surprise for ya!”
Recognizing the voice as one of the yellow jumpsuits from last night, Emma cringed. She blinked the approaching figure into focus and saw that he was accompanied by another guy carrying what looked like a small dog collar in each hand.
Ryan stirred and rolled over as one of the guards opened his cell door.
“Jeez…what now?”
The guard chuckled. “The little one thinks he’s a tough cookie, don’t he? C’mere, brat…”
Emma watched as the guy snatched Ryan roughly from his cot. He stood, held by the first guy, while the second attached one of the thick black bands around his thin wrist.
“Almost too big for his pencil of an arm!” The second guard laughed at his own cleverness.
“What is this?”
Ryan twisted at the heavy band, but could do nothing about removing it. Emma noticed a small, oddly shaped stone, pale green, almost like jade, set in the band.
The guy said nothing as he turned from Ryan, clanging shut the door. His companion had already opened Emma’s cell. She watched the other approach her with the second wristband. He hadn’t changed his sweaty jumpsuit and his breath smelled bad when he spoke.
“Stick out your arm, girl. Gotta new piece-a joolry for ya.”
She backed away, shaking her head. “No. Leave me alone.”
He backed her into a corner, leaving her nowhere to go. “We’ll do just that as soon as you’ve got your new joolry.”
He reached for her and she ducked away – right into the arms of the other.
“Lotta fight in this one,” he said as he overpowered her struggles.
She felt the rough edges of the bracelet scrape her skin as the guy clamped it into place. The ugly black thing made her left hand feel awkward and heavy.
She pushed away as soon as they loosened their hold. “What’s this for?”
They were turning to leave, but one paused and looked back at her with a lopsided grin. “Kinda like an I.D. bracelet – it means you belong to Falzon.”
What?
Putting her hands on her hips, Emma confronted the guard. “We don’t ‘belong’ to anybody!”
The guy leaned closer. “Where would you be if we hadn’t pulled you out of that storm. Tell me – where?”
“That doesn’t matter. We–”
“You’d be dead, that’s where you’d be! So that means you owes your lives to Falzon. And guess what? He’s collectin’.”
“Who is this Falzon guy?” Ryan yelled. “We want to see him!”
Abruptly the grin vanished from the guard’s face, replaced by what could only be described as true fear. “Ah… no… I don’t think you do.”
“Why not?” said Emma.
The second guy, standing in the passageway, shook his head as though to lose a bad memory. “Trust me, brat… you do not ever want to see anything like Falzon.”
And with those words, the two minions shambled down the passage and were gone. That was the good part. The bad was that they turned the lights out when they left.
Several hours passed in almost total darkness, and Emma’s fitful attempts to keep conversations going with her brother seemed just to make things worse. He tended to analyze and question almost everything she said, and even though that was just his way, it made her crazy. He spent a lot of time trying to figure out the composition of the wristband and ways he might remove it.
A waste of time.
Of course, time was something they seemed to have in great quantities. It dragged by in the gloomy pens and Emma had no way to measure it. The only thing on her dying cell phone display was No Service. And pretty soon it wouldn’t be saying that either. The utter silence and growing cloud of desperation were beating her down. For a while she’d derived strength from her belief that Telly was here somewhere and would eventually do something to help them. But as the empty hours stretched on, she was having trouble believing that anything would ever happen to change things.
But it did.
The tomb-like silence was shattered by the sound of approaching footsteps and the moaning whispers of what sounded like a lot of people. Emma sat up blinking in her bunk as the lights came on again. She saw Ryan pop up too.
“Keep it moving! C’mon, now. Move!”
One of the guards appeared at the vanguard of a line of hunched figures being herded along. Even in the dim illumination, Emma instantly noticed a few details. A group of more than a dozen men and women, obviously Asian, and all talking excitedly at once. Their faces shared expressions of shock and fear – Emma knew exactly what they were feeling. Beneath the thin blankets wrapped around their shoulders, the people were soaked and shivering.
A small cadre of guards and guys in the yellow jumpsuits surrounded them as they were split into smaller groups and herded into the empty cells. She watched as the guards fitted each of them with wristbands before leaving them in their fear and confusion.
Ryan shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe this… I mean, it just keeps getting weirder. Who the heck are these people?”
“I don’t know, but look at them,” said Emma. “They look so scared.”
Ryan scowled and his tone dripped sarcasm. “Yeah… jeez, I wonder why…”
Emma tried to get the attention of the people in the nearest pen. They had all huddled together and were shaking from the cold water dripping off them.
Emma banged on the bars of her cell. “Hey! Anybody speak English? Anybody?”
At first, no one seemed to notice, but she kept it up, despite her brother’s urging to forget about it. Finally, a few of the people noticed her, but obviously did not understand what she was saying. Their blank stares revealed the impasse, and Emma felt defeated.
“See?” said Ryan. “Told you,”
Just as she slumped against the bars and began to turn away, a tiny voice stopped her.
“I do! Little-little!”
Looking across two sets of bars, Emma saw a short thin woman waving at her. She raised her voice.
“Who are you? How did you get here?”
“You don’t have to yell,” Ryan said behind her. “She’s foreign, not deaf.”
Emma realized she’d been practically shouting. But the woman didn’t seem to mind.
“We from Kowloon. Storm. Ferry boat. Go down!”
As she spoke, some of the others with her began talking as well. They began yelling at Emma as if she had answers for them.
“They’re from China?” said Ryan. “Unbelievable.”
“Fire,” said the woman, making a circle in the air. “Mans with big… eyes?”
“Goggles?” said Emma as she encircled her eyes with her fingers.
“Yes! Yes! They get us! Bring here.”
Ryan said, “Ask her if they know a man with big gray hair who stutters.”
“You’re kidding, right? You can’t really think Professor Polonius flew to China and–”
“I don’t know what to think. Just ask, please?”
Emma tried but the woman had no idea what she was talking about.
She burned with frustration at her inability to communicate with them in a meaningful way. She wanted details so she could make more sense of what this was about. They were all caught up in something not only bizarre, but very complicated as well. She had a sense that even if she or Ryan ever believed they had things doped out, there would always be more that escaped them.
“Hey, Emma…you see a pattern here?”
She looked at him and he was half-smiling, something she hadn’t seen since all this had happened.
“Not really. What’re you talking about?”
“I don’t know… maybe nothing. But…” He pointed to the crowd of Asians. “They were on a ferry that sank or something like that, right? And we were getting sucked into a tornado. You see the connection?
“Not really.” Emma felt so overwhelmed, so beaten down, so exhausted she couldn’t think straight.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Two, like, deadly events. Don’t you see it?’
“I guess I do now.” Emma felt suddenly dumb and she especially hated it when her own little brother made her feel like that. “But what’s the point?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I think these guys – these weird guys with the goggles and the machines – they have a way to go around and save people’s lives.”
Emma could see by his expression that he wasn’t altogether convinced by his own words.
“But why, Ryan? What’re they doing it for? And by the way, who are they? And where are we?”
Ryan raised his hands in surrender. “I know, I know… it doesn’t make sense, but take a look around you. Nothing else does.”
Emma turned back to the woman. “Did they say anything to you? Did they say why you were here?”
The woman made a face. “Tall man, very… not pretty.”
“Yes-yes,” Emma said, nodding. “What did he say?”
“He want cigarette. Very angry when find all wet.”
Cigarettes again. Was that all Dr. – what was his name? Koertig. Was that all he was interested in?
A line from Alice when she was in Wonderland popped into her head: Curiouser and curiouser.
The only thing that could make things worse, thought Emma, was to have the Queen of Hearts show up.
7
She must have dozed off on her cot because she was shocked to be yanked from a dreamless sleep by the clanking sound of her cell door being unlocked and opened. Ryan was already standing outside his cell with one of the guards who’d fitted them with the bracelets yesterday. Had it been yesterday?
The other pointed to Ryan. “Get out there with him.”
“Where are you taking us?”
“Don’t give us no more trouble, brat. You know what happens to trouble-making humans here? You know where they end up?”
Emma didn’t want to know but had to ask. “Where?”
“On a lunch tray”
Her shocked expression must have been hilarious because they both cracked up.
“Very funny,” she said as she joined Ryan.
The first one laughed again. “She thinks we’re joking!”
“Where are we going?” she said.
“Exactly where we tells ya,” said the second.
Ryan nodded toward the Asians, who were also being herded from their cells. “Looks like we’re going wherever they are.”
Emma said nothing. Even though she’d slept, she still felt totally fatigued and had no energy to resist. She followed Ryan and the others as they were led down several corridors, up flights of stairs, and finally to a garage with cinder block walls and a corrugated roof. In equal numbers, the captives were herded into the rear compartments of two step-vans painted a dull olive green.
Emma sat next to an older Chinese man who kept his face buried in his hands as though he were continually sad or frightened. Ryan flanked her other side and when he reached out to hold her hand, she felt immediately better. It wasn’t something he did – like, ever – and Emma knew he was trying to show her they needed to care for each other.
As the vans rumbled out of the garage and along an unknown road, none of the captives spoke, or hardly looked at each other. They seemed trapped in an atmosphere of bleakness, a strange place beyond terror or even caring. Wherever they were going, everyone seemed resigned and defeated.
Finally, the truck lurched to a stop, and the back door was yanked up and open by a yellow-suited guard. He waved his arm and pointed to an open space that looked like a plaza surrounded by low clapboard and brick buildings. Emma thought they had a rural, farm-like aspect to them.
“Everybody out! Now!”
They followed the order and soon were assembled in a loose knot where they became the center of attention for a crowd of locals who, from a distance at least, looked to Emma like regular people. As she watched, the onlookers parted ranks as two figures passed through them to approach the captives.
The first man was very tall and very thin. He wore a black top hat that made his long face appear even more elongated. His long black coat was narrow at the waist and his white shirt was buttoned all the way up to his knobby Adam’s apple. He had small, sparrow eyes, a narrow nose, and a lantern jaw. His thin-lipped expression was dour and unyielding.
His trailing companion was his anatomical opposite. Short and amazingly stout, like a fireplug, he moved with a rocking motion that looked as if walking were painful for him. His shoulders and arms bulged against a heavy brown shirt and a utility vest that seemed to be riveted together. His thick neck was corded with muscle. But his most striking feature was his planetoid of a head – utterly bald save for an errant tuft of dirty hair and the occasional boil or knobby protrusion. His face huddled beneath a thick, heavy uni-brow, and his wide, vein-laced nose looked like it had met up with an anvil or a shovel. He was smiling to reveal wide gray teeth marked by picket-fence gaps.
He looked like a…troll. In fact, Emma now realized that Dr. Koertig’s face was similar in the coarseness of his features, although his body bore not the slightest resemblance.
The tall man paused, staring at the captives until everyone was looking at him.
“I am Simon,” he said in a soft, almost whispery voice, then gestured down at his squat companion. “And this is Ergel. I will tell you now that it is generally a good idea to do what he says.”
Emma looked from Simon to Ergel and couldn’t decide who looked more horrific.
“Line up! Line up!” the troll called out in a booming voice. “We don’t cares who you was before, and don’t you be havin’ no misdeceptions about who’s in charge here. It ain’t you.”
“‘Misdeceptions’?” Ryan whispered.
Emma shushed him.
She watched as the gaunt Simon paused before one of the Asian women.
“You’ll be showin’ yer hands to Master Simon, you will,” Ergel said from behind him.
The woman shook her head, confused.
“Are you deef?” Ergel shouted. “Show ’im yer bloody hands!”
Simon motioned him to silence and softly addressed the woman in Chinese. She held up her hands. He studied them a second, shook his head, and moved on.
He glided through the crowd of Asians, pausing to look at each person’s hands. Twice he singled out a small woman, nodded to Ergel, who yanked her roughly from the group; he escorted both to a small open-bed farm truck with wooded-slatted rails.
When Simon finally reached Emma and Ryan, she considered resisting him. The thought of this ghoulish character touching her made her stomach lurch. He stopped first before Ryan, who held out his hands brazenly
– very much a thing he would do – as if daring Simon to pick him.
“Ah,” said the man in that creepy soft voice. “Small hands… very good. Just what I’m looking for today.”
He grasped Ryan’s hands and turned them over. That was when she noticed the coarse hair on the man’s palms.
“Ewww!” Ryan said, snatching his hands back. “You’re all hairy!”
“What did you expectorate?” Ergel said.
The troll’s remark was immediately followed by a braaaat! sound.
Ryan’s eyes widened as he stared at Ergel. “Did you… did you just fart?”
The hideous odor that immediately suffused the air answered the question and made Emma’s stomach turn. It obviously had the same effect on Ryan because he gagged, then hurled.
Mr. Simon must have sensed it coming because with a quick, deft move he sidestepped the hot stream, allowing it to splatter all over Ergel’s boots.
With a roar, the troll grabbed Ryan by the front of the shirt and lifted him in the air.
“Vomick on me boots, will ya? Yer gonna lick it off!”
“It’s vomit,” Ryan said, looking terrified but speaking anyway. “There’s no such thing as ‘vomick.’”
Is he crazy? Emma thought.
“Shut up, Ryan,” she said in a low tone.
He glanced at her and bit his lip as Ergel roared again.
“What was you sayin’?”
Ryan shook his head and said nothing more.
“Tut-tut, Ergel,” Simon said. “Temper, temper. Take him, along with his delicate hands and delicate stomach, to the truck.”
As Ergel dragged Ryan away, Emma decided not to buck Simon. She had small hands too and didn’t want to be separated from her brother for having an attitude.
“Is that your boyfriend?” he said as he inspected her hands without touching them.
What? Was he kidding? Ryan her boyfriend? Really?
“My brother.”
“Good. Boyfriends and girlfriends are trouble. But siblings… not so much.”
“Why do you want small hands?”
Definitely Not Kansas (Nocturnia Book 1) Page 5