Out of Salem

by Hal Schrieve

  “I’m not sure this was a good idea,” Z whispered.

  Mr. Weber returned after a space of some minutes, carrying a tray with a thermos and four cups of coffee.

  “It’s instant,” he said. “But it has caffeine in it. That’s something. You all are going to have a long night. You can take the thermos for your trip. I have another one.”

  “Do you have any ideas on how to get us out?” Elaine said. “There’s gotta be a spell, right?”

  Mr. Weber picked up the smallest cup and sipped from it. “Technically yes,” he said. “The thing is, that kind of thing is pretty detectable. You need a massive amount of energy.” He looked at Z. “I’ve been planning to go by myself, but I’ve had to plan carefully. The location I’m planning to take a portal to is the attic of a friend’s house in Idaho. But I couldn’t take you all with me. It would kill me.”

  “Is there any way we could put our magic together?” Z asked.

  “Z could undo the necromantic spell holding their body together, and that would generate enough energy to transport you all and then some,” Mr. Weber said. He looked at Z. “You’ve done something new, right? You’re preserving yourself. You look different.”

  Z grimaced. “Yeah,” they said. “Tommy and Aysel helped me cast it.”

  Mr. Weber shook his head. “That’s incredibly dangerous sorcery to do with a werewolf’s magic,” he said. “It’s a huge amount of energy.” He shrugged. “If you undid your spell . . . all the magic in your body, and all the magic in the bodies of their casters, is bound to that symbol, and if you blasted it open by unlocking the sigil, you would all go to the moon or something, if you really wanted. Or turn this town into a crater. But I don’t imagine that’s high on your agenda, and there isn’t really any other way for the three of you to put together that much energy.”

  “So we have to go nonmagically,” Tommy said.

  “Basically, yes,” Mr. Weber said. “Unless you want to make a ruckus.”

  “That’s the opposite of what we want to do,” Z said.

  “What I figure I’ll do,” Mr. Weber said, “is we’ll cast a shield spell over my car, have you all hide in the back, and I’ll drive you out to the Grayhound station.”

  Z, Tommy, and Elaine looked at one another. “I guess that makes sense,” Tommy said.

  “It’s what I can do. Magic isn’t going to necessarily help this situation,” Mr. Weber said. “It could just kill us.”

  “Are buses running this late?” Elaine asked. “Also, we don’t have any cash.”

  “I’ll get your tickets,” Mr. Weber said. He looked at Leo, in the tank. “Actually,” he said, “not the bus. I’ll put you on the night train toward California. That’s safer. The train stops all of maybe two minutes and it would be very hard to get waylaid by the police. And then you can sleep.”

  “Honestly, that’s way better than anything else we could have come up with,” Z said. “Thank you so much.” They tried to read his face.

  Mr. Weber nodded, but he did not say “you’re welcome” or anything. His eyes were dark and he was staring into the middle distance. “We’ll get moving after the monitor goes by again in maybe nine minutes,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Safer for us to get on the road sooner rather than later. Be ready to go out the back and get into my car. I’ll cast a shield spell so you’re invisible for a minute or so.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll go get the car warmed up.”

  Tommy, Z, and Elaine sat in silence with the lizards in the office and drank their coffee. Its heat scorched Z’s throat, and they could feel peels of dry skin shaking loose from inside their esophagus.

  “This seems too nice,” Elaine said. “Is this a trap?”

  “He’s a good person,” Z said. “He wants to help. He’s just scared.”

  “I relate to that,” Tommy said.

  There was the noise of the door opening and closing, and the car starting up outside, its engine making banging, gasping sounds. Z put their empty cup down and looked into Leo the lizard’s eyes through the thick glass of his cage. Z thought about where they would go when they got out of Oregon. They didn’t have any identification and they couldn’t go to a shelter. They could sleep in the woods, they thought, but then they had a vision of sitting in a tent with insects crawling over them, trying to dig into their skin. At least Elaine would be there, Z thought. And Tommy. Maybe. Or maybe they would all fight at some point and Elaine and Tommy would leave, and then Z would be alone.

  When Mr. Weber came back in and gestured for everyone to move, Elaine reached down for Z and hoisted them to their feet. Mr. Weber clapped his hands and a pink bubble shot out around all of them. Their bodies became transparent. Mr. Weber nodded for them all to follow him, and they went out the back door and around the house to the waiting car.

  The backseat was covered in paper and a jacket was bunched up against one of the doors. Z tried to put it gently on the floor as Tommy and Elaine squeezed in next to them.

  “Where is Aysel?” Mr. Weber asked suddenly, after he closed the door and shifted the car into reverse, looking behind through the rear window into the dark night. “She’s good friends with you, Z, right? Is she safe?”

  “She’s at home with her mom,” Z said. “She’s not in danger.”

  “Well, that’s a relief anyway,” Mr. Weber said. The car swung back in a wide arc, its bumper pressed against the neighbor’s hedge. His hands were shaking on the wheel a little, Z saw.

  Suddenly a large blue light passed the car, on the driver’s side.

  “Shit!” Mr. Weber said.

  A second after passing, the orb froze in midair and pivoted back toward the car. A beam of light shot out from it toward the back bumper of the car as Mr. Weber turned the corner. He hit the gas.

  “Do you think it got our license plate?” Elaine said.

  “Shit,” Mr. Weber said again. “There’s two monitors now. I saw one go by four minutes ago. They’ve increased surveillance.” He ran through a stop sign, the car’s tires bumping unevenly over the patched cement of the intersection. Streetlamps flashed by in the darkness. “This might be difficult.”

  “How do they even have the resources to do that?” Elaine asked. “This is a tiny town.”

  “National Guard got called in a while ago,” Mr. Weber said. “I think they’re borrowing tools and stuff from the Portland police too. Emergency and all that.”

  “I haven’t seen an orb monitor since I was in LA.,” Elaine said.

  “They’re cheaper to make nowadays,” Mr. Weber said in a flat voice. “And the federal government authorized their use just after Bush got reelected in ’92. Only a matter of time before small municipalities have some.”

  Z looked out the back window. The orb didn’t seem to have followed the car around the corner. “We lost it,” they said hopefully.

  “It’s not designed to tail us,” Mr. Weber said. “It registers us and reports and goes back to its rounds.”

  “Oh.”

  The houses flashed by in the dark. They turned onto Center Street, and Mr. Weber’s car suddenly gave a loud bang and a rattle. A light on the dashboard came on. Mr. Weber glanced at it and swallowed, and pressed a little harder on the gas pedal.

  “This is a pretty old car,” he said. “It does this a lot.”

  They drove for a minute.

  “Mr. Weber,” Z asked, “just in case I do have to undo the spell and release the energy, to save us, how would I do that?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Z,” Mr. Weber said. “You won’t. And if you did I think it would kill you.”

  “We’re dead either way,” Z said matter-of-factly.

  “No we aren’t,” Elaine said. “We’re escaping.”

  The car made another noise and shuddered. Mr. Weber stopped at a traffic light, and it made a final, wheezing kind of bang. When Mr. Weber put his foot on the gas pedal again, the car didn’t move. There was a whooshing noise like it meant to move, but the wheels didn’t turn. The car b
ehind Mr. Weber honked its horn.

  “Let’s get out and push it,” Elaine said, opening her door.

  “Get back in here!” Mr. Weber hissed. “Nobody can see that I have people in my car!” The car behind Mr. Weber honked again.

  “Why not?” Elaine asked, shutting her door. “It’s not like the whole world is watching you and reporting to the Salem Police Department.”

  “That might be true,” Mr. Weber said, “but—oh God.” He looked up into the rearview mirror. Z followed his gaze and saw a police car, lights off, pulling around the corner. It was driving slowly, and Z saw the officer in front peering out his window at the stalled vehicle and the three or four cars now pulled up behind it, honking. One driver angrily hit the gas and raced past Mr. Weber with an enormous noise. The police car, apparently in response, pulled into the driveway for the gas station they were next to, and the officer got out.

  “Here he comes,” Mr. Weber said. “God.”

  “It’s a Portland car,” Elaine said. “It’s not a local guy. He won’t know you.”

  The officer came over to Mr. Weber’s window, and Mr. Weber rolled it down.

  “Some car trouble?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Weber said. “It does this every few months. I was hoping I could turn her off and on again and she’d start up, that happens sometimes, but no go.” He laughed awkwardly. “And here we’re trying to get these ah, my niece and her friends home.”

  The officer nodded sympathetically. “It happens,” he said. “I figure it’s best to get her out of the road, though. If everyone can get out and push and you can hold her in neutral, we can put it in the parking lot here until your mechanic gets here.”

  “I appreciate it awfully,” Mr. Weber said. He looked back with a certain degree of fear at the rest of them. “You heard the officer, everyone out! We’re going to push the car off the road.” He shifted into neutral. Z looked at Tommy and Elaine. Elaine shrugged and opened her door, and then went around the car to where the officer was. Meanwhile, the cars behind them one by one pulled around and sped by. Tommy got out too. Z tried to move but found that their knees weren’t working very well. They decided to sit in the car unless someone specifically told them to do something.

  “You too, Z,” Mr. Weber said.

  “Tommy, could you . . .” Z looked out at Tommy. He reached in and helped them out. They leaned against the car for balance, and Tommy shut the door. The two stood awkwardly next to Elaine and the officer.

  “Pleased to meet you, officer,” Elaine was saying, using a bright and sunny voice. “My name’s Maureen Weber. My mom’s been telling my uncle to get this thing fixed for years. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Nice to meet you, Maureen,” the officer said, smiling. “It’s no problem. It’s nice to try to help out around the town a little bit.”

  “You’re one of the police they brought in from Portland or somewhere, aren’t you?” Elaine asked. “For the emergency. This town is pretty small.”

  “Oh, yeah,” the officer said. “There must be a hundred cars stationed around this town right now, twice as many orbs. It’s good to be getting home. There’ll be action tonight, with these arsonists and werewolves on the loose. Hear there’s a missing zombie, too. It’s a big mess.”

  “It’s awful scary,” “Maureen” agreed. She turned to Z and Tommy. “All right, let’s help push this car!”

  They all leaned into the dented back end of the car as Mr. Weber spun the wheel and held the car in neutral. Z was not contributing anything, and as the car had been their support, they found it hard to stay balanced as it rolled forward. They lost their footing and fell onto the cement curb of the sidewalk as the car rolled over the threshold into the gas-station parking lot.

  “Oops,” they said. Tommy bent to help them, but the officer got there first. His large hand closed around Z’s own and pulled them up. They tried not to look up at him. Potion or not, they still looked very dead.

  “Thanks,” they muttered, and tried to turn away.

  “You all right, miss?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Z said. “Just fell is all.”

  “Hey,” the officer said, “no need to be scared of me. Huh?” He bent down slightly and looked Z directly in the eye. As he did so, the smile he’d held on his face slipped a little, and then froze into an expression of shock. Z knew he was probably looking at the stitches on their forehead.

  At that moment, the hip radio on the officer’s belt buzzed.

  “Monitor 257 reports suspicious exit by resident under surveillance in Survey Zone 45,” the little buzzer said. “Jeremiah Weber. Brown Honda Accord 1979, dent in back, license plate”—the voice rattled off Mr. Weber’s license plate number. The officer, who had broken eye contact with Z and stood up, stared into space for a moment as he registered the voice from his radio and looked at the car.

  “Hello, this is Officer Burton,” the officer said. “I have that car here, it ran out of gas just before the gas station, it’s immobilized. Three passengers in addition to the driver. Doesn’t seem suspicious.”

  There was a buzz of static, and then a different woman’s voice replied. “Resident lives alone. Relationship with passengers?”

  “What’s he under surveillance for?” Officer Burton asked, into the little walkie-talkie. Z looked over at Elaine, who was standing very still and watching the cop’s face. She made eye contact with Z and jerked her head as if to say, Be ready to go, but Z could not run. Z couldn’t even walk.

  “He’s a sorcerer. Attempted to break into Willamette restricted archives a while ago, is what I got here. Relationship to passengers?”

  “Hey, young lady,” Officer Burton said. “What did you say your uncle was driving you and your uh, friends to?”

  “Oh,” Elaine said. “Just home, you know. But it’s okay, my mom can come instead.”

  “It’s his niece and her friends,” Officer Burton said into the headset. There was a minute of crackling, and then a response came through in the woman’s voice.

  “Can I have a description of the passengers?”

  “Now, what’s this all about?” Officer Burton asked. “They’re just teens. They haven’t got anything to do with whatever he did. His car broke down. Haven’t we got bigger issues here?”

  “A description of the passengers,” the voice insisted.

  “Uh, well, one’s this kind of sick-looking small girl, one girl’s . . . also small, long blonde hair in a bun, one’s tall, black girl, or Spanish maybe, curly brown hair. That’s the niece. Maureen Weber, she said.”

  “Resident has no blood relatives in Salem, according to this database,” the voice on the other line said. “Hold the suspects until backup arrives.”

  “We live down in Albany,” Elaine said quickly. “Not in Salem. Just moved a while ago to be closer to family, from Oklahoma.”

  “Okay,” Officer Burton said, smiling at Elaine before frowning and turning away and muttering something into his headset. He looked back.

  “All right, well, everything’s on edge tonight,” he said. “But you know, they want me to hold you all here and they’re going to send some other people over, to check. Guess they think the arsonists today might have been teenagers, figure they’ll follow up anything.” He smiled. “But that’s okay, it’ll be sorted out. You can ride home with one of our officers.”

  “That’s inconvenient,” Elaine said.

  “I don’t figure you all have done anything to make you afraid.”

  “Nah,” Elaine said. “We’re totally innocent. But that’s pretty inconvenient. Are we free to go?”

  Officer Burton frowned a little. “You said you lived in Albany? You can’t walk there.”

  “No, I was just asking. Are we under arrest for anything?” Elaine articulated this question with very sharp consonants. “If we aren’t, I figure we’ll walk over to Safeway, call my mom.”

  “I can’t walk,” Z said very quietly to Elaine. They were managing to keep thei
r balance standing, but they weren’t sure how long they could keep that up. Elaine looked at them and her mouth drew in a line.

  “I don’t think—I think you had better all stay here,” the cop said. “You’re not under arrest, but just stay put a second. How about you go sit over by the gas station, wait it out. I’ll talk to your uncle and maybe get some more answers as to what this is all about, and he can call a mechanic from inside the station.”

  “There’s no phone in this gas station, it’s been broken for like a year. He’ll have to go use the phone by Safeway too. Small towns, huh.” Elaine smiled a little. Z wondered if she was bluffing or really knew the station had no phone.

  “Well, let us sort it out. We’ll call your mom too.”

  “If I’m not under arrest, then I’m free to go make a phone call, right? I just want to let my mom know what’s happening so she knows it’ll be a little bit.”

  “Well, yes, that’s fine, I guess,” the officer said.

  Elaine gestured to Z and Tommy. “I won’t be gone long, I gotta look out for these nerds. I’m just going to use the phone over in Safeway if that’s okay.” She turned and quickly walked away, without glancing back to register Z and Tommy’s surprise. Z wondered what Elaine meant to do. Was she leaving on her own?

  “You go wait over against the side of the gas station,” Officer Burton said to Z and Tommy.

  They did as the officer asked. They waited ten minutes. Mr. Weber went inside the store after a short talk with Officer Burton, and then came back out, looking around nervously. Then, from around the corner, three more police cars pulled into the gas station parking lot, lights off. The doors opened and six officers got out. They stood by their cars until one of them, a tall blond one, walked forward. These were officers from Salem, not like Officer Burton, and it appeared that for the moment they were in command. Z pointed to two of them, standing back by the cars.