What honest human being could do such a thing?
He ran toward the alley between Main and Woodson, not even slowing as he reached the dark slit between the buildings. He bounded in, heart pounding and ready to fight one, maybe two pieces of scum who thought it was funny to violate a helpless young girl. His eyes adjusted to the low light, his footfalls echoing off the encasing walls, and when he saw the scene in front of him clearly, he skidded to a stop so hard the rubber on his sneakers literally squealed against the asphalt, and he had one devastating thought: I’ve lost. Just like that.
Standing fifteen feet away in the shadows of the alley was not a young girl fighting for her dignity and safety, nor was it one or two pieces of scum looking to have some fun by roughing up some innocent bystander.
Standing fifteen feet away in the shadows of the alley, looking as comfortable as ever in his board shorts and sleeveless t-shirt and flip-flops, was the Surfer.
Confusion washed over Lance. He was smart enough to understand that he’d been tricked, baited into a trap like a rabbit in the woods, but he didn’t understand how. Who was the girl? Where was the girl?
The Surfer smiled at Lance in the darkness, as if reading his thoughts, and that was when Lance was hit with an even deeper realization of the powers he was up against. The Surfer, somehow, had been the girl, or … had created her … or …
What is he?
Lance didn’t have time to contemplate the mysterious man before him, because just as his mind finally allowed in the instinctive thought to turn and run away, get the heck out of the alley before something terrible, something final could happen, he heard the steady rumble of tires over asphalt echoing into the space behind him. He turned halfway, keeping one eye trained on the Surfer, and saw the Creamsicle Volkswagen bus slide into view, completely blocking the mouth of the alley, completely blocking Lance’s way out.
The Reverend was in the driver’s seat, his white collar seeming to twinkle in the alley’s darkness as he stared out the window toward Lance. Past the Reverend, through the van and out the passenger window’s glass, Lance could see a blurred and congested image of the crowd in the parking lot, their focus still locked onto the stage, the music. His mother was among them, and Lance wondered if she’d noticed that he’d gone. How long had he been gone? Time had seemed to slow now that he was here, trapped between two foes, but in reality, he’d probably only been gone from the crowd for a minute, maybe less.
Hi, Lance. Ready to go?
The Reverend’s voice slid into Lance’s thoughts, as smooth as sliding into silk sheets. No hesitation, no resistance.
Just hop on in and we’ll go for a ride.
Lance stared back, turning fully toward the bus, his gaze focused solely on the Reverend’s eyes. He concentrated and shot back a message of his own, curious to see if it’d be received.
Who are you? Lance asked. What do you want?
Lance heard movement behind him and spun around quickly, the Surfer having taken what looked like two steps closer. His hands were at his sides, and he didn’t seem to be carrying any sort of weapon, but when Lance remembered the whole damsel-in-distress trick the man had somehow conjured, he wasn’t sure any physical weapon would be necessary.
Just make it easy, Lance. The Reverend whispered in his head. We don’t want to hurt you. You’re too valuable to us.
Lance ignored the voice, let his eyes fall over his surroundings, searching for some sort of escape. He clearly couldn’t exit the way he’d come in, because of the bus, but he might be able to get past the Surfer and exit out the other side toward Church Street. But still, the thing with the girl, the overwhelming sense of slime and evil he’d felt coming off the man in Downtown Joe … he was more dangerous than he looked on the surface. Lance didn’t want to get close to him—feared getting close to him. It was potential suicide.
He saw the handful of metal doors set flush into the wall, service and delivery entrances for the stores and shops, a place for employees to take the trash to the Dumpsters. Each door had a single keyhole and no knob. A small button to ring the bell next to each. They could only be opened from the inside, for security.
Get in the bus, Lance. We have great plans for you.
The music from the stage continued to play, the speakers pumping and the bass thundering. Lance felt his heart pound-pound-pound louder and faster in his head, thought about his mother, out there alone, wondering what had happened to her son, searching for him in the crowd, crying out his name.
Another noise behind him, the Surfer gaining another step.
You’re brave, Lance, the Reverend said, and then louder: But you’re ours now.
Lance’s mind spun wildly, desperate for a solution.
And don’t worry, we’ll take care of your mother.
And just like when a lit fuse finally reaches its end, Lance’s temper ignited in a spark of rage and fury that tinted his vision red. His hands balled into fists and his muscles tightened and he poised himself to run straight at the Reverend and jump clear over the Volkswagen if need be. He sucked in one deep breath of air, heard the Surfer begin to move rapidly behind him and.…
One of the metal service doors swung open on rusty hinges with a screech that echoed loudly through the darkness. A short man, stocky and balding, stepped out into the alley, freezing when he saw Lance and the Surfer standing outside the door.
“Oh!” he said. “Wasn’t expecting anyone out here.” The man looked as though he sensed he’d walked into some sort of trouble and started to retreat back inside the building, the metal door swinging slowly closed behind him. Lance sprang into action, the quickness that had been so beneficial on the basketball court now helping to save his life. His arm darted out and caught the door and flung it open, hard and wide, the metal slamming into the Surfer’s body as he reacted a second too slowly to Lance’s movements. There was a dull thud as the metal met flesh and bone, and Lance jumped over the door’s threshold and quickly spun around, grabbing the door’s push bar and quickly jerking the door closed.
“Hey! You can’t be in here!” the balding man protested fearfully. “We’re closed!”
Lance didn’t even look at the guy, just turned and ran for the front of the store, for an exit. The building was dark, all the lights off save a few emergency overheads that glowed dimly in the gloomy space. These buildings were all old, smelled of must and failed businesses. Lance scanned his surroundings and saw large pieces of wooden furniture in various states of assembly—sawhorses and cans of stain and electric sanders. He pushed through a gray swinging door, emerging into the storefront. He saw an elegantly staged dining room set on his left, a king-sized four-poster bed on his right, wooden tables and chairs and barstools and rolltop desks scattered everywhere. He knew where he was—Hillston Furniture Co.
Hillston Furniture Co. closed at five o’clock every day. Closed on Sundays. Five o’clock had long since passed, and with Centerfest happening, the store had likely been empty for hours. There was absolutely no reason the stocky balding man should have been here, no reason that alley door should have opened.
His mother’s words: “Do you, a person with your gifts, honestly believe things could be so random?”
He certainly could not. Especially not tonight.
He thanked the universe for the assist and ran to the front door. The deadbolt was locked, but a quick turn of the thumb latch and Lance was in the street, bounding out into the chaos of Centerfest once again. The noise and the smells and the unknowing people. Unknowing that right now something major was happening, something that could forever change Lance’s life—and who knows what else?—was going down right under their noses. They were just too busy with their games and food and arts and crafts to notice.
And maybe that was okay.
Lance turned left and ran down the sidewalk behind the food trucks, rounding the corner of Main and Bedford. He saw two things at once: his mother emerging from the Farmers Market pavilions, her eyes locked onto h
is with a clear understanding spread across them—It’s happening, isn’t it?—and the Creamsicle bus with its reverse lights on, attempting to do a three-point turn to head toward a small exit ramp, the place where every other Saturday morning, the local vendors and farmers would drive their pickups off Woodson Avenue and back them up to the pavilions to unload and set up shop. It was the only way out with the bus. The rest of the roads were closed off, packed with people and tents. Lance watched it for just a moment, long enough to see the Surfer back in the driver’s seat and the Reverend riding shotgun.
Disappointing, Lance. Shouldn’t have run. Now it’s worse. You’ll see.
The Reverend’s voice creeped into Lance’s head again, and Lance cast out a mental middle finger, raised high. He hoped the Reverend could see it. He hoped it jammed him in the eye.
Pamela was not running, but she walked quickly across the street and joined Lance on the sidewalk. She didn’t speak, only looked to him. Lance took her by the arm and hurried up the block, back to the intersection with Main Street. They spilled into the street, people parting around them like a stream around a pile of rocks.
“I saw the bus,” Pamela said, her eyes still trying to lock onto Lance’s.
Lance was using his height and scanning the crowd, searching for any sign of the Surfer or the Reverend. Though now—a terrifying thought—he wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to spot the Surfer outright. The trick with the girl in the alley had changed Lance’s entire perspective of what he was up against. “I’m glad you didn’t go running toward it like some crazed mother bear protecting her cub.”
Pamela gave a slight nod. Somebody bumped into her as they made their way past, and a bit of apple cider spilled from a large plastic cup, just missing their shoes. The person apologized over their shoulder and moved on.
“Something told me not to,” Pamela said. “I knew you wouldn’t be there if I went.”
“Something? Or someone?” Lance asked, finally meeting his mother’s eyes.
Pamela only shrugged.
Lance Brody wasn’t one to question premonitions or unexplained hunches. Instead, he used his lifetime in Hillston to pull up a mental map of downtown and the surrounding streets, calculated the roads that were still passable and not shut down for the night’s events, trying to list all the possible routes the Creamsicle bus could be headed.
They’re not done, Lance knew. They’re going to keep coming.
He mapped out a route back to their house, using a few offshoots down some side streets and one gravel path that ran parallel behind their neighborhood. If he could get back there quick enough, his mother would have some time to grab a few things, and then they could head to the bus station.
Do they think I’ll leave town? he wondered. And then, with some disappointment in himself, Do they think I’m that much of a coward, not to stay and fight?
But this wasn’t running. This was surviving. For both Lance and his mother.
“Let’s go,” Lance said, pulling his backpack off one shoulder and digging for his cell phone. He flipped open the pay-as-you-go flip phone his mother had given him years ago and dialed Marcus Johnston’s personal cell number by memory. He put the phone to his ear and once again took his mother’s arm and led her back down Main Street, back the way they’d come what suddenly felt like ages ago. Back toward home. For what might be the last time in a good long while.
Pamela came along after him, but Lance could sense her resistance. He had halfway turned to look back at her, when on the third ring, there was a “Hello?” in his ear.
“It’s happening,” Lance said. “There’s people after me and my mom, bad people. I need you to tell the police to stop an orange-and-white Volkswagen bus if they see one. Just stop the bus and don’t let the driver or passenger out of their sight. No questions, okay? I just need enough time to get us out of here.”
“Out of here?” the mayor asked.
“Yes.”
“Lance?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you going?”
There was a tugging on Lance’s arm, gentle at first and then more prominent. “Lance,” his mother said.
“Home first,” Lance said. “Then, I’m not sure where we’re—”
“Lance!” His mother’s voice echoed loudly, causing Lance to stop talking. He glanced around, but none of the other patrons seemed to have noticed or cared. Too much going on. He turned and looked to his mother. She tugged his arm and nodded toward the street stretching out to their left—Avenel Avenue. There were only a few tents set up on Avenel, a couple of jewelry vendors and a man selling pencil sketches of local landmarks. After the first half a block, the street was empty except for the lines of cars parked along the curb on either side, stretching far back into the darkening street. A few streetlights glowed from the distance, and the occasional headlights flipped on as cars pulled out of spaces, headed home. A good stream of people walked in either direction, both toward and away from Main Street—the newcomers, and those who’d had their fill. But the scene was nothing like the packed madhouse of Main Street.
Avenel was where Pamela was pulling him. Lance resisted, planting his weight. “Where are you going?”
“Trust me,” she said.
Lance thought out more routes in his head and didn’t see how going down Avenel helped them at all, except to get them out of this sea of people. Which Lance actually sort of liked at the moment, as it helped them blend in.
But then he thought back to what Pamela had said to him after he’d escaped from the alley—“Something told me not to. I knew you wouldn’t be there if I went”—and crossed his fingers that whatever had intervened with his mother’s intentions was taking the wheel now as well. And besides, Hillston wasn’t that big. They could get back to the house from anywhere.
And at the end of the day, yes, he did trust her. More than anybody on earth. More than himself.
“Lance?” It was Marcus Johnston in his ear. “Lance, where are you going?”
Lance took one last reassuring glance at his mother and said, “East on Avenel.”
“Toward the cemetery?”
Lance felt his heart do something funny, a cold trickle of fear pouring over his head as he realized that if they continued half a mile up the road on Avenel, past the downtown businesses and the few abandoned buildings, yes, they would eventually run into the intersection with White Birch Lane, which led directly to the main entrance of the Great Hillston Cemetery.
“Yes,” he said. “I guess so. Just tell them to stop the bus if they see it, okay?” Then Lance ended the call and ran with his mother up the street, toward where—unbeknownst to Lance, and Pamela, too, really—he had been made what he was.
This time, they did run. Both of them together, Lance leading the way with his fingers intertwined with his mother’s, trying to keep himself from going so fast that he would end up dragging her. The eyes of the people walking along Avenel stared at them, mouths slightly ajar, curious as to what they were witnessing. Folks looked around, heads darting left and right and up and down the street, thinking maybe something bad was happening—a crazy person with a gun or a knife, or maybe somebody had yelled bomb!—but they saw nothing. Only Lance and his mother running away from Hillston’s biggest and best event of the year.
“Maybe she’s sick,” Lance heard a man say to his wife as they ran by. “Maybe she’s going to spew her fried pickles.”
Lance had no concern with what people thought. He knew—somehow, he knew—that whatever he and his mother were suddenly caught up in had repercussions larger than any of the folks gawking could possibly imagine.
Lance only wished he knew what those repercussions where. Wished, now more than ever in his life, that he knew what his purpose was, or if he even had one.
The cars continued to line the street three blocks down Avenel, and the people continued to meander and stare as Lance and his mother ran. At the intersection with Vine Street, there were two sheriff’s deput
ies in bright orange vests, one of them holding one of those plastic orange cones used to direct traffic. They were leaning against one of their police cruisers and chatting and watching the people and did no more than glance in Lance’s direction when he ran by with his mother in tow. For the briefest of moments, Lance slowed, thinking this was why his mother had wanted to come this way, because she knew there’d be help here. They’d be able to jump in the rear of the police cruiser and have two of Hillston’s finest escort them to safety.
But two things happened all at once that caused Lance to forget all that and run even faster, pleading with his mother to keep up.
First, just like when he’d been younger and his mother had mentally asked him to help her find the house keys or sent him the message that dinner was ready while she was in the kitchen and he was playing in his room, Lance sensed her mind knocking on his consciousness’s door. He answered and she said: Don’t stop. Not here. They can’t help us.
Second, as Lance slowed to possibly request the assistance of the two sheriff’s deputies, he saw a vehicle spit out of the darkness further down Vine Street, tires squealing as it took the right turn too quickly, and its headlights were suddenly pointed directly at Lance, barreling toward him at much higher speeds than the posted twenty-five-mile-per-hour limit.
The deputies turned in unison, jumping at the noise.
The vehicle had appeared quickly, and though the headlights were now blinding, obscuring any clear view of it, Lance had seen enough as it had made the turn.
The Creamsicle bus.
Coming for him.
Fast.
They ran, letting go of each other’s hands and sprinting up the street. The deputies were shouting something at the oncoming bus, an incoherent mixture of commands and warnings. People had stopped walking now, half of them staring at the deputies, heads cocked sideways in curious inquisitiveness, half of them watching Lance and Pamela run.
Another block up Avenel, the cars were still lining the streets, but the lot on the right side of the sidewalk was vacant, just an expanse of grass and weeds where Lance had heard McGuire’s Pool Hall had once stood in the midseventies before closing and eventually being torn down by the city. Lance pulled his mother in this direction, their feet leaving the hard asphalt and falling softly onto the grass and dirt. They cut the corner of Avenel and White Birch Lane, making a diagonal across the empty lot. To his left, Lance saw more parked cars along the sidewalk of White Birch, which would eventually end as the city street stopped and a rural road began. Ahead and slightly to his right, Lance could make out the looming wrought-iron fence surrounding the Great Hillston Cemetery, a sliver of moon hanging in the night sky above like a winking eye.
Lance Brody Omnibus Page 7