Hear the Children Calling (27 page)

“Albuquerque,” Michael said. “My dad’s been there. I think that’s where we were go—”

Unexpectedly, the reality of what was happening hit the little boy full force. His voice cracked and soft squeals filled the darkness.

Jenny put her arms around him. “It’s okay, Michael,” she said. “We’ll see your dad again. As soon as we can figure out what’s going on at the center, we’ll find a way to contact him. I’ll picture him in my mind and tell you where he is.”

Michael shivered in her arms.

“Why haven’t you done it yet?” Tommy demanded. “That’d be a good idea.”

“I did,” Jenny said softly.

Michael pulled away from her. The wall of the cave felt cold as he pressed his back against it.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I—I didn’t see anything,” Jenny answered. “I tried to picture him, but I could see only darkness. I don’t know what that means, Michael.”

“I do,” Tommy said. He felt a push in the darkness.

“No,” Michael snapped. “My daddy’s okay. I know he is.”

“Well, look,” Tommy said, “whatever’s happening, we gotta get out of here. I’ll see if the coast is clear, then we run for that bunch of cactus and yucca plants over there. See them?”

Jenny and Michael said they did. Tommy crawled to the cave’s opening and peered out. The moonlight washed yellow-white over the bare land, casting sharp-lined shadows of cactus and rock. There wasn’t a sign of the grown-ups.

“They’ve gone on to someplace else,” he whispered. “Come on!”

In a flash, the children were running across the brightly lit ground, not letting themselves think how vulnerable they were. They grouped behind a huge boulder to catch their breath and to listen with both ears and minds.

Jenny pictured one of the grown-ups down at the roadside. She gasped.

“What?” Tommy hissed.

“My mother,” she said. “My mother’s in the search party. Why?”

“ ’Cause she’s your mother, dummy,” Tommy said.

Jenny shook her head. “No. There’s something bad there, I can feel it. She’s angry. Not worried about me, angry!” Jenny shuddered, making a disgusted face and rubbing quickly at her upper arms. “I—I don’t like what my mind is telling me about her. I don’t understand it.”

“No time to figure it out,” Michael said. “Let’s go.”

Michael was first to move out from behind the boulder. Jenny went next, all the while praying her mother was out to help, not harm her. Somehow, she couldn’t believe it. Thoughts of her mother’s anger frightened her, and as she ran, she searched her mind for her father’s presence. He wasn’t there.

Both children reached the cactus grove and turned to look for Tommy. But their friend was still back at the boulder, frozen. Jenny grabbed Michael’s arm and squeezed it tightly, pointing.

Michael was being held at bay by one of the center’s guard dogs. The hunkering rottweiler paced slowly back and forth, blocking Tommy’s path to his friends. A deep growl started in the animal’s barrel chest, so soft it could hardly be heard above the wind.

With all his might, Michael tried to send a thought message to his friend.

Kill it, Tommy! You’ve got to kill it, before it barks. If the grown-ups hear. . . .

Kill it, Tommy!

The little boy stood solid, unmoving, his eyes fixed on the snarling beast. Kill it? Michael sounded just like the grown-ups in the lab, who made him do things he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to kill the dog. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He wanted . . . he wanted . . .

He wanted his mother. His eyes squeezed shut and an image came to his mind. Not of the woman he knew
as his mother, strangely, but of another woman: a pretty one with red-brown hair and green eyes and a heavy plaid coat. She was standing in front of him—no, kneeling. She was kneeling, but he was looking right into her eyes, as if he were very small. He wanted her.

Who was she?

The dog let out one bark.

“Tommy!”

Tommy’s eyes snapped open. Without another moment’s thought, he glared hard at the dog. The animal’s next bark was cut in half. The broad body jerked left, then right, then clunked to the ground. It began to slither across the dirt, leaving a trail of drool and wild scratches where its toes clawed the ground. It started to hiss, snakelike, tongue darting in and out of its mouth.

Tommy rounded it on cardboard legs, racing toward his friend. He hadn’t killed the dog, but with his powers he had made it behave like a slow-moving snake.

36

T
HE FIRST THINGS
R
ALPH
C
OLPAN WAS AWARE OF
were the taste of blood on a badly swollen lower lip and a thumping pain behind his left eye. Slowly, sniffling through a broken nose, he got onto his hands and knees. He groped around in the darkness for some sense of where he was. Because he had designed the building himself, Ralph immediately recognized the room behind the examination area. It was the one where “victims” were placed, at whom the children were instructed to direct their powers.

Carefully, he got to his feet, reaching out for support. His hand touched the cold glass of the window. It was a one-way mirror through which the children could be observed. Ralph’s head felt like a rock, his forehead falling heavily against the glass. They’d drugged him after the beating, he knew. He remembered the needle . . .

The light came on in the examination room. Ralph’s head jerked up so quickly that screaming pain shot through it and he was forced to steady himself against the mirror. Blood stained the cold glass.

Adams had returned. He was dragging a red-haired kid by the back of his neck.

“Mich—ael,” Ralph croaked.

But when the child looked up, he saw that it wasn’t Michael at all. It could have been Michael, with shorter hair and ten pounds skinnier. It could have been Michael . . . if it hadn’t been a girl.

Michael’s twin.

Ralph’s mouth dropped as far open as his injuries would allow. He tried to call out, but the drug was still too much a captor to let him. He realized, somewhere in the fog he was in, that Adams had never expected him to wake up so soon.

The speaker. He had to hear what the little girl was saying. The buttons on the control panel were like colorful tropical fish, swimming in every direction. By sheer will he poked his finger at a black one. Static filled the darkened room, then a child’s voice.

“You’d better let me go, mister. My daddy’ll put you in jail. All of you.”

Dr. Adams laughed. “Your daddy isn’t going to do anything to anyone, little girl. Dead people don’t cause trouble.”

“No,” Beth cried. “You’re a liar. And when my mom sees I’m not at the police station . . .”

“Oh, but that’s another mistake, Elizabeth,” Dr. Adams said.

Elizabeth, Ralph thought. Her name is Elizabeth. What’s Michael’s real name?

“Your mother isn’t at the police station. We took her for a little ride, even gave her something to calm her down. But we can kill her, Elizabeth. We can kill her as easily as we killed your father and grandfather.”

Beth’s lower lip began to quiver.

“You—you didn’t kill them!”

“Oh, I’m afraid we did,” Adams said.

Ralph had never noticed it before, but there was something maniacal about the man. Not just mesmerizing, as he’d been when Ralph first met him, but downright evil.

“But you can save your mother, Elizabeth,” Adams said. “You can save her, and Peter, too.”

Peter! That’s my son’s real name.

“Just call him back here, Elizabeth,” Adams ordered. “Use your telepathic powers and tell him you’re being held prisoner. He’ll come to you.”

Beth glared at him. “I won’t do it. You go to hell, you jerk.”

The slap was so hard that even Ralph stumbled. Beth gaped at her captor, unbelieving. Then she burst into tears, wailing so loudly that Ralph turned down the speaker’s volume. If only there were a way out of this room . . . If only he could get to the little girl without being seen . . . Adams’ talk had given him hope, because he realized now that Michael had somehow gotten away. He could use this child’s help.

Adams’ hand went up again. “Stop that confounded crying.”

Beth wailed more loudly.

“Damn you,” Adams screamed.

The door swung open and one of the technicians popped his head in.

“What do you want?” Dr. Adams demanded.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” the man said. “But the mother’s waking up. I thought you should know.”

Adams waved an impatient hand to dismiss him. He turned and poked Beth’s chest with his finger. “I’ll be back,” he said. “And if you want to get out of here
alive, you’ll do as you’re told. If I can’t get Peter back, I’ll kill him. No one screws up my operations. No one!” He left the room.

Beth sat in the big green chair, crying softly. Anger at the child’s mistreatment and an overwhelming desire to get to his son sent adrenaline through Ralph’s body, which counteracted the drugs. He lifted his fist and began to pound on the glass. A look of confusion passed over Beth’s face as she tried to find the source of the knocking. She looked directly at Ralph, seeing only her reflection.

With a quick look at the door, she got out of the seat and walked toward the mirror. Pressing her cheek against the glass, she called, “Is someone there?”

“Unlock the door,” Ralph cried.

The twisted remains of his mouth and the barrier of glass made it impossible to understand him.

“What?”

“Op-en door!”

Beth hurried toward the door. She twisted the lock and pulled it open. When Ralph stumbled into the room, the child stopped a gasp with both hands.

“Who—who—”

“No t-time,” Ralph whispered, his swollen mouth struggling with the words. “I know how to get outta here. We can find M-Michael together.”

“Find who?”

“Peter,” Ralph corrected himself. “I—I call him Michael. He’s my son.”

“Peter’s my brother,” Beth said, staring round-eyed at this bloody, battered stranger.

“I rec’nized you,” Ralph said. “I’d know that red hair anywhere.” He looked toward the door; Lincoln Adams could appear at any moment.

“No time to talk. We can crawl through the air-conditioning ducts.”

“How will we know where to go?” Beth asked, frightened by the idea of being caught in some dark hole.

“You follow me,” Ralph said. “I designed this
building. I know ev’ry twist and turn. I’ll get you outta here, I promise.”

37

J
ILL TRIED TO FORCE THE ZIPPER OF HER JACKET
further closed than its teeth would allow, shivering in the icy darkness. The fire in the camp stove offered just a little warmth. She had set it up near the telescope, and now the mix of heat and cold kept frosting up the lenses. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Jill wiped away condensation and peered through the eyepiece.

She had hoped to get a good look at the center, but she had never expected anything as clear as this. It seemed as if every street, porch, and flood light was on. The whole thing had the effect of a prison yard, completely devoid of shadows.

But why had she expected anything different? Wasn’t LaMane Center, in reality, a prison?

A short while earlier, she had seen a man running down the middle of one of the roads. She’d watched as he stopped and turned, beckoning someone else to follow. The two men turned a corner and disappeared from her line of view. Then she saw a woman and another man hurrying in the same direction. It seemed they were looking for someone. Jill’s notebook, illuminated by the light of the fire now, held an entry at six-thirty
P.M.
, her last sighting of anyone in the streets until the four people she’d spotted half an hour ago.

8:10
P.M.
: after nearly two hours, signs of life. One man running, then another. What are they running after? Or from? Or are they chasing someone?

Her pen was still open, waiting for the next entry. But it was nearly nine o’clock now and she hadn’t seen another soul. Shivering, Jill sank back and crossed her legs. She picked up her mug of coffee and cradled it in her gloved hands. She wondered if this whole damned thing wasn’t futile. Hours peering through the telescope had revealed only two children, both of them girls. Jill still had no doubt that Ryan was down there somewhere. But when she saw how tightly locked up everything was in the center, she began to wonder how easy it would be to just walk right in and take Ryan home with her.

But she’d do it, she was certain. She hadn’t come this far to give up, and . . .

A fluttering in the bushes. Jill cocked her head and listened. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Something walking.

“Deer,” Jill whispered.

She wasn’t certain if deer came up this high in the mountains. Zoology hadn’t been one of the sciences she’d studied back at Michigan State.

Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .

Jill put her mug down and slowly got to her feet. Someone was out there, someone moving slowly toward her. She thought of the man in the hotel bathroom, of Deliah’s murder, of Craig Dylan in his wheelchair.

She’d been smart enough to buy camping equipment and a telescope. Why the hell hadn’t she been smart enough to arm herself? Those ravines she’d passed on the way up were deep and dark enough to hide a body forever.

Crunch, crunch . . .

“Who’s there?”

The scream came from Jill before she could stop it, an involuntary scream in anger. She looked around herself quickly, searching for a branch or rock. Her eyes locked on the telescope and she quickly unscrewed it from its tripod. She held it up, ready to strike the dark shadow that was emerging from the nearby road. It swung down, skinning only the edge
of the silhouette. When he came into view, she saw to her horror that it was the man in the dark glasses.

“Christ Almighty,” a man’s voice shouted. “Lady, don’t!”

Overcome by fear and exhaustion, Jill didn’t wait for him to finish. She swung the telescope again, the heavy instrument hitting the man across the shoulder. He stumbled back, his glasses falling off to reveal wide, terrified eyes. For a split second, he seemed frozen against the starry sky, arms and legs flailing. And then he was gone, nothing left of him but a long, horrible scream.