Instinct (10 page)

“Maybe you should eat diamonds instead of dead people.”

“You’re playing a game with me. I offered you my friendship once, and you lashed out at me and fled. I’ve already shown you more courtesy than you deserve.”

“Do you know why I’m not afraid of you?”

Lyle didn’t respond. Robby sensed movement to his right. He didn’t look. Lyle’s attention was focused on him, and he didn’t want to disturb that trance.

“I’m not afraid of you because I’m not dead. You’re clearly a menace to corpses, but you haven’t displayed any ability to take a life.”

“You haven’t been watching me, Robby. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Show me. Last time you shot at me, I only ran away. What kind of coward has to use a gun against a boy. Why don’t you come over here and show me what you’re capable of with your bare hands?”

“You wouldn’t last a minute. I have a hundred times your strength.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Lyle forgot himself. He stalked forward, coming at Robby with his hands up. He was reaching forward. His hands clearly wanted to wrap themselves around Robby’s throat. When Lyle stepped from beneath the trees, into the starlight, Robby’s eyes jumped to the man’s head. He wore some kind of goggles with big, circular lenses. He had the eyes of an owl. His hands were empty, but on each hip, he had a gun holstered.

Robby charged.

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Brad caught bits of the conversation from his position near the corner of the house. He focused on the woods and the neighboring yards. He was watching for movement or any sign of the man’s accomplices. While he watched, he kept his hand busy. Near the corner of the building, there was a steel pole hammered into the ground. Brad worked it back and forth and tugged. It was slow work, but he was gradually liberating the pole from the ground.

Robby appeared to be taunting the man, and it was working. The man was leaving the overhanging branches and moving out into the light. He barely looked like a man. His shape bulged with odd curves. Brad scanned the area again to see if the man’s movement would flush any more attackers.

The man said something and Robby launched at him. Brad jerked on the pole. It was almost free. Robby hit the man in the midsection, and the man’s hands immediately went to Robby’s neck. Brad abandoned the pole and ran.
 

Robby and the man hit the ground with Robby on top. Brad experienced an instant of hope before it was dashed. The man’s hand went to his waist and came up holding a gun. He was swinging it around to point it directly at Robby. In the second piece of bad news, Brad saw another figure streaking towards Robby and the man. This person was coming from a neighbor’s yard. It appeared that the man had an accomplice after all.
 

Brad considered veering towards the other attacker, but changed his mind. The man under Robby was holding a gun. Robby grabbed the man’s wrist, diverting his aim for the moment. It was a short-lived victory. The man was stronger than Robby and he pushed the gun back towards Robby’s head.

The gun went off.

The flash and sound hit Brad like a slap to his senses. The light blinded him and he heard nothing but a soft ringing and his own breathing. Brad’s vision began to return as his feet slowed. He accelerated once more and threw himself at the man’s gun hand. Robby slumped to the side.

The man was still on the ground.

Brad caught his wrist in both hands. He drove the wrist back, above the man’s shoulder. He felt popping and tearing conveyed up through the man’s arm into his own hands. The gun went off again.

The other figure arrived and Brad braced himself for impact. Instead of hitting him, the other figure landed on the man. Brad turned his attention to the gun. He pulled at the man’s fingers and twisted the metal to break his grip. It worked. The gun fell to the side.

“Get his other gun!” Pete shouted.
 

Brad finally recognized his friend as the other shadowy shape. Brad did as he was told. He climbed over Pete, found the holstered gun, and threw it into the night. As it left his hand, he regretted the throw. He could have kept the gun and pointed it at the man.

Pete tore the goggles from the man’s face. The man thrashed under Pete’s weight.

Brad found Robby’s limp body. He had rolled off to the side.

“Did you get hit, Robby? Robby?” Brad ran his hands over the boy’s head, expecting to find a big wet hole where a bullet had torn away a section of skull.

“Brad!” Pete yelled.

He turned to see the man escaping Pete’s grip. Brad’s eyes were drawn to the black spot on the grass. The edges of the black metal caught the starlight. It was the gun. The man was going straight for it. Brad left Robby and ran towards the man. He wasn’t going to make it on time. Pete was still on his knees and the man was bending over to pick up the gun.

A huffing shape blew by Brad and plowed into the man.

Pete and Brad arrived to find Romie pinning the man to the ground.

“Get the damn gun,” Romie said.
 

Pete bent for the weapon. Brad jogged in the other direction and found the gun that he’d thrown into the night. It was sitting right next to a birdbath.

Lisa arrived.

Romie and Pete were holding the man to the ground, but he was thrashing wildly.

“Help!” the man yelled. Brad looked towards the dark line of woods. He didn’t see anything. Romie clamped her hand to the man’s mouth, but then pulled back with a yelp. She glanced at her hand for a split second and then formed a fist. She plowed it down at the man’s head until he went limp.

“What did you do?” Lisa asked.

“He bit me.”

Brad returned to Robby. Lisa joined him. They knelt on either side of the boy. Lisa pulled out a flashlight and cupped it in her hand so it wouldn’t blind them. They searched his body and rolled him halfway over, looking for any injury or blood.
 

“I don’t see any holes,” Lisa said.

Robby emitted a low moan and raised a hand to his head.

Brad tried to help him up, but Lisa shook her head. “Keep him on the ground.” Brad shrugged.

“Are you okay?” Brad asked. “Where does it hurt?”

Robby sat up. Lisa didn’t stop him. Robby looked over to where Romie and Pete were still sitting on top of the man.

“He’s alone,” Robby said. “He’s dangerous though. Kill him.”

“What?” Lisa asked. “We can’t do that.”

“I think we have to,” Romie said. “What are we going to do, put him in jail? He wants to kill us.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Brad said.

“So what do you propose?” Romie asked.

“Brad,” Robby said. The boy was holding his hand to his temple. “Do you remember that body you found in the Chinese restaurant?”

“Of course,” Brad said. He and Romie had found it together. There were pieces missing from it. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“It was Lyle,” Robby said. “He was the one who did that. I suspect he did it a lot. He’s mentally ill.”

“You can’t just kill people,” Lisa said. “We have his guns. Why don’t we just scare him away. If he comes back, then you can shoot him.”

“We don’t know how many guns he has,” Pete said. Beneath him, Lyle began to stir. Without notice, Romie hit him again in the head. Lyle was still again.

“He’s probably half-dead already, the way you’ve been hitting him,” Lisa said. “Could you please stop doing that until we come to a decision.”

“Why don’t we tie him up, and then a couple of people can guard him with guns until we find a car? When we’re ready to go, we cut his ropes and leave him here,” Brad said.

“I like Brad’s idea,” Lisa said immediately.

The others didn’t say anything. Robby shook his head.

“Fine,” Romie said.

“I’ll go find some rope,” Lisa said. “Brad, don’t let them kill him, please?”

“I’ll try,” Brad said.

Lisa walked back towards the house. Brad looked away when she pulled her hand from her flashlight and let the full beam light up the yard.

“Are you sure he’s alone, Robby?” Pete asked.

“Pretty sure. Sure enough.”

“How do you know this guy?” Brad asked.

“I ran into him my first night alone,” Robby said. “He was at a rest stop near the highway.”

“You never mentioned that,” Pete said. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story. I think we should figure out a plan first.”

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They had three flashlights on the floor of the garage, pointing up towards the ceiling. The man strapped to the step stool looked like he’d been in battle. Brad looked over at Robby. The boy didn’t look much better. Robby wasn’t bleeding, but a big lump stood out on his temple.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, Brad found his eyes sliding closed. He had to stay awake. There was still a chance that Lyle had accomplices in the area.

“What happened to you?” Brad asked.

“When?” Robby asked. Robby got up and walked over to the workbench. The person who had owned this place spent a lot of time in this garage. All the tools were put away and clean. There was a squat white refrigerator next to a tall red tool chest. Robby didn’t open the fridge, but ripped open a box that sat on top. He came back with a couple of cans of warm soda. He handed one to Brad.

“When we were back in Maine,” Brad said. “That bird disappeared, we all decided we should go to New York, and then you just collapsed. You were catatonic for weeks. What happened?”

Robby shrugged.

“Come on. I’m guessing this isn’t the first time this has happened to you.”

Robby looked up at him and frowned.

“Judy told me that you would go into a trance when you had a hard problem to figure out. Is that what you were doing? Figuring out a problem?”

“Not exactly,” Robby said. “I was back with my grandmother.”

“What does that mean?”

“When I was a kid, my mom and I would go out to my grandmother’s house a few times a year. My dad always had to work, and he didn’t like my grandmother much anyway, so he usually didn’t come. I missed my dad, but it was fun. My grandmother always let me do more than my parents would.”

“Grandparents love to spoil.”

Robby nodded. “It was more than that though. She trusted me more than my parents did. She trusted that I knew the right thing to do.”

Robby took a big sip of his soda and didn’t continue.

Lyle had begun to snore. His head was slumped to the side. He had woken up while they were strapping him to the stool and Romie had smacked him on the head again. It wasn’t even a hard smack, but Lyle had gone unconscious immediately. Brad was starting to wonder if Lyle would live to see the morning. Romie apparently packed quiet a punch.

“So you went back to where you used to feel safe?” Brad asked. “Somehow you slipped into a trance and you were at your grandmother’s?”

“No,” Robby said. He coughed and gingerly touched the lump on his temple. “There’s a time when I was a kid that I remember, but I picture it like someone else told me.”

“I think that happens to everyone.”

“Maybe,” Robby said. “But I think it’s different for me, and there’s a reason. I guess I used to be really smart.”

Brad laughed. “I’m pretty sure you still are.”

Robby shook his head. “No. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I think I was
really
smart. One day my grandmother sent me up a ladder to get something from on top of the cabinets and I fell. I hit my head. After that, I wasn’t so smart.”

“Did you have a concussion?”

“I was in the hospital for a long time. I remember hearing people murmur about me, about whether I would make it, but I was asleep the whole time. After that, I could tell that people didn’t think I was as smart anymore. Sometimes I think I remember what it was like to be able to figure everything out, but it doesn’t last. It’s impossible to understand. The ideas just don’t fit inside my head anymore.”

“It could just be your imagination. Maybe some side effect of the trauma.”

“Maybe,” Robby said. “Anyway, sometimes when I’m trying to figure out a really hard problem, it’s almost like my brain overheats or something. I end up right back there in the hospital. I can’t do anything until I figure out the answer.”

“So that’s what happened after the bird disappeared? You went into a trance to figure out a problem?”

Robby nodded.

“What did you come up with? You woke up—do you have an answer?”

“Not really,” Robby said. “It was Lyle that woke me up. I’m afraid of him.”

“But he’s neutralized and you’re still awake. Are you afraid of him right now?”

Robby nodded.
 

“Wait, you said ‘not really.’ Did you come up with some kind of answer?”

“Yes. I think so,” Robby said.
 

Brad sat up straighter. He set his soda down. He no longer felt the need for the caffeine to keep himself awake.
 

“Well?”

“I haven’t figured out exactly what to do, but I figured out why the problem isn’t solved yet.”

“The problem?”

“We didn’t get rid of all organisms that came to prepare the planet. They’re still working to sterilize and get the environment ready.”

“They haven’t gotten the message yet, you mean?”

“Yes. And it’s possible that another embryo might come, too. Maybe they’re keeping the nest warm for the next egg you know?”

“I suppose,” Brad said. “Is it also possible that none of our previous ideas were true, and now we’re just scrambling to try to fit the new evidence into our debunked model?”

“Of course,” Robby said. “That’s one of the reasons why the problem isn’t yet solvable. We need more data to fit into the theory to decide if the theory is relevant. There’s always a chance that we’re off-track until we get more information.”

“More data,” Brad said. He sighed. “We lost a lot of people chasing after theories. If we had gone along with Luke before, we might be a much bigger and stronger group.”

“I know.”

Brad and Robby both jumped when the side door of the garage opened. Lisa stepped inside.