Jonah Havensby (17 page)

When they reached the alley that accessed the rear of the warehouse, Jonah stopped. Eric stopped right beside him looking at him quizzically. Jonah looked up the street, then down it, then scanned the surrounding windows, then he looked at Eric.

“Force of habit, I guess,” he said and shrugged.

He got off the bike and walked it down to the warehouse entrance, so Eric followed suit. Jonah surveyed each window he could see, So Eric helped in that also.

“Dude, I don’t think anyone is around,” Eric said.

“I know, but every time I start to think that, something weird happens,” Jonah responded.

Eric momentarily wondered if he would be this paranoid if he was forced to be on his own and then bristled at the thought and pushed it away. He didn’t want to even consider it.

Jonah walked behind the ramp and instead of using the kickstand, he gently laid the bike down near the little door.

“Just in case someone drives by,” he explained.

Eric understood, so he did the same.

Jonah retrieved his pack from the little door and threw it over his shoulder.

“That all you got?” Eric asked.

“Yeah, except for the food. And I think I left a t-shirt up there,” Jonah said.

They went up the ramp and Jonah took a running start at the dumpster and deftly climbed on top.

“No. Way.” Eric said, punctuating each word.

“C’mon,” Jonah said smiling. “It’s not that hard.”

Eric took a running start but had to push off of the dumpster several times. He wasn’t used to compensating for the weight on his back from his own pack, which was at least half as heavy as Jonah’s.

“I’m not going to get up there,” Eric said, slightly winded.

“Throw me your backpack,” Jonah asked.

Eric took his pack off and tossed it up on the dumpster. Jonah took it and moved it out of the way.

“Now grab my hand,” Jonah said, holding his hand out.

Eric took another running start at the dumpster and when he rose up on the sidebar he grabbed Jonah’s hand. Jonah pulled him the rest of the way up.

“You do that every day?” Eric asked.

“You get used to it,” Jonah said, tossing both packs through the window.

“Careful with that,” Eric said. “There’s stuff in there.”

“Sorry,” Jonah responded, climbing into the warehouse.

When Eric was safely on the floor inside, Jonah returned his backpack to him.

“Wow, this is cool,” Eric said, looking around at the heaps of debris and the long-rusted machinery.

“C’mon,” Jonah said. “I stay upstairs.”

Just then, there was a rustle from Gouchy’s nest. It startled Eric.

“Relax,” Jonah said. “It’s just Grouchy. He’s kind of my downstairs neighbor.”

Just then, Grouchy’s head came up, followed slowly by the rest of his bristly, scrawny body.

“You know raccoons can be really dangerous,” Eric mentioned as they moved toward the stairs, not taking his eyes off the animal.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Jonah said. “He’s got a temper.”

Once upstairs, Jonah dropped his pack and his tablet on the roll-top desk as usual. Eric set his down on the floor.

“Seems safe enough,” Eric observed.

“It seems that way, but…” Jonah said, handing Eric the notebook with the mysterious notes, then snagging his sink-washed t-shirt off the microphone on the control panel.

Eric had the notebook in his hand, but was looking at the control panel. He flipped a few switches.

“Does any of this stuff work?” He asked.

“The lights and the clock work,” Jonah explained, “but that control panel and the machines downstairs seem like they got disconnected. I’m not too worried about it. I’d hate to turn something on in the middle of the night and have someone hear it.”

Eric sat in the chair at the desk and Jonah leaned against the control panel. They went over exactly when the notes appeared and Jonah reiterated that he had heard absolutely nothing, but the pain the next morning definitely made him think he might have been drugged or something. He even went over the Zombie-Dad theory.

“I don’t think it’s your dad,” Eric said. Even if he was all torn up, I think that would scare you less than leaving you creepy notes.”

“Exactly what I thought,” Jonah agreed.

They went over the notes and agreed that they were from three different people. One note was written outside the lines, one was neatly printed inside the lines and the others were written in a fancier print.

“But how would they drug you?” Eric asked. “I don’t think they could necessarily gas you without you waking up and smelling it.”

“Could be the food,” Jonah said, indicating the lemonade, bread, peanut butter and jelly on the floor.

“But you said you’ve eaten it before, even during the day, and nothing happened,” Eric said.

Jonah agreed, and got up to plug in the electric blanket as a chilly wind blew through the broken windows.

“It works as kind of a heater,” Jonah explained. Then he asked “What’d you bring in your bag anyway?”

Eric put the notebook on the control panel, lifted his bag and set it on top of the notebook. He unzipped it and brought out a small digital recorder. “I brought this so you know if anyone comes in when you’re sleeping or you’re not here or whatever. I figured you could hide it someplace.”

He tossed it to Jonah, who looked it over and pressed the play button. Nothing was recorded, but the digital numbers on the side of it began to count upwards.

“It has a voice-activation button, so it won’t record unless it hears something,” Eric said.

Jonah looked for the button and nodded a confirmation. When he pressed it the numbers on the recorder stalled. A few seconds later he said into it, “Smart idea, wise guy.” And the numbers began to scroll again. A second later, it stopped in the silence.

“And then there are these,” Eric said, bringing out two yellow walkie-talkies. They were high-end models, with protected antennas and a digital read-out that showed battery life and connectivity. He tossed one to Jonah.

“What are they for?” Jonah asked.

“Because you don’t have a phone, idiot,” Eric said into his walkie-talkie. The comment came through loud and clear on the one Jonah was holding. “Now if you need anything we can just use these.”

“Is that going to work?” Jonah asked through his.

Eric dropped his walkie-talkie back into the bag and said “I don’t know. They’re supposed to have a four and a half mile connection. I’ve never had the chance to test them out. They should work.”

Jonah looked at the one in his hand and then put it on the desk. “They’re nice. They look expensive,” he said.

“My dad’s pretty good with expensive,” Eric said offhandedly, and noticed the notebook on the panel with the note regarding Athena Stapleton. He reached for Jonah’s tablet on the desk. “We’re going to have to figure out how far you’re going to have to go to get to Clapton.”

“I don’t even know where that woman would be,” Jonah said. “I don’t have an address or anything, just the city.”

Eric turned on the tablet and waited for the internet to connect. He went to the White Pages site and put in the information that they knew. Three Stapleton’s came up on the listing for Clapton, only one had a first initial A. That was listed on South Clapton Boulevard. That sounded easy enough to find.

“That’s gotta be it,” Eric said.

Jonah agreed, but wondered if she might not be listed at all. It was his best, and only, option at the moment.

Eric left the White Pages site and looked up a map of the area. There were three towns in the surrounding vicinity - Kensville, where they were, Clapton, which was a logging town that became known more for the college and hospital there, and Masonville, which was the largest of the three and situated on the coast. The map wasn’t extremely specific until you entered a starting address and an end point. He typed in their best guess at an address for Athena Stapleton and tapped a button that would create a route from their current position. Then he bookmarked it to the tablet.

He looked up the bus route to Clapton that he had saved in Jonah’s tablet. Jonah would get on the bus at Main Street and travel all the way to Masonville, which Eric guessed was about a two-hour trip. Then Jonah would get a transfer and travel another hour and a half to Clapton. When he compared the bus route map to the area map, he found that the Jefferson Street stop in Clapton would be the closest to South Clapton Boulevard.

It would be at least an all-day journey round-trip. Eric pointed out that Jonah could take the direct route and walk all day and night through the woods to get from point-A to point-B, but assumed that wasn’t really an option. Jonah completely agreed.

“Like I said, It’ll still take at least ten bucks, even with transfers,” Eric noted.

“Dude, there’s no way I can get ten bucks,” Jonah said.

Eric unzipped the front of his backpack and pulled out a small wad of dollar bills and spilled out more than a handful of change. “That’s what this is for,” he said.

“I can’t take your money,” Jonah said.

Eric shrugged. “It’s just change I keep in my backpack, it’s not a huge deal,” he said.

“But still...” Jonah started.

“Dude,” Eric cut him off, “how else are you going to get there? It’d probably take two days to get there if you rode a bike.”

He had a point. Jonah sat back defeated.

Eric counted the change and grouped it when it added to a dollar. After a moment, there were four groups of coins and six dollar bills and some miscellaneous change. “So that’s ten dollars. Just about exactly enough,” Eric said as he put the four bills down on the control panel.

Jonah shrugged, looking for a way to argue. He knew he still had a dollar and some change in his pocket, but that wasn’t going to get him far.

“It’s no big deal, dude. Seriously.” Eric said, noticing the look on Jonah’s face. “Besides, I’m just as curious as you are. If this woman knows something about your dad, you have to go check it out.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jonah said.

“Pay me back later. When you figure it out,” Eric said.

That was more of an optimistic view than Jonah was prepared to agree to, but he shrugged and said “alright.”

They devised the rest of the plan and decided Jonah would go tomorrow, he would take the tablet and the money and walk to the bus stop on Main Street from Eric’s house.

“That’s the other thing,” Jonah interrupted. “There’s no way I can stay at your place tonight. You’re mom is expecting a phone call.”

“Oh right,” Eric said, digging in his backpack once again. He brought out a small black box with a number of yellow buttons on the top and a red button on the side. He flipped the power button and said into it “That’s what this is for.” But when he said it through the box, it came out sounding like some kind of giant insect had spoken the word. The box changed his voice into something really creepy.

Eric pushed one of the yellow buttons at the top, dropped his voice deeper and said again “I mean, that’s what this is for.” The box dropped his voice incredibly low, he sounded almost like the guy that did voice-overs for movie previews.

Jonah laughed. “That’s not going to fool your mom,” he said.

“Sure it will,” Eric said. “I mean, you can’t drop your voice that deep, but if you just talk into it normally you’ll sound like an adult.”

“Wait a minute,” Jonah said raising his hand up. “You want
me
to call your mom using that?”

“Well I can’t do it,” Eric explained. “Even changing my voice she’d probably recognize it. She won’t recognize your voice. She might even chalk it up to you and your dad sounding alike.”

Jonah was still unsure.

“Even if she catches on, we’ll say we were just joking around.” Eric said, pulling out a small cord from his pack. “Look, it connects right to the cell phone, so you don’t even have to worry about her hearing your real voice. Then we block my cell number and call her. You can say you’re at work and really busy.”

Jonah hadn’t even agreed when Eric picked up the notebook and began working out a script. Soon enough, it was time to make the call.

Jonah almost locked up entirely when Eric dialed the number and pressed send. Eric turned the volume all the way up so he could hear his mother’s side of the conversation. Jonah swallowed hard and took the phone and the voice changer.

“Hello?” Mrs. MacIntyre said on the other end.

“Missus MacIntyre, please,” Jonah said in his normal voice. Over the phone, a deep smooth voice said the words. He was glad he fought the instinct to lower his voice because it would have sounded much less real.

“This is her,” she said.

“This is Doctor Nickolas Havensby,” The smooth voice said.

“Oh, Doctor Havensby. It’s so nice to hear from you.” Mrs. MacIntyre said. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello last night.”

Jonah had to go off-script on that one.

“Oh, yes,” he stumbled. “Sorry about that, I had to take another call.”

Eric grimaced wildly and pointed at the script in a mad effort to tell Jonah to follow the script and only the script. Jonah shrugged back at him; there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“We like Jonah so much, he’s a very nice young man,” she said.

They hadn’t thought of this either.

“Yes, Eric seems like a fine young man too,” Jonah said off the top of his head. Then he added, “They seem like good buddies.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and then paused. She wouldn’t have put it in such a way, but she did have to agree to that. “They do, don’t they.”

Eric was almost purple now. He emphatically tapped his finger on the script three times. Jonah went right back to it.

“Well, the boys had asked if Jonah could stay over again tonight, just before I left for a meeting,” Jonah read. “I don’t mean to impose…”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all. We’re happy to have him,” Mrs. MacIntyre cut in, not letting him finish the line.

“Oh,” Jonah said searching for words in his head, “Well, thank you. I’m sure they’ll have fun. Thank you, Missus MacIntyre.” He shrugged at Eric again.

“It’s Wendy,” she corrected.

“Wendy, of course,” Jonah put the script down, he was just going to have to wing it the rest of the way. “Call me Nickolas,” Jonah said, and shrugged again at Eric with wide eyes.