After Dark (7 page)

“Move it, Charles,” she said, “or I'm going to make sure all your best buds back at Choke know that you make your little sister do all the heavy lifting.”

“Why do you think they need a cellar under a cellar?” I asked.

“Quit stalling,” she said, dropping the cans.

“I admit it, Lilith, this would normally be an excellent stalling tactic, but I'm legitimately curious,” I said, but she was gone, and Johnny was on his way in with six more cans of his own.

“We could use a hand, bro.”

“Sure,” I said, adding
find out what's under the cellar
to my mental to-do list.

Saturday, 11:05 a.m.

After we finished with the paint cans, I went back to my room and changed into some clothes that weren't drenched in my own sweat. Unfortunately, the only things I had in the ball of dirty clothes I'd stuffed into my bag back at Choke, besides khaki pants and white shirts, were my blue gym shorts and a matching blue tank top, with
CHOKE
printed across the front in thick white letters. I must have left my sneakers back at school, and I didn't really want to traipse around in dress shoes and shorts, so I rolled back outside in a pair of worn-down flip-flops I'd stashed at the bottom of the bag.

“Looking good, bro,” Johnny said when I stepped onto the front porch. “Coach is out back. He says calisthenics start in five minutes.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “That'll be a lot more fun than moving paint cans with you two.”

“You only moved five cans,” Lilith said. She was sitting cross-legged on the front lawn.

“Sure, but they were the heaviest ones,” I said. “Plus, I was just getting warmed up. What's next?”

“Scraping,” Mom said, coming outside. “There's a high-pressure water sprayer in the back of Jake's truck. Johnny will be in charge of that.”

“Why does the TV star get the cushy job? Did he bribe you?” I asked.

“Yes, and he paid a lot more than you can afford. Where are your shoes, Charlie?”

“I've temporarily misplaced them, and I refuse to wear brown dress shoes with shorts — not until after Labor Day, anyway.”

“You kill me, bro,” Johnny said, laughing as he headed for Jake's truck.

“Here,” Mom said, handing me and Lilith a paint scraper each. “I'll call you in for lunch.”

Johnny got busy hosing the paint off using the high-pressure sprayer, while Lilith and I took off the leftovers with our scrapers. About ten minutes into the job, I was drenched again, in a combination of sweat and the blowback from Johnny's sprayer. Five minutes after that, my arms felt like wet noodles, and my shoulders were starting to cramp up. Pieces of gray-white paint were sticking to me like giant flakes of dandruff, and I was seriously considering taking a break, when Johnny turned the sprayer off, the engine rumbled to a stop and I heard a high-pitched whine coming from somewhere down the road.

“What's that sound?” Johnny asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said, taking a few steps toward the road. It sounded like a lawn mower engine that was about to explode, and it was getting closer.

“Sounds like a —” Johnny started, and then Miles roared into the end of our driveway on a miniature motorcycle, about half the size of a regular motorcycle, that looked like a bunch of old pipes, pieced together. He left the asphalt, hit the gravel, skidded, straightened out and then shot into the front yard. I ran to the corner of the inn just in time to see him hit something hidden in the grass and go flying over his handlebars.

“Snap!” Johnny said, running up beside me.

“Miles?” I yelled.

Miles sat up and shook his head, like he was trying to clear some water out of his ear.

“Are you okay?” I asked, running over to him. His minicycle was lying about ten feet behind him in the grass, wedged up against a large branch that had fallen off of one of the trees.

“I need to buy a helmet,” he said. He looked a little dazed, but other than that, he seemed fine.

“That was a humongous wipeout, dude,” Johnny said, helping him up.

“I'm okay,” he said, shaking his head.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I wanted to see if your uncle came back.”

“I don't think he did.”

“I need to find out what happened to him last night.”

I wiped a few flakes of paint off my arm and stretched out my shoulders. They felt shaky. Summer was not supposed to be about getting covered in paint chips and working until your shoulders were quivering uncontrollably. Summer was a time for sleeping and swimming and watching three really bad horror movies back to back to back. Summer was a time when you should be able to go check on your crazy uncle Hal, just to make sure he was okay.

“You know, Miles,” I said, turning around, “that's an excellent idea. I'm taking a quick break, everyone.”

Lilith, who had been standing a few feet behind us, stepped in front of me. “Hal didn't come back.”

“Miles, this is my sister, Lilith.”

“Hi,” Miles said, but Lilith didn't look at him.

“He didn't come back.”

“You can't know that for sure, Lilith.”

“I do.”

“Well, I'm going to check on him, just the same. So, if you'll kindly excuse me,” I said, brushing past her. “Come on, Miles.”

“Mom said it's important for us to give Uncle Hal his privacy,” Lilith said, marching along beside me.

“I thought you just said he wasn't home. How can I disturb him if he isn't back yet?”

“The mindful warrior does not stir the wasps' nest,” Lilith said, but she'd stopped following me.

“We're just going to check to see if he's in his room, Lilith — that's all,” I said, marching onto the porch. “We won't bother any wasps.”

“Your sister's quoting Richard Harker,” Miles said. “He's one of my heroes.”

“You need to find a new hero, Miles,” I said, going through the front door and starting down the hall to the kitchen.

“Hold on,” he said, suddenly stopping. “The guy out front … the one who helped me up … that was … that was Johnny Harker! Oh my God! That was Johnny Harker, wasn't it? Damn it, Charlie, your last name isn't Autumn, it's Harker! Am I right? I'm right, right?”

“That's what it says on my birth certificate,” I said.

Upstairs, Jake and his men were busy hammering away at something.

“That means your father is Richard Harker,” he said, his face lighting up.

“Nothing gets by you, Miles.”

“That's incredible! I'm a huge fan! Is he coming here? Would he sign a copy of his books for me? When do you think he'll get here? He's coming, right?”

“If he ever gets here, and there's probably no chance of that happening, I'll make sure he signs all your books. Now, can we move along and check on Hal?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, nodding and starting toward the kitchen. “You don't suppose Johnny would give me an autograph, do you?”

“I'll get the whole family to give you autographs when we're done,” I said, heading through the kitchen and across to the pantry door.

“Richard Harker! This is incredible,” Miles mumbled. “But wait — why does your mom go by Autumn? She kept her last name, is that it? My mom changed hers back when Dad died …”

“Another mystery to add to your files,” I said, and knocked. “Hello? Uncle Hal?”

I stopped and listened, but there was no answer. “Uncle Hal! Uncle Hal!” I cried and then turned to Miles. “He's kind of deaf.”

“I observed that last night.”

I pounded on the door. Still no answer.

“I guess Lilith was right. Looks like he's not back.”

Miles reached by me, turned the doorknob and pushed the door open slowly.

A part of me, a large part of me, was expecting to find Hal sitting in the middle of a room wallpapered with tinfoil, aiming his shotgun at us. Instead, I was staring into a pantry absolutely stuffed with canned food. There were cans of peas, corn, peaches, pears, beans, chili, Spam and ham. There was tuna, salmon, sardines, shrimp, tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, ravioli, spaghetti, coconut milk, powdered milk, powdered eggs and even cans of whole chickens. Cans of everything you could imagine were jammed onto shelves on either side of the room, which was basically just a long, narrow closet. And at the end of it was another door.

“I'd say he prefers canned food to fresh or frozen,” I said.

“Yeah, it looks like he's stocking up,” Miles said.

“For what?” I asked, stepping over to the door at the back.

“Nuclear war, super flu, alien invasion …”

“Are you sure you want to disturb a man who's stocking up for an alien invasion?” I asked, holding my hand up to the door.

“You didn't see what I saw last night. Something dangerous is happening in Rolling Hills, and we have to find out if he's been in —” He stopped suddenly and glanced at the floor, then looked back up. “Well, I need to know if he's all right.”

“Uncle Hal?” I called, knocking. “Uncle Hal, it's me, Charlie. Are you in there?”

I knocked again, but there was no answer.

I tried the door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked, too. Hal didn't seem like the kind of man to leave his door unlocked, and I immediately got nervous. I had a vision of Hal crouching inside, surrounded by an army of antique dolls. But the door opened into an almost completely empty room.

“Looks like he moved out,” I said.

Miles squeezed past me and went inside. It wasn't a big room. There was a cot in the corner, with a mattress still on it, but no sheets. There was a nightstand beside the cot. Miles rushed over to the cot and looked underneath it.

“Nothing,” he grumbled, standing up and yanking open the drawer on the nightstand. I guess he didn't find anything in there either because he slammed it shut. There was another door in the far corner of the room, and that's where he headed next.

“What's in here?” he asked.

“Probably a portal to another dimension?”

Miles knocked on the door. “Mr. Autumn, are you in there?”

“Uncle Hal!” I yelled. “It's me! Charlie! We're going to open this door! Don't shoot!”

There was no answer, so Miles eased the door open and peered inside. I took a step back.

“Just a bathroom,” he said, and marched back into the middle of the room. “This doesn't make any sense. I thought you said he was living in here.”

“That's what my mom said, but who knows.”

“Maybe he's set up camp in the woods,” Miles said. “It would explain why we haven't seen him since last night.”

“Yeah, maybe, but why would he have a lifetime's supply of canned food stuffed in the pantry if he was living out in the woods? That doesn't seem normal, does it?”

Miles was about to answer when Mom marched in, making my heart actually stop beating for about three seconds.

“What are you two doing in here?”

“You shouldn't sneak up on people like that,” I said, pounding on my chest to get my heart started again. “Especially when they're busy snooping around in a crazy man's room.”

“I thought I told you to respect Hal's privacy,” she said.

“Aren't you concerned about your brother's welfare?” I asked. “Your
only
brother's welfare? I hate to break it to you, Mom, but he may have disappeared.”

“He hasn't disappeared just because he's not in his room.”

“There's nothing in his room,” I said. “Isn't that strange?”

“When it comes to Hal, that's only a little strange.”

“He might be hurt,” Miles said.

“Thank you for your concern, Miles,” she said, “but unless you'd like to pitch in and start scraping paint, I'm going to have to ask you to come back another time.”

“I'd be happy to help,” Miles said.

“Oh man, that's a huge mistake,” I said.

“I can't pay you anything,” Mom added.

“That's fine, Ms. Autumn. I love manual labor. Plus, maybe this will make up for the way I disturbed you last night.”

Mom sighed. “I think we have an extra scraper in the truck.”

“You're not seriously going to spend your day scraping paint?” I said, trudging back into the kitchen behind Miles.

“It'll give me a chance to see if Hal comes back,” he whispered. “I need to know.”

Saturday, 4:05 p.m.

We spent the rest of the afternoon scraping paint off the exterior of the inn, and I felt like a huge wad of Jell-O when Mom finally called us in at four o'clock. There was a cooler, stuffed with bottles of soda and ice, sitting just inside the kitchen door. Johnny and I each grabbed a bot-tle, Lilith declined (adding that she'd never contaminate herself with that junk) and Miles stood in the doorway.

“Charlie, did you put on any sunscreen today?” Mom asked.

“A smidge,” I said, opening the soda and chugging back half the bottle.

“When?”

“About six hours ago,” I said and burped loudly.

“You should have reapplied,” she said, frowning. “You look like a boiled lobster.”

“I feel like one, too,” I said, and finished off the rest of my drink. “Maybe I should take the day off tomorrow. You know, just to make sure the skin peels off evenly.”

“We talked about this, Charlie. We can't afford to have you take a whole day off.”

“Have you seen Mr. Autumn yet?” Miles asked, cutting in.

“I'm afraid not,” Mom said. “Help yourself to a drink, Miles. You did a lot of work today.”

“Thank you, but I have to get going,” he said. “However, if you don't mind, I'd like to drop by later this evening.”

“Just make sure it's before nine, okay? I'm beat.”

“Sure,” he said. “And thanks for the autograph, Johnny.”