Ashes (9 page)

“Don't worry about me. You're talking to a Jersey boy. Grew up in Camden. Like I said, I'm familiar with difficult.”

“Well, difficult and dangerous aren't a good combination. I'll be in touch in a day or two, after I send out some preliminary stuff to people I know. In the meantime, stay calm. I'll do everything I can.”

Joel motioned like he was getting up, but leaned back again in the chair. “There is a boy. His name is Arson Gable. He was the last one who saw my daughter.”

“Arson? Is that the kid's birth name?” she asked.

Joel shrugged. “I don't know. I only met him a few times. He seemed…different.”

Redd leaned in. “Different how?”

“Not sure. It's a vibe I got. Different than your average teenager.”

Redd took down the name and the address Joel gave her.

“He was my neighbor,” he said.

“Was?”

“Well, that's just it. He vanished the same day Emery did. And his grandmother was the only other one who lived with him. Haven't seen or heard from either of them since my Emery was taken.”

“Okay. And you're thinking this boy and his grandmother might be involved somehow?”

“My gut says that old bat had bigger things to worry about than a seventeen-year-old girl with a scarred face. But I've been wrong before.”

“This is good. I'll look into this Arson kid's record. If he's been convicted or arrested, we'll know about it. And if something concrete comes up, we'll act accordingly.”

“I should have pressed charges or something when it happened. I was so lost.”

“Don't beat yourself up. It happens. Things fall through the cracks. You're human.” Her soft stare peered into his. “Did this boy have any friends, close-contact kinda people?”

“Like I said, I didn't know him. Met him a few times, and they weren't exactly moments I was dying to relive.”

“Sorry. It's obvious I'm badgering you. It's not intentional. I'll back off for now until I get something, if I get something.”

Just then, the phone rang, startling them both. Redd checked the caller ID and pressed the lowest button on the dial pad, sending the call to voicemail.

“You don't have to ignore them on my account.”

“No,” she said. “They'll call back.”

Joel stood up and extended his right hand toward her. “Thank you, so much, for meeting with me. And again, I'm terribly sorry about the initial meeting—awkward-frozen-stare thing. I just assumed—”

“Not a problem. Most everybody assumes that because my name's Redd I must look like Clint Eastwood or something. Truth is it was a nickname given to me by my uncle. Name stuck.”

“I'm thankful for people like you in the world. It was a pleasure meeting with you, Redd.”

She nodded and shook his hand.

“Now, do I give you the deposit, or does Jana handle it?”

Her cell phone vibrated, and she reached into her pocket, checked the ID, and said, “I'm sorry, they're persistent. I suppose I should take this now. Get the feeling it's urgent. Jana can handle the deposit and the paperwork to get your case moving forward. It isn't much. I'll be in touch soon, Mr. Phoenix.”

“Joel,” he tried to say as she closed the door and answered the call.

13

 

THE SPIDER HAD THREE pairs of black, glassy eyes. Spiny needle legs reached out from a brown gut and hinged upward before bending back down. The creature's slowly executed moves put Arson on edge. Before going completely still, the spider crept along his wrist and stayed there for a moment.

A fog drifted over Arson's mind. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to focus. Turning toward the spider, he found a mysterious sympathy lurking in his bones, sympathy for this creature. A sigh thrust out as the back of his hand became a platform. The spider's spear-like legs stabbed into ill skin. There was a slight pause, and then it located a crevice in the wall in which to hide
itself
from wandering predators, though Arson knew nothing else had gotten through.
Nothing but the fear of not knowing what was to come or the nightmare of being completely forgotten.
 

His jaw crunched tightly.
Aching ligaments and muscle and bone.
And the fragile want of company.
 

He couldn't get his thoughts straight. Couldn't tell which were memories. Worse, he didn't know which memories were his own. Did they belong to his mother? His father? How was something like that even possible?

He shook.
It's just the drugs. You can't have memories unless you've actually lived them.

Or could he?

Everything was a mess. His brain felt like jelly, sandwiched between his ears, which seemed to echo every faint noise traveling between the walls and under the door.
The door with no handle.
What was wrong with him? He'd thought all his life that he was a mistake. But if that were so, why was he here? What did these
blurs
, apparently doctors, want with him, anyway? As far as he knew, his curse was gone.

But had he simply traded one curse for another?

He pondered Dr. Carraway's words. How he said with such confidence and finality that Grandma was dead. Arson didn't believe it, but what if it
were
true? What if Grandma really were dead? Arson's guilt was a sickness infecting him. His knuckles flared white, quickly shaping a fist. He listened for the crack, the air fighting to get out, the way
he
wanted out. Never in a million years did he think it would be possible to feel more alone than those nights spent locked away in his bedroom.

But this was worse. This was way worse.

Lifting his shirt up, Arson led his eyes to the marks that crawled across his chest and down his abdomen. The dark made it difficult to focus clearly, but he concentrated his vision until the faint scars showed. They still looked new. He then pressed his fingers against his left wrist, noticing three numbers tattooed at the edge of his palm. 219. What did it mean? When had he been marked with this, and why didn't he feel it or notice it before?

Because your head's a mess, that's why.
Because you screwed up and went nuclear.
You didn't save Emery. You took her away.

“No!”

What did these monsters do to him? And why couldn't he remember?

He felt the sides of his temples, rubbed the bruises and slid his fingers along the crusted blood staining his hair. His spit tasted like metal; the smells of this four-wall tomb were enough to make him hurl. But little would come up even if he did.

He picked at the dirt filling in the space beneath his ruined fingernails and then scratched at the spots of acne he could feel swelling on the left side of his cheek. What new weapons were they using to slice into him? Was it his mind they wanted? His power? His blood? Where was Emery? He needed her. He had to know where she was, if she was safe.

Was she even alive?

Dream and reality turned to static, blurred and confusing. Fiction. Fact. Lies. Truth.

A kid could go crazy thinking about getting out. Maybe he was closer than he thought to that edge. He'd seen all kinds of twisted movies.
The kind where the hero quickly becomes this sadist who goes on to commit unimaginable sins.
It didn't take much for a sane person to lose it. It didn't take much at all. Arson just wondered how long he could keep his balance before he also spiraled off the cliff.

Hours were spent screaming curses at the walls, at
himself
. There was no making sense of it, of any of it. All it did was cripple the noises in his throat. Arson folded into himself, trying to heat up but turning cold instead. His body had been so off lately. Sweat drained from unwashed pores. The stink of his armpits hovered around his face. The ratty t-shirt clinging to the bones and loose skin on his body was faded and ripped, dirt staining the collar and flipside.

“Sooner or later, we all pay for our sins,” Arson murmured, the spider suddenly unveiling itself from the crevice once more. He spied on the creature, the same admiration for its beautiful design, but without hatred. He squinted to better glimpse its short, bent fangs. It was a recluse.
Like Grandma
, he thought. He'd seen several of them in the woods behind the cabin, even killed some. But never had he been this close, eyeing one so wicked and hauntingly beautiful. Arson's face, now damp with sweat and filth, smacked against the floor. He was so weak, hungry,
lonely
.

The spider moved closer. “Are you my enemy? Or have you come to save me?” Arson stuck out his hand to touch the recluse's mud-colored body. He kept it there. Could it see him or hear his voice, sense what little warmth drifted from his skin?

Suddenly, Arson felt a sting, a quick stab. Glancing down at his pale arm, the flicker of light reaching in from underneath the door and reflecting off the dark-white walls, he was curious how long it would be before his skin changed color. Maybe the bite would kill him. Maybe.

The poison slipped deeper.
  

He didn't scream. He watched as the spider retreated to its vile home, leaving Arson to his. His eyes were misled bullets, waiting to be shot out. Muscles flexed lethargically. Every inch of him became weaker, but he still had strength to think, to fear for Grandma's life and Emery's.

Before his next blink, Arson lost himself inside that middle school cafeteria again, standing atop the checkered floor.
The janitor mopping carelessly.
The haunting, open room.
But he didn't want to walk through. Afraid of what lay on the other side. He was tired of this dream.

14

 

JOEL WELCOMED A HOT sip of his straight-black coffee and finished reading the latest issue of the
Record-Journal
. He couldn't help but think his daughter's name should be somewhere in between the black lines and white paper. But she wasn't. No picture, no story, nothing. Her vanishing wasn't a big enough piece to run more than once.

His mind felt like putty as he tried to pull himself out of a near hangover. The last article he'd read before shutting the paper kept gnawing at him. It involved the unveiling of a new government facility, some unspecified place in Massachusetts that today went public. More locations like this one were already in plans for construction, the final and most prestigious edifice heading for residence somewhere in New York.

The article expressed the government's first and chief priority of protecting the way of life for every fabric of humanity, stating that these locations would open a window to study the human condition more thoroughly, to locate man's greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses.

“It is a fight to create and discover new potential in the human genes,” the writer pointed out, “and make way for a future without the limitations mankind has endured since the beginning of time. Volunteers for these new projects will be compensated and their identities kept confidential.” As Joel read, he found himself inwardly surprised by how easily people could be swayed. But it was becoming even clearer now. No one read between the lines, and the reporter issuing the story left it vague. She didn't dare question
who
funded it or the process by which these people would be studied or tested. And she certainly didn't raise a half-educated eyebrow as to the ultimate motive.

How many locations like these would be built, and who would run them?

Was it ethical to study human beings like this in hopes for a better world?

Massachusetts. What was it that kept drawing his thoughts there? It was like he couldn't escape it. The people assigned to look for Emery months back had searched the surrounding states, in addition to combing the country via other networked locations, but for some reason, they stopped searching Massachusetts after just two days. Could there have been more to look for after all?

Joel's thoughts switched again like a loose lever. He was drawn back to the summer. Earlier in the year, right after the oil spill in the Gulf, the president had revealed America's three-year plan to protect against future tribulation.

A new agency emerged from the ashes of crisis. D.A.T.A.: Defense Against Terrorism Abroad. The very name sounded strange and suspicious, but the president pledged that it would be a more potent and effective agency than anything the world had ever seen. It was a better, more cost-effective solution for National Security, and this new program extended the jurisdiction of the president specifically. International borders that were previously unaided by American efforts now had his protection and intelligence.

China became the first to make the headlines, and the president issued a thrilled response to the States' new partnership with this foreign power. He called it a new and inspiring alliance between two great empires of the world. “Freedom always comes at a cost,” the president remarked, “but it's a cost we're willing to invest for the security and the safety of our children and our world. Change is never easy, but it is change that has kept the American heart beating, and it is change that will keep it beating for generations to come.”

Joel played the television broadcasts back in his head a dozen times while he read the new article about this location just hours from this hick diner; he couldn't help but try to piece the two together.

When the Gulf crisis hit the press, it was chaos. But shortly after, D.A.T.A. was unveiled, and for weeks, it distracted millions from the panic, which always held Joel to his suspicions. He recalled how, at the time, he was bottled up with his own familial suspicions, too much to give credence to his thoughts of injustice or sorrows afflicting others. But he knew that whenever a great tragedy or attack happened, it was for a reason; it had a purpose.

His coffee was now almost cool. As he finished the last few sips, his mind continued to wander. It seemed strange that so much could happen in so little time. In less than two years, the world had begun to change, spiraling almost out of control. But was it merely two years, or had this process been in the making for
years
prior, decades even?

Someone was in control. With poise and clarity the pieces were moving, toward what end, Joel didn't have the slightest clue. But he knew he needed to stay sober, now more than ever. If there were some new, violent plot coming, he was nowhere near prepared. Emery had been taken, and since then he'd been gone. Might as well have vanished with her.

He still had questions desperate for answers. Where exactly was this location? Who was running it? And could he be held accountable for the sins he'd commit when he learned who had taken his daughter?
 

Joel was finally beginning to pay attention, for real. He was sober now, and he'd stay that way if there
was
a heaven in the sky. Joel was waking up to everything, to the reality that this world was no longer the place he and Aimee had grown up in.

It was changing before their eyes.
  

Joel's tongue was still alive with the flavor of the coffee. He grabbed the newspaper he'd been reading and paid the tab for his breakfast. He was glad he'd gotten off the couch and come out today. A candle, however faint, now flickered to life inside of him. Boston was only a few hours away. Joel knew where he had to start looking for Emery.