Constant Fear (12 page)

 

Pixie was alone in his dorm room, dressed in his work uniform—Ray-Bans and a plaid cowboy shirt. He sat at his cluttered desk with his headphones on, hunched over a computer keyboard like a maestro caught up in a burst of inspiration. Within arm’s reach was a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, which he kept uncapped. He also had a big bag of M&Ms, in case the Mountain Dew didn’t charge him up enough.

Pixie was working in SketchUp, his preferred 3D-modeling software. His template was a simple rectangle of the exact length and width of the iPhone. He had extruded the depth and then added fillets around the four edges of the rectangular prism and around the top and bottom faces. From this basic template, he could print just about any design.

His noise-canceling headphones blocked out all sound except for the electronic music from Cash Cash’s latest release. He was in the zone, and might not have heard the fire alarm even if the music hadn’t been blaring. His roommate, a heavyset boy named Garth, from a suburb in Chicago, was in class and not around to alert Pixie to the alarm. Pixie should have been in class as well. But he ran a business and needed to fill orders for his custom iPhone cases. He’d decided to skip biology to work.

3D printing had come a long way since Pixie first learned of the technology. Because of fire concerns and energy consumption—it used fifty to one hundred times more electricity than injection molding—Pixie was not allowed to have a 3D printer in his dorm room. But Pixie was never much for rules. The PLA filament used to heat the plastic emitted a burning smell, like cooking on a gas stove. He used fans, and an open window helped to mask the odor.

Pixie had a couple more design tweaks to make on the iPhone case for a Japanese student who loved death metal and wanted angry symbolism printed into the plastic. Pixie didn’t care for that sort of music, but the design was intricate, hard to pull off. It was a challenge.

When Pixie wasn’t hacking into bank accounts or printing iPhone cases, he was writing apps for smartphones. Taped to the concrete wall in front of his desk were pictures of Pixie’s heroes: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and a few other Internet entrepreneur titans. At times, Pixie would gaze at the wall and call to these men for inspiration and guidance as if they were his gods.
Maybe someday a kid will put
my
picture up on a wall.
Whenever Pixie let his mind wander into fantasy, he’d imagine what his father would think of him after he became a millionaire—or even a billionaire.

“How do you like me now?”
he’d say one day.

But that day hadn’t yet come. So Pixie was alone in his dorm room, skipping class again, working toward his future. Since he couldn’t hear the alarm, it was understandable that he didn’t answer the persistent knocking on his door.

The door opened anyway.

 

The entrance to the secret stairwell was at the end of a long tunnel and up a flight of well-worn metal stairs. At the top of those stairs was a thick metal door that opened into a locked maintenance closet. Many of the tunnel entrances were concealed in the back of maintenance closets. Inside that particular closet was a mess of mops, buckets, and cleaning supplies. Jake came up those metal stairs, navigated an obstacle course of paraphernalia in the dark, opened the locked closet door from the inside, and then emerged, feeling a bit like Superman stepping from a phone booth in his Clark Kent disguise.

He entered into chaos. Students were scrambling down the hallways, being ushered outside by men dressed in yellow chemical suits. Panic had overtaken civility, and a mash of bodies was trying to squeeze through the double doors of the Society Building. The marble floor and walls intensified the sound, and the noise of the students and faculty reverberated as indiscriminate chatter.

Jake saw a police officer wearing a gas mask and directing traffic. He approached and asked, “What’s going on?”

The officer took off his mask, but looked nervous in doing it. “Big chemical spill near the access road to the school,” he said. “As a precaution, we’re evacuating everyone to the regional high school. We have buses out front to get folks out of here, and we’re asking everyone to leave their vehicles in the lot so we can expedite the evacuation.”

So that was it, then. Chemical spill. Evacuation. Instead of ordering Jake to the exit, the officer put his gas mask back on and resumed his directing duties. It was a Get Out of Dodge scenario, but for a different reason. Andy was fine. He was probably on one of the buses already.

Jake merged into the flow of bodies, but halfway down the hall he skirted off to one side. He seldom worried about folks venturing into the labyrinth, but a chemical spill might necessitate an exhaustive search of the property. Someone could have architectural plans and mandate every square inch be checked for contamination. If so, his sophisticated biometric door lock would certainly attract some attention. Jake could replace the mechanism with a rusty old lock, but it would take a bit of time. Good thing he had all the tools to do the job in the storage room adjacent to the larder.

It might be an unnecessary precaution, but Jake wasn’t a man who left much to chance.

 

David, Rafa, and Solomon had been together in chemistry class when the alarm went off. They filed out of the classroom along with the others, thinking nothing of it. Another drill, or perhaps some kid who wanted to get out of a test had pulled a fire alarm on his way to the bathroom. Those things happened. At the far end of the hallway, Rafa spotted a man wearing a yellow chemical suit and pointed him out to his friends.

“What the heck?” David said as he brushed a thick band of hair off his face. David was always brushing hair from his face. Solomon and Rafa never tired of imitating him, but they were too preoccupied with the man in protective gear to have noticed.

“Figures we’re at the back of the pack when something really shitty happens.” Solomon’s comment referred to the location of their classroom, which was at the end of a long hallway of classrooms. They would be the last to reach safety.

Meanwhile, the man in the yellow suit moved against the flow of traffic, perhaps headed to one of those classrooms.

“This is the chemistry wing,” Rafa said, loud enough to be heard above the piercing alarm. “Maybe a freshman tried some advanced mixology and screwed up royally.”

The man continued to force his way through the crowd. As he moved, he scanned in all directions. Only occasionally did he motion for students and faculty to hurry to the exit. Rafa and David picked up the pace, but Solomon lagged behind. They slowed to wait for their friend.

“We’re not going anywhere fast,” Solomon shouted while he huffed for breath. He pointed to the traffic jam at the stairwell. “Why rush it?”

Rafa looked disapprovingly at Solomon. “You may be the most out-of-shape human being I know,” he said, only half joking.

Solomon poked Rafa’s sternum hard. “You have insulted my honor, and I challenge thee to a bowl-off.”

David surveyed the pedestrian backup and frowned. “Hey, if this is a real problem, we could be in big trouble waiting to get out. We might be inhaling deadly fumes right now.”

Rafa sniffed the air. “Doesn’t smell bad,” he said.

“You just came from chemistry, dinkus,” Solomon snapped. “Does everything deadly have a smell?”

“I know from your farts it doesn’t always have a sound.”

“Har, har, har,” Solomon said.

David turned to survey the empty hallway behind him. His eyes narrowed as an idea set in. “Guys, let’s go out the fire escape,” he said. “It’ll be faster and way more fun.”

Several corridors branched off the main hallway, and at the end of one of them was window access to a fire escape. Rafa and Solomon nodded their agreement. Better than twiddling thumbs while waiting to get down those stairs.

Rafa pointed to the man in the yellow suit, who continued to march their way. “We better go now before ‘Banana Man’ sees us and makes us wait with the others.”

The three turned and began a fast walk to where the corridor branched. Halfway there, Rafa turned and noticed the man in the yellow suit had quickened his strides. He seemed to be shoving kids aside to get where he needed to go. But where could that be? There was nothing down this hallway except for empty classrooms and . . . well, the three of them.

Rafa tugged on David’s arm and pulled him to a stop. The suited man no longer showed any concern for people’s safety. He did not point to any exit or corral folks into a more orderly line. No, this individual was dead set on getting to something—or someone—in front of him. Even in the glare of overhead lights, it was easy to see the man’s dark eyes were fixed on the three boys.

The boys retreated a few steps, but they never turned their backs to the approaching man. Dressed in bright yellow, he looked something like a lion on the hunt, salivating over targets that had separated from the herd. He moved. They backed up. He advanced some more. They backed up some more.

“Maybe we should just wait with the others,” Rafa suggested. His voice quavered, because his gut told him something was very wrong.

“Fuck that,” Solomon said. “I’m getting out of here.”

David turned and broke into a trot as Rafa sprinted ahead of him. Solomon’s all-out run was more like the others’ jog, and he immediately fell into third place. A few strides into his all-out dash, Rafa risked a quick glance behind him. The man in the yellow suit pushed harder through the crowd. He was definitely coming for them.

“Faster!” Rafa could barely hear himself over the piercing alarm.

David heard him, though. He found a new gear, falling into step right behind Rafa. Solomon picked up speed as well, but his friends had already disappeared down the hallway up ahead. By the time Solomon reached the corridor, Rafa and David were already at work on the shuttered window. It appeared to be stuck, and they struggled to pry it open.

Solomon went from a run to an amble. He wanted to rest his hands on his knees to catch his breath, but a long, thin shadow materialized on the floor in front of him. He looked back and saw the man in the yellow suit, blocking the only way to the main corridor—his only way out, unless David and Rafa could get that window open. The man’s dark eyes appeared as venomous as a cobra’s bite. He raised his arm, and Solomon cowered in response to the gun in his hand. A suppressor stuck out from the pistol’s barrel like a long, black finger.

Instinct took over. Solomon dove to the floor—duck and cover—and shouted to Rafa and David to look out, but the boys were too preoccupied or didn’t hear. The window, for whatever reason, wasn’t going to budge without some tools. But Rafa and David worked aggressively to force it open.

The screech of the alarm masked the pop of gunfire. A bright flash erupted from the barrel of the gun. Almost simultaneously the wood near Rafa’s hands splintered and sprayed his face. Rafa fell back and landed on his bottom. David dropped to the floor and covered his head with his hands.

A sound rose above the alarm, a high-pitched squeal. The man in the yellow suit dragged a screaming Solomon down the corridor by the boy’s shirt. Solomon kicked and struggled to get free, but the man’s gloved hand was locked on tight. He kept his gun aimed at Rafa and David, and used the weapon as a pointer to direct them into the classroom adjacent to the window.

Frozen with fear, neither boy could move. In response, the man shot again. This time, the bullet slammed into the concrete just below the window, blasting fragments of chipped debris like shrapnel. Rafa and David covered their heads and scurried into the classroom, where they’d been directed.

The man in the yellow suit materialized in the open doorway. He tossed Solomon into the classroom like a bag of laundry. Solomon landed face-first on the grimy linoleum floor and he cried out in pain. The three boys cowered together, arms around each other, while the man in the yellow suit removed his head covering. He smiled at the boys. They shrank at the sight of his gold-metal mouth.

“Hello, kids,” the man said in a thick accent. “You have taken something of mine, and I am here to get it back.”

CHAPTER 19

I
t was bedlam at Winston Regional High School. By the time Jake had changed the lock and drove into town, students from Pepperell Academy had already taken up residence in the newly renovated school and turned it into squalor. Body heat made the gymnasium humid as a jungle and there was little space to move about. The noise level rattled Jake’s ears. Students spilled out into hallways and stairwells. Those who weren’t bantering held out smartphones to document the mayhem on social media.

The high school was a good distance from the quarantine zone, so parents of students who lived close by showed up in droves with boxes of food, blankets, and other items they thought would be helpful to those students who called Pepperell Academy home. Several local restaurants pitched in to shuttle over food to the students, who had taken to calling themselves refugees. Nobody knew how long the school would be inaccessible.

Jake lost track of the time pitching in to help.

“This place is like the Superdome after Katrina,” Jake heard a teacher say. It was hardly an exaggeration. Bodies were everywhere, and trash accumulated like breeding rabbits. The local high-school kids who resided in designated safe areas had all been dismissed because the school’s facilities could not accommodate such a large influx of people.

If things weren’t repellant enough, the outside temperature had dropped precipitously in just the last hour and a cool misty rain had begun to fall. Nobody wanted to go outside, and no one wanted to be inside, either.

Jake walked the perimeter of the gymnasium and again hunted for Andy, but he was tough to spot among the masses of bodies. Jake had called Andy’s cell phone twice, but each time it went right to voice mail. Poor kid probably ran out of juice and didn’t carry a charger in his backpack. Jake hoped he had all his medications with him.

Jake made a second pass around the gym before he bumped into Lance. His brother looked like the embattled sheriff of Amity Island right after a shark attack forced him to close the beaches.

“Hey, Jake,” Lance said. “Well, this is unexpected.”

“You just never know what’s going to happen.”

Lance returned a knowing glance.

“Is the school secure?”

“We have procedures in place for everything,” Jake answered with a wry grin.

Lance knew most doors to the school were intentionally left open in the event emergency responders needed access.

“Have you seen Andy?” Jake asked.

Lance surveyed the chaos. “He’s probably here somewhere, but I haven’t seen him.”

“What time you got?” Jake asked.

Lance showed Jake his wristwatch so he could check the time for himself.

Their father was a big wristwatch aficionado and Jake noticed the brand and his eyes went wide.

“Wow, bro, Patek Philippe?”

Lance shrugged it off.

“Gift from a grateful parent. This job doesn’t pay that well, but sometimes you get nice perks.”

“If you see Andy, tell him to call me,” Jake said.

Lance excused himself to go deal with the crisis of the moment. Jake was going outside for some fresh air when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned to see Laura. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, no makeup on, but damn she still looked beautiful. She had on a green sweater, with a white shirt underneath, and jeans; she looked pretty much like any of the harried moms who had come to look after the kids.

“Laura,” Jake said, sounding enthused to see her. “Enjoying everything Winston has to offer?”

Laura didn’t smile at Jake’s sarcasm.

“If by ‘everything,’ you mean chemical spills and speeding tickets, yeah, it’s been great so far.”

Jake said, “Who gave you a ticket?”

“Some woman cop,” Laura grumbled.

Jake knew right away who it was and he fought to suppress a smile.

“Have you seen Andy?” Laura asked. The alarm in her voice was audible.

“No,” Jake said, “but I’m sure he’s here somewhere.”

Laura checked her phone.

“It’s past two o’clock. I was supposed to meet him downtown an hour ago.”

Jake almost laughed. He directed Laura’s attention to the chaos around them. “I think there’s plenty going on here to distract him. And, besides, I don’t think he’s supposed to be wandering around downtown right now. He’s here somewhere with his friends.”

Laura observed the pandemonium, but did not look convinced.

“Downtown isn’t quarantined,” Laura said. “I was just there. People are out—shopping, eating, all that. Even if he couldn’t meet me, at least he would have called.”

“I didn’t even know you two were meeting.” It stung a bit that Andy hadn’t shared with him, but Jake tried not to let it show.

Laura looked away and said, “We’ve been communicating on Facebook.”

“As the real you?”

Laura flashed an angry look. “Yes, as the real me,” she snapped. “You might not believe it, Jake, but I’m trying here. I’m really trying.”

“Easy. I believe you.”

Quick as Laura’s temper flared, it fell away and her face showed her anxiety. Jake marveled at how seamlessly both of them had slipped into familiar roles: the worried mom and the lackadaisical dad. It had been like this when Andy was an infant and a toddler. “You worry too much,” Jake would often say. But Laura would still check to see if Andy was breathing, years after the danger of SIDS had passed. Andy was more than capable of taking care of himself, which was why Jake limited his worrying to things like an EMP and global pandemics.

“I’m really worried something has happened to him,” Laura said.

“Laura, I think you’re overreacting here.”

“There’s been a massive chemical spill. What if he got sick from the fumes or something? Maybe he passed out.”

“The spill was pretty far from campus,” Jake said. “They evacuated the school only as a precaution.”

“What about Andy’s friends? Do you see any of them around?”

Jake gave the gym another quick scan. No, he didn’t see any of them, but there were a lot of bodies here.

“Maybe they all went out together. You know how kids can be. Maybe they snuck out to go goof around or something. It’s not hard to slip away, with all this chaos.”

This did not sit well with Laura. She pursed her lips together. Her head shook slightly. “This isn’t right. Something is wrong. I know something is wrong.”

“Why do you say that?”

“A feeling I have. If he couldn’t come to meet me, he would have called. You didn’t read his messages. This was really important to him, Jake. He wouldn’t just blow me off like that.”

For the first time, Jake felt annoyed with Laura. Who was she to act so parental? It felt like a dismissal of all Jake’s hard work. He alone had raised Andy while she went gallivanting about the country in search of—who knew what? She hadn’t earned the right to assert herself in this way.

“Laura, I’m glad you and Andy are talking. You’re taking steps, and that’s good. I want you to have a relationship with your son. It’s important for him. But this isn’t your responsibility. It’s mine. I’ve been looking out for Andy on my own for a lot of years now, and I think I have a good handle on when to worry and when not to worry. The fact that I’m not seeing any of his friends suggests to me they’re all together somewhere. And this isn’t a time to be panicked.”

Laura bit at her lower lip. The mannerism was so familiar to Jake. “I don’t know what to say. I just have a feeling.”

Jake’s eyes flared. “So you’re telling me you have mother’s intuition now? You haven’t been in our lives for the last twelve years, you show up out of the blue, and suddenly you’ve got a
feeling
about my son? Come on, Laura. Let’s get real here.”

“He’s
our
son,” Laura said defensively.

“You get my point.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it,” Laura said. “Maybe the intuition never really went away. Maybe it went dormant or something until I got close again. Now it’s here, and I can’t deny how I’m feeling. He would have called me. It was important to him. It was important.”

“Maybe,” Jake said, softening his stance, “but you might be overstating that importance. Look, Laura, you may be Andy’s mother, but you’re essentially a stranger to him. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he’s pissed at you. Maybe he’s just being a normal teenage boy and not doing what you expected him to do. Or maybe, just maybe, he’s leaving you hanging the way you left him.”

Jake regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. They were hurtful and unnecessary.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Laura didn’t answer, but nodded, and Jake knew she accepted his apology. What she didn’t seem ready to accept, however, were any of the possibilities he had listed.