Feral (24 page)

“Munch time,” he exclaimed rushing past her and scooping up a bag next to the dead radio.
 
He reached in, pulled out a fistful of thin tacos and held them out to her.
 
“C'mon,” he urged.
 
“You said you were hungry.”
 
He smiled brightly, but the smile faded quickly when Charity didn't return it.
 
“You should be nicer to me.”
 
He was pouting now, face set into a petulant frown as he
chowed
down on his first taco.

“How old are you?” she asked, and bit into her taco.
 
She expected her stomach to turn at this but was happy when it didn't.
 
It seemed that she was starting to fit right in here.
 
Sure she had just killed someone, the blood was still fresh on the front of her shirt, but even that didn't bother her much now.
 
Like most things, once it was over it wasn't so bad.

Toni was silent for a moment.
 
He seemed to weigh the question, then said, “I don't remember.
 
I was ten when I came here, but that was a long time ago.”
 
He went back to chewing his food with a troubled look on his face.
 
She was about to ask if he was okay when she realized he wasn't upset, only trying his hardest to remember.
 
He stuffed the remainder of his food into his mouth and walked over to the radio.
 
There was a stack of CDs next to it.
 
He dug through them, searching.
 
Then he pulled one from the tumbled stack with a grin and brought it back to her.

“Metallica,” he said with a triumphant grin.
 
“I watched a video to a song from this a few days before I ran away.”
 
He turned the plain black CD face around and scanned the fine print on the back.
 
“This was made in nineteen ninety-one, so that's when I came here, and I was ten years old then.”

Charity added the numbers in her head several times before giving up.
 
She knew she could count, and she knew what they added up to.
 
She just couldn't believe it, was all.
 
Standing here in front of her was a twenty-some-year-old man in a kid's body, and he didn't even know it.

Toni must have read something wrong in her face.
 
“What year is it now?”

“Charity.” They all heard Jenny's voice that time; it echoed through the cavern like a voice through a bullhorn.
 
The room quieted at this, and though the others didn't stop eating, or playing, or just standing around in clusters doing nothing, they remained respectfully quiet.

Jenny appeared, dirty coveralls, stringy brown hair hanging against cotton white skin, feet bare.
 
She stood in front of the tunnel to the playground, waiting.

Charity handed the remainder of her breakfast to Toni, grabbed her torch, and went to her queen.

Jenny grasped Charity's free hand and stared into her eyes while speaking to the rest of the room.
 
“She's one of us now.”

Cheers rose to that, a few wolf whistles, and somewhere from the large gathering a hearty “hell yeah, sister!”

“Tonight she'll be my left hand sister,” Jenny said.
 
“Anybody have a problem with that?”

No's all around, with a few hell no's and giggles thrown in to keep the meeting from becoming too ordered.

“We're gonna take off for a while,” Jenny said.
 
“Be good.”
 
Then she pulled Charity toward the tunnel to the playground.

Charity looked back once before stepping into the darkness; Jenny's glowing form and supernova torch leading the way.

Toni was seated, the rest of his food laying forgotten his lap.
 
He held the foldout from the CD in his hands and studied it.
 
Perhaps he was reading the lyrics to the song that had come out on video just before he ran away.
 
Maybe he was trying to remember how long he had been there.

Then the darkness fell before Charity's eyes like a curtain.
 
She turned back around and there was just the glow of their flames, Jenny's own strange radiance, and the barely lit path stretching on through the Never.

S
ergeant Winter arrived in the rain with two other officers, one a street officer and one in plain clothes.
 
He told Shannon and Gordon about the missing cops.
 
They had been down at the old park keeping an eye on things, and after reporting spotting a suspicious man, had vanished.

“You're not suspects,” he said.
 
“It happened while I was interviewing Shannon.”
  
He explained that the plain-clothes officer was to be their shadow, for their protection.

Shannon frowned at this.
 
It would make looking for Charity harder.

“It's not necessary,” Gordon said, eyeballing the officer with a little annoyance.
 
“We'll manage on our own.”

Mr. Plain Clothes said nothing, just measured Gordon and Shannon with eyes hidden behind dark glasses and shaded by the bill of a Seattle Seahawks cap.
 
He was clean-shaven with an unremarkable face.

“It's necessary,” Winter said, and that was that.
 
Then they excused themselves, Mr. Plain Clothes giving Gordon a last, long glare from behind his shades as he stepped out behind Winter.
 
As the door swung shut, a peal of thunder boomed overhead.
 
It was still raining.

Get soaked
, Shannon thought.

Gordon said nothing for a while.
 
He drank more coffee.
 
Finally, with an energy that hinted of decision, he jumped up from his seat and crossed the room to where Shannon sat on the edge of the bed.
 
He took both her hands in his, squeezed them, and kissed the side of her mouth.
 
“Do you like movies?”

“What?”

T
he Marquee Cineplex was only a short drive away but the streets surrounding it were crammed with parked cars and pedestrians.
 
One of the old Cineplex's three theatres was playing the latest
Transformers
movie, and predictably enough it looked like a full house.
 
That was good, though it meant having to park the car and walk over a block, getting soaked in the process.
 
A crowd would make this easier.

Featured in smaller letters beside the
Transformers
flick, almost like an afterthought, were an animated kids movie called
The Princess' Shoes
and the latest cookie-cutter romance; big names, bad acting, and a paper-thin plot.
 
They waited in line for ten minutes, mostly hiding beneath a series of storefront awnings.
 
When they reached the ticket booth the rain had become a light drizzle, but the occasional flicker of lightning and low, moaning thunder threatened worse.

Gordon and Shannon scanned the line behind them frequently, searching for their shadow.
 
They spotted him in the thinning crowd several yards back, just as it was their turn.

“Good evening.
 
Welcome to the Marquee.” The ticket vendor was a teenage girl with a
punky
red haircut and more than five facial piercings.

“Two for
The Princess' Shoes
,” Gordon said in a low voice.

The
punky
redhead paused for a second, rolled her eyes toward him without looking up from keyboard.
 
“I'm sorry,” she said.
 
“Two for what?”

“
The Princess' Shoes
,” he repeated.

“Two for
The Princess' Shoes
,” she repeated, again in her robot servant's voice.
 
“That's fourteen dollars.”
 
She rolled her eyes, took his money, and gave Shannon a sympathetic look as she handed them.
 
Some hot date, huh
?

Gordon scanned the crowd behind them as he led Shannon through the door and past the ticket taker.

Mr. Plain Clothes was no closer than before, just waiting his turn in line to see a movie the city would have to reimburse him for.
 
He had no way of knowing which movie they were headed to, but he seemed unconcerned.

Gordon figured his chance of their shadow choosing the wrong movie was fair, but some doubt in his hastily constructed plan lingered.
 
He supposed there was also a fair chance he would just flash his badge and ask which show the blond guy with the scarred face and his date had gone to see.
 
Even so, the crowd was thick; they might still have a chance.

“Popcorn?”
 
Shannon smiled as she said it and gave him a feeble tug toward the concessions.

“No thanks, I'm watching my figure.”
 
He watched her smile widen, and responded, leading her through the crowd toward theatre #2 and
The Princess' Shoes
, hopefully the last place Mr. Plain Clothes would expect.
 
Like his decision to try the Cineplex, his choice of movies had been on the spur of the moment, a decision based on logic that may or may not be faulty.

If Mr. Plain Clothes thought they were out on a date, he would expect them to choose the romantic film, and if they were trying to lose him,
Transformers
, with its easy-to-disappear-in crowd, would be the best choice.
 
Or he might see right through the whole scam, which was most likely.

We have to lose him
, Gordon thought.
 
It was getting dark already, the premature dark of a stormy night, and they had to get to Feral Park.
 
If they ditched him and somehow made it to the park before one of Riverside's Boys In Blue caught them, they wouldn't have very long.
 
It wouldn't take long at all for Winter to figure out where they had gone, but it was their only chance.

Maybe we should just keep him around
.
 
He might not stop us from going there
.
 
Hell, he would come in handy if there was trouble
.
 
He considered this for a moment, but dismissed it.
 
If the Bogey Man came for them, Mr. Plain Clothes, cop or no, would die just as easily as Shannon's brother had.
 
Just like Charles.

As they stepped into the darkness of theatre #2, Gordon realized they had forgotten to replace Shannon's broken flashlight.
 
He glanced back toward the lobby and didn't see Mr. Plain Clothes.

Shannon paused at the sudden darkness within, then led the way down the last row of seats.
 
They rook the two last seats, closest to the wall and deepest in shadow.

They watched the entrance while previews and commercials played.
 
People trickled in, mostly small flocks of children led by one or two harried adults.
 
The seats closest to the screen filled up first; Gordon and Shannon were alone.
 
Mr. Plain Clothes stepped through the entrance a few minutes later, stopped just inside, lifted his dark glasses, and scanned the theatre.

“Damn,” Gordon hissed.

Shannon squeezed his hand.

 
Mr. Plain Clothes found them, tipped his hat cockily, smiling a big ‘
gotcha'
smile, and took the seat at the end of their row, next to the door.

“What now?” Shannon said in his ear.

“I don't know,” Gordon said, feeling like an idiot.
 
“I haven't planned past getting caught.”
 
He offered her a weak smile.
 
“I'm thinking,” he said.
 
“Meantime, how about that popcorn?”

“Might as well,” she said.
 
“How about a cola too?”

“At your service, milady.
 
I'll be back directly.”
 
He squeezed her hand before rising, and walked the littered isle toward the cop.

Mr. Plain Clothes watched him with a cocked head.
 
His shades were off now, and Gordon could see amusement in his eyes and the crooked smile on his lips.

“Popcorn?”

Mr. Plain Clothes said nothing, just shook his head once and kept watching him with that amused grin.

Asshole
.

The line for popcorn and soda was long.
 
Five minutes after stepping to the end of it, it was finally Gordon's turn.
 
He was about to order when a scream broke the peace of theatre #2.