Forager (9781771275606) (8 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Kurt, the mayor’s new
favorite Bull, picking up the stun baton from the table. My
breathing increased ever closer to full-on panic. I closed my
eyes.

Suddenly, gasps and murmurs rang out from the crowd. It wasn’t
the sound of an angry mob looking for justice, more a surprised
“that’s unusual” kind of cry. I clamped my eyelids even tighter.
Had the mayor come up with a new way to punish me?

I summoned the courage to peek an eye open a slit, just enough
to let me see the crowd. Every head was turned to the west. Both my
eyes popped open and I saw a figure running through the grass
toward the platform. It took a moment for me to recognize Jason
Mason.

He covered the ground quickly, waving his arms and yelling,
“Dad! Dad!”

Whatever the message, it was urgent. No one, especially one of
his own kids, would interrupt the mayor at a public
punishment.

Everything came to a stop. All eyes but mine were fixed on
Jason. Kurt stood with the stun baton lowered at his side. The
mayor wore a heavy scowl that conveyed both concern and annoyance.
The crowd turned to one another, and a low-pitched buzz of voices
filled the air.

Jason reached the platform and spoke so only those of us on it
could hear. “Dad,” he said as he took a gulping breath, “Chane’s
missing.” Another winded breath. “No one has seen her since last
night.”

Jason’s words sucked the air from my chest. I inhaled pure
terror. The fear of being jolted had nothing on this. My lungs were
so tight, what air I could get came in gasps. Where was Chane? What
happened to her?

The mayor looked sucker-punched. His eyes bulged, his face
paled, and he stumbled over his words. “I—I thought—didn’t—didn’t
she go to your mom’s last night?”

“
She did, but Mom hasn’t seen her since Chane went to bed.
Mom’s on her way with Josh,” Jason said.

They spoke softly. No one in the crowd knew what was
happening, but not for lack of effort. The mass of people inched
its way forward, trying to eavesdrop.

The coarse jolting ropes chafed my skin. I wanted loose. I
needed to find Chane. She had to be in trouble. She wasn’t the kind
of girl to run off and not tell someone where she was going. At
least, I didn’t think she was.

But if she’d left, where would she have gone?
Part of a conversation we shared a few weeks ago
came back to me.
Frank Miller had assigned me to the kitchen, and after
helping Millie clean up, I rushed over to the school to meet Chane
and walk her home. She smiled when she saw me.
That smile had me walking on clouds.
What bothered me, as I awaited my
punishment, was one particular part of our talk.

“
Don’t you ever feel like you’re trapped
here?” Chane said. “This is my last year of school. When I’m done,
I want to go somewhere. See new things. Meet new people. All
anybody does is work. I want to go to the city.
Surely things are different there.
Not just different, but better,
too.”

I said, “Different, sure, but different doesn’t mean better.
They probably have their own problems.”

“
But it would be new. I get so tired of worrying about
Scavengers, and storms, and quotas, and…everything. You’d go with
me, wouldn’t you?”

Gravity reversed. It must have
because there was only air under my feet.
“Sure, Chane, I’ll
go.”

Had she run off? Was yesterday her breaking point? I shook
my head. I didn’t think Chane would do it. I considered sharing my
suspicions with the mayor and Jason, but that would open up a whole
new can of
worms that didn’t need to be
dealt with.
Besides, lots of kids I’d gone to school with talked about
leaving. None of them ever had.

Josh rounded the corner with his mother. Even from thirty
yards away, I could tell she was crying. The mayor chewed his
thumbnail as we waited. His face remained pale, but not as white as
when Jason first told him about Chane. Josh guided his mother up
the four stairs. Then the pair of them stood in front of the mayor
and Jason.

The mayor kept his voice soft. “Where’s Chane?” he asked his
former wife.

Tears trickled down her face and a soft sob escaped her lips.
“I don’t know…I don’t know where she is. I…I thought she left early
for school, but when one of her friends stopped by to see if she
was sick, I got worried. I went to the school, but… but nobody’s
seen her.”

The mayor’s voice was more controlled than his former wife’s,
but I heard the strains of fear and doubt in it. “Where could she
have gotten to?”

Josh’s mother shook her head. “I don’t know,” she cried. “What
are we going to do?”

“
We’ll form search parties. She can’t have gone far. Most
likely she’s mad at me for sending her away from the attack
yesterday. She’s probably holed up somewhere rebelling.”

He turned toward the crowd and addressed them for the first
time since Jason’s arrival. “Citizens, my daughter, Chane is
missing. She hasn’t been seen since last night. We’ll need to begin
searching immediately.”

The mayor noticed me in the jolting ropes. “I’m sorry, Dillon.
Your punishment is going to have to wait. Finding Chane is much
more important right now.” There was genuine regret in his
voice.

A flood of relief washed through me when Kurt released my
wrists from the ropes. “This isn’t over, boy. You’ll get your jolts
soon enough.” Though my wrists were now free, the relief vanished.
I wasn’t getting out of being punished. It was simply being
delayed.

The mayor spoke to the crowd again, “The public punishment of
Dillon Montgomery is postponed until further notice. Someone run to
the lumberyard and get Frank Miller. I need him to organize search
parties. All work is suspended, except for the harvest and those
pedaling generators. Everyone else will search this town inside out
until Chane is found.”

Josh followed me down the platform steps. I wondered how long
it would be before I’d be climbing them again. I’d only taken a few
steps toward the crowd when Josh grabbed my shoulder and pulled me
around. “Where’s my sister? I know you’ve got a thing for her. So
where is she?”

“
Josh, seriously, I haven’t seen Chane since your dad sent her
away from the Scavenger attack yesterday.”

He flexed his too-big biceps at me and said, “You better not
be lying to me.”

Luckily his attention was diverted when Frank arrived and went
into action. “Separate into search parties. Take the three closest
people to you and come forward so that I can assign you an area.”
We milled about for a few minutes while he talked to the
mayor.

What was the holdup? We needed to get the search parties
organized and get moving.

Josh stood next to me at the foot of the
platform
.
I should have been
more worried about
Chane than Josh, but I didn’t want us to get stuck in the same
search party. The crowd boxed me in. If I tried to move away,
everyone would notice.
Which would be
worse, being in a search party with Josh, or having the whole town
know I didn’t want to be in a search party with him?

There wasn’t anything suspicious or wrong about Jason
coming down from the platform and joining his brother and me. I
just didn’t like it. That made three. Who would our fourth
be?
They needed to hurry.
Chane might be hurt.
We needed to find her.

Frank spoke from atop the platform. “From what I’ve been able
to determine, our last confirmed sighting of Chane was last night
when she went to bed at her mother’s house. We’ll start our search
around the house and work out from there. Any
questions?”

“
Was she counted?” someone in the crowd yelled.

“
Yes, I did the count myself right after the attack,” said
Frank. “Are there any other questions?”

I had lots of questions, but Frank wouldn’t have been able to
answer any of them. Where was Chane? Was she hurt? Had she run off
to the city?

Frank spoke to us. “The three of you take Kurt and head toward
Chane’s mom’s house. Search the houses on the same side of the
block as hers. Keep searching to the north until Chane is found or
night falls.”

How unlucky can a person get? Kurt? Really? As if the twins
weren’t bad enough. Now I was forced to deal with the new number
one Bull. It crossed my mind that it might be in
my
best interest to run
away to the city. Maybe I’d find Chane and the two of us could make
a nice quiet non-jolted life together.

Kurt barreled down the steps, pushing people out of our way.
One thing I’ll say for the guy, he sure knew how to make a hole in
a crowd. Kurt bellowed to us, “Come on! Let’s find the mayor’s
daughter!”

Chane’s mom lived six blocks south of my RV. When we arrived,
each of us took a neighboring house and started searching. The
first house I came to was an empty brick ranch-style. I’d walked
past it many times without giving it a thought.

It had withstood the years of neglect better than most,
even the roof only had a few curled shingles.
The front door was locked. I tried the back door and the side
door on the two-stall garage. Everything was locked up tight.
Searching the house would be impossible if I couldn’t get in. It
crossed my mind to break a window, but decided not to. We didn’t
have any glass to replace it.

I’d wasted so much time trying to get in that Josh was closing
the door on the house he’d been searching. “What’s the deal, Orphan
Boy?”

“
I can’t get in. It’s locked.”

“
No problem.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small
pocketknife. He went to the front door and slid the blade between
the doorjamb and the lock. With a quick twist of his wrist the door
sprang open.

“
Where’d you learn how to do that?” I asked.

“
Never mind, Orphan Boy. Just get in there and search the
place.”

Walking inside, I considered how easily Josh had defeated the
lock. The twist of his wrist was so practiced it could have only
come from experience. Why was he breaking into empty
houses?

The answer was staring back at me—this house wasn’t empty.
White sheets covered what looked like a pair of recliners and a
couch. A dust-covered coffee table rested between the furniture,
and on the far wall sat an entertainment center with a large
TV.

I stood there stunned. None of this stuff should be here. All
of it should have been cached.

“
Chane! Chane are you here?” I called.

Searching from room to room,. I took in the furniture,
appliances, and other possessions that made up the life of the
former owner. The beds were complete with pillows and comforters.
The kitchen was equipped with a refrigerator, stove, microwave, and
other smaller items I couldn’t identify. In the basement stood a
beautiful claw-footed pool table, complete with cues and
balls.

I found many things, but one thing eluded me. Chane wasn’t
here.

Before I left, I made sure to release the locks on the doors.
I wanted to come back and explore this house further, after Chane
was found.

Why hadn’t this house been emptied? Had it simply gotten
missed in the caching? Was it left this way on purpose? By the
amount of dust, no one had entered in a long time. I liked my RV,
but nothing forced me to live there. As long as a house was
unoccupied, it was fair game for whoever wanted it. This house and
its contents made my heart thump.

I closed the front door. Kurt and Jason were waiting out on
the walk. “What took you so long?” Jason asked.

“
I had to use the restroom,” I lied.

“
Whatever. Let’s keep searching. We’ve got to find Chane,” he
said.

We continued north of Chane’s mom’s place. I found two more
locked houses. Josh located a pry bar and showed me how to use it
to force the doors. Both of the locked houses were also fully
furnished.

Those three houses made me wonder how thorough the caching
had been. I couldn’t be the only searcher finding these intact
houses. Why were they still furnished?
Answers would be nice, but not at the expense of having
everything cached. At least not until I’d had a chance to
explore.

An hour later, we began searching the houses on my block. My
throat was dry and hoarse from repeatedly calling for
Chane.

My RV rested two houses down from the one I was
searching.
No way were any of my fellow
searchers getting in my trailer.
I had nothing to hide, I just didn’t want
them tearing my place apart—which knowing Josh and Jason, was a
real possibility.

“
That’s my place.” I pointed to the charcoal RV. “I’ll make
sure Chane isn’t in there. I should check in on the Forager, too.
Dr. White told me to look after him.”

“
Not alone you’re not!” Josh growled. “There’s no way I’m
letting you hide my sister.”