Freaks Like Us (15 page)

“We can lose him.” Drip actually grins despite everything, like he can see this in his impulsive little zippy-mouse brain, clear as anything.

“Drip, he’s a trained FBI agent. How—”

“My brothers will help us,” he says. “My brothers and Roland Harks and Linden Green.”

I stare at Drip, and I can’t help it, even though it’s disrespectful and maybe even a little mean. For the first time ever, I wonder if Drip is crazier than me.

TWELVE HOURS

Just after five in the morning, the sky’s the color of rain and dull metal and the air smells wet and heavy. Outside the front entrance of the VFW, cold sticks to my cheeks and arms and elbows like fog, and when I blink I see black reachy-grabby Farkness Biters out of the corners of my eyes but I know they aren’t there, they aren’t real, but maybe they’re real just a little bit.

Stupid idiot. Of course they’re real. They’ll sneak up on you. They’ll get you, Freak. Speak Freak freak-speak freak freak freak speak. Speaking wouldn’t be a good idea.

Not Farkness Biters. No such thing. Those are trees. But there shouldn’t be any trees this close to the VFW so they can’t be here so maybe they really are Farkness Biters?

How long has it been since I had my regular pills?

“Everybody gave DNA,” Drip’s saying to some of his brothers, who have lined up to the right of us for the grid search. “Even Freak’s dad.”

“My dad, too,” Linden Green says, and he sounds wavy and slowed like a Farkness Biter would probably sound, and I still can’t believe I’m standing here with him and Drip and Roland, and we’ve got our orange vests on, and Drip’s mom is on our left with Dad and two more of Drip’s brothers. I think it’s a bad idea but Drip swears we’re cool, that there’s a plan, that I need to shut the hell up or I’ll get us all in trouble, and he’ll explain in a few, when it’s safe and he’s finished blowing his nose.

“It’s better if we all just go ahead and give samples,” Dad says. “More efficient. The fewer questions and unknowns, the faster we find her.”

Something needs to be faster. Twelve hours. Half the first twenty-four is gone. Whenever I look at my digital watch, my heart clumps with each blink of the colon between the numbers, marking seconds, tracking minutes—and counting down time running out for Sunshine.

“No more than fifteen yards between groups,” the search coordinator tells us through an electric bullhorn. “The northern teams will progress to the school and beyond, to the county line. The southern groups will sweep the area between here and the apartment complexes, and stop at the interstate barrier fence. Eastern groups will
cover the space to the city’s edge, and the western groups will move until you get to the river.”

That’s us. One of the western groups—we at least got that lucky with the assignment, because the river is where Drip and I need to go. Drip’s brothers are in the other western group, so they won’t get in the way. We probably won’t be in the exact right place, though. Who knows what team will actually end up combing across our private spot, and they won’t even know where they are. Maybe they won’t stay long.

Roland’s got our radio, and we’ve been instructed how to use it to summon help if we find anything an evidence team might need to evaluate. Or if we find Sunshine.

We’re going to find her. Or some sign of her. I’m going to hope for the best, no matter what.

We’ve also got our cells for backup, in case something goes wrong with the radio, and a central number to call.

We listen to more instructions, about staying a relatively straight course, and how often to call out, and stopping to listen for responses. We get reminded not to disturb or touch anything suspicious we find. Mom and Dad and Drip’s mom all tell us to do
exactly
what the coordinators have instructed. Drip’s mom adds a few threats to that, involving grounding, no computer games for a month, and wishing not to have been born.

Drip dances in place. I’m jiggling around, too. We need to go. It’s time to go find Sunshine. I know I shouldn’t
get hopeful all over again. That’s really stupid, but I can’t help it because we’ve really got a lot of people and the daylight’s trying to hammer through the metal sky and everything will be bright and obvious and maybe, just maybe somebody will find what we need to figure out what’s happened to her.

Maybe we’ll find her.

Some part of me knows that’s not likely, but I shove that completely out of my mind.

We’re going to find her.

The coordinator has us set our watches together, and gives us a time to report back to the coordination center here at the VFW. Then the search party surges outward, an orange squall line across the parking lot and the lawns, spreading up and down and backward and forward, everywhere I look.

“Sunshine!” I hear from dozens of places at once. “Sunshine?”

Men’s voices. Women’s voices. Young voices. Old voices. We’re moving. Everyone’s moving and calling, a whole orange storm of people.

“We’re going to find her,” I whisper, but Drip and Roland and Linden don’t seem to hear me. They’re looking down and around, kicking branches and rocks as we go, staring this way, then that way. Even Roland’s calling out now and then, and he’s using her name. None of that “pretty girl” crap.

Mom and her group pull away from us some, like
Dad and his group. Still within eyesight and earshot, at least until Roland hangs back examining a branch near the park. My heart does a big thump when I see what he’s doing, and I crouch beside him, staring at the same spot while Linden and Drip stand over us.

“What is it?” I ask, suddenly breathless, but also frustrated, because I don’t see anything but dirt and branch and leaves. What’s here? Is it some sign of her? “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing, you stupid ass,” Roland whispers, sounding exactly like an alphabet voice. “Just getting a little separation so this will work.”

My eyes jerk to Drip, then I turn my head to glance behind me toward the VFW, where Agent Mercer and most of the FBI agents have stayed behind to be available if a team gets lost or in trouble or calls in for support.

“Don’t do that,” Linden tells me, kicking a spray of dirt in my face.

I blink as specks of mud and rock bounce off my eyes and cheeks and mouth, but I stop looking at the VFW. I wipe away the mud as I turn my attention back to the spot Roland’s pretending to examine.

Mom and her group move farther away from us. I can barely see Dad’s group now, and Drip’s brothers went ahead of us into the trees. I watch the disappearing orange for a few seconds, and then I ask Roland, “Why are you helping us?”

He shrugs and stands. “Because I think maybe you
can
find her. You know her better than anybody else.”

He walks ahead, through the park, toward the woods in the distance. Linden follows him like he’s on a leash, and Drip and I trot along behind, looking pretty much the same as Linden. Confusion ties knots in my brain as I try to reconcile the Roland and Linden I’ve always known with two guys who would give DNA without much griping, and who would help a couple of lesser alphabets they consider prey. Help us outsmart FBI agents, no less?

What’s wrong with this picture?

Just about everything.

But then in the last twelve hours, Sunshine vanished, my dad turned out to be one of the people who think I’m a psycho killer, and my teacher proved to be a convicted pedophile. Now the school thugs are trying to morph into hero material? If I wasn’t already crazy, this might push me in that direction.

Don’t go with them. You can’t trust them. Don’t be such a pathetic, stupid freak. Stupid is as stupid does. Stupid does as stupid is. Maybe you are stupid. Maybe you’re not.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I whisper to Drip when he draws even with me.

I get a shrug from him, too, though he doesn’t look relaxed or casual or sarcastic like Roland did when he twitched his muscled shoulders.

“Didn’t have any better options,” Drip says.

I don’t exactly find a lot of comfort in that answer.

A few minutes later, as we get close to the trees, Drip says, “Get ready. Whatever they say or do, go with it, and then we’re supposed to head on into the woods, this same direction, until the VFW people and the other searchers can’t see us anymore.”

“What do you mean—” I start, but right then, Roland stops, whirls toward me, and raises his fist.

I duck on instinct, but he doesn’t swing.

“I should have known better than this,” he says loudly. “I’m not listening to this crazy crap. Screw you, Freak. Stay out of my rearview.”

Linden waits a beat, then adds a loud “Yeah.”

“We’re doing this my way,” Roland says, still loud. “You head over there,” he tells Linden, pointing over Drip’s head. “I’ll cover this side. Let the two wittle babies go straight down the middle like they’re
supposed
to do. When we find her, they can watch as we get our medals.”

“Hey, come on,” Drip says, loud as Roland. “It’s better if we—”

“Nothing’s better with you.” Roland pauses, laughs, and then stalks off, veering away from us into the trees. Linden heads in the other direction as instructed. I spare a quick glance at the VFW, and notice a couple of agents ghosting off as if to follow them.

Of course. The FBI would be expecting the bad guy to do something unusual, maybe give himself away. They’ve
got a few agents assigned to watching or even tailing some of the searchers—like us. But Roland and Linden just divided them and pulled the focus off of me and Drip.

Smooth. Leave it to Drip to put together something decent on a second’s notice. I wish I could plan like that.

I wish, for once, I’d make a difference.

And yet…

And yet something’s bothering me. Everything about this situation still seems off.

Maybe a little too quickly, Drip and I head into the woods, straight-lining forward like the search coordinator told us to do, looking around and calling for Sunshine. In between shouting her name, taking a breath, and listening for an answer, I tell Drip, “This feels weird to me.”

“Everything feels weird to you, Freak.” He calls for Sunshine. Stops. Waits. He looks left, then right, and he says, “Come on. Nobody can see us. We just need to avoid the other search teams.”

My heart squeezes in panic, but I don’t know what I’m scared of. I look around me, half expecting evil trees, but it’s daylight now, almost completely, and nothing looks that evil.

They’re coming to get you. You know they’re coming to get you. You can’t hide from them forever. Farkness Biters. Biters, kiters, siters. They’ll see you and get you and eat you. You don’t want to be eaten, do you?

Drip and I dart forward, barely make a clump of trees,
and stand behind them while a group passes far to our right, calling for Sunshine. Way off in the distance, I hear Mom, and sometimes Dad, and Drip’s mom and brothers, also calling. Drip calls for Sunshine, then we dash to a bunch of bushes.

This will never work. Somebody’s going to see us. “What if Sunshine’s actually in our grid and there’s nobody to look for her?”

“Roland and Linden are covering it.” Drip sounds annoyed. “Soon as they’re sure the Feds are following them and not us.”

We call for Sunshine. We stop. We listen.

“I don’t see them,” I tell Drip. “I don’t hear them.”

“They’re covering it. It’s how we planned it.” Yeah, he’s definitely getting annoyed. We’re both standing against the trunks of trees, trying to blend in even though we’re wearing neon-orange search vests. How stupid is that?

“Why do you think Roland and Linden will do what they said, Drip?”

“I don’t know, okay? If you’re that worried about it, we’ll come back here after we search our place.”

We run from the bushes to another group of trees. I see whispers of orange weaving through distant leaves. What if somebody has binoculars and sees us acting idiotic like this? “Maybe we should just walk like we went off course.”

Drip glares, and I shut up. This is his plan. I’m not
supposed to screw it up. That’s what Sunshine would tell me. She’d say that and—

Everybody wants to be good at something Jason you have to let Derrick do what he’s good at and you have to do what you’re good at and when I rest against the big rock wall under the tall rock roof at our private place and tell her I’m not good at anything that’s when she leans forward so fast her locket hits my neck and for the first time ever she touches her lips to mine and I don’t close my eyes and I don’t blink and I’m surprised because her lips taste like softness and peanut butter and grape juice and I always thought she’d taste like stars and moonlight and maybe toothpaste but really how do you know how somebody’s lips will taste when you’re in sixth grade and practicing kissing the back of your own hand and when she pulls back she smiles at me and she says see I think you’re pretty good at that and

—We stumble into the brambles lining the path to our place and Drip grabs me to keep me from falling. “Watch where you’re going, okay?”

Thorns jab at my already-scratched ankle. The sting brings me back to the cool gray morning and I nod at Drip and he lets me go. “We’re getting there,” he says. “Don’t call out anymore. Don’t screw it up. I don’t even know who’s got this grid, so we should hurry.”

My heart races and races as we plow forward, trying to go fast and not be too obvious never mind the orange
stuff screaming look-here-at-us. We’re doing the right thing but it feels wrong and I don’t get that and Drip’s not listening and I see darkness moving from the corner of my eyes and squeeze them shut. We don’t have time for my stupid crazy brain right now. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing—

Something hits me in the gut so hard I wheeze and pee all at the same time. My eyes pop open, feel like they’ll pop out as pain riots through my middle and explodes out my neck and my face and shoulders and no breath comes and all I can do is pitch forward, falling toward the ground only I don’t hit it because a foot whizzes up and catches my gut again, harder.