The Invisibles (2 page)

“Whoa,” said Mouth. “She's freaking out! Hey, don't freak out!”

Maddy backed into the kitchen, dragging Luke, and tried to unstop the door with the boy sitting on her foot. He was unbelievably heavy and resisted the hand prying him loose. He pressed his face behind her knee, crying through the denim. She let go of his short wiry arm and tugged at the lock-ring on the prop above her head. Meat with his bloody knife-hand was
coming, his face growing flushed as he drew nearer. She slid the ring down the prop and the door began closing very slowly, and she pushed on the back of it to make it close faster. She shut it with his grimacing face behind the thinly latticed window and reached for the dead bolt as he kicked it from the other side. The bolt knob slammed back, jamming her fingers, and the door swung in on her forehead. Her head snapped back and she fell fast. She banged an elbow on the floor. The tiles were cold, hard, shell-green. Luke had let go of her leg. He lay on his side, stunned eyes blinking.

Meat stood over her, pointing the knife down, the blade unsprung. “Don't fucking freak out,” he said. Noticing the sink, he stepped over her and made his way across the kitchen, calling back, “I fucking hate that.”

“I know, man, but chill.” Mouth came in, looking down at Maddy with a mixture of pity and reproof. “You shouldn't have run. We're not here to hurt you. You're really very low on our list of priorities. We have ourselves to think of.”

“He has a knife,” Maddy said by way of explanation. She reached out toward Luke, and he crawled over and lay on her shoulder, sobbing through her blouse, pinning her, though she no longer thought escape was an option.

“All we need is a place out of the weather,” Mouth said, impatiently, as if she'd let him down. “You don't need to freak out. You're going to be fine. I'm pretty sure you'll be just fine.”

Meat was running the tap, talking in a loud voice as he rinsed sleeve, hand, and knife handle. He sprung the long, straight blade and turned it under the stream, holding it until the dark stain ran along its edge red and vanished. “Clean, look. Like the day it was made, like the day it was born. Clean and new.”

“That's great,” said Mouth. “That's awesome news. I told you it
would work out. See?” he said to Maddy. “Don't you see how it all works out?”

A techno song began to play, surprising them all. After a few seconds, Maddy recognized her phone's ring.

Meat stomped over and glared down. “What is it?”

“It's his dad calling,” she said, her hand finding Luke's shivering ankle. “He's late picking him up.”

“Don't answer,” said Mouth.

“But he's coming here anyway.”

“Then say everything's okay. But if you say something's wrong,” he said in a slow teacherly tone Maddy had used many times herself and pointed his thumb at his angry friend. “Got it, teacher lady?”

“I got it,” said Maddy.

“Go ahead. Answer it.”

Maddy reached into her pocket as the phone stopped ringing. The two men looked at each other, and Luke let out a wail against her shoulder. “Shh, he'll call back,” she said, then added, though she knew it was cruel, “Come on, Davey. Be tough.”

The boy moaned and a second later the techno song resumed playing. She answered, feeling sober, fully in control of her voice. She glanced up at the intruders, saying, “Mr. Dixon, there you are.”

“Hey, Miss Maddy,” Andy Dixon said in an I'm-busy-driving voice. “Hey, sorry I'm so late coming to get him. I had a chance to get some work out on this house this morning and couldn't pass it up. Afterward, the foreman started cracking beers, and I didn't want to be rude.”

She ignored his preposterous logic, saying, “It's fine. Everything's fine. We're waiting.”

If he heard any fear breaking through her voice, he gave no sign of it. “Okay. See you in fifteen.”

“Okay, bye,” she said, though the call had ended.

“What's going on? What did he say?” Mouth said. “Is he coming?”

“Fifteen minutes,” said Maddy. Feeling her forehead wet, she reached up and took away blood on her fingertip. “He drives a blue truck. No surprises. I'll tell you everything in advance.”

Mouth turned and looked at Meat, staring until the bigger man lowered his eyes.

“You got yourself to blame for that cut,” Mouth told Maddy. “Better hurry up and get clean before Daddy gets here. And get him calm.” He held out his hand and shook his head when Maddy reached to take it. “Give me the phone, dummy.”

They went back to the classroom, and Maddy went into the bathroom and bent at the miniature sink to examine her forehead in the mirror. The break in the skin was tiny, with a faint round bruise behind it. As she rinsed it and pressed a damp, brown-paper towel to it to stanch the bleeding, it occurred to her that the bathroom key was in her pocket. The door was reinforced with steel, and she doubted the intruders would be able to break it in if she locked it. She tried to imagine the various outcomes. The meth heads or killers or whatever they were tortured Luke until she came out or they killed him or they let him live and fled. They gave him to his father and tried to break in or took off. They killed Andy Dixon and Luke but not her. They killed her and nobody else. She fixed her hair and went out. They were all standing by the toy chest in the corner. Luke was holding a large plastic dragon. He was staring at her, terrified.

“Come on,” said Mouth. “Isn't that like your favorite toy? It's the best one for sure.”

“Go on,” Meat urged the boy. “Do your thing.”

Both men were frowning.

“He's scared of us,” Mouth observed. “We've really got him
rattled over here. This one's got weak boundaries, for sure. Not a good sign, not a good sign at all.”

“This kid sucks,” said Meat. “Fucking waste.”

“You'd probably be scared, too, man. Imagine if two big dudes came in and scared your schoolteacher. He doesn't know he's going to be just like us some day. You don't know that yet, kid, do you?”

“If we were kids, I'd hate him,” Meat said. “Kick his ass and shit.”

“We should come up with a story, guys,” Maddy interrupted, smiling to show that, whatever they were on, she was willing to help, so long as they didn't hurt her. It reminded her of high school, driving friends on acid around the woods. She studied Luke. “I know we can trust Davey to keep a secret. Isn't that right, Davey?”

His eyes fixed with vague understanding, he nodded slowly and carefully.

“Why'd you say his name?” Meat wanted to know.

“It's a teaching tactic or something,” said Mouth. “There's like a whole psychology.”

“Is there like a psychology, Mouth?”

“Fuck you, Meat, you fucking lunk. You slab.”

“Kick your ass, dude.”

“You two should be our visiting teachers,” Maddy said. “What are your names?”

“Tell him my name is Mr. Mund,” said Mouth. He smiled around proudly. “That's German, you know.”

“Fuck this,” said Meat. “Fuck that.” He turned and stalked solemnly toward the door.

“Where are you going?” said Mouth.

Meat stopped at the door and pointed back angrily. “Fuck you. I'll watch.” The sound of his breathing faded as he went down the hall, and soon he appeared outside the window, crossing the
parking lot through falling snow until he stepped into the woods, moving among the trees until he was out of sight.

“Somebody's in a bad mood,” said Mouth. “Fucking asshole.” He eyed Luke. “Sorry. Frigging jerkwad.”

“It's fine,” Maddy said with false enthusiasm. “Let's finish our story. You're a student teacher, just here to observe today. You're from the university.”

“Sweet,” said Mouth. “I'm Mr. Mund, the student teacher. I wish there was another chick student teaching. All the student teachers we had when I was a kid were foxy.”

“He's the student teacher.” Maddy sent Luke a telepathic message to keep playing, to be brave, just a bit longer. She wondered if he received it. “You got that, Davey?”

Luke nodded and tried to smile, though he was pale and looked like he might throw up.

The minutes passed slowly, ticking loudly on the old analog clock above the door. Mouth leaned against the wall, looking bored with both Maddy and Luke. Ten minutes passed, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen. Maddy began to think Andy Dixon would never arrive, that she and Luke had somehow been left in a parallel universe, and Andy Dixon would arrive at another Grace Evangelical Church and School and find it locked and dark. He would call Hank Osmond, who would have already forgotten Maddy and Luke, and the police would find no record that either of them existed. In his bewilderment Andy would visit Maddy's father, a haggard drinker who, after listening to Andy Dixon's story, would bloodlessly explain that his wife was dead, that he had no daughter, and that he'd never heard of Luke Dixon. Gradually it would dawn on Andy Dixon that he was free of his son, that he could grieve as little as he could stand. Meanwhile, she and Luke would be trapped here, with Mouth and Meat, in an eternal
snowstorm. At least I'm not alone with them, she thought with a glance at the boy, though she knew it was selfish.

Headlights shined through the deepening blue air and falling snow. The pickup truck swerved quickly across the lot, stopping just outside the front doors, where usually the children stood in a group waiting for their rides. Without turning off the engine, Andy Dixon climbed out of the driver's side door, slipping in the snow, nearly going down on the snowy pavement. He stood upright and looked in at them, waving his hand high in the air, his face boozy and pink.

He came in smelling of timber and whiskey and bar smoke and reached out to his son, who ran up into his arms as if to the ladder of a piece of playground equipment. That was unusual, but Andy Dixon seemed too zotzed to notice. “Luke my boy,” he said, then looked at Maddy with glossy red eyes, blinking, not noticing the cut on her head. Behind him, Mouth grimaced as if reappraising her character.

“Thanks for watching him. I won't let it happen again.”

She put clenched fists on her hips, saying, “It's fine. But I do want to get out of here before the roads get much worse, so if you don't mind …” She gave a tight smile, then saw him looking with mild confusion at Mouth. “This is Mr. Mund, our student teacher.”

Luke buried his face in his father's Carhartt jacket. Andy shifted his head and freed up a hand to introduce himself. “Andy Dixon,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

Mouth narrowed his eyes. “Nice to meet you. Hank Osmond says good things about you. Says you're a stand-up father. Glad you finally made it.”

“Sure, sorry about that.” Andy frowned. “You're a teacher here?”

“I specialize in teaching the kids strong boundaries,” Mouth said. “Can't get ahead in this world with weak boundaries. With
those, pal, you're nowhere.” Mouth made a swift, cutting motion with his hand.

Andy was looking at him more closely now. “I don't get it. What boundaries?”

“Mr. Dixon,” said Maddy. “Please. It's late.”

“Okay.” He gave Mouth a final, doubting look and turned away. He smirked down at Luke, who pressed his face harder into the rough jacket. “Have a good weekend.”

She watched them go, aware of Mouth's trembling hands and the way he was staring intently. “Don't worry,” she said when they had gone down the hall. “Andy's too drunk to believe whatever Luke tells him. And even if he did, he won't remember it.”

“I thought you said the kid's name was Davey. I thought you were going to tell us everything,” said Mouth harshly. No longer leaning against the wall, he took a few steps toward her, raising his shoulders, his warm breath smelling of rot from several feet away. “Why should I believe you at all?”

He smelled like melted snow, like minerals and dirt, like the things that lay in the earth, shifting slightly from season to season, sorted by gravity and flow. She stiffened. She felt quite dizzy. Behind Mouth, outside the window, Luke climbed into the truck, and Andy Dixon stood by his door picking snuff out of a plastic tin. Meat had emerged from the woods and was walking up behind him rapidly, his knife in hand, blade sprung. There was no sound as he wrapped a forearm over Andy's face and tilted his head back, exposing his whiskery neck. Meat drew the blade across the exposed throat, leaving a red line which widened and wept dark red down the front of Andy's jacket. Andy's hands fell to his sides, dumping shredded black tobacco into the snow. Andy dropped to his knees and fell facedown in the snowy lot. He never struggled. It was as if he had felt nothing, as if the life just spilled out of him in a growing dark spot in the snow.

“Don't,” Maddy said quietly to Mouth. Outside Meat opened the passenger door and took Luke Dixon by the hand to lead him back inside. “We don't even know who you are. We can't tell the cops anything.”

Mouth twisted his lips into an expression of disgust. “Shut the fuck up. You're a fucking liar. That truck is going to get us a lot farther than your shitty little car.”

“Oh my God,” said Maddy.

“Cut it out,” said Mouth. “Lying bitches make me sick. I can't even believe a word you say.”

Meat came in with Luke and let the child stagger to her. She heaved him into her arms and felt he had wet himself. He was shivering and pale, his pupils dilated to different sizes, his arms hanging limp.

“Kill them or what?” Meat said.

“I hate killing a kid and a chick. Makes me all queasy.” Mouth scowled at them. “Put them downstairs. I hate phony bitches.”

High in the wall a small window looked out at ground level over gathering ridges of snow, up at snow falling through gray sky and trees. It was colder down here, but at least the men had gone. She imagined them on the interstate, Mouth driving, complaining about Meat's choice of radio station.