The Long Way Home (17 page)

Rick, Miler, Beth, and I all started backward as Brown shoved Josh in the chest again. It was as if his hand had come right through the monitor and shoved us at the same time.

“You trying to be funny now?” said Brown.

“Hey, Josh,” I said. “If I tell you how, you think you could get up the nerve to drop this guy?”

“Drop him?” Josh squeaked.

“What?” said Brown. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“ ‘Nothing’ doesn’t cut it. Answer my question, punk. What are you doing interviews around here for?”

“It’s for my school—my school newspaper . . .”

“He’s too scared to hit him,” said Rick.

“And if he misses, this thug’ll kill him,” Miler added.

“And if he doesn’t miss, the other thugs’ll kill him,” said Beth.

“Maybe. Maybe if I can get him to do it just right . . .” I murmured, still trying to think. Then I spoke into the two-way. “Josh, listen. Keep talking to him, say whatever you have to, say anything, but turn to your left and right while you talk so I can see exactly where these guys are standing.”

Josh started babbling, “Well, let me try to answer your question as clearly as I can, okay? You see, as your colleague Mr. Hunt was saying, we’re doing a retrospective on the change in attitudes that arise in a community when certain homicidal events cause an alteration . . .”

At the same time he babbled, he turned this way and that and I got a quick look at the positions of the other thugs, how they’d surrounded him.

“All right,” I said, “keep talking, Josh, but listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I tell you to do . . .”

As Josh turned his attention to me, he had to talk without thinking and his babbling became even more nonsensical.

“Whereas several parties in the original configuration might have differentiated between one form of confluence and another . . .”

Rick put his head in his hand. “Dude’s gonna die.”

I murmured fast into the two-way. “When I say
go
, I want you to say a friendly good-bye and just stroll past this guy, walk past him to your right. Your right, Josh.”

“Of course, I can totally understand if your consternation makes it appear to you that that situation is no longer viable as a subject . . .” Josh was saying.

“When you do that,” I said, “the punk is going to grab your left elbow with his left hand. When that happens, you gotta move fast. Bring your left hand up and grab his elbow. Then swing around behind him and with all the strength you have, shove him in the shoulder so that he goes flying into Hunt. It’ll make sense when you do it. Then run to your left—to your left, Josh, understand? Don’t look back and don’t stop running till you’re in your car.”

As Josh kept babbling, I heard—I guess we all heard— a new note of hysterical terror enter his voice. “Now of course you realize any attempt on my part to do anything of the nature you describe will result in my untimely evisceration . . .” The idea of grabbing this guy Brown and shoving him was clearly amping his fear to the max.

Up to now, Brown had been peering at Josh through narrowed eyes, pretending to understand what Josh was saying. I think maybe he was afraid if he admitted he didn’t comprehend word one, he would look stupid in front of his friends. But now, his gaze shifted. His eyes grew even narrower. He wasn’t looking at Josh at all anymore. He was looking at us, directly at us through the monitor.

“He sees the webcam,” said Rick.

I felt a fresh burst of fear go through me.

“Hey,” Brown said, cutting through Josh’s palaver. His finger pointed at us through the monitor. “What’s this here?”

“Oh no,” said Beth.

“All right, Josh, this is it,” I said into the two-way. “Do it now! Say good-bye and move past him to your right. Do it!”

“And with that,” said Josh, his voice so high with fear he sounded like a cartoon mouse, “I must be off. I bid you all a fond farewell.”

“What?” said Brown.

“To your right,” I said into the two-way.

The scene started jogging around as Josh started moving. I got one glimpse of the surprised look on Brown’s face as Josh tried to walk right past him.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” he said.

I couldn’t see it, but I had to hope he was reaching out now, grabbing Josh’s elbow with his hand as I’d said he would.

“Now, Josh. Use the arm he’s grabbing. Bring the hand up, grab his elbow, and swing your whole body around behind him. Shove his shoulder! Do it!”

“Me?” said Josh.

“Yeah, you!” said Brown.

“Do it!” I barked into the two-way.

“Do it, Josh!” said Beth.

“Come on!” said Rick and Miler at once.

And, to our complete amazement, Josh actually did it.

We saw a blur. He was spinning. If he had Brown’s arm in his grip, he’d be able to get around behind him. And yes, there was Brown’s back on the monitor. And there was Josh’s hand on his shoulder, shoving him. At the same time, Josh let out what I guess was supposed to be a karate yell, but it sounded more like the shriek of a four-year-old girl running through a sprinkler.

“Eeeeeeeeeee!”

In a blurred jumble of images, I saw the startled Brown stumble forward into the equally startled Hunt. Hunt automatically reached up to catch him, but Brown went into him with such force that they both staggered backward. Then Hunt tripped and went over, carrying Brown with him so that both fell to the ground.

“Run! To your left, Josh!” I shouted. “Run to your left and don’t look back!”

And that was all I could see—all any of us could see on the monitor as Josh took off as fast as he could and the picture became a jumping blur of grass and pavement and buildings all leaping around to the tune of Josh’s hectic, squeaking, panting breaths.

“Oh, run, Josh!” Beth shouted at the screen, as if he needed the advice.

My hope was that when Brown and Hunt went over— when Josh cut around behind them by running to his left—their fallen forms would block the path of the other thugs, if only for a moment, giving Josh the head start he needed to make his getaway. That—and the absolute shock of being attacked by a geek like Josh—might give him just enough time to get to his car.

So far, it seemed to be working. Because now, the jouncing, blurred, crazy scene was all pavement and cars.

“He’s in the parking lot!” said Miler.

But at the same moment, under the sound of Josh’s breathing, we could hear grunts and footsteps growing louder behind him. The thugs had gotten out of their traffic jam. They were chasing him. And by the sound of it, they were closing in fast.

“Don’t look back,” I barked into the two-way.

“There’s the Camry!” Rick shouted.

“Come on, Josh, come on!” Miler shouted at the screen, pumping his fist.

The black car loomed large on the monitor until it filled the screen. Over the sound of Josh’s breathless gasps, we heard the beep of the door unlocking. Josh must’ve managed to press the button on his key as he ran.

Then we heard a thud and the screen went blank. Josh had crashed right into the side of the car. But the next moment, we saw his hands scrabbling at the door handle.

“Come on!” said Miler again.

“Hurry!” said Beth.

The door came open. We saw the inside of the car. Josh got in. We heard the car door slam.

“Yes!” said Rick.

“Lock the doors!” I shouted.

We saw the dashboard as Josh jammed his key into the ignition. We saw the windshield as he faced forward and put the car in gear.

Then Beth let out a scream that nearly made me jump through the ceiling.

One of the thugs had thrown himself onto the hood of the car, his face pressed against the windshield—and pressed terrifyingly close on our laptop screen.

Josh also let out a scream.

“Go, go, go!” I shouted.

We lost sight of the windshield as Josh turned in his seat—he had to reverse to get out of the parking space. We heard the screech of tires.

When Josh turned back, the thug on the windshield was gone—no, wait, there he was, thrown off the car by the sudden motion, spilled onto the pavement and rolling over and over.

We saw the other thugs now—Brown and Hunt and one other. They were trying to block Josh’s path, trying to stand in front of the car so he’d have to stop or else run them over.

But Josh hit the gas and spun the wheel hard and we saw the thugs disappear from view as the Camry swung sharply around before they could seal it off completely.

Josh let out a wild—and kind of stupid-sounding— shriek and hit the gas. The tires shrieked back at him once more and the car shot forward.

Our faces tense, our fists clenched, we all leaned toward the monitor, eagerly staring at the images there. We saw the parking lot exit. We saw the street. We saw the scenery blur as the car went into its turn.

Josh was out. He was away.

“Yay! Yay! Yay!” we heard him screaming.

I slumped there on the floor, so relieved. I covered my eyes with my hand. I heard Beth and Rick and Miler groaning and sighing with relief all around me.

“Did you see that?” Josh shouted in a cracking voice. “Did you see what I did? Did you see me take them! I took them all! Hahahahahaha!”

I looked up, shaking my head in wonder.

Miler reached over and squeezed my arm. “Nice going, Charlie.”

“Yeah, good one, West,” said Rick.

I looked at Beth and she looked back at me with her eyes shining—which was somehow better than anything.

“Did you guys see that?” Josh was still screaming. “That was, like . . . it was like kung fu or Jackie Chan or something. Did you see that?
Pow! Ha! Wha!
They went over like bowling pins. Were you watching that?”

Miler laughed. “You gotta love him. He is such a moron.”

I finally calmed down enough to be able to talk again. I lifted the two-way to my lips.

“We saw it, Josh.”

“Did you see it? Was I monster or what?”

“You were monster, pal.”

“I was monster. Wasn’t I? I was Batman practically.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You practically were. Now get on back here, all right? And by the way, if you ever try anything like that again, so help me I will break every single bone in your body.”

I snapped the two-way shut. I handed it to Miler.

“That’s it,” I told him—told all of them. “No more.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nightfall

I stood at the window of the Ghost Mansion parlor. I gazed out through the gap between the last shards of glass, down at the gravestones under the trees. A chill wind blew and the leaves tumbled past the headstones. The statue of the cowled, mourning woman sent its eerie stare out over the scene.

My friends’ voices came from behind me. Josh was still reliving his adventure. “Did you see that?” he asked again and again. Beth, of course, was really nice about it. She kept telling Josh how wonderful he’d been and what a good fighter he was and how scared he must’ve been and how much courage it took to do what he did.

Rick and Miler took a slightly different approach.

“You are such an idiot,” Rick explained to him. “If there was any justice in the world, you would be so incredibly dead by now.”

“Plus, you scrim lak wooman,” said Miler in his ridiculous Russian accent. “ ‘Eeeeee.’ I speet on you.
Ptui
.”

“You guys are so mean,” said Beth.

I gazed out the window and watched as the light in the cemetery shifted, the sun angling overhead as afternoon came on.

Finally, I turned around and faced them. Rick was sitting on a sleeping bag, his back against the wall, one leg stretched out, the other bent so he could rest his arm across the knee. Miler lay on his back on Beth’s blanket, his hands behind his head, as if he were outdoors at a picnic watching the clouds roll by above.

Josh sat Indian-style with his legs crossed, his hands moving as he described his harrowing escape.

Beth was kneeling on the blanket. She was loading what little was left of the lunch she’d brought me back into her carryall.

In a powerful burst of feeling, it came to me again how glad I was to have them here, how glad I was to see them after being on the run for so long, after being alone for so long. I’d never realized before how much my friends meant to me. I never knew how wonderful my life was until I lost it.

“Listen,” I said. The word came out hoarsely. I could feel the old loneliness and sadness coming over me again, like clouds gathering.

Josh was still gabbing away. “I mean, you should’ve seen the look on their faces. This one guy? He looked like . . .”

“Hey, guys,” I said, forcing myself to raise my voice. “Listen.”

Josh’s words trailed off. He and the others looked up at me.

I licked my dry lips. “You’ve got to go now,” I told them. “You’ve got to. You can’t stay here anymore.”

For a long second, no one answered. They just sat there, staring at me, as if they hadn’t heard.

“You mean, like, take off for a while, let you get some sleep?” Miler said then.

“No. I mean, like, go. Like get out of here. Leave me alone and let me do what I came here to do.”

Another silence. It was as if they were a long way off and it was taking awhile for my words to reach them.

“But . . . that’s all we want,” said Rick. “That’s why we came here—to help you do that.”

“I know,” I said. “But you can’t. It’s too dangerous. You saw what just happened.”

“But . . .”

“No, listen to me, Rick. Either you go or I have to. I can’t do this while I’m worrying about one of you guys getting hurt.”

“Hey, that’s stupid—,” Rick began.

But Beth said, “No. Charlie’s right.” We all turned to listen to her. Beth was like that. Whenever she talked, everyone always stopped to listen. “Josh got away today, but it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been a lot worse. He might’ve gotten hurt. Or he might’ve alerted the police to Charlie. The police could be following any one of us. They know who Charlie’s friends are. The bad guys probably know too. We could lead them right to him. I know we’re trying to help, but we’re really just making things more dangerous.”

I nodded. That was exactly what I was thinking—and now that Beth said it, I knew it was right. My heart felt like it weighed a ton.