The boy had stopped screaming and was now crying. “I want to go home. I want my Nanna. Where’s my Nanna?”
E.T. smoked her cigarette. Next to her, she had a bottle of gin in a paper bag. It was an old one, but she didn’t mind. She drank from it, celebrating her little victory. It was a change of plans, but a welcome one.
She had watched Gubba sneak out, thinking she didn’t see him when she had spotted the truck. Not that she cared much about a truck parked in front of that old abandoned house on her street, but when the old woman had stepped out, E.T.’s eyes had grown big and very wide. She had followed the old lady with her eyes as she disappeared towards the police station, which was in the small building just behind the house. Soon, she had spotted someone else inside the truck. She had seen the blind girl once she had gotten out and walked towards the yard. That was when she realized something was going on and it was going to end badly for Gubba. The girl had disappeared and E.T. had been worried, wondering what to do. That was when she had seen the boy. A small face peeking out between the seats, a set of curious, yet slightly worried, eyes.
“Now, you’re gonna be my ticket, little boy,” she said to him, looking at him in the rearview mirror. “You’re gonna get Momma here right back in business.”
E.T. pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and flipped the ashes out the window. The boy was quiet now in the back seat, tears running across his cheeks.
“Will you hurt my Nanna?” he asked.
E.T. blew out smoke, then looked at him. “Maybe a little.”
The boy shrieked. It made E.T. laugh out loud.
“Will you hurt my sister? Please, don’t hurt her,” he cried. “She just came back and she is hurt enough.”
E.T. chuckled. “Well, what I have in mind might hurt just a little. Especially if she tries to resist me.”
Chapter 82
Bushlake, October 2016
Never had he felt so humiliated. Never had he been so torn with anger and driven for revenge. Only now, it was no longer the city he wanted to see suffer, it was the girl. That stupid little girl who had put him in this situation.
Gubba grunted as he tried to get his hands loose, but he couldn’t. The officer guarding him threw a glance in his direction. They had placed him with his back against the wall in the police station, which wasn’t much bigger than some cabin. It was just one big room and had, what appeared to be, a small kitchen and bathroom in the back. There were only three desks, three computers, and shelves with archive cabinets behind them. In the middle was a round table with five old chairs around it. Lots of chairs that no one was using, yet they had placed Gubba on the floor.
He had barely been thrown inside when all hell had broken lose. Some kid was apparently missing and Gubba soon realized the kid was with the old grandmother and the blind girl. He had been in the truck when the blind girl had left him there. It humored him to know she would now be suffering from all sorts of regret for having left the car to face the man that had blinded her.
Did they call it that? Blind people? Did they say that they faced someone? Probably. Even though they didn’t know if they really were face to face with someone, now did they?
Gubba giggled at the thought. He was glad he had blinded the girl instead of just killing her. Made it more interesting, crueler. The only regret was that she wasn’t going to see him, look him in the eyes when he killed her.
His laughter caught the officer’s attention.
“What’s so funny, whitey?” he asked.
“You’d never understand,” Gubba said.
They had tried to get Gubba to tell them where the boy was. They had slapped him around a little once they realized the boy was gone. But he hadn’t told them. Because he didn’t know. He wasn’t the one who had taken him. But he hadn’t told them he might have an idea who did take him. He only wondered why she had done it. Maybe to make a bargain? The boy for Gubba?
Nah, it didn’t really sound like something E.T. would do, did it? She had surprised him before. Mostly in a bad way, but every now and then in a better way.
Gubba sighed as another officer came back inside.
“Any news?” the one watching Gubba asked.
The other shook his head. “Just coming in to get some water for the boys. It’s bad, though. It’s getting dark out now. If he’s anywhere in the trees, who knows what he might meet at this time of night? This is no time for a kid to be out in the forests. We have to find him. No kid should spend the night out there.”
The officer walked to the fridge and pulled out several bottles of water.
“I’m thirsty,” Gubba said.
“Well, water is for the good guys, Blondie,” the officer in charge said.
“I need water,” Gubba said, feeling the stickiness on his tongue. Ever since he had been chained to the tree in his mother’s backyard for days with no water, he had been terrified of feeling thirst ever again. The sensation soon turned to burning in his mouth and he was panicking.
“Please?”
The officers looked at each other. The one who had come in shrugged. “Guess it can’t hurt,” he said, then threw a bottle at Gubba as hard as he could. The bottle smacked him hard in the face and landed on the floor next to him. He couldn’t pick it up because of his cuffed hands.
The two officers laughed. “Drink that, albino boy,” the newcomer said, as he opened his bottle and drank greedily, making slurping sounds close to Gubba’s face, while the other officer was still laughing behind him.
Chapter 83
Bushlake, October 2016
“LUCAS!”
Anna was screaming at the top of her lungs. She was getting hoarse from all the yelling and had to take a break and drink some water from the bottle in her hand. Nanna was holding her other hand, guiding her as they walked.
It was midnight now and they were walking the outer edges of the Green Swamps. The police had entered with dogs, but Anna and her grandmother had been told to stay outside. This was no place for a young girl and her grandmother, they said. She wondered if they would have asked for her help if she hadn’t been blind, and cursed her stupid eyes and the day she lost them, repeating the one question she had tortured herself with over and over again.
Why did you get into that car?
“Lucas?” her grandmother called. Anna could hear her hand move the flashlight, probably shining it at the trees in front of them. “Where are you, boy?”
Anna could detect a growing concern in her grandmother’s voice. She was so mad at herself for not being able to help out more. It was like she was crippled, the way her grandmother had to guide her as they walked. Was she even any help at all? Or just another burden? She was supposed to be the one holding her grandmother’s hand, not the other way around.
“Lucas!” she yelled, tears in her desperate voice.
She knew the darkness had surrounded them, but in her mind, it was always dark. She tried to listen for the boy’s heartbeat once again, but there were so many noises coming out of that place that there was no way she would be able to hear it over them. The animal sounds terrified her.
“I don’t think he’s here,” Nanna finally said. “The swamps are close to town, but still miles from it. There is no way he would have walked out here on his own. Not this far. Lucas doesn’t like to walk far. You and I both know that.”
Anna nodded and thought about the time their car had broken down. Igoshi had told them they had to walk to the next exit, where one of the elders from the reservation would pick them up. But Lucas had refused to walk, telling her it was too far, even though it would only take about ten minutes. So, old Jimbo had to drive a huge detour to pick them up on I95 instead.
“You’re right,” she said. “He would never walk out here and never into a swamp. Not on his own. There is no way.”
Igoshi sighed. Anna put her hand on top of hers. She felt old. Her heartbeat was slowing down. Sometimes, well most of the time, she forgot that her grandmother was old.
“You need rest,” Anna said.
“I can’t rest when he hasn’t been found,” Igoshi said.
“Me either,” Anna said. “Lucas isn’t here. Let’s get back to the truck. We can drive back to town and park where we lost him. Maybe he’s around there somewhere, or maybe he came back after going to do whatever got him to get out of the car in the first place. Maybe it was an animal,” Anna said. “You know how Lucas loves animals. Maybe he saw something, like a turkey or something funny, then decided to follow it and lost track of time.”
Igoshi sighed and clapped the top of Anna’s hand while they walked back towards the truck, Igoshi guiding the way.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” she said. “Let’s hope so.”
Chapter 84
Bushlake, October 2016
Around midnight, the officer got tired. Gubba wasn’t. He was sitting in his corner, hands cuffed behind his back, angrier than ever. It still hurt where the water bottle had hit him, but he barely noticed. His eyes were fixated on the officer as his eyelids became heavier and heavier, till they finally remained closed.
What an idiot, Gubba thought to himself.
Behind his back, Gubba grabbed one thumb with the other, then with one painful swift movement, he dislocated his thumb on his left hand, biting his lip to not scream, closing his eyes in pain. He then pulled the cuffs off his left hand. When the hand was free, he grabbed it once again and pulled his thumb back into place, once again restraining himself from screaming in pain. Gubba then rose to his feet very carefully, to not make a sound, walked over to the officer, and looked at him with his head tilted for a few seconds, till the officer opened his eyes.
Gubba smiled. “Hi.”
“What the…”
The officer tried to get up, but Gubba soon had both his hands around his throat. Squeezing hard, blocking his air. The panic spread in his eyes and he tried to grab Gubba but had no luck. He gasped and tried to scream, but only choked, spurting and gargling sounds emerged. A big vein popped up in his forehead and Gubba wondered if it was going to pop. It seemed to be growing and growing, he noticed, fascinated. It was fun how every kill was different, how no two people died the same way. Almost poetic, if you enjoyed that sort of thing.
As the officer struggled for his life, Gubba leaned forward and whispered, not once letting his eyes leave his.
“The one thing you had to do was to stay awake. Just one little thing. All your buddies are out there searching high and low, and all they needed from you was to keep those darn eyelids open. You couldn’t even do that? You really are no good for nothin’ aren’t you? You’re nothing but a waste of fresh air. You ain’t gonna like where this is going, I tell ya’ that much. But I bet your colleagues won’t miss you one bit. Not even a little bit.”
Gubba grunted, pressing hard on the officer’s throat, letting his body spasm and shiver till it suddenly stopped moving.
Gubba then leaned over and placed his lips above the man’s, sucking the last air out of him, imagining he sucked the spirit in as it left the body. Then he spat in the officer’s face and let him fall to the ground, grabbed his keys, and took off the handcuffs, which he let fall so they landed on the chest of the officer.
Still with his breathing labored, Gubba stepped over the officer, reached down and grabbed his gun, then walked towards the back door. He walked outside and let the heat embrace him in the dark Florida night. In the distance, he could see red and blue lights from the many police cars parked all over town. Gubba knew he had to be careful, but he also knew he was a heck of a lot smarter than they were.
He walked back into the police station, stripped the officer to his underwear, put on his uniform, and found the keys to his car. He found the car parked right outside, got in, removed candy wrappers and old burger wrappers from the seat, then put the key in the ignition and turned it on, making sure to turn on the flashing lights as well.
Then he hit the accelerator and, seconds later, he was rushing out of town.
Chapter 85
Bushlake, November 2016
A week had passed. Still no trace of Lucas anywhere. The Bushlake search teams had called off the search, and the local media had shown his picture so much it was getting to be old news, so they moved on to tell new stories. The police still looked for him, but they too had other assignments to attend to.
It was about to drive Anna crazy.
She had stayed for the entire week and not traveled back to be with her dad. She had slept, but only a few hours here and there, avoiding dreaming at all, and if she found herself at the big house, in front of all the doors, she simply refused to enter any of them. She wanted to stay where she was. She knew very well her dad would be going out of his mind with worry by now, and she wondered every night if she should go back and talk to him, but she didn’t dare to. She didn’t want to risk it. What if she couldn’t find her way back again? What if she went somewhere else and couldn’t find her way? She didn’t dare to take the chance. Her grandmother needed her. She had to be here to help find her brother, even though she sometimes thought she was more of a burden to her grandmother than help. Still, Igoshi seemed to be happy she was there with her. At least she could provide some comfort, even if she couldn’t help much in the search. And right now, it seemed like her grandmother needed to be comforted more than ever. Now that the search had stopped and they were scared they’d never see him again.
“You want some pancakes?” Igoshi said, putting her hand on Anna’s shoulder to let her know where she was.
Anna hadn’t told her she didn’t have to do that. Anna had learned to hear exactly where people were. If you gave her a piece of paper she could draw exactly where people were standing, even when just entering a room. She was getting that good at using her hearing. And it wasn’t only people she could hear. She could also detect things. Bigger things. Like tables and chairs. She could hear them in some way. From the way the sounds in the rooms bounced off of them. Like now, when they were sitting in Mrs. Peterson’s kitchen at the bed and breakfast in Bushlake, where they had rented a room very cheap while they looked for Lucas. She had never seen the kitchen with her open eyes, but she knew exactly where things were and how big they were. The sound it all made created images in her mind.
And listening to people’s heartbeats had become a game for Anna. Like now, when Mrs. Peterson was standing by the stove making pancakes, she could hear the rhythm of her heart. It was different that it had been the day before. It was faster today, even though it played the same song. But it had more of an urgency to it. Like something was forcing it to beat faster and Anna wondered if something was wrong, if Mrs. Peterson was feeling all right or was upset about something.
“Where is Mr. Peterson today?” Anna asked.
She received a deep sigh as a response. “He went out fishing early this morning,” Mrs. Peterson said, straining her voice to sound cheerful.
I bet you asked him not to, Anna thought. And he went anyway, didn’t he? Did you have something you needed him to do?
“I wanted him to fix the garage door. It’s acting up again,” she said. “But that’s men for you, am I right?”
Anna nodded and tasted the pancake that Mrs. Peterson placed in front of her. She chewed, lost in her own thoughts when she heard it. The sound of another heartbeat approaching. She recognized it.
“He’s probably on his way home,” Anna said. “Then he’ll fix the garage door.”
Mrs. Peterson sighed again. “If only you were right. But, unfortunately, he usually stays away all day when he goes fishing. I can’t get the car out and we need groceries. Can’t run a bed and breakfast without the breakfast, am I right?”
“Sure are,” Igoshi said.
“But the bed and breakfast is apparently my idea and fishing is more…”Mrs. Peterson stopped herself. “Well, what do you know? You were right. I see his truck driving up.”
Anna smiled to herself. Igoshi finished her pancake. Anna heard Mr. Peterson park t
he car in the driveway, then walk across the driveway, open the mailbox, and empty it. She followed his sounds as he approached the house and soon after stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Roy!” Mrs. Peterson exclaimed. “What did I tell you about those dirty boots and bringing them inside?”
“Sorry,” he grumbled. “But there was a letter for our guests.”
“For us?” Igoshi said.
Anna heard the letter exchange hands, then the ripping of the paper, and rustling of yet more paper. She listened carefully as the rhythm of Igoshi’s heartbeat rapidly increased till she could hardly recognize her song anymore.
“Oh, my good Lord,” Igoshi said.
“What is it, Grandma?”
She was struggling to speak, gasping for air, fighting to stay calm while her heart was racing away as she did. “It’s a letter…from…” she exhaled deeply. “Someone who claims to have Lucas.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“He’s been kidnapped?”
“I…I guess so.”
“What do they want?”
“They…they want to do an exchange.”