Judith closed her eyes for a moment, cursing under her breath. Her mind raced, but she didn’t have the slightest idea what she could do. “We have to get a lawyer,” she finally said. “Look, why don’t you skip school today. You’ve got to—”
But to her surprise, Jed shook his head. “I already thought about that,” he said. “There isn’t really anything I can do for Dad, is there? I mean, you heard what Dr. Banning said. And we both saw those monitors they had hooked up to him.”
Judith bit her lip. “But to have him out there …” she said, remembering the terror she’d seen in Reba Tucker’s eyes.
Once again Jed shook his head. “If we make a stink, it’s only going to make Moreland more suspicious. And they can’t hurt Dad, Jude,” he added, his voice trembling now. “Remember? Dr. Banning says he can’t feel anything at all. He—He’s already dead.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
Jed struggled with his emotions for a moment, then managed a trace of an almost wry smile. “I guess right now I’m gonna do what dad would want me to do. And that’s stay in school. At least for today.”
Judith took a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh of frustration. But Jed was right. For the moment there was absolutely nothing they could do that wouldn’t make Greg more suspicious than he already was. “All right,” she agreed. “But this afternoon we’re going out there.”
They went back into the classroom. When Judith returned to her desk, she found two of the quizzes waiting for her, already completed. She glanced at the names at the tops of the papers, then looked at them again.
Both of them belonged to students who only last week had hung onto their papers until the last possible moment, not out of any inability to do the work, but simply because they both preferred to daydream their time away. It wasn’t, Judith knew, that they were stupid; they simply had no ability to concentrate on a task.
But today, both of them had finished, and their solutions were perfect. Surprised, Judith looked up and scanned the class until she found the two students. The two were sitting at their desks, their expressions serene, their eyes facing forward.
But they didn’t seem to be looking at anything.
The bell rang at the end of the fourth period, and Jed picked up his books, wondering if he’d been right when he’d decided to stay at school that day. He couldn’t concentrate on anything at all, and so far he hadn’t taken a single note during any of his classes. His mind had been occupied with his father.
He kept seeing his father lying inert in the hospital bed, oblivious to everything around him. For some reason he didn’t quite understand yet, he’d at last been able to accept the fact that his father was never going to wake up again. Perhaps it had happened last night, when he and Judith had stopped into the hospital one last time, late in the evening, and he’d hoped that something—anything—had changed. But as he’d stared at the flat lines running across the monitors displaying his father’s brain activity, and looked once more into his father’s expressionless face, he hadn’t felt that he was seeing his father at all.
What he had seen was only a shell that his father had once lived in.
All morning he’d half expected to be called out of class to be told his father’s body had finally died too.
But the call hadn’t come, and by the fourth period he’d begun thinking about what he would do if his father didn’t die. He had no idea how much it would cost to keep his father in a nursing home, but he suspected it didn’t really matter. Whatever it was, he knew he couldn’t afford it.
Nor, without his father working, would he be able to pay the mortgage on the house, or make the payments on the truck, or anything else.
He found himself wondering if his father had any insurance, and if so, what it might cover. Maybe, instead of going to the cafeteria for lunch, he should find a telephone and start hunting for answers to all his questions.
He stepped out of the room into the corridor and looked around for Gina, who almost always met him here on her way to the cafeteria. But she was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, now that he thought about it, she’d barely spoken to him during first period either. His brows furrowing into a puzzled frown, he started toward the cafeteria, stopping at his locker to drop off his books.
When he got to the lunchroom, he felt an immediate sense of relief when he spotted Gina sitting at their usual table with JoAnna Garcia, Randy Sparks, and Jeff Hankins.
He waved to them, then joined the line of kids waiting for food. But as he made his way through the line, instead of following his usual habit of taking double portions of everything, he caught himself looking at the prices of each item. Almost to his own surprise, he settled for a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. It didn’t look very good, but it cost a couple of dollars less than he usually spent. Taking his almost empty tray to the table, he set it down, then slid into the chair next to Gina’s.
“Hi,” he said. “I looked for you outside Mr. Moreno’s room, but you weren’t there.”
Gina looked vaguely puzzled. “Was I supposed to be?” she asked.
Jed frowned slightly. “I—Well, I don’t know,” he said. “You just usually are, that’s all.” He turned to look at her, but she seemed to be concentrating on the food on her plate. Suddenly he thought he understood. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t meet you on the way to school this morning.”
She looked over at him, a half smile on her lips. “That’s okay,” she said, her voice carrying an odd, languid note. “I can walk by myself.”
“I—I had to go to the hospital this morning,” Jed said. “They moved my dad.”
Gina’s eyes gazed at him vacantly. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked.
Jed stared at her. She’d been at the hospital Saturday—she knew how bad he had been then. “No,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “He’s not going to be all right. He—He’s going to die, Gina.”
Gina’s eyes widened slightly and she looked vaguely confused. “Oh, Jed,” she said. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—it’s just—” She faltered, then fell silent.
Jed was sure he understood. She just didn’t know what to say, didn’t have any idea how to handle the situation. “Hey, Gina, it’s all right,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it. “And maybe something will happen,” he went on. “Maybe he’ll get better after all.” Then, when Gina made no response, he looked at her again. “Gina? Are you sure you’re okay? Is something wrong?”
Gina smiled at him and her eyes cleared. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just eating my lunch. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing?”
Jed’s eyes moved away from Gina then, flitting from one face to another.
Suddenly it occurred to him that Gina wasn’t the only one at the table who looked strange.
JoAnna Garcia looked the way she always did, slouching comfortably in her chair, her feet sprawled out beneath the table so there wasn’t much room for anyone else’s, but uncharacteristically, she hadn’t said a word since Jed had joined them.
Jeff Hankins was simply sitting there, his eyes focused only on the tray in front of him, slowly consuming the food on his plate.
And next to Jeff, Randy Sparks had the same faraway look, as if he was only barely aware of where he was or what he was doing.
Now Jed remembered bits and pieces of what Gina had told him about Randy on Saturday. It was weird he just did what I told him to. He eyed Randy for a moment, then said, “Hey, Randy. Bet you can’t hit the clock with a butter patty.”
Ordinarily it was a challenge Randy would have risen to instantly. Today, he only looked at Jed curiously. “Why would I want to do that?” he asked.
Jed felt flustered. “J-Just to see if you can,” he stammered. “Why do we ever do it?”
Randy’s eyes fixed blankly on him for a moment, then he turned his attention back to his food.
Jed waited a few seconds, then spoke again. This time, though, the words were uttered as an
order instead of a question. “Randy, hit the ceiling with a pat of butter.”
Instantly, Randy placed a butter patty on the end of his knife and flicked it upward, where it stuck to the ceiling. But as he went back to his lunch, he seemed totally unaware of what he’d done.
Jed shifted his gaze to JoAnna Garcia. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.
JoAnna shrugged. “What’s going on?” she repeated mildly. “Is something wrong?”
“What’s the matter with you guys?” Jed was nearly shouting in his frustration now. “If you’re all sick or something, why don’t you go home?”
Randy, Jeff, JoAnna, and Gina all gazed blankly at him.
“But I’m not sick,” Gina said. “I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong at all.”
“Well, you don’t look fine,” Jed told Gina. “You look weird. Maybe you’d better go see the nurse.”
Without a word, Gina stood and started toward the cafeteria door. Jed hesitated a moment, then got up and quickly threaded his way through the tables. He caught up to her just as she reached the door.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you mad at me?”
Gina gazed at him, her eyes expressionless. “No,” she said. “I’m just going to the nurse’s office. That’s what you told me to do.”
Without a flicker of emotion, she turned and walked out the door.
* * *
“I don’t think you can wait for your friend to call you,” Jed said as he got into Judith’s car after school that day.
Judith, about to start the engine, paused, looking over at Jed. “Why?” she asked. “Has something else happened?”
Jed nodded, his eyes grim. “Didn’t you notice it today? It’s the kids—they’re starting to act real weird.” He began telling her what had happened in the cafeteria at lunchtime that day, and what had happened afterward.
When Gina left the cafeteria, Jed had gone along with her, trying to talk to her, but it had been difficult. Not that she’d acted as though she was mad at him—she just didn’t seem to care at all. She’d answered all his questions, but her voice, usually filled with excitement about whatever she might be talking about, had sounded flat, taking on a listless quality Jed had never heard before.
She’d sat patiently in Ms Sanders’s office, answering the nurse’s questions but volunteering nothing, only insisting in that strange lifeless voice that she felt just fine.
“Well,” Laura Sanders had finally said after taking Gina’s temperature, examining her throat, and checking her for swollen glands, “you certainly seem all right.” But Jed had been able to tell from the nurse’s expression that she too had noticed Gina’s peculiar apathy. “Would you like to go home?” she asked.
“If you want me to,” Gina replied.
The nurse frowned. “It’s not what I want, Gina. It’s what would be best for you.”
Gina had said nothing. In the end she had walked back to the cafeteria with Jed and quietly finished her lunch. For the rest of the day, whenever Jed had seen her, she’d been the same: calm and placid, moving steadily from class to class, but never stopping to chat with her friends, speaking to them only if they spoke to her first.
“Jeff Hankins is acting the same way, and so is Randy Sparks,” Jed finished. “Didn’t you notice it? They’re all wandering around like sleepwalkers.”
She realized he was right—indeed, if she hadn’t been so consumed with worry about Frank.… She abandoned the thought, concentrating instead on remembering her classes that day. Yes, there definitely had been a difference in some of her students. The two in her first period, for instance, who had suddenly managed to complete a quiz in the allotted ten minutes. And all her classes, she realized now, had been more subdued that day, almost as if the students had been given a tranquilizer.
The shots.
Could that have been what they were? But it seemed crazy. Why would they give a whole school sedatives?
And if the shots were some kind of sedative, why were many of the kids behaving perfectly normally?
Silently, she cursed Peter Langston—she’d tried to get through to him twice already, but had been told both times that he was in meetings. And no, he couldn’t be disturbed, except for an emergency. She would have dreamed one up, but both calls had been made from the lounge, and she’d been certain that Elliott Halvorson, at least, was listening to her curiously. She ignored him, determined not to let him see how worried she was. Besides, she’d told herself, if Peter had anything to tell her, he knew how to reach her.
But Peter still didn’t know how important the shot might be. Suddenly she knew what she would do. “I’m going down there,” she said. Only as she spoke the words did she realize that Jed had been talking. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“I said I’ve decided to quit school,” he repeated.
Judith stared at him. “You’re what?” she repeated.
“I said I know Dad wouldn’t want me to quit school, but I don’t see how I can pay Dad’s bills if I don’t get a job.”
Judith shook her head, confused. “But this morning you said—”
“I know what I said,” Jed interrupted doggedly. “But I’ve been thinking about it all day, and there just doesn’t seem to be any way out of it. Besides,” he added, his voice hardening, and his eyes meeting hers for the first time since he’d suggested quitting school, “if I can get a job with the company—and I bet I can, even if they are laying people off,” he added darkly—“maybe I can find out what they did to Dad. They’re doing something, Jude. It’s not just Dad and the Morelands and Mrs. Tucker. They’re doing something to all of us.”
Part of Judith wanted to argue with him, but another part of her knew he was right. “All right,” she said tiredly. “Look. You go out and see your father. Don’t act upset that he’s there—don’t do anything at all. Can you do that?”
Jed hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I can do it.”
“Good. I’m going to drive down to Los Alamos right now, and light a fire under Peter Langston. Tonight, when I get back, we’ll decide what to do. All right?”
For a moment Judith thought Jed was going to argue with her, but then he nodded. “Okay,” he said. He opened the door of her car and slid out, then leaned down to stick his head in the window. “Be careful, huh?”
Judith managed a smile she hoped was reassuring, but Jed had already turned away, loping across the parking lot to his father’s truck.
A moment later she pulled out of the parking lot, too preoccupied to notice the dark blue car that fell in behind her, following her closely as she drove through Borrego, but discreetly dropping back nearly half a mile as she headed south and east toward Los Alamos.
Chapter 24
The heat of the afternoon rippled over the desert. Ahead Judith could see a familiar mirage of water apparently lying across the road. But the shimmering image, as always, stayed far in the distance, hovering just below the horizon so the water seemed endless, merging finally with the sky itself.
She was forty minutes, and fifty miles, away from Borrego, driving fast, the speedometer hovering between seventy and eighty. The road was straight here, and though Judith ordinarily felt relaxed behind the wheel, today she was tense, the muscles of her back and shoulders already beginning to knot under the strain that seemed to make every nerve in her body tingle.
Now she frowned as she glanced in the rearview mirror. Behind her, maybe a quarter of a mile, was the dark blue car she’d first noticed ten minutes before. She told herself she was being paranoid, that there was no reason to think it might be following her. She hadn’t, after all, noticed it as she’d left Borrego. And yet it seemed to her that if it had been coming down from farther north, and had only just now caught up with her, it ought to be passing her.
Instead, it seemed to linger behind her, almost as if it were deliberately keeping pace with her.
Frowning, she eased up on the accelerator, and the Honda began to slow. When she glanc
ed into the mirror again, the blue car was closer.
Perhaps she ought to stop entirely. Would he simply pass, ignoring her completely? Or would he stop, asking her if she needed help?
And why do I keep thinking of the driver as he? Judith suddenly thought. It could just as easily be a woman.
Making up her mind, Judith braked the car, pulling off the road. A cloud of dust rose behind her as the tires struck the hard adobe shoulder, and then the Honda came to a stop.
The blue car zipped past her, and Judith frowned. She was positive that the man in the car—at least she was now certain it was a man—had seen her. But what had she learned by the fact that he hadn’t stopped?
Either he thought she had a problem and didn’t care, or he didn’t want her to get a good look at him.
Feeling foolish, she put the car in gear again and moved back onto the road. Ahead, barely visible, she could just make out the blue car; every few seconds it seemed to disappear into the mirage, only to reappear a moment later.
She drove another thirty minutes and then, ahead, saw a gas station by the side of the road—one of those strange lonely-looking places stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
As she approached it, she saw the blue car pull off the road, and when she passed it a few seconds later, she could see the person in the car talking to a weathered old man who apparently owned the place. But this time the man in the blue car waved to her as she passed. Suddenly she felt better. At least he’d acknowledged her presence. Surely he wouldn’t have done that if he’d been following her?
An hour later she was on the outskirts of Los Alamos. She hadn’t seen the blue car again, and the simple fact of its absence had made her begin to relax.
As the traffic thickened and she began threading her way toward the Brandt Institute, where Peter worked, she didn’t notice the beige sedan that had picked her up as she’d reached the edges of the town.
Judith pulled to a stop in front of a heavy chain-link gate. Beyond the gate there was a wide lawn, in the center of which stood a large two-story building. It was fairly new, constructed in a Spanish-Moorish style, its white plaster facade plain and unadorned, broken only by small windows covered with heavy wrought-iron gratings. It was capped by a gently sloping red tile roof, and the driveway, which cut straight across the lawn from the gates, ended abruptly at a pair of immense oaken doors, suspended from ornate iron hinges fastened to the wooden planks with large bolts. Except for that huge pair of doors, Judith couldn’t see another entrance to the building. Nor was there much around it. She’d had to drive all the way through Los Alamos to find it; it wasn’t even in the town itself. Around the high fence that surrounded the Brandt Institute, there was little to be seen except the desert itself, and Judith found the broad expanse of lawn to be faintly unsettling. It was as if whoever had designed the building and its landscaping had wished to separate it from its environment, but had instead succeeded only in making the building appear totally out of place.