B003J5UJ4U EBOK (10 page)

The worst voices seemed to rise up from the floor. In the middle of shop class on Tuesday afternoon, Lucky couldn’t take any more. Even the shriek of two lathes and a table saw couldn’t drown out the voices.

He grabbed a hammer from the wall rack, knelt above one of the spots where the voices rose, and started smashing the floor. Chips of concrete flew up in his face. He felt a slash of pain as a fragment cut his cheek, but that didn’t matter.

He kept hammering. The shop teacher shouted at him to stop. But Lucky didn’t care. The teacher was just one voice among many. Too many.

He struck harder. The concrete cracked and crumbled. Something small and green jutted out from one of the fractures. With shaking fingers, Lucky grabbed it. A toy soldier. A stupid plastic toy, no bigger than the first joint of his little finger. He dropped it in his pocket, silencing it. One less voice in the hundreds that filled his head. He kept hammering and found another soldier in the concrete. Lucky realized they were spread through the school, calling out to him from everywhere. There’d never be silence until he got them all. Why had they done this to him? Who would have buried all those soldiers?

He’d have to break up every inch of concrete in the school. It would take forever. He didn’t care. He knew he could keep hammering forever if he had to. He raised the hammer and smashed it down. Raised and smashed, again and again. There was more shouting around him. Lucky was shouting,
too. Crying out with each blow. Swearing at the voices. Swearing at the idiot who had strewn lost objects into every square yard of the school. His throat was sore from shouting. His cries became hoarse barks. Sweat spilled down his face, mixing with the blood on his cheek. The wound burned, but he didn’t care.

Someone grabbed his wrist. They tore the hammer from his hands, though he tried to hold on. He struggled to grab it back. It was the only thing that could save him. People pushed him to the floor. He screamed and fought. He kicked and thrashed. There was a sting in his arm.

And then peace.

flinch dwells on
the future

WHEN HIS SET
ended, Flinch headed to the oversized closet they called a dressing room.

“Willis?” a man standing between him and the door asked. He was wearing a very nice suit—expensive, but not flashy.

Flinch nodded, but kept his distance. He’d never had trouble after a set, no matter how badly he ripped anyone up, but he’d heard stories about comedians running into some hothead from the audience who took an insult too personally.

The man reached inside his sport coat. Flinch relaxed as he saw ahead of time that the man was only pulling out a business card.

“I’m Don Mackeson,” the guy said as Flinch took the card.

“Whoa!” Flinch knew it wasn’t cool to act surprised, but according to the card, he was face to face with a talent coordinator for “Standup After Midnight,” a late-night cable show. “You offering me an audition?”

“Nope. You just had your audition. I caught your act. Very nice. You’re a bit unpolished, in a charming sort of
way, but we like fresh talent on the show. And you have a lot of potential. We’re running a series featuring
new
faces. One of the acts had to drop out at the last minute. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.” Flinch’s head was spinning.

“Excellent. We’ll need your parents’ permission. And you’ll need a chaperone. But it’ll be a blast. We’ll send a limo. Put you up in a fine hotel. Treat you like a king. What do you say?”

“You bet.”

“Fantastic. We’re shooting this weekend at clubs in New York, Hartford, and Baltimore. You get your choice.”

New York.
That was the big time for standup comics. There and Los Angeles, of course. And Chicago for improv. But to Flinch’s surprise, he found himself asking, “Are you doing anything in Philly?”

“We’re at a club there tomorrow. But it’s kind of short notice. You ready to dive right in like that?”

“Yeah. I was born ready. Can you make it happen?”

“I can make anything happen. Pack your bags tonight. Call my office first thing tomorrow and we’ll work out the details.”

Flinch laughed as Don Mackeson walked away.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

Even now, still stunned and deep into day dreams of stardom, Flinch waited just a fraction of a second before speaking so his reply would have the perfect timing. “I never saw
that
coming.”

martin dwells on a box

“
YOU’D THINK A
couple of engineering students would be smart enough to keep their gas tank filled,” Martin muttered. He couldn’t believe the nightmare he’d been through.

They hadn’t gone more than five miles when the car ran out of gas on some side road in the middle of nowhere. Neither of the guys had remembered to charge his cell phone. After arguing for ten minutes about the best way to go, the two of them took off to look for a gas station. Martin waited. He waited some more. He didn’t have a watch, so he couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but it seemed like a couple hours. Finally, he decided to start walking.

As he walked, he couldn’t help reliving a day that was even darker. “I still can’t believe it.” It had been so horrible. And so sudden. He could remember every detail of that frozen morning in January when he’d learned the news about Trash. Of all of them, Trash had the most awesome power—the greatest potential of all. And he’d thrown it away for a joy ride. Martin had the newspaper clipping in his room. He didn’t like to look at it, but he couldn’t bear to throw it away. That was absolutely the worst day of his life. So far.

Eventually, he reached a small town. Everything was closed. The clock in front of a bank flashed the news that it was 12:14. After wandering around for another half hour, Martin decided the best place to sleep would be in a narrow alley next to a shoe store. There were a bunch of empty cardboard boxes piled in a Dumpster. Martin spread them out and drifted through the night until the sound of morning traffic woke him.

He staggered out of the alley, stiff from sleeping on collapsed boxes, wishing he could brush his teeth. He smoothed back his hair and looked around, not quite sure where he was.

Drop
dead …

“Oh yeah,” he said as yesterday’s highlight reel played through his head.

He wandered a couple blocks, and then saw a green sign with an arrow pointing to the left,
SAYERTON 8 MILES
.

Martin stared at the sign as if it were a magical relic.
Sayerton.
That was where Trash lived. He wouldn’t be there, but his parents would. Martin figured they might even let him stay overnight. Or feed him. Either way, it would break up his trip to Cheater’s house.

Maybe he could catch another ride. Even if he had to walk, it wouldn’t take that long.
Four miles an hour,
Martin thought. That was how fast people walked.

Or I can go back home.

No way. Not yet. If he came back so soon, looking like a scruffy stray cat after less than a full day on his own, he’d never hear the end of it from his dad. There was no choice. Right now, he was on a one-way road.

which covers a
thursday that makes
Wednesday seem like a day of rest

there and back again

BOWDLER WAS INJECTING
something into my arm. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. He put a tube down my throat that pumped air into my lungs and then sucked it back out. The tube kept me alive, but made me wish I was dead.

“Move the marble, Eddie.”

I woke up screaming, amazed that my paralyzed body could fling itself out of bed. As my cries echoed against the bedroom walls, I realized where I was and crawled to the window to make sure the sound of my terror hadn’t reached outside. A strange car was still parked at the curb across the street. I held my breath and waited, but the door of the black sedan remained shut.

The dream had been awful. But the worst part was that my mind hadn’t invented anything. This wasn’t a random dream. This was a memory. For one of his tests, Bowdler had injected me with something that paralyzed my muscles. My heart could still beat, but my limbs froze and my lungs didn’t work.

“Move the marble, Eddie.” His dead-dog eyes showed no emotion as he hovered over me, one hand on the tube that
was keeping me alive. Unable to blink, unable to twitch a single finger, I floated the marble for him.

I’d escaped the dream by waking up. I had no idea how I could escape the memory. Except by thinking about other, worse memories. I backed away from the curtain, sat on the floor beneath the window, and tried to figure out what to do.

Who are they?

Bowdler had a photo from the bank video. That’s the sort of thing the FBI would have. But the FBI doesn’t kidnap citizens and fake their deaths. I think I’d heard someone call him “Major,” once. The lab didn’t look like it belonged to the army. But Bowdler’s haircut, and the way he moved, made me think of a soldier. Whatever organization he belonged to, I’d probably never heard of it. Maybe nobody had heard of it.

There was only one place I’d find any answers. It was the last place I wanted to go, but I had no choice. I didn’t know where my parents were. I didn’t know who I could trust. And I was afraid it wasn’t safe to get in touch with any of my friends. I had to go back to the lab. But I’d be far from paralyzed this time. And if Bowdler crossed my path, I wouldn’t be the one who’d be helpless.

The thought of all he had done to me collided in my mind with all the things I could do to him. The fury of the images made my heart race. Nobody messes with my family.