The Klaatu Terminus (20 page)

R
ED
G
RAUBER’S VAN WAS LOADED WITH CASES OF BEER
. Kosh supposed he should have unloaded it for Red back at the bar, but he could do that later. First things first, and Ronnie Becker was at the top of his list, for more reasons than one. As he drove toward the Becker place, Kosh tried to level and organize his anger, and it kept coming back to Ronnie. If not for Ronnie, things might have gone differently at the park. Lia wouldn’t have been forced to enter the disko. Tucker wouldn’t have had to follow her. They could have dealt with the Lambs then and there, and he would not have been shot in the chest a few weeks later, and they would not have taken Emma.

Kosh was dimly aware that his logic was not flawless. He could as easily blame himself for allowing Ronnie to hit him with the stun baton, for not going after Tucker when he’d entered the disko above his parents’ house, for putting up the weathervane on his barn — leading to his own first trip through the diskos — for causing the rift with Adrian that had made him leave Hopewell all those years ago. The cycle of blame never ended. He could blame Adrian; he could blame his father for dying too young; he could blame Emily Ryan for ever having been born. But at the moment, he was consumed with blaming Ronnie Becker, because that was who was available.

As he approached the Becker farm, he mentally rehearsed what had to happen. First, he had to convince Ronnie to tell him about the Lambs. That was the important thing. Once he found out where Emma had been taken,
then
they could talk about other things. Like how it felt to have a shock baton stuck in your gut.

Kosh hadn’t been to the Becker place in fifteen years, and he almost missed the turnoff. He hit the brakes at the last second and skidded into the driveway. He heard glass breaking and the wet hiss of foaming beer — one of the cases in back had tipped over. He didn’t care.

The place looked different. The cedar trees flanking the driveway had tripled in size, there was a new silo, and the house had been painted a creamy yellow. As he entered the farmyard, he spotted Ronnie twenty feet up a ladder rolling red paint on the side of the barn. He parked next to Ronnie’s pickup and walked over to the base of the ladder, resisting the temptation to kick it out from under him.
Stay cool
, he told himself.

Ronnie looked down. “Kosh Feye.” He grinned. “I hoped I’d see you again.” He balanced his roller on the paint can and climbed down, jumping to the ground from the third step up. Both his legs seemed to be working fine. “How are you doing, bro?” Ronnie held up his hand for a high five.

Kosh hit him as hard as he could in the face.

So much for staying cool
, Kosh thought.

Ronnie was sitting with his back against the barn, holding a paint rag to his bleeding nose. He’d been unconscious for only a few seconds.

I must be losing my touch
, Kosh thought.

So far, neither of them had said a word. Ronnie watched warily as Kosh clenched and unclenched his fist, trying to get some feeling back into it, studying the split skin on his knuckles. Why had he ever thought it would make him feel good to hit somebody? It never did. Well, maybe a little. He hoped he hadn’t busted his hand.

“I bid id arder,” Ronnie said, his voice distorted by the rag pressed to his nose.

Kosh just looked at him. Ronnie took the cloth away from his face.

“I said, I been hit harder.” He wiped at the runnel of blood still coming from one nostril, looked at the red paint- and blood-soaked rag, and added, “But it’s been a while.”

“Just wait,” said Kosh.

Ronnie said, “Listen, I know you got cause to be upset.”

Upset?
Kosh didn’t trust himself to reply. Did Ronnie not remember the last time they’d seen each other?

“You want to hit me again? Go ahead. Have at it.” His lower face was streaked with red. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

Kosh could feel the rage draining out of him. How could he hit a guy who would just sit there and take it?

“How’s that leg?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Check it out.” Ronnie leaned forward and pulled up the left leg of his jeans. From the knee down it was metal and plastic. “Works better than the old one.”

“Let me guess. You were in a high-tech hospital in the future.”

“You know about that? Yeah! Changed my life. They fixed me up and sent me back. Did something to me so I don’t want to get high no more, too. Cost me a kidney, though.”

“So now you’re like a teetotaling bionic jerkwad?”

Ronnie laughed. “Same old Kosh. Listen, I made some bad decisions. You know how it is.”

Kosh thought of all the times Ronnie had talked him into doing something stupid.

“Yeah, I do. Sort of your specialty.”

“Anyways, I’m sorry. I’m done with all that. I’m a new man.”

“Right.”

“Seriously. I’m done with the Lambs. I don’t know how I ever got involved with them. I think about it now, it’s like a nightmare.”

Kosh wanted to not believe him, but Ronnie really did seem different.

“Do you know where they are?”

Ronnie cocked his head. “The Lambs? Why?”

Maybe not so different — still looking for the angle.

“I got business with them,” Kosh said.

Ronnie thought for a moment, then said, “If I was you, I wouldn’t mess with those guys.” His eyes went to Kosh’s fists, and he reconsidered. “Tamm showed up here a week ago, trying to convince me to join up again. I told him to take a hike. They’re off in Wisconsin someplace, living in some big old barn. If I wanted to live in a barn, I’d live in this one.”

“Wisconsin’s a big state,” Kosh said.

Ronnie dabbed at his nose. “Tamm said it was off Highway 88, on something-or-other Hill Road.”

Kosh felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

“
Blank
Hill Road?”

“That sounds right,” Ronnie said.

Several years ago, Kosh had sewn a hundred-dollar bill into the lining of his jacket for emergencies. He tore the stitches loose and used the bill to pay for a tank of gas and a burrito in Winona. He stopped at a sporting goods store and bought a pair of cheap binoculars, then headed across the river to Wisconsin with Arnold Becker’s double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun balanced on the console beside him. He ate the burrito as he drove, chewing and swallowing mechanically.

Kind of sad
, he thought,
if my last meal is a microwaved gas station burrito
.

He drove up Highway 88 toward Blank Hill Road. He had driven that route hundreds of times, but now everything looked eerily unfamiliar, as if reality had slipped a cog. All the colors were too bright, the edges of things too sharp and focused. Was everything more vivid because he was seeing it for the last time? Would Emily be proud of him?

Not Emily,
Emma
! He was getting them mixed up in his head. “Emma is not Emily,” he said aloud. He thought back to the last time he had seen Emily — the real Emily — and felt his gut begin to churn. It wasn’t the burrito. He’d been, what — seventeen? And Emily had been only a couple of years older. Too young to have their hearts ripped out and stomped on. But that was what had happened.

H
OPEWELL, 1997 CE

“K
OSH?
” I
T WAS EMILY, HER VOICE SHAKING
.

“Yeah?” Kosh gripped the phone, sensing that something was horribly wrong.

“It’s Greta. She’s — I think she’s having a heart attack. Oh my god, her face is all red!”

“Did you call an ambulance?”

“Yes!”

“Is she breathing?”

“I think so, yes. Dad’s with her.”

“Do you know CPR?”

“I don’t know. I think so. Oh, please, Kosh, can you come?”

Kosh was already pulling his boots on. Seconds later, he was on his bike. He kicked the starter a dozen times. Nothing. In a fury, he jumped off and kicked the bike, denting the gas tank and knocking the bike onto its side. With a roar of frustration at the unjust universe, he went back inside for the keys to Adrian’s Mustang.

The ambulance was there when he arrived. Greta was on a gurney in the kitchen. The paramedics were putting an IV line in her arm. She looked scared. Hamm was hovering over them, ignoring the paramedics’ pleas to give them room to work. Emily stood with her back to the stove, white-faced, gripping the oven door handle with both hands. Kosh put his arm around her shoulders.

“We were just sitting down to eat,” she said, her voice small. “She just crumpled up.”

“She’ll be okay,” Kosh said, hoping it was true.

“I know,” Emily said, though she clearly didn’t believe it.

Hamm rode to the hospital with Greta in the ambulance; Kosh and Emily followed in Adrian’s car.

“She said she wasn’t feeling good,” Emily said. “This morning she was complaining about twinges in her chest. I just thought it was being old. She and Hamm are always saying how creaky they are. I should’ve listened.”

“It’ll be okay,” Kosh said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

Emily fell silent, sitting hunched forward, her red-rimmed eyes fastened on the back of the ambulance. Kosh kept the car dead center in his lane, arms stiff on the wheel, concentrating on driving perfectly. He had never driven Adrian’s Mustang before. It wasn’t as nice as he had thought — just a clunky econobox with some fancy details. The ambulance was traveling at a sedate sixty miles per hour, with no siren. That was a good sign. If Greta had been dying, they’d be going faster. He opened his mouth to share this thought with Emily, then thought better of it. He glanced at Emily and cleared his throat.

“About another ten minutes,” he said.

Emily nodded. Her face was drawn and brittle. Even so, she was as beautiful as ever.

They were at the hospital all night. Hamm would not leave Greta’s side. After the first hour, when the doctor assured them that Greta would live and that it was a minor cardiac event — something called angina — Kosh and Emily went to the hospital cafeteria for coffee and a bite to eat. They talked about little things. Neither of them brought up that Kosh had been avoiding her. Later, they brought Hamm a turkey sandwich, then went to the hospital lobby and sat on a sofa and pretended to read magazines. Sometime around midnight, Kosh noticed that Emily’s
People
magazine had fallen to her lap. Her eyes were closed. He put his arm around her and cradled her head on his shoulder, and for several hours they did not move.

When Kosh woke up, his arm was dead. He gently pulled himself free and replaced his arm with one of the sofa pillows. Massaging his arm, he went down the hall to Greta’s room. Hamm was slumped in the visitor’s chair, head back, snoring. Greta was snoring too, though not as loudly.

Kosh went back to the lobby. Emily’s eyes fluttered open. She saw him approaching and she smiled. An instant later, she realized where she was, and why, and sat up.

“Greta’s fine,” Kosh said quickly.

Emily relaxed slightly.

“They’re both in there snoring to each other.”

Emily laughed. The sound of it echoed through his bones.

By the end of her second day in the hospital, Greta Ryan declared herself “fit as a fang-dang fiddle” and convinced the doctors to send her home, much to the relief of her harried and abused nurses. Kosh was surprised and amused to see Greta, the sweetest, gentlest woman one could ever hope to meet, become a hospital-bed harridan. As they walked her out to the car, Greta looked over her shoulder with contempt and said, “Those girls don’t know which side their bed is buttered on!”

Kosh, worried that Greta was having a stroke, looked at Emily.

Emily said, “You’re always saying that. You don’t butter bed.”

“Somebody should tell
them
that,” Greta snapped.

It was getting dark by the time they got back to the house. Greta ignored the doctor’s prescription for bed rest and immediately set about cleaning the kitchen. Emily had cleaned it that morning, but apparently not to Greta’s exacting standards. Kosh and Emily tried to help, but she shooed them off. Hamm, exhausted by his two-day vigil, put up a feeble protest, but she sent him away as well.

Kosh and Emily went outside and stood awkwardly on the front porch. Moths and other night insects flitted around the dim yellow porch light. A light, cool breeze came out of the west, bringing with it end-of-summer smells and the promise of fall.

“I guess I should get going,” Kosh said. “I got a busted bike and a pickup to fix.”

“Kosh . . .” Emily was staring at something behind him. Kosh whirled. For an instant, he thought he saw a small cloud, about the size of a person, hovering off the end of the porch. But when he looked at it directly it seemed to be no more than a wisp of condensation, or a cloud of gnats. Kosh blinked, and it was gone.

“Did you see it?” Emily said in a small voice.

“I’m not . . . sure,” Kosh said. The skin on his forearms prickled, and he became aware of his heartbeat. “I saw something.”

Emily breathed out shakily. “I’ve been seeing more of them,” she said.

Ghosts
. She was talking about her ghosts.