The Orphan (17 page)

Adam realized he was going in circles, closing in on his destination as if drawn by long-buried memory, preternatural instinct, or a higher power guiding him on a mission whose purpose could not be revealed until he had passed the ultimate test.

Namely, survival.

He had been riding all night and all morning, afraid to stop moving or close his eyes until daylight returned. He had napped under some trees at a corporate office park on the east side of Boulder for a few hours after dawn, until a security guard roused him and told him to move on. After that, he was so tired he didn’t know which direction he was going, and he fell into a mindless dozing on the bike, pedaling robotically as he stared at the ground unspooling before his front tire.

He revived to find himself coasting downhill, along a winding road that bent its way around a middle school, through side streets protected by mature trees, until he emerged on the back side of a large white building with a broad, wood-shingled crown that made him think of what his memory knew to be a Pizza Hut, though this was much too large for any restaurant. From the parking lot he could make out a high-dive and broad concrete patio on the other side of a chain-link fence, the prospect of a swimming pool and the concession stands tantalizing him on another hot day.

But when he rode up for a closer look, he saw that the pool was empty, its pale green walls stained brown, with a ruined tarp sagging down inside the deep end. There were no chairs or umbrellas, and if there had ever been a snack bar, it had been closed for a long time. Curious to know what this place was – it tickled at his memory like so many other places he had passed – he rode around the building’s irregular parking lot until he reached the front side.

There wasn’t a sign on the building, but near the main entrance was an old wooden sign with metallic gold letters that said
ELKS
B
.
P
.
O
.
E
.!
Adam couldn’t remember what B.P.OE. stood for, but he knew this was an Elks’ clubhouse. Come to think of it, he didn’t know what the Elks were either, but the name called to mind visions of old people in a bingo parlor, costume balls with lots of men in funny hats drinking cocktails and dancing to old show tunes, and vast picnics with softball games, the swimming pool, a pig roast. Associations he couldn’t possibly be making right now if he had not attended some of these events with parents, grandparents, or another family.

Burkett.
 

The name just came to him, clicking in his memory the way it sounded, like something low, broken.

Adam Burkett. I am Adam Burkett. I had a family and our family name was Burkett. We went to guest day at the Elks’ once, many summers ago, and I had fun swimming with the other kids from school. Tommy and Ryan and Darren were there, because they were some of the B.P.O.E.s.
 

‘Best People On Earth,’ he said to himself, turning to stare once more at the pool beyond the fence.

But he couldn’t picture the boys named Tommy and Ryan and Darren. He couldn’t picture his own mother and father’s face, his siblings, if he had any. Only their names floated in his mind, tethered to the sense of wrongdoing.

Best People On Earth. Somehow it didn’t feel that way. Staring at the mossy tarp and the empty pool, Adam began to feel sick. He found it difficult to breathe. He saw himself splashing into the deep end, the other boys calling to him,
Come on, come over here! What’s a matter? Don’t you know how to swim? Three of them, treading water around him, splashing him, throwing water in his face. And he kept turning in circles, trying to keep an eye on each one, but he was getting tired. He didn’t know how to swim very well, and they kept dunking him, filling his mouth with water, making it hard to breathe. And then one of them, the strongest one, was leaping onto his shoulders, shoving him down, and he was choking, their legs thrashing around him, the sunlight fragmented, their voices dulled, and he started to cry and choke, swallowing more water, and he knew they were trying to drown him, he was drowning
…
and then a lifeguard whistle. Choking for air, being dragged from the pool. The boys hated him after that. Because he cried. Because he scared the other parents. Because he caused a scene at the Elks’ Club.

Adam shuddered and turned away from the pool.

Leaving the Elks’ Club parking lot, he crossed 28th Street, riding into another familiar housing development. The houses and townhomes were neither new nor old, but average, clean, in shades of tan and pink and blue. The sign at the entrance said Palo Park. Reading it, Adam’s arms went loose, his right foot slipped off the pedal, and he forgot how to operate the handbrake. Staring at the sign as if it were coming alive, morphing into a three-headed dragon, he was jolted when his front wheel hit the curb and he toppled into the narrow strip of grass between street and sidewalk.

Palo Park. Palo Park. Palo Park.
 

The name flashed like a red emergency sign in his mind. He’d been here. Something bad had happened. Something that changed everything. It was right there, on the tip of his tongue, or the cliff of his memory. He saw bicycles, kids riding…

The dirt park! This is where he used to ride, when he had his own bike.

Behind him, a block away, an engine revved. He didn’t think much of it until it revved again, harder, and then several cars honked. Adam looked back, to 28th Street, where he had just crossed.

The big brown Ford truck, with its camper shell sitting atop it like a rotted tooth, was swerving through traffic on 28th, leaving the forked entrance to the Elks’ Club.

Coming for him.

‘Oh shit.’

Adam jumped on the bike and cranked up to speed. The bike swayed as he pumped furiously, and he quickly realized as long as he was in the street, they would have a clear path to plow him over.

He swerved right and hopped the curb, onto the sidewalk. He took the first right turn, hoping the street would not dead-end anytime soon. He needed to stick to the sidewalks, slipping between houses where the truck could not follow. Or, better yet, find the dirt park, if it still existed, where he could lose them on the rough terrain. The Ford was off-road capable, but with that camper shell on the back, there was no way it would be able to keep up with him through the smaller trails, down the steepest hills and between the trees.

The truck’s big V-8 engine roared as it closed in.

Parked cars flashed by on either side of him, a newspaper machine, a fire hydrant. He hooked left onto another street, eyes scanning ahead for loose gravel, puddles, potholes – anything that might cause his tires to slip, wiping him out just before the Ford smeared his carcass into the road.

Damn it, where was the dirt park?

Just before the lane ended, another street opened to his right. He shook the bike left to fake out the truck, then darted right, pedaling through the sharp turn.

The truck tires squealed, swerving to stay on his tail.

Adam looked back over his shoulder. The truck was less than a hundred feet behind him but the windshield was a flat gray shadow, revealing nothing of the driver or passengers. It seemed inhuman, a machine come to life, a rolling box of death.

Adam followed the sidewalks, weaving between parked cars, hoping to make the truck crash, but it didn’t. When he reached the next turn, he found himself in a long curving cul-de-sac. Mistake. He would be trapped, unless he took to the yards.

The truck was pacing him from the street, coming up on his left side. It swerved closer, its front fender close enough for him to reach out and touch.

Adam looked to the passenger window and behind the dirty tinted glass he saw faces. For just a moment, two old waxen faces like the ones in the magazine, in his nightmares, the driver’s leaning forward, the passenger’s nearly pressed to the glass.

Their mouths were open, their black eyes wide.

Adam yelped and swerved away, focusing on the ground ahead. He estimated the length of the sidewalk curving around the edge of the cul-de-sac, and his speed versus the truck’s. Only two choices, then. He could pull the brakes, screech to a halt, turn around and try to outrun them the way he had come in. Or he could follow the sidewalk all the way around, hoping to maintain enough speed to sweep around the front of the truck before it reached the end. Of course, if he timed it wrong, the truck would broadside him at the top of the circle, killing him instantly.

His fingers extended from the grip, hovering over the brake lever.

The truck downshifted, its driver seeing his predicament.

Adam ignored the brake and crouched, heading into the turn, pedaling as fast as his legs would allow.

The Ford shifted again, swerving to head him off.

He was rounding its right flank, then directly ahead of it. If he looked up now, he would crash. The turn was too sharp and he was moving too fast to do anything but lean in and pray the bike’s tires did not lose their grip on the sidewalk.

The truck tires screeched loudly.

Adam passed the top of the circle, coming around the other side, all but heading toward the truck as it slid sideways in the cul-de-sac.

The engine roared, the truck lurched after him, aiming for his inside flank, and the houses on the outside ring.

Adam tucked, leaned closer to the ground, and his inside pedal snagged on the sidewalk, jogging the entire rear end of the bike out from under him. For a moment the bike was hovering, then the tires caught, biting into concrete at the grass’s edge with a second jolt that threw him like a bucking horse. He almost flipped to his outside, then swerved, nearly lost control of the bike, but saved it. His speed dropped severely but he managed to hold on.

The truck’s banged-up chrome grill filled his left field of vision, close enough for him to feel the warmth of the engine and catch the scent of radiator steam.

Adam yanked the bars and pedaled for his life.

His front end rose in a surge.

Less than a second later, a massive gust of air whistled behind him as the truck jumped the sidewalk, missed his back tire by inches, and slammed into a car parked in a driveway. A gigantic crash of metal sent beads of glass into the air like a swarm of bees. Adam caught the sting of glass fragments along his bare left arm and the back of his neck, but he was clear.

He looked back in time to see the Ford’s grill mangled and stuck to the smaller car, which was now pitched halfway into the garage door. Steam billowed from under the Ford’s tented hood, but the truck was already grinding its gears, lurching back and forth as the driver attempted to free it from the smashed compact.

Adam pedaled out the way he had come in, seizing the opportunity to build a small lead, knowing it wouldn’t last more than a few minutes.

After Beth and Raya left, Darren had taken a hot shower and let the water work on his sore muscles. He tried to get dressed, but found himself closing his eyes for long intervals even while pulling on his socks. He gave up and reclined on the bed, drifting, trying to recall where he had gone last night. The only thing that came to him was the dream-vision at Palo Park, but he had no memory of traveling there by means of sleepwalking or sleep-riding, if that’s what he had done.

It was like a light switch. One minute he was in bed with Beth. The next he was there, in the past, remembering or seeing through Adam, and he wondered if he was in some way possessed by the kid. Then the switch flipped the other way and he woke up in the shop, Beth crouching beside him, scared out of her mind.

He was so tired now, and had been for days. His skinned knees and other cuts still felt raw from the shower, but he fell asleep anyway.

When he woke up, only an hour or two had passed, and he knew what he was supposed to do. Last night’s vision had shown him, hadn’t it? Wasn’t that the point? His memory was trying to show him where the answers lay.

He needed to return to the scene of Adam’s tragedy, to Palo Park.

Darren had not bothered to visit the old dirt park since returning to Boulder nine months ago. Driving there now, he wondered if he had been subconsciously avoiding the site of so many memories. Memories that, until last night, seemed to be nothing but good, but which he now knew were laced with poison.

He considered taking the Firebird, but the engine could be fussy and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d put in the fuel additive needed to keep it from running too hot, so he opted for the Acura instead. He eased down Linden and turned right on Folsom, then took another left on the short section of Kalmia, which popped him out minutes later at 28th Street, at the corner of what had once been his dirt park.

Not even half a mile. More like six or eight blocks. He shouldn’t have been surprised it was so close, but in his mind it had seemed much farther, probably because he had always ventured here as a kid on his bike, not by car. Most of Boulder was like that for him, the neighborhoods and quaint streets that stretched on and on back in the day now seemed shrunken down to 1/4 scale, as if he had become a giant rather than simply grown up.

The dirt park was gone.

In its place stood a uniformly ugly complex of attached abodes. Townhomes or condos, plus one section that looked to be an assisted living ‘resort’.

Darren waited for traffic on 28th to clear, then stomped the gas pedal. The Acura shot over four lanes and onto the last section of Kalmia and he felt a deep stab of longing as he neared their old spot. He could almost see the narrow path through the trees and the naturally formed, almost vertical dirt ramp he had ridden hundreds of times, now obliterated by a flat patch of perfectly manicured grass, a clean sidewalk, and a ridiculously cramped parking lot for the tenants who lived there.

He slowed, distracted by the cruel hands of time and real estate. All this progress. Development. Goodbye to the wilderness and wildness of youth.

Darren couldn’t help thinking it was the perfect symbol of the broader evolution his home town had undergone. Instead of valuing a stretch of wild terrain no one could claim as their own – where boys and girls could frolic free of parental supervision, where they could laugh and test themselves and fall down and bleed and get back up and ride away stronger, in a small corner of the town with no real designated bike tracks, no entry fees or lifeguards, in this place where kids could be kids and play, get some natural exercise without ever feeling like they were exercising – the town had allowed another developer to turn their magic kingdom into a generic cluster of turd-brown apartments surrounded by more chemically fed, water supply-draining, inoffensive lawn. Darren was disgusted by it.