Thunderland (16 page)

“Of course we are. We have breakfast every Fourth of July morning.”

“I wanted to make sure.”

Granddad chuckled. “Funny, I thought you only wanted to change the subject.”

Jason smiled.

“You can’t lead me off the track that easily, Jason. You’ve got this old man’s imagination running like a wild horse. I’m going to lose sleep trying to figure out what you’re doing.”

“You’ll never guess,” Jason said. “Believe me.”

Before Granddad could ask him what he meant, Jason excused himself to leave. He thanked his grandfather for breakfast and answering his questions. He hurried to depart, not only because he wanted to escape further probing by Granddad, but also because he knew exactly what he needed to do next: start research on hypnotic regression.

A pang of regret shot through Sam as he watched his grandson ride away. Sometimes he selfishly wished Jason lived with him instead of with his daughter and son-in-law. Life was as precious as ever, but since Lena’s passing, interminable loneliness had been Sam’s companion.

In the library, sitting in his favorite chair before the fireplace, Sam resumed his reading of an engaging contemporary novel entitled
The Hearts of Men,
penned by a talented young author named Travis Hunter. But after a minute of reading, he closed the book. His conversation with Jason vexed him. What was the boy hiding? Secrecy was not in Jason’s nature, and he’d asked an odd question. Sam could not imagine what Jason might be entangled in. Today’s youths lived in a troubled age, but Jason had shown an uncanny knack for steering clear of the thorns out there.

Sam decided that he would call Linda later. If something was actually amiss, she might know about it.

He picked up the Hunter novel once more ... then rested it in his lap again. Now that his mind was attuned to problems, he could not resist mulling over one of his own.

Seven years ago, a week before Lena died, he began to have a recurring dream. In
the dream, he stood in a grassy, seemingly boundless field; a silvery haze delineated the distant horizon. Lena was hundreds of yards ahead, recognizable by the yellow dress she had worn on their first date. Suddenly, struck by a premonition of danger, he ran toward her, shouting her name, warning her that something terrible was going to happen. But as if Lena stood on some invisible magic carpet, she began gliding away, moving faster than he could run, waving, waving, waving at him. Soon, exhausted as much by his despair as by his exertion, he staggered to a halt. But Lena kept drifting farther and farther away, disappearing into that silvery haze, and, he understood somehow, out of his life.

For six consecutive nights, he had that nightmare. On the morning of the seventh day, he woke to discover that Lena had died in her sleep. A heart attack.

A few days ago, he had begun to have another recurring dream.

In
this one, he was in the same vast field, and Lena was far ahead, as before. He ran after her, and she sailed toward that mysterious mist. But this time he traveled faster than she did, and he did not lose his energy. When he finally reached her, they embraced ... and vanished together in the fog.

Although he rarely drank liquor before dinner, he needed a drink. He went to the wet bar, which was tucked in the hallway between the family and living rooms. He reached for the merlot, his usual dinner wine; then he opted for Scotch whiskey instead.

Scotch in hand, he looked out the library’s big window at the clear blue sky, as though the heavens could answer the two questions that plagued him:

How was he going to die?

And when?

* * *

After leaving Granddad’s place, Jason went to see Brains. When it came to research, Brains was better than anyone Jason knew. A hopeless Internet junkie, Brains was so skilled at digging up information online that high school students paid him to do research for their papers. Jason had no doubt that Brains could get the real deal on hypnosis.

Jason told Brains what Granddad had said.

“Hypnotic regression,” Brains said, nodding. He sat in front of the computer in his family’s study. “I thought about that. As a matter of fact, after I left your house this morning, I came in here and started some research.”

“Why did I expect you to say that?” Jason smiled. Brains always amazed him.

Brains shrugged. “Still, what you found out from your granddad gives me some things to follow up on. I didn’t know all of that stuff he told you. It should help.”

“Good.” Jason pulled up a chair. “Then I guess I’ll have to be hypnotized. How long will it take you to find enough information for us to do it?”

“I don’t know, Jason. A few hours probably.”

“Any way I can help?”

“Sure, you can sit here with me and read what I stumble upon, share your thoughts, take notes, stuff like that.”

“How about Shorty?” Jason said. After leaving Jason’s house that morning, Shorty had gone home to do chores. “Should we call him over?”

Brains waved his hand. “No. Mike doesn’t have the patience for this kind of work. He hates to sit still. We’ll give him a call after we’re done.”

“Okay.”

“How about you? Do you have time? Like I said, this may take a while.”

“Yeah, I can stay. Even if I didn’t have time, I would put off everything to do this. This is the most important thing in my life right now.”

Brains looked at him. His expression was somber.

“I know,” he said.

* * *

Late in the morning, Linda was in the kitchen washing dishes when the telephone rang.

“Hello?” she said.

“Mommy?” It was a child who sounded like Jason, but different somehow. A few years younger than her son, perhaps.

“Jason?” She said out of habit. Then: “Who is this?”

“I’m lonely, Mommy. You left me here all alone.”

Linda’s eyes narrowed. This child couldn’t be Jason. The kid sounded as if he were no older than seven or eight.

“Why do you keep drinking so much, Mommy?” the boy said. “You’re mean to me when you’re drunk. You’re a fuckin’ bitch when you’re drunk!”

The phone almost fell out of Linda’s hand. Her knees buckled, and she leaned against the counter to keep from spilling to the floor.

It took her a moment to regain her voice.

“Who is this?” she said. “Is this a joke? Did someone pay you to call me and say that?”

The child laughed—high-pitched, mischievous laughter that raised the hairs on Linda’s neck.

Her hand that gripped the phone grew clammy with sweat.

“How did you get my number?” she said. “What do you want?”

“You and Daddy hate me. Daddy only cares about his stupid restaurant, and you only care about getting drunk. I hope both of you rot forever.”

Such virulence sounded weird coming from a child, but it was no less disturbing. Linda could not help thinking: this kid, whoever the hell he is, is reading my mind. He knows about my drinking, knows about every mean thing I used to do to Jason, knows the entire history of our screwed-up family.

But how could anyone, other than Jason, know such private details about their lives? When she’d been drinking, she hid it from everyone, including Thomas. Only Jason had known, and he certainly wouldn’t have told some foulmouthed kid who seemed to believe that she was his mother.

The lack of any rational explanation reinforced her intuitive feeling that there was something very wrong—and very strange about this phone call.

“I only want you to play with me, Mommy. Put down the bottle and play with me, you bitch!”

The child burst into another round of giggles.

Chilled, her hand shaking, Linda slammed down the phone.

She hugged herself. Her heart whammed.
Jesus.

Although she could not shake her sense that something inexplicable had happened, she was a woman of reason and sought a rational explanation. The only sensible answer was that someone had put the kid up to playing a cruel joke. Jason was the only one who possessed the family knowledge to engineer such a thing, and though he was bitter about how she’d treated him in the past, he was not a vengeful kid. She could not believe that he was responsible.

Then what was the answer?

The phone rang again. Linda hesitated, then picked it up. “I’m in the backyard, Mommy,” the child said. ‘Will you come outside and play with me?”

“Listen, kid, I don’t know who asked you to do this, but it’s wrong. It’s bad. You don’t call strangers and talk like this—”

“Come outside, please, please, please?” Linda hung up. Cold sweat covered her forehead, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

The phone rang. She did not pick it up. After
about the tenth ring, the telephone lapsed into silence.

She leaned against the counter and sighed.

Right then, a sip of Jack Daniel’s would have hit the spot.

Immediately, she banished the thought. She hadn’t had a drink in months, and she had been doing fine. She didn’t need a drink to handle stress. That was the old, I-feel-sorry-for-myself Linda’s way of coping. The new Linda dealt with problems by confronting them head-on, although she’d be damned if she knew how she could confront a strange kid who reminded her of Damien from
The Omen.

I’m in the backyard, Mommy. Will you come outside and play with me?

The window above the kitchen sink overlooked the backyard. The drapes were pulled across the glass.

He’s not really outside,
she thought. He was only taunting her, speaking nonsense.

Nevertheless, she parted the drapes and looked outdoors. It was a bright summer morning, seemingly void of malevolence. There was no one on the wooden deck. No one running across the lawn. She looked at the towering oak tree, which Jason had loved to climb when he was younger, and stopped.

A small, childlike figure sat high up in the leafy boughs.

She blinked, thinking she was fooled by shadows and the shapes formed by the leaves. The figure was still there, perhaps forty feet above the ground, perched like a monkey on the branches. She was too far away to make out any details.

Illusion,
she thought.
My eyes are playing tricks on me.

Then the figure shifted, rose.

Come outside and play with me, Mommy.

She heard the request clearly, as if the kid had whispered into her ear. She spun around, convinced that someone was in the kitchen. But she was alone. She turned back to the window.

Something floated from the shadowy tree boughs where the figure resided. It was a bright-yellow ball the size of a basketball. Never touching the ground, it sailed across the yard toward the house—not with speed but slowly, like a balloon drifting on air currents. It floated across the deck railing and then dropped to the deck floor, bounced a couple of times, and then lay still.

Linda gripped the edge of the counter. Her knuckles were bone white.

Let’s play, Mommy,
the voice said.
Let’s play catch. Come outside.
Linda snatched the drapes across the window. She backpedaled across the kitchen.