Vortex (6 page)

In the bathroom, Gavin scrubbed himself dry with the thick cotton towel that had been waiting for him. He knew Karen would be in bed when he got out there. Theyd slept together before while on the job for Burgess, and he’d had to remind himself that their relationship was professional. If he tried to make it anything more than that, Karen might be willing, but where would that lead? He didn’t like to think about that. No matter how appealing the idea was at first glance, thoughts of taking it any deeper immediately stirred up memories of Jan, memories that reminded him that any relationship would require trust, and that trust created extreme vulnerability. He didn’t think he ever wanted to be that vulnerable again.

He finished drying off, put on a T-shirt and shorts and went into the bedroom. He left the bathroom light on, though. After the things they’d experienced while working for Burgess, neither Gavin nor Karen slept without a light on anymore.

He set his alarm clock then got into bed carefully, hoping not to wake Karen. She lay on her right side, facing him. As he was pulling the covers up over him, she stirred and opened her eyes, then smiled.

“Can I take this bed home with me?” she said sleepily.

He returned her smile and said, “I’ve set the alarm for six. Goodnight.”

“Mm,” she said, barely above a whisper, before settling back into sleep.

Gavin watched her for a while in the dim glow from the bathroom. Then he rolled over with a sigh and tried to sleep.

A
nother sleepless night.

Gertie lay in bed for a while wondering if, as usual, she simply couldn’t sleep, or if she were being kept awake by her curiosity about what was going on in the shed outside. She considered reading, but couldn’t decide what to read. She was in the middle of a book about Thomas Jefferson that was interesting, but kind of dry. That might help her get sleepy. But she
really
wanted to get back to the new Dean Koontz thriller she was reading, which would only keep her awake. She was between crocheting projects and didn’t feel like starting a new one, and she was getting bored with jigsaw puzzles.

She heard a vehicle drive up outside. The engine was turned off and a moment later, a door opened, then another.

She got out of bed in her flannel nightgown and walked through the dark to the desk and sat down. There were blue curtains over the window and she pulled the cord to open them slightly so she could see outside.

A light rain gave the night a misty quality and the lights around the shed cast long black shadows as a tall figure led a small child into the building. Gertie felt herself getting tense. It happened every time she saw a child being brought to the shed. She’d tried to ignore her growing alarm, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. What possible reason could there be for children to be involved in what Mr. Ryker had called “intensive research.”

“We are a team of privately funded paranormal researchers,” he’d said to them the first time he’d come to the house. “What you’ve found is very significant and we have the resources to give it the attention it deserves. We can set up a lab right here on your property with all the equipment we need to examine and study this creature. No harm will be brought to him—we would be absolutely opposed to that. But this could be the very thing we need for this field of study to be taken seriously. We would be more than happy to compensate you for the use of your property and we would not intrude on your lives in any way. But we think it’s important to do the research right here because we feel the creature’s proximity to the mountain may be important. We believe he is the first solid evidence we have that the lore about this mountain is authentic and we don’t want to take him away from it. All we would ask is that you be discrete and keep our presence and our work here to yourselves. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves until we have information we can use.” Gertie’s father had been very enthusiastic, of course, and was eager to go along with Ryker if it meant learning more about the childlike creature she had discovered eating one of their goats. As far as he was concerned, it was his destiny to deliver the secret of the mountain to the world.

But Gertie’s initial suspicion had become concern as soon as she’d seen the adolescent girl brought to the shed. It had become fear when she saw the small children. It stirred up too many memories, none of them good.

Gertie pushed her chair away from the desk and stood, then began to pace the length of her bedroom, casting her gaze at the gap in the curtains now and then.

As a girl, Gertie had found school difficult. Her teacher claimed she was withdrawn and refused to participate, implying that she was antisocial. Her parents were confused by her behavior. Gertie never told them the reason she froze up at school. She was fat and ugly and the other students never let her forget it. She was the object of ridicule and bullying on the playground. She had never felt close enough to her parents to tell them about it. She knew they had great expectations for her and she was afraid if she told them how she was treated at school, they would be disappointed. Rather than let them down, she blamed herself and said she simply couldn’t concentrate. Convinced she could benefit from the focused attention of a teacher at home, her parents had taken her out of school and hired a tutor.

Mr. Fielding had been a plump and pleasant middle-aged man from nearby Weed, rosy-cheeked, with a contagious laugh, always smiling, very attentive and encouraging. At first, Gertie’s lessons had gone well. She began to do better on tests and actually enjoyed learning. She came to trust Mr. Fielding and look forward to her lessons with him. That was when Mr. Fielding began taking her on long walks into the woods at the edge of the Mahler property. He called them biology field trips, but for Gertie they were nightmarish ordeals. His smile never went away as his hands moved over her, as he removed her clothes, as he sucked and slobbered on her and forced himself inside her. He even kept smiling when he told her repeatedly that if she shared their secret with anyone, he would butcher her parents like pigs and make her watch.

It went on for more than two years. Gertie began to have trouble sleeping and her health was affected. She became depressed, although she didn’t recognize it as depression at the time. Neither did her parents. She gained more weight. Her parents accused her of being lazy and gave her more chores around the ranch because they said she needed exercise. She tried to tell Mama the truth about Mr. Fielding once but didn’t know how to articulate it. When she tried, she stuttered and stammered and Mama thought she was complaining about having to do schoolwork. “You mustn’t be weak when it comes to your studies, Gertrude,” Mama said, putting her hands on Gertie’s round, fleshy shoulders. “You must work hard so you can achieve later in life. Hard work builds character. Mr. Fielding is your friend and you must do as he says!”

Gertie endured the abuse for another year, becoming more withdrawn, sleeping less, eating more. Then one day, Mr. Fielding did not arrive to begin her lessons. After an hour passed, Mama called his home. Mr. Fielding lived with and cared for his elderly mother, who said he had left that morning to go to the Mahler’s house. Two more hours passed and Mr. Fielding still did not arrive, so Papa got in the pickup truck and went looking for him. Mr. Fielding had been killed in a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler that had a blowout.

Mama and Papa had insisted on attending the funeral. Mama had cooked a few dishes for Mrs. Fielding and delivered them to her house. Mama hugged the old woman and told her what a good man her son had been, what a great friend he had been to their troubled daughter. As Gertie stood there and listened to Mama, her fingernails pierced the flesh of her palms as she clenched her hands into angry fists. Then Mama had told her to hug Mrs. Fielding and tell her how grateful she was to have known Mr. Fielding.

Gertie said something, although she wasn’t sure what—she wasn’t sure then and still wasn’t. A new tutor was hired. A woman named Miss Branczeck. But every morning, Gertie woke with the dread of having to face Mr. Fielding again. She thought that would pass after a while, but it never did. She still woke with that feeling now at the age of 53.

Every time she looked out her bedroom window at night and saw an adult leading a child into that white building, Gertie felt a sickening wave of fear. There was no visible sign that children were being abused in any way, but still—it didn’t look right and it made Gertie tense and queasy.

And now another child was being led into the shed.

Gertie stopped pacing, stood at the desk and stared out the window. After about 30 seconds, she realized her hands were trembling.

Don’t think about it, just do it
, she thought.
Just do it.

She swept her nightgown up over her head and tossed it onto the bed as she hurried to her closet. She put on a flannel shirt, overalls and a pair of work boots. She took from the closet a long black wool coat so voluminous that it swallowed up even her large frame. On her way out of the bedroom, she bent down and reached for the Mag-Lite she kept standing on the floor beside the door. Then she stopped and thought,
What am I doing? That’s the last thing I want.
She left the flashlight where it stood.

After quietly leaving her bedroom, Gertie went through the laundry room and crept out the back door, crossed the covered porch behind the house and went outside.

P
enelope Jarvis thought about how much she hated her name while, in the back of her mind, she went over her escape plan. That was why she went by Penny, because she hated Penelope so much—although Penny wasn’t a whole lot better. She would much rather have a name like Desiree... or Miranda... or Natasha. Just about anything was better than Penelope. Well... almost anything. Certainly not Gertrude. The name Gertrude had been floating through her head lately. She was supposed to tell her handlers about everything that popped into her head but she hadn’t mentioned that. Handlers always wanted to know what was in her head, but she never gave them everything. Some things she kept to herself. She had so little that was hers and hers alone. It seemed only fair that some of her thoughts, at the very least, remain private.

Worse than her name was her
... thing.
That’s how she’d always thought of it—her
thing
—because it was too awful to give it a respectable name, and if she called it what she
wanted
to call it, people would get upset. It had brought nothing good into her life.

Penny had memories of her early childhood, but they were foggy and dreamlike. She remembered living on a military base. Lots of people in uniform, including her father, who she remembered being enormous. When her
thing
started showing itself, her parents became very concerned because at first, they thought it was some kind of illness. Once doctors eliminated that possibility, their worry was replaced with fear. Then the questions began. And the tests, right there on the base, one after another, while grave-faced uniformed men looked on behind glass partitions and men and women in white coats intensely watched monitors and made notes.

And then Mom and Dad were killed in a car accident and her entire world changed. After that, a man in uniform—a man her dad always called “Sir”—named Lieutenant Colonel Trask, told her that he was going to make sure she was well taken care of by good people.

After that, she was flown to a place in the mountains, an enormous castle. It looked like a castle, anyway. She learned the castle was actually a boarding school called Aquino Academy. A woman named Miss Bixby took care of her. Later, she learned that Miss Bixby was what was known as her “handler.” Miss Bixby kept her busy, showed her affection, made her feel loved. Penny was afraid she would not fit in with the other children, but she soon learned that her
thing
did not make her unusual at Aquino Academy. Everyone there had a
thing.
Some could hear thoughts and others knew about things that hadn’t happened yet; some could start fires and others move objects. She made friends and grew comfortable with her surroundings, and before long, Aquino Academy felt like home. But it wasn’t all good. She soon learned there was a dark side to Aquino. It was located in the cellar—she thought of it as the
dungeon
—where everyone went eventually. The dungeon was where they learned who was boss and what would happen if they did not do as they were told.

After she turned eight, she began receiving assignments. She didn’t know they were assignments at the time. Miss Bixby called them “adventures.” She and Miss Bixby were driven off the academy grounds, through the huge wrought iron gate with the two giant horn-like “A”s over the top, sometimes flew on a plane someplace. They were always accompanied by someone important looking who didn’t talk much. When they got to their destination—sometimes a city, sometimes a small town—they went to a hotel, and then to the assignment. It was always the same. It was usually a small room in some unmarked building. Someone was seated in a chair, usually tied to it, and Penny was told, “We would like you to tell us what this person is thinking.” Sometimes she was told to look for something specific. Sometimes the person in the chair was bruised up, sometimes bloody. The assignment was never difficult. It was the easiest thing in the world for Penny to tell them what the person was thinking. The hard part was what she found when she slipped into the person’s head—usually abject terror, utter hopelessness and the certainty of death.

Early on, Penny had come to understand that it was rude to slip into peoples heads. It was like secretly watching them go to the bathroom or undress—she found it embarrassing and it felt wrong. It was as natural as breathing, but she trained herself not to do it out of consideration for others. But when an assignment was given, she did what she was told. She wanted to please the grownups. Once she completed an assignment, Mrs. Bixby was always full of praise for her abilities and very affectionate. Penny was always rewarded—a trip to an amusement park or circus, a shopping spree, or what Miss Bixby called an “ice cream blowout,” which involved eating far too much ice cream—all of her favorite flavors—and usually feeling sick later.