400 Boys and 50 More (78 page)

“Oh, right. Don’t be ridiculous. What do you know about cars?”

He popped the hood and got out of the car. It was an excuse to move, to pace. He couldn’t sit still when she was like this. It was as if he thought he’d be harder to hit if he made a moving target of himself. Now he raised the hood and leaned over it, saying, “Ah,” as if he’d discovered something. But all he could see beneath the hood was darkness, as if something had eaten away the workings of the car. The headlights streamed on either side of his legs, losing themselves in the hedges, but their glare failed to illuminate whatever was directly before his eyes.

“Uh…”

“You don’t know what you’re looking at.”

“It’s too dark,” he said. “There aren’t any streetlights here.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Maybe I got into a park or something. Just a minute.” He slammed the hood, wiped his gritty feeling fingers on his legs, and went back to the door. “There are lots of roads around here with no lights…it’s practically…” He pressed the door handle. “…wild…”

At his lengthy silence, she said, “What is it?”

“Uh…just a sec.”

The door was locked. He peered into the car, and could see the keys dangling in the ignition. He tried the other doors, but they were also locked. They were power doors, power windows, power locks. Some kind of general electrical failure, probably a very small thing, had rendered the car completely useless. Except for the headlights?

“What is it?” she said again.

“The keys…are in…the car.” He squeezed hard on the door handle, wrenching at it, no luck.

“Do you mean you’re locked out?”

“I, uh, do you have the insurance card? The one with the emergency service number on it?”

“I have one somewhere. Where’s yours?”

“In the glove box.”

“And you’re locked out.”

“It looks that way.”

Her silence was recrimination enough. And here came the condescension: “All right, stay where you are. I’ll come get you. We can call the truck when I’m there, or wait until morning. I was just about to get in bed, but I’ll come and bring you home. Otherwise you’ll just get soaked.”

Soaked, he thought, tipping his head to the black sky. He had no sense of clouds or stars, no view of either one. It was just about the time she’d have been lying in bed watching the news; there must have been rain in the forecast. And here he was, locked out, with no coat.

“How are you going to find me?” he asked.

“There are only so many possible wrong turns you could have taken.”

“I don’t even remember any woods along this road. “

“That’s because you never pay attention.”

“It was right past the intersection with the big traffic light.”

“I know exactly where you are.”

“I got confused when you called me,” he said. “I wasn’t looking at the road. Anyway, you’ll see my headlights.”

“I have to throw on some clothes. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

It was an unusually protracted farewell for such a casual conversation. He realized that he was holding the phone very tightly in the dark, cradling it against his cheek and ear as if he were holding her hand to his face, feeling her skin cool and warm at the same time. And now there was no further word from her. Connection broken.

He had to fight the impulse to dial her again, instantly, just to reassure himself that the phone still worked—that she was still there. He could imagine her ridicule; he was slowing her down, she was trying to get dressed, he was causing yet another inconvenience on top of so many others.

With the conversation ended, he was forced to return his full attention to his surroundings. He listened, heard again the wind, the distant sound of still water. Still water which made sounds only when it lapped against something, or when something waded through it. He couldn’t tell one from the other right now. He wished he were still inside the car, with at least that much protection.

She was going to find him. He’d been only a few minutes, probably less than a mile, from home. She would be here any time.

He waited, expecting raindrops. The storm would come, it would short out his phone. There was absolutely no shelter on the empty road, now that he had locked himself out of it. He considered digging for a rock, something big enough to smash the window, so he could pull the lock and let himself in. But his mistake was already proving costly enough; he couldn’t bring himself to compound the problem. Anyway, it wasn’t raining yet. And she would be here any minute now.

It was about time to check in with her, he thought. She had to be in her car by now. Did he need a better excuse for calling her?

Well, here was one: The headlights were failing.

Just like that, as if they were on a dimmer switch. Both at once, darkening, taken down in less than a minute to a dull stubborn glow. It was a minute of total helpless panic; he was saved from complete horror only by the faint trace of light that remained. Why didn’t they go out all the way? By the time he’d asked himself this, he realized that his wife had now lost her beacon. That was news. It was important to call her now.

He punched the redial number. That much was easy. The phone rang four times and the machine answered, and then he had to suppress himself from smashing the phone on the roof of the car. She wouldn’t be at home, would she? She’d be on the road by now, looking for him, cruising past dark lanes and driveways, the entrance to some wooded lot, hoping to see his stalled headlights—and there would be none.

What made all this worse was that he couldn’t remember the number of her cell phone. He refused to call her on it, arguing that she might be driving if he called her, and he didn’t want to cause an accident.

Should he…head away from the car? Blunder back along the dark road without a flashlight until he came in sight of the street? Wouldn’t she be likely to spot him coming down the road, a pale figure stumbling through the trees, so out of place?

But he couldn’t bring himself to move away. The car was the only familiar thing in his world right now.

There was no point breaking the window. The horn wouldn’t sound if the battery had died. No point in doing much of anything now. Except wait for her to find him.

Please call, he thought. Please please please call. I have something to tell—-

The phone chirped in his hand. He stabbed the on button.

“Yes?”

“I’m coming,” she said.

“The headlights just died,” he said. “You’re going to have to look closely. For a…a dark road, a park entrance maybe…”

“I know,” she said, her voice tense. He pictured her leaning forward, driving slowly, squinting out the windshield at the streetsides. “The rain’s making it hard to see a damn thing.”

“Rain,” he said. “It’s raining where you are?”

“Pouring.”

“Then…where are you? It’s dry as a bone here.” Except for the sound of water, the stale exhalation of the damp earth around him.

“I’m about three blocks from the light.”

“Where I was turning?”

“Where you got turned around. It’s all houses here. I thought there was park. There is some park, just ahead…that’s what I was thinking off. But…”

He listened, waiting. And now he could hear her wipers going, sluicing the windshield; he could hear the sizzle of rain under her car’s tires. A storm. He stared at the sky even harder than before. Nothing up there. Nothing coming down.

“But what?” he said finally.

“There’s a gate across the road. You couldn’t have gone through there.”

“Check it,” he said. “Maybe it closed behind me.”

“I’m going on,” she said. “I’ll go to the light and start back, see if I missed anything.”

“Check the gate.”

“It’s just a park, it’s nothing. You’re in woods, you said?”

“Woods, marsh, parkland, something. I’m on a dirt road. There are…bushes all around, and I can hear water.”

“Ah….”

What was that in her voice?

“I can…wait a minute…I thought I could see you, but…”

“What?” He peered into the darkness. She might be looking at him even now, somehow seeing him while he couldn’t see her.

“It isn’t you,” she said. “It’s, a car, like yours, but…it’s not yours. That…that’s not you, that’s not your…”

“What’s going on?” The headlights died all the way down.

“Please, can you keep on talking to me?” she said. “Can you please just keep talking to me and don’t stop for a minute?”

“What’s the matter? Tell me what’s going on?”

“I need to hear you keep talking, please, please,” and whatever it was in her voice that was wrenching her, it wrenched at him too, it was tearing at both of them in identical ways, and he knew he just had to keep talking. He had to keep her on the phone.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Whatever it is. I won’t make you stop and tell me now, if you don’t want to talk, if you just want to listen,” he said. “I love you,” he said, because surely she needed to hear that. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m just, I wish you could talk to me but—-“

“No, you talk,” she said. “I have to know you’re all right, because this isn’t, that’s not, it can’t be…”

“Sh. Shhh. I’m talking now.”

“Tell me where you are again.”

“I’m standing by my car,” he said. “I’m in a dark wooded place, there’s some water nearby, a pond or marsh judging from the sound, and it’s not raining, it’s kind of warm and damp but it’s not raining. It’s quiet. It’s dark. I’m not…I’m not afraid,” and that seemed an important thing to tell her, too. “I’m just waiting, I’m fine, I’m just waiting here for you to get to me, and I know you will. Everything will be…fine.”

“It’s raining where I am,” she said. “And I’m…” She swallowed. “And I’m looking at your car.”

Static, then, a cold blanket of it washing out her voice. The noise swelled, peaked, subsided, and the phone went quiet. He pushed the redial button, then remembered that she had called him and not the other way round. It didn’t matter, though. The phone was dead. He wouldn’t be calling anyone, and no one would be calling him.

I’ll walk back to that road now, he thought. While there’s still a chance she can find me.

He hefted the cell phone, on the verge of tossing it overhand out into the unseen marshes. But there was always a chance that some faint spark remained inside it; that he’d get a small blurt of a ring, a wisp of her voice, something. He put it in a pocket so he wouldn’t lose it in the night.

He tipped his face to the sky and put out his hand before he started walking.

Not a drop.

It’s raining where I am, and I’m looking at your car.

* * *

“Cell Call” copyright 2003 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in By Moonlight Only, PS Publishing, edited by Stephen Jones (October 2003).

FLIGHT RISK

They brought Foster to the boy by a route of back alleys and parking garages, changing him from car to car several times, until eventually, although he’d thought he knew the city very well, he found himself uncertain of his whereabouts. They were near the airport, he knew that much. Condemned buildings, empty shops, and the rumbling pall of jet trails over all. A massive extension of the runways planned, this part of the city had known it was doomed; the exodus occurred before delays set in. A perfect place to hide the boy without seeming to hide him.

The final car, a black sedan with dented doors and fenders thinned by rust, drew to a stop at the rear of a building that had too many windows to be a warehouse, too few to be a residence. The man riding shotgun stepped out and opened the door. Foster slid from his seat in back, clutching his worn black bag to his gut. Along the alley, tips of garbage poked through humps of snow. There was just enough warmth in the air to carry a threat of the sourness and rot waiting beneath the ice. A black wrought iron gate swung open in the rear of the building, and a third man, large and heavy browed, appeared there, beckoning. Foster recognized features of gigantism, but felt no thrill at the fact that he was seeing his first giant.

As Foster passed inside, the door clanged shut, cutting the rumble of a jet engine to something felt rather than heard. Foster saw a dim hall with access to a slightly brighter lobby just ahead. The giant held back the accordioned bars of an elevator cage. Foster stepped in and waited for the giant to crowd in beside him.

“I’ll meet you up there,” the giant said, this voice thick with menace. “Don’t get off until I let you out.”

“No,” said Foster. “Of course not.”

The giant pressed a button and retreated, letting the doors clang shut. The elevator jerked and began a scraping ascent.

If the illuminated numbers above the door were to be believed, the elevator was skipping floors. More likely the lights were burned out. When the car finally ground to a halt, Foster knew only that he was somewhere above the seventh floor. He waited what seemed a full minute before he heard clanging, and then the giant appeared, hauling open the door and peering in at him. Out of breath and sweating profusely, he made scooping motions with his hands.

“Yes, yes,” Foster said, following him out and down the hall.

The giant stopped at a door with 909 painted on a frosted glass pane. He dug into his pocket until he found a ring with two keys on it. In the giant’s hand they looked like keys to a child’s diary or a toy padlock. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, making it clear to Foster that he should go in first.

Foster heard a hum of voices mixed with the rumble of another jet passing above. They stepped into what had been the waiting room of an office, more recently being used as a residence. The domestic touches were few: a small refrigerator, a microwave oven, a card table and several folding chairs. An old office desk butted up against a sofa bed. Pizza boxes, cereal cartons, dozens of paper coffee cups. A television with poor reception, volume almost inaudible–the source of the muted voices, probably.

There was another door on the far side of the room, frosted glass pane in its upper half. It was ajar, and through the gap he saw a mattress laid flat on the floor. On it lay small thin legs in parachute pants, bony feet in frayed socks.