Billy took experimental breaths, in and out, in and out. There was nothing wrong with his lungs. He felt sick, not hurt. So why in the world had he spent hours in this ambulance? What was going on here?
"Let me go home! I'm fine!" He had to go to the bathroom at once. "I have to use the John. I have to right now!"
Billy was going to realize any second what was happening. Then he would start screaming and struggling, and oh dear God, hadn't he loosened the straps to make sure Billy could breathe? Hadn't he? Yes .. . back in Ogallala . . . loosened the strap around the chest because the child's breathing seemed labored.
He might get free!
Barton began maneuvering through the traffic, taking a few risks. This was getting dreadfully ugly. A few more miles and it would have been different. Even out of the boy's pain Barton could create love, he knew he could. But not now, not under these impossible conditions.
He loathed traffic!
Why didn't the driver say anything except just "go to sleep, go to sleep"? Why didn't he explain? And what about that doctor? Hadn't there been a doctor back here with him, who'd given him a shot . . .
Late last night somebody got him out of his bed, he remembered that. Yes, they put a rag over his face, he thought it was Sally giving him a hard time. Then he got all numb . . . then there was this humming.
Again he tried to get up. It made sense for an ambulance bed to have straps, but not the little ones that held down his wrists and ankles. They weren't just meant to keep him from falling out of bed, not only that. He was
really
strapped in this thing.
"Let me up!"
Still no answer. It would help a lot if he could see something. He took a deep breath and blew, trying to get the cover off his face. Earlier he'd tried it, he remembered. But the effort was vague, like a barely recalled nightmare. Hadn't he struggled
and fought and almost gotten out? Maybe, or maybe he'd just dreamed it.
No, his wrist still hurt where he'd pulled it out of the strap. So that part was real.
What were these straps all about, anyway?
"Will somebody tell me what's going on here!"
Oh, God. He s fully conscious and he's starting to understand and I am just passing the Arvada exit.
At least the towers of the city were now behind him and the traffic was a little thinner. Could people hear somebody screaming from inside a van? If they drove alongside with their windows open, maybe so. He hadn't counted on this and now he wasn't sure of anything except that he was dog-dead tired and beginning to simply give out just when he needed every bit of what was strongest and best in him.
Maybe he had to take action, and maybe it was going to be not the best thing for Billy. Maybe he had to hit him with a real drug. For an extreme emergency there was some two-percent solution. Not a lot, but enough to send Billy flying for a few hours.
Morphine wasn't like those other drugs; morphine worked. Billy would go as high as a kite.
No. Fathers did not give morphine to their sons.
But there was no time to think about it now.
Billy raised his chest as high as it would go, struggling against the straps. He pushed until he couldn't breathe, and pushed still harder—until at last he stopped, gasping, his head pounding with the first real headache he had ever felt in his life.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
He twisted his arms, tried to break his legs loose. The chest strap had give in it, but the others were totally tight. There was no way out. Finally he lay still and tried to think it out. He'd gone to bed last night, everything normal. He'd had his day, spent time at the mall, played Space Harrier and Afterburner with the guys. Then a queer had played RPM with him and after that he'd taken off. He'd worked on his Amiga. Later he'd gotten the bird to reply to him. They'd talked in the moonlight.
At some point he'd seen a man in the front yard. He told Dad, but there was nothing there when they looked. But no, that couldn't be. This was an ambulance, he was hurt. But he didn't feel hurt, and why these straps?
If this
wasn't
an ambulance, if he wasn't hurt, then—
A sudden realization made him slam himself against the straps. He knew who'd been in the front yard. It's the weirdo who was at the mall!'
Terror descended.
"Help, oh, help me! Somebody help!" But there was nobody—except
him.
Billy screamed. It was not the fearsome noise he had expected, but the fragile piping of a boy, as shrill as the sound of a mouse being tortured by a cruel child.
The noise was like fire. It radiated absolute human terror. Nobody who heard a sound like that could mistake it for anything other than what it was. They would know for certain that there was a child in this van, and that child was desperate.
The windows were all closed but the traffic had slowed down again and there were cars both to the left and the right.
People must hear it. God, yes! If only he'd put the gag back when he'd knocked Billy out. But he couldn't do that now, there was nowhere to stop.
Then it occurred to him to drown out the screaming with music. A fast hand jammed a new tape into the cassette player and turned the volume up to full. It was Lily Pons, one of his treasures, singing "Un Bel Di" from
Madama,
oh God, and the moon rode low on the horizon and the traffic moved in clotted anguish on the hard-lit road, and Billy screamed as a soul must scream when death first sunders it from the world.
His head bobbed, his teeth clattered and tore as he gnawed at the quilt that obscured his vision. The thought of that man up there driving made a thick, nasty taste rise in his throat.
Opera was blaring out of the radio and streams of memory poured up from deep within Billy's soul, recalling when last year his dad had taken him all the way to Cleveland to see
Carmen
and he'd loved that trip so much, it had been such a happy, happy time. After the opera they'd bought a ton of
Kentucky Fried Chicken and eaten it all in their motel room.
He touched this memory like a thread in a maze and then it was gone and he was back here strapped to this cot. He lay jerking his head hopelessly, chewing at the quilt that covered his face. Warmth spread around his thighs and legs. At first it scared him, then he realized what it was and felt ferocious delight.
He was glad he had wet the bed, and he realized that he could do much worse. In all of his life he had never shat a bed. But he did it now and it seemed awful and also gloriously savage and effective. The stink of it soon filled the close atmosphere under the quilt, and to his pleasure he found that he could also vomit.
The aria wailing out of the radio seemed to deepen and change, becoming something else: a mother singing as if to her child while he slips into dream.
Barton was trying to deal with his map, looking for some back road, some escape from the steel lights of the freeway. Behind him the boy lurched and twisted, shaking the whole van. A horrible stench filled the air: Billy had defecated. Anger flashed through Barton. This was an unneeded and undeserved complication.
If Barton Royal had made a mistake like that he would have been thoroughly dealt with.
He suddenly heard retching, liquescent heaves. The boy had vomited. The odor was so thick it greased his mouth with its foulness. Lily Pons sang on. "Sempre Libera," from
La Traviata
filled the cab. Then the map got away from him and he swerved and there was a dry thump and another car was honking its horn. He'd hit them, God help him. It was a Taurus, green, full of people. It pulled in front of him, and wouldn't you know there was now a convenient shoulder. He had to stop; they could get his license number, description of the van.
Billy heard a grinding thud, felt the car waver a little. Then it began to slow, finally to stop.
Maybe they'd stopped at a gas station. But no, there'd been that thump. Flat tire? No, Dad had plenty of flats and they
caused an unmistakable flapping sound. So OK, it was an accident, but not a bad one.
The man addressed him in his sweet and evil voice. "Please, Billy, I know what you think, that I'm a monster. But I am not a monster. Very far from it! I have such hope for you. Yes, hope! You think you know what's happening, but you don't. Just give me a chance. One chance is all I ask."
Billy heard him leave the van. How do you escape if you're all tied up? Billy thought of Indiana Jones. How would he do it? Break the straps, but they were too strong! What would James Bond do? He had all that high-tech stuff.
Billy had nothing. He told people he was a black belt, but the truth was he couldn't even get out of Jerry's headlocks. A kid couldn't get away from a grown man.
About all a kid could do was scream.
The love in Barton's heart welled up until he was almost weeping. Poor little Billy. It was so natural for him to be afraid. Poor little fella. He felt, though, that he had really communicated just now. Surely Billy had heard the warmth and decency in his voice and that was going to calm him down, get them both through this first great crisis.
The people in the other car looked like zombies looming out into the yellow sodium vapor lights. Barton opened his door, carefully leaving his engine running. As he closed the door he checked to be absolutely certain it had remained unlocked.
The driver of the Taurus came around to the back of his car. Barton's heart sank. He could see damage—the taillight was smashed, the bumper was buckled, and there was a gash in the fender. His own fender had only a smear of green paint on it.
"What're you gonna do about it, asshole?" The driver was tremendous, wearing an ancient Doors T-shirt, stinking of cigars and beer.
"I'll pay."
From the van there came a terrible shriek. Barton battled the instinct to run for it. The others turned slowly, perhaps drunk-enly, absorbing the impact of the sound.
"My child must be having a nightmare," Barton breathed.
"That sounds weird, man."
Barton returned to the van.
The two-percent solution, the two-percent solution, find it, find it!
He pulled the little bottle out of the glove compartment, opened his needle case—and heard the car door click.
The other driver was there, his yellow eyes glaring. He reached in and took Barton's keys. The van shuddered to silence. "After we work out our problem you get 'em back."
"Help me, I'm being kidnapped! Help me!"
The man paused, looked toward the back of the van.
"Please, he's evil, he's a monster!"
"No, no son," Barton said, speaking gently, insistently. He drew solution into the syringe and crawled into the back of the stench-choked van.
Why didn't the other man listen? He was out there, Billy knew it. So why didn't he
listen?
"Call the police! Help! Help!"
"What's goin' on in there?" At last!
"He's having a nightmare!"
"No! He's a kidnapper! He's killing me!" The sound of his own voice terrified him, and a scream burst out of him. It was involuntary and it confused him; he had not known that instinct had a voice. He surged against the straps like a fish on a line, strong and vital and seeking to be free.
Barton struggled with the needle, trying desperately to evacuate air bubbles, then to find a bit of white skin that was motionless enough to inject. He lifted the quilt and then with his free hand pulled down Billy's pajamas. The skin was like milk, it stopped Barton's heart.
Billy's shrieks were unlike anything Barton had ever heard before. They were so high and yet so amazingly fierce, the screams of a young tiger.
"What's the matter with that kid, man, you gotta give him a shot?"
"Epilepsy! And nightmares!"
A gasp, crackling, shuddering, then a bubbling whisper: "Police!"
"Yeah, son, I'll do that. I'll call the police."
"No! He'll be fine! This shot'll do it, you'll see." "No, man, let the paramedics give the shots. Stop that, man."
Barton choked back his own gorge, striving to maintain control. Sparks were dancing in his eyes. Deep breaths, one, two, come on, search the pale skin and there, just where the thigh was strapped down, he could hold the leg, prick the shining skin.
Whispering started in Billy's mind. Only he couldn't quite understand the words. Ripples were spreading, dying, the sun was setting inside his mind.
No! You have to scream! "Please. I—am—being—kidnapped! Get the police!"
Suddenly the quilt fell away and Billy could see. He was in the back of a van, and there was a bloated, ugly troll squatting beside him. His eyes were bulging, sweat was streaming down his face, his nose was full of pores. In his white, fat hand there was a syringe.
"He was in the mall! I remember him, he was in the mall!"
"Hey, man, that kid's in real trouble!"
"He's merely upset!"
"I'm gonna call the police."
Billy saw, suddenly, that the troll was wearing a blue shirt, and this seemed extremely important. "Officer, he was wearing a blue polo shirt. And he was crying. Yes, crying. I was crying, too."
Barton drew back, watching Billy's head shake from side to side more and more slowly, watching the tautness go out of the straps, the fists unclench and the eyes roll. Barton backed out of the van, climbed down and stood before the drunk, shaken man from the Taurus.
"See, he's gonna be OK."
"Jesus H. Christ, man, you sure?"
"Oh, yeah. It often happens like this. Then we give him his shot and he's OK."
"Look, man, if it's all right with you, I think we oughta call a cop anyway."
"No. I haven't got time. I want to get my little boy home. He's sick, as you saw."
"You got a doctor, man?"
"Yes! Sure! Dr. Ledbetter. A fine doctor. He's why my son's not in a home. Wonderful doctor!"
"Listen, I got five hundred dollars damage to my car. I know, sounds like a lot but these damn bumpers cost on these cars. Repairs are high. So I think we oughta get a cop. Otherwise, you kiss the insurance goodbye. And somebody oughta take a look at that kid. Besides you, if you get my drift."