Centralia (27 page)

Peter awoke feeling confused and disoriented, as though he’d just been through the spin cycle of a washing machine and the whirling had yet to stop. Only he wasn’t awake; he was in the house again, sitting at the top of the stairs, staring down at the first floor and its nearly empty rooms.

On the second floor everything was the same as usual, only this time the three doors nearest him were closed as well. It was as if his subconscious mind, the ringmaster of his dreams, were telling him that he’d looked there, done that, and now it was time to move on to the fourth room or give up altogether.

Peter wasn’t about to give up.

He stood, holding on to the banister until his head stopped swimming, then proceeded down the hallway. At the fourth door he tried the knob, but as usual it was locked.

Then the girl’s voice. Peter couldn’t tell whether it was Lilly or Maddy. Or maybe both of them together. If there truly was a Lilly. Or a Maddy.
“Do you trust him, Daddy?”

And that verse in the Bible:
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”

The words echoed through Peter’s head again and again.
“Find the key” . . . “Do you trust him?” . . . “I am the door.”

He reached for the knob again but stopped. No, he couldn’t do this on his own. It wasn’t about him, not really. It wasn’t about finding the secret behind the door. It wasn’t even about finding Karen and Lilly.

It was about giving up his hold on everything he’d been trying to control. It was about giving it all to him regardless of what he found, regardless of the outcome. Give it all to
him
. In fact, it wasn’t about the room at all. It was about the door; it always had been.

Peter put his hand on the knob but did not try to turn it. He closed his eyes and felt a warmth pour over him. It started at the top of his head and traveled down his face, neck, shoulders, and chest, to his waist and over his legs, all the way to the soles of his feet. And then it reversed direction and moved up, like water defying gravity, to his waist, to his chest, and back to the top of his head.

“I trust.” He said it aloud and meant it. He had no power to find Karen or Lilly, no power to find the truth, let alone face it head-on. He had no ability on his own.

“I surrender.” He whispered the words. Sweet words. Words he’d never said, or at least didn’t remember ever saying, but fully felt.

Beneath his hand, the knob moved on its own as if someone from the other side of the door was turning it. Peter lifted his hand from the knob and exhaled. The door swung open and the room with all its precious secrets was finally revealed.

And it was empty. Stark empty. Nothing there but four white walls, a white ceiling, and a wood floor. No furniture, no memorabilia, no person. The shadow pacing back and forth, always back and forth, had disappeared and proven to be bodiless.

Peter entered the room and stood in the middle of it, half-expecting Lilly or Karen to round the corner and join him. But they didn’t. The emptiness was almost overwhelming, almost enough to spring tears from his eyes and release sobs from his throat. Where were his answers? Who was he? Where were Karen and Lilly? He had put so much hope in this room. His subconscious had done so much to protect him from its contents. And now that he’d discovered it was empty, the disappointment was nearly too much for him.

He ran from the room and tried the other doors. Maybe there were more clues in each of them, pieces of a puzzle he could assemble and get the full picture of who he was. But they were now locked.

No, God, no. Please. I trust you. I do. Please.

He fell to his knees outside the first door, and the hallway once more began to spin as fog moved up the stairs and swallowed the hall as slowly as it rolls in off an early morning ocean.

Yet again Peter awoke disoriented after being hit on the head. Slowly the world around him cleared and it all came back. He was outside. He’d escaped the bunker and found his truck. Then he’d been approached from behind. No, more than approached . . . assaulted. Habit. It was Lawrence Habit. He’d come back. Or maybe he’d never left.

Peter realized he was sitting in the passenger seat of a car, a sedan. Leather seats. Black interior. He was seat-belted but that
was the only restraint. His head rested against the window, his cheek and ear pressing against the cold glass.

Slowly Peter lifted his head and looked to his left. Habit was driving, the burns on his face still bandaged from the grill. That seemed like such a long time ago
 
—months, maybe years. How long he had been shut away in the dark was still a mystery.

Habit glanced at Peter but said nothing. He had both hands on the steering wheel, and there were no weapons in sight. Peter did not feel immediately threatened.

“Where are we going?” Peter said.

Habit checked the rearview mirror, looked out the side window. “There’s someone you need to meet.”

“Who?”

“Someone.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

“He’ll tell you everything.”

“How do I know you’re not going to kill me?”

Habit motioned toward a duffel bag on the floor at Peter’s feet. “Thought you’d like a change of clothes.”

Peter ignored the bag. “How do I know you’re not going to kill me?”

Habit lowered his brow. “We’ve already had this conversation. If I’d wanted to kill you, I would have done it already. Besides, why would I bring you clothes only to kill you before you had a chance to put them on?”

“Then how do I know you won’t turn me over to Nichols?”

“I could have done it while you were out.”

“How’d you even know I’d escape?”

“You’d be surprised. There’s more than just me who’re less than pleased with the way Nichols runs the show. And it pays to still
have some friends inside. When they told me you were out of the hole, I had a feeling you’d make it back to your truck sooner or later.”

Habit bit his lip. He checked the mirrors again, then leaned forward and, peering out the windshield, scanned the sky.

“What are you looking for?”

“Making sure we’re not being followed.”

“By Nichols?”

“And whoever he sends after us.”

Peter rubbed his face, then the back of his head. There was a lump there, tender to touch.

“Sorry about that,” Habit said. “But I knew you wouldn’t come voluntarily.”

“No, I probably wouldn’t have.”

“No probably about it.”

Peter was quiet for a moment, thinking, watching the trees blur by outside the car. “You know, I was once one of Nichols’s soldiers. So were you.”

Habit nodded. “Once. I’m not anymore.” He glanced at Peter. “And neither are you.”

“Sounds like we didn’t have much of a choice.”

A slight smile curved Habit’s lips upward. “I had a choice. At first. But things get complicated when you deal with Nichols.”

“
Complicated
doesn’t seem like the appropriate word.”

“Dangerous.”

“There it is.”

They were both quiet for a while. Peter watched the outside world slide by in a silent blur as the hum of the car’s tires tugged at his eyelids. He fought sleep, though. He still didn’t fully trust Habit; he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust anyone. Finally, still looking out the window, he said, “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Helping me. I thought guys like you worked alone. Acts of kindness usually aren’t part of your repertoire.”

“Is that what you call this? An act of kindness?”

Peter said nothing. He really wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew Habit was telling the truth when he said he could have killed Peter on multiple occasions and had chosen not to. And that
 
—sparing his life
 
—was certainly an act of kindness of sorts.

Habit shifted in his seat, glanced at the rearview mirror, adjusted the collar of his shirt. “I owe you.”

“You owe me?”

“You don’t remember. You saved my life.”

“In combat?”

“Not the kind you’re thinking of.” Habit once again checked the mirror.

For the first time, Peter noticed a hint of vulnerability in the set of the big man’s jaw, the arch of his eyebrows.

“We’d come home after a tour in Afghanistan,” Habit said. “I hated coming home because I had nothing to come home to. Only an empty apartment and a head full of nightmares. See, we were different. You did what you were ordered to do. I did that and so much more. Evil stuff. Violent stuff. And when I came home, I had time to dwell on it. This particular time I returned in a dark place. All I could think of was death. The killing I’d done and my own. I wanted to end it, you know? Just put a stop to it all. I was ready to
 
—I was literally seconds away from pulling the trigger
 
—when you called.”

Peter remembered none of it, but he wished he did. He could see reliving those dark days was painful for Habit, and he wished he could assure the man he didn’t have to retell the story. But Peter felt he needed to hear it.

Habit glanced at Peter. “You talked to me, walked me out of the valley. You told me there was hope for me and I believed you. I don’t even know why I believed you. I think it was because I wanted to believe there was hope. Then you told me about your wife and daughter. You’d talked about them before but never like that. It made me want what you had. And I wanted it bad enough, I began to believe maybe it was possible.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No. Not for me. After you disappeared, I thought you were dead. They wouldn’t tell me what happened to you. I lost whatever hope I’d had, and that’s when I started working for Centralia, doing their dirty work.”

“But I wasn’t dead.”

“Nope. When I saw you at Cantori’s house, it was like all that hope came rushing back. I’m not sure I could have killed you then even if they’d ordered me to. I’d all but forgotten what you did for me. They messed with my head too. But I remember it now. I owe you my life.”

“You can repay me by helping me find Karen and Lilly.”

“You’ll get answers where I’m taking you.”

Habit slowed the car at an intersection and turned right. The landscape changed from forest to farmland. On the left side of the road, an open field stretched to the horizon, undulating in rolling hills.

Peter said, “So will this mystery man be able to tell me where Karen and Lilly are?”

Habit’s eyes moved from the road to the mirror to Peter, then back to the road. “Yes, he will.”

They drove in silence for a couple of hours. Peter watched the world go by outside. Mostly, Habit stuck to rural roads that passed through forests of maples and oaks and sycamores and eventually turned to pines. Occasionally they’d pass through a field, newly harvested and brown with the death of autumn. Deer were there, foraging the grains left by the heavy equipment that had recently scoured the land. The roads took them over mountains and through valleys, across streams of glistening water and under remote railroad overpasses.

They were headed north. Ever north.

After two hours of travel, they passed a
Welcome to New York
sign, and Peter said he had to use the restroom.

Habit pulled the car into the next gas station and shut off the engine. They both sat there, watching an older man fill his Ford with gas.

“We need to keep moving,” Habit said, “so make this quick.”

Peter unlatched his seat belt. “How do you know I won’t run?”

“Because you want to know the truth.”

“I could find it on my own,” Peter bluffed. He needed Habit now but didn’t want the bald man to know that.

Habit frowned and shook his head. “Not this truth.”

Opening the door, Peter said, “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

The bathroom in the convenience store was clean and empty. After changing into the clothes Habit had brought him, Peter was out in less than five minutes. He thought about running. Even after all Habit had told him, he still didn’t fully trust the man. Like Peter, he’d been trained to kill, educated to be heartless and singularly focused. Could Peter believe that he’d had a change of heart, that seeing Peter again had really caused him to alter his course that much? Then again, he had come to find him.

Returning to the car, Peter closed the door and hooked his seat belt. He’d decided he had no other option than to play along with Habit and see where this trip took him.

Twenty minutes into the second leg of their journey, Peter said, “You know Nichols is still alive? That guy you shot wasn’t him.”

“I know. I knew then.”

“Then why’d you take the shot?”

“To send a message.”

“Do you think he got it?”

Habit slowed the car and turned left onto a road that appeared to be freshly paved. The yellow center lines hadn’t even been painted yet. “Nope. That’s another reason I came back. They’ll come after us. They’re not going to give up on you.”

“And you’re using me as bait again.”

Habit shook his head. “That’s not exactly what I have in mind.”

The big man was being intentionally enigmatic, giving Peter just enough information to keep him interested. Peter had had enough for now. He turned his head and watched out the window as they passed through a small town. There was one intersection and one light. A police car was parked just beyond the light, the officer keeping watch on the traffic, waiting to catch someone violating the law
 
—speeding, running a red light, making an illegal turn. The officer met Peter’s eyes as they passed, but there was no sense of recognition in them. Peter realized then he had been holding his breath and exhaled.

“Where are we going?” Peter said.

“I told you
 
—there’s a man you need to meet.”

“The mystery man. I know. I mean where, a location, like on a map.”

Habit glanced at him. “Ever hear of Utica?”

“Sure.”

“Just north of Utica is the Black River Wild Forest. That’s where the truth is.”

Two hours later Habit turned the car onto a dirt road that wound its way up a mountain dotted with pines as tall as five-story buildings. The road was narrow and rutted, and at times the sedan bottomed out and scraped on the stony ground. Habit did his best to avoid the potholes and ridges. He cursed under his breath each time the ground rose or dipped sharply.

At the top of the mountain, concealed by trees that stood as tall and straight as telephone poles, sat a cabin. It wasn’t much to look at
 
—just four walls and a slanted metal roof
 
—but it was solidly built to withstand the harsh winters of upstate New York. Smoke puffed from the chimney and threw the aroma of burning wood into the air.

Habit parked the car alongside the cabin and shut off the engine.

“Someone wants to be left alone,” Peter said.

Habit studied the cabin with intent eyes. “More like someone else wants him to be left alone.”

“What did he do?”

Habit turned toward Peter. “What makes you think he did something?”

“This has the feel of exile rather than escape.”

Habit didn’t answer. He opened his door and exited the car.

Outside, the air was cool and crisp, and the combination of smoke and pine scents intensified. Above them, the tall canopy of trees blocked most of the sunlight. The ground was barren and rocky, blanketed with dry needles.

“Though it would be a nice place to escape from the world,” Peter said.

The cabin had a sprawling front porch that stretched the length of the front wall. On it were four wooden rocking chairs and a small table. Before Habit could knock, the front door opened and an elderly man appeared. Without saying a word, he hugged Habit and clapped him on the back. He appeared to be in his eighties. He was slightly shorter than Peter with a shock of thick white hair. His chest and arms were thick, remnants of a physique hardened by manual labor or strenuous exercise. Even in his advanced years, he moved with an athletic manner.

When he pulled away from Habit, the old man looked at Peter and studied him with serious gray eyes. “So this is him?”

Habit nodded. “It’s him.”

The man approached Peter and stuck out his hand. Peter took it.

“Son,” the man said, shaking Peter’s hand. “I’m Roger Abernathy. We got a lot to talk about.”