Epitaph Road (12 page)

I eased back on my concentration and noticed the girls again, still shadowing me, the ins and outs of their breath and little else. “Let's go downstairs,” I said.

In the living room I checked my watch: 11:30, and there was still an old lady in the office. Shouldn't she have been in bed by now? I kept listening for something, one eye on the office door.

But it was the front door that got my attention. Someone rapped, and I jumped up and scrambled to it with Tia and Sunday on my heels. When I opened it, the two PAC cops stood there. They looked much less concerned than the last time I'd seen them. They were almost glowing.

A bad sign.

“Dr. Mack still up?” Stoudt said.

“I think so.” I stepped aside so they could come in. “She's probably in the study.”

“Did you find Paige Winters?” Sunday blurted out, brassy as usual.

“We need to talk to
Dr. Mack
,” Blevens said. By now they knew where the study was. They pushed past us and headed in that direction. We followed, but not so close that we were too obvious.

They knocked. Mom came to the door, then Rebecca Mack. We heard them more than saw them.

“We got her, Dr. Mack,” Stoudt said. “She didn't take a ferry. She was driving around the long way, but we nabbed her at a roadblock before she even got in the vicinity.”

We?
Stoudt was taking a share of the credit, but her wide rear was nowhere near that roadblock when Aunt Paige was arrested. I was in no mood for this overzealous kiss-ass cop. A moment ago I'd been halfway pumped up with hope, but suddenly I felt deflated.

“Where is she now?” Rebecca Mack demanded.

“In custody, ma'am,” Blevens said. “On her way to the Seattle office for confinement.” I pictured Aunt Paige, in the back of a PAC car speeding down a dark peninsula highway, her hands cuffed behind her back.

“Tell them to keep her there,” Dr. Mack said. “No visitors. No communication.”

As I started for the stairs, I looked just past Rebecca Mack and saw Mom standing in the doorway of the study. She was giving me this sad-eyed apologetic look, but I didn't swallow it. She'd chosen to be a part of this. She'd chosen to track down Aunt Paige as if she were a criminal. She'd chosen to condemn Dad to his death. I looked through her and away and hurried to my room.

I'd been at my desk for two minutes, searching the Net for maps of the peninsula, when Sunday and Tia pushed open my door and walked in.

“You haven't heard of knocking?” I said.

“What are you gonna do?” Sunday said.

I didn't answer, but it was too late to clear the map from the display.

“You can't go,” Tia said.

“I have to,” I said. “He'll be dead if I don't.”

“He's a loner,” Tia said. “He doesn't hang around the throwbacks that much, does he?”

“Not unless he has to. But there's a reason the whole peninsula is being quarantined. You think the Bear will stop with just the throwbacks?”

Someone knocked at the door. I blanked the screen and stood. “Who is it?”

Mom came in with a big green duffel bag, empty. She saw Tia and Sunday standing by the desk and dropped the bag on the floor. Opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, eyeing me, the girls, me. She had something to say, but she was holding off. Maybe she hadn't expected an audience. Maybe she would have preferred not to have one. But Tia and Sunday didn't volunteer to leave the room.

“No school tomorrow, Kellen,” Mom said finally. “I've already called and let the administrator know you'll be absent. She's sending me your take-homes for the next twenty lessons.

“In the morning you'll get up at the usual time, but instead of jumping on your bike and heading off to class, you'll be going on a little trip. Before you go to bed tonight, you'll need to pack clothes and whatever else you want to take — enough for three weeks — in this bag. Have it and yourself downstairs by eight thirty. A PAC van will be curbside to pick you up.”

She said it like it was all decided. Like I had no voice, no choice. “Why?” I asked.

“I want you away from the city for a while,” she said.

“That's not a reason.”

“There are signs of a recurrence in this area,” she said. “Elisha's Bear.”

“Signs?” I said, knowing it was all bullshit. “I didn't know Elisha posted signs.”

“I wouldn't have you go otherwise.”

“Go where?”

“Montana.”

“By myself?”

“You'll be accompanied by other boys and some women. You'll be back in Seattle in three weeks. It won't be so bad.”

I wanted to argue, tell her what I knew, but what was the point? I'd just make her suspicious and watchful, and I didn't need that. I was going on a trip, but I wasn't waiting for the PAC van, and I wasn't going to Montana. “Eight thirty?” I said.

She smiled a little. “Yes.”

“Three weeks without Anderson,” I said, dangling the name in front of Mom, wondering how much she had to do with the arrest. “Sounds like heaven to me.”

Mom's smile got a little less tentative, a little wider. “I'll see you in the morning,” she said, not taking the bait, and backed out the door, closing it behind her.

“Boys are good liars,” Sunday said.

“It's what got us in trouble,” I said.

“You
go
to Montana,” Tia said. “We'll go warn your dad.”

“By yourselves? You'll get caught. You'll end up behind bars with Aunt Paige.”

“Why would they suspect us?” Sunday asked.

“Guilt by association,” I said. “If you go missing, even without me, they'll know where you went.”

“
We
won't
die
,” Sunday said.

“If Elisha returns in the middle of this rescue attempt,” Tia said, “we'll be safe. You won't.”

“I'm
going
,” I said. “Just don't get in my way. And don't say anything.”

“We'll go with you, then,” Tia said. “You'd be under suspicion, a boy traveling by himself. A cop magnet.”

“And if you're thinking about a girl-disguise,” Sunday said, “forget it. You couldn't pull it off.”

I figured Sunday was right, but I knew Tia was right, too. A lone male pedaling away from the city on a bike — even in daylight — would be a lure for the wrong kind of fish — local authorities or state cops or PAC enforcers. Sharks. Predators. Then what? “Why would you? You barely know me.”

“We know you well enough,” Tia said. “We know what happened to you.” She gave me a look, like
Why argue?

“Okay,” I said. “If you also know what you're getting yourselves into.” I was sure they didn't, because I didn't know myself, and getting them into this made me feel guilty. But I needed to go. I needed to get to Dad. And the girls were my ticket.

“We know,” Sunday said, and I didn't argue with her. My thoughts had shifted to Mom. She wanted to protect me, but what about everyone else? What about Dad?

“You have a plan?” Tia said.

A plan. The pieces of a plan were rattling around in my head along with all the other stuff, but I — we — needed to sort them out and glue them together. I chose a bed and sat. Tia and Sunday bookended me, Tia closer than Sunday. I began to put the pieces into words.

I was still awake when my e-spond chirped to life at one thirty. I tapped it off and sat up. A tangle of nagging thoughts had kept me from sleep. Was PAC really going to wipe out Afterlight and who knew what else? Why? What was Rebecca Mack so worried about? Could we — three kids — do something about it?

I didn't want to do anything dramatic. I wasn't enough of a kid to think we could. I just wanted to get Dad out of there.

The house sat quiet. No sounds came through my open window. Streetlights barely made a dent in the darkness.

My door swung open as I put my feet on the floor. The shadowy shapes of Tia and Sunday drifted in. We said nothing. We'd talked all this out. I grabbed my shoes and backpack and joined them. Together we moved out into the hall and down the stairs. In the kitchen we pulled stuff from shelves and the fridge — not enough to raise instant suspicion — and loaded it into our packs.

Outside, nothing moved. We stood over our bikes in a crease of dark between circles of muted lamplight and murmured to each other, checking to make sure we had everything. Then we were off on the bike trail to downtown.

“Time?” Sunday grunted after a few miles of quiet.

I glanced over. Her long blond hair streamed behind her like exhaust. I checked my watch in the next pool of light. “Almost two. We've got a half hour.”

Soon, downtown high-rises towered in front of us, their lights reflecting off the surface of Lake Union. We got to the ferry terminal with ten minutes to spare. The rich salty smell of the Sound tugged at my memories — adventures on
Mr. Lucky
, trips with Mom and Aunt Paige. The big blue ferry — not nearly full — was still loading. At the ticket booth we paid our money to a young woman who seemed more interested in her psychology textbook than in us, and then rode onto the ferry, faking casualness.

We parked our bikes in racks near the bow. Most drivers stayed in their cars, dozing, setting their mental alarm clocks for a half hour, the length of the trip. But we headed topside, where more passengers sat in various stages of stupor, heads down on tabletops or bowed into a book or newspaper. Even half conscious, some of the women eyed me suspiciously. I was thankful Sunday and Tia stayed close, not leaving who was in charge of my care and feeding open to question.

We sat by a window. “Three more hours once we dock?” Tia said.

“If everything clicks,” I said. “Barring roadblocks and whatever else.”

“If we have to go around roadblocks,” Sunday said, “it could double our travel time.”

“Which means the house will be awake,” I said. “Mom and Rebecca Mack will know I'm — we're — gone. They'll know where we went. They'll have Dad cordoned off like a murder scene.” I felt my positive attitude falter. Now that we were actually on our way, it was impossible not to worry about roadblocks, the discovery of our absence from the house, PAC cops —
every
kind of cop — on the lookout for us.

“We can't stress about it,” Tia said. “We just have to do our best. We have to try, and then we have to get out — get
you
out, Kellen, at least — before tonight. June twenty-first starts at midnight.”

“What if they move it up?” Sunday said.

“I don't think three kids are going to make them change their whole plan,” I said. “They might not even
be able
to change it.”

“The virus or whatever it is has to be on hand,” Tia said. “Someone has to be ready to bring it in and plant it wherever they plan on planting it.”

“No Starbucks in the hinterlands,” I said. “No McDonald's.”

“It's a small population,” Sunday said. “Judging by what we know about big Elisha, it ain't gonna take much to set the epidemic in motion.”

She was right. A few disease-toting “tourists” wandering into peninsula villages, onto the piers where live-aboard boats were moored, would do the trick.

We were the first ones off the ferry. As we moved out, traffic passed us from behind, a steady parade of music and sound effects and tires on pavement. Then we were all alone in the dark, shifting down as we began an uphill piece of road.

We followed the highway north and west across the island through tall stands of trees on either side. We didn't say much, but it felt good having Tia and Sunday near, knowing it was their choice.

Eventually, we approached the bridge that would carry us off the west side of the island and over Eagle Pass. We'd half expected a roadblock here; a gateway to the peninsula seemed like the logical spot for one. But the road was clear.

We scooted onto the bridge, tussling with the grating under our wheels. When we reached the other side, the girls pulled over onto the shoulder. “Break,” Sunday said, and although I didn't admit it, I was glad. We all took out water bottles and drank thirstily.

I checked my watch. “Almost three thirty. I think we're on schedule.”

“Four hours or so until they start listening for signs of us,” Tia said.

“Until the net gets cast,” Sunday said.

Motivated by those chilling thoughts, we got back on the road. Everything was going smoothly until we entered a long curve to our right and noticed light filtering through the trees.

We hid our bikes and backpacks and proceeded on foot. I led the way into the underbrush, taking a shortcut to what I hoped was a safe vantage point. My eyes were used to the dark by now, but it was still hard to see and tough to keep from stepping on dry twigs, tripping over downed branches and stubborn shrubs, and making noise.

The lights brightened. Some of them flashed, sending weird diffused rays of red and blue into the trees. I heard women's voices. Half crouching, we crept to the edge of the forest, hid behind thick rough-barked trunks, and peered out.

We'd found our roadblock.