Running Out of Time (14 page)

“Did your ma tell your brothers and sisters what year it really is?” Mr. Neeley asked. “And do you think they've told the other children in the village?”

“Can we talk about this later?” Jessie asked, squeezing the words past the lump of tears in her throat.

Mr. Neeley looked over at her, and said in a kinder tone, “Sure. I forgot how tired you must be. When we get to my home, you can sleep, and I'll make some more calls, and then we'll talk about all this in the morning.”

Jessie closed her eyes then, until she heard Mr. Neeley say, “This is Indianapolis.”

She looked out at the biggest, brightest, most incredible place she'd ever seen. The lights, even outdoors, were so brilliant, Jessie couldn't see a single star because of the glow. And some of the buildings were swallowed in the clouds—“skyscrapers,” Mr. Neeley explained, and Jessie remembered Ray using that word. Mr. Neeley pointed out the various landmarks—including the ornate state capitol—and Jessie gawked at the rows and rows of buildings. It looked like Indianapolis had done quite well for itself, after all. Several miles from what Mr. Neeley called the “downtown,” there were still lots of houses and other buildings crammed in together.

It all made Jessie feel unbelievably small. But she couldn't stop looking around in awe. Even if just one person lived in every building—Jessie hadn't known there were so many people in the whole world.

Finally Mr. Neeley turned into an area where all the buildings looked alike, brown brick and tan wood.

“This is my apartment complex,” he said, and then explained what an apartment was. “I live right there.”

He pointed to a door that looked like every other door in the place. Jessie wondered how he could tell the difference.
But she thought it might be rude to ask. She followed him in the door, up some stairs, and through another door.

They entered a luxurious room with a floor covering that was plush and soft. Jessie had never seen anything like it. There were also huge sofas, soft and cream colored, big enough for two or three people to sit on at once. The sofas were even nicer than Dr. Fister's back in Clifton, and nothing at all like the Keysers' wooden chairs. After Jessie marveled over the sofas, Mr. Neeley showed her the TV, which was like a radio but showed pictures, too.

“That's unbelievable,” Jessie said. “Are you
sure
it's not magic?”

Secretly, though, she was trying to figure out why Mr. Neeley's apartment didn't feel very friendly. It felt, Jessie thought, like no one really lived there.

“Do you live all by yourself?” Jessie asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Neeley said, and Jessie decided that explained it. She'd never met anyone who lived alone. It seemed sad.

“This will be your bedroom,” Mr. Neeley said, leading her through a wooden door into another room. “Here's your bed. Why don't you use the bathroom, and I'll get you a bedtime drink.”

When Jessie came back from the bathroom down the hall—also incredibly luxurious—there was a glass on the table beside the bed.

“It's just water,” Mr. Neeley said. “I'm not a doctor or anything, but I'm sure you're dehydrated after all that walking. You must drink this before you go to sleep.”

And then he left her alone.

Jessie picked up the glass, wondering if the fat
environmentalist she'd met was right about water being poison. This water looked perfectly ordinary, and Mr. Neeley seemed to think it was okay. But maybe nobody had told him…. Jessie decided it was safest not to drink it. She wasn't thirsty after all the lemonade back at the KFC, anyway. But if she left the water by the bed, she might forget and drink it when she woke up. She looked around for a place to pour it out, and finally settled on the window. She had to struggle with the latch, but eventually got it open and slowly let the water spill out. It splashed down two stories. Then Jessie put the glass back on the table by the bed and took off her boots and jacket. She felt bad that her pants were dirty from crawling through the ditch that morning, but Mr. Neeley hadn't given her any clothes to change into. She brushed the worst of the caked mud off the pant legs and lay down on the bed.

A few minutes later, she saw Mr. Neeley open the wooden door a crack and peek in. Jessie was too tired to talk anymore, so she pretended to be asleep until she heard him pull the door all the way shut.

And then Jessie thought she really would go to sleep, but for some reason she couldn't. She said quick bedtime prayers without getting up—“Thank you, God, for making everything okay”—but only felt more unsettled. She thought about all the times she'd been scared that day—leaving Clifton, meeting the fat environmentalist, talking to Ray and Tol. And she kept thinking about Katie and the other children, and how sick they were, and how terrible it would be if they didn't get medicine. Jessie reminded herself that Mr. Neeley had said, “Trust me. I'm taking care of everything.” So why couldn't Jessie just relax and go to sleep?

To make herself feel better, Jessie crept over to the wooden door and listened closely. Distantly, she could hear the murmur of Mr. Neeley's voice. He'd said he was going to make more phone calls. Jessie decided to try to hear who he was calling, and what else he was doing to get help.

Jessie opened the door and slipped out into the hall. Mr. Neeley was in another room with the door shut. Jessie hesitated outside that door. She'd just listen for a minute, then she'd creep back to bed.

“Yes, I've got her here,” she heard Mr. Neeley say. “I drugged her, so we've got some time. How much do you want me to find out? She knows too much—we may have to kill her.”

J
essie gasped out loud, then clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. What did he mean, “—we may have to kill her”? This was Mr. Neeley! Ma had said he would help!

“She doesn't suspect anything,” Mr. Neeley was saying. “Remember, she's grown-up nineteenth century, not like suspicious teenagers today.”

There was a pause, as if Mr. Neeley was listening to someone else. Jessie's knees quaked. She knew she should run—now!—before Mr. Neeley came out and discovered her. But she felt frozen.

“That doesn't matter,” Mr. Neeley said, just on the other side of the door. “We started this, and we have to see it through.” Pause. “No, we can't just take her back to Clifton. She knows too much. She's ridden in cars and all. I showed
her a radio and TV myself. You think that doesn't change things?”

Silence again. Jessie's heart pounded. Her mind felt foggy and she realized she'd been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly.

“Of course I didn't
have
to show her the radio and TV, but I wanted to get her reaction, to make sure she'd never seen them before,” Mr. Neeley said. He seemed to be listening again. “Well, we can all meet here. I can't leave the girl, and you're not leaving me out. Not now.” Silence. “All right. Fifteen minutes. Bye.”

So was he done on the phone? Was he coming out? Would he discover her listening? Then what would he do?

Jessie couldn't get her mind to believe Mr. Neeley wanted to kill her, but she managed to make her legs move again. She dashed back to the room where Mr. Neeley thought she was sleeping, and silently closed the door. Just in case he checked on her again, she lay back down on the bed and closed her eyes. It was all she could do to keep her body still and peaceful looking, when she felt so frantic. What was she going to do? What? What? What?

In spite of herself, Jessie's whole body began to shake with fear. She had to escape—but she couldn't get past Mr. Neeley. Think! she ordered herself. Could she wait until Mr. Neeley fell asleep? No—he'd said something about people meeting there in fifteen minutes.

Jessie tried to calm herself by repeating, “It's okay, it's okay,” like she had before, but this time it didn't work. Nothing made sense. Why had Ma told her to go to Mr. Neeley if Mr. Neeley wanted her dead? How could Ma have
been so wrong? Jessie didn't know what to think about Mr. Neeley, but she knew Ma wouldn't want Jessie to die. Was Ma even more confused about the world outside Clifton than she thought?

Dimly, Jessie heard the door into the apartment open and close. A man's low voice rumbled, but Jessie couldn't make out the words. If she listened, would she understand why Mr. Neeley wanted to kill her? Jessie crawled to the door to the main room and pressed her ear against the wood.

“Miles is panicking,” she heard Mr. Neeley say. “Doesn't want blood on his hands.”

“No—it's greed. He sees all that tourist money disappearing,” a man's bearlike voice answered. “But he agreed from the beginning the tourists were just a cover. We have to remind him our research is more important than anything else.”

Jessie couldn't hear the next response—it sounded like Mr. Neeley again.

Then a woman's high voice said, “Maybe we can have it both ways. We take care of the diphtheria deaths quietly and—bingo—Miles keeps his tourist money, we get our research.”

More talk Jessie couldn't hear. Then, “No more tourists,” the bear voice said. “Someone's bound to get suspicious if we keep running thousands of people through there.”

Jessie remembered the guards back at Clifton talking about the village closing down. They had said there wouldn't be any more tourists. But why would anyone want to have Clifton Village without tourists? What “research” were Mr. Neeley and the others talking about? Why did they want anyone to die of diphtheria? Jessie's ear began to hurt from
being pressed so hard against the door. She turned around, switching to her left ear just in time to hear the main door open and close again.

“Mr. Clifton!” three voices said, almost together.

The new person—was it Miles Clifton?—had a squeaky, panicky voice Jessie had trouble hearing. She heard him say, “—too soon—” and “you promised at least one generation before—” Then his voice soared: “This was a bad idea from the beginning. I knew it wasn't foolproof, if that girl could escape. We're all going to be caught—”

“Now, now.” Mr. Neeley's voice was low and soothing. Jessie strained to hear. “—sensors picked her up the minute she lifted the manhole … decided to have her followed to see who she would contact—”

Jessie reeled back from the door. Had Clifton's men known all along she'd left Clifton? Could someone have followed her the whole way? She remembered the man knocking her down at the Stopping Point, and how he'd looked so deliberately at the note with Mr. Neeley's number. But how could Mr. Neeley be one of Clifton's men? She rubbed her forehead in confusion.

When she placed her ear to the door again, Mr. Neeley was saying, “—can't escape now. I gave her enough to knock her out for hours—”

Jessie could tell the next voice was Mr. Clifton's, but she couldn't make out his words. Then Mr. Neeley again, sounding huffy: “All right, all right. I'll double-check. I'll lock her in if it makes you feel better—”

Jessie scrambled away from the door. Mr. Neeley was coming—she had to get back to the bed! It seemed miles across
the room. She was almost there—she could hear his steps outside—

At the edge of the bed, Jessie tripped over her own boots. She went sprawling, her head striking the bedside table. She hit the floor as the door opened.

Distantly, Jessie heard Mr. Neeley chuckle, “Well, well. Looks like our little time traveler fell out of bed.”

Then everything went black.

J
essie woke to pale sunlight on her face. Her head hurt, and she'd been having a horrifying dream about Ray and Tol and Mr. Neeley all chasing her in a rusty brown car. She kept trying to run away, but the car always pulled up beside her, with Mr. Neeley leaning out the window, laughing and screaming, “It's no use! We can go fifty-five miles in an hour!”

Jessie opened her eyes, glad to leave such a nightmare behind. She sat up stiffly. Disoriented, she looked around the sunny, unfamiliar room. Oh yes. She was at Mr. Neeley's. He had called to get help for Katie and the other sick children, and everything was going to be okay. He even laid her back on the bed after she fell—

Then she remembered. Mr. Neeley wanted to kill her.

Jessie shook her head, even though the motion made it
hurt worse. Surely that was a nightmare, too. But everything came back so vividly: overhearing Mr. Neeley on the phone, listening to the meeting with Mr. Clifton…. Jessie kept shaking her head. How could she tell what was true?

Her gaze fixed on the wooden door out to the rest of the apartment. Mr. Neeley had told Mr. Clifton he'd lock her in. If she'd dreamed the whole thing, the door would open.

Jessie walked unsteadily to the door. Her legs ached from all the walking the day before, and she felt stiff where the bread racks had hit her in the bread truck.

“I need someone to take care of me,” she murmured to herself, wishing for Ma's best liniment and soothing touch. Maybe Mr. Neeley would give her something for her aches and pains, if only, if only—

The door was locked.

Jessie stood for a long time with her hand on the knob, absorbing everything the locked door meant. Mr. Neeley hadn't gotten help for Katie and the other sick children. He was one of Clifton's men, only concerned about some mysterious “research.” He'd tried to drug Jessie, then locked her in the room. He planned to kill her after she told him everything he wanted to know.

Jessie's knees gave out, and she slid to the floor. She remembered bragging to Ma—had it only been the night before last?—about how brave she was. Now Jessie knew she wasn't. It had been easy to pretend when all she faced was little old Crooked Creek or some silly half-trained horse. That “bravery”—bravado, really—had just been to impress the other Clifton children. Now she was in real danger, and all she wanted was for Ma to come hold her on her lap and
stroke her hair, as though Jessie were still Katie's age. And, oh, Jessie had failed Katie and the others….