“Why are you questioning Brent? He was with me and Eva the whole time. You need to be looking for Justin! He went in here and didn’t come back out!” she cried, trembling. “Please. You have to find my son.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Todd assured her then took the two policemen aside to bring them up to speed.
“I can get you something to eat.” Dani waited for a pair of police cruisers to scream past before she pulled onto Story Street.
“It’s okay. I’ve already bothered you too much.” Mindy watched the cops barrel toward the highway as she clenched her precious bags of clothing tighter. She felt naked and exposed in jeans and a lacy cami that was technically underwear. It was too damn hot for a wool sweater, but the cami was better than nudity.
“I promised to feed you,” Dani said. “And, really, we can stop at WalMart and get you a pair of shoes. You don’t need to—“
“Your old flip-flops are fine,” Mindy said, staring out the window. Boone looked the same, yet different. New restaurants. A new bank. Same old law firms and real estate agents.
“I am sorry about Mikey. I don’t want to be…” Dani shrugged and, coasting to a stop in front of a taco place, flicked her turning signal on. “I don’t want to be unkind.”
That’s dirty pool. She knows I love Mexican food.
Mindy scowled at her sister as they entered the drive thru lane. “Mikey’s fine. You’re fine. Truly,” she said, staring out the window again. “I’m the one who’s messed up. You really don’t have to feed me.”
“Too bad. Baby’s hungry and mommy is too.” Dani ordered and handed Mindy her usual double tacos and cheesy ‘taters, then she pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. “Eat,” she said, unwrapping her own burrito. “I know you’re hungry.”
Yeah. I haven’t eaten anything in almost three years,
Mindy thought as she took her first bite. They sat in silence, eating and watching Sunday evening traffic. She wanted to ask Dani a hundred questions about her daughter and the baby on the way, about Jeff, about three years of changes to the world, but instead she ate her potato nuggets and tried to figure out what to do.
“Is there somewhere I can take you?” Dani asked, breaking the silence. “A shelter? A friend?”
Mindy shook her head and silently ate her potatoes.
What do I do? How can I survive with nothing but a couple of bags of clothes? I don’t even exist anymore.
“Hey,” Dani turned to face her. “I can take you to Ames, to Des Moines, hell, I’ll drive to Chicago if it’ll help.”
“I have nowhere to go. I don’t know anyone anymore.” Mindy stuffed her meal refuse in the paper sack. She glanced at Dani and managed a smile before reaching for the door latch. “Thank you for your help. I won’t bother you—“
“No. Wait,” Dani said, grasping Mindy’s arm. “You have to understand. This is
impossible
. We… We have kids and can’t take the chance that you might not be… Be my Mindy.”
This smile came easier. “I know. It’s okay. Really.”
Dani still held her arm. “But if you are her, if by some miracle my sister’s back, I cannot,
will not
, let her wander the streets homeless and alone. I
won’t
, okay?” She moistened her lips and added, “There has to be someone, somewhere, who knows what’s going on. Someone who can help.”
“I haven’t seen anyone but folks at the hospital, and the deputies who took us there.”
“I’m not going to turn you over to the cops,” Dani said, chewing her lip. “What about those other people you saw? Did any of them seem aware of what was going on?”
“No. They were all confused, too. And they’re still at the hospital, as far as I know.”
“Okay,” Dani said, chewing her lip again. “What about where the cops found you? Was there a person in charge or anything?”
“No. I just woke up in some guy’s backyard in Pinell. He seemed as confus…”
Perplexed at Dani’s mortified expression, Mindy asked, “Are you all right? Did I say something wrong?”
Dani shook her head and turned on the ignition. “We buried you in a little cemetery east of Pinell.” She backed out and drove to the exit. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered as she turned onto the road, heading west. “What the hell’s going on?”
Chapter Seven
After Mare suggested going back to basics and trying a grid-based layout instead of his usual freeform style, Sean managed to scrape out a few sketches. None would win any composition awards, but at least they weren’t dark drawings of tortured children. And they featured Ghoulie, or rather a nebulous shape resembling Ghoulie. Maybe. If he squinted.
Eight spreads done. Not my best work, but it’ll get to Murph before the meeting.
Sean taped a fresh sheet to his drawing board.
God, I hate this stiff, structured shit.
Mare tidied up the worst of his ratty lines on page six before scanning them into the Mac. “Looking better,” she said.
“Yeah, better than dog shit on my shoes,” Sean muttered, using a ruler to draw story cells on a blank page. “I haven’t had to use layout blocking since I was in high school.”
That scan done, Mare slid in the next. “Your lines are getting better. They’re not so smudgy.”
“Maybe I should just draw stick figures and be done with it,” Sean muttered as he roughed in the next scene. Cursing, he reached for his eraser and scrubbed the page with it.
Bigger, bigger, you idiot. Ghoulie’s full grown, not the size of a kid.
Mare took a breath to speak, but someone knocked on the front door. “I got it,” she said, bolting from the room.
Sean tried again to draw Ghoulie leaping onto a rushing semi.
Better not be another news crew,
he thought, pencil finding the familiar twisting line of Ghoulie’s back and arm.
He heard Mare open the door and a quiet chorus of female voices, then Mare peeked into the studio. “I think you need to come out here.”
“’Kay.” Sean stretched and walked to her. “Who is it this time? The Drudge Report? The Onion? Another teenage blogger with an undead fetish ready to make fun of how I’m an idiot who screwed up zombie canon?”
Mare stared down the hall toward the living room and whispered, “No, nothing like that.”
Sean grasped her hand. “You okay?”
Mare kept staring down the hall. “Think so.” She leaned against him. “Just never thought I’d see what I’m pretty sure I just saw.”
Still holding her hand, he led her to the living room then stopped. Mindy Howard and a pregnant woman lingered near the front door. The pregnant woman looked around as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Did something happen?” Sean asked them, wondering what was so mind boggling about his shabby living room. “I thought you were taken to the hospital.”
“I was,” Mindy said, nodding. “But I left. My sister Dani brought me here, hoping we could find some answers.” She took a steadying breath then asked, “Do you have any idea what’s going on? Did the cops say
anything
? Is there something,
anything
you can tell me?” She swallowed and her hands shook. “I’m totally lost here. I’ve lost more than two years of my life. Somehow.”
Still holding his hand, Mare slumped to sit on the couch. “We took Home Ec together in high school. I went to your funeral. How can you be here?” she asked Mindy, her voice awed and terrified.
“I don’t know. I was driving home then suddenly standing in his backyard.”
“
Our
backyard,” Sean said. It drove Mare batty when his mother referred to everything as his. He wasn’t about to let a stranger do it, too. “It’s our house.”
“Okay,” Mindy said, nodding. “But
how did I get here?
”
Sean admitted, “I have no idea. I woke this morning to find you and the others walking into our yard.”
“So you don’t know either,” Mindy sighed. “This was just a waste of time.”
“Not a total waste,” her companion said. “Where’d you get such a great poster of GhoulBane? And the resin figurine? My husband would kill for such cool stuff like that.”
Sean felt himself blush, but Mare said, “He’s a Ghoulie Fan?”
“Oh my God, yes! Has every issue, some of them signed by the artist. He gave a talk on line drawing composition at the Ames comic shop last year, and Mikey was
thuh-rilled
to meet him. Was all he talked about for weeks.”
“Oh, cool, I bet that was fun,” Mare said, glancing at Sean who had long ago learned to keep his mouth shut. Better to say nothing than deny and be caught lying or fess up and be called arrogant. Since the stalker incident of ‘11, Mare had little patience for Ghoulie fans showing up at the house.
Despite Mare’s stiff smile, Dani walked close to examine the poster. “Yeah, he said it was awesome and he thought the guy’s from Iowa somewhere. You should totally get this signed. It’d probably triple the value.”
“We’ll look into that,” Mare said.
All the while, Mindy stood near the door, watching Sean, fear and sorrow fighting to control her face. “Was that one guy first, just standing there in the trees,” he said to her. “I thought he was trouble, so I went out to confront him, then you stumbled out. You were naked. You all were. I sent you inside to get a towel or something. Everyone else followed you.”
He pointed east, toward the kitchen. “Everyone came from the tree farm. The cemetery’s on the other side.”
“Where I was buried,” Mindy said, her voice soft. “What happened in the cemetery?”
“I don’t know,” Sean said. “I tried to find out this morning, but there were too many cops. We’re gonna try again in a couple of hours.” He glanced at Mare. “Did you want to…”
The women looked at each other and Mindy shook her head. “I… I’m not ready for that, I don’t think. To see my grave.” She shuddered. “Can I just wait here?”
Mare approached Mindy and took her hand, voice soft and coaxing, like she used with her patients. “Of course you can. I can’t imagine how awful this must be. Let’s get you something to drink.”
Dani watched Mare lead Mindy to the kitchen. She hefted her purse higher onto her shoulder and said to Sean, “I really appreciate you guys doing this.”
“Doing what?” He squinted at her. “You’re not sticking around, are you?”
“No,” the woman said, her gaze on the floor. “I can’t. My husband won’t understand.” She released a sigh and managed to look Sean in the eye. “I don’t understand this either. My sister died almost three years ago. She… She’s someone else. She has to be.”
Before Sean could respond, Dani turned and opened the door. “Tell her…” she said, glancing over her shoulder, “tell her I’m sorry.”
Sorry for dumping her on strangers?
he thought, but did nothing to stop her. He heard her car door slam, saw the reflection of her lights as she backed out of the driveway and onto the road. When she pulled away, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked to the kitchen.
Mare and Mindy sat at the table, each clutching a glass of pop. Mindy’s eyes were red and puffy. “Dani left, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Sean said. “Can I talk to Mare a minute?”
Mindy took a shaky breath and stared at her hands clenched together on the table.
Mare stood. “I’ll be right back, okay?” she said, touching Mindy’s shoulder. “I promise. Everything will be all right.”
Mindy nodded and took a deep breath before raising her head as if facing certain retribution. “Sure. Sure it will.”
They walked to his studio and closed the door. Whispering, head close to his, Mare said, “We can’t just kick her out.”
“We don’t know her.”
“I kind of do. She was one of the sweetest girls in school.”
“So you already believe they’re who they say they are?” Sean asked, running a hand over his head as he looked at the bedroom door. “Me having crazy thoughts is one thing, but you’re supposed to be the sane one.”
Mare pursed her lips then pressed on, undaunted. “I went to school with Mindy Robean. I
know
her, all right? And crazy though it may be, I have no doubt the woman out there is Mindy Robean Howard. Her family’s already turned her away. That was her
sister
for God’s sake. Where else can she go? She doesn’t have anybody else.”
Sean ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“Hey, you’re the one who found her. I seem to remember someone who tried to help these tree people.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t intend to open a homeless shelter for them. We don’t have money, and we don’t have
room
.”
She nodded. “Maybe so, but we can’t just toss her out, either. It’s just…wrong.”
“We don’t even know what she is or what she might do to us.” Sean paced. “I draw the undead, I don’t live with them.”
Mare shrugged. “She seems perfectly alive, perfectly sane, just like I remember her but a bit more timid. Who can blame her? And the Mindy I know wouldn’t take anything, not that we have anything worth stealing.” She paused to catch his gaze. “Think of how many folks have crashed on our couch for a few days, how many charities we’ve donated to. We’ve never turned anyone away before.”
“You’re right, babe. But how can she stay here? Where will she sleep?” He let his head roll back as he thought,
How can we afford to feed her? We can barely feed ourselves.
He sighed and muttered, “I guess there’s the couch.”
“There’s a twin-sized bed in Jam’s old room,” Mare reminded him, her voice cracking.
He winced, his heart clenching.
Jam. God.
“Yeah, buried behind a ton of boxes and books.”
Mare shrugged. “So? We excavate.” She squeezed his hand. “She’s just a scared young woman with nowhere to go. We should help her. All we can offer is some shelter, so that’s what we do. At least until she figures something out.”
We must be nuts. Or suckers,
he thought, letting his breath out in a heavy sigh. “Okay. You go ahead and tell her. I’ll start hauling boxes to the basement.”
A storm front pushed its way across the sky after eleven, obliterating the moon and crackling with flashes of lightning in the northwest. Sean pointed his flashlight at the mud ahead of his feet and led Mare across the field as he grumbled over his late-night news segment. He’d sounded like an idiot, again. But at least much of the newscast had focused on a missing kid, not the tree people. Far behind them, Peaches barked and snarled, informing the neighborhood that someone was in the trees. Or maybe she was just barking to hear herself bark. Sean had always avoided dogs and didn’t know the difference.
He glanced back toward the house. Mindy had looked about ready to shatter when they left, not that he could blame her.
“I think we’re going to get wetter,” Mare said, squeezing Sean’s hand. “At least it’ll break the heat for a while.”
“And shut up the dog,” Sean muttered, hoping Peaches remained securely trapped inside the invisible fence.
The looming rows of evergreens stood whispering in shifting wind, backlit by diffuse, untrustworthy light from far ahead. As he and Mare crept among the slippery shadows and snagging branches, they ran across more and more broken trees, as if someone had crashed against them instead of walking between. Sean squatted and took photos of a ruined row of saplings.
Did the police break them during patrols? Did the tree people damage them in their confusion
?
Flashlight turned off, they reached the cemetery a few steps after the first raindrops fell. Police tape stretched across a broken section of fence, and the air stank of the same musty funk Sean had smelled in the house. Across the cemetery, more police tape marked a creek that curled around the north and eastern sides of the gentle slope before plunging to Juniper Road and the Des Moines River not far beyond. A pair of sheriff’s vehicles blocked the main entrance along the southern fence, their headlights on and shining onto the road.
Three deputies stood by the cars, facing a tangle of wild growth trees on the steep slope west of the cemetery but south of Sean and Mare. A flashlight flickered there, partially hidden by brush, then another moved up to join the first.
So it’s not just us,
he thought.
If we’re quiet, maybe we won’t be noticed.
He turned to assess the rest of the cemetery. The fence lay shattered before him, but to his left it ran unbroken to the north and across, barely visible beyond the glowing tarps near the curve of the creek.
Four rings of blue plastic tarps hung from tall frames standing in the creek’s cleft. Light shone from within three of them like giant paper lanterns. The glowing tarps and occasional lightning illuminated the cemetery enough for Sean to make out the graves; all appeared undisturbed. He took a breath and looked to the south. The fence rose up again a few feet to his right and continued on unbroken past the woods to the gate near the cops.
No wonder the tree people walked into my yard,
he thought.
If the gates were shut, this was the only way out of the cemetery. Still is the only way out. But the cops are a few hundred feet away at most. Maybe far enough that we can get a look at what’s going on out here.
He returned his attention to the closest glowing tarp-ring.
Can we do this? Can we get in, maybe take a few pictures, and get out without being noticed? Or at least quick enough hide in the tree farm before we’re caught?
A third flashlight joined the previous pair in the woods downhill, and two deputies moved to intercept them.
Sean turned on his camera and took a breath.
We can do this.
“What’s going on out here?” Mare whispered, pointing. “Why hang all those tarps in the creek? And there, on that one grave. There’s a weird, twisty thing on the grass. See?”
Screeewaaaawk!!
“You, in the woods. Back up immediately,” someone said over a megaphone. “This is a restricted area.”
Nervous silence, then “We have a right to know!” a girl’s voice screeched, echoing in the rain.
“You can’t hide the truth for—“ another teenager hollered, the last of his statement lost to thunder.
This is our chance, let’s go!
Sean lifted the police tape and held it up for Mare to duck under. She hesitated then slipped past. He followed and picked his way into the cemetery. Kneeling behind the closest tall gravestone, he took a picture of the twisted mass at his feet and hoped the stone hid him and the flash.