The Portal ~ Large Print (3 page)
V
ivian stared at
the three skinheads, lined in a row between her and the car. Above, the streetlamp seemed close to giving out altogether. Even in this dim light, she saw that the boys couldn’t have been older than eighteen. The worst age. Too young and dumb to know they had nothing to prove.
What could she do? In one arm, she held Cody. In the other, she carried the cooler. Stay calm. Predators tended to attack when they sensed fear. Jarod always did.
She glanced back at Tammy’s house just as the porch light shut off. Whatever bridge existed between them had just been destroyed. The guns? No, they were taped inside the cooler to keep them from Cody. She wouldn’t be able to get to them before these guys grabbed her.
“Please step aside.” She tried to sound confident.
“Does that hurt?” Cody asked. He might have been talking to the tall guy on the right. More than a half dozen metal piercings sprouted from his lips and eyebrows. Or maybe he was asking the short one in the middle. Tattoos stained the left side of his neck.
“Be quiet, baby,” she said. Then she turned back to the boys. “Move away from my car now.”
“Anything you say.” Tattoo man stepped to the side, exposing a giant black X spray-painted on the side of the tan Humvee. Great. As if the damaged, stolen car wasn’t noticeable enough. Now a bull’s-eye was painted on the side, too.
“Did you take art classes for that?” she asked.
Noticing the smell of stale rubber, she looked down and found a knife sticking from her flat front tire.
“Looks like somebody messed up your ride.” Tattoo man reached over and pulled the blade. Then he caressed it between his thumb and forefinger.
“I don’t have any money.” She stepped back.
“Quit it,” his pierced companion said. “She’s got a kid with her. You’re scaring them.”
“They should be frightened,” Tattoo Man said.
“Well you’re scaring me, too. I just got out of lockup.”
“Will you shut the fuck up, Phil?” He pointed the knife at his friend. “You sound like my mother.”
“Dude, don’t fucking use my name in front of her.”
“I’ll do anything I want,” he said. “How is anyone supposed to fear the Edge if you wet your pants every five seconds?”
“Okay Anthony Jessup, graduate of Lincoln Memorial,” Phil said. “Let’s spread the word.”
As she watched them argue, the words ‘Minor Threat’ on Tattoo Anthony’s shirt seemed to apply more and more. Her fear earlier seemed premature, even foolish. “Look guys, I really don’t have any money.”
“You think we want your oil money?” Anthony asked.
“I don’t know what you want. Maybe you’re mad because you lost World War II.”
That got all of their attention. Their baby-faced companion stepped forward and broke his silence. “Just because we’re skins doesn’t make us Nazis lady.”
“People are so dumb.” Phil seemed genuinely hurt.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. One day, she and Cody might laugh until they cried about this night. As it stood right now, she just wanted to strangle these kids. “My sister is right through that door. Now help me change the tire before I call the cops.”
“Tammy’s your sister?” Baby-face asked.
How should she answer that question? Knowing Tammy, she probably treated these idiots like her cat family. Finally she nodded.
“Vivian?” he asked.
“How do you know my name?”
“I’m Jason Daniel.”
That sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
“Jay-Jay,” Cody whispered in her ear.
She almost told him to be quiet but stopped. He was right. A weird feeling settled in her stomach. It couldn’t be Jay-Jay. Where were his towhead curls? This couldn’t be the boy that cried raindrops because she wouldn’t let him stay up to watch
Home Alone 3
.
“Jay-Jay?” she asked.
He nodded. Chills rose on her neck because Cody hadn’t even been born when she knew Jay-Jay. Somehow Cody knew his name.
“Knock it off.” Jay-Jay turned to Tattoo Anthony. “She’s cool.”
Anthony shook his head. “She’s destroying the earth for all of us.”
“Of course,” she said. After the night that she’d had, it made sense. “Skin head eco-terrorists.”
“No.” Anthony huffed.
“We’re straight edge,” Phil chimed in.
“Whatever you say.” Though she felt quite safe now, she couldn’t help wonder if she was witnessing the birth of something more sinister. Had Timothy McVeigh once cut his terror teeth on single mothers at four in the morning?
“Straight edge is our life. We don’t need no strife.” Jay-Jay must have been reciting lyrics, because his words carried the slightest melody. Clearly punk music. “Straight edge for every boy and girl, before these fools destroy the world.”
“How deep,” she said, and Jay-Jay nodded.
Anthony closed the switchblade and put it in his pocket. “You’ve had your chance and all you do is pollute your bodies until you can’t think straight. Then you pollute the world with this thing.”
“One, I don’t even drink alcohol. And two, it’s not my car,” she said. “Now, my son’s in pajamas and it’s freezing. Either help me change the tire, or get out of my way.”
Cody giggled, clearly enthralled that somebody besides him was being ordered around.
“Why should we help you?” Anthony asked.
Arguing with a teenager could take all night, and Jarod was searching for them now.
“Because in here.” She held the cooler forward. “I have important documents to bring to the media. The government will stop at nothing to silence me.”
“No shit?” Jay-Jay and Phil asked at the same time. Anthony still eyed her.
“The Exxon Corporation has been channeling funds to terrorist groups in Somalia,” she said. “The documents in this cooler can cripple them, but I need my tire changed so I can get to CNN.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Anthony looked at his friends. Then he punched Phil in the shoulder. “Well don’t just stand there. Help the woman.”
“You’re the one who slashed her tire.”
“I don’t care who’s responsible,” Vivian said. “We need to hurry.”
The squeal of brakes a few blocks down seemed to accentuate her lie. She looked up to find a dark sedan speeding toward them. Jarod couldn’t have found her so fast.
A thundering rhythm grew rapidly in volume. From above, a spotlight beam lit the entire street. A helicopter hovered. Anthony darted for a chain-link fence.
“Follow us.” Jay-Jay grabbed the cooler before she could stop him. He chucked the ice chest over the fence and squeezed through a padlocked gate. Behind them, the sedan screeched to a halt. Both she and Cody fit through the gap in the chain with ease.
Waste-high weeds and soft dirt slowed her down as she raced through the field. Glancing back, she saw two of Jarod’s thick-chest thugs struggle with the gate. Intense wind scattered the weeds in all directions. Somebody grabbed her. She spun to find Jay-Jay pointing to the canal in front of them.
“There’s an entrance to the storm drain up ahead,” he shouted. She clutched Cody and followed him. From behind her, the spotlight seemed to shine brighter now. The helicopter must’ve landed in that field.
Jay-Jay held her free hand. They moved down a steep concrete embankment. At the bottom, she slipped and dropped to one knee. The chilly stream splashed up to her waste, but she managed to hold Cody above the water line. She got to her feet and followed Jay-Jay down the wash. Then underneath the roadway.
Above, speeding cars vibrated the overpass. In the drainage culvert, Jay-Jay pulled open a vertical storm grate that led to a dark tunnel.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s just going to be a little cold.” She pushed Cody underneath. Next she slipped into the tunnel. The grate clanged shut.
“Keep going straight,” Jay-Jay said through the metal rebar. “It will be really dark. Just keep your hands on the right wall, and you’ll end up at a steel ladder. It will take you to the junkyard.”
“She’s not up here,” somebody shouted in the distance.
“Anthony and Phil are probably already there,” Jay-Jay whispered.
“Wait,” she said. “What about you?”
“I know a hundred short cuts. Take my light.” He handed his keys through the grate and then held up the water cooler with Jarod’s hand in it. “I’ll bring the documents to the junkyard. Meet you there.” He backed away. Ridiculously loud, he shouted, “You bastards think you can stop the Edge?”
He tore off down the wash. Maybe thirty seconds later, a chorus of splashing footsteps raced by.
“There,” a deep voice shouted. Then, only the babble of rushing water.
With Cody in one arm and the light in the other, she turned to face the tunnel. Guck squished in her shoes. The blue key light showed little more than foam and street debris on the water’s surface, which reached just below her knees. Darkness sprawled beyond.
“Don’t worry, Mommy,” Cody whispered in her ear. “It will be okay.”
“I know,” she said, unable to imagine how things could get worse. She had no inhaler, food, money, or vehicle now. And all of their hopes to elude Jarod’s people rested on an eighteen-year-old punker.
D
espite her efforts,
Vivian couldn’t avoid the water that splattered all around. In brooding shades of dark blue, the tunnel looked like a cavern, filled with eyes that stalked the darkness, just beyond the light’s reach.
“Stop it.” She sloshed forward. When Cody didn’t listen, she grabbed his hand and pulled it away from the rainwater streams that dumped into the tunnel every few feet. Since he wouldn’t understand the danger of radiator fluid and other toxic chemicals, she said, “People pee on the street up there.”
His hand shot back around her neck. “Gross.”
“Very gross.” She tried not to think about the fact that every inch of her clothing clung to her body.
A splash came from the tunnel opening to their left. She spun and shined the light to find a dam of twigs and debris. A rotting stench wafted from that area, so she turned back and picked up her pace. The drainage pipe finally ended at a concrete wall, embedded with ladder rungs.
“Thank God,” she said.
Above, storm runoff dripped from the perimeter of an open manhole cover. Was it a trap? Jarod’s people could be waiting up there. No, Anthony and Phil had probably left it open, but she couldn’t take the chance.
“I need to make sure it’s safe above.” Although she hated the idea, she set Cody down in the stagnant water that came to his waist. “Stand by the ladder so I can see you.”
She gave him the keys and showed him the button. “Push this for the light.” The minute she took her finger away, the darkness seemed to swallow them. A loud splash, this time at their feet.
“Cody, what was that?” His arm pulled from her grip. She shouted for him and reached out, but caught only air.
“Mommy,” he cried. Finally the light flicked on. She looked down. He clutched the button with both thumbs. Mister Vincent floated face-up at their feet with his left eye hanging out.
She dropped to one knee and held Cody tight. In the confusion, she hadn’t noticed him carrying the teddy bear this entire time, but she should have. They’d been inseparable, ever since she’d run from Jarod.
“Don’t leave,” he said. Her heart broke when she saw his tears. How could she be so stupid?
“I’m sorry, baby. I wasn’t thinking.” She wiped his cheeks and kissed his forehead. “You know that I would never leave you, right?” He nodded. “We’ll go up together. I’ll carry Mister Vincent.”
He gave her a strange look as she picked up the bear from the water. They climbed the ladder with Cody on the inside. At the top, she pushed him through and then picked him up. Though nothing could really protect him from the downpour, she smothered him with both arms and ran.
Dead ahead, two high-powered floodlights sat at the top of a pole, illuminating the rain. Hundreds of crippled cars lay all around. Some stripped. Others were stacked into piles that seemed on the verge of tipping. She followed the lights to a metal warehouse, large enough to house a seven forty-seven.
“I’m cold,” Cody said.
“I know, but look at that.” She pointed to an enormous magnet crane and ran up to the warehouse. Peeking inside the door, she found Anthony and Phil sitting next to a trashcan fire. Even without Jay-Jay, she had to take her chances with them. The steel door shrieked as she slid it open.
“What are you doing here?” Anthony jumped up.
“Jay-Jay invited us. We’re going to warm up.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “You’re going to bring those assholes back here.”
“Nobody followed us.” She was pretty sure it was true. “Now move aside. My son is freezing.”
When she tried to walk around him, he stepped between her and the fire.
“You can’t stay,” he said.
“Listen jerk, we just spent the last ten minutes in a storm drain because of you.”
“Assholes,” Cody added.
“That’s right, baby, this is an asshole. Now either move out of my way, or I place an anonymous call to the cops and tell them that you’re squatting in this garage at night.”
“Dude.” Phil punched Anthony’s chest. “Why do you always have to be such a jerk?”
“We’ll leave soon enough.” She shouldered her way past them and sat in front of the fire.
Her body and face warmed instantly. Flames licked just below the mouth of the trashcan. Luckily, the warehouse stood at least three stories, giving the smoke plenty of room to drift. Phil and Anthony returned.
She removed Cody’s pajamas, leaving him in his Hulk underwear.
“Don’t you think it’s ironic that your base is a garage?” She rung out Cody’s shirt.
“What?” Phil studied the collection of stripped vehicles, grease puddles, and engine blocks on the concrete floor. Anthony pouted with his back to them.
“Well aren’t you guys environmentalists?” she asked.
“It’s the only place that stays unlocked at night.”
Black smoke poured off of the trash can fire as well. Not to mention the spray paint cans they used to tag the Humvee, but she decided against saying anything. She needed the heat more than she needed to make them feel stupid.
“Where are your documents?” Phil asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know,” he said. “The ones to bring down Exxon.”
She’d forgotten all about her story.
“Jay-Jay has it,” Cody answered for her, letting her know once again that he understood far more than he let on.
A hollow feeling settled in her stomach. Mother’s intuition. Maybe it was nothing at all, but suddenly the strange things that had happened tonight didn’t seem so coincidental.
“Give me a minute.” She turned away from Phil, grabbed Cody’s pajamas, and began dressing him. “I need to ask you a question, baby.”
He nodded but didn’t look up at her.
“How did you know Jay-Jay’s name earlier?” she asked. He poked her chest, so she said, “No games right now. This is important. Mommy needs to know who told you Jay-Jay’s name.”
“Mister Vincent.”
“Cody, tell the truth.”
“He told me.”
Clearly this wasn’t going to work. She picked up the soggy bear with its creepy hanging eye. “Mister Vincent has no mouth. See, it’s all sewn up. How could he tell you?”
“That’s not Mister Vincent.”
For a second, she wanted to throw it in the fire. Had she picked up somebody else’s bacteria-infested bear from the storm drain? Then she saw the bleach spot on its ear from last Christmas. “Cody, stop lying.”
“I’m not.” He looked at her like she was crazy. “That’s not Mister Vincent.”
“Then who is this?”
“That’s my bear.”
If Mister Vincent wasn’t his bear, whom had he been talking about for the last year? An actual person? No. She’d been carrying Cody when he’d told her Jay-Jay’s name. Nobody else was around. Ice raced through her veins. Cody’s words at the cabin.
Mister Vincent is sorry. He didn’t mean to let him in.
“If this isn’t Mister Vincent, then where is he now?” she asked. He looked around the garage. When he didn’t answer, she held his chin gently and caught eye contact. “Where is he?”
“He’ll come back.”
The front door screeched, and Vivian jumped. Jay-Jay ran inside.
“About time,” Phil said. “I thought they caught you.”
Jay-Jay didn’t speak. He just stood by the door hunched, looking at her. She didn’t see the cooler.
“Cody, sit right here and don’t move.” She set him on the metal foldout chair and walked over. Jay-Jay leaned against a car, clutching his ribcage.
“What’s wrong with you?” Phil asked.
“I ran into some barbed wire back there.” He coughed and moved to the side to show her the cooler. Good. She still had her evidence, but the duct tape was missing from the lid.
“Did you bring any food with you?” Anthony shouted.
“Yeah,” Phil said. “Where’s the grub?”
Looking over, she saw Cody in Phil’s lap. She almost rushed back until Cody leaned over and poked Anthony, who legitimately fell for What’s-That-On-Your-Shirt. Phil and Cody both laughed.
Turning back, she said, “You looked inside, didn’t you?” His wide eyes answered for him. She hushed her voice. “I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but we’re going to need a car. Do you have one?”
As he nodded, his eyes fell slightly shut. Something was definitely wrong with him. She looked down.
“Be careful,” she said. “You’re standing in a puddle of oil.”
He slipped and collapsed to the floor.
“Somebody help,” Vivian shouted and knelt next to him.
Cradling his head, she peeled back his sticky jacket to find a fist-sized hole in his shirt. Red smears covered her hands. He hadn’t been standing in oil. Jay-Jay began coughing up more blood.