Some of the fish were still whole and their dead, staring eyes looked like gla.s.s.
"How did they kill "em, Cole?" Janelle asked.
He blinked; at first, he thought she was still talking about the faces on the milk cartons because they were still on his mind. "The fish? Oh, they caught "em on hooks."
"How?"
"With bait."
"What kinda bait?"
He hated it when she did this. "Sometimes other fish. Y"know, smaller fish. And sometimes other things ... whatever the fish like to eat."
The man behind the counter offered to help Mom, and she said, "I"d like a couple of swordfish steaks, please."
"Sorry, but we"re all out. Till tomorrow."
She sighed. "You mean, we live right here on the coast and you"re out of swordfish?"
"It happens."
"Okay, then ... how about shark?"
"Oh, yeah, got some fresh shark steaks here. How many?"
"Two. And, uh-" She looked down at Cole and Janelle. "What do you guys want for dinner?"
"Not fish," Cole said. "I hate fish."
Janelle added, "So does Daddy. He said so."
"Well, that"s just too bad for him. He could stand to lose weight and red meat is really fattening. Besides, it causes cancer. Fish is good for you, so what kind do you want?"
When they wouldn"t respond, she ordered some whitefish.
Janelle leaned over and whispered to Cole, "Poor fish. I don"t wanna eat "em if they"ve been tricked into bein" killed."
Cole looked over the top of the counter at the enormous swordfish on the wall behind it. It was shiny and regal, with its long, needle-like nose jutting into the air. And, of course, it was very dead.
Once they had the fish, they had to walk fast to keep up with Mom on her way to the register. They stood in line for a while, then when they got up to the counter, they started looking over the racks of candy bars and gum to their right, asking Mom if they could have some.
"No, absolutely not, you know what that stuff does to you?" she hissed, bending toward them. "Just go on outside and wait by the car. I"ll be right out."
So, they did. But not before Cole noticed the brown paper bags that were being packed with groceries at each counter.
Smeared faces looked back at him from the sides of the bags as if they were watching him lead his sister out of the store. The faces were haunted ... and haunting.
On the way to the car, they pa.s.sed the newspaper vending boxes and Cole stopped when he saw a picture of a little baby on the front page of the local paper with the word MISSING! beneath it. The word made him stop. He read the headline, frowning: 2 MONTH OLD BABY STOLEN FROM CRIB IN MIDDLE OF NIGHT-POLICE HAVE NO SUSPECTS Cole stared at the baby for a while, frowning, wondering what had happened to it. Who would want to take a little baby? Why?
With a slight burning in his gut, he turned and hurried after his little sister toward the car.
They stood by the car, kicking a smashed soda can back and forth between them over the dirty pavement. The nearby ocean gave the chilly, damp breeze a salty smell and seagulls circled overhead, calling out sharply.
The musical voice of a little girl called to them from a few yards away.
"Hey! Wanna see my puppies?"
She stood beside a gray van. The sliding door on the side was half open.
"What kind of puppies?" Cole asked as he and Janelle took a few steps toward her.
"Little bitty ones." She held her palms a few inches apart to demonstrate.
"Let"s go see the puppies!" Janelle said, grinning.
"Okay. But keep an eye out for Mom."
Mom pushed her cart of grocery bags through the automatic door and stopp ed just outsid e the store. The door closed behind her with a h um as she fished a Marlboro out of her purse and turned against the wind, l eaning her head forward to lig ht up.
It was while she was lighting her cigarette that the gray van drove by.
By the time she lifted her head, taking a deep drag on the cigarette, the van was already gone.
So were the children.
Cole awoke in complete, solid, almost tangible darkness.
His ears rang loudly and his head throbbed. The ringing eventually subsided-slowly, gradually-and was replaced by the cry of a baby.
No, no, the cry of two ... no, three, maybe four ... no, several babies.
Somewhere nearby, there were voices that barely rose above the crying of the babies.
But there was something else ... something weird ... something wrong ...
The ground beneath him and the damp, cold darkness all around him was moving ... tilting back and forth ... this way, that way, back and forth.
He reached down to feel the surface beneath him, but suddenly realized that he could not move his arms. His wrists were tied together behind him and his ankles were tied together before him.
Then he noticed something else: A low rumble that made its way through the surface beneath him and up into his body, gathering in his chest like quivering indigestion. It sounded like an engine.
Are we on a bus, or something? he thought, then: We? We?
"Janelle?" he said, his voice hoa.r.s.e and weak. "Janelle, you here? C"mon, Janelle, say something!"
"Who you talkin" to?" another voice asked. It was the voice of a child, a boy, somewhere around Cole"s age.
"What? I"m ... talking to my sister," Cole said quietly, uncertainly.
"Who?" a little girl asked from somewhere in the darkness, her voice trembling. It wasn"t Janelle. "Who are you talking to?"
"My sister, Janelle. Janelle? You there? C"mon, Janelle, you gotta be there!"
The voices paused for a long moment. Cole could hear the babies crying, some of them gurgling and making spitting sounds, and when he listened very closely, he could hear the breathing of other children. Some were making purring little snoring sounds. There was a lot of rustling in the dark, squirming movement.
He called for Janelle a few more times, raising his voice in spite of how much it hurt his head, in spite of the way his stomach was beginning to feel sick because of the lurching back-and-forth movements.
Finally, there was a little voice ... so small and weak and frightened: "Cole? You ... are you there?"
"Yeah, Munchkin. I"m here. I"m right here."
"Where?"
"I"m here, real close. You hear me?"
"I can"t see you."
"Yeah, I know, but you can hear me, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good, then that"s all that counts right now. We"ll see each other soon, okay? You just stay still and don"t be afraid, "cause I"m here."
"Okay. Good. Okay."
Her voice was so small, like a thread being pulled through the darkness by a dull needle.
They were all quiet.
A few of the babies had stopped crying.
Cole thought of the faces on the milk cartons and grocery bags.
We"ve been taken, he thought. Just like them.
He wondered what he and Janelle would look like on those cartons and bags. Would their faces be as splotchy and smeared? Would Mom even recognize them if she saw them?
The voices outside were more audible now, easier to make out. But Cole was able to catch only s.n.a.t.c.hes of what they were saying.
"-"cause these here sharks are d.a.m.ned easy to catch, and "cause most of the shoppers goin" to their local fish counter in the grocery store are so f.u.c.kin" stupid that they-"
"-don"t know what you"re figurin", that they"re goin" in to buy shark steaks and they don"t even know that we"re-"
One of the babies wailed for a moment and the voices melted together into a single meaningless sound, and then: "-go into the grocery stores and restaurants as cheap scallops and swordfish steaks and, a course, shark steaks, so we pick up the money and they can-"
"-why that stuff"s so cheap in some places, "cause we"re out here-"
"-people eating more fish these days to stay healthy and lose weight, so we"re able to-"
There was another noise behind the voices, a noise that was hard to identify at first although it was so familiar, as if it were a sound Cole had heard just yesterday, a sound he heard frequently.
Then, quite suddenly, he realized it was a sound he heard almost every day-the ocean! He was on the ocean! That was why everything was tilting back and forth-they were in a boat!
A door burst open loudly and sudden blinding light cut through the darkness. Cole turned his head away and clenched his eyes tightly shut.
Heavy footsteps sounded on wood and there was a sharp click! and the room filled with light that was bright enough to stab through Cole"s eyelids and into his head like a hot knife.
There was deep, booming laughter from one man while another barked, "See? Here they are! All we need! Lessee, whatta we want here, now, huh? Lessee ..."
Cole tried to open his eyes. It was hard at first, painful because of the sudden bright light ... then he tried opening them gradually, just a little bit at a time, until he was squinting. First, he saw only bright light ... then shapes moving back and forth ... then the light began to diminish and the shapes became more distinct and took on faces and features.
"Well, we"ll need a few a-them," one man said, pointing to some shelves with rows of cardboard boxes on them.
The other man-taller, bigger, with broad shoulders and big arms-said, "Yeah, okay, you get them. I"ll get these. A couple of "em. Lessee, lessee ... which ones?"
By that time, Cole"s vision had cleared enough to see the enormous, bearded man looking down at him.
"You awake, boy?" the man growled through a grin.
"Huh? What?"
The man kicked him, digging the toe of his boot beneath Cole"s right knee. Hard.
"Owww!" Cole shouted, trying not to cry.
"Yeah, yeah, you"re awake, all right. You"ll do."
The man reached down and slung an arm around Cole"s chest, carrying him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, until Cole could see only the wet wooden floor below.
"And you!" the man growled, his voice pa.s.sing through Cole"s entire body. Cole could feel the man picking up another child. Then the man turned and said to his partner, "Go ahead and take four of "em outta those boxes, just go ahead. We"ll need at least that many. Fact, we"ll prob"ly hafta come back in here and get more."
Cole raised his head and saw all the children tied up with their backs against the wall or lying on the wooden floor. Then he saw Janelle. She looked up and their eyes met.
"Cole!" she shouted, her voice thick and trembling.
"Don"t worry, Munchkin, just stay right there, don"t you move, and don"t worry about a thing. I"ll see you in a little while, okay? Okay?"
With her little mouth hanging open, all she could do was nod.
The man carrying Cole laughed long and hard. Cole wondered if he was laughing at the exchange between him and Janelle.
The children disappeared the moment the man slammed the door behind him.
Then there was sunlight, brilliant and blinding, and Cole groaned as he clenched both his teeth and his eyes.