CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
Sneeze
I opened my eyes. The images of the past broke apart in my mind and drifted away like the mist breaks up and drifts away when the sun burns through it. Where was I? I remembered: the woods. I understood: I had had another memory attack. The car chase . . . The shootout . . . The police had arrested some of the Homelanders . . . And now they were after me, searching for me in the woods.
I became aware that I was cold, very cold, chilled to the bone. I was weak too. Completely exhausted. The effort of escaping the car . . . the pain that had been rampaging through me during the attack . . . hunger, cold . . . My body felt like a rag that had been wrung out and now lay tossed away, limp and dry.
I blinked up into the branches of trees, past the branches of trees into the sky. Blue darkness. Blue mist. Night was falling. I figured I"d been unconscious for a long time and now . . .
Now I heard voices.
Catching my breath, I sat up quickly. There were people talking. They were nearby.
"Rose really wants this kid bad."
"You think? He hasn"t let me forget it for ten minutes at a stretch."
"I guess we better keep searching then. I mean, the kid can"t be far, right?"
"Why not? Why can"t he be far? He can be plenty far. He can be anywhere."
"Come on. He"s got to be around here someplace."
It was the police. They were looking for me. Judging by the sound of them, they were close, very close. I tried not to make any sudden movements. I didn"t want to attract their attention. I turned my head slowly, scanning the area, searching for them. It was hard to see anything through the gathering dusk. The trees were fading into silhouettes. The sky was going purple.
The voices continued, not more than a few yards away.
"This forest goes on forever. He could have gone off in any direction."
"Yeah, you"re right."
"I don"t care what Rose says. We"re gonna need dogs, that"s what. Dogs and trackers. I mean, I"m not exactly Daniel Boone here."
"Tell me about it."
I saw them. Or that is, I saw the dark shapes of them moving among the dark shapes of the trees. There were two of them. Maybe the same two who"d come down the slope after me, I wasn"t sure. They were no more than twenty yards away, moving in a straight line behind a row of trees. I could make out their footsteps nowa"shoes on macadam. They were on the road. I remembered the road. I"d been heading for the road when the attack struck me down.
"All right, all right," one of the officers said wearily. "Call Rose and tell him it"s getting too dark. We"re giving up till morning."
"Me? Why do I have to call him?"
"Well, I"m not gonna do it. I"ll search all night if I have to."
"Great. All right. I"ll call him."
The two figures paused. I heard the squawk of a radio.
"Bravo-90."
As he talked into his radio, the dark continued to gather. I thought if I sat where I was, very still, not moving at all, they might not see me, even though they were so close.
The answer came back over the radio: "This is Rose."
I shivered. My body temperature had dropped while I"d been unconscious. The cold had gathered with the dark. The damp of the ground had seeped into my clothes. I was chilled all through.
"Look," the trooper was saying, "unless we get some dogs and trackers out here, we"re never going to find him in the dark."
Another shiver went through mea"I realized I was feeling muddy-headed, maybe even feverish. I was getting sick.
And suddenly I realized something else: I was going to sneeze!
I clapped my hand over my mouth. I pressed my finger up hard under my nose. If I let out a loud sneeze now, the police would be sure to hear me, sure to find me.
"He could get miles away overnight," I heard Rose say angrily.
"I don"t know what to tell you, Detective. We"ve got the roads covered and we"ve been calling for backup for over an hour. We"re way off the beaten path out here. It"s tough to reach."
"I know, I know." Rose"s weary sigh came over the radio clearly. "All right. Pack it in. We"ll get some dogs out there in the morning."
The sneeze continued to build in me. I pressed my lips together.
"Well, that"s done," said one trooper.
"Yeah, no thanks to you," said the other. "Our man Rose was not a happy camper. Next time, you call him."
"You"re a hero to your people."
"Oh, shut up."
Their voices were getting softer. They were moving away. I could see their shadowy shapes fading into the night.
Then I sneezed.
It burst out of me. There was nothing I could do to stop it. I forced the noise down as low as I could. The sound of it came out weird and m.u.f.fled.
The two policemen went silent. Had they paused? I couldn"t tell. I couldn"t see them anymore in the night.
"Did you hear something?" one of them said. He was farther away now, well along the road.
"I don"t know," the other trooper answered in a tired voice.
"I heard a noise."
"It"s the forest. You know? There"s all kinds of noises.
Crickets, frogs, werewolves. It"s a busy place."
"Werewolves?"
"Whatever. I"m a city boy."
There was another silence. I sensed them listening to the night, listening for another noise.
"Yeah, I guess you"re right," one of them said finally. "It is noisy, now you mention it. We can"t just wander around here all night following every sound we hear."
They were moving away again. Their voices grew softer and softer. Soon, I couldn"t hear them at all.
I let out a huge sigh of relief. Then I shivered again. I really wasn"t feeling very well at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.
The House
I walked along the night road. My steps were slow and shuffling. My shoulders were slumped. I was feeling worse and worse with every minute. Dizzy with fever, weak with hunger. Bruised and sore and cold and stiff and tired all over. Sometimes I thought I would actually fall asleep while I was walking. Only now and then, when a car came by, did I really come alert and scramble into the surrounding trees, hiding there until the headlights pa.s.sed and the taillights disappeared around a bend in the winding road.
I don"t know how long I went on like that. An hour maybe, maybe even two. I kept thinking I would have to stop, that I was too tired, that I couldn"t go on anymore. But I kept going on. I kept thinking about the long night alone in the forest, the police coming back for me in the morning with dogs and trackers. I kept shuffling forward, thinking, There"s got to be something ahead; there"s got to be something somewhere.
And there was.
After a long, long time, I looked up and saw a yellow light through the trees. I stopped in the road and stood there, swaying weakly, gazing at it. Was it a car? No, it wasn"t moving. I went on, stumbling and unsteady. There was another bend in the road up ahead. As I came around it, I saw the woods come to an end. I saw fields stretching out on either side of the road, dimly visible under the newly risen moon. The road fell off in a hill here, going down and out of sight. And just at the brink of the hill, off to one side, there was a house.
It was a small house, standing alone off the road at the end of a dirt drive. The house itself was dark, but there was a small lamppost at the start of the driveway, and another light, a porch light, above the front door.
I shuffled toward the drive. I was limping a little now too, my feet sore from the long walk. At this point, everything was sore from everything.
I reached the drive and started hobbling down it toward the house.
As I got closer, I saw there were two buildings. There was the little house on the edge of the field, and there was a small barn or shed off to the right of it. I headed for the light, for the house. Whatever happened, I had to get some food.
It was just an old farmhouse, two stories and an attic, with a porch out front. It had white aluminum siding and green window shutters and a sloped roof. I had to grab hold of a post to steady myself as I climbed the three steps to the porch. There was a large window here to the right of the front door. I went to it, pressed my face to the pane. The cool of the gla.s.s felt good against my fevered forehead. I peered through into the darkness.
The house was very still inside. I was pretty sure it was empty.
I limped to the door. I tried the k.n.o.b. It was unlocked and turned easily. Well, sure, why wouldn"t it be unlocked? It was out here in the middle of nowhere. Who was going to break in?
I pushed the door open and stepped into the darkness.
Without warning, a snarling, roaring dog leapt at me, its teeth bared.
Terrified, I cried out and staggered backward. But the thing was already on me, its paws against my chest. It barked once more, its hot breath on my face. Then it stopped barking. It sniffed me. It stood there with its front paws on me, panting and wagging its tail.
In the glow coming through the doorway from the porch light, I saw the dog was a golden retriever, one of the friendliest breeds of dog on earth. Also one of the worst watchdogs.
I patted him on the head. "Good dog," I said. And I gently lowered him to the floor.
I found the light switch. I flipped it and a ceiling light came on.
I was standing on the edge of a small living room. There was a couch and an armchair turned toward a TV. There was a wooden cross on the wall and a painting of Jesus holding a lantern to light the night. There were a couple of end tables cluttered with framed photographs featuring a man in a Marine uniform, a woman, and a little boy. All the furniture looked worn and threadbare. The braided rug looked worn and pale. There was a little work nook in one wall. There was a wooden table there with a laptop standing open on it.
The dog kept sniffing my legs, wagging his tail. I checked his collar. His name was Sport. I ruffled his neck fur.
"Hey, Sport," I said as he nuzzled me. "Show me the way to the food."
Sport knew that word, all right. He immediately did as I asked, trotting happily across the room to a doorway on the other side. I went after him, bracing myself on the furniture as I pa.s.sed to keep myself upright. When I got to the door, I flicked another light switch and saw the kitchen. It was a wonderful sight.
Sport and I had ourselves a fine old meal. Milk and bread and cheese and those turkey slices that come in plastic containers. I ate ravenouslya"giving occasional sc.r.a.ps to my furry friend, who also ate ravenously, being a dog. I was glad to be sitting down, glad to be eating. I felt stronger every minute. But my head didn"t clear any.
In fact, it felt as if my fever was getting worse and worse.
As I ate, I looked around the kitchen. It was modest and small like the rest of the house. There were chips in the light blue paint on the wall. The linoleum on the floor looked old and faded. The refrigerator looked old too.
I saw a bulletin board by the phone against one wall. There was another cross pinned up there and some more photographs tacked up around it. A woman and a boy: the same ones who were in the pictures in the living room. A mother and a son, it looked like. The mother was pretty but tired and faded-looking, with deep lines in her face and white-blond hair that had a lot of strands of gray in it. The son was small and sad-eyed and looked worried, even when he smiled. There were no pictures here of the man, the Marine.
I wondered where this family was now. I wondered if they"d be coming home soon.
Probably, I thought. Anyway, I couldn"t take the chance. I couldn"t just stay here and wait for them to find me. The police would be spreading the word that I was on the loose. Anyone could recognize me. Anyone could turn me in. Somehow, I had to find the strength to keep moving.
I stood up. For a second I had to steady myself, holding on to the back of the small kitchen chair. The food had made me feel stronger, but I was dizzy; my head felt thick. I shivered and shivered again. Even inside, I felt colda"I felt as if the cold from the forest had eaten deep into my bones. I couldn"t seem to shake it off.
I forced myself to let go of the chair. I moved around the room unsteadily, shuffling from place to place. Moving in that way, I cleaned up the kitchen. Wiped up the crumbs. Put the milk carton back in the refrigerator. Before I closed up the plastic package of meat, I took some money out of my pocket and put it inside. It probably wasn"t a very smart thing to do. It meant they were sure to notice someone had been here, and they might even guess it was me and call the police. But I could see from the way the house looked that the people who lived here didn"t have much money. Even if they did, I didn"t want to steal from them and leave nothing in return. I put the cash in with the meat and hoped they just wouldn"t think about it too much.
Anyway, I hoped by the time the woman and her son came home, I would be long gone.
"Well, Sport," I said to the dog, "it"s been great knowing you."
I patted him on the head. He wagged his tail, looking up at me lovingly. I was sorry to leave him. So many people were hunting me, trying to kill or capture me, it had been good to have some friendly company for a while.