Schizo (13 page)

WE DRIVE FOR A
LONG, long time before the car finally pulls off onto what feels like a dirt road. I bump around in the back for a while until finally the car comes to a complete stop and Tolliver kills the engine and I hear the door open and slam.

There's the steady sound of crickets chirping. I pull back the tarp. The night is dark. Only the light from a little farmhouse illuminates the field of artichoke and burned-out tractor parts scattered everywhere.

Crawling over to the backseat, I switch the overhead light so it won't come on, then I open the door and climb out, easing the door shut behind me.

From what I can see, I must be on a working farm up on the cliffs. There's heavy fog and the sound of an owl in the distance.

Running hunched and low, I creep around the side of the house. There's a woodpile built up next to one of the windows so I climb up and try to see in through the drawn curtains. All I get is the corner of maybe the living room. There's a hardwood floor and a yellowed wall, but that's all I can make out.

And then there's a shadow and the voice of a little boy, around ten years old.

“No, no,” he calls out.

Tolliver stumbles into the room and grabs hold of him. “Come on. It's okay.”

He carries the boy back, and for a moment I can see the two of them perfectly silhouetted.

Tears come to my eyes and I take a deep breath.

It is Teddy.

I thank God.

It is Teddy and I've found him and everything is going to be all right.

I reach into my pocket to get my phone to call the police.

But my phone isn't there and I realize it must've fallen out in the car somewhere.

I run back and begin rummaging around amongst all the tools and things. The phone is there and I open it frantically, but there's no signal way out here on this farm.

I can't believe I'm even thinking this, but the only thing to do is go in there myself. So I grab that same rusted wrench and hold it tightly in my hand. I start toward the house, breathing heavily.

But then there is a light coming from over the dirt road in the distance and I watch, openmouthed, as the light gets closer. Another car. It's almost right on top of me before I can move—but I do, I move, running behind the corner of the house, crouching down low.

The car is a black sedan, and a man walks out quickly, wearing a big coat, carrying a black leather-looking bag. He goes to the front door and knocks. Tolliver lets him in a second later.

I climb back up on the woodpile and wait.

The man that's come in has a really low voice and I hear him shouting, “Hold him down. Hold him down there.”

My throat swells, and I feel the adrenaline surge through me—rushing straight to my brain.

I climb down.

I hold the wrench tightly in my hand and run round to the front door.

I grab hold of the door handle and pull it open. There's a strange musky smell in the house, and it's dimly lit. The sound of voices comes from my left, and I take a deep breath and run headlong into the room. I have the wrench raised up over my head. I can't even hear because my heart is beating so fucking loud. I shake and scream and run in and feel heat all through my body.

“Let him go! Let him go!” I yell as loud as I can.

Tolliver turns first and grabs my wrist, and his hand is fucking strong and he shakes my arm so the wrench falls, and then I swing my other hand and hit him in the face.

“Ah, what the hell?” he shouts.

The other man, with the deep voice and dark features, grabs me from behind and throws me on the ground.

I hit the hardwood floor and sit up, and then I look over on the couch and see Teddy is there, with a cloth on his head. I try to stand up, but the deep-voiced man pushes me down again.

“Call the police,” he yells to Tolliver. “I'll hold him here.”

“No, I'll call the police,” I yell louder. “Teddy. Teddy, it's me!”

The deep-voiced man leans over me, pinning my arms back. “Stop it. Who are you? What are you talking about?”

Then Teddy shrieks and vomits on the rug next to me.

Tolliver comes running to help Teddy up.

“Christ, Doc, he's so sick. You gotta help him.”

The man he called Doc looks up at Tolliver, carrying Teddy. “What about this kid?”

“I'll take care of him. Here, help me.”

Teddy cries again, then he throws up all over his T-shirt.

“Jesus,” I say. “Teddy! What'd you do to him?”

The man, Doc, gets up off me and takes Teddy in his arms.

“Kid,” Tolliver says, shaking me by the shoulders, “there's no Teddy here. My boy is sick. Can't you see that? You better get out of here.”

“Your boy?” I keep on yelling. “He's my brother! You kidnapped him!”

“Simon!” Doc calls from the bathroom.

I try to find the wrench, then, on the ground, but somehow it's not there anymore. Tolliver goes off to the bathroom and I race to follow him.

The noise of the water is very loud.

“Kid,” he says, “I don't know what you're talking 'bout. My boy—my son—is sick.”

Teddy is stripped and lying in the bathtub as the water fills around him. His eyes are nearly shut and his face red and sweaty, though at the same time he is shivering from the cold.

“That's my brother! That's Teddy! What did you do to him? Teddy!”

Tolliver gets my wrists and shoves me into a sitting position on the tile, and Doc comes over and points his finger right in my face.

“Who are you?” he demands. “What are you doing here? Listen to me,
there is no Teddy here.
”

Tolliver then grabs me by the wrists again and yanks me to my feet. “See? This is my son, Colin. He's real sick.”

I stare at Tolliver, and—I see a genuine kindness in his dark eyes. He has a big broad face and is just big and broad in general. His skin is a reddish brown, and he has large hands with long fingers. He places one of those hands gently on my shoulder.

“Kid, you are obviously confused. Why don't you start at the beginning and tell us who you are.”

I stammer, so goddamn frustrated now I can't fight the tears back. “My brother, he was kidnapped two years ago from Ocean Beach and now he's here. You have him.”

Tolliver shakes his head, but his eyes soften and I see something like pity there.

“Kid,” he starts. “Kid, come on, take a look at my son. Take a good look. Slow down. Breathe. And look. This is Colin. My son.”

My shoulders drop, and I do what he says. I look at Teddy through the blur. I rub my eyes and look again.

The boy has turned pale and his lips are bluish purple and he's shivering terribly. His hair is matted down and greasy—his dark brown hair, his large forehead, his thin, trembling lips.

Dark brown hair.

It is not Teddy.

He doesn't even resemble Teddy—not really.

Teddy is a redhead with freckles. Teddy's nose was broken when he was six, and it's been crooked ever since. Teddy has a wide mouth and big green eyes.

I put my hands on the edge of the bathtub and try to steady myself. The tears come so I can hardly breathe.

“It's not him,” I cry. “It's not Teddy.”

Simon Tolliver puts his arm around me.

“Hey, it's okay,” he says. “I remember now. That case. The kid who was kidnapped at Ocean Beach two years ago? Teddy . . . uhmm . . . Bryant? Was that it?”

“Uh-huh,” I say. “Teddy Bryant Cole.”

“But what made you think he was here?” the doctor asks, working at the boy's—not Teddy's—forehead with a cloth.

“The . . . the police report,” I whimper. “You were the last chance I had.”

I feel Tolliver's hand rubbing my back and I want to go home suddenly, so goddamn badly.

“It's okay,” he says. And then he turns to the doctor. “Doc, you don't know this about me, but I had a real . . . troubled past. I was in prison and . . . I did some bad things. But I've changed. I went to counseling, I met Cheryl. I turned my life around. It's been years now.” And then to me, “But I promise you, kid, I had nothing to do with that boy's disappearance. The police questioned me. I didn't do anything.”

The doctor clears his throat. “We don't have time for this. You go get those clothes and a bag together. And get a blanket to wrap Colin in. He's ready. We need to leave immediately. None of that matters now.” He leans over and pulls the drain from the tub.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Leo,” Tolliver tells him. “We'll get you taken care of, too, kid, don't you worry,” he says to me.

He leaves then, and the doctor grabs a few white towels off the rack.

Rubbing the boy's body roughly with the towel, he continues talking, murmuring through gritted teeth. “Don't know what you were thinking, bursting in like that. It's a good way to get yourself killed. You're damn lucky you came in here when Colin was so sick. Simon most likely-a shot you as an intruder, you go sneaking up on him.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper.

He calls out to Tolliver then, pressing the back of his hand against the boy's forehead. “Simon, buddy, we gotta go.”

The doctor picks the boy up and Tolliver comes over, wrapping him in a military-looking surplus blanket.

“All right, let's get a move on,” the doctor says. “Kid, we'll drop you off at the police station on the way.”

“No,” I plead. “No, please, I just want to go home.”

He nods. “Okay, well, then, hurry. Come on.”

We all walk out together, Tolliver carrying his son.

The doctor fires up the engine.

Tolliver holds his boy in his arms.

We drive fast to the hospital.

And I think about Teddy.

The fog closes in around us.

And we drive.

THE BUS UP THE
101 from Mercy Hospital lumbers through the night. Up here, closer to the city, the fog has been blown clear and there is only the starless black above reflecting the toxic glow of the lights downtown.

There's only one other person on the bus, a young guy, probably just a little older than me, wearing big studio headphones and bobbing his head to whatever music he's listening to.

I sit at the very back of the bus with my body folded up, hugging my knees tightly and rocking slightly.

Simon Tolliver and the doctor were both super nice to me. They made me promise several times to go straight home. Tolliver even gave me a little money.

They put me on the bus and made sure I had everything I might need. Really, they were so sweet to me. I'm grateful.

And so goddamn sad.

Because it really, truly, is over now.

Teddy is gone. And I feel that in me just like I felt he was alive before. It's like somehow, inside of me, there is this knowledge that is real and deep and penetrating. Teddy is dead.

The voice whispers—that cool breeze again blowing through my mind, calming. It tells me that God's plan was not for me to save Teddy, but to accept his death and save myself. There was no way I could move on before. Now I can.

I can move on and finally be, fully and completely, with Eliza. That is God's will for me. It whispers in my ear and cools my brain even as I mourn Teddy and feel the tears burning my eyes.

I lay my head against the plastic of the bus window. My hands shake, and I cry and remember Teddy and remember how he used to be. I see him running on the beach that day. He's wading through the water, and it's blue and calm and perfect. I don't know how the hell that ocean could've swallowed him up. But it did. It swallowed him.

“Eliza,”
the voice whispers.

Yes, Eliza. She is the missing piece.

I need to get back to her.

I need to be with her and I need to be with her now. I will tell her everything. I will make her understand.

Because it is over. And if I am going to survive this, I need to be with her. I am ready, and nothing is going to stop me.

The heat courses through my body, and there's sweat all down my neck and back. I get off the bus and transfer up Fulton to Divisadero and Hayes Street. It's a short walk up around the park to Eliza's.

I climb the stairs.

The crows begin to gather. Just on the edge of my vision, they swoop into position on the wires surrounding the house. They peck at their own dark feathers with their sharp, pointed beaks. Preening. Rolling their heads. Staring with their shiny black shark eyes.

I try the door and it swings open.

The crows caw at me, spreading their wings wide. They press in now, flying down onto the railing, settling on the concrete near my feet.

Dozens more take their places on the wires, the lawn, the trees. A number of them settle on a car parked in the driveway.

The car. Not Eliza's. Not her mother's.

A feeling like dread forms in my stomach and shoots up along my spine. “Eliza?” I call. There is no answer.

I push inside, scan the living room. The crows—they are here, too. Scattered across the carpet, perched on the walls of bookshelves.

There are more and more of them screeching into the room, swooping in from outside and upstairs.

I hear a shout.

It is Eliza.

I hear the voice again, whispering.
“The crows, they have her.”

I run, sprinting up to her bedroom. The birds cry, seemingly all at once.

I throw her door open.

Eliza is on her bed, and she is covered in them. She cries out, screams as they devour her.

“Stop!” I yell. “Stop! Get off of her!”

I grab their oily bodies. Throw them off her, pulling them apart, hitting them, strangling them, repeating all the while, “I'm here, Eliza. I'm here I'm here!”

I swing my fists and pound and tear and pull until I feel my hands slick with blood. I will tear them apart for touching her. I will destroy them.

“Miles! Jesus, what are you doing?” Eliza screams.

“Get off. Get off,” I yell at the crows, punching and grabbing at them.

“Miles, stop!”

The crows swarm on me and I'm thrown back. I fall onto the hardwood floor and hit my head hard.

Eliza kneels in front of me. “Miles!” My eyes blur and water and I blink and blink again.

Eliza has a blanket wrapped around her body to cover herself. I turn to face the birds, to defend against another attack. But the crows are gone. Vanished.

On the floor beside me I see that kid—what's his name? From Preston's party. He's holding his bleeding mouth and nose. And he's naked.

“What is this?” I shake my head, trying to understand.

“Dude, Miles, this isn't what you think,” the guy says, standing. I remember now—Kevin.

“Wait . . . what?”

I turn toward Eliza.

And I get it.

“Fuck,” I say.

Then I drop to my knees and vomit. The hot liquid bursts out of my nose and throat.

“Miles!” Eliza screams. “Miles . . . Jesus.”

The guy walks back over to the bed and starts putting his clothes on. He laughs then, telling us, “You're both fucking crazy.” He gathers his shoes and socks in his arms and storms out the door.

I vomit again as he walks past.

“Fuck,” I say.

Eliza comes over to try to help me, but I yell at her to leave me alone.

I get up off the floor, shaky, breathing heavily.

“I'm sorry,” Eliza pleads with me, sitting back on the bed. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“No!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Fuck you. Fuck! You!”

I trip over myself and fall and then I get up again and go running down the stairs.

I want to scream and fight and tear myself apart now.

Outside the air is cold and still.

The crows are gone.

And so is everything else in my whole fucking world.