Smog - Baggage of Enternal Night (5 page)

Chapter 12

It took the police three hours to show
up, and then they were tired and irritable. They told us this was their third
murder
today
.

When they asked me how I’d
found the body, I told them Debbie had taken me to see it, but that she didn’t
know anything about it, either.

CJ showed up while they were
interviewing Mom and me in the kitchen. He looked clean and wholesome. The
distraught performance he gave when they told him who the victim was should
have earned him an Academy Award. When they left, they told us only that their
best guess was a gang picking off kids as part of some initiation. Maybe Hell’s
Angels…or gypsies.

They didn’t see CJ wink at me
as they said that.

After they left, Mom called her
sister. Aunt Claire lived in Indianapolis. Her husband was a rich printer, and
they had a huge house on the edge of a lake; their own kids were grown and had
moved out long ago. I heard Mom saying things like, “I’m not sure how long,”
and “They don’t really know…maybe a gang.”

Dad came home late that night,
long after I was in bed. I was trying to read a Nancy Drew mystery (or reread
it—I’d read it at least four times already) when I heard the shouting start.

That scared me as much as
anything that’d happened over the last few days—my folks never fought; or if
they did, they did it so quietly that I never knew. Now, though, they were out
in the kitchen, both shouting at each other.

I crept to my door, edged the
chair aside, and opened it just a crack to listen.

“…and you don’t even care,” Mom
was saying.

“Of course I care,” Dad
answered. “But I don’t know what you think I can do about it—”

“Well, for starters, you can
tell me what’s going on.”

“How would I know?”

They went on in the kitchen for
another ten minutes or so, with Dad denying that he knew what was happening (or
even that anything was happening) and Mom demanding. Denying and demanding.
They were a good pair. I knew they wouldn’t resolve anything by the time they
moved the fight into the bedroom, but they kept going. Maybe they were as crazy
as the kids around here.

I couldn’t sleep while they
argued in the room next to mine, so I went out to the living room and turned on
the TV. There was nothing good on—just the late night talk shows, with a bunch
of boring guests. I leaned over to grab the newspaper, thinking maybe I’d read
the comics, and then I saw Dad’s briefcase on the table next to the paper. It
was partly open.

He
never
left his
briefcase open. He was probably in the midst of pulling something out of it
when Mom started in on him, and he forgot about it.

I’d wondered for years what Dad
kept in that case. He always had it with him; sometimes he pulled papers out
that he would study, but we weren’t allowed to see them, and he always put them
back in the case and locked it if any of us came up to him.

There was a report of some kind
sticking out of the case. It looked fat and was in one of those same stiff
folders that we used for our school reports. My folks were still arguing behind
the closed bedroom door, and I knew this might be my only chance, ever, to find
out what Dad kept in that case.

I gingerly plucked the report
out, half-expecting it to be booby-trapped—like the briefcase might explode, or
there’d be poisoned razor blades taped to the back of the report—but nothing
happened. I did get a thrill when I opened the cover and saw the word
“CLASSIFIED” stamped in red on the first page.

That was about the only word I
could understand.

I was pretty good at science,
but this was way over my head. There was stuff about “exothermic reactions” and
“polymer binders” and velocities and distances. There were mathematical
formulae with symbols I didn’t even recognize, and names of scientists
(including Dad’s).

Then I came to something about
“test animals.” I could follow some of what came next: whatever this was that
they’d been working on, when they tested some part of it on chimpanzees, the
adults were fine, but “younger subjects exhibited extremely aggressive and even
dangerous behavior.”

I heard their bedroom door
suddenly open, and I jammed the report back in Dad’s case, flipping the paper
open to the comics.

I tried to look calm as Dad
marched into the living room. He looked immediately at his case. Then at me.

“What are you doing out here?”
he asked.

I tried to look irritated. “You
guys are fighting next to my room. I came out here to get away from it.”

It worked. He was abashed
enough to give up interrogating me. He did snap the case closed and lock it,
but while he did that he said, “I’m sorry about the fight. It’s just that…well,
things have been kind of stressful at work lately…”

“Gee, Dad,” I said before I
could stop myself, “are your friends dying at work? Because that’s what’s been
happening to me at home. So I guess stuff’s pretty stressful for all of us.”

He stopped, and for a second I
thought he might come clean or at least apologize. Finally, though, he said
only, “Don’t stay up all night with the comics.” He hefted the case up and
returned to the bedroom. A few seconds later, I heard the door close again.

I went back to my room,
thinking about what I’d just read in that report. Something—some kind of
fuel?—that Dad was working on had made younger chimps act crazy. Had it somehow
gotten loose, out of the laboratories and air force bases, and infected kids in
the neighborhood? Did the Russians have something to do with this? Was it
intentional on their side…or an accident on ours? I thought back on everything
that had happened over the last few weeks, starting from Mary Ann Wilson—the
first dead girl—and I realized something:

This all started when we
thought the moon had blown up, when the smog got even thicker and turned our
skies into a perpetual molten yellow. What was it I thought I’d heard Dad say
that day?

“
This shouldn’t have
happened
.”

No, Dad, it shouldn’t have, but
it did…and I think you know everything about it.

I went to bed trying to figure
him out. In my imagination, my dad became like a combination of Ernst Stavro Blofeld
and T.H.R.U.S.H. He was a criminal mastermind, a spy overlord, a comic book
villain. He was a mad scientist creating a new super rocket fuel that turned
young chimps and teenaged humans into killers. And all he had to offer in
return was, “This shouldn’t have happened.”

I hated him.

Maybe I would have felt
differently if I’d known that I’d never see him again.

Chapter 13

By morning, I’d decided that I was
going to tell Mom about the report in Dad’s briefcase. I knew she might be a
little mad at me for sneaking it out and reading it, but at this point Mom was
my last ally, and the more she knew, the better.

I was out of bed and getting
dressed when I heard Mom shouting in the kitchen. “CJ, unlock this right now!”

I finished pulling on my shoes
and ran out to the kitchen. To say I was unprepared for what I saw next would
be putting it mildly.

Mom was standing by the
refrigerator gripping the door handle, and it took me a second to realize that
it wasn’t just that she was gripping it but that she was
handcuffed
to
it.

CJ stood a few feet away,
laughing like a crazy man. He dangled the handcuff keys in one hand.

He also wore a gun belt,
complete with holstered revolver, around his waist, and had a policeman’s cap
on his head.

Mom saw me and her eyes got
wide. “Joey, get back in your room and lock the door!”

CJ turned and saw me, and his
hand moved down to hover near his stolen pistol. “Nah, it’s okay, little
sister’s not gonna do anything stupid, is she?”

“CJ,” I said, trying to sound
calm and almost pulling it off, “why is Mom handcuffed to the refrigerator?”

“Oh, you gotta love this…” CJ
gestured from the fridge to the oven on the other side of Mom. “See, I want her
to keep cooking for us, but I don’t need her getting in my way. This is
perfect, because she can still reach the refrigerator and the stove.”

“What if she needs to use the
kitchen sink?”

That made CJ frown. “Oh, yeah…”
After a few seconds of thought, he brightened. “No problem: I’ll get a length
of chain and a padlock to replace the handcuffs.”

Mom shot me a look that said,
Stay
out of his way
.

I tried an offhanded shrug.
“Okay. So where’s Dad?”

“Who cares?”

I started for my room. “Not
me,” I threw back over my shoulder. I went into my room, closed the door,
crawled up onto my bed…

And just shook.

I didn’t know what to do. CJ
had a policeman’s gun, hat, and handcuffs, and I could only think of one way he
could’ve gotten those things. I’d always counted on Mom to take care of me, but
now I might be the one who had to take care of her. But how? Even if I could
somehow get the keys away from CJ…could we get to the car in time? Where would
we go? Would he shoot at us if he caught us trying to leave?

I finally realized I couldn’t
think about any of those things. I wasn’t going to let myself be paralyzed by fear.
I had to do
something
.

I listened for a while, but the
house seemed quiet. I opened my door, held my breath, then ventured out to the
kitchen.

There was no sign of CJ. Mom
was tugging on the handcuffs, trying to pull the handle off the refrigerator, I
guess. So far all she’d done was make her wrist bloody.

“Mom…”

She saw me and
stopped struggling. “Joey, are you okay, baby?”

I ran up to her, and we had a
long hug, her using her one free hand. “I’m fine, Mom. I’m fine.”

When we finally pulled apart, I
asked, “Where’s CJ?”

“He left. I think he went to
get some chain.”

I looked at the handcuffs.
“We’ve got to get you out of here before that.”

Mom shook her head. “I don’t
think CJ will hurt me as long as I’m still useful. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“I don’t know what to do. I
don’t think we can call the cops anymore…”

“No, I don’t think we can.” Mom
thought for a minute, then said, “Here’s what I want you to do: go across the
street and see if Marge can drive you to our bank. I’ll write you a check, and
you can take my ID—tell them I’m too sick to cash the check myself. Then I want
you to go to the airport and take the first flight out to Indianapolis. You’re
going to stay with your Aunt Nancy.”

“Mom, I’m not leaving you—”

“Michaela Jo, don’t argue with me
on this!” Mom was breathing hard, and I knew better than to say anything back.
Besides, she was right about the first part, at least: maybe Marge could help.
Maybe she could saw through the chains on the handcuffs. Then we could take
Debbie and we could all go somewhere else, somewhere away from my brother and
his friends. Somewhere away from the smog.

“Okay. I’ll go try Marge.”

“Good girl. If you see your
brother, just try to avoid him. Okay?”

I nodded, trying to seem braver
than I felt. “Okay.”

“Love you, baby.”

“I love you, Mom.”

Then I put on my shoes, pulled
my hair back, and stepped out of the house.

Chapter 14

The smog shimmered overhead like a sea
of frying butter, and my eyes teared up instantly. I blinked the pain away and
raced across the street to Debbie’s house, trying to look as inconspicuous as
possible. I’d never been so scared in my own neighborhood before. Fortunately
there was nobody around, not even a passing car or a distant lawnmower…which
was kind of strange.

I walked up to Debbie’s front
door, took a deep breath, and knocked. Debbie sometimes liked to run into my
house unannounced, but I’d never mastered that talent.

After a few seconds, Sandy
answered the door. She was completely naked.

At first I just stared; I’d
never seen a naked woman up close before, and even though she was still a
teenager, Sandy was most definitely a
woman
, with large breasts, broad
hips, and furry thatch between her legs. When she saw me staring, she smirked
and struck a pose.

“Well, it’s Joey the Tomboy.
See anything you like, kid?”

I somehow managed to sputter
out, “Is Debbie here?”

“Yeah, she’s in the dining room
with Mom.” Sandy burst into laughter. I had no idea why, but I guessed I wasn’t
going to like the reason, whatever it was.

When Sandy didn’t move, I had
to edge past her. There was an uncomfortable scent around her—slightly sour and
tangy—and she giggled as I wrinkled my nose. “You know what that smell is?”

“No,” I said, wishing I hadn’t
tried to come over here.

“That’s the smell of me and
your brother
fucking
.” She practically spat the last word out, and then
laughed again. I felt my face get hot and knew she was laughing at me.

I ran for the dining room,
which was just a few feet down the main entry. “Debbie…”

“Oh, hi.” Debbie was in the
dining room. So was Marge. Marge, in fact, was spread-eagled on top of the
dining room table, with long nails driven through the palms of her hands and
the arches of her feet, holding her into place. Debbie still clutched a hammer
in one hand, and the blood sprayed across her face had long since dried. Marge
was unconscious but breathing; her blood had covered a lot of the table’s
surface and spilled over onto the floor. I remembered the day that table had
been delivered; Marge had ordered it out of a Sears catalog and was
particularly proud of it.

Behind me, Sandy said, “I’m
going back to my room. You girls have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” I
heard her door close a few seconds later. I hoped my brother wasn’t in her room;
or that if he was, he wouldn’t come out while I was here.

Debbie turned her back to me
and bent over the sideboard. I moved to where I could see what she was looking
at: she had all kinds of tools neatly laid out there, like they were the
implements for the guests at a fancy dinner party. Butcher knife, paring knife,
ice pick, cleaver, hand saw, more nails, and a potato peeler. For some reason,
that last one bothered me more than all the others.

“Wow,” I said, trying to sound
impressed, “guess you must’ve been pretty mad at your mom, huh?”

Debbie shrugged and picked up a
barbecue skewer, eyeing it critically. “Mad? No. Why?”

“Well, you…nailed her to the
dining table.”

“Oh, that. No, I was just kind
of bored.”

“Bored?”

Marge groaned slightly,
regaining consciousness.

Debbie looked down at her
mother dispassionately. “Well, yeah. And you know, she did get in the way a lot
of times.”

Marge focused on Debbie
standing over her, and her eyes streamed. “Debbie, why are you doing this? Why,
baby? Why?”

“Why? Because…I can.” Debbie
raised the hammer and brought it down on the bloodied fingers of Marge’s left
hand. Marge screamed.

Debbie raised the hammer again,
and before I could stop myself I shouted, “Stop it!”

Debbie froze, and the look she
turned on me made my blood run cold. “Or what? Or you’ll turn your brother on
me? Who do you think helped me hold Mom down while I hammered?”

I tried to will my legs to run,
to move, to take me out of there, but nothing seemed to be working right—a
backwards stagger was the most I could manage. Debbie advanced on me, hefting
the hammer. “Y’know, Joey, if I were you, I wouldn’t be so worried about
anybody else right now…”

I found my strength then, and I
ran. Behind me I heard Debbie laughing, then shrieking, “Run, little girl!”

I got home, slammed the front
door behind me and locked it, even though I knew CJ had a key. “Mom!”

Mom was where I’d left her in
the kitchen, still handcuffed to the fridge but at least not mutilated yet.
“Did you find Marge?” she asked.

My mouth went dry, and I
couldn’t tell her the truth. I swallowed, and then I lied. “Marge is dead.”

“Oh my God. Call the police.”

“Mom…CJ…”

Mom shouted at me, panicked
now. “It’s our only chance! We can’t just stand here and wait for them to come
after us.”

“Okay.”

I went into the hallway where
the phone was, picked up the handset, raised it to my ear—and heard nothing. I
stabbed at the little buttons in the cradle a few times, but nothing.

The line was dead.

I went back out into the
kitchen. Mom looked at me and knew something was wrong. “What is it…?”

“The phone’s out. CJ’s probably
cut the line.”

Mom slumped a little for a few
seconds, then called, “Joey, come here.”

I did. She put a hand on my
chin, tilting my face up to look her in the eyes. “I want you to get on your
bike and ride.”

I started to protest, “But—”

“No buts. You can outrun
anything but a car. Get on that bike, and ride to my Women’s Club. Use the
phone to call the police, or have one of the ladies drive you to the station.”

“I don’t want to leave you—”

“I know, honey, but neither of
us is safe here like this. If you can get us help, we might have a chance.”

“Okay. I’ll be back soon.”

She smiled proudly at me, and I
really loved her right then. “I know you will, sweetheart.”

I didn’t hug her or say
goodbye, because that would have been too much like some last gesture. Instead
I just headed right for the garage…

…and the ride of my life.