The Ignored (37 page)

I stopped. “Hello,” I said.

No response.

I clapped my hands loudly next to his ears.

Nothing.

I pushed his shoulder.

He jumped up, startled, and let out a sharp exhalation, looking wildly
around.

He could not see me either.

Or hear me.

“They’re back!” he screamed crazily, and ran up the street away from me.

I sat down hard on the bench.

We’d graduated to the next step.

When had this occurred? Had it happened overnight, or had we been
gradually fading away from public view?

A bus passed by. The driver did not see me on the bench, did not stop.

We were, I realized, completely free. Even the minor restrictions
imposed on us by our extremely limited visibility had now been lifted. We could
do anything, whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, and no one would ever know.

But…

But I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell the others. I wasn’t sure I wanted
them to know this. I had the sense that it might set us back, that wherever we
were now, whatever point we had reached in our evolution, would be forgotten and
we would have to redo what we had already done. We would try desperately to take
advantage of our invisibility and end up playing pointless games.

Besides, I had to admit the prospect of having the freedom that I now
possessed frightened me. I did not like flying without a net, did not trust
myself.

And I trusted the others even less.

Were we responsible enough to possess such unchecked autonomy?

I walked back to Joe’s, still not sure what I was going to say, still
not sure if I was going to say anything. John and Bill and Don were gone, but
Philipe, thank God, was home for lunch. The others were lounging around the
living room, talking, reading magazines, watching TV.

I had to tell them something, I decided. But I would soft-pedal it.

“I don’t want to frighten anybody,” I said. “But I was just walking back
from the bookstore and I bumped into this woman, and she didn’t see me.”

Paul snickered, looked up from his
Time.
“Big revelation.”

“No. I mean she didn’t see me at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice
me. She could look right through me.” I glanced around the room. I cleared my
throat nervously. “Doesn’t it seem like we’re getting… worse? James said
one time that we could be like invisible superheroes, catching crooks and all
that. Don’t you think we could do that now? Or am I the only one who’s noticed
this?”

Silence greeted my words. Philipe looked uncomfortable.

I told them about my experiment with the derelict.

“I’ve noticed a difference, too,” Pete said quietly. “I didn’t want to
say anything, I thought it might be just my imagination, but ever since we offed
those power guys it’s felt different to me.”

Tommy faced Philipe. “Is this like a progressive disease? Is that what
we have?”

Philipe sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve noticed it, too, though. I just
didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to frighten anyone.”

Mary, on the couch, reached for Jim’s hand, held it. On TV, a commercial
for a new brand of tampon came on. This was going in a different direction than
I’d thought. On the street, I’d felt as though I’d been let out of a cage and
forced to fly in open, unrestricted air. Now I felt as though the walls of a
prison were closing in on me. I felt isolated; alone, despite the presence of
the others.

“What are we going to do?” Tommy asked.

Philipe stood. “What
can
we do?” He took a deep breath. “I have
to get back to work. I’ll talk to Joe, see what he thinks. He’s half-and-half,
maybe he has a different perspective on this.”

“Maybe he won’t be able to see us for much longer, either,” Mary
suggested.

Philipe walked out of the living room, not looking at us. “I have to go
to work,” he said.

We were invisible, but it didn’t seem to matter much. At least not as
much as I’d thought it would. Here, in the sun, amidst the wealth, with Joe as
our go-between to normal society, that lost sense of alienation I’d felt
temporarily disappeared.

Joe could see us as well as he always could.

We were not fading away to him.

Not yet.

Philipe continued working full-time on legislative ways to better our
position and bring us attention. The rest of us fell into our old patterns.

One night after we’d gone to Sizzler and loaded up on all we could eat
at the salad, taco, and pasta bar, we were walking back along the crowded
sidewalk to Tower Records to steal some tapes and CDs when Philipe pulled me
aside. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

“About what?”

He stopped walking, letting the others get a little further ahead of us.
“We’re being followed,” he said. There was a pause. “I think they’re on to us.”

“Who’s on to us?”

“The suits.”

Goose bumps spread down my arms. “They’ve found us?”

“I think so.”

“When did you discover this?”

“A week ago, maybe.”

“Did you just ‘feel’ it, or did you see them?”

“I saw them.”

“Why haven’t they done anything? Why haven’t they captured us or killed
us?”

“I don’t know.”

I looked around to see if any were near us now, but saw only casually
dressed tourists and locals. “Who do you think they are?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? The government, maybe. The FBI or CIA. We’d be
great spies for them. For all I know, they created us. Maybe our parents were
given some sort of drug, exposed to some type of radiation—”

“Do you think so? Do you think that’s why we’re Ignored?” I should have
been horrified, angry at the idea, but instead I felt excited, thinking that
finally there was a chance I might get a concrete explanation for why we were
the way we were.

He shook his head slowly. “No. But I do think that they found out about
us. I think they know what we are and who we are and I think they’re watching
us.” He was silent for a moment. “I think we should take them out.”

“No,” I said. “No more. I’ve done enough killing for two lifetimes. I’m
not going to—”

“You liked it when we took out the money men. Don’t deny it.”

“That was different.”

“Yeah. Those guys wanted to fire Joe and put in a new mayor. These guys
killed Buster. And they’re going to kill us. That’s the difference.”

“Look, I don’t—”

“Shh!” Philipe said quietly, harshly. “Keep your voice down.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want the others to hear.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to worry them.”

“
Worry
them? After all they’ve been through?”

“Because. That’s why. Is that a good enough reason for you?” He looked
at me. “I told you I get feelings? Hunches? Well, right now I have this feeling
that we shouldn’t tell the others.”

We were quiet for a moment. “What are these ‘hunches’?” I asked. “What
are they really? Are they like… ESP or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He was silent. “Yeah, I guess they are like ESP,” he said finally. “Or
maybe more like fortune-telling. They’re always about the future and they always
come true. I don’t see pictures or images. I don’t get coherent messages read to
me. I just… know things.”

“Why did you go off into that sandstorm last month? Why did you
disappear for a week?”

“I had to.”

“What did you do while you were gone?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is my business.”

He looked at me, his eyes boring into my own. “No. It’s not.”

“It’s related, isn’t it? It has something to do with your ‘hunches’.”

He sighed. “Let’s just say that I had to go out and… do something.
If I didn’t, something really bad would have happened to us. To all of us. It
wouldn’t make any sense to you if I told you the specifics—it doesn’t make
any sense to me—but it’s true, and I know it’s true, and… it’s just
something that happened.”

“Why don’t you talk to the rest of us about this stuff? We—”

“Because you wouldn’t understand. And because it’s none of your
business.”

We had been walking slowly along the sidewalk and were now in front of
Tower Records. The others had already gone in, but Pete was standing in the
doorway waiting for us. “I know you guys are discussing something I wasn’t
supposed to hear,” he said. “But are you talking about the suits?”

“Why?”

“I know they’re here. I saw one outside Sizzler.”

Philipe pulled him away from the door. “How many of the others know?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. None of them, probably. I haven’t talked
about it with anyone, I thought I should talk to you first.”

Philipe grinned. “You’re a rock, Pete.”

I looked around again.

“They’re not here now,” Philipe said.

“So what are we going to do?” Pete asked.

“Take them out.”

I shook my head. “They’re not alone. They’re working for somebody.
They’ve already checked in by now, called or radioed to their bosses to tell
them where we are. We could kill them, but more would come. We have to get out
of here.”

Philipe thought for a moment. “You may be right,” he said. “One thing’s
for sure, though. We have to tell the others. Then we’ll vote on it. But we
can’t just stay here and do nothing. It’s not safe. We either take them out or
hit the road, or both.”

“Agreed.”

“All right, then. Let’s head for home. Meeting time.”

We voted to stay.

And hide.

The polling was unanimous, except for Philipe. Everyone else seemed to
be tired of killing, and despite what had happened to Buster, no one was in the
mood to seek revenge. We were scared and wanted only to lay low.

“But where’ll we go?” Mary asked.

“There are a lot of nice homes in a new subdivision on the south end of
town,” Joe suggested.

“How’s the access?” Philipe asked. “Any gates? How many roads in and
out? Will we be able to keep the place secure?”

“Don’t worry.”

“The suits aren’t playing games,” Philipe said. “If they’re here,
they’re here for a reason. They’ve already killed one of us—”

“Joe can tell the police chief about these guys,” Tim pointed out. “He
can have them hauled in for harassment or something. We can find out who they
are, why they’re after us.”

Joe nodded. “I will.”

Philipe paused for only a second. “All right,” he said. “But be careful.
If they know you’re one of us, they may try to take you out, too.”

“Don’t worry.”

Philipe nodded. “Okay. From now on, we’ll have someone on watch at all
times, twenty-four hours a day.” He turned toward Joe. “Show us where this place
is.”

We drove to the subdivision, took an empty ranch-style house at the end
of a cul-de-sac so we could spot all corners. Joe did talk to the police chief
and arranged for a patrol car to be stationed at the entrance of the
subdivision. He gave the police a description of the suits, confirmed that the
local police knew nothing about them, and made sure that the police would pick
up any suits they could find for questioning.

“I think you’re safe,” Joe said.

“Maybe,” Philipe told him. “But I’m still keeping a man on watch. Just
in case.”

It happened that night.

Once again, it was during a sandstorm. We were at the house. We’d been
planning a barbecue, but the sandstorm had come and we’d moved inside, where
Mary put the half-cooked chicken into the oven. We were sitting around waiting
for the food, talking, drinking beer, watching a videotape of
Top Gun
,
when I suddenly noticed that Philipe was gone.

He might’ve been in the bathroom, he might’ve been in the kitchen, but
something told me that he wasn’t, and I quickly searched the rooms of the house
and determined that he was not there. I opened the front door, looked outside.
Through the blowing sand, I could see that all of our cars were still parked out
in front.

And then I saw Philipe.

He was inside the house next door. I could dimly make out his silhouette
through one of the side windows.

Something about that alerted me, sent up my antennae. I had a sickening
feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I ran outside, jumped the small wooden
fence that separated the two homes, and sped up to the porch next door. The
front door was wide open, despite the sandstorm, and I walked right in. I
hurried past the window where I’d seen Philipe, through a den, into a hallway.
Philipe was before me, walking toward the far end of the hall.

In his hand was a carving knife.

“Philipe!” I yelled.

He ignored me, kept walking.

“Philipe!” I ran forward.

He was mumbling, talking to himself. I heard him say, “Yes,” and the way
he said it sounded as though he were talking to someone.

God?

Chills cascaded down my arms as I remembered him suggesting, when I
first joined the terrorists, that God had chosen us for this work.

“Yes,” he said again, and he seemed to be answering a question. “I
will.”

But he’d claimed that he didn’t hear voices.

“No,” he said to his unseen questioner.

“Philipe!” I grabbed his shoulder. He whirled around, swung at me with
the knife, but when he saw who I was, pulled back, missing me.

Then he punched me in the nose.

I fell back against the wall, stunned and hurt, blood spilling from my
nostrils and backing up into my throat. I spit, stood, tried to breathe. Philipe
was gone, no longer in the hallway, and a split second later I heard a child’s
staccato screams.

I ran through the open doorway at the end of the hall. Philipe was on
his knees in the center of a pink girl’s room, flanked by twin beds. He was
covered with blood, his eyes white and crazy in the midst of the red, and he was
hacking at two small unmoving children on the ground before him.