The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village Page 23

  I also noticed that there was no phone in the room. I guess if you needed to contact the front desk you had to walk down two flights of stairs. In some ways the room was homey . . . if home was an empty old hotel run by a frightened, mousy woman.

  Still, the place would do.

  We didn’t spend much time upstairs. I found the others standing in the hall just a few feet from my door.

  “Did you see that wallpaper?” Andi asked. She looked a tad pale.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, “you want to get some for your place.”

  “Not a chance.” Andi frowned. “Good thing I sleep with my eyes closed.”

  “I’m hungry.” Daniel turned and marched to the stairs. The kid wasn’t shy about such things.

  “Since we have to go down to the first floor to eat,” Brenda said, “I think we should slip out and get our luggage.”

  I reminded her that a promise was a promise and we had made a promise not to open the doors or windows. She called me a self-righteous side of beef. That was a new one. I didn’t waste any brain cells trying to figure out if a side of beef could be righteous. I don’t offend easily. “Small brain but thick hide,” my father used to say. I suppose that’s one reason he never won Father of the Year.

  Two flights of stairs later we were back in the lobby and in the kitchen. The kitchen, like the rest of the place, looked like a tribute to the finest appliances of the fifties. The good news was that Jewel had spoken the truth about the food. There was fried chicken and the makings for a decent breakfast. Since there wasn’t enough chicken to go around, I offered to whip up some scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Daniel liked the idea. Brenda and Andi insisted on helping, but they overruled me on the scrambled eggs, opting for fried.

  We’re normally a chatty bunch, but there was little conversation while we worked. Brenda kept cutting her eyes to the window behind the heavy curtains.

  “Our car is parked just outside that wall, right?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “You know, I could slip out the window and—”

  “C’mon, Brenda. Let it go.” I turned the bacon over. It smelled heavenly. I was a little hungry when we started, but now I was starved.

  “She doesn’t have the right to make demands like that. It’s not like we’re related to her. I ain’t used to takin’ orders from strangers. I ain’t used to takin’ orders from anybody.”

  This is where I miss the professor. He had a way of annoying Brenda into submission. He would say stuff like, “Use that brain of yours, Barnick.” Of course, she would lash back, but then she would tone down. The two drove each other bonkers and the rest of us had to go along for the ride.

  But the professor wasn’t here. Dr. James McKinney was a sixty-something walking encyclopedia. In his younger days he had been a Jesuit priest, but something turned him sour on faith. He left the Jesuits, left the Church, left behind any belief he had in God, and adopted a new gospel—one that said there is no God and religion is a poison to society. The fact that I’m one of those evangelical Christians bothered him. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to change. Of course, I always hoped he would change. He did—some.

  Then he killed himself.

  Well, that’s what the police said. He left a strange note that we still don’t fully understand. Andi carries it with her all the time. She had been his assistant for years. Demanding as he was, he had become a father figure to her. I guess he became a father figure to all of us. We loved the cantankerous, irritable man with his constant I’m-smarter-than-you attitude. And he was right most of the time.

  Brenda took his passing harder than she wanted us to know. She is a tough girl. When she gets her mad on, she can frighten rabid dogs. When we first learned the professor had gone missing, we were frightened. Our missions have put us up against some very nasty people, but the professor’s note sure made the suicide angle look true. Brenda showed little emotion at first, but we saw signs that the loss of the professor had gutted her like a fish. I caught her crying once, and she threatened my life if I told anyone.

  “What’s eating you, Brenda?” Andi slipped eight fried eggs onto a platter we found in a cupboard. That’s two apiece. I asked for only two eggs because I planned on eating a piece or two of the cold fried chicken in the fridge, so I didn’t want to overdo it.

  “I didn’t say anything was eatin’ me.”

  I noticed she didn’t make eye contact with Andi. No two women were more different than Andi and Brenda, and I don’t mean the whole black and white thing. Andi was everything Brenda was not: easygoing, book smart, a whiz at research, and sociable. Brenda was everything Andi was not: forceful, opinionated, and creative. They were yin and yang, tomato soup and grilled cheese. We were a better team when they were together.

  Andi sighed. “Have it your way, girl. We’re just your friends. Who care about you. You don’t owe us anything.”

  That was harsh, and I steeled myself for Brenda to go ballistic. She didn’t. And that scared the liver out of me. Instead she whispered one word: “Batman.”

  It doesn’t take much to derail my train of thought, but that was so out of character and made so little sense I didn’t know what to say. So I took the easy path. “Batman?”

  I pulled the bacon out of the pan and set it on a paper-towel-covered platter. I studied Brenda as she buttered up some toast.

  “Can we eat now?” Daniel asked.

  “Okay, buddy.” I carried my load of fried pig strips to the table, Andi brought the platter of fried eggs, and Brenda delivered the toast. We sat, and I said a silent prayer. The others have gotten used to me doing that and give me a minute or so of quiet at most meals. While I was at it, I prayed for wisdom. I had a feeling I was gonna need it.

  We served ourselves, each ate a bite or two. Then Andi said, “Okay, Brenda, dish it. What’s this about Batman?”

  Brenda pushed her bacon around with her fork but didn’t look up. That wasn’t like her. Usually she looked you in the eye as if waiting for the right moment to spit in it.

  She inhaled. I took a bite of toast. “You know about Batman, right?”

  I shrugged. “Who doesn’t? You are talking about the guy in the comic books, right?”

  “Yes. I used to read them when I was a kid, when I could get them. What do you know about Batman?”

  “You mean the character? Not the guys that created him, right?” I clarified.

  “Yeah, the character.”

  Andi looked at me.

  “Batman is Bruce Wayne. When Bruce was a kid, he saw his parents get murdered in an alley of Gotham City. He dedicated his life to fighting crime. Studied. Trained. Became a famous superhero—although he’s not really a superhero.”

  “He’s not?” Daniel looked surprised.

  I explained. “He doesn’t have superpowers like Superman. He uses his training and skill to overcome bad guys.”

  “And?” Brenda prompted.

  Clearly I had forgotten something. “Oh, and he had a sidekick named Robin.”

  “What do you know about Robin?”

  I shrugged. I read comics as a kid, and still read them occasionally, but I’m no expert. “He was called the ‘Boy Wonder.’ I think later he became the ‘Teen Wonder.’ If you want more detail than that, I’m going to disappoint you.”

  “I would do some research,” Andi said. “If I could get cell service up here.”

  “No need. I already did that.” Brenda cut her egg but didn’t eat any of it. She had something to say but didn’t want to say it. “I know Batman and Robin aren’t real, but I’ve been thinking about them ever since I became Daniel’s guardian. When I was a kid, Batman and Robin were cool. When I became a parent, I began to see Batman as a lousy guardian. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but shouldn’t someone have arrested Batman for child endangerment?”

  That filled the room with silence, except for Daniel, who crunched his bacon.

  “I don’t under—” Then I got it. “You mean bec
ause Robin was a kid.”

  “Exactly, Cowboy. The adult Batman dragged the child Robin into situations where his life was in danger. They faced supervillains, situations filled with guns and knives and all kinds of things meant to kill, and Batman saw no problem putting a minor in the middle of the fight. Today Bruce Wayne would be hauled off to court and Robin—Dick Grayson, I mean—would be put into foster care.”

  “Brenda,” Andi said, “they’re not real. That’s all imagination and storytelling.”

  Brenda looked at Daniel. “We’re real.”

  I’m not always the brightest crayon in the box, but I got that connection.

  Brenda pushed her plate to the side, and Daniel swiped a slice of bacon off her plate. The kid had been hungry.

  I did a quick search of all the closets in my brain, looking for the right thing to say, the thing that would ease her mind. The closets were bare. I looked at Andi. Twice she looked ready to speak, but nothing emerged from her pretty mouth.

  Brenda, however, still had things to say. “Think about what we’ve seen, what we’ve been through. We’ve seen things no one would believe. We’ve all been in danger, and a few times we’ve come close to being taken out. What happens to Daniel if . . . ?”

  Since Daniel was sitting next to her, she didn’t finish, but my brain, which was now running at top RPM, finished it for her: What happens to Daniel if I’m killed while on one of these missions? I was stunned by two things. First, the question knocked me off my pins—then the fact that I had no answer.

  Brenda kept at it. “This is—what? The twelfth time we’ve gone on some crazy mission? Eyeless people, dead fish falling from the air, orbs that follow us around, ghostly things, mind-stealing pirates”—she looked at me—“creatures that swim in fog and make meals outta people. Daniel was there. Cowboy, if you hadn’t done what you did, we wouldn’t be here now, and I wouldn’t be yammerin’ like a crazy woman.”

  “You’re not crazy, Brenda,” I said. “And you’re not yammering. We can tell this is important to you.”

  Boy, could I tell. Her eyes were wet, and she kept biting her lip. A glance at Andi showed she suffered from the same wet eyes.

  Brenda took a deep breath but kept her eyes fixed on her plate of half-eaten food. “Now the professor’s gone. As big a pain as he was in our corporate fannies, he was the real thinker among us. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Andi and I said that in unison.

  “If it was too much for old man McKinney, then I can’t figure out how we can do any better.”

  “He didn’t kill himself,” Andi said. “I told you I saw him in the mirror—”

  “He’s still gone, Andi.” That was a whisper. Even upset as she was, Brenda couldn’t bring herself to add to Andi’s misery.

  “Where are you going with this?” Andi asked. “What’s the punchline?”

  Brenda leaned back in the chair but didn’t make eye contact. I knew she was serious because Brenda had no problem staring into anyone’s eyes, but at the moment she was more vulnerable than I had ever seen her.

  “We quit,” she said. “Me and Daniel. We’re done. I can’t be Batman and take a minor—” She looked at Daniel, who had, for some reason, turned in his chair to stare at the curtains over the kitchen window, the one that looked out over the parking lot. “I shouldn’t say ‘minor.’ I should say ‘child.’”

  After another ragged breath, she continued. “I am Daniel’s guardian. What kinda guardian am I when I drag him all over the place to face who-knows-what kind of dangers? Would you drag one of your loved ones into the situations we get into?”

  That was a hard question to ask and an even harder one to answer. I couldn’t think of a reply. Andi, who always has something to say, remained silent.

  If the conversation was upsetting to Daniel, then he didn’t show it. He just kept staring at the drapes. Then he stood and moved toward the window.

  I wanted to promise, “Nothing is going to happen to Daniel. I’ll see to that,” but it would have been a stupid thing to say. It was true, Daniel was with us—often helping us—during some pretty hairy situations that could have left us all dead. No one could promise safety to anyone else—

  Daniel screamed.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Tockity

  I don’t remember running to Daniel’s side. I heard his tiny voice cry out, and the next thing I knew I was next to him at the window. A man stood outside the glass, his face no more than an inch from the pane. An ugly man. A real mess of a man with wild hair, a beard that looked like it housed a family of rodents, and missing teeth. He was smiling in a way that kick-started my adrenaline.

  I took Daniel by the back of his shirt and pulled him away from the window, turning him around. Brenda had him in her arms a second later. I kept my eyes glued to the face staring in at us. He had one blue eye; the other was covered with an eye patch. The eye patch was made from the top of a cereal box. The first three letters of Corn, as in Corn Flakes, were easy to read. His hair was a mass of brown and gray, and stuck out from his head in a hair halo, or aura, or something. He wore a kind of overcoat. A mackintosh I think they call it. I doubt it had been cleaned anytime this decade. No wonder my little buddy let out a scream. At first I was tempted to do the same.

  I stepped closer, but my size didn’t seem to bother the guy any. He just stood there with a dog-eating-steak grin. My fists were clenched and every muscle in my body had come alive.

  “What do you want?” I used my intimidating voice. He didn’t seem to care much.

  “Tock-tick, tock-tick, tockity, tockity, tick-tick.” He laughed, then shuffled away from the window. He ran, if you could call it running, with a limp.

  “What was that?” Andi’s words were rife with fear.

  I closed the curtains, then turned. Brenda had Daniel behind her. Andi stood beside them, looking ghostly white.

  I wanted to make it appear that seeing the man was no big deal, so I shrugged. “Just some poor homeless guy.”

  “He comes near Daniel I’ll put him out of his misery,” Brenda said. I had no doubts about her willingness to do so.

  “He’s gone now. Probably harmless. I think I scared him.”

  Brenda stared at me. “He didn’t look scared.”

  She was right about that. I can be intimidating when I need to be. They teach that on the football field, but the Tockity Man looked like he couldn’t have cared less.

  “Tock-tick?” Daniel said. “Who says tock-tick?”

  Sometimes Daniel acted a little older than his ten years—about a decade older. “He has some mental problems, buddy. It probably means something to him even though it doesn’t mean anything to us.” My heart was pounding, my muscles still ready for flight or fight, and my brain was humming like a jet engine.

  Andi said, “If that guy’s the reason for keeping the window shades drawn at night, then the hotel clerk should have warned us. I hate being scared like that.”

  I still wanted to appear calm and put the others at ease, so I started clearing the dishes. I wasn’t in the mood for chicken after all.

  Sunrise couldn’t come fast enough for me. We cleaned up the kitchen, being sure to put everything back where we got it, wiped down the counters and stovetop, and generally left the kitchen cleaner than we found it. Part of the activity was done out of simple courtesy—after all, Jewel didn’t have to provide us with food or access to the kitchen, but she did, begrudgingly—and partly because we didn’t want to talk anymore. Talking about Brenda’s decision or about the Tockity Man was like sticking a hand in a hornet’s nest: the hornets don’t like it, and neither does the owner of the hand.

  Once done with the cleanup, we went to bed. It was an act on my part. I doubted I’d sleep. Instead, I did what I knew I would: I lay in bed listening to every sound the old building made—and it made plenty. Every squeak made me wonder if Brenda and Daniel were sneaking away. Every bump brought images of the Tockity Man sneaking into the plac
e to murder us as we slept. I even spent a good half hour trying to convince myself that I should sleep at the foot of the stairs so I would know if anyone came or went.

  I didn’t do that. Brenda was a woman who never hesitated to say or do what she thought she should, but she wouldn’t take the car and leave us stranded in Newland. Besides, I had the keys.

  I did get up a dozen or so times to peer out the window to see if Tockity Man or something worse was messin’ about. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know where a man like that goes in the wee hours, but I was pretty sure he went there.

  It was still early. The sun was up, but it was still in a wrestling match with the trees and hills. The scene outside my window was an epic battle of light fighting the dark. The light was winning, but it was going to be a fifteen-round match.

  I made my way to the men’s shared restroom, made use of the free toothpaste and tiny toothbrush Jewel had given me, took a quick shower, dragged the comb through my hair, and slipped into yesterday’s jeans and flannel shirt, then plodded back to my room to put on boat-length sneakers.

  I like to read my Bible in the morning and the evening, but it was stowed in the car with my other gear. I checked the nightstand next to the bed, but no dice. Apparently the Gideons didn’t travel this deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  I did, however, find a notepad and pen. I scratched out a simple note: Gone for a quick walk. Will bring luggage up when I get back. Then we eat.–Tank

  I folded the notepaper and wedged it in the jamb of the lady’s bathroom. No matter how strained things were at the moment, they’d go to that room sooner or later.

  I walked down the stairs expecting to find Jewel at the desk. No sign of her. No matter. We promised not to go out until the sun was up and ol’ Mr. Sun was showing his face.

  I unlocked the front door and walked out.

  The fresh air was sweet with dew and the smell of old-growth forest. For a moment, I allowed myself to believe that all was right with the world.