Vanish (18 page)

He’d had plenty of girlfriends before her, and none of them exactly virtuous. But Linda was different. Self-confident. Independent. She had her head on straight. And her voice…

Her voice was the sort of soft, soothing tone that his mother had.…

Mitch blinked and glanced over at the lawyer. He was staring out the window. No doubt working on his theory. Mitch sniffed. He’d gotten accustomed to giving the guy a hard time about everything. And this new idea was a little too crazy for Mitch to take seriously.

Although, his hallucination had
seemed
real. He had actually
felt
his mother’s hand touch him during his episode on the boat. It felt so real. Exactly like when he was a kid. He bit his lip. He thought he had forgotten that. He had tried so hard to forget.…

“Hey, that looked like a gas station back there.” Conner perked up.

“You sure?”

Conner nodded. “Pretty sure, yeah. It looked like there was a truck or something parked there, anyway. If we need to siphon some gas.”

Mitch turned the Cherokee around and headed back. A shadowy building loomed up in the fog. He pulled in. It was a muffler and brake shop. No gas pumps, but there was a pickup truck parked in the lot. Mitch pulled to a stop and tapped the wheel.

They had a little less than a quarter tank. They could probably make it another hour or so. But still, they shouldn’t pass up an opportunity. It was the first building they had seen in a while.

Mitch got out and inspected the truck. It was unlocked, but the keys weren’t in it, so he couldn’t read the gas gauge.

He shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. I need a hose or something.”

He grabbed the flashlight from the Cherokee and went inside.

“I’ll yell if I see anything,” Conner called after him.

The door was unlocked. Mitch tried the lights. Nothing. He searched through the front office area and then moved back into the garage. There had to be something he could use. He shined the light across the shelves and worktables and soon spotted a hose connected to an air compressor.

“Good enough,” he said to himself.

He found a utility knife on the worktable, sliced off both ends of the hose, and coiled it up. Then he turned to leave but stopped in his tracks.

There was a light rustling sound in the darkness. Mitch jumped back, nearly dropping the flashlight. He swung the beam across the garage. He had definitely heard something move in the dark. Skitter across the floor. He pulled the gun from his belt.

There was a soft thud. Mitch spun around. The shelving unit along the back wall jiggled slightly. An empty oilcan toppled to the cement and rolled toward him.

A door slammed. Mitch swept the light further. It shone on the restroom door in the back corner. Closed up tight. His heart pounded against his ribs. His throat went dry.

Part of him screamed for him to run. To get out of there. But part of him was fed up. He’d had enough. Enough being scared. Enough running away. It was time to put a bullet squarely into one of these alien heads.

MITCH WENT TO THE DOOR. Shined the light around the edges. He held his breath and listened.

A dim light leaked out through the bottom, and a soft sound came from behind it. Sporadic and wavering. Almost like… no,
exactly
like the sound of someone singing.

Mitch backed up and scowled. Singing?

Soft and distant and slightly out of tune. But someone was definitely singing inside the bathroom. For a moment he thought to kick the door in. Then he gathered his courage and turned the knob.

The door swung open. It was no bathroom at all but a large, dimly lit bedroom. A man sat in a chair at the bedside, his back toward Mitch. But Mitch recognized him immediately. This was his parents’ bedroom. That was his father.

Mitch shook his head slowly. His lip trembled but he clenched his jaw against it.

“Why are you doing this?”

His father’s song was soft and gentle. Mitch had heard it a thousand times in church sitting between his parents. He had grown to hate it.

“What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!”

“Stop it,” Mitch said. His voice quivered slightly. “Stop singing to her.”

“Oh what peace we often forfeit,
Oh what needless pain we bear…”

Mitch grimaced. “You hear me?”

“All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!”

“You think that helps her? You think that makes the pain go away?”

His father paused for a moment, turning his head slightly as if only to acknowledge Mitch’s presence. But he didn’t make eye contact. He never did. The congressman had devoted his life to his political career. To his reputation. He could talk for hours with voters and community leaders but could never manage more than a few curt sentences to his son.

“Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?”

Mitch could see his mother squirm beneath the sheet. The pain made her ever restless. Toward the end she couldn’t even sleep. And her breathing! The constant rattling of her lungs. He remembered how she would groan during the night. He would lay in the dark, covering his ears as she gagged and vomited.

But his father couldn’t see it. Or wouldn’t. He just kept singing. When it was obvious the painkillers were no longer working, he would just sing more softly. Sometimes he would read that Bible of his, as if it were some sort of balm. Some magic elixir. But Mitch knew the man’s religion was little more than window dressing for his political aspirations. And Mitch was forced to conform for the sake of his father’s reputation.

“We should never be discouraged;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

Prayer? Mitch had prayed every night. For six months he prayed for her to get better. Finally he prayed that she would just die. But still she lingered, suffering. And no one would do anything to ease her pain. No one seemed willing to help her.

Mitch cursed his father. “Do you think He’s listening? Do you think He even cares about any of us? We’re on our own down here, Dad. We’re all alone. We have to find our own way.”

His father stopped singing and straightened up in the chair. “I can take a lot of disrespect from you, Mitch.”

Mitch frowned. That wasn’t his father’s voice.

The man stood and turned around.

Mitch’s eyes widened and he backed away from the door.

This was not his father.

Smooth flesh covered over the space where his eyes should have been. And his mouth looked like an elongated incision in the pale flesh, spreading from one cheek to the other. It peeled back to reveal multiple rows of narrow, pointed teeth. His jaw opened to a curling, ink black tongue.

A bass voice rumbled at Mitch. “But I
will not
abide you blaspheming the Lord!”

The creature wore his father’s sweater and corduroy pants. It had his father’s hair.

Mitch felt a frigid blast of air, paralyzing him.

The thing strode toward him. “Now get out! And leave us alone!”

The door slammed shut.

CONNER COULD SEE MITCH’S flashlight sweeping back and forth inside the garage. He wondered now, was it even worth stopping in the middle of nowhere? In the middle of the night? He ran his fingers along the barrel of the gun and made sure the safety was off, for the seventh time.

What was taking Mitch so long?

The fog pressed in on him. Conner shuddered. Sure, he had a gun, but he felt helpless without the flashlight. He even considered waking Helen and Devon but thought better of it. They at least should rest. For Conner’s part, he was wide awake. He recalled his earlier dream and didn’t think he would ever sleep again.

Conner tensed at the sound of a slamming door inside the building. He could still see a light through the windows of the garage door. “Mitch?” he called, but not too loud. “Are you okay?”

A minute later, Mitch returned, walking stiff and upright, like a zombie in a campy movie. But he was carrying what looked like a coil of hose and a gas can.

“Everything okay?” Conner said as Mitch approached.

Mitch didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at him. He walked around to the side of the truck, unscrewed the gas cap, and fed one end of the hose into the tank. Then he blinked and shook his head. It looked to Conner as if he had just awakened from a trance.

“Are you all right?”

Mitch glanced at him and offered a quick nod. Then he bent his ear down to the gas tank and jiggled the hose. After a moment, he straightened up. His frown had deepened.

“What is it?” Conner was growing weary of the one-sided conversation.

Mitch stared at the truck. “It’s empty.”

“What?”

He pulled the hose back out. “Completely dry.”

“Dry? Isn’t that a little strange?”

Mitch snorted. “Dude, that’s like the
least
strange thing that’s happened to us. We’ll just have to keep going.”

“There wasn’t any gas inside?”

“Go look for yourself if you want to.” Mitch coiled the hose and stowed it in the back of the Cherokee along with the gas can. As he circled back to the driver’s door, Conner met him with an open palm.

“I’ll drive.”

Mitch frowned. “I’m not tired.”

“Neither am I.”

Mitch rolled his eyes, dumped the keys into Conner’s hand, and went around to the other door. He sank into the passenger seat and leaned his head back.

Conner pulled onto the highway. Helen and Devon were still asleep. But Conner could sense something was wrong with Mitch. Something had happened inside the garage. Something wasn’t right.

After a minute, he ventured a conversation. “What’s wrong? What happened in there?”

Mitch just grunted. “Nothing.”

Conner wasn’t buying. He had used that act too many times himself. “Come on, Mitch. If something happened to you in there, let me know. We can try to help you.”

Mitch laughed; not one of his snide chuckles—he
laughed
. “Dude, there is no one on this planet who can help me anymore.”

“That’s not true. Look, if something happened to you, it could be important to help us find out what’s going on.”

Mitch’s laughter died away. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.

Conner persisted. “Did you see something?”

Mitch snorted and leaned back again.

“You
did
see something.” Conner nodded. “What was it? Another hallucination? Was it your mother again?”

“It was nothing important.”

“Everything is important here. Any clue could help us figure out what’s going on.”

Mitch sighed, long and loud. “I’m going crazy is what’s going on.”

“You’re not going crazy, Mitch. We’ve all had hallucinations. What did you see? Your mother again?”

Mitch just stared at the dashboard.

“Mitch? Was it her again? Did she try to talk to—?”

“It wasn’t my mother this time!” Mitch huffed. His lips tightened a moment. Then his voice softened. “It was my dad.”

“Your dad?” Conner frowned. “What’d he do? Did he say anything?”

Mitch shook his head. “Only it wasn’t my dad. It…” He hesitated. Conner could tell he was searching for words. “It… was one of them, I think.”

Conner bit his lip. A sick feeling swelled in his stomach. “What?”

“It… he looked like one of those things. He didn’t have a face.”

Conner’s foot drew off the gas pedal. The image of Matthew’s eyeless, alien face flashed back into his head. “Mitch, I saw the same kind of thing when I was dreaming of Matthew before. He looked the same way.” His frown deepened. There were no such things as coincidences here. “What did he do? Your father. Did he say anything?”

“No.” Mitch’s voice grew tense. “He just yelled at me. Just like when I was a kid.”

Conner could see him struggling to put his thoughts into words. What had happened to him? Something with his father? A childhood trauma? He said his mother had died when he was a teenager. But there was something more. Something else was bothering him.

“So what happened between you and your father?” Conner prodded him. “You said you’d had a fight or something but he had called you recently.”

“He called the night all this started. He’d been trying to get ahold of me, but I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t know what to say.”

“What’d he want?”

“He said he just wanted to… to patch things up between us.”

“Did you?”

“No. I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend. I was going to propose. And I was running late, so I didn’t have time to talk. And I didn’t really
want
to talk.”

Conner fell silent for a moment. Something wasn’t adding up. “So what was this fight about? When you left home?”

Mitch shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Sure it does. They’re using this to get to you. They’re trying to mess with your head. Just tell me what happened, and maybe we can figure out how to stop it.”

Mitch was quiet for a moment. Conner peered at him in the darkness. He was usually pretty good at reading body language. He could tell when someone was ready to reveal the truth or if they were hiding it. Mitch fidgeted in his seat. Conner could see he wanted to tell him more. He had probably wanted to tell somebody for a long time.

They drove in silence through the fog. Outside, eddies of mist rushed toward them, glowing in the headlights, swirling past them like ghosts. Conner remained silent. He knew how to get people to talk. But there were occasions when the best tool was just to be still and give them a little time. Sometimes the words would begin to emerge on their own. He let the silence do its work.