Mine (26 page)

These thoughts were consuming him when Leah’s back suddenly arched and her eyes shot open.

He hurried to her side. “Are you all right?”

She took a moment and then nodded.

“Did you get through to him?”

“Sort of,” she said, and told him what had happened.

“So he’s okay.”

“I think so…maybe. Honestly, though, I’m not sure.”

Once Joel was positive she was fine, he went out to pick up some food. When he returned, Mike was sitting up, Leah’s arm around him.

Joel mouthed, “How is he?”

Leah tilted her head side to side—so-so.

Joel put on a smile and raised the bags. “I’ve got more cheeseburgers. Are you hungry?”

There was a slight delay before Mike looked up. “Hungry. Yes, I’m hungry.”

Joel set the bags down, pulled out a burger, and handed it to Mike.

Mike looked at it for a moment. “I don’t-don’t have to eat cheeseburgers every time.” He glanced at Joel. “I like pizza, too.”

Joel smiled. “Got it. Next time, pizza.”

“And Chinese food.”

“They serve Chinese food where you live?”

“My…” Mike hesitated, searching for the right word. “P-p-parents. My parents bring it with them when they visit.”

“When we see a Chinese place, we’ll hit that, too.”

“Good.” Mike took a large bite of the burger. “Thank you.”

After Mike finished chewing, Joel asked, “So, um, what was that all about?”

“What do you mean?”

“The numbers? While you were, I guess, sleeping?”

Mike looked down at his burger. “Not sleeping. I was hiding us.”

“Who were you hiding us from?”

Another pause. “Her.”

Leah put a hand on Mike’s back. “You mean the person you were talking about yesterday?”

“Yes. Her.”

“Who is she?” Joel asked.

Mike seemed to be struggling with how to answer.

“It’s okay,” Leah said. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t want to, but need to,” Mike said. “You need to know.” He stared at the floor for a moment before looking at them. “She is the one who…made us.”

A shiver ran down Joel’s spine. “You mean changed us?”

“Yes,” Mike said.

“You’re in communication with her?” Leah asked.

“I am…I am her translator.”

“We don’t know what that means,” Joel said.

Several seconds passed before Mike whispered, “I help her understand our world.”

“And how do you do that?”

“I send her your information.” He frowned. “Well, not yours. Not for a long time.” He looked at Leah. “But yours. I still send her yours.”

Leah appeared confused for a moment, but then looked away, lost in thought.

“What information?” Joel asked.

Instead of Mike responding, it was Leah who said, “Everything.”

S
IXTY-NINE

Leah

L
EAH SLEPT IN
fits and starts the rest of the day. In the years since she’d started changing, a part of her had hoped that whatever had intervened in her, Joel’s, and Mike’s lives was benevolent. The changes, at least with her and Joel, were improvements after all. And what about the missions she and Joel had undertaken? The people they had—with one notable exception—helped?

But now she knew better. Whatever it was had been using them all along. Mike most of all.

Her desire to return to Camp Red Hawk was now stronger than ever. She needed to confront this thing. She needed to know why it had done what it had to them. Most of all, she needed to make it release its hold on them.

They were on the road again by five that afternoon.

As they ascended into the mountains, a tingle started at the base of Leah’s neck. It was similar to but not quite the same as the ones that preceded her dreams. The farther they went, the more the sensation spread, and by the time they reached Boulder, she could feel it everywhere.

Since the camp was another two and a half hours back into the mountains and it was already dark, they found another motel and made plans to start out again before sunrise.

Leah was wary of going to sleep, worried that the sensation might mean she’d be spending her night in the augmented reality of her dreams, so she lay there for a while, thinking about what might be waiting for them in the woods. These thoughts led her back to Joel’s and her missions. There was something about them she had barely questioned, but suddenly it was all she could focus on. And by the time she drifted off, she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

Upon waking, the tingling still clung to her, though not as intensely as it had the night before. She quickly dressed and headed outside, where she found the boys waiting at the car.

“I’ll drive,” she told Joel as she approached.

“I can do it,” he said.

“I was the last one up there. I know the area a little better than you.”

He snorted. “That was like seven years ago.”

She held her hand out for the keys. “I’m driving.”

With a shrug, he gave them to her, and then climbed into the front passenger seat.

“How you doing?” she asked Mike as she got in. He’d already settled into the back.

His lips curled up in what was supposed to be a smile before they dipped again, his face tense.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she asked.

“Me what?”

“When Joel and I were helping people. You were the one who guided me. Showed me what I needed to see.”

His gaze darted away.

“It was, right?” she asked.

Another quick not-smile. “Yes.”

“So the three of us have been back together longer than we thought.”

“Than
you
thought.”

She laughed. “Good point.”

“Can we go now? We need to go. Go, go.”

“Does she know we’re coming?” Joel asked.

“Doesn’t know. Not yet. But I’m not sure, not sure how long I can keep the secret. Go, go.”

Leah started the car.

__________

T
HE SUN HAD
barely risen over the horizon when they reached the county road into the mountains. The last time the three of them had been on that road together was on the buses to camp.

The higher they went, the more patches of snow they saw. Small clumps at first, but soon a layer a few inches thick covered everything—old snow, mixed with dirt and pine needles.

Leah’s tingling staged a roaring comeback as the elevation increased, making it hard for her to sit still in her seat. Joel seemed to be just as fidgety. She wondered if he was suffering the same infliction but she didn’t ask.

When they neared the two-hour mark into their journey, the road crested a pass and turned down into the shallow valley where Camp Red Hawk, Camp Cedar Woods, and at least half a dozen other camps were located.

She had never been here in the winter—well, technically spring now, she corrected herself. The off-white vista was broken only by the trees and the blue lakes that dotted the valley. If anything, the area looked even more peaceful than it did in the summer.

“There,” Joel said, pointing out the window ahead and to the left. “That boomerang-shaped lake. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Leah nodded. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Given the unexpected tangents their lives had taken since that fateful summer, the lake and the area around it should have looked like Mordor or the gates of hell, but it appeared no less serene than the rest of the valley.

Five minutes farther on, they reached an intersection Leah remembered well. On one corner was the café Monty’s Eats, and on the other the combination gas station and mini-market where she and Todd had bought slushies. Neither place seemed to have changed at all in the years since.

A turn to the left sent them toward Camp Red Hawk. Beside her, she could hear Joel taking shorter and shorter breaths. She touched his thigh, hoping it might calm him. He gave her a forced smile, but his breathing slowed only a little.

“It’s going to be fine,” she said.

Without taking his eyes off the road, he said, “I didn’t wake up all that great.”

For a moment, she didn’t know what he meant, and then it dawned on her. “What was it?”

“My shoulder,” he said, touching the one on his right. “A nice big bruise.”

Remembering when she’d seen his phantom injuries, she said, “Dislocated?”

He shook his head. “Just strained, I think.” A pause. “I guess I’m telling you because, you know, in case I do it to you. I’m sorry.”

She squeezed his leg. “Potential apology accepted.”

She looked in the mirror to check on Mike. He was rocking in his seat, his eyes darting from window to window while his lips silently moved with the recitation of his numbers.

Several minutes later, she almost missed seeing the turnoff. She’d been looking for the painted-over sign that had still been standing on her last visit. Now only one of its posts remained. She didn’t realize what it was until they were almost parallel to it.

She slammed on the brakes, ramming the boys against their seatbelts, and then threw the car into reverse.

“What the hell?” Joel asked.

She turned onto the dirt road. “We’re here.”

It turned out the missing sign wasn’t the only change about the entrance. Someone had erected a barrier across.

“I’ll check it.” Joel hopped out of the car and ran over to the obstruction. When he came back, he said, “It’s not a gate. It’s a fence. We’re going to have to walk in.”

Leah pulled the sedan as far forward as possible so that it would be hidden by the woods, and then she and Mike climbed out. Dressed in the T-shirt and jeans they’d picked up for him before leaving Grand Junction, Mike shivered in the cold air.

“Where’s your jacket?” Leah asked, then noticed his feet. “And your shoes?” They’d purchased those for him, too.

He looked down.

“You need to put them on,” she told him. “You’ll freeze otherwise.”

“Right, right. It’s cold. Okay.”

He grabbed the items from inside and pulled them on. When he stood again, Leah stepped over to him.

“Oh, Mike,” she said as she zipped up his jacket. The only outside time he’d probably had since he’d been hospitalized was in the fenced-off area behind the Genesee facility. At the very least, whatever it was that had changed them needed to pay for the life it had taken from him. She put her hand on his back. “Come on.”

They walked to the fence.

“We can squeeze through here,” Joel said from the trees just off the road.

He pushed down on one of the wires with his foot and pulled up on the wire strung above it, creating a gap wide enough to maneuver through.

As soon as they were on the other side, he said, “Do you feel it?”

She nodded. A pull, like the one that had led her home from the Valentine’s Day dance back in high school, only this thread wasn’t simply anchored to her chest. It was tugging at her whole body.

Mike rocked back and forth as he stared into the forest. “I feel it, I feel it.”

“Is it her?” Leah asked. “Does she know we’re here?”

Mike was silent for a moment. “No, no. She doesn’t know. It’s like, like…” He held out his hands and mimed them being pulled together.

“Like a magnet.”

“Yes. Like a magnet. Yes, yes.”

“If anyone has any doubts, now’s the time to turn back,” Joel said.

Mike whipped his head around and looked at Joel. “No, no. Cannot. No turning back. She won’t let us.”

“I thought you just said she doesn’t know we’re here.”

“She doesn’t. Not yet. But if we try to leave, she will…sense us. Yes, yes. Too much fear. She will know, and she will not let us go.”

“Well, I guess that answers that,” Joel said, and started walking.

They hiked down the middle of the old road, learning quickly to place their steps with care to avoid ruts hidden by the snow. Even then, it took almost fifteen minutes before they reached the camp.

They passed the posts where the chain had once been strung, entered the parking area, and had their first good look at the camp.

“My God,” Joel said. “Why would anyone have let the place get like this?”

When Leah had come with Todd and the others, Red Hawk had already looked worn down. Now it was truly decrepit. The roof of the administration building had completely collapsed, and limbs of trees growing inside could be seen peeking over the wall. The cafeteria was still covered, but the entire building was leaning to the side and would likely not last another winter.

“I thought someone would have bought it and fixed it up by now,” Joel said. “It’s a prime location.”

Leah shook her head. “It’s cursed. They could rename it whatever they like, but word would get out that this was where ‘those kids’ disappeared. No parent would ever send their children here.”

“Cursed, not cursed,” Mike said. “It doesn’t matter.
She
wouldn’t let anyone have it.”

Joel looked at him. “Does this
she
have a name?”

Mike glanced nervously at him and then returned his gaze to the camp. For a few moments his face clouded. Finally he said, “Yes. She is, she is....” He went silent again, and it seemed as if he wasn’t going to say anything at all.

“Mike?” Leah said. “Are you all right?”

He chewed on his lower lip for several more seconds before whispering, “She is the Reclaimer.”

“The
Reclaimer
?” Leah said.

Mike barely nodded, looking as if he’d said too much.

“Who is she?” Joel asked.

Mike began rocking side to side. “She is the end and the beginning.”

Joel was going to say something else, but Leah touched his arm and shook her head. As much as she wanted to know more about this Reclaimer, she thought it unwise to chance scaring Mike so much that he retreated back into his mind.

“That way, right?” Leah said to Mike, pointing toward the pathway to the cabins.

“Yes, yes. That way.”

S
EVENTY

The Reclaimer