Homing (33 page)

Not bothering to answer her daughter's question, she started the car and headed down the driveway, ignoring Russell's shout as she passed the barn.

She also ignored the big semi parked on the edge of the road between the clinic and the village, along with the doorless convertible behind it, and the angry-looking woman who was standing by the damaged car, yelling at the truck driver.

Three minutes later she pulled up in front of the city hall across the street from the old Carnegie Library. Not bothering to lock the car, she took Molly by the hand and strode around the corner to the side entrance, where the tiny office that housed the local deputies was located.

Mark Shannon was sitting behind his desk, his feet up while he leafed through a catalog of various guns, holsters, belts, nightsticks, and other paraphernalia relating to his job. Looking up and seeing Karen, he guiltily dropped his feet to the floor and shoved the catalog into the bottom drawer of his desk. "Mrs. Owen," he began, automatically offering her a smile that faded as he saw the look on her face. Already certain he knew why she was there, he rummaged through the pads of forms on his desk, finally finding the one he was looking for. "I guess you want to fill one of these out," he said, offering her the missing person forms. "If you have any questions"

Karen's jaw set, "I'm sure I don't have any questions that are on that form," she said. "You already know what Julie looks like-you met her when Otto died." She rummaged in her purse, found her wallet, and pulled out a picture of Julie that was less than a year old. She laid the picture in front of Shannon. "My daughter is not a runaway," she said. "Nor does she have a drug problem. If you don't believe me, you can call Ellen Filmore, who, as it happens, tested her for drugs just last night." As Shannon started to say something, Karen cut him off. "It wasn't just Julie she tested. It was Jeff Larkin, too. Both of them were looking ill, and Marge and I took both of them to the clinic." Briefly she told him what had happened and what Ellen Filmore had wanted the kids to do this morning. "But Julie was gone this morning," she finished.

She was about to tell him about Kevin going up into the hills with Jeff Larkin when the door opened and Marge Larkin walked in, her face pale. "Mark, something's happened. Jeff was supposed to go to the doctor in San Luis . .." As Karen turned around and Marge recognized her, her words faded away. Then: "What is it? Have you found Julie? Is she-2'

Karen shook her head. "It's like she's vanished off the face of the earth." Now she repeated to both Marge Larkin and Mark Shannon what had happened when Kevin walked out of the foothills. "I keep having this awful feeling that Jeff found Julie, but that something happened. Either to her, or to both of them, or-" The terrible strain of the morning closed in on her, and she burst into tears, dropping onto the chair in front of Mark Shannon's desk, burying her face in her hands. As Molly looked as if she, too, might begin sobbing, Marge Larkin went to Karen and put an arm protectively around her shoulders. But her eyes, still fixed on Shannon, turned hard as flint.

"Two children," she said. "We have two children missing now. And if you don't do something, you can bet there's going to be a very large story on the front page of the next issue of the Chronicle. Is that what you want, Mark?"

When the phone rang, Mark Shannon felt a wave of relief to have an interruption-any interruption-in which to figure out an answer for the two women.

"Mark?" It was Marian Bennett, sounding agitated.

"Something terrible has happened. My car's wrecked and-"

"Is anyone hurt?" Mark cut in.

"No! At least-Mark, Andy's gone!"

Mark Shannon blinked as a cold knot of apprehension began to form in his stomach. "Andy's gone?" he repeated. "Marian, what are you talking about?"

Marian, despite her fury over what had happened to her convertible, carefully explained what had happened that morning.

How strange Andy had looked.

How she was on the way to the clinic with him when he suddenly started acting funny.

And how he had run across a field, maybe disappearing into the hills.

Just like Jeff Larkin.

And possibly Julie Spellman, too.

Russell leaned on his pitchfork and stared down from the loft in the barn, watching Kevin pitching the dirty straw from the floor of the horse stalls into the wheelbarrow.

Something was definitely wrong.

Though Kevin was working steadily, removing the dirty straw with the easy rhythm that Russell himself had taught him, there was something about Kevin that just didn't look quite right.

Finally he plunged his own fork deep into one of the bales of hay that were stacked in the loft and climbed down the ladder, dropping to the floor directly from the fourth step up.

Kevin, despite the loud thump that Russell's feet made when they struck the barn's wooden floor, didn't even look up.

But he did pause in his work for a second-just as Russell had seen him do several times over the last hour and peer out through the stall's open door, into the corral.

Peer out as if he were looking for something.

Russell followed his gaze, but the corral was empty.

They'd turned the horses out into the field to graze.

As he was about to speak to Kevin, Bailey trotted into the barn, started toward Kevin, then paused, whimpering uncertainly.

"What is it, Bailey?" Russell asked, moving next to the dog and dropping one hand onto its head.

The dog whimpered again, took a tentative step toward Kevin, then seemed to change its mind. Suddenly it started barking, wheeled around and dashed out of the barn. For a moment Russell wasn't sure what had spooked Bailey, but then, at a pause in the dog's barking, he heard the sound of the old Chevy coming up the driveway.

So at least Karen was coming back. When she'd left, not even slowing down as he came out of the barn to find out where she was going, he'd had a terrible feeling that she might be taking Molly and leaving the farm.

Why else would she be taking the Chevy?

Then he'd decided that was crazy-she'd never leave until she'd found Julie.

Still, he'd almost decided to go after her, only changing his mind when he realized that if he did, there would be no one but Kevin at home should Julie return.

And Kevin, although he claimed nothing was wrong, now seemed to be coming down with something, too.

In the end, he'd stayed in the barn, and tried to concentrate on his work, but between his worry about Julie and the need to keep an eye on Kevin, not much was getting done, at least by him.

Now, following Bailey out of the barn, Russell planted himself firmly in the middle of the driveway. Karen would either have to stop or ruin the lawn by driving around here, Or run right over him.

For a second, as the Chevy approached, he thought she might be intending to do exactly that. At the last minute, though, she stopped the car a few inches short of hitting him. She sat still for several seconds, as if trying to decide whether to get out or not, then finally opened the door. As she stepped out into the sunlight, Russell could see the redness of her eyes. He quickly moved to her side and put his arms around her.

She barely reacted to the gesture.

"There's another one missing," she said, her voice dull.

"At least now I think maybe they'll do something."

Russell stared at her. "Another teenager?"

She nodded. "Andy Bennett. Another one of the kids Julie and Kevin went to the movies with."

"Oh, Jesus," Russell breathed. "Poor Marian. She must," Karen jerked away from him, her eyes blazing. "Poor Marian?" she echoed. "Why are you so worried about her? What about me? I have a child missing, too! Or have you forgotten?" Suddenly all the fear she'd been trying to control all morning, all the frustration and helplessness that had been welling up inside her, coalesced into rage. "I don't know why I ever came here," she yelled, jerking away from Russell and starting toward the house. "My mother was right! This is a terrible place! It's hot, and the people are horrible, and if the bees don't kill you, the scorpions do! God, why did I marry you? Why did I ever think any of this was a good idea?"

She broke into a run, her head down as she fled toward the house. Molly scrambled out of the car and chased after her, and a moment later so did Russell, catching up to his wife and stepdaughter just as they reached the front porch.

Kevin, coming out of the barn, watched for a moment as his father and stepmother stood on the porch of the house, arguing. From inside the barn he'd heard everything that Karen had said, and gotten more worried by the second.

More worried, and more frightened.

So now Andy Bennett was gone, too.

Had he gone up to the cave where Jeff and Julie were?

What about the rest of his friends?

Where were Sara McLaughlin and Shelley Munson?

Were they feeling the same way he was?

Were they getting sick, too?

Suddenly he had to know.

Abandoning the chores that still had to be done, Kevin got behind the wheel of the Chevy and was about to start its engine when he heard his father yelling at him. Twisting the key in the ignition switch, he pumped the accelerator a couple of times. The motor coughed, then started.

Putting the car in gear, Kevin drove it on up to the house.

From the porch his father and stepmother gazed at him.

"I'm going to go see if I can find Sara and Shelley," he said. "If Andy's gone, too, maybe they know where he went."

"You're not going anywhere," Russell began, but Karen cut him off.

"Why not?" she demanded. "At least he cares that they're gone! Why shouldn't he go look for his friends?"

Russell hesitated, then gave in. "All right,'-' he said. "But just be careful, Kevin, okay?" Kevin smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm fine."

Then he was gone.

Andy Bennett moved steadily into the hills.

The agonizing humming in his head was gone-had been gone almost from the second he'd jumped over the fence and fled from his mother and her car. He'd heard the crash when the truck hit the car door-even turned around to see what had happened. But seeing that his mother was okay even though the door of her car was torn off, he hadn't gone back to find out what had happened.

In fact, he wasn't sure he'd have gone back even if someone had been hurt.

For now there was something new going on in his head.

A new sensation-not quite a sound, not quite an image.

Something else-something he'd never experienced before.

. It was as if he was no longer in control of his own mind, or his own body, and as he walked up into the hills, he had no conscious idea where he was going.

But he knew he was going somewhere-somewhere he felt compelled to be-and as he moved along the paths, soon losing any real knowledge of where he was, that strange sensation of a presence in his mind seemed to guide him, seemed to know exactly where he should go.

Finally he came to the crest of a hill and found himself looking down into a valley. On the other side of the valley he could see a cave.

The cave, he suddenly knew, was where he needed to be.

His step quickening, Andy hurried down the hillside, crossed the stream that wound along the floor of the valley, and started up toward the cave.

He was still fifty feet away when he saw Jeff Larkin step out of the shadows that hid the interior of the cavern.

Jeff neither waved nor spoke to him, but merely stepped back into the cave. When Andy finally was at the mouth of the cave, he wondered if Jeff had even seen him. But a moment later, as he stepped into the gloom within the cavern, Jeff fell in beside him.

Then he saw Julie.

She lay on the floor of the cave, near the back.

Her body was bloated, and every inch of her skin was covered with bees, whose wings vibrated steadily, filling the cave with the low hum of a hive.

Andy stopped, his stomach churning with nausea at the sight of her. He wanted to turn away, to run out of the cave, to flee back into the sunlight outside.

But he couldn't.

Something inside him-something he could neither understand nor resist-took control of him.

He started slowly toward Julie as her arms rose and reached out to him.

Reached out with fingernails that had grown long.

Long, and pointed.

Pointed ... like stingers.

Carl Henderson pulled into the A&W stand, parking his car in the shade beneath the orange canopy over the drive-in service area. He'd been on the road most of the morning, dropping in on farmers as far north as Coalinga, and he was more than ready for lunch when Charlene Hopkhis came over and rested her elbows on the window frame of the Cherokee. But before he could order, she sighed deeply, shook her head and clucked her tongue, which Carl knew was her habitual prelude to the announcement of bad news. Sure enough, a moment later, she brushed a stray wisp of platinum hair back from her forehead and said, "Isn't it strange about all them kids?"

Carl frowned and his heartbeat skipped. What was she talking about? What kids? Surely they hadn't found- But even before he could finish his thought, Charlene read the confusion on his face.

"You mean you haven't heard? Seems like kids are disappearing all over the place today. First that Julie Spellman-you know, Russell Owen's new stepdaughter?

They say she was gone first thing this morning. And now Jeff Larkin and Andy Bennett are missing, too." Her voice dropping conspiratorially, Charlene passed on the various bits and pieces of gossip she'd picked up over the course of the morning, from the tale of Marian Bennett's convertible-which Charlene was pretty certain would result in Chuck's divorcing Marian-to the fact that both Julie Spellman and Jeff Larkin had been taken to the clinic the night before. "And Dr. F. sent Roberto Munoz over to someplace in San Luis Obispo with samples of their blood," she finished, flushed with excitement. "I guess something pretty awful must be wrong with them, huh?"

Carl Henderson, his pulse racing, struggled to reveal nothing of the fear surging through him. instead he simply nodded in agreement and tried to show just exactly the right level of interest. "Roberto have any idea what they're looking for?"