Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) (9 page)

Doug nodded as his hands continued to roam his body. “Yes,” he said.

“Is there any more that you haven’t told us?”

“Yes.”

“Will you remember what it is after I wake you?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. I’m going to count backwards again from ten, just like I did in the beginning, and by the time I get to number one you’ll be wide awake and feeling refreshed.”

“Okay, yes. Please, wake me,
NOW!”

The doctor began the count. But before he’d reached seven Doug’s eyes flew open and he sat bolt-upright. “There,” Pasternak said. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

“How do you think I feel?” Doug said, massaging the area above the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.

Jennings
handed Doug a cup of water. Doug took it with a trembling hand and drank it all down.

“Do you remember everything that was said, Doug?” asked the doctor.

Doug nodded.

“Doug,”
Jennings said. “Under hypnosis you said that there were things you’d remember after you woke that weren’t part of the hypnosis session?”

Doug was silent for a long moment, thinking. “Yeah,” he said finally. “He
says I was chosen, and he’s protecting me. That’s why he killed all those people. That’s why he killed my parents. He says it was for my protection.”

“But why does he want to
protect you?”

“Because he says I’m important.
He says he’s clearing the way.”

“Clearing the way for what, Doug?”
Jennings asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Mother of God,” Pasternak whispered as he wiped another round of sweat from his brow. “This the craziest load of crap I’ve ever heard.”

The limousine carrying Doug and Annie McArthur left the boulevard, winding down a country lane that passed through citrus groves. Beyond the citrus groves, rows of tall, evenly-spaced palm trees grew from white sand dunes. The forest beyond was a mix of oaks, cypress and pines all dripping with Spanish moss. Avocados as large as New England sugar-maples towered high on either side of the lane, their fruit-laden branches crossing above them, making it appear as though they were riding through a tunnel. As far as the eye could see, the lush forest floor was covered in the serrated-edged leaf-blades of the indigenous Palmetto plant.

The smooth ride of the limo was hypnotizing as Doug’s mind revisited that fateful day when he was eight years old. How many times he’d rehashed that moment, trying to rationalize it, he could not say. But it was always there with him in an odd and painful way, like a tumor at the center of his psyche. Even if he wasn’t conscious of it, it was never very far from recall. And no matter how many times he’d wished the outcome had been different, it always came out the same: the fist in the face, the constellation of stars, and then the terrible visions that had somehow come true. The terrible visions that had led to so many other horrific times in his life.
And no matter what Dr. Pasternak had said that day ten years after the first incident about it being a crazy load of crap, Doug knew that it was all true. What he didn’t know was why it had to be his truth.

Two days after Tommy Ricker had smashed him in the face, Doug had come awake in a hospital bed with a blinding headache and a small bright light shining in his eyes. His parents, several nurses and a doctor had been standing over him. The doctor was holding a small flashlight in one hand.

“What happened, Dougie?” his mother asked. She had a tight, scared look on her face, and her voice wobbled unnaturally in her throat. “I don’t know,” Doug said, “I think Tommy Ricker must have punched me.”

“How do you feel now, son?” the doctor asked.

“Headache.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Are you sure that’s what happened, Doug?” There was someone else in the room asking that question, but he was out of Doug’s field of vision and he could not see who it was. The voice was not familiar.

Doug’s father spoke next. “Son,” he said, “this is Detective Jennings from the police. He wants to ask you a few questions.”

A
tall young man with a solid frame stepped into view. He wore a gray, tattered-looking sports jacket with a white shirt open at the collar. He wore no tie. He had thin, sandy-colored hair, a kind and gentle face and very sad brown eyes. To Doug he didn’t look at all like a policeman.

“Are you sure, Doug?” The policeman asked again.

Doug looked from the policeman’s face to his mother’s, his father’s and then the doctor’s. There was something wrong. They all looked sad and afraid at the same time.

“Try to remember, Doug.”

And then suddenly Doug did remember. He remembered everything in that instant, but wished he hadn’t, and he began to feel all panicky and afraid, like he wanted to cry. And although he
did
remember, he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to tell them about it. It was all too crazy, too insane. He wanted it to be a bad dream, but down deep he knew the truth, and his real fear was that they wouldn’t believe him, or worse, that they’d think
he
did it.

“Tell us, Doug,” said the policeman.

“I saw something.” Doug’s frightened eyes darted back and forth between the doctor and the policeman.

“What did you see?”

“Something happened to Janet, and . . . and then something happened to her boyfriend.”

“What happened to them, Doug?”

“I don’t know. Something. They were screaming and trying to get away.”

“Trying to get away from whom, Doug?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you were in the apartment?”

Doug looked from the policeman to his mother, licking his lips. “No!” he said, and began to cry. “I was outside playing with Tommy and Savannah. I didn’t do it, honest.”

“It’s okay,” his mother consoled. “We know you didn’t.”

Doug looked from one somber face to the next, noticing for the first time that there was a bandage on his nose.

“So, how did you see what happened inside the apartment if you weren’t there?” the policeman asked in a kind and reassuring voice.

“I don’t know. It was like I was dreaming or something.”

The people in the room all shared questioning looks.

“What about Tommy and Savannah?” The policeman asked in a careful voice.

“What about them?”

“Do you know what happened to them?”

Doug stiffened and came up off the bed, his heart pounding in his chest. Little hysterical choking sounds were coming from his throat. “No!” he said. “They were right there, outside playing with me. Please, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t do anything.”

“We believe you, son” the policeman said. “Please now, don’t be upset.”

“The patient needs to rest,” said the doctor. “I think he’s been through quite enough for one day.”

“But I don’t want to rest,” Doug cried out. “I want to know about Tommy and Savannah. Tell me!”

“They’re missing,” the policeman said resignedly. “Are you sure you didn’t see what happened to them?”

“They can’t be missing,” Doug said. His head was swimming with pain and panic. “I was right there. Tommy punched me and I felt something in my head.”

“What did you feel?” the policeman asked.

“The dark thing. I don’t know. It was ugly. It made me scared. I could see it. It had one red eye. It did something to Janet. It did something to Janet’s boyfriend. It made them scream! I heard it whisper!”

“Whisper?” said the police lieutenant. “What did it say?”

“Where are the children?”
It said,
“Where are the children?”

The room fell silent for a long moment.

“Now I’m going to ask you again,” the policeman, who didn’t look like a policeman, said. “How did you know all this if you were outside?”

“I don’t know. It was like in a dream, I told you, only it was real. I swear it was real.”

“That’s enough!” the doctor said firmly.

“All right,” the policeman replied, never taking his eyes off the boy. “We’re going to let you get some rest now, but when you’re out of the hospital I’d like to come to your house and talk to you some more about this. Would that be okay, Doug?”

Doug looked at his mother’s scared face and got no reaction. “I guess so,” he said.

Three days and an entire battery of tests later Doug was finally allowed to go home. He and his parents were told that a small shard of bone—half an inch long and not much bigger around than a sewing needle—was lodged in his brain’s frontal lobe. It was in an impossible location, removal being far beyond the scope of the day’s technology. “He will be able to live with the shard,” the doctor said. “But his life will probably always be plagued by severe headaches.”

The press had gotten hold of the story. How could it not have? Two people were dead under very mysterious circumstances, and two young children had disappeared without a trace. News spread fast of the boy with the extraordinary sight who had witnessed these mysterious events while in some sort of trance state. The news brought curiosity seekers from all corners of the globe hoping to get a glimpse of the cursed child.

The McArthurs mostly hid inside their house in the days that followed, bolting their doors and drawing their blinds. For a while they listened to cable news and its endless speculations. Some news divisions even tried to get permission to interview Doug, without success. His parents were having none of it. This only added fuel to the fires of their endless speculation.

During his period of recuperation it was Doug’s mother who knew most intimately the way he was thinking. And somehow knowing her son had been fundamentally changed by the incident, she protected him vehemently against anything or anyone who would seek to upset him. But Doug saw that the expression in her eyes had changed. What had once been kindness and unconditional love had now degraded into a sort of wary caution when she was around him. She’d scrutinize him when she thought he wasn’t watching. But she wasn’t fooling him. He recognized the look in her eyes. From the moment he’d begun talking about the mysteries he’d witnessed, she’d been a little bit afraid of him. He supposed there was nothing he could do about that.

In time Doug’s strength returned, the interview requests
diminished, and the sightseers went away. By Thanksgiving their little town had mostly returned to normal, and Doug’s brief moment of notoriety was over. Or so he thought. He soon learned that the incident had changed his life forever. At school there were the inevitable whispers, name calling and jokes. He felt curiously immune to it all, and when, after a time, it was plain that he would not respond to the cruelty, he was finally left alone.

A few days following the Thanksgiving holiday there was a knock at the door. Doug opened it to the young policeman he’d talked to at the hospital.

“Hi, Doug,” the policeman said with a warm smile. “Remember me? Detective Jennings?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“May I come in?”

“Sure,” Doug said, standing aside. He was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while watching television.

“How are you feeling, son?”

“Still got a headache but otherwise okay.”

Jennings nodded.

Doug’s mother came into the room and stopped cold when she saw the detective.

“I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. McArthur. I’d like to ask Doug a few questions.”

Jane McArthur combed a frustrated hand through her hair and sighed. “Hasn’t he been through enough?”

“Mrs. McArthur, your son is the only link we have to the murder of two people and the disappearance of two others. I really do need to talk to him.”

Doug’s eyes shifted from the policeman and back to his mother. “It’s okay,
mom, really, I don’t mind.”

She knew he needed to talk about it, but she could also see that his eyes were still cloudy and distant. She wondered if they would ever be bright again. An unwitting sob escaped her
as she put a trembling hand to her mouth. “I guess so,” she said. “But I want to be in the room when you question him.”

“Absolutely,” said
Jennings.

They talked all that morning, mostly about things other than that terrible day; they talked about sports and television and school and books. Halfway through the morning Doug’s mother slipped away to resume the business of running the McArthur household, satisfied, at least for the moment, that the soft-spoken police
detective’s motives were noble. She understood that he desperately needed information, but she also knew that he was a diplomat and the only way he was going to get it was to befriend her son.

The detective came by many times after that day and he and Doug did a lot of talking. Sometimes they would go outside together and throw a baseball back and forth or shoot hoops, and on occasion
Jennings would take Doug to the Dairy Queen in his police car and buy him an ice cream soda. There was even a time when he took him to a Boston Red Sox game along with his father and another young friend of Doug’s. That had been one of the best times of Doug’s young life.

In time the entire story of what happened on that day did come out, at least as much of the story as Doug could remember, or wanted to remember. It wasn’t until years later, under hypnosis, and at
Jennings’ request, that the whole truth was finally revealed. And it would prove more baffling and more frustrating than a carefully constructed fabrication. That was because Jennings unequivocally believed the young man’s story.

A bond was forged between Doug and the policeman that would last into Doug’s adulthood
.

One day when Doug was ten years old he confided something to Lieutenant Jennings that he’d never confided to anyone before. They were riding in
Jennings’ car, on the way to a little league ball game that Doug was playing in when the boy turned to the man and said: “Tommy and Savannah used to talk to me.”

“You mean back before they disappeared?”

“No, I mean afterwards.”

Although
Jennings was shocked by the confession he wasn’t actually surprised. Other things had happened to Doug in the two years since the tragedy that made Jennings believe Doug possessed something others could not even imagine. The boy had this sense. He was psychic, but perhaps he was even more than that, perhaps he had a connection to something beyond the realm of human understanding. One thing was clear to Jennings, however. Doug McArthur was a cursed child, because his psychic visions seemed to bring about only tragedy and heartache. Jennings glanced over at the boy with the somber face and the baseball cap turned around backwards and thought that young Douglas McArthur was probably the saddest little boy he had ever known. “So, they don’t talk to you now?”