Strangewood (11 page)

Thomas didn't miss the
if
.

". . . it's a matter of obsession. And no matter how
wonderful Strangewood may be, what is there in a series of children's books
that could inspire that kind of obsession?"

Though he searched his mind for a snappy retort, Thomas couldn't
find one. What could he say?

"Maybe it isn't really that at all," Thomas
suggested. "Maybe it's someone who knows me. Has a vendetta against me or
something? It could be professional. Some psycho . . . Jesus, I don't
know."

He almost said,
isn't that your job?
But decided
against it. He had to remind himself several times that Sarbacker was on his
side. Supposedly.

"What about my son?" Thomas asked, repeating a
question he'd asked twice already with no response. "Something in the
toothpaste, you think? How the hell did the guy get in my . . . I mean my
ex-wife's house."

Again with that slight nod that Thomas was quickly learning
meant nothing at all, Sarbacker grimaced. "I don't see any reason to
believe he did, Mr. Randall. There were no signs of forced entry, no reported
sightings of any alleged stalker around your wife's residence. And, according
to the doctors, Nathan wasn't poisoned."

Thomas blanched. "What? He wasn't . . . then what the
hell did this to him?"

"I wish I knew, sir," Sarbacker said. "But
Dr. Gershmann was very clear to say that the toxicologist found no poisons . .
. in fact, nothing at all out of the ordinary . . . in your son's system."

Thomas bit his lip, shook his head, refusing to comprehend
the man's words.

"I'm sorry, Detective . . ." he began, but let his
words trail off. How absurd, to be calling someone “Detective.” He'd never had
to use the title before, and it felt slightly ridiculous.

"Mr. Randall?" Sarbacker ventured.

"Nothing," Thomas said, covering his eyes as if to
shield them.

Suddenly, he dropped his hands, sat up straight, narrowed
his eyes and looked closely at the detective.

"You were in my son's room, right?" Thomas asked.

"Just for a moment, speaking with your wife,"
Sarbacker replied. "Why?"

"Did you notice anything . . . I don't know, odd, when
you were in there?"

Sarbacker lifted his chin slightly, brow furrowed with
confusion. "Odd as in how?"

"Did you smell anything?"

The detective blinked. Thomas widened his eyes, dropped his
head, urging the man to answer.

"Flowers, I suppose," Sarbacker said. "The
usual hospital smells."

"Think about it," Thomas prodded.

For a moment, the man actually closed his eyes. He opened
his mouth, breathed in slowly. When his eyes opened, he looked at Thomas
strangely.

"I did smell something else," Sarbacker recalled. "I
guess I passed it off as your wife's perfume or shampoo or something."

"She's my ex-wife, and she hasn't showered since
yesterday morning," Thomas said quickly. "What did you smell."

With the tiniest of shrugs, Sarbacker said,
"Oranges."

"Oranges," Thomas agreed. "It comes and goes,
but the smell is coming from Nathan, almost as if he's breathing it out. I
thought maybe it was some chemical reaction from the poison or . . . but you're
saying he wasn't poisoned."

"Not that the doctors can tell."

"Oranges," Thomas said again, and steepled his
fingers beneath his chin.

"Where's the smell coming from, then?" the
detective asked.

Thomas didn't have an answer.

* * * * *

He heard beeping. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Not like the
Road Runner, but steady along, like a robot. Beeping faster and faster. Beating
faster and faster. Beating.

He was crying. He could taste the salt of his tears.

Nathan's heart hammered in his chest. He could barely
breathe because he was crying so hard. He knew that if he didn't stop he would
throw up, but it didn't matter.

"He's . . . he's ours fair and square!" Cragskull
snarled.

But he and Longtooth didn't come anywhere near Nathan, not
an inch closer. There was a long moment when nobody said anything, when even
the Orange Pealers had stopped wailing, even the wind had died. Glittering
orange starlight shone down on the path. The smell of fire — of the Land
of Bells and Whistles burning to cinders not far off — drifted through
the air.

The Peanut Butter General stood at the top of the rise,
swathed in bees. He took one step forward. The Orange Pealers scrabbled several
feet down the hill toward where Nathan lay in the dirt.

"Bob?" Cragskull whispered anxiously, green fire
spurting from above his left eye, where his skull was cleaved in two. It
happened when he was angry or afraid.

Next to the fire-headed troll, Bob Longtooth took a brave
step forward and raised his chin defiantly, glaring at the Peanut Butter
General.

Nathan Randall threw up in the dirt and the smell made him
cry even harder as he scrambled aside, trying to keep the puke off his clothes.
He had to pee again, and bit his lip as he tried to hold it. His pants already
stank with urine.

"Mommy," he heaved, his breath coming in spurts. "Da-daddy?"

"You'll be all right, boy," the Peanut Butter
General said, his voice sticky, his mouth filled with peanut butter. It
stretched in a web from lip to lip, and bees buzzed in and out whenever he
opened his mouth.

Nathan stopped breathing, stared, wide-eyed. The General
might be trying to help him, but Nathan was even more afraid of him and the
bees than he was of Longtooth and Cragskull.

"Traitor," Longtooth finally snarled, staring at
the General. "You know thisss isss how it hasss to be. Our Boy mussst be
returned. The wood needsss him. Whatever mussst be done mussst be done."

"Not like this," the Peanut Butter General said.

Then he extended one hand and pointed at Nathan. "Take
him."

The Orange Pealers screamed, and Nathan thought they sounded
almost happy. They ran on their tiny legs down the hill, rows of needle teeth
gnashing and spears waving. They came right toward Nathan and the boy closed
his eyes, retreating completely. He couldn't look.

Until Bob Longtooth clasped a clawed hand on his arm and started
to pull him to his feet. Nathan's eyes flashed open just as Longtooth began to
shriek, a scream and a roar combined. It was the bees. They were swarming
around Longtooth's head and he let Nathan drop to the ground again, swatting at
his face.

The screaming little fruit men ran by Nathan and sank their
teeth into Bob's legs, some of them jumping up to bite and stab at Cragskull. For
a moment, Cragskull tried to bat them away, to duck the bees. But then Bob
Longtooth turned and ran, and the instant Cragskull saw him, he did the same.

"Traitor!" Cragskull snarled as he disappeared
into the gnarled and dead trees on the side of the path.

Nathan didn't know how he did it, but he stopped crying,
then. Too scared even for that, he breathed quickly, terror bringing air in
ragged gasps, as he stared around wide-eyed. The Orange Pealers made a circle
around him, but most of them faced outward, spears at the ready, screaming a
challenge to the darkness off the path.

They were . . . protecting him?

It didn't make any sense. The Peanut Butter General had said
he'd be all right, but he couldn't be trusted. He was a bad guy. The worst, in
fact, except maybe for the Jackal Lantern. And the Orange Pealers . . . they
were savage, like wolves or something. This wasn't right. It wasn't supposed to
be like this. Even Nathan knew that.

But then, nothing in Strangewood was how it was supposed to
be.

"Hello, Nathan," a buzzing voice said.

Nathan jumped, turned frantically to see who had talked to
him, so close by.

It was the bees, of course. There were hundreds of them, in
a small cloud now, flowing like a cloud just behind him. He stared at them,
afraid that they would begin to attack, to sting, at any moment. Nathan had
never been stung by a bee, but he feared them horribly.

"We won't hurt you, Nathan," the buzzing voice
said again.

Somehow Nathan realized that it wasn't a real voice. It was
the bees' voice, the bees talking. The buzzing of the whole swarm as they
greeted him.

The Orange Pealers fell silent.

A sound like feet stuck in mud made Nathan whip his head
around. Directly in front of him, the Peanut Butter General crouched down and
studied Nathan. The boy flinched.

"I said you'd be all right, boy," the General
reminded him. "I always mean what I say."

"He does, he does," buzzed the bees.

Nathan at first avoided the gaze of the Peanut Butter
General, but eventually, he felt as though he had to look. Slowly, fearfully,
he looked up into the General's eyes, where stringers of peanut butter
stretched from eyelash to eyelash. But beyond that, the eyes were kind. Even
sad.

"Can I . . ." Nathan began, the words catching in
his throat. "Can I go home now? I miss my mom."

The Peanut Butter General thought for a moment, then quickly
moved a hand up to flick some bees off the peanut butter coated brim of his
military cap. Nathan flinched again, frightened. Then he winced in pain and bit
his lip to keep from crying again. His back was still bleeding, he thought,
feeling the wetness on his skin.

"Here," the General said curtly. "Let me look
at that."

He reached around behind Nathan and the boy began to
whimper. But when the Peanut Butter General's sticky hand touched Nathan's
back, the pain seemed to go away. The peanut butter was cold and soothing.

"Is that any better?" the sticky voice asked.

"Yes, thank you," Nathan said, uncertainly. "I'm
. . . my name is Nathan. I live in Tarrytown."

The Peanut Butter General smiled down at him.

"Yes, son," he said. "I know who you are. And
once I figure out how they got you here, I'm going to do everything I can to
make sure you get home."

With that, the Peanut Butter General slowly reached his
hands under Nathan, unmindful of the pee and the puke, but ever so careful not
to frighten the boy any further, and lifted him into gooey, greasy arms. The bees
buzzed around the General's legs and behind his back, some creating an
insectoid halo above the peanut butter man's head, but they stayed away from
his face and chest. Away from where he held Nathan.

"You'll have to have something else to wear," the
General said, then glanced down at the Orange Pealers. "See to it,"
he said.

Several of the Pealers screamed loudly, a sound like the
squealing of a subway train coming into a station, and ran off into the forest.
The others continued along with the General.

Nathan was still terrified. His heart still beat wildly and
his eyes darted around, watchful for any danger that might spring out at them. The
smell of peanut butter was so strong he was both hungry and even more nauseous
at the same time. But of the General, he was no longer afraid. The books must
be wrong, he thought. Of course they were.

He'd seen the eyes of the Peanut Butter General, and they
were very kind.

As they walked back along the Winding Way, Nathan's mind
drifted back to all the stories his father had read him or told him about
Strangewood. He thought of all the places there and realized that Strangewood
was an awfully big place. It wouldn't be long, he thought, before they would
come to Grumbler's cottage, and then the Rickety Bridge after that.

With a shiver, Nathan thought of what lurked beneath the
Rickety Bridge, and he huddled closer in the Peanut Butter General's arms. Before
he realized it, his eyelids began to droop.

Nathan Randall fell asleep in the arms of an all too
familiar monster.

 * * * * *

As an intern stripped and changed Nathan's bed, a nurse
named Frank Pearlman held Nathan in his strong arms.

"Poor kid," the intern said. "They don't know
what's wrong with him?"

"Not yet," the nurse replied. "Not a clue, so
far."

Thomas couldn't think.

Instead, he cried.

On a small jetty, built of massive quarry stones, that
jutted out into the Hudson River, he sat and wept with frustration. Nothing in
his life had prepared him for the feelings that swept over him now. Grief over
the loss of loved ones, physical agony, none of it compared to the anguish and
helplessness that crippled him now.

It was Tuesday morning and nothing had changed. He had spent
the night in a hard plastic recliner in Nathan's hospital room, barely a foot
away from where Emily slept on a cot. This morning, Nathan still lay motionless
on his sturdy, comfortless bed. The used-to-be Randalls had declared a sort of
truce, based upon feelings they'd once had for one another, and upon certain
things that would never go away: an abiding, bemused affection, and a joint
devotion to Nathan.

Emily volunteered to stay while Thomas went home to shower
and change, so that he could then do the same for her. In that way, Nathan
would never be alone, though whether he knew they were there or not, Dr.
Gershmann could not say. He certainly could not see them. The doctors had been
forced to tape Nathan's eyes shut to prevent them from drying out. The effect
was unnerving; he looked like some horrid human experiment.

When Thomas reached his house in Ardsley, there had been
seven messages on the answering machine. He didn't listen to them. He didn't
look at the mail as he dumped it onto the kitchen table. Things that held an
almost ritualistic importance in his life no longer had any value at all. He
had showered, not bothering to shave, and pulled on a faded green V neck
T-shirt and a clean pair of blue jeans.

But somehow, on the way back to the hospital, he had been
sidetracked. He couldn't do it. Couldn't go back there just yet. Thomas knew he
needed a moment to himself, a moment inside his own head, to commune with his
id, or whatever. All he really knew was that he'd been so benumbed by the
events of the past two days that he could barely think.