Vanished (30 page)

"An hour? Why so long?" asked a square-jawed man in shorts
and polo shirt.

"Because we're stretched a little thin right now."

"When are the ambulances coming?"

"We don't know."

"That's crazy. How can you not know? What're you
covering up?"

"Listen, pal," Logan began.

Kaya touched his forearm and said, "With communications
out, it's on all of us to be good neighbors."

The man nodded. "OK, then. We'll get to work."

"Was it so obvious that I was going to jump down his throat?"
Logan whispered to Kaya as they pushed their bikes away from
the knot of people.

"The guy was one comment away from you having to fight
me for that pleasure."

They hopped on their bikes and rode through the neighborhoods, tracking the inside perimeter of the mist. When people waved them to a stop, Logan referred queries to the group by
the Circle. There was far less traffic on this side of the Circle,
which meant far less injuries.

They cycled through Hubbard Park. The playground was
deserted. The sandy beach next to the pond was littered with
toys and blankets. People must have grabbed their kids and ran
when the bomb went off, Logan thought. He would have done
the same.

"I haven't been on a bike in years," Kaya said. "In a strange
way, I'm enjoying this."

Logan laughed. "You don't get out much, huh?"

"We used to come up to Hubbard all the time. Except back
then, it was train whistles all the time. Remember when they
ran aboveground?"

"Yeah, my brother Mike and I used to mess around, trying
to jump onto the freight cars when they slowed down at the
University-Spire intersection. One day my father caught us
and ... well, we didn't sit down for a week. And we weren't let
out of our yard for a month."

"The good old days," Kaya said with a smile. "Back then, the
tracks were natural boundaries. This neighborhood-singlefamily houses and the park, the Flats, the business district, the
Tech. Even the Ledges and Walden Hills, high above all of it.
We were all within an easy bike ride or walk, but we just stayed
where we were. And now, the old tracks are torn up, a nice bike
path in their place, but we seem more divided than ever."

"Bombs and philosophy," Logan said. "Way to rock it,
Kaya."

They followed the mist boundary all the way back to the
Circle. They stopped their bikes and marked up the map, not
surprised to find that their survey of West University produced
a mirror image of what they had seen on East University and
South Spire.

11 It's starting to look like a flower," Logan said.

"More like a clover. And I'm betting once we've been up
North Spire, we'll have our fourth leaf. It's weird how it's so
precise."

"Pappas thinks it's about the trains."

Kaya laughed. "Duh. Of course it's about the trains."

"No, not the bomb. The way the mist groups around the
Circle. The midline of each of these petals, or eggs-however
you want to describe them-is the bike path. And the paths are
directly over the train line."

"Something to do with the magnets?" Kaya asked.

"Exactly." Logan explained Pappas's theory about electromagnetic-pulse devices being planted in the Circle and
detonated by the backpack bomb.

"That explains the shape, but it doesn't explain what's in
the mist."

"I keep telling myself they're hallucinations."

"No," she whispered. "They're coming because of us, but not
from us."
"

"We're supposed to ... um ... tell God whatever, right?" Logan
asked. "Tell Him that He can do whatever He wants, even wrap
us in a mist and drop-kick us, because He's still God and He'll
catch us on the other side of the goalpost. Right?"

She laughed. "You give a good sermon, Sergeant Logan."

"Kaya-I went through the mist. To beyond."

Her smile died. "If you went through and couldn't get us
any help... "

I have to sit for a minute." Logan dropped the bike. His
back and leg throbbed, and his shoulders seared with pain. He
lowered himself carefully to the ground.

Kaya sat next to him and gave him a bottle of water. "Drink
this."

He slugged down a couple mouthfuls.

"All of it." She waited while he emptied the bottle. "Good.
Now talk to me."

"The thing is, Kaya ... I don't think we're in Kansas
anymore.

"What do you mean?"

"I went through the mist after Luther, the guy we think is
behind this. We found ourselves on a rock-studded hillside.
But not like any rocks we have around here. More like ... this
is insane."

"It's OK. Go on."

"They were like what I imagine uncut diamonds look like.
And Luther-who I couldn't get a good look at-saw the same
thing. Even so, he was in full mocking mode, told me he had
moved the bomb to where it would do the most damage. And
then this thing flew overhead. I thought it was a jet, a bomber
even. It filled the sky, and then-"

Kaya rested her hand on his forearm. He took a deep breath
and continued.

"-and then it flapped its wings. Whatever it was, it was real
and alive and like nothing I'd ever imagined."

She dug her fingers in, her gesture of support now a cry for
help. "It's like we're in some science-fiction novel," she whispered.

Logan nodded slowly. "The worst I had imagined about why
no one came to help was that a big part of the Northeast had
been destroyed. But now I'm thinking it's because there's no
one out there to help. I don't know how or why this happened,
but I think we're ... all we've got."

Kaya linked her arm through his. "We're not alone, Jason.
You know that."

"I know that. Now I have to practice believing it."

OTHING BROKEN-EXCEPT MAYBE THE WORLD.
t

Ben pushed up from among the boulders, shocked
that none had actually fallen on him. There'd been a
flash of light at the Circle, followed by a small boom and then
a terrible ripping, as if Barcester was a scrap of paper and
some giant force was tearing it to bits. For a moment he had
felt every bit of his being-mind and body-being squeezed
and stretched while someone pressed down on him.

What about Mom-was she all right?

Ben shook out his muscles the best he could and climbed
up to the next ledge. From there he could see the steeple at
Grace, and that meant his mother had to be OK. She'd be here
as soon as she could.

He leaned back against a boulder, thinking maybe he could
sleep. Sleep, and then wake to find out it had all been a horrible
dream. Too many videogames and R-rated movies, too much
talk about guns and knives, too much thinking he could be
hip and cool. A drowsiness came on him, stones biting into his
shoulder blades but not hurting nearly as much as the confusion and shame biting into his heart.

What a flippin' loser he was.

Footsteps pounded the path.

"Mom! I'm here," he called, then immediately regretted it.
Just when he thought he couldn't get any stupider, he proved
that he could.

No answer meant his worst fear-this was not his mother,
but someone coming after him. He had nothing but rocks to
defend himself with, so he picked up the biggest one he could
throw. Hoisting it over his head, he crept around the side of
the boulder.

There was a shuffling in the dirt on the other side, then a
strangled cry. Had Luther brought his mother up here, choking
her until Ben came out of hiding?

He howled like a warrior and rushed around the boulder
with the rock held high, ready to crush the skull of whoever
was on the other side.

"Don't!"

Ben dropped the rock, his heart pounding so hard that it
took almost half a minute before he could even speak.

"Mad Dog. What are you doing here?"

"Elvin's dead. Elvin's dead, and I'm all alone." Madeline
wrapped her skinny arms around him and sobbed. It took a
good minute before Ben could calm her enough to continue.
"His friends were trying to save me, but we saw this bloody
sheet on the street. They all thought it must be you-"

"I wish it were," he whispered.

"They spooked and wanted to take me over to the warehouse
on Factory Street. But we got lost in the mist and I heard them
yelling. They were so scared, and I tried to tell them how to get
out but they got deeper in. Then they started shooting-so I
started running."

Ben instinctively looked north. The ledges continued for two
hundred feet before a wall of mist cut them off. "Then what?"
he asked as gently as he could manage. Madeline shook so hard,
he had begun to tremble with her.

"Tripp didn't come home, and I didn't know where Mama
was. There was this big blast, and I just started running and
somehow ended up here. I don't know how; it's all kind of fuzzy.
Maybe an angel was taking care of me. Right?"

Not by sending her to the biggest loser in the known universe,
Ben thought.

He guided her to a small ledge of rock and sat with her.
"Madeline, my mother's supposed to meet me up here. She'll
take care of you."

"When?"

"I don't know. She's at Grace Church, taking care of the
injured. As soon as she can, she's coming to get me."
"

"Why aren't you with her?"

I ... just needed to give her space, that's all."

Her gaze-too clear for a little kid-cut right into him.
"You're in trouble. Right?"

"Yeah. I am."

"Because of the backpack?"

He nodded.

"Then I am, too. You had a backpack, and I had a backpack.
And they both blew up, so people are..." She scrunched her
face but didn't cry, only let out a ragged sigh.

"Sergeant Logan knows we didn't mean it," Ben said. "He'll
stick up for us. But he's busy now. So we'll just wait here until
my mother comes, and then we'll see what to do."

Madeline snuggled into him. "I'm scared."

If Cannon were here, he would flex his muscles and tell her
that nothing bad could happen as long as he was the man.

But Cannon was dead, and Ben had run out of himself. So
the best he could say was, "I'm scared, too. But we'll sit here and
be scared together."

"OK," she said. "Hey, Ben."

"Yeah?"

"The angel wouldn't have brought me here unless God
wanted it to. Right?"

"I guess," Ben said, wishing with his whole heart that he
could do a whole lot better for her-and for all the mess he'd
made-than guess.

DGAN AND KAYA WERE ALMOST DONE WITH THEIR
survey of North Spire, including Walden Estates, when
they ran into the woman with the broken wrist. When
Logan had splinted her a few hours back, she had seemed fine.
Now she was pasty-faced and sweating.

"It's hurt worse than I thought," she said. "I tried calling 911,
but the phones are out."

Kaya unrolled the makeshift splint and examined the
woman's wrist. "The phones'll be out for a while longer. I can
stabilize this, give you a couple of painkillers. That way you can
just stay home. Unless you want to come down to Grace?"

The woman stared down the hill. The mist was like a gray lump
congealing around the Circle. The steepness of the hill made it
impossible to see the fire. "I think I'd prefer to stay home. Could
we do this up at my house? I think I need to lie down."

Kaya glanced at Logan.

"Sure," he said, a plan already forming.

The security guard had to open the gate to Walden Estates
manually. He made pleasant chitchat with the woman but let
Logan pass without comment.

He walked both his and Kaya's bikes while she laced her
arm around the injured woman's waist. They passed by two
splendid houses before turning up a winding driveway. The
woman's house was a sprawling brick colonial with tennis
courts, pool, and a gazebo. They entered a foyer with granite
floors and a double stairway.

"Where would you be most comfortable?" Kaya said.

The woman scrunched her eyes closed. "My bedroom, if you
wouldn't mind."