Waking Lazarus (17 page)

Jude squeezed his eyes shut, as if closing them would blind Sohler to his presence. He felt the beams of the headlights streak across him, but the truck didn’t stop. He opened his eyes again. The truck finished turning and started down the driveway to the main road. Jude watched until the taillights disappeared in the trees and brush. A moment later he heard the truck accelerating in the distance.

He let out a long, deep breath and wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand. The crisp autumn evenings in Red Lodge dipped into the forties regularly, but Jude was sweating as if it were the middle of July. His hand shook as he pulled it away, and his thighs were starting to cramp. Too much adrenaline in his system again.

Jude stood, made his way back up the concrete steps, and peered inside. Lights were on, although he was pretty sure no other threats were in the home. Pretty sure.

He squeaked open the screen door, then tried the main door. Locked. Of course; he’d heard Sohler sliding the dead bolt into place. He surveyed his surroundings again as he took off his jacket and wrapped it around his right elbow, then put the padded elbow quickly through one of the door’s glass panes. The glass shattered easily and sprayed to the floor.

He stood still for a few moments, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. None came, so he unwrapped his arm and put on his coat again, then reached inside and felt for the dead bolt. It turned smoothly, unlocking with a soft click.

After a deep breath he pulled the door open and walked inside, still trying to move slowly and silently, even though he wasn’t sure why. He still felt as if he were being watched by a predator of some kind, a predator waiting for the right instant to pounce.

At the end of the hallway, as he thought, Jude came to a living room. A small couch sat in the center, with a TV—dark and silent— against the far wall. He stopped and scanned the room, checking all the places he felt a person could reasonably hide. Though the home looked clean, at least in the hazy darkness, he could smell the dank sweat of decades seeping out of the walls.

A quick click and hum startled him before he realized it was the sound of a refrigerator’s compressor. Exhaling slowly, he turned the next corner and recognized the room where he stood. It was the kitchen, exactly as he’d seen it in his vision.

He couldn’t let himself stop and think about how all this was so surreal, so . . . impossible. The kitchen was real, and that meant the vision was real, which meant a child was locked behind the door just fifteen feet away.

As he hurried into the kitchen, he tripped on the uneven floor between the hallway’s wood flooring and the kitchen’s linoleum. He almost fell but righted himself; in his clumsiness, however, he knocked over a metal bucket. Its tinny clang reverberated throughout the house. So much for a career as a cat burglar.

And then, a
thump
.

A thump just like he’d heard in his vision. Behind the basement door.

Followed by another
thump
.

Jude stayed frozen in mid-step a moment longer, then rushed to the basement door and stretched out his hand for the knob.

Thump
.

The knob turned easily, letting him pull the door toward him. The door wasn’t nearly as silent; its hinges gave a painful squeak as if unwilling to reveal the secrets behind it. The smell of earth and something else—a smell he recognized but couldn’t quite place—filtered out of the open door. He put his hand into the inky darkness, feeling for a light switch.

Another
thump
, very near now, just ahead of him in the darkness.

His hand found a switch, and a dull light of mustard yellow gasped to life above his head.

Jude looked down the narrow staircase to the basement, then took a few steps down.

Another
thump
, this one right next to his head.

He recoiled, felt his foot slipping on the next step before he caught himself and avoided a long tumble down the stairs. He turned his head to the left and squinted to see in the darkness.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw the bars of a crudely made cage, sitting in what must have once been a first-floor pantry. Jude scanned the area, noting where the two-by-four framing had been ripped out. Yes, there had once been a wall here, but now it was open, giving access to the space from the basement.

As he peered into the darkness, eyes stared back at him: the eyes of a young boy, hunched inside the cage. The boy struggled to keep his eyes open in the dull light. Dirt caked his hair and face. How old? Five? Six? About Nathan’s age, Jude guessed. As he watched, the boy threw his head backward, hitting a bar on the cage and creating a loud metallic
thump
that made the bars of the cage shake almost as much as Jude’s innards.

The sound he’d been hearing.

Jude looked into the boy’s wide bloodshot eyes and thought again of his own son. Tears filled his own eyes and he said softly, ‘‘Hi, I’m Ron.’’ Then: ‘‘No, I mean, I’m Jude.’’ Somehow it seemed he needed to whisper.

The boy flinched, as if he’d been bitten. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ Jude continued. ‘‘I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna get you out of here.’’ He knew he was on the verge of sobbing, yet he didn’t want to scare the boy.

Blank eyes stared at him a few more seconds, then the boy slammed his head against the bars again.

Jude found a door in the cage, fastened by a makeshift sliding bar. A dead bolt. Of course. He put his hand on the bolt and tried to slide it, but it was stuck. The boy, meanwhile, moved toward the far end of the cage, apparently trying to get as far away as possible. Jude heard a low whimper coming from the boy, a whimper that pierced his heart more than anything he’d seen.

Jude used both hands to pull at the dead bolt, forcing it to slide by sheer will. The door to the cage swung open slightly before Jude grabbed it and pulled.

He put his hands out toward the boy. ‘‘Come on,’’ he coaxed. ‘‘I’m not gonna hurt you.’’ The boy cringed, then clanged his head against the cage bar several times in rapid succession:
thump thump
thump thump thump
. Jude decided to try a different approach. He left the door to the cage open and backed up the stairs. The boy watched him but didn’t move. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ Jude said. ‘‘Come on out.’’

The boy crawled across the small cage and put his hand out on the closest stair, his eyes never leaving Jude. Jude smiled and nodded, coaxing the boy onto the stairs. When the boy was totally out of the cage, Jude stepped down one stair and stopped. The boy didn’t move away, so he quickly descended the next few stairs, holding out his hands, until he had the boy in his arms.

He picked up the boy, amazed at how light he was, turned around, and went to the main floor again. Then he moved across the kitchen to the living room, carrying the boy like a fragile vase.

That was when he heard a young girl’s voice calling.

23

MISUNDERSTANDING

At the Red Lodge Police Station, Chief Mike Odum was confused, annoyed, and going on angry. He had questions mounting up, with no corresponding answers.

One of these questions was standing in front of him—a man named Ken Sohler, claiming Odum himself had called no more than fifteen minutes before. Problem one? Odum hadn’t called. He
knew
that answer. Problem two? This Sohler guy seemed . . . not quite right. Something had Sohler on a rampage—he blathered on about a Janet without making much sense—but Odum also detected a wild, vacant look in the man’s eyes. Lies hid behind those bloodshot irises, and he guessed Sohler would do whatever he could to keep the lies tucked away.

Odum sighed as he shifted back in his chair. He wasn’t even supposed to be here this late, but he’d been catching up on work.

He looked at Sohler across the desk. ‘‘So what we
do
know, Mr. Sohler, is this: someone called your home, claiming to be me, and asked you to come right down to the police station.’’

‘‘You said you had Janet.’’

Janet. Right. ‘‘Okay, Mr. Sohler. It wasn’t me. But let’s start with this: who is Janet?’’

Sohler looked at him, his eyes blank. ‘‘My wife.’’

‘‘Good, that’s something to go on. Now, where is your wife?’’

‘‘I thought
you
were going to tell
me
.’’

‘‘You lost me.’’

‘‘Three years she’s been gone. And when you called and said you found her—’’

‘‘We’ve been down this road a couple times, Mr. Sohler. No one from this office called you.’’

‘‘So you say.’’

Odum nodded his head as he began to understand why Sohler was on edge. His wife had disappeared, and that simple fact had been poisoning his mind since. Odum had seen this kind of thing before. ‘‘Okay, Mr. Sohler. What troubles me is this: someone obviously wanted you out of the house. Do you have any valuables hidden in your home? Anything someone might want to steal?’’

A pause. ‘‘No.’’

‘‘Nothing, huh?’’

Sohler’s eyes looked to the floor. ‘‘Nope.’’

‘‘Live by yourself, Mr. Sohler?’’

‘‘No. Uh, I mean, since my wife . . . you know.’’

‘‘No one else around?’’

Sohler stared into space and said nothing. Odum smiled to himself. Love to play poker with this guy; he’d have all the man’s money in twenty minutes.

‘‘Maybe we should go check your home, just to make sure.’’

Sohler’s face flushed. ‘‘No, that’s okay. I’m sure . . . I’m sure everything will be fine.’’ Sohler stood. ‘‘Sorry for the whole misunderstanding; seems like maybe someone was just playing a joke on me. I bet it was . . . um, Joe.’’

Odum smiled again. ‘‘Yeah,’’ he said. ‘‘Joe.’’

‘‘Anyway,’’ Sohler continued, ‘‘I’ll call you if anything seems wrong.’’ He turned and hurried out of Odum’s office.

Odum looked after Sohler, breathing in the sick, sweet smell of fear the man had left behind. Something was wrong—very wrong— in Ken Sohler’s home. He didn’t have evidence of a crime, so there was no way he’d get a search warrant. Still, he’d like to have a look around that home. All he needed was an excuse.

Any excuse at all.

24

DISCOVERING

‘‘Hello? Is that you?’’ the young girl’s voice asked. ‘‘I’m . . . I’m sorry about the police.’’

Jude looked at the boy in his arms. The boy had no reaction to the voice, no reaction to any external stimuli, from what Jude could tell. Another child? It made sense, certainly. Something like half a dozen kids had disappeared in the recent past; maybe there were even more hidden inside the home. Jude walked across the living room toward a small hallway at the back of the house. He clicked a switch, and an overhead light illuminated the living room behind him. Down the hall were two closed doors, and light spilled from the crack beneath one.

‘‘I can be a good girl now,’’ the muffled voice said. ‘‘I promise.’’

The words chilled Jude and stopped him for a moment. He was only a few steps from the door now, and he hugged the boy tighter. He took the last two steps to the door and tried it.

It was unlocked.

Inside the room, a blond-haired girl stared back at him. A metal collar around her neck was chained to the bed.

‘‘I did something bad,’’ she said simply. ‘‘The police called.’’

Jude stared at her as he thought about what he wanted to say. ‘‘You didn’t do anything bad. You’ll be okay.’’ He stepped across the room, put the little boy on the bed, and began to work on her restraints.

‘‘Who are you?’’ she asked.

‘‘I’m . . .’’ He paused, wondering just what he should say. ‘‘I’m a janitor,’’ he finished. The chain padlocked at her neck was linked to the bed’s frame, and he didn’t have anything to break the chain.

‘‘Do you know . . . are there tools or anything around here?’’ Jude asked.

‘‘I don’t know,’’ she answered.

‘‘It’s okay. Just . . . I’ll be back in just a minute.’’ He rushed from the room, rummaging through the house, looking for a hammer, anything that might help him break or pry off the chain.

As he was looking through a closet by the bathroom, a thought occurred to him. He went back into the living room, where he found what he was looking for sitting on a table by the couch: a telephone.

He picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1. A dispatcher’s voice answered. ‘‘I need, uh . . . an ambulance,’’ he said. ‘‘Someone’s been shot. 1313 Creekview Drive.’’

The dispatcher started to ask something, but Jude hung up. He returned to the bedroom with the kids. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ he said as he walked into the room. ‘‘The police are coming.’’

Both kids stared without saying anything. Jude went back to the young girl and started to pull on the chain, trying to break her free. After a few seconds of struggling, he found tears spilling from his eyes, and he had to stop and put his head on the bed. Soon huge sobs overtook his body, and he poured out all his frustration on the pink bedspread. A big, blubbering fool. That was what he had become in such a very short time, the ‘‘something more’’ he now was.

Jude felt the young girl’s hand gently rubbing his back. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ her voice told him. ‘‘You’ll be all right.’’ And somehow that made it worse, to think this girl who had been through so much was comforting him. Much like his son had done not so long ago.

Jude needed to pull it together. His crying wouldn’t do anything for these kids, and even though the police were on the way, he was still uneasy—as if something sinister were lurking in every dark corner of the house.

He rubbed at his eyes as he stood. With the police on the way, should he just leave the house? It would be cleaner, easier. Although he was Jude Allman, he was still Ron Gress to all the folks in Red Lodge, and he didn’t want to answer too many questions about his past. He’d only been Ron Gress for six years, after cribbing the birth records, and police searching through those records would soon figure that out. It would be best if he weren’t here when the police showed up.

Except.

Except that feeling he still had, licking at the base of his spine and telling him not to leave the kids.

He turned to the kids. ‘‘The police will want to know everything that happened. Understand?’’

The girl nodded; the boy continued to stare.