Wildefire Series: Wildefire Part 12

The trees really are beautiful in this light, the faint pall of the full moon casting a halo over this would-be forest. You walk between two trees that are leaning just a fraction of an inch toward each other in silent conversation (something Dad will rectify and chastise the gardener for when he spots it). You lie down between the trees, savoring the feeling of fresh mulch against your back. And you close your eyes.

You wake up to the water from the sprinklers. .h.i.tting your face. Before you can even open your eyes, you're soaked. Morning light pours in through the open atrium roof, but you can barely see the gla.s.s ceiling through the chaos above you.

Where the tame little matching trees had been before is only savage wilderness. Their trunks have exploded outward, no longer smooth matchsticks but spiny columns of wood as thick as baobabs. They were dwarfed by the high cathedral ceiling of the atrium yesterday, but somehow overnight their branches snaked their way up to the 145 roof, twisted jagged things with huge leathery leaves that look like Jura.s.sic ferns. They have nearly blotted out any sign of the sky above.

In fact, when you stand up and brush the mulch from your back, you discover gla.s.s littering the earth around you. The trees, in their supernatural growth spurt, have pierced the roof of the structure, with no intentions of stopping there.

A shadow looms over you. It is Father, and his normally crisp pin-striped suit is damp from ankle to knee.

You don't have enough time to raise your arms and protect your face as his hand comes down.

ROLFE HANSSEN.

"I told you it smells like you, Rolfe," Biscuit says, holding you in place over the open manhole. "Take it in, d.i.c.kwad."

"I think the little runt likes it," Dozer says, on your other arm. "Look at the face he's making. Like home-made apple pie, huh, Rolfey?"

The face you are making is not one of pleasure.

"What I don't get," Biscuit says, "Is why a smelly little fish like you can get attention from a girl like Katie Burton. I'm stronger, my parents aren't practically home-less like yours, and I play Pop Warner."

You know you're going to regret it, but you smile at the larger boy through your blood-tinged teeth. "Let's 146 start with the fact that they call you Biscuit. Maybe she doesn't want to have children who sound like they're fresh from the f.u.c.king bakery."

The blow from Biscuit's knees rattles your brain, and your eyes swim with worms of light.

"It's not my real name, dips.h.i.+t," he growls at you.

"I guess it's a step up from Bradford," you say.

You wait for the second blow, which you know is imminent. But it doesn't come. Instead the rumble of an approaching engine interrupts your merry meeting of boys.

"s.h.i.+t," Dozer says. "What if it's the cops?"

The pressure on your shoulders releases, and you drop to the cement. Your knees. .h.i.t first, hard. But where your head and chest should have painfully struck pavement too, there is only the horrible sensation of open air, and falling.

Like that, you slip headfirst into the manhole.

The fall isn't anything prolonged like it is in the car-toons. Almost as soon as you know you're falling, you feel the awful wetness of the shallow sewage lining, followed instantly by the impact of the hard concrete underneath.

One of your fingers snaps, but you have only a moment to experience the agony before your head thuds to the ground too.

Darkness ensues. As you fade in and out, you catch fragments of the conversation transacting up top, the rest of it lost in the static of semi-consciousness.

147.

The whoop of the police siren as the cruiser comes to a halt.

Interrogations of whether or not the boys had removed the manhole cover.

The stammering protests from Biscuit. Dozer's com-plicit silence.

The harsh order from the cop for them to beat it.

The pause before their feet skitter away.

And then a grunt and the awful grating as the metal cover sc.r.a.pes against the asphalt, followed by the thunk as the lid drops into place.

You wake up. Could be several minutes later, could be several hours. No way to know in the darkness. There's only the pervasive stink of the sewage.

Two choices. You can either try to escape through the manhole or you can look for another way out. You opt for door number one. You hop for the manhole with your good hand raised-the other is still mangled from the fall-but it's high enough that your fingertips only brush it. When your feet and calves tire from that game, you start yelling until your voice gives out. Then back to jumping again.

When you've exhausted the possibilities of escaping the same way you entered the sewer, you start to make your way down the pipeline. Your hands grope along the slimy wall for guidance.

You make it only twenty yards down the sewer main before you collapse against the wall, sliding down until 148 your a.s.s is entrenched in the muck, your arms wrapped around your knees. Your eyes well. Your fingers throb on your broken hand. So this will be your tomb, this foul-smelling catacomb, and all because Katie Burton pecked you on the cheek in the hallway.

Despite your situation, you grin softly in the dark.

Almost worth death, that kiss. Almost.

Something rattles to your right, in the direction from which you came. You know you should cry out for help, but a strong calm has flowed over you, like an armor.

Now you hear voices-familiar voices-and more grating and grunting as the sewer lid is moved up and over the cement.

"Hey, dumb a.s.s," you hear Biscuit hiss. "You down there?"

You open your mouth to say, Yes, yes I am. But you close it without a sound, and instead take a tentative step toward the manhole.

"Okay," Biscuit says, his voice quivering with panic.

"You happy now? He's probably dead and washed halfway out to sea."

"This is the old sewer, moron," Dozer says. "If he's .

. . if he's gone, he wouldn't have washed anywhere. We gotta go down and check."

Biscuit says nothing.

"This was your idea, Biscuit. You found the manhole.

You go down there and check, or so help me G.o.d, I'll throw you down there myself."

149.

There is a shuffling, and a flashlight beam dips through the manhole. "It smells awful. I can't do this."

"Get down there!" Dozer barks.

After a hesitation there is a splash, and Biscuit lands in the sludge. "My new shoes," he groans.

"Move over," Dozer orders, and there is a second splash and a simultaneous thump as he collides with Biscuit, then a secondary splash and a rattle of something rolling toward your feet.

"You knocked the flashlight out of my hand, idiot!"

Biscuit yells. "You find it!"

"Fine," Dozer says. "You check down the other way.

If we can't find him in five minutes, let's just a.s.sume he went crying home and get the h.e.l.l out of here."

You hear Dozer's wet steps coming toward you, interrupted by occasional pauses as he stops to sweep the ground for the light. Meanwhile you slip stealthily down the curved sewer wall toward him. As you do, a warmth washes over you, replacing the soul-soaking cold of the old sewer.

Your bones lengthen and creak. Your body expands, replacing your previously weak limbs with a new musculature. Your broken hand, overcome with tingling, seems to be mending itself, and you wince only slightly as the bones slip back into place.

Strangest of all, the sewer, which had previously been caged in darkness, s.h.i.+mmers into full view. You hold your arms out in front of you, examining yourself from top to 150 bottom and marveling at your new body in the unnatural glow of your night vision. Yet despite the sudden transformation, this somehow feels like the body you were always destined to inhabit.

Ahead you see Dozer stumbling your way, terrified and blinded. He accidentally kicks the flashlight, and curses when he hears its telltale rattle. His hands fumble on the ground until he finally places his palm on it. When he flips the switch, the beam of light lands right on your sneakers.

The light traces a path up your body until it stops on your face. For the first time in his miserable life, Dozer is looking up at you.

"R-Rolfe?" he stammers.

"Guess I'm a late bloomer," you say. Before he can reply, you seize him by the lapel and lift him off the ground.

You open your mouth. Light pours out from between your parted lips and into his eyes. He screams, blinded by the sudden explosion of light. He claws frantically at his face.

You drop him to the slick ground so that he lands on his knees, his scream falling to a gurgle. "Snakes!" he shouts as your nightmarish visions of light flutter before his eyes, filling the empty sewer tunnel with imaginary vermin. "And bats! Oh, G.o.d. They're everywhere!"

Ever the coward, Biscuit is back at the entrance, hanging from the manhole rim. Overcome by the terror 151 of his friend's screams, he tries to wriggle his way up onto the street. His ever-bulging belly, however, anchors him down.

You're on him in a second. Your hands wrap around his ankles, and with just a slight yank he drops to the sewer floor like the sack of s.h.i.+t that he is.

You know his ankle is twisted-he's wailing about it already-but you punch him hard in the face for good measure.

Without further adieu you, with one bend of your knees, leap up and out of the manhole, gracefully landing on the street.

"Wait!" Biscuit pleads up at you from below. "I'll give you anything you want. Just don't leave me here. Please . . ." His words trail off into the hiccupping screech of a pathetic boy crying in the sewer.

You kneel down next to the hole. "I've always admired that surfboard of yours."

"It's in the garage, next to my dad's Beamer," he tells you between sobs. "I . . . I'll take you to it."

You smile down at him. Your teeth glint white through the gloom. "No need to go to that trouble. I'll let myself in." And you slide the manhole cover back into place, snuffing out the sound of the screaming boy below.

RAJA NEFERET.

You were there when he died. He may have been only the most recent in a long series of foster fathers, but he 152 had been your favorite, and he had been a good man. He never acted like his "real" child, his biological offspring, was more important than you, and he never looked at you funny when he'd had too much to drink. Between his regular visits to his son at the university and the brutal divorce he was embroiled in with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, James Cardone had generally left you to your own devices, exactly what you'd wanted all these years. Peace.

And so you stand in the funeral parlor for the wake, the social worker for your case lurking somewhere nearby, looking even more lost. You stand next to James Jr., the real son, the one you haven't seen cry yet. His eyes just pierce off into the distance as a procession of grieving friends express their deepest sympathies to him. You occasionally get a pa.s.sing sad nod from those same people, and a hug from one or two, but for the most part the gathering mourners don't know how to respond to you.

And how can you blame them? You were just a shooting star at the end of James Cardone's life, cut short in middle age by a surprise heart attack. With the earthen tone of your Egyptian skin, you couldn't stick out more in this predominantly white suburb of Long Island, and you certainly couldn't look any less like the true child of old Jimmy Cardone, member of the Mayflower Society and the local Italian-American chapter.

It is later that night. You excuse yourself to the bathroom when you can't take it anymore, and curl up on the stall floor, letting the warm breath of the heating vent 153 wash over you. It is a succulent warmth that stirs within you deep-seated memories of an ancient desert. And you fall asleep.

But now you've awoken with a chill, with nothing but the harsh cool of the bathroom tile against your face. The heating vent has long since gone cold. You are alone.

You walk out into the foyer. Empty. The mourners have all gone home for the night, and only the parlor's auxiliary lights have been left on. There's no sign of Ellie, your social worker. Maybe she's gone to search for you at the Greyhound station again. Three times in a row she's caught you there, so you imagine that this time she didn't panic when she noticed that you were missing. She's in for a rude awakening when she makes it to the bus platform and you're not there.

You know you should head home. James Jr. is probably waiting for you at the house, your temporary new "guardian" while Ellie searches for another available foster location. The service is tomorrow morning, and your black slacks need ironing.

Instead you wander into the mourning room, taking in the aroma of fresh gardenias and monte casinos, the scent of vitality and hope to soften this overwhelming reminder of life's frailty.

You can't help yourself. You wander up to the casket, push the rose wreath aside. And you press your head to the mahogany coffin. Are you in there, James? you wonder.

Are you out there somewhere?

154.

The thud against the inside of the coffin is so sudden that you can't help yourself-you scream, your terror resounding through the vacant parlor.

A second thud. Then another. Instinct tells you to turn and run, to kick open the parlor doors and just keep going, to find Ellie and plead with her to find you a life, a new life, anything but here.

Curiosity overwhelms you, though, and your hands shoot out. You find the clasp that holds the coffin top shut, and with a heave and a power you didn't know you had, you begin to lift the top open- "Enough!" Raja shouted, and with a wave of nausea Ashline returned to the beach, the circle broken as Raja backed defensively away. "Stay out of my G.o.dd.a.m.n head."

Serena frowned; her gray eyes, unseeing studied the Egyptian girl with sincere concern, and more than an ounce of heart. "I'm sorry. Everyone seemed so shy about sharing before, and this just seemed like a harmless way for us to understand each other."

Raja cooled down after a few deep breaths but made no movement to rejoin the rest of the circle. "You're all more than welcome to partake in this game of show-and-tell," she said quietly, "but there are some memories even I'd rather not relive. At least so vividly."

A hush fell over the group, the six overcome with a new awe for one another, feeling both intensely curious and afraid of these dark powers lurking beneath.

155.

Ash felt emotionally drained just from looking at Serena; the blind girl's eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, and Ash realized that living within these visions was probably her first opportunity to see since she'd lost her sight. As jarring as it was to enter limbo and live the world through another person's memory, it must be an even colder splash of water to return to the visual silence of the blind.

"What about Ashline?" Lily asked. "We didn't get to see her moment."

All eyes settled on Ash, including Serena's.

Ash grimaced. She always had to be different somehow-in this case different by not being different at all.

"I don't have . . . ," she started. Then she changed tack. "I can't do anything, the way you guys can at least."

Serena c.o.c.ked her head to the side. "That's impossible. Otherwise you wouldn't be here. Unless your abilities haven't blossomed yet, and that should have happened by p.u.b.erty," she added matter-of-factly.

"Nice" guys that Rolfe and Ade were, their eyes flickered unthinkingly to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Ash crossed her arms and tucked her hands under her armpits. "I'm done changing, thanks," she muttered.

"Maybe you're just a late bloomer," Raja suggested.

Ash pictured Eve, the weird s.h.i.+fts in Westchester weather whenever she was back in town. Then the rooftop with Lizzie Jacobs . . .