“EMILY?”
Natalie burst out of the thicket, onto the riverbank, and found Jim lying on his side moaning, his scalp bleeding.
“What happened?”
Jim just moaned again and felt his head.
“Where’s Emily? Jim, where’s my sister?” she demanded.
“Hey, take it easy on him, can’t you see he’s been hurt?”
Hal had arrived and was holding Natalie back as he leaned down to examine Jim, handing him his clothes, which Jim began to slowly pull back on.
“Jim, did you slip and fall?”
“No, they . . . hit me.”
“WHO hit you?” Natalie screamed.
“I . . . I don’t know . . . I didn’t really see them.”
Natalie’s eyes frantically scanned the riverbank, both sides, and the river itself. Her nostrils stung with an astringent smell, a strong chemical odor. It was so potent for a moment it burned her eyes. Then she saw the mismatched eyes in the river again; sets of eyes: yellow and green, those horrible, horrible eyes! She took one look at Emily’s clothes strewn on the rocks and then splashed into the river, screaming her sister’s name, her throat going hot and raw with the pain of dreadful possibility. What if, what if. . . . Her mind racing, heart banging in her chest, her eyes bled tears as she called for Emily again and again, then turned on Jim like a feral creature and bore into him with accusing eyes.
“Where is she, Jim? Where did she go?”
“She . . . she was right here, and then it got dark, and. . . .”
“What, Jim, WHAT?”
“And then I don’t remember.” Jim held his head and Natalie hated him in that moment for being so pathetic, so clueless. He should have protected her sister, not just let her disappear. Tearing her eyes from the river, Natalie looked back at the dark woods and ran upriver.
“Emily!”
She raced through thick brush and stinging nettles and blackberry bushes with stalks thick as her wrist. Thorns tore at her skin, and still she ran, crying out, her feet slipping in her wet shoes. But there was no sign, no sound, of Emily. Natalie staggered back down to the riverbank where the boys were huddled.
Hal tried to reassure her, “Don’t worry Natalie, she’s probably just downriver, they’ll find her. They will,” but voices whispered to her in the night wind, tiny evil voices like bones being crushed. No, they won’t. Natalie shook her head and the voices became the sound of the river. Had they spoken, or was it just in her head? The pain she felt was like a thick narcotic, slowing time as it coursed through her veins, her brain now sluggish, energy spent. Natalie looked up at the moon, the smiling face now a nasty grimace.
“Don’t leave me, Emily, don’t you dare leave me!” And then Natalie cut loose with a scream that rose from a place she didn’t even know existed, a scream that lifted birds from their nests and drove rodents farther underground—the howl of a twin torn asunder. And just as suddenly as the sky had darkened the clouds above parted and the river seemed to calm down. For a split second Natalie thought she saw eyes, yellow and green eyes, again in the river, near the bottom. Fury cleared the sluggishness from her body and she ran and dove in.
“Jesus, what are you doing?” yelled Hal. He hesitated, and then dove in after her. They were both underwater, their thrashing kicking up silt that swirled up from the river bottom and turned the water a murky green. Hal’s hands found Natalie’s wrists and, gasping, he pulled her from the river and onto the bank.
It was a night that Natalie prayed to forget and yet her heart would never allow it. It was the night when it seemed as if the river itself had risen up and claimed her soul mate, her sister, her other half. Without Emily, Natalie felt utterly incomplete.
In her bedroom Natalie put the picture of her twin sister back on top of her nightstand. The night of terror and loss was the past. The only thing that mattered now was getting her back. Everyone thought Natalie was crazy, thought she was just another wounded twin who lost her sibling and would be forever haunted, a loony who held out hope when there was none. But Natalie knew different; she knew her twin sister was alive.
On the streets of Harrisburg a chilly wind buffeted Will as he rode his turbo scooter, carrying the megaspatial awl in a small telescope case that stuck out of his backpack. He had a rule about weapons, which was never design anything that couldn’t be jammed into a backpack. This device, though technically not a weapon, was capable of exuding great force, so he had to be covert. Like all his weapons and gear it was of his own design and manufacture and Will knew he had to be careful hauling it around. The boys at the Pentagon would love to get their hands on any one of Will’s inventions, including this one.
Any curious onlooker would no doubt conclude that Will was riding his scooter up to high ground, up to the local lover’s lane, Netter’s Ridge—some called it Makeout Heaven—to set up his telescope and gaze at the constellations. What a good boy, studying the stars for his science class. In fact Will loved to stargaze, but he had no time for that tonight, not after seeing the blip on his geothermal radar screen.
When he reached an intersection, instead of heading up the hill he turned and took a long street that sloped down to the lowest part of town, the city blocks that held the Harrisburg Cemetery. As cemeteries go it wasn’t bad, no better or worse than others he’d spent far too much time in. This one had a rustic split-rail fence surrounding the perimeter, as though the land held sheep or cattle instead of decaying corpses. Using his infrareds Will scanned the grounds. No creatures larger than a small rabbit were in attendance, so he unpacked the megaspatial awl, loaded it with blast cartridges, and then powered four sensor spikes into the ground in a quadrant enclosing the cemetery. Then he zoomed down another street and every few hundred yards or so blasted another spike into the ground. It took him more than three hours but he eventually had Harrisburg plugged in, letting him monitor demonic movement as far as the city limits. When he was done he was thirsty enough for a Big Gulp and swung by a 7-Eleven.
Inside the small convenience store he pumped himself a root beer Slurpee, paid for it, and took it outside where he found a low wall to sit on, enjoy his drink, and feel the cool night breeze against his skin. Sometimes it felt so good to be alive that he ached. On occasion he would allow himself to enjoy these simple moments, quaint pleasures of a normal life, but invariably his thoughts would bring him back to reality. He wasn’t normal and he never would be. He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. I miss you, Dad, he said in his inner voice. And he thought he heard his father say, I miss you, too, son.
Will was sitting in the shadows so he was pretty much obscured when the beat-to-crap ’91 Taurus pulled in, blaring “Sista Killer” from six speakers and two huge subwoofers in the trunk. A couple of gansta wannabees chugged down the last of some cheap tequila then pulled ski masks over their heads. Crap, thought Will, I’m so not in the mood for this. Can’t a guy take a break, enjoy his freakin’ Slurpee, and commune with the cosmos without the long slimy arm of crime reaching out to him? He guessed not. He watched the punks carefully, studying their eyes. They were bloodshot, pupils dilated from drugs, but not liquid black. Maybe these two were just a couple of drunk, doped-up losers. They sure looked that way on the surface. When he saw the 9mm come out and the clerk so scared he was going to wet his pants, Will sighed and knew what he had to do.
As the robbery was going down Will felt his anger bubbling up but he kept cool and calmly walked over and knelt down behind the swinging front door. He loaded up the megaspatial awl with a spike and blast cartridge and waited and watched the scene unfolding using a parabolic mirror. If the guy with the gun had put his finger on the trigger Will would have had to go on inside. But the money was being handed over without a fight so he aimed the megaspatial awl at the Taurus. Bye-bye. He fired a spike into the gas tank and KABLAM! The Taurus went up in a ball of flames, all four doors blown cleanly off their moorings. The punks