The Sleepwalkers Part 22

Voices above: "s.h.i.+t, I thought this one was one of ours, but I think it was the girl."

"Then shoot it, ya imbecile, shoot!"

And gunfire does ring out, but Caleb is able to see out of the corner of his eye that the shots are just harmless blips in the water, all falling short.

Run, he thinks, run fast.

Then he's under.

Water rus.h.i.+ng past, cold, pulling him downstream toward Christine. The cold is wicking his will to fight, but he still does, and his foot finds a rock to push against on the muddy, slippery bottom, and for a second he surfaces, and the moonlight is just right for him to see what he had missed before, or denied before, the familiar one, the one who's killing him is- "Bean?"

The sleeping face is a mask of stillness, but hands are busy pus.h.i.+ng him back under.

Into the pull of the current. Into the dark.

And this time there's nothing to push up against. His feet rake helplessly against the slick, black mud. The water steals his breath.

This really is the end.

He jerks his head back and forth, fights with his whole body to wriggle out of those hands.

And somehow, he does.

He surfaces.

"BEAN!" he screams with his only breath, his last breath, before he's under again.

And now he barely fights, because he can't. All his effort has been consolidated into one primal scream in the center of his brain. A silent scream. The one that comes from gaping mouths in hospital beds. The last scream, the one that n.o.body hears but G.o.d. Then the scream spreads, and it's coming from every cell in his body.

I'm dying.

I'm dying.

I'm dying.

And with the last trickle of breath in his lungs, the breath that might have kept him alive an instant longer, he sighs the word: "Bean."

But the sound is just a gurgle.

Now there's just the cold.

But something's different. Something's changed.

In the all-encompa.s.sing, maddening tingling of his body, the sense of touch is a foreign language. But he can feel enough to know that the hands aren't on him anymore.

And he pushes against the mud bottom with quivering arms, into the world of sound, into the world of light. And in that world, against the backdrop of the moonlit river, he sees two gowned figures, struggling. One has the other pinned to the ground, and as Caleb fights to get to his feet, he sees the figure on top groping with one free hand. The free hand finds a large rock. The figure rears back. The rock hangs in the air for an instant, held aloft, then comes down like a hammer. And the struggle is over.

Caleb approaches. His whole body is quivering. He doesn't know how close he came to dying, but he knows if he has to fight again, he will fail. He skirts the figure, the victor-for the other is now limp, and even in the scant light Caleb can see the crater where his face used to be. He walks around until the moonlight falls right, illuminating the victorious sleepwalker's face, so he can be certain.

"Bean," he says, his voice tremulous.

Bean smiles big, and lets out a laugh that turns into a rattling cough.

"I was having the nicest dream, before you woke me up a minute ago. I was back home, and . . . surfing. At sunset. n.o.body else was out there, just me and the seagulls."

Bean rises from the body of the sleepwalker on which he was kneeling, blinking tears away from his good eye, and lets the rock fall out of his hand.

"Come here," he says.

Caleb does.

Bean reaches over and touches his face. "I'm not gay or anything," he says. "I just want to make sure it's really you. I'm blind as a freakin' bat, man."

"It's me," says Caleb.

Bean nods. "Now take off your s.h.i.+rt."

"What?" Caleb says.

"Take it off, you h.o.m.ophobic b.a.s.t.a.r.d. We don't have time. Take it off."

Caleb does.

"Give it to me."

Bean puts the s.h.i.+rt on over his robe.

"Look, Caleb," he says, "one thing I wanted to tell you. I don't really think your idea of going to Africa is stupid. I think it's . . . it's pretty cool of you."

"Thanks," says Caleb, but his mind is on other things, like why Bean wanted his s.h.i.+rt, like what's going on, "What-?"

"Now point me toward the side of the bridge. Not the way Christine went, the other way."

"Why?" says Caleb. "And if you were just dreaming, how do you know Christine is here? And if you're blind-"

"There's no time to explain, man," says Bean, with a small, sad shake of his head. "I'm handicapped now, you gotta do what I say, now point me."

Caleb does.

"Now go help Christine," Bean says, and he takes off running.

"What?" says Caleb. Maybe the near drowning deprived his brain of oxygen because he has no idea what's going on.

"GO!" yells Bean over his shoulder. He trips over a rock, going a.s.s-over-teakettle into the water, then he's back on his feet, still sprinting recklessly.

Grudgingly, Caleb obeys. He jogs in the opposite direction, in the direction Christine disappeared, but he keeps looking back at Bean. He's about to cross into the moonlight when the first shots ring out.

The deep voice above: "The boy's on this side. Forget the girl, we'll get her later."

Caleb looks over his shoulder.

He sees a nightscape, black shadow with blue water and rocks, and beyond the bridge he sees Bean take the first shot and keep running for a few yards until the second one hits him, then the third, then the fourth.

Caleb stops dead in his tracks. He can't leave Bean again! He has to help him, has to do something.

Shots sound again and again. Bean is on his knees. Bean is dying, again.

Caleb takes two splas.h.i.+ng steps toward his fallen friend, horror and sadness las.h.i.+ng through his heart.

But it's already too late to help him, and Caleb knows it. Bean is dying, and if Caleb doesn't get away, he'll have died for nothing.

He knows what he has to do. Now he's running, but not toward Bean. He breaks into the moonlight on a sandy part of the bank and runs at full stride, not looking back, not slowing, just flying.

If Bean dies, it won't be for nothing, he swears it.

After a while the gunshots stop, but the pounding of his footfalls beats on.

Chapter Fifteen.

IN A THICK PATCH OF FOREST perhaps fifty feet behind the trailer that serves as Hudsonville's sheriff 's office sits a squat, cinderblock building. There is no sign on the door and there are no windows. The exterior was painted a nauseating green color once, but the paint has all but peeled off by now, exposing the dreary gray of the block beneath. Inside, Janet Faris, the deputy with the big hair, is watching Wheel of Fortune. She likes Wheel of Fortune because it makes her feel smart. Right now, she's way smarter than this jacka.s.s on the screen, some accountant from Utah.

"Don't judge a book by its cover!" Janet shouts. "Don't judge a book by its cover! Don't judge a-"

And the smattering of pixels on the TV says: "Uh, I'd like to buy a vowel."

"Aaaw, you're stupid! He is so stupid, isn't he? I had that one! I had it! It's going to be 'Don't judge a book by its cover,' you just wait and see."

"I bet you're right," says Ron Bent from where he's pacing behind the steel bars.

Getting himself behind bars is one of the few things he seems to be very good at indeed.

"You're a smart gal, Janet, no doubt about it," he says. "Almost as smart as you are pretty."

Janet turns to him, batting her eyelashes. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Ron. You ever heard that?"

"I guess I have."

"Never a truer word spoken," she says.

The building is lit by a single flickering neon light. The only other illumination is the uncertain glow of the television. Maybe it's something about the s.h.i.+fting light, or the smell of the place-or maybe it's something else altogether, but Ron's stomach is in a knot. He could puke at any second. And Ron Bent is p.r.o.ne to a lot of things, but getting sick isn't one of them. He has to get out of here. Now.

Lord, I feel you calling me; I feel it so much it hurts.

I don't know what I can do For that boy they kidnapped, But I know I should be doing something.

I've always felt I should be doing something, And I know we're getting close To the secret, And to Keisha.

Use me.

Wield me like a sword if that's your will.

I want to be worth something to you, Finally.

I want to do something right.

Work through me.

Get me out.

Show me the way, And I'll follow.

"Awww," bawls Janet. "I should be on this show! You hear all these nincomp.o.o.ps! I'm smarter than all of them combined!"

"I noticed that right off," Ron says.

He looks at Janet sitting there a few yards away squinting at Pat Sajak and wonders how many hours this relic of a woman has spent just like that: reclined in that chair, talking to the TV all by herself, alone, forgotten. And maybe, just maybe, he sees a path. It's not a glorious path, not at all, but it just might lead out of here.

"Forgive me for saying so, but I don't think that old boss of yours knows just how smart you are either."

"You're d.a.m.ned right about that," she says, watching a commercial for hairspray. "I been working here for seven years, and he only lets me answer phones and guard the prisoners. That's it. I went through training. I could be doing a lot of crimnal investigations."

"Sure, that's what I'm talking about. I can see you got a good head on yer shoulders."

"Sure I do."

"And a pretty one too, if you don't mind my saying so."

This turns Janet away from the TV to face Ron.

"You, sir, are making me blus.h.!.+" she says and cackles like a crow.

Ron smiles a little.

"You oughta tell my husband that," she says.

"You're married?" Ron asks, doing his best to sound surprised.

Janet looks hurt, then mad. "What, you didn't think I'd be a spinster, did ya? I had more than a few men after me in my time."

"I'm only saying," says Ron, "if you were my wife, I wouldn't let you out of the house, if you don't mind me sayin' so."