David Silva: The Disappeared

“You’re one brave little kid, you know that?”

A stream of cold air circulated down the hall. It poured in through the sliding glass door downstairs and slipped out through the office window just ahead of them. Teri thought she had probably left the window open the last time she had been up this way. The chill slid across her arms like the cold flesh of a snake and she realized she was trembling.

That’s your fear, my dear lady.

I know.

Inside the office, the boy immediately wanted down. She sat him on the corner of the desk, and took an extra second to look him straight in the eye. “You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Don’t—”

“I know. I know. Don’t call you Mom.”

“You got it,” she said, giving him an appreciative tap on the leg.

She turned her attention to the phone. It was a combination phone/answering machine, black, touch tone. Almost effortlessly, the receiver fell out of the cradle and into her grasp. It was a good thing, too. She didn’t think she would have been able to find it in the darkness if she had let it get away from her. It was difficult enough trying to blindly fumble her way over the keypad. She dialed 911, raised the receiver to her ear, and realized with coldness that there was no dial tone.

The boy tugged on her sleeve.

“Just a minute,” Teri said. She tapped the cutoff switch half-a-dozen times, praying that by some fluke of luck it might actually put her through to someone, maybe an operator, maybe the police, anyone. But there were no voices on the other end, and no dial tone, either. The line was dead.

“Listen,” the boy said.

“What is it?”

“Listen.”

The sound he had heard was the sound of someone climbing the stairs.

Apparently, Mitch was awake again, though it didn’t sound as if he were feeling quite like himself just yet. Teri could hear the squeal of the handrail as he pulled himself up one plodding step at a time, stopping occasionally to catch a breath or to wait to catch his bearings. He sounded harmless from this distance, but she didn’t like the idea that he was conscious again. And she didn’t like the idea that he still had strength enough to even consider climbing the stairs.

“Mom…” the boy whispered.

“I hear him.” It had not slipped by her unnoticed – the fact that he had once again referred to her as Mom. But Teri suddenly found herself watching the walls closing in around them as if the house were a living, breathing thing and she let the reference pass unchallenged.

“The window!” the boy whispered.

“Huh?” She stared at him, still caught in her image of the house as their captor, then gradually the thought released her and she remembered a time when Gabe had been eight or nine and she had caught him climbing out this same window. It opened onto a decorative ledge across the front of the garage. Gabe had been playing Frisbee in the front yard and the disk had ended up on the roof, and he had somehow got it into his head that if he could climb out on the ledge, then he might be able to work his way around to the side of the house and up onto the roof. Teri had put a quick stop to that notion. But if they could drop from the ledge to the ground…

“Okay,” she whispered.

She took the cane out of the boy’s hands and motioned for him to get going before it was too late. Somewhere behind them—near the top landing, she thought—voices had broken out. One clearly belonged to the man who went by the name of Mitch. The other voice—a groggy, unintelligible moan—she assigned to the man named Jimmy, who had apparently fought his way up from unconsciousness and was feeling the full effects of a terrible headache just about now.

“Hurry up!”

The boy slipped through the opening feet first, then reached back to help.

“No, you go on,” she said, handing him the cane. She waved at him, backhanded, and watched as he disappeared off into the shadows on the left. For an eleven year old, the jump from the side of the garage into the ivy bed at the north corner would be a piece of cake. For someone a little older…

Teri climbed onto the desk, not wanting to think about it. She pushed the window up against its stop, as wide as it would go, wishing she had taken better care of herself the last couple of years. Cool night air blew across her face. She braced her hands against the window frame, the aluminum sash rough and pock-marked, and managed to get her left leg through the opening before someone grabbed her from behind.

“Where do you think you’re going, Mrs. Knight?”

Mitch.

“Come on, now.” He held her by the ankle, swinging her leg back and forth like an alley cat toying with its prey. “Come back in here and we’ll see if we can start all over again, all right?”

“I’m going to fall,” she said.

“No you aren’t, Mrs. Knight. I’ve got you.”

“Don’t let go. Please.”

“I won’t. Just inch your way back in. You’ll be fine.”

With surprising effort, she managed to get her leg back inside and her body turned around. She scooted across the desk and hung her legs over the front edge, her heart pounding like an African drum in a Paul Simon song. Mitch leaned in, bracing himself with an arm on either side of her.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

“Why don’t you just take what you want and leave us alone?”

“We didn’t come here to steal from you, Mrs. Knight.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Your son.”

“You mean the boy?”

“Yeah, the boy.”

“Well, he’s not my—” She had never intended to finish the sentence. Her fingers clamped around the edge of the desk for balance and in that moment, before the last word had come up from the back of her throat, she fired off a knee that sank deep into the man’s crotch.

He stumbled back, bent over, teetering on the edge of an invisible line. Her shoe, which he had been holding in his right hand, slipped out of his grasp and fell to the floor, almost unnoticed. Mitch grabbed himself with both hands, his eyes squinting, his lungs struggling to draw the next breath.

Later, everything after that would become a blur of time. Teri found herself outside, standing at the edge of the garage, looking down on the patch of ivy they had planted the first spring after moving into the neighborhood. She had never been fond of heights, but she had never been terrified of them, either. She crouched on the narrow ledge until she was able to get both legs dangling over the edge. It was mostly a matter of trust after that. She closed her eyes, said a little prayer, and pushed off.

By the time she made it to the car, the boy was already there, waiting.

This was the call generated from a phone inside the house shortly after Teri Knight and her son had escaped:

“We’ve got a spill.”

“How bad?”

“Looks like a Code Red.”

“Christ. What’s the damage?”

“Both drums were identified and temporarily contained. We were unable to maintain possession, however. Current location and status are unknown.”

“Any contamination?”

“Jeffcoat sustained trauma to the head. Kellerman mangled his hand.”

“You need a cleanup?”

“Yes. Immediate.”

“Degree of hazard?”

“Some breakage, mostly glass.”

“Are you mobile?”

“Yes.”

“Get out of there.”

“We’re on our way.”

It was after midnight.

Teri fumbled a dime into the coin slot and followed it with two nickels. The number she wanted to call was circled in red ink on a page torn out of the local phone book. It belonged to Walter L. Travis, a man she hadn’t seen in nearly four years.