Joe Schreiber - Chasing the dead

Sue stopped swinging. Phillip was still walking briskly away from her, headed through the high grass toward the makeshift parking lot, and that was when she realized that he was serious. He was really going. The clarity of his intention startled her so much that the first word out of her mouth-"Wait!"-came out garbled and almost inaudible. Jumping off the swing, she cleared her throat and hurried to catch up.

"Phillip, what do you think you're doing?"

"Just what I said. I'm going to check it out."

"You can't do that."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Why not?"

She sighed. It was his favorite question, and half the time she couldn't answer it. She decided to discard whatever remained of her sarcastic detachment and address the issue head-on. "Okay, what if it is the guy?"

"What's he going to do, jump out of the car and grab me?" Phillip asked, not slowing his pace. "In broad daylight?"

"We're pretty far from town."

"Come on," he said, and if he was less sure of himself, he didn't let on.

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to walk by, like I'm headed to the field, and as I pass him, just kind of take a look inside, see what he looks like. Maybe he's wearing the bib overalls with the blue stripes on them like that kid back in Wickham said."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what he's wearing," Sue said, not exactly sure why she was so reluctant to let Phillip get close to the Plymouth, only that the feeling of apprehension was building in her chest and abdomen, the way her head felt when she dove all the way to the bottom of the deep end of a pool. "Come on, let's just go-okay?"

For the first time he stopped and stared back at her. His dark eyes were serious, as grown-up as she'd ever seen them, and all at once she knew exactly what he was going to look like as a grown man-it might've even been the first time that she realized she loved him, a little.

"What if it happens tonight?" he asked. "And in the morning everybody's talking about some kid that got killed by the Engineer, and we both know we could've done something about it but we didn't. Do you want that on your conscience?"

She took a breath, considered any number of possible replies:That's not going to happen orMy conscience has nothing to do with this or simply the ever-popularOh please, but in the end she didn't say anything. They were a dozen steps from the edge of the bare, tire-packed earth, putting them twenty or thirty good strides from the orange Plymouth, and it was clear now that she wasn't going to stop him.

She glanced back over her shoulder to where the toddlers and their mothers had been playing, but the dingy little playground was empty. The blue Chevy and the rusty Ford were gone, must have left while she and Phillip were talking. The only car left in the lot was the Plymouth.

Sue nodded. "If we see anything that looks funny, we run straight to the police. I mean it, Phillip."

"No duh, genius," he smirked. "I'm not Magnum, PI."

"Yeah, you're more like Higgins." The banter, however lame, made her feel a little better, and the next thought was even more comforting.Of course it's not going to be the Engineer in there. Phillip could go up to the guy, climb in the backseat and ask him what he thought about the Red Sox's chances for the playoffs, it wouldn't matter because there's no way the man that killed a dozen kids is sitting right there, twenty feet away from us.

No, of course not. It wasn't the Engineer, it was just some worker bee from the paper mill, some lunchbox-toting working stiff like her own father who came down here to eat his onion sandwich and maybe sneak a warm Bud before going back to the factory floor. And when they got up to the orange Plymouth, Phillip would see that for himself.

Sue was still reassuring herself with these thoughts when the driver's side door opened and the man in blue-striped bib overalls looked out at them, and smiled.

Sue sits up fast, eyes wide open, panic dousing her like an ice-cold jet of water, shooting down both arms and fusing her spinal column into a steel rod. The road is jumping at her crookedly-so crookedly that it's not the road at all, it's a thick row of trees plowing in her headlights, and she jerks the wheel hard around, the Expedition's back tires skidding but finding something to pull against under the ice. And she's back on course, breathing fast, trying not to have a heart attack.

She checks the dashboard clock. How long has she been out?

A few seconds, she thinks. Certainly no longer. It wasn't like she was dozing, though. It was more like beinggone, transported, spirited away back to that summer day in '83. She can practically smell the metallic rust from the swing's chains on her palms and the high, acrid stench of the mill hanging in the air, the swamp below the bridge not far away. And despite the fact that it's got to be at least ten below outside with the wind chill, and the Expedition's broken side window is letting in all kinds of cold air, Sue realizes that underneath these strange, ill-fitting clothes she's filmed from scalp to ankles in a clinging layer of sweat. Not perspiration-kids didn't perspire, not even girls. They sweated.

The phone rings. She grabs it.

"Wake up, Susan."

"I'm awake," she croaks.

"You were drifting a little there," the voice chides. "Can't have that. Not with Veda relying on you to keep her alive."

"Why can't you tell me where she is?" Sue blurts, just defenseless enough from her vision of August 1983 that the question comes out sounding helpless. It sounds, actually, like a child's question, in a child's voice. "I just want to know she's all right."

"She's all right, Susan. As long as you stay on the road and don't crash into any trees, she'll be just dandy."

"I don't believe you."

"Always keep my promises, Susan," the voice says. "The only thing that matters is you. Getting you and your cargo where you need to be. At the other end of this route."

"Why is that so important to you?"

"Why?" She anticipates scorn, maybe even laughter, but his earnestness sounds genuine. "You ought to know that by now. I've been in this business for a long, long time. I'm an old hand at it, nearly as old as the country itself. Haven't you realized that yet?"

Sue lowers her hand from her mouth, looking for the first time at the cell phone she's been holding against her face. It's a small, sleek device, chrome-colored, made by the good people at AT amp;T Wireless. She peers at the three little holes where the voice has come out, imagines being able to somehow shimmy through those invisible cell frequencies to wherever the voice is crouched, with her daughter at its side and a blade to Veda's throat.

"Isaac Hamilton," she says. "That's you, isn't it?"

"Ah. Now we're getting somewhere."

"It's been you the whole time."

"The whole time," the voice echoes, and there's something almost soothing about the ease with which his voice dovetails with hers. "Oh Susan, if only you knew how close you were. You know, I actually think you might make it."

Up ahead the road dips and rises and she can see the white sign forEAST NEWBURY-ESTABLISHED 1802, and she's not sure whether he's talking about making it through the route or-something else. Something deeper, reaching upward from the depths of her mind and heart simultaneously, two hands groping for a light switch in the dark. She knows the switch is there and when she hits it everything will leap into absolute clarity, despite the fact that she hasn't found it yet. But now, unexpectedly, irrationally, the urge to find out the truth overwhelms her, rivaling-even momentarily eclipsing-the urge to save her daughter's life.

"These towns on the route, they were all founded the same year, 1802," she says, passing the sign as she sees the first houses of town. "The year that…" Her mind flashes back to what one of the callers from the radio show said:the late eighteenth century. "The year they finally stopped you."