Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

Thirty thousand feet in the sky, Boone sat in the bulkhead seat and turned her phone over and over in her hands, compulsively.

Check signal. Nothing. Of course nothing. Even cheating on airplane mode wouldn’t help at this altitude.

She turned the phone, turned it, turned it... and checked again.

No signal.

She was on Wi-Fi, but it wouldn’t let calls through.

Land this bitch already. The thought rose with such intensity that she almost shouted it aloud. Containing frustration was always a struggle for her. Once more, she was passive, Detroit all over again, sitting at the gate and waiting, waiting, waiting. Back then, unknown to her, Amandi Oltamu was already dead, and Boone had been reduced to waiting, clueless.

Tara Beckley wasn’t dead, though. She was coming back. But did she know a single thing that might help?

Boone’s phone vibrated, and for a glorious second, she was sure that the signal had somehow pierced the clouds.

Wrong. It was just an e-mail slipping through on the wireless network. She knew that it wouldn’t matter, but she checked it anyhow, needing something to fill her time. When she saw the sender, she caught her breath.

It was Pine.

I have been trying to call for the past twenty minutes. Your phone goes straight to voice mail. I am assuming and hoping this is because you are in the air and en route. Tara is not only alert, but she has memories of the night. Specific and clear memories. There is also a difficulty with her sister, who appears to have been contacted by someone other than you, someone with knowledge of the danger in this situation. Knowledge that I don’t have. She has lots of questions about Dr. Oltamu’s phone. She seemed unsurprised to learn of your agency’s interest, but she will not tell me why or who has provided her with whatever information she has. It is imperative that we have guidance on this situation. I am going to give you a little time, but then I feel it’s essential to contact local authorities.

Boone nearly jammed a thumb in her hurry to respond.

Keep her safe, keep her quiet, I am inbound, almost there.

She hit Send, leaned back in the seat, and stared out the window. Lightning flashed below them, entombed in the clouds, giving an otherworldly quality to the night sky.

Shannon Beckley had lots of questions about Oltamu’s phone? Why? If Tara Beckley remembered the phone, that was one thing. But her sister? Who had been in contact with her sister? And if someone had told her sister so much about the situation that she understood things at the level Pine seemed to suspect, then there was a much bigger question: How was she still alive?

The intercom gave a burst of static, and Boone let out a relieved breath, anticipating the message — they were beginning their descent into Boston’s Logan Airport, please fasten seat belts and prepare for landing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you might have noticed the lightning outside your windows,” the pilot began, and Boone tensed.

No, no, do not tell me we are being delayed or diverted, not tonight...

“What you’re seeing,” the pilot continued, “is part of a series of supercell thunderstorms that are moving north-northeast at the moment, and they’re delaying operations at Boston Logan until that weather clears.”

“No!” Boone said aloud, drawing stares from the flight attendants in front of her. She shook her head, closed her eyes, and clamped her molars together as the pilot kept babbling.

“We’re going to be in a holding pattern for just a bit, hopefully not more than fifteen to twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll let you know as soon as we get word from the folks at Logan that we are cleared for descent. We don’t expect it to be a long wait, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy. The good news is that all the turbulence is below us, and the storm seems to be moving fast.”

Blue.

Not I. Not J. Yes, K. One flick.

Tara is exhausted, but Shannon is pressing, and Tara won’t quit on her. She’s answered every question Shannon has thrown at her so far, and she’s surprised at how the task is sharpening her memory, bringing images back with clarity and vividness. The growing paranoia she’d felt with Oltamu has more precision now, and she remembers a specific question he’d asked, about whether everyone took the same route from dinner to the auditorium. She’d thought he was worried about being on time, but a man worried about his destination didn’t keep looking over his shoulder. He was worried about what was behind him, which meant that the place he’d come from might matter, and she remembers this name and is trying to spell it out, quite literally, for Shannon.

Red? No. Two flicks.

“Yellow?” Shannon asks, and then interrupts herself, a feat only Shannon could achieve. “Hang on, we don’t need to waste your time. It’s E, isn’t it? It’s Black Lake?”

Tara gives one relieved upward flick of the eyes. You win Double Jeopardy! Tara thinks, and she wants to laugh hysterically. She’s never been so tired in her life. All she’s doing is moving her eyes, and yet it drains her more than any marathon ever has.

“He came from Black Lake,” Shannon repeats, and now she has her phone out, tapping into it, probably searching for the town. “Black Lake, New York? Or there’s... a ghost town in Idaho. I hope he didn’t come from there. Was it New York?”

Tara doesn’t know, so she doesn’t move her eyes. Shannon waits, then says, “Do you even know where it was?”

Two fatigued flicks.

“Okay.” Shannon lowers the phone. “Did he take any other pictures?”

One flick.

“Of you?”

Two flicks.

“Someone else.”

Tara hesitates, then looks upward.

“We’re going to have to spell, aren’t we?”

One flick.

And so they spell.

Yellow — H. Green — O . Red — B .

“Hobbs?” Shannon guesses.

Two flicks, more angry than exhausted now; just let her finish.

“Red?”

No. Finally, they get there. Green — O .

“Hobo?” Shannon says, voice heavy with disbelief. “He took pictures of a hobo?”

She looks at Tara as if she’s crazy, as if this is the first clear misfiring of memory, and Tara wants nothing more than the power to reach out and strangle her. Her thumb twitches against her palm, but Shannon doesn’t notice, because Shannon is watching only her eyes. This is the only window out. For now. Tara has to stay calm, stay patient, and keep working at it. It’s 1804 London Street all over again — Tara trapped inside, Shannon waiting to rescue her from the outside, and the two of them working to widen the gap in the steel doors that separate them.

“A hobo,” Shannon says, taking a breath. “Can you explain more than that?”

One flick.

“Spell it. Red line?”

One flick.

“A?”

Thank goodness, yes, it’s finally the first column and first letter. A is a common letter, isn’t it? How in the hell is Tara never drawing an A in this thing? She’s got two of them in her own damned name!

“Red line?” Shannon asks, and again, this is a yes, but Tara has to go all the way to the end of the row now to get to end of word, and halfway through she realizes that she didn’t need the stupid A anyhow — stick to nouns and verbs, damn it!

So over they begin, but good news — it’s red again! Not A, not B, not C, but D, D for Damn it, I want my voice back.

Green — O . Yellow — G . Thankfully, Shannon doesn’t make her indicate end of word again, but guesses. “A dog? That’s not what you mean. Tell me that’s not what you mean?”