Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

The lack of interest was definitely strange, but Gary was well aware that this could be misleading, that they could be walking into a very carefully planned trap.

He hoped Stacy had called the sheriff.

“You’d better not be leading us to this ‘Father’ character,” Brian warned. “If I see anyone who even looks like ‘Father,’ you’re a dead man. A dead man. Do you hear me?”

The Homesteader nodded and suddenly stopped walking, turning back the way they had come and going down a hallway they had only recently passed on the right.

“Good call,” Reyn said.

“I know how these fucks think.”

Gary, bringing up the rear of their little party, had taken out his own knife and was carrying it at his side. He had never used a weapon against anyone before, had never even been in a real fight, but Brian’s knife was busy, and if they were attacked or threatened by anyone else, someone had to be ready to protect them, to fight back. And he was more than ready to slice his way through a whole army of cultists if it would get him to Joan.

A woman emerged into the hallway from a room that appeared to be filled with piles of white cloth. Her eyes widened as she saw them. “Isaac?”

She tried to approach them, but Brian twisted around so that his knife was visible. “Back off, shut up and Isaac will live.”

The man started jabbering in that weird alien language. The woman answered him in the same way.

“Shut up, both of you!” Brian ordered. He nodded at the woman. “You! Get back in that room! Close the door behind you! If you dare to come out of there, I’ll slit both of your fucking throats!”

The woman complied, sobbing, obviously frightened and obviously believing he was capable of such action. The man was still trying to talk to her as the door closed, and Brian tightened the grip around his neck, cutting off the words and causing the man to let out strangled, choking noises.

“When I say ‘shut up,’ ” Brian said menacingly into his ear, “I mean shut up.” The look he shot Gary over the man’s shoulder had none of the hard strength found in those words, but revealed instead a young man terrified, confused and in way over his head.

That makes two of us , Gary thought. He glanced at Reyn. Three .

Ahead, the hallway opened out into a large, open chamber that looked like the lobby of a hotel. It had a ceiling that seemed higher than the roof outside, and the walls seemed more obviously wooden. There was something rustic about it, and Gary was reminded of a log cabin. He wondered if this had been the original structure and if everything around it had been added on later.

Straight across the room was a different hallway. To their right, yet another corridor headed off in a separate direction. Gary was beginning to get worried. They were being drawn deeper and deeper into this compound, and it was starting to feel to him like a trap. Their buddy Isaac or his girlfriend back there could shout out a warning, and he, Brian and Reyn could be instantly surrounded by hordes of militant Homesteaders. They’d taken so many twists and turns through this jerry-rigged building that there was no way he would be able to find his way out again without a guide, and he wasn’t sure how effective threatening to kill Isaac was going to be. He had the feeling that the man would be willing to sacrifice himself for the common good and that his compatriots would be only too happy to let him do it.

Wasn’t that how cults worked?

Gary pushed past Reyn and got in front of Brian and his hostage. “Enough of this bullshit. Where’s Joan?”

Before the man could respond, they heard the sound of smashing dishes. The noise came from nearby, and Gary saw Isaac turn his head to the right. From down the adjacent corridor came another crash, and though their smartest move would be to stay as far away from people as possible, they all moved immediately to the head of that hallway. Something was definitely wrong, and maybe they could turn that to their advantage.

“Where’s Joan?” Gary asked again. He wasn’t about to let this bastard off the hook. “Is she down there?”

“I do not know where Ruth is,” the man said defiantly.

What the hell did that mean?

Brian tightened his grip again, making Isaac cough, but he shot Gary a look of concern, and Gary understood why. The man was bolder than he had been, he felt safer here, and that might mean they were in trouble.

“Look,” Reyn said, pointing.

Down the corridor, two men stumbled slowly out of an open doorway, then leaned against the wall opposite the door, staring upward.

“They’re tripping,” Brian said, recognizing the behavior. He grinned. “I could get into this cult. Just joking,” he added quickly, glancing over at Gary.

Gary had no idea how his friend could joke around at a time like this. Even if they managed to find Joan and get safely out of the Home—which seemed increasingly unlikely—they would probably end up going to jail, thanks to Brian’s irresponsible actions. Gary thought about Father’s high-powered attorneys. He and his friends would be charged with everything the Homesteaders should have been charged with: kidnapping, assault, attempted murder… .

If they ever did get out of here, he was going to kick Brian’s ass.

There were other noises coming from the open doorway through which the two wasted men had stumbled, including voices. One of them, a man’s, said something that sounded like “Joan.”

Gary dashed down the corridor without thinking, leaving Reyn, Brian and their hostage behind. He didn’t know if they were following him and at that moment didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was finding Joan.

The two men were still leaning against the wall, staring upward, frozen. Directly across from them was the entrance to what looked like some sort of mess hall or banquet room, with a doorway wide enough to fit four people abreast. Inside was chaos. Four rows of long tables stretched nearly the length of the huge room, and most of the people at the tables were lying face forward in their food, though some of them had apparently fallen backward and lay in ungainly positions on the floor. Here and there, other men and women were stumbling against each other or walking in circles. Four or five stood like statues, unmoving.

“Gary!”

He froze. Joan! He had no idea where her voice was coming from, but she’d seen him and was calling to him, and he swiveled around crazily, trying to figure out where she was.

And then he saw her.

How long had it been since she’d been taken from him at Burning Man? A week? Two? He had no idea; his brain could not focus. It felt like years. But she was here now, and she looked wonderful, and she was hurrying toward him from the far end of the room, dodging everyone in her way.

“Gary!”

She was wearing the same sort of drab peasant outfit as everyone else, and it didn’t look as though her hair had seen a brush for days, but she was Joan, and like a beautiful painting in an ugly frame, she shone in these surroundings, looking even better than he remembered. He was filled with a complex emotion, at once joyful and sad, angry and relieved, a new emotion that combined all of these feelings into a coherent whole and revolved entirely around her.

He shoved the knife between his belt and his jeans, on his right side, reaching for her as she ran into his open arms. There were a few seconds when it felt strange, when the size and shape of her seemed unfamiliar; then the points where their bodies touched conformed to each other, melded together, and it was as though they had never been apart. Gary kissed her, but it wasn’t a long, lingering movie kiss because she pulled back almost instantly and said, “We have to get out of here!”