Here Comes Mr. Trouble

20

When Eric and Fiona peeked around the shade covering the bedroom window, they saw nothing but an empty front yard.

“Maybe they left,” Eric said.

Fiona was silent for a moment. “Show me where you first saw them.”

Eric led her through the dark, silent house to the kitchen window. He pulled the curtain back an inch so they could both look out.

He’d been hoping the backyard would be as empty as the front, but it wasn’t even close.

Not only were Peter Garr and the gardener there, but so were Tommy Bird and Kyle Sanders. And Sam Lincoln, the kid who had picked on Eric the first day things had started turning bizarre. And Ronnie Welles, and Andy Venton, and Rick Marks and a couple of adults Eric didn’t recognize. They were all standing in Maggie’s backyard, staring at the house.

“How many do you count?” Fiona whispered.

“Ten,” Eric said.

“That’s not possible,” she muttered to herself.

Peter Garr’s head tilted back, ready to sniff the air again.

“Shut it,” Fiona ordered.

Eric let the curtain drop then followed Fiona into the hallway outside Mr. Ortega’s den. It was one of the few places in the house with no windows.

“You’re sure? Ten?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why? How many did you count?”

She hesitated, then said, “Ten.”

“Why are there so many?” he asked.

“Not why. How?” She pulled out her cell. “They’re in the backyard,” she said into it a moment later. “Ronan, there are ten of them…Yes, ten…I don’t know…” Her face suddenly looked shocked. “What?…But that makes at least sixteen…How could they possibly…Okay, we’ll be ready. Just hurry.”

As she hung up, she said, “Get dressed, then meet me back in the bedroom and help me wake up the girls.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Get out of here while we still can.”

Eric dressed in the living room and gathered his things, including the pamphlet and the Thomas Leatherwood letter, putting them all in his backpack. As soon as his bag was slung over his shoulders, he headed back to Maggie’s room. When he reached the door, he knocked in case Fiona was still changing.

“Hurry. Come in,” she called out.

She was dressed and kneeling next to Keira, trying to shine the light from her phone into her sister’s eyes.

“It’s not working,” she said, frustrated. “Did you do anything special?

He shook his head. “Your brother said since you and I came into contact with the talisman, we might be less…open, I guess, to whatever it is that’s happening to them.”

“Less vulnerable,” she said.

“Yeah.”

Fiona held the light in front of her sister’s eye for a moment longer and then gave up. “We’re going to have to carry them.”

“Carry them? But…but…”

How were they going to carry two girls? Maggie, maybe. She was as small as Fiona and they could probably move her. But Keira was taller than any of them, including her older sister.

Fiona must have figured out what he was thinking. “We’ll take them one at a time.”

They started with Maggie. Eric grabbed her by the shoulders while Fiona took her feet. Just before they lifted her, Eric noticed Maggie’s glasses sitting on her nightstand.

He nodded toward them. “She’s going to need those.”

Fiona set Maggie’s feet down, grabbed the glasses, and put them on Maggie’s face.

“They might fall off,” Eric said.

“Not if we don’t turn her over. Now, let’s move.”

They carried Maggie to the front door and carefully set her down. Keira was next. Surprisingly, she wasn’t as difficult to move as Eric had anticipated. Though she was tall, she wasn’t particularly heavy.

Once they set her next to Maggie, Eric said, “What about Maggie’s parents?”

“They’ll be fine. The Makers aren’t interested in them.”

“Well, then, what happens when they wake up in the morning and we’re not here?”

Fiona thought for a moment, then said, “Give me a piece of paper.”

He ripped one out of a notebook in his backpack and handed it to her.

“A pen, too,” she said.

“I only have pencils.” He handed one to her.

She sat down at the dining room table and held the pencil above the paper for several seconds.

“I wish Keira was awake,” she said. “She could probably fake Maggie’s handwriting. I’ll just have to make it from me.”

“Make what?” Eric asked.

Instead of answering, she started writing. When she finished, she turned the paper so he could read it:

“They’re not going to believe that,” Eric said.

“Sure they are.”

“No way. They’re going to come in here first thing in the morning and wonder where we’ve all gone.”

“I don’t know about you, but it was really hard for me to wake up. And I had you forcing it on me. My guess is, her parents won’t even open their eyes until almost lunch time.”

“You think so?” he asked, unsure.

“It’s a guess, but based on everything we’ve learned over the years, a good one.”

“So you’ve seen something like this before.”

Fiona frowned. “Not quite at this scale, but similar.”

Her phone rang.

“Hello?” She nodded every couple of seconds, then said, “Okay,” and hung up. She turned to Eric. “They’ll be here in two minutes. Check the backyard.”

He crossed over to the sliding glass door in the living room, and parted the floor-to-ceiling curtains a few inches in the middle. The Maker surrogates were still there but something seemed different.

He counted them then looked back at Fiona. “Four are missing. Including Peter.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Should we check out front?”

Just then her cell phone beeped. She looked down at the text message on the screen.

“We’ll know soon enough. Time to go.”