The last thing I remember

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dateline I followed her out of the woods. It wasn’t easy. I was hurting all over and walking slowly. A few times, the red-haired lady had to wait up for me, even though she was walking with the little girl. She’d pause and watch me hobbling as fast as I could, trying to catch up with her, and I thought I saw a little mom-like sympathy come into her eyes. It was a nice thing to see. I was in need of a little mom-like sympathy at that point.

When we came out of the trees, there was a rolling slope of dirt and grass. There were picnic benches here and a rusted, dilapidated swing set. After everything that had happened, it was the oddest sight to see. So normal, you know. If it hadn’t been for the pain and the blood and the muck all over me, I would’ve wondered if my whole ordeal that day had been a dream.

Beyond the grass there was a dirt parking place. There was only the one car there-her car, a Ford Explorer, just like my mom’s, even colored brown like my mom’s.

I waited while the red-haired lady strapped the little girl into the child seat in back.

“Is the man bad, Mommy?” I heard the little girl ask softly.

“No,” the red-haired lady said. “He just needs help. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I sat in the front passenger seat as the lady drove over a narrow dirt road. It was a long road, strewn with rocks, and slow going. The Explorer bounced and jarred as it hit holes in the earth and up-sticking boulders. Every bounce went through my body in a flash of pain.

The lady and I were silent at first. But then I decided to try to make conversation. I wanted her to see I was a good guy so she wouldn’t be so scared of me.

“My mom has an Explorer too,” I said to her. “It’s the same color.”

She glanced over at me. I thought maybe she started to smile for a second, but I guess she stopped herself.

“I’m really sorry I scared you,” I said. “I guess I must look pretty gnarly at this point.”

She glanced over again. Things were improving, I could tell. She was a mom, you know, like my mom, so I could kind of read her, tell what she was thinking. She had that little quirk at the corner of her lips that moms get when they don’t want to forgive you for something but they can’t help it.

“My name’s Charlie,” I told her. “Charlie West. I go to Spring Hill North.”

She peered out through the windshield, the Explorer bouncing and tossing over the boulder-strewn path. “I’m Cathy Simmons,” she said finally.

“I really appreciate you helping me, Mrs. Simmons. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come along. Thanks.”

This time, she took a longer look at me, more curious, you know. I think she was beginning to get it. I think she was beginning to see I was just a kid, maybe like some of the kids she knew.

“What on earth happened to you, Charlie?” she asked. “When I saw you in the woods…”

“I know, I know. I must look like a zombie or something.”

“Or something-yeah. What happened? What are you doing with a gun?”

I shook my head. “I know this is gonna sound weird, but… I don’t know what happened, Mrs. Simmons. I’ve been trying to figure it out. I mean, some guys must’ve captured me in my sleep or something. I went to bed last night at home and I just woke up today and… everything was crazy. They had me tied up and were trying to kill me and I had to run for it and there was this cave…” I couldn’t explain it, couldn’t put the words together. Just thinking about it made me all confused and upset. I ran my hand up through my hair. I could feel the dirt and twigs tangled in it. “It was pretty bad,” I said.

She gave me another “mom look”: it was the one they give you when they don’t believe you, when they can see you’re making up a story to get out of trouble and they don’t want to call you a liar but they don’t want you to think you’ve fooled them either.

“It’s true!” I said-which is pretty much what you say to moms when they give you that look. It sort of comes out automatically. But then I had to admit: “I guess it does sound pretty lame.”

Mrs. Simmons nodded, but one corner of her mouth lifted in a kind of wry mom smile. “Where are you from, Charlie? Where are your mom and dad?”

“I guess they’re back home. In Spring Hill.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know it.”

“It’s the Whitney County seat.”

She gave me a strange look. Then she said: “You’re a long way from home. We’re just north of Centerville here.”

I gaped at her. “Centerville? No way! That’s on the other side of the state!”

That got me another soothing blast of “mom sympathy.” Then Mrs. Simmons nodded her head at the glove compartment. “The phone’s in there. Why don’t you see if you can get a signal?”

I got out her cell, a Razr. I flipped it open.

“No,” I said. “No service.”

“All right,” said Mrs. Simmons. “It’s always bad up in here. Wait till we get to the bottom of this road.”

I nodded. I leaned back against the seat. I was too tired to talk anymore. In fact, I’d never felt so tired in my life. I was hungry, too, really hungry now. I wondered if I could talk Mrs. Simmons into giving me some food or if I’d have to wait for my mom and dad to come get me.

In the seat behind me, the little girl, Angeline, began to sing. She had a doll back there she was playing with, and she was sort of singing to it and herself in a low voice. I guess it gets pretty boring strapped into those child seats.

I leaned my head back and listened to her rambling little song. I started to drift off into sleep, but then I felt myself strapped to the torture chair and saw the rat-faced guy coming at me with his syringe…

“Charlie!”

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I sat up suddenly. A strap pulled tight against my chest, holding me in place. For a second, I thought I really was back in the torture chair, that my whole escape had been a dream…

But no. I looked around. I was still in the Explorer. Mrs. Simmons was sitting next to me. She smiled gently.

“You fell asleep.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“We’re here.”

I looked around, dazed. The car had stopped. We were in the driveway of a small house, a brown clapboard house on a wooded road. I could see a couple of other houses, but they were far away, all but hidden in the trees.

“This is where I live,” she said. Her voice sounded different now. It was nicer somehow, warmer. I guess she’d had time to think about it while I was asleep and had decided I was okay. “You can come in and use the phone inside,” she told me.

It felt strange to be inside her house-in a normal house where nice, regular people lived-it felt good. There were pictures on the wall and photographs of her and her husband over the fireplace. There was even a big old yellow Labrador who met us at the door, sniffed me up and down, and gave a throaty little cough of approval before slobbering all over Angeline and making her laugh.

The kitchen was especially nice, all homey and old-fashioned with yellow-and-white floor tiles and red-and-white curtains and a view of the forest through the window over the sink. It made me feel almost like I was at one of my friends’ houses or something.

Mrs. Simmons gestured to a phone that was standing in a charger on the kitchen counter. I went to it. Mrs. Simmons, meanwhile, told Angeline to sit down at the kitchen table. Angeline sat there and talked to her doll, and Mrs. Simmons went to the refrigerator to get her a snack.

“Do you want anything to eat, Charlie?” she asked over her shoulder.

I had to swallow a whole mouthful of drool before I could croak, “Yeah. Please.”

She stopped with her hand on the refrigerator and gave me the sympathy look again. Then, kind of quietly, she nodded at the phone and said, “Don’t forget to use the area code.”

I nodded. I dialed home. While I waited for the phone to ring, my heart started beating harder. I was crazy excited. Just to hear my mom’s voice or my dad’s… Just to know they were coming to get me… I almost didn’t care anymore how I’d gotten here or what had happened. Just as long as it was over. Just as long as I could go home.

The phone started ringing. Then my breath caught as the ringing stopped and a woman’s voice came over the line.

“Mom?” I said.

But the voice said only: “We’re sorry. This number has been disconnected. Please check the number and dial again.” It was a recording.

Confused, I looked over at Mrs. Simmons. She was setting a juice box and a Pop-Tart in front of Angeline.

“That’s weird,” I said.

She moved to the refrigerator again. “What’s weird?”

I didn’t answer. I redialed my home number, making sure I got it right. This time, the phone didn’t even ring. There was just the voice: “We’re sorry. This number has been disconnected…”

I lowered the phone from my ear.

“What? What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Simmons.

“They say the number’s been disconnected.”

Mrs. Simmons shrugged. “Might be some problem on the line. What about their cell phones?”

“I don’t know the numbers. They were on my speed dial-I never had to memorize them.”

“Well, why don’t you just call the sheriff ’s department? They’ll contact your folks for you. You’re going to need to talk to them anyway if there are all these bad guys you say are after you.”

“There are!” I insisted.

“Well, okay,” said Mrs. Simmons-she still sounded doubtful. “Then call the sheriff.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

I looked down at the phone in my hand. I hesitated. I could just imagine trying to explain to a bunch of policemen what had happened to me. Well, I went to bed and when I woke up… Right. I could just imagine how crazy I’d sound and the way they’d look at me, like I was some lying kid.

“Here,” Mrs. Simmons said, coming to me. “I’ll call them. My husband’s an assistant district attorney. They all know me.”

“Oh, great,” I said, relieved. I handed her the phone. At least she could tell them I wasn’t a bad guy.

“You sit down and eat something,” she told me. “I put some chicken out for you. You must be starved.”

She gestured at the table. I saw now she’d poured a glass of milk for me and put a couple of pieces of chicken and a Pop-Tart on a plate. The sight of the food just about blew everything else out of my mind. My mouth hung open as I sat down at the table. I stared at the food as if it were some kind of vision: a drumstick, a breast, a Pop-Tart with strawberry frosting. I said a quick grace in my head-very quick. My mouth was watering so much, I had to wipe it before I could start to eat.

“Jack! Hi, it’s Cathy Simmons,” Mrs. Simmons said into the phone. She went on talking as she carried the phone out into the living room. I couldn’t hear what she said. Didn’t matter. I wasn’t paying attention anymore anyway. I was lifting that drumstick. I was biting into it. For a second, the taste of the food was so powerful it made my head swim. I hesitated, afraid I was going to throw up. But then my stomach settled and I started eating for real. By which I mean: I ripped into that drumstick like Godzilla devouring a tourist. The drumstick, then the breast, then the Pop-Tart…

“You’re sloppy,” said Angeline, watching me from across the table as I gobbled the food.

I winked at her. “Hungry,” was all I could manage to say as I ate. Then I hit the glass of milk. It went bubbling down my throat in a single gulp.

A second later, Mrs. Simmons came back into the room. By then my plate was just about spotless. I was busy pressing my finger to it to get up whatever last Pop-Tart crumbs I could find.

Mrs. Simmons carried the phone to the charger and set it there. Her back was to me and she stayed like that another second or two. Then she turned around and smiled at me-only it wasn’t the same sort of smile as before. She looked different now. I noticed it right away. Some of the color was gone from her cheeks and the softness from her eyes. She looked pale and worried. Her smile was a forced smile.

“Well… um, Charlie,” she said. “Would you like to clean up a little? Maybe even take a shower. You’re about my husband’s size. I could put out some fresh clothes for you.”

I thought about it. A shower would feel awfully nice. Plus I wouldn’t smell so bad when my folks came for me. “Sure,” I said. “Is everything all right? Did you reach the sheriff?”

“What? Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, everything’s fine.” I could see Mrs. Simmons’s eyes go back and forth as if she were searching for the right thing to say. “The deputies are on their way. It’s a bit of a drive from town, but they’ll be here soon.”

“Great,” I said. “You think I should wait to take a shower in case they…”

“No,” Mrs. Simmons said quickly. Then she did a strange thing. She went to the table and scooped Angeline up into her arms. She held her protectively, as if she were afraid of me again, afraid I might hurt them. “No, you just go on into the back room and take a shower like I say. I’ll lay some clothes out on the sofa for you, all right?”

I was kind of confused by her behavior, but I said, “Sure.”

The back room was on the ground floor at the other end of the house. It was a bright room with flowered wallpaper and a sofa. There was a small wooden table with a sewing machine on it. And there was an easy chair with a newspaper lying on it. I could see the headline: “Homeland Secretary to Meet with President on Terror.”

Still clutching Angeline in her arms, Mrs. Simmons pointed me to the bathroom on the room’s far wall.

“Right in there,” she said. “Go ahead, there are towels and everything, and I’ll bring you some clothes.”

Then she went out-hurried out, I thought-closing the door behind her.

I thought she was acting strange, but then the whole situation was so strange, I shrugged it off again. I went into the bathroom. It was pleasant and homey like the rest of the house. Big fluffy towels hanging on racks. A flowered shower curtain. White tiles on the walls with blue designs on them.

I got the shower going and started to unbutton my shirt. It would be good to get out of my clothes, wet and dirty and bloody as they were. As I worked the buttons, I turned without thinking to look in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

I stopped moving. I stood stock-still. My hand froze on one of the buttons.

My face. The face staring back at me from the mirror. It was me-I mean, I recognized myself, but… but I’d changed. A lot. My face was leaner, sharper, stronger-looking. And my beard… I looked like I hadn’t shaved for a day or two, but instead of the patches of fuzz I usually got, my beard was coming in all over, heavy and full.

I stood there staring at my reflection and this thought-this impossible thought-came into my head.

I was older. I looked older, anyway. I looked older than I did when I went to bed at home last night.

The shower went on running as I stood there. Steam began to seep out from behind the shower curtain. Slowly the mirror began to fog over, the white mist moving in from the edges toward the center. I watched as the reflection of my face was covered until only the eyes were staring out at me. Then the eyes were gone too. I was just a shadow in the mist.

That broke the spell. I turned away from the mirror quickly. I hurried out of the bathroom, out into the other room with the sofa and the sewing table.

There was the easy chair. There was the newspaper on it. I went to the chair. I picked up the paper.

“Homeland Secretary to Meet with President on Terror.”

Above the headline was the date. I could still remember the date from yesterday. A Wednesday in September.

An ordinary Wednesday. It ought to be Thursday now.

And it was. It was Thursday. Only it was October. I thought, Wow, a whole month has passed!

Then my eyes traveled just a little farther, and I saw the rest.

It was October, but a year later. A year had passed since I went to bed last night.

It was one full year since the last day I remembered.