Rachel tried to push back the tears as she reached into her handbag and pulled out a Newsweek article from three weeks ago. As was typical of newsmagazines its cutesy title belied the horrors: “Acid Kickback.” As if they were reporting about heartburn. She handed the sheets to the doctor.
He adjusted his reading glasses. “‘New study shows evidence linking TNT-tainted LSD and genetic defects in users’ offspring.’” Then he read the rest of the piece to himself as Rachel sat there slowly dying.
For years, she had rested easy in the knowledge that no evidence had been found that LSD was a mutagen. Then Newsweek and the wire services had picked up a recent study by a Yale research group that set off an alarm in Rachel’s soul. The chief culprit was a family of synthetics chemically described as tryptamines, the ugliest of which was TNT, a substance hundreds of times more potent than mescaline. It was what Jake Gordon had synthesized and added to his acid back in school. According to the report, the stuff was genetically toxic, entering the reproductive cells of the female users and causing alterations in the ova, resulting in deformities in children. What startled Rachel was the figure: sixty-five percent of habitual female users of TNT-laced acid gave birth to children with cancers and birth defects. Two babies in the study were born without brains.
“Did you know for certain it was laced with TNT?”
“Yes.”
If the doctor wondered why, he didn’t ask. As all acidheads knew, TNT-LACED acid heightened sexual experience. For better orgasms, Rachel’s son was now brain damaged.
“I’ve not seen the studies, so I can’t tell you if what you took caused Dylan’s problems. And ultimately it may not be possible to tell. But frankly, Rachel, I’m not sure just how useful it is to know that. You could end up consuming yourself with guilt.”
She nodded. I already am.
“Have you discussed this with Martin?”
“Yes.” She had not expected the question. Reflexively, she lied, knowing how much worse it would sound if she had kept it from him. Although Martin knew that she had taken drugs in college—something she had confessed years ago—he did not know about TNT. Maybe someday she’d tell him. But how do you admit to your husband that you may have ruined your only child?
“Well, I think the important thing is to decide on how best to help Dylan with his learning process—working with his school to get the best programs for him. I’ll be happy to give you a referral to pediatric neurologists.” He wrote some names on a notepad and handed them to her.
She thanked him and got up to leave, feeling sick to the core of her soul.
She took a long last look at the films against the light board, thinking that she would do anything to go back in time and undo what she had done.
Anything.
6
CENTRAL FLORIDA
In the open, he was a monster. In the bush, he was invisible.
Billy liked that. He liked how he moved through the woods like a ripple. The alien in Predator. He liked how he could disappear by standing still. He liked how he could melt into scrub so that neither human nor beast could detect his presence. The excitement made him sweat all the more.
What he did not like was the heat.
He slipped out from the clutch of sapling oaks and crossed the clearing. The late afternoon sun sent thick shafts of light through the woods. He wished it were cloudy and twenty degrees cooler. He wished he were doing this someplace in the cool north and not these backwater woods of central Florida where the air felt like hot glue. He wished this were a simple snick, snick, you’re dead.
The scent-free, 3-D hooded camo suit with the fake leaves sewn all over the surface was the stalker’s dream. The ultimate in concealment, short of turning into a butterfly. But the material did not breathe. Inside the hood, his face was slick and his clothes were soaked with perspiration. That made him angry. That made him want to get this over with snick snick. But that wasn’t the assignment.
Billy passed through the clearing to the shack by Little Wiggins Canal, as it was known to the locals, or Number 341 to the U.S. Geological Survey map. The structure was little more than a six-foot cube, banged together with old timbers and roofing sheets the kid’s mother picked up somewhere. The floor was an ancient piece of linoleum over dirt, and the compressed-wood door and single window were crude. The interior consisted of a child’s table and chair, some Matchbox cars, a butterfly guidebook, a Gators banner, and tacked-up pictures of the kid and his dog—rough gestures at clubhouse homeyness, Billy thought. The place was a second home to the kid, a hangout for him and his dog, a place to play fort, games, hide-and-seek with other kids. A little tyke hideaway by the canal.
It was also the last place the little tyke would remember of his old life.
Through the brush, the battered blue and white Airstream trailer that the kid and his mother called home was barely visible from the canal, perched up on the bluff maybe a hundred feet from the shack. Because of the recent drought, the water was low so the mother had no reason to fear the kid getting swept downstream. Spring would be a different story altogether. She’d never let him come down here alone, especially since alligators mated in springtime. But it wasn’t spring—and the canal wasn’t raging and the fish weren’t jumping and the cotton wasn’t high.
So the boy came down. His name was Travis Valentine. Nice name, smart boy. The dog’s name was Bo, short for Bodacious. Dumb name, dumb dog, but teeth down to here.
The dog came first. A black mongrel whose genealogy some Lab must have made a pass at. For Billy, the dog was an unnecessary complication—and half the reason for the getup. A third of the odors of human beings issued from the head—mouths, nostrils, eyes, facial skin. Another third from the hands. Thus, the face-plated hood and scent-lock surgical gloves. Without them Billy would have broadcast his presence the moment the dog stepped outside the trailer, setting off barking like a fire alarm. But Billy was a hunter. He knew better. Still, he didn’t like to think what that dog could do to his ankle. He was a big muscular animal with a big bouldery head and powerful jaws that could crack through bone like that.
Billy heard the door of the trailer slap against the frame. “You got ten minutes, so be back when I ring. And keep away from the water, now.” She’d summon him with a handbell.
The kid moved down the little path, the dog ranging widely, snorting after every critter scent, yarfing and whining to itself. Creatures of habit. Dinner over, and it was down by the riverside with old Bo. The same pattern Billy had observed over the past few nights.
It didn’t take Bo long to pick up the rabbit. In a matter of seconds he found the half-buried carcass Billy had laid out earlier under a bush. And while the dog got lost in the bouquet of viscera, the little boy in the red shorts and white Kennedy Space Center T-shirt and sneakers came sauntering down the dirt lane to the shack. In his right hand was a long-handled net, a glass jar in his left. A butterfly hunt. The kid collected butterflies. And, as Billy had noted, the place was loaded with them.
In his mossy oakleaf Scent-Lok 3-D camo suit, Billy stood behind some trees just a few yards from the shack, his breath wheezing inside his mask and misting up the eye plate. He had used the outfit to hunt deer, but it was the first time on a kid.
While the boy was at some bush maybe twenty yards away, the scrub shifted behind the dog. The dog looked up, and before he could muster a growl, a muffled snick cut the air. And the dog’s head blew open.