“Are you serious?” I said with disbelief. “Just hack it.”
“You must watch too much TV,” he snarled. “I can’t just ‘beep! boop! beep! I think I’m into their mainframe, officer!’”
He looked at me resentfully. I wasn’t taking that answer.
“I mean, I can do it,” he went on with confidence. “I just can’t do it on a phone. I’ve got to be at my house. All my stuff is on that computer.”
I wanted to protest but I knew it would be no use. I clicked back and then tried the link again, even trying some usernames like ADMIN and easy passwords I knew were common. But Spud had already been on top of that. The tiny mention of silver claws had set off alarms in my mind. It meant I hadn’t imagined those either; someone else out there had an answer.
“Can you find out who runs this?” I asked. Spud didn’t look certain but there still appeared to be hope in there. So I tore off the edge of one of the photographs and scribbled the web address onto it, giving it to him.
“Can you do this first thing tonight?” I insisted. Spud winced. I could read him like a book: Not all of us can stay up all night working, Michael.
“Early tomorrow then? It’s Saturday.” I relented. He nodded.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I added. The hesitation returned to Spud’s gaze.
“Do you even know what this is?” he said. “I mean…we really just found out that there was a man who tried to kill you. Aren’t you worried about telling the police?”
I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d forgotten all about the terror I’d experienced the night before because all my thoughts had become enveloped in the embrace of the mystery that’d come up. It was like the murder attempt was suddenly just a small piece of something so much larger that the original fear had been scared right out of me.
“Let’s keep it to us for now,” I told him. “I just… I want to find out why he wanted to kill me. And they might not even believe me just because I found a car.”
“But if there was one guy, what if someone else tries finish what he started?” Spud asked. He sounded far more afraid for me than I was.
“Now you’re the one talking conspiracy theories,” I said, putting on a reassuring smile.
I was good at acting confident. It was enough to convince Spud to stuff the note into his pocket without any more protest.
Still, the racing feeling that shot through every vein in my body told a different story. A simple murder attempt against me was too large for me to comprehend—but now there was more. Unintentionally, my hands had unfolded the newspaper clipping one more time. I was greeted by the girl’s face again and the mysteries that it bore.
Who are you? Maybe if she’d been alive, she could have told me what was going on.
When Spud wasn’t looking, I stuffed the newspaper into my pocket. I couldn’t help but glance back over my shoulder as we left the car behind, the folder of photographs in my hand. With its window broken, the car didn’t appear nearly as prestigious as it had before. Now it was like a lonely, injured beast staring after us, warning me that I should stop now…that I was venturing deep into something that I shouldn’t.
Spud didn’t say a single word during our drive home. I could feel his anxiety from across the truck. He remembered to leave me at the corner and I let him go without trying to diffuse the anxious air. I knew if I said anything, it’d do little but frighten us both even more.
Getting back into my room proved to be much more difficult than getting out had been. My mom knew all my tricks now, and it’d be a shame for me to be found when I was nearly able to hang a “1” on the mental X DAYS SINCE MICHAEL WAS CAUGHT sign.
Luckily, we kept a long aluminum ladder stored between our house and the neighbor’s. But if I used it to get onto the garage, I wouldn’t be able to hide the ladder once I was up. Since I couldn’t go back in through my room, I lifted the ladder onto the side of the house and climbed toward my sister’s bedroom window instead.
The window was unlocked, as usual. That was our deal. My sister knew that I sneaked out sometimes to do work for clients, and it was her unspoken vote of support to give me a way back in again. She didn’t care about the college money she could’ve gained; she wanted to be screenwriter fresh out of high school anyway. If she’d been anyone else’s sister she probably would have turned me in long ago, but she was Alli.
I crept inside and eased the ladder away, so that it went across the space between our houses and tapped the roof of our neighbor’s. I stood like Dracula over the bed, arms frozen out as I listened for any stirring from my mom’s bedroom. Nothing. In the morning I would take the ladder down, but this was just in case she happened to walk outside before I could.
I checked on Alli briefly but she was still sound asleep, so I hurried out. I closed my bedroom door behind me but even then I didn’t think it wise to turn on a light. With careful steps I went to my desk, emptying my pockets onto it and crawling under the sheets.
I didn’t even try to sleep. Minute after minute, I lay staring up at my photographs and the ceiling fan, mind racing faster than its rotating blades. There were no answers for the host of mysteries that bombarded me, and I knew even though Spud had told me he’d work on it in the morning, he was probably at his house already trying to break into the website. I wondered if I had dragged him into something I should have left him out of. But I needed someone I could trust, and there was no one better than Spud.
When I was certain that the creaks of our house were not my mom coming to check on me, I rolled over and reached for the newspaper again, looking at it in the light from my cell phone screen. I stared at the photograph of the girl.
Did you really have to die? I wondered. Spud was right: it was a shame. A waste, even, when you got down to the gritty technicalities. This girl—Callista—she would have had an amazing life. Just looking at her, surrounded by that family—she’d have gotten some degree in a nice college whose air I’d never afford to breathe, and probably marry some genius guy who was starting up a million dollar company.
The girl in the newspaper certainly looked like she had everything together, yet I didn’t get a feeling of any arrogance that should have gone along with it. She’d been heading nowhere but up, and she’d actually deserved it.
Stop thinking about that stupid girl. She was dead, and I’d almost been dead with her. I tossed the paper back. I wondered if it was even a good idea to keep it anymore.
Sleep refused to come easily. I wanted to forget everything. But my brain wouldn’t allow that. It was for that reason I was taken by surprise when I finally drifted to sleep, and felt my skin brush with icy air.
I was running again.
5
Near-Death Experiences
My legs moved frantically, winding up a circular stairway in a thin tower-like space walled by gray stone. I saw everything as if it was through my eyes, but as cognitive as I was for being in a dream, I had no control over my muscles.
There was little light around me, only that which came from the old metal flashlight I clutched in my right hand. It was like the inside of a refrigerator. The steps rang like deep metal bells but I continued without stumbling once, hearing others chasing behind me.
My pursuers were only a step or two away but I never paused to look back, only continuing to run, the surrounding chill clouding my frantic breath into a mist. The end of the steps came suddenly when I arrived at a doorway, the passage already open and waiting for me. My body raced out and then turned to close the door, but to my surprise I waited for the other two to pass with me. I realized they were not chasing me after all, but were my companions.