“A baby is a big responsibility,” they said sympathetically. “It can overwhelm someone, make them want to be free. Hundreds of children go missing every year. If there’s anything you want to tell us…”
Eventually they asked his father to come with them to ask more questions. To look at mug shots and see if anyone had been following them or watching them at the mall or grocery stores. Someone gave his mother pills to sleep and they left a patrol car outside just in case. The house was quiet again until his father got home some time after dawn. He heard it distantly, having gone to bed in his room when the light got bright enough.
As he lay in bed for a few moments before sleep he thought about Suzie for a bit. It was too bad about her, but ultimately she was just another in an endless line of children he’d seen come and go from Nowhere Blvd. It was just the way things went for them. They were children, and then they were meat.
Meat if they were lucky.
The morning after Smiling Jack took Suzie, Spencer woke up around noon with a moment of almost-happiness before he remembered the previous night and what had happened to Suzie. Then he went numb again, thinking of how inevitable it all was. If you were lucky you got to grow up, if you were unlucky Smiling Jack got you. That was it, nothing anyone could do about it.
Spencer got up to find his mother in her room, his father gone. He fixed himself breakfast, watched his favorite TV shows, practiced climbing the tree in the backyard. A fairly normal day with a brilliantly bright summer sun that cast a somewhat gray light on the world.
Just another day, more peaceful than most. Except…except he kept thinking about something. A phrase he’d heard on a TV movie, though he couldn’t remember which one.
Blood calls to blood.
It went through his head over and over as the hours went by. And each time it did he became less numb, and more angry. Suzie was too young. Younger than any child he’d ever seen in Nowhere Blvd. She wasn’t just another random kid, Jack took her because of him. Took her to show Spencer who was boss. To show that no one escaped from Smiling Jack.
Who the hell does Smiling Jack think he is, thought Spencer as he stood looking down at Suzie’s discarded toys in the back yard, his fists clenched. He thinks he can just come into my house and take my sister? I’m not just some kid he fooled with his parlor tricks. I’ve beat every trap he’s ever set for me. I’m Spencer Williams.
The thought struck him like a thunderbolt. He felt like he had just woke up, could finally breathe and move again. Like the kid who had been standing there a moment ago was an illusion fading in the light of day. For the first time in over two years, Spencer was no longer afraid.
Blood calls for blood.
The rest of the day was spent in planning, then in action. Given the time difference between the worlds, there was a good chance Suzie had been pulled over in Nowhere Blvd’s day cycle. He’d never once seen Jack work in his lab during the day. Of course there was every chance Jack had pulled her to pieces the second he was in his mansion, but there was also every chance he hadn’t.
If Spencer was right, Suzie wouldn’t be enough for them. Spencer was the one who escaped, the only one. They’d want him back. And that’s what he intended to give them. It was six hours until nightfall, and he intended to be ready.
First, armaments. Guns would have been perfect, and his dad had plenty in his hunting supplies. Only they were locked up tight in a metal case. Spencer had no idea where the key was, and he discovered that picking locks was nothing like in the movies. It was impossible with everything he tried, including prying at it with a screwdriver.
So his dad’s big hunting knife would have to do instead. Not the only knife he intended to take of course, but the main one. It was vastly superior to even his old short bone spear, nostalgic as he was for it.
Second, supplies. Just like camping, he’d need a flashlight (soon to be the only one in all of Nowhere Blvd.). His dad had them in all shapes and sizes, and to Spencer’s delight even had a pair of night vision goggles. No expense spared for the businessman hunter.
Food and a canteen for water of course, but only enough to keep him going for a short time. If he couldn’t save her fast, then it wouldn’t matter what happened after that. His dad had a wealth of other supplies, many that were hard to turn away. Tents and camouflage and cooking gear and binoculars (he packed instead his trusty telescope, which he had kept in his room). But he needed to travel light and fast, saving weight for the two heavy items. One being the red plastic container sitting by the lawnmower. A gallon of gasoline should be plenty for what he had in mind.
And the other being something special. Something Spencer had wanted to give back to Jack for a while now.
His dad came home and caught him by surprise as he was packing a lunch in the kitchen. He looked at the hunting knife on Spencer’s belt, then at his son’s eyes. They glinted back like steal. Spencer thought he nodded slightly, but his exhausted eyes and stricken features said nothing. Spencer was worried that his parents would interfere with what he needed to do to prepare, especially with so little time until nightfall. But instead they avoided him. After a while he wondered if it might be because he reminded them of what they had now instead of their good child. And how surely they had lost her forever. Even if she ever did return, she would return like Spencer. Broken and crazy.
It was for the best that they stay out of his way, whatever the reasons. He couldn’t afford not to be ready. Because he knew he needed something besides the hunting knife for when Smiling Jack came for him. Even with a gun he wouldn’t have been really confident, not with the way Jack could move. His only hope was lethal surprise, like the Rejected Thing which had got a piece of Jack so long ago. Spencer tied to plan more cleverly than he used to, to think harder. He tried to plan like the heroes on TV, always outsmarting their foes when they couldn’t out fight them. Finally he opted for something simple. Something hard to screw up in the panic of the fight.
When night came Spencer didn’t know what he was more worried about, that Smiling Jack would fall for the bait or that he wouldn’t. Even more than that he was worried his parents would interfere with what he was planning. He had no idea how to explain it to them, even if he did try talking.
It turned out not to be a matter. His father passed out drunk before it was even dusk. His mother asleep on more pills beyond any chance of waking. Spencer was truly on his own, he couldn’t expect any help this time. He was used to it, but part of him wished it were otherwise.
All too soon the sun set and light fell from the world, it was now or never.
He went to Suzie’s room, shutting the door behind him. The room seemed as if it had somehow been empty for years. Reminded him for the first time how it had been before she was born, when his parents were just beginning to prepare it. He set his backpack in the corner, closing the doors to the wardrobe and placing his supplies on top of it then climbing up after them. From up high he used the knife to reach the light switch, flicking it off and leaving the room in pitch dark save for the sliver of light coming from under the curtains. He slipped on the night vision goggles and activated them, illuminating the room in grayish green. Crossing his legs so they wouldn’t dangle over the edge, he waited knife in hand. Not for the first time he wished both to see and not see a monster.