“Alternating current,” he said, “is indeed a dangerous thing.”
Sabrina said, “You don’t need to do this.”
“I’d hoped not. But you proved me wrong. I’m afraid you’ll have to watch the effects of your choices, Sabrina.”
He walked backward down the hill and toward the humming fence, spreading more feed. The birds scurried after him, using their wings for balance in their awkward runs. They swarmed over his boots and against his legs, and when he reached down and stroked one large hen, she showed no fear. Only trust. Sabrina tasted bile in the back of her throat and turned away.
“Sabrina? I’ll need your attention. If you turn away, I’ll have to find new methods of teaching. And I assure you that I will.”
Reluctantly, she looked back at him. Satisfied, he sidestepped and tossed a final handful of food at the base of the fence, near the lowest of the humming copper wires.
The first bird, a bantam rooster, made contact almost immediately, and there was a blink-fast bang and a small cloud of feathers blew into the air and the smell of charred flesh followed behind it. The rooster, blown five feet back, lay motionless and steaming.
The remaining hens, spooked by the bang, made frantic attempts to flee. Eli kicked the first one, catching her sideways and driving her into the fence, where a squawk of fear died abruptly in a shower of sparks. The final bird, the large hen who had let Eli stroke her just seconds earlier, was faster. She escaped the kick, ducking her tail as she scurried off, peeling her head back and uttering a high, warbling sound of terror. She sensed Eli’s pursuit and angled away with uncanny instincts and surprising speed, eluding him in a wobbling run up the hill and toward Sabrina. She was only a few feet from her when Pate finally caught her. He grabbed the hen by the neck and lifted it as she squawked and flapped, twisting in midair. One of her claws caught his forearm and opened a bright red gash, but he didn’t react, just marched down the hill, turned, and slung the hen at the fence. She had time to flap her wings twice in a desperate attempt to regain control before she made contact.
It wasn’t enough.
The once-fastest of the birds slid down the fence, sparking and smoking, to join her dead companions. He kicked the dead bird away from the fence, one blackened wing flapping against the white body, and then turned back.
“Violet, take Sabrina inside and secure her, please. Leave her enough mobility to pluck feathers, though. Sometimes sensory cues are necessary for a lesson to take hold.”
Violet hurried down to collect the birds. She shoved the fastest hen, the last one to die, into Sabrina’s hands. The body was still warm, and Sabrina could see that one eye had ruptured. Blood ran from the eye and over the beak. The smell of burned flesh and feathers was heavy.
Eli watched with a smile.
“Good news,” he said. “You’ll have a break from the oatmeal now.”
17
Jeff dropped Mark off at his car, which was still in the park, unbothered.
“You should be driving west with me,” Jeff said. “Go home, get some sleep, and we’ll talk through this.”
Mark nodded, but they both knew he had no intention of doing anything close to that. Jeff sighed and said, “You want help finding the kid?”
“No. I don’t want you any more involved than you already are. I’m sorry.”
“Just be careful. You’ll make the right decisions at the right times. I still believe that, like I said. But on your way there…watch your ass, Markus.”
“I will.”
Jeff drove away and then Mark was alone in the park. Everything about the place felt right except for the smell. The flower-and-orange-tinged air had an undertone of smoke this morning.
He didn’t know the boy’s name or where he lived. It was just past dawn and if he began knocking on doors he was sure to cause a stir and have his friends from the DeLand police called back out. It seemed like a problem, and yet somehow he wasn’t troubled by the task of finding the boy. He thought the boy would find him.
He was right.
It was no more than twenty minutes after Jeff left, and Mark had spent the time walking the streets of the camp, passing twice by the burned-out remains of 49B, glancing at it only briefly before moving on but feeling a bone-deep chill each time, remembering the blond woman’s smile and the glitter of the knives in the flashlight glow. He was on his third pass when a voice came from behind him.
“They put you in handcuffs. Why was that?”
When he turned, the boy was standing beside the hedge Mark had just passed, looking as if he’d been there all the while.
Mark said, “They were afraid I was one of the bad people. Then they figured out I wasn’t.”
The boy nodded.
“Did you sleep at all?” Mark said.
“No. I was waiting. Did you sleep?”
“No.” Mark looked from him to the houses nearby and said, “Son, who are your parents?”
The boy didn’t answer. Instead, he reached in his pocket and withdrew Mark’s cell phone. There was a bloodstain on the case.
“I kept it. Didn’t tell anybody either.”
“Thank you. That was brave, but it was the right thing.”
The boy regarded him with flat eyes. “You fit in here. Not in the house where you went last night, but here. In the camp.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
The boy looked disappointed in Mark. He handed the phone over, though, and then stepped back.
“You think I’ll see Dixie again?” he asked.
“No,” Mark said. “I’m very sorry. She was-”
“I know what happened. I watched them take her body away. But sometimes I see them again. Like with Walter. I wonder if she’ll be like that.”
“I hope not,” Mark said.
“Then you don’t understand what it’s like. That’s okay. Dixie always told me everyone had different learning speeds. You know what that means? We all figure it out, just at different times. I’m early, she said.”
Mark pocketed the cell phone and took a step back, as if the child posed a threat.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “All I can say is thank you. You helped me last night. Saved me.”
“Not yet. You might still die. Maybe soon.” He said it calmly and thoughtfully.
“I hope not.”
“Me too. But it will be close, I think. If you go to the mountains, it will be close.”
“Who said anything about mountains?” Mark asked. “Son, which one of them said anything about mountains?”
But the boy didn’t answer. He just lifted his hand in a wave and ducked back through the hedge in a soft rustle of leaves, and then Mark was alone again on the strange street with the smell of smoke in the air.
18
Mark used Jeff London’s username and password to run a reverse match of the license-plate number from the red truck with the registration through the BMV.
He knew by now that it wasn’t going to produce anyone named Myron Pate, but he was still expecting to find a male name. Instead, the BMV records returned a corporation: Wardenclyffe Ventures, LLC.
It was a smart choice. Registering the car under a corporation prevented the immediate attachment of a human, and unless pains had been taken to associate the license plate with an arrest warrant, it would keep any officer who ran the plate from seeing a driver’s record or conviction history. There was an address for the LLC, though, in Daytona, Florida, not far away, and every LLC needed a registered agent. The smoke screen was effective enough to deter cursory police attention but not much more. Mark went to the Florida secretary of state’s page and found the registered agent of Wardenclyffe Ventures: a Janell Cole.