“Did you ever get ahold of Joan’s parents?” he asked. He knew they hadn’t, but he wanted to introduce the subject, wanted them to discover that her parents were missing, too.
“No,” Williams admitted. “No one’s answered at that number.”
If the police knew her parents had disappeared as well, they would be much more likely to ramp up Joan’s investigation. Gary longed to just come out and tell the detective that they, too, were missing and that there was a dead dog stuck in the pet entrance of their kitchen. But that would involve divulging that he had been to their house, which in the eyes of the cops would probably connect him to their disappearance and would definitely implicate him in the crime of breaking and entering. So he only said, “Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
“Possibly,” Williams acknowledged.
“Ever think of calling the cops up there?” Brian asked. “Tell them to check it out? I don’t want to overwhelm your little brains, but that just seems like common sense to me.”
Gary almost smiled. As always, he was grateful for his friend’s fearlessness, but he kept an eye on Williams and Tucker. Cops didn’t take too well to open displays of defiance, and he didn’t want Brian arrested on some trumped-up charge of resisting arrest.
Williams met Gary’s gaze, ignoring Brian. “I believe that your girlfriend disappeared, and we’ll do everything we can to find her.”
What kind of wishy-washy promise was that?
At least he could take comfort in the knowledge that she was alive.
But he’d always thought that she was alive, and the desperation he’d heard in her voice on the phone for those few brief seconds made him even more eager than he had been before to rescue her, to get her back.
Williams must have noticed how lame his promise sounded. “Don’t worry,” the detective assured him. “We will find her.”
Gary nodded. “Okay,” he said.
But he didn’t believe it.
Ten
Gary grabbed the textbooks from his desk. It felt disloyal to be going to class, almost as though he was turning his back on Joan, leaving her to rot in whatever hellhole served as her prison, but he had missed most of this week already, and if he wanted to stay in college and retain his scholarship and grant money, he was going to have to keep up with the coursework. Since this wasn’t high school, and there was no one taking attendance, he figured if he could just find out the reading requirements and homework assignments for the next several sessions, he’d be able to get by without actually attending his classes.
In case something else came up.
Which it undoubtedly would.
Besides, there was nothing he or his friends could do right now. They’d reached a dead end in their pathetic amateur investigation, and it was up to the police to carry the ball. This was the perfect time to go back to class. It might even take his mind off everything for a few hours.
Only it didn’t. The day seemed to last forever, the hours dragging, even lunch with Reyn passing by in slow motion. Of course, he was running on three hours of sleep, so his perception of time was undoubtedly skewed, but it all seemed so interminable.
Especially when he thought about what Joan was probably going through.
Gary! I’m—
He explained what was going on to Bergman, Garcia, Choy and Bernard, his European history, sociology, classical mythology and statistics professors, and they were all extremely understanding and accommodating. His Shakespeare instructor, Neilson, as expected, was not. Neilson informed him that he did not appreciate truancy, that he kept track of absences, and that if Gary thought he could skate by doing the bare minimum, he had another think coming. Gary nodded politely, took the beating, then immediately walked over to the admissions office and asked for a drop form. There was no way he’d get a fair shake in that class—particularly if he had to miss even more days—and since it was still the beginning of the semester, it was easy to drop the course. He still needed another three units to maintain his scholarship, however, and after talking to a counselor, he discovered that Renaissance literature fulfilled the same requirement. The class was still open, so he picked up an add form and went over to the English department office to get everything squared away. He met with the instructor, Dr. Davies, was given a syllabus, then headed over to the bookstore to buy his texts for the class.
He had a lot of reading to catch up on—in every subject—and he considered going to the library to study. But he felt more comfortable reading in his own room. The artificial silence of libraries put him on edge, made him feel self-conscious about making even the slightest sound or movement, and it seemed easier to study in a more open, natural environment. He grabbed a Monster Energy drink from the refrigerated display case near the cash register—he needed an extra jolt of caffeine to see him through that statistics book—then carried everything across campus to his dorm. He opened the door to his room—
And three men were waiting for him.
He had time to note that they were wearing odd clothes, almost Amish-like garb, and that one of them had a bald and peculiarly shaped head, and then they were upon him, the one with the weird head grabbing his right arm, another his left, while the third man punched him in the stomach and closed the door. Gary couldn’t cry out or fight back. He was too busy sucking in air and trying to breathe. He was jerked erect, and for several seconds he heard the three men talking in a language that seemed not just foreign but alien. They were wearing homemade shoes, he noticed as he continued to raggedly draw in air. Ugly brown things that sort of resembled moccasins.
Turning his head, he stared at the bald guy, who for some reason seemed unnervingly familiar.
Michael Berryman. The head mutant from Wes Craven’s original The Hills Have Eyes.
That was who he looked like.
The man pulled his arm tighter.
The third man withdrew something from a brown burlap sack that was hanging from his shoulder by a rough rope. A cloth. No, a gag. Gary tried to struggle, but he was in pain and still out of breath, and he wasn’t strong enough to do more than wiggle in his captors’ grasp. The gag was pulled taut and placed over his mouth, then tied around the back of his head. He wondered whether the men were going to execute him or leave him bound here in the room or take him somewhere. The latter seemed the least likely. He didn’t see how his abductors could take him down the halls of the dorm, out of the building and through the campus without attracting suspicion, although he sure hoped they would try. It was his best chance.
Gary wrinkled his nose, wanting to spit. The gag tasted strange, he thought. Like dirt or some type of root. And…
… and…
… and suddenly he felt calm. Not exactly happy but… content. The pain he’d been experiencing, the fear and anger that had filled him, all drifted away, replaced by a comfortable tranquillity. He’d been drugged, he knew, but there was nothing he could do about it, and the knowledge lay useless and dormant beneath layers of blissful inertia that were compelling him to relax, to take it easy.
The gag was removed from his mouth. He knew he should scream and fight back, but he didn’t want to, he couldn’t, and he was led out of his room by the three men, one in front and two behind him. They didn’t have to support him on their shoulders or lead him by the hand as though he were drunk; he went along willingly, docile and compliant but perfectly in control of his body. The four of them walked downstairs like old friends and up the concrete path that led out to the street.
Their car, a generic white midsize vehicle with a Hertz sticker on the back window, was parked in a red zone, and a ticket was pressed against the windshield, held down by one of the wiper blades. In a single movement, the guy who’d punched him pulled out the ticket and threw it into the air, where it fluttered down to the ground. For some reason, Gary thought that was hilarious, and he started laughing. He thought he’d never be able to stop, but then he was pushed gently down into the backseat of the car, and he understood intellectually, if not emotionally, the seriousness of his situation.