Josh studied their footwear. Combat boots, incongruous to the tailored suits.
“Military?” Duncan asked.
The haircuts certainly were, which wasn’t a good omen.
“Smart guess. Or maybe they’re private. Or…”
Josh almost added, “something else” but he knew there was no need. His family was already thinking it.
He hit the camera’s microphone switch. The equipment room filled with the loud mating call of the coqui tree frog, which sounded a lot like digital beeping. Beneath that cacophony, katydids and crickets, and the far off screech and hoot of a barn owl.
“What next?” Duncan asked.
A fair question. In all their drills, they’d never prepared for someone knocking at the door at 3am.
“Now I press a button,” Josh said, “open up the trap door that sends them into the alligator pit.”
Duncan stared at Josh, his teenaged face confused. He rolled his eyes when he realized his stepfather was kidding. Again, Josh felt a stab of pride. Duncan could have been freaking out, but he understood how safe they were in the panic room. If needed, they could stay down there for a week. They had food and water, bunk beds, a toilet, a TV, and a computer. When they’d first built the room they’d slept down there as a family for several nights, making a party out of it so Duncan got used to the space. Popcorn and staying up late, watching movies and playing videogames. A safe area, not a scary one.
But his son’s question was on the money. If they’d been under attack—a highly conceivable possibility considering their past—the next step would be to call the police, followed by the Feds. If that didn’t produce the desired results, the media was next.
So far, the VanCamps had lived up to their part of the deal and kept silent. If threatened, Josh had memorized all the numbers for all the major news outlets on the Big Island. He could burn several key people if forced to.
Josh didn’t want it to come to that. He and Fran had talked long and hard about bringing down those responsible for the genocide at Safe Haven, but in the end they opted to stay quiet for Duncan’s sake. If they told the press what they knew, there would be reprisals.
He stared at the two men on the monitor. Is that what this was? A team sent to silence them? If so, why were they knocking on the front door? Why not an entire commando team? Or an airstrike to take out the whole house?
None of the other monitors were live, meaning the proximity cameras hadn’t been tripped. Josh fired them up anyway to take a look.
No armed killers on the property.
No one at all.
Just the two guys on the front porch.
“I guess we ask them what they want,” Fran said.
Josh looked at his wife, saw that strength in her eyes he admired so much. Someone else might have been hysterical at this point. Crying or catatonic or ranting in fear. And he wouldn’t have blamed her if she reacted that way. But Fran was a rock, in many ways stronger than he was, and the love he felt for her right then gave him strength as well.
Josh hit the intercom button.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Frank
Dr. Frank Belgium yawned, needing sleep. He was grading an assignment, trying to figure out how this student had gotten into advanced biology. The paper had something to do with the ozone layer and photosynthesis. But the experiment made no sense, and the conclusions were unfounded and in several cases outright fabrication.
Belgium took one of the student’s paragraphs and typed it verbatim into Google. After checking the results, he tried several more times with other sections.
“Dumb dumb dumb.”
The student had plagiarized published experiments. And to disguise his cheating, he’d mixed and matched several different papers, without any apparent logic or reason.
Belgium printed the Google file, stapled the pages to the paper, and wrote F on the top, along with, Scientists cite their sources. They also try to make sense.
He was about to move onto the next paper, but stopped himself and added, How did you get into advanced biology?
It was a fair question. But as he stared at his handwritten words, Belgium wondered, And how did I wind up teaching advanced biology?
A combination of bad decisions and bad luck. But it was better than many alternatives—
something Frank knew all about. And being a biology professor at a state college still allowed him to do some genetic research. Not nearly on the same level as he used to, but enough to keep his mind active and hands nimble.
He frowned at the title of the next paper, Plants’ Reactions to Household Chemicals, and was ready to delve in when someone knocked at the door.
Oh, Jesus. He’s found me.
Belgium thought about the gun he’d always meant to buy, the one he’d use to shoot himself if the past ever came calling. But he’d been afraid to buy the gun. Just as well, because as frightened as he was right now, he’d be just as afraid to use it on himself.
It had been a while since he’d had to confront this particular fear. There had been nightmares, of course. Plenty of them since leaving Samhain. He hadn’t spoken with his friends, Sun and Andy, since their wedding last March, and those were the only people he could talk to about their shared, terrifying experience. Because if he did mention it to anyone else, he’d be shot for treason.
Maybe that was the solution. If evil was at the door, Belgium could call the newspapers, spill everything, and then the US government would kill him. But the government was inefficient, bordering on inept, and would probably take days or weeks to get the job done. In the meantime, he’d be going through all sorts of unimaginable hell. Which made Belgium wonder, for the umpteenth time, why he hadn’t ever manned up and just bought a damned gun.
“Dr. Belgium! Dr. Frank Belgium! It’s the Secret Service.”
Belgium’s fear of demons vanished. But another fear climbed into its place. If this was the Secret Service, there could be only one reason they would call on him.
“The doctor isn’t here,” he called, trying to disguise his voice and make it sound lower. Which, in hindsight, was silly, because they didn’t know what he sounded like in the first place. “I am his his his… lover.” Belgium’s eyes cast around his desk, looking for a suitable name. He found it on his computer monitor, the logo. “His lover, Vizio. Why are you bothering me at such an hour?”
“If you don’t open the door, Doctor, we will break in.”
Belgium shuddered. He didn’t want to go anywhere with the Secret Service, because it wouldn’t be anywhere pleasant. And how could he be sure it was the Secret Service at all? The evil that Belgium had confronted in the past was wily.
“I am Vizio,” he said, lamely. “The Doctor is out of the country at a biology symposium. I I I am staying here to water his plants.”
The door busted inward.
Belgium gasped.
He was right.
It wasn’t the Secret Service.
Chicago, Illinois
Tom
Tom Mankowski squinted at his Kindle Fire, determined to read the screen without making the font size larger. The author, some guy with a bunch of letters after his name who supposedly was on Dr. Phil a few times, was writing about the importance of intimacy in a romantic relationship.
No shit. I didn’t need to spend $14.99 to figure that out.
The ebook was called Twenty Tips For Keeping Long Distance Relationships Fresh, and was the first self-help book Tom had ever bought. The price surprised him—he thought ebooks should be much cheaper than that—but the topic was important enough to warrant the purchase.