Julie?
Go away, Marty. I’m thinking.
You’re thinking about Henley. He really has nothing to do with us.
He does! You aren’t telling me everything.
There was a long pause. Julie imagined Marty was considering his answer.
All right. There is more. Do you remember how you were scared by the box in the hospital?
Uh-huh.
Henley had a box.
Julie gasped out loud.
The box I dreamed about?
Maybe. But there’s danger there for you, Julie. Don’t you see? You have to listen to me and believe that the only safe place for you is here!
Where . . . where are you?
There is water all around us. I can see land in the distance, but I don’t know what it is.
Then how will I find you?
First, you must find the others who are coming. There are only two in this area. One is a boy. His name is Steven and he was living with a family in Columbus, Ohio. He began his journey a short while ago. They mean to hurt us, Julie. But we must work together to fight them.
I’m tired, Marty. I’m tired and scared.
She turned onto her side and wrapped her arms around a stuffed animal.
There is no other way to survive. Sleep now, Julie. In the morning I will help you on your way.
And then there was silence in Julie’s mind. Silence filled with the painful stress of making a very, very difficult decision.
33
NEARLY THREE THOUSAND miles from Colorado, completely unaware that Lorraine wasn’t the only one of her kind, Joe Trefíll sat in the motel room and stared at the sleeping child. She’d come awake briefly a few hours earlier, just after they’d arrived. She sat on her bed in silence, staring at him with those weird olive-colored eyes of hers. Creepy eyes, Joe thought. It was like she could read everything in your brain. He had wanted to slap her, to make her stop staring. Then he remembered the whole reason he’d rented this room for two days was to give her head wound time to heal. He was grateful when her eyelids began to flutter and she fell back on the bed, asleep again.
Trefill was sitting sideways in one of the room’s two chairs, feet propped up on the dresser. An old John Wayne western was on the television, one with a box that promised the latest in movies after the insertion of a certain number of quarters. He had bought a package of peanuts from the vending machine at the end of the building, and now he sat eating them one by one. He’d have to get dinner at some point, he supposed, though he hadn’t managed to figure out how he’d do it without someone spotting him.
Damned pain in the neck. Why had she run away, anyway? He hadn’t hurt her or threatened her in any way. It was those hoodlums in the city. Or maybe it was the gunshot he’d fired off. It didn’t matter. Lorraine had run away, and had been taken in for a few days by that old lady. Trefill was glad she’d died. At least no one could identify him.
He crumpled up the peanut bag, tossed it at the waste-basket, and missed. He didn’t bother to pick it up. Instead, he swung himself off the chair and went to the night table. He pulled out a telephone book and opened it to the Yellow Pages. No particular kind of food appealed to him, but he decided on Chinese because that was the nearest place.
Not wanting the hassle of bringing Lorraine with him, he went into the bathroom and found a large towel. Taking a knife from his pocket, he made slits in the tightly woven ends and then ripped the towel into four equal strips. He carried these into the bedroom.
Lorraine was awakened by the feel of someone pulling at her legs. She tried to sit up, but found she couldn’t move. She stared at Trefill as he tied her to the bed with strips of white towel. A strange taste of wet terrycloth made her realize he’d gagged her with a washcloth.
She glared at him, as she’d done before, but he didn’t look back. He went about tying her without a word. She’d tried earlier to bring the monster back, the one Marty said she’d created to scare the landlord. She glared, fire burning in her mind, fury making her turn red. Where was the monster? Why couldn’t she stop this man?
Where was Marty?
The effort had been too much after her head injury. She’d passed out cold again.
Trefill straightened up. “That ought to hold you. I’m going out for Chinese food. I’ll be back in half an hour or so. Don’t even think about causing trouble. You think I was lying about this being official government business? I wasn’t. And there are people backing me up every step of the way. They’re watching the building right now. So if you’re a bad little girl and you try to run away, you’ll be caught and punished. Understand?”
Lorraine simply glowered at him.
“Be good,” Trefill said.
Then he was out the door.