Mother, who had remained silent up until this point, spoke up in a firm tone. “I don’t believe the Carters would be happy to learn you rummaged through their things without prior permission in search of such a box, regardless of its contents. I think it would be best if you gentlemen were to leave. When the Carters return, I will personally see to it Mr. Carter contacts his office. I imagine his failure to properly request this time off was simply an oversight, and this can all be straightened out with a very boring explanation.”
Mr. Stranger smiled, but it was a forced smile, the kind you spread across your face to be polite when fed a bitter dessert. “I am sure you are right and we are all overreacting.” He lowered his head in a mock bow. “It was a pleasure to meet you both.” He ruffled my hair again. “You have a fine boy here. Please tell Mr. Carter to phone the office the instant they return.”
“Absolutely,” Father replied.
With that, the two men walked at a leisurely pace back to the Plymouth at the curb, neither looking back. Father, Mother, and I held our ground until the car disappeared from view, leaving nothing behind but a dusty rooster tail.
57
Emory
Day 2 ? 11:57 a.m.
Emory pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her free arm around her body in an attempt to warm up. She shivered uncontrollably, her teeth chattering in her skull. Earlier she felt her broken wrist with her good hand and had to pull away. It had swollen so thick the skin seemed to wrap around the edges of the handcuffs, the metal digging in. Her pulse beat against the sharp steel, all warm and wet. She feared she might lose the hand if she didn’t find a way out soon, but she didn’t know what to do.
There was no way out.
No door.
No ceiling.
Nothing but cold concrete surrounded her.
Music blared, a song she didn’t know.
Putting a coherent thought together had become difficult too. She knew this stemmed from lack of food and water, but telling herself that did little to help. Her head throbbed with pains of its own, and her mind seemed muffled, lost on the other side of the fog.
She had gotten drunk once.
She and Colleen McDoogle.
They found a bottle of Wild Turkey under the kitchen cabinet at Colleen’s house and decided to try it. After all, if they didn’t practice drinking, how would they know how much they could safely drink at a party without getting wasted? In the end it took very little, and Colleen’s mother was far from thrilled when she walked in on them, arriving home a full hour earlier than expected. Emory couldn’t remember how much they’d drunk, but the next day she was left with a special kind of headache, one that seemed to start behind her eyes and intensify as it worked its way back.
She had such a headache now.
I remember when that happened. You couldn’t walk a straight line if your life depended on it. You tried, though, you and Colleen both, hoping her mother couldn’t tell.
“It was last year, Mom. You were dead.”
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t watching, honey. How I would have grounded you! I would have taken away your computer and your phone and your television. I might have done what my mother did when she caught me drinking for the first time with my brother. You remember your uncle Roger, right? She caught Roger and me with a fifth of vodka and made us finish the entire bottle between us. I was sick for days, but I didn’t touch alcohol again for nearly three years. How is Roger these days?
“Who is Roger? I don’t remember an Uncle Roger.”
How could you forget Uncle Roger? He lived with us for nearly a year after you were born.
Then Emory did remember Roger. Slightly overweight, dark hair disheveled in a vain attempt to hide the bald spot slowly accumulating real estate at the top of his head. He fixed the sink once when Ms. Burrow stuffed the disposal up with pasta. He also helped her get a new access card for the elevator when hers died from sitting under her cell phone in her purse. Wait . . . “I don’t have an uncle Roger. Roger is the building superintendent.”
Did I say Roger? Oh dear, I meant your uncle Robert.
“I don’t have an uncle. If I met any of your relatives, I don’t remember them,” Emory said quietly. She could have shouted if she wanted to, and nobody would hear over the thundering sound of Cream singing “Born Under a Bad Sign.”
You don’t remember your uncle Steve? He would be very upset. He used to love rocking you to sleep when you were a baby. He used to sing you that song . . . How did it go? Do you recall? Something about the day the music died . . .
“Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry,” Emory croaked, her lips dry and chapped. She ran her tongue over the cracks. “. . . this’ll be the day that I die . . .”
That’s it! Uncle Ryan loved that one.
“I don’t have any uncles. I don’t have a mother, either. You don’t exist. Please stop talking to me.”
Do you think today is the day?
“What?”
You know, the day you’re going to die.
Emory pressed the fingertips of her good hand against her temple and ground them into the soft skin.
I think it’s best you come to terms with your limited future. Really, dear, even if that Monkey Killer doesn’t kill you soon, you haven’t had food or water in weeks. How much longer do you think you can last?
“It hasn’t been weeks. It’s only been two days, three at most.”
Oh, I think it’s been at least a week, sweetie.
Emory shook her head, cringing as the motion rocked her damaged ear. “I think the music is on a timer. If it is, I think it’s coming on once a day. That would make today the second day.”
Even if your little theory turned out to be true, and I don’t believe it is, just how long can you last without food or water?
“Gandhi fasted for twenty-one days,” Emory said.
Twenty-one days without food, but he had water.
“Did he?”
Oh, I’m sure of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone snuck him a candy bar or two along the way. You know how those celebrities are.
“He wasn’t a celebrity, he was a . . .” Why was she talking to her? She wasn’t real. It was just her mind. She was losing her mind. She would snap long before the lack of water did her in. Her brain was slowly dehydrating like a sponge left out in the sun—her organs too. She felt like she needed to pee, but when she tried there was nothing. She could almost picture her kidneys and liver shriveling up inside her. How long before they failed? Even though she wasn’t moving, her heart was speeding up, pounding in her chest. At first she thought it was only her imagination, but when she’d taken her pulse a few hours ago, she measured nearly ninety beats per minute. Very high. When she ran, her pulse rarely broke eighty.
Emory pressed her finger into her neck and took her pulse again, counting the beats over fifteen seconds—twenty-six. Twenty-six times four is . . . Crap, she couldn’t focus. Twenty-six times— It’s nearly two hundred, dear. That’s fast.
“One hundred four,” Emory said, ignoring the voice. Her resting heart rate normally ran around fifty-five. She was doing nothing right now, and her heart was racing. Emory didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she knew it wasn’t good.
When the Monkey Killer comes back, maybe you can ask him to kill you quickly. That would be so much better than the business with the eyes and tongue, don’t you think?