70. The Threat

“Wake up. Come on, boy. Wake up.”

I open my eyes but feel like I’m still dreaming. My body feels like it’s moving, my head swaying on the top of the surface of the ocean. Is it nighttime? Everything is still pitch black.

Then something hits the side of my face, and I open my eyes and know I still have something—a cloth of some kind—over my head.

“You there? You awake?”

I don’t recognize this voice, but I know it doesn’t belong to Gus.

“Yeah.” My voice sounds scratchy and stuffy.

“Good. Very good.”

I try to move my arms, but they’re still behind me. My legs won’t move either.

And I’m cold. I’m very cold.

“You’re some kind of stupid, aren’t you, boy? Don’t you get it? Don’t you even remotely care about things, boy?”

“What?”

“Now you shut your mouth, but make sure your ears are open and listenin’, got it?”

I don’t say anything, then feel a hand grab my head and shake it.

It’s the equivalent of riding the roller coaster backward with the lights off after taking cough syrup.

“You got it, boy?”

“Yeah, yeah, got it.”

The voice sounds older—Southern. No-nonsense. I’d want to say that it’s an elderly voice, but the hand that just grabbed me felt like someone strong and big.

“You know what I hate, boy? It’s headaches. I hate when they come on. I used to get them all the time. These brain-poppin’ migraines. The kind that would make the lights go out. The kind that made you see ten thousand stars in yer head. You ever feel something like that?”

I shake my head, then utter “no” out of fear.

“And you know, that’s what you’re becomin’. A headache. A really annoying headache. But I’m not gonna let it get worse. It’s not gonna be a migraine, I’ll promise you that. You got that, boy?”

“Yeah.”

He laughs and then mumbles a curse.

I hear shuffling. We’re not the only people here, wherever here is.

The man’s voice echoes the way it might in a small room. But it’s cold. It’s too cold to be inside.

“Eyes are on you a bit too much, and I gotta account for that. But sooner or later they won’t be. And believe me, if you don’t stop all this nonsense, you’ll disappear like the rest of them. You got it?”

“Yes.”

A blinding block of pain bashes against the side of my head, sending me to the floor. I feel hands grab my arm and pull me back up. I’m still wincing, still woozy, still trying to understand what’s going on, when I hear the voice again.

“It’s hard to know which you value more, Chris Buckley.” The way the last name comes out sounds like someone picking food from his teeth. “Your mother’s life or your own. We’ll take both; it’s fine with me.”

I close and open my eyes, but it doesn’t do any good. I still can’t see anything. The ache in my head is like a mutating alien throbbing to get out.

“You stop trying to play Boy Scout, Chris. Stop trying to be a detective. Stop asking questions and snooping around. And stop everything—and I mean everything—with your little girlfriend.” Something presses against my ear, and I realize it’s the man’s lips. “Stop all of this or I will kill you, Chris. The same way I killed your uncle. You got it?”

I nod and say “yes” or think I say “yes,” because sometime shortly after this I black out again.