THE BUILDING ON Perkiomen Avenue where the Windale Press keeps its offices looks the same as it did when I left there on Friday, but it feels different. It feels tall and dark and crooked in the waning daylight, like the Bates house in Psycho. That makes me think of the Sunrise Theater. Every October they have Flick or Freak nights when they play old horror movies from sundown to sunup. The Hitchcock ones are my favorite. Not because they’re very scary, but because of the tension. You can feel something terrible coming in Hitchcock’s movies. A lingering sense of dread that you can’t quite figure out until it’s too late.
That’s what I feel now.
I glance up and down the street again, making sure I don’t see any flashes of green coming toward me. Or black leather, for that matter. It’s strange to think that I’m less afraid of the Bug Man than I am of Higgins, but there it is. So far, Higgins is still the one who’s done the most damage here. The worst thing the Bug Man’s done is kidnap Kimberly, and according to Sonya, there’s a chance that Kim’s still alive. Not to mention the Bug Man may have saved our asses at Sonya’s house. Why would he do that?
It, I remind myself. Why would it do that?
The word anomaly keeps knocking around in my head, like the clapper in a church bell.
As I hobble up the steps to the Press office door, I wince with every small motion of my broken leg. The pain has reached an overwhelming peak—the whole thing is swollen, pressing painfully against the inside of my cast; that grinding-bone sensation is still there, maybe worse than ever; and I can feel it throbbing from thigh to ankle in time with my pulse. I’m starting to understand that I may be doing permanent damage to my leg.
It doesn’t matter right now, though. There’s not a lot I can do to help that situation. I’m about to find out if there’s anything I can help.
The buzzer sounds when I press the button. When I was here Friday, Don answered almost immediately, because he was expecting me. This time, there’s no response.
“C’mon,” I mutter, pushing the button again. “Don! Don, are you in there?” I holler, leaning on my crutch and cupping my hands around my mouth. I realize I’m probably drawing attention to myself, but Higgins hasn’t exactly posted WANTED signs around town. Besides, she probably doesn’t want any more eyes on her than necessary, which means she can’t put eyes on us. That’s what the trackers were for, I imagine, so she could keep tabs on me and Sonya and Gabe without being too conspicuous. The people of Windale are gossip-hungry vultures, just like in any small town—if there’s a lot of chatter and it’s about you, then you’re probably up to no good.
I press my whole palm against the door buzzer, as if applying more pressure will somehow make it louder. “Don! If you’re in there, open up! It’s Charlie! Charlie Bencroft!”
Behind the door, I hear movement—some rustling papers, hollow footsteps, angry muttering. Then Don’s voice, saying, “Now is not a good time, Mr. Bencroft.” His voice is wavering and pitchy.
“Don,” I say through the door. I glance up at the half-circle window in the top of the door, expecting to see Don there, watching me through the sheer curtain. He’s not, but I still feel like someone is looking. “Don, please. I really need your help. I’m … I’m in kind of a situation here—”
The door flies open then, so fast I hardly hear the knob turn. The hinges squeal.
“I know exactly what kind of situation you’re in, Mr. Bencroft,” Don says, his voice low and harsh. He’s got his trench coat on, as if I caught him just as he was leaving. “My sources around town tell me the army is everywhere.”
I have to scoff. “Your sources? You mean Maureen Newcomb at the hair salon?”
Don scowls. “Very funny, Bencroft. You have no idea what I know, okay? First, the army was looking for your friend, the Dowd girl. Supposedly, anyway. Mostly they were looking for … something else. And now? Now, they’re looking for you.” He jabs his pointer finger at me. “Along with the chief’s son and Dr. Gutierrez’s daughter.”
Something in my expression must tell him he’s right, because he folds his arms and leans against the doorframe with smug satisfaction. But then he looks me over—at my leg and my crutch and the way I must look, pale and sweaty and struggling to stand up straight—and his expression softens.
Mine doesn’t. I haul myself up one more step, until I’m right under Don’s chin. “Listen, McGruff the Crime Dog. You’re right. Is that what you want to hear? I didn’t come here because I want to put you in any danger—I think the whole town is deep enough into that already. I came here because you know what goes on in Windale better than anyone, and I need your help.”
The tension goes out of his shoulders, and he looks away for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek. Then his eyes swing back to me. “Go on,” he says.
“We’re looking for someone,” I say, feeling a small tug of hope in my chest. I slip the Polaroids Dr. Reed gave us from my pocket and hold them up for Don to see. “Somebody jumped out of that plane right before it crashed,” I tell him. “We think it might be the pilot, and we think he can help us prove that the army is trying to cover their tracks, make it seem like they were never in Windale at all—”
Don completes my thought for me: “Before the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan.” His face is slack with shock, and he stands upright, his eyes darting from side to side.
“Right,” I say.
“Come inside, Mr. Bencroft,” Don says. He turns on his heels and disappears into the office, leaving the door open. As he walks away, I see him chewing on a hangnail, mumbling to himself.
I follow him inside, where it’s only a little cooler thanks to a box fan propped near his desk.
“You won’t believe a word I tell you,” Don says. He leans back against his desk, pushes off it, leans back again.
“Yeah, that’s kind of going around today,” I reply.
“Where did you get those photos?”
“Long story, but the original pictures were taken at Dagger Hill just as the storm rolled in on Friday. Just before … well, you know.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.” He looks at me again with what must be renewed clarity. “Charlie, you look awful. Sit down. Please.” He drags over one of the stiff wooden chairs that I sat in a couple of days ago and helps me lower myself into it. The relief of pushing my leg out in front of me and taking some of the pressure off it is so great that I might cry.
“You were right about the army, Don,” I say. “They are looking for us. Sonya may have opened a can of worms using her dad’s personal computer.”
His eyes widen. “You’re kidding. What did she find out?”
“I’ll tell you. But first I need to know that you can help me track down the pilot.”
He nods grimly. “I think I can do you one better,” he says.
I cock my head, confused. I open my mouth to ask him what he means, but then I look down at the desktop behind him, really taking it in for the first time. There are maps of Windale spread out across the entire surface, along with other papers—what look like old issues of the newspaper, typed letters with official seals, ancient photographs of grim-looking men in tweed coats. There are also two coffee mugs perched on the desk, both still steaming.
“Don…?” I say slowly. “Who else is here?”
Don doesn’t reply, but he glances up over the top of my head.
Right behind me, the floor creaks.
My first thought is of the Bug Man, looking down at me through the foggy lenses of its gas mask, the sound of its breathing thin and muffled through the rubber. If it breathes at all.
When I twist around in my chair, though, it’s not the Bug Man standing there, but a regular man, dressed in clothes that are a little big for his lean frame and definitely in the style of Don Cranston. He’s got a strong neck and a stern face, white skin, piercing blue eyes, and sandy blond hair (like Kimberly’s, I think) that fades up to a high and tight military cut.
The blue eyes shift to the Polaroids still in my hand, the blurry green parachute plumped up like a rotten apple.
“Not my best picture,” the guy says, looking kind of sheepish. “But I bet there are some from my West Point days that are much worse.” He sticks his hand out, grinning awkwardly.
“Charlie,” Don says behind me. “Meet Captain Jake Rinaldi. The pilot you’re looking for.”
“I…” The words get lost in transit. I open my mouth to try again but come up empty.
“C’mon, kid,” Rinaldi says, his hand still hovering between us. “Shit or get off the pot. My arm’s getting tired.”
With what feels like a weightless arm, I take Rinaldi’s hand and shake. His grip is firm but not intimidating. He comes around my chair and joins Don at the desk, picks up one of the mugs, takes a sip. He grimaces and glances at Don to make sure he’s not looking before spitting the coffee back into the cup. As he sets the mug down, Rinaldi tips me a wink.
“I … don’t understand,” I finally manage.
“I said you wouldn’t believe me,” Don replies. “If I’d said I knew exactly where he was, you would’ve thought I was full of it. That whole entry there was just good timing.”
“I was hiding in the basement,” Rinaldi says, folding his arms and leaning casually on the desk’s edge. His tone sounds sulky, as if he’d been put there as punishment.
“How long?” I ask, looking to Don.
“Since Friday,” he says. “I was outside trying to get pictures of the storm when I noticed the parachute through the mist. It was hazy from down here. Only really visible to me because I was using a longer lens. Then the plane crashed and … well, if anyone was looking up at the clouds before, they weren’t after that. All eyes were on Dagger Hill from that point forward.”
“Except for yours,” Rinaldi says, and nudges Don with his elbow.
Don blushes and adjusts the collar of his shirt. “Yeah, well.”
“I came down pretty hard,” Rinaldi explains. “The storm wanted to throw me every which way. Don must have been watching me the whole time, because he knew right where to find me.”
“He was unconscious when I got to him near the park.”
“I wish I’d landed in the park,” Rinaldi says, rolling his eyes.
“Tree,” Don says, gesturing with his arms. “Big one.”
“Somehow, this guy got me down,” Rinaldi continues. “Untangled the chute and used it to drag me back to his car.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.” Don waves his hand demurely. “The rain made it easy.”
“Sure.” Rinaldi lifts his eyebrows and bumps his elbow into Don again. “Anyway, Don brought me back here and nursed me back to health.”
“All it took was a cup of hot tea,” Don says. “I would have taken him to the medical center, but … I don’t know. Some instinct told me to bring him here. And when Jake came to, he was … terrified. Told me we had to stay hidden. So that’s what we did.”
The whole time, my head swivels back and forth with the rhythm of their story, from one man to the other then back again as they speak. At that last part, though, my eyes land on Rinaldi, whose face is suddenly pale. The muscles in his jaw flex.
“Hold on,” I say. “Can we go back and talk about why you jumped out of the plane in the first place? No offense, Captain, but that crash kind of fucked up my summer, and I’d really like to figure out what went wrong.”
Rinaldi looks at me, his body very still. “Did you see it?” he asks.
My blood turns icy. I don’t have to ask him what he means. I swallow, then nod once.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what happened.” He looks away, choking back his emotions.
“Captain Rinaldi,” I say, leaning forward. “Whatever that thing is, it has my friend. I could really use your help.”
“Yeah, well, it has my friend, too,” Rinaldi says, turning sharply back to me. “Or I guess the better way of saying it is that thing … is my friend. Or was. God, I don’t know. This whole thing went to hell in a handbasket so quick. It’s all goddamn Higgins’s fault.” He shoves himself away from the desk and takes a few angry strides to the window and looks out.
I glance at Don, trying to understand.
“His copilot,” Don says. “Jake wasn’t alone on the plane when it took off from TerraCorp.”
“That’s not even the half of it,” Rinaldi clarifies. “Thompson and I weren’t the only living things on board. Maybe we were the only human living things, but…” He shivers.
“The Bug Man,” I mutter.
They both look at me and say, “The Bug Man?”
I shrug. “That’s what Gabe calls him. I guess because of the mask?”
“Mask?” Rinaldi says. “Kid, I don’t know what you and your friends have seen, but the thing I saw on the plane wasn’t wearing a mask. It was … It was horrible.”
“What happened to your friend, Captain? Thompson, I mean. Your copilot.” I feel my stomach turn over at the thought of what his answer might be.
“It ate him,” Rinaldi says. “That thing ate Thompson. Or … or it became him. I don’t know for sure. All I remember is this dark … thing behind us. It filled up the whole cargo bay. The controls went haywire. We could hear this screeching through our headsets. Then Thompson wasn’t Thompson anymore. It broke his body. Made it longer. Made it faster. Made it stronger. It ripped his jaw apart when it screamed through him. Oh god, I’ll never forget that sound till the day I die.” His voice cracks and he finally breaks, letting the tears come. “They told us it would stay contained, but they were wrong. They’ve been wrong about everything. Everyone except that scientist. Claudia. At TerraCorp. She’s the only one who has any damn sense at that godforsaken place.”
“Funny,” I say. “She said the same thing about you. She’s the one who got us those photos back after Higgins took them. Well, sort of.”
Rinaldi grins, wiping his face. “Clever lady.”
There’s a stretch of silence. Outside, every car I hear is an army transport coming to haul us away, put us at the bottom of some hole where we’ll never be found while Higgins tries to sweep her mess under the rug.
“Captain,” I say when I think it’s safe to speak. “Why did Higgins bring that thing here in the first place?”
Rinaldi shrugs. “It’s a lot of science jargon. Usually, if it doesn’t have anything to do with flying, football, or whiskey, it goes right over my head.”
“It’s all right, Jake,” Don says. “Tell him what you told me.”
The pilot hesitates, looking at me the way I’d look at myself if I were in his shoes: as a kid who has no business getting caught up in government-level problems like this one.
But then he says, “I didn’t pick up on much. But what I did hear is that Higgins had one of these things, and TerraCorp was monitoring another.”
The anomalies.
“I guess they’re connected somehow, because when we left the West Coast, the thing was all but dead. By the time we were over Nebraska, Higgins was scared out of her wits, and the … what’d shecall it? The anomaly? It was the most active it’s ever been. Wreaked havoc on my systems. We nearly crashed on our way here.”
“The closer you got to Windale,” I say, paraphrasing Dr. Reed’s words, “the stronger it got.”
Rinaldi dips his head. “Right. And I guess the thing that’s here. The other anomaly. It was responding, too. The guy who runs the lab at TerraCorp was livid. Wouldn’t let Higgins take hers off the runway. He must have some dirt on her, because she eventually backed down. But … she’s a coward.”
“She was afraid,” I say.
“After she saw how strong it got, yeah,” Rinaldi continues. “At first, though, she thought that bringing her anomaly closer to the Windale anomaly was the obvious thing to do. There was something about the way they were … I forget what she said exactly. Something about the way they were talking to each other. Can you believe that? A couple of anomalies, thousands of miles apart, communicating?”
“It’s not the most outlandish thing I’ve heard in the past two days,” I say, rubbing my temples.
“Listen, if there’s one thing I know about Higgins, it’s that she is one hundred percent prepared for everything. She’ll do whatever she can to stay six moves ahead of her enemy. The anomalies were a threat. She wanted to know more about them, but the people at TerraCorp kept shutting her out. So she took the whole thing into her own hands.”
“Shit,” I say. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“That about sums it up, kid.”
“Where are Gabe and Sonya now, Charlie?” Don asks.
“At Kimberly’s house,” I reply. “Sonya saw something that makes her think that Kim is alive, so they went to try to figure out why the Bug Man would want to take her.”
“Can you please stop calling it that?” Rinaldi says, squeezing his eyes shut. “If that thing looks like a man at all, it’s only because it’s wearing my friend’s body.”
“Sorry. It just kind of stuck.” To Don, I say, “After they leave Kimberly’s place, we’re supposed to meet back up at the diner.”
“Why haven’t you kids gone to Chief Albright with any of this?” Don says.
“Because up until Sonya hacked into TerraCorp’s database, the chief was Higgins’s biggest problem. She would have been breathing down his neck.”
Don nods, and we all fall quiet.
After a while, a thought occurs to me. “Don. How much do you know about the history of Dagger Hill?”
He grins, walks around to the other side of his desk, and pulls open a drawer. A second later he comes up with an overstuffed folder that’s remarkably similar to the one Sonya found in her dad’s office; Don even drops the folder onto the desk in a similar way.
“How much time do you have?” he asks.