“Yeah. Usually to have a smoke.” They found the dairy section and went to the refrigerated cases, scanning the shelves of milk cartons — different sizes, different brands. When he spotted the right one, Cole pulled the glass door open, stood on tip-toes, reached up and tilted the carton off the fourth shelf up, nearly dropping it. He let the door swing closed behind him as they started to head for the front of the store to find their mother. But Cole stopped.
“Here’s another one,” he said quietly.
Janelle turned back. “Another what?”
He turned the carton so she could see the splotchy black-and-white depiction of a little boy’s smiling face. It was such a bad picture — as if someone had run the boy’s face through a dysfunctioning copy ma-chine — that he looked more nightmarish than pitiful. But pity was exactly what the black writing on the carton seemed to be aiming for. Cole read it aloud to Janelle:
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? 9-YEAR-OLD PETER MULRAKES LAST SEEN IN EUREKA, CA PARKING LOT OF SAFEWAY SUPERMARKET. MISSING—1 YEAR, 7 MONTHS.
There were a few more details that Cole skipped over, along with a phone number to call if anyone should see the boy or have information regarding his whereabouts. At the very bottom, he read silently to himself:
A NON-PROFIT COMMUNITY SERVICE OF VALENCIA DAIRIES, INC.
“Where’s Eureka?” Janelle asked.
“Couple hours down the coast from here, I think,” Cole replied, staring at the haunting face with its smeared features and splotchy eyes. “I wonder where they go,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder what happens to them when they disappear … who takes them … and why.”
He turned and went back to the dairy case, opened the door and began turning other milk cartons around.
“Mom said to hurry,” Janelle said. “She wants to smoke.”
“In a second.”
Each carton had a face on it, some different than others: little boys, little girls, some black, some white and some asian … but all with the same splotchy features and blurred lines that would make the children almost impossible to identify, even if they were standing right there in front of Cole.
“They have ’em on the grocery bags, too, y’know,” Janelle said in her usual casual, detached way.
“Yeah … I know.”
“What the hell are you two doing?”
Cole spun around, letting the door close again. Their mother stood with her cart, frowning at them.
“C’mon, now, I forgot the fish,” she said, waving at them. “Hurry up, I wanna get out of here.”
They went to the seafood counter where, beyond the glass of the display case, Cole and Janelle looked at all the shrimp and scallops, squid and octopus, fish, clams, oysters, crabs, lobster, eel …
Some of the fish were still whole and their dead, staring eyes looked like glass.
“How did they kill ’em, Cole?” Janelle asked.
He blinked; at first, he thought she was still talking about the faces on the milk cartons because they were still on his mind. “The fish? Oh, they caught ’em on hooks.”
“How?”
“With bait.”
“What kinda bait?”
He hated it when she did this. “Sometimes other fish. Y’know, smaller fish. And sometimes other things … whatever the fish like to eat.”
The man behind the counter offered to help Mom, and she said, “I’d like a couple of swordfish steaks, please.”
“Sorry, but we’re all out. Till tomorrow.”
She sighed. “You mean, we live right here on the coast and you’re out of
“It happens.”
“Okay, then … how about shark?”
“Oh, yeah, got some fresh shark steaks here. How many?”
“Two. And, uh—” She looked down at Cole and Janelle. “What do you guys want for dinner?”
“Not fish,” Cole said. “I hate fish.”
Janelle added, “So does Daddy. He said so.”
“Well, that’s just too bad for him. He could stand to lose weight and red meat is really fattening. Besides, it causes cancer. Fish is good for you, so what kind do you want?”
When they wouldn’t respond, she ordered some whitefish.
Janelle leaned over and whispered to Cole, “Poor fish. I don’t wanna eat ’em if they’ve been tricked into bein’ killed.”
Cole looked over the top of the counter at the enormous swordfish on the wall behind it. It was shiny and regal, with its long, needle-like nose jutting into the air. And, of course, it was very dead.
Once they had the fish, they had to walk fast to keep up with Mom on her way to the register. They stood in line for a while, then when they got up to the counter, they started looking over the racks of candy bars and gum to their right, asking Mom if they could have some.
“No, absolutely not, you know what that stuff
So, they did. But not before Cole noticed the brown paper bags that were being packed with groceries at each counter.
Smeared faces looked back at him from the sides of the bags as if they were watching him lead his sister out of the store. The faces were haunted … and haunting.
On the way to the car, they passed the newspaper vending boxes and Cole stopped when he saw a picture of a little baby on the front page of the local paper with the word MISSING! beneath it. The word made him stop. He read the headline, frowning:
2 MONTH OLD BABY STOLEN FROM CRIB IN MIDDLE OF NIGHT — POLICE HAVE NO SUSPECTS
Cole stared at the baby for a while, frowning, wondering what had happened to it. Who would want to take a little baby? Why?
With a slight burning in his gut, he turned and hurried after his little sister toward the car.
They stood by the car, kicking a smashed soda can back and forth between them over the dirty pavement. The nearby ocean gave the chilly, damp breeze a salty smell and seagulls circled overhead, calling out sharply.
The musical voice of a little girl called to them from a few yards away.
“Hey! Wanna see my puppies?”
She stood beside a gray van. The sliding door on the side was half open.
“What kind of puppies?” Cole asked as he and Janelle took a few steps toward her.
“Little bitty ones.” She held her palms a few inches apart to demonstrate.
“Let’s go see the puppies!” Janelle said, grinning.
“Okay. But keep an eye out for Mom.”
Mom pushed her cart of grocery bags through the automatic door and stopp ed just outsid e the store. The door closed behind her with a h um as she fished a Marlboro out of her purse and turned against the wind, l eaning her head forward to lig ht up.
It was while she was lighting her cigarette that the gray van drove by.
By the time she lifted her head, taking a deep drag on the cigarette, the van was already gone.
So were the children.
Cole awoke in complete, solid, almost
