“This is far enough,” the man said, glancing at the little dog that was sitting on the passenger’s seat. “Right, Fluffy? Or whatever the hell your name is.” He made another short turn and then applied the brakes, bringing the van to a stop. Putting the transmission in park and shutting off the ignition, he turned around in his seat and looked at us with something like glee.
“Oh my God! Look how scared you are already! And I haven’t even shown you the good stuff,” he said, pointing at the floor of the van in front of us. A bunch of stuff was piled there: blue jumper cables, vise-grip pliers, a hammer, several rolls of tape, a plastic case with an Xacto-knife and spare blades in it, and a pair of big, heavy-duty car batteries.
He moved toward the torture supplies, his hand touching his crotch, his eyes still locked on us, shining with an unholy excitement. Squatting down, he reached for the Xacto knife and my terror peaked. We were going to die here and now… our lives cut short. And it was going to be painful… so painful. Something clicked inside my brain, some connection snapping into place. My terror changed to anger, then morphed directly into red rage. My carefully conditioned control slipped apart, the self-imposed shields I kept in place without conscious thought falling away in shreds. The power got out.
Mr. Slice-N-Laugh closed his hand around the plastic craft knife case, and the jumper cables shot forward like a striking rattlesnake, the clamps snapping shut on his arm. The other ends weren’t connected to the batteries but that didn’t seem to matter as electricity jumped, in fat blue arcs, from the terminals to the cables. Our abductor’s muscles locked up tight, his body shaking and jerking, his eyes suddenly as wide as ours. The overhead dome light sparked and exploded as additional arcs leapt from the metal walls of the cargo space to the batteries, joining the pulse that was feeding into the blue cables.
The killer’s hair stood straight up, his skin smoking as his body jumped and twitched uncontrollably. Outside the van, I heard a loud pop, bright light strobed through the windows, and then came the crash of falling and breaking glass.
Behind us, the rear doors suddenly smashed themselves open, late afternoon daylight and fresh summer air blowing into the van and flushing out the cloud of awful-smelling smoke that now poured from the man’s face and hair.
Trey was screaming nonstop and he suddenly shoved against me, falling backward out of the van. I felt myself fall out of the vehicle, but it seemed in slow motion and my landing was soft, as if I had fallen on a mattress placed on the asphalt of the parking lot.
Tires screeched, car doors opened, and suddenly a man and woman were by our sides, their faces shocked and fearful. They pulled us back, farther from the shaking cargo vehicle, then the man moved forward to look inside. Immediately he was backing away, his feet stumbling so much, I thought he might fall backward onto me. Something firmed him up and he looked around, his eyes wild, but it was just me, lying on the pavement. Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a phone and tapped three times.
“I need police and an ambulance! My name is Ted, Ted Thresher, and I’m at the big asphalt plant just off Intervale Road. There are two bound boys and a man in a van who appears to have electrocuted himself. A light pole exploded. Inter-vale Road. Of course I’ll stay on the phone; just send some damned help!”
He kept talking to the dispatcher, and the woman, who must have been his wife or something, was talking to Trey and me, saying that we would be okay. It was hard to concentrate on her words as I was falling into a fugue, a cloud of hazy exhaustion. It was easier to just lie back and stare up at the blue summer sky, not a cloud in sight.
Some time later, I became aware of sirens and vehicle sounds and car doors slamming. A deputy leaned over me, her face somehow familiar.
“Declan? Declan, it’s Darci. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Then she yanked at my face and tape ripped away.
I recognized Aunt Ash’s cop friend, the one who brought a smile to Ash’s face whenever she came into the restaurant for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, which seemed to be often. Aunt Ash had met her when she had quietly stepped forward to help the sheriff’s department find a missing person.
“Ah hi, Darci,” I said, sitting up with her help, face burning from the tape. I looked around and saw Trey being helped by a Burlington police officer and an EMT, who was cutting the silver tape on his arms with shears.
“What happened?” Darci asked. Before I could answer, another cop came over. “You know him?”
“Yeah. His aunt owns Rowan West, the restaurant in Castlebury.”
An EMT joined us and began checking me over while working on getting the tape off my arms.
The other police officer pulled Darci over toward the van, which had smoke wafting out of the open back. One rear door hung from a single bent hinge; the other was completely gone. I could see it laying on the ground fifteen feet away. The deputy sheriff and the Burlington cop looked inside, Darci’s solid form going tense at whatever she saw. My aunt’s friend turned back and looked at me, eyebrows up.
“Are you hurt?” the EMT asked. Her nametag said Kayla.
“No. I don’t think so.” I glanced over at Trey and found him staring at me, his eyes fearful. As soon as he saw me looking, he jerked his head
