“Well-“
“While your company is gasping for its last breath.”
“Okay-“
“You bought your wife a little place on Whidbey Island, where the real estate costs-“
“All right! All right! That’s not the whole story.”
“Tell me the whole story.”
I could see that he wanted to tell me to get lost. He glanced at the pocket of my jacket. I still had the gun, and I had slugged him unconscious once already. “It’s for their own safety,” he said. “I have enemies in town-“
I slammed my hand down on his desk and jumped from the chair. I stood over him, and he stared up at me with wide, startled deer’s eyes.
I could see it in those eyes. He knew about the kids. He knew about the fires. He remembered them.
Two years it had been going on, and he hadn’t done a thing except move his own family to a safe place.
“I think…” I didn’t know what I was going to say. It was like I had another person inside me, making all my decisions for me. “I think I’m going to kill you.”
“What?” His eyes grew wider.
“I’ve got the gun. I’ll lay the newspaper in front of you and put a bullet into your head. Everyone will think it was suicide.”
“Now, wait a minute-“
“You wait a minute. You’re spreading bullshit like it’s sweet butter, and you think I should sit here and gulp it down?”
He lunged for me. I punched him in the throat.
He fell back against his chair, choking and gasping for air. I could have killed him with that punch, but I’d pulled back at the last moment. Had I pulled back enough, though?
“Don’t-” Cabot wheezed at me. I figured that if he could talk, he would live. I was a little disappointed.
“That’s just the start of what I’m going to do to you if you lie to me again.” Cabot looked up at me and I saw it in his face. He was ready to tell me everything. “Tell me about the kids.”
“There…” His voice was hoarse. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “There isn’t much to tell.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“One day, my youngest came home early from school crying. She said that one of the kids in her class caught fire and burned to death, right before her eyes. This was the middle of May.” He paused to rub his throat and take another deep breath. “I thought she was playing a game, but she insisted it was true. Her friend Carrie had caught fire while sitting at her desk.
“I went to her teacher and spoke with her in the classroom. One of the desks in the back of the room was scorched black, and there was a black trail leading out of the room and down the hall. The teacher acted like she couldn’t see the scorch mark. She claimed that the desk had been empty all year long, and that there was no student named Carrie in her class.
“I’d met Carrie. She’d come over for playdates. There was a drawing on the wall signed with her name, in scrawling Crayola letters. The teacher couldn’t see the black marks, couldn’t see the drawing, and didn’t remember the little girl.
“I thought she was crazy. I went to the school board, but they told me the same things the teacher had, and asked me if I had seen a doctor lately.
“Well, I went to Carrie’s house to speak to her parents. Neither one of them could remember their own daughter. It was as though I’d had this memory of a little girl with bobbed red hair inserted into my brain. And my daughter’s brain, too.
“It wasn’t the last time it happened. Two weeks later, my kids started telling me that their friends were disappearing, and no one remembered them. Finally, I brought my lunch to the school and sat in my car, watching the playground. In the week I sat there, I saw two kids burn up. The other kids would freak out when it started, and then, when it was over, go back to playing as if nothing had happened.”
“What about the worms?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what they are, or what they mean. But I was freaking out, so I sent my wife and kids away, hoping they’d be safe. So far, they are.”
“Are you so sure about that? What if you had five kids before, but you just can’t remember one?”
“Do you think I haven’t thought about that? But I’m sure. I’m sure.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “That’s it? That’s all you did about those kids? You talked to a couple people?”
“That’s all I could do! I talked to Emmett and Frank and Reverend Wilson. They looked at me like I was losing my mind. My kids were getting into fights in school because people thought we were going nuts. All we could do was to wait for it to blow over. What else was I supposed to do?”
