Chapter 3

Saturday, December 13, 2014, 12:52 a.m. Arming the security system first, Rebecca had performed a final sweep of the house at 12:24 a.m., checking windows this time as well as doors, now engaging the security chains. She had never been alone in the house overnight. She’d never been alone overnight, anywhere. Expected or not, every sound made her jump.

She dropped her coat within easy reach of the bed, piled her pillows high against the headboard, and lay back and hugged her knees. Chuck’s aside, she remained completed clothed, socks, included. Every light in the house burned, upstairs and down. The TV on her desk played, though muted. Patrol officers in Richmond hunted bad boys on Cops. Flashlights 1 and 2 guarded the bedside lamp; Dad’s Remington lay beside her on the bed. Her teeth chattered incessantly.

Distraught, she repeated under her breath: “What. Is. Going. On.” Maudie not responding in Morgantown was no clear indication of how far this bullshit extended; her sister would ignore any call or text from her on a Friday night. She ignored Rebecca by rote. Other than Maudie, she’d tried no one outside the area, either. Maybe it was time to try.

Dialing Aunt Kellie in Eau Claire, she listened to the speaker announce four rings, grimacing when the call went to voicemail. She dutifully left a message.

“Hi, Aunt Kellie, it’s Rebecca. I’m sorry to call so late, but you’re an hour behind me, so it’s only 11:56 there. I can’t find my mom and dad, Aunt Kellie! I can’t find anyone at all, Aunt Kellie, and that’s no joke!” She stopped, forcing herself to calm. Clearing her throat, she went on as well as able.

“I’m alone here in Huntington and locked up in the house in my bedroom. So when you get this message, please, please, call me right back, right away, please!” She broke off again with a sob, eyes overflowing with tears. She wiped her stinging nose with the side of her forefinger, silently cursing. Jabbing the red button, she cut off the call. The keypad appeared, and with it a startling revelation.

911! Why hadn’t she called 911? Jerking upright, she rebuked herself violently and stabbed the three digits in disbelief. Why hadn’t she done this before? What’s the first thing you do in an emergency, dummy? The speaker emitted the first ring tone; immediately, the call picked up.

“Cabell County 911 Emergency Services. Please confirm, police, or fire and rescue. If unsure, please state ‘Police.’”

“Police!” Rebecca screamed as the message started to repeat in Spanish.

“Thank you,” the voice answered, “Connecting now.”

Laughing giddily, Rebecca clutched the phone with both hands. A woman had answered the phone! She wasn’t alone after all! It took less than five seconds for her excitement to ebb, however; the phone rang eight times, and then a similar recorded voice announced: “We are sorry, but all emergency operators are currently assisting other callers. Please remain on the line, and your call will be answered in turn. Do not hang up! Doing so and calling back will result in your call going to the end of the queue. Remain on the line and someone will assist you shortly. Thank you. Operator 13.”

Dismayed, Rebecca stared at the phone. She felt betrayed, first by her family and friends, now by the services created specifically to render emergency aid. What greater emergency existed than this, she thought wildly.

She hung up and dialed again, imagining the pandemonium at the call center if the disappearance was strictly localized. She suspected the more obvious answer, however: no one was present to pick up her call.

Angry, she hung up and Googled Fox 11, the TV station broadcasting Cops. She fell back against the pillows and raised her knees, digging in her heels. When the call picked up, she immediately recognized the voice as recorded. She poked 2 at the prompt anyway, selecting the newsroom, and another recorded voice requested that she hold. For three long minutes, the voice assured Rebecca how valued her call was to the station. Cursing, she finally hung up.

A call to the ABC affiliate yielded the same result. So too, The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington’s local newspaper.

Exhausted, admitting defeat, Rebecca plugged in her cell phone to charge--God knew how long the power would last--worked into the pillows, hugging herself tightly. To her surprise hours later, she nodded off immediately.

-------//-------

Saturday, December 13, 2014, 9:12 a.m. Starting awake with a strangled cry, Rebecca sat bolt upright and looked everywhere at once. The nightmare had mercifully begun to break apart at the seams; enough remained, however, to make her chest ache in fear. Something unseen but heard plenty well had chased her through labyrinthine, root-infested sewers, smelling of rot and ruin. The creature knew her name and where she lived.

Nearly hysterical, she screamed: “Mom! Dad! Are you here!” Not caring how stupid she’d feel if last night was a dream, Rebecca dashed into the hallway and down to her parent’s bedroom. Banging open the door, she discovered the TV set to Fox 11; Xploration Awesome Planet was on. “Mom!” she cried again. “Where are you, Mom?”

She checked her mom’s bathroom, then rushed pell-mell down to her sister’s bedroom and pounded the door. “Maudie, are you home? Maudie?” Her sister’s room stood empty, lights on, blinds open to blessed daylight. She dashed downstairs to search the remainder of the house. Flirting with hyperventilation, she finally used the powder room at the front door to empty her bladder.

“Fuck! I am so fucked!” she bleated miserably.

In the small space, Rebecca discovered a truth about acute stress: Fear made you reek. Disgusted, she flipped open the spigots to wash her hands, realizing as it warmed that water still ran from the tap. Lights above the mirror showed her haggard reflection. She looked horrid, red-eyed, and pasty-faced, her mascara and eyeliner (applied to excess like all 16-year-old’s) making her look rabid.

How long before the water and power gave out, she wondered? Before it did, she ought to shower. Crossing to the front door, however, she disarmed the system, opened the door, and gazed up and down Wiltshire Boulevard. No wrecks in sight, though one had occurred right around the corner; a white Jeep had smashed head on into the Walter’s Suburban. Checking the sky above her neighbor’s rooftops, she took in the fleecy white clouds against the light blue backdrop. No smoke. No contrails, either she realized.

Her chest tightened. What happened to flights last night when people simply vanished from the aircraft? Had airliners plummeted from the sky, exploding in immense fireballs upon impact, raining fiery debris around every impact site? Fires must rage all around her; the sky should be blackened by smoke, ash settling like gruesome snow. Yet nowhere had she witnessed a sign of fire last night.

Outside, she crossed her arms against the cold and glanced up and down Wiltshire. A thermometer tacked to the rectangular wooden column to her right--she had always thought this ridiculously tacky--read 28 degrees Fahrenheit. She cautiously descended the steps, proceeded halfway to the curb, and spotted the wreck down the street. It appeared unchanged from last night. In the silence, she detected nothing but the sound of her own respiration, and the hum of the heat pump warming her house. Multiple heat pumps, up and down the street, she realized. She had never noticed the sound before.

She suddenly felt watched. Startled, she panic-glanced in every direction, and then turned and fled back inside, slamming, and locking the front door. She stared bug-eyed out the peephole, and then switched to the front window, kneeling on the arm of the couch. Gooseflesh peppered her upper body and arms; she rubbed it through the sleeves of her sweatshirt. She panted hoarsely, sounding like a winded dog. Go get Dad’s shotgun, she thought.

She raced upstairs, jammed her feet into her red Chuck’s, grabbed up the shotgun, and headed downstairs again. Outside, she stood on the stoop; the Remington gripped tight enough to make her hands ache.

“Who’s there?” she yelled. The challenge echoed back at her from everywhere and nowhere, making her shudder. She clamped her teeth together to stop them from chattering. She had never experienced an echo in her own neighborhood before.

“I know someone’s there!” she hollered. “I’m armed—” She gestured with the shotgun. “—but I don’t want to hurt anyone! It’s just for self-defense. Is anyone out there?”

Listening to the echoes subside, she descended cautiously to the sidewalk and advanced midway to the street. Like the echoes, the sensation of eyes upon her emanated from everywhere at once. The Burnham’s house across the street seemed most likely, being directly opposite her. Trembling, she stared unblinking at Duncan Burnham’s upstairs window. Were the blinds drawn last night? She couldn’t remember.

Rather than cross the street, she made for the Harrison’s next door, and rang the doorbell. Again, and again she rang it, without answer. The sensation of being watched remained.

The Remington was reassuringly heavy in her hands, but suddenly wondered if the safety was set. Wouldn’t that be so Rebecca, she thought, tripping with the damned thing in her hands and blowing her fool head off. Checking the safety, she laughed, thumbing it to the locked position. “Fuck,” she muttered, continuing to laugh.

Her eyes settled again on Duncan Burnham’s bedroom window. For a long moment she considered crossing the street and knocking out the faceted oval window in the front door and going inside to check. Illegality aside, what possible use would it do? Search another empty house? Slump-shouldered, she descended the steps and trudged to the McDevitt’s house next door.

Six houses in all she checked: all with the same result. What convinced Rebecca that things were worse than she had originally imagined, however, was that two families had dogs.

The McDevitt’s owned two German Shepherds, Max, and Kincaid. A knock on the McDevitt’s front door normally triggered a hailstorm of barking. Her knocking this morning had resulted in not a yip from either animal. Ditto the Rowland’s Pekingese, Nori. That little banshee howled at passing cars, the mail-person, anything catching its miserable attention. Had animals vanished, as well? What about birds and insects?

Shivering, Rebecca descended the Rowland’s steps and followed the walk out to the street and gazed about. She heard nothing but numerous heat pumps. One switched on with a disconcerting thunk as another somewhere shut off. Nowhere did she spot a bird, though how different that was from a typical cold December morning, she didn’t know. Insects on a frigid December morning? Forget it, she thought.

Back in her house, Rebecca twisted the deadbolt and engaged the security chain, then armed the windows and doors. She eyed the house across the street through the peephole. It could well be her nerves, she knew, but a 16-year-old alone was a sexual predator’s wet dream. Kicking off her Chucks, she carried them upstairs to her bedroom and dropped them on the floor beside the bed. The thought of food made her ill.

She couldn’t recall ever having B.O. this badly before, not even after gym, or playing league soccer. She’d have to wash her damned sweatshirt, she thought--or get a new one.

Stripping to her underwear, she grabbed a fresh set from her dresser, a pair of towels from the hall closet, and went to the bathroom to start the shower. She held still a moment, reflecting on the kelpie in the mirror and then suddenly spun about and returned to her bedroom. There she performed an act totally atypical of Rebecca Bows: grabbing up every discarded article of clothing from the floor and her furniture, she walked it into the closet and dumped the load into the empty hamper. This was a chore she mostly performed on a Saturday morning, but never of her own free will. Imagine the face her mother would make, she thought.

She made her bed, gathered the plethora of plates, plastic utensils, candy wrappers, discarded tampon box and stuffed all into her undersized trashcan and set it atop her desk to empty later. Mom would have a fucking coronary.

She had just started back across the hall to the bathroom when the landline downstairs started to ring.

Jessica 3

Saturday, December 13, 2014, 4:09 a.m. Jessica stirred awake. Where was she, she wondered, gazing all around. It took a moment to determine that she sat on the kitchen floor with her back to the refrigerator door. Why was she in the kitchen with the lights turned off? Why did her knee ache and throb like a bitch; she hissed trying to draw up her knee prior to standing. What the fuck had she done to herself? Then it all came flooding back in a torrent, the entire miserable night’s events.

“No!” she wailed, pounding the floor with her fist. “No, no, no, no!” She grabbed her cell phone, and pressing the Home button, discovered that she’d slept almost 4 hours. It was 4:10 a.m.

“Mom?” she shouted. “Maddie Marie? Henry?” What she remembered was bullshit. It couldn’t be true, no matter how fucked up she was. A quick grope of her chest and between her legs shattered that conviction, however. “Mother-fuck!” she screamed. “This is bullshit!”

She struggled clumsily to her feet and checked her remaining iPhone charge: 21%. She needed to get upstairs right now and locate her and the twins battery banks. Check Mom’s room for a possible, also; she hadn’t a clue if Mom had one or not.

“Get your big fat boy’s ass going!” she hissed.

Taking a step forward, her knee held, though she’d thought it might buckle. I need an Ace bandage, she thought in frustration, something to reinforce this knee before it gives out. You can’t be laid up in a situation like this, Jess.

She hobbled to the living room, checking the windows for any sign of lights. She saw nothing but darkness outside. Heading for the staircase, she pocketed her phone and gripped the flashlight in her left hand to free her right. She took the steps one at a time, left foot first, before bringing up her right. Go slow, she thought. Don’t risk going down on your knees or tumbling back down the stairs. She reached the top step safely and turned right down the hallway.

“Mom? Maddie? Henry?” She twisted her sister’s doorknob and flung open the door. Maddie’s bed was still made, the pillows stacked against the headboard. She could see exactly where her sister had snuggled into them texting on her cell phone last night. On the bed lay her iPhone 6, face up.

Stumbling to the bed, she grabbed up the iPhone and checked the charge: the phone was plugged into the wall charger and the battery level read a blessed 94%. “Yes!” she exclaimed excitedly. Her excitement dissipated the instant she pressed the Home button again: she didn’t know Maddie’s passcode.

“Fuck!” she shouted. “Fuck-fuck-fuck!” She nearly hurled Maddie’s cell phone at the wall, but hauling back, she followed through with the unfamiliar motion and then repeated the act, each time more pop-eyed, looking from the phone in her hand to her shoulder, and then back. “I can throw!” she choked out. “I throw like a boy now. Because I am a boy!”

She barked laughter, and then hobbled to Maddie’s vanity mirror and stared at her reflection. Jessica Castellanos no longer existed in this world, was absent until someone or something put things right again—if they ever did. Until then—physically, at least--Jessica could consider herself a boy.

“I am so fucked,” she moaned. Wait till boys saw her in school Monday morning.

Maddie had an iPad Mini, but she faced the same problem with it that she did with her iPhone. Given enough time and the patience to crack Maddie’s codes, she could use both devices. That option was out this morning. Instead, she scanned the top of Maddie’s vanity table, her dresser and desk, and then started pulling out drawers. She found the pink battery bank in her sister’s desk drawer. Hooking it up to her dying iPhone via Maddie’s Lightening connector she found the bank battery completely discharged.

“Of course!” Laughing bitterly, she tossed the battery and cord on Maddie’s dresser.

A search of her brother’s bedroom proved even less fruitful. His iPhone and wallet missing from atop his dresser suggested that Henry was out when the disappearances occurred last night. Both his iPad and iPad Mini were password protected also, and though Jessica searched high and low for a blue battery bank she found no trace of it anywhere. She held little hope she’d find her own battery bank charged. Surprisingly, it was.

“Oh, thank God!” she cried. It was impossible to tell what charge the little bank carried; the inexpensive device included no display and Jessica’s iPhone offered no guidance other than displaying a jagged indicator line beside the green battery symbol. The bank could be fully charged, or practically dead; she had no way of knowing. Optimistic, she limped to her mom’s bedroom in hopes of finding another. She did not.

Mom had a battery powered phone on her bedside table, though. Jessica snatched it up but found the handset unresponsive. Cursing loudly, she dropped it back on the base again, correctly guessing the base required electrical power to operate. She’d uttered a years’ worth of profanity tonight, she thought, especially the word “fuck.” She was sick of hearing it.

She saw 2 options here: her iPhone, or the landline downstairs in the kitchen, which she couldn’t be sure even worked. She imagined her MacBook functioned just fine; likewise, Maddie’s and Henry’s iMac’s and Mom’s PC, but all required an internet connection to converse with the outside world. Wi-Fi died along with the electricity, so only her iPhone now offered internet connectivity. She could still call out on the landline—if it worked—but that required a return trip downstairs. That idea triggered a groan of bitter protest. She hobbled to her bedroom instead, to check on the charging.

“Good battery. Please keep charging, pretty please,” she whispered. The iPhone now had a 31% charge; the battery bank was cool to the tough, which seemed a good sign. The few times she’d used the device in the past, the bank grew warmer the longer it remained connected to the phone. She could possibly get a full charge, she thought; crossing her fingers, she muttered a silent prayer.