Chapter Text
“I dunno, man,” said Mahdi, doubtfully as they walked to school the next morning. “After your pop dropped us home, I called Isak like five times on the CB last night, and he didn’t answer or anything. It’s not like him.”
“His bicycle was gone, for heaven’s sake,” replied Magnus, exasperated. “That can only mean he came back and got it after he’d managed to scare the shit out of us. Who else was up in the woods at that time?”
Mahdi shrugged. “You’re probably right. I bet he’ll be waiting for us in the canteen, laughing his stupid face off.”
Jonas walked along behind them, head down, hands thrust deep into his pockets. After the events of last night he was finding it hard to think straight, let alone tell the guys about everything that had happened.
“What’s up?” Magnus nudged him. “Penny for your thoughts.”
The last thing Jonas wanted to tell any of them right now was his thoughts. “So my dad didn’t go over to Isak’s mom?” he quickly deflected. “He didn’t check if he got back or anything?”
“I dunno,” returned Magnus. “I guess he might have, but he dropped us back first. We drove over the woods path but his bike wasn’t where we left it, and – you know, nobody really wants to talk to Isak’s mom much, you know?”
Jonas bit his lip. He’d done exactly the same thing yesterday, but Mahdi was suddenly pointing. “Hey look. What’s going on over there?”
A fleet of police vehicles were coming down the long road from Backwoods Hill, past the school gates, followed by a couple of facility cars with their darkened glass, escorting one of those long-wheel-base machine-diggers with something strapped to its trailer.
“Move, move!” the police were shouting. “Let it through! Traffic back up!”
“Oh shit,” shouted Magnus. “Look.”
Strapped to the trailer was the charred, blackened remains of Isak’s bicycle.
***
Magnus didn’t really remember sprinting up to the trailer where Isak’s bicycle lay – blistered and melted and looking like it had been through some kind of mangle – but all of a sudden he found himself beating on it the trailer with his fists and shouting hysterically, “Isak! Isak!”
“Hey kid! Back, back!” shouted a voice, and then hands were on him, dragging him away, and a policeman was suddenly in his face, gripping his collar and mouthing soundless words. All Magnus could see before his eyes, playing over and over like some horrific movie, was the dreadful moment when Isak had somersaulted over the handlebars and vanished, before they heard the noise of the thing behind them –
“It’s my friend’s bike!” shouted Magnus desperately. “What’s happened to him?”
The policeman – actually on second glance it was a policewoman, a young cadet a few years older than him with orange-blond hair tied up in a stern ponytail – pulled him aside. “Did you say you knew the owner? Does he go to your school?”
“It belongs to Isak Valtersen!” cried Magnus. “We were up in the woods yesterday, and he just – vanished!”
“Vanished? Ok kiddo. Wait here a moment.” The policewoman held his shoulder, reassuringly but firmly, and spoke rapidly into her radio. Magnus caught Mahdi’s fearful glance, and they shared the same look – what the living hell has happened, has the thing got Isak – before Jonas suddenly poked them both painfully in the side.
“Ow!” cried Mahdi, and Jonas shook his head at him firmly.
“Look. Isak’s mom’s coming.”
Magnus turned to look, and saw Marianne Valtersen wavering uncertainly towards the school gates through a small crowd of arriving students. She was wearing only a thin dressing gown over a grimy yellow sundress against the raw autumn weather, and white plastic flowered rain boots that reached up to her knees, although it wasn’t raining. Her hair was unbrushed and lay over her shoulders in rats-tails, and her short skirt showed that she hadn’t shaved her legs in months. As she walked past, kids recognised her and either pointed her out mockingly to each other or turned away.
Magnus bit his lip in sympathy. He hadn’t seen Isak’s mom looking this bad for some time. Over the last couple of years they’d not really visited Isak at home, but she was still generally referred to as “that weirdo,” or “the crazy woman from Backwoods Trash Heap,” – the trailer park where most of the families on food stamps lived.
When they were younger, around twelve, she’d once turned up at their school crying hysterically, and wandered around the playground, refusing to be comforted, until Isak was red with embarrassment, and the Principal had had to call the hospital. Another time she’d heard a song on a car radio at a mall park and started dancing like an exciteable fifteen year old in front of a mockingly-encouraging crowd until a mortified Isak had dragged her away.
Isak had gone out by himself from then on.
Magnus actually liked Isak’s mom; way back she had been one of the sweetest people he’d known as a kid, always asking about what he was doing and admiring his crazy inventions when his own parents thought them a waste of time. But after Isak’s dad walked out she’d started to get funny thoughts.
She’d suddenly been convinced that the chemical facility built up in the woods was a secret mind-control wing of the CIA, and a few months later she was arrested for trying to set a fire at the gates. The judge had leniency though with regard to her mental condition, letting her off with some community service, but it hadn’t stopped her going around trying to tell everyone that they were kidnapping children and performing experiments on them up there, which made people’s patience wear pretty thin.
They’d put her on some harder meds after that, which made her sleep a lot and lose track of time, and when she was awake she never seemed to really know what was going on, or even be able to brush her hair and wash her face.
“Sheriff!” The policewoman was calling Sheriff Dahl, waving towards Magnus. “We’ve got a positive ID on the bike, sir, this boy says he knows the owner, but he disappeared up in the woods – ”
“Get a statement, Cadet!” shouted back the Sheriff, but at that moment Isak’s mom recognised Magnus and came towards them, a strained smile on her face.
“Boys! Hello! It’s Magnus isn’t it?”
“Hi Mrs. Valtersen,” said Magnus, abruptly turning away from the police cadet and walking towards her, as casual and friendly as he could. Whatever happened, she mustn’t see the bike. “It’s so lovely to see you.”
“And you too, my darling!” Marianne’s eyes were large, green and long-lashed; the only real feature she shared with Isak. She looked as if she’d been crying; there were dark tear-tracks down her cheeks, although it seemed she’d tried to make an effort to make herself presentable and put makeup on that day. She took his hand and pressed it. “How’s your family, my darling? How’s your lovely mother?”
Magnus swallowed. His own mom had strange turns too from time to time – she’d suddenly start talking too fast and popping too many slimming pills or self-medicating with alcohol – but his father was able to put her discreetly into a hospital for her nerves or send her away to stay with relatives upstate for a little rest. Isak’s mom wasn’t able to do either of these, and it sometimes seemed to Magnus that the only difference between being called a “weirdo” and “a little highly-strung,” was how much money you had to deal with your problems.
“She’s – uh – well,” he said anxiously. “Is everything all right with you, Mrs. Valtersen?”
Marianne shook her head tearfully. “I’m so worried. Have you seen Isak? He didn’t come back home last night, and I hoped he might have stayed over with one of you guys?”
Mahdi joined them, his wide, panicked eyes signalling some kind of message to Magnus – what it was, he didn’t know – and Magnus had no idea how to answer for a long awful moment – and that’s when Marianne saw the scorched bicycle carcass on the parked trailer and sent up a horrified wail.
“Oh my God! Isak! Isak!”
The cadet ran over and gripped Magnus’s shoulder. “Who’s this? The mother?”
Magnus nodded, his heart sinking. “Yes, but be careful, she’s very fragile.”
“What’s happened?” wailed Isak’s mom frantically. “Where’s Isak?”
“Sir, the mother!” cried the cadet, and Sheriff Dahl came instantly over, taking off his warm trooper’s greatcoat and putting it around Marianne’s shoulders. “Mrs. Valtersen,” he said sympathetically.
Isak’s mom had had a lot of run-ins with the police when she started to lose it, but to the sheriff’s credit he never lost sight of the fact that she was a person, not a problem. “Shall we go somewhere and talk?”
“No!” screamed back Isak’s mom. “Where’s Isak! What’s happened to his bicycle??”
The Sheriff hesitated. “There was a huge electric storm last night,” he said carefully. “We’re investigating the possibility that this bike was hit by lightning.”
“Hit by lightning?” Marianne gazed at him, horrified. “Is Isak – hurt?”
Dahl took her arm gently. “Why don’t we go somewhere else and discuss this, Mrs. Valtersen?”
Marianne wrenched her arm away. “What’s happened to him? Where have you taken him?”
The Sherriff looked uneasy. “We haven’t found him, I’m afraid. He may have been caught by the storm in the woods by the facility last night – there was lightning damage to both the facility and certain other areas – and we’ll be investigating all possibilities to get Isak back to you, Mrs. Valtersen, we – ”
“A storm?” Marianne’s mouth fell open. “In the woods? By the facility?”
Her roving eyes lit on a couple of facility men, standing quietly in their dark suits next to their dark cars, and jabbed a finger at them. Magnus recognised one of them as square-jawed Mr. Magnusson, the owner of the facility.
“It’s them! They’re behind it!!”
“Mrs. Valtersen – ” began the Sherriff, scenting trouble, but Marianne was already stumbling towards them, grasping angrily at the white shirt of the nearest facility man. “They took Isak! Arrest them!”
“Oh crap,” moaned Magnus, and took off running after her, at the same time as the police cadet, but Isak’s mom moved faster than they did. “Be gentle with her!” he shouted, but it was too late, Marianne had already slashed across Mr. Magnusson’s face with her nails, before the policewoman grabbed her and pinioned her from behind. A cry rose up from the crowd of watching students, in the middle of it Isak’s mom screaming and twisting, trying to throw off the cadet.
“They’ve taken Isak! It’s them! It’s them!”
“Get off you mad bitch!” spat out Mr. Magnusson, dabbing at his cheek with his handkerchief. “Somebody clap you in the mental hospital where you belong!”
“Oh God, what a mess,” groaned Sheriff Dahl, shouldering his large form into the scuffle with the policewoman. “Sonja, be gentle with her, please, she’s grieving. Can you drive her down to the station at once, and take her statement about where and when she last saw her son. And you – ” he turned on Magnus with frightening speed, “I’ll need to interview you and anyone else who was up in the woods last night. Come with me to the Principal’s office immediately.”
***
Jonas stood dumbstruck as Sheriff Dahl led off Magnus, and Mahdi, with a terrified backward glance, joined them, leaving him waiting awkwardly behind. He watched helplessly as the police cadet finally persuaded Mrs. Valtersen into the back of her car with difficulty, and a medic cleaned up Mr. Magnusson’s face. The facility boss’s eyes were black with fury, and a few of the students turned away to hide their smiles. Mr. Magnusson and his son William were not particularly loved in Backwoods.
I want to interview anyone who was up in the woods last night.
Jonas swallowed nervously. Yes, he had been in the woods last night with Even, looking for Isak – and he would have volunteered this information freely to the sheriff, had it not been for – the girl.
The girl who had run past him wearing a white hospital gown, the girl who he’d found hiding in his bedroom wearing his own jumper and jeans, the girl who made his old bedside clock float in the air, the girl who –
I have to go back and see her, he thought to himself. I can’t leave her home alone, what on earth was I thinking, and with this decision made, he turned around and almost cannoned straight into Even.
Jonas almost didn’t recognise him at first – Even obviously toned down his unconventional look a lot for school; he’d washed the pink tint from his fair hair and only wore the slightest trace of mascara – but underneath his denim jacket he wore a Freddie Mercury t-shirt and a slim black leather studded punk collar as if he were a roadie for the Sex Pistols.
Jonas still couldn’t figure how a boy like this had gotten together with Thea, of all people.
“Hullo,” said Even, looking nonplussed at the crowd gathered around the trailer. “What’s going on?”
“Isak didn’t come back home last night,” confessed Jonas, and Even looked shocked. “No one knows where he is. They found his bicycle, and Even – it’s all burned up. The Sheriff thinks it was hit by lightning.”
The older boy bit his lip. “Oh God, no. Where did they find the bike? We rode all over the track last night and we didn’t find anything.”
“I dunno,” confessed Jonas, “but maybe he rode off somewhere else between Magnus and Mahdi coming back and before we went out – I dunno.”
“What do you think?” Even’s blue eyes were dark and serious. “Do you still think the Penetrators are still behind it?”
Jonas shrugged helplessly. There was just too much going on right now. “I can’t tell, Even, I really can’t.”
Even was suddenly looking over his shoulder. “So was that – is that the mother over there?”
Jonas followed his gaze, and saw Marianne weeping helplessly in the back seat of the cadet’s car as it motored past them, honking at the stragglers in the crowd of gawkers.
“Yeah,” said Jonas. “But she’s kind of crazy, like I said. She thinks all sorts of weird things. Just now she said that Mr. Magnusson had taken Isak away to experiment on him, or something, and she scratched him up good. She’s a bit of a nutter, really.”
He wasn’t sure why, but he felt Even stiffen slightly and his face reddened as if he’d been slapped. “Well, she seems to love him very much,” was all he said in response.
“Come on, boys!” Mr. Eksett was standing at the gates, waving them in frantically. “School’s about to start!”
Oh crap. Jonas’s plan to head back home bit the dust under the eyes of the stern teacher, and he meekly fell into step with Even as they hurried up the school drive. He’d have to skip out at lunch, or something, he’d have to –
“Hey faggot!” A voice broke into his thoughts abruptly, and he looked up to see the unwelcome form of William Magnusson grinning at Even from the hall doors. “Found yourself a boyfriend at last, have you?”
“Leave us alone,” said Even curtly, not looking at him. “We’ve got bigger problems than you to deal with.”
“Bored of Thea already?” needled William, walking at their heels. “Wondered when you’d finally move onto her brother. I reckon - ”
Even whirled around to face him, and Jonas was surprised at the sudden fierce anger blazing through him. “Shut up, Magnusson. I’ve had enough of your crap.”
“Going to hit me, are you?” taunted William, delighted. “C’mon. Throw me one of your fairy punches. Let’s see what you got.”
Even was taut with fury, and he really looked like he wanted to knock William flying but he controlled himself with an effort. “You’d better not have had anything to do with last night or I literally will kill you,” he shot back, in a voice so menacing and cold that William, for all his bravado, looked momentarily thrown.
“What happened last night?”
“Boys!” Mr. Eksett was coming through the doors. “What are you doing? Get into class now!”
“Just on my way, sir,” replied William with a return of his shit-eating grin, and they watched him saunter off. Jonas noticed that Even was trembling so hard with fury that he could hardly hold his books.
“It’s all right,” said Jonas, wanting to reassure him. “He calls Isak a faggot all the time, it doesn’t mean he actually thinks you are. He’s probably a faggot himself, the way he keeps going on about it all the time.”
“Maybe. I’ve got to go.” Even snapped, and stalked off, leaving Jonas standing alone in the corridor, somewhat bewildered at his new friend’s reaction.
He hadn’t said anything that bad – had he?
***
“Right,” said the Sheriff, sitting on the edge of the Principal’s desk. “Let’s hear about everything that happened when you guys decided to go up in the woods, shall we?”
“Aren’t – ” Mahdi was looking uncomfortable. “Aren’t our parents meant to be here, or something? When we get asked questions by the police?”
“A responsible adult is all you need,” the Principal said easily. “And I can fulfil that as your head teacher. If, however, you’d prefer to go down to the station for questioning – ”
“No, sir,” said Mahdi quickly, and the Principal smiled. “Wise boy.”
Haltingly, Magnus filled in the story of how they came to cycle back from Jonas’s house together, and Mahdi interjected occasionally when he left something out, but when he came to Isak disappeared as he hit the ground the Principal made a puffing noise of derision with his lips, and when they got to describing the thing, Magnus suddenly found he didn’t have words enough to describe it.
“It kind of had no face, sir,” he said, earnestly. “And it wasn’t what it looked like that was so scary, it was – ”
“It was how it made you feel,” supplied Mahdi, and Magnus nodded quickly. He’d had the exact same feeling; the sensation of dread, shame and utter, abject fear.
“Might have been a trick, perhaps?” asked the Sheriff curiously. “A kid wearing a mask, maybe? Halloween’s coming up, there must be lots of practical jokes being played on you guys out there.”
Magnus considered. It could have been a mask – a very scary, realistic mask – but then he remembered the hideous, skeletal body, and the long, twisted limbs it dragged itself around on. No one he knew had the body shape to fit a costume like that.
“No, sir,” he whispered. “It was real. I can’t say how I know, sir. I just know.”
“Where did you find the bike, sir?” asked Mahdi, puzzled.
Sheriff Dahl looked evasive. “That’s classified, I’m afraid,” he said, and Magnus thought that line sounded straight out of the movies. “I mean, I can’t comment on an investigation, I’m sure you understand.”
A knock on the door sounded, and the Principal looked up. “Come in,” he pronounced grandly, and the tall form of Mr. Magnusson came in, his face all patched up from where Isak’s mom had scratched him. He looked at the boys with disdain.
“Are these the ones?” he asked.
Magnus gazed back at him in surprise, and the Sheriff explained. “Mr. Magnusson’s facility was damaged last night as well. We’re looking into the possibility that it was hit by lightning too, or possibly damaged by persons unknown, so we’re questioning all witnesses who were in the area at the time. He’s got a few questions he’d like to ask you boys, if that’s all right with you.”
Mahdi and Magnus exchanged looks – what the hell is going on – and Magnus nodded slowly, because, really, what else was there to do?
“Did you see anyone up by the facility while you were cycling?” asked Mr. Magnusson, tapping a cigarette out of a leather case and lighting it.
“Only the thing,” said Magnus, and Mr. Magnusson looked at the Sheriff curiously. “The thing?” And then Magnus had to explain again, and once more the words wouldn’t come when he wanted them to, and he was conscious of just how weird and well – thin – this story sounded.
Mr. Magnusson frowned. “Not someone of your own age then? A girl, perhaps? With short brown hair, wearing a white dress?”
Magnus’s round face was a study in confusion. “A girl? No, sir. We didn’t see any girls at all.”
“We didn’t see any girls,” confirmed Mahdi. “I’d have remembered, sir, believe me.”
The Sheriff showed his notes to Mr. Magnusson. “Might she have been wearing a mask, sir? Or impersonating something or someone?”
Mr. Magnusson shrugged, but shook his head. “We’ll discuss later. In the meantime, you let us know if your friend turns up.”
“Back to school, boys,” said the Principal smoothly. “Keep your mouths shut as well in the meantime, until we’ve got all of this cleared up.”
“Yes, sir,” stammered Magnus and Mahdi, and got the hell out of there real fast.
***
Eva lay on her back on the boy’s bed, staring up at the ceiling.
She was tired but she couldn’t sleep. Since her flight from the facility she’d been on high-alert, using all her mental strength to search out and probe against any surrounding dangers. But in the dark-haired boy’s house she had felt, for the first time, safe.
The dark-haired boy had been shocked – scared, even, when he came in and saw her standing there. She smiled at the memory. He seemed sweet, though a little moody, and it had been relatively easy to lean the force of her character gently against him, making him wish to help her without understanding why.
“My name’s Jonas,” he’d stammered, sitting on the bed watching her poke curiously around his bedroom, looking at his videos, his Atari game set, his posters of some woman with white-bleached hair and red lipstick. “What’s yours?”
Eva had considered before replying. The power of a name was something she was just getting used to, and she wasn’t going to give that away too easily.
“E,” she said finally, and Jonas had frowned, not understanding. “E? Like the letter?”
“Exactly like the letter,” Eva had said, and wolfed down the ham sandwich and glass of milk that he’d filched for her from the kitchen on her unspoken request.
“Erm, where do you want to sleep, E?” said the boy, hesitantly. “If you want to take the bed, I can, um, sleep on the floor, if that’s not too weird?”
Eva shook her head, and pointed under Jonas’s bed. “There.”
“Underneath my bed?” Jonas’s eyebrows had wandered around his forehead for a while as he took in the idea of a strange girl sleeping underneath him. “Okay, I can get you a blanket or something.”
Eva shook her head for the second time, and pulled his duvet off the mattress, forming a small squirrels-nest on the floor beneath the bed with his pillow and a couple of cushions. It was comfortable enough, but the spine of a book was sticking into her when she lay down – no, a magazine. She fished it out and peered at it curiously.
Playboy, it said, and there was a laughing girl on the front wearing not too many clothes.
Jonas snatched it away before she could open it.
“Or you could – okay, no problem. You’re sure you’re comfortable under there?”
I feel safe under here, Eva signalled at him from her cave. Sleep now. I’ll let you know when you can help me again.
And now the dark-haired boy had gone to school, subtly encouraged by Eva to leave her alone for a while, and now she had to tackle the problem that she’d been avoiding for too long.
Where was Sana? Had she managed to escape during the storm?
She let her mind detach from the dark-haired boy, unhook itself from the Outside, sending her thoughts out searching lazily like probing tentacles for Sana’s presence, whilst all around her the walls of the bedroom thinned and swayed, turning from Mrs. Vazquez’s crisp lemon-yellow paint to the sickening brown ochre of the Underneath. Instead of the cleanly-built shelves and the tall ceiling of Jonas’s room, haggard branches and a leaden sky formed around her. She smelled the scent of decay, and heard the hiss of nameless, crawling things in the undergrowth.
“Help! Help!” A voice was shouting, small and distant, from one of the thickets of the Underneath. “Is anyone here?”
Eva hesitated. The voice sounded the same as the fair-haired boy she’d seen on her breakout from the facility – when she was coming through the Underneath for the first time. She still remembered the confused look of panic on his face, and his pleading voice was young and scared. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could hear sobs. Eva knew about panic; she’d spent a lot of time in the Underneath when they forced her to.
But to find the fair-haired boy she’d have to go deeper into the Underneath. And she wasn’t going back there in a hurry, not by a long chalk.
Not this way.
Eva turned her mind around with an effort, and the twisted forms of the Underneath and the boy’s distant cries receded around her. She blinked back up at the clean, white-painted ceiling, forcing herself to think clearly.
There was another way to contact Sana – using the dark Inbetween world that they had introduced her to – where only their minds could meet and talk without their physical bodies being present; a dark, echoing chamber that lay between the worlds of the Underneath and the Outside.
It was a risk, using the Inbetween, because They were able to listen in, although not control what went on in there – but there was no other way. She had to be careful what information she gave away, so that They had no way of hunting her down in the Outside.
She shifted positions, let her thoughts drift.
Sana, she murmured quietly. Are you there?
And while she was lying there, unheeding of the soft footsteps that had come quietly up the stairs as she concentrated, the door suddenly opened and she screamed.