Zach allowed the man to unwind the seatbelt, not doing anything to help, not leaning forward when the guy yanked the belt out from behind his back. The kidnapper formerly known as Davy finally got Zach free, grabbed him under the armpits, and pulled him from the cab.
“Can’t leave you here,” the Davy man said, answering a question Zach hadn’t asked. “I don’t know enough about you yet.”
You don’t know anything about me, you freak show, Zach wanted to say, but he stayed quiet. When Davy set him down, the sole of Zach’s sneaker bent underneath him and he almost went sprawling, probably would have if the guy hadn’t grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him upright. The collar of his t-shirt dug into his neck a little, and Zach choked like a hanged man.
Davy let him go. Zach tugged down the front of his shirt until it was no longer strangling him and lifted his shoe so the sole could flip back up into its regular position.
Now that he was loose, he raised his hand to his head, not expecting blood, but touching the wound with the tips of his fingers and examining them just to be sure. No blood, as he’d guessed, but the pressure from his probing fingers had brought back the pain. He wiped his hand on the side of his shirt, though he had nothing to wipe off, and sighed.
Where were they heading? Would this guy tell him to get down on his knees and then shoot him in the back of the head like the gangsters in the television shows his mom didn’t want him watching? Or was there, somewhere in a dark grove, a shallow grave just long enough and deep enough for the man to bury Zach alive?
No. Zach wouldn’t let himself think that way, wouldn’t give in to panic.
He waited a moment to see what would happen. The man took off for the trees, and Zach followed without being asked, looking all the time for something he might use as a weapon or a hidey-hole into which he could crawl. Maybe a forest ranger would suddenly appear and whisk him off to safety, or maybe a pack of wolves would leap onto this Davy guy from out of nowhere and rip out his throat.
Yeah, right.
Zach saw the game trail before he actually stepped foot on it, but not by much. For just a moment, he thought they must have driven in a big loop and come back to where they’d started, but then the illusion ended and he realized these woods were not only much hillier than those around his house, but also rockier and less dense. Not to mention they were now moving toward the sun, and not away from it, which would have been the case on the trail back home.
Just how many secret paths did this guy know?
The hem of Zach’s shirt caught on a thorny branch and ripped. Zach pulled away from the snag and moved closer to the center of the trail.
“Your brother’s been missing you, you know,” Davy said, not turning around.
As with most of this lunatic’s statements, Zach didn’t understand. He had no brothers. Or sisters, for that matter. His mom and dad hadn’t thought they could have kids until Zach came along. Then Dad had died and…well, that was that.
“Been missing both of us. He’s waited a long time for today.” He pushed aside a tuft of tall weeds and continued to follow the trail. “A long time.”
Zach followed, his clapping shoe almost more annoying than the truck’s hissing radio had been, wondering if he should respond or if Crazy Dave was talking mostly to himself.
They topped a small rise and wiggled between two closely growing trees. Davy led him off the trail at that point, onto a narrower path that seemed exactly the width of the man’s hips. They pushed through one last pair of overlapping bushes, and then they were there.
Zach let out a breath he felt he’d been holding in since getting out of the truck.
Not an unmarked grave, not a pile of corpses awaiting the addition of one scared boy. Just a house.
They’d come upon it from behind. Although the trees didn’t end at any sort of a yard, but continued right up to the edge of the structure so that many of their limbs actually overhung its roof, the property was clearly distinguishable from the surrounding woodlands by its lack of undergrowth and carefully trimmed tree limbs. A tire swing hung from a high, thick branch to the left and lolled in the late afternoon breeze, and Zach knew at once that this was not the kidnapper’s house. This was a real home, a place where normal people lived.
Davy waited at the edge of the property, watching the house, head moving slowly back and forth. Zach guessed he was looking to see if anyone was home, though he couldn’t see the man’s eyes and didn’t dare try to get into his head. Davy held out his arm to keep Zach from rushing on ahead, though Zach had made no movement to pass him. They stood that way for a long time, the man cocking his head sometimes, maybe listening to some distant sound.
It gave Zach a chance to check his phone. He couldn’t use it, of course, not until he got alone somewhere, but he could at least check to see if he had any reception and set the thing to silent if it wasn’t already. Staring at Davy, who was so close Zach could have kicked him in the butt, Zach snuck his hand into his pocket and eased out the cell. Still watching Davy’s back like his life depended on it (which it probably did), Zach tilted the phone’s screen toward him and searched it for a reception bar or two.
There were none. The word Searching… flashed across the screen, and Zach tried extending the antenna, but it was no good. Rather than set the phone to silent, Zach held down the power button until it shut itself off, unable to remember if it made any sounds when shutting off but plastering his palm against the small speaker just in case. If he didn’t get service up here on the high ground, he probably wouldn’t get it anywhere else in this area either. Better to save his battery for when he could use it. Besides, he’d been awfully worried the phone would beep or squawk and give him away; there was no chance of that now.
He returned the powered-down cell to his pocket and tried to put it out of his mind, at least for the time being.
While he waited for something to happen, Zach noticed a patch of grass and weeds that had been beaten down almost to the dirt behind a row of nearby bushes. Maybe an animal had scratched out a place to sleep, or something or someone had been walking around the area over and over for a long period of time. He looked closer and saw a small pile of splintered wood partially hidden beneath one of the nearby bushes.
Toothpicks. It took him a minute to see them for what they were, but they were toothpicks all right. Chewed up and spit out like sunflower seed shells or bits of fingernail from a nervous finger chewer.
“Where are we?” Zach finally dared to ask, whispering like they were in a library or a graveyard. He rubbed at his head, which still hurt and now pounded a little, wondering when he’d have the chance to get his hands on some Tylenol.
“Shh.” The man waved his arm backward, signaling the boy to keep his distance.
Zach listened but heard nothing except the very faint barking of dogs, which might have been coming from a neighboring property or from a mile away. Sound carried up here in funny ways sometimes.
He waited.
The house wasn’t exactly a mansion, but Zach thought it might be a pretty comfy place to live. A deep, furniture-covered porch wrapped all the way around the place, its boards and railings looking well used but not abused. No fallen leaves or windblown tree limbs in sight, which meant the porch surely hadn’t gone more than a day or two without a good sweeping. In one of the back corners, Zach could just make out a small grill and a bag of charcoal beside it.
At the porch’s other end, a pair of bikes leaned up against the side of the house. One big, the other small and with one of those rubber horns attached to the handlebars. Zach had owned a similar bike when he was younger, had ridden it until he got too big for it and had never gotten another.