Then she was gone, into the black and across the blue where the hum of the machines carried suggestions of things beyond science.
TWENTY-FIVE
Six hundred pounds of night sky pressed down, the mountains closed in, the trees were bad things that wanted to strangle him.
Just like that, standing by the fence with the whole world against him, Freeman jumped the elevator into the down cycle, no stops. He was smart enough to tell the difference these days, thanks to Dr. Krackpot's treatments. Sure, depression was only a bad mix of brain chemicals and crossed wires, but he couldn't stop thinking of it as God's idea of a good joke.
Only moments before, he'd known everything, he was smarter than God, he could triptrap into every skull in the world if he wanted. Now there was nothing but big dark.
The path by the lake was tar, his feet as heavy as stumps. The black blanket of depression over his head dulled his senses and choked off the oxygen to his head. Seeing the electrified fence had flipped the big switch in his brain. He was stuck at Wendover, hopeless, helpless, just another stooge in the loser factory.
Even worse. He was starting to shrink himself and trying to figure things out. The good old enemy within. The troll under the bridge.
"Freeman?"
Oh, no.
Not her.
Not now.
All he wanted was to be alone, to slink back to his mattress and burrow under the pillow in the fart-filled wonderland known as the Blue Room. To be alone with bleak thoughts. Him and his misery, a match made in heaven.
"Freeman, I'm sorry."
Sorry. That was a good one. The word that everybody went for after they'd screwed you over and messed you up. Sorry was one of his dad's favorite words, right after shithead and motherfucker and sausage-brains and all his other pet names.
Freeman moved past Vicky in the darkness, letting despair drag him back toward Wendover. The lake caught the silver moon and soft ripples whispered forgotten names, as if the water held the spirits of those long dead. Let the ghosts come and eat him up or pull him down with them for all he cared. Maybe he belonged with those crazy fucks.
"Freeman, talk to me. Don't be like this."
Like what? He wasn't being like anything. She didn't need to follow him. Why couldn't she find somebody else to worry about, somebody who gave half a damn?
He walked on, and the path may as well have been waste-deep mud. Depression. Tidy little name the shrinks had for it. They were so goddamned smart. Depression, like sinking into a hole.
"I can't triptrap you, Freeman. You're shielded. So you have to tell me. What's going on?"
Triptrap was for idiots. Who cared what anybody else thought? When you walked across the bridge into somebody else's head, all you saw was their fuck-ups and problems and pain and sorrow. He had a Pandora's box worth of troubles tucked away in his own head. Why go out of his way to find more?
Vicky grabbed his arm and tugged He blinked out of his stupor of self-pity and saw they were on the Wendover lawn, the few lighted windows of the building gazing like monster eyes. Off to the left, almost hidden beneath the trees, were the counselors' cottages. The buildings were dark and silent.
She tugged again. "Freeman. I'm scared. Talk to me."
Oh, God. Defender of the Weak, Protector of the Innocent. What a crock. Defending the weak had almost cost Clint his neck in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Still, Vicky had been nice to him, or at least acted like it. Damn, he hated when they were as good at pretending as he was.
"Forget about it," he said. "We're all stuck here."
"Stuck? Just a few minutes ago, you were all excited about making a run for it."
"They outsmarted us. They always win. No matter what you do, they're one step ahead. Haven't you figured that out yet?"
"No, Freeman. There's always hope."
Freeman swallowed a laugh. It turned his stomach and he almost choked. Maybe he'd ask Vicky to give him some pointers on self-induced vomiting so he could get rid of all the lies they had fed him over the years.
"Let me explain," he said. "There's a bunch of crazy dead people in the basement, electric razor wire on the fences, and the key to the front gate is in the pocket of a man who zaps little kids for fun. And the Trust is behind it all. I thought the Trust was out of my life forever, once Dad was booked into a rubber room. But they're back and I have this bad feeling they brought me to Wendover for more of their fun and games. Now what part of that is supposed to make me break into a chorus of 'Tomorrow'?"
Vicky stopped him. "I thought you were special, but you're just like all the rest, aren't you? Aren't you?"
He had to look at her. He owed her that much, at least. He wished he hadn't, because those big dark eyes caught the moon just like the lake water had. That's all he needed, for her to squeeze out a few tears here in the middle of the night. If he lived a million years, which was a million more than enough, he'd never be able to figure out girls. Even when he could get right inside their heads, they still made no sense.
"Come on, let's go." Freeman took Vicky's arm. "All we're going to do is get in trouble. And that dead guy in the lake back there might decide he's lonely."
She jerked free. "You're so stuck on your own problems that you don't see everybody else has them too. And sometimes you're the cause of their problems."
Damn. She was crying.
Freeman was helpless. If he were on an up, he might have sneaked into her head and tried to relate to her. Even though he'd be doomed to failure. Girls never said what they really meant, and they never even thought what they really meant. When you tried to fix one thing, it turned out to be something completely different mat was broken.
He reached out to pat her shoulder, something even Clint Eastwood could manage, but she turned her back. What to do now?
She took several slow steps away. He thrust his hands into his jeans pockets and looked at the stars. Insects fiddled among the trees and two bullfrogs swapped croaks across the banks of the lake. He wished he could dissolve into the night, do like the old man's ghost and melt away like a fog. But he couldn't, because he was made of God's stuff, flesh and bone and blood.
Damn.
He was the troll beneath the bridge, and she was the little goat Gruff.
He was gobbling her up.
Him and his evil mouth, his bad teeth, his stupid mean claws.
Freeman went for that word, the one he'd heard too many times and hardly ever used himself. "Sorry."
"You're only sorry for yourself."
"No, really. I didn't mean to hurt you."
She spun so fast that he almost fell over backwards. She came on like a two-fisted prizefighter, De Niro as Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, Clint as Dirty Harry, Pacino as Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies, her words stinging like uppercuts and jabs. "Didn't-mean-to-hurt-me! You're the goddamned champion of hurt, Freeman. I never met anybody like you. And I never wanted to, either."
Then she stormed off across the grass heading toward Wendover, small and lost against the dark structure. Freeman followed, his heart like a trapped bird against the cage of his ribs.
They were nearly to the building and Freeman was thinking of something to say, maybe ask what was the best way to sneak inside, when Vicky stopped.
Freeman thought she was going to give him more pieces of her mind, but she pointed to a window on the second floor, one of the few that wasn't dark. A shadow moved against the muted light, a head ducking back. Someone had been watching them.
"Who was it?" Freeman asked.
"Couldn't tell."
"Do ghosts have shadows?"
"Maybe ghosts are the shadows."
"Vicky, this place is major messed up."
"It was bad enough back when it was just us kids with all our problems. Even without the disappearing man and the people in the basement, and now you're babbling about some Trust that's behind all this. I don't think I can take anymore, Freeman."