Chapter 9

Thunder rattled Joshua's bedroom walls. He heard heavy raindrops rat-a-tat at the windowscape behind his blackout curtains.

The brilliant sunlight that had ushered in the day had thrown in the towel when heavy storm clouds had descended on Cabo Poco just before lunch. Since then, the day had been dark and dreary. Joshua's mood had similarly changed.

The surge of optimism he had felt at the start of the day had diminished as the day had gone on. He wanted it back. And he had a plan to reclaim it.

Planting his feet wide on his bouncy mattress, one foot close to the edge, he reached up to try to untape his Arboliva Forest poster from the ceiling over his head. He managed to slide his fingers under one edge of the thick paper.

"What're you doing?"

Ava's voice came right on the heels of another clap of thunder. The combination of the boom and her unexpected appearance startled Joshua. He jerked, and his foot slipped off the edge of the bed. He went tumbling. His fingers caught a big chunk of the poster, and he took the chunk with him to the floor.

Having managed to land head and shoulders first, he shifted to his rump and rubbed his head. He looked toward his doorway.

Ava stood just a foot inside his room. Dressed in her usual cream-colored shirt and pink shorts, but she was also wearing Joshua's Spriggy FazSprig security vest.

Even though Joshua was annoyed by the interruption and his torn poster, he had to admit that Ava looked pretty adorable in the vest. Like she was playing dress-up, something Joshua had never seen her do before.

Joshua rubbed his throbbing shoulder. "Did you want something?" he asked.

Ava looked up at the ceiling, and Joshua's gaze followed hers. The part of the poster he hadn't just ripped free dangled down toward the bed. The remaining bit read "PINING FOR FUN?"

Joshua sighed. He pointed at Ava. "All right. Come on. Take that off. I need to get to work."

Ava nodded. "I know. I wanna come with you."

Joshua grunted and stood. He pressed a hand to his temple…another headache was coming on. It hadn't just been his collision with the floor; his mood had been spiraling downward all day. And now, even though he had a plan to retrieve the hope he'd felt earlier, he dreaded having to go back to the spooky restaurant. He wasn't up for Ava's games.

"Ava, please," he said, holding out his hand. "Just give me the vest."

Ava didn't move, so Joshua walked over to her and reached for the vest, but Ava stepped back.

"No!" she shouted.

Joshua was taken back by Ava shouting at him. He had never seen her like this.

Summoning what little patience he had available to him - which wasn't much - Joshua knelt down in front of Ava. He took a second to make sure that when he spoke, he wouldn't explode. Then he said, in what he hoped was a calm but firm tone, "Please…give me the vest, now."

But Ava made a face. "I wanna come with you…" she said, almost mimicking Joshua's tone.

Then, Joshua and Ava both heard the front door bang open. Even from down the hall, the sound of Ann's footsteps was clear. The tap-tap was joined by a fluttery noise. Given the thrumming of the rain on the roof overhead, Joshua guessed that Ann was shaking out her umbrella.

"Hello?" Joshua called out.

Ava turned toward the hallway, but Joshua lunged for her.

When Ann heard Ava shriek, she rushed toward the hallway. Looking down the length of the narrow, empty space, she started forward. Was Ava really in trouble, or was she just having one of her fits?

Ava screamed again. As she did, Joshua, holding a wildly flailing Ava in her arms, stepped into view.

So that answered Ann's question. She wiped the rain off her face - the umbrella hadn't been much help in the windy storm - as she watched Joshua carry his sister to her room.

Joshua set Ava down, and as she spun away from him, he grabbed the vest she was wearing and pulled it off. He quickly slammed Ava's door shut.

Ava continued to caterwaul from within her bedroom. Most of her noise was general wailing, but mixed in were some impressive beyond-her-age swear words and a few scathing opinions about her brother. Ann couldn't help but agree with a few of them.

Panting, Joshua looked down the hall and met Ann's gaze. "Oh, hey," he said exhaustedly.

Ann lifted a hand, signaling for him to stop.

Joshua pointed at Ava's closed door. He acted like he couldn't hear any of the insults and yowling reaching through the flimsy wood barrier. "She…she's all yours," he said.

Ann raised an eyebrow and quirked her lips. "Okay."

When Joshua got to work, he didn't waste his time freaking himself out by looking around the pizzeria. The lobby and hallway looked the same as they had the day before. He assumed everything else was status quo, too, and if it wasn't, he didn't want to know about it.

As soon as he entered the office and closed - and locked - the door behind him (he didn't bother with moving the filing cabinet because he felt silly for doing it the night before), he shed his wet jacket and took his backpack to the desk. Then he made his preparations.

Setup didn't take long. Within ten minutes, he was planting himself in the office desk chair. Once there, he swept his gaze over all the monitors. All the power was on (or as on as it could get), and he had a clear view of everything on the monitors, inside and out.

A thunder-crack assaulted the pizzeria. The building groaned, as if in protest.

Joshua's attention landed on the main exterior camera. He watched a river of rainwater flow out of the parking lot into the street.

Satisfied that all was well with the pizzeria, Joshua took his pill, turned on his cassette player, and then leaned forward and looked at the Arboliva poster, which he'd managed to repair (shoddily) and tape to the wall opposite the desk. Joshua turned up the volume on the cassette player so it could overpower the sound of the thunderstorm.

Chirping, rustling, and gurgling. Joshua softened his gaze and allowed the pine trees - bisected diagonally by his ineptly repaired tear - to sway. As the pine trees shimmied, Joshua's eyes lost their focus. His eyelids fluttered, then they dropped.

The tear marring the pine trees was gone. They moved seamlessly in the wind, one flowing wave of gauzy green.

Joshua relaxed into the soothing sounds of the breeze, but he stiffened when thunder muscled its way into the breeze's swishing rhythm. The sun filtering through the trees began to flicker. Or was that the lights in the office?

Part of Joshua's consciousness was still aware of where he was in his waking state, but it was hanging on tenuously.

Joshua, determined to fall into the reality of the pine forest, blurred all the sounds he heard. He wove the thunder into creaking tree branches, and when he heard a crackling hiss and pop, he braided that staticky sound into the crackle of the bristling pine needles.

The sun, for one second, bathed Joshua's face in warmth and then disappeared again, letting cool shade slip over him. In and out, the light blinked. The confusion of sounds continued, and Joshua frowned. What was that lower sound…off in the distance? Was that music? Joshua's awareness succumbed to the fog of sleep. He found himself in a series of quick-take impressions.

A green toy plane flew through the air.

Ketchup spurted.

Tires spun on dirt.

Joshua ran.

Shoving aside branches that slapped his face, he pounded through the forest. His movements were familiar, practiced. But something was strange about them.

Bursting out of the trees, he looked down the road just in time to see the black car disappear. Why did the black car look different?

Childish laughter bubbled behind Joshua. He turned.

As he rotated around, his gaze dropped. He jerked in surprise as he realized he was looking at his adult body.

This was different.

But the children weren't.

Joshua looked at the five children. They looked just the way they did the last time that he saw them.

Joshua watched the children, but he didn't approach them. They watched him in return.

What now?

Understanding clearly that he was in his dream but that it was diverging from its norm, Joshua hesitated. Then he spoke.

"Please," he said to the children. "Don't run. I just…I just want to know what you saw."

The blonde girl narrowed her cold blue eyes at Joshua. Her upper lip lifted into a semi-sneer.

"I'm begging you," Joshua pleaded. "Who took my brother?"

The blonde girl's expression didn't change. The other children ignored Joshua.

And Joshua ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. Why wouldn't the kids tell him anything? He took a step forward and, growing tired of the children not talking to him, he asked again, raising his voice.

"WHO TOOK SUNNY?!"

His shout spooked the children. And they bolted.

"No! Wait!" Joshua yelled.

Facing the same situation that he was in before, he made an instant decision this time. He chased the boy with the paper hook. Now that Joshua was adult-sized, he could easily outrun the small child. The boy had reddish-brown hair, and Joshua kept his gaze locked on that hair as he ran. Even racing over the uneven ground beneath him, he quickly closed the distance.

Almost upon the boy, Joshua reached for the kid's shoulder. The boy spun around.

Suddenly, Joshua saw a flash of silver. The paper hook scythed through the air. Something sharp stung at Joshua's arm. He staggered back, stunned. Looking down at his arm, he saw his shirtsleeve gaping open; the material was slashed apart. A narrow ribbon of red appeared on his skin.

Shocked, he looked back at the reddish-brown-haired boy. The boy, whose freckled face had a pert little nose and soft cheeks, looked up at Joshua with staggeringly fearsome green eyes. He opened his mouth and unleashed…a distorted mechanical shriek.

Joshua recoiled.

He opened his eyes. He goggled at the overhead lights. They were flashing on and off with dizzying quickness. Looking away from the lights, he slapped his palms over his ears. The lights were only half of the assault on his senses. Screeching feedback blared from the intercom on the ceiling over his desk.

He shifted his focus to the CCTV monitors, and gaped at them. The monitors had gone haywire. Some of the screens were pulsing random flashes of colored lights. Some were streaming indecipherable lines of binary code, which were entwined around twisted, distorted images.

Abruptly, a frenetic rock song blasted from the overhead speakers. Joshua jolted at the sound, nearly falling from his chair. Throwing out an arm to steady himself, he knocked his pill bottle to the floor. The cap wasn't on tight; the little white pills scattered over the black-and-white linoleum.

Joshua's gaze shot from the pills up to the intercom. He grabbed his head with both hands. "Stop!" he yelled…even though he knew hysterics weren't going to help. But he couldn't help himself. His senses were saturated. He was totally overwhelmed.

Standing, he spun one way and then the other. What should he do?

On the verge of totally losing it, he got help from his memory banks. His brain provided him an inner Jessica replay: "Fair warning," Jessica's voice said in Joshua's head. "The electrical power can be a bit…iffy. If you have any issues, you'll find a system breaker in the main office. Just give it a little flip."

Joshua stood. Starting to turn toward the circuit box, he did a double take. His gaze flitted toward the window in the office door.

The frosted glass looked perfectly normal. Joshua could see well enough through the glass to reassure himself that nothing was out there.

But had it been? Joshua could have sworn he'd just gotten a glimpse of one eye watching him through the glass. One eye and one eye patch. Could…?

Joshua shook his head. No way. He'd imagined it…probably because of his dream.

The rock music crescendoed, and the lights started going on and off even faster.

That's enough.

Giving the frosted window one more glance - nothing was there - Joshua sprinted to the circuit breaker. He grabbed the lever and shoved it downward.

Everything went black. And the building was filled with blessed silence. Even the thunder had stopped.

The red emergency bulb above the circuit box clicked on. Joshua leaned back against the wall and tried to get a grip on himself. His breath was coming in ragged gasps. His pulse was so fast that it felt like his blood was racing through his veins. His ears were ringing from the raucous auditory assault.

He stood in the near darkness for a few seconds. Then his skin prickled. The darkness was unfriendly, almost suffocating.

Joshua put his hand back on the lever. He shoved it upward.

A comforting ka-chunk relit the office. Joshua looked at the bank of fluorescent bulbs. They were dim, but they were steady.

Stepping over to the desk, Joshua looked at the monitors. They were back to normal.

Joshua exhaled loudly. His pulse began to steady himself, and…

An insistent buzzer revved up his pulse again. The buzz came once. Twice. Three times.

Joshua leaned over and scanned the monitors. He frowned.

Centered in front of the entrance camera, Joshua saw someone standing in the steady rain, their finger on the building's doorbell. The thunder might have abated, but the storm was still dumping torrents of water on the pizzeria.

Joshua peered at the wavy CCTV feed. Between the poor resolution, the rain, and the person's hooded poncho, Joshua couldn't make out their face. All he could see was the pale fuzziness within the hood…even when they looked up at the camera and waved.

Bracing himself for whatever was going to come next, Joshua pulled open one of the pizzeria's heavy entrance doors. He peered out at the rain-parka-clad individual. Close up, in real life instead of on an old, hazy CCTV screen, their face became clear…no, her face became clear.

The woman smiled at Joshua. "About time!" she said in a pleasing, smooth voice. "I was starting to think you fell asleep on the job."

Joshua, still disoriented by the commotion in the office and puzzled by why anyone would be at the pizzeria's door, blinked at the woman like an idiot. He couldn't seem to get his brain to engage properly.

It didn't help that the unexpected woman at the door was a very pretty woman. Even though Joshua couldn't see her hair or body under the bulky rain gear, he could see enough of her big brown eyes, her high flushed cheeks, and her wide, upturned mouth to find her looks unsettling. Joshua, having had little time or inclination to date, often got flustered when he was around a pretty woman. It gave him a muddling feeling.

But he had to say something. He cleared his throat and managed, "Can I help you…miss?"

"Please." Pulling off her rain parka, the woman brushed a few strands of streaked purple hair from her pale face. The hair was shiny and appeared to be long but was currently confined in some kind of twist. "My name's Celestine," she said as she shook water off her parka.

Water sprayed Joshua's pants, but he couldn't have cared less.

Celestine looked at Joshua. "And you must be…"

Now that Joshua could see Celestine's sleek hair and the slender but curvy figure in her snug, dark blue varsity jacket, he was even more tongue-tied. All he was capable of was more idiotic blinking.

Celestine smiled at Joshua with what might have been pity. Or maybe she was just being friendly. "...the new security guard," she concluded. She glanced down at Joshua's arm. "By the way, you're bleeding."

That surprised Joshua so much that he said, "What are you talking about?"

Celestine pointed. "Your arm."

Joshua looked down at his arm, and his mouth dropped open. It fell open so hard and so wide that his jaw might have made it to the floor. Vividly remembering his dream, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The sleeve of his black shirt was cut cleanly along the forearm. The sliced fabric was soaked in blood.

"That looks nasty," Celestine said.

Joshua suddenly felt woozy. "Um, yeah," he said. He wavered on his feet. Not from blood loss or anything. The cut was long, but it didn't look that deep. He was more dazed than badly injured.

While he made like a swaying tree, Celestine took charge. She briskly stepped past Joshua and started striding across the lobby. She moved as if she owned the place.

"Come on," she said over her shoulder. "I know where the first-aid kit is."

Joshua's brows bunched. She does?