As Far as the Sky, part 8
May. 31st, 2008 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamcranverPart 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
They’d been driving for hours now, following the camper and waiting for just the right opportunity to, say, run it to the side of the road, or take advantage of a gas stop to grab their prey. Hours, and nothing.
“To think,” Agent Palmer said, drawing mutilated stick figures on the back of their road map, “I was actually fucking excited when we pulled this job. Christ, now I wish we’d foisted it off on fucking Cocker and Molko.”
“Tracking actual extraterrestrials?” said Agent Viglione dismissively. “Those guys are extraterrestrials—I wouldn’t trust them to be objective.”
Agent Palmer laughed at that. “Too fucking right,” she said. “But still. I hate feeling so…useless, you know?”
“I know,” said Agent Viglione, heartfelt. What he wouldn’t give for a little excitement, a little danger, instead of this, the world’s most boring car chase.
“And watch, we’ll catch up and they’ll turn out to be, like, little fakers, and not ETs at all, and we’ll have just wasted all this--” Agent Palmer’s head jerked to one side, suddenly, and there was an urgent note in her voice as she said, “Look at that. There was a police road stop here.”
Viglione slowed the car. “Yeah?” he said.
“Yeah. Look, you can see the barriers on the side of the road. You know what that means?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Unless there’s some bank robber on the run out here, it means they were looking for Stump’s wards out here—and the road stop's not there anymore, which means the cops found them. Where’s the nearest police station?”
“You’ve got the map,” said Viglione. “You tell me. I think I saw a sign for Cork Valley a little ways back—you think they’re big enough to merit a police station?”
“None of these podunk towns are big enough to merit a police station,” Palmer said scornfully. “But let’s try it.”
Viglione accelerated, feeling an edge of excitement for the first time in hours.
**
Well, this pretty much sucks.
Gerard nodded slightly but didn’t say anything. Which made sense, really, seeing as how he was sitting right next to Officer Stevenson and right across from Chief McCoy.
Frank was squirming in his seat. He’d eaten his pizza and fries as fast as Mikey had ever seen a kid eat, and now he kept looking at Mikey and Gerard expectantly, like he thought they had some kind of grand plan. It was kind of flattering, but also frustrating, because frankly, Mikey was too tired to even eat his stupid hamburger, much less come up with some big escape plan.
He felt Gerard trying to say something mentally, but as it sometimes happened with Gerard, it wasn’t coming in clearly—just a vague sense of questioning, a rush of tangled emotions, and an image of Bob in what looked like a dungeon.
I don’t get it, Mikey said.
Gerard rolled his eyes and said, “Hey, Chief McCoy, is anybody keeping Bob company?”
“Huh?” Chief McCoy looked away from the television, where some kind of sports thing was going on. “Oh. No, not right now, but I think he’ll be okay. He’s only gonna be there until tomorrow, when we can start doing our investigation.”
Gerard grinned at Mikey, and his excitement was clear, even if the reason for it wasn’t.
Officer Stevenson gave them a weird look. They hadn’t even done anything too weird when the police were bringing them in—unless you counted Frank biting people as ‘weird.’ Mikey wasn’t stupid enough to think that the cops would take their supernatural stuff as well as Bob and Ray had. Still, Officer Stevenson seemed kind of on edge around them, almost suspicious. Maybe it was because he was the one Frank had bitten.
The television abruptly shut off, and the rest of the people in the diner groaned. “Hayley, come on!” yelled a guy near the door.
“Hold your horses,” Hayley grumbled. She stood on a chair to turn the television back on. Nothing. “Huh,” she said. “Stupid thing must have blown a fuse or something.”
It was at that point that the lights started switching off and on, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, and dishes started flying from tables into the air. It was also at that point that Mikey figured out what Gerard had been so excited about.
You fibber, he said, you are so good at distractions. He wasn’t as good at moving stuff as Gerard was, but he figured any little bit helped, so he knocked over a pile of menus and pushed a couple of empty chairs back and forth from their tables.
“Holy shit!” Frank said. “This place is haunted!” It was a good thing Officer Stevenson and Chief McCoy were busy staring in confusion at the chaos everywhere, or they would have noticed how bad Frank was at hiding a grin.
Chief McCoy stood up. “Okay,” he said, “everybody stay calm. I’m sure it’s just, like, a little earthquake or something. Nothing to worry about, it’ll be over in a sec….”
The TV switched back on and started flipping though channels at random, and the silverware started dancing. Hey, that’s really good, Gee, said Mikey, impressed despite himself. He never understood how Gerard could keep multiple things going at once without getting distracted or developing a massive headache.
A couple of customers ran out the door. “And they didn’t even pay!” Frank muttered, and Gerard giggled.
“Should we…evacuate, or something?” Officer Stevenson asked. He hadn’t looked at Mikey, Gerard, and Frank since the lights had started flashing.
“Um.” Chief McCoy looked freaked and indecisive for a moment and then said, “Hayley, you got a circuit-breaker back there? I think maybe we should turn everything off and turn it back on again.”
“The fuck!” yelled Hayley. “My diner isn’t a computer! We’ve got demonic possession here, not an error message!”
Come on, let’s go, said Mikey. They seem pretty distracted.
Gerard nodded and stood up. “Hey, Mikey and Frank and me have to go to the bathroom, okay?” he said.
“Sure, be careful,” said Chief McCoy, his brain clearly a million miles away.
Frank valiantly restrained himself from laughing until they were outside. “That was awesome,” he said as soon as they were out of earshot of the diner. “Some serious super hero shit, you guys.”
“Nah,” said Gerard, looking at his feet with a modest little shrug. “I mean, we had to do something, right?”
Mikey shook his head. Frank’s right, it was awesome. You were like something out of Poltergeist. It wasn’t like Gerard wasn’t always kind of awesome, but he’d actually gotten them away from the cops this time. He was totally the best big brother ever.
Gerard shrugged, flushing a little. “Yeah, well, it’s not gonna matter much if we don’t hurry. I figure we gotta go rescue Bob, and then we can meet up with Ray like we were supposed to.”
“We’re doing an actual prison break now?” asked Frank. “Excellent.”
The police had locked the door to the station when they’d left, but that wasn’t much of a problem; even when Mikey was tired and had kind of a headache, locks were easy. They pushed the door open and looked around.
It seemed empty, and it was a big enough open space that they probably would have been able to see any cops if they were there. Mikey reached out mentally, and found only Bob. “The cell’s that way,” he said, pointing to a door at the back of the room. “Let’s go before Chief McCoy and Officer Stevenson get here.” It probably wouldn’t be long; they had to have noticed that Mikey and Frank and Gerard were missing.
“I can keep the lights and the TV flashing if you think it’ll help,” Gerard offered.
Frank frowned. “You can do that, even if you’re not in the restaurant anymore?”
“I guess,” said Gerard. “I mean, it’s all mental, right? As long as I can still picture everything pretty good, I bet I can still make stuff move.”
“Wow,” Frank said, looking at Gerard as if he were Professor Xavier and John McClane rolled into one unstoppable force of coolness. Mikey didn’t even bother feeling jealous; they didn’t have time, and plus, if Gerard really could control stuff from a long ways away, Mikey thought Frank’s hero-worship might not be too misplaced. He wasn’t even using his harmonica—Mikey didn’t know if that meant he was getting better at using his powers, or if it was just the fact that this was really important making him concentrate on it more, but either way, it was pretty sweet.
They sneaked along the highway, trying to be quiet for reasons that Mikey didn’t totally understand. When they got to the cell itself, Mikey felt his stomach drop. Bob just looked so dejected, and it sucked hardcore to see him locked up like he was some kind of bad guy.
“Hey, Bob!” Frank said in a loud whisper. “Come on! We’re blowing this joint.”
Bob’s head jerked up, and he stared at them with wide eyes. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Didn’t you hear Frank?” Gerard asked, so excited he was bouncing from foot to foot and fiddling with his hands. “We’re busting you out.”
“I thought those cops took you out to get dinner,” said Bob.
Frank rolled his eyes. “We gave them the slip. Now come on, Bob, we gotta go before they figure out we left! Mikey, do your thing!”
Mikey obligingly stepped forward to put his hand on the cell door. He would have thought a jail lock would be different from a regular door lock, stronger or something, but it really wasn’t, and the metal cylinders turned as easily in his mind as anything. The door swung open with a rusty squeak, and Bob winced.
Frank rushed into the cell to grab at Bob’s hand. “Let’s go! You still have your phone? We have to call Ray and tell him what happened, and get him to pick us up.”
Bob stood up slowly. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Underneath was a current of I wonder how much more prison time this is gonna get me and When did my life become a comic book?
Mikey got that Bob was stressed, too, he really did, but this was definitely not the time for him to have a mid-life crisis or whatever. “Dude, Bob,” he said, “seriously. We gotta go, like, now.”
Bob sighed loudly and shook his head, and when he looked at them again, he was normal, together Bob again. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
**
Bob had dealt with a lot of shit on the road—asshole venue managers, crappy equipment, someone in his band getting plastered and getting into inadvisable sexual situations—but the hour he spent in a smalltown jail cell contemplating just what was gonna happen to him, and to the kids if those gun-toting Men in Black types showed up again, rated pretty highly on Bob’s list of Terrible Shit.
It was almost a relief when he called Ray, who shouted, “Oh my GOD, where are you guys, did the cops get you, do I have to come bail you out, are the kids okay, are you okay?” all in one breath. Bob felt himself smiling.
“Calm down,” he said. “We’re fine, all of us. We’re in Cork Valley—we’re hiding out behind the school. Can you come get us?”
“Can I come get you?” Ray promptly went into a long, breathless rant about how he was on his way, and he was insulted that Bob would even ask, and dammit, Ray Toro did not leave fallen men behind! Bob was laughing by the end of it, ignoring Ray’s indignance.
“God, that guy,” he said as he hung up the phone, and Mikey fixed him with a weird, unblinking look, the kind that always tended to remind him that Gerard and Mikey were not particularly normal kids. “What are you staring at?” Bob asked.
“Nothing,” Mikey said. “Ray’s cool.” His expression was carefully blank, but Gerard and Frank kept giving each other what they obviously thought were subtle grins. Well, whatever, Bob thought. He didn’t care if three ridiculously dorky kids thought he was a dork.
Ray showed up amazingly quickly; the guy must have been speeding down the highway. He didn’t get out, but motioned hugely at them from the driver’s seat. “Let’s go!” he said, darting his eyes nervously around, as if he expected cops to jump out of the bushes and grab them. Not an unreasonable fear, actually, Bob thought soberly.
In a matter of seconds, all four of them were back in the camper and on the road again. After surprising Bob with a fierce hug as he climbed into the driver’s seat, Ray was strangely quiet. The kids had taken to sharing the headphones of an iPod (Gerard and Mikey) and flipping through a book about video games (Frank), so Bob took advantage of the quiet to call up Bert.
“Yo, Bryar!” Bert hooted as soon as he picked up the phone. “How’s the hiding out from the world going? Have you come to any deep realizations about, like, the universe and stuff?”
“Um. Not so much,” Bob said. Really, this whole experience was raising a lot more questions than it was answering. “Listen, Bert--”
“Hey, guys,” Bert was yelling to someone on the other end. “It’s Bob!” More shouts from the background, and Bob found himself grinning. He’d needed the break, but he found himself missing the relative normalcy of touring insanity.
Quinn’s voice, sounding distant and tinny, asked, “What’s up, Bob?”
“Quinn, hey. I was just asking Bert, you guys know that cabin you guys have in the backwoods, near Cork Valley?”
“Shit, I knew it! He’s moving out to the woods to become a lumberjack! It’s the flannel, I tell you—gives ‘em away every time!” Quinn shouted to the other people in the room. To Bob, he said, “Yeah?”
“Would you guys be real upset if I used it for a day or two? I wouldn’t trash it or anything, just need a place to…” Hide. “…hang out for a bit.”
Bert laughed on the other end, high and scratchy. “Trust me, man, you couldn’t do worse to it than we have. Be my fucking guest! There’s a key under the mat for the cleaning people.”
“Awesome. Thanks.” He got some directions from Quinn, shot the shit with the two of them for a few more minutes, and said hi to Dan and Jepha before hanging up.
“Were those the guys from your band?” Ray asked as Bob put away his phone.
“And you didn’t introduce me!” Frank yelled from the backseat. “Christ, Bob, I thought we were friends!”
Bob rolled his eyes at Frank, and Ray chuckled. “Bob Bryar, our connection to the stars,” he said.
“Connection to the stars, my ass,” Bob grumbled. “Hey, turn left up here. I figure we can lay low in the cabin for a little bit, figure out our next move.”
“I got some gas earlier and asked the guy there about any boat accidents around here, like, nine years ago,” said Ray, making the turn. “He said he hadn’t heard of any, which made me think, duh, Ray, the boat accident wasn’t here, it was back near where Gerard and Mikey used to live.”
“Um. Yeah,” Bob said. He had no idea where Ray was going with this, or if he was just talking to make conversation.
Ray kept talking as if he didn’t even notice Bob’s confusion. “Yeah, I know. But then he asked where I was headed, and I told him Wolf Mountain, and he said—get this, he asked if we were going to visit the weird cult people up there.”
In the rearview mirror, Bob could see Mikey and Gerard take their earbuds out and sit up straight, staring intently at Ray. Carefully, feeling like they were about to make a breakthrough, Bob asked, “What weird cult people?”
“Okay, so about the same time as the boat accident,” said Ray excitedly, “some religious people built a compound up on Wolf Mountain. Apparently they don’t get out much, because of their beliefs or something, but they have a couple of guys who buy supplies for them every once in a while. And I mean, seriously, nobody knows where these people come from, or what their deal is, and first thing I thought was, ‘Mikey and Gerard.’” He craned his neck over to look at the kids in the back seat. “What do you think, guys? Any of this sound right to you?”
Gerard made a face. “I don’t know, being in a cult sounds kind of lame.”
“Hey,” said Frank, “didn’t the empire call the Jedi a cult in Star Wars?”
“I don’t remember that,” Gerard said, but he looked pleased.
Mikey, on the other hand, looked like he was having some kind of out-of-body experience. He was staring blankly into space, his whole body frozen and straining. Bunny, who hadn’t been farther than a few inches from Mikey since they’d gotten back on the camper, made a distressed-sounding noise, and that more than anything made Bob worried.
“Mikey, are you okay?” he asked.
He had no idea what words that came out of Mikey’s mouth meant—they didn’t sound like any language Bob had heard before. Whatever they meant, they seemed to take Gerard aback, and he stared at his brother with wide eyes. Finally, Mikey forced out a “Yeah. That’s them,” sounding like the act of speaking was a tremendous effort for him.
“Are you remembering stuff?” Frank asked seriously, scooting close to the Minnellis and leaning against Mikey’s shoulder.
“I. Yeah,” Mikey said, strained.
“Hey, you don’t have to tell us if it’s too hard,” Ray said quickly. “I didn’t mean to remind you of anything bad. I mean, God, maybe it’s some crazy death cult, and you just escaped with your lives before, and….” Ray shot Bob a helpless look. “Sorry.”
Somehow, though, Bob didn’t think the trauma of escaping from some scary cult was the problem. As weird as that would have been, it didn’t explain much about Gerard and Mikey and what they could do, or what language Mikey had spoken, or why both of them had told Chief McCoy their name was “Castaway.” Bob turned to watch Mikey grab at his brother’s hand and take deep breaths, looking like he was trying to drag himself back into the real world.
“The guy,” Mikey said. “The guy who helped me save my starcase?”
Bob had no idea who that might be, but Gerard nodded, so Bob stayed quiet.
“I think—I don’t know if he was actually our uncle, but we called him Uncle Brian. Or, well, we didn’t call him that, we called him something that meant Uncle in our language. The one we spoke in the orphanage before Mama adopted us.”
Gerard nodded again, while Frank, rapt, looked at Gerard and Mikey as if they were about to reveal some grand secret. Maybe they were, Bob thought. Gerard was starting to look a little out of it, too.
“And he was on our boat with us, the one that sank. But there were other boats, too.”
Some kind of mass immigration, then, a kind of flight? From what, though? A shudder ran through Bob’s body, at the thought that maybe Gerard and Mikey had survived something worse than the boat crash.
“It wasn’t a boat, though,” said Gerard in a low voice.
“It wasn’t?” Bob said neutrally.
Gerard reached to take Mikey’s starcase, and Mikey gave it up without protest. Gerard ran his fingers over the twin star signs on the metal, frowning at his hands. “Uncle Brian told me…he told me, if we got lost, to stay together, and hold onto the starcase. And tell people our last name was Castaway. That was the password. If we told it to one of our people, they’d recognize us and take us home.”
“Home where?” asked Frank, breathless-sounding. “In the mountains?”
“I guess,” said Gerard. “But that’s not where we were from to begin with.” He looked at the starcase again. “Where we were from to begin with….” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I think it had two suns. I’m pretty sure…it was a totally different planet.”
Despite the patent absurdity of the statement, it never even occurred to Bob to doubt it. Not with these kids, and not with Gerard’s face looking like it did.
There was dead silence in the car for what seemed like an eternity. Bob didn’t understand why he was so stunned. It wasn’t as if being an alien was any weirder than being able to open locks with your mind or move things by playing a harmonica or talk to cats. But the sudden knowledge that Gerard and Mikey hadn’t evolved the way that everyone else on Earth had, that there was extraterrestrial life and it looked just like humans but was different on some fundamental level…Bob almost forgot to breathe for a moment.
Ray was the first to break the silence. “Holy shit,” he breathed out, and then looked immediately embarrassed. “Excuse my language,” he said, as if Frank didn’t cuss a blue streak himself.
“What did I tell you!” Frank said, halfway between crowing triumphantly and gasping in awe. “It was either that or government experiments. Aliens, Christ. I knew you guys couldn’t be human.”
Gerard looked up at that, his face a picture of misery. “Don’t say that,” he said. “We….” He looked like he was about to cry. Mikey hadn’t said anything yet; he was staring straight ahead again, but this looked less like a flashback and more like a scared little boy trying not to show that he was scared.
“You’re as human as anybody,” Bob said firmly, and even as he said it, he believed it. Maybe, strictly speaking, they had some extra genetic stuff going on, but he couldn’t look at these kids in their band tee-shirts and dark jeans, Mikey’s glasses sliding down his nose and Gerard’s fingers stained with markers, and think that there was anything less than human about them, no matter how weird they were. “You guys. This doesn’t change who you are, you know. You can still be in your rock band and draw your comics or do whatever you want.” He tugged at his seatbelt. “Ray, you mind if I…” He trailed off, not knowing why he was announcing his intentions to Ray—it wasn’t like he needed permission.
“Of course,” said Ray, his eyes huge.
Bob unbuckled himself and went into the back of the camper to sit between Mikey and Gerard. He didn’t move to touch them, not wanting to make them uncomfortable. He just sat and waited.
Gerard was the first to wipe at his eyes with his hands and lean in, burying his face in Bob’s tee-shirt and hugging him hard. Mikey followed suit on the other side, the edges of his glasses pressing into Bob’s ribs. Bob didn’t complain.
Frank’s face had crumpled by this time, and he looked as miserable as either Minnelli. “I didn’t mean….” he started. “You guys are awesome. You’re superheroes, right? And we’re still gonna be the best band ever.” He edged around Mikey to stare at all three of them with big, sad eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Gerard reached out with one of his arms, his fingers scrambling to grab at Frank’s hand. He pulled him into the hug, and the four of them sat like that, just breathing slowly and holding on, for what seemed like a long time.
Mikey pulled his face away, scrubbing his cheeks with a sleeve of his tee-shirt. Bob thought he’d felt a suspiciously warm wetness, but he didn’t say anything. God knew if Bob were to suddenly find out that he was from another planet, he’d be pretty upset, too.
“I think,” Mikey began slowly, “I was really little, so I don’t really remember, but I think there was a war or something.”
Gerard nodded from Bob’s other side. “Yeah. And I think whatever side we were on lost, and that’s why we had to find someplace else to live.”
Bob shrugged, trying not to think about the fact that there was another world out there with wars and real spaceships and, apparently, a population of refugees living in the mountains in the backwoods. “Earth’s a pretty good place for that, I hear.”
“I guess so,” said Gerard with a little, disbelieving laugh. “Unless you get the FBI or whatever following you around.”
“I bet it’s the Roswell people,” Frank said. “You guys’d kick the little green men’s asses.”
Mikey snickered, and Bob didn’t think he’d ever been so relieved to hear a kid laugh.
“Hey, guys,” Ray called hesitantly from the front, “Sorry to interrupt, I think we’re here. Bob, you wanna come up here and tell me for sure?”
Bob extracted himself from the pile of kids and stuck his head between the front seats to look; sure enough, they’d reached Bert and Quinn’s little house in the woods. “Yeah, this is it,” he said. “Everybody out.”
As the boys dashed for the door, not even bothering to look for the key as Mikey opened it, Ray put a hand on Bob’s shoulder.
“Hey,” he said in a low voice. “You doing okay?”
“As good as I’m gonna be doing,” Bob said. After the initial shock had worn off, Bob found he didn’t really think any differently about their situation than he had before—they were still trying to find Mikey and Gerard’s family, only now they knew where that family was from, and they were still trying to avoid the people coming after them, only now they had another idea about what those people might be after. Ray, on the other hand, hadn’t really said much. “Are you okay?” Bob asked, hoping Ray wasn’t planning on taking off now. The guy had proved to be a real asset in a pinch, someone you could count on, and that was worth a lot in Bob’s book.
“Oh, yeah,” said Ray with a loud, slightly hysterical laugh. “Just another day, you know?” In a calmer voice, he said, “I really admired…I mean, you were really great with those kids. They seriously lucked out with you.” He smiled, then, and Bob felt an unexpected twinge of something in his gut.
“Well, I think I pretty much lucked out with you,” he said, “so it works out.”
Ray’s grin grew at that, and Bob felt himself suddenly extremely aware of Ray’s hand on his shoulder.
“We should go in,” Bob said. “The kids are probably wondering what the hell we’re doing out here.”
Ray nodded, but he only took his hand away when Bob turned to go inside.
As Bob walked in, he found Frank, Mikey, and Gerard clustered together on the couch, leafing through a phone book. “What are you guys up to?” Bob asked, hoping the flush he could feel in his face wasn’t as visible as he thought it was.
“We gotta call them,” said Mikey solemnly, “and let them know we’re here.”
Bob didn’t even ask who ‘they,’ were; the excited looks on Gerard’s and Frank’s faces told him all he needed to know. He leaned over to peer at the open phone book on Mikey’s lap. Sure enough, they’d opened it to the Cs.
“Sara Castaway,” Mikey read, and then he frowned.
Gerard shrugged. “I don’t know her, either, but the name’s right, right?” He turned to Bob, looking at him eagerly. “Can I borrow your cell phone for a moment?”
Bob handed it over. “Sure.” Ray, who’d walked in behind Bob, raised his eyebrows in interest, trying to catch Bob’s eye. Bob looked away. They didn’t have time for whatever the hell was going on in his head right now.
Gerard dialed so quickly he screwed up the first time. The second time, though, Bob could hear the phone ringing on the other end, and a female voice said, “Hello?”
“Hi,” Gerard said. “I’m Gerard Minn—Castaway, I mean. I’m calling to talk to Sara Castaway?”
“Oh, holy shit,” Bob could hear on the other end. “Sara, Sara, get your ass in here, we got a live one!”
Another woman’s voice, which sounded remarkably similar to the first one, said, “Gerard, hi. Oh, man, we’ve been looking for you and Mikey for years. Lemme just…” There was a pause on the other end, and then the voice said, “’Kay, you’re in the cabin, right? Well, go outside and get back in Mr. Toro’s RV.”
Ray’s eyes grew huge at that. “Holy shit. How’s this woman know my name?” Before Bob could even begin to formulate a response, Ray smacked himself in the forehead. “Psychic aliens, duh.”
“We kind of gotta hurry,” said the first woman’s voice. “Agent Palmer and Agent Viglione, those guys that were after you? Well, they’re like five minutes away, and believe me, their car’s way faster than an RV.”
“Shit, Tegan,” said the second woman’s voice, “don’t scare them. They’re probably freaked enough as it is. Go on, though, we’re sending someone to meet you.” There was a click and a dial tone, and Gerard handed the phone back to Bob.
“You heard the lady,” Frank said, jumping up off the couch.
They hurried back out to the camper. “Your friends’ cabin seemed real nice,” Ray offered as he hopped back into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah,” Bob said wryly, imagining what Bert and Quinn would think if he told them about this little adventure. “Too bad we only got to see the phone book.”
Ray laughed. From the back seat, Mikey said, “Hey, the women on the phone are talking to us again.”
Somehow, Bob wasn’t too surprised. “Yeah?” he said. “They have instructions for us?”
Mikey nodded. “Yeah, they say to turn south and start driving up the mountain.”
“Well, whatever they say,” Ray said, and turned.
A few minutes into their drive, Frank turned to look behind them. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Are those those guys that were following us? The FBI guys?”
Bob jerked his head around so fast something popped in his neck. He didn’t recognize the van behind them, though—it didn’t look anything like the convertible the gunmen had been driving at the rest stop. It was definitely following Ray’s camper, though.
“It’s Pete and Patrick,” said Mikey. His mouth drew into a worried little knot. “And some other people. Man, I hope the FBI guys don’t catch up with us.”
“No kidding,” said Gerard. “That’s why we ran away in the first place, to keep them safe, and then they just follow us!”
Bob couldn’t really blame them—at this point, any doubts he had about Pete Wentz’s ability to parent Mikey and Gerard had been thrown on the backburner, what with everything that had happened. After all, in the end, Wentz and his gang were probably just trying to do what Bob and Ray were trying to do: protect their kids. Which was about to get harder, Bob thought with a sinking heart as he watched a convertible start following the van at the bottom of the mountain.
After about twenty minutes of hard, bumpy road, made even harder by the fact that it was long past sunset, and that the headlights on Ray’s RV were kind of lost in the boundless darkness beyond the edge of the narrow roads, the way started to level off until they reached a flat, grassy plain about midway up the mountain.
“The lady says to stop here,” said Gerard.
Ray and Bob looked behind them. Both the van and the convertible were visible in the distance. “Are you sure?” Ray asked.
“That’s what she says,” Gerard said. “We can’t drive all the way up. We’re supposed to get out of the camper and stand in the middle of the field.”
“With no cover?” Frank wrinkled his nose. “And we don’t even have a gun or anything. Man.”
Mikey shuddered, which Bob was starting to think was never a good sign, and said, “I’ve had dreams about this place before.” Bob didn’t even have to ask whether they were good ones or not.
“Guys, this doesn’t strike me as a real good idea,” said Ray. “Maybe we should just…stay in the van. I mean, are these women gonna send some help, or something?”
Gerard bit his lip and shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t know. I mean….” He tilted his head as if he were listening to something. “She says someone’s gonna meet us, and we’d have to get out of the van sooner or later, anyway.” He looked at Bob with big eyes, not really imploring, but just looking to him for a decision.
The whole thing seemed like a kind of shitty idea to Bob, too, but it wasn’t like he had any other, better plans up his sleeve. “Let’s do it,” he said.
Ray gave him a long, hard look, but finally he nodded and shut off the engine. The dark seemed almost absolute, with the moon hidden behind a cloud, and it took a few moments for Bob’s eyes to adjust. The kids hopped out, carrying all of their stuff and Bunny to boot. Ray and Bob followed.
“I sure hope this works,” Ray muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Bob. “We’re all way too young and pretty to die, you know?”
“It’s gonna work,” said Bob, trying to believe it. They were dealing with aliens powerful enough to be transmitting information from the top of a fucking mountain with nothing but their brains. Surely these aliens weren’t stupid enough to have dragged them to the top of the mountain without a plan they were really damn sure of. Right?
“Yeah,” Ray said, nodding like he was trying to convince himself. “Sure.” He reached out and grabbed Bob’s hand, squeezing it once before he let go. There was a smile on his lips, small but real and hopeful. Bob had that weird feeling in his stomach again. Great fucking time for a fucking sexual identity crisis, Bob, he chided himself.
“We’re not gonna die,” Mikey yelled from the middle of the field. “But we gotta pay attention. Think about kissing Ray later, okay?”
Fucking psychic kids, Christ. Ray gripped Bob’s shoulder, businesslike this time, and said, “We’ll worry about it later, okay?”
It wasn’t like they had any other options, but Bob nodded. They walked out to where the kids were standing, and Bob manfully restrained himself from giving Mikey a noogie. They waited as the van pulled up.
A shitload of people poured out—a couple of little guys with dark hair, a couple of tall, stringy guys, a short guy with glasses and a hat, a pretty woman with long legs and cool boots. The short guy with glasses and one of the little dark-haired guys ran up, pushing Ray and Bob aside as if they didn’t even see them, and hugged Gerard and Mikey so hard that Mikey made a little squeaking sound like a rubber toy being squeezed.
“Oh, my God,” said the little dark-haired guy. “You guys are so grounded, you don’t even know.”
“We’ve been so goddamned worried.” The guy with glasses seemed to be having a hard time keeping his voice steady. “We were so afraid something bad was gonna happen to you, I can’t even tell you.”
“Dude,” said one of the tall guys, “so these are those kids you were talking about? Weren’t there only two of them?”
“I’m Frank,” said Frank, as if they’d met at the movie theater instead of on a mountain waiting for aliens or FBI hitmen to come, whichever was first.
“Um.” Another little guy jerked his thumb at Bob and Ray. “So, like, kidnappers or something?”
Christ. Bob’s record was never going to recover from this little escapade. Bob was about to explain for what felt like the millionth time that despite what it looked like, no, they hadn’t kidnapped Mikey and Gerard, yes, they were trying to act in the kids’ best interests here. But Ray stiffened next to him, and Mikey and Gerard pulled away from the guys that had been hugging them.
“Um,” Ray said. “I think the Men in Black are here.”
Bob didn’t know how he’d missed the convertible pulling up—maybe he’d been too distracted by the sudden influx of people—but there they were, the short-haired woman, the man with the old-fashioned hat, complete with guns and scary-looking smiles of triumph.
Whatever those aliens had planned, they sure as shit needed to do it soon.
Part 9
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
They’d been driving for hours now, following the camper and waiting for just the right opportunity to, say, run it to the side of the road, or take advantage of a gas stop to grab their prey. Hours, and nothing.
“To think,” Agent Palmer said, drawing mutilated stick figures on the back of their road map, “I was actually fucking excited when we pulled this job. Christ, now I wish we’d foisted it off on fucking Cocker and Molko.”
“Tracking actual extraterrestrials?” said Agent Viglione dismissively. “Those guys are extraterrestrials—I wouldn’t trust them to be objective.”
Agent Palmer laughed at that. “Too fucking right,” she said. “But still. I hate feeling so…useless, you know?”
“I know,” said Agent Viglione, heartfelt. What he wouldn’t give for a little excitement, a little danger, instead of this, the world’s most boring car chase.
“And watch, we’ll catch up and they’ll turn out to be, like, little fakers, and not ETs at all, and we’ll have just wasted all this--” Agent Palmer’s head jerked to one side, suddenly, and there was an urgent note in her voice as she said, “Look at that. There was a police road stop here.”
Viglione slowed the car. “Yeah?” he said.
“Yeah. Look, you can see the barriers on the side of the road. You know what that means?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Unless there’s some bank robber on the run out here, it means they were looking for Stump’s wards out here—and the road stop's not there anymore, which means the cops found them. Where’s the nearest police station?”
“You’ve got the map,” said Viglione. “You tell me. I think I saw a sign for Cork Valley a little ways back—you think they’re big enough to merit a police station?”
“None of these podunk towns are big enough to merit a police station,” Palmer said scornfully. “But let’s try it.”
Viglione accelerated, feeling an edge of excitement for the first time in hours.
**
Well, this pretty much sucks.
Gerard nodded slightly but didn’t say anything. Which made sense, really, seeing as how he was sitting right next to Officer Stevenson and right across from Chief McCoy.
Frank was squirming in his seat. He’d eaten his pizza and fries as fast as Mikey had ever seen a kid eat, and now he kept looking at Mikey and Gerard expectantly, like he thought they had some kind of grand plan. It was kind of flattering, but also frustrating, because frankly, Mikey was too tired to even eat his stupid hamburger, much less come up with some big escape plan.
He felt Gerard trying to say something mentally, but as it sometimes happened with Gerard, it wasn’t coming in clearly—just a vague sense of questioning, a rush of tangled emotions, and an image of Bob in what looked like a dungeon.
I don’t get it, Mikey said.
Gerard rolled his eyes and said, “Hey, Chief McCoy, is anybody keeping Bob company?”
“Huh?” Chief McCoy looked away from the television, where some kind of sports thing was going on. “Oh. No, not right now, but I think he’ll be okay. He’s only gonna be there until tomorrow, when we can start doing our investigation.”
Gerard grinned at Mikey, and his excitement was clear, even if the reason for it wasn’t.
Officer Stevenson gave them a weird look. They hadn’t even done anything too weird when the police were bringing them in—unless you counted Frank biting people as ‘weird.’ Mikey wasn’t stupid enough to think that the cops would take their supernatural stuff as well as Bob and Ray had. Still, Officer Stevenson seemed kind of on edge around them, almost suspicious. Maybe it was because he was the one Frank had bitten.
The television abruptly shut off, and the rest of the people in the diner groaned. “Hayley, come on!” yelled a guy near the door.
“Hold your horses,” Hayley grumbled. She stood on a chair to turn the television back on. Nothing. “Huh,” she said. “Stupid thing must have blown a fuse or something.”
It was at that point that the lights started switching off and on, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, and dishes started flying from tables into the air. It was also at that point that Mikey figured out what Gerard had been so excited about.
You fibber, he said, you are so good at distractions. He wasn’t as good at moving stuff as Gerard was, but he figured any little bit helped, so he knocked over a pile of menus and pushed a couple of empty chairs back and forth from their tables.
“Holy shit!” Frank said. “This place is haunted!” It was a good thing Officer Stevenson and Chief McCoy were busy staring in confusion at the chaos everywhere, or they would have noticed how bad Frank was at hiding a grin.
Chief McCoy stood up. “Okay,” he said, “everybody stay calm. I’m sure it’s just, like, a little earthquake or something. Nothing to worry about, it’ll be over in a sec….”
The TV switched back on and started flipping though channels at random, and the silverware started dancing. Hey, that’s really good, Gee, said Mikey, impressed despite himself. He never understood how Gerard could keep multiple things going at once without getting distracted or developing a massive headache.
A couple of customers ran out the door. “And they didn’t even pay!” Frank muttered, and Gerard giggled.
“Should we…evacuate, or something?” Officer Stevenson asked. He hadn’t looked at Mikey, Gerard, and Frank since the lights had started flashing.
“Um.” Chief McCoy looked freaked and indecisive for a moment and then said, “Hayley, you got a circuit-breaker back there? I think maybe we should turn everything off and turn it back on again.”
“The fuck!” yelled Hayley. “My diner isn’t a computer! We’ve got demonic possession here, not an error message!”
Come on, let’s go, said Mikey. They seem pretty distracted.
Gerard nodded and stood up. “Hey, Mikey and Frank and me have to go to the bathroom, okay?” he said.
“Sure, be careful,” said Chief McCoy, his brain clearly a million miles away.
Frank valiantly restrained himself from laughing until they were outside. “That was awesome,” he said as soon as they were out of earshot of the diner. “Some serious super hero shit, you guys.”
“Nah,” said Gerard, looking at his feet with a modest little shrug. “I mean, we had to do something, right?”
Mikey shook his head. Frank’s right, it was awesome. You were like something out of Poltergeist. It wasn’t like Gerard wasn’t always kind of awesome, but he’d actually gotten them away from the cops this time. He was totally the best big brother ever.
Gerard shrugged, flushing a little. “Yeah, well, it’s not gonna matter much if we don’t hurry. I figure we gotta go rescue Bob, and then we can meet up with Ray like we were supposed to.”
“We’re doing an actual prison break now?” asked Frank. “Excellent.”
The police had locked the door to the station when they’d left, but that wasn’t much of a problem; even when Mikey was tired and had kind of a headache, locks were easy. They pushed the door open and looked around.
It seemed empty, and it was a big enough open space that they probably would have been able to see any cops if they were there. Mikey reached out mentally, and found only Bob. “The cell’s that way,” he said, pointing to a door at the back of the room. “Let’s go before Chief McCoy and Officer Stevenson get here.” It probably wouldn’t be long; they had to have noticed that Mikey and Frank and Gerard were missing.
“I can keep the lights and the TV flashing if you think it’ll help,” Gerard offered.
Frank frowned. “You can do that, even if you’re not in the restaurant anymore?”
“I guess,” said Gerard. “I mean, it’s all mental, right? As long as I can still picture everything pretty good, I bet I can still make stuff move.”
“Wow,” Frank said, looking at Gerard as if he were Professor Xavier and John McClane rolled into one unstoppable force of coolness. Mikey didn’t even bother feeling jealous; they didn’t have time, and plus, if Gerard really could control stuff from a long ways away, Mikey thought Frank’s hero-worship might not be too misplaced. He wasn’t even using his harmonica—Mikey didn’t know if that meant he was getting better at using his powers, or if it was just the fact that this was really important making him concentrate on it more, but either way, it was pretty sweet.
They sneaked along the highway, trying to be quiet for reasons that Mikey didn’t totally understand. When they got to the cell itself, Mikey felt his stomach drop. Bob just looked so dejected, and it sucked hardcore to see him locked up like he was some kind of bad guy.
“Hey, Bob!” Frank said in a loud whisper. “Come on! We’re blowing this joint.”
Bob’s head jerked up, and he stared at them with wide eyes. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Didn’t you hear Frank?” Gerard asked, so excited he was bouncing from foot to foot and fiddling with his hands. “We’re busting you out.”
“I thought those cops took you out to get dinner,” said Bob.
Frank rolled his eyes. “We gave them the slip. Now come on, Bob, we gotta go before they figure out we left! Mikey, do your thing!”
Mikey obligingly stepped forward to put his hand on the cell door. He would have thought a jail lock would be different from a regular door lock, stronger or something, but it really wasn’t, and the metal cylinders turned as easily in his mind as anything. The door swung open with a rusty squeak, and Bob winced.
Frank rushed into the cell to grab at Bob’s hand. “Let’s go! You still have your phone? We have to call Ray and tell him what happened, and get him to pick us up.”
Bob stood up slowly. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Underneath was a current of I wonder how much more prison time this is gonna get me and When did my life become a comic book?
Mikey got that Bob was stressed, too, he really did, but this was definitely not the time for him to have a mid-life crisis or whatever. “Dude, Bob,” he said, “seriously. We gotta go, like, now.”
Bob sighed loudly and shook his head, and when he looked at them again, he was normal, together Bob again. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
**
Bob had dealt with a lot of shit on the road—asshole venue managers, crappy equipment, someone in his band getting plastered and getting into inadvisable sexual situations—but the hour he spent in a smalltown jail cell contemplating just what was gonna happen to him, and to the kids if those gun-toting Men in Black types showed up again, rated pretty highly on Bob’s list of Terrible Shit.
It was almost a relief when he called Ray, who shouted, “Oh my GOD, where are you guys, did the cops get you, do I have to come bail you out, are the kids okay, are you okay?” all in one breath. Bob felt himself smiling.
“Calm down,” he said. “We’re fine, all of us. We’re in Cork Valley—we’re hiding out behind the school. Can you come get us?”
“Can I come get you?” Ray promptly went into a long, breathless rant about how he was on his way, and he was insulted that Bob would even ask, and dammit, Ray Toro did not leave fallen men behind! Bob was laughing by the end of it, ignoring Ray’s indignance.
“God, that guy,” he said as he hung up the phone, and Mikey fixed him with a weird, unblinking look, the kind that always tended to remind him that Gerard and Mikey were not particularly normal kids. “What are you staring at?” Bob asked.
“Nothing,” Mikey said. “Ray’s cool.” His expression was carefully blank, but Gerard and Frank kept giving each other what they obviously thought were subtle grins. Well, whatever, Bob thought. He didn’t care if three ridiculously dorky kids thought he was a dork.
Ray showed up amazingly quickly; the guy must have been speeding down the highway. He didn’t get out, but motioned hugely at them from the driver’s seat. “Let’s go!” he said, darting his eyes nervously around, as if he expected cops to jump out of the bushes and grab them. Not an unreasonable fear, actually, Bob thought soberly.
In a matter of seconds, all four of them were back in the camper and on the road again. After surprising Bob with a fierce hug as he climbed into the driver’s seat, Ray was strangely quiet. The kids had taken to sharing the headphones of an iPod (Gerard and Mikey) and flipping through a book about video games (Frank), so Bob took advantage of the quiet to call up Bert.
“Yo, Bryar!” Bert hooted as soon as he picked up the phone. “How’s the hiding out from the world going? Have you come to any deep realizations about, like, the universe and stuff?”
“Um. Not so much,” Bob said. Really, this whole experience was raising a lot more questions than it was answering. “Listen, Bert--”
“Hey, guys,” Bert was yelling to someone on the other end. “It’s Bob!” More shouts from the background, and Bob found himself grinning. He’d needed the break, but he found himself missing the relative normalcy of touring insanity.
Quinn’s voice, sounding distant and tinny, asked, “What’s up, Bob?”
“Quinn, hey. I was just asking Bert, you guys know that cabin you guys have in the backwoods, near Cork Valley?”
“Shit, I knew it! He’s moving out to the woods to become a lumberjack! It’s the flannel, I tell you—gives ‘em away every time!” Quinn shouted to the other people in the room. To Bob, he said, “Yeah?”
“Would you guys be real upset if I used it for a day or two? I wouldn’t trash it or anything, just need a place to…” Hide. “…hang out for a bit.”
Bert laughed on the other end, high and scratchy. “Trust me, man, you couldn’t do worse to it than we have. Be my fucking guest! There’s a key under the mat for the cleaning people.”
“Awesome. Thanks.” He got some directions from Quinn, shot the shit with the two of them for a few more minutes, and said hi to Dan and Jepha before hanging up.
“Were those the guys from your band?” Ray asked as Bob put away his phone.
“And you didn’t introduce me!” Frank yelled from the backseat. “Christ, Bob, I thought we were friends!”
Bob rolled his eyes at Frank, and Ray chuckled. “Bob Bryar, our connection to the stars,” he said.
“Connection to the stars, my ass,” Bob grumbled. “Hey, turn left up here. I figure we can lay low in the cabin for a little bit, figure out our next move.”
“I got some gas earlier and asked the guy there about any boat accidents around here, like, nine years ago,” said Ray, making the turn. “He said he hadn’t heard of any, which made me think, duh, Ray, the boat accident wasn’t here, it was back near where Gerard and Mikey used to live.”
“Um. Yeah,” Bob said. He had no idea where Ray was going with this, or if he was just talking to make conversation.
Ray kept talking as if he didn’t even notice Bob’s confusion. “Yeah, I know. But then he asked where I was headed, and I told him Wolf Mountain, and he said—get this, he asked if we were going to visit the weird cult people up there.”
In the rearview mirror, Bob could see Mikey and Gerard take their earbuds out and sit up straight, staring intently at Ray. Carefully, feeling like they were about to make a breakthrough, Bob asked, “What weird cult people?”
“Okay, so about the same time as the boat accident,” said Ray excitedly, “some religious people built a compound up on Wolf Mountain. Apparently they don’t get out much, because of their beliefs or something, but they have a couple of guys who buy supplies for them every once in a while. And I mean, seriously, nobody knows where these people come from, or what their deal is, and first thing I thought was, ‘Mikey and Gerard.’” He craned his neck over to look at the kids in the back seat. “What do you think, guys? Any of this sound right to you?”
Gerard made a face. “I don’t know, being in a cult sounds kind of lame.”
“Hey,” said Frank, “didn’t the empire call the Jedi a cult in Star Wars?”
“I don’t remember that,” Gerard said, but he looked pleased.
Mikey, on the other hand, looked like he was having some kind of out-of-body experience. He was staring blankly into space, his whole body frozen and straining. Bunny, who hadn’t been farther than a few inches from Mikey since they’d gotten back on the camper, made a distressed-sounding noise, and that more than anything made Bob worried.
“Mikey, are you okay?” he asked.
He had no idea what words that came out of Mikey’s mouth meant—they didn’t sound like any language Bob had heard before. Whatever they meant, they seemed to take Gerard aback, and he stared at his brother with wide eyes. Finally, Mikey forced out a “Yeah. That’s them,” sounding like the act of speaking was a tremendous effort for him.
“Are you remembering stuff?” Frank asked seriously, scooting close to the Minnellis and leaning against Mikey’s shoulder.
“I. Yeah,” Mikey said, strained.
“Hey, you don’t have to tell us if it’s too hard,” Ray said quickly. “I didn’t mean to remind you of anything bad. I mean, God, maybe it’s some crazy death cult, and you just escaped with your lives before, and….” Ray shot Bob a helpless look. “Sorry.”
Somehow, though, Bob didn’t think the trauma of escaping from some scary cult was the problem. As weird as that would have been, it didn’t explain much about Gerard and Mikey and what they could do, or what language Mikey had spoken, or why both of them had told Chief McCoy their name was “Castaway.” Bob turned to watch Mikey grab at his brother’s hand and take deep breaths, looking like he was trying to drag himself back into the real world.
“The guy,” Mikey said. “The guy who helped me save my starcase?”
Bob had no idea who that might be, but Gerard nodded, so Bob stayed quiet.
“I think—I don’t know if he was actually our uncle, but we called him Uncle Brian. Or, well, we didn’t call him that, we called him something that meant Uncle in our language. The one we spoke in the orphanage before Mama adopted us.”
Gerard nodded again, while Frank, rapt, looked at Gerard and Mikey as if they were about to reveal some grand secret. Maybe they were, Bob thought. Gerard was starting to look a little out of it, too.
“And he was on our boat with us, the one that sank. But there were other boats, too.”
Some kind of mass immigration, then, a kind of flight? From what, though? A shudder ran through Bob’s body, at the thought that maybe Gerard and Mikey had survived something worse than the boat crash.
“It wasn’t a boat, though,” said Gerard in a low voice.
“It wasn’t?” Bob said neutrally.
Gerard reached to take Mikey’s starcase, and Mikey gave it up without protest. Gerard ran his fingers over the twin star signs on the metal, frowning at his hands. “Uncle Brian told me…he told me, if we got lost, to stay together, and hold onto the starcase. And tell people our last name was Castaway. That was the password. If we told it to one of our people, they’d recognize us and take us home.”
“Home where?” asked Frank, breathless-sounding. “In the mountains?”
“I guess,” said Gerard. “But that’s not where we were from to begin with.” He looked at the starcase again. “Where we were from to begin with….” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I think it had two suns. I’m pretty sure…it was a totally different planet.”
Despite the patent absurdity of the statement, it never even occurred to Bob to doubt it. Not with these kids, and not with Gerard’s face looking like it did.
There was dead silence in the car for what seemed like an eternity. Bob didn’t understand why he was so stunned. It wasn’t as if being an alien was any weirder than being able to open locks with your mind or move things by playing a harmonica or talk to cats. But the sudden knowledge that Gerard and Mikey hadn’t evolved the way that everyone else on Earth had, that there was extraterrestrial life and it looked just like humans but was different on some fundamental level…Bob almost forgot to breathe for a moment.
Ray was the first to break the silence. “Holy shit,” he breathed out, and then looked immediately embarrassed. “Excuse my language,” he said, as if Frank didn’t cuss a blue streak himself.
“What did I tell you!” Frank said, halfway between crowing triumphantly and gasping in awe. “It was either that or government experiments. Aliens, Christ. I knew you guys couldn’t be human.”
Gerard looked up at that, his face a picture of misery. “Don’t say that,” he said. “We….” He looked like he was about to cry. Mikey hadn’t said anything yet; he was staring straight ahead again, but this looked less like a flashback and more like a scared little boy trying not to show that he was scared.
“You’re as human as anybody,” Bob said firmly, and even as he said it, he believed it. Maybe, strictly speaking, they had some extra genetic stuff going on, but he couldn’t look at these kids in their band tee-shirts and dark jeans, Mikey’s glasses sliding down his nose and Gerard’s fingers stained with markers, and think that there was anything less than human about them, no matter how weird they were. “You guys. This doesn’t change who you are, you know. You can still be in your rock band and draw your comics or do whatever you want.” He tugged at his seatbelt. “Ray, you mind if I…” He trailed off, not knowing why he was announcing his intentions to Ray—it wasn’t like he needed permission.
“Of course,” said Ray, his eyes huge.
Bob unbuckled himself and went into the back of the camper to sit between Mikey and Gerard. He didn’t move to touch them, not wanting to make them uncomfortable. He just sat and waited.
Gerard was the first to wipe at his eyes with his hands and lean in, burying his face in Bob’s tee-shirt and hugging him hard. Mikey followed suit on the other side, the edges of his glasses pressing into Bob’s ribs. Bob didn’t complain.
Frank’s face had crumpled by this time, and he looked as miserable as either Minnelli. “I didn’t mean….” he started. “You guys are awesome. You’re superheroes, right? And we’re still gonna be the best band ever.” He edged around Mikey to stare at all three of them with big, sad eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Gerard reached out with one of his arms, his fingers scrambling to grab at Frank’s hand. He pulled him into the hug, and the four of them sat like that, just breathing slowly and holding on, for what seemed like a long time.
Mikey pulled his face away, scrubbing his cheeks with a sleeve of his tee-shirt. Bob thought he’d felt a suspiciously warm wetness, but he didn’t say anything. God knew if Bob were to suddenly find out that he was from another planet, he’d be pretty upset, too.
“I think,” Mikey began slowly, “I was really little, so I don’t really remember, but I think there was a war or something.”
Gerard nodded from Bob’s other side. “Yeah. And I think whatever side we were on lost, and that’s why we had to find someplace else to live.”
Bob shrugged, trying not to think about the fact that there was another world out there with wars and real spaceships and, apparently, a population of refugees living in the mountains in the backwoods. “Earth’s a pretty good place for that, I hear.”
“I guess so,” said Gerard with a little, disbelieving laugh. “Unless you get the FBI or whatever following you around.”
“I bet it’s the Roswell people,” Frank said. “You guys’d kick the little green men’s asses.”
Mikey snickered, and Bob didn’t think he’d ever been so relieved to hear a kid laugh.
“Hey, guys,” Ray called hesitantly from the front, “Sorry to interrupt, I think we’re here. Bob, you wanna come up here and tell me for sure?”
Bob extracted himself from the pile of kids and stuck his head between the front seats to look; sure enough, they’d reached Bert and Quinn’s little house in the woods. “Yeah, this is it,” he said. “Everybody out.”
As the boys dashed for the door, not even bothering to look for the key as Mikey opened it, Ray put a hand on Bob’s shoulder.
“Hey,” he said in a low voice. “You doing okay?”
“As good as I’m gonna be doing,” Bob said. After the initial shock had worn off, Bob found he didn’t really think any differently about their situation than he had before—they were still trying to find Mikey and Gerard’s family, only now they knew where that family was from, and they were still trying to avoid the people coming after them, only now they had another idea about what those people might be after. Ray, on the other hand, hadn’t really said much. “Are you okay?” Bob asked, hoping Ray wasn’t planning on taking off now. The guy had proved to be a real asset in a pinch, someone you could count on, and that was worth a lot in Bob’s book.
“Oh, yeah,” said Ray with a loud, slightly hysterical laugh. “Just another day, you know?” In a calmer voice, he said, “I really admired…I mean, you were really great with those kids. They seriously lucked out with you.” He smiled, then, and Bob felt an unexpected twinge of something in his gut.
“Well, I think I pretty much lucked out with you,” he said, “so it works out.”
Ray’s grin grew at that, and Bob felt himself suddenly extremely aware of Ray’s hand on his shoulder.
“We should go in,” Bob said. “The kids are probably wondering what the hell we’re doing out here.”
Ray nodded, but he only took his hand away when Bob turned to go inside.
As Bob walked in, he found Frank, Mikey, and Gerard clustered together on the couch, leafing through a phone book. “What are you guys up to?” Bob asked, hoping the flush he could feel in his face wasn’t as visible as he thought it was.
“We gotta call them,” said Mikey solemnly, “and let them know we’re here.”
Bob didn’t even ask who ‘they,’ were; the excited looks on Gerard’s and Frank’s faces told him all he needed to know. He leaned over to peer at the open phone book on Mikey’s lap. Sure enough, they’d opened it to the Cs.
“Sara Castaway,” Mikey read, and then he frowned.
Gerard shrugged. “I don’t know her, either, but the name’s right, right?” He turned to Bob, looking at him eagerly. “Can I borrow your cell phone for a moment?”
Bob handed it over. “Sure.” Ray, who’d walked in behind Bob, raised his eyebrows in interest, trying to catch Bob’s eye. Bob looked away. They didn’t have time for whatever the hell was going on in his head right now.
Gerard dialed so quickly he screwed up the first time. The second time, though, Bob could hear the phone ringing on the other end, and a female voice said, “Hello?”
“Hi,” Gerard said. “I’m Gerard Minn—Castaway, I mean. I’m calling to talk to Sara Castaway?”
“Oh, holy shit,” Bob could hear on the other end. “Sara, Sara, get your ass in here, we got a live one!”
Another woman’s voice, which sounded remarkably similar to the first one, said, “Gerard, hi. Oh, man, we’ve been looking for you and Mikey for years. Lemme just…” There was a pause on the other end, and then the voice said, “’Kay, you’re in the cabin, right? Well, go outside and get back in Mr. Toro’s RV.”
Ray’s eyes grew huge at that. “Holy shit. How’s this woman know my name?” Before Bob could even begin to formulate a response, Ray smacked himself in the forehead. “Psychic aliens, duh.”
“We kind of gotta hurry,” said the first woman’s voice. “Agent Palmer and Agent Viglione, those guys that were after you? Well, they’re like five minutes away, and believe me, their car’s way faster than an RV.”
“Shit, Tegan,” said the second woman’s voice, “don’t scare them. They’re probably freaked enough as it is. Go on, though, we’re sending someone to meet you.” There was a click and a dial tone, and Gerard handed the phone back to Bob.
“You heard the lady,” Frank said, jumping up off the couch.
They hurried back out to the camper. “Your friends’ cabin seemed real nice,” Ray offered as he hopped back into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah,” Bob said wryly, imagining what Bert and Quinn would think if he told them about this little adventure. “Too bad we only got to see the phone book.”
Ray laughed. From the back seat, Mikey said, “Hey, the women on the phone are talking to us again.”
Somehow, Bob wasn’t too surprised. “Yeah?” he said. “They have instructions for us?”
Mikey nodded. “Yeah, they say to turn south and start driving up the mountain.”
“Well, whatever they say,” Ray said, and turned.
A few minutes into their drive, Frank turned to look behind them. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Are those those guys that were following us? The FBI guys?”
Bob jerked his head around so fast something popped in his neck. He didn’t recognize the van behind them, though—it didn’t look anything like the convertible the gunmen had been driving at the rest stop. It was definitely following Ray’s camper, though.
“It’s Pete and Patrick,” said Mikey. His mouth drew into a worried little knot. “And some other people. Man, I hope the FBI guys don’t catch up with us.”
“No kidding,” said Gerard. “That’s why we ran away in the first place, to keep them safe, and then they just follow us!”
Bob couldn’t really blame them—at this point, any doubts he had about Pete Wentz’s ability to parent Mikey and Gerard had been thrown on the backburner, what with everything that had happened. After all, in the end, Wentz and his gang were probably just trying to do what Bob and Ray were trying to do: protect their kids. Which was about to get harder, Bob thought with a sinking heart as he watched a convertible start following the van at the bottom of the mountain.
After about twenty minutes of hard, bumpy road, made even harder by the fact that it was long past sunset, and that the headlights on Ray’s RV were kind of lost in the boundless darkness beyond the edge of the narrow roads, the way started to level off until they reached a flat, grassy plain about midway up the mountain.
“The lady says to stop here,” said Gerard.
Ray and Bob looked behind them. Both the van and the convertible were visible in the distance. “Are you sure?” Ray asked.
“That’s what she says,” Gerard said. “We can’t drive all the way up. We’re supposed to get out of the camper and stand in the middle of the field.”
“With no cover?” Frank wrinkled his nose. “And we don’t even have a gun or anything. Man.”
Mikey shuddered, which Bob was starting to think was never a good sign, and said, “I’ve had dreams about this place before.” Bob didn’t even have to ask whether they were good ones or not.
“Guys, this doesn’t strike me as a real good idea,” said Ray. “Maybe we should just…stay in the van. I mean, are these women gonna send some help, or something?”
Gerard bit his lip and shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t know. I mean….” He tilted his head as if he were listening to something. “She says someone’s gonna meet us, and we’d have to get out of the van sooner or later, anyway.” He looked at Bob with big eyes, not really imploring, but just looking to him for a decision.
The whole thing seemed like a kind of shitty idea to Bob, too, but it wasn’t like he had any other, better plans up his sleeve. “Let’s do it,” he said.
Ray gave him a long, hard look, but finally he nodded and shut off the engine. The dark seemed almost absolute, with the moon hidden behind a cloud, and it took a few moments for Bob’s eyes to adjust. The kids hopped out, carrying all of their stuff and Bunny to boot. Ray and Bob followed.
“I sure hope this works,” Ray muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Bob. “We’re all way too young and pretty to die, you know?”
“It’s gonna work,” said Bob, trying to believe it. They were dealing with aliens powerful enough to be transmitting information from the top of a fucking mountain with nothing but their brains. Surely these aliens weren’t stupid enough to have dragged them to the top of the mountain without a plan they were really damn sure of. Right?
“Yeah,” Ray said, nodding like he was trying to convince himself. “Sure.” He reached out and grabbed Bob’s hand, squeezing it once before he let go. There was a smile on his lips, small but real and hopeful. Bob had that weird feeling in his stomach again. Great fucking time for a fucking sexual identity crisis, Bob, he chided himself.
“We’re not gonna die,” Mikey yelled from the middle of the field. “But we gotta pay attention. Think about kissing Ray later, okay?”
Fucking psychic kids, Christ. Ray gripped Bob’s shoulder, businesslike this time, and said, “We’ll worry about it later, okay?”
It wasn’t like they had any other options, but Bob nodded. They walked out to where the kids were standing, and Bob manfully restrained himself from giving Mikey a noogie. They waited as the van pulled up.
A shitload of people poured out—a couple of little guys with dark hair, a couple of tall, stringy guys, a short guy with glasses and a hat, a pretty woman with long legs and cool boots. The short guy with glasses and one of the little dark-haired guys ran up, pushing Ray and Bob aside as if they didn’t even see them, and hugged Gerard and Mikey so hard that Mikey made a little squeaking sound like a rubber toy being squeezed.
“Oh, my God,” said the little dark-haired guy. “You guys are so grounded, you don’t even know.”
“We’ve been so goddamned worried.” The guy with glasses seemed to be having a hard time keeping his voice steady. “We were so afraid something bad was gonna happen to you, I can’t even tell you.”
“Dude,” said one of the tall guys, “so these are those kids you were talking about? Weren’t there only two of them?”
“I’m Frank,” said Frank, as if they’d met at the movie theater instead of on a mountain waiting for aliens or FBI hitmen to come, whichever was first.
“Um.” Another little guy jerked his thumb at Bob and Ray. “So, like, kidnappers or something?”
Christ. Bob’s record was never going to recover from this little escapade. Bob was about to explain for what felt like the millionth time that despite what it looked like, no, they hadn’t kidnapped Mikey and Gerard, yes, they were trying to act in the kids’ best interests here. But Ray stiffened next to him, and Mikey and Gerard pulled away from the guys that had been hugging them.
“Um,” Ray said. “I think the Men in Black are here.”
Bob didn’t know how he’d missed the convertible pulling up—maybe he’d been too distracted by the sudden influx of people—but there they were, the short-haired woman, the man with the old-fashioned hat, complete with guns and scary-looking smiles of triumph.
Whatever those aliens had planned, they sure as shit needed to do it soon.
Part 9