December Park(158)

My heart thundered in my chest.

He leaned over my lap and opened the glove box. A small flashlight rolled out into his palm. When he stepped from the car, I said, “I want to come, too.” He didn’t respond, so I climbed across his seat and out the door.

A step or two behind him, we approached the underpass. The darkness looked tangible, like a heavy black curtain. The night around us was hot and humming with mosquitoes. I thought of the clot of flies in the institute and felt queasy.

My father stopped at the mouth of the underpass. The flashlight’s beam barely cracked the black curtain. I sidled up beside him, shivering despite the humidity.

The beam of light played along the stone walls, the tufts of ivy that veined the archway, the cobblestone path that ran from December Park to Solomon’s Field on the other side. One of the posted signs—Park Closes at Dusk—glowed in the flashlight’s glare.

“There’s nothing here,” my father said. There was a clicking sound at the back of his throat. He turned and walked to the car and I followed.





We wended through the dark streets of Harting Farms, the sedan’s searchlight prying into black crevices and burning down haunted brick alleyways that ran between storefronts. When we approached the turnoff onto Farrington Road, I thought I might scream if he took it and headed to the old train station. But we went past it, opting instead for circling the church parking lot, then out onto Augustine Avenue.

My father took the long way to the Cape, and we cruised along the upraised band of roadway that overlooked the Shallows. Tea lights twinkled in the windows of the houses at the far end of the beach.

“He has no bike,” I said. “He wouldn’t have come out this far.”

Again, my dad made that odd clicking noise at the back of his throat. When he ignored me, I realized he wasn’t looking for a boy who had gone out playing in the neighborhood anymore. He was looking for what he feared most—another victim of the Piper.

By the time we returned to our neighborhood, the clock on the dash read 9:09 p.m. Keener’s truck was still parked on Haven Street, the interior light now completely dead. We took the turn onto Worth with particular lethargy, and I wondered if my father was dreading having to tell Doreen Gardiner that we hadn’t found her son. Of course, I was hoping Adrian was already home. He couldn’t still be in that horrid place, could he?

Yet as we passed the Gardiner house, it looked unchanged. Adrian was not sitting on the stoop, waving at us. His round face was not in any of the windows. That blue light still strobed in one of the first-floor windows, though Doreen Gardiner’s silhouette was no longer pressed against the glass like a hideous shadow puppet.

My dad pulled the car into our driveway and shut it down yet remained behind the wheel for several seconds, unmoving and soundless. My left hand itched to touch his shoulder, but he startled me by turning and smiling wearily at me. His face looked incredibly old in the moonlight coming through the windshield, and there were purplish crescents beneath his small and tired eyes. Each individual fleck of beard stubble stood out in sharp relief against the pasty paleness of his face. Though it had undoubtedly been happening for a long time now, I noticed for the first time just how gray his hair had turned.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The question caught me by surprise. “I guess so.”

“I’m going next door. I know it’s late, but why don’t you give the guys a call and see if they’ve heard from him. All right?”

“All right.”

“Put on a pot of coffee for me, too?”

“Yeah.”

We got out of the car together but went our separate ways.

In the kitchen, I started up a pot of coffee, then dialed Peter’s phone number. It rang and rang but no one answered. Eventually the answering machine came on, Monica Blum’s cheery schoolgirl voice instructing me to leave a message. I hung up.

I called Michael’s house next. His father answered in a dull monotone. He seemed irritated at having to speak with me, particularly at such a late hour, but he called for his son nonetheless.

“Adrian hasn’t come back yet,” I said the second Michael came on the line. “His mom came by earlier tonight. She hasn’t seen him.”

Michael said, “He’s an idiot. He probably fell asleep in that old building and will show up tomorrow morning.”

“I’m worried about him.”

“He’ll turn up.”

Then I called Scott. His sister answered and seemed disappointed that the call wasn’t for her. When Scott came on the line, I repeated what I’d told Michael.

“Shit,” Scott said. “You really think he’s in that building?”

“Remember how he didn’t want to leave? He was so certain we were going to find something in there. Yeah, I think he went back in.”

“What if he broke a leg?” Scott said. “Or fell down one of those holes and broke his neck?”

I could only exhale heavily into the receiver.

“Crap,” Scott groaned, “I gotta go. Kristy needs the phone. Call me back if you hear from him.”

“I will,” I said, and hung up.

When my father returned home from the Gardiners’ house the look on his face told me all I needed to know: Adrian hadn’t yet come back. I told him none of my friends had heard from him, either. He nodded and yawned while kicking off his shoes in the front hallway. The coffee was ready and waiting for him on the counter, but my old man went straight for the liquor cabinet.