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When I moved, I did it quickly, dropping into an active combat position, the gun and the Maglite up before me, and running right at the house. I was alert to any threat; my eyes darted to every shadow, and my hands and gun followed, ready.
But nothing moved.
I jumped over a low, rusted chain-link fence and into the yard, my attention and weapon now focused on the darkest places there: the windows, the door, that gap between the broken front wall and the cinder-block foundation.
But still nothing moved. No muzzle flashes. No shotgun blasts. If Sunday were inside, he’d have sh
ot at me by now.
So why bring me here?
I began wondering how I was going to get inside. The windows were covered with sheets of plywood. And the door was sealed with two-by-fours and screws.
Then I put the flashlight beam on the condemnation notice inside a plastic sleeve that dangled from a screw in the center of the door. I could see the perimeters of the notice, but not the center of the document. A standard envelope blocked my view of that, and it stopped me cold.
On the envelope, scrawled in green crayon, were the words Go to the river, Cross, and find the mythological box before it floats out to sea.
Below that was a crude drawing of a boat with six crosses rising off the deck and six stick figures crucified upon them.
CHAPTER
89
A DEEP HORN WOKE Nana Mama, and she came around more fully than before. Her eyelids fluttered open into almost complete darkness save for tiny, soft green lights blinking above her and softly glowing red numbers changing above them: 71, 71, 72, 71 …
What did they mean?
Regina Hope rolled her head to the left and saw nothing but pitch-darkness. When she looked lazily right, however, and up, she saw the edge of something long and silhouetted by the barest glow from other blinking green and red lights.
Where am I?
What is this place?
How did I get here?
Cross’s grandmother strained for memories and saw herself in the front seat of a van of some sort. It was lightly raining out, and the van pulled away from the house. She remembered saying something to the driver about St. Anthony’s being in the other direction, and then sharp pain.
Nana Mama saw it then in her mind’s eye: a hypodermic needle driven into her leg, and then nothing after that. Fear rippled through her, roused her even more. She tried to sit up, but something was holding her snugly across her chest and legs.
Where am I?
The panic set in then. She knew she’d been taken. She knew she’d been drugged and brought to this place.
But where is this place?
And how long have I been asleep?
She squirmed and found she could move her body slightly beneath the restraints, especially her legs. When she tried to part them, she felt the catheter line and realized that she wore no underwear, and her fear turned to anger.
Who did this to me? Why?
“Hello? Who are you?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this to me?”
But she heard nothing, and she wondered if she had died and if this was her particular purgatory or hell.
Then the voice of her great-grandchild Jannie came to her weakly, said, “Nana? Is that you?”
CHAPTER
