The Sleepwalkers by J. Gabriel Gates

Author:J. Gabriel Gates
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9780757391736
Publisher: HCIo004
Published: 2011-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

Night is deepening and the air is still as Caleb walks out to the car, starts it up, and drives to the sheriff ’s station—or the “Trailer O’Justice,” as it might more aptly be called. He cracks a tiny smile at his own wit, but when he dwells on the fact that his friend isn’t there to share the joke with him, the smile on his face quickly melts into resolve. He has to focus. There is somebody he can save tonight. It might not be Bean, but at least it’s somebody.

He goes over it in his mind the whole way there, the plan, everything he’s going to say. He’s going to tell them that Ron is his uncle, that he was under the influence of medication so he said the wrong thing. He’ll tell them that the whole situation was just a misunderstanding and that he’ll be glad to make a statement or even testify on Ron’s behalf. And then he’ll take his mother’s credit card (just thinking of the shit storm that’ll rain down on him when that credit card bill with “Calhoun County Sheriff, $500” written on it comes in the mail makes him wince). And then what? He’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it. Maybe Ron will know—whoever Ron is.

But his plans are laid to waste, as most plans are, when he rolls into the police trailer driveway and finds the windows dark and the driveway empty. He gets out and knocks on the door, even waits for ten minutes for somebody to come, glancing over his shoulder the whole time, but in the end he simply walks back to the car. As he sits in the driver’s seat, he sees a sign in the window that simply reads closed. Apparently in Hudsonville no crimes are committed after six pm.

Up the street he stops at the only gas station in town and buys a couple of PowerBars and a cup of coffee from a polite (but not friendly), old black guy and drives back over the desolate, carless streets to his father’s empty house. He goes into the living room, builds a fire, stares at it, and is lost.

After maybe half an hour letting the fire’s light burn into his brain, listening to the tiny sounds of the house, he walks over to his duffel bag on the dusty, old couch, and takes out a small leather-bound book. He goes back to the fire, worms his way into his sleeping bag, then sits, staring at a blank page of his journal. He clicks his pen, clicks it again, and clicks it again.

Come on, he tells himself, you’re a journalist; one day you’ll be a famous one. And here it is, the biggest, most horrifying, most important story you’ll ever have the chance to write. Maybe you can get the FBI to come here. Maybe you can spark a national investigation. That Dream Center must be licensed; who oversees the licensing?

But even as he thinks that thought, he’s disgusted with himself.

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