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  She opened her eyes to continue the search, but the laughter was still there. Wasn’t it? Yes. But from where? Lydia stumbled slowly forward. Her footing was unsure because she was no longer looking at the ground, but instead was looking up and around for the source of the laughter. It seemed to echo through the forest making the falling night even more ominous. As suddenly as it had begun, the laughter stopped.

  “Dr. L! Up here!” Clara cheered.

  Lydia was stunned. “Clara? Is that you? Where are you?”

  “Up here. Look!”

  Just above where Lydia was standing, was Clara, safe and sound in what appeared to be an old treehouse.

  “My parents built this for me when I was little,” she beamed. “I played in it every time we came here. Sometimes my dad would even camp out up here with me.”

  “Clara, you scared me! Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Lindenhurtz. I guess I was just too busy looking at all of my old stuff. There are a few toys up here. And a ratty old blanket. That would have come in handy last night, huh?” she laughed.

  “So…this is your tree house? So, that means…we’re close? The cabin is here somewhere?”

  “Yes! Just over that next hill. If the lights were on, you’d be able to see the glow from here!” She said and smiled, remembering.

  “Oh, thank God!” cried Lydia who was beyond fatigued and was dreading spending another frigid night in the wilderness. “Let’s go check it out!”

  They cautiously approached the cabin just in case anyone else had found it first. It most certainly looked deserted. There were no lights and the brush had grown up around it in such a way that if they had passed just a hundred yards away from it in this light—or lack thereof—they may have missed it. It was lucky that Clara had stumbled upon her old treehouse.

  Clara stepped up onto the rickety porch first. She stepped forward and wiped a heavy film of dust from the outside of the window with the sleeve of her already filthy jacket. She peered inside, but saw nothing.

  “I think it’s safe,” Clara said twisting the knob slowly in her right hand. She pushed forward, but the door wouldn’t budge. She pushed again, this time with her hip and shoulder. The door gave way with such force that she hopped several times to restore her balance.

  It was musty. That was for sure. It had been closed up for a long time. If Clara had been here for leisure—on vacation with Mom and Dad—they’d be opening every window in the place to air it out. She could almost hear her mother exclaiming to her father that it’d be time to leave before the cabin aired out! Clara couldn’t recall the last time she had been here. Maybe when she was eleven? Ten? It didn’t matter. It felt like yesterday. She knew the pantry would be stocked with canned goods. She knew the oil lamps would be on the mantle and the dining room table. She knew where the flashlights, the spare clothing, and the blankets were. Oh, dear God, she thought, a warm blanket!

  “Come on in, Dr. L,” Clara said giving Lydia the same greeting her doctor had given Clara so many times. “I’m starving! I’ll find us something to eat. But first, we need light.”

  Lydia closed the door behind herself. It was pitch black in the cabin, save for barely noticeable moonlight. The trees were so grown up that they blocked most of the light that would have gotten through, but even if they hadn’t, the windows were so dusty, that they’d block it out anyway. Lydia stood in the center of the entryway—she guessed it was the kitchen, though she couldn’t be sure—and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. The darkness was pervasive and she felt the need to protect herself from it. She let out a forced exhale and realized she had been holding her breath. A grown woman, afraid of the dark. That’s nice, she thought. Just then, she thought she saw a figure move to her left, ever so slightly. She tensed again. She didn’t move. It was embarrassing enough that she was relying on a fourteen year old girl to save the day with some light, but now she thought she saw movement again and fought the urge to call out to Clara.

  Clara was now in the bedroom, having expertly maneuvered through the dark cabin thanks to the blueprint scored in her mind. It was almost as if she could actually see the floors, the walls, the knob to the bedroom door. She had at first thought she would light an oil lamp, but quickly remembered the flashlights. That would be much faster, as long as the batteries still worked. While she pulled out a flashlight, which happened to be empty—her mother always took them out, something about eating energy or whatever—Lydia was frozen in terror in the front room.

  The figure which she had thought she perceived to be moving, was now growing taller, bigger. Was it her imagination? Lydia really hoped so, because now it seemed as if whoever—or whatever—it was, was now grunting. This isn’t real, she thought to herself, forcing back a yelp. Not real, not real, not real, she muttered over and over in her mind. It worked for only a moment. The shadow paused and then grew even more. And now, oh God, now it was moving toward her. She could contain her horror no longer.

  “Clara!”

  “Just a minute!” Clara called calmly from the bedroom, unaware of what was transpiring just outside the walls of the room she was safely in. She had just found two D Cell batteries in the drawer and placed them end to end in the shaft of the old school plastic blue flashlight. She hit the bottom flap with her hand to snap it shut and twisted to seal it. Lock and load, she laughed to herself.

  “Clara, hurry!”

  The tone of the doctor’s voice alarmed Clara who jumped up and switched on the flashlight with her thumb. She entered the main room of the cabin, ready to defend it.

  The shadow loomed closer. Lydia had backed up against the door and was now trapped between it and the approaching menace. The figure groaned. The floor creaked. Lydia screamed.

  Clara bolted across the room to rescue her rescuer, but just as she went to lunge at the monster, a beam of light illuminated its face.

  “Ollie!” Lydia shrieked. Relief washed over her as she reunited with her old friend, throwing her arms around him.

  Clara, attempting to stop mid-leap, awkwardly tumbled into Lydia and Ollie, breaking their embrace. Clara rolled and bounced to her feet with the flashlight still in her hand. Nothing to see here, she thought.

  “What? Who? What’s going on, Dr. L?” Clara asked. She was startled, yet intrigued.

  “Clara, I’d like you to meet my friend, Ollie.”

  Ollie held out his hand, but Clara didn’t take it.

  “Ollie is the reason we’re here. He’s the one who sent the key.”

  Clara placed her hand in Ollie’s. Instead of shaking it, he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips to kiss it. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, dear Clara. Very pleased indeed.”

  Clara, bewildered, smiled—because that’s what she was supposed to do—and thanked him. She looked to Lydia and asked, “But how did he know? And what did he know?”

  Ollie broke in, “All in good time. But I’m sure you ladies need some rest. Am I right? And some food in your bellies?”

  “Yes!” they said in unison, but Clara was still confused and wanted answers. Lydia was fine to wait for them. She knew it would all come out in time. Clara resolved to wait until after dinner to inquire any further.

  Clara went to light the first oil lamp, but Ollie stopped her. “Oh no. No, no. Wait just a minute, dear girl.”

  He scuttled around the room dropping the curtains—which were actually just sheets, towels, and blankets he’d tacked up with some nails and a hammer he’d found. When all the windows were secure, he lit the oil lamp on the dining room table and the one on the mantle himself.

  “Listen, if we don’t want to be found, we can’t light the way for them. I believe we are safe here for the time being, but we’ll need to be careful.” He lit a third lamp on a shelf in the kitchen. “Fish?” Ollie asked.

  Neither one of his guests liked fish much, but they were famished.

  “It’s fresh. I caught it myself just this afternoon.”
/>   Lydia was impressed. She didn’t know Ollie could fish. She was even more impressed to find him sitting here at this cabin—or sleeping on the couch, rather, before she and Clara disturbed him, anyway.

  Ollie toiled away in the kitchen. Lydia helped where she could. They worked well together, having made many dinners together in the past.

  She seasoned, he sautéed over a gas stove. She chopped wild onions he had collected, he threw them in the pan. She found a bottle of wine on the shelf, he asked Clara if she thought her parents would mind. Clara shrugged her shoulders while dreaming of being with them again. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were on the lam, this would have seemed like a perfectly normal family dinner at the lake.

  Clara sat the table while Ollie and Lydia finished cooking. “It would have been much easier and much faster to just eat something out of a can. I would have been happy with Spaghetti-O’s.” Clara said. Happier with Spaghetti-O’s, actually, she thought, but was grateful for whatever food she could put in her belly.

  “Ollie doesn’t eat processed food. He only eats organic. Says the government’s trying to poison us and all that.”

  “Well, it is. That it is.” He said, flipping a filet and adding some chopped dill. He was resourceful, Lydia couldn’t argue that. Not only can he find a cabin in the woods that only Clara and her parents knew about, but he could also have a freshly harvested meal ready to prepare when they arrived.

  When dinner was on the table, the three sat around it in silence. Eventually, Ollie broke it. “Well, dig in, ladies. There’s a lot of eating to do and even more explaining.” He served generous portions of fish and greens onto each of their plates and topped off Lydia’s wine.

  “I’m sure you are wondering not only why I’m here and how I came to be here, but also why and how you came to be here. First, let me say…” he took a bite of fish, chewed a few times and then swallowed, “Bravo, ladies. I’m elated and proud to know you can take subtle hints and clues and turn them into reality and realization.”

  Clara and Lydia exchanged glances, no closer to the answers they sought now than before Ollie had begun to speak.

  “I was desperately hoping I wouldn’t have to swoop in and attempt to warn you face to face. That didn’t work out so well the first time. No, no, of course it didn’t.”

  “What do you mean “the first time”?” Lydia prodded?

  “Well, Lydia, dear, the first time I tried to tell you what I knew, they got me.”

  “They got you? Who got you?”

  “Them. They got me. The same they that are after you. Remember that evening so long ago? We went for ice cream? Oh, that was delicious ice cream, was it not? Hand churned and hand dipped.”

  “Ollie. Focus.”

  “Yes, yes. I began to warn you. I didn’t give away all the details. I didn’t have solid proof yet. I know how you are about solid proof, dear.” He winked. “So, I told you what I could and continued to research. I was so close I could taste it,” he said as he stabbed a few shallots and forked them in.

  “Close to what, Ollie?”

  “This!” He motioned around the table. “All of this. And Clara. Our amazing Clara. You’re special. Unique.” He beamed at her.

  “Special? How am I special?”

  “In good time, Clara. Let’s back up. Begin at the beginning. But first, we’ll need to set another place. We have another joining us for dinner soon.”

  Lydia and Clara exchanged troubled glances as Ollie raised a glass.

  “Begin at the beginning,” he repeated, and they clinked glasses.

  Chapter 19—Ollie’s Disappearance

  Ollie was always so careful. But not careful enough, it seemed, not tonight, anyway. How could he have known he and Lydia were being followed? How could he have known that the ice cream vendor on the street was not a random man trying to put food on the table for his children, but instead an employee of BioTech. Everything Lydia did was being surveilled. Because of her close relationship with Ollie, everything he did was being surveilled as well. That’s why they bugged the lobby plants. That’s why “construction crews” and “handy men” were always working in the building, but not much was ever getting fixed. They had ears and eyes everywhere: cameras, recording devices, living, breathing human beings. Ollie was aware of some of it, but Lydia’s sensible side had rubbed off on him just enough for him to let his guard down a bit.

  They had heard Ollie telling Lydia he was onto something. They knew he knew about the facilities, the weapons, the training. Luckily, he stopped before he gave away much more; before he gave away the fact that Clara, Lydia’s long-time patient, was a weapon. It was their hope that even if Ollie had made her privy to that information, that she’d shoo it aside in disbelief, because really, who would believe something like that…besides Ollie. Luckily, they didn’t have to find out.

  As Lydia and Ollie walked home, they were followed. Expertly. Ollie had no clue—and he was the kind of guy who thought people were following him when they weren’t. When Lydia had closed her door, and Ollie had just closed his, there was a knock and a woman’s voice.

  “Ollie?”

  He turned around and opened the door, “Oh, Lydia, dear, did you forget somethi—”

  It was not Lydia standing before him. It was a woman and two big lugs. Before he could say or do anything, Lug One was behind him with a rag over his mouth and Lug two darted forward to help catch Ollie as he slumped. “Chloroform,” he thought as the woman’s soft, but ominous laughter faded into nothingness.

  They left the door open in their rush to leave. The door that Lydia had politely closed for her friend the next morning.

  When Ollie awoke, he was alone in a room. The walls were bright white and the fluorescents overhead did nothing for the mild headache he had. “Cloroform,” he muttered as he sat up on a cot in the middle of the room. “It’s a carcinogen. Unorganic. Poison. Couldn’t they have just clobbered me over the head with a bat?”

  “Oh, no, Ollie. Someone might have heard that,” a snake of a voice answered from behind. It was the voice of the woman who’d been standing at his door when he opened it.

  “Kay. Kay Crider. Pleased to make your acquaintance,” She introduced herself in slither of vowels and consonants.

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t return the same sentiments.”

  “Of course, Ollie.”

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.”

  “Actually, young lady, I’m quite sure why I’m here.”

  “Oh, really,” she said, annoyed. “Please, John Oliver, do tell.”

  Ollie sat in stoic silence as he realized he shouldn’t have said anything at all. I’ve always had a problem keeping my mouth shut, he scolded himself. If he’d have kept it to himself, he may have had a chance to play dumb. That chance flew out the window when those words flew out of his mouth. He shook his head.

  “Cat got your tongue, Oliver?”

  She slithered around his chair lightly caressing his shoulders from right to left as she passed behind him. She slapped him hard on top of his head.

  “What do you know?” she growled in his ear.

  “I know I am being detained against my will, I know that’s against the law, and I know I’m entitled to a lawyer.”

  Kay snorted and Ollie turned to look her in the eye. She slapped him again, harder. Ollie fought the desire to rub his stinging scalp. “Don’t you dare look at me, Oliver. And as for the lawyer,” she snorted again, “I have my own. A whole team. You don’t know who you’re messing with. Besides, Oliver, no one even knows you’re here.”

  “My neighbors will notice I’ve disappeared.”

  “Mr. Ragsdale, how many times have you “disappeared” without a trace in the last year? In your lifetime? Quite a few as far as I can tell. And you always turn back up with some silly story of aliens or government conspiracies. And your neighbors smile and nod. No one will miss you, Oliver. Not even Lydia.”

  Ollie’s hear
t skipped a beat. He was right. They had been watching. They knew everything. Ollie’s friend was in trouble.

  “You leave Lydia alone. She doesn’t know anything. She’s just doing her job.”

  “Ahh, but what have you told her, Oliver? We know you’ve let her in on your little secret.”

  “I haven’t told her anything. Lydia is innocent in all of this.”

  “You told her about the facilities. We heard you.”

  Ollie’s eyes widened. “But, how?”

  “Sometimes a sweet treat can sell you out.”

  With that, a door opened and in walked the Hispanic ice cream vendor, only now he was in a suit—not an apron, and he was wielding a weapon—not an ice cream scoop. Ollie was sure he was there to “ensure” that Ollie spoke up, one way or another. Ollie didn’t betray his friend. He didn’t speak a word, and he paid for it. He took a beating for it, but he stayed true. Besides, he knew he’d get the beating whether he talked or not, but he thought his chances of survival were higher if they were still curious to know what he knew.

  After the interrogation and the flogging, Ollie was left alone in the room to swell and bruise and bleed. No one came in for the rest of the evening. By his watch, he figured he’d drifted in and out of consciousness for the better part of twelve hours. Such a strange twelve hours it had been too. He had seen—or dreamed he’d seen—several messages on the wall he was facing from his cot. He had first opened his eyes to Don’t say anything, and was awake just long enough to think, I didn’t, and look at me now before his eyes closed again. He regained momentary consciousness again several hours later. He forced the swollen slits of his eyes open again to read a bleary I can help you scrawled across the wall this time. Ollie began to worry that his brain was swelling causing visual hallucinations, but before he could work himself into a panic, he drifted off again. When he awoke a third time, a new message awaited him: Rest. And listen. Listen for what, he wondered, and spent the rest of the night following the first order—even if it was done involuntarily.