The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [124]
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as they arrived in North Dakota, Annie understood that it was the exact place you wanted to live if the apocalypse ever arrived: the clear, stingingly pure air, the absence of color, the feeling that the place had never recovered from the Ice Age and would therefore be nearly unchanged when the world was stripped of what mattered most. It was wilderness, even the largest city in the state, and Annie felt trepidation upon walking out of the airport, the sense that her parents knew the terrain, had acclimated to this barren expanse of land, whereas Annie and her brother would be torn apart by wild animals.
Yet even as they drove down the single-lane highway, static and heavy metal on the radio, Annie prepared herself for the possibility that their parents would not be here. If the woman—Caleb’s other wife, if they were to believe this woman’s outrageous claim—had alerted the Fangs to their children’s sudden discovery, it was possible that they would keep running, move on to the next hiding spot. There was some grand reason that they had disappeared in the first place, and Annie now wondered if she and Buster were intended to play a part in it. She began to believe that her parents had created something that they would not allow to be compromised, even by their own children. Especially by their own children.
It was easy enough to find the twins’ house. A cursory look online provided the address for the only Baltz, Jim and Bonnie, in Wayland, North Dakota. “What will we do, if it’s really them?” Buster asked Annie, who struggled to answer with any confidence. The options were violence or forgiveness, which meant there was only one option. Unless her parents could explain this to them in such a way that there was a third option, begrudging acceptance. “We won’t do anything,” Annie said. “We’ll wait until it comes to us, how to proceed, and then we’ll do that.”
The house was nearly identical to the Fangs’ house in Tennessee, a one-story ranch, undecorated, left to weather the elements with little concern for upkeep. In the long gravel driveway, a semitruck was parked. FLUXUS TRUCKING, it said on the door. IF IT EXISTS, WE SHIP IT. “This is it,” Annie said, turning off the car, staring into the windows of the house for signs of movement, finding nothing. “They won’t be happy to see us,” Buster said, his face tight with the possibility of disappointment. “We won’t be happy to see them,” Annie said, and stepped out of the car, onto the porch, standing on a mat that bore no words of welcome. Buster took his place beside her on the porch, and, forgoing the doorbell, Annie rapped her knuckles on the doorframe, insistent, bone on wood, musical. There was silence inside the house, thirty seconds, a minute, and then Buster and Annie, together, knocked again on the door. They heard the sound of activity inside the house, footsteps on hardwood, and the knob twisted and the door opened and there, in front of them, no mistaking his presence, was their father, Caleb Fang.
“A and B,” he said, not a trace of emotion in his voice, a scientist classifying a familiar species. “We found you,” Annie said, muscle spasms softly twitching under her skin. Caleb nodded. “You did,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you. Bonnie called me after she talked to Buster, warned me that you might be coming. I’ve been waiting for you. If you hadn’t shown up, I think I might have been a little disappointed.”
“Where’s Mom?” Buster asked, remembering the woman, Bonnie, but not able to give it any more thought at the moment. Caleb shrugged. “Not here,” he said.
“What?” Annie said.
“She doesn’t live here,” Caleb said.
Annie pushed past her father, into the house, and Buster followed her. “We are in a position of power here, Caleb. Do you understand that?” she asked her father. Caleb nodded. “Whatever you’re doing, we can ruin it. I don’t think you want us to do that, all the work you