The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [66]
After she had explained everything to her brother, the rough outline, the what-ifs, Annie sat on the bed while Buster searched the Internet to learn more about the rest-stop killings. True enough, there had been incidents in the area, women and men cut up or shot, their bodies moved from the rest stops to garbage Dumpsters at gas stations or fast-food restaurants. The cops suspected a truck driver, someone regularly traveling the interstate from North Carolina to Tennessee. It all made sense, which made Annie even more certain that this was all part of her parents’ elaborate plans.
“Oh, please. You don’t think Camille and Caleb knew about these murders, knew they could take advantage of the situation?” Annie said. Her parents’ deception seemed so obvious to her that she found herself stunned that the police were so clueless.
Buster, who had grown quiet, withdrawn, only shook his head.
“Don’t let them do this to you, Buster,” she said, almost shouting, her anger against her parents amplified by the fact that Buster seemed to be falling for it. “This is what they want, goddamn it. They want us to think they’re dead.”
“They might be, Annie,” Buster said. He looked like he was about to cry, which only made Annie angrier. She thought about her parents’ bedroom, door shut, barricaded from the rest of the house. Suddenly, with total clarity, she saw her parents hiding in their bedroom, giggling, waiting for someone to find them. She imagined them hiding under their bed, cans of food surrounding them, jugs of water, a bomb shelter to protect them from the rest of the world.
Annie pulled Buster into the hallway and the two of them paused in front of the door to their parents’ bedroom. Annie leaned into the door, listening for any sound on the other end. “Annie?” Buster asked. Annie shushed him. “They’re in here,” she said. “They’re hiding from us.” She slowly turned the doorknob and felt it turn without resistance. For the first time in forever, Annie and Buster stepped into a room they had only pictured, and even then reluctantly, in their minds. “Okay,” Annie shouted into the open room. “We know you’re in here. Caleb? Camille?” Annie looked around the room, which was nearly empty of possessions. There was a bed, unmade, and two nightstands that held multiple glasses of water and multivitamins. There was no other furniture in the room. There was none of the chaos and disorder of the living room, not a single piece of paper out of place. “They’re not in here,” Buster said to Annie, but Annie then ran to the closet and pulled open the doors with a flourish. Nothing but clothes, a normal closet filled with shoes and shirts and pants, but no Fangs. “Annie,” Buster said, “this is weird.” Annie turned to him. She did not understand if he was referring to their search for Caleb and Camille or the fact that the bedroom was so lacking in weirdness. “I thought they might be hiding in here,” she said. “But they’re hiding somewhere else.” Buster shrugged, allowed his face to register fear, and said, “Or they’re in trouble. Or worse. Annie, they really could be dead.”
Annie took her brother’s hands in her own. She stared at him until he finally met her gaze. “They are not dead, Buster. They are doing what they’ve always done; they are creating a situation in order to elicit an extreme emotional response from those closest to the event. They waited for us to come home, for all of us to be together again, and then they dreamed up this horrible event to, I don’t know what, make us feel something that they can use for their own designs.”
“Maybe,” Buster admitted.
“Definitely,” Annie replied. “This is classic Caleb and Camille Fang. They have put us in a situation, left us in the wilderness, and they’re waiting to see what will happen.”
“Well,” Buster said, regaining his composure, “what will happen?”
“I’ll tell you,” Annie said, feeling the certainty of her thoughts click into place. “I’ll tell you exactly