The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [17]
They are definitely gone.
I go downstairs to the sliding glass door where Tank is waiting and let him in. I lock it after him. He seems to be relieved to be back in the house, but he keeps looking around, like he wonders where the family is now.
“Aw, buddy. They had to go, I guess. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” Tank follows me around the house, whining softly while I look for some sort of clue to where Charlie’s family might have been headed. I don’t see anything that would tip me off. Just a lot more evidence that they left in a hurry—dinner dishes half empty and still on the table, the kitchen sort of a mess. His mom is a little anal about things being clean, and she never would have left it like this if there had been time to clean up. I check the garage from the door off the kitchen: no car.
A peek out the living-room window reveals no sign of life on the street.
Tank nuzzles my hand. Suddenly I feel as though every muscle in my body is drained of energy. I’m so bone tired I could drop right there on the living-room carpet. I just want to curl up and sleep, and wake up tomorrow with everything different. I have to get my stuff first, though, from the car.
Tank doesn’t want me to go, and he whines when I open the front door.
“No, you wait here.” I shake my finger at him and he backs up, a worried look on his face. “I’ll come right back.”
In the Subaru I grab my backpack and start to lock up the car when I remember the box. Optimus Prime, the gizmo, the device. Holy crap—the device. I bet this is what those guys meant when they said that back at the house. Dad said it was important. I grab it from the folds of the sleeping bag in the duffel and shove it into my backpack. Then I lock the car, shutting the door quietly. Standing in the driveway of Charlie’s house, looking around his neighborhood, which is exactly like my neighborhood, really, everything seems so normal. It’s dark because it’s supposed to be, at whatever time in the middle of the night it is now. The streetlights are lighting the neighborhood and everybody is snuggled in bed. Like Charlie should be, like I should be. Like Dad should be.
I lock the front door of the house. Maybe this can be a safe haven for a while. My house sure as hell isn’t anymore. I keep hearing the crackling noise from the radios of the men who killed my dad, and it makes me shudder. I wonder who those guys were. Government? Some rogue agency? Could they somehow trace me to here? I’m too wiped to think straight.
Tank follows me up the stairs to Charlie’s room, so close his chin gets nicked a couple of times by my heel. Charlie’s door doesn’t have a lock, and I’m not sure what good it would do if it did, but I shut it anyway. Drop the backpack, kick off my shoes, and fall onto the bottom bunk with all my clothes still on, too tired to care. Tank starts to lie down on his mega bed, but he has second thoughts and jumps onto the bottom bunk with me. I don’t tell him to get down. I throw an arm around him and listen to his heartbeat, for the few seconds I manage to stay awake.
Chapter 10
I think it’s morning. I can’t tell. The window in Charlie’s room frames a dark sky, but I remember that doesn’t mean anything anymore. I hear Tank whining softly and sit up. He’s sitting at the door, wagging his tail and looking back at me with an I-have-to-pee look.
“Okay, boy. Just give me a minute.” I rub my eyes and try to stretch the kinks out of my shoulders. Tank leads me eagerly downstairs to the sliding door. Out