Part 15 (1/2)

”Yeah, for science.” I took a step, cool as an ice cube, thinking, Please just let me go, just let me go. But before my foot hit the ground again, he yanked me back by the strap of my pack.

Now he'd stopped laughing. He stared hard at me. The interrogation eyes. ”What do you know about your stepfather's business?”

”Uh a nothing.”

”You gotta know something. You live with him. He must talk to you.”

Where was this coming from? And what did it have to do with Megan? Or me? Or heck, anything? ”Seriously, I try to avoid him. The guy's a total jerk. All I know is that things aren't going well.”

”Have you heard anything about the workers lately?”

Don't tell him, Cooper. Keep your mouth shut or Megan dies.

I swallowed hard. What was I supposed to say? Not the truth. Not the found-a-hat-full-of-brains-by-the-well truth, that was for sure. ”I, ah, heard a couple haven't shown up for work lately.”

”A couple? Try more like six in the past two weeks.”

The pile of bones flashed in my mind again, became a pile of dead bodies.

Oh G.o.d. I wanted to hurl, but I knew if I did, I'd be puking up a pile of guilt onto the ground. ”Sam, ah, hasn't said anything about six.” I was nervous and rambling but still careful not to say anything that might p.i.s.s off the creature and put Megan in danger. ”This one guy Paolo was missing for a little while, but he came back. I heard he was, like, fired.”

”You heard wrong.” Sergeant Ring crossed his arms over his chest.

The tiny hairs rose on the back of my neck. I had known, deep down, that Sam had been lying about Paolo. But why? What the h.e.l.l was going on around here? Sam had to know that six workers were missing. Wasn't he suspicious about a ma.s.s missing-men problem? Or did the vineyard just have majorly high turnover?

Sergeant Ring leaned in closer, his beak nearly poking out my eye. ”You see anything weird around here lately?”

”What's weird?” I said.

”People acting strange. Not doing what they should.” He leaned back. ”Keeping secrets.”

”I'm a kid. Everyone keeps secrets from me.”

He harrumphed. ”Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. And maybe you're just not telling me everything you know.”

When was this guy going to leave me alone? Didn't he have a bar to get to? Megan was out there, and his yammering wasn't helping me find her.

”I really have to go, sir. My friends are waiting.”

”Just a minute, Cooper.” Mike's dad put a hand on my shoulder. The you're-not-going-anywhere move. His radio crackled, but he just turned it down, ignoring the call. ”I have a few more questions for you.”

I s.h.i.+fted my weight, hoping he'd let go.

He didn't.

”Did you know the hospital where your stepfather works is investigating him?”

Behind Mike's dad, the woods started to s.h.i.+ft, undulating like waves. It sounded like a breeze whispering through the trees. He didn't notice.

But I did.

”Did you hear me, Cooper?”

”Huh?” My gaze stayed over his shoulder, on those woods, but it wasn't the woods-it was the greenery around them.

The sticky vines were spreading, and spreading faster than I'd ever seen them spread before. Leaping and dancing over one another, like those Chinese gymnasts at the Olym- pies, cartwheeling off the trees, connecting and interlocking with one another, forming not a web this time, but- ”Mr. Warner?”

Tall, thin- ”Yes, sir?”

”The hospital is looking into your stepfather's track record with deliveries. Apparently, he's lost one too many babies in the past few years.” The cop shook his head. ”Infant mortality. Those are the kinds of numbers they like to see go down, you know, not up.”

Dead babies? Missing workers in the vineyard?

I stared at Sergeant Ring. Wished he'd say he was kidding, but he didn't. The facts stayed there. Dead babies, missing men. How was all this connected? Because it had to be-it was just too d.a.m.n weird not to be.

And Sam Jumel right there in the middle of all of it.

What was up with that? What was Sam doing? I couldn't wrap my head around it, couldn't make the pieces fit together. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark, as Hamlet's friend Marcellus would say, and only a fool would go trotting around Denmark without a clue.

Behind us, the green vines had twisted and formed, knitting together from the ground up and bridging across from tree to tree, pulling off twigs and sticks, looking like hurried birds building nests. At first they looked like nothing but taller versions of what they had always been, but then they became- A web and stick army.

”He's got some problems, your stepfather.” The cop gave my shoulder a pat, then let me go.

”Yeah,” I said, and a nervous little laugh escaped me. I took a step back. ”He sure does.”

And so do we, s...o...b..-Doo, I thought.

Because that webbed army had started to move.

The cop's radio crackled again. He ignored it a second time. ”You think I'm going to go easy on you just because you're my kid's friend, Cooper? Because you've come over to my house and played Xbox a couple times?”

Behind him, the web people had taken their red-rover line three feet closer. Slide, slide, across the forest floor. Were they coming for me?

Or a Sergeant Ring appetizer?

”No, sir,” was all I could manage.

He leaned forward, obtuse as a brick wall. The well's minions were now four feet away. Three and a half. Three and a quarter. ”What's in the bag?”

Not good timing, five-oh. Behind him, the vine army inched forward and, I swore, crouched. Like a lion about to pounce on prey.

”I told you-homework.”

”Then you won't mind if I take a look, will you?”

Yeah, I did mind. I minded, like, four years in juvie for carrying concealed. But I had more immediate worries- Like a sneak attack from some seriously bad vine dudes who wanted to kill us both and feed us to a murdering monster.

I opened my mouth to scream at Mike's dad, to tell him to run, but run from what? A bunch of crazy grapevines? He'd think I was insane, and by the time I'd get done explaining it, he'd be dead and dragged down to the well- And that was a.s.suming he could even see the well's mercenaries. No one in my English cla.s.s had seen them on the desk. Joey hadn't seen them on my computer. Faulkner probably hadn't seen them when he had lured our mother back to the house. Had Paolo seen them coming?

What if I was the only one who could see this?