Little Emmett Read online

  “Well, Emmett,” Hendrick said, “that’s it for now. We’ll leave this sheet for later, so you can get some rest. Take a little nap. Maybe you’ll feel up to answering more questions then. How does that sound?”

  “Okay.”

  “Excellent.”

  Hendrick walked Emmett to the door. In the hall outside, the same officer waited. Kimmy, Hendrick had called him.

  “Smart kid, this one,” Hendrick said. “Sharp as a tack.”

  Before Emmett could look into his stupid, grinning face again, the door was shut and Kimmy was leading him away. They stopped at yet another unmarked door.

  “Here we are,” he said, and opened it.

  The room was outfitted with a single bed in the corner, white sheets, white pillow. There was no window—only a dim white light overhead. Also no bathroom, but luckily Emmett had already gone not long ago.

  “Take a nap,” the officer said. “You look plenty tired.”

  Emmett stepped in. The door shut behind him. He looked around himself, at the bare walls, at the cold light in the ceiling. He looked at the fresh bedsheets, white as snow. Then he looked at himself, at the dirt on his hands, on his legs.

  Biting his lip, he did his best not to cry.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was gone forever. Left behind. The one thing to remember her by, and he’d lost it.

  Lost, lost, lost.

  Just like him.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  He remained in that room for quite some time. He napped off and on. An officer woke him at one point to offer him lunch—a simple turkey sandwich on a paper plate. Emmett asked to use the bathroom and was swiftly escorted there and back.

  Then he lay in bed longer still.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  He opened his tired eyes as someone entered the room, and it took all his strength to roll over to see who it was. Another officer he hadn’t met before.

  “Emmett? How are you feeling?”

  He sat up, rubbed his eyes, quiet.

  “We have a visitor who’d like to speak with you. Can you come with me, please?”

  Blinking wearily, he got out of bed. The officer regarded the dirty sneakers still on his feet, and the dirty sheets on the bed, and grimaced.

  “Just this way.”

  With each new officer Emmett met, he forgot the face of the last. That was just as well, he thought. He had a feeling he would never see most of them again.

  They arrived at yet another blank door. The officer knocked twice.

  “Come in.”

  Inside was another windowless room. A small desk sat facing the door, and sitting behind the desk was a woman. She was writing something, head down. She didn’t look up as Emmett was nudged inside.

  “Here you are,” the officer said. “Be good for the doctor, now.”

  He shut the door.

  The woman continued writing for quite a while, eyebrows raised as though she were annoyed with her task, periodically pushing her glasses up on her nose. Emmett said nothing while he waited.

  Eventually she said, “Have a seat, Emmett. I’ll be a moment…”

  He sat opposite her, in the only other chair. He folded his hands in his lap, sneakers dangling off the ground. The woman continued scribbling busily. She sighed.

  “What’s your name again? Emmett what?”

  He hesitated like before, but this time the woman filled the silence with nothing, until it was too quiet to bear and he said simply, “I don’t remember.”

  “Hmmm…” Scribble, scribble, scribble. “It’s not often I meet little boys who don’t remember their own names.” Somehow she continued to write—a never-ending sentence. The pen in her hand scratched and looped and dotted furiously. “Luckily, it doesn’t matter that you don’t remember. We already know.”

  His stomach gave a sick wobble. “You do?”

  “That’s right. Emmett Callahan, isn’t it?”

  A bottomless pit opened in his belly. He was baffled.

  “You’re wondering how I know that, aren’t you?” She looked at him, her eyes turning up over the rim of her glasses, a slight smile across her lips. “You’re seven years old. Your birthday is August twentieth. Your mother’s name is Marion Callahan. She’s twenty-six. Do you know how I know that?” The smile on her lips sharpened. “It’s in your blood. A quick analysis tells us all sorts of neat things. Your mother’s DNA is already in our database, so when we plug yours in… POP! There’s a match. Isn’t that interesting?” She put the pen down and straightened in her chair. “Nothing on your father, though. Nothing at all…”

  Emmett met her eyes but only for an instant before he stared fearfully back into his lap. The little office was quiet as an underwater grave.

  “Do you know where your mother is?” She pushed her glasses up again with her finger. “Do you have any idea?”

  He shook his head.

  “She’s in a special hospital for people with illnesses like hers. Do you know, by chance, what kind of illness your mother has?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know she was ill?”

  Emmett didn’t answer.

  “She’s sick up here.” Emmett was too afraid to look, but he knew where her finger tapped. “Fortunately, she’s getting the best help available to her.”

  “She’s in an asylum,” Emmett said.

  The woman considered him long and thoughtfully, until he squirmed in his seat.

  “Her illness was a dangerous one.” She picked up her pen once more, bent her head over whatever she’d been writing previously. Casually, beginning to jot down more information, she asked, “Did you know about the murders, Emmett?”

  He turned to stone in his seat—cold, frostbitten stone. That icy churning in his stomach released into every other part of his body, so that he felt nothing but the cold—suspended in place by it.

  “We have reason to believe you were there, or at least shortly after. We know you were in the house at some point, at the very least. Did you see it happen?”

  He didn’t know what to say.

  “What murders?” he asked, mumbling shamefully.

  “What murders? You mean to tell me you don’t know?”

  Actually, what he meant to tell her was that he didn’t know which murders she was referring to. However, somewhere in his tiny, undeveloped little brain of his, he knew exactly what she meant.

  …those…

  …those other bodies…

  “I have a box of tissues here, if you feel you’re going to cry.”

  The woman pulled open a drawer, removing said box and placing them on his side of the desk. At the sight of them, the burning coals behind his eyes began to recede.

  “I don’t know…” he said.

  “You don’t know? Well. Perhaps it’ll come to you eventually.” Scribble, scribble, scribble. “I hope you don’t get the wrong impression, Emmett. We already know the truth. I should make that perfectly clear. I just wish we could understand it.”

  She spent a while longer writing, flipping her page so that she could write more on yet another. As she did, Emmett could think of nothing except his mother, how much he missed her. He also thought about how much he hated her. How much he… how much he…

  “I’m afraid for you, Emmett.” The woman removed her glasses. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed wearily. “You seem like such a sweet little boy. But so much can change in a short amount of time. One moment a person can seem… healthy. Totally normal. And the next… well. Illness exposes itself when you least expect it. I’m sure you saw it plenty with your mother… Where was it your she hid you away before we found her?”

  As with all her questions, whether or not she could tell he was lying he answered the same.

  “I don’t know.”

  A sly smile touched her lips. “Oh, poor thing. You do seem so tired. Perhaps it’s time we were finished for the day. Would you like to be finished? Are you ready for a nap?”

  Feeling rather humiliated
by her tone, he agreed all the same. Anything to escape her critical gaze.

  “Well, then.” She picked up her pen, taking some final notes. “I’m sure you’ll get plenty of napping accomplished during the drive.”

  He cocked his head confusedly. “Drive?”

  “There’s a car waiting outside, ready to transport you as soon as we’re finished here. And…” She wrote the last few touches on her novel and then stuffed the papers into a folder. “I think we are!”

  She took Emmett into the hallway, where she handed the folder to the officer waiting there.

  “Bye, bye, Emmett,” she said, waving playfully as the officer led him away. He did not return the gesture.

  It was only when they stepped outside that Emmett realized it was after dark. A car was parked at the curb, headlights on and waiting. Its engine idled noisily as they approached. The officer opened the backseat for him.

  “In you go. Careful.”

  Without any mention of fastening his seatbelt or any instruction at all for that matter, the officer closed the door and made his way around to the front passenger seat. As he climbed in, he handed Emmett’s folder to the driver, who looked it over briefly. Through the mesh divider between the seats, Emmett met the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

  “Emmett Callahan, huh?” the driver said, all his information written neatly on the pages in his lap. Emmett only looked away shyly.

  With the engine running, they departed in an instant. Sliding in his seat, Emmett watched through the window as the police department revolved around them on their way out.

  “Where are my friends?” Emmett asked earnestly, as they pulled into the street and the police department faded from view behind them. The officers barely turned their heads at the sound of his voice.

  “Just sit tight,” the driver said.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Emmett watched with mounting interest—and panic—as the city lights fell away under the cloudy night sky and were replaced by sprawling forests. The road winded, soothing and hypnotic. Ahead, the headlights revealed only more twists and turns through the trees.

  An hour’s journey and the driver announced they were nearly there. Emmett perked up, leaning toward the mesh barrier to see for himself.

  They followed lazily along, like a boat down an asphalt stream, the woods hugging them on both sides. The headlights, daggering between the bright, waxy trees, found something waiting deep inside them. The winding road turned back on itself, getting nearer.

  A chain-link fence.

  Emmett gripped the mesh divider. The officer in the passenger seat turned toward him, told him to sit back in his seat, but he didn’t listen. They’d arrived. The car slowed. Lights towered over them, bright and white, illuminating the fence which stretched in both directions. They approached a gate. Beside the gate, inside a small booth, another officer was stationed. The driver parked the car and, leaving the engine running, stepped out with the folder in his hand. He handed it to the officer inside the booth.

  “Sit back in your seat,” the other officer told Emmett once more.

  He let go of the divider but remained pressed up against it, staring beyond the gate toward what appeared to be a large, discreet building ahead. Just a black outline at the end of the road, cloaked by the night sky. Hiding. Waiting.

  The driver returned, folder in hand. The gate rolled open for them, squealing and rattling and bumping on its track. They continued on. The road turned to gravel beneath them. The dark structure ahead loomed closer—a huge, windowless block of brick. The tall spotlights ended quite abruptly, leaving a moat of darkness around the facility. From the sky it must have appeared as a large halo of light stitched through the trees with nothing inside. But down below, peering up at the hulking structure before them, Emmett saw its contours clearly against the starry sky behind it.

  Soon their headlights lighted upon what appeared to be a large garage door. The car braked to a halt. The officer in the passenger seat regarded Emmett with impatience as he remained pushed up against the divider, captivated by what was essentially nothing so far. But he knew. Or was beginning to know. His chest pounded in anticipation of it. It was dawning on him—a wave of sick realization as they waited in the void of the facility’s dark mass.

  The garage door began to open. White light spilled out underneath. Harsh. It brightened, stronger, stretching across the gravel toward them as the door rolled steadily upward. The car engine rumbled as they pushed forward. Inside was a spacious, bare white room. The floor, the walls, the ceiling. Glistening white. Empty. The car jostled as they crossed the threshold inside. Immediately to their right were more parked vehicles. White, windowless vans. Rather than park beside them, they pulled the car around, toward the opposite end of the garage near a set of sliding doors.

  The officer in the passenger seat climbed out. He opened Emmett’s door to let him out. Exiting the vehicle, Emmett stood gawkishly, taking in all the bright, white space around them, waiting for someone else to suddenly appear, another stranger to claim him.

  “This way.”

  Their feet clapped noisily. Echoes. The sliding doors opened up to them as they neared, and the officer gestured for Emmett to move ahead into what appeared to be a large, circular lobby, as white and blindingly bright as the garage behind them. He squinted as he entered. The ceiling, a high dome, was lined by dozens of tiny spotlights, shining down so heavily that the only shadows were the ones under their feet. Across the lobby was a long, white reception desk, where a friendly-looking young woman waited.

  Emmett’s eyes were drawn to the wall behind her, high above her head. To the glowing emblem there. A deep, electric red. He studied it. Even as the officer urged him forward with a hand on his back, his eyes were glued to it—the symbol of this place.

  This place.

  “And who’s this?” the woman asked as they stepped toward the desk. The officer handed her the folder. In her sweet voice, she asked something Emmett didn’t hear.

  That red-lit emblem glistened in his eyes. A star. A moon. A sun. A children’s toy. Except, he thought, not a children’s toy. A baby’s toy. Dangling out of reach. A distraction. And like a baby, his eyes were lost in it. His heart pulsed in his ears, so that he heard nothing of the exchange occurring over the reception desk. His exchange.

  Her voice grabbed him then. He let his eyes fall from the stars, back down to earth, to her lips smiling, teeth winking far away.

  “Welcome to The Cradle, Emmett,” she said.

  The officer was gone. Vanished somehow. Now there were others coming. White gowns. Long coats. The smiling receptionist leaned over the desk to see him. She pointed at the approaching figures. Soon their hands were upon him, pulling him gently toward the newly opened doors. His eyes lifted back to that emblem on the wall, glaring red like brake lights. Only they weren’t stopping. They were going.

  Going…

  This was just the beginning.

  PART TWO

  THE CRADLE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FIRST STEPS

  He was asked to strip from his clothes in the presence of two faceless facility workers. Wearing hairnets and dust masks over their faces, they were entirely indistinguishable. Impersonal. Unfeeling. Once undressed, they ushered him into a small, mirrored room with a single showerhead hanging from the ceiling. In the mirrored walls, a million copies of himself stretched in all directions. Disorienting. He startled as the warm water sprayed down on him. The dirt washed away in brown streams. Unaware that the mirrors were windows, he let himself cry freely.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Following his shower, he was taken into a room with a reclining chair, where he was asked to sit as they poked and prodded him. They listened to his heart. They touched just about every joint in his body. They shined light in his eyes, down his throat, in his ears. Then, as he was now becoming accustomed, they passed him along to the next pair of hands, to the next unmemorable room with more tests to be done.
r />   In one room, they lowered what resembled a giant pair of binoculars from the ceiling. They were cold against his face. On the wall, they projected words and letters and numbers of all different sizes that he was to read aloud. Then, with his face still pressed into the elaborate binocular contraption, they turned his entire chair around until he was facing the projector itself. Only now it wasn’t projecting words and numbers. It projected colors into his eyes. Bright purple. Deep blue. Pale green. Sometimes two colors at once. Some colors shimmered in ways he hadn’t seen before, so that they were almost between colors he knew but couldn’t place.

  “Odd,” one of the masked men said, taking notes on his results.

  Emmett said nothing during any of this.

  He was given a uniform to wear. A onesie. It was a plain gray with a number on both the front and back. The number ‘206’.

  Once dressed, he was escorted to what they called the “boy’s ward.” Here he was handed off to a guard, identifiable by the pristinely white uniform he wore—not to mention the protective vest. On the back it read: ENFORCER. A white baton was sleeved through a loop against his leg.

  “This way to your room,” the guard told him.

  There were numerous corridors, all featuring the same smooth, glistening white finish, with enough overhead lights to forget the existence of one’s shadow. They were lined endlessly with doors, organized in a series of letters and numbers. Each door had its own window, placed higher than the head of any child. They arrived at one door in particular. C26. The guard passed his badge over a small black panel beside the door, which gave a harmonious beep and the door opened ajar on its own.

  “Each room is shared by two patients. This is where you’ll sleep. There is a toilet, should you need to use it. An alarm will wake you in the morning for breakfast.”

  The guard said nothing more, but opened the door for Emmett to go inside. He did so without complaint.