The Blue Nowhere

ago. It was in an old area of town where you don’t see expensive cars very often.” He walked to the map and made an X at the intersection where the car had been seen.
    Shelton said, “I know the area a little. There’re a lot of apartments near there. Some bodegas, a few package stores. Pretty low-rent district.”
    Then Bishop tapped a small square on the map. It was labeled “St. Francis Academy.”
    “Remember that case a few years ago?” the detective asked Shelton.
    “Right.”
    “Some psycho got into the school and killed a student or teacher. The principal put in all kinds of security, real high-tech stuff. It was in all the papers.” He nodded at the white-board. “Phate likes challenges, remember?”
    “Jesus,” Shelton muttered in fury. “He’s going after kids now.”
    Bishop grabbed the phone and called in an assault-in-progress code to central dispatch.
    No one dared to mention out loud what everybody was thinking: that the EVL report had placed the car there thirty minutes ago. Which meant Phate had already had plenty of time to play his macabre game.
    I t was just like life, Jamie Turner reflected.
    With no fanfare, no buzzing, no satisfying ka-chunks like in the movies, without even a faint click, the light on the alarmed door went out.
    In the Real World you don’t get sound effects. You do what you set out to do and there’s nothing to commemorate it except a light silently going dark.
    He stood up and listened carefully. From far off down the halls of St. Francis Academy he heard music, some shouting, laughter, tinny arguing on a talk-radio show—which he was leaving behind, on his way to spend a totally perfect evening with his brother.
    Easing the door open.
    Silence. No alarms, no shouts from Booty.
    The smell of cold air, fragrant with grass, filled his nose. It reminded him of those long, lonely hours after dinner at his parents’ house in Mill Valley during the summer—his brother Mark in Sacramento where he’d taken a job to get away from home. Those endless nights. . . . His mother giving Jamie desserts and snacks to keep him out of their hair, his father saying, “Go outside and play,” while they and their friends told pointless stories that got more and more fuzzy as everybody guzzled local wines.
    Go outside and play. . . .
    Like he was in fucking kindergarten!
    Well, Jamie hadn’t gone outside at all. He’d gone inside and hacked like there was no tomorrow.
    That’s what the cool spring air reminded him of. But at the moment he was immune to these memories. He was thrilled that he’d beensuccessful and that he was going to spend the night with his brother.
    He taped the door latch down so that he could get back inside when he returned to the school later that night. Jamie paused and turned back, listening. No footsteps, no Booty, no ghosts. He took a step outside.
    His first step to freedom. Yes! He’d made it!
    It was then that the ghost got him.
    Suddenly a man’s arm gripped him painfully around the chest and a powerful hand covered his mouth.
    God god god. . . .
    Jamie tried to leap back into the school but his attacker, wearing some kind of maintenance man uniform, was strong and wrestled him to the ground. Then the man pulled the thick safety glasses off the boy’s nose.
    “What’ve we got here?” he whispered, tossing them on the ground and caressing the boy’s eyelids.
    “No, no!” Jamie tried to raise his arms to protect his eyes. “What’re you doing?”
    The man took something from the coveralls he wore. It looked like a spray bottle. He held it close to Jamie’s face. What was—?
    A stream of milky liquid shot from the nozzle into his eyes.
    The terrible burn started a moment later and the boy began to cry and shake in utter panic. His worst fear was coming true—blindness!
    Jamie Turner shook his head furiously to fling off the pain and horror but the stinging only got worse. He was screaming, “No, no, no,” the words muffled under the strong grip of the hand around his mouth.
    The man leaned close and began to whisper in the boy’s ear but Jamie had no clue what he said; the pain—and the horror—consumed him like fire in dry brush.

CHAPTER 00010001 / SEVENTEEN
    F rank Bishop and Wyatt Gillette walked through the old archway of the entrance to St. Francis Academy, their shoes sounding in gritty scrapes on the cobblestones.
    Bishop nodded a greeting to Huerto Ramirez, whose massive bulk filled half the archway, and