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Her heart was thumping hard-hard-hard. She had been scared before when she consciously tried to farsee
or thought-read, but never scared like this. Never even close.
What are you going to do if you find out?
That was a question for later, because she might not be able to. A sneaking, cowardly part of her
mind hoped for that.
Abra put the first two fingers of her left hand on the picture of Bradley Trevor because her left
hand was the one that saw better. She would have liked to get all her fingers on it (and if it had been
an object, she would have held it), but the picture was too small. Once her fingers were on it she
couldn’t even see it anymore. Except she could. She saw it very well.
Blue eyes, like Cam Knowles’s in ’Round Here. You couldn’t tell from the picture, but they were
that same deep shade. She knew.
Right-handed, like me. But left-handed like me, too. It was the left hand that knew what pitch was coming
next, fastball or curveb—
Abra gave a little gasp. The baseball boy had known things.
The baseball boy really had been like her.
Yes, that’s right. That’s why they took him.
She closed her eyes and saw his face. Bradley Trevor. Brad, to his friends. The baseball boy.
Sometimes he turned his cap around because that way it was a rally cap. His father was a farmer. His
mother cooked pies and sold them at a local restaurant, also at the family farmstand. When his big
brother went away to college, Brad took all his AC/DC discs. He and his best friend, Al, especially
liked the song “Big Balls.” They’d sit on Brad’s bed and sing it together and laugh and laugh.
He walked through the corn and a man was waiting for him. Brad thought he was a nice man, one of the
good guys, because the man—
“Barry,” Abra whispered in a low voice. Behind her closed lids, her eyes moved rapidly back and
forth like those of a sleeper in the grip of a vivid dream. “His name was Barry the Chunk. He fooled
you, Brad. Didn’t he?”
But not just Barry. If it had been just him, Brad might have known. It had to be all of the
Flashlight People working together, sending the same thought: that it would be okay to get into
Barry the Chunk’s truck or camper-van or whatever it was, because Barry was good. One of the good
guys. A friend.
And they took him . . .
Abra went deeper. She didn’t bother with what Brad had seen because he hadn’t seen anything but a
gray rug. He was tied up with tape and lying facedown on the floor of whatever Barry the Chunk was
driving. That was okay, though. Now that she was tuned in, she could see wider than him. She could
see—
His glove. A Wilson baseball glove. And Barry the Chunk—
Then that part flew away. It might swoop back or it might not.
It was night. She could smell manure. There was a factory. Some kind of
(it’s busted )
factory. There was a whole line of vehicles going there, some small, most big, a couple of them
enormous. The headlights were off in case someone was looking, but there was a three-quarters moon
in the sky. Enough light to see by. They went down a potholed and bumpy tar road, they went past a
water tower, they went past a shed with a broken roof, they went through a rusty gate that was
standing open, they went past a sign. It went by so fast she couldn’t read it. Then the factory. A
busted factory with busted smokestacks and busted windows. There was another sign and thanks to
the moonlight this one she could read: NO TRESPASSING BY ORDER OF THE CANTON
COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPT.