Page 120 of Changeling
“Nate?” Jim prompted, and because of his worried tone, Sasha and Alex looked to Nathan as well.
“What is it?” Sasha asked.
“Nothing, it’s just…the guy at the Help Desk who got me these books?” Nathan said. “Apparently, he’s sort of an amateur paranormal buff for regional stuff, knows everything that’s in the books and probably more. I’m gonna meet up with him after he gets off work here so I can ask him a few things.”
Alex smiled out of the corner of her mouth and said, “And…this is bad because…?”
Cooling or not, Nathan took a long gulp of coffee. “Because…I think I just made a date with him.”
Chapter 46
“Nathan?”
Nathan and Sasha both turned to see Iain coming from around the building, having apparently exited a side door instead of the main ones. He had on a deep brown jacket over his T-shirt and zip-up, and carried a tote bag over his shoulder that was covered in buttons.
Approaching with that same easy smile, Iain walked over to Sasha and extended a hand. “Iain Wilde,” he introduced himself. “Saw you before with the rest of the group. Nathan’s brother?” The incorrect assumption sounded more hopeful than anything.
“Uhh…no,” Sasha said leadingly, with a look at Nathan that saidheshould be the one to explain. “I’m Sasha Kelly. Nice to meet you.”
“Eheh…well, umm, nice to meet you too,” Iain managed, his smile wavering a little as he looked between Nathan and Sasha. “So…there’s this place just down the street,” he pointed a ways down the main road, “where we can grab some coffee orwhatever and you can ask me anything you want. I can definitely give you more straightforward answers than any of those books.”
“Sounds perfect. Why don’t we go grab ourselves a booth or something? I’ll buy since you’re being such a good sport about all this.” Nathan patted Iain’s shoulder and started leading them away from the library down the street. There was tension Nathan could feel in Iain’s body that slowly began to ease away.
“Nice to have someone actually interested in some of the crazy random shit running through my head,” Iain said. “Most people think it’s a waste of time to even look into the supernatural. But you can’t deny what’s been happening now.” He walked into the café and the others followed him.
It was only late-afternoon in the middle of the week so the place was fairly cleared out and it wasn’t difficult for them to grab a booth, order a couple coffees, and dive right in.
With a somewhat hesitant smile now, Iain very obviously sat himself down in the middle of one side of the booth so that Nathan and Sasha could sit together. Nathan was pretty sure his mistake earlier had been made understood. He couldn’t help feeling a little bad about that.
“So I started really noticing the missing persons thing a few years ago,” Iain said. “Sure, a crap-ton a people go missing all sorts of places every year. But these were always kinda the same. I started looking into it, just side stuff, and it seemed like every missing person I was able to find out stuff about started acting weird right before they disappeared. Just like old Autry said before they hanged him over blowing up the mine. You knew about that, right?”
Sasha and Nathan both nodded. “But with these new disappearances there haven’t been those same reports as far as we can tell,” Sasha supplied. “More suddenly missing people than other years, but no one’s said anything about them acting strange beforehand.”
“See that’s where I’m thinking things are getting more interesting these days,” Iain said in a hushed voice, leaning over the table between them. “If you really look at the people who went missing, starting with the miners, the amount of time beforehand gets shorter every year after that. Autry noticed people acting strange weeks before he blew the place. Every year there seems to be less time though.
“Okay, so I haven’t traced back all the way, but the last person who went missing before this new mess started was a neighbor of mine about six months ago. I saw him practically every day and hadn’t noticed anything weird. Then the day right before he disappeared he was…fuck, not like himself at all. Kind of freaked the shit outta me to be honest. Maybe whatever’s happening is happening so fast that the people who get taken or whatever go right away before anyone can notice something’s off.” He leaned back again, satisfied that he had blown the case wide open with that assessment.
Nathan leaned over the table, close to Iain with his voice low. “Iain, my brother and his…our other friend were going to check out some of the houses of the people that have gone missing, see if there’s any connection. You said the guy from before was your neighbor? Did you know any of the others?”
Iain’s smile stretched and he chuckled a little. Nathan was starting to recognize that reacting that way was more how Iain dealt with nerves than anything. “Used to only be people who went off hiking or something near the mine. With the new ones though, most of them are from the same few stretch of blocks near the edge of town. Hell, I probably knew all of those people to some extent. I live right in that area too. Been trying to convince my mom to move forever, but she just thinks I’m making shit up.”
The sounds of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” rose from Nathan’s jeans as his phone started to go off. He was feeling a little antsynow but managed an apologetic smile to Iain before he reached into his pocket and answered the call. “What’s up, Jim?”
“We’ve hit every house, Nathan. They’re all—”
“Within the same few blocks. Yeah, we…we got that.”
“From the library guy?”
“Yeah,” Nathan said a little impatiently. “What else?”
“Definitely looks like the radius of the missing people points to the mine as the source. You?”
“We’re thinking that whatever’s seeping out from the mine has been getting worse. We’re gonna have to be careful with this one. Might start affecting us once we get close. Seems it’s been picking up the pace of choosing victims and luring them off sooner, that’s why no one’s noticed people acting weird this time.”
“Well, we did get one report,” Jim countered.
Sasha and Iain were carefully listening in. Normally, Nathan wouldn’t like having a civilian overhear so much, but since Iain had come to the same conclusions on his own, Nathan didn’t think it made much of a difference. “What happened?” he asked.
