The Sleepwalkers Read Online Free Page A

This is bad.
    Ever since he made an early exit from his graduation party, feigning stomach flu, he has been waiting for someone to tell him he’s crazy, waiting to come to that conclusion himself. He read the letter over and over, in a display that could only be considered obsessive in the extreme, trying to find some flaw, some hint of a joke or a hoax, anything that might discredit the piece of dread correspondence. He found none. Worse, he found the letter to be spotted with dried tear marks. He observed how the handwriting became sloppier at the end, as the writer’s perceived threat drew near. It only proved what his heart had known all along—the letter was real.
    “So,” Bean says, “who’s Christine?”
    “This girl I knew,” says Caleb. His voice sounds hollow in his own ears. “She was my friend when I was a kid in Florida. That’s where the letter is postmarked from—Hudsonville.”
    “Right,” says Bean, “where your dad lives.”
    “Yep. She was poor. She had a twin sister who got kidnapped and they never found her. We were all best friends.”
    Bean pauses, thinking. “So if you haven’t seen this Christine girl since you were a kid, why would she send you this?”
    Caleb shrugs, not trusting his voice this time.
    “And why all the secrecy?” Bean asks. “I’ve never seen you lie to your mom. I mean, you’re a total sissy momma’s boy. And you didn’t even tell Amber the real deal, and she’s like the puppet master holding your freakin’ strings.”
    “Bite me,” says Caleb.
    “I don’t mean it as a bad thing. I mean, damn. Most guys would be more than happy to be pussy-whipped by her. But it’s just weird that you told both of them we were just going on a little trip to visit your dad, when we’re actually—wait, what are we doing?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t even know where Christine is. I don’t know if I’d recognize her if she were sitting right next to me.”
    “I just can’t believe you actually lied to your mom.”
    “I’m not that much of a momma’s boy. I had to lie to her because she hates my dad completely. If she knew we were staying with him, she’d crap herself.”
    “You ever get a hold of him?”
    “Dad? Nah. He must’ve changed his phone number. We had to do that sometimes. He’s a lawyer. He represents a lot of controversial cases. We’ll just surprise him.”
    “Sweet,” says Bean. “Now leave me alone. I gotta get my beauty sleep. But first, take that letter back. It creeps me out. Seriously.”
    Caleb puts the letter back in his pocket, and Bean leans his head against the airplane window.
    Caleb stares past him, out at the infinite blue. He told everyone that he had become overwhelmed with the exertion of finishing the school year, going through graduation, writing college essays, and all the other crap that came with being an eighteen-year-old. Total bullshit. Still, his mom and Bob bought it and sprung for a “vacation” to Florida for him and Bean. After all, “breakdowns” are par for the course for teenagers growing up in Malibu, so, if anything, this lapse made him seem more normal in the eyes of his peers and maybe even his family. It made him wince to imagine himself as one of those lame kids who were always paging their therapists and popping handfuls of Xanax.
    But the lies will all be worth it if Christine really is in trouble and they’re able to help her.
    “This trip’s gonna be cool,” Caleb says, but somehow he doesn’t believe it. He’s racking up the lies.
    “Shut up,” Bean mumbles. “You’re screwing up my beauty sleep.”

    The humidity is dizzying as they step out onto the tarmac. Waves of heat rise off the blacktop and the sun seems to bore through the top of Caleb’s baseball cap and into his brain.
    “Thank Jesus,” says Bean, “I thought we were dead, man. I swear to God, I did. That turbulence was crazy. We like, fell. We should sue for emotional distress, I’m telling you.”
    The plane had