Signing up early for the school carnival should’ve afforded Rea Callahan the upper edge—a shot at a task far more enjoyable than scraping cotton candy from the gymnasium floor or scrubbing toilets. But you don’t know what you don’t know, and even the most benign of volunteer positions can turn into flaming regrets.
I don’t usually have regrets. I worked hard through school and graduated in the top ten percent of my college class. Opened my own brokerage firm. I’ve put quality time in with my family and I’ve reaped fabulous memories in return. Some would say I should bemoan choosing Tray, the father of my children, who up and left the three of us years ago. But I don’t because that would mean Josey and Quinn wouldn’t exist.
And I certainly, not for one second, regret any choice that led to my children being born. And I don’t regret the sacrifices made on their behalf. Not for one second.
But as I look at the smoke gray concrete block walls on all sides of me, and as I shift in the cold metal chair bolted to the floor and rest my forearms on the cold steel table—also bolted to the floor—and as I glance at the small black rectangle with its round glass lens glaring at my face from high in the corner, its red dot blinking, a computer somewhere recording each moment in this room, I do regret the two seconds it took me to sign my name to the volunteer sheet for the Fishers Elementary School Carnival.
The windowless door opens, and a middle-aged man in standard Fishers detective attire enters the room. Another detective. There’ve been several over the last few hours. This one’s fresh and fit. The others who’ve grilled me were tired and already worn out before my ordeal dragged them from their desks or patrol cars. “Rea Callahan?” he asks.
I nod.
“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
“Where are my kids?”
“They’re safe.”
“What about that, that thing?” I feel my composure slipping away. I fight back tears.
He slides onto the corner of the table. His suit jacket opens, showing his service weapon hanging from his belt. “Let’s worry about getting your statement.”
“I’ve already told you guys what happened.” I brush away a stray tear that refuses to stay behind my eyelid. At least I’m not bolted to the table.
Or in a straitjacket.
“Well, you’ve not told me. And you’ve had some time to calm down now. So how about we take it from the top?”
Calmed down? No doubt the entire police force believes me to be some bewildered, anxiety-ridden, off-her-meds female. That would make their lives easier, I suppose. The truth, though? Well, I don’t even believe the truth.
“If you want the whole story, you’ll be more comfortable in a chair.” I’m tired, and my response is snotty, I know. But, truthfully, I don’t want this man in my space. On my side of this table.
The detective nods at the camera.
I inhale a shaky breath, not quite understanding what that nod was about. Another officer opens the door, dragging in a second chair, and sets two bottles of water on the table. The detective moves opposite me into the chair and unscrews his cap. I hear the snap when the plastic seal breaks. He takes several long draws from the bottle and sets it on the table.
I let my shoulders relax. I unscrew my top smoothly. Someone must’ve figured this weak, delusional female needed her cap loosened. My hands shake. Maybe they’re right.
I take a sip.
“Whenever you’re ready, Mrs. Callahan.”
I close my eyes and remember when the nightmare began.
It began with dragging a cheap ballpoint pen across Sally Buchanan’s clipboarded sign-up sheet.
The most regrettable two seconds of my entire life.
***
“Just sign your name anywhere, Rea. You get pick of the crop.” I remember thinking Sally Buchanan would be better served as a license branch teller rather than the elementary school’s PTO board. “Everyone must take a spot. When we all pitch in, we make light work for the whole group.” She smiled. A fake smile.
I’m not sure any parent had ever wanted to volunteer in the twenty years the school’d put on the carnival. But every PTO leader, whether Sally or some other uppity mother, had a way of guilt-tripping the masses into indentured volunteer-hood.
I scanned the list of available spots—several of which I’d tried in past years. Set-up crews had no clue where to put anything or who was really in charge, and it took much longer than necessary. The concession booth was awful. Cotton candy machines caked with layers of sugar were nearly impossible to clean. The clean-up crew had a hard time with that same sugary mess—and more—stuck to the floors, doors, and walls. Last year, I’d spent three hours past the end of the event scrubbing bathrooms after children consumed way too much sugar way too fast.
This year, I’d gotten to Sally early before the simpler, less time-intensive jobs filled up. The prize booth was open. Wide open. I scrawled my name on the line feeling triumphant. Like I scored the winning basket in the county tourney. Sally gave me a list of sources to gather prizes from, the theme of the carnival, as well as my budget. Shopping was certainly more appealing than scrubbing toilets.
I took the list home and scoured the straight-from-China websites for all things kid-friendly and matching the Dino Day theme. I ordered the standard, must-haves for any kids’ event: bouncy balls, slime in oranges and lime greens to throw against the wall and watch as it crawled down like an amoeba, foam glider planes (some shaped as pterodactyls, three dozen of those), drawstring backpacks, and other such items for the older kids who thought the carnival to be beneath their elevated, mature statures.
For more specific themed-based items, I chose plush dinosaur critters, tie-on dino tails, dino-printed notebooks and pencils.
And then I saw the eggs.
On clearance, even.
Dinosaur eggs. Five trays of twenty eggs in all colors from natural tones to neon brights. Put the golf-ball-sized egg in water and the shell dissolved, revealing a tiny, flesh-colored, lima-bean-sized dino figurine. Tiny little spongy things that soak up water and grow to five-hundred times their size in a few days—if you keep the water fresh.
I even planned on sacrificing a few eggs to generate buzz for this great find. I’d break one egg open and mark it day one. The second display would be a dino that I’d soaked for one day. The third and fourth parts of the display would show how the dino grew and grew the longer you let it soak.
The kids would love it.
I knew this because I’d shown the prize selections to Josey, my eight-year-old daughter, and Quinn, my eleven-year-old son, before hitting the “complete order” button. If my test audience consisting of a diva princess and sports-loving boy approved, then I figured I hit the happy medium with prize selection. And they especially loved the eggs.
And they loved the fact that I promised they could keep the display when I was done.
I’d almost forgotten about the carnival in the couple of weeks that followed. There was nothing more to do on my part until the prizes shipped and had to be sorted according to perceived value. The kids had earned points all year for A’s, B’s, and good behavior. Other carnival games would also give out points, and the kids could spend these at the prize table.
I was at work when I got the email that my packages had been delivered. I closed my brokerage firm early and drove home. It was raining that day. It was a Wednesday. One-and-a-half weeks before the carnival—and I wouldn’t have time to reorder prizes if they were ruined sitting out in the rain.
Boxes large and tall and light and heavy lined the porch. I wrestled them into the entryway and didn’t even consider opening them. I’d wait for Josey and Quinn to get home from school and they could help sort. Or play in the packaging. Some kids don’t outgrow the allure of empty cardboard boxes.
I started dinner. My phone kept ringing, some unidentifiable number, and all variations of it. So, I blocked and declined the calls as best I could, chalked it up to telemarketers and my cell number falling off the “do not call” registry, and went on with the night. The calls became so annoying I eventually turned the ringer off. No one ever left a voicemail.
I didn’t know I should’ve answered.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
I should’ve answered.
Another regrettable action.
***
“Can I have a break? I’m not feeling well.”
“Mrs. Callahan. We’ve only barely begun.”
I stare at the man across from me. I look at the water bottle, which I downed the entirety of while going through the intro material. Stress gives me cotton mouth. He sighs, stands, and points at the door. I stand and stretch. He accompanies me a few steps down the hall, has me wait as he ducks his head in the ladies’ room, then stands outside while I enter. I feel like those witnesses in the procedural dramas.
Or a flight risk.
Maybe that’s an idea. Fleeing. But I don’t know where my kids are.
I’m unsure if I’m just a witness or if I did something wrong. I don’t think anyone else knows how to classify me, either.
I splash water on my face. My hair is falling out of the ponytail for the tenth time today. I wrap it back up tight and dry off with a rough brown paper towel. Rough and brown like the shell of the egg that started this whole mess.
Actually, that regrettable signature started this whole mess. If anyone but myself had signed up to run prizes, maybe that egg would’ve stayed in a Chinese warehouse somewhere.
A sharp knock and muffled “Mrs. Callahan” urge my feet toward the door. Back down the hall. Back to the gray concrete room with its lurking camera and detective.
My water bottle had been replaced. Or refilled. I’m not sure which. The sight of two bananas and peanut butter and crackers caused my stomach to gurgle. I’m unsure of the time. Or when I last ate. Or when my kids last ate.
“I’d really like to talk with my children before we go on.”
“That’s not possible, ma’am. They are safe. I assure you. Let’s continue. And try to get as detailed as you can. Even things you don’t think are important. Let’s see. You were ignoring phone calls and cooking dinner…,” he prompted.
I slide onto the hard seat as I reach for a banana and free it from its peel. The sweet smell makes my mouth water, and I’m not even a huge fan of bananas.
I look at the man across from me. I’m not a huge fan of him, either. He turns toward the camera above his right shoulder.
His left ear has a hearing device tucked into the canal.
I hadn’t noticed it before. None of the other detectives had one, I’m sure, because they used walkies to communicate. But then again, I wasn’t in a “calmed down” state when I spoke with the other officers.
He turns back to me, his green eyes piercing mine, and tips his head to the left, ever so slightly. I probably wasn’t supposed to notice his flesh-colored, lima-bean-sized earpiece.
I look down at my fruit and begin again.
***
The kids and I ate dinner that night before homework, then the grand opening of the boxes. Josey oversaw removing packaging from the individually wrapped items, and Quinn was in charge of organizing them from smallest to largest so we could assign point values. He also assembled a couple of the pterodactyl gliders for display.
We left the dinosaur eggs for last.
Once the notebooks and pencils and backpacks were all organized and labeled, we turned to the trays of eggs.
We opened the lids—like egg carton lids only bigger—and chose five eggs to be used as the display pieces. We couldn’t soak the dinosaur eggs until closer to carnival time, but we needed to pack the bulk of the items up and take them to the school so we could have our living room back. I let Josey choose two—she picked a hot pink one and a speckled purple. Quinn chose a neutral tan and a plain white for his, reasoning that we leave the brighter colors for the carnival kids to pick from.
I chose the last egg. Like Quinn, I found what I thought was the ugliest one, thinking that the prettier, brighter eggs would be more appealing as prizes. Mine was slightly off form. A little rough. Darker brown than any of the others.
That should’ve been my first clue.
But you don’t know what you don’t know. Until you have hindsight.
We set our five demo eggs inside the fruit bowl on the dining room table for safe keeping. I marked on the fridge calendar the day we’d start the soaking and dino-growing. Five days before the carnival.
Again, life went on. School, baseball practice, a movie at the theater with Grandma and Grandpa.
More phone calls from unknown numbers. Some looked to be foreign. Asian. Sometimes several an hour. I’d called my wireless carrier and complained. They said to answer it and request no more calls. I didn’t listen. I was afraid if I answered it, whoever was calling would sell my number off to more fools who’d never give me peace.
Monday evening came, the Monday before Dino Day, Josey was about to burst with excitement to crack open her purple speckled egg and start soaking the other four. Quinn gave in and let his sister dip his into the water, too.
And I handed her that rough, brown egg.
We gently broke the shell of the first egg, and a tiny triceratops fell onto the counter. Josey squealed, high-pitched, happy giggles that caused Quinn to complain and hold his ears. “Don’t get it wet. That’s the first display piece. Go put it on the table.” Josey took the pieces of egg and the micro triceratops to the dining room.
Quinn and I filled four glasses with warm water and lined them against the backsplash. Josey crawled onto the countertop and gently dropped each remaining egg into a glass.
“Now what?” She stared at the line of eggs sinking to the bottom of the glasses.
“Now tomorrow, the shells should be all dissolved. We’ll remove the dino from the first glass and change out the water on the last three.”
We had dinner. The kids went off to homework, and I went off to my home office to catch up on paperwork. I returned to the kitchen before bed to run the dishwasher and turn off the lights. That’s when I noticed that the brown egg wasn’t behaving like the rest.
***
“Behaving like the rest? How so?”
His interruption startled me. I glanced up at the camera, still blinking red. I glanced down at the table, still holding one banana and some crackers. My water bottle was empty again. I don’t even remember drinking.
“Well, the other eggs’ water was murky and colored with the dye from the dissolving shells. The brown egg wasn’t doing anything.”
“So it wasn’t behaving, it was just…”
“I thought it wasn’t working. That maybe the water temperature was off, or that it was a dud.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing. I went to bed.”
“This didn’t worry you?”
“After all that’s happened today, this is the part of the story that you’re hung up on? I’m a single mom of two. I work full time. A non-dissolving child’s toy egg wasn’t exactly on the top of my worry-about-it list.” I feel my face flushing. “I want to see my kids.”
“After the statement is recorded, Rea. And it will go faster if you cooperate.”
“I am cooperating. I’m telling this in great detail for the hundredth time. I’m drinking your water and eating your bananas and I’ve stayed seated—which is a major miracle given how sore my rear end is becoming—and I’m cooperating.”
He raises his hands and is about to interrupt my rant but I continue. “And it’s Mrs. Callahan to you. Only friends and family call me Rea.” I stand and pace at the back of the windowless room. He doesn’t seem to mind, and he glances at the camera and nods again. Man, I’d love to know how big my audience is.
They may be sending this out to go viral. I begin to feel dizzy just as the other officer brings yet another water bottle. He removes the spent, browning peel and leaves the room.
“Do you need another restroom break?”
I look at his bottle; he’s still on his first one. “Do you?” I snark back.
“Continue, please.” He motions for me to take a seat.
“I’ll stand for this bit, if you don’t mind.” I take the cap off the fresh bottle. They’d opened it for me again. I pace and sip. The water is cool against my rising core temperature. I can feel the trickle all the way down my esophagus.
He nods and moves to the edge of the table, one hip resting on the edge, leg dangling. One leg on the floor supporting the rest of his weight. I guess if I go off, he’s that much closer to a standing position.
“Tuesday morning the kids were excited to see the dinos in the first three glasses. Another triceratops, one I don’t know the name of, and a T-rex. We removed the tri and replaced the water in the last three glasses. Quinn wanted to start over with another egg in the last one, but we’d already lugged all the prizes to the school the week before. So we left it and went on with our day.”
“Went on with your day? So now you have two soaking figurines and the brown egg which is doing…”
“Doing nothing. Soaking.” I get brave and reach around the detective, who doesn’t flinch, to grab a handful of crackers. He has the slightest hint of cologne, but the peanut butter trumps it. I munch and pace and sip.
“Were there other eggs like the brown one that’s ‘doing nothing?’”
“You’re asking me if in one of the five trays of toy dino eggs there could have been others that did what my brown egg did?” I take a big swig of water to wash down the peanut butter. And to pause before I rip this idiot’s head off. “Well, gee, Detective, I don’t know. It’s possible my boy and I may have missed other ugly eggs. You’d better get your people on it right away before this whole police station—and the hospital—is full up of crazy people who couldn’t possibly have seen what they saw.”
I take a few steps closer to him. Much closer. “But if you’re implying I’ve been negligent regarding the safety of other families in this community—and my very own children—you’re gravely mistaken. Do I need a lawyer?”
He flinches. A micro flinch, but he flinches. He raises his left hand and stops his fingers a few inches from his ear, lowers his hand, then backs away from me to his seat.
“Mrs. Callahan, please sit. You’re not under investigation. We’re just doing due diligence here. Please continue, and I’ll do my best not to interrupt.” He takes the remaining banana and begins peeling it slowly.
I slide back onto the metallic chair, clearly my only supportive ally in the room, and continue.
***
On Wednesday we removed the second soaking toy, and yesterday—was it yesterday? —the T-Rex came out. Still nothing was going on with the brown egg. This morning, Quinn asked if he could keep the “unhatched” egg as part of his rock collection. Maybe it was a geode. Or maybe not a rock at all.
We didn’t know. We didn’t care. We had enough samples to show the kids what the eggs were all about, and I didn’t think anything more of it.
Another regret.
I let Quinn take the egg out of the glass. He dried it off and took it to the basement where he keeps his rocks and geodes. I figured he’d take a hammer to it and see what it was made of.
In hindsight, that was a bad decision.
But you don’t know what you don’t know.
That afternoon, the kids did their last dab of homework for the week, we had an early dinner, watched some TV, then they went off to the basement to play while I stayed upstairs cleaning up the mealtime mess.
I wiped down the countertops in the kitchen. Cleaned up the dishes, started the dishwasher. Took the rag out to the dining room table and wiped it down. I smiled as I remembered Josey’s shriek of joy at the first little triceratops that tumbled from the broken shell. I remember remembering because as I was thinking about Monday evening’s display work, I heard another shrill, piercing shriek.
Coming from the basement.
But this one wasn’t a happy little-girl delight. It carried a tone of anguish and fear. And pain. Like the time Quinn had built a ladder from the neighbor’s leftover remodeling scraps and had Josey test it out. She’d made it to the top when the last rung split in two. I’d come out of the house just in time to see her fall from the ladder and hear the shriek as she toppled to the ground and broke her collarbone.
Same shriek now.
Before I could take two steps away from the table, I heard Quinn’s slightly deeper moan followed by another shriek.
When I reached the basement steps, the kids were already halfway up.
Followed by that thing.
And orange flames grabbing for their feet from between the wooden steps.
***
My composure is gone now. Remembering the fire and the creature. Remembering barely enough time to grab my keys and phone from the entryway table and escape out the front door.
The detective hands me a napkin. It smells of banana and peanut butter, but I wipe my face with it anyway.
“Quinn had burns on his calves. I want to see my children.”
“Ma’am, the kids are well cared for. Right here in this building. We’re getting their stories, too. Quinn’s burns have been treated. He’s doing well, I’m told.” He touched the earpiece.
“I didn’t think you could talk to minors without a parent present. I really do want that phone call now. I’ve cooperated. I want to see my children.”
The detective stands and stretches. Again, his jacket opens and I see his service weapon. “Tell me about the creature. And then we’ll tell you what we know.”
“Who’s we? I just called you a few hours ago. How could you know anything yet, when all you’ve got is my story?”
He flinches. Slightly, but he flinches. “Please, ma’am. Tell me about the creature.”
I huff in frustration. Wanting this to be over, but not wanting to remember. Not wanting to see that expression on his face that every other first responder had given me. “Small, but not small. There’s no way he came out of that egg and grew that fast. Thin, but not thin. Wings that spread out like a bat’s, only shimmering, as electric currents danced from his body and out over the tips. And its eyes—”
I pause to look at the man’s face for signs of disbelief, but that’s not the look he gave me. When I explained to the firemen and the EMTs what the kids and I saw, they looked at us with uncertainty. Curiosity. Some raised one eyebrow and nodded slowly. I must be crazy and I’d enlisted my poor kids to play along.
To create a most fantastical cover story as to why my house stood as nothing but a see-through ember shell and why my son’s legs were burned.
This man. This man had understanding in his eyes. Knowing.
“Did you see the creature after the fire?”
“I was focused on my kids. I hoped the thing burned.”
“It didn’t. They don’t burn.”
Now my eyebrow goes up on one side and I nod my head in disbelief. He’s mocking me. He looks up at the camera and nods. His best buddy comes through the windowless door again with a file folder and slides it across the table to me.
“Open it,” he says. I don’t comply. It was Friday when my house burnt to the ground. Maybe it’s still Friday. Or Saturday now. I don’t know. I won’t comply until I get answers.
“We were the ones trying to contact you. We’ve been keeping an eye on shipments of this sort from that factory.”
“Again, who’s we?”
He takes his identification from his back pocket. In hindsight, I should’ve asked to see this tiny folded leather pouch when he first entered the room. But so many had entered and left. So many promises that my kids are fine and that if I tell this tale one more time, I’ll see them soon.
I stare at the hefty gold and blue badge, and his headshot stares back at me with the same piercing green eyes. I slowly process what I’m seeing. He’s speaking, but I’m only catching bits of it. He’s not a detective. He’s only wearing a Fishers uniform in a feeble attempt to make me more comfortable. I run my fingers over the letters on the badge. NSA.
“—were trying to contact you without raising alarm. You and your children are some of the luckier ones we’ve questioned. Actually, you’re the only ones who’ve survived to give any kind of detail about the creature.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded.
“Open it.”
I take the corner of the manila file in my fingertips, as if I’ll burn myself when I touch it, and I fling the folder open. I fan out the contents.
Photos of burned homes. A business in ashes, its sign, in Chinese characters, hangs in charcoaled defeat from above a busted glass door.
All with bright red “CONFIDENTIAL” stamped across the tops.
My heart thumps inside my ears as the last page, a sketch of the creature, startles me.
“We don’t have photos of it. Is that accurate? Do you have any detail we could add to make it more complete?”
I find my voice. “The eyes are wrong.”
“How so?”
“They dripped.”
“Dripped?”
I hesitate.
“Look, Mrs. Callahan, there’s nothing we won’t believe at this point. We believe your story. We believe your children’s versions. You’ve nothing to worry about from us. We just need your description.”
“They dripped…lava.”
He sat back in his seat and put his head in his hands. The first sign of humanness from him since he started my interview. He waved at the camera.
I waited for the door to open as quickly as it had before, but it remained closed.
“A rogue terrorist faction engineered this biological, uh, well, weapon. Smuggled it into toys and novelty items delivered to gas stations and junk shops. And school fundraiser groups.” He sits back in his chair and unbuttons the top button of his shirt. “We think they’re testing it. Seeing what these creatures can do. How much destruction they’ll cause. If they can be contained.”
“Where is it?”
“We don’t know.”
“How many are there?”
“A dozen. Maybe more. Maybe less.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
“Now what?” I can only think of my kids. We’re homeless. Possessionless.
“Ma’am, we’re going to ask that you and your children remain in our protective custody until we can decide what to do. Leaking this would be disastrous.”
“Not warning people would be disastrous. There are more eggs—” I think of all the kids at the carnival. Tomorrow. Or is it today?
“We’ve already confiscated those. Sent someone as soon as you relayed that information to us. No worries there.”
The door finally opens and my children, my two beautiful, terrified children, fling themselves into my arms, and we all cry. I look down at Quinn’s leg. It’s wrapped in clean, white bandages. Josey’s hair’s a mess, and she has chocolate smeared on her upper lip.
“No one’s going to believe me, Mom,” Quinn whispered. “About what happened. I didn’t mean to let it out. I thought it was a geode. I didn’t—” He sobs into my chest. I hold them both closer and sob with them.
He’s feeling the heavy weight of hindsight.
“Not your fault, son. Not your fault.” The agent pats him on the shoulder. “We’ll see about making lodging arrangements for you.” He scoops up the folder and returns my keys to me.
“What about my phone?”
“We can’t risk this getting out and causing a panic, ma’am. I’m sorry. But one number has called over and over.”
“Who?”
“A Sally Buchanan.”
I moan.
“You’re late for the carnival.”
