Andrew Klavan - The Last Thing I Remember (Homelanders, Book 1)

THE LAST THING
I REMEMBER

THE LAST THING
I REMEMBER

THE
HOMELANDERS

BOOK ONE

by
Andrew Klavan

2009 by Andrew Klavan

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Publishers Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Klavan, Andrew.

The last thing I remember / by Andrew Klavan.

p. cm. (The Homelanders ; bk. 1)

Summary: High school student Charlie West awakens bloody and bruised in a concrete bunker, only to discover that he has lost a year of his life and remembers nothing about escaping from prison after being convicted of murdering his former best friend, or why he is being pursued by both the law and a group of terrorists trying to bring down the government of the United States.

ISBN 978-1-59554-607-4 (hardcover)
[1. AmnesiaFiction. 2. TerrorismFiction. 3. Fugitives from justiceFiction.
4. Adventure and adventurersFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K67823Las 2009
[Fic]dc22

2009001857

Printed in the United States of America
09 10 11 12 QW 6 5 4 3 2 1

THIS BOOK IS FOR JACKSON KLAVAN

Contents

CHAPTER ONE
The Torture Room

Suddenly I woke up strapped to a chair.

What... ? I whispered.

Dazed, I looked around me. I was in a room with a concrete floor and cinder block walls. A single bare lightbulb hung glaring from a wire above me. Against the wall across from me was a set of white metal drawers. A tray was attached to it. There were instruments on the trayawful instrumentsblades and pincers and something that looked like a miniature version of those acetylene torches welders use. The instruments lay on a white cloth. The cloth was stained with blood.

The sight of the blood jolted me into full consciousness. I tried to move my arms and legs. I couldnt. Thats when I saw the straps. One on each wrist holding me to the chairs metal arms. One on each ankle holding me to its metal legs. And there was blood here too. More blood. On the floor at my feet. On my white shirt, on my black slacks, on my arms. And there were bruises on my arms, dark purple bruises. And there were oozing burn marks on the backs of my hands.

I hurt. I kind of just realized it all at once. My whole body ached and stung inside and out. My shirt was soaking wet. My skin felt clammy with sweat. My mouth tasted like dirt. I smelled like garbage.

Have you ever had a nightmare, a really bad one, where you woke up and you could feel your heart hammering against the bed and you couldnt catch your breath? Then, as you started to understand that the nightmare wasnt real, that it was all a dream, your heart slowed down again and your breathing got deeper and you relaxed and thought, Whew, that sure seemed real.

Well, this was exactly the opposite. I opened my eyes expecting to see my bedroom at home, my black-belt certificate, my trophies, my poster of The Lord of theRings. Instead, I was in what should have been a nightmare, but wasnt. It was real. And with every second, my heart beat harder. My breath came shorter. Panic flared up in me like a living flame.

Where was I? Where was my room? Where were my parents? What was happening to me? How did I get here? Terrified, I racked my brain, trying to think, trying to figure it out, asking myself in the depths of my confusion and fear: what was the last thing I remembered... ?

CHAPTER TWO
An Ordinary Day

An ordinary day. Thats it. An ordinary September day. Thats all there was before the insanity began.

That nightthat last nightI was in my room, working on my homework as usual. I had a history paper due. What Is the Best Form of Government? A classic Mr. Sherman assignment. Mr. Sherman liked to pretend he was some kind of radical. He wanted us to question our assumptions and think outside the box. It never seemed to occur to him that sometimes the simple, most obvious answer might be the right one. What Is the Best Form of Government? I wanted to title my paper, Constitutional Democracy, You Doofus, What Do You Think? But somehow I figured that might not be the best way to get a good grade.

So as ten oclock rolled around, I was sitting at my computer, working on my arguments. About how people had the right to be free and choose their own leaders. About how leaders who thought they should be in charge no matter what, who thought they had all the answers or some super-duper system that was going to make things fair and perfect for everyonepeople like kings and dictators and Communistsalways wound up messing their countries up in the end, telling everyone what to say and do and murdering the people who didnt fit in with the way they wanted to run things.

It was hard workand it didnt help that, at the same time I was polishing my deathless prose, I had Josh LernerGalaxyMaster, as he calls himself onlineon the Instant Messenger. GalaxyMaster was watching an ancient episode of Star Trek on YouTube and sending me a message every time something cool or stupid happened. Which was, like, every two seconds. And which I could see for myself anyway because I had the same episode running on the upper right-hand corner of my computer, even though Id turned the sound down low so I could listen to George Strait piping out of my iPod dock.

GalaxyMaster: look at that rock! sooooo papermachier!

BBelt1: i know josh. im watching it.

GalaxyMaster: Ooooo its so heavy. i cant lift it. roflmayo!

BBelt1: josh I can c it.

GalaxyMaster: that klingon mask is so fake!

GalaxyMaster could be kind of a dork sometimes. Plus he was making it tough for me to hold up my end of the conversation with Rick Donnelly, who was on my headset. Id called him to tell him about the argument Id had that evening with Alex Hauser, but then wed gotten to talking about the history paper. Rick had Sherman for history too, and he was totally aware of Shermans high level of doofy-os-itude. But Rick was the kind of guy who was always trying to play the angles, always trying to figure out what the teacher wanted to hear. His paper made the argument that Communism was theoretically the best form of government, but it just hadnt been done right yet.

Thats nuts, I told him. They ought to have a sign outside those countries, like at McDonalds or something: Communism: Over 100 Million Murdered.

Hey, said Rick. All I know is that with Sherman, radicalism is where the As are. Follow the grades, my son. Follow the grades.

I laughed and shook my head and went on writing about the joys of liberty.

So that, basically, was mejust before ten on an ordinary Wednesday night in September. Writing my paper and IMing with Josh and talking with Rick and watching YouTube and listening to tunes on my iPod dockand starting to fade out after a long, long day.