Free Billy by Whitley Strieber

minute."
    The reply was another moan.
    Barton didn't want to stop on the roadside for fear some state trooper might offer help.
    Dull thumps emanated from the back of the van. Billy was awake all right. He was struggling against the straps. In the rearview mirror Barton could see the quilt heaving. "It's just a nightmare, Billy!"
    "Mmm . . ."
    Sleep, little boy, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon . . .
    "Mmmfff!"
    "It's a nightmare!"
    "Hh—mmmff!"
    Come on, come on, doesn 't Iowa believe in rest stops!
    The road stretched out straight and empty. Behind him Billy jerked and moaned. Barton gripped the wheel, pressed the gas pedal as far down as he dared.
    Five minutes passed, then ten. All the while the boy struggled. Finally, after twenty minutes, a rest stop appeared. Thank you oh dear God who loves your Barton. He pulled in toward the picnic tables and outhouses, then past a long line of parked eighteen-wheelers, finally stopping near a little grove of trees at the far end of the picnic grounds.
    Quickly he opened the glove compartment and took out the black wallet containing syringes, alcohol and a small bottle of diazepam formulated for injection. He'd chosen the drug after reading medical textbooks. It was safer than a barbiturate and had, in addition to inducing sleep with a sufficient dose, the property of reducing anxiety.
    He put some alcohol on a cotton ball and drew two cc's of the drug into one of his syringes. Then he climbed over the seats into the back, pushing past the bicycle and the bag of clothes, to the bed where the boy lay strapped and moaning.
    The moaning became a high-pitched wail as he dug beneath the soft quilt and found Billy's arm. Billy's head jerked from side to side. He was trying to push the quilt away from his eyes.
    His arm quaked when Barton touched it, but Barton was strong and quick. He swabbed the skin and delivered the drug. But it wouldn't go to work at once and the word coming from behind the gag was now distinct: "Dad! Dad!"
    "You're in an ambulance, son!"
    "Dad!"
    "Dad and Mother are fine. Your sister is fine. There was a fire. Sleep now, son."
    There were more sounds as Billy struggled to respond. In a moment he was going to be conscious enough to understand that he was gagged. Barton decided to take the risk of a scream and remove the tape, try to calm the child down. As he pulled it off, Billy smacked and coughed. Then he spoke.
    "A—fire?"
    "You're going to be fine. Sleep now."
    "Did I get burned?"
    "No, son, just a little smoke."
    "I can't move . . ."
    "So you won't fall off the stretcher. You're in an ambulance. You're very sleepy now. Go to sleep."
    At last the breathing changed, grew ragged and then long, and Barton closed his own eyes and let his own breath sigh slowly out.
    "Ether is a relatively short-duration soporific that was administered in gaseous form as an anesthetic during the early history of anesthesia."
    They had been on the road nearly two hours. Barton should have given Billy the diazepam on the other side of Des Moines. To punish himself for his stupidity he slammed the empty needle into his own thigh. Stupidity must always be punished. Everything had to be plan-perfect.
    "Ether is a short duration soporific," he said as he yanked the needle out.
    To Barton's surprise Billy's hand was dangling. His struggles had been so extreme that he had freed it, something Barton had never seen any boy accomplish before.
    Barton threw back the quilt and loosened the strap that bound the child about his midriff. He returned the hand to Billy's side, really touching him for the first time, holding his soft skin and feeling a rush of hurting desire. Despite the abrasions resulting from the child's effort to free it from the strap, it was a lovely hand, pale and silky.
    He wanted to kiss it, to somehow meld with its beauty. He looked at the skin, now burnished by a shaft of sunlight. It was  so exotic, so perfect down even to the dusting of fine hairs that came