Revels Ending

by Vic Kerry

  “They dumped me on Dauphin Island,” he said.

  Smalls struggled to his feet, which was harder than he’d expected. Once standing, he turned around, taking in the vista. To the west, the sand, and small dunes extended out. The south had a dune with wild sea oats sticking up and blowing in the wind. The gulf was on the other side. To the east, there was more sand and the tire tracks from the van. He couldn’t see the paved street that ran the length of the island until the point where the city and county had restricted people because of past hurricane damage. The kidnappers had gone past the barrier and dumped him well on the sandy side of the island. The roofs of a few vacation houses that were rebuilt after Katrina were just visible in the dying light. The island was a good forty-five minutes away from the city. His kidnappers hadn’t wanted him getting back in quickly, even though they wanted him alive for some reason.

  “It’s not getting any lighter,” he said, and trudged toward the south and the small dunes separating the sandy land from the strand.

  Smalls wasn’t afraid of getting lost. He knew if he kept walking in the direction of the houses he’d make it back to the street, but walking through the soft, loose sand with his hands behind his back was difficult. His balance kept tipping to one side or the other. He topped the small dune and slipped down the other side. The surf from the Gulf of Mexico washed cold around his knees as he stood back up. He turned toward the east and headed down the sliver of packed sand that marked the beach. The hard sand was much easier to walk on, and he hoped to get to a house or store before too long. He needed to get back to the city and find Ashe. Things were moving faster than he thought they would.

  Security Camera: Storage Facility, Michigan Avenue, Mobile, AL, 7:24 p.m. CST

  Cybil sits alone in a wooden chair. The whole space has been emptied out. Only a few remnants of float preparation lay around the room. She moves her arms, but they are tethered to the chair with rope. Hindered by the restraints, she stretches her neck to look as far behind her as she can.

  A door at the back of the long room opens. Two men walk in behind her. One is the man in the hooded sweatshirt. The hood is pulled over far enough to conceal his face. The other is the swarthy man. They say nothing to each other.

  Cybil yells for help and tries to crane her neck to see them. The chair nearly tips over with her. She rights it while saying something. The men continue walking toward her. Once they get to the chair they separate and walk on both sides. She looks at the swarthy man first and then at the one in the sweatshirt. Her expression changes from strained worry to disbelief.

  “It’s you,” she says, expressive enough to be read on her lips.

  The swarthy man laughs and slaps the one in the sweatshirt on the shoulder. He slips his hand into the pocket of his black suit coat, bringing up an ornamental-looking knife. Cybil’s eyes dart up and down from the man’s face to the knife.

  The swarthy man shakes his head and waves his free hand as if telling her not to worry. He uses the knife to slice through one of the tethering ropes, and then the other. Cybil moves her arms free of the restraints. She tries to get up, but the swarthy man pushes her back into the chair. As he walks around behind her, he slips the knife back into his pocket. The man in the hood reaches out and caresses Cybil’s cheek. As he strokes it, his other hand slides down her neck and plunges into the neckline of her shirt. He fondles her breasts. She tries to move away, but the swarthy man, ever smiling with small teeth, pushes down on her shoulders. The hooded man removes his hand and begins to rub his crotch. He tugs at the zipper and starts to pull himself out of his jeans.

  The smile disappears from the swarthy man’s lips. He waggles his finger at the hooded man. He speaks, and his words are heard.

  “You will not rape her. If you must express your lustfulness use your usual one.”

  The swarthy man claps his hands. From out of sight, Marianne walks up. She is completely naked. Cybil looks at Marianne. Her eyes widen. She looks as if she might run away, but the swarthy man continues to hold her down by the shoulders. The hooded man walks to Marianne. He pushes her to the ground and then drops his pants. They have sex in front of the swarthy man and Cybil. She closes her eyes and tries to plug her ears with her fingers, but the swarthy man will not allow her to.

  “You must hear this,” he says “It will explain much.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The safe house ended up being a room in an old Howard Johnson motel that had lost the franchise. The only way Ashe knew that the room used to be part of a HoJo was the fact that the towels still had the company’s name on them. The only chair was an orange vinyl seat that had seen its best days sometime in the late 1970s. It sat beside a small round table with drink rings and cigarette burns on the top. He sat at it watching The Weather Channel. The bed looked too frightening to sleep on. The orange spread that matched the chair had large holes in it and a few mystery stains.

  The few belongings he had were spread out over the room. His billfold and car keys lay on the nightstand. His cell phone sat in the center of the round table. He kept his shoes on his feet for fear of what might be living in the shag carpeting. Everything swirled around his mind. Smalls and Cybil were gone, either dead or missing. Had the priest killed Cybil and fled or had he kidnapped her? Either way, Ashe was sure the priest had something to do with it all. The police abandoned him in the roach motel with instructions to sit still and do nothing.

  Ashe walked to the window. He pulled the curtain back and looked out at the parking lot. The evening grew darker, and the street lamps glowed orange light out on the parking lot. He knew he was facing south back toward the city of Mobile. Somewhere people plotted against him. Theoretically, the reanimated corpse of his fiancée wandered the streets. This was the first time he had thought of Marianne as a reanimated corpse. It made her sound like a zombie, but that’s what she would be. Perhaps she would be wandering around in the crowd of revelers at the parade that would be rolling through downtown in a few hours. Was she trying to tell people about that new parading society along with the dead woman from Birmingham?

  His cell phone rang and vibrated. It moved across the disgusting table with each electric shudder. Ashe grabbed it and looked at the number on the small screen. It was Marianne’s. He pressed the green answer button.

  “Hello.”

  “Dr. Shrove,” a flat, emotionless voice said. It was not that of Marianne.

  “You’ve got him.”

  “My name is Anne Askew. I believe we have met before one night in downtown Mobile.”

  “I thought your name was Carol Heinz,” Ashe said.

  “I do not know the woman, but I do know Cybil Fairchild. Do you know her, Dr. Shrove?”

  “Where is she? Let me speak to her.”

  “You are in no position to make demands. We have something that you want, and you have something that my master wants. He believes that everyone can come to an agreement.”

  Ashe stared at the table. The coffee rings began to dance as he thought about what was being told to him. Why had the police left him alone? Weren’t they supposed to stay and protect him? His phone might be bugged. He thought about that for a moment, but didn’t know how. The military used satellites to listen in on suspected terrorists’ cell phone conversations, but he doubted that the Mobile police had those kinds of resources.

  “Are you still there, Dr. Shrove?” Askew asked.

  “I’m here.” Ashe thought for what seemed like a millennium but he knew it could only be a few seconds. “What do I need to do, and how do I know that Cybil is safe?”

  “I will text you a picture of her and a message. Follow those instructions. Goodbye, Dr. Shrove.”

  The phone went dead. Ashe set it back on the table. He wanted to grab it up and call the police, but what was the use? They couldn’t do anything. If they could, his house wouldn’t be in ashes, and Cybil wouldn’t be a ca
ptive. The cell phone vibrated as the message came in. Ashe picked it up. The screen showed a fuzzy pixelated image of Cybil. She was bound to a chair, but looked unharmed as best he could tell through the distortion. The picture disappeared as a text message popped up on the screen. The vibrations of the phone tickled his hands, and he almost dropped it.

  We will be for you shortly. Watch for a white van in the parking lot of your motel. It will arrive within ten minutes. Do not forget your billfold on the table.

  The message burned a scar into Ashe’s mind. How could they know that his billfold was on the table? He looked around the room. Cameras had to be placed somewhere to keep an eye on him. He wondered if that was why the police had not remained. They had been in on it the whole time. How else would this Anne Askew know where he was and be so close that it would only take ten minutes? The van would have had to be en route during their conversation if it was coming from Mobile. In the evening rush hour traffic, it would have had to be on the way not long after he was dropped at the motel if it was coming from somewhere south of Airport Boulevard.

  Ashe put his phone in his pocket and gathered up his stuff, making sure to get his billfold. Then he stared out the window and waited for the white van to pull up. The people he dealt with weren’t fooling around, and he didn’t want to leave them waiting. More than his safety was on the line if he upset them.

  Smalls made it to the public beach as the last of the sun’s beams disappeared. The wind coming in off the gulf felt damper and colder. He tried to keep far up the beach from the water, but there were places where he had to let the surf splash at his ankles in order to keep on the hard-packed sand. No one milled around on the fishing pier or on any of the viewing areas. Smalls made his way up the soft sand. His feet felt like cold blocks of cement. Winters on the Gulf Coast weren’t terrible, but the water was colder than he would have liked.

  When he made it over the dune that separated the beach from the street, he found the parking lot empty. None of the businesses that had once made a steady profit opposite the beach had built back after Katrina. Smalls walked across the parking lot and then made his way down the bicycle path that ran the length of the island. He’d been there enough to know that a few service stations and tourist-trap shops were a mile or so east.

  After a few minutes of walking with no one driving down Bienville Avenue, Smalls came to the major intersection on the island. To the north, the road ran over the tall bridge to the mainland and on to Mobile. A BP station sat on the corner. The large green starburst glowed in the dark. The interior lights showed a few people milling around inside the store. Smalls scurried across all the lanes of the road and into the store. The air as he entered felt like a strong trade wind blowing in from the Caribbean in the summertime. He welcomed it. His wet feet gave him a chill all over. The cashier looked at him through the bulletproof glass she had to stay behind during evening hours. Smalls never understood why places like that required the protection only at night. Service stations were just as likely to get knocked over during the daytime, but this wasn’t his concern.

  “I need to use your phone,” he said into the metal grated hole in the glass.

  The cashier looked at him. “I can’t let you in here. Rules.”

  “It is very important. It’s life and death as a matter of fact.”

  She shrugged. “Life or death doesn’t matter to the BP corporation. Don’t you remember that oil spill?”

  “If you don’t let me use a phone, people might die, and not from the extended effects of oil exposure, but from something so horrible, I cannot describe it.”

  “Drama,” the cashier said. “Rules are rules. No entrance.”

  “Is there a pay phone around somewhere?”

  The cashier looked him up and down. “You look like a priest, but you sound Amish. You do know this is the twenty-first century right? It’s called a cell phone. Get one.”

  “I had one until I was assaulted, kidnapped and dropped off on the west end of this island. Needless to say, my legs and feet didn’t get wet from me walking from my car to in here nor did I tie my hands up. I need to call the police. That’s why I need the phone.” Smalls held nothing back. “Don’t let this little white tab of a thing fool you, I can be quite a bastard when I need to be.”

  “I didn’t know.” The cashier grabbed the phone. “I’ll call 911 and stick the receiver out the door.”

  “I need you to call another number first,” he said and gave her Ashe’s cell number. He’d been able to remember it well for some reason. “And could you cut my hands free?”

  She cut the tape loose and dialed the number and held the phone out. It rang several times, and then the voice mail picked up. It wasn’t Ashe’s voice but the prerecorded message that the phone company provided on some phones that didn’t say a person’s name, just their number. Smalls left a quick message about being alive and on Dauphin Island. He decided to not mention that he had no idea what happened to Cybil. The cashier took it back and dialed 911. The dispatcher said that she would contact the Dauphin Island police and that they should have someone to him shortly. Smalls handed the phone back to the cashier.

  Smalls wished he’d gotten ahold of Ashe. He almost had it all worked out, but something wouldn’t click into his mind. He had hoped that Ashe had figured something out. Maybe he had, and when they got with each other everything would fall into place just like a puzzle after the aha moment. For now, Smalls decided to roam around the small gas station and wait for the police to arrive and hopefully take him back into the city.

  Security Camera: Storage Facility, Michigan Avenue, Mobile, AL, 7:25 p.m. CST

  Ashe stares at a large float. It depicts an ancient ship like something the Greeks would have used. A giant painted eye stares from the side. He stands alone free of any kind of bindings. The float towers over and around him.

  He turns and looks behind him. The swarthy man comes into view. Ashe has a look of recognition on his face. The swarthy man smiles and flourishes his hand toward the float. Ashe looks back at it. He nods his head as he listens to the swarthy man. Several other people enter the room. They range in sizes from short and fat to tall and skinny. Each moves with stiff, almost robotic movements. They close in around Ashe and the other man.

  Ashe stiffens and clenches his fists as the others encircle him. The swarthy man puts his hand on Ashe’s shoulder. The engineer relaxes the tension in his muscles but keeps his fist tight and ready for a fight. The swarthy man flourishes his hand again. The stiff moving crowd parts, and a slender woman walks through the gap. She pushes Cybil in front of her. Tape covers her mouth and binds her hands behind her back. Ashe’s hand falls out of a fist. He reaches out for her, but the swarthy man pushes his arms back down.

  The dark man shakes his head in disagreement. Another hand flourish sends the tall woman and Cybil receding into the circling crowd. Ashe reaches out to her again, but it does nothing. He looks back to the swarthy man who pats him on the shoulder as if he is trying to console him. Then he takes the engineer by the arm and leads him away from the float. The crowd separates and allows them to walk away.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Why did you kidnap Cybil?” Ashe asked as soon as he was led into an office space in the large warehouse facility.

  Mikal Czernobog rubbed his chin and smiled. “It was the only way I could get you to cooperate.”

  “So you are part of the Russian Mafia. What do you want with technology for measuring engrams? Spy stuff?” Ashe asked.

  “Dr. Shrove, I am not some James Bond villain who is going to reveal my plans to you, nor am I part of the Russian Mafia.”

  “Then what is this?”

  Ashe did not like what was going on. The people in the large area of the warehouse had moved like the woman who looked like Carol Heinz and the music producer from the bar. They all had a strange vibe to them. Czernobog gave off the strangest
. He seemed more than just a strange man.

  “What do you want more than anything in world, Dr. Shrove?”

  “For Cybil to be safe.” Ashe didn’t hesitate to say that although several things floated around in his mind. He thought about asking for Marianne to be returned to him, but that seemed very stupid.

  Czernobog smiled at him. His small teeth had a pearly sheen to them. “There is nothing else. You don’t wish to be rich or famous? You have no desire to have some grand scientific discovery to your credit?”

  Those things sounded wonderful, but all Ashe really wanted right then was for Cybil to be released and for him to be safe. Not having to be paranoid that everyone was out to get him would be better than anything else he could imagine.

  “All I want is for Cybil to be let go and be safe,” Ashe repeated.

  Czernobog laughed. It sounded hollow and cavernous. Ashe had never heard a laugh quite like it. The noise echoed from the Russian’s mouth. It reverberated around the room like thunder and vibrated through Ashe’s body like the bass at a rock concert.

  “A regular Jesus Christ, aren’t you,” he said once his laughing stopped. “I offer you anything in this world you could want or desire, and you put others first. I will grant you this wish if you do something for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Make a few devices for me. One needs to broadcast audio information. The second needs to be able to record and store emotional engrams without the use of electrodes and en masse. The third is a mechanism that can place those stored engrams back into the minds of people, without electrodes.”