We all have to die sometime of something.
Travis sat back and continued to admire his preteen handiwork. He placed the gray plastic lid back on top of the spaceship, making sure that the notch cut into the underside of the lid rested perfectly on its associated tab on the body of the craft, and settled back in his chair.
Wasn’t life weird?
Once he’d been this wide-eyed, naïve kid, and now he wasn’t — but he could still relive the memories, the feelings, and remember what it was like to be that boy. It was amazing how we all changed as life marched inevitably on. He was far and away from those naïve days, far and away…
But there was something else about last night’s target, something he hadn’t drawn, described to his superiors, nor put into his report. There had been another… feeling…
Caution.
A feeling that there had been much more where he had been peeking into — but wasn’t (if there had been, he would’ve seen it, right)? But the overwhelming feeling was that he wasn’t supposed to talk about it… even think about it.
Still carrying the gray UFO, Travis left the office for his small living room and turned on the stereo.
He suddenly really missed Annabel.
Wished she were here.
He picked up a CD of mixed love songs. She’d given it to him, just months ago, on his thirty-second birthday. Better days. He took out the CD, inserted it, hit play; kicked back in the recliner and listened to the sad, bluesy melody of Elton John’s “Blue Eyes.”
They had been so playful, those children he’d encountered. Where did all our playfulness go as we aged? Was it that difficult to keep the fire lit? Where did youthful naïveté disappear to?
Travis rubbed a hand over the model’s smooth surface, as if it were his own Genie Bottle. He imagined the glued-to-the-floor occupants inside, busying about in their duties. He looked to the red translucent bubble lights and orange grill he’d painted, and tipped the saucer for flying effect.
Could naïveté ever be reclaimed? Should it?
Not the bad kind, where you really hadn’t a clue about anything, but the kind where you knew, but just didn’t “participate in” the bad, because it never touched you — only other people. Where you were able to just focus in on what was going on in your own life… now, this very moment… that you were playing, yes playing, and enjoying it. Where you plain forgot about all the ill going on elsewhere in the world — all that had gone on in the past and all that would yet occur in the future. Sure, in the back — the very back — of your mind, you knew there were evil people out there, but for now you weren’t out saving the world, you were here, right here, playing with your toys or watching that late night show you’d been trying to catch for three years. Actually reading a book. No one was sending you on missions, no one had your phone number, your address — your mind.
You were truly—100%—free.
Travis loved the solid, hollow feel of the model in his hands.
Or, he thought, smile disappearing, you were in the arms of the one you loved and had pledged your life to for all eternity. Til death do us part. What a crock. No death, but we’d sure parted. And it wasn’t even because of anything he’d done… instead, it had been about what he hadn’t.
The life of a psychic spy.
I’m not really a loving husband, but I play one in real life.
Travis set down the model just as the tears exploded. No… he had never been that loving husband. Probably never would be. He was a psychic government spy, that’s what he was, on call 24/7. His body wasn’t his own and neither was his mind. His outlook on life forever tainted by his work. He was merely the government’s little gray Invaders toy…
3
“Okay, Ryan, tell me what you see,” the task monitor asked.
Hidden away in the clandestine bowels of the remote-viewer tasking unit in central Virginia, Ryan Dunham was seated in the “RoboRecliner” or “RoboChair”—RV-slang for their huge, comfortable, leather-bound recliner specially built for their psychic operations. Neither he nor any of the other remote viewers knew what their assignments were. Those were sealed within double envelopes by “taskers” who had no contact with them nor their monitors. The remote viewers simply focused upon their objective — the double-sealed envelopes — and were psychically transported to whatever their unseen tasks directed. It was a double-blind operation that provided extraordinary results. Results they were never made privy to… yet “they” kept coming back for more…
“I’m just not getting much… blackness, is all…”
“Take your time,” the monitor coached.
Ryan sat motionless, his breathing slow and deep.
“It’s not so much the target… but I’m still in that feeling… my body is tilted… spinning… it’s taking a while…”
“Go with the feeling, Ryan.”
Ryan remained still for several more minutes.
“Okay,” Ryan finally said, “I’m there… in… a boardroom. A meeting. Decisions… and plans. There are men… ten of them. American and Asian. Five are drinking coffee, two Cokes — no, three. Two aren’t drinking anything. Tension — lots of tension. A major decision… war — they’re talking about war.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a map. Political and physical boundaries discussed. Weaponry. An overthrow. It’s 196—”
Ryan suddenly paused, wrinkling his brow. “Something… something’s not…”
“Go on,” his monitor said, also pausing his pen on his notebook. He looked up. “What else do you see?”
“Something’s not right… don’t know how to explain it. Something’s really off… wrong—”
“Explain.”
Ryan shook his head. “Seems like I should be able to, but… I can’t. It’s about… this whole thing… this-this meeting… those men. I get the sense of large amounts of money being exchanged — made — but something’s still not right…”
“Okay, that’s good enough, Ryan. Calmly back away… relax… bring yourself back.”
Ryan did as instructed. Physical eyes closed, Ryan now mentally closed his nonphysical ones, shutting out the images. Events that made little sense to him and also made him quite uneasy. Events he couldn’t explain, but which were centered around a war — a “police action”?—somewhere in southeast Asia. A “conflict” that felt contradictory. That didn’t really exist… not in his reality.
Ryan came out of his trance and back to reality, and as he and his monitor debriefed the task, Ryan couldn’t shake the uneasiness. There had been another feeling he had had and hadn’t mentioned, an even worse feeling than the uneasiness.
Ryan felt dirty.
Chapter Three
1
Seventeen-year-old Mel Roberts awoke — and literally — leapt out of his bed before realizing he’d been dreaming.
He stood before his bed in his shorts, shaking and tingling, trying to recall what the dream had been about and why all his nerves were on fire…
He looked to his bedside clock. Two a.m. Two a.m., and here he was standing in the middle of his bedroom in nothing but his skivvies. Confused and running a hand through tousled hair, he left the bedroom and made his way down into the semi-darkness of the nightlight illuminated hallway and steps. He tried to avoid the second and third steps and their loud creaking, as he descended to the next landing, down into the kitchen. Didn’t wanna wake the parents.
Mel stood in the middle of the kitchen in his bare feet, lights off. Listened to the sounds of a settling house, the ventilation system; the “kinking” of ventilation ducks as the air-conditioning clicked off and something, somewhere “popped.”
His eyes darted to the closed-curtained window above the sink.
The kitchen window.
Window.
He yawned, stretched open his eyes wide, rubbed them, then scanned the kitchen.
He loved this time of night.
No one was up and all was quiet… still. Dark. T
here was a spiritual quality to these hours, the early, early morning hours, he loved.
In the kitchen, without turning on the kitchen light, and mulling over the events of his still-unremembered dream, he explored the refrigerator. Inside, he found it utterly bare, except for a lone, green can of Vernors Ginger Soda. He grabbed it.
Hadn’t his mom gone shopping this week?
He did the standard, cursory check of the freezer. Nearly empty as well, including the ice maker. He took his soda to the nearby dining table and sat, opened it, and downed a tingling gulp. Stray, powerful effervescence scrambled up into and tickled the hell out of his nasal cavities.
Dang it, now he’d have to brush his teeth again before going back to bed.
Mel set the soda on the table and stretched his arms out before him, slumping his head forward. A business card sat before him. He closed his eyes.
What the hell had he dreamed about that had caused him to leap out of bed like that?
Wait a minute… his mother had gone shopping.
Mel shot back to the refrigerator. One hand holding open the door, he stood before it, bathed in its spray of soft light.
There, before him, presented a stocked refrigerator…
An interior jam-packed with food and drink.
Mel reached in and touched an eighteen-egg family pack that sat under the mid-level chiller compartment drawer… crammed with lunch meat… ham, turkey, and cheese.
Looked to the six-pack-minus-one of Vernors (Barrel Aged, Bold Taste!) soda that sat above it. To the apples, oranges, and nectarines nestled in the smoked, see-through crisper bins at the bottom.
“What the hell?”
He closed the refrigerator.
Stepping back, arms to his sides, he just stared at the appliance.
Reached down and calmly opened the freezer.
Of course.
Stocked.
Packed with meat, vegetables, and bread — even a filled-to-capacity ice-maker.
Mel closed the freezer, backed up to the table, and sat back down.
But when had she gone shopping?
When had his mother supposedly had the time to have done all this? Something still wasn’t right. There was something about—
A birthday.
Hadn’t he just had a birthday — and hadn’t she gone to the store the day before?
When had that been? This week?
Why was it so difficult to remember!
It had been his own birthday, for crying out loud — no one forgets their own birthday.
Why, it had been yesterday, of course — yesterday — and his mother had—
Mel spun around to the table.
The remains of a birthday cake, housed within a glass cake protector — there, in the middle of the table. Right next to the business card.
Coconut frosting. Not a chocolate cake, nor a raspberry cake, but a full-on white cake, with coconut frosting. The best kind. And—
Where were all the cards?
If he’d just had a birthday, where were all the cards? The gifts? No one puts up cards for one day and takes them down.
And the gifts — where were all the gifts? Not that he was greedy, but people always—
People?
Who’d come to his party? Who’d been invited?
Good Lord, what was wrong with him?
Why couldn’t he recall who had come to his birthday party? Why weren’t there any cards, and where were his—
Mel rushed down another short flight of stairs into the lower-level family room. It was unfinished (which only mildly disturbed him), but, without turning on any lights, he rushed into what was supposed to be his…(c’mon, pull it out, maaan)… hobby… room? Where he hung out away from his parents to read, play games, and meditate (Meditate? Who the hell meditates?), and (why why why was he having so much damned difficulty with all this?)…
Mel flipped on the light.
Empty.
The room, white and bare-walled, was totally and utterly, devoid of furniture, books… anything. He spun around. Except for a card table and some folding chairs, the entire family room was frigging empty. Even the unfinished walls looked oddly — no, weirdly — unfinished. He wasn’t an expert (and had he ever really seen exposed sheetrock before? “Sheetrock”… what is sheetrock?), but everything looked… two-dimensional.
Not all there.
He went up to a wall; inspected it up über close. Brought his face right up to it… touched it with a tentative hand as he peered insanely close to it, nose nearly touching its surface.
He could barely feel it.
What was going on?
No longer merely amused, Mel backed away from the wall. He suddenly felt unsteady, didn’t feel at all like himself. Felt… out of control.
Was he all there?
He sat in one of the folding chairs.
Was all this a dream? Was he still dreaming?
Had to be… he was still in bed… sound asleep… underneath comforters and blankets, dreaming…
But was he?
Or was he having one of those, what was it called — out-of-body experiences? And if he was, could he get back to his bed, and would he find himself still asleep there?
What would happen if he did?
Mel slowly made his way back up the two flights of stairs. As he passed the kitchen, he curiously noted all the birthday cards and opened presents scattered across the kitchen counter, one card tipped over. He continued on to the bedroom. Images of him and a small group of people crossed his mind. But, as he fixed his sights on his still-open bedroom door, he knew what he’d find, knew it in his bones. In that darkened space, he’d find messed-up bed sheets and blankets. An alarm-clock radio…
An empty bed.
Who was he kidding?
And he’d peek into his parents’ room and find his parents’ room empty. He knew it would be, and it’d be empty because he wasn’t dreaming.
It’d be empty because they weren’t there.
He knew the difference between dreaming and consciousness, and he wasn’t dreaming. He didn’t need to check the bedroom.
But, of course, he did.
Mel poked his head inside his room and flicked on the light; found exactly what he knew he’d (not) find.
An empty bed.
In a bedroom that wasn’t quite as empty as the downstairs family room, but not far from it. There was only a bed, a nightstand, and that expected clock. No dresser, chest of drawers, books, posters, or a stereo (and how did he know he had, or was supposed to have had, any of these things?). Knew there’d be nothing in his closets, either. No clothes, no shoes, no sneakers.
Nothing.
He also knew what he’d find next. He didn’t know how or why, just knew it as he knew he was awake and not dreaming. Mel Roberts did an about-face and went across the hall to his parents’ door, the closed door to which he reached out and turned the doorknob; felt like Dead Man Walking. But, open the door he did, and feel around the inside wall for the light switch, he did. Even before he switched it on, his heart sank. There was no denying it. The light that clicked on only confirmed what he already knew.
There wasn’t a single stick of furniture in the entire room.
Not a board.
Not a toothpick.
Not even a body.
Nothing.
2
Lizzie Gordon sat with her feet up on her trailer’s coffee table, all lights off except for the television. She’d hit the “mute” switch on the remote, as a commercial narrated by an overly excited woman played on about a set of children’s songs for only twenty-four dollars.
Ring around the rosie.
A pocketful of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall…
Lucy silently padded out of the darkness and jumped into Lizzie’s lap. She purred loudly as she massaged Lizzie’s thighs with her forepaws before nestling in. Lizzie turned the volume back on as Village of the Damned returned, the original b
lack-and-white, 1960 version. Though the children were definitely creepy, their presence was a hard-to-explain comfort to her.
Lizzie took a sip of Mountain Dew; glanced to the empty cereal bowl nearby. She watched as the children intensified their takeover of the small English town. As the children talked, Lizzie heard whispers of her own at the edges of her awareness. She knew better than to ignore them, but just remained aware of them for now… content to let them build their own momentum. She didn’t have much of a sense of things, yet, though there was a swirl of colors. The feeling was shaping up to be something huge. It buzzed around just outside her grasp… taunting her like a fly to a cat, but Lizzie kept her focus on the movie… trying to fight off sleep… when, finally, it hit her.
She leapt off the couch (Lucy flying from her lap) and headed for the kitchen counter.
(cards? presents?)
She reached for a pencil from the pen-and-pencil jar that sat beside the microwave—
No pen-and-pencil jar sat beside the microwave.
Oopsy, she thought, and went to a kitchen drawer. She removed a pencil and a small yellow notepad and immediately set about writing down her impressions…
Psychic Page 3
