by P A Vasey
“My car’s at the hospital,” I replied quickly, “Let me call you a cab.”
He pursed his lips, regarding me through lidded eyes. I tried to keep his stare. It was hard and with a sinking feeling I realised that in his job he would’ve faced better liars than me. He arched an eyebrow, and I saw him glance at the door through to the garage. I shook my head, hoping he wouldn’t do what I thought he was going to do, but he was already thinking it. He reached over and yanked the door open. Adam stood on the entrance mat and stared blankly at Richard, hands relaxed by his sides.
“Well now,” said Richard. “What do we have here?”
Adam looked over at me, and I knew what he was thinking.
He cannot know I was here.
Indeed. I pulled on Richard’s arm again. “Can’t you just leave? We don’t want any trouble.”
He folded his arms across his broad chest and regarded Adam with a smug look. “We don’t want any trouble, do we?” He glanced back at me and cracked a humourless smile. “Hey, aren’t those my clothes? Having a fancy dress party were you? Playing doctors and soldiers?”
I looked at Adam, a sinking feeling coming over me. “He doesn’t have to get hurt,” I said. “We can talk to him.”
Richard raised his eyebrows in feigned astonishment. He laughed again, turning his attention back to Adam. “She says I don’t have to get hurt. Are you going to hurt me?”
“You may be hurt,” Adam replied, matter of factly. “I am sorry.”
Richard had unfolded his arms, and was now staring belligerently at Adam. I was thinking furiously what I could do to defuse the tension. Was there an olive branch I could offer Richard, some lie that would make him back down? I didn’t know what to do. I’d never known Richard to back down from a confrontation. Came with the job, I guessed. Military Police had to deal with errant soldiers all the time. Couldn’t be seen to be weak.
“Richard…” I began,
He ignored me and tapped Adam’s chest. “Those are my clothes. Take ‘em off and then you can leave.”
Adam met the stare without blinking and didn’t respond. Richard looked at me and winked, a confident grin cracking his face. “Can you believe this guy? You did tell him about me, right? I mean, what I do for a living?”
Almost in a whisper, I said, “Richard, please, just go.”
Adam looked at me and sadly shook his head. “Major Jackson cannot leave now. He has seen us.”
With that he stepped forward and put himself within a few inches of Richard’s face. Richard didn’t flinch or back away, clearly relaxed and confident in his ability. He was about six inches shorter than Adam, but was much more solidly built.
I could also see that he had an M9 Beretta tucked in the back waistband of his jeans.
“Take off that uniform,” Richard said, lowering his voice to a growl. “Now.”
“Richard, can we sit down and talk about this?” I tried one last time. “It’s not what it seems.”
His gaze had not left Adam’s face. “We can sit down when your boyfriend here has gotten out of my fucking uniform.”
I inched forward and reached out to touch Adam’s arm. Adam broke the staring contest and glanced at me.
“Can’t you just … wipe his mind?” I pleaded.
He seemed to be considering this, but then Richard grabbed his wrist and tried to twist it behind his back in what I knew was a classical restraining manoeuvre. Unfortunately for Richard the arm would not bend, and remained rigid, like a pipe. He then went for a judo throw by putting a leg behind Adam and pulling the front of his shirt. Again, nothing happened. I watched horrified as he then went for a head-butt, coiling his neck backwards like a cobra and snapping it forwards aiming for the bridge of Adam’s nose. A split second before impact, Adam lowered his chin and the head-butt connected solidly with his forehead. Richard grunted in pain and staggered backwards, grasping for support on the kitchen counter, his legs looking like rubber.
“Let it go, Richard!” I shouted.
His face mottled crimson, his eyes popped, his tree-trunk neck straining, he put his head down and charged with both arms out to grab Adam in a bear hug. As he slammed into him, Adam placed a hand on his neck, and effortlessly pushed him to the ground like a tonne weight had been dropped from a great height. He crashed to the floor and rolled over onto his back looking completely discombobulated. Adam stood over him, and to my horror his eyes were glowing phosphorescent green. An unpleasant smile flickered across his face.
“Is that all you have?” I heard him say, in a strange high pitched, almost whispery voice.
Not Adam’s voice.
Not Adam.
To my horror Richard shook his head as his fuse relit and simmered and fizzed like a firework before launching. He exploded with unrestrained fury and went for the gun nestling in the small his back. He drew it insanely quickly, and pointed it at Adam’s face. I rushed forward, arms outstretched, shouting, but Adam’s hand flashed out in a blur sending the gun spinning through the door into the lounge. Richard cried out in agony, clutching his hand, fingers splayed out at unnatural angles. He scrabbled backwards into the wall, his feet slipping on the kitchen floor and knocking a chair over. He tried to pull himself upright but Adam planted a boot on his chest and leaned in. Richard tried to push the leg away but Adam pressed harder and I could hear what sounded like ribs cracking and his breathing became ragged and jerky.
My foot touched something and I looked down to see the Beretta. I had a brain snap and picked it up and shakily pointed it at Adam. “Let him go,” I screamed.
What the fuck was I thinking?
His head turned towards me, hard staring green eyes that never blinked. I sensed my mind opening to him, and waited for the familiar sensation of his thoughts coming through. But what I sensed was completely different. I felt like I’d been dipped in an ice bath, and everything good and positive was sucked out of my head. The urge to look behind me, the feeling of some ancient evil sneaking up on me, was overwhelming. A high-pitched wail exploded inside my head and I screamed and dropped the gun. I sank to the floor, head in hands as the pain intensified, lancing through my temples. I found myself curling up into a ball and rolling over on my side like a foetus. Then as suddenly as it had started the sound was gone and the pain melted away, almost as if I had been given a morphine shot. When I opened my eyes I saw that Adam had picked up the Beretta and was examining it, like a child with a new toy. He took hold of it in both hands and snapped it two, almost effortlessly. Bullets and pieces of bent and broken metal and mechanism spilled out onto the floor. He flicked a wrist almost contemptuously, and the remains flew across the room, skidding to a stop at Richard’s feet.
I struggled to get up using the kitchen top counter as support and leaned back, my heart thudding and my vision swimming and blurred. Richard was still clutching his ribs and making no attempt to pick up the mangled piece of metal that used to be his firearm. Adam looked at me again, and instantly something started to probe my mind. An inquisitive and glacially analytical consciousness infiltrated my brain, contemptuously pushing past any mental barriers I may have erected, seeing deep into my psyche. I felt cold and frightened in a primeval sort of way, like an antelope on the savannah aware that death was approaching, and that it was soon going to be ripped apart and eaten alive.
“Adam?” I managed. “If that’s you doing this, please, stop.”
He squatted down next to Richard, who raised his hands into fists, but then his eyes glazed over and he slid sideways to the ground. He felt for the pulse at Richard’s neck. The green glow was receding from his eyes and with it, the malevolent presence I had felt. Richard was now snoring quite peacefully, and Adam turned him onto his side.
“What’ve you done?” I asked, horrified.
He stood up and looked over at me. I was a bit wobbly and felt nauseous, but my head was clearing. He nodded towards the front door.
“We must go now, before the authorities arrive.”
<
br /> I shook my head. “What’s going on? You - you were different.”
He put a hand on my arm. “Please Kate, come with me. I will explain later.”
I found myself being swallowed up by his eyes. Black pools of emptiness surrounded by a rim of glorious pale blue. Then I was inside his head once more. I saw his wife, Cora, vivid and alive, full of happiness and love. I felt his anguish that he had never gotten to tell her he loved her one last time. Didn’t get to hold her before she slipped away. Didn’t get to look into her eyes before she died. I thought of my own daughter, but no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t fully see her face, like a newspaper exposed to sunlight, a ship leaving harbour into a foggy sea. The only clear vision that emerged was the one I had trying so hard to forget; her lifeless body on the morgue slab. In despair, I pressed my forehead against the door, and tried to slow my breathing. I felt an ocean of grief threatening to overwhelm and drown me.
Adam reached out and gently touched my shoulder. “Please,” he said, and there was an almost pleading tone to his voice. “I … need you. I cannot do this alone.”
I blinked as a wave of dizziness assailed me. The presence was there, in his head, watching and observing. I could sense a power struggle taking place, a contest with only one winner, the ultimate prize being Adam’s very soul. Then the visions disappeared, like crackling embers leaving a campfire and reaching for the darkness and emptiness of the night sky.
I realised I couldn’t abandon him.
Wouldn’t.
“We’ll need to get you into some other clothes rather than the army gear. You might as well take his civvies?”
He nodded and quickly shed the BDUs and dressed in Richard’s jeans and t-shirt. He kept the desert army boots on, and laced them up. I went through Richard’s duffle bag and found a black denim jacket. I gave a shrug and threw it at Adam. “I bought this for Richard, so you might as well have it.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Would you like to change as well?”
I smiled, looking down at my PJs. “Give me two minutes. Mind telling me where we’re going?”
Before he could answer there was a loud knock on the front door. The kind of knock associated with law enforcement.
“Police, open up.”
I saw a flash of green in Adam’s eyes. He looked sadly at me and I heard his voice in my head.
I am sorry.
I cannot be taken into custody.
The room started spinning and the last thing I remembered was Adam lowering me gently to the ground.
DAY 2
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Highway 15, California
In my dream, I was somewhere else.
I was someone else. I was Adam.
I was both observer and participant in his memories.
I knew now that he had died an agonising and final death, and had welcomed it.
But then he didn’t die.
His consciousness, his very self, had been downloaded, patterned, and retained. His thoughts bobbed like flotsam on a tide of sentience, purposeless and directionless. Embryonic, primitive neurological connections grasped and stretched as words, basic syntax structures and language patterns surfaced from reformed memory architecture. Neural networks came together in a new alignment of organic and synthetic circuitry. Electrochemical switches were integrated with organic tissue, enhancing the transmission of data and information.
Like a computer, it seemed like he was being plugged in, rebooted, and was gradually coming back ‘on-line’.
His visual cortex was re-established, and a wall of luminous dense clouds of dust and globules of plasma swam into view. Slowly but progressively these coalesced into recognisable images of faces, places and events both familiar and unfamiliar. The setting sun, scarlet and transitioning to obsidian, under a star-speckled heaven. Storm clouds gathering in a gunmetal sky, torrential rain pouring down in icy sheets, claps of thunder and lightning forks savaging the atmosphere. Running feet and damp-smelling air over unpaved paths awash with mud, streams and swollen rivers. A little girl, reaching up with stubby arms and fingers. A beautiful vivacious woman sleeping under pristine white sheets, dark hair splayed over a pillow, a half smile on her lips.
I knew this was Cora Benedict.
I could sense unsophisticated emotions. Despair, despondency, misery.
Then he spoke, but not to me.
Where am I?
Subliminally, inexorably, something approached. Shapeless and silent, like an unwelcome stranger at night. A presence, preternaturally evil, ice-cold, and ancient. Like the vacuum between the stars.
There was a tickling of neural pathways and a converging of consciousnesses. Communication was being established. I was overwhelmed by a crushing claustrophobia. The new mind was frighteningly and unfathomably different and…
Non-human.
Whatever it was, it was analysing Adam’s newly emerging language and thought patterns, sublimating words and sentences in order to communicate with him. Thoughts, which were initially meaningless and lacking in syntax and context, became rapidly clearer. The words, when they came, were considered, deliberate, and devoid of emotion.
[How did you get here?]
It seemed everywhere, internal and external. A detached and glacial intelligence. I could feel Adam trying to push it away, but it advanced with almost contemptuous ease.
Where am I?
[Where do you think you are?]
I have no idea.
Images began to materialise out of the plasma fog, flickering on and off like an old movie. Blue cloudless skies over red-tinged desert plains surrounded by Granite Mountains with snow-capped peaks. Human faces, all colours and shapes, swimming in and out of focus. Children playing in an autumn-gold park. Aquatic life flowing effortlessly in an aquamarine subterranean ocean. A spinning orb, a kaleidoscope of colours painting the sides of a dark cavern. A skeletal house overlooking the sea. An empty grave on a rainy, windswept hill. The face of Adam Benedict staring emotionlessly out of a blood-spattered bathroom mirror.
The alien spoke, anticipating the question.
[Yes, that was you]
The tendrils of recognition were achingly close, and I felt Adam’s frustration. But at the moment, recognition and understanding were like ships passing in the night.
I can’t remember my name.
[You will]
An oval shadow sublimated into view, shifting grey-black and emerging from a darkness backlit by red mist. A rapacious face, lupine with reptilian green orbs for eyes, materialised into existence. There was a boreal penetrating gaze and a predatory awareness. The impression of being looked over by a creature at the top of the food chain.
What are you?
The reply was both physical and subconscious.
[This is how we were]
I don’t understand.
[We were once like you, corporeal beings.]
The face drifted in and out of focus but two green points of light relentlessly and unwaveringly stared at me. There was a gleam of pearl-white and jagged teeth, feral and terrifying. A hint of a huge multi-limbed crab-like body behind, luminous cerulean in colour. Then the features started to change like a melting ice statue, and a humanoid face started to take shape. Remodelling of bone and musculature occurred at a dramatic rate, until the face staring back at me was Caucasian with gaunt high cheekbones and short-cropped black hair.
It had strikingly blue lifeless eyes.
Showroom dummy eyes.
The eyes blinked slowly and the mouth opened as if to yawn as the head tipped backward. The features contorted and twisted briefly as if in pain, but then relaxed and settled into a neutral pose. A green phosphorescence flickered briefly behind the pupils, and then was gone.
The simulacrum in front of me started spinning.
A feeling of being stretched like butter spread too thinly over sliced bread washed over me.
My vision faded and the darkness consumed me once again.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER TWELVE
Highway 15, California
The crackle of tyres on gravel woke me from a deep sleep. The dream had been surreal and unsettling. I opened my eyes only to immediately close them as the sun burnt its way through to my retinae leaving bright wavy yellow lines that bobbed and danced. Disorientated, I squinted into the light and saw that I was in the passenger seat of a car bumping and lurching along an uneven road. Adam was driving, and he glanced my way briefly and turned the wheel a hard right. He was manoeuvring the vehicle down a narrow path towards a group of buildings coming into view around a corner lined with manicured bushes and small trees. I was scrunched up against the passenger door, and now that I was awake I felt stiff and uncomfortable. I cracked my neck and stretched, suppressing a yawn. My stomach rumbled.
“Are you hungry?” he said. “You have missed breakfast.”
I nodded, my eyes still getting used to the brightness.
He pointed, “There is a restaurant up ahead.”
I squinted through the front windshield as we approached a dilapidated-looking diner with a few dusty pickup trucks parked outside. Next to it were a couple of souvenir shops and a gas station. A family with four children were heading into the diner.
“Where are we?” I said, stretching again.
We pulled into a parking bay in front of the main entrance and he killed the ignition. “Just outside the town of Barstow.”
I was puzzled. “Never heard of it. How long’ve we been driving?”
He looked at me, his blue eyes wide and guileless. “About eight hours. We are now in California.”
My eyes were sticky so I rubbed them, feeling the matter cracking and sprinkling off the lashes.
“I let you sleep,” he said. “I thought you needed it.”
“I had a strange dream.” I said, looking at him sideways. “At least I think it was a dream.”
The fog in my head was clearing and with a start I noticed I was wearing jeans, sneakers and a grey UCLA sweatshirt. Last I remembered, I was in my P-Js. I looked at Adam and raised an accusatory eyebrow.
