The Little Black Box

by K. J. Gillenwater

  “I think she’s dead.” Will popped the last bite of a donut in his mouth.

  “What?”

  He held up a finger while he finished chewing. “Pritchard and Caldwell were talking before they zapped me. They put her down in that basement before me. Used the box on her. I think they killed her.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “I think Pritchard wouldn’t stop at anything to get his precious funding.”

  “And I know why he had to kill her.” Paula picked at her third donut.

  “Why?”

  “She was going to stop the project. Wait a second.” She pulled the lever to pop the trunk and got out to retrieve Kathleen’s notebook. Once back inside the car, she turned to a section she’d marked by folding down a corner of the page.

  “Here, let me read this to you. It looks like they started with four groups of rats: the control group, Group A, Group B, and Group C. I think the Group A rats were the ones exposed to boxes like this one.” She pointed at the box in Will’s lap. “Rats in Group A have stopped eating. Listless. Normal behaviors in comparison to Control Group have ceased. And then a few days later, she wrote this: Several rats in Group A died this week. After necropsy, all dead rats died from severe dehydration and malnutrition. Motivations for normal animal behavior seem to have stopped.”

  “You think she knew the boxes were affecting the rats’ most basic survival behaviors?”

  “Yes.” She grew more spirited knowing he was getting the same picture she had. “And Pritchard knew about it. Here, listen to this: All Group A rats now deceased. AIM parameters should be noted as dangerous. Suggest cessation of study and shelving of current boxes until further studies can determine safe limitations for settings. Report to Pritchard this a.m. about recommendations.”

  “That bastard,” Will swore under his breath.

  “He knew the boxes with specific settings damaged or altered auras.” Paula picked up her coffee and took a sip.

  “To the point that even rats would kill themselves—starve themselves to death.”

  “And when Kathleen tried to stop him—”

  “He exposed her to the box,” finished Will. “And I’m sure he used her stats as well to secure his funding. All this, just for some money.”

  “That department is his life, Will.”

  “So that makes it okay?” He had an edge to his voice. “He’s allowed to harm whomever he wants because he needs the money?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Paula explained. “What I meant was, he felt desperate. The dean was threatening to shut us down. Remember what Ms. Caldwell said? Desperate men sometimes use desperate measures. It doesn’t excuse what he’s done—” She thought about Lark lying in the hospital, maimed by Pritchard’s greed.

  “I’m sorry, Paula. I didn’t mean to blow up at you...but to think that he almost killed your friend...and then almost killed you—”

  Will was right. Pritchard almost killed Lark. An innocent in all of this. Her friend wasn’t part of the plan, but she was hurt by the box just the same. Hurt and damaged. She would no longer be the same person. And those three students…they’d been murdered by the box. Their lives had been cut short with this horrible scheme. How many more would he hurt in order to fund his research? He was a selfish, dangerous bastard. Pritchard had to be stopped.

  The anger grew within her like a weed, its dark leaves unfurling, roots taking hold. And she liked that feeling. She let it grow and build inside.

  “Now that we know the truth,” she said, letting the feeling guide her, “we need to stop him before he can hurt someone else. Before he gets the funding and someone has that box in their hands to use however they please.” She started up the car and revved the engine.

  “Where are we going?”

  She jammed the gearshift into reverse and slammed on the gas. Tires squealed on the pavement. “To find Pritchard.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Paula, what are you planning on doing?” Will clung to his seat, his knuckles white. “Where are we going?” The donut box fell to the floor.

  Even though he was belted in, each time she dodged a car or truck speeding down the freeway, she saw his fingers bite in deeper. “Just trust me.”

  Her mind had become a dark place focused on one thing: Pritchard. A familiar tingling worked its way down her shoulders to the tips of her fingers. Her hands began to shake. The pressure behind her eyes grew unbearably strong.

  “Are you all right?” She could feel his gaze on her.

  “Fine.” The word came out like a bullet from a gun. She willed her hands to be still. Sweat broke out on her brow. It was happening again. The rush, the building up of energy inside her, without even trying.

  “Maybe we should call your brother.”

  “I don’t need anyone. I can take care of this myself.” She cut across two lanes of traffic and onto the off-ramp that lead back into Blackridge.

  “What’s going on with you? Just a minute ago we were running away from Pritchard. We need to get some help with this.”

  Energy zinged through her brain. She couldn’t hold it in much longer. “No, we don’t have time for that.”

  “Time? What are you talking about?”

  “He’s almost got his funding. And don’t forget those men at his house today. Pretty soon it will be too late.” Her brain was on fire now. She could hear the strain in her voice. “The black box will be out of our hands and in the hands of who knows what government agency. People will be hurt. People will be killed.” Pritchard’s greed had ended lives and forever changed her best friend. “I can’t let him do that, Will, I can’t.”

  Will was talking, but she didn’t hear him. She ignored his clenched hands on the seat, the other cars around them on the road, the shabby but quaint buildings of downtown Blackridge. It didn’t matter anymore. None of it did. The only thing that mattered was getting to Pritchard and stopping him.

  In the back of her mind, she knew what that meant. All these years of denying what she knew to be true about herself; all these years of hiding and wondering and worrying about what she should do, how she should do it, whom she could let close to her, didn’t matter anymore. She’d killed her parents with her ability, and they didn’t deserve it. But Pritchard? He deserved all of it and more. As much as she could muster, and it didn’t matter who got in her way.

  She pressed the gas pedal to the floor and rushed toward campus. She knew where to find him. She knew where he would be. Will could follow her, Will could beg, Will could try to stop her, but he wouldn’t be able to. She wouldn’t let him.

  She found it easier to keep her boiling brain under control. To keep her telekinesis at bay was possible now. Not like it had been before her exposure to the box. If she kept her mind centered on Pritchard, everything else remained stationary. Nothing moved. The pressure behind her eyes settled down to a steady ache. She experienced no flashes this time—only a bit of shaking. So little that no one would notice now. No one but her.

  She took the last corner too fast and too sharp. The car slid into the parking lot with a horrible screech. She parked diagonally in the handicapped spot, left the keys in the ignition, the engine running. She didn’t even slam the door behind her. She vaguely heard Will yelling at her, and he tried to grab her arm. She shook him off.

  Her goal was the lab. The boxes. Pritchard would be there. She wasn’t sure how or why she knew that to be true, but she did. Just like earlier at Pritchard’s house when she knew Will lay in the basement.

  Maybe there was more to her ability than she thought.

  The glass door to the lobby slammed behind her. She headed straight for the stairwell next to the elevator. Will’s voice was a distant ringing in her ears. He followed behind her and asked all sorts of questions. She ignored him and took the stairs, two at a time. Around the landing. Up another flight, and then another. The lab was through the door and down the hall. Her sweaty hand slipped on the knob.

  Will�
��s hand shot out and covered hers, stopping her from opening the door.

  A thought ran through her mind at his touch. A momentary glimmer of anger, annoyance. That was it. Then, a surge of power exploded out of her.

  She turned to see Will pinned to the wall unmoving. His eyes rolled back in fear, disbelief.

  She was doing that. She held him there. Her intention had not been to hurt him, but he wanted to stop her from getting to Pritchard.

  “I’m sorry, Will, I don’t know—” Her mind relaxed, and Will dropped to the floor. “Just let me go. Let me do what I need to do. Don’t you see? I have to.”

  She yanked on the doorknob. Passing through the door, she didn’t even glance back at Will. Now he would be afraid of her. He wouldn’t trust her.

  She barely trusted herself.

  “Paula—” He sounded weak. The door shut before she could hear anymore.

  The entrance to the lab stood in front of her. Late Saturday, and the hallway was empty, quiet. Oddly quiet.

  Banging through the lab doors, she spied Ms. Caldwell and Pritchard deep in conversation. Larry and the other lab rats were nowhere to be seen.

  Before either of them could react, Paula allowed a ripple of energy to flood through her. Anger and sorrow took hold. Her parents were dead, her best friend was maimed. All the negative feelings came to the forefront. Pritchard and Caldwell standing in front of her were her way to salvation. Her way to find some peace, perhaps even forgiveness. If she took out these two evil people, she’d create a balance in the world for the good people she’d taken out.

  Pritchard backed away. Ms. Caldwell ducked behind a metal shelf full of black boxes.

  Paula sent out a wave of energy toward the shelf. It wavered. She pushed harder with her mind, understanding how to focus and control her telekinesis. With a crash, the shelf toppled over on top of Ms. Caldwell. The older woman’s scream was cut short. Black boxes exploded into bits.

  Pritchard reached out a hand, as if he could deflect whatever she was sending out from her mind, a look of sheer terror on his handsome face.

  “You think you can stop me?” Pritchard’s eyes lit up. “You think if you kill me this will stop me? It’s too late.”

  Paula focused on a computer monitor sitting on a counter next to him. With a flick of her mind, she sent it flying in his direction. “You hurt people. I can’t walk away from that.”

  He ducked and crouched behind the fallen shelves, Ms. Caldwell’s body beneath it. “They know what the boxes can do, Paula.”

  “But they won’t get any of them.” She turned toward another shelf full of half-constructed boxes. Narrowing her eyes, she popped each one like a balloon. The wires and microprocessors burst into pieces. “I’ll find them all. Destroy them all. You hurt Kathleen Smith, but I’ve got her notes. It’s over, Pritchard.”

  “A twenty-three-year-old graduate student is not going to stop this.” She could see the fear in his eyes, hear the tremble in his voice. “I gave you your job. Gave you a chance. You would have been nowhere without me.”

  “You think I care about my damn job? You think I care about your precious department?” Her eyes focused in on a black box sitting next to a computer. It flew across the room and struck Pritchard in the shoulder. Her aim was getting better. “What I care about are my friends, those students...you had no right to experiment on them.”

  Pritchard grabbed his injured shoulder. “And do you think I care about the feelings of some freak?” He picked up a nearby chair and held it in front of him. “You don’t have any idea how shitty it’s been, begging for money, waiting for the dean to drop the axe, not knowing if I’ll have a job from week to week. I’m doing this for all of you. All the students who have worked so hard for this department, who’ve put their very souls into their work...and all for what? Snide comments from the dean about how useless we are? Snickers from my peers when I try to present my findings at scientific conferences? I can’t take it anymore. And you aren’t going to get in my way.”

  He threw the chair at her and then dashed for the doors behind her.

  The move was unexpected, and she barely avoided the flying chair. She managed a quick mental parry and sent the chair sailing in the opposite direction. It bounced off the wall harmlessly and clattered to the floor.

  Her mind focused on a new weapon: Larry’s mini-welder. It rose in the air and hovered there. With a thought, the mini-welder sparked and a blue flame appeared.

  Pritchard pulled open the doors, just as Will came rushing in. “Paula, stop!”

  The professor pushed past him and darted out into the hall.

  The mini-welder flew forward, its flame rising higher.

  “He’s gone, Paula.” Will stood in front of the door, the mini-welder coming closer. “It’s over.”

  Paula crinkled her brow. Her head began to hurt. The tingling turned into painful, burning prickles across her skin. She couldn’t control the mini-welder much longer, and she didn’t want to hurt Will. “He’s taken everything from me. Everything.” The tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. The flame dampened. “There’s nothing left for me.”

  Will took a step forward. “I’m here for you, Paula. I’m not going anywhere.”

  The mini-welder hovered for a second, and then dropped to the floor. “I’m a freak. You heard him. You don’t know...you have no idea—” Her thoughts flashed to her parents. That bloody hand against the window. The smoke. The flames. All her fault. There was no taking that back. There was no way to fix it.

  “You’re not a freak.”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t stay. You’d be afraid. I know you would.”

  “There’s nothing you could tell me that would scare me away, Paula.” His face softened. “Nothing.”

  “I killed them,” she whispered. The room disappeared and she was back in the car with her parents. Reliving the hot, white anger. “I got angry, and I killed them. What kind of child kills her own parents?”

  Will stood within a few feet of her now. “You were a kid. You didn’t know what you were doing. How could you?” He pulled her into his embrace. “It was all an accident. A terrible, terrible accident.”

  His warm arms comforted and soothed her.

  He knew what she had done? And he wasn’t afraid of her?

  She pressed her face against his shoulder. “I don’t want to be like this.”

  “I know.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Her words were muffled in the folds of his plaid shirt.

  “We’ll figure it out.” He stroked her hair, murmuring to her.

  A groan came from underneath the toppled shelves.

  “Ms. Caldwell!” Paula pulled out of Will’s arms. “She’s alive.”

  ***

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Will asked Ms. Caldwell. They had managed to lift the metal shelving unit off of her.

  “No thanks to her.” Ms. Caldwell held a clump of brown paper towels to a cut across her nose. Blood dripped down the side of her face and landed on her Halloween sweater, making dull splotches.

  “I could report you to the police for what you did to me,” Paula reminded her, feeling the fresh stitches behind her ear. “And to Will.”

  “Fair enough.” She removed the paper towels, revealing a bruised and swollen nose that grew bigger by the minute. “What do you want from me?”

  Paula wanted to protest that Ms. Caldwell’s involvement with Pritchard was much more damning than what she had done to the older woman, but Will interrupted her. “You’re going to help us shut down the project.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” he said. “It’s over. Today.”

  Ms. Caldwell looked from Will to Paula. When she caught Paula’s eyes, she shivered. Paula didn’t blame her. Who wouldn’t be frightened after the display of her unnatural ability just a few minutes ago? “What do you need me to do?”

  Maybe threatening to turn Ms. Caldwell in for assault and kidnapping was not her only
reason for deciding to help them. For once, Paula was glad for her telekinesis. “You are going to help us destroy every last black box. And then you’re going to destroy any and all notes for the project.”

  “What about the department?” the older woman cried. “Our funding?”

  “Guess we’ll just have to find another way.” Will crossed his arms.

  “There is no other way.” Ms. Caldwell’s face crumbled.

  Paula felt no sympathy for the woman. “Then I guess it’ll be the end of Paranormal Research at Blackridge University.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  One Week Later

  “How are you feeling?” Paula sat next to Lark’s hospital bed, the pale, white light of early November shining through the window.

  Lark pushed the button on her bed to raise the mattress up a little higher. “They’ve started me on physical therapy. At least now I can get myself to and from the bathroom. Those bed pans? Much worse than you imagine. Trust me, sweetie.”

  Paula smiled at her friend’s sarcasm, the old Lark was returning a little bit each day. “When are they going to fit you with a prosthesis?”

  Lark tapped on her leg. “You mean, Old Stumpy? The stitches have to heal, and my pelvis is still a wreck. They say it could be eight weeks or more.”

  “You won’t have to be here the whole time, will you?”

  “Nah. As soon as my pelvis had mended,” Lark explained, “and I can prove to my therapist that I can handle things on my own, I can go.”

  “Well, you know you’re moving in with me for a while, right?” Paula fluffed a pillow behind Lark’s head.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to. You would do the same for me.”

  “You just want a shot at riding my bike.” Lark gave her an accusing look.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Paula thought about her friend’s flame red Katana motorcycle and how ridiculous she would look on it. “While you’re asleep, I’m going to be cruising town, looking for dates.”

  “Dates?” her friend asked. “What about Will?”