The New Assault

by Steven Spellman

Sam knew he would have to call the mayor to have a special team remove the body. Not only would the team have to be special but the entire operation concerning Geoffrey’s death would have to be handled very carefully. Sam’s mother had been cremated and his father’s remains would have to be cremated as well, for the same reason that any gravesite for a Simmons would quickly become a shrine. Even the crematorium where the work was done, would have to be keep secret. Either that or the place would be overrun with fanatics within hours. Geoffrey’s death might have to remain secret to the public, indefinitely. Back when Delilah had died, panic and fear had spread through the city like a wildfire. People had died in the tumult. Sam did not want to witness a repeat performance, since his father’s death would certainly inspire at least as much chaos. It would be the mayor’s job to quell that chaos if things came to that. That, at least, was not Sam’s responsibility.

  It was a very small consolation as Sam returned to his father’s room and stood over his body, silently. He gazed down until the tears finally began to flow. There, as if in sweet slumber upon his own bed, his father had breathed his last, leaving behind his body to be found by his son. To Sam, his father’s body symbolized the last thing he had on this cruel planet besides cold responsibility. The fate of the townspeople was his responsibility. His control of his telepathy was his responsibility. This house was his responsibility. Geoffrey had been the last of his family. Upon this bed, with his arms crossed neatly over his chest, was his last true friend. The tears flowed harder and Sam’s shoulders began to tremble. He wanted to collapse onto the hard floor right where he stood and breathe his last. Instead, he sat in a chair near his father’s bed and sobbed until he felt nearly as tired as he had, climbing that awful staircase. Not as exhausted, there was a sweet relief in finally crying out his grief. Sam doubted that he had enough fluids in his entire body to cry out all his sorrow, but he did feel a little better. A little. The rest would have to come with time.

  After twenty minutes of sobbing, Geoffrey left his father and walked to the porch. There he sat in the chair on the porch, the same one where his father had had him sit so many hours already. He stared out into the distance. The sun was just beginning to peek across the horizon and that entire part of the sky was quickly filling with its bright yellow morning glow. The view from the porch had always been a magnificent sight but this morning it was neither magnificent, nor dreary. It just was. Sam continued to stare at it until the entire sky was filled with the golden glow. Not many birds flew this high, but some did. Sam listened to two large eagles call to each other in the distance. They swirled around each other until they locked claws and began to plummet to the earth below, spinning and twirling together like some very odd dance. Before they vanished from sight they released each other and flew up again. There they repeated the dance. How so like those birds were humans, Sam thought, bitterly. They plummet to the hard ground below, performing their little dance, oblivious to the end that awaits them, right up until they crash into it. Unlike the majestic eagle, the humans did not have enough sense to release their hold before it was too late, it seemed. Sam sat in his chair watching the huge birds and feeling very low. Hours passed. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know what else there was to do. More than the sight of his father’s corpse, he knew his father was dead— and had known he was dead for over twenty-four hours—because he couldn’t help searching telepathically for his mind … and finding only nothingness. Nothingness. It was what he felt awaited him at every turn. That, and sorrow.

  By the time evening returned and Sam was still in his chair, he decided that he needed something to distract him. If he remained up here, alone, now that Geoffrey was dead, he’d go mad. He opened his mind to listen in on the thoughts of the townspeople until that became depressing. Just as he was about to shut the voices out, he noticed that one of the minds was different—and closer—than the others. This person wasn’t actively thinking anything, rather they were quietly enjoying the sights of nature. Sam could perceive in the person’s wordless musings that they wished their lives were like the gentle pond of water before them. Calm, unaffected by the tumult always taking place in the city. This person just wanted things to make sense. Sam could relate.

  He knew in his heart it was the girl he’d seen before at the pond. It had to be. Perhaps he could watch her from afar as he had done before. It might be better than sitting here, alone, feeling very low. The mayor and his special team would arrive by helicopter before the day’s end, to carry his father’s body away. He didn’t want to be around for that, didn’t want to endure the men’s heartfelt condolences. They would certainly smother him in their well wishes and he felt as if breathing room were already in short enough supply with him. Instead, he stood from the chair and took a step toward the staircase. Toward the girl.

  CHAPTER 11

  Full night had descended by the time Sam reached the place at the base of the mountain where the pond was. The girl was still there, only her outline visible in the near complete blackness. Sam searched with his mind and found no animals nearby. Only then did he sit down upon the cold hard ground, careful to remain beyond the girl’s ability to see or hear him. She sat in a different spot, but in the same position, with her legs bent and her thighs pressed to her chest. Sam had hoped that she would still be here by the time he’d climbed down the staircase, but now that he’d arrived he found himself concerned for her safety. Didn’t she have a home to go to? Weren’t her parents concerned that she wasn’t there already? Sam remembered the girl’s thoughts from before, how her parents seemed painfully distant to her. Did they not live in the same house? In the same city? Didn’t they love their daughter at all!

  Sam could hardly believe that there was a parent alive that didn’t love their child. It might’ve been easier to imagine before Geoffrey had showed him the depth of his own mother’s love for him, or if he hadn’t have ever looked into the mind of the woman from the city. But he had experienced his mother’s love, as well as the love that woman had for her daughter. It was a love that death could not banish. He would never forget either of those experiences, not as long as he lived. If any parent could love like that then all parents must harbor at least a measure of love for their children. It made sense to Sam. Apparently, it hadn’t made sense to this young woman because in her mind her parents didn’t love her at all. Certainly, that couldn’t have been so. Sam remained where he was, musing over the conundrum until he decided that perhaps he would approach the girl.

  She seemed to be content where she was, even out here in the open, in the dead of night, but maybe she could use a friend. Sam certainly could. Besides, when would he have another opportunity like this, especially with someone his own age? He stood to his feet and wiped the dust from the seat of his pants but before he could take a single step a loud voice assailed him. It wasn’t an audible voice, but it was loud. “Sam!” the voice demanded “Come to me!” The boom of it inside Sam’s skull sounded like the voice of God … or at least a set of very powerful speakers. It was alarming. Sam had not sensed another mind nearby, much less a telepathic one. He opened his mind now and searched. He sensed no one else nearby except the girl. He was still searching when the voice came again, repeating the same thing, with the same startling force; “Sam! Come to me!”

  Sam clutched his head with both hands and shook himself, as if he could shake the echoes out of his skull. The only thing it accomplished was to give him a powerful headache. For a moment he thought he might’ve been losing his mind. It was enough that he had literal voices in his head, but now he also had voices in head yelling at him. The truly concerning part was that he couldn’t identify the speaker, like hearing a strange and disturbing sound in an empty house where no other person should be. It was a first for him and it taught him a valuable lesson right away, that a person could shield themselves from his telepathy. It was almost like the person yelling into his brain were a mental ventriloquist, throwing their voice where they were not. All Sam k
new was that there was someone out there that was far more advanced in their telepathic abilities than he was. It could only be one person. For, according to Geoffrey, only one other person on the planet had telepathic abilities. Dr. Crangler. The last time Sam had seen Dr. Crangler he had been too young to remember the encounter. Obviously, Dr. Ian Crangler remembered him.

  Sam braced himself for a repeat of Dr. Crangler’s simple command, but the minutes ticked by and it never came. Apparently, the doctor recognized that his first two attempts had been enough. They had been. Sam head still rang with them. Sam took one final look at the girl—he would’ve preferred to remain here with her, but he didn’t want to risk that booming in his head again—and turned away. He could only tell the general direction from whence the voice came, or at least the place where Dr. Crangler wanted him to think it came from, and that was somewhere within the city. He began to walk that way. When he reached the staircase and began walking down, he wondered at the fact that he felt no fear at the thought of walking through the city streets, alone, at night. A small voice told him that he should be afraid. If word got out, if a single person caught sight of him, the chaos would be immediate and more likely than not, catastrophic. With no armed detail to keep the peace, it might even be fatal. It didn’t matter. Sam had to follow that mental voice. He had serious questions for Dr. Crangler and above that, The Good Doctor was presumably the only other person on the planet that shared Sam’s telepathic abilities. Perhaps he stood to learn something from the doctor. At the very least he would have someone to talk to about everything he’d been going through lately.

  Before Sam reached the bottom of the staircase he peered into the minds of the guards on duty in the gun booths. The guard who had fallen asleep was in the same booth but the two men standing guard with him in their own gun booths were not the same two men from earlier. Sam peered into the first guard’s memory and discovered that he had received a special recommendation from the mayor himself, after Sam’s visit into the city. The mayor had been impressed, it would seem, with the guard’s professionalism during Sam’s tense tour of the city. Sam doubted that was the entire story. He didn’t need to locate the mayor and look into his mind to surmise that it had likely been another political plow. Sam had singled the guard out to be the head of his security detail for the day and the mayor no doubt wanted to be seen rewarding someone whom Sam himself had favored. Either way it was not likely that the guard would fall asleep on the job again, any time soon.

  Right now, that posed its own problem. Sam needed to get past these guards, but the booths were set up in such a way that it was impossible to sneak past them in either direction without at least one of the guards noticing. There was a simple solution. Sam could just reach into their minds and distract them, while he made his dash. If he projected a potent enough image into their brains he wouldn’t even have to dash, he could walk casually by. He could’ve done that easily enough, but he didn’t want to. The easier it seemed to manipulate people, the more dangerous it became as far as Sam was concerned. The thought of becoming the type of person to simply employ his powers whenever an obstacle stood in his path gave Sam a nasty taste in his mouth and an uncomfortable clenching in his stomach. He knew his father would not have approved of him using his telepathy so selfishly. So, what was he to do, he thought as he stood upon the steps, not yet at the bottom of the mountain. Ten minutes passed as he pondered the question, but he could find no answer. He needed to get past these guards, but it was not likely that he could ask their permission and they allow him to slip into the night without their automatic weapons to protect him. Besides that, all three would lose their jobs immediately as soon as the mayor found out.

  Inside his mind, Sam sensed a presence. Not someone approaching, but someone watching from afar. Someone waiting. It had to be Dr. Crangler—whoever was watching was not doing it with physical eyes—but Sam still had no way to get to him. If the doctor could just wait until morning Sam could arrange a security detail to escort him directly to him. Sam reached out with his mind to present the idea to The Good Doctor, but he still couldn’t pinpoint him. The doctor was still cloaking himself telepathically somehow. It was a nice trick, Sam thought, but a very frustrating one. He thought of sending the idea out there anyway. He decided against it and began to turn around. The doctor would just have to wait until morning.

  Then Sam felt the presence again, a mental presence radiating disappointment. Apparently, Sam had failed some kind of test. Dr. Crangler, it would seem, didn’t share Geoffrey’s views on only using his abilities selectively. Sam heard a brief rustle from one of the booths. He reached into the booth with his mind and found that the guard was sound asleep. He had slid down in his booth without a struggle. He now lay upon the hard floor, sprawled out as if he had been knocked unconscious. It was not the same guard who had fallen asleep before and Sam seriously doubted that this guard had suddenly decided to take a nap on his own. He scanned the minds of the remaining guards and found what he expected, Dr. Crangler’s mental presence. One by one the doctor was projecting deep lethargy into the minds of the guards. It wasn’t long before the second guard collapsed. Only the guard who’d already fallen asleep on the job, remained. With admirable zest, he fought the fatigue that was growing quickly within him. He pounded on the booth, he slapped himself hard on both cheeks, he yelled at the top of his lungs until his head throbbed.

  None of it changed the fact that he could barely keep his eyes open. His legs were beginning to buckle beneath him. He felt as if he had run a series of marathons. There was a short shelf inside each booth, a place for the guard to support his gun if he or she ever needed to use the gun slot that was directly above the shelf. The guard leaned heavily upon the shelf now. It was the only way he could remain upright. Leveraging his weight upon the shelf caused it to press painfully into the bottom of his ribcage. He welcomed the pain. It was the only thing he knew to help him retain consciousness. Sam could sense the panic in his thoughts. He would certainly get fired for sure this time, he knew, but still his mind grew foggier by the second. Despite the guard’s ardent efforts, he eventually crumbled to the floor and fell immediately into a sound sleep just like his comrades. He was still slumped upon the shelf, snoring softly as spittle dripped down slowly upon his arm, when Sam walked by.

  CHAPTER 12

  Sam felt bad for the guards, but he felt worse for the one that he’d already helped. It was a shame that Dr. Crangler could undo his one good deed so effortlessly. That guard had given everything he had just to keep his position and the doctor had undid it all in a matter of moments. Sam could feel the ire rising within him as he plodded through the darkness of the city toward the place where the voice had summoned him. Meanwhile, Sam took the opportunity to scrutinize the city in earnest. He hadn’t had time to do that, earlier, what with the public officials, armed detail, and noisy crowds shadowing his every step. The city had been a tumultuous hive of activity then, but now not a soul stirred in the streets. If Sam did notice a straggler he’d reach into their minds and plant some urgent need to suddenly be somewhere else. Perhaps the person would suddenly remember that they had left the oven on in their home, or maybe they felt a sudden unsettling foreboding about being out so late. Or maybe they remembered that they’d accidently left the front door to their house unlocked.

  That last one was a real clincher. The city was civilized during the day, as city’s go, but also as city’s go, the poorer parts were dangerous to navigate when the sun set. One very important reason was that there were not many street lights in the less affluent parts of town. The poor lacked the voice of the rich. It was not a major priority to make sure their areas were well lit. Even beneath their many street lights the rich, too, didn’t leave their doors or windows unlocked at night. All Sam had to do was reach into a late wayfarer’s mind and suggest that the person may’ve left a front door unbolted and they themselves would bolt in the opposite direction, back toward their home. The tactic was too close to mani
pulation for Sam’s liking, but the alternative of him possibly being spotted without protection would’ve been far worse. He sensed Dr. Crangler’s mental presence again, and satisfaction from that presence, each time he used his telepathy to send someone running. That bothered him almost as much as what he was forced to do. Dr. Crangler had done something close to despicable earlier with the guards and then had radiated disappointment that Sam hadn’t done it first; it didn’t speak well of what Sam was doing that The Good Doctor was suddenly pleased with him. Fortunately for Sam, he didn’t encounter many people on the streets. There were no people staring curiously from their widows, either.

  The path Sam followed to Dr. Crangler led him directly through the heart of the city, through the rich and poor sections alike. But, it was the outskirts of the city, the poverty-stricken edges, that interested him. When he reached the outer most edge, the very poorest part of the city, he found that he would’ve much rather remained there than to return to his unwanted mansion. Even though most of these buildings were in terrible shape, there were people here. There was only an empty house waiting for him at the top of the mountain. This part of town had once been a housing development, decades ago. Sam thought how ironic it was as he navigated through the rubble and trash littering the streets, that he’d rather be here than anywhere else. Many of the city’s wealthy constituents had sacrificed and neglected many important things over their lifetimes of building wealth, and most of them still didn’t realize the significance of what they’d forfeited for money. How odd that Sam had been given from birth what they’d neglected faithful husbands and wives, children, and parents, to scratch together, and he didn’t even want any of it. They didn’t appreciate what they’d lost, and he didn’t appreciate what he’d been given. Perhaps he wasn’t so different from those people as he’d like to believe.