“You need something else?”
Karen realized that the man hadn’t actually said anything aloud. “Ah, no, thought you said something is all.”
The man continued down the bar and through a set of double doors which she guessed led to the kitchen.
Karen could read thoughts, but it appeared to be selective. She looked around the room, focusing in on individuals. Most people were talking. It was the ones that weren’t that she could read. When people talked, they didn’t think, at least not like they did when being silent.
Karen glanced at a couple sitting near her. They were in deep conversation, appearing as if the noisy bar around them didn’t exist. The woman listened as the man spoke. She thought he was adorable as he professed his love for her. He was drunk, at least she assumed, so she didn’t take his words with certainty but enjoyed the declaration nonetheless.
Karen turned toward a lone man—quite handsome—sitting at the end of the bar. She concentrated on him, prying into his thoughts. He was happy to be alone, listening to the people around him and having a good time. He seemed different from everyone else, and, like Karen, wasn’t from the town. She felt herself drawn to him, enamored by his presence, but unsure why. She sat and listened to his thoughts, before the man turned and looked directly at her.
Karen glanced away. What had she just heard? He was happy to be away from all the death, killings, and evil. Was he a cop? Someone from the military? A soldier on leave?
To Karen, he looked like none of those things. She turned back, wanting to hear more. Concentrating on him again, the man no longer staring at her, she heard that he was here for a short time and happy not to be hunting. And glad that no others like him were around. Others like…
“Miss?” the bartender said, breaking her intrusion.
“Yes?”
“I’m out of wings. Would you like something else?”
“Sure, pot stickers then. Two orders please.” She spoke quickly, wanting to get back to the stranger at the end of the bar. The bartender left and brought back a pint of beer. “It’s local; let me know what you think.”
Karen quickly sipped the brew. “It’s wonderful, thank you.”
The bartender smiled, and Karen, using a quick probe, knew the man was genuinely glad. She hadn’t liked the guy at first, but realized he was a good fellow. His anorexic comment earlier had bothered her, but Karen realized people often thought things they would never say aloud and that she had cheated.
Reading people’s minds gave away sacred and private thoughts. People were entitled to their own feelings without criticism no matter how good or bad they might be. Karen truly had no right to hear them, but she couldn’t help it. It hit her hard then that she might never again meet another human being without being able to judge the person or feel completely comfortable. The bartender was nice enough, but he, like so many people, just had a quick thought. And probably a legitimate one, considering Karen’s size—five-eight and one hundred and twenty pounds—and the size of her order. She sank in her seat, realizing at that moment how truly difficult it would be to have a real friend again, let alone a boyfriend or husband.
Chapter 14
Karen sat at the bar sipping her beer, feeling the invisible weight of her thoughts press down on her shoulders. The bartender brought out her food and placed it in front of her.
“Anything else, dear?” he asked.
Karen held up a finger and guzzled the rest of her beer. “Another please,” she said, placing the glass down on the counter and wiping her mouth with a cocktail napkin.
The man returned quickly with another pint.
“Hey, do you know that guy down there at the end of the bar?” Karen nodded to her right.
“No. He just came in here tonight, like yourself.”
“Get a lot of travelers?”
The man laughed, motioning around the room. “What do you think?”
“Guess that’s a no.” Karen smiled, shaking her head. “This your place?”
“Yep. Me and the Missus.” He spoke proudly, making Karen like him even more.
“What kind of name is O’Hulahans? Sounds Irish, but I’ve never seen it spelled that way.”
“Well I’m Irish. Name’s Mike O’Houlihan.” He spelled it out for her. “But my wife is Hawaiian. She came up with the name, spelling it how you see it. The ‘hula’ is her personal touch on the place.”
Karen laughed loudly. The place suddenly felt warmer, friendlier.
“Must be something in the air tonight,” Mike said.
“Huh?”
“We hardly ever get strangers in here and tonight, counting yourself, we have two.” He motioned to the entranceway. “Now, we have four.”
Karen craned her neck and saw two large men standing just inside the doorway. Both wore black suits and had identical tightly cropped air. They looked rigid, like robots, while surveying the room. One caught Karen’s stare, then motioned to the other. She quickly turned back to the bartender.
“Waitress had to go home early tonight, so I’m alone,” Mike rambled.
Using the mirror behind the bar, Karen watched the men take a seat near the door. She tried probing them to see if they were agents who had found her somehow, but her gift wasn’t responding. Maybe it was the mirror. Maybe she needed to look directly at the person in order for her gift to work. It was times like this that she wished she had an instruction manual or that Josh was still alive to help her. She’d heard people’s thoughts without looking at them at the rest stop, but here it wasn’t working out that way. Must’ve been an adjustment phase, and now she was finally settling in.
She grew progressively more nervous as the seconds dragged. Mike excused himself to see what the gentlemen wanted to drink. She needed to turn around and take a nice long look at them, see what one of them was thinking, but she couldn’t make herself do it. If she hadn’t had any liquid courage in her she’d probably have run out of there already. Was it possible they were there for her? How could they have found her? Needing to know, taking a risk, she turned around and looked at one of the men.
A chill ran through her body as she heard two words: Karen Lakemire. Turning back around in her chair, she felt as if her heart might burst from her chest, her body no longer able to contain the muscle’s gallop. Damn, the man knew her name. They must’ve found her and were deciding what to do. With so many witnesses, they would probably wait for her to leave, then follow her. Frozen in a state of shock, Karen needed something to take her mind off of the men. She looked to her right and back to the loner at the end of the bar. She began reading him, trying to see if maybe she could leave with him. Having a bit of muscle might keep her alive a bit longer.
To her surprise, the loner was watching the men, too. He didn’t like them and thought they might be…vampires. Karen disconnected and went back to staring at her half-finished beverage. She couldn’t believe it. Of all the people to look to for help, she’d picked a lunatic who believed in vampires. Maybe she’d heard wrong. That must be it. She immediately went back to probing the guy. He was still occupied with the two men. Whoever they were, he wanted to get away from them. He didn’t want any of the patrons to get hurt or killed if anything went down. Karen’s eyes widened. She needed to know more and concentrated harder, trying to search deeper into the man’s brain.
Names flashed through Karen’s mind. Places old and new. The man seemed to be recalling past events, but there were so many. She saw a battlefield where men with muskets fought each other. Horse and buggies traveled along dirt roads. She saw Model-T Fords and steam-powered riverboats. Tanks and a Nazi platoon being blown to bits. The guy was a war nut, a real wacko. He truly believed he’d been in all those places, fighting in all those wars. Maybe an escaped mental patient. He’d looked so normal before the two men in black entered; now she read the thoughts of a violent and deranged man. As she readied to break her link with him, he turned and faced her, staring into her eyes with the ferocity of a lion.
>
Karen felt a chill run over her and tried looking away, but felt trapped by his gaze. She stayed locked eye to eye with him, unable to move. Focusing her thoughts, she heard him asking who she was and what had she been doing to him?
Are you prying into my mind?
The man blinked and Karen was able to break away. The need to flee had never felt so strong. Had that man really felt her prying? Or was he simply thinking that she was probing him because he was a psycho? She had been staring at him intently.
Karen tossed two twenties on the bar, finished her drink, and hurried out of the place.
She skirted the rear of the building where her car was parked. The back lot was surrounded by dense woods and consisted of a few parked vehicles and a dented green dumpster. Karen wished she’d parked out front where she’d be more visible to patrons coming and going. She glanced behind her, seeing if the men from the bar had followed. The way was clear. She began fishing in her purse for the car keys when someone called her name.
Chapter 15
“Karen,” a male’s voice said.
She froze with her hand in her purse, fingers wrapped around the car keys. She was only a few feet away from her vehicle. She was better off not reacting to the name, pretending it wasn’t hers. She pulled the keys out and took another step toward the car.
“I wouldn’t do that, Karen,” the voice said.
Footsteps sounded at her back. Fear held her in check.
“Karen,” the voice said, sternly this time. She turned around.
The two men in black suits stood no more than ten feet from her. The one on the right pointed a gun at her.
“What do you want?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“You,” the man holding the gun said.
“To come with us,” the other added.
“If you shoot, everyone will hear it and come running and—” But before Karen could finish, the man holding the gun fired the weapon. She jumped back, her purse falling to the ground, as the asphalt near her feet exploded, sending pieces bouncing painfully off her shins. To her dismay, the gun hardly made a sound. She didn’t know much about firearms, but guessed the man was using a silencer.
“You’ll come with us quietly,” the man holding the gun said, “or your friend, Melanie, gets a bullet to the brain.”
Karen’s next breath clotted in her chest. Everything seemed to slow, her surroundings going out of focus. She blinked, shook her head, and exhaled. Karen knew the truth without reading their minds. They had Melanie. They must have heard the paramedic report go out and taken her before she had a chance to leave her apartment. But how could they have found her? She didn’t tell Melanie where she was heading. She herself hadn’t even known. Karen drew her sights on the man holding the gun and began probing his mind.
“Where’s Melanie?” she asked, and immediately the man’s thoughts betrayed him. She was in a car in the parking lot. Relief flooded through her. Melanie was still alive.
“Move it,” the man with the gun said, and motioned to a black sedan parked a couple of spaces to Karen’s right.
She had found a tool she could use. By asking a question, whether the person wanted to answer it or not, she realized the individual usually thought about it. The man hadn’t told her a thing about Melanie, but by asking him where she was, she was able to read his mind. The mind would tell all whether the mouth moved or not.
“How did you find me?” Karen demanded. She was stalling; it was all she could think to do. The man said nothing, but looking at him, really concentrating, she saw that he was the older paramedic from Melanie’s apartment, without the beard. They’d been following her, waiting for the right moment to take her. The motel had too many windows, too many watching eyes. The voice wanting to abduct her at the rest stop was his.
“Where are you going to take me?” she asked, her insides feeling as if they were going to melt. Any hope she had had was almost gone.
Still inside the man’s head, she saw a barn in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by a large chain-link fence. Armed guards patrolled the grounds. Inside the barn was a facility with levels.
“I’m not asking again, bitch,” the man growled. Karen’s telepathic link broke. The man was serious. He wanted her alive, but would kill her if she disobeyed. She was still useful dead.
Bending down, Karen picked up her purse and began walking toward the men. She stopped, knowing that once she got into the car with them Melanie was as good as dead. “I’m not moving another step until you release Melanie.”
As if on cue, the black sedan’s driver-side door flung open. Karen stiffened at the sight of Agent McKlintock as he exited the vehicle. He walked to the rear door, eyeing Karen the entire time. He opened the door politely like a seasoned chauffeur. Karen couldn’t see inside the vehicle, but knew who was there.
“Come out,” McKlintock said to the person in the car. His voice was gentle. A woman’s leg extended out of the car. The agent offered an arm, as if the person coming from the vehicle was a princess arriving at a ball.
Melanie’s face came into view as her head broached the car door’s heavily tinted window. She stood, visibly shaken, next to McKlintock. Melanie spotted Karen and they locked stares. Karen immediately dove into her mind. She was think-talking, hoping Karen would be able to translate. Melanie’s thoughts were pleading and apologetic, telling Karen how sorry she was that she was caught. And sorry for not leaving her apartment fast enough and for not fully believing Karen’s story.
Karen wanted to run over to her friend and let her know how silly she was being. That none of this was her fault and that Karen was the one who was sorry to have involved her. But the conversation was only one way.
Karen guessed that once they had her in custody, they’d bring her to the place she saw in the agent’s mind where she’d be experimented on, extracting the alien fluid pulsing through her blood in order to make more of the coveted serum.
“Okay, Karen,” McKlintock said, holding Melanie by the arm, less friendly now. “Here’s your friend. Unharmed and intact.” He smiled, but there was nothing genuine about the gesture. “Now please get in the car.”
Karen’s thoughts raced. How could her mind-reading help them? The minute Karen got in the vehicle, Melanie was dead.
“Not until you let her go,” Karen said.
The agent smiled wickedly. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said, pulling out a gun and pointing it at Melanie’s head.
Karen felt the situation slipping away. She heard McKlintock’s thoughts loud and clear. “No!” she screamed, her arms reaching out, but it was too late. A small chirp, bird-like in sound, popped from the weapon’s barrel.
Melanie’s head jolted to the right as if struck quickly by some invisible force, her body following. The bullet exited the other side of her head. Her blonde hair fluttered as skull fragments and brain matter blasted out.
The scene unfolded at lightning speed before Karen’s eyes, but she saw it over and over in slow motion after it happened. She knew McKlintock was going to kill Melanie a second before it happened, but there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Melanie’s body lay on the blacktop, her legs twitching. Karen tried diving into her friend’s mind, but there was nothing left. Melanie was dead.
Chapter 16
Morgan sat at the bar, wondering if it was too much to ask to have a relaxing evening. He’d found a pleasant little drinking hole, far away from any hunters or vampires. The music was agreeable and people around him were having a good time, letting loose and laughing. But somehow he’d managed to land in the middle of another peculiar situation. Who was that woman? Had she been reading his mind? And who were the two goons in matching monkey suits? They had clearly startled the woman, and after she ran out they left, too. Were they after her?
Morgan had seen enough during his long lifetime to assume the men were government agents of some kind. He’d originally thought they were vampires after him, but that clearly had
n’t been the case. It seemed fate had again intervened, denying him the right to enjoy his vacation. Maybe he was brought here for a reason. Why else had he stopped in this little bar, of all places? He attempted to ignore his thoughts and mind his own business. He was after all on vacation. It wasn’t his job to save the world—at least when it didn’t involve vampires. Those men clearly weren’t members of the undead and had nothing to do with him.
Maybe the woman was on the run and those two men were bounty hunters. Morgan could deal with that, deciding that was the situation and took a long pull from his drink.
He cringed as the cold beverage went down hard, tasting sour and off. The beer had been delicious and smooth, but no longer. Letting out a sigh, Morgan realized he couldn’t delude himself any longer. Those men weren’t bounty hunters and that woman appeared to be in serious trouble. He slapped a ten dollar bill onto the bar and turned toward the exit.
Outside, he looked around the parking lot. The woman was nowhere in sight. A deceptive modicum of relief flowed through him. It was selfish, yes, but maybe fate decided he was to have a quiet evening after all. Ready to head back inside, Morgan spun toward the entrance when an annoying thought stabbed at his brain. He needed to check the rear parking lot. Then he would be certain he was meant to have a quiet evening and truly enjoy himself, knowing that there was nothing more he could do.
Heading around the corner of the building, Morgan heard a popping sound. He paused, his mind racing. It was then that he realized fate had more in store for him tonight than cold local beer.
Chapter 17
Karen stared at Melanie’s dead body, seeing her best friend fall to the ground over and over as if her mind was stuck on repeat. Melanie was dead because of her. Her anger surged. Bullshit, Melanie was dead because of the agents, because of McKlintock. She wasn’t going to blame herself. She wasn’t going to be one of those people. Still, she found it hard not to scream, cry out, and go crazy.
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