by Steven James
“Have you been holding out on me?”
“No, I swear, I suck. You’re a really good teacher.”
“You’re a good student.”
“I like the paint part.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”
While Kyle and Mia are still out of earshot, Nicole looks at me furtively. “I’ll be sure to practice while you’re at camp. Maybe when you get back we can play a little one-on-one.”
Oh, man.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
We meet up with our friends and head back to Sue Ellen’s house.
Malcolm Zacharias stood in the shadows near the edge of the park and watched the four teenagers cross the street.
He hoped things were going to work out with Daniel once he was at the center, but really, there were no guarantees.
For instance, take Jess, that girl from South Carolina, and Liam, the boy from New York.
Malcolm had found them last year, along with Tane, even before hearing about Daniel.
Both had fought so hard to control their hallucinations, but in the end, both had lost.
Now they were in separate mental institutions and none of the doctors who were treating them were optimistic about their chances of recovery.
That could happen with Daniel.
And, probably, in the end, it would. But hopefully they could make some strides first, make a difference for a few people before it was too late.
After Daniel and his three friends were in the house, Malcolm walked quietly through the cool Georgia night to his SUV.
Things were a go.
He would make his move as soon as Daniel was alone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Back on campus, while we’re still in the parking lot, I tell everyone, “I should be able to see you guys tomorrow afternoon for a little while. There’s a break after lunch before the next session.”
“Hey, listen,” Kyle says, “I’m hoping to sneak a run in before it gets too hot. How about I cruise over here and catch up with you for breakfast?”
“Why not—you can use one of my meal passes. We start in the gym at eight thirty.”
“Cool. So, I’ll see you at what, a little before eight?”
“Sure. At the cafeteria.”
“And did you solve my riddle yet?”
“Let’s see . . . The largest thing, yet smaller than a pin, you’re looking into history . . . Nope. Not yet.”
“Time?” Mia suggests, then immediately abandons it. “No, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“God?” Nicole muses aloud. “I mean, God exists outside of time, so maybe that could explain the history part.”
“But how is God smaller than a pin?”
“True.”
“It’s one of your better ones,” I tell Kyle. “And you made this up yourself?”
“Yup.”
“Let me sleep on it.”
Once I’m in my room, I check my email to see if Mom has sent the pictures over yet. There’s a message from her that she’s almost done, that she loves me, and that she’ll get me the photos soon.
While I wait, I process things.
Grandpa.
The boy.
The dream of the cliff.
The living corpse in the attic.
Yeah, it’s that last one that troubles me the most.
Writing sometimes helps. So, pulling out my journal, I flip to a blank page.
Tonight, I can hardly get the words down fast enough. It’s almost like I’m not the one holding the pen, but instead that some unseen force is gliding it across the page.
Your life flicker-wisps through your mind.
Seeing a body does that to you. Makes the moments condense and expand, the past breathing down your neck.
The grave seems to chase you, knowing that no matter how hard you run from it, no matter how hard you resist, one day it’s going to win.
A grave.
A body.
The person at your feet was alive and is now dead.
Perhaps he was remembering good times or dreaming about the future or worrying about something that seemed so vitally important, but wasn’t, when he died.
But now he won’t remember or dream or worry anymore.
The person at your feet is you.
The skulls in Mia’s ghost story come to mind, and her comment about how the monks would use them to remind people how brief life is.
I stare at the words I just wrote.
Maybe her story is working on me.
Life is brief.
Death is snapping at my heels.
The night is always trying to swallow the day.
Pandora’s box is right there by our feet waiting to be opened.
Last winter when I was researching hallucinations, trying to figure out what was happening to me, I came across this thing called automatic writing. Some authors and songwriters say there are times when the words seem to be dictated to them and they simply transcribe them onto the page.
But how does that work?
Where do the words come from?
That’s the big question.
Maybe the same place as your blurs.
From going to church with Mom over the years, I know enough about the Bible to know that God sometimes speaks to people in visions, gives prophets things to say, and even helps them interpret dreams and predict the future.
For example, he did that with the man I’m named after—Daniel—who’s famous mostly for being thrown into the pit of lions and coming out unscathed in the morning after an angel closed the lions’ mouths.
But he also prophesied about the future and interpreted dreams. One time when a ghostly hand appeared and wrote a cryptic message on the wall during a party, he was able to explain to the king what it meant.
The hand had been sent from God, and it didn’t leave a very encouraging message, at least not for that king. Basically, it said that his days were numbered.
A reminder of how brief life is.
Just like those skulls lining the walls.
That very night, the king was killed.
And there it is again—an underlying congruity between the events in my life, something that’s tying them all together.
A saying my dad told me one time comes to mind: “Nothing is mundane if everything matters.”
Maybe everything does matter.
And maybe it’s all interwoven in a way I just can’t see yet.
Though I’m not at all convinced that it’s God who’s sending me my blurs or giving me these words here tonight, they continue to flow as if they’re coming from somewhere other than my own mind as I include one last entry:
I climb up the steps and I swing shut the door
and I peer out the gate of the castle once more—
only to see that it’s really a prison with
blood seeping up
from the floor.
I’m trying to figure out what that might mean and how it might relate to everything else that’s going on when I receive the pictures of Grandpa from my mom.
CHAPTER TWENTY
There are shots of him at the cabin he used to own near Lake Algonquin, pictures of him as a kid growing up in Milwaukee, holiday family photos where we’re all crowded together in the frame, and more.
I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, but I continue to review the photographs: In this one he’s a teenager kneeling beside a buck that he shot, here he’s celebrating his thirtieth wedding anniversary. Some photos I recognize from seeing them before, some I don’t.
Fifty-five pictures in all.
I’m especially interested in the ones of him when he was young, but none of them really look like the boy I saw in the road.
I move to the later photos, the ones taken closer to when he lost control of his car on a patch of black ice and skidded off that county highway into a tree.
Nothing grabs my attention.
Then I flip back through the pictures again from the start.<
br />
When I get to one of the family Christmas photos from the year I was in kindergarten, I pause.
This time, however, it’s not Grandpa’s picture that catches my eye. It’s me, standing by his side.
I know I’ve seen this photo before tonight, but I forgot all about it.
It sparks my memory.
Just like swinging did for Nicole.
My heart begins to race.
In the photograph, I’m wearing the same clothes as the boy I saw right before I was hit by the truck.
The person in the attic—that was you.
The boy in the road—that was you too.
You were trying to save him, Daniel.
You were trying to save yourself.
My thoughts coil around themselves, taking me deeper into the moment.
Grandpa.
And blurs.
And sleepwalking.
The first time you sleepwalked was right after Grandpa’s funeral.
My parents were in the living room and I simply walked past them toward the front door without even acknowledging them.
When they asked me where I was going, I said, “To find him.” And then, when they took me back to bed, I told them I wanted to save him “before they came”—whatever that might mean.
But you were sleepwalking and dreaming at the time. It was nothing, it was just—
My vibrating phone jars me out of my thoughts.
It’s an incoming text, but for some reason, no return number comes up. The message reads simply: Answer this call, Daniel.
But that’s enough to unsettle me.
Because I’ve seen those words before.
It’s the same message I received back in December from a guy named Malcolm Zacharias right before we spoke for the last time.
He was this enigmatic man who kept popping up right around the time my dad was stabbed.
He told me that he was a recruiter, apparently for teens that he thought had the same kinds of blurs as I was having. Also, he was trying to stop Dr. Waxford’s research on human subjects.
Mr. Zacharias was the one who helped me escape from the mental hospital that the authorities took me to when they thought I was the one who attacked Dad.
Later, he altered the place’s security camera footage to make it look like I’d gotten out of there all on my own.
In the end, I was left wondering if he really did exist or, if maybe I’d been imagining him from the start.
But then where did this text come from?
The phone rings.
Is this a blur? Is this even real? If you answer the phone, it’s going to take you closer to the cliff.
It rings again.
And again.
But maybe you’ll get some answers. Maybe you’ll finally find out what’s causing your blurs.
On the fourth ring, I tap the screen to accept the call.
“Daniel,” a voice says. “It’s Malcolm. We need to meet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE ESTORIA INN
Last winter, one of Dr. Adrian Waxford’s subjects had escaped the research facility in Wisconsin, and locating him afterward had proven to be somewhat problematic.
So, when Adrian and his team opened this center here in the mountains of Tennessee, he’d started experimenting with ways of implanting tracking devices into the subjects.
Although it isn’t easy, ankle monitors can be disabled and removed, so he didn’t even bother with those.
At first he tried inserting GPS microchips into the backs of the men’s hands, but after one subject chewed his out, Adrian decided to go a different route, using a specially engineered tattoo ink that contained nanobot geotags.
It was permanent.
It was irreversible.
It was the tracking system of the future.
However, rather than tattoo someone’s skin, which could be flayed off, he decided to tattoo the subjects’ eyeballs.
While it was certainly possible that someone could poke out his eyes so that he could no longer be traced, none of the men had shown that much initiative yet. Besides, they hadn’t been told the real reason that their eyeballs were being tattooed, so none of them knew about the geo-trackers.
Early on, Adrian had tried doing the tattooing himself, but he kept accidentally pushing the needle in too far, puncturing several of the subjects’ eyeballs.
So, he’d passed the job off to Henrik, who had proven quite skillful with the needle and quite particular about his work.
Since Adrian liked to observe the men’s reaction, he preferred that they remain awake during the procedure.
Now, he watched as two guards strapped the newest subject into the chair, securing him so that he couldn’t move any of his limbs, couldn’t even turn his head.
The man, who’d arrived less than an hour ago, frantically begged them to stop, apparently still holding onto the hope that he would be able to plead his way out of this.
Once he was immobilized, the guards left Adrian and Henrik alone.
Time for the tattoo.
While Adrian got out his iPad to take notes, Henrik picked up a spring-loaded eye speculum that would keep the subject’s eyelid from closing during the procedure.
“No, please no!” he hollered.
“Shh, now.”
Henrik began with the left eye, pressing the eyelid open, positioning the speculum, and then tightening the screws to secure it in place.
He did the right one as well.
Now there was no way for the man to blink.
Since it’s so common to see people blink, Adrian always found it a bit strange to look at someone whose eyes were bulging out like that, looking almost amphibian, and not blinking.
Not at all.
Henrik dipped the needle into the ink.
“Are we ready, Doctor?”
“Yes. Please proceed.”
“No, don’t!” the man shrieked. “I’ll do anything, just stop!”
Undeterred, Henrik pressed the tip of the needle against his eyeball.
“Steady, now. Don’t flinch.”
“Nooo!”
Adrian watched as Henrik carefully depressed the needle, and after a moment of slight resistance as it penetrated the conjunctiva, the needle’s tip penetrated just far enough into the sclera to distribute the ink.
Henrik was careful not to rupture the eye.
The ink spread out from the end of the needle and curled across the surface of subject #556234’s eyeball, creating a black swirl that made Adrian think of food coloring curling out into a glass of milk.
That’s what he thought of every time this happened.
A glass of cool, refreshing milk.
“There, now,” Adrian reassured the man. “You’re doing fine. Just a few more minutes and you’ll be all set to go.”
He typed a few observations into his tablet as Henrik re-dipped the needle to get more ink, and bent over him again.
Despite not being able to blink, a tear trickled down one of his cheeks.
Interesting.
Adrian noted it in his file.
When they were finished, the subject’s eyeballs would be completely obsidian and he would be forever monitored, no matter where he went on the planet.
There was no hiding it, no turning back, and nothing short of removing both eyeballs that could be done about it.
He was only a young man, about to turn twenty later this summer. But such was the due and just reward for his crimes.
After all, he was a poacher and had attempted to blackmail and physically assault a teenage girl up in Wisconsin. He’d held her against her will, threatened her well being, and even tried to set her up for his crimes. He deserved the punishment he was about to get.
Every hour of it.
Every minute of it.
Adrian had no patience for those who would attack people weaker than themselves.
On a more personal front, the young man had stolen one of Adrian’s rifles and used that
to poach the wolves.
Unacceptable.
If all went well, this subject would be the first recipient of Adrian’s new chronomorphic drug and the findings would help show the Defense Department what his methods were capable of accomplishing in only a limited period of time.
“So, Doctor,” Henrik said as he went for more ink, “I have word that Zacharias is back in Atlanta. I’m heading down there tonight to personally oversee things.”
“And Deedee and Sergei?”
“Still with Petra.”
“Perhaps you should have them accompany you to Georgia. There’s strength in numbers, and as you told me yourself, Zacharias has skills. At least take one of them.”
“Alright. I’ll bring Sergei along.”
More entreaties for mercy from the man in the chair.
More tears.
On his iPad, Adrian deleted the name Ty Bell and typed in what this subject would be known as from here on out: #556234.
A number.
Just a number.
Part of the system, now and forever.
All for the greater good.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MONDAY, JUNE 17
8:24 A.M.
Kyle Goessel watched as the other guys from the basketball camp made their way into the field house. At first, larger clumps of players walked past, then a few stragglers, but Daniel didn’t show up in any of the groups.
The first session in the gym would start in just a few minutes. Still no sign of his friend.
They were supposed to meet for breakfast at the cafeteria half an hour ago. After waiting there for twenty minutes, Kyle had come over here hoping to at least catch Daniel before the camp began for the day.
He texted him again and waited.
No reply.
At this point it was too late for breakfast, but why hadn’t he at least replied to the texts?
Kyle had a disquieting feeling when he thought of the blurs his friend had been having and how Daniel had spoken last week about his fear that the thread might snap, the one that kept him sane.
He texted Nicole to see if she’d heard from Daniel and she replied almost immediately that she hadn’t.
What’s going on? she typed. Can’t you find him?
I mighta missed him, he replied. Let me just check on something.
