The Uninvited

by F. P. Dorchak

  The cop smiled, “We don’t need everything in your pocket, ma’am. Just potential weaponry.”

  Kacey cast Banner another sideways glance, but said nothing. When she put the rings back into her pocket, she noticed that the one she’d found felt... funny. Images of barren plains... winds, lots of wind, and wide, open spaces...

  As long as there is the sun and the wind...

  As long as what?

  “Okay, we’re going to speak with a Mr. Billy Williams—and yes, that is his real name,” Fisher said, leading them into the detention center. “He’s twenty-eight, and is—was—a software engineer out of Huntsville, Alabama. Military space programs. Now, there’s a waste of good DNA.”

  “Okay,” Kacey said, nervously. “I’ve never been inside one of these, before.”

  Fisher smiled and cast a grin to Banner. “We should hope not, Miss Miller. Just keep to yourself and don’t get too close to him. Try to keep one of us between you and him at all times. You never know what he might do, though we’ll keep him cuffed. So far, as I’m sure Banner’s told you, we’ve had no trouble with them, short of a suicide or two... here, and with those we also have locked up in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda. This one’s one of the most tame of the lot.”

  Kacey nodded. “That isn’t normal, is it?”

  Fisher grunted. “No, and me letting you in like this is not normal, either. I’m just trying to help you out, is all—and maybe find out a little more, myself, in the process to all this insanity. Maybe he’ll open up to you.”

  “Wow,” Kacey said, “I’m calling you ‘detective’ and you’re being helpful. Armageddon?”

  As they passed through the detention center proper, they entered an entirely different world. The uniformed police officer silently tagged along behind. The jail, otherwise dubbed a “detention center,” was drab and oppressive, and lent a distinct dullness to her senses. She didn’t know if that was because of its intended construction, or just her impression of the place, but there was a definite “solemnity” to the atmosphere. Kacey heard muted noises from behind some of the cell doors... mumbling and scratching... bumping and other, unknown, activity. Each cell had its own steel door, into which was cut one small viewport and a food slot.

  “Is everyone in here a suspect from the murders?” Kacey asked.

  “For the time being, yes,” Fisher replied, “we’d moved our regular lovelies’ elsewhere. We don’t usually get much crime, here.” Fisher shook his head. “I’ve really never seen anything like this before.”

  They stopped before one of the cells and Fisher stepped aside, allowing the uniformed officer to unlock the door. Inside, Kacey saw a continuation of the same dreary, drab confines. Painted cinderblock walls, concrete flooring. Only the bare necessities were here: a cot, a toilet, and a sink. Billy sat on the cot, staring down at his hands. The uniformed officer went in first, handcuffing Billy.

  “Okay, let’s go—” Fisher said.

  “We’re actually going in?” Kacey said.

  Fisher and Banner smiled.

  “That’s where he is.”

  “But I thought... there was some kind of, I don’t know—interview room?”

  “There is, but it’s in use right now by our psychologist. Small town, small budgets. We’ll be okay; Banner and I’ll be in there with you, and Junior, here’ll, be right outside.” “Junior” sneered at Fisher. “And he’s cuffed. See?”

  Kacey peeked into the cell. Fisher and Banner entered. Kacey tentatively entered the cell, once the uniformed officer stepped back outside. After she entered the cell, the officer locked the door behind her. She looked back to the door, then to the inmate, or whatever they were called.

  Billy Williams.

  That’s what he was called. His name was Billy Williams.

  And somewhere... he had a father and a mother... and whatever else of a family he’d grown up with...

  Billy sat on the edge of his cot, staring down at the floor, hands cuffed and clasped before him.

  “Billy,” Fisher said, “this is Kacey Miller. She’s a reporter. She’d like to ask a few questions.”

  Billy looked up. When Kacey saw his face, she felt suddenly, inexplicably, emotional. Though brooding, the guy, who was quite handsome, looked normal enough—except that he’d killed people.

  Murdered.

  Kacey felt something strange inside. A certain... familiarity?

  “Reporter, huh,” Billy said, sullenly.

  Kacey found it hard to speak, her new-found emotional knots constricting her throat and chest. It was one thing to write about these people, but quite another to meet them face to face.

  “Yes... I, uh, wrote a story on...”

  Here, Kacey found her usual byline no longer all that glamorous, actually embarrassing, as she encountered one of her stories’ real, flesh-and-blood suspects.

  “I wrote an article about, uh...”

  “Us murderers,” Billy finished.

  Kacey looked away, ashamed. “Yes.” Some Big Time Reporter she was turning out to be. “Yes... I did.”

  “Well, somebody should.” He looked to his handcuffs, flexing its short chain several times.

  Intrigued, Kacey found herself walking around to the front of Billy, and crouched down before him. Fisher and Banner split up to either side of them.

  “Billy... I have to admit... seeing you, here... I don’t get the feeling—”

  “I’m a killer? That we all are?”

  Kacey swallowed hard. “What happened, if I may ask? How’d it start?” And how could you?, she thought. What would your mother—

  Billy rubbed his hands together and Kacey could see he was—was he actually fighting back tears?

  “Christ, I don’t know! One moment, I’m this software geek, developing integrated system architectures for the government, and the next I’m....”

  Kacey could see he was trying his best to not cry, but his entire body shuddered.

  “I have these damned noises in my head!” he blurted out, jumping to his feet and blowing past Kacey, knocking her off balance. Banner and Fisher made a start for Billy, but when they saw him go to the opposite end of the cell and just pace—talking to himself—backed off.

  “You okay?” Fisher asked Kacey, still eyeing Billy.

  Regaining her balance, she looked back to the cell door, then back to Billy.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a—”

  “I’m fine, really,” Kacey said, a hand up to Fisher. “I’ve dived with sharks and jumped off bridges.” Straightening herself out, she pulled out her tape recorder. Pressed “Play.”

  “Billy,” Kacey continued, her voice full of a new—almost defiant—confidence that even surprised her, “you mind if I ta—”

  “Don’t know when it all started... only that somehow, some day, I started hearing all this... wind... and it never went away—in fact it’s there now—I can hear it, feel it... hollow, wailing, torturous... the only consolation is that you’re all in here with me. Behind bars. So nothing’ll happen....”

  Billy continued pacing, staring at the floor.

  “No... no, I don’t mind,” he added. “Others need to know.

  “At first... it was mild amusement... walking around like I constantly had this conch shell to my head... then it began to grow... the sound... it always sounded like there was a storm raging just outside my window, or something—but it was in my head, see?—do you get it, really get it?” he asked, turning to the three of them, emphasizing with clenched and cuffed fists.

  “God! I’d gone to all kinds of specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists... no one helped. Not one. My hearing constantly checked out perfectly, sometimes even better than perfect, and everyone began to think it was all in my head,” he said, chuckling, and angrily rapping the first two fingers of one hand to the side of his head. “Of course it was, for Chrissake! The last test I had, had me hearing stuff theoretically only a dog could hear. Now, how do you accou
nt for that?”

  Kacey realized Billy was no longer talking to them.

  “The wind... you hear it as it builds up outside your imaginary, inconsequential walls. Pummels your life like the crashing waves of the surf... and each time it crashes against your mind, it gets a little louder, a little closer... always hypnotic... until your curiosity gets the better of you, and you... foolishly,” he said, chuckling madly, “because you think you're safe behind your imaginary walls, try to listen to it. Venture into and explore its rhythmic, mesmerizing seductiveness... try to see what it is it's trying to tell you... as if what it’s trying to tell you is a good thing....”

  Billy braced himself against a wall. Stared into its painted cinderblocks.

  “Then... as if I actually stood on the steppes of some distant land... I hear them,” Billy said, growing silent, more agitated. He picked at the wall. “That damned thundering charge... off in the distance... like the buffalo must have sounded like. The ground quakes, vibrates into my very soul...

  “Thousands of them... all charging through my head... closer... louder, every day... and with them come the cries, the shrieks, the carnage. There were—are—battles being waged inside me I have no idea....”

  Billy flinched several times, jerking, as if the stampede were charging all around him this very moment. Kacey, Banner, and Fisher exchanged looks.

  “Do you hear the stampede now, Billy?” Kacey asked, whispering.

  Banner and Fisher hovered closer. Billy never looked up, but periodically flinched as he continued picking at the wall.

  “Yes....”

  He left the wall and continued pacing, rubbing his hands together slowly, painfully.

  “They’re always there... trying to get out... their flying hooves, their charging cavalry, the screaming bodies—all of it... all trying to tear their way out of me and into....”

  “What?” Kacey asked, when Billy didn’t finish his sentence.

  Kacey felt a sudden chill and looked to Banner and Fisher, who also appeared anxious. Banner gave her a look that commanded: watch yourself.

  “The wind....”

  Billy trailed off into silence, but this time, he walked right up to a wall and placed his forehead against it. He didn’t beat it against the wall, but just leaned there, like a man exhausted from life, alternating between mumbling and silence.

  Kacey slowly came up behind him, tape recorder in hand. Banner and Fisher followed.

  “Miss Miller, be careful...,” Fisher warned.

  “Billy... are they gone?” she said, whispering.

  “No,” he whispered back, eyes still closed. “They never leave....”

  “Did they kill those people? Are they the ones responsible?”

  Billy turned to her. Tears from red, terrified and bloodshot eyes, streaked his face.

  “Ms. Miller... I killed those people... I’m the one responsible,” he said jabbing a thumb toward his chest.

  The two of them stared at each other.

  You have it, don’t you.

  “What?” Kacey asked, startled. “What’d you—”

  Kacey was no longer in that room. She stood in the middle of a deserted plain, wind and grit pummeling her.

  “Billy?”

  She spun around wildly, confused, shielding her eyes and face.

  She was without Fisher and Banner. Without the comfort of four jail cell walls, a floor, and a ceiling. Without her purse, tape recorder, or anything else familiar. Just a bitter sand storm beating down on her.

  “Billy! Billy!”

  The wind howled and pummeled, and was now so thick with stirred dirt and sand Kacey could barely see her hand in front of her. It was like billions of tiny knives carved her into tiny, desiccated pieces to be scattered to the four corners of the globe. She squinted, catching a glimpse of her arms... but they weren’t the normal, smooth and near-hairless arms she knew, but the tanned, sinewy, and weirdly muscular arms of another—a woman, dressed in loose, flapping garments unfamiliar to her.

  Kacey shrieked, frantically scraping away at skin that wasn’t hers.

  “Chim-a du tere baiig-a bije degen?” shouted Billy above the storm, standing before her, clad in what looked like leather armor. He was the same him she knew from the cell, though something was entirely different about his face. Angry, battle scarred.

  “You have it, don’t you?” Billy again asked. “Alib, bi üjey-e,” he demanded in this strange language Kacey seemed to understand.

  “Yüü?” she asked back.

  “The ring! You have it. I can feel it. Let me see it!”

  Something inside Kacey clicked.

  Kacey forgot about her sinewy, tawny arms; reached inside the folds of her loose garments and removed the new, polished—now shiny—ring. Held it out before her.

  “How did you know?” she screamed back, shaking the ring before her, accusatorially. “How did you know about this?”

  Billy-as-warrior came to her; stared at the ring, mesmerized.

  Stand to fight!

  You are ours now...

  “The ring...” he muttered. “Let me have it....”

  Kacey backed away from Billy-as-warrior. Billy stared at her with an insane, evil look, and slowly withdrew a sword from his scabbard.

  “Billy,” she cried, retracting the ring. She also held her own sword out before her. She continued backing away. “What’s happening!” she shouted, into the sand storm.

  “Give me that ring!” he demanded, advancing on her.

  Both were surrounded by the sound of charging horses.

  Billy-as-warrior continued to advance.

  Kacey held her weapon before her—but was unafraid. She felt different... excited at what was to come.

  An adrenaline rush.

  Thousands upon thousands of horses and their riders charged directly for them, from behind Billy-as-warrior and surrounding sand storm—

  Kacey was back in the cell.

  Banner and Fisher, and an inmate, named Billy Williams, stared at her, only now, Billy looked as if he’d had an epiphany.

  Kacey collapsed.

  As she fought to remain conscious, the last thing she heard was Billy Williams whispering—in her head—chi medene... chi medene...

  You know...

  Chapter Fifteen

  1

  All there was... was black.

  Deep black, utter black, all consuming quiet black...

  Wind.

  Creaking and groaning... wood? Rocking back and forth... a restrained shuddering and rattling of tackle...

  Light.

  Kacey Miller stood before a lonely and flapping tent... out on barren plain amid howling wind. A river gurgled nearby. A goat drank from its waters. Looked up to her.

  Wind... caressed her face, tossed her hair...

  The earthy smell of musky land.

  In the distance... hills... grazing livestock.

  A tent... dirty, round. Loose ropes and fabric flapped against its side. She watched the rope... it lifted up in the wind... fluttered its little jig, then fell back against the tent. Again up into the air it went, but not as high—only to catch a sudden gust and whip higher—flip back on itself, then fall back against the tent wall, to begin anew, yet another trip into the air...

  Kacey entered the tent.

  The word “MONSTER,” smeared across all the interior walls, greeted her inside her dimly lit home.

  She blinked.

  She’s seated on the couch, one of her hands stuffed down the front of her slacks. Sheila played with Mark and Emily on the floor before her. Embarrassed, Kacey pulled her hand from her pants.

  “Oh, God....”

  The ghostly laugh track kicked on.

  Kacey shot to her feet. Sheila looked up to her. Mark and Emily continued to play with their toys on the floor before the TV. Monsters, Inc. played on the television screen.

  “What’s the matter?” Sheila asked, “Everything all right?”

  Kacey looked around.
Outside she heard wind, but it seemed to quickly fade into the background...

  Kacey said, “No, not again....”

  Sheila picked up bloodied diapers from the floor before the couch.

  “Honey, you can talk to me... let it all out....”

  Still playing, Mark and Emily looked to Kacey. They stacked tape recorders like Legos.

  “Oh, God, I’m back again! This has to be a dream....”

  Sheila got up and sat on the couch beside her.

  One by one, Mark and Emily individually smashed all the tape recorders with miniature baseball bats. Kacey winched and jumped, pieces flying off her face, and legs, and Sheila...

  “Of course it’s not a dream, silly,” Sheila said, “you’re back here, with us—your family! Isn’t she, children? It’s that other stuff that’s a dream.”

  The insane omnipresent ghost laughter again went off.

  “Kids?”

  Mark and Emily sat on the floor, staring at Kacey. Kacey looked to the TV. On the now-dark screen were the words, “YOU LEFT US!” written in thick black letters. Filling the screen in subtle, dark letters all around those words were CART BEFORE THE HORSE, CART BEFORE THE HORSE, CART BEFORE THE HORSE...

  Kacey looked back to Mark and Emily. They now sat in a pool of blood, scribbling weird words on the floor using permanent markers.

  Sand blew past, got in their hair and clothes.

  “Honey,” Sheila said, “if something’s the matter we can certainly leave, just like you did....”

  Again, with the laughter.

  Kacey backed away—when Sheila reached out and grabbed her by the hand—but her grip slid off, and with it Kacey’s wedding ring. Kacey watched the ring slowly drop to the floor.

  “That’ll leave a Mark,” Sheila said.

  The laugh track went crazy wild!

  “The ring! Where’s the ring?” Kacey shouted.

  “Here it is, Mom!” Emily said.

  More laughter.

  Incredulously, Kacey grabbed the ring; looked to Emily.

  “You can’t talk—not like that—you’re only....”

  Sheila helped Kacey back down onto the couch.