Dark Hall Press Techno-Horror Anthology

by Oliver Smith

  I laugh. “Right, no serious jail time. Just don't say—”

  “Yet.”

  I snicker. “So, what're the details? You haven't told me yet.”

  “Ah, yes. Details. In a minute. We're waiting on Jacobs and Mannis.”

  As though summoned, the dry dirt road produces an old, beat up black Chevy sedan from the turn of the century. Manual transmission. The kind of engine roar I haven’t heard in decades.

  “Nice, isn't it?” Mike says crossing his arms, his half-drunk beer bottle perspiring against his side, darkening his shirt.

  Watching a cloud of dust rise like reddish smoke, I can’t help but admire how the beast-like vehicle moves like a hungry predator over the parched drive. It’s no wonder why the old guard hates the smooth, electric powered, driverless invention. They don't move like this. They move like sterile, steel coffins. This cruiser sounds ravenous.

  It growls a war cry before the engine cuts off. Jacobs hops out of the car with a huge grin plastered on his face. Mannis appears a little green.

  “Where the hell did you dig that relic up?” Mike says, throwing his hand out for a shake.

  Jacobs takes the man’s hand and his grin widens. “Grandad's will. Took me the better part of the year to get it going and nearly a month to find fuel. Hey Shawn.”

  “Jacobs.” I nod to him, my grin mirroring his.

  “Wanna see what's under the hood?”

  “Hell yes, I do.”

  I stare at Mike and try to sort out the correct response. Part of me wants to shake some sense into him. My practical side reminds me that this money's fast and certainly no joke.

  “Come on man, stop scratching your stubble and decide. You in or not?” Mike says and play-punches my arm.

  Blinking and taking in a deep breath, I wonder if I can really go through with this. Mike's jobs had always been small, petty get-rich-quick schemes, and though we never got rich, we barely managed to escape trouble every time. “I don't know man, these systems are really involved. This won't be as easy as you think.”

  “That's why we need you. I'm good with the mechanics, but no one's better with the programs than you.”

  “Quiet, Jacobs. Give the man some space,” Mannis says and pushes the other two back a few feet.

  It dawns on me, though I should have realized earlier. “This is your plan, isn't it?”

  Mannis smirks and takes a swig of his beer. “Come on, man. You didn’t really think Mike came up with this on his own, did you? No offense.” Mannis taps Mike on the shoulder with his drink.

  Mike shrugs. “None taken.”

  I consider this for a moment. Were there any jobs I'd done in the past where Mannis was the lead? I can't remember.

  “Canton,” Mannis says, smiling.

  “Huh?”

  “You were racking your brain trying to work out if I'm as big a fuck-up as Mike.”

  “No offense,” Mannis shoots a look at Mike.

  “Mannis, you shit. Keep it up and I might just start taking offense,” Mike says, trying to keep a straight face. He never takes anything seriously. It's probably why most of his plans fail; he only puts so much effort into any one thing.

  “Canton. Yeah, I remember that. That was yours?” I ask.

  Mannis nods.

  Canton turned out fine. No one even twisted an ankle taking down one of Charlotte's biggest exporters. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right.”

  Mike, Mannis, and Jacobs beam.

  “Gentlemen,” Mike pulls me to him in a rough hug, “This payday'll be big.”

  The couch groans as I sit. Pulling the heavy, bulky laptop out of its bag, I mourn the decision to sell my iTouch Slim V when we needed the money a few months ago. This relic is better than nothing, but runs as quickly as tar on a cold day.

  After several minutes the programs I need are running. It doesn’t take me long to find one of the back doors in the department’s secure network and hack in. Good thing for me the department set up these contingent access pathways just in case they somehow got locked out, and then were too lazy to close them during the workforce reduction. Who knows, maybe the people who knew about them got laid off, too. I laugh to myself. That would be typical of bureaucracy these days—save a little more by laying off a few more people. Who cares if they have families to feed?

  Focusing on the task at hand, I navigate through the network of connected directories. Pathways spread out before me, sub-directories give me names, dates, and routes of every driverless car in the area. After an hour and a half I’ve picked through a log of every connected vehicle in the area, sorting out the potential targets. After weeding out the patrol routes of coded agent cars, I’m able to make a list of non-cop targets. I jot down some notes in an open document file on my desktop. Luckily, one is due to pass through in a couple of days.

  With this information, I exit the secure network and get to work on writing the code for the system hack. Excitement flutters in my chest. This is turning out to be easier than I thought it would be.

  Rolling my neck, I wonder how long I'd been sitting completely still. Hours. “Shit, I worked through the night. Tammi's going to wake up soon. My fingers hovering over the keys, preparing to make the final keystrokes, I watch as the screen flickers and sputters. I startle, throwing my hands in the air, and hold my breath. No. No. No. How long had it been since I saved? An eternity seems to pass but then finally, with one more blinking flicker, the screen goes back to normal. Pages of script all appear to be intact. I thank whatever powers that be for the small miracle, save my work, and shut it down.

  Crickets and cicadas cry as the heat of the summer settles into a warm damp night. We sit huddled in a dark car, parked in the bushes on the side of the road. Even with the windows rolled down it’s sweltering.

  “If everything goes well, we'll hit the next target due to pass through tomorrow.” Mike says as he sits half turned in his seat. “You look nervous, Jacobs. Relax.”

  “Not nervous. Excited. What the hell am I supposed to be doing again?”

  “Distract the driver. Remember?” Mannis says.

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s right, make up some story and keep their focus on the engine.” Jacobs says and swallows hard enough for it to be audible. A thin sheen of sweat glimmers on his brow.

  Lights come around the bend.

  “This it?” Mike asks.

  “No,” I say and look at my monitor. “They're still fifteen minutes out. Be ready by nine-fifteen,” I take a deep breath. Jacobs isn't the only one who’s nervous. I've never been this far outside of the law. My guts churn. Even knowing that our targets are criminals, thugs, or mules carrying drug money—it doesn’t help. We’re not bringing them to justice. They aren’t going to go to jail or to face a judge once we’re done with them. If we're lucky and they cooperate, they'll walk away short some money.

  They'll have to face their people, which won't be a good deal for them, I think as an afterthought.

  The sweltering night seems to take on a chill. What we're doing could get them killed. Most likely we’ll get them killed. But they're bad guys, right? Who knows what they might have done to others before. My thoughts turn to Ellie, looking so pale and fragile. Would she be proud of me for this if she knew this is how daddy paid for her medicine? My resolve begins to crumble.

  Trying to distract myself from the crawling passage of time and my rising doubt, I listen to the guys bickering over the finer details of Mannis’s plan. It might as well be in another language. I can't focus on them. The sounds of the woods around us draw me in. Melodic chirping. The wailing screeches of cicadas. The wallop and grunts of frogs in a nearby ditch. Closing my eyes, I try to imagine I'm any place but here. I imagine the crackle of fire. We could be camping. I can almost lose myself as every part of my soul quiets. The tension in my shoulders lessens.

  “You alright, Shawn?” Mannis's voice breaks my concentration and the thrumming whir of a passing car reminds me where I am, physicall
y.

  “Yeah, just trying to relax.”

  Mannis narrows his eyes. “Yeah, well don't relax too much. We're on a job.”

  “Of course.”

  “What's the progress?”

  “Five miles out. I’ll start the interception in about a minute and a half.”

  My wristwatch chimes and I hit the keystrokes needed to load the code to the driverless car’s system. A flurry of coding symbols fly up the screen. I hold my breath.

  “Well?” Mannis asks.

  “It’s running.”

  The car comes around the corner as predicted. Light from its headlamps sweeps past us and my computer screen blinks and flickers. I gasp, and I restrain myself from hitting keys. Lifting the machine, I listen for the whir of the fan. It’s there.

  “Something wrong?” Jacobs asks.

  I return the computer to my lap and am relieved to see the monitor is back to normal. The code is still running the last few lines.

  “Nope.” I exhale.

  “There it goes,” Mannis calls from the driver’s seat and we all look. The driverless car's lights flicker, and it rolls to a stop in a conveniently unlit emergency turn off a couple hundred feet from us. It’s cabin lights die.

  I'm flooded with a sense of relief. My part is done. I close the lid on my laptop. Mannis puts the car in drive, and we head over to the disabled vehicle.

  “You're sure, everything’s been switched off? No alarms? No calls for help?” Mannis asks while watching me in the rearview.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. They're completely cut off from the controllers.”

  A small, well dressed woman stands by the car looking between it and us. Her eyes are wide, skin pale, and she wrings her hands together.

  Mannis parks a few feet from her. “You sure about this one, Shawn?”

  I review the information in my head. “Yes, this is the right one.”

  “They probably have women transport the goods just in case. Cops are less likely to search pretty women,” Mike says.

  “I'd like to,” Jacobs says, shifting in his seat.

  “Enough of that.” Mannis glares at him in the rear view. “We're not here for that. We get the money and we get out. That's it.”

  Mannis gets out of the car. He hails her, explaining we were just passing by.

  “Really? I didn't see anyone following me,” she says and inches back toward the door.

  The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

  “I don't know what to tell you Ma'am, except we just turned on about a mile or so back. There's a side road,” he said thumbing behind us.

  She nods. “I see. Sorry, it's not like I was watching out my back window or anything, but this all seems kind of crazy. Have you ever heard of a driverless cutting out like this?”

  “Oh, it happens from time to time. My friends and I are familiar with cars, mind if we take a look?”

  She gives a nervous laugh and nods, thanking Mannis for his generosity. He extends his hand for her to shake. “Chris Smith. And my friend Tony Isaac will be happy to help.”

  “Jacobs, that's your cue,” Mike whispers.

  “Right.” Jacobs smirks and gets out of the car.

  I watch as he approaches them with slouched shoulders and an easy gait. She seems to relax a little. I wonder what sort of innocent look he'd put on that baby face of his.

  They ask her what her car was doing before everything shut down, if it was making any sort of noises. She rattles off a list. Had I been in her shoes I might have asked more questions, or maybe stayed in the car, but truth be told, I am glad she is going along with it. They walk around to the front of the car and work a hidden lever to raise the hood to the engine compartment.

  “All right, big boy,” Mike says turning to me in his seat, “it’s my turn now. When I give you the thumbs up, you be ready to signal to Mannis like we talked about.”

  “And if you don’t, that means there’s no money and we’ll get out of here and regroup.”

  He smiles wide and exits the car quietly as soon as Mannis, Jacobs and the woman are hidden from view and makes his way to the driverless. He peers into the dark windows with a small light cupped in his hands.

  A high-pitched, quick-paced beeping sounds from my computer. It’s loud enough to startle me. No one else seems to hear it. I raise the lid and the screen is completely red with white numbers counting down quickly from just under two minutes. I scramble to make sense of it. “Countdown? To what?” A text box pops up, and the words I just spoke scrawl out. The curser blinks. The sound of my pulse is thunderous. I look around half expecting someone to be standing outside of the car watching me. No one's there. I look around the cabin of Jacob's car. I see no obvious cameras, but it’s dark. When I look back at my computer I realize the tiny green LED of the in-monitor camera is on.

  Hi there! appears in the text box. Found me, have you?

  I type, “Who's this?”

  No need to type, Shawn Morrow, we can hear you.

  My whole body locks, I'm not able to move a muscle. Numbers scroll down and my mind shuts down. Words don't come, thoughts make no sense. My world reduces to a few characters on the screen.

  You need to worry less about who we are, Mr. Marrow, and more about how to pay us back. Did you really think you could take what’s not yours?

  My mind scrambles to make sense of the situation. “No, I... I mean we just... look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what the countdown is for… If you’ll let me get the others we’ll leave without the money. Without everything. We’ll forget all of this.”

  You’re sorry? You’ll forget all about this? Who do you think you’re dealing with? Unlike you and your crew, we’re not complete amateurs. You want to break into our system and try to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from us, and you think we’ll just let you go. Like that. Just, sure—off with you, you little scamp?

  I read the beginning of the last line of text over and over: our system... My whole body tenses. I remember the flickering on the computer and realized my error. They had left those backdoors open on purpose. They hacked me.

  What feels like an eternity passes while the curser blinks rhythmically. The numbers are winding down. There’s no time to waste.

  “Of course not,” I say. “What do you want?”

  Let’s start with your life. The text is as effective as a slap in the face. I sink back into my seat and read the line over repeatedly. The world has grown so cold. The natural cries from forest creatures seem so distant. I’m going to die. This is it. I pull my phone from my pocket and select Tammi’s smiling picture. I’ll never see her or my little girl again. Only ten seconds remain on the countdown as I listen to her sweet voice and wait to tell her I love her.

  New text scrolls in the box below the numbers. Sorry, did I say your life? I meant your friends’.

  I look up to see Jacobs, Mannis, and the woman round the front of the car. Mike crouches around the back.

  “Get away from the car,” I shout.

  An alarm sounds out much louder this time and I look down to see Time's Up! An explosion erupts from the driverless car. A wave of pressure and heat slams into Jacobs’s car, shaking it. I cover my face. Glass flies in through the windows.

  Dazed, thinking about what to do next seems impossible. My ears ring in a long shrill note.

  But, I'm still alive. I'm still alive.

  Dear God.

  I look up. A hollowed out carcass remains where the driverless once stood, its bones engulfed in flames. Burning pieces shower down hitting the road, the car. They’re all gone. The scene is like an old a silent movie, with a one note musical score. Nausea hits me and I shake my head. Now’s not the time.

  Shawn Marrow.

  Attention, Shawn Marrow.

  I give the camera a look.

  Why the long face? Don’t you feel lucky?

  I shake my head.

  Well, that's gratitude for you. Your debt is now paid as well Never forget what this little
gamble has won you and your friends, and what it could cost you in the future should you try this sort of thing again. Go home, Shawn Marrow. Go home and see how much you helped your family.

  Tammi and Ellie.

  Panic resurges, worse than before. These people are monsters. What have I done? I crawl into the driver’s seat. As I drive, my mind plays out every horrible scenario.

  Tammi's driverless is in the driveway. Every room in the house has lights on, but I see no shadows move through the windows. Leaving Jacobs’s car in the road and then mounting the steps, I try to detect any sign of life beyond the windows. Any movement at all. I strain to listen for clattering dishes, Ellie's giggle, the television—anything. The doorknob is cold in my hand.

  Tammi lays on the floor face down. My heart jumps and sinks simultaneously. The air thickens. I can't breathe. It takes every ounce of effort not fall to my knees and weep. I'm afraid to touch her, to find out she's gone cold. To know that she’s dead because of me.

  My feet move me forward despite my fear. I have to know.

  Under my fingers, her skin is still warm. She moans and shifts a little. I stifle a sob. The urge to pick her up and hold her in my arms is tremendous, but I look down the hall and know it's not over yet.

  Each step is like quicksand, inch by sucking inch. Every movement forward stretches the corridor that much farther. My head spins. I don’t realize that I’m running until I crash against the doorjamb. The sight of her knocks the wind from my lungs. I'm too late. Ellie’s dead. My legs fail to support me, and I fall to my knees on the plush carpet.

  A thick foam cakes Ellie's mouth and nose. Her eyes are open. She’s not moving. Her skin is a pale gray color, glossy from sweat. I drop to my hands and throw up. Painful heaves wrack my body. I crawl to her, and reach a shaking hand out, wiping her face. Her skin is cool to the touch, but not cold. Maybe I’m not too late, if I can turn her over and get her breathing again.

  I can’t.

  The rest of the evening is a blur. Tammi tells me later that the medics had to pry me away from Ellie. Some anonymous doctor told us it was an unfortunate reaction to one of the new medications she was given. Tammi says she had left her phone on the coffee table in the living room and was in such a panic from seeing Ellie that way that she slipped on something and knocked herself out.