by Schow, Ryan
Knees wobbling, his head trying to make sense of the gash in his inner thigh, the man staggered backwards only a single step before Delta 1A was back up and on him. He grabbed a handful of hair, jerked the man’s head back and opened his throat with a pull of the blade. Already losing pressure from the fatal thigh injury, the spray of blood was less than spectacular.
The dead man crashed to his knees, flopped forward on his face. More than anything, Delta 1A wanted to kneel and whisper his rage into the man’s ear, to bathe in the carnage of his misdeeds, to let the blood spurt hot into his mouth, into his face, all over every pore on his shaved, pale body. But this luxury would be denied to him. It would always be denied to him. This, of course, was what fueled the hatred inside him: his unmet needs.
Gem said, “Head to the extraction point. Right now.”
“Go to hell,” he whispered.
He felt her struggling for control inside him, but he was too strong for her, his need a greater force than her will alone. He dipped his gloved finger in blood-drenched carpet, put the red dot into his mouth where it tasted coppery sweet and oh so warm. Euphoria coursed through him in waves of airy delight. He closed his eyes, smiled.
Before Gem could try again for control, he sprung to his feet and raced for the door. Gem was upset with him. He didn’t care. He bolted through the back door where he saw a white haired old man in his robe looking at him from the fence line of the property next door. He shot the startled man in the face.
No witnesses.
Within minutes, he was at the extraction point where the same black van that brought him there now scooped him up before accelerating away at a leisurely pace.
Delta 1A took a seat on the leather bench seat next to a fit man with salt and pepper hair and a deeply set frown. Like Delta 1A, this man was dressed shoulder-to-toe in a black tactical suit. Delta 1A knew this man as The Hand. The Hand put on an earpiece, almost like a Bluetooth device but smaller. He said, “Target.”
“Girl plus three,” Delta 1A said. “All successfully eliminated.”
The “plus three” part appeared to make The Hand squirm. He called in the kills, his gaze never leaving Delta 1A. When The Hand was done with the call, he withdrew a black light and scanned the boy front and back for blood and fiber evidence. He finished a moment later. From a nearby kit, The Hand took out a clean towel and some liquid solution. He cleaned the spot of blood on Delta 1A’s glove, then put it into another separate bag. He sealed the bag, returned his items to the kit.
“Gem, rise,” he said.
Delta 1A felt himself slipping backwards inside the boy’s body. “No,” the boy’s mouth said.
“Yes,” The Hand replied.
He felt himself sliding backwards into the boy’s mind. The minute he felt himself pass the essence he knew as Gem, he directed the full force of his hatred upon her. When she took the front of the body, The Hand gave a knowing nod and said, “Gem, report.”
Gem told him everything. For a long moment The Hand sat in contemplative silence. Then, with clarity in his eyes, he said, “On a scale of one to ten, your boy sure screwed the pig on this one.”
“Delta 1A is unstable,” Gem warned. “The system is unstable.”
The Hand placed a call to Monarch Enterprises once more, opening a line with the boy’s handler, Brice O’Brien. “Delta 1A went off the rails,” he said. “The girl plus three. And Gem says the system is unstable.”
“How unstable?” Brice asked on the other end of the line.
The man looked up at Gem and said, “System status?”
“Unreliable.”
“Yes, but is it salvageable?” he asked Gem.
“Affirmative.” Gem did not want her system to be unsalvageable. That would mean she no longer had purpose and to no longer have purpose meant death.
All their deaths.
“We need a full system overhaul. Gem believes there’s a way back.”
The Hand awaited Brice’s reply, but within seconds he realized he was waiting on an empty line.
Cockroaches
1
The last thing Damien expected after making the drive to Palo Alto that night was to arrive at the scene of multiple murders. Traffic coming up to the house was clogged with emergency vehicles, media, and residents, all trying to thread through the mess. Ahead he saw a gathering of residents huddled close in their robes and coats. Some were talking amongst each other, with new residents gathering steadily. A man and wife in their evening attire, a group of teenagers on bikes, skateboards and scooters. Panic burned through him like flash-fire in his guts.
Sitting on the overly manicured, tree-lined street, gridlocked in what amounted to heavy neighborhood traffic, his heart beat at a full gallop. Seconds later, a light sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. The impossibly dark night glowed with the red and blue rolling of siren light, and yellow crime scene tape stretched across a front yard ahead. He got out of his car, his eyes going first to the news crews, then two homes up to the crime scene itself. Based on the house numbers, the source of interest was Savannah’s home.
He walked up to the closest reporter, a thirty-something woman checking her hair and teeth in a compact mirror. The cameraman told him to stay back. He said, “I just want to know what happened.”
The reporter, a medium sized Hispanic woman with excellent bone structure but uninteresting features turned to him, looking irritated. She was about to tell him to leave, but reconsidered when she saw how good looking he was. Her expression changed, the smile dramatically improving her look.
She said, “Are you a fan?”
“I have friends on this street.”
The cameraman, clearly trying to move the reporter along, said, “We need to get into position, Nichole. We’re live in two.”
Rushed, she said, “I’m told the Van Duyn family was murdered here late last night. A neighbor discovered them early this evening. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
The blood siphoned from his face as the cold spread to his bones. His feet took him back to his car, his mind reeling. Traffic hadn’t moved yet, so when he got into his car, he just sat there in the dark, dazed. Tears boiled in his eyes when a ticking of fingernails on his window made him jump.
Some freak in a deep, black hoodie had a palm on his window. Whether it was a boy or girl, he couldn’t tell. He shooed whomever it was away. The freak slapped their palm on the glass in response and he startled. The hand, a female hand, motioned to roll down the window. He rolled it down an inch, cautious.
The voice said, “I wasn’t sure you’d show. We need to get out of here.”
“Savannah?”
“Shhhh! Open the passenger door.” As she limped around the front of his car, he fumbled for the power lock button, clicked the locks open. Favoring her leg, like maybe she had been injured, she less than gracefully got into the car and said, “Get me out of here, please.”
The invisible band constricting his chest loosened and he managed a stabilizing breath. “Oh my God, Savannah. I thought—”
“Just go!”
It took a minute, but with traffic so tight and streets so narrow, the best he could do to get moving in the other direction was a ten point turn. Bystanders begrudgingly moved out of his way to let him by. A pair of teenagers who didn’t want to move drummed the trunk lid of his Honda and called it a piece of crap. They were right.
When they were moving away from the scene, he finally said, “What in the hell is going on?”
“Apparently my family and I are now dead.”
2
Damien was rounding a bend on the way out of the neighborhood when a speeding news van locked its brakes to keep from hitting them head on. Damien veered to the side, nearly taking out a garbage can. The guy in the news van had his hand out the window, waving them out of the way, angry, impatient.
“Jesus, calm down,” Damien grumbled. He backed up, circled around the garbage can enough for the van to squeeze through. As he carefully passed t
he impatient driver, they nearly scraped fenders.
“Calm down, guy!” Damien mouthed at the driver.
With his window already down, the van’s driver said, “Get that hunk of shit out of the way!” When they were all but clear of each other, the driver flipped Damien the bird.
“Freaking cockroach,” Savannah said, livid.
With his senses severely out of alignment, and his emotions a catastrophic mess, he looked over at Savannah. He was practically desperate for answers. “What do you mean you and your family are dead?”
Still hiding her face, she sat nearly unresponsive, an island unto herself. A minute later she wiped her eyes and that’s when he realized she was crying. As much as the curiosity nagged at him, as demanding as he wanted to become in getting answers, he chewed on his lip and drove in silence instead.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“Called a cab.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you been listening, Damien? Someone’s been watching me. Us.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”
Every so often she would tell him to “turn left,” or “turn at the light,” but otherwise, she seemed like she was in shock. Wherever they were going, he realized it didn’t matter.
Who would kill an entire family?
A few minutes later, doing thirty-five through the lights of downtown, Damien snuck another glance. She turned away. Blowing out a frustrated breath, he said, “Okay, I can’t take this any longer.”
“I showed up to meet you there, but…I don’t…” Suddenly she was overwhelmed by a sob, and that’s when he pulled over and killed the engine.
Before he could speak, she drew back her hoodie and turned to face him. Without thinking, he recoiled, startled. The left half of her face had slipped an inch or two down her bones. The skin looked melted, like the muscle structure had deteriorated and the flesh just sort of slid out of the hollows left behind. His gaze sunk to her chest, which looked pancaked on one side.
“Oh…God,” he whispered.
She pulled her hoodie back on, turned away from him. “Told you I was having problems,” she said, sniffling. “Not that you needed to act like such an ass about it.”
“Sorry, it’s just, damn.”
“I know how it looks, believe me. But my appearance is starting to feel like the least of my problems. Especially now.”
Damien couldn’t move. All he wanted to do was say “Oh my God” again.
“Give me your phone,” she said. He handed her his iPhone. Using a small Phillips head screwdriver, she opened the back of it, removed the battery, set the three pieces in the center console. “I’ve got a burner phone for you at my house.”
“That wasn’t your house?”
“It was a few days ago. Now it’s someone else’s house. At least, it was.”
Sleep of the Dead
1
As Damien drives me home, it takes every last ounce of strength to keep from sobbing like a giant, retarded baby. People are dead because of me. They’re dead! The tears start up again and they don’t stop coming. Damien puts his hand on my arm, tells me we’ll figure it out.
I can’t even look at him.
I feel so ugly, so lost, and my hip is killing me where I had my McSurgery the other day. The people who bought our home and just moved in were murdered because I talked about the Virginia Corporation. They didn’t deserve this.
“This cockroach reporter I spoke to earlier, she said she saw two cops puking out back. She said ‘You just don’t see that kind of thing happening on murder scenes. It must be bad. Like really, really bad.’ Damien, they were slaughtered. They were slaughtered and it’s my fault.”
When we pull away from the curb, I give Damien directions to my new house and when we get there I see Margaret’s Bentley in the driveway.
“That’s just freaking great,” I hear myself mutter.
2
Margaret and my father are sitting at opposite ends of the living room with their eyes glued to breaking news on the TV. Margaret has a goblet of wine in her hand, and my father has a snifter of Brandy in his. A window is cracked, and it reeks of pot smoke. Already I’m horrified. Looking at the two of them, I can’t help wondering if I’m in the right house. Or even on the right planet.
Margaret looks up, slides her drink behind her back, but my father acts like he could give a shit less. “Hello Sav…, Abigail.”
“Dad,” I say, staring at Margaret who is looking either shocked or guilty as hell.
Margaret says, “I thought you were at Netty’s.”
My eyes turn to the TV where the live footage of our old home is running. The headline reads: MURDER AT THE VAN DUYN RESIDENCE. Neither my father nor the monster seem to have the words.
“What’s in the glass, Margaret?” I say. To think I was actually going to open myself up to the idea of reconciliation makes me sick.
“Wine, and a crushed up valium. Can you believe this?”
At least she’s being honest.
“When are you finally going to hit bottom?” I hear myself ask. My tone is the same as usual: overtly hostile
The monster sees Damien and forces a pleasant smile on her wicked, deceptive face. She says. “Who’s your handsome little friend?”
“That’s what you have to say? You’re fresh out of rehab, alcohol in hand, in my house watching the murders of people living in our old house and you want to know who I’m with? Are you completely mental?”
I expect my father to react, but his eyes are rimmed red and—looking at Damien—he makes a stupid grin and says, “Whaddup playa?”
Holy shit, is he drunk?! Or high? I’m totally speechless. Then it all comes at once. My emotional tornado bearing down on them in sharp, loathsome words.
“Damien, that monster over there (pointing to Margaret) is the egg donor, and that guy over there who’s clearly stoned (pointing to my father), he’s going through a mid-life crisis. Plus, he’s the sperm-donor. And don’t say you’re pleased to meet them because, even though I’m the genetic freak of nature here, they should be embarrassed for themselves. The egg donor’s fresh out of rehab, in case you didn’t know. C’mon.”
I drag him by the hand to my bedroom, ignoring Margaret when she says, “Nice to meet you Darren!”
3
Back in my room, I slam the door, then turn to Damien and say, “I can’t believe that just happened.”
He shrugs his shoulders and says, “So your parents self-medicate, so what?”
“I’ve never seen my dad like that. Then again, ever since his…makeover…he’s been pretty much regressing in age and maturity. I mean, he’s had some entertaining moments, but that talk? Calling you playa? Holy Jesus, that was the worst!”
“If things weren’t so surreal right now, I’d say it was funny. Remember the first time you met my parents? I’m not sure I have a right to judge first impressions here. Oh, and by the way, I had no idea that was him. Why didn’t you tell me he got a makeover, too?”
My cell phone rings; it’s Netty. I pick up and before I can say a word, she starts unwinding. “Omigod! They’re saying you’re dead! What happened? Who are those people in the body bags?”
I flip on the TV and the scene has a dreamlike quality to it. My house is backlit in the night by cameras and flashbulbs, and they’re wheeling three body bags down the front walkway.
Horrified, I shut the TV off.
I say, “Obviously I’m not dead, but you can’t tell anyone that. Look, just come over in like, a half an hour. My life’s in the toilet right now and I need a friend.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Damien says.
I mouth the word girlfriend to him, already feeling better that Netty has agreed to come over. I step into the hallway, leaving Damien sitting on the bed. “My friend Damien is here,” I say quietly into the phone. Her frantic tone changes. She asks if he’s my boyfriend and I’m like, “No, he’s not my boyfriend, he’s just a boy who happens t
o be a friend.”
“Is he hot?”
I look at him with the good side of my face, and whisper, “Yes he’s hot.”
“Is he smoking hot?”
“Just come over!”
“Be there in a few,” she says, hanging up without even saying good-bye.
Whatever my dilemma, however horrible things have become, I can’t stop thinking, Damien’s in my room, sitting on my bed!
Of course, this would have been so much better if the left half of my body were actually in tact.
4
Netty gets to my house by ten and I can tell by the look on her face she’s been really, really worried about me. Seeing my sagging features makes her wince, but I give her points for trying to hide it. She pulls me into a hug, but she’s holding me they way you’d hold a leukemia patient. Or a person so old and frail you just know if they blow a hard fart, they’re going to crack a hip.
“Not so beautiful now, am I?” I say. The smell of her is familiar, like home.
“Don’t say that,” she says. She holds me for a long time, lightly, not putting pressure on my body, but not wanting to let go either.
If there’s something to be grateful for, it’s that Netty is here, and that both my father and the monster are nowhere to be found. Maybe they left the house; maybe they’re passed out; maybe they’re making another disappointing child out of wedlock.
Netty says, “I love you, Savannah.”
“I love you, too, Netty. I’m so glad you came over.”
Then I hear footsteps and I know they’re Damien’s. I can’t really blame him if he’s grown tired of waiting by himself in my bedroom.
