Crimson Son

by Russ Linton

  My eyes fall to the gun on the floor.

  I pick it up. A revolver of some kind. It looks old, the metal surface pitted with rust. I check the cylinder. Fully loaded.

  Voices chatter upstairs. If the age-old pattern holds, his mom will have been up since three A.M. and be headed to bed. Not a bad thought.

  I shuffle across the room to the bed and toss the gun underneath. When I sit this time, the bed has the power of that super magnet, locking onto the tiny particles of iron in my blood stream. I drop and even though the smell is worse here, my sore body refuses to right itself.

  Voices continue upstairs, humming through the sub-floor and droning into a hypnotic buzz that gets simultaneously louder and farther away as my consciousness begins to drift. Laying here, I’m closer to that one true home than I’ve been in years.

  I wonder if she’s close, too.

  *

  Pretty soon, I’m floating. There’s no odor, no distant hum, and the room’s light is a single round pool, etching ripples across the surface of my skin. I look above and see a shape. A person maybe? It’s so small and so far away and then, nothing. I strain to see past the light until my vision becomes an amorphous, glowing blob.

  The light shifts and the shape above me mars the center. Details of a person emerge, their arms pointed forward, legs arrow straight, and a face shrouded in darkness.

  Closer, and I see it’s a man.

  Closer, and the muscled form is unmistakable. Dad.

  He’s wearing his costume, but no mask. His hair is swept back by the motion and reflects the liquid glow. A red film covers him from forehead to chin, his glacier eyes floating in a sea of blood. Expressionless, he wraps an arm around my waist as he passes. We hurtle toward the darkness below.

  A pale hand breaks the outer column of light, grasping at us as we pass. From the shadows, the withered corpse of my mom emerges. Her skin is shriveled and her face clings to raw bone in thin, torn sheets. Her mouth falls open as she reaches out. “Spencer,” she calls from somewhere between the curtain of light and the dark oblivion.

  “Mom!” I grab for her hand, but she’s already out of reach. Soon, she is a tiny speck sucked into the darkness. I’m crying, beating on my father’s shoulder, but he dives deeper and his speed increases. Faster now, until my cheeks burn and my blood pools. His face turns to me, stretched tight with effort. Determination and another emotion that catches me completely off guard—fear.

  “Let me go!” I grab his arm. All of my muscles lock and strain against his titanic strength. Futile, like trying to lift a mountain, but as I push that mountain quakes. My throat burns as I yell. I shake and quiver on the edge of a collapse where the massive weight will slip and crush me.

  He stops and his arm slips away. The momentum fires me into the darkness; an escape pod from a tube, or a bullet from a gun, I can’t tell. Before the shock wears off and before I can cry out, he’s nothing more than a speck wheeling to face the light racing toward him. Defiant, he’s completely absorbed by the energy. The great maw of the bloating star collapses around me and deep within, I feel a presence, watching.

  An incessant beeping interrupts the nightmare. But, no, I’m still asleep. A dream within a dream? What’s going on?

  I slap wildly to the side and miss the alarm clock. Opening my eyes isn’t on the priority list. I grope around the nightstand. Finally, defeated, I start smashing every square inch of the dresser until it collapses and the beeping stops.

  Dad’s standing in the door to my room. Yep, my room again. The Giants posters this time are from the last team I saw in action which was the same crew Eric and I braved that curfew-busting game to watch. I’m home. The one place we ever lived that I could give the name to.

  “See, Dad? I did it!” Maybe he’ll overlook the pile of kindling that used to be the nightstand. Surely he had problems like this when he got Augmented? Ripping apart doors he meant to open? Crushing a can of Coke and spewing it all over the place? I never saw that if it ever happened, that would’ve been before I was born, but he has to understand.

  No smile or nod of approval. He doesn’t look pissed even. No, that fear is still etched on his face.

  “Dad, come on! I’m an Augment!” I give the former nightstand another whack and splinters scatter into the air.

  “I’m sorry. You’ll have to clean this up on your own,” he bows his head and disappears into the hall.

  Maybe he’s as shocked as I am. Once it sets in, he’ll see how cool this is going to be. No way am I going to be his goofy sidekick though.

  “What’s all the racket?” Mom’s voice seems to come from the walls, the vents, everywhere and I can’t help but smile in spite of the creep factor.

  “Mom! Come quick!” I shout.

  She steps into the room drying her hands on a kitchen towel. They’re stained red and the white towel is smeared with scarlet splotches. I start to ask why, but she interrupts, “Did your Dad—”

  “No! It was me!”

  She smiles knowingly. “Oh, honey, what happened?”

  As she picks her way through the mess and sits on my bed, the knowing smile never wavers. I’m excited to show her, but confused by her reaction. I decide to up the stakes. I leap up, extend my fist and imagine blasting off through the ceiling. The bed settles under the sudden movement and my feet sink into the mattress. Mom balances on the edge with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

  I pump my fist upward and toss my head back, trying to will the next step. My feet sink further.

  “So, maybe it’s not all there, yet. But Mom, I’ve become an Augment! I’m strong like Dad!”

  I plop down on the bed next to her, frantically search the room, and see the Robb Nenn autographed baseball “Dad” brought to me a week after my thirteenth birthday. I snatch it and toss a heater at the wall. White ribbons of dust drift out of the hole.

  “Spencer!” Mom sounds amused and not the least bit surprised.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s just… just…”

  “What?”

  “Well, I think… I don’t know,” I ramble. It’s getting difficult to form a thought. Both Mom and Dad are reacting so strangely to my news.

  The bright shimmer in her eyes wavers like the light on the bottom of a pool, and with that shift comes the silvery sheen. “You can tell me, sweetie.”

  “He just walked off. Didn’t say a word about my powers. He used to talk about this happening to me, even though it can’t.” I start to shake off the dream. “How did this happen?”

  “Don’t you want this?” she asks.

  “No. I don’t. I never wanted this. Dad wanted it. Not me.”

  “Why does that matter, Spencer?” She’s closer now. Her stained hand grips mine and her gaze devours me.

  “I’m not sure.” I want to look away, but I can’t.

  “Dude.” A whispered voice inserts itself between us. Right next to my head even, but I can’t look away.

  “What if we were all Augments, Spencer?” she says.

  I nod.

  “Dude!” The whisper persists.

  “The whole family. Wouldn’t that be nice?” The light in her iris intensifies and becomes the source for a ring of pure brilliance on the wall behind her, bleaching the baseball posters into white emptiness. “Come find me. We’ll be a family. Again. We’re waiting for you.”

  I’m shaking. Uncontrollably. Sweat. Body odor. My body odor? A wave of tomato sauce and oregano fights off the stench.

  Eric leans over me, gruffly pounding a fist on the bed. He has a paper plate in his hand and the microwave on the wall is open behind him.

  “Hot Pocket?”

  Chapter 30

  Dragging Eric out of the house had been as easy as convincing a vampire he needed some vitamin D. When I told him to bring a laptop, he seemed less squeamish. When I told him to make sure it was a laptop he didn’t care much about, he looked torn. I don’t want to do any more damage than I already have, but there isn’t a choice. />
  “Why can’t we take the truck?” he whines as he bends protectively over his shoebox on wheels. I glance back into the crowded mall parking lot, and the beat-up pickup’s bumper peeks out from a row of mini-vans and tiny hybrid cars. “Why am I even doing this?” he mumbles.

  “The truck is hot. And if you can’t break this code, I need to talk to this Polybius guy.”

  “There’s no telling what they’ve got at that facility,” he says. “We need to keep clear of the hunters. We’re the prey here.”

  “I said you can wait in the car. But I still need your car. Someone’ll be looking for that truck, eventually.”

  “And my car! You keep forgetting, they’re watching all of us, Spencer!”

  I grit my teeth to avoid attacking his little fantasy for like the umpteenth time. “I’m done hotwiring cars, so it’s yours or we walk.” Without waiting for a response, I climb in the passenger’s side and slam the door. Eric stares at me through the windshield. His face tightens and he spits a string of curse words that fail to penetrate the glass while his arms jerk tightly around his body. Finally, he storms around the front and plops into the driver’s seat. Forearms heavy on the wheel, he leans forward.

  “Man, this is such a bad idea,” he groans.

  “You have a better one that doesn’t involve hiding in your basement?” I grumble.

  He shakes his head but refuses to make eye contact.

  “I’m asking a lot, I know that. But remember the picture I showed you? My reinforced bunker that Beetle’s drone wrecked? If you really believe he’s after you, you can sit around and wait for him to find you, ‘cause he will. Or, we can act like Augments and go on the offensive. Get him first.” I can’t believe I’m using his ridiculous story to talk him into this. He deserves a better friend.

  Eric nods. He stretches his seatbelt across his belly and starts the car, cruising out of the lot without a word. I turn on the radio and he immediately shuts it off, no explanation. Only his continued hyper-vigilance, I guess. The trip should take five hours and leave us in another state. It’s going to be a long drive.

  As he makes his way to the highway, his eyes are everywhere but the road ahead: on ramps, the rearview, scanning the skies. Been there, done that. The feeling that Mom might be out there overrides fear with a sense of urgency. I want to be there, now. He’s fighting a flight response, I’m just fighting.

  I’ve got no reason to believe in those dreams any more than I do in my friend’s personal delusions. They aren’t exactly coherent. Simply real. Intensely real. Like I’m having a conversation with her after all this time. I can’t be sane either, I’ve already thought of that. Two years in a bunker, being chased by killer robots, and finding you’ve driven your only friend to the brink of insanity should be enough to push somebody over the edge.

  “What’s KUBARK?” I ask. The question draws a flick from his roving eyes.

  “A cryptonym, for the CIA.” Eric turns his head, “Why? Where’d you see that? Your Dad’s stuff?”

  “No. I think I saw it on a book of some sort,” I lie. I’m not ready to talk dream interpretation with Eric.

  “Plain cover, manila, maybe a field manual?” As he asks for the details, another glance in my direction but it slips toward the glove compartment. The glance is subtle, but as part of his increasingly weird vibe, it makes me worry. He insisted on bringing the gun.

  “Yeah.” I say, trying not to sound too nervous. “What is it?”

  “You, the Beetle. Both were gaps in my knowledge. Once you left, anyway. I never figured that out.” His tone is detached and I can’t find an answer to my question in his response.

  “I told you, I was in the Bunker.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It could be the trance of the open road, but Eric’s twitchiness has stopped. We’re northbound on a stretch of interstate between areas of civilization. The sun is high and the heat in the air condition-less car stifling.

  “It occurs to me,” he continues, “this could all be an elaborate trap. A way to pull us into the open.”

  “C’mon, man. How would they know we were going to drive up and knock on Polybius’s door?”

  A piercing glare and Eric asks, “I don’t know. How would they?”

  “No, Eric. No. No. No! We talked about this. I’m Spencer. Not an Augment with shape shifting powers. No powers, nada! I want to find my mom, that’s all. I don’t want to see anyone get caught or get hurt.”

  Maintaining that withering gaze, he isn’t answering and I feel compelled to start watching the road ahead for him. “If the Beetle is chasing me, he’s only after this.” I dig out the bag with the sat phone and thumb drive. “He wants this information. Beetle could give two shits about me.”

  “He’s rounding us all up…”

  “Not anymore. But this data might tell us who he is and what he really wants. You said it yourself; he’s not a part of the Augment program, he’s an unknown. A player that even you, Eric the Omniscient, doesn’t know dick about.” From wild suspicion to an almost maniacal stare, he considers the backpack. His face is intense and I can’t watch. Facing the passenger window I say, “Dude, just pull over and drop me off.”

  No answer.

  “I can hitch from here. I never should have gotten you involved,” I say.

  “I was already involved,” comes the reply.

  Now I can’t turn away from the window, because my eyes start to water. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, Spencer. We didn’t choose to be this way.”

  “We didn’t.”

  He sags against the wheel. “It’s an interrogation manual.”

  “Huh?”

  “KUBARK. Manila cover. A field manual for interrogation.” I wipe my eyes and risk a glance. He’s absorbed by the road as he speaks, “Typical stuff. Electric shocks, isolation, whatever will make people talk. Softer techniques such as getting people to trust you work best.”

  “Eric, you can trust me. I swear.”

  “I hope so. Probably too late for me to turn around anyway.”

  We continue on in silence. Mountains rise ahead, giving a vague impression of distant thunderheads floating on the horizon. As we get closer, the mountains flank the highway in jagged walls. Pretty soon we’re signaling for an exit.

  The world shrinks as we enter a labyrinth of hills, valleys and towering pines. On the highway, everyone seemed so close. The sky smothering, the traffic an angry swarm, and the road behind a lurking presence. Here, trees stretch up beyond the top edges of the windshield, and we’re driving through a tunnel draped by a blue and feathered sky. Camouflaged from the world, I’ve returned to a kind of isolation. Never thought I would want it that way ever again.

  “Get ready. We’re almost there.” Panic tinges Eric’s words. “You have a plan?”

  “Yeah,” I say, taking in the last bit of calm from the wilderness. “Let me do the talking.”

  Chapter 31

  We pass a weathered sign on the side of the road. Raw wood and a bit of peeling paint sport the words “Whispering Pines Living Center”. The sign is graced with an angular, jagged logo, maybe a tree someone with safety scissors and a helmet might cut out. It’s a far cry from the almost up-to-date website. Next to the sign sits a guard shack and a striped wooden gate arm blocking the road. On the other side of the arm, embedded in the pavement, is a thick strip of metal that gives the impression there’s a hunk of steel buried flush with the pavement. Next to the guardhouse lurks a black SUV.

  A thick-necked guy blocks the road, sporting a military haircut and a handgun. The white shirt, black pants uniform has “mall cop” written all over it. That’s fine, maybe we’re wasting our time here. He’s pretty buff, though, and his expression says he takes the job way too seriously.

  Eric creeps forward and rolls the window down. Super Mall Cop is already posted in the middle of the road with his palm out and jaw set. He’s staring down Eric’s shoebox car, daring us to run him over. Eric lurc
hes forward as he goes for the brake while fumbling with the window controls at the same time. The front end gets awkwardly close to the guard. He doesn’t budge.

  “Put it in park, please,” the guard commands. The last word has no hint of politeness. He walks over to the driver’s window and bends down to look inside. His movements suggest some sort of ritual born of the same rote training Dad always hounded me about. He’s not too close, and keeps his hands off the car while his eyes somehow simultaneously lock with ours and search the interior. He’s checking hands, the bag in the floorboard, along with scoping out the laptop. “Can I help you?” Again, no sincerity.

  Eric’s whole body stiffens and his face starts to change color. I lean over him and say, “Yeah. We were looking for a place to camp and got lost.”

  Unyielding eyes drill into mine and the guard responds, “Take the road there back west and you’ll find the interstate.”

  “Oh, right, but, I was hoping maybe to use your phone? Mine’s out of juice…”

  Eric’s color goes from rosy to virulent. He might explode soon.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  At this point, the guard is watching Eric as well, probably judging the distance he needs to be so he doesn’t get spattered with bits of him. If Eric pops, his eyeballs are going to go first because they’re practically protruding out of their sockets.

  “What about an internet connection? Surely the old folks chat with the grandkids. I can Google a campground. I’ll be quick, promise.”

  “Going to have to ask you to leave, sir,” Super Mall Cop says. He doesn’t flinch.

  I don’t look like a “sir”. Something else he must be doing out of habit. This has to be the place.

  “Well, thanks anyway.”

  I backhand Eric’s leg and he grinds through the gears into reverse, eventually whipping around in a cloud of dust. We’re out of sight of the main gate before he sputters, “That was your plan?”