Whispers of a Killer

by Jen Haeger

  “Sylvy, we have got to move. We’ve got to get to Lincoln.”

  Lincoln, my poor neglected boy who must know I can barely stand to be in the same room with him. I have to get to him. I have to save him. I can do this. I can do this for Lincoln. I owe him this.

  Nodding, I close my eyes and allow Ben to drag me forward, but our progress is too slow. I open my eyes again and am assaulted once more by the sight of the WHISPs in the crowd, but I steel myself. They can’t hurt me, not this time.

  Then, without any forewarning, we’re through and I can see the lab building. My feet feel like I’ve been treading on broken glass, but I keep pace with Ben as we hurl up the steps and to the door. He grabs the handle, and the door vibrates violently but doesn’t open. Catching my breath, I point to a card reader on the adjacent wall with a glowing red light. “It’s locked.”

  “Fuck!”

  He smacks a hand against the glass, and casts around as if looking for something to smash the glass, but I’m already heading back down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “That’s safety glass, we need to find another way in!”

  Not waiting for Ben, I leap a short stone wall and head around the side of the building. There aren’t any convenient low windows and any I might be able to reach by climbing are safety windows that don’t open far enough for someone to climb in, so I keep going. Ben catches up and tries another door, but it’s also locked with a card reader. Rounding the back of the building, I skid to a stop as I spot a service door without a card reader. This one is made of metal and has a simple deadbolt. After he finds this door locked as well, Ben sprints away.

  “Wait! I can pick this one.”

  “With what?”

  A list of lock picking tools flash through my mind: a nail file, nail scissors, a hairpin, a paperclip, a lightbulb filament, the spring from a pen…

  “A pen!”

  I fumble through Ben’s coat and come up with a ball point pen. Disassembling it, I retrieve the spring, straighten it, and then twist it into the proper shape. He dances impatiently from one foot to the other while I insert the spring into the lock. I steady my shaking fingers so I can feel the delicate mechanism inside and with a few deft motions the tumblers give way, but the spring is too flimsy to turn the lock.

  “Get the clip off the pen and use it to turn the deadbolt.”

  When Ben sticks the clip from the pen into the lock, the deadbolt turns. Dropping the clip, he grips the handle, and as I straighten, the door swings open.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Legislative reforms are never a speedy proposal, but never before has Congress faced such a fraught and complicated issue as WHISP rights.”

  Harney Glutz, (R) Delaware

  I’m holding my breath, but let it out when no alarms go off. The door opens into a stark stairwell, but the lab is in the basement and there are no stairs leading down here.

  “Dammit!”

  “We’ll have to go up and find another stairwell.”

  Nodding, I follow Ben up the steps while I’m trying to orient myself with where we are in the building. I’d been to the lab a few times to take Lincoln out to lunch, but it’s been a while. At the landing, we exit into a hallway lined with labs and offices. Sprinting down the hall, we startle a student coming out of one of the labs, and he drops the binder he’s carrying, which spews papers in a wide arch around him. “Hey!”

  We don’t slow for an apology. Luckily, the building is otherwise deserted, thanks to the upcoming long weekend. At a fork, we head right, which I think is toward the front of the building, and make it down a similar hallway to a second stairwell that looks less neglected. Taking the stairs two at a time, I slip and narrowly avoid a nasty tumble by clutching the handrail at the last moment.

  Vertigo slows my pace, but then I see the stairs continue down past the ground floor and I get another surge of adrenaline. Ahead of me, Ben is already through the landing door and I push myself to catch up to him.

  He slows to look at the numbers next to the doors but then runs a hand over his slick forehead and through his hair, wetting it and causing it to stick up. “Dammit, I don’t remember what number it is!”

  “It’s 27A. Go!”

  My side is ready to explode and the pain in my feet is making my eyes water, but we’re steps away from the lab now so I’m right on Ben’s heels as he lunges forward around a corner.

  “There!”

  He reaches the door first and yanks it open. My heart is beating so hard my ribs are beginning to ache. Oh, please lord, please let Lincoln be okay. Ben takes a step inside and then all the color drains from his face. He looks to me and puts a hand up, but I’m already shoving past him into the chaos. Several instruments are sparking and smoking, there’s a small fire in front of one of the outlets, and the fluorescent lights overhead flicker wildly, causing a strobe effect. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust enough for me to take in the details, but then I see it. In the center of the room are the remains of a person, their blood splattering the nearby benches and equipment, pooling under the entrails strewn across the floor. The smell slaps me in the face: iron and viscera.

  “NO!”

  Lurching forward, I skid on blood and land on my knees next to the head of the body in a pool of gore. I’m shaking all over and I have to rub my eyes to clear them, and then again after they focus, when I think they’re lying to me. This close, I can see the hair of the victim is long and blond. I let out a strangled cry as relief and horror permeate my insides.

  “It’s not—”

  I see the instrument maybe a second before it strikes my face just below my right eye. There’s a wet crack when it hits, and I’m momentarily blinded as pain shoots into my eye.

  “Sylvy!” Ben’s voice is pitched with anguish and I can sense him, more than see him, coming toward me.

  “Don’t…”

  But it’s too late. Now that he’s fully inside the lab, one of the fluorescent lights shatters and rains glass down on him until the whole fixture crashes down on his head.

  “Ben!”

  My eyes dart around the room as I crawl through the slick blood to Ben’s prone form. When I arrive and touch his face he stirs.

  “Wha happen…?”

  “It’s the WHISP, it’s still here.”

  “Lincoln…” Ben’s voice is lost in a sob.

  “No, no, it wasn’t him. I don’t see him. He must be in with the accelerator, and if Ray’s still here, it must mean he’s protected. Come on, we have to get to him before he comes out.”

  As I help Ben out from under the light, I see blood trickling from his head down the side of his face, and his clumsy movements are signs of a concussion. I get him on his feet and we crouch as we run toward the far end of the lab. There, a door is marked with a radiation symbol and a red triangle with the word danger inscribed in the middle in white. Halfway to the door, a centrifuge starts up and speeds faster and faster, wobbling alarmingly. Ben’s arm slides around my waist. “Look out!”

  He dives forward, taking me with him. The centrifuge launches off the lab bench and flies through the air landing just a few feet from us. It gouges a craterous hole as it embeds itself deep in the floor, discharging shrapnel and chunks of tile and concrete as it sparks and spins. Debris hits my leg and I scream as it tears through my flesh. Then Ben is hauling me up again and he slams us into the door to the accelerator. I’m standing on one shredded foot and I think that my leg is going to give out, but then we’re through the door and I topple over, taking him with me. He rams the door shut with his foot and a glint of metal catches my eye. A piece of shrapnel as big as a pair of scissors is sticking out of his leg just above the knee and blood is soaking his pant leg. Ben’s cheeks are flushed from exertion, but the rest of his face has gone ghostly white save the parts smeared with blood.

  “Take off your belt.”

  He blinks at me then reaches down and gropes the buckle for a few seconds withou
t any progress. Knocking his hands away, I undo the belt and pull it free from around his waist, then cinch it tight around his leg. He winces and groans. My own leg is throbbing, but a cursory glance tells me that it isn’t a serious blood loss concern like Ben’s leg. We’re in a quite chamber now with white radiation suits hanging on pegs along the wall. The cacophony of the lab on the other side of the door is completely dampened by its thickness. There are two doors leading from the chamber, one with a sign reading ‘observation room,’ and one with a slew of warning signs. The door without the warning signs has a square of glass in it, but the other door does not. All is quiet here and the lights are steady.

  “Can you stand?”

  Ben’s lips smile, but his eyes are dull. “I don’t think so.”

  I help him into a more comfortable position, his face contorting with pain until he’s propped up against the wall under the suits.

  “It really wasn’t Lincoln?”

  I shake my head. “The body had blonde hair…I think it was a woman.”

  Ben glances up at the door to the lab. “I think I believe you now.”

  The laugh that ripples out of my throat like a bark is rough and scratchy and rides the fine line of hysteria. “Took you long enough.”

  When he looks at me, his ghost of a smile fades. “Sylvy, I’m so—”

  “Stop. I know. I sounded insane.”

  He swallows and inclines his head toward the observation room door.

  “Go. Go make sure Lincoln’s safe.”

  I nod, then kiss him, ignoring the taste of blood on his lips and the flash of agony it elicits in my cheek.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  I turn and see Lincoln standing in the observation room doorway, a dislodged earbud dangling from one ear. “What’s going on?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Your love is like a shadow, like a WHISP of my heart. I can walk right through it, as it tears me apart.”

  WHISPs of Love by Death Nevermore

  “Oh Lincoln, thank God!”

  I stand up, limp to him and throw my arms around his neck. I hug with all my waning strength. Lincoln returns the embrace but only with one tentative arm.

  “What the hell happened to you two?”

  Letting him go, I look back toward Ben then to Lincoln. “Is there a phone in the observation room?”

  “No, why? Jesus, Mom, are you going to tell me what happened?” He looks past me. “Dad?”

  “It’s…a long story, but help me up. We have to get out of here.”

  Lincoln brushes past me and I stiffen as his WHISP passes close enough to touch, but I can’t freeze up now.

  “Ben, we can’t get out that way. It’ll be waiting for us, for Lincoln.”

  “Lincoln, who else was working here with you in the lab?”

  Lincoln is trying to hoist Ben under one arm, so I take Ben’s other arm. The observation room might at least be warmer than this chamber, and I have an irrational fear Ray can hear us or sense our thoughts through the door to the lab.

  “Anna’s in the lab. She’s from Poland. Didn’t you see her when you came in?”

  My eyes find Ben’s. “Does she have blonde hair?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’m sorry, Lincoln. She’s dead.”

  “What!”

  “I’ll explain everything, I promise, just help me get your dad into the observation room.”

  Lincoln and I have Ben up and are inching toward the other room with him. Ben’s dead weight on my shoulders is concerning me. He’s weak and the belt will only slow the blood loss. If I have Lincoln help me tighten it, Ben could lose his leg, but if he continues to lose blood, it won’t be a problem anymore. He needs medical attention and soon. We get him into the observation room and I hobble back to grab two of the radiation suits off the wall, one to elevate Ben’s leg after we lay him down and one to prop under his head.

  “I’m going to go get help.”

  Lincoln strides out of the observation room and I have to lunge through his WHISP to grab his shoulder.

  “No!”

  “You can’t,” Ben’s voice is strained.

  Lincoln spins around to face me. “Why not?”

  “There’s someone out there who wants to kill you.”

  “Who?”

  “Rachel Chester.”

  Darkness and disbelief spread across Lincoln’s face. “This is insane. Rachel Chester’s in prison.”

  “She uses her WHISP to kill people. It’s how she kept killing from prison.”

  Lincoln grabs my upper arms and sits me down in a chair. “Mom, it was a copycat. They caught her. It was all over the news.” Pity fills his voice, “You have to face reality.”

  He turns to leave again.

  “It’s true, Lincoln. I didn’t believe your mother either, at first, but it’s true. Chester’s WHISP is out there and it almost killed us. It killed Anna, but it’s here for you.”

  As I kneel next to Ben, I see the resolve in Lincoln’s eyes falter.

  “Dad, you can’t really believe that. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “But it does. WHISPs are made of particles, radiation is made of particles…”—he takes a shaking breath—“that can hurt people.”

  Lincoln looks exactly like Ben when he’s scrutinizing information in his head. I envision calculations on the back of his retinas. His brow furrows and the corners of his mouth turn down. “Wait, wait, wait, are you saying Chester killed all of her victims using her WHISP?”

  So thankful Lincoln is finally convinced enough not to try to enter the lab, I nod so enthusiastically, my vision starts to swim. “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t she kill you two like…like she killed the others?”

  “WHISPs can only interact directly with people who also have WHISPs, because…oh something to do with them being more open or susceptible to the particles.”

  “Then how did it hurt you guys?”

  “It can act like a poltergeist on things with magnetic fields, anything electrical...” I’m about to wax poetic about the abilities of WHISPs and how I think Chester’s is particularly strong because of her psychotic tendencies when Ben coughs. It’s a long, rattling cough and it jars me back to the reality of the situation.

  “Listen, the only way we can get your dad out of here is if we can kill or disintegrate—”

  “Disperse.” Ben coughs again.

  “—disperse it. Your dad said the particle accelerator could do that, but we need something to draw it into the chamber. I was thinking a strong electromagnet might do it, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But it risks sucking your WHISP into the chamber, too.”

  “So what?”

  “So…someone told me it’s painful, really painful and…the person might not be right again afterwards.” My voice catches. I want to reach out and touch Lincoln’s face, but don’t want to experience the pain of him possibly flinching away from me, so I’m still.

  “Oh.”

  “But there must be another way to draw it in, maybe…” Then it hits me. “Lincoln, what would happen to a person in the accelerator?”

  “In the path of the beam? A very fine beam of radiation would shoot through them and they’d probably die…well, maybe die. There was this Russian scientist, Anatoli Bugorski, he was hit in the head with the beam and lived. Never even showed signs of radiation poisoning. Everyone who works with particle accelerators has heard of him. But no one would ever be in there when it’s operating. Usually it’s a super-cooled vacuum. Why?” His banter slows from talking about something which interests and excites him to sluggish suspicion. “You’re not thinking…”

  “Does it have to be a vacuum? And what about the temperature? Can you leave it at room temperature?”

  “Mom, I don’t know what you’re—”

  “I could lure it in there and stay out of the beam. If I’m wearing a suit and it’s not cold or a vacuum, I should be fine.”

 
“No, no, there’s got to be some other way—”

  I glance down at Ben. He’s still conscious, but his eyes are fluttering and the fact he hasn’t responded to my plan is a very bad sign.

  “Listen to me. Your father is going into shock, there might be another way to do this, but I don’t know what it is and there’s no time. You can’t go in there with your WHISP, but I can. You and your dad will stay in here. I think the shielding of the door will protect you from Chester’s WHISP. I’ll get on a suit and open the lab door and try to draw it in. I assume you can open and close the access door to the tube from here.”

  Lincoln is shaking his head. “I can, but…but how will you even know the WHISP is in there with you?”

  “Give me your cell phone.”

  “It doesn’t get a signal in here, it’s not going to get one in the tube. What are you going to do, dial 911 and throw it out into the lab?”

  “No, no, the WHISP will probably just disable it out there. No, I need it to track the WHISP. It should malfunction if it’s close, and if not then…”—I spot an emergency flashlight on the wall and rush over to grab it—“then I’ll use this. I should be able to see Ray in oblique light even if she’s kinda spread out.”

  He hands me the phone, but his hands are shaking. “Mom, I don’t know…”

  “Please, Lincoln, please just get it ready. You’ll be able to see me, right? There’re cameras?”

  He nods. “Once you climb into the tube, I’ll see you. Get down on the floor as low as you can right next to the wall. Flat. And when you see it in there, give me a signal and I’ll…I’ll close the hatch and start the accelerator.”

  “I’ll give you a thumbs up, okay?”

  Lincoln nods again. “There’s a code, to open the outer door: thirty-six, sixty-eight.”

  “Thirty-six, sixty-eight.” I smile at him. “This is going to work.”

  Then I kneel next to Ben. “Honey?” He stirs and his eyes focus on me. “Lincoln and I have a plan. We’re going to get us out of here. I just need you to hang on for me, okay? Will you stay with us?”