Whispers of a Killer

by Jen Haeger

  Ben tilts his chin down a fraction of an inch. “I promise.”

  I kiss him again, and this time his lips taste of the salt from my tears instead of iron. Then I stand and face Lincoln, but before I can say anything, he grapples me in a hug.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  My heart skips at the force of his hug. “I know. I love you, too.” I want to stay in this moment, the first real hug Lincoln and I have shared in years, but there isn’t time. Pulling away, I wipe at my tears and steady myself. “Get the machine ready, and whatever you do, don’t open this door until it’s done, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Turning, I take a deep breath and walk out into the entry chamber, closing the door behind me.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “The New York Times is heralding the latest rural co-op craze as a return to the sixties, but electricity-free housing communities are big business these days. Also exploding are agricultural, organic, and environmental industries as well as, shockingly, the breeding of carrier pigeons.”

  CBS Special: The New Technophobia

  Once outside, I take off Ben’s coat to make it easier to get into a radiation suit. My feet, leg, back, head, and swelling cheekbone are all vying for my attention, but I ignore them as I step into the white plastic. Before I slip my hands into the sleeves and thick gloves, I unlock Lincoln’s phone, the first two numbers from his high school locker combination, and open the music app. I’d planned to just select the very first song, just something to listen for any disruption, but when a playlist comes up I spot Bolero near the bottom. It’s as good as any song and long enough there should be less chance of the music dying out when I still need it. Hitting play, I bump the volume up as loud as it will go. As I resume donning the suit, I listen to the first soft beats of drum and don’t allow myself any time to dwell on the profoundly stupid thing I’m about to do. Ben’s dying, there’s no time for weighing pros and cons, no time to consider the wide, ragged flaws in my plan. In fact, it may already be too late, he may have lost too much blood, but I can still save my son.

  Once the suit’s on, it’s bulky yet gives little protection from the chill of this part of the lab. As the clear mask immediately begins to fog, I realize I’m breathing too fast through my mouth, so I take a deep breath in through my nose and then let it out through my mouth. Palming Lincoln’s cell phone in one gloved hand and the flashlight in the other, I face the door to the lab. Even though it seems there isn’t much for Chester’s WHISP to harm me with in this corridor, my heart rockets as I reach forward and take the handle. “Here we go.”

  I turn the handle and throw the door wide. Outside, the lab is dark save for residual sparking and flames coming from damaged machines, and I want to believe the WHISP may have gone. Maybe a guard went to check on Chester or bring her a meal and she had to call Ray back. However unlikely, the scenario is still possible, yet my gut is telling me a different story. I turn the flashlight on and swing it up, holding it and the phone as I would my pistol if entering an un-cleared, dimly lit scene. The first soft strains of music are intensifying as the beam illuminates the gloom of the lab. I play the light back and forth almost in time with the music, and, at first, I see nothing but destruction and carnage.

  The weaponized centrifuge is crashed into a jagged crater in the floor like some UFO landing site in a bad B-movie, but still giving off the occasional spark. All across the white tile, glass from downed lights glitter in the flashlight’s beam. Then, farther back, the light falls on the open and cloudy eyes of Lincoln’s lab mate, Anna. I can’t help myself. I rest the light on her bloodied face for a moment, unable to let the beam pass over her like she’s only a piece of ruined lab equipment. It’s then, the beautiful melody from the phone hiccups. Starting, I take a step back and catch the faintest glimmer in the beam before a computer screen flies through the door. It catches my hip and I go down hard, but roll away from the open door.

  Bolero is now interspersed with static and noises that sound like screaming, and I’m up and hobbling for the door to the accelerator as the lights in the antechamber begin to flicker. Reaching out, I punch the code Lincoln gave me into the keypad and watch the light turn from red to green. I open the door and step through, but the door closes behind me. “Fuck!” Spinning around, I open the door and jam the flashlight into the gap to keep it ajar just as something crashes against the other side of the door. Falling back in surprise, I land on the recently injured hip and let out a scream as white-hot pain engulfs my left hip.

  Panting now, and fogging up the mask again, I brace against the wall and get to my feet. The lights in this hallway are dim as I grope forward using the wall as my guide. Ahead, the access door to the accelerator is outlined by yellow and black tape. A white sign with red letters on the wall next to it states several safety concerns and precautions, most of which I’m about to or am in the process of violating. I reach the door and find a wheel much like one might find on a submarine hatch. Gripping it with both hands, I begin turning, hoping the physics department follows the rules of “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.” At first, the mechanism is stiff, but with appropriate grunting and swearing, it gives way and turns with increasing speed. I feel the bolt draw back with a clang and pull the door open.

  Beyond the door is the accelerator tube. Roughly six-feet in diameter, it sits on struts and stretches on as far as I can see both to my right and left. Passing into the corridor next to the tube, I scan for access panels into the tube itself. One about ten yards down on my right catches my eye as the light on it changes from red to green. Hurrying over to it, I watch as the hatch unseals and begins to open. Warning lights high on the walls come to life and fill the room with red, rotating flashes. At the same time, a klaxon’s wail cuts through the mangled instrumental still blaring out of Lincoln’s phone.

  Before the door opens fully, I’m thrusting my head into the opening, praying the chase is still on while in the back of my mind a terrible thought is taking root. What if it doesn’t follow me? What if the WHISP somehow senses Lincoln through the observation room door and waits for him there? It must be able to distinguish between people, and if it knows it can’t really hurt me, then why would it follow me?

  I just have to pray, with all of the things it could manipulate in the lab, Ray will think there’s more machinery and instruments to hurt me within the accelerator. Does Chester know the accelerator beam can hurt Ray? Does Ray know?

  Inside the tube is like something out of a science fiction movie. The surface is polished copper with multiple lines of bundled wires running into the darkness before me. For being so long, it’s a terrifyingly cramped space. Logically, I know the particle beam that will pass through it is thinner than I can fully comprehend, but a more primal part of my brain is urging me to flee before I’m trapped inside and vaporized. Pulling my head back out, I grip the top of the door and use it to help me as I lift my legs up and into the hatch. Next, I push off the door and slide down the side of the tube. It’s difficult to remain upright with my suited feet sliding along the curved interior, but I hang on to the hatch opening with my free hand to help keep me upright.

  I scan the wall in front of the hatch and spot the video camera I’ll use to signal Lincoln. The alarms and warning lights are still flashing, but I bring the phone up to the side of my head and press it to the suit next to my ear. The sweet tones are building and the song is clear. “Fuck.” I glance toward the open door in the access hallway. “Come on, you fucker, come and get me.”

  Seconds tick by and all I can picture is Lincoln on the floor of the observation room beating on the chest of my lifeless husband. Tears drip down my face and blur my already obscured vision. Forgetting it will do no good, I bring the arm holding the phone around to wipe my eyes, and only end up bumping the phone into the mask and dropping it. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as the phone bounces off the metal wall of the tube and goes sailing off into the dark beyond the reach of the emergency lights. “No! Shit.
” I release my grip on the hatch opening and immediately drop to my knees as my feet slip out from under me.

  Crawling forward in the direction I saw the phone go, I run my gloved hands back and forth and squint down at the bottom of tube. I can’t feel anything with the thick gloves and could easily be pushing the phone away from me. Mask fogging over again, I feel blind and deaf inside the suit and without the phone or flashlight I have no way to tell if the WHISP is inside the tube with me. “Fuck it.” I sit on my heels as I fumble for the zipper of the radiation suit. I drag the zipper down and rip the mask over my head. When my torso is free of the suit, I find the air is odd and dry and smells like stale plastic, and the walls of the tube are painfully cold to the touch.

  I continue on feeling along the tube for the phone with the suit half-on and half-off, dragging it along with my knees. It’s easier now because the alarms aren’t as loud inside the tube and without the suit I can hear the music again. A few moments later, my fingers close over the cell and I’m scrambling back toward the hatch. Bolero is ringing out clear and beautiful and so very surreal. Finding it too hard to crawl with the phone in my hand, I stick it in my mouth and am making good progress until I become conscious of a creaking noise. I glance up and see the light from the hallway growing fainter. At first, I don’t know what’s happening, but then it makes sense. I let the suit fall away as I stand and lunge forward. The hatch is closing.

  I don’t know if Lincoln thought I’d given him a sign or if he panicked when I dropped out of sight to pick up the phone, but for whatever reason, he’s sealing the accelerator. The phone drops out of my mouth. “No! Not yet! Lincoln, no!” my cries echo around me as the wail of the sirens dampens. I stumble as the curve of the tube’s floor throws off my footing and I smack into the wall below the hatch just as the light disappears and the sirens cease. Thrown into blackness, I continue to shout and reach up to try to feel for a manual release. “Lincoln! Open the hatch! It’s not in here! Open the hatch!”

  All around me, a faint humming thrums through the tube and though I’m no physicist, it gives the distinct impression of a particle accelerator warming up. “Fuck!” I slide back down to the floor of the tube and scrabble around for the radiation suit. The low hum is steadily increasing in pitch when I grab the Tyvek and thrust my feet into legs of the suit. Trying to keep as low as possible, I flip the mask back over my head and claw at the zipper which zips up to just above my waist before snagging on my hospital gown. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  As I struggle with the stubborn zipper, the noise from the accelerator is increasing in both pitch and volume. I lay down on my side on the bottom of the tube and use one hand to yank the zipper up while tugging the cheap fabric down with the other. The gown rips, but the zipper still won’t budge. “Come on!” In the dark, I can’t see what the problem is, and I’m not sure I could fix it even if I could and had the time. Instead, I jam my hands inside the arms of the suit and draw the sides of the suit together as best I can. I then press myself flat against the floor of the tube and wiggle as close to the slope of the wall as I can.

  Along the right side of the mask I feel something other than the wall of the tube. Then with another shift Lincoln’s phone slips next to my ear. Practically naked, unzipped radiation suit, an assortment of agonies pulsing through me, and knowing the WHISP isn’t even in the accelerator with me, a hopeless sob escapes my throat. Squeezing my eyes shut, Bolero’s crescendo sounds off in my ear over the rising hum, whirr, and buzz of the accelerator. Even through my closed eyelids, I see the brilliance of a pure, white light. And the world goes silent.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “The FBI arrested Yosev Krimenyonski, the president and CEO of the CryoStep Corporation yesterday in connection with that company’s involvement in a criminal WHISP removal service. A spokeswoman for CryoStep says the arrest was, quote, ‘ridiculous,’ citing a lack of clear WHISP therapy centered legislation.”

  ABC World News

  Things are nice here in my quiet world. I don’t feel cold, and there’s no pain. A pale white light surrounds me as I float on a cushion of cloud for a while, enjoying the numb, nothing sensation until I begin to hear soft music. At first, too soft to make out, soon the notes resolve into a song I recognize, Bolero. Then everything turns dark and the cloud gives way beneath me. I’m plummeting faster and faster, sick emptiness rising from my belly into my chest, and then the back of my throat. Lincoln. Ben. Ray. The accelerator. It all comes spiraling back to me.

  As my entire body cries out in an aching howl, someone close by groans. Is there someone in the tunnel with me? I fight the overwhelming lethargy encasing my body, and after what seems like minutes or hours or months, I crack open an eye. A fuzzy outline of a face looms over me and a band of fear tightens around my heart. But then the face sharpens into Ben’s soft features. Oh God.

  “Did I die?” Upon hearing the ugly scraping sound of my own voice, I know it was my groan I heard before.

  Ben chuckles. “You tried, but we wouldn’t let you.”

  I swallow with difficulty.

  “I’ll get you some water.”

  His face disappears briefly and behind it the background resolves into a hospital room. My pulse quickens as my mind comes into focus. “Lincoln!” the word is barely a whisper.

  Ben reappears, a Styrofoam cup with bendy straw in hand. “Shhh. He’s fine. I made him go get some sleep. He’s been up for twenty-four hours. He wanted to be here when you woke up.” Ben extends the cup toward me, straw aimed at my lips.

  A part of me thinks he must be lying. I know Chester’s WHISP wasn’t in the accelerator with me, so there’s no way Lincoln could’ve gotten away from it. As a cop, I’ve lied to people before, either to get them to admit to something or to spare them a truth I didn’t think they could handle at the time. I sip and let cold water soothe my parched mouth, my sore throat. “What happened?”

  “You got it, you got the WHISP.”

  When my face contorts in confusion, I become aware of bandages covering half of my face and one eye. “How?”

  Ben grins. “In the accelerator, just like you said you would.”

  Terror prickles in my chest as I shake my head minutely. “No, I didn’t. The phone…Ray wasn’t in there.”

  Now Ben’s brow furrows. “Lincoln saw Ray go in. He said her WHISP was really easy to see in the emergency lights. And when it followed you into the accelerator, he shut the hatch. It must’ve worked because he’s still here.”

  “But the phone…”

  “Lincoln’s phone? It exploded. The impact pushed your broken cheekbone out of position. This ringing a bell? You also had a concussion, a bruised ilium, torn hamstring, mild hypothermia…do you want me to go on?”

  I try a smile, but it’s too painful. “No.”

  Ben smiles back, but the mirth doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s something he’s holding back from me.

  “Ben, what is it?”

  Squeezing my hand, he takes a deep breath. “Well, several things. Do you want to hear the bad news, the worse news, or the thing I really don’t want to tell you?”

  The little strength I have is bleeding out of me rapidly. “Let’s start with the last one and then we’ll go from there.”

  “It’s about Chester.” Ben swallows and his eyes shift so he’s looking more over my shoulder than into my open eye. “I heard you telling Lincoln about how separating a person from their WHISP can…damage them.”

  Oh God. I was so caught up in getting us all out alive, I hadn’t even considered what destroying Ray would do to Chester. It’s one thing to legally sentence a killer like Chester to life behind bars or even death, it’s another thing entirely to inflict some unknown mental and psychological damage on them. “What…is she…?”

  “She suffered an…episode and is undergoing evaluation.”

  “Jesus.”

  Ben’s eyes snap back onto mine. “Hey, this isn’t your fault. It was self-defense, and now she
can’t use her WHISP to kill anyone else.”

  Still reeling, I’m trying to process what I’ve done, and there’s more bad news coming. “What else?”

  “Well…there’s the small matter of me removing you from this hospital against medical advice the other day and causing a commotion. We’re pretty lucky they’re so forgiving…and that we have really good insurance; otherwise, we’d both be over at Jersey General right now. I’m pretty sure they still believe in bad spirits, blood-letting, and leeches over there.”

  I can’t smile for him right now, and Ben’s weak grin vanishes.

  “But seriously, the hospital is charging us a significant fee for them having to engage security. I told them it was a life or death situation, but I’m not sure it’s going to matter. I need to call Herb and talk to him about it. I’m hoping, with Herb’s magic, we may get off with just a stern warning.”

  Herb is a wonderful lawyer and a good friend, but I doubt he’ll be able to fight with Bellevue. This is more of Ben attempting to distract me. “And the worse news?”

  He fidgets and swallows but looks me in the eye. “There’s a full-on investigation underway into the death of Lincoln’s lab mate, Anna. It… There was a lot of confusion when NYPD and the paramedics showed up at the lab, and Lincoln was trying to get you out of the accelerator and I wasn’t in any shape, at the time, to make a statement, and with the way we left the hospital…”

  Gears are turning in my head and I’m stepping back from myself, boxing up all of the awful things Ben is telling me and putting them on a shelf. I’m numb again, but not in a pleasant way. This is the clinical anesthesia which keeps a person from having a nervous breakdown. I know because I’ve felt it before, more than once.

  “They think I killed her.”

  Ben opens his mouth and closes it again, then words tumble out, one falling over the other almost before it’s said. “Only some do; obviously, not Crone, but maybe that FBI guy, what’s-his-name? But you have to understand, they thought they caught the copycat and then you had that episode at Chester’s apartment and then we ran out of the hospital and there are witnesses who saw us driving recklessly and acting strange and we were at the WHISP protest and you broke into the lab building, and they can’t find any other fingerprints and you had her blood on you from when you thought she was Lincoln and they don’t know Ray was even there…” It’s all Ben can get out before his breath runs out and his voice catches in his throat.