The Demon Queen and The Locksmith

by Spencer Baum

  “She wasn’t a woman anymore,” said Kevin. “She hadn’t been anything like a human for a long time.”

  Kevin thought of the young girl in the black and white picture, holding Peter Gerrard’s letter to Julius Adams. That letter had been out in the world for years. Kevin wondered if there were others who had seen it and understood its significance.

  “Mr. Browne?” said Joseph. “You’ve had a drink of the sap now, just like us. Do you feel any different?”

  Kevin’s dad thought for a minute, then said, “Yes, I do. I thought it might be lingering effects of adrenaline, but it’s been a few hours, and yes, I feel different. Not like I can fly or anything, but good.”

  “Do you feel like you can run faster and jump higher?” asked Mr. Silver, his voice tinted as if still in disbelief at all that was told this night.

  Kevin’s dad stood up and looked at his chair.

  “Let’s find out,” he said.

  He squared his shoulders and jumped, clearing the seat. It was a good, athletic jump, but nothing more. Kevin’s dad looked back at the table with a grin. Jackie clapped for him.

  “Let’s try it this way,” he said, turning the chair so he faced the tall chairback.

  Mrs. Silver cringed. Kevin’s dad bent his knees and jumped.

  He wasn’t even close. His knees ran into the chairback, and he tumbled to the floor, the chair coming down with him.

  “Are you alright?” asked Jackie.

  “I’m fine,” said Kevin’s dad, laughing. “Just fine. I’m glad, actually. I’m too old to go on superhero adventures.”

  It was coming on ten o’clock when they finished their meals. Everyone broke open a fortune cookie, and took turns reading their fortunes aloud.

  “Something lost will soon be found,” was Joseph’s.

  “Take risks only with good odds,” was Jackie’s.

  “Get a new car,” was Mrs. Silver’s. This brought a round of laughter from the table.

  Kevin read his: “He who laughs last is laughing at you.”

  The group, warmed up by Mrs. Silver’s fortune, was in uproar at this one.

  Kevin laughed too, but only because he didn’t want to spoil the good mood. The clever joke of his fortune was overshadowed by the memory it wrought. A rock hitting his head, Vicky Baca laughing, as if Kevin’s pain was the funniest thing she had ever seen.

  In the instant before he changed the hum, turning demons into butterflies, Kevin had nearly lost himself in anger. It was a strange, unsettling feeling. As he was trying to change their sound, they were trying to change his. They almost succeeded. Had he allowed his own anger to flow any further into the hum, he would be gone now. He was sure of it.

  He had seen Cassandra inside the hum, a young girl named Gretchen Brinkley, full of anger herself. She had been tied so closely to her demons that her presence remained in their sound. Kevin had only sensed it for a second, but it was enough. He felt like he knew her. He felt pity for her.

  The laughter died down, and everyone took their plates to the kitchen. Kevin’s dad began loading the dishwasher.

  “Let us get that,” said Jackie. “You’ve had a tough day, Mr. Browne. You go sit. You too, Kevin.”

  “Okay, well, let me make some espresso first,” said Kevin’s dad.

  “We can do that too,” said Mr. Silver. “Provided your Tingley machine doesn’t come to life and announce the end of the world.”

  Kevin and his dad went to the living room and sat on the sofa. A hint of fumes tickled Kevin’s nose, reminding him that Cassandra was in this living room the night before. Rather than telling his dad about the change she sensed in Kevin, she asked if he sensed it too.

  Kevin’s aura was glowing like the sun. I could hear it when he came in.

  “Dad, what about the hum?” Kevin asked.

  “It’s different, now,” said his dad. “It’s funny. The hum is louder in my mind than it’s ever been before, but for the first time in years, it doesn’t bother me. It’s like…if I just accept it, it blends in with everything else.”

  “Or everything else blends in with it,” Kevin offered.

  “Yes, even better. Everything blends inside the hum. I understand it now. There is an energy to things, to everything. You and I can sense it. All that energy blends together, and rings in our minds.”

  “I wanted to tell you last night,” Kevin said. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “It’s alright. I feel like everything happened the way it was supposed to.”

  The sounds of grinding coffee beans came from the kitchen.

  “They’re grinding it too coarse,” said Kevin’s dad. “Come on, Kev. We need to teach our guests the proper way to enjoy espresso.”

  Kevin’s dad charged into the kitchen and took over the operation at the Tingley 2000, serving up six frothing cups of espresso when he was done.

  “Are we going to hear from Lou Sweeney again?” he asked, giving Kevin the last cup. “I’d like to congratulate him in person on his amazing espresso machine.”

  “I don’t know,” said Kevin. “I don’t know if they got away. I never saw them on the mountaintop.”

  “Joseph sent Lou a text message,” said Jackie.

  “I haven’t heard back,” said Joseph.

  The Tingley 2000 beeped once. A new message lit up its display screen. “Love to boast? The perfect espresso roast is great for a toast.”

  Jackie raised her cup.

  “To Lou Sweeney,” she said. She turned to Joseph and said, “The truth…”

  “Wherever it takes us,” said Joseph.

  Chapter 23

  Despite their late night, his dad encouraged Kevin to go back to school the next morning.

  “I’m going back to the studio,” his dad said. “You do whatever feels right, but I think it’d be good for both of us to do something normal.”

  Kevin made it to campus, but not to first period. A woman was waiting for him at the door to his classroom.

  “Kevin Browne?” said the woman. She had short brown hair and thick glasses.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Ms. Wainwright, the vice principal for your class. I need to see you in my office, now.”

  “Of course you do,” said Kevin, wishing he had stayed home.

  Kevin’s nose caught the scent of strawberries the minute he entered the administrative building. The scent grew stronger as they approached and they arrived in an office that might well have been a vat of strawberry jam for how it smelled. There was a blonde woman seated next to Ms. Wainwright’s desk. The smell came from her.

  “Kevin, have a seat,” said Ms. Wainwright, pointing at a chair next to Strawberry Woman. “This is Suzie from the state truancy office. She’s going to ask you some questions. It’s imperative that you tell her the truth. I promise you it’s the best thing you can do for yourself now.”

  Ms. Wainwright closed the door, leaving Kevin alone with Strawberry Woman. It was all Kevin could do to keep from laughing at the phrase “tell the truth.”

  “Kevin Browne,” Suzie began, “According to school records, you missed all your afternoon classes on Monday, and all your classes yesterday. Is that true?”

  “Should I have a lawyer or something?” Kevin asked.

  “No. You should answer my questions. Now, I’ll ask again. Did you miss--”

  “Don’t bother, Miss…”

  “Suzie. My name is Suzie. Why shouldn’t I bother?”

  “I know a warrant was issued for my arrest yesterday. I know I’m being chased by a secret agency who apparently has the power to wipe my name out of existence if they want to. I know investigators have been going through all the attendance records of the schools in the area because three teenagers were at the explosion site on Turquoise Mountain. I think I’m going to leave now, and ask my dad to hire a lawyer.”

  Kevin stood up.

  “Wait, Mr. Browne,” said Suzie. “Please. I’ll be frank with you.”

  Kevin’s hand w
as already on the doorknob, but he stopped to listen.

  “How do you know all these things?” Suzie said.

  “I got a phone call yesterday from someone I trust,” Kevin said. “He told me.”

  “And who was this person?” said Suzie.

  “I thought you were going to be frank. If you’ve just got more questions--”

  “Alright, I understand. Kevin, I’m not from the state truancy office. I work for the federal government. I work for an agency that investigates…I…I spend a lot of time in Roswell. I know a lot about the Turquoise Hum, and I know that this explosion in the side of Turquoise Mountain was a major event to a lot of people here. I rushed up to investigate myself. My agency took over the investigation yesterday morning. Yesterday evening we made our first arrival at the site. We found all the police caution tape torn away. We found the ground covered in footprints, like a herd of wild animals went into the cave.”

  Came out, actually, Kevin thought.

  “Late last night, my team and I went deep inside the cave at the explosion site. What we found down there was very interesting.”

  Kevin sighed. His life was about to become much more complicated. He walked back to his chair and sat.

  “Did you happen to see the unusual broadcast that played on everyone’s coffee machines yesterday?” Suzie asked.

  “Espresso machines,” Kevin corrected.

  Chapter 24

  Suzie released Kevin just as third period ended. She gave him a business card and told him to call if he thought of anything he wanted to tell her. She told him that, one way or another, he could expect to be in touch with her again soon.

  Kevin pulled his cell phone from his pocket and began a text message to Jackie.

  The government found me. A woman was waiting for me when I got to school. She quizzed me all morning. Didn’t tell her anything. She’s from a secret agency that investigates the paranormal. She went down the caves last night, found the remains of giant termites and ants.

  He pressed the Send button with his thumb. Something happened in the hum. At first he thought he was hearing his own text message flitter into a cell phone transmission, but the sound continued, and took on an emotion. Anger. It had started as a blip in the hum, but had grown into a jolt of anger vibrating toward his own sound. Then it was an actual soundwave, something cutting through the air behind him.

  It was a rock. Flying toward Kevin’s head.

  In one continuous movement, Kevin turned his body and raised his left hand to swipe the rock from the air.

  “W’oh! Freshman’s fast today!” said Ruben with a grin.

  A line of students stopped behind Ruben and fought for the best places to see what was happening. It amazed Kevin how quickly an audience formed for these confrontations. Another day, another fight, another crowd to watch. Kevin scanned the crowd, looking for people he knew. He was most interested in finding Vicky Baca.

  Watch and laugh, Vicky, he thought, today’s show has a different ending.

  As he scanned the crowd, he became aware of a recurring pattern. Every time he connected with a pair of eyes, the eyes turned away. No one was willing to look at him.

  He could hear every student in the hum. Their sounds mixed together, shifting, muted, confused. A sadness came over Kevin. What happened in this courtyard two days before could have gone differently. Something about the school, the students, the pressures of fitting in, the search to find a place – something about it all had come together and made otherwise good people act like monsters. He had been laid out in the dirt that day, and they all had just stepped over him, left him there to moan in agony while they went to their next class.

  He could hear it happening again. In these seconds of uncertainty, a fistfight either to begin or get defused, his classmates were actively suppressing their own sounds in the hum, forcing them all to blend together. They raced to hide their own feelings, to be cool, to conform to the will of the group, like a colony of ants.

  “Didn’t see you yesterday. Where you been, boy?” said Ruben. “The hospital?”

  Kevin smirked. If only you knew, Ruben.

  He heard his own sound. The solitary note on a trumpet. It was going loud and sharp with anger.

  “I had to take the day off,” he said.

  “It’s what you get for sucker punching me,” said Ruben.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” said Kevin.

  Ruben made a clicking sound with his tongue, and started walking. As he passed, Ruben banged shoulders with Kevin, a final taunt to see if Kevin wanted to go again. Kevin stood still and let Ruben pass. Vicky Baca giggled.

  Ruben took a few more steps, and the crowd dispersed, a few students visibly disappointed that the fight wouldn’t happen.

  Kevin’s cell phone buzzed with an incoming text message from Jackie.

  Can you come to our house? We have news too.

  The bell rang. Class would begin in two minutes. The courtyard cleared.

  “It’s like I’m just not meant to go to fourth period,” Kevin said to himself.

  * * * * *

  “What did you tell her?” Joseph asked.

  “I said I didn’t know anything, and I wouldn’t tell her what I was doing on Monday afternoon until I’d spoken with a lawyer.”

  “Good job, Kevin,” said Joseph.

  “And she just let you go?” said Jackie.

  “Yes, but I know there were people trying to follow me,” Kevin said, smiling. “There was one person on foot, and there were others in a car.”

  “What kind of car?” asked Joseph.

  “A black Neptune,” said Kevin, realizing as he said it that they had seen a black Neptune before. When they chased the butterfly to Turquoise Mountain, a black Neptune had been driving in their direction along Highway 150.

  “Interesting,” said Joseph.

  “It took me less than a minute to lose them all,” Kevin said. “Suzie’s going to hear from her spies that I can run really fast, faster than I should be able to, but she’s not going to hear where I went. She’s going to be a nuisance, I think.”

  “Things are about to get more complicated for her,” Joseph said. He handed Kevin a phone.

  “It arrived this morning,” Joseph said.

  On Joseph’s phone was a text message:

  Hello, Joseph. We are alive and well. After you dropped us off on the mountainside, I realized we were just a short hike away from The Dunce Cap. I was excited that my first journey in the outside world would be to fulfill a dream. I’ve always wanted to see The Dunce Cap. We were on top of the mountain when we saw the demons come out and charge at Turquoise. We saw it all, including the amazing transformation of demons to butterflies. Kevin will have to tell us all about it, perhaps in an exclusive interview to a worldwide audience some day. Speaking of which, make sure your television is on today at noon. Amy has cracked the security codes in The Dunce Cap’s transmitter, and we have something special planned. Thank you again for all you’ve done. Lou.

  “Good grief, what’s he going to do now?” Kevin said, giving Joseph back his phone.

  Joseph shrugged.

  “Shall I make us some espresso?” Jackie said with a laugh.

  “Have you seen his other video on the Internet?” said Joseph. “The video he played on the espresso machines yesterday is out there now. It’s all the buzz.”

  “No, I haven’t watched,” said Kevin.

  Joseph pressed some buttons on his phone and handed it back to Kevin. On the phone was an Internet video player, with a video cued up. The title bar read, “Lou Sweeney Returns On Turquoise Espresso Makers.” A black screen faded to a gray wall behind Lou Sweeney in a suit:

  “When you last heard from me it was on the radio, now some five years in the past. I told the world of a small town named Shuberville, and a little girl whose life went terribly wrong…”

  “Watching this makes me nervous that monsters are going to crash through the walls,” Kevin said.

  “I
felt the same thing,” said Jackie. She put her chin on Kevin’s shoulder and watched the video with him.

  The security camera footage, The Demon Queen of Shuberville, the picture of Gretchen, photos of life in Shuberville.

  “This is when we left,” Jackie said.

  “I was in Vicksburg when it happened,” said Tom, speaking directly into the camera, his eyes swollen with tears. “My uncle owned a pest control business, and I went to work for him that summer. One night, out of the blue, my momma showed up, all in pieces. She was rambling, not making any sense, going on about monsters destroying Shuberville. The poor woman had been through hell.”

  The video went back and forth between Tom and black and white stills of life in Shuberville.

  For some reason, they let my momma go, but only for a little bit. The demons came to Vicksburg the next night and killed the rest of my family while I was out on a job. That was their way. One by one, everyone I ever knew disappeared in the night. Soon enough, anyone who knew anything about Shuberville was gone. My home town became a legend. Imagine that, your own home town wiped out, and the only time people speak of it, they speak like it wasn’t even real. All that’s left of Shuberville are these pictures I managed to gather.

  The camera showed spray paint graffiti on cement wall that read, “The Demon Queen is Coming.”

  I went into hiding. Those bugs chased me up and down the Gulf Coast. I learned the smell of pesticide confuses them. That’s the only reason I’m still alive.

  The camera cut back to Lou, sitting in front of the gray wall. The scrollbar at the bottom showed that the video was nearly finished.

  The Demon Queen thrives on fear, living in secret, plotting something terrible, and killing anyone who suspects too much, who asks too many questions. We’ve followed her trail to Turquoise, New Mexico, where she has engaged in secret activity for years. We don’t know what she wants, but we know she must be exposed. So now I ask you, citizens of Turquoise, to keep your eyes and ears open, to share this story with everyone you know, to live bravely, and seek out the truth, wherever it takes us. I’m Lou Sweeney. Good night.