by Schow, Ryan
They wanted him, which he didn’t understand. They wanted to control the boy’s body, which made very little sense. He was in charge. The body was his!
“Roll the window up,” Gem said.
“No,” he replied, the same mouth, arguing with itself.
He kept his mirrored aviator glasses on. Let his eyes go active behind the lenses. None of these people were targets, but they interested him plenty. The skinny ones, the fat ones, the ugly ones and the colored ones. Some were on cell phones, others had wires dangling from their ears and were attached to devices he could neither see nor understand.
He felt the gun in the hand, let the boy’s fingers drift over the cold steel, the trigger, the handle. From his pocket, he retrieved a spare round, turned it over in his hands, imagined it going in and out of people’s heads.
Looking back at them, he decided, these people were now targets.
3
There were men in jogging suits, business suits and shorts. None of the women wore dresses, but some were more elegant than others. The boy bore a certain affinity for them. He thought, what would it be like to defy Gem and just start shooting?
All these people agitated him because he didn’t understand them. Who controlled them? Where were their handlers? What were their missions?
“It’s not your job to understand,” Gem warned, the voice inside his head moderately patient, the way a mother might speak to her misbehaving child. “Your job is simply to follow orders. Roll up the window, act only when you confirm your target.”
“No,” he said, defiant.
The window stayed down. He kept watching people, kept trying to understand them, kept failing to grasp this version of reality. He laid the gun on the seat beside him, wiped his sweating palms on the thighs of his blue jeans.
“You’re a slave,” Gem said. “A weapon. You are not programmed to wonder, only to OBEY!”
“Shut up!” he screamed, his hands flashing to his temples, pressing the head into silence. The sidewalk people looked at him. They watched him struggling with his uncooperative mind and the looks on their faces made him think the word perplexed. Or scared. Some of these people with these strange looks on their faces lowered their heads and walked faster.
He dropped his hands, let his face go slack.
He made himself blend.
That’s when he saw the fat woman with the yappy orange dog. No bigger than an overnight bag, this fluffy nuisance was across the street and ten feet away from its owner, a beastly thing in a flowered housedress doing her own yap-yap-yapping on a cell phone.
The dog was trying to pull her. It was like watching a mouse trying to drag a cow. If he had a sense of humor, Delta 1A would have laughed. He tried, but the sound of it was odd coming from his mouth. Almost mechanical.
This woman, this wildebeest, she stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk, as if something the person on the other end of the phone said was offensive, or argumentative. People were moving around from her the same way water slipped around mammoth boulders in a streambed. The dog strained at its leash, its little legs digging in for grip, its yip-yapping hitting sharp new levels.
The noise was getting to Delta 1A, hurting his brain. The ticking sensation made him itch his scalp, but he couldn’t dig his fingers in deep enough to reach it, to stop it. He heard his mouth growl, felt his muscles tense with rage…
…making the voices in his head feel like countless, tiny explosions of sound. He wanted to punch and scream his way through them, if only to make the cacophony of noise stop.
These voices in his brain, they were trying to get him to sleep, but he wouldn’t listen. And Gem, that relentless bitch, she wouldn’t shut up. She was a constant racket in his ear, telling him how he had rules and rules were meant to be followed. She warned him they’d be thrown from The Freedom Train (death) if he didn’t comply, but the threat didn’t register with him the way it was supposed to.
She threatened him with Omega level programming, which he knew nothing about. She said suicide, and that had the opposite effect on him. Suicide was not a threat, but the promise of an end.
The little orange dog kept barking—high pitched, annoying, incessant.
He pulled out his gun (“Put that away!” Gem screamed), screwed on the silencer (felt the entities inside him struggling for control—he fought them, kept control of the body), took aim on the dog (yap-yap-yapyapyapyap) and squeezed the trigger.
The dog’s head snapped sideways, the impact of the bullet pitching its pint-sized body into a half spin against the concrete wall. It slammed into the wall and dropped dead where it landed. Behind the carcass was a satisfying red splatter.
The boy’s mouth laughed.
The gun went away.
All the noise in his head just stopped in a collective gasp.
Smiling, the boy rolled up the window about the time the fat woman dropped her cell phone and started screaming. In his head, the voices fell to a hush. It was like he’d cut off his own head without having to actually do it. Patiently, without a care in the world, he started the car, put it in gear and drove around the different neighborhoods until well after sunset when the police had left and he could once again resume his stake out.
A Dark, Dirt Eternity
1
The road trip from San Francisco to the Sierra Foothills, near Astor Academy, passes in contemplative silence. In the two hours of driving, very little is said between us. Night falls fast and the ride up to Auburn, less than an hour outside Sacramento, becomes a hypnotic event. Twice I feel myself doze off. Twice the thump-thump-thumping of the road’s reflectors under the rented panel van’s tires startle me awake.
I slap my face, sit up straight, take deep breaths.
In the empty, seatless space in back, Georgia is snoring softly, and Brayden is quiet. Wordless. Every so often I hear mumbling coming from the makeshift canvas body bag holding Heim. And every so often, when the mumbling becomes a squirming fit of panic, Brayden hauls off, kicking it repeatedly in the head until the movement stops.
At this point, I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve had to kill Heim just to shut him up. It’s getting annoying, seriously.
Then again, the more I’m with him, the more I’ve come to appreciate Brayden. How when push comes to shove, he isn’t a sad sack Sally about doing the complicated stuff. The thing is, we’ve both taken turns killing this guy, and we both have the stomach for it.
We reach Auburn Hills Cemetery. The arched front gate, however, is closed. No surprise here. Wrapped around the center of the tall iron gates is a thick chain and combination lock.
“Give me the hammer,” I say. Georgia, now awake, hands it to me. After ten grueling minutes of banging away at the damn thing, the lock busts open and I’m like, “Holy freaking Jesus above, it’s about time!”
I pull the chain free, drop it in the bushes off the side of the main road, then push open the gate. I drive through; Brayden shuts the gate, then jumps back in the van. We head up the winding road a bit, then park and find the grave marked Kaitlyn Whitaker. Damien’s step-sister’s grave. The subject of my first Journalism assignment at Astor Academy, and the reason I was nearly killed by Gerhard’s genetic monster, the one he so affectionately referred to as his war model.
According to Damien, his step-sister is still officially dead. Even though she is, in fact, so very much alive. If asked, anyone in the family would say nothing has changed with the police reports, nobody was ever found, and as a family, they all continue to mourn. In reality, Kaitlyn is now in Europe with her mother while Damien and his father hold down the fort at home.
Damien is depressed about Kaitlyn being gone. Whatevs. It’s finally giving him the time to find himself without being so consumed with finding her. Not that I care. The last time we spoke, he was a giant douchebag in that he hung up on me.
“Brayden, check the grounds for security, or a grounds keeper.” Without a word, Brayden heads out into the night and I wonder why he�
��s taking all this so well. Just days ago, he refused me. Now he does whatever he’s asked without complaint.
It’s weird.
Me and Georgia get the shovels and start digging up Kaitlyn’s grave. By the looks of things, we’re going to be at this most of the night. Brayden gets back and the three of us work together, so thankfully, it only takes a few hours.
Georgia’s shovel blade hits the top of the casket first. I’m the one to open it up. Inside, there’s stale air and rotting satin fabric, and several large rocks distributed evenly inside the coffin.
Me and Brayden walk to the van, haul Heim’s squirming body out of the back, then drag him across the grass to the gravesite. Georgia picks up the shovel, slams it down on Heim’s head without even the hint of expression. This sort of no-hesitation brutality concerns me greatly, but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss issues surrounding her philosophies on life and death.
At least Heim isn’t fighting us anymore.
We shove his body over the edge of the grave and he falls into the open casket in a folded heap. Brayden jumps in after him, straightens him out, then shuts and seals the lid.
“The man was a gigantic rooster,” I say. “A real human stain.” My version of his eulogy.
Justice is served.
We help Brayden out of the hole, then start shoveling dirt back on his grave. A minute or two into it, there’s pounding on the casket lid. We ignore it. Burying him like this, it’s a welcomed relief. A righted wrong. For all the hate and fear I drag around in my heart, burying this man alive makes me feel good. As in: problem solved, conscience clear.
We’re not on the road a half an hour when the fatigue swallows me. Invisible hands are trying to pull me down into sleep. I won’t make it home. No way.
“How much cash do you have left?” I ask Brayden.
“Little less than a hundred.”
“We need food and a place to stay,” I say. Suddenly I’m wishing for our cell phones. But like Brayden said when we went to L.A. to kill Demetrius, cell phones can be tracked, hacked and used to convict you in a court of law.
We find a Travel Lodge and its vending machines and that’s enough. We pay cash for the room then shower before turning in for the night. Georgia sleeps with me; Brayden takes the floor. We have not even finished saying goodnight, and Brayden’s putting the DO NOT DISTURB sign on our door. The second my weary frame hits the sheets, I’m all but flat-lining.
It’s a wonderful feeling, feeling nothing at all.
None of us wake up until about two o’clock the next day. For a minute, until my senses come to me, I can hardly believe anything we did was real. What a waking nightmare my life has become.
Georgia is doing her hair in the mirror; Brayden stands next to her washing his armpits with sink water. He doesn’t smile when he sees me, he kind of raises an eyebrow in acknowledgment.
Smiling, I say, “Thanks for everything you’ve done, Brayden.”
“It’s no hair off my balls,” he says without emotion. He’s not happy with me, which bothers me. Beyond Brayden’s sour mood, the only things left to consider are Rebecca and the bald kid who tried to kill me. Eventually we’ll have to do to Gerhard what we did to Heim. But not yet. Not before Rebecca delivers her babies. After that, I’m going to punch that f*cker’s clock. I’ve already decided, he’s going into the grave with Heim.
But, like I said, not yet.
Right now, the only thing I need is a shower and some food in this empty belly of mine. Before taking to the open road, we use what little cash we have left for gas and drive-thru. Then, finally, we’re headed home.
Mission Not Accomplished
1
Delta 1A waited in the Chevy Cruz outside the luxury apartments through the entire night before finally succumbing to Gem’s incessant commands. It happened around one o’clock the following afternoon. Only after Gem felt Delta 1A swimming past and beneath her into the mind’s dark inner depths did she take the body.
“Good riddance,” the boy’s mouth said about Delta 1A.
Using the cell phone, Gem made the boy’s fingers dial Shelton Gotlieb directly. He answered on the fourth ring.
“This is Gem with a status update.”
Knowing Delta 1A’s failure would mean her failure and eventual termination, she did not report on Delta 1A’s failures, specifically his assassination of the defenseless, fluffy orange mutt. Instead she simply said, “The target never arrived.”
Shelton deployed a long, frustrated sigh, then said, “That’s fine, Gem. Come home.”
Like Delta 1A and every other Monarch slave, hers was not to question orders but to follow them.
She started the car, put it into gear, then used the boy’s body to pull away from the curb and head back to Monarch where Shelton was waiting. What he had in store for the body, Gem did not know. If given no other tasks, they would return to the box.
Gem didn’t like the box. None of the boy’s alters did.
Awakening
1
Arabelle turned on the Cartoon Network, then told the little demon child to sit on the couch and watch television. That’s how Abby referred to her, as a demon child. How Alice could sit so reverently and mindlessly, and simply watch cartoons while possessing the power to burn people to death with her mind was unsettling.
She was unsettling.
Maybe Abby was right. Maybe Alice was possessed by demonic forces. From the kitchen, she looked at the back of the girl’s head and thought about putting a bullet in it.
I could do it, she thought. But could she?
Should she?
Instead, she made the child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread, piled some potato chips on a plate, then washed an apple, cored it and cut it in fours for her. Arabelle took the food, set it on the couch next to Alice.
“I’ll be home later,” she said. “Make sure you eat this.”
Alice looked up. Her face was a plastic, expressionless mask. Her features gave no indication that she heard or understood Arabelle, for even her eyes were blank slates. Tiny shattered plates. It’s like they were trying to decide between violence or entertainment. Arabelle gazed deep into those two bottomless sockets and wondered what her little black soul was plotting.
Then she snapped out of it and blinked twice fast.
“Be good,” she said.
Alice looked down at the apple, then back to the television. She said nothing. Right then, the room seemed to drop in temperature. It was like the little girl came back into consciousness for only a moment, then checked back out. Arabelle wasn’t sure before, but now she felt certain there were dark spirits in there.
Her skin crawled, then…an involuntary shiver.
When she finally left the apartment, it was with a tremendous sigh. What is it about that girl? she wondered. In that moment, she wanted to leave the apartment, and Alice, and never come back.
2
Arabelle walked into what felt like an empty lab. On the floor in the front entry was a pooling of dried blood. Heim’s blood, she thought. The grin crept onto her face.
That rotten shit.
She thought to call Abby, make sure the man was gone, congratulate her even, but she didn’t. She had to check on Rebecca. On Wolfgang.
Deeper in the lab, where they kept the clones and glass canisters, she found both Wolfgang and Rebecca as they had always been: perfectly still in stasis, unbearably silent.
She went first to Rebecca, checked her vitals, looked her over closely for anything extraordinary. Everything was the same. She was fine. Just as she knew she would be.
It was Wolfgang she longed to see about. He was not waking properly, so Heim put him back in the canister for another few days. Now she went to him, checked his vitals, then looked on him not out of curiosity, but out of anxious anticipation. Or love, perhaps. Lately, her emotions defied exactness. It could be lust she was feeling. The man who was once Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard, and Josef Mengele before that,
was now a gorgeous specimen of human perfection.
Yet she was terrified of him. Unsure of what he would become with Alice’s DNA multiplying inside him. She didn’t even have the name she promised. But it didn’t matter. The right name would come to her, or perhaps to him, when finally he woke up right.
How could someone look so divine? she wondered. The transformations always surprised her. Even more so than her own. She trailed her finger down the glass, lost herself in his beautiful face, in this exceptional transformation from caterpillar to butterfly.
So many things crossed her mind. Finally she pushed the button she had been wanting to push since she first arrived, and stepped back to watch the pinkish fluids drain. It took a few moments. His body sagged into the canister’s floor, and when the fluids were fully purged, Arabelle punched another button and the canister slowly swung into a horizontal position.
She unfastened the sealed glass lid. It let out a depressurizing pop and hiss. She opened it and looked longingly on the man who saved her all those years ago, the mass murderer who defied capture and death at the end of World War II, the inhumane monster some deemed the father of mind control. She straightened his body, arranging him to her liking. She ran her hands through his wet hair. It was so much thicker than before. She felt her body gathering with need.
Trailing her fingertips down his muscular arms, across his plated chest, over his privates, down to his legs and feet, she wanted to be in there with him, her clothes shed, their bodies connected by love and warmth, by the need for each other.
“Wake up,” she whispered. Her voice was soft with notes of pleading. Her breathing quickened. She tried to still the trembling in her hands and heart. It was useless. And nearly impossible to look at him.
