Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  Margaret rescheduled Ms. Turner for Friday, two days later. This time I was prepared as I sat at my desk and stared at the door, waiting for her to walk through. I swore that I wouldn't panic when I saw her.

  At exactly 11 o'clock, Margaret buzzed Ms. Turner into my office, and a few seconds later, she walked in. Her steps were slow, timed, and full of confidence. Wherever she had been for the last seven years she had been well taken care of.

  “Are you feeling better today, doctor?” she asked with a smile that told me she wasn’t going to let me forget how cowardly I’d behaved.

  “Yes, I am. I apologize for running out on you.”

  “I understand. Even doctors get sick.”

  I looked up into her emerald eyes and unconsciously tried to glimpse what could be going on within her mind.

  She shook her head and leaned forward. “There you go again, doctor, trying to probe my mind. I'm not going to be that easy. I'm not going to hand you my thoughts on a silver platter. In fact, I'm not going to hand you anything. Let's pretend that we've discussed my whereabouts for the past seven years. Let's save both of us some time. Just sign my discharge papers and tell your bosses that I haven’t been AWOL.”

  That was tempting. I could sign the papers, and she would leave my office. I could pretend that I had never met her, and I could go back to my routine. But the image of a dog with its tail between its legs would not leave my mind.

  “I am a doctor, and I have an obligation. I can't sign your discharge papers without knowing where you've been and if you're sane. I would be doing the Navy, and you, a disservice,” I answered, proud of my ability to form complete sentences.

  She smiled, showing a small gap between her two front teeth. “You're a psychologist who uses his telepathic abilities to help people. But with me, you're as blind as a child lost in the dark woods. You won't be able to help me so just sign the papers.”

  She was right. I was blind, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from doing my job. “I may not be able to read your mind, Ms. Turner, but I'm not going to sign your papers without knowing the facts. I’m not just a telepath. I do have a medical degree.”

  She sighed, leaned back and crossed her legs. “You're wasting my time.”

  “I have nothing but time.”

  “I don't,” she replied, agitated.

  “Then cooperate with me. Where have you been for the past seven years?”

  “Look who suddenly developed a backbone. You ran out of here two days ago scared to death.” Anger and malice laced her words. I may not be able to read her mind, but I could read her emotions.

  “I apologize. I had never met another telepath before,” I said calmly.

  “It's time for me to go.”

  “We still have thirty minutes left.”

  She smirked. “I have an appointment.”

  “Then why come at all?”

  “I was forced to come.” She stood and walked towards the door. “I came but I can't be forced to stay.”

  I stood. “I'll see you next week, and next time I'll make sure a guard stays by the door until our time is up.”

  She paused briefly and then left my office.

  I sank back into my seat, feeling as if I'd won my first battle with a goddess.

  I had started the day as a coward and ended the day as a man. So I didn't hesitate to go through my normal Friday night routine of picking up horny—sometimes single—women.

  I don’t do relationships. I prefer to pick out women who are only looking for one-night stands. Relationships are built on mystery. Attraction is built on mystery. There is no mystery in a relationship if you know every thought the other person has.

  Janet, who told me she was twenty-five but her mind said thirty-three, was sitting beside me at the bar sipping on the third drink I’d bought her. She liked my green eyes. Both women and men were eerily attracted to them.

  “What do you do for a living?” she asked.

  Some women prefer laborers and some women prefer professionals. Her intoxicated mind told me she preferred professionals so I told her the truth.

  “I'm a doctor on the base.”

  “Really,” she said, but she clearly thought: Oh, I've never fucked a doctor before.

  I was about to ask her if she wanted to come home with me when a voice from behind me said, “Hello, doctor.”

  I turned, knowing instantly who it was. “Ms. Turner, aren't you supposed to be on base?”

  “If you won't tell on me, then I won't say anything about how you’re using mind tricks to sleep with women.”

  “You're not really a doctor?” Janet asked.

  “What do you think I meant by mind tricks?” Kimberly asked her.

  “Oh, asshole!” Janet said before she jumped from the stool. She nearly tripped over her red heels before she stalked out of the door.

  As I watched my blonde leave, Kimberly sat in Janet’s abandoned seat. “How did you know I would be here?” I asked.

  “I read minds,” she said before she turned to the bartender. “Can I have a Corona, please?”

  “No problem.” The bartender paused when he saw her eyes. Then he looked at me. “Are you two related?”

  “Nah,” I answered and turned towards Kimberly.

  “How do you know we're not related?” she asked once the bartender had handed her the drink and walked away. “There aren't very many green-eyed telepaths in the world.”

  “You're black and I'm white. If we're related, it’s not close enough to matter.” After a moment I asked, “Do you think all telepaths have green eyes?”

  She crossed then uncrossed her legs. “All of the ones I've met have had them.”

  I tightened the grip on my drink. “So you've met others?”

  “I need you to sign my release papers,” she said, changing the subject.

  She'd let something slip. She'd met other telepaths, and it hadn't been good. But I knew I couldn't force her to talk about it. Not here. The worst thing about psychology, you couldn't force people to talk about something until they were ready. That’s why telepathy was so useful.

  “I'm not signing your release papers without cause,” I told her.

  She took a long sip from her beer before she asked, “Why are you using your ability to pick up women?”

  I shrugged. “There is no mystery in dating when you're a telepath. Sex is the only mystery.”

  “You can't read their minds during sex?”

  Talking about sex with a patient was risky. But I’d never met another telepath so it was worth the risk. “No. The physical sensation during sex is too much. I guess I’m too occupied with other things.”

  “You're using telepathy as an excuse to avoid intimacy,” she said. “If you can choose to not read minds during sex then you can choose to not read minds at all.”

  “I've tried. I can never get through an entire day.”

  “You're a shrink. You should know just because a person thinks something, doesn't mean it's in their heart.”

  “Yeah, what do you see in my heart?” I finished my drink and looked into her eyes.

  “I see that you want to sign my release papers.”

  I laughed and looked at my empty glass. “I'm not that drunk yet.”

  “It didn’t hurt to try,” she said sipping the last of her drink. “Do you really want to know where I've been for the last seven years?”

  “It's the only way you're going to get out of the Navy.”

  “I have something to show you.” She hopped off the stool and walked out of the door.

  Reluctantly, I turned towards the bartender and paid for our drinks. He took the money and winked at me.

  “She's just a friend,” I told him.

  “Hey, have I ever judged you?” He leaned on the counter. “But you know once you go black, you never go back.”

  Kimberly stood beside my car. I unlocked the passenger door and opened it. I couldn’t help but glance at her dark legs as she sat down.

&n
bsp; “How did you know this was my car?”

  “I'm psychic,” she said.

  I laughed and closed her door. I still wasn’t used to being around another telepath.

  After I’d made my way behind the steering wheel, I asked, “Where are we going?”

  “My place.” She buckled her seat belt and leaned into the seat.

  “And then are you going to tell me where you've been for the past seven years?”

  “Maybe.” She smiled and her tough façade shattered.

  “You’re drunk.”

  She smirked and fidgeted with the radio until she found a rap station. “I missed rap and hip-hop music more than anything else.” Then she sat back and closed her eyes. She looked as if she were listening to Mozart instead of someone rapping about a woman on a stripper pole.

  The ten-minute drive to the base was in silence except for the radio and the soft tapping of her finger on the car door.

  “Do you want me to wait in the car?” I asked once we reached her apartment.

  “No, I need you to come in.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “What are you scared of?”

  “I could lose my job and my license.”

  She sighed. “I have to show you something, and I can’t show you in the car.”

  I didn’t need to be a telepath to know she was lying. I gripped the steering wheel, my confidence suddenly gone. I was scared. It was more than a fear of losing my job, but the curiosity ran deeper than the fear. I wanted to be around her. I wanted to be with someone like me.

  Before I could change my mind, I stepped out of the car and followed her into the apartment. The walls were beige, and a tan leather couch sat across from the television.

  “The apartment was already furnished when they assigned it to me,” she said standing across from me in the living room.

  “Yeah, I figured. It’s too vanilla for you.”

  She laughed and some of the tension fell from her shoulders. Whatever she was going to say made her just as uncomfortable as it made me.

  “Okay, I’m here. What did you need to tell me?”

  She stepped closer. “I’m going to show you what you want to know.”

  I stuttered, heart pulsing. “How?”

  She answered by stepping closer. After a long moment, I kissed her. I had expected her to slap me. Instead she grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer.

  Her warm hands underneath my shirt bought me back to reality. I pulled back, breathing heavy.

  “Sleeping with me is not going to make me sign your papers,” I said, trying my best to stop my growing desire.

  “I know that.”

  “How is this going to help you?”

  “If you want to know where I've been doing for the past seven years, you're going to have to let me show you.”

  “How is this showing me?” I was getting exasperated. I was too used to knowing what people wanted before they spoke.

  “Like this,” she slowly kissed me again. It was as if she melted into me, and then I began to see images.

  I was experiencing her memories from seven years ago, I realized. I was Kimberly while she and her copilot were on a routine flight looking for illegal marijuana crops, but something had struck the helicopter's tail.

  “What the hell just happened?” Kimberly's co-pilot, Christian Garcia, yelled above the roar of the struggling propellers.

  “Fuck if I know, but we can't control it. We need to jump!” Kimberly screamed. Black smoke had begun filling the cockpit.

  “But we're in the middle of nowhere,” Garcia said.

  Kimberly jumped from her seat. “We're going to be dead in the middle of nowhere if we don't jump. Now!”

  She was already in her parachute and holding on to the side of the helicopter bay before Garcia decided to follow.

  His thoughts were filled with fear: The fear of death, the fear of crashing, the fear of losing his children and his wife. She didn't have any of that. She was alone, with no regrets, no family, no fear.

  Closing her mind to his thoughts, she jumped out of the helicopter and into the wind.

  At the count of five, Garcia jumped. At the count of ten, she opened her parachute. And at the count of fifteen, the helicopter crashed.

  She landed, took off her parachute, and looked around for Garcia. She spotted him just as his parachute disappeared behind a mound about half a mile away.

  She caught up to him before his thoughts caught her. He wasn't alone, and he was laying face down on the ground. She hadn't wanted to hear anymore of Garcia's fears, so she'd shut her mind to him. She should have been listening.

  Five men with guns were standing around him. They were anxious, nervous, and excited by the thought of death and murder.

  “Hello,” the leader said, looking up. He'd been squatting next to Garcia. There was another guy with his boot digging into the base of Garcia's spine.

  “What's going on?” she asked. “Did you shoot us out of the air?”

  The leader hesitated before he spoke, leaving Garcia and walking towards her. “You,” he said with a thick Hispanic accent, “have very unusual eyes.”

  Her heart sped, fear finally catching up to her. He knew what she was. Her fear overwhelmed me, and I found the strength to pull away. Her lips left mine, and I was back in my world.

  She'd trapped me in her world, her past. God, I should have known she was up to something.

  “I didn't trap you,” she said. “I just figured I'd make you work for my story. My chaos, as you called it.”

  Her thoughts were closed to me now, but I could see she'd been going through the same fear as I had.

  “Why not just tell me?”

  Kimberly shrugged wearily and disappeared into the back of her apartment, leaving me alone to deal with her memories, her emotions, her fear.

  Three days later, a guard escorted Kimberly back to my office. She sat across from me with her arms folded and her head bowed.

  After the guard left, I said, “Let’s leave telepathy out of this and just talk.”

  She stayed silent, but now I knew her silence masked pain.

  Talk to me, I thought at her.

  I already have.

  “What happened after they found you? I'll sign your release papers rather you tell me or not, but you have to tell someone. You have to talk about it.”

  “There are no words to describe what I've been through. None. I won't even try.” She wiped a tear from her a cheek, but it was only replaced by others.

  I walked around my desk and over to her. “Fine. You don't have to talk. Show me.” She refused to meet my eyes, but she didn’t pull away as I pulled her to me and kissed her salty, tear soaked lips.

  By reading his mind, she knew Octavius was the leader's name. He looked at her as if he'd caught a prize pig. “She is like my grandmother. I bet you, Stephan.”

  “Please let us go. The U.S. is already looking for us.”

  Garcia was on the ground shivering. He was too frightened to speak, but she heard his thoughts. He still hoped they'd get out of this. She envied his ignorance. These were not the type of men who would let anyone walk away.

  “Let's do an experiment.” Octavius stepped away from her and pointed his gun towards Garcia. “If you tell me what I'm thinking right now, I'll let him go.”

  Kimberly’s lips began to quiver as she read Octavius’s mind. She turned and ran. Shots rang out after her, but she didn't slow. They were going to kill Garcia regardless of what she did. Her own death was preferable to what Octavius had planned.

  But they didn't shoot her. They wouldn't. There was no place in the open desert to hide, so it didn’t take long for them to run her down.

  “What are you going to do with her?” asked the fastest of the five men. He had been the first to tackle her onto the ground. He stood with his foot on her throat.

  “She will be the mother of my children,” Octavius said once he’d caught up to them. He looked down at Kimberly wi
th a wide smile of pure pleasure.

  “Pero ella es negra,” said another of Octavius’s companions. From his mind, Kimberly knew this man thought she was a witch. Octavius’s family was full of witches and demons, and from experience he knew to stay far away from them.

  “I know she’s black, but she will give me powerful children.”

  She pushed me away, severing the connection.

  I forced myself to remain calm. The memories had not been my own, but I still felt the fear of death and the unknown. I had felt the guilt and the pain of Garcia’s death, and finally the soul-breaking, anguish Kimberly experienced when she’d abandoned her children for her own freedom.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked.

  “After you sign my release papers?” she asked, looking up at me with both hope and sadness in her green eyes.

  “Yes, after I sign your release papers.”

  “As soon as I'm officially out of the fucking Navy,” she said with cold determination, “I'm going to get my children.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  Constance Burris is on a journey to take over the world by writing fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Her mission is to spread the love of speculative fiction to the masses. She is a proud card nerd, mother, and wife. When she is not writing and spending time with her family, she is working hard as an environmental engineer in Oklahoma City.

  Read more from Constance Burris:

  https://www.amazon.com/Constance-Burris/e/B00P42MYIU

  http://www.constanceburris.com

  Mission to Planet Z

  Kristen Middleton

  Planet Z © 2014 Kristen Middleton

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.