314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy)

by A. R. Wise

  “The people I work for are very interested in people like you, Rosemary,” said Vess. His voice was frail, as was his body, and he wheeled his chair closer to the CORD so that he could speak to the wounded assassin easier. “They aren’t the type of people that would simply shrug off the discovery of someone with a talent like yours.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Rosemary.

  Vess grinned at her and said, “Those are nice necklaces you’re wearing. You use those to control people, don’t you? You infect that jewelry with your will, and then hand them out as gifts. Do you remember where you first got the idea to do that? Who was it that handed you your very first necklace?”

  “My mother,” said Rosemary with a rising anger. “Are you saying my mother works with you?” asked Rosemary, clearly not believing him.

  “No, not her, but the lady who gave her that necklace did. Right after Oliver told me about your supposed death, The Accord had someone pay a visit to your mother, just in case you showed up with a bunch of money that you’d earned from cashing all of those checks Oliver wrote to you.”

  “You manipulated me,” said Rosemary.

  “Don’t feel bad, we’re all being manipulated by somebody. It’s human nature to be guided by someone else’s strings. If it’s any consolation, you did a fabulous job.”

  “That’s why I kept thinking about all of those experiments,” said Rosemary. “I kept writing about them in my journal. You and your company planted those things in my head?”

  “No, not on purpose at least. It’s no surprise that the person who implanted that necklace with your new agenda would’ve accidentally imparted some of their own thoughts into them. That comes with the territory.”

  “And the reason you’ve had me doing all of this is to get me here? Why go to all that trouble?”

  “It wasn’t much trouble, really,” said Vess. “The reason everything became so convoluted is because there were multiple forces at work trying to sway things in their direction. There are parts of The Accord that want me dead, and other parts that think giving me one last shot at turning on this machine would be worth it. Luckily, the people that want to give me one last chance prevailed, otherwise you’d be aiming a smoking gun at me right now and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “It’s all been a lie,” said Rosemary as she struggled with the truth.

  “Says the consummate liar,” said Vess with a smirk. “Come now, Rosemary, you of all people shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve been lied to. If only poor Alma knew all the ways you’ve lied to her.”

  “You people just look at me as another tool. Is that right?” asked Rosemary as she watched Vess begin to rise up from his wheelchair.

  He struggled to stand, but eventually walked forward and approached the CORD. He reached up and grabbed the latch on the door. Then he smiled and said, “Just a cog in the machine,” before closing her in.

  CHAPTER 29 – 3:14 on March 14th

  Michael Harper woke up in a bed that he didn’t immediately recognize. It looked like the room of a young woman, but he couldn’t fathom how he’d gotten there. There was a dresser against the wall with a mirror over it and a pink, lacey bra hanging off the knob of one of the drawers.

  “What the hell did I get myself into this time?” he asked as he looked around.

  There was a closet beside the bed with an accordion style door, and he faintly recalled seeing that door somewhere before. But Michael had made a habit of sleeping with a variety of women during his time working on the road. Waking up in a stranger’s bed wasn’t that big of a shock to him.

  He saw an old watch of his on the nightstand that he hadn’t seen in years, and he grabbed it in surprise. “What the hell do you know about that,” he said as he slipped the watch on. He checked the time and cringed when he saw that the watch had stopped at 3:14.

  It had to be a coincidence.

  Michael went to the door of the room and peered down the hall. There was another bedroom door beside the one he was walking out of, and he eased the door open to find that it belonged to a messy young boy. The room was littered with toys and Michael was reminded of his son, Ben.

  He paused and thought about his son. It had been a long time since he’d seen the boy. How long had he been out on the road on business?

  Michael started to get confused, and he blamed it on the aftereffects of what must’ve been a long, drug-fueled night. He walked past the boy’s bedroom and to the bathroom just beyond. He stepped in, urinated, and then examined himself in the mirror. He looked younger than he had in years, and he felt great. He smirked at himself, and then looked at his watch as he started to wind the gear to get it started again. Despite his efforts, the watch didn’t work.

  “Wait a second,” said Michael as he looked at the watch and tried to remember the last place he’d seen it. That’s when he suddenly realized where he was.

  Michael marched back into the girl’s bedroom, his feet thumping on the carpet as he went. He walked in and went to the closet. He gripped the handle and threw the door open.

  Inside, clutching his knees as he sat on the floor, was Terry’s little brother, Raymond.

  “You little shit,” said Michael as he glared at the frightened boy. “You fucking pervert.”

  “Hit him,” said a female voice from somewhere in the house.

  Michael glanced around and then asked, “Who’s there?” He’d expected to see Terry, but it didn’t sound like his girlfriend’s voice. Whoever was speaking sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place the voice. It was as if the voice didn’t belong here, at this time.

  “If you want, you could make him watch,” said the woman as her voice grew nearer. He saw a person’s shadow cast into the room from a figure in the hall.

  “Who is that?” asked Michael.

  His daughter walked into the room. She was wearing Terry’s clothes: A short skirt, pink boots, and a tight t-shirt. She sauntered in and sat on the corner of the bed. She was wearing more make-up than he’d ever seen Alma wear before, and she was grinning seductively.

  “Alma, what are you doing here?” asked Michael.

  “Isn’t this what you want?” asked Alma. “Would it be better if I closed my eyes and hummed a little?”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Michael as he clasped his hands to his head and closed his eyes. “What the fuck is going on? What sort of sick fucking joke is this?”

  “Michael,” said Alma seductively. He refused to open his eyes, but he could hear his daughter rustling on the bed.

  “Daddy,” said Alma again, but this time she had the voice of the child that Michael remembered from so long ago.

  He finally opened his eyes to see.

  Alma was on the bed, but she was no longer the adult that she’d been moments earlier. Now she looked to be only eight years old, if not younger. She was lying flat on the bed and her eyes were bulging and wide. Her mouth was open, and it was clear she was choking. White foam bubbled up and dripped from the corners of her mouth.

  Michael screamed and ran. He ran across the hallway and to the front door as he kept an eye on the room behind him. He was terrified of what had happened and wanted to get away. He needed to get out as fast as possible. He grabbed the handle of the door and tried to open it, but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked to see if it was locked, but found that the door was fused to the wall itself. There was no gap between the door and the threshold, and he pounded on it in anger and fear.

  He looked back down the hall and saw that Alma was standing in Terry’s doorway. The foam and vomit was cascading down her chin and dripping to the floor. She had her hands reached out to either side of her, gripping the doorframe as she watched her father try to escape.

  The room around him seemed to shrink. At first he thought it was an illusion, but then the walls began to groan and shudder. Pictures of Desmond’s family fell to the floor and shattered as the walls cracked and shifted. The entire house was becoming smaller, and despite his bes
t efforts, Michael was being pulled closer to Alma. She didn’t even have to move for him to be drawn to her. The walls were crumbling around him, and as the plaster fell away he saw wires within the wall that were pulling everything tighter.

  “Oh Daddy,” said Alma, though her voice had become twisted and deep. When she spoke, it sounded like the world was coming apart at the seams. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”

  Widowsfield

  March 14th, 2012

  2:45 AM

  “It’s almost time,” said Paul as he looked out the window at the cabin across the street. “We should probably start bringing everything back over there.

  “Last chance to back out of this,” said Rachel.

  “Not me,” said Alma. “I’m looking forward to getting it over with.”

  “Okay then,” said Stephen as he picked up Rosemary’s bag. “Let’s do this.”

  Jacker carried Ben, and everyone agreed again that Paul would have the easiest time carrying Michael. He’d carried the sleeper over to this house when they came across, and he was angry that he had to do it again, but he eventually relented.

  They’d taken Michael’s gag out, and now his tongue was lashing around inside of his mouth. His eyes stared straight up, and Paul avoided their gaze as he walked as fast as he could across the street.

  “Put him upstairs,” said Alma when Paul came in with Michael in his arms. Paul grumbled, but did as he was asked. Michael wasn’t a heavy man, but the dead weight of a grown man is still hard to carry. He took each step slowly as he ascended and then saw that Jacker had laid Ben out on the bed.

  “Where am I putting him?” asked Paul as he strained to keep a grip on the sleeper.

  “I don’t know,” said Alma. “Maybe on the floor, right where he killed Terry.”

  Paul got to the spot and unceremoniously dropped Michael to the floor. Alma’s father thumped down hard and Jacker grimaced as Paul shrugged.

  “Fuck it man,” said Paul. “That guy can rot in hell for all I care.”

  “Cool by me, brother,” said Jacker as he pat Paul’s shoulder on his way out of the room.

  Stephen was setting up the circle of candles in the kitchen like Rosemary had instructed. As he was laying them out, Alma picked one up. “What’s wrong?” asked Stephen.

  “This is the same candle,” said Alma as she inspected the glass, pillar candle. The wax inside was white and rose up along one side where it had once spilled out. On the opposite side the glass was marred by smoke from when it had tipped over with the flame still burning inside. She studied the picture of Saint Francis of Assisi standing beside a lamb that was licking at a wound on his leg.

  “She must’ve done her homework,” said Stephen.

  “No,” said Alma. “This is the exact same one that my mother used. I remember when it tipped over. How did she get this?”

  “Who knows?” said Stephen as he took the candle back and set it in its spot on the floor.

  “Mark that down as number one thousand five hundred and seventy of creepy ass things about this town,” said Jacker, making a joke of the seemingly random number.

  “Should we take our stuff back now?” asked Stephen as he took Alma’s teddy bear keychain out of the bag. She saw that he was holding the gun that Rosemary had left them.

  “I guess so,” said Alma as she took the bear from him. She rubbed her thumb over the soft fur belly of the memento, and she smiled. She was happy to have it back. Stephen handed Paul his keys, and gave Jacker the purple sobriety coin. Then he retrieved his wedding band and slipped it on. He got up and brought Rachel her ring, but she frowned and shook her head.

  “Keep it,” said Rachel.

  “No, you’ve got to put it on,” said Stephen. “At least for now. At least until this is over.”

  Rachel snatched the ring from him and paused before putting it on. She grimaced, but relented, and pushed the tight ring over her finger. It didn’t seem to fit easily now.

  “Should I put the mannequins back on the couch?” asked Rachel as she regarded the two figures they’d placed on the floor.

  Alma shook her head. “No need. We’re both really here this time.”

  “Oh crap,” said Jacker. “That just made my stomach drop when you said that. Guys, do I need to say that I’ve got a bad feeling about this, or is that just a given at this point?”

  “It’s a given,” said Paul.

  Stephen pulled a red, felt-tipped marker from Rosemary’s bag and handed it to Alma. “Do you want to do the honor?”

  Alma took the marker, and then uncapped it as she scooted closer to the circle of candles that Stephen had set out. She took a deep breath and then looked up in confusion. “I don’t remember if she wrote the number or the symbol for pi.”

  “Does it matter?” asked Jacker.

  “I think you wrote the number last time,” said Paul.

  “Hold on, let me get the camera ready,” said Stephen, but then he glanced around at everyone. “Is that okay?”

  “Go fuck yourself,” said Rachel.

  Stephen ignored her and asked the others. “Do you mind if I film this?”

  “No, go ahead,” said Alma when no one else offered any answer. “It’s fine by me.” Her hand was trembling as she held the marker.

  “It’s almost time,” said Paul.

  Alma set the tip of the marker on the tile and heard the familiar squeak as she began to write ‘314’ for what she hoped would be the last time.

  Beneath Cada E.I.B.’s facility

  March 14th, 2012

  2:50 AM

  Vess was getting ready to start the CORD when two of his guards came in with Lyle Everman on a gurney. They wheeled the decrepit sleeper in and approached the machine.

  “Do you want him inside?” asked one of the guards.

  “No, you can leave him there,” said Vess. “He was just a backup in case our new psychic didn’t do as she’d been told. Luckily, she’s a good listener.” He grinned back at them and then waved them off. “You can leave us. Shut the door on your way out.”

  He waited for them to leave before he wheeled himself over to Lyle’s side. His chair put his head at the same level as Lyle’s, and he sat there staring at the sleeper for a few moments. Lyle had suffered the same aging curse that Vess had, and their temporary immortality had failed following the 1996 experiment.

  Lyle’s body had suffered worse that Vess’s. The elasticity in both of their skin had been challenged by gravity, but Lyle was confined to the bed, meaning that his skin had always been pulled backward, causing his skull to become pronounced. His eyes had sunk back into his skull, seeming to shrink even though they were always open, and lips had grown wider, now revealing the extent of his upper and lower jaws as his tongue flicked within.

  “It’ll all be over soon,” said Vess as he touched Lyle’s head with compassion. “We’ll find our way to Heaven one way or another.”

  Vess wheeled himself over to the CORD and waited until his watch struck 3:00 before he pulled the lever that would begin drawing power from the hydroelectric dam straight to the machine. The lights in the lab began to dim immediately, and the old, familiar grind of the silver rings started. This would be the end. This would be when Vess finally answered the questions that plagued him.

  Blue arcs of lightning cascaded up through the spinning rings and over the orb atop each pillar. The electricity crossed the width of the CORD and seemed to compete with the other side. The crooked lines of blue zapped at one another before finally meeting in a single dance that undulated up and down, but kept a central beam intact.

  With every minute that passed, the electric current seemed to grow stronger. Vess watched in agonizing impatience as time slowly inched onward until finally the time to cut the cord had arrived. First, he flipped the final switch on the base of the machine that allowed it to draw in the maximum amount of power. Then he got out of his chair and carefully knelt in front of the stopgap mechanism.

  Ves
s set his finger on the switch that would send the uranium into the machine. He gazed at the watch on his left wrist as his right index finger was poised to flip the switch.

  “There’s no barrier that man’s ingenuity can’t break down.”

  The minute hand clicked over.

  3:14 had arrived.

  Vess flipped the switch.

  CHAPTER 30 – I Want to Watch

  3:14

  Paul woke up in a haze of smoke. He got to his knees and tried to search for Alma, but there was no one beside him. He cried out her name, but his voice echoed through the nothingness that was hidden by the white smoke. Or was it fog?

  As he reached out, his hand touched something cold and hard. He flattened his palm against the object and realized that it was a metal wall. He could see his hand pressed firmly against the surface, but it appeared as if all he was touching was the fog itself. Paul searched his prison, and discovered that he was inside of a metal box of some sort that was barely more than five feet across in either direction. He continued to search the space, but then the corners seemed to vanish. It was as if the room had become circular; as if it was shifting while Paul stood within it.

  Electricity crackled within the fog, and Paul saw a darkness emerge above. The shade grew thicker, and he began to see shapes sliding through the mass. The black cords began to slither across the invisible walls that trapped Paul in, and then a new shape came into view. Globes of white began to emerge from the mass of wires, and then they turned to reveal pupils staring down. There were hundreds of them, like stars in the sky that were focused solely on him.

  That’s when The Watcher finally revealed itself.

  From within the tangle of cords a shape began to emerge. An arch curled through the mass of wires, like the spine of a mythical sea creature rising above the waves. It had spines and it slithered through the cords before disappearing behind them again. The space that Paul was trapped in resounded with the sudden explosive noise of metal screeching as it was torn apart. He covered his ears and got on his knees to stay far from the lashing cords above.