The Home

by Scott Nicholson

  When you love somebody, you take care of them. You don't But the thing before him didn't look to be in a forgiving mood. The maw parted and closed with a moist sigh of contentment, the arms edged closer, and Freeman was frozen by a chill a thousand graves deep.

  The words were in his brain, in that same voice that used to sing him nursery rhymes and tell him bedtime stories.

  You don't get second chances.

  The paralysis broke and tears streamed from his eyes and he wanted to say he was sorry but what good was that useless word when you don't get second chances?

  That was one of Mom's mottoes: do right the first time, avoid suffering regrets at any cost, love with all your heart, because YOU DON'T GET SECOND CHANCES.

  He could breathe again and he was about to scream for real, he was shaking so hard his bones could wake the dead, and the memory of the warm blood against the silver blade slashed through the little secret hidey hole in his head, and he knew he was guilty. And that she'd never forgive him, even if she lived a billion eternities.

  Before he could scream, Starlene's hand clamped over his mouth. He hissed against her palm and tried to squirm away. That was when Bondurant spoke.

  "I told you he was troubled," Bondurant said. "May God have mercy on his soul."

  Freeman's eyes snapped open. The mother-thing was gone.

  Or had never been.

  But this was the deadscape and Freeman couldn't tell anymore who was alive and who was dead. Or if it made any difference, because Mom hadn't died in the deadscape.

  Maybe you carried your dead with you, forever.

  Bondurant stood in place of the nightmare, licking his lips and squinting through the fog of his glasses. His jacket was wrinkled and the knot of his tie was loose. No matter how scary and ugly the director was, Freeman was glad to see him. Anybody but Mom.

  "Mr. Bondurant," Starlene said, pushing Freeman inside and closing the door behind her. "What are you doing here?"

  "I have the keys, remember?"

  "We, um…"

  "Say no more," Bondurant said. "Can't you see your liberal views are carved in your face in big letters? Save the children. Sacrifice. Do good instead of evil."

  Freeman shuddered. That was exactly the sort of philosophy Mom would have had, if she'd been a social worker instead of a lawyer. If she hadn't fallen under Dad's control. If she were alive instead of dead.

  "Well, I've got a job to do," Starlene said. "And if you're with Kracowski and McDonald, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to do some evil to you"

  Bondurant shook his head. "Sweet, sweet Starlene. I could have put that fire of yours to such use." He glanced down the hall toward his office. "But, see, I'm a changed man, and God's servants don't get much choice in the duties for which they are chosen."

  "Oh, dang," Starlene said. "Don't tell me you've had another vision? Well, I hope this one involves a chariot in the sky, because that's the only route out of this place. Or haven't you noticed the armed guards and the barbed wire?"

  "God is testing us."

  "One thing I know is that God doesn't send you anything you can't handle."

  "Where's Vicky?" Freeman cut in. "I know she was here because I saw it inside her head."

  Bondurant looked down at Freeman. "She was here. One of the guards took her away."

  "They didn't say where?"

  Bondurant tilted his head back as if Michelangelo's ghost had painted a mural on the ceiling. He let out a laugh that was too loud for the room.

  "Where is she?" Starlene said.

  "Where we all go, sooner or later," Bondurant said between cackles.

  Starlene pulled Freeman back as if the crazed director were playing on a strange television quiz show, one where the wrong answer meant instant death. "Heaven?"

  Bondurant rolled his reptilian eyes toward the floor and stopped laughing. This time his voice was a deranged imitation of Vincent Price's. "The other place," he said.

  "The basement," Freeman said to Starlene. She yanked open the door and they ran down the hall.

  Bondurant's melodramatic voice boomed after them like B-movie thunder. "Take the stairs. That's the fastest way to hell."

  FORTY

  The girl would be the first victim.

  No, not victim… a PATIENT, Kracowski reminded himself. But with Dr. Mills involved now, there was no other way to think of her. Vicky Barnwell had passed from his caring and kind treatment into the clutches of a madman. Even in Kracowski's most self-deluded moments, he never completely forgot that the well-being of his patients was of at least secondary importance. His system was designed to heal them as much as it was to research brain function.

  Mills exhibited no such concern. Mills wanted to push everything to the limits, even when those limits stretched into the bizarre. Mills exhibited far too much glee as he placed the gaunt girl in the cell. She hadn't spoken when the guard escorted her down the dim hall. She simply looked each man in the face, staring a moment longer at Kracowski than the others, and didn't resist when Mills took her arm and led her inside.

  Mills closed the door and twisted the corroded slide lock into place. McDonald waited until the guard left, then said to Mills, "Let the games begin."

  Mills moved to the circuitry board and the remote network computer he'd hastily installed. Two large curved panels, housing a series of superconducting magnets, stood just outside the cell door.

  "Let's see what this baby can do," Mills said. Kracowski couldn't tell whether "baby" referred to the girl or the equipment.

  "See, where you went wrong was in the direct application of the electrical charge," Mills said as if lecturing a mediocre student. "If you'd read my paper on magnetite in the brain and the resultant effect of misaligned electromagnetic waves-"

  "I've read all your work," Kracowski said "and I learned from your mistakes."

  Mills paused in his entering of the commands, He put a forefinger to his temple. "You didn't read what I carry up here. Unless you've learned to read minds, but I'm willing to bet mat you haven't subjected yourself to your own treatments. That's the difference between us, Doctor. You can't take that final leap of faith."

  "I don't need faith. I believe in myself."

  Mills said "By the way, McDonald you're not carrying a firearm, are you? Or any other large metal objects?"

  McDonald didn't answer.

  "Because the magnetic force will reach five Tesla, which is three times stronger than a typical magnetic resonance imager in a hospital. There have been reports of metal objects flying through the air in the vicinity of the fields. Sometimes it's a mop bucket, sometimes an ink pen. On at least one occasion, a policeman's pistol was pulled from its holster and flew to the head of the magnet's coil. The gun discharged. Fortunately, the bullet didn't pierce the holding tanks."

  "That would be bad?" McDonald said.

  "Well, the liquid nitrogen in the outer tank is 320 degrees below zero. If you don't freeze to death first, the oxygen in the room will be reduced so drastically that you'll suffocate. And the liquid helium in the inner tank is only a few degrees above absolute zero."

  "That's cold, right?"

  "You'll turn into an ice sculpture and probably shatter at the slightest air current."

  "I never knew science could be so much fun."

  "Stick around and I'll show you the meaning of 'fun.'"

  McDonald put a hand inside his jacket and came out with an automatic pistol. "Glock.45. Triple safety. It won't go off accidentally. What about the steel door?"

  "The field isn't strong enough to pull the door from its hinges."

  McDonald looked at Kracowski, who shrugged. Kracowski said, "I'd never push the Tesla that high, and I always used lead shields to limit the exposure. But, then, I'm just an innocent bystander."

  "Nobody's innocent," Mills said. "And it's time to go for some serious results."

  McDonald placed his firearm in a cell two doors down the hall. "Most of the components are plastic. Is that far enough
away?"

  "The magnet is focalized enough that it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. I'm being overly dramatic. The real force will be directed at the subject inside the cell."

  "Her name is Vicky Barnwell," Kracowski said.

  Mills flipped through a folder. "That's funny. You termed her 'Patient 7-AAC in your records. Her ESP score was pathetic, though. We'll see if we can fix that."

  "I'm sure you'll do better. Compared to you, I'm just a guy who sweeps up after the lab closes."

  "Then watch and maybe you'll learn something, and one day you can play 'genius,' too."

  Mills entered the rest of the commands, then keyed the machinery into action. The tanks hummed and Kracowski tried to visualize the process of the electricity running through the miles of coil wire in the superconducting magnet, the helium lowering the temperature and reducing the wire's resistance. The draw on the electrical grid caused the scant lighting to grow even dimmer, until the room was cast in orange and deep blue. The whine of the machinery grew louder, and McDonald moved behind Mills's computer as if that would provide some protection in case the tanks exploded.

  Kracowski looked at his wristwatch. Electromagnetic fields could impair the functioning of watches, but Mills had done a good job of isolating and controlling the direction of the field. Whatever his other flaws, he was a brilliant physicist.

  Thirty seconds went by.

  Kracowski expected any number of things: for Vicky to scream, for Mills to jump up the juice, for McDonald to ask what was going on. But no theory could have predicted what happened next.

  Vicky pounded on the inside of the cell door with the bottom of her fist. In a calm voice, she said, "Hey, you guys. Better come see this. There's somebody in here."

  FORTY-ONE

  Footsteps approached from the far end of the hall. Somebody was in a hurry, Freeman thought. He and Starlene pressed into the corner. The stairwell was close enough to make a run for, but it was keyed like most of the other doors, and they'd have to go through Randy's assortment to find the one that fit.

  "Hey, Freeman, is that you?" Isaac said in a loud whisper.

  Freeman was about to answer, then wondered if Isaac had been turned into a mole for the Trust. Stranger things had happened. You couldn't trust a guy just because he was a kid instead of an adult.

  "I saw it happen," Dipes said, sniffling from a cold. "I mean, I saw what's going to happen. And it's not nice."

  Freeman peeked around the corner. Isaac and Dipes stood there in sweatpants and T-shirts. Isaac's curly hair was damp, and they were both panting from exertion. Isaac nudged Dipes and said "He saw you guys hiding in the corner by the stairs."

  "So you can read minds, too?" Starlene asked Dipes.

  "Sort of," Isaac answered for him. "He saw it ten minutes ago. It took us that long to sneak away from the gym and get here."

  "Is that where the other kids are?"

  "Yeah. Except Vicky. Some goon came and got her. A new guy, wearing a uniform. And Deke's still nowhere to be found."

  "What else did you see?" Freeman asked Dipes, then added for Starlene's benefit, "He's clairvoyant, or whatever you call it when you know the future. Like Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce, except Dipes doesn't talk in stupid riddles."

  Starlene nodded as if such a talent were only natural in a world where kids had ESP and ghosts walked around like they owned the place. At least she seemed to be losing some of that grown-up tendency to deny everything that didn't fit into her narrow worldview Freeman decided maybe there was hope for her after all.

  "Can we trust her?" Dipes said. Isaac put a hand of encouragement on his shoulder.

  "She's promised not to shrink us," Freeman said. "She just wants to help."

  "Couldn't have said it better myself," Starlene said. "So, what's going to happen that we need to be scared of?"

  Dipes looked at Freeman. "Ghosts."

  Isaac said "You guys keep going on about ghosts. I'll believe it when I see it."

  "Believe it," Starlene said. "What ghosts in particular are you talking about, Edmund?"

  "Edmund?" Isaac said, looking at Dipes. "That's a pretty cool name. Like in a British book or something. Why didn't you tell us?"

  He shrugged. "I like 'Dipes' better, 'cause Edmund's what my folks called me."

  "What ghost did you see?" Starlene repeated.

  Dipes pointed a finger at Freeman's chest. "Yours."

  "Great," Freeman said. "Well, maybe you saw only one kind of future, and there's bound to be a gazillion different futures."

  Isaac's dark complexion grew a shade paler. "Sure. Like opening doors on a video game. Depending on which room you go in, different stuff happens."

  "We better go in one of them, and soon," Starlene said. She went to the stairwell door and began trying keys. "They'll be after us."

  "Are you scared?" Dipes asked Freeman.

  "About maybe dying? Nah. There are way worse things than that."

  "Like what?"

  Freeman didn't want to dwell on it. For one thing, if he died, that meant he'd have to see Mom again. For another, he didn't plan on dying. Even Clint Eastwood managed to make it to the final credits nine times out of ten.

  Except in those movies where Clint was the Defender of me Weak, Protector of the Innocent. Then it was practically a hero's requirement to take one for the team. He looked at Starlene's face. Tears made twin lines down her cheeks.

  Damn, Freeman thought. She must really sort of like me a little bit.

  "It's worse to live like you're waiting for second chances," Freeman finally said. "That's worse than being dead."

  Starlene found the right key and swung the door open. She wiped her nose and regained her composure.

  "You guys better stay here," Freeman said.

  "No way," Isaac said. "They're going to pick us off one by one if we don't do something."

  "Yeah," Dipes said. "I saw a future where this place was empty. All the kids gone. Except for the ones in the basement."

  "The basement?"

  "Yeah. Where the ghosts live."

  Freeman followed Starlene down the dark stairs.

  Isaac took Dipes's hand and came after them. "So we better stick together. Plus, this may be my only chance to see a real live ghost."

  "Just hope you're not looking in a mirror at the time," Freeman said.

  They felt their way down. A dim emergency light filtered up from the base of the stairs, the glow painting the cobwebs a sickly yellow. The air was thick with dust and the rot of old masonry. The walls of the stairwell were stone, and a damp chill settled into Freeman's bones as they descended. They gathered at the basement door and Starlene began trying keys.

  "What's the plan?" Freeman whispered.

  "Get Vicky and get out," she answered.

  "Out, where?"

  "We'll make up that part when we get to it."

  "Good plan," Freeman said.

  "Can you read Vicky's mind? Or, what do you call it, 'triptrap' her?"

  "I've had other tilings on my mind. Like being a ghost."

  "Try again," Isaac said.

  Freeman shut out the sound of the water dripping behind the walls, forgot the fear of death that tickled his skin like knife tips, ignored his heart pounding as if trying to hammer its way through his rib cage, blocked whatever thoughts were racing through the minds of Starlene and Dipes and Isaac.

  He sent his mind out, in that process that was still freaky even though he'd done it hundreds of times. Triptrapping, walking across that mental bridge. He concentrated picturing Vicky's face, the lips that said such kind words, the pretty eyes that looked all the way through him…

  He had to back up because he was getting distracted. He couldn't afford to think of that other stuff, that mushy, kissy lovey-dovey crap. Clint Eastwood didn't have time for it, except in his worst movies, and neither did Freeman.

  He triptrapped again, concentrating harder this time. He was rapid cycling like crazy, going from manic to depressed
, up to down, white-hot to blue, throbbing like a police car's lights. Something weird was going on, the erratic electromagnetic pulses were scrambling his synapses. He was swinging from mania to depression so fast that the two almost merged into a bizarre new emotional state.

  You've been here before. Maybe it's just your imagination, though, but that's the kind of obsessive thought you have while depressed, or maybe you 're up and you think this is some kind of holy gift.

  Maybe you 're supposed to use this power to be a Protector of the Innocent. Don't be a damned fool. Nobody's innocent, and nobody's worth protecting. Or is that just depression talking?

  You 're innocent. You didn't kill her.

  If you try hard enough, you can make the world stop. You can make your brain go away. You 're bigger than God.

  Forget about all that and CONCENTRATE. This is about saving Vicky, not you. For once in your sorry life, it's NOT ABOUT YOU.

  And then he broke through, bridged with her as she was trying to reach him, and for the most beautiful, terrible moment they were linked, their sentences cramming together and overflowing like two glasses of water poured into a third, thoughts circling and dancing and taking on meanings beyond words.

  Then Freeman saw what Vicky was seeing, and wished that the gift had stayed in the hands of God or Satan or Dad or whatever else cruel bastard had given it to him. Because Vicky was in the deadscape, big time.

  FORTY-TWO

  "You have to get right to the source," Kenneth Mills said. His voice rose as the power to the superconductors increased. Kracowski looked at the rows of specially built fuse boxes that were stacked on the wall behind the tanks. He didn't know what would happen if the whole operation shorted out, but that might be preferable to observing the results of Mills's mind games.

  The girl pounded on the door again. "You better come

  McDonald approached the door, hesitated then asked Mills, "Should I open it?"