by Lee Deadkeys
After dusting off the phonebook, Sam poured himself a cup of sugar and splashed in some black coffee. His head felt muddled, like he was coming off a bad hangover. The cup was to his lips when he realized what felt different, it was the buzzing.
It wasn’t a disruptive sound like the high-pitched whine of tinnitus. This was deeper, like suddenly becoming aware of the white noise of a fan or putting your ear to a rail as a train approached from some unseen place.
His eyes moved to the TV. The screen flickered in time with the strange buzzing in his teeth and behind his eyes. Setting his coffee cup on the counter, he peered into the black liquid surface. Small rings appeared faintly before ebbing out of existence. A second later, the rings reappeared and he wondered if he had any aluminum foil.
Tinfoil keeps them from controlling your thoughts. You make a head cap of it… can you get me some tinfoil, Sergeant Story? Pretty please?
Inmate Crawly was a full-time tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist and part-time necrophiliac. Crawly had many ideas and methods for keeping his brain off-line from the people in government trying to control him.
Some of these he shared with Sam because, in his words, you understand me. Sam didn’t know about that, but for inmate Crawly, the idea that they had something in common helped to keep him mostly cooperative, and for that reason alone Sam hadn’t been opposed to playing along.
He chuckled to himself now, thinking about thought control prevention on the recommendation of a criminally insane inmate. There had to be an explanation, and one that didn’t involve a government conspiracy.
Irritated, Sam grabbed the cup up and emptied it in three gulps. This had to have something to do with either feeling responsible for the rookie getting hurt, the Doc losing his mind and offing himself or losing his job. Hell, it probably had something to do with all three.
It would also explain the strange and horrible dreams he’d been having. The weird tingle in his head was probably nothing more than stress, guilt, Karma, or any combination thereof. Maybe it’s the onset of a stroke, he mused morbidly.
Sam refilled his cup and picked up the phone. He’d call the hospital and find out if the rookie was there. If so, then that part wasn’t a dream. He found the number in the book without much trouble. He dialed and listened to it ring a dozen times before hanging up. He rechecked the number and dialed again. This time he let it ring for a full minute. Finally, as he was about to hang up, he heard a woman’s voice speak through the garbled line.
“Yes!” she snapped.
“Uh, yeah, is this the hospital?” Sam asked, almost forgetting who and why he’d called.
“Yes, it is, what do you need?” the nurse said, impatient.
“That’s a hell of a way to answer the phone, ma’am,” Sam said, hoping the jest could be felt through the static on the line.
From some place near the nurse, Sam heard a scream rise sharply before abruptly ending in a choked shout. He felt the hairs all over his body pop straight up.
Not bothering to move the phone from the close proximity of her mouth, the nurse yelled for someone to get Mr. Lamb sedated! Sam could hear a hint of hysteria in the nurse as she barked orders directly into his ear.
“What the hell is going on there?” he demanded.
She seemed to have forgotten he was on the line. “What? Who is this? What do you want?”
This is a hospital? he wondered briefly.
“I’m looking for a friend. His name is Chad Cummings. Can you tell me what room he’s in?”
The nurse yelled again for someone to get Mr. Lamb under control before returning her attention to Sam. “Look, things are a mess here right now! Our computers have been down all day, and I have no way to look up anything. We are just too swamped to… NO! Not Propofol, you idiot! He’s allergic! Look I can’t help you. Try back tonight.
She hung up before Sam could protest.
What the hell kind of place are they running over there? The phone book had multiple listings for the hospital and he tried them all, all with no answer. Thinking about the rookie there amidst all that chaos made his decision for him. Screw waiting around for them to get their shit together, he was going down there. He dropped the cup in the sink and headed for the shower.
Day 5,Morning
Frank, Jess, and Mason
Dick’s U-Store-It
Frank tapped his watch again, then shook his wrist and held the timepiece to his ear. Nothing. Shielding his eyes, he looked at the sun’s position and chuckled to himself. He could no more tell the time from the sun than tell his fortune by the alignment of the stars. Still, it felt late, like closer to 10:00 a.m. and that meant Jessica was behind schedule.
Frank glanced from his dead watch as the rattle and clank of an ailing engine approached. He knew instantly it wasn’t Jess, knowing his daughter would never allow any machine to fall into such disrepair. Sure enough, a dented red truck, loaded front and back with young Mexican men, rumbled up to the security gates of the U-store-It. The driver keyed in a number code and the gates slowly yawned open. One of the men in the back lifted a paper-bagged bottle to his lips and then passed it to another man beside him as the truck slipped noisily through the gates.
“Where is she?” Frank wondered aloud before it struck him that maybe she and Mason were already inside. He felt a flash of irritation as he keyed the ignition, backed his truck from the parking spot and aimed it at the closed gates. He entered his number into the keypad and waited for the gates to reopen.
A horn sounded twice behind him and, looking in the review mirror, he saw Mason and Jess waving at him. He waved back and signaled them to follow.
Frank wound through the rows of close-knit, seemingly endless, roll-up doors before making the last turn down the row and nearly slammed the brake.
Dick Cropp stood beside his golf cart, staring in rapt fascination before the closed door of unit 2060.
Frank eased his truck forward until he was within five feet of Dick. He had hoped to talk with Dick alone in his office. From past dealings with him, Frank knew the man would make a big deal about abandoning the unit.
Frank heard the doors of Mason’s truck close but kept his eyes on Dick, who seemed not to notice their arrival.
“What the hell is he staring at?” Jessica asked beside his window. Frank shrugged, wondering the same thing as he shut off the engine and joined the two younger people.
He approached Dick, who still hadn’t turned to greet them or even acknowledge their presence.
“Dick, what the hell are you doing?” Jess demanded as she advanced forward. “Jesus! Why are my eyes burning?”
Frank joined his daughter’s side, his eyes and nasal passages also beginning to burn. “Pepper spray? What’s been going on here, Dick?” Frank asked as he fished a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to Jess. After deciding it was relatively clean, Jess shook out the folds and placed it over her nose and mouth.
“Dick, you all right?” Frank asked. Dick shook his head slightly, which Frank took to mean no, until Dick’s head snapped up, registering him for the first time.
“Frank?”
“Yeah, Dick, is everything all right? You been spraying pepper spray?”
Dick looked around, nodded to Jess and Mason before focusing again on Frank.
“Dogs, fucking dogs were everywhere.”
As if on cue, Frank heard a low growl from behind him. He turned cautiously and saw about twenty mangy dogs near the back of his truck; four of them very close.
Dick gasped, ran for the golf cart and retrieved the largest can of pepper spray Frank had ever seen.
Jessica came around the front of the truck, yelling “Dick! Do not spray any more of that shit around here!” She approached the pack of dogs, arms waving while she march-stomped in their direction. “GIT! Go on!”
Frank moved to her side, fearing an attack and was relieved when the four dogs turned and fled to the safety of the pack. Frank’s mouth hung open and Jess nudged him in t
he ribs.
“You heard of the Dog Whisperer, right? Well, I’m the damned Dog Commandant.” She winked at him and Frank couldn’t help but smile at her. This was the old Jess, the playful Jess who joked and laughed and laughed hardest at her own jokes, sometimes snorting as she did. Jess clapped him on the back and walked over to Dick and his golf cart, asking him something about the industrial-sized can of pepper spray and where he got it.
Frank looked around, searching for Mason. He still stood by the truck. He met Frank’s eye and wordlessly motioned him over. Frank cast one more look at the pack of dogs, now a good distance from them, and was satisfied that they posed no threat.
“Everything okay there, Chief?” Frank asked as he approached. Mason drew him toward the back of the truck, away from Jess and Dick.
“Jess had a little breakdown on the way here….” Mason said and trailed off.
Frank felt his good mood slip a notch.
“What? Why?”
Mason raised his head, “She spoke to Angel this morning. She’s back in town, in the hospital….”
Frank felt like the wind had been knocked out of him at the mention of his daughter-in-law’s name. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her. She'd been in tears, but then, all of them had lingered in a constant state of grief during those first horrible weeks. All but Jess, who had possessed a twisted ability to turn all pain into rage.
It was the week before she disappeared. Angel had something she wanted to, had to talk about, something that felt like it was swallowing her up. He felt a stab of shame as the memory tried to crystallize in his mind. He remembered his guilt for not wanting to talk to her, not wanting her to unburden herself on him, that’s what she had her family for, her friends.
He remembered now the overwhelming irritation he’d felt when everyone else kept talking about it; the murder, Jacob, talk of finding the killer, all of it. The resentment he’d felt at having to suspend his own mourning and be the voice of reason, the arbitrator between reckless talk of vigilante justice and pulling them all back from the edge of bottomless despair. It had all been too much on top of his own grief, and in the end, he had blown her off. And then she had disappeared. His dead son’s wife, whom he loved.
“Frank, are you all right?” Mason asked.
Frank realized his heart was pounding and he wanted to punch something. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all, he thought, disappointed in himself.
“Sure, yeah,” Frank said and tried to pull himself together. Suddenly he didn’t care about the thing in the unit, didn’t care if Dick was being eaten up by rabies, or any of this mess. All he wanted now was to be at home, alone, a glass of iced tea on the side table and a good western to read.
“Sorry, Frank. I guess I shouldn’t have said anything, I didn’t know you and Angel were that close.” Mason returned to looking at the ground, shifting slightly from foot to foot. “Why don’t you head home, Frank. Me and Jess can gather up the tools and clear out what we can in the unit. Maybe we’ll stop by after, take you out to the steak house. What do you say?”
Jess yelled from behind the two men. “Let’s go guys, I’m getting old.”
* * *
Jessica watched the two men having what appeared to be a pretty heavy conversation. Mason looked miserable, like someone had kicked him in the balls and then kicked his dog in the balls. Her father stood rigid and unmoving, like he was inwardly winding up for a fight. What the hell are they talking about? She wondered and secretly hoped it wasn’t about her.
Mason met her eyes and she smiled, hoping for one in return. Mason replied in kind before turning his attention back to the ground.
Her father shook his head, said something to Mason and then abruptly turned around, walking toward her.
“Everything all right?” she asked, hoping to sound nonchalant. He nodded and kept walking.
They gathered around the door as Jessica bent to unlock it. She reached for the handle and, with a heave, pulled the large door up.
The dogs scattered as soon as the door began to move, howling and running with their tails tucked firmly between their legs, some leaving puddles in their wake. Everyone watched the pack retreat, everyone but Jessica. She was staring at a wall of darkness. The sunlight stopped at the threshold like a thick black curtain had been drawn over the opening.
“What the hell?” Jess said and the men turned their attention back to the open unit.
“Damn, it’s dark in there.” Mason stretched his hand forward, decided better of it and let it drop to his side.
“Sure it is, bulbs are shot. Lemme get a flashlight from my cart,” Dick said in a dazed, dreamy voice as he moved toward the golf cart.
Jessica looked nervously at Frank, “Void-of-light kind of dark, right?”
Frank nodded, his eyes moving over the surface of the blackness, hoping for a glimpse through. There was something almost hypnotic about this kind of dark, the kind of dark you can only find in caves, mines or other such places.
A hand seized his arm as he stumbled forward. He had been leaning toward the opening, being drawn in and now he took a quick step backward.
Jessica looked alarmed, “Careful, you don’t want to fall in.”
No, he realized, he certainly did not want to fall in, walk in, or just be in there at all. He patted Jess’s hand and yelled for Dick to hurry up with the light.
Dick appeared beside Frank with a big plastic flashlight, aimed it in the unit and thumbed the switch. The clean white beam hit the wall of shadow and instantly began to dim to a sickly yellow. Dick smacked his hand against the plastic body until the beam brightened and turned it back to the opening. Just as quickly the light dimmed, a moment later it winked out completely.
“I’ve got an idea,” Jess said, holding her hand out to Mason. “Give me your keys.”
“For what? Where are you going?”
Frank followed her train of thought and offered, “Here take mine. I’m parked in front of him, anyway.”
After a few moments, Jess was finally able to maneuver the truck around the small space enough that the front end was pointed directly at the unit. Frank nodded to her and she hit the headlights.
The truck’s halogens flared, penetrating a few feet of the darkness before diffusing just as the beams of the flashlights had. But it had been enough to catch a glimpse of the box.
“Oh my God!” Jess revved the engine and the weak light struggled for ground. Reaching around on the passenger side floorboard she came up with a Thermos and wedged it against the gas pedal. With the RPM’s up, the light weakly stretched forward.
Jess jumped from the truck and joined the others in front of the unit.
“It… it was open!”
“Christ, look at the light,” Mason said, taking a step back. Jess saw it. The light from the truck beams was being pulled into thin tendrils toward the opening of the box.
“It’s shredding the light,” Dick said and Jess thought that was the only thing they would ever agree on.
The ribbons of light disappeared over the lid of the box like a heavy fog.
“We should go,” Frank said and backed toward the truck.
Dick took a step forward. “It’s just, just amazing! How is it doing that?”
Jess reached out and snagged his shirt, “Dick, don’t.”
Dick turned and smiled at her; a big toothy, grin. It was such an insane thing to do that she jerked her hand away.
The three of them watched as Dick entered the semi-darkness. Frank and Mason took a step back but no one moved more than that. Jess would think later that they wanted to see what would happen to him; like kids playing with a firecracker, no one wants to hold it but when someone volunteers, they don’t try very hard to talk him out of it.
Dick walked further in, within a few feet of the box, plenty of time to grab him and pull him out. No one else moved. He was at the thing now, about ready to look in. He turned to them and waved.
Frank cal
led hesitantly, “Dick?”
“The earthquakes… I think it was… waking me up… don’t you want to SEE?” He turned with a lurch, and looked into the box.
Frank took two stilted steps forward, his hand outstretched toward Dick. Mason locked a hand on his forearm, stopping him. Frank looked at him; he looked scared as he shook his head at him, no.
Jess watched Dick’s back with morbid anticipation. A black swirling halo formed above his head before dispersing into a shroud that masked his head and shoulders.
Dick went rigid. His arms stiffened momentarily and then he began turning slowly away from the box. Jessica watched, frozen, her traitorous limbs refusing the command to run.
He faced them and they all took a step back. Dick was grinning at them like a lunatic, his vacant eyes shined briefly before turning up in their sockets. He cocked his head violently to the left before slowly rotating back to fix them in his sightless stare. Small, dark veins began seeping through the whites of his eyes, each one leaving a wispy black smudge before merging into the next.
“Jesus!” Mason swore.
“Dick?” Frank called again, as Jessica slowly moved her hand to her waistband, taking hold of her .45’s grip.
Dick took a step toward them and they matched it in reverse. He held out his hands, studied them for a moment and lifted them to his face.
“I saw… I saw, FOREVER,” and then he screamed.
Jessica slammed both hands to her ears and ran for the truck. Kicking the thermos away, she yelled for the two men to get in.
Both men stood with fists at the ready and backed cautiously toward the truck, neither of them taking their eyes off Dick.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Mason yelled as he jumped into the cab and scooted against Jess.
Frank piled in next to Mason and slammed the passenger door closed, locking it for good measure.
Dick cut off his own screams as he began to rub his face viciously. He stopped, looked at his hands and then turned his attention to the truck.
