The Listener

by Christopher Carrolli

  “Mr. Hadley wants to sit and talk with you, Ryan.” The older of the two guards had spoken—odd, because they didn’t speak much.

  His heart raced, awakened by the inevitable invitation. He stood and put on his shoes, then looked up at the guards, ready. They walked him down the spacious corridor, his eyes catching sight of endless doors to the left and to the right. He realized that the rooms were where subjects were examined, and abilities were tested, and experiments were conducted. Even though the guards allowed him to walk in front of them, that’s exactly what he felt like right now, a subject to be examined, pointed at, studied as though he were some inexplicable microcosm.

  Ahead, he noticed a room where the light inside spilled out into the corridor more than the others. That was where he was going, and inside, he heard a man clearing his throat and breathing meditatively to catch his nervous breath. It was Hadley; he could hear him. He stopped in front of the room and turned to the guards, allowing them to open the door and escort him in.

  The room was basic, devoid of furniture except a desk and chair, a recliner, and a tall filing cabinet. The once decrepit walls still depicted cracks and scars that snuck through the painted white. The man he’d met on the video screen slowly raised his head, and their eyes met each other’s in subdued fascination.

  “Hello, Ryan,” Hadley said. “You know who I am. Please have a seat.”

  Ryan sat on the opposite side of the desk from his captor, feeling the blank stare of his face hardening into a mask. After Hadley inquired about the accommodations, he complained about the restless tedium he felt inside the room, with no television, books, or video games.

  “We may be able to rectify that situation as your productivity increases,” Hadley said. “Remember, Ryan, your main focus now is honing your ability. You have something that not many others possess. It is a gift.”

  Ryan understood what he meant; the more information he was able to feed him, the more activities he would be allowed.

  “I want to talk to Sidney,” he said, adamantly.

  “I’m afraid that is impossible, but you should know that our friend, Sidney, is doing just fine. I’m sure you’ve found it hard to communicate with him because first, Sidney is not a telepath, and secondly, his ability may be in jeopardy due to the trauma he suffered.”

  A nagging knowledge from the pit of his stomach told Ryan that this was untrue, but he tried not to contest Hadley, feeling the need to play along, allow him to think he was in control. He definitely didn’t fear the man; there was something about him that made him unable to do so. Ryan couldn’t identify it; it was as though fear and pressure lived beneath the man’s exterior.

  “As I was saying, you are unique, Ryan. Society shuns what you have because they don’t possess it themselves. Why do you think your mother was stringent about your not using your ability? She tried to suppress it in you because you’re capable of communicating with your father, something she doesn’t want.”

  That last comment stole him away from his inner focus, and silently, he wondered if it was true. He’d always felt that there were problems between Mom and Dad, because he’d heard them fighting off and on, but they were problems he didn’t see. He’d ignored it all, hoping it would go away...but not the way it had. He’d soon forgotten about it, never mentioning a word to his mother.

  “You must use this time, Ryan, to strengthen your ability, use it to help people. You can only learn how to do that, here.”

  Ryan’s mind wandered, juggling in the circus of thoughts that Hadley’s words induced into his mind.

  * * * *

  He was fully aware of Ryan’s capabilities, and therefore didn’t waste too much time testing them. He coaxed Ryan into listening to the conversation the guards were having in another part of the underground. The boy closed his eyes, shut himself down to everything around him, and reached out with his mind—astounding.

  When Hadley called the guards in, Ryan repeated their conversation, verbatim, producing reactions of tense amazement and proving himself to be of the highest caliber of clairaudients. Hadley stared at this prodigy whose ability had dwarfed his own.

  “Ryan, tell me about your ability to hear the dead,” he said.

  Ryan described for him the deafness, then the sound of the dead person’s voice, almost like an echo. All of it was familiar to Hadley; he had possessed the same abilities since his own childhood. He explained to Ryan how remote hearing meant that his telepathic side was just as powerful as his ear to hear the dead.

  Then he saw the look of distraction on the boy’s face, the far away stare of his deep green eyes, as though he were listening. Hadley tried to glean what was happening, but was unable. The voices of the dead that spoke to him at one time had long maintained their silence toward the cause of Roman Hadley. This was why Ryan would be a much greater asset.

  “Ryan,” he said. “What are you hearing?”

  The boy casually turned his head to him, seemingly broken from a spell.

  “Nothing,” he said, but Hadley felt the grip of his upper hand slowly slipping away.

  * * * *

  Ryan sat back in his room, silently overwhelmed by the rush of relief that surged inside him, not only because the session with Hadley was over, but because he had finally heard his father’s voice during it. His captor had been interviewing him regarding the dead that spoke to him, and it happened. No longer could he hear Hadley’s words as the deafness erased all sound, and Hadley’s lips had continued to move in endless unheard speech.

  “Ryan, stay calm. They’re coming for you, soon.”

  He relied on hearing his father, and he wondered why it had been days, right when he needed him most. Though he didn’t fear Hadley, the situation had knotted a lump of anxiety in the middle of his chest that burst and dissolved at the familiar voice. He had looked away from Hadley, and then quickly tried to hide the change in his demeanor.

  “I will get you out of here, son.”

  The words were fast and fleeting, then gone, and suddenly he heard Hadley asking him what he’d heard. Nothing, he’d told him, and he seemed to believe it. Obviously, Hadley hadn’t been lying when he described his own ability as having dissipated, or he would be listening himself. He had just failed at hearing the words of Ryan’s father.

  Next, he was talking about listening to certain destinations. He instructed Ryan to sit back and relax, so he was now stretched out on the recliner. Then, Hadley showed him a few pictures. The first was easily recognizable.

  “Ryan, this is The White House,” Hadley said, holding the picture. “Listen...”

  Something about the smooth, strange, coaxing way Hadley said the word caused him to comply. The sounds from elsewhere took over...

  “Mr. President...press conference...deputy...organizations...”

  The words and the voices overwhelmed each other as many varied tones spoke out amid the unseen gathering of constructive confusion. He repeated what little he’d heard, explaining that sometimes, what he heard presented itself.

  Hadley showed him other photos: the UN building, the capital building, as well as destinations along the US border. All of what he’d heard was varied and jumbled: voices, words, or nothing at all in some cases. The enthusiasm in Hadley’s face earlier seemed to be missing now as the wrinkles in his forehead made him look confused.

  “You’ve done well for your first session, Ryan,” he said. “We will try harder next time, reach farther, try to search for important conversations.”

  Now Ryan lay back in his room, almost sleepy, focusing again to reach out to Sidney. He thought of his father watching over him, knowing what he’d said was the truth; they would be coming for him, soon. The lifted burden from his shoulders caused him to slip away into much needed sleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The voices of the conversation came abruptly to her ear. It had always been that way when a distant conversation was about her. She would hear it, as though some guardian angel had intended her
to. Now, that angel seemed to be by her side.

  “...come to our attention that you’ve brought a possible liability into our organization.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle...”

  “...handle it, should the need present itself.”

  The voices belonged to Hadley, and some mysterious cohort, probably part of the group that he mentioned. They were talking about her; she knew it whenever her nerves fluttered, and she shuddered inside from what felt like her stomach dropping.

  They spoke about killing her; Hadley must have found out about the notes.

  She had to flee this place before the guards or Hadley saw her...or anyone else who may have been watching. She would think of some other way to help the kid once she took off in the car. The scattered gravel from the retired railroad tracks crunched louder under her feet the faster she moved. Her light blue VW loomed closer and closer in the small, off to the side, parking area.

  When she reached it, she slammed the door shut, automatically locking it. Her breath was heavy, rasping; she had to quit smoking. The engine regurgitated as usual when she keyed the ignition. Not now, she thought, I don’t need this.

  “Come on, you piece-a-shit!” She yelled through the small car, the engine ironically purring to life at the sound of her angry voice. It took her mere seconds to leave the remote, desolate part of town behind in a cloud of its own dust.

  The farther away she drove, the more the mist in her head began to clear, and she could think of her next logical move. Thoughts ordered themselves into proper sequence, and she remembered something—a name. Just before they mentioned her, the ominous voice mentioned someone searching for the boy.

  Wiley...Wiley...not a fool...

  Wiley, she knew that name. In fact, there was a guy she waited on often in the diner who was rumored to be FBI. Ed, the owner, always referred to him as “The G-Man;” she always referred to him as “Mr. Wiley.” Could it be the same person? It made sense. She would take the risk, drive to the diner and find out. Thankfully, she hadn’t quit her job just yet. If Wiley was FBI, she was going to need him on her side, once she explained.

  A maroon-colored Sedan appeared in the rearview mirror out of nowhere; it seemed to be trailing her. She stepped on the gas lightly, shifting her eyes from the road to the mirror, but the Sedan continued to follow her.

  * * * *

  Stu Wiley had a habit of trusting his intuition and being right almost every time. He hinted to the others that he might have a lead, but vocally distributing information, especially in public, was out of the question in this case. The Bureau had been searching for and following this group for years, but their capabilities were immense and far-reaching, achieving feats of espionage through a conglomeration of highly sophisticated psychic beings. That was how they managed to elude authorities for so many years...they listened.

  He thought back to the discovery of the underground tunnel back in DC. The group had exhausted quite a few locations, and Wiley knew that the nation’s capital would be next to impossible for them to hibernate in, in the current day and age. He felt sure this time that the theory of Hadley being anywhere in the world was nothing more than a cat and mouse game, a wild goose chase, but any number of clichéd sayings would fit the theory he was now ready to dispel.

  The signature style of “in plain sight,” or “right under the radar of the authorities,” was how Hadley and the group had operated throughout the years; it was a repetitive pattern maintained in many different ways from using the FBI as a cover, to the tunnel in DC back in the seventies, and now to the university’s investigative team.

  It suddenly occurred to Wiley like the appearance of a lost object; what if Hadley and the group were functioning here, right amid the continuous humdrum of the small, Pennsylvania town? Sidney Pratt had suspected Hadley of being nearby in Pittsburgh. What if he was closer than that? Wiley thought.

  He’d retrieved official blueprints of the entire county, combing with fine detail any underground locations: mines, waste facilities, anything that could be renovated to match the site in DC. There were many mining facilities in Pennsylvania, most in functioning utilization—those were of no interest to him.

  There was one defunct mining facility situated amid a vast underground, and it was only ten minutes from where he sat. He knew of these mines from when he was a kid, but was never really sure what became of them. Could it be possible that Hadley could be so close? Why not? He had to get to Ryan somehow. What would make him remain here after taking the boy? It had to be more than just the use of the signature style.

  It took him only minutes on his laptop to discover that those old mines had been renovated into a medical research facility. He felt warmer; now all he had to do was discover the sponsor of the medical research, probably another dummy company used as a cover for the group, or what if the facility itself was a dummy headquarters? He stared at the blueprints, his inner instinct swelling a surge through his body. It had to be, but if Hadley was there, it meant something was keeping him here, but what?

  Silently, he felt like a lottery winner, and then the phone rang.

  Surprised to see Ed’s Diner on his caller id, he answered it. It was Ed who nearly shouted in his ear...

  “Hey, Stu, one of my girls here says she needs to see you. I’m not sure what she’s talking about, something about a missing boy or—”

  Another voice interrupted Ed’s, as though the phone had been pulled away from him.

  “Mr. Wiley, this is Ursula Masters. I’ve served you several times in here—dark haired waitress? Are you the one looking for the boy, Ryan?”

  Wiley knew her, but the surprise of what she uttered stunned him speechless.

  “If so, I know where he is, but you have to come now, I think someone has followed me.”

  * * * *

  “Whatever it is, it’s like it’s calling me back there.” Leah heaved a distressing sigh, lounging back in the comfortable chair in Susan’s office. They were continuing their earlier discussion of her recurring visions, while Dylan and Brett were visiting Sidney.

  “I keep seeing the scenes of my life in that house over and over: the rocking chair, the spun spool of yarn that I followed down the hallway, Agnes, the basement, my mother. The scenes flash before me, faster and faster, like there’s a message I haven’t received.”

  “And you continue to see things you didn’t see at the time, like your mother hanging, your father being strapped in a straight-jacket?” Susan had known this, and her point was that of confirmation.

  Leah nodded, wiping away a perfect sized teardrop from her eye.

  “Is there anything different about the scenes each time? You said you thought there might be a message?”

  Leah recalled the visions, especially the last one; there was something different.

  “The couple of times when the visions came to me in my dreams, I could hear breathing, a rapid, harsh, almost muffled breath. I kept moving closer and closer to the large, Victorian mirror that my mother had ordered me not to go near. I finally came upon it and looked, and this hideous face stared back at me. It wasn’t like anything I had ever seen before; it didn’t look human. It was distorted, mutated, and horribly grotesque.”

  Leah conjured the first words she could think of to describe what stared back at her in the mirror just before she woke from the dreams that accentuated the horrid visions.

  “That part never happened in my life,” she said. “I never got close to the mirror. It was a gigantic oval glass, so my mother was insistent that I not go near it.

  “Leah, what are the early impressions that you have of your mother that linger with you today? What kind of a person did you see her as?”

  Leah thought back to her mother, and how she and her father were two completely different people. Her memories of her were few.

  “She was pushy, strict, but not really mean, just...selfish, now that I look back. I have always wondered why she married my father when she was so career oriented.
”

  “Leah, it could be that—”

  Suddenly, the room was enveloped in a mist, and Leah saw a man jump out from behind Susan, who sat behind her desk, talking on, and blind to what Leah was seeing. Leah sat across from Susan’s desk, seeing the man in full view as he stepped closer and stood directly behind Susan.

  Susan reacted to Leah’s unblinking eyes and parted lips.

  “Leah, what’s wrong?”

  Leah didn’t answer, only stared behind her.

  “My God,” Susan said, jumping up from the chair.

  “What are you seeing?”

  “There’s a man behind you, Susan,” she said, pointing with her finger.

  Susan turned and saw nothing, then stepped aside. The tall, structured man with reddish brown hair stared at Leah, having come to approach the seer. Unlike so many spirits she had seen, this one spoke inside her mind.

  “Leah, I am Ian, Ryan’s father.”

  The surprise when she told Susan whom she was seeing made them forget Cedar Manor. Leah leapt from the chair, facing the spirit and obtaining her position of control.

  “Look,” he said, then pointed to his left. She looked to where he was pointing, and then through the mist appeared an entranceway, a tunnel, a set of old railroad tracks.

  “Ryan,” he said, continuing to point. Then she caught a glimpse of Ryan, sitting on a bed in a room. Quickly, another face came and faded amid the mist, a man with dark hair and gray at the temples.

  “Hadley,” he said, the words forming in her mind.

  It was the first time she had seen Roman Hadley. The tracks, those old railroad tracks looked familiar. She continued to stare at the sight until the mist evaporated and Ian was gone, as though he never was there, and the room resumed as unbroken.

  “Leah, talk to me,” Susan asked in a now calmer tone. “Is he still there?”

  Leah turned to face her, eye to eye.

  “I think I know where Ryan is.”