by Jacob Hammes
No one said anything. They all knew the implications of what Gregory was saying. A machine had the same effects on people as a bad acid trip. It could have meant that someone had been able to create a weapon capable of disrupting the thought patterns of normal, everyday human beings. It could also mean that some strange scientific experiment had gone dangerously wrong and ended up with a boat full of dead people.
Marcus didn’t question which one was right. He merely pondered the fact that someone had created such a thing and what they thought it could have possibly been used for. It brought him back to a number of previous cases where entrepreneurial inventors had mishaps that left themselves or others dead or wounded.
He wondered briefly what the police did with the box. What did it look like? Even more, he wondered how the cop had discovered that the box was the source of the disturbance to begin with. Sure, it could be vibrating, or bouncing, or whatever something that makes people hallucinate would do, but that wouldn’t mean that the box was easy to find. Before curiosity could get the better of him, Gregory continued his story.
“The police took the woman to a Philadelphia hospital. The ship has been quarantined since then as a possible weapon. The CDC thinks it’s a chemical or a virus, the FBI thinks it could be terrorism, the NSA wonders whether it may be some type of distraction for a bigger event that hasn’t happened yet.”
“Did the police report go into detail about the incident?” Cynthia asked. “Did they give us anything to work with?”
“Oh yes,” Gregory said joyfully. “They go into great detail about how they can’t come anywhere near the ship without seeing crippling visions of all of their worst nightmares. It’s nothing useful. Each reaction varies greatly. The only constant is that it has affected everyone that has tried to approach the ship.”
“We need to get our hands on this thing,” Phillip said. He took his glasses off and planted his feet firmly on the ground for the first time in Marcus’s recent memory. His bloodshot eyes seemed clearer than usual, too. “I really need to study this thing. Maybe I can figure out how it works and we can use it to our advantage.”
He’s finally interested in something, Marcus thought. It was about time, too. Even their last case, a case that could have ended the world as they knew it, didn’t interest him this much at first. The glint that crossed his eyes and the smile that creased his mouth was infectious. They all wanted to know what might be causing such a ruckus.
“Exactly why some of you are leaving in an hour to retrieve the box before the Coast Guard drags the yacht out to sea and blows it into smithereens.” Gregory had an answer for everything. “Three more of you are going to be visiting the hospital in Philadelphia where the woman found aboard the ship is currently being treated. You’ll have to try and extract from her as many answers as possible about what happened. That also includes figuring out who she is, and what this ‘box’ is. Maybe she knows more than she thinks she does.
“It’s going to require certain finesse, though. She hasn’t said anything to anyone since she was taken to the hospital. I’m sure one of you could get her to open up, if you ask the right questions. Take whatever you think you might need to interview the woman, and the entire stack of monitoring equipment for the yacht. The DOD alerted us to this one; apparently the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are both already on scene, champing at the bit to use explosives in order to destroy the device and whatever evidence might be linked to it.”
“I can get her to open up,” Cynthia said, taking everyone by surprise. She knew the insinuation anyway. One of her talents in life was the ability to empathize with people and break down walls. Some called her ability to get people to talk supernatural. She knew the truth, though, and it was that she was just good and attractive. She had been extremely useful as an interrogator for just this reason. That her ability was once again being utilized did not come as a shock.
“I knew that we could count on you,” Gregory said. “You can take Stephen. His accent usually puts people at ease. Since the boat is registered in Spain, it might even give you an advantage. She’s not American and neither are you. Take Henry, too. He’s old and grandfatherly.”
“Sounds about right,” Marcus agreed with the lineup. In fact, Cynthia would have been his first choice, too. She was soft and gentle, yet she could shoot the head off a bad guy at a mile without breaking a sweat. Stephen, too, had a way with people. His specialty was women. Henry would simply add to the packaged deal as a man who used his infectious smile too often.
Cynthia didn’t look convinced. She unconsciously rubbed the glove that covered her scarred and scabbed arm. She had been reluctant to take any job that required her to leave the building since her disfiguring sacrifice. She could still feel the searing, bone breaking pain cover her arm as she reached through that ethereal barrier.
It was Stephen who spoke up about the matter first.
“Wait just a second,” he said. “You want me to go check out some little girl at a hospital when there’s the possibility of messing with some crazy box that makes people go insane?”
“You and your accent can be used to comfort the young woman,” Gregory said, half-jokingly. “Quit complaining.”
“What accent?” Stephen tried his best American accent. He sounded like a ridiculous cowboy going out to wrangle cattle in a particularly awful spaghetti western. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m an American citizen.”
“As American as they come,” Marcus drawled. “You’re as American as hamburgers and soda pop.”
“What are we looking at here?” Brenda was all business. The joking taking place between her boyfriend and her team leader had gone right over her head. In fact, to make a point as to how bored she was with their banter, she straightened her tightly pulled back hair, adjusted her dark suit, and leaned far away from the chuckling Stephen.
“Do we know anything about what we will find if we manage to get aboard the vessel?”
“Glad someone cares,” Gregory scoffed. With the flick of a finger across his podium, a picture populated the screens that lined the room. It was a beautiful ship, despite what might be inside. The white paint and black windows were in perfect shape.
Another swipe brought up a grainy picture taken through a telephoto lens from a ship well behind the subject. Blood was visible along with what Marcus guessed was a body. Yet another swipe brought a clearer image. Everyone could see the man and his disemboweled remains stapled to the wall. Another swipe brought up a grainy video taken by someone who happened to be present at the time the woman was pulled from the ship.
Amidst loud music in the background, there was wailing and people pleading to be spared from some invisible fate. Besides that, the tape was full of distant sirens and men shouting for a gurney. Two men helped a young woman caked head to toe in dried blood, staring absently into the sky, toward an ambulance. Her feet dragged uselessly behind her or bounced as the men picked her up.
They laid her gently upon the white sheets covering the gurney and her eyes closed. She was limp when the camera stopped recording. Medical personnel had started strapping her in and sticking catheters through her skin before she was even on the white hospital sheets.
“What we do know about her is that she is not a giant wasp,” Gregory said. “She is relatively young and obviously broken. They took her to a specialized medical facility in Philadelphia that has a quarantine area. She is undergoing treatment as we speak.”
“For what,” Marcus mused. No one could answer the obviously rhetorical question. That she had been exposed to anything made Marcus feel bad. She was too young to have something so terrible happen to her.
“Maybe if we can get on that ship we can find some answers,” Brenda said, clicking a pen against her perfect teeth. “Even if we find a wallet or a cell phone, we might be able to identify someone.”
“Well what’s the plan to get us on board?” Phillip chimed in. “We tell everyone to stand back and walk aboard
a possible weapon that has been making everyone else feel ill? That sounds pretty crappy to me. Maybe we could use tinfoil hats though.”
“You’ll be working closely with the CDC and other agencies on the scene, thanks.” Gregory sounded offended. “You need to suit up and head in with a full array of sensors. That includes Geiger counters, EMF detectors, heat sensors, and anything else you can carry. You’ll also be carrying some military equipment that disrupts transponder signals and might allow you to get closer.
“If we don’t figure out what’s going on with this boat, we may find ourselves up against a foe we are not ready to face.”
Chapter 4
It felt strange letting the water fall over her skin. It washed away the muck and the mess that all those dead people had left behind. Her dark hair held the most blood, for some reason. As the water rained down over it, it created rivers of red that pooled in the shallow hospital shower stall before a whirlpool took it down the drain. Swiftly, it cascaded over her olive skin, down past the mosquito bites she called breasts, past her belly that was just skin and muscle, past her shaved nethers, and down her stick legs. Even with all the filth that coated her entire body, she couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds. At just over five feet tall, she was considered both small and skinny.
Her features were no less defined because of her obvious skinniness. Though ribs poked through her sides and sinewy muscles striated her legs and arms, she held a gaunt and powerful look. Her chin ended at a point that made her otherwise pretty face somewhat distracting. Her nose was petite, though it stuck out from prominent cheek bones like a jetty shooting out through still waters. She let the water fill her mouth and spit it out through the tiny gap in the front of her otherwise perfect teeth.
There were also these odd wounds. They seemed as if garden hoses had been shoved into each of her arms just above the crease of her elbows. The scabs were painful to the touch and stung as the water flowed over them. She pondered them thoroughly. Something had happened to her and she had no recollection of what it might be. She hoped they would go away soon.
She could be considered pretty, or at least she thought so. Though she looked like she was fifteen years old and just over the crest of pubescence, she had a woman’s body. Her legs might be skinny, but they were powerful enough to take her running whenever she liked. She retained nothing of her previous life—before the boat ride—but she remembered being able to run. It was something she felt she had enjoyed, though she couldn’t recall ever participating in the activity.
The water cut off too suddenly and an elderly woman in hospital scrubs flung the shower curtain open roughly. Her permed white hair looked ridiculous on top of that aging face with those coke-bottle glasses. The old woman hated the young woman. There was no denying it. Ever since she showed up to the hospital, escorted by police, she had been assumed guilty of murder.
All she could remember was waking up in the hospital. She didn’t remember anything about the boat, nor anything about how she had arrived in America. She didn’t know her own name, her family, her home, where she was from. Though she had been a passenger aboard that horrifying vessel, she couldn’t say with any degree of certainty whether or not she was a murderer.
Now, the only thing that mattered was what would become of her and her life. If she couldn’t figure out what had happened aboard the boat, she would be spending the remainder of her life behind bars. One country or another would want answers. Undoubtedly she had been accused of the murders, as she was the only witness alive. Though the truth was there, she remembered nothing but shadows. The one thing she felt entirely sure of was that she couldn’t be responsible for something so horrifying.
“Out you come,” the old lady said, coaxing the younger woman out with her hands. “You’ve had enough time to shower yourself off. It’s time to put some clothes on so that you can start meeting with the police. You’re going to have a lot to explain, from what I’ve heard.”
The young woman obliged her elder and stepped her petite feet out onto the blindingly white tile floor of the hospital bathroom. It was cold to the touch, something she could not remember feeling for a very long time. A gentle shaking hand took her naked arm and steered her over to a bench on which she could sit and clothe herself.
Like a handmaiden, the older woman hovered over the younger one with a towel in one hand and a brush in the other. She took the liberty of drying her off completely, from head to toe, while being careful not to miss any of her nooks and crannies. Though she was trying her best to be rough, the black-haired girl didn’t mind. It felt good to have someone else do the work for her, especially after what she had been through.
“My name is Belle,” the old woman said in a shuddering voice. “You can call me any time you need something, young miss. I assume you don’t have a name, do you?”
“I…” was all the young woman could utter. Her mouth felt funny and her tongue felt as if it were made of unwieldy sausages. She hadn’t gotten the grasp of speaking yet, after such a terrible experience. Instead of an answer, she just shook her head. It was easier for the woman to keep calling her ‘girl’ than it was to get a name out of that awkward hole. After all, she really couldn’t remember her name.
The thought frightened her.
“How about I call you Amy, then,” Belle said as she slipped a robe on over her naked body. “It’s my granddaughter’s name and it’s easy for everyone to say. Everyone will be able to remember it and we can stop calling you ‘girl’ and ‘young woman’ and whatever else we can think of. Think of it as a nickname until you’re well enough to tell us what you are called. Amy.”
The newly named Amy smiled and nodded her head. It did feel good to be assigned a label after what felt like a long time being without. She wondered briefly if she would ever remember what she had been called before getting on, or being forced upon, the haunted ship. Though Amy could only assume that she had done her fair share of drugs, she couldn’t imagine having a hang-over that would wipe her name and past life away so completely.
“Well, Amy, you are a beautiful young girl,” Belle said, standing back and giving her a beaming smile. Perhaps the old woman didn’t hate her after all. Maybe she just had the worst bedside manners that a person could have. “I’m sure the psychologist will tell you this, but you’re probably suffering from something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You may not find your voice for a while. Get used to it is my advice.”
Amy didn’t know whether to smile or grimace at Belle’s mixed signals. She simply stood in place to negate the necessity to choose. The dull look that plagued her otherwise pretty eyes made her seem empty inside. Belle stared into them, searching perhaps for something only a grandmother could find.
For a brief moment, Belle could swear that she had seen it. Something deep within her dark brown eyes lit like a fire. It was there, though, and then it was gone. Whatever life Amy had inside her disappeared before she could place her thumb on it.
“Just keep your chin up and start talking soon or they’ll throw you in a looney bin and be done with the entire situation,” Belle exclaimed as she turned to leave the bathroom. “Come out when you feel up to it. I have some clothing that might fit for your interview with the police later. They are going to want answers about what you went through.”
Amy sighed audibly. She knew that people would be coming along to ask her about what happened. She had to admit, she wasn’t fond of the thought. It would probably be weeks before she had enough energy to move about like she wanted to. She could feel that whatever had happened to her aboard the boat had changed her in a way that would take real healing.
“Don’t pay them too much mind and they’ll come back later,” Belle said as she closed the door. “You can sleep when they leave.”
Amy put her clothes on slowly. It was still somewhat hard to move inside her body. It seemed as if everything moved much too quickly for her to control. Not that she could remember much, which she also
found very strange, but somehow she knew that she had never been this clumsy. She nearly fell twice as she slipped the white cotton panties up her small legs, so she decided to sit down and slip her pants on.
They were too loose. Without the drawstring that kept them up at her waist they would have fallen straight to the floor. The long sleeve shirt was also baggy, but she was happy that it hid the strange marks on her arms. It also covered up the catheter through which they had been feeding her drugs and fluids for the past three hours or so. Her short hair was already dry when she decided to take a brush to it. It was no longer than her ears, so brushing it was nearly superfluous.
She took a second to look in the mirror before she left the bathroom. The white lights above cast an eerie glow over her tanned skin and dark hair. Amy couldn’t remember the last time she had looked in a mirror. She found it comforting to be able to look at herself. Though her features were sharp and she may have had too many bones poking out, she figured she had chosen a good enough body to live with.
A smile creased her lips, as if she were testing her own mouth. It looked odd, like she was still in an awkward state of maturity. She stopped smiling and rubbed the mirror with one outstretched hand. It made little streaks across the glass that quickly disappeared.
Amy wondered for a moment about who she had been before the boat ride. She was confident it would come back to her, she just didn’t know how long it would take. The sight of the dead bodies in the boat had not scarred her, like the doctor had assumed. As the police officer had carried her from the boat, she took a long hard look at the bodies. Whether the machine that made everyone go crazy had affected her or the fact was that she just didn’t care about them, she didn’t know. She just couldn’t feel anything for them.
A nagging knock came at the door from behind her. It was that old woman again, grumbling at her to hurry up and get back in bed. She had been at the hospital for hours now and the only face that she had really seen other than the countless doctors that had stopped by to pump her full of god-knew-what was that woman.
