Night Chill

by Jeff Gunhus

  A sob caught in her throat. She tried to hold on to her emotions but she was losing her grip. Out of view of the police, the nurses, the other doctors, the locals who had gravitated to the hospital as word of the missing girl spread through the town, Lauren allowed herself to break down. As she cried, the same thought came to her again and again, God damn it, Jack. Where in hell are you?

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  “Jack! JACK! What do you see?” Lonetree shouted, waving the glo-stick above his head.

  Jack wanted to answer but he couldn’t. He was frozen in place, only able to move his eyes to track the glowing ball of light rolling down the wall toward them. The orb was a brilliant white, intense enough that it was painful to look at. Jack felt his eyes burning from the exposure to it, but still he couldn’t turn away.

  Halfway down the wall of the cave, the orb detached from the rock surface and hung suspended in the air. Then, drifting slightly as if it were at the whim of the gentle air current in the cavern, it moved steadily toward Jack.

  Lonetree watched the expression on Jack’s face change from amazement to rapture. “What’s going on? I don’t see anything!”

  The ball of light floated over their heads. Jack strained his eyes upward to watch the strange apparition. As it came closer, he saw a spinning vortex at the center of the light, as if it were white hot lava draining back into the earth. Here, deep within the stark white light, Jack thought he saw vague forms and shadows rising and falling back into the light. As he watched, a swirl of vapor extended out from this churning mass, folding in on itself until it became an amorphous cloud outside of the white orb. Slowly, like clay being pushed into a form by invisible hands, the cloud changed shape. Soon the basic features of face covered the front of the cloud. It was nondescript, androgynous, but beautiful in its simplicity.

  Then the eyes opened.

  Jack felt fear cascade down his spine. The eyes were aware. Not the eyes of a statue or a mask, they were alive. They darted about, like a newborn taking in its first sights outside the womb. But when they saw Jack the eyes stopped and bore down on him.

  Slowly, the apparition’s mouth stretched open. The luminescent wisps of light swirling around the orb began to pour into the black cavity as if there was some irresistible gravity inside. Soon strands of light were being sucked down into the mouth, both from the glowing orb and from the glo-stick still held in Lonetree’s hand.

  A body started to form, building from the inside out as if the light devoured by the mouth was simply revealing a translucent body that had been invisible in the dark.

  The digestive tract appeared first, shimmering organs disconnected from the malformed head that hovered above it. Then lungs. Arteries. Veins. A twitching heart that pumped yellow light. The mouth opened wider and pulled in the last traces of light. A skeleton materialized around the floating body parts. Layers of skin appeared, translucent so that Jack could still see organs jostling together inside the body. The apparition closed its mouth and lowered its head, the last details of its facial features filling out.

  Nate Huckley.

  The blood drained from Jack’s face. He felt like he was underwater. Pressure forced in on him from all sides. His ear drums felt as if they might blow out, shredded from the force pushing against them. He desperately wanted to claw at his ears to scratch away the pain. But he couldn’t move. The world was frozen. Everything except the approaching form of Nate Huckley.

  “Can’t move?” Huckley asked with mock concern. “That’s too bad. Feels kind of helpless, huh? Kind of like…oh, I don’t know…lying in a hospital bed in a coma.”

  Jack strained against the invisible force that held him bondage, but he couldn’t move.

  “Yeah, that’s what it feels like. You will yourself to move but nothing happens. Frustrating isn’t it?”

  Huckley spat into Jack’s face. The spittle was sparks that danced across his face like a Fourth of July sparkler. Huckley smiled, pleased with his new trick.

  “See, I was a little upset at you at first. I mean, you almost killed me. I take that personally. Why couldn’t you have been a good boy and left well enough alone? I was leaving the rest area, wasn’t I? Sure, I would have gotten your little girl later, but I was leaving. But you had to be the hero, right, and come after me on the highway like a goddamn cowboy.”

  “Jack, what’s wrong?” Lonetree shouted.

  Huckley ignored him. “As you can imagine, it took me a while to figure out what was happening after I woke up in the hospital. I could feel my body, but I couldn’t make it work. I was trapped. It’s a horrible feeling. Horrible. Well, you know what I’m talking about, right?”

  Huckley walked around behind Jack.

  “But then I found I could leave my body behind and travel without it. It’s very liberating, actually. You wouldn’t believe the things that go on when people don’t think anyone else is there.”

  Huckley spun around in front of Jack so that the two men’s faces were nearly touching.

  “But, here’s the thing Jack. My time’s up. I gotta get back into my body so I can take care of a little unfinished business. Seems some things just require you to be there in the flesh and blood. And besides, while this whole out of body experience is fun and all…I WANT MY BODY BACK.”

  The words came out as a roar and blew into Jack like a hurricane. The eyes on the face bulged out as if they would explode. Huckley’s body shone bright as if the light gauged his anger.

  As fast as the fury appeared, Huckley’s maddeningly calm demeanor returned. “I’ll give it to you. You had me scared. I thought you put me in that coma for good. Thought they were gonna have to rewrite the medical books. I would have been a medical miracle. I can see it now, ‘Man lives two hundred years in a coma.’ Of course, that never would have happened. The Boss would have taken care of me before that. Finished the job off, so to speak.”

  “Jack, what the hell is going on?” Lonetree shouted, keeping his distance.

  Huckley moved around behind Jack and leaned into his ear. “That would have been a shame. I would have missed out on all the fun we’re going have with your little girl. There’s something very, very special about her. The Source has promised me things, wonderful things, if I bring her to him. Powers beyond my imagination, he says. What do you think makes her so special?”

  Huckley paused as if waiting for an answer.

  “Oh right, you can’t talk. Shame. There is something about your little girl, though. I thought my brain had ripped in two when I sensed her in that rest area. It was intense. Lucky for me, I’ve figured out how to get back into my body. Just in the nick of time, as it turns out.” His lips curled back in a half smile, half sneer. “Because we already have your little girl.”

  Jack struggled against the weight pressing in all around him. No matter how much force he exerted he couldn’t move. Jack couldn’t help but flash an image of Sarah in his mind’s eye, a grisly scene of what the monster in front of him might do to her. Without meaning to, he pictured the car crash back in California, the little girl on the windshield, the blood pouring down the broken glass. But it wasn’t Melissa Gonzales this time, it was Sarah.

  Jack was responsible. He was responsible for both of them.

  Huckley moved around in front of him, his smile slanted like a drugged up carnival barker. “Yes, that’s right. You’re a killer too. Aren’t you? A kiddie killer just like me. That’s too good. Too good.” Huckley’s tongue lolled out of his mouth and circled his lips. “Well, I’d love to stay and talk shop, one killer to another, but it’s time I got back. And don’t worry about your little girl. We’re going to have to go really slow with her, make sure we don’t make any mistakes. It hurts more that way, but what can you do?”

  I’ll kill you. You son-of-a-bitch. Touch her and I’ll kill you. Jack screamed in his mind. Panic seized him. An image of Sarah danced across his mind, sweet, beautiful, innocent.

  Huckley laughed. “Not for long, Jack. She won’t look like that fo
r long.” The apparition turned his back and walked away, leaving Jack’s line of sight open to Lonetree who still stood in front of him waiting for an explanation. “Now you’re going to do me favor. Lonetree here is a trouble-maker, just like the rest of his family. For some reason, I can’t touch him. Indian magic or some such bullshit. That’s where you come in. First him. Then yourself. Careful. Guns can be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  There was no warning. Jack felt no sensation of release before his body reacted.

  He saw Lonetree’s expression turn from concern to shock. With his peripheral vision, Jack saw his own arm rise from his side and aim the gun Lonetree had given him. He pointed it at the big man’s chest and squeezed the trigger.

  The discharge of the gun exploded in Jack’s ears but it had to compete with the screams coming out of his mouth. The horror of his actions didn’t stop his trigger finger from pulling again. And again. Aiming at the chest. Then the head. Back to the chest.

  His finger pulled until the magazine clicked empty.

  Control of his body returned.

  Huckley was gone.

  Jack dropped the gun and stared in disbelief at the damage he’d inflicted on Lonetree’s body.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  The Boss let himself in through the old delivery doors in the southeast corner of the hospital. It was dark out and he was sure no one had seen him. He would have sensed it. Not that he pretended to have the abilities of Nate Huckley but he had acquired a higher sensitivity to things over the years. They had all experienced by-products from the ritual. While Huckley’s natural psychic abilities had been obviously augmented by his contact with the Source, the Boss’s new gift had been harder to notice.

  At first he thought the changes in how his mind functioned were a result of his continued studies. He had always been blessed with a superior memory, but soon after the ritual sacrifices started he was able to commit whole passages of text to memory after only a few readings. Then after only one reading. Soon, in an advancement that left him unnerved, he started to perfectly retain information after only a quick visual scan of a page. And the recall was absolute. All he had to do was close his eyes and the words appeared. He consumed information like other men consumed air or food. Books, always more books. For years, nothing but cramming facts about a civilization into his head until he thought he might go mad from the knowledge.

  But his excitement turned to frustration as the limitation of his new power became apparent — a limitation that stole away his dream of ultimate intelligence. In the end, his power amounted to little more than a parlor trick, of no more use than a good online encyclopedia. It wasn’t until the computer age that the Boss had the analogies he needed to explain his situation. Like a computer, he was able to store infinite information, but the limitation was the synthesis of information into ideas and conclusions. Information was power and he was able to make significant progress in any field he pushed himself to understand. But the true genius he craved was always just out of his reach.

  He dared to believe the Tremont girl could change all that. The Source had promised to finally grant his wish if the girl was brought to him.

  It was why he had come to see things for himself.

  The Boss glanced up the hallway of the stripped down basement. With soft squeaks of his leather soled dress shoes against the painted concrete, the Boss crossed the hallway to the vault-like door of the morgue. If Huckley was right, the other side of the door was his salvation, the culmination of a lifetime of work.

  He punched in a special code and slid back the stainless steel door. Air whooshed out from the seal, as if the morgue had been holding its breath just for his arrival. He stepped into the cool room, the smell of antiseptic rising up from the shiny linoleum floor.

  The Boss closed the door behind him and locked it in place. With one hand on the metal door, he held himself still, even skipping the next two breaths to ensure absolute silence. Perfect. He couldn’t hear a sound. Satisfied, he walked over to drawer number ten, the bottom right hand corner of the wall of temporary resting places for the dead of Midland and surrounding communities. He’d had enough of dead people recently. Too many of them, and not the right ones. He was looking for life in drawer number ten. He dragged it open. Empty. Just as he expected.

  He pulled the drawer all the way out until it hit the stops, like an office filing cabinet. The Boss knew he could crawl through the opening with the drawer still in the wall, but he was a large man so he disengaged the drawer and hefted it to the side. On his hands and knees, he pushed himself into the space in the wall, elbowing his way to the back. His body wedged tightly into the space and blocked the light from the room behind him, but he knew what he was doing. He found the small clasp on the panel in front of him, twisted it, and opened the hatch.

  The space beyond was another drawer just like the one he now lay in, except warmer. It had to be. Sometimes they needed to keep bodies here for days until they were ready to be taken out of the hospital. Stored at the cold temperatures, the people could never be kept alive for long. It was also brightly lit by a row of halogens recessed into either side of the compartment, giving it the look of a food warmer at a restaurant. The Boss knew the lights were triggered by the door opening and that usually the drawer was dark as any grave, especially because the thick sound proofing ensured no ambient light made its way in. Some of the people, put here when they were drugged, woke up in a panic and screamed for hours.

  The Boss had tapes of it. The more interesting ones decided that they had died and that the darkness was the afterlife purchased by their sins. An eternity of black night, sitting in your own waste, hungry, thirsty, praying for salvation until you went insane. The Boss guessed that if released, the people who ended up in that drawer would have had a new appreciation for both life and religion. Of course, he would never have allowed a person to be released from the drawer, but it was a thought.

  The Boss stared at the small form sleeping in front of him. The drug administered to her was strong enough that she wouldn’t wake up until after they moved her. He wished Huckley understood more clearly why the Source wanted this particular girl.

  The Boss knew he had to trust Huckley’s intuition on these matters. The fact that Huckley delivered the message as an apparition while he was in a coma gave his opinion on the supernatural added credibility.

  Remembering Huckley’s appearance caused a shudder to pass down his spine. Even with everything the Boss had been through, the sight had shaken him, not only because of the complete supernatural strangeness of it, but for the first time ever, he had been afraid of Huckley. Afraid of what he was becoming. Afraid that his own power no longer matched that of his underling. Looking at the blond haired girl sleeping in front of him, he found it hard to believe that she represented the key to understanding the Source.

  Free from limits, was what Huckley had said the Source had promised. She will set us free from limits forever.

  But what did it mean? That sacrificing her would yield a serum so powerful they could stop the ritual? Or did it mean they would finally have true immortality, where no weapons could kill them? The most exciting possibility, the grail which the Boss had been chasing for nearly three centuries, was to be able to reproduce the serum himself. To, in effect, become the Source.

  All guesses. In reality, none of them knew what free from limits meant and they wouldn’t until they sacrificed her in the cave. Regardless of how it turned out, whatever free from limits meant, the Boss had decided this was the last adventure for his psychic friend. Huckley had served him well, his abilities were even the reason they found the cave to begin with, but now he was becoming too strong, too independent. And no one should be more powerful than the Boss. It was unacceptable.

  With a shaking hand, the Boss reached out and stroked the sleeping girl’s hair. He let his fingers dance over her face, touching her closed eyes, nose, then brushing against her slightly parted lips. He closed his eyes and tried to sense the
power inside the small body.

  There was nothing at first, at least he thought it was nothing. He assumed the hum in his ears was from the lights right next to him, but slowly the noise grew. He resisted the urge to withdraw his hand and listened, not only with his ears, but with every sense he possessed.

  The hum throbbed in a steady rhythm until the Boss realized he was hearing the blood moving through the girl’s veins.

  Then a bolt of electric pain tore through his arm.

  His eyes opened and the world turned white, as if a photographer’s flash had erupted inside his eye.

  Another bolt of pain screamed up his arm and embedded itself deep into the center of his brain.

  A hundred white flash bulbs went off until the world was purple with the after-effect.

  The Boss cried out. Rising up too fast, he slammed his head into the metal ceiling of the drawer. He fought to remove his hand from the girl, but couldn’t move it. The shafts of pain continued, one after the other, the same strong hum from before, the girl’s heartbeat.

  Using his free hand, the Boss rammed his frozen arm at the elbow joint. The arm doubled over and his hand fell away from the girl’s face.

  The Boss lay still for a few seconds, panting hard from the pain, glowing circles still dancing across his vision. Once his strength returned, he pulled the latch shut and shimmied out of the morgue drawer as fast as he could. He didn’t understand what had just happened, but he sensed that the girl had almost killed him. And he couldn’t have been happier. She was unlike anything he had even encountered, Huckley was right about that.

  Free from all limits. The Boss didn’t care what the risks were, he had to find out what that phrase meant. He had to find out soon.