Zero Sight

by B. Justin Shier

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  I was okayed for discharge the very next day. A nurse brought up some street clothes and gave me a free shave. I had my fill of hospital gowns and bed sheets. The jeans might be a bit long, but the opportunity to put on street clothes was like a gift from the gods. I was pulling up my boxers when the woman walked in.

  “Dear me,” she said shaking her head. “You’re gonna make me miss high school.”

  My face turning bright red, I scrambled to button up the jeans. I went to slip the black t-shirt over my head but winced in pain. My shoulder was still swollen like a watermelon.

  “Here, let me help,” she said guiding my hands into the shirt. As the shirt popped over my neck, I finally got a look at her. The woman wore a tight cut pair of dress slacks and a no-nonsense short sleeve button down. She wore her long auburn hair up high in a bun.

  Flustered, I asked, “Excuse me, but who are you?”

  “Lauren Curray of The Globe.” I looked down and noticed she was holding a notepad. She spoke with an easy confidence. She had no problem meeting my eyes. “You must be Dieter Resnick, survivalist extraordinaire.”

  “You’re right on that count. What brings you to my humble abode?”

  “Oh, just a few questions.”

  I examined my bare toes. I was suddenly feeling warm.

  “Uh…?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  A reporter? I had only met one reporter before. It was after the science fair last year. He wrote down my name and took my photo. Never actually published it, mind you, but it was kinda exciting at the time. I perked up. I was going to be interviewed. Maybe I would actually make it into the paper this time…And then I remembered. Despite what the press thought, I had sorta just killed someone. I looked at the razor-sharp pencil she was tapping gingerly on her pad. This was probably the worst scenario imaginable.

  I swallowed.

  “Um, sure. Ms. Curray wasn’t it? Fire away.”

  She smiled. “It’s good you can already joke about it. At this stage, most victims are still traumatized.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” I said, frowning.

  “Oh, of course not,” she said, jotting something down on her little notepad. “Tell me, Dieter, what were you and Mr. Nelson doing behind the school at the time of the explosion?”

  “Well, um, there was a pretty big brawl going on, and neither of us wanted to get between the cops and the Splotches.” I struggled to remember the story, but it’s so much harder to lie when you’re put on the spot. “You see, there was a big riot two months ago and a bunch of people got hurt, so—”

  “That’s funny,” Ms. Curray said shaking her head. “After talking to some of the students, I’d gotten the impression that Mr. Nelson was an important member of this ‘Splotches’ gang—maybe even its leader. And the Splotches are well known to the student body, aren’t they? They’re the sole supplier of illicit drugs, no?”

  Ms. Curray placed a hand on her skinny waist and tilted her head expectantly. I did my best to maintain bladder control. What the hell had just happened? What manner of word-kung-fu was this? I grabbed the socks and slipped them on. I needed to buy some time and calm down. She had been asking the right questions, and for some reason the students Ted Binion High School had talked to her instead of slashing her tires.

  “I don’t know. I try to keep my head down. I want to go to college next year, and I spend most of my time working with Dr. Leeche. He’s our chemistry teacher. Last year I published some findings with him. I’m hoping to get a scholarship, and he thinks this is a sure fire way to earn one. All that work doesn’t give me much time to socialize—let alone learn the gangs’ hierarchies.”

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Leeche,” she said. “So you haven’t heard?”

  “Sorry?” I asked. “Heard what?”

  “That he was fired.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Dr. Leeche? He’s the best teacher in our entire our school.”

  “Best? Hardly. He failed to check the gas nozzles or lock the lab before leaving work that afternoon. He’s partially responsible for Mr. Nelson’s death—and your injuries.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault!” I shouted.

  Ms. Curray’s eyes brightened.

  “Then whose fault was it, Dieter?”

  I flinched. She hadn’t even been baiting me, and I’d already managed to trip over myself. This had just been a fishing expedition, but now Ms. Curray was wondering if I was holding something back. Super.

  “I don’t know,” I said, biting my cheek. “I don’t know whose fault it was. Maybe…Maybe no one’s to blame.” Dr. Leeche was a good man, and now he was getting hung out to dry. My mind raced. This was all my fault. If I had just not gotten into it with Tyrone, if I had just minded my own business, none of this would have happened. But what could I do now? How could I get Dr. Leeche out of this mess?

  Tell the truth, my conscience answered.

  I bit my lip until it hurt. No. Even if I wanted to take the blame, even if I confessed, what exactly was my explanation going to be? I destroyed Tyrone Nelson with my mind? I mean, come on. I decided on a half-truth instead.

  “Ms. Curray, I hit my head. The doctors said I suffered a concussion. I can’t recall everything that happened. To be honest, I’m just parroting back what they told me. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to be of much use to you.”

  She strummed her notebook with her tightly cropped fingernails.

  I busied myself tying my shoes. I needed this conversation to stop before I slipped up again. Lying wasn’t easy for me—especially when I feel guilty. My thoughts kept turning to poor Dr. Leeche. He didn’t deserve to get fired. He was getting close to retirement. I wondered about his pension. Would he lose it? What would he do if he did?

  Ms. Curray reached down into her leather bag and pulled out a folder. Without a word, she strode over to my bed and placed three large pictures on top of it.

  “What do these photos mean to you?” She asked.

  I was about to tell the intrepid reporter lady to leave me the hell alone, but she wasn’t wearing the expression I’d expected. There was tiredness in her eyes. She looked burnt-out…At least that’s what I thought. I was never good at reading people—especially women—but either way, she had won me over. I took a look like she asked.

  The first was a shot of three men facedown in a puddle. Each was wearing a DEA windbreaker. The Drug Enforcement Agency? And the bodies lay crumpled…as if they had simply dropped to the ground. Intrigued, I looked closer. The plastic of their jackets was all melty…like some serious voltage had run through them. Odd…The second photo showed a man tied to a chair. It wasn’t in color, but I was pretty certain that the beads of fluid coating his shirt and face were much too dark to be sweat. And then there was the third photo. That was the hook. My heart dropped through the floor when I set my eyes on it. A man and woman lay in a pile of debris. Both their heads had been popped like pimples. There was blood and guts everywhere.

  I swallowed. They looked exactly like Tyrone.

  I turned away from the photos and looked out the window. The image was drawing me back to a place I didn’t want to go. I was getting dizzy just thinking about it.

  Ms. Curray noted my reaction and nodded.

  “These are pictures from three incidents that occurred over the past month in the Las Vegas Valley. In this one, three agents from the DEA entered a warehouse on a drug bust. The official report says that they stepped into this puddle and got electrocuted. It was classified as an accident. Note the lack of wires of any kind.” She shook her head. “Do you have any idea how much electricty is required to cause those kinds of burns? We are talking on the order of a lightning strike here.

  “The next one is of a Gustavo Avilar, a well-known local drug lord. Apparently he got rather hot, because the report states that he sweat out over three liters of his own blood.”

  I swallowed. “It’s a condition called hematidrosis. It�
��s known to occur under conditions of tremendous stress. But it’s super-rare, unheard of, really.”

  Ms. Curray looked at me questioningly.

  “What can I say? I’m an epic nerd. We know these things.”

  “The last is of two members of the LVPD vice squad. They were also conducting a drug bust. Neighbors reported hearing a rain of gunfire and then an explosion. The result was this bloody mess.” She smacked the photo. “The fire department is calling it a freak accident, the result of a gas line explosion.” She shook her head. “One problem with that story, Dieter. The perps the police were there to bust were nowhere to be found. Explain this one for me: The crime scene report said both cops unloaded their rounds in tight patterns, but no blood was found besides their own.”

  She tapped her pad.

  “Two highly trained police officers, clearly aiming at something right in front of them, and they only hit air? And if they were firing when the explosion occurred, why were the perps not killed by the explosion as well?” Ms. Curray paced over to the window. “But that’s not the interesting part. In each case, it looked like the evidence was pointing in one direction, and then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere the authorities started calling them freak accidents. And just like that, the investigations stopped. Does that sound familiar to you, Dieter?”

  Sure did. And it offered up a whole can of worms. If there were similar occurrences, I might be able to find an explanation to what happened behind the schoolhouse. It was tempting, but that would require me getting involved. I glanced down at Gustavo Avilar’s bloody torso. The dude had been notorious with a capital N. Untouchable. Getting some answers was tempting, but not that tempting. Poking around in this stuff seemed like an awesome way to reduce one’s life expectancy. I wanted to get out of Vegas. You didn’t do that from inside a pine box.

  “Listen, Ms. Curray,” I said. “I agree that all this stuff doesn’t add up, but I really don’t get what all this has to do with me. I’m here because of an explosion in a chem lab, not some drug deal gone sour. Besides, I already told you that I took a hit to the head. I can barely remember anything about that day, let alone how the explosion happened.”

  Ms. Curray sighed. It looked like this wasn’t the first time she’d gotten that sort of response.

  “Fine. But if you do remember anything, here’s my card. And Dieter, my condolences for the loss of your friend, it’s a shame he had to die like that.”

  I glanced at the photos once last time. Explosions. Electrocutions. Bloodlettings. Whatever the hell was going on, I didn’t want any part of it. I made my decision there and then. I just didn’t want to know. Once I walked out of this room, I was moving on. My dad and I agreed on one thing: If you let it, the world would eat you for breakfast. I wasn’t going to risk my future fishing around for answers.

  Chapter 3

  OUTWARD BOUND

  I returned to school expecting trouble. I thought the Splotches would be ready to get their revenge. Instead, I discovered the entire gang had dissolved. Their leader gone, the Splotches had crumbled. Some Splotches had quit school. Others joined different gangs. If you had transferred into Ted Binion after the explosion, you wouldn’t have known the Splotches even existed.

  Free from reprisals, I busied myself with school and work. I had missed over two weeks and had a ton of catching up to do. Having one less class helped. Chemistry had been cancelled. The school was out one instructor and one laboratory, and they certainly didn’t have the budget to replace them. Every time I walked past the boarded up lab, I was reminded of Dr. Leeche. It was like my daily penance. I kept telling myself there was nothing I could do, but as the months went by, I felt worse and worse about it. My solution was to add on even more work. I took on more tutoring jobs and started working later at Newmar’s. It’s amazing how fast time can pass when you make sure you’re too busy to think. Before I even knew it, the fall had passed into winter, and the semester was coming to an end.

  With winter came the dreaded application season. Based on the school counselor’s advice, I hit all the big names: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Cornell and the like—eleven in all. I liked my chances. Washington University in St. Louis even sent me a letter inviting me to apply. Right before Christmas, I was celebrating mailing off the final one when a thick envelope arrived in the mail. It was from a school I only vaguely recalled: Elliot College. The return address listed a spot just outside of New Haven, Connecticut.

  I scratched my head. Elliot was one of those small elite schools—a place where the super wealthy sent their progeny to ensure their blood was sufficiently blue. It was a school for demigods, the children of the multinationals. Lesser mortals were never considered for entry. Elliot wasn’t one of those huge research schools that could exploit my talents to their hearts content. They probably didn’t even do federally funded research at Elliot. Intrigued, I opened up the envelope. Inside was a bunch of info about the school, and a single letter printed on that kind of paper that feels like cloth. It was short and to the point:

  Dear Mr. Resnick,

  Your academic achievements to date have caught the attention of one of our alumni, Dr. Anna Montgomery. We believe the talents you have demonstrated could best be sculpted through the rigorous yet rewarding training our program affords. We strongly encourage you to apply for admission in our upcoming fall class. And please, do not concern yourself with cost. Every year we offer many full-ride scholarships to students of extraordinary merit.

  As you apply to universities this year, please consider Elliot College.

  Sincerely,

  Dean Joseph Albright, III

  This Albright guy had me at “full-ride”. I set the letter down on my desk. I had forgotten that Dr. Montgomery wrote me a letter of recommendation. I had assumed she was being nice at the time and then forgot. Pulling out my college guide, I decided to look them up:

  Elliot College is one of the oldest universities in the United States. A small school of less than 300 total students, it is famous for its fixed 2-year curriculum, which all students are required to complete. After the initial two years of study, students are able to attend classes at numerous international institutions for intensive instruction in their disciplines of interest. Some Elliot students have complained that the rigor of classes is too great and that the pressure placed on students is excessive. Others rave about the wonderful opportunity to study at some of the world’s finest schools after completing the 2-year core. Judging by the placement of Elliot students into top graduate programs across the country, the small school’s quirky system yields impressive results. The entrance procedures for Elliot College are also unusual. Every year, Elliot sends out letters to students identified by alumni as “good fits” for their unique and rigorous program. Elliot College does accept unsolicited applications, but most of its student body is actively recruited through these formal invitations. Applications are due by December 31st.

  I cringed at the description. It sounded like hell on earth. Why would I want to spend college locked up on a small campus in the woods? Didn’t bears live in the woods? But the words “full-ride” kept ringing in my ears. I leaned back in my chair, and the old frame groaned in protest. I shrugged. How long would filling the application take? Three hours? What was the harm? It felt kinda cool getting an invitation to apply. Like I had gotten a golden ticket. Perhaps I should have broken out into song. I grabbed a cup of coffee instead and settled down to fill out the form.

  Simple stuff first: Name, date, address, parents’ names and occupations. As usual, I had to fill out a lot of the blanks with ‘unknown.’ I was penning in a ‘no’ to the question: “Did either of your parents attend Elliot College?” when I remembered that I had no idea whether my mother even went to college, let alone at Elliot. I knew so little about my mother. Not even her name. She had vanished while I was still a toddler. No note. No reason. Left my father to raise me alone. Nor could I ask him anything about her. It was the best way I knew of setting h
im off. I rubbed my cheek and filled in the blank with another ‘unknown.’

  Finished with the cover form, I flipped through the three essay questions:

  1. Imagine you are sitting in the park, reading. You hear a rustling in the leaves beside you. Putting your book down, you observe two glowing-red eyes peering out at you through the brush. After a moment of quiet tension, the eyes recede back into the forest. You are alone. You have no cell phone or any other means of contacting aid. You have very little on hand, only the key to your domicile, a piece of chalk, and the book you were reading. What do you do? (Limit, 1000 words.)

  2. A friend comes to you in confidence. You have known her for years. You believe her to be of sound mind and body. She tells you that beginning last week she started hearing voices when she knows she is alone. The voices are telling her to do things, dangerous things. Your friend is frightened, but she insists she is not crazy. She pleads for you to tell not a soul. Instead, she wants you to help her sort it out. What do you do? (Limit, 1000 words.)

  3. What do you want? (Limit, 50 words.)

  “Wha…” I muttered.

  I put my pen down and stared at the page.

  I had filled out eleven applications so far. Their essay questions were about as interesting as “Please list the ingredients on the back of a box of Fruit Loops.” They were dull sorts of questions that admissions people think are going to give them some incredible insight into an applicant’s character. It was all nonsense, a cheap way of convincing everyone that they had done their job. (Seriously, have you ever heard of a business that hires their employees based on a bunch of essays?) But these questions…What was the deal with them? Red-eyed monsters? Friends hearing voices? And that last one…Only fifty words? I use more words to describe the specials at Newmar’s.