by J. Thorn
Or she was dead.
Freeman was overwhelmed by a sudden image of Vicky lying pale and breathless on Thirteen’s cot, the straps tight around her as her color faded. He shuddered the picture from his mind and concentrated harder.
Nothing.
He shook his head at Starlene. He couldn’t even read Starlene’s mind now. Something was happening. Maybe the puppet masters had changed the rhythms of their experimental waves. Maybe Dad had come up with some new gizmo that blew Kracowski’s brain cooker right out of the water. Maybe Freeman’s manic phase was over, in which case his number one survival skill would be down for the count when he needed it most.
Starlene knelt and peeked around the corner, Freeman holding onto her shoulder in case he needed to pull her out of the way of a bullet or something.
He silently scolded himself. Here he was again, playing Protector of the Innocent. This was getting to be a way bad habit.
She turned and whispered, “Nobody.”
Freeman took a look for himself. The hall was empty and quiet.
Except . . .
Freeman whispered back. “I thought you said ‘nobody.’”
“I did.”
“Then what about the geezer in the gown?”
Starlene looked again. “What geezer?”
“Uh oh.”
Because the old man stood in the hall plain as day. It was the man from the lake, hunched and gray and wrinkled. He moved toward them without a sound, his eyes staring past them as if a hole to heaven had opened up on the opposite wall. Freeman fought an urge to reach out as the man drifted past, his gown and skin shimmering with a faint silver dust. The man disappeared into the wall, leaving no trace on the crumbling stucco.
“So, you didn’t see him?” Freeman said.
“See who?”
“Never mind.”
“Do we try the door?”
“Well, considering we have a minute at the most to get out of here before Randy tips off the entire free world—”
“You want to rescue Vicky, because you’re always thinking of others,” Starlene said.
“You don’t have to be mean just because you’re a shrink.”
“Sorry. But you’re going to have to trust me if we’re going to get out of this mess.”
“Trust. That’s a good one.”
“Well?”
“Sure. Just don’t try to ‘understand’ me or ‘heal’ me or shower me with ‘tough love.’”
“Deal.”
“Let’s go for it, then.”
They rounded the corner and crept to Thirteen. “Damn,” Freeman said. “I forgot they use these stupid keypad locks everywhere.”
“Why didn’t you read somebody’s mind when they were punching in the numbers?”
“Look, you try lying there getting shocked and skull-fried and being sent on a journey to the land of the dead and see how practical you are.”
Starlene paled as if recalling the visions from her own treatment. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“What do we do now?”
“Knock?”
Freeman shrugged and tapped at the thick door. A series of beeps flashed from the electronic lock, and the handle turned. The door opened.
And Freeman was face to face with the last person he ever expected to see again.
Except, you couldn’t really call what he was looking at a face.
Because it was red and raw and exactly as he remembered it, only worse.
And he tried to scream, but you need air to scream, and his lungs were solid steel and his throat was stacked with bricks and his skull was pounded by eighty-eight invisible hammers and he wanted to fall but his limbs wouldn’t even cut him that much slack.
All he could do was stand and stare and wish himself away.
The thing that stood before him reached out wet rags that must have been arms.
A hug.
Just like Mom used to make, back before Freeman had ripped her to shreds with a steel blade. Back before Dad had screwed with his brain and turned him into a mother-murderer.
And suddenly he was six years old again, and in the memory at least he could cry, unlike now, because he’d opened the bathroom door and Mom’s eyes were closed and her naked body was hidden beneath the bubbles. Soaking, she always called it, because she said it was the only time she didn’t have to answer the phone or obey Dad’s orders.
And in the memory the knife was cold in his hand and Dad’s voice was in his head, so loud that there was no room for any of Freeman’s own thoughts, which made him glad in a way because that meant he couldn’t help himself and it wasn’t his fault.
But of course it’s your fault.
Freeman tried to blink but his eyes were wide and dry and the memory was gone. The words had come from the thing standing before him, the thing he had once loved more than anything in the world back when love and trust and hope were more than just useless shrink words.
A dark maw opened in the middle of the mutilated face. She was trying to speak. Oh God, she was trying to speak, except she didn’t need a tongue to say what she needed to say. Who needed a voice when you could triptrap right to the source, get in there with the lies and the tricks and the deception and, right at the core, find the tiny secret hope that Freeman harbored, a nut that no shrink had ever been able to crack, that no triptrapper had ever glimpsed, that even Freeman himself rarely probed?
A hope of false innocence.
A sincere and unshakable belief in a lie.
A faith in an utter and utmost betrayal.
His own private troll beneath the bridge.
Because he’d always told himself, even though the nightmare rose in its crimson wounds every time he shut his eyes, that it had never happened, that it was just the way the newspapers reported it, that Dad was the real killer.
Dad, and not Freeman. Because Freeman had loved his mother, no matter how many brain games Dad played, no matter how much shock treatment Freeman had endured, no matter how many mental mazes the old bastard had run him through. Because, when you love somebody, you don’t hurt them.
When you love somebody, you take care of them.
You don’t—
But the thing before him didn’t look to be in a forgiving mood, because the maw parted and closed with a moist sigh of contentment, the arms edged closer, and Freeman was frozen by a chill a thousand graves deep.
And the words were in his brain, in that same voice that used to sing him nursery rhymes and tell him bedtime stories.
You don’t get second chances.
And the paralysis broke and tears streamed from his eyes and he wanted to say he was sorry but what good was that useless word when you don’t get second chances?
That was one of Mom’s mottoes, do right the first time, avoid suffering regrets at any cost, love with all your heart, because YOU DON’T GET SECOND CHANCES.
And he could breath again and he was about to scream for real, he was shaking so hard his bones could wake the dead, and the memory of the warm blood against the silver blade slashed through the little secret hidey hole in his head, and he knew he was guilty.
And that she’d never forgive him, even if she lived a billion eternities.
Before he could scream, Starlene’s hand clamped over his mouth. He hissed against her palm and tried to squirm away. That was when Bondurant spoke.
“I told you he was troubled,” Bondurant said. “May God have mercy on his soul.”
Freeman’s eyes snapped open. The mother-thing was gone.
Or had never been.
But this was the deadscape and Freeman couldn’t tell anymore just who was alive and who was dead. Or if it made any difference. Because Mom hadn’t died in the deadscape.
Maybe you carried your dead with you, forever.
Bondurant stood in place of the nightmare, licking his lips and squinting through the fog of his glasses. His jacket was wrinkled and the knot of his tie was loose. No matter how scary and ugly the director w
as, Freeman was glad to see him. Anybody but Mom.
“Mr. Bondurant,” Starlene said, pushing Freeman inside and closing the door behind her. “What are you doing here?”
“I have the keys, remember?”
“We, um . . .”
“Say no more,” Bondurant said. “Can’t you see your liberal views are carved in your face in big letters? Save the children. Sacrifice. Do good instead of evil.”
Freeman shuddered. That was exactly the sort of philosophy Mom would have had, if she’d been a social worker instead of a lawyer. If she hadn’t fallen under Dad’s control. If she were alive instead of murdered.
“Well, I’ve got a job to do,” Starlene said. “And if you’re with Kracowski and McDonald, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to do some evil to you.”
Bondurant shook his head. “Sweet, sweet Starlene. I could have put that fire of yours to such use.” He glanced down the hall toward his office. “But, see, I’m a changed man, and God’s servants don’t get much choice in the duties for which they are chosen.”
“Oh, dang,” Starlene said. “Don’t tell me you’ve had another vision? Well, I hope this one involves a chariot in the sky, because that’s the only route out of this place. Or haven’t you noticed the armed guards and the barbed wire?”
“God is testing us.”
“One thing I know is that God doesn’t send you anything you can’t handle.”
“Where’s Vicky?” Freeman cut in. “I know she was here because I saw it inside her head.”
Bondurant looked down at Freeman. “She was here. One of the guards took her away.”
“They didn’t say where?”
Bondurant tilted his head back as if Michelangelo’s ghost had painted a mural on the ceiling. He let out a laugh that was too loud for the room.
“Where is she?” Starlene said.
“Where we all go, sooner or later,” Bondurant said between cackles.
Starlene pulled Freeman back as if the crazed director were playing on a strange television quiz show, one where the wrong answer meant instant death. “Heaven?”
Bondurant rolled his reptilian eyes toward the floor and stopped laughing. This time his voice was a deranged imitation of Vincent Price’s. “The other place,” he said.
“The basement,” Freeman said to Starlene. She yanked open the door and they ran down the hall.
Bondurant’s melodramatic voice boomed after them like B-movie thunder. “Take the stairs. That’s the fastest way to hell.”
CHAPTER FORTY
The girl would be the first victim.
No, not victim . . . a PATIENT, Kracowski reminded himself. But with Dr. Mills involved now, there was no other way to think of her. Vicky Barnwell had passed from his caring and kind treatment into the clutches of a madman. Even in Kracowski’s most self-deluded moments, he never completely forgot that the well-being of his patients was of at least secondary importance. His system was designed to heal them as much as it was to research brain function.
Mills exhibited no such concern. Mills wanted to push everything to the limits, even when those limits stretched into the bizarre. Mills exhibited far too much glee as he placed the gaunt girl in the cell. She hadn’t spoken when the guard escorted her down the dim hall. She simply looked each man in the face, staring a moment longer at Kracowski than the others, and didn’t resist when Mills took her arm and led her inside.
Mills closed the door and twisted the corroded slide lock into place. McDonald waited until the guard left, then said to Mills, “Let the games begin.”
Mills moved to the circuitry board and the remote network computer he’d hastily installed. Two large curved panels, housing a series of superconducting magnets, stood just outside the cell door.
“Let’s see what this baby can do,” Mills said. Kracowski couldn’t tell whether “baby” referred to the girl or the equipment.
“See, where you went wrong was in the direct application of the electrical charge,” Mills said as if lecturing a mediocre student. “If you’d read my paper on magnetite in the brain and the resultant effect of misaligned electromagnetic waves—”
“I’ve read all your work,” Kracowski said, “and I learned from your mistakes.”
Mills paused in his entering of the commands. He put a forefinger to his temple. “You didn’t read what I carry up here. Unless you’ve learned to read minds, but I’m willing to bet that you haven’t subjected yourself to your own treatments. That’s the difference between us, Doctor. You can’t take that final leap of faith.”
“I don’t need faith. I believe in myself.”
Mills said, “By the way, McDonald, you’re not carrying a firearm, are you? Or any other large metal objects?”
McDonald didn’t answer.
“Because the magnetic force will reach five Tesla, which is three times stronger than a typical magnetic resonance imager in a hospital. There have been reports of metal objects flying through the air in the vicinity of the fields. Sometimes it’s a mop bucket, sometimes an ink pen. On at least one occasion, a policeman’s pistol was pulled from its holster and flew to the head of the magnet’s coil. The gun discharged. Fortunately, the bullet didn’t pierce the holding tanks.”
“That would be bad?” McDonald said.
“Well, the liquid nitrogen in the outer tank is 320 degrees below zero, and if you don’t freeze to death first, the oxygen in the room will be reduced so drastically that you’ll suffocate. And the liquid helium in the inner tank is only a few degrees above absolute zero.”
“That’s cold, right?”
“You’ll turn into an ice sculpture and probably shatter at the slightest air current.”
“I never knew science could be so much fun.”
“Stick around and I’ll show you the meaning of ‘fun.’”
McDonald put a hand inside his jacket and came out with an automatic pistol. “Glock .45. Triple safety. It won’t go off accidentally. What about the steel door?”
“The field isn’t strong enough to pull the door from its hinges.”
McDonald looked at Kracowski, who shrugged. Kracowski said, “I’d never push the Tesla that high. And I always used lead shields to limit the exposure. But, then, I’m just an innocent bystander.”
“Nobody’s innocent,” Mills said. “And it’s time to go for some serious results.”
McDonald placed his firearm in a cell two doors down the hall. “Most of the components are plastic. Is that far enough away?”
“The magnet is focalized enough that it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I’m being overly dramatic. The real force will be directed at the subject inside the cell.”
“Her name is Vicky Barnwell,” Kracowski said.
Mills flipped through a folder. “That’s funny. You termed her ‘Patient 7-AAC’ in your records. Her ESP score was pathetic, though. We’ll see if we can fix that.”
“I’m sure you’ll do better. Compared to you, I’m just a guy who sweeps up after the lab closes.”
“Then watch and maybe you’ll learn something, and one day you can play ‘genius,’ too.”
Mills entered the rest of the commands, then keyed the machinery into action. The tanks hummed and Kracowski tried to visualize the process of the electricity running through the miles of coil wire in the superconducting magnet, the helium lowering the temperature and reducing the wire’s resistance. The draw on the electrical grid caused the scant lighting to grow even dimmer, until the room was cast in orange and deep blue. The whine of the machinery grew louder, and McDonald moved behind Mills’s computer as if that would provide some protection in case the tanks exploded.
Kracowski looked at his wristwatch. Electromagnetic fields could impair the functioning of watches, but Mills had done a good job of isolating and controlling the direction of the field. Whatever his other flaws, he was a brilliant physicist.
Thirty seconds went by.
Kracowski expected any number of things: for Vicky to
scream, for Mills to jump up the juice, for McDonald to ask what was going on. But no theory could have predicted what happened next.
Vicky pounded on the inside of the cell door with the bottom of her fist. In a calm voice, she said, “Hey, you guys. Better come see this. There’s somebody in here.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Footsteps approached from the far end of the hall. Somebody was in a hurry, Freeman thought.
He and Starlene pressed into the corner. The stairwell was close enough to make a run for, but it was keyed like most of the other doors, and they’d have to go through Randy’s assortment to find the one that fit.
“Hey, Freeman, is that you?” Isaac said in a loud whisper.
Freeman was about to answer, then wondered if Isaac had been turned into a mole for the Trust. Stranger things had happened. You couldn’t trust a guy just because he was a kid instead of an adult.
“I saw it happen,” Dipes said, sniffling from a cold. “I mean, I saw what’s going to happen. And it’s not nice.”
Freeman peeked around the corner. Isaac and Dipes stood there in sweatpants and T-shirts. Isaac’s curly hair was damp, and they were both panting from exertion. Isaac nudged Dipes and said, “He saw you guys hiding in the corner by the stairs.”
“So you can read minds, too?” Starlene asked Dipes.
“Sort of,” Isaac answered for him. “He saw it ten minutes ago. It took us that long to sneak away from the gym and get here.”
“Is that where the other kids are?”
“Yeah. Except Vicky. Some goon came and got her. A new guy, wearing a uniform. And Deke’s still nowhere to be found.”
“What else did you see?” Freeman asked Dipes, then added for Starlene’s benefit, “He’s clairvoyant, or whatever you call it when you know the future. Like Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce, except Dipes doesn’t talk in stupid riddles.”
Starlene nodded as if such a talent were only natural in a world where kids had ESP and ghosts walked around like they owned the place. At least she seemed to be losing some of that grown-up tendency to deny everything that didn’t fit into her narrow worldview. Freeman decided maybe there was hope for her after all.
