Blind School

by John Matthews

  ‘Not much, I'm afraid. Whoever he is he's buried deep. Deeper than any internal department I've ever come across.’ Those eyes stayed steadily on him in the mirror.

  After a second Alex smiled dryly. ‘So despite the line you fed me before about being able to find out everything – you obviously have your limitations.’

  The voice through the grill was odd, unsettling. The agent held a palm out.

  ‘I told you about them putting tabs on you after the air-crash, didn't I? But that brings up another problem now. I start digging deeper, someone's going to pick up the connection between us.’

  Alex nodded; thoughtful. ‘If in fact they haven't already done so.’

  Alex nodded to Coby and he started the engine.

  The agent’s brow knitted. Were they going somewhere? Alex stared at him again in the mirror.

  ‘But good of you to confirm what I already suspected: that you've outdone your usefulness. I like a man who is honest.’

  The agent at that moment got the first whiff of fumes, and realized that the exhaust was feeding into the back. He tried the side door: locked! He leant forward, banging on the glass separating them.

  ‘What the hell, Alex! Come on!’

  Alex's stare in the mirror was impassive. Coby had spent an hour before leaving bypassing the catalytic converter with a tube, then the complication of the FBI van trailing them. It had been vital to lose them before this meeting now.

  ‘.... A man who let's me know where I stand.’

  Panic now from the agent as the air started getting short. He banged harder on the glass.

  ‘Fuck's sake, Alex – let me out of here! Out!’

  Alex turned on a CD. Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Spring, started playing. Alex shifted his gaze from his rear-view mirror to ahead, relaxed into the music drowning out the pleas and banging behind him.

  The agent took out his .38 and fired at the partition glass once... twice. Only faint surface starbursts.

  Frantic, choking now with the fumes, he fired four more shots into the side and back windows too: the same, only surface penetration. The glass was bullet-proof inside and out.

  Alex turned up the music, started waving one hand like a conductor.

  Ryan and Jessica sat at a candle-lit table in the Albany restaurant. Twenty floors up, it had a panoramic view over the city.

  They were halfway through their meals, the vibes loose and mellow between them. Jessica looked across the table after taking a mouthful of Salmon in dill sauce.

  ‘So is this a date?’

  ‘Yeah, suppose so...’ Ryan looked pleased with the idea. ‘Two supposed hemeralopia victims wearing identical dark glasses. Puts a whole new meaning to 'Blind Date'.’

  Jessica chuckled, looked round at the restaurant. ‘Do you think any of them really think we're blind or halfway there?’

  ‘Nah. Maybe jazz musicians.’

  ‘Too young. I mean, are there actually any jazz musicians still alive?’

  Ryan beamed ‘Okay, rock stars then... or Mafioso.’

  ‘Or fashion icons.’

  ‘All sounds A-list cool. Until you catch 'em struggling to read a menu in a candle-lit restaurant like this, and realize they're just stooopid.’

  They broke into chuckles almost at the same time. They were enjoying the banter, and each other's company. Ryan shook his head.

  ‘Had trouble even with some pizza instructions the other day. Had my glasses off to read when my mom walked in. Ended up making some bullshit excuse about fluorescent lighting being weaker than sunlight.’

  ‘Know what you mean. I don't know if I'm cut out for this double-life either. Lying to my mum. Her lying to me.’

  Ryan chewed a mouthful of food, thoughtful. ‘Ellis manage to sort something out for you on that front?’

  Yeah. Got some pills and eye-drops which apparently fake the symptoms.’ She tapped her handbag. ‘Along with my inhaler and my mom's enzymes, I'm a regular walking Schwartz's drug store.’

  She smiled tightly, but Ryan could sense it was mainly bravado. Beneath she looked as nervous as hell. He reached a hand out, touched her hand reassuringly.

  ‘You'll be okay.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ They fell silent for a second. ‘One thing they'd never guess, though. What the dark glasses are really for... and what's really going on out there.’

  Her gaze shifted from the people around them to the window at their side, and Ryan joined her in looking out across the city panorama.

  ‘No. I guess they never would.’

  Not a single twinkling city light within eight miles, the darkness at Frank Lyle's farm was inky black, impenetrable.

  Ideal cover for the hole Lyle was busily digging with a pickaxe and shovel. To one side of the hole was a four-foot high cherry tree fresh from the garden centre, its ball-root still netted.

  He grunted with the exertion, sweat heavy on his skin. But there was good reason for that: the hole was far bigger than need be for the cherry tree, and he’d spent most of the past hour digging it.

  Satisfied that it was the right size and depth, he went back to his farmhouse, left the pickaxe and shovel in one of the outhouses and headed for a shower.

  Head upturned to the spray, he closed his eyes as it swilled the sweat and grime off his body.

  And for a brief moment his body morphed to the monster he was, the water running down the slimy reptilian scales of his skin.

  NINETEEN

  The operations van weaved downtown through traffic with Ellis, Ryan, Josh Eskovitz, a driver and another agent.

  They weren’t on the track of any demons, but it was clear from Ellis Kendell’s body language that the situation was urgent. He turned to Ryan as they sped along.

  ‘Got a possible containment situation come up – but it can only be done now. And we'll need your help with it.’

  Minutes later they pulled up in front of a courthouse and Ellis led the way up the steps and through its bustling corridors.

  There was a heavy press presence, and as they pushed through and into the public gallery of one of the courtrooms, Ryan caught his first sight of who was standing in the dock: Tracy Fulton.

  Ashen faced, drawn, Ryan hadn’t seen her since that day at the Mocha Bocha.

  A judge was looking at her with rueful contemplation, but she seemed strangely detached from the proceedings around her, her gaze drifting.

  As they took seats at the back of the gallery, Ellis leant across to Ryan.

  ‘If her pet fallen angel, Berith, is going to jump ship, we reckon the high-tide time for it will be now – when or just after sentence is passed.’ Ellis nodded Tracy’s direction. ‘Is Berith still with her?’

  Ryan could see the grey-green apparition still within Tracy. ‘Uh... Yes.’

  The judge addressed her in the dock: ‘You have been found guilty on four counts of homicide by twelve of your peers. And for that the sentence of the State of New York is quite clear.’ The judge consulted some papers to one side.

  Ellis muttered to Ryan, ‘Okay. Good. Apart from no pressing need yet to jump till now, there probably hasn't been much opportunity with only a handful of prison guards around. That could quickly change.’

  The judge looked up again. ‘You are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment, with the recommendation that parole not be considered before fifteen years.’

  A hubbub rose from the gallery, almost drowning out the sound of the judge's gavel coming down.

  Tracy Fulton still seemed to be lost, her gaze unfocused, the verdict not quite sinking in as she was led out by court bailiffs.

  Ellis's eyes darted anxiously at the scene below. ‘Is Berith still with her?’

  Ryan managed to get glimpses of the swirling form between the press of people suddenly all around Tracy.

  ‘Yes... it is.’

  They lost sight of her then and joined the crowd outside as they waited for her to reappear. The throng seemed far larger now, as if half the court building had emptied out. A cl
uster of network vans were parked in front and reporters jostled for best position through the surging mass. Bedlam.

  The wait was tense, expectant, and it was a full ten minutes before she finally appeared, being led in handcuffs down the far side by guards as a prison van pulled up.

  ‘Still there?’ Ellis pressed, as he caught sight of her.

  Ryan had to shuffle and push by a couple of people to get a clear view.

  ‘Uh... yeah. Still there.’

  Ellis felt the first twinges of doubt. Maybe he'd called it wrong.

  But halfway to the prison van, Ryan suddenly saw a change: the glow was weakening, flickering.

  ‘Wait. It's different now... the image shaky.’

  ‘Okay. Get ready.’ Ellis half turned to Josh Eskovitz, and Josh and the other agent moved in, pushing frantically through the mob towards Tracy.

  Josh checked the reading on his palm-held taser, muttering to the agent with him: ‘We need to get closer. At this distance, it won't activate!’

  But there were so many people in the way. They pushed desperately through to get within striking distance.

  Josh checked the readings again as they got within six foot, the signal still wavering, not strong enough. He pushed past one last group so that he was almost alongside one of the guard’s flanking her.

  But Ryan at that moment saw the Berith apparition suddenly swirl out of Tracy and trail away – the action so fast he can't see where it went.

  ‘It's gone!’ he exclaimed. ‘It's no longer there.’

  ‘Where?’ Ellis urged. ‘Who did it go to?’

  Josh too was looking back at him with consternation, and Ryan's eyes cannoned frantically to pick up the glowing form again on someone in the crowd, anyone. But he could hardly see beyond a few feet through the milling throng.

  ‘I don't know... I don't know.’

  Frank Lyle sat in his grey van as he observed through its tinted windows a group of teenagers two hundred yards ahead in front of a school.

  As Jessica Werner continued talking with her friends Denise, Tammy and Briona, Lyle focused on them more intently, his mind flashing back to the last time he was looking at the same group: he’d been walking towards his black van when he suddenly became aware of one of the girls staring towards him.

  He hadn’t let on what he’d feared at that moment, simply continued on towards his van. Then as he opened its door he saw reflected in its tinted glass the faint glow from a set of eyes behind him; in that moment he knew with certainty that he’d been ‘spotted.’

  But as he’d turned to pick out who it was, a city bus had got in the way, blocking his view. He’d waited for it to pass and saw a group of four girls. The same girls he was looking at now.

  He was still unsure which of the girls had seen him, but he noticed that two of them were wearing sunglasses.

  TWENTY

  The next morning, Ryan, Jessica and twelve other Blind School pupils loaded into a mini-bus with tinted windows and headed to a nearby airfield.

  As they boarded a Gulfstream jet, Ellis Kendell and Josh Eskovitz were already there to greet them.

  A few of the students exchanged glances, but it wasn’t until almost an hour into the flight that Kendell explained the reason for the trip. He stood in the aisle as he surveyed the class.

  ‘Okay. You're ready for lesson three on 'containment', for which we’ve split the class into two groups to visit our facility. It’s simply not geared up for a ‘mass’ visit, so the other half will visit tomorrow.’

  The window blinds at their side started coming down automatically, and Ellis held up one hand to quell the rising murmurs.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed. There’s some necessary secrecy involved with this trip, so for the last stretch from the bus to the facility you’ll be blindfolded too.’

  What Ellis didn’t mention was that it was as much for their protection as well: if they didn’t know the location of the facility, then no purpose in them being held or possibly tortured to discover its whereabouts.

  A boy three rows back raised his hand. ‘And what’s the purpose of this facility?’

  ‘Well, obviously ‘containment’.’ Ellis smiled tightly. ‘But a lot of the why’s and wherefores will become obvious from what you see there. So probably the questions are best saved until then.’

  The murmurs settled down after a second, and with another strained smile Ellis went back to his seat.

  Ryan and Jessica had found seats next to each other halfway down, and gradually snuggled into each other and held hands – until Josh Eskovitz disturbed them forty minutes later when he went round handing out the blindfolds.

  The type light sleepers wear, Ryan looked at his with disdain.

  ‘Can I get some ear-plugs too in case she snores?’

  Jessica smiled and Josh fired back a wise-ass grimace.

  ‘No. But there're some rock channels. Or if you want to get really comatose, some rap and country music. Even a Bible channel.’

  The blindfolds were put on before they left the plane and they were led thirty yards across tarmac to a waiting bus.

  Though they couldn’t see it, the bus windows were blacked out, albeit equally as a precaution against anyone at the roadside seeing them pass. They might find it odd seeing a group of teenagers blindfolded.

  While they also couldn’t see the rock scrub desert around them, they could probably guess they were somewhere of that ilk from the dry heat touching their skin and parching their lips.

  Another thirty yard walk from the bus to the facility, and once inside their blindfolds were finally taken off.

  A solid concrete vestibule, no windows. Two elevator doors ahead.

  Even split into two groups, space in the elevators was tight, and Ryan could see Ellis’s point about not being geared up for ‘mass’ visits.

  From the motion, it appeared to be an eight or nine floor descent. The corridor they were led out onto was equally narrow and sterile.

  Once the two groups had re-assembled, Ellis Kendell and Josh Eskovitz led the way along. Ellis glanced back at the students, holding one hand out like a game compare.

  ‘Welcome to Compound Z, the nation's most secret containment facility – where every fallen angel we're able to contain finally ends up. From the force-field vans you viewed a few nights back, they're loaded onto army transporters and brought here.’

  The light ahead at the end of the corridor was far brighter, almost blinding, and there was a heavy buzz and crackle coming from that direction too. Ellis nodded towards it.

  ‘The amount of power required to hold them permanently is immense, would power a fair-sized city.’

  There was a sense of mounting anticipation as they got closer to the brighter light, the buzzing and crackling heavier. And as the chamber at the end came fully into view, a few gasps rose.

  The corridor had widened by a yard and along one side there was four-inch thick plate glass. And, beyond that glass, three rows of fallen angels in glass tubes spaced at five-foot intervals, stretching for almost sixty yards.

  Electric charges lightning-forked down from ceiling pods to each tube, crackling and sparking.

  ‘Wow!’ Tie-dye commented. ‘And I thought Roswell was all about aliens.’

  Josh Eskovitz looked at him sharply. ‘Did any of us say we were at Roswell?’

  Ellis took a fresh breath. ‘Put it this way, and this is probably as much as could be said on the subject: if you've got something weird happening that effects people's daily lives and would freak them out, what do you do?’ He keenly scanned the group. ‘You come up with an equally weird cover story that's more remote to their daily concerns – so won't freak them out.’

  The day-shift guard at Blind School looked up as the night-guard approached, then glanced at the clock.

  ‘Didn’t realize it was that time already.’

  ‘Yeah. That time already.’ The night guard glanced back along the corridor. ‘All the kids left already?’

  ‘Y
ep. Those that have been here today. Half of them are off on some trip.’

  The day guard leant across and tapped a code into a side cabinet. Opening its door, he took out a set of electronic keys and handed them to the night guard.

  ‘Thanks,’ Frank Lyle said.

  For the first few minutes, Lyle checked the corridors cautiously, as if concerned whether all the students had gone. But halfway down one corridor he suddenly bristled with the noise of a door opening behind him.

  He hustled down the corridor to get to its end and out of sight – but as he heard the shuffle of footsteps, he realized it was too late. His body froze, then a second later he heard the voice of one of the op-agents.

  ‘Catch you tomorrow, Frank.’

  Lyle turned with a smile. ‘Not unless you come in before seven in the morning, you won't.’

  He lifted one hand in parting, and watched the agent turn at the end of the corridor. Then he went to the monitoring room to follow the agent’s progress on screen. He watched him cross the car park, back out and leave. And when the final two agents’ cars left the car park an hour later, he re-set all the building alarms.

  Then he went into the central ops room to start his search.

  The row upon row of fallen angels trapped in their glass tubes had a visible impact on the Blind School students as they walked through. The atmosphere was unsettling.

  Jessica glanced nervously towards them as she jibed to Ryan: ‘If I'd known we were sightseeing out West, think I'd have preferred the Bellagio or Grand Canyon.’

  ‘Never let it be said that I don't know how to woo a girl.’

  But their smiles were more hesitant now. They both knew it was just bravado; like those who chatter away on ghost tours to keep their minds off the worst. They looked ahead as Kendell continued his guided tour.

  ‘There are another seventeen corridors like this full of fallen angels, with fifteen yet to fill before we have to expand. And the secrecy paramount here is followed through at every stage. That's why we use containment guns that look like tasers and discreet containment vans.’ Ellis took a fresh breath. ‘Nothing untoward that might alarm the public.’