FROM AWAY ~ BOOK FIVE

by Mackey Jr. , Deke

  Netty shakes her head. Presses a hand to her throat.

  “Piss off anybody lately?”

  Netty makes a face. “You... Think someone... Planted this thing? On purpose?”

  Wanda waggles her fingers. Clicking the black claws against one another. “Let’s just say I’m maybe not so quick to discount the less likely possibilities anymore.”

  Netty thinks a moment. “Went against... The Old Men... Ignored their orders today...”

  “Cocksuckers!” Wanda slaps a hand against the corrugated metal siding. Paces angrily. “This is exactly the sort of thing they’d do! And if anybody knows about this stuff? This mutated monster bullshit? It’ll be them, believe you, me.”

  A chime interrupts. Netty grabs reflexively for her back pocket. Finds it flat. Empty.

  “Oh! Found it on the floor.” Wanda produces Netty’s phone. Holds it toward her. Another Unknown Caller on the line.

  Netty waves it off. Pushes it back. Pointing to her neck.

  “You want me to...” Clearly she does. So Wanda answers. On speaker. “H’lo?”

  “Sheriff, I’m a lifelong islander.” An actual unknown caller this time. One going to the trouble of disguising their voice. “I need to report a crime.”

  Netty shakes her head at Wanda.

  “Well, uh... You haven’t reached the Sheriff. Not anymore. Just a dep--”

  Netty’s head-shaking becomes more strenuous.

  Shocked, Wanda covers the phone. Whispers: “Not even?”

  Nope.

  “Um...” Flabbergasted, Wanda wants to hear more. Needs to get rid of the phone call first. “You have to call the department directly, if you have any tips or--”

  Netty nods in agreement with this suggestion. The caller does not.

  “Can’t. Might be one of them who done it... I’m afraid of what they might do to me... If they track my call. Gotta be you, Sheriff. You’re clean. I know it.”

  “Look, I don’t know if...”

  “Go to Dunroamin. The trailer park.”

  Wanda stiffens. Netty notices. Is it just the mention of her neighborhood? Or something more? Wanda licks her lips. “And what’s so important out at--”

  “Look in on Lot 32. Right away... Before they go bad.” The unknown caller hangs up.

  After a moment of dial tone, Wanda does the same. Looks to Netty. “Thirty-two is Delia Carter.”

  The former sheriff is all-too familiar with the home address of one of the island’s more notorious drug dealers. Still watching Wanda’s reactions closely. Whatever she thought she saw flit across the woman’s face, no longer present.

  “You think they’re right? Other cops might be involved?”

  Netty doesn’t have to think this one over. Nods immediately.

  “Okay, then.” Wanda nods back. Keeps nodding as she comes to a decision: “Guess we’d better go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Martin’s eyes open in increments. Taking in a slice of the world at a time. He is in the hospital. That was not just a nightmare.

  It had certainly felt like one. Waking up in his hospital bed. No recollection of how he’d gotten there from the lighthouse attic. Hooked to machines. Feeling as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to his solar plexus. Sylvie next to his bed, and no matter what he said to her, she simply couldn’t understand him. As though she’d forgotten the language. As though everyone had.

  He’d panicked, then. Forced the nurses to knock him out. Can’t blame them. Won’t risk it happening again. There’s too much to be dealt with. The Circle needs to hear his realization: The decades-long conspiracy they hadn’t known was underway. Its ultimate culmination in the arrival on the island of his granddaughter. A sleeper agent who might not even understand her role in the larger ongoing story.

  This in mind, he needs to move slowly. Hold his tiller steady. Above all: Remain calm.

  He reaches for the guardrail. Tries to sit himself up. His left arm refuses to follow instructions. Moves only slightly. Not in the direction he’s intending. Frustrated, he realizes: It’s not just his arm. The problem extends along his entire left side. Weak. Sore. Nearly useless. So... Both a heart attack and a stroke, was it? True to form, just as his Merry always said: Martin never did anything halfway.

  In the middle of her rounds, Dr. Clemmons peers in. “Mr. Lesguettes! Welcome back!” She sees him struggling. “Please, let me help.” She sets down her clipboard. Slips an arm behind him. Props him up.

  He’s grateful. But there’s work to be done. If he can’t move properly, he at least needs to pass along what he’s learned. “My daughter was here before. Sylvie?” Half of his mouth is mushy, but his voice is clear enough. “She leave word on when she’d be comin’ back, then?”

  The doctor can’t quite hide her fluttering frown. Quickly replaced by a generic bland expression of sympathetic understanding. She takes extra care in enunciating: “Do you understand me, Mr. Lesguettes?”

  “Ya needn’t talk slow, luv. It’s not left me a half-wit. Still got all my faculties in place.”

  She nods. Not in agreement. As though her guess has been confirmed. “This may be difficult to grasp at first, but I have to tell you: I’m unable to understand what you’re saying. Because you’re not actually producing the words you think you are.”

  This makes no sense. He can hear his own voice, can’t he? Surely he’d know if what comes out isn’t what he means it to be. “The fock’re ya talkin’ about? I sound right ’xactly like I’m s’posed ta.”

  The doctor holds up a hand. “You’ve had a stroke. And it’s left some of your wires a bit crossed. The bad news is: In the short term at least, it will be a bit of a challenge for you to communicate anything more complicated than yesses and nos. The good news is: In all likelihood, it’s fixable. Many people have surmounted the issue in the past. It will take hard work and dedication, but I don’t suspect you’ll have trouble rising to the occasion.”

  Agitated, Martin fights to hold on to his cool. Despite his promises to himself. “What ya’re talkin’ is cra--”

  “Hold on. I’ll show you.” She places her clipboard on his lap. Holds out her pen. “You’re right-handed?”

  Martin snatches it away.

  “Good. Now...” She removes a small digital recorder from her pocket. Presses record. “Tell me: How’d you feel when you got out of bed yesterday?”

  “A damn sight better’n I do today, I can tell you that.”

  “Good. Thank you.” She stops the recorder. “Now, please write out for me the four words that best describe your favorite meal. Not what it is, or what’s in it. Just four descriptive words.”

  Pen to paper, he writes: Hot. Spicy. Well-done. Filling.

  She takes the clipboard from him. The pen. Holds out the recorder. Presses play.

  Her own voice begins: “Tell me: How’d you feel when you got out of bed yesterday?”

  His answer: “Stress magical turnips in all noise farthing oddsods own belt.”

  Martin’s shocked. Before he can recover, Dr. Clemmons holds out her clipboard. What he finds there, written in his own hand: Not even the wrong words. Just meaningless hen-scratchings.

  “It’s a lot to process, I know. But as I said: The problem is far from insurmountable, Mr. Lesguettes. It’ll take some time, but with a strong commitment to rehab and speech therapy, I have little reason to believe you shouldn’t reach ninety percent of your former vocabulary in the coming months.”

  Months? Martin’s heart sinks. Without words at his disposal - neither spoken or written - how can he pass along what he’s learned? How will he warn the Circle about Dawn? Explain her true origins? Discuss the threat she poses? The situation is dire. It can’t wait for him to recover his voice. He’ll need to figure out a way to express himself without language. To inform the others of secret events that took place a half-century ago involving people long dead. Not to mention relating it all to present day, and explaining how it may well lead to the end of the i
sland, if not the entirety of humanity at the same time.

  Clearly, an elaborate game of charades will not be sufficient. It may have been all but impossible to convince people of with a full handle on the spoken word. And even if he does somehow manage to put across the necessary information and convince people that it is reality? In all likelihood: It’s already too late to do anything about.

  Overwhelmed, Martin utters the foulest curse he can manufacture.

  All the doctor hears is: “Butterscotch-ripple.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  “Norman?!” Max smashes through the coach house door. Sue right on his heels.

  Inside: Norman’s dark workshop provides balance in the universe against his wife’s bright and spotless home. Congested shelves and drawers frame the space. Capacity long-since exceeded. Spilling out onto secondary piles: Powertools. Circuit boards. Wiring and electrical fixtures.

  Coughing draws Max’s attention to the floor. “Norman!”

  The Electrician hacks into a handkerchief. Laboring to get himself upright. Lurching uncomfortably close to the jagged edges of a mound of scrap metal. Sue rushes over. Sniffs at the man as he struggles to rise.

  “Y’see? That’s just what happens when ye try an’ rush things along.” Norman fends off the hound with a forearm. Allows Max to help him up. Pushing him away the moment he’s no longer necessary. “That’s fine, b’y. I’ll not be needin’ ye fer a crutch.”

  From outside, Mrs. Sudder calls: “He dead?”

  Max looks to Norman. Bent over. Collecting wire strippers and a voltmeter from the cement floor. Feeling Max’s eyes on him, he growls: “Well, go ahead... Tell her.”

  Max goes to the door. Leans out. “He’s... Himself.”

  Mrs. Sudder maintains her distance. Standing inside her home. Push broom in hand. “You can tell him he owes me all new windows, then.” She returns to sweeping up the broken glass covering every inch of her kitchen.

  “Windahs, she’s worryin’ over... All the while, I’m dealin’ with no less than the fate of the whole fockin’ island, aren’t I?” Coughing into his handkerchief, Norman steps around Sue. Stands up a dressmaker’s dummy. Straightens out the bulging army-surplus backpack strapped to it.

  Max takes Sue by the collar. Leads him out of the way. “Just... Sit. Okay, dude? You know that one?” In response, Sue turns in a circle. Lays down. Resting his head on his front paws. Content to observe. “Close enough.”

  Uncertain what more is expected of him, Max leans against the wall. “You, uh... Your wife called me? Said you needed your apprentice to come help with a project?”

  Norman digs in the backpack. “An’ ye took yer sweet time in comin’ didn’tcha? Prob’ly thought ye’d dodge the hardest bits by lollygaggin’, but sorry to tell ye: There’s still plenty left to be done.” He yanks out a blackened circuit board. Tosses it to Max, who barely catches it. “I need a mate to this, only not fried. Be a pet, yeah?”

  Max looks around the nightmarish workshop for a clue. No idea where to start. “Um...”

  “Behind ye.” Norman coughs. “Cardboard box on the worktable. Needs to be a match, mind.”

  Max looks in the box. Finds a stack of similar boards. Looking for the same collection of capacitors, resistors and diodes. Laid out across the table: The twisted metal shell of the pulse generator. Insides now removed. “What happened to the pulser?”

  “Fore or after ye blew the blessed thing up?”

  Max pulls a possible match from the box. Compares it to the damaged circuit board. “After.” He crosses to Norman. Hands it over.

  “Sometimes, lad, an idea comes that leaves ye right piqued at yerself, just fer not havin’ the good sense to have had it sooner.” He examines Max’s find. Grunts an acceptance. Crams it into a metal container nestled in the backpack. Docks the board in a slot along one side. Thick fingers working quickly. Connecting it into the system. “Well, down at that boathouse, I had just such a thought and I don’t mind tellin’ ye, it filled me with a blisterin’ rage. Because it shoulda come to me ages ago. So, now? There’ll be no rest fer us, until we’ve brought it fully to fruition. Delay now, and it may never come to pass at all.”

  “No rest for... For us?”

  “That’s right. Not fer me, nor my apprentice neither.” Norman flips a row of switches. The backpack clicks and whirrs. Powering on.

  Sue looks up. Too deaf to hear the sound. Feeling the vibration. The charge in the air.

  “But...” Max thinks back. “Weren’t you trying to repair the pulser? You said it was all we had left. The only spare.”

  “True... True...” The old man reaches for a cart housing the world’s most ancient homebrew computer. Rolls it closer. Coughing, he smacks the side of its enormous CRT monitor. It blinks and scrambles back to life. Square orange text on black. Rows of slightly blurry coding running down the left of the screen. A series of graphs on the right. New data replaces old, dynamically updating as Norman wires the backpack to the exposed motherboard. “That was the only spare. But this. Will more than make up. For that.”

  He slides out a drawer. Two-finger types a string of gobbledygook on a keyboard missing the majority of its keys. Waits for a response. Gets a badly warped beep for his trouble. “Ah!” Apparently, it’s what he was hoping for. He quickly tears out all the wiring he’s just attached. Zips shut the backpack. Unstraps it from the dummy. Holds it toward Max. “C’mon now. Slip ‘er on. Hop to.”

  Max does not hop to. “That what blew out the windows?

  “Don’t ye worry ‘bout that. I’ve made adjustments.” Norman shakes the bag. It rattles in a distinctly unreassuring way. “We’re safe as houses, now.”

  “Dude. Your house is what you just damaged.”

  “Pfft. That’s just cosmetic. Nothin’ structural.” Norman steps forward. Slides the straps over Max’s arms. Up onto his back. Belts them together across his chest.

  The load is heavier than Max expected. Resonating at a low frequency he can’t help but feel, now that it’s resting against his spine. “Are you sure it’s--”

  “Ayup. Absolutely. Now, take these.” Norman hands Max a pair of fingerless gloves. Sewn into the back of each is a hard-shelled box the size of a pack of cards. Along the knuckles: LEDs. “Put ‘em on. They’re yer gauntlets.”

  He runs cables from the backpack to ports on each glove. Using stretchy velcro bands to secure the wiring along Max’s arms. The LEDs glow yellow. Everything hums. Nothing seems especially stable.

  “Howzat? Comfy?”

  “Actually--”

  “Yeah, it is!” He tousles Max’s hair. Punches him in the shoulder. “Just ye try and not move overmuch. It can be a bit... Binicky-finicky.”

  Max freezes in place. Watches the crusty old man push an industrial-size spool of coaxial cable from atop what appears to be a pile of garbage. Revealing a severely disciplined leather recliner beneath. Down he plops. Pulling a cigar stub from his shirt pocket. Lighting it. Producing a nauseating cloud. More or less content.

  “So what’s it all about, I s’pose ye’ll be wanting to know?”

  ‘It’s a portable pulser. You thought of it, while watching Sylvie and me dragging that ball and battery around the beach like two out of three stooges.”

  Norman smiles around his conestoga. “Good. Good.”

  “Yeah, great. How’s it work?” Max looks at his ‘gauntlets’. Dubious. “Assuming it does.”

  Norman knocks ash onto the floor. “Clap yer hands together. Hold ‘em that way.”

  Max takes a breath. Claps. Holds his hands clasped. After a moment, the yellow lights turn green.

  “Yellow means ye’ve got power. Green is a punch loaded up.” He draws on the cigar. “Three things ye need to know. One: They’re directional. Ye’ll only hit what ye’re aimin’ at and only if it’s close by, because... Two: They’re short range. Ye’ve seen fer yerself, ye can’t carry power enough fer more’n that without other issues croppin’ up. Three: What power ye
do have, won’t last long. Needs testin’ to know fer sure, but I’d guess ye’ve got enough for three or four punches per fist. When the lights go out, ye’re outta juice and done.”

  Max extends an arm toward the dressmaker’s dummy. “How do I--”

  “Just make a hard fist, and--”

  Max does. A white flash lights up the shapely form. It rattles very slightly. As far as the pair can tell, no more windows break in the vicinity, though this may be because none remain intact from the previous test.

  Highly disturbed by the pulse, Sue is on his feet. Looking every which way for the culprit. Barking madly. Noiseless beyond the clicking of his teeth. Norman frowns. Tilts his head. “That thing turn us deef alla sudden? It’s that or there’s somethin’ dead wrong with yer dog, b’y.”

  “Don’t worry. He came that way.” Max pulls off a glove. Holds a hand out toward Sue. Only once he’s certain he’s scared off whoever was responsible for the pulse does the dog calm down. Remaining alert even after accepting a scratch-behind-the-ears from Max.

  “So... Did that work?”

  The Electrician blows smoke. “Same as the pulsers. Pulsers work, these should too. But... Until we can test ‘em on the real thing? I’d say I’m... Eighty-five percent.”

  The LED on the used glove is red. Max shows it to Norman.

  “Red is recharging. Takes a bit.”

  “How long?”

  Norman shrugs. “Variable, so far. Got another in the chamber, though.” He gestures to Max’s other hand. Still lit up green. “Alternate ‘em. Stay aware. Should do ye.”

  Max practice-punches at the dummy. Not making fists. For Sue’s sake. “Could’ve used these yesterday, huh? On the beach, or out at the pulser when the gillies came swarming around?”

  “Mmph.” Norman coughs. “Reminds me. There’s just this one other thing...” He leans forward. Stubs out his cigar on the floor. “They’re not waterproof.”

  Max goggles. “What?!”

  “Strictly dry-land, last-line-of-defense, these things.”

  His apprentice looks at him. Highly unimpressed.