Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

by Christa Faust

  I want to go home.

  Again, the note was signed with the infamous cross hair symbol.

  “I don’t trust him,” Nina said immediately.

  As Walter stared at the cross hair symbol, it seemed to swell and welt up on the paper like a fresh brand on raw flesh.

  The acid was starting to kick in.

  “Belly?” Walter asked.

  “Yeah,” Bell replied. “Me, too.”

  Nina rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, this is just great,” she said.

  “What are we going to do?” Bell asked.

  “Look,” Nina said. “Here’s the plan. I’ll go into the building from this side, set up the central biofeedback rig, and then I’ll come through to the north end from the inside, and cover you two with Lulu. Agreed?”

  “We don’t seem to have much of a choice,” Bell said.

  “You have the extra walkie-talkie?” Nina asked Walter.

  He checked inside the bag that contained the chloroform and handcuffs. The extra unit was there, right we’re he’d left it. He turned it on.

  “Good,” Nina said. “If you get into trouble, use it.”

  “Seems like a probable outcome at this point,” Bell said.

  “Maybe he really does want to go home,” Walter suggested.

  Nina turned away from them and squeezed through the slit in the chain-link fence.

  “Go find out,” she said.

  46

  Nina followed the tan stone wall around the corner of the building, and slid alongside one of the boarded-up windows. The lowest board had been pried loose on one end and if she got down on her hands and knees, she could just wiggle through.

  She looked around to see if anyone was watching. The sound of the carousel was clear, but from this angle she couldn’t see it. That meant all the people there and in the neighboring playground couldn’t see her, either. She pushed the canvas messenger bag in through the window frame ahead of her, and then squeezed in after it, loose nails scratching at her skin like metal claws.

  Inside, the building was dim and redolent of char. Nina could see the cloudy sky through the hole in the roof, reflected in tarry puddles on the ruined floor. She remembered reading about the fire in the paper, something to do with glass blowing or kilns or something, but whatever the cause, the devastation was extensive. The interior had been burned down to the bones, nothing left intact but the exterior stone walls.

  She could still hear that happy organ music from the carousel, an eerie counterpoint to the lonely, haunted house feeling inside the burnt-out building. She had never been a superstitious person, but found herself wondering if anyone had been killed in the fire, and shuddering at the thought.

  Shrugging off the childish willies, she surveyed her surroundings and selected a spot near a descending staircase that seemed close enough to the exact center of the building, She unloaded the biofeedback rig and set it up, thumbing the power switch. Satisfied that it was working at maximum capacity, she drew Lulu from her purse and, barrel pointed at the damp floor, made her cautious way toward the north side, to check on Walter and Bell.

  The big open space echoed her footfalls back at her, multiplying them and making it sound as if someone was following her. She paused for a moment, scanning the hazy corners and archways around her as the echo died off. Her eyes strained to separate the dim, sooty shadows. Pale ash kicked up by her feet swirled in what little light managed to find its way in.

  Nothing. No one.

  She continued, skirting another large black puddle and making her way toward a window on the north wall—a window with a single missing board.

  * * *

  Walter and Bell stood on the north side of the fence that surrounded the burnt-out building. The acid was really starting to make itself known, and shadowy figures seemed to lurk at the far edges of Walter’s peripheral vision. But if the killer was there, he didn’t make himself known.

  “What should we do, Belly?” he asked, gripping his friend’s upper arm to steady himself. “We can’t wait here forever. The synchronization must begin in less than a minute!”

  “I don’t know,” Bell replied, staring intently at the ground between his shoes. “I simply don’t know.”

  That’s when Walter noticed the folded note tucked under the edge of the chain-link fence. He bent to pick it up, almost reluctant to unfold it. The paper seemed to pulse with a feverish infection in Walter’s hands.

  “Do you see this?” he asked Bell.

  “Yes,” Bell said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s real.”

  He opened the note and found a message in plain, uncoded English.

  I never had a hostage. But I do now.

  The cross hair symbol winked at Walter like an eye. He dropped the note, wiping his hand on his pant legs as if it had touched something rotten.

  “My God,” Walter said. “He’s got Nina!”

  * * *

  Nina reached the window with the missing board, and peered out. She could see Walter and Bell on the other side of the fence, waving their arms and having some kind of intense debate. No sign of the killer.

  She checked her watch. Time was running out.

  She was about to call out to them when she heard a stealthy, sliding footstep behind her. She spun, gun raised. The dappled shadows taunted her with a dozen hiding places, but she couldn’t see anyone.

  “Show yourself!” she called.

  Her echoing voice disrupted a brooding pigeon, who took off through the hole in the roof with a noisy flutter. A single white feather seesawed down from the ceiling and landed at her feet.

  She waited.

  Nothing.

  No one.

  Her ears rang with listening, eyes wide in the dim, shadowy building. Outside, the carousel started up again, taking a new batch of excited children for a ride with a burst of jaunty music.

  The walkie-talkie in her purse crackled with static, causing her to jump, startled. Then Leslie’s voice.

  “Nina? Nina, do you read me?”

  She took out the unit with her left hand and keyed the mike.

  “Everything okay, Leslie?”

  “We’re in place,” she said. “I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we’re in place here at the parking lot. Ready when you are.”

  Nina looked at the walkie-talkie in one hand and the gun in the other. No point scaring the students. Their only option was to proceed as if everything was normal. Stick to the plan.

  “Roger that, Leslie,” she said into the mike. “Get your equipment set up, and begin the synchronization.”

  “You got it,” Leslie said. “Over.”

  Nina hoped she was doing the right thing. She put the walkie-talkie back into her purse.

  That’s when she was grabbed from behind, the cold blade of a knife biting into the exposed flesh of her throat.

  “Drop the gun, sweetheart,” the killer whispered, his breath hot against her ear.

  47

  “What are we going to do?” Walter asked.

  Before Bell could answer, he heard a sharp piercing whistle. When he turned toward the sound, he saw Nina’s pale face in the lower corner of a partially boarded window. Her expression was masklike and unreadable. Then Walter noticed the gloved fist twisted into her red hair, and the knife pressed against her throat.

  “He wants you to come inside,” Nina called, lips barely moving, her voice a flat monotone.

  Bell took a step toward the building, hands clenched into shaking fists, but Walter gripped his shoulder.

  “If we do what he says,” Walter said, “what’s to stop him from killing Nina? Once he has us, he won’t need her any more.”

  “But what other choice do we have?” Bell asked through gritted teeth. “The bastard has the upper hand here.”

  The walkie-talkie in Walter’s bag crackled and squawked.

  “Nina?” It was Kenneth. “Nina do you copy?”

  Walter dug out his unit and fumbled with it for a
moment. It seemed to have far too many buttons, many of which were weirdly organic looking, like clusters of shiny spider eyes.

  Bell snatched it out of his hand and hit the button.

  “Bell here,” he said. “What is it?”

  “A bunch of black Fords just pulled up behind us on Kezar,” Kenneth said. “And a bunch of guys in suits got out. I’m pretty sure they’re feds, and they’re headed your way!”

  “Copy that,” Bell said. “Stick with the plan, no matter what. Do you hear me?”

  “Will do,” Kenneth said. “Good luck.”

  Walter looked back through the trees and saw the agents headed their way, but there seemed to be thousands of them moving in robotic lockstep, like mechanical Nazis. This was really the worst possible time to be tripping.

  “They’re coming, Belly,” he said. “We have to go into the building, like it or not. This is our last chance before the feds turn this whole thing into a fiasco.”

  Resigned and resolved, the two of them ran for the hole in the fence.

  “Attention team leaders,” Bell said into the walkie-talkie. “Tell your subjects to visualize a gate, and to open it! Do you copy?”

  “Copy,” Kenneth replied. “A gate.”

  “Will do,” Leslie said.

  “Got it,” May said.

  “And stand by with the tranquilizers,” Bell said, folding his long body nearly in half to squeeze through the slit in the fence. “Be ready to stop the trip if I tell you to do so. Over and out.”

  Walter followed Bell through the hole, but when he looked back at the feds, he saw Latimer front and center.

  Worse, Latimer saw him.

  Or did he? Was Latimer even there at all, or just a figment of his chemically enhanced perception?

  There was nothing to do about that now, though. Either the man was there, or he wasn’t. And he would either catch them, or he wouldn’t. They had no choice but to try and go through with the experiment. Stick to the plan, and hope they weren’t too late to save Nina.

  When Walter caught up, Bell had pried a loose board off one of the windows and was climbing through. The remaining boards looked disturbingly skin-like, and the hole Bell was crawling into seemed like a giant wound. Its edges oozed and pulsated, making Walter pull back with disgust.

  “Come on,” Bell’s voice called from inside. “Hurry!” So Walter closed his eyes and climbed into the gaping wound, trying not to notice how feverish and slick the edges felt.

  Inside the dim, char-stinking interior of the burnt-out building, Walter felt completely disoriented. He could no longer trust anything he was seeing, but he definitely didn’t see any sign of the killer—or Nina. Although in his current state, that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  Then he heard the killer’s voice.

  “Here we all are,” he said. “Just like old times.”

  The stocky man with the reddish-brown crew cut stepped out of the gloom and into a shaft of light that streamed through the broken roof. He was like an actor taking the stage, arm around Nina’s neck and the knife pricking the skin beneath her left ear. A trickle of blood seemed to flow out into the air between them, floating in weightless globules. A gory lava lamp.

  “Okay,” Bell said, palms held up and out. “Okay, just take it easy.”

  “Tell me,” Zodiac said, “since I just can’t seem to figure it out. Which one of you is nailing her?”

  The killer turned Nina’s body toward Walter, then toward Bell.

  “Ah,” the killer said to Bell. “It’s you, isn’t it? But...” He leaned in over Nina’s shoulder, squinting. “It’s not just that, is it? You’re not in love—no, this is much more... complicated. Mmmmmm.” He pressed the knife harder into Nina’s neck, eliciting a stifled hiss and a more vigorous flow of blood. “I can’t wait to see how you react when you watch her die.”

  “Wait,” Bell said, taking a cautious step forward. “The FBI is on our heels. They’ll be in here any minute. If you kill her, you won’t have a hostage to use when you negotiate with them.”

  “Nice try,” the killer said. “But I don’t need this bitch as a hostage. The FBI, they know me. They know what would happen if they hurt me.” He waved his left hand in an expansive circle. “I’m holding this whole park hostage!” He grabbed a fist full of Nina’s hair and cranked her head back, stretching her pale throat taut. “Say goodbye, sweetheart.”

  “No!” Bell cried.

  A sharp crack sounded in the hollow space, and for a moment, Walter was sure someone had been shot. Maybe even him.

  “Freeze! FBI!”

  Bright light washed over Walter and he realized that the door had been kicked in. Three dark, backlit figures stepped into the building, two ahead with guns drawn and one slightly behind. He felt as if he really should do something about this turn of events, but nothing was coming to mind. In fact, he still wasn’t even sure they were real.

  But the killer was, and reacted to the arrival of the newcomers far more swiftly and efficiently. He let go of Nina’s hair and drew a gun from his waistband, drawing a bead on the figure in the center.

  Having been released, Nina ran to Bell. The two of them seemed to melt into each other like conjoined twins, outlines blurring and blending. Walter shook his head, struggling to keep it together.

  “Don’t shoot!” Bell cried. “If you shoot him, you’ll kill us all!”

  The dark figure in the center stepped forward, features resolving out of the sticky, viscous light.

  Latimer.

  “We don’t want to kill you,” he purred, ignoring Bell and approaching the killer with open hands. “We want to give you a job. We have a lot to learn from someone like you.”

  The killer let out a contemptuous bark of laughter.

  “I’m nobody’s lab rat,” he said, gun aimed between Latimer’s eyes.

  “Shoot me if you like,” Latimer said. “There are a dozen more just like me right outside that door. You’re coming with us today. It’s up to you if you want come willingly, or...”

  “Or what?”

  Walter still couldn’t trust what he was seeing, or what he thought he was seeing, but he was pretty sure that the other two agents had begun a slow creep around either side of the killer.

  He knew it was real when the killer shot them both, first left, then right, with blinding speed and precision.

  They dropped almost in tandem, uncapped syringes falling from their twitching hands. One rolled across the floor and bumped against the killer’s muddy boot. He looked down at it with a smirk, then lifted his foot and crushed it under his heel.

  “Plan B?” he asked Latimer.

  Latimer started backing away.

  “I didn’t think so.” The killer started to strip the gloves off his hands, revealing the swarming sparks flowing over the surface of his skin. “You want to study me? Learn about me? Find out what makes me tick? Take a good long look, Agent Latimer.”

  He stepped in with the smooth, fearless grace of a boxer, but instead of throwing a jab, he reached out and grabbed Latimer’s face.

  The agent let out a horrible, muffled scream as the killer’s fingers sank into the burning flesh. The skin bubbled and split around his fingertips, peeling back in charred flaps. Latimer’s exposed skull started to effervesce into the air around him, emitting a sparkling cloud of atomic particles.

  48

  Walter was staring at this hideous display with his jaw hanging open when Nina grabbed him and shoved him toward the open door—the one that led to the stairwell. She pushed so hard that he nearly fell, dropping his bag. It slid across the floor and landed in a large puddle.

  “What the...”

  “Get into the basement now,” she said. “Or we’re all cooked!”

  “But the chloroform!” Walter cried, taking a step toward his soaked bag.

  Over her shoulder, the sickly green glow from Latimer’s melting face was spreading outward like ripples in a pond, until it was just inches away from the back
of Nina’s head.

  “It’s too late,” she said. “Just GO!”

  Walter didn’t need to be told twice. He could feel the burning heat on the back of his neck as he dove for the basement stairs. In mere seconds, the upper level of the building would be awash in deadly gamma radiation. They had to get to the relative safety of the solid stone basement.

  Bell went pounding down the stairs ahead of him as Walter half-fell and half-ran right behind him. Nina was reaching out to pull the heavy old door shut behind them when a powerful blast of energy slammed it, knocking her down the stairs and into Walter’s arms.

  The two of them nearly smashed into Bell, who was standing awestruck at the bottom of the stairs.

  The gate had opened.

  It was to the left of the stairs. Still just a glittering slit, but bigger than ever before. Nearly eight feet tall and bulging in several places along its length, like a gecko’s pupil. As Walter watched, the bulges dilated and joined together to form one larger opening, swirling and pulsing at its heart.

  “How long do you suppose the gate has been open?” Nina asked, looking at her watch.

  “There’s no way of knowing,” Walter said. “Just watch for the formation of tendrils around the outer perimeter. That’s your signal to call the teams and tell them to end the trip.”

  “But what if we haven’t had enough time to get him through?” Bell asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Walter said. “I won’t risk any more innocent lives.”

  Flickering images of carousel horses seemed to be careening through the air around Walter’s head. He waved at them, as if they were pesky insects, and struggled to keep himself focused.

  “Look,” Nina said, pointing to the gate.

  Sure enough, tiny threads were appearing around the top, growing and stretching.

  Nina pulled out the walkie-talkie.

  “Talk to me, team leaders,” she said. “How’s everyone doing?”

  “Rocky.” May’s response was immediate. “Both of my guys have been really agitated. I’m doing my best to keep them calm, but I don’t think they can take much more.”

  Another voice.

  “This is Leslie. My trippers are... well, they aren’t moving at all. They seem almost comatose. I hope they’re okay. Also...” She paused. “I’m starting to get this weird headache, almost like I’m getting sucked into the psychic link.”