Snap, Crackle ...

by Dale Mayer

  I might do something with that, Stefan said. Give me a minute.

  As they came to the other side of the building, Hunter asked, “Is there no second floor to this building?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Good, let’s go out the back door.” She bolted out ahead of him and into the woods, seeking the shelter of the trees.

  He motioned to her. “Back to the car.”

  She hesitated. “They’ll see us.”

  “And yet we need the wheels,” he said, and he led the way, heading toward the car. She hated to, she really did, and he saw it on her face. “We don’t want to be here when they arrive.”

  “They’re coming now,” she murmured, shaking her head. “This might not be the time to say, I told you so, but I will definitely tell you that later.”

  He burst out laughing. “Which implies that we’ll still be here, so feel free,” he said, laughing. And, with that, he chuckled and dragged her down the road toward the vehicle. He saw it up ahead, but he also heard vehicles on the way. He said, “I don’t suppose you know how to create a smokescreen, do you?”

  “Nope,” she said, “I’m not even sure what you’re asking.”

  “Yeah, I was afraid of that,” he said. “Never mind. We’ll make it.” He rushed her toward the car and said, “Get in.”

  As soon as she was in, he started up the engine and turned the vehicle around, so they faced the exit. Turning his attention to Stefan, he said, If you’ve got any good ideas, now would be the time.

  Stefan immediately replied. Yeah, I’m bringing something to you, he said. But I can’t hold it very long. Keep your lights off, he said, and get yourself farther into the trees, if you can.

  After following those instructions, they waited in the car.

  She looked at Hunter and said, “Why are we sitting here? Why aren’t we going?”

  “We’ll let them go past us,” he said, “so we can get out behind them.”

  And, sure enough, a large truck with lights on high came blazing through and raced past them.

  “How come they didn’t see us?” she asked in astonishment.

  He turned the engine on again, pulled out, then heading in the opposite direction, he called out, “Thank you, Stefan. That worked.”

  She looked at him slowly and said, “Stefan?”

  He nodded. “He created some screen to keep us hidden, but he can’t hold it long.”

  “Can he hold it a little bit longer?” she asked.

  “Well, he’s working on it,” he said, with a chuckle, and, with that, he raced out to the road and eventually onto the highway.

  “Are we safe?” she cried out.

  “We are for the moment, yes.”

  She took a long slow deep breath. “Dear God,” she said, “that was a little too scary.”

  “I know. I get it,” he said, “but we’re free and clear now.”

  She shook her head. “But we’ve left our energy behind there. Anybody will read it.”

  “They could,” he said, “but I’m not a hunter for nothing. I drew bits and pieces of all the other energies there to cloak our psychic footprints.”

  She looked at him in wonder. “I get that you think that’s enough,” she said. “I really do. But you’re dreaming.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “let’s hope not. Let’s hope it’s enough. Now,” he said, “we have to find a place to rest up and to go over these files.”

  She shook her head. “The cabin?”

  “No, it’s too far away,” he said. “My own energy will crash soon. I need to hole up before that.”

  She asked, “Is a hotel or something close by?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. He twisted his head and said, “Can you use my phone and see?” He tossed it to her.

  She immediately snatched it up and found a motel not too far away. “What about the vehicle though?” she asked. “What if they saw it?”

  “Well, let’s hope they didn’t,” he said. “We’ll have to take a chance on some of it.”

  And, with that, they raced to the motel.

  Chapter 16

  Hunter crashed, stretched out on one of the motel beds, having burned through enough energy that he needed to recharge. Beth, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. She sat here, staring at the folder that he’d retrieved for her, reading it through, and the tears dripped down her face at what those at the compound had done to her as a child. Without a thought to her well-being or her mental health, whatever they thought they could try with her, they’d done.

  And not just her, she found, as she read the other files. Not that she’d read through them all by any means, but she had read several files, including Mitzi’s. She was not staff, after all. She had been an adult, brought in as a hopeful, but, somewhere along the line, she hadn’t survived.

  “Does anybody even know, Mitzi? Does anybody even know what happened to you, or did you just disappear as yet-another random missing person in this world?” she murmured. The deaths at the compound were just scary, and nobody seemed to care. “How is that even possible?” she murmured.

  She kept her voice low, not wanting to wake up Hunter. Even now, as she checked his energy, she noted his aura had pulled up tight against his skin. His face, his whole demeanor, was like he was in a very deep sleep, almost like a coma. He hadn’t even moved, hadn’t shifted not once. Kind of creepy.

  She moved from the table, got up, filled a glass of water and took a sip. No way she would sleep. Not now, maybe not ever. She couldn’t get past the thought that the boss’s people had passed so close to her and Hunter. What must they have thought that triggered their arrival at the compound? They would surely be looking for her now. It had always been in the back of her mind that she would get caught, and she had long felt that no safety could be had for her anywhere in this world.

  Beth wanted a safe place for her, really wanted it, but knew that would not likely happen—not now, probably not ever. The old memories overwhelmed her, a barrage of never-ending emotions, feelings, thoughts, fragments, and conversations. Bits and pieces of her old life slammed through her, reminding her just how terrible it had been.

  Eventually she became partially dull to much of it but never all of it, not even close. Too terrible, never something anyone could adjust to, who could? But she’d done the best she could; they all had. Yet to see images of faces now in these stolen files, faces she had seen and known, faces that had come and gone, was just too much to handle.

  She had no way to know why or just what these murderous people were up to. What had they done, and how much more were they still doing? Beth knew that Lizzy had been important to them and was the gifted child—even though, at the time, she hadn’t been doing all that great. But those at the compound had such high hopes for Lizzy that everyone else had mocked her and wanted her gone because she was getting the preferential treatment the rest of them desperately wanted for themselves—but not to be because nothing would ever be good or right about any of this.

  Distracting herself, Beth made tea and sat back down, desperately detaching from all the horrors to find something good in this nightmare. Otherwise, it would all be for naught, and she didn’t want to live with that. Who would want to relive any of this? Not her, not now, hopefully not ever.

  She flipped open Mitzi’s file and read parts of the notes, listing her as uncooperative, undisciplined, and unwilling to work with them. She read that and snorted. “What did you expect? We were kidnapped, threatened with death or pain, told lies and more lies.”

  Why would anybody ever want to cooperate under those conditions? The real goal was to get out of there. Getting out was the only motivation anybody had to do anything, and Mitzi hadn’t been any better. She’d done what she could, but that had been the end of it.

  Groaning, Beth quickly read through the file, feeling some of the pain encroaching her system once again, as she thought about all the things she and Mitzi had lived through. How had I even sur
vived? Finally she closed the file and sat back.

  A rusty voice from the bed said, “Did you find anything?”

  She said, “You should still be asleep.”

  “Well, I was,” he said, “but you were thinking too loudly.”

  She laughed at that. “If only,” she said, with a smile. She got up, walked over to look at him, and said, “How do you feel?”

  “Better than I should,” he said.

  “Are you always this cheerful, accommodating? Even in bad situations?”

  “No,” he said, “and most people would say I wasn’t that way at all.”

  “Well, they’d be wrong then,” she said quietly. “So far, all you’ve done is everything you could to help me.”

  “But you don’t want to trust in goodness and happiness, do you?” he said, with a smile. He sat up and shifted toward the back of the headboard, giving his face a scrub, and said, “I think I need a shower.”

  “Well, a shower would be lovely,” she said. “I didn’t even think of it.”

  “You were supposed to sleep,” he said.

  She looked away.

  “You didn’t get any sleep, did you?” he said, with a groan.

  She shook her head. “Every time I close my eyes, it’s just …” she murmured.

  He nodded. “I wondered.”

  She said, “Some things don’t fade that easily, and we stirred up a lot of memories yesterday.”

  He sighed. “Food would be good too.”

  “Yeah, that I could use,” she said, with a half laugh.

  “Well, it’s a motel,” he said, “but I didn’t see any signs of a restaurant here.”

  “No, it’s a by-the-hour motel,” she said. “Hardly high-end living.”

  “Do we need high-end living?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never had it, so I wouldn’t know. But, no, I’d say anything that keeps us hidden and away from the public view is best.”

  “Agreed,” he said. He sat up, stretched, then hopped to his feet and said, “I’ll have a quick shower. Are you okay until then?”

  “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

  He tilted his head toward the files. “Did you learn anything?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Mitzi’s dead. She wasn’t staff. She was another victim.”

  He looked at her slowly. “Because of what they did?”

  She nodded. “The experiments,” she said quietly. “She didn’t survive.”

  “What about the others?”

  “I haven’t looked,” she said. “Only so much of this I can stomach at once.”

  “And your file?”

  She frowned. “I tried, I really did but—” And then she broke off.

  “Good enough,” he said. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll be back. Then we can go hunt up some food.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” she said, “it’s still very early in the morning.”

  “Well, we don’t have to stay here,” he said. “By the time we get somewhere, it will be time for food.” And, with that, he walked into the bathroom.

  *

  After a shower Hunter felt a lot better. And he did need food. That happened when burning through a pile of energy like that. He’d felt his energy falter, when he was getting them safely away from the compound yesterday, but something, someone had helped. He wasn’t sure if she did or if Stefan did. Hunter sent out a Thank you to Stefan.

  Stefan immediately responded. I’ve already contacted some local cops, he said. We’ll get them up there to check out the body.

  Good, that’s a start, but so much more needs to be done. Beth was looking at one of the files that I sent to you. It said the person died due to their experiments.

  Which makes it murder, Stefan said.

  I know. Not exactly something any of us want to think about, but it’s hard not to. Obviously their experiments didn’t always work out the way they thought they would, but, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think they cared either way, Hunter said in a hard tone.

  It’s like they were building an army, but only the strongest made it through their testing, Stefan said tiredly. We’ve heard of things like this in the past.

  Of course everybody wants to have that set of team players who can do the impossible, and that’s why it’s so hard to keep everybody quiet about gifted people, Hunter said. This makes it even more difficult for us to stay hidden. And some of us never do. Look at you. You’re always out in the public eye.

  Yeah, just so you don’t have to, Stefan said cheerfully.

  And I get that and thank you, Hunter said, because I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be dealing with the cops, like you do.

  No, he said, but, at the end of the day, somebody has to do it, and I was on that path a long time ago.

  You were, indeed, he said. By the way, we didn’t find any file on you.

  I wouldn’t expect there to be, Stefan said, but it’s interesting that hers was still there.

  I know, and I can’t help but wonder if there was a reason for it.

  I can’t imagine they would have left something as important as that behind without a reason.

  Bait?

  And again, who knows? Watch your backs, and be open to whatever possibility comes up, Stefan said.

  I don’t like these guys, Hunter said.

  Nothing about them is good, that’s for sure.

  You’re right about that, but it doesn’t stop them from being dangerous to us all, and we have to watch that. We can’t afford to have any more of our gifted people killed because of guys like this. Hunter paused. I can’t imagine being captured by them, Hunter said in horror. To think of them doing experiments like that on us, it’s just—and his voice broke off.

  Remember. She’s already been through it. Stefan’s voice deepened with sadness. As have many others.

  Chapter 17

  Beth woke with a shock, sensing darkness within and without, voices calling to her, some familiar, screaming in the darkness.

  “Beth! Help me! Help me!”

  She shook her head, rubbing her face to hold back the memories, to hold back the tears.

  Almost instantly Hunter was beside her. He gently covered her hands with his, pulling them away from her face. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded slowly. “Every time I close my eyes, sleep never greets me.”

  “When we walk in the nightmare, in the shadows,” he said, “it always seems more of the darkness crowds out the light.”

  She gave a broken laugh. “And yet that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Supposed to be more light out there for everyone.”

  “There is,” he said, “but you have to get far enough away from the shadows so you can see it. If you stay in the shadows, it obliterates the light.”

  “So how do I walk away from this?” she asked, bitterly staring at him. “Oh, you with all the answers, how do I possibly get away?”

  His tone was guttural, as a hard laugh escaped, but he pulled her into his arms and just held her against him, stiff and unyielding. “I don’t have all the answers,” he said quietly. “Nobody does. This is a journey, and nobody out there has a manual on how to walk on the psychic side. There should be instructions, but every person is different, and every experience is different, and even every event is different. I haven’t seen the same thing twice yet, and I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

  “It’s not fair,” she said quietly. “I feel like everything was taken from me.”

  He nodded. “Your childhood and your younger teenage years, everything was taken from you. It’s partly why you’re so good at what you do.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand though,” she said. “I’m broken. Parts of me are everywhere, and I have no way to bring them all home again.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” he said, pulling back slightly to look down at her. “You have to think that there’s hope.”

  “And how do I even believe in hope?” she asked. “
I close my eyes and hear voices calling me. When my eyes are open, I know they’re still there, but I can’t hear them.”

  His eyebrows slowly lifted. “That’s odd.”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” she said. “Don’t you get it? I’m broken. Nothing works as it’s supposed to. Nothing has ever worked as it’s supposed to. And, once they knew that, they just used me as one big experiment.”

  “Which was shitty of them in the first place,” he said, “but it’s not your fault.”

  She shrugged and settled back against the bed, pulling away from his words. She’d blamed herself for a long time. If she had been better, if she could have done more, she could have made her life easier, could have saved some of her friends, and could have made life easier for everybody.

  “Stop taking the blame for all this,” Hunter said in a rough voice, giving her hand and arm a shake. “You have to let that go.”

  “Well, that’s easy for you to say, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. “You’re on the outside looking in. I’m on the inside, seeing where I failed. All the things that I couldn’t do as well as I needed to. All the people who suffered because of it.” That set him back slightly, which she noted with grim satisfaction.

  “You’re blaming yourself for others being hurt?”

  “Of course. Remember? I was used to test others, and, even when I lied and said that the results were better than they were, I was the one who got punished.”

  “Because they had a way to find out if you were telling the truth or not?”

  She shrugged. “Sure, the next time they tested that person, that child,” she corrected, “it was obvious I had lied. But I would take the punishment in order to save them the punishment.”

  He groaned and sat back and said, “Beth, you can’t save the world. You can’t even save yourself some of the time,” he murmured. “We can only do the best that we can do, and we do it to the best of our ability. But we can’t do it all the time. Nobody functions at 100 percent for long.”

  She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, although inklings of truth were there. The seeds of something that she knew, but had yet to grasp, were there. “Maybe,” she said, “but this is not the guilt.”