by S. L. LUCK
Interference
S. L. LUCK
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 S. L. LUCK
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information: [email protected]
FIRST EDITION
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Print ISBN: 978-1-7771652-2-2
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For Chris, because buses run on diesel.
—
My gratitude goes to my first reader, Jen, who tells me if I’ve got a winner, to Diane for her cultural insight, and to my editor, C.B. Moore, for her sharp eye. Huge thanks to all of you.
Contents
Other Novels by S.L. Luck
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Prologue
Harold Ridgeway woke knowing it would be his last day on earth. Polk County, Texas, was suitably cloudy this morning, with the bitter winds of Hurricane Xavier departing much too slowly, but even that would not stall his death.
They were as bent on his execution as he had been on those murders, and he knew that after eleven years inside Polunsky’s paint-peeled, sunlight-deficient walls, no one would mourn him. His transfer to A-Pod three months prior told him his options were exhausted, so he accordingly prepared for death. Harold didn’t pray, as others had before him, for he knew that he was beyond salvation. The devil had been his companion much longer than Jesus, and that alone sealed his fate.
Instead, Harold took solace in the memory of those dark nights of delicious terror. In his new surroundings, with his high, slit window and emaciated mattress and cold floor and leaking roof, Harold meditated on screams and clutchings and last breaths, consuming these recollections almost orgasmically, sometimes actually so. It required little effort to take him back. By now, he had returned so often that all he needed was to close his eyes and bite his thumb. The taste of that dirty part of his flesh evinced flashbacks of necks and lips and body parts of all colors, sizes, and genders that rigored as he watched, fascinated, and this release was what he presently settled into to calm his nerves.
Rising as his breakfast clanged through the door slot, Harold yawned and stretched. He turned the twenty-seven deaths over in his mind and briefly considered admitting to the other nine. The hope of new information could stay his execution, though not indefinitely, and while his depraved existence at Polunsky hadn’t been constructive for anyone, something inside Harold rallied for more time. It was there, the thing, the enduring urge that had ravaged his youth and planted strange impulses that had dominated his life. Harold wasn’t sure if the thing was part of him or of some spectral deity, but it was there, invading his brain, twisting his motives, rotting his ambitions. The thing stuffed his ears with reassurances, like a gentle pat on a dog’s head. Then it grew impatient and filled his mind with a darkness he had come to rely on. Harold had requested no visitors today, so he turned to the thing now, if only to have an understanding companion. You there? he wondered inside his head.
The thing unfurled itself, spreading wide until all space that was not the thing was shrouded inside him. She liked to be called Pandora, but Harold was too selfish to understand that. Narcissistic hosts, the best hosts, could be compelled to do many things except recognize the notion of self in others, and while Pandora could make him speak her name, the effort was beneath her. He had already given her what she wanted, hadn’t he?
He’d given her terror and death and the kind of melancholy that not only filled her tanks but also kept her satiated for longer periods than when she was with Pickton or Dahmer or Gacy. Harold held on, pushing his victims to the edges of death, then brought them back, repeatedly extending their torture (and Pandora’s rapture) until the very last filament that held them to life was snuffed, as if by a whisper. Pandora sensed his anxiety. It filled the chambers of his heart, the marrow of his fifty-two-year-old bones, his cartilage, his blood, the vitreous of his eyes. Pandora stroked him, letting the weight of her presence soothe what was left of his soul, and thanked him for his service. She would stay with this one until the very end. I’m here, she conveyed.
I’m not sorry for anything, he imparted, and I don’t feel wrong about that.
Pandora let him reflect while she poked around his memory so she, too, could relive those moments. She went back to the first, a young nurse walking home from a late shift with her nose in her phone. Harold had followed her for six blocks, lurking behind bushes and fences and cars, until the woman entered a small clutch of trees along a shortcut between the sidewalk and an older residential area. Once she had departed the reach of the streetlights Harold sprang at her, clamped his hand over her mouth, and pulled her into the bushes. Barely an adult himself, Harold was not prepared for how viciously she fought, and he sustained long scratches across his face and deep bite marks on his hands. She’d almost torn off his pinky finger when he finally knocked her out and carried her to his car for the long drive to his grandmother’s farmhouse in Hillsboro. There, in the quiet of the night, with his grandmother’s hearing aid on the night table as she slept, Harold dragged the woman to a disused pig barn. Then he woke the nurse and let his urges reign.
That evening had rejuvenated Pandora as it would have a relapsed addict. That first taste of death, long since overdue, fortified the deepest part of her being, and she knew at once that she had chosen well with Harold. He wasn’t premature like many of the others, and he faced no moral dilemma because darkness was already present in Harold long before Pandora had even reached him, perhaps since birth. This allowed her to fuse quickly and securely, and she stayed with him, growing stronger with every kill, while Harold himself leaned into their interdependent companionship. Remember Barbara? Pandora asked him now. She almost got you, you know.
A thin smile cracked Harold’s lips. He recalled his second, an older accountant out for an evening run. Harold hadn’t realized how fit the woman was until she broke free from his hold, running like the devil down the empty streets of Fort Stockton’s industrial zone. He had the rusty taste of
blood by the time he caught up with her, along with a dozen broken blisters and a number of gouges from clumsy jumps over stored equipment. He’d been purple as a grape when he squeezed through that last opening between a loader and the wall of a metal fabrication outfit, catching Barbara by her ponytail. She was a tough one, Harold agreed to Pandora. For a long while, they dwelled on their time together. Laughing, howling, arousing each other with thoughts of Stephen, Paulina, Max, Olga, Felicity, Dorothy, Elijah, and the others; they spent the hours this way, until Harold was finally escorted to the cage for his strip search. He removed his jumpsuit and let it fall to the floor while too many sets of eyes scoured his skin, his insides. Will you stay with me? Harold asked Pandora, feeling the first real pangs of apprehension since his incarceration, not because his time had run out but because his time with Pandora had run out.
I will, Pandora told him.
Where will you go after me?
This Pandora could not answer, for Harold was a rare breed. He was loyal and eager and never hesitated when given a command. Unlike others who fought her occupation, Harold welcomed Pandora’s presence, and though she’d dabbled unenthusiastically with dozens of other potential hosts since his incarceration, she always found them lacking. She didn’t much care for the ones who acted mechanically, who didn’t enjoy their adventures together. It was like having an unappreciative lover, and while Pandora might have settled for such affairs in her early years, she now often longed for foreplay and those naughty after-moments when her hosts shared their often unexpected delight. Harold was a good lover this way. She never had to ask him. If anything, it was Harold who initiated their hunts and their subsequent gloating. She would miss him. At last, she regarded the circle of apprehensive uniforms crowding her host and pushed outward, sending a small jolt through their shoes and up their feet. Instantly a collective shriek rang out.
“What the hell was that?” McMurty wailed, skipping off his feet. The smallest of the six, he felt Pandora’s strike the most severely.
Robinson, the longest-serving guard at Polunsky, lifted each foot and inspected the bottom of his shoes. “Call the warden and get someone to check the generators. Maybe the storm’s messed with the electrical.” McMurty hurried away.
A crisp new prison uniform was given to Harold, and he quickly covered his nakedness for his transport to the Wall. But before the cage door could open, Pandora flung herself upward. Bolts of light shattered the overhead fluorescents above the cage, beside the cage, down the hall, in every prisoner’s cell, bang, bang, bang, bang, until all lights were extinguished and they were thrust into darkness. Sirens blared, men shouted, radios buzzed, footsteps retreated, advanced, fumbled about, the whole prison in a fury of panic. Through the commotion, Harold’s curiosity came soft and clear to Pandora. W-was that you? he asked.
Pandora flexed herself again, nudging the guards, poking the prisoners, jabbing the warden himself. Screams normally reserved for the men in the chamber now erupted violently here, there, inside the walls where free men and sentenced men shared a rare common experience. Alone in the cage, however, Harold was the only one untouched. Pandora now reached tenderly for him. I had to do something, she insisted, and that was enough for him, for he knew that had she orchestrated his escape, his freedom would be short-lived and they would not hesitate to gun him down. After all Harold had done for her, she couldn’t let that happen. No. She could not. She would not let them take him the way they wanted. Instead, she wrapped herself around his heart and pressed her appreciation into him. Pandora coiled tight, tighter yet, more and more, until the steady beats of Harold’s heart faded softly away. She stayed like that for some time, and when the lights finally came back on, she released Harold’s body to them. Then, lamenting his death, Pandora went to find a new host.
1
George Torres yawned. In the pre-dawn darkness of a breezy October morning, he stopped his bus in front of the Best Western Hotel and kept the engine running as he waited for his passengers. Already awake for the better part of two hours, George had consumed two cups of coffee and was contemplating a third when the hotel manager Fiona Anderson knocked on the door. She hopped back as the door swung open and George stepped out. “Morning,” he said, his view of Fiona momentarily obscured by the fog of his breath. “Full house today, Fi?”
Fiona’s small shoulders were drawn up to her ears as she shivered in her thin suit. She tapped her clipboard with a pen. “Almost. You got thirty-nine today. There was some stomach bug that has eight of them down or you’d be crammed. Want me to bring them out?”
George said, “I need to hit the washroom first, and you got any of that brew from last time? The dark stuff? I could use another cup.”
“Sure do.” Fiona nodded. “You do your thing and I’ll give them their envelopes while they wait. They’re a lively group today.” She laughed, her own breath spurting mists of grey from the heat of her mouth.
Inside, George hurried to a restroom stall, wincing a little as he urinated. Suffering from a long-simmering urinary tract infection, George had just begun his antibiotics and regretted his reluctance to visit a doctor every time he encountered a toilet. This time was no different. He held his urine at the onset of pain, again and again until he stood in front of the toilet for a solid ten minutes. He knew that coffee was no help, but he needed it to drive and so it put him in a predicament between unemployment or pain. To no great relief he chose the latter, and as he zipped up his fly, George wiped the beginnings of a tear from the corner of his eye. He strode to the small café beside the reception desk, poured himself a large black coffee from the self-serve carafe, and joined Fiona in the lobby. Thirty-nine pairs of tired eyes looked back at him, eager to board the bus. “Hi all,” George said jovially, tipping his coffee cup toward them. There were greetings and shouts and whistles from old men and old women, ready to rest their bones in the plushy bus seats.
Fiona said, “Let’s hope you’re all this happy on your way back from the casino.”
Chuckles and familiar groans rose from the group. Fiona conducted one last attendance check and put them into George’s capable hands for the two-hour drive to Fauville, where southern Ontario’s largest casino sprawled along Lake Huron waiting for the gamblers’ deposits. The European styling of the small city regularly drew visitors from across Canada and many northeastern states, with the larger hotels in Garrett, Ontario, hosting weekly charters and offering discount accommodations. George had been assigned to the Best Western departure going on five years, collecting groups from the building at seven a.m. sharp every Wednesday and Saturday, and by now he knew the route to the Huron Casino so well he felt he could drive it in his sleep. Still, he sipped his coffee and greeted his guests while they boarded his bus.
“Morning, Georgie,” Rose Mayberry cooed, wiggling her fingers as she passed him. George suspected the high color of her cheeks had little to do with the chill, as Rose had not only been a regular of his since her husband passed the previous year but had also slipped George her phone number on three separate occasions. After his divorce three years earlier, George enjoyed his newfound bachelorhood, and though he often missed female companionship, the idea of Rose in his bed didn’t arouse much affection in him. She was kindly, yes, but nattered so loudly that her voice could not be suppressed even when he cranked the music all the way up.
“Hi Rosie,” he waved at her and swung his eyes behind her to Ned Chambers, who was struggling up the stairs with his walker. George rushed to the man and adjusted the angle of the contraption to make it easier for Ned.
“Oh, thanks George. I guess I’m still not used to this thing,” Ned said a bit uncomfortably.
George put a hand on Ned’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be needing one of these things soon enough so the practice is good for me.”
Together the men navigated the steep steps inside. George folded Ned’s walker and put it behind his seat, then he sat and greeted the remaining passengers as they passed by, secr
etly compartmentalizing them by their hair. There were nineteen baldies, thirteen grays, four who still dyed their hair blond, two bottle brunettes and one who looked much too young to be in company of the rest of the group.
George pulled his headset over his own gray head and adjusted the microphone. “Test, test,” he mouthed into the mic, adjusting the volume. “Morning folks. Looks like Earl and Ginger have brought themselves a stowaway today.”
All eyes swung to the young woman in an aisle seat between Earl and Ginger Cheevers.
Earl’s thick hand waved up to George. He cupped a hand beside his mouth, calling out from the center of the bus, “Taking the granddaughter to the casino. She turned nineteen last week!” The woman’s cheeks flushed as Earl pointed at her and a wild crescendo of cheers rushed her way from every direction.
George said, “Well happy birthday, young lady. I’m sorry to say that since you’re beside that guy, you’ve already lost, but we wish you luck anyway.” Good-natured hoots and hollers rang out as Earl was patted on his back from many sides. “Now, now, settle down, folks. Don’t beat him before the casino gets his money.”
Another swelling of cheers and chuckles filled the bus, subsiding when George ran through the short itinerary. By the time he reached the mandatory safety presentation, not a single passenger was paying attention. Then they were off. With a hydraulics hiss, the bus pulled away from the curb. They passed the Delta, the Holiday Inn, and three small bed and breakfasts before leaving the curve of the water. Smells of fresh bread and sweet coffee came at them as they neared a twenty-four-hour bakery, where George adeptly swung the bus around so they could see the river while they departed the city. With the sun emerging over the water on their right, the passengers settled, relaxing old bones in familiar company, eventually letting their eyes shut, their heads tilt, their mouths fall open with the comfort of sleep.
Soon, the day was bright. Colors of autumn bloomed in the fields, on the trees, in the steep banks of the Callingwood River; the rich reds and bright oranges and enchanting golds of falling leaves reflected like drops of honey on the moving water. George turned the radio on, already set to 103.9, Garrett’s only classic rock station. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” had just begun. He hummed to himself, driving slowly, taking his time.
