by Bea Bledsoe
Wordlessly, Leigh sank down in the freezing water, feeling it pass over her head as she clutched her mother’s dress. She let herself sink down in the murky water, the clothes floating up from her hands in a stream of waving colors. Maybe I’ll just sink down, she thought, sink and stay. The water had pushed her toward the bottom of the dam when a flash of something metallic caught her eye. She surged forward, but as the particles of dirt parted in front of her, she held back a scream.
The keys were there, but they had come to rest next to a bloated corpse, its body caught underneath the dam. Wisps of blond hair undulated in the current, framing a skeletal face. Part of a jawbone poked out of the side of his face, and bony fingers drifted silently in the muddy water, fingers twitching as if the man was waving. His cheeks were riddled with large holes and part of his nose had been eaten away. Under the water his worn black Doors shirt floated upwards, exposing a belly writhing with minnows. The current surged around them, beating the remnants of the body back and forth. Leigh pushed back in a panic and the man’s skull slowly shifted…and she saw the place where the fish had eaten Chad Haim’s eyes.
When her head broke the surface, the scream Leigh let out was loud enough to fill the woods, the earth, and the sky. She could hear it now, ripping through the trees, the sound of someone screaming hysterically. She wanted to make it stop but couldn’t.
Immediately, Henry was next to her, grasping her face in his hands.
“Leigh! What’s wrong? Are you okay? Say something!” She didn’t reply, just clutched the dress to her chest and tried to sink down again, this time for good. She didn’t want to do this anymore, didn’t want to be away from her parents, didn’t want to be so scared all the time.
Instead, Henry’s freezing arms wrapped around her and he pulled her back onto the bank. His lips were dark purple and his skin pale as he pushed her wet hair out of her face and flopped beside her. She dropped the keys on the bank with shaking hands, coughing to clear the cold from her lungs. Then Leigh leaned her head back onto the wet mud, looking past Henry’s face to the grey sky above her.
“We have to get back to the car. Let me help you.” Henry heaved her up and over his shoulder. “I’ll carry you there.”
There was a moment where Leigh considered that: letting Henry carry the load, letting Henry carry her; but she wasn’t that person, and this wasn’t the time.
“No.” Leigh untangled herself from him to put her feet firmly on the ground. She was soaking wet and had just seen the body of her father’s best friend under the river. Her father…he had raised her to rather be damned than be useless. She would not go quietly, not like her parents, not like Chad Haim who was now floating under a beaver dam.
“They were in there.” Rasped Leigh, as she clutched her mother’s dress. “In the river. There was a body, and clothing.” Her voice caught. “This was my mother’s.” She felt the loss slicing cleanly through her, separating Leigh into grief and fury, loneliness and revenge.
“Where is she? Where is that little bitch?” Leigh rasped. “I’m going to kill her.” Moving with frenzied desperation, they pulled on the clothing they had left on the bank.
Henry gently took the keys from her freezing hand. “She ran off into the woods, Leigh. I don’t fancy going up against someone who can mess with your brain.” Their eyes met, and she saw herself reflected in the grey brown of his irises. “It’s time to walk…no, run away from this place.” Leigh took a breath and conceded. Together they wove their way out of the woods and back into the open valley of Blackriver. They would have made it, if they had just been minutes earlier. It was something Leigh would consider later: that if she just hadn’t sunk down into the water, maybe they would have had a chance. One second, they were walking quickly toward the car door, and the next second there was a loud roar, unfamiliar and violently jarring.
22
Leigh and Henry spun around as a new black SUV roared out from the trailhead, going much too fast and sending clouds of dust into the air. It was a minute before Leigh understood what was happening; she had become so used to the emptiness, to the strange isolation of this place that seeing other humans here had a numbing effect. Move!
Leigh shot forward and grabbed Henry’s arm, shaking him out of his shock. She began pulling him toward the woods, where they could hide, but it was too late; whoever was in the car had seen them already. In a second, the SUV was upon them, cutting off their exit. It jerked to a stop, headlights beaming in the muted morning light. Leigh didn’t hesitate, and before the doors of the car could even open, she stepped in front of Henry, pulled out her pistol and aimed it at the car. The doors flew open and two men and a woman stepped out swiftly, the two men holding guns aimed right at Leigh. One had a semi-automatic and the other a rifle. Chaos erupted in seconds.
“Get down!” One of them screamed.
“No! You get down!” Leigh screamed back. Suddenly, everyone was yelling: the two men with the guns, the woman beside them, Leigh, and Henry. When the men began circling them, Leigh decided that the woman not holding a gun was probably the most important. She spun, aiming her gun at the woman’s head. The men paused.
“Leigh, right? Leigh Montgomery?” The woman in the dark green parka lined with fur stepped forward with her hands up in the air in surrender.
Leigh kept her gun pointed at her temple. “Yes.”
“My name is Claire Saratoga. We’re not here to hurt you, I swear it. We are here for Winnie, and I want to talk to you about what happened here. Trust me, we want the same thing that you do.”
“I seriously doubt it.” Muttered Leigh through gritted teeth, before Henry spoke up beside her.
“We’re outnumbered, Leigh. Put it down. I don’t want to watch you die today.” His words broke through the shell that had encompassed Leigh since she had seen the body in the river. The fog in her mind dissipated as she slowly lowered the gun.
“Lower your weapons.” The woman in the green coat snapped. The men followed her command, and Leigh finally had a chance to see what she was looking at. The two men wore black pants and ebony thermal jackets with black knitted hats snug on their heads. The woman was tall and thin, with auburn hair pulled back in a tight knot and clear glasses. She moved with small, focused steps; nothing like the physical bravado that the two men were displaying. As one of them moved near Leigh, she flexed her hand near the gun.
The woman stepped closer to them. “Look, I can see that you two have been through a lot, and when I say I’m sorry, please know that it is the first of very many apologies.”
Leigh narrowed her eyes.
“Who are you?”
The woman adjusted her glasses nervously. “As I said before, my name is Dr. Saratoga, and I am a scientist with a local research facility.”
One of the men stepped forward. “Ma’am, I assure you there is no reason to fear.” Leigh flinched. I assure you there is no reason to fear. She had heard those exact words before, from that same meaty mouth. The last time she had seen him he had been wearing a black suit adorned with a government badge, his head covered with a wide-brimmed black hat.
“You.” She hissed, advancing on him. “You were here. You took the census. You sold us to the wolves!” Without warning, Leigh shoved him backwards, and he went sprawling over his own feet. “I know who you are.” She snapped, whirling around on the doctor. “The Pathfinder Collective, right?” The man looked up incredulously at Dr. Saratoga, and Leigh knew she was right. After a moment, the doctor stepped forward.
“You’re right, Ms. Montgomery, we were here. We took a census. We told the people of this town that there was nothing to fear, that we were here to help.” Her voice was unsteady, and Leigh thought she saw the corner of her mouth tremble. “But we were wrong, Ms. Montgomery. We have never been so wrong.”
Leigh stepped up to the woman, trembling with anger.
“Tell us everything.” She spit.
The Dr. nodded and took a deep breath. “Since it seems you already
know who we are, there is no use pretending. I joined the Pathfinder Collective six years ago. They are an organization located here in Wyoming that works in the shadowy parts of psychology. Pathfinder opened in 2001, fully funded by some agencies with a deep interest in what we stood to learn about brain-to-brain interfaces. Did you know, for example, that we have definitive proof that direct transmissions of brain-to-brain activity between two rats, one in Brazil and one in North Carolina? It’s what happens when brain cells communicate with each other: telepathic transmission. That’s what we study at the Pathfinder Collective, amongst many other things. We are well-funded and fully staffed by upper agencies, though of course I could never tell you who they were.” She leaned forward. “Let’s just say they’re the scary ones. We have multiple offices, the main one being here, in Wyoming. A place where no one bothers you and where no one bothers to look for you.” She adjusted her glasses. “I have numerous degrees in cognitive neuroscience and psychology. When Pathfinder recruited me, it was because the entire Collective’s attention had turned to one girl…one rare asset. They offered me the chance of a lifetime: was to dedicate myself entirely to studying her and to enhancing her capabilities. I believe you’ve met her.”
“Winnie.” Henry said softly. The Dr. nodded.
“Winifred Hecate. A child born to an addict who did her minimal best to raise the child until….” She rubbed her chin. “Well, until her own child killed her, most likely by accident. When Winnie was six, she went into a series of foster homes. Within months we found that her foster parents were very quickly relinquishing the girl. They reported strange behaviors in this young child and - even stranger – in the behaviors of the other children when they were around her, which is what clued us in that she was something special. Her parents reported that even adults seemed to perform to the whims of this child, without really knowing why. They had good memories of her when they knew in their own memories that she had been….had been…”
Dr. Saratoga looked past Leigh into the dark woods beyond them. “Very bad indeed.”
“Eventually, the officials sent Winifred to the Pathfinder Collective.”
“Like the car.” Inserted Henry.
The Dr. frowned. “No, Pathfinder being the name for the neurological connections and pathways that our brains involuntarily make, beyond our control. We set her up in our facility and began testing her. It became obvious very quickly that Winnie was able to use her mind to manipulate the thoughts of others.”
The doctor sighed and continued. Leigh tried to focus as a headache began forming at her temple. “For years, she was only able to control one mind at a time and command only the simplest of thoughts: Go to the water fountain. Pick up the pen. Hit this person. But once she hit puberty, her gift grew to encompass more complex mind games. Now Winnie could not only issue commands, she could manipulate memories. Through our experimentation we learned that she couldn’t exhibit control of a mind when someone new walked into the room; in fact, our most fascinating research showed that she needed time to get to know someone’s mind. She had to be near them; be around them for a prolonged period. She had to know them before she could control them. This strange connection of intimacy and control has opened a brand-new field for me. We found it would take Winnie days to wrest control of one person’s mind who she didn’t know; weeks to get ahold of a few, and she had to be in close proximity to the minds to begin with. Young minds were harder to manipulate than adult minds. But once she was in…” Dr. Saratoga adjusted her jacket, but when she looked up, her eyes were glassy. Leigh didn’t have time for her feelings.
“Continue!” She commanded.
“Do you know why I am telling you this?” The Dr. asked softly. Leigh shook her head. “Because of the guilt.” She whispered. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. This very unscientific feeling of mine has washed away my reasoning, my drive, my logic. It’s corrosive, and I feel like I’m rusting from within. Do you understand? I can’t breathe until I fix, or at least try to fix what Winnie has done. I’m not some shady government agent. I’m just a scientist, and we never meant…” Her hands were shaking slightly now. “We never meant for this. For anyone to die. You must believe me. We just wanted to see.” She reached for Leigh’s hand, and Leigh pulled it away with a jerk, disgusted by the doctor. The Dr. straightened up.
“Pathfinder ordered me to see how many Winnie could control at once. Perhaps ‘control’ is the wrong word to use here. She was to alter brain function from her own external force on a large group. But how to study that? We couldn’t have the employees at the Pathfinder Collective volunteer; they had families and sensitive information stored in their minds. We couldn’t risk her gaining control of the facility, which was protected from Winnie by walls of thick cement and a heavy rotation of sedation drugs.”
Leigh blinked. Concrete walls. The Saratoga mountain range. Those had been Winnie’s thoughts.
Dr. Saratoga continued, oblivious. “First, we tried rounding up large groups of homeless men, but many of their minds were muddled by drugs or mental illness. Winnie became easily exhausted; any flaw in the brain made it hard for her to get a handle on that person, any confusion led to her own. She couldn’t have a distraction, or she lost focus and lost the mind she was holding. When the path wasn’t cleared by an existing relationship with someone, the link from initial contact to control was harder to establish. Like I said, she had to know a person.”
Henry’s eyes burned with rage as he stepped closer to the Dr.
“So, you sent her to Blackriver.” He snapped. “A town became your guinea pig.”
Dr. Saratoga nodded sadly. “It was my idea. To create a false environment in which she could become comfortable with hundreds of people over a small period of time. I determined that a very small rural town would be best, far enough from us so that we wouldn’t be implicated, but close enough that we could check in every few weeks. It had to be isolated. It had to be desperate. I posted online about a grant for rural towns who had lost some of their income and were needing financial help. Days later, the applications poured in.”
“Including one from Dog Hawdenfir.” Confirmed Leigh.
She nodded. “I sent one of my men to come to the town, to take information, disguised as a census taker. That way we knew each person. Once he returned and I compared the data, I immediately saw that Blackriver was the place. This town had no concrete connections to the world outside this valley. Blackriver was the very definition of isolation, and thus a perfect place to give Winnie a control group.” She wrung her hands together. “It was only supposed to be for two months. One month to get to know the people, then one of seeing of seeing how many Winnie could control at once by making them do menial tasks. Sweep the floor. Walk backwards. Turn around. Pick up a branch. No one would know they were being controlled and when we were done, she would leave. We got the Kassels to ’foster’ Winnie and weaned her off the drugs. But instead of doing what we asked, she…”
There was a crack in the woods behind them, followed by a sweet, cloying voice.
“She wanted more. And so she killed them all.”
23
Winnie stepped out of the woods behind them. “Isn’t that right, Dr. Saratoga? Winnie wanted more than a life in a cage, hooked up to a machine like some sort of lab rat, drugged from morning until night.”
Dr. Saratoga spun toward her, fear written across her tired face. Leigh held the gun close and felt Henry’s hand fall protectively on her shoulder. “Don’t act like the death of 162 people is some sort of noble freedom quest, Winnie. You murdered those people, in cold blood.” Winnie paused at the edge of the woods, looking bored. Dr. Saratoga took a step towards her. “Come back with us, Winnie. We can find a different living situation for you. We can give you the freedom you desire – within reasonable limits, of course – but you don’t have to hide in this place. This…graveyard of your own making.”
Leigh pushed her body back against Henry’s as Winnie walked past them and to
wards the group from the Pathfinder Collective, her eyes trained on the doctor’s face.
“But, I love it here, Claire.” Winnie’s voice was menacing. “I feel at peace here. There are no voices…just the quiet. I’ve thought about it, and I’m going to stay.” As Winnie grew closer, Claire sadly took a handgun out of her back pocket and aimed it at her. “Not one more step. I don’t want to do this, but I will.” Winnie flinched backwards and stared hard at the Dr. “Why can’t I get to your mind?” The Dr. tapped the side of her head. “The Faraday Electronic Cage, now in an earpiece. Did you really think I would come unprepared for you?”
“Do you really think it will save you?” Leigh’s heart was galloping in her chest as she and Henry slowly inched backwards away from the confrontation. They needed get the hell out of here, but to do that, they had to move past Winnie and Dr. Saratoga, who were engaged in an odd, emotional standoff.
Winnie snorted. “You pretend that you’re my friend, but all you’ve ever done is keep me back from living. You put me out in this town, where I knew no one, but then all you showed me was how life was supposed to be. I saw families, and friends…and this place, this beauty. Things I have never had because of your prison.” Her voice quivered, and Leigh could sense something pushing at the edge of her mind, like a prodding of Winnie’s fingertips at the edge of her conscience. “Things I can’t have.” Leigh looked past the two towards the car and curled her fingers around the gun. If they moved now, maybe they could-
I see you, Leigh.
Winnie’s voice spoke in her mind, clear as a bell. Don’t move or I’ll have to kill you.
LLeigh’s mind apparently wasn’t the only mind that Winnie had reached for, because as she turned, chaos exploded around them. The two armed guards turned and began running strangely towards the doctor, their guns out, screaming, “She’s in!” Dr. Saratoga stood her ground, her gun trained on Winnie, ordering them to guard their minds. It was not to be.