But now, at seventy-seven, Kennedy wondered when Black would become a major enough concern. He’d been running unchecked for a lifetime, and had managed to keep out of the public eye. But, Kennedy knew what lay in Black’s heart: fear. A deep-seated, irrational fear that drove him in search of the source of that fear. Before he passed, Kennedy’s remaining wish was to stop him. It was time he took matters into his own hands. But, short of anything drastic, what could be done? World peace shouldn’t be gained through the spilling of blood… if at all possible. There had to be a way, somehow, to get rid of him that was ethically and morally sound.
Kennedy sighed and set aside his half-finished tea.
Camelot, indeed.
Maybe you just couldn’t save the world.
Children, came an internal whisper. Children…
Though Black was in his sixties, he was affected by Addison’s and had lived a hard life. To be honest, he was utterly surprised he had made it this long. But, he’d been loose for so long, did it really matter if he lived out the rest of his life continuing to do what he’d been doing for the past twenty? It was only a matter of time.
He just hoped he’d live to see it.
Ring around the rosie,
A pocketful of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.
We all fall down.
We all fall down…
4
“… I don’t know,” Mel said, dragging out his words, “it just feels like, maybe… I’m living in a dream…”
Mel stared blankly at the television set flickering before him, in his darkened room. The Twilight Zone rerun “Where is Everybody?” played.
“Like I’m the only one actually living this dream — until I called you.”
A commercial flashed up on the screen that said “Life is what you make of it. Make something of it!”
Lizzie found it hard to continue with the faux accent. She felt genuine sadness and confusion coming from the boy — but little else, which was unnerving. She just couldn’t pick up anything else from him.
“Look,” she said in faux-Romani, “So, you think your parents are dead, but that doesn’t feel right to you — eez that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, I-I think so. It’s hard to explain, you know? Or maybe you don’t—”
“I do,” Lizzie said, mulling over his conversation. “Madame Nostradameus knows all…”
“I should probably go. I’ve taken up enough of your—”
“Your time eez my time, my dear.” All the practiced phrases kept coming out without a second thought. There was something different about this boy… something she couldn’t decipher and didn’t want to get away from her. It was the same kind of unsettling impression she got from Black — only in a good way.
“I know, I know. I just wanted to talk to someone, is all — make sure I’m not the only one on the planet.”
“Mel… Madame Nostr — I — really want to help. I know someone… why don’t you take theez number down and give her a call. She might be able to help you… at least give you a shoulder to lean on.”
There was a pause at the other end.
“Okay.”
“She is someone you can talk to,” Lizzie said, finding her faux Romani slip, “Maybe point you een the right direction.”
“Okay.”
Lizzie gave him her home phone number.
Chapter Eleven
1
Travis Norton settled into his “quiet place,” as he lay back in The Center’s RoboChair and opened his mind to the tasking. It was only him and his monitor in the room, but in the observation booth he knew there could be any number of observers — or the eminently spooky Mr. Black, himself. Travis wasn’t alone in noticing that Black seemed to hang out around the place much more often the past few months, and that made everyone just a little edgy. They weren’t supposed to talk among themselves, but who couldn’t? It was bad enough they were all stuffed away in the bowels of the innocuously named John F. Kennedy Center, a highly classified compound in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where almost every word or thought was compartmentalized, but come on, folks, we’re talking government-trained psychics here. Who needed to talk when you could sense? And the combined sense was that something big was up, and bigger than anyone had ever before dealt with. There was more than the normal amount of whispering going on between viewers, and with Black around, that wasn’t a good thing.
And Buddy LaRouque’s disappearance last week?
Newcomers came and went all the time, but Buddy had been with the program for a year and a half and had just… disappeared. No forewarning. He was happy and joking around one day — and now it was as if he’d never been there. Even his house had been sold. One day he’s living in it and the next a family of four?
It wasn’t even like this family was still unpacking — everything had already been unpacked and looked lived-in for years.
The mailbox had their name on it.
The new family Rottweiler alertly napped inside a chain link fence that hadn’t even been there yesterday.
And out in the back shed was a ’57 Chevy being refinished by the new man of the house.
It was those kinds of facts that had Travis questioning his own sanity — had anything about “Buddy” been real, or had he just imagined it all?
Made him up?
Lost track of time?
Remote viewers knew that once they tapped into the power and world of remote viewing they couldn’t just turn it off. Viewers routinely “zoned out” at the oddest of moments, and in the weirdest of ways, but, when Travis had asked his supervisor what was up, and the man just looked at him, didn’t say a word — just stared him right out of his office — it didn’t take a psychic to know something was going on. And, now, he found and felt people watching him.
So, like a good G.I., he’d backed off.
Who had Buddy been to him — really — anyway?
He’d just been a guy he’d worked with… had over for BBQs… hoisted a few together at the local watering hole — in fact with the whole lot of them had. Buddy’d even dated one of them, for God’s sake — Gina Massey — the babe of the bunch. Newcomers came and went, getting whatever training they needed, then off to wherever they were assigned. Nobody asked questions. It weren’t no big deal. They all lived in a highly classified, hidden existence, and they all knew that when they signed on and signed away their expendable little lives. For the good of the country and national security. No one had any issue with that. But, to go around sticking your nose into areas you didn’t belong was just asking for trouble.
So Travis did what he was told, and reported to his current tasking. He’d felt uneasy from the beginning this morning, and the feeling just got worse the closer he got to his mission. And now, sitting in the all-too-familiar RoboChair, it was taking him longer to get settled and relaxed, a well-practiced process that normally took mere minutes. But, to not perform now after all the inquiries he’d made was not a good thing. He had to show he was still “with the program.” That there were no problems on his part, so, he willed himself into a forced relaxation that belied a much deeper angst. Psychics couldn’t hide from psychics — but psychics could definitely hide from your average
(Joe…)
“Okay, Travis, we need you to focus on the target, now,” his monitor asked, carefully eyeing him. “What do you see?”
“Don’t really see anything… but feel…”
“What?”
Travis wrinkled his brow. “Hard to describe… intense… dizzying imagery… angst?… I feel… anger…”
The monitor wrote down “anger.”
“It’s like… there’s nothing there, yet — but, but… wait…”
Travis paused, willing himself to get more into the task. There was something very wrong here, he felt it chewing at him. Did he tell everything, or did he wait to feel things out a little more? It was like… when he tried to oppose those
feelings of doubt… he felt opposition. And that made no sense. Travis decided to just go with the flow.
“What do you see now?” the monitor prodded.
“Still… lots of anger in the background… angst… lots of… incompleteness, I guess is the only way to describe it. Like things are not quite set, yet… but… but, there’s something else — wait… dark… darkness… night — parachutes… covert ops. Bravo Force? Special operations operators parachuting through a night sky…”
The monitor jotted down notes.
“… they’re making their way over the dark terrain of… barren plains — in the Southwest… southwest Colorado. I don’t get a good fix on the date… maybe mid-to-late sixties?”
“Try to get a better bead.”
Travis paused. “Still no better.”
“Okay, move on. What next?”
“A house. I don’t get a good feeling about this place. A farm house… isolated… in more ways than I can—”
“Are the operators tied to the house? Where are they?”
“The house. It’s their objective.”
“What are they doing now?”
Travis again furrowed his brow. “The leader — two are inside the house — having second thoughts. Not so much about killing, but about… the mission. Confused, they’re highly confused — something’s… clouding their minds… their judgment…
“These are experienced men… done this before… but something’s interfering… making them question—”
Travis stopped talking. Images flooded his mind… images of another… a man whose face he recognized — thought he recognized — but couldn’t bring into focus. Memories strobed on and off before him. A voice… “no,” it said, and it echoed this word over and over and over, from a whisper to a more forceful, just short of a shout, voice. It came from this man who kept flickering on and off before him, like an old time, hand-cranked mutoscope. It was this man who was interfering with the Bravo Force operators. Travis saw this clearly, now… and he found that he now entered the picture… he, Travis, was part of the kill team… and now the unidentified man had turned to him and was trying to tell him something.
Why was it so hard to pick up on this shit?
Tension. There was a lot of tension… conflict. Travis tried to psychically shake off the tension, but it only grew. Now the man was moving his lips, but no sound came from them. The image continued to strobe crazily before him—
Then all the lights went out.
2
Lizzie hung up her headphones for the night and leaned forward, face in her hands. Exhausted… she was utterly exhausted. Tonight’s session had drained her more than usual. Especially the call from that boy, Mel.
So, how many company policies — not to mention her own personal ones — had she violated by giving out her home number?
But there was something about that kid. What had he said? Dreams? Maybe that had struck a chord in her, what with her dream about Joe and the assassins. What if all of life was nothing more than a dream? Wouldn’t that be an eye opener? If all this really was a dream, then she certainly didn’t want to wake up to find out what reality was really all about.
“Mommy, don’t be sad,” the little girl called out from behind the No Grownups Allowed door. “Come in and see us… we need you, here… it’ll make you feel much better. Please, Mommy…”
“Mommy’s tired, honey,” Lizzie said, rubbing her eyes and kneading her temples and forehead.
“Please, Mommy,” the little voice continued to plead, “it’s been so long already… and you have our new books outside the door. Please, bring them in and read to us!”
Lizzie got up and went to the door. She tiredly looked down to the books before the door, folded her arms across her chest, and sighed heavily. Leaned against the door.
“Mommy, we know it hurts, but you always feel better in here… please, come in… we’re all waiting…”
Exhausted, Lizzie picked up the books and opened the door.
3
The phone call to the psychic had been good for Mel. It definitely meant he wasn’t alone. That others did exist outside his empty little world and weren’t just in his head. It had felt good talking to someone other than himself, listening to something other than his own voice, including the one in his head — communicating and getting it all out to someone else. Her accent, though, had slipped once or twice toward the end, there, but she seemed sincere enough and otherwise genuinely interested in him. He’d never called a psychic before (was he sure?), but the TV had all but screamed out to him to do so. Then she had given him her number.
How’d he know that?
He just did. Or would find out for sure, shortly, anyway.
And had he not been who he was, how did she know he wasn’t some crazed caller? Wasn’t she taking a huge chance? Well, she was supposed to be a real psychic, wasn’t she? And he was just lonely and confused. Desperately in need of someone to talk to…
Should he call her? Now? Or wait? He didn’t want to seem overly needy… but he was. It was pretty late… though she was on the late-night commercial. Would that be too much — calling her so soon?
Mel continued to stare at the TV. Another commercial popped up that simply stated “Peace.”
Mel stared at it.
It was in a beautiful, elegant script, and there were all kinds of New Age-y sparkles flecking off and on all around it and in the back and foreground, but no voiceover. There were also low, New Age-y music playing in the background that suddenly made him cry.
Then the ad was gone.
The late-night horror movie A Nightmare on Elm Street returned.
Mel chuckled, wiping away his tears. “Now, that’s funny!”
4
Travis sat on the front porch of a small house, in the middle of the night. In a rocking chair. Holding a glass of iced tea that sweat perspiration onto his hand.
“Okay…” Travis said, “what just happened?”
“You could say I just snuck you out of a bad situation,” came the voice from the darkness before him.
Travis jumped to his feet, still holding the tea. He went to set down the glass… but not before taking a sip. His eyebrows rose in surprise at just how good it was, and took another quick sip before setting it down. Then he jumped down the two short porch steps, where he found the silhouette of a man hunched over in the darkness.
“Excuse me — and what the hell are you doing?”
“Yankin weeds. Haven’t you ever seen anyone weed before? You just can’t stay ahead of the damned things…”
“In the dark?”
“Don’t have to worry about sunburn.”
“Where the hell am I — and why am I arguing with you about pulling weeds in the middle of the night?”
Travis looked to his surroundings, but other than the outside of a dimly-illuminated house and the bent-over silhouette before him, there wasn’t much to see. He had to be in some kind of Twilight Zone episode…
“You’re right where you need to be, Son — as for why you’re arguing with me, that’s your issue. Like the tea?” the man asked, standing up and tossing down a clump of weeds at Travis’s feet. The man brushed his hands off on his pant legs.
“Yeah,” Travis said, hesitantly, inhaling the musky smell of the dirt clump at his feet, “it was pretty good, but—”
“Well, then, let’s have some more!” The silhouetted man rushed past for the porch, where he grabbed his own glass. The Man With No Name sat down in the rocker Travis had originally inhabited. “And, by the way, this is my chair, sonny. You pick one of the others.”
Travis wrinkled his face. “Alright, one minute, I’m—”
“Snooping in on Bravo Force operators,” the Man With No Name said.
“Yeah, that, and the next, I’m—”
“Here.”
“Answers. I need answers.”
“Take a load off, Son. You’re making me nervous with all your standing around and jawi
n.”
“Making you nervous?”
“Don’t get yourself all bunched up over it. I’m just trying to make you feel at ease and offer some of the best iced tea ever. Before we get started.”
Travis returned to the porch. “Get started on what?”
“You’re a big psychic warrior, figger it out.” The man took a sip from his glass (where it had come from, Travis didn’t know), ice clanking.
Travis retrieved his iced tea and sat in the chair next to the odd man. He didn’t know what it was, but sitting in the chair just begged for him to tip it back against the house.
Which he did.
“Now, that’s better! It’s always better to smile and take a load off, ain’t it?”
Travis shot him a look; realized he still couldn’t quite make out his face, even in the porch light. He also recognized the smell of fresh-cut grass. “How can you—”
“Look, Travis — yes, I know your name — you’re on the right track. Back where you’re from, going it alone is gonna get you killed. Like your buddy… Buddy.”
“How’d you—”
“It’s my job. Sorry about Buddy… there was nothing I could do.”
Travis stared at him.
The Man With No Name shrugged. “It’s a long story that spans lifetimes—”
“I’m dreaming, is that it? I’m in a dream. All this talk of Buddy, other lifetimes — weeding at night — finding myself… here.”
“It’s the same kind of medium as dreams, but not really dreaming… per se — well, as you’re used to it. Well, maybe you are, being a government-trained bad-ass and all, but, it’s more like a layer cake.”
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