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What Happened to Lori

Page 15

by J. A. Konrath


  The equations are more complex than the Watcher can comprehend.

  But one does not need to know how a rocket works in order to ride in one.

  So he watches Redhead Number 63.

  Watches and watches and rewatches and rewatches.

  While waiting for the right time.

  From the adjacent room, the Experiment groans.

  “Patience, my beauty.

  “Just a little longer.

  “You will get your chance.

  “Your chance to run free.”

  The Watcher checks the computer.

  The calculations use symbols he does not recognize.

  A language he does not know.

  The Watcher giggles. Thinks about the cage. Thinks about the past.

  Some writer from long ago once wrote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  Or from God.

  “God is an equation that knows itself.”

  Redhead Number 63 is going to learn that. As will 64, 65, and 66.

  Just like Redhead Number 6 did. And 26. And 48. And the few others that have not died.

  Taylor. Sasha. Sam. Holly. Bailey. Lori.

  Learn, or die.

  Or worse.

  PRESLEY ○ August 13 ○ 2:25am

  Something woke her up. A noise.

  Presley peeked an eye open.

 
 
 
 
 
 

  Presley sat up in bed, staring at the closed door.

 

  Presley couldn’t really make out any words.

 

  She swung her feet over the side of the bed and crept to the door, pressing her ear to it.

 

  Presley considered calling for Fabler. There might be someone in the house. He needed to be alerted.

  She drew a breath to say something, and then paused.

 
 
 

  Presley heard a soft click, and then footsteps in the hall—

  —stopping right outside her door.

  She could sense the person’s mass, standing there.

  She could hear breathing.

  She could practically feel their heat, radiating through the wood.

 

  Or…

 

  Or…

 

  The Xanax and Prazosin she’d taken at bedtime didn’t prevent Presley’s heartrate from climbing, until it beat so loud she feared the person on the other side of the door could hear it.

  Presley glanced back at her bed. Hard to make out in the dark, but she knew where her weapons were. The KRISS. The Pitbull and Glock. The DoubleTap.

 
 
 

  Then the door moved.

  Barely. Just a millimeter or two.

 
 

  Presley covered her mouth with both hands to avoid making a sound, and glanced down, at the opening where the doorknob should have been. For privacy, she’d stuffed a t-shirt into the hole—

  —a shirt that wiggled, then began to slowly pull out.

  Biting her lower lip, a scream building up in her belly, Presley reached down, afraid to touch the shirt, but more afraid to have it taken, to be exposed if someone peered through the hole.

  Very slowly, Presley closed her sweaty palm around it. Clenching her fist tight.

  She felt a tug—

  —then the tugging stopped.

 
 
 
 

  The panic built, and built, until Presley began to hyperventilate and could no longer stay quiet.

 
 
 

  On shaky legs, Presley took three steps to the bed, dropping to her knees, scooping up the Pitbull.

  She sucked in a breath and listened.

  No sounds.

 
 
 

  She cocked the hammer back but kept her finger on the outside of the trigger guard, walking back to the door, leading with the weapon.

 
 
 
 

  She placed her free hand on the t-shirt and gave it a quick tug, the door swinging inward, revealing—

 

  Presley listened.

  No voices. No sounds of movement.

  She walked through the hallway, boards creaking underfoot, and passed Fabler’s door.

  Closed.

 

  Unlike Presley, Fabler didn’t stuff a shirt in it.

 

  She began to crouch, then stopped herself.

 

  “Presley?”

  She spun around, bringing up the gun, pointing it at the figure.

 

  “Didn’t mean to wake you up. I got hungry.”

 
 


  Without wanting to, Presley recalled that night with Grim. There were two ways to predict if a man was good in bed; how he kisses, and how he dances.

  Grim was a pretty good dancer, and a very good kisser.

  For half a second, she considered indulging in some harmless exhibitionism.

 
 

  There was no way she’d e
ver do that, of course. Especially in this house, where the doors had no locks. When Presley showered, she shoved a shirt in the doorknob hole and shoved a fork in the doorjamb, wedged tight so nutzoid Fabler couldn’t come sneaking in while she shampooed.

 

  So instead of provoking Grim with nudity, entertaining as that might be, Presley got up to search the one place in the house she hadn’t given enough attention.

 

  First, she peeked through various windows to make sure Fabler wasn’t on the grounds, digging up his lawn again. After verifying his absence, she padded to his bedroom, the floor creaking under her bare feet.

  Presley started her search under the bed, which had been made up to military specs.

 

  Under the bedframe she found a plastic shoe bag covered in dust, containing nine pairs of women’s heels.

  The nightstand revealed a Boker folding knife, some old tabloid magazines of the I Married Bigfoot variety, a dog-eared Whitley Strieber paperback, a flashlight, SPF 100 sunscreen, a jumbo box of lubed condoms, a large tube of KY jelly, and a pair of handcuffs.

 

  The trunk contained army fatigues, a dress uniform in a plastic dry cleaner bag, and a box containing medals and decorations. Presley’s eyes immediately locked onto the Infantry Blue Cord and Combat Infantry Badge. There was also an EIB, a MUC, a bronze star, and one she didn’t recognize; a star and laurel above a dagger with wings.

  Beneath the decorations, at the bottom of the box, a well-worn photograph. A younger Fabler, looking not quite so psychotic, with a younger and surprisingly handsome Grim, arms around each other’s shoulders. They wore jump outfits, had parachutes on their backs, and were in the bay of a C-130, the open ramp behind them exposing the skies of the wild blue yonder.

 

  Presley put everything back and checked the dresser. Male clothes in three drawers, female in the other three, socks and underwear and sweats and sleepwear and old t-shirts. She picked up one of Lori’s bras. Fabler’s wife had a C cup, thirty-six inches. Presley also found a bikini she wouldn’t be caught dead in.

 

  Beneath the swimsuit, a cardboard box. Pregnancy tests, a bulk pack of five.

 

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