Take the Monkey and Run

by Laura Morrigan

  Okay, you’re safe.

  Friends!

  I’m going to help them. I promise. But you have to show me where.

  Then it came to me.

  He’d escaped.

  Show me that, Cornelius. Show me how you got away.

  Cornelius started at the beginning. He’d always been a clever little guy. But once he’d developed his psychic ability there was no stopping him. It didn’t take long for him to foresee his escape, which showed him how to escape.

  Thanks to this vision, he knew how to unlatch his cage door. And even knew where to hide in order to slip outside when Barry walked in. From there, it was a mad dash down dark, litter-strewn hallways.

  Finally free, Cornelius had shot up the first thing he could climb.

  A roller coaster.

  CHAPTER 17

  “What did you see?” Ronnie asked.

  “Too much,” I said, trying not to let the need to wrap my hands around Anya’s throat distract me from the task at hand. “I have an odd question for you. Are there any abandoned amusement parks around?”

  “Yeah, there’s one that got destroyed in Katrina,” she said. “They used to shoot a bunch of movies there but I heard they closed it down because it was too dangerous and the filmmakers’ equipment stopped working.”

  “Could it be that the same thing blocking the psychic energy is interfering with electronics?” Hugh said.

  “Why not? I tossed logic out the window an hour ago,” Kai muttered.

  The logic didn’t matter to me. “How far away is this place?”

  “This time of night, twenty minutes, max,” Ronnie said.

  I kept a comforting hand on Cornelius as we drove. I knew I’d have to put him in a cage when we got to where we were going and worried about his reaction.

  Not wanting to upset the little guy, I decided to focus on happy thoughts and memories.

  I was shown a few flashes of his favorite toys and a swing, and then I heard a woman’s voice.

  “Give us a kiss then, eh?” she said.

  Cornelius hopped onto the woman’s shoulder and kissed her cheek.

  The memory faded, and I knew that the woman, years ago, had cared for and loved Cornelius. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but I felt his deep sorrow and knew he missed her very much.

  Now he wanted to find his new family.

  We will. We’re almost there.

  The amusement park was easy to find. A designated exit led us right to the entrance.

  Kai pulled to a stop and turned in the seat to look at me. Before he was able to say anything, light flickered in my vision and my brain went wonky.

  Cornelius went still and I knew, when the strobing effect started, he was having one of his visions.

  “Grace?” My sister’s voice sounded distant.

  “He’s showing me something,” I said.

  “Like a future something?” Ronnie asked.

  I raised my hand to forestall any more questions.

  To forge a better connection to his mind, I closed my eyes, locked on to the monkey’s thoughts, and waited for the image to form. When it did, I saw something so shocking I thought my heart might stop mid-beat.

  I sucked in a gasp and opened my eyes.

  “What is it?” Emma asked in a harsh whisper. “What did you see?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure.”

  “Did it have to do with Belinda?” Kai asked.

  I glanced at him, looked away, and shook my head.

  “No. It’s . . . I can’t explain. It’s not about this.” I waved my hand in a vague reference to the current situation.

  I didn’t want to think about what I’d just seen so I tossed the thought into the oubliette of my consciousness and left it there to be forgotten.

  With renewed composure I said, “Kai, check under your seat for my stun gun.”

  After a long, searching look he did as I asked.

  “Got it.” He held up the foot-long cylinder.

  “Good. Now, everyone out so I can get Cornelius settled in his cage.”

  By the time I secured the monkey and joined the group, I was calm and ready.

  We had to park Bluebell on the shoulder of the main road and walk past the concrete barricades blocking the entrance. The weathered chain-link security gate hung askew. The signs warning all who bothered to read them of the penalties for trespassing were faded and tagged with graffiti.

  Collectively, we drew to a stop a few feet from the gate. Just like Cornelius had predicted.

  The air was utterly still and the night unusually quiet. In the distance, the peaks of the roller coaster rose over the fog like skeletal humps of a prehistoric beast.

  “Think they’re watching?” Emma asked.

  “No question,” Kai said.

  “What’s our move?” Hugh asked.

  “We walk in like we don’t give a damn?” Emma suggested.

  “Ballsy,” he said, grinning at my sister. “Psych out the psychos.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Ronnie said.

  “Better to act like we have no clue, right?” I suggested.

  “They already think we’re stupid,” Ronnie said.

  “For the record, they may be right,” Kai said.

  “What choice do we have?” I asked. “Belinda is in there with a mad scientist who has a device that will put a hole in her head. I’m not okay with that.”

  “None of us are, Grace, but we need to think this through.” Emma gently placed a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face her. Her dark, deep-set eyes searched mine. “You okay?” she murmured.

  “No, I feel like my flesh wants to crawl off my bones.”

  “I feel it, too,” Ronnie said. “Maybe it’s the thing that’s blocking the psychic energy.”

  “I can buy that,” Kai said, “but if whatever it is, is doing this”—he motioned to Ronnie’s grimacing face—“from this far away, can we ask her, or Grace, to go in there?”

  “I’m fine.” Ronnie and I spoke in tandem and then shared a wry look.

  “Ronnie, you said film crews avoided this place because of the issue with electronics, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, how can they be watching us?”

  “Good question. Maybe they can’t,” she said.

  “I say we go with Emma’s idea. Show of force. They’ll either be intimidated or think we’re stupid,” Hugh said.

  •••

  “This place is creepy on a level that takes creepy to another dimension,” Emma said as we walked between broken-down old rides.

  She was right. It was like we had stepped onto the set of a postapocalyptic horror film. The dilapidated theme park was strewn with fallen leaves and other trash. Graffiti was everywhere.

  “My phone doesn’t work,” I said. Damn. I had been about to call Logan.

  “Mine either,” Hugh said.

  Kai turned in a slow circle and pointed. “There.”

  “Is that a cell phone tower?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why aren’t we getting a signal?”

  “My guess,” Kai said, “is that it’s been modified somehow.”

  “So that’s what’s scrambling the psychic energy and messing with our cell phones,” I said.

  “My head feels like an ice pick is being shoved into my forehead,” Ronnie said.

  “It must be emitting some sort of frequency or generating a specific electromagnetic field,” Kai said.

  I had only a vague idea what he was talking about, but I knew whatever the tower was doing, it was good for the bad guys and not for us.

  “Can we take it out?” I asked.

  “We need to,” Ronnie said, “or I’m going to be useless soon.”

 
I looked over at her. She squinted at the tower as if it pained her to keep her eyes open. The subtle freckles I’d noticed when we met now stood out on her rapidly paling face.

  “Grace?” Emma asked.

  “I’m okay,” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. “My head is pounding, too, but my connection to Moss is fine. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  I shrugged off Kai’s concern. “It’s intermittently fuzzy, but it’s okay.”

  Ronnie pointed to a large building not far from the cell tower.

  “There.”

  I saw it, too. An almost imperceptible light traced along the bottom of a door.

  “Okay,” I said. “Emma, Ronnie, and I will head inside, and you guys work on getting that thing off-line.”

  Hugh pulled Emma close for a quick kiss and said something in her ear.

  Kai handed the stun gun to me, cupped my chin, and angled my face up to his. “Be safe.”

  “You, too.”

  “Moss,” he said, looking down at my dog. “Take good care of our girl.”

  Guard.

  Emma, Ronnie, Moss, and I walked to the building, while Hugh and Kai went toward the tower.

  The door wasn’t locked. Opening it a crack, I peeked inside. Seeing the coast was clear, I nodded to Emma and Ronnie and, with my stun gun held tightly in my right hand, slipped through the door into a dark hallway. Like the rest of the grounds, the floor was littered with a layer of mostly unrecognizable debris.

  We tried to walk quietly, but it was impossible. Every few feet someone would step on a brittle piece of plastic or crunch on a pile of broken glass. Even sure-footed Moss sent an aluminum can rolling loudly down the hall.

  “We might as well have a second line with us,” Ronnie said in an irritated whisper.

  I remembered hearing about second lines but my understanding was limited. I knew it was a type of small marching band and I was pretty sure they had something to do with funerals.

  Not the most comforting parallel to draw.

  “Just keep moving,” I said.

  Sorry.

  It’s okay, big guy.

  Quiet?

  Yeah, that’s the idea.

  I thought I’d made it clear to him to be as stealthy as possible, but maybe the energy field was stronger than I’d realized.

  I shifted the stun gun to my left hand and fisted my right in my dog’s ruff. My fingers barely penetrated his fur but the connection was enough. The interference quieted to an annoying but ignorable thrum.

  “We found Cornelius’s friends. Look,” my sister whispered.

  I stood on tiptoe to peer through the little square window in the metal door.

  By the light of a lamp on the desk set to one side, I could see a row of cages against the opposite wall. Three capuchin monkeys sat in separate cages. One rocked back and forth in an unceasing rhythm—neurotic behavior indicating an unhealthy mental condition. Not surprising.

  I put my hand on the door but my sister stopped me from pushing it open.

  “We can’t,” she said. “I know you want to get them out of there. I do, too. But we have to find Belinda first.”

  I didn’t like it but knew she was right. Rescuing the monkeys wouldn’t be easy or quiet.

  Still, I hesitated. I desperately wanted to reassure them, but didn’t dare try to reach out to them with my mind. Who knew how upset they might become? Plus, I didn’t trust how clear the communication would be with the energy field blocking me.

  I nodded to my sister and even though they couldn’t hear me, I whispered to the monkeys. “I’ll come back for you, I promise.”

  “Come on.” Ronnie’s hushed voice was strained with either pain or irritation. Probably both.

  We continued down the corridor until we came to a T. Faint light was visible in both directions.

  I looked down and touched Ronnie’s arm. “Look.”

  Hundreds of pieces of shattered glass sparkled on the concrete at our feet.

  “Diamonds,” she whispered.

  “Looks like you were tuning in to Hattie after all.”

  Ronnie gave me a faint smile and turned to survey the hallway in both directions. “We should split up.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” I told her.

  “We can’t change the plan now, Ronnie,” Emma said.

  “Fine,” she said, relenting. “But which way do we go?”

  “You tell us,” I said.

  “I don’t know. My head. I can hardly think.”

  “This way,” Emma said. She headed right and we followed.

  The glowing light was coming from an open doorway. Slowly, we peeked around the corner and saw the room was empty except for the occupant of the operating table. Belinda lay unmoving on the stainless steel slab. Her head was free of any contraptions and I didn’t see any bandages or blood.

  “I can see her breathing,” my sister said. “Come on.” We rushed into the room as quietly as possible. The knot between my shoulder blades relaxed a fraction when I saw Belinda was semiconscious but physically unhurt. I pulled the IV out of her arm as my sister shook her gently. I checked the bag. It was midazolam, a sedative.

  “Belinda, wake up,” Emma said.

  She didn’t move.

  “We’ve got to get her out of here,” I said, as if that weren’t already the idea.

  “How?” Emma asked. “This thing isn’t on rollers.”

  I turned to scan the room. “We need something to counteract the drugs.” I tried to think of something that would work on humans. “Look through the drawers for vials of Flumazenil. Smelling salts might even work.”

  “Grace, look at this.” Ronnie was standing next to what looked like a high-tech workstation.

  I rushed over, hoping she’d come across something useful.

  Spools of wire and bits and pieces of unidentifiable metal and plastic parts were scattered over the table’s surface. Ronnie held up something I recognized.

  “Barry’s earpiece?” I asked.

  “I think so, but look at it.” Wires dangled from the earpiece like the tentacles of a bionic sea creature.

  It was creepy, but it didn’t help with Belinda’s situation.

  “Is this what he’s doing? Putting wires in people’s heads?” Ronnie’s voice trembled with rage.

  “Actually, I think he’s doing that to himself.”

  “What kind of a sick freak—”

  “Ronnie, listen.” I took the Borg-inspired earpiece from her and set it on the table. “We need to focus on getting Belinda out of here, okay?”

  Ronnie met my eyes and for a second, I thought the anger I saw there was going to boil over. Instead, she pulled in a deep breath and nodded.

  “Right. Yeah, okay.”

  “Good.” I turned to the drawers and resumed my search. “Help me look through these.”

  Belinda moaned.

  “She’s waking up,” Emma said. “Hey, Belinda. Can you hear me?”

  “No,” Belinda groaned.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Emma soothed.

  My sister was right—Belinda was waking up, but not fast enough.

  I started going through drawers, looking for vials again.

  “Where’s Ronnie?” Emma said.

  I hadn’t even noticed that she’d left. I turned to where she’d been standing, seeing only empty space. “If I had to bet, I’d say she went to find her grandmother.” It was what I would do.

  “Damn. Now we’ve got to get Belinda out of here and find Ronnie.”

  “One thing at a time,” I said.

  Belinda was struggling to sit up. My sister helped her.

  “Grace? Emma? Oh, my head.”

  “Can you stand?” Emma asked her.

  “I don’t know.”
r />   “It’s okay. We’re going to get you out of here,” Emma said.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said, remembering something I’d seen in the room where the monkeys were caged. “There’s a rolling desk chair down the hall that we can use as a wheelchair.”

  “I got this,” Emma said with a firm grip around Belinda’s waist. “Go.”

  I squatted in front of Moss.

  “I need you to stay here.”

  Go.

  No. Stay with Emma. Keep them safe. I’ll be right back.

  Go!

  No, Moss.

  I didn’t have time to argue and the stupid energy field stopped me from communicating as easily as I needed to.

  I was going to have to be sneaky.

  “Stay.”

  I backed out of the door and pulled it secure behind me. Though I’d moved only a few feet away, I could barely feel Moss’s presence on the other side of the door. The farther away I moved, the less I could sense him. It felt very . . . lonely.

  Shaking the feeling off, I tightened my grip on my stun gun and tiptoed down the hall as quickly as possible, stopping in front of the door leading to where the monkeys were caged. Placing my free hand on the knob, I muttered, “Please don’t be locked.”

  It wasn’t.

  With a relieved sigh, I pushed the door open—it swung in with a soft swish.

  Keeping my focus on the chair and not the monkeys, I stepped into the room. A concussive blast of emotions slammed into me. My stun gun slipped from my fingers, clattered to the floor, and rolled away. Staggering to the side, I barely managed to keep my feet as the storm of images tore through my head. Flashes of light. Screams. The utter chaos of jumbled feelings. I was so confused that it took a moment to realize the information was coming from the monkeys.

  Hugh and Kai must have disabled the tower. Perfect timing, guys.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to wrestle my mental shield into place, but the tide was too strong.

  I’d been linking my mind to animals my entire life—and I’d never experienced anything like it. Dizzy, with my heart racing, I struggled to get my bearings.

  The only thing I could do was try and calm the source of the torrent. I pulled in a breath. Only a fraction of the space in my head hadn’t been invaded. I focused on that part and tried to use it to project calming thoughts toward the monkeys.