Death Prophets

by Steve Armstrong

  “Parker, I appreciate the help. But I just want to live a quiet life. I don’t care if I ever reach my potential.”

  “So what? You’re just going to play house with this girl? Do you think Stevenson Industries is just going to think, “Aww, they’re so cute together. Let’s just leave them alone”?”

  “We’ll move away, somewhere they can’t find us.” Different destinations passed through Josh’s mind, places where he and Jessie could slip through the cracks and disappear into.

  Parker sneered. “This is Stevenson Industries. They can track you across continents. You make one mistake, they’ll find you. They have people out there looking. They found one of us in India and she’s dead now.” Parker paused to let that awful truth settle into Josh’s consciousness. “And you’ll be even easier to find because of Jessie. She’s not going to just cut off all other connections in her life to be with you.”

  “I’ll find a way. We’ll be smart.” Maybe they could. But Josh wasn’t sure. When he made the decision to reenter Jessie’s life, it wasn’t so he could whisk her away from her family to some obscure locale. They were supposed to enjoy a normal relationship. Jessie needed that. Josh needed that, too.

  “No.” Parker’s voice grew even more emphatic. “There is no way. Not unless we destroy Stevenson Industries. And that’s why I need your help. In my previous skirmishes with them, I’ve taken out a person here or there. But I realized that unless I cut off the head of the snake, this will never stop.”

  Josh stood and began pacing the room. “Look, I can’t help you with that. I can’t just go on some kind of spree of destruction. Jessie needs me to be stable. I can’t go off the deep end again.”

  “You don’t have a choice. If you really want some kind of pathetic life with Jessie, you’re going to have to stop Stevenson Industries—permanently.”

  “I don’t know, man.” Josh ran his hand through his hair.

  “War is coming for both of us, Josh. Whether we like it or not. I would’ve been halfway across the world by now, except that I just want to finish this. They’re going to make a move soon, I know it.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve been watching them. They’ve been recruiting a team of ex-military guys. I’m sure they know about Jessie. They’ll come for her to get to you. It’s only a matter of time. I’ve just been waiting for someone to come with me.”

  “I can’t, Parker. I can’t let Jessie down.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Josh. Think about this.”

  Parker terminated the call. Josh let out a sigh. Maybe Parker was wrong. Josh had been within striking distance of Stevenson Industries for the last two weeks and hadn’t even spotted someone unusual pursuing him.

  His phone chimed. Jessie had texted. Hey. It was such a lovely, normal greeting, like the kind a woman would send to her boyfriend. Hey, he texted back. Don’t have to work until later. Can you come see me? Josh hesitated for a second. He reconsidered Parker’s words. Have to take care of something first. Can I meet you after work?

  Okay, see you soon. Don’t keep me waiting.

  Josh hoped he wouldn’t. But some things might not be under his control.

  45

  Matt Harrison knocked hard enough on Grace’s door to make the wood slab shake. He’d already rung the doorbell twice, but each call went unheeded. When several more rounds of knocking brought no response, he took a small tension wrench and lockpick out from his inside jacket pocket. Picking locks had been a necessary skill for him to acquire as a PI and he’d become quite adept at it. Within a few seconds of jostling the wrench and pick, Matt pushed the door open.

  “Grace! Are you here?” he called. The living room was empty and so was the kitchen. In a space this small, there weren’t many places for her to be. Just the bedroom and bathroom were left and he didn’t feel comfortable barging into either space. But Grace’s seemingly desperate text coupled with her failure to open the door had put Matt on alert. The bedroom door was slightly ajar; he leaned his ear against it. It was quiet inside.

  “Grace? Are you in there? I’m coming in.” He opened the door slowly. The foot of the bed faced the door. He saw Grace’s toes first, pointed straight in the air. She lay on top of the covers, fully clothed, albeit in her sleepwear, staring at the ceiling. The occasional twitch of a muscle or blink of her eyes signaled she was alive, a fact which Matt had worried more about each time she didn’t answer the door.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, keeping some distance between them. Walking into her room when she was still in bed felt like trespassing. He could see her swallow, but she didn’t say anything. Matt crept around to the side of the bed, the floor squeaking with each step.

  When he drew near enough, she finally spoke. “There’s a bottle full of Vicodin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Can you please get rid of it?”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, sure; if that’s what you want.” He retraced his steps back into the hallway and located the bathroom a few feet down the hall from Grace’s bedroom. Flicking on the light switch, Matt saw himself in the mirror. He swung the cabinet door open and spotted the aforementioned medication on the bottom shelf. As Grace had said, the bottle seemed full. He opened the cap and dumped the pills into the toilet and pulled the lever, washing the potentially destructive medication away. His mission accomplished, Matt rejoined Grace in the bedroom.

  “Okay, I did what you asked. They’re gone now.” Grace continued to stare at the ceiling. “Were you thinking of taking some?”

  She nodded.

  Matt looked down at her, trying to see the world through her eyes and what a sleepless night meant both physically and emotionally.

  “I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you called me,” he said gently.

  Grace closed her eyes. “I didn’t dream last night. I’m scared that something happened to that man.”

  “I’ll call Felicia, see if anything happened.” Matt whipped out his phone and dialed Felicia’s number.

  “Hello?” Felicia answered.

  “Hi, it’s Matt. I’m with Grace. She didn’t dream last night because she couldn’t sleep. Do you know if your uncle is okay?”

  “I’ll check.” Felicia hung up.

  Matt turned his focus back to Grace. “She’s going to get back to us. But for now, don’t worry. It’s out of your control. You did what you could.”

  “I don’t think it was enough.”

  Matt fought the urge to touch her shoulder, to reassure her she wasn’t alone. But sometimes that wasn’t enough, even when well-meaning people offered their best. Even if death could be deterred, it couldn’t be defeated. That was a hard concept to make peace with.

  His phone rang. “It’s Felicia,” he said before answering.

  “Just got a text from my uncle. Nothing’s happened yet.” Felicia sounded relieved.

  “Okay, thanks. Hey, since I’ve got you, I have some information I thought you could check for me. Patricia Oliver found a list of people in her address book that she thinks might be the other test patients. Do you think you could look up their obituaries? I’ve got names and addresses.”

  “Yeah, I can do that. Just email it to me.”

  “Alright. I’ll send it now.”

  Matt ended the call and navigated through his phone until the list was sent. Then he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  “You found the names of the people in the photo?” Grace asked, turning her eyes to Matt for the first time.

  “It’s possible. But we need to see.”

  She nodded. “I’m supposed to see Dr. Driscoll today.”

  “When?”

  “Three.”

  Matt took a quick look at the time. Grace still had about five hours until her appointment. “Maybe you should try going to sleep again?” Though the prospect of sleep seemed nil with the amount of light peeking in through the blinds, the young woman needed rest more than anything else.

  “Would you stay here with me?” Grace asked. “I
don’t want to be alone, anymore.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He didn’t think about his answer, not for even one second.

  She closed her eyes as if she was trying to sleep. But as Matt took a step toward the door, Grace started talking. “A few weeks ago, I was crossing the street and walked right in front of a bus. It was like I didn’t even see it. Or maybe I did. I can’t even remember. Anyway, I froze, it hit the breaks, and then I was back on the sidewalk. I don’t even know how I got there.”

  Grace paused as Matt tried to piece together the incongruous and disturbing details she had revealed.

  “Afterward, I wondered if maybe I walked into the road on purpose. Like maybe I wanted to die.”

  At this point, Grace claiming she had tried to hurt herself was hardly surprising. Matt studied her face, which was seemingly unaffected by narrating this story.

  “Was this after you started having the dreams?”

  “No. It was right before.”

  “Well, you’re getting help. That’s the important thing,” Matt said. He remained next to Grace’s bedside a little longer. “I’ll stay out in the living room, okay?”

  Grace nodded. “Thanks.”

  Matt gave her a half smile and departed for the living room. He settled onto Grace’s couch. The living room was as cluttered as the bedroom. Objects lay strewn across table tops and any stretch of bare surface was coated with a layer of dust. As Matt reclined on the couch, he took out the empty pill bottle from his pocket. Vicodin wasn’t the only medication Grace had access to. But he wasn’t sure he could confiscate the Prozac, too. She needed those. But suicidal thoughts was a possible side effect of antidepressants, which created a catch twenty-two for many suffering from depression.

  The floor creaked, which brought Matt’s attention to the hallway. Grace was standing there, watching him.

  “Hey, what are you doing up?” Matt asked.

  Without a word, Grace slowly approached him. She sat down on the cushion next to him. Grace lay down on the couch, placing her head on Matt’s leg. He raised his arms to his chest to accommodate her. Besides relishing physical contact with her, he was glad she had taken the chance to reach out to someone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  “About what?”

  “I think I should like you. But I just don’t seem to be able to.”

  Matt chuckled. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “If we met one year ago before I was like this, I would have, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know if I was the same person one year ago. Maybe you wouldn’t have,” Matt said.

  Grace didn’t challenge or question that assertion. She just bent her knees out and scrunched her legs so she fit better on the couch next to Matt. Matt’s hand dropped incrementally closer to Grace’s head until his fingertips rested on her scalp. In slow, tender movements, he began to run his fingers through her hair. Since Grace had broken the physical boundary between them, he felt safe touching her.

  “What were you like a year ago? Before you became depressed?” he asked. Without the ability to see Grace’s eyes, Matt couldn’t tell if she was more relaxed now. Her breathing seemed more even and less shallow than when she had been in the bed.

  “On the outside, probably not that much different,” Grace answered, her voice low. “I never was someone who had a lot of energy or smiled a lot. I think that’s why my family never seemed to notice that I was depressed.”

  “And what about on the inside?” Matt asked, lightly massaging her scalp.

  “Just happier or less down, I guess. Things seemed more interesting, even if I didn’t show it on the outside.” She sounded sleepy; her voice faded with each successive word.

  Matt moved his left hand to rub Grace’s shoulder while his right continued to sweep through her auburn hair. He wished that this moment—so serene and perfect—had come under different circumstances. That Grace was not depressed and unable to reciprocate Matt’s growing feelings for her. That they were awaiting a brand new day together after spending a beautiful evening together and not a night of insomnia or fearful dreams. But would he possess the same level of attachment to her if they were both whole, well-adjusted people? The question flitted through his mind without taking hold.

  Matt was about to ask another question, but then he heard the soothing sound of Grace’s heavy breathing. He leaned over as much possible without disturbing her; Grace’s eyes were closed. Matt leaned back against the couch and shut his own eyes as he smiled. Slowly, he extricated his hands from Grace’s hair and shoulder. He might have been even more exultant that he was somehow Grace’s lucky charm for sleeping if not for the empty pill bottle jutting out of his jacket pocket. She wasn’t out of the woods, yet. And how many nights could he stay with Grace, ensuring she slept and didn’t weaponize her Prozac?

  He couldn’t be there all the time, even if he was willing.

  46

  “I need her name, Jack,” Robert Stevenson said, as soon as Jack Walton entered the CEO’s office.

  “Whose name?” Walton asked, afraid he already knew the answer. One of the recently hired sentries waited in the corner of the office, his face stern.

  “The woman with the dreams. We need to bring her in.” Stevenson looked Walton in the eye, his tone imperious.

  “Grace Murphy,” Walton said. He never could stand up completely to his boss. Indeed, he didn’t know anyone who could. Stevenson’s force of will was probably more responsible for the establishment and growth of Stevenson Industries than his keen intellect. The CEO waved his finger—just slightly—and the sentry disappeared through the door. Walton watched the man depart, a pit growing in his stomach.

  “Sir, I really don’t think this is necessary. Grace Murphy seemed like a troubled young lady. I don’t want to do anything to further upset her. And I did offer to bring her into the sleep clinic, which she seemed amenable to.”

  “We’ll go easy on her, Jack. But it’s important we get her in as soon as possible. If she really did dream about Thomas Wilson and you, then she might know something.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe about Josh Williams. Or our whale on the loose. Or the mysteries of life. Whatever the case, I’m losing patience.” Stevenson glanced away from Walton, drawn by the view of the tree-covered hillside out the window, again. Walton should have known better than to contact Stevenson about Grace Murphy. In the past, Stevenson would have never acted so rashly. But things weren’t the same now.

  “Sir, Grace Murphy said she talked to another man who had similar dreams as her. Only, he dreamed of people connected to Stevenson Industries nearly thirty years ago. What happened here thirty years ago?”

  Walton had heard the stories, but the event that inspired those stories was years before his time at the company. Mostly, people just circulated the same tired details: a break-in, research destroyed, and a brilliant research scientist taken too soon. In fact, most of Stevenson Industries’ current employees didn’t work for the company when the event took place.

  “An unfortunate circumstance,” Stevenson replied slowly. “One that I’ve taken great pains to ensure never happens again. Which is one reason why I want Grace Murphy in here today.” The CEO turned his gaze back to Walton. “Talk to her today, Jack. Figure out what she knows and how she knows it.”

  Walton nodded. Stevenson would never be talked out of his decisions, but at least Walton could mitigate the damage done to Grace Murphy. But she wasn’t the only young lady disturbing his conscience at the moment.

  “Sir, do you intend to leave Jessie Walters alone? I doubt she knows anything else and doesn’t need any more trouble in her life.”

  Stevenson reverted his gaze to the windows. “Don’t worry. Jessie Walters is none of your concern, Jack.” His tone implied nothing more would be said about that matter.

  Walton sighed and moved toward the door. He couldn’t control what happened to Jessie Walter
s and maybe not much of what happened to Grace Murphy, either. In fact, the longer Walton labored in Research Division B, the less control he realized he had on anything that happened in the world.

  47

  While Matt dozed off with Grace’s head in his lap, Felicia sat at her desk inspecting the photo of Greg Tolliver. At this point, Tolliver was their outlier, the one person in George Oliver’s photo who never made an appearance in Richard Anderson’s dreams. But Tolliver died nonetheless, within the same time span the rest of the victims from Richard Anderson’s dreams had passed. Felicia stared at the picture of Tolliver that accompanied the Minneapolis man’s obituary. There was nothing unusual about this man who died in his twenties, besides his rare genetic disorder. His hair terminated just above his eyebrows, parted on the side—a typical hairstyle in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. He left behind his parents, a fiancée by the name of Lynn Redbanks, plus a few siblings and grandparents.

  “Hey, I got your message.” Appearing out of nowhere, John Harrison rested his arms against her cubicle as he peered over her partial walls. “What’d you need?”

  Felicia put the photo of Tolliver on her desk next to the other four photos she had dug up. “Matt found the names of those other four test patients. Using the newspaper’s shared databases, plus some other online search engines, I managed to find obituaries or death notices for everyone.” Starting from the left of her desk, she pointed at each photo as she narrated the subject’s fate. “Chris Lonnagan. Lived in Fort Collins, Colorado. Died in an accident in his parents’ house a few days after George Oliver died. Cal Walker, from Seattle, Washington. Died in a car crash. Garret Muller. Lived in California. Died three days after the break-in at Stevenson Industries. He died of blunt force trauma to the head which was ruled accidental—looks like from a fall. And finally, that brings us to Greg Tolliver. Lived in Minneapolis. Died in a spectacular, fiery car wreck. Apparently, he crashed into a propane truck.”