by John Bromley
Gingerly he made his way down the narrow passage, and his fear escalated, until he was on the verge of a panic attack. He almost didn't care if the doors actually were an open mouth and were going to chew him into mincemeat, as long as he didn't have to spend another second in this infernal tunnel. His breath, which he had unconsciously been holding, escaped from his mouth in a blast when he at last stepped through the doors and found himself in a somewhat more open space. It was hard to tell where he was and, for the moment, he didn't care; his relief was so great that all he wanted to do was savor it. He fell into the nearest seat and tried to slow his racing heart.
Once his equilibrium was restored, he took stock of his surroundings, and several details reignited his anxiety. To begin with, he was not alone; several other people were there with him, and every one of them appeared to be on edge—the same way he was beginning to feel again. Also, the arrangement of seats suggested that he was on a bus or a train, rather than in an office waiting room. The fact that all the seats were bolted to the floor tended to confirm this hypothesis. His claustrophobia kicked in again when he saw that this bus or train had no windows at all. He knew that he was underground, for he had entered the building on its ground floor and descended from there. Nevertheless, he wanted to see something of the outside of this place, even if it was only the rock wall of a tunnel. Finally, and most disturbing, he noticed that Agent Hanson, who had taken him from his home at gunpoint, who had forced him to endure hours of ridicule and low-quality country music, who had accompanied him all the way to... here... had not boarded this vehicle with him.
For a split second, he considered trying to escape, until he realized that the only way out was the way he had come in, and he wanted more than anything not to have to endure that narrow space again. Better to stay here, he told himself; remain alert and hope for other possibilities later. This definitely seemed like the better plan when, moments later, a man entered through the only door, came over to Wellington and removed his handcuffs. He did the same to the few other people who had been shackled in that fashion, took all the cuffs, and left the… train, or whatever it was. As soon as he was clear, the doors closed.
Wellington felt a vibration and heard a noise, which sounded like electric motors coming on, but not quite. The pulsation stopped almost immediately, so he was quite sure that if they were going somewhere, they had not yet started. He almost realized that the sensation he heard and felt was the air circulation system being activated, but before he came fully to that revelation, everyone in the chamber had lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 9
As they were leaving the diner, Jim said, “We better try to keep our mysterious friend happy, so we’ll delay our departure for a time, Mike. Let’s go fire up your computer—it’s time for Lesson 2.”
As it was with the first video, this one began with no picture, only the high-pitched voice, which Jim and Mike quickly recognized as the same one they had listened to before.
“Good morning, class,” it said. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Angela.”
Peculiar name, Jim thought, but he dared not interrupt. He knew they would only get one shot at this playback.
“Good morning, Angela,” came the reply from a group of similarly high-pitched voices.
“A classroom this time—and a boy, teaching more boys? What’s up with that?” Mike wondered aloud, but Jim waved him silent.
“This session will be a little different, class. We are recording the lesson portion of it for a special guest student…”
He’s talking about me, Jim thought, and still referring to me in the singular. This is good—he still doesn’t realize there are two of us listening. The less they know about us, the better.
“… so, with that in mind, please save your questions for later. Also, during this lesson we will be watching a video which was shot many years ago by a television crew. They originally set out to get some footage for a documentary, but wound up recording history in the making. I must warn you in advance that this video is extremely graphic and violent. All right—let’s begin.”
The screen did not light up, so the men had little choice except to listen as the teacher, Angela, related this story.
About seven hundred years ago, the government of the United States decided to eliminate some of their obsolete weapons. The operation was supposed to be secret, but the press had little trouble learning that the disposal site was somewhere in New Mexico, and that the devices being buried there were in fact chemical weapons.
A convoy of trucks loaded with metal vials containing these compounds had left California and was crossing the desert outside Phoenix, when one truck apparently had serious mechanical problems. The cargo had to be off-loaded, spread over the other trucks, and in the process a vial was lost. A massive search was undertaken for this weapon, but it was nowhere to be found. Washington was notified.
Then the government made its first mistake. They ordered the officers in charge of the operation to make a recount of the vials, and this time, somehow, the totals came out right. Being now several hours behind schedule, they thought no more of it, and continued on toward New Mexico.
But, they were right the first time—a vial had been dropped. Some weeks later, it was discovered by an eight-year-old in the culvert where it had rolled. This boy apparently found it attractive and took it to his home in the city. As the press was to find out later that day, his father was a man named Nathan Hamilton and was psychotic—”severely anti-social” was a noted psychologist’s official opinion. The medical label was unimportant; the fact is that Hamilton was constructing a bomb. When he saw the metal cylinder that his son Corey had found, he thought it was the perfect thing to use for his fuse and primer. It was said that the vial had some code numbers on it, but bore no identification of ownership or contents. It did have several warning messages, yet the bomber ignored them all and opened the cylinder.
It was filled with a purplish gel, which he threw in the trash. He then refilled the cylinder with the priming powders.
At this point, apparently, his wife Sharon—the woman with whom he lived; the mother of his young son—walked into the room. It seems that she knew of his extremist views, whatever they were, and at least tolerated them, perhaps even approved of them. However, she was unaware of his intentions. He showed her what he had done and, feeling proud of the service he was on the verge of performing for mankind, gave her a hug in celebration of his achievement.
According to the police report, Sharon claimed to remember nothing until minutes later, when she woke up, or came out of her trance; whatever you want to call it. At this time she found her husband Nathan dead on the floor at her feet, and little Corey across the room in a bloody heap. Both males had been stabbed repeatedly; they would later count sixteen puncture wounds on her husband, eleven more on the boy. But what she, and everyone else who knew her, found hardest to accept was that the knife, the murder weapon, was in her hand.
She was taken to a Phoenix police station and booked on two counts of murder. The press got hold of the story, of course, but couldn’t decide whether to call her a hero for wasting her husband before he could destroy countless other lives, or an inhuman monster for what she did to her child.
“But the most amazing aspect of this case,” Angela’s narration concluded as the professional-quality video began, “is what happened several hours later…”
“Busy night?” asked Sergeant Fred Jansen of his co-worker as she came back to her desk with yet another case folder.
“Unreal,” answered Officer Judy McMillen. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Ever since they brought that Hamilton lady in, this place has been a madhouse.”
“Did they say there was a full moon tonight?” Jansen asked jokingly.
“I can’t think of anything else that would cause this. Check it out—not fifteen minutes after we bring Hamilton in here, there’s another call from a kid who lives across the street. She says her mother just st
rangled her father, with her bare hands. We get back up there and sure enough, Dad’s dead, Mom’s distraught, and the daughter’s nearly a basket case; suddenly has no father, won’t go near her mother. Turns out the father wasn’t just strangled—his windpipe’s been crushed.”
“She did that with her bare hands? I don’t see how,” the sergeant was amazed.
“On top of it all, the kid says they weren’t fighting; in fact, she walked in the room while they were starting to… well, let’s say they were getting a little frisky on the couch.”
“So where’s the motive?” Jansen wondered.
“Beats me,” said McMillen with a shrug. “With Sharon Hamilton, I can almost understand the husband, a psycho bomber. She didn’t know about the bomb, got scared when she found out, knew he wasn’t likely to listen to reason, decided there was only one way to stop him, and did what she felt she had to do. But not the kid.”
“An accident? Maybe the kid got in the way.”
“Accident? Eleven stab wounds? No way.”
“Maybe there’s something going around,” Jansen said half-seriously. Then he defeated his own argument, adding, “but if that’s it, then what about the neighbor? Why did she do in her old man, but not the daughter?”
“It just don’t add up, Sarge.”
“Sounds a lot like the call I just sent Peterson and Michaels out on. This guy, says he’s an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, called to say he saw his neighbors, the Smiths, fighting on their front lawn. It starts out, the Smith guy’s coming up the walk with a load of groceries. His wife comes out to help him, he gives her a kiss, hands her a bag. Literally one second later, the deputy says, the woman’s got hold of Smith, got his left arm behind his back, pulling on it, tugging, yanking. And this ain’t no little guy, either—went out for football in college, now he works construction. And she’s a little bit of a thing, maybe one-ten soaking wet. But he’s screaming, he’s in so much pain, so the deputy grabs his gun, races out his front door, yells at Mrs. Smith to let go. She doesn’t. He fires in the air, warns her again. Nothing. He shoots at her leg, grazes her thigh, and she drops like a stone. Dead.”
“Dead? From a flesh wound in the leg? What the hell was he packing?”
“Standard .38 caliber police issue.”
“Well, there’s some velocity there, but that... nah, that just don’t sound right.”
“I know—it makes no sense. But then, none of this makes any sense,” said Jansen in frustration. “But Smith survived—just barely. She didn’t just dislocate his shoulder, she practically tore his whole arm right off. He lost a lot of blood. He’s over in ICU at Memorial. With any luck, in a while he can tell us something.”
Michaels came by and heard what they were discussing. “I’m writing up the report on that now, Sarge. Nasty bit of business,” this last in a poorly affected English accent.
“I’ll say,” Jansen agreed.
“Come on, McMillen, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” said Michaels, leading the way into the kitchenette. “Just made some fresh.”
“Thanks, I could sure use some of that,” said Judy as she rose to follow him. “I got a feeling it’s gonna be a long night.”
“It’s already been a long night,” answered Michaels.
They got their coffee, which was still awful despite being fresh. At the doorway between the kitchenette and the squad room, they performed the inevitable Alphonse-and-Gaston ‘after-you-no-after-you’ routine, which led, of course, to them trying to go through the door at the same time.
Sergeant Jansen saw what happened next, but still couldn’t believe it. It was like watching a movie in slow motion.
FRAME ONE: the two are chuckling over some disparaging remark Michaels had made about the coffee; Judy begins a response;
TWO: they are both trying to enter the doorway; their elbows touch, and a little coffee spills from Judy’s cup;
THREE: Michaels starts to step back to let McMillen go first;
FOUR: Judy stops speaking, drops her coffee and grabs Michaels’ head;
FIVE: Her arms are moving his head sideways, and he is trying to say something; Jansen starts to rise from his chair;
SIX: the side of Michaels’ head impacts the door frame with such force that the inch-thick board is splintered. His skull is crushed; Jansen is now on his feet;
SEVEN: Michaels, already dead, drops to the floor;
EIGHT: Judy resumes her conversation, exactly where she left off;
NINE: she turns to see why Michaels is not responding, sees his body in the doorway;
TEN: she screams; Jansen draws his weapon and levels it at her.
Total elapsed time—maybe four seconds.
“Don’t move, Judy,” he warns the very confused and very frightened policewoman. “I’ll put you down if I have to, so help me God.”
“Michaels…how?... did I?...” she sputters. Jansen saw genuine shock in her eyes, terrified that she may have done what no sane person could have done. He lowered his weapon and approached her slowly, but didn’t get too close.
“You killed him, Judy,” he said bluntly, speaking slowly as though talking to a small child.
“No… no, it’s not possible…”
“Why did you do it, Judy?” he asked, never taking his eyes off her.
“I... I don’t know…”
“Why did you do it?” he persisted, trying to reach the normally rational colleague he knew so well, rather than the brutal killer he had seen for a few seconds, or the scared child-woman he was questioning now. He calmed his voice with great effort. “I saw the whole thing, Judy. I’m afraid we’re going to have to place you under arrest now.”
“I understand, Sergeant,” she said in a quiet voice, as though resigned to her fate. “Whatever you say…”
“Why, Judy? Can you tell me?”
“I don’t… it was the weirdest thing,” she said, coming slowly out of her shock as her mind went to work on the problem of deciphering what it had done. “I was… talking to Michaels… the coffee… we got to the doorway…”
“Yes, go on,” prodded Jansen. “You were in the doorway...”
“We started through… he finished his story… I was thinking about… what to say to him… something funny… but I sensed… at the edge of my mind… like a shadow… suddenly there… something dark… sinister… waiting…”
“Waiting for what?” Got to keep her focused, Jansen thought.
“For… something, I don’t know… in the doorway… he bumped me… accidental… narrow door… but right then, right in that split-second, it was like… the shadow just… spread across my mind, one side to the other… and it… raced through my head… front to back… like the shadow of a cloud racing across the ground. Ahead-of-you-on-top-of-you-behind-you, boom, like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
“But in that instant… when I was under… the cloud’s shadow… I think I felt… an anger… like I’ve never felt before… it was incredible… horrible… like, if I didn’t do something to… release it… my head was going to explode. It was so black… couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t talk… then it seemed as though every muscle in my body fired at once… like when you dream of running and your legs move… Then it was over, just like that,” with another finger snap. “I could see again, hear, move, everything. I thought it was… well, a dream or… nightmare… very intense. Then I looked down, and saw… Michaels’ body.” She broke down and cried.
Sergeant Jansen faced a dilemma. He wanted to go to her, put his arms around her and comfort her if he could, but he had a gut feeling that if he did that, he would have a repeat of what had just happened to Michaels. Caution won out; he stood his ground.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Judy. We’ll get you help...”
He gestured her toward the holding area and the same cell where Sharon Hamilton and Doreen Porter, her neighbor across the street, were locked up. Just as he finished re-locking the door behind Officer McMillen,
another cop rushed over to him.
“Bad news, Sarge. You know that guy Smith?”
“The one who almost had his arm torn off by his wife, yeah?”
“He’s dead.”
“Damn!” Jansen exploded. “I wanted to talk to that guy!” He took a deep breath to calm down. “How’d he die? Lose too much blood?”
“No, Sarge,” said the other officer, hesitating.
“Well, what then?”
“I told you, you ain’t going to like this,” the other man warned. “He was murdered.”
“Killed in Intensive Care?” Jansen exclaimed, his eyes wide. “What in the name of... they know who did it?”
“A nurse—can you believe it? She came in to feed him. She had to put her hand behind his head to lift it a little, so his food wouldn’t fall in his lap. Soon as she put her left hand there—are you ready for this?—she drops the spoon, picks up the nurse-call button, and starts whacking him with that. Struck him in the face with it, hard as she could, over and over, maybe ten, eleven times, until his nose broke, and a piece of bone was driven up into his—”
“I get the idea,” Jansen shuddered.
“Funny thing is, as soon as Smith is dead, she’s back to normal, like nothing had happened. Of course, she freaked when she saw Smith’s face all covered with... well, anyway, she claims she doesn’t remember any of it. One minute she’s feeding the guy Jell-O, the next she says she’s picking up a spoon she doesn’t remember dropping.”