Kill Switch

by Gordon Bonnet

“Even Chase?”

  Mrs. Harper laughed softly. It was the first time he had heard her laugh. “I’ve known Chase since he was a baby. He’s a good man. A good man who’s had a hard life so far. But no, you needn’t fear him.”

  He didn’t answer, and after a moment, Mrs. Harper turned, pulling a tea towel from a hook by the sink in the process to dried her hands. “You know, I think I see now that you were as scared of us as we were of you.”

  “I’ve been scared of everyone since this started.”

  Mrs. Harper rehung the towel, came over, and sat down at the dinner table across from him. She looked at him appraisingly. “It’s all too easy to think that everyone sees what you see. We all do it. I didn’t trust you at first, because of that wanted poster, and the fact that you’re a stranger. But it never occurred to me that you looked at us the same way. Not until now.”

  Chris nodded slowly. “I never have been paranoid. I always trusted people really easily.”

  “Better to, I’d say. Better than the opposite.”

  “Trusting people now could get me killed. I still don’t know how to tell who is trustworthy and who isn’t.”

  “Only God can see what’s in a man’s heart. The rest of us… well, we have to pray for guidance, and then do the best we can.”

  “What am I going to do?” He sighed. Suddenly needing to move around, he stood and walked to the window. “I can’t stay here forever. It’s only been a day, and I’m already feeling that way. I need to keep moving west. I think that time is running out.”

  “Yes.” She paused, folding her hands before her. “These men who are after you. Do you know who they serve? I’m not talking about God and the Devil. I’m talking about here on Earth.”

  He shook his head.

  “When you fight evil, the first thing you need is to know its name. Knowing an enemy’s name keeps him in his proper proportion, you might say.”

  “How do I find out his name?”

  Mrs. Harper looked at him for a moment without responding. He wondered if she was going to ask him to pray to Jesus again. Instead, she rose, walked over to him, and patted his arm. “When you need to know, you will.”

  —

  Chris asked if there was anything he could do to help around the house, and the afternoon passed in menial chores that he suspected were more to give him something to occupy himself with than from any particular need. Late that afternoon, as Mrs. Harper prepared the evening meal of pork chops, broccoli, and cornbread, Chris checked his email again, and found another message from Elisa. It was a long one, this time.

  Chris,

  I’m getting a little fretful that I haven’t heard from you, but am consoling myself with the thought that it’s probably that you haven’t had access to a computer. I don’t know if you got my last message. I hope so. And I hope that means you’ll be able to find your way here.

  In any case, I’ve continued trying to do some research, and I found something interesting.

  Do you remember how I told you that I kept running into Gavin’s posts on conspiracy websites, especially ones having to do with aliens? Well, I began going back through them, and I found that a couple of years ago, he started posting under a different name. Something spooked him, it seems. The link between the posts he made under his real name, and the ones under a pseudonym, was given away by someone else. Someone who posted under the name “Iktomi7979.” Someone who appears to have known Gavin, and known about the entire episode. The seven of us, and what we supposedly saw.

  It was on a thread on Reddit where people were making fun of alien abduction stories and that sort of thing. Here’s what Iktomi7979 posted:

  “It’s fine for all of you to sneer and scoff. Keep doing it till they catch up with you, and yeah, I’m talking about the big THEY. I have a friend who’s afraid to post under his real name now because THEY are after him. He and some friends had an experience when they were in college, and now he’s afraid that THEY are trying to clean up the loose ends by getting rid of them. There are seven people who saw SOMETHING, and sooner or later, THEY will erase them. All of them. Check out the posts from Reddit user “7MenInWhite7” and his blog, Shadows in the Cave.”

  I had already found Gavin’s blog and his Reddit posts under “GMcCormick555,” but the “7MenInWhite7” username was new. He apparently adopted it in 2011, when he thought it wasn’t safe to post under his own name any more. And Chris—what he’s posted, if it’s real, is horrifying.

  There’s too much there to quote directly. Go to Reddit, if you can, and search that username. But the gist is that up in the Cascades, there’s a government facility of some kind, entirely underground, that was engaged in some kind of surreptitious research into alien technology and biology. Scary stuff. Extending human life span through genetic engineering, mind manipulation, new types of weapons, faster-than-light propulsion.

  He was cautious about giving too much detail. You could tell he was scared, but at the same time wanted the information to get out there. And the place he was talking about sounds, from the little bit of description he gave, like the area around Teanaway Pass and Lake Ingalls.

  It sounds crazy, I know. But I think this has to be the connection. Now, the question is: if whoever is after all of us has killed five of us to keep us from giving away what we know, does that mean that all of Gavin’s stuff about aliens and bioengineering and futuristic technology is true? Or is there another reason? Maybe we did see something in the cave, and Gavin’s memory filtered it through what he already thought was true. Remember, he was already into all that stuff, beforehand. So maybe part of it is true, and that’s why they’re after us.

  But if so, which part? How can we tell?

  I should send this and get off the computer. I’ve already been at this most of the morning. In any case, I thought this was important.

  Keep in touch if you can. Stay safe.

  Love,

  Elisa

  Could that be it? Had there been something there, in that cave? Something none of them completely remembered? That Gavin, more than the others, was able to access, perhaps because he’d already been primed by his interest in the paranormal? It seemed far-fetched, but Chris had no better theory of his own. And somehow, there was another person, the mysterious Iktomi7979, who knew about the incident and what it implied. Who that Iktomi7979 could be was uncertain. There was no one else in their circle of friends who had been close to all seven of them. Perhaps it was someone Gavin knew. Someone he’d become acquainted with during one of his flights of fancy in the world of conspiracy theories. But how, then, did he know about the six other members of the class? All of it had to tie back, somehow, to that trip into the Cascades. And it was beginning to seem inevitable. He was going back there, back to the rocky pass and the little glacial lake, back to where it had all begun thirty-odd years ago.

  Perhaps if he could find Elisa, he could make sense of all of this. The two of them together might have a chance. But just him alone?

  Not likely.

  Rationally, the idea that merely adding another person would make a difference in his likelihood of surviving seemed ridiculous. Especially given that the person in question was a fifty-something artist from St. Cloud, Minnesota. But on an instinctive level, it felt more than important.It felt necessary.

  He had to meet up with Elisa. He had no doubt about it. If he wasn’t able to do that, it would be tantamount to giving up and calling the number on the wanted poster himself.

  What if there were a more sinister explanation, though?

  Maybe his obsession with heading west was just another kill switch. A shudder twanged its way up his spine. Maybe whatever happened in that cave, it had somehow programmed him to return there if things started going awry. What if the people who were chasing him had introduced into him some sort of homing beacon thirty years earlier, and even now were using it to lure him in? Or worse, that it was impelling him to find Elisa, allowing Them to catch both of them together?

 
; But there seemed no good answer to that. Whatever the reason, he knew that he would continue to travel west, as long as he was able to do so.

  —

  Dinner was consumed in silence. Pork chops, fried until browned and bubbling with juice, were consumed, and then the best broccoli Chris had ever had, with butter and a little bit of garlic salt. The drippings of all of it mopped up with fresh-baked cornbread.

  Sated, Chris leaned back in his chair. Reverend Joe wiped his mouth and then his hands on his napkin. “So, son, Mrs. Harper and I have been talking about what your next move should be.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows. As far as he’d seen, Mrs. Harper spent most of her time in housework, and the Reverend had been in his study for most of the day. When they’d had time to consult about their impromptu visitor’s fate was hard to determine.

  “We both agree that you can’t stay here. But don’t mistake me, it’s not because you’re any kind of a bother, or because we’re concerned about our own safety. My sense is that you’ve given the people who are after you the slip.”

  “You really think so?” Chris tried to keep the doubt out of his voice, but he sounded dubious even in his own ears.

  “I do. If the men who are pursuing you knew you were here, they would have fallen upon this place like a pack of wolves. What, after all, could we do to protect you? It’s been over a day, now, and there’s been no sign of them. I believe that the only explanation for that is that they do not know where you are.”

  “But?”

  The old minister laughed. “Yes. But. You can’t stay here, as I said before. The Lord has given me to understand that you are to continue your journey, west. I don’t know how to say this other than straight out. It is only by throwing yourself into the midst of lions that you will come forth unscathed.”

  Suddenly, Chris had a sense that they had connected. His rationalism and the Reverend’s religion, though light years apart, had swung around to within the range of a handshake, only for a moment, and he knew for certain that the Reverend was right. Just as he had known earlier, without logic or reason, that he had to meet up with Elisa, he knew that it had to be soon.

  “I think so, too. I told Mrs. Harper earlier that I need to head west again.”

  Reverend Joe nodded solemnly. “I called Chase Ballengee. I told him that I would pay him to give you transportation, for as long as you needed it. I told him that it was risky. I didn’t tell him everything, because Chase is a talker and sometimes doesn’t know who he should talk to. I told him that he should call his friend, Van Spaulding, and tell him that he’s coming out for a visit. It’s a reason that most everyone would think was natural, on account of Van’s being a friend of the family.”

  Chris immediately went on guard. “But why would Chase do something like that? Even knowing the risk?”

  “It’s a fair question.” Reverend Joe frowned for a moment, as if trying to choose his words carefully. “I think the best way to explain it is to say that Chase has been waiting for something like this. Something bigger than he is, something bigger than drinking beer with his buddies down at the bar and grill. Something bigger than just earning enough to pay his rent and keep his car’s gas tank filled. Chase needs this as much as you do.” He regarded Chris with a level gaze. “It’s how redemption works, sometimes.”

  “I—” He stopped, swallowed. “I can pay him. You don’t need—”

  Reverend Joe held up a hand, cutting his protest short. “I’m doing this as much for Chase as for you. Chase hasn’t had an easy time of it. It’s hard, being an Indian. Harder still being a half-breed like Chase is, and his family from two different tribes. He doesn’t belong anywhere. He’s not white enough to pass for white, and not Indian enough to really be one of them, either. His parents split when he was three and his sister was one, and his father raised them both, till he was killed in a car wreck, driving drunk, when Chase was only eleven years old. Then they moved in with their grandfather down in Oklahoma. Chase stayed down there until he was old enough to leave, then came back here and settled in to living hand-to-mouth, as he still does. His sister was luckier. Smarter, too. When the BIA helped her to get that scholarship, she took off and never looked back. And it’s seemed to me that ever since then, Chase has been waiting. Waiting for something to happen, waiting for something that needed doing that only he could do.”

  Mrs. Harper spoke up for the first time. “The Lord sent you.”

  He regarded her with wide eyes but didn’t answer.

  After a moment, Reverend Joe continued. “So I talked to Chase about it. I told him the danger, that there were men after you, evil men who’d kill you, and kill him, too, without thought or conscience. He knows the danger. He said yes.”

  He wasn’t a crier. The last time he’d cried had been at his father’s funeral, ten years earlier. But before he could stop himself, his eyes had brimmed over. He only managed to say again, “I can… I can pay him.” He looked down, overcome and unable to speak, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Reverend Joe’s words, when he spoke, seemed to be coming from a distance. “All of the world, everything in it, is God’s charity. There is nothing here that is not a gift. It is only up to us to accept the gift, or reject it.”

  Chris felt as if he were floating, hearing a message echoing from the walls of a cathedral. He looked up, and the world appeared suddenly to shrink back into the Harpers’ clean, spare dining room. Reverend Joe and Mrs. Harper were sitting across from him, looking at him gravely over the plates and bowls and silverware and pork chop bones.

  “If you decide to take our offer, you leave with him tomorrow at dawn.”

  —

  The sun had not yet angled its first rays over the horizon when Chris, with Baxter at his heels, walked out of the Harpers’ house into their front driveway. Chase Ballengee was already standing there, grinning and wearing a University of Nebraska baseball cap, leaning against a rusty blue Chevy sedan of uncertain age.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Lake.” Chase gave a little wave of his hand. “Nice we’re startin’ in the cool of the mornin’. It’s gonna be a hot one today, I think.”

  “It’s Chris, please. And thanks. It’s nice of you to do this.”

  “Oh, hell, it’s no problem. I’d do anything for the Reverend and Mrs. Harper. They’re like parents to me. And it’ll be nice to go out and visit Van Spaulding. I haven’t seen him in an age. I’ll get to meet his wife and kids.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?”

  “I was lookin’ at a map last night. I figure we’ll take Highway 26 up toward Scottsbluff and into Wyoming, and then pick up Interstate 25. That’ll take us all the way into Montana, and then it’s I-90 the rest of the way to Washington State.” He shrugged. “Don’t guess we’ll get much further than the Montana border by tonight, and that’s probably pushin’ it. But we’ll get as far as we can get. I’m guessin’ that day after tomorrow, probably late afternoon, we should see the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Have you ever been there before?”

  “Nope.” Chase looked off toward the west, his back to the horizon where the sun was staining a thin line of clouds rose-pink. “Always been a dream o’ mine, to see the ocean. I called Van last night, he said he had a boat and’d take me out on it, right the hell out into the Pacific.” He turned back to Chris, his smile gleaming in the dim light. “Always gets me to thinkin’, you know? When I see pictures of it. You’re standin’ on the beach, lookin’ west, and there’s nothin’ between you and Japan and China and Russia. Nothin’ but a big ol’ bunch o’ salt water. How can you look at that, and not feel like, man, I am so small.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want to live there. Hard to imagine how you’d want to be reminded of that, day in, day out. How little you are, how huge the world is. I do want to visit it, though. See it, stick my feet in it, just so I can say I did.”

  “It’s cold.” He grinned. “I rem
ember that much.”

  “Don’t matter. Still gotta do it.”

  “I suppose so.”

  The front door of the Harpers’ house opened, and Mrs. Harper walked out, followed by Reverend Joe, leaning heavily on his steel cane.

  Mrs. Harper carried a plastic shopping bag, weighed down and bulging. “Can we get you some breakfast, Chase? There’s more bacon and eggs, it’d be easy to fix you a plate before you go.”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Harper. I had some coffee and a donut before I left, that’ll keep me fine for a while.”

  She nodded, handing him the bag. “Here’s some sandwiches for your lunch. You’ve got some miles to cover before you get anywhere there’ll be a place to find food, so I wanted to see you off provisioned.”

  “Thank you kindly, Mrs. Harper.”

  Reverend Joe looked them over solemnly. “Before you leave. I will ask for God’s blessing on your journey.”

  Chase’s smile vanished, he removed his cap, and bowed his head. Mrs. Harper closed her eyes. Chris, a little uncomfortably, looked down at his feet.

  “Dear God our Father. I ask your blessing on these two men as they undertake this journey. Place your hand over them, and see them safely to journey’s end. Lead them by the hand to where you intend, and may all work out as you have in your great wisdom planned. And until they arrive home, keep their steps sure-footed on the high road, with their eyes facing forward and their hearts and wills always guided by the Divine. We ask this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Chase and Mrs. Harper repeated in unison.

  Chris just cleared his throat, and looked up.

  “There is a reason to all of this.” Reverend Joe looked Chris directly in the eyes. “Do not doubt it. Be of courage. There are greater forces than you or I know at work here, and I think you will face many trials before this is over.”