by Jay Sherfey
“So, you are saying…?” started Jason.
“What we are saying young man,” interjected Kyle, “is that there is a culture, maybe a whole other civilization living under our noses. They had a war or revolution or something, who the hell knows?” Kyle threw up his hands. “It left the wrong people in power. These people will kill children to maintain their order.”
“And we poor mortals,” said Louise. “Never know about any of it except through odd happenings reported in stories hidden in the back pages of newspapers.”
“Do you know, Mr. Sutter?” asked Mary in a forceful voice. All eyes turned to her. “There are twenty-two stories so far this year of unexplained miracles at a variety of medical institutions around the state.” She paused. “There are seventy or so stories about mysterious murders and unexplainable mayhem in the same time period.”
“I didn’t know,” whispered Jason.
“So, we have to assume that the death of the Patti girl has been reported.” Kyle assessed the situation as a military strategist. “There is a higher authority somewhere, a command center. This local, old guy checked in with his boss. We will have time to decide what to do.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t go anywhere with this.” Jason looked each person in the room in the eye. “You can’t do anything.” Jason shook his head, his fingers tightened on the arms of his chair. “You cannot win. Hiding is the only way to go. Hiding me will be the best possible thing to do.”
“Spell it out for them,” said Suzy, thinking of cats and dogs. “Fighting back would be useless.”
“She is right, Kyle,” insisted Jason. “I can arrange for you and Chiang plus these helpful ladies to leave this building with nothing more than a sudden interest in the last works of Shakespeare. It would be easy.”
“It probably has already happened,” said Kyle. “How would we know?”
“Exactly,” said Jason. He stood frustrated, “You are not in jeopardy. You can be manipulated easily. It’s me and Patti and…Suzy who are at risk. If we are killed what would you know about it if the killers are like me?” Jason challenged them with his question.
“Not a thing.” Chiang unafraid faced Jason. “You and your kind are too powerful. We would know nothing. What do dogs or cats know of their owner’s problems?”
The conversation died with these words. Jason stared at Chiang shocked to hear his words echoed back to him. Chiang sipped his tea lost in thought while Kyle considered his shoes. Mary and Louise studied everyone in the room especially Jason.
“What am I to do?” Jason shut his eyes weary with the obvious. It would be his task to confront this evil. He suddenly wanted his mom to point him in the right direction.
“You my friend,” responded Chiang, “must do nothing. You must not be found. You are hiding in plain sight. You must not be betrayed. It is you who will have to fight the good fight.” Chiang looked over at Kyle Downing, “While we will know nothing of your battles.”
“We will help as we can,” Kyle rushed to add. “In the end, of course, it will be your war, my boy.”
“Surely not a war, Kyle,” pleaded Mary.
“Our memories, the details of our lives which include Mr. Sutter as we know him are in his young hands.” Kyle looked at Mary suddenly aware that he had wasted a good deal of time not calling her.
“I believe,” said Louise, “we have nothing to fear. Our memories are faulty enough even without manipulation. It is Jason who is most at risk.” She looked around the circle of adults. “I pledge myself to do whatever he needs to support the good he does.” The other adults nodded solemnly.
“Until you tell us differently, Jason,” said Chiang, “we are on a war footing. We do not, cannot understand the violence you have endured but we are at your command.”
“Th…thank you,” was all Jason could get out. He was touched by their unconditional support for what he might need or have to do. Silence filled the room.
“A…can Suzy and me get a lift home?” Jason smiled embarrassed. So much for being so powerful, he thought.
Laughter erupted in the room. Mr. Downing stood, pulled his car keys from his pocket, smiled, and ruffled Jason’s hair.
“Of course, son. It’s the least I can do.”
Chapter 25
Rodney stared at the blinking light on his office phone. The fifth button across the bottom flashed, demanding action. He hated it, when she called.
At his desk in his office on the sixty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building, he finished the balancing of the accounts for the Communities around the U.S. It was a simple task to provide the funds; all would live well. There were not that many. The phone demanded attention.
“Yeah?” he snatched up the receiver. He glanced out of his window, seeking any distraction.
“Rodney, dear, don’t be petulant,” said a female voice. She waited patiently for Rodney’s “hello”. He envisioned his spit sliding down her smiling face.
“Is it done?” She sighed heavily, giving up on civility.
“Yes.” He would never confront her directly, of course, she was stronger and very dangerous. Rodney discounted anything weaker and feared greater strength. He followed the rule to keep your enemies closer than your friends, except in this case.
“Completely?” Her pleasant, mellifluous voice belied a cobra swift strike capability. Rodney had disappointed her before, and paid a price. He could reach across hundreds of miles if he knew what he sought. She was global in her capabilities. “Who was it?”
“A preschool child.” Volunteer nothing, he thought, give only the basics.
“Certainly, this has happened before.” She spoke from experience and more to herself. “A child might put out that level of energy. Our children are so…uncontrolled.” There was an extended pause. “Nothing else?”
“No.” He controlled his loathing. “No psychic signature remained. It is a total black out in Pennsylvania. It is over.” He held the receiver away from his ear. In pantomime fury Rodney screamed obscenities.
“Anything suggesting a rogue family of our kind?” All resistance to community rule was to be squashed. Rogue families would never again rise to challenge the good of Community organization. Rodney stopped his quiet tirade.
“Nothing,” he said ready to slam the phone down. “It… is… over.” Let it be, he thought.
“OK, Rodney dear. It’s over.” A perfunctory click broke the link.
Rodney knew she would not leave well enough alone. She would send someone to check his facts. He stared at the black receiver still held in his hand. Let her do what she wanted, he thought. He slammed the receiver.
“Go to hell!”
* * *
Two days passed since Jason helped Patti and shared his story at the library with the only adults he trusted. At home, in the tool shed, Jason got together with Suzy and Russ to figure out what to do next.
“It has become clearer to me what must be done.” Jason considered his next words carefully. He looked one to the other. “It has all become too big for me to control. Mr. Downing, Chiang, and the library ladies have a clear picture of me in their minds. Too clear.”
“Yeah? What does that mean?” Russ’s world encompassed Franklin Chase, his family, and friends. The outside world did not register yet. He sat on his hands, pushed up, and supported his weight as he adjusted to a more comfortable position on the stool.
“If I was looking for someone like me,” began Jason, remembering what he saw in the minds of those who cared so much for him, “I would find out pretty quick by scanning ordinary people’s minds.” Jason rested his hands on the bench top finding the hard, rough surface an anchor. His current world, unglued from anything normal, was battered and filled with enemies. “My face will jump out real clear. It is no longer safe for me here. Too many know.”
“You’re leaving?” whined Suzy visibly upset reaching out to grab his hand. The thought of his not living in the Dubois house crushed her. Her eyes filled.
> “Yes and no.” Jason grinned at the perplexed expressions on their faces.
“You can come live with me if ya need another place.” Russ smiled. He liked that idea.
“It is not the house I intend to leave. I plan on leaving people’s minds.” Jason leaned back on the stool. “I need both of you to help me. I intend to set off a memory bomb that reaches all the way to Kearny.”
“Wow,” said Russ, clearly attracted to the adventure of setting off an explosive of any sort. He stared blankly as the cogs in his mind sped up. A mischievous smile curled his lips. He envisioned the flame as it slowly touched the fuse on a cherry bomb the size of a house.
“Do you know how to do it, Jason?” asked Suzy, looking askance at Russ while he envisioned a long line of detonations.
“I know how to modify a small group of people’s minds but not a whole town.” Jason pictured the outcome he wanted. Like Russ, he stared. Suzy thought he looked old and worn.
Jason looked up abruptly and focused. “I will have to practice and work out the details. One big detail is determining if I have the strength to do this thing.”
“Practice?” questioned Russ ready for action. “On who?” The devilish smile never left his face.
“On you, on the chanters out front, on as many as possible,” said Jason. “Start small with little stuff at first.” He smiled. “I need your ideas.” He looked directly at Russ. He wanted all of his brilliant, zany ideas.
“How soon do you want to set off the bomb?” asked Suzy. Her gaze switched from one boy to the other, as though she sat at a tennis match and followed the ball across the court.
“Before school starts,” said Jason, rubbing his chin.
“Ya got two weeks.” Russ’s legs started to twitch.
“Yeah. That’s not very long.” Suzy looked to Jason and thought of cats and dogs. She frowned, not convinced that this was the right thing to do.
“Ya want to try something now?” asked Russ.
Jason could tell he had something bubbling in his mind. Russ vibrated with his idea already laughing.
“Like, on the people out front?” he said. “There must be about twenty still out there. Maybe you could get them to go away.”
“Good idea Russ,” Jason said cautiously and leaned forward, “but something small just to see if it works.”
“Well,” Russ’s eyes sparkled. He laughed; then took on a serious demeanor. “You could give all of them the notion that they need to go pee…really bad.”
“Russ!” screamed Suzy unable to hide her smile. “That’s so gross.” The idea tickled her.
“Yeah, but,” Russ grinned, “it won’t really hurt anyone, and we’ll know real quick if Jason can do what he needs to do.”
Jason laughed. “Why not?”
Fifteen minutes later, Frank came out of the second floor bathroom still reading an article on the economy in the local paper when a body rushed passed him. The door slammed shut. He looked up and wondered what happened; then saw the kids lined up. He could tell; they had to go. Each child did whatever dance in place to make it easier to control their bladders.
“Why not use…” Frank began.
“The line’s longer downstairs,” said Rachel who stood with her legs crossed and bounced against the wall.
“Oh.” Not wanting to go any further into the issue, he folded the paper and marched downstairs. When he reached the bottom step he saw Suzy and Russ. They peeked out of the living room windows. Frank pulled aside the sheer curtain at the side of the front door and looked out.
“Well, well,” he said delighted, “our crusaders seem to have given up.” The kids at the living room window erupted into a fit of giggles. As he turned toward the kitchen, he wondered why Jason was not with his friends.
* * *
“How long do you think he’ll sleep?” Russ and Suzy returned to the shed and sat at the tool bench. They looked down on an inert Jason, unconscious on the cot.
“Hard to say,” said Suzy concerned.
Jason performed the experiment from the shed. He finished floating, stood up, and stretched; then crumpled to the floor. Together Russ and Suzy lifted him onto the cot. They remained with him for awhile until Russ suggested they go check on the people who crowded the front of the house. The experiment worked. They took up their stations in the shed and stood guard until Jason came around.
“So, I guess he bit off more than he could chew.” Russ turned to Suzy. “This is good. Now he knows his limit on this one.”
“Yeah, I kinda got a feeling he was getting weak.” Suzy drummed her fingers on the bench top.
Russ grinned, about to make a moronic comment on Suzy’s relationship with Jason, but thought better of it. Instead, he said, “We haven’t had a good talk for awhile. It looks like we might have some time on our hands. What do you think?”
“That’s an idea.” She stood up. “There’s an old deck of cards in the kitchen. We can play Gin or Crazy Eights or something and…talk.”
“Good. I’ll sit tight and keep an eye on our man here.”
Suzy left; then returned minutes later with cards, a pitcher of Kool Aid, and glasses.
“What will it be?” asked Russ. Suzy handed him the cards; he shuffled.
“Crazy Eights.” Suzy filled the glasses. Russ dealt.
“So,” he said, “you’ll be going into Mrs. Needham’s when school starts.”
“What’s she like?” Suzy laid a queen of hearts on the two of hearts face up on the bench.
“We were pretty hard on her. Called her Needles. But she really wasn’t so bad.” Russ changed the suite with a queen of spades. “She really likes kids who read and try hard. And…she likes girls better than boys but that’s not unusual.”
A single loud snore erupted from Jason. Both kids turned their heads and smiled when they realized it was nothing.
“Clearing the boogers,” said Russ. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah,” Suzy concentrated on her cards. “I like to read. So, I guess maybe she will like me.”
“Are you kiddin’. She’ll love you.”
Russ and Suzy talked continuously as they finished several games of Crazy Eights and Gin not caring who won. Jason finally woke up. Still woozy, he sat on the edge of the cot.
“What’d I miss.” He looked from Russ to Suzy.
“A whole lot of flushing my man,” grinned Russ happy to see his friend recovered. “A whole lot of flushing.”
* * *
The next afternoon Frank sat at the kitchen table. He read the paper and enjoyed a fresh cup of coffee. It was not long before Lydia found him. “See this?” she said acidly.
“Yes, what of it?” Frank began to tire of Lydia’s constant negativity.
“It’s the boy,” she grabbed the front page and held it up. The headline read, “Water Pressure Plunges”. According to the article the water pressure for the whole of Franklin Chase dropped dangerously low for about twenty minutes when the whole town flushed their toilets at roughly the same time. “He had something to do with this. First those people out there.” The petitioners for Jason’s intersession returned that morning. “Now this…why are you so blind to what is going on around here?” Lydia rolled the page tight and slapped the top of the kitchen table with it. “What’s with you?”
Frank with great care set aside the article he was reading and looked directly into Lydia’s eyes. “I see a great many coincidences that may mean nothing or they may point to the boy being a miracle worker. His name, by the way, is Jason.” Frank took a sip of his coffee. “If Jason is a living breathing saint able to do these things you say he is doing, then we better take damn good care of him so we can enjoy some of his blessings.”
“What…” Lydia gaped at him. Frank had never been willing to stand up to her before.
“Let me tell you what I see, especially since you have been incapacitated by your headaches.” Frank held his cup in his right hand and slowly swirled the coffee. “I figure since
about March, the kids in this house have been doing better. That was about the same time the lock came off the tool shed. I haven’t had to restrain any of them. That’s a good thing.”
“It’s also cost us…” Lydia started.
“All of them are working together to help each other. I’ve been able to work more overtime. In fact, we have made money and increased our savings.” He set down his cup. “The load on me for laundry, meals…all that stuff, is much less. The kids are helping out.” He stood up and said forcefully, “And, I am damned glad we are well out of the drug business. It was more trouble than it was worth and downright dangerous.”
A silence grew in the room, the calm before a storm.
“It’s better in this house,” continued Frank. “I will not mess that up. So… get over it. Whether Jason had anything to do with all this is not important. And I don’t believe for a second he did. He’s just a kid. The fact is… things are just better.”
“Now you listen to me you twit.” Lydia’s rage flowed through her body; it reverberated with no outlet. She shook. She aimed her index finger at Frank.
“Stop!” he shouted before she attacked. “That’s enough!” Frank let his words echo in the room. “If you no longer want to be here, then I will split what we have with you and you can go your own way. I am sure you don’t want the children. You’ve made that clear over the years.”
“You want me to go,” choked Lydia. The radiating headache made it hard to think.
“It suddenly occurred to me,” followed Frank, sitting back down, “that spending time in your company was not all that different from spending time with my mother. Now why would I want to endure such abuse?” He leaned back in the chair and glared at her.
Lydia said nothing. She turned, stumbled on her first step but regained her balance, and left the room. Moving swiftly to her bedroom, she popped open a pill bottle taken from one of the children. A sedative, she poured a number of pills into her shaking hands and swallowed. She did not feel the tears, as they ran down her cheeks.