Medium Dead

by Chris Dolley

  Abbiati grabbed hold of Brian’s face and tugged it towards him.

  o0o

  Brian acted immediately. He stretched out with his mind, concentrating on the area of cheek where Abbiati gripped him. He had to be subtle. He couldn’t afford to let Abbiati notice even a tingle until he’d finished. He began altering the skin where they touched, fusing the outer layers, creating microperforations so small that only a nerve fiber could pass through.

  He stretched his mind again, visualizing the nerve fibers in his cheek, growing them, guiding them through the tiny skin perforations into the tips of Abbiati’s fingers and thumb, seeking, probing, pushing, finding other nerve fibers on the other side until...

  Connection. A direct link between their two brains. Abbiati might be able shield his brain from telepathic probing, but could he block a physical brain to brain transfer?

  Brian had no idea. He’d never done this before. He wasn’t even sure how to proceed, or what the repercussions might be – would his own mind be opened up to Abbiati?

  He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrated hard, imagined his mind being split in two – his thoughts and memories blockaded behind an impenetrable firewall; a second part, an inner Brian, slipping out, like an inner eye, but with far less freedom, using the neural bridge to cross over into Abbiati’s body.

  Everything went black, and silent. He was cut off from his own senses, straining to see, to hear, to feel his way into Abbiati’s mind.

  And stay hidden. He couldn’t risk being detected. He had to shield his thoughts, his purpose, his very existence.

  A distant sound – like tinnitus – a white rushing noise of random nothingness. He moved towards it, the sound increasing, other noises wrapped in the stream – Voices? Rain? Applause? – it was all so confusing. He paused, concentrating, picking something that sounded like a voice and tuning everything else out. It was Abbiati. Shouting. He could almost make out what he was saying.

  Moving again, dragging himself towards Abbiati’s voice, feeling his way and...

  “Tell me his name, or I’ll let Dwayne set you on fire.”

  Almost there, Abbiati’s voice was so close and suddenly there were swirls of shapes and shadows and...

  Light. Crisp and clear. He was looking at himself through Abbiati’s eyes. The other Brian, autonomic Brian, his eyes tight closed and no one home. It was bizarre.

  Now came the next part – accessing Abbiati’s memories. More seat-of-the-pants experimentation. Would suggestion work? Would an unexpected voice in the head cause a psychotic break?

  Only one way to find out.

  “Mary Alice,” he whispered, concentrating on the words, imagining them spoken softly into Abbiati’s subconscious mind, so softly spoken his conscious self would be totally unaware.

  No reaction. No sudden movement of Abbiati’s head. No scream of shock or torrent of words.

  Until: “Why doesn’t he say something! Can’t he see we’re going to kill him?”

  It was faint, slightly muffled, thoughts not speech and coming from somewhere else. Brian flowed towards the sound, the light fading, everything turning dusky orange.

  “It’s got to be the Russians. They’re the only ones mad enough. But why send a woman and a boy? She doesn’t sound Russian. She sounds crazy.”

  Louder now. And there were patterns in the burnt orange, shapes and figures – people maybe – that came and went and morphed in a dizzying array of light and dark.

  Brian tried to imitate Abbiati’s voice. “Mary Alice Cassini,” he said.

  A shape that could have been a little girl flickered then began to fade. He pursued it, hanging on to it, whispering her name, “Mary Alice, Mary Alice Cassini.”

  The shape swirled and billowed then eventually slowed, sharpening and gaining color. It was her. The same picture he’d seen in her police file. The smiling four year-old as she’d been a month before she’d disappeared.

  Now what? Brian had no idea where he was, what he’d be able to do, or how long he had before Abbiati broke the contact. The fusion of skin between fingertip and cheek had been subtle rather than permanent. Abbiati could snap it if he pulled hard enough.

  “What happened to Mary Alice?” Still a whisper, but this time Brian concentrated harder, imagining it a command, imagining himself a stage hypnotist with Abbiati, wide open to suggestion, plucked out of the audience and ready to obey every command. “Show me, Bruno. It’s important. Everything hinges on what happened to Mary Alice.”

  A giant newspaper page appeared with a picture of Mary Alice on it. Girl abducted in Cummings Park ran the headlines in bold black type, everything sharp and clear.

  “I need more. Show me everything you have on Mary Alice Cassini.”

  Other images flooded in. Mary Alice on the television news. Mary Alice in another newspaper. Snatches of commentary from a newsreader. It’s been a week since four year-old Mary Alice Cassini went missing. Police are still looking...

  Then a surprise. Frank Cassini appeared. Frank Cassini as he looked thirteen years ago. And he wasn’t framed by a television set or a page of newsprint. He was ‘live’ in what looked like a large study – antique furniture, oak paneling, shelf after shelf of leather bound books. Frank was standing in front of a desk. The whole scene viewed through the eyes of the person sitting behind that desk – presumably Abbiati and presumably a memory from thirteen years ago.

  “Please, Mr. Abbiati,” said Frank. He looked a mess – dark rings around his eyes, hands shaking. He couldn’t even look Abbiati in the eyes. “You have contacts. Can you ask them if they’ve heard anything about Mary Alice?”

  Abbiati’s voice replied, a slight echo giving it a strange, otherworldly feel. “I’ll help in any way I can, Frank. I’ve already instructed everyone to keep their ears open. If anyone in the city is holding your little girl, we’ll find out about it.”

  The scene faded. And with it Brian’s theory that Mary Alice had been abducted to put pressure on Frank Cassini.

  If he was being shown a real memory and not some fake to throw him off the track.

  Brian tried something else. “How do you shield your thoughts?”

  A woman’s voice answered. It was faint and slightly distorted as though she were a long way off on a windswept cliff. “Get out!” she cried. “Get out, now!”

  Was she warning him off?

  “Who are you?” he asked, peering at the swirling orange mist that flowed all around him.

  “Get out!” This time it was a scream. A long, distant scream and ... pain! He was hit by a sudden jolt of electrifying pain. Had he tripped some kind of defense mechanism? Was Abbiati, or whoever this woman was, aware of his presence and fighting back?

  Or was it Brenda? Screaming at the Brian sat in the chair that Abbiati was trying to remove his hand and had noticed it was stuck.

  He tried to reel himself back, hoping there was some link, some memory of the way he’d come. Pain! Another jolt reverberated through him. Something was wrong. Very wrong. He could sense something terrible about to happen. A feeling, a certainty, a foreboding. He had to get out. He had to get out now!

  But...

  What if this was a trick? Part of Abbiati’s defense mechanism? Brian’s direct brain-to-brain link had been discovered and Abbiati was forcing him out. And, once out, Abbiati would know to keep his distance. Brian would never be given this chance again.

  “How do you shield your thoughts? I command you to tell me.”

  No answer just pain – sharp, sustained and debilitating. He had to get out. The pain could be coming from his own nerve endings as Abbiati tried to rip his hand free.

  But there was one last question he had to ask.

  “Gene therapy. Have you ever had it?”

  He tried to blank out the pain. He tried to peer through a sudden jagged mess of flashing lights. He tried to tune out the ear splitting white noise. He tried...

  He fled. Pulling back on himself, not sure of the direction, but trusting to
instinct. All around him a migraine storm of flashing lights and pain raged and seared. Noise like static from a bank of million watt speakers. Back, back the way you came. Find the nerves, find the bridge.

  Pain, confusion, blind flight. He tried to blot everything out, to relax, to imagine himself a long elastic band under tension and snapping back. But shouldn’t he be out by now? How long could it take?

  Explosions, pops, snapping, tearing sounds. He was falling, spinning out of control and...

  “What the fuck have you got on your face, kid? Glue?”

  The real world ballooned up from nowhere. Abbiati filled most of it. He was pulling away, staring at his fingers, shaking them. The world shook in sympathy. Brian swayed, his head felt like a lead cannonball – dense, heavy and rolling beyond his control. He slumped forward.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Brenda. ‘What happened?’

  He tried to reply, but couldn’t remember how. He couldn’t even lift his head. It just hung there.

  And the room wouldn’t keep still. The concrete floor pulsed and swayed.

  ‘Brian! Answer me!’

  He tried to turn his head towards her, but it wouldn’t move. Everything else moved – the room, the chair – but not his head. He tried again, straining. The room moved faster. Nausea, pain, confusion.

  He closed his eyes. That made it worse. Nausea and the feeling his head was on a thousand rpm spin cycle.

  He tried to ignore it all. He tried to push all his physical sensations to a spare room at the back of his mind and lock the door. But they wouldn’t go. He couldn’t even think straight. In some ways it felt like he was suffering magic fatigue, but in others it didn’t. And he couldn’t focus his mind long enough to work out what the differences were. His thoughts echoed and slurred and wandered off at a tangent.

  ‘Brian!’ Brenda shouted.

  “Stop fucking about and give me his name, kid,” shouted Abbiati.

  Nausea gave way to a light-headed sensation. He could feel the world receding. He opened his eyes and saw his chest, the floor, everything sliding away down a long dark tunnel. He closed his eyes. Tried to claw himself back, tried to think, to concentrate, but he was too drained, too tired, too confused. And it had started to rain. Either that or the tunnel was damp and running with water. He felt wet. His clothes, his hair. His skin felt cold and clammy. And some woman was screaming at him. “Teleport! Teleport now!”

  Danger. Darkness. Warm inviting sleep. Danger again. He was drifting between sleep and waking. He so wanted to sleep, but ... why was he wet? He couldn’t sleep in wet sheets. And there was that woman again – screaming at him to teleport. Teleport where? Teleport how?

  Danger. There was that feeling again. A warning at the back of his mind. And a strange smell. Petrol?

  He opened his eyes, rocketing back to something approaching consciousness. He was in a warehouse, lashed to a chair. His clothes were wet. His face too. The smell of petrol was everywhere. Abbiati was speaking.

  “This is your last chance. Give me a name!”

  Fingernails dug into his scalp, grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked his head up and back. He couldn’t see who the hand belonged to. Abbiati was standing in front of him, a cigarette lighter in his hand, the open flame flickering a foot in front of Brian’s face.

  It was mesmerizing. So pretty. The flame curling and smoking, blue and yellow in ever-changing patterns.

  ‘For God’s sake, Brian. Do something! What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Brenda?’

  ‘Brian! He’s going to set you on fire!’

  Fire. She used the word like it was bad. How could anything so beautiful be bad? And yet ... something nagged at him from the back of his mind. Some kind of warning. If only he could think straight.

  Abbiati started shouting at Brenda. Something about making her kid see sense and was he on drugs. But Brian only saw the flame as it danced in Abbiati’s hand. The flame was important. He knew that now. And dangerous. Yes! That was it! Dangerous. He had to get the flame away from Abbiati, as far away as he could.

  He stared at the flame, staring so hard his eyeballs almost crossed with the effort. One mental tug and he could rip the lighter from Abbiati’s hand and send it flying. If he could remember how it was done. And the lighter kept still.

  Think, concentrate, pull!

  The lighter broke free of Abbiati’s grip. It started to fly. It started ... but then lost momentum. And began to fall. A slow motion descent into Brian’s petrol soaked lap.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brenda watched in horror.

  Whoosh! The gas ignited in a flash of flame five, six feet high. The fire spread fast – racing up to Brian’s head, down to his feet. He was engulfed, his entire body shrouded in flame.

  ‘Brian!’

  He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t doing anything to stop the flames. Abbiati looked stunned. He stared at the hand that had held the lighter. He stared at Brian. He looked as surprised as Brenda by what had happened.

  Heat. Brenda was only a yard away from the inferno. Her face felt seared. She had to turn away. The entire left side of her body felt scalded. Her hair, her dress could catch fire any second.

  She threw her weight to the right, tried to topple the chair. It rocked, but not enough. She tried again. Harder. Throwing everything she had into it. She could smell burning hair.

  The chair fell. Abbiati had backed away too, still looking stunned. Dwayne and Michael had moved alongside him.

  “What do we do?” asked Dwayne.

  Abbiati didn’t answer, he couldn’t take his eyes off Brian who still wasn’t moving. No screams. No frantic pulling at his ties, or attempts to kick his legs free.

  Could he have teleported out? Like he’d done at the bank? Starched his clothes to make it look as though he was still there while his naked body flew free?

  But he had no ski mask this time. His face was exposed. Could he have turned his head into a mask? Could he have teleported out earlier? He’d barely said a word since Abbiati grabbed his face.

  ‘Brian, are you there? Are you anywhere? Speak to me!’

  The fire continued to blaze. A human shaped golden inferno. Even the chair had started to burn.

  “We’ll have to kill her too,” said Abbiati. “She’s a witness.”

  Brenda closed her eyes. Was this how her life was going to end? Trussed up on a grubby floor in a grubby warehouse.

  “Shall we burn her too?” asked Dwayne. “We could put them in a car and make it look like accident.”

  “I don’t drive,” said Brenda. “All my friends know that and they’d tell the cops.”

  She looked Abbiati in the eye as she lied, playing for time in the forlorn hope that something might come along. A passing squad car, another vigilante demon, something.

  “We could shoot her and feed them both to the pigs,” suggested Michael.

  “If my boss doesn’t hear from me in the next hour you’ve got a gang war on your hands,” said Brenda. “He’s been waiting to take over your territory for years.”

  Abbiati gave her a look – one that showed her credibility had sunk towards zero.

  “Yeah? What’s his name?”

  “You know,” said Brenda, wobbling into the penalty shoot-out phase of the playing-for-time gambit.

  She continued to look Abbiati squarely in the eye – or as squarely as a person lying on their side tied to a chair could manage – while her mind frantically raced. And wouldn’t it be a good time for a really powerful ghost to appear? One who could make himself be seen. One who could freak Abbiati and his goons out. They must have killed other people here. The whole warehouse should be teeming with dead hoodlums thirsting for revenge on Abbiati.

  She closed her eyes and tried to summon one up. Anyone out there with a grudge? I’ve got Bruno Abbiati here. Come and get him. Anyone? Anyone at all? Paging Jack the Ripper.

  “Shoot her,” said Abbiati.

  Brenda pulled furiously at the rop
e binding her wrists, hoping to access that inner reserve of super strength you hear about. The mother who lifts a car to free her trapped child. Surely this was a time as desperate as that?

  An unexpected voice broke the silence.

  “Hey, look at me,” said the teenage Brian. “I’m on fire and it doesn’t hurt!”

  Everyone turned. Brian was still swaddled in fire, but the flames were lower now, his human shape more discernible. He moved his head, looking down at his body. He snapped the cords binding his wrists – they must have burnt through – and raised both arms, stretching his shoulders at the same time.

  “That feels better,” he said. “Anyone got a camera? Come on! Someone’s gotta have a camera. I must look way cool.”

  Brenda stared at him. He was alive. ‘I thought you said fire could kill you?’

  ‘I don’t think I did. You may have inferred that, but ... truth is, I didn’t know. I’ve never been set on fire before.’

  Abbiati and his two minions stared open-mouthed. Dwayne’s gun, that seconds before had been pointing at Brenda, turned to point at Brian. Michael was scrambling for his weapon too.

  Brian ignored them both. He leaned back and kicked his feet free of the ties binding his ankles to the burning chair and stood up.

  “Wow,” he said, staring down at his arms. “It doesn’t hurt a bit and....” He started swinging both arms, striking poses, marveling at the way the flames cut through the air in an almost stroboscopic light show.

  Dwayne looked to Abbiati, his question unvocalized, but obvious to everyone in the room. What do we do?

  Brian took a step towards Abbiati, who recoiled. “Keep back,” he said, fumbling for his own gun.

  “Aw, come on. You gotta want me in your gang now. I’m Flame Boy. I can burn stuff. I’m a regular firestarter.”

  He took another step. Abbiati fired. Dwayne and Michael joined in. Brenda flinched on the floor. Bullets were going everywhere. Eight or nine shots must have hit Brian. He staggered back with each impact...

  But didn’t fall.

  The firing stopped.

  “Wow!” said Brian. “Did you see that? Even bullets can’t stop me.”