Medium Dead

by Chris Dolley

  And stopping almost immediately, the two of them hovering above the rooftops. He stood behind her in the invisible bubble, his left arm wrapped around her waist, his right arm held out in front of her.

  “Now use my right hand to steer. Point my index finger in the direction you want to go and say faster, slower or stop.”

  Brenda soon got the hang of it. It was simple. It was fun. But was it fast enough? She was having to slow down so often to make sure she didn’t miss a turn, she doubted if they were averaging more than seventy miles per hour. The first part of her itinerary was full of 0.5 miles along this road, and 0.3 miles along that. It wasn’t until the other side of Cleveland that they’d have a long stretch of interstate.

  “Try gaining height,” said Brian. “You can see farther.”

  Brenda raised Brian’s finger and leaned back. They rose above the countryside. It was just like flying a small, silent plane. She could bank and dive and accelerate ... and lose sight of the road she was supposed to be following. Shit! She’d looked away for a second to admire the view and now all the threadlike roads below looked the same. She slowed and angled the bubble down, one eye on the roads below, one on her itinerary, trying to make sense of them both.

  She dived down faster, leveled out, slowed. Where was a road name? There had to be a sign somewhere?

  She found one. Webster Road. Where was that? It wasn’t on her itinerary.

  “We’ll have to materialize and ask directions.”

  “No!” said Brian, which, seeing he was a man and in possession of the ‘never ask directions’ gene (a recessive gene if there was one), was hardly surprising. “It’ll take too much time. Gain height. Find the biggest road and follow it until you see a road sign. There’s got to be one heading for Cleveland. We’ll pick up the I-90 there.”

  Brenda took them higher, wondering how good her geography was. The sky was cloud-free. If she gained enough height, she should be able to see the Great Lakes. If she used them to navigate by, it would cut their journey time down dramatically. They could fly at hundreds of miles per hour. As long as she picked the right lake and didn’t take them to Canada.

  “Stay south of the lakes and you should be fine,” said Brian.

  She rose higher. She could make out a dark line on the horizon to the north. She rose higher still. The dark line widened and took form. It was either a coastline or a black forest. And the shape looked right.

  She went for it. Faster and faster, the ground too far away to blur. She swung to the right in a long arcing curve. It was definitely a lake. She could see a huge sand bar poking out from the northern shore. She followed the lake northeast. There was another lake beyond. Ontario? She wasn’t sure if I-90 continued along that lake’s shoreline as well or cut inland.

  She dropped down, the ground coming up fast and starting to blur. She slowed, aiming Brian’s finger at Lake Erie’s shoreline, looking for the widest, straightest road. One stood out. It was a little distance inland and it seemed composed of two strands that kept splitting apart and re-joining. It had to be the I-90. Or a train line.

  She swung down lower, slowed some more. It wasn’t a train line. It was definitely a road. Lower still, the road snaking and blurring. There was something up ahead. She slowed some more, easing right back until she was matching speed with the traffic below. It was a service area. She could see a sign. Angola Service Area.

  For one second her jaw dropped. Angola? They were in Africa? Then she saw the sign with I-90 on it and sped up.

  Miles flew by. They had to be touching two, three hundred miles per hour, but was it fast enough?

  “Wouldn’t Syracuse have called the local police and asked them to surround the cabin?” she asked.

  “No police force is going to let someone else take over – or mess up – one of their cases. Especially one as high profile as this. They’ll give the locals a courtesy call and ask them to stand by, but they won’t want them within half a mile of the cabin.”

  It sounded logical. But real life had a habit of ditching the logical at the first opportunity. “Faster,” she said, and took the bubble to the limit of her ability.

  Time passed in a blur. She didn’t dare take her eyes from the road. She wanted to check her watch, but couldn’t. She wanted to formulate some kind of plan for what to do at the cabin, but couldn’t. Staying on the road took all her concentration.

  Then she was slowing, monitoring the road signs, looking for the turn-off, back on the smaller roads, slower still, time pouring through her fingers. How much longer? Were they too late? She hadn’t seen a police convoy anywhere below.

  She saw her first police car just past the tiny settlement of Scratchy Hollow. It was parked next to an ambulance a hundred yards back from the turn off into Forrester Road. She sped up, leaning into the right turn and accelerating. Everything was so silent. There could be a gun battle going on at the cabin and they’d have no idea. The air could be full of sirens and explosions.

  Another car up ahead. She slowed. It was parked on the verge a few hundred yards back from where the road petered out into a track. An unmarked police car? It looked like it, there were two men sitting inside.

  She sped past, slowing again as the clearing approached, then stopped. “Now what?” she whispered. She could just make out the cabin through the trees. She couldn’t see any other cars. Or SWAT teams or helicopters. But it couldn’t be long.

  “We haven’t time to be cautious,” said Brian. “Aim for the front door and set us down in front of it.”

  “Are we just going to materialize?”

  “Is anyone watching?”

  Not that she could see. But anyone could be hidden in the trees.

  “Just go,” said Brian. “Get us in position, then have another look from there.”

  She grabbed Brian’s finger and sent them arcing into the clearing. She did a quick circuit of the grounds, keeping her eyes on the edge of the woods. It looked clear. Then she headed for the front door, setting them down on the porch. She couldn’t see anyone at the windows.

  “We’re here,” she said. “What’s the plan?”

  “I need to see if I can read Daddy. Here.” He handed her a plastic ID card. Stephanie Plum, Help the Blind.

  Stephanie Plum! She gave him a full second blast of the Medusa. He might be blind, but he still deserved to be turned to stone. Why couldn’t she ever be Miss Smith!

  “It’ll work,” he said. “Knock on the door, ask for a donation and leave. All I need is an opportunity to read his thoughts. I’ll be your dog.”

  “My dog?”

  He morphed into a dog – a strange looking Chinese type of dog with bat-shaped ears and a wrinkled face – and as he did so the silent bubble around them burst. Suddenly, birds were calling in the woods and a light breeze blew against her face.

  She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  She looked down at Brian. He had his head turned to one side and was sniffing the air – hopefully for Daddy or she’d get a complex.

  She knocked again, silently rehearsing what she’d say when he opened the door, getting ready to step back if he came at her with a syringe full of a poison. She shuffled her feet, took another deep breath, adjusted her clothes. Wasn’t he in? Should they move on to Plan B? Did they have a Plan B?

  The door opened. Daddy was standing there – a spitting image of his picture – six four, six five. And well built. He filled out every inch of his jeans and check shirt.

  “What you want?” he barked.

  She held up her ID and hoped he didn’t read too many mystery novels. “I’m collecting for the blind,” she said, her mouth so dry every word was punctuated with a click.

  He looked at the card, then at her, then Brian. He looked like the kind of man who rarely smiled. Unlike Brenda, who was smiling with the tenacity of a crazed beauty contestant.

  ‘Well?’ she screamed at Brian through the ether. ‘Can you read him? Is he a super secr
et government jailer, or a child-killing maniac?’

  ‘He’s like Abbiati. Completely blank to me.’

  Shit! She swore silently through clenched teeth, wondering if Daddy could read minds too.

  One way to find out. She imagined she could see Sacrifice creeping furtively behind Daddy. She gave the thought as much power and belief as she could and screamed it at the man in the doorway.

  Daddy didn’t stir. He was still looking at her ID. Either he was an extraordinarily good actor, or he couldn’t read minds.

  Unlike Brian, who pulled on his lead.

  ‘You can see Sacrifice!’ he screamed. “Where? I can’t sense her at all!’

  ‘Relax,’ replied Brenda. ‘I was testing Daddy to see if he could read minds. He can’t.’

  “Where’s your car?” asked Daddy.

  “My car?” said Brenda, suddenly brought down to earth and having to stall while her brain searched for something plausible to say. “It’s ... back there.” She waved a hand towards the general direction of the unmarked police car. An extravagant wave. There was something about lying that brought the arm waver out in Brenda – and the overpowering desire to behave like a ham actress from the silent film era.

  And babble.

  “It was such a lovely day I thought I’d take Stinky for a walk.”

  She patted Brian on the head and was about to launch into a long roundabout story explaining why that necessitated parking a long way back from the house, Stinky’s lifelong battle with incontinence, and the difficulty of taking him for walks in the town because of his antisocial behavior ... when she remembered that the worst lie was a long rambling one, and fell back on the ditzy laugh and the crazed beauty contestant smile. “It is a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  Daddy grunted and handed back her ID. Then he dug one of his giant hands into a pocket, came up with some change and handed it to her without a word, closing the door on her before she had time to say anything more.

  Not that she wanted to say anything more. She was more than pleased to exit the conversation and step away from the porch.

  ‘Now what?’ she asked. ‘Are we any wiser? He could still be a killer or a super-secret jailer.’

  ‘Walk towards the road. I’ll slip the lead before you get there and run off into the trees. Run after me. Put on an act in case anyone’s watching.’

  Put on an act? From deep within came a welling desire to extend her left arm to the heavens, place the back of her right hand against her forehead and swoon at the sudden departure of her beloved Stinky into the bear-infested woods. But she wisely suppressed the desire and ran after him instead, wondering how long it would be before his bat sense deserted him and he ran smack into a tree.

  He stopped after thirty yards or so and turned.

  ‘Hurry up! I can hear sirens in the distance. Grab hold!’

  Brenda ran harder. She couldn’t hear any sirens, but then she didn’t have bat ears.

  They teleported immediately. Brian morphing in her grasp, rippling and growing from dog to human.

  “Swing round to the other side of the house. That’s where the cellar is.”

  She followed his instructions, stopping the bubble midway along the sidewall.

  “Now angle my finger down about forty-five degrees and point it at the base of the wall.”

  “Done.”

  They shot inside. The light vanished. She strained to make out her surroundings. It wasn’t pitch black, but it was close.

  “Can you see the light under the door?”

  She couldn’t. Her eyes were slowly becoming accustomed to the gloom. She could make out steps. They followed the wall down, then turned at right angles along another wall. Perhaps the cell door was around a corner?

  She took the bubble into the center of the room, dropping slowly towards the floor. The thin line of light came into view. It had been hidden by the wall.

  “Now think of Daddy and hold the image of him in your head,” said Brian. “I’m going to morph into him, and I need to know what he’s wearing and how big he is.”

  He changed, growing and filling out.

  “Now set us down on the floor and find a light switch. Here.” He pulled on the front of his shirt and teased the fabric into a pair of gloves and handed them to her. “Don’t want to leave any fingerprints to confuse the police.”

  They dematerialized. The room smelt dank. It had a cold, airless, moldy feel. And it was quiet. No sound from upstairs, not even a footstep. And no sirens from outside either.

  Brenda searched along the wall for a light switch. Logically there’d be one by the stairs. She climbed the stone steps, treading softly, brushing her hand lightly along the wall until she found it.

  She paused, taking a closer look at the ceiling above. She couldn’t see any light seeping through so no light should seep out either. It should be safe. Unless the switch opened a trap door in the ceiling...

  ‘Switch it on,’ insisted Brian. ‘I don’t do flashlights and there’s a cupboard down here I need you to search.’

  She flicked the switch, wincing as she did so.

  Light filled the cellar room.

  ‘Quick. Find the cupboard and look inside.’

  She moved swiftly down the steps. The cupboard was a large grey metal cabinet – five foot tall and three foot wide with two doors. She eased the right hand door open, then the left.

  ‘It’s full of medical stuff.’

  ‘What kind of medical stuff?’

  All kinds of medical stuff. There were shelves full of syringes and needles and little boxes. She took one of the boxes out. It contained some kind of drug. Adenosine. There was a bottle inside. With a rubber top so you could fill up a syringe.

  She checked further. There were three different drugs – Adenosine, Lignocaine and Trimazepine – there had to be two dozen bottles of each. And there was surgical spirit and cotton wool. Everything you’d need to inject someone. Just as the older Sacrifice had said. Daddy killed her by injection. But why so many bottles? Why so many needles?

  ‘Maybe she’s not that easy to kill,’ said Brian. ‘Take one of each. We’ll find out what they do later.’

  She grabbed three and stuffed them inside her jeans, filling three pockets. And she kept looking towards the cell door. What kind of being was Sacrifice? Was she really being killed? Were the ghosts real but, somehow, she kept on coming back? Was that her superpower – the ability to return from the dead?

  And why keep her here? It didn’t look like a government facility. If the government were holding her, wouldn’t they have her in a state-of-the-art prison with extensive testing facilities and teams watching over her?

  Or was Sacrifice so powerful that something went wrong? They had to dispose of her, kill her in a way she’d never be able to return, but her minder – Daddy – wouldn’t comply. He brought her here instead. Having to inject her every year, every month, every week, however long it took to reduce her powers and keep her contained.

  ‘Maybe we should leave her here,’ she said.

  ‘And risk her being discovered when the police smash their way into the cabin.’

  She looked up at the ceiling. She still couldn’t hear anything, but that could be because the cellar was soundproofed. Anything could be happening up there. Any second the trap door might be found.

  ‘Anything else in the room?’ he asked.

  She looked around, scanning the walls, There was a key on a nail by the cell door.

  He held out his hand. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘What choice do I have? If I teleport through the door I might get fried like my eyeball. Someone’s got to open this door. It’s either me or the police.’

  She handed him the key.

  ‘Now point my left hand at the lock and stand well back.’

  Chapter Thirty

  The door was a rectangle of slightly less blurred static in a room full of barely recognizable shapes shot through with
random dots and flashes. Brian had kept as much of the inner workings of his bat sonar as he could without compromising his appearance. It gave him enough vision to notice movement and large shapes, but that was all. Hopefully that would be all he’d need. There was no time to take things slow.

  He turned the key in the lock and stood back, pushing the door open with the tips of his fingers. A quick glance towards the top of the doorframe. No alarm. No booby-trap. No bright flash of energy.

  A shape that had to be Sacrifice rose from the bed. Brian flexed his knees, moved his weight onto his toes, ready to spring to the side, or grab for the door the moment she did anything untoward.

  Could he read her thoughts? He felt there was something there. A presence, not the blankness he experienced with Daddy and Abbiati. Yes! There it was.

  I have to do this. It’s who I am. But it hurts!

  What did she mean? Her thoughts had no context. She was conflicted, but about what? Killing Brian? Zapping him as he stood in the doorway?

  “Is it time?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” he replied, trying to mimic Daddy’s voice as best as he could. As best he could in between emitting high frequency sounds from his mouth to refresh his rudimentary vision. She didn’t appear to hear them.

  He dwelt in the doorway. He’d teased information from countless people before, but never felt pressure like this. He wasn’t sure what she was, or what she could do. She could be an innocent. She could be like him. She could be brainwashed, damaged, twisted by years of incarceration.

  And even if she was harmless the cell might not be. The door could be booby-trapped. One step towards her could lead to his death.

  Why are you here? What do you want?

  More thoughts from Sacrifice, but was she referring to Daddy or Brian? Had she made him? Could she read his mind too?

  He had to press on. No time to be cautious. He tried his best to mimic Daddy’s speech patterns.

  “Something happen here one hour ago. You see anything unusual?”

  “I heard a bell ringing.”