Tales of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy

by David Gatewood (ed)

  “Not through phones.”

  “They can listen. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “You don’t know what I’m capable of either.” Kiran’s jaw juts out. There it is—the same wild stallion fire in her eyes as her father.

  I truly hope her bravado isn’t tested. The pitch of her scream when she’s dragged into the boxwoods in the maze of my dreams… it torments me.

  It would kill me to hear it in real life.

  * * *

  In the morning I tell Kiran goodbye and set out in my car. With any luck, I can buy a new belt, pick up more coffee, and give the mandated blood in under an hour. I prefer to tackle errands while Kiran is at school so I’m not subjecting her to the scrutiny of the public. The more vocal she becomes about her mistrust of the government, the better it is for her—for us—to keep a low profile. I have a sneaky suspicion that we’re already on some sort of watch list because of Rick, anyway.

  I head inside the first shop, a brick building that sells women’s clothing, hoping I might find a belt that will fit. I’ve lost twenty pounds since Rick… well, since I last saw him. To think, I spent years hating those twenty pounds, unable to shake them—and now, I’d put them back on in a heartbeat if it’d bring Rick back.

  An immaculately dressed woman greets me almost immediately. “Anything particular you’re looking for today?”

  “Just need a belt. I’ll find it.”

  Like a game show hostess, she waves her hand toward the accessory section at the rear of the store. I hustle over to where the belts hang like shiny serpents and finger one that appears as though it’ll wrap around my waist nicely.

  “Oh, you’re much too small for that. We have you at a size four now.” The saleswoman has snuck up behind me. She reaches her hand up above my shoulder and selects a sleek black belt. “Try this one.”

  My friend Marlene told me that stores can track your conversations if you leave your phone on—or maybe even if you don’t. There have long been cameras in the dressing rooms—strictly to prevent shoplifting, they assure us—and no doubt there are others around the store. Marlene said they can even capture your facial expressions as you eye particular merchandise, factoring every smile and frown into their sales tactics.

  I dig into my coat pocket, fetch my phone, and power it off.

  The sales clerk watches as I take the black belt from her and cinch it around my waist on the loosest notch. Not surprisingly, it sits low on my hips.

  “Not quite a fit,” I say.

  The sales clerk shakes her head.

  I take off the belt and hand it back to the clerk. “When you said ‘we’ have you at a size four, who were you referring to?” I’m a fool to ask, but sometimes curiosity trumps wisdom.

  A smile slips from her meticulously pencil-lined lips. “Did I say we? I meant to say you look like a size four. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

  Without warning, the woman wraps the belt once again around my waist and snaps it with an abrupt tug. It’s not that her gesture incites physical pain, but the surprise of it causes me to gasp. She notches it while still standing behind me. I feel like a toddler being dressed for school. Then she points to the mirror. “See, a perfect fit.”

  She’s right. The belt fits perfectly.

  It’s everything else that feels askew.

  * * *

  I don’t stick around to browse. After purchasing the belt, I head toward the nearest Ground Town to pick up a few pounds of Sumatra. While waiting at a red light, I turn to look at the car next to me, then immediately regret it. What if they look over at the exact same time? As I feared, a woman with thick owl sunglasses nods in my general direction.

  The light is taking forever to change. Above the silver bar holding the traffic lights, sunlight glints across the traffic camera, and I imagine its gaze moving from the car with the owl woman over to mine. These cameras are at every intersection now, one pointing in each direction. The cops use them to catch people who run red lights. I can’t help but think what a huge investment it must have been to install them all, to maintain and monitor them. And how many people run red lights, anyway?

  And of course, now there are cameras everywhere. No one even bothers to provide a reason anymore. Public safety, I guess. The greater good.

  This stoplight has never taken this long before. I look over at the owl woman and shrug, wondering if she’s noticed the delay. She smiles knowingly, unfazed, as though this is something she experiences at every light.

  Siri, who now comes built in to every car model, suddenly speaks up. “Which Ground Town were you looking for?”

  Wait, what?

  I punch the button to deactivate Siri, but the tiny screen on my dashboard stays lit. I never told anyone I was going to Ground Town. How could Siri presume to know where I’m going? And how could she be right? Ground Town is two miles from here and there are dozens of stores in between.

  While the light lingers on red, my underarms pool with perspiration. Does Kiran experience this level of invasiveness at school?

  Rumor has it that there are Zones not far from our own where there are fewer cameras and they don’t mandate blood donations. Supposedly, their leaders haven’t taken it to the extremes ours have. For a moment I wish that Kiran could grow up in such a place. Not that it matters; no one ever leaves the Zone. With cameras everywhere, no one has a chance.

  I look up again at the traffic camera. It reminds me of the Eye of Sauron. It’s likely capturing my every wrinkle. Can it read lips? A hundred swears ricochet in my mind.

  When I finally make it to Ground Town, I pay for the coffee without talking to anyone, then with my head ducked down and my free hand jammed in my coat pocket, I ensure my phone is off.

  This is all too much.

  By the time I arrive at the blood donating center over an hour has passed. The line is short. Small blessings.

  Once inside, I eavesdrop on the conversation between the elderly couple in front of me. They’re holding hands. The woman has papier-mâché cheeks and stops her drippy nose by wiping it against her shoulder. She refuses to let go of her husband’s hand. “I don’t even understand why we have to do this anyway,” the woman says. “Surely our blood’s gone bad by now.”

  The old man laughs, but it’s a comfort laugh. It doesn’t escape me that he clasps her hand more tightly in his, pumping it beneath his palm.

  They take a while. I don’t make contact with anyone—don’t initiate conversation. Instead, I clean through my purse and stave off tears when I come across an ancient picture of me and Rick from our wedding tucked inside my wallet. We looked so happy. So naïve.

  “Rowan Aduro.” A young man summons me into the blood-giving room. “How many times have you been generous this month?” This is code for how often have I given blood. The government recommends that all households have at least two members give blood once a week. I’ve never required Kiran to donate though, so I’m here sometimes twice, sometimes three times a week. They monitor this. They tabulate. They send emails.

  “Six,” I say.

  “A good citizen.”

  I’ve long since suspected I’m doing more than giving blood—that I’m being injected with some foreign substance. It is elusive nuances that tell me this. The near invisible squirt of clear fluid that leaves the vial before my blood collects inside it. The breathlessness I feel for up to an hour after I donate. Are they weakening us—those on their list of potential dissenters? I suspect they are. But I haven’t the courage or the resourcefulness to prove it.

  Or to accurately establish who is one of “us.” And who isn’t.

  “This vein works best,” I say, tapping on the bulging blue line tunneling beneath my skin.

  “We’ll see.” His smile is unconvincing.

  Great, I got a sadist. And here I thought this would be an easy in, easy out.

  “Any other members of your household?”

  Why is he asking this? They never have before. “Yes, ju
st one.”

  “Your daughter?”

  If he knew, why did he ask? It’s all part of the game. “Yes.”

  “How many times this month has she been generous?”

  I gulp. My fingers tremble on the propped armrest of the chair. “I don’t remember.”

  He grins at me as though I’m a child confessing to a minor misbehavior. As though I’m sitting here with cookie crumbs on my lap instead of the weight of the world. “Yes you do.”

  “Maybe none,” I say.

  He positions the needle above my arm, massages my skin with his gloved thumb. Teasing the vein to bulge even more. “Maybe?” The young worker stabs the needle into my skin. I flinch and bite back tears. No blood collects in the vial in his hands. His thumb pushes down ever so slightly. “Try again.”

  I come clean. “None.”

  “That’s more like it.” He gently guides the needle into my vein, and I watch as my blood spurts angrily into the vial. “Honesty really is the best policy.”

  When I exit the blood donation building, my breathing is labored and strange. I work to revitalize feeling in my arm, shaking it abruptly. There’s nothing gentle about my actions. My heart is a jackhammer behind my rib cage, though I’m winded. I’m livid.

  And I’m helpless.

  Fear has a terrible way of pinning down the wings of any resilient creature.

  * * *

  We’re only a week away from Thanksgiving. It’s been exactly two years to the day since Rick was disappeared. After Kiran leaves for school, I drive to the nearby park where Rick and I used to picnic. The temperature has dropped to a cheek-blistering chill. I don’t plan on staying long, but something in me needs to look out over the pond where Rick and I spent many Saturdays, even if it is all coated over by ice.

  Some people visit graves. I come here.

  My head still throbs from fighting with Kiran this morning. She’s adamant about attending another protest later this week. She hasn’t yet let it register that she’s not immortal, not immune to the unpredictable punishments doled out by our leaders.

  I tug on my gloves and wind a thick scarf around my neck, then exit the car and begin trekking toward a bench. The wind slaps my face with every step.

  The pond is mostly frozen over, with blocks of ice splayed out like puzzle pieces. I sit on a bench and hug my body, rocking back and forth, reminiscing about memories of before—when chaos and loss hadn’t overtaken our lives.

  “Quite frigid to be out in this.” I hear a voice approaching from behind me. I gradually turn my head to look.

  It’s the woman in the red pea coat.

  The woman from my nightmare.

  A shiver dives down my spine, pulling my shoulder blades together. I press my gloved fingers over the vein in my arm where I gave blood, nudging until it’s sore, trying to station myself here, to remind myself that I’m still present in reality and not lost in a dream.

  The woman moves to sit beside me. But not too close. There’s an untrusting shine in her eyes. It’s familiar and oddly comforting. “My name is Patrice,” she says.

  “I’m Rowan.” We don’t shake hands, as though an understanding passes between us that it’s too cold for formalities like that.

  “I know who you are.”

  A knot cinches my throat, making it momentarily impossible to speak. “You… do?”

  “Rowan Aduro. Sixteen-year-old daughter named Kiran. That girl is wise beyond her years.”

  I take a deep breath. How is this woman here? How have my nightmares and my real life collided? “She’s a good kid,” I say. “Spirited though.”

  “Like her father.” Patrice smiles. It’s a subtle gesture, but I catch it. It’s a cross between knowing and inquisitive.

  “He’s been gone two years.” I don’t know why I say this. Maybe it’s the way she’s sitting, all relaxed with her shoulders hunched. Or maybe it’s because I miss Rick most when I’m here, and saying it aloud validates the pain I feel. The pain I so seldom acknowledge. I’ve kept it harbored inside me like a sunken rusty barge.

  Patrice looks out over the broken ice. When she speaks again, it’s in a whisper. “I’m a dissident.”

  Somehow, I knew she would say this. I allow a few moments to go by, watch a gaggle of geese land on the pond then just as quickly take flight again. It’s as though I can hear them silently squawking: It’s freezing out here, even for us.

  “I could have guessed,” I say.

  Patrice chuckles, causing her breath to fog in visible puffs. “Is it the red coat? Or the crimson lipstick? Do they both scream rebel?”

  I tug my scarf tighter around my neck and chin. “The eyes, actually.”

  “Ah, the eyes have it.” She pauses, then turns to face me. “Your daughter supports the cause.”

  My stomach clenches. “Kiran is young. She still has a lot to learn.”

  “I respect her ambition.” For a moment, Patrice looks untouched by the sharp bite in the air.

  “I worry about her.”

  “As you should. As do I. Actually, that’s why I’m here. I’ve come to bid you sort of a warning.”

  “A warning?” Two sandbags drop at the base of my eyes, punctuating my headache.

  Patrice reaches for her leather satchel. She pulls out a glossy piece of paper. Before she flips it over, she says, “Your family is on the government watch list. Kiran in particular. We have contacts on the inside… I fear that Kiran may have been flagged for special attention.”

  My world is spinning.

  “We can’t stop them, Rowan. Not without exposing ourselves. But we know who to watch for. It’s all we can do.”

  Patrice turns over the paper. From the corner of my eye I see that it’s a photograph, but I refuse to look at it—I’m not ready for this.

  “Rowan, this is the man who is responsible for ‘managing’ dissidents here.” The manner in which she says ‘managing’ makes my chest hurt. “If you ever see this man, you need to run. Kiran needs to run. If he asks you to accompany him somewhere—anywhere—do not go. He’s well-acquainted with how to make someone disappear.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I’m aware that I’m stalling, that I’m teetering on the edge of discovering something that will change everything. It’s irrevocable. Knowledge is power. But with it comes an expected responsibility. And I’m feeling weak. I’ve always allowed myself to be vulnerable here, at this park where Rick proposed to me.

  “We want you to be protected. And prepared.”

  She waits.

  I clench my eyes shut. I’m sitting here talking to the woman in the red pea coat. The woman from my nightmare, here before me, in real life. She’s holding a photo of a man who wants to disappear my daughter.

  I already know what I’m going to see. Menacing eyes. Weak grin. Snarl-toothed and clad in a corduroy jacket. I don’t need to look.

  But I do.

  An 8x10 photograph rests in Patrice’s lap. It’s the madman from my nightmare.

  I close my eyes again, inhale a lung-burning breath, and promise to run from him.

  * * *

  For another week, my nightmare pervades my sleep. At night, when the moon is a watchful eye out my window, my dreams stake their claim. Warning me.

  “Dinner!” I call upstairs, aware that Kiran likely has earbuds in her ears and can’t hear me. Surely she’s gotten a whiff of the stir fry. After five more minutes pass and she still hasn’t slumped downstairs, I march up to get her.

  I knock lightly, then enter her room. Her clothes are strewn about as if her bedroom is an Abercrombie dressing room. Her bedside lamp is lit, but she isn’t on her bed. She’s also not curled up in a fetal position on her papasan reading something by Ayn Rand.

  Maybe she’s in the bathroom, I reason with myself. I crack the already half-opened door. Not there.

  It’s Sunday night. Kiran is known for leaving most of her homework to the last minute. Since elementary school I’ve had to help out with projects at t
he eleventh hour. I head downstairs, combing the house, calling for her.

  As I walk by the computer, I think I see the camera light flicker. This sends me racing upstairs. Why am I so on edge?

  I barge into Kiran’s room again. Am I suddenly expecting to find her in here, as though she’ll just roll out from under her bed covered in a blanket of dust bunnies?

  A glossy blue flyer on her bed grabs my attention. I pick it up and read the swirly font.

  Annual Tree Lighting at Enders Park

  Sunday, November 18th, 7:30 PM

  Children’s Choir

  Renowned Orchestra

  & A Speech from Our Beloved Mayor, Dr. Legnem

  Show Your Support!

  Bring Monetary Donations

  I seal my eyes shut. No! They changed the date. It had been scheduled for next weekend, and I had planned to lock Kiran in the bathroom until it was over, if I had to.

  I clench and unclench my fists. She’s there. I know it. The protest. Kiran kept prattling on about it. I knew it would be at a public setting, but she wouldn’t tell me where or when. She said she wouldn’t attend, though. After my meeting with Patrice in the park, I had made Kiran promise to play it cool for a while.

  It seems foolish now, that I believed she’d respect my wishes. I knew how passionate she was about rallying against the government. Now I can’t help but wonder: How far is she planning to go? Throwing meat? Pulling a gun? It’s a scary moment when you aren’t quite sure what your own child is capable of.

  I grab my key fob and jump in the car.

  On my way to Enders Park, I punch in Kiran’s cell number a dozen times. With my eyes fixed on the road, I also replay the details of the madman’s face in my mind. I mentally trace his wrinkles, the expression he held in Patrice’s picture, his slightly elevated left eyebrow. It’s as though I’m trying to convince myself that if I’m able to pick him out of a lineup, he won’t be capable of doing as much harm. The mental games I play—the games we’ve all been forced to play since the cameras and the disappearings.