Residue

by Steve Diamond

  I noticed Terry appeared a little older, and more worn. Dark circles rested under his eyes. Sure enough, the voice of someone I didn’t recognize started speaking.

  “The day is November 1st, 1981. Doctor Albert Gaines speaking and overseeing this trial.” Albert Gaines. Alex’s father. Where was this going? I took a small bite of my chicken.

  As Gaines narrated, his assistant pointed on his equipment to what was being talked about.

  “The purpose of this experiment is, first, to determine that a sensitive—whether minor, or major like Terry here—has a higher base-line brain wave pattern than a normal, unimportant person.” The contempt for non-sensitives was blatant in his voice, and from the assistant’s flinch, I had a hunch he wasn’t a sensitive.

  “The very top line on the far left of the machine shows the standard wave function of a normal human brain. I believe this specific reading was from my assistant here, Mr. Wells. Is that true, Daniel?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “I thought as much,” Gaines said. “Below Mr. Wells’ line you will notice the current baseline for Terry here.” The spikes in the wave went far higher. “As you can see, Terry’s base pattern has much higher peaks than that of my assistant’s. In layman’s terms, this is showing how much more active, and very likely, how much more of the brain as a whole—and more efficiently—our telekinetic uses than the normal, boring, and average person. The results are not much different amongst other non-sensitives.

  “The next thing I want to show is the difference between a sensitive’s baseline, and when a sensitive uses their abilities.” I leaned forward in my chair. “Very well. Terry, I want you to lift the pencil from the front of my assistant’s pocket. In three, two, one…go.”

  On cue, a yellow pencil smoothly drifted out of the assistant’s pocket. “As you can see from the active brain scan, the height of the peaks more than doubles when his ability is utilized. We recently tested this theory on several other subjects, and the results were nearly identical.

  “My hypothesis,” Gaines lectured, “is that sensitives unlock a section of the brain allowing these abilities—telekinesis, pyrokinesis, mind reading, shape shifting, etcetera, to manifest. What triggers the development is still not known for certain. My personal theory is the phenomenon stems from trauma. So my next logical thought is, naturally, what if a subject who already has developed abilities is put through even more trauma? Are further developmental breakthroughs possible? Food for thought.”

  Something about the way Gaines said “subjects” left me feeling dirty, like I had oil covering me. There was something sinister behind his words. The film cut away from the scene, and resumed from outside a large window into a room.

  In the room, the pyro-kid—though he wasn’t much of a kid anymore—sat in a chair. He resembled a person with one foot in the grave. He had a heavy bandage wrapped around the top of his head. Thin wires also seemed to be coming out from his skull. My stomach sank.

  “The date is December 25th 1981. Doctor Albert Gaines speaking and conducting the experiment.

  “A full month has passed since we introduced a piece of our other subject’s—Terry, the telekinetic—brain into the brain of Lawrence. The purpose of this experiment is to see if direct assimilation of tissue from another sensitive will cause manifestation of multiple powers.

  “Side note to the experiment,” Gaines said. “The subject, Terry, did not survive the inverse procedure. Another telekinetic will need to be found.”

  Holy crap. This was…disgusting. Monstrous. My food didn’t seem so appetizing anymore.

  “You’ll notice inside the room is a table. On that table are two blocks of wood. First, Lawrence will light one of them on fire to show he retains his pyrokinetic ability.”

  Off to the right, barely in the field of view, stood a sick-looking assistant. The same one from the last video, only enjoying his job far less than the previous time. He reached over and hit a key on the wall where an intercom system was mounted.

  “Please light one of the blocks on fire, Lawrence.”

  A slight delay ensued before the block on the right became surrounded by fire. The fire appeared much weaker than in the other film reel.

  “Next,” Gaines said, “we are going to see if he can lift the other one with telekinesis.” Wells, the assistant, keyed the intercom again and relayed the request.

  I waited for the cube to lift, much like I assumed Gaines did.

  But it never moved.

  The assistant shifted nervously. Something was coming that he wasn’t looking forward to. Inside the room, Lawrence’s eyes were wide. Sweat poured off his face. His eyes pleaded.

  Gaines’ voice broke into the silence, hard and flat. “It is worth noting the reason Lawrence is behind a window made of the same materials as an airliner window is because since his…procedure…his range has become significantly limited. So he cannot get upset and set us all on fire. It also means that when we run thirty-thousand volts of electricity through our subject, we stand less chance of an accident happening to ourselves.

  “The viewer will recall my earlier hypothesis additional trauma will induce an additional development of psychic abilities. Combined with a piece of another sensitive’s brain grafted to his own, I feel strongly this will yield the results we want.” His voice shifted, prideful at his train of thought. It made me want to shower and scrub myself clean. “Wells, let’s give Lawrence here a jolt of encouragement.”

  The guilt and grief shone plain on Wells’ face as he reached to his left, off camera, and apparently flipped a switch or pressed a button of some sort. A slow building whine of energy built up, then Lawrence’s body rocked as electricity pumped into him through his brain.

  My natural reaction was to cover my mouth with both my hands. Whether to hold in a scream or hold in the nausea building up in me, well I suppose it had the same result. But I couldn’t. I still held the stupid plate full of stupid chicken. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen. Alex wasn’t a big fan of her father, but if she saw this she might actually murder him.

  The whine of electricity cut off, and Lawrence’s body slumped down in the chair he was strapped to.

  “Mr. Wells,” Gaines said. “Please inform our subject we will continue this process for the next three hours unless he can develop telekinesis.”

  With the command relayed through the intercom, Lawrence wept. It was hard to believe this was the same boy that had been commanding the fire like its master.

  “If we cannot make our plans work through breeding, then we will engineer them through experimentation,” Gaines said. “I will have my results.”

  The film ended abruptly following his pronouncement.

  I ran to the bathroom and heaved what little I’d eaten throughout film. And then I heaved some more. The rest of the chicken went into the garbage.

  Should I call Alex and have her watch this? She would read my mind regardless, so the first time my thoughts went this direction she’d know what was up. But I couldn’t talk about it right now. I needed time for the filth of what I’d watched to dull. Or maybe for me to grow desensitized. Somehow I doubted I’d have that kind of time.

  A medicine cabinet in the kitchen contained a bottle of sleep-aides my dad had been prescribed for dealing with migraines. It didn’t matter what time it was, I wanted to be knocked out right now. I popped one in my mouth, washing it down with a swallow of water.

  Remote in hand, I sat on the couch flipping through the channels until I found a movie. Armageddon. That would do. I’d seen it a hundred times and it was already half over, passed the crappy love story part and into the space action.

  I passed out before the movie ended.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The medication lasted maybe two hours. I ended up wide awake and I spent the rest of the night trying to forget the second video. It didn’t work. To keep from freaking out, I read the journals and practiced walling off my mind. I could do it quicker now, but
I still wasn’t convinced I had it right. The only person I could really test my technique on was Alex, and she kinda freaked out the first time I showed her what I learned.

  Every so often, I tried going to sleep. The dreams seemed like a great escape, but I could never stay asleep long enough for the dreams to come. How was I supposed to learn anything if I couldn’t be in my grandfather’s memory?

  Not getting anywhere frustrated me.

  My phone rang. Lying on my bed, I heard it buzzing on my desk. I couldn’t see the caller ID on its display, nor did I want to. Every time someone called bad things happened. I’d either end up at an old crime scene, robbing a building, or forced into explaining more than I wanted in a conversation with Barry. Call me crazy, but none of those options sounded appealing.

  The phone rang through to my voice-mail.

  Thank goodness.

  It immediately rang again.

  Nope. Not going to do it, I thought. Let someone else get bugged this time.

  Voice-mail again.

  For a third time, the phone buzzed.

  “Come on!” I yelled as I pulled myself off the bed. I grabbed the phone and saw Alex’s picture. I sighed, then hit the button to answer the call.

  “What?”

  “Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she asked. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she sounded a tad worried. Of course, she hid the emotion with anger.

  “Please tell me you are calling with some boring normal news. You have some school work to deliver to me. Or you accidentally got some extra french fries and thought I’d be the perfect person to share them with.”

  “I don’t share food,” she said. Of course not. “I do have some school work I was told to deliver to you. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

  Please don’t let it be a murder. Please don’t let it be a murder. “Oh?”

  “There was another murder last night. I need you.”

  Two sentences I wish had been separated, and the first never uttered. “I don’t know if I should go, Alex. Look what happened last time.”

  I heard a knock on the door downstairs.

  “Seriously?” I asked. “Maybe I just won’t answer the door.”

  Downstairs, the door opened. “Well hello there, Alex,” my Aunt said. Apparently she’d gotten home while I was trying to get some rest. Then, “Jack! Alex is here for you.”

  I hung up, pulled on a pair of shoes, and walked downstairs. Sure enough, Alex had a stack of papers that looked like various Math and English assignments. She handed them to me and put her phone back in her jacket. It was the same one she’d been wearing the day we’d been investigating Abby’s home. I imagined her pistol hidden underneath. As I took the stack of papers I noticed the top one was already filled in. I flipped to random pages and saw they were filled in too. I peered a little closer.

  “Why does it appear all my assignments are done…and in my own handwriting?”

  She had the decency to look a little embarrassed. “I figured you wouldn’t want to deal with the actual homework. Last time I came by you were neck deep in reading those journals…so I thought maybe I’d take care of all this for you.”

  This was unexpectedly awesome. I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise. That still didn’t explain how the answers were in my handwriting.

  “Don’t ask,” she said, reading my mind. “Plausible deniability.”

  OK…I blew out a breath. “Thanks. This must have taken you a while.”

  Alex shrugged uncomfortably. It was like she wasn’t used to receiving compliments or something. “Last night I broke into the school and into a bunch of the other kids’ lockers looking for the answers. It took a little longer than I thought.”

  “Really?” A laugh burst out of me before I could control myself. “Aren’t they going to notice all their lockers are open?”

  She appeared confused. “I had their combinations.” She tapped the side of her head. “Give me a little credit. I’ve been cataloging them all over the course of the school year. You know, just in case. Though, I may have left a little surprise in Jessica Stewart’s locker.”

  Jessica Stewart. “The girl that works at the diner we went to a while back? Seriously?” She was a popular, notorious gossip. Good looking too. Most of the guys went to the diner she worked at just to be served by her.

  Alex smirked. There had been some rumors floating around about someone playing a string of pranks on her…

  No way.

  The next thing I knew I was laughing and Alex along with me. The laughter felt good. Real good. I felt so comfortable with Alex. My insecurities were all still there, but they didn’t seem so brutal and obvious around her.

  “So what did you leave for her this time?”

  She shook her head again. “Remember, plausible deniability…but I once overheard a stray thought and she has a terrible fear of mice. She tends to think terrible things about me and every other girl at school, so I gave her a little something to think about besides spreading rumors. Takes her down a peg.”

  I got another chuckle out of that.

  “All right,” I said. “There was another murder then?” I figured I owed her for the homework and even more for the laugh. “Where are we headed?”

  “All I have is an address.” She pulled a sticky note from her back pocket. “I just heard about it and gave you a call.”

  “Where’s the address?”

  She glanced down at the sticky. “I was going to look it up on the way, but my phone was being stupid. Uh…53 Juniper Street.”

  All my good humor vanished when she read the address. I was out the door and running towards Alex’s car before I even realized I’d moved. Alex ran after me, having read my mind.

  53 Juniper Street. Barry’s house.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Over the last few days Jack had been through a lot. Alex recognized the fact, but it wasn’t until this minute she had truly been worried about him. It was hard to believe this was Friday night, and everything had started last Sunday.

  She’d read Jack’s mind enough to know he was having trouble dealing with everything. Jack had experienced more horrible things lately than most people did in a lifetime. He was on the edge of depression, starting to become paranoid, and beginning to lose hope in ever finding his dad.

  Yet he kept pushing forward. It was admirable. Likable. Maybe even…attractive. Alex knew plenty of people that couldn’t even touch the level of determination Jack had recently displayed.

  But this one might break him.

  Don’t let him be dead. Don’t let him be dead. Don’t let him be dead.

  Over and over. It was essentially the only thought in Jack’s head. In her experience, it was rare for a person to be so consumed with one thought that all others were gone. Sure it happened when she would listen-in on the thoughts of a person with mental disabilities. They would get fixated and obsessive with a singular thought. Even serial killers sometimes. But normal people? Rarely.

  The Peters residence—Barry’s home—stood a few miles away from Jack’s place. It only took a few minutes to get there, but those minutes seemed to drag out into an eternity. Maybe it was residual anxiety spilling over from Jack. Alex always worried about becoming too close to any person for that reason. Would she start thinking, and therefore feeling, like that person if she spent too much time with them? Would she start losing a bit of herself?

  The truth was Alex felt terrible. She’d gone over to Jack’s home knowing she would have to manipulate him a bit to get him out of the house. The homework had been the metaphorical carrot. Divulging the details of the prank hadn’t been part of the plan, but it was a nice bonus. To see him laughing again made her feel good. Then a bit uncomfortable. Was she getting too close?

  Alex recognized her life had turned into a jumble of questions she didn’t have answers to.

  Like a normal person’s.

  She hated it.

  It made her want to shoot something.


  But the moment when she’d read that address to Jack…well, things had gone poorly. He hadn’t screamed out-loud, but there had been plenty of screaming in his head. And the expression on his face…

  She cast a quick glance at his hands. They were clenched together, knuckles pure white. His right leg bounced up-and-down anxiously. But his eyes stared ahead without focus.

  She wanted to reach over and grab his hand. What that would accomplish was anyone’s guess; it seemed like the thing to do.

  But she couldn’t make herself do it. Her hands were firmly at ten-and-two on the steering wheel of her Civic.

  She turned right onto Juniper, and there, a few houses ahead and to the right sat the Peters’ residence. Police tape marked it off, just like the last house they’d searched. She pulled up to the curb rather than into the driveway. It would look less suspicious to the casual looker, and if they needed to run or something they’d be able to get going quicker.

  “Do you know who all was…killed?” Those were the first words he’d spoken since getting in her car.

  Alex shook her head. “I just heard there was a murder. The thing that caught my attention was the cause of death, or rather, the Medical Examiner’s inability to figure out the exact cause of death. The police were gone by this afternoon.”

  He stared at the house, face gray. He drew in a shaky breath. “OK. Let’s go in there.”

  “You want to wait a minute?” Alex asked. “It’s fine if you want to.”

  Because it’s not like they are going anywhere, Jack thought. The morbidity of the thought shocked Alex. “No,” he shook his head slightly. “What if we wait and some of the residue vanishes? We can’t really afford that, can we?”