by R. T. Lowe
Felix raised a shaking hand toward him, fingers bent, tying to signal he didn’t want to hurt them, trying to explain it was all a stupid mistake.
“Fine,” Kane snorted dismissively. “We’ll get your girlfriend to talk. Once I slide my Sticks up her tight little vagina, she’ll sing like a sparrow.”
Lilly laughed, her voice warbling.
“Stop it!” Felix hissed, barely audible, a sudden weight descending on his stomach, his limbs tingling and prickly. Don’t do it! he told himself. Don’t hurt them! Please don’t! The anger swelling up from his gut consumed his desire to resolve the misunderstanding, devouring his hope for a peaceful ending. The anger wanted just one thing: to silence their voices.
“Oh—you don’t like that,” Kane taunted, smiling lewdly. “I can’t wait to see the look on Allison’s face when I fuck her with one of these.” He smirked, nodding at his Sticks. “I’m gonna hold that whore’s head down to the floor and take her from behind. I’m gonna burn out her insides! I’m gonna jam it up to her throat and watch her—”
“Stop!” Felix howled. For a brief moment, everything went blank, like the power going out in a sudden storm, then the world snapped back into focus.
The pain shut off instantly. Felix knuckled his eyes, clearing them, peering dazedly through his fingers, afraid to see what he’d done. Kane and Lilly lay sprawled out on the ground like broken dolls, Kane on his stomach, arms at his side, hands empty. Lilly was on her back, reposed lithely, her toes pointing out to the sides, twitching like the hands of a malfunctioning clock. Both members of the Order of Belus were missing their heads.
Felix stood and wiped absently at something warm and gloppy in his hair, staring down in horror at Kane and Lilly, headless, a clotting spray of blood and skull fragments encircling their bodies, spattering across the width of the alley. How did this happen? He’d only wanted to silence them. He wanted them to stop. To stop threatening Allison. To stop that awful song. Blowing up their heads had never entered his mind. Not for a nanosecond had he consciously directed the Source to achieve this end. So what the hell happened? He hadn’t blacked out so it couldn’t have been a reprisal of unconsciously laying waste to his enemies like at the quarry. He must have just lost control, he decided, lashing out wildly like a snake in the throes of death, striking at anything within range of its venom. Then a thought occurred to him and he gasped, feeling the truth of it in the deepest part of him, as certain as the tarred blacktop beneath his feet. He hadn’t lost control of the Source. On the contrary, the Source had controlled him.
Tires squealing on pavement wrenched his attention toward speeding headlights approaching from his left, bouncing along the potholed alley, the mist eddying in the piercing lights. The vehicle lurched to a sudden stop and the door opened.
Felix’s hand rose on its own, fingers pointing at the car. He felt nothing. No fear. No anxiousness. If someone emerged that he had to deal with, then that’s what he would do.
“Felix!” a familiar voice called out and he watched Allison jump out of the vehicle. Without a word and feeling strangely hollow, he turned back to the gory scene as Allison ran toward him in her socks, stopping when she saw the bodies. She paused for a moment, staring, then she pointed down. “Who…?”
“Kane and Lilly,” Felix answered, his voice sounding as numb as he felt. He hadn’t wanted to kill them. He’d tried to explain the handshake meant nothing. He’d pleaded with them. He’d done everything he could to make them stop. This wasn’t his fault. Right? Then whose fault was it? The Source? Was he really going to absolve himself by pinning responsibility on the Source? That was insane, to be sure, and so disturbing he was almost afraid to think about the ramifications, but there was no denying what he’d felt. The Source had controlled him. It was true. It had to be true. If it wasn’t, how could he ever trust his feelings again? How could he be certain of anything?
Allison nodded and her eyes moved deliberately from Felix to the bodies and back again, as if she was attempting to recreate in her mind what had happened in the alley. “What were they doing to you? I felt it.” She brought her hands to her head and bulged her eyes as though the memory alone caused her discomfort. “You okay?”
Felix nodded once, slowly.
“What happened?” she asked.
He didn’t know what to say. Telling her Lilly’s melody had given him a headache seemed an inadequate justification for exploding their brains. He gazed down at the corpses and swallowed down the cold dread inching up his throat. No matter his intentions. No matter how hard he tried to avoid conflict, it always found him. Death always found him. “It’s like it’s following me,” he muttered in a heavy wooden voice.
Allison gave him a sharp look. “Get in the car! C’mon!”
Felix didn’t argue. If the police happened by they would have a difficult time providing a reasonable explanation as to what they were doing in the alley with two dead (and headless) people. Felix dragged himself into the passenger seat of his Wrangler and Allison turned out of the alley and onto a side street, heading west.
“Talk,” Allison said to him.
“They saw me with Lofton,” he explained, his voice hoarse, facing the open window Allison had shattered with the Protector’s face. Felix had only wanted to go for a walk. To feel the cold on his skin, to clear his mind. Now he felt like he was on fire and his mind had never been more cluttered. “I’m burning up, Allie.”
“Lofton?” she said, her voice breaking in surprise. “Where? Here?” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.
Felix nodded distractedly and leaned his face out into the cold, his hair blowing back in the wind.
Allison glanced at him worriedly and lowered her window, letting the cold January air rush over them. “Start from the beginning.”
Chapter 29
The News Room
Graham kept expecting Mr. Pittlock to fall out of his chair and die. The president of Channel 8 was the unhealthiest looking man he’d ever seen, but the veterans at the station claimed he’d been this way for decades and had no trouble putting in ninety hour weeks. Mr. Pittlock sat slumped across the table from Graham and Connie, staring out his office window at the fog-shrouded lights of the Burnside, Morrison and Hawthorne bridges spanning the Willamette River, trying to convey, Graham thought, a pensive authoritative air.
“Thanks for coming on short notice,” Mr. Pittlock began, using a paisley handkerchief to dab at the beading sweat on his brow. “Have you seen the charges?” he asked, getting straight to the purpose of their meeting.
There was no need to elaborate on what ‘charges’ he was referring to. Three hours ago, the Justice Department had issued indictments for every member of Congress.
“Of course,” Connie replied, her usually smooth, velvety tone steeped in fatigue. It was close to midnight and she’d anchored five hours of continuous coverage of The Rose Bowl Massacre. “They’re posted on the Criminal Division’s website. All felonies. Bid rigging, extortion, voter fraud, tax evasion, racketeering, misappropriation of public funds. It goes on and on. There were even a few drug trafficking and possession of child pornography charges. Ugly stuff. At least fifty, from what I saw, have been directly implicated in the Number Project.”
Mr. Pittlock nodded and blew his nose, keeping the handkerchief clutched in his liver spotted hand. “Five hundred and thirty-five indictments. In a single day. Every one of them represents thousands and thousands of man hours. Think of the years of investigative work involved. The FBI. The surveillance something like this would require. The data collection. The analysis of information. The forensic accountants. Think of the lawyers churning away on these documents. Do you realize what this is?” He turned to Connie and steepled his fingers, letting the handkerchief fall. “Not a single person mentioned the largest undercover investigation in the history of this country—or any country—to a colleague, a friend or a spouse. How is that possible? How do you indict the entire United States government without leaking it?
How do you keep a secret like that?”
“It’s not possible,” Graham said tiredly, his eyes roaming over the photographs crowding the shelves behind his desk. A few family shots, but mostly Mr. Pittlock smiling and shaking hands with dignitaries in a hodgepodge of industries: politics, the arts, sports, entertainment and business. This was the first time he’d stepped foot in Mr. Pittlock’s office, and it was exactly as he’d imagined it, a cliché intended to conform to some TV producer’s vision of what a senior executive’s work space should look like.
Mr. Pittlock scratched at the broken veins on his purple gin nose and nodded thoughtfully. “Monsters at the Rose Bowl,” he snorted derisively. “That’s not possible either, I suppose. Seems to be a trend.” A wispy strand of gray hair fell over a watery eye as he gave his head a gruff shake. “Half of our representatives in Washington have already been formally charged and brought before magistrates in the district courts, and most are remaining in protective custody on the advisement of the secret service. They’re safer in there than out here. Mobs are gathering across the country and they’re demanding justice.”
“I heard they’re doing pleas,” Graham added. “Across the board, the DOJ is offering up short sentences or no trials at all in exchange for their offices.”
“Correct,” Mr. Pittlock confirmed. “My sources are telling me they’ll take the deals before they even form the grand juries. It doesn’t matter if there’s any substance to these charges or not. There very well could be—it could all be true—but that’s beside the point. The American public just spent the day watching government created monsters eating a bunch of nice folks at a peaceful political rally. The people want these criminals ousted and they’re not going to trouble themselves with the legality of how it’s done. Our governor has already called a special election for the vacant House seats and she’s ready to appoint the new Senators just as soon as Mr. Martin and Mr. Hastings sign their plea deals. You can probably guess who the new appointees are.”
“A pair of upstanding citizens affiliated with the ERA,” Connie answered, smoothing out a wrinkle in her blouse.
“Bingo,” Mr. Pittlock said sadly, tapping the table with his index finger, the nail thin and peeling. “We can expect more of the same in every state of the union. The Senate will be filled within a month’s time and I expect the House to follow suit by March—April at the latest. Before summer, Washington will be controlled by a single party and the Republicans and Democrats, for all intents and purposes, will be a vestige of the past. He coughed into his fist and added, “You know what that’s called?”
Graham was about to say “coup,” but Mr. Pittlock raised a hand, cautioning him to stay silent.
“I’ve been in this business a long time,” Mr. Pittlock continued, his filmy eyes indicating the pictures to his back. “I thought I’d seen just about everything, but this”—lines creased his perspiring forehead—“I never expected. As we sit here, a man without political office is the most powerful person in America. Starting tomorrow, you two will explain to our viewers what is happening to our country. I’m slotting it for 6:30. Connie, I know it’s not in your contract. Just give me a number and I’ll see that it’s paid. Graham, Connie says great things about you, and I know you gave us the inside track on the video of the Numbered Ones and those unfortunate Cummings brothers, and I’m grateful for that. Effective immediately, you’re the producer of a new segment which I hope to have a name for before I go home to my wife. I’m retiring your tripod but give me a week to transition you out of mornings. You’ve been promoted. Your raise will be commensurate with your new title.” He tried to smile but it came off as a pained grimace. “Congratulations.” Then he looked at each of them in turn, his expression grave. “You will report the news and you’ll do it with integrity, as always. Words like ‘coup’, however, will not be used. There’s a new regime in power, and you don’t know how Lofton Ashfield will react if we don’t toe his party line.”
“Thank you,” Graham said. “I appreciate your confidence in me.” The promotion was huge. More money. Better hours. No more working weekends as the camera guy. Now he was a producer. A producer. He couldn’t wait to tell his wife. Recognizing this was essentially his first production meeting, he turned to Connie to continue the discussion. “That time we met Lofton, I think I fell in love. Not only did I believe everything he said, I wanted to join his cause—and I didn’t even know he had a cause. I wasn’t afraid of anything. It was like having a few drinks and your troubles just melt away and everything seems like it’s going to turn out okay. It was like he took my fear away. It was…weird.”
“I felt it too,” Connie said to him. “During the interview, there was this point where I remembered thinking he had to know more about the Ashfield Forest Mystery than he was letting on. And just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“I lost my train of thought. I completely forgot what I was going to ask him. I forgot where I was. And you know what? We’re not alone. You should spend a moment re-watching the Rose Bowl footage. Right after the Dirk Rathman introduction, did you notice the crowd?”
“They wanted his head mounted on the goalpost,” Mr. Pittlock said bluntly. “Then within minutes, they’re eating out of his hand. I’ve never seen anything like it and I covered Reagan’s first presidential campaign. Reagan had charisma. What Lofton has is…different.”
They sat in silence, nodding, no one willing to say what they were all thinking.
Mr. Pittlock brought his palms to his forehead and scrubbed them over his haggard face. “Let’s meet at noon. I want your thoughts on the President and her VEEP. I want to know why they weren’t indicted. Why the entire Congress and not them? Is Lofton waiting for something? Or”—he winced sharply and put a hand to his side—“are they already in his pocket?”
Chapter 30
Killing Prophecies
Felix didn’t notice Allison until she was sitting across from him at the big table in Woodrow’s Room, her jacket hanging over the chair beside her.
“Hey,” she said to him, looking over the books and notepads spread out around him. “Busy day?”
Felix was engrossed in retyping his notes from that morning’s Biology class. He grunted, glancing up from his screen, fingers flying manically over the keyboard.
“Biology?” Allison said, her eyes flitting to the open textbook beside the laptop.
“Had lab this morning after Econ,” he answered, speaking quickly. “I got in with the TA so I think I can get caught up by tomorrow. I still have a ton of reading to do in Western Civ, and I’m meeting with Malone’s TA tomorrow morning so I should be good in Psych after that.” He kept typing, focusing on the words appearing on the monitor, going back to correct the ones he’d misspelled, then plowing ahead.
“Felix?” Allison said impatiently, drumming her fingers on the table. “Felix? Hey! Can you stop for a sec?”
Felix closed his eyes for a moment and his fingers went still. “I need this Allie.” He blew out a long breath, staring down at the laptop. “I can’t be whatever it is I’m supposed to be without this. I’m in college. I’m a freshman. I just need that to…happen.”
Before Felix could re-immerse himself in cell metabolism and cell cycle regulation, Allison blurted out, “I get that. I honestly do. But do you realize what’s happening out there?”
Felix raised his eyes to look at her over the monitor then clicked it shut. “I saw President Kanter’s address.” At eight that morning, the President of the United States, sitting solemnly at her desk in the Oval Office, had confirmed the reports that all 535 members of Congress had been indicted and that the legislative branch of the federal government was in recess until the new appointees had assumed their seats and elections held. The President had also declared a state of emergency in all fifty states, dispatched the National Guard across the country to quell the uprisings, instituted a mandatory curfew, and suspended habeas corpus. Her address had lasted less than five minutes and concluded with the custo
mary ‘God bless America’.
“It’s getting worse,” Allison said. “Scary shit going on out there. There’s rioting everywhere. A mob burned down the state capitol in Kansas. Florida’s governor is missing. Government buildings all over are being occupied. There’s talk of martial law if the President can’t get things under control.”
“Martial law?” Felix snorted, thinking everyone was completely clueless. “Don’t you mean Lofton’s law? He’s replacing all of our leaders with his own people. The ERA will control everything and he controls the ERA.”
“Yeah, seems like he’s got it all figured out,” Allison said with stinging bitterness in her voice. “What did you expect him to do though? Go on TV and say ‘I am the Drestian, bow down before me and pledge your allegiance or I shall smite thee down.’”
Felix smiled. “Something like that. Isn’t that what they do in the movies?”
“Only the movies you watch.” Allison chewed on the corner of her fingernail, looking down at the table. “I just went to Professor Malone’s office.”
“Why? I thought we were gonna stay away from those people?”
“I trust him,” Allison explained, lifting her shoulders in a stiff shrug. “Maybe it’s because he told me about my parents, but I think it’s more than that. I just feel like he’s being truthful with us, and I think I need to trust my feelings from now on. It’s not just that bleeding thing with Caitlin”—she put a hand to her neck—“and you last night where I literally felt like my brains were coming out of my ears. Even before I knew I had abilities”—she made quotation marks with her fingers—“I think I was sensing things.”
“Like with the wolves?”
“Exactly—and that other thing too. Remember right before Tripoli died she told you ‘you’re not even the one’? When we asked Bill about it, he made up some total bullshit answer about the Protectors engaging in psychological warfare and trying to get in your head?”