The Sound

by James Sperl

  “Take your time, kiddo. Make sure you're drinking water and have Terrance hook you up with some Bloody Mary mixer.”

  “Will do,” Clarissa said. She pushed through the kitchen doors.

  Bloody Mary mix. Oddly, the thought of it didn’t churn Clarissa’s stomach, which had been rumbling for sustenance since she woke up. Still, she couldn’t even begin to think about putting anything in her mouth.

  Stepping into the kitchen, she sighted Terrance, Aunt Mae’s cook extraordinaire, standing alongside Maxwell, the restaurant’s owner. Both stood in front of a small TV, arms crossed pensively over their chests. A local newscast had just come back from commercial.

  “Terrance, do we have any Bloody Mary mix?” Clarissa said, her voice turning both men.

  “Bloody Mary mix?” Terrance said. He nudged his stubbly chin toward a walk-in cooler. “Should be on the shelf in the fridge. Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. Just having one of those mornings.”

  “It wouldn’t be one of those mornings that was preceded by one of those nights, now, would it?” Maxwell said, his devilish smile a half circle inside a beard of peppery white.

  Clarissa gave him a chin-down-eyes-up glare as she turned toward the cooler. It was all Maxwell needed to see. He chuckled and elbow-tapped Terrance in his soft belly.

  “You know, Terrance,” he said firmly, his eyes planted on Clarissa, “I think I’ll have an egg and cheese sandwich this morning on butter-toasted bread. With plenty of bacon and greasy sausage.”

  Clarissa wrenched open the walk-in while delivering lasers of hostility at her boss. She rummaged inside the cooler and withdrew a glass bottle filled with sloshy red contents.

  “You want that with extra anchovies and a heap of mayonnaise?” Terrance said, getting in on the fun.

  Clarissa slammed the door and pinched her eyes shut. “All right, you guys! Yuck, okay?” Terrance and Maxwell chuckled then returned to the TV. Finding a glass, Clarissa upended the bottle into it up to the rim. She sipped, the explosion of flavor and nutrients euphoric. Suddenly, celery sounded wonderful.

  “Hey, Ter, you got any celery prepped?”

  She searched the prep station but didn’t locate any from among the vegetables he’d already washed and cut.

  “Ter?” she said again. “Celery?”

  But Terrance only continued to watch the TV.

  “Terry?

  Clarissa glanced at him. His posture had changed while watching the news. Instead of a disinterested arm cross, he now worried the whiskers on his chin with one hand while the other rested on a prominent hip. Maxwell had also become more engaged, as was evident in his hands, which he shoved to the bottom of his pockets. To the average person, the stance might appear casual, but Clarissa had known Maxwell long enough to recognize his go-to pose for concern.

  She walked toward the TV.

  “What is it, guys? Was there a shooting?”

  Maxwell looked at her, but it was Terrance who responded.

  “No, no shootings. Not today. Just some strange business is all.”

  Clarissa frowned. “What do you mean? What strange business?” She angled to see the TV.

  “There’s been a spike in missing person cases,” Maxwell said. “Over the past twenty-four hours. Been story number one on every channel.”

  “Missing person cases?” Clarissa cocked her head. “Where? Here?”

  Maxwell didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Apparently everywhere.”

  Clarissa wedged herself between the two men to home in on the news. “What do you mean ‘everywhere’?”

  “It’s like the man said,” volunteered Terrance. “People going missing from all over.”

  Clarissa watched the broadcast. It was the local CBS affiliate out of Roseburg, KPIC.

  “From all over where?” she said after a pair of seconds.

  “Pick a place. Rome, Manila, Auckland, Zurich.”

  Clarissa shot her eyes to Terrance. “You mean the world?”

  “Looks that way,” Maxwell said, intercepting. “Initial reports indicate that there’s been an unusual surge in missing folks. And all since yesterday. The media seems to be pretty preoccupied with it.”

  Clarissa returned to the TV and the newscast. At the moment, a square-jawed morning anchor with rubber-looking hair pointed to a colorful map-of-the-world graphic. Likenesses of red thumbtacks hovered over many countries.

  “What do those thumbtacks mean?”

  Terrance rubbed his face, the gesture producing a sandpaper scrape. “Those there represent cities that’ve reported spikes.”

  Clarissa’s eyes swelled. “All of them?” She estimated no less than thirty pins scattered over the image.

  “And those are just the major cities,” Maxwell added. “They’ve been reporting that mid-size to small towns have seen similar spikes.”

  Clarissa pulled herself away from the TV to look at Maxwell.

  “How small?”

  Maxwell’s eyes skipped to Terrance before landing back on her, the look innocuous but still able to bump up her heart rate.

  “As small as Pastora.”

  Clarissa frowned. “What are you saying? That Pastora’s seen an increase in missing person cases since yesterday too?” She flashed back to the night before and Stephanie’s story about Linda Fortner. “How many have there been?”

  Maxwell watched the television for a moment before turning. “I bumped into Joe Arlbach on the way in this morning. Said his house has been going bonkers since yesterday. Said that, as of this morning, they’ve got no less than five reported missing persons.”

  Clarissa knew Joe well. As Pastora’s Chief of Police, he made it a point to occasionally drop by many of the city’s businesses to check in. Clarissa had waited on him more times than she could remember, having served him breakfast, lunch, and dinner in equal share, sometimes all on the same day. He was a good man and a fair cop, and there were precious few people who disagreed with that. At election time, the running joke was that for him to lose votes, Joe would have to go up against a Victoria’s Secret model or die. His word carried weight, and he instilled trust in the townspeople of Pastora. Clarissa counted herself among them.

  “I’m not sure I understand what that means,” she said regarding the number of missing people. “Is five a lot?”

  Terrance chuckled, but it was without humor.

  “A lot?” Maxwell said. “That’s an enormous amount for this town, particularly given the time frame. I’d venture to say it would be for most cities our size.”

  “Do you know any of the people who’re missing?”

  Maxwell turned toward her, lowered his head. “I’m afraid I do.”

  “Oh, Maxwell,” Clarissa said, absently placing her hand on his arm.

  “Serious?” Terrance said, looking away from the news to meet Maxwell’s somber expression. “Sorry to hear that, boss.”

  “Not half as sorry as her family is, I suspect. Honestly, I didn’t know the girl, only saw her from time to time at the CVS. Kate, I think her name was.”

  Clarissa felt a lump in her throat. “Kate? High school girl? Blond hair, black tips?”

  “That’s her.”

  “I’ve seen her,” Clarissa said. “She sold me some Band-Aids just last week. She’s missing?”

  The news came as a shock, even though Clarissa only knew Kate in passing. She doubted the beautiful young girl would recognize her if they bumped into one another on the street. Still, it unsettled her. She was the second person Clarissa had learned vanished inside of a day. And apparently, there were three others.

  She fixed her eyes on the TV and the news anchor, who returned to his desk to trade concerned banter with his co-anchor, a bottle blond, who wore a red dress and even redder lipstick.

  “So, what’s everyone saying about it?” Clarissa said. “The news. The cops.”

  Terrance rubbed his stomach and stole a glance at the kitchen clock.

  “So
far, no one’s saying much of anything. It’s just freaking some people out and giving the media something to sensationalize.”

  “I bet.” She watched as the male anchor, a man she believed was called Allan Overmeyer, turn to an in-studio screen to speak to a reporter live from London. As the report began, a troubling thought occurred to her. “Has anyone mentioned if these spikes coincide with the noise we heard yesterday morning?”

  Maxwell withdrew his hands from his pockets and resumed crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “In fact, before I came in, I caught a guest panel on CNN that talked about it exclusively.”

  “And? What did they say?”

  “What could they say? No one had any answers of substance. But most were of the opinion that the timing of the sound to the unusually high rate of missing people was hard to write off as coincidence.”

  Clarissa’s hangover was starting to abate, and it didn’t have anything to do with the recent influx of vegetable juice into her system. Just twenty-four hours ago, the world heard a strange noise. Now, a day later, people were reported missing at an alarming rate. She shuddered at the implication.

  “But you ask me,” Maxwell continued, “it’s all a bunch of hokum.”

  Clarissa cocked her head at this. “Hokum? I don’t know. Sounds a little scary to me.”

  Terrance nodded. “Me too.”

  “Oh, come on now,” Maxwell said, his tone just this side of scolding. “I know the news is just doing its usual thing by trying to ratchet up the fear quotient, but stop for a minute and think about what’s happened.” He unfurled his arms and counted off points on his fingers. “First, we get this sound, which I admit was very strange and still without explanation, but it was still just that: a sound. Then the following day, we have an uptick in missing persons. There’s another angle here no one’s talking about.”

  Clarissa glanced at Terrance, whose frown was deeper than hers.

  “Which is?” she said.

  “Yeah, boss. I’m drawing a blank.”

  “All right, look,” Maxwell said, adjusting his stance and gesturing with his arms as if he were a coach delivering a pep talk. “What’s the one thing virtually all people have in common with one another, no matter where they’re from or what faith they follow?”

  Clarissa thought about it. “I don’t know…We need air to survive?”

  “We all need food and water?” Terrance said.

  Maxwell shook his head. “We’re all easily frightened when it comes to the unexplained. Now some might claim they’re not, but I’m here to tell you ninety-nine times out of a hundred, bravado and courage go right out the window when people are confronted with something they can’t make sense of. That noise yesterday morning? That scared more than just a few folks. And when people get scared, they make rash decisions.” He pointed at the TV. “Of course there are spikes in missing person cases. Don’t you think convoys of people took to the hills after they heard that sound? All of whom are holing up somewhere until after whatever they believe is supposed to happen happens? No, what you’ve got here is a bunch of scared individuals leaving skid marks out of their hometowns after they interpreted the sound as some sort of signal marking the end of the world. Is it really so hard to believe they wouldn’t have taken the time to call in to work or their child’s school when they decided to flee?”

  Clarissa contemplated this. Maxwell continued.

  “This will all blow over in a couple of days, and when it does, hopefully, we’ll learn what was responsible for scaring so many people in the first place.”

  “You make a good point, boss,” Terrance said. “I just hope you’re right.”

  “I am. And don’t you go kissing my ass just because you’re up for a raise.”

  Terrance leaned toward Clarissa. “Been over four years since the last one. I hear the Bluenote’s looking for a new chef. Heard they pay a premium for talented individuals with a strong work ethic.”

  Maxwell leveled a playful finger at Terrance.

  “If you want to go dish up spelt cakes and quinoa omelets to a bunch of hipster do-nothings, be my guest. Spelt. Who eats spelt?”

  “No worries, boss,” Terrance said, indicating the kitchen with open arms. “I’d never dream of leaving this fortress of solitude. Too many things here I can steal to compensate.”

  Maxwell looked at Clarissa and cocked a thumb at Terrance. “Never own a restaurant. There’s no shortage of hooligans looking to rob you into poverty.”

  “So do I get that raise then?”

  “I’ll give you a raise.” Maxwell flipped him the bird. “And if you’re good, I’ll give you another one later.”

  Terrance couldn’t hold it together any longer. He let fly the sort of cackle that forced anyone within earshot to join in. Maxwell broke character too, clapping Terrance on the shoulder through a broad grin before he turned for the doors that lead to the dining room. He gave the TV a final glance then pushed through them.

  Clarissa giggled. Her headache was officially on its way out. Whether it had been the juice, the sobering newscast, or the humorous back-and-forth between Terrance and Maxwell, her body was in full recovery mode. She wasn’t sure how persuaded she was by Maxwell’s argument, but his theory was gaining traction with her. Besides, what alternative was there? What else rationally explained where everyone had gone? She didn’t know Kate. She didn’t know Linda Fortner. They could both be frightened women who absconded the first chance they got. The scenario made the most sense. Yes, that had to be it. Both women had fled, and she would wager that the other three missing persons from Pastora had made similar impulsive decisions.

  Still, something about Linda Fortner’s disappearance troubled her. If what Stephanie told her was true, Clarissa had quite a few unanswered questions. Not the least of which was, if Linda had truly been frightened and tried to leave town, why had she left behind her purse, her clothes, and her car? More than that, why didn’t her husband have any idea where she was?

  CHAPTER 6

  Clarissa was losing faith in Maxwell’s theory. There had been developments.

  She had barely taken her eyes off the TV in her apartment since turning it on later that afternoon. Each station she checked talked about the disappearances that were happening around the world—and the news was alarming. Cities of all sizes and from all countries were reporting higher—much higher—than-average cases of missing persons. It seemed no place had been spared the startling anomaly. Even Pastora. In the hours since she’d clocked in this morning, the number of missing persons from Clarissa’s hometown had jumped from five to a staggering twelve.

  Every network and cable news channel feverishly covered the global story. The bump in missing person averages, which had started the day amid mild speculation, had grown to a mountain of worldwide statistics that commanded the airwaves and hijacked the news feeds of every social media platform and Internet news outlet.

  As a stand-alone story, it was enough to send streaks of ice racing along Clarissa’s spine, but when details surrounding the missing started to emerge—details virtually every nation that had chosen to share its data had in common—that spinal chill intensified to a decidedly Arctic degree.

  Linda Fortner was not unique.

  In almost every reported case, the missing had vanished without a trace. Personal items, including clothes and valuables, remained in homes. Cars and vehicles sat cold in driveways. Money lay untouched in bank accounts. Loved ones were at a loss to explain where their friends or family members had gone, and there seemed to be no shortage of people willing to cry on national television to express their disbelief and plead for whoever was missing to return.

  Clarissa sat unmoving on her sofa for the better part of an hour, watching, as story after story played out. She was transfixed. She couldn’t look away. What in the world was happening?

  The various news organizations mustered persons of expertise for video-assembled round-tables and in-studio
panels. The aim appeared to be two-fold: provide legitimate reasons as to how something like this could happen while simultaneously attempting to assuage fear. Clarissa felt the latter half of their goal had failed spectacularly. Several panelists sided with Maxwell and proffered his theory of mass exodus while others dipped their toes into darker waters and claimed “pack suicide” as the likely culprit. The supporters of this hypothesis theorized that the sound had triggered something in certain individuals, a “call to death,” as one expert put it. But this was roundly pooh-poohed as both unlikely and impossible to prove.

  Regardless, it all sounded thin to Clarissa, who believed the so-called “experts” were nothing more than propped up suits brought in to fill airtime and shock viewers enough so they would be too afraid to turn off the television (it had worked in Clarissa’s case). Most of them probably didn’t believe a word of what they were saying. And how could they? The disappearances were unprecedented. No one had reference material from which to draw examples for something of this magnitude.

  But some tried.

  One such attempt came from Carleton College’s Professor of Archeology and Anthropology, Jaques Freuxer, who trotted out two historical examples of mass disappearances, both of which had the small hairs on Clarissa’s arms standing at attention by the time he finished.

  The first involved a small town in Brazil called Hoer Verde, whose 600 occupants appeared to have vanished sometime in the 1920s. The questions of why, where, or how remain unanswered to this day. The professor claimed that visitors who stumbled upon the empty town found no one in the homes or public spaces, only a gun in the community’s school, which forensics proved had been fired the previous day. A cryptic phrase was written on the school’s chalkboard. It read: “There is no salvation.”

  Professor Freuxer was the first to concede that the disappearance could be related to political upheaval, which had taken place during that time, but he quickly countered this with contrary questions. If the villagers had fled to escape persecution or confinement, where had they gone? If they relocated, why had no one heard from anyone from the town ever again?