by A. R. Wise
“That’s comforting,” said Vess, again with thick sarcasm.
Major Groves ignored the frail man’s chagrined response. “Have you been down to see the set-up yet?”
“No, we were waiting for you,” said Vess.
“All right then,” Groves smiled wide. “Your wait’s over. Let’s get moving. We’re burning daylight.”
Branson
Shortly before 3:00 AM
March 13th, 2012
Charles Dunbar pulled into a hotel parking lot far later than he’d anticipated. Unfortunately for him, Branson was hosting a music festival this weekend, and several out-of-towners had filled up the majority of local hotels. He’d never had much trouble finding a place to stay in this part of the state before, but on this trip his poor planning skills had finally caught up with him. It took him a couple hours of calling various hotels to finally find one with a vacancy.
“Christ,” he muttered as he started to gather his papers. He was an outside sales rep for a hunting apparel company based out of California, and his regional manager required nightly reports on each salesperson’s activity while on the road. Charles had always turned in his reports in a timely fashion, but tonight he resolved to wait until morning, hoping that his manager would be reasonable.
As he was gathering his things, a blue Ford Escort pulled into the roundabout outside of the hotel’s entrance. “Goddamn it,” said Charles as he watched the driver of the Escort jump out and rush inside. Charles had already called this hotel to reserve a room, but was annoyed that now he would have to wait in line. He was exhausted, and just wanted to eat a quick snack, jerk off, and go to bed.
Charles got out of his Expedition, clicked his fob to lock it and set the alarm, and then headed for the hotel’s entrance, past the still-running Escort in the roundabout. He casually glanced into the car, curious to spy the contents. What he saw in the backseat shocked Charles enough to cause him to curse and step back.
A thin, skeletal man was lying on the back seat, his arms folded across his chest like a vampire plucked from a coffin. The man’s mouth was open, and his dark red tongue was flicking behind his yellow teeth. His eyes were also open, but there was clear gel smeared over them. The living corpse caught sight of Charles, and he seemed to become agitated or excited. He began to shake, and his tongue flicked faster. Charles walked away briskly, disturbed and frightened by what he’d seen.
As he approached the hotel doors, the owner of the Escort appeared with a hotel staff member beside him. The young staff member was pushing a wheelchair.
“Evening,” said the dirty, unwashed stranger to Charles as they neared one another. “Or morning I guess. Right?”
“Morning,” said Charles as he nodded to the haggard man with the blisters on his lips.
They passed one another, and the automatic doors closed between them. The cool, morning air outside was replaced by the strong scent of floor cleaner. His shoes squeaked on the newly polished floor, and he saw a large waxing machine plugged in and leaning against the wall. Charles paused and spied through the entrance as the hotel staff helped the invalid move from the back seat of the car to the wheelchair.
“Hello, sir,” said the concierge, stealing Charles’ attention away from the door. “Will you be staying with us tonight?”
“Hopefully,” said Charles as he walked to the counter. “I called about an hour ago to book a room. Name’s Charles Dunbar.”
The young employee searched his computer and found Charles’s name. They started to go through the check-in process and Charles stole glances outside to watch as the other staff member got the helpless, skeletal man into the wheelchair.
“City sure is busy tonight,” said Charles. “I had a hell of a time finding a room.”
“Music festival,” answered the staffer. “We were booked solid, but a bus that was headed out here broke down on the way, which freed up a bunch of rooms.”
“Lucky for me,” said Charles with a grin as he took a mint from a glass dish on the counter. He pulled the cellophane off the red and white candy and then left the wrapper on the counter. The concierge reached over and retrieved the garbage, disposing of it in a bin nearby beside him.
The concierge asked for Charles’s driver’s license, and he complied, sliding the card across the counter as he kept an eye on what was going on outside. Then the man across the counter handed over a pen and card that he asked Charles to fill out.
“Is it okay if I don’t know my license plate?” asked Charles as he reviewed the information he was being asked to provide.
“That’s fine,” said the concierge. “Just leave a description of the car.”
Charles did as he was asked, and shortly after he was given a plastic cardkey. The only rooms available were suites that were located on the side of the building, requiring Charles to walk around the outside of the hotel.
By the time he was done with the concierge, the Ford Escort was gone. Charles could hear the squeak of the wheelchair as it was pushed along somewhere nearby, although he couldn’t see the source.
The entrances to the suites were located along a row that drew a square around an outdoor pool. The pool was still covered with a green tarp for the season. Leaves had collected in the dimpled portions of the tarp, and the shape of the hotel caused the wind to spin them, creating a scratching noise that sounded like animals clawing at canvas. Charles pulled his wheeled overnight bag behind him as he made his way around the pool, and then saw that the other man that had arrived late was in the room beside his. It seemed that whoever had rented the rooms before their bus broke down had asked that they be placed together. Charles cursed his luck, and hoped to avoid a conversation with the odd man.
The stranger had his door open, and the staffer that had assisted in bringing the wheelchair over was leaving as Charles approached. The unlaundered man stepped out of his room to say, ‘Thanks’ to the staffer, and then saw Charles entering the room next to him.
“Howdy neighbor,” said the thin, grizzled man as he waved.
Charles smiled and nodded, but offered nothing more than that in an attempt to allay a conversation.
“How come you’re getting in so late?” The stranger took a step towards Charles.
“Long day of working on the road.” Charles dropped the keycard in and pulled it out, but red lights flashed on the electronic lock and the door wouldn’t open.
“Oh yeah?” asked the stranger. “You travel a lot for business?”
“Too much,” said Charles with a smile as he tried to be cordial. He could smell the stranger’s body odor, and wanted to end their pleasantries as quickly as possible. He slipped the card in again and this time was met with a pleasant chirp and a row of green lights signaling that it worked. “There we go. Well, good to meet you. I’m off to bed.”
“Have a good one,” said the stranger as Charles hurried inside.
He closed the door and then flipped the latch to lock it. He muttered, “Weirdo,” as he tossed his overnight bag onto the bed.
Charles had stayed at a hundred different hotels in his years as a field rep, and this one was neither one of the best, nor one of the worst. He rarely stayed in suites, preferring to keep his expenses down to avoid the always-vigilant eye of the company’s CFO, but these were the only rooms available when he called, and his days of sleeping in the car to appease the accounting department’s miserliness were long over.
He explored the space, but was chagrined that he wouldn’t even utilize half of it. In the morning he would be headed out to St. Louis for a conference, and then all the way to Springfield, Illinois to meet with a distributor that the company was courting. He wouldn’t end up getting any use out of the full-size refrigerator or stove in his room. He simply didn’t have time for much else but sleep.
Something in the wall rumbled, and Charles grimaced at the loud noise. It sounded like running water, but he was surprised by how much the noise bled through the walls. He placed his hand against the flower-pr
int wallpaper and realized that his neighbor’s bathroom was located just behind the headboard of the bed. It seemed the foul-smelling man was finally taking a bath, but the sound of the running water was frustratingly loud.
Charles went through his normal hotel procedure, unpacking only essentials, and then started to get ready for bed. He texted his wife, choosing not to wake her with a call, and then started to run through his emails, but the swell of work-related messages quickly antagonized him. He was tired of the debates that consumed the time of everyone at the corporate office, and didn’t want to get bogged down reading through the multiple, strongly-worded replies about the necessity for a minimum sale price limit for online retailers or the quality of fabric being used on pocket linings. He was too tired to care about any of that at the moment.
His neighbor had stopped running the water, and Charles flipped on the television to make sure he drowned out any further disturbances. As he was searching channels, he passed the adult pay-per-view, and considered purchasing one, but ultimately decided he was too tired.
“You’re getting old, Charlie,” he said to himself as he continued clicking through channels. He stopped on a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show that he never thought he would enjoy, but that his daughter had convinced him to watch a few months earlier. Remarkably, he found that he liked it a lot more than he would’ve ever expected, although he still hadn’t admitted that to his daughter.
He struggled to get comfortable on the annoyingly plump and fluffy pillows. Despite how most people seemed to enjoy large, thick pillows, Charles liked his flat and nearly devoid of filling. He kept meaning to bring a pillow from home along with him on his trips, but always forgot to while preparing to leave.
Despite his minor annoyance with the bed, he soon drifted to sleep, but was rudely awakened by a commotion in his neighbor’s room. It sounded like someone was thrashing in the tub, and then he could hear the bass of the man’s voice bleeding through the wall. Charles cursed, and tried to go back to sleep. He could hear the man in the room beside him blather on, but he eventually calmed, and things were quiet enough for Charles to doze off again.
He would only be asleep for little more than an hour, but that was plenty of time for the lies to sink in.
Branson
3:45 AM
March 13th, 2012
The Skeleton Man was alive, but he was trapped in the incapacitated body of Ben Harper. The boy had grown much more than The Skeleton Man had expected, and he realized that his perception of the flow of time was warped by The Watcher’s lies. For years, The Skeleton Man had searched Widowsfield for Alma Harper after she appeared with her mother at Terry’s cabin. He thought he was looking for a young girl, certainly no older than high school-age, but he was proven wrong when Alma appeared at the cabin again, this time as a woman in her mid-twenties.
“Michael,” said Ben Harper as he stared at the man on the bed beside him. Ben was in a wheelchair, and was leaning over the bed in an attempt to grasp the man that had been the cause of all his feelings of hatred, betrayal, and sorrow. “Michael.”
“That’s good, buddy,” said Michael Harper before he yawned. He’d moved to the far side of the bed, out of his son’s grasp. Ben continued to try and reach out to him, his fingers uselessly scratching at the bed sheet. “I’m happy you’re starting to be able to talk again, but it’s getting late. You should try and get some sleep.”
“Michael Har…” Ben choked on the name.
“You need a pillow or something?” asked Michael. “Or do you want me to lay you down on the sofa? Would that be more comfortable?” Michael started to sit up, but then settled back down and said, “Nah, I bet you’re sick of lying down. I bet it feels good to be sitting up like that, watching some TV instead of staring at the ceiling all day and night.”
“Michael Harper,” said Ben, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“You’ve got to quit doing that, kid,” said Michael as he relaxed. “You’re going to drive me nuts.”
Several minutes passed, and Ben continued to try to reach out to his father while repeating the man’s name. Michael grew increasingly upset and kept pleading with his son to stop, each time becoming more frustrated than the last.
After this continued for nearly fifteen minutes, Michael finally lost his patience. He bounded from the other side of the bed, visibly agitated as he glared over at his son. “Now I warned you, buddy. I warned you over and over. Didn’t I? How the fuck am I supposed to get any sleep with you grabbing at me and talking all night?”
He picked his belt up off the floor where he’d thrown it earlier.
Ben Harper held his breath. The child that still resided behind The Skeleton Man’s consciousness was suddenly dominant over the other souls within the human shell that sat in the wheelchair. The boy recalled the beatings his father used to inflict with a similar belt, and all those memories came rushing back. The time he’d been whipped for breaking the vacuum while cleaning his room; the time he’d been beaten for crying too loud; the time he’d been spanked for seemingly no reason except that his father had accused him of giving him a ‘snide’ look at dinner.
“You did this to yourself,” said Michael as Ben watched, frozen by both terror as well as the mortal prison he was stuck within.
Michael Harper took a pocket knife out of his jeans. Ben watched as his father approached with the belt and the knife, frightened of what was about to occur, but helpless to defend himself. He tried to move his body to block his father, but his arm just flopped off the side of the bed and down into his lap when he moved.
“Michael Harper,” said Ben as he stared glassy-eyed at his father.
Michael reached out with the belt and strapped it over Ben’s mouth, and then looped it behind his head. Ben gnawed at the belt, and saliva dripped over his lip and down his chin as he tried to say his father’s name. Michael tightened the belt, and then used the knife to cut a mark in it where the buckle would latch. He pulled the belt away, leaving his son to gasp and lick at his raw lips.
Michael dug the tip of the knife into the leather belt, spinning it until a hole emerged. Next, he set the knife and the belt on the bed before taking off his sweat-stained t-shirt.
“Michael Harper,” said Ben, his voice maligned by the pain in his lips that the belt had caused.
“Keep it up,” said Michael with a snicker as he shook his head.
Ben’s father stuffed his sweaty, unwashed shirt into his son’s mouth. He pushed hard, as if eager to cause pain, and then he wrapped the belt around his boy’s head, forcing the buckle through the hole he’d made and tying the shirt to Ben’s face like a ball-gag.
“That should do it,” said Michael, pleased with himself.
Ben struggled to breathe. The belt had pushed part of the shirt high up against his nose, and he felt as if he were hyperventilating. He shook his head and moaned, and tried to raise his arms, but his body was a prison. He scratched at his legs and writhed as best he could.
Michael sighed, and for a moment Ben thought he was going to apologize. Ben hoped his father would untie him.
“Looks like you’re sleeping in the bathroom tonight, kid,” said Michael as he unlocked the wheels on his son’s chair before pushing him across the room. He put Ben in the bathroom, facing the tub with his back to the door, and then shut off the light.
“Goodnight,” said Michael before he closed the door, leaving Ben alone in the dark.
Every breath of air was laden with the stench of Michael’s shirt. He could taste the sweat as his tongue was pressed hard against the balled up fabric.
Ben Harper’s fingers clawed as his arms tried their best to move. He had just enough strength to raise his arms up to the armrests, but not up to his face. He shook as best he could, but was never able to do anything more than rattle the chair a little. As he struggled, his left hand touched the cold wall beside him. His pinky finger brushed against the coarse stucco.
The walls of the hotel slowly spilled
their secrets, as if Ben had spent a lifetime studying the architectural plans of the building. He knew what the room on the other side of the wall looked like, and how it was connected to another suite that also looked the same. He could sense the electrical wires that snaked through the thin walls, protected by a metal sheathe. He could feel the bed in their neighbor’s room as it succumbed to the weight of a tossing occupant. As the night went on, and The Skeleton Man lingered alone in the dark bathroom of Michael Harper’s hotel room, new possibilities presented themselves. He began to comprehend weaving in and out of the world The Watcher had come from, and the one where Michael Harper lived. He knew that once Michael fell asleep, he would be susceptible to The Skeleton Man’s power, but Ben needed to practice first.
On the other side of the wall, snoring as Buffy the Vampire Slayer played on his television, was a man named Charles Dunbar. The Skeleton Man would test his powers on this stranger as he waited for Michael Harper to fall asleep again. The Skeleton Man perfected his lies.
CHAPTER 7 – The CORD
Philadelphia
June 15th, 1943
Two pillars rose to twice the height of a man on either side of a large, steel box. Lyle, Vess, and Major Groves were in a cavernous bay of the USS Eldridge. Lyle would’ve never guessed the ship housed such a large room, and he marveled at the space as Groves led them across the catwalk that looked down on the area of interest.
“There she is,” said Groves as he motioned over the side of the railing. They stood on a walkway about twenty feet up, and Lyle could look through the grated metal that they walked across to see the floor beneath, causing his stomach to churn. Groves and Vess were focused on the spectacular machine that was the only thing housed within the gigantic space. “Your Charged Oscillating Radiation Distributor.” Then Groves looked at Lyle and said, “Or CORD for short.”
“It’s magnificent,” said Vess, unwilling to look at anything other than the machine below. His face was alight, like a child staring in through a Macy’s window during the holidays. “I can’t believe I’m here, looking at it.” His voice was tempered by reverence, as if he were daring to whisper in church. “I’ve studied Tesla’s drawings a thousand times, but seeing it in person...” he grinned as he looked at Groves. “It’s magnificent.”