The Home

by Scott Nicholson

  THIRTY-SIX

  Starlene wanted a shower to blast the creepy feeling from her skin, but she couldn't face the bathroom, no matter what Randy said she hadn't seen. No matter that ghosts didn't exist and that only God had the ability to in s pire visions. God's visions were fire and thunder, not feverish thugs and bloody corpses. She went into the little bedroom she shared with Marie. Due to their rotating shifts, the two of them rarely stayed here at the same time. They both had places offsite, so the room was only sparsely decorated and didn't reflect their true personalities.

  Starlene picked up a book, something thick and dull by the Southern novelist Jefferson Spence. She couldn't concentrate on the meandering sentences, and after the author's second clumsy allusion to snowy fields of cotton, she closed the book and looked out the window.

  A soft mist hung over the lake. She half expected to see the old man in the gown drift up from the water. Clouds had begun to gather over the mountains, pushed by a slow wind The shadows of clouds crawled across the slopes, resembling great black beasts. The air was heavy with moisture.

  A knock at the door caused her to drop the novel. It barely missed crushing her toe. She paused in the hall, making sure the knock hadn't come from the bathroom. No, it was at the front door.

  Bondurant nodded at her when she opened the door, then staggered into the room before she could ask what he wanted. His face was blanched and his hands trembled. He adjusted his glasses on his long nose and licked his lips.

  "You look terrible," she said.

  "Like I've seen a ghost?"

  "Worse. Like maybe a mirror."

  "Can I sit down?"

  "That depends. Are you ready to tell me what's going on?"

  He shrugged and looked behind him, then peered at the corners of the ceiling. "Have to be careful. You never know who's listening."

  "Are you looking for invisible people?"

  "Bugs."

  "We sprayed for those last month, remember?"

  "I'm not talking about those kind of bugs. I'm talking electronic bugs." Bondurant coughed, and the odor of liquor filled the room. Purple welts beneath his eyes gave him the appearance of a punch-drunk insomniac. Starlene didn't know how much faith she could put in anything he said.

  "Got anything to drink?" he asked, checking out the countertops in the kitchenette.

  "Aren't you on duty?"

  Bondurant sighed and sat on the edge of an armchair. He didn't remove his coat. "What happened when Kracowski zapped you this morning?"

  "You know. You were there."

  He waved one hand in the air. "I saw him press some buttons and flip switches. I saw you in Thirteen. I saw you gasp and scream and stop breathing. And then it was over. But I want to know what happened."

  "Mr. Bondurant, I've questioned that treatment ever since I started working here. Are you telling me you're just now starting to have some doubts?"

  "What did you see?" He leaned forward his face contorted and she backed away and stood by the door. He didn't rise from the chair, or she might have fled. "You're in on it, too, aren't you?" he said.

  "In on what?"

  "The whole thing. I thought you were a Christian."

  "I am a Christian. And I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "They're meddling in God's domain. Only God can draw the line between the living and the dead." He talked faster, spittle flying from his mouth. "Only God says who gets into heaven and who must walk through the fires of hell. So why is God in His almighty wisdom, letting that heathen freak bring back the spirits of those who have already faced the Judgment?"

  "Look, a lot of weird stuff is happening around here, but I don't think you need to drag God into this. Put the blame where it belongs."

  "That's the whole problem. They've pushed God out of everything. The Supreme Court has locked Him out of the schools, the government pushes for a United Nations that only serves atheists, and now they've taken over Wendover, where I've turned so many lost souls toward the light of our Lord." He pounded a fist against the padded chair.

  "You've seen them, too. Not just the Miracle Woman, but the others."

  Bondurant's lips moved but no words came out. Color returned to his face, a shade of deep crimson that was less alarming than the previous gray.

  "It's all wrong," he said.

  Something fell to the floor in the bathroom.

  "That's one of them now," she said. "What happened to Deke?"

  "I don't know."

  "Don't lie to me."

  "Please, Miss Rogers. Don't make me-"

  "Something's in the tub." A scratching had arisen in the bathroom, echoing off the ceramic tiles. Water, or some other liquid, dripped in an uneven rhythm.

  "I didn't let them in," Bondurant said. "They said nobody would get hurt. They said they'd only be here for a year or so, then they'd go away and Wendover would have all the funding it needed."

  "Who are they?"

  Bondurant shrugged, then slumped, defeated. The stirrings in the bathroom grew louder.

  Starlene opened the front door and looked at the cold stone hulk of Wendover across the grass. "We have to get the kids out."

  "You don't understand." Bondurant fidgeted with his rumpled tie. "Nobody gets out. Not anymore."

  "You can sit here and wait for whatever happens next if you want. Me, I'm going to help the children I pledged to serve."

  Bondurant laughed, drowning out the moist noises from the tub. "Little Miss Do-Gooder. You and all the other people who think they can save the world through kindness. There's only one way to save the world, and that's by hammering the misfits into shape. You can't love these brats into being productive members of society. All you can do is put the fear of God in them, by force, and let them burn in hell if they don't choose the right path."

  "Tell that to the thing in the bathroom." Starlene left the cabin, slamming the door behind her, and walked toward the small gravel lot that was tucked behind the trees. She could fit maybe fifteen kids in the bed of her pickup, then come back for the rest. She didn't have a plan yet. She'd probably have to drop them off at the police station. Randy would help her. She had to find Randy.

  Bondurant called to her from the cabin door. "Don't leave me, Miss Rogers."

  She didn't turn around. The wind picked up, and more clouds had gathered in the sky. The surrounding forest was alive with movement. Bondurant shouted something else but she couldn't hear it.

  Starlene reached her truck and locked herself inside, then started the engine. She put the truck in gear and glanced in the rear view mirror. She gasped and yanked her foot from the clutch so fast the engine died.

  She turned around. Nothing in the bed of the pickup.

  Not now. But, moments before, Freeman had stood there, clutching the same red wedge of razor that Deke had held in the bathroom. She shivered restarted the engine, and drove to the main building.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Kracowski stood impatiently while McDonald gave Dr. Mills a tour of the basement. He resented this invasion. Bad enough that McDonald meddled in the experiments, but now he'd brought in a rival whose instability bordered on the psychopathic. Research of such a delicate nature was best pursued with a cool head, and Mills's mood swings occurred almost as rapidly as his son's. At least Freeman was stuck under observation in the Blue Room for the moment, with Randy standing guard.

  Mills whistled in wonder as he inspected the machinery that created Kracowski's energy fields. He said to McDonald, "If you had given me this kind of backing, you'd have had your breakthrough years ago."

  "Back then, all we wanted was mind control," McDonald said. "ESP was a byproduct."

  "Isn't that just like the government?" Mills said to Kracowski. "You give them the answers, and then they find new questions. At twice the cost."

  Kracowski said, "How do you know he's even with the government?"

  McDonald laughed. "Do you want to see some identification? I've got a card in every pocket, each with a
different name and agency. You have a serious problem with trusting others, Doctor. You ought to see somebody about that."

  "I can make a few recommendations," Mills said.

  Kracowski didn't like the way the men joked. This research was far more important than whatever espionage or brainwashing techniques were discovered. He didn't expect McDonald to grasp the significance of the discovery, but surely Mills could appreciate the near-divine implications of life after death. Unless the man's madness had removed him so far from the ordinary world that miracles were of no consequence.

  "What's the next step?" Mills asked.

  "Off the cliff and into the void," McDonald said. He tapped one of the tanks of liquid helium with the base of his flashlight. "We need to push some of the children a little bit harder and see if they crack."

  Mills rubbed his hands together, eyes dark in his pale face. The dim shadows of the basement made his cheeks look even more gaunt and fleshless. "Despite your theory of harmonization of the brain's electrical patterns, Kracowski, I believe the effect works best when the brain is stimulated. Turn up the heat, and the kettle starts to boil."

  "So I gather, from reading what you've done to your son."

  "Don't judge me, Doctor. He was the perfect subject, and one day he'll understand that. Freeman will see that I sacrificed his emotional security for the good of the free world. And, ultimately, for the good of the human race."

  "Love of the world versus love of your own offspring. You'll have to write that one up for the trade journals."

  "That's enough," McDonald said. "You guys can fight turf wars on your own time. Right now, I've got a mission to complete."

  McDonald switched on his flashlight and headed down the main corridor, into the cold, musty bowels of Wendover. Mills held out his elbow in a mockery of escorting Kracowski. Kracowski brushed past him and followed McDonald.

  The building's wiring was corroded in this section, eaten by rodents, and had not been restored when the building was renovated to serve as a group home. Kracowski had never expected these rooms to be used.

  The agent reached the first cell. The heavy steel door was brown with rust. The door was solid with the exception of a sliding mechanism for delivering food trays. McDonald shined the light into the cell. Bits of mortar between the cinder blocks had been scraped away by one of the cell's former tenants. Kracowski winced at the thought of the raw, bloody fingers scrabbling themselves to the bone.

  "They knew how to treat them back in the old days," Mills said. "None of this coddling and medication and turning out onto the streets. If they wanted to board their alien starships or dance with angels, they had to claw through the walls first."

  Kracowski didn't like being down here, and not just because of the alleged manifestations. He wasn't yet fully convinced the dead could cross back into this world, but he knew actual pain and misery and lunacy had existed in this cramped room. Perhaps emotions could cement themselves into the walls and become a part of a building's molecular structure. He'd have to investigate the theory once he was done with McDonald and SST.

  "This will do just fine," McDonald said.

  Kracowski didn't like the way the man's words were swallowed by the stale air. "What do you mean?"

  "The next stage."

  "I thought we'd agreed I would do more treatments in Thirteen. At least for a few more months. We need to check our subjects against the control group or we won't be able to verify our results."

  "I think Dr. Mills was on the right track. Which of your subjects has exhibited the most potential?"

  "Freeman." Kracowski looked deeply into Dr. Mills's eyes, but saw no hint of regret there. "He's also the most emotionally disturbed of the patients."

  "Exactly," McDonald said. "And the others showing a… talent?"

  "Vicky Barnwell. Edmund Alexander. Mario Rios."

  "We've read the case histories. All problem children."

  Mills grinned. "Not a bad test pool. A manic depressive, a bulimic, a molestation victim, and a plain old basket case. A test group with gender and ethnic variety, no less."

  "I think we need to put a little pressure on," McDonald said. "See how they respond. The field is stronger down here, if I understand your descriptions correctly."

  "But I can't control and isolate the focus of the fields outside of Thirteen," Kracowski said. "We'll lose our standardization."

  "You can publish your little theories in all the shrink journals in the world for all I care, as long as you leave extrasensory perception out of it. And if you start babbling about ghosts to your esteemed colleagues, you'll soon find yourself on the soft side of a padded wall. When the Trust needs to shut someone up, it's easier to declare him insane than to kill him and risk a bad cover job. Right, Mills?"

  Mills gave a sick grin, then turned his attention to the clogged stainless steel toilet in the corner of the room. "I think I'd rather have a bucket, myself."

  "So, do these walls bring back memories, Doctor?" McDonald asked Mills. "How does it feel to be called a lunatic?"

  "Sticks and stones," Mills said. "But I learned something. The line between the sane and the insane is invisible. It all depends on which side of the bars you're standing."

  McDonald tried the door. The hinges scraped as he swung it nearly closed. The blue glow of the machinery was mostly cut off from the outside, and the only light in the cell was from McDonald's flashlight. Kracowski shivered, imagining the horror of being shut up in solitary confinement here.

  Mills noticed his discomfort. "Claustrophobic, Doctor?"

  "Have you ever heard of 'empathy'?"

  "I've successfully avoided that weakness. It tends to make you worry a little too much about other people."

  "So all you care about is yourself," Kracowski said.

  "Wrong. You're the one who's in this for personal gain. I'm after something that's bigger than all of us."

  A soft shuffling arose in the hall outside. McDonald opened the cell door and shined his light in a sweeping arc. "Who's there?" he called in his authoritative voice.

  No one answered. Kracowski stood behind McDonald and peered into the shadows. The hum of the machinery grew louder, and the glow from the main basement area pulsed like a heartbeat.

  "That's not supposed to happen," Kracowski said. "The program is triggered by the computer in my office."

  "I know who it is," Mills said, sitting on the corroded and moldy cot.

  Kracowski grabbed at McDonald's flashlight. The agent elbowed him away. The hum increased in intensity, like a jet engine warming for takeoff.

  "Something's wrong," Kracowski said.

  "She wants to play," Mills said.

  McDonald directed the beam onto Dr. Mills's face. The man's eyes were as large as Ping-Pong balls, the irises glittering with a faraway and secret pleasure.

  Then Mills broke into laughter, the kind that Kracowski had heard during his internship at Sycamore Shoals Hospital; on the upper floor, the terminal cases, those who had crossed over into a land beyond reason; a land where only a few were invited, and from which no one ever returned.

  McDonald crossed the room and yanked at Mills's shirt. "Tell me what's going on, damn you."

  "It's better than I ever dreamed" Mills said.

  Kracowski stepped into the hall and looked toward the row of circuit boards and the holding tanks. The boards lit up in random splashes of green, red, and yellow. The main dynamo whined like an animal caught in a steel trap. The air was warm and the smell of hot copper filled the basement.

  "She's the ghost in the machine," Mills said. "Remember that old album by The Police? Spirits in the material world. Eee-yo-oh. Eee-yo-oh."

  McDonald grabbed Mills by the shirt and pulled him from the cell. The agent shoved Mills against a wall and pressed the flashlight under his chin. The strange angle of the light made Mills's eyes look even more bulging and deranged.

  "Tell me what's going on," McDonald shouted above the roar of the machines.

 
; "She's taken over," Mills said. "Didn't you read my paper on mechanical anomalies?"

  Kracowski recalled some talk years ago of studies conducted at Princeton University, of how random number generators could be influenced by telepathy. Back then, he had ridiculed the notion along with the rest of the professional establishment. Such nonsense had been the realm of the Rhine Research Center and other New Age illusionists. Now, the nonsense was real and crawling up his spine.

  Kracowski felt a faint pull against him and realized the intense magnetic field was tugging at the metal in his zipper, his belt buckle, the pen in his pocket, and the eyelets of his shoes.

  "She's here," Mills said.

  Kracowski looked down the hall toward the black heart of the basement. Nothing stirred, though the shadows had an undulating, liquid quality. What had Freeman and the others seen in that darkness?

  "Suffering," Mills said. "I never knew it would taste so sweet. Freeman's misery was a joy, but this…"

  McDonald shoved Mills. The deranged doctor shook off the blow and smiled. "Ordinary pain. You can't touch me with ordinary pain."

  Kracowski stopped McDonald from delivering another blow, this one to Mills's face. "It won't do any good."

  McDonald looked toward the equipment, face wrinkled with worry. "We can't replace this stuff if it melts down."

  Kracowski checked the meters on the closest amperage box. The needle flickered in the red zone, but the flux was erratic, not the way electricity behaved under normal circumstances.

  "It's the Miracle Woman," Mills said.

  McDonald looked at Kracowski. Kracowski shook his head. Mills was done, cooked. Whatever secret agency McDonald worked for, it had made a mistake by bringing the doctor out of the institution. Or maybe the mistake had been made years ago, when Mills first decided that the mind could be mapped and directed, and from there, believed that the spirit could be enslaved.

  Kracowski felt a sudden rush of shame for his own foolish ambition. Even if God didn't exist, there was a domain that was off limits to those who lived and breathed. That domain had been invaded with all the carelessness and brute force exhibited by Attila's hordes, Hitler's tanks, and Stalin's KGB.