Brainstorm (THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE Book 1)

by Jeff Siamon

  And to all this, he thought: Strange. Like everything that had happened to him since the first nightmare of the dream girl. Here he was presumably falling to his death and he felt no fear. In fact, no emotion. Nothing but the touch of curiosity he sometimes had at the beginning of one of his episodes. And a clarity that allowed him to see deep into his memories.

  What he saw was his niggle. What he had been trying to remember. What this thing was trying to make him forget. For that’s what he realized these invasions were. An attack on his memory. Yet every time it occurred, it revealed more of what this thing was all about. And what it was all about was survival. Its survival. What it needed was energy. Like some kind of food. That’s what he had overheard. And not just any energy. The type of energy that’s found in living things. Living organisms that had intelligence. Humans. So it had a plan. A strategy to get that energy. But there were difficulties. That’s what the whispers were all about. Worries that weren’t meant to be overheard.

  Connie was one of these difficulties. And there were others, too. Humans that were resisters. But more than simply resisters. Most of the humans this thing sucked into its energy sphere resisted somewhat. Some to the point of suicide. Connie’s resistance was more powerful. More defiant. More dangerous. Because each time he resisted. Each time he evaded capture, he grew stronger. Both mentally and physically. Each attack was a risk for this thing. Each failure meant its whispers grew more intelligent to these resisters. And this intelligence produced a form of energy this thing couldn’t digest. Couldn’t digest because if it did, it would be consumed by it.

  Strange. That’s what all this was to Connie as he silently fell into the brightness. As he thought of whispers, blue-eyed maidens and the sad face of the dream girl of the desert.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The impact nearly knocked the breath out of him. As did his surprise. He didn’t black out but it would have been better for his senses if he had. His head hit the floor when he fell backwards but his legs were still under the table. The picnic-like lunchroom table of the hospital cafeteria. The fall was so sudden that he hadn’t had time to cry out. But now, his head and shoulders on the floor, he did yell: “Shit Vicky, what’re you trying to do to me?”

  But then, before the words were fully out of his mouth, his whole body erupted into pain. His wrist. His thigh. His head where it had struck the floor. His shoulders and back. Like he had been suddenly stomped on by a herd of beasts. Such a cacophony of discomfort he lost his speech, his memory and his vision became blurry.

  He felt hands under his shoulders trying to lift him up. He struggled and that seemed to urge him to remember something.

  “You all right, mister?”

  “You want us to get you a doctor?”

  Strange was the word that came into his head. Strange because “strange” seemed a familiar feeling. A familiar word. Strange because he was sure he was somewhere else ─ not beside Vicky; yet beside Vicky. Strange because his mind was so blank, he couldn’t even remember his name only Vicky’s and the fact that she had pushed him. Stranger still, because as soon as he had had this thought, he knew that it wasn’t true. And the strangest of all ─ after these mysterious hands had lifted him to a sitting position ─ was the way Vicky was looking at him. Her mouth open in some kind of shock. Her eyes wide with fear. And her skin, the paleness of someone about to faint.

  His vision was blurry at best and he couldn’t see much beyond Vicky’s face. He felt the hands releasing themselves from his shoulders. Heard one of the voices asking him again if he were all right. He turned in the direction of the voice. A woman’s voice and from the look of her, a nurse. But he couldn’t speak. It seemed that although his thoughts were aplenty, when he opened his mouth, the only word that wanted to come out was a strange sound. Hey-la.

  Now that was truly strange, he thought. He nodded to the woman for although he felt wracked with pain, he somehow knew he should get out of here. Even though he wasn’t quite sure exactly where here was. He nodded and attempted a smile.

  He could see both of his helpers now. The nurse in green. And a man in street clothes. The two of them looked at each other and then gave him a curious glance. Connie followed the glance to what they were staring at. One of his arms. The one with the cast. The cast that now had strips of cloth wound around it, tied in knots. And above the cast, just to his elbow, the bottom of his sleeve. Like a cut off of an old sweatshirt.

  He felt his pant legs. Wriggled his toes. They were bare. Touched the strips around his cast.

  They added up to three pings of memory, all of which blossomed into intelligence. Vivid memories of what had happened to him. The realization of where he had been and where he was now. What he had on. What he didn’t have on. No wonder they were giving him odd looks.

  “Going to a costume party,” he said. The words erupted out of his mouth before he had time to consider them. And at the same time, his whole body and mind erupted into astonishment. And memory.

  The two helping hands gave him hesitant nods as if they were not sure of his mental state. They walked away. Slowly. After several glances, giving up considering him.

  Connie eyes began to focus. He followed their retreating backs for a moment and considered. Yes. He was in the hospital cafeteria. There were no tents to be seen. No medieval men with scraggly beards. No blue-eyed maidens ready to give him aid.

  These thoughts brought him back to Vicky. To wonder what color her eyes really were. Hazel or brown? They looked a bit of both. When he looked. But they weren’t really his main concern at the moment. Her eyes. It was his memories. His realizations. They buzzed his consciousness. Tingled the hair on his spine.

  Vicky’s mouth was still agape when he looked at her. Like she was truly in shock. Eyes that were vacant. Not seeing him. Not seeing anything. And he knew why, of course. Just as he knew she hadn’t pushed him. Knew also something else. The answers to that niggle: the whispers of intelligence he had overheard.

  “Vicky?” He reached out a hand to her. His good hand. She flinched when he touched her. Put the hand in her lap as if she were trying to hide it from him. “Vicky. Listen to me.” He glanced around the dining room. It was normal enough. People eating. People talking. People getting trays of food. All the comings and goings and eatings of his world. “Vicky!”

  She blinked at the urgency of his tone.

  “I’ve got to get out here.” That was evident enough to him. The way he was dressed and barefoot. He didn’t want to be locked up in some psycho ward. “Vicky!” He shook her shoulder.

  She had to stifle a scream when she felt the motion. All her systems were on alert because of what she had witnessed. What she thought she had witnessed. Her heartbeat was racing. Her breathing was quick and shallow. She couldn’t utter a sound of any kind beyond a gasp or a sigh. What she had seen! It went way beyond, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Because she could believe what she had seen. That was the shock that possessed her. Even as her brain tried to convince her otherwise.

  “Vicky,” he said again. More gently. His hand still on her shoulder.

  She focused her eyes on his face but stiffened from his touch.

  “Are you with me?” he asked.

  She didn’t know what he meant. With me? Where would she be with him? Why would she be with him?

  “Go to the gift shop and get me something to put on my feet. Slippers or even socks.”

  She returned his request with a vacant stare. Slippers? Why would he want slippers?

  He knew what was troubling her. Why she was in such a daze. He would’ve reacted the same if he were her. You’re sitting with someone. He complains of a headache. The next instant, he’s falling backwards wearing some strange costume. And he guessed from her reaction, the transformation ─ at least for her ─ had been instantaneous.

  “Please, Vicky. Can you do that for me?” He waited a long time for her nod.

  “Do that?” she added at the end of her nod.

  “Yes.
Do you have money?”

  Did she have money? It took another long moment to parse the sentence into some kind of meaning. Did she? She remembered taking the taxi to ─? Yes, to the hospital. And the memory brought back a little sense of normalcy. She shook her head.

  “Do you have a credit card or a bank card?”

  Did she have a credit card? That was another difficult question. She blinked several times. Even pinched herself. Both times wondering if like Connie she had had an episode, too,

  “Do you have a credit card?”

  She nodded. And with that nod, reality seemed to whoosh into existence. Where she was. Connie’s transformation. The memory of arriving here in a taxi. Waiting for him in Emerge. Even wanting to give him a reassuring hug.

  “Okay. Can you do that for me? Please. I’ll explain everything once we’re out of here. Or at least, I’ll try to explain. Can you?”

  Could she? She nearly found her voice. But not quite. She nodded.

  “Good. Hurry. The way I’m dressed … Well, just hurry.”

  She examined the way he was dressed. That didn’t give her any confidence in her sense of reality, but she’d do as he asked. For Connie. Whomever he was. Whatever he was.

  33

  Seventeen breathless minutes. Connie counted out the time on the digital clock above the cafeteria entrance door for Vicky to return. He wasn’t so much anxious that people were staring at him for the way he was dressed. They weren’t. It was what was in his head that made him anxious. The whisper he had overheard. What he knew. Was certain he knew. What he didn’t know. Now with tangible proofs. Anxious because just what the hell was he supposed to do with this information?

  Vicky’s seventeen minutes were breathless, too. Not because she was anxious to return to Connie. She wasn’t. It was those shivers of fear she had felt when she had seen what seemed like some miraculous change in him. They had followed her out of the cafeteria. Waited with her for the elevator. And were persistent enough to continue inside the elevator and then to the main floor. She had been worried about him when he had suddenly complained of a headache, afraid he was about to have another episode. She had become alarmed when it seemed he was going to pass out. But when he had fallen backwards, what she had seen shook her so violently that all she was left with was fear.

  It took her five of those seventeen minutes to find the gift shop. When she did, she stopped at the entrance. Beside a carousel display of get-well cards. Inside the shop, she could see through its glass wall a white-haired woman behind a counter talking to a customer. To a woman whose face looked grandmotherly, too. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but could see the white-haired woman’s smile. As well as the other woman’s laugh. They were talking to each other the way perfectly normal people do. And as Vicky thought about perfectly normal people, she suddenly wanted to run out of the hospital to find some perfectly normal people for herself.

  But she didn’t.

  The woman behind the counter glanced at her and smiled, and her smile drew Vicky into the shop.

  “Can I help you, dear?” the woman asked. “You look lost.”

  Vicky tried to stutter some response.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Uh …” Connie’s slippers. That’s what came into her head. Maybe if she bought them everything she had seen would make some sense. “I need some … slippers.”

  “They’re right over there, dear. By the magazines.”

  Now it was the other woman’s turn to smile at Vicky. Like all three of them were perfectly normal people.

  Vicky didn’t move after she looked in the direction of the magazine racks.

  “Do you know the size, dear? We have them by size for men and woman and one size fits all.”

  She thought about that. Vicky didn’t know the size. It seemed all she knew at the moment was what had happened to Connie. Lying backwards. His legs under the table. His head on the floor. His clothes suddenly transformed as if by abracadabra.

  “Dear?”

  “Uh … He’s a man.”

  “Well, why don’t you try large. If they don’t fit, bring them back.”

  More smiles. At least from the two women. Vicky couldn’t smile. Though she wanted to.

  Seventeen minutes brought them ─ Connie and Vicky ─ to the same location. The hospital cafeteria. But not together.

  Vicky stopped at the entrance, just inside the door. She scanned the room for Connie. Her purse over one shoulder. The slippers clutched in the hand of her other arm. Connie saw her the moment she entered. She had stopped under the digital clock just as the minute digit became a higher number. But when she seemed to look through him, his anxiety increased.

  She felt panic. She couldn’t see him. Had he disappeared again? Was he about to evaporate into another episode?

  He waved a hand at her. She was looking in his direction. If she didn’t see the wave, then ─? Well, he better prepare himself for what was coming next, although his body seemed only prepared for recovery. He almost shouted her name. He might have, but she saw his wave. Finally. He smiled and gave her another wave.

  She still couldn’t smile but she managed to raise the bag of slippers. Regarded his smile, as well as what she could see of his shirt ─ if it was a shirt. But she didn’t move. Didn’t walk towards him. She had thought that the hospital staff had taken him away when she hadn’t seen him. A guilty thought because it made her feel relieved. She didn’t realize just how relieved until she saw his wave and the fear she had left behind in the gift shop returned.

  He had his own moment of fear. He could sense her hesitation. The bag of slippers poised in her hand as if she were handing it to him, yet her body leaning in the opposite direction. If she ran out on him, what was he going to do?

  “Damn,” he said to himself. The curse was for this nightmarish world he had somehow fallen into. Was it about to unravel? Suck him into the black void of this thing?

  He had to get out of here. Get back to his place so he could have some space to think. But he needed Vicky’s help. Not so much for the slippers. He was prepared to walk out of there barefoot. But he had no money. No ID. No phone. Nothing to prove who he was.

  Time passed. At least a minute, maybe more. He waited for her to come to him. She was staring at him. Then she’d gaze around the crowded room as if she were looking for someone. Then stared at him some more. Should he go to her, barefoot? He was about to when she started to walk in his direction. Angling around the tables and the comings and goings of the people in the room. Nearly colliding into two doctors with trays full of food.

  She hadn’t mentally decided to go to him. To give him the slippers. Her legs seemed to have done the deciding. But still, she felt leery. Like a lover who had suddenly discovered something dark in her lover’s past. Did she really know Connie? Know anything more than the person she had fantasized about?

  When she reached his table, she didn’t offer him the slippers. They remained by her side. Held tightly in her hand.

  “Thanks.” He had to remove the bag of slippers from her fingers. “I know you’re upset, Vicky. I’d be too. I am, too,” he added while he was putting on the slippers.

  She was but she didn’t really want to go there. There was too scary. “They’re size large,” she said for something not scary to say.

  “Yeah. They’re good.”

  He grabbed the case with little Connie inside. Mustn’t forget that, he reminded himself. He still felt there was a connection between the DNA cells and this thing. He stood up. He was dressed as he remembered he had been in the tent. The tunic ─ grey rough cloth with streaks of white and black. Nothing around his waist so at least it might pass as a hospital gown. Pants that were too small of the same color and feel of the tunic. He was glad of that. Better than a naked bottom.

  “What do you think? Do the slippers match?” He smiled, but his attempt at a joke didn’t soften the sober look on her face.

  No one gave them a glance as they walked out of the
cafeteria. Or up the stairs to the main floor. Or out the entrance to the passenger droop off and pick-up traffic circle. Connie was glad of that, of course. Now to just get to his place, change his clothes and have someone redo his cast and look at his leg. It was throbbing now, after the walk and climbing the stairs.

  “Do you mind paying for a cab to get me home?” He hadn’t turned around when he asked her. The pick-up area was crowded with people going in and out of the waiting cars and taxis so he didn’t realize she wasn’t beside him. She had stopped just outside the revolving doors. When he realized she wasn’t there, he walked back to her. “Vicky? Could you pay for a cab to get me to my place?”

  She looked at him but didn’t see him. She needed to be surrounded by perfectly normal people.

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Neither spoke on the cab ride to his apartment building. Vicky didn’t know if she wanted to go with him or not. But there was still enough sense in her that wasn’t masked by fear to realize he needed her help. Whomever he was or had become. Connie tried to think. To make sense of those whispers. But his wound got in the way of any deep thought. It hurt like hell. And from the cramps in his stomach, it must have been at least a day since he had last eaten.

  While the trip was made in silence, it also didn’t solve anything for either of them. Vicky hadn’t pushed away her fear, yet hoped it was unreasonable. And Connie couldn’t think of anything but all the hurts in his body. By the time they arrived, the only thoughts in both their heads were getting out of the cab and walking to the entrance of his building.

  34

  He was down on the ground again. He could feel it in his back. Pressed onto some hard surface. He remembered buzzing the super. Telling him he had lost his wallet and keys. Going up in the elevator with Vicky. (Yes, she had been beside him.) Trying to keep the growing dimness in his vision bright. Unlocking his door. Then nothing until this hardness under his back.