by David Wright
Shadow looked at the paper, then back up, coughing more blood into his hand. He smeared it on his shirt and nodded yes.
“You know it?” Tiny asked.
“Yes, it belongs to Hope.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 7 — Hannah
The morning crawled, as did the afternoon to follow.
After Hannah took the thousand years she promised to prepare for the day, she took her phone from the dresser. She packed it with earbuds in her purse, anxious for the minute she could be alone with her phone.
It didn’t happen on the drive to El Montaña, anywhere on the tour of the vineyard, or at any time during her one chance to slip into the bathroom without Greg. The bathroom was small, and quaint like the rest of the winery. She was only inside for a second, barely having closed the door and not yet locking it, when Greg slipped in behind her. He said it would be “romantic” to use the bathroom at the same time.
She smiled like she meant it, glad she didn’t have to go number two, and emptied her bladder while cursing the interruption and ignoring the weight of the phone like a brick in her purse.
Only later, after the tour when they were sitting in the restaurant, after wine was poured and appetizers ordered, but before the bruschetta was brought to the table, Greg got a call and excused himself, looking at Hannah with apologetic eyes.
Hannah nodded, feeling grateful but looking patient, then Greg left, and she yanked her phone from her purse. She inserted the earbuds, then pressed play on her recording as her heart started to race even faster.
At first there was nothing, but as Hannah scrubbed her finger across the recording, she found a spike in the volume. She rewound the recording a few seconds, stopped, then started it back from a spot where Greg had stress in his voice.
“She dreamed about John again last night.”
Pause ...
“Yes, I’m sure. What do you want me to do?”
Another pause ...
“Are you certain, Mr. Cromwell?”
The longest pause so far ...
Then, “Yes, I’ll do it before we return to the house. Don’t worry. Hannah won’t suspect a thing.
Hannah looked up as Greg pulled his chair from the table and sat, smiling.
An earbud fell from her ear.
“Whatchya’ listening to?” he asked.
TO BE CONTINUED…
EPISODE 10:
PROLOGUE — Duncan
In Duncan’s dream, he was reliving the funeral of his closest and last true friend Ed Baldwin — Caleb’s adopted father.
Ed died of a heart attack just shy of Caleb’s sixteenth birthday, and the boy was devastated. Caleb spoke to no one: not his friends, girlfriend, or even his mother Myriam. He stood outside the funeral home, pacing back and forth in the parking lot, eyes wild and hair disheveled.
Duncan went outside, unsure what to say, so he said nothing. He just stood beside Caleb, waiting for the boy to speak.
The young man looked up at Duncan, angry, confused, and eyes brimming with tears.
“Why?” was all he could ask.
“I wish I knew,” Duncan said, pulling the boy into a strong but gentle hug.
Duncan had buried more friends and loved ones than he could count. While he missed Ed, sympathy and sadness were only practiced. Truth was, he felt no such pain of loss any longer. At funerals, Duncan often found himself mourning his loss of feeling more than anything.
Time marched on, and people came and people went. Same as ever.
Little did Caleb know he was an Otherworlder who would stop aging in his 40s and bury many people himself. Perhaps, he, too, would become as jaded as Duncan.
The first funeral of a loved one was always roughest.
Caleb broke down into tears, and turned away, red-faced. “This is all my fault.”
“What do you mean?” Duncan had asked.
“I killed him.”
Duncan woke from the dream.
* * * *
CHAPTER 1 — Duncan
Duncan paced his basement wondering what Jacob planned for him next.
He was growing restless, and, oddly enough, already hungry again. Duncan felt near starving, though not for food. He was hungry to take another life. The housekeeper, Melora, left him feeling more alive than he’d ever felt. The energy surge, along with her vicious flood of memories and experiences, was more powerful than any drug he’d ever taken — and Duncan had taken a great many over the years: for recreation, experiments in self-improvement, and general need.
Feeding was like acid and opiates, rolled into a tantric orgasm and multiplied by a million. It was a bit like a bad trip, but only for a fat handful of flickers, as he was forced to sort through Melora’s worst memories, fears, and pain, like when she lost her child three hours after his birth.
Duncan quickly found himself riding through her currents of thought until he found himself swimming in calmer seas, basking in the pleasures of her life as if by instinct. He had even relived her more erotic moments, which left him surprised in both the depths of her kink, and that such a plain-looking woman had so many sexual escapades with men and women of every shape and size. Melora was one book Duncan could never have judged by its cover.
He wanted out of the basement, and to experience the rush again. Yet, Duncan was also shrouded by guilt. He hadn’t wanted to kill Melora. It was the parasite’s instinct and his own sense of self-preservation compelling him to feed from Melora’s screaming body. As he sat, imagining feasting on others, Duncan felt disgusted.
I can’t just go kill people.
I am not them.
I am above them.
He could almost feel Jacob’s laughter as the monster descended the stairs, looking down at Melora’s charred remains, which Duncan couldn’t bring himself to move from the bottom.
“So, how is superiority treating you?” Jacob smiled. “Is that whole ‘I’m not a monster’ thing going well?” He tutted. “For so long your people have treated ours like monsters, as if we’d chosen our paths. Chosen to be infected with the parasites. As if we chose a life of murder. People love to feel smug, but when it comes right down to it, they’re all just pigs wallowing in the filth, eating whatever they must to survive.”
Duncan said nothing since Jacob was right. He was now no better than the monsters he’d hunted for so long, but that didn’t mean he had to admit it.
Jacob circled the body. “So, are you ready for your next meal?” he asked.
“No,” Duncan lied.
Jacob smiled, “You say no, but you forget, I can feel what you feel. I feel that hunger within you, Mr. Alderman. Why deny what you can embrace? I’ve elevated you past the rest of your species, and above the humans! You should be thanking me. I’m setting you front and center for the next evolution of our kind. We will be Gods among beasts, and the world our buffet.”
Duncan still said nothing, staring down at the concrete floor.
Jacob said, “It’s OK, you’ll come around. In the meantime, I’ve a small favor to ask. It seems I’ve come into possession of some numbers, Social Security numbers, to be precise. I need to find the people attached to the numbers.”
Duncan asked, “Are these your so-called ‘vessels?’”
“Why, yes they are. See? You and I make a good team, Mr. Alderman.”
“Why should I help you?”
“Well, let’s just pretend for a moment that you have a choice, and that I can’t bring you to your knees in crippling pain by merely thinking it. In that case, you would help me because you’re helping yourself. Now that you’re with us, our goals are as one.”
“I want out of the basement,” Duncan said. “I’m tired of being cooped up down here. Plus, I’ll need access to my computers if you expect any answers.”
“Fair enough, consider it done.” Jacob said. He stepped closer to Duncan, locking eyes with the old man as sharp force suddenly pressed into his skull from all sides. “But just so you know, I can see your eve
ry action and hear your every thought. If you even think about doing anything to interfere with me, I will know, and make you wish I had killed you.” Jacob snarled, still sounding almost pleasant. “You think killing the hired fucking help was difficult? I’ll lock you in a room with a newborn infant if you cross me. See how that weighs on your conscience.”
Duncan nodded, “You don’t have to threaten me.”
“That’s excellent news,” Jacob said, losing his snarl. “I’ve taken the liberty of blacking out the windows on the second floor, so I’ll have a room prepared for you.”
“Can’t I have my bedroom?”
“No,” he said, “I’ve grown quite accustomed to your bed. It really is quite the luxury.”
**
An hour later, Jacob released Duncan from the basement. The old man ascended the stairs to find that his entire house was now commandeered by Harbinger, as he had suspected. There were armed men in black crowding the bottom floor, and a few others wearing civilian clothes. Duncan figured they were Otherworlders or Halfworlders sympathetic to Harbinger’s cause.
He was led to the second floor guest rooms where he hadn’t set foot for several years, except for during a minor remodeling job three years earlier. He was placed in the room at the end of the hall, farthest from his bedroom. The room’s window was painted black, a clearly hurried mess, with black paint dripping stains along the wooden sill and hardwood floors. While Duncan noticed the mess, he didn’t allow it to worm its way under his skin since his house was filled with far worse atrocities than spilled paint.
His laptop was set up on a small desk, waiting for him.
Duncan sat and lifted the lid.
“Remember,” Jacob said, “do as instructed and nothing more. Do not attempt to send a message to anyone or I will turn threat into reality.”
Duncan signed into the Agency’s database, while Jacob probed his brain, searching for any sign of betrayal. He could feel the monster skittering through his mind, reading his thoughts. Duncan tried to bury his revulsion, but Jacob kept digging, as deep as he wanted.
Fuck you.
“And fuck you, too,” Jacob said aloud, delighting in his demonstration of power. “Here,” he said, handing Duncan a piece of paper filled with neatly printed numbers in the Old Language. “You can read this, correct? Get to work.”
Duncan began typing in the numbers, retrieving names of people he didn’t even know existed, and who had never raised so much as a blip on the Agency radar, lest their names would have been flagged. As he pulled up each name and address, he asked Jacob if he wanted to record any of the details.
“Not necessary,” Jacob said. “I never forget … anything.”
As Duncan typed, he felt Jacob’s presence in his head, almost as if the man were pressing on his brain like a full bladder. Duncan decided to experiment, compartmentalizing a thought as if imagining it in a hidden box, then waited to see if it would register. The tricky part in compartmentalizing was that the mere act would often tip the infiltrator off to what you were doing, even if not to the precision of your thought. Tell someone not to think of an elephant, and all they can see are large floppy ears, the color gray, and two long tusks. Trying to disguise the act of concealing a thought was much the same way. You had to think the thought and then quickly think another on top of it, almost, forcing yourself to forget it. And then there was the act of thinking through a series of thoughts while covering those with other thoughts — a task which had taken Duncan decades to master.
I know your weakness, Jacob, and I will use it against you.
Duncan kept typing, thinking of the names and numbers he was pulling from the database, waiting to see if his secret thoughts were properly concealed from Jacob. He’d never been up against anyone with powers like Jacob. Nor had he masked a thought for longer than 10 minutes before the mental exhaustion tripped him up.
Jacob continued staring at the computer screen while probing Duncan’s mind.
Duncan typed in the final number, and noticed the name attached. “Hope Barnett.”
Her? How can it be?
The errant thought flew into the wild before Duncan could capture it back and toss it in the box.
“Is that John’s Hope?” Jacob asked, slithering down past Duncan’s shoulder like a snake. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan lied, trying to bury what he did know, and her protected identity before it slipped into Jacob’s head.
Do not think it, do not think it.
Hannah Quinn.
Too late.
It was almost as if Jacob reached into Duncan’s mind and plucked the name away before he could hide it.
“Ah, she’s changed her name, eh? And the Agency hiding her? Is that why it says ‘location unknown?’ Tell me where she is,” Jacob commanded, narrowing his eyes as he burrowed deeper into Duncan’s head. If Jacob dug too deep, he might discover Duncan’s brewing plan. And if he did that, Hope was lost, both John’s Hope and humanity’s hope.
“I don’t know, it says ‘location unknown’ because we don’t know,” Duncan said in a commanding tone crafted to push Jacob’s buttons. “Now get out of my head.”
“You are my pet, and I will do as I wish,” Jacob smiled, edging himself deeper into Duncan’s brain.
Duncan’s eyes seized on the pen and pencil holder. He reached out, grabbed a pencil, gripped it hard in his right hand, then drove it deep into the middle of his left. He screamed, but not alone. Jacob’s scream was just as loud, an echo of his pain.
Behind the scream Duncan felt the monster withdraw from his mind.
“What the hell?” Jacob yelled, reaching out and grabbing Duncan around the neck. “You think you can hurt me? You think you can hurt ME?” The monster picked Duncan up by the throat, and stared at him with burning eyes.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan said, burying the secret in hurried layers of thought, bracing his mind before Jacob entered again.
Jacob scowled and threw Duncan across the room, slamming him into the wall beside the bed. “Do you think you’re the only one with information? Do you think there is anyone in your organization I can’t reach?”
Jacob grabbed the laptop and left the room, locking the door from outside. His anger seemed to soften on the other side, and when he spoke he was back to his sickeningly sweet voice. “You know, I’m starting to think I should find a new second-in-charge if you’re going to pull stunts like that, Mr. Alderman. I’d think long and hard about your attitude.”
Duncan glared at the door, yanked the pencil from his hand, dropped it to the ground, and watched as the wound began to heal itself. Pain receded and brought his resolve into bloom.
Duncan now knew what he had to do, though he didn’t dare to think it while Jacob was still in the house.
* * * *
CHAPTER 2 — Larry
Larry was rudely torn from his pizza coma as sirens screamed outside his house.
He reached up, fixed the glasses askew on his face, hopped from couch to floor, threw his Xbox controller aside, then ran to the window and parted the thick curtains. Flashing lights split the darkness to a garish rainbow blur as a mile-long fire truck drifted in front of the house. Larry grabbed his gun, slid it into the waistband of his jeans, then stepped out into the cool night air.
He stood on his porch, staring at the house down the street as it was licked by walls of curling fire. The scent of gasoline permeated the air, but seemed too close to be coming from the burning house. Another fire truck, this one shorter, was followed by a pair of police cars and a lone ambulance.
“What the hell?”
Larry was about to step back inside and let Abi know what was happening when he heard the soft sound of nearby crying. He looked down and saw Abi crouched in a ball behind the thick row of shrubs beneath their living room window. She was staring up at him as if something unimaginably horrible had just happened.
Larry swallowed. The flickering
in Abi’s eyes made him weak in the knees, but he managed to hold himself steady. “What’s wrong, Honey?”
“I did it,” she said.
“Did what?” Larry said, dreading the answer as Abi slowly lifted her arm and extended a shaking finger at the house with the fire trucks in front.
“Come inside, Abi,” he said, waving his arm and wishing he could hug her. She looked like she needed one. Yet, so far as he knew, he was only safe from John’s touch, not other feeders’. She slowly stood, and as her body rose above the bushes, Larry could see her pajamas were soaking wet. The pungent scent of gasoline wafted from Abi’s body and into his nostrils.
What the hell happened to her?
Abi stepped inside the house, her eyes holding the floor like a scared, or ashamed, animal.
Larry closed the door, locked it, and looked at Abigail, shuddering in front of him as if awaiting trial. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she cried. “I woke up in their house after I killed their son. I think I was about to kill them, too.”
“Killed? You mean fed?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, her voice cracked and fragile. “The parents saw what I did, and the mom was going to call the police. I tried getting the phone, but we touched …” Abi sniffed back her tears and swiped at her eyes. “Then the dad shot me, and tried to choke me or something. Then he touched me. Pretty soon, everyone was … dead.”
“So, how the hell did the house burn down?”
“I didn’t know what to do!” Abigail cried. “I didn’t want the bad men to come and take me again. So, I started a fire. I thought maybe the police would think someone burned them with gas.”
“Jesus,” Larry said, sighing as he removed his glasses and pinched his nose at the bridge as he set his glasses on the dining room table.