Insequor

by Richard Murphy

  Insequor

  By Richard P. Murphy

  ©2016 Richard Paul Murphy

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For more information, visit www.richardpmurphy.com

  For Helen, Katherine, Susanna and Lois.

  He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

  - Voltaire, Henriade, I.

  Central Intelligence Agency

  Interview Transcript

  File Number – 133329DKK

  Date and Time: Classified

  Agent Conducting Interview:

  Classified Classified

  Session 1

  AGENT Classified

  For the record, could you please state your name, date of birth and address.

  LOMAN

  My name is Daniel Loman. I was born on the first of October, 1978. I have several addresses, but my current residence is the Classified Classified.

  AGENT Classified

  Just to confirm you are here voluntarily and that no charges have been brought against you.

  LOMAN

  Correct.

  AGENT Classified

  Thank you. Daniel, could you please cast your mind back to those first moments when the entity walked into your life?

  LOMAN

  Entity. Is that what we’re calling it?

  AGENT Classified

  For the purpose of this conversation.

  LOMAN

  It seems so long ago now. I’m not sure I can even remember my life without him.

  AGENT Classified

  Let me help you out. It was sixteen years ago and you were at your place of work, at the time, GBP Limited.

  LOMAN

  Yes, that’s right. I had a job. And a house too. In a little town.

  AGENT Classified

  You had, what one could describe as, a relatively normal life. A quiet existence.

  LOMAN

  Quiet? Yes, it was always quiet.

  AGENT Classified

  Then, one day…

  LOMAN

  One day.

 

  Chapter 1

  Daniel had thought he was an ordinary guy ever since he’d trudged into the realms of adulthood. Sure, he had dreams. Mostly in the daytime.

  He’d crept through high school; the kid who kept himself to himself, neither an emo nor a jock. After losing his parents but not finding himself he became just someone who didn’t feel the need to exert his presence upon the world.

  At college, whilst others chugged, he stayed indoors harbouring thoughts of being a journalist. Then, when he left, he watched as those imaginings drifted away before he finally accepted his fate. What followed had, so far, been a subdued life of saying ‘no’ and then kicking himself afterwards, before rolling over to contemplate what might have been.

  It was two o’clock and the phones in the packed open plan office bleated. Friday afternoon. So near, yet so far. Through the window was a cold, fresh November. Inside, the fuggy air conditioning ushered the smell of copier ink into his nostrils. Low sunlight barged in through the metal framed windows bouncing off the sellotape scars on the stationery cupboard and onto his screen. He tilted his head and studied the dusty monitor sat behind his keyboard.

  “Daniel?” said a furry voice.

  A quick ‘Alt + Tab’ and he was back in a spreadsheet looking busy. “Yep?”

  “Tom Lanigan just called. Asked if you could ring him back. I think it’s about that change request?”

  “Sure. On it.” His hand reached up to the phone and just as the owner of the voice retreated out of sight it dropped again. He sucked in a yawn and looked at the grid of numbers in front of him. He was bored. So bored his body literally ached with it. He needed to stand just to get out of the seat but he was running out of excuses. In the last hour he’d been for a coffee, done two trips to the toilet and used the copier.

  Back at his apartment tonight he could crash on his couch with a book and a bottle of wine. Or maybe stay up late and lose himself in an online world. There were always a couple of box sets waiting to be watched too. Although, more often than not, he was advised to ‘stick with it as it gets really good in season 3.’ Why did he have to plough through twenty episodes of a show before it became gripping?

  He toyed with the idea of never watching TV ever again. Then, the fire alarm went off.

  All over the floor heads popped up from pods like meerkats. It was Friday so it couldn’t be a drill, surely? He allowed himself a quick smile, grabbed his coat and more importantly his car keys. Always remember them; just in case the place actually burns down. When he stood up there was already a river of bodies making their way toward the concrete stairwells.

  Little steps as he pushed gently on the person in front, a robust woman from behind returning the favour. Down one flight of stairs, past the person in a wheelchair waiting near the recovery trolley thing. Then the doors; a crack of real light and cold air zipping through the heads of the crowd.

  It was bright but the sun was squatting; the wind swept across Daniel’s light brown hair and made his blue eyes water. He was good-looking, but his features held no confidence; his poise was hunched and unassuming. In a crowd nobody would spot Daniel.

  The alarm was even louder outside for some reason. He looked about to see if there was anyone he could talk to. A couple of the smokers had lit up near the car park entrance. His boss was talking to the Head of Operations who was tutting back.

  Daniel pulled up his jacket around his neck and looked at his watch. Maybe, if there was a real fire, they could go home. As his eyes swept across the exterior of ‘GBP Ltd’ he didn’t pay any attention to the slight figure that coasted up next to him.

  “Hi, Daniel.”

  “Veronica.” For some reason, all of the blood in his head decided to take a vacation to just below his knees.

  “Is this your wallet?” She held out what looked like a really bad leather sandwich. “It was on the floor.”

  “Thanks,” he said. His hand touched hers for the slimmest of moments as he retrieved it. “Must have dropped out.”

  She smiled back at him. He was never sure whether it was affection, concern or pity. It didn’t matter; each beam sent him a little higher onto the balls of his feet. Her hair was dark, pinned up and straight. Her eyes, a deep green, sat above a pert nose and thin lips.

  “So, any plans tomorrow?”

  “Plans?”

  “The weekend, silly,” she said. “Are you doing anything?”

  “Oh, I thought, I mean, well, no. Maybe the gym or something.”

  “I didn’t know you worked out? Where do you go? Shelby’s?”

  “No just at home, in my apartment. Cardio. Buns and stuff.” His smile wilted.

  “Buns?”

  “Er, pulls. Pulls.”

  “Right.”

  “You?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Any plans?”

  She laughed, “I thought you meant buns.”

  “Pulls.”

  “Yes those too,” she said, breathing in. “Well, a few of us are going for a bike ride around the valley and then having ice-cream at Jackie’s. I was wondering if you felt like joining us?”

  For a moment he couldn’t breathe. The thought of spending a day with Veronica made him unable to speak. Eventually he gasped and the air rushed into his lungs. “I’d love to,” he said, sounding anything but calm.

  “Great.” Silence.

  T
hey both looked around. The alarm had stopped and people were starting to amble back to the office. “Looks like the drill is over,” she said.

  He smiled warmly. “So I’ll call you. I have your number.”

  “Okay. Catch you later.” As she squeezed past into the crowd Daniel got a slight smell of her. He sucked it in and held it for as long as he could.

  It was later, at the coffee machine, he heard Tom Lanigan and some other guy talking. As he approached Tom looked up from his cup.

  “Did you hear? Apparently a tremor set off the alarm. Been happening all across the county.”

  “Really? I didn’t feel anything,” said Daniel.

  Tom leaned forward and winked at his companion, a short fat guy from Finance. “Been on the news. The fire department have been pretty stretched. Alarms going off all the way up to Boston. Didn’t you and your bunch of nerds hear about it on Twitter or something?”

  Two laughs. One false, one forced.

  “Funny, Tom.” Daniel nodded and looked at his shoes. “Can I just jump in there and get a number forty?”

  “No problem, nerd.”

  Their voices faded as Daniel returned to his desk. He put the plastic cup down next to the mouse and gave it a quick wiggle. Everything was still there; reports he didn’t want to write and mail he didn’t want to read.

  He blinked hard. The decision to bring up Wikipedia and start to read about earthquakes was brought on purely by the chat with Tom; that and a need to kill fifteen minutes. As he read about seismic waves he lost track of time and three o’clock soon became four. But something jolted him back to the office.

  Silence. Not quiet, but absolute silence. Everyone had stopped talking. Typing. Even the phones weren’t ringing. He scanned around the desks. Everyone else was doing the same, their fingers still hovering over their keyboards as if unsure to continue.

  Then he felt something; almost a rocking. The whole building seemingly shifting a little. Then, a car alarm followed by the sound of metal groaning.

  “What the hell was that?” said a voice, in the cubicle next to him.

  People were walking toward the window. Daniel got up and made his way to the floor to ceiling glass on the north side of the office. The crowd was already three deep and pushing past the confused looking occupants of the desks nearby.

  Outside, the now grey skies collided with the concrete slabs of the town. But something was disturbing the normally regimented lines and squares. The car park stretched away for about two blocks, but a shape was moving through it. Cars were being pushed aside; some had even been flipped. It looked like a crack was appearing in the earth and throwing the metal shells out of its way.

  Then, they saw it; a figure, not a man and not a woman. Walking directly towards the office and shunting the cars aside as if they were made of cardboard.

  At the window, everyone simply stood and stared. Nobody said anything. Daniel looked along the line of people; some of the women in the office had taken hold of the nearest guy.

  Chapter 2

  Forty thousand feet in the sky, directly above Daniel, a man called Toby was concerned. In front of him was a cup of coffee; Javanese coffee to be specific. But he only drank Colombian, hence the look of concern. His eyes stared blankly at the Air Force Duty officer who had just placed the cup down in front of him.

  “Something wrong, sir?”

  “The sachet,” said Toby. “It says Java.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have anything else?”

  “Tea?”

  “Any other coffee?”

  The duty officer’s dark brown eyes looked back like a puppy. “No, sir. Can I get you a bottle of water?”

  “Yes please, thank you.” Toby slid the drink back across the table. As he did so he looked down at the photographs. An astute person, with perhaps a passing knowledge of North American geography, would have spotted they were satellite images of Connecticut. Next to them a phone had started to vibrate and Toby reached for it.

  “Hello?”

  Toby picked up the top photograph and started to look at it over his spectacles. His hair was dark and long and his brown eyes matched his olive skin. A thin face, with gaunt jaw, alluded to a skinny but muscular frame.

  “That is odd…extraordinary.”

  He shuffled through the pictures. The last one seemed to show a large crater in the midst of some trees.

  “Yes, well, luckily I was in the area…What? No, just coincidence. I was visiting an old friend.”

  The duty officer returned with the water in a plastic beaker. As he placed it on the table, Toby mouthed, ‘Thank-you’ before reaching for another photograph.

  “What was the town called again? Aha…Right…Yes, I see it here on the map. How many people?”

  Toby put the photo down. “That’s not too bad,” he said, to the voice on the other end of the phone.

  Chapter 3

  Daniel wasn’t sure why the fire bells were ringing. There was no fire. People poured down the stairwells again in a fuzz but this time there was no chatter or jokes. The sheer amount of quiet was worrying him for some reason; there was calm, there were footsteps but nobody spoke. When they got to the back of the building people looked around for direction. A lot of them were making for the fire points, backed up against the fence at the rear of the parking lot. Daniel immediately realised his car keys were up in his desk.

  Then, there was an enormous sound like a hundred car wrecks. Something had hit the other side of the building. It visibly creased in the middle and dust and debris floated up to the clouds. Now people started to scream. He took a step back and bumped into a guy from reception.

  “What is it?” said the man.

  “I don’t know,” he said. Another thud and the building gave a languid shudder. “We have to get away.”

  The roof gave another lurch and then dropped to the right like a giant animal shrugging its shoulders. People had started to run, their cries all around him. Daniel saw the faces flashing past but couldn’t take his eyes off the office. The convulsions from the structure were building up to a crescendo. Throbbing, like some dreadful birth, the back wall bulged and then crumpled into dust and bricks before the thing eventually emerged.

  Through the dust Daniel saw two circles of yellow light, like eyes on its head. The glows pierced through the dirt unnaturally and slowly bobbed up and down as it walked towards them. There were screams and shouts but all Daniel could do was stare. The body, if it was a body, was the size of a large man; but metallic, gun-like and smooth. There were hands but no fingers, no real joints to speak of. As it trudged forward the metal shifted like a wind struck puddle.

  Someone grabbed Daniel’s shoulder and he felt his torso spin before, finally, his legs arrived at the party. The direction of the surge was towards the car park entrance, but it was narrow there and people were slowly squashing together. Daniel looked behind. The figure was walking towards them, slowly, but not stopping. There were more cars but it just strode through them; some bouncing away, others rolling over and being trampled like cardboard boxes.

  A woman in front of him fell and he stumbled, his arms reached out but grabbed only a coat and suddenly he was falling onto people. It was hot, bodies were starting to pile up; he felt their breath surround him and he heard their shrieks. Then, suddenly, he could see space ahead and the posts of the car park entrance. He managed to get on to his knees, then one foot. As he lurched up he again looked around. The thing was about fifty yards away and had caught the first of the stragglers. Like the cars it walked straight through the people and, in some cases, over them.

  The eyes. Was it alive? It looked like it was. But it had the body of a machine.

  He ran to the road where people from the office were streaming out of the car park. Passers-by had stopped their vehicles and were coming back in, trying to help. The result was two waves of bodies hitting each other, surging up in the middle like surf. Daniel stepped to the side, desperately trying to
make his way one step at a time along the outer wall. He at last put some distance between himself and the entrance, the crowd thinning out across the road. He walked back, facing toward the offices, or what was left. The entire building had buckled and he noted his own floor was under rubble.

  The traffic was all but stopped and he crossed over; all the while looking back at the people funnelling out of the entrance. A police car showed up and the local Sheriff stepped out. They knew each other vaguely and he acknowledged Daniel, making the briefest of eye contact.

  Shoulders back and hat straightened, the sheriff marched over to the car park entrance as the river of people finally became a trickle. Any second now the thing would appear. Daniel wanted to shout to the cop to get his gun out but before he could a movement to his left made him turn. The nearby wall fell over in chunks and the thing walked through. It was heading straight for him.

  As his feet started to step backwards he trod on a bottle and it crackled. He couldn’t do anything other than stare at the eyes coming forward. Suddenly there was a figure between them. It was the sheriff and he was raising his gun.

  “Don’t move!” He was addressing it like a person. Was it?

  It kept coming.

  A shot. Then another. The bullets sparked on the body of the thing but it walked through the sheriff without even stopping. Daniel circled away. It turned toward him. He stepped to the right; it changed direction. A dive to the left; it lurched again. He felt a curling knot in his stomach when he realised it was here for him.

  His feet were now furiously working backward. His legs hit something. Turning, he saw the sheriff’s car, the engine still running and the door open. He dived inside, pulled the door shut and hit the gas just as the creature, its arms extended, arrived. The metal hands managed to take a chunk out of the door before he got away. In the rear view mirror he saw it start to traipse after him surrounded by people screaming. More police were just arriving.