The Dead Boy

by Saunders, Craig

  She'd never met a killer until the night before.

  Must be, what...twenty-four hours now?

  No way to tell. But she figured she'd been around killers for that long at least. Once, worried about the gym and yoghurt and granola bars. Now, surrounded by death and waiting for it to knock on a locked door.

  We're fucked, she thought.

  Another thought popped into her head, though, and this thought wasn't hers.

  Help me.

  Francis, startled, stared around the stark cell, imagining there was someone with them.

  But no.

  She looked around the walls, the ceiling. Maybe there were speakers. Maybe this was all some kind of experiment, like a CIA thing, hallucinations, psychological warfare...

  No.

  She shook that thought away, because that was easy, a lie, and she didn't want false comfort. At the end of this, there wasn't going to be a form to sign, or a questionnaire.

  You know this doesn't end like that.

  'Ben,' she said, softly at first. He didn't want to wake up. She forced the issue and pulled both eyes open.

  'What?' he said. Groggy voiced, and his face only a couple of shades off pure white.

  The thought, or whisper, or voice, whatever it was, came again. Help.

  'You hear anything?'

  'Like what?'

  'Listen, Ben. Shh, and listen.'

  Help me.

  'There. You hear that?'

  He shook his head very slowly, and closed his eyes again.

  Great, thought Francis.

  But the voice in her head didn't want to be still.

  HELP ME.

  'Fuck!' she said. She slammed her palms over her ears to block out the words - it was deafening. But it wasn't from outside.

  A trickle of blood ran from her nose.

  'What?' said Ben, blinking wildly, like he was scared, but at least more awake than he had been for hours. 'Your nose...you're bleeding...Francis?'

  Francis couldn't tell him right then. The not-so-little voice spoke, and she found herself listening...except she knew she wasn't exactly listening. Someone was dialling her internal number.

  'Shut up,' she told him. 'Let me listen.'

  The voice belonged to a boy, for sure. She listened and muttered her replies, but it was her thoughts that spoke to the boy, not her words.

  Ben said nothing. After a few moments, she wasn't aware he was with her at all.

  No sight, or vision, but pure sound. Her eyes drifted closed, and there he was, entirely in her mind and her hearing, as though she wasn't in a filthy cell at all, but on a couch somewhere, maybe, with good headphones and blissful, cool, dark.

  A child, only, but the owner of the voice in her head had the confidence and surety of an adult.

  And she liked what the kid said, too.

  Is this real? Is anything that happened since yesterday real?

  She imagined that thought was her own, but the child picked up on that, too.

  If it is just a dream, Miss...does it matter?

  The kid made a hell of a lot of sense. If she listened, maybe they'd get out alive. Maybe they'd die trying, but then, they were going to die anyway. This was life or death.

  A kid speaking in her head was the least of her worries, and if the whole thing was just in her head, then it was a very persuasive hallucination.

  Only one way to find out for sure, said the child. In a minute, two soldiers outside your door are going to come in and shoot you and the man.

  'Shit,' said Francis, this time out loud.

  'What?' said Ben, pulling her some way back to the room. 'Francis...Jesus...talk to me.'

  She glanced at the policeman. He could barely move. He had blood on his chin. She didn't remember him having blood there before. She thought maybe it was from inside him.

  The kid was talking, though, and she wanted to listen to the child more than she wanted to be in the cell.

  I can't stop them, she thought back to the boy. I'm on my own.

  You have to, came the reply. I'll show you how.

  The door opened in her head half a second before it happened for real. Francis saw everything play out and did it just like the images in her head. Acting, but for real. Fuck up her mark and she'd die for real, too.

  Move to the back of the door.

  Francis moved, quickly, from the bed, just like the kid told her, as the first man entered. Ben looked up, confused. The guard expected two prisoners and only saw one. There was nowhere else the woman could hide.

  Push the door. Hard as...

  She threw her whole weight hard and fast against the door. The door hit the hand holding the gun - a sharp wooden edge against bare knuckles.

  Duck.

  She ducked as the second guard pushed through the doorway and fired wildly toward her. The shot deafened her, but she listened to a voice that was inside, not out.

  The first man through the door had dropped his pistol when the door smashed his knuckles. He recovered quickly, slammed the door back at her, trying to push her away so he could pick up the weapon at his feet. But, low now, she was closer to the gun.

  Pick it up.

  She did, partly following instructions, partly moving on her own, intuitively.

  KICKSTANDSHOOTLOWSHOOTHIGH.

  She did all four things in almost perfect time with the words in her head. Her foot caught the one with the broken knuckles at the juncture of thigh and hip. She stood and fired low, then recoil she hadn't expected send her second shot higher. Two shells hit the floor. The guards were still standing, but only because each propped the other up in the doorway. One shot somewhere important in the chest, dead instantly. The guard whose gun she held wouldn't need it back. He wasn't dead, but made a horrible sound, like a groan and a plea in one.

  Francis didn't need a voice in her head to tell her she needed to toughen up. Finish it now, or she might as well shoot herself and Ben both right here.

  Wincing, almost apologetic, she fired a third bullet into the groaning man's forehead.

  There was no time to freak out. Blood hit the wall, splashed on the back of her hand and the top of the gun (slide, she thought). Her ears rang, but she didn't need to hear anything outside. She'd just fired a gun in their room. The sound would have travelled. Other soldiers would hear. They'd have guns and be a damn sight better with theirs than she was with hers.

  MOVE NOW.

  Francis' nose steadily dripped blood and her eyes glazed. She thought, distantly, that maybe the voice wasn't just talking to her, but controlling her, too...

  But if the owner of the voice could save them, she would let him.

  TAKE THE SOLDIER'S KEYS. SAVE ME.

  Please.

  She took the keys and the man's pistol with her, too. Ben spoke, saying something, but any sound outside faded away, everything blocked but that voice. Ben shook, pale, so weak he could barely stand, and then only on one leg. She dragged him up and out.

  Let the voice lead, she thought.

  She took one last glance at the soldiers on the floor, dead because of her, but because of the voice, too.

  Let him lead, and live.

  Ben's didn't seem to be able to focus. If he didn't get help, he was going to die. No doubt about that. With the boy in her head, maybe they could all get free. Either way, it wasn't like anyone was offering better options.

  *

  MISS - THERE'S SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO SEE.

  Don't shout, she thought back to the voice in her head. Whatever you're doing, I feel like my head's going to explode.

  SORRY. Sorry. I'm eight. Better?

  Better, thought Francis.

  Stop just here.

  Kid's got some balls, she thought on reflex.

  Thanks, he thought back at her, though she hadn't meant to communicate that last part. She smiled, even though she was afraid. Sweat poured down the small of her back and between her breasts, from both fear and half-dragging Ben along. Ben tried to take some of t
he weight from her. The pain must have been awful - his leg broken so badly the bone jutted into the trousers of his filthy uniform. Blood ran from his lips and down his chin now, probably, she thought, from a lung. His breath came in ragged gasps even though she had almost all of his weight. He'd hardly said a word since they'd got out of the cell. Dragging a man with just the one leg wasn't something she was used to, or ever wanted to be.

  'Ben? You coping?'

  His only reply was a curt nod.

  She almost wished he would offer to stay behind.

  Here, said the kid.

  Francis and Ben halted before a wide window looking into what was once maybe a maternity ward - the room where the babies were kept in incubators. Ben paled, looked like he was about to puke. Francis' vision wavered, too. But while Ben looked away, she forced herself to look. To fill up on it, so the next time she pulled the trigger she wouldn't flinch.

  Is this what they've done to you? she thought.

  They're going to. The boys you see - they're all 'gifted'. The man who burns, Mr. O'Dell? He says they're important, so he's looking after them. But he's not. He's a liar.

  On the other side of the window there were fourteen boys. Their ages ranged from little kids who could probably barely speak...probably hadn't even understood where they were or what had been done to them. Some of the other kids were older. They would have seen it coming and known.

  She could barely imagine such fear.

  Who would do this? Who could?

  The children were unsupervised - they weren't going anywhere. Everyone of them was in a wheelchair. They drooled, covered in old food from the untended tubes that fed them through some kind of automatic dispensers. Their eyes were blank and blind. Their necks were broken - surgically, no doubt. But their heads were caved and cut, too. Portions of their brain matter taken away. Whatever was left was no doubt pure mind, no function remaining but thought. They would drift until what was left of them simply gave in, and faded away.

  Maybe, until then, they lived in a nightmare land, or some kind of beautiful fantasy.

  Francis hoped it was the later. God, she hoped so.

  A room full of humans forgotten, like a workman's tools left to rust in the rain. What a terrible price to pay for a 'gift' most of these kids probably hadn't even known they possessed.

  This is what they're going to do to me, said the kid, and that was the startling reality. That was the cost.

  We'll get you out, she thought at the voice in her head. We'll do it, or die trying. Ben gripped her shoulder.

  'Come on,' he said.

  She nodded.

  Can you tell us where to go?

  Yes, said the voice in her head. She followed the voice.

  'What's going on, Francis?'

  'What's going on is we're burning this fucking place to the ground,' she said. That was as much as she knew for sure. Everything else would either make sense later, or not matter at all, because they'd all be dead. But then, if something could be worth dying for, then some things, some abominations, must be worth killing for.

  'Might have to do that alone,' he said. He coughed, blood and phlegm hitting the floor at their feet.

  'I'm not giving up yet,' she said. She shifted his weight, his arm, higher across her shoulders and his eyes drifted down. His weight fell entirely on her. She staggered, sweating and short of breath.

  Again, she considered leaving him behind. Her back hurt, her neck. He was dragging her down.

  Don't be a bitch.

  But the fact remained. She wasn't helping him any longer - she was carrying him.

  *

  The woman was Francis. The man with her was Ben. George could 'see' through Francis' eyes like he could others - the same way he saw the soldiers' movements. He saw their thoughts and their actions a fraction ahead of their conscious minds.

  But Francis was different. He could talk to her. With her. He'd never done that before.

  To George, it felt as though the two of them were somewhere dark, at night, whispering dangerous secrets, like kids after bedtime or spies behind enemy lines. George was eight, but the later, he knew, was right. He wasn't playing.

  Through O'Dell's eyes, he'd seen his future. Through Francis' eyes he'd seen just how that looked, just how it felt.

  He'd felt blood, too. Felt her revulsion, or at least understood it.

  At the time, he'd felt the same.

  After seeing the other boys like him, and what O'Dell had done...the revulsion was turned to the man with fire in his eyes, inward no longer.

  The Mill was that man's playground, jail, hospital...it was large enough to be many things. But Francis and Ben were not out in the further reaches of the place.

  Soon.

  George hoped the keys from the dead soldiers would fit the lock to his cell. He didn't know, nor could he, because the soldiers hadn't known.

  Blood poured from George's nose, just as it did Francis. Bright red blood mixed with the darker blood that had dried since he left his body behind to travel with nothing but his mind. He searched for 'dead spots' while he spoke to Francis, the effort burning up both their bodies. He couldn't know the effects of something he'd never done before.

  Dead spots were what he wanted.

  Where there were no thoughts, there were no people.

  Turn here, he would say, or, stop now.

  Once, he had Francis drag Ben into a toilet to hide from two passing soldiers. She was tired from carrying him. He could feel her fatigue. He understood that for them to live, others might have to be hurt. Worse, some might die.

  But he wouldn't kill them if they didn't have to.

  The soldiers passed, Francis moved on, up a flight of stairs rather than the elevator. When they reached his level, he saw Ben was hardly breathing and Francis was pale, her breath ragged from the effort.

  The connection became easier, closer now, until finally, he told her to stop.

  Here, he told her. Here. I'm in here.

  He felt his and her desperation. Neither couldn't help that. His fear amplified hers, hers strengthened his.

  Can you open it? Hurry.

  He saw the key in her hand. Felt the thought, the concentration, as she moved the key to the door and it turned.

  But not to happiness, or freedom. Only to silence.

  Shit, thought the woman and then she was gone.

  Her mind, thoughts, presence...soul. Like she'd died. The man, Ben, gone too.

  I felt it, he thought. I felt it! A dead spot.

  But...

  George's eyes flickered in his cell, his body forgotten and his mind working with his thoughts and reason and his power, too.

  The dead spot had been...

  Huge.

  It was huge. It wasn't the absence of thought at all, but the absence of humanity. It was the feeling Mr. O'Dell carried inside.

  George panicked and pushed with his mind.

  He could push all he liked. He couldn't save himself, or Francis, or Ben. He understood that, at least - because just as there was no handle on the door, there was no handle in this dead spot, either.

  *

  O'Dell grinned, as always.

  'You...I saw you.' said Francis. 'At the supermarket.'

  'I know,' said O'Dell. 'I wanted you to.'

  'Just let us have the kid,' she said. The gun taken from a dead guard weighed heavy in her fist, but stayed by her side. The other side, she held Ben.

  O'Dell's face, his eyes, everything became entirely blank, for only a second. A tiny amount of blood dripped from his nose.

  Shoot him. Shoot him now.

  But as quick as the thought itself, that blank state was gone and his crazed eyes were back, all his focus bearing down on her. Into her.

  'Of course you can have him. I wanted you to have him all along. The Mill is...how would you say? Mutton dressed as lamb?'

  Something happened...and he doesn't know.

  She expected the boy to answer, in her head, but the kid wa
s silent. No one to guide her, no one to tell her what to do.

  She couldn't beat this man, with his black eyes that seemed full of fire and all those clenched yellow teeth.

  It didn't matter. No sense in trying.

  Just give him what he wants, she thought.

  'Mutton?' said the man, thinking out loud.

  Still, Francis couldn't lift that gun.

  I'm weak. Too weak. I know nothing.

  Somewhere deeper, though, she did. She knew perfectly well he was insane. Yes, she understood that.

  That fucking grin, stuck on his face. He jittered, too - his left hand flapped at his side, a fish on a riverbank. Nothing wrong with his right hand, though. Steady as a rock, gun in his old, narrow fist.

  The gun was on Francis. He ignored Ben.

  'Past the sell-by-date may be a more appropriate expression? Doesn't matter,' the crazy man continued, seemingly ignorant of the blood pouring from his nose and dripping from his top lip. 'Take the boy. Get out of here. Burn the place down, if you wish. The Mill has served its purpose.'

  He had perfect teeth, if slightly yellowed with age. He would have looked almost like a normal older gentleman...if not for that crazed rigour mortis-grin and that puckered scar on his forehead.

  Francis didn't reply. Having a gun in her face with a maniac at the end of it dried up all her words. He was mad enough to shoot them just for fun, no matter the words that came from his mouth.

  But instead he flipped the gun and held it out to Francis.

  He grinned at her confusion. It was the only expression he had, really.

  'Go on. Take it. A goodwill gesture, young lady. Francis...Drew Sutton. You'll have two guns. I'll have none. The door is open. Have a nice day,' he said.

  For a second, she honestly believed she was going to live. For a second.

  Then he winked.

  'Only...you know...no sense in carry around dead weight.'

  She helped Ben rest against the corridor wall.

  'He's not dead,' she said, though she wasn't sure. He stayed where she put him. Other than that, he might as well have been.