The Whisperer in Dissonance
Page 7
I close my eyes and force myself to concentrate on what I can deal with now.
Just get to work and worry about everything else later.
I down the rest of the fortified Red Bull before throwing the car into reverse and leaving for work.
~
The Southern California too-bright sun takes no pity on me during my commute. It hurts my eyes, which are heavy as is, even with all the caffeine I’ve had. Everything is too bright. It’s like there aren’t any shadows. Even the overpasses provide little help. The sun envelopes them.
It’s so hot that even with the air conditioner on high the car is stuffy.
At least there are few cars on the road, but there’s no shortage of clutter. I pass a shopping cart full of trash being pushed along Valley View by the wind. It’s in the right lane. A heap of brown foliage takes up the center lane past the cart. Trash lines the road leading to my onramp on the 91. Even the freeway is covered in loose debris, kitchen garbage and paper mostly. When I merge onto the 605, I pass three abandoned trash trucks left back to back in the right lane.
The side of the first trash truck catches my eye. Spray painted red circles cover the exterior of the bin that holds the trash. I’m sure it’s the symbol from my dream, but before I can get a good look at it, another shopping cart veers into my peripheral vision, and I have to swerve lanes to miss it.
My car fishtails as I try to straighten it out. The cart rolls on in my rearview mirror. My heart pounds. It’s a miracle that I was able to change lanes in time with my reaction time so slow from lack of sleep. But after that near miss, I’m awake now. It’s also a miracle that I was able to change lanes without hitting anyone. There’s one advantage to this weirdness. There’s no one to collide with.
As I transition to the 405 I almost say “Where is everyone?” aloud, but I know better than to tempt the capricious freeway gods by acknowledging the absence of clogged traffic. A BMW, one of the few cars I’ve seen this morning, passes by me driving very fast, taking advantage of the open freeway.
This is nuts. Even if I did fall asleep, I could drift lanes and have more chance of coming in contact with the divider than another car. Is it a holiday? Did I miss something?
I turn up the volume on the CD. Confused by the quickness of the commute, I almost miss my exit. I’m thankful for the lack of traffic as I cut across two lanes to make my off-ramp.
The surface streets near work are just as devoid of traffic. After a block I only see one car where normally there would be gridlock. I decide to brave the news and switch over to the radio. The first news station is all static. I twist the knob, unsure if I have the dial tuned to the right number but get nothing. I switch between my preset buttons, and finally find a station. A voice comes through a sea of static, but it’s faint, and I can only make out a few words amidst the scratching. “Fires.” “Virus.” “…Who they are…” “They’re everywhere.”
I shudder as I pull into the parking garage. The lot is almost empty. I recognize Claire’s Mercedes and Pete’s Jaguar. There are only five cars besides my own. Normally there would be at least thirty.
~
The lights are on in the office, but the office is empty. There’s no one at the reception desk. This isn’t abnormal in itself, but there are no sounds of people talking or the copiers running or phones ringing. I duck into the tech support pit, but there’s no one there. There’s no sign of Marie or even Chad.
Is everyone sick? Maybe the office is closed because of the virus?
I head to my desk, figuring I’ll check my work email to see if there’s a memo or something. I switch on the computer. Next to the keyboard, I find a gift box with a red bow on it. The card is in Claire’s writing. I set the box back down, unopened.
Maybe they’ve closed the office for good.
Going away gift? With a pink slip gift card?
My phone buzzes in my purse.
Michael: I told you not to go in. You’re not safe at work.
I start to text back.
Annie: You told me in the dream…
A high pitched whine comes from down the hall. As I turn toward the source of the sound, several small whimpers, like a crying puppy come after the whine. I follow the sound. I’m exhausted and unsteady, and unsure if I’m awake or dreaming.
The door creaks as I push it open. It’s dark inside. I hold onto the door jamb and peer in. The lights inside the bathroom flicker, but go back out. “Hello,” I call. “Is anyone in there?” I take a tentative step inside. My toe splashes into an inch of water on the tile.
I’m about to back out, the door starts to swing shut, when I hear it again. Four sad whimpers echo off the bathroom tile.
I grab a five-gallon water bottle from next to the water cooler and lug it the few feet over to prop the bathroom door open. My shoes splash on the flooded floor. I move slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light. Rounding the corner past the stalls, I find him in the darkness.
Chad sits upright next to the sink with his back against the wall. He stares ahead blankly with his mouth hanging open. He looks dead, but his left leg kicks and splashes in the water. “Hunhh.” His mouth forms a grin, and he looks up at me as thick drool spreads across his bottom lip and chin.
“Chad? Are you all right?”
He answers with four whimpers. The last is an elongated whistling, like a whale song. I take two more steps toward him. “Can you walk? We’ve got to get you out of here and to a hospital.”
He gurgles and spits, whimpering several words I can’t make out. He spits out a large volume of drool, looks straight at me, and says, “Mate.”
I take a step back. “I don’t think so.” I take another step back, ready to run if he stands, but he just twitches on the floor. “I’ll phone 9-1-1 for you. Don’t try to move.” I turn and walk quickly back to my desk.
Out of force of habit, I switch on the monitor before reaching for my phone. The image on my desktop loads slowly, like downloading a large image on a slow connection. A third of the screen fills at a time. Seeing the top of the dream symbol load, I turn the monitor off. I grab my purse. My desk phone rings, an internal line, the red light flashes.
I pick it up, but don’t say anything.
“
I can’t think of what to do. Rapid, panicked thoughts flash through my mind.
Run. Get as far away as possible. See what he wants. Quit. Tell him you need to see a doctor. Call 911.
I shiver. Chills race along my skin, my body quakes, but I’m still standing there. My feet won’t move. I don’t know whether to breakdown and cry or run out the door.
The phone bursts static. “
The box with Claire’s present starts to buzz and vibrate. The pattern on the wrapping paper swims and swirls. The paper seems to come alive, like the fibers of the paper transform into living cells forming the dream sigil in the swirling shape. I drop the package on the desk.
“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” I say into the phone, and I bolt toward the exit.
~
It may seem mad going to the mall because I was told to in a dream, but dream Michael had been right about my work, and I can’t think what else to do.
After the empty freeway and roads, I do a double take seeing all the cars piled into the parking lot at South Coast Plaza. Every parking place is taken. Many of the spots have cars double-parked next to them. Navigating the lanes is next to impossible. Abandoned cars have turned the lot into a maze. For all the cars in the parking lot, I don’t see anyone going to and from the mall. I sit for a while debating whether I want to go inside. With the A/C off, the blaring sun puts the inside of the car into full greenhouse effect. It gets so hot it feels like the dust in the air will catch fire.
Michael seemed like he might know what’s actually going on.
But that was in a dream.
I loo
k at myself in the rearview. “But the text he sent wasn’t,” I say aloud.
With all of the parking spots occupied or blocked, I leave my car parked on the road at the edge of the parking lot, so I’ll have a clear shot out of here if I need it. I hold my hand over my forehead to shield my eyes from the sun, as I cross the dry, dusty tarmac feeling like it may as well be a stretch of the Sahara. Husks blown off palm trees skid past me. My allergies burn in my sinuses as dust twists and swirls around me.
There are people in the mall on the other side of the glass doors. I stand for several minutes with my face pressed against the glass, unsure if I want to go inside. There are more people than I’ve seen in one place. They move through the mall like a herd across the plains. The bulk of the crowd walks aimlessly, reminding me of a zombie film I saw when I was a kid. The rest are broken into packs of ten and move fast from shop to shop.
It’s like there’s a new Olympic event for speed shopping, and all these people are in training.
By the entry way, there are no people. The mob is congregated around the shops, showing no signs of moving toward the exit. I walk across the empty tile to the directory halfway between the entry and the hordes of shoppers. Scanning the directory hoping to find the cafe, I catch a flash from the monitor on the kiosk broadcasting an image that glows like the dream symbol. I look away, remembering how the symbol had drawn me to it in the dream version last night.
What am I doing here? Trying to remember where a coffee shop is that I saw in my dream.
An announcement comes over the PA. “
A wave of shoppers bolt toward the other end of the mall.
The herd’s been spooked. A predator’s scent on the wind?
None of the people in the mall speak. They move fast. All of them carry four or more shopping bags in each hand. They are well-dressed. Another herd moves past in the other direction. Their clothes still have tags on them. All of the women wear expensive looking pumps. I have no idea how the women walk so fast in their heels. The men wear business dress shoes that are off-the-shelf new.
Running in those shoes, they are going to have some wicked blisters.
I’m so glad I wear flats.
I follow a smaller herd to the escalator and ride it down.
On the bright side, this is probably still a dream.
I’d never noticed the speakers hanging from the ceiling before, but then I don’t come to the mall often. The music is too loud. At least they’re not playing the Christmas carols I dreamed about the night before. It’s bad Muzak, but that’s a step up from the carols.
The music fades and echoes as I go down the escalator. I’m halfway down before I see the symbol again. It’s draped on banners hanging from the second level. The emblem is in red against a white background. I look back up the escalator, considering running for the exit, but if I’m going to give up, I think I should see Michael first.
I find the coffee shop in the same part of the mall as it had been in my dream. I pull the door open. Cups litter the floor. Coffee is pooled in puddles on the tile. The tables, counters, and floors are covered in powdered sugar and donuts. Hundreds of donuts are scattered through the cafe. They all look like they have one bite taken from them. A man and a woman are lying motionless on one of the tables. Her left arm is clasped over him; his right arm is twisted under her.
Are they breathing?
In addition to the stale coffee, the air in the cafe reeks of ammonia or some cleanser. I wrinkle and cover my nose before pulling my cell phone out of my purse. No bars. The Muzak stops, and the speakers start to buzz.
That buzzing sound, no sign of Michael, and no cell reception.
I turn to leave.
Two mall cops stand in the doorway. Between them stands the tallest man I’ve ever seen. He has to duck to go through the door. He must be at least seven feet tall. He wears a white mask. At first glance, it looks like an opera mask. It reminds me of the albino, but the mask is not pure white. Veins, minute and blue, bulge and pulse through the pale membrane. The network of veins looks like circuit board and blue lights pulse along it as he speaks.
“Not shopping,” the tall man says in an accent I can’t place.
The cops lunge at me. I snatch my wrists away from them. “Get away from me. I haven’t done anything.”
The overhead lighting flickers and goes out. The only light comes from the sunroof above the courtyard outside the shop. I stagger to catch my balance as the floor sways around me. Dizziness overwhelms me. By the time I shake it off, the cops have my wrists.
The rent-a-cops drag me toward the courtyard. My feet skid for traction on the tile. The cops’ grip tightens on me. My skin burns against their gloves.
“I said, I didn’t do anything.” I stop pulling back, and push forward, knocking the first cop down and freeing myself from the other.
The tall man yells, “Emergencyyyyy.”
I cover my ears. The word reverberates in shrill feedback.
Michael seems to come out of nowhere. He angles his phone at the tall man. The phone flashes bright and screeches like an old-fashioned modem handshake.
The tall man shakes and wavers. His pallid mask cracks open. The broken mask hangs off an alien face, a mix of red and purple skin and pus. Steam emanates from its mouth and nose. My nose and sinuses sting from a foul reek, sulfur and bile.
The tall creature reels from the blast from Michael’s phone. Its gangly arms sway wildly against the air to steady itself.
The two cops fall twitching to the floor before lying motionless, breathing but catatonic, on the ground.
“Quick! C’mon!” Michael holds the phone aloft as we run toward the exit.
~
“What was that thing?” I’m gasping for breath. We’ve just made the parking lot. I have to stop at the first row of cars. It’s as far as I can run at a full sprint. My heart pounds. I put my hands on my knees, trying to get more air. If I knew I’d be running, I would have worn running shoes.
Michael shakes his head and looks back toward the mall. “I don’t know. Could be an agent of the people behind this. Could be an alien. Could be the virus has fried both our brains and we’re hallucinating.”
He’s not that different looking than he was in my dream. He’s cut his hair. Buzzed it. What’s left holds hints of gray. He doesn’t look like he’s changed much otherwise. He’s always been thin, and he looks even thinner now. He’s dressed the same as when we were in school. White T-shirt, blue jeans, boots. Jesus, how did he run in those? The jeans are obviously not the same pair he wore more than a decade ago, but they look just as faded. They’re also dotted with ink. Back when I knew him, he used to take notes on the denim when he ran out of paper.
“We’ve got to go, but I need your phone first.”
I hand him my phone. He holds another phone next to it, presses a few buttons, and throws mine into the back of a pickup truck.
“Hey.” I try to catch it but miss.
“Your phone has a GPS. If anyone drives that truck, it will take your phone with it. Your phone can also download the virus. This phone has all of my updated security protection on there, and I’ve spoofed the GPS to report places the phone is not. I wouldn’t overuse it, but it’s safer than anything else.”
“But all my contacts were on that phone.”
“I transferred your data. But be careful who you call. There’s no telling who’s infected.”
Tears well in my eyes as I start to think about my mom and Jane and everyone else that matters to me.
He raises his arm like he’s about to put it around me, but an awkward look of confusion crosses his face and he shrugs. “I don’t know everything that’s going on, but we’ve got to go.”
“It’s not that. It’s everybody. My mom, she has it. Jane… all of my friends. They’re all infected.”
“I know. And I can’t say anything that will make it better. But we can’t help them if they catch us
here.”
~
The drive to Michael’s apartment takes less than five minutes in the sparse traffic. His apartment complex is about halfway back to my place from the mall. Any other day I’d have been surprised to know that he lives so close, but with everything else turned upside down, it makes sense.
We leave the car parked in an alley behind the complex. A line of abandoned cars block the security gate to the parking lot. The lot has spaces for twenty cars, but it’s empty apart from some trash and debris blown in by the wind and trapped by the U-shaped building. I follow Michael up the stairs and along a walkway until we come to his apartment.
No noises come from the apartments we pass. Everything seems abandoned.
Michael turns the key on his deadbolt, and presses a button on his smart phone. “Just wanted to deactivate the web cams.” Clicking and whirring sounds come from inside the apartment. “No one’s been here or the cams would’ve messaged my phone.”
“We’re safe here?” I follow him inside. The webcams are mounted in the corners of the wall and ceiling.
“Safe? No.” He pauses and turns back to the door like he’s forgotten something but can’t make up his mind to go back and get it. “But it’s as close as we’re going to get to safe.”
The apartment is a lot like his first off-campus apartment in Santa Cruz. A bank of computers surrounds a desk in the studio apartment. An unfolded futon is on the floor in the center of the room. Empty food containers litter the desk. All that’s missing is a Tolkien calendar and a London Calling poster covering the bare walls. The row of computers is impressive. They’re plugged into three large battery backups. Next to the computers there’s some equipment I don’t recognize, headphones and goggles that look like they’ve been spliced together with a spider web of tangled wire.
“What the hell is going on?”
He takes a moment. Dark circles ring his eyes, jet black against his light-brown skin, and the wear of age lines his face. He always looked serious when I knew him in school, but that boyish intensity he had at Santa Cruz is gone. “I don’t know everything. I don’t even know what I believe any more. The company I was working for is involved.” He grabs a cardboard box and starts throwing food wrappers in it, clearing space on the sofa. “We were working on security software. Our division designed challenges to the software.”