The Watchers

by Mark Andrew Olsen

  PACIFIC PALISADES —THAT SAME MOMENT

  The killer forced his senses to re-acquire. Straining to hear the faint inhale and exhale of young lungs, he grimaced, for despite the gravity of the mission he could not keep himself from picturing the homicidal delights this kill might have offered.

  Had he been allowed to take her in the usual manner, that is.

  Thick eyelashes opening just so wide, narrowing to identify him in the gloom. Then a curious and alluring squint contorting with terror as she realized what he was doing. . . .

  Perhaps in a moment, when these preliminaries were over, his hidden earpiece would crackle with a muttered “Go ahead” to indulge this fantasy, to take the girl after all. But not until then. He could hardly risk the thought of it. And even then, he had been ordered to take her with unusual means. A potent and untraceable poison. All the fun removed for the sake of caution.

  So be it. He bit into his lower lip so deeply that a crimson trickle ran down his chin. He licked it as far as his tongue would reach, then bent to his appointed task.

  It only took five seconds more to find what he was looking for. Her blog entry for the day. Raw and just entered, not yet uploaded onto her site.

  He read the title and blanched.

  “The most mind-blowing dream I’ve had yet.”

  He clenched his jaw. There it was. The entry that had brought him here . . .

  Without turning away, he reached down to his thigh pocket and pulled out a strip of Velcro elastic holding a dozen short cords. He pulled off one, inserted its end into the laptop’s USB port, the other into the recesses of the backpack strapped across his shoulders.

  The pack beamed the book’s contents to a laptop concealed in the backseat of his van tucked into an alley half a mile away. From there, a wireless Internet server sent an encrypted, electronic message to three e-mail accounts scattered hundreds and even thousands of miles away, at diverse points of the planet.

  BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA —THAT MOMENT

  On a marble-floored veranda high above the Los Angeles basin, an impeccably manicured hand reached over to the output drawer of a chrome-plated printer. The first page had hardly even begun to emerge and yet the fingers trembled and reached hungrily for the shuddering vellum edge.

  NEW YORK CITY —THAT MOMENT

  In a walnut-veneered library in Manhattan, gnarled and wrinkled fingers did not even pretend to wait, but snatched the first page of the very same transmission from the maw of a clattering dot-matrix. The sheet, still connected by a thin perforation to the one that followed, gave way and seemed swallowed up by a palsied grip that shakily raised it high, into the beam of a single recessed light.

  ST. PETERS BURG, FORMERLY LENINGRAD —THAT SAME MOMENT

  In a nondescript warehouse loft in St. Petersburg, Russia, a head of gray tousled hair bent closer to an old console television jury-rigged as a computer monitor. Here, there was no printer, for the occupant did not trust paper records of any sort. In fact, he considered it foolhardy enough to let the old Gorizont’s pixels hold even a moment’s grasp of the image, this all-important picture.

  In all three places, curses filled the air as the words unfolded. . . .

  CHAPTER

  _ 3

  Abby Sherman’s Dream Blog

  I slammed this out one morning after the dream itself. Please read it and pass it along, and watch for my plea at the end.

  —Abby

  Dear World,

  What in the world just happened to me?

  I still don’t know if this was just the wildest dream in the history of dreams, or something real. It sure felt real. So here goes . . .

  It started with being jerked out of my sleep and thrown to one side of the bed and thinking the wind might have slammed a shutter against the house or lightning struck close by. Or maybe I’d overslept again and my stepmom Teresa was acting like my maternal unit that morning (even though she isn’t, and never will be), shaking me and yelling that I have to wake up now or miss my ride to class.

  Only this light hammered against the outside of my eyelids, like when I lay out on the beach on a really hot day. And I thought, this is weird—did I sleepwalk and wake up out in the backyard or something?

  So I opened my eyes. And I was definitely outside—only outside on the hottest, brightest day of the year. I had to raise my hand up over my face, the sun was so intense, and I could actually feel it burn my forehead and cheeks. But how did I get here?

  My nose instantly filled with a bunch of weird smells, like old dust and meat barbecuing and woodsmoke and even a whiff of animal poop that I can still smell right now. And I was wearing this thick robe thing that grated against my skin. Reminded me of when I played the shepherd in the manger scene last Christmas, and Mrs. Carter had cut my costume out of these old canvas bags that chapped me so bad that later that night I had to rub chamomile over my arms and legs.

  Sorry to take so long getting to the story, but I just really want you to know that I’m not making this up when I say it was a totally real experience. Everything I just described sank in so fast, it was like, less than a split second. Before my eyes could even take in what was actually in front of me. Like layers of stuff filling my senses one at a time.

  Then I looked out and saw that I was sitting on a pile of old blankets on a really hard floor in the middle of this desert kind of city. I thought, no wonder I’m smelling all these things, because everything is totally dusty and made out of stone and the air is dry and really, really hot. I was actually in this place, in some way more real than watching any TV. Actually way more than that. More like the coolest sensurround, high-def, 3-D, IMAX, smell-a-vision—all of them put together—show in the world.

  Oh yeah. And I was someone else.

  Back to that later, ’cause I’m not through telling you what I saw. Right in front of me this stone wall almost blocked out the sun, it was so high. And other walls just as high stood way behind it, all around me. But I finally realized I was inside a courtyard at the edge of some huge kind of campus or ancient mall, or something.

  And thousands of people were walking on every side of my spot, this thick crowd just separating around me at the last second like those shows about animal stampedes where the camera’s down on the ground and all these legs slam around it and you’re wondering how it doesn’t get stomped on. I know you’re thinking, how can something that intense take me so long to get around to—but remember, there was so much sensory overload rushing at me in that second, I was just barely keeping up.

  All these people were dressed the way I remember from some of the movies and pictures of Bible times. I saw men in robes with blue and purple and yellow turbans over their heads. And a lot of them were pulling donkeys behind them all loaded with packages and blankets and huge bottles. And women walking behind them, only most of them had their heads down, looking at their feet. And men in white church-type robes with these blue fringes coming down their shoulders, who were clasping their hands over their tummies and checking me out real sneaky-like from the corners of their eyes.

  And the funny thing is, everyone was quiet, this huge crowd was just walking around all hushed, just the sound of their feet— which made this big clapping sound since they were all wearing sandals. Like some huge crowd touring a museum, or walking through some really strict library.

  Every now and then one of them would look over at me and smile or nod at me, all solemn the way people do when they pass by my pastor on Sunday but they don’t really want to stop and tell him what they thought of the sermon.

  Then things got even freakier. I realized that I was sitting up, only I didn’t remember moving anything more than my eyelids. Worse, my body felt way different than just that. Like I said before, it felt like it belonged to somebody else.

  Yeah. Stay with me, cause it gets even weirder.

  See, I was feeling all these emotions, but not through my own mind. Another one. I can’t really explain how I knew that, but I did.
r />   I was an old woman, I realized. It was an instinct, like all these sensations just added themselves together and totaled up: “old woman.” And these old woman’s thoughts and memories weren’t right in front of my mind, but kind of hanging back in the corners, just out of sight. Even though I wasn’t experiencing them straight on, in a sideways kind of knowing I knew that these were memories of a really hard life.

  I saw—I know you’re not supposed to “see” feelings, but I could—her worrying over whether she’d eat that day, her stress over where she would live. I saw this young man yell at her and call her crazy, that she couldn’t just waste her life waiting around all day, every day. I saw her memory of a man lying in a dark room gasping for breath and clutching his hands at the air above him, and I was totally sad because I knew he was dying. And I knew that she loved him. I saw day after day of loneliness and depression. All of these really sad days, like picture screens strung together in a row until I couldn’t see them all. Just stretching on and on, clear over the horizon.

  And I saw the city square where I was, at a bunch of different times of the year. People walking under a low sun with breath fogging out of their mouths. Then everything all green and flowery with spring. Then walkers almost bowing their heads to keep out of the summer heat. I saw the place lit by every hour of the day— purple shadows that looked like dawn, noon glare, hazy afternoons, sunset throwing this golden shadow over everything. I saw it both empty and crammed with people. Time. Lots and lots of time passing by.

  And I knew that the man who had died was my husband, and that I was a widow. An old widow who sat in this same spot day after day and waited, waited, waited. And people didn’t know what to think of me—whether to treat me like a lunatic, or a saint, or a prophet.

  And at the same time, another part of me was Abby Sherman going, “Whoa girl, did you eat too much late-night salsa?” And wanting to shake my head and clear this hallucination out of my senses and get back to reality. Real dreams, like showing up for finals in my underwear.

  Only the head wasn’t mine, and I just knew the moment wasn’t mine either. It belonged to her. Whoever this woman was.

  Then her heart started beating so hard, I thought it might just run out of strength at any moment, and her thoughts got all jacked-up and alert. And I realized something else. Somehow, I knew this without knowing how it came to me.

  What this old woman had waited for all these years was happening. It was coming her way that very second.

  ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

  The old fingers clawed at the television’s glowing glass, as though some grip or sharp fingernail could wrest the young American’s offending words out of their curved enclosure. The voice which now rang through the cavernous room behind it hardly sounded human anymore. In fact, it did not even bear any resemblance to a terrestrial utterance of any kind—man or beast. The only sound competing with it was the incessant pounding of an index finger upon a single, abused key, the down arrow, to continue the reading at all cost. . . .

  CHAPTER

  _ 4

  BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

  A deep retching sound echoed across the broad, barrel-ceilinged sitting room, propelling thirty dollars’ worth of half-digested sashimi from the Matsuhisa—the most exclusive sushi house in Beverly Hills—out across a terrazzo of exquisitely checkered Carrara marble.

  The butler appeared at the French door windows, peering in worriedly despite his express orders to stay away.

  Elegant fingers waved him off, then plucked up a linen napkin and hurriedly dabbed clean their owner’s mouth. The nauseated man did not move again, but reached instead for the next page of text from the printer as if no stench or disarray was worth an interruption. . . .

  ABBY SHERMAN'S MYCORNER DREAM BLOG, PAGE 7

  I—or this old woman, it’s hard to make a difference now, because I was her, she was me—felt blown away by an emotion that was strange and new even for her. It was a mixture of like, amazement and gratitude and off-the-chart happiness and fear and awe and humility and wanting to cry a little, all at once. It reminded me of when I saw Caryn being born, when I felt these tears cross my face, and like a freak I didn’t even realize I was crying until my emotions caught up with my mind.

  But now, last night standing there, I had no idea what was causing all this. I only knew that the feeling was growing stronger. It was coming closer, the cause of all this. Toward me.

  I remember seeing a couple of soldiers pass by. I didn’t need this old woman’s mind to tell me they were Roman because I recognized the fringe on their helmets and the style of their armor from Bible stories and movies and even that trip to Caesar’s Palace last year.

  And just then, I saw them coming through the crowd.

  They were a little family. A short bearded man with really buff forearms and a bone-tired look in his eyes. And a very young woman—a girl, I’d call her, actually. She couldn’t have been more than a high school junior back in my reality. Only she was holding a baby, all awkward and tender-like the way Teresa held Caryn coming home from the hospital. This new mom was beautiful. Her skin was all pale and perfect and she had these deep, intense eyes like her husband. I remember she turned and stared right through all the passersby and locked onto me. Her mouth widened into this almost-smile that seemed to light up her whole face.

  And I too felt all lit up inside. It sounds stupid to just say “there was something about these two,” because it was way more than just something. But it seemed like this aura, some intense force field, was following them, and it definitely wasn’t coming from the sun. I felt my sight go all fuzzy and then bear down into this soft doughnut haze like the ring around the moon. Like all of a sudden they were the only people in the world. Made me think of that scene in Jaws, Dad’s favorite movie, when the sheriff sees the shark fin for the very first time, and his face goes all slack with shock while the whole world zooms away behind him.

  Then, without even deciding to, I started to stand, and man, was that a scary trip. I felt all wobbly, my muscles thin and stringy and weak. My legs didn’t really take orders very well. But I was going to stand if it was the last thing I did. I reached up to grab something when these big hands took hold of my forearms, and I realized that a couple of men had stopped to help me.

  The men pulled me up and my legs straightened under me. But when I let go and tried to settle my weight down, my knees weren’t sure they wanted to hold me. Gradually things got steadier, and the men nodded and mumbled something like “shalom” and hurried back on their way.

  And then my legs stepped forward, all on their own, and my mouth moved and my throat made this sound that was half sob and half cry. My arms pulled outward, hands open, as if I’d been asking that young mom to hold her child. Only she wasn’t near me anymore. She was walking away.

  I cried out. The second the old woman’s voice left my mouth, I knew it was a foreign language. But in the very next moment I realized that I could understand it—don’t ask me how.

  “The Messiah! The Redeemer of Jerusalem!”

  AMSTERDAM —THAT MOMENT

  A guttural bark, almost a growl, ripped apart the darkness. In the light of the glowing monitor, with the words Redeemer of Jerusalem! still blinking in a glowing blue upon it, a hand quickly formed a fist. It struck the screen’s glass surface and knocked the machine from its tabletop perch, crashing onto the floor.

  More curses now rose, laced with the slightest howl of pain, as the words continued. . . .

  ABBY SHERMAN'S MYCORNER DREAM BLOG, PAGE 11

  I felt tears run down my cheeks. And felt my chest pump up and down, just fighting to keep up. And this thrill ran like a shower of warm honey down from my head and across my limbs. And this feeling of love and adoration blew up in my chest so big that I wasn’t sure I could stand it a second longer.

  And my mind flooded with these thoughts: “Thank you. Thank you, dear God. You have vindicated my wait. My whole life. You have brought salvation to Jerusale
m.”

  These weren’t Abby Sherman thoughts, I’m sure you can tell. I don’t think like that. At that moment the old woman’s thoughts just kind of stepped up and were running all over mine, which was cool with me.

  A second later, after my cry stopped echoing, the crowd around me slowed down like someone had just turned down the speed button on the whole scene. But that young couple, they stopped dead in their tracks. The young mom turned back to me again, and this time the look on her face had to be as intense as mine. Her brown eyes opened wide and her lower lip went all shaky and trembly. She looked like she was about to cry and shout out for joy and maybe run for her life, all at the same time.

  Except the girl stepped toward me, still holding that child in front of her, and she took a step. The distance between us felt all of a sudden like that last three feet of pool water after you dive into the deep end with your breath running out.

  And then a whole new set of feelings just exploded. I felt space open up and whisk me along as if some kind of resistance had been sucked away, like someone had opened one of those space-movie air locks and its vacuum was pulling me ahead. I wasn’t this barely walking old woman anymore. I was on a moving sidewalk that wouldn’t stop for anything in the world.

  And I thought I heard music just fill my ears. These millions of soft voices in my ear reminding me of Enya singing, not really words but just a note, a syllable, with all these minor-chord strings swelling behind her. I’m still not sure I imagined it, or if I truly heard it somehow. Either way it made me feel that although I was already super old I could have lived a thousand more lifetimes and this would have still been my ultimate moment.

  My legs kept pulling me toward the mother and child. I stopped three feet from her and she stopped too, and then it got really obvious that as beautiful as she was, it wasn’t the girl who was setting off all these emotions.