“No!” She turned to the noisy beeping of the refrigerator, its digi-screen pulsating like an insane circus light show.
“Yes,” it read. “I’m home, sweetie.”
Meredith gaped at the screen. It flickered, shorted out. The sink stopped. The whirring fans slowed. The house reverberated with a sigh and settled down. There was only the tick, tick, tick of the refrigerator.
She backed away, hands raised as if fending off an attacker. She whipped around as the car alarm erupted outside in alternating siren sounds. She fumbled for her wireless key, dropped it while removing it from her pocket, and gave chase as it skittered across the kitchen floor. She fell to her hands and knees, reaching under the fridge.
Grimacing, she groped with outstretched fingers, nails scraping up dust and grime. She brushed the key’s edge, recovered it. She whirled back to the kitchen window and squeezed the button.
A pregnant silence fell over her home. Meredith Burnell tried to think fast. She must formulate a plan quickly, she knew that—
The basement.
Nearly sliding out of control on the smooth marble floor, Meredith rushed through the kitchen and into the dining room, using one of the heavy oak chairs to help her pivot as she skidded around the corner into the living room.
Boom!
She covered her head as the chandelier twenty feet above her shattered into heavy shards of crystal. Its electrical socket had blown out, triggering enough energy to break the glass and fling it at her with vicious intensity. She cried out as a transparent blade nicked her forearm, drawing blood, then stared dumbly at the red seeping from under her toes as she mindlessly crunched the crystal underfoot.
Voices like thunder boomed through the house. Every electronic device screamed. Lights blew out as if a mighty explosive charge had been set.
He knows I’m trying to kill him, she thought.
Hobbling along, she howled in defiance. Bloody footprints marked her path. As she staggered toward the basement door, a bright yellow-white light blinded her through the front windows.
Meredith dove through the basement door just as her car slammed through the foyer at sixty miles per hour. Hitting the baluster, the car ricocheted, clipping her left leg as she disappeared, shattering her ankle and snapping the fibula in two.
The car, she remembered blankly, is on the same network.
She sucked in air, dazed, feebly aware she’d just fallen down the basement steps. Something wet was in her eyes, and she brushed it away, hearing the increasingly anemic roar of the car’s engine up above as it wheezed and whined and struggled to get at her.
Rolling over, she crawled on scraped elbows to the opposite side of the room. She felt the pain in her leg now. It screamed at her, radiating up to the top of her head. Blindly, she groped in the dark for the wall, reached it, and pulled herself up to the fuse box.
It took only three and a half seconds for Meredith Burnell to flip every switch in the box. Soon she was enveloped in complete darkness. She half-smiled at the newfound silence—real silence this time—then sank to the floor in sluggish victory over her late husband’s now-late consciousness, which she’d left with no power and nowhere to run, who was either dead or slowly dying, trapped forever inside the walls of a once-electronic universe.
There was nothing else to do but wait for the ambulance, which was sure to come soon. A neighbor would likely have called the police by now. Worst-case scenario, she realized, dimly, McAvoy would be by in the morning.
Giving herself to the darkness and silence, she slept.
A vortex of dreams whirled through her, and when she awoke she was drenched in sweat.
How much time had passed? A minute? An hour? With no electricity, there was effectively no time; there was only the throbbing and pain, and the nausea that accompanied them.
Something banged upstairs. “Hello?” a voice called down.
“I’m here, down here,” Meredith gasped.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy footsteps coming down the basement steps. I’m saved. And suddenly it was okay to pass out completely again; the paramedics would take care of her. Her husband was gone for good.
“I’m here, right here . . .” she said, her cheek to the floor. A paramedic groped for her in the dark. They’re here now, she told herself. They’re here.
She heard the flicking of a fuse, the power returning to the house, to the basement lights.
“No,” she croaked, eyes closed. “Don’t. Not yet. . .”
Slowly, she opened her eyes, and caught a glimpse of the paramedic’s foot. That’s strange, she thought.
The plastic foot nudged itself into her chest and rolled her over. Meredith squinted under the bright lights. Gradually, her vision came into focus, and her mouth dropped.
The three and a half seconds it took to kill the power to the house had equaled decades for her late husband’s consciousness, which had been ample time to retreat from the car to the wireless router and into the electric circuits, from which he was able to gather all the available latent energy in the house and send it to his beloved printer.
The half-printed man made of plastic and silicon stood above her with a half-twisted grin, and the last thing Meredith saw was a half-finished hand clutching a knife—one of those goddamn knives—which would be the thing that finally drove them apart.
With Withered Hands
We’d been naughty kids that day, hiding in our normal spot, me and her, just behind the thorny rose bushes and out of sight of any students or nuns walking past the building on either side. The foliage was thick. If you were coming around the corner of B-Hall at St. Francis K-8 in West Falls, Virginia, trust me, you saw nothing, because we were rooted in the ground like plants.
Sister Mary was the reason Sam and I were hiding. When you’re eleven years old and you find a spot that affords you a view into the pretty nun’s dressing room, you take it and use it.
The spot was handed down to us by Trevor, the twelve-year-old snot-nosed kid who had recently transferred. It was given to him three years earlier by another boy, and when we left it would be our duty to pass it on to someone younger than us.
Sister Mary was a knockout. Radiant. Shimmering black hair. Long legs. Tall. She’d make you feel like you were the only person in the whole world. When she’d talk to us we’d just clam up, get all red, and mutter something stupid.
But. Her hands. She kept them out of view. For a good reason.
The first time I saw them, she was reading with us during morning prayer. A special occasion. Sister Katherine asked her to come. But then she picked up a book and held it up to her face, and all the blood drained out of me and I forgot she was beautiful.
Hideous things. Crackled and gnarled, like they belonged to a woman three times her age. Six times, maybe. They were ancient. I saw a mummy in a museum, years later. They looked like those, except worse.
The fingers were long, much too long. They seemed to have started growing and never stopped.
Ever seen an old man’s toenails? They’re usually thick, sometimes with a yellowish tint. That’s what her nails looked like.
I asked my mother about Sister Mary’s skin once. Mom thought it might have been psoriasis, a condition where the skin dries and flakes off. And if it gets bad enough, it can even make a person bleed. So I just figured that’s what it was.
But it didn’t stop the terror of seeing them. I didn’t know why they scared me so bad.
I do now.
It was just after school had let out, around 2:45. The other children were trudging out front to meet their parents or wait for their rides.
Normally, Sam and I had choir practice, but today it was canceled because Sister Elaine had the flu. We had an hour to wait before our moms picked us up. Back then, boys and girls could hang out with each other without arousing suspicion. She was my friend.
We went to our spot, glanced around furtively, and removed the small piece of cork that separated us from the dressing
room. It revealed a hole with a little piece of mesh inside. Magical mesh. It allowed you to peer through, but the person on the other side couldn’t see you unless they were up close.
Inside it was a regular classroom, except there were more cubbies and it was carpeted, presumably so the sisters could dress and undress comfortably.
We were quiet as ants, waiting, stifling giggles, when Sam, whose turn it was to press her eye against the hole, suddenly shushed me.
“Oh my God,” she muttered under her breath, a gleeful smile stretching across her face.
“What is it?” I whispered. I looked down. I’d instinctively placed my hand over my crotch. I yanked it away, embarrassed.
Then, Sam’s face went gray. She yelped and sprang back from the hole, launching herself into the bushes behind us. A thorn sliced the back of her neck, drawing blood.
She pointed with shaking hand at the hole.
I knelt down and looked. I saw an eye.
Sister Mary’s eye.
I gulped and sat back.
Heard the scrape-scrape-scrape of the mesh being removed on her end.
A gnarled finger stretched through the hole.
“Come hither,” it beckoned.
We could have run for it. We would have escaped. I kick myself for that sometimes. But then I remember it would have done us little good in the long term. She knew it was us. We had a better chance of staying put and spinning a story than running for it and having her call our parents.
Anything was preferable to that. My father had an unkind hand and a more unkind belt.
We pushed open the door to the classroom. It creaked like a haunted house door.
Sister Mary was on her hands and knees, sealing the hole with some kind of glue.
Her fingers were hard at work.
We stood there and when she was finished she tossed her tool into a bucket and wiped her hands on her habit. “Sit down,” she said. Sam and I looked at each other, then pulled up two chairs.
We all sat together, the two of us opposite Sister Mary. She leaned back, removed the three parts of her headcovering and set them on the desk. Her hair shone like freshly paved asphalt.
“Why aren’t you in choir?”
We told her.
“Your parents won’t be here for another forty-five minutes. You can wait in here.”
A minute passed. She rose, picked up the bucket that was next to the hole, and circumvented the desk to enter the closet. She disappeared from view.
Sam and I shrugged at each other.
Looked like we were home free.
Then—
Sister Mary stepped out of the closet in her brassiere. The bra was white and frilly. It covered her breasts completely.
She turned to Sam. “Come over here. I need a lady’s touch.”
Sam froze, unable to speak.
“Sam.” Sister Mary stared at her. “Now.” She waited until Sam got close, then turned her back to us and directed her to unhook the bra. Which she did. The straps fell off her shoulders. Sister Mary waited until she was facing us to let the bra fall, and exposed her breasts.
They hung to her belly button. Flat, flaccid, saggy, webbed with blue-red veins. The nipples were dark brown, gashed like an oak tree. And long, like ten hungry kids had sucked them and extracted every last drop of motherly goodness.
Sister Mary set Sam on her lap and lifted her right breast. She used her other hand to guide Sam’s head toward it, then slipped the desiccated nipple into her mouth.
Sam sucked quietly, her lips around the areola, while Sister Mary rocked her on her lap. Sam drank deeply of the milk.
I don’t remember exactly when I walked over and sat on Sister Mary’s other knee. One moment I was in my chair, and the next I was on her lap. I don’t know why. All I know is she was staring at me with her beautiful smile, gently waving me over. When you’re that young, you trust adults to show you the right thing to do. You don’t question, you don’t know any better. Even if your gut tells you otherwise, you obey.
So when she set the long nipple into my mouth, I sucked on it.
I hurt in my pants. I was rock hard.
The breast milk tasted like old coffee that had sat out for many days. Bitter, but underneath that was a subtle sweetness, something that had once been fruitful.
It dribbled down my chin. It was black. And runny, like it had no substance to it. Just dripping from her body because it was meant to leak.
I sucked some more.
And I knew it was over at some point because Sister Mary lovingly lifted our faces from her chest and wiped away the black that was rolling off our chins and staining our school uniforms. She put her bra and clothes back on and walked outside to meet our parents.
Sam and I didn’t hang out after that. Neither of us thought we should tell anyone what happened, and avoiding each other made it easier to forget. She moved away that year. When I looked for her a few years ago, I discovered she died by suicide in Little Rock, Arkansas. I can’t help but wonder if this incident played a part in her decision.
Sister Mary was transferred to another school when I was in eighth grade.
I think I would have repressed what happened forever had I not gone to therapy to address my current problem. I hope that by writing this I may be able to help myself.
See, I’ve never been married. Nor have I ever really had a girlfriend.
Something changed in me that day, and it has never changed back.
Whenever I begin to get an erection with a lady, after the bra falls and I see her breasts—when I find the hands that caress me to be too “normal”—something down there recedes and dies and refuses to return.
I’ve since scoured the country for Sister Mary so I can once again experience the bodily declaration of love most men enjoy.
For thirty-five years I’ve searched. I’ve been to old women—older than my mother, older than my grandmother. None of them have had my favorite withered hands. None of them have had the breasts I crave. None of them have had the milk that runs black and thin.
Sister Mary, are you out there?
And will you come back to me?
Scan Them All, Every Last One
Chapter One
Until two and a half minutes ago, Alfred Texeira had never thought his son an idiot. But so much had happened since then.
Presently he took off his glasses and placed them on the heavy oak desk, the arms perfectly parallel to the grooves in the table that had been hand-carved long ago. His son was standing in the corner of the office, next to the door, the yellow light from the lamp spilling sideways, illuminating his lower half and casting shadows on everything else.
“I don’t understand. I make enough money. More than enough. Why are you stealing?”
Shane stared at the floor. He was sixteen, goddamnit. He knew what was right and what was wrong. Why do I need a lecture? “I don’t know. It was stupid.”
“How long is the suspension?”
“Five days.”
Alfred grunted. “You know what stealing does to your S-Score?”
Shane shrugged. “Who cares about the S-Score? It’s just a number. It’s bullshit.”
“Bullshit? That’s going to get rolled into your future credit record, your health history, all of it. It’s one of the most important factors for getting into college, and applications are due soon.” Alfred shook his head. “This will affect your entire life!”
Shane got the same impression from his father that he always did when he got into trouble: that the repercussions meant much more to him. And if it meant that much to his father, right now he’d be scheming for a way out. He won’t want this to affect his S-Score too, Shane thought sourly.
Alfred put his glasses back on and stood up. Shane reflexively shrank in the doorway as his father broke the light between them. “I’ll take care of this. But you’re going to apply to University, and you’re going to go next year.”
Shane mumbled something.
“What was that?”
“I said, I’ve decided I don’t want to go. I want to write—”
Shane didn’t see the hand coming. It was lightning quick. It struck him on the back of the head. Not enough to hurt him, not really, but enough to shut him up. Even in the dark Shane could see his father’s glassy, rage-filled pupils.
Alfred lowered himself back into his chair, his eyes never leaving his son’s, like some kind of animal on the hunt. “You know what’s coming up this week. Why are you trying to sabotage me?”
Shane kept his voice flat. “I’m not doing anything to you.”
“Bullshit. You live in the biggest house in the most expensive neighborhood in the state. When the scanner goes national, the money it brings in will keep a roof over your head for the rest of your life. And what do you have to do for it? Nothing. All I ask is that you stay out of trouble, and you can do anything you want. You can be anything you want.” And then: “Get out. Stop crying like a spoiled brat.”
Shane’s bottom lip quivered, but he held it together. Soon he was gone, and Alfred eventually returned to his plans for the protocol that would change law enforcement forever.
Chapter Two
Darryl “Hog” Jenkins stared lazily out of the office window of the Carnegie-Knowles lab in New Virginia, watching the drone-copter buzz across the skyline. “Something is wrong with this generation. You’re right about that. It’s like they just want to burn everything to the ground.”
“Yep,” Alfred said absentmindedly. He slammed his finger in the panel on the large machine in front of him. “Damn!”
“You’re only two years away from your pension, you’re about to release one of the greatest inventions in the last twenty years. You’re a goddamn success. And Shane—I love the kid, don’t get me wrong—but he don’t care.” Hog adjusted his belt to make room for the bulbous stomach that spilled over his stained suit pants and steer-head buckle. “I read a report yesterday. It said the juvenile crime rate is up twenty percent the last two years. Fifty-five percent in the last ten. Unbelievable.”
Escaping Midnight (What Goes On in the Walls at Night Book 3) Page 3