The silly brown boxer had brought such spontaneous happiness to their lives. It was amazing how simple activities seemed to be the most fun: chasing a Frisbee, swimming in a mountain lake, lounging by a fire, trying to catch a squirrel. Gumby had filled a gap for them, left by Scott’s inability to have kids. Other parents nurtured children, went to parent meetings, baseball games and school plays, but Scott and Grace only had Gumby. Sitting alone in the gloomy room, he wondered if he would ever see the floppy-eared mutt again.
“Get the fuck out!” Blackwell’s voice boomed loud and clear through the thin walls. “All of you. Get out! You’re no good. You’ve failed. Get the fuck out of this house!”
Blackwell must have been testing his “psychic drug” on various volunteers, obviously without success. He tried to read the people from his bedroom, but they left too quickly, with a violent slam of the front door.
Scott tried the door to his room but found it was locked. He pounded on it. “Let me out,” he yelled.
It opened to an irritated looking Kyle.
“What’s going on?” Scott demanded.
“Nothing,” Kyle said. “We tried it and it didn’t work.”
“Good. So we leave now?” Scott asked, knowing the answer.
“You’ll leave when I say you can leave,” Blackwell yelled from the other side of the room. He was staring intently at a laptop screen. “There are other things we can do. We may need to take extreme measures.”
His words made Scott a bit queasy.
“You’ll learn,” Kyle said. “He doesn’t give up very easily.”
***
Blackwell’s recent failure and the verbal explosion that followed caused Scott to worry about what might happen if Blackwell ultimately failed in his efforts to replicate Scott’s ability. He might take it out on Scott, by killing him and perhaps Grace, too. Scott told himself such insane thoughts were nonsensical. Blackwell would have no logical reason to hurt her. But then, Blackwell wasn’t logical.
Kyle’s words kept banging about in his skull. “He doesn’t give up easily.” Trite. Simplistic. But hidden deep within the five-word sentence lay a truth Scott knew very well. Blackwell would not give up. He was pit-bull determined. He would never let go. Blackwell had persevered even after killing his first subject, Scott’s twin, somewhere in Pennsylvania. He had hunted Scott down like a bounty hunter chasing a criminal. He had somehow survived a brutal hit-and-run accident right before Scott’s eyes. Now he was on the verge of duplicating Scott’s gift—his secret. Blackwell didn’t give up easily. He would stop at nothing to profit from his tireless efforts. Nothing! Scott and Grace would be speed bumps in Blackwell’s race for wealth and fame. If they got in his way, Scott had no doubt he would do away with both of them without thinking twice.
Scott had few alternatives. Either escape or die trying.
That night, he excused himself following an early dinner. The swirling thoughts, the non-stop noise, and his own fears drove him to search for a solution. He had to get away. For Grace. For himself.
Before entering the room, he paused quietly just inside the doorway. Taking a couple of dimes he’d had in his pocket when he was kidnapped, he pressed them, one by one, into the hole behind the strike plate in the door jam. If he could block this small hole he hoped the latch assembly would not slide through the strike plate, allowing him to open the door, even if it was locked from the outside. It had worked when he was a kid and wanted to sneak out late at night to hang with his friends. Hopefully it would work now. It was a long shot, but it was a shot.
Darkness devoured the day and with the waning light, he became more nervous. He sat on the edge of the bed, tapping his foot against the floor. The move he was about to take, if he followed through, might be his last.
Eventually, Scott heard the sounds in the other room proceed as they had the night before. Blackwell wrapped up his studies after slamming a massive textbook closed. In the background, a printer could be heard spitting out reams of paper for the next day. Scott heard footsteps on the linoleum floor in the kitchen as Blackwell plodded back to his bedroom at the other end of the house.
Then Kyle went into action. The lights beneath Scott’s bedroom door dimmed as he turned off most of the lights in the family room and the sound of the television, muffled a bit, seeped through the walls. First, he heard the rhythmic pounding of shootout gunfire in a violent personal shooter video game. Then, the sound stopped, followed by the undeniable soundtrack of cheap porn, with the same sixteen bars of sleazy music repeated over and over and punctuated by guttural moans and sighs of fake passion.
He searched the room for a weapon he could use to disable the watchman but the tiny room was almost bare. The small, plastic trashcan in the corner would do no harm. The heavy dresser was too cumbersome. Old coat hangers in the closet were useless, even for hanging clothes.
He lifted the mattress on the bed to find the only make-shift weapon in the room—bed slats. He pulled one out and inspected it. Made of thin wood, about an inch thick and three inches wide, it might be used to strike an opponent, but it required that he get within three feet of his adversary.
Ultimately, Scott wasn’t sure he could wield the weapon with the force that would be necessary to disable Kyle. He had never been violent. Even in this hopeless situation he didn’t know if he could stop the guy he used to call Bucky. But he had to try.
Within time, the noise from the television ended. He heard Kyle rustling with the sofa bed as he set it up for the night. Finally, a not-so-soft snoring sound came from the room, indicating he had fallen asleep.
Taking his weapon in his left hand, Scott tiptoed lightly to the bedroom door. Carefully, he placed his hand on the doorknob, twisted it a little to the right, and gently pulled it toward him. As he had hoped, the door slid open noiselessly. Crouching down onto his haunches he crept toward the back of the house. His time in this tiny prison had done little to prepare him for maneuvering to the back door through the dark. Chairs he had seen time and again in daylight somehow blocked his path. A table holding computers, monitors and printers seemed to have moved in the night and now appeared as a dangerous obstacle. Gingerly, he picked his way through the darkness and sought the back door, the backyard, and freedom.
Eventually, he reached the gateway to escape. He feared the sliding glass door would be difficult to open and it was. Pulling it to the left, it made a grinding sound as it rumbled partway open.
The snoring stopped.
Scott froze.
A big hulk shuffled about in the creaky sofa bed. “Uhhh,” Kyle moaned, raising his head to squint into the dark. After a few tense moments he dropped his big melon back onto the pillow.
Scott realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled as quietly as he could.
Setting the piece of wood down, he placed his foot into the space between the partially open door and the doorjamb and his hands on the door handle and he pushed the glass door. It was stuck. He pushed harder, but it wouldn’t budge.
Sliding his shoulder into the gap for leverage, he pushed harder and the obstacle slid open with a horrible screech.
“Hey!” Kyle shouted from the sofa bed where he was now sitting. “What’s going on?”
Scott grabbed the bed slat from where he had leaned it against the wall and charged the drowsing giant. He took two steps across the living room floor, shifting the wooden stick to his right hand. On his third step, he raised the make-shift club over his shoulder and twisted at the waist, prepared to strike. On step number four he swung for the cheap seats.
The flimsy bat caught Kyle somewhere in his forehead—Scott couldn’t be sure in the dark. The bed slat shattered in the middle between Kyle’s head and Scott’s hands, but not before inflicting some real pain and damage.
Kyle’s body flew backwards toward the other side of the sofa. However, he was only stunned. He rolled onto his side, holding his head, groaning, and muttering every curse word in the book.
Scott di
dn’t wait to hear him out. Dropping what was left of the shattered bed slat, he pivoted and dashed for the partially open glass door. He slid through with little trouble and ran across the concrete patio and into the backyard.
And, for a second, he froze again.
***
Scott had never been in the backyard. He had glimpsed it a few times as his captors entered or left the house, but generally, any view of the yard was covered by vertical blinds.
Surveying the area quickly, he saw that it was completely enclosed by a six-foot privacy fence. The space was devoid of trees, giving it a naked, dead look. The dim light from a half-moon, concealed a bit by gray clouds, only made it seem more dreadful, casting shadows here and there.
He had three options. He could run to the left or right sides of the yard and climb the fence, but then he would be closer to his pursuers were they to run around the outside of the fence. He chose the third option and ran as fast as he could to the back of the yard.
He leapt for the fence. For a second, he thought he had jumped too soon, misled by the dim light, but his fingers closed around the top edge and his right foot hit one of the crossbars. The old fence sagged outward, as if it was going to fall over and collapse in a heap on the other side, but then it slowly bounced back into position. Using his arms and his right foot, he flung himself over the top.
At that point he realized he had no idea what was on the other side of the fence. He might be jumping into a pond full of snakes, or a briar bush, or a yard of Dobermans. But the landing was without incident. He hit the hard ground, did a shoulder-roll, and kept running.
This second yard was not fenced. He sprinted by the small house and across the street in front of it. As he passed the driveway he caught a glimpse of Blackwell’s BMW heading down the street that ran parallel to his path. He veered right through that yard and the next, trying to put some distance between himself and the black car.
And then he ran out of houses. The subdivision dead-ended onto a large, naked area of power transformers linked together by heavy cables. Giant towers tethered to one another flowed out in opposite directions from the transformers.
Scott searched for a way through the area, but it was surrounded by a high fence which was topped with several strands of barbed wire. A low drainage ditch ran between the road and the fence. He resumed his sprint along the road, trying desperately to get away from the two men chasing him.
A car suddenly turned the corner behind him and, with a thundering roar, sped in his direction. Scott somehow found the energy to run faster. As the car neared, he threw himself down into the ditch to hide. Crawling forward, he found a water culvert running beneath the road. Frightened as he was by what might be living in the culvert, he was more frightened by the two men in the BMW heading his way. He lunged headfirst into the dark, watery hole. Small creatures dashed ahead of him in the water, obviously scared of this monster that had invaded their home. He pressed on.
Overhead, he heard the BMW slow down and creep along the side of the road. They were obviously looking for Scott in the ditch. He hurried through the pipe until it opened on the opposite side.
Hugging the ground on the edge of the drainage ditch, Scott headed back up the road in the direction in which they had come. Hopefully, by the time they discovered the culvert, he would have slipped away.
Kyle’s voice broke through the sounds of crickets and night creatures, “There he is! On the other side of the road.”
The BMW made a U-turn and bright high beams shown in his direction.
Scott started to run again when Blackwell yelled, “We’ve caught up to you, Mr. Moore. Won’t you come back quietly so we won’t have to hurt you or your lovely wife?”
Scott stopped running.
Blackwell exited the car and came to where Scott stood, hands on knees, sucking down breaths of air. In a moment, Kyle joined him. “Where the hell did you think you were going to go?” Blackwell asked.
Scott couldn’t say anything. He simply leaned over further, still trying to catch his breath.
Off in the distance, another set of headlights turned onto the road and headed in their direction. All three men watched the car come toward them. When it was still a ways off, bright blue and red halogen lights on top of the vehicle began to flash, stinging Scott’s eyes.
“Oh, shit,” muttered Kyle.
The police car eased to a stop about fifty feet in front of Blackwell’s BMW. A lone policeman stepped out of the car, hand on the gun in his holster.
“What are you boys doing out here?” he asked.
“Nothing to be concerned about,” Blackwell said.
“Let me determine that,” the officer said. “Now what are you up to?”
“Simply a domestic squabble,” Blackwell said.
“I’ll need to see some identification,” the officer said, walking toward the three men.
“No problem, officer,” Blackwell said, reaching behind himself as if to get his wallet.
“Officer, these men have kidnapped me. I need help,” Scott yelled.
The policeman stopped, planted both feet on the ground and reached for his revolver.
With that, Blackwell whipped out a pistol from the waistband of his pants, pointed it at the officer, and pulled the trigger twice.
He flew back onto the hard, rough asphalt.
Scott stumbled backwards and down into the ditch.
“Now look what you’ve made me do,” Blackwell accused. “Damn you, Mr. Moore.” He pointed the gun directly at Scott.
Scott stared back, wide-eyed.
Blackwell tilted his head slightly. “Why don’t you go back to my car, or would you like to share the fate of this police officer?”
Scott climbed back up out of the ditch. “You can’t kill me. Not until you have perfected the process.”
Blackwell scratched the back of his head and seemed to ponder Scott’s remarks for a moment. Then he turned to his partner. “Kyle, see that he gets in the car. Remember, it’s your fault that he got away.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle muttered. He climbed down into the ditch and grabbed Scott’s arms, perhaps a bit more tightly than was necessary, and pushed him toward the BMW.
Blackwell walked over to the police officer’s body and double-checked it to make sure he was dead. He fired two more bullets into it, turned and walked nonchalantly to the car. The three men headed back to the house.
Scott slept behind a locked door blocked by a large recliner that night. It seemed as if all of his options were now locked away.
***
Blackwell began early the next day, demanding test after test. Scott complied reluctantly. He was probed and prodded. Blood was drawn and urine sampled again and again. Hours ran together like paint blended in a can, eventually turning into a nondescript, dark mess.
Since trying to escape the night before, he sensed the intensity of the study had risen several notches. Time was short.
Around seven o’clock that evening, he heard the front door open. Blackwell was talking with the visitor. After a moment, Scott recognized the voice as that of Dr. Grimm—Dr. Gartside. Something inside, another unusual sense, a feeling, a fear, swirled the bile in his stomach like scum ripples in pond water. This wasn’t good.
“Scott! Join us in here,” Blackwell boomed.
Scott emerged from his room to see the two men standing together near the kitchen table. Kyle stood closer to Scott’s bedroom, looking as awkward as a seventh grader at his first school dance.
“I asked Dr. Gartside to come by so we could properly show our appreciation for his help.” The skinny scientist grinned his creepy grin and clasped his hands behind his back. Together, the two could have been comfortable in an old black-and-white horror movie—the mad scientist and his assistant. Behind them some sort of leather and wooden contraption leaned against the wall.
The whole event smelled like shit. It didn’t fit within Blackwell’s standard operating procedure. Dr. Gartside looked nervous and
Kyle looked like he might wet his pants. Something was happening and it wasn’t good.
“I thought we should celebrate our partnership.”
Scott shuddered to consider the various meanings of Blackwell’s words. “I don’t understand.”
“Imminent success!” Blackwell proclaimed. “We have made such strides since you joined us Scott, we need to celebrate.” He held up a bottle of champagne. Four flutes stood in line like soldiers, face down on the table.
Scott knew Blackwell had no use for him if he had duplicated the procedure and wondered if the bubbly might be poisoned. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon head for home. It’s been a long time…”
“Nonsense,” Blackwell said. “First, we celebrate.”
“No offense,” Scott added. “It really would be nice to get home.” While the words slipped from his lips, Scott sensed in the bottom of his gut that Blackwell had no plans to take him home.
He countered, “Scott, I know this ordeal has been tough and I am so very sorry that we had to use such archaic methods to persuade you to help. Please understand that this has been my life’s work. And since the accident, I’ve had to take drastic measures. Let’s face it. It’s going to take a lot of plastic surgery before they will let me teach a university class.” He stood in the middle of the room looking like a sad puppy with his drooping eye socket and scarred face. “Let’s share some champagne and then we’ll take you home, Scott.” He grinned a sleezy used car salesman’s grin.
Kyle, who had entered the bedroom while Blackwell was making his pitch, came out with Scott’s overnight case and placed it by the door as if trying to prove the celebration was real. He placed a firm hand on Scott’s shoulder and guided him toward the kitchen table.
Scott reached out to shake Gartside's hand, saying, “Thank you for joining us,” as politely as he could. Talk around the table was light as Dr. Blackwell popped the cork. He seemed to stare at Scott with his one good eye.
Scott had to take advantage of this time to learn as much as he could about his three adversaries around the table. His life, and Grace’s, probably depended on it. He could read Blackwell and Kyle again, but he knew all about them. However, he knew virtually nothing about Dr. Gartside other than that he had access to some fancy equipment. He worked hard to make himself relax without showing it. To the others in the room he had to appear to be paying close attention. His sole advantage was that Blackwell and the others had no idea he could read on demand. Taking a deep breath, he saw the images of the three men standing around the table. He moved straight into Dr. Gartside’s vision.
2nd Sight: Capturing Insight Page 19