Dial W for Wicked

by Lotta Smith

  “Number three,” the director replied helpfully.

  “Thanks. Camera number three, come over to the star and switch positions with number one,” Adam announced. Turning to Rick, he said sarcastically, “Satisfied?”

  “You’ll thank me later,” Rick said nonchalantly. “This time, things should work more smoothly.”

  “What are the differences with these cameras?” I asked.

  “Something subtle, but there is an important difference.” Rick indicated the newly appointed camera number three. “Look at that one’s red lamp.”

  “What?” Adam scratched his head.

  “Keep looking at it and don’t blink,” Rick insisted. Then he flashed a thumbs-up at Tina. “You can go on with the same process. This time, everything will work out fine.”

  “Good,” she mouthed and returned a thumbs-up.

  The commercials ended and the cameras returned to Tina.

  “So, we’re going to try that again. Monsieur Albatross, will you please put him under hypnosis?” she said.

  The camera facing Luke took charge, but for some unknown reason, its red lamp was blinking repeatedly.

  “You see that?” Rick indicated the blinking red light.

  “Yes.” I looked up at him.

  “Watch him carefully. You can see how his face changes.” He held my shoulder and gestured at the monitor.

  I looked at Luke earnestly staring at the camera.

  “Follow this watch with your—” Monsieur Albatross started, but Rick interrupted him.

  “No need for that. He’s already in a trance,” he said.

  As I stared at Luke, I noticed his eyes were shut and he looked like he was sleeping.

  “Oh my…. How did he…?” Tina’s eyes widened.

  “It’s the red lamp putting him under hypnosis,” Rick explained. “It’s blinking. It kept blinking just like this during the previous shooting, right?”

  Even though we were in the middle of a live show on air, no one shushed him or criticized him for interrupting.

  “Damn right,” the guy in charge of the camera chimed in. “I knew it was blinking, but this sort of malfunction isn’t serious enough to need an immediate repair. And this camera has been working nonstop lately, so I didn’t have time to fix it.”

  “Okay. Thank you for the info.” Then Rick explained, “This blinking light is what put him into the hypnotic state. Monsieur Albatross had nothing to do with it.”

  As he said that, the fake hypnotist’s shoulders twitched for a brief moment, as if he were shocked. Then he shook his head and grabbed his hat and oversized glasses, throwing them on to the floor. “You heard that, right?” he said, pointing at the camera. “But in my opinion, I think I played the part pretty well, huh?”

  “Monsieur Albatro—” He was walking away before Tina could finish her statement. She gave the actor a dirty look as he continued out of the camera’s frame and out of the studio.

  The director flashed a cardboard saying “Start questioning Luke!”

  Tina cleared her throat. “Okay, Mr. Winston….” I prayed that the studio had manipulated the audio for Luke’s privacy’s sake. “Please listen to me as I utter three names—Lucy, Meghan, and Skyler-Mizuki. Are you familiar with these names?”

  Luke’s face contorted into an expression of agony. His eyes were still closed, but his forehead was wrinkled, and he was biting his lip. “These… three girls… they are here,” he said, groaning.

  “They are here? What do you mean?” Tina frowned, apparently puzzled.

  “They are… here… shivering in cold and absolutely famished. Poor girls….” He shook his head.

  “Hello? Are you there?” Jackie called out, looking around. “Lucy, Meghan, Skyler-Mizuki? Where are you?”

  She could talk without anyone noticing, but I couldn’t. I kept my mouth shut but discreetly looked around, in case I could sense any of the missing girls.

  “How did you get to know them?”

  “I met them… here. The last time I was here, I met them.”

  “You mean at this studio?”

  “At this studio, I met them….”

  Luke’s response was shaky, repeating the same phrases, like he was sleep-talking, but somehow his voice was clear and it was easy to make out his words.

  Tina tilted her head. “But… these girls went missing in the mountains in Berkshire, Massachusetts. How did you meet them at this studio in the heart of Manhattan?”

  “I… don’t know.” Luke shook his head ever so slightly.

  Then I gasped, feeling something ice-cold brushing the back of my neck.

  “What was that? Are you okay?” Clasping my hand, Rick looked in my eyes.

  “I’m okay,” I said, clutching his hand tightly. “I think the spirits are coming.” Then I glanced at Adam, and I sucked in air for a different reason. “Oh….”

  “What?” Rick looked at his classmate from high school. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Arms tightly crossed and eyes tightly shut, Adam was standing yet sleeping. His upper body was swaying back and forth, and it was almost a miracle that he didn’t collapse on the floor.

  “Adam, hey.” Rick attempted to get his attention, but he seemed to be deep asleep. Rick watched Adam thoughtfully, and then he turned to me. “Mandy, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I think so.” I nodded. “Adam is also under hypnosis—and the blinking red light is what put him in the state, right?”

  “Exactly.” He nodded. “Luke isn’t the only one under the influence of hypnosis.”

  “So during the last show, was Adam under hypnosis as well as Luke?” My eyes widened.

  “What’s going on?” Darren Fender crossed his arms, glancing around the studio. Looking up at the ceiling, he muttered, “What the—”

  Something whitish and foggy appeared, and it was whirling around like when you slipped drops of ink into clear water.

  “Something isn’t right. It’s getting freezing cold all of a sudden,” Tina said, still in her “master of the show” mode. But her hands were trembling, and so was her voice. For the first time, she seemed to be scared.

  I ran toward Luke, who was still sitting in the same chair, looking like he was trapped in some unearthly world.

  “Everything is fine,” Rick announced as he followed me. When we reached Luke, Rick held me protectively in his arms. Indicating Luke with his palm, he said, “He has a very sharp sixth sense, just like…” He seemed tempted to say “her” or “my wife” as he glanced at me, but instead he said, “Just like me. And because of that, the spirits are attracted to him.”

  As the white, cold fog came toward me and Luke, Rick pulled me closer, holding me tightly. I watched as it surrounded us all, moving in circles.

  As it swirled, I saw snippets of images appearing and disappearing into nothingness.

  Placing my face cheek to cheek with Rick, I whispered into his ear. “I see something resembling a cabin—no, that’s not a cabin. That’s a… cave. It feels really dark and cold. Three young girls are trapped inside, and they’re holding on to each other as they sob.”

  Rick relayed my words to the studio, still pretending to be the one who had the paranormal power.

  Then I gasped as I saw a vision of an adult man coming into the cave where the girls had been trapped.

  At first, he was just a dark shadow with his face obscured in darkness.

  The shadow of his upper body was shaking, and for a moment, I thought he was shivering from cold, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that he was laughing. Indeed, he was laughing so hard that I had a difficult time comprehending what he was saying.

  When he opened his lips, the dark reddish pink of his inner mouth jumped into my eyes. I caught his lips and tongue moving. I couldn’t read lips, but I knew what he was saying—it was like his voice was directly seeping into my brain.

  Before I knew it, I was muttering his words. “You girls see that giant rock? Looks heav
y, huh? I believe so.” Disgusted and feeling sick to my bones, I couldn’t stop myself from relaying his words as he chuckled menacingly inside my head. “And the even funnier part is you won’t be heard no matter how hard you cry, shriek, and scream.”

  I heard the girls screaming and crying, and that wasn’t the weirdest part.

  Indeed, I wasn’t the only one who heard the girls desperately shrieking.

  “Who said to throw young girls’ shrieking voices?” one of the audio guys—the one looking bossy—demanded to a younger guy.

  “I didn’t do that.” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “It sounds like… they’re here in this studio.”

  “What?” The senior audio guy knitted his eyebrows.

  As for Tina, she opened her lips like she was going to say something, then shut them once more.

  “Don’t go, please!”

  “Don’t leave us here!”

  “Please come back… please!”

  “We’re all going to be really good and really sweet… so….”

  Three voices belonging to three different girls pled one by one, and all the TV people could do was stand there with their mouths open like a bunch of total idiots.

  All of a sudden, Luke stood up. “What the devil have you done? You… you evil monster!” As he screamed, he collapsed onto the floor with a hollow thud.

  “Oh my God… are you okay?” Jackie flew over to him, speaking to him and trying to wake him up.

  “Are you all right, Luke?” I ran toward Luke, who was still sitting in the same chair, looking like he was trapped in some unearthly world. As someone who shared a similar ability with him, I couldn’t leave him passed out cold. As far as I could see, he didn’t seem to have banged his head, but you couldn’t be too careful.

  He opened his eyes immediately, saying to me, “You saw that too, right? In my vision, I was watching that horrible man leaving the three girls in the cave.”

  Without saying anything, I nodded.

  “Hey, you just admitted to having paranormal skills in front of TV cameras,” Rick whispered in my ear.

  “It’s okay. I can always say that I was just playing along,” I whispered back, prompting him to roll his eyes.

  Then I realized it wasn’t as freezing as it had been. As I looked up, I noticed the white foggy material was still there, but it was gathered near the ceiling.

  “And you saw the face of the man,” Luke went on with a serious face, but when Rick gestured for him to stop talking by putting his index finger in front of his lips, Luke quieted.

  “Yes, but I believe it would be better if you tell the whole world who did it,” I said, still whispering.

  “Fine.” He nodded and slowly stood up. His face was pale and he was trembling, but his voice was deceptively strong. “It’s him… the man standing there.”

  He pointed directly at Adam Johnson, whose upper body was still swaying—apparently he hadn’t woken up from his deep sleep-like trance.

  “Yes? What—” When he realized that all the cameras were on him with Luke literally pointing the finger at him, he seemed genuinely dazed and confused. “What’s going on? Rowling?” He glanced nervously at Rick.

  “You know what, Adam?” Rick took a step toward his high school classmate. “I respect you for agreeing to see us when you could have rejected. Did you think you could manipulate us into making him look guilty of the girls’ disappearance? After all your efforts, you just proved that you’re the one responsible for the crime.”

  “Come on, what are you talking about? Is that a joke?” Adam tried to chuckle, but his voice was hoarse and his laughter was dry. “If that’s a joke, that’s not funny at all.”

  Rick didn’t laugh; he didn’t even snort. “By the way, you’ve been under hypnosis for the past few minutes. Do you remember that? And here’s the punchline: everyone here in the studio and millions of people watching this show live just heard the poor girls screaming for help.” Then he looked at Luke. “So, why did he mention the girls’ names when he was subjected to a fake hypnosis on the previous show? I’m afraid it’s not easy to explain how that happened with the current science, but Brian Powers would say, ‘Adam, you attracted the spirits of the poor girls here, and while you were being hypnotized, the guy participating on the game show channeled them, speaking for the lost souls, helping them get attention so justice could be brought.’”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Adam crossed his arms defiantly, but a corner of his lips was uncontrollably twitching.

  “What were you doing five years back? I used to party hard between catching bad guys,” Rick went on, taking another step toward Adam, who stepped back, giving a fast glance over the studio as if seeking an escape route. “When I saw you auditioning young girls in bikinis, I couldn’t help but recall the reputation you had back in the old days. The rumor was you were all about the girls—not our peers but the pre-pubescent ones.”

  “What are you trying to imply?” Adam demanded, his face turning red.

  “Oh, nothing special,” Rick said matter-of-factly. “Just a little theory about you going hiking in the mountains of that little picturesque town, abducting the three girls, taking them to some hidden cave and then leaving them trapped in there, presumably without food or water.”

  “Stop talking about your idiotic delusions!” Adam shouted, but his face blanched.

  CHAPTER 10

  For a brief moment, I stopped breathing. Having witnessed the culprit of a cold case being exposed on a live TV show wasn’t something I had expected, but that wasn’t the only reason for my shock.

  Something was pulsating in my purse. At first, I suspected that I was shaking, but when I glanced down, I realized my purse was visibly vibrating.

  “Oh my….” I glanced at Jackie, hoping she might have some great solution for this irregular situation.

  “Why is your purse shaking?” She knitted her eyebrows. Discreetly, I shook my head, and she said, “Why don’t you take a look inside?”

  “But… what if there’s a rat or something?” I whispered, trying to keep my words from airing throughout the country.

  “That’s even better. You’re better off leaving whatever animal you have in your purse here,” she said nonchalantly. “You don’t want to have a stray rat running around at home, do you?”

  “Is everything okay?” Rick asked me.

  “I don’t know.” I pointed at my pulsating purse.

  “What?” His eyebrows shot up. For a brief moment, he stared at it, but then he took a deep breath. “Okay, let me see.”

  He took it from me and opened it. As he carefully unbuckled my purse, I peeked inside. A part of me was absolutely creeped out by the vibrating purse, but the curious part of me was dying to see what was going on.

  “What the hell is…?” Rick muttered, staring at a dirty cloth that seemed to be stained with brown, dried blood.

  “Oh my God,” I gasped as I recognized the cloth. “That’s the handkerchief I used to wipe the blood off the glass wall.”

  I had completely forgotten about carrying it in the first place, but a few days prior to revisiting the studio, I had a sudden and unexplainable compulsion to have the handkerchief back from USCAB’s lab so I could bring it with me. Now it was pulsating as if it had suddenly developed a life of its own.

  “Hello?” Adam said irritably. “Why don’t you stop ruining the live show and get the hell out of this studio?”

  “Actually, my plan is even better.” Flashing a lopsided grin, Rick picked up the vibrating handkerchief with the tips of his fingers. “Why don’t you try holding this for a moment?”

  And then he threw the bloodied handkerchief at Adam’s face.

  “Stop it!” He tried to fend it off, but the bloodstained handkerchief dodged his hand, flying over to cover his face. “Help! Get this freaking handkerchief off my face! I’m choking—ahhhhh!”

  Rick and I exchanged a glance.

  “Wow… I didn’t see that coming,”
Jackie commented.

  “Me neither,” I said, then relayed her words to Rick.

  “Hmm… he doesn’t look good.” He raised an eyebrow as he eyed Adam moaning, groaning, and rolling around the floor.

  Tina Baldwin was pacing around nervously, but she didn’t get near Adam. The director had already commanded switching to commercials, and none of the staff came near him.

  “Help….” His muffled groan echoed as he swiveled on the floor.

  It was surreal. For a moment, I recalled the time when Alicia and I had a worm named Mr. Beetle, which was supposed to grow into a beetle with a magnificent horn. After we’d watched a show on Discovery Channel, learning that worms tended to grow faster when they were kept in a hot environment, we put the plastic cage with the worm in front of the fireplace. After a while, the worm came out of the soil in the cage, and we high-fived. We thought the worm was about to undergo metamorphosis, but it rolled all over the soil so fast, and then it jumped and dropped onto the soil—never to move again.

  When I saw new blood oozing out of the handkerchief stuck on Adam’s face, I had a feeling he might end up like our Mr. Beetle.

  I reached for Rick’s arm as he watched Adam, who seemed in total agony. “What should we do?”

  “Wait a little longer,” he stated.

  “But—”

  He silenced me by putting his index finger over my lips.

  As if on cue, Adam shrieked, “Heeeelp!” The blood trickled down his neck. “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry for what I’ve done… please forgive me!”

  I looked up at the swirling white fog. “I think he’s fessing up,” I said.

  Rick took a step toward Adam, who was still coiled on the floor. Crouching, Rick ripped the bloodied handkerchief off Adam’s face. “You have a lot of explaining to do for what you’ve done,” he said, helping Adam sit up.

  The first thing Adam said was “I need a lawyer—” but he didn’t get to finish the sentence. The handkerchief dropped to the floor, moving threateningly.

  Rick raised an eyebrow as he looked at the self-moving handkerchief. “If I were you, I’d reconsider calling a lawyer. When you’re dead, it won’t be easy lying through your teeth.”