Delirious

by Daniel Palmer

  “There’s nothing I can do!” Rachel shouted. “The door won’t open.”

  “Hang on,” Charlie cried out. “There’s more room for me to maneuver back here. I’ll find you something to break the window.”

  Because it was weighted down by water, the front of the car lifted the rear of the Camry even higher in the air. It pushed Rachel higher as well. She had to brace herself against the front seat with her arms and knees to keep from falling forward.

  “Joe,” Rachel called to him. “Can you hear me, Joe?” She put her hand on Joe’s shoulder. He didn’t move at her touch. Not the slightest reaction.

  “I think I’ve found something,” she heard Charlie call out.

  “Joe’s not responding to me,” Rachel said.

  “He’s having a seizure. I’ll get to Joe. You just get that window open!” Charlie shouted back.

  The water level was already up to Joe’s chest. The water had begun seeping quicker into the backseat through small gaps in the rear door frames as well as the window seals. Icy water pooled on the floor by Rachel’s feet. It stood now at ankle level. It bit into her skin until the nerves froze with cold. Half of the rear window was well below the waterline. She hadn’t noticed it had progressed that far down.

  Were they sinking even faster? she wondered.

  Breaking the window would spill water inside the car with the force of a class-five rapid.

  “Reach for my hand,” Charlie called out.

  Rachel reached behind her into the black opening of the Camry’s trunk. She waited a moment until she felt something press into her palm. It was the wooden handle of a hammer. She pulled her hand out and hoisted the hammer to eye level.

  “When I break the window, the car is going to sink fast,” she said.

  “I’m in position to move quickly,” Charlie said. “You get out. Swim to shore. I’ll get Joe. Do it, Rachel. Before the car sinks any lower.”

  As if on cue, the back of the Camry rose a foot higher. Not expecting the sudden shift, Rachel fell forward, banging her shoulder into the front seat. She let out a cry.

  “Rachel!” Charlie’s voice echoed from behind. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m ready to break the window!” she called back.

  “Do it now!”

  Rachel crashed the hammer into the window and shattered the glass with a single strike. Water cascaded into the car. The counterweight of the inflow of water forced the rear of the Camry down toward the water’s surface. Rachel struggled to see through the spray and splash of the icy water, which mercilessly pummeled her face. She opened her mouth to scream, only to have her throat fill with the brackish water. Blinded, she reached in front of her, praying to stumble upon the opening she had made.

  It was like pushing against a fire hose. The only sound she could hear was the roar of water. Then something sharp punctured the skin of her palms. She never thought she’d be so happy to slice her hand. As if jolted by a powerful electrical shock, she recoiled from the pain. The pain was worth every nerve she had sliced. It meant she had found the way out.

  Ignore the pain, she told herself. Ignore it.

  Rachel pulled herself forward. She found strength she didn’t know she possessed. Blocking out the pain in her hands, ignoring the stinging cold of the water on her face and in her mouth, Rachel gave one final push.

  Within seconds she was completely submerged. Her body froze as it adjusted to her new, unconstrained surroundings. Then she began the frantic climb back to the surface. Her instinct to climb was the most powerful urge she had ever experienced. She had no thought of Charlie.

  When she broke the surface, she regretted not calling out to him. It wouldn’t have mattered, she figured. There was no possible way he could have heard her over the water.

  Rachel began treading water. The Camry hadn’t completely submerged, but it was sinking now at an alarming rate. Only a few feet away, she worried about the force of the sinking car pulling her under with it. Taking her eyes off the Camry for only a moment, she looked up to the bridge overpass from which they had fallen. The fall must have been fifteen or twenty feet, she calculated. The metal guardrail that ran the span of the bridge looked as if it had been pried open by giant metal shears. Where the Camry had driven through, the guardrail was twisted into knots like a steel pretzel.

  This road may not be heavily traveled, she thought. No onlookers appeared, and she heard no rescue sirens. Rachel looked back at the Camry as it made a sudden dip forward. Then the car began listing violently onto its left side. She swam away with several strong backstrokes, never once taking her eyes off the car.

  Again she treaded water. Adrenaline helped her stay warm. Her body adjusted to the water, for the air temperature felt far more intimidating. Her eyes, unblinking, kept watch over the Camry for any sign of life. Seconds passed, perhaps as many as thirty, before she decided to swim back to the car.

  As she neared, a sucking sound hollowed out the morning silence. The vehicle bucked from front to back. Water continued to pour into the broken window. She could see that the car was now almost full. Then like an animal sucking in its final breath, the car made one last tilt upward from the front. Seconds later it was gone.

  Chapter 65

  Her legs began to tire, but only when she was certain she could no longer tread water did Rachel begin the short swim to the shoreline. There she found a rocky, dirt-covered bank directly below the reservoir overpass. Using her last bit of strength, Rachel crawled out of the water on her hands and knees and collapsed in a heap onto the hard dirt shore. Her body trembled with cold, and she worried about going into shock.

  Rachel clutched her knees to her chest for warmth. As she continued to shake, she kept scanning the water for any sign of life. The absolute stillness of the surface made it impossible to believe that a car had been resting atop it moments before.

  “Charlie … Joe …,” she muttered. Then she stood up with a newfound determination. “Charlie! Joe!” she called out louder. “Help! Help us!”

  Rachel began inching herself back into the water. A chilling wind made the idea of submerging herself again almost bearable. She had waded out as far as to knee depth when something caught her eye. She looked toward where the Camry had been, and then she smiled.

  “Bubbles,” she said. Then she shouted, “Bubbles!”

  Charlie Giles burst through the water surface. His head and neck craned skyward for breath. “Help! Help me, Rachel!” he called out.

  In an instant he was under again. Rachel didn’t hesitate. She dove in after him. Using a strong freestyle stroke, which she’d honed in a Cambridge YMCA competitive swimming program, she reached Charlie before he could utter a third cry for help. Rachel expected him to grapple with her in a desperate bid to save his life.

  “I’m holding Joe!” he shouted. “He’s too heavy. I need your help pulling him to shore.”

  Rachel reached down, fumbled a moment, until she found and gripped Joe’s shirt. Unable to stand, they kicked frantically until they were able to get to shallower water.

  “Pull! Pull!” Charlie shouted as he hoisted Joe’s inert frame out of the water.

  Charlie went to perform CPR, but Rachel stopped him. “No!” she said. “We have to get the water out. Flip him over. We’ll give him the Heimlich maneuver.”

  Rachel’s training in CPR and emergency response took over. Airway, breathing, circulation, she reminded herself.

  “We’ll get his airway clear. Then we’ll be able to get air into the lungs,” she said.

  With Joe lying on his back, Rachel turned his face to his right side, allowing the water to drain from his mouth. Then kneeling astride Joe’s hips, she began to press on his upper abdomen with a quick upward thrust. Joe didn’t respond. His coloring began to change to a horrifying blue.

  “Rachel!” Charlie said. “We’re losing him!”

  “No, we’re not,” Rachel said through gritted teeth.

  She pushed on Joe’s abdomen un
til he coughed once, then twice. Joe’s body twitched and thrashed on the reservoir bank as he fought to push air into his lungs. The color of his skin returned to a far less alarming white. Joe rolled over to his side. He managed to get onto his knees. He vomited out a stomach-churning mixture of food and stale water, then collapsed face-first into the wet shoreline mud.

  “Thank God,” Rachel said. “Thank God.”

  Charlie walked toward his brother and knelt down beside him. “You scared us. You really fucking scared us.” Charlie’s breathing was hard. He sat down on the ground cross-legged and massaged Joe’s massive shoulders with his hands. Charlie looked at Rachel and smiled. “You’re amazing,” he said. “Do you know that?”

  Rachel brushed aside strands of wet hair that framed her face. Charlie stood. Reaching down, he helped Rachel to her feet. Their faces were inches apart. Both of them were breathing heavily from their exertion. Joe moaned and rolled onto his back. His chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Charlie moved closer to Rachel. She put a hand gently on his cheek.

  “Thank you,” Charlie whispered.

  Rachel expected Charlie to move even closer to her. Kiss her even. She would not resist if he did. She would embrace him with passion. It would be an affirmation of life. But Charlie turned away. He stared out at the still water of the vast reservoir and began to walk to the shoreline.

  “Charlie?” Rachel asked.

  Joe tried to stand, but he was too weak to move. He lay on his stomach. In the quiet of the morning they could hear him cry.

  “My brother is not a monster,” Charlie said to her. He stood ankle-deep in the water. “But somebody is, and I’m not going to rest until I know who.”

  Without another word, Charlie dove into the frigid water and disappeared into its inky blackness. Rachel waited, puzzled, on the shoreline and prayed for him to surface. She checked Joe’s pulse. It felt strong. She kept vigilant watch for any signs of Charlie.

  What was he doing? she wondered.

  A minute passed. Then two. Rachel began to walk, then run, into the water. She got no farther than knee-deep when Charlie broke through the surface. He gasped loudly and began an awkward swim toward shore.

  Was he holding on to something? Rachel wondered. Charlie used only one arm as he swam. Ten feet from the shoreline he could stand. Water cascaded down his shirt and pants. His breathing was shallow and erratic. Rachel could now see what it was he had dove down for. Charlie held the object in his hand like a fisherman hoisting a prized trophy fish for a photograph. It was the Camry’s InVision system.

  Chapter 66

  Charlie slumped down on the dirt bank. He was shaking, shivering with cold. Hypothermia remained a risk, but with the sun shining and the air temperature unseasonably warm, the chances of developing the condition were slim. Still, the light breeze, which on most days he would not have even noticed, felt like needles puncturing his skin. Charlie held the InVision system by its handle. He was grateful that he had installed the newer model into Joe’s Camry. The inaugural product line didn’t allow for complete system removal—the brains, as the engineers called it. After a few bigger resellers had reported an increase in customer complaints regarding break-ins and theft, the Magellan Team had led a project to devise a portable unit that could be extracted from a vehicle and stowed safely away.

  Rachel walked over to Charlie and put an arm around his shoulder. She rubbed his back, and it did help to warm him. Joe had managed to get himself into a seated position. He still seemed too disoriented and out of sorts to stand.

  “Why did you go back under?” Rachel asked.

  “My brother tried to kill us,” Charlie said. “But that wasn’t my brother.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following,” Rachel said.

  “You know about Joe’s condition.”

  “He’s schizophrenic, yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s prone to violence. You know that.”

  Charlie shook his head to correct her. “No,” he said. “I mean yes, he has schizophrenia, but years ago he was diagnosed and treated for epilepsy.”

  Rachel paused a moment. Her expression changed from doubt to confirmation as she mentally traversed Joe’s case file. “That’s right,” she said. “We stopped his medication almost eight years ago.”

  “Because his seizures were not common. In fact, they could be predictably triggered.”

  Joe stood shakily. Stumbling, he approached. “They were triggered by music,” he said. “It was jazz music.”

  “More than jazz music,” Charlie added. “It was that song. Our father’s favorite song. ‘So What.’”

  “I don’t understand,” Rachel said. “Why would Joe play that song if it causes him to have a seizure?”

  “He wouldn’t,” Charlie said. “When I play guitar, I play jazz. But Joe used to love jazz almost as much as me. In fact, I stopped listening to the music and playing guitar almost as soon as we learned what it could do to him. He nearly killed a boy during a fight while he had a seizure and then fled for three days after. When the police caught up with him, he had no memory of where he’d been or what he’d done. All he could tell them was that he was home, listening to his father’s favorite record. Next thing he knew, he was awake up in the woods.”

  “Mom knew that something was wrong with me,” Joe added. “But she didn’t know what it was. She would tell me things. She would tell me to stand up, sit down, anything really, and I would do it. Only I had no idea what I was doing. It really upset her.”

  “That was the seizure,” said Charlie. “And once he stopped listening to that song, the seizures stopped as well. His doctors eventually diagnosed him as having musicogenic epilepsy.”

  “I blogged about it,” Joe said.

  “Somebody knew about Joe’s condition. Maybe they read it on his blog. I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But they knew enough to trigger a seizure. And enough to use the voice command capability of InVision to control him.”

  Rachel sat down on the ground, her skin whitening from both cold and shocked disbelief. “Who would do that?” she asked.

  “Who would forge notes in my handwriting?” Charlie asked in return. “It’s somebody who has a terrible grudge against me and possibly my brother. Maybe someone I worked with at SoluCent. I’ve cut down a few trees on my way to the top of the mountain.”

  “And the voices? Eddie’s voice? The dead bodies?” asked Rachel.

  Charlie looked down. “I can’t explain everything,” he said. “But I can tell you that those bodies are real. People have died.”

  “Who killed them?” Rachel asked. Without meaning to, she glanced at Joe.

  “No … no …,” Joe said, shaking his head violently from side to side. “I wouldn’t do that! I couldn’t.”

  Charlie put a firm hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Joe, you almost killed us,” he said. “No matter what we find out, it’s not on you. You are the victim here.”

  Joe turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at Charlie. Charlie took his brother’s chin and turned Joe’s head until their eyes locked.

  “Joe, listen to me. I will never abandon you. I will never let anything bad happen to you. You’re my brother. You’re the only brother I have.” Charlie paused. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but couldn’t.

  “I get what you’re saying, Charlie. But tell me what you’re doing with the InVision system,” Rachel said.

  “Whoever knew about Joe’s condition also knew how to control him. But to control him, the person would have to communicate with InVision. The GPS signals are Wi-Fi transmission. That is done via a standard wireless protocol. It wouldn’t be easy for somebody to hijack that signal. But we support IP communication as well.”

  “IP as in Internet protocol?” Rachel asked.

  Charlied nodded. “Exactly. It’s what’s used to send and receive Web pages over the Internet. It’s just a communication mechanism for one machine to connect with another.”

  “And you’re saying
that somebody might have used an IP to control InVision?” said Rachel.

  “Somebody who knows technology could have figured out how to use cellular transmission and static IP to hack the system,” Charlie explained. “With access to the operating system, they could override the Wi-Fi signal and substitute their own voice commands and play whatever media, be it music, light, or any sound they wanted.”

  “You’re suggesting that somebody sabotaged Joe’s InVision system?” Rachel said.

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Charlie said, holding up the InVision brains for added effect.

  “But who?” Joe asked. He was unable to hide the desperation in his voice.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” said Charlie. “You see, the OS has a built-in registry. The registry is used to store information about the system, much of it used to boot up the device, but it also maintains customer preferences, date and time setting, and that sort of thing. Anybody who hacked into the device would have had to write their IP address to the registry to maintain two-way communication. If I can get to that IP address, I can get to a physical address as well.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Rachel asked.

  “The best InVision hacker I know lives twenty miles outside Boston. His name is Arthur Bean. We get to him and we get the IP address.” Charlie paused. “Either that, or he’s the guy who rigged it.”

  Chapter 67

  The three walked under the bridge and trudged up a steep bank to the roadside. They watched from the cover of the underbrush as a few cars drove past the mangled guardrail. They heard no sirens, but that didn’t mean at least one of the passing motorists hadn’t called the police.

  Charlie had no idea how far from Revere they had traveled, and Joe couldn’t remember anything before coming to on the reservoir shore. If they were stopped and questioned by the police, it wouldn’t take long for them to ID Charlie. A wanted homicide suspect on the run was high-priority bulletin material for every police station from Boston to Springfield. They would have to keep to the woods if they wanted to remain hidden.