by Platt, Sean
Duncan
In his dream, Duncan relived the funeral of his closest and last true friend, Ed Baldwin.
Caleb’s adopted father died of a heart attack just shy of Caleb’s sixteenth birthday, and the boy was devastated. He spoke to no one: not his friends, girlfriend, or even his mother, Myriam. He stood outside the funeral home, pacing the parking lot, eyes wild and hair disheveled.
Duncan went outside, and unsure what to say, said nothing. He stood beside Caleb, waiting for the boy to speak.
The young man looked up at Duncan, angry, and confused, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Why?” was all he could manage.
“I wish I knew,” Duncan said, pulling the boy into a strong but gentle hug.
Duncan had buried more friends and loved ones than he could count. While he missed Ed, sympathy and sadness were only practiced. Truth was, he no longer felt the pain of loss. At funerals, Duncan often found himself mourning his missing feelings more than anything else.
Time marched on. People came and went. Same as ever.
Little did Caleb know he was an Otherworlder who would stop aging in his 40s and bury many people himself. Perhaps, he, too, would one day be jaded like Duncan.
The first funeral was always roughest.
Caleb collapsed into tears, and turned away, red-faced. “This is all my fault.”
“What do you mean?” Duncan had asked.
“I killed him.”
Duncan woke from the dream.
Twenty-Three
Duncan
Duncan paced his basement wondering what Jacob planned next.
He was growing restless, and, oddly enough, hungry again. Duncan felt near starving, though not for food. He was craving another life. The housekeeper, Melora, left him feeling more alive than he’d ever felt. The energy surge, along with her vicious flood of memories and experiences, was more powerful than any drug he’d ever taken — and Duncan had taken a great many over the years: for recreation, experiments in self-improvement, and general need.
Feeding was like acid and opiates, rolled into a tantric orgasm, multiplied by a million. A bit like a bad trip, but only for a fat handful of flickers, as he was forced to sort through Melora’s worst memories, fears, and pain, like when she lost her child three hours after birth.
Duncan quickly found himself riding through her currents of thought until he found himself swimming in calmer seas, basking in the pleasures of her life as if by instinct. He’d even relived her more erotic moments, which left him surprised in both the depths of her kink, and that such a plain-looking woman had so many sexual escapades with men and women of every shape and size. Melora was one book Duncan could never have judged by its cover.
He wanted out of the basement, and to experience the rush again. Yet, Duncan was also shrouded by guilt. He hadn’t wanted to kill Melora. The parasite’s instinct and his own sense of self-preservation compelled him to feed from her screaming body. As he sat, imagining feasting on others, Duncan felt disgusted.
I can’t just go kill people.
I am not them.
I am above them.
He could almost feel Jacob’s laughter as the monster descended the stairs, looking down at Melora’s charred remains, which Duncan couldn’t bring himself to move from the bottom.
“So, how is superiority treating you? Is that whole ‘I’m not a monster’ thing going well?” Jacob smiled and tutted. “For so long your people have treated ours like monsters, as if we’d chosen our paths. Chosen to be infected with the parasites. As if we decided on a life of murder. People love to feel smug, but when it comes down to it, they’re all pigs wallowing in the filth, eating whatever they must to survive.”
Duncan said nothing since Jacob was right. He was now no better than the monsters he’d hunted for so long, but that didn’t mean he had to admit it.
Jacob circled the body. “So, are you ready for your next meal?”
“No,” Duncan lied.
“You say no, but you forget, I can feel what you feel. I feel that hunger within you, Mr. Alderman.” Jacob smiled. “Why deny what you can embrace? I’ve elevated you past the rest of your species, and above the humans! You should be thanking me. I’m setting you front and center for the next evolution of our kind. We will be Gods among beasts, and the world our buffet.”
Duncan still said nothing, staring down at the concrete floor.
Jacob said, “It’s okay, you’ll come around. In the meantime, I’ve a small favor to ask. It seems I’ve come into possession of some numbers, Social Security numbers to be precise. I need to find the people attached to the numbers.”
“Are these your so-called ‘vessels?’”
“Why, yes they are. See? You and I make a good team, Mr. Alderman.”
“Why should I help you?”
“Well, let’s pretend for a moment that you have a choice, and that I can’t bring you to your knees in crippling pain by merely thinking it. In that case, you would help me because you’re helping yourself. Now that you’re with us, our goals are as one.”
“I want out of the basement. I’m tired of being cooped up down here. Plus, I’ll need access to my computers if you expect any answers.”
“Fair enough, consider it done.” Jacob stepped closer to Duncan, locking eyes with the old man as sharp force suddenly pressed into his skull from all sides. “But just so you know, I can see your every action and hear your every thought. If you even think about doing anything to interfere with me, I’ll know, and make you wish I had killed you.” Jacob snarled, yet still sounded almost pleasant. “You think killing the hired fucking help was difficult? I’ll lock you in a room with a newborn infant if you cross me. See how that weighs on your conscience.”
Duncan nodded. “You don’t have to threaten me.”
“That’s excellent news,” Jacob said, losing his snarl. “I’ve taken the liberty of blacking out the second floor windows, so I’ll have a room prepared for you.”
“Can’t I have my bedroom?”
“No,” he said, “I’ve grown quite accustomed to your bed. It really is quite the luxury.”
An hour later, Jacob released Duncan from the basement. The old man ascended the stairs to find his entire house commandeered by Harbinger, as he had suspected. Armed men in black crowded the bottom floor, and a few others wearing civilian clothes. Duncan figured they were Otherworlders or Halfworlders sympathetic to Harbinger’s cause.
He was led to the second floor guest rooms where he hadn’t set foot for several years, except for during a minor remodeling job three years earlier. He was placed in the room at the end of the hall, farthest from his bedroom. The room’s window was painted black, a clearly hurried mess, with black paint dripping stains along the wooden sill and hardwood floors. While Duncan noticed the mess, he didn’t allow it to worm its way under his skin since his house was filled with far worse atrocities than spilled paint.
His laptop was set up on a small desk, waiting for him.
Duncan sat and lifted the lid.
“Remember,” Jacob said, “do as instructed and nothing more. Do not attempt to send a message to anyone or I will turn threat into reality.”
Duncan signed into the Agency’s database, while Jacob probed his brain, searching for any sign of betrayal. He could feel the monster skittering through his mind, reading his thoughts. He tried to bury his revulsion, but Jacob kept digging, deep as he wanted.
Fuck you.
“And fuck you, too,” Jacob said aloud, delighting in his demonstration of power. “Here,” he said, handing Duncan a piece of paper filled with neatly printed numbers in the Old Language. “You can read this, correct? Get to work.”
Duncan began typing in the numbers, retrieving names of people he didn’t even know existed, and who had never raised so much as a blip on the Agency radar, lest their names would’ve been flagged. As he pulled up each name and address, he asked Jacob if he wanted to record any of the details.
&nbs
p; “Not necessary,” Jacob said. “I never forget … anything.”
Duncan typed, feeling Jacob’s presence in his head, as if the man were pressing on his brain like a full bladder. Duncan decided to experiment, compartmentalizing a thought as if imagining it in a hidden box, then waited to see if it would register. The tricky part in compartmentalizing was that the mere act would often tip the infiltrator off to what you were doing, even if not to the precision of your thought. Tell someone not to think of an elephant, and all they can see are large floppy ears, the color gray, and two long tusks. Trying to disguise the act of concealing a thought was similar. You had to think the thought and then quickly place another on top of it, almost forcing yourself to forget it. And then there was the act of thinking through a series of thoughts while covering those with others — a task which had taken Duncan decades to master.
I know your weakness, Jacob, and will use it against you.
Duncan kept typing, thinking of the names and numbers he pulled from the database, waiting to see if his secret thoughts were properly concealed from Jacob. He’d never been up against anyone with powers like Jacob. Nor had he masked a thought for longer than 10 minutes before the mental exhaustion tripped him up.
Jacob continued staring at the computer screen while probing Duncan’s mind.
He typed in the final number, and noticed the name attached. “Hope Barnett.”
Her? How can it be?
The errant thought flew into the wild before Duncan could capture it back and toss it in the box.
“Is that John’s Hope?” Jacob slithered down past Duncan’s shoulder like a snake. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan lied, trying to bury what he knew of her protected identity before it slipped into Jacob’s head.
Do not think it, do not think it.
Hannah Quinn.
Too late.
It was almost as if Jacob reached into him mind and plucked the name before Duncan could hide it.
“Ah, she’s changed her name, eh? And the Agency’s hiding her? Is that why it says ‘location unknown?’ Tell me where she is.” Jacob narrowed his eyes and burrowed deeper into Duncan’s head. If Jacob dug too deep, he might discover Duncan’s plan. And if he did that, Hope was lost, both John’s and humanity’s.
“I don’t know, it says ‘location unknown’ because we don’t know,” Duncan said in a commanding tone crafted to push Jacob’s buttons. “Now get out of my head.”
“You are my pet, and I shall do as I wish,” Jacob smiled, edging himself deeper into Duncan’s brain.
Duncan’s eyes seized on the pen and pencil holder. He reached out, grabbed a pencil, gripped it hard in his right hand, then drove it deep into the middle of his left. He screamed, but not alone. Jacob’s scream was equally loud, an echo of his pain.
Behind the scream Duncan felt the monster withdraw from his mind.
“What the hell?” Jacob reached out and grabbed Duncan around the neck. “You think you can hurt me? You think you can hurt ME?” The monster picked Duncan up by the throat and stared at him with burning eyes.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan said, burying the secret in hurried layers of thought, bracing his mind before Jacob entered again.
Jacob scowled and threw Duncan across the room, slamming him into the wall beside the bed. “Do you think you’re the only one with information? Do you think there is anyone in your organization I can’t reach?”
Jacob grabbed the laptop and left the room, locking the door from outside. His anger seemed to soften on the other side, and when he spoke his voice was again sickeningly sweet. “You know, I’m starting to think I should find a new second-in-charge if you’re going to pull stunts like that, Mr. Alderman. I’d think long and hard about your attitude.”
Duncan glared at the door, yanked the pencil from his hand, dropped it to the ground, and watched as the wound began to heal itself. Pain receded and brought his resolve into bloom.
Duncan now knew what he had to do, though he didn’t dare to think it while Jacob was still in the house.
Twenty-Four
Larry
Larry was rudely torn from his pizza coma as sirens screamed outside.
He reached up, fixed the glasses askew on his face, hopped from couch to floor, threw his Xbox controller aside, then ran to the window and parted the thick curtains. Flashing lights split the darkness to a garish rainbow blur as a mile-long fire truck drifted in front of the house. Larry grabbed his gun, slid it into the waistband of his jeans, then stepped out into the cool night air.
He stood on his porch, staring at the house down the street as it was licked by walls of curling fire. The scent of gasoline permeated the air, but seemed too close to be coming from the burning house. Another fire truck, this one shorter, was followed by a pair of police cars and a lone ambulance.
“What the hell?”
Larry was about to step back inside and let Abi know what was happening when he heard the soft sound of nearby crying. He looked down and saw Abi crouched in a ball behind the thick row of shrubs beneath their living room window, staring up at him as if something unimaginably horrible had just happened.
Larry swallowed. The flickering in her eyes made him weak in the knees, but he managed to hold himself steady. “What’s wrong, Honey?”
“I did it,” she said.
“Did what?” Larry said, dreading the answer.
Abi slowly lifted her arm and extended a shaking finger at the house with the fire trucks in front.
“Come inside, Abi.” He waved his arm and wished he could hug her. She looked like she needed one. Yet, so far as he knew, he was only safe from John’s touch. She slowly stood, and as her body rose above the bushes, Larry could see her pajamas were soaking. The pungent scent of gasoline wafted from her body and into his nostrils.
What the hell happened to her?
Abi stepped inside the house, her eyes holding the floor like a scared, or ashamed, animal.
Larry closed the door, locked it, and looked at Abi, shuddering in front of him as if awaiting trial. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she cried. “I woke up in their house after I killed their son. I think I was about to kill them, too.”
“Killed? You mean fed?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, her voice cracked and fragile. “The parents saw what I did, and the mom was going to call the police. I tried getting the phone, but we touched … ” Abi sniffed back her tears and swiped at her eyes. “Then the dad shot me, and tried to choke me or something. Then he touched me. Pretty soon, everyone was … dead.”
“So, how the hell did the house burn down?”
“I didn’t know what to do!” Abigail cried. “I didn’t want the bad men to come and take me again. So, I started a fire. I thought maybe the police would think someone burned them with gas.”
“Jesus,” Larry said, sighing as he removed his glasses, pinching his nose at the bridge. He set his glasses on the dining room table.
“What are we going to do?” Abigail asked, with enough fear in her voice to keep Larry from daring to yell.
He breathed himself into a calm, then said, “How did you get inside their house?”
“I don’t know. One minute I wasn’t feeling well so I went to sleep, and the next minute I was in their house. I even slept through killing Bobby. I didn’t wake up until I was standing over his parents’ bed. I think something is wrong with me.” Her voice cracked, forcing Abi to breathe before she could finish her thought. “I think I’m broken.”
Larry remembered how, a decade ago in Florida, John had thought he’d been going out on midnight kills and not remembering them. Of course, it turned out to be his brother Jacob. But what if Abi was killing in her sleep? This added a new wrinkle to caring for the girl, a wrinkle that Larry didn’t know how to iron.
“We’ll figure this out,” he said, even though Larry wasn’t convinced in the slightest they would. “I
’m gonna grab some stuff from the kitchen to help get rid of that gas smell, so go get undressed and ready to shower. I’ll bring it to you with some fresh clothes.”
“What are we going to do? Are we going to move again?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t wanna move,” Abi cried.
“I don’t know,” Larry said, trying to keep the annoyance from bleeding through his fraying calm. The only thing Larry knew for certain was that he couldn’t handle this on his own. He had to reach John.
“Okay,” Abigail said, then turned from Larry and trudged up the stairs.
Larry didn’t even have to try and reach John. The soundtrack of rushing water only played for a minute upstairs before the doorbell dinged. Larry crept to the peephole with one hand wrapped around the hilt of his pistol, then opened the door to John and Tiny standing on his porch, covered in blood, looking like they had a problem far larger than Abi’s.
Twenty-Five
John
“I think I’m going to need another Mountain Dew,” Larry said as John finished updating him all the way to Shadow’s death and betrayal by his people.
John and Tiny followed Larry into the kitchen. He handed them each a cold can of soda.
“The Agency probably thinks I’m dead, or Shadow’s captive, so that’s our advantage,” John said. “I need to find Hope. The two people most likely to know are Duncan Alderman and Bob Cromwell, one of the Agency bosses.”
Larry said, “Can’t you just ask Alderman?”
John shook his head. “I’d rather not have to kill him.”
“What? That dude used Abigail as a pawn to get you to join his little Omega death squad. He also used Hope to keep you on a leash. Fuck that dude.”
“Fair points,” John said, taking a swig of soda. “But he also took care of my brother, Caleb. He did what he did to protect him. I can’t fault him for that.”