Intercepts: a horror novel Page 10

  And now, as Joe watched his team set up for a tuning session, he felt a sense of pride at being the “father” of this special place. His “children” had grown up responsible and hard-working.

  Joe stood back, away from the hustle, and observed as a team of medics restrained Bishop’s head to her chair and attached sensors to her temples.

  A team of technicians rolled in an array of TV monitors. Other techs set up cameras and microphones, angling them around Bishop’s face but trying to keep them as far out of her field-of-vision as possible.

  Joe estimated that it would be another half hour before they were ready to begin. Plenty of time for him to talk with Hannah.

  She stood at the window of Bishop’s cell, overseeing her team.

  Joe casually walked over and stood by her side.

  Hannah glanced over at him. “How’s it going with Aguirre?”

  “Good. Anything to report down here?”

  “Just that it’s a bad fucking idea to tune Bishop again so soon after what happened. But I’m just a fucking doctor. What do I know?”

  “Noted.”

  “Is it? Because I will do a fucking sock-puppet show if that’s what’s needed to get the point across. She just killed a man.”

  “Aguirre specifically requested her.”

  “Why the fuck?”

  “Because she’s the best.”

  “We’re pushing her too hard. I don’t like it.”

  Joe nodded. “We’ll get through this inspection and then cycle her out of the rotation. She just needs to give us one more batch of good intercepts, and Aguirre can walk off all happy.”

  The edge of Hannah’s mouth twitched in accompaniment to her narrowing gaze. It was an expression that Joe had learned meant I have more to say on this matter, but I’ll bite my tongue because you’re the boss.

  He didn’t push it further.

  Joe glanced around at the other workers. None of them were within earshot. He kept his voice low. “Can we talk?” he asked.

  Hannah continued looking forward, through the glass. “Sure. What’s up?” The tone in her voice had softened. She seemed to sense that Joe wanted to keep this conversation private.

  “Riley might be seeing things,” he said.

  Hannah turned to look at him. “Hallucinations?”

  Joe nodded.

  “How vivid?” Hannah asked.

  “Vivid.”

  “Well, she experienced a horribly traumatic day. Bad dreams or difficulty concentrating would be completely normal. She can probably get prescribed something to help her sleep.”

  “She’s seeing it when she’s awake.”

  “The hallucinations?”

  Joe nodded again.

  “Wait, wait, wait. Let’s be clear,” Hannah said. “When Riley is fully awake, and otherwise perfectly cognizant, she’s seeing something that isn’t there?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s she seeing?”

  “Some woman.”

  “And?”

  “And, I don’t know. The woman watches Riley. Screams at Riley. Claws her face off.”

  “Her face or Riley’s face?”

  “I… I dunno. Hers, I guess.”

  “Holy shit, Joe.”

  “She was so sure the woman was real that we called a security detail to the house last night. Team didn’t see anything, though. Me neither. And there’s nothing on tape.”

  Hannah looked off, taking a moment to mentally run through the possible diagnoses. “This is not good,” she finally said.

  “But these might just be hallucinations of her mom, right? As you said, a stressful thing just happened. That’s bound to mess with a kid, right?”

  “Even if it’s stress-induced, Riley needs to see a doctor.”

  “You’re a doctor,” Joe said, leaning in a bit. His gaze met Hannah’s.

  “Joe…”

  “You know her. You got a background in psychoanalysis. Just talk to her and give me your professional opinion.”

  Hannah crossed her arms. “Look, it might be stress, it might be depression, it might be drugs…”

  “Riley wouldn’t—”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything. Which is why you need to get her to a third-party medical professional who can assess her mental and psychological state. Because if she is having a psychiatric break, then she needs professional counselling and therapy. Perhaps even medication.”

  Joe finally broke his eye contact. He looked at the floor. His large shoulders slumped and he could feel his knees wobble slightly, as if a giant weight were accruing atop his frame. “If we go through proper channels, and this finds its way onto her medical record…” he said, gulping for a moment as he completed the thought, “…they’ll red-flag her.”

  Hannah’s face went grim. Her head gave an imperceptible nod, showing that she understood the implication full-well.

  They looked at each other.

  “You’re worried about something else, aren’t you?” Hannah said.

  Joe took a deep breath. “The woman she’s seeing… I just… I’m not sure it’s Kate.”

  “Go on.”

  “The woman wears a gown, like a hospital gown. Now, that description is pretty broad. Could mean a lotta things. But when Riley was a kid…” He rubbed his face with his hand, not wanting to finish the thought out loud. “When Riley was a kid, I would take work home. I’d keep her in the corner, let her play by herself, and I would review video footage and intercepts and whatnot.”

  “Jesus, Joe.”

  “I was a bad father.”

  “Yes. You fucking were.”

  “But is it possible that when Riley was really young, she saw some of what we do here? Maybe her mind just stored it away. And then, all this stuff with her mom, all of it… it just… it pulled that memory out from wherever it was and… and used it? Can that happen?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. All sorts of shit’s possible.”

  “You see? If Riley’s having a psychological break, and she’s drawing in memories of my work which I probably shouldn’t have brought home… well… then I don’t know how HQ is gonna react. But I doubt it’ll be good.” He sighed. “Look, I’ll do what I gotta do for Riley, but I want your opinion. I take her to a hospital and things might get real ugly, real quick. I just wanna be sure it’s necessary before Aguirre or someone else catches wind of it. You’re a doctor and a friend. Honest opinion, do you think it’s grief?”

  Hannah ran her hand through her hair. “I mean, it’s probably grief. People handle grief in different ways. Especially in adolescence when they haven’t had much experience in it before. I don’t know what you want me to tell you, man. You can’t just hand me a pile of hallucination symptoms and expect me to be all Web-fuckin-MD about it.”

  “Will you talk to her? Please?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Come over tonight. If you think it’s serious, then…” he paused. “I’ll do what I need to do.”

  Hannah sighed. “Fine.”

  “You’re the best, Hannah.”

  “Yes. I am.”

  With that, she curtly turned her attention back to the windowed wall. Inside, Bishop was fully hooked up to diagnostic systems. Cables and tubes connected her to scanners, sensors, and IV drips. Her head had been restrained to a headrest that rose out from the back of her chair.

  Hannah and Joe watched as two medics gently lifted her eyelids. They propped them open into a set of eye-hooks. One of the medics then administered eyedrops. The rig made Bishop’s eyes wider than ever. They roamed around her head, searching. Always searching. But focusing on nothing.

  Joe watched her. His walkie-talkie beeped.

  “Go for Gerhard,” he said.

  Chuck’s voice came through the other side. “Set-up’s complete. Ready for tuning.”

  “On my way,” Joe said.

  He gave Hannah a friendly pat on the back and then turned to walk to the elevator. Before he left, he glanced
one more time through the window.

  Bishop’s eyes had stopped roaming. They stared straight ahead, seemingly fixed on something.

  They were looking at Joe.

  A chill passed through him.

  He shook it off and walked off down the hall.

  CHAPTER 13

  Riley trudged on.

  When she left the house, she hadn’t fully comprehended how far away her dad lived from town. What was only a ten-minute drive turned out to be, in reality, a several mile hike down a long gravel road. At the end of the road, she had to walk along a two-lane highway that barely had a shoulder.

  The morning was crisp and sunny. A beautiful day. Birds sang and flapped around with impunity, as though they lived in a cartoon. Ordinarily, Riley would have loved this sort of walk — cool enough that she wouldn’t sweat, but sunny enough that she could roll up her sleeves and try to burn away some of those softball-jersey tan-lines.

  On a normal day, she might have jogged. Sure, her dad would have lectured her about watching for cars and to make sure she understood that a pedestrian always travels against traffic and never with traffic. He would have expressed concern and offered to drive her into town so she could jog around the park. She would have declined and asserted her age and independence. She would have won. As tough as her dad acted, a slight shove from his baby girl and the man folded like paper. Anything to avoid direct conflict.

  She usually liked getting out. But today, she drifted through the walk.

  Her legs felt leaden and disassociated from her body, as though they were part of some marionette and she could only move them by pulling on a string. One awkward, stumbling foot in front of another. Each step became a conscious decision of her brain commanding her legs to move.

  All her other senses were submerged in a weird haze. It reminded her of that time in middle school when she took some allergy meds, not realizing that they were for nighttime. The rest of the day, as she battled the drowsiness, she felt as though someone had unfocused her eyes and installed a tin funnel around her ears. Everything was off and distorted. Just like today.

  She was exhausted. It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn that she was also hungry and dehydrated. But despite all the mental energy it required for her to keep stumbling forward, mile after mile, she never once considered turning around and going back to that damn house.

  As she reached a blind curve in the road, Riley slowed her pace and peered around the corner, fully expecting to see the wailing, bleeding, angry woman. Nothing.

  She continued on, her eyes scanning everywhere. The large trees off to the side of the road provided a perfect hiding place for that woman. Was she behind one them, ready to jump out?

  Riley heard a rustling.

  She stared in the direction of the sound, near a large sycamore. Her feet stopped moving and her whole body clenched. She couldn’t take her eyes off of that tree. Its branches were so thick with purple-tinged leaves that they hung down low to the ground, helping block the view of its wide trunk. The woman was surely hiding behind that trunk. She was going to step out. Any moment now.

  Riley stood there, on the road, staring at that tree, for several minutes. Her vision blurred. Soon, the very concept and shape of trees no longer made sense in her mind. As she concentrated, she heard a sound behind her. Maybe the woman was out on the open road, following her. Trailing her. Watching her. In clear sight. Right behind her!

  A cold sweat rose from Riley’s forehead and along the back of her neck. She pried her eyes away from the tree and spun around…

  The road was empty. Just a few dry leaves bouncing along the road’s blacktop asphalt in the wind.

  Once again, she stood frozen in place, looking.

  Waiting.

  The woman had not come.

  With a deep breath, Riley forced her legs to move. She continued on around the blind corner. The road sloped down from there, and her walking took on a trance-like state. Eventually, the trees that formed a thick, green wall on either side of the road thinned out and opened up.

  She was approaching town.

  Soon, she was walking past the long driveways of homes.

  The closer she came to civilization, the more her fears of that woman, who had seemingly been residing just out of Riley’s vision, began to fade away. The brighter the day became. The closer she got to people, the less she worried.

  The road passed by stores. Then a few restaurants. Then a movie theater.

  At some point, a sidewalk appeared beneath her feet. Riley only noticed its welcome presence when she recognized that she no longer felt a nagging fear that she might stumble into the street and get hit by a car.

  She looked around at all the people going about their regular lives.

  Two new mothers, both pushing their infants in strollers, stepped out of a coffee shop, loudly laughing at some joke.

  A cop car lazily roamed the quiet street. Nowhere to be, nothing to do.

  The world was safe.

  Riley’s shoulders and neck relaxed. The tension drifted from her body in waves. She realized that the stress and adrenaline had been the only thing shocking her system to alertness. Now that it was gone, a deep weariness filled its place.

  Her eyelids drooped and her mind fogged up. Her feet became heavy, as if a concrete mixer had started pouring a weight into her body that first filled her shoes and was now working its way up her legs. Every successive step required more effort than the last.

  Despite the fact that she never saw her mom’s body, the vague description Riley knew of the suicide kept filling her imagination. Her mind wandered toward the image of her mom dead on the front porch, her brains splattered against the yellow, faded siding.

  But Riley quickly pushed it out. She needed sleep. She would think about her mother later.

  The sidewalk passed beside a low, stone fence that encircled a well-manicured grassy field. It was a wide public park. In the far corner of the park, a playground and picnic area sat adjacent to the public library. The laughter and joyful screeches of the children playing Marco Polo reached Riley’s ears.

  “The woodchips are lava!” one of the kids shouted as he hopped from the slide to the monkey bars.

  As if drifting on her feet, Riley veered off the sidewalk and slowly climbed over the two-foot stone wall that encased the park. She ambled straight into the middle of the field. The area was expansive and open. Few places for ghosts and demons to hide.

  Riley lowered her weary body onto the grass. She curled onto her side in a ball, shielding her eyes from the warm, mid-morning sun.

  She felt safe.

  She felt comfortable.

  She felt exhausted.

  Her eyes closed and her mind immediately floated off into sleep. In that fleeting moment between wakefulness and dreams — the moment she had been fearing all day — nothing horrifying popped into her mind. Just happy thoughts of her mom. The two of them laughing during dinner together. The two of them watching Saturday Night Live together. The two of them swinging through Burger King on the way home from softball practice.

  Good thoughts.

  Happy thoughts.

  Riley smiled as she drifted into sleep, confident that her mind had made up the terrifying visions of the woman.

  They couldn’t be real.

  Monsters like that are never real.

  CHAPTER 14

  Joe and Mr. Aguirre stood side-by-side, observing the big display screen from their position on the platform that overlooked the Control Room.

  Chuck and Tariq manned their respective terminals.

  Hannah entered and sat at a computer in the corner.

  “Going online in five… four… three… two… one…” Chuck announced. He hit some controls.

  The large screens clicked on, showing real-time updates of Bishop’s vitals — heart rate, breathing rate, internal temperature, even an EEG that charted the electrical activity of her brain. All of this data, and yet, Joe couldn’t look at it. He wond
ered if any of his staff did either.

  The bio-readouts only filled the fringes of the display. In the center of the screen, six feet across, was a close-up camera view of Bishop’s pale, sunken face. Her eyes, propped open by those medieval-looking hooks, seemed to gaze directly through the screen and into the Control Room.

  Through the edges of his vision, Joe watched Mr. Aguirre shift his weight uncomfortably. The man looked away and swiped at his tablet, obviously performing no particular task other than finding something, anything, to look at that wasn’t those ghastly, larger-than-life eyes on the big screen.

  “Video online,” Chuck announced. “Audio online. System recording. Stimulation inputs queued up. Control is ready to begin tuning Antenna 201. Case 10598.”

  Joe nodded. “Medical?”

  “Medical approves tuning of Antenna 201,” Hannah said.

  “Chem Team?”

  Tariq looked over his screens. “Chem Team approves tuning of Antenna 201.”

  Joe picked up his walkie-talkie. “This is Joe Gerhard, Facility Supervisor. I am hereby initiating the tuning session for Antenna 201, Case 10598.” He turned to Tariq. “Chem Team, proceed.”

  “Yes, sir. Increasing sensory perception by five percent.”

  Tariq adjusted the dials on his control board.

  Everyone in the room quietly watched Bishop’s face.

  “How long does it usually take with this Antenna?” Mr. Aguirre asked.

  “She adjusts faster than most. Only a few breaths to clear some of the nerve gas through her system,” Hannah said. “Her heart rate is already increasing. Her body is starting to regain sense in her extremities.”

  “Five percent achieved,” Tariq said.

  “Proceed to ten percent,” Joe said.

  Tariq adjusted his controls. On the screen, Bishop’s breathing clearly increased. The blipping line displaying her heart rate sped up — Beep-Beep-Beep. Her eyes, which usually lolled around their sockets, suddenly jerked back and forth, as if they were detecting the faintest slivers of light.

  “Begin stimulation,” Joe said.

  Chuck punched in commands.

  They all watched the screens. One of the cameras was angled over Bishop’s shoulder, giving everyone in the Control Room a view of what she was seeing. Propped in front of Bishop’s eyes was a curved screen, fully encompassing her field of vision. The screen, which had been dark, lit up with a picture of a man.