Intercepts: a horror novel Page 12

  Everyone sat back in their seats.

  A long afternoon had just begun.

  CHAPTER 15

  The high, warm sun shone down on Riley’s face. And yet, she barely stirred, only rotating slightly so that the hood of her sweatshirt could shield her eyes from the bright light.

  She slept. A deep, dreamless sleep.

  It was so deep that she didn’t notice that the grassy field, in a park in the middle of the town, had gone fully silent. The sounds of children playing had drifted away. The cars and pickups that had previously revved their engines up and down the main street no longer seemed to exist. Even the chirping of the birds and the rustle of the wind had fallen away into a total silence.

  None of this stirred Riley.

  But then her eyelids crept open.

  She had no reason to awaken right then, other than that she felt her presence. She felt the eyes gazing at her. She felt the cold, wispy touch of her breath. She felt her screams rattling around inside her ears. Even if Riley couldn’t hear the screams, they were there, within her head.

  She knew the woman was near.

  Riley stayed prone on the grassy field, much like she did when she was a child and believed that she could trick her parents into thinking that she was asleep so that they wouldn’t force her to clean up the toys she had scattered around the living room. In this moment of terror, that familiar strategy was all that she could think to do. She stayed curled on her side, completely motionless. Her hand crept around in the front pocket of her sweatshirt to grasp the handle of the carving knife.

  “It hurts,” a voice said.

  The voice was a whisper, but it seemed to fill the air. It was a sound both frail and all-encompassing.

  Riley shut her eyes. She held her breath as she tried to force her mind to expel the woman from her world. She tried not to move, to become a lump of nothingness in the middle of the grassy field. Her only hope was that the woman wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t notice her heaving gasps of breath, wouldn’t feel the sharp beats of Riley’s heart pumping so furiously that Riley was convinced it must be shaking the earth around her. As much as Riley tried to be still, the presence of the woman remained.

  It felt as though her heart pumped not just blood through her system, but something thicker and corrosive. It burned as it wedged its way through her arteries. It was dread. The dread flooded her, pulsating through her stomach, across her chest, and then out into her limbs and head.

  But as soon as every last inch of Riley’s body felt crippled by the dread, a new sensation replaced it. Resignation. Inevitability.

  She could not run from this woman.

  She could not force this woman away.

  She could only confront the woman.

  Riley opened her eyes and slowly pulled herself into a sitting position.

  The playground was empty.

  The streets were empty.

  The world was empty.

  Only Riley and the woman existed.

  The woman stood at the far edge of the field, near the deserted playground, perhaps fifty yards from Riley. A safe distance that slowed Riley’s heart rate a beat or two.

  The woman still wore a hospital gown. Her head was bowed, angled to the ground so that her long black hair covered her face. Her body twitched in an unnatural rhythm, as though each individual muscle were hooked to a randomized system of electric shock probes.

  To Riley, it felt as if the two of them waited in that silent field together for an hour, but it may have only been minutes. She kept expecting the woman to talk, or move, or scream, but the woman just stood, looking at the ground as her muscles spasmed.

  Riley opened her mouth, fully intent on saying something. But her jaw quickly snapped shut again, fearful that any noise or movement might disrupt the seemingly safe status quo.

  The standoff continued.

  It lasted another minute, or maybe even an hour. Riley couldn’t tell.

  “Wh-wh-who are you?” Riley finally said, her quivering voice barely above a whisper. She couldn’t explain it, but despite the softness of her words, she felt confident that the woman heard them across the expanse.

  “I don’t remember,” came the woman’s reply, the whispered words floating across the distance to easily reach Riley’s ears.

  “What happened to you?” Riley whispered.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Why me?”

  The woman stood silently. Riley wondered if the words had reached her. She was about to ask the question again when the woman finally spoke. “Because. You know him,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Him. Them. They did this to me.”

  Riley didn’t understand. “Who are they?”

  “Forever, I did not know. I was only in darkness,” the woman said, her words finding strength and beginning to flow more clearly. “When they released me from that darkness, there was too much light. Too many sounds. I could not see who they were. Blinding light and deafening sound. They sent my mind whipping around the world. So fast.

  “Then they would shut me back into the dark. I do not know how long I was in there. Maybe days. Maybe years. During that time, most of my mind drifted away. It detached from myself and folded off into the nothingness. I forgot my name. I forgot my family. I forgot my life.

  “But I held onto one small piece of reality — the knowledge that I was not meant to be there. And so, I focused. I trained myself. I listened to the sounds around me, to the people talking. At last, one of them said a name.”

  Riley gulped. She stared wide-eyed as the woman’s voice filled her head.

  “When I returned to the dark, I searched the world for someone with that name,” the woman continued. “Each time the lights came on, I gathered more pieces of information. My search got closer and closer. Until I found him.”

  At that moment, the woman finally raised her head. Even from across the field, Riley could see that the woman’s eyes were dark. Trails of blood ran from her sockets down her cheeks. Those blood trails shifted as the woman’s lips curled into a smile.

  “And then I found his weakness,” the woman said with a grin.

  “What do you want?” Riley asked.

  “I want him to feel pain. I want all of them to feel pain,” the woman said.

  Riley gulped. She gripped the handle of the knife a little tighter and brought its end slightly out of her pocket. She angled her body toward the woman and brought herself to a crouch.

  “Please,” Riley said. “I’m sorry for your pain—”

  “—I feel no pain.”

  The woman smiled and cocked her head to the side. Her muscle twitches had stopped and she now stood there, like some demonic scarecrow. She wasn’t sure, but Riley could almost hear the woman laughing inside her head. Or, at least, she felt the woman laughing.

  “Please. Leave me alone,” Riley said.

  The woman’s mouth didn’t move, but a single word flowed clearly through her grinning teeth. “Never.”

  And with that, the woman lunged forward.

  Her jerky, twisting body flew toward Riley. Her hand reached out. Her grinning mouth wrenched itself open into a deep, guttural scream that seemed to emit from inside Riley’s own head. It all happened so fast. In one blink, the woman had crossed the field, and Riley could see the woman’s wide-open eyelids and the bleeding, gelatinous masses that remained of her eyes.

  Riley’s mind commanded her body to act. She rose to her feet but each action, each movement, felt slow and labored, as if her entire body had been submerged in quicksand.

  The woman flew closer, about to grab her.

  Riley pulled the knife from her sweatshirt and slashed it at the woman.

  The woman screamed.

  ***

  Screams filled Riley’s ears.

  Multiple high-pitched, terrified screams.

  Riley swung the knife around.

  The woman wasn’t in front of Riley anymore.

  “Run, kids! Run
!” a voice shouted. It was a woman’s voice. But not the woman’s voice. This voice lacked the hissing. It didn’t possess the deep, gravelly sound of torn vocal cords. And it didn’t come from inside Riley’s head.

  The screams were of children.

  Riley blinked a few times.

  A soccer team of twelve-year-old girls scattered away from Riley’s position at center-field. Their parents raced over from the parking lot to scoop them up.

  Riley’s hand continued swinging the knife, but her grip began to quiver.

  “Easy. Easy now.” It was that woman’s voice again.

  Riley glanced to her side. The woman wore a track suit and a whistle. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail. Sunglasses covered the woman’s eyes. Riley stared intently at her to try to make out the woman’s pupils. Maybe this was a trap. Maybe this was still the woman. Maybe beneath those sunglasses, this woman’s eyes were gouged and deflated. Maybe she should stab this woman and end it now.

  The coach seemed to sense Riley’s intense need to see her eyes. She held her hands up. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she said. She reached up and pushed her sunglasses off her face and onto her head, revealing an unscathed set of hazel eyes.

  Riley’s head darted around as she took in her surroundings. People on all fringes of the park stood and stared at her, but the woman in the hospital gown wasn’t among them.

  On the street, a police cruiser screeched to a stop. Its wailing siren rattled Riley out of the last remnants of the hazy dream that still clouded her vision. She watched the police officer open the door and climb out of his car. He remained positioned behind the car door as he drew his weapon.

  “Drop it!”

  The soccer coach turned her attention to the cop and suddenly seemed more concerned about calming him than calming Riley. “It’s okay, it’s okay. She’s not going to hurt anyone. You’re not gonna hurt anyone, are ya, dear?”

  Riley dropped the knife.

  She fell down to her knees, put her head in her hands, and let the tears stream out. She cried there, hunched over in the grass.

  CHAPTER 16

  Joe sat at the desk in his office.

  Across from him sat Mr. Aguirre, a wry grin on his plump face. “Two accidents in two days, eh, Joe?”

  Joe folded his hands on his desk. “I want it entered into your official report that I recommended we start collecting intercepts when she was thirty percent sensory capable. It was your recommendation that we push to fifty percent.”

  “That was your call, Joe.”

  Joe tensed up and bit down on his lip.

  Mr. Aguirre set down his tablet, folded his arms across his chest, and stared off. “And now we have a damaged Antenna.”

  “She scratched herself. It’s common.”

  “A scratch on an Antenna is serious and expensive. But let’s be clear, this wasn’t a scratch. This Antenna broke free of its bindings and disabled one of its primary sources of stimulation.”

  “Oh, come on, Javi—”

  “She stabbed her eyes out, Joe.” The two men stared at each other; a little grin hung on Mr. Aguirre’s lips. “Look, you know I’m a friend, Joe,” he said calmly but with a hint of a patronizing tone.

  “Uh-huh,” Joe muttered, his gaze still fixed.

  “I’ll make a note in my report that a discussion was held on how far to push it. I’ll stress the clarity of the intercepts we’re receiving. Don’t worry about it, Joe.” He clutched his hand to his heart in a display of his earnestness, but even that seemed rehearsed and fake. “You and your team have accomplished so much here that I swear on my life that if it comes to it, I will personally fight for your future at this facility.”

  “How comforting.”

  “Besides, I believe that these accidents indicate more than simple lapses in safety procedures.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve long believed that we’re barely scratching the surface of the potential of Antenna research. I, for one, would love to try tuning your Antenna without her eyes. Who knows what possibilities that might open up? I’ve never been able to get the higher-ups to sign off on such an experiment because no one wants to blind an Antenna. Seems wasteful. But maybe this will enhance her audio abilities.”

  “Like how when the mind loses one sense, it compensates with the others.”

  “Exactly. Think of it. We could have Antennas that specialize in particular senses. As they arrive, we would simply trim out some of their extraneous senses and give the remaining senses a real jolt. We could have one Antenna that specializes in smell. One in sound. One in touch. We’d be able to sniff out bomb makers. Or feel someone’s passcode as they entered it. Hell, if we knew what they were tasting at a particular moment, we might be able to tag their location to a specific restaurant.” He smiled wide, allowing his imagination to really rev up. “And if we really wanted to amplify their abilities, I think we should begin training them before they go on the gas. When they still have their cognizant abilities. While they’re still—”

  “While they’re still functioning humans.”

  Mr. Aguirre settled back into his seat. His grin remained, but the rest of the muscles in his face transformed from a genuinely eager scientist back to the calculating businessman. “They’re always human, Joe. That’s what makes them special.”

  Joe took a deep breath. “I never ask where they come from. They’re already in a vegetative state when they arrive. But if you’re talking about bringing conscious, living, breathing, thinking people here—”

  “We’re just having a spit-balling session. Between two old friends. The challenge of getting that ball rolling, just pushing the paperwork through… woo-wee. I’m just talking out loud. Gauging interest.” Mr. Aguirre looked away and waved his hand, as if swatting down that last conversation.

  Joe kept his gaze on the man. “If you’re going to submit this up the ladder, just know that my staff will have a problem with what you’re describing. We’re not in the business of snipping out people’s eyes or slicing off their ears. These are good people who work here.”

  A little twinkle developed in Mr. Aguirre’s eye. “Are they?”

  They both sat quietly a moment, letting those words sink in.

  Riiiinnnng! The phone on Joe’s desk broke the silence.

  Joe picked it up. “This is Gerhard.”

  Tyler’s voice came through the other end. “Sir, I have a call for you from an outside line.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “It’s your daughter, sir.”

  Joe sat up straight. “Put her through.”

  He heard the click of the call being transferred, and then he heard the voice of his daughter. But he had never heard her like this. Her voice wavered and cracked as she spoke her first word, “Daddy?”

  “Yes?” Joe’s brow furrowed in concern, but he quickly forced his face to adopt a more neutral expression. His gaze glanced over at Mr. Aguirre who had picked up his tablet and was once again tapping out notes and memos, fully engrossed in his own work. Or at least appearing to be.

  “The police just brought me back home,” Riley said, her voice tearful and broken.

  A deep worry overtook Joe. His brow furrowed again and his eyes, now gazing past Aguirre and staring off into nothingness, grew sad and fearful. “What happened?” he said, not even trying to mask his concern.

  “Just please come home.”

  “Is everything okay?” Joe asked. Joe noticed Mr. Aguirre had stopped typing on his tablet. The man didn’t look up, didn’t make eye-contact, but it was clear that he was now listening.

  “I keep seeing her,” Riley said. “She won’t stop. I’m scared.”

  “I’ll be home soon. You sit tight.”

  There was a long pause.

  Joe held the phone tightly to his ear. “Riley?”

  “I… I can’t take it anymore,” Riley finally said. “I’m scared of what I might do. I’m scared that I might…” the words and the thought traile
d away from Riley’s lips before she could finish them. There was a pause. And then, with a sad conviction, she said, “I’m scared that I’ll end up like Mom.”

  “Don’t do anything. I’m coming home now.”

  “Please hurry.”

  “I will. I love you, Riley.”

  She took a long breath. “Too,” she said with an empty voice. Then she hung up.

  Joe stood from his desk.

  Mr. Aguirre idly glanced up from his tablet and smiled pleasantly. “Trouble?”

  “My dog ran away last night,” Joe said as he put on his coat. “Someone found her and called my daughter at the house. I need to pick her up.”

  “Do what you need to do.”

  “I probably won’t be back tonight. I need to spend time with my daughter. Chuck will gather the intercepts and it should all go fine. He’s a pro.”

  “Of course. Go see to young Riley.”

  Joe calmly walked to his door, taking his time to not look hurried. “You can hang out in my office as long as you need. I’m on my cell.”

  Mr. Aguirre cast his gaze back to his tablet. “Have a good night, Joe.”

  “You too.”

  Joe opened the door and ambled out into the hallway.

  The door clicked closed behind him.

  He looked around. As usual, the Level One hallway was empty. With his squeaking shoes echoing around the concrete walls, Joe strolled to the elevator. His posture remained relaxed — like a weary man finally clocking out for the day — but his eyes continually glanced back and forth. He tried to block out the sounds of his shoes on the linoleum so that he could hear the opening of any doors behind him.

  He had one thing to do before he left for the day.

  Confident that no one was watching him, Joe stepped toward the Control Room door.

  He swiped his ID, pulled the door open and went inside.

  Chuck sat at his station, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on his desk as he whiled away the hours. His system flashed red lights — “Recording In Progress.” On the main screen, Bishop remained in her chair, her lips moving as she spoke, although the audio had long since been muted in the Control Room.