Intercepts: a horror novel Page 16

  From that day on, he had been biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to sit down with his daughter and talk about that time in their lives. No, “talk” wasn’t the right word. He wanted to apologize.

  But the perfect opportunity never presented itself.

  He always figured that one day it would.

  Joe thought about all that as he watched his daughter. He walked over and pulled out the seat beside Riley. She might have been made of wax, an echo of what remained of his daughter, for she barely moved or registered his presence.

  After an interminable effort, her head tilted and her gaze fell upon him. He had seen death before — the Antennas had a “short shelf life” as the staff liked to say — and he had overseen several as the black plastic bag zipped up around their face. Their eyes always struck him. The emptiness. His daughter had that same look in her eyes now. And yet, at the sight of him, they welled up with fresh tears.

  “She’s from your work, isn’t she?”

  “You know I can’t talk about my work.”

  “Fuck your rules, Dad! I never ask you a single fucking question about your job. You’re gone all the time. Everything’s a secret. The fucking army shows up when your home alarm goes off. And you know what she says? She says she’s your prisoner. She says you torture her and others. She says she’s going to make me fucking kill myself unless you let her go!”

  “Where is she?” Joe asked, keeping his voice calm.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t fucking know! You tell me. She keeps getting pulled back to wherever the fuck her body is!”

  “She can’t hurt you,” he said. “She can only observe.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please.”

  Joe looked around the empty void in the room.

  “I need to know, Dad. What is going on?”

  Joe sighed. “They’re fully sedated when they come to us. No clothes, no hair. Even the ones who might’ve had a tattoo or something, it’s been removed or blacked out before they arrive. I don’t know where any of them come from. I don’t know how they got involved with the Company. All I know is their gender and their ID number. She’s Antenna 201. We gave her a name. Bishop.”

  “Bishop…” Riley repeated, almost in wonder at finally having a name for the screaming face.

  Keeping his hand on Riley’s shoulder, Joe glanced around the room again. His gaze finally settled back on his daughter. His voice was steady and earnest. “Bishop was one of the first to arrive. That was about ten or eleven years ago.” He looked down, a little ashamed of what he was about to say. “Their lifespan is usually about two years.”

  He glanced over at Riley. She barely moved. The room was quiet.

  “We keep them in chambers that are circulated with a special nerve gas,” he said. “I don’t understand the chemistry behind it. We have a specialist who’s in charge of that. It replaces the body’s oxygen in a way that keeps all the organs functioning and the blood flowing. Everything in the body works normally. Except for the nervous system. The gas disables the brain’s ability to process sensory stimulations. They see nothing. They hear nothing. They feel nothing. Nothing grounds their brain to the physical world. Their minds are in total darkness.”

  “Why are you doing this to them?” Riley said.

  Joe sighed. “It’s… it’s hard to explain.”

  “Tell me.”

  Joe looked at his daughter.

  “Please,” Riley said.

  He took a deep breath. “When the place was still under construction, I went out to drinks with one of the guys from the Company. A real friendly guy. He was older than me; he’s probably in his sixties now. His name was Matt, but I don’t think that was his real name. Matt was nice. Fun. A good guy to work with.”

  Riley listened quietly.

  Joe nibbled on his lip, pausing a little before continuing. “There was always something kinda empty behind Matt’s eyes. I don’t think he was ever an actual government or military employee, but he had done contracting work for about every branch and every department you can name. He was real nice. He had done a lot for the country. Knew everyone. But… but I always felt that in his heart, he didn’t really care about anyone or anything. He was a pure sociopath. He just happened to be one of those sociopaths who’s on the good team.

  “Well, Matt and me, we often went out for drinks after work. We became close, or as close as someone gets to a guy like Matt. You must’ve been probably one or two at the time. I thought that being friends with a guy like Matt would be a real good thing for my career. He was one hell of a drinker, and so we would go out and drink. Every night. Weekends, weeknights, didn’t matter. We’d talk and BS and he’d tell me little stories about his life.

  “Anyway, Matt told me a story once. He didn’t say any names. No events or locations or concrete dates. There’s no way to corroborate it. If you dragged him to court, he’d say it was a lie and there’d be no way to prove him otherwise. But I believed it was true. I believed he was there.

  “See, back in the 70s, the CIA experimented with all sorts of torture. Forced interrogation methods and stuff. Anything to get prisoners talking, spilling the goods. We’re talking water-boarding, tight confinement, sleep deprivation, pumping them full of LSD. Anything that anyone could dream up. One thing they tried was extreme sensory deprivation. They’d lock people in pitch-black, silent rooms. Days, weeks, or even months on end. Psychologically, it’s devastating. Without sensory stimulation, the brain just goes haywire. As a form of interrogation, it was only marginally effective, but it yielded some other interesting results as well.

  “There was one kid they kept sealed up for well-over a year. The kid was probably in his early 20s or so when they grabbed him. I don’t know the details of the story, only that the kid was the driver or the personal assistant for some guy that the government wanted real bad. Grabbing this kid was a huge intelligence get. This kid had been at that guy’s side for pretty much his whole life. He’d lived and breathed this bad guy’s personal life.

  “But the kid was loyal, hell, he might’ve been the bad guy’s son for all I know. The kid was more committed to his boss than he was to himself. No matter what the CIA did to him, this kid wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t give up any information.

  “They kept him without trial for a long time. Most the CIA analysts figured that the bad guy knew they had the kid and had already adapted and changed all of his routines. The kid had held out for so long that the CIA realized that anything he said from this point on wouldn’t be of much use.

  “Well, they didn’t wanna just cut him free. And they held him so long already that an actual trial would just make everyone look bad. So, my buddy Matt kept him in a sensory deprivation chamber. Locked him up and threw away the key.

  “The kid took it quietly for the few couple months. But as it started pushing past a year, well, I guess the kid went a little crazy. Started screaming all the time and clawing at the walls. Now, at this point in the story, I can’t tell if my buddy Matt’s just making stuff up, or if this is real, but the kid started eating his own feces. Just smearing it all over himself. He wanted to taste, to feel, to smell something.

  “Eventually, Matt decided to try some new drug on the kid. It had just been developed, probably from the same lab they were mass-producing LSD out of. The drug just totally disconnected his mind from his senses. Kid turned into a vegetable.

  “Matt thought this was great. Instead of building elaborate prisons, this drug meant that they could hold, incapacitate, and torture any number of people all from the comfort of a hospital room. And so, Matt kept the kid on this drug indefinitely. He wanted to see how long the body could take it. But then, something happened.

  “Whenever they switched out the IV to start a new dose of the drug, the kid would start mumbling to himself. Nobody thought nothing of it for months. They could barely understan
d it. It was just gibberish. But little words would slip out here and there. Once Matt started actually recording the mumblings, he realized that the kid was describing things. Just weird fragments. The make and model of a car. A lunch order. Someone’s first name.

  “Matt and his buddies started plugging all these little details into some of the holes in the intelligence they had been gathering on that big bad guy. It started to fill in the gaps. But they began to realize that some of these details were things that the kid would never have known. I mean, the kid had been out of circulation for almost two years by now. He wouldn’t know jack about the guy’s life or routines anymore.

  “But the intel was solid. They used that information and they got the bad guy. Led them right to him. I don’t know if they assassinated him, arrested him, or what. But Matt said they got him. And he also said that if they hadn’t gotten him when they did, he estimated that three months later, eighty American soldiers would’ve died. I don’t know where, I don’t know how. But that’s what he said.

  “This kid was able to go inside his former boss’s mind. He was able to see and hear and feel the things his boss felt. In regular intelligence gathering, when you listen in on someone’s phone call or read their telegram, it’s called an ‘intercept.’ Nowadays, of course, everyone who has a target on their back knows to use secure lines and not transmit important details in ways that can be intercepted. It’s all burner-phones and dark web boards and encrypted apps. It’s not easy to stay in front of the bad guys. We’re always playing catch-up. Well, by sheer accident, Matt and his team had uncovered a way to intercept the most intimidate details of their targets’ lives. They could get information in ways that can’t be hidden.”

  Joe noticed that his voice betrayed a hint of admiration. He cleared his throat and continued. “This was all back in the 70s. Well, early 80s by the time it all played out, I think. Matt mentioned Carter a few times. And Reagan once or twice. Matt said he was a Democrat, but he voted for Reagan. Anyway, the research was passed from CIA to military to private contractors, and then back and forth for the next several decades. At this point, I don’t know who is responsible for what, who created what, who owns what patent. I don’t even really know who I work for. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it’s true.”

  Having gotten lost a bit in telling his story, Joe glanced up at Riley to gauge her reaction. She stared back at him with confused eyes.

  “What happened to Matt?” Riley asked.

  “Went on to new projects with higher pay. Dunno where. Dunno what. Guys like Matt are always on the move and they always come out ahead.”

  “And the kid?” Riley asked.

  Joe looked down. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead. They don’t last long.” He found himself shifting in his seat. He looked up at his daughter again only to see her expectantly waiting for him to continue. “By the time we get ‘em, they’ve been on the gas for lord-knows-how-long. I’m pretty sure they’ve mostly gone insane at this point. I don’t think they have any concept of who they are or why they’re there. As the sensory deprivation continues, they enter an almost animal-like state. They claw at things. They scream.”

  “She says it hurts,” Riley said.

  Joe nodded. He knew exactly what she was talking about. “It’s called ‘tuning.’ The first kid intuitively knew his boss. Probably better than he knew himself. But someone, somewhere discovered that these people can be tuned toward anyone. So, to access their abilities, we take them off the gas. All their senses flood back. It’s… it’s painful.”

  “Where do they come from?” Riley asked.

  Joe shook his head. “Nobody tells me. And I don’t ask. I used to wonder, but I kinda trained myself to stop thinking about it. I always hoped that they were captured enemy combatants, like that kid. But I’m just not sure. They may be homeless. Or veterans. Or…” he looked down again, he couldn’t help it. “Or just regular people. No matter what, I’m pretty sure they’re people that my company can make disappear.”

  “She says she’ll kill me. Just like mom.”

  “She didn’t kill your mom.”

  “She says she did.”

  “Your mom killed herself. Bishop pushed her, but your mom didn’t know what you know. You’re stronger.” His grip on her hands tightened.

  “Riley, look at me.”

  She looked up.

  “She’s in your head, but she can’t hurt you. She can’t do anything.”

  “I can’t ignore her.”

  “Be strong.”

  Tears rolled down Riley’s cheeks. “I just want her to stop.”

  “Hold on until tomorrow. Daddy’ll take care of it.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The morning sun hit Joe’s face. He stirred awake, a bit surprised that he had actually managed to get any sleep at all.

  His neck and back ached from whatever awkward positions he had contorted his body into during his night on the recliner in the living room. He had fully intended to stay awake, reading or just simply chatting with Riley. But as the night dragged on, Riley had grown quiet and Joe found that he had been unable to get more than a shrug or a nod out of her. He had tried to overcompensate by keeping the conversation as light as possible.

  How’s softball?

  Seeing any boys?

  You wanna do that High Knob Trail hike one day?

  Each question he asked made him cringe inside. They were the wrong questions. The wrong conversations. And the wrong fucking time. He knew it too. But every time he opened his mouth to apologize — for everything, for all the horrible things she was experiencing because of his work — some inane question about sports, or pop culture, or high school social status slipped right off his tongue.

  Such stupid conversation.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  Finally, he lost track of time, and as they sat in the quiet room, listening only to the hum of the fans on the various electronics, his eyes drifted shut and he fell asleep.

  He dreamt of Kate that night. She was introducing him to some friend of hers at a barbeque, but he kept ditching her. Instead, he roamed a supermarket, looking for a TV so that he could watch the Winter Olympics. In the dream, it all made sense to him. It was the first, and perhaps only time, the Winter Olympics would be played on the Fourth of July, and he didn’t want to miss it. And he especially didn’t want to miss it while talking with Kate’s stupid friend whom he didn’t give a shit about and would never see again.

  While wandering the supermarket, Kate’s friend followed him, still trying to make his introduction. As he walked around, wanting to ditch her, she stepped into one of the freezer compartments. The door locked shut, trapping her. Joe could have let her out, but he thought it would be easier to just wait for her to die and then hide her body.

  He spent the rest of the dream packing that freezer with ice-cream so that no one would see Kate’s frozen friend.

  It all made sense at the time, as dreams do.

  The moment Joe awoke, he made a mental note to remember that dream. Kate, or the dream-version of her, had whispered something in Joe’s ear. It was something important. A warning. She said it while he was trying to hide her friend’s body. She came up to him in the freezer section, put an arm around his shoulder like she always used to, then leaned in so close that her nose brushed against his ear.

  And she said…

  Fuck. What did she say?

  The entire dream suddenly fell through some trap door in Joe’s mind.

  Gone.

  It was replaced by the thought of how sore his neck had become.

  As he brought the recliner to its upright position, he turned and saw his teenage daughter hugging her legs to her chest. Her wide-open eyes stared, trance-like, at the TV morning news. The sound was off, but she didn’t seem to register the broadcast anyway. She watched as though it were a campfire — a flickering light to distract the eye.

  With a certain amount of effort, she broke her gaze off the TV and turned to f
ace her father.

  “Is she here?” Joe asked, looking around the room.

  Riley shook her head.

  “When did you last see her?”

  Riley thought a moment. “An hour ago,” she said. Her words had a matter-of-fact quality to them, as if they were detached from the grim reality of her past forty-eight hours. “I expect she’ll be back soon. She’ll have something new.”

  Joe pivoted around to fully face her. “What do you mean something new?”

  “I really needed to pee at about three a.m. As I was washing my hands, you came into the bathroom.”

  “I did?”

  “You tried to get me to take sleeping pills. A lot of sleeping pills.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “You yelled at me. You called me names. You said that this sort of disobedience was why everything fell apart in this house. It was all my fault. You said if I just listened to you and took the damn pills, then you would fix everything.”

  “Riley, I swear that wasn’t me.”

  “I figured.”

  He climbed out of the chair and sat beside her. She didn’t turn to look back at him; her head just drifted back to face the morning traffic report.

  “Did you take the pills?” Joe asked. “Do we need to call poison control?”

  “No. I left the bathroom and saw that you were still sleeping on the chair.”

  “Thank god.”

  “Later, I got thirsty, so I went to the kitchen,” Riley said. “She tried to trick me there, too.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had some water. But then a spider crawled onto my hand. It ripped a hole in my skin and burrowed inside. It crawled up to my wrist. I could see its little bulge moving around. I could feel it touching me. I almost grabbed one of the knives so that I could cut it out of my wrist. But then I realized that she probably wanted me to do that. So, I left the kitchen and sat back down on the couch and waited for the spider to go away. It crawled around, underneath my skin, for about an hour. Then it left.”