Intercepts: a horror novel Page 3

  But these posters depicted modern people.

  The messages were simple:

  “Your Work Saves Lives.”

  “If You Wouldn’t Tell Chairman Kim, Don’t Tell ANYONE.”

  Joe blew past the posters. He had walked by them so many times over the years that his mind barely registered their existence or their message anymore.

  He reached the elevator and swiped his ID on the console.

  As Joe waited, his gaze fell on the final poster as it often did when he found himself waiting for the obnoxiously-slow elevator.

  The illustration simply depicted a woman and her daughter sitting at a dining table. They smiled as they ate their dinner. The text read, “Do your job. Keep them safe.”

  HQ had sent the poster for installation at about the same time that Joe was promoted to Facility Supervisor. He never thought much of it at the time despite the fact that he often found his eyes lingering on it. Then, at one point, he realized that the mother in the photo parted her long black hair down the middle only to have it curl back upwards around her shoulders. It was exactly the way Kate, his ex-wife, wore her hair.

  The smiling child in the drawing was a complete tomboy, wearing her hair in a simple ponytail, exposing a joyful face full of freckles. Just like Joe’s daughter, Riley. The little girl was the same age Riley had been when Joe accepted his promotion. That must have been ten years ago.

  Before the divorce.

  Joe often wondered if HQ had specifically commissioned that poster for his benefit. His eyes. To constantly remind Joe of the purpose of the Facility and the stakes of his job.

  At first, the thought seemed absurd. But then Joe heard a story from one of his security officers who had been in the Air Force. The man told him that the onboard computer on most fighter planes knows when the plane is in an unrecoverable nose-dive. It flashes warnings at the pilot to eject. But pilots are tough guys, the best of the best. Through overconfidence, or basic masculinity, the pilots believed that they could correct the dive and save the plane, often dying in the attempt.

  The Air Force realized they were losing far too many pilots to crashes when they didn’t have to. And so, they tried something new. When a plane began an unrecoverable dive, instead of a detached computer voice ordering the pilot to “EJECT! EJECT!” the pilot simply heard a pre-recorded little voice say, “Daddy… please eject.”

  The sound of their children broke through every tough-guy impulse. Pilots were suddenly willing to ditch their planes and save themselves.

  That was the power of parenthood; the protective instincts overrode everything else. That’s why Joe was certain that HQ had purposefully designed this poster for him specifically. And they placed it for him to see every… single… goddamn… day. A reminder that he needed to perform his job to keep his family at home safe.

  And, without fail, whenever his eyes found a spare moment to gaze out at the poster, he felt a mix of joy and sadness.

  DING!

  The elevator doors opened and Joe stepped inside.

  The elevator only had three buttons: Lobby, Level One, and Level Two.

  He pressed the button for Level Two.

  The doors closed, the gears spun, and the large service elevator descended even deeper beneath the ground.

  After several seconds of journey, it coasted to a stop and the doors opened.

  Joe stepped out into the Level Two corridor.

  The holding chambers ran along both sides of the hallway, six to the left and six to the right. Each chamber had a door and a large observation window that looked into the room and its occupant.

  The design of Level Two consisted of a bizarre amalgamation of a laboratory, a hospital, and a prison. With the large glass viewing walls, the level had been given the nickname “The Aquarium,” much to Joe’s displeasure. He didn’t know why that particular nickname bothered him. Maybe he worried that comparing the valuable Antennas to some sort of freakish fish betrayed the importance of the work they performed here.

  At the far end of the hallway, Joe glimpsed the armed guards and medical staffers clustered around the observation window of one of the cells.

  With his well-practiced speed-walk, he made his way in that direction.

  As he passed the various cells, he glanced to his left and right, checking in on each of the occupants. It was a force of habit. Anytime he walked this hall, he tried to take in as much visual input on the health and well-being of the Antennas as possible. He knew that behind his back, many staffers made fun of his peculiar head-swinging walk, but their giggles and imitations of “The Gerhard Shuffle” was something he took in stride. He liked the example it set. Always be alert. Always be observing the Antennas.

  His practiced glances revealed no abnormalities.

  In each cell, the Antennas — all with shaved heads, hospital gowns, and protective mitts on their hands — lay on their floors, gently rolling from side to side.

  Some barely moved. This was normal.

  Some moved in furious bursts of clawing and kicking, like a mouse in its final death throes as a predator pins it to the floor. This was also normal.

  Some of the Antennas moaned.

  Some screamed.

  Some spoke slurred gibberish.

  Normal, normal, normal.

  Hanging over each of the large observation windows were homemade signs. The flowery, ornate, name-carved-into-wood-with-cursive-lettering signs seemed more at home in the front yard of a third-grade teacher who enjoyed collecting bird houses.

  The signs identified the occupant of each cell:

  “Hello, my name is DIETRICH.”

  “Hello, my name is FROST.”

  “Hello, my name is VASQUEZ.”

  “Hello, my name is DRAKE.”

  Joe proceeded past them all and toward the cell at the end.

  “Hello, my name is BISHOP.”

  The closer he got, the more apparent the carnage became. He stopped looking in on the other cells. The horror of the scene in Bishop’s cell began to sink in.

  The cells were lit by fluorescent lights that bounced off the white walls and white padded floors. It reflected through the large observation windows, making the hallway particularly bright, almost like daylight. Coming out of the elevator, Joe often found himself taking a moment to adjust to the brightness. Not that it bothered the Antennas; their eyes couldn’t register light waves even if they stared directly at the sun long enough to burn out their retinas.

  However, the light coming from the cell at the end of the hall was dimmer. It had a red tint, as if the sun had set in that room and that room only.

  It was the color of light reflecting off liters and liters of blood.

  Joe passed the final few cells. He expected to hear the habitual hum of conversation from the gathered medical staff and guards, but mostly they were quietly staring in shock.

  He slowed his walk and approached the group.

  “We don’t all need to be here, people,” he said.

  Everyone turned and faced him. No one disputed that point.

  “Anyone who hasn’t got a specific assignment from your department head needs to wrap up your business and get on back to Level One.”

  With heads nodding in agreement, and a few last sorrowful glances at Bishop’s cell, the staffers migrated down the hall toward the elevator.

  “Hustle it up, folks,” Joe said as he lightly clapped his hands together.

  As the staff always did, they obeyed. The pace quickened and everyone dutifully left the area.

  Joe pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Control, this is Gerhard. I’m clearing out non-essential personnel from Level Two. From here on out, put the elevator on lockdown. No one comes to this level unless requested by me.”

  “Affirmative, Joe. Elevator locked until further notice.”

  The hallway had suddenly become so quiet that Joe could hear himself sigh. What a day. What a mess. What a waste.

  With a deep breath, Joe took the final few l
ong, leaden steps toward Bishop’s cell’s observation window. He stood there, taking in the sight.

  Inside the cell, some of the orderlies tried to soak up the blood with towels. They mostly just smeared it around, though. Some of the guards performed a thorough examination of the door, windows, and restraints.

  Bishop, meanwhile, lay in the corner — restrained and under watchful guard. She stared off while trying to move her bound legs and arms. Blood drenched her white gown. It had splattered on her face and clung between the short hairs of her shaved scalp.

  Her hands and arms — tugging against her restraints as she swatted playfully — were dyed that same dull red. For a moment, Joe wondered why Bishop’s nails were so long. They looked as though she had gotten a manicure; they were long and curved, like the fake nails at glitzy salons. Then the nails flapped as she waved her hand. Joe realized it wasn’t her nails he was looking at but long strips of Carson’s flesh that had become stuck and embedded onto her fingers.

  The skin fluttered about with her movements, like flags at full-staff on a rolling ship.

  Joe finally glanced to Carson’s body in the center of the room. Carson lay face down. His entire backside had been hollowed out. Bishop couldn’t have emptied his torso any better if she had used a shovel.

  One of the staffers firmly grasped Carson’s shoulder and rolled him onto his side, revealing Carson’s face to Joe. It surprised Joe that the face had no expression, just blank eyes. The muscles around the mouth and cheeks, which should have been pulled tight in fear and pain, were loose and relaxed.

  Considering the condition of the rest of his body, the dumb-cow look on the man’s face seemed almost comical. It didn’t match the situation.

  At least Carson didn’t feel anything, Joe thought.

  Except fear.

  “Joe…”

  The voice rattled him.

  Dr. Hannah Chao sat on the floor in front of one of the neighboring cells, purposefully having positioned herself so she couldn’t view the cleanup. She was in her forties, but the way she sat on the floor, tucking her knees to her chest, made her seem almost like a teenager.

  As Joe looked at her, he realized that this was the first time he had ever seen her rattled. That made him feel better. If Hannah Fucking Chao, M.D. could be rattled, then Joe had permission to be rattled too.

  He felt his spine immediately relax and his shoulders slump. The features on his face pulled their way down, and Joe suddenly realized the effort he had been exerting to maintain a neutral expression.

  “Hiya, Hannah,” he said softly.

  On any other day of work at this busy, noisy place, the volume of those words would have been too quiet to penetrate the constant thrum of moans, screams, conversations, and equipment. But today, they found their target. Hannah looked at him, and he looked back at her.

  Their warm gaze seemed to hold an entire conversation, not of anything of substance, but a general, What a fucking mess.

  “Sorry I was a dick to you on the radio,” Hannah finally said.

  “Oh, that’s alright.”

  “No, it’s not. Your staff shouldn’t question your authority during a crisis. I was out of line. You were right and you handled things well.”

  He smiled at her. “I appreciate that. I really do. But honestly, you’n me, we’re fine. Ain’t nothing to apologize for. Now, just tell me what happened.”

  Hannah shrugged. “I’ll have to review the tape. Best I can tell, Carson didn’t restrain her before administering her bed bath. I don’t know why he’d shirk like that. He was in some sort of rush. I’ll schedule a workshop with my team to stress the need to use restraints even when they don’t think it’s necessary, but… fuck… I dunno. I can’t explain it. Unless it’s an issue with the gas.”

  “I’ll check with Tariq. But I’m pretty sure he’d notice if the levels were that off.”

  “Well, my report just might say, ‘Orderly took a shortcut. Had bad fucking luck.’”

  “Bad fucking luck.” Joe stood quietly, shaking his head.

  His walkie-talkie beeped. A guard’s voice came through. “Everything in Chamber Two is secure. You can send in the stretcher team.”

  Joe clicked on his walkie-talkie. “Control, send down a stretcher team.”

  He stepped over and looked in the observation window at Bishop.

  She was still restrained to the floor. Her eyes darted around in their sockets, zigging and zagging from end to end. Her teeth chattered and then suddenly snapped together, like an animal trying to snatch a bone from a handler.

  Bishop looked very much like the other Antennas. From the shaved head, to the hospital gown, to the protective mitts. Her face, just like the others, had gone pale, maybe even a little jaundiced, from lack of sun and nutrition.

  Joe stared at her.

  “I think we may want to consider a full system reset,” Hannah said.

  “That’s a big ask.”

  “There’s something not right about this.”

  “HQ’ll flip their shit,” Joe said. “They can’t stand to have us offline.”

  “You’re the supervisor. Just do it.”

  Joe looked away from her. He didn’t respond.

  Hannah pulled herself off the floor and walked over to stand beside him. “There was no way that she should have known that Carson was there. She doesn’t react to any somatosensory stimulation.”

  To prove her point, Hannah suddenly slapped her hand hard against the glass. The loud bang ricocheted around the hallway, making Joe flinch. But not a single muscle on Bishop twitched. If anything, the edges of her mouth pulled back, straightening out the sagging skin that hung from her cheeks and twisting her entire face into what could only be described as a grin.

  Despite his conscious effort to never react to the weird faces and gestures the Antennas frequently made, Joe found his own mouth pulling itself into a disgusted grimace at the sight.

  Hannah continued, “I examined her yesterday. I can poke her. I can shout at her. I can flash a light in her eye. She doesn’t sense a thing.”

  They stood and looked at her for a moment.

  “But if you saw her… if you watched her doing it… she knew she was killing him,” Hannah said. “She was conscious of it.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s fucking weird.”

  Joe sighed. “I’ll put in a request with HQ.”

  With that, he gave one last look to Bishop.

  Then he turned and walked off back down the hallway.

  He stepped to the side to let the stretcher team pass. His eyes lingered on that empty stretcher as it went by. It would soon be stacked with the remaining chunks of one of Joe’s young staffers.

  Bishop was probably still smiling, mumbling her gibberish to herself.

  Joe turned and walked off, letting his head swing from side to side as he checked on the other Antennas.

  Bad fucking day.

  CHAPTER 4

  Joe sat at his desk.

  Video of the attack played on his computer in an unending loop. He hadn’t eaten lunch. Now, having to continually watch a kid’s organs get tossed around, he was probably going to skip dinner too.

  As the video played and played and played, Joe wrote up his report of the incident, describing as many details as he could. He double-checked all the procedures and made note of which ones Carson had skipped. He watched the moment when Bishop grabbed Carson’s gas mask again and again.

  Did she know what she was doing?

  Chuck in the Control Room had said that Carson was in the process of reporting something that seemed to have unnerved him. Moments later, the kid was dead.

  Joe leaned in close.

  He could see Carson bend down and listen to Bishop. Her head tilted away from the camera. Joe tried cranking up the sound, but her voice was too soft. All he heard was the hum of the ventilation system pumping Bishop’s cell full of the specially-formulated, debilitating nerve gas. r />
  What a weak fucking security camera.

  For a high-tech installation that’s sole purpose was to record each and every intercept the Antennas received, the actual security cameras and microphones were shittier than something Joe could get at Best Buy. Someone, somewhere, at some time must have shaved off a penny or two from the building costs for the Facility by choosing cheaper cameras.

  Joe leaned in closer, his face just an inch from his screen.

  What was she saying?

  What had Carson heard?

  And why did her head jerk suddenly, as though she realized that someone was eavesdropping?

  Joe stared at the screen until the image became pixels.

  RIIIIIIING!

  He jumped.

  It was only his desk phone ringing.

  He caught his breath and picked it up. “This is Gerhard.”

  “Hello, sir. I have a call coming in from an outside line. A Principal Green.”

  Joe checked his watch. He often lost track of whether it was day or night in this windowless cave of an office. He was surprised to see that it was still only afternoon.

  “Put him through,” he said.

  Principal Green? Riley wasn’t the type of kid who ever got in trouble.

  The phone clicked as the call was transferred. “Principal Green, you’re on with Mr. Gerhard,” the front-desk guard announced to both of them.

  “Hello, Mr. Gerhard. I’m, uh, calling about Riley.”

  The moment Joe heard the man’s voice — that halting, stumbling, uncomfortable voice — he knew something was wrong.

  “First, I just want to say how sorry I am,” the principal continued. “Our sympathies go out to you and your family. District policy says that we can’t dismiss Riley without her guardian’s approval. I see here that you live two hours away. I was wondering if you’ve made any arrangements and if you could just fill us in on those.”

  “Arrangements? For what?”

  “Oh, well, Riley has been sitting in our office since she was given the news…”

  “What news?”