The Realms of the Dead (17 page)

The lightning faded as darkness rushed back in and the rope creaked more quickly now, as if whatever weighted it down swung more rapidly.

Another flash of lightning and the children had moved closer, forming a loose semicircle.

He tried to calm his breathing, to imagine the air entering his lungs as a soothing, white light. But the encroaching darkness was so complete it was hard to imagine anything so radiant ever existing there.

The rope creaked louder.

Faster.

Lightning flashed.

The woman's toothy smile was mere feet away, a nightmarish caricature of 1950s motherhood radiating menace. Her arms were outstretched, reaching for him and the cluster of children surrounding her had followed suit.

Darkness again.

Creaking. Blood rushing and whooshing through his temples and the chattering of teeth. Perhaps from fear. Perhaps from the bone-penetrating cold.

Flash.

Practically nose to nose with the mother, her arms reached for Chuck's throat and the children were a tangle of stretched arms and grasping hands. One child's hands brushed his pants, the fingers curled as if only a split second from grabbing the fabric.

Chuck prayed that the glow of lightning would never fade, that darkness wouldn't give them the opportunity to close those last few inches. And, for a moment, it seemed as though his prayer had been answered.

The lightning flickered like a giant strobe light, creating the illusion of stuttered movement. Fingers flexed in the nanoseconds of darkness and froze in the flashes.

Children and mother alike leaned in, surrounding him on all sides as thunder rumbled directly overhead.

The mother's arms draped over Chuck's shoulders in slow motion, her head lilting to the side as her smile morphed into an opened mouth. Her lips formed a perfect heart shape and the children clamored at his legs, pulling his pants as though they could drag him to the ground.

And still the electrical storm flickered as they sank slowly into earth muddied by the river of blood cascading from the picnic table. Chuck wanted to scream, but the mother's lips were pressed against his own. Her tongue coiled around his, squeezing like a boa constrictor with prey. His taste buds tingled as static sparked on his tongue, each zap sapping strength and vitality as a metallic taste flooded his mouth.

Waist deep in the sticky mud, only the children's arms remained, reaching up through the earth, grasping his belt, and pulling him down deeper and deeper into the mire. He felt as though his entire body had deflated, as though the mother had sucked out his soul with her unholy kiss.

By the time Chuck had sunk neck-deep into the muck, he no longer cared that the mother's tongue had transformed into something so fat and swollen that it filled his entire mouth. He didn't care that the slime dripping from its segmented body slid down the back of his throat and triggered his gag reflex. He simply wanted it to be over, for the earth to swallow him whole and deliver him into the relief of death.

The ground slurped his head and he sank into complete darkness, mud enveloping his body on all sides. Even in the bowels of the earth, he could still hear the rope creak.

A muffled voice filtered through the sludge, its words barely audible.

I've found you. And they will suffer because of you. They will all pay for what you did
.

The mother pressed her mouth more tightly against Chuck's, worming her tongue-creature further down his throat. It fed on the flutters of panic in his heart and gorged itself on the fear rippling his belly, growing fatter and longer by the second.

You will witness their pain
.

The rope stopped creaking and the mother became perfectly motionless, as though ensuring Chuck's full attention would be riveted on the words preceding the void that engulfed him.

And you will welcome the death I finally bring.

You will pay.

You will all pay
.

Chuck was forty minutes late getting to the restaurant. When he'd emerged from the darkness, he'd found himself sprawled across the floor in his office with Control and Marilee hunched over him; Marilee had looked at him in the same way a scientist might study an ailing lab rat, but concern had drained color from Control's face and she badgered him with questions while also insisting that he lay still until the onsite nurse arrived. He hadn't told anyone about his vision, had played the incident off as a lack of sleep and nourishment and the nurse seemed to confirm this when she couldn't find anything wrong with him. But, of course, there had still been paperwork to fill out; the incident report had put him way behind schedule, forcing Chuck to stay late.

He'd sent Control a text, letting her know he'd be late and luckily his partner had taken the liberty of ordering for him. Famished, Chuck had mumbled his apologies and slid into his chair as he unbundled the napkin containing his silverware. Whenever he ate here, he usually tried to convince himself that the dish sitting before him was truly pasta. On this particular evening, however, he didn't particularly care that it was actually strands of squash and tofu meatballs swimming in a vegetable sauce: It was food and that was enough.

As he shoveled it into his mouth, Control made small talk and he nodded, giving monosyllabic replies as her voice drifted through the lull of a dozen mingled conversations. Technically, they shouldn't have even been having dinner together. The handbook specifically warned against employee fraternization, especially between a Whisk and Command Center Handler. But this was a rule Chuck was willing to overlook. Especially since there were things he wanted to discuss outside the confines of the office—or more specifically, away from the prying mind of Marilee Williams.

“I don't trust her,” Chuck said as he twirled faux-spaghetti on his fork. “I swear, I can feel her trying to poke around in my damn head all the time.”

“She's just doing her job, Chuck. It's not personal. It's just professionalism.”

“It's downright creepy, that's what it is.” Chuck chewed before continuing. “If she wants to know something, why doesn't she just ask me?”

“She's not like us, buddy. You just have to be a little more understand—”

“She wormed her way into your mind yet?” Control shook her head as she lifted a wineglass to her lips. “Then you don't know what you're talking about. It's a
violation,
my friend. Plain and simple. And for that matter, what the hell is she even doing working for The Institute anyway? What about child labor laws?”

Control placed her glass back on the table, folded her hands, and leaned forward, studying Chuck's eyes and expression in the restaurant's dim lighting.

“We work in a covert, underground facility that steals its electricity from the surface world,” she reminded him softly. “Our paychecks are drawn on offshore accounts that an army of lawyers with subpoenas coming out of their ears couldn't touch, and are signed by a CFO whom I suspect is as fictitious as the company we supposedly work for. I don't think labor laws really apply in that scenario, buddy. Now, do you want to tell me what this is really about?”

Chuck sipped his ice water as he glanced over the rim of the glass at his partner, buying himself time to organize his thoughts. Finally he laid everything out for her, starting with the first nightmare on the night Nodens was murdered and ending with the episode at the office. When he was finished, the two sat in silence for a moment, listening to the clinking of silverware and murmurs of conversations from other diners.

“So in the conference room,” Control finally said, “when Marilee said it was coming for you, she wasn't actually referring to the boxes. Hmmm…I did think that seemed a bit strange at the time.”

“Exactly!” Chuck gestured with his fork as he spoke. “She'd been in my head and she knew. What's more, she wanted me to
know
that she knew.”

Leaning back in her chair, Control stroked her chin as Chuck waved away an approaching waiter as if shooing a bothersome gnat. Her eyes had narrowed and her lips were pursed as she softly clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The two had worked together long enough for Chuck to realize this meant she was processing information and he remained silent as he absently pushed the remaining pasta around on his plate.

“SBAR,” Control eventually said. Her tone had become curt, letting Chuck know that this was no longer a dinner between friends but a meeting. “You've given me the Situation and Background. What's your Assessment and Recommendation?”

“My assessment? Two words:
Albert Lewis
.”

Control visibly stiffened at the mention of the serial killer's name, obviously taken by surprise. The gleam in her eye told Chuck she was intrigued by the idea, but the woman's frown betrayed that she was unconvinced.

“Think about it,” he insisted. “What other spirit would have a beef with me?”

Lewis did seem to be the logical choice. With the help of Control's dead sister, Chuck had demolished the madman's personal hell. All the souls the sadistic killer tortured had been freed and allowed to continue their journeys across The Divide. The castle lurking amid a scorched landscape of cinder and ash, the macabre sentinels that safeguarded his stronghold, and even Albert Lewis himself: all had been reduced to their most basic particles and scattered through the cosmos. To a sociopath who sipped suffering like a fine wine and believed himself to be God in the realm of the dead, such an affront would not be taken lightly.

“So,” Control asked, “you're thinking that Lewis wasn't actually destroyed then?”

Chuck shrugged. Up until today, he'd assumed Albert Lewis had been consigned to a type of Limbo, his shattered soul incapable of either setting to work on a new Cutscene or crossing into the mystery that lay beyond The Divide. But perhaps all those pieces of his essence had found a way to coalesce. If iron filings can be drawn to a magnet, perhaps something similar occurs when a soul has been strewn through the corridors of eternity.

As far as Chuck knew, there'd been no research done in this area. Albert Lewis, after all, had been a singular case.

“Occam's Razor teaches us that the simplest explanation for any given circumstance is generally correct. I think that principle applies here. Like I said, who else would have it in for me?”

Control chewed on her bottom lip as she toyed with the napkin in her hands. Her brow was creased with wrinkles and she sighed heavily as she shook her head.

“I don't like it. We're in uncharted territory here, buddy. I mean, this thing has already killed one person…and it obviously has you in its sights. But it's playing with you first.”

“
Torturing
me first,” Chuck corrected. “That's what it is. Psychological torture. And who else have I crossed paths with who got their jollies from torture, hmm?”

What had begun as a pleasant meal now felt like a wake. Tension hung in the air as thickly as the scent of garlic and oregano; both Control and Chuck frowned over their half-finished entrees, the food forgotten as stress tightened their expressions. Nodens's death may have been relatively quick, but it certainly hadn't been easy. The man had suffered through precisely a minute of agony. But those sixty seconds must have felt like an eternity.

What both Control and Chuck thought—but neither voiced—was that the Sleeper had only been a minor player in the events that had brought down Lewis's brutal regime; if that type of cruelty had been inflicted on him, then what lay in store for the man who'd actually been responsible for the coup?

“Back to SBAR.” Protocol was familiar territory and Control's shoulders relaxed, despite how quickly the words spilled out of her. “We just covered Assessment. But there's still Recommendation. Thoughts?”

“First and foremost, we don't tell Marilee shit. If she wants to know my suspicions, just let her try to dig them out of my head.”

“Chuck, you really have to let it—”

“It's for her own good,” Chuck insisted. “The less she knows about Albert Lewis, the better off she is. She wasn't involved in anything that happened out there. She shouldn't be a target. So let's try to keep it that way.”

Control had been Chuck's Handler long enough to recognize a rationalization when she heard one. If it was even suspected that information sharing had been regulated, the firestorm of interdepartmental politics to follow would be the bureaucratic equivalent of Hiroshima. Currently, however, that seemed like the least of their worries. So Control chose not to push the issue.

“Okay,” she conceded, “Marilee is kept in the dark. For her own safety, of course. But what then? We don't know how to fight this thing. Put you in a Crossfade and you can sling energy like a sacred warrior. But this isn't a Crossfade.”

Chuck studied his ice water as though he could divine answers from the beads of condensation trickling down the glass.

“Those boxes I signed for,” he said slowly. “Right before I crashed that fucked-up party. I say we see what toys Marilee has brought to play with. She may creep me out, but I don't doubt that little girl knows her business. Maybe she's got something we can use. Some sort of weapon or defense.”

“And if she doesn't?”

An image of Nodens's death throes replayed through Chuck's mind, each moment of the Sleeper's agony presented in excruciating detail.

“Well then,” he said softly, “I guess I'll tell your sister you said hello when I join her.”

By the time Chuck arrived at his office the next morning, Marilee already had half of the boxes emptied. Styrofoam packing peanuts littered the floor and plastic, antistatic bags crinkled underfoot as Chuck made his way through the mess. He rolled his eyes at Control, who slumped on the couch and watched the girl with an amused twinkle in her eyes. Marilee, however, was a study in earnestness. She inspected each piece of equipment with half-squinted eyes, turning it over in her hand and occasionally bringing it so close to her face that breath from her nostrils fogged plastic casings. Sitting cross-legged and surrounded by discarded refuse, she mumbled a running monologue.

“Seems t' be intact. No visible structural damage. 'Course the calibration coulda been thrown outta whack…”

Marilee laid the piece of electronics on the floor in front of her as Chuck watched over her shoulder. The girl was extremely meticulous, taking the time to ensure that the black box was perfectly aligned with the meters, black boxes, and circuit boards already laid out. He glanced at Control again and forced himself to smile.

“Gee, honey, I'm sorry I overslept,” he joked. “But I'm glad you guys went ahead and opened the presents without me.”

“God bless us, Mr. Grainger,” Marilee muttered as she pried the lid off another crate with a flathead screwdriver. “God bless us every one.”

Chuck's laugh surprised even himself. Maybe he'd been too hard on the girl, he thought. After all, he hadn't been getting enough sleep. And he knew all too well how cranky he could become when his energy reserves were running low.

Sidestepping the little girl's equipment, Chuck plopped down on the sofa and ran his fingers through his hair.

“So what is all this stuff anyway?”

“All I know,” Control commented, “is I'm not allowed to touch it.”

“What? Marilee's not sharing her toys?” Once the words had passed his lips, Chuck regretted them. Though meant entirely as a joke, Director Murphy had warned them about condescending attitudes. And that was exactly the type of comment that could earn him a verbal warning…or worse.

Marilee, however, didn't seem to mind.

“It's not that I don't trust you guys,” she said. “You're professionals. Like me. I just need t' make sure everything's here. One missing part—or one piece in the wrong location—and this all might as well be useless junk.”

“So,” Chuck asked, “there's a method to the madness then?”

Marilee glanced up as she pulled yet another antistatic bag from one of the smaller wooden boxes.

“There usually is, Mr. Grainger.”

Chuck stiffened and held his breath as mathematical formulas ran through his head. Eye contact with the girl, however, did not bring the mental probing he'd expected. No invisible fingers reached out to tug and pull at his thoughts; nor did he feel the uneasiness of sharing his mental space with an interloper after a lifetime of privacy. A crooked grin spread across the young girl's face as she dropped her gaze. For a moment, she looked like an average eleven-year-old girl: slightly shy with a touch of embarrassment warming her face. She toyed with the bag in her hand as she spoke, her voice so low as to almost be inaudible beneath the babbling fountain.

“I'm sorry 'bout yesterday, Mr. Grainger. I was showing off. I know we work in the same building an' all. But I didn't think I'd ever actually meet you. When I did…well, I didn't want you to think of me as just a kid.”

Control's eyes widened and her jaw dropped open as she turned to look at her partner. Astonishment, however, quickly gave way to amusement as her eyes twinkled with a mischievous gleam.

“Our Chuck is really something else, isn't he?”

Nudging Control in the ribs with his elbow, Chuck fidgeted on the couch. He felt like he was missing the punchline of a joke that should have been obvious and he frowned as he tried to piece together what was going on.

Marilee tucked her chin against her chest as her shoulders bunched up, almost as though she were trying to make herself as small as possible. Even her bowed head, however, could not hide the smile that covered the lower half of her face.

“Yeah…” Marilee whispered. “I never met anyone famous before.”

“You volunteered for this assignment, didn't you, Marilee?”

The girl babbled so quickly it almost seemed as though Control's question had been perceived as an accusation.

“I wasn't th' only one. Just about everybody in P.R.A. volunteered. I mean, who
wouldn't
want the chance to work with him? I mean with you. You guys. Not just him.”

Control looked as though it took every ounce of her willpower to keep from laughing. Chuck, on the other hand, found this line of conversation to be increasingly awkward. Though the air-conditioning hissed through the overhead vents, the room felt a little too warm for his liking and the couch wasn't quite as comfortable as it had been moments earlier. He shifted positions every few seconds as exasperation tightened his stomach.

His celebrity status within The Institute was hard enough to deal with; but now he felt like an outsider in his own office. It was as if Control and Marilee were communicating in some sort of secret code. And if there was one thing that frustrated Chuck Grainger to no end, it was being presented with a mystery that he couldn't quite solve.

“So what is that anyway?” He tried to steer the conversation back into more familiar territory. “That you're holding, I mean. Looks like a transistor radio.”

The girl relaxed as Chuck asked the question, almost as though she were as grateful for the topic change as he.

“This?” Sliding the object out of its bag, Marilee held it so both Chuck and Control could get a better look. The bottom half of the device consisted of a round, plastic grill that obviously protected some sort of speaker. Above the grill sat two rows of buttons and a small LED screen; gleaming at the very top was the chrome nub of a collapsible antenna. “This is a Spirit Box.”

“Ya don't say. What's it do?”

Marilee perked up at the genuine interest in Chuck's voice and the girl scrambled to her feet as her free hand snatched a small, black cylinder from the floor. A cord dangled from one end of the cylinder and as she talked, Marilee jacked one end of the cord into a receptacle embedded atop the Spirit Box.

“It's not as sophisticated as your Sleepers, of course. That's some cutting-edge tech you guys work with. But I love Spirit Boxes. They're prob'ly my favorite tool.” Marilee flipped a toggle on the side of the box and the screen radiated blue light as numbers flashed across it in rapid succession. Simultaneously, the office was filled with the hiss of static, forcing the girl to raise her voice to the point that she was almost yelling. “The white noise irritates some people. But I don't know. I find it kinda relaxing.”

Control was obviously among the group who were annoyed. Cupping her hands over her ears, she winced.

“Do you think we could maybe turn it down a little?” she shouted.

“Nuh-uh. No volume adjustment. Auto-adjusts to the room's acoustics. But it hasta be loud so you can hear.”

“That's ironic. Because I can't hear
shit
.” Marilee giggled at Chuck's playful cursing. “Exactly what are we listening for anyhow?”

“The dead, Mr. Grainger.” Marilee flipped the toggle again. After the waterfall-like roar resounding from the cylindrical speaker, the gurgling of Chuck's fountain might as well have been nothing more than a trickle. “We listen for the dead.”

Marilee explained that the Spirit Box worked by rapidly sweeping through a succession of radio frequencies. When used in the field, audio fragments sometimes came through: snippets of disc jockeys bantering with their audience, bits and pieces of music, and so on. Since The Institute was hidden so deeply underground, however, this was not an issue they currently had to contend with.

“Spirit Boxes aren't proprietary. Anyone can order one off the Internet. Not as good as this custom job, but they'll do in a pinch. Problem is amateurs sometimes think they're hearin' ghosts when all they're really pickin' up is a split second of Traffic 'n' Weather Together on KIX-93.”

The principle, however, was similar. In much the same way that the living could broadcast over the airwaves, so could the dead. The radio waves acted as a carrier for voices from the other side, the main difference being that human communication was limited to a single bandwidth.

“So,” Marilee continued, “if you get a complete sentence—even a short one—you know what you're hearing ain't coming from the living. In the time it takes t' utter a two-second phrase, even a dumbed-down Spirit Box has cycled through at least eighteen channels.
Mine,
though, is all sorts of tricked out. This one cycles through
thirty-six
frequencies a second. And it's got this onboard digital recorder. Anything I capture is wirelessly uploaded to a server farm on Level G, so I never hafta worry about runnin' outta storage either.”

Marilee beamed as she expounded on her favorite piece of equipment, her chest swelling with pride. It was obvious that she was talking directly to Chuck; the entire time, the girl didn't so much as glance in Control's direction. This, however, didn't prevent the woman from chiming in.

“Still, though…two seconds? That's not much.”

“Sometimes three if you're lucky. We don't know why yet, but they only seem t' talk in short bursts.”

Chuck rose from the couch and walked to Marilee's side. With his focus entirely on the Spirit Box, he rubbed his chin as the young girl smiled up at him.

“So,” he said slowly, “can you pick and choose? Which spirits you speak with, I mean.”

“Not really. Sometimes you just get what you get. But you can stack the deck in your favor. Like if you do a session in a location that a spirit was strongly connected with when it was alive.”

“Elaborate, please.”

Marilee thought for a moment before speaking. “Say, for example, you know that some guy died in his apartment. If you do a session there an' get intelligent responses, there's a good chance you're talkin' with that man. 'Course you can't always be absolutely certain. You hafta go by clues the spirit gives you. If you can get 'em to tell you their name, that's a good start.”

“Why not just have someone there who would recognize the voice?” Control suggested. “A friend or family member, maybe.”

“Nope.” Marilee shook her head so emphatically that her pigtails swished from side to side. “Most of the voices are affected by the frequency sweeps. It changes the pitch and tone. Cadence, too. Usually you can't even tell if you're talkin' to a male or female. Unless they outright tell you.”

“Okay, we're getting sidetracked here,” Chuck interjected. “Going back to my original question: Is there any other way you can stack the deck? Like if you really,
really
want to speak with a particular spirit.”

Control frowned as she stood and joined the two.

“What are you getting at, buddy? You've got that look in your eye.”

“Personal objects. Somethin' they had physical contact with when they were still alive. They retain traces of personal energy. Sometimes that energy can form a link. Not always. But sometimes.”

“Marilee, I suspect that you are
very
good at what you do. Probably the best. Especially since you were selected out of all those volunteers.” Chuck had placed his hand on the girl's shoulder as he spoke, causing her to smile and shyly look away. The hint of bashfulness, however, did not prevent her from taking pride in her accomplishments.

“Yeah…yeah, I am. The other Chipheads call me
Bloody
. Bloody Williams.”

“That's horrible!” Control gasped, eliciting a giggle from the girl.

“It's just a joke,” she explained. “We're all mediums…but I'm rare.”

“Well then, Bloody”—Chuck smiled—“how would you like to show us what you and your Spirit Box can do?”

“I repeat, Chuck: What are you getting at?”

Chuck glanced around the office, turning in a slow circle as he considered his words.

“We know that Nodens was murdered in this office. We also know he was killed by a ghost.”

“NCM,” Marilee corrected.

“So you're suggesting we contact the ghost—I'm sorry, NCM—who killed him? What makes you think that spirit would
want
to talk to us?”

“Oh, I'm sure it wouldn't,” Chuck mumbled. “Revealing its hand at this stage in the game…that would ruin all its fun, wouldn't it?”

Chuck walked to the area of the room the hospital bed had once occupied, studying the indentations its legs had left in the carpet before turning to face his companions again.

“Nodens died right here,” he continued. “But his spirit left. He passed over. We couldn't see who killed him on that recording.”

Control's eyes widened as Chuck's plan began to dawn on her.

“But maybe
he
did.”