Pipeline (17 page)

The team eyed Sidney with irritating glances
of surprise when he threw the newspaper across the long conference
table. A rising anger stirred inside him at how the paper was
trying to dismiss Tracy’s death as a random tragedy. He couldn’t
and wouldn’t.

Dylan, once again, had taken his lead at the
head of the table.

“I was contacted by Roman Hadley this
morning,” he said. “He thinks that we did the right thing by not
disclosing full details to the police about Tracy’s situation. He
said that the publicity was the last thing the Kimball’s need right
now, and the press would be relentless with this story, especially
since they’re already running rampant with the Shadow Valley Curve
angle.”

Roman Hadley was the rarely seen, head of the
university’s paranormal investigative society, and one of the
donors financing its entire existence. He was the silent watcher,
the unseen eye that inexplicably saw every move they made, every
bit of research that took place. They were stunned at how he had
known so much so quickly, including Tracy’s death. The team had
never met him, so all of their correspondence was by phone or
e-mail.

“We also don’t want this attached to Tracy’s
memory,” Brett said. “Soon enough, the story would become some
urban legend.”

“And I think we can all agree that we don’t
want that,” Dylan finished.

“The story is that we were all taking part in
an intervention,” Susan said. “We were there to confront Tracy
about her drinking. She participated, but when our backs were
turned, she fled from the house before we could stop her. It was
simply an intervention gone awry. I was the psychiatrist involved,
and Tracy is still listed as my patient. So, let the blame fall on
me. This will avert suspicion, and there will be no reason to check
Tracy’s e-mail and find the letter she sent you.”

She reached out and touched Sidney’s hand; he
scoffed under his breath. This perfect emergency bandage provided
by Dr. Logan had gained her a seat on not only the team, but on the
society’s board, and Sidney would be seeing much more of her on a
permanent basis.

“Well, isn’t that convenient?” Sidney said.
“So, now what? We still have to meet with her parents and Marcia.
We are telling them the truth, which means I have to look them in
the eyes and explain that it is my fault that Tracy’s dead.”

So Sidney was now accepting blame, Susan
thought, much the same way Tracy had over David. So many eerie
coincidences and similarities, as though history were repeating
itself.

“Sidney, are you to blame for Tracy’s
alcoholism?” Susan spoke as the psychiatrist now, exposing a fact
she’d discovered much too late. “Tracy had been avoiding me because
her drinking had escalated. It was alcohol that had caused David’s
accident and subsequently Tracy’s. She never healed from losing
him, Sidney. But what I didn’t see then, because she had abandoned
our sessions, was that she couldn’t heal because she’d progressed
into an alcoholic.”

“I did put my foot down, Sid, when I first
noticed her drinking,” Dylan said, “but everything in that house
was happening so fast I—” He broke off, unable to finish, not
wanting to remind them how they had silenced him.

Couldn’t miss out on the discovery of a
pipeline connection? The thought was implanted in Sidney’s mind,
yet he refused to say it. There was enough blame to go around. He
began to sweat and felt one of those headaches he’d felt lately
when the deafness came upon him, and the voices of the dead spoke
out.

“In many ways,” Susan said, “this is my
fault, Sidney. It’s not as though I’m lying.”

A somber silence hushed the room as guilt and
failure hung in the air, then Brett broke the silence.

“I have analyzed all of the footage taken,
Sid. There is more than enough proof of not only poltergeist
activity, but a pipeline connection as well. There was danger in
that house, and it fed off of her turmoil, her grief, and then her
drinking.”

The video footage, as well as the audio
recordings, had been seized by the society heads who were now
reviewing them behind closed doors at some clandestine location.
They would be the reason that Roman Hadley would soon be paying
them a conference call. Dylan thought it unwise to reveal this to
Sidney right now.

“You figured it out on your own, Sid,” he
said. “David was trying to warn her, to save her from herself. You
didn’t fail; Tracy failed herself.”

Sidney kept envisioning the hourglass,
remembering the voices that first whispered, then shouted, guiding
him in the race against time. After the crash, the voices had
remained silent. He imagined that they saw him as the failure he’d
seen himself as.

“Do none of you understand?” He spoke with
sharp rebuttal. “I had help. I possess something the rest of you
don’t, except you.” He pointed to Leah, the tears streaming down
his face. “I had visions and heard the voices. It was my job to
stop what was going to happen to her!”

“So, who do you think you are? God?” Leah’s
eyes narrowed in on him. “We are not heroes, Sidney. We have
something we don’t fully understand and we never will. You need to
let go of your pride! There is much in this world of which we have
no control.”

“But what about that thing we saw? The
warning that came from it. Why didn’t we see this coming?” Sidney
spoke through defeated sobs, his jaw in a tightened grip of anger
that raged inside. He felt a pulsing in his right temple, and
another wincing pain shot across his head in a circular orbit. “Why
didn’t she heed the warnings?”

“Because we don’t ever heed warnings, do we?
That is human nature, Sidney.” Leah now leaned forward, facing him
down from the opposite side of the table, her voice a subtle but
brisk retaliation. “We don’t ever heed warnings, regardless of
where they come from. We ignore warnings until it’s too late, and
often it is. We hide truths as we live with lies, and then we clad
ourselves in armor, as though we are invincible. But don’t you see,
Sid, you could never have known what those visions would ultimately
mean.”

“Then what’s the point of having this
curse?”

It was the first time she had ever heard
Sidney refer their abilities as a ‘curse,’ and she sat back in
dismay.

“Tracy gave her life in exploring the most
important knowledge ever pondered,” she said. “Something so much
bigger than any of us could imagine: the fact that life somehow
continues, and that God does exist. Tracy helped us prove it. You
saw what David’s spirit typed on the screen: God’s Light. You know
it. That’s what he wrote, Sidney, God’s light. And we ignorantly
assumed that he was some lost spirit, stranded in some sort of
recurring oblivion.”

Another silence ensued, for it was a day that
would be filled with them. One of the larger TV sets along the wall
had been on, its volume set to mute. Dylan released the mute button
when images of the reporter stationed outside the funeral home
earlier, appeared on the screen. He spoke about how funeral
services for the former Shadow Valley crash survivor, a University
Hospital nurse, were held today, and how she had ironically become
its next victim only months later.

Then the dangers of Shadow Valley Curve were
debated with various sources who voiced their opinions for the
camera. Dylan lowered the volume with the remote; there was nothing
the news could tell them. The time was approaching where they would
have to meet with the Kimball’s. Thankfully, Marcia knew a little
about what had been happening; she was the one who had suggested
the whole idea.

Susan was expecting some angry words from
Marcia, no doubt, and Dylan was prepared to take the lead as far as
the team was concerned. They had video footage to prove what had
occurred in the house and how they were trapped in the den, unable
to stop Tracy before she’d fled. Leah would help explain as best as
she usually did, but the pressure began to mount for Sidney, who
felt like a dead man walking.

Leah looked at him as he continued to stare
through the glass of the table. She would drive him to Marcia’s;
Dylan, Susan, and Brett were leaving together. They would meet
there, where explanations would be given, and the disturbing tale
would cause the grief to swell. But it had to be done.

Susan gave some parting words to Sidney, who
said nothing. He closed his eyes as his head ate another slice of
pain. Sidney and Leah were alone when the three left the
campus.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” She’d been
staring and noticed the color drain from his face. He’d taken his
glasses off, lest they be soaked in tears. “You don’t look so
hot.”

“I’ll be all right, I guess.”

He hadn’t told anyone about the headaches
that had occurred the past several times when he’s heard the
voices. He assumed they would pass, but now they came without any
activity. It was probably the stress, the accident, and the fact
that he still hadn’t slept. Nothing seemed real at this moment.

“I’m going to take care of a few things, then
start the van,” Leah said. “I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

“I’ll lock up before I come down,” he said,
without looking at her.

“We’ll get through this... I promise.” He
ignored what sounded like famous last words now. She turned and
left, the heavy door hissing closed behind her.

He sat alone in the room, staring off in a
daze as devastation filled him, leaving all prior thoughts
abandoned. He grabbed the TV remote to press the power button off,
and it was a few seconds before he realized he’d hit the wrong
button and shut down the cable access. Gray, snowy static filled
the screen. He pushed another button on the remote, then another,
but the static remained, growing louder, as the angry sweat poured
down his face.

Then, all sounds stopped once again. He shook
his head like a mad dog, trying to break free from the deaf world,
and another pain shot through his head. Sound returned; he could
hear the static again. There was a far away sound coming from it: a
voice. His heart pounded hard, about to explode. The voice was
warbled but then became clear.

“Sidney...Sidney.”

He jumped to his feet with his eyes gazing
deep into the screen. The pain worsened to a throbbing that turned
his stomach inside out. The soft, undeniable voice that beckoned
him from the leagues of death—he recognized it. It was Tracy. He
gasped as the pain became a giant, jagged thorn, piercing and
constricting the muscles of his face.

“Oh, God... I tried to save you.”

The pain was pulling him down.

“Sidney...”

Tracy called out from the crashing white
noise in a soft, somber tone that spoke through the static.
Concentration and focus were slipping away from him. The pain
worsened. He began to slide to the floor as a hot, sticky redness
flowed from his ears.

Blood.

Her voice called out again.

“Sidney...”

One final word kept repeating in his mind
over and over again...

Pipeline.

Then the darkness overwhelmed him, and
nothing but the endless drone of rushing static reverberated
through his unconscious mind.

The End

Legal Notices and
Disclaimers

Blue Oyster Cult, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”
from Agents of Fortune. D. Rosen. prod: M. Krugman, S. Pearlman, D.
Lucas; Columbia PC 34164, 1976.

Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Bad Moon
Rising” from Green River. Fogerty. prod: Fogerty; Fantasy (America)
M 20.090, 1969.

About the Author

Christopher
Carrolli is a full-time writer, who lives in Western Pennsylvania.
He is a graduate of University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and
holds a BA in English Writing, and an AA in English. He has also
won the Ida B. Wells Prize in Journalism.
Pipeline
is Chris’
first novel and first installment in The Paranormal Investigator
Series. He has recently completed the second installment,
The
Listener
.

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/ccarrolli

Blog:
www.christophercarrolli.blogspot.com/

Email:
[email protected]

Goodreads:
www.goodreads.com/carrollic

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