Strangers in the Night (25 page)

Something else put him on edge.

A second later, it struck him.

Sulphur.

It
stank
of sulphur.

These two escorts
absolutely stank
of sulphur.

Mitts tilted his head back.

He made eye contact with the escort who pointed his gun at him.

He stared hard into his eyes.

What did it mean?

The other escort got up close to Mitts.

He barked loudly in his ear.

He demanded to know where
she
was.

Mitts could hardly think to breathe.

Let alone talk.

He managed to tilt his head.

To mumble some reply.

To communicate that she was back in the Village.

That she was back
there
.

The escort with his gun pointed at Mitts, jerked him to his feet.

He led him in the direction of the water.

To the boat.

* * *

Mitts didn’t sleep in the boat. But he struggled to recall any details of the journey.

Had they administered some drug?

They loaded him into a truck, on the other side of the water.

They placed a black hood over his head.

Mitts, still bleary from the constant ringing in his ears, asked them why this was necessary.

They told him that he ‘hadn’t yet committed’.

‘Committed’ to
what
?

But it didn’t seem he was going to get answers any time soon.

They drove for what seemed like hours.

Mitts stirred from his daze. He heard a pair of slams.

The front doors of the truck being shut.

When they removed his hood, he saw it was dark.

The escorts helped him out of the truck.

Mitts rolled his shoulders. Tried to get himself shot of the aches from the journey.

His head felt sore.

Through narrowed eyes, he glanced out.

A garden.

Bristling. Full of life.

Sprawling green shoots. Brightly coloured flowers.

Chocolate-brown soil.

Lit up by an array of electric tea lights.

Almost like fairies.

The escorts led Mitts along the garden path.

Gravel crunched beneath his boots.

They passed by burbling streams, gurgling through guttering at their feet.

Mitts didn’t feel afraid.

Should
he?

He had lost everything.

Everything he cared about.

Everything he loved.

All over again.

He strained his neck to look back. To see where they had come from.

To see the truck.

The escort leading him forward shoved him in the back.

He jerked him around to face the direction they were travelling.

Deeper into the garden.

Mitts hadn’t the strength to overpower the man.

Words came as a struggle. Squeezed out through dead-tired lips. “. . . Where is she? . . . Did you get her? . . . Is she still alive?”

Another shove in the back.

Before Mitts could ask again, the terrain beneath his feet changed.

The gravel was replaced by laminate flooring.

A pair of tinted glass doors appeared ahead.

“Where are we?” Mitts asked. “Where’re we going?”

But the escort didn’t respond.

* * *

The escort led Mitts along a series of corridors—corridors which reminded him of the Compound.

Mitts cast his mind back to those times in the middle of the night when he would stand up on that plastic box of his possessions, screwdriver in hand, and work at opening up the ventilation hatch.

There had been sheer excitement then.

An excitement which he hadn’t been able to control.

He thought about dropping down through the ducts.

Into the forbidden areas of the Compound.

How he had trudged about the corridors, looking for something—
anything
—which might provide a distraction.

Any
kind of distraction.

The escort thrust Mitts up six flights of stairs.

They arrived outside an unmarked door.

“Go in,” the escort said.

Mitts eyed the semi-automatic which dangled over the escort’s shoulder and did what he was told. Once he crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind him.

The room was almost entirely done out in white.

A window looked down on the garden outside.

In the distance, Mitts could make out rolling hills.

No sign of the lake.

He tried to open the window a little—to allow some air in—but it was sealed shut.

He tapped his fingernails against the windowpane. The plasticky sound told him it was reinforced glass. That any hope of escape would be in vain.

He would never break through.

Not without a wrecking ball.

There were twin beds. Each of them had white sheets. A fluffy, white towel sat neatly folded at the foot of each bed.

He explored further. Came across an en-suite bathroom.

No mirror. No shower curtain.

Nothing to put himself into any sort of danger.

No place to hide.

So this room was to be his new home.

For the time being.

His head still hummed from the explosion. But at least he could hear himself think.

Was that a good or bad thing?

Mitts slumped down in a white leather chair which sat by the window.

He propped his elbow on the armrest. Stared out at the garden.

There was nothing for him to do.

What seemed like half an hour later, there was an electric
buzz
.

A doorbell?

Mitts sat still, wondering what he was expected to do.

This
was
a prison cell, after all.

Wasn’t it?

Were they going to bother with the pretence of privacy here?

Just as Doctor Heinmein had done back at the Compound . . .

Another
buzz
.

They really
were
insistent.

He shoved himself up and out of the chair.

“Come in,” he muttered.

The door slid open.

Red hair.

White lab coat.

Slim posture.

She tilted her head to one side.

This couldn’t be happening . . . it
couldn’t
be happening . . . and yet, here she was.

The woman from his dreams.

* * *

“Carla,” the red-headed scientist said, extending her hand to him.

Mitts stared long and hard at her well-manicured, delicate fingers. He decided someone might be watching this meeting, using it as some sort of measuring stick for his mental health.

He accepted her handshake.

She smelled lightly of mint.

“Mitts,” he replied.

“Yes,” Carla said, with a smile, the skin about her eyes crinkling, “I know.”

She glanced about the bedroom, as if she was searching for something.

He noticed she wore a coral necklace. She constantly ran her fingertips across it.

She indicated the white leather chair. “Please,” she said.

Mitts glanced to the door. It had already shut.

If he
did
get out the door then where would he run?

Mitts did as she said. He sunk into the chair. Feeling cramp setting in, he stretched his legs out.

In the truck, he’d had to fold his legs up in an uncomfortable fashion.

It felt good to have more space.

Carla perched on the edge of one of the neatly made beds.

Mitts’s stomach grumbled.

Carla glanced to him, that same smile clinging to her lips. “Hungry?” she said.

“A little,” Mitts admitted.

“Don’t worry. We’ll bring in something for you to eat—just a few questions first, that’s all.”

Mitts expected Carla to dig out a computer tablet, or, at the very least, a paper notepad and pencil.

He supposed the hidden cameras, surely dotted around the room, would be quite sufficient for keeping a record of this meeting.

Carla stuffed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. She leaned back a little on the bed, making the mattress springs creak. “So,
Mitts
,” she said, putting extra stress on his name. “Tell me about the dreams.”

Mitts felt a chill pass through his gut.

He glanced at her briefly, almost unable to understand the invitation.

Then his mind came to a conclusion:

Samantha
.

Of course.

She had told them.

About these
prophetic
dreams of his.

Was that the reason why Samantha had wanted him to come here with her?

Mitts fixed Carla with a stare. It was deeply unnerving to be sitting here with this woman who’d been present in his dreams. “Why don’t you tell me what went on?” he said. “What caused the explosion back at the Village?”

When Mitts heard his voice coming back at him, he was surprised at how insistent he sounded.

And a little impressed with himself.

He had managed to hold his resolve.

Carla exhaled daintily. “Please, Mitts, it’s important we hear about your dreams.” She widened her eyes. “You’ve seen me, haven’t you? You’ve seen me in the dreams you’ve been having lately?”

Mitts felt his chest tighten.

His stomach dipped.

He glanced about the room. He felt restless.

He stood.

Paced back and forth.

Mitts imagined those watching would see this as an act of aggression. That it was all they would need to pounce. He expected the door to burst open. For those escorts to come busting in.

Ready to gun him down.

But nobody came.

And Carla didn’t so much as flinch.

Mitts stared long and hard at her.

He bunched his fingers into fists.

“The dreams?” he said.

“Yes, Mitts,” Carla replied. “The
dreams
.”

Mitts paused his pacing.

He stared out the window.

Down to the garden below.

To the flickering tea lights.

He allowed himself a wry smile.

“The whole world is tumbling down and you think about an ornamental garden?”

When he looked back at Carla, she gave him a neutral smile.

Mitts shook his head. “Where’d those creatures come from, huh? Is it
you
? Have you been manufacturing them here? Are they
human
creations?”

Like before, Carla made no response.

Just that same, neutral smile.

Tell us about the dreams, Mitts
, he imagined her saying.

Mitts breathed in deeply.

He glanced around the room. “Ever since I came here,” Mitts said, “I started to have dreams . . . strange, vivid—
lucid
—dreams.”

He looked to Carla.

She fed him a nod of encouragement.

“First,” Mitts continued, “dreams about dancers. On a balcony. New Year’s Eve.” He shook his head. “It came back, again and again . . .”

“How long ago was this, Mitts?” Carla said, breaking her silence.

Mitts shook his head. He gazed out the window.

It was pitch black outside now.

The glow of the garden below seemed almost otherworldly.

Ethereal
.

“I was eleven when we left home, when I left home with my family, and then—”

Something caught in his throat.

“We know what happened, Mitts, and you must realise that we’re
very
sorry.” She paused for a moment as if to indicate the emotional weight which her voice
didn’t
carry. “What concerns us is the
dreams
—we need to know about the
dreams
.”

“Right,” Mitts said, pressing his forehead up against the cool windowpane. “The dreams.”

* * *

Again, Mitts had no way of knowing how much time really passed.

There was no clock.

Only the night moving by outside the window.

His brain kept buzzing.

He told Carla everything she needed to know about his dreams.

As much as he was able to recall after all these years.

When he reached the end, when he had told Carla about his latest dreams—the ones which’d featured
her
—he restrained the urge to ask straight out how they had done it.

How they had invaded his mind.

Instead, he turned his mind to another matter.

“There was another person,” Mitts said. “Back in the Village.”

Carla rose up from the bed, on her way out.

Apparently she’d got everything she needed.

“Yes,” she replied. “Luca.”

It felt as if someone had slipped a knife into Mitts’s stomach.

He had hardly made sense of all that had happened. Those words Luca had spoken. How she had told him to ‘Get out’. That he was welcome no longer . . . and then she had
died
.

Just like that.

Simple as a
click
of the fingers.

“It didn’t really matter which one of you came,” Carla went on. “We just needed one for the purposes of our studies.”

Suddenly, Mitts felt an inexplicable rage dawn on him.

He turned on Carla.

A snarl took hold of his mouth.

“Get out.”

Carla held still. She showed no fear.

This only enraged Mitts all the more.

“
Get out
!” he repeated, louder.

Again, not so much as a flinch from Carla.

She tilted her head to one side.

Affecting some kind of
sympathetic
façade.

As she left, Mitts felt the anger humming through him.

Throttling his blood.

He swallowed the knot out of his throat.

Found the strength to raise his voice one more time.

“You’re watching me here, aren’t you?” He glared about the room. “What is it? Cameras? Sound? What’re you watching me with, huh?”

Carla remained at the door.

The door, slow and steady, slid open.

Carla glanced to Mitts, then tapped her temple with a self-satisfied smile.

She left him alone.

All alone.

* * *