The Overseer (25 page)

“Yes,” replied Sarah.

“Then … it must be all right.” She remained, however, less than
forthcoming
with the address. “Didn’t Anton explain everything?” she asked.

“No.” Sarah waited, then continued. “He said you would tell me, but only if you wanted me to come.”

Another few moments of silence. “All right.”

That conversation had taken place an hour and a half ago. Since then, Sarah had caught the first flight to Rochester, New York, rented a car, and driven to Tempsten. As much as she recognized the necessity of the trip, she had grown more and more uneasy at the prospect of meeting one of the last of the survivors. Still there. Still so close. She wondered why they had allowed her to live.

The small cottage, no more than three or four rooms—a screened-in porch at the front—stood along a quiet lane. Sarah pulled up to the curb and stopped the car. She noticed a shuffling at the curtains as she moved up the path, someone anxious to meet guests. Even before she could reach for the bell, the door opened; there, in a simple print dress, hair tied at the back, stood Alison Krogh. For a woman in her mid-thirties, she looked
surprisingly
young. Thin, elegant, a long trail of thick red hair flowing down her back.

“You must be Ms. Carter,” she said, stepping back and ushering Sarah down a short hall to the living room. The place was sparsely furnished—sofa, two chairs, bookshelves, and television. Two glasses and a pitcher waited on the coffee table. “I hope you like lemonade,” she said, taking Sarah’s coat and hanging it in the closet. “I made it myself.”

Sarah nodded and moved to the sofa. “Yes, very much.” She waited for Alison to sit and then took a seat by her. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Alison nodded, keeping her eyes from Sarah’s.

“Do you live here alone?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Except when Anton comes. Then I don’t.” She smiled and took a sip of the lemonade. The frailty was even more apparent in person, thought Sarah.

“Does he come often?”

Alison shook her head and took another sip. Still, her eyes would not meet Sarah’s. “Why did Anton tell you to come?”

“He said I should talk with you.”

“Like the others?” For the first time, Sarah heard an edge in her tone.

“Others?” she asked.

“The doctors. Who want to talk about … the school.” Alison stared, saying nothing more.

“And that bothers you.”

“I don’t like to talk about it.” There was no reprimand in the answer, only a simple statement. “I don’t remember very much. Isn’t that funny?” She tried a smile and took another sip of the lemonade. “I have some fruit. I grow it myself, in the greenhouse. Would you like some?” Not waiting for Sarah to answer, Alison stood and disappeared through a swinging door.

Alone, Sarah studied the few pictures hidden among the trinkets on the shelves, wondering what lay behind the frightened eyes of the woman she had just met. Beach scenes, a younger Alison wading waist-high in the ocean, an older man at her side—Votapek no doubt—smiles from ear to ear. But the eyes remained the same, distant, uneasy. Even in a fading
picture
. Something so familiar.

The door swung open.

“You have some lovely things,” Sarah smiled.

Alison placed a tray on the table and nodded. “Gifts. From Anton.”

Sarah waited, then spoke. “Do you ever talk about the school with him?”

Alison kept her eyes from Sarah, her expression completely blank; she then sat, her eyes now focusing on the bowl. For a few moments, she seemed totally unaware of anything else in the room. Finally, she looked up. “Would you like some fruit?” she asked, the smile tighter than before.

Sarah shook her head. “I was hoping to talk about the school.”

Again, no reaction until Alison’s eyes darted to the corner of the room, her struggle to maintain control evident in the deep breath she took. She turned to Sarah, eyes damp, the smile trying to hold back the tears. “I don’t like to talk about that.” A single drop glanced down her cheek.

Gently, Sarah pressed. “Then why did you ask me to come?”

“I don’t have many visitors.” Alison brushed the tear away. “It’s … nice when people come.”

“Is that the reason?”

For the first time, Alison looked directly at her, Sarah seeing something behind the stare; Alison quickly pulled a leg to her chest, her head resting on one knee, eyes again on the bowl. “The school was a long time ago.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” Again, nothing combative in the tone, only a
statement
of fact. “No one does. Not Anton. Not Laurence. No one.” She looked at Sarah, eyes swelling. “Everything was fine, you know, just the way it was supposed to be. It was … such a good place.” Tears began to trickle through the smile. “We all belonged; we all learned—that’s why we were there, you know. How to be strong, how to take what was ours.” Her eyes darted back to the corner, the smile dropping, “and then, everyone so angry …” Her words trailed to a near whisper, tears caught in her throat. She looked as if she might give in, let the torrent come, when she suddenly stopped. One long breath, and she turned back to Sarah. “Would you like some fruit?”

Sarah stared at her for a moment, her own emotions rocked by the
outpouring
, ever more familiar and so desperately real. Alison, locked in a stare, her eyes betraying nothing of the last minutes—only a strange
tension
, distancing herself from the memories.

“Do you mean the boys?” asked Sarah quietly.

Another moment of recognition, then nothing. Frail, quiet, struggling for control, Alison shook her head. “The boys? I don’t understand.”

“The boys who died,” answered Sarah. “At the school.”

The tears flowed freely; still, there was nothing in her expression to hint at the slightest reaction. Only her hand clenching, releasing, clenching. She shook her head, even as the drops began to slide down her cheek. “I don’t remember any boys,” she answered.

But Sarah knew. She knew because of her own memories—weeks, months denying the lives she had taken. Hands clenching, releasing, clenching—unconscious mechanisms implanted through a doctor’s
hypnosis
to allow her a release from the horror. Memories erased until she could learn to accept them. How long, Sarah wondered, had Alison hidden behind those same devices? How long had the men responsible for them forced her to remain a victim of her own self-loathing?

“It’s all right,” said Sarah, her voice quiet, caring. “I
do
understand. You don’t have to remember.”

“It was a good place.” Alison nodded, her eyes still distant. “And then it went wrong.”

“How?” she asked. “How did it go wrong?”

Alison shook her head. Without warning, she looked up, her eyes
suddenly
focused. “It was wrong to try again, wasn’t it?”

The reaction surprised Sarah. “Try what?” she asked.

“They’ll go wrong again, won’t they?”

Again?
Sarah sat motionless.

“Anton doesn’t think I know,” continued Alison, her eyes on some
faraway
spot, “but I know. Even though he promised. Even though he said it would be fine, that he could stop it from going wrong.” She looked at Sarah. “It was bad to do it again. I know. I’ve seen it.”

Sarah forced herself beyond the shock. “What have you seen, Alison?”

The tight smile. A shake of the head. “It was bad to do it again. That’s why I told you to come. You have to tell him it was wrong.”

“Do
what
again?” Sarah knew the answer, but she needed to hear it from Alison.

They stared at each other. Alison then stood, walked to the bookshelf, and pulled several volumes from the bottom shelf, uncovering a single videocassette. “I took this from Anton. I took this so I would know.”
Fifteen
seconds later, she was at the television, sliding the tape into the VCR.

Before Sarah could ask, the screen flashed blue. In large black type, the words
PREFECT RELEASE—NONDISCLOSURE PRIORITY
appeared. A moment later, they were replaced by a thin strip at the bottom of the screen, a time counter spinning off the minutes and seconds. The date of the filming, April 7, 1978. The place, Winamet, Texas. Nineteen seventy-eight, Sarah thought.
My God, it had never ended.

The picture came alive with a cluster of young children, no more than six or seven years old, seated around a woman in the middle of a room, an area called “the Learning Circle.” A sign hung from the ceiling in a crescent arc, each letter a different shade of colored paper, the evident work of tiny hands. The woman was in her late forties, with a tenderness essential for those who mold the very young. She was reading to them. After a few
seconds
, she placed the book in a pile and looked out at the children.

“Poor Cinderella,” she began, “so many people who were so unkind. In fact, I can’t think of a nice thing to say about her sisters. Can you?”

“They weren’t nice at all,” piped in one tiny charge, so eager to please that her words flew out in a rapid burst of syllables and gasps. “When the prince came to see their feet, and Cinderella had the right shoe on her foot, but her sisters were mean and angry because they couldn’t go.” The slight roll of the head, the coy smile, each an indication that the exegesis had come to an end.

“I quite agree,” smiled the teacher.

“I hated them,” remarked a small boy lounging off to the left, his head resting on an elbowed hand, not even the slightest bit of menace in his voice. Simple. Straight. To the point.

“
Hate’
s a very strong word.” The teacher seemed to be waiting for an answer. The boy shrugged as only little boys do, shoulder high to the
cheekbone
in unintentioned exaggeration. “But I think you’re right. I don’t think the word is too strong.” She scanned the others’ eyes. Sarah sensed that the woman had been waiting, even hoping for the response. Clearly, the Learning Center taught a very specific type of lesson. “Let’s try and think of all the nasty things those sisters did,” she continued.

In quick succession, the children shouted out a long list of infractions, the most poignant from a shy boy who had waited until all the others had quieted down to speak.

“They made her feel very bad and said that nobody liked her.”

A silence filled the room, several heads turning toward the boy as the teacher, in her most motherly tone, added, “And that’s probably the worst thing, isn’t it? To make special people, like Cinderella, feel that they don’t belong, that they’ve done something wrong.” The boy stared at the floor, nodding as he continued to play with a small tuft of carpet in his fingers. “And people who do that,” she continued, “shouldn’t be our friends, should they? And we don’t have to like them, do we?” A chorus of nos. “In fact, sometimes it’s all right
not
to like certain people. People who scare us, or hurt us, or make us feel bad about ourselves—”

“Like strangers,” yelped one ponytailed girl.

“Like strangers.” The teacher nodded. “But other people as well. People like Cinderella’s stepsisters, who knew how special Cinderella was, but who did everything they could to hurt her. It’s important to know that you have to watch out for those sorts of people. And you shouldn’t feel bad if you begin to dislike them. Dislike them so much that you begin to hate them.”

“I hated them, too.” Several children, once given the official go-ahead, were happy to voice their ardent disapproval.

“They were bad people,” said one little boy. “Some people are bad and you hate them. And that’s it.” The no-holds-barred tyke leader of the hate patrol. Our Gang in SS boots. Sarah continued to watch.

“Some people are bad,” continued the teacher, “and they’re not just in stories. Sometime, you might run into someone like Cinderella’s stepsister, and you’ll have to know what to do, how to behave, how to treat them.”

“I wouldn’t let them make me do all the work in the house,” one voice piped in. “Or make me stay at home when they’re at the palace,” offered another. The teacher seemed to encourage the whirlwind of enthusiasm from the children, most pleased when one little girl, shouting above the rest and in full lather, screamed out, “I’d make them do all the bad things and be mean to them!” The final crescendo—the little girl springing to her feet, jumping nervously, arms pulled tightly to her little chest at the
attention
and prodding from her tiny peers—thrust the little band into shrieks of excitement. The room seemed to explode in a cackle of delight as several others hopped up, trembling wirelike fists boxing the air in full release of emotion inspired by the near-glowing teacher. Catching the wave at its crest, she slowly began to quiet the children in firm but gentle tones. “All right, all right, let’s find a calm place. Let’s find a calm place.” Code words which, within a minute, had the children once again in obedient order.

The screen faded to black; a moment later, it filled with snow.

Sarah looked across at Alison. The young woman stared unimpassioned at the television, her eyes again distant.

“Where are those children now?” asked Sarah. Alison did not respond. Before Sarah could ask again, the screen slid to black; a moment later, another group of children materialized, these older, perhaps twelve, thirteen years of age. The strip at the bottom read “October 14, 1981, Brainbrook, Colorado.”

No one spoke, a class in martial arts, each child showing extraordinary proficiency in any number of techniques. But it was their eyes that Sarah watched—focused but empty, personality absent from the cold precision of the movements. The scene quickly faded to black.

Twenty minutes later, Alison reached forward and pulled the tape from the machine. Throughout, Sarah had sat mesmerized as ten other segments had come and gone, each from a separate school, each from a different year, each with its own skewed vision of schooling. The common lesson, blind obedience; the underlying theme, a cultivated hatred. Fifteen-
year-olds
taught to hunt out the weak; eighteen-year-olds taught to demonize in the name of social cohesion. A constant dosage of venom to focus the children’s aggression and turn it into a zealot’s passion.