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It’s 1977. John, Martin’s boss, remembers an incident involving Martin and the phone that took place in 1974...
Martin hadn’t been working there for long. John had been delayed that morning and needed to tell Martin. He phoned the office, got through to Sue, and asked to be transferred to Martin. The standard procedure would have been for Sue to simply put the call through to Martin’s extension so that, when he picked up the phone, he’d hear John straight away. But Sue had had previous problems with Martin and phone calls. He never seemed to answer his phone. Of course, he might have been away from his desk each time there was a call, but that possibility seemed unlikely as he was always there when she looked.
So she tried a different method. John heard about this later from Sue. She went over to Martin, who as always was sitting at his desk, and said, “Call for you on line 2.” Then she waited until Martin had lifted the receiver and pressed the button for line 2 before returning to her room.
He didn’t say a word after connecting, but John heard breathing. Very fast, jerky breathing. So he said, “Martin?”
Still no sound came back to John, apart from the breathing.
John needed to find a way to advance this call. “Okay, I’m assuming you’re there. I have to go to the dentist this morning, so I’ll be late for our meeting. I should be in at about eleven and we can talk then. All right?”
John couldn’t understand it. The guy only had to say, “Yes.” One measly little word. How difficult could that be? Apart from the breathing and a crackle or two, absolute silence reigned.
“Okay. See you around eleven. Bye.”
John didn’t discuss the phone incident with Martin. His instinct told him it wouldn’t help and could only damage their relationship – what there was of it. From that day, he and Sue and the rest of the office knew that Martin didn’t talk on the phone and they never tried to force him to use that instrument of communication.
Of course, John had discussed Martin with Ian. Their conversations always ended the same way.
“John, I realise Martin is frustrating. What do you want me to do? Dismiss him?”
John shook his head. “You’d need to take on a whole team of programmers to replace him. They would spend their time debugging, checking, correcting and adding more mistakes in a process that would lead to more debugging, checking, correcting… You know how it goes.”
“In other words, Martin isn’t quite the idiot you portray.”
“He’s a genius and we all know it.”
“That’s good to hear. Because sometimes I think you forget that little fact.”
No, John used to reflect, he didn’t forget it. But Ian had the good fortune not to come into daily contact with Martin. Martin hardly ever needed to occupy the padded chair in Ian’s office, and John suspected that Ian, despite all he heard from John and others, didn’t really know what Martin was like.
Miriam Drori click for her author page click to view book on Amazon
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Later in the novel, you can find out how Martin’s telephonobia came about. You can also find out how he begins to overcome it. I wrote a post about telephonobia here.
I didn’t make up this word. Well… I did, but when I looked it up, I found it here.
A fear of telephones rates quite high in the long list of phobias shared by people who have social anxiety.
Actually, the term is probably a bit out of date. Telephones have moved on from these:
Telephonobia: a fear of telephones. What does that mean, today?
You can do so many things with a phone, these days, and telephonobia refers to just one of them: talking on the phone.
How does telephonobia begin?
It could begin because other people listen in and criticise, either during the conversation or after it.
It could begin with past traumas, like tricks that use the phone’s visual anonymity – people who pretend to be others. The traumas themselves could be long forgotten, yet their effects can last a lifetime.
What’s the problem?
Sufferers of telephonobia worry they’ll sound weird over the phone. They’re afraid of stumbling over words or being unable to express themselves. They’re afraid of what the person at the other end or those listening in will think of their poor performance.
And that’s why telephonobia is often a part of social anxiety: it’s another fear of judgement. Some sufferers of SA avoid talking on the phone altogether. Some never answer when it rings.
What about me?
I remember tricks played on me as a child, but it didn’t put me off using the phone. As an adult, though, I have worried about the way I come across. And now that there are other ways of communicating, I use the phone a lot less for talking, probably less than I should. Lack of experience creates more fear.
What about you?
Do let me know, in the comments box below, how you feel about talking on the phone.
Martin hadn’t been working there for long. John had been delayed that morning and needed to tell Martin. He phoned the office, got through to Sue, and asked to be transferred to Martin. The standard procedure would have been for Sue to simply put the call through to Martin’s extension so that, when he picked up the phone, he’d hear John straight away. But Sue had had previous problems with Martin and phone calls. He never seemed to answer his phone. Of course, he might have been away from his desk each time there was a call, but that possibility seemed unlikely as he was always there when she looked.
So she tried a different method. John heard about this later from Sue. She went over to Martin, who as always was sitting at his desk, and said, “Call for you on line 2.” Then she waited until Martin had lifted the receiver and pressed the button for line 2 before returning to her room.
He didn’t say a word after connecting, but John heard breathing. Very fast, jerky breathing. So he said, “Martin?”
Still no sound came back to John, apart from the breathing.
John needed to find a way to advance this call. “Okay, I’m assuming you’re there. I have to go to the dentist this morning, so I’ll be late for our meeting. I should be in at about eleven and we can talk then. All right?”
John couldn’t understand it. The guy only had to say, “Yes.” One measly little word. How difficult could that be? Apart from the breathing and a crackle or two, absolute silence reigned.
“Okay. See you around eleven. Bye.”
John didn’t discuss the phone incident with Martin. His instinct told him it wouldn’t help and could only damage their relationship – what there was of it. From that day, he and Sue and the rest of the office knew that Martin didn’t talk on the phone and they never tried to force him to use that instrument of communication.
Of course, John had discussed Martin with Ian. Their conversations always ended the same way.
“John, I realise Martin is frustrating. What do you want me to do? Dismiss him?”
John shook his head. “You’d need to take on a whole team of programmers to replace him. They would spend their time debugging, checking, correcting and adding more mistakes in a process that would lead to more debugging, checking, correcting… You know how it goes.”
“In other words, Martin isn’t quite the idiot you portray.”
“He’s a genius and we all know it.”
“That’s good to hear. Because sometimes I think you forget that little fact.”
No, John used to reflect, he didn’t forget it. But Ian had the good fortune not to come into daily contact with Martin. Martin hardly ever needed to occupy the padded chair in Ian’s office, and John suspected that Ian, despite all he heard from John and others, didn’t really know what Martin was like.
Miriam Drori click for her author page click to view book on Amazon
............................
Later in the novel, you can find out how Martin’s telephonobia came about. You can also find out how he begins to overcome it. I wrote a post about telephonobia here.
I didn’t make up this word. Well… I did, but when I looked it up, I found it here.
A fear of telephones rates quite high in the long list of phobias shared by people who have social anxiety.
Actually, the term is probably a bit out of date. Telephones have moved on from these:
Telephonobia: a fear of telephones. What does that mean, today?
You can do so many things with a phone, these days, and telephonobia refers to just one of them: talking on the phone.
How does telephonobia begin?
It could begin because other people listen in and criticise, either during the conversation or after it.
It could begin with past traumas, like tricks that use the phone’s visual anonymity – people who pretend to be others. The traumas themselves could be long forgotten, yet their effects can last a lifetime.
What’s the problem?
Sufferers of telephonobia worry they’ll sound weird over the phone. They’re afraid of stumbling over words or being unable to express themselves. They’re afraid of what the person at the other end or those listening in will think of their poor performance.
And that’s why telephonobia is often a part of social anxiety: it’s another fear of judgement. Some sufferers of SA avoid talking on the phone altogether. Some never answer when it rings.
What about me?
I remember tricks played on me as a child, but it didn’t put me off using the phone. As an adult, though, I have worried about the way I come across. And now that there are other ways of communicating, I use the phone a lot less for talking, probably less than I should. Lack of experience creates more fear.
What about you?
Do let me know, in the comments box below, how you feel about talking on the phone.
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Julian Lamon is the author of ‘Terry Williams and the Soldiers of the Emperor Qin’
click here for his website |
Waking up with a start in his dusty room, Thierry looked around him, his eyes empty, still lost in the recollections of his unmentionable nightmare.
He is drenched; dripping in sweat; cold one moment, freezing the next. After a moment, he begins to come round a little, dries his face with a still trembling hand, then turns his head slowly towards the window, which was always kept closed.
Thierry rushes to get up and open the window wide, in an attempt to rid the room of the nauseating smell that hung over it. Outside, it is still pitch black. The street lights bathe the town in a yellow halo and he can still make out the sound of traffic in the town centre.
Leaning against the window frame, Thierry takes a deep breath, his mind racing. “What is this shit?” he asks himself. He knows, for he has been having the same dream for several nights. It’s 3:40, as it’s almost every time he woke from this terrible nightmare. He moves around the room, still groggy. On the improvised bedside table, a half-broken brick, he finds his notebook and a pen. The notebook, also improvised, is no more just a pile of pages stuck together.
He takes the notebook, notes the date and then the details of the nightmare itself.
Vevey, 22nd August 2078, 03:43
The same dream, over and over. Almost to the last comma, the same events, the same voices, the same faces, the same places. It’s driving me mad.
In my dream, I wake up, soaked in sweat as in after a nightmare. I get up and look at what I’m seeing. The wooden window frame is rotting and there is no pane of glass. It lets in the cold air; it’s the beginning of winter. However, when I look at myself, I’m naked and yet I’m not even cold. Outside, chaos. The town in ruins. In the distance, I can see the well-known places where I go all the time. The little Starbucks on the street corner with its pretty outdoor sitting space. Except that in my dream it had been ripped apart, plundered, burnt out. A little further on I can make the shopping centre with the Migros at its heart. There also, just like the local cafe, everything is ruined, pillaged and burnt. It’s as if the town has suffered a cataclysm in which the few remaining survivors are searching for food and clothing.
In spite of the apocalyptic scene, I am totally calm. As if I am used to this. I go down into the street after putting on a t-shirt, a pullover and tweed trousers. When I get to the main door, it’s also missing, and I see that outside it’s raining. A very fine snow that isn’t going to soak me. The streets are covered with a light coat of white wintry powder, which has not yet completely disappeared. I run into Stacy, a rather pretty addict. Blonde with brown eyes. A very clear brown, almost transparent. Her hair pushed to one side, she lights a fag. I wonder where she got hold of it in the midst of this destruction. But for he ‘me’ in my dream this all appears normal. I give her a polite kiss and begin the same bizarre conversation.
“Hi, Stacy.”
« Hi,Yank. How’s it going?”
“OK, thanks. But why are you calling me ‘Yank’, I’m not an American? Besides, you’re the foreigner. A Brit”
“I don’t know. I like to wind you up. And it’s Miss Britannia to you,” she answers me back, with a wink. “See you!”
« See you!”
I go off on a wander around the streets with exceptional courage and confidence, although I’m not really brave in real life. The little streets take me towards what looks like the Nestle factory, it also in ruins. The big buildings are nothing like what they are in the real world. They seem to have been abandoned for dozens of years. The grass, the bushes and trees in front of the building have been transformed into a small forest. Many of the windows have been broken, in particular those in the glazed doors of the main entrance through which I enter. Inside, I hear the click-clack of drops of water passing through the numerous holes in the ceiling. The lifts have been out of action for years, so I take the stairs up to the 4th floor and go into my office. The place where I work day in and day out, if I’m to believe the ‘me’ of my dream. I open the heavy wooden door and rush straight to the old wooden chair. The chair turns round suddenly of its own accord, and I see that someone has already claimed ownership of the director’s armchair. It’s ….
Waking up with a start in his dusty room, Thierry looks around him, his eyes empty, still lost in the recollections of his unmentionable nightmare.
He is drenched; dripping in sweat; cold one moment, freezing the next. After a moment, he begins to come round a little, dries his face with a still trembling hand, then turns his head slowly towards the window. “What is this shit?” he asks himself. He knows, for he has been having the same dream for several nights. A dream in which he wakes up in a dusty apartment, but where the window is intact, where the town is lit up by street lights and where people are living quietly. His bed is a real bed, not a pile of cardboard boxes.
Thierry struggles to get out of bed, his muscles still hurting. He goes over to the dilapidated window and looked out. The sun came up several hours ago and the tiny flakes of snow are falling. The street is covered in a thin white coat, with the grey of cement and the black of tar showing through it. He sees the pretty girl below, smoking and waiting for him. Cigarette in her mouth, hair nicely done, with an expression as cold as this early winter morning. He turns his head towards the brick he has placed beside his improvised bed. A beautiful red brick taken from a ruined building. On top of it, there’s his arm, a black pistol, loaded with 15 bullets, together with a metal water bottle. He lifts up both of them and goes down into the street to join his blonde partner.
Copyright © Julien Lamon, 2018 translated by James Gault
He is drenched; dripping in sweat; cold one moment, freezing the next. After a moment, he begins to come round a little, dries his face with a still trembling hand, then turns his head slowly towards the window, which was always kept closed.
Thierry rushes to get up and open the window wide, in an attempt to rid the room of the nauseating smell that hung over it. Outside, it is still pitch black. The street lights bathe the town in a yellow halo and he can still make out the sound of traffic in the town centre.
Leaning against the window frame, Thierry takes a deep breath, his mind racing. “What is this shit?” he asks himself. He knows, for he has been having the same dream for several nights. It’s 3:40, as it’s almost every time he woke from this terrible nightmare. He moves around the room, still groggy. On the improvised bedside table, a half-broken brick, he finds his notebook and a pen. The notebook, also improvised, is no more just a pile of pages stuck together.
He takes the notebook, notes the date and then the details of the nightmare itself.
Vevey, 22nd August 2078, 03:43
The same dream, over and over. Almost to the last comma, the same events, the same voices, the same faces, the same places. It’s driving me mad.
In my dream, I wake up, soaked in sweat as in after a nightmare. I get up and look at what I’m seeing. The wooden window frame is rotting and there is no pane of glass. It lets in the cold air; it’s the beginning of winter. However, when I look at myself, I’m naked and yet I’m not even cold. Outside, chaos. The town in ruins. In the distance, I can see the well-known places where I go all the time. The little Starbucks on the street corner with its pretty outdoor sitting space. Except that in my dream it had been ripped apart, plundered, burnt out. A little further on I can make the shopping centre with the Migros at its heart. There also, just like the local cafe, everything is ruined, pillaged and burnt. It’s as if the town has suffered a cataclysm in which the few remaining survivors are searching for food and clothing.
In spite of the apocalyptic scene, I am totally calm. As if I am used to this. I go down into the street after putting on a t-shirt, a pullover and tweed trousers. When I get to the main door, it’s also missing, and I see that outside it’s raining. A very fine snow that isn’t going to soak me. The streets are covered with a light coat of white wintry powder, which has not yet completely disappeared. I run into Stacy, a rather pretty addict. Blonde with brown eyes. A very clear brown, almost transparent. Her hair pushed to one side, she lights a fag. I wonder where she got hold of it in the midst of this destruction. But for he ‘me’ in my dream this all appears normal. I give her a polite kiss and begin the same bizarre conversation.
“Hi, Stacy.”
« Hi,Yank. How’s it going?”
“OK, thanks. But why are you calling me ‘Yank’, I’m not an American? Besides, you’re the foreigner. A Brit”
“I don’t know. I like to wind you up. And it’s Miss Britannia to you,” she answers me back, with a wink. “See you!”
« See you!”
I go off on a wander around the streets with exceptional courage and confidence, although I’m not really brave in real life. The little streets take me towards what looks like the Nestle factory, it also in ruins. The big buildings are nothing like what they are in the real world. They seem to have been abandoned for dozens of years. The grass, the bushes and trees in front of the building have been transformed into a small forest. Many of the windows have been broken, in particular those in the glazed doors of the main entrance through which I enter. Inside, I hear the click-clack of drops of water passing through the numerous holes in the ceiling. The lifts have been out of action for years, so I take the stairs up to the 4th floor and go into my office. The place where I work day in and day out, if I’m to believe the ‘me’ of my dream. I open the heavy wooden door and rush straight to the old wooden chair. The chair turns round suddenly of its own accord, and I see that someone has already claimed ownership of the director’s armchair. It’s ….
Waking up with a start in his dusty room, Thierry looks around him, his eyes empty, still lost in the recollections of his unmentionable nightmare.
He is drenched; dripping in sweat; cold one moment, freezing the next. After a moment, he begins to come round a little, dries his face with a still trembling hand, then turns his head slowly towards the window. “What is this shit?” he asks himself. He knows, for he has been having the same dream for several nights. A dream in which he wakes up in a dusty apartment, but where the window is intact, where the town is lit up by street lights and where people are living quietly. His bed is a real bed, not a pile of cardboard boxes.
Thierry struggles to get out of bed, his muscles still hurting. He goes over to the dilapidated window and looked out. The sun came up several hours ago and the tiny flakes of snow are falling. The street is covered in a thin white coat, with the grey of cement and the black of tar showing through it. He sees the pretty girl below, smoking and waiting for him. Cigarette in her mouth, hair nicely done, with an expression as cold as this early winter morning. He turns his head towards the brick he has placed beside his improvised bed. A beautiful red brick taken from a ruined building. On top of it, there’s his arm, a black pistol, loaded with 15 bullets, together with a metal water bottle. He lifts up both of them and goes down into the street to join his blonde partner.
Copyright © Julien Lamon, 2018 translated by James Gault
La Version française de Somnĭum
Réveillé en sursaut dans la chambre de son appartement poisseux, Thierry regarde autour de lui, les yeux vides, encore perdu dans les pensées de ce cauchemar sans nom.
Il est en nage, dégoulinant de sueur, et il a chaud et soif. Revenant peu à peu à lui, il s’essuie le visage d’une main encore tremblante, puis tourne lentement la tête en direction de la fenêtre. Elle n’est ouverte qu’en imposte.
Thierry s’empresse alors de se lever et d’ouvrir la fenêtre en grand pour aérer cette pièce aux odeurs de renfermé nauséabond. Dehors, il fait encore nuit noire. Les lumières de la ville éclairent les rues d’un halo jaunâtre et l’on peut entendre les quelques voitures circulant au centreville.
Appuyé contre le rebord de la fenêtre, Thierry respire un bon coup, ses pensées vont à toute vitesse. « Qu’est-ce que c’était que cette merde ? », se demande-t-il intérieurement. Il le sait, car cela fait plusieurs nuits qu’il subit le même rêve. Il est 03h40, comme presque à chaque fois qu’il se réveille après ce terrible cauchemar. Il se déplace encore groggy. Sur la table de chevet improvisée, une brique à moitié cassée, se trouvent son carnet et un stylo. Carnet, lui aussi improvisé. Il s’agit plutôt d’un tas de feuilles regroupées ensemble.
Il prend le carnet, note la date, l’heure et le cauchemar en lui-même.
Vevey, 22 août 2078, 03h43
Le même rêve, encore et encore. Presque à la virgule près, les mêmes événements, les mêmes voix, les mêmes gestes, les mêmes visages, les mêmes lieux. C’est à en devenir fou.
Dans mon rêve, je me réveille en nage, comme après un cauchemar. Je me lève et vais contempler la vue. Le cadre en bois de la fenêtre est en train de pourrir et il n’y a plus de vitre. L’air frais passe à travers, on est au début de l’hiver. Pourtant, quand je me regarde, je suis torse nu et n’ai même pas froid. Dehors, c’est le chaos, la ville est en ruines. J’aperçois au loin quelques coins connus où je vais souvent. Le petit Starbucks du coin de rue avec sa jolie terrasse. Sauf que dans mon rêve il a été éventré, pillé, brûlé. Un peu plus loin je peux apercevoir le centre commercial avec en son sein la Migros. Là aussi, tout comme le café du coin, tout est éventré, pillé,brûlé. La ville a comme subi un cataclysme dans lequel les rares survivants cherchent de quoi se nourrir et se vêtir.
Malgré cette vue apocalyptique, je suis calme. Comme si j’y étais habitué. Je descends dans la rue après avoir enfilé un t-shirt, un pull et un pantalon tweed. Arrivé à la porte d’entrée, qui est aussi manquante, je vois qu’il neigeote dehors. Une neige très fine qui ne risque pas de me mouiller. Les rues sont recouvertes d’un léger manteau de cette poudre blanche hivernale, sans toutefois avoir complètement disparues. Je croise une certaine Stacy, une toxico plutôt jolie. Une blonde aux yeux bruns. Un brun très clair, presque transparent. Ses cheveux sont rabattus d’un côté, elle s’allume une clope. D’où elle l’a trouvé, je me pose la question dans ce monde détruit. Mais pour mon « moi » du rêve, cela lui parait normal. Je lui fais la bise et s’entame alors la même conversation bizarre.
- Salut Stacy.
- Salut le Ricain, comment vas-tu ?
- Bien merci. Pourquoi tu m’appelles toujours le Ricain ? Je ne suis pas américain.
En plus, c’est toi l’étrangère. La Brit.
- Je ne sais pas, j’aime bien t’embêter. Et c’est Miss Britania pour toi, me lance-telle
avec un clin d’oeil tout en s’en allant, à tout à l’heure !
- À tout à l’heure.
Je m’enfonce ensuite dans un dédale de rues avec une bravoure et une dextérité assez hors du commun, moi qui ne suis pas vraiment courageux dans la réalité. Les ruelles m’emmènent vers ce qui ressemble à l’entreprise Nestlé, détruite elle aussi.
Les grands bâtiments ne sont plus ce qu’ils sont par rapport au monde éveillé. Ils semblent n’avoir plus été entretenus depuis plusieurs dizaines d’années. L’herbe, les buissons et les arbres qui se trouvent devant le bâtiment se sont transformés en une petite forêt. De nombreuses vitres sont cassées, notamment celles des portes vitrées de l’entrée principale par laquelle je m’engouffre. À l’intérieur, j’entends le cliquetis des gouttes qui passent à travers le plafond percé de toutes parts. Les ascenseurs ne fonctionnant plus depuis bien des années, je prends les escaliers et, arrivé au 4e étage, je me rends directement dans mon bureau. Celui où je travaille habituellement, à en croire le « moi » dans le rêve. J’ouvre la porte de bois renforcé du bureau, et me rends d’un pas rapide et direct vers le vieux siège en cuir. Le siège se tourne soudainement seul sur lui-même, je m’arrête et vois que
quelqu’un a déjà pris possession du fauteuil directorial. Je le reconnais tout de suite, c’est …
Réveillé en sursaut dans la chambre de son appartement poisseux, Thierry regarde autour de lui, les yeux vides, encore perdu dans les pensées de ce cauchemar sans nom. Il est en nage, dégoulinant de sueur, et il a chaud et soif. Revenant peu
à peu à lui, il s’essuie le visage d’une main encore tremblante, puis tourne lentement la tête en direction de la fenêtre. « Qu’est-ce que c’était que cette merde ? », se demande-t-il intérieurement. Il le sait, étrangement, car cela fait plusieurs nuits qu’il subit le même rêve. Un rêve dans lequel il se réveille dans un appartement poisseux, mais où la vitre est intacte, où la ville est éclairée par des lampadaires et où les gens y vivent tranquillement. Son lit est un vrai lit, pas un tas de cartons empilés.
Thierry se lève avec peine, les muscles encore endoloris. Il s’approche de la fenêtre en bois délabrée et regarde à l’extérieur. Dehors, le jour s’est levé depuis quelques heures déjà et la neige tombe en fins flocons. La rue est couverte d’un mince manteau blanc, laissant encore apparaitre le gris du béton et le noir de l’asphalte. Il voit la jolie fumeuse en train de l’attendre en bas. La cigarette à la bouche, les cheveux attachés, et le regard aussi froid que ce début d’hiver. Il tourne alors la tête et son regard se dirige vers la brique qu’il a placée à côté de son lit improvisé. Une belle brique rouge intacte, prise d’un vieux bâtiment délabré. Dessus se trouve son arme, un pistolet noir chargé avec 15 balles, ainsi qu’une bouteille d’eau en métal. Il prend les deux et descend dans la rue rejoindre sa compagne blonde.
Copyright © Julien Lamon, 2018
Réveillé en sursaut dans la chambre de son appartement poisseux, Thierry regarde autour de lui, les yeux vides, encore perdu dans les pensées de ce cauchemar sans nom.
Il est en nage, dégoulinant de sueur, et il a chaud et soif. Revenant peu à peu à lui, il s’essuie le visage d’une main encore tremblante, puis tourne lentement la tête en direction de la fenêtre. Elle n’est ouverte qu’en imposte.
Thierry s’empresse alors de se lever et d’ouvrir la fenêtre en grand pour aérer cette pièce aux odeurs de renfermé nauséabond. Dehors, il fait encore nuit noire. Les lumières de la ville éclairent les rues d’un halo jaunâtre et l’on peut entendre les quelques voitures circulant au centreville.
Appuyé contre le rebord de la fenêtre, Thierry respire un bon coup, ses pensées vont à toute vitesse. « Qu’est-ce que c’était que cette merde ? », se demande-t-il intérieurement. Il le sait, car cela fait plusieurs nuits qu’il subit le même rêve. Il est 03h40, comme presque à chaque fois qu’il se réveille après ce terrible cauchemar. Il se déplace encore groggy. Sur la table de chevet improvisée, une brique à moitié cassée, se trouvent son carnet et un stylo. Carnet, lui aussi improvisé. Il s’agit plutôt d’un tas de feuilles regroupées ensemble.
Il prend le carnet, note la date, l’heure et le cauchemar en lui-même.
Vevey, 22 août 2078, 03h43
Le même rêve, encore et encore. Presque à la virgule près, les mêmes événements, les mêmes voix, les mêmes gestes, les mêmes visages, les mêmes lieux. C’est à en devenir fou.
Dans mon rêve, je me réveille en nage, comme après un cauchemar. Je me lève et vais contempler la vue. Le cadre en bois de la fenêtre est en train de pourrir et il n’y a plus de vitre. L’air frais passe à travers, on est au début de l’hiver. Pourtant, quand je me regarde, je suis torse nu et n’ai même pas froid. Dehors, c’est le chaos, la ville est en ruines. J’aperçois au loin quelques coins connus où je vais souvent. Le petit Starbucks du coin de rue avec sa jolie terrasse. Sauf que dans mon rêve il a été éventré, pillé, brûlé. Un peu plus loin je peux apercevoir le centre commercial avec en son sein la Migros. Là aussi, tout comme le café du coin, tout est éventré, pillé,brûlé. La ville a comme subi un cataclysme dans lequel les rares survivants cherchent de quoi se nourrir et se vêtir.
Malgré cette vue apocalyptique, je suis calme. Comme si j’y étais habitué. Je descends dans la rue après avoir enfilé un t-shirt, un pull et un pantalon tweed. Arrivé à la porte d’entrée, qui est aussi manquante, je vois qu’il neigeote dehors. Une neige très fine qui ne risque pas de me mouiller. Les rues sont recouvertes d’un léger manteau de cette poudre blanche hivernale, sans toutefois avoir complètement disparues. Je croise une certaine Stacy, une toxico plutôt jolie. Une blonde aux yeux bruns. Un brun très clair, presque transparent. Ses cheveux sont rabattus d’un côté, elle s’allume une clope. D’où elle l’a trouvé, je me pose la question dans ce monde détruit. Mais pour mon « moi » du rêve, cela lui parait normal. Je lui fais la bise et s’entame alors la même conversation bizarre.
- Salut Stacy.
- Salut le Ricain, comment vas-tu ?
- Bien merci. Pourquoi tu m’appelles toujours le Ricain ? Je ne suis pas américain.
En plus, c’est toi l’étrangère. La Brit.
- Je ne sais pas, j’aime bien t’embêter. Et c’est Miss Britania pour toi, me lance-telle
avec un clin d’oeil tout en s’en allant, à tout à l’heure !
- À tout à l’heure.
Je m’enfonce ensuite dans un dédale de rues avec une bravoure et une dextérité assez hors du commun, moi qui ne suis pas vraiment courageux dans la réalité. Les ruelles m’emmènent vers ce qui ressemble à l’entreprise Nestlé, détruite elle aussi.
Les grands bâtiments ne sont plus ce qu’ils sont par rapport au monde éveillé. Ils semblent n’avoir plus été entretenus depuis plusieurs dizaines d’années. L’herbe, les buissons et les arbres qui se trouvent devant le bâtiment se sont transformés en une petite forêt. De nombreuses vitres sont cassées, notamment celles des portes vitrées de l’entrée principale par laquelle je m’engouffre. À l’intérieur, j’entends le cliquetis des gouttes qui passent à travers le plafond percé de toutes parts. Les ascenseurs ne fonctionnant plus depuis bien des années, je prends les escaliers et, arrivé au 4e étage, je me rends directement dans mon bureau. Celui où je travaille habituellement, à en croire le « moi » dans le rêve. J’ouvre la porte de bois renforcé du bureau, et me rends d’un pas rapide et direct vers le vieux siège en cuir. Le siège se tourne soudainement seul sur lui-même, je m’arrête et vois que
quelqu’un a déjà pris possession du fauteuil directorial. Je le reconnais tout de suite, c’est …
Réveillé en sursaut dans la chambre de son appartement poisseux, Thierry regarde autour de lui, les yeux vides, encore perdu dans les pensées de ce cauchemar sans nom. Il est en nage, dégoulinant de sueur, et il a chaud et soif. Revenant peu
à peu à lui, il s’essuie le visage d’une main encore tremblante, puis tourne lentement la tête en direction de la fenêtre. « Qu’est-ce que c’était que cette merde ? », se demande-t-il intérieurement. Il le sait, étrangement, car cela fait plusieurs nuits qu’il subit le même rêve. Un rêve dans lequel il se réveille dans un appartement poisseux, mais où la vitre est intacte, où la ville est éclairée par des lampadaires et où les gens y vivent tranquillement. Son lit est un vrai lit, pas un tas de cartons empilés.
Thierry se lève avec peine, les muscles encore endoloris. Il s’approche de la fenêtre en bois délabrée et regarde à l’extérieur. Dehors, le jour s’est levé depuis quelques heures déjà et la neige tombe en fins flocons. La rue est couverte d’un mince manteau blanc, laissant encore apparaitre le gris du béton et le noir de l’asphalte. Il voit la jolie fumeuse en train de l’attendre en bas. La cigarette à la bouche, les cheveux attachés, et le regard aussi froid que ce début d’hiver. Il tourne alors la tête et son regard se dirige vers la brique qu’il a placée à côté de son lit improvisé. Une belle brique rouge intacte, prise d’un vieux bâtiment délabré. Dessus se trouve son arme, un pistolet noir chargé avec 15 balles, ainsi qu’une bouteille d’eau en métal. Il prend les deux et descend dans la rue rejoindre sa compagne blonde.
Copyright © Julien Lamon, 2018
AN EXCERPT FROM SHATTERING TRUTHS
by
Kyrian Lyndon
CHAPTER TWO
It might have been a glorious beach day.
Horned larks looked happy among the plum and bayberry shrubs, yellow sunflowers, and purple roses. The blue waters of the Long Island Sound were as beguiling as the landscape. Young men were perched on railings that glistened under the glare of the sun—ogling, whistling, and confessing their undying love. I witnessed this phenomenon whenever I walked to and from the bus stop in my school uniform, and came to realize I could easily disrupt traffic and possibly cause a collision.
I had never achieved a placid familiarity with the horn-honking and people clamoring for my attention. I had spent many years feeling like the ugly duckling muddling haplessly through the dark green marsh. If I had advanced from there at all, it was to become the tiniest winged critter, never able to keep up with the flock, and never certain I wanted to.
My metamorphosis was magical. I had the same golden brown hair—by then almost waist length—the same hazel eyes, coveted high cheekbones, enviable skin, and ravishing lips as before, but it had all become relevant! I believed I had willed and constructed this change. More accurately, I’d grown into my beauty, and my painstaking efforts to straighten my thick, wavy tresses made no difference. People looked mostly at my chest. I was a busty girl of five-foot-four who kept herself trim and toned with exercise.
Pain hindered my walking that day.
“We should rent a summer beach house here—or a cabin,” Farran said. “You met those two older guys here the other day, didn’t you? The ones you made a date with?”
“Yeah, one of them was thirty,” my cousin Angie chimed in. “The other guy was twenty-nine.” Her angelic voice was a touch above a whisper.
“Well, they knew you were both sixteen, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they knew,” I replied.
Mental images intruded—gold crucifix chains upon masculine chests. I had noticed those chains from the moment the men approached us on the beach. Perhaps I had an ingrained trust in that sacred symbol. I shouldn’t have. People wore things for different reasons. We adorned our arms with plastic jelly bracelets in neon colors because Madonna wore them, and she was the most fussed-about pop star. She also wore crucifix chains, which Angie and I had displayed with devotion since childhood.
We spread out our blankets in the middle of the beach. All eyes were on me when I stripped down to my halter-style swim top. In light of the ensuing commotion, I decided to keep the shorts on.
“With you around, I get no respect for my B-cup,” Farran complained. I saw the twinkle in her electric blue eyes when she smiled. Her high-cut one-piece elongated her pretty legs and flattered her figure. She was taller than me, with a nice head of light brown, shoulder-length hair that she often wore in a ponytail or chignon.
“What about me? I have nothing,” Angie lamented. She left her shorts on as well, with a skimpy bandeau top.
Angie and I had grown up together in Glastonbury. We’d been in the same classes since kindergarten. In a couple of weeks, we’d be seniors at the same high school. She was an inch shorter than I was, and always in sneakers, jellies, or flip-flops. Her dark hair was past shoulder length, framing a heart-shaped face and prominent brown eyes.
All three of us wanted admiration and, yes, adoration—from males, especially. When it became uncomfortable, I figured I wasn’t used to it. At the same time, I preferred being uncomfortable to being ridiculed and shamed.
I don’t recall which of the two men that day had asked what country I was from, insisting he detected a trace of European, and possibly Latin, in my New England accent. This extravagant attention to every detail did more than flatter me—I felt like it validated my existence. I’m certain I had blushed when I assured him I was a Connecticut native from Glastonbury.
“The whole thing was a nightmare,” I blurted out, as if Farran and Angie had been following my thoughts.
“A nightmare! Why?” Farran looked at Angie, probably to gauge her reaction. “Wait, I thought it was a date you all went on yesterday? I mean, you were both there, right? Angie said she liked the guy.”
Yes, Angie had liked Phil, the muscular, tattooed one with the mustache and short blond curls. When she’d unexpectedly begun kissing him, I had wanted to pull her away and shout, “What the hell has gotten into you?” She had always been painfully shy, but while surrendering to Phil’s embrace, there were moans coming out of that girl that she would not likely have emitted in private, let alone in a room with three other people.
I remembered how horrified we’d both been in seventh grade when a group of boys from our class began following girls to the bus stop. They would wait for an opportunity to grab a girl, and then pull her into the bushes or woods. They did whatever they could get away with before she broke free. Angie and I had had to walk, sometimes run, in a different direction, and wait until they were gone before we could return to our bus stop. They never caught us. When I told my brothers, they made it stop.
Angie and I had clung to our perception of that sacrosanct bequest—being “saved” for the right person. Our parents had never talked to us about defiled reputations or unwanted pregnancies, but in school, there were proclamations that only bad girls welcomed attention from boys. I didn’t think Angie had intended to go beyond kissing, but these men could not have known that. She had this tranquilizing humility, and though she kept her composure now, I could see a trace of fear in her large, haunted eyes. Could Farran not see it, or was I wrong about that, too?
“It was supposed to be a date, just to Pleasure Beach,” I explained. We sat on the blanket. I used some of Angie’s lotion on my already bronzed skin.
Farran applied sunblock. “Pleasure Beach … my parents used to go there back in the fifties.”
Things came to me in shadowy flashes. Phil had carried Angie away, and I was alone with the other guy. Sergio was his name. Though I did think he was cute with his close-cropped brown hair, brown eyes, and pencil-thin mustache, I was not attracted to him. I had felt dizzy trying to stand. The room spun, and I fell back on the sofa with only a blurred impression of the room. Sergio’s voice sounded like it was a distance away. I couldn’t see his face.
“They told us they’d forgotten their camera and wanted to stop and get it, since it wasn’t far,” I explained. “It might have been one of the beach cottages on Long Beach West. I had to fight them …”
Yet I remembered them driving us home. Angie was in the front seat, talking to Phil, who was driving. She appeared to be okay. Sergio was in the back with me. I had slept most of the time, with my head resting on his shoulder. We’d gone over that rickety bridge.
“Come on, Dani!” Farran’s smile was ingenuous. “Sounds like you had some wild experience that maybe got out of control, and you’re feeling guilty. You shouldn’t. Guys would be celebrating! I mean, you can’t take it back. It sounds like that’s what you’re trying to do. Maybe it’s time you grew up. I’m serious! Don’t be such a baby!” She laughed.
Farran was generous with smiles and laughter, right down to the wrinkling of her nose and an occasional wink. I imagined those eyes would shine until her dying day, and she would forever be as lovable and sweet as she was. I adored her. With her self-deprecating humor, people liked her in an instant. I expected boys to be falling all over her. What I didn’t understand was their interest in me. My assets were merely the luck of the draw.
“It was horrible,” I insisted. “I thought about going to the police.”
She looked dumbfounded, and that solidified for me the idea that going to the police would be futile.
I looked to Angie, and she didn’t avert her eyes. Those dark pools were now an ocean, with depths I couldn’t fathom. I saw her concern for me. Farran seemed to latch onto how Angie hadn’t confirmed any of it, but she ignored that Angie never denied it. Still, I backed down. My sense of reality had been undermined, but I didn’t doubt what I’d recalled, not for a moment.
Farran grabbed her radio, reminding me of how she and I would sing at the beach. When she turned up the volume, I looked away.
I thought about my family.
My dad had liked this beach when we were kids. It was Hammonasset in Madison, a two-mile stretch from Tom Creek on the western end to the Hammonasset River and Clinton Harbor on the east. He used to take us to West Beach. We were on East Beach now, which we preferred. It was quieter, with fewer kids.
The waves were no more than one or two feet, and I liked the gentle breeze. I loved watching the birds—osprey, piping plovers, sandpipers, willets, snowy egrets, and all the amazing herons. Birds resonated with me.
Innocent singing on the beach was a pleasant memory, as were family days when we searched for shells and copper scraps, marveling at starfish. Joey liked big-clawed hermit crabs and breaking rocks on the pier to find garnets. Uncle Dom usually brought a kite to fly—Angie’s favorite thing. Joey and Robbie played Frisbee. There were coolers with food and drinks. When the adults had had enough sun, we packed up and moved over to a picnic table in the shade. We could spend hours at the beach and still not want to go home—until Robbie had about had it with the stinging black flies that came up from the marshes. By his reaction, you would have thought they targeted him alone.
“Are you okay, Dani?” Angie was searching my eyes.
“She’s fine,” Farran assured her.
I held back tears. “They keep calling me. They called me five times when I got back from the so-called date and a few more times this morning.”
“Well, tell ‘em to call me,” Farran quipped.
“I don’t want them calling!”
“Dani?” Angie called out.
“I’m okay.” I didn’t know what else to say.
Her wide-stretched lips eased into a smile, endearing her to me, as always.
Farran, however, was off on another tangent. “Hey, we’re not far from Marauders Cove. It’s about twenty minutes from here. Isn’t that where your brother, Joey, hangs out? And doesn’t he live only two blocks from there?”
“He hangs out with bikers,” I reminded her.
“I know.” She beamed.
“Besides, you have to be twenty-one.”
“Well, Joey’s not twenty-one.”
“He will be in a couple of months.”
She waved if off, flashing an ear-to-ear grin. “Danielle, Marauders Cove is an old-fashioned pub owned by the McGrath family. I practically grew up with them.”
Yes, and the McGrath family included Mike McGrath, my first and only love—someone I had always been able to trust. The mention of his name now evoked a twinge of melancholia that fanned the flames of my anguish.
“I’m sure your brother will be looking after you anyway, and so will his friends,” she went on. “I can get us phony proof. Hey, I’m starting college in the fall! It’s a rite of passage!”
This behavior was typical of Farran. She thought nothing of suggesting we hitchhike to the beach if we didn’t have a ride. Thankfully, a neighbor of hers had given us a ride that day. The plan was to meet up with the woman by three-thirty at Joshua Rock, just to the east of the park entrance.
“I’m not sure we should be barhopping,” I said.
“Oh, please.” She lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and exhaled. “You are always so uptight, Dani. You have to live a little.”
I wanted to address the absurdity of that second statement, but I didn’t know where to begin.
“School starts in a couple of weeks. It’s probably our last beach day. We gotta do something for excitement—like meet up with people. Maybe if I were a total knockout, I could sit home and wait for them to beat down my door, but that ain’t gonna happen.” She laughed. “Hey, I’m surprised you didn’t bring one of your car magazines. Still looking for a Nissan?” She was making nice, I could see, piling on the sugar.
“Yeah. I’m hoping by my birthday I will finally pass the road test.”
“Third time’s the charm, right?”
Angie laughed, a gentle laughter, but I saw the change in her. She looked more fragile to me.
It might have been a glorious beach day.
Horned larks looked happy among the plum and bayberry shrubs, yellow sunflowers, and purple roses. The blue waters of the Long Island Sound were as beguiling as the landscape. Young men were perched on railings that glistened under the glare of the sun—ogling, whistling, and confessing their undying love. I witnessed this phenomenon whenever I walked to and from the bus stop in my school uniform, and came to realize I could easily disrupt traffic and possibly cause a collision.
I had never achieved a placid familiarity with the horn-honking and people clamoring for my attention. I had spent many years feeling like the ugly duckling muddling haplessly through the dark green marsh. If I had advanced from there at all, it was to become the tiniest winged critter, never able to keep up with the flock, and never certain I wanted to.
My metamorphosis was magical. I had the same golden brown hair—by then almost waist length—the same hazel eyes, coveted high cheekbones, enviable skin, and ravishing lips as before, but it had all become relevant! I believed I had willed and constructed this change. More accurately, I’d grown into my beauty, and my painstaking efforts to straighten my thick, wavy tresses made no difference. People looked mostly at my chest. I was a busty girl of five-foot-four who kept herself trim and toned with exercise.
Pain hindered my walking that day.
“We should rent a summer beach house here—or a cabin,” Farran said. “You met those two older guys here the other day, didn’t you? The ones you made a date with?”
“Yeah, one of them was thirty,” my cousin Angie chimed in. “The other guy was twenty-nine.” Her angelic voice was a touch above a whisper.
“Well, they knew you were both sixteen, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they knew,” I replied.
Mental images intruded—gold crucifix chains upon masculine chests. I had noticed those chains from the moment the men approached us on the beach. Perhaps I had an ingrained trust in that sacred symbol. I shouldn’t have. People wore things for different reasons. We adorned our arms with plastic jelly bracelets in neon colors because Madonna wore them, and she was the most fussed-about pop star. She also wore crucifix chains, which Angie and I had displayed with devotion since childhood.
We spread out our blankets in the middle of the beach. All eyes were on me when I stripped down to my halter-style swim top. In light of the ensuing commotion, I decided to keep the shorts on.
“With you around, I get no respect for my B-cup,” Farran complained. I saw the twinkle in her electric blue eyes when she smiled. Her high-cut one-piece elongated her pretty legs and flattered her figure. She was taller than me, with a nice head of light brown, shoulder-length hair that she often wore in a ponytail or chignon.
“What about me? I have nothing,” Angie lamented. She left her shorts on as well, with a skimpy bandeau top.
Angie and I had grown up together in Glastonbury. We’d been in the same classes since kindergarten. In a couple of weeks, we’d be seniors at the same high school. She was an inch shorter than I was, and always in sneakers, jellies, or flip-flops. Her dark hair was past shoulder length, framing a heart-shaped face and prominent brown eyes.
All three of us wanted admiration and, yes, adoration—from males, especially. When it became uncomfortable, I figured I wasn’t used to it. At the same time, I preferred being uncomfortable to being ridiculed and shamed.
I don’t recall which of the two men that day had asked what country I was from, insisting he detected a trace of European, and possibly Latin, in my New England accent. This extravagant attention to every detail did more than flatter me—I felt like it validated my existence. I’m certain I had blushed when I assured him I was a Connecticut native from Glastonbury.
“The whole thing was a nightmare,” I blurted out, as if Farran and Angie had been following my thoughts.
“A nightmare! Why?” Farran looked at Angie, probably to gauge her reaction. “Wait, I thought it was a date you all went on yesterday? I mean, you were both there, right? Angie said she liked the guy.”
Yes, Angie had liked Phil, the muscular, tattooed one with the mustache and short blond curls. When she’d unexpectedly begun kissing him, I had wanted to pull her away and shout, “What the hell has gotten into you?” She had always been painfully shy, but while surrendering to Phil’s embrace, there were moans coming out of that girl that she would not likely have emitted in private, let alone in a room with three other people.
I remembered how horrified we’d both been in seventh grade when a group of boys from our class began following girls to the bus stop. They would wait for an opportunity to grab a girl, and then pull her into the bushes or woods. They did whatever they could get away with before she broke free. Angie and I had had to walk, sometimes run, in a different direction, and wait until they were gone before we could return to our bus stop. They never caught us. When I told my brothers, they made it stop.
Angie and I had clung to our perception of that sacrosanct bequest—being “saved” for the right person. Our parents had never talked to us about defiled reputations or unwanted pregnancies, but in school, there were proclamations that only bad girls welcomed attention from boys. I didn’t think Angie had intended to go beyond kissing, but these men could not have known that. She had this tranquilizing humility, and though she kept her composure now, I could see a trace of fear in her large, haunted eyes. Could Farran not see it, or was I wrong about that, too?
“It was supposed to be a date, just to Pleasure Beach,” I explained. We sat on the blanket. I used some of Angie’s lotion on my already bronzed skin.
Farran applied sunblock. “Pleasure Beach … my parents used to go there back in the fifties.”
Things came to me in shadowy flashes. Phil had carried Angie away, and I was alone with the other guy. Sergio was his name. Though I did think he was cute with his close-cropped brown hair, brown eyes, and pencil-thin mustache, I was not attracted to him. I had felt dizzy trying to stand. The room spun, and I fell back on the sofa with only a blurred impression of the room. Sergio’s voice sounded like it was a distance away. I couldn’t see his face.
“They told us they’d forgotten their camera and wanted to stop and get it, since it wasn’t far,” I explained. “It might have been one of the beach cottages on Long Beach West. I had to fight them …”
Yet I remembered them driving us home. Angie was in the front seat, talking to Phil, who was driving. She appeared to be okay. Sergio was in the back with me. I had slept most of the time, with my head resting on his shoulder. We’d gone over that rickety bridge.
“Come on, Dani!” Farran’s smile was ingenuous. “Sounds like you had some wild experience that maybe got out of control, and you’re feeling guilty. You shouldn’t. Guys would be celebrating! I mean, you can’t take it back. It sounds like that’s what you’re trying to do. Maybe it’s time you grew up. I’m serious! Don’t be such a baby!” She laughed.
Farran was generous with smiles and laughter, right down to the wrinkling of her nose and an occasional wink. I imagined those eyes would shine until her dying day, and she would forever be as lovable and sweet as she was. I adored her. With her self-deprecating humor, people liked her in an instant. I expected boys to be falling all over her. What I didn’t understand was their interest in me. My assets were merely the luck of the draw.
“It was horrible,” I insisted. “I thought about going to the police.”
She looked dumbfounded, and that solidified for me the idea that going to the police would be futile.
I looked to Angie, and she didn’t avert her eyes. Those dark pools were now an ocean, with depths I couldn’t fathom. I saw her concern for me. Farran seemed to latch onto how Angie hadn’t confirmed any of it, but she ignored that Angie never denied it. Still, I backed down. My sense of reality had been undermined, but I didn’t doubt what I’d recalled, not for a moment.
Farran grabbed her radio, reminding me of how she and I would sing at the beach. When she turned up the volume, I looked away.
I thought about my family.
My dad had liked this beach when we were kids. It was Hammonasset in Madison, a two-mile stretch from Tom Creek on the western end to the Hammonasset River and Clinton Harbor on the east. He used to take us to West Beach. We were on East Beach now, which we preferred. It was quieter, with fewer kids.
The waves were no more than one or two feet, and I liked the gentle breeze. I loved watching the birds—osprey, piping plovers, sandpipers, willets, snowy egrets, and all the amazing herons. Birds resonated with me.
Innocent singing on the beach was a pleasant memory, as were family days when we searched for shells and copper scraps, marveling at starfish. Joey liked big-clawed hermit crabs and breaking rocks on the pier to find garnets. Uncle Dom usually brought a kite to fly—Angie’s favorite thing. Joey and Robbie played Frisbee. There were coolers with food and drinks. When the adults had had enough sun, we packed up and moved over to a picnic table in the shade. We could spend hours at the beach and still not want to go home—until Robbie had about had it with the stinging black flies that came up from the marshes. By his reaction, you would have thought they targeted him alone.
“Are you okay, Dani?” Angie was searching my eyes.
“She’s fine,” Farran assured her.
I held back tears. “They keep calling me. They called me five times when I got back from the so-called date and a few more times this morning.”
“Well, tell ‘em to call me,” Farran quipped.
“I don’t want them calling!”
“Dani?” Angie called out.
“I’m okay.” I didn’t know what else to say.
Her wide-stretched lips eased into a smile, endearing her to me, as always.
Farran, however, was off on another tangent. “Hey, we’re not far from Marauders Cove. It’s about twenty minutes from here. Isn’t that where your brother, Joey, hangs out? And doesn’t he live only two blocks from there?”
“He hangs out with bikers,” I reminded her.
“I know.” She beamed.
“Besides, you have to be twenty-one.”
“Well, Joey’s not twenty-one.”
“He will be in a couple of months.”
She waved if off, flashing an ear-to-ear grin. “Danielle, Marauders Cove is an old-fashioned pub owned by the McGrath family. I practically grew up with them.”
Yes, and the McGrath family included Mike McGrath, my first and only love—someone I had always been able to trust. The mention of his name now evoked a twinge of melancholia that fanned the flames of my anguish.
“I’m sure your brother will be looking after you anyway, and so will his friends,” she went on. “I can get us phony proof. Hey, I’m starting college in the fall! It’s a rite of passage!”
This behavior was typical of Farran. She thought nothing of suggesting we hitchhike to the beach if we didn’t have a ride. Thankfully, a neighbor of hers had given us a ride that day. The plan was to meet up with the woman by three-thirty at Joshua Rock, just to the east of the park entrance.
“I’m not sure we should be barhopping,” I said.
“Oh, please.” She lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and exhaled. “You are always so uptight, Dani. You have to live a little.”
I wanted to address the absurdity of that second statement, but I didn’t know where to begin.
“School starts in a couple of weeks. It’s probably our last beach day. We gotta do something for excitement—like meet up with people. Maybe if I were a total knockout, I could sit home and wait for them to beat down my door, but that ain’t gonna happen.” She laughed. “Hey, I’m surprised you didn’t bring one of your car magazines. Still looking for a Nissan?” She was making nice, I could see, piling on the sugar.
“Yeah. I’m hoping by my birthday I will finally pass the road test.”
“Third time’s the charm, right?”
Angie laughed, a gentle laughter, but I saw the change in her. She looked more fragile to me.
Some truths can be deadly.
Danielle isn’t mopey or filled with teenage angst. Danielle and her cousin were abducted, drugged, and raped. But her cousin doesn’t remember, and her best friend won’t believe her. Now, her predators have returned, stalking her, harassing her at every turn. Nightmares plague her sleep, pushing her to the brink of exhaustion. Isolated, terrified, and grief-stricken, Danielle is paralyzed, unable to face the unmerciful world around her.
Can she awaken her spirit and blossom into a woman of defiance and courage before the darkness eclipses her sanity?
Shattering Truths, the first volume in the Deadly Veils series, is a haunting and heartbreaking coming of age story. In the tradition of Judy Blume, and following in the footsteps of Thirteen Reasons Why, author Kyrian Lyndon doesn’t shy away from exploring the darker side of life that every teenage girl fears. Filled with suspense, a heart wrenching emotional journey, and twists that will leave you breathless, Shattering Truths will take hold of you on page one and never let go.
“A dark, alluring and fascinating book about a girl trying to crawl out of the darkness and despair and grow in strength and spirit.” –Books Are Love
“A gripping and emotional story about trauma and abuse…” – Elizabeth Greschner
“…an emotional roller coaster…” –Love Books
“…a startlingly intense look into the lives of the young teens in present day America!” –Deepak Menon
Danielle isn’t mopey or filled with teenage angst. Danielle and her cousin were abducted, drugged, and raped. But her cousin doesn’t remember, and her best friend won’t believe her. Now, her predators have returned, stalking her, harassing her at every turn. Nightmares plague her sleep, pushing her to the brink of exhaustion. Isolated, terrified, and grief-stricken, Danielle is paralyzed, unable to face the unmerciful world around her.
Can she awaken her spirit and blossom into a woman of defiance and courage before the darkness eclipses her sanity?
Shattering Truths, the first volume in the Deadly Veils series, is a haunting and heartbreaking coming of age story. In the tradition of Judy Blume, and following in the footsteps of Thirteen Reasons Why, author Kyrian Lyndon doesn’t shy away from exploring the darker side of life that every teenage girl fears. Filled with suspense, a heart wrenching emotional journey, and twists that will leave you breathless, Shattering Truths will take hold of you on page one and never let go.
“A dark, alluring and fascinating book about a girl trying to crawl out of the darkness and despair and grow in strength and spirit.” –Books Are Love
“A gripping and emotional story about trauma and abuse…” – Elizabeth Greschner
“…an emotional roller coaster…” –Love Books
“…a startlingly intense look into the lives of the young teens in present day America!” –Deepak Menon
THE DEEPER MEANINGS OF YOGA
by Dr. Chandra Shekkar Bhatt
Yoga is often reduced to the Asana alone just as martial arts are often reduced to only aerobic kicking and punching.
The deeper meanings beneath the underlying philosophies are usually lost. While many of today's instructors struggle to maintain an air of tradition in their health club classrooms, the main marketing motivation for many of those clubs is the vain pursuit of a higher butt. While this might be a supplementary bonus, imagine Bodhidharma's reaction. This is most evident in cross training. Yoga is said to compliment martial arts and vice versa. In its actuality, both Yoga and martial arts are complete systems. Study either one thoroughly and there is no need of anything else.
The concept of complimentary training implies that there is a deficit. But after a thousand of years of research and development, neither Yoga nor Kung Fu has any gaps to be filled. Both disciplines offer a fulfilling lifetime quest; all that need be done is that you pursue it for a lifetime. It is only our MTV- driven attention span that makes us move to the next thing before truly engaging the previous one. There have been some hybrids of Kung Fu and Yoga like 'Shaolin Yoga' designed to catch our attention with the promise of filling the two 'needs' at once. For the most part, these mongrel schools are really marketing ploys, not actual innovation.
Both compound the issue. As a matter of fact, there is ALREADY AN EASTERN FUSION OF YOGA TO MARTIAL ARTS THAT COMPLETELY OMITS BODHIDHARMA. THE MODERN INDIAN MASTER CHANDRA SHEKHAR BHATT IS AN EXPONENT OF A HYBRID OF MARTIAL ARTS AND YOGA KNOWN AS V A J R A M U K T I HE HAS HAD ENOUGH OF A FOLLOWING TO PUBLISH BOOKS, BUT YOU WOULD HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY TO BOMBAY TO TRAIN WITH HIM.
The deeper meanings beneath the underlying philosophies are usually lost. While many of today's instructors struggle to maintain an air of tradition in their health club classrooms, the main marketing motivation for many of those clubs is the vain pursuit of a higher butt. While this might be a supplementary bonus, imagine Bodhidharma's reaction. This is most evident in cross training. Yoga is said to compliment martial arts and vice versa. In its actuality, both Yoga and martial arts are complete systems. Study either one thoroughly and there is no need of anything else.
The concept of complimentary training implies that there is a deficit. But after a thousand of years of research and development, neither Yoga nor Kung Fu has any gaps to be filled. Both disciplines offer a fulfilling lifetime quest; all that need be done is that you pursue it for a lifetime. It is only our MTV- driven attention span that makes us move to the next thing before truly engaging the previous one. There have been some hybrids of Kung Fu and Yoga like 'Shaolin Yoga' designed to catch our attention with the promise of filling the two 'needs' at once. For the most part, these mongrel schools are really marketing ploys, not actual innovation.
Both compound the issue. As a matter of fact, there is ALREADY AN EASTERN FUSION OF YOGA TO MARTIAL ARTS THAT COMPLETELY OMITS BODHIDHARMA. THE MODERN INDIAN MASTER CHANDRA SHEKHAR BHATT IS AN EXPONENT OF A HYBRID OF MARTIAL ARTS AND YOGA KNOWN AS V A J R A M U K T I HE HAS HAD ENOUGH OF A FOLLOWING TO PUBLISH BOOKS, BUT YOU WOULD HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY TO BOMBAY TO TRAIN WITH HIM.
OLD TOM
A short story by James Gault
The whole village would agree that old Tom isn't the man he used to be. In the past he strode purposely; nowadays he shuffles. The military-style cane he now leans on used to be tucked proudly under his right arm. As he approached you, straight-backed, held head high, his eyes would challenge you to pay attention and he would greet you with a formal nod and a good morning. Now his eyes are fixed on his toes, and is greetings undecipherable murmurings if they are anything at all. No one knows this for sure, but he is reputed to have been a sergeant-major during the war. And everyone knew him for certain as a hard but fair foreman in the local mines after it. But the respect his reputation had earned him had now been replaced by a sorrowful pity that overwhelms the villagers whenever they see him.
The previous Old Tom was a man who knew everything, a man whose unquestioning certainty gave him an internal confidence which proved impermeable to any attempts to separate him from his opinions. These opinions held sway in the village pub, every Thursday afternoon, between two and four, when Tom met his cronies for a weekly pint and a blether. A lot of blethering, in fact! The landlord called it the 'pub philosophy club'. Every topic was covered, every problem solved. No crisis was too catastrophic, no trauma too troublesome, no situation too sensitive, for Tom's deep and wide knowledge and cool and calm logic to resolve. If only the great and the good had taken the time to listen in, how much better a place would the the world be now!
But that was before Bill moved into the village. An enterprising developer had bought up a row of derelict miners' cottages and refitted them in the modern traditional style, and Bill was swept in with a load of artists, antique dealers and university lecturers. Like Tom, Bill was retired, but from what no one has been able to find out. The popular hypothesis is that he was some kind of teacher, but some locals with a wilder imagination propagated the legend that he had unsavoury connections with the secret services. There was certainly something clandestine about Bill. Most people say more than they know, but Bill gave the distinct impression of always knowing more than he was saying. When he spoke, he restricted himself to the question form, so that after a conversation with him you felt as if you had been thoroughly interrogated. These, together with being an outsider of unknown origins, meant that the villagers just didn't take to him at all. So when the members of the 'pub philosophy pub' began to put it about that Bill was the cause of Old Tom's troubles, the village was only too ready to believe it. And to be honest, there was an element of truth in the rumour. The facts of the matter are these.
Soon after he moved in, Bill took to visiting the pub every afternoon where he allowed himself one glass of gin and tonic. Anyone who drinks gin and tonic in a working class mining village can hardly be said to be making an effort to fit in, but whether Bill did it out of ignorance, defiance or just plain cussedness was just one more of the enigmatic mysteries that surrounded him. In any case, his choice of refreshment left him pretty isolated in the bar, and if he wanted a bit of company he would have to take the initiative himself. So, one Thursday afternoon, having noted on his previous Thursday visits the animated discussions going on in the back of the room, Bill asked the landlord,
"What's going on over there?"
"That's just the pub philosophy club," he was told.
So Bill shuffled over to the table, because he was interested in philosophy, because he hoped to pick up at bit of information for his spymasters, or just because he wanted a bit of company, who can tell?
"May I join you?" he asked, sitting down before anyone could refuse. The others looked at him for a minute, then carried on talking as if he wasn't there. But Bill sat on, and this was how he managed to acquire the status of an associate, never a full, member of the pub philosophy club.
For the first few Thursdays, Bill contented himself with listening. The membership began to acknowledge his presence with a grunt, without ever addressing him directly. Acceptance into small communities never comes quickly. Eventually, Bill began to impose himself in the conversations in his usual manner, by injecting troublesome questions at inopportune moments. "Why is the British interest more important than those of other nations?" "What makes you think that women should have the same rights as men?" "Isn't it sometimes necessary to have a dictatorship?" These sort of questions always got right up Old Tom's nose. In his view, a lot of things were self-evident and to question them was to reveal yourself as either an idiot or, worse still, a traitor to Britain and the great British culture. Old Tom tended to treat Bill's questions with the contempt he felt they deserved, either by ignoring them completely or fixing the enquirer with a hostile stare before moving on to the next part of his argument. The others, of course, followed his lead, but the lack of response never seemed to damp Bill's enthusiasm and the questions kept coming.
Things came to a head one Thursday when the group seemed a little stuck for a topic to discuss. It was the football close season, parliament was in recess and no politicians, or even celebrities, had been up to any noteworthy mischief. The group were sitting in silence when Bill sidled over with his gin and tonic. So, to break the ice, he asked,
"What if the world wasn't the way it is, but was completely different?"
Well, this was just too much for Old Tom. I mean, how much stupidity could a man be expected to tolerate? Silence, or even a frosty look, was a completely inadequate response to such an inane thought.
"If the world wasn't the way it was," he muttered, angrily, "it wouldn't be the world, would it? It would be something else."
Tom's acolytes smiled. Old Tom certainly had the unwanted interloper there. But Bill wasn't finished.
"Why would the world not be the world if it was a bit different?" he added.
Tom resorted to his cold stare, and initiated a discussion on the oil price, the economy and how the vested interests of the rich and powerful always overcame the needs and rights of the working man. It seemed as if normal service had been resumed, but, as Old Tom's disciples were to discover, they had just witnessed the beginning of the end.
Old Tom appeared for the meeting on the next Thursday, but took no active part. The main agenda seemed to be the role of Britain in maintaining world peace, a subject on which Tom was known to have strong views, as he did on everything. But he sat there in silence, listening to his old friends putting forward their opinions, which were in fact his opinions recycled second-hand. The landlord, looking over from the bar, noticed that Old Tom seemed mostly uninterested in the proceedings, his eyes coming alive only when Bill interjected one of his previously unwanted and senseless questions. These questions were, of course, dealt with by the group as before, by being ignored, the old members following Old Tom's unofficial but unchallenged guidelines, and each time Tom' eyes sank back into a disappointed disinterest. According to the landlord's testimony, Tom was slumped when he came into the pub that Thursday, but was slumped even more when he left.
These then are the public facts of the matter, which wafted around the village with the usual distortions and additions that rumours accumulate in their travels. But in itself this public knowledge doesn't solve the mystery. The reasons for the changes in Old Tom are private, behind the closed doors of Tom's home, and in the secret recesses of his mind.
"Why would the world not be the world if it was a bit different?" Although Old Tom had dismissed this question in his usual offhand way when Bill had raised it, it came back to bother him again and again during following week. It kept him awake at night, demanding, so it seemed, some kind of answer. It made him think about himself. As a child he had been 'little Tom', in the army 'young Tom'. Down the mines he had been 'Mr Tom' to his subordinates, and now he was 'Old Tom'. So many Toms, and, when he thought about it, all so different. And yet, he was sure, they were fundamentally the same Tom, he still was who he was. He wasn't someone else because he had changed over time. He went for his usual walks along the river, stopping at the bank and gazing into the water. This river had been there for centuries, much, much longer than when the mines had been sunk below the ground and the houses built above it. Yet, watching a floating leaf speed downstream, it struck him that the actual water in any part of the river changed very few seconds. So was it the same river or a constant procession of new rivers? Once you start questioning, everything seems so uncertain.
By the end of that week, poor Old Tom didn't have an opinion left. He could no longer be certain about anything. He was distracted, so deep in thought trying to find answers that he was oblivious to the rest of the world. And he was depressed as the answers refused to come. Quite simply, to those how knew him he had just suddenly 'lost it'.
It's been a few months since these events took place, and I'm pleased to report that Old Tom seems to be improving a little. Now he occasionally notices people when they pass him. He didn't say anything at the "pub philosophy club's" meetings for months, but now, once or twice during the afternoon, his voice can be heard. But only ever to ask an occasional question.
James Gault
June 2012 (Previously published in Oxford University CE Philosophy Review )
The previous Old Tom was a man who knew everything, a man whose unquestioning certainty gave him an internal confidence which proved impermeable to any attempts to separate him from his opinions. These opinions held sway in the village pub, every Thursday afternoon, between two and four, when Tom met his cronies for a weekly pint and a blether. A lot of blethering, in fact! The landlord called it the 'pub philosophy club'. Every topic was covered, every problem solved. No crisis was too catastrophic, no trauma too troublesome, no situation too sensitive, for Tom's deep and wide knowledge and cool and calm logic to resolve. If only the great and the good had taken the time to listen in, how much better a place would the the world be now!
But that was before Bill moved into the village. An enterprising developer had bought up a row of derelict miners' cottages and refitted them in the modern traditional style, and Bill was swept in with a load of artists, antique dealers and university lecturers. Like Tom, Bill was retired, but from what no one has been able to find out. The popular hypothesis is that he was some kind of teacher, but some locals with a wilder imagination propagated the legend that he had unsavoury connections with the secret services. There was certainly something clandestine about Bill. Most people say more than they know, but Bill gave the distinct impression of always knowing more than he was saying. When he spoke, he restricted himself to the question form, so that after a conversation with him you felt as if you had been thoroughly interrogated. These, together with being an outsider of unknown origins, meant that the villagers just didn't take to him at all. So when the members of the 'pub philosophy pub' began to put it about that Bill was the cause of Old Tom's troubles, the village was only too ready to believe it. And to be honest, there was an element of truth in the rumour. The facts of the matter are these.
Soon after he moved in, Bill took to visiting the pub every afternoon where he allowed himself one glass of gin and tonic. Anyone who drinks gin and tonic in a working class mining village can hardly be said to be making an effort to fit in, but whether Bill did it out of ignorance, defiance or just plain cussedness was just one more of the enigmatic mysteries that surrounded him. In any case, his choice of refreshment left him pretty isolated in the bar, and if he wanted a bit of company he would have to take the initiative himself. So, one Thursday afternoon, having noted on his previous Thursday visits the animated discussions going on in the back of the room, Bill asked the landlord,
"What's going on over there?"
"That's just the pub philosophy club," he was told.
So Bill shuffled over to the table, because he was interested in philosophy, because he hoped to pick up at bit of information for his spymasters, or just because he wanted a bit of company, who can tell?
"May I join you?" he asked, sitting down before anyone could refuse. The others looked at him for a minute, then carried on talking as if he wasn't there. But Bill sat on, and this was how he managed to acquire the status of an associate, never a full, member of the pub philosophy club.
For the first few Thursdays, Bill contented himself with listening. The membership began to acknowledge his presence with a grunt, without ever addressing him directly. Acceptance into small communities never comes quickly. Eventually, Bill began to impose himself in the conversations in his usual manner, by injecting troublesome questions at inopportune moments. "Why is the British interest more important than those of other nations?" "What makes you think that women should have the same rights as men?" "Isn't it sometimes necessary to have a dictatorship?" These sort of questions always got right up Old Tom's nose. In his view, a lot of things were self-evident and to question them was to reveal yourself as either an idiot or, worse still, a traitor to Britain and the great British culture. Old Tom tended to treat Bill's questions with the contempt he felt they deserved, either by ignoring them completely or fixing the enquirer with a hostile stare before moving on to the next part of his argument. The others, of course, followed his lead, but the lack of response never seemed to damp Bill's enthusiasm and the questions kept coming.
Things came to a head one Thursday when the group seemed a little stuck for a topic to discuss. It was the football close season, parliament was in recess and no politicians, or even celebrities, had been up to any noteworthy mischief. The group were sitting in silence when Bill sidled over with his gin and tonic. So, to break the ice, he asked,
"What if the world wasn't the way it is, but was completely different?"
Well, this was just too much for Old Tom. I mean, how much stupidity could a man be expected to tolerate? Silence, or even a frosty look, was a completely inadequate response to such an inane thought.
"If the world wasn't the way it was," he muttered, angrily, "it wouldn't be the world, would it? It would be something else."
Tom's acolytes smiled. Old Tom certainly had the unwanted interloper there. But Bill wasn't finished.
"Why would the world not be the world if it was a bit different?" he added.
Tom resorted to his cold stare, and initiated a discussion on the oil price, the economy and how the vested interests of the rich and powerful always overcame the needs and rights of the working man. It seemed as if normal service had been resumed, but, as Old Tom's disciples were to discover, they had just witnessed the beginning of the end.
Old Tom appeared for the meeting on the next Thursday, but took no active part. The main agenda seemed to be the role of Britain in maintaining world peace, a subject on which Tom was known to have strong views, as he did on everything. But he sat there in silence, listening to his old friends putting forward their opinions, which were in fact his opinions recycled second-hand. The landlord, looking over from the bar, noticed that Old Tom seemed mostly uninterested in the proceedings, his eyes coming alive only when Bill interjected one of his previously unwanted and senseless questions. These questions were, of course, dealt with by the group as before, by being ignored, the old members following Old Tom's unofficial but unchallenged guidelines, and each time Tom' eyes sank back into a disappointed disinterest. According to the landlord's testimony, Tom was slumped when he came into the pub that Thursday, but was slumped even more when he left.
These then are the public facts of the matter, which wafted around the village with the usual distortions and additions that rumours accumulate in their travels. But in itself this public knowledge doesn't solve the mystery. The reasons for the changes in Old Tom are private, behind the closed doors of Tom's home, and in the secret recesses of his mind.
"Why would the world not be the world if it was a bit different?" Although Old Tom had dismissed this question in his usual offhand way when Bill had raised it, it came back to bother him again and again during following week. It kept him awake at night, demanding, so it seemed, some kind of answer. It made him think about himself. As a child he had been 'little Tom', in the army 'young Tom'. Down the mines he had been 'Mr Tom' to his subordinates, and now he was 'Old Tom'. So many Toms, and, when he thought about it, all so different. And yet, he was sure, they were fundamentally the same Tom, he still was who he was. He wasn't someone else because he had changed over time. He went for his usual walks along the river, stopping at the bank and gazing into the water. This river had been there for centuries, much, much longer than when the mines had been sunk below the ground and the houses built above it. Yet, watching a floating leaf speed downstream, it struck him that the actual water in any part of the river changed very few seconds. So was it the same river or a constant procession of new rivers? Once you start questioning, everything seems so uncertain.
By the end of that week, poor Old Tom didn't have an opinion left. He could no longer be certain about anything. He was distracted, so deep in thought trying to find answers that he was oblivious to the rest of the world. And he was depressed as the answers refused to come. Quite simply, to those how knew him he had just suddenly 'lost it'.
It's been a few months since these events took place, and I'm pleased to report that Old Tom seems to be improving a little. Now he occasionally notices people when they pass him. He didn't say anything at the "pub philosophy club's" meetings for months, but now, once or twice during the afternoon, his voice can be heard. But only ever to ask an occasional question.
James Gault
June 2012 (Previously published in Oxford University CE Philosophy Review )
THE MYSTERIOUS MURDER ON 55TH AVENUE
by Nmesoma Okechukwu
CHAPTER ONE
The night was as pitch black as any night could get; the killers had chosen a night when the storm was thick and there were less cars and eyes about, which meant less spectators. The storm had gone on for at least an hour; heavy drops of unforgiving rain was blocking out the night sounds, when a grey van pulled into 53rd avenue. They had been driving around Works avenue for at least four times. Not that you would have noticed if you happened to be spying from your window, yes, they circled the 50 to 55th avenue about four times but even the most observable eye would have missed it. The first time they circled the selected avenues, it was on a red shiny sedan booming loud music into the night air in a sort of careless provocation. No one would have thought to suspect such a harmless car, probably filled with teenagers who didn’t care what time of night it was as they blasted their speakers in full volume through the chilled night air. The second time they circled, they were driving an average sized delivery truck quietly stream-rolling through the night; that of course was not a cause for alarm.
But this time they stopped at 53rd avenue, their first stop at the avenue that one night, most of the residents of the avenue, if not all, were already asleep. Two houses down was their mark, but they were in no hurry to complete their mission, they were not principled murderers, they were just really good ones. The car stood on the blindside of the brick red building they were packed beside; no one in the windows would have seen anything in the dreary wet night. For a while, they talked in hushed tones, and seemingly argued a bit before they moved on past 55th and zoomed on to the highway.
A seventh car appeared coming into the avenue, that is if you were counting, but that was not in the least bit abnormal in a night in the mostly quiet neighborhood. This seventh car was blue, long, easily looked like a Chevrolet brand, though the branding was not clear even in the blinding light of the street lights. That was it; the blinding light meant every thief and crook steered clear of the avenue. Not one robbery, pilfering or even a simple burglary had been noted in this one avenue for straight thirty years. That was all mostly thanks to the grand house of the Humphries looming large at 55th avenue. Truly no sane creature, living or dead, would think to do harm to the avenue, let alone the 55th as the Humphries were a bunch of high classed individuals. People believed that just thinking to attempt a break-in at the Humphries was in itself a suicidal one. Indeed it was, the security surrounding the building could only be rivaled by one around a nuclear bomb site, but that was what the five men cooped up in the blue car were preparing to go up against.
Finally, the car stopped at the large gate leading into 55th avenue. Four of the men had been there, one way or another, in the name of one thing or the other, in the past six months pretending to bring business, but really just examining and digging up as much information as they could about the place. A job this dangerous required patience leading to longsuffering; nothing was rushed, nothing was compromised, everything was a fact, and not one thing was theorized. The gate was electromagnetically powered and encrypted; only the head security could open it, or any of the Humphries cars, apart from the encrypted key, any other method to open the gate was nothing but Hail Mary. Motion cameras, sensors, alarms lined the entire place and each night, the wires curling the top of the walls were supercharged with electricity so that it would easily fry anyone who dared to make it that far. The doors leading into the mansion might be as easy to crack as an alien portal would be. Let’s not count the number of security men on hand at night, or their qualifications; it was indeed nuclear bomb site security.
Encrypted keys had a weakness, they send signals, and anything that could tune into their frequency can get the encryption. Of course, it took a well-experienced hacker working around the clock for more than two weeks to be able to design and code a device that could tap into the key’s frequency and receive the signal just as the gate does. After that, they might as well make millions of keys to open the gate and sell it on the black market if they so wished. The encryption code changing each week didn’t help much, because each time it changed, the little device they planted near the compound would pick up the new code and adjust their key accordingly. That meant that the gate was as good as open.
One snag that could have meant that their efforts to get the key to the door was nothing more than an effort was the 24-hour security men positioned at the gate. An unusual car would have meant the security men would raise their eyebrows about how they were able to open the gate, and that would have meant the police seizing them before they were even thoroughly driven into the compound- that is, if the security men didn’t feel like attacking themselves. But of course, all their time and patience didn’t resolve around them getting caught at the gate. The blue Chevrolet looked thoroughly like that driven by Kentucky Humphrey, so whatever misgivings the security men may have were already settled; the storm would hide any irregularities. Kentucky Humphrey mostly stayed out till 2 o’clock a.m. There was but one hour before the real Humphrey found his way back home and raised eyebrows, but they’d be gone long before that. They took their time to plan and they knew the accuracy of their plans, just as much as they believed in the accuracy of its results.
The large gold-encrusted gate opened fluidly as the car approached it. The car drove into the well-lit over 2 acres compound packing beside the over-imposing house.
“We’re ready, yeah?” One of the men, the only one in a red leather jacket, asked.
“You think the devil asked that of his renegade angels when they launched an attack on God?” the driver joked, he had a well-shaven mustache and a thick English accent.
The rest of them laughed, except the one in red. He kept observing the building as if it would suddenly start moving and smash into their car killing them all. Anyone that saw him then might think his crinkled brows meant he was scared of going into the building or maybe was having second thoughts, but his advanced mind left no space for qualms of such manners.
“What is it, Yej, not experiencing the first fear of your life tonight are you?” another one asked the one in red, Yej, tapping him playfully on his leather jacket and laughing heartily. To anyone around that saw the men, it would look like they were getting ready to order ice-cream rather than planning to murder one of the most powerful men in the world.
“I’ve taken up arms against worse and graced it thoughtlessly” Yej sniffed a short laugh, “this is like dropping a bomb in Libya compared to my other endeavors. Jeremy, Paul, let’s go. Mr. Cordon Humphrey invited the devil to his home, and the devil aint leaving without making a mess, especially if you poked him”
“We’re with you Yej, he deserves everything we’ve got coming to him” Paul said, throwing the door open carelessly. The only black one in the group was Paul, and no one could move around as stealthily as he could. He’d done spy work for some government agencies at a certain time but it felt to him that his talents were being wasted on the mundane missions he was assigned. He loved the mysterious, dangerous and peculiar missions; and it seemed those types of missions only happened at the wrong end of the law and that was where he eventually saw himself. The more difficult a mission was, the simpler it was for his brain to unravel.
“Let’s make some chaos” Jeremy said, stepping out with Paul. Jeremy was a weapon’s expert as Yej, but no one could beat him at chess either; he could make play with a dangerous mission involving a thousand outcomes as he would walking down the street with about a dozen cars zooming past him.
Yej stepped out from the front passenger seat covering his head with his hooded jacket, and the three of them marched into the building.
The last two would stay back and report on anything they see from the cameras they’ve got planted inside the building at the places they deemed as the most important corners through their communication earpieces; this would only send signals instead of actual words, in case the police managed to pick it up somehow. Staying at a base outside the building and carrying out the surveillance operation was impossible. The house was built like a black box, no frequency could penetrate or escape it, except unless they were connected to the big antenna built into the compound. Every other signal was interrupted and jumbled. Every server in the building was connected to the antenna and was heavily encrypted by the best anti-hacking companies there were. Mr. Cordon Humphrey was not an ordinary man neither was he one that should be toyed with, though he frequently toyed with people.
Yej and his accomplices approached the door, knowing not to touch the door which was DNA coded with the DNA information of the workers and of course, the Humphrey family members or other trusted frequent visitor. One touch at the door would have it read your DNA, and if your data was not recorded in its data system, it would yell intruder in a very loud and angry voice. Jeremy had witnessed the yelling on a day when he was delivering mail to the family. It happened to a former housekeeper whom Liliana Humphrey took into her pretty little head to fire the day before; claiming the housekeeper was not doing a very good job of arranging her closet. And since she had access to the building’s computer system, went ahead and deleted the woman’s data and history of work in the household. Well, let’s say the woman went into a shock when the door started crying because she touched it. For a paranoid weapons-manufacturer, Mr. Cordon Humphrey really outdid himself in designing and planning the house’s security. Robbing hell might have been an easier feat for anybody.
This would seem the hardest part of their mission but it was indeed the most simple. Mr. Humphrey had built the system to be lax since he had wayward children who didn’t care much about his strict rules and protective methods. The lax was that the system was so sensitive, it could read DNA off of gloves; that way the billionaire’s children wouldn’t need to strip their gloves just to get into their father’s house. Not everyone knew about the system’s by-function, and they wouldn’t have known if junior Humphrey, Kentucky, hadn’t told that to a girl they sent as a snitch in one of his drunken episodes at a night club.
‘Well, that was the singular failure of the entire well-structured system’ Yej thought as he pushed his newly gloved hand on the door. The three of them watched the door open majestically, revealing the stunning and breath-taking interior. Yej had always admired the place when he worked for Mr. Humphrey, right until the man fired him and took his research, claiming that their contract allowed him such authority. He wasn’t admiring the house then though, his eyes were fixed on the upper rooms.
Mr. Humphrey didn’t think that Yej was worth anything, but actually he was his arch nemesis. Whatever Mr. Humphrey’s brain raveled, Yej’s unraveled. It usually found him at cross-roads with Mr. Humphrey who never wants his brilliance challenged. Where Mr. Humphrey saw the strong points of a security system, Yej saw its weaknesses. Yej was the last person Mr. Humphrey should have messed with, but instead, he had taken Yej’s project and patented it, making millions off of it while not giving Yej, the project’s creator, even a damaged coin.
Before they came into the dimly lit living space, Paul and Jeremy had covered their heads with hoods as well. The three of them went into the room with heads turned to the floor. Yej often wondered why security cameras were always placed on top while they could be placed at a convenient place on the floor and it might have served its purpose better. Not that any camera position would have helped them though. Their heads were down because of the man at the camera room, not necessarily because of the cameras.
They reached the first landing, and with a courteous nod, they parted ways with Paul who went down the hallway while Yej and Jeremy ascended the next flight of stairs.
Yej and Jeremy stopped in front of Mr. Humphrey’s door. This was the toughest part of their mission, if they stepped close enough to the door, it would read their DNA and not finding a match with the one in its system, it would not only activate an alarm but activate lasers hot enough to melt even the most thick-skinned man to the ground in microseconds. Not even a glove would fool this particular door. Yej nodded at Jeremy without looking at him, and Jeremy departed down the right side of the corridor wordlessly.
Yej stood staring at the door as if the door represented all that he had been fighting his whole life. He glanced once at his watch unhurriedly and continued to stare at the door. He knew everything he needed to know about the security system embedded in the door, he knew he couldn’t bypass it without having to trip the alarm; that is if he didn’t trip the laser first. The world had had enough of wealthy filths who use their money to oppress others; one less wealthy jerk would make the world rejoice, so really, this was more of a community service than murder.
Yej was thinking back to the last time he saw Mr. Humphrey; his mind could remember every detail of the events that occurred that day and everything the multi-billionaire said to him, word to word. He remembered how the man had laughed off his threats of dragging him to court for stealing his project and converting it into his. Mr. Humphrey had clearly told him, in the manner a lion would use to talk to a cornered prey, that he should not bother with a law court, because none on earth could offer him justice. He said those words and more, before he fired him, had his men drag him out and made sure his ugly mug was not to be seen several meters from the company building. Well, Yej had taken his advice and hadn’t wasted his time in a court that would clearly have denied him justice, and made some ground rules for justice by himself.
Jeremy soon returned carrying a kicking figure, heavily muffled that not even the faintest sound escaped it. As soon as they were in front of the door, Jeremy threw Mary-Ann Humphrey haphazardly at the door. The Humphrey bumped into the door with a small thud, Yej stepped beside the young lady just as the door opened. He and the lady walked in and he flung her back before the door closed. Jeremy dragged her in as he entered; otherwise, the alarm would trip and kill whoever was unlucky to be standing there at that moment.
The door closed, and they all stood in the quite dark room. A little fear flickered through Yej as he realized that this was the most uncalculated part of their plan; they could either turn on the light and find Mr. Humphrey sitting on his bed with a gun pointed at them or turn it on to find him sleeping innocently, as if he were so. This was the only variable they could not impose the order of control on. Their plan could fail or succeed, they just had to turn on the switch and find out. His hand found the switch on a wall, and with a racing heart he flicked it on. He breathed out as he saw that Mr. Humphrey and his wife Melissa were sleeping soundly in their bed, as if all was well with their world. Well, it wasn’t, not as long as Yej was in it as well.
Yej didn’t rush them; he watched them patiently as they both groggily woke up, rubbing their eyes and murmuring about the disturbance. He waited for them to fully feel awake and take in the scene playing out before them, he’d waited for more than a year, three more minutes would not kill him.
Mr. Humphrey was the first to come to, jerking into alertness as he saw his muffled crying daughter. He looked from Jeremy to Yej making no connection to who they were, a second glance at Yej brought back some recognition. And Yej knew that Mr. Humphrey had recognized him because of the way his face turned grave and pallid as he stared at him. Yej gave him a friendly smile in return for his grave face.
“Who are you, how dare you!” his wife was now barking, “I’ll call security and have done with you two”. She said getting up from the bed. Yej had withdrawn a gun from his leather jacket. A single shot from it sent a pin laced with poison flying towards Mrs. Humphrey. It embedded on her neck and sent her convulsing on the floor within a space of seconds. The gun was accurate and silent, just as Yej designed it to be.
“So…” Yej said airily, shrugging his shoulders like a toddler caught with his hand on the cookie jar would, “We see each other twice in a day boss, that’s a good sign, don’t you agree?”
Mr. Humphrey now had his hand up in surrender, his lips murmuring unintelligible pleas. For someone who built weapons that would render thousands dead in minutes, he sure loved his pretty little life.
Mary-Ann shot off from the floor where Jeremy had her kneeling as she made to run towards her mother. She fell half-way to where her mother lay convulsing still, joining in the convulsion as a pin stuck itself on her back.
Yej had the gun by his side when Mr. Humphrey looked round from Jeremy to him to see who had shot his daughter, looking as innocent as ever.
“Where were we? Sorry, they kept interrupting boss” he said with a low devilish chuckle, “I recall boss does not like being interrupted, not for anything”
“Spare my wife and daughter and I will give you anything you want, ANYTHING” Mr. Humphrey pleaded.
Yej cast a quick glance from mother to daughter, and returned his calm gaze to Mr. Humphrey. His wife and daughter were already marked for death and nothing could change that, but he wasn’t going to tell Mr. Humphrey that. He still needed the man to do quite a few things for him. “Okay, I’ll take you up on your word of anything” he said calmly, “But you better hurry as you do whatever you’re told to do, with no fish business attached or tic-toc-tic-toc, they die”.
Mr. Humphrey nodded vigorously, “I swear, I swear”, he said hurriedly.
“You’re a shady human being, so I’m guessing you have lots of money stocked in the form of Bitcoin. It’s untraceable money” Yej said.
Mr. Humphrey nodded.
“How much exactly?” Yej asked.
“Around some hundreds of millions in separate account wallets”, Mr. Humphrey replied breathlessly.
“Well? Get to transferring” Yej said, handing Mr. Humphrey a paper with five different wallet ids.
Mr. Humphrey scurried around for his laptop, turning it on hurriedly. All the while that he worked on his laptop; he kept half an eye on his wife and daughter to make sure they still exhibited signs of life. Yej knew they wouldn’t be dead, not at least for another thirty minutes, and for that he wasn’t bothered. As long as Mr. Humphrey thought they were alive and there was still a way to save them, he was still in the clear. He did keep a close eye on Mr. Humphrey though, to make sure he didn’t try to over-smart himself.
After Yej watched the transactions pull through, he raised the gun and pointed it at its target.
“There, you have it. It’s done, you’re rich, now give them the antidote, please. If you want to take a life, take mine, I’m the…” a pin embedded in his forehead and he fell forward from the chair he sat on, starting to convulse on the ground like his wife and daughter.
Yej had shot him because he was trying to reveal too much. He would have rather wanted to add a few more words of his own, some parting brief or something like that but then the cops would pick a clue, the right clue. They would have a lot of clues of course; they were happy to provide them with those, with plenty of those. He turned to Jeremy and they exchanged a triumphant nod wordlessly.
Yej went around collecting the pins from the bodies of the convulsing family, taking great care not to touch the tip; the poisonous fluid smeared on it was still potent enough to take care of about a hundred people. Each one he plucked from the vibrating bodies, he deposited on a plastic bag he had with him. When he was done, he safely tucked the plastic bag into the pocket of his leather jacket.
He went over to where Mary-Ann lay convulsing and picked her up, he was sorry she had to die for the sins of her father, but there was no way around it. They had rigged the game to make sure the cops picked up all the wrong cards and mercy was not a part of the rules they laid down. Pulling the dying girl wordlessly, he gently touched her body to the door and it opened. He walked out with her and flung her back carelessly as the door made to close. Jeremy picked her up and dragged her body out again, and flung her back into the room to die with the rest of her dying family before the door finally closed.
They went down the stairs and met up with Paul who gave them a single nod before they all turned and walked out.
CHAPTER TWO
Bailey had to show her security badge three times before she could get into the compound, and now she stood on the threshold of the building waiting for one of the security men at the door to confirm that she indeed had a right to be there. It took a while before the security men nodded her in. The building she found herself in was daunting, but the situation did not call for admiration whatsoever. A powerful man had just been murdered, and what’s worse, in his very own home. Rumors had already filtered through the precinct and had spread like wildfire through the entire nation. Some theories stated that it was an attack from an enemy nation seeking front-line knowledge on the nation’s weapon systems or at least they were looking to take out the major player in the design and formulation of weapons. Conspiracy theories were abound and there must have been a hundred different theories already, if one decided to listen to the chit-chatter.
She straightened the jacket of her navy blue suit as she made her way up the spiral tessellated stairs. Every agent or officer who knew how to dig up their own bone was present, all that was missing was the Salvation Army and its Calvary. Some rooms were strictly cordoned off from most of the police force present, only the top heads could go into those restricted sections. She waved at the S.O as she made her way to the second flight of stairs.
She didn’t know what she expected, but she could not have expected what she found. The army were around, stationed at every corner, on uniform and no nonsense mood. She was wrong, the Salvation Army did come. She warily climbed the last stairs and provided her badge to no one in particular. They didn’t look at her badge before one of them pointed at a room and waved her in. She nodded and entered.
She didn’t know why the Director had requested her presence there; she was not a special agent of any sort. She was a desk-junkie, an ordinary CSI; she was rarely in the field, at least not after THAT incidence. Remembering the unfortunate trial incidence made her flinch as she stepped into the room, though she managed to change the expression to a calm smile as heads swung round to her direction. Most of the people in the room went back to their tasks not minding her. Director Dan waved her over. He was seated on a stool watching something on the flat monitor he held in his hand, a large monitor stood in front of him playing something in mono-color. Five officers stood around him, eyes concentrated on the large monitor as they scanned the video, probably for any clue as to the identity of the murderers.
She came up to them and stood next to Fred, their criminal behaviorist. She gave him a small nod, which he probably didn’t notice because his eyes never left the monitor with his face crinkled in concentration. She turned her attention to the large monitor in front of her; the video feed was probably from three different cameras in three different angles. It displayed five men heading up the stairs, their heads down, hoods covering the color of their hair or any identifiable thing that could have helped in pinpointing the criminals. They all wore long-sleeved shirts of varying colors; blue, red, green, green, white. It was not the proper criminal etiquette, Bailey noted but she dared not voice her opinion on the account of looking remarkably stupid. She knew most criminals wore a color code, mostly shaded in grey or the black spectrum, probably their attempt to decrease visibility if anyone were to see them in their dark arts. These criminals defiled rules, they didn’t only wear unconventional colors but bright bold colors; it was like they were making a statement. But what statement exactly?
She took a peek at the monitor Director Dan had clutched in his hand, and could tell that it was the same video feed on the large monitor, but probably through night vision cameras because they were brighter and layered in greenish tint. Her second observation watching the video through the monitor in the Director’s hands was that their T-shirts were all checked, must be for some uniformity, she conceded. She remembered a class she had in criminal analysis that explained the instinct in criminals to have something that proved them as a team; might be the way they choose to hang their key chains, or wore their colors, and millions of other stuffs like that. This gang’s uniformity came in checked T-shirts.
“Okay, so according to the video, they all went into the room at the same time” Director Dan finally spoke.
Fred screwed his eyes at the video as was his wont whenever his brain-wheels were turning, “yes, but the clues from the murder and that of the video feed are inconclusive”
“Are you saying the video is wrong or that the murder analyst missed something?” George asked.
“Might be both or none, my point is that there’s a huge piece of the puzzle that’s still missing” Fred pointed out.
“Can someone fill in Miss Tennyson on the facts so far?” Director Dan asked.
Fred looked at her, and conceded, unhappily, to be the one to do the explaining. “As you might have heard; Mr. Humphrey, his wife Melissa and youngest daughter Mary-Ann were murdered last night in Mr. Humphrey’s room at approximately 1:30 to 2 o’clock of the morning. Weapon of murder seems to be poison-dart but till the result from the lab is back, the fact is inconclusive”
“How did we guess it was poison?” Bailey asked. She had been trying to run an image of the incidence in her head and compare it with the images from the cameras planted around the house; something was amiss, even if her mind couldn’t tell her what.
“All three of them had a little prick that could have been made by a pin in their body leading us to conclude they were injected with a poisonous chemical; back, neck and forehead” Fred replied plaintively.
“Am guessing Mr. Humphrey had the head shot?” she asked.
“You guess correctly” Director Dan said, “what are all your theories, I want to hear them”
“This is not a day thing, and obviously the attack was carried out by trained professionals, I’m suspecting this must take years for the planning” one of the men at their circle said. Bailey didn’t recognize him but she noted he had on a blue tie.
“Obviously” Director Dan said as if what the man had done was explain how bright the sun was shining.
“Our data is largely inconclusive, nothing fits. The security men say that the only car that drove into the compound at the time of the attack was that of Kentucky Humphrey, which puts him up as a suspect. Then let’s say he truly is a suspect, the camera in the garden only showed us three men coming out of his car the first time he drove in, but inside the house the cameras reveal they were in fact five. And let’s say the other two were workers here and were already inside, it still does not explain what Mary-Ann was doing in her parents’ room at the time of attack and how she was caught in the line of fire. It’s still inconclusive if we factor in the intentions of the murderers; was it a crime on the national level or was it carried out by a highly trained operative organization. And lastly, what was it that they gained from Mr. Humphrey’s murder, that is if they were aiming at murder. If some of these questions are answered, it might help point us at least to a definable direction as to who the murderers might be” Fred stated.
Director Dan breathed in through his mouth and shook his head slowly, “Wouldn’t it be great if the answers to those questions just magically dropped down from heaven?” he murmured, “In the meantime, you’re right. We need conclusive data. Fred, take Bailey with you and head into the crime scene. Gather as much information as you can, the rest of us will try to pick up any hints left to us by the camera feed” he said waving them away and pointing at the room next to the one they were in.
She and Fred exchanged looks but did not question the order they were given as they both turned and walked out of the room. Bailey was trying to think up what they were going to say to the soldiers in front of Mr. Humphrey’s room when they approached the men. They didn’t say anything, Fred produced his ID and they were nodded in.
When Bailey entered, the sight of the three color-drained corpses were what she first saw. The sight that left her sick was that of little Miss Mary-Ann, the nineteen year old Humphrey. She remembered her smiling face on a television interview she took part in about a month ago, when she announced that she and her siblings were going to stay over at their dad’s for this Christmas holiday. Well, a red Christmas holiday has turned into a black nightmarish mourning. The world was such a cruel place, she thought as she followed Fred over to one of the four men photographing every nook and cranny of the crime scene.
“Hi, I’m Fred. I’m with NYPD; I’d love to ask some questions on any information regarding the crime scene” Fred said, producing his badge.
“Wait a while, I’m almost done and I’d have time to talk to you” the man said. He was plainly dressed in white and wore sparkling white gloves.
Fred nodded and he and Bailey retreated to a corner. From there, Bailey could hear half the words that were spoken in the room. From what she could hear, they had Kentucky Humphrey under arrest and he was being questioned at that particular time. Some people were averse to the thought that Kentucky could have been behind the murder of some of his family members, some people were all for it, stating he clearly had motives and stating the fact that it would take someone really close, who knew every security strengths and weaknesses, to try to pull off an attack on a place this heavily guarded and secured; both technically and manually.
Some rejected the notion by saying that if it the murder was carried out by Kentucky, he wouldn’t risk bringing in the murderers with his car. But for the meantime, there were no clues to go on but Kentucky so no theory could talk him out of the crime for now.
Bailey knew it could not be Kentucky since no one would steal an apple and still raise it up for the world to see; no matter how dumb Kentucky might be, he certainly couldn’t be that dumb. But she couldn’t say she despised the arrest, Kentucky was the only clue they had to go on with.
The camera man seemed to be done with his pictures and headed towards them. Fred extended a handshake but the man rejected it by putting up his white gloved hands and shaking his head.
“I’m Lucas, I’m with the army” the man quickly said, “So what do you want to know?”
“How about everything you know so far?” Bailey asked.
Lucas nodded, “They were five, wore colored clothes and a hood and came in with Kentucky’s car, or at least something that looked like it. It was raining so no one could have known for sure”
“But there’s a tough electronic security in the gate that no one could by-pass as I am led to believe, making it that the gate can either be opened with a special key or by the security men. The gate was opened by a special key, hence the fact that they must have used Kentucky’s car, the real one, and yet he said his car was not stolen that night, that it couldn’t have been” Fred stated.
“Or someone found a way to beat the security at the gate, come on, computers can be beaten” Lucas pointed out.
Fred wasn’t about to give into that theory, “That easily, wasn’t there a backup system to the gate that meant if someone tried to meddle with it let alone hack it, it would go offline and report the threat”.
“And? It’s still that same computer that has to report the threat when hacked. Anyway, I don’t understand computers that much but what I understand so far is that they can all be beaten by lines of code” Lucas said.
“Come on, it was designed by the best minds in the country” Fred insisted.
“It was probably hacked by the best of a foreign country” Lucas stated quietly.
Fred’s eyebrows pricked a bit before he resumed his demure expression. Bailey felt that Fred had played on the man to try to get information he knew the army may know and yet not want to disclose. “What do you mean by that?” Fred asked, trying to feign little interest in the subject.
Lucas shrugged but said nothing more. Bailey knew that was it, the man was after all with the army and the army knew their business; more than the CIA, it seemed.
“Do you think this might be an international attack?” Fred pressed.
“Those are simply speculations” Lucas muttered.
Bailey guessed that the army was probably on to something more than speculations, but for now, that’s for the army to know and everyone else to guess at.
“Anyway, continuing with the crime scene, there’s been a sweep and no DNA was found, so there’s that for that” Lucas said.
“What about the door, how did they get it to open, was it forced entry?” Bailey asked.
“Forced entry on a 6ft rod iron door with an electronic system, not to mention a DNA matching system” Fred hurriedly explained with the expression of someone that had to respond to an extremely stupid question.
“DNA matching system?” Bailey asked.
“Yes, the door does not open for you if your DNA or that of someone with you does not match any in the system, it’s not operated by key or any…” and then he stopped with a short gasp, “how did they get through the door?”
“I know this puts Kentucky further in the line of offense but…” Lucas started.
“It was with Kentucky’s DNA, wasn’t it?” Fred concluded.
“Yes, but Kentucky said the system had a minor flaw, that it was really sensitive it could have read his DNA off his clothing” Lucas said, “which have been tested and proven by the police more than a couple times already”
“Okay, which of his other children were at home at the time of the crime?” Bailey asked.
“Liliana was in, Benjamin was also in, Marilyn is somewhere in Germany and was the only one of his children not at home for the holidays. Kentucky and Davis were not back by that time” Lucas answered.
“Hey, hey everyone listen to this!” someone in the room called and everyone diverted their attention to the man. He had something in his hand, “you see, Mr. Humphrey didn’t have a camera in his room, but he had a recorder” he said and pressed a button and a distorted high-pitched noise spilled across the room, some people held onto their ears. “Sorry, sorry” the man called again and turned a dial on the device he held, something came bursting forth from the speakers.
Fred’s face broke into a broad smile as the first words burst out from the speakers.
“Who are you, how dare you! I’ll call security and have done with you two”, it was probably from Melissa Humphrey.
A little swish in the air, magnified by the loudness of the speakers, was heard. The next sound was a thud. Everyone imagined it was Melissa falling.
“So…” the voice was deep and inhuman and brought questioning looks from the listening people, “we see each other twice in a day boss, that’s a good sign, don’t you agree?”
A groan was heard, some thumping feet followed by a thud, and there falls Mary-Ann in everybody’s mind.
“Where were we? Sorry, they kept interrupting boss” the voice boomed out again, again it sounded awkward and wrong; like it was vibrated a couple hundred times before being recorded, “I recall boss does not like being interrupted, not for anything”
“Spare my wife and daughter and I will give you anything you want, ANYTHING” Mr. Humphrey pleaded.
“Okay, I’ll take you up on your word of anything” the distorted voice said, “But you better hurry as you do whatever you’re told to do, with no fish business attached or tic-toc-tic-toc, they die”.
“I swear, I swear”, Mr. Humphrey said hurriedly.
“You’re a shady human being, so I’m guessing you have lots of money stocked in the form of Bitcoin. It’s untraceable money”
Silence.
“How much exactly?”
“Around some hundreds of millions in separate account wallets”, Mr. Humphrey replied breathlessly.
“Well? Get to transferring”
“That’s bullshit, what’s wrong with the voice?” Fred asked, immediately the silent break in the record started.
“I’m guessing it’s Toot, a children’s toy. Children use it to distort their voices and make it sound funny just as a kaleidoscope distorts colors. I know, the world’s best technology was beaten by a kid’s toy” a plump man in a black suit, with wild mustache said.
Mr. Humphrey’s voice sounded again, “There, you have it. It’s done, you’re rich, now give them the antidote, please. If you want to take a life, take mine, I’m the…”
“He’s the what?” a lady asked, exasperated.
“I’m sorry but that’s all the noise from the time of the attack, the murderers weren’t very chatty” the man with the control remote said.
“He knows them” Fred said in an undertone that Bailey barely heard. “You’re rich, you’re rich…” he repeated continuously as he thought, “He knows them; he knows they want his money, so international attack is ruled out. This attack is either by someone who works for him in the company, in the mansion, or even someone who’s family”
“Or someone who’s got a beef with him” Bailey added.
“Probably” Fred nodded, “this narrows it down. The murderers are as good as caught, I believe this clue will lead us right to them”.
The air in the room had already changed to that of a positive mood, everyone believed that the recorder gave them enough information to start searching for the people who murdered Mr. Humphrey, one of the country’s leading men in defense technology. If those murderers escaped without punishment, it would be a terrible blow to the nation; and anyone who was in the force would try everything to the last of their strength to bring the criminals to justice, and they wouldn’t give up. But even as Bailey heard the recording, even as hope peaked for the other officers on the message of the recording, hers was a complete loss of hope. The criminals were smart; if they distorted their voice, they knew there was a recorder. They didn’t call out their wallet ID because they were sure of the recorder and if they knew about the recorder, it could only mean that everything they heard were what the criminals wanted them to hear. This was nothing but a clue planted by the murderers to lead them off the true scent of their path. But she saw no other scent they could follow, all she could do was hope that they would take the false paths and somehow use it to step on the right ones. But she knew the probability of that happening were about a million to one, there was still that chance of one. All it needed was someone who could see beyond ordinary sense, go beyond the lines of the crime scene and come out with at least a shoe or a lace; that detective was just not her.
Contributed by Nmesoma Okechukwu
Nmesoma is a musician and short story writer from Nigeria.
The night was as pitch black as any night could get; the killers had chosen a night when the storm was thick and there were less cars and eyes about, which meant less spectators. The storm had gone on for at least an hour; heavy drops of unforgiving rain was blocking out the night sounds, when a grey van pulled into 53rd avenue. They had been driving around Works avenue for at least four times. Not that you would have noticed if you happened to be spying from your window, yes, they circled the 50 to 55th avenue about four times but even the most observable eye would have missed it. The first time they circled the selected avenues, it was on a red shiny sedan booming loud music into the night air in a sort of careless provocation. No one would have thought to suspect such a harmless car, probably filled with teenagers who didn’t care what time of night it was as they blasted their speakers in full volume through the chilled night air. The second time they circled, they were driving an average sized delivery truck quietly stream-rolling through the night; that of course was not a cause for alarm.
But this time they stopped at 53rd avenue, their first stop at the avenue that one night, most of the residents of the avenue, if not all, were already asleep. Two houses down was their mark, but they were in no hurry to complete their mission, they were not principled murderers, they were just really good ones. The car stood on the blindside of the brick red building they were packed beside; no one in the windows would have seen anything in the dreary wet night. For a while, they talked in hushed tones, and seemingly argued a bit before they moved on past 55th and zoomed on to the highway.
A seventh car appeared coming into the avenue, that is if you were counting, but that was not in the least bit abnormal in a night in the mostly quiet neighborhood. This seventh car was blue, long, easily looked like a Chevrolet brand, though the branding was not clear even in the blinding light of the street lights. That was it; the blinding light meant every thief and crook steered clear of the avenue. Not one robbery, pilfering or even a simple burglary had been noted in this one avenue for straight thirty years. That was all mostly thanks to the grand house of the Humphries looming large at 55th avenue. Truly no sane creature, living or dead, would think to do harm to the avenue, let alone the 55th as the Humphries were a bunch of high classed individuals. People believed that just thinking to attempt a break-in at the Humphries was in itself a suicidal one. Indeed it was, the security surrounding the building could only be rivaled by one around a nuclear bomb site, but that was what the five men cooped up in the blue car were preparing to go up against.
Finally, the car stopped at the large gate leading into 55th avenue. Four of the men had been there, one way or another, in the name of one thing or the other, in the past six months pretending to bring business, but really just examining and digging up as much information as they could about the place. A job this dangerous required patience leading to longsuffering; nothing was rushed, nothing was compromised, everything was a fact, and not one thing was theorized. The gate was electromagnetically powered and encrypted; only the head security could open it, or any of the Humphries cars, apart from the encrypted key, any other method to open the gate was nothing but Hail Mary. Motion cameras, sensors, alarms lined the entire place and each night, the wires curling the top of the walls were supercharged with electricity so that it would easily fry anyone who dared to make it that far. The doors leading into the mansion might be as easy to crack as an alien portal would be. Let’s not count the number of security men on hand at night, or their qualifications; it was indeed nuclear bomb site security.
Encrypted keys had a weakness, they send signals, and anything that could tune into their frequency can get the encryption. Of course, it took a well-experienced hacker working around the clock for more than two weeks to be able to design and code a device that could tap into the key’s frequency and receive the signal just as the gate does. After that, they might as well make millions of keys to open the gate and sell it on the black market if they so wished. The encryption code changing each week didn’t help much, because each time it changed, the little device they planted near the compound would pick up the new code and adjust their key accordingly. That meant that the gate was as good as open.
One snag that could have meant that their efforts to get the key to the door was nothing more than an effort was the 24-hour security men positioned at the gate. An unusual car would have meant the security men would raise their eyebrows about how they were able to open the gate, and that would have meant the police seizing them before they were even thoroughly driven into the compound- that is, if the security men didn’t feel like attacking themselves. But of course, all their time and patience didn’t resolve around them getting caught at the gate. The blue Chevrolet looked thoroughly like that driven by Kentucky Humphrey, so whatever misgivings the security men may have were already settled; the storm would hide any irregularities. Kentucky Humphrey mostly stayed out till 2 o’clock a.m. There was but one hour before the real Humphrey found his way back home and raised eyebrows, but they’d be gone long before that. They took their time to plan and they knew the accuracy of their plans, just as much as they believed in the accuracy of its results.
The large gold-encrusted gate opened fluidly as the car approached it. The car drove into the well-lit over 2 acres compound packing beside the over-imposing house.
“We’re ready, yeah?” One of the men, the only one in a red leather jacket, asked.
“You think the devil asked that of his renegade angels when they launched an attack on God?” the driver joked, he had a well-shaven mustache and a thick English accent.
The rest of them laughed, except the one in red. He kept observing the building as if it would suddenly start moving and smash into their car killing them all. Anyone that saw him then might think his crinkled brows meant he was scared of going into the building or maybe was having second thoughts, but his advanced mind left no space for qualms of such manners.
“What is it, Yej, not experiencing the first fear of your life tonight are you?” another one asked the one in red, Yej, tapping him playfully on his leather jacket and laughing heartily. To anyone around that saw the men, it would look like they were getting ready to order ice-cream rather than planning to murder one of the most powerful men in the world.
“I’ve taken up arms against worse and graced it thoughtlessly” Yej sniffed a short laugh, “this is like dropping a bomb in Libya compared to my other endeavors. Jeremy, Paul, let’s go. Mr. Cordon Humphrey invited the devil to his home, and the devil aint leaving without making a mess, especially if you poked him”
“We’re with you Yej, he deserves everything we’ve got coming to him” Paul said, throwing the door open carelessly. The only black one in the group was Paul, and no one could move around as stealthily as he could. He’d done spy work for some government agencies at a certain time but it felt to him that his talents were being wasted on the mundane missions he was assigned. He loved the mysterious, dangerous and peculiar missions; and it seemed those types of missions only happened at the wrong end of the law and that was where he eventually saw himself. The more difficult a mission was, the simpler it was for his brain to unravel.
“Let’s make some chaos” Jeremy said, stepping out with Paul. Jeremy was a weapon’s expert as Yej, but no one could beat him at chess either; he could make play with a dangerous mission involving a thousand outcomes as he would walking down the street with about a dozen cars zooming past him.
Yej stepped out from the front passenger seat covering his head with his hooded jacket, and the three of them marched into the building.
The last two would stay back and report on anything they see from the cameras they’ve got planted inside the building at the places they deemed as the most important corners through their communication earpieces; this would only send signals instead of actual words, in case the police managed to pick it up somehow. Staying at a base outside the building and carrying out the surveillance operation was impossible. The house was built like a black box, no frequency could penetrate or escape it, except unless they were connected to the big antenna built into the compound. Every other signal was interrupted and jumbled. Every server in the building was connected to the antenna and was heavily encrypted by the best anti-hacking companies there were. Mr. Cordon Humphrey was not an ordinary man neither was he one that should be toyed with, though he frequently toyed with people.
Yej and his accomplices approached the door, knowing not to touch the door which was DNA coded with the DNA information of the workers and of course, the Humphrey family members or other trusted frequent visitor. One touch at the door would have it read your DNA, and if your data was not recorded in its data system, it would yell intruder in a very loud and angry voice. Jeremy had witnessed the yelling on a day when he was delivering mail to the family. It happened to a former housekeeper whom Liliana Humphrey took into her pretty little head to fire the day before; claiming the housekeeper was not doing a very good job of arranging her closet. And since she had access to the building’s computer system, went ahead and deleted the woman’s data and history of work in the household. Well, let’s say the woman went into a shock when the door started crying because she touched it. For a paranoid weapons-manufacturer, Mr. Cordon Humphrey really outdid himself in designing and planning the house’s security. Robbing hell might have been an easier feat for anybody.
This would seem the hardest part of their mission but it was indeed the most simple. Mr. Humphrey had built the system to be lax since he had wayward children who didn’t care much about his strict rules and protective methods. The lax was that the system was so sensitive, it could read DNA off of gloves; that way the billionaire’s children wouldn’t need to strip their gloves just to get into their father’s house. Not everyone knew about the system’s by-function, and they wouldn’t have known if junior Humphrey, Kentucky, hadn’t told that to a girl they sent as a snitch in one of his drunken episodes at a night club.
‘Well, that was the singular failure of the entire well-structured system’ Yej thought as he pushed his newly gloved hand on the door. The three of them watched the door open majestically, revealing the stunning and breath-taking interior. Yej had always admired the place when he worked for Mr. Humphrey, right until the man fired him and took his research, claiming that their contract allowed him such authority. He wasn’t admiring the house then though, his eyes were fixed on the upper rooms.
Mr. Humphrey didn’t think that Yej was worth anything, but actually he was his arch nemesis. Whatever Mr. Humphrey’s brain raveled, Yej’s unraveled. It usually found him at cross-roads with Mr. Humphrey who never wants his brilliance challenged. Where Mr. Humphrey saw the strong points of a security system, Yej saw its weaknesses. Yej was the last person Mr. Humphrey should have messed with, but instead, he had taken Yej’s project and patented it, making millions off of it while not giving Yej, the project’s creator, even a damaged coin.
Before they came into the dimly lit living space, Paul and Jeremy had covered their heads with hoods as well. The three of them went into the room with heads turned to the floor. Yej often wondered why security cameras were always placed on top while they could be placed at a convenient place on the floor and it might have served its purpose better. Not that any camera position would have helped them though. Their heads were down because of the man at the camera room, not necessarily because of the cameras.
They reached the first landing, and with a courteous nod, they parted ways with Paul who went down the hallway while Yej and Jeremy ascended the next flight of stairs.
Yej and Jeremy stopped in front of Mr. Humphrey’s door. This was the toughest part of their mission, if they stepped close enough to the door, it would read their DNA and not finding a match with the one in its system, it would not only activate an alarm but activate lasers hot enough to melt even the most thick-skinned man to the ground in microseconds. Not even a glove would fool this particular door. Yej nodded at Jeremy without looking at him, and Jeremy departed down the right side of the corridor wordlessly.
Yej stood staring at the door as if the door represented all that he had been fighting his whole life. He glanced once at his watch unhurriedly and continued to stare at the door. He knew everything he needed to know about the security system embedded in the door, he knew he couldn’t bypass it without having to trip the alarm; that is if he didn’t trip the laser first. The world had had enough of wealthy filths who use their money to oppress others; one less wealthy jerk would make the world rejoice, so really, this was more of a community service than murder.
Yej was thinking back to the last time he saw Mr. Humphrey; his mind could remember every detail of the events that occurred that day and everything the multi-billionaire said to him, word to word. He remembered how the man had laughed off his threats of dragging him to court for stealing his project and converting it into his. Mr. Humphrey had clearly told him, in the manner a lion would use to talk to a cornered prey, that he should not bother with a law court, because none on earth could offer him justice. He said those words and more, before he fired him, had his men drag him out and made sure his ugly mug was not to be seen several meters from the company building. Well, Yej had taken his advice and hadn’t wasted his time in a court that would clearly have denied him justice, and made some ground rules for justice by himself.
Jeremy soon returned carrying a kicking figure, heavily muffled that not even the faintest sound escaped it. As soon as they were in front of the door, Jeremy threw Mary-Ann Humphrey haphazardly at the door. The Humphrey bumped into the door with a small thud, Yej stepped beside the young lady just as the door opened. He and the lady walked in and he flung her back before the door closed. Jeremy dragged her in as he entered; otherwise, the alarm would trip and kill whoever was unlucky to be standing there at that moment.
The door closed, and they all stood in the quite dark room. A little fear flickered through Yej as he realized that this was the most uncalculated part of their plan; they could either turn on the light and find Mr. Humphrey sitting on his bed with a gun pointed at them or turn it on to find him sleeping innocently, as if he were so. This was the only variable they could not impose the order of control on. Their plan could fail or succeed, they just had to turn on the switch and find out. His hand found the switch on a wall, and with a racing heart he flicked it on. He breathed out as he saw that Mr. Humphrey and his wife Melissa were sleeping soundly in their bed, as if all was well with their world. Well, it wasn’t, not as long as Yej was in it as well.
Yej didn’t rush them; he watched them patiently as they both groggily woke up, rubbing their eyes and murmuring about the disturbance. He waited for them to fully feel awake and take in the scene playing out before them, he’d waited for more than a year, three more minutes would not kill him.
Mr. Humphrey was the first to come to, jerking into alertness as he saw his muffled crying daughter. He looked from Jeremy to Yej making no connection to who they were, a second glance at Yej brought back some recognition. And Yej knew that Mr. Humphrey had recognized him because of the way his face turned grave and pallid as he stared at him. Yej gave him a friendly smile in return for his grave face.
“Who are you, how dare you!” his wife was now barking, “I’ll call security and have done with you two”. She said getting up from the bed. Yej had withdrawn a gun from his leather jacket. A single shot from it sent a pin laced with poison flying towards Mrs. Humphrey. It embedded on her neck and sent her convulsing on the floor within a space of seconds. The gun was accurate and silent, just as Yej designed it to be.
“So…” Yej said airily, shrugging his shoulders like a toddler caught with his hand on the cookie jar would, “We see each other twice in a day boss, that’s a good sign, don’t you agree?”
Mr. Humphrey now had his hand up in surrender, his lips murmuring unintelligible pleas. For someone who built weapons that would render thousands dead in minutes, he sure loved his pretty little life.
Mary-Ann shot off from the floor where Jeremy had her kneeling as she made to run towards her mother. She fell half-way to where her mother lay convulsing still, joining in the convulsion as a pin stuck itself on her back.
Yej had the gun by his side when Mr. Humphrey looked round from Jeremy to him to see who had shot his daughter, looking as innocent as ever.
“Where were we? Sorry, they kept interrupting boss” he said with a low devilish chuckle, “I recall boss does not like being interrupted, not for anything”
“Spare my wife and daughter and I will give you anything you want, ANYTHING” Mr. Humphrey pleaded.
Yej cast a quick glance from mother to daughter, and returned his calm gaze to Mr. Humphrey. His wife and daughter were already marked for death and nothing could change that, but he wasn’t going to tell Mr. Humphrey that. He still needed the man to do quite a few things for him. “Okay, I’ll take you up on your word of anything” he said calmly, “But you better hurry as you do whatever you’re told to do, with no fish business attached or tic-toc-tic-toc, they die”.
Mr. Humphrey nodded vigorously, “I swear, I swear”, he said hurriedly.
“You’re a shady human being, so I’m guessing you have lots of money stocked in the form of Bitcoin. It’s untraceable money” Yej said.
Mr. Humphrey nodded.
“How much exactly?” Yej asked.
“Around some hundreds of millions in separate account wallets”, Mr. Humphrey replied breathlessly.
“Well? Get to transferring” Yej said, handing Mr. Humphrey a paper with five different wallet ids.
Mr. Humphrey scurried around for his laptop, turning it on hurriedly. All the while that he worked on his laptop; he kept half an eye on his wife and daughter to make sure they still exhibited signs of life. Yej knew they wouldn’t be dead, not at least for another thirty minutes, and for that he wasn’t bothered. As long as Mr. Humphrey thought they were alive and there was still a way to save them, he was still in the clear. He did keep a close eye on Mr. Humphrey though, to make sure he didn’t try to over-smart himself.
After Yej watched the transactions pull through, he raised the gun and pointed it at its target.
“There, you have it. It’s done, you’re rich, now give them the antidote, please. If you want to take a life, take mine, I’m the…” a pin embedded in his forehead and he fell forward from the chair he sat on, starting to convulse on the ground like his wife and daughter.
Yej had shot him because he was trying to reveal too much. He would have rather wanted to add a few more words of his own, some parting brief or something like that but then the cops would pick a clue, the right clue. They would have a lot of clues of course; they were happy to provide them with those, with plenty of those. He turned to Jeremy and they exchanged a triumphant nod wordlessly.
Yej went around collecting the pins from the bodies of the convulsing family, taking great care not to touch the tip; the poisonous fluid smeared on it was still potent enough to take care of about a hundred people. Each one he plucked from the vibrating bodies, he deposited on a plastic bag he had with him. When he was done, he safely tucked the plastic bag into the pocket of his leather jacket.
He went over to where Mary-Ann lay convulsing and picked her up, he was sorry she had to die for the sins of her father, but there was no way around it. They had rigged the game to make sure the cops picked up all the wrong cards and mercy was not a part of the rules they laid down. Pulling the dying girl wordlessly, he gently touched her body to the door and it opened. He walked out with her and flung her back carelessly as the door made to close. Jeremy picked her up and dragged her body out again, and flung her back into the room to die with the rest of her dying family before the door finally closed.
They went down the stairs and met up with Paul who gave them a single nod before they all turned and walked out.
CHAPTER TWO
Bailey had to show her security badge three times before she could get into the compound, and now she stood on the threshold of the building waiting for one of the security men at the door to confirm that she indeed had a right to be there. It took a while before the security men nodded her in. The building she found herself in was daunting, but the situation did not call for admiration whatsoever. A powerful man had just been murdered, and what’s worse, in his very own home. Rumors had already filtered through the precinct and had spread like wildfire through the entire nation. Some theories stated that it was an attack from an enemy nation seeking front-line knowledge on the nation’s weapon systems or at least they were looking to take out the major player in the design and formulation of weapons. Conspiracy theories were abound and there must have been a hundred different theories already, if one decided to listen to the chit-chatter.
She straightened the jacket of her navy blue suit as she made her way up the spiral tessellated stairs. Every agent or officer who knew how to dig up their own bone was present, all that was missing was the Salvation Army and its Calvary. Some rooms were strictly cordoned off from most of the police force present, only the top heads could go into those restricted sections. She waved at the S.O as she made her way to the second flight of stairs.
She didn’t know what she expected, but she could not have expected what she found. The army were around, stationed at every corner, on uniform and no nonsense mood. She was wrong, the Salvation Army did come. She warily climbed the last stairs and provided her badge to no one in particular. They didn’t look at her badge before one of them pointed at a room and waved her in. She nodded and entered.
She didn’t know why the Director had requested her presence there; she was not a special agent of any sort. She was a desk-junkie, an ordinary CSI; she was rarely in the field, at least not after THAT incidence. Remembering the unfortunate trial incidence made her flinch as she stepped into the room, though she managed to change the expression to a calm smile as heads swung round to her direction. Most of the people in the room went back to their tasks not minding her. Director Dan waved her over. He was seated on a stool watching something on the flat monitor he held in his hand, a large monitor stood in front of him playing something in mono-color. Five officers stood around him, eyes concentrated on the large monitor as they scanned the video, probably for any clue as to the identity of the murderers.
She came up to them and stood next to Fred, their criminal behaviorist. She gave him a small nod, which he probably didn’t notice because his eyes never left the monitor with his face crinkled in concentration. She turned her attention to the large monitor in front of her; the video feed was probably from three different cameras in three different angles. It displayed five men heading up the stairs, their heads down, hoods covering the color of their hair or any identifiable thing that could have helped in pinpointing the criminals. They all wore long-sleeved shirts of varying colors; blue, red, green, green, white. It was not the proper criminal etiquette, Bailey noted but she dared not voice her opinion on the account of looking remarkably stupid. She knew most criminals wore a color code, mostly shaded in grey or the black spectrum, probably their attempt to decrease visibility if anyone were to see them in their dark arts. These criminals defiled rules, they didn’t only wear unconventional colors but bright bold colors; it was like they were making a statement. But what statement exactly?
She took a peek at the monitor Director Dan had clutched in his hand, and could tell that it was the same video feed on the large monitor, but probably through night vision cameras because they were brighter and layered in greenish tint. Her second observation watching the video through the monitor in the Director’s hands was that their T-shirts were all checked, must be for some uniformity, she conceded. She remembered a class she had in criminal analysis that explained the instinct in criminals to have something that proved them as a team; might be the way they choose to hang their key chains, or wore their colors, and millions of other stuffs like that. This gang’s uniformity came in checked T-shirts.
“Okay, so according to the video, they all went into the room at the same time” Director Dan finally spoke.
Fred screwed his eyes at the video as was his wont whenever his brain-wheels were turning, “yes, but the clues from the murder and that of the video feed are inconclusive”
“Are you saying the video is wrong or that the murder analyst missed something?” George asked.
“Might be both or none, my point is that there’s a huge piece of the puzzle that’s still missing” Fred pointed out.
“Can someone fill in Miss Tennyson on the facts so far?” Director Dan asked.
Fred looked at her, and conceded, unhappily, to be the one to do the explaining. “As you might have heard; Mr. Humphrey, his wife Melissa and youngest daughter Mary-Ann were murdered last night in Mr. Humphrey’s room at approximately 1:30 to 2 o’clock of the morning. Weapon of murder seems to be poison-dart but till the result from the lab is back, the fact is inconclusive”
“How did we guess it was poison?” Bailey asked. She had been trying to run an image of the incidence in her head and compare it with the images from the cameras planted around the house; something was amiss, even if her mind couldn’t tell her what.
“All three of them had a little prick that could have been made by a pin in their body leading us to conclude they were injected with a poisonous chemical; back, neck and forehead” Fred replied plaintively.
“Am guessing Mr. Humphrey had the head shot?” she asked.
“You guess correctly” Director Dan said, “what are all your theories, I want to hear them”
“This is not a day thing, and obviously the attack was carried out by trained professionals, I’m suspecting this must take years for the planning” one of the men at their circle said. Bailey didn’t recognize him but she noted he had on a blue tie.
“Obviously” Director Dan said as if what the man had done was explain how bright the sun was shining.
“Our data is largely inconclusive, nothing fits. The security men say that the only car that drove into the compound at the time of the attack was that of Kentucky Humphrey, which puts him up as a suspect. Then let’s say he truly is a suspect, the camera in the garden only showed us three men coming out of his car the first time he drove in, but inside the house the cameras reveal they were in fact five. And let’s say the other two were workers here and were already inside, it still does not explain what Mary-Ann was doing in her parents’ room at the time of attack and how she was caught in the line of fire. It’s still inconclusive if we factor in the intentions of the murderers; was it a crime on the national level or was it carried out by a highly trained operative organization. And lastly, what was it that they gained from Mr. Humphrey’s murder, that is if they were aiming at murder. If some of these questions are answered, it might help point us at least to a definable direction as to who the murderers might be” Fred stated.
Director Dan breathed in through his mouth and shook his head slowly, “Wouldn’t it be great if the answers to those questions just magically dropped down from heaven?” he murmured, “In the meantime, you’re right. We need conclusive data. Fred, take Bailey with you and head into the crime scene. Gather as much information as you can, the rest of us will try to pick up any hints left to us by the camera feed” he said waving them away and pointing at the room next to the one they were in.
She and Fred exchanged looks but did not question the order they were given as they both turned and walked out of the room. Bailey was trying to think up what they were going to say to the soldiers in front of Mr. Humphrey’s room when they approached the men. They didn’t say anything, Fred produced his ID and they were nodded in.
When Bailey entered, the sight of the three color-drained corpses were what she first saw. The sight that left her sick was that of little Miss Mary-Ann, the nineteen year old Humphrey. She remembered her smiling face on a television interview she took part in about a month ago, when she announced that she and her siblings were going to stay over at their dad’s for this Christmas holiday. Well, a red Christmas holiday has turned into a black nightmarish mourning. The world was such a cruel place, she thought as she followed Fred over to one of the four men photographing every nook and cranny of the crime scene.
“Hi, I’m Fred. I’m with NYPD; I’d love to ask some questions on any information regarding the crime scene” Fred said, producing his badge.
“Wait a while, I’m almost done and I’d have time to talk to you” the man said. He was plainly dressed in white and wore sparkling white gloves.
Fred nodded and he and Bailey retreated to a corner. From there, Bailey could hear half the words that were spoken in the room. From what she could hear, they had Kentucky Humphrey under arrest and he was being questioned at that particular time. Some people were averse to the thought that Kentucky could have been behind the murder of some of his family members, some people were all for it, stating he clearly had motives and stating the fact that it would take someone really close, who knew every security strengths and weaknesses, to try to pull off an attack on a place this heavily guarded and secured; both technically and manually.
Some rejected the notion by saying that if it the murder was carried out by Kentucky, he wouldn’t risk bringing in the murderers with his car. But for the meantime, there were no clues to go on but Kentucky so no theory could talk him out of the crime for now.
Bailey knew it could not be Kentucky since no one would steal an apple and still raise it up for the world to see; no matter how dumb Kentucky might be, he certainly couldn’t be that dumb. But she couldn’t say she despised the arrest, Kentucky was the only clue they had to go on with.
The camera man seemed to be done with his pictures and headed towards them. Fred extended a handshake but the man rejected it by putting up his white gloved hands and shaking his head.
“I’m Lucas, I’m with the army” the man quickly said, “So what do you want to know?”
“How about everything you know so far?” Bailey asked.
Lucas nodded, “They were five, wore colored clothes and a hood and came in with Kentucky’s car, or at least something that looked like it. It was raining so no one could have known for sure”
“But there’s a tough electronic security in the gate that no one could by-pass as I am led to believe, making it that the gate can either be opened with a special key or by the security men. The gate was opened by a special key, hence the fact that they must have used Kentucky’s car, the real one, and yet he said his car was not stolen that night, that it couldn’t have been” Fred stated.
“Or someone found a way to beat the security at the gate, come on, computers can be beaten” Lucas pointed out.
Fred wasn’t about to give into that theory, “That easily, wasn’t there a backup system to the gate that meant if someone tried to meddle with it let alone hack it, it would go offline and report the threat”.
“And? It’s still that same computer that has to report the threat when hacked. Anyway, I don’t understand computers that much but what I understand so far is that they can all be beaten by lines of code” Lucas said.
“Come on, it was designed by the best minds in the country” Fred insisted.
“It was probably hacked by the best of a foreign country” Lucas stated quietly.
Fred’s eyebrows pricked a bit before he resumed his demure expression. Bailey felt that Fred had played on the man to try to get information he knew the army may know and yet not want to disclose. “What do you mean by that?” Fred asked, trying to feign little interest in the subject.
Lucas shrugged but said nothing more. Bailey knew that was it, the man was after all with the army and the army knew their business; more than the CIA, it seemed.
“Do you think this might be an international attack?” Fred pressed.
“Those are simply speculations” Lucas muttered.
Bailey guessed that the army was probably on to something more than speculations, but for now, that’s for the army to know and everyone else to guess at.
“Anyway, continuing with the crime scene, there’s been a sweep and no DNA was found, so there’s that for that” Lucas said.
“What about the door, how did they get it to open, was it forced entry?” Bailey asked.
“Forced entry on a 6ft rod iron door with an electronic system, not to mention a DNA matching system” Fred hurriedly explained with the expression of someone that had to respond to an extremely stupid question.
“DNA matching system?” Bailey asked.
“Yes, the door does not open for you if your DNA or that of someone with you does not match any in the system, it’s not operated by key or any…” and then he stopped with a short gasp, “how did they get through the door?”
“I know this puts Kentucky further in the line of offense but…” Lucas started.
“It was with Kentucky’s DNA, wasn’t it?” Fred concluded.
“Yes, but Kentucky said the system had a minor flaw, that it was really sensitive it could have read his DNA off his clothing” Lucas said, “which have been tested and proven by the police more than a couple times already”
“Okay, which of his other children were at home at the time of the crime?” Bailey asked.
“Liliana was in, Benjamin was also in, Marilyn is somewhere in Germany and was the only one of his children not at home for the holidays. Kentucky and Davis were not back by that time” Lucas answered.
“Hey, hey everyone listen to this!” someone in the room called and everyone diverted their attention to the man. He had something in his hand, “you see, Mr. Humphrey didn’t have a camera in his room, but he had a recorder” he said and pressed a button and a distorted high-pitched noise spilled across the room, some people held onto their ears. “Sorry, sorry” the man called again and turned a dial on the device he held, something came bursting forth from the speakers.
Fred’s face broke into a broad smile as the first words burst out from the speakers.
“Who are you, how dare you! I’ll call security and have done with you two”, it was probably from Melissa Humphrey.
A little swish in the air, magnified by the loudness of the speakers, was heard. The next sound was a thud. Everyone imagined it was Melissa falling.
“So…” the voice was deep and inhuman and brought questioning looks from the listening people, “we see each other twice in a day boss, that’s a good sign, don’t you agree?”
A groan was heard, some thumping feet followed by a thud, and there falls Mary-Ann in everybody’s mind.
“Where were we? Sorry, they kept interrupting boss” the voice boomed out again, again it sounded awkward and wrong; like it was vibrated a couple hundred times before being recorded, “I recall boss does not like being interrupted, not for anything”
“Spare my wife and daughter and I will give you anything you want, ANYTHING” Mr. Humphrey pleaded.
“Okay, I’ll take you up on your word of anything” the distorted voice said, “But you better hurry as you do whatever you’re told to do, with no fish business attached or tic-toc-tic-toc, they die”.
“I swear, I swear”, Mr. Humphrey said hurriedly.
“You’re a shady human being, so I’m guessing you have lots of money stocked in the form of Bitcoin. It’s untraceable money”
Silence.
“How much exactly?”
“Around some hundreds of millions in separate account wallets”, Mr. Humphrey replied breathlessly.
“Well? Get to transferring”
“That’s bullshit, what’s wrong with the voice?” Fred asked, immediately the silent break in the record started.
“I’m guessing it’s Toot, a children’s toy. Children use it to distort their voices and make it sound funny just as a kaleidoscope distorts colors. I know, the world’s best technology was beaten by a kid’s toy” a plump man in a black suit, with wild mustache said.
Mr. Humphrey’s voice sounded again, “There, you have it. It’s done, you’re rich, now give them the antidote, please. If you want to take a life, take mine, I’m the…”
“He’s the what?” a lady asked, exasperated.
“I’m sorry but that’s all the noise from the time of the attack, the murderers weren’t very chatty” the man with the control remote said.
“He knows them” Fred said in an undertone that Bailey barely heard. “You’re rich, you’re rich…” he repeated continuously as he thought, “He knows them; he knows they want his money, so international attack is ruled out. This attack is either by someone who works for him in the company, in the mansion, or even someone who’s family”
“Or someone who’s got a beef with him” Bailey added.
“Probably” Fred nodded, “this narrows it down. The murderers are as good as caught, I believe this clue will lead us right to them”.
The air in the room had already changed to that of a positive mood, everyone believed that the recorder gave them enough information to start searching for the people who murdered Mr. Humphrey, one of the country’s leading men in defense technology. If those murderers escaped without punishment, it would be a terrible blow to the nation; and anyone who was in the force would try everything to the last of their strength to bring the criminals to justice, and they wouldn’t give up. But even as Bailey heard the recording, even as hope peaked for the other officers on the message of the recording, hers was a complete loss of hope. The criminals were smart; if they distorted their voice, they knew there was a recorder. They didn’t call out their wallet ID because they were sure of the recorder and if they knew about the recorder, it could only mean that everything they heard were what the criminals wanted them to hear. This was nothing but a clue planted by the murderers to lead them off the true scent of their path. But she saw no other scent they could follow, all she could do was hope that they would take the false paths and somehow use it to step on the right ones. But she knew the probability of that happening were about a million to one, there was still that chance of one. All it needed was someone who could see beyond ordinary sense, go beyond the lines of the crime scene and come out with at least a shoe or a lace; that detective was just not her.
Contributed by Nmesoma Okechukwu
Nmesoma is a musician and short story writer from Nigeria.
Adventures in collaboration
By Holly Bargo
Last fall bestselling author Russ Towne, for whom I edit, suggested partnering with me on an anthology of short stories. Flattered and pleased by the invitation, I accepted. We agreed that I, being the freelance writer, would hop over to his genre: westerns.
That meant research.
As a teenager, I read Zane Grey. Now in my fifties, I figured the genre would have changed quite a bit over the decades. So, I downloaded some western titles to read and watched a couple of old John Wayne movies. Hey, I didn’t say that it was good research. Anyway, from reading my partner’s work when editing for him and the recently published books in the genre, I discovered that, nope, the genre hadn’t really changed.
Some aspects of westerns do differ from the genres in which I usually write, though. The Old West has its own lingo. A light hand is needed to incorporate that vernacular so that dialogue remains both natural and comprehensible. I have a bit of an advantage over my writing partner: I know horses.
Russ and I have very different writing styles. Plot drives his stories, mine are character-driven. Being a romance writer under usual circumstances, I learned that readers of westerns prefer their romances “gentle,” as Russ explained. In other words, nix on the explicit sexuality found in much of the romance genre. One may allude to the bedroom (or tabletop or hay loft), but one must not describe the activity therein. I muffled my inner vixen and complied. Romance within my stories in this anthology is implied and never goes beyond a sweet kiss. Violence on the other hand … well, what do you expect in a genre rife with gunslingers and outlaws?
I find it funny that explicit violence is expected and welcomed in the genre, but not explicit romance.
We each came up with a handful of story plots to kick around. I chose some of his and some of mine. He wanted to see what I’d do with one of his characters, so I accepted that challenge, too. He kindly served as my beta reader. I edited his stories as I usually would. After revising my stories per his feedback, I sent them to my editor whose feedback resulted in further revision. Russ kindly suggested that we lead the compilation of stories with one of mine.
That’s the way it goes. Review, edit, revise. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I came up with a title and asked him for his opinion. He liked it, so we stuck with it: Six Shots Each Gun. I asked about cover design. We decided I’d take a crack at that, too. I floated several background images by him and font options; we came to a consensus and a design that pleased us both. A few weeks ago, he sent me a comment received from a fan who complimented the cover design.
We each wrote concise story descriptions to put on the back cover and tweaked them.
Continuing in my role as graphic designer—I do have just enough training in document design to be dangerous—I formatted the book and sent him the files which he then sent to his publicist who reformatted, uploaded the book, and did his part.
Russ asked me if I had plans to publish within the western genre. While I enjoyed our project, I can’t say whether I will. If I so, it will be along the lines of a western romance rather than simply a western, if only because I don’t want to compete with my partner. So, would I saddle up and ride that trail again? If Russ is my co-author, you bet I would.
That meant research.
As a teenager, I read Zane Grey. Now in my fifties, I figured the genre would have changed quite a bit over the decades. So, I downloaded some western titles to read and watched a couple of old John Wayne movies. Hey, I didn’t say that it was good research. Anyway, from reading my partner’s work when editing for him and the recently published books in the genre, I discovered that, nope, the genre hadn’t really changed.
Some aspects of westerns do differ from the genres in which I usually write, though. The Old West has its own lingo. A light hand is needed to incorporate that vernacular so that dialogue remains both natural and comprehensible. I have a bit of an advantage over my writing partner: I know horses.
Russ and I have very different writing styles. Plot drives his stories, mine are character-driven. Being a romance writer under usual circumstances, I learned that readers of westerns prefer their romances “gentle,” as Russ explained. In other words, nix on the explicit sexuality found in much of the romance genre. One may allude to the bedroom (or tabletop or hay loft), but one must not describe the activity therein. I muffled my inner vixen and complied. Romance within my stories in this anthology is implied and never goes beyond a sweet kiss. Violence on the other hand … well, what do you expect in a genre rife with gunslingers and outlaws?
I find it funny that explicit violence is expected and welcomed in the genre, but not explicit romance.
We each came up with a handful of story plots to kick around. I chose some of his and some of mine. He wanted to see what I’d do with one of his characters, so I accepted that challenge, too. He kindly served as my beta reader. I edited his stories as I usually would. After revising my stories per his feedback, I sent them to my editor whose feedback resulted in further revision. Russ kindly suggested that we lead the compilation of stories with one of mine.
That’s the way it goes. Review, edit, revise. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I came up with a title and asked him for his opinion. He liked it, so we stuck with it: Six Shots Each Gun. I asked about cover design. We decided I’d take a crack at that, too. I floated several background images by him and font options; we came to a consensus and a design that pleased us both. A few weeks ago, he sent me a comment received from a fan who complimented the cover design.
We each wrote concise story descriptions to put on the back cover and tweaked them.
Continuing in my role as graphic designer—I do have just enough training in document design to be dangerous—I formatted the book and sent him the files which he then sent to his publicist who reformatted, uploaded the book, and did his part.
Russ asked me if I had plans to publish within the western genre. While I enjoyed our project, I can’t say whether I will. If I so, it will be along the lines of a western romance rather than simply a western, if only because I don’t want to compete with my partner. So, would I saddle up and ride that trail again? If Russ is my co-author, you bet I would.
About SIX SHOTS EACH GUN
This collaboration between bestselling author of westerns Russ Towne and fiction author Holly Bargo—the two “guns”— presents 12 tales of the Old West. Each author has contributed six stories or “bullets” to this anthology. We hope to satisfy readers of the genre with rousing stories that not only meet expectations, but also add some uncommon insight into the short period of American history known as the Wild West. Paperback link Ebook link |
About Holly Bargo
Holly Bargo is a pseudonym, but really did exist in the form of a temperamental Appaloosa mare who is fondly remembered for her outsized personality. Holly and her husband live on a hobby farm in southwest Ohio. They have two children, one graduating from college in 2019 and the other serving in the military. Holly works as a freelance writer and editor and has published over 20 titles spanning the romance and fantasy genres. Click below for Amazon author page Website Facebook Twitter Pinterest |
A mystery extract from Rob Burton
One of our regular contributors, Rob Burton, sent us this mysterious extract from .... he's keeping it a secret! An intriguing teaser campaign for an upcoming novel? A mystery about a mystery? What do you think?
The day before in downtown Lisbon...
Oppenheimer Hugo Junior III sat at the table outside a restaurant in a lane just off the Rua De Prata. The sun was high overhead, and he was feeling nauseous. He sloshed at the warm olive oil in the earthenware dish with a spoon. Having asked for a vegetarian soup this is what had been placed before him. The smirking waiter told him Sopa Alentejana was a local delicacy. It was hot olive oil with an egg cracked into it, a raw egg. Hugo pushed the dish away and looked once again at the puzzle in front of him.
Never in his whole career as professor of symbolism at the University of Los Angeles had he faced such an enigmatic conundrum. In a simple box in front of him was an egg, but it was no simple egg. It was an elegant bejewelled egg, unlike the mess floating in the rancid oil in front of him. This one was breathtaking. He held it in his hands, amazed he had it and even more amazing was how he had got hold of it in the first place.
One of our regular contributors, Rob Burton, sent us this mysterious extract from .... he's keeping it a secret! An intriguing teaser campaign for an upcoming novel? A mystery about a mystery? What do you think?
The day before in downtown Lisbon...
Oppenheimer Hugo Junior III sat at the table outside a restaurant in a lane just off the Rua De Prata. The sun was high overhead, and he was feeling nauseous. He sloshed at the warm olive oil in the earthenware dish with a spoon. Having asked for a vegetarian soup this is what had been placed before him. The smirking waiter told him Sopa Alentejana was a local delicacy. It was hot olive oil with an egg cracked into it, a raw egg. Hugo pushed the dish away and looked once again at the puzzle in front of him.
Never in his whole career as professor of symbolism at the University of Los Angeles had he faced such an enigmatic conundrum. In a simple box in front of him was an egg, but it was no simple egg. It was an elegant bejewelled egg, unlike the mess floating in the rancid oil in front of him. This one was breathtaking. He held it in his hands, amazed he had it and even more amazing was how he had got hold of it in the first place.
IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR SCHOOL PUPILS
from TEACHING TANIA by James Gault
Next, I come to the delicate question of homework, which of course you must always do. But there will be, inevitably, some occasions on which, through no fault of your own, you will inadvertently not have done your homework. You may, for example, have inexplicably forgotten about it. Such a thing, of course, must never happen with the homework I give you. But, for other teachers, it is a possibility, and indeed, over a long school career, practically unavoidable. So what should you do in such a case?
First of all, on your journey to school, you must dedicate your mind to finding the most convoluted and improbable explanation for not having the homework.
“As I came out of the house with my homework in my hand, a passing bird descended, grabbed it in his beak, and flew off with it. I took a taxi, at great personal expense, and we followed it to Wenceslas Square. There the bird let go of my homework and it started to float slowly down to the ground. Unfortunately, there was a delay while I paid the taxi driver a not inconsiderable sum of money, and from my own pocket too. I then started to cross the square, watching my homework descending towards a young man sitting on a bench. Suddenly this young man took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one in his mouth, and then proceeded to illuminate a small cigarette lighter with his free hand. I was shocked, and not only because, as you know, I abhor smoking. My precious paper was descending towards the naked flame, and, you’ve guessed it, I arrived in front of the bench just in time to see my homework going up in smoke. But, of course, I’ll do it over again and give it to you tomorrow.”
This story will produce one of two responses. Your teacher may say, probably in a rather disgruntled sort of way,
“OK then. But don’t you dare forget it tomorrow!”
This is a perfectly satisfactory outcome for you. But some teachers are of a more suspicious or tenacious nature, and may respond by saying,
“You really don’t expect me to believe such a load of nonsense, do you?”
With such a pedagogical giant there is only one way to proceed. You must be firm, resolute and even arrogant, and say, without allowing your voice to waver,
“Do you honestly believe, sir (or miss) that I could have made up such a story if it wasn’t true?”
(You will note that you have not actually lied in this statement). Faced with such a demonstration of conviction, the teacher will wilt, and will reply weakly,
“Oh well then, do it again for tomorrow”.
from TEACHING TANIA by James Gault
Next, I come to the delicate question of homework, which of course you must always do. But there will be, inevitably, some occasions on which, through no fault of your own, you will inadvertently not have done your homework. You may, for example, have inexplicably forgotten about it. Such a thing, of course, must never happen with the homework I give you. But, for other teachers, it is a possibility, and indeed, over a long school career, practically unavoidable. So what should you do in such a case?
First of all, on your journey to school, you must dedicate your mind to finding the most convoluted and improbable explanation for not having the homework.
“As I came out of the house with my homework in my hand, a passing bird descended, grabbed it in his beak, and flew off with it. I took a taxi, at great personal expense, and we followed it to Wenceslas Square. There the bird let go of my homework and it started to float slowly down to the ground. Unfortunately, there was a delay while I paid the taxi driver a not inconsiderable sum of money, and from my own pocket too. I then started to cross the square, watching my homework descending towards a young man sitting on a bench. Suddenly this young man took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one in his mouth, and then proceeded to illuminate a small cigarette lighter with his free hand. I was shocked, and not only because, as you know, I abhor smoking. My precious paper was descending towards the naked flame, and, you’ve guessed it, I arrived in front of the bench just in time to see my homework going up in smoke. But, of course, I’ll do it over again and give it to you tomorrow.”
This story will produce one of two responses. Your teacher may say, probably in a rather disgruntled sort of way,
“OK then. But don’t you dare forget it tomorrow!”
This is a perfectly satisfactory outcome for you. But some teachers are of a more suspicious or tenacious nature, and may respond by saying,
“You really don’t expect me to believe such a load of nonsense, do you?”
With such a pedagogical giant there is only one way to proceed. You must be firm, resolute and even arrogant, and say, without allowing your voice to waver,
“Do you honestly believe, sir (or miss) that I could have made up such a story if it wasn’t true?”
(You will note that you have not actually lied in this statement). Faced with such a demonstration of conviction, the teacher will wilt, and will reply weakly,
“Oh well then, do it again for tomorrow”.
It's a Miracle
by Keith Guernsey
If you visit my author page on Amazon, you will see that I have referred to our four-footed son Harley as the "King of this castle. It is as true today as it was when I wrote it five years ago.
For the first half century of my life I always thought the phrase a man's best friend was just a marketing slogan on the side of a can of dog food. But I have learned over the last decade that it is actually very true. To say he stole our hearts would rank as a colossal understatement. He came to us a rescue on a one week trial bass and has been by our side every day since. I distinctly remember calling his adoption advocate that very first night and telling her that there was no need for a trial. He was ours and we were his!
At 15 years young we faced the reality that he wouldn't be with us forever, but that didn't make almost losing him any easier. He was getting sick to his stomach, not eating and showing signs of extreme lethargy so we knew an unwanted trip to the vet was in order. We took him in early March and were informed that he was in kidney failure. He was in such bad shape that we prepared for the end. Susan even picked out a place in her garden where she would scatter his ashes. A lot of tears were shed as we hoped for a miracle and
sure enough one occurred!
Other than a change in diet (thank you freshpet.com!), we really didn't do anything different but all of a sudden he seemed to find the fountain of doggie youth! He started eating again like there was no tomorrow. We even had a reign him in as he still only weighed 10 pounds. He began to run wild like he was five instead of 15 and an amazing transformation had truly taken place.
Susan and I were so thrilled to have our little best friend back. There didn't seem to be any logical veterinary, medical explanation but it didn't matter to us one iota!
by Keith Guernsey
If you visit my author page on Amazon, you will see that I have referred to our four-footed son Harley as the "King of this castle. It is as true today as it was when I wrote it five years ago.
For the first half century of my life I always thought the phrase a man's best friend was just a marketing slogan on the side of a can of dog food. But I have learned over the last decade that it is actually very true. To say he stole our hearts would rank as a colossal understatement. He came to us a rescue on a one week trial bass and has been by our side every day since. I distinctly remember calling his adoption advocate that very first night and telling her that there was no need for a trial. He was ours and we were his!
At 15 years young we faced the reality that he wouldn't be with us forever, but that didn't make almost losing him any easier. He was getting sick to his stomach, not eating and showing signs of extreme lethargy so we knew an unwanted trip to the vet was in order. We took him in early March and were informed that he was in kidney failure. He was in such bad shape that we prepared for the end. Susan even picked out a place in her garden where she would scatter his ashes. A lot of tears were shed as we hoped for a miracle and
sure enough one occurred!
Other than a change in diet (thank you freshpet.com!), we really didn't do anything different but all of a sudden he seemed to find the fountain of doggie youth! He started eating again like there was no tomorrow. We even had a reign him in as he still only weighed 10 pounds. He began to run wild like he was five instead of 15 and an amazing transformation had truly taken place.
Susan and I were so thrilled to have our little best friend back. There didn't seem to be any logical veterinary, medical explanation but it didn't matter to us one iota!