Dark Side Darker (23 page)

Josh nodded. “Speak to children, use small words right?”

“That’s right, kid.
Very small words
.”

“So, what’s in Sarah?”

Carthy sighed. “Something pretty far down the food chain. Like a moth to a flame. It’s not too far in, can’t understand where it is, what it feels. She isn’t in much danger.”

“What if something else finds her?”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t,” Carthy smiled warmly, but it couldn’t fully hide that there was some lie hidden in his statement.
Could he actually do what he had said
? Josh wondered.

Carthy cut in quickly. “Still, the sooner we find the antidote...”

Everyone fell silent for a few seconds, leaving the music and the engine sound as the only noises.

As he sat in the silence, Josh was at the edge of total belief; and he wanted it, a clarity of faith. Still, there were parts with the distinct smell of bullshit about them.

“So, Carthy, tell me, why are you alone?”

“Hey, we’re all alone kid.”

Josh shook his head, smiling quietly to himself. “That’s not going to wash. Why are there no other agents?”

“There were
difficulties
in birth.”

Josh stared at him for some time, trying to detect some uncertainty, some nondescript haze. There had certainly been some real hurt in what he had said.

“Why us?” Rufus asked, craning his neck to look at Carthy.

“Josh is more gifted, more different than most here.
And
you have the best reason to help me.”

The silence that followed weighed heavily over them for some time. Rufus slowed the car as they reached a new set of traffic lights.

“Okay,” Josh said at last. “I’m in, but what now?”

“Now you tell me where you bought the drug from and I go talk to them.”

“That’s it?”

“Why? What did you expect?”

“Fuck knows!
A plan maybe
? And what about Sarah?”

“Well she comes with us.”

“What?” asked Karen. “You’re doing this now? I don’t want anything to do with any of this!”

“Yeah, and I don’t want Sarah with us. I want her somewhere safe.” Josh added.

Carthy looked first to Karen. “You’re already a part of this,” he told her. “You’ve just been an accomplice in a kidnapping.”

Rufus nodded. “That’s true. you’re the first one which the police are going to want to talk to.”

Karen was panicked. “What?
But I didn’t do anything
!”

“You were there and that’s enough. Look I can’t let you go at the moment, you’ll stay at my place till this passes and as for Sarah, well I can see no reason why we can’t leave her there as well.”

“And what if I don’t want to?” Karen asked.

“Honey, I wasn’t giving you a choice. If they get to you that in turn will lead them to Josh and Rufus and if we are using his car that will inevitably lead to me. That cannot happen. I mean the chances are they’re already looking for it, but unfortunately that’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

Rufus’ eyes flashed in the mirror. “Why the hell would they be looking for me? I haven’t done anything. There’s nothing that can traced back to me.”

“There’s usually something people miss. The tiniest mistake can lead them straight to you, believe me I know! It’s my business as such.”

“Fine then, we’ll leave Sarah there as well but what do we do next?”

Carthy shrugged. “You show me where these dealers are and I bust some heads.”

“That’s it! Straight away?”

Carthy seemed to be studying him intently. “Why? you think that’s a bad idea?”

Josh grimaced, felt like Carthy was in his mind. A strange image flashed somewhere behind the curtain of his mind’s eye. Maybe it had been a black bull, surrounded in flames, two towers of glass and a field of grass. The whole image opened up in his perception for only a second like a sun expanding outwards inside his mind. There was a sharp pain behind his eyes.

“Hmm,” said Carthy.

Josh looked at him. “Did you just do something to me?”

Carthy looked genuinely baffled. “Me, no. Why?” Then he tapped Rufus on the shoulder. “Hey, you know the light’s been on green for a while now?”

“Huh? What?” Rufus seemed stunned. He looked up at the traffic light. “Shit, jus’ didn’t notice somehow.” He regarded Carthy with mild suspicion and then put the car into gear leaving behind a silver BMW which had slowly rolled up behind just as the lights changed again.

MEDITATION

JOSH HAD FIRST FELT the effects of Blue beginning to kick back into his system as they drove towards the flat Carthy was renting. He had felt a kind of unrealness falling in on him and then, at some point, he had obviously passed out since he had awoken sitting alone in a barren room.

He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his throbbing head. The room he sat in had no windows or doors. There was no light on the ceiling and yet the interior of the room was lit as if it were mid-day.

A thousand voices were trying to penetrate the walls of the cell. They were reduced to whimpers and quiet shrieks by the muffling effects of what were obviously very thick walls.

“Jesus,” Josh murmured and for the first time it dawned on him that this was not a normal room.

He opened his eyes and found himself sitting in a small living room. A television sat in one corner. The reception was very poor and the female news reader’s voice rang out over a background of white-noise. Rufus and Karen sat uncomfortably on battered-looking sofas with protective plastic covers over them. It was Carthy who first realised Josh was now awake again.

“Back with us, then?” he said, only partially a question.

“Where am I?”

“The flat I’m renting.”

Josh looked around the room. Motes of dust hung in the air, set alight by the thick beam shot through the air by the early morning sun. Everywhere there was old furniture, doilies and cheap tacky ornaments. It reminded him of holiday homes with his parents before their marriage had disintegrated into chaos.

Rufus and Karen were now both looking at him. They sat awkwardly together on the smaller of the sofas. They said nothing, but the look in their eyes spoke volumes. The wave of their mixed emotions swept up on his opened mind like an infection and he was left reeling.

“Man, you okay?” Rufus asked him.

Josh blinked dumbly. “How’d we get here?”

“You passed out, we carried you,” Carthy told him blankly. He smiled then added. “Go anywhere nice?”

Josh frowned. He could still feel his mind expanded and then paused on Carthy. There his outward field of sensation stopped as abruptly as if it hit a barrier.

Strange thoughts were running through his mind. They seemed to drop in from nowhere and their sudden reappearance bothered him greatly. It was as it had been before, only now it was more intense and it was coupled with the knowledge that this time it was definitely for real.

“It is,” Carthy said. Karen and Rufus both suddenly looked at him.

“Don’t come in to my mind!” Josh told him.

Carthy laughed. “Oh come on, it’s not like I’ve got a choice. It’s leaking out everywhere! I’m gonna’ have to teach you how to control that ol’ brain of yours. It’s too powerful a weapon to leave unchecked. We’re gonna’ have to put a few filters and safety catches into it or fuck knows what’s gonna’ happen!”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that!” Carthy told him. “That Blue stuff has woken up parts of your mind which you have no idea how to control at the moment. As you are, you’re just as likely to destroy yourself as you are someone else and you probably wouldn’t even know you were doing it.”

Karen looked anxious. “
What’s it done to him
??”

Carthy turned to look at her intensely. “ESP, telepathy, manipulation of kinetic energy... can’t you feel it?”

Karen shook her head.

Carthy looked at Rufus. “You?”

“Nah’, not a thing!”

Carthy shrugged. “Never underestimate the power of denial,” he said to Josh, then continued. “Certain barriers have been removed from Josh’s perception. His power isn’t new as such, no it’s simply that now he can see what before his psyche would not allow him to. The program they got set-up is relatively simple. you simply don’t acknowledge the true state of your reality because it never occurs to you to do so. After all why consider something you have never been told? Unfortunately some people are so, shall we say, gifted, that they have no choice but to acknowledge what your society deems as being insanity as in fact being truth. It is this paradox which eventually actually does send them insane, leaving them both fully aware and totally insane, which of course leads to further infection of your mass consciousness. Leading you all closer to your final destruction. As I say, never underestimate the power of denial.”

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about!” Karen told him.

“Yeah and that’s the problem isn’t it? ” Carthy said cynically. “Still, fuck it! I’m not here to preach.”

Josh was sitting, feeling deeply troubled. There was weird shit coming into his mind, and as much as he tried he couldn’t block it out. He realised Carthy was fixing him with a dark smile. He turned his eyes on him and tried to speak to him telepathically.

In his mind Carthy laughed. ‘That’s not how you do it kid! Don’t think about how to do it, just do it!’

‘
Like how
? It’s that easy!?’

In the real world Carthy nodded. Josh sensed his friends’ unease and realised they were both watching his silent conversation.

‘They,
they can’t see this
? Why?’

Carthy’s eyes flashed quickly over his two companions and Josh felt them shiver. ‘Scares them so much they can’t acknowledge it. you could speak to them but it would only get all tangled up in their subconscious mind. Not that the subconscious truly exists.’

‘Then how...’

Rufus’ voice seemed suddenly very loud. “Hey, are you guys talking to each other?”

Carthy looked at him, smiled and inevitably added, “Yes!”

Rufus jumped visibly. “Shit!” He recovered slightly. “Fuck me! Does that mean you can see into my mind?”

“If I wanted to,” Carthy said using his real tongue again.

“Cool,” Karen beamed and then seemed to re-think the notion and looked troubled. “
All the time
?” she asked.

Carthy smiled something wicked. “Yeah, any time I choose honey!” Then he stood up. “I’m getting another beer, anyone else want one?”

For the first time Josh noticed the collection of empty beer bottles on the table. He found himself questioning how long he’d been out cold for.

“Er yeah,” said Rufus.

“I’m alright for now, thanks,” Karen answered, even now not letting her good breeding slip.

Carthy nodded and left the room.

Karen watched him leave and then quickly rushed over to Josh, clinging to him with a frantic energy which had not been apparent before. “Josh,” she hissed. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

Rufus was watching the kitchen door. “Careful hon’, he can read your mind!”

Josh’s head was beginning to swim again, the rush of Karen’s panic making him almost black out. He snapped back to reality and flinched. “Don’t touch me. Not right now!”

Karen stood back startled. “Why Josh? What’s wrong?”

Josh laughed low and dark. There were strange things whispering into his mind’s eyes. Things ancient and carried on only as psychic echoes. He looked back up at Karen and his eyes were barely his own, gleamed with some dark inner-light. “If he can read your mind, don’t you think this is all rather pointless?”

“It is,” Carthy’s voice came casually out from within the kitchen followed by the pop and hiss of a bottle being opened.

“Oh shit!” Rufus said standing up. “What’s he gonna’ do now?”

“Nothing,” Josh said calmly. “He needs us.”

Karen said nothing. She was terrified by what she could see behind Josh’s eyes and when he spoke,
his voice
—Karen’s thoughts trailed off as his eyes fell back on her. Her hand fell to her mouth and she stepped back.

“What’s wrong?” Josh asked.

“Oh god your eyes! Jesus they’re like Sarah’s!!”

“What I’m gonna’ do,” said Carthy, re-entering the room with three beer bottles, apparently unaware of the current situation, “is give you guys a beer and then find out exactly what it is you know about these drug dealers of yours.” He looked at Josh, blinked and then as casual as always said, “Oh, you’ve entered Deep I see.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Rufus asked, panicked now that he too had seen Josh’s eyes.

Carthy looked at him like a wayward child. “Deep trance Rufus, a deep trance. Josh is looking out from the other side.”

Rufus’ voice rose in hysteria. “Yo and what the fuck is that? Is he gonna’ turn into some kind of freak like Cally? Ah shit man this is so far fucked up! Man this is so far past being fucked up!!! I mean it’s FUBAR!!!” Karen tried to soothe him. “Rufus, it’s alright.”

“Nah’ honey, it isn’t. I can’t cope with any more of this shit! i mean you didn’t see what it did to her! Oh fuck, aah’ shit man!!!”

Carthy suddenly barked. “
Rufus, shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down!
”

Rufus did so instantly and looked up at Carthy with a mixture of absolute awe and barely hidden terror. He knew that Carthy could have instructed him to do anything and he would have obeyed, willing or not.

“Jesus,” he said to himself quietly.

Carthy looked frustrated. “God damn it, okay look, here’s your beers.” “What’s wrong with my eyes?” Josh asked Karen. “They’re all fucking black man!” Rufus yelped. Carthy turned on him with sudden rage. “Look Rufus, shut the fuck up! He’s okay I swear. His psyche’s too strong for anything to take root.” He paused. “Besides...” Carthy shook his head and whatever he had been about to say was replaced with silence instead.

He slumped down into his chair and sighed. “Jesus!” he said. “Humans!” and took a long swig from his beer bottle. Carthy wiped froth from his lips and fixed Josh with a hard glare. “So man, these dealers, what did they look like?” Josh was having trouble focusing on the present situation. He was smiling and he could feel his mind filling with ancient knowledge. What he felt was raw power.