Authors: David Sakmyster
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban
Mason sat down, still trembling, staring in disbelief now at the pure white walls. What had made the image change? What brought about the end of the projection? Was it all in his head?
While he talked, he searched for a switch, a lens or a projector. If there wasn’t any, then it had to be built into the wall’s surface itself. Outwardly opaque, but maybe with hundreds of thousands of microcells that with the flip of a switch could carry a projected set of pixels from within.
“I know,” Lauren said. “I just felt without a doubt when I woke up that something was terribly wrong. I’ve been calling Shelby non-stop. There’s no answer.”
“I know, I tried too.” He pressed his hand against the wall, then tapped it.
Maybe it’s a Clap On?
“I’m really worried, Mason.”
“I’ll get a hold of her. Call the London Solstice office—”
“Yes, do that! I should have thought of it.”
“Okay, give me a minute and call me right back.”
“Don’t forget, my love. They’re coming back with more meds and I’m sure I’ll be out for awhile this time.”
“I will, and I promise, I’ll be there this afternoon, when you wake up.”
Her voice cracked a little, finally breaking under the stress and the weight of everything she’d been through. “You’ve always kept your promises.”
“Well—”
“No, you have. And you don’t know how much that has meant to me. How much
you
have meant to me. To stand by me through everything I’ve put you through.”
Mason looked away from the wall. His mind settled and as he was about to respond, his vision settled on the laptop program just as it started up again. It tugged at his mind, clouded his thoughts and suddenly he was staring at the weird geometry and the flashing bursts and now he was seeing other things.
Windmills, cornfields, a pair of giant willow trees.
He blinked as he heard Lauren’s voice. “Mason?”
“Hang on, I … I’m sorry, love. I heard you and I—wait, I have a beep. It’s …” He looked at the screen. “It’s Shelby! Hold the line.” He pressed the switch button. “Shelby?”
“Dad. Listen I don’t have much time. I know you and Mom have been calling. I’m fine, heading home in fact. I’m in Chicago.”
“What?”
“Yes, Solstice doesn’t know. I … I just felt I had to be home. For Mom.”
“Oh, honey. She’s okay.…”
“But mostly, for you.”
“Me?”
“Dad, the program. I can’t say much more, and don’t talk. If you’re in your office, they may be listening.”
“Who? Honey, what are you talking about? I wanted to ask about that because I know what it is. Or at least, what it’s supposed to do.”
Silence for a moment on the other end. “If you know that, then you’re close. Listen, I don’t know what you’re going to remember. Not exactly. But I do know that it’s something buried deep, something they don’t want you to access.”
“What? Shelby …” He was struck again by how suddenly her voice had changed, and how he was beginning to forget what she had even sounded like before, with her impediment. It was like talking to someone new, but someone he had known all his life. “I don’t know what you think it is I need to—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Revisit,” he said, hoping that synonym would suffice. “But trust me, I have nothing. I’m not sure where you’ve got this information about me, but I would know if—”
“No, you wouldn’t. Whatever was done to you, it was done deeply, and powerfully. You have no idea. But you will if you keep watching the screen. And do it while you’re relaxed. Or as much as you can be. But I was calling to say maybe you should wait. That’s why I’m coming home.”
“What do you mean?”
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the people who told me about this program, the ones who convinced me that you were being used and needed to have your memory restored … the more I realized you might not be able to handle it alone.”
“I’m not alone, and—what people are you talking about?”
“Dad, they said they tried to contact you. Some were killed, one might have gotten through, although you might have thought it was a dream.”
Mason’s blood chilled again—and suddenly the wall behind him lit up and he was back in the serene world of mountains, streams and blue skies.
“Honey, I—”
“Don’t talk. Listen, please. They told me another member of their group, a team that opposes Solomon and what he’s got planned, she was the one that slipped you some other information. Something vital you needed to understand. So I don’t know if you followed up on that.…”
“I did, but I don’t understand it all. Not yet.”
“No, you won’t, Dad.”
“I actually don’t understand any of this.”
“You won’t, not until the program finishes on your mind.”
“But I don’t believe—”
“It doesn’t matter. Listen, you must have doubts. You must realize they wouldn’t go to these lengths just because you’re a good meteorologist.”
“Good? I thought I was the best?”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. They don’t need a forecaster or an analyst. They need something else from you, something only you can give.”
“What is it?”
“We’ll find out together. I have some ideas, some theories that I’ve come up with after all that research. I sent it to you so if I’m right, then you won’t have such a hard time believing me.”
Mason rubbed his neck. “Then now I’m really baffled.”
“Just wait. Turn off the program and wait for me, I’ll be there in six hours. Turn it off. I looked into the process some more and I fear that once the blocks crumble, it won’t happen all at once. You’ll start getting flashbacks. You’ll think maybe they’re hallucinations. It might be terribly confusing.”
Mason shook his head. “I really can’t believe any of this right now.”
“It’s okay. Maybe … maybe get out of Solstice. Get to the hospital, you have the perfect excuse to be with your wife. Don’t give them—even Gabriel—an opportunity to sense there’s anything wrong. I’ll be there, and together we’ll find what you’ve got locked away.”
“Gabriel? Do you think—?”
“Don’t say anything. And yes, I think he’s in this up to his neck. As much as that scares me, we know how my brother is, and I’m worried he’s been brainwashed.”
The hood, pulled back … Gabriel’s grinning visage over the bloody knife …
Shuddering, Mason asked: “So you believe these people? This other group?”
“I do, Dad, and it really scares me. If what they’ve told me is true. So please … They’re about to announce my flight, please turn off the program and wait for me.”
“All right, all right. I promise, but before you board, call your mother. I’ll give you the number.”
“Okay, is she up?”
“She is, and very worried about you. Don’t ask, just call and reassure her. Let her hear your voice.”
“I will, and thanks. See you soon, Dad.”
She hung up, and Mason swiveled in his chair, turning away from the sprawling natural vista that somehow, defiantly, existed despite his efforts to find any projection device. He reached for the monitor, about to shut it off when the program ramped up to its grand finale of pulsating lights, flashing words and now—images that he could see more clearly.
Were they hidden there all along? These snapshots of cornfields, of stormy skies, of young willow trees, a windmill and …
A stone circle.
And a tornado in the hazy distance, approaching over the wind-blown corn stalks.
Palavar’s farm.
Mason realized it with a start, just as he turned and saw—
The walls were no longer serene, no longer projecting mountains and sun and lush forests.
The walls—the floor—the ceiling. Everything had changed. He was no longer in his office.
He was in Kansas.
He dropped to his knees as the chair, his desk and the computer vanished into the shadows of a looming willow tree and a section of large white boulders arranged in a circle.
—around the altar.
Wrestling with complete dislocation, Mason tripped and fell backwards in a sudden gust of wind. He landed on something hard. Lifted his head and saw two immense tornadoes slamming down into the fields, scattering husks and leaves and dirt and rocks in every direction as they bore down mercilessly toward him.
They came at a summons, it seemed, rushing toward their master as if they were dogs hearing the dinner bell.
Their master—an unlikely one, a small figure in a hooded grey sweatshirt.
A small boy. Who turned, just as the tornadoes ground to a halt behind him.
A wide grin on his face, the freckled boy with the crisp green eyes lifted a huge, sharp knife.
Chapter 3
Mason tried to scream but his voice was lost in the whipping winds and the howling anguished cries from the restrained tornadoes, as if they were being tormented, demons summoned from the depths of Hell and then restrained in powerful magic circles.
It’s not real, not real, not real. Just walls and projections! Just my mind—
But then the child opened his mouth, and a deep voice came out.
A voice that was familiar and chilling, but overly welcome at this point.
It was Victor’s voice, and just hearing it broke the spell, or the virtual projection, or the madness or whatever it was.
The storm world faded and then exploded into white light, and immediately returned to the plain walls and the silent office room.
Victor stood where the boy had been, looming over Mason. The enforcer turned sideways and noted the computer monitor and the running program. He looked back to the walls, eyes narrowing, and then he lifted his phone to his lips.
“Sir? I have him.” Victor stared now at Mason, curled up on the floor where just moments before he had believed himself lying on a stone altar.
Victor continued. “I’ve confirmed what Annabelle told us, it looks like some kind of memory-unlocking program. He’s accessed it.… Yes, definitely.
He knows
.”
O O O
He wasn’t sure when exactly the succession of flashbacks stopped, or if they ever really did. Images kept breaking through into reality, tearing through the fabric of not just the walls and the ceiling, superimposing storm clouds and cornfields, willow trees and eldritch standing stones in the place of other mundane objects, but also supplying olfactory sensations and tactile elements. He heard the frenzied winds flaying through the stalks, felt the debris striking his face and smelled the crackling ozone in the air.
A low humming chant issued from the hooded boy’s throat.
That child, those pale green eyes at last disintegrating and blossoming into a bright sunburst. And striding out of the light came Solomon, and those same pale eyes coursed with powerful adult energy.
“Welcome, Mason. This is not how I intended it, but you have come to this stage on your own accord. And now there is no longer any need for secrecy.”
O O O
Mason groaned, holding his head. He tried to get up but felt the strong arms of Victor behind him, aiding and then leading him to a stone wall. What he thought was a wall, but actually a
menhir
, one of twelve immense misshapen boulders, narrower at the top, and moss covered on one side.
“Where am I?”
“Welcome,” said Solomon, “to our Inner Sanctum.”
“The walls—?” He squinted, and could only see blackness at first with small pinpricks of light. “Stars …?”
Solomon nodded. “Wait a few moments and you’ll witness the heliacal rising of Sirius over my left shoulder, close to the center stone. The alignment will be precise, at dawn, and our time will be at hand.”
Another flash and the section of reality to his left shifted to the roof of Palavar’s farmhouse, and the windmill spinning out of control, sparks flying from its gears. Then, like a camera viewpoint, it tracked downward to a ring of stones, and a bloody body writhing on an altar.
The face on the body was blurred out, even as the view magnified.
Solomon noticed, then lifted his eyes. “Ah, so there
are
still some secrets left.”
“What are you talking about?” Mason gathered his energy, shook his arm free of Victor’s grasp and pointed at the image. “What is this? How are we seeing it? Where are the projectors?”
Chuckling, Solomon reached for his staff and pointed it at Mason. “He doesn’t know yet who he is,” he told Victor. “Close, but Palavar’s mental wipe went deep. You’re still working through it, aren’t you Mason?”
Shaking his head again, Mason looked back to the young body on the altar. The blood, the little hands on his chest. Hard to see with all the debris flying around, but the wound …
And then it hit him. The image flickered, went out and Mason reached down, lifted his shirt.
“There it is,” said Solomon, the tip of the staff now pointing at the vertical scar just above Mason’s navel.
Mason backed away, stumbling hard into another stone as Victor and Solomon looked on, amused.
“Not possible,” Mason stammered, shaking his head. “I remember.… I remember.…”
The background flickered again, and again images appeared.
A different tornado, ripping open an entire wall, scattering toys and clothes, a Tonka truck sailing into the maelstrom. And the same young boy as on the altar, sitting up in bed, screaming as shards of wood ripped around in the cyclone’s wake. One jagged sliver whipping across the void as the tornado stormed off, carrying its precious offerings.
Young Mason looks down and sees the sliver in his gut, protruding from the flesh as a trickle of blood seeps out.
It’s there one moment—just as he remembered.…
But then gone the next. His torso—clean, unbroken skin. It was never there.
The image vanished, replaced by the quiet stars, cold and heartless.
“You remember,” Solomon said, “what you were meant to. But tell me, what do you recall of the events after that? Of your foster care? Who were you staying with?”
Mason clenched his eyes shut for a moment. “I remember as much as any five year old kid. Which isn’t much. A little house in the suburbs of Indiana. A brother named Jack and a little cocker spaniel named Alfie.”
“Let me guess, Dad was a truck driver, Mom stayed home and fed you peanut butter sandwiches and let you watch cartoons all day until school. And then after age seven, you went to the Morrises in San Diego, a nice rich childless couple who showered you with attention and money for school and encouraged your interests in weather and science.” Solomon came closer, and behind his head, a faint view of a spinning galaxy took shape, framing him with a divine cosmic halo.
“I don’t understand,” Mason said in almost a whimper. “The Morrises were great. I remember all that.”
“Clearer than you remember the earlier couple?”
“Of course, but I was younger then, and traumatized by the tornado and losing my parents. Of course everything was hazy.”
“You weren’t in Indiana.”
“I was.”
Solomon smiled and again pointed at the scar.
“You weren’t. Strings were pulled, and a certain affluent landowner from Kansas took a striking interest in you after your survival at the hands of that tornado. You were special, and he wanted special. He saw potential in you, a chance to mold you into something.” Solomon raised his head and looked up, blotting out the galaxy’s light.
Mason’s throat tightened, but he spoke anyway, giving up now any further attempt at deception. It was over and he was lost. “It was you,” he said. “In the sweatshirt.”
“Yes.”
“Wielding the knife.”
“Yes.”
“You … had the rocking horse in the basement. The first room at the top of the stairs.”
Solomon inclined his head, a little surprise in his eyes. But he gave a nod.
“You …” Mason let it roll of his tongue. “Were my brother.”
“At last,” Solomon said, spreading out his arms—and the staff along with it. “He remembers.”
O O O
“But how …?”
Mason held onto the solidity of the white stone and focused on its granular streaks and multiple fractures as a sign of truth. Although at this point, he didn’t know anything anymore.
“You’re wondering how you can trust anything now, aren’t you?” Solomon made a motion to Victor and the man nodded and made his way out into the shadows and through a door that closed promptly, returning the room to the semblance of a moonless night on an ascended peak close to the infinite sky.
“How is any of this happening?” Mason made an agonized face. “Hallucinating. I have to be. Drugged?” He thought of the Amazon jaunts Solomon boasted about and the rare plants and roots they had found. The ingredients that cured Shelby might have had cousins that were in the LSD family and acted on his brain. That was the only solution.
“It’s one possibility,” Solomon agreed. “Another is that your mind is just powerful enough to project what it’s envisioning externally. But not in the reality sense that you think. In fact, you have been projecting into the minds of those around you.”
“What?”
“Exactly the reverse of how we set up your office, for example.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are no projectors, as you’ve discovered. No hidden technology or plasma modules or microfibers. You saw what we wanted you to see. And I needed to learn if you had the same ability, to project what you wanted others to see.”
Mason blinked at him, and for a moment he had a vision of ancient moors, and hooded figures making the Romans see armies where none existed. “I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t have to. Just like you don’t have to believe that multiple tornadoes can converge on one spot, as if summoned from another dimension.”
Mason took a deep breath. Had to steady himself again. He looked upon Solomon with new eyes. The scales were off. “So, brother. Assuming I believe that this Louis Palavar took me in as a foster child and I lived on that farm, then you …”
“Another stray.” Solomon sighed. “You and I, we share a great many things. Including a tragic end to our parents. In my case, not just mom and dad, but two older sisters as well, caught in the crossfire.”
“What happened?”
Solomon leaned on his staff and he closed his eyes.
“Best if you see it firsthand. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.”
O O O
Spinning little wheels over pavement. A baby carriage on its way through a park. Mother and father each holding a handle. Beautiful sunlight in the long blonde curls of twins, skipping ahead toward a playground.
The sound of the girls’ footsteps drown out the crying, wailing of the baby boy. Fierce green eyes squint against the glare.
“Put the visor down,” the mother insists.
“We’re almost there,” says dad. “Just a minute and we can put him in the shade.
“But he’s miserable, it’s right in his eyes.”
“He can take it. Jesus Christ he’ll be fine.”
“I can’t stand the crying, you didn’t hear him again last night.”
“What can I say? I sleep like the dead.”
“Bastard.”
She pushes faster, and the carriage shifts, the sun spears brighter into the child’s eyes and the wails intensify to a fever pitch and all of a sudden …
The clouds devour the sky as if dumped from a massive funnel. In seconds the park plunges into shade and the winds pick up, swirling at first and then driving hard from the north, gathering speed.
“What the hell?” the father says, and then louder: “Girls! Girls! Get back here, run to the car!”
The last part is lost in a peal of thunder that sounds as if a war has just erupted in the skies.
Hail the size of fists begin to pelt the park. They hear it first as the great chunks of ice slam into the metal slides and the bars of the jungle gym. Then the plunk-plunk-thud against the earth and the pavement.
But the rest is devoured by screams and cries of pain.
“RUN!” the father yells again, but then immediately falls to the ground, slamming his forehead against the concrete path, and his dazed eyes lock on the green of his son’s. The baby carriage, overturned, provides the only respite from nature’s onslaught as hailstones bounce off the rims and the protective side covering.
Other screams eventually dwindle. Someone’s crying, whimpering and calling a name, “Avery …” but even that silences with another thwump sound and a squish like a hammer bursting a melon.
The baby … silent now, just blinks at his father, even as the hailstones keep battering his body and crunching his skull. A huge gash in his dad’s forehead keeps pumping red. Blood runs into the rainwater that has started to fall like a wave of archers’ arrows, cleaning up after the stones have done their job. Drenching, washing the world clean.
Eventually, the baby sighs. Snug in his restraints, Avery Solomon closes his eyes and drifts to sleep.
O O O
“After that tragic little story hit the news, people were drawn to the miracle baby that had survived such a horrific event. Donations flooded in and my grandmother was grateful, but she was old, with one foot in the nursing home.”
Solomon smiled wistfully as the room returned to its nocturnal components and the visions—either in Mason’s head or still projected somehow, he couldn’t understand which—dissolved. Mason still leaned against the large stone, looking about for a chair, anything to rest on. He only found the altar in the center, and the light hitting it revealed just enough of traces of red to give him the chills.
Had they already done sacrifices here? What the hell have I walked into?
And more:
What was Gabriel a part of? How deep did this occult shit go?
Solomon had his back turned now, and began pacing. “Keep listening Mason, I’m getting to the part about you.”
“Oh good,” he replied, forcing dialogue, if for nothing else, to keep grounded and not leave his mind adrift, dangerously close to going over the edge of the earth.
“So that’s when Louis Palavar entered my life. A tidy sum he paid to my grandmother, along with promises of visitation and constant updates … of course which never happened. She was dead within a month.”
“Sorry.”
“Things happen. Anyway, that’s how I came to the Palavar ranch. And for a time, it was just me and my new ‘father.’”
“What did he want with you?”
“Same as he wanted with you,” Solomon replied without turning around. His head was inclined up at the stars and the faint galaxy above. “We were—are—like lightning rods. There’s a power within us, an affinity with nature that goes beyond natural selection, beyond luck or just karma. You hear of people who can sense changing air pressure in the bones, an advancing thunderstorm in their sinuses. But others, like us—it’s more than that. We are part of a long history of men and women. In the past we would have been called sorcerers, shamans, medicine men or magi.”