The Blue Ridge Project: A Dark Suspense Novel (The Project Book 1) (5 page)

The room that Frank arrived in at the end of his elevator journey with Dr. Ryan was both similar and alien to him at the same time. It was brightly lit by a single circle of light in the ceiling, yet Frank still imagined dark corners behind the machinery. He recognized some of the shapes of the equipment, if not the equipment itself, but they were in different positions than he remembered, and were joined by new blinking machines, wires, and boxes. There were various computer monitors set up around the room, with numbers and codes and graphs that were as indecipherable to him as some hieroglyphic text.

A man in a white lab coat with his back to Frank was bent over in front of one of the screens, studying the output. A table was off to one side with rows of small, clear medicinal bottles, boxes of syringes and rubber gloves, and surgical masks. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant.

At the far end, a wide pane of glass gave a dim view of another room, where two men stood in white coats and surgical masks. They nodded as Frank and Dr. Ryan arrived. Behind them Frank could just make out the form of a man wearing all black and standing against the wall. Frank couldn’t see the gun that was in the holster at the man’s side, but he knew it was there.

There was something in the raised center platform he could see well and was very familiar with: a cross between a reclining lounger and a dentist’s chair. It looked like it was made of white leather, which Frank knew it wasn’t. Wires snaked from a circular piece of metal positioned above the headrest. Some went up and disappeared into the ceiling, while others trailed across the floor and into the backs of some of the machines around the room.

The man who had been looking at the monitors turned around and smiled at Frank and Dr. Ryan. He had a trimmed gray beard and thinning hair of the same color. He opened his arms and his smile grew.

“Mr. Mortimer! How good to see you. And Dr. Ryan, a pleasure. How are we today?”

“Fine, fine,” Frank said, his annoyance with Dr. Ryan dissipating, replaced by a sense of anticipation.

“I’ll be stepping in with Richardson and Jenkins to observe, Dr. Samuel,” Dr. Ryan said, and walked past them and through a door that was between two tall banks of equipment with blinking lights.

Samuel came conspiratorially close to Frank. “Pleasant woman, isn’t she?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Frank smiled and nodded.

“Right,” Samuel continued, “are we ready to proceed?”

Frank nodded again, stepping forward toward the chair. “Why is it different down here? There wasn’t this much stuff here last time.”

Samuel cleared his throat and Frank thought he saw an expression of worry dart across his face that was replaced with a grin just as quickly. “Well, Mr. Mortimer, this is a different experiment. We’re progressing into the next phase. Isn’t it exciting?”

He’s actually rubbing his hands in glee
, Frank thought.
What a fucking cliché.
“Yes, I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

“Wonderful! Let’s get to it, then. If you would, please,” Samuel said, indicating the chair.

Frank sat in it, the material molding to his shape as it always did. He lay back and put his feet on the footrest. Samuel came over and pushed the metal circlet on to the top of his head. Frank’s field of vision was limited to the circle of light and the blank ceiling.

“Now, we’ll be trying a new type of compound,” Frank heard Samuel say from his right side, “so the physical effects might be more intense than what you’re used to. Just remember to stay calm, and you’ll be fine.”

Frank felt Samuel dab his arm with something wet, then a pinch, and after a few seconds Samuel removed the needle.

Then Samuel’s face appeared in Frank’s vision, smiling down on him.

“How does that feel, Francis?”

“I told you before,” Frank said, slurring his words, “I don’t like being called that.”

“Forgive me, Frank. Feeling anything out of the ordinary?” Samuel laughed. “I mean, more out of the ordinary than we’re used to down here?”

Frank frowned. His vision was beginning to warp and distort Samuel’s face, and the lights behind were getting brighter. “It’s stronger than before,” he mumbled.

“Good, good.”

Samuel’s face disappeared, and Frank was left to look at the light pulsing at the rate of his heartbea
t
.

*****

“How are we progressing, Doctors?” Dr. Ryan asked the men in the observation room.

Both of them removed their surgical masks.

“Quite well, I would say,” Richardson, the older of the two, said. His hair was darker than Samuel’s, flecked with gray, and he was clean-shaven. Brown eyes shone behind a pair of rimless glasses.

“Yes, things are going very smoothly,” Jenkins said. He was much younger, his facial features hovering on the edge of full adulthood. Black hair was slicked back on top of his head, and glasses with a light gold frame hung from a strap around his neck.

Ryan looked at them both for a few seconds without speaking. “Smoothly, is it? You have complete control of the situation, then?”

Richardson and Jenkins hesitated, sensing a trap in the tone of her voice. They both looked through the window toward Samuel and the prostrate form of Frank before looking back at Ryan.

“All the results point toward a successful—” Jenkins started.

“He’s creating problems for us out there,” Ryan interrupted. She stepped forward to look at screens that were suspended above them on the wall above the glass. “Fucking amateur hour. Haven’t his brain scans shown signs of what he’s been doing?”

Richardson cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Dr. Ryan, for the process to be truly effective, a certain type of ...deviancy is actually quite helpful. After all, we’re not asking these men to—”

“You’re not asking them, period. You’re programming them. That’s your job. They go, they do what they have been instructed to do, and they come back for evaluation and reset. If they do anything outside of those parameters, it can’t be considered a success, can it?”

Richardson sighed. “That’s why it is still a work in progress, Doctor. The compounds we are using, along with the technology, it’s all still experimental. With this subject,” he said, waving one bony white hand toward the window, “we’ve made more progress than we had hoped to.” He looked behind him at the silent figure in black, still standing motionless against the wall, his gun holstered on his hip. “Besides, I’m sure that the Project leaders have the resources to take care of any issues that might arise.”

Jenkins was wringing his hands, working himself up to speak. “What exactly are the problems he is creating, Dr. Ryan? Maybe if we knew, we could, ah, address the cause here in the lab.” He smiled a pained smile, like a child unsure if he is about to be scolded or soothed.

Ryan waved a hand at him, dismissing the question in midair. “He’s drawing unnecessary attention.” She looked through the window into the lab, watching Frank’s left leg twitch ever so slightly. “We’re moving into the next phase, and there can’t be any more of this bullshit. We have enough things to worry about getting right, without cleaning up after your mess. I don’t have to remind you gentlemen about my superiors’ policy on failure.”

Both Richardson and Jenkins visibly paled, and shook their heads almost in unison.

“Good,” she said as Dr. Samuel came into the room.

“What have I missed?” he asked, his grin fading as he saw the expression on their faces.

“A little pep talk,” Ryan answered, “about the future of this part of the Project. Are we ready to continue to the next step?”

“Almost,” Samuel said, “we just have to wait for the new compound your people sent to take effect—thank you, by the way, it’s most interesting—and for my colleagues here to make some new calculations. We’ll be ready to go in the hour, by my estimation.”

You better be
. Ryan then thought about the implications if they actually managed to succeed, and shivered in excitement.

The Duncan family home had been a warm and inviting place when it held the whole family. When Robert’s father had disappeared, it seemed emptier. The void was bigger than the amount of space of someone’s physical mass, the silence louder than their voice bouncing off the walls. The tension and quiet had pushed the walls back until the house seemed cavernous, and the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor echoed back like he was inside a huge cathedral. It was even stranger now as a grown man, coming here after so many years, knowing he was the only one left.

His mother hadn’t changed much about the look of the house. At least nothing he could distinguish from his memories as a teenager. The books and ornaments were the same, the former in the same order on their shelves, the latter in the same places on tables and on top of the bookshelves. Little oddities that surely had stories behind them that Robert would now never hear. He saw that there was only a light layer of dust on a few things, which meant that there was someone coming by regularly to keep the place clean. Some hired help his mother had organized before she had gone into hospital, Robert assumed.

An unexpected feeling of nostalgia swelled like a tiny bubble in his stomach, and as he made his way down the hall to what had been his father’s study, he ran his hand over a deep scratch on the hall table. He had made it with a knife when he was fourteen after a shouting argument over how late he could stay out. He saw the crack in the big plant pot in the study that he had tipped over while getting drunk on his father’s expensive whiskey he’d found in the back of the cabinet on his sixteenth birthday.

Memories of tiny things like sunlight hitting the sugar bowl at breakfast in the kitchen, and the noise the wind used to make coming through the upstairs toilet window when it was closed, hit him all at once, a jumble of remembered senses and feelings rather than concrete memories. A drive-by on memory lane with the windows open.

He sat in the old leather chair behind what had been his father’s desk and ran his hands over the smooth wooden armrests. It had been his favorite place to sit and think quietly, just like he remembered his father sitting there when he was a boy. His mother hadn’t liked to go in there very often, even to clean. He closed his eyes and smelled the old smells of wood polish long dried and cracked leather, of dust and aged rugs and books that hadn’t been opened in years.

Opening his eyes, he stood up, and went out to the car to collect the box of folders from the back seat. His mother’s last will and testament was lying on top. He picked up the box, shut the car door with his foot and brought the files into the study where he laid them down on the desk. The quickening night offering no decent light to read by, and he pulled the heavy red curtains closed. He switched on the lamp hanging over the desk as well as the room light that was suspended in a globe from the ceiling.

When he opened the envelope two pieces of paper came out. The will was on top.

I, Leanne Dewitt Duncan, being of sound mind, declare this to be my last will and testament. I will name my lawyer, Frederick Minnow, to be the executor of this will and to follow the instructions therein.

To my child, and only son, Robert, I leave the family home and all its contents, as well as any monetary estate that remains at the time of my death.

I also leave the contents of the storage box that was passed to me after Robert’s father, Thomas, was declared dead. I have no knowledge of the contents of this box, only that which is alluded to in Thomas’ journals which are now also the property of my son Robert. The details and instructions for the transference of ownership of these items and moneys will be left with the executor, Mr. Minnow.

The enclosed letter is for Robert’s eyes only.

I hereby revoke any and all previous wills and testaments.

Signed,

Leanne Dewitt Duncan

Robert rubbed his chin. He hadn’t known that his father had been declared dead. It surprised him that his mother had kept that from him, but then again Robert guessed he had stopped asking about him by that time. It seemed a purely legal maneuver, and he couldn't hold it against her.

The other paper was a letter, closed with a simple, red candle wax seal. He smiled a little at the memory of his mother using these seals on letters she’d send to the publishing houses, to ask for advance copies of books for those old mutes at the funeral to read. He looked in the top right-hand drawer of the desk and found the letter opener that his father used to use, and gently cut open the seal.

Dearest Robert,

As I write this, I'm picturing you sitting in your father’s old chair in his study. I hope that if you are thinking back on old times you are concentrating on the happy memories. It’s what I would wish for you, that the bad memories and the frost would be left behind to wither and die, and that only light would remain in your heart when you think of us and our time in that house.

I feel responsible for you leaving so early in your life, I always have, and I know I pushed you away by being so cold and distant after your father disappeared. Know that it was from heartache, and not ill feeling toward you, that I retreated further and further away and left you alone to deal with it.

I am happy that in my final years we could reconnect, and while the relationship we had of old could never be regained, we could make some kind of peace, and I hope that it so remains until you have reason to read this letter. Know that I love you, I always have, and you were at the forefront of my mind and my prayers every day when you were away. That’s what makes it so hard to write what you will read next.

I am not your biological mother. I loved you like you were my own. You
were
my own, in my heart, but you did not come from my body. I will try to explain as best I can, so that you might understand a little.

I had been ostracized at a young age from my family because of my life choices, namely my refusal to enter into what amounted to an arranged marriage. So, I moved cities, to try to start a new life. I survived, but I struggled. It was hard back then for me to get work, as I had no skills to speak of, and I couldn’t count on anyone looking out for me. I managed to make a living working two jobs and volunteering for paid experiments at the local university. However, it was beginning to be too much, and I saw no future for myself.

When my hope was nearly lost, I met your father.

He was a brilliant man, Robert, and I fell for him almost immediately. He was handsome and smart, and he had no malice in him. He was a scientist running one of the experiments at the university. He told me afterward that he had also been taken with me on sight, and we started to see each other. It wasn’t long before we decided to get married, but then your father ran into troubles at his work.

He would come home, shaken and pale, and refused to tell me what was wrong. It was obvious that they were making him do things he didn’t want to do, or wasn’t able to do. Some kind of tests they were conducting on people, but I never knew the details. He kept me as clear of it as he could.

One night, he came home at some ungodly hour of the morning. I heard the door downstairs slam closed, and it woke me up, and I started out of bed when I heard a tiny sound of crying. I raced down the stairs, and your father stood there, shivering, with a bundle of blankets held cradled in his arms.

It was you.

He said he had saved you, that if he hadn’t something awful would have happened to you, and in good conscience he couldn’t let it occur. He begged me not to question him further, just to pack some essential things and get ready to leave. I did as he said, no questions. There were none when I saw you, alone and helpless.

We left the city that night.

We moved around quite a lot for the first few years, never staying more than a few months in one place. We avoided using our real names. One night, your father left the house we were renting at the time and didn’t return until the morning. I was so relieved he returned unharmed that I didn’t ask about the blood on his shirt. He held us both, his family, and whispered that it would be all right, they wouldn’t be able to find us now. Shortly after that, we moved to Beacon City, and began our new life.

Around the time you turned ten, I don’t know if you remember, your father began to get agitated, and he would have nightmares and sleepwalk. He used to tell me he picked up the habit when working nights at the lab. He would tell me it was the stress, working itself out while he slept. I’d put pills in his drink without his knowing, thinking it was just nerves, but it didn’t help. He’d stare blankly at his coffee at breakfast and I’d have to snap my fingers under his nose a couple of times to get him to come back from whatever reverie he was in. He would smile and apologize, but there were dark circles under his eyes.

He began to stay up late, writing and writing in his journals, as if possessed. He would come to bed as the sun was rising, exhausted, and sleep like the dead, only to rise after a couple of hours and go for a run or a long walk or to work like nothing was wrong.

I know you remember when he left, after your eleventh birthday. It was so hard on you, and my heart ached for you. You didn’t know why he had gone. You believed that he had abandoned us. I had always told you he had left no note, no sign or reason for his disappearance. He just upped and vanished one day without taking anything with him. You trusted me, but that wasn’t the whole truth.

He left a note. I remember it verbatim, and I won’t have the secret die with me. It read:

“I have to leave. There’s something I have to do, something to keep us all safe, and I might not come back. Raise Robert as our own, and do not tell him the truth until you feel it is the right time.

I love you both more than anything. Thomas.”

Forgive me, Robert, I wished to keep us safe from whatever your father feared. There was no lack of love for you from either of us, not for one minute. You were, and remain, our baby boy.

I love you dearly, and I hope you can be happy in your life.

Farewell,

Mother

Robert dropped the letter on the desk after reading it through twice.

“What the fuck,” he whispered. He stood and paced back and forth between the table and the window, running his hands through his hair and shaking his head.

“What the fuck!” He sat back down, held his head in his hands, and stayed like that for a while.

*****

After a few laps, he went to the drinks cabinet in the corner of the room. It was old, dark wood like the rest of the furniture in the study, and there was a tray of various different-sized glasses on top. He whipped off the towel that had been protecting them from dust, found a highball glass and grabbed a decanter of whiskey from the back of the top shelf. He opened it up and poured a large dose, knocked half of it back and topped up the glass again.

Adopted? Rescued? Robert wasn’t so melodramatic to think that his whole life had been a lie, but the beginning was, that was for sure. What the hell had his father been part of? What had been so terrible that he had stolen a newborn baby and later fled his home, his life?

The rest of the box contained legal documents, property deeds and other official information. At the bottom there were some photo albums. Robert recognized these last from his teenage years. Memories ambushed him of his mother sometimes leafing slowly through their pages at night before bed. Sometimes she would touch the photos through their plastic covering, tender moments trapped in a plastic prison.

He also found a sheet with the printed address of the storage facility where the rest of his father’s belongings had been left for him. He put it beside the letter he had just finished, took the key Minnow had given him and looked at it before putting it back in his pocket.

Robert looked at the glass in his hand, which still held what his mother would have called a drop of whiskey, and finished it off. He needed to get outside, get some fresh air, talk to somebody. He had left Beacon years before, and had no friends here that he had kept in touch with. He also had no interest in looking up old ones from his youth, and even less interest in contacting anyone from his recent past. The need to reach out to someone was urgent, and he stood up and paced the room.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket, the same one he had been wearing at the hospital the day his mother died, and pulled out a napkin. It was the one with Jimmy’s number on it, the odd little man from the hospital cafeteria. He stared at the scribbled digits for a few seconds, then reached for the phone on what was now his desk.