Authors: George Earl Parker
“The other three were with the boy when Mister Hunter apprehended him; he had no choice but to take them all.”
“We shall need to create a plausible reason for the disappearances,” Doctor Angstrom counseled. “Sadly we must create a terminal scenario; the chances of them being returned to their loving families are extremely remote.”
“I shall devise a tragic disappearance; Mister Hunter will take care of the details,” she replied matter-of-factly.
He so wanted to believe that this boy could become whoever or whatever he wanted to be just by an act of will. If it were true it meant that he, Kurt Angstrom, had the chance to return and revisit his own childhood. Had the chance to immerse himself in all the experiences he had missed out on; the opportunity to return, and rewrite missing chapters in his own history.
In his wildest dreams he had never imagined this amazing outcome from his quest. It was beyond belief, and for the moment it meant the young boy was of paramount importance. He would enslave the boy using the control worm, which would give him an opportunity to study the child and assure himself there were no adverse side effects. Once he was convinced it was safe to do so, he would undergo the same procedure himself.
“It occurs to me that the boy has little or no idea of his unique talent,” Doctor Angstrom pointed out, barely disguising his excitement over the miraculous possibilities that lay ahead for him.
“Probably not—it’s only been a couple of days,” Miss Moon replied.
“I shall give him the chance to willingly comply with all my requests, but if he is defiant I shall coerce him with the control worm. My plans will, of course, render his friends redundant, in which case you will see they are disposed of.”
“In the unfortunate case that it becomes necessary, it shall be done,” said Miss Moon. She would enjoy planning their demise. It had been a while since she had been given the power to eliminate someone.
“Meanwhile, I would like you to take steps to keep these four young minds occupied and filled with fear. Blindfold them and disorient them; make them walk and run a long way to keep them on their toes. Find a large dark space, and in the center create a white room; make it very, very bright, and imprison them there.
“Be sure the room has a camera so we may monitor their actions. It is imperative they are preoccupied with one another’s teenage angst, which should dull the boy’s imagination sufficiently and allow me time to decide how I may best take advantage of his peculiar talent.”
Leaning back in his wheelchair, Doctor Angstrom could almost hear the crowds cheering him as he stood in the darkness delivering a speech. Thousands upon thousands of adoring eyes focused solely and totally on him, the super being, the man who lives forever, the living legend, the mythmaker, the God-king.
Yes, eternity is going to be a blast
, he thought.
***
While going over the plans of the building that was now the school, Hunter remembered that the whacked-out English eccentric who built the place had created a sub-basement. The area was unremarkable except for the fact that it housed all the miscreants of the insect and rodent world. At its center, however, lord whoever-he-was had constructed a massive steel vault.
Hunter had installed a closed-circuit camera in there for Leitz, thinking he would use it to store some of his more sensitive secrets—plus, if there was ever an interrogation to conduct the place would be perfect. In his present situation, however, the vault took on a whole new meaning; it was the perfect place to contain and observe his prisoners.
He had called Miss Moon and informed her that he intended to use the place, and she thought it was the perfect solution to a thorny problem. She relayed the order that he run the kids around in circles for a while, and he quickly agreed. But for the life of him, he could not work out where he could take four blindfolded kids with their hands tied behind their backs to run them around without arousing suspicion.
As it was a weekend the school was empty, and they knew they would be safe from prying eyes as Steve backed the truck right up to the underground entrance. Even if there were someone lurking around, nobody would suspect that SID’S PLUMBING was doing anything other than cleaning out blocked drains or fixing broken pipes.
The kids were led into the basement, and true to his word, Hunter took them on a couple of swift circuits before descending down to the lowest level. He could see the point of disorienting them, but being a fairly decent student of human nature, he knew that by now their adrenaline would be running so high they would be scared out of their wits.
Down in the cavernous sub-basement, Hunter and his captives could hear the constant dripping of water from leaking pipes. Rats scurried away in all directions as the flashlights waved around and caught glimpses of cobwebs with huge spiders at their centers.
Are the spiders so big because they feed on the rats?
Hunter wondered. How else would such an obese population of arachnids be fed? The two of them dragged the kids along, stumbling over debris that had been there for decades and raising dust clouds so thick that everyone broke into spasmodic coughing fits.
When the group finally came to a halt in front of the vault, they were rasping from the contaminated air. Hunter turned the huge wheel that drew the bolt, dragged the door open, and shoved the kids inside.
“I don’t know about you, Steve, but I’m really starving,” Hunter said enthusiastically, as he spun the wheel back and locked the kids inside.
“Yeah, me too, I guess,” Steve replied. He suddenly wasn’t quite sure about his new job.
“Nothing like a successful morning’s work to give you a raging appetite, is there?”
“No,” said Steve, trying to mimic Hunter’s enthusiasm, “no, there isn’t.” But he couldn’t help wondering as he walked away exactly what it was these four kids had done to deserve such brutal treatment.
***
The four kids lay tied, blindfolded, and exhausted on the floor of the vault. The images running through each of their heads were unspeakably negative, and slightly ahead of his friends in the anguish department, John was full of remorse for bringing them all into a life-threatening situation.
“I just have one friggin’ question,” Tex raged furiously. “What the hell is going on here?!”
“I told you these guys were after me,” John moaned.
“They aren’t the only ones,” Cal fumed. “If I weren’t trussed up like a chicken, I’d kill you myself.”
“We all want to kill him,” Kate seethed. “But in order to do that, we need to get ourselves untied.”
Each of them scooted across the floor until they were back to back and could begin to work on untying the cords around each other’s wrists.
“Listen, I didn’t arrange it this way. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” John said as he began to tug at Tex’s bonds.
“You might think you’re helping yourself, but you’re not,” Tex warned. “If I were you I would just keep quiet.”
“Does anybody have any idea where we are?” Kate asked as Cal began pulling on the knot that secured her hands.
“Yeah, we’re in big trouble,” Cal said, but no one laughed at his half-hearted attempt to inject humor into the situation.
***
Doctor Leitz sat in front of a TV monitor in his lab watching the four kids crawling around the floor down in the vault.
If ever there was going to be an opportunity to break the yoke of servitude
, he thought,
this is it.
He suspected his half-brother had something to do with engineering his lapse in sanity, but he couldn’t work out how he’d done it. He’d halfheartedly tried to go without the medicine Angstrom had prescribed him after his miraculous cure, but he’d felt the old symptoms setting in the longer he’d delayed taking it. He analyzed the substance and found it to be an obscure fungus native to the Amazon rain forest, and it mystified him.
How on earth could South American jungle fauna cure my dementia
? He wondered,
and how on earth could my brother have known I needed it
? The only answer he could come up with was the obvious one; he was being controlled.
Nevertheless
, he reasoned
, it’s all mind over matter
, so he’d flushed it down the toilet a few days ago.
“There’s the bug in your ointment, Doc!” Hunter startled him out of his reverie by sneaking up behind him.
“The what?” he asked, turning to see Angstrom’s two goons standing behind him.
“The pesky tyke who ruined your experiment,” Hunter beamed, pointing at the monitor. “There he is!”
“Oh yes, I see,” Leitz said, smiling.
“I’ve been with the kid for a while, and he doesn’t seem to be anything special to me,” added Hunter.
“Perhaps he’s not—I may be wrong,” Leitz said thoughtfully.
“Well, it’s bad luck for them if you are,” Hunter chuckled.
“Meaning what?” Leitz asked.
“Meaning their situation is terminal from here on in,” said Hunter, running a finger across his neck while adding the appropriate sound effect.
“Terminal! Why?”
“Orders,” Hunter ventured. “They know too much already, even if you’re wrong.”
“My goodness,” Leitz warbled; he’d never considered such consequences.
It’s strange,
Steve thought,
he’s right here at the center of things, and he still can’t quite work out what’s going on.
“Well, we’ve done our job,” Hunter boasted. “It’s all up to you now.”
As the two of them left Leitz listened intently until he was absolutely sure they would not return. He was feeling very confident, and finally he could relax. He stared at the monitor intently and reflected,
I have all of the ingredients for success right in front of me, and I have a date with destiny—whoever she turns out to be!
He found himself giggling uncharacteristically at the childish thought that came from nowhere, and wasn’t even particularly funny.
Mind over matter,
he thought
… mind over matter.
***
The four kids managed to struggle free of their ropes, and after ripping off their blindfolds, they scrambled up from the floor. The moment John had been dreading had finally arrived; they were all free with nowhere to go, and just as he suspected the three of them turned on him straight away and began backing him into a corner.
“Don’t worry,” he told them. “Your folks will report you missing, and the police will come get us.”
“My folks are in Las Vegas,” said Cal.
“And mine,” added Tex.
“Mine too,” Kate echoed.
“I guess all our parents went!” John muttered feebly as he backpedaled.
“Now suppose you tell us why we’re here?” asked Kate menacingly.
“And while you’re about it, tell us how we get out of here,” Cal demanded.
After each step John could feel the wall getting closer, and his heart beating faster.
“Yeah, we’ve all seen the movie, we just came along for the ride,” Tex quoted. “Do you remember what happens to the guys that just come along for the ride, Johnny?”
John’s mind was tumbling, and his thoughts were running around in circles like unruly kids. He could hear the blood rushing through his ears, and his nerves screamed at him to get the heck out of there.
“Give me a moment,” he stuttered. “I’ll think of something.”
“Do you have a magic wand up your sleeve?” Kate asked. “I don’t think so!”
“Do you have a time machine?” Tex demanded. “I don’t think so!”
“Well, we don’t have any of those things either, Johnny,” Cal taunted, “but we can sure make our anger vanish by taking out our frustration on you!”
John had reached the wall, and with nowhere left to go his mind suddenly focused like a laser beam on the word ‘vanish,’ and that’s just what he did—he vanished.
OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND
John watched the fabric of reality around him disappear as everything dissolved into nothingness before his eyes. It was a stunning shock to his system, and he wondered how he had managed to maintain his awareness long enough to watch it go. He had expected his consciousness to fade at any moment, but it didn’t happen. The world was gone and he was alone; even though he felt exactly the same within himself as he always had, he knew without a doubt that something deep down at the core of his being was different.
Nothing like this had ever happened before. His previous changes had been unconscious and swift, but this new change was a pure unadulterated enigma. He had been dropped into a complicated maze, and his only option was to rationalize it, or go completely mad.
His normal walking-around self—the eyes and soul that stared back at him from the mirror—stayed the same. But his reflection self, his solid self, his weight and substance, had shifted to his space self; his empty self. It was as if he had stepped into another world, a world right beside the solid world that was the empty world; the space-in-between-things world.
Instantly, he knew that this world was vast and teeming with promise—the promise of things dreamed and undreamed. It wasn’t the beginning, it was the place before the beginning; it was the womb, the crucible from which the magic of creation bubbles forth. A dark, empty space so thick with the atomic soup of consciousness it vibrated with energy—an energy pregnant with potential, an energy that existed to be shaped—and the tool used to shape it was thought.