NOTES: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.
SUMMARY: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".
DISCLAIMER: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.
"Land of the Living"
Chapter 3
T.R. Samuels
Monday morning arrived with the same inevitability as death and taxes.
John rolled out of bed with great reluctance and a dissatisfied growl, the heat of a scalding, early morning shower a poor substitute for the snug warmth of his marital bed. It only brought him the initial semblance of humanity he needed to face the day, making stiff joints and muscles pliant and giving him a warm, healthy glow. He shaved and brushed his teeth, swilling blue mouthwash like it was a shot of florescent alcopop and treating it with similar reverence as he spat it down the drain.
When he returned to the bedroom, Cameron was gone, the bed remade with military precision and had even put his clothes out neatly on the covers. He smiled, warmed so completely by the simple act, turning his head as he heard the pitter-patter of his daughter's tiny feet as she padded across the landing to the bathroom and clicked the door closed.
He started to dress, each successive article having a flow and a rhythm to it. Shirt on first, button up and cufflinks, pants next, button then fly, black leather belt, socks and then shoes before the final agony of tie selection – the autonomous mechanics of dressing for work familiar and methodical, ingrained into muscle memory like a soldier putting on fatigues or an astronaut getting into a spacesuit.
He arrived in the kitchen ten minutes later, taking a seat at the table opposite Sarah as the little girl spooned cereal into her mouth and read the puzzles Tony the Tiger challenged her with, his gaze catching Cameron in the kitchen as she brought him a cup of coffee and tried to ignore the fact that she was probably naked under her dressing gown.
"Ready for school, Sarah?"
She looked up from the cereal box slowly, the look of enthusiasm she gave him not at all dissimilar to the one he had seen earlier in the bathroom mirror.
"Not challenging you, huh?" He grinned, fatherly pride blooming as he took a sip of his coffee. "I've got a feeling today will be different."
Sarah sat up, eyes narrowing at his implication. Sometimes she scared him with her keen senses, like he was talking to a miniaturised adult that could not only answer back, but do so logically and with reason.
"What do you mean?" She cocked her head with suspicion the same way her mother did.
"Oh, just someone important who wants to give you some little tests. See how smart you are." He made a show of pouring the milk over his corn flakes, staying nonchalant as he scooped his first spoonful. "It's probably too soon for you though. Too difficult, I suspect."
Sarah stared at him for a moment, then resumed eating, dignifying his poorly veiled attempt at reverse psychology with equally oblique distain. "We'll see…" She muttered past a mouthful of cereal that inflated the side of her cheek.
After breakfast, Sarah was made ready for school, little of which came from her own efforts as Cameron put the finishing touches on the contents of her lunchbox and John tied her shoelaces tight, fitting the girl with her fleece jacket, woolly mittens and a hat, pulling the tuque down over the tips of her ears like a swimming cap. Cameron slipped her lunch into her backpack and helped her put it on, lifting the shoulder straps over her shoulders and securing them in place as the girl shrugged them to comfort.
Both parents stood back and admired the fruits of their labours, glancing at one another and smiling with deep satisfaction with the adorable ensemble they had created. Sarah merely scowled.
"All set?" John asked her, putting on his coat and picking up his briefcase.
"Eminently."
He scraped his keys off the kitchen table and put them in his pocket. "That's the spirit. Keep using big words and knock 'em dead."
As he pulled a scarf around his neck Cameron knelt down and opened her arms, embracing Sarah as she toddled over and hugged her tight. Mother and daughter held one another for long seconds, the little girl swaying in her arms as she tried in vain to get closer. Cameron kissed her cheeks, taking the girls head in her hands and putting a final kiss on her forehead, a gentle and motherly affection rarely seen by anyone outside of their family.
She didn't like Sarah being away from them, even if it were only a couple of miles in town. On her first day of school, she was more nervous than Sarah, despite the fact she had gone over the school on open day with a fine toothcomb, put all the teachers on edge and run background checks and cursory surveillance on every member of staff. Cameron didn't like the idea of the personification of her and John's love being cared for by a bunch of strangers.
And she was a personification – the very embodiment of all Cameron cared about and whose sum equalled more than its parts. She had to be. John wouldn't have fathered a child with her if he didn't love her – it was as simple as that.
"Have fun today." The words were said with just a hint of discomfort, like someone speaking about something they didn't entirely understand but were well-meaning and intentioned all the same. "And be educated."
Sarah gave her patented half smile, grateful for her mother's attempt, even if it was a little clumsy. "Thanks, mom."
Cameron nodded and rose to her feet, turning to John and embracing him, the two of them sharing a long and gentle kiss.
"Umm… I'll pick her up tonight, and I'll see you later." He held out his hand for Sarah and opened the door, an early morning chill swirling around them as they stepped out into the long morning rays of yellow sunlight and made their way to the car.
For travelling to work and making the school run, John had bought a sensible Ford Fiesta ECOtenic. Moonlight silver and sixty-five to the gallon. Not the biggest or flashiest he could have got, but with gas prices rising every month, he had to admit that it had been one of his shrewder investments, well worth the final depletion of their hoard of diamonds. In truth, he'd been glad to see them gone and liquidated into something useful. A bag of uncut diamonds was not exactly something he felt safe having around.
He held the passenger door open, helping Sarah with her seatbelt and made sure it was fastened tight. He put his briefcase on the backseat and climbed in behind the wheel, turning the ignition and flicking on the heater as they waved goodbye to Cameron and he backed them neatly off the driveway. A few minutes later they were out of their cul-de-sac and on their way into town, the local (and only) radio station giving them a comfortable background melody as they passed by the various aftermaths of yesterdays' festivities.
Road sweepers were out in force, as were the garbage men, emptying overflowing trash cans and cleaning up the streets, hosing down the inner roads and sidewalks where necessary and hanging flower baskets – re-beatifying all that had been despoiled. Main Street had been completely transformed and had probably been the epicentre of initial clean-up, the asphalt jet black and gleaming, water evaporating into steam. As far as John could tell, he'd never have known there'd been over a thousand people crammed in here yesterday.
He glanced at Sarah and saw her scowling again. "I know school sucks, sweetheart." He offered up, eyes widening at a sudden flash of inspiration. "Hey, I know! How about we stop and I'll buy you a cookie?"
Sarah's face remained unchanged, then grew into a big smile, nodded heartily and making John laugh.
"Just don't tell your mom, okay?"
He pulled the car into a parking space at the front of the town diner and coffee shop known as 'A Brewed Awakening', following on the heels of Sarah as she unbelted herself and went on ahead of him, her little frame heaving open the heavy door before she confidently approached the counter. The waitress made a mushy smile when she saw her, an old woman whose name John couldn't remember, her forearms resting on the counter as she bent over to engage little Sarah eye to eye.
"Oh! Aren't you such a little darling!" Her face contorted as she looked at her with utter adoration, drawing the attention of other female staff and several of the diners. John recognised some of them, most stopping in for breakfast before heading off to work, nursing coffee cups and newspapers or delving into heart-healthy lashings of pancakes or bacon. He was a little surprised though that many of them nodded to him in greeting, some of them even raising a hand in greeting.
"Good morning," he smiled at the waitress, "can we get one of your big, double chocolate cookies and a large espresso, please?"
She nodded and pushed back from the counter, using a pair of plastic cooking tongs to pinch a cookie from the warm display cabinet and slipped it into a paper bag. Sarah took it gleefully, shuffling the edge of the baked biscuit out and took a big bite out of it. The waitress poured John's coffee like a master barista, sliding on the domed lid and placed it on the counter as he handed over some money, picking up a straw and piercing it through the lid.
"Come on then," He got his change and ushered Sarah towards the exit. "Thank you."
A chorus of 'goodbye', 'see ya' and 'catch you later' rose like wave behind him as nearly everybody in the diner said their individual farewells almost in unison. John stopped and looked back as he held the door open for Sarah, his eyebrows stretching for his hairline as he glanced around the room as the diners resumed their meals and the staff went merrily back to work.
John huffed, no sure what to make of it. Everyone certainly seemed to be in quite a good mood this morning. The festival must have been better than he thought.
After a mile or so more driving Sarah had finished her cookie and the Fiesta pulled up outside Redwood Kindergarten School. After cleaning the corners of her mouth with a tissue, John tapped her on the arm.
"Hey, listen…" He said, forestalling her departure as Honeybun appeared in the doorway and began ushering waiting children inside. "Y'know… this whole test thing you're gonna do today. I know I made a big deal of it, but it's not really that important. Just do your best and don't worry about passing anything." He smiled, pushing some hair away from her face and curling it behind her ear. "No matter what, your mom and I will always be proud of you."
Sarah face softened into her version of her mother's precious smile and she reached for him, her arms circling his neck as they hugged one another tight. "Have a good day, alright. I'll come and pick you up later." He kissed her cheek and they got out of the car, holding hands as they walked the last few feet to the entrance and John put her straight into Honeybun's charge, father and daughter sharing a last little wave as she was taken inside and John headed back to the car.
####
John arrived at work at 8:15am, driving the Fiesta onto the office car park through a pair of heavy iron gates. As he slipped the vehicle into a space between a grass verge and a fellow colleague's Buick he caught a glimpse of the brand new company logo embossed in Century Gothic above the first floor windows.
Keen-Swift Construction
From what John had seen and experienced over the last four-and-a-half years in the company's employ, there were at least two things wrong with that title – he just hadn't yet decided which two of them they were. If the wall of the entrance lobby was to be believed then Keen-Swift had had a long and illustrious history stretching back twenty years, chocked full of triumph and glory, the framed certificates and glass goblet trophies boasting proudly to whoever entered the validity of its claims to success.
Inside the empty building, John unlocked his office and put his briefcase down, hung his coat on the pillar hanger and sat at his desk, the generous workspace located in a private office he shared with a pair of co-workers that was colloquially referred to as 'the Goldfish Bowl', named so because of its distinctive shape and, he suspected, as a subtle riff on at least two of its regular occupants – he was pretty sure he knew which ones.
He used to work outside in the open plan office, the bustle of office life and interpersonal relations a constant annoyance that had given John a series of trying headaches. He had spent so much of his early life alone or away from people that the daily ambience of Keen-Swift's ergonomic floor plan had almost made him pray for a cubical farm. That was until he'd made a lucky series of career-boosting moves that saved the company's reputation with the local authority after they'd made a particular bad debacle. More importantly; he had earned them more money. In recognition he'd been promoted and moved into this semi-private office, ruffling a few peoples' feathers in the process.
He unscrewed the lid from his plastic cup and had a mouthful of coffee, feeling the espresso permeate his brain and body, fortifying him for the day ahead as he savoured the early morning silence of the mostly vacant building, the only employees yet in attendance besides himself the members of the cleaning staff and a few maintenance men. He noted with some distain that his in-tray was significantly fuller than he remembered, its sides bulging with the weeks worth of activity and the weight of a particularly ominous document that he recognised instantly. It was the bill of quantities for the new project in Crystal Creek.
John sighed hard and hauled it out, placing the thick wad of bog-standard paper on the desk in front of him. It had an impressive weight, thick as a phone book, the covering sheet stamped with important red ink and the company logo. The first time John had seen one of these he'd almost peed, the soul-crushing tree trunk explained to him as a comprehensive document used for tendering and reference that served as a 'bible' of sorts for a single construction project – only later discovering for himself that it was in reality an anal and neurotic diatribe prepared by the most reductivist and bean-counting of low-lives that had ever existed – quantity surveyors.
John hated them. They reminded him too much of soulless terminators and their penurious dispositions rubbed the free-spirited warrior poet within him just the wrong way.
John had been one of them now for nearly four years.
In his darkest hours of job-related misery, he reminded himself that the reason he put himself through this every day was for Cameron and Sarah, the two of them staring back at him from the framed picture he kept on his desk. It was one of the few images that existed of Cameron actually smiling, that perfection alone increased ten-fold as she hugged little Sarah from behind, holding the girl against her chest as their daughter squealed and laughed in a captured instant of total joy.
John though it was the most perfect picture that had ever existed, and one look at it was enough to lift his spirits to face whatever challenge life threw at him.
He straightened himself in his seat, turning his computer on and pulled himself close to the desk, opening the fearsome document past the first initial pages of ass-covering legal jargon and began crunching the numbers.
Right around noon, John had been working for nearly four hours straight, his mind absorbed in the task at hand as his desk had gradually filled with more documents and architectural drawings, his mechanical pencil, highlighters and scale rule all feeling the burn, the buttons of his calculator sticking. The office had filled up since the day began and the muffled noise of typical office activity was now at nominal levels – phones ringing, keyboards tapping, the omniscient ebb and flow of human conversation.
He managed to get through a quarter of the file – not bad going for half a day's work – checking quantities and rates against quotes and drawings on everything from the hundreds of feet of skirting and architrave to lump-sum prices for steel building frames and mechanical sub-systems. He felt pretty fried, forehead and eyes throbbing from so much attention to detail. Time to break early for lunch.
No sooner had John got his coat and slipped his car key ring around his finger than Aaron Rauger, his divisional manager and direct superior, made a sudden entrance through the door. His colleagues greeted him with their usual feigned welcome, though John noticed it seemed a little more authentic and natural today. John himself merely groaned inwardly and slumped back in his chair.
"Hey, John," Rauger greeted with too bright a smile as he sauntered over. "What's happening?" John always thought the man looked like he had too little to do, his hands always empty and there was too much spring in his step.
What the hell was it with everyone today? Glacier Peak Festival hadn't been that good this year.
"The usual stuff. I made a start on the bill for Crystal Creek and I was…"
"Great! Listen…" Rauger shifted gears faster than Jenson Button, perching himself on the edge of John's desk. "We've got a few issues with material-on-site out at Crystal Creek. They broke ground there yesterday morning and I'd like you to go out and take an inventory. Pad this month's valuation nice and thick."
Son-of-a-bitch.
Material-on-site was a measure of the amount of construction material such as bricks or timber that had been delivered to site, but had yet to be incorporated into the building, usual stacked and stored in a secure compound awaiting final installation. As part of the contract with their clients, Keen-Swift got a percentage of the final worth of the material just for it being there, and that measly amount was enough for Rauger to send John all the way up into the mud and drizzle to take stock of what they could cash in on.
"Sure thing, Ron," he feigned his best bullshit-smile, "I'll go straight up and sort it out."
Rauger cocked his head and gave him the thumbs-up. "You the man, John. I knew I could count on you."
Asshole.
"No problem. Whatever's good for the company, right?"
As Rauger stood and walked away, John's smile vanished, fighting the urge to give the guy the finger as he meandered out of the office and down the corridor, douching it up as he scanned the outer office for signs of where he might apply his unearned authority and unwelcome input.
John gathered his things together and went out to the car park, putting his briefcase and coat on the front passenger seat before opening the trunk, checking to see that his measuring wheel, steel-toe boots and high-visibility jacket were all accounted for. When he climbed in behind the wheel he took a moment's rest, toying with the idea of stopping home first before going out to site – see Cameron and give her a hug.
The only problem was that hugging Cameron led to other things, and with Sarah out of the house it invited all manner of devious, time consuming activity they could get up to.
No. He was a grown man and had work to do. Work that sustained them in their idyllic existence. He'd see Cameron later.
On his way out on Glacier Peak Highway, John ate his way through the contents of his lunch box, savouring the two sandwiches lovingly prepared for him that morning. No crust, wholesome brown, lightly toasted, two layers of roast ham with tomato and cheddar, English mustard for bite – none of that weak-ass French crap. She'd added a pot of chopped fruit too, making up at least three of his five-a-day, plus a packet of plain cashew nuts and a little bottle of Tropicana to wash it down.
By the time he'd finished eating it, he felt as right as rain.
The construction site at Crystal Creek was about seven miles out of town, not that far, he noted, from where they'd encountered that abandoned SUV a few nights ago. He made a mental note to call by the sheriff's department on his way home or phone them when he got in, find out what had happened out there and if the driver had ever been located.
He turned onto the site, keeping the car on the steamrolled gravel laid down as an area of temporary hardstand, preventing cars and delivery vehicles falling into the muddy quagmire of the site proper – a rectangular field of mud and aggregate that when seen from above looked like someone had taken a giant cookie cutter to the forest. He parked in front of the modular office cabins; a pair of rectangular steel boxes, one sitting on top of the other, their windows covered in metallic mesh and opened security shutters. The site generator stood at one end, thrumming away happily as it burnt through the content of its huge gasoline tank, providing the site with power.
John had seen the first fuel bill for the outdated power plant and authorising the first payment sheet had felt like passing a kidney stone – some months, the damn thing earned more money than he did.
He cleared up the mess from lunch and stepped out into the cool air, the sky an overcast veil of angry clouds as he pulled his coat on, stepping around to the trunk and changing into his heavy duty boots and fluorescent jacket. He took a new surveyor's pad from the stack he kept hidden along with a pen and pencil, stuffing them in his jacket pocket along with his tape measure before ascending the aluminium staircase up the side of the cabins and entered the main office.
The air inside curled with the smell of feet and tobacco, the little kitchenette looking like an impending biohazard and the floor around the doorway covered in boot prints. The calendar in the wall had a girl younger than he was showing off her tits, dressed in unworn work clothes and a construction hard hat. One side of the wall had a rack of architectural plans and drawings, the other a project flowchart, a desk and chair sitting between them where the sexagenarian site manager sat reading a newspaper, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth as he filled in the crossword.
"How's it going, Dennis?" John asked as he put his name and arrival time down in the safety register.
Dennis Curley looked up from a twelve letter word for 'blasphemous' and noticed John for the first time since his arrival. "Oh, hi John!" He folded the paper shut and gave him his full attention. "Put the kettle on and let's have some coffee."
John liked Dennis. The guy was a good natured old pro who had done the same job for over forty years, building God-knows how many structures in his professional career and now bided his time quietly until retirement. He didn't make mistakes and he didn't make waves, his philosophy in life was to just 'take it easy' – something John himself could heartily embrace.
"Don't mind if I do." He clicked the appliance on and found a pair of clean cups from the cupboard, pouring himself and Dennis each a cup of black as they talked shop and put the injustices and inadequacies of Keen-Swift to rights.
The best thing about his job was that at least he could get out once in a while – away from the office, sometimes for whole days at a time and speak freely and openly out of range of the omniscient eyes and ears of the company brass and office snitches.
After ten minutes or so of idle chatting, John was thinking about making a move out to site when the door to the cabin burst open, a kid groundworker called Eli stumbling inside with a flushed, panic-stricken expression.
"Den! Ah shit boss! We got a problem!"
Dennis rolled his eyes, sharing a look with John that dreaded the details of whatever idiotic mistake had been made now. "What is it now, Eli?"
The kid caught his breath, pausing for what John suspected was effect, before finally coming out with it.
"There's a dead guy out in the woods! Just beyond the perimeter!" He looked like he was going to barf. "The guy's… his… his fucking head's all missing and there's blood and guts everywhere! I'm not kidding!"
John and Dennis looked at one another, suspicious of a practical joke before turning their gazes back on Eli. The kid had started pacing, hands shaking with adrenaline and the colour draining out of him in a cold sweat. He kept shaking his head, eyes looking through everything to something else, burnt hard onto the inside of his eyelids and the eternal album of his memory.
This wasn't a joke.
"Eli," Dennis got to his feet and took charge, sitting the kid down in a chair as John got him some cold water. "I want you to take a seat and stay here. John and I will go take a look."
In a matter of minutes Dennis had put a call into the sheriff's department and John was following the old man across the muddy landscape, out towards a crowd of aghast groundworkers and labourers that had congregated in agitation at the far end of the site, right on the border between where the exposed earth gave way to thick underbrush and forest.
"It's down there…" One of them pointed down into a furrow of underbrush, between a pair of trees that marked the scene of a vicious and ferocious blood bath, the ominous details of carnage immediately apparent even though the body itself was obscured.
John and Dennis descended carefully, using the trees and their low branches for support until they reached the bottom and pulled back the ruffled shrubbery to the reveal the crimson carnage of mangled corpse.
Dennis nearly wretched and John looked away, his heart hammering as the gathered work crew groaned with repugnance, most of them dispersing back across the site towards the cabins.
"Sweet Jesus!" Dennis stumbled away, making his way immediately back up the short incline. "I'm gonna see how far away the sheriff is."
"I think I hear him already."
Sure enough, somewhere in the distance John could hear the wailing siren of a rapidly approaching police car, the noise sounding cavernous as it echoed off the hills and cliffs in a ghostly, banshee wail.
John turned around and forced himself to look at the mutilated remains, all but certain in his mind that this had to be what was left of the driver of the SUV. In grim confirmation, John looked up and scanned the tree line, following the landscape past tree trunks and swirling mist to where the flowing water of White Chuck River gleamed in the distance. Beyond that he knew lay a stretch of Glacier Peak Highway up on a steep slope of valley – the same stretch where they had encountered the crash he'd looked down from only two nights ago.
He felt gladder more than ever that he hadn't tried to climb down, the sight of what was spread out before him now like nothing he'd ever seen. He had seen dead bodies before of course, had even killed for himself, but nothing like this. The body was so torn up and deformed, limbs snapped and skewered at unnatural angles, the head missing and the contents of the body broken open, spilling its innards of blood and organs over the lush green foliage.
John was about to turn away and climb out before something caught his eye. Something glistening and reflective amidst the carnage. For a moment, he thought it was belt buckle or a piece of jewellery until he looked at it closer, the position of it in amongst the flesh precluding the possibility of external finery.
Whatever it was, it had come from the inside.
John's thought immediately jumped to a graft plate or surgical pin of some kind. Then he moved closer.
Something cold and dreadful began forming in John's stomach, is insides roiling as he was drawn on by a sheer force of will he had thought he has lost forever. Something within him felt like a door had suddenly opened – an echo from his past – setting his nerve and driving him forward to uncover the truth no matter what he was going to find.
He reached into his pocket and took out his pen, grasping it at its extreme end and coiled it under a flap of torn flesh, his hand shaking as the dread of what he was about to uncover began settling in him with an oily sickness.
He pulled the flesh back and recoiled in horror, dropping the pen but the flap of tissue remained open. The full horror bowled him over, falling on his backside in the squelching mud.
His breath became ragged, pumping in and out of him in clouds of crystallising vapour, his heart thrumming harder than the site generator.
This wasn't happening. It was impossible!
Beneath the tattered flesh that John knew know was the covering of a knee cap, a sight he never thought he'd see again protruded out of the corpse, glistening and horrible as droplets of bright blood beaded on its surface – a surface of smooth and stainless metal.
John had seen the design before. Slightly different perhaps, but the similarities were undeniable. The knee joint was unmistakably of machine design, though the series-type and model number escaped him.
It was impossible, but it was happening. The evidence only a few feet away. Who or whatever this thing had been pretending to be, it was without any doubt a terminator.
John set his jaw hard and burnt his eyes into the corpse, a sudden rage and hatred boiling inside him that he hadn't felt in ages. He felt like he wanted to take a sledge hammer and pound the remains into nothing, or bury it under tonnes of concrete never to be seen again. But none of that would happen. The police were on their way and soon Redwood and his peaceful existence would be blown wide open into a thousand pieces. A million questions would be asked, the eyes of the law, the government, and even the military would descend upon them like an unstoppable wave.
Pulling himself forward, John reached for what remained of the shredded pants, feeling carefully with increasingly bloodied hands for a wallet or billfold, anything that could shed light onto this thing's assumed identity. Maybe it could put him one step ahead of the sheriff before…
A pair of powerful hands seized him by the shoulders, hauling him up with incredible strength, pulling him away from the body and up to his feet before whirling him around to come face-to-face with Sheriff Bacchus.
"What the hell are you doing, Connor?" He roared at him point-blank, looking John up and down like he had lost his mind.
Bacchus was a mountain of a man and a former Special Forces soldier, killing any knee-jerk reaction John might have for fight or flight.
"You're contaminating a potential crime scene for Christ-sake! What the hell were you thinking?"
John thought fast, looking Bacchus straight in the eye. "I was just checking to see if the guy had any ID, maybe tell us who he was."
"That's my department, Connor! You count bricks and mortar!" Bacchus released him from his iron grip but didn't back down, staying in John's space and glared into him with a growing look of disbelief, disappointment and sad rebuke. "I'm sorry John, but I can't let this slide. You may have compromised important evidence."
"But this is a bear attack, right? What evidence are you talking about?"
Bacchus levelled his eyes at him with professional intensity, nerves going cold as he grabbed him again by the shoulders and spun him around, yanking out his handcuffs and slipping the unyielding links tight around Johns' wrists.
"John Connor… I am placing you under arrest…"
####
Brown crayon swathed along the inside of a thin black line that crudely depicted the thoracic crest of a Velociraptor. Then it began to scratch, etching details with miniscule strokes to describe thin areas of leathery hide amidst a feathery underbelly. Longer and broader feathers were added to the arms, making them more like wings, and a tuft of auburn plumage formed the tip of the tail. By the time it was finished, rather than a ferocious lizard, it would more resemble an angry chicken – accurate and consistent with current understandings of these ancient and extinct creatures.
Sarah had always found colouring easy, her hand-eye coordination superior to that of her fellow pupils as they floundered beneath the simple task, straying beyond the lines constantly and depicting patterns and colours that were ridiculous.
Velociraptors were not pink. Nor did they have laser cannons – no matter what Freddy Hicks insisted.
She looked out of the empty classroom window as the other children ran about in the playground. Honeybun had asked her to stay behind and told her that Mister Gray would be here soon to meet her, giving her some colouring books to pass the time before sitting in the corner at her desk, reading another of her romance novels disguised behind the dust jacket of War and Peace.
"…well, when you're finished there I'll meet you…" The classroom door creaked open and Gray entered, cradling a cell phone in the crook of his neck as he carried a briefcase and worked the door knob. "Alright, I see you then. Yeah, later." He dropped the phone, catching it in his hand and snapped it shut.
"Sarah…" His eyes fell upon her where she sat at her desk, his eyes sparkling like pearls. "I'm so pleased to finally meet you."
Sarah looked him up and down as he and Honeybun spoke briefly with one another, confirming the nature of the tests and how long it was expected to last. His suit certainly fit his name and his pressed white shirt was buttoned neat and tight, the blood-red of his tie the only hint that his existence spread beyond monochrome.
"It shouldn't take too long… maybe half an hour or so."
Honeybun nodded before taking her leave, the classroom door clicking shut with a hint of echo as she left Gray and Sarah alone.
He put his briefcase down and pulled out the chair opposite her, sliding a bound leather notebook onto the table before sitting, picking the briefcase up and setting it on the floor beside him. He opened the notebook and slid past numerous pages filled with writing and diagrammatic sketches until he found one fresh and unblemished, sliding out a silver fountain pen from a nifty compartment along the inner spine.
"Now then, Sarah. I'm Kevin Gray from the Department of Education and I'm just here to ask you a few little questions, if that's alright?"
Sarah stared for a moment before she shrugged, sliding her crayon back into its box.
Gray made a little laugh as he removed a pair of glasses from an expensive case and began cleaning them. "You're a girl of few words, aren't you. Isn't there anything you'd like to ask me? Any questions or anything that bothers you before we begin?"
Sarah looked into his eyes, looking for irony or condescension in the pale blue orbs. This look often put Honeybun on edge, but Gray didn't seem to notice. She didn't like that he wasn't unnerved by it, and there was something about blue she always found rather off-putting – like it was the antithesis of her favourite colour red. His tie helped offset that of course, it was even her favourite shade. For a brief moment, she wondered if that was why he'd chosen it.
"No." She said, changing her expression to something more amiable. "I think I'd like to answer some questions."
Gray smiled and wrote the time and date on the clean page, adding Sarah's name and the words 'first interview'.
"Okay then," He tapped a full stop and drew a line under what he'd written before pulling the notebook back, resting it in his lap as he got comfortable in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. "These questions will start off pretty easy, and to be honest there's no right or wrong answer…" He looked down at his book and wrote something. "You come across a river in a forest, do you cross it?"
Sarah gave him the fisheye, surprised and wary of the nature of the question.
"Yes."
Gray jotted before continuing. "If you had to choose between the life of your father and your mother, which would it be?"
Sarah slid back in her chair and folded her arms. She hated psychology. "Neither. I'd choose me."
The look on Gray's face brightened then, like he'd been given a fresh dose of life-force that brought colour back to his cheeks. "That's a pretty unusual answer for someone your age. Why would you sacrifice yourself before your parents? Most children wouldn't."
She looked at him then like he was something small and when she finally said something, he felt tingles go down his spine.
"My father represents 'authority'; my mother represents 'home'. You're testing how strong my loyalty is. Why?"
He cleared his throat and jotted something before crossing it out. "I'm just trying to get an idea of your personality type. Most gifted children have atypical psychological traits and are inherently predisposed to…" He paused as she continued staring at him, an unnatural keenness in her eyes making him realise something profound and so completely unexpected. It made his heart beat a little faster.
"You actually understand what I'm talking about, don't you. That's… incredible!"
Gray's face broke out in a genuine smile, thrilled and excited beyond measure by the tiny individual he had almost stumbled across by accident and was now giving him one of the highlights of his career.
"Let me just… hang on a second…" He sat up and reached down into his briefcase, rummaging around for a moment before producing a glossy textbook and began flicking through the pages. "Here, look at this…" He held the book open and turned it around for her to see. With his finger he had indicated an unusual shape on the page that looked like a square and triangle combined with an oblique sphere.
"If this shape was turned inside out," he turned to the next page, pointing to a series of strange, three-dimensional shapes labelled 'A' to 'D', "which of these would it…"
"The second one…"
Gray sat stunned, his certainty about Sarah all but confirmed. "That is amazing, Sarah. Well done."
"…and it's upside down."
He shook his head, hardly able to believe. He felt younger and vigorous all over again. "It's easy for you isn't it. I'm willing to bet you've always found things easy to see and you understand them right away. It's what sets you apart from other people, and they see it in you."
Sarah felt a chink in her armour slip, his words finding a weak point. "What do you mean?"
"Other children and grown-ups look at you and they see something they find a little threatening. Something better than they are. Better than they'll ever be and they don't like it. Envy is one of the most predictable of human feelings." He pushed his notebook aside and leaned forward, engaging her on her own level, his face betraying nothing but honesty and earnest.
"I understand how you must feel about that, Sarah," He smiled painfully. "I felt the same way when I was your age. I was gifted and intelligent beyond my years and it set me apart, made people look at me differently and feel threatened by how easy I made things that they couldn't even begin to understand."
Sarah felt the words have their intended purpose, her suspicions disarmed so completely by this man and the kinship he tried to evoke. She did notice how people looked at her differently, especially those at school. The other students spoke about her when they thought she wasn't listening. The teachers had an unspoken fear. The only time she felt truly comfortable was at home with her parents, where they only looked upon her as their precious and perfect daughter and had eyes only for the good.
But she knew the truth. Deep down inside, she had always known and felt it. There was something different about her.
Something inside clawed upward within her dreams at night, touching all the secret places where thought dwelt. The feeling of the breeze out of her window as she lay awake in bed, the echoes of the night, the lure of the forest and the land of the ice she knew lay far beyond the horizon. Calling her. Speaking to her. Telling her she did not belong.
Gray stroked the front of his chin, watching her in her deepest thoughts. "You know what I'm talking about. Don't you, Sarah? That you and I are more alike than anyone realises…" His smile reached his eyes and deepened. "Neither of us is what we seem..."
Sarah stared at him before closing her eyes, the blackness that enveloped her as she looked inside herself like another set of eyes looking back. Eyes so dark in their blackness it made hers want to slide right off them. Depthless. Soulless.
Monstrous.
She opened her eyes and looked across at him, the blackness she had looked into reflecting out, changing emerald green to darkest black, seeing Gray with new senses that pierced into him – froze him – kept him skewered in place like an insect as he began to squirm, feeling as though he had miscalculated before he realised with euphoric trepidation that the person sitting opposite him was no longer Sarah Connor.
Hope you liked it. I made things punchier in this chapter as the story is now getting into gear.
Thank you for reading and please leave a review.