Skeleton Key (2 page)

***

Roberto Gomez and his wife, Stacy, walked away with their three cute girls. The two youngest were dark-haired and dark-skinned and resembled their father very much. Anna, the oldest, who had developed a very close bond with Logan Payne, was fair-skinned, blond, and blue-eyed like her mother. She had the cutest little dimple when she grinned. They waved goodbye and pulled away in their banged-up Ford pickup truck. Roberto was a railway worker at the Durand, Michigan, railway yard. He was hired shortly after his wife was hired to work for Adrian Payne and Marshall Mortonson, co-owners of the Durand Depot and the Durand Railroad. Adrian hired the long-legged buxom blond in 2001 with the intentions of getting more from her than just someone to file, answer phones, and sort the mail. Adrian Payne had a gorgeous wife, but he also had no conscience and cared little about anyone but himself. He liked it when Stacy was happy, so he hired Roberto and made it clear that he did it for her. She seemed pleased.

Erika Payne and her son, Logan, watched politely and waved as their friends drove off. “They’re such nice people,” Erika commented as they reentered their home. The Gomez couple had been loading up their children and bringing the Paynes one meal a week for the past seven years—ever since Adrian’s mysterious disappearance after the famous Amtrak train wreck. “Time for dinner, Logan. Set the table while I take this out of the box.”

Logan was a seventeen-year-old senior who was four months shy of his eleventh birthday when his father disappeared. He had inherited his straight brown hair from his father, but he got his blue eyes from his mother. He had long bangs that hung over and hid those eyes, a hairstyle that symbolized his entire personality. Logan barely talked, had no close friends, and tended to spend more time asleep than awake. His mother was energetic, outgoing, and loving. She had remarkable patience with her son and was the only one able to get him to care about anything at all. She was a five foot three inch bundle of joy with short, curly, nearly white blond hair and the most expressive, beautiful blue eyes imaginable. She was cute
and
beautiful. She was sexy and desirable, but didn’t seem to know it, and that humbleness made her even more attractive. When her husband disappeared, she seemed to become happier and more content with her life, and those that knew her husband understood completely. Logan, on the other hand, was already introverted before the disappearance, and then withdrew more after the incident.

Once in the kitchen, Erika began working on the tape that secured the box holding their meal. Logan reacted to her instructions to set the table in the normal teenager way—he didn’t move a muscle. As Erika began picking at the packing tape with her perfectly manicured nails, Logan observed that she was making exactly no progress, and he was hungry. He loved Stacy Gomez’s cheese tortellini with butternut squash. He pulled his jackknife from his pocket and gently touched his mother’s hand—an indication that he would open the box for her. The jackknife was a gift from his father. While most teens carried a cell phone around twenty-four seven, Logan carried his jackknife. He flipped it open, sliced the tape expertly, and pulled the meal from the box. “Thank you,” Erika smiled.

“
Yep.” No eye contact. The knife spun in his palm, clicked shut, and disappeared with the skill of a magician.

“
I believe I told you to set the table.”

With a subtle nod of the head, Logan did as directed, then sat at the table waiting. Erika sat across from Logan, reached for his hand, and said grace. “Lord, thank you for your love and graciousness to us. Thank you for providing this food. Help us to be your servants, and we ask that you bring someone into our lives that we can show your love to and who might love us back. Amen.”

Logan squirmed. “Why do you always ask for someone to love us back?”

A question? A
whole
sentence. Wow. “We’ve been alone for seven years, Logan. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone that we could share our lives with?”

“
We have the Gomezes, and Coach Duncan, and Morty, and Mrs. Frauss.”

“
Let’s see…the Gomezes are a sweet
married
couple who have three small children. Dan Duncan is a stressed out egomaniac and your baseball coach when he’s not too busy being a cop. Marshall Mortonson is my boss, and Dr. Frauss is your behavioral therapist. I was thinking more along the lines of a male figure in our lives whose company we can enjoy. Wouldn’t you like to have a father figure around here occasionally?”

“
No.” And that was the end of the dinner conversation. Erika worried about her son. These years without Adrian had freed her to be happy again, but Logan seemed to live in fear of something…something he’d yet to express to a single person in seven years.

Dr. Zander Frauss was a neuroscientist
for the University of Michigan’s Department of Psychiatric Medicine
who specialized not only in the field of neuroscience but also in the field of parapsychology. He
headed a parapsychology laboratory called The Division of Perceptual Studies. Except for his glasses, he looked nothing like a scientist. He dressed casually, combed his wavy blond hair stylishly, and had a strong, athletic frame. Clay and Tanner Thomas were seated in his office, patiently waiting for the good doctor as he agitatedly paced back and forth, eyeing some files he held in his hands. Zander would only glance at Clay when he was willing for Clay to receive a telepathic message. Clay heard, “
When will you trust me?
...
I can’t help you if you won’t include me
…
Are you ever going to trust anyone other than yourself?
...
When are you going to use your powers for good?
”

Clay never liked discussions about his powers with Zander, so the silence wasn’t bothering him in the least—and the thoughts he was pulling from Zander’s head were interesting to him. Tanner was texting and seemed oblivious to Zander’s irritation. Tanner was tall, handsome, intelligent, athletic, and had a good sense of humor. His dark, sparkling eyes accented his short, dark hair and ready smile. Tanner never seemed to take his powers too seriously. He reminded his father of Johnny Storm, the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four. He
liked
that he had powers and was so good-natured about having them that Clay only worried about him doing something immature. He was wondering about the hypnosis thing that he had just witnessed, but he knew that Zander would get around to asking the questions once he stopped fretting about being left out of the loop. He was also curious about the papers that Zander kept eyeing.

Finally Zander turned to Tanner. “Since when can you hypnotize people?”

“
Oh, you noticed, huh?” He turned to his father. “He was such a jerk, Dad.”

Clay just rolled his eyes a bit and shrugged his shoulders. It really wasn’t his business, he figured. And not Zander’s either, but when Zander set his mind on something, he was difficult to be denied.

“
Well?” Zander asked.

“
In my psych class, we were talkin’ about hypnotism. The prof had some pretty funny examples. Anyhow, I figured I’d try it and see what happened. So anyway, Big Jake from the hoops team is always comin’ into our room eating our food and smellin’ up the place, so I told him I was gonna hypnotize him if he’d sit still. Didn’t know if I could do it or not. Told him it’d help him shoot free throws better. I grabbed a spoon—no kidding—and swung it back and forth in front of his eyes. I talked all calm and stuff. I was watchin’ his eyes and his pupils dilated and started kinda bouncin’ around, so I said, ‘You’re very, very sleepy.’” Tanner laughed. “Stupid words like that, and then I said, ‘Whenever you’re in our room and we say “Jake,” you’re gonna smell a horrible smell. So bad you can’t stand it and you have to leave.’ Then I told him he was a great free throw shooter. He stays out of our room now,
and
he’s been makin’ his throws.”

Clay couldn’t help but smile. “That’s not what you did tonight, though. I didn’t see any spoon.”

“
Well, once I realized that it actually worked, I did a little studying. Stage hypnotists usually use short, firm commands because their audience volunteers are already on edge. I figured it might work in front of a screaming basketball crowd too. So I got the dork’s attention basically by shakin’ my finger at him, gave a couple of commands, and I saw the same look that Big Jake had, so I just told him he wasn’t gonna play so well anymore. You
saw
me snap him out of it at the end, right?”

Clay nodded. “Any other stories you wanna share?”

“
I had Jake clucking like a chicken in practice yesterday. He was struttin’ around without a care in the world. Thought Beilein was gonna have a stroke, but we were laughin’ so hard he gave us a drink-break instead. Said if Jake wanted to act like a chicken, it was his business as long as he kept makin’ his free throws.”

Clay laughed, but Zander had other things on his mind. “Did your dad tell you that he’s telekinetic?”

“
Like, you can move things with your mind? Really? That’s so cool, Dad! Show me.”

Clay usually didn’t feel very comfortable using his powers, but he figured he’d mess with Zander, just for the fun of it. The doctor had been pacing in front of his leather office couch holding what seemed to be important papers in his hands, but when Clay stood up, Zander stopped and stood facing toward Clay and away from the couch. Clay telekinetically used his right hand to start pulling his friend’s file folders from his hands. Zander clearly objected and began pulling back while Clay used his left hand to slide the couch forward several inches. The doctor tightened his grip and with additional effort began pulling back. Clay simply released his “hold” on the files and Zander stumbled back, hitting his calves on the sofa, falling backward, and literally flipping over the back of the couch, papers flying every which way. Amazingly, he managed to land on his feet, his hair flopping over his eyes and his glasses hanging crazily from just one ear. Tanner’s eyes got big until he saw the doc’s face and then he lost it, laughing hysterically. Clay laughed, and then Zander lost all seriousness and broke out in his own laughter.

“
You
have
been practicing.”

“
Yeah, a little,” Clay wisecracked.

“
How do you do that, Dad?”

Zander answered for him. “Telekinesis is the ability to move objects using the mind or thoughts. We know that energy never dies but merely changes form. We also know that one form of energy can physically move another form. Logically, then, thought waves, which are produced by the brain and are forms of energy, should be able to affect another form of energy. Your dad is just simply focusing that energy in a way that others can’t, and I’m not surprised. The latest test results for both of you are pretty interesting.”

“
What’s the news, Doc? Is that the paperwork scattered back there on the floor?”

Zander ignored the question. “Well, the brain activity for both of you has increased. It appears you’re both getting smarter. Tanner, how’re your classes going?”

“
They’re pretty easy, actually.”

“
How ’bout you, Clay? Anything different with you?”

“
Yeah, actually. I was thinking yesterday.”

“
And?”

“
And what? Aren’t you impressed that I was
thinking
?”

Tanner started laughing again, and though he was smiling, Zander couldn’t help but roll his eyes just a little. It was only about a year before that Clay and Zander had a conversation that helped Clay realize for the first time that there was actually a scientific reason for his powers and that he wasn’t some sort of mutant X-Man or something. Zander explained that his patients who actually showed genuine parapsychological abilities had much more active brain activity in the medulla oblongata. I
n addition to regulating breathing and blood pressure, the
medulla
oblongata
also controls such things as heart rate, perspiration, swallowing, reflexes, blinking, and even sexual arousal. The functions regulated by the
medulla
oblongata
take place at all hours of the day without any need for input from the rest of the brain. The
medulla
oblongata
is also involved in the
response
to certain stimuli, creating reflexive responses, which are designed to keep the body functioning. The ability to respond automatically to certain stimuli is critical to survival, as is the independent regulation of necessary functions like breathing and swallowing.

Whereas most of its actions are involuntary, some work in tandem with the conscious mind
. T
he medulla oblongata is made up of two parts. One part is open and one part is closed. Dr. Frauss discovered that in people with special mental abilities, the closed part was at least partially open, caused generally by spinal cord trauma or some sort of trauma caused by strangulation. With both parts open, people theoretically could receive “super” autonomic functions. The doctor also explained to Clay that while most autonomic functions were involuntary, some, like breathing or blinking, could be conscious or unconscious. A person could make himself stop breathing or blinking or could hold his urine, for instance. His research seemed to indicate that persons with special mental powers were getting additional sensory information through the medulla oblongata—they experienced “super” autonomic functioning. Their brains could input data that common people could not input. But the kicker was, they were somehow able to control that input. For example, they could control objects or control thoughts of others or control what thoughts they could read. The control was what made those people special.