The Blue Ridge Project: A Dark Suspense Novel (The Project Book 1) (21 page)

“It's mind control,” Robert said after they had driven some distance. “They're putting minds into other people's bodies and making them do whatever they want. I didn't think that anything like that was possible.”

“But how?”

“I have no idea. I don't think I'm capable of understanding the science of it. That chair and the drugs let me do it to reach my father. My guess is, they're using it to pull some other nasty stuff, like those murders you were roped into investigating.”

Andrea pursed her lips and frowned. “Then they used us to keep it quiet while giving the impression that it would be looked into. They covered their asses so well.” She shook her head.

“It's the perfect weapon. No need to train an operative, no need for any escape or extraction plan. Every military and government agency would be interested in this.” Robert looked at the side of Andrea's face, fear and wonder and a hundred other emotions swirling inside him, battling to get to the surface. “This could change everything, change the world overnight. People would never even know.”

“We know. So I guess we have to do something about it. Are you ready to?” Andrea asked. She guided the car through the wet and winding roads, following where Robert pointed. “There’ll be gun play.”

“I’ll just have to be as ready as I can,” he said, staring ahead.

“I’m not going to be able to arrest these people, Robert. I’m not even a cop any more. If the chance arises, I’ll most likely kill them all, or they’ll kill us. You should know.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” he said, turning to look at her. “These people have done bad things, and plan to do worse. I had hoped to get the news out about them, but I’ll settle for some old-fashioned retribution.” He ran a hand over his chin. “Besides, it’s not like anyone would believe us. I barely believe it myself.”

“Would have made a hell of a story, all the same,” she said.

Robert pointed out a small road off the one they were on, and after a couple of minutes they came into the clearing with the warehouse that Robert’s father had shown him. They drove right up to the entrance, and the headlights revealed a man in blue overalls slumped over the table he was sat at. A pool of blood had gathered around his head, and had started to drip off the edge of the table, mixed with the rainwater that was coming down in a torrent. A large handgun was in his hand, propped next to his head.

Robert opened his door and immediately he and Andrea felt a burst of pain and a high pitched noise in his ears at an unbearable volume. He screamed and shut the door, and the pain and noise stopped. His hands came away from his ears with small spots of blood on the palms. Andrea raised a finger to her own ear and it also came away bloody.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked.

Robert started to shake his head, then stopped.

“Jimmy said something about earplugs before he died. Must be something like a sonic weapon. Who knows what these people have at their disposal.”

Andrea frowned, then reached across Robert and opened the glove compartment. She rooted around inside until she pulled out a pair of thick leather ear muffs.

“Cap’s. From the Marksman’s Club,” she said. “I’ll put these on and check things out. Cover your ears.”

Robert did as she was told, and after she left he watched her look around the entrance. She looked at the dead man at the table, pulled something out of his ears and came back to the car.

“Here,” she said when she got back in, holding out two earplugs. They were little dots of blood on them that Robert had to wipe off before he put them in. “Looks like he blew his own head off. More fucking weirdness.”

They got out and went past the dead man and into the warehouse. In the next room, they saw an open trapdoor in the floor. They looked at each other, then lowered themselves down the ladder and into the tunnel.

*****

Jenkins waited until the man and woman had passed and descended into the tunnel, then stepped out from his hiding place. His eyes were frantic, darting about to see if there was anyone else. When he was satisfied he was alone, he ran out of the warehouse, giddy with his freedom and luck to be alive after the carnage downstairs. He made it as far as the grass before the popping sounds in his head reminded him of his forgetfulness.

“Fu—” he managed to say before he collapsed, dead, hidden in the tall grass, the rain drumming on his back.

*****

Lights were flickering in the tunnel as they moved slowly through it, Andrea in front with the gun raised in front of her, pushing the headphones off with one hand as Robert pulled out his earplugs. They came into a room with an elevator shaft in the middle. Around the room were half a dozen bodies, all in black shirts. Their weapons were next to them or still in their hands, and several bloodstains covered the walls and floors.

“They all offed themselves,” Andrea said, her voice low and and not without a hint of wonder.

“They must be cleaning up or something. Killing everybody who knew about this place.” He stooped and picked up a small handgun.

Andrea put her hand out. “Do you know how to use that?”

Robert shook his head.

“Then give it to me or leave it there. I don’t need wild shots on top of whatever else we’re walking into.” He handed it over and she tucked it into the back of her pants.

They stepped into the elevator and Andrea pressed the solitary button on the wall.

“I wonder where this one will take us,” she said, and forced a cold grin.

*****

The elevator doors opened and revealed a large white room that was a mess of metal cabinets, blinking machines and wires. At the far end, a harried- looking man in a white coat looked into the room from behind a large pane of glass. To their left, Robert saw that Agent Gumb sat with his back against the wall, his head blown open from what looked like a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In front of them on a raised platform, Andrea and Robert saw a man reclining on a large off-white chair. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at a circular blue light in the ceiling, and a metal band was around his head. Wires connected the band to the machines around the room and disappeared in some hidden spot above them. There was a readout screen with lines and numbers, emitting a steady series of beeps beside his prone form.

Standing next to him, with a similar-looking band around his head, was Senator Charles Frey. He turned when the elevator doors opened.

“Duncan? What are you doing here?” he asked, his frown hidden behind the metal headband. There were two wires that connected it to the thick bundle of cables on the floor.

Andrea raised her gun and pointed it at Frey. The man in the white coat behind the window raised his hands.

“I’m here to stop whatever you’re doing, Frey,” Robert said. “You won’t get away with it this time.”

Frey smiled. “Doctor Samuel,” he called out, “could you come in here, please?”

Samuel came out from the room behind the glass, standing with a few feet between him and Frey and the chair.

“Explain what’s happening here with Frank to these people.”

Samuel looked at the gun and then back to Andrea’s face.

“He’s broken free of the program parameters.”

“What does that mean?” Andrea asked.

“It means it’s only a matter of time before he gets into your head and makes you blow your own brains out. Don’t worry, though. I’m protected,” Frey said, tapping the metal on his head with his finger. It made a small dinging sound as he did. “As I usually am.”

“And what’s your plan when he does? Just stay down here forever, hooked up to him so you won’t do it to yourself?” Robert asked.

“Not at all,” Frey replied, smirking. “When I’ve been connected long enough, I’ll break through into his consciousness. Then I’ll have control over him, over what he does and what he thinks. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

Samuel nodded, never taking his eyes off the gun.

“Not only that, I’ll be able to leap off from his head to tap into anyone’s mind. Imagine what I could do with the world. To think, I was just going to use this technology to satisfy my…
baser
needs.” He chuckled.

“What’s to stop me from just ending you right now, you demented fuck?” Andrea said.

“Because I’m the only thing stopping him from making you end yourself. Don’t worry, you’ll get there soon enough. Although I think I might make you kill your boyfriend here, first. Well done, Robert. She’s much better looking than Eliza. Looks more loyal, too.”

Robert clenched his fists and stepped forward.

As he did, the beeping from the machine beside Frank sped up. Frey’s smile froze on his face, and his eyes went bloodshot. Samuel stepped backwards and tripped over some coiled wires, falling onto his back. Then things started to happen very fast.

Frey pulled the band from his head, and Andrea raised her gun to fire, but couldn’t pull the trigger. She gritted her teeth and tried again, but felt a force staying her finger, preventing her from moving it. Frey took two steps to a table that had syringes laid out on a small metal tray.

He grabbed one in each hand and stuck them in his eyes. Andrea and Robert heard two pops over the sound of the machines as the needles pierced soft tissue. Screaming, he reached for more, sticking them over and over in his face and pressing down on the plunger. He fell to his knees, and slumped onto the floor, his mouth still opening and closing in silent pain, his legs twitching. Then, after a minute, he slowed, then stopped moving altogether.

Andrea began to turn, slowly, and pointed her gun at Robert.

“Robert,” she said in a weak voice, “I can’t stop it.”

“Shit,” he said, rooted in place, staring down the barrel of the gun.

“Don’t just stand there, run!” Andrea shouted.

Robert looked around, then sprinted towards Frank and the chair.

“Hey,” he shouted at Samuel, who was starting to stand up and saw Andrea’s shaking hands still pointing the gun in their direction. “How do we stop this?”

Samuel shook his head, silent, his gaze drawn to Frey’s pincushion head.

“Hey! Wake up!”

Samuel looked at Robert, standing behind Frank’s head, then his eyes widened in understanding.

“We have to sever his connection. Unplug him!” Samuel yelled, ”just pull out the wires!”

Robert wrapped a fist around the bundle of wires where they met the metal headband and pulled. They held fast, and a grunt escaped his gritted teeth as he tried again.

“Robert!” Andrea yelled.

On the third go, the wires separated and he stumbled back a step. A split second later Andrea fired.

He felt the bullet graze his cheek under his eye, and he put a hand up to his face as he came off the platform. There was a smell in the air, a hint of burnt skin, sweet and pungent.

The deafening sound of a man’s scream filled all three of their heads for a few seconds, causing them all to shut their eyes and grab their heads. Then as suddenly as it had started, the sound disappeared. Frank’s body convulsed on the table and was still, his head rolling to one side. His eyes were still open, the pupils completely blotting out the irises.

“Robert!” Andrea shouted, and ran to his side.

He looked up at her and grinned, then winced. He took his hand away and saw his hand was smeared with blood.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

Andrea looked at him and felt a smile creep up on her face.“Could be worse. It nearly went in your eye. Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” he said, grinning a little himself in spite of the pain. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“Is he dead?” Robert asked, looking to Samuel.

“I think so.” Samuel's voice was shaky. “His body is, at least, and I’m pretty sure he can’t jump into anyone else. I would theorize that his mind is trapped out there, in between.”

“Good for him,” Andrea said. “If I shoot you, though, I don’t think you’ll have the same problem.” She raised the gun and pointed it at Samuel’s head.

“Tell you what, Doc,” Robert said to Samuel as he watched him cower. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“What?” Samuel asked, his face pinched in expectation of the shot.

“You patch me up and answer some questions about what you people are doing, and what we and my father had to do with it, and I’ll try to convince her to let you live. How’s that sound?”

Samuel looked at Andrea then back to Robert.

“Okay, but I doubt you’ll believe or understand much of what I have to say.”

Andrea and Robert looked at each other.

“You’d be surprised,” Andrea said.

The engulfing vista of bright black absence Frank was in gave way to a wooden ceiling. The tattered remains of his mind forced the body he had found into a sitting position. Consciousness faded and returned, although Frank could not tell if it had been seconds or years.

He saw that he was in a bedroom.

There was a huge sense of emptiness, of parts of his self missing and lost forever. Memories boiled together and became meaningless, lost under the noise from his effort to stay connected. He felt his mind as something injured and buzzing with the pain of missing pieces, a dark and crippled octopus gripping onto a rock with its remaining limbs while cold unseen currents tried to pull it away. Hot with fever and frozen with the sensation of almost being washed away into darkness, a terrible and gargantuan blackness that waited just beyond.

He inched forward, finding it an effort to control his direction. His shuffling feet carried him across the room to a mirror in the corner and he looked at the reflection there. An instant of wide-eyed shock passed and was replaced by a grin like a wound across the face he saw. The vile and despicable man himself, standing slumped with a pale gut hanging uselessly in front of him. He stood a moment longer, forcing control of the body and the mind still inside.

Frank sensed faint argument somewhere in the back of his head, like a speaker inside his brain turned way down. He felt concepts more than he heard or understood words. Most of it involved a sense of completely helpless pleading alternated with weak, frantic threats. Frank closed his eyes and concentrated on his own images and concepts, mainly about what he was going to do to the body he currently occupied. This resulted in a flurry of mental shrieks from the original owner, then the sensation of the low hum of thoughtless terror.

Frank took his time dressing, sweating a little from the effort, then looked around the room another time. He saw the daggers above the bed. They were mounted on the wall crossed over each other diagonally, set against a red diamond-shaped background. He stood on the bed and pulled them off the wall, checking the edges against the sheets. They weren’t very sharp, but they would do for the first order of business.

He tottered down the stairs, staggered across the hall into a small secluded room and almost bumped into a young boy who was chained to the floor. The boy stepped back, fear and resignation in his face, and he cowered.

Frank looked at him for a second, stinging tendrils of sympathy and pity working through him. He looked around, and walked over to an art piece made with slim metal bars crossing each other. It looked like a post-modern cage, balanced on one corner. He ripped off a bar and slotted one end through the slim links that connected the boy’s ankle to the floor. With one movement the link snapped and the boy cried out once. Frank dropped the bar, staggered against the wall and slid into a seated heap on the floor.

He was running out of time. He felt that the tenuous connection he had couldn’t be maintained, not indefinitely. It had only been possible because of the strong mental connections and references he had made during his formative years, and when Frank Senior was dead, he knew his own mind would disappear and he would cease to exist. It would float off into that horrible timeless void he had briefly experienced.

There were things to be done first, though. He opened his eyes, pushed himself up off the ground and steadied himself against the wall with one hand. The boy was gone, if he had ever even been there. When he felt he could control his movements again, he walked slowly to the door.

Outside, the sky was blindingly bright after the darkness of the house. He shielded his eyes as he stumbled towards the car parked in front and collapsed into the driver’s seat. Driving would be dangerous now, but it didn’t matter. He was only going a short distance. The family house was only a few estates over, a few minutes drive on mostly empty roads.

He looked himself in the eyes in the rearview mirror. They were bloodshot, and the pupils were wide. It wouldn’t be too long before he slipped away, he could feel that now. He would have to be quick about killing his parents, quicker than he wanted and than they deserved for allowing the things he had endured to happen. He accepted that as the price of his failure, the cost of not breaking through to the old pervert politician’s mind fast enough. He would have to kill them quickly, so he could have some time with his uncle. Time to pull back and let him feel what was going to happen, the horrors he would inflict upon his body. He knew he could do it now, his power maturing still even in what he knew to be his death throes.

Another smile like a blade slowly appeared on the face that he wore. He thought he could hang on for quite a while, with the right motivation.