What the Hell Did I Just Read

23. A PLAN WITH NO POSSIBLE FLAWS

Amy

They were in John’s Jeep, parked outside Taco Bill on a street hidden under a sheet of rippling water in a neighborhood that looked like it had dressed up as Venice for a costume party and then woke up in a dumpster. Amy wasn’t even sure why she had insisted on coming, maybe she wanted one last look at Maggie, to try to see the monster, to shake this feeling.

She had to admit, NON could certainly play subtle when they wanted to. Instead of rolling in with an army of scary-looking trucks and men in space suits (a sight all too familiar to the residents of this city), they had simply approached the Loretta Knoll home in the agents’ nondescript sedan followed by an ambulance. (Had they stolen one?) Amy watched as they approached the door and explained the situation to an increasingly panicked Loretta, then tried in vain to calm her. The story would be that the other abductee had tested positive for this dangerous toxin, that they just needed to bring Maggie in for tests, that every minute counted, blah blah blah. They all went inside, Amy figuring that the odds of them deciding to take the child by violence increased with every passing second. She got that Bunny Bread knot in her guts.

But, finally, the NON people emerged with Maggie. And, right behind them, was her mother.

You’d have to kill Loretta, too.

David reached back, took Amy’s hand in his and said, “You did everything right, babe. Everything you said, we need you to say those things, to be that person. You were basing it on what you knew. You can’t let it tear you up inside—that’s what They want. But once you land on the right thing, you don’t look back, you don’t apologize. I know this looks different from your end but you have to trust us here.”

Amy said, “So now we’re basically following NON’s orders and you’re fine with that.”

“I’m not fine with anything, ever. But, as far as I can tell, what NON wants is to keep things on an even keel, to keep people from panicking. That’s not always a terrible thing to want.”

Amy said, “No. What they want—not just NON, but everyone like them—is for us not to panic, but to be just scared enough. You know that scene in They Live where he puts on the glasses and all the signs have all these propaganda messages hidden in them? In the real world if you put on those glasses all you’d see is one message, repeated everywhere: BE ANXIOUS. Buy this thing or your friends will laugh at you, eat this thing or you’ll get fat and nobody will love you, watch the news to find out who’s trying to kill you today.”

“Yeah, but all that stuff is real! There’s actual reasons to be scared!”

“The problem, David, is your cynicism only runs one direction. If somebody comes on TV and says everything is great and wonderful, you don’t believe it, you say they’re blowing smoke up your butt. You demand proof. But if one second later, some guy comes on and says everything is falling apart, you automatically believe it, no questions asked. If those people had told you that this mine monster situation was no big deal and that we should just go home, you wouldn’t have believed them, not for a second. But the moment they said it was a Class G apocalypse, you were on board. As if nobody ever has motivation to tell you things are worse than they really are. And you know for a fact that’s not true! Nothing controls people like fear.”

John said, “We’re moving.”

They followed the sedan back toward the wellness center. On the way, a pair of the flat-black trucks silently moved in front and behind them, ready to do containment if “Maggie” should transform and get loose.

There were no incidents, however, and the three of them were allowed to follow the NON team back into the field HQ where they proceeded to haul Maggie past the office area and toward that rear concrete wall with its huge steel door. The bizarre painted warnings had been covered by a series of posters reminding staff to wash their hands and to please dispose of food waste properly, lest it attract ants.

The steel door slid open soundlessly and Maggie and her mother were hauled into the chamber beyond. The little girl was bawling her eyes out, and Loretta seemed on the verge of a breakdown. Amy, John, and David followed them back. The steel door, Amy noted, was a foot thick. Beyond it were a number of cells with clear walls that Amy suspected were forged from a substance much stronger than Plexiglas.

This facility clearly had not been built within the last two days.

Maggie was taken past the glass cells, into a room at the end of the hall labeled STAFF ONLY. This time, Loretta was made to stay outside, reassurances being muttered to her by a very competent-looking guy in doctor scrubs. Amy had the horrific thought that they were just going to euthanize Maggie right then, in that room, and that Amy would have to watch them break the news to Loretta.

But about ten minutes later, the STAFF ONLY door opened—it made a hissing sound—and a few kind-looking folks who looked like staff from a hospital pediatric unit led Maggie Knoll to one of the cells. Her hair was wet and she was wearing baggy hospital pajamas, as if they’d hosed her down. Amy wondered if those people were actual medical staff, or if they were just actors NON had hired for their false flag operation (the ominous black cloaks were nowhere to be found—today, the facility was playing the part of a laboratory and wellness center to a T).

Maggie Knoll went into the cell, crying but not resisting, and the glass door closed and sealed her in. Loretta, sobbing, was taken down the hall to answer some questions.

As soon as her mother was out of range, Maggie instantly stopped crying. She stood perfectly still in the middle of her cell, made eye contact with Amy, and said, “Hi.”

For some reason, this seemed to creep David out quite a bit, and he actually took a step back from the glass wall. Amy didn’t answer. Loretta was now talking to the NON agent, who was entering information on a tablet. Amy noticed the agent glance her way the moment she heard “Maggie” speak.

Maggie said, “You seem nice.”

Amy said, “What are you?”

Maggie shrugged.

“I know you’re not a little girl. What are you really?”

“What are you? Really?”

“Or, maybe I should ask, what are you going to be, once you grow up?”

“I don’t think I’m going to grow up.”

Amy tried to read the expression on the little girl’s face, but couldn’t. Finally, she said, “What you are, what you really are, can’t live here.”

Maggie met her eyes. “When they brought me in, just now, they took off my clothes and scrubbed me. That man over there, in the lab coat? He watched, and he liked it. But he lies about it. About liking it. It’s like that everywhere. Mommy thinks I’m weird but she won’t say anything. When they said they were taking me away, she was mad but I could see that she was happy, too, way down inside. Like she wouldn’t have to be scared anymore. But she will hide it. Everybody is hiding what they really are, way down inside.”

“That is not the same thing. What you are, you’re going to hurt us. If we don’t do something.”

“I said you seem nice. But you’re going to kill me. Because of what you are inside.”

Amy heard the agent rapidly walking their way.

“I’m not really talking to you. You can’t even talk. You’re not a little girl, you don’t even have a mouth. This is all … it’s all something you’re doing to my brain.”

“If a spider walks onto your bed, you squish it. If a butterfly lands on your bed, you take a picture. Is the butterfly ‘doing something to your brain’? If I didn’t make myself look like this, I would already be dead. You kill everything that doesn’t have pretty wings.”

“So you’re not dangerous? You’re not going to grow up and declare war on us?”

“Are you at war with the cows who give you milk?”

“We’re not going to be your cows, Maggie. If that’s what you’re getting at. We can’t let that happen.”

Maggie shrugged. “It’s already happened.”

Me

Tasker’s shoes clicked up the concrete and I sensed she was about to tell us to stop interacting with the specimen. Before she could say anything, I put a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

I pulled her away from the glass, which was now smeared with the ooze that had trickled off the enormous maggot that was sucking on it, its mandibles clicking off the surface like it badly wanted to bite its way through. Amy had been talking with the thing and it bothered me that I couldn’t hear both ends of the conversation. The effect of the Sauce was fading, but it was still next to impossible to hear “Maggie” unless I devoted every ounce of concentration to it.

As we walked away, one of the NON “doctors” escorted the half-eaten Loretta up to Maggie’s cell. Loretta put her hands up to the glass, asking the creature if it was okay, if it was feeling all right, reassuring it that they’d be going home soon.

I put my hand on Amy’s back and walked a little faster.

To Tasker I said, “Mikey’s here? Or is he loose on the town, destroying everything we know and love?”

Tasker said, “He’s here. Came along without incident.”

John said, “Hmm. Just like Maggie. Didn’t put up a fight, didn’t blow the cover.”

I said, “Okay, so can we trust you to actually kill these things? You’re not going to change your mind and decide you want to keep them as biological weapons or something?”

Agent Tasker said, “Follow me.”

“No, we don’t need to see you do it. There’s no reason to give Amy nightmares for the next twenty years.”

Amy said, “I want to be there.”

“Why?”

Tasker said, “There’s actually another reason. Come.”

She led us down the hall and then over to what turned out to be another cell block—how many were there?—which was uninhabited save for a single cell occupied by a pulsing larva that I had to be told was Mikey. I made myself focus and found I could sort of see the disguise. But what I saw was clumsy. Monstrous. A mannequin made by incompetent hands in the dark. Ridiculous to think that it had ever fooled me.

Tasker said, “As we alluded to on the conference call earlier, our past experience has found that one substance seems to be fatal to the—”

“Is it sulfur?” said John.

Taken aback, Tasker said, “That’s a key component, yes. Burning sulfur. It’s embedded in a thermite compound, formed into pellets that will ignite in midair. They should continue burning once they’ve penetrated the hide of the larva, releasing the sulfur internally.”

John said, “And if you combined that substance with a piece of silicone in the shape of a human ass?”

Tasker just stared.

I said, “So it’s that simple? After all of this talk of interdimensional energies and entities and all that, we’re just burning holes in them? So what are we waiting for?”

“It’s actually not that simple. Sulfur doesn’t work for its chemical properties. It works because it has, let’s just say, symbolic power. There is an invisible mechanism at play.”

“Sure, it’s a vampire holy water situation. I get it.”

“I don’t think you do. From previous incidents with similar organisms, the effectiveness of the weapon has varied wildly according to who is wielding it, and their state of mind at the moment the fatal blow is struck.”

I said, “Okay.”

“We are requesting that you do it. At least for this specimen.”

Agent Gibson shuffled over, holding a modified shotgun. “Don’t get cute and shoot this at me, dirtbag.”

Amy glanced at the gun and muttered, “Wellness center.”

John lit a cigarette.

Tasker said, “There’s no smoking in here.”

“If he gets to shoot a gun indoors, I’m thinking I can smoke a cigarette.”

Amy said, “We’re obviously not going through with this. Even I can see this trap coming.” She nodded toward me and said, “They stick you in the cell, Mikey eats you. Since they didn’t do it directly, they think they escape the supposed curse that’s protecting us.”

I said, “You two are staying outside the cell, right? I’m the only one that goes in, you guys stay out here and watch for shenanigans. I mean, we were just in the room with this thing earlier today, I don’t think this is among the top ten scariest creatures that have tried to eat me. I’ve got to say, I’m fine with it.”

Amy made an exasperated noise and said, “Why are you fine with it?”

“Because we were hired by Chastity to do a job and this is it. Didn’t you just tell me I needed to see things through? Well, here’s Mikey. It’s not what we expected, but so what? For better or worse, this is the final resolution to the Payton case.”

I took the shotgun from Agent Gibson. I pulled back the slide enough to confirm there were in fact shells in it, and that they weren’t going to stick me in the cell with an empty gun. I sniffed it—the shells smelled like farts, all right.

I asked Tasker, “So how does this, uh, process work?”

“You’ll go into the adjacent cell, here—the walls between cells slide open, that is done remotely, from the guard room. Exterior door closes, wall opens, there’ll be nothing between you and the specimen. Fire at will.”

Amy said, “David, this is stupid.”

“That has literally never stopped us before, even once.” I asked Tasker, “Loretta and Maggie aren’t going to be concerned by the sound of gunfire?”

“We’ll close the door between cell blocks, they’re utterly soundproof. It’ll be no louder to them than someone softly knocking on the wall.”

I looked toward John and he shrugged. “I mean, if we’re not here to do this, why are we here?”

To Amy I said, “You see the kid in there, right?”

“He’s just staring at me. Accusingly.”

“Do you need to go wait down the hall or something? You going to be able to handle this?”

“No, I won’t be able to handle it and yes, I should be here anyway.”

“Let’s get it over with.”

I stepped into the adjacent cell and the door slid closed behind me. The invisible hand of claustrophobia slowly but firmly squeezed my butthole. The wall that separated the cells was solid steel—I couldn’t see what was happening in Mikey’s cell.

Through the glass, I asked John, “If you concentrate, can you see and hear Mikey? Or is it just the larva the whole time?”

“Give me a second … yeah I can see Mikey pretty clearly. If I try.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Sitting on the bed, now. Crying. Asking why we’re here, why his mother doesn’t want him.”

I made eye contact with Amy, who looked distraught. “Fresh-cut grass, that’s all it is.” To Tasker, I said, “There’s not going to be any ceremony or ritual here. You open that wall, I’m pointing the gun and I’m pumping sulfur rounds into that thing until the gun goes click. Whatever data you’re looking to collect, you’ll have to collect it from that.”

Tasker said, “You’re ready?”

“Yeah.”

The wall slid open. Sitting in the other cell, on the bed, was Mister Nymph.