Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel (7 page)

“You can view them from here and save time and money.
 
Just send your spirit.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Let’s get set up,” Walter said.

“Where’s Ryan?” Cynthia asked.

“At work.”

“Little bastard owes me five bucks.”

“Good luck with that.”

We moved to the basement.
 
Walter had three rooms set up side by side with one-way glass windows on either side of the center room so you could see into the side rooms.
 
In the middle room, there were four chairs and a table that held an old computer with a dot-matrix printer.
 
Walter caught me looking at it and he pushed my arm.
 
“I don’t replace things unless they’re broken.”

“Yeah, but that’s from the eighties.”

“Still works.
 
This is the monitor station.
 
We keep records of all our excursions in the filing cabinets there.”
 
He pointed to a row of five gray metal cabinets.

The side rooms each had a recliner and a table.
 
A pair of headphones hung over the back of the chair, and a tape recorder sat on each table.
 
Beside each tape recorder was a sketchpad with two pencils.
 
There were small speakers set into the walls, but other than that, the walls were blank—just painted a light beige.
 
No other furnishings.

“Lou and I will be the viewers.
 
Cynthia is my monitor, and Fred will monitor Lou.
 
You’ll stay in the center room with Cynthia and Fred.
 
We’ll go into our stations and get ready.
 
When it’s time, Cynthia and Fred will give us the number and we’ll project ourselves to the target.
 
We’ll describe what we see and maybe draw it too.”

“Let’s get this shindig started,” Lou said.

He gave me a nod then disappeared into the room on the left.
 
Through the one-way glass, I watched him take a seat in the recliner.
 
He put on the headphones, leaned way back, flipped me the bird, then closed his eyes.
 

“Get ready to have your mind blown,” Walter said.
 
He punched me lightly on the arm then disappeared into the room on the right.
 
He settled into the recliner, slipped on the headphones, and gave us a thumbs-up.

Cynthia gestured to a chair, but I decided to remain standing.
 
“It could be a while,” she said.
 
She rolled up a sheet of paper from the printer and detached it.
 
She peeled off the sides with the little sprocket holes and dropped them into a wastebasket then placed the paper on the table.
 
She took a pen out of a drawer and handed it to me.

“Think of a person, place, or thing that you’d like them to go check out.
 
Don’t tell us what it is.
 
Got one?”

“You bet,” I said.
 
I focused on Kelly.
 
I figured it would be easy to verify and it wouldn’t be dangerous.
 
For example, if I had them check on Sharon and it turned out they were telling the truth and could actually go and see her, then it could compromise her location.
 
I knew Kelly would be in her dojo.
 
She used to have a place on Colfax, but that place no longer exists, so she got a place on 32nd and Sheridan in a strip mall by a 7-Eleven.
 
Parking sucked but rent was cheap.

“Choose a number.
 
Doesn’t matter what the number is, but go with four digits so we don’t repeat one we’ve used before.”

“One one two
two
,” I said, thinking Boogie
Boogie
Avenue.

“Write it down.”

I wrote 1122 BBA on the paper.

“Big Bad Apple?” Cynthia asked.

“Bionic Boy Asshole,” Fred said.

“Ben Beats Aardvarks,” I said.
 
“It was a comic strip a friend of mine drew in high school.”

“I trust your friend is in the psychiatric ward,” Fred said.

I didn’t have a friend named Ben who drew comics, but I didn’t want them to know I was making light of their team with a children’s rhyme, so I just smiled.

Cynthia and Fred went over to their seats and pulled up microphones.
 
They spoke the numbers, and I watched as both Lou and Walter nodded.

Then it just looked to me like they went to sleep.

After fifteen minutes, I suspected that was
exactly
what they’d done.

A few minutes later, I was sitting down, nearly asleep myself.

At twenty-two minutes and twelve seconds, Walter sat up and said, “I’m at the target.”

Cynthia leaned toward her microphone.
 
“Pull back and view it from above.”

“It looks like a building, but I don’t think that’s the actual target.”

I looked over at Fred, but he just shrugged.
 
“Sometimes Lou doesn’t talk during his sessions, so being a monitor isn’t as important as with Walter.”

I looked through the window at Lou and shook my head.
 
If they turned on the sound in his room, we’d hear snoring.

“I’m going to push forward,” Walter said.

“Go slowly.
 
Keep your focus.
 
Are you in the present day?”

“It feels like it.
 
I didn’t feel any time displacement when I entered the ether.
 
OK, I’m entering a room.
 
Dark.
 
Something’s sweeping past me...whoa...I think it’s made of wood, and it keeps whipping past.
 
Let my eyes adjust to the darkness.
 
Hold on.
 
OK, things are coming into focus a bit.
 
I’m in a room.
 
I think it’s a some kind of attic or storage room, but I could be mistaken.
 
Shelves on the wall.”

“What’s on the shelf nearest you?” Cynthia asked.

“A row of lighthouses.”

That surprised me.
 
Kelly had been replacing her collection of lighthouses gradually over the past few months.
 
Brand didn’t understand the symbolism, so she kept them in the room above the dojo.
 
That wasn’t something Walter could have known.

“This isn’t the target, but the target is near.
 
I sense that I should go lower.”

“Follow your instincts,” Cynthia said.

“Going to the lower level.
 
Whoa!
 
Bright light!”

“Readjust.”

I looked at Walter through the window.
 
He covered his eyes with his hands.
 
“That was intense!
 
Let me reset my focus.”
 
He lowered his hands.
 
“I can’t see right now, but I hear clanging.
 
Sounds like a scraping, then a clang of metal on metal, and grunting.
 
OK, things are swimming into view again.
 
My head is throbbing.
 
I can’t stay here much longer.
 
Get some Advil ready for me when I come back.”

“I have some in my purse.
 
Look around.
 
What do you see?”

“Mirrors.
 
Reflections of movement.
 
Swords.
 
Let me spin around.
 
I’m at a martial arts studio, I think.
 
There’s a gorgeous Chinese woman sword fighting with a big, heavyset white guy.
 
My head is killing me.
 
The light change was too much.”

I pulled out my cell, scrolled down to Kelly’s name, and called her.

“I’m coming back now.
 
What’s that noise?
 
I hear music.
 
OK, coming back.”

Kelly answered the phone on the fourth ring.
 
“Is there someone I can kill for you yet?”

“Not yet,” I said.
 
“What are you doing?”

“Sparring with Brand.”

“Swords?”

“Yes.
 
Just about ready for some hand-to-hand.
 
Why?”

“No reason.
 
Talk to you soon.”
 
I ended the call.
 
Walter was a little too specific for me to have reason to doubt him.

Fred knocked on the window to Lou’s room.
 
Lou jerked awake, rubbed his eyes.

“What did you see?” Fred asked.

“I’ll draw it,” Lou said as he grabbed the pen and a sheet of paper.

Walter entered the monitor room with his palm to his forehead.
 
“Light changes sometimes trigger migraines for me.”

Cynthia handed him two Advil.
 

Walter moved to a water cooler and filled a small paper cone.
 
After he downed the pills, he looked at me.
 
“You wanted me to check on a person.
 
I couldn’t tell which was the target because my head felt like it was about to explode.
 
Chinese woman or big white guy?”

I had to admit that I was impressed.
 
“The woman.”

“I thought so but I wasn’t positive.”

Lou entered the room nodding with confidence.
 
“I found the target,” he said.

He held up a drawing of a giant sunflower and a stick figure in a dress lying beside it with exes for eyes.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A killer sunflower.
 
Not sure where it is, but it looks just like a regular sunflower until you lean over to sniff it.
 
Then,
pow
, you’re pushing up daisies.”

“Wouldn’t you be pushing up sunflowers?” Cynthia asked with a grin.

“OK then,” I said.
 
“I think I’ll be leaving now.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Walter said.

“Watch out for those flowers,” Lou said.

“I’ll do that,” I said.

Walter didn’t say anything until we were out in the cold air by my car.
 
Then he gave me a heavy sigh.
 
“They mean well,” he said, “but they haven’t had training.”

“Killer sunflowers?
 
I think Lou’s been raiding the peyote stash.”

“Truth be told, they’re really just my bowling team.
 
We have a league on Monday nights.
 
They think the remote viewing is cool, and they want to be a part of it.”
 
He rubbed his chin then looked at me, serious.
 
“That woman you sent me to see.
 
She was the target.
 
The music I heard at the end was a ring tone.
 
Were you calling her?”

I nodded.
 
“Can you find anyone or anything using this viewing technique?”

“Not tonight.
 
My head is still pounding.
 
I can try tomorrow.
 
I’ll have Cynthia come by.
 
She can’t do the viewing, but she’s a decent monitor.
 
I don’t like to slip into the ether when I’m alone.”