Oculus (Oculus #1) (3 page)

“Oh, Felix. Look at the mess you’ve made. Is this any way to treat your new room?” Mr. Benson speaks softly, with just a trace of disapproval. “Now, I can help your mother, if you’re willing to do what I want.”

His posture is that of a predator, stalking a defenseless rabbit. Barely able to control my rage, I slip silently up behind him. Raising my hand, I bring my blackjack, a leather wrapped bar of lead, down hard on the back of his head. I let him collapse heavily to the floor, watching for any sign that he’s faking. Sure he’s out, I flip the mattress back in place. Attaching the collar around his neck, I click the lock shut, and then slap him repeatedly until he wakes up to his worst nightmare.

“What the hell is this?” Mr. Benson’s voice is thick as if he’s trying to fight his way to full consciousness. I watch his face as he works to clear his addled mind and in doing so, realizes his predicament. That’s when the anger surfaces. “Do you know what the fuck you’ve done, asshole? Do you know who the fuck I am? I will--”

His threats are cut short as I chop the flat of my hand into his throat in one swift movement. Just enough pressure to silence him, without crushing his windpipe. He wheezes and I feel a surge of adrenaline as the pleasure endorphins kick in. As the predator’s predator, I’m in my element. “That’s better… Yes, Mr. Benson. I know what an important Fenra man you are. I know
all
about you.”

His eyes open wide and he sputters a response past bruised vocal cords. “Who are you?” I laugh quietly as I walk to the far side of the room. I’d discovered a toolbox of surgical implements when I searched the building. From the dried blood on them, I could only assume that Benson enjoyed getting rid of the children almost as much as he liked coercing them into performing sex acts.

“Fate, Mr. Benson. For you, because of the choices you have made, we were fated to meet. You can’t plead with me, or reason with me. There’s nothing you can give me that will stop what I’m about to do. The only thing that you can do is scream.” Taking a rusty saw from the pile of tools and a utility knife I step toward him.

When my work is complete, I take up a scrap of his clothing, and dip it into his pooling blood. Using it as a crude brush, I write a message in large letters on the wall.

SO SUFFERS ALL WHO PREY UPON THE INNOCENT.

Before I leave out the back, I unlock the front door. I’m not sure if Benson held the only key and it doesn’t serve my purposes for him to be locked inside, undiscovered. Retrieving the boy from his hiding spot, I carry him back to the nearby settlement. His eyes flutter open briefly, and when he sees it’s me who is carrying him, he curls against me and drifts off again.

Leaving him inside the back door of one of the houses, I stay long enough to verify he’s been discovered before returning to Benson’s house of horrors. Slipping past the bodyguard out front, I pull the door open, and then sneak back to the trees. The bodyguard, to his credit, notices the open door almost immediately.

“Mr. Benson? Mr. Benson?” Cautiously, he approaches the door, pulling a handgun from a holster at his waist. He’s inside for only a moment before he rushes back out and is noisily sick all over the side of the building. The corners of my mouth twitch with satisfaction, and I quietly move away. When I’m far enough from the building, I burst into a full, exalted run.

I may be a Talpa-made animal designed for violence, but at least I’m damn good at it
.

T
IME
. THAT’S ALL ANYONE REALLY
wants anymore and not just because it’s the intangible thing with which we measure how quickly our lives are passing us by. Time, here within the Fenra compound is our currency, what we work for so naturally, there could never be enough.

Everyone wants time and more time to make time. Time to buy more, do more. More time to do whatever they like. I’m no different. I want time of my own. If I had my own time, I’d spend it sleeping because that’s where he is.

Seeing him is painful. That’s what I know above everything else.

Seeing him is painful.

Not knowing why only makes it worse. I shouldn’t
see
him at all. But I do. I
see
him.

What’s more, I swear that I know him too. At least, in that way that you think you know someone that you’ve only met once some time ago.
An acquaintance? A friend of a friend?

In my dreams I sense him vividly. I can feel his cheek in my palm, warm and dusted with barely-there stubble that prickles against my palm. I can make out the uneven surface of the scar that descends from his earlobe down to the defined edge of his jaw.

His hair is chocolate. His eyes are ice. His skin is warmed by the sun. In my dreams he’s walking, talking though I can’t hear him. He’s eating, dressing for the day, reading, running.

He runs a lot. In my dreams he runs. Everywhere. I’m not sure where he’s always off to or why he runs at all but my first instinct is that he’s searching. My second instinct is that he’s dangerous and my third and most alarming instinct is that I want to follow him, danger notwithstanding.

What he’s searching for is anyone’s guess. He’s an enigma for me, a curious figment of my very active imagination that is set on haunting me every time I slip into bed. I just wish I knew why it hurt.

My interest in the ghost of a man from my dreams seems to be centered around the hurt that accompanies my dreams of him versus the sense of pure insanity that envelopes the entire situation.

I shouldn’t see him. I shouldn’t know what I’m looking at. I have no way to verify that I know what I’m looking at but at the same time I know exactly what I’m seeing.

Impossible.

The insanity of it all is made worse only by my feeling,
knowing
that I’m losing grasp of something central to my existence and yet I haven’t felt alarmed. I have been dreaming of, obsessing over, and longing for this ghost. I sense him in a way that I have never sensed anything else. In the light of day I remain blind, but in my dreams I see him, I feel him, and I run with him.
That
fact gives traction to the feeling of burgeoning mental collapse and through it all I haven’t cared one iota. I only hurt for the ghost of a dangerous man with a scar that runs from ear to jaw and a penchant for running places.

Absolute madness.

My father’s footfalls on the kitchen floor snap me out of my reverie and self-examination.

“Iris, you’re up early,” he notes in his soft morning voice, slightly raspy from disuse.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I explain as I make my way to the sink to deposit my empty cup.

My father breezes past me, the soft fabric of his flannel robe brushing against my leg as it flutters in his wake.

“What’s wrong? You have that look.”

“Nothing,” I begin, unsure of what to say and how to say it. If I told my father “hey dad, so I know that it’s impossible and all but I swear I am having these dreams of this stranger that I don’t know at all but I swear that I do and I think he could be a real person because he feels real,” he would click his tongue, his breathing would become a little more audible and he would worry about me more than he already does.

“It’s nothing,” I affirm, doing my best to sound casual.

“Well… okay. But if something is wrong, you know you can tell me, right?”

“Yes, dad.”

“Are you excited,” he asks with a tone of anticipation in his voice.

My only answer is a sigh.

“It’s a great school, Iris.”

“I know. I just don’t think it’s for me. I just want to go to Fenra Second School with everyone else. Hattie is going—”

“Hattie isn’t blind,” he interrupts.

“What?” I mock. “And to think, all this time I thought my very best friend was as blind as me!”

“That’s not funny. Fenra Second School doesn’t have the type of curriculum or environment that will cater to you, Iris.”

“Exactly. I don’t want to be
catered
to at all. Look, if I’m to work for The Corporation one day, I’d at least like to try to get the same education as everyone else who will be my colleagues at some point. Hopefully,” I mutter knowing that me getting a position with The Corp is a long shot.

“Iris, you won’t have to work for The Corp like everyone else if you don’t want to. Your disability will provide sufficiently and once I’m gone—”

“I’ve gotta go,” I mumble, unwilling to stay and argue with him. I snag my stick by the back door and set off for the first day at a school that I have no intentions of staying at. The Corporation requires that every child go to Fenra First School until they graduate at the age of twenty. After that, everyone goes to Fenra Second School for a minimum of two years where they take the Propensity Screening, which dictates what career suits them best so that they can serve Fenra in the most efficient way possible. Those with disabilities go to a school that is really just a place to herd all the useless Fenra residents, but I’m not useless. I can work. I’m determined to work. Food, and shelter, and water, and everything else in this compound costs time. Minutes, hours, years, of servitude to The Corporation is our currency. I don’t want to work my father into an early grave so that he can leave me enough time to survive on.