Psychic Warrior (10 page)

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Authors: David Morehouse

BOOK: Psychic Warrior
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A sound unlike anything I'd heard cut through the constant rush of the wind. I snapped my head, cocking it as a dog might, straining to get a bearing on its direction. Again I heard it! I spun on my heels, facing into the wind, pointed my body in the direction of the sound, and leaned forward, pushing my way toward it, my face protected by my arms. The sound grew in intensity as I weaved along. I thought several times that I could make out what it was saying. Every time I seemed to be within a few feet of it, close enough to seize it, the wind washed it away, leaving me to change direction once again.
I could barely make out an opening in something ahead of me. As I drew nearer, the mouth of a small cave presented itself. I entered it, leaving much of the noise behind. In front of me, a strange glow replaced the darkness. Ahead of me—at a guess, about twenty feet—I saw a blurred figure standing in the cave, its image moving wavelike in the glow. The noise came again. It was my name. “David,” the figure called. I could see nothing but the pale outline of a being. It looked transparent, even hollow, yet it was not. Again it called my name.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I screamed at the being. It made no movement. It did nothing but call my name again.
Again I screamed, “Who are you? Where am I?” I clawed toward it, screaming as loud as I could. “Who the hell are you?” I stumbled and fell at the creature's feet, snapped to my knees, and looked up at it in contempt. My eyes burned into it and I swung at it with my fists, fighting to stand as I did so. My limbs passed through the being, leaving no trace. I swung and struck out at it again and again until, exhausted, my arms dropped to my sides. I stood there, head down and beaten, as though I'd tried to fight a scarecrow.
Emotion overcame me. I began to weep, dazed and muddled. I slowly raised my head to look into the face of the being and the shock of the vision stung my heart. It was
my
face that the being wore. “Jesus!” I screamed, striking out again. I plunged my fists into it once, twice, three, then four times, and then reeled to run away out of the cave and into the storm again. As I ran, I could hear it laughing behind me. The farther I ran from it, the louder the laughter became until I was certain the being was running after me, trying to overtake me. Turning my head to look over my shoulder as I ran, I lost my footing and fell hard. My face smacked on the flat surface, and my eyes closed at the impact. Stunned, I tried to climb to my feet, the laughter all around me … an evil, hideous laughter. Instantly, hands were all over my body, grasping at my arms, my head, my
legs. I kicked and screamed aloud, fighting off whatever had hold of me.
“David! David, stop!” The air grew cold and the noise of the wind was gone. “David, stop kicking—we're trying to help you. David!” The voices came from different mouths all around me. “David! Open your eyes, son. It's Dad. Open your eyes!” I stopped struggling and lay there feeling the coolness and moisture of the ground on my cheek. I opened my eyes to see concerned faces: my mother's, my father's, Debbie's.
“Are you all right, honey?” Debbie stroked my hair with one hand resting on my shoulder, ready to push me into the ground again if she needed to. I heard my father's voice.
“He must have been walking in his sleep!”
Groaning, I rubbed my eyes and tried to find my voice, “What happened?”
Debbie caressed my back. “You're outside,” she said, “on the back lawn. You had a nightmare or something; we heard you screaming out here, and you were thrashing around on the ground like you were fighting something. Your mother heard you first.”
“I thought there was a prowler or something—I didn't know what to think. You scared me to death,” my mother said. She stood next to my father, holding his hand.
I raised myself to a sitting position, head down and arms folded in front of my knees. “Jeez,” I grumbled, still somewhat dazed. “I've never had anything like that happen before. I'm sorry to scare all of you. I don't know what happened. Must have been all that Chinese food, huh?” Everyone gave a guarded chuckle.
“I've eaten a lot of Chinese food in my life,” Dad said, “but I've never ended up on the lawn because of it. You need to get this checked out, son.”
Debbie put in, “He's been going through this ever since he was shot in the head.”
“Shot in the head?” my mother shouted.
“Aw, Debbie! You didn't need to say anything about that, goddamn it.”
She snapped back, “Oh yes I did. You've been having problems since it happened, and it's time people know about it, and you get some attention for it. I can't go on shaking you out of your nightmares, or quieting your screams, or picking you up off the lawn every morning. Damn it, I'm tired of it. You need to get some help.”
Mom pointed at me, her words cutting the way they did when I was a child. “I can't believe it, David. You mean you got shot and you didn't bother telling us about it? Do you know how angry that makes me?”
“Christ, son. Why didn't you tell us?” Dad shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, I didn't←”
Debbie finished the sentence for me. “Because he didn't want anyone to worry about him. He'd rather you chase him through the woods like a lunatic than get medical help.”
“Damn it all,” I said, forcing myself to my feet. “It wasn't this bad at first. It's just been getting worse lately, that's all. I've been talking to the psychologist at the unit about it.”
“Oh? And what's he say?” Mom asked. “You probably ought to be in the hospital.”
“No! I don't need to be in the hospital. That's the last place I need to be. I just need to get some rest. I'll tell the doctor about this in the morning.” I walked toward the house. “Good night, everyone. I apologize for getting you all up.”
I lay down on the bed I had unconsciously left, and stared at the moving fan. I didn't close my eyes again that night.
 
The next morning I was nursing a hot cup of coffee outside Dr. Barker's office door, waiting for him to arrive. When he did, I spent an hour relating the events of the night to him.
“Well, it sounds very interesting, although I'm not sure
what to make of it. Have you ever experienced somnambulism—sleepwalking—before this?”
“I don't know. Nobody's ever had to wake me up before, but who knows what's happened when I don't make so much noise? I mean, who's to say this hasn't
all
been a symptom of sleepwalking?”
“That's a good point, but everything you've talked about so far fits the mold … . You say it was your face you saw?”
“That's right. What did it mean?”
“Actually, I have no idea what that might have meant. It was unlike anything you'd experienced prior to this. It may be some manifestation of the tempest inside you, the fight that is happening in you every day. You're confused about what you were shown, what the message you were given means. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say those unanswered questions are prompting these visions. The cave and the being itself also interest me, but we'll save the discussion of those for another time. Okay?”
“Fine, but I have to do something about it. I can't go on living like this. In fact, I don't consider this living at all—it's more like existing. I don't know from one minute to the next what is going to happen. Every time I close my eyes I wonder if I'm going to end up in the woods or on the street, in some shopping mall, or stepping through some portal and going into a world I might never come back from. Did that ever occur to you, that I might not come back?”
“Hmm.” Barker frowned. “Stay right here, I want to make a call. But before I do, I want you to know that I'm encouraged by this, and I want you to be as well.”
“Encouraged? What the fuck is encouraging about it?”
He raised his hand to me as if to say, Calm down. “Just wait, you'll see what I mean. I think I have the right answers for you.”
With that he picked up the phone and called a number I couldn't make out. “Hello, Bill? It's Innis. Do you remember the individual I told you about? … I'd like to bring him over to meet you, tomorrow morning if possible … .
Good, we'll be there around eight-thirty. Looking forward to seeing you.” He hung up and smiled broadly. “Let's meet here early tomorrow, and we'll take a trip to Fort Meade. I want you to meet some people there.”
I had a pretty good idea who he wanted me to meet, but I wanted it from his mouth. “Meet who?”
Barker paused for a moment as if he were thinking that perhaps he had rushed too quickly into this. “Well, I didn't want to alarm you, but I've been talking to these people about you ever since our first meeting.”
“You have?”
“Yes, I have. In fact, I must confess that I've been watching you out of the corner of my eye ever since I reviewed your psychological profile. You have all the indicators that would lead me to believe that you would do well in this unit.”
“What unit?”
“The unit responsible for the files you have been reviewing.”
“You want me to join them.”
“The thought did cross my mind, but it's not that simple. You don't just walk in there. They have to want you. If they do want you, then nothing can stop them from getting you. On the other hand, if they don't want you, then we will have to explore some other options for helping you cope with this new gift you have.”
 
Barker and I drove to Fort Meade the next morning. At eight-thirty we pulled into an asphalt driveway that led toward two long one-story buildings partially obscured by giant oak trees. Barker stopped in the small parking lot adjacent to them. There were six other cars scattered around the lot. We approached the building on the left, the longer of the two. It had a large, heavy metal door guarding the entrance, and security screens were bolted over all the windows. Paint peeled off the surface of the building as though it were a snake sloughing its skin. Frankly, it looked like hell. Weeds snarled the sidewalk and clung to the green
wooden stairway leading to the front door. I remember that as Barker knocked, I thought to myself that a kid armed with a small hammer would be capable of penetrating this building to reveal the secrets inside. Maybe they protected it with their minds, I laughed to myself.
The door opened slowly, and a round chubby face peered at us from the small opening. “Dr. Barker. Hello, hello, hello. Come on in, Mr. Levy is expecting you.”
“Great! Jenny, this is Captain Morehouse, the young man I've been telling Bill about. Dave, this is Jenny Eastman.” She glanced at me and smiled politely. “Hi! Nice to meet you. Come this way; I'll see if he's ready.”
I tried to catch my breath as I looked at the scene I'd walked into. In front of me was an enormous mural, an image of a galaxy filled with crimson and magenta gas clouds. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. A couple of men stood next to a coffeepot to the right of the mural. They stared at me as I walked with Barker toward the office of the man we had come to see. A dark-complexioned man with a slight build emerged from the door to an office. A wide smile spread across his face at the sight of Barker.
“Welcome, Dr. Barker.” The man snatched Barker's hand and pumped it up and down. “It's been a good while since you were here to visit.”
“Oh, well, yes.” Barker pulled his hand away from the man and took his glasses off to clean them, as if it were an excuse to reclaim his limb. He motioned to me with his elbow. “This is the young man we've been talking about.”
I didn't know what to do. I tried to look intelligent, or humble, or something. I stuck my hand out to shake his, but I was too late. He had looked me over and turned to haul Barker into the office. He told Jenny to introduce me around to the rest of the office.
She came out from behind her desk and swiped her hand through the air. “This is it. It's not much to look at, but we call it home.”
The building was long and narrow, consisting of one big
open bay that was sectioned off into cubicles. You could stand at one end and see all the way to the other without obstruction. The floor was covered with brown commercial carpeting and the office furniture was the standard Defense Department gray metal. An entire wall just to the left of the front entrance was lined with five-drawer file safes for the storage of classified documents. There were two small offices on either side of the building, about a third of the way down from the receptionist's desk. One of the offices was inhabited by Mr. Levy; the other was a collection of boxes plus a copier and a shredder used for classified documents.
Jenny walked me over to where the two gentlemen were still standing, obviously talking about something they didn't want me to know about. One of them saw us approaching and nudged the other to get him to change topics. Both men turned and looked at me with flat and curious smiles. I caught some of their conversation as we approached. Some of the words they used were familiar to me from the folders Barker had given me to read.

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