The Deadlock Trilogy Box Set Page 15

  “Interesting,” Zed said. He looked away, and Frank staggered backward, gasping for air even though it had only been a few seconds. “I’ll tell you what. I like what I see in you, and what’s a vacation without a certain element of spontaneity?”

  He grabbed the wooden box in front of him and spun it around so the front faced Frank. Then he waited, watching Frank.

  Frank looked at the box for a long moment before realizing what he was seeing. The box was held shut with a metal hoop that passed through a square. It had no discernible seams or openings. The Cassandra lock.

  The Cassandra lock had come to him in a dream years ago. Creating it was his ultimate goal as a locksmith. He had tried a dozen times, but he had never gotten it exactly right. It was too technical, too complicated. He'd always felt like his skills were a few steps away from where they needed to be to finish his masterpiece. He’d never even spoken of it to anyone but Jake. Frank always imagined that the Cassandra lock, named after his mother, would be his life’s work.

  And yet, there was a completed Cassandra lock on the table in front of him. It looked exactly as it had in his dreams.

  “How?” Frank asked. “Can you read my mind?”

  Zed shifted his head back and forth as if he was unsure how to answer. “Not in the way you’re thinking. It’s not like reading a book. But when I look into your eyes I do see certain images and feelings. That day at your cabin this lock was right at the front your mind. I got a crystal clear picture. I saw it in ways your conscious mind hadn’t. I liked what I saw.”

  “But how did you build it?”

  Zed smiled wide. “I’m a man of many talents, Frank.”

  Frank felt his breath growing heavy. The back of his t-shirt was wet with sweat. “Why are you showing me this?”

  Frank reached for the box, but Zed slid it back, away from him.

  “I won’t let you open it,” Zed said. “This box saved the town, you know. I closed this box and locked it tight, and now the Unfeathered can’t come here anymore. It has to stay shut.”

  Frank’s head was spinning, and he felt a wave of nausea. His life’s work was sitting on the desk in front of him. “Maybe everything would go back to normal. Maybe those bird creatures would go away and the cell phones would start working again.”

  Zed ran his finger over the lock. “Or maybe the Unfeathered would come crashing in and kill us all. You’ll never know.”

  Frank reached into his pocket and found the knife.

  “It’s interesting, though,” Zed said. “Only two people in the world know how to open that lock, and they are both in this room.”

  Frank pulled out the knife and opened it. He held it up toward Zed.

  The smile stayed frozen on Zed’s face, but the joy left his eyes. Frank saw something frightening in its place.

  “You are full of surprises,” Zed said.

  Frank motioned toward the box with the knife. “Give it to me.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  Frank shook his head. “I’m done answering your questions. Give me the box.”

  Zed licked his lips. “Give me the knife and I’ll give you the box.”

  Frank looked hard at Zed. He saw something new on Zed’s face. “You’re scared of this thing, aren’t you?”

  “It’s mine.” Zed’s voice was low and scratchy like he suddenly had a bad cold. “You could hurt someone with that. It’s not a tire iron. It can do some real damage.”

  Frank took two steps to the right, coming around the edge of the desk. “Give me the box or I will start cutting.”

  Zed shook his head violently. “It’s not right. That isn’t yours.”

  Frank leaned forward, reaching toward Zed with the blade. Suddenly he heard footsteps behind him. He spun around fast, holding out the knife in front of him.

  Christine stood in the doorway, a pistol in her hand. “Frank, we need to go.”

  Frank shook his head. “No. Christine, he’s got it. My lock. The one from my head.”

  “Frank, you’re not making sense.”

  Zed seemed to have regained some of his composure. “Hello, Dr. Osmond. Would you please remind Frank that he is out of jail temporarily and that waving a knife at a Regulation-abiding citizen will not help his case for permanent release?”

  Christine held out her hand to Frank. There was no color in her face. Frank realized she was terrified. “Come on, Frank.”

  Frank turned back to the desk. He grabbed the box, pulling it out of Zed’s hands. He set it on the table. The Cassandra lock looked perfect, the way it always had in his head.

  Frank moved the knife toward Zed. “What happens if I open it?”

  “What?” Christine asked. “Frank, don’t open it. We don’t know what will happen.”

  “Yeah. That’s why I’m asking. So how about it, Zed? What happens if I open it?”

  It was a long time before Zed answered. “If you open that box, I leave. You are on your own. I’ll leave this town to the Unfeathered.”

  Frank looked at Zed, tried looking into his eyes the way Zed had looked into Frank’s, but all he saw was emptiness. Even the fear he had seen before was gone.

  “That’s all I get?” Frank asked.

  “That’s all you get.”

  “How about if I start cutting you?”

  Zed shrugged. “I might say a few more things, but would you believe them? You already know the important stuff. That box keeps the Unfeathered away. What else do you need to know?”

  Frank didn’t believe him, at least not fully. He knew Zed was lying, but he wasn’t sure about which part. Frank really wanted to try the Cassandra lock.

  He picked up the box and held it to his ear. It made a soft ticking sound.

  “Frank, no,” Christine said.

  Frank reached for the lock and twisted it, squeezing in exactly the right place and pulling at just the right angle. The lock snapped open, and joy sprang up within Frank. The lock worked the way he had always imagined it would.

  He removed the lock and opened the latch. He lifted the box’s wooden lid.

  The four sides of the box collapsed outward onto the desk. The box was empty.

  “That will be very difficult to replace,” Zed said.

  The room was silent for a long moment. Then, in the distance, Frank heard a noise that sounded a bit like singing.

  Christine put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Frank. What have you done?”

  “He’s killed you all,” Zed said.

  THE BAD THING THAT HAPPENED

  1.

  On the night the world changed, Christine was lying awake in bed trying not to look at the clock. She had struggled with insomnia all her life and that night she hadn’t slept for a moment. She knew what all the experts said, the strategies to fight it. But the experts weren’t there, lying in bed hour after hour with their minds racing, growing more stressed, more worried about how tired they would be the next day. Christine had been, and she was bored and worried and tired of the experts. She picked up her iPad to queue up an old episode of Alias. If she couldn’t sleep, at least she could have some vicarious excitement with Sydney Bristow.

  Jake was fast asleep and snoring. The man could sleep through anything. When there was a thunderstorm, Christine would toss and turn all night, waking up anew at each thunderclap. In the morning, Jake would look out the window and say, “Oh look, it rained.” It hardly seemed fair.

  A little circle icon on her iPad spun as it attempted to connect to the Internet. The connection had been down when Christine went to bed four hours ago, but she was hoping it would be working by now. No such luck. It wasn’t a surprise, really. Internet outages were all too common there in the mountains. She got up and walked toward the bathroom.

  That was when she heard it.

  The sound came from outside. It wasn’t a human noise or a machine noise. It was an animal noise, but unlike anything Christine had ever heard before. It was like a cross between a bird and a bear. Most disturbin
g of all, it wasn’t a constant tone. The noise fluctuated. It sounded almost like singing.

  Christine froze in the middle of the bedroom, halfway between the bed and the bathroom door. Damn, that thing was loud. It had to be right under the window. She rubbed her arms. That noise, it wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. She turned back toward the bed and said in a loud whisper, “Jake.”

  To her surprise, the response came immediately. “I hear it.”

  In a way, that frightened her more than the noise itself. The noise had woken up Jake, and nothing woke up Jake.

  “What is that?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know. Some kind of bird or something.”

  Jake pushed off the covers and stepped out of bed. He was dressed in only his boxers. “Whatever it is, it’s right outside the window.” He crossed the room to the window and opened the blinds. He craned his neck back and forth. The noise continued. “Well, I don’t see anything.”

  “Do you think it could be in the house?”

  “What? No. God, no.” But he didn’t look completely convinced.

  “I’m going to check on Trevor.”

  Jake nodded. “I’m going to go outside and see if I can see anything.”

  Christine nodded and left the bedroom. The noise was almost as loud out here. The longer it continued, the more pronounced the melody became. It hurt her head to listen. It was like no song she had ever heard. She couldn’t quite tell if it was one creature making that sound or dozens of them.

  She opened the door to Trevor’s bedroom. The boy was sitting up in his bed.

  “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”

  “Mommy, there’s singing.”

  “I know honey. You want to go back to sleep?”

  He shook his head. “No, Mommy. I’m scared. Can I come with you?”

  Christine paused. She rarely let him sleep in their bed, but this was different. Christine didn’t want Trevor out of her sight.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can sleep with me. Bring your pillow.”

  Trevor visibly relaxed at this unexpected boon. He grabbed his pillow, his favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Bear, and climbed out of bed. Christine took him by the hand.

  “What’s that singing, Mommy?”

  “I don’t know. Daddy is checking it out.”

  When they reached the bedroom, Trevor hopped onto the bed. He sat on top of the covers, his legs crossed. The moonlight through the window illuminated the Phineas and Ferb logo on his pajamas.

  Christine gave him her best mother glare. “This isn’t a party. Climb under the covers and go to sleep.”

  “But they’re still singing. I can’t sleep when they're singing.”

  “Maybe not, but you can try.”

  Trevor, resigned to his fate, slid under the covers.

  Christine moved to the window and looked out. The streetlights gave her a pretty good view of what was happening below. To her surprise, Jake wasn’t standing under the window looking up at the house. He was close to the road, looking straight into the sky. And he wasn’t alone. The neighbors on both sides were out in their yards too, all of them looking up.

  What was going on out there?

  Christine looked across the street and saw that neighbor, too, was standing at the end of his driveway. All Christine knew about the man was his name, although they had been neighbors for almost two years. Ed Snell. He was in his late-sixties by Christine’s estimation, and he lived alone. The man kept to himself.

  How much more scary must it be, she wondered, to wake up to that noise and not have anyone else in the house? Fear was like a weight, Christine thought. When there were multiple people in the house, you could spread the fear, lessening each person’s load. But if you lived alone you would have to keep all that fear for yourself.

  While Christine was still considering that thought, a white shape fell from the sky onto Ed Snell. No, Christine realized. It wasn’t falling. It was flying. The shape swooped down, grabbed Ed, and turned back skyward, taking the man with it.

  Christine put her hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.

  “What is it, Mommy?” Trevor asked.

  Christine didn’t answer.

  The white shape circled through the air, once, twice, three times, and released Ed. He landed in the Hinkle’s front yard, thirty feet from Jake.

  Jake ran toward Snell’s unmoving form. He was almost to the man when the white shape appeared again, swooping toward the ground. Christine put a hand to the window pane. She wanted to scream to Jake, but he was too far away.

  Jake saw the shape too, and he stopped, stumbling backwards.

  The white creature landed on top of Snell, its feet on his chest, and it raised its head to the sky and sang. Christine saw the creature clearly for the first time and terror shot through her heart.

  It was like a bird, a giant featherless bird. The creature was so white it almost glowed under the streetlights. Its wings were big fleshy things like the wings of a bat. It was unnatural. It was terrifying.

  Christine felt a tiny hand slip into her own. She hadn’t realized Trevor was standing beside her.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Christine tried for a moment to think of something comforting to say, something that would make the boy feel safe, but nothing came to mind. She squeezed his hand, hoping that would help a little. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Another white shape shot down from the sky. It landed next to the first. Then another joined it. And another. Soon there were six of them all gathered around Ed Snell’s body. They stood in a circle around him, their beaks open and pointed to the sky in a terrible song.

  Then the song stopped, and they struck.

  Trevor screamed as the first beak sank into Snell’s neck. Christine put her hand over his eyes.

  The creatures moved with uncanny speed, stabbing at Snell’s body with their long thin beaks and then pulling them back, covered in blood, bits of flesh and intestines. The creatures feasted for a long time on the man, their mouths hungrily thrusting into him again and again.

  “They’re eating that man, Mommy. Is Daddy going to save him?”

  Christine still had her hand over her son’s eyes, but it was too late. He had already seen what he had seen.

  “Trev, the man’s already dead. They aren’t hurting him.” She wasn’t sure if that would comfort the boy. She had said it partly to convince herself that it was true.

  She turned her gaze to Jake. He sat on the ground, unmoving, staring at the bird creatures. Christine wanted to knock on the window, or maybe open it and yell down to him, but she also didn’t want to do anything that might call attention to Jake. The bird creatures still might be hungry when they finished with Snell.

  There was only one thing to do. She would go downstairs, go outside, and get her man. She’d drag him in if she had to. There was no other option. Trevor would be fine. She’d have to make sure he understood to keep the doors and windows shut and not open them no matter what.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Jake was moving.

  He stood up slowly and took a step forward.

  “No,” Christine said.

  Jake was walking the wrong direction. He was moving toward the creatures.

  “No,” Christine said again, far too quietly for anyone but Trevor to hear.

  Jake moved slowly and deliberately. Christine saw the gun in his arms. Jake stopped fifteen feet from his downed neighbor. He raised his rifle and took careful aim.

  “Daddy’s going to save that man. I knew it!”

  Christine realized she was no longer covering her son’s eyes. She was too afraid to move. Her eyes were glued to her husband.

  Jake held his rifle pointed at the creatures for what seemed an eternity. He shifted his feet a little, corrected his aim, and fired.

  The shot echoed through the neighborhood. The closest bird creature’s head exploded, raining brains and blood on its flock mates behind it as it collapsed.

&nb
sp; Jake stood frozen. Christine willed him to move, to run. But he stood firm. The other creatures didn’t seem to notice. They continued their feast.

  “Get out of there,” Christine whispered.

  Jake cocked his rifle and fired again, dropping another one of the creatures. Again none of the others seemed to notice.

  Jake fired again. And again. Now there were only two left.

  The one closest to Jake had its back to him. Jake raised his rifle and took aim. Before he could fire, the creature lifted its head and turned to him.

  Christine gasped.

  It tilted its head as if trying to interpret what this man and his rifle meant. Then it lifted its bloody beak to the sky and began to sing. The other remaining bird creature stopped feeding and looked at its singing compatriot. Another white shape appeared in the sky, and then another.

  Jake fired, silencing the bird creature and its song. Then he turned and bolted for the house.

  As Christine watched, the remaining bird creature returned to its meal. It picked apart poor Mr. Ed Snell until there was nothing left but bones.

  2.

  Four days later the killings had stopped, the Regulations had been put in place, and Rook Mountain had been changed forever.

  Christine knocked on the door of a large conference room in City Hall. They were calling the room the Command Center. It was a place for Zed and his inner circle to meet and do whatever it was they were doing since the town had been saved.

  A short, thin man Christine didn’t recognize opened the door wide enough to stick his head through. He didn’t speak—he just waited.

  “Hi,” Christine said. “I was wondering if I could talk to Zed for a minute. I have some information I think he might like to hear.”

  The man looked Christine in the eye, and Christine felt a quick jolt, like a bolt of electricity running through her brain.

  The man nodded. “Come in.” He led her through the large room to a desk in one corner. Zed sat behind the desk, furiously writing on a form of some sort. That seemed odd to Christine. What kind of paperwork could there really be at this point?