Authors: Unknown
CHAPTER NINE
“I’m serious,” Liam said as he
entered Kyle’s office. “They look like they’re wearing less than they’d be if
they were at the beach.”
The comment
immediately caused Kyle’s antenna to spring up. Was Liam trying to catch him in
some sort of trap? Trying to get him to admit that, yes, his eyes wandered and
that, yes, some of the shorts his students wore had less material than the
underwear underneath (for those even wearing underwear) and the cleavage
spilling out of their skintight shirts demanded that anyone with a penis (and
even those without) take a long hard gaze? Was he trying to see if Kyle was
some kind of pervert who preyed upon his students?
Kyle couldn’t tell
as he stood to greet the man, looking his disheveled appearance up and down.
And Liam didn’t
give anything away. He simply flashed a wide smile and returned Kyle’s greeting
with a hearty handshake.
“I’m sorry about
what happened to your niece,” Kyle said.
“Allie’s a good
kid,” Liam said as he took a seat in the wobbly chair across from Kyle’s desk.
“The best.”
“I didn’t know her
well, but she definitely had a—”
“
Didn’t?
”
Liam interrupted, his puffy eyes narrowing a bit. “She’s not dead,
you know.”
“I … I know,”
Kyle stammered. “I was just saying that
before
this happened I didn’t know her well.”
“Well, you’ll get
your opportunity,” Liam said. “Because she’s gonna come out of it and be fine.
And whoever did this to her is gonna pay.”
Kyle took a seat.
“You mentioned that on the phone,” he said. “That she was attacked. And I have
to be honest, I still don’t get what you’re saying. How could she have been
attacked? Do you think there was a noxious gas or something?”
“A gas? No,” Liam
said, looking Kyle straight in the eyes, a mask of seriousness covering his
fleshy forty-two-year-old face. “And I can’t take credit for the theory on my
own. One of the Crusaders told me to check her phone, and that’s when I came up
with the texts between the two of you and saw the one about Sheldrake.”
“What’s a
Crusader?” Kyle asked, his nerves on edge as Liam spoke about checking Allie’s
phone, thinking Liam
had
to know
about the erased texts, but wondering why he wasn’t saying anything about them,
wondering what his angle was.
“A Crusader of the
Cape,” Liam answered.
“Cape? Like Cape
Cod?”
“No. Cape like one
you wear. It’s a play on words. You know, like Batman, the Caped Crusader. We
call ourselves the Crusaders of the Cape.”
“Who’s
we?
”
“Just some of us
randoms.”
“Random what?”
“Comic book store
owners.”
Kyle nodded, not
sure whether to be put at ease that Liam’s cohorts were comic shop owners, or
on higher alert because they were also probably tech geeks. But he played
along. “So what is it then? What do you think attacked her?”
“Who, not what.
Who
.”
“Okay,
who
attacked her, and what did they
attack her with?”
Liam leaned back
in the wobbly chair. “Not sure who yet.”
Kyle swallowed
back his frustration and pursed his lips, feeling as if he’d been transported
into an Abbott and Costello routine. “Okay, then what was she attacked with?”
Which is what I just asked
.
“Energy transfer.
Or, in this case I guess, energy disruption.”
Kyle stared at
him, waiting for more. But there wasn’t any. “I’m not following.”
“It goes back to
Sheldrake,” Liam said. “The man who discovered morphic fields and proved that
the energy our minds create extends beyond the confines of our skull.”
“I’m not really
sure Sheldrake proved
anything, but
even so, how could a morphic field have caused a burst aneurysm. And why
would you even go there?”
“Because of the
others. That’s what made me really suspicious.”
“What others?”
“The people I told
you about who’ve been killed.”
“Right,” Kyle
said, remembering Liam mentioning that on the phone. “What happened there? Who
are the others?”
“In the past two
months, there have been four people under the age of twenty-five who have died
from a burst aneurysm. And that
doesn’t
include Allie.” Liam paused, waiting for a reaction from Kyle that never came.
“That just shouldn’t be happening,” he explained. “Something’s going on.”
“What shouldn’t be
happening?”
“That so many
young people are dying from strokes in such a short span of time.”
Kyle rubbed his
cheek. “I agree that it’s unusual,” he said, having just read the stats while
searching the Internet the other night, “but why does that lead you to think
that people are being murdered?”
“Because it’s more
than just unusual,” Liam said. “And it’s more than just very unusual. It’s
impossibly
unusual. It shouldn’t be
happening. Not to these people. Even in a city as big as Manhattan, this
shouldn’t be happening. It’s too much of a coincidence. Way too much. These
guys weren’t only all young, but they didn’t have any health problems. Trust
me, it’s just not possible. Something’s going on. These deaths didn’t just
happen. They were killed. They were definitely killed.”
“I can see how it
might be a statistical anomaly, but those things happen.”
“Not like this,
they don’t. Do you have any idea what the numbers say? Try this—it’s a
known statistical fact that about two people in Manhattan die a month because
of a brain hemorrhage. Two. That’s it. And all of them are at least in their
thirties, and usually much friggin’ older. Like really old.”
“All of them?”
“Pretty much. And
the ones who aren’t old are sick, or drunks, or get clocked upside the head.
But the ones I’m talking about, the four in the last two months, they were all
in their twenties. Their
early
twenties.”
“But these types
of statistical anomalies do happen every so often,” Kyle repeated.
“Not like this.”
“And how do you
know the other incidents weren’t due to accidental overdoses?” Kyle asked. “Or
an illness?”
“They weren’t. I
know they weren’t,” Liam said.
Kyle sat there
silently, slowly becoming convinced that Liam really did think Allie had been
attacked and wasn’t there about the texts he’d deleted.
“Crazy, right?”
Liam asked, his scraggly beard stretching out as he grinned. “Blows your effing
mind away, doesn’t it? And I bet the only reason why Allie didn’t die was
because her mind was too aware of what was going on because she’d been seeing a
Giver. Thank friggin’ God for that.”
Kyle found it odd
that Liam refrained from cursing in conversation the same way he did on his
Facebook posts. Then he hit Liam with the obvious point he thought the man was
missing. “What about the possibility that the aneurysms all just coincidentally
ruptured from natural causes?”
“C’mon,” Liam
said. “You know it’s not that. I just gave you the stats. If it was one? Maybe.
Two? Doubtful. But four? And my niece? That just doesn’t make sense at all. It
can’t be natural causes.”
“Not sure I
agree,” Kyle said. “But even if you’re right, even if it is something other
than natural causes, what makes you think it was an energy disruption?”
“Because it has to
be something undetectable. And what else is there that’s completely
undetectable other than the energy our consciousness creates?”
“But who says the
energy from our consciousness, assuming it even exists as anything more than
random matter, can do this?”
“Well,” Liam said,
squirming a bit uneasily for the first time in his chair, “who says it can’t?
Look at all of Sheldrake’s studies with morphic fields.”
Kyle leaned back
in his chair. “Have you actually studied Sheldrake?”
“A bit.”
“Then I take it
you know his theories have been widely rejected, right?”
“
Rejected?
The guy’s a rock star in the
field of consciousness. Whose theories are more accepted than his in the
field?”
“I’m referring to
the science field. Sheldrake’s followers tend to concentrate more in the area
of philosophy.”
“First of all,”
Liam said. “He
is
a scientist. He’s a
biochemist. Secondly, the quantum physics field has embraced his theories and
has provided the rationale for them. They’ve seen the results of his
experiments. Like the one where he proved we can tell if we’re being stared at
just by the sensation alone. That’s been proven over ten thousand times.”
“I’m not sure
embraced is the right word,” Kyle said, holding back on the fact that he had
conducted Sheldrake’s experiment in his own class and agreed that the results
showed
something
was definitely felt
or sensed when being stared at from behind
—
like when someone read a paper over your shoulder. But
whether the feeling was due to an ‘energy’ or not, Kyle had no idea.
“Just look at
where the quantum physics field has taken his theories,” Liam argued. “They’ve
proven that cells have nonlocal interactions with other cells. They’ve even
shown that when holistic healing works, whether it’s Deeksha, Reiki or
whatever, it’s not just coincidental, it’s because the energy created by the
morphic fields impacts the targeted cells and adjusts them so they re-conform
to the body’s blueprint rather than continue to follow the deviant signals
being received by the disease. They actually friggin’
reteach
the cells and override the disease.”
Liam had
definitely done his homework. Everything he was saying was a published fact or
theory by known authorities in the field. “Yes,” Kyle said, “some quantum
physicists have tried to further develop or prove Sheldrake’s theories, but
they are far from conclusive, and although mainstream medicine no longer
discounts holistic approaches when all else fails, it is also far from an
accepted practice in the medical community. Not to mention, quantum mathematics
itself is riddled with unproven assumptions.”
“But that’s what
scientists do, right? They doubt each other and try to prove each other wrong.
They spend their whole lives doing that. But studying the consciousness and its
energy fields is one of the hottest areas in neuroscience right now. Heck,
everyone knows the military’s been in it for decades. That’s a known fact.”
“You’re referring
to Jon Ronson’s book?
The Men Who Stare
at Goats?
”
“Among others,
yeah.”
“And you do
realize they turned his book into a comedy with George Clooney poking fun at
the entire notion.”
“Right. They
turned it into a movie.”
“A
comedy
.”
Liam stared at him
blankly.
“Liam,” Kyle said,
“it was a comedy that made fun of the military and the people who took these
theories, like Sheldrake’s morphic fields, seriously.”
“So what?
Spinal Tap
was a comedy about a band.
Does that mean bands don’t exist?
Office
Space
was a comedy about layoffs. Does that mean people don’t get laid
off?”
Kyle squeezed his
brow. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Sure it is. The
movie made fun of the interaction between straight-laced military guys and
hippies. Easy to do. But that doesn’t mean the underlying premise isn’t real.
And it is real, right? Isn’t it true that the military has spent millions on
experiments, and who knows what else, based on these theories?”
“Yes, but—”
“See? There you
go.”
“Okay,” Kyle said,
rubbing the back of his neck to relieve some of the growing tension. “I don’t
think we’re going to see things the same way on this. But even if someone could
disrupt someone else’s energy, why would they do it?”
Liam took a deep
breath. “And that’s the fifty million dollar question, right? Why is someone
out there attacking these people? Is there some real intention there? Is it a
serial killer?”
Kyle didn’t know
what to say. All he could do was stare back at the puffy eyes behind Liam’s
thick glasses, wondering what the hell the man’s angle was? Was he actually
delusional, or merely a stubborn adherent to Sheldrake’s theories? Or, was it
all some kind of elaborate ploy because he knew about the flirtatious texts?
And then Liam gave
Kyle his answer. With a sly grin, he pulled out an iPhone in a pink case
—
Allie’s iPhone.
“This,” Liam said,
“is the key.”
Kyle swallowed,
but didn’t say anything.
“If the killer
knew Allie, or was connected to her in some way, he or she has to show up on
her phone, right? They always say that something like ninety percent of murder
victims knew their murderer.”
Kyle didn’t say
anything. He was sick of the set-up and just wanted Liam to get to the point
already. He wanted him to say that he knew Kyle was meeting his niece that
night. That he’d been flirting with her. That he wanted to sleep with her.
“But so far I’ve
come up with nothing on the phone,” Liam said, his grin turning into a frustrated
scowl. “So I thought about it. The killer was obviously there that night. He
attacked her. That’s how the aneurysm burst. So that means he probably got his
hands on her phone. And if he did that, he definitely must’ve erased the emails
or messages he sent.”
“Have you
checked?”
Liam nodded.
“And?”
“Nothing,” he
said. “But I think that’s because the software I used requires syncing to her
iTunes account. And if the texts were sent that night, and also deleted that
night, they wouldn’t have synced with the account. So I found this company
downtown that says they’ll be able to find any deleted messages, even if they
weren’t synced with iTunes. So I’m going to bring it to them and see what they
come up with.”