I aimed my pistol at the opening and called out, “Anyone up there?”
I watched as the pistol danced in my outstretched arm as I waited for a response. With everything that had happened, I had almost forgotten I was an addict. My hands never let me down. I slowly walked up the stairs. It seemed clear.
The first door I opened was just bare office space. The second door, however, opened into a scene from hell. Two people sat at a conference table. One was a woman. The other, I had to study a moment before determining it a man. After walking around the room, I also saw something wrapped in a blanket on the floor. I walked over to it. I had unwrapped a corner of it when I saw small blue fingers. I recoiled.
Goddamn it.
Chapter 6
It was mine and Avery’s last summer as high school students. We were enjoying it as much as two nerds like us enjoyed summers. While other kids went to the beach, socialized, and dated, we sat at home playing Mario on the Nintendo 64.
Avery’s sister turned sixteen earlier that same year. I remember the night. I was at Avery’s when the call came. In all the time I spent with Avery’s family, I never remember Avery’s dad losing his temper once. That night he screamed and threw the phone against the wall. Freaking out about what his dad had said and done, Avery and I quickly made our way to the living room just in time to see his dad fall to the floor. We soon learned the phone call had been from the hospital. Avery’s sister had been in an accident.
Her accident had caused Avery’s dad to have a heart attack. His dad would initially recover, but his sister died on the operating table after surgeons were unable to repair the massive amount of internal injuries. The day I went with Avery and his mom to pick up his dad from the hospital was not a happy one. His dad, although recovered enough to come home, had lost feeling in both his left leg and left arm. He had also had a stroke during his time in the hospital. His dad died two weeks before school started.
The happy home was turned into something of a hull of its former self. His mom tried to hold things together, but she took to drinking and taking prescription drugs for most of his senior year. Avery began spending a lot more time with me at Palm Villa, which only added to his behavioral and emotional issues. My home wasn’t the most nurturing of safe places.
I awoke one night by the sound of someone talking. Avery was having a very frank conversation with someone in the bedroom: himself. I listened for a few moments, trying to understand what was being said. I couldn’t make out most of it, but he seemed to be having a conversation with his dad. Once he realized I was awake, he switched to snapping his fingers.
Avery’s ticks increased during that period. He always had milestones he had to reach – like having to snap his fingers x amount of times before he could leave his bedroom. The amount grew substantially after his dad and sister passed. He would wake up a couple hours before school just to get in the extra repetitions. They seemed to have a calming effect on him. I never said anything. It was just what he did.
It wasn’t all bad. Avery’s mom ended up fighting her way out of her addiction and depression. Avery’s struggles continued, but his ticks lessened, especially after his mom got better. He poured his energy into school and finished valedictorian.
I had taken four years of vocational school. Because of that, I was able to graduate early. I didn’t wait around, either. I got the hell out of Indiana as soon as I could, but I stayed in contact with both Avery and his mom. When I heard about his successes, I just figured he’d go on and do his thing, probably end up being a tech CEO, and I’d rarely if ever see him again.
Then his mom called. She said he wasn’t doing well at all; that he freaked out about having to make a speech at his graduation commencement. Worse he’d outright refused, saying he’d rather not graduate than speak. Luckily, the salutatorian stood in for him, or he would’ve been a high school dropout.
That was the only beginning of his post-high school issues. He refused to take any of the scholarships he’d been offered. His mom said all he’d do was sleep all day, and he seldom came out of his room. When he did, it was to grab some food or use the bathroom, and then it was right back to his room.
I was working construction at the time, and I had neither the time nor money to travel back to Indiana. Instead, I offered to put him to work doing something while he came to grips with his journey into adulthood. She agreed, and he was on a plane and in Texas three days later.
Miley knew a guy who owned a small networking and custom computer shop. He talked to the guy, and Avery started working for him two days later. He worked his way up from sweeping the floors to building custom computers before finally working on the networking and programming side of the business. When I got the drilling superintendent job, I put him to work doing the geeky electronic stuff. He was happy as hell, and so was I.
“I didn’t know any of ’at. It’s big of you takin care of ’im.”
I turned around to make sure Avery was still sleeping. “Avery is my brother. I owed him and his family a lot… making my life bearable like they did.”
Sam nodded. “You must’ve had it rough, son.”
“Preparation for this, I guess,” I said, trying to smile.
Sam leaned his head against the headrest and looked out the window for several minutes before speaking again. “What I said ’bout Avery was wrong. ’At’s on me.”
The beeping of the cell phone meant Avery was awake. It was past time for Sam and me to shut down the conversation. Avery detested being talked about, which if you knew his past, you’d understand why. As guilty about airing all of Avery’s dirty laundry as I was, I needed to make Sam understand where Avery was coming from and where he’d been. Avery was different, but he wasn’t a pervert – or worse.
Some people have argued over the years that I was overly protective of Avery. They said I was part of the reason he never really grew up – that at forty-six, he acted like a fifteen-year-old. Part of that was right. Part of it, though, was he needed someone to make sure he was alright. Was I overly protective? Yeah, but I couldn’t sit back and let people crap on him, including Sam.
Luckily for us, Avery’s sole interest at that moment was the phone. He angrily mumbled something as he thumbed through the Korean language book we got from the library. His frustration stemmed from his inability to read the longer messages to and from Donald (the leader we killed at the Radar installation) and who we guessed was Donald’s boss.
That didn’t mean he didn’t learn anything new, because he had, but what we learned made very little sense.
Donald received messages after we killed him, and they weren’t kind. The person sending them accused him of being a traitor. Not only were the messages sent to Donald, but they were also sent to the same person Donald had been communicating with up the chain of command. So whoever was sending the messages wanted it known far and wide that he was a traitor.
The Korean word bimil was used in a context Avery didn’t understand. It means secret in English, but the way Avery was reading it, the message said, “The secret is involved,” which doesn’t make any sense. So whoever was calling out Donald, was also saying someone or something else was involved with what was going bad in Barrow.
Another part of what was sent up the command was that Donald had killed and buried the Grays. That in of itself was traitorous enough from what we had found out about the Order to justify something happening to Donald.
Then there was the fact that Donald seemed to be Russian, which made the least sense of what we had found out by that point.
“What if that… that damn Korean word…”
“Bimil,” Avery said.