The Siege Read online

  The flitch pouted a bit. “You don’t remember me? We met in the discard pit?”

  “Oh sorry, so deep in thought, I can’t be taking on hitchhikers.”

  “I beg your pardon, but you’re in my mind. You’re the parasite here,” the flitch declared.

  Mia stopped and looked, trying to remember that it wasn’t Morris Steele she was talking to but a common dark world parasite. “Sorry, I thought you needed help to cross out of minds, my bad.” Mia started to walk away.

  “Wait! Let’s get something clear. I can move out of a mind anytime I want to.”

  “Nonsense, things like you perish outside in the organic world.”

  “Perish? I’ve been around for centuries,” it bragged.

  “Oh, so you’re one of those,” Mia said with condescension.

  “Don’t take that tone with me. One of what?”

  Mia sighed as she circled the inventive platform of Burt’s open mind. “What challenge can it be, being a… well… a being with no chance of death. I can’t think of a more boring thought.”

  “I can be killed.”

  “Nonsense, if you’ve lived for centuries, then you’re just lying.”

  “I am not lying!” the flitch spat. “I can be slowed in cold but never really frozen.”

  “Slowed is not dead. Slowing down for a thought is a way to completely deal with all the variables. Again, no challenge,” Mia scoffed and continued to inch closer to the platform.

  The flitch would not be stifled by this thought. He blurted out, “I’m like a molasses slug. Freeze me and then salt me, and I’m gone.”

  “I see why you’ve survived. If you put salt on ice, it thaws it.”

  “Yes it does. Part of me will be lost in the muck, and I will simply slide by detection.”

  “Genius. Are you sure you’re not a thought?” Mia asked, sitting down on the platform. She patted the spot beside her. She waited until the flitch settled before she voiced her idea. “So if a person wanted to catch you, they would have to put a trap between the host’s bodies, flash-freeze you and contain you in salt until all the water is gone.”

  “Yes, so you do see how impossible it is to kill me yet a challenge for me to stay alive.”

  Mia stopped rubbing the platform and got up. “Time for me to move on. I’ve decided to challenge myself too and become a transient thought.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing as a traveling thought?”

  “There are subtle differences,” Mia said, walking away.

  “Hey, you can’t leave! You have to stay here now.”

  “Why? Mia asked, picking up her pace.

  “Because you know how to kill me!”

  “Consider it a challenge,” Mia said and started running towards where she entered the chamber the first time.

  ~

  Burt’s heart rate increased. His eyes popped open. “I’ve had a thought. Put a trap between Mia and me. Flash-freeze the black ooze in my hand and contain it in salt.” His eyes snapped shut again.

  “Shit!” Ted cursed as he looked around him. He picked up the mic and called, “Dave, get in here!” He heard his voice echo outside the office. He prayed Dave was close.

  The young man came skidding inside the door from the barn. “What?”

  “I need…” Ted stopped. “You stay here with these two. I need to get some things, pronto.”

  Dave dove out of the way as Ted ran full speed out the door and into the workshop. “What’s the rush?”

  Jake, who decided he didn’t like Dave much, announced using nine radio transmissions, “Shut the fuck up, son, and sit yourself down!”

  ~

  Mia felt the heat from the flitch at her back. It must have pulled the warm thoughts of hearth and home out of Burt’s mind to ease the hold the place had on its sticky feet. He moved like a flashflood toward Mia. In this form, it would be seconds before the flitch found her, and a few more before it consumed her. Heedless of the terrain, she ran full out. Mia tripped on a thought and flew forward. She instinctually put her arms over her stomach and rolled upon impact. She found herself mired in financial worries and was sinking fast.

  A hand came out of nowhere and yanked her upwards. She clung to the all-too-familiar arm as Murphy pulled her in towards him and held her protectively. With his free hand, he moved his menacing axe back and forth in front of what looked to him like Morris Steele.

  The flitch stopped in his tracks, identifying the farmer from the remnants of his former host’s mind that the flitch had devoured long ago.

  “Hello, Stephen, you have something of mine,” the flitch indicated Mia.

  “It’s not Steele. It’s a parasite,” Mia hissed as Murphy set her down behind him.

  “Finders keepers,” Murphy growled.

  “She’s my thought. You go away. You don’t belong here.”

  Murphy moved a hand behind his back. He extended a finger and pointed the way out to Mia.

  Mia didn’t want to leave Murphy, but she was at a disadvantage. Both Murph and the flitch could move faster than she. She ran.

  Murphy twirled his axe in front of him, taking the attention of Mia’s escape away from the flitch.

  “My former host enjoyed watching you die, farmer. And now I’ll finish the job.”

  The flitch bubbled until it was more ooze than man.

  Murphy didn’t like the odds of trying to fight a liquid and took off running.

  Mia waited for Murphy at the overgrown lot. She whistled when he almost passed her. He moved to her and encouraged her to cross over. She shook her head and insisted, “You first.”

  Murphy didn’t hesitate, confident that Mia had things well in hand.

  The ooze seeped into the grass of the lot. It took human shape. Instead of Steele, it chose its present host, Burt Hicks.

  “Well hello, handsome,” Mia flirted. “Would you like to go traveling with me?”

  “Where’s the farmer?”

  “Sorry, who?” she asked.

  Puzzled but not displeased that the thought had discarded the farmer, the flitch moved towards her. Mia reached out her hand and as the flitch drew near she backed out of the thought.

  Mia traveled across her own palm and waited until she saw the flitch enter the trap before she disconnected with Burt.

  She opened her eyes to see Ted snatch a plastic tube she had been holding and cork it on both ends. He dropped it into a small vat of liquid nitrogen. Dave opened the lid of a cookie tin where salt lined the bottom. Ted used tongs and picked the tube out of the hissing water and deposited the frozen mass of tube, cork and ooze in the tin. Dave poured salt over the mass until the tin could hold no more. He then put the lid on it.

  Ted took the tin and wrapped yards of duct tape around it to seal the container and, hopefully, the flitch inside.

  Burt opened his eyes and looked at Mia. “Are we done?”

  Mia looked around her and saw Murphy leaning against the doorjamb with his hat pulled low over his forehead. He winked at Mia.

  “We’re done. How do you feel?”

  “Confused mentally and overwhelmed emotionally. I’m having trouble concentrating. All this past baggage is filling my mind.”

  Mia put on her gloves, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “I may have stirred some things up while I was in there. I guess the best thing would be to put your attention on something else. Read a book or watch some television, a DVD. In short, get your mind off of things for a while. Cid and Murphy have a great collection of classics,” she suggested. “Dave and I watched a corker last week, James Cagney…”

  “Not The Public Enemy. No, nope, nada. That’s not allowed to be seen here anymore,” Ted warned.

  Burt looked at Mia and asked, “Why?”

  Mia gazed at Burt then at Ted, taking in his glare, and back to Burt, and explained, “Ted’s allergic to grapefruit.”

  ~

  “Tomorrow then,” Gerald said and hung up the phone. He was ecstatic. Mia and Ted had caught
a flitch. Mia admitted that they may have killed it. Did he still want it? He replied that he would take it dead or alive. He added that he would send his driver over to pick it up. Mia discouraged any travel tonight because of the roads. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

  “How was it?” he had asked her.

  “The flitch?”

  “No, how was it traipsing through Burt’s mind?” he clarified.

  “Illuminating. It’s not what you think. I think of my mind as a house with windows and doors. Burt’s is actually a rabbit warren full of tunnels, twisting passages and pits. I heard swirling water somewhere. It’s a world within a world,” she reported.

  “Each of us may have similar structure to our physical brains,” Gerald told her. “But our mind is our own doing. If a child is told that they have no worth, no future and no thoughts to call their own, then their minds are small and inflexible. But if you encourage imagination, then you have many worlds to fill with thoughts and memories.”

  “Burt has a large open mind,” Mia said.

  “Remember that when you think he won’t appreciate a suggestion,” Gerald suggested.

  “Thank you, Gerald, I will.”

  Mia didn’t ask how the extraction of a flitch would change Burt. Gerald didn’t ask how Burt was doing either. Between the two of them there was a tacit agreement to wait and see for themselves.

  ~

  Dave had finished shoveling the snow off the walks. He decided to make sure that the vehicles’ doors and locks hadn’t iced up. He opened and closed the truck’s doors and moved over to Burt’s car. He opened the door and noticed that the overhead light didn’t go on. He shut the door, making note to warn Burt that that his battery was probably dead. They would handle charging it in the morning. Right now, all Dave had on his mind was that large bowl of popcorn Mia was pouring melted butter over and the movie they had cued up, waiting for him to join them.

  He stowed the shovel by the back door of the farmhouse. He kicked the snow and salt off his boots before opening the door. Dave stopped for a moment, irritated by a feeling of being watched. It was probably Murphy, he reasoned. He pushed the feeling away and entered the house.

  Chapter Ten

  Deputy Tom Braverman was surprised to see an envelope postmarked from Utah lying on his desk. He lifted it and smiled. It had the weight of a Holiday card instead of another credit card opportunity. He ran his finger under the flap and ripped open the top. He gently extracted the card, and when he opened it, a business card fell into his lap. He ignored the business card for a moment; his attention was taken by the cover of the holiday card. In front of a Christmas tree, there stood the three spirits from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. One was pocketing an ornament, another had stepped on and had crushed a present, while the last one was smiling as it waved a turkey leg in the air. The tree was decorated with Marley’s chains. Tom opened the card and read:

  Having a problem with Spirits this year? Call Tonia Toh and Lorna Grainger.

  Tom picked up the business card and looked at it. “Cheeky,” he said aloud.

  “I beg your pardon,” Sheriff John Ryan asked. “Are you talking to me, son?”

  “No sir,” Tom said blushing. “I received this and thought how presumptuous it was, but at the same time, I feel compelled to keep the business card. He handed the sheriff the holiday card.

  John looked at the front and read the interior and laughed. “I think cheeky was a good call. Keep that card. Who knows, we may need it. Do you mind if I take this home to show the wife?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Tom said. “I’d like it back to show the folks. My mother is convinced I don’t meet the right kind of people on this job.”

  “This will prove it,” Ryan said over his shoulder as he went into his office.

  Tom logged on to his computer to file a report. Chuck, one of the Stanley Brothers, had called in to notify them that his elder brother Kevin had seen someone lurking around the AT&T cell tower over off Route 109. He didn’t get a good look at them as he was plowing the road at the time. Route 109 was full of dips and curves. If you took your attention away for a second, you’d find yourself axel deep in Big Bear Marsh. It was a bad place for building homes, but the cell tower didn’t need prime real estate; it just needed a proper foundation under the base.

  Tom had driven out there but was prevented from getting too close as the icy water of the marsh filled his boots before he’d gotten yards in. He almost lost a boot as the still unfrozen muck pulled at his feet with every step. Instead, he stood on top of his cruiser and looked at the area with his binoculars. The snow from last evening lay undisturbed around the tower. If there had been someone at the tower, they hadn’t stayed very long. He typed his observations in and hit enter.

  He walked over to dispatch and asked that whoever was assigned to patrol that section of 109 today keep an eye on the tower. With that completed, Tom was off duty. He had the rest of the day and half day tomorrow to himself.

  ~

  Cid returned back to a cleared drive. He waved at Dave who was lugging a car battery across the lot. Burt’s car hood was open. Perhaps the investigator left his lights on last night? He made sure that his weren’t in a similar state before he pulled his key and exited his vehicle.

  He followed Dave into the barn. He was tempted to run upstairs and change out of the clothes Ralph lent him, but he remembered Mia had sublet his room to Burt. He walked into the office instead. Burt sat with his feet up on the conference table, having a laugh about something Ted had just said.

  “Sounds like a jolly morning. Mind if I use my room?” Cid asked Burt.

  “Please, and thank you for the loan. I was in no shape to drive last night. I took the liberty to change your sheets. Mine are in the washer along with the towels I used.”

  Cid nodded. He heard what a good guest Burt was from Mia and Mike, but somehow he didn’t expect the man to do his laundry too. “Having battery problems?”

  “Darnedest thing, I couldn’t start the beast this morning. My lights weren’t on. It could be the cold. The car is used to Mia’s dry warm garage.”

  Cid was glad Mike wasn’t around. He could turn anything into an inappropriate innuendo and Burt’s phrase, “Mia’s dry warm garage,” was tailor made for innuendo. The fact that he thought of that himself made him blush. Hanging around Mike Dupree with his sexist comments had a bad habit of rubbing off on Cid.

  “The boy has the most interesting war going on in his head,” Ted commented. “Cid, what are you thinking about? Was staying with Ralph and Bernard too stressful or is it the factory job?”

  Cid shook himself. “Ralph is a challenge, especially when he wants to play dress up. No wonder Mia hates to shop with him. But he and Bernard were more than accommodating. I had a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. Who could complain about that? Audrey’s factory has a few structural problems. I’m going to type up a report and email it over to her. I still have a few out buildings to check. I was going to see if Dave was interested in making some spare change and going with me.”

  “Change that into dollars and I’m in,” Dave said from the doorway. “Burt, I’ve got bad news for you. The walls of the battery have collapsed. You’re not going to get any more mileage out of that one.”

  Ted reached in his pocket and tossed Burt the keys to the PEEPs van. “Take it, and go and get yourself a new one.”

  “Sounds like I have no other choice. I was just trying to get the beast through this winter, and then I was going to buy a new car.”

  Cid and Dave stopped what they were doing and turned around and stared at Burt.

  “What?”

  “Sorry, but, dude, I thought your pockets were sewn shut,” Dave admitted.

  Burt set his jaw.

  “For your information, brat, Burt puts all his money into PEEPs,” Mia said from the open door of the workshop. “He fed you while you were staying with him and did not ask for a cent back. If I were you, Mr. Charity case, I’d keep my mouth s
hut.”

  Dave turned red and narrowed his eyes. Mia returned the look and added a layer of permafrost to hers. Dave backed down.

  “Burt, if you’re going out, would you mind if I hitched a ride? I’ve got some things I need to pick up,” Mia said vaguely.

  Burt stood up, walked over and grabbed his coat. “Give me a minute to warm up the van,” he said and opened the office door to the outside and left quickly.

  Dave started to open his mouth, and Mia moved quickly and took ahold of his chin. “Whatever smart mouth comment you’ve got on your tongue, swallow it.” She turned and said sweetly, “Teddy Bear, is there anything I could pick up for you?”

  “We’re out of Dr. Peppers.”

  “Got it on my list. Cid?”

  Cid was almost afraid to speak but managed to squeak out, “Eggs.”

  Mia grabbed a pen off the long workstation top and added it to a crumpled piece of paper. “You guys can feed yourselves lunch, can’t you?”

  The three nodded silently.

  “Good because I owe Burt a meal out. Later,” she said, leaving the office to where Burt had pulled up the van. He got out and helped her inside.

  Ted wasn’t sure what just happened, but he would see how this all resolved later. Right now, he had a list of things to see to.

  “Why is she so hard on me?” Dave complained.

  “It’s because she sees promise in you. She wants more for you than she got,” Cid answered.

  “She’s not my mom,” Dave said stubbornly.

  “No, but she’s your friend. I wouldn’t want to be her enemy,” Cid said wisely. “Now hit the head, grab a pair of work boots and meet me at my car. I’m leaving in fifteen minutes.”

  Dave left the room, moving a bit quicker than he normally would have.

  “So did I enter Bizarro World or did I imagine Mia defend Burt and him take it graciously?”

  “You can trust your eyes and ears, Superman,” Ted said. “Mia spent some time in Burt’s head last night and has a whole new viewpoint on our illustrious leader.”