The Night Bird

45

Frankie heard the scream. She froze halfway between the second and third floors of the building. The agony of it made her cover her ears. She fell against the railing and couldn’t take another step. The sound pushed through to her brain, no matter how much she tried to keep it out. If you came to the end of the road and saw the devil standing in front of you, that would be the howl of despair baying from your throat.

She wanted to turn back, but a woman’s voice rose over the scream. It was Lucy. “No, no, make it stop!”

Frankie shook off her fear and bolted up the last few steps. She found herself in a long hallway, with closed doors stretching the length of the building. The noise came from everywhere; she didn’t know which door to choose. She tried the first one, and it was locked. They were all locked. She went from door to door, shouting Lucy’s name.

Halfway down the hall, she found an open door, and she burst inside.

Her heart stopped.

Whiteness overwhelmed her. What she’d seen on her phone didn’t compare to the dazzling shock of white above, below, and around her. She had to stop to adjust to the brightness. It made her want to shield her eyes, as if she were looking into the sun. White room. White lights. Every window covered in white.

The room was large, at least a hundred feet from end to end. The ceiling was low. Video projectors — all white — had been mounted in intervals around the entire room. The walls were screens; the ceiling was a screen; the floor was a screen. She realized in an instant that this was a room that could be turned into anything. Any scene out of the pit of your imagination. Any dream come to life. It was a room where all your deepest fears could come true.

There were three people in the torture chamber.

In the corner, twenty feet away from her, was Todd Ferris. He was alive. He sat on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest. He had his fingers laced together, his hands against his chin, as if he were praying. As she ran into the room, his head swiveled, and he stared directly at her, but he didn’t act as if he recognized her. His winsome face looked dazed. His eyes were wide, unblinking circles of disbelief. She thought he was drugged. Like Lucy.

Lucy Hagen stood in the center of the room. Her mouth hung open. Her breathing was loud, as if she couldn’t drag air into her lungs fast enough. Her legs were slightly apart, and Frankie could see them trembling. She had the pretty face that Frankie remembered, but the face didn’t even belong to Lucy anymore. She looked like someone else entirely. Someone who’d been thrown onto an island alone.

One of Lucy’s arms hung limply at her side. The other held the long-bladed knife. Her elbow was cocked, and Lucy clenched the black handle as if it were part of her body.

The blade of the knife wasn’t silver anymore.

It was soaked in blood.

Lucy stood over the body of a man. He was the third person in the room. He lay back, draped across a chaise that was an exact match for the one in Frankie’s office. This was her office, taken to a violent extreme. The man’s arms and legs sprawled off the chair; his fingers and shoes grazed the floor. The gruesome, grinning mask half covered his face.

It was Darren Newman. She recognized the wild, bright colors of his clothes. He wore a bright-yellow dress shirt, but the yellow was dyed crimson where he’d been stabbed multiple times. His chest heaved. Blood seeped from his body onto the white chair and onto the white floor, dotting it with red beads. He was on his last, gagging breaths. Bile spat from his lips. His skin grayed as oxygen fled.

The Night Bird was dead. He’d lost the last game, and yet the game went on.

“Lucy,” Frankie murmured. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”

Lucy saw her, but she didn’t really see her. She stared down at Darren’s body with a crazed disbelief.

Frankie walked across the room, moving closer to her step by step. “There’s nothing to be afraid of now, Lucy. Put the knife down. Let me help you.”

“No,” Lucy whimpered. “No, please. Don’t make me.”

She got closer. And closer.

“Lucy, it’s Dr. Stein. You are Lucy Hagen. Do you remember? You’re okay. You went through a terrible thing, but now you’re okay.”

Lucy kept the knife poised in her hand. Then, slowly, horribly, she put it to her throat. Frankie walked faster, holding up her hands. They were only twenty feet apart now.

“Put it down, Lucy,” Frankie told her softly. “Just kneel down and lay the knife on the floor. Nothing will happen to you.”

Lucy sobbed inconsolably. “No, no, just go away. Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to do this.”

“I know you don’t, and you don’t have to.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

Frankie heard thunder on the stairs of the building. Voices shouted. Frost was almost here, and he wasn’t alone. In seconds, the police would storm into the room. They’d have guns. And Lucy still had the knife pressed against her trachea. She had it pressed so hard that Frankie could see blood seeping from her skin around the edge of the blade. If she pushed any more, she’d sever her own throat.

Calm. All Frankie could focus on was calmness. She wanted Lucy’s entire world to be calm.

She took another step. And another. She made her way around the far side of the chair where Darren’s body lay. She wanted to draw Lucy away from the horror at her feet, and as Frankie walked, Lucy turned. She followed every step that Frankie made. It was just the two of them now, confronting each other. Lucy held the knife. Frankie held her hands up.

They were ten feet apart.

“Lucy, it’s me. Do you recognize me? Do you remember me? I’m here to help you. I know you’re afraid, but believe me, it’s over. It’s done. No one will hurt you anymore.”

“Stay away from me.”

Lucy’s hand shook. She could barely hold the handle now. The knife twitched at her skin.

“Lucy, it’s Dr. Stein. Give me the knife. You don’t want to hurt yourself. I know you want everything to go away, but you don’t have to do this. It’s already over. You’re already safe. Take the knife away from your throat, okay? Just let your fingers loosen, and it will fall to the ground, and it won’t hurt you or anyone ever again. Okay? Listen to my voice, Lucy. Don’t pay attention to anything else. The only thing you hear is the sound of my voice.”

Lucy was hypnotized, but Frankie tried to take over, to break in, to snatch her away from the Night Bird. She held Lucy’s eyes and didn’t blink. She kept the same cadence in her words, as lulling as an ocean wave.

“My voice, Lucy. Listen to my voice.”

The thunder drew closer. Footsteps pounded outside the door. She heard Frost calling now, shouting from the hallway. He called Lucy’s name, but Lucy didn’t hear him. She was trapped in another world, and she couldn’t escape.

Frankie wanted to shout for them to stop, to stay away, to leave her alone, but she couldn’t break the connection with Lucy. She didn’t know what would happen when the police came in. She didn’t know what the chaos would do to the girl’s brain. The knife was still in her hand. It was just a small motion away from cutting her open.

“That’s all you have to do, Lucy. You don’t have to do anything else at all. Just listen to my voice.”

Frankie took another step. Just one step. And then the hell began.

She heard a metallic click below her as she triggered some kind of electronic switch under the floor tiles. Lucy heard it, too, and terror consumed her face, as if she knew what that click meant. What it would bring. What it would do to her. The Night Bird was dead, but he still controlled the game.

Hard, loud rock music filled the room. Frankie knew the song and knew it was a sick joke. She’d been teased about it all her life.

“Frankenstein.”

The entire room transformed around her. The cameras awakened automatically, and ultra-high-definition images swept the space. The white walls, white floor, and white ceiling mutated into a landscape so real that she felt as if she’d been lifted out of San Francisco and carried thousands of miles away. Cold air blew from hidden vents. The temperature dropped like a stone.

They were in the mountains, as high as God. Craggy pinnacles rose on every side toward a gray sky. Snow clung to furrows in the rock. Far below, hundreds of feet below, a glacier crawled between the hills, calving icebergs into a ribbon of sea-foam-green water. Between two peaks, a perilous footbridge sagged into the arms of the air, hanging on the thinnest of wires.

Lucy stood on that bridge, frozen with fear.

Frankie shouted. “Lucy, it’s not real.”

But to Lucy, it was real. She was there. On the bridge. Living her nightmare.

“You!” Lucy screamed, her voice rising over the music. She stared directly at Frankie and knew exactly who she was. She’d been waiting for Francesca Stein. She’d been programmed for this exact moment. “You did this to me!”

“Close your eyes, Lucy. Close your eyes. We’ll make it go away. Together.”

The Night Bird’s singsong voice chanted from overhead speakers. “Luuuucy... Luuuucy.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Frankie called to her. “You’re safe. Just close your eyes. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“The knife is the key... set yourself free.”

“No, Lucy. Close your eyes. None of this is real.”

From the doorway in the corner, the police stampeded into the room. Frost. Jess Salceda. Four uniformed officers. They saw the body and the blood; they saw the knife in Lucy’s hand; they drew their guns. Chaos descended. Shouts rang out. The music throbbed.

Everything began to spin out of control.

That was just what he wanted.

“You did this to me!” Lucy screamed again at Frankie. She stared down at the bridge under her feet, which looked as if it would give way when she took a single step. She swept the knife away from her throat and brandished it like a weapon with her arm held high. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”