18.98: An ONC 2023 Thriller

Chapter 19 Part 1

THE PRESENT

Like his sister, Graham was a quick study. Or maybe they both had the sort of intelligent, suggestable minds, the minds of curiosity seekers and problem solvers, designers and artists, that lent themselves to the process of brain recalibration. What took Gene three days to accomplish took Graham less than twenty-four hours.

Unlike Gene, Graham wanted Liv in the room with him as he played the special sauce ghost frequency track Gene had developed. They set up in Helina's bedroom because Graham believed it would aid him to be close to where she had presumably achieved the same goal. Liv complied, staying near but without making contact, only leaving the room to eat or take care of bodily functions. She slept on Liv's bed, her body pressed against Helina's linen sheets, head resting on the same downy pillow Helina used.

All the while, Graham listened, swayed occasionally, eyes open but soft, unfocused, gazing at nothing in particular on the floor in front of the chair in which he sat. He didn't get up to use the bathroom, didn't eat. His head never slumped to the side to indicate he'd fallen asleep.

Liv waved a hand in front of him every few hours and the response was always the same in that there was no response at all. She wondered if maybe he was already gone, his mind taken hostage by the same hostile forces that had her in their clutches all these years.

Ghosts, monsters, spectral beings, kin.

Nearly nineteen hours after they'd begun, the process was complete. Liv clocked it. Nearly nineteen. 18.98.

Those bastards. They would never stop toying with her. She was their marionette doll, strings tangled, arms and legs pulled in all the wrong directions whenever they tugged at her.

Graham's eyes focused. He raised his head. "I feel them." He sounded like his throat had swallowed a desert. Liv offered him the glass of water that had been sitting untouched since the day before.

"What do you see?" she asked. To her, the room was just a room. The monsters of the ghost realm had been oddly calm, letting them do their work undisturbed.

"Only you," he answered, taking her hand. "You feel like them and that's enough to know it worked."

Such a different experience from Gene's. Had Helina been like this? Had her introduction to the ghost realm been so peaceful? She thought about Helina sitting alone in this same space, headphones on, eyes glazed. Did those eyes bleed like Gene's had?

"Helina's drawing." Graham lifted her off the bed. "Someplace close to home. I know now. Let's go."

He seemed the same person that he'd been the day before but also someone Liv had to reacquaint herself with, like he'd moved away for college, done some traveling, and then returned home, more self-assured and wise. Same old Graham, whole new way of being. A new vibe.

I did this to him, she thought as they drove down a long road Graham told her would end at the tip of the peninsula, with views of the Puget Sound's shipping channel, vast cargo ships carrying goods from abroad enroute to the shipyards to the south. He hasn't realized yet what it means.

Gene wasn't someone she'd spoken much to Graham about, other than showing him the essay he'd written. It would have been fairer to throw it all out there for Graham so he could fully evaluate the risks. I slept with Gene for information, sat on that information, and now I have it, here you go, and by the way, he pulled a Helina and disappeared from the universe after listening to this track I just gave you to listen to. Have fun! Even if she had said all this, Liv reasoned, he wouldn't have decided any differently. He'd choose to do what was necessary to find his sister. To save her.