Chris Carter - An Evil Mind

‘New Hampshire,’ Taylor said.

‘That’s correct, Agent Taylor, “Live free or die”.’

‘OK, so where in New Hampshire are we going?’

‘You can tell the pilot to just head for New Hampshire. I’ll give him more details when we enter their airspace.’

Taylor passed the instructions to the pilot and returned to her seat. Like Hunter, she preferred not to face the prisoner.

A minute later, the plane had taxied to the end of the runway, and the pilot announced that they were clear for takeoff. The jet engines came to life, and within twenty seconds they were airborne. As the plane veered right, the few rays of sunlight that managed to break through the dark clouds reflected sharply off the aircraft’s fuselage.

Hunter fixed his eyes out the window as the ground below him slipped away. To him, the plane’s bottled air felt denser than ever, as if it had somehow been polluted by Lucien’s presence.

Taylor sat still, eyes forward, clearly trying to organize the multitude of thoughts exploding inside her head. She had a bottle of still water with her, from which she took a tiny sip every minute or two. It wasn’t because she was thirsty, it was just a nervous reflex, something her body practically forced her to do almost unconsciously in order to try to calm herself down.

Hunter was also struggling with his thoughts, but this time he had twenty years of anger and frustration that were dying to break free to deal with.

They’d been flying for over half an hour when they heard Lucien’s voice again.

‘Do you believe that someone can be born “evil”, Agent Taylor?’ he asked.

Taylor sipped her water again while her gaze moved across the aisle to Hunter. It looked like he hadn’t even heard the question. His full attention seemed to be in the world outside his window, not inside.

In Taylor’s silence, Lucien moved on.

‘You do know that there are a great number of criminologists, criminal psychologists and psychiatrists who believe that a person can be born “evil”, don’t you? Some sort of evil gene.’

Nothing from Taylor.

‘If they believe in an evil gene, that means they also believe that being evil, or overwhelmingly violent, can be a genetic condition. Do you think that’s true, Agent Taylor? Do you think a newborn can actually inherit being evil, being a killer, just like one can inherit hemophilia or color blindness?’

Another silent sip of her water.

‘C’mon, humor me, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said. ‘In your opinion, can being evil and a senseless killer like me be a product of genetic inheritance?’

The thought making headlines in Taylor’s head right then was, Why didn’t they equipped this plane with a sound-proof, Plexiglas cage instead of a metal bar one?

‘Twenty-seven,’ Lucien said, resting his head against the chair’s backrest.

Reflexively, Taylor’s eyes peeked at Hunter again. He was still looking out the window, but she was sure he’d heard Lucien. Had he just completely changed subjects and was now giving them coordinates? She spun her chair around.

‘Twenty-seven?’

‘Twenty-seven,’ Lucien confirmed with a single nod.

‘Twenty-seven what?’

‘States,’ Lucien said.

A thin mask of confusion covered Taylor’s face.

‘I’ve visited sperm banks in twenty-seven different states,’ Lucien explained. ‘All under a different name, and with a life résumé that would impress the Queen of England. It’s all part of a very long, ongoing experiment.’

Taylor felt the acidic taste of bile rise up in her throat.

‘So, if you believe that being a killer can be a product of genetic inheritance, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, ‘then, in a few years’ time, we might all have some surprises.’

Just being in the same enclosed space and breathing the same air as Lucien was making Taylor feel queasy.

‘You’re not only sick,’ she said with a disgusted look on her face, ‘you’re completely deranged.’

The cabin speakers crackled once before the pilot’s voice came through.

‘We’re approaching the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Do I have any new instructions?’

Lucien’s face seemed to come alive.

‘Let the adventure begin.’

Hidden location.

Two days earlier.

Madeleine Reed’s eyes blinked slowly and dopily several times before she was finally able to open them. Focus did not come instantly. In fact, it took almost two minutes for shapes to start making sense to her broken and exhausted mind.

She was still curled up against one of the corners in her captivity cell, with the dirty and smelly blanket wrapped around her fragile body like a cocoon. But no matter how tight she wrapped that disgusting rag around her, or how small she made herself against that wall corner, she couldn’t keep the cold away. The fever might’ve gone away, or gotten worse. She couldn’t tell anymore. Every atom in her body ached with such intensity that she was constantly on the verge of passing out.

The only sound inside her cell was the afflicting buzzing of Hies flying around the overflowing bucket of excrement in the opposite corner from where she was.

Madeleine coughed a couple of times, and her dry throat together with her face and head immediately felt as if they were on fire and about to explode. The nauseating pain made her eyelids flutter like butterfly wings for a moment, and she rested her head against the wall, hoping she wouldn’t drift off into unconsciousness once again.

She didn’t.

As she gathered herself together one more time, she looked at her unrecognizable bony hands and fingers. Her nails were all broken and their beds crusted with dried blood. Her knuckles were red and swollen like an old lady’s who suffered from acute rheumatism. She had never been that thin. She had never felt so weak, so hungry, so thirsty.

Madeleine realized that there were parts of her blanket that were still wet. Probably from when her body was soaking wet due to her high fever. She was so desperate that in a moment of madness she brought the blanket to her mouth and eagerly sucked on it, trying to get some of the moisture from the fabric onto her cracked lips and dry mouth. But what she got was a mouthful of dirt and such an obnoxious taste it immediately made her gag.

When she stopped coughing, Madeleine looked around her cell, but dehydration and malnutrition had already started to affect her physiologically and neurologically. Her eyes didn’t have the strength to focus on anything that was further than about a meter away.

Empty plastic water bottles were scattered around the floor. Not even a drop was left in any of them, but that didn’t stop Madeleine from reaching for one and trying again. She brought the bottle to her mouth and threw her head back, crunching and squeezing the bottle with both of her hands.

She got nothing.

Exhausted by the effort, she let the bottle fall to the floor again.

Her eyelids fluttered one more time. She felt desperately tired and overwhelmed by sadness, but she didn’t want to fall back asleep. She knew that the extreme tiredness was her body shutting down. It just didn’t have enough energy to stay awake. It didn’t have enough energy to keep all of her organs working properly. It was like a huge factory shutting down certain departments because it didn’t have enough resources to keep them operational.

Madeleine remembered watching a TV documentary about that once. How a dehydrated and malnourished body would slowly eat itself away. First its fat storages, then the proteins and nutrients from the muscles until it was all gone and its energy all depleted. After that, the body would start shutting down. Main organs like the liver and kidneys would stop functioning properly. The brain, which is made up of approximately 75 to 80 percent water, would really feel the damaging effects of dehydration. Its response would vary from person to person, and it would be completely arbitrary, ranging from very vivid hallucinations to a total meltdown. At that point, the damage caused to the cerebral mass would be irreversible.