Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

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!”

Frost saw the gun in Jess’s hand, pointed at Lucy’s chest. “Jess, don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. All of you, back off.”

He knew none of them would stand down. If it had been a stranger standing there, not Lucy, his own gun would have been in his hand. They wouldn’t let her out of their gunsights. Not while Lucy held the knife. Not while she was threatening Frankie. Not while there was a stabbed body in the middle of the room.

“Put down the knife right now!” Jess barked.

Lucy didn’t hear her. Her eyes were locked on Frankie. Her hand quivered around the knife.

For a long, fragile moment, nobody moved. Frost sized up the room. He saw Todd Ferris in the corner, watching the events unfold from behind fixed eyes. He saw Darren Newman sprawled on the chair, his chest a sea of red. Newman wasn’t moving or breathing.

Frost looked down. He felt as if he were standing on a glass platform suspended from the mountaintops, with the winter landscape below his feet. Frigid air rolled over his skin. If it felt real to him, he knew how it felt to Lucy, locked inside her trance. Lucy, with her fear of bridges.

He gestured to one of the officers. “There must be a control panel in one of the other rooms. Get out of here and find a way to shut off this damn music and turn off the cameras.”