Tuesday, July 15, 1997, 6:32 pm
San Antonio, Texas
Jobe McKenzie winced at a hot stab of pain in his elbow, but he ignored it and pushed the barbell up. He was used to pain, and the flare of heat that lanced through his forearm was nothing compared to what he’d suffered only a few months before.
After being captured by rogue soldiers from Fort Huachuca, Jobe had been tortured for two days. He’d finally given in to the demands of his tormentors, but they had reneged on their part of the deal. He’d agreed to go back on Thorazine to tame his insanity, and yet his compliance didn’t stop the soldiers from throwing Jobe out of a moving van and onto a highway.
And yet, that was not the worst pain imaginable. That would come weeks later, when the only person he loved ripped his heart out by telling him to stay away from her.
Standing at the end of the weight bench was Jobe’s handler, Gavin Lebowitz. The FBI agent was acting as Jobe’s spotter, his fingers curled loosely around the bar in case Jobe got tired.
When Jobe finished his set, the men swapped places. Draping his towel over the bench, Gavin pulled off a pair of twenty-pound weight plates from each side. He returned the plates two at a time to the tree mounted under the wall-length mirror while Jobe drank from a one-gallon jug of water.
Then Gavin began his set. He didn’t say so out loud, but he was amazed by the rapid recovery Jobe had made from his injuries. Three months after being tossed out of a van, most normal people would still be bedridden. But by then Jobe was making long treks around the hospital, trying to build his stamina back up.
The doctors were both amazed and baffled by his fast recuperation, but for Jobe, it wasn’t happening fast enough.
Two weeks after being released from the hospital with orders to rest, Jobe had limped into a gym, dragging Gavin with him. He started his own form of therapy to rebuild his broken body, and he also pushed Gavin to rehabilitate his shoulder.
Another three months had passed, and by then, Jobe was looking healthy, even muscular. His shaggy brown hair couldn’t hide how his face had filled out, but he was still too pale, a sick yellowish-white color that caused people to stare at Jobe sometimes.
Despite his color, he looked like a professional weightlifter, while Gavin still looked like a lean beanpole.
Lifting weights made Gavin stronger, but he couldn’t put on mass like Jobe could. Working out couldn’t change his boyish looks, and since he’d stopped using hair gel, his black curly hair only made his boyishness seem that much more apparent.
Gavin kept up his efforts because he liked feeling tired after a workout. Finishing a routine at the gym gave him a sense of accomplishment, and being stuck out of the office by direct order, he had nothing else to do.
Over the last few months, he’d been able to increase the weight he bench pressed from a pathetic 110 pounds up to an impressive 175.
But Jobe benched 210. He could lift more than Gavin in most exercises, with the exception of squats. Then his weak knees forced him to go light. In every other facet of his training, he’d moved from light therapy into heavy lifting.
Setting the squats aside, there were many times during their workouts when Gavin had a song run through his head.
Instead of a boy’s voice, Gavin heard Jobe sing, Anything you can do, I can do better.
He heard the song again, and Jobe smiled, reading Gavin’s thoughts.
But Jobe said nothing. He hardly ever spoke anymore.
Ever since he’d gone back on full doses of Thorazine, Jobe’s personality shut off. He was quiet for hours at a time, and when he did talk, his words were slurred, like speaking took a great deal of effort.
Jobe had tried to explain it one night over dinner. He’d said, “Without medicine, I hear voices, but they’re all mine. On the medication, I hear other people’s voices, and along with them, the rest of my head is packed with cotton. I have a hard time processing all those thoughts and still have space left to think for myself.”
Gavin’s attempt at a solution was to move into a house on the outskirts of the city, where there was no neighbor close enough to be within Jobe’s range.
Jobe didn’t make much improvement. He spoke more, but he sounded tired, and his attention often wandered mid-sentence.
Each time they returned to the city, Jobe was overwhelmed by the thoughts of other people, and he reverted to being near mute.
Gavin didn’t want to admit it, but he missed the crazy side of Jobe. It wasn’t because he wanted Jobe to be a crazed serial bomber. But the shell left behind by the medication was not a real person. He was just an animated puppet trying to go through the motions of life.
It was a topic neither of them could broach for obvious reasons. Part of the agreement Jobe made to keep his freedom was that he would go back on his medications and stay on them. He reported to Gavin as his handler, and Gavin filed reports on Jobe’s activities with Gary Wagner, his direct supervisor in the San Antonio FBI branch office.
With Jobe being on medication, the reports that Gavin sent to Wagner were uniformly mundane. Jobe trained three days a week in the gym, and then he stayed at home the rest of the week. He sat by the living room window, staring outside without seeing anything.
Gavin left out of his reports how he would break down sobbing for no apparent reason.
Gavin preferred the old Jobe, because that Jobe needed to talk. He wanted so badly to explain himself, and to explain what he was thinking.
The new medicated Jobe remained alone with his thoughts, and in doing so, he left Gavin alone with his thoughts as well.
Because Jobe could read his thoughts, Gavin didn’t have to say, “I miss Stephanie,” or, “I wonder what Wendy is doing.” He wanted to, at least to provoke some kind of reaction from Jobe.
But he gave up, because the most he ever got was a nod, or perhaps, “me too.”
They finished their workout and showered in the locker rooms before taking dinner at a steakhouse across the parking lot from the gym.
Jobe selected a window booth, and his gaze remained lost somewhere on the horizon. He rested his elbows on the table and clasped his hands. His cheek was pressed against his hands, his mouth turned down in a brooding pout.
The waitress walked up to their table, beaming a warm smile at Gavin. To her, Gavin and Jobe were both regulars who tipped well, and she was allowed a certain amount of ribbing.
“Hey, Gavin. How are the workouts going?” She didn’t let him answer before she asked, “Can you pick up the bar yet, or does Jobe still have to help you?”
Jobe looked away from the window to smile at her, and she grinned at him. “So what can I get for my favorite brooding mute?”
“The usual,” Jobe said.
Which for him meant steak and potatoes, an order of green beans on the side, and a glass of iced tea.
With his part of the conversation done, he returned to staring outside.
Gavin said, “I’ll have the turkey on whole wheat, and I’d like fries instead of chips.”
“Tea for you too?” the waitress asked
“Yeah.”
Laughing, the waitress shook her head. “You could have just said the usual too.”
“Sure, but I’m the talkative one, Jean,” Gavin said.
“Is Jobe the bad cop?”
“No, I’m the cop. Jobe is just…” Gavin paused, and Jobe glanced away from the window until Gavin came to a decision. “He’s a consultant, I guess.”
Jean laughed warmly. “Oh, he’s a psychic detective?”
Gavin snorted, and Jobe returned to staring outside, though his mouth rose in a faint smile.
Gavin said, “Something like that, yes.”
The waitress wandered away, and Jobe’s smile fell.
Gavin sighed, his smile melting as he dropped his head to stare at his hands.
There was no point looking at Jobe, since he would just stare out the window until his food arrived.
***
Tuesday, 9:38 pm
San Antonio, Texas
Gavin shut off the TV, glancing over the back of the couch to the chair where Jobe sat.
Jobe read Gavin’s thoughts, who wondered if he was looking outside, or if he was staring at the window, waiting for his reflection to say something.
He didn’t bother answering that it depended on his mood. He was staring at his reflection, but not because he was waiting for it to move.
He just stared, asking himself, Who am I?
There was no question whether Jobe was insane, which was why he’d agreed to go back on medication. He’d been born crazy, but his condition was made worse after he’d been infected with a man-made virus. The fever burned out parts of his brain, leaving him even less connected to reality.
The result of the fever was a hallucination, a hidden aspect of Jobe’s inner psyche that cast itself as his reflection. The reflection guided Jobe to each of his targets by tapping into Jobe’s telepathic abilities.
Jobe had spent a long time suppressing and denying his powers, believing that the voices he heard were another part of his mental illness. The reflection gave him a way to use his powers, even if he hadn’t been able to tap into them directly.
But while the reflection’s claims of being a servant of God had been crazy, they were nothing compared to the truth. The disease that fried his mind didn’t get humans sick, and the reason why Jobe had been affected was due to his lineage as a halfling.
Jobe took his medication, and he pondered on this conflict. It was crazy to talk to a reflection, and yet it wasn’t crazy to hear voices, or to see images from other perspectives. It wasn’t crazy, because he wasn’t fully human. Somewhere in his past, his family line extended from a clan of halflings, the McCulloughs.
With his split personalities suppressed by the medication, he was in control of his powers, and he heard everything Gavin thought. He could sense how much Gavin wanted to say something, even if it was just to make small talk.
But he’d already checked to make sure that Jobe took his evening dosage, and obviously, Jobe had.
Jobe slouched in his chair with his hands laying in his lap, his mouth open.
If Gavin asked what he was thinking about, Jobe would lie and say, “nothing.”
It was easier to lie and avoid talking about the mess inside his head. He had trouble connecting with his feelings, and when he could, he wasn’t comfortable with himself.
He began thinking of Wendy Stoffel. His memory locked on the last time he’d seen her, when she’d visited him in the hospital. There was so much he’d wanted to say to her, but she’d left early, and the last thing she’d told him was that she couldn’t be around him anymore.
She hadn’t intended to hurt him so badly, but despite everything he’d done to keep Wendy safe, she rejected him.
Her reasons were valid. He had been a killer, and he wasn’t fit to be around kids. It was random circumstance that had forced Wendy to rely on Jobe as a foster parent for protection, and once he confessed his past to her, he’d lost her trust.
She was better off not being around him. It was easy to concede, but it was so much harder to let go of her in his heart. For years, he’d been alone, and then Wendy and Jamie had filled the void in his life. With their absence, the void returned, and he felt it more acutely.
Jamie was dead, and Wendy had asked Jobe not to search for her. He would honor her wishes, but he could not quell the ache in his chest when he thought of her.
Jobe’s memory worked through the drug, pulling up a ride to a library in Montana. Both Jamie and Wendy had been laughing over a goofy parody song on the radio, and Jobe had never remembered a time before or after that point when he’d ever been happier. Then Jamie and Wendy weren’t just a pair of happy kids. They were his kids, and he’d felt proud to be their guardian.
Jobe thought, Jamie is dead, and Wendy doesn’t want me anymore.
Jobe swallowed thickly, bowing his head while he tried to fight against his tears. He didn’t want to keep tearing himself down. The odds they’d faced made it impossible for him to protect his charges. They’d all been manipulated by a stronger telepath, and it wasn’t his fault.
Every assurance was the truth, but letting go of his guilt was just as difficult as letting go of Wendy.
Jobe raised his head to glance at Gavin, who’d been staring at him for a long time. Gavin said nothing, but his thoughts revealed how much he wanted Jobe to say something and explain what he was feeling.
Instead, Jobe got up, clearing his throat before he muttered, “I think I’ll go to bed early.”
Gavin nodded, looking down. “All right. Good night, Jobe.”
Jobe didn’t answer because all he could think was, I don’t think it will be.
... I write dark fiction in a variety of genres. My blog contains my rants and rambles, and some short fiction that can only be found here.
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