Dancing In The Wind

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Dancing In The Wind - book excerpt

Chapter 1

Back

There were no curtains or blinds decorating the rectangular window in my room. A piece of duct tape secured the nylon string of a crystal suncatcher to the frame. It hung in the middle of the glass and refracted the afternoon sun. The double-paned, fixed-glass centered on the back wall allowed light and nothing more. Positioned below it was my single bed covered in a green, queen-size blanket which draped to the floor.

I kneeled on the end of the bed, leaned forward, and touched my cheek to the smooth glass. The action sparked the memory of gazing out another window. For weeks that window was the only link to the outside for my sister, Beth, and me. Behind it, we’d planned our escape and dreamed of freedom. But we also wondered about the condition of the world and what lay beyond the forest surrounding our prison. Fuzzy recollections of the last five years filled my head interspersed with the odd detailed memory, but it was different for my sister. Beth remembered little, and I feared she would not regain what she lost.

A wave of tiny bumps rose on my bare arms and travelled up to the top of my head. I shivered and replaced my cheek with my hand. The window from my memories faded as I returned to the present.

A single snowflake drifted toward the ground in a graceful dance against the blurred backdrop of dim reds, burnt oranges, and pale yellows of the distant trees. My gaze broke from the intricate ice crystal and concentrated on the outlying forest edge. Random flakes fell and melted the moment they touched the ground. If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it will change, my father’s voice repeated inside my head.

Within seconds, the grey sky morphed into blue. Treetops brightened as sunbeams stretched out from behind the fading clouds and kissed the leaves, turning the dim to vibrant, burnt to fiery, and pale to bright. The forest edge erupted into blazing colour as if someone set it on fire, reminding me of campfires from both years and only weeks ago. The snowflakes disappeared with the clouds. It was mid-October, and while the temperature had dropped, it would be another month before the snow fell and stayed.

A large raptor soared on chilled air currents, searching the ground below for its next meal. A V-shaped formation of southbound geese moved in perfect synchronicity across the ever-brightening sky. The corner of my mouth tugged into a half-smile as two stragglers hurried to catch up to the flock.

Oh, I wish I were a bird. As free as a bird, my father liked to say.

A flash of light caught my attention. I focused on the rows of photovoltaic power stations in the large clearing outside my window as sunlight reflected off the black panels. Months ago, someone had disconnected all but one from the grid. Marigold, one of the engineers who maintained them, explained the single station had its own meter and combiner boxes. This system provided localized power to the facility until the engineers reconnected the breakers and battery bank. Now the entire solar panel system worked to provide power to the entire building.

I closed my eyes. “This is real,” I whispered and swallowed the pain rising in my throat. This wasn’t the only world catastrophe I lived through, though it was the worst. Ten years ago, the first pandemic to attack the earth in a hundred years, brought about fear and change. I had just turned ten, and life twisted upside-down. There was no school, we quarantined, stayed away from others. wore masks, and did what we could to stay healthy. Despite the losses, the world survived and normality eventually returned. But from that moment, anxiety took up residence in my head.

My no-longer-forgetful mind had returned as hyperthymesia made it possible to recall events in my life as though it just took place. The smallest memory always triggered an unstoppable need to reflect on the past and remember everything with precision. I gave up trying to fight it and allowed my thoughts to wander back to the last few weeks of summer.

Noah, a young man who seemed immune to the Butterfly Flu and whom my parents happened upon after escaping the fire at the compound, had helped to save us. It was his drone that had located my siblings, Marcus, and me wandering in the forest. We hiked the trails aimlessly; held there by mind-control games and the subliminal messages they’d subjected us to when we lived at the Contagion Eradication Centre for Intelligent Life. It was no coincidence the acronym C.E.C.I.L., used to refer to the compound, spelled out the name of its narcissistic creator, Cecil. And while the subliminal message compelled Beth, Caleb, and others to wander through the forest, it did not have the same effect on me. My reason to stay was because of them, and I could not leave, though I tried.

Our rescue and subsequent reunion with our parents answered many of the questions we’d had regarding Cecil, the compound, and the virus. When Beth produced the manifesto she’d found, we learned so much more. Four days later, living in a strange house in a virtual ghost town with personnel who’d escaped the fire, I was ready to search for the lost. August was nearing its end, and time was not on our side.

“I’m going with you.” I grab my backpack from the closet and toss it on the bed. The brown teddy bear with the purple bow sits on my pillow, indifferent to the commotion.

“But April…” Mom places her hand on my shoulder.

I shrug it off and turn to face her. “No! I’m going.”

“What’s going on?” Dad says from the doorway to my room, a room I’d occupied for less than a week and once belonged to someone else, a child—a stranger.

Mom folds her arms. “April wants to go on the search.”

Dad nods, slow and contemplating. “Av,” he uses my nickname, short for Avril the French word for April, “don’t you think it’s too soon? The others–”

I glare at my father. “No, I am not like the others.” I sound childish, but I don’t care. “Yes, I agree Beth, Caleb, and Marcus are still drawn to those trails and must stay here, but I’m fine. The subliminal messages didn’t work on me. I’m helping you find the other…. Butterflies.”

We called those still wandering in the woods, Butterflies, as Cecil had in his manifesto. Like Beth, my brother, Caleb, and me, they too had a small tattoo of a butterfly on the nape of their necks just at the hairline. The tattoos marked us as special. It was a complicated mess. But in summary, Cecil planned for years to gather gifted and intelligent children, wipe out civilization with a virus he created, and start anew.

I stopped ruminating. It was crazy. Cecil was crazy. And now I feared I was too. My stomach turned at the thought of him, and I vowed at that moment not to speak his name again. Another memory came to mind, and the fine grip I held on the present slipped, returning me to the past.

We were a rescue group of eight, my parents, four other former employees from the Contagion Eradication Centre for Intelligent Life, Noah, and me. Noah, having not been a resident at C.E.C.I.L., hadn’t known what transpired there, nor had he experienced the effects of the hypno-drug. The drug Cecil used to keep us under his control. But he suffered as much. He’d seen everyone he loved die from the pathogen Cecil created. Noah was the sole survivor of his community. Like Marcus, who had happened upon C.E.C.I.L. a year before our escape, Noah was immune to the virus nicknamed the Butterfly Flu because of its constant mutating. Though it was no flu. While the eight of us set out on a mission to search for the lost, Beth, Caleb, and Marcus had stayed behind in Kearney. For three months the small town housed the staff who’d escaped the compound after the fire, and it was now our home too.

Our search led us on kilometers of trails I’d hiked before and a few new ones. The smell of death, brought to our noses on the wind, followed wherever we went. Animals, birds—people, remains in varying stages of decay scattered the trail and the bush. The unfortunate critters appeared to be victims of the virus that still infected the living, but many survived. Like Marcus and Noah, they had a natural immunity. For everyone else, the vaccine my parents created while at C.E.C.I.L., continued to ward off illness.

“Come on, it’s this way,” I say, stepping over the skeletal remains of a squirrel in the middle of the trail. An hour earlier, Noah’s drone sent back live video to the controller, and we saw a group of three headed in our direction. The plan was to reach the small clearing in their path first and leave food. Then we would watch them for a time before approaching.

The drone hovers overhead and Noah lands it safely on the ground. “April, hang on a sec.” Noah picks up the drone.

“We have to get there first,” I say, walking ahead.

“Yes, I know that, but we don’t have the food.”

I sigh and train my gaze beyond Noah as my parents and the others round a bend and come into view.

Dad wipes his brow with his forearm. “April, can you do us a small favour and slow down a bit?”

Red and sweaty faces turn in my direction. “Sure, sorry.”

Dad touches my shoulder. “It’s okay, we just don’t know these hiking paths like you do, and we can’t become separated. How’s the power holding up?” Dad says to Noah.

“About half.”

“If we can convince this bunch to come with us, we’ll head back today and recharge the battery. This will be a slow process,” Dad says.

Sometimes we spent a few days in the bush looking for the lost, other times we got lucky and returned to Kearny within hours, the newly rescued in tow. There were periods when we encountered groups from five to more than a dozen cognizant hikers. But others weren’t so fortunate and they lived inside their heads, roaming on auto-pilot by themselves or as stragglers among the consciously aware. Most of these larger groups formed when smaller clusters merged, and the cognizant hikers took longer to convince they needed to leave the trails and the forest. But after gaining their trust, they told us their stories and what they remembered. They told us about those who perished, not from the flu but for other reasons, according to the ones who witnessed their deaths. Their companions dragged their remains into the trees and covered them with whatever they could find. The dead included the lucid and the catatonic—death did not discriminate.

I left my ruminations and thought of poor Shaun and Caia, once a part of my group when I wandered the trails. But now they were dead, their bodies buried beneath rocks and branches. And then I thought of The Collector, a psycho who stalked us while we roamed the forest. When he caught up with us, he shot Caia as Shaun, who had just come out of his drug induced stupor, launched himself at our attacker. The two of them fell over a cliff to their deaths. Beth had grown fond of Shaun, taken care of him, and it was she who searched for his body. When she found him, she covered his remains with broken branches and rocks. And she did it on her own, not wanting my help. As for The Collector, Beth glimpsed him too, but rocks and underbrush blocked most of his body from view. We left him to the elements and wild creatures; he deserved nothing more.

I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck as images of Shaun and The Collector falling over the cliff played like a movie. “Enough,” I said, recalling the final day of our search and rescue.

“That’s it then?” I say to my mother as we climb into the rear seat of the old pickup truck. It is the middle of September, and we haven’t found signs of anyone in several days.

Mom reaches up and plucks a twig caught in my father’s hair as he sits ahead of her in the driver’s seat and starts the engine. “Yes, I think so. According to the manifesto, process of elimination, etcetera, we found all those who escaped and survived.”

We’d rescued thirty-one survivors ranging in age from twelve to twenty-two and confirmed their identities from photographs and statistics discovered in the manifesto.

The pickup rumbled and as we pulled away from the side of the road, the wheels stirred up dust. There was a knock on the rear window. I turned to see Noah sitting in the truck’s bed with three others, neither of whom started with us at the outset of the rescue mission. The first three, engineers at C.E.C.I.L. when it operated as a research facility, abandoned the mission after four days. They had more urgent affairs. At the time, I didn’t know what that was, but learned later about their vital tasks.

In three weeks, the population of Kearney grew. While the town had enough housing for everyone, those in charge, my parents among them, announced we would soon be under one roof. With winter coming, they decided it was essential we be together. Those who had undergone months of brainwashing and subjection to the hypno-drug were unfit to be on their own—even me. When the new location became inhabitable again, we’d packed up the few vehicles and over several days, moved everyone into the renovated home.

The glass made a dull thump as I rested my forehead against the window at the thought of a day I wanted to knock from my brain. My search for home did not end the way I’d planned. Home is where the heart is, my father had said. And though we were together, my parents’ decision to return to this place angered me.

I slapped my palm against the window while my other hand curled into a tight fist. Blood warmed my cheeks, and I clenched my jaw.

“Are you ready, April?”

Noah’s voice startled me, and I spun around; my heart thudded as my blue eyes melted at the sight of his chocolate ones. His week-old haircut suited him. But I missed the soft waves of longer light brown hair at his neck though there was still some length at the front to remind me. Dressed in blue jeans and a black fitted t-shirt that showed off his toned physique, he looked as though he stepped from the pages of an online catalogue.

“Sorry, I knocked.” He smiled and jutted his thumb over his shoulder to the door behind him that had opened and closed without me noticing, “But I guess you didn’t hear.”

Probably because I was rapping my skull off the window, my cheeks flushed with my thought. “That’s okay.”

Noah raised his eyebrows. “So, are you?”

My stomach rolled, and I nodded, forcing a smile.

“Sure about that? Cause your eyes contradict your grin and not-so-convincing nod.”

I plunked onto my bed. “That obvious?”

Noah held out his hand, and I groaned with apprehension as I stood and crossed over to him. Strong fingers entwined with mine and he kissed my cheek; the blush returned.

He tucked a piece of my brown hair behind my ear. “A lot has changed,” he said and squeezed my hand.

“How would you know? You didn’t live in this place.”

Noah shrugged. He opened the closet, took out a red jacket, and handed it to me. “So, I’ve been told. Why don’t we check it out, and you can see for yourself?”

“Do we really have to?” The coat was a little too big as I poked my arms through the sleeves. I straightened out my purple t-shirt and zipped up the jacket.

He winked, took my hand, and led me toward the door. It slid open, quiet and effortless. The silence unnerved me. In my head, it always made a whooshing sound and that was what I expected.

No matter how much they cleaned the compound, I could still detect the faint odour of smoke from the deliberate fire set almost six months earlier. The fire had granted us our freedom from C.E.C.I.L. but it also caused other forms of captivity. For Beth and I it was another imprisonment and for the others who’d fled, the forest enslaved them. The smell made my nose wrinkle. It’s all in your head, my father told me, and he was right. It was ALL in my head. Every. Single. Bit.

We stepped out into the hallway. The beginnings of colourful murals now adorned the once-white walls.

I was back—returned to the one property I vowed never to see again. And no matter what they did to change its appearance, underneath the façade it was still C.E.C.I.L., and once again I felt trapped.

Chapter 2

Real

Small paintings dotted the white corridor that stretched out in front of me. While the colourful murals softened the stark walls, they didn’t conceal where we were. Behind the mask, this was still C.E.C.I.L.

I tried to keep my focus straight ahead, but as usual my gaze wandered to the drop-tile ceiling. Not yet removed from its mount, one of a few remaining security cameras aimed down the hallway. Although inactive, I worried the device would suddenly power-up and follow my movements with its red eye and mechanical whine. For so long, the intrusive objects had monitored my activities, and it was hard to shake the paranoia that someone still watched.

I shook my head at the absurd notion. The motion detecting cameras no longer operated, and when they had, they made no noise. I had imagined it all as the hypno-drug wore off and changed my perception, affecting every sense. Distortion was the worst effect I’d suffered. The sliding pocket doors never whooshed as loud as I’d thought. There was only a faint airy sound heard in the quietest of moments.

Thinking about the distortion reminded me of Jasper, my caretaker. Jasper had reduced the hypno-drug that led to the return of my conscious awareness. And it was Jasper who set the fire that ultimately freed everyone.

As Noah and I continued along the hallway in silence, the recollection of altered realities transported me to the past.

I push the button on the bathroom wall and pull the door open. The warning alarm buzzes as the five-second countdown begins. I step over the threshold into my room, and the door closes behind me. An audible hissing sound travels through the door, and I know scalding hot steam is filling the small room on the other side.

The vision faded, and bitterness replaced it. The exaggerated hissing of steam heard behind closed bathroom doors was a figment of my imagination. My fingernails dug into my palms as I clenched my fists.

As I regained control of myself, I struggled with the accuracy of my memory. Although hyperthymesia allowed me to remember everything, I’d recently learned some memories were false, and Beth suspected it first. She’d suggested a while back the possibility that someone planted the memories in our heads. Her suspicions had been right. Not all our recollections, or at least how I remembered them, were correct. The drug changed them or Cecil did.

For instance, the first meeting with him in our home and later encounters weren’t exact. By confirmation from our parents, we never called him Uncle like he said we had, rather we addressed him as Mr. Banks. It relieved me to know he’d never been Uncle to us and concerned me that outside influences could so easily alter my infallible recall. What else within my psyche had changed?

“Ready?” Noah’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

We stood at the end of the corridor. Sheets of plywood replaced the glass walls damaged from the blaze that ravaged this part of the building five months ago. In the centre of the solid wall was a wood door. Behind it, a stairwell led down to the first-floor rooms.

With his hand on the handle and the other gripping mine, Noah gave a small tug as he turned the knob.

“Noah, wait!” I cried, stopping him. “Give me a moment.” The knot in my stomach rose into my chest.

“April, you’ve had days to prepare. This is not a surprise.”

“Yes, I know, it’s just…”

He cocked his head to the side.

My shoulders slumped. “Fine,” I said, stepping forward and allowing Noah to lead me through the exit.

We walked down the stairs; our footfalls resonated in the stairwell. At the bottom we had two choices, continue down another flight of stairs to the basement or pass through one of three doors. The exits to the left and right led to the first-floor hallways, and the exit straight ahead, to what remained of the forest simulation room. For years residents used the room for daily exercises all the while undergoing thought control. Subliminal messages whispered through speakers, veiled by the sounds of nature. As inhabitants conditioned their bodies, he conditioned their brains. The directives to stay on the trails in the nearby woods were fail-safes. Should someone ever escape, he’d be able to locate them.

I stared at the entrance in front of me. Bile rose in my throat as the grisly image of a gnarled and charred hand sticking up from the ashes forced its way out from my memories. The unfortunate soul burned along with the contents of the simulation area, and it had been my misfortune to run across the remains several weeks afterward.

Noah’s thumb brushed over the back of my hand. “Okay?”

I bit my lower lip and nodded.

Noah reached out for the doorknob of the steel entry and pulled. Bright sunlight made me blink as a cold breeze fluttered my hair. I zipped my jacket all the way up, tucked my chin inside, and stepped outdoors.

Noah was right. The simulation room looked nothing like before, not when fake trees, winding trails, and recorded bird songs filled the space. And not when it was a blackened mass of molten plastic and ash.

The renovations began just after Beth and I had left the compound we’d rediscovered after our escape from the old house. Had we stayed for another day, the reunion with our parents would have taken place sooner.

Marigold and her team of engineers worked many long hours to make this facility inhabitable again. Two backhoes and a loader had pulled down a section of the far end wall and the pitted steel door and replaced it with a wide metal gate. The longer side walls survived, and the rubble was long gone. While not finished, the objective was to turn the large outdoor space into a courtyard.

I turned a slow circle and examined the area. Blistered paint was all that remained of the forest mural that once covered the now blackened concrete walls. They’d removed the concrete slab from the centre, leaving the rest around the perimeter to form a walkway. A wood bench rested against the rear wall with a view of the clearing and the rows of solar panels beyond the gate.

I stepped toward it; Noah trailed. When I approached the seat, I shivered.

“The bench is a memorial,” Noah said.