Tears of No Return Read online

  He must have known she wouldn’t run—couldn’t run. Glancing at her purse, Karen remembered her cell phone, but the bastard had tossed it on the backseat. Keeping an eye on the deli’s door, she reached back with her right arm and canvassed the rear seat area. Her slender fingers raced along the leather, but found no phone. She turned her head around and saw that the phone was against the crease, on the right. Desperate, Karen turned back around and looked at the deli’s front entrance.

  The glass door was dirty and littered with tobacco ads. Sensing the seconds were running out, Karen unbuckled her belt and reached back, stretching her whole body. Her fingers touched the phone, but she had no grip. Reaching farther, she managed to eke a few more inches out of her five-foot-seven frame, and pulled the cell phone closer. It was still on. She sat back down, keeping her right hand behind her.

  She felt for the number 5 button. It had a plastic bump on it, allowing for easy navigation without having to look at the keypad—convenient for dialing numbers in dark places, like movie theaters.

  With her thumb on 5, she worked over to the 6, then down to 9. She pressed once, expecting to hear a beep, but didn’t. She pressed again and again but no sound came from the phone. Then she remembered the guy had been playing with it. The look on his face before he had tossed it was one of satisfaction, like he’d accomplished something.

  Staring at the deli door, Karen turned and brought the phone closer to her face. She pressed the 9 button again and realized the bastard had locked the keys. A dark silhouette grew in the door’s dirty glass. Sensing her time was up, she tossed the phone in the back and sat forward. The mini-mart’s door opened and the terrible man came striding out.

  He walked around the front of the car and got in, carrying a paper bag. The rotten odor leaching out of his pores was gone, replaced by cinnamon and evergreen. Karen guessed that he’d sprayed himself with deodorant or air freshener. His hat was missing, revealing his naked, bald head.

  “Ready to go, hon?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Karen replied.

  She couldn’t help thinking of how different he looked in a suit. The video at the bank, if there was one, was surely useless. Everybody would be on the lookout for a homeless man, not a couple dressed in suits, traveling in a Mercedes. Karen felt more alone than ever.

  The man told her to drive and then barked directions. He was leading her out of the city. They stopped at another bank, one on a considerably less crowded street. The guy definitely had a plan, Karen knew. He wasn’t just winging it.

  Before getting out of the car, he pulled a baseball cap from the paper bag and pulled it low over his forehead. They passed a few people hurrying by on their way to work, every one of them with tunnel vision and minding their own business. That was how people in the city were. Karen doubted she’d be able to catch anyone’s attention even if she tried. Nobody wanted to be bothered.

  “Now don’t even think about getting out of this car, or doing anything that might get you killed.” He opened his coat, showing Karen the knife. “I’ll be right out.” He winked and left the car, locking the doors with the remote.

  Karen thought about opening the door and fleeing, but the man was only just inside the bank’s entrance, using her ATM card. His back was to her. If she opened the door, the alarm would sound and alert the bastard. He might get spooked and take off, but that was wishful thinking. No, he’d follow through on his promise and kill her. Her shoulders slumped as she gave up on the idea. The car alarm might get people’s attention, but car alarms, like rats, were all too common in the big city. No one would so much as glance in her direction.

  Her only hope was that a police car would drive by or a beat cop would come strolling along. If either of those things happened, she’d definitely take a chance on fleeing. Tapping her foot, she waited, silently praying to see the men in blue. But none appeared, and before she knew it, the man had returned to the car.

  “Time to leave,” he said, and clicked his seatbelt before sliding the key into the ignition slot.

  Karen turned the key and started the car. Before pulling away from the curb, her phone began ringing.

  “Ignore it for now,” the man said, and Karen drove. A long minute later, the phone rang again. The man turned around and grabbed it, stretching the seatbelt to its limit. He retrieved the phone, holding it until it ceased ringing.

  “If it rings again, pull over,” he told her.

  They continued driving, stopping only at red lights. The man gave Karen directions, but never more than the next road she was to take. The man’s anger appeared to have lessened. His fingers no longer clenched the door handle and his cheek muscles stopped bulging.

  They drove down Delancey Street and across the Williamsburg Bridge before getting onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway toward Long Island.

  Karen’s anxiety increased, her heart rate speeding as they drove along the Long Island Expressway. The farther they traveled the less populated the area became, until they reached what Karen thought of as farmland and forest. She’d seen enough movies and news reports to know what happens when a deranged psychopath takes a female into deserted country. Once alone, he could have his way with her then dump her in the woods, leaving her for some hiker to find. She needed to take a chance, to do something.

  “You never told me your name.” she said.

  The man didn’t answer and remained staring out into the world; not seeming to look at anything.

  Not knowing what to make of his state, she spoke again. “What’s your name?”

  The man turned upon Karen with shocking speed, as if his face simply appeared in the back of his head. She jumped, swerving the car a little.

  “Last time I remembered,” he said, through clenched teeth, as if his jaw was wired shut, “my hearing was just fine.” He turned away from her to look out the window again.

  Startled but not deterred, Karen said, “Sorry, I just thought you didn’t hear me.”

  Silence followed her question and she decided not to test the man any further, at least for the moment.

  “My name is Josh,” he eventually said.

  “Oh,” Karen said, her heart skipping a beat at the sudden response. He had spoken like a man defeated in battle. “Are you all right, Josh?”

  “How can I be all right if I killed that man back there?” he asked, then: “How can I be all right if I kidnapped a woman?”

  Karen wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to her or to himself. She thought that maybe he was on some kind of drug, a hallucinogenic, and it was now wearing off. That would explain the strange behavior, including wearing a homeless man’s clothes.

  “Turn on the radio,” he told her as he stared out the window.

  “Why?” Karen asked.

  “You were going to ask who I am, weren’t you? Just like all the other questions you have been asking yourself.”

  “I don’t understand,” she explained. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know it all. I know you planned on locking me out when I first went to your car with you. I know you wanted to scream to the guy I wasted. I know you wanted to run down the street, but thought I’d catch up to you.” He paused, chuckled. “You’re slowing down. Under forty-five miles per hour and we’ll get pulled over. It’s the law on highways in New York State. Keep the car at sixty; five miles an hour over the posted limit will be fine.”

  Without realizing it, Karen had slowed the car down. She’d been too caught up in listening to the guy talk, unable to concentrate on anything else. She pressed the gas pedal, raising the speed up to sixty.

  Anyone with half a brain could’ve come up with the stuff the guy, Josh, was telling her. He was just a con-artist.

  The man turned, and set his gaze on her. “You think I’m making all this up, Karen?” He stared at her, unleashing pins and needles across her flesh, then turned forward again. “I know you were wondering about my clothes earlier. I know you live on 40th and Second, and that your doorman’s nam
e is Ron.”

  The shock sank deeper. Nothing in her purse listed her current address. Her mind churned, trying to come up with some way this guy could have known all of that information. Nothing came to her.

  The car approached an exit ramp. Josh told her to take it. They traveled down Wool Wash Road before turning onto a dark, one-lane stretch of pavement with no painted lines. Karen had tried talking, but the man told her to be quiet, and when she tried to speak against his wishes, he grabbed her arm and squeezed.

  “There’s a dirt road coming up on the left. Take it,” he said, releasing his grip.

  Karen wanted nothing to do with going down any of the roads he’d forced her to travel, but definitely not a dirt road. How had she allowed this to happen? She should’ve tried crashing the car on the highway and hoped for the best. Now she was at the guy’s complete mercy. He would kill her and dump her body, leaving it for the maggots and worms.

  “I’m not going to leave you for the maggots and worms,” the man assured her.

  Bewildered and unable to speak, she focused on driving and turned onto the dirt road. The guy was reading her mind, only that was impossible. There were no such things as mind readers. She refused to believe any of the words spoken from his mouth. He was good—really good—but like any slight-of-hand magician, he was simply using tricks.

  She thought about the doorman, Ron. She hadn’t told Josh anything about him and her license had her old address on it. The bastard must have been following her for weeks.

  “Stop the car here and turn on the radio,” he said.

  Karen hit the brakes, fearing that her life was nearing its end. She remained frozen, unable to move. Before her mind was able to conjure up images of her strangled and naked body, Josh screamed at her to turn on the radio. Karen jumped, reached out and pressed the power button on the radio.

  “What station?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Josh said. “But after you hear…it, turn to another station—to as many as you need. When you’re satisfied, turn the radio off.”

  A song was playing, one that Karen didn’t recognize. When the tune ended, the D.J.’s voice came over the airwaves. “This is Mike from WJKPL and as I told you folks out there already, this is an urgent alert direct from our local military. I’ll be repeating it after every set.” Karen listened intently, absorbing every word. “An escaped convict is on the loose and has already caused some injuries. He was last seen breaking out of a police van and heading north on Roberts Street. He is extremely dangerous and may be armed.” The D.J. went on with a description, a pretty vague one, telling only of the man’s physical size and shape.

  “So you’re an escaped con?” Karen asked, guessing the guy enjoyed the attention, a glory hound.

  “Turn to another station, as many as you like, then turn it off.” Josh closed his eyes and sat back in the seat.

  Karen ran through the stations on the pre-set buttons. The ones with songs she skipped over, but almost all the others were making public announcements warning people about the escaped convict. She switched to AM radio. Every news station was talking about Josh Rubin. Satisfied that the man sitting next to her was the person behind the panic, she pushed the volume knob in to silence the speakers.

  “Okay,” she said, turning to Josh, who appeared to be sleeping.

  “I haven’t much time, Karen, so do as I ask. Think of something only you would know about. It can be anything.”

  Karen immediately thought about nailing Josh in the throat, killing him, or at least wounding him enough for her to get away.

  “You’ll never get off the hit in time before I catch your arm and rip it off,” he told her. “Do me a favor and think of something else before I get pissed off again.”

  Karen, afraid and angry at the same time, thought of her best friend Melanie. Having grown up in an orphanage, Karen had no family and Melanie had become like a sister to her. They met at school during the seventh grade and had remained best friends. Karen wanted nothing more than to see her friend again. To be able to spend time together, laughing over old movies, stories from work, and men. Before last night, neither woman had spent a lot of quality time together, both too busy with their jobs. Realizing how precious time was, Karen made a mental note that if she got out of this situation alive, she’d make sure to spend more time with Melanie.

  “Good, that’s enough. I’m going to make this simple. I need to convince you of something. Then it’s up to you what you do.” He told her how she wished she could see her best friend, Melanie, again. That she hadn’t spent a lot of time together recently, with work being so crazy.

  Karen was dumbfounded, but still refused to believe. Sensing her disbelief, Josh told her to think of numbers in a certain order. After she was done, he told her which numbers she was thinking of; the math matched. Everything she thought, he guessed correctly, and soon she presumed that he wasn’t guessing at all.

  “Now do you believe I’m more than an escaped convict? They’re after me. The government.”

  “What do you mean after you? Because of your gift?”

  “Yes, I’m theirs and they want me back. I don’t want to go back, can’t go back.”

  He went on to explain how he was once a poor man working odd jobs to support his family. One day a man approached him on the street and offered him a job. It would pay one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year for as long as he stayed with the company. Desperate, he signed on. He worked with a subject who had developed the ability to read minds. The man’s name was Roger Williams, a homeless man who also signed on for the cash.

  The company Josh had actually signed on with was a secret branch of the military, called the Murphy Unit. Unbeknownst to them, Roger Williams was able to pass his gift on, and did so to Josh Rubin.

  “Roger died after he gave me his gift. He committed suicide after finding out what they’d done to him. I say they were the ones who killed him, he just made it final.”

  Then Josh told her his own story.

  They’d wanted to lock him away for experimentation; use him as a weapon, but weren’t exactly sure how. Only a live test subject would do. When he refused, they grabbed his wife and two kids. He had to do as they wanted or his family would suffer. It was horrible, the things they made him do. Things he was too ashamed to tell Karen about.

  She began to feel sorry for Josh, but quickly remembered how easily he had killed earlier.

  “That man on the street you’re thinking about,” Josh began, “he was a Murphy agent. I knew he walked that way every day at about that time. He was the man who killed my boy.” Josh started to cry.

  Karen felt a crushing wave of sadness fall over her. “Where’s your wife now?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth, but broke down before the words could emerge. She put a hand on his lap to console him, as tears fell from his cheeks onto her hand. “Enough of this, I haven’t the time. I need to tell you the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “I can read your mind; hear all of your questions as we go along. There will be no need for you to speak aloud. I will answer all of them with the remaining time left, so for now, just listen.”

  Josh confessed everything. The Murphy higher-ups must not have known the extent of his mind-reading abilities, because too many secrets were let out. Josh had learned much during his long stay with them. A spacecraft was recovered off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. An alien being was found inside the ship. The creature was dead, but the body was fresh—as Josh had heard it. He’d learned that the Murphy Unit’s science department had developed a serum from the alien’s brain tissue. A serum they believed would promote a human to possess advanced cognitive abilities. They had no idea what they had created, using Roger Williams as the first test subject. In total, they were able to create five vials of the serum, and were working on a way to synthesize more. Later that night, all four vials of the serum went bad, deteriorating to a useless sludge. Roger was their only viable subject.

/>   Karen listened as if in a trance, letting Josh’s words seep into her mind. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. The whole thing was like something out of a science fiction novel and she wondered to herself how he could have escaped such a place.

  “I used my gift,” Josh answered. “I can read minds from across the room, even through glass. Every security guard, worker, official—you name it, I read them all. I knew every inch of that place, every security code. I watched and waited.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  Josh resumed speaking, but with urgency. He told her how he had escaped and how he thought his abilities worked.

  “I wanted to use my gift for good. I believed it was given to me, to us, to this world, for the betterment of others. I don’t believe that anymore. If The Murphy Unit get a hold of me, the world will change, but not for the better. Power will shift and freedom will be lost.”

  Karen fidgeted in her seat. The car was running with the air conditioner on. She moved to turn it off, but Josh stopped her.

  “Leave it on,” he said. “It’s harder for them to track me. The cold muffles the signal.”

  “What signal? You have a signal?” she asked nervously.

  “They injected me with a tracking device.” Josh looked at his hands. “It’s mixed with my blood so it can’t be removed; at least not any way I know of.”

  “What are you going to do?” Karen asked.

  “The one thing that ensures they’ll never be able to use me again,” he said, his voice growing weaker as he gazed out the window.

  “We need to get you to a doctor…or the media.” But Karen knew that wouldn’t work. Even if he exposed them, they’d cover everything up. Wasn’t that what secret organizations did? And they’d never allow Josh to live freely. Knowledge that a mind reader existed would bring chaos to the world. Josh would be prodded by scientists and never again have a normal life.