“So you were in detention…” he prodded, trying to get her back on track.
“Right, detention. I got in trouble in Spanish class for talking too much…”
I can’t even imagine…
“… so I was just sitting there after school, trying to not do my homework, when out of the blue a migraine hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“Uh-huh…”
“I mean, I know now that it wasn’t a migraine, but that’s what I figured at the time. I’d never had a headache like that. It started in my temples and burned like fire. I couldn’t see for a few minutes. I laid my head down on the desk with my eyes squeezed shut, because I knew if I opened them, the light from the room might burn holes in my brain.”
“Did it hurt anywhere else?” Sam was curious, as it felt like his burning reached every corner of his body.
“No – just my head. It was on fire.”
“How long did it last?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Leesha’s eyebrows pinched in thought. “I suppose three or four minutes. Hard to remember now… But I remember it felt like forever!”
“And then it stopped?”
“Yeah. That’s the really weird part. Just when I thought my head was going to explode, the pain stopped, almost like it never started.”
“Did you tell anyone what happened?” Sam wondered.
“I mentioned it to my mom, but we both just figured it was like a migraine. It didn’t happen again for like a couple more months, and she never asked about it again… She’s not really the best mom, if you know what I mean. And the next time it happened, I accidentally discovered the telekinesis thing, and was so freaked out, I didn’t tell anyone. It’s been a secret ever since. Until today, that is.”
“What do you mean you accidentally discovered the – what did you call it?”
“Telekinesis,” she continued. “It’s basically the technical word for the ability to move things with the power of your mind.”
She threw her head back and let out a deep, throaty laugh. “I suppose it wasn’t very funny at the time, but when I look back at it now, I can’t help but laugh. Anyway, it’s like two months later, early June, and I’m sitting in my lifeguard chair at my summer job.”
“Lifeguard?” Sam raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Champion of the swim team, thank you very much.”
“You don’t seem like the jock sort.”
“I don’t fit well into any mold. You’ll figure that out quickly.”
“I suppose,” he said. “Continue…”
She smiled. “Thank you. Anyway, I was in my chair and the migraine hit my head out of nowhere. I seriously thought I would fall out of that chair in front of everyone. Luckily I had my sunglasses on, so when I clamped my eyes shut, no one noticed. When the burning hit my head, everything else was kind of blurry – all of the sounds kind of got quiet and fuzzy – almost like an out of body experience. I peeked through my eyes to figure out if I could get myself down from the chair, and I caught sight of this fat kid – a real pain in the butt every day of my summer – who got a cramp in the deep end of the pool and was about to go under. I was torn between trying to save my head, and do my job. In a fit of rage, I kind of just willed him out of the pool.”
“What do you mean you willed him out of the pool?”
“Well, I knew that my head would not allow my body to move. I literally couldn’t get down from the perch I was on and physically get him out of the water myself. So I wished him up and onto the concrete. That fat kid FLEW out of the water and just flopped onto his side, like a walrus. What was his name? Nate! Nate. Nate, the walrus. Honestly, it would have been a chore for me to haul him up with my own two hands. It ended up much better this way.”
“Did anyone see this?!” Sam looked horrified.
She chuckled, her blue eyes sparkling with the recollection. “You know, you’d think someone would have. And looking back, I’m probably lucky that no one did. The other lifeguard on duty was on the other end of the pool, at the zero entry side. And the pool was always so loud and full of kids that no one else really paid attention to what anyone else was doing. Anyway, Nate flew up out of the water and hit the slab, instantly crying and holding his calf. He was hysterical, everyone swarmed him at once, but no one could get any information out of him beyond the fact that his leg cramped up. In all the chaos, I don’t think anyone even realized that he had concrete burn marks on his left shoulder and butt cheek!” She threw her head back and laughed again.
“Did you know instantly that you did that with your mind?” Sam was riveted.
“Not really. By the time my head cleared, I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me through all the haze. Once I got home, and really thought through the afternoon’s events, I tried to recreate the telekinesis, but it didn’t work. So I figured I just imagined it. Or another person got him out of the pool – someone I didn’t see in the midst of my headache.”
“So you lost it?” Sam was coming up with more questions as each one he asked was given an answer. “How did you get it back?”
“It seemed like the burning flashes came in spurts, like a couple at a time really close together, then it took a few days off. Then I’d get like three more, then a week without anything. Each time I’d get a flash, the telekinesis would kick in and last an hour or so. After about a month, I started getting flashes every day, then twice a day, then the last couple of days it was a constant burn. Then it stopped. Well, the burning stopped, but the telekinesis stayed. It’s been with me ever since.”
“And no pain since?”
“Nope. None at all. It’s over.”
“You mean to tell me that this pain is going to get worse?”
“Well, I can’t be sure for you, but for me it got more frequent, but the pain lessened each time. Almost as if the burning cooled a little with each episode.”
“And your burning was just in your head?”
“Yes. Isn’t yours?”
“No,” Sam grimaced. “Actually, it kills my entire body. I burn everywhere.”
“Oh… That sucks.” Her face was sober.
“Tell me about it.”
“How many times has it happened to you?” Leesha turned the conversation over to him. She had as many questions for him as he did for her.
“It just started Wednesday. Wednesday after school I was home alone and it hit me – much like you said, but the burning felt like it crippled my entire body. I had another one that night – woke me up in the middle of the night. Then nothing until this afternoon. So three times, total.”
“And can you move things with your mind?”
Sam looked down at his napkin. “No.”
“Well, what can you do?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Sam, it didn’t happen for me right away. But it does sound like we’re having similar experiences. I have to think your body is changing the way mine did. Isn’t there anything different that happens to you after each flash?”
He thought a minute. “Well, I can’t move anything with my mind, but it seems like each time it happens my hearing and my sense of smell get stronger. The first time it happened, I could hear things like a half mile away from me, and I turned on the faucet and was blown away by the smell of the gunk in tap water. Oh! And the second time – in the middle of the night – I could see everything clearly without any of the lights on.”
“Super senses?! That’s cool! Does it affect your touch?” Leesha was alert with curiosity.
“Yeah. The first time it happened I got in the shower and it felt really hot, and almost like the water pressure was cranked up to super sonic power.”
“What about your taste?”
“I’m not totally sure... Every time it’s happened, I’ve been too freaked out to wanna eat. By the time I’m hungry again, the power has passed. I did notice our tap water is disgusting,” and he proceeded to fill her in on his experience with the water.
“My
power got stronger as the flashes grew in intensity. I had to work on it a bit – really concentrate on objects and distances, but you’ll find that you’ll get stronger and better at it. I wonder if this will grow into any other powers for you as you get closer to the end of the flashes…”
Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Do you really think the flashes will end? I mean, do you honestly think our experiences are connected somehow?”
“They have to be. I believe that you and I were brought together by some force to figure this out. You are my gift to understanding this. Because if I can’t finally understand what this is all about, eventually it will drive me crazy.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to work on finding some answers.”
Leesha smiled in approval. “Agreed.”
They sat and talked for a total of three and a half hours, updating each other on their experiences and research that they’d done. Since they both agreed that Sam was in the beginning phases of his transformation (for lack of a better word), they decided each time he had an episode, he would keep a diary of when it happened, how it felt physically, how long it lasted, and ultimately what strange anomalies or abilities resulted from the occurrence and how long they lasted after the episode. Sam preferred to call them “magic powers,” but Leesha’s scientific rationale shot that down right away.
Leesha promised to do a little more research on heightened senses to see if she could uncover any information that passed by Sam in his initial search. She also had some files on telekinesis that she would bring for Sam to review when they met next.
They swapped phone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses, and set the next meeting date – next Saturday afternoon at the downtown library. They could communicate in between as needed, but the next meeting was designed to be a working session. They knew they would have to be discreet in a quiet library, given the sensitive material, but if they were going to research, a library was the best place to start.
Chapter Six
He watched the teenage boy leave the diner and walk across the parking lot to his truck. He’d followed Leesha from her home to Frannie’s, not completely sure who she was meeting and why. He couldn’t hear what they talked about, since his surveillance point was the parking space right outside the front window.
He saw the girl discretely demonstrate her powers once during the conversation, though she was careful to make sure no one was watching. But he didn’t hear a word of what was said. It didn’t matter for now, he was just thrilled at the thought of possibly finding another one of his patients.
He lost track of this one – this one and each of the others during his time in the slammer. The authorities confiscated his medical records when he was convicted, so he didn’t have any paper trail of the names and contact information of those he injected so many years ago. He had so many plans, and each day he spent in jail felt like another day of progress slipping away from him. He wondered if he would ever realize his vision, his ultimate goal for the children. His dream. His army.
It was by pure luck he found Leesha Conway one day last year at a flea market thirty-eight miles south of here. He was puzzled when he looked up and saw the falling tent pole mysteriously change directions and miss the toddler by inches. In the confused ruckus that followed, he noticed one person – a teenage girl – was the only one that didn’t seem surprised by the near miss. In fact, it was when he saw her satisfied smirk that he wondered if she was to credit for the miracle. Then he recognized the woman accompanying her – her mother – and put the pieces together.
Leesha had changed a lot in the years since he delivered and treated her as a baby, but her mother looked like the tramp she was back then – just a few years older, but still the same trash. He would recognize her anywhere, and remembered the day she came into the hospital wing, screaming in pain, and begging for drugs. She was just a child then herself, probably close to the same age her daughter was now.
He was at the flea market scouting, had been searching the area for any sign of those he spent his time, his research, his resources on so many years ago. He never quite gave up hope that he could gather them together and finish his work.
He had done as much as he could to change his appearance in the last few years, but he was still leery of mingling in the town that had once uncovered his secrets and put him in jail for them. Though he didn’t think anyone today would recognize him, he stayed far away from the hospital and past connections, with a few exceptions that continued to supply him with information and any necessary materials. He paid them well for their loyalty, so they kept coming back.
He was sure that following the Conway girl for the past months would eventually pay off, and now it had. Neither she nor the boy noticed him watching them from just outside Frannie’s, and for now, he would continue to keep his distance. But he hoped that they were pooling their resources, and connecting on the very level he originally intended the group would be capable of when the time was ready.
As the boy pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the street, he took note of his license plate number in order to trace his identity and find out his location.
Chapter Seven
Sam’s Sunday went by uneventfully, just another quiet day with the family. Church, then Sunday school, then Dad put steaks on the grill for lunch afterwards. The weather was starting to get cooler, and since they always stored the grill in the shed for the winter, they all wanted to get one last home grilled steak before winter broke.
Sam was secretly relieved not to go out to brunch after church, which was often the family tradition, but he was trying to avoid any kind of public activity until he got a handle on what was going on with the episodes. He wished there was a way to know when they were going to hit, with enough time to find some privacy, but up to this point there had been no precursor signal to the burn.
After lunch, Sam sat down to watch the Packers game with his dad, a lifelong cheese head. When the game was over and victorious, Sam excused himself to his bedroom, with the explanation of homework. He did have homework, which he intended to get done, but he first wanted to do some research on telekinesis as well.
Let’s see… According to Wikipedia, telekinesis – or psycho kinesis - refers to the direct influence of mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by the mediation of any known physical energy. Examples could include distorting or moving an object or influencing the output of a random number generator. Blah, blah, blah… Here we go: There is no convincing scientific evidence that telekinesis exists. A meta-analysis of 380 studies found a “very small” effect which could be explained by publication bias.
What is publication bias? Whatever…
Experiments have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. However, some experiments have created illusions of telekinesis where none exists, and these illusions depend to an extent on the subject’s prior belief in the ability.
Sam spent some time reading through the history of telekinesis, how it was named, and the scientists who worked together to define it. Terms such as “remote influencing,” “distant mental influence,” and “directed conscious intention” kept appearing throughout the material, but Sam just found all of the scientific jargon confusing and burdensome. He was grateful that Leesha would be better at this research thing than he seemed to be.
As he got to the information on modern technology and scientific studies, Sam began to understand why Leesha was hesitant to request any medical or scientific help in uncovering this mystery. Not only is the general public super skeptical (not that he can blame them, he would be too if he hadn’t seen it himself!), but the ways in which some of the scientists tested this kind of stuff were downright barbaric.
You’d be crazy if you think I’m going to let anyone drill a contraption like that into my skull! No way. No how. NOT going to happen.
There were other web pages he found along his search, but most of them were hokey and didn’t ap
pear to have any scientific data to back up the information that was presented. Some were downright laughable, some pages showed people with spirals in their eyes and others merely listed sci-fi movies where the plot line revolved around the paranormal. The bottom line was that no one really knew if the ability was possible, there were a million different theories, but no one had been able to document a particular person or case in which telekinesis was recorded and measured.
Sam felt that reading through the information, after all was said and done, was a good exercise, as now he felt he knew a little bit more about Leesha and her abilities. He couldn’t imagine having to discover this and mentally process it alone, and he realized that he was grateful that Leesha found him when she did. He recognized that while he spent about half of a week scared out of his mind wondering what was happening to him, she spent the better part of a year and a half feeling the same exact way.
That must have sucked for her! All of this, and she was alone. Well, at least we’ve got each other now. I’ll do everything I can to help her figure this out.
And with that pledge, he begrudgingly switched over to his trig assignment, then on to drafting his book report for literature class. After a couple more hours at it, he shut down his computer, loaded his school pack for the next day, and got ready for bed.
Great. Just EXACTLY what I needed today. Why, of all days, does my truck decide not to start? I don’t have time to mess with it now! I guess I’ll have to fix it after school today.
Sam kept turning the ignition, hoping each time that the truck would suddenly miraculously come to life, but so far, no luck. Angry, he stepped out of the cab, slammed the door, and stomped back up to the house. His sister was already gone – she always left early to socialize before the start of classes – or he’d have hitched with her.
“Mom?” He yelled as soon as he hit the door.
“What is it, Sam?” It was the first thing she heard out of him in what seemed like days, so naturally she sounded a little worried. “What’s wrong?”