Ted
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It was just another day back at the office. Tara was finishing her column to send to review when Ted, her boss, approached her.
"Tara, we need to talk. Accounting is refusing your reimbursement request. They have evidence that you were in north Nebraska, and not in Washington DC."
She jumped on the chair and turned to face the middle-aged middle manager. Slightly indignant, Tara creased her eyebrows. "How come? I was there, covering the POTUS like a blanket! Here," she showed him the text editor open in the computer screen, "I was about to submit the copy for review. I'm sorry I didn't take pics but you did not authorize me to take Alec with me."
Ted shook his head. Tara was a great reporter but she was too quick to go on the defensive. "I know. I don't doubt you went to DC. But they have this picture they found on Facebook, and it is you."
She stood up. "The hell. Show it to me."
He took his phone out and after a few taps and swipes, showed her the picture. "The hair is longer, but they thought you were wearing a wig."
Tara went pale. She raised both hands to cover her mouth and moved backward, away from the phone. Silent tears ran down her cheeks as all heat abandoned her body.
"Tara, what is going on?" Startled, Ted looked at the picture again and zoomed it in. It looked like Tara but the person in the photo seemed younger. He knew Tara had no siblings. Oh, wait.
"Sister..." Tara mumbled. She pounced her boss and yanked the phone from his hand. She stared at a hole in the glass screen and sobbed. "Sister! Sister! She's alive!" Her voice rose in a crescendo.
"SHE'S ALIVE!" Tara shouted.
While Tara poked around his device to send the photo to herself, Ted pondered. He had a vague memory of her background. Tara had a sister but she died five years ago, or so he remembered. Or did she? Her sister was in a car crash...
"Fuck the president," Tara cursed. "Ted, I'm taking my PTO, vacation, I quit if you won't let me go. Where was this again?" She tapped the phone, bringing the photo's data. "It's tagged. Carlson's Retreat, Nebraska. Ted, I love you. Bye!"
Tara tossed the phone back, grabbed her purse, and bolted out of the office.
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Tara
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Steph was alive. Steph was alive. It was all Tara could think of as she booked a flight to Nebraska and checked her options to reach Cartlon's Retreat. Lost inside the vast Cherry County, it was so remote and insignificant that Google Maps didn't know it existed. She had to ask a friend for the coordinates. There was no bus there either. She took a cab home, the Asian driver ignoring her as she called several travel agencies. She reached her condo with the trip already charted. She would take the 8 PM flight from La Guardia to North Platte airport, crash in some hotel for the night, and then rent a car in the morning. It was a four-hour drive through scenic Nebraska. To her, it would be a trip back to the past, to the Tornado Alley.
Steph was alive!
Tara thought she was over it but she paused to cry a bit more. Steph was her last living relative. Six years ago, Steph was a college freshman. She was coming back from a party with some friends, the driver under the influence. The car crashed and Steph was the only survivor. She was rushed to the ER, and after a ton of surgeries, she was stabilized and left in an induced coma. The doctors weren't hopeful she'd survive, much less recover. Two days later, another disaster struck.
She remembered the results of the police investigation as if it had happened yesterday. At 2 AM, the alarms on her life monitor went off. The nurses rushed to the room but the door was barred. They had to call in security and the police to break into the room. When they did, it was empty, a humongous pool of blood underneath a blood-drenched hospital bed the only things left from her sister. Forensics identified it as her blood and from the amount left in the crime scene, there was enough evidence to declare her dead.
They never found the body. Or the thief. They investigated the case but it was soon dropped for lack of evidence. There were no signs of breaking in or out, nothing. Steph's body might as well have melted. The next year Tara graduated and moved to NY to work as an investigative reporter. It was undeniable that her sister's disappearance
She quickly threw clothes and sundries in her travel case. Years of traveling around in search of newsworthy stories taught her how to pack efficiently. Tara took her purse, checked her documents, the boarding pass on her phone, took the carry-on case, and left her apartment. She had several hours to reach the airport but Tara was sure NYC's traffic had a surprise in stock for her.
She wouldn't be disappointed.
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Carlson
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I knew she was trouble the moment she got out of her car in the main street.
She was clearly a cosmopolitan person, out of her element here in the boonies. Young, with fair features, well-cared hair with a designer cut meant to draw attention to her face and wearing what could only be called "traveler chic" clothing. It seemed at the same time professional, comfortable, and beautiful. She had the bearing of a noblewoman, the sharpness of a huntress, and the grace of a dancer. Were I, not a married man, I'd fall for her.
Over the decades, I've seen several times that same piercing, inquisitive gaze. She looked around as if she wanted to take the whole scene in and burn it in her memory. Her pupils darted around taking in every single detail. She was either a reporter or a cop and both meant trouble. She had no idea what she was getting involved with and her curiosity might spell doom for both of us. I couldn't, however, take action. The best way to get her to leave was to give her nothing. I commanded my "eyes" to stop stealing glances at her as I kept their gaze on her for longer than the normal curiosity at a new face would allow.
She walked away from the car and walked around. She approached someone on the street and beamed a professional, polished smile meant to break barriers and allow her into the person's personal space. Fortunately, she didn't approach one of mine. I was already ordering them to move away from her. But I didn't let her get away from the reach of their senses.
She approached a male passerby, comfortable in using her feminine charm to ease her way and make her interlocutor lower their defenses. At this point, I was certain she was a reporter and not a cop. Which was worse for me, as cops at least had to follow procedure. With reporters, all bets were off.
"Good morning, is this Carlson's Retreat?"
"Mornin' Ma'am. Indeed it is. Welcome to our end of the world," The passerby answered, not a smidgen of sarcasm in his voice.
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"I'm looking for a person, could you help me?" She went straight to the point.
I could feel her eagerness, a longing bordering desperation in her voice. Whoever she was looking for was very important to the young woman.
She drew her smartphone from a pocket, "Here, this woman. Have you seen her?"
I couldn't see the screen but the man's face lighted up. "Ah, that's Lil' Stephanie! Lass lives in the gated community northeast from here. She comes here often to run errands in town. Now that I took a better look at you, ma'am, you do look like her. Is she family?"
The reporter and Stephanie's sister took a half-step back, several emotions flashing in her face. Grief, hope, fear, anger, love. Then concern and relief. She blinked to dispel the tears that were forming in the corner of her eyes and steeled her business smile back on her face.
"Yes," She answered with a titter that was halfway between a giggle and a sob. "She's my sister. Where can I find her? You mentioned a gated community?"
"Aye. Take the second street past the church and go all the way. Twenty miles out of town. But they don't let strangers in, ma'am."
She nodded and stowed her device. The name they mentioned and the face allowed me to quickly find who she was after.
Stephanie.
She was one of the newest members of my "gated community" that didn't come from the region. A tragic tale, a life that ended too soon. Stephanie suffered massive brain damage during her accident and her best bet was to live like a vegetable for as long as the technology could keep her body alive. Unfortunately to all of us, she fell under my spell and I had to take her with me. I ordered her to move to the bunker, the second safest place in my domain. I could not allow that woman to find her sister or I'd expose myself and everyone to disaster.
My only hope was if I could drive the reporter away.
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Tara
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She could barely contain her emotions. A scream kept locked for five years threatened to escape through her throat. Tara withdrew to her vehicle hoping the darkened windows could hide her. She sat before the steering wheel and covered her face. Only then she allowed it to overflow. She screamed she kicked, she cried.
Steph was alive.
After her cathartic outburst, Tara spent several minutes just breathing. She slowly lifted her head, feeling her makeup sticking to her hands. Thankful for being frugal in her morning beauty routine, She took her kit out of the back and repaired the damage. She could still feel her hands trembling as she tried to hold the steering wheel and started the vehicle. As the car slowly turned around the church, she saw a graffiti on a wall. It had some fancy videogame undead being pelted to death by animated potted vegetables of several kinds and some words painted in red with a dripping effect to look like blood.
"The dead live."
She sub-vocalized the words, a technique she used to ease the passing of memories from short-term to long-term storage. To her, every detail was important and noteworthy until they weren't. Tara drove past the graffiti and headed northeast.
So far, Tara thought Carlson's Retreat was an ordinary settlement just like every single other small settlement out there. The buildings were built to be functional and easy to repair in case one of nature's wrath lieutenants came in the shape of rage and wind. The people were calm and wary of strangers. She noticed some of them discreetly moved away from her while she asked for information. The asphalt ended and soon she was on a dirt road, raising a plume of dust behind her car.
A few minutes later, she found the gated community. A ten-feet brick wall surrounded and blocked the view of the insides. There were no electrified wires on top of the wall or any spikes, only a few security cameras poking over and behind the wall, pointed outside. It showed they were concerned with privacy but not as much with intruders or thieves. Crime was not a concern to them, she noted. As she approached what looked like the front gate, Tara also noticed there were no identifying marks or a name anywhere. She couldn't guess the name of this community. The only signage was some lane signs. "Residents", "Visitors", "Deliveries" they read.
She drove to the gate and saw a security guard in the sentry-box flanking both roads. She took the "visitors" lane and stopped next to the box.
After lowering the window, she peeked out of the car, "Hello?"
The man inside opened his own window and looked at her. "Can I help you, ma'am? Are you lost?"
Tara caught the subtext in his tone. 'I am not welcome here,' she thought.
"I'm looking for someone, I was told she lives here. My sister, Stephanie. She should be twenty-six now, here I have a picture of her."
The man glimpsed at the phone before returning to stare at her. Tara felt uncomfortable but she was used to being unwelcome during her investigations. He took a radio and she looked at the device's screen, hopeful she could see Steph's real face instead of just glowing LCD pixels. Her eyes moved to the top bar and she saw something strange. The signal was low. Only one bar of signal and her data network was displaying an "E" instead of the ubiquitous 4G.
She thought this might be one of those weird communities that eschewed technology. What was her sister doing? Why did she end up here? Why hadn't Steph contacted her? Tara made sure it would be easy to find her. Her profession as a reporter and her online presence was as broad as she could. During the years after her disappearance, she searched online, she reached out to support groups of relatives of missing people, she made sure any search by her name or her sister's would bring up one of her posts or her website.
Her heart was beating fast, she could feel the thumping against her ribcage. Tara was anxious, her mind swimming between dozens of possibilities. Had Steph married? Was she an aunt? Was this one of those weird cults? Her reverie was broken by the security guard.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid miss Stephanie is unavailable for the moment. If you want to leave her a message, talk to the camera in front of your vehicle. I'll make sure she gets it. If the miss wishes to reply, she'll contact you. Feel free to include contact info or show your business card to the camera."
Tara looked tenderly to the black lens. She imagined she was face-to-face with her sister and tried to smile.
"Steph, it's me. Tara, your sister. I'm so glad I can talk to you. I missed you, sister. I hope this finds you in good health. I wish you happiness in your new life and I wanted to ask if you would see me. I want to see you, sister. Face-to-face. We have so much to talk about. Please reply. Here's my contact information."
Tara's words were measured. She rehearsed several times what to ask, what to say when she finally found her. She wanted to ask 'why did you leave me?' She wanted to accuse, to scream at her, to vent her repressed negative feelings. But Tara would die if she drove Steph away after this long search. So she took a page from the politicians she investigated and spoke in a friendly and noncommittal way.
Everyone told her Steph was dead, that she couldn't have survived after losing that much blood. The police investigated her case as a murder. She even had a death certificate. But deep inside, Tara couldn't believe it.
She couldn't let go of her hope.
After a minute of silence, the guard assumed she finished her message and frowned.
"Ma'am, I'd have to ask you to leave the driveway. Your message is recorded and already forwarded to the resident. Have a good day."
He shut the window closed. Tara turned the engine on and slowly went around as the side gate lifted, clearing the way for the turnabout leading back to the dirt road. Tara wanted to climb the wall and go inside, run around and find her sister but she knew she shouldn't.
The car drove back to town, hiding the gated community under the dust cloud.
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Carlson
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I sighed in relief when I saw the car vanish behind a bend in the road through the cameras.
As eager the reporter, Tara was her name, was to find her sister, she wouldn't commit a felony in the process and that was good. Her emotions were sincere and relatable. It touched me as I reviewed her message on the monitor inside my cloister. She was well-spoken and her voice had that velvety, comfortable yet at the same time projected a tone of trained speakers.
I wished to grant her request, let her see her sister, but I couldn't expose myself. As tragic as it was, they were no more than a hundred yards apart when she recorded the message. The meeting would inevitably lead to questions to which I was not comfortable enough to provide answers. The truth was too terrible and it would break the woman's heart. My desire was that she gave up and let go of her search. That she could be content with the thought that her sister might be alive and well, living her life somewhere remote.
That was a lie, though. Stephanie's condition was interesting, to say the least.
My head lowered and soon met my palms. Behind my closed eyelids, the afterglow of the screens still burned in my retinas. I would cry if I still had tears, but alas there were none. I felt her pain. Tara's pain. It was too similar to mine. But I couldn't feel sympathy for her. For my sake and the sake of those under my command, it was better if we remained isolated. It was better if I remained here, in the darkness, jailor, warden, and prisoner at the same time.
The curse I released, the curse that was my sin and burden had to remain locked or the world would suffer.
The wall was not as tall as it was to keep intruders out. It was there to keep the residents in.
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Carlson
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