Parkerson drove Wendell Gray to the lake house.
He’d fallen in love with the lake as a kid, when the shorefront was still farmland and forest. It had been a peaceful place, an escape from the city and its noise and oppressive heat. Even his parents seemed to calm when they came out here; for blissful weekends, Parkerson could almost imagine that his mom and dad loved each other, that they could see past the relentless onslaught of bills and invoices and too-skimpy paychecks. His dad had sold his plot by the lake one desperate winter, and Parkerson could still remember the long, torturous summer that followed, endless days spent sweating in his room, wishing for the cool relief of the lake, longing for silence instead of his parents’ unceasing crescendo of harsh words and slammed doors.
The lake was developed now, dangerous. Cottages and big summer homes crammed almost every inch of waterfront, and come summer the whole region would be crawling with families in monstrous sport-utility vehicles and powerful ski boats. For now, though, in early April, the lake was quiet.
They arrived at the lake just before dawn. Turned down the shore road and followed it to a stubby end. There was a dirt trail leading into the trees beyond. Parkerson slowed the Cadillac and turned down the trail. Crept over the bumps until he reached the house, a run-down little cabin in a clearing in the woods, the lake a few hundred feet distant. He’d purchased the place, secretly, shortly after he’d dreamt up Killswitch. Registered it to a dummy corporation and told no one he owned it, his own private bastion of calm. His Killswitch sanctuary.
Gray was still passed out in the passenger seat. He’d stirred a couple times on the drive. Parkerson had hushed him. Soothed him back to sleep. Now he circled around to the passenger door, hefted the kid up, and dragged him into the yard. Gray muttered a protest but didn’t resist.
The house was musty. There was a layer of dust over everything. A steady drip from the tap in the kitchen. Parkerson frowned. The damn thing would have been dripping since midwinter.
He half dragged, half coaxed Wendell Gray through the door. Helped him across the scuffed kitchen linoleum and down a narrow set of stairs to the basement. The basement was damp and earthy. The ceiling was low. Parkerson had to duck as he dragged Gray along. Gray groaned. Struggled a little. “Hush,” Parkerson told him. “Almost there.”
This was the unfortunate part of the process. Training a new asset was a dirty occupation. There were no absolutes. There was only Parkerson and Wendell Gray, a scared, traumatized man, and the grim process of molding him into a workable asset.
Parkerson had built a room in the basement, walled in and soundproof, after he’d purchased the cabin. He’d done some research on posttraumatic stress and advanced torture techniques. Gradually he’d honed the training process into an efficient regimen of reeducation and discipline. Broken men went into the room. Assets came out.
Parkerson unlocked the padlocked door and helped Gray inside. Sat him down on the thin iron bed and stood above him. Gray wavered, unsteady as a punch-drunk boxer. Parkerson lifted the kid’s legs and helped him lie down. Made sure he was comfortable and then turned to check the projector.
Satisfied, he walked out. Closed the door behind him and relocked the padlock. Crossed the basement to a recliner, tilted all the way back, and picked up a remote.
The remote controlled the DVD player that would feed images to the projector inside the new asset’s room. Parkerson pressed play, and then sat back to listen. The room was pretty well soundproofed, but sometimes, if he listened closely, he could still hear the screams.