Chapter 11
Calvin Phelps pulled the Volvo over on the shoulder of the service road in a secluded area of the park. He’d done his duty and searched up and down the streets, and everywhere kids were hanging out. He’d patrolled the streets, the complex, the clubhouse, and even the church parking lot. Billy and Sarah, somehow, seemed to have evaporated into thin air and successfully eluded him. He knew that sooner or later, they would both have to return to the apartment complex. After all, they had to go home. The problem was once they did return home, then others would be involved. Calvin doubted the two of them had gone to the police for help. They were just kids, and even if they did, their story would sound so unlikely that nothing would be investigated.
He shivered. His clothes were soaked with the sweat that poured off of him relentlessly. Calvin could feel the onset of the oncoming changes. The pulsating rhythm of his heart began surging through every inch of his body until he jerked with each beat. The fevered pitch of a continual whine in his ears would soon set in. Calvin desperately struggled to brace himself against the oncoming pain he knew he was about to be dealt. The sound would increase in decibels until it seared every cell of his brain.
Calvin understood he was about to be disciplined. He had suffered the effects before. From the moment he saw Sarah and Billy in the lab bent over the microscope, with one of the ants in a jar, the force had taken control of him. He grasped at piecing together why he should be considered directly responsible for any minor interference that two children possibly could create.
It was quite possible; they had not looked at the ant under the microscope yet. He’d done his part to get the microscope out of Billy’s possession before the scheduled events unfolded. No matter how bright those two students were, it was unlikely they could stop the agenda which had been carefully planned. Things had already begun to unfold.
Calvin felt blameless and undeserving of being the recipient of such intense pain, but that didn’t change his situation. His brain felt hotter, and the decibels began to increase.
“Please, make it stop so I can think,” he sobbed and pleaded. He was vaguely aware of a revised plan being inserted and developing somewhere in his brain. But his reasoning was disjointed and disrupted by the escalating level of the piercing sounds. It became impossible for him to chain any thoughts together.
An ominous silence suddenly came over him. The excruciating mental noise was suspended for a few moments. Every nerve in his body clung desperately to the hope that the throbbing whine would not resume. He collapsed behind the steering wheel. When he resumed consciousness, it was almost nightfall. The plan was now clearly fixed in his head. Now he knew what he was expected to do.