VOCOM

chapter IX

“You don’t look to be hanging on so well in there.”

I jumped, startled shitless and hitting my hand on the car’s horn accidentally, making it beep its growling beep for a short second.

“Lord, VOCOM, don’t scare me like that!” I hissed and placed my hand over my heart, leaning back into the seat and closing my eyes.

She chuckled her normal, dark laugh. “You look like you’re having a stroke.”

“I think I am. It’s just . . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Even if I could, I wouldn’t tell her what I was feeling- what I was suffering through. She’d never let me down for it.

“You’re scared.”

“Am not.”

“Not of Kortan, of what Kortan was.”

I only stared at the communication device placed upon my dashboard. What did she mean? I looked away from the communicator, deciding to not give her a reason to continue by staring at what I knew she could see me through.

My panicked heart slowed down and my breathing regulated. I was still sweating and shaking from the dreadful memories that pressed upon me. I was getting choked with the emotions I had repressed for a long time.

I started the car again and swallowed nervously. I checked again on the colorful scarf that VOCOM gruntingly pointed out didn’t match her hat and wiped off my ridiculous sunglasses. Like I cared.

I kept driving down the desolate road, occasionally speaking with VOCOM. We had agreed to keep chatter to a minimum, just in case our signal was being intercepted. Call me overcautious, but that’s what I was paranoid over.

Around me were beautiful, country landscapes that I hadn’t really paid much attention to before because of my scared flee. I would call it perfectly beautiful if I didn’t know what deadly secret it contained. Kortan stretched for miles underground, possibly right underneath my car.

A constant breeze made the waves of golden-green grass sway and tilt in a rhythmic motion. Sparse patches of trees spotted the fields every few hundred feet or so, and far off in the distance stood a thick forest. Birds flitted by occasionally and chirped shortly and quietly, disturbed by the car’s engine, and the rarity of rabbits and squirrels fled away at the sight of the car as well.

Surprisingly, the feeble dirt road before me was clear of weeds and grass despite its underuse. It was still narrow, fitting only one car to go one direction at a time. I wondered how lab workers came and went on such a small road—maybe they all had to leave at the same time to prevent traffic.

When I came upon the parting of grasses and trees, that familiar old, abandoned building loomed before me, seemingly innocent and desolate. It sat in the middle of a large dirt ring that matched the road; its asphalt parking lot badly cracked and faded beyond usefulness. That old oak tree had even managed to make its way up through the center of it, seemingly taller than I last remembered it, disturbing the once-white lines further from their disarray.

I swallowed again, pulling my car into its old spot; the far right of the grocery store. I got out, pulling VOCOM’s silly hat onto my head over the large sunglasses. I stood with my hand on the car’s roof for a few minutes, staring up at the vacant building. It looked crumbling and falling in, yet Kortan had carefully and deliberately made sure the windows were never missing or entirely broken. I had yet to understand their pickiness about windows.

A few cracks had been allotted in the dusty, unused and wide windows, covering the front of the stores and giving it that “abandoned” feel. I glanced at my distant reflection, deciding that I looked like a rich woman—and I decided, should I run into anyone here, that I was simply looking into buying the place for renovations. That seemed innocent enough.