Appearances, Thoughtful Puppet [short books for teens TXT] 📗

James walked down the white tiled hall toward the main office. The sound of his footsteps was even and measured; methodical. As he walked James mechanically looked over the checklist on the clipboard in his right hand. He was thorough by nature and habit, and it pleased him to see that every task on his daily list had been completed successfully. A slight frown wrinkled his forehead and the echo of his footsteps moved down the hall without him. True, his list was completed, but there was something else…
Philip’s project! Philip had been out sick for two weeks straight and James was in charge of making notes in his absence. And now he was behind schedule. For James, getting behind usually marked the beginning of a bad day. Turning on his heel he moved back the way he came, spotless lab coat swirling behind him and the sound of his passing rushing to catch up.
When he reached the end of the hall he swiped his pass card through the required slot next to the laboratory door. A red light turned green, the lock clicked open and he stepped into the sterile environment that was his second home. This was an even longer hall with individual labs on either side. As the door automatically closed behind him he waited for the lights to turn on. Odd, normally they came on as soon as the door opened. He waved the clipboard in the darkness around him, but nothing happened. The air exchange seemed to be having issues as well, for the great ducts above his head were silent. Well, this wasn’t the first time power had gone out at the facility, and it wouldn’t be the last. James reached for the penlight attached to the pocket protector of his lab coat. With its puny shaft of light probing a path in front of him he headed for the maintenance room and the main circuit switch that he hoped would fix the problem.
Without warning his feet flew up over his head and he crashed to the floor. He heard his penlight as it made contact with the ceiling, then the floor, and then went out. Great. It really was a bad day. James scrambled to his feet, reaching for his cell phone as he considered the slippery substance that caused his not so graceful maneuver and now soiled his favorite work jacket. It was some sort of liquid, but viscous, and it carried a strong odor. Phone in hand he opened it to light the display. The liquid was red. With revulsion he wiped the phone screen on his chest. Wonderful. It would take weeks and several washings to get the smell of hydraulic fluid from his clothes, and he was supposed to take his wife to the park tonight. Oh well. She would understand. James smiled as he thought of his beautiful wife. Alice always understood.
He checked the time on his phone and quickened his pace. In a few steps he reached the maintenance room and moved inside to the main breaker switch. Putting the phone away he felt around until he grasped the lever with both hands and lifted. The lights came on and the air exchange system started with a loud clunk. The experiments they ran here required so much energy that if the main power was overdrawn and threw the breaker (this happened regularly), the standby system only delivered power to the experiments themselves, leaving the rest of the facility in darkness. James tried to remember the last time the power went out after the staff was gone for the night and left their work in a stable condition but drew a blank.
Ordinarily he would grab a handful of shop towels and wipe up the mess down the hall, but tonight he had no time. That, and he was more than a little peeved at whichever operator didn’t clean up after himself. The forklift they used was old and required constant care, but that was no excuse for leaving a puddle of that size without wiping it up. Lazy louts! Let them deal with it in the morning. Strange how he didn’t notice on the way out though; he must have been too involved with his checklist.
Leaving the maintenance room behind and with a hurried, yet still methodical stride he was soon inside the lab that required his return. Philip’s lab was almost divided into two rooms by a wall that reached three quarters of the way across. One side contained the project; machines humming, instruments beeping occasionally, and various gases bubbling through multicolored solutions. On the side of the room where James entered, data was being collected and recorded. Computer monitors scrolled through endless streams of numbers, notes were written on neat piles of paper placed on top of filing cabinets, and- what was that?
From the other side of the lab came the unmistakable sound of something shuffling around the project. Instantly alert, James backed toward the door. No one but himself should be in here. The labs had been empty when he left to submit the daily report, and as far as he knew there wasn’t another soul in the entire facility. Besides, to get to this lab whoever or whatever was in here would have walked right past him in the hall on his way out unless they came in through the loading bay; in which case they would need staff clearance to open the door, and he was the only staff member on duty that day.
Something was definitely out of place.
As he groped behind his back for the door handle, his sleeve brushed the top sheet from a stack of papers on the nearest filing cabinet. The paper remained airborne for a surprising amount of time before landing on the floor where it slid noisily for several feet before coming to rest on the tile. The shuffling stopped. Today was not a good day at all.
James held his breath as quick footsteps approached his side of the lab, and then- “James Hansen?”
“Philip?”
The man who appeared around the end of the wall ten feet away wore a white lab coat identical to his own (minus the hydraulic fluid), and seemed to be just as shaken as James felt. His pent up breath left his lungs in a great whoosh of air and he gasped with relief, “Holy blazes! You scared me half to death. Philip, what on earth are you doing here; I thought you were still sick?”
“I was. Er, I am still a little, but I thought of some adjustments that would really help the project along. I was sure you’d already be gone for the day, so I came myself. I‘m in a hurry to get back to the Missus, so I used the back way to get in. Sorry I gave you such a start, but you had me going for a second there too.”
James grinned. “Ha! Reminds me of the time back at school when Howard faked a zombie and cornered us in the med lab with those cadavers.”
Philip laughed at the memory. “No no. That was way worse! Good times, those. Well I did what I came to do; you ready to go home?”
“Sure thing. As long as you made notes on the day’s findings. That’s what I was coming back to do.”
“Oh, right. Sorry you had to look after that while I’ve been down. Yeah I made some notes just before you came in.”
James couldn’t help but notice that Philip kept squinting his eyes as though he couldn’t focus correctly through his glasses. Ol’ Phil must be really sick, he thought. Philip always wore his dark rimmed, thick lens glasses. They were a part of him.
Leaving the lab they chatted like the best friends they were and walked to the main office together. Along the way James had to keep reminding himself of his friend’s illness; he was acting just a bit odd and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was different.
James finished his report and took his lab coat off. En route to hang it up he looked at the large clock on the wall.
“Oh blast! Ten minutes late already and I still haven’t left work. Can today even get any worse?”
“What’s the rush?” Philip was behind him and sounded worried.
“Alice and I were going to have dinner together then go for a walk in the park. There’s a full moon tonight you know, and they’re predicting meteor showers. Alice really gets into that stuff.” With one last glance around the office to be sure everything was in its place James headed for the door and then paused, “Hey, aren’t you going out the back?”
Philip was only a step away and it was hardly the work of an instant to insert the tranquilizer needle hidden in his hand into the base of James’ neck. His body went almost instantly limp, and Philip struggled to support his weight before he hit the floor. Ducking down, Philip laid James over his shoulders and placed his glasses in his pocket as he staggered back down the hall. “Of course I’m going out the back, but I should probably mention this; you’re coming with me.”
Things can always get worse.


When James finally opened his eyes, he had no clue where he was and his mind seemed incapable of grasping any but the most basic of thoughts. He blinked sluggishly as the last rays of sunlight caught him in the face. Averting his eyes to the right, he saw he was on the edge of some sort of woodland clearing probably forty yards across and circular in shape. He also saw a bundle in the middle of the clearing that he was unable to identify. It was about the size of a person, but too