Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #18 September 2015 | Page 22

hand when he pushed on the revolving door to the
Intake Center?

Intake
By David Castlewitz
Frank Collier sweated under a sign reading:
“Intake.” He didn’t like this sour, well-lit room with
its green cinder block walls and neat rows of folding
chairs. When a few of those seated turned towards
him, their inviting gestures frightened him and he ran
outside to his car. He peeled out of the parking lot,
raced along the highway, which was so empty of other
vehicles that it begged him to accelerate.
And now a tall, hard-eyed state trooper with
a five-pointed star of authority above his left breast
pocket and a Smokey-the-Bear brown hat on his head
loomed over him.

The trooper materialized alongside an old
sedan with outlandish rear fins, the kind of car Frank
had as a teen, a classic from 1965.
“Where’s Luke?” Frank said, referring to his
grandson. Katie, his daughter, had joked when she
said, “Don’t lose him, Dad. We’re kind of fond of the
kid.”
Panic filled his chest.
The state trooper waved at an open area just
ahead of the classic sedan. Frank focused on the sight.
He hadn’t seen it earlier. Maybe the trees hid it. He
walked close to the collection of cars and trucks, a
burnt-out school bus, and a dilapidated RV.
He didn’t remember getting out of his car.
A baby’s cry quickened his steps. Katie
would be frantic if she knew about this. A demanding
woman, he wondered how she’d ever found a husband
to put up with her. She wanted everything her way,
right away, and she kept her infant son on a rigid
schedule. Luke went to bed at the same time each
night, napped for an exact period each afternoon,
breast-fed and bathed with punctuality. Frank
wondered how Katie had gotten this way. He’d given
her a laid-back childhood after her mother died. Few
rules. Little discipline. Exactly as he wished he’d been
raised.

“Was I speeding?” Frank asked, tapping his
hands on the steering wheel, his thick school ring
banging the hard plastic.
The trooper waved a hand at the empty
road ahead. “Go up that way. Turn right. Into the
investigation site.”
Before Frank could ask why, and while he
digested these instructions, the trooper tramped back
to his gold and white sedan. In the side-view mirror,
Frank caught sight of the driver side door’s fivepointed red-on-black star.
An odd color scheme, he thought, and
proceeded along the shoulder of the road. A gravel
cut-off popped into view. He drove onto it and glanced
in the rear-view mirror every few seconds. Yes, the
trooper followed.
Frank braked. He looked into the back seat,
where he’d put his three-month-old grandson strapped
secure in a car seat. Hadn’t he had the carrier in one

Luke screamed from the back seat of a small
sedan, an economy model renowned for its gas
mileage. The crushed roof didn’t touch him. Nor did
the caved-in side doors. Wedged in tight, the baby
shook his tiny fists, and cried.
Frank looked at the body in the front seat.
A seat belt across a pulpy shoulder kept the torso
in place. The steering wheel rested where the head
should be.

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00

“The airbag didn’t deploy,” the trooper said.