"Keepers - Part 1" by Emma McCall

She sat staring at the young boy sitting across the room from her. He was about 15 or 16, Jess herself being 15. His hair was like a mass of unruly black feathers sprouting in every angle imaginable. His eyes and the majority of his face were shrouded in darkness since his chin was resting on his chest, plus the naked bulb was hanging in the centre of the room. She could have sworn he was dead but for the very slight rise and fall of his chest, so she figured he was either deep in thought or asleep. She looked away from him and glanced around the room that she was in. Metal. The walls were a metal of some sort, broken only by the presence of an equally metal door, and the floor was cold metal as well. The chairs that both the boy and girl were sitting on were cold hard metal as well as the table that separated them. Jess suddenly realized the presence of another chair in the room, wondering who would occupy that one. The only thing that stood out in the room was a wooden door in the corner opposite to the metal one she had come through; Jess wondered what on earth it was used for, and also why she couldn’t see any evidence of a door handle on it, when she heard the boy opposite stir in his seat. She turned to see him looking at her with shockingly green eyes. It was like staring into a forest and when she realized that she was staring she abruptly turned her head back in the direction of the door.
“Your wondering what’s behind that door aren’t you?” a voice calmly stated.
“Oh!” she replied startled by the sudden noise, “Yeah I am, do you know what’s in there?”
As a reply he put his head back onto his chest and once again his face was cast in shadow. But she swore that she saw a slight smile as he dipped his head. When the boy had decided to have that abruptly ended conversation she realized that she was in fact more startled by the sound of his voice than the words it created. When she thought back on it his voice reminded her of a slight breeze drifting through a forest, and the cascading sound the leaves made as they brushed against each other. Strange. That’s the same type of feeling she got when she looked at his eyes.

A couple of minutes after the talk shared between the two of them Jess started to think about the events that led her to be sitting in a metal room with this strange boy. It had started when she came out of school just a few short hours before. She started on her long walk home when she noticed that a man who she didn’t recognize had been following her since she left the gates of her high school. You would probably expect her to start quickening her pace or even just start flat out running, but instead she simply pretended that she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. You see, she realized that if the person walking behind her did not have her best interests at heart, then he would obviously become suspicious. All Jess did was to keep her guard up. Eventually, with the man following her every step of the way, she reached her drive with nothing happening. Until then. As she turned into her driveway the man behind her tapped her on the shoulder. Jess turned, getting ready for something unpleasant, when she saw that the man was wearing an earpiece. He had also donned a stiff black suit and black glasses, and Jess couldn’t help but let out a little laugh in her head, Man he looks like he dropped right out of Men In Black!
“This is not a matter to laugh about Jessica O’Neil-Joyce,” the man said in an extremely stern voice whilst removing a badge form his front pocket, “As you can see I am Sergeant Mark Underwood of the Special Forces Investigating Unknown Phenomena.”
I swear I thought that and didn’t say it! What the hell is going on? God, am I in trouble? How did he know my name?
“ Um, if this is some kind of sick joke it’s not funny,” Jess defensively retorted.
She focused her eyes on the badge but he flicked it back into his pocket before she could make out anything but the genuine look of it and she had a feeling that he was telling the truth. Now she began to feel the first slithers of fear wrap around her, especially when her mind finally realised his title included the words Unknown Phenomena.
“I’m afraid you will have to come with me, all will be explained in due time so there is no need for any questions,” Sergeant Mark stated, whilst reaching for her arm.
Jess backed away, the fear constricting her chest so much that her next words were merely a strangled whisper.
“Don’t you dare touch me! If you are who you say you are then you wont mind if I call my house and say what is going on, would you?” Jess exclaimed, coming up with everything on the spot, trying to buy more time and hoping against hope that someone will happen to walk pass and intervene, even when she knew how quiet this street was.
“By all means but please don’t delay much longer, I have important duties to uphold,” he replied, appearing not the least bit fazed by the request. Jess took out her mobile and remembered that her dad was getting his phone fixed and of course her mum didn’t want to know her, I mean she left her and her dad on their own a few years back and she hadn’t heard from her except the brief happy birthday every other year. So all she could do was dial in the number to her home that was right behind her, and wait for the answering machine. There was her dad’s voice….and there was the beep.
“Hi dad, um I don’t know how to tell you this but its,” she hurriedly glanced at her watch remembering the short message span of the answering machine, “4:12 and I'm just outside the house with a man in a FBI style suit who calls himself Sergeant Mark Underwood of the Special Forces Investigating Unknown Phenomena, and he wants me to go with him somewhere.” She handed the phone to him and whispered for him to say any details. He grabbed the phone and started rounding off his name, class, number and stuff like that. He said it so fast that he had cancelled the call and put the phone back in her hand before she realized what half of the information meant.
“If that is all then I shall escort you to the car and we will be on our way for you to be interviewed and questioned,” the Sergeant said in a commanding tone that she just couldn't disobey.

Jess went with him and started wondering if it was because of that incident, years ago now, the one that still haunted her….but it couldn’t be, that didn’t happen and even if it did it was years ago. The rest of the journey wasn’t important enough for Jess to dwell on; they drove in a black Mazda with tinted windows to a HUGE building with an amazingly large perimeter fence. They drove through with ease, none of the many guards challenging them. When the car slowed down and stopped she was hustled out of the car by 4 men who apart from their varying skin tone could have been clones of the Sergeant. She was brought into a side door and was marched down an endless amount of blank white sterile corridors. Every corridor looked the same with each one lined with solid metal doors. Eventually she was brought to a door that looked like every other one they had passed before and as it opened she was hustled into it and plunked into a seat opposite a slumped and quiet boy. They then all filed out and shut the door, leaving the faint clack of their shiny black dress shoes behind.

That is where she is now. Although the more she thought about it the more she realized how none of the doors had numbers on them, so she was completely dumb founded that they new where to put her. She also realized that in the end it was too much like the Sergeant could read her thoughts. Jess shuddered at that thought, not wanting to think about someone being able to read her thoughts whenever they pleased.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
Jess looked over at the boy to see if he was making the noise and saw that he was staring intently at the metal door. That’s when it clicked inside her head; the tapping was the sound of shoes on the hard plastic coated floor of the corridor. Thankfully she only heard one pair of shoes so she was pretty sure that no one would be taking them anywhere. The tapping was getting closer and Jess took a quick glance at the young boy, seeing that his head was back in its place on his chest, but she got the feeling that unlike before he was completely aware of everything going on, of Jess staring back at the door, the tapping getting closer and the shadow of feet that appeared at the thin space between the floor and the door when the tapping stopped.

The man outside the door was unlike any of the other men in the building. Rather than wearing the black suit, glasses and shoes, he was wearing a white ‘V’ necked T-Shirt and a rustic brown jacket that looked like it would suit a farmer rather than himself. His shoes were traditional brown cowboy-style ones and he had coarse dark brown trousers that ended just above his ankles. This man was called Robert Finn, or as his work colleges called him, The Interrogator. He was the man that interrogates everyone in the facility, and rarely fails. He was feeling rather smug at that moment because he had just heard that he was going to be interrogating 2 little children!
“Humph! My talents shouldn’t be wasted on some children! I’ve cracked hard murders in my last job, and now I’m reduced to some young scum off the street,” Robert complained half-heartedly. He didn’t really mind that much, but he would have preferred to have some lunch rather then do that interview. He straightened his jacket, turned the handle and opened the door.