The Samantha Project (36 page)

“You wanna watch her?”
Erik thought.
 

“Not really. It’s 11 o’clock and I’m so tired. Can you watch her first? Get me up in a few hours and I’ll take your place.”

Brittany noticed the silence. “Are you guys doing that mind reading thing?”

Erik froze, then whipped his head over to glare at me. “What are you talking about, Brittany?”

“Sam told me all about it. How you guys have these special powers. Like superheroes, right? How some lab messed with your DNA or whatever.”

“Why did you tell her? We said—”
I could feel the anger in Erik’s thoughts.

“I had to tell her. How could we keep this from her? She’s my sister. She’s coming with us when we go. She would find out anyway.”

“You guys are doing it again, aren’t you? It’s really obvious. And kinda rude.” Brittany turned on the TV.

I regretted telling her. I should have asked Erik and Jack before I did it. Now they wouldn’t trust me. And Erik really was mad at me this time.

“I’m going to bed,” he muttered, storming upstairs, leaving me to watch Brittany.

“So now that we’re friends and all, let’s have some girl talk,” Brittany said, turning toward me.

“What type of girl talk?” Over the years I found that “girl talk” had different meanings depending on the girl.
 

“Let’s talk about Erik. How long have you two been, you know . . .”

“No, I
don’t
know. I told you, I just met the guy.”

“I see how he looks at you. And how you look at him. You’re totally into him. It’s sooo obvious.” She said it in a tone that sounded just like Caitlyn.
 

“Erik and I are just friends.”

Brittany ignored my comment. “I’m sure you’ve done more than just talk the past few days,” she said, smiling and tilting her head to one side. “I mean, how could you not? Erik is so freakin’ hot.”

“Uh, no. We’ve just talked.” I didn’t like what she was inferring. I felt like I was back in middle school, when Caitlin spread rumors about me kissing the boy with bad acne.

“Come on. You can tell me.”

“Listen. Erik and I are not doing what you’re implying, nor do we have any intentions of doing that. So would you just drop it?”

“God, you sound like one of those smart girls again. Like you think you’re better than me.”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t like you saying those things about Erik and me. They’re not true. I have a boyfriend back home.”

“You do?” Brittany’s interest piqued again. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s tall, has dark hair. He’s good at sports.” I rattled on as if I didn’t care, hoping to squelch her enthusiasm for the topic.

“You don’t sound that excited. You must not like him that much. With Erik, your eyes light up. You’ve definitely got a thing for him. And he definitely has a thing for you.”

“Of course I like Colin. That’s his name, by the way.” I decided to ignore her comments about Erik. “I didn’t get excited because I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. I miss him, okay? And I never got to say goodbye. So I really don’t like talking about him.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Brittany finally gave up and turned to watch TV.

I wished I hadn’t even brought up Colin’s name. Thinking about him only reminded me of the reality of our future. I’d been holding on to a glimmer of hope that I might see him again. I wasn’t ready to give up on us. Just weeks ago, I had built a future for us in my mind. But now, as I was preparing to go on the run with Jack, Erik, and Brittany, it was finally sinking in that I would never see Colin again.

I stayed up all night with Brittany. Erik never came down to switch places with me. Jack never left his lab. By morning, Brittany had finally fallen asleep. I was wide awake. There was no time for sleep. I had to learn more from Erik. Practice my new skills. When I saw him at breakfast, it looked like he hadn’t slept much either.

“Hey, I’m sorry about last night, Sam,” he said, pouring us some coffee. “You’re right. She has to know. She’s gonna find out soon enough anyway. Friends?” He gave me a bright yellow mug with a smiley face on it.

“Friends,” I said, smiling at the silly mug.

“So you ready to get to work?”
 

“Sure. What do you have planned?”

“We’re gonna do the thought reading stuff again and then work on how you can better use your sensory skills. Like remember when I was trying to read that license plate from a half mile away? To do that you need to use your mind and your eyes. They have to work together. The problem that happened yesterday is that I got distracted trying to hold Brittany up and tell you where to turn. But you can’t lose focus like that.”

I got up to make some toast. “The whole mind-focusing thing seems to be key to everything.”

“Yeah. It’s crucial. You need to always focus on building a connection between your mind and whatever you’re trying to control. So if you’re trying to use a muscle to pick something up?” He went over to the washing machine that was in the hallway next to the kitchen. “You need to also use your mind.” He closed his eyes, then lifted the washing machine up, as if it was an empty paper box. “Now you try it.”

“I think I need breakfast first,” I said, sipping my coffee.

“Breakfast can wait. Come try this.”

I walked over to the washing machine. “It’s too awkward. I can’t get my arms around it. Can I try something else?”

Erik thought to himself, then looked outside. “The truck. Come on.”

“The truck? I can’t lift a pickup truck!” I followed Erik outside.

“You can’t think that way. Remember what I said? It’s all mental. You train your mind to tell your muscles what to do. Watch this.”

Erik went over to the truck, placed both hands under the front bumper, and slowly lifted it up off the ground, then set it down. “You don’t have to lift it really high. Just try to get it off the ground.”

“Can’t we start with something that doesn’t weigh several tons?” I asked, but Erik didn’t answer. I walked over to the truck, put my hands under the bumper, and closed my eyes. I imagined it being a toy truck made of plastic. I pictured my mind linking with my arm and back muscles. Then I took a breath, and slowly lifted it, keeping my mind focused on the images in my head. I opened one eye. It was off the ground! I was doing it!
 

As I tried to lift it higher, two black labs came racing out of the nearby fields, barking and nearly knocking me over. I dropped the truck and it came crashing to the ground. “Sam!” Erik grabbed me, pulling me away from the truck and landing us both on the dusty ground.
 

“Go! Get away!” Erik yelled at the dogs. They took off running again into the fields. “They’re from that farm down the road. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just startled. I was really trying to concentrate. And I was lifting it! Not very high. But still, can you believe it?”

“You did good, Sam,” Erik said, helping me up. “But you can’t break focus. No matter what happens around you, you have to keep that mind-muscle connection at all times. I know it’s hard, but that’s why you need to practice. It’s the same way with the thought reading. You need to block out all distractions. A crowded room, the phone ringing, dogs barking. You should be able to easily block all that out. The hard part is blocking out your surroundings when you’re under stress, like when someone’s coming after you or threatening you. But that’s when you need to focus the most.”

“That’s gonna take some time. Obviously, I’m not very good at this mind-muscle thing,” I said, looking over at the truck.

Erik smiled. “Not to make you overconfident or anything, but what you just did? That was incredible, Sam. It took me years to learn how to lift the truck like that. And I could only lift it a couple inches off the ground. Seriously, I didn’t think you’d be able to lift it at all. Then you go and lift it like a half foot off the ground on your first try.”

“Then why did you make me try lifting it? I could have been hurt.”

“First of all, I wouldn’t have let you get hurt. Second, I wanted you to have something to work toward. If I made lifting the truck sound easy and you couldn’t do it, it would motivate you to try harder, right? So I used that. And it worked.” Erik smiled again. “Except now I feel like a loser for taking so long to learn how to lift that truck myself.”

“Guess you just needed some competition,” I teased.

“Funny. Why don’t you try it a few more times and then we’ll have breakfast.”

I lifted the truck again and again, still only about 6-8 inches off the ground. But it felt easier each time I did it. I could feel my body’s connection with my mind getting stronger. I wasn’t sure when I would ever need this skill, but just showing myself I could do it built my confidence to try other things.

After breakfast, I was exhausted, mainly from not sleeping the night before. Erik gave me a break so I could take a nap. Brittany had taken over the bedroom, leaving me stuck sleeping on the basement sofa. My head barely hit the pillow and I was out.

“How could this happen? He said he’s been surfing his whole life.” An older man with short white hair and a deep brown tan stood on the upper deck of a beach house that overlooked the ocean.
 

“I’m guessing it was the current that got him,” a man in a police uniform answered. “We had warnings out. But these surfers always think they know better. They always risk it.” The officer looked out at the waves, shaking his head. “Does the boy have family around here? Someone we should contact?”

“No,” said the white-haired man. “Not that I know of. He just started working for me a few months ago. He runs my stand on the beach.” The man pointed to a shack with a sign that read ‘Al’s Rentals—Best Prices on Salt Creek.’ “We rent out boogie boards, beach chairs, that type of stuff. The boy didn’t have a place to stay, so I gave him the spare bedroom until he could save some money.”

“Do you have a photo of him? I’d like to at least try to search the system and see if any family members come up so we can notify them.”

The white-haired man thought about it a moment. “Well, he showed me some pictures of him at a surfing competition. They must be in his room. I’ll go check.”

The officer waited while the old man went to rummage through the side bedroom. He came back out holding a small stack of photos. “Here, you could take one of these.”

The officer leafed through the stack, choosing a photo and giving the rest back to the old man. “This one will work,” he said. “Handsome boy. It’s a shame he had to die so soon.”

He looked down at the photo. It showed a good-looking guy on the beach with a surfboard. The guy had well-defined muscles, a dark tan, sandy blond hair, and deep blue eyes. He looked familiar—almost like Erik.

When I woke up, it was early afternoon and Erik was next to me, packing boxes. “Hey, Sam. I was starting to think you’d never wake up. That sister of yours is still asleep. Doesn’t even wake up to eat.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked around. “What are you doing?”

“Dad wants me to go through everything and pack only what we need. It’s a big van, but his equipment will take up most of the back.”

I stared at Erik, amazed at how much he looked like the boy from the dream I’d just had. “Hey, have you ever surfed?”

“Uh, no.” He laughed. “When would I have learned to surf? I spent the first years of my life in a lab and I’ve been landlocked since living here. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. I just had this dream where—never mind.” I didn’t see any need to tell him details of the dream. “Maybe we should work on the thought reading some more. Speaking of that, I was wondering, were you reading my thoughts at the diner the other day when we met?”

He stopped packing and seemed unsure if he wanted to answer. Knowing I would try to read his thoughts to see if he was lying, he confessed. “Yes. That’s how I knew that you weren’t Brittany. You were scrambling to come up with lies to tell that waitress. But your face was giving you away. You’ll have to work on that. Good thing the waitress wasn’t paying attention.”

I tried to remember what else I had thought about that day. The dream I had on the bus of the two of us! Would he even remember me thinking about that?
 

“It’s strange,” Erik continued, “but at first I couldn’t read you at all. I was stuck in my own thoughts. Because when I saw you, I could have sworn that we had met before. So I kept trying to think how I might know you. And I’d had this dream—” Erik stopped, wishing he hadn’t said it.

“You had a dream about what?”

Erik hesitated. “Well, I had a dream—about a girl. She looked a little like you. Actually, she looked a lot like you. And I had the dream the day before we met and then you showed up at the diner.”

I was too embarrassed to ask more about the dream because I was sure it was the same one I had had. “Erik, do you ever have dreams about events that have already occurred?” I thought about my dream with Erik. “Or about events that might happen in the future?”

“No, not that I know of. Why?”
 

“I don’t know. It seems like I have, but I’m never sure if it’s just a dream or an actual event.”
 

“Ask my dad. He might know.”
 

Just then, Jack walked out of his lab. He looked exhausted but his energy level seemed to remain high. “Heard my name. What’s up? I need some coffee.”

“I’ll get it, Dad.” Erik went upstairs, leaving Jack and I to talk.

“Jack, I was telling Erik that sometimes I have these dreams that seem to be based on real-life events. Like I’m seeing events that happened in the past or will happen in the future. I had a bunch of them back in Minnesota. Before I left, Dave said the dreams were one of my abilities.”

“I would have to agree with Dave. Connecting with people through dreams was part of the research going on back when I was at GlobalLife. The theory was that if you could tap into another person’s mind, then you could see or feel that person’s memories or future plans. By reading people’s thoughts, you and Erik already do that on some level. So it’s not that much of a stretch to say that when you’re asleep, your mind is tapping into events that are memories belonging to someone else. Or even their thoughts for future events.”