HUM by Dan Hawley (book club reads .TXT) 📗

also on speaker, allowing Jason to chime in when necessary. He did his best to sound strong; he wanted Denise and Ken to feel confident that he could take care of their daughter.

After reassuring her parents several times that she and Jason were fine and just needed a good sleep, Samantha ended the call. She set the phone down on the coffee table and stared up at the tv’s flat, black screen.

Jason had stood up and gone to the window. He looked out into the night, gloomy and quiet. Since the lockdown started two months prior, the streets had been nearly empty.

What used to be a bustling harbor front was now reduced to a scene of boarded-up windows and empty sidewalks. Closed down businesses meant less people. The shortage of people meant fewer trucks. Fewer trucks meant that the area was much quieter than it had been before. The quiet streets would have suited Jason just fine, except the stillness outside only magnified the presence of the hum inside.

He stood staring out the window but entirely focused on the dull, constant drone of the sound behind the walls. The sound vibrated its way under his skin and cut into his bones like a dull saw. Jason’s jaw mashed his teeth together as his hands balled into fists. He hated that hum. He hated this apartment for housing that hum. He hated that he felt so helpless against it. It wasn’t some broken piece of code he could fix or a carburetor that could be cleaned. It was something beyond his control.

“Come to bed.” The words broke his trance.

Samantha’s gentle touch upon his elbow calmed his taut muscles and beckoned him to the bedroom.

* * *

Samantha was so drained from the day’s events that she was unconscious soon after her head hit the pillow. Jason lay beside her, staring at the ceiling, wishing he could follow suit.

He jealously listened to her nose whistle every time she breathed in.

Behind that was the hum.

It was the only ambient sound in the apartment; all other sounds lived and died, but not the hum. It was constant and unrelenting like a freight train. It was the blank, grey canvas waiting for the painter’s brush to add color and shape.

Shapes and images.

Jason tried to keep the pictures from his mind as he lay there, taunted by the hum. The memories passed through his thoughts, brilliant flashes of green and crimson. He saw the hiker’s pale, tortured face. Her dull eyes stared into his soul, searching for darkness, and finding it.

CHAPTER 9

“Goddamn it, Chester,” Jason said. “Is there really nothing you can do about that damn noise?”

“We had the electrician come in and inspect the electrical room, and everything was normal. I asked him about the hum you mentioned, and he said you can hear a lot in the walls in these older buildings. Not much for insulation, since it doesn’t get very cold here. In other words, not much I can do, I’m afraid.” Chester’s blue surgical mask bounced up and down as he spoke. Seattle had instituted a by-law requiring people to wear masks in public, enclosed spaces. Jason didn’t like it much, but he agreed with the principle—to protect others from your germs.

Chester sat behind his sturdy desk. Near the front was a big bottle of hand sanitizer with a pump nozzle on top, the opening caked in dried chemicals.

Hand sanitizer was everywhere now. Jason had even seen a homeless guy outside a local grocery store, bent over with his mouth around the spout, chugging away gleefully.

“It’s so bad,” Jason said meekly. “It’s affecting my sleep and my work.” He paused. “Hasn’t anyone else in this building complained about it?”

Chester shifted in his seat.

“Well, no,” Chester replied, then brightened. “Have you thought of headphones?”

“So I’m just supposed to wear headphones all the damn time?”

“I’m sorry, Jason. Just trying to help.”

“It’s not your fault, Chester.”

The big man eased back into his chair a little, relaxed by Jason’s decision to take a more calm tone.

“It just sucks.”

Jason was pacing in front of Chester’s desk as he spoke. “Yesterday was a rough one, and I just wanted a good night’s sleep, and it didn’t happen, headphones or not.”

Chester sat watching his visitor pace. Jason stopped walking when he realized complaining further would solve nothing, said his thank-yous, and excused himself.

“Well, what did Chester say?”

Samantha was busy in the kitchen, cooking something for lunch. The tip of her ponytail gingerly touched the collar of her white robe as she worked.

“He said there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it.”

Jason removed a small bottle of sanitizer from his pocket and squeezed some into his hand, a wholly unconscious habit now. He kicked off a shoe, but before he could remove the other one, a knock sounded loudly at the door. Jason turned in place and opened it.

A tall, uniformed police officer stood in the entrance, a blue surgical mask blocking his mouth.

“Good morning,” he said. “Are you Jason?”

“I am.”

“Do you mind if I come in for a moment?”

“Not at all.”

Jason opened the door further and stood to the side to allow the officer through. The officer took a few steps into the apartment and removed his hat. “Ma’am.” He nodded towards Samantha.

She turned the dials on the stove off and removed the cooked food from the hot burners.

“Hello,” she replied. “How can we help you, officer?”

“Detective,” the man said from under his mask. “Detective John Topp.”

Detective Topp scanned the room as he spoke.

“It involves the incident yesterday at Mount Rainier.”

“Did you find out what happened?” Jason asked.

Detective Topp looked at Samantha.

“Well, when you called 911, the boys in Ashford quickly set up a checkpoint on the road in front of their station. That’s the one you folks passed through.”

Sam and Jason both nodded, hanging on the detective’s words.

“Well, another one was set up where the one-twenty-three comes out at highway twelve on the other side of the mountain. These are the only roads