Red Hands: A Novel

by Christopher Golden

  Walker frowned. “All right.” It was far from the first time he’d been called in because of something horrifying in an online video. After sitting on the bench for months, Wagner’s version of the naughty step, he was ready for any assignment, and since it had taken him away from his son, he figured it had better be damned important. The most horrifying things always were.

  “First, the SRC,” Alena said. “Here’s the gist. You’ve worked for the Department of Defense under various cover organizations—”

  “I work for DARPA, not the DoD.”

  “And everyone in DARPA works for the DoD. Don’t waste my time, Walker.”

  “Ma’am.” He nodded, not liking where this was going.

  “We’ve had some questionable exposure in the last couple of years, first in Turkey and then with the Pandora Room. But you know all about those. Someday soon, you and I will have a talk about your actions, but not today. Right now, here’s what you need to know. To have a fresh start, DARPA has created a new false front for our more esoteric research and investigations. It has a global face. We’ve brought in some like-minded scientists in cooperative foreign governments to share data … at least, a little bit of data. As far as the world knows, we’re the Global Science Research Coalition, or the SRC. You report to me now. Otherwise, it’s going to be business as usual for you. All the niceties can wait until this is over and we sit down in my office like ordinary people. That’s all simple enough, I take it?”

  Walker sank back into his chair. “You’re not going to tell me what happened with General Wagner, are you? Why he was removed? What he’s done to have what you called a ‘no-good, very bad day’?”

  “No. I am not. General Wagner is still overseeing various projects for DARPA. He’s their responsibility, not ours.”

  The engine continued to cycle. The plane seemed to thrum with urgency. Outside, the rain fell harder. From his seat, Walker had just the right angle to see the headlights on Alena’s Mercedes.

  “Let’s see the video,” he said.

  “This is Jericho Falls, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains,” Alena explained. “The events on this video took place at about fifteen minutes past eleven o’clock this morning. Not even three hours ago.”

  She tapped the screen, opened a file, and turned it toward him as it began to play. It started with a Fourth of July parade, and he flinched at the discordant noise of the marching band going by. When the car plowed into view and the screaming started, she turned the volume down a bit, and he was grateful, but it was only when the man stepped out of the car that Walker began to understand why he was here.

  “The woman who ran off,” he said while Alena folded up her liquid tablet. “Who is she?”

  “Just anyone. Her name is Maeve Sinclair. The people you saw die there, at the end, were her mother and brother—”

  Walker felt sick. “Jesus Christ. What the hell is this?”

  “Moments after that video ends, Blackcoats show up. There are helicopters. All from a place called Garland Mountain Laboratories. I’m working on finding out more, but all I know right now is what I’ve just told you, and that the driver of that car was a man named Oscar Hecht, an employee at Garland Mountain. Obviously, he was infected with something—”

  “Nothing I’ve ever seen,” Walker said. He felt a tightening in his chest, wondered how much she really knew. “There isn’t a contagion on earth that can be passed that quickly, particularly by simple skin contact, and even if there were, there’s never been a virus or bacterium that can infiltrate a body instantly, kill in seconds.”

  Alena exhaled a long breath. She sat up in her seat, back straight. “Are you finished?”

  Walker had always liked this woman. Admired her. She had a reputation for being fearless, brilliant, dedicated, honest, and fair, but there were other facets to that reputation, and he was seeing one of them.

  “Yes. I’m finished.”

  Alena stood. “To your insistence that there’s nothing like this, all I can say is that clearly, there is now. I’ve brought comm units for you, as well as some equipment that may be helpful, but supplement that with your own gear as you please. Go to Jericho Falls. Find out what the hell is going on, but most importantly, find Maeve Sinclair and protect her at all costs.”

  A shiver went through him. He’d been so shocked by what he’d seen that he’d barely been thinking about the young woman who’d endured that horror, who must be terrified and grieving, maybe blaming herself. Who had run off into the mountains.

  “The police will be searching for her—”

  “Yes, and those Blackcoats from Garland Mountain as well,” Alena agreed, moving to the exit. She paused at the top of the steps. “As Oscar Hecht was dying, she touched him. Moments later, she touched members of her family and they dropped dead, which means whatever contagion he was carrying, she’s carrying it now. We have to assume everyone she touches is going to die. The police will be looking for her, and those Blackcoats, but they won’t be the only ones. This video is online. It’s already on the news channels. There will be others who want to know how Garland Mountain did this, who want to study Maeve Sinclair. Still others—and you know this, Walker, think about it—will want to be the one to personally take this woman’s life, just on the chance that this power, this ‘death touch,’ will pass to them as it did to her from Oscar Hecht.

  “Go and find her, Walker. Bring her back to me.”

  Walker’s stomach twisted with nausea. “Because we’re so different from whomever else is going to be hunting her? The SRC isn’t going to be just as interested in studying her, figuring out how to use this for ourselves?”

  Alena only shook her head. “The difference is, with me, she’ll still be alive.”

  She went down the steps, climbed into her car, and was gone before Walker had even retrieved his gear from the Jeep. Ten minutes later, he was in the air, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into.

  As always.

  5

  Rue helped Ted up the front steps of the home he’d shared with Ellen when the two of them had still been married. It had been Ted’s childhood home, but he’d willingly moved out during the divorce, determined that his kids would grow up in this house. Ted had found himself a little two-bedroom cottage in the woods behind the old fire station, and it suited him just fine—the perfect place to drink or get high on Oxy or morphine or whatever he could get his hands on. Rue had tried so many times to convince him to get help, resisted all his efforts to push her away, until one day he’d told her he didn’t want to die, but he didn’t want to feel what it was like to be alive anymore.

  That had done it. Something had broken inside him then, as if he’d heard himself speaking those words and cracked in half. Shaking, raging, he’d punched a hole in the wall of his cottage and then asked her to take him somewhere to get help. Rue had done it.

  If Ted had managed to give up drinking at the same time, Rue thought Ellen might have taken him back after that. But a week after he’d gotten out of rehab, he’d reunited with his other oldest friend, whiskey. Said he needed the whiskey to help keep him buzzing so he’d stay away from the pills. The logic seemed absurd. His doctor said it would lead to further disaster, but so far it had been working.

  After today, Rue figured all bets were off.

  They’d gone to the hospital. X-rays showed three cracked ribs. He had a mild concussion. Lots of bruises and scrapes. He’d sprained his right knee, which remained swollen and blackened from smashing against the windshield. He would be in a lot of pain and discomfort for quite a while, but physically, he would recover.

  She held Ted by one arm as if he were a hundred years old, escorted him up the front steps, used his key to get him through the front door. He gazed into some unseen space, some nothing world, and she wondered if his mind had gone completely numb or if his thoughts were about the son he had just lost, about how badly he’d spoiled his relationship with Ellen and how he’d never be able to make it up to
her now. She wondered if coming home had been a good idea. There might be booze here. And even if he had kicked his pill addiction eight months ago, he’d still know how to get them if he really wanted them. That was the thing about broken people—there was always someone happy to help you shatter even further.

  On the threshold, Ted seemed to wake abruptly from his somnambulism. His head snapped up and he glanced around, nearly knocking Rue into the shrubs to one side of the brick steps.

  “Rose?” he said, his eyes red and rheumy, salty streaks on his face where his tears had dried. He still held his injured arm against his chest.

  A massive oak tree spread a shady canopy across half the front yard. Rue remembered climbing that tree with Ted when she was a kid, sharing secrets and cigarettes. Now Rose sat in the shade of its leaves, twenty-one years old, grieving in silent agony in Priya’s arms.

  It was Priya who looked up at Ted now. “Go on inside, Mr. Sinclair. I’ve got her. Just give us a few minutes and we’ll come in. I think she just needs…”

  Priya tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear, as good as a shrug. Her expression crumbled, because the truth was she had no idea what Rose needed. Rue understood the look on her face because it mimicked the feeling in her own heart. What the hell was she supposed to do for Ted Sinclair?

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Ted said. “Thank you.”

  Priya wiped at her own tears and nodded. Ted shuffled into his house, Rue at his side, and he looked around the living room—at the two recliners in front of the TV and the magazines and coffee mugs and blankets thrown about the place, showing it was lived-in and loved and busy—and he brought a trembling hand up to cover his eyes.

  Rue escorted him to the sofa and sat with him, one hand on his back as he took deep breaths. Slowly, he straightened up, reached out, and took her right hand in both of his.

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Ted. I’m just taking my best friend home.”

  Ted tried to smile.

  “You should have stayed in the hospital,” Rue said. “You know that.”

  He looked at her as if he hadn’t heard. “My son is … Logan is gone.”

  Rue had no reply to that. They’d put a brace on his knee and wrapped his torso tightly enough that he could barely breathe, trying to get his ribs to heal. But there was no cure for having watched your child die, watching the woman you still loved die. And what about Maeve? He’d lost her, too, or so it seemed.

  “You should sleep, Ted. I still can’t believe the way you went over the top of that car. Jesus, that was…” Rue stopped herself. He’d been through more than enough already today.

  Ted wetted his lips with his tongue and glanced over toward the ornate cabinet in the corner. He hadn’t lived in this house for a long time, but he definitely remembered where his ex kept the liquor.

  Rue’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted to do was give him a drink, but she saw the shame and the plea in his eyes and reckoned that if anyone ever truly needed a drink, it was Ted Sinclair on this godforsaken day.

  “I’ll pour you one,” she said, knowing how hard it would be for him to ask.

  The gratitude in his eyes made her want to cry.

  “What else can I get you?” she asked as she handed him a tumbler of Jameson Irish Whiskey.

  “Information,” Ted replied, sipping the whiskey. Some of the color returned to his face. “What’s going on, Rue?”

  “I don’t know any better than you do. I’m sorry, but—”

  “You know a hell of a lot about a hell of a lot,” Ted said. “You saw what happened, what Maeve did, what that piece of shit in the car did in that crowd. I need to know what you think is going on here.”

  He took another sip of whiskey, then stared into the glass a moment before downing the rest in a single gulp. Exhaling through his teeth, wincing in pain, Ted stood up and limped over to the closet by the door. He dug around until he pulled out a pair of weathered brown hiking boots, then kicked off his shoes and slid to the floor, not bothering with a chair. He hissed with the pain of every movement, flushing red as his cracked ribs grated.

  “I’m not going to ask what you think you’re doing,” Rue said, running a hand over the stubble on the shaved side of her head. “Get into bed, Ted. The police are up there looking for her now—”

  “I’m her father,” he said without looking up as he tried to lace his first boot with only one good hand.

  “What about Rose?”

  The question might have been unfair, given the circumstances. Rue knew that. But Rose sat out under the shade tree with her girlfriend, mourning and in shock but very much alive. Alive and safe. She needed her father as much as Maeve did.

  “Can you stay with them?” Ted asked. “I know they’re twenty-one and they’re supposed to be adults now, but after this morning, I can’t leave them without someone to watch over them. I’m sure Priya’s parents will come, maybe stay with them both—Rose has gotten close with them, and she’ll understand that I need to do this. She’ll want me to do this.”

  Rue didn’t share his certainty. “Of course,” she said, watching as Ted began to lace up his second boot, wincing at the pain in his knee. “I think you’re making a mistake, but I’m here for whatever you need. I’ll talk to the police, and I’m going to figure out what the hell happened at that lab. Whatever happened at the parade today, it didn’t start there. What’s happened to Maeve didn’t have to happen, and…”

  She saw the way his face paled, and her words trailed off. Ted wiped at his eyes, hands trembling again. Rue knew he was in no condition to go up into the mountains alone. Hell, he shouldn’t even leave the house. He had refused opioids at the hospital, so all they’d given him for his pain had been the equivalent of a fistful of Advil. What little it might be doing to blunt his pain would wear off soon. Rue couldn’t let him go, but he would hate her for trying to stop him, just as she would hate him if the situation were reversed.

  A rap came on the screen door. Rue and Ted both snapped around to see Chief Kaminski beyond the screen mesh, staring in at them. Len Kaminski had been chief for three years, and while the job would have aged most men, Rue thought Kaminski looked heartier and healthier than he had when he’d been a captain or a lieutenant. He’d lost beer weight, his face tan instead of ruddy, and while the graying of his hair had reached lightning speed, his eyes were clear and alert. The top job had given him renewed purpose, and Rue felt a wave of relief wash over her the moment he drew open the screen door, hinges squealing.

  “Where you going, Mr. Sinclair?” Kaminski asked, like it was the most natural question in the world.

  Ted blinked a few times, as if the words needed extra processing. “What kind of question is that?”

  Kaminski ran a hand across his chin as if trying to decide if he needed a shave. “Let me start again. I need you to take a minute before you go running off and get yourself shot—”

  “Shot?” Rue asked. “Did they shoot someone?”

  “No, no, hang on,” Kaminski said. “Just hear me out.” He hooked his fingers into his belt. She had seen other cops do the same and wondered if they were trained not to stick their hands into their pockets, making it harder to draw a weapon or otherwise react in a crisis.

  “I’ve called in the state police,” he said. “A dozen of them are already here, with more on the way. Between my officers and those troopers, we’ve got seventeen people up on the mountain now, making a sweep that starts right where Maeve ran into the woods.”

  Ted shook his head. “She’s not going to stick close to town, Chief. My girls know these mountains. They camp and fish. If Maeve doesn’t want to be found, she’s going to head up the slope into deeper woods.”

  “Fair enough,” Kaminski said, “but this is a methodical search. Let us do what we need to do.”

  Rue held up her hands. “Chief, I’m sorry, but seventeen people is nothing up on Champney. Those woods go on forever. I know you don’t have a l
ot of personnel, and what happened at the parade … my God, it must be chaos over there still. But if Ted wants to go and look, and if he’s too stubborn to follow the doctor’s orders after the bashing he took, then he should go out looking for Maeve. And I’m sure we can round up plenty of people who will help.”

  “You think so?” Chief Kaminski said, a new edge to his voice. “You think lots of people who saw what happened today are gonna want to comb through the woods looking for Maeve?”

  Ted took it like a punch in the gut. Rue saw him recoil. He rubbed the back of his good hand across his mouth, the way he always did when the craving dug its claws into him and he really needed a drink.

  “Jesus, Len—” she said.

  “Fuck you, Chief,” Ted spat, face reddening, clearly not caring that the man carried a gun. “You didn’t see it happen. That son of a bitch drove right through the crowd, killed people with his car and then with his bare goddamn hands. I’m lucky to be alive. Maeve did what she did to save lives, to stop that lunatic, and then he … he fucking gave her whatever the hell disease he was carrying.”

  “Yeah. Sure looked that way,” Kaminski said. “You’re living a nightmare day, Mr. Sinclair. Losing your ex and your boy like that. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. My point is that most people were either there or have seen video, and speculation is running wild. Whatever sickness Maeve’s got in her now … well, that’s the reason most people aren’t gonna be rushing to join a search party.”

  Anger prickled the skin at the back of Rue’s neck. She knew her face must have been flushing with it. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and this is my job. But I also know this town, and I’ve known Ted most of my life. People care for him and his family, and fear is not going to keep the people who really give a damn from helping him now.”