At the Stroke of Madness

by Alex Kava

  He barely got to the trees before he saw Luc Racine, wandering behind one of the buildings. The old man looked lost. Adam started to call out to him, then stopped, looking around for Simon. He had called the funeral home before he drove out here, hoping he’d catch Simon and be able to confront him in public. But they told him Simon had called in sick, and that alone sent a wave of panic through Adam. Simon never called in sick.

  Now he wished he had tried to get ahold of Henry again, but each time he had tried, Beverly told him Sheriff Watermeier was in a very important meeting and could not be disturbed. That his deputy had been instructed to handle any emergencies.

  Adam made his way to Luc, staying in the trees and watching for signs of Maggie or Simon. When he was close enough, he called to Luc in a low voice, “Mr. Racine. Hey, Luc.”

  The old man turned around so suddenly he almost tripped. His eyes darted everywhere and Adam worried he might be having one of his blank moments.

  “Over here, Mr. Racine.” He came out from the trees and walked to Luc, his eyes watching in all directions.

  “Oh, Professor, it’s you. You scared me.”

  “Sorry. Where’s Maggie?”

  “I don’t know. But I think I heard someone in this cabin over here.”

  “Have you seen Simon?”

  “No, no, not at all. We need to find Maggie. I just don’t have a good feeling. I think she’s been gone too long.” He was shifting from one foot to the other, back and forth in almost a nervous dance.

  “Okay, calm down. We’ll find her. Let’s check in here.”

  They couldn’t see in through the windows and the door was locked with a chain and padlock. Adam used the pry bar, twisting and pounding at it until finally it broke open. The light in the room was dim. Adam thought it looked like a cozy cabin, except for the shelves that lined the walls. Shelves with rows and rows of jars and crocks that reminded him of his own lab back at the university. Then he noticed the bed in the far corner. Someone moved under the covers.

  The woman curled up and strapped in the bed jerked awake. She cried out when she saw them, smiling and laughing. Then suddenly she winced and cried out with pain.

  CHAPTER 68

  Maggie felt the exhaustion. She needed to think. She needed to stay calm. No good would come from panic. Her hands throbbed with pain. That was good, good that she could still feel something even if it was pain. Yes, it was good that the cold bit into her skin, that it hadn’t gone totally numb. Good that she could still hear her teeth chattering and feel her body shivering.

  Shivering was the body’s way of warming itself. Soon she’d be too tired to shiver, her blood too thick, her heart and lungs too slow to respond. Even her brain would become less efficient as she crossed the boundary into hypothermia.

  She tried to remember what she could expect. She tried to remember what happens during hypothermia. If she could remember maybe she could look out for the signs and fight them.

  She knew it was possible to survive several hours in extreme cold, but how many? Two? Three? She couldn’t remember. What else was there? She needed to remember.

  Soon the cold would shut down her metabolism. Her lungs would take in less oxygen and her breaths would become fewer so that it would look like she wasn’t even breathing. That was good, because there couldn’t be much air in this freezer. Oh, God! Would she suffocate before she froze to death?

  She knew the same was true for her heart rate. It would slow down, too, which seemed impossible at the moment. It seemed so loud, hammering in her ears. But it would slow to a faint, almost inaudible rate, so that if someone were to feel her pulse, he might not feel one at all.

  She kept telling herself that she had plenty of time until they found her. But who would come looking for her? Other than Simon the only person who knew she was here was Luc Racine. Would he come looking for her when she didn’t come back to the car? Would he call for help? Oh, damn! How could he call for help? And again, she remembered that she had left him with a dead cell phone. What did it matter? He might not even remember where he was or who she was.

  The panic clawed at her. She resisted the urge to beat her fists against the walls of the freezer again. She told herself that panic was also good. It was when the panic subsided that she’d need to start worrying. Although by that time she might not care.

  She tried to concentrate again. She wanted to go through the list of things to expect. It would keep her mind working.

  What other things were there? Oh, yes, the lack of oxygen would trigger hallucinations. They could be visual or auditory or both. She might see people when there was no one there at all. Or she might hear someone talking or calling to her, but it would only be her mind playing tricks on her.

  There was also the sudden and extreme heat. Yes, heat after the cold. It was one of the cruel paradoxes of severe hypothermia. There was supposedly a burning sensation that made victims want to tear off their clothing and rip at their skin. No problem there. She couldn’t move enough to do either. Ironically, the heat was one of the last things they remembered before losing consciousness. That’s if they could remember.

  Amnesia would eventually chip away at the brain. Maybe it was the body’s last defense, a sort of odd blessing to replace the memory of pain and cold with a simple void.

  She could feel her muscles already getting stiff. They throbbed and ached from the shivering. She tried to think of warm things. Maybe Gwen was right. Maybe she did need a vacation. And she tried to imagine a beach, hot sand between her toes, the sun beating down on her skin, warm, refreshing waves washing up against her. If not a beach then maybe her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of hot chocolate while her body cuddled into a thick down comforter while she sat in front of a roaring fire. So warm she could curl up, curl up and…sleep.

  She was so exhausted. Sleep sounded good. She closed her eyes. She could feel her breaths coming slower, more and more shallow. The pain in her hands had gone away. Or maybe she simply couldn’t feel the pain anymore. The panic had subsided. She felt it slipping away. She was so very tired, so sleepy. Yes, she’d close her eyes. Just for a moment or two. It was so dark, so quiet.

  She’d allow herself to sleep. Just for a little while. She’d sleep under the warm sunshine. She could hear the waves splashing, a seagull up above. From somewhere in the back of her mind, someplace where her brain had slowed down but hadn’t stopped working, from somewhere there came a faint whine, a soft, almost inaudible alarm insisting she open her eyes, pleading with her to not give in to the darkness.

  At the same time came the realization that she had already stopped shivering. And she knew it was too late.

  CHAPTER 69

  Luc searched every room of the house and still hadn’t found Maggie. Where in the world was she? Sheriff Watermeier seemed convinced Simon Shelby had taken her with him. His deputies searched the surrounding woods while the State Patrol were said to be setting up roadblocks.

  Luc could still hear the ambulance’s siren as it whined up Whippoorwill Drive. One of the paramedics said it looked like the woman named Joan had been poisoned. What if Simon had poisoned Maggie?

  He fidgeted, wringing his hands, then raced back up the stairs to check closets and corners he knew he had already checked. The whole time he kept thinking that she had saved him once. He couldn’t possibly let her down. He didn’t even know how long it had been since she left him in the car. Simon could have taken her hours ago.

  “Luc?” Adam was in the hall between the kitchen and the stairwell. “Any sign of her?”

  “No. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “Henry’s put out an APB on Simon. If he has her with him, they’ll find and stop him.”

  “I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “She’s a tough woman. She can take care of herself.”

  But as he said it Luc could tell Adam hadn’t convinced himself.

  “What kind of madman does this?” Luc hated that the panic was still
caught like a lump in his throat, making his voice crack. “Out back in the trees there’s a bunch of white packages of frozen meat or something. He just threw it all out there to rot. What kind of a crazy man does something like that?”

  “Wait a minute.” Adam started searching again. “You say he threw out stuff from a freezer?”

  “Yeah, piles of it. It was back—” But he saw it at the same time Adam did. They raced to the chest freezer in the kitchen corner, both of them hesitating and looking at each other almost as if they were as afraid to open it as they were hopeful.

  CHAPTER 70

  Out of the darkness Maggie thought she heard a hum, a faint whine that wouldn’t go away. That kept getting louder, though was still in the distance. An annoying whine. Was it a voice? Was she only imagining it? Hallucinating?

  She was too tired to care.

  Her eyelids burned as a flash of light came at her, then was gone. Laser beams, another flash and then darkness.

  “Gone.”

  Yes, they were gone as quickly as they came at her.

  “She’s gone.”

  No, wait. It was a voice. She could barely make it out. Quiet and muffled, the words didn’t make sense as they came through a wind tunnel.

  “She’s gone.”

  Her muscles were stiff. Her arms frozen at her sides. There was no willing them to move. Another flash of light and this time it came with a flash of color, blue and a blur of orange.

  “No pulse.”

  She was too tired to ask what the voices meant. She couldn’t ask if she wanted to. She had no control of her body. It seemed gone, stolen out from under her. She couldn’t feel it or see it.

  “She’s gone” came the words again, and this time that alarm in the back of her brain said, “They mean you! They’re talking about you.”

  But no. She wasn’t gone. She needed to tell them.

  “No pulse.”

  No, wait, she wanted to yell but couldn’t because she was floating off in the distance and had no command of her body. They needed to listen to her chest. They wouldn’t be able to get a pulse at her wrist. Her heartbeat had slowed down. It was a faint murmur, but it was beating. She could feel it.

  “No dilation.”

  Please, wait. Why couldn’t she see them? If they were looking into her eyes, why couldn’t she see? The flashes of light. That had to be what it was. Her eyes wouldn’t respond. But she was still here. How could she let them know she was still alive?

  “She’s gone.”

  No, no, no. Her brain seemed to be screaming it, but it was no use. They believed she was dead. She couldn’t see beyond the black. She couldn’t make her muscles respond.

  No, wait. Maybe she was dead.

  Wasn’t this what dead felt like? A faint consciousness with no control over her body. No body to control.

  Oh, God! Maybe they were right. Maybe she was gone. Gone forever. She felt herself slipping again. She’d close her eyes and sleep some more. Or were they already closed? She slept and woke again when she heard something. Nothing. More sleep. What felt like hours. A warm darkness slipped in tight around her. Liquid warmth ran through her veins. And she felt herself leaving again. Yes, maybe this was what it felt like. No second chances. No warnings. Gone.

  Then suddenly she thought she saw…no, it couldn’t be. Through a blur of gray haze she saw her father and then she knew it was true. She really was dead.

  CHAPTER 71

  “Maggie?”

  It hurt to open her eyes. The light blinded her. The images swirled above her head. The humming of equipment filled her ears. And her mouth tasted like rubber and cotton. She tried to focus on the voice and where it was coming from. If it was real. Then she felt someone squeeze her hand.

  “Maggie? You have to come back or I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Gwen?” It hurt to talk, but at least she could. She tried again. “Where am I?”

  “You scared us, O’Dell.”

  She turned her head to look up at Tully standing on the other side of the bed. Just the slight turn made her dizzy.

  “What happened? Where am I?”

  “You’re at Yale-New Haven Medical Center,” Gwen told her. “You suffered a severe case of hypothermia.”

  “They had to drain all your blood out of you, O’Dell, warm it up and pump it back in. So you can’t complain about being cold-blooded, okay?”

  “Very funny.” Gwen shot him a look.

  “What, we’re not allowed to make jokes?”

  “You really did have us scared, Maggie,” Gwen said, caressing her forehead with the warm palm of her hand.

  “What happened?”

  “Look, Maggie, you’re going to have amnesia and probably not remember everything that happened. We can go through it later when you’re stronger, okay?”

  “But how long have I been gone?”

  “You’ve been out of it since Thursday.”

  “What day is it?”

  “It’s Saturday evening, sweetie.” Gwen was still holding her hand and smoothing back her hair.

  “What about Simon Shelby?”

  “That she remembers. Always on duty, aren’t you, O’Dell?” Tully smiled. “Maryland State Patrol caught him last night. We’re not sure where he was headed. He actually had taken some of his specimens with him in the trunk.”

  “Specimens?” Maggie asked, trying to fight through the annoying haze.

  “We were right,” Tully said. “He was cutting out deformed livers, tumored brains, diseased hearts, crippled bones. Meriden’s police lab thinks they may have already matched a pair of eyes to that reporter. They’re running DNA tests on some of the other pieces. They’ll probably be able to match some of them to the bodies in the rock quarry. You should have seen his work shed, O’Dell. Shelves and shelves of jars and containers. It’s hard to tell how many victims or how long he’s been doing this. And he’s not talking. In fact, it looks like he might end up in a padded cell somewhere.”

  “My guess is it started five years ago,” Gwen said, “when his mother died. I talked to a nurse at the local hospital. She remembered Simon Shelby and his mother, Sophie. This nurse told me she even felt sorry for him. The mother was constantly bringing him into the emergency room in the middle of the night. He always complained of terrible stomach cramps, but tests never showed anything out of the ordinary. His mother may have been poisoning him, just like he was poisoning Joan Begley.”

  “Is she okay?” Maggie asked. “Is she alive?”

  “She’s alive and she’s going to be okay,” Gwen said. “She’s up at MidState Medical Center in Meriden. It looks like Shelby was giving her low doses of arsenic. She has a long recovery ahead of her, but they think she’ll be okay.”

  “I thought I died,” Maggie confessed. That much she could remember.

  “So did the two men who found you,” Gwen told her, moving in closer against the bed railing. “Luc Racine told me that he was sure you were dead. They couldn’t get a pulse. Your eyes wouldn’t respond to light. But he said Professor Bonzado wouldn’t give up on you. You’re really lucky he didn’t, Maggie. Hypothermia can easily disguise itself.”

  “You’re probably going to wish you died when Cunningham gets ahold of you,” Tully said, but he was smiling.

  “So I guess he knows.”

  “Let’s just say he sent that white flower plant.” Tully pointed to the potted plant on one side of the table. “The card says it’s a false dragonhead, commonly known as an obedient plant.”

  “Are Luc and Adam here?” Maggie asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “They’ll be by later. In fact, Tully, why don’t you go call them.”

  Maggie thought she saw Gwen and Tully exchange a look, some secret between them.

  “I’ll be right back,” Tully said, and squeezed Maggie’s shoulder. “Emma wanted you to know that she’s taking good care of Harvey.”

  “Just don’t let her think she gets to keep him, Tully.”


  “Yes, I know.” And he left.

  “Maggie, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  She braced herself and suddenly tried to move her legs. Yes, legs worked. Arms worked.

  “What are you doing?” Gwen laughed. “No, you’re fine. Really. But I just thought I should warn you. Your mother is here. She’s down in the cafeteria taking a break. She’s been here since Thursday night.”

  “Oh. Okay. Wow! You really were worried about me, huh?”

  “The procedure for bringing someone back from severe hypothermia can kill the patient,” Gwen said, the pent-up emotion of two days revealing itself. “I’m sorry. But I was really worried. Your mother’s not the only one I called. Now, you can be upset with me all you want, but there’s someone else I called.” Gwen squeezed her hand then went to the door. “You can come in now.”

  Patrick walked in, not hesitating, and came directly to the bed. But then he stood there, staring down at her.

  “They’ve told you?” she asked.

  “And it’s a good thing. I wonder how many more trips and how many more Diet Pepsis it would have taken you.” He smiled their father’s smile.

  “It was you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I thought I was dead. I thought I saw my dad…our dad. But it must have been you I saw.”

  “So you’ll tell me about him sometime?”

  “How much time do you have?” She smiled at him.

  He sat down, taking Gwen’s chair at the bedside. “My shift doesn’t start for a couple more hours.”

  EPILOGUE

  Three months later

  Connecticut Mental Facility

  Simon hated this room. It smelled of disinfectant, but it wasn’t clean. He could see cobwebs on the ceiling in the far right corner. And the nurses or wardens or what ever they called them weren’t very clean, either. The one with the tattoo had greasy long hair and bad breath. But at least they treated him okay. And Dr. Kramer had even given him something for his stomach that seemed to make it better…sometimes. It still hurt once in a while. Once in a while around midnight.