Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

  It must have been terrifying. After our last couple of encounters with those kids, I would have been happy avoiding them as much as possible. I didn’t care to be stupid enough to fight off a horde of them again.

  At least, I thought I wouldn’t want another go at them. Sometimes when the rage took over, I had no idea of what I’d do next.

  “When was this?” Carina asked.

  “Last night. I thought they were going to get through,” Julia added softly. “The doors were giving out. But those men showed up.”

  “What men?” I asked.

  “Sterling Securities.”

  Carina and I shared another look.

  “They drove the kids away long enough for us to evacuate. Some of us wanted to stay. A lot of our patients were in no condition to be transported down the hall, much less across town to another hospital. They told us we didn’t have a choice.”

  “They?” I said. “The Sterling men?”

  She nodded. “They didn’t have the men to protect every hospital, so we really didn’t have a choice. If we stayed here, those kids would come back and we’d die for sure.” She sighed. “We lost two in the move.”

  “Wait, so those kids never got into the ICU?” Carina asked.

  “They did later. They must have come back,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “Stuff was trashed? Like the computers?” I asked.

  “Especially the computers.”

  I deflated a little. We had no clue what we were looking for when we came, but the computers were most likely our best bet. “What about servers. Don’t you have a central place to back up data?”

  “They got in there, too,” she said. “Why?”

  “We thought getting information here would help find our families,” Carina said.

  “You never answered my question,” Julia turned the conversation back to us. “What ties? What information were you expecting to find here?”

  “We don’t really know,” Carina admitted.

  “Maybe you two should leave it to the police,” Julia said. “You have contacted the police, right?”

  “Yes,” Carina said. “They said they couldn’t do anything about it at the moment.”

  Technically, another half-truth. Carina had called the police when we found her house trashed and dad missing. We just hadn’t bothered with trying them since.

  “I don’t see how you’ll be able to find anything that will help you here,” Julia said with a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. Do you need a ride home?”

  I hid a smile with a hand, thinking of the stolen Hummer. We had a ride covered.

  The humor was short lived. I hadn’t forgotten the next step if we found nothing at the hospital. Sterling Securities. I had no doubt that was where Nathen had been taken. Even if he wasn’t there, I figured I could beat his location out of somebody. I really didn’t want to resort to that, but it was looking more and more like that would be our next step.

  Carina touched my arm and the haze of red cleared from my vision. I found myself standing in the hall again.

  “If there’s anything here,” she said, “we need to find it. Anything.”

  Julia folded her arms and shifted into a motherly stance. “Look, I’m sorry for your families, but I really don’t think there’s anything here for you. I should really drive you both home.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” I snapped. “There’s nobody at our homes. They’re gone.”

  Her stern look softened a bit. “Maybe I should take you to the police station. I’m sure we could get them to listen.”

  Carina and I looked at each other. I had never believed in the cliché ‘they shared a conversation with just a look,’ but we did just that. In just a glance, we silently debated whether to tell Julia the truth or not. At least the truth we dared to tell. Just enough to get her help.

  “We found documents that my dad’s company distributed experimental drugs for women who were scheduled to give birth at this hospital.”

  “Experimental?” Julia’s brows drew together. “What kind of experimental drugs?”

  “Prenatal or whatever,” I said, remembering I had heard that term when Mom was pregnant with the twin brats.

  “This hospital only uses well tested and known medication for its pregnant patients,” Julia said with a shake of her head.

  “It was fourteen to eighteen years ago,” Carina said.

  “That’s a long time ago,” Julia insisted. “What would that have to do with your family’s disappearance now?”

  “All the files we have come across have pointed to that period.”

  I hoped the nurse didn’t ask what files we were talking about and where we got them from. I didn’t want to be connected to Mr. Walker’s death.

  “They seemed really important,” Carina went on. “My dad had pictures on his desktop of his lab and this hospital with time stamps from back then. Why would he have old pictures on his desktop if it hadn’t become important now?”

  I just think…” Her voice drifted off and her eyes took on a faraway look. She drew her brows together.

  “Carina?” I asked.

  “I think those experiments back then have something to do with whatever is going on now,” she finished, her voice breathy like she had just come to that realization and was hesitant to say it out loud.

  “But those files we found,” I said, tiptoeing around how we came across Mr. Walker’s files, “said it was mostly refused by the women.”

  “It did, but what if—” She stopped herself, unwilling to say her thoughts out loud.

  “What if they were given that drug without their knowledge?” Julia finished.

  “It would be a great start to explaining things.”

  “I find it hard to believe any health professionals would–”

  “With all due respect, health professionals are human, too,” Carina said. “It’s all adding up and making too much sense. Your dad’s company makes pills, right?”

  “They make all kind of drug related stuff. Pills, pre-loaded needles, saline bags, medical equipment, whatever. What’s your point?”

  “What if Lindström made some kind of medicine that was given to those mothers so many years ago and Salt Lake Pharmaceuticals produced and distributed them? What if it did something to us—them,” she corrected with a glance at the nurse.

  Julia didn’t seem to notice the slip. “What if it did something to genetically change the babies?” she said, her voice distant.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “It’s so ridiculous. Outrageous.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “What is it?” Carina demanded. “If there’s something you know that might explain what changed my dad, I need to know.”

  Again, Julia didn’t notice Carina’s slip.

  “The pieces are falling together,” I said. “If you have another piece we can add, we really need to know.”

  Julia nodded as if she made a decision. “Come on. I have something to show you.”

  Chapter 29

  1:13 a.m.

  I was completely blown away by Carina’s realization. I hoped she was wrong, but it made too much sense. The pieces fit perfectly together. It really was unthinkable that a company would pass out faulty drugs without a patient’s consent. Pregnant patients just to make it that much worse. I really hoped she was wrong.

  If she was right, though, it explained Lindström and Salt Lake Pharmaceuticals’ involvement. Where did Sterling Securities fit into the equation? Were they a part of it or was it just a coincidence they were based in SLC and able to help protect the city?

  Julia led us down the hall and back into the stairwell. We zigzagged down to the first floor.

  I glanced at the nurse ahead of us and put a hand on Carina’s arm to slow her. Once there was a bit of distance between Julia and us, I leaned closer to my friend. “Good catch on the pictures. I didn’t see date stamps on them.”

  “There wasn’t any,” she replied
. She glanced sideways at me and shrugged. “Just a hunch.”

  “Do you really think you’re right about what’s going on with all those kids?”

  She shrugged. If she was like me, I’m sure she didn’t even want to contemplate the possibility. If we found evidence to support it, we’d face it then. And by “face it,” I mean storm all three companies to find my family and Nathen if I have to. Then hand over the evidence to whatever authority that would be able to do something about it.

  “Why are you here, anyways?” Carina called up to Julia.

  “What do you mean?” The nurse glanced over her shoulder but didn’t slow.

  “It’s after midnight. The place is completely trashed. There’s nobody else here. You know why we came here. Why are you here?”

  Julia stopped by a door labelled Stairs at the end of the hall. “We have some critical over at the other hospitals. We really need their history. The others didn’t want me to come. They said it was too dangerous, but I did anyway,” she said sheepishly. “I went straight to the IT room, but when I found it trashed, I went up to my floor. I hoped the kids hadn’t made it into the ICU. No such luck.”

  She opened the door and hesitated, looking back at me. “Sorry about your head, by the way. That’s got to hurt. I can look at it when we’re done here.”

  I touched the bump on my head. It had already shrunk considerably. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse. What’s down here anyways?”

  “Come on, you’ll see.”

  The stairs led down into the basement and even further down to the sub-basement—a long, less cared for hallway. The walls were sporadically painted. The floor tiles were cracked and missing in some spots. The place was so dark and dingy; it seemed like it swallowed the light from our flashlights, even with added power of Julia’s. One thing could be said for the hall, though—it hadn’t received the destruction treatment.

  “All our records are kept digitally,” Julia said as she stopped at the first door on the right, “but everything starts with pen and paper. We note everything from meds delivered to observations of the patient on paper before documenting digitally at the end of our shifts.”

  She produced a key on a lanyard from her front pocket and pushed it into the keyhole.

  “Once everything is documented in our computer records, we store the handwritten stuff down here at the end of the day. The head nurses for each department check out a key to this door on every shift. I just happened to be the head nurse for the ICU when the hospital was attacked. Normally we check these back in at the end of the shift, but it slipped my mind. For obvious reasons.”

  She opened the door and we turned our flashlights into the room. It was large and crowded with shelves stuffed full of boxes. I wanted to sneeze just looking. Dust hung in the air like a thick mist.

  Julia stepped just inside and turned to a box on the table to the left. She quickly examined the dates on the tabs that separated the files. “Good, it hasn’t been put away yet.”

  She flipped through the files for a particular date—a few days ago by the looks of it—until she came to the one she was looking for. She pulled it out and hesitated with a look at us. “Keep in mind it really isn’t ethical for me to show you this.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “The file from the day ‘that kid’ in the fight was brought in.”

  My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was in there. I was the one responsible, after all. He had shot me, but that was beside the point.

  “He was brought in a skull fracture and internal hemorrhaging.”

  Carina glanced at me but said nothing.

  “You said you were there, but you don’t know what happened?” Julia asked with a quick glance at me.

  I swallowed again and shook my head. I didn’t trust my voice enough to say anything.

  “Anyway,” she said, turning back to the file opened in her hands, “that’s not really the interesting thing. The nurse caring for him the day he died,” she said with a glance at me, telling me what I already knew—he had died when I was there, “noted a few anomalies.”

  She flipped a page and scanned the next before pointing at a line. “There.” She tipped the whole folder away from us when we leaned in to look. Apparently, patient confidentiality was strong enough for her to not give us a look at the file ourselves. “His face seemed to droop and elongate right before he went into cardiac arrest.” She paused, reading the scratchy handwritten notes. “His blood work had also come back not long before. There were a lot of anomalies. A lot,” she repeated under her breath.

  “What kind of anomalies,” Carina urged.

  “Blood cells mutating,” the nurse said absently. “Why wasn’t this flagged? This is weird.” She fell silent.

  “Mutating?” I asked. I tried to look at the folder contents. Even if I could get a good angle, I doubted I would have been able to read the chicken scratch on the page.

  “I don’t get it,” Julia said. “With everything observed, something should have been done.”

  I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. She was on her own little planet of thought. Whatever she saw baffled her, but we needed to know. We needed to understand what had happened to that kid. With that description of an elongating face, there was no doubt he was somehow connected to everything going on. If nothing else, he was the only solid example of all these kids who seemed to have gone crazy.

  “Julia?” Carina said.

  “Sorry, it’s just too weird,” the nurse said. “While under observation, the kid’s blood cells changed and started attacking other blood cells. Almost like a virus of some sort. That should have initiated a quarantine.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “And it didn’t?” I asked.

  “No. He was pronounced dead and processed accordingly.”

  “That is weird,” Carina said, “but what does that have to do with that drug from years ago?”

  Julia glanced at Carina like she was crazy for not thinking the whole blood cells mutating thing was more important.

  “The whole puzzle,” Carina explained. “These are more pieces, but where do they fit?”

  “Of course,” Julia said. She flipped another page. “I was at the desk while the nurse was documenting. While gathering information to contact his parents, she mentioned that the boy was born at this hospital.” Her eyes scanned the paper and she pointed. “Fourteen years, eight months ago.”

  I didn’t like the way this puzzle was piecing together. The picture coming into view was a very nasty one. I stepped out of the room and turned to face the opposite wall.

  “Conor?” Carina said.

  “I’m fine,” I assured her. I just needed a minute to calm my heartbeat and the buzzing in my head.

  “What was his name?” Carina asked Julia.

  The nurse snapped the folder closed. “I’m afraid I really can’t go that far. I don’t know if his parents have been notified yet.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I exploded as I spun back to them. “You just gave us his whole medical history, but you can’t share his name?”

  Julia’s lips drew into a tighter line. Her blue eyes flashed.

  “Conor!” Carina said. “She just gave us a huge piece of information.”

  “I really shouldn’t have done that,” Julia added.

  I squeezed my fists as tight as I could for a few seconds before forcing them to relax. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “I think we have a lot to go on here,” Carina said.

  “Enough to take to the police, I think,” Julia said. “Although, I’ll have to do it carefully so I don’t breach doctor/patient confidentiality.”

  Police? Right. I felt Carina’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look up to meet them. I already had three companies on my list of places to bring down to the ground to find my family and Nathen. This trip to the hospital had only solidified them in my crosshairs. Let Julia go to the police. My first stop was Sterling.
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  “I think this will be more than enough to help the police find out what happened to your families and figure out what’s going on with all those kids.” Julia closed the file and stuffed it back in the box. “I’ll leave this here. It’ll be better if I don’t take it out.”

  Julia and Carina stepped out of the room. She closed the door and locked it behind her.