by Steven James
“I’m working on it.”
“You said that already.”
“Yes,” he replied. “I did.”
“Why can’t I remember what happened last night?”
“You had a nasty bump on your head. A little memory loss isn’t uncommon for someone who gets a concussion. What do you know about the wolf being shot?”
“What?”
“A wolf was shot on Saturday. It was the last thing your father looked into before he went home. There was a picture of it on his phone along with a couple of messages from you about it.”
“My girlfriend and I were out in the woods when someone shot it. What does this have to do with finding my dad? And how do you know about that, anyway?”
“We’re just following up on everything we can.”
“We? You’re working with the cops?”
“I mean ‘we’ in general—all of us. We just want to find your dad and help him. You don’t have any other information about where he might be?”
“No. How are you working on it?”
“Working on it?”
“On getting me out of here.”
“I’m making the necessary arrangements. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
Based on how this little chat was going that didn’t exactly reassure him.
Daniel said, “One of the patients here grabbed my arm when I was on my way to see Nicole in the visitors’ room earlier. He said something about how I shouldn’t have done that to my dad. How did he know anything about what happened?”
“I’m afraid word has gotten around.”
They spoke for a few more minutes and then Dr. Fromke said he needed to get going.
“One more question,” Daniel said.
“Yes?”
“We’re in Duluth. You drove over here just to see me?”
“You are my patient, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand why you would come all this way on a Sunday afternoon.”
“I thought it would be in your best interests if I did. I’m here to do what I can.”
“I didn’t do anything to my dad.”
“Okay.”
“Get me out of here, Dr. Fromke.”
“I’m working on it.”
After he left, Daniel ran through the conversation again in his head.
Weird.
And not very encouraging.
How did you end up in a psych ward sixty miles from home?
If they were suspicious that he might have been responsible for his dad’s disappearance, why wasn’t he in jail? Why did he wake up restrained in a mental hospital instead of handcuffed in a detention cell?
Then a thought came to him, and when it did, it seemed obvious, like something he should have realized right away: As his psychiatrist, Dr. Fromke could have had him committed. Besides his mom or dad, he was probably the only one who could have.
Maybe Dr. Fromke wasn’t the one trying to get him out of this place.
Maybe he was the one trying to keep him in it.
For supper, rather than take Daniel to the cafeteria, the orderly who’d led him to the meeting room earlier slid a tray of food through the slot at the bottom of the door: cold soup, a turkey sandwich, a carton of skim milk and a stale oatmeal raisin cookie—nothing that you would need to use a fork or a knife to eat.
They didn’t even give him a spoon for the soup. He had to drink it from the bowl.
No, it probably wouldn’t be too smart to give crazy people in a mental ward knives and forks while they’re locked up by themselves in their rooms. But no spoons. Seriously?
Without a clock, Daniel wasn’t able to gauge time very well, but later, when he was getting ready for bed, he looked out the door’s window and saw a cop sitting there.
It wasn’t the guy who’d been there in the afternoon when Daniel first got out of bed; it was the man who’d been waiting for him after the game, the one who’d been leading the prisoner into the facility that supposedly did fish management studies, the man who’d driven into the snowbank.
He gave Daniel a look of recognition, then lifted a single finger to his lips as if to indicate to him not to make a sound.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
“Wake up, Daniel.”
The voice sounded rushed, close to his ear.
At first he assumed he was hearing things or that it was just part of his dream.
He rolled to the side but heard it again, this time even more pressing: “Daniel. Wake up.”
Eyes open now, he turned, but with only faint light from distant streetlights seeping through the window, the room was too black for him to see anyone. “Who’s there?”
Someone gripped his arm and Daniel instinctively pulled away and tried to focus. The room was wrapped in shadows and he was still groggy.
The longer he had his eyes open, however, the more they started to become used to the darkness and now in the faint light he finally saw a man beside his bed.
“Ask questions later,” he said, and finally Daniel realized he knew that voice: the cop—or at least the guy dressed as a cop—who’d been stationed outside his door. “Right now, we need to get moving.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are.”
“My name’s Malcolm Zacharias.” He put his hand on Daniel’s arm again. “Come on. Let’s move. I came to get you out of here. And believe me, right now that’s what you want.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because I need you to help me.”
“How?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Daniel pulled his arm away. “Explain now.”
“We have to go,” Mr. Zacharias said emphatically. “You either come with me and find the answers you’re looking for or you can stay here—and if you do, you won’t be leaving any time soon.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of what happened last night.”
“With my father?”
“That’s right, now—”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No, but I might know how to find him. Listen to me, the security guard on this floor is doing rounds on the other end of the wing but he’s going to be coming this way any minute. After that it’ll be too late.”
Get out of here, Daniel. This is your chance.
Mr. Zacharias went to the doorway. He’d slipped something in between the frame and the door to keep it from closing all the way. Now he removed it, eased the door open, leaned into the hall, and whispered, “Now.”
Daniel pinched his arm to make sure he wasn’t still asleep.
He didn’t wake up.
No, he was already awake.
None of the overhead fluorescents in the hallway were on. The only light came from the exit signs glowing at the ends of the hallway and a few dim emergency lights placed at regular intervals throughout the corridor.
The darkness around Daniel seemed to merge, regroup, combine and redouble heavier and thicker than before, as if it were alive.
He wondered if the shadows might shape themselves into the form of the demon he’d seen rise above Nicole’s sketchbook or wing its way through the barn, but they didn’t and he wasn’t about to wait around for them to do so. He shifted his attention to Mr. Zacharias, who was motioning for him to come along.
Daniel went into the hallway, closed the door silently, and followed him.
But after a little ways, the movement of a flashlight beam cutting through the darkness at the far end of the hall caught his attention.
As the person appeared, even in the muted light Daniel could tell by the man’s uniform that it was a guard, so he hurried in the opposite direction with Mr. Zacharias.
As he did, he recalled the
logic problem Kyle had made up for him the other day at school: Guards in front of four doors. Two of the men always lie; two always tell the truth.
So now, Malcolm Zacharias—was he a truth-teller or a liar?
What benefit would he gain by lying to you? What benefit from telling the truth?
In the puzzle, logic led to the correct solution. Daniel tried to let it lead him now.
Who do you trust, Daniel?
He thought through what he knew—on Saturday Mr. Zacharias had been dressed as a prison guard and had led a prisoner into the Traybor Institute. It seemed a little unbelievable that he would show up now in another state dressed as a police officer, but Daniel had no reason to think that he was lying to him about trying to help him get out of the hospital.
And there’s no reason to think he’s telling you the truth either.
Except that he is helping you escape.
Or so it seems.
Daniel replayed his trip through the hospital earlier in the day as if it were a map unfolding in his mind. The layout, the distances, the locations of the security cameras were coming back to him.
He calculated that there wasn’t enough time to get back to the room to hide from the guard, or enough time to get to the other end of the hallway.
“Are you coming?” Mr. Zacharias asked, his voice hushed and urgent. He was about ten feet farther down the hall.
Daniel remembered that the door just to his left was a maintenance closet.
It’ll be locked.
At least try it.
He did.
Found it open.
Slipped inside.
Why is this unlocked? In a psych ward, why would they leave the maintenance closet with the chemicals inside it unlocked?
Questions with no answers—but right now that didn’t matter. This night seemed to be governed by reasons all its own and he could sort them out later. First priority: get out of this place.
Mr. Zacharias stayed in the hallway.
This door didn’t have a window so Daniel couldn’t see into the hall, but he could hear the security guard’s footsteps approaching.
His heart thumped so loudly in his chest that he imagined anyone nearby would be able to hear it, and that made him think of the Edgar Allan Poe story Teach had covered in class earlier that semester—“The Tell-Tale Heart.”
It was another one of those stories where the protagonist was also the antagonist. The man who’d committed the murder heard his victim’s heart continue to beat, continue to thrum in his conscience, driving him mad.
And what did Teach say on Friday? That the narrator might be unreliable. That he might not know the whole truth about what’s going on yet.
Because he might be crazy, or delusional, or both.
The footsteps stopped just outside the maintenance closet.
So which is it for you?
Crazy?
Delusional?
Both?
“Stretching your legs?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“Yeah,” Mr. Zacharias replied. “It’s a long time to sit outside that doorway.”
“So they’re going to transfer him out tomorrow?”
“That’s what I heard. They don’t want to take any chances. It’s okay with me. This isn’t the most exciting assignment.”
That guard can hear your heart beating. He has to. He knows you’re here.
No. That’s impossible.
Daniel planned what he would do if the security guard opened the door. He couldn’t allow himself to be locked up in that room again.
You can’t let him grab you.
Push your way past him.
But then what?
Even if he made it to the visiting room where he’d spoken with Nicole earlier in the day, the main entrance would certainly be locked.
Daniel felt his hands tighten into fists as he waited in the closet. Fight or flight?
Well, both, if necessary.
“From what they’re saying he slashed up his dad,” the security guard said.
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“Sick kid.”
“Well, something’s going on with him, that’s for sure.”
“They always bring the worst ones here. I wish I had your gig, just a temporary thing. You don’t have to watch these nut jobs night after night.”
“I’m thankful like you don’t even know.”
A pause.
“Alright,” the guard replied finally. “Well, I guess I’ll check the other wing.”
“I’ll see you on your way back through.”
The sound of the guard’s footsteps grew fainter and at last the door to the maintenance closet swung open and Mr. Zacharias gestured for Daniel to follow him.
The coast looked clear.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Daniel asked. “There are too many cameras near the entrance. They’ll catch us before we even make it to the parking lot.”
“How do you know about the cameras?”
“I saw them when I went to the visiting room this afternoon.”
Depending on how good the cameras were, they might have already caught sight of him.
Daniel evaluated things. Most people coming into a hospital would enter and leave through the main doors, but not everyone. There might be a staff entrance, but even if there wasn’t one, there would certainly be at least one other way out.
After all, what if there was a fire? With fire codes and that sort of thing there would need to be another way to exit the building.
Based on what he could make out about the size of the hospital from walking through it earlier, there was an even more obvious reason why there would be another door. “There’s a loading area, right? A door out back where they make food deliveries?”
“So what they say about you is right.”
“What’s that?”
“That you’re intuitive. That you’re good at piecing things together.”
“Who says that?”
Mr. Zacharias didn’t answer, just said, “Come on,” and he started to lead him down the hall in the opposite direction from the room where Nicole had been.
Soon, the hallway ended in an intersection. Mr. Zacharias made sure no other guards were in the hall, then whispered for Daniel to follow him.
They headed to the right, but they’d only made it a couple steps before they came to a patient’s room with a man standing behind his door’s wire-laced window, staring into the hall.
There was just enough light for Daniel to recognize the patient as the old man who’d grabbed his arm earlier and then told him, “You shouldn’t have done that to your father.”
The man flattened his palm against the glass as if he were trying to reach out and touch Daniel.
“What do you know about my dad?” Daniel asked.
“Come on,” Mr. Zacharias said hurriedly. “We have to go.”
“Hang on.”
Daniel focused on the old man. “What do you know?”
“Time,” he said. “You don’t have time.”
“Time for what?”
“He’ll do it again.”
“Who’ll do what again? What are you talking about?”
Mr. Zacharias grabbed his arm. “Come on. We don’t have time.”
Daniel stared at him, then gave his attention back to the window in the door. No one was there.
The room appeared empty.
He just stepped to the side of the door. He’s standing beside it.
Or, he might not have been there at all. You might have imagined him.
He tried the doorknob but it refused to turn.
“Can you open this?” he asked Mr. Zacharias.
“The only room key I have is yours.”
“Did you see a man in there?”
“I wasn’t looking. Now, let’s go.”
Daniel couldn’t think of any way of confirming if the old man was real or not without getting the door open.
You need to keep going. You need to get out of here.
Sticking close behind Mr. Zacharias, Daniel entered the cafeteria.
Apart from being about half the size, it reminded him of the one at Beldon High.
They were on their way to the kitchen to find a delivery door when the alarm sounded.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
A network of emergency lights flicked on as the alarm blared through the hospital.
Mr. Zacharias hurried toward the exit door with Daniel right behind him. “That alarm means we have twenty seconds before all the outer doors lock down,” he exclaimed breathlessly.
“But you have a key, right?”
“Not to get past a lockdown.”
Oh. Perfect.
With the time that had passed, Daniel guessed they had maybe fifteen seconds left.
As they rushed past the ovens and the dishwashing area, a clock ticked away in his head just like it did when he was on the free throw line during a basketball game.
Ten.
They reached the far end of the kitchen and Daniel heard the door from the hallway fly open and heavy footsteps charge into the room behind him.
Seven.
Mr. Zacharias fumbled with his keys to the exterior door.
Five.
Voices called out inside the cafeteria: “In here! In the kitchen!”
Mr. Zacharias threw open the door and they fled outside.
Two.
Daniel slammed it shut behind him.
One.
“Can they get out that door?” he asked urgently.
“They’ll need to shut off the lockdown first, but that won’t take long. Come on. I have a car waiting at the end of the block.”
As they escaped into the shadows, Daniel heard people banging on the door as if they were trying to pound it open.
He and Mr. Zacharias made their way through the night to a nondescript black sedan waiting near a streetlight beside the park. It was a different car than the one with the Georgia plates, the one that’d gone into the snowbank on Friday night.
