by Karen Dionne
The emergency generators were in a storage room at the rear. When he found the door, he discovered it was pad-locked.
He sighed. Doors that should be closed were open; doors he needed open were closed. Coyote was up to his tricks again.
He retraced his path back to Sam’s worktable and returned with a sledgehammer and a crowbar. Hinges broken, he entered a room piled with cardboard boxes and garbage bags. He shook his head. Generators needed regular maintenance. If theirs were somewhere beneath, the prospects didn’t look good.
He started tossing boxes and finally found a NorthStar nine-horsepower. He unscrewed the fuel tank cap, shined the light inside, and swore. You were supposed to put just enough fuel in the tank to run it for thirty minutes, not go off and leave the tank half full. The spark plugs had been left in place, and with the piston at the top of the stroke, not the bottom, he’d bet the farm the cylinder walls were coated with rust.
He went through the motions anyway, but after three tries, he gave up. Zo and Ben needed him back at the station. He’d already been gone too long.
Shining the light on the floor, he picked his way to the far side of the Hägglunds, then stopped. A body lay beside the track. Sam’s assistant, the kid from Iowa, Scott Bergstrom. There was just enough of his face left to tell.
He blew out his cheeks. It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. When the electricity failed, Scott must have come out to start the generators. But because he was suffering from hypoglycemia, he wasn’t thinking clearly, and he’d left both the station door and the door to the maintenance shed open. He’d collapsed out here and died, and the rats had discovered his body. That is, unless the rats had gotten to him first . . .
He tucked the flashlight under one arm and bent down to pick up Scott’s body. It was warm. He couldn’t have been dead for more than a few minutes. Probably came in right before Ross, in which case Ross had a good idea what the sounds he’d heard when he first came in meant.
As he approached the temporary morgue, six pairs of eyes looked up. Six mouths stopped chewing. Ross tensed. Moving forward, he laid Scott on Sam’s worktable. Free of his burden, he swept the flashlight around the room. The beam picked out at least a dozen more. The rats stared back, unblinking, unafraid, and for one crazy moment, Ross felt as if they knew they commanded the only path to the door.
He looked around. There was a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall. He pulled the pin, took aim, and depressed the lever.
The rats squealed and scattered. He fired the extinguisher in short bursts, sweeping it from side to side as if herding cattle and yelling until he was hoarse; struggling to keep his footing in the foam as he drove the rats toward the door.
The extinguisher quit as the last rat ran out. He tossed the cylinder aside. Leaning against the building, he asked the souls of the desecrated for forgiveness. Breathing heavily, he shut the door.
Chapter 39
Zo ran down the hallway like a blind woman in her apartment: Left, right, another left until she came to her bedroom door. The door was closed. Was that a good sign, or a bad one? She had no idea.
“Elliot!” she called out as she felt her way to his side of the bed. No answer. She patted the covers, climbed up onto the bed and felt toward the middle, then crawled over to her side.
Nothing. The bed was empty. Elliot was gone.
She blinked her disappointment. For twenty-four hours she’d been desperate to get back; to be with him, take care of him, stroke his forehead or hold his hand. To find out if he was still alive. Now that the moment was here—and not only that, she had a cure for him in her pocket—he was gone.
She slid off the bed and dropped to her knees, thinking he might have fallen off and rolled underneath. She lay down on her stomach and stretched. There was a pile of candy wrappers beneath the bed, but that was all.
Still, she was encouraged. If Elliot had been eating candy, the effects of the insulin compound would have been mitigated. He’d probably just gotten up to use the bathroom. Or maybe he was feeling so much better he’d gone to the kitchen for something to eat. She ran her hands over his bedside rug. Sure enough, his slippers were gone.
On the other hand, if he was hallucinating or confused, he could be anywhere. She bit her lip and hurried back into the hallway. Access to the kitchen was through the rec room at the end of the corridor—not the most logical or convenient arrangement, but then nothing at Raney was.
She ran down the hall. If anything happened before she could tell him that he was going to be a father—Funny, how the lie that had once seemed innocent and convenient had turned into something evil. One deception had led to another and then another until there was no digging out. Now that she was ready to confess all and beg his forgiveness, it would be too horrible if she were too late.
As she doglegged around the last turn, she smashed into something solid. Her head whiplashed and she flew back with a yelp. She landed on her back. Moaning, she watched the stars circle and held her nose. Of all the idiotic—Her nose was broken, she was sure.
She blinked away tears. Nose throbbing, she sat up. It was no big deal, she told herself. Lots of people broke their noses. Happened to football players all the time. She’d probably end up with a black eye or two, but a crooked nose gave a face character.
As she started to get to her feet, her hand touched something soft.
A body.
She shuddered, patted it down. A flannel shirt, and a pair of jeans. The kind of clothing that Elliot wore, but then, so did 90 percent of the men at the station. She squeezed the arms. Too thin. And the nose was beaky, hooked, like hers was going to be, and the hair felt frizzy. Mac? Someone else? It was impossible to tell.
Whoever it was, they were definitely dead. Shivering, she stood up. The movement triggered an explosion in her face. Gasping, she bit her lip. Physical pain, she could handle. Emotional pain, not knowing what had become of Elliot or what was going to happen next, that was worse.
She groped her way into the rec room. The two small windows on the opposite wall let in just enough moonlight for her to make out vague outlines.
“Elliot? Are you in here?”
A shuffling sound. Then a rustling, followed by a series of quiet clicks. She kept her hand on the doorknob and cocked an ear, ready to slam the door and bolt it if she had to, but the noise didn’t repeat.
If only she could see. What was keeping Ross?
She skirted the Ping-Pong table in the middle of the room and patted down each couch and chair. Elliot might have gotten this far and collapsed, or if he wasn’t thinking clearly, he might have simply gotten tired and decided the rec room was a good place to take a nap. But the room was empty.
She paused in the kitchen doorway. The windowless room was as dark as a cave. From somewhere inside, the rustling sound came again.
“Elliot? Is that you?”
A moan, or a groan.
“Elliot?”
She edged around the doorway. There was life in the room, she could feel it. Not that she could hear breathing or see movement—not even a sound or a smell. Instinct told her she was not alone.
The hairs on her neck crinkled. Human, or rodent?
She moved into the room. There was an ancient, gas-burning cookstove on the opposite wall that predated automatic pilots. The burners had to be lit with a match. There was always a box on the counter.
Something crunched and collapsed under her weight. She stopped. A cardboard box? Another step, and she kicked what sounded like a tin can. Strange. The kitchen was always spotless. She pictured the layout: the stove on the far side of a butcher-block-topped prep island in the middle. Shuffling her feet, she crossed the room.
Six steps, and she bumped against the work island. Running her hands along the edge, she moved around to the opposite site.
The stove should be directly opposite. She took two steps into the void. Her right hand touched the stainless steel sink.
Close enough. She fumbled for the box o
f wooden matches, opened it, and struck a match. It fizzled and went out. She tried again. This time, the match flared. She moved it off to the side. Too fast. The flame blew out.
She struck a third, waited until the flame was burning steadily, then slowly lifted it above her head.
A rat was sitting on its haunches on the cookstove, gnawing a piece of bread.
The match scorched her fingers. She dropped it into the sink.
Jesus, she didn’t need this. Heart hammering, she turned to leave. Then the moaning sound came again.
Hands shaking, she struck another match.
The rat was still sitting on the stove. Zo took a step to the side. The rat opened its mouth and hissed. Startled, she dropped the match. It sputtered out, and all was darkness again.
This was insane. If she was going to do this, she needed better equipment. There was a roll of paper towels on the counter. She reached for it, expecting the rat to latch on to her hand at any second, found it, and tore off the towels until she was down to the core. She twisted the cardboard tightly and set it on fire. As the light grew steady and strong, she held the torch high.
And screamed.
Rats were everywhere.
Chapter 40
She screamed again. She couldn’t help it. Rats on the counter, on the table, in the cupboards, on the shelf above the stove, eyes looking at her, tails twitching, mouths agape and glittering with teeth that belonged to creatures she knew would eat you as soon as look at you.
She turned a slow circle. Rats in front of her, rats behind, feasting on spilled pancake mix and instant oatmeal and shredded loaves of bread, heads lifted, eyes alert, watching.
Waiting.
She took a step backward. The rats didn’t move. She took another and then another and bumped against the work island. Rats skittered across the butcher block and jumped to the floor.
She edged around the table, keeping her eyes on the rats that were watching her just as intently, rats that could easily span the distance with a single leap. Edgy, poised to spring. Choking down the urge to run, she took another slow step backward. Another, and another. Glanced over her shoulder to gauge the remaining distance and stopped.
The rats had closed ranks behind.
She paused, considered. Rats were intelligent; well, so was she—certainly smarter than they. If she made a dash for the rec room, she could slam the door and seal the rats in the kitchen before they even realized what she’d done. She wasn’t facing down lions. They were only rodents. Some might make it through with her, but she could deal with a few . . .
She bent her knees and tensed. The rats wouldn’t attack; their instincts would prevent it. It would take too much energy to bring her down. Animals always took the easy way; it was how nature made them. Rats were scavengers, not predators. That they were in the kitchen scarfing down cereal instead of chomping on dead bodies proved it.
She focused on the doorway and psyched herself to run the distance.
A rat darted from the pack. It leaped onto her foot. She stomped, and the rat fell off and ran back to its fellows.
Her chest tightened as her breath came in small, panicked gasps. She wasn’t hurt, but the attack left her with the unnerving impression that it was a feint, meant to induce terror in the rat’s prey—in her—to incite her to panic, to run.
She took a slow step toward the door.
As she did, another rat dashed toward her. It leaped onto her calf and scrabbled up her leg, its claws digging in, and bit down hard.
She screamed as the rat’s teeth cut through her jeans and tore a chunk from her thigh. She hit it away. Stumbling backward, she blinked back tears. The pack moved toward her, snarling and hissing, scenting weakness—scenting blood. She retreated another step as the pack drove her against the counter.
My God. She’d postulated the rats hunted as a pack. Now she was the proof.
She crouched and thrust her torch out. The front rank squealed and fell back. She smelled singed hair and burnt flesh and thrust again, jabbing like a boxer, swinging the torch in a manic arc, the flame flaring brighter as she cleared a path to the door. Bits of glowing paper dropped like stars. She was Saint George battling the dragon, Hercules versus the Hydra, Perseus slaying Medusa. An Amazon Woman.
A rat leaped onto her back. Its claws dug in like needles. Teeth sliced into her shoulder. Another rat leaped onto her head and clamped onto her ear. She whirled around. Dropping the torch, she grabbed the rat with both hands and squeezed until it hurt.
At last, the rat let go. With a triumphant yell, she flung it into the fire.
The fire.
At her feet, a cereal box burned brightly.
She was an idiot; she should have been more careful; Antarctica was a desert; one of the driest places on earth. Fire was the worst thing that could happen. She looked around. There had to be a fire extinguisher nearby.
A piece of glowing cardboard blew onto the pile of paper towels. They ignited with a fwummp. Flames shot to her knees, scorched her shins. The rats scattered.
She ran to the stove, grabbed a stock pot, and ran it to the sink. Turned on both taps and filled it, dumped it on the flames, filled and dumped again.
The work island was burning. Thick, black smoke rolled out from the doors and drawers. Flames spread across the floor, licked the walls, wicked up the plywood paneling, touched the ceiling.
She looked at the wall of flame separating her from the doorway and poured the last potful on herself. The water ran down her jacket, soaked her jeans, turned to steam. She wet a dish towel and held it over her mouth and nose, then dropped to her knees. Down. You were supposed to stay low in a fire. It wasn’t the flames that got you. It was the smoke.
There was an exterior door next to the walk-in cooler at the far end of the room. She crawled toward it. A rat ran over her hand. More rats scrambled over her head and back, but they didn’t bite. They only wanted to escape, as terrified as she.
The air smelled of burnt plastic and rubber. Her eyes stung. She coughed, tried not to breathe.
At last, her head bumped the wall. She groped for the doorknob, one arm shielding her face. The door was hot. Metal. She found the handle, grabbed it, burned her hand. Draped the cloth over the handle and pulled again.
Wrong door.
She glimpsed metal shelving and rows of boxes before the cool air from the walk-in refrigerator mixed with the hot air in the room. A white fog engulfed her, then dissipated quickly as the fire won out.
When the fog cleared, a man was standing in the doorway. His hair was frosted white, his eyes wide, his skin tinged blue as death. He looked at her, opened his mouth, tried to speak.
For a moment, she was as speechless as he.
Elliot.
Chapter 41
“This way!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the exit as he gagged and coughed. She gave him the dish towel, now nearly dry. “Put this over your mouth! Hold on to my jacket! Don’t let go!”
She ran her hands over the wall, found the exterior doorknob, turned it. Sweet, oxygen-rich air flooded the room. She breathed in deeply and pulled her husband into the night.
