by Joe Hart
“He went missing from a US Department of Energy conference in Minneapolis four months ago. His hotel room had been broken into and he was gone.”
Sullivan studied the article for a few moments in the dim light before tilting his face up to Everett’s. “What does this have to do with what’s happening now?”
“A few days after that article came out, I swear I saw two guards leading the man in that picture into the basement of the prison.” Everett punctuated the end of the sentence by snapping the LED off again, leaving Sullivan to blink at the eclipsing darkness.
“You saw him?”
“I think so. I just caught a quick glimpse of him as Bundy and Johnson led him downstairs. For some reason his face rung a bell, and then I knew why. I’d seen it in that paper only a couple days before.”
“Did you follow them, see where they put him?”
“Not right away. I realized who he was a few hours later, and when I went down to the solitary level, there was no one there.”
Sullivan rubbed the newspaper between his fingers, the rasping sound barely audible above the constant patter above them.
Everett’s voice came out of the dark again, startling Sullivan with its raw emotion. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask before I go completely nuts: what the fuck was inside Amanda? I mean, Jesus, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, and I killed her. I shot her in the head.”
Sullivan heard the panic rising in the other man’s voice, hysteria begging to be set free. He knew the feeling well. The thoughts so clear as they played across the mind, over and over, faster and faster, until a person couldn’t discern what had truly happened and what hadn’t.
“Everett, listen to me. I don’t know what that was, but I can assure you this: that was not the woman you knew in there. That was not human in any way. There’s something inside of the staff, a parasite or something. It was inside Fairbend and Shelly too, and I think it’s all connected to Alvarez’s murder.”
Sullivan listened to Everett’s panicked breathing and hoped the calmness in his voice would help soothe the other man. He considered telling Everett about being chased through the woods outside the wire, but thought it might be too much for the guard to absorb at that moment. Sullivan remembered the bottled water nearby, and after a few seconds of feeling around blindly, he found the topmost case, which had an opening in the plastic wrapping. He pulled two bottles free, which were surprisingly cool, and turned back to Everett.
“Here, have some water,” Sullivan said, holding one bottle out in the darkness. The guard reached for it and took it from his hand. Sullivan opened his bottle and tipped it to his lips, savoring the feeling of the liquid on his parched tongue. After a moment, he heard Everett break his seal and drink also.
“Better?” Sullivan asked.
“I think so,” Everett finally answered. His voice was still shaky but had lost the edge of distress. “Christ, what’s going on here? Are we both losing our minds?”
“I wish. I could have convinced myself earlier that I was, but now that you’ve seen the same thing, that theory doesn’t hold up anymore.”
“What do we do now? I just killed a woman, and we don’t know who we can trust.”
Sullivan drained the rest of his water and set the container on the floor. “We need to get help. Do you have a cell phone?”
“Dammit! No, I left it inside. Forgive me, but I’m not going back in to get it.”
Sullivan snorted. “Don’t blame you.”
“This fucking rain!” Everett said.
Sullivan tried to sort all of the events of the past days into separate pieces and align them into a semblance of pattern or repetition. After straining against the unreality of it all, he sighed and let his thoughts fall back into the jumbled mess that they became without strict concentration. It was as if he were trying to assemble a puzzle in midair, and just when a picture began to take shape, the pieces would crumble apart and he would have to start over.
“I suppose we could try getting into New Haven without being seen. See if their communications are still down,” Sullivan offered.
Everett breathed out a long hiss of air. “Yeah, that’s probably our best bet. Hand me another bottle of water before we go, the vending machine inside was out when I checked and I didn’t get a chance to come out here today.”
Sullivan began to reach for the container of bottles when he stopped, his vision locking on the place where Everett’s words came from. “You only drink bottled water?”
“Yeah, every time I’ve tried to drink the well water from Singleton I get an allergic reaction. It happened the first day I was here. I took a sip of water from one of the fountains and my throat almost closed up. I got dizzy and lightheaded and had trouble sleeping. I couldn’t figure it out, until I took a drink again the next day. I asked the warden about it, and he thought it might be the higher iron content in the soil.”
Sullivan swallowed a lump in his throat and felt his heartbeat speed up. “Did you have any dreams that night after you drank the water?”
Silence met his question, and before Everett spoke Sullivan knew the answer. “How did you know?”
“Because the night Barry disappeared I had one. It was so vivid it felt real.”
“The barren land full of smoke and dust?”
It was Sullivan’s turn to be dumbstruck. “We had the same dream.”
“Did you see it? Did you see what was over the edge of the cliff?” Everett asked. His voice was thin and full of holes where his words became whispers.
Sullivan shivered despite the warm air around them. “Not really, but I was afraid.”
“What the fuck is happening?” Everett asked again.
Sullivan was about to reply when a memory from the day before surfaced like a body in a swamp. The straitjacketed mental patient in the hallway of New Haven, the man’s breath hot against his throat. Words, quiet and only for him to hear: Don’t drink the water.
Sullivan shot to his feet, and he heard Everett recoil in surprise. “Let’s go,” Sullivan said.
Everett stood but didn’t move toward the makeshift doorway. “Where are we going? New Haven?”
“Yes,” Sullivan said. “There’s someone there that has answers for us.”
==
The water was much higher than when Sullivan walked the road that morning. Its surface rippled in the night air with the dropping rain from the canopy of trees. It licked and talked only a foot from the edge of the road, and Sullivan estimated it would cover the ground he and Everett walked on well before daybreak.
They slunk in the deepest shadows, as near to the forest as they could without getting their feet completely soaked. Every so often they would stop and listen for the sounds of pursuit, footsteps behind or in front of them. At these times Sullivan would stare off into the woods, knowing that the fence was there, wondering if something beyond it was looking back.
The gate grew out of the road before them, and Everett stopped a few feet from the card reader, glancing over his shoulder at Sullivan. “We should run the rest of the way. If someone’s watching the access notices in the surveillance room, they’ll see that this gate is opening. It would be good to get inside and back out of New Haven before they get here.”
Sullivan nodded and readied himself. His body still ached from the various bruises and cuts, but the pain sharpened his senses. Any impression of wariness was gone; his body was a battered shell of soreness but on full alert.
Everett scanned the key across the reader. The gate lumbered to the side. “Go!” he barked.
Sullivan ran silently behind the guard, up the narrow road, until the air in his lungs took on an acidic feel. Everett halted a few yards before the clearing opened up into New Haven’s grounds. The men panted side by side, and it was then that Sullivan smelled something in the air. He stood and drew a breath in through his nose. Cigarette smoke.
“I have an idea,” Sullivan said, and took off at an angle to the right, pushing h
is way between the lower undergrowth, into the bulk of the forest. Everett followed a few steps behind, the only sign of their progress through the trees the occasional snapping of a wet twig beneath their feet. Sullivan studied the surroundings as they moved. This portion of the forest was mature pines that held branches wider than trucks above their heads. Most of the floor was even and covered with a layer of pine needles. The ground was higher here, and only once, as they skirted the perimeter of the clearing, Sullivan felt his shoe sink into a muddy depression.
A white light began to filter in through the trees separating them from the building beyond and muffled laughter echoed across the yard. Sullivan crouched lower and moved at a slower pace, in a sweeping arc around the voices. Finally, he stopped and waited for Everett to kneel next to him. The guard’s face was pale, but the slackness was gone from the muscles in his jaw, and his eyes were squinted and sharp once again.
“What’s the plan?” Everett whispered.
“We have to incapacitate the two orderlies that are on break. Can you do it?” Sullivan said, looking directly at the guard next to him. Everett met his gaze and nodded once. “Good. We come from behind, choke them out, and bind them somehow.”
Sullivan waited for Everett to argue about assaulting two men he probably knew, if not by name, then by sight, but the guard merely nodded again and stared ahead, his hands clenching and unclenching. Sullivan moved forward, easing around a deadfall and an extremely thick-looking patch of bushes, until he could see the open yard.
The two orderlies from the day before were in their same spots beneath a metal-halide lamp that threw a ring of white light around them on the cement apron. Their shadows were elongated into grotesque forms that stretched almost all the way to the forest edge. Both men had their backs turned to them and were talking animatedly, their arms and hands gesticulating at times.
Sullivan looked at Everett, and pointed to his own chest once and then to the orderly on the right. Everett nodded. Sullivan counted down in silence, with one hand held up so Everett could see the fingers folding in to a fist. Three, two, one.
Both men stood and slid out of the trees without a sound. Sullivan’s gaze snapped back and forth, from the ground to the orderly’s back, assuring he wouldn’t tread on a stick that would announce their presence in the quiet yard. Sullivan slowed his pace further when he and Everett were within a few strides of the men, and glanced at the guard. Everett shot Sullivan a look that assured him he was ready. A picnic table sat just behind the orderlies and Sullivan prepared to move around it. As he sidestepped to the right, Sullivan watched his orderly crush a cigarette beneath a white shoe and then begin to turn.
Before the orderly could rotate toward him, Sullivan launched himself up and off the picnic table’s seat. He flew across the distance between the table and the other man and crashed into him. The man uttered a surprised grunt, and then a cry of pain as Sullivan followed him to the ground. The orderly lashed out with a quick jab and caught Sullivan on the jaw, but instead of reeling back, Sullivan pulled him closer. Without thinking, he swung an arm behind the orderly’s head and neck, clasped his other hand in a solid grip, and pushed his own head into the back of the orderly’s outstretched arm. Sullivan turned his body and tightened his grip around the man’s neck, effectively cutting off the orderly’s air with his own arm. The man flailed and bucked his hips, but after a moment his movements became weaker, and finally stopped altogether. Sullivan unclasped his hands and let the orderly’s arm fall away from his own neck.
“What the fuck was that?” Everett whispered as he stepped up beside Sullivan.
“Head-and-arm choke. Don’t you watch UFC?” Sullivan couldn’t help but smile at the gaping look on the guard’s face. “How’d you do?”
“Got lucky, he hit his head on the ground when I tackled him. He’s out cold,” Everett said, motioning to the other downed orderly.
“Good, let’s pull them around back. I saw a gas main coming out of the ground,” Sullivan said, stooping to grasp the nearest man under the armpits.
A few minutes later, the two orderlies were handcuffed to each other, their arms laced behind a gas pipe over three inches thick. The rain fell from the slight overhang of the roof and barely missed their unconscious forms as they lay pressed against the building.
“There, they won’t even get wet,” Sullivan said, snapping a keycard off the closest man’s belt.
The steel door unlocked the moment Sullivan passed the key over the reader. He pulled it open a few inches and peered through the crack. A janitor strolled down an otherwise empty hallway, his back hunched as he leaned over a cart loaded with cleaning supplies. As Sullivan watched, he turned a corner at the far end of the hall and disappeared.
Sullivan pulled the door all the way open and stepped inside the building. The coolness of air conditioning hit him full force and sent a shiver through his frame. He rubbed his arms for a moment, trying to dry them and force the chill away, as Everett stepped in beside him and pulled the door closed.
“Let’s just act natural. Maybe Andrews hasn’t put out an alert for us yet and we’ll get lucky. Act like you’re supposed to be here,” Sullivan said.
“The shit that’s been going on, I think I am supposed to be here,” Everett said as they began to move down the corridor.
A side door marked “Stairs” stopped Sullivan in his tracks, and he yanked on the locked handle before swiping the keycard over the reader beside the door. It unlocked and he and Everett slipped inside. They took the stairs two at a time, until they reached a landing marked with a large 3 beside a door. Sullivan pushed it open an inch and listened before shoving it wide enough to sidle through.
The third floor hallway was empty, but Sullivan spied the black rectangular box of a camera at the far end, its unblinking eye staring straight at them. As they made their way down the corridor, hugging the right wall, Sullivan hoped that whoever was supposed to be watching the cameras was taking a siesta or a nice long piss. They would know soon enough one way or another.
Sullivan paused at a door on the right side, scanning the room beyond through the glass and wire mesh. The living space was simple and windowless. A caged bulb in the ceiling dropped faint light over everything in the room, which wasn’t much. A bed frame was bolted to the floor in one corner and an overstuffed chair sat in the other. Sullivan could see no TV, but could make out a darkened bathroom to the right.
“What do you see?” Everett asked.
“Nothing. I think this is the right room, but maybe the guy’s in the infirmary or—” Sullivan’s words were choked off as a face pressed against the glass on the other side.
“Fuck!” Sullivan cursed, jumping back from the door, his heart leaping toward the top of his throat. The mental patient who’d pinned Sullivan to the wall the day before grinned at both of them and pushed his nose against the glass again, flattening it like a burst tomato.
“This is who you came to see?” Everett asked. His voice held a hint of accusation, but Sullivan only nodded as he looked at the doorjamb for a card reader. There was none. Sullivan’s heart sank as he spied two keyed locks that sat flush with the door’s surface.
“Shit, we don’t have the—” Sullivan stopped as Everett pulled out a ring with several keys hanging from it.
“Grabbed them as an afterthought from the orderly before we came in,” Everett said, stepping up to the door. Sullivan almost hugged the man, and watched as Everett tried each key on the ring in succession. None of them fit.
“Each orderly must have keys for a different floor. Shit!” Sullivan said, glancing up and down the hallway, searching for another answer.
The elevator at the end of the hall rumbled and dinged its arrival.
Sullivan stood on the edge of indecision, and then tipped to one side as he began walking at a steady pace toward the double doors beginning to open. He wasn’t surprised in the least to see the orderly that had pulled the mental patient off him step from the car. The man’s
eyes were glued to his cell phone and he didn’t look up until Sullivan was a few steps away.
“What the fuck? What are you doing up here?” the orderly said, tucking his phone away.
“Conducting an investigation,” Sullivan said, stepping into the other man’s space. “I need to speak with the patient in that room immediately.”
The orderly frowned. “Jason? Why, what’s going on?”
“I believe he has information concerning my partner’s whereabouts,” Sullivan said in a steady voice. He tightened his hand into a fist, waiting for the man’s mouth to spring wide and erupt with a fray of whipping tentacles.
The orderly merely shifted from foot to foot. “When did you guys come in?”
“About ten minutes ago. We were told someone would be up here waiting to let us in, but we’ve been standing around ever since.” Sullivan hoped the false bravado in his voice was working. He didn’t know what he’d do next if the man called his bluff.
The orderly eyed Sullivan and Everett one more time, and then nodded. “Sorry, guys, I was in the shitter. Damn cell phone’s still out too.” The orderly walked past them as he dug out a set of keys similar to the ones Everett carried. Sullivan hovered just on the edge of the doorway and watched while Everett flanked the man.
The locks slid back and the orderly pointed through the porthole. “Jason, go sit on your bed. You have some visitors.” Sullivan saw the bald man inside the room move toward the bed and perch upon its edge like an oversized bird, his arms wrapped around his knees.
The orderly stepped into the room and began to turn toward Sullivan. “I’ll have to stay inside while you gu—”
Sullivan cut his words off with a left hook that rocked the bigger man’s head ninety degrees. His knees unhinged and Sullivan caught him before his face impacted with the tile floor.
