Flowertown

by S. G. Redling

  “Then it would be N, for negative.” Rachel found Mr. Delmuth’s line. “Here’s Mr. Delmuth’s. CRnM sixty-three I plus slash minus minus minus. See, he only has three dashes because he must have had a negative reaction to the first three rounds.” She ran her fingers over his line, as if it were his hand. “That’s sad. He must have been sick the whole time, but he never showed it.”

  Ellie tried to decipher the line. “So the I plus means he had a large family in the containment zone. What does the CRn mean?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all classified. You know how Feno is. They’d probably shoot us both if they knew we could read this much. Sorry, didn’t mean to bring up the execution thing again.” Rachel elbowed Ellie and laughed. “This stuff on the end is new, anyway. It’s like the code is always growing. Stupid suits trying to make everything more complicated. Mine used to end in the number two, and then about a year ago they added the equals-Q.”

  “Did you ever ask what it meant?”

  “Like they’d tell me. I wish you had yours. We could see what we have in common.”

  Ellie raised her voice to match Rachel’s. “We could be, like, Med Line twins!”

  “You wish!” Rachel climbed off the bed, flicking her wet hair over her shoulder. “Remember, I have five plus signs in a row. Yours probably has the code for crazy.” Ellie flung her pillow at her roommate, who knew well enough to duck, laughing. It wasn’t the first time Rachel had teased Ellie about cracking up, and Ellie figured the young girl was probably the only person on earth who could get away with it.

  “Keep running your mouth, Gappy. Maybe the rest of your teeth will fall out.”

  Rachel dropped her robe and spun around naked. “I’ll still be gorgeous!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ellie laughed. “Get dressed, gorgeous, and let’s get over to the care center. Use your considerable influence to help me find Big Martha.”

  The care center was a two-story building that took up the entire block on the northwest side of Flowertown. It looked and smelled like a hospital with the exception of the heavily armed guards posted at the door. Ellie hesitated when she saw they were scanning tags. If she was a person of interest in the bombing, she might be detained from the secure facility. Working up some sort of bluff, she stayed behind Rachel as they passed through the glass doors.

  “There she is!” An enormous man with an equally enormous gun showed at least a hundred teeth as he grinned at Rachel. “How many days is it now? It’s got to be close, right?”

  “Tomorrow!” Rachel high-fived the guard, and then waved to several other guards around the entryway. “Assuming, of course, I meet all the requirements and pass all the tests.”

  “You?” the giant scoffed. “Has there been a test you haven’t passed yet?”

  “Well,” Rachel grinned and showed the gap in the front of her mouth, “I failed the dental check. Obviously.”

  Another burly man leaned over the first guard. “You make it look good, sweetie.”

  “Thanks, Len.” She gestured back to Ellie, who up to now had been invisible. “This is my roommate, Ellie. She wants to be here when I get my final papers. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, sweetie. You go right on through.” The guards spoke over each other as they buzzed the two women into the secure building. There were shouts of good luck, and Rachel waved to them all before leading Ellie down the hallway, underneath a sign that read, “From this point on, all patients require an escort.”

  Ellie looked around, peering into rooms filled with files and equipment. “So I take it the escort rule doesn’t apply to you?”

  “Well, technically you’re escorting me.” Rachel took her arm and walked with her through a maze of white corridors. “Trust me, I’m here so much they don’t even notice me.”

  “Oh, I think they notice you, honey. Those guards certainly did.”

  Rachel giggled. “Those guys are always flirting with me. When I used to work here—”

  She interrupted herself with a squeal as a group of nurses began to applaud her arrival.

  “Speak of the devil and the devil appears!” A woman in dark green scrubs stepped out from behind the station desk, holding a bubble-wrapped package. “Look what just came up from the pharmacy.” Rachel jumped up and down, reaching for the bundle, but the woman pulled it back. “Well, first let’s make sure this is the right one. We don’t want to get this far and screw it up.” Rachel handed over her medical tag.

  “See, every time I come in for a detox, they send my blood back to the lab,” Rachel explained to Ellie. “Then from that test, they formulate the next dosage specifically for me.”

  “And if we give her the wrong person’s dosage,” the nurse in green explained, reading the scanner, “then she goes to the infirmary and I use her ticket to Las Vegas.” The other women at the station laughed at Rachel’s mock outrage. When the scanner beeped, everyone cheered again. “It’s all yours. Ready?”

  “Ready. Is it all right if my roommate sits with me for the last round?”

  The woman looked Ellie over and then nodded. “She can stay for the drip, but I don’t think you’re going to want her in there for the rest of it, right?” Rachel grimaced and shook her head. “Okay then, this way.”

  Ellie followed Rachel and the other woman down yet another hallway. Along the way Rachel peeked her head in different doors to wave and say hello. “Is there anyone you don’t know, Rachel? You’re like a pageant queen.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being friendly.” They stopped two doors from the end of the hall, and the nurse led them into a small, plain room with an examination table and an IV pole. Rachel climbed up on the table and lay down, holding out her left arm for the nurse. Ellie sat on a small stool, the only other seat in the room, and watched as the nurse stuck Rachel’s arm with practiced ease, then injected the vial of medication into the IV bag. She waited to be sure the drip was working, then covered Rachel with a thin blanket.

  “That feel okay?” Rachel nodded, adjusting the pillow beneath her head. “Then I’ll go ahead and leave you to it. I’ll be right down the hall, so just call me if you need me. And just think,” she touched Rachel’s cheek with her fingers, “this could be the last time you’re in here.”

  As the nurse left the room, Rachel’s smile faded, replaced by thinly veiled pain.

  “Are you all right, honey?”

  Rachel nodded and took a deep breath. “This is always the worst part, when the stuff first hits my system. It feels like getting carsick. I get really cold and kind of…blech.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Just talk to me. If I close my eyes and don’t answer, just keep talking. Sometimes I have to fight to keep from spinning.”

  Ellie watched Rachel’s color fade and saw her lips whiten as she lay there. “Let’s talk about Las Vegas.” Even though her eyes were shut tight, Rachel smiled. Ellie talked about what she remembered of the city, telling her roommate for what had to be the hundredth time about the lights and table games and cocktails and nightclubs. Rachel listened and laughed, and when Ellie couldn’t think of another story to tell, they sat together quietly, listening to the women down the hallway going about their business. Someone was complaining about filing and someone else was telling her to suck it up. The exchange was getting heated, and Rachel and Ellie laughed at the snarky comments flying back and forth.

  “Thanks for coming with me, Ellie.” Rachel’s face was pale and her hairline was damp with sweat. “I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I wish I’d known you wanted company. I’d have been here.”

  “Nah, you were working. And in the beginning this was a lot grosser. The last part is still gross, when they scrub my skin and give me the, you know.”

  “I know.” Somehow Ellie couldn’t see Rachel ever saying the word “enema,” even though she had already suffered through dozens of them. Ellie watched a tear slide down onto the girl’s pillow.


  “I can’t wait for this to be over. I can’t wait to see my mom again.”

  Ellie blinked back tears from her own eyes. “I bet she can’t wait to see you too. She must miss you so much.”

  “She blames herself.” Rachel stared at the ceiling. “My sister said she’s been going to therapy because she’s been so depressed. Says she thinks it’s all her fault, that she should have made me go to the beach with them.” Ellie didn’t know what to say and so said nothing. She knew only the barest details of how her roommate had come to be in Flowertown alone. It was never discussed. Rachel seemed to be talking to herself, the tears streaming into her hair. “I just want to tell her face-to-face that it was my decision to stay. I know it sounds stupid, but I raised Radishes all by myself. I picked her out of McClusky’s litter and I fed her and I cleaned her pen. I loved that pig, and I knew I was going to win that ribbon. I knew it and I wanted to show Patty Samples that she didn’t know everything, that she wasn’t the only one who knew how to raise a pig. I just wanted—” She threw her arm over her eyes, and Ellie hurried to the bed.

  “Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.”

  “Can I tell you something? Something bad?” Ellie nodded, and Rachel glanced at the door to be sure no nurses were nearby. “Sometimes when I think about getting my pass, when I think about being in Las Vegas, I think about running away. Cutting off my anklet and just running, running to Mexico or someplace.”

  “Of course you do, honey. That’s only natural.”

  Rachel grabbed Ellie’s arm and stared hard into her eyes. “But I’d contaminate all those people. I’d make them sick. But when I think about it,” her voice broke with a sob, “I don’t care. I don’t care about them. I don’t care about any of them. I just want out of here.”

  “How you doing, sweetie?” The nurse in green stuck her head in the door, and Rachel and Ellie drew apart. Both of them had tears in their eyes, and the nurse stepped farther into the room. “Is everything okay?” She looked at Ellie as if she were guilty of something.

  “We’re just talking,” Ellie said, leaning back on the stool.

  “Uh-huh.” The nurse stared at her for another moment and then turned to Rachel with a softer expression. “Looks like you’re done here. You know what comes next.” Rachel nodded, wiping at her tears, and looked at Ellie.

  “Wait for me?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right outside.” She squeezed Rachel’s hand and winked at her as the nurse unhooked the IV. As much as she hated hospitals in general and as gruesome as she knew the next steps would be, Ellie had to force herself to leave her young friend’s side. She looked back at the doorway as Rachel began undressing. A flicker of helpless rage tickled the base of her spine.

  The women at the end of the hallway were still arguing about whatever filing crisis had arisen. A short plug of a woman with badly permed hair was huffing and puffing about how unfair it was that she had to drop everything she had to do to shuffle paperwork. When Ellie came into view, she directed her complaints at the fresh ears, since no one else was listening.

  “It’s not like we had any kind of warning. We have patients to take care of. Do you think that’s the top priority?”

  She seemed to be waiting for an answer from Ellie. “No?”

  “Of course not. People can just drop where they stand as far as the office is concerned. And is there any point to it?”

  “No?”

  “Exactly.” The little woman bustled past her, her cheeks red with outrage. “And it’s not like they’re not going to completely revamp it again in six months. Look at this.” She gestured to a room full of file cabinets of varying sizes. “It took us over a year to get all the BTM recorded and refiled. That was all they talked about—BTM scores, BTM scores, like it was the freaking holy grail of filing, like it was going to solve the mysteries of the universe. And then six months ago they start talking about the QEH, QEH, and we have to redo everything QEH.”

  “What’s QEH?”

  “The new tag, the new test. Aren’t you listening?” The woman clearly had no idea Ellie didn’t work there. Her tirade carried her along. “And then this week, boom, all these files appear and they expect us, me, to drop everything and wave my magic wand over them and file them with the QEH. Well, let me tell you something.” She jabbed her pen at Ellie, who leaned back from its point. “They can just kiss my A-S-S. How about that?”

  “Sounds good.” Ellie could see why her coworkers avoided this little human tsunami. Her puffing breaths and stomping little feet created a hot wave of frustration whenever she passed. Ellie was afraid to step in front of her, and instead slipped out of her way between two file cabinets in the much-lamented new delivery. The little woman continued to mutter and slam things around, and Ellie was hoping she could make a break for the hallway soon. She leaned against one of the shorter cabinets and looked down at a rough spot under her fingers.

  Scorch marks. The pale gray paint had been scorched in a row of dots. Cigarette burns. Ellie recognized the burns she had made when this cabinet had been in the records office.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ellie stared at the cigarette burns trying to convince herself that she was wrong, that those marks could have come from anywhere, that she wasn’t the only person on earth who burned marks into a pale gray three-drawer file cabinet, but she wouldn’t believe herself. She remembered making those marks, precisely lining up the cigarette ember to scorch in equal-sized dots the length of the cabinet. It couldn’t be a coincidence, but how was it possible that this cabinet had moved itself from the records office to the care center without anyone noticing?

  When had she last seen the cabinet? Ellie chewed on her lip, trying to sort through the whirlwind that had become her life. Monday. Monday she and Bing had sat on the cabinets in the morning. Bing had gotten mad at her again and stormed out and she had headed to the med center. That was when Mr. Carpenter and his goons had threatened to arrest her. The next morning, Tuesday, was when Cooper appeared, and she knew very well what had happened after that. So when had the file cabinet been moved?

  Ellie stared at the drawers, waiting for them to answer her. It had to have been Monday night. There was no other way. Big Martha would have said something if somebody had removed a cabinet as big as this. She had mentioned a messenger bringing in files, but nothing about anything going out. It had to have been after hours on Monday. As logical as the facts sounded, Ellie still had a hard time wrapping her head around it. Had Mr. Carpenter moved all the files out to protect them from her? And if so, why hide it? Why not rub it in?

  Ellie hadn’t stepped any farther onto the red-painted section of her office than to switch out the file boxes. When she’d seen the file cabinets all lined up against the wall she had assumed they were the same cabinets as always, but clearly that wasn’t true. Ellie stepped further into the cluster of newly transferred files. There was a tall, six-drawer cabinet in the grouping, and Ellie craned her neck to see the back of it. In the metal seams sealing the back, she saw the cigarette butts she had been systematically shoving there for months. There could be no doubt. These were the file cabinets from the records office. Ellie leaned on the cabinet, holding her head, trying to think. If they would go through the trouble to switch cabinets, did they also switch out the boxes? Those files she had stolen from the red-taped box—had they been put there after the switch? They’d seemed so unimportant, such a letdown. Was that why Feno had left them unguarded?

  But that wasn’t right. Feno had guarded them. Unsuccessfully. They had sent Cooper in there to guard those files. Someone had blown that building sky-high, and it seemed the bomb had been in the records area. Had someone been trying to destroy sensitive Feno documents and been thwarted by the switch? Or—and the thought made Ellie sway on her feet, trying to process the ramifications—had the bomb come into the building in the files themselves? She had to find Big Martha.

  Ellie hurried down the hall to the nurses’ station and heard the angry cl
erk behind her still complaining about all the filing she had to do. She stopped herself halfway down and cursed. Why hadn’t she taken some of those files while she’d had the chance? It wasn’t as if she had any moral compunction about stealing at this point. If those files had been spirited away, she wanted to know why. She knew she couldn’t just whistle her way out of the building with an armload of files, especially the care center, which was heavily guarded. Acting like she was working a kink out of her neck, Ellie scanned the ceilings for cameras. Every inch of the hallway was covered in surveillance. No doubt the records area was too. Well, Ellie said to herself, where there’s a will there’s a way. It’s probably a bad way, but what the hell.

  Turning slowly on her heel, Ellie tried to look like a bored visitor pacing the halls to kill time. She strolled back into the file room where the angry hornet woman was still talking and slamming drawers. Ellie watched her carry armloads of folders that she dumped in a heap on a large table in the back of the room.

  “Can I help?”

  “Do you know the system?” the little woman snapped at her, both verbally and with her fingers as she passed. “Because I doubt you do and you’ll just wind up screwing this up for me and that’s exactly the last thing I need right now.”

  “I could at least help you carry them. Save you a few steps.”

  The little woman stopped and frowned. “Yes, you could. I would appreciate that. We’re starting in the BTM fours. Over there.” Ellie had no idea what a BTM 4 meant, but she pulled an armload of files from the half-empty drawer and carried them back. The woman moved to the other side of the table and began organizing the piles of folders, muttering to herself about the goddamn Qs, Es, and Hs and how she had better things to do. Ellie left her to it.

  She emptied out the drawer she had started with and then, out of sight of the clerk but in plain sight of the camera overhead, pantomimed being directed to the short cabinet with the scorch marks. She hoped there was no sound on the cameras, because she was miming quite a show, pretending to read the card on the front of the drawers. Nodding for the cameras, she pulled open the top drawer and grabbed an armload of files.