by Garton, Ray
“Because I needed to see you.”
Ram was suddenly beside him. “Take him and get out to the car,” he whispered to Andy. “Now.”
“Come on, big guy,” Andy said, turning Donny toward the front door.
“Hey, wait, what do you think you’re doing?” Jodi said. “Where are you going? It’s not your scheduled time!”
Ram intercepted her, still smiling as he said, “He just needs a minute with the boy, that’s all.”
“But he can’t do that!”
Ram nodded. “Yes, he can. The boy’s in danger. You got drugs here. I can smell the weed, and your windows aren’t boarded up, which means when that hurricane hits soon, you’re gonna have a mess here. You’ve put your son in danger.”
“But-but-but—”
“It’s gonna be just fine, don’t you worry. While he talks to your boy, I want to have a word with you.” Ram went over to the front door to see Andy out. He whispered, “I’ll be out in a minute, just sit in the car and wait.”
“Where we going, Dad?” Donny asked as they went out the door.
Andy said, “We’re going to sit in a police car for a minute, Donny, how about that?”
He glanced back just in time to see Ram closing the door with one hand and reaching under his raincoat to draw his gun with the other. Putting his arm around Donny, he said, “Okay, let’s run to the car!”
They ran down the steps and into the wind, down the front walk, feet splashing in puddles, to the cruiser parked at the curb. Andy opened the car’s rear door and let Donny dive in, then followed him and pulled it closed.
“What’s happening, Dad? Why are you with a policeman?”
“He’s here to help me get you home.”
“Home? You mean your place?”
“Yeah. How would you like that? Would you like living with me full time?”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ll fix up the spare bedroom for you. We can get a basketball hoop for the backyard.”
“And it’ll be quiet, too, won’t it?”
Andy put his arms around the boy and held him close, chuckling. “Yes, it’ll be quiet. Is it noisy like this most of the time here?”
“Yeah. Mom’s friends like music. A lot. But they don’t like cops.” He looked out the window at the house. “I bet they’re not very happy right now.”
Andy followed Donny’s gaze and looked through the window at the house. Water cascaded down the glass and made the house look like it was melting. He wondered what was going on in there. Ram had refused to tell him how he planned to convince Jodi to transfer custody, and Andy had been worried about that ever since. After seeing the people in the house, it seemed even less likely that Ram would be able to convince Jodi of anything. In her current mood, Andy doubted he’d be able to talk to her at all. The longer Ram stayed in there, the more worried Andy became.
Up the street, Andy saw a clump of shrubbery rolling and bouncing over the pavement, driven by the wind like a tumbleweed through a ghost town.
“How long is he gonna be in there?” Donny asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what he’s—”
Andy’s body jolted when he heard the first gunshot from inside the house, and again when the second fired. Then a woman screamed. Andy’s insides turned to ice.
He turned to Donny to reassure him, but the boy looked unfazed. He did not seem at all surprised by the gunshots. He casually said, “They prob’ly shot him. They’ve all got guns.”
Three more shots, almost overlapping each other. Another scream. As the wind blew harder, the windows of the house, along with the entire neighborhood, went dark.
3
Ollie was running up the stairs when the lights went out and plunged the stairwell into blackness. It startled him and his toe hit the top of the next stair and he went down, cracking his forearms against the edge of a step, then slid most of the way back down the stairs. He cursed as he reached up and turned on his headlamp, then got to his feet. His breathing was loud in the stairwell, and his heartbeat was loud in his ears.
He pulled the door open and stepped into the second floor corridor. He looked to the right, the left, stood there and listened a moment. It was drafty, and he could hear the storm outside, but he neither saw nor heard anything in the corridor. He knew that didn’t mean much.
He turned right and moved swiftly but quietly down the corridor toward the rear of the building. He knew some of his men were on the second floor and was tempted to shout for them, but after the screams he’d heard on the phone, he decided to exercise caution.
A whispery sound behind him made him spin around. Rapid, rhythmic slapping noises—bare feet running on the tile—grew distant somewhere in the darkness beyond the reach of his headlamp. Someone was running away from him.
Ollie began running after the sounds, his heavy footsteps reverberating in the corridor. He saw nothing ahead. He stopped, listened, heard nothing. Turned around, listened again, then hurried back in the direction he’d originally been going, past the stairwell, farther into the darkness.
He came to another corridor that branched to the right, stopped and listened. Nothing. He took the cell phone from his belt to call one of his team leaders, but his foot struck something solid and heavy and he went down again, cursing. The cell phone slipped from his hand and shattered into a few pieces that skittered over the floor.
“Goddammit to hell,” he muttered as he got up. Then, when he turned to see what had tripped him: “Oh, fuck.”
One of his men, Sean Ferguson, lay sprawled on the floor on his back in a large puddle of blood, his face badly slashed, throat cut. His eyes were wide and his mouth yawned open, as if he had died mid-scream.
Head down, Ollie examined the floor around his feet and saw dark, wet smears and some distinct footprints. Some of the prints were clearly of bare feet. They had come from the direction in which he’d been headed.
“Blood,” he whispered, stepping back. He remembered what Fara McManus had said about what she called the “test subjects.”
You get the blood of a carrier on your skin, the virus is absorbed quickly . . . . The virus works swiftly. It will turn you into an enraged psychopath.
Goose bumps rose on his flesh under his clothes and the hair on the back of his neck stiffened. He had no way of knowing whose blood besides Sean’s was all over the floor, so he made sure he avoided it as he moved slowly down the corridor, heading back to the footprints’ point of origin. He made a mental note to remove his boots when he left the building, just to be safe.
The light from his headlamp fell in a pool on the floor and moved along with him, passing over the shattered pieces of his cell phone, smeared with blood. He did not pick them up.
He came to another body, this one a woman in a pale hospital gown lying facedown on the floor. Blood stained the back of her gown and a section of the back of her head was a black, bloody hole. She’d been shot.
Ollie heard a sound up ahead, lifted his head, and saw light glowing through a doorway on the left, sweeping this way and that, and he heard a quiet voice.
“Jesus . . . Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.”
He hurried forward, calling, “Who’s there?”
“Ollie? It’s Mack.” His voice was hoarse and tense. He stepped through the doorway and turned toward Ollie, headlamp flashing brightly.
“Don’t move,” Ollie said. “Stay right where you are.”
He went toward him, watching where he stepped. He knew he already had blood on his boots and that he was safe as long as it didn’t get on his skin, but after what McManus had said, he didn’t want to touch any more blood if he could help it. Just being near it made his skin crawl.
“What the hell is going on?” he said.
“Sean and me, we were down the corridor going through all the rooms,” Mack said, “when we heard gunshots and screaming. As we were running down here, the lights went out. We came around the corridor and there were these . . . these . . .
people. A bunch of ’em. In, like, hospital gowns, or something. They just came out of the dark, a bunch of faces rushing toward us, a bunch of angry, crazy faces, and a couple of ’em had knives and they went for Sean. I mean, they just jumped on him like animals, like savages, and started stabbing and slashing. I started firing. I got a couple of ’em, killed one, I think, and then they came after me. I panicked, I lost it, and I just ran. Down here, into this room.”
Ollie moved toward the doorway.
“Nothin’ in there but Mikey Holt and Lester Cabot, and they’re both dead. They found the people we were looking for. Shot their way in there”—he turned and gestured toward the doorway through which he’d come—“Blew the fuck outta the door. And they rescued ’em. Just like you said. They found ’em, let ’em out, and then . . . far as I can tell . . . those people killed ’em, killed Mikey and Lester like they hated them, cut ’em all to hell, stabbed ’em. They took Lester’s clothes. Those people, they were like, Jesus, like angry savages, or something.”
“Where the hell did they go?”
“I don’t know. They came outta nowhere, I ran, and then they were gone.”
“You get any blood on you?”
“Blood? I-I don’t know, I—”
“Any of their blood, I mean. The people who attacked you.”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus Christ. Who else is on this floor?”
“It was just me and Sean, Mikey, and Lester.”
Ollie shook his head slowly as he stared at the open doorway. “We’ve gotta find them. We’ve gotta find the people they let out of this room.” He spoke the next sentence in a tight and angry voice. “Before they get out of this building.”
4
Hank found an emergency exit in the rear of the building, and when he pushed it open, it was caught by the wind and slammed against the outer wall. The wind nearly knocked Hank over when it hit him and he braced himself against the doorjamb. Rain blew in through the open door as he pulled the dead man’s black coat together in front and stepped outside.
He thought it might be a good idea to cover his traces as much as he could. He pulled the door away from the wall with both hands and shoved it closed. Then he turned around, leaned back against it, and took in his surroundings.
After making his way through the dark hospital, his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and he saw dead bodies lying in the gravel parking lot. They were dressed in dark clothes, but not the same clothes as the men who’d let Hank and the others out of their rooms. No ski masks. He saw four of them sprawled on the ground amid the parked cars. Another lay on the hood of a Toyota Corolla, the windshield of which bore three bullet holes, each at the center of a web of cracks in the glass.
Hank sucked in a deep breath of cold, damp air and blew it out with puffed cheeks, trying to calm himself. He was so angry, his hands shook and his knees felt weak, and he did not understand why. He should be glad to be out of that little room, out of that round, donutlike ward. But he was clenching his teeth and his fists as he stood in the rain.
It was the first time he’d been outside in what felt like a small eternity. The ski mask protected his face from the stinging rain and the heavy clothes kept him warm. Now all he needed was a car.
He scanned the cars until his gaze fell on a deep-red Jeep Wrangler hard top with black fenders. Hank had always been fond of the Jeep brand. Sturdy, long-lasting vehicles that were built to take a lot of crap. This one couldn’t have been more than a year or two old and appeared to be in great shape.
With one more quick look around to make sure there was no one in the area to see him, Hank staggered through the wind and rain to the Jeep. He thought he would have to break in, but the door was unlocked. After all, it was parked in a secure facility that was fenced and gated, so why not leave it unlocked?
Before getting in, he looked across the parking lot at the single chain-link gate. It would be risky, but he thought he could crash through it without damaging the Jeep too badly.
He got into the Jeep, pulled the door closed, and took a moment to collect himself. He wanted to relax, but he couldn’t. His heart pounded in his tight chest and his throat felt constricted. Maybe he’d feel better once he got away from the hospital and the people in it.
He’d started stealing cars when he was a kid. He hadn’t done it in a while, but it was like riding a bike. He pushed the seat all the way back, spit on each of his palms, rubbed his hands together, then leaned forward to reach under the steering wheel.
Gifford was going to be so surprised. And he was going to pay for what he’d done.
5
Ivan’s living room was thick with an air of nervous anticipation. He sat in the golden light of the popping, whispering flames in the fireplace with Mike Dodge and Julie Falk, eating popcorn, drinking coffee, and listening to the radio.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Mike said. “We should’ve gotten out of town.” He sat in a club chair and rocked back and forth, his hands wringing, fidgeting, wringing.
“Would you like a Xanax, Mike?” Ivan said. “If so, I’ve got one. You really need to relax. I mean, Jesus, you’re making me antsy.” He had watched Mike grow increasingly anxious as the evening wore on and it was becoming irritating, even a little alarming.
Mike winced and shook his head. “I don’t like pharmaceuticals. Got any weed?”
“No, sorry. I haven’t had any in a while.”
“I might have a joint in my purse,” Julie said. She opened the bag and rummaged through the contents.
“Whatever you do,” Ivan said, “don’t drink any more coffee, Mike. You don’t need it. I’ve got some wine. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“I don’t drink,” Mike said. “But this seems like a perfect time to start. I’ve never had wine before. Maybe I should have a glass.”
“We’re going to be fine, Mike,” Ivan said. “We’re far enough inland here so we won’t—”
Mike popped out of the chair like a toaster pastry, saying, “It’s not the hurricane. That’s just weather. The longer Emilio doesn’t call, the higher my blood pressure goes. If Ollie and his soldiers have raided that hospital, and if what we suspect about what they’re doing there is true, this could be . . . disastrous.” He began to walk aimlessly around the living room. He didn’t pace, he wandered.
“Found it!” Julie said, raising her hand with a joint between thumb and forefinger. “Do you need a lighter?”
Mike crossed the room, took the joint and the lighter she offered, and lit up where he stood.
Julie had just turned twenty-one, but she looked like an all-American high school cheerleader. Petite, with long, wavy, blond hair and a sunny disposition, she was the most unlikely of Ivan’s Red Pill team. His radio show and website were more appealing to downbeat people who were inclined to have a darker outlook. She seemed much too conventional and wholesome to be interested in such things, but Julie was a walking encyclopedia of conspiracy lore.
Her grandfather had lived with her family when she was growing up and he had been, by all accounts, a complete loon who’d firmly believed all the conspiracy theories, even the ones that contradicted each other or canceled each other out. Julie had adored him and spent a lot of time listening to him talk, and reading his books and magazines. She’d absorbed all of it and remembered every detail, but she believed very little of it.
“I didn’t believe Grampy’s stories back then,” she’d told Ivan, “but I loved them because they were such great stories. They were at least as good as fairy tales, or Harry Potter, or any of the comic books I read. I didn’t believe any of those, so why should I believe Grampy’s stories? For a long time, I didn’t know he believed them. I just thought he was telling me stories, you know? But as I got older and learned he and a whole lot of other people believed them, I looked at them differently. They still work as stories, but as reality? No. I had to admit to myself that my grampy was . . . well, a little nutty.”
When he as
ked her if she believed any of them, she said, “I know there are lots of real conspiracies and always have been. I don’t know how anyone could know anything about history and not know that. Wherever there’s power, there are conspiracies. I just don’t believe in extraterrestrial lizards or the antichrist or witches and Satanists trying to rule the world. That’s why I was so happy to find your website, because neither do you. You only focus on the stuff that makes sense. Nobody else is doing that. They either think the Illuminati is using the Freemasons to usher in the antichrist’s rule, or they dismiss any mention of the word ‘conspiracy.’ You’re in the middle ground, and that’s usually where the truth is.”
Julie had gone through high school in nearly half the usual time and started college early, where she’d earned a degree in literature and was working on another in anthropology. She believed the crazy conspiracy theories were myths in the making that served as a kind of camouflage for real conspiracies swirling in the halls of power, many of which were threats to life and freedom, all of which had as their goals money and power for a minutely small few.
She had never been, nor had she ever wanted to be, a cheerleader.
Julie and Mike were still at Ivan’s house because they’d gotten stuck there. Ever since Ivan had heard from Emilio that afternoon and the conversation had been abruptly interrupted, they’d been waiting anxiously for him to call back. They’d done busywork around the office as they waited, but no call came and Emilio himself did not show up. When Ivan saw the news on the Internet that the hurricane would be hitting earlier than expected, later that very night, he’d told them to go home, but the weather had become so furious that he decided not to let them leave.
“I’ve got plenty of room and food,” he’d said. “You can stay the night. We’ll make popcorn and tell ghost stories.”
And then they’d received Emilio’s recording. They listened to it again and again, their mouths hanging open in a combination of shock and delight.
But still, there was no call from Emilio.
