Erika’s throat tightened before she got her hand on the door. She somehow knew she didn’t really want to see what was inside.
She forced her hand to open the door, her feet to carry her into the room. There were four beds like in the room where Ian lay. One was empty, the other three occupied. A nurse in a hazmat suit sat at the teacher’s desk, her head buried in a laptop, her fingers tapping the keys. She looked up when the door opened. As soon as she realized that the person entering was not in the gear everybody else was wearing to remain free of the infection, her eyes grew wide and she bolted up from the chair. She closed the gap between them quickly. Erika was surprised to see how fast someone could move in one of those getups.
Erika stood just inside the door. As the woman approached, Erika peered around her, trying to see if she recognized any of the bodies lying like corpses on the hospital beds, IV lines and plastic tubes coming out of them. Erika always thought real people in real hospitals were scarier than fake zombies in horror movies. She would have taken zombies over real-life death scenes any day.
The woman spoke quietly but still managed to sound like she was yelling as she peppered Erika with questions. “Why aren’t you in full code gear? Why aren’t you following protocol?”
What am I supposed to say? That I’ve spent weeks in a future version of a secret underground lab and was infected with this virus already but managed to survive? The more truthful she was, the more it would sound like a lie.
“I’m from here. Ajo. I’ve already been exposed but got separated from my family, and I’m looking for them. Do you have Jack Wilson or Tina Martinez Holt in here?”
The woman’s face softened. “No Wilsons here. But yes, Mrs. Holt is here. She was one of the first that got sick. A miracle she’s still alive, frankly. Oh, sorry.”
Erika hadn’t meant for her face to twist with pain, her eyes to fill with tears. But it had.
“She’s – my mom.” Erika sniffed. She unhunched her shoulders and pushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. “Where is she?”
“Over here.” The woman put her gloved hand on Erika’s. “Have you seen anyone with the blisters and bleeding yet?”
Erika nodded. Seen wasn’t exactly the word. It had been so dark when Ian was sick that she hadn’t seen him well, but again it didn’t seem like details she needed to share.
“Then you know it’s not a pretty sight. I’ve been trying to keep her as cleaned up as I can, but … Well, she’s resting comfortably now. Doctor ordered a mild sedative for her so she could get some rest, poor thing.”
“How long?”
“Has she been sick? A few weeks now, I guess.”
“No. I mean how long does she have? To live?”
The nurse looked down and away. She shook her head slowly. “Not long.”
Erika pulled her chin up, threw her shoulders back and walked toward the bed. Her mom looked so small. Her mom was taller than Erika, at least five feet six inches, and had always been on the heavy side. Her mom had embraced her curves as the mark of a lusty Latina and proudly displayed her busty self in cleavage-bearing low-cut shirts and her plentiful bottom in close-fitting jeans and leggings. Her mom’s hair had been a fluffy cascade of black when it wasn’t dyed, but most often it was bleached blonde, Ms. Clairol No. 3. When Erika was a child she’d thought her mom was the most beautiful woman in the world, like a real-life Mexican princess come to life. But after her dad died, her mom looked more and more like the worn-out drunk that she was, makeup and hair dye unable to hide the tired and sick self that lurked inside her skin.
The woman that lay on the bed with an IV port taped to her arm and a long plastic tube snaking up from somewhere near her stomach didn’t resemble either picture of her mom Erika had in her head. Erika still didn’t know exactly how long they’d been in Tro, but if her mom’s hair was any way to judge it, they’d been gone for at least a month. Her mom’s hair had been freshly dyed blonde the last time Erika had seen her. Now she had at least an inch of roots showing. Her mom’s face was naked. No false eyelashes, no rouge or pink lips. Her skin was slightly yellow like she’d been dusted with saffron. Her body was small and fragile, not robust as it had always been.
Erika stood by the bed and stared down at the red rims around her mom’s eyes, the bloodstains on her pillow. The blood-filled boils that had formed not only on her forehead but also her chest and hands. It’s worse than it was with Ian. Even with pain meds and a sedative on board, her mom’s brow was knitted as if the pain was there even if she wasn’t conscious of it. Her fingers were curled around the sheets beneath her, not relaxed.
Her mom’s lips looked dry, and Erika wanted to give her water. She looked so thirsty. There was no water pitcher on the small hospital table beside the bed. The bag hanging was dripping clear liquid into her mom’s arm, keeping her insides hydrated but doing nothing for her skin and lips. Erika opened a small drawer built into the table and found a ChapStick.
She bent over her mom and gently blotted her lips with the ChapStick. Her mom tried to move her head away and mumbled something.
Erika bent closer to speak, trying not to wake the others up. “Mom? It’s me. Erika. Are you awake?”
Her mom blinked her eyes open slowly, her brow even more knotted as she squinted up at Erika. She tried to speak, but her voice was a thin, hoarse whisper. She swallowed, sucked in air and tried again. “Erika? My baby?” Her eyes widened but were glassy, and she looked as though she wasn’t quite seeing clearly.
“Yes, it’s me. Your baby girl.” Erika had told herself to stay strong for her mom. But it was no use. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gently squeezed her mom’s hand. “I’m here.” She wished now that she hadn’t given Dr. Randall the vials of antiviral. Her mom might well be past saving, but if she had the antiviral …
“Oh, thank God,” her mom croaked. “I was so worried about you. They said you were kidnapped. Taken down to Mexico. Everyone said you were probably dead. But I knew you were okay and you’d be back. A mother knows these things.”
Her mom coughed, and a blob of bloody spittle landed on her lips. Erika grabbed tissues from a box on the table and wiped her mouth.
“Yep, I’m okay.”
“I didn’t blame you for running away with that good-looking new guy of yours. Didn’t blame you one bit for shaking the shit of this crappy town off yer boots and getting the hell out of here.”
Her mom coughed, and Erika again wiped the blood while trying not to let herself think too hard about it. “Doesn’t matter. I’m back now.”
“Why’d you come back? Everyone here’s sick and you’ll get it too. You shouldn’t have come back.” Tears filled her mom’s eyes. “Now you’ll get sick like me.”
Erika smoothed her mom’s hair back from her face. Her head was hot and her hair was wet and matted to her skin.
“I’ll be okay, Mom. I got sick, but I got better.”
“I didn’t think nobody got better from this crud.” She coughed up more blood.
“Apparently some people do. I did. And Ian did.”
“Well, that’s ’cause you two are strong. A lot tougher than most people. Stronger than an old drunk like me.” She closed her eyes and her forehead creased up again.
“Are you in pain?”
Her mom nodded slowly and grimaced.
“I’ll ask the nurse for pain medication.” Erika turned to leave, but her mom grabbed her arm.
“No, not yet. It’ll put me out and I need to talk to you.”
“We can talk later. When you’re feeling better.”
Her mom coughed again, and Erika wiped the pink, blood-tinged spittle from her lips. “I’m not going to feel any better than this.”
“Don’t say that. We brought – I mean they found a cure. They’re working on it now. It will probably only take a few days and –”
Erika’s mom coughed again and a thin trickle of blood oozed from the side of her eye. “Erika, I don’t have a couple of days. Lis
ten to me. Please.”
Erika pulled a wheeled stool from under the bedside table and sat down. She wiped the blood from her mom’s face and ignored the tightness in her throat. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“I’ve been a shitty mom. I’m sorry for that.”
She had been a terrible mom, at least since Erika’s dad died. And though Erika had frequently imagined telling her mom that to her face as she stormed out of the house for good, now she found herself unable to agree. “No, don’t say that.” She wiped her mom’s hot forehead with the cool, damp cloth the nurse had given her.
Tina tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgle of bloody mucous. “You’re like your dad. A terrible liar.” Tina opened her eyes and looked at Erika. “So like your dad. I’m glad of that.” She coughed again. “I wanted to apologize to you. For so long I’ve wanted to say I’m sorry … to ask your forgiveness for killing your daddy.”
Erika knew her mom was very ill. She didn’t need a medical degree to know that bloody coughing was bad. But she had no idea her mom’s brain was being affected. “Shh. You didn’t kill him. He got shot while on patrol, remember?”
Tina coughed again and shook her head. “We’d been fighting. That night, he wasn’t supposed to go out. But I – I badgered him, Erika. I was being a jealous bitch, accusing him and riding his ass. He took someone else’s shift – to get away from me. If he hadn’t been out there that night –”
Erika had never heard this story. She’d never known that he took a shift he wasn’t meant to. That there had ever been any other scenario that didn’t see him dead.
And even without knowing this information her mom had just shared, Erika had blamed her mom for her dad’s death. Erika had blamed her mom for everything bad that had ever happened to her. Her drunk mom made an easy target for such scapegoating.
Maybe it was the blood trickling from Tina’s nose, or maybe it was the time away. Whatever it was, Erika saw things differently now. And she knew as much as she ever knew anything that Tina needed to hear from her that it wasn’t her fault.
“Mom.” Erika wiped the blood from her upper lip then took her mom’s hand. “Now you listen to me. It wasn’t your fault. I think … Well, I think that maybe when it’s your time to go, it’s your time. Even if he hadn’t gone out that night, who’s to say he wouldn’t have been shot another night?”
Her mom coughed again and winced from the pain it caused. “So you don’t blame me?”
As Erika searched her feelings, she couldn’t bring herself to blame her mom anymore. “No. I don’t.”
The crease in her mom’s forehead eased a bit and she let out a long sigh. “I’ve been a coward, Erika, hiding in a bottle of vodka, missing out on the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.” She squeezed Erika’s hand, and blood-tinged tears rolled down her cheeks, staining the pillowcase watercolor pink.
Erika smoothed her hair and wiped the bloody tears. “Shh, it’s okay. Don’t get yourself worked up.”
“I’m so sorry, my baby girl. I love you so much.” Tina’s forehead creased up again and a moan of pain escaped her lips.
Erika stood and bent down to kiss her mom’s clammy forehead. “I love you too.” Tina’s face was pinched and her mouth grimaced with pain.
She went to the nurse. “My mom is in a lot of pain. Is there something you can give her for that?”
The nurse nodded. “She’s got a standing order for morphine. I’ll give her a dose now. Look, your mom’s really bad. She’s probably going to need lots of this to keep her comfortable. It’ll knock her out and she’ll likely stay asleep from here on. So if you need to – well, if you’ve got anything to say …”
Erika wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her sleeve. There was a lot more that she wanted to say, but she couldn’t keep the conversation going while watching her mom suffer in pain. “We’ve already talked.”
Erika went back to her mom’s bedside. “The nurse will be here soon with some medicine for the pain.” She took her mom’s hand and Tina gave her a small smile.
She tried to talk but only coughed up more blood. Erika wiped it and Tina got a few words out. “I knew you’d be back. They said you was dead, but I knew. Not my Erika.” She coughed some more and lay back. “You’re strong, like your daddy.”
The nurse arrived and injected the morphine into her mom’s IV port. “She’ll feel better now. She’ll sleep. But if she wakes and needs more, don’t wait. We want to keep her comfortable.”
Erika nodded and watched the crease in her mom’s forehead lessen, her mouth relax. Within seconds, her mom had slipped into a peaceful, drug-induced rest.
Her mom never regained full consciousness. As soon as her brow crinkled, Erika asked the nurse for more pain medication. She held her mom’s hand and watched her chest move slowly up and down, up and down. She listened to the wheezing sound of her mom’s lungs struggle to get enough air. The breaths came more slowly until there was no more up and down of the breath. Her mom was still. She was gone.
Of all the things Erika had lived through in her recent past, none was as surreal as watching her mom die. In an instant, the life force – the soul – whatever it was that animated the woman who had given her life vanished. She couldn’t see it go like a vapor dissipating into the air. Her mom’s body simply became a house with no one home.
Erika had wanted to say many things. To tell her mom she was sorry for being such a douche. For not being more patient and understanding. That while in the dark recesses of that future A.H.D.N.A., Erika had imagined coming home and getting her mom into rehab. Of helping Tina start anew.
But there would be no conversations about forgiveness or hope or starting over. There was only a cold, lifeless hand in Erika’s own, a reminder that she was now alone in the world. A world that was scarier and lonelier and more unknown than it ever had been.
47
JACK
Jack made it only a few feet out into the anteroom before he stopped. His legs were wobbly beneath him. He had to rethink the plan of carrying Alecto out of the place. Even her slight build became heavy after a few minutes.
He had no idea what was happening with Thomas or if there were more guards on the way. Their plan was already shot to hell. From here on, Jack was on his own and making it up as he went.
“I need to put you down for a few minutes.” Jack tried to gently place Alecto on the floor. It was less graceful than he’d hoped for. She slid down his front, teetered on her feet and fell over. “Crap – are you okay?” He knelt and reached out to peer inside the blanket.
Her hand knocked his away before he was close enough to touch her. The blanket fell from her shoulders. She sat up and stared at him through the Plexiglas of her gas mask.
“I’m going to get the rest of the magazines for my gun and a few more canisters of gas out of the toolbox over there. Can you walk on your own?”
She nodded.
“Good. We’ve got to find Thomas and Anna then get the hell out of this place. Stay behind me.”
Jack didn’t wait for her to respond. He released the spent magazine and shoved a new one into the gun. He stuffed a few more magazines into his pockets and wedged two canisters of Zissnine in his waistband.
By the time he stood and turned around, Alecto had unwrapped herself. She stood as still as a statue, her eyes on him. Her bulbous grey head reflected the dim light, giving her an eerie glow.
“Come on,” he said. He stepped cautiously into the hallway, looking first left and then right. Alecto was at his back.
The corridor was empty and quiet. Too quiet. Jack had been sure that Harris would send at least a few more guards to take care of Jack and secure Alecto. He knew Harris had taken off after Thomas. Is it possible there are less than a half dozen guards in this whole place?
They reached the end of the carpeted hallway. If he turned left, less than thirty yards of marble tiles stood between them and the entrance. There were voices coming from that direction. He cou
ldn’t make them out, but whoever was speaking, it didn’t sound like a friendly conversation.
Jack was fairly certain Thomas had been taken down this large hallway farther down to the right. He needed to find Thomas but wasn’t sure that he was still in the utility and computer room. “Which way to go?” Jack was speaking to himself and hadn’t expected an answer to his rhetorical question.
But Alecto answered. Her voice was raspy like she was speaking through a throat full of crackers. “Go left.”
“I know that’s the way out. But we have to get Thomas first.”
“Go left,” she repeated in his ear.
Jack hesitated. He didn’t trust her. She’d done nothing to help him with the guards. Granted, she had been weakened by the humidity and was wrapped like a burrito. But for all Jack knew, she’d been reprogrammed already and was working for Croft now. She could be leading Jack to a trap.
Alecto pushed past him. “We must proceed with haste. Anna Sturgis is in danger,” Alecto said.
Trap or no, using ‘Anna’ and ‘danger’ in the same sentence got Jack’s attention. “Why do you care about what happens to Anna Sturgis?”
Alecto stopped. “Because Commander Sturgis ordered me to.” She continued on before Jack had a chance to question her further.
Jack didn’t like the idea of walking brazenly through the place without an idea of what they were facing. He preferred to sneak her out if they could rather than lay waste to more innocent men who happened to be working for the wrong guy. “Wait, Alecto. What’s your plan?”
“Follow me,” she said. Alecto walked quickly ahead of Jack, slivers of her pale greyish skin winking out of the tied-up back of her mint green hospital gown. She moved now with the preternatural speed that Jack had seen Tex use, and her bare feet were silent on the marble floor.
He tiptoed after her and tried to keep his boots from squeaking on the stone floor. He stayed close to the wall as they made their way toward the grand entrance to the penthouse.
H.A.L.F.: The Makers Page 30
