Fatal

by Michael Palmer

  He whirled and left, slamming the door with a force that threatened to collapse the shed.

  “I’m tellin’ you, he really is a doctor,” Matt heard Becky say. “Ask him to look at Rake.”

  “No!”

  “Christ, Bass, he’s your brother.”

  “Shut up! This guy’s a fed and in a little while he’s gonna be a dead fed. This ain’t no fuckin’ game we’re playin’ here. I want to know how in the hell he found us.”

  Drugs! Matt felt certain the bikers were either growing them, processing them, or more likely both. He again checked the single window. The overcast sky seemed brighter now. Time was running out—for him, for Nikki, and for the rest of those in the cavern. It was also running out for some children who were about to receive the so-called vaccination of a lifetime.

  For a while, he lay in silence, assuring himself again that the handcuffs were unyielding, and trying to conjure up a way to expand on his primitive effort to exploit Becky, clearly a weak link in the chain. Twice a bike rumbled off. He couldn’t tell for certain if either was one he had heard before. He imagined his own Harley and the indescribable sense of freedom and completeness he felt when riding the hills. Then, soundlessly, Becky eased open the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind her. Samuel wasn’t with her. Instead, she was carrying a dirty pillowcase, partially filled with something.

  “You are a doctor, ain’t you?”

  “Just like I said. Becky, I—”

  “Tell me which of these will help Samuel.”

  She dumped the contents of the sack onto the floor in front of him—dozens of bottles and vials of various pills and liquid meds, almost all of them legitimately labeled from one pharmacy or another.

  “The guys ’mos always clean out the medicine cabinets a the houses they . . . um . . . visit,” she whispered. “They all love Perks and Oxys, but a couple of ’em prefer codeine. The rest a the pills they jes keep around. Will any a these help Samuel?”

  Matt fingered through the vials and picked out two different brands of amoxicillin, 250 milligrams—thirty capsules in all.

  “This’ll work,” he said, pulling one of them apart. “Just take about half the powder from one of these capsules and mix it in his food three times a day. For the first dose, use a whole capsule’s worth. Does Samuel have any allergies?”

  “Any what?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Here, half a teaspoon of this liquid medicine will help his cough.”

  “Thank ya, Doctor,” she said, gathering up the pills. “I’m sorry Bass don’t believe you.”

  “Becky, you’ve got to help me get out of here.”

  “Oh, I cain’t do thet.”

  “They’re growing drugs here, aren’t they. Is that what Bass is afraid I’ll find out?”

  “I gotta go now.”

  “Becky, I swear I won’t tell anyone. I just want to help get my friends out of that mine. Please, he’s going to kill me.”

  “I know. I sure wish he wasn’t.”

  “Who’s Rake?” Matt asked suddenly.

  “How did you—? Ah, you heered me talkin’ ta Bass.”

  “What’s wrong with Rake?”

  “He’s . . . sick. Some kinda cancer or somethin’ in his back, they said. He kin barely walk, an’ he cain’t ride his bike atall.”

  “Show me on you, Becky. Show me where Rake’s cancer is.”

  Becky hesitated, then turned and pointed to her lower back.

  “I gotta go now. Thanks for helpin’ Samuel.”

  “Becky, get Bass,” Matt said desperately. “Tell him I’m ready to talk. I’m ready to tell him everything.”

  “You ain’t a doctor?”

  “I am. Now, please, get him.”

  “I’m sorry,” he heard her say as the door closed.

  Matt sensed the woman hurrying away. He should have been harder on her. If she didn’t agree to help him, he should have threatened to tell Bass that she had. Stupid. Frustrated, he whipped his manacled hand up with such force that a slice of skin peeled back from his wrist. He barely noticed the pain.

  “Bass, I’ll talk,” he called out, certain his voice hadn’t carried past the walls. “Let’s make a deal. Come on.”

  Nothing.

  Ten minutes passed, maybe more, before the door opened again. Two bikers, both in black, but neither needing to dress tough in order to look tough, strode in and pulled him roughly to his feet. One of the men—shaved head; broad, flat nose; tattooed neck—unlocked the handcuff on the pipe and secured it to his own wrist.

  Thank God, Matt thought. But then, as they led him outside, another, far more ominous thought came to mind. The bikers were making no attempt to conceal their compound from him. In all likelihood, no matter what he did or said, he was a dead man. Scattered in the dense woods, well hidden from above, were ten wooden structures of various sizes. The largest, looking something like an Indian longhouse, had smoke curling from two chimneys. Above the chimneys a broad metal roof, suspended from the trees, diffused the smoke, which carried a distinctive, chemical odor. Opium, Matt guessed. No way they were going to let him go having seen this.

  The two men led him across a dirt and pine needle courtyard to a modestly sized rough-hewn house with a small, low front porch. Bass was inside, standing by a bed in what might have once been a living room. Lying on his side on the bed, knees drawn up, was a man so like Bass in appearance that Matt guessed they were twins. A husky woman, her face deeply pocked from burnt-out acne, sat in a wooden rocker in one corner of the room, breast-feeding an unkempt infant who looked as if it might be battling the same germ as Samuel. Rake, pale and sweating, was obviously ill and in pain.

  “This here’s my brother, Rake,” Bass said as the bald one unlocked Matt’s manacle. “He’s been sick for a couple a weeks with like a cancer on his back. If you’re really a doctor, fix him up. If you ain’t, I’m gonna put yer eyes out, for starters.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway,” Matt said.

  The moment he spoke the words, he knew they were a mistake. Moving like a cobra strike, Bass snatched him by the shirt again, this time lifting his toes clear of the floor.

  “Don’t fuck with me,” he rasped. “And don’t fuck with my brother neither.”

  “Okay, okay. Put me down.”

  Praying his instincts about Rake’s problem were correct, Matt walked around the bed and drew down the sheet. It was as he’d suspected, a gigantic abscess of a congenital remnant, known as a pilonidal cyst, located directly over the tailbone just above the crack between Rake’s enormous buttocks. Partially obscuring the abscess, which was six inches from top to bottom and almost certainly down to bone, was a large, geometric tattoo that looked like something drawn with a Spirograph.

  “I can fix this,” Matt said.

  “Ain’t no one can fix cancer,” one of the bikers said.

  “Shut up,” Bass snapped.

  “This isn’t cancer,” Matt replied. “It’s infection. I need to open it up and wash the pus out. You have anything like a bathtub here? I mean one with hot water. It’s got to be big enough for him to fit into.”

  “Tub’s back there,” Bass said. “We kin get plenty a hot water from . . . we got it.”

  “And soap, like the kind you wash dishes with.”

  Bass looked over at the nursing mother, who nodded.

  “We got that,” he said.

  “And some rags, a lot of them—the cleaner the better.”

  Another look, another nod, this time in the direction of the kitchen. One of the bikers went in there and returned quickly with a small armload of rags. He set them where Matt indicated at the foot of the bed.

  “Okay, I need a knife—a sharp one.”

  In an instant, all three bikers had produced blades from nearly invisible sheaths, the smallest of which was half a foot or better.

  “Pick one an’ don’t do nothin’ stupid,” Bass warned.

  Matt chose the smallest knife and hefted it in h
is hand, examining the point at the same time.

  “Finally, I need some hot, soapy water,” he said. “Half a pail.”

  Bass grunted something, and in a minute, the bald biker had left, returned, and set a bucket half filled with sudsy water at Matt’s feet.

  “Tell him this is going to hurt like hell,” Matt said. “A little while after I’m done, much of the pain he’s been having should go away.”

  “You hear that?”

  “Tell him to do whatever the fuck he has to,” Rake groaned.

  Given what awaited within Rake’s infected pilonidal cyst, there was no sense in bothering to sterilize the knife or his skin. Matt wrapped a cloth around the blade and held it in place about an inch from the tip.

  “Okay, Rake. Ready . . . and . . . now!”

  He thrust the knife straight in and pulled it straight down through the tattoo, almost two inches. Rake hissed through clenched teeth, but made no other sound. Bloody, foul-smelling pus, under tremendous pressure, spewed from the wound. Much of it hit the cloth surrounding the blade. Some of it actually spattered Matt.

  “Soon as he can move, get him into the tub of hot, soapy water,” Matt ordered, cleaning the wound out as best he could and rinsing his hands in the bucket of water. “It might sting, but it’ll help a lot. Does anybody here have any antibiotics? Now that the infection is open, they might help.”

  “You’re a shitty liar,” Bass said. “Becky already told me what you did with Samuel.”

  Obviously anticipating the need, he tossed over the pillowcase of purloined medications, and Matt selected out the most powerful of them.

  “Two of these four times today,” he said, wondering if being caught in this particular lie was a minus or a plus, “then one four times a day. He really should be seen at a hospital, but even if you don’t take him, this cavity should heal from the inside over two weeks, three tops. Send someone to a store for ten or twelve bottles of peroxide and some gauze bandages. You can wash out the hole with the peroxide and then pack it with the gauze.” He glanced down at his unprotected hands and added, “Get a few boxes of rubber gloves, too.”

  He hesitated, carefully choosing the words to make a sort of deal with Bass. Before he could speak, though, without a word of thanks or warning, Bass motioned with a jerk of his head, and Matt was unceremoniously pulled, almost dragged, from the house and returned to the shed.

  “Wait a minute,” he complained as Shaved Head locked his cuff back onto the copper pipe. “Wait one fucking minute. I just saved that man’s life. No questions asked. Listen, I need to get out of here. My friends are going to die if I don’t. Tell Bass I won’t ever say anything to anyone about having been here. I promise.” The bikers were already headed out. “Stop! This isn’t fair! I saved your friend’s life!” He was railing at the inside of the closed door. “Goddamn it.”

  Matt kicked the wall and made yet another fruitless attempt to pull the pipe free. No chance. He was as good as dead. If they let him live, it would only be to care for the cavity he had created in Rake’s back.

  “You bastards!” he yelled. “Ungrateful bastards!”

  He slumped down onto his bed of oily rags, pulled the blanket over him, and closed his eyes. Nikki and the others had virtually no chance now, either. For a time he thought about slow suffocation. Breathing gets more difficult, you feel sleepy, you lay down and close your eyes, you don’t wake up. There were certainly worse ways to die, probably including whatever the bikers had in store for him.

  Time passed. He might have actually dozed off when the door flew open again. Bass stood there as he had initially, all but blocking out the scene behind him. But this time there was a difference. This time his left hand was behind his back and his massive right paw, dangling loosely at his side, had a gun nestled in it.

  “Shit. Bass, don’t do this,” Matt begged in a half whisper. “I won’t tell anyone about you. I promise.”

  “You better mean that,” Bass growled. “It’s a good thing fer you yer such a crummy liar.”

  He bent down and skimmed Matt’s pistol across the floor to where he lay. Matt hadn’t fully absorbed the significance of the gesture when the key to the handcuffs followed along with a pair of dry jeans and a work shirt. Without another word, Bass turned and left the shack.

  Standing in his stead, taking up considerably less space, was Frank Slocumb.

  CHAPTER 35

  AIN’T IT JES THE BALLS, LEWIS? HAR THIS BOY survives a friggin’ mine cave-in, goes o’er a thirty-foot unnerground waterfall, an’ then ends up gittin’ hisself captured by Bass Vernon an’ his lunatic gang.”

  “Y’are somethin’,” Lewis Slocumb said to Matt.

  Lewis, his jury-rigged chest tube pinned to his shirt, sat crammed between his brother Frank and Matt in the cab of their battered 1940-something red Ford pickup. In the back, amidst boxes and tarps, was younger brother Lyle. Kyle had been left to guard their farm.

  “Frank,” Matt said, still giddy from his close call with the bikers, “except maybe for when you popped out of your mother’s womb, I swear no one has ever been happier to see you than I was back there.”

  “Who sez Mammy ’uz happy?” Lewis chimed in. “She ’bout slit her throat when she first saw him.”

  “An’ she ’bout slit yourn when she saw yew.”

  Matt joined in their laughter. It was just past ten on a heavily overcast morning. The truck had been jouncing up a steep, rutted dirt road for nearly half an hour, circling the mountain that contained both the Belinda mine and the toxic storage dump.

  “Ya done took yerself quat a trip, Matthew,” Frank said. “Five mile allagether, mebbe six from whar ya started ta whar Vernon’s people foun’ ya. You are some lucky man.”

  “I thought I was dead going over the falls, then I really thought I was dead when Bass came in with that friggin’ gun in his hand.”

  “Thet’s his way. Bass is crazy as a bedbug. Mean, too, dependin’ on whut drugs he bin takin’. Ah don’ know if’n Ah ever seed him let someone go after they done been ta his camp. You, Lewis?”

  “’Ceptin’ us,” Lewis said.

  “He knowed we mak the best damn hooch inna valley. We got no intrest in the stuff they grow in thet hellhole. But they got more guns an’ ammo than the U.S. Army, an’ we’re always intrested in thangs thet go bang.” Again he and Lewis laughed heartily. “O’er the years they come ta trust us—leastways, much as Bass is capble a trustin’ anyone. Ya musta done somethin’ purdy special fer him ta b’lieve us thet ya kin be trusted, an’ let yer ass go.”

  “I saved Rake’s life,” Matt said simply.

  “Ain’t no one’s gonna give ya no medal fer thet,” Lewis said.

  Matt checked his watch. There had to be enough air in the cave to get Nikki and the others this far. He prayed that Nikki or Ellen hadn’t given up on him and tried to get out via the river. It was doubtful the gods would let two survive that trip in a single morning.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  “Almos’ there,” Frank said. “They’s no way ta git direct from Vernon’s place ta the tunnel we plan on usin’.”

  “And Vernon explained what I needed? I mean, you brought some explosives?”

  Frank smiled.

  “Ah think ya kin say thet,” Lewis replied.

  “Wha d’ya think Ah been drivin’ so slow,” Frank added.

  Matt gulped and looked back through the window at Lyle, who was stretched out calmly among the bundles, smoking a cigarette.

  “I owe you guys big-time,” Matt said.

  They drove the last quarter mile off-road, weaving through the trees and rolling over roots. At the spot Frank pulled over, there was no hint of a tunnel along the rocky base of the broad, wooded hill.

  “Where are we going from here?” Matt asked as they unloaded two large rucksacks from the truck, as well as two smaller nylon bags and a long, khaki canvas bag with a U.S. Army insignia stenciled on it.

  “Jes ’cause ya cain’
t see somethin’ don’t mean it ain’t there,” Frank said, passing Matt one of the large backpacks and two thick coils of rope. “They’s a bunch a entrances inta this here moun’in. Trick is ta know which one of ’em end suddenly in big, deep holes.”

  Only Lewis wasn’t loaded down as the four of them made their way across twenty yards of shrub- and leaf-covered ground to the hill. Matt felt his excitement beginning to surge at the prospect of seeing Nikki alive.

  Hang on, baby. Just a little longer.

  This entrance to the tunnel, completely obscured behind an outcropping of rock, was no more than four feet from top to bottom—a jagged crack large enough to admit a person on hands and knees, but certainly not one with a pack. They piled their gear by the entry, and Matt and Frank made their way inside, each pulling one end of rope. Matt was not the least surprised to realize that his pulse remained relatively slow and stable, despite the tight passageway.

  Step right up and get it, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Rutledge’s Famous Cure for Claustrophobia.

  Guided by powerful flashlights, they made their way thirty feet along the narrow tunnel before arriving at a vestibule high enough to stand and wide enough for all of them and their gear. Frank tied the ropes together, forming one end of a long loop, with enough cord extending from the knot to lash onto a strap. Lewis was doing the same outside. One piece at a time, they hauled their gear in, while the empty cord was returned to Lewis and Lyle for reloading.

  Hurry! Matt wanted desperately to yell out. Hurry!

  The trip into the mountain by this route seemed longer and narrower than the one from the cleft, but there were no drop-offs and no water until they passed over the river on some planks near the very end of their journey.

  Ten-forty.

  The landscape of what used to be the entrance to the toxic dump had been completely transformed. Much of the overhead wall had collapsed, making a new cave outside the old one. The ceiling of the new cave, perhaps twenty feet above them, could be reached by climbing up a wall of rock that was just ten degrees or so short of vertical. The floor was littered with rubble but passable, and some of the right-hand wall had collapsed, leaving a strangely smooth gouge that looked as if it had been produced with a giant ice-cream scoop.