The Hourglass

by Donaldson, Casey

  Holden Dennings

  She was unpacking a box of bandages under the bored gaze of Talbot and Dalton when they brought in the new patient. It was a boy, only about twelve, and he was carried in over the shoulder of a guard before being unloaded onto one of the empty beds. He was pale and sweaty and there were huge dark bags under his eyes. There was a slight tremble to his hands, but Sarah wasn’t sure if that was because of the sickness or because he was in the dreaded infirmary. The doctor sent the guard away quickly this time. It was obvious, even with Sarah’s limited medical knowledge, that this boy would be staying in the infirmary for a while. The boy’s name turned out to be Holden Dennings, and he was twelve and a half. The doctor took Holden’s vitals and then took some blood samples before attaching him to an IV drip, running fluids into the boy’s veins. When he finished the doctor pulled the curtains shut around Denning’s bed and ordered Talbot, Dalton and Sarah to stay away from him. He was not to be disturbed. He could, said the doctor, be contagious. Sarah wanted to ask what from, but she figured that wasn’t the point. The boy was to be left alone. Much to Sarah’s frustration the doctor then disappeared into his office and settled in, presumably to run tests on the blood samples he had taken. She had been hoping that he would have had a separate place where he would do those things, like a lab somewhere. Marland had mentioned something the night before about people getting their passwords and codes from their surroundings, and while she doubted that the doctor would leave the code out there in the open, she didn’t have any better ideas. Besides some barcodes and dosage numbers on jars of medications, there were no numbers that she could find in the patient area of the infirmary. If she wanted clues, she would have to get inside his office. It made more sense as well. He would have been in the office when he made the code, so it stood to reason that was where he gathered his inspiration from. But now her hopes of getting into the office were dwindling. Talbot and Dalton did as they were ordered and treated the curtained off area as if it wasn’t there. Sarah finished unpacking the bandages except for one, which she left at the bottom of the box. She picked up the box casually by one hand, as if she was done and so had no reason to hold it carefully upright. As she walked past the curtained off bed she adjusted her grip on the box. The adjustment caused the bandage to roll out of its confines and under the curtains. She cursed softly under her breath for the benefit of Talbot and Dalton, in case they were watching. Then, holding her breath, as if she feared to breathe the contaminated air, she ducked through the curtains. The boy was looking a bit better. Probably because he was no longer getting lugged around in a fireman’s lift, she thought.

  “Hi,” she whispered, “I’m Sarah. Are you ok?”

  Holden nodded at her warily. Kindness wasn’t the norm on this ship.

  “What happened?”

  Holden shrugged. “Dunno. I’m just sick.”

  “Just sick today?”

  Holden shook his head. “For weeks. It’s been getting worse. I’ve been getting weaker. Are you sick too?”

  “I help out with the cleaning.”

  “Oh. Look, I’m tired, I just want to sleep.” He rolled over on to his side, turning his back against her. Sarah felt disappointed. She had clearly said the wrong thing.

  “Ok, if you need anything just let me know.” Holden didn’t reply. Sarah picked up the bandage and slipped back out into the main room. Talbot and Dalton were looking at her suspiciously. She held up the bandage. “Got it.”

  “Wash your hands before you touch anything else,” said Dalton.

  Sarah rolled her eyes but did it anyway. The boys were neutral towards her at the moment. She didn’t want to make them enemies. Finn came in later as usual to collect his pain medications. He raised an eyebrow at the curtained off area.

  “New patient,” explained Sarah.

  “Any luck?” he was referring to the safe, of course, but he couldn’t be too specific with the others listening in.

  Sarah shook her head as the doctor strode out of his office to administer the medication. He sent Finn away and then turned to look at Sarah.

  “Um,” he clicked his fingers at her, thinking.

  “Sarah,” Sarah supplied.

  “Right, Sarah. I need you to wipe down my room with the alcohol. Wear gloves, there may be some trace amounts of blood left. Make sure you don’t disturb anything though. Just the desk area, understood?”

  Sarah nodded and the doctor passed her as he left the infirmary completely. Sarah couldn’t believe her luck. Not only was he leaving, but he had actually given her permission to be in his office. She entered the room quickly, not quite shutting the door behind her. The rubbing alcohol was sitting where it was last time. She poured some onto a cloth and slowly started wiping down the desk, looking around her as she did so. There wasn’t much to work with. Except for a few medical looking apparatus littered across his desk, there was nothing much there to indicate who he was. There were no family photographs or mementoes. Carefully, so as to make as little noise as possible, she slipped open the desk drawers one by one. They were mostly filled with stationary and what could have been research papers. She wished that she was better educated in science so that she could understand what they said. Oddly, showing the only indication of personal preference that she could see in the whole room, one of the drawers was filled with five different varieties of biscuits. Sarah, who had been living on protein bars and the strange prison mush, itched to steal one, but she was too nervous that he would notice. None of it, however, looked like it would have served for inspiration when creating a safe code. One of the papers caught her eye. It was an order form for a shipment of bandages. There was a scrawled signature down the bottom of it. Sarah folded it up and slipped it in her sock. They would need something for Finn to work from if they ever got into the safe and a bandage receipt didn’t look like it would be missed in a hurry. In desperation she wet her cloth and started cleaning the filing cabinets, peering into each drawer as she cleaned around it. They contained the medical files of her fellow inmates. Just as she was about to close one of the drawers she caught sight of the Queen’s real name, printed neatly on the edge of a folder. She was just about to reach in when she heard a thud hit the window. She turned quickly, peering through the windows and shutting the drawer behind her at the same time. Talbot and Dalton were waving at her to get out. She quickly made sure all of the drawers were shut and everything was where it should be. She swept one more glance around the room and then the door to the office opened and the doctor walked in. He looked surprised to see her. “You took your time,” he said, his eyes sweeping around the room, making sure everything was in place.

  “Yes, I also wiped down the cabinets,” she said quickly. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. “I thought you might have touched them as well as the desk,” she explained. “Just making sure everything was clean.”

  “Right, good job,” said the doctor vaguely, clearly not paying her any further attention. He stepped out of the way so that she could exit through the door behind him, which she did quickly with her head down. She closed the door firmly behind her. Once outside she glanced back in through the window. The doctor was seated at his desk, having pulled out a paper from one of his drawers, munching thoughtfully on what she now knew was a biscuit. It didn’t look like he had suspected her of anything. Below the window, lying on the floor, was a bandage. Talbot or Dalton must have thrown it to get her attention without yelling.

  “Are you completely stupid?” hissed Talbot. “He could have come back at any second and you still decided to go and rifle through the files? Do you know what he would have done if he had caught you? Why were you even looking at the files? I thought you needed to get into the safe?”

  Sarah stared at him, surprised.

  “Oh c’mon, don’t look so surprised. Everybody knows the only way to get off this boat is to get medically transferred. Winter’s already told everybody where they’re kept. It was just a matter of time before someone would make a pl
ay for them.”

  So much for Winter’s secret being a secret. Sarah wondered if the Queen was aware that everybody else knew. Sarah glanced at Dalton. He looked unsurprised by Talbot’s statements. She figured that they had worked it out together.

  “The only question is,” said Talbot, “who sent you? Was it the Queen or King? It couldn’t be you, you haven’t been here long enough to make the connections that you need, but why would the King and Queen need it?”

  “Are you going to tell anyone?” asked Sarah nervously. If they did her friends and she were screwed.

  “We couldn’t if we tried. Visitors are never allowed. Winter was an exception.”

  “Do you,” Sarah paused, uncertain about how much she could trust them. “Do you guys know about anything happening in three days time?”

  “No,” replied Talbot earnestly. “What is it? Something bad?”

  “I don’t know. It might be nothing.”

  “But it might be something,” said Talbot, thinking. “Dalton?”

  Dalton shook his head. “I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “Maybe something to do with what the doctor does?” she volunteered. She was disappointed to see their faces darken again.

  “We told you to leave that alone, it’s for your own good.”

  “But if it is…” Sarah protested.

  “He only…” Talbot paused, hesitating. His eyes flickered to Holden’s curtained off bed and back again. “He only takes people who are a certain kind of sick, or if they interfere. We,” he said, gesturing at himself and Dalton, “know nothing, understand? And we want to make sure it stays that way.”

  Sarah nodded. It would be unfair to ask more of them, especially as the consequences sounded so, well, dark, terrible and mysterious. She looked back at the doctor through one of the windows and then realised that she should be working. She started straightening the already straight covers on the spare bed absentmindedly. The rest of the day passed without much interest. She read to Justin again, with no success. At about four o’clock the doctor came out of his office.

  “I called the guard, he’ll come pick you up early today.”

  “Oh,” said Sarah blankly, “ok.”

  The doctor hadn’t waited for her reply. Gragur entered the infirmary behind her. The doctor parted Holden’s curtains and entered the small space around Holden’s bed. Sarah heard a chair scrape as he pulled it up near the bed. The doctor had been clutching some papers when he went in and she could hear him smooth them out on the bed.

  “Holden, how are you going?” asked the doctor.

  “Fine,” said Holden. He sounded terrified.

  Gragur had bent down and was tying up a loose shoelace. Sarah glanced over at Talbot and Dalton. They were both asleep. Dalton was snoring gently. As she watched she thought she saw Dalton’s eyelid flicker open and then shut again. They were faking being asleep, she thought, bewildered. What was going on?

  “Holden,” the doctor was saying gently, “we got your results back. They aren’t good, I’m afraid.” There was a sharp intake of breath. Sarah stood, transfixed. “They say you have a type of disease that, with our current medication, is hard to treat. However there are researchers out on the mainland who are currently working hard to find a cure, and they need people with the disease to try-” Sarah’s eavesdropping was interrupted by a grunt form Gragur. He had finished tying his shoelace and was now waving his hand at Sarah, telling her to come with him. Sarah couldn’t believe it. She was getting solid proof that they were using prisoners to experiment on and she was being summoned back to the factory floor. Trying to walk as silently as possible to maximise her chance of hearing more she joined Gragur and they left the room. As she walked silently next to the guard she wondered for the first time if maybe the experiments weren’t a bad thing. What if they really were trying to find a cure? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? If you were going to die anyway, was there really a risk? But what if the experiments weren’t about curing the disease? She had heard something about them using diseases to try and infect others. But of course, it was all hearsay. She would probably never really know. She thought back to Talbot and Dalton. They were trying to let the doctor know by their snoring that they weren’t listening, that they weren’t witnesses and wouldn’t interfere. They didn’t want to be taken as well. And despite some mangled limbs, they were healthy, but they still feared being taken. Maybe the experimenters were doing some good, she decided, but they were definitely doing some bad as well. Before she even realised it she found herself sitting in her old seat on the factory floor. Evidently they hadn’t replaced her.

  “You’re back,” said Finn, surprised.

  “Just for a bit,” said Sarah. She focused on him for the first time since sitting down. One of his ears was bloodied. It looked torn.

  “Finn!”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “It’s fine, just another one of those ‘accidents.’”

  “I thought they had stopped!”

  Finn shrugged. “They had, until now.”

  “He’s getting a bit more serious,” she said, alarmed. “I thought the Queen was meant to stop the worst of it.”

  “I think she is,” said Finn. “This is still only minor stuff.” Sarah pulled a face, indicating exactly what she thought of it being ‘minor stuff’. “And anyway, it’ll still be worse if I do give in.” Sarah didn’t have anything to say to that. It was true. “Besides,” he added, “only a few more days now and it’ll be decided either way. Two more days after this one, right?”

  Sarah nodded numbly. “Two more days.”

  Finn ran a hand through his hair in what Sarah was beginning to realise was characteristic of him whenever he felt overwhelmed. It made his hair stand up on end. It looked good tousled, she thought.

  “What?” said Finn. Sarah blushed, realising that she had been staring.

  “Ah, nothing.” The bit of paper crinkled in her sock as she moved uncomfortably. “Oh wait, yeah, I have something for you.” She made sure that nobody else was looking and then reached down into her sock, pulling out the piece of paper. She passed it to Finn under the conveyer belt. He glanced down quickly, grabbed it, and then stuck it in the waistband of his pants. Sarah glimpsed a cord of muscle as he lifted his shirt up and looked away quickly. She felt her heart beat funnily in her chest. What was wrong with her?

  “For me?” asked Finn, as if she had given him a present, “you shouldn’t have.”

  “I thought you could use the practise,” said Sarah. “You must be a bit rusty by now.”

  Finn turned up his nose at her. “I’m an artist, Sarah.”

  She snorted in amusement. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Marland hurried over to her as soon as the bell went to signal dinner. She had a grin plastered across her face.

  “I have news!” she said gleefully.

  “You found out about the event?” asked Sarah, excited.

  The grin slipped slightly from Marland’s face. “Ah, no, but I did find out about why the Queen hates the doctor.”

  “Really?” asked Sarah, intrigued.

  “Yup.” The grin faltered a little again. “It’s actually quite sad, really. Her brother was on this ship before her. Apparently the whole family is rotten. He got in a fight or was sick or something and was sent to the infirmary. When the Queen arrived she expected to see her brother again and, I don’t know, have a happy family reunion, or stab each other, whatever it is that family does. Only when she gets here he is nowhere to be found. The doctor said he had volunteered to be a guineapig. She doesn’t believe him. She claims black and blue that her brother would never volunteer for anything, and if he was sent off to be a guineapig it was done against his will. So she hates him and apparently has been trying all sorts of tricks to get the doctor thrown off the ship.”

  “That explains the hatred all right,” said Sarah, interested. “A pity it probably won’t help me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

 
; Gone

  Sarah walked through the doors of the infirmary only to find Holden wasn’t there.

  “Where’s Holden?” she asked Talbot and Dalton. Dalton’s eyes flickered nervously to the cabinet behind Sarah and her stomach sank. She knew without having to turn around that the doctor was standing behind her. He must have had one of the cabinet doors open for her not to have seen him when she came in. That and she was distracted by the conspicuously empty bed.

  “He got transferred to the mainland,” said Talbot. His voice was slightly higher pitched than normal and he was making an obvious effort to keep his eyes on Sarah. “One of the main hospitals there is taking him for further treatment. Lucky bugger,” he added with an odd laugh that died quickly in his throat.

  The voice of the doctor appeared from behind her and Sarah finally turned around and made room for him to easily pass by her. “Are you implying that I’m not doing a good job looking after you, Talbot?” asked the doctor dryly.

  “No, no not at all,” squeaked Talbot. He coughed and his voice lowered again to nearer his normal pitch. “It’s just he gets to be outside again,” he explained. “Or at the very least have a window.” The doctor simply raised his eyebrows and didn’t reply. He sat on the edge of Justin’s bed and started taking his vitals. “New sheets today,” he told Sarah without looking up as she went to go get the mop out of the cupboard. “You can mop later.”

  They went through the usual sheet-changing procedure and then Sarah got out her mop. She was expecting Finn at any moment. He had been quizzing people over the last few days about important dates on the ship or any details about the doctor’s private life, like birth dates that maybe they could try for the safe’s code. He had a small list and had encouraged her last night to just try some of them on the off chance that it would work. Sarah had been impressed. She wanted a few more numbers to try out, however, and as Finn had asked mostly the boys that he thought he could trust she had worked up the nerve to approach the Queen and ask for her list. At breakfast that morning a list of possible numbers had been delivered to her. Sarah wished that she had thought to ask for this sooner. Finn had volunteered to turn up to the infirmary and distract the doctor while she tried them. As if her thoughts had brought him forward, Finn appeared in the doorway. He was holding a hand to his torn ear, and fresh blood was trickling though his fingers.