“Hey,” he said and tipped his hat.
“What’s with the cowboy hat?” asked Celia, smirking.
Susan grinned.
“Won it in a poker game, I think–”
“Wait a sec!” Celia’s eyes widened. “I know you!”
Oh, here it comes, thought Trent. Thanks a lot, History Channel.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
Celia smiled, genuine this time. “I totally watched this show on you last time I was in here. ‘Luckiest Man Alive.’ That’s what it was called. You, like, survived–”
“Flight 2778. I know. Only survivor. I don’t really like to talk about it.”
Celia’s smile disappeared. “Oh, sorry.”
Trent shrugged. “It’s alright.” He felt bad for dampening the girl’s enthusiasm. “I just get a lot of questions about it.”
“Probably, like, the same ones all the time, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Sorry,” she said again. “My mom was, like, glued to the TV that day. You know, with the plane crash and all.”
Trent nodded. Desperate to change the subject, he asked, “So what’re ya in for?”
Celia rolled her eyes. “They can’t figure it out. I’m allergic to something, I guess. I couldn’t breathe last night, so Dad brought me in. I was crying and puking and stuff. It was really embarrassing.”
“This happen a lot?”
Susan looked at the chart hanging from the end of Celia’s bed. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” said Celia. “Like, once a month or something. I practically live here.”
Susan got up from her chair and said, “Celia, I need to talk to my husband outside for a moment, okay?”
Celia shrugged and grabbed the remote for her tiny, wall-mounted television.
Trent followed his wife out of the room and into the hallway. Once they were out of sight of Celia, she turned and gave him another big hug and kiss.
“Thank you so much, honey.” Trent could sense that she was on the verge of tears. “You don’t know how much this means.”
“It’s just a sandwich.” Trent chuckled.
She looked at him, smiling but shaking her head.
“Anyway, I should probably get back to work, but I should be home...” She trailed off as she watched a small, rain-soaked man with white hair plastered to his pink scalp walk past them and straight into Celia’s room. She pulled away from Trent’s embrace.
“Excuse me,” she said, approaching the old man. “Can I help–”
But instead of acknowledging her, the old man mumbled something about being ‘Salvatore Cortina,’ stepped into the hospital room and, without turning around, pushed the door shut behind him, nearly smacking Susan in the face.
“What the...?” Susan stood frozen for a moment, gob smacked. “Who the hell is that?”
Trent ventured a guess. “Looks like grandpa. She expecting visitors?”
Susan stared through the small window at Celia and the old man. He had taken a seat next to her bed. Celia looked confused and slightly revolted at his soaked, disheveled appearance. “Her parents were supposed to be here an hour ago with some of her things.”
Without hesitation, Trent walked over next to Susan and turned the doorknob. It turned, and he pushed open the door.
“Hey,” he said. “You supposed to be here?”
Celia looked up at him with a strange, horrified expression on her face, as though the old man had just said something terrible to her. But the man in the white sweater did not turn around.
Trent walked in and put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m talking to you, grandpa. I think you’ve got the wrong room–”
With the slightest of gestures, Salvatore reached back and touched his fingers to Trent’s chest. He did not bother to turn around and look.
Trent gasped, but was unable to suck in any air. It felt suddenly as though his lungs had filled with fluid, and he clawed at his throat as he stumbled backwards, away from the man and the young girl.
“Trent?” said Susan, at first questioning of his strange behavior. Then, as she saw him struggling with his neck, she raised her voice. “Trent!”
But Trent could only look at her with panic in his eyes. He staggered and then fell back and collided with a wheeled cart. It fell over with a clattering of metal trays and medical equipment.
“Oh, shit!” exclaimed Susan. Then she yelled, “Security!”
Salvatore snarled and turned to face them. Trent, still gasping unsuccessfully for air, saw that his eyes were solid black, all the way to the core, and the sight brought up a measure of panic deep in his being–an ancient feeling, like being alone in the woods on a dark night. His hands grabbed at the white ceramic-tiled walls and a nearby countertop as he slid further down to the floor. His flailing arm swept a plastic box of syringes off the counter and they clattered to the ground.
Salvatore stood then, still gazing at Trent and Susan, and reached back to grab Celia’s arm. Where the old man touched her wrist, steam poured forth, heralded by a sizzling sound, like bacon on a pan. The smell of burned flesh filled the room. The old man gritted his teeth and growled as he fought with the girl. Celia kicked at him and thrashed her arms, but he kept pulling, trying to get her out of the bed.
Susan screamed her husband’s name again and entered the room to try and help him, crossing directly in front of Salvatore’s path. With a quick motion of his arm, he brought it against her sternum and shoved her aside as he pulled Celia out of the bed. Susan tripped and fell and smacked her face against the countertop, drawing blood from her nose.
Trent, still floundering like a fish out of water, watched the retreating old man, who was dragging the teenage girl along the ground like a child throwing a tantrum. Then he caught a glimpse of his fallen wife, who was touching a blood-smeared hand to her face and looking at him in astonishment and confusion.
Anger burned its way up Trent’s spine. And as the rage rose, the sense of fluid in his lungs seemed to dissipate. He sneered and focused on his fury. He kicked the fallen cart out of his way and pulled himself up and strode after the old man. “Nobody hits my wife,” he coughed, still trying to draw in full breaths of air. With one hand he grabbed Celia’s free wrist, and with the other he grabbed Salvatore’s shoulder. The old man turned to look at him and raised his palm again to touch Trent’s chest, but this time Trent was ready.
His right arm came around in a sweeping arc, bringing a roundhouse punch to bear on Salvatore’s face. His fist connected solidly, pounding flesh and bone against the old man’s cartilage. He could feel the beaklike old nose shatter.
Salvatore dropped hold of Celia’s wrist and staggered back a few steps, into the hallway, blood dribbling down his lips and chin.
The sounds of the confrontation had alerted others in the Children’s Center, and Susan’s cries for security had raised the expected alarm. Voices were yelling out, patients and parents were talking in hushed tones, and the sounds of footsteps could be heard in the distance, ascending the metal stairwell.
Salvatore stopped in the hallway and looked down at the blood on the floor–his blood. Then he looked up at Trent. To Trent’s surprise, the old man had a look of utter astonishment and betrayal on his face. He also noticed that the old man’s eyes looked normal, not black but a pale, cloudy blue. He looked around him frantically, confused and scared and suddenly a very small, very frightened old man.
As quickly as the moment of quiet had come, it went again. Salvatore dropped to the floor, screaming wildly, palms against his eyes and forehead. When he looked up a moment later, his eyes were black once more, and a sneer formed on his lips. His gaze settled on Celia, who had run out of the hospital room and was half-hiding behind Trent.
“My child,” the old man growled. “My daughter. Give her back to me.”
It dawned on Trent then that maybe he was facing down the serial kidnapper, the man that had put Las Vegas into a state of paranoid panic, the man responsible for
so many of the broken children in the rooms around him.
“It was you,” he hissed.
“They’re mine,” Salvatore replied. “All of them, of my blood, my lineage. Mine!”
“Not yours,” came Susan’s voice from behind him. In a flash, before Salvatore could turn, she had struck him in the back of the neck with an epinephrine syringe, plunging the needle in as far as she could send it.
Salvatore spun like a dervish, howling, suddenly now more like a scared little man again. His eyebrows arched and his eyes blinked as he yelled and flailed wildly to get at the needle jutting from his neck. He took a few steps backward, away from his attackers and back into the hospital room, and Trent could see fear and anger in the man’s eyes, both fighting for control. He was a man at war with himself.
Trent looked at Susan and nodded his head at Celia. “Take her!” he yelled. “Go!”
Susan needed no more encouragement. Still hobbled from the pain of her fall, she stumbled into the hallway and grabbed Celia’s arm. “Come on,” she said, and the two of them half-walked, half-ran toward the far end of the hall.
Trent watched Salvatore spinning and howling. The kidnapper, he thought. This old guy has been doing all of this? He could scarcely believe it, but then, it did make sense. He had come back to the hospital, where all the children he’d ruined went; a thief returning to the scene of the crime. Trent made up his mind. This would end now.
He took off at a sprint and then dove at the old man. He slammed into him in the hospital room doorway and his shoulder caught the man’s ribs. His arms wrapped tight in a football tackle. They tumbled backwards together and crashed against the bed, then careened into the counter, spilling a plastic bin full of pamphlets onto the floor. They fought and grappled and rolled away from the counter and then together slammed into the wall with a sickening thud. The drywall cracked and dented with the impact.
Trent looked up from his tangle with the old man, saw people looking into the room, and yelled at them. “Get security in here, now!”
Salvatore regained a measure of strength and pulled free of Trent’s grasp for a moment, then came back in, fingers extended like claws for Trent’s neck. They struggled, arms cracking against arms, fingers pressed into each other’s faces, fists balled, until finally the man had secured a grip on Trent’s throat. In an instant, Trent felt the tight constriction in his chest again, the rising of fluid, the sense of drowning from the inside out. He ripped free of the old man and pitched backwards, pawing at his aching chest.
The old man straightened himself and made a motion as if trying to smooth his rumpled, moth-eaten sweater. He sneered down at Trent. His mouth twisted up into a malicious smile. Trent noticed that the needle still remained embedded in the back of the old man’s neck. Salvatore raised a quivering hand.
Another involuntary gurgle erupted from Trent’s throat and he slumped to the floor. This is the end, he thought. I can’t breathe. I’m going to die.
The old man walked over to him and raised his arms, palms facing the ceiling. “You are nothing here, in this place,” he hissed, “and my glory shall not suffer these indignations.” He brought his arms down. “Goodbye.”
The ceiling erupted, showering the room with water and flakes of overhead tile and dust as sprinkler heads burst from their moorings like saw-shaped bullets propelled by fluid thrust. Down they came, whirling and speeding fast toward the fallen man. Trent looked up.
This can’t be possible. This can’t happen.
He raised a hand, fingers splayed, gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of the end. The shadow-world behind his eyelids screamed with raucous shrieks and his mind’s eye saw black-on-black images of swirling dust, flashes of darkness against the darkness, the motion of projectiles bearing down upon him and a strange figure standing above, an inhuman, winged thing overlaid upon a human shape in the smoky gloom. And Trent could see a thousand possibilities of how this moment might go, like layers of translucent onion skin burning with imagery, and he hoped–believed–that the truth would come to his aid.
I can’t die, he thought. I’ve lived through worse than this.
With a rush, a memory of the plane crash slammed into his thoughts. Fire, human screams, the plane pitching toward the ground, screeching, children’s terrified wails, and a tall, dark-skinned Mexican in a cowboy hat, with a craggy, heavily lined face, standing in silhouette, facing down a nightmare creature with blades for teeth and roiling, smoke-like skin. Trent screamed out as the projectiles hit home with a series of dopplered screeches and blasts and a splash of cold water.
But no pain.
He opened his eyes, shocked to be alive. The sprinkler heads had embedded themselves in the floor all around him and every one had missed. Water poured from holes in the ruined ceiling, framing the old man who stood above him, clearly puzzled.
“Who are you?” Salvatore demanded.
But Trent had no interest in further conversation. This was no normal fight; it was something otherworldly, something beyond his understanding, something he could not win. He answered with a leg sweep that caught Salvatore by surprise and sent him sprawling to the floor with a groan. Trent scrabbled backwards to his feet and used the momentary diversion to escape the small hospital room, slamming the door shut behind him in a desperate attempt to delay the strange old man, if only for a moment.
In the hallway, he found himself amidst a sea of chaos. The sprinkler system was on full blast, soaking the Children’s wing with a torrential cold downpour. Doctors and nurses frantically pushed gurneys in every direction, shuttled sick children toward the elevators, desperately tried to protect suddenly-soaked medical equipment and expensive electronics, grabbed mushy paperwork, and stumbled over those who had slipped and fallen, all the time yelling, cursing, shouting orders. Trent shoved aside a nearby gurney and then looked up to see a trio of hospital security heading his way.
“Run!” he yelled at them. “Get out of here!”
He glanced around for Celia and Susan and saw them fighting their way through the chaos to the stairwell at the far end of the hall. He looked again at the guards and saw them still coming down the hallway.
“Dammit!” he yelled, “Get–”
Before he could finish, the doorway behind him exploded, sending a shower of drywall and wood splinters across the hallway. Metal pipes tore down the walls and out, writhing like tentacles, reaching for him as he ran. He ducked and barreled forward, barely escaping the pipes that dove into the opposite wall, shattered a glass observation window and entangled themselves in the plastic blinds on the other side. Trent headed for Susan and Celia and the exit.
He could hear the old man behind him, bellowing curses in some language Trent could not understand. Ahead, the security guards went wide-eyed, frozen at the sight of the impossible violence at the end of the hall. Trent plowed on toward them, pushing past frantic hospital staff.
Suddenly, the air went cold, bitter cold, and there was a wild drop in pressure, enough to make Trent’s ears hurt. The sprays of water from the overhead sprinklers arced in an instant, twisting about themselves, forming shimmering cables of braided water that danced like downed power lines and whipped at the panicked people. Each cable that hit its mark wrapped around a neck, dragging nurses and doctors and orderlies toward the ceiling, choking and gasping. Even sick children were ripped from their beds and slammed headfirst into the ceiling and then released, a hellish rain of lifeless bodies that splashed into the puddles at Trent’s feet.
“Run!” he screamed as he fought his way through the insanity. “Goddammit run!”
The trio of guards didn’t need any more convincing. They turned to flee, but were each caught by the whipping cables of fluid.
Trent hurtled frantically past the choking, kicking bodies above and caught up with his wife and Celia at the end of the hall. Without slowing, he ran between them and slammed his shoulder into the closed fire door that led to the back stairwell. The three of
them dove through and Trent gave the door a mule kick to slam it closed behind them as Salvatore bellowed and splashed closer through the paper-and-corpse swamp that had once been the Children’s Center.
Through the glass in the door, Trent saw Salvatore raise his hand again to point at him. The old man snarled, baring nasty, yellowed teeth.
Instinct took over and Trent ducked, a split-second before a flailing mass of metal pipes crashed through the tiny glass window in the fire door, grasping at him with futile stabs, hampered by the heavy metal door.
“Go go go!” he shouted, and they half-ran, half-fell down the clanging stairwell as the old man struggled to open the door behind them. By the time they’d reached the bottom floor, they heard the fire door above slam open. Salvatore’s voice rang out in the metal stairwell.
“You can’t hide from me!” he screamed.
But I can sure as hell try, Trent thought, as he followed Susan and Celia across the parking lot to the van.
10
“I WANNA GO HOME,” SAID Celia, crying. “Please...” Her entire frame shuddered as the tears fell. She was sandwiched between Trent and Susan in the narrow confines of the van’s cab. “Please,” she said, “please take me home. I want Mom and Dad.”
Susan tried to comfort the teenager by telling her that things would be okay, but it didn’t seem to help. Instead, it only made Celia more frantic and she called out over and over for her parents.
“We’re taking you home, kiddo,” said Trent, trying to calm the situation. “I promise we’ll get you home.”
Celia put her head between her knees and bawled and soon her lurching sobs became retching, which made her cry even harder.
“Oh, God,” said Susan, as she held back the girl’s white-blond hair. “Trent, what are we gonna do?”
“We’re taking her home,” he said, and turned the van down a side street. “We’ll get her to her parents and then deal with things from there.”
“How can they protect her from– from that?” she gestured behind them, in the direction of the hospital.
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