The Blood Betrayal

by Don Donaldson

  Though she was standing right in front of him, Carl couldn’t see her at all. “Which hand?”

  “My right.”

  Pocketing one of the fresh batteries to free his left hand, he reached out to see where she was. What he found was her shoulder. He traced her arm down to her hand and gave her the first battery. A second later, he heard the sound of it sliding into the flashlight casing.

  “Next,” she said.

  They made that exchange, and Carl soon heard the cap being screwed back on. He waited for the welcoming light.

  Then Beth said, “Oh-oh.”

  That wasn’t what Carl wanted to hear.

  “It’s not working,” she said.

  “Maybe the new batteries aren’t making contact. Shake it.”

  She did that and it still didn’t come on.

  Trying not to think that they might have brought a supply of defective batteries, Carl put out his hand. “Let me see if I can figure out what’s wrong.”

  She pressed the light into his hand.

  Working carefully so he didn’t drop anything, Carl got his fingers on the batteries and felt them for orientation. They were in wrong. Never before had Carl been so happy to discover a mistake. In just a few more seconds, they were again able to see their bleak surroundings.

  With that minor crisis resolved, and the pack once more on Carl’s back, they resumed walking.

  The passage they were in ended at another shaft that ran perpendicular to the first. The ductwork in the new one ran in both directions.

  “You pick this time,” Beth said.

  For no good reason, Carl replied, “Left.”

  After they’d walked for about a minute, the shaft ended at a crudely constructed ladder, which, along with the ductwork, went through a large square hole in the ceiling.

  “Isn’t this a good sign?” Beth said. “It’ll take us up, so we must be going in the right direction.”

  “Seems that way to me,” Carl replied. “Watch your step. Remember the ladder in my backyard.”

  Testing each rung before putting all her weight on it, Beth slowly climbed until she and the light were into the shaft above. The opening looked big enough for Carl to leave the pack on, but as he passed through the opening a few seconds later, he had to lean awkwardly into the ladder to keep the pack from hanging up.

  In the new shaft there was only one way to go. Here, in addition to even more rubble than the previous shaft, they saw as they moved on, occasional small piles of the lumber used to support the ceiling.

  They walked for several minutes, then entered a larger shaft that ran left and right. In this one, they found the rail track Carl had believed coal mines should have, another sign they were moving in the right direction. In addition to the ductwork they’d seen in all the shafts so far, there was now a string of light bulbs attached to the ceiling, but they weren’t lit. The humming sound was much louder than before, but echoed in the mine so it was still impossible to tell from which direction it came.

  “Left has been good to us, “Carl said. “So why don’t we keep going that way.”

  They walked for a couple of more minutes, then the shaft ended. But to the right, there was a set of concrete steps that led upward.

  “Should we follow those?” Beth said.

  “Don’t see that we have much choice. I’ll go first if you like.”

  She handed him the flashlight.

  With Beth following, Carl moved slowly up the steps to a small landing for a second switchback set of steps. At the top of those there was another landing. The climb made Carl’s head throb again and his lungs feel like they were being sandblasted. If they didn’t reach the top soon, he’d have to take a break.

  At the second landing, when Carl turned and played his light up the steps, he saw that their climb would soon be over. Above them was a nicely stained, well-crafted wooden door.

  Chapter 22

  “THAT ISN’T WHAT I expected,” Carl said.

  “It’s been hard to follow our course exactly, but I think we’re somewhere under Artisan.”

  “Same thought occurred to me.”

  “So do we really want to go through that door?”

  “Not an easy question to answer. All depends on who or what’s on the other side.”

  “What do you think the chances are your car has been found?”

  “I’d bet on it.”

  They both lapsed into thought. Then Beth said, “There were two people chasing us, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are only three possibilities of who they were: Hanson, Lothian, or Mead. The last two are probably still out there trying to figure out what happened to us. The third, maybe all of them, are looking for your car or figuring out what to do with it. My point is they’re all probably busy outside the fence. If we’re inside it, there should be no reason we can’t go through that door. They can’t be everywhere. And if we could make it to a home of anyone who lives in Artisan, we could raise a ruckus and get everybody up. They wouldn’t dare harm us in front of the entire town.”

  “I can’t think of a better idea.” Carl mounted the steps to the door, put his hand on the knob, and turned. It was locked. “Guess now we decide how badly we want to get in there,” he said, turning to Beth. “Because to get through this door, we’re gonna have to make some noise.”

  “It doesn’t change my mind. Does it yours?”

  “I already had that possibility factored into my earlier decision. Just wanted to give you a chance to reconsider.” He slid out of the backpack and dropped it. “We’ll need one of those loose timbers we’ve been seeing.”

  The nearest pile of unattached lumber was about fifteen yards from the bottom of the steps. All the timbers were the same size, so there was no point in choosing one over another. And they were God-awful heavy. After a little experimentation, they decided the best way to carry one was on their shoulders. That way, Carl would have one hand free to work the flashlight. To make it a little easier on Beth, he positioned his end so he was closer to the center than she was.

  With Carl in the lead, they carried their timber to the foot of the stairs. Climbing them this time was a slow process in which they had to get both feet on each step before moving up to the next in a wedding march movement. After a few steps, the seismic events pulsing in the back of Carl’s head slid up the Richter scale, and each breath became another shot to his lungs with the sandblaster. But it would have been so difficult to get the beam back on their shoulders if they put it down to rest, Carl fought through the pain and focused on one step at a time.

  Don’t think about how many more there are. Just do this one.

  Left foot up . . . brace yourself . . . right foot up . . . pause to gather yourself . . . left foot up . . .

  Behind him, also hurting, Beth had fallen into the same rhythm, so they moved as synchronously as a ballroom dance team.

  Finally, they reached the first landing, where they discovered there was no way to navigate the switchback with the beam on their shoulders. They had no choice but to unload it.

  “Let’s take a break,” Carl suggested, trying to inhale carefully and minimize the pain each breath inflicted on his lungs.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Beth replied, through her own ragged breathing.

  They rested for a few minutes, then Carl said, “Ready to go again?”

  “If you are.”

  Getting the beam around the corner so they could go up the second set of steps was a slow and awkward process, but finally they had it lying on the steps, pointing upward. This time Carl had to balance himself on the steps to get his end on his shoulder, a far more difficult task than doing it on a flat surface. But somehow, he managed.

  Then it was back to the wedding march . . . left foot . . .
right foot . . . pause . . . . As they inched up the steps, Carl tried not to think about the second landing waiting for them. But not thinking about it didn’t make it go away, so all too soon they had to unload the beam, rest, and shoulder it again.

  Their world had now become the beam they were carrying. For Carl, his bright, well-equipped lab, his fire pole, his bamboo garden, and his father’s death had all receded into a barely remembered existence. Now there was only the weight on his shoulder and the next step and the next. His focus didn’t even allow him to wonder how Beth was doing.

  And then they were there, the top landing, the door waiting.

  Carl put the flashlight, still lit, on the floor. “Let me drop my end first.” When he had done that, he went back to Beth, who was still on the steps, and added his remaining strength to hers. “Now let’s raise this end.”

  They lifted and pushed Beth’s end of the beam up until the timber stood precariously balanced on the landing like the mast on a sailboat. Carl leaned into it with all his weight and shoved the top of the beam forward.

  It toppled into the door and splintered the center panel open with a crash that echoed through the shaft.

  Though pleased at the effect on the door, Carl cringed at the sound, which was much louder than he imagined it would be. “If that doesn’t bring someone running, there isn’t much that would.”

  “Too late to worry about it now,” Beth replied.

  Carl went to the splintered door and reached through the shattered panel. After a little fumbling around, he found a finger release for the lock on the inside and twisted it. He turned the outside knob and leaned hard on the door with his shoulder. Because the end of the beam still lay embedded in its center, the door wasn’t easy to move, but under Carl’s weight it slowly opened, scraping the opposite end of the beam heavily over the landing floor.

  Seeing what was needed, Beth lifted up on the end of the beam touching the landing, making Carl’s job much easier. Her energy was nearly spent, so when the door looked to be ajar far enough for them to get through, she called out, “Dropping my end.” Now unencumbered, she picked up the flashlight. “Be right back. I have to get the urns.”

  Carl waited briefly in the dark. When she returned and he could see what he was doing, he quickly slipped through the opening they’d made. Beth handed him the pack, then slid through the narrow aperture herself.

  Inside, Carl played the flashlight around the wood-paneled room they’d entered. From the paneling and the big glass-topped desk bearing a computer monitor on the opposite side of the space, this was obviously an office. Spotting some framed certificates on the wall behind the desk, he crossed the room and played the beam of his light over the largest of the group.

  He drew a surprised breath.

  “What is it?” Beth said, from behind him where she couldn’t see the writing on the certificate.

  “This is Meggs’s diploma from medical school.”

  “So we must be in the hospital. I didn’t see any file cabinets. I wonder if my husband’s medical records are on that computer.”

  “Beth, we really need to be thinking about how to get out of here.”

  “Wasn’t the whole point of coming, to find out what’s been going on in this town?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “This is an opportunity we can’t pass up. Who knows what we might find in that computer’s files.”

  “Beth—”

  “Please, just a few minutes.”

  Carl walked over to the front of the desk and dropped the backpack. He played his flashlight on the phone beside the computer. “First let’s call 911 and get someone from the outside in here to protect us.”

  “All calls go through a central switchboard. No one in town can call out without requesting an outside line. And Father Hanson has to approve the call.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Wish I weren’t. Incoming calls from outside go through him, too.”

  “So let’s phone a few of your friends in town and tell them we need help.”

  Beth shook her head. “The switchboard closes at eleven.”

  “Why do the people here permit themselves to be controlled like that?”

  “Most of them just don’t think about it.”

  Carl exhaled heavily in resignation. “All right, we’ll take a quick look on that computer . . . if we can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It may be password protected.”

  “I hope not.”

  Carl moved behind the desk, stepped over to the computer, and turned it on. Beth came around from the other side and they waited for the computer to boot up.

  IN THE MAUSOLEUM, having changed into dry clothes and carrying the unsilenced Mauser automatic he’d left at home earlier in favor of the Smith and Wesson lost in the cave, Sylvester Lothian now knew what was missing. Why Beth Corbin would want to steal the urns containing her parents’ ashes was a puzzle. But then there was a lot about this town he didn’t understand.

  He turned from the two empty niches in the wall and headed for the exit, thinking once again about the smirk on Mead’s face when that skinny SOB told Hanson about him nearly drowning in the cave.

  And he didn’t have to pull me up by the hair. He could have grabbed my jacket. Asshole.

  At the door, he flicked off the light and stepped outside, where he pulled out the replacement radio he’d picked up in the parsonage. Idly looking off across the cemetery, he lifted the radio to his lips. Then, for no real reason, he slowly turned to the left and looked at the hospital.

  What the . . .?

  From around the edges of the blinds in one of the windows he could see a faint moving light. Now there was a prowler in the hospital.

  Chapter 23

  “JUST WHAT I was afraid of,” Carl said, looking at Meggs’s computer, where the screen was asking for a password.

  “Is there nothing we can do?” Beth asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Remember that guy I called to contact the cops if we don’t get home by noon? He owns a computer security company, and he showed me a trick once for getting into password-protected systems. Let’s see if it works. Here, hold the flashlight.”

  Carl turned off the computer, spread his fingers over several keys, then turned it back on. He held the keys down until the system finished booting up. And this time there was no prompt for a password.

  “You did it.”

  Her praise made Carl forget how lousy he’d been feeling. “Please, no pictures. My hair is a mess.” He dropped into the chair in front of the computer and called up the list of documents on it while Beth bent down to watch.

  “There,” she said, pointing at a folder labeled Artisan Residents.

  He opened the folder and found a long alphabetical list of names that extended out of the frame. Scanning down the list, he quickly found Beth’s name.

  “There’s the file we want,” she said, pointing at William Corbin, the entry following hers.

  Beth had never before said what her husband’s first name was. Carl now realized he’d been thinking of him as a theoretical concept, but seeing his name on that list suddenly made him real. Carl was surprised to find he felt envious of the time William had spent with Beth.

  Oh brother, envious of a dead man What is wrong with me?

  “What are those letters and numbers by our names?” Beth asked.

  Her question made Carl focus on the written entry to the right of a backslash by each name. For Beth it said /Hollenbeck 232, and for William it was /Hollenbeck 75.

  Hollenbeck. Why was that name familiar?

  Of course. Hollenbeck. The guy in the article hidden in his father’s book.

  And it wasn’t just the Corbins who had entries like that, everyone did.

&
nbsp; Beth hadn’t really expected Carl to know what that meant. She’d just expressed her surprise and curiosity aloud. So without waiting for him to respond, she said, “Open William’s file. I want to see if his medical records are in there.”

  LOTHIAN HAD INFORMED Hanson about the light in the hospital, but rather than wait for help, he decided to move on the problem right away. He jammed Hanson’s master key in the front door, twisted it, and tried to open the door quietly, but, unlocking and hinge sounds still echoed down the dark hall. Unaware of how much noise he’d already made, he slipped inside and drew out his Mauser, waiting with one foot extended behind him to cushion the sound of the closing door.

  IN MEGGS’S OFFICE, Carl was just ready to open William Corbin’s file when he heard sounds that could mean only one thing.

  He looked at Beth, but before he could say it, she did. “Someone’s coming. What should we do?”

  “Get out of here the way we came in,” Carl replied, shutting down the computer. “I’ll get the backpack.”

  They scrambled for the splintered door across the room. Reaching the stairwell, they squeezed past the beam embedded in the door and raced down the steps, the way being lit only by Beth’s flashlight.

  At the bottom of the stairs they only had one choice, to go back the way they’d initially come.

  IN THE HOSPITAL hallway, Lothian heard the computer’s signature sign-off notes. He’d already figured out the location of the room where he’d seen the lights, so this just cemented his belief the prowlers were still there.

  He approached the solid oak door to the room and put his hand on the doorknob. He turned the knob slowly and pushed.

  Locked.

  Damn it. He didn’t think he’d made any noise turning the knob, but now he’d have to juggle his gun, the flashlight, and Hanson’s master at the critical moment just before contact.

  AT THE JUNCTION of the main shaft with the secondary one they’d come through earlier, Beth and Carl paused.

  “Which direction?” she asked.

  “We know what’s that way,” Carl said, pointing at the intersecting shaft. “We didn’t like the options it offered before and they haven’t changed. Surely this shaft goes somewhere other than to Meggs’s office.”