33
.
Nixon tapped a scalpel flat against his palm, his expression calm and collected.
“Where’s Allison?” Zach demanded, irate with Lenny for springing this trap.
Reid positioned himself across the door, his elbows touching both sides of the frame.
Zach slammed his palms down on Nixon’s desk. “What did you do with my wife?”
Nixon leaned forward in his chair. “Lenny, you know where I keep the missus.”
Lenny lowered his head. “I don’t wanna do this,” he said. “Zach, I’m sorry. I had ‘ta. He tol’ me he’d let Annie go home.”
“No one ever leaves this place.”
Why would anyone trust Nixon?
He lunged at Lenny, his hands outstretched as if meaning to choke him.
How could he be so stupid?
Reid rushed to get between them and wrestled Zach to the ground.
Zach bucked against Reid’s considerable weight and was barely able to shake him. “Get off of me!” He tried to push Reid away and Reid caught his arm, his hand landing on the holster.
“What’s this?”
Zach defended it with his one free arm.
Reid rolled Zach over and punched him in the jaw.
Zach’s vision blurred and his head went momentarily foggy.
“I’m not going to beg you for it.” Reid confiscated the pistol and set it on Nixon’s desk.
Lenny eyed the gun.
“Don’t even think about it.” Nixon took the gun, put in a drawer, and then locked it. “Cuff him.”
Reid dragged Zach across the coarse carpet and cuffed his wrist to the radiator pipe.
Zach remained dazed from the hit, but moved his hand from the sweltering heat, rattling the cuffs.
“You holding anything else,
Boy Scout
?” Reid patted Zach down, finding and taking his phone and his radio.
“You fuckin’ asshole,” Lenny shouted at Nixon. “I did what you tol’ me, now give me my wife.”
“Not until you do what you’re asked. The missus, Lenny. Bring her out here for Zach.”
Zach drew a breath and for a second, stopped resisting. He had to see for himself that Allison was as all right as she could be given the circumstances.
Nixon raised his eyebrows at Lenny. “Well?”
“Fine, but this’s nothin’ to do with me.” Lenny went into the bathroom and came back with Allison, restrained to a hand truck.
Oh, God.
Zach railed against the cuffs, grunting angrily. “She didn’t do anything to deserve this. You have a problem with me, take it out on me. Leave her alone.” He drew breaths through his teeth, seething.
Allison was barely lucid. Her flesh pale and her breathing labored.
“Allison!” Zach called out to her and she responded with a languid blink.
Her eyes had gone cloudy.
Lenny looked away.
“She’s sedated,” Nixon said, standing and looking out into the storm. “Better that way, don’t you think, Zach? Why should she suffer?”
“You told me she wouldn’t be infected,” Zach screamed.
A twin flash of lightning touched down nearby and lit up Nixon’s office window.
“Point of fact, I told you it was possible. Less likely, really, if you had cooperated.”
Lenny moved away from Allison who was slowly coming around. “I did whatcha asked. I don’t want no part of this. Give me Annie and I’ll take ‘er home.”
Nixon opened the DVD drive on his computer and put in a disk. He turned on his monitor and the machine whirred to life. A grainy, black and white security video appeared. Annie lay bound to a hospital bed, her belly swollen and her face red with tears. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”
Lenny stared at the monitor, the image striking him silent.
“Everything comes at a price,” Nixon said. “I’ve healed the women in both of your lives and you repaid me in mutiny. You turned my project upside down. This is important work, bigger than your life or mine. This is about saving people from needless death and suffering. I’m a healer. I’m looking for a cure, not a war.”
“And yet, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. A
war.
” Zach drew out the word for effect.
“We’ll see.” Nixon took the handles of the cart restraining Allison.
She closed her eyes and her head fell to the side.
“Please don’t do this.” The tears Zach had managed to restrain spilled over. “Lenny, help me. Don’t let him take her.”
Lenny wept. “He still has Annie.”
Nixon covered Allison with a white sheet and wheeled her away from Zach, pausing in the doorway.
Zach thrashed, yanking his cuffed hand so hard he thought his wrist would break. The clanging of metal on metal resonated in the office suite. “Stop, you asshole! Allison, fight him. You’re strong. You can beat this.”
“Reid, take Lenny to see his wife,” Nixon said. “Zach, I’ll be in touch.”
34
.
Billy picked a scab on his face, wiping the tiny bead of blood welling up on his cheek. John called the elevator, breathing deeply to steady his nerves.
“You’re gonna pass out, you keep huffin’ like that,” Billy said.
John pushed the button twice more. “Why isn’t anyone answering their damn phones?”
“Would ‘ya give it up already?” Billy looked up at the array of floor numbers. “I think it’s stuck.” The lights for the basement and first floors were both lit. He pounded the button with his fist and it lit up white.
“What if there’s something in there?” John wrung his hands.
“If by somethin’ ya mean a fuckin’ zombie, bring it on.” Billy made like he was fencing John with his Bowie knife.
“Put that thing away.” John said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Go ahead, chick’n. Run. It’s what you’re good at. I’m gettin’ Amy outta here. She’s down there and ain’t no one callin’ to tell me they have her. This elevator’s the only way down. Fire, evacuation, whatever. It’s all over. No reason we shouldn’t take it.”
The elevator doors opened and Travis staggered out, mumbling and crying. His key was still in the keyhole.
John’s eyes went wide. “I’d call that a pretty good reason.”
Travis was incoherent.
In shock.
He grabbed John by the shoulders and shook him hard.
John froze, held his breath, and warm urine leaked from him. A large, dark ring formed on the front of his pants and ran down his legs. He couldn’t have been more embarrassed.
“I’m…not…infected,” Travis finally managed.
“That’s some good fuckin’ news.” Billy gave Travis a once over for signs that he was lying. “This one, not so lucky.” He waved his hand at Clarence cuffed to the railing.
John stared. Clarence was like nothing he had ever seen. His right hand was nearly disarticulated from attempting to escape. Blood spilled from his eyes and his ears. He growled and snarled and his jaw moved up and down as he bit at Billy.
“The shots don’t last. I tried to save him.” Travis’s hand relaxed and a stack of shots fell to the ground. “I’m so sorry.” He staggered away, mumbling.
John collected the syringes.
Billy locked the elevator in place. “Not this time, fucker.” He held Clarence’s head to the wall, his palm to his forehead, and forced his blade deep into his throat. Dark blood spilled from the wound, congealing quickly and spattering the walls. Billy turned his face away from the spatter and only looked back when the gurgling and moaning stopped. Less than half of Clarence’s spinal cord remained intact and a thin flap of neck skin was all that kept his head attached.
John squeezed his eyes shut.
Please, no.
He couldn’t fight the urge. He doubled over and vomit poured from his mouth in forceful thrusts.
Billy wiped his knife on his pants.
John cowered. “I don’t want to do this, Billy. I changed my mind. I don’t want to go down there. I want to go to the van with Frank.”
Billy pointed the knife in John’s direction. The freshly wiped blade glistened in the fluorescent light, the one pristine thing among all of the carnage. A devious grin spread across his face. “Too bad that isn’t an option.”
35
.
Reid ejected the DVD from the computer. “You heard the Doc. He said take you to see your wife. Let’s go.” He shoved Lenny toward the door and rolled his eyes at how easily the emaciated drunk was to control.
How stupidly enthusiastic and hopeful he was.
“Pathetic.”
“Lenny, don’t leave me here.” Zach shouted. The cuffs rattled as he tried to get loose.
Lenny shook his head. “I
am
sorry, Zach. You’d have done the same fer Allison.”
“Move it.” Reid nudged Lenny into the hall and kept an eye out for the others he had missed. With any luck, he could solve several problems at once.
“How far away is she?” Lenny asked.
“Just a bit further,” Reid said, grinning. He urged Lenny down the long corridor to an unfinished section of offices at the other end of the construction zone. His excitement built up the closer he came to the makeshift security pod.
Lenny looked around and stumbled when his foot hit the first row of laid tile. “You keep the women here?”
Plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling to contain the paint fumes and dust of construction-in-progress. Five gallon pails of primer, sheetrock tape, and buckets of drywall compound piled up on the floor.
“Not exactly.” Reid steered Lenny to one of two chairs in front of a laptop normally used for monitoring. “Sit down,” he said and inserted the DVD.
Lenny swallowed hard and reluctantly complied. “Where’s Annie?” he asked, a slight tremble in his voice.
Reid smirked at Lenny’s late-coming suspicion. “You’ll never know if you don’t sit down.”
Lenny did as he was told.
Reid turned up the volume and cued the first scene past what Nixon had already played. A male voice, muffled by a surgical mask, came through the speakers. “The baby is breach. I can’t turn it.”
Lenny chewed his thumbnail and tapped his foot.
The scene continued, lit by a single, bright Operating Room light. Annie was laid out, an IV line running to the top of her hand. A man in full surgical garb lifted the sheet covering Annie’s lower body and manipulated something with his hands.
Lenny’s lip quivered.
Reid watched with delight.
“This has to be a mistake.” Lenny leaned forward. “She wasn’t pregnant.”
Reid motioned toward the monitor. “Keep watching.”
Nixon appeared in the frame, gowned and gloved. His eyes were emotionless voids. He roughly examined Annie and everyone jumped when he ordered a fresh surgical tray. “We’ll take it cesarean.” He covered Annie’s belly with a windowed drape and the mound of swollen flesh erupted from its center. “Betadine.” The orange liquid swabbed onto her skin made her appear artificially tanned. “And oxygen, please.” An orderly placed a mask over Annie’s face while the anesthesiologist injected another drug into her IV. The same man removed the mask and positioned a tube into Annie’s throat via her mouth.
Nixon buried the tip of the scalpel into Annie’s engorged belly and blood welled up from the incision. He filleted her, splitting her in half.
An alarm sounded and Nixon turned his attention to the monitors.
“Vitals are dropping,” a nurse said.
“We can’t lose another one. I don’t care what happens to her, but I want this infant, alive.”
Annie convulsed and her eyes rolled back inside of her head.
Lenny moved to the edge of his seat, watching his wife’s decline through splayed fingers. He was immersed in the video. Reid took a scrap of rope from the construction material in the corner and tied a thick knot in its center. Lenny didn’t even turn around.
Nixon reached inside Annie’s dying body and held up a monster. Bones poked through its translucent skin and black fluid dripped from its tiny feet.
“Why ain’t he doin’ anythin’?” Lenny cried.
The heart monitor flat lined.
“Annie, no.”
Nixon set the infant’s corpse back inside of Annie and walked away.
Lenny bawled, grief-stricken. “You killed ‘er! You killed my wife!”
Reid slipped the rope around Lenny’s neck and pulled him to the ground. Lenny was light and weak, but his erratic floundering made him hard to control. He flailed and clawed at Reid’s arms, scratching his bare skin where his sleeves were rolled up. “Let it go, loser.” Reid knocked Lenny off balance and flipped him face-down, positioning him over the garrote. The knot lined up with his larynx, a signature move to hasten the crushing of it. Lenny grappled for purchase. He grunted and scratched at his throat. Reid knelt in the center of his back and applied the final devastating pressure.
Lenny’s body went limp.
Reid let go of the rope and Lenny’s head hit the ground with a thud. He flexed his cramping hands and took the DVD out of the laptop.
“Nixon told me to take you to see Annie. Now I have. Safe travels, Lenny. No one here will miss you.”
36
.
Mark moved against the wall to avoid being snuck up on. The cement block cooled his sweat-soaked back and reminded him of the fireman’s jacket he left hanging over the chair in the Control Room. His exposed skin made him more vulnerable, especially since he was unarmed. He regretted letting Zach and Scott have the only guns.
This whole thing was becoming a suicide mission.
Why hadn’t he gone with Travis and Clarence?
Promising Frank he’d get Holly was a small part of the reason. Fear kept him from getting in that elevator and he couldn’t help wondering if Travis had made it out alive.
His heart pounded as he moved toward the rancid smell he’d have rather ignored. The wet noise, like sloppy chewing, grew louder. The sound of crinkling plastic racked his nerves. He wrung his hands, moving cautiously, and paused when something crimson contrasted the white tile. Red bags littered the blood-streaked floor.
Please don’t let the blood be Scott and Foster’s.