Life Sentences (34 page)

Jack parked crookedly in the driveway,
then ran inside the house, where he found Lily Hubbard in her bathrobe,
looking like hell. She pressed a rumpled tissue to her mouth and said,
"I saw her go into the woods!"

"Which way?"

"I think he took the baby with
him." She pointed out the kitchen window. "That way! Daisy ran
after him. I heard gunshots!"

Jack shot out the door and crossed
the backyard, then clambered over the old stone wall into the woods.
"Daisy?" he yelled, his voice echoing back at him. He ran through
the woods, slapping away branches, and birds flew up. He dug into his shoulder
holster for his gun, then aimed it down one gently sloping hillside after
another. He called Daisy's name again and again, but there was no response.

The sunlight was dappled beneath
the new leaves of the slippery elms and yellow birches. His heart rate
soared as he kicked through vines creeping across the trail-big leafy
vines that swallowed up the ground and slowed his progress through the
woods. After a while, he realized he was lost. He turned and headed into
the tall weeds, where he accidentally knocked over a pyramid of rusty
cans, triggering a noisy avalanche. He stood gasping for breath. Directly
in front of him was an ancient rowboat with an anchor tied to it, the
ropy threads unraveling like the hair of a corpse. A pair of rotten
oars sagged in the stern like stalks of asparagus.

Jack heard a sudden cry-high-pitched
and desperate-and trained his eyes on the small, round hill erupting
from the forest floor. Crowning this hill, about twenty-five yards from
where he stood, were the ruins of an old house. "Daisy?" His
tight voice betrayed his fear. "Are you in there?"

Another piercing cry.

With his jaw set and his heart racing,
he ran toward the hill and scrambled up the steep incline, hands clawing
at the dirt. He surmounted it with some difficulty, then waded through
a maze of thickets and tangled branches. Beyond the trees stood a house,
its front door hanging open on its hinges. Without any hesitation,
Jack went inside.

The front hallway was dark and musty-smelling,
and he could see something moving around in the shadows. A dog barked
and ran out the door. Once Jack's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he
could see several paper plates stacked with ancient corncobs, four
or five per plate. He moved through the rest of the downstairs, aiming
his gun at shadows. "Daisy? You in here?"

The seasons had warped the walls.
The forest was slowly swallowing the house. Vines tumbled in through
the broken windows, and wildflowers carpeted the floor. Decades of
postgraduation
parties had been held here, but
the house was too delicate now to carry the weight of one more celebration.
It was sagging and infested and would soon fall.

Jack steadied his hand on the blackened
banister, then paused for a moment to listen. The lesions were still healing
around his throat, and they throbbed a little with each beat of his heart.
More vines pushed up the narrow staircase. He could hear a rustling
sound in the walls as he mounted the stairs slowly and deliberately, making
sure that every tread supported his weight. He paused again as he reached
the top of the landing. Somebody was crying. He turned down the hallway,
where the floor was unstable and the walls were beginning to buckle
like a fallen cake. His thoughts grew fast and tangled as he followed
the sound to its source, carefully testing each new step until he came
to a bedroom door. Something stirred behind it. "Hello?"

The crying stopped.

Jack pushed open the door and peered
into a room so sunken and rotting it would surely cave beneath his weight.
Part of the ceiling had collapsed against a far wall, revealing hundreds
of bats roosting in the attic. Some of the roof beams had rotted through,
letting in brilliant patches of sunlight.

Jack took a step inside, and the
whole structure shifted slightly. He stopped where he was and tried not
to breathe. He saw something unfurl from a darkened corner and scurry
away through a hole in the floor, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
Some sort of pathetic creature had been sitting there, crying. He looked
at the moldy mattress covered with beer bottles and fossilized condoms.
He saw syringes on the floor next to encrusted gym socks and old textbooks
gnawed by mice. On the wall above the mattress, he could see etched in
pencil, "Promise not to erase this." A shudder ran through him.
The place was evil.

He turned to leave, and that was
when he saw the message spray-painted on the ceiling in large Day-Glo letters.

The iridescent-green
paint was stuck to the ancient cobwebs, proving that it had been a recent
addition. But who had put it there? And what did it mean?

Daisy dodged the elegant limbs of
a dogwood tree as she ran through the woods, then stopped short. The river
was too wild to ford. She scrambled through the undergrowth, moving parallel
to the muddy bank, until she spotted a figure in the fast-running channel
and froze. Roy
Hildreth
was standing chest-deep
in the raging river with the baby held high above his head. She clawed her
way through the bushes, prickles digging into her skin until her arms were
streaked with blood. Her footing grew unsteady as she stepped down onto
the rock stratification and dipped her toe in the water. It was shockingly
cold. She withdrew her foot quickly and stood shivering on the bank,
struggling to come up with a plan. About twenty paces ahead, she saw a dead
hickory tree that had fallen over some time ago, its soggy trunk and elegant
branches partially submerged. Her slippers grew waterlogged as she
crossed the native granite braiding along the waterway, then climbed
down onto the hickory tree and waded out into the icy water. Her heart
stopped. Goose bumps sprouted everywhere on her skin. Her teeth chattered
convulsively. It was so cold she lost all feeling below the knees. The
shock was too much. She dragged herself back out of the water and stood hugging
herself on the marshy shore. She looked around for something to get his
attention with, then picked up a rock and threw it at him.

The rock plopped in the water directly
in front of him, and Roy
Hildreth
turned and aimed
his unfriendly face at her. He was up to his chest in the current, all his
muscles trembling with tension as he held the bundled baby high in the
air. His lips were blue. Water splashed across his face as he said with a
sputtering gasp, "He's got his mother's eyes."

She released a terrified sob
and waded back into the frigid water. She grabbed hold of the wet hickory
branches and moved purposefully into the river, walking as far as she
could without letting go. "Give me the baby!" she shouted.

His eyes were grim.

"He's not a carrier!"
she lied. "I had him tested!"

He looked at her and frowned.

"I took him to a lab that does
genetic screening for newborns," she continued, trying to convince
him. "They took a blood sample and searched for the faulty gene,
but it's not there. He isn't a carrier! Give him to me!"

Roy didn't respond. He appeared
to be in a trance.

"Please," she begged, reaching
with numb fingers.

"The current has me," he
told her. "I'm stuck."

A paralyzing sense of disbelief
came over her. She clung to the slender branches with one hand and stretched
her other arm out over the water as far as it would go. She could almost
reach the baby's dangling legs. She adjusted her grip, grasping a handful
of twigs and inching her way further into the water, where the current
was so strong and so swift she had to gird herself against it. It took every
ounce of strength she had left just to withstand its pull. "Hand me
the baby," she yelled over the onrush of water. "Hand him
over!"

A tree swallow swooped territorially
above their heads, and the baby batted his arms playfully. She was slowly
losing her grip. The water was so cold she could barely feel her fingers
anymore. She grasped the skinniest branches of the tree, then inched
her way out into deeper water, her feet slipping over rocks. She clung to
the twisted ends of the hickory tree as she leaned into the current. It
felt like an arctic blast pushing her dangerously forward. "Give
him to me!"

Roy's face was very pale. His lips
were purple. She had a strange feeling of empathy for him. It was an entirely
new sensation, something she did not welcome. She stretched out her
arm as far as it would go, and a clogged weeping rose in her throat.

"Take him," he said, transferring
the baby to one hand.

Her wet fingers slid down the
branch, her knees buckled and suddenly she was plunged underwater. Everything
went black. She swallowed half the river, then quickly found her footing again
and came up sputtering. The rotten branches she'd been clinging to swayed
dangerously, as if the whole tree might give way. She got to her feet and
fought the current. She fought her fear. She fought the cold. She stood
up and reached for the baby again.

"Take him," he said. His
eyes were stern. He was holding the baby out to her now. "Go on. Take
him!"

Her limbs pulled like taffy as she
pawed at the air.

Roy cupped the baby in one hand,
his muscled arm straining to hold Noah out to her. The blue blanket fell
off and got swept away instantly.

Panic seized her. She strained to
snatch Noah's foot. She could almost touch his toe with her index finger.

"Take him!" he commanded.

She looked deep into those hooded
eyes and wondered if this was a trick. Would he grab her at the last second?
Let go of the baby? Save himself by climbing over her?

"Take him. Hurry. I can't hold
on much longer."

The water made a pounding drumbeat
up her tailbone. A tightness gripped her throat as she reached for Noah
one more time-ligaments pulling, tendons stretching. Something in her
arm snapped, and she looked up at the immensity of the pine forest, shadows
falling down around them like huge glacial stones. Everything was too
brilliant. Too smooth. Too cold. She could hear the baby orioles peeping
high in their nests in the treetops. She ignored the pain in her arm and
overextended her reach.

Noah clasped his wobbly hands to
his wet mouth, oblivious to the dangers around him. Daisy dug at the
air, her fingers finally touching skin, and this brief contact electrified
her. She didn't know that she could reach that far. Every muscle in her
strained as she gave it one last shot, and now her hand closed around the
baby's leg. It shocked her how insubstantial he felt. There was hardly
any meat to him. She gave a sharp tug, and the baby slipped from Roy's grip
and dangled upside down over the water.

She drew the baby quickly to her,
pressing him against her chest where he'd be safe, but Roy moved aggressively
now and grabbed her by the wrist. He used his strongest stroke to reach for
her head, then dunked her underwater and climbed on top of her.

Daisy and the baby went plunging into
a cold black place, where the fast-moving current pinned them against the
tangled branches of the fallen tree. She held her breath while Roy's feet
dug into her chest and neck. He was climbing right over them, trampling
them, while the cold current pushed them against the tree like a strainer.
She was stunned. He had tricked her.

Roy climbed over them and was gone,
and she and Noah came bobbing back up, sputtering. The baby's next scream
was like a cool pang of shock. He coughed and sneezed against her chest,
and Daisy gently pressed his stomach in order to get all the water out.
Even a small amount of water in the lungs could be fatal for an infant.
"You're okay. You're okay," she whispered.

Noah wailed pitifully in her
arms while she snorted and blew water. Then she turned and watched Roy reel
himself in, hand over hand. She watched him pull himself out of the water.
"Help me!" she said.

He stood dripping on the mossy
bank, his pale face washed in sunlight.

"This is your son!" she
screamed. "He's just a little boy. You can't let him die!"

"He's a carrier."

"No, he isn't! I just told
you-"

"Don't lie to me."

Daisy tried to gain traction on
the slippery rocks. She found better footing on a slanting slab of granite
and adjusted her grip on the tree, clinging to it one-handed. In her other
arm, she clutched the baby. Noah was shivering all over. She would have
to get them out of there soon, or they'd both become hypothermic.

Roy put his foot on the waterlogged
tree trunk and rocked it hard, and the whole thing inched forward into
the water.

"Don't!" she screamed.

He paused to study her face.

"Why are you doing this?"

He gave her an ashen look.
"My daughter died when she was three years old. By the time I was
three, I was climbing all over the house. I could reach the top of the refrigerator.
I drove my mother nuts."

She could feel herself going
numb from the neck down. She looked into his stone-cold eyes. "I'm starting
clinical trials soon. You could be part of that," she said desperately.
"Clinical trials will lead to a cure-"

"I've studied the data. There
is no cure, no treatment, nothing."

"You're wrong! Gene replacement
therapy works. It's already been proven to work. This is your son!"

He shook the waterlogged stump
hard.

"You can't do this! You're not
God!"

"Neither are you."

"Don't," she screamed.

"Sorry, Daisy."

She could feel the hickory tree
coming loose from the bank and clung exhaustedly to its waterlogged
branches. Her face felt hot against the baby's cool forehead. She kissed
him and said, "Hush, don't cry."

Roy worked the dead tree back and
forth with his foot, easing it along the bank, sliding it further down into
the water. She knew they would float away soon. She couldn't feel her
hands anymore as she hugged the baby and whispered in his ear, "Your
mother loved you very much… so much she lost her life protecting
you."

The baby responded to the sound
of her voice. His head was erect. He seemed to smile. The truth slammed into
her. She was holding the full measure of Anna's life in her arms.

She clung to the soggy tree and looked
up at Roy. His eyes seemed already set apart from this world. She took a deep
breath, white spots floating in her peripheral vision, and reached
for his ankle. She gave a sharp tug, and he landed in a
semicrouched
position on the log, then grabbed her wrist. He looked into her eyes and
pushed her head underwater.

She clutched the baby while the
swift-moving current held them fast against the dead tree. Daisy fought
to push herself back to the surface, and they both came up sputtering.

Roy was standing on the bank, rocking
the tree with his foot.

Daisy could hear the
meltwater
cascading downhill after yesterday's rain.
She was very far away now, hovering somewhere on the edge of the universe.
"I'm sorry, Noah… I'm so sorry." Weak with exhaustion, she closed
her eyes.

Roy continued to work the dead
tree back and forth with his foot, easing it down the bank, sliding it further
into the water, when all of a sudden, a shot rang out.

Daisy opened her eyes.

Roy slumped forward, a river of
blood flowing from the wound in his leg. In pain and shock, he tried to
crawl away.

Jack was standing on the rise above
them, looking down. He aimed his gun and fired another round into Roy's
back. Blood gushed from a pulpy chest wound the size of a fist.

Daisy screamed as Roy crawled out
onto the trunk of the fallen hickory tree. He looked down at her for a moment,
blood
fountaining
from his two terrifying wounds.
Then he fell headfirst into the fast-moving current and was gone in an instant.