Backwoods (18 page)

I can’t feed her soda and a Snickers bar
for supper,
he thought, frowning. He knew he needed to get her
back to the apartment. Even if Suzette had been too preoccupied
fixing supper to notice Alice slipping out the door, she’d have
noticed her absence by now. If she hadn’t then Moore sure as hell
would whenever he returned shortly from the lab for his dinner.

It’s their special time,
Suzette had
told him of Moore and Alice dining together at night.
Or some
such bullshit.

He finally settled on a package of peanut
butter crackers. He had no idea what kinds of food Alice liked,
outside of Cheerio’s, which she apparently ate every morning for
breakfast.
Every kid likes peanut butter, though,
he
thought, punching the button and watching the thin metal coil
slowly rotate, dropping the crackers with a heavy
plop
into
the dispensing trough at the bottom of the machine.
Don’t
they?

Digging through the measly remains of his
spare change, he also put together enough to get a can of 7-Up.
It’s caffeine free, I think,
he told himself with a studious
frown. He wished Dani was there to ask.
She has kids. She’d know
these things.

“Have you seen Alice?”

The rec room had been empty upon his arrival,
the jukebox dark and quiet, the pool tables vacant and the voice
from behind startled him. He turned in surprise and found Suzette
at the threshold, a somewhat frantic sort of look on her face.

“Alice,” she said again, because he must have
blinked at her stupidly for too long for her liking, and she
frowned, planting her hands on her hips. “She’s gotten out of the
apartment somehow and run off. Have you seen her?”

He glanced guiltily at the soda and crackers
then shook his head. “No. Sorry.”

“Well, if you do, please come find me, okay?”
she asked. “Edward’s panicking. He’s over at the lab building right
now, probably tearing it up from end to end looking for her. He
said something about her getting in there, figuring out the access
code somehow.”

“Uh, sure.” He shrugged. “I’ll keep an eye
out.”

She was too distracted to offer anything
sarcastic or snide in reply, turning instead on her heel and
walking briskly into the hall again.

Hurrying, he carried the soda and crackers
back to his room, only to find Alice asleep on his bed. Curled on
her side, her knees drawn to her chest, her hands draped delicately
by her face, she didn’t stir when he came through the door. Caught
off guard, somewhat charmed, he nonetheless realized he was pretty
much officially fucked.

“Alice.” Setting aside the snacks, he knelt
beside the bed. “Alice? It’s time to get up.”

She didn’t stir and he stroked her hair back
from her face. “Honey, you can’t sleep here. Your daddy’s looking
for you. He has a gun and he’s already tried to kill me once with
it.”

As he tucked loose tendrils of her dark hair
behind her ear, he felt something coarse and out of place, hidden
beneath her scalp. Curious, he leaned forward, pushing her hair
further aside. She had a thick crown, enough so that when combed
just right, it had hidden from view a narrow strip of scalp that
that been shaved bald and exposed. It wasn’t until he parted her
hair with his hands that he saw it clearly, a line of stitches
closing a wound approximately two inches in length. It was still
fresh enough to have blood crusted along the seam.

North of this, along the outermost edge of
the shaved margin of scalp, he noticed a slight indentation in her
flesh, a place where the hair had started to regrow, but had been
likewise sheared at some point, because the new hair was only a few
centimeters long. With a frown, Andrew brushed his fingertips
against this peculiar depression. A thin red line bisected it, a
scar from a now-healed incision.

What the hell?
For a moment, he leaned
away from the bed, reaching for the lamp on his nightstand. Hooking
the lip of the shade with his hand, he flipped it enough to
redirect the light in a broad pool against his bed, bathing Alice.
Now he studied her head again with bewildered fascination, finding
two more sets of the curious dimples and scars near the crown of
her skull, another closer to her hairline and at least three near
the cap of her pate.

It’s like the skull’s gone soft there or
something,
he thought.
Or like it’s gone altogether.

“It’s where the medicine goes,” Alice said
and he drew back, surprised to find her blinking dazedly at
him.

“I…I’m sorry,” he stammered, awkward and
abashed. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“That’s alright,” she said.

“What happened to your head?” he asked
quietly. “What are those places?”

“I told you. It’s where the medicine
goes.”

“What do you mean? What kind of
medicine?”

She shrugged one shoulder, still laying on
the other.

“Who does this to you?” he whispered,
heartsick and stricken because he knew.
Did your father do that,
Alice? Oh, God, did that son of a bitch hurt you?

“Can I stay here with you, Andrew?” Alice
asked. “Please?”

He nodded, slipping his hand against hers,
squeezing her fingers gently. “Yes. Of course you can.” Raising his
hips, he leaned forward and kissed her brow through her hair. “I
promise, Alice. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

****

“Oh, my God,” Dani gasped when he told her
about the wound on Alice’s head, moved the girl’s hair aside so she
could see for herself the grim evidence of past trepanning beneath
the dark curls.

He’d fallen asleep like that, holding Alice’s
hand as he sat beside the bed, resting his cheek against the crook
of his elbow while the girl had dozed again, It wasn’t until Dani
had knocked on the door that he roused.

“I brought you some supper,” she’d offered,
looking somewhat sheepish as she’d held out a foil-covered plate
between her hands. “It’s not very good. I’m not even exactly sure
what it is. C Squad’s on KP tonight.”

The plate remained wrapped tight and
untouched atop the TV set. “The poor thing,” Dani whispered,
helping as he pulled the bedspread over, folding it in half so he
could drape its warm folds over Alice’s diminutive form. “What are
we going to do?”

Andrew met her gaze grimly. “We’re going to
take her out of here. I’ve still got my backpack and you can get us
some supplies. We’ll bundle her up in these blankets to keep her
warm and take turns carrying her.”

“What? Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight—right now.” Even if the things
he’d heard in the forest earlier, the people Alice had called the
screamers
were real, what choice did they have? “We can cut
through the woods down to Highway 460 and head for the nearest
town. If it’s not big enough for a hospital, it at least has to
have a police station.”

“I can’t leave,” Dani said. “That’d be going
AWOL. I could face desertion charges.”

“How? You wouldn’t be doing anything wrong,
Dani.” He shoved his finger emphatically at the door. “Edward
Moore’s been cutting holes in Alice’s skull for God only knows what
sick fucking purpose. Major Prendick’s got to know about it. How
could he not? And if he knows about it and he lets it happen, if he
doesn’t do anything to stop it, then he’s just as sick and twisted
and wrong as Moore is—and you have every right in the world to walk
away.”

She looked at him, then down at the girl,
visibly torn.

“Dani,” he pleaded. “Please. If Moore’s doing
this to his own daughter, what’s he capable of doing to you? To any
of us?”

Alice murmured in her sleep, burrowing more
deeply beneath the folds of the comforter. At this soft, fluttering
sound, Dani’s expression softened, and when she cut her gaze back
to Andrew, she nodded. “Alright. Give me thirty minutes and I’ll be
back.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

She was back, slapping urgently at his door,
in less than ten.

“I need your help,” she told him, grabbing
him by the arm, yanking him into the hallway. “It’s Thomas. He
wasn’t at supper again tonight. I just thought he wasn’t feeling
well again, but just now, he came to my room.”

“Is he alright?” Andrew asked, a stupid
question considering he knew O’Malley
wasn’t
alright based
on that frightened, frantic look in Dani’s eyes, the worry and fear
that were both stark and apparent in her face.

“He’s burning up with fever. I need to get
him to the infirmary. Will you help me? He won’t walk by himself,
says it hurts too bad.” Her voice had grown strained, choked with
tears. “I had to leave him on the floor in my bathroom. He fell
down and he’s too heavy. I can’t lift him by myself.”

“Of course,” Andrew said. Closing the door
behind him as quietly as possible so he wouldn’t disturb Alice, he
hurried with Dani downstairs to the first floor.

Her bedroom was smaller than Andrew’s by at
least half the diameter, furnished in equally Spartan fashion, but
she’d brightened it as best she’d been able with photographs of her
children and a variety of colorful drawings and paintings, rendered
in marker, crayon and acrylic on sheets of construction paper she’d
taped to the walls. She’d been in the process of packing when
O’Malley had come to her door. He saw a large duffel bag open on
her bed, a loose assortment of clothes surrounding it.

“He’s in here.” Dani rushed to the bathroom
door, but when she reached for the light switch, a low voice
groaned from the shadow-draped interior.

“Leave the light off.”

“Thomas, it’s me,” Dani said. “I’ve got
Andrew Braddock with me. We’re going to get you over to the
infirmary. It’s going to be okay.”

“Light…hurts my eyes,” O’Malley mumbled from
inside, and past Dani, Andrew caught sight of him sprawled on the
floor, half-upright, half-slumped against the wall, his legs
splayed out in front of him. The smell of vomit struck him even
before he got near the threshold.

“What’s wrong with him?” he whispered, shying
back reflexively.

“I don’t know.” Seeming oblivious to the
pungent odor, Dani went into the bathroom and knelt beside her
friend.

“I got sick,” O’Malley croaked, sounding
feeble and miserable.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“There’s puke on your floor.”

“It’s okay,” she said again.

“I’m sorry,” he moaned.

“Shut up, Thomas,” she said, then looked back
at Andrew. “He can’t stand. He told me his legs hurt, his knees and
ankles are all swollen. Can you help me?”

Andrew nodded, stepping into the narrow
confines of the bathroom, blinking owlishly for a moment as his
eyes adjusted to the gloom. He saw a thin puddle of vomit on the
tiles near Dani’s feet. As he squatted on the other side, he drew
back in reflexive surprise. Even in the dark, he could see
O’Malley’s face shining with febrile sweat. His breathing sounded
heavy and labored.

“Hey, Just-Andrew,” the Corporal croaked,
managing a feeble smile. “Dani told me…you went out in the
woods…looking for me today. Thanks. That…that was alright of
you.”

“Well, hey, you know, I’m a nice guy.” Andrew
tried to force a smile, a nonchalant tone to his voice.

“Yeah.” O’Malley nodded once. “She…told me
that, too.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” Andrew said,
slipping his arm around O’Malley’s back. “Lean on me. You think you
can stand up?”

“I don’t know.” O’Malley grunted as Andrew
pulled him into a more upright, seated position, allowing Dani to
get her arm around him from the other side. “My legs…feel like
they’re on fire.”

Dani cut a frightened look at Andrew. “On
three?” he asked and she nodded. Andrew counted off, then they both
gritted their teeth, struggling with O’Malley’s considerable and
mostly dead-weight. They managed to get him on his feet, although
it took them several tries. The effort to stand likewise exhausted
O’Malley, and he leaned heavily against Andrew, his eyes rolling
back into his skull, uttering a soft, breathless moan as his
consciousness waned.

“Thomas?” Dani first tapped, then more
vigorously slapped his cheek, trying to rouse him. “Thomas, wake
up.”

“Help me get him to the bed,” Andrew said,
struggling to keep his own feet underneath him while supporting
O’Malley. Together, he and Dani wrestled the young man to her bed,
and she shoved aside the duffel bag and clothes to clear space for
him.

“Oh, my God,” Dani whispered, once they’d let
O’Malley collapse against the bed spread. Now, beneath the
fluorescent glow of her overhead lights, they could see the left
side of his face and neck were covered in some kind of rash. Bright
red welts, raised like poison ivy or hives and all but covered his
cheek and forehead, encircling his left eye, swelling his eyelid
shut.

She leaned over, pulling open his shirt,
revealing more of the weal-like rash cutting thick splotches down
his neck and chest. Golf-ball sized nodules had risen beneath his
skin in places, following the contours of his ribcage, his abdomen
and the back of his neck. The warning signs Andrew had seen
plastered throughout the house of pain came immediately to
mind:

CAUTION: BIOHAZARD

CANCER HAZARD

BIOSAFETY LEVEL 2

“That’s not Rocky Mountain spotted fever,”
Andrew said. Drawing back from the bed, he wiped his hands
fervently on his pant legs. “I don’t know what the hell he’s got,
but it’s not that.”

“Will you stay with him?” she asked. “Just
for a few minutes, until I can find Suzette?”

“Suzette?” Andrew blinked in bewildered
surprise.

“She’s a doctor,” Dani said. “Look at Thomas.
He needs medical attention.”

“Alright,” Andrew said, not because he
particularly wanted to—because the only thing that might have made
him more anxious than the prospect of exposure to anthrax, ebola or
other weapons-grade germs was that of another confrontation with
Suzette—but because Dani had asked it of him, pleaded for it.