Backwoods (23 page)

“You have activated the Head Start Heart
Smart.”

Shit,
Andrew thought, scrambling to
his feet as O’Malley wheeled toward the sound.
Shit, shit,
shit!

He ran for the door just as O’Malley charged,
swinging his arms, plowing aside medical carts, shelves, anything
and everything in his way. What he couldn’t knock away, he
clambered over with terrifying speed and ease.

“Please follow the voice prompts provided for
correct application and use of this electronic device,” the
defibrillator said, milliseconds before O’Malley tackled the crash
cart, sending it toppling to the floor.

As O’Malley grappled with the machine,
tangled now in the cables connecting it to the red and yellow pads,
Andrew reached the door.
Oh, Jesus,
he thought, pushing his
hair out of his face, struggling to remember.
What the fuck was
the code? Was it one-zero, one-zero?

He punched this in before realizing this had
been Moore’s old code, not the new one. “Fuck,” he hissed, then
tried again. He was frightened and panicked, his hand shaking, and
for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the goddamn pass code.
From behind him, he heard O’Malley thrashing, scrambling to his
feet.

One-zero, zero-one.

He typed this in. The light stayed red. The
door stayed locked.

“Fuck,” Andrew cried. Balling his fist, he
beat against the window. “Somebody help me,” he screamed. “Get me
out of here!”

He felt the floor beneath him shudder,
O’Malley’s footsteps thunderous as he charged and Andrew whirled,
clasping the ruined IV stand in his hands, shoving the threaded tip
out ahead of him in feeble self-defense. When O’Malley barreled
into him, the shaft caught him just beneath the sternum, punching
into the vulnerable meat of his midriff. O’Malley’s own forward
momentum drove it through him, impaling himself. A hot splash of
blood flew back, soaking Andrew’s hands, his arms, slapping him in
the face, and for a moment, he and O’Malley stood together, close
enough to kiss, both of them leaning heavily, drunkenly against
each other.

“O’Malley,” Andrew whispered, horrified,
helpless. He turned loose of the shaft and O’Malley floundered
backwards, wrapping his hands around the metal rod protruding from
his chest. It was slick and he fumbled for purchase, pawing at it,
uttering sodden, slobbering sounds like a cat trying to work a hair
ball loose from its gullet. His efforts were hampered by the
defibrillator. Somehow his arms had become entangled in the cords,
the adhesive patches stuck to his skin and the console dragged
behind him on the floor, bouncing and scraping along, its
mechanized tutelage still rambling on, unabated:

“Please verify that the Head Start Heart
Smart cartridges are correctly positioned on the victim’s bare
torso and have not been applied over the nipples, any medication
patches or implanted devices.”

Andrew watched, shocked and astonished, as
O’Malley began easing the broken metal shaft from his torso,
sliding it out centimeter by centimeter, panting heavily all the
while.

Oh, shit,
he thought, because at first
he’d thought O’Malley had retreated because he’d been mortally
wounded, that he’d fallen back because he’d been about to collapse,
just like any normal human being with a rod through their torso
would have done. But judging by the fact that O’Malley spared a
vicious grin, a menacing, spittle-laced snarl in his direction, the
shaft nearly yanked in full from his chest, Andrew understood he
was about to be in for a serious world of hurt.

“Shit.” He spun back around to the door and
punched again into the key pad.
One-zero, zero-one.

The light stayed red.

“What’s the fucking code?” he screamed. He
would have beat his head into the door had he the time.
Four
digits, binary code, seven options. It wasn’t ten. It wasn’t
eleven.

“Twelve,” he whispered, eyes flying wide.
“Twelve. The pass code’s twelve.”

He reached out to punch it in—
one-one,
zero-zero
—and felt O’Malley’s hand, heavy and bloody, clamp
against his shoulder. As he was whirled violently around to face
O’Malley, then slammed back into the door with enough force to
splinter the window behind his head in a network of thin,
spiderweb-like fissures, he balled his hand into a fist.

“Get off me,” he yelled, punching O’Malley in
the face. It felt as if he’d just socked a side of raw beef, one
that had been left out to hang in the sun for awhile on a hot
summer afternoon. Wet and spongy, the flesh yielded beneath his
knuckles, squelching between his fingers. Even though it seemed to
stun O’Malley momentarily, he kept hold of Andrew’s shirt, and with
another furious cry, Andrew punched him again.

“Let go of me,” he shouted, hitting him again
and again, driving O’Malley back. He could feel those nasty
pustules and nodules bursting with every blow. Firm beneath the
skin, upon impact, they would pop like overripe melons or
overfilled water balloons, squirting pus and blood, thick and hot,
against his hands, onto his arms.

“Let go,” Andrew yelled, his voice dissolving
into an inarticulate, furious garble of sounds as he drove O’Malley
away from him. O’Malley stumbled then fell, landing hard against
the defibrillator console.

“Defibrillation initialized,” the machine
said. “Clear the patient.”

It wasn’t like on TV. There were no sparks as
the electrical current surged. No resounding
thump!
No
violent heaving as the affected body became a living, breathing
power conduit. The affected body in question was that of O’Malley,
and he simply twitched when two hundred joules of electricity
surged into his body, lancing up and down the metal IV stand
protruding from his chest as it might have a lightning rod. He
twitched once, then twice, then pitched sideways, landing with a
wet
plop!
against the infirmary floor.

“Defibrillation complete,” the machine said.
“Please continue administering CPR until emergency personnel have
arrived.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Andrew hiccupped, watching in
horrified fascination as a thin tendril of smoke snaked up from
O’Malley’s chest, the place where the IV stand had run him through
and the electrified metal had burned him. With it came a strange
smell, almost like frying bacon, and with a nauseated gulp, Andrew
whirled around to face the door again. “Twelve,” he muttered, his
finger shaking as he reached for the key pad. “The pass code is
twelve.”

Which, when translated into base-two, was
one-one, zero-zero.

He wrenched the door open when the light
shifted to green, then yanked it closed behind him. Leaning heavily
against it, he closed his eyes and struggled to control the heavy
shuddering that shook him from head to toe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Despite Andrew’s screaming, his
less-than-subtle escape from the infirmary, no soldiers came to
investigate, which shocked the glorious living shit out of him.
Even more ominous, there was no answer when he knocked frantically
on Dani’s door.

“Dani?” He tried the knob, but it was locked.
“Are you in there? It’s Andrew.”

He rammed his shoulder into the door once,
twice, three times unsuccessfully, then decided battering wasn’t
such a great option. Not only was it not working, but it was loud
as hell to boot in the otherwise silent, empty hall. Then he
remembered Moore’s pass code.

He let himself into my room earlier
tonight,
he thought.
Maybe it’s a master code, sort of like
a skeleton key that lets him bypass anybody else’s.

Figuring it was worth a shot, he punched it
into Dani’s key pad.
One-one, zero-zero.
To his pleasant
surprise—the first of few in as many hours—the red light turned
green.

“Dani?” Pushing the door open wide, he
hurried inside. The smell of O’Malley’s vomit lingered, thick in
the air, and he drew his hand to his mouth and nose, grimacing.
“Dani? Are you in here?”

He glanced into the bathroom, then once more
into the bedroom to be sure it was all empty. Then he left, closing
the door behind him to block out that horrible stink, and
frowned.

Where is she?

“I took her.”

Andrew whirled, startled, at Edward Moore’s
voice. The older man walked down the corridor toward him. He had
his pistol in his hand, and this time, when he raised his arm
parallel to the floor, drawing aim on Andrew’s head, Andrew doubted
any semblance of rational self-control would stay his trigger
finger.

“Where’s Dani?” he asked. “You son of a
bitch, if you’ve hurt her…”

Moore drew back the hammer on the
nine-millimeter with an audible, ominous
click!
“I don’t
believe you’re in any position to be threatening me, Mister
Braddock.”

Conceding, Andrew lifted his hands. “Where’s
Dani?” he asked again, his voice softer now, pleading. “Where have
you taken her?”

Moore studied him down the line of his gun
sight for a moment, then said, “My lab.”

“Why?” Andrew asked.

“To make her tell me where my daughter is,”
Moore said, closing the distance between them first to mere feet,
then inches. “To make her tell me what you’ve done to Alice.”

“I haven’t done anything to her,” Andrew
said.

“
Liar.”
Moore pistol-whipped him,
smashing the gun barrel into the side Andrew’s head. The impact
left him staggering sideways, then crashing to his knees,
breathless and dazed.

Moore planted his foot against the base of
Andrew’s spine and forced him down onto his belly, his shoe heel
digging brutally into Andrew’s kidney. Cramming the pistol barrel
against Andrew’s temple, he seethed: “Tell me where Alice is. Tell
me right goddamn now, or so help me, I’ll—”

“
Daddy, no!”

There she is,
Andrew thought,
recognizing Alice’s voice even as his mind abandoned him and he
passed out.
She’s right…behind you.

“Hey, Germ.”

In his mind, he could hear Beth’s voice,
could see his sister in her hospital bed, with death so close and
pervasive a thing, it had changed the way the air in the room had
smelled to him, felt against his skin.

“Hey, Bess,” he’d replied, because he’d been
able to see it in her face, the gaunt frailty there, her ashen
complexion.
The shadow of death.
That’s what he had thought
of when he’d seen her face, her pallor. Wasn’t that something out
of the Bible?

Beth had started to cry, the brave façade
she’d affected for their parents crumbling while alone with her
brother. Her eyes had flooded, her tears rolling down her cheeks,
and her bottom lip had quavered, her voice growing choked and
strained.

“I’m scared,” she’d whispered, and he’d
leaned over, letting her coil her reed-thin arms around his neck
and cling to him, shaking as she’d wept.

“Don’t cry, Beth,” he’d breathed, even as his
own tears had welled up and fallen. “Please don’t cry.”

****

He opened his eyes, disoriented for a moment,
so certain that the dampness of his face, the warmth of tears had
come from his dead sister that her name lay poised on his
tongue.

Beth.

Instead he looked up at Alice as she leaned
over him, her dark hair spilling in cascade of tangled waves over
either shoulder to frame his face. Her pale cheeks glistened with
tears, her slim body trembled and her lips quavered as she
hiccupped for breath.

“Get away from him.” Moore snatched his
daughter by the sleeve, dragging her backward.

“But, Daddy,” Alice began in protest.

“He’s dangerous,” Moore said. As he spun her
around to face him, his expression shifted from murderous rage to
sudden, inexplicable shock. “You’re crying.”

“I am?” Seeming as shocked as her father,
Alice blinked, her hands fluttering up to her face. “I am,” she
gasped, then began to laugh, as if delighted by the tears she felt
on her cheeks. “Daddy, look, look at me! Look!”

Andrew sat up, grimacing as he cupped his
hand gingerly over the swollen, bloody knot on his temple where the
pistol had caught him. “I’m not dangerous,” he growled at Moore.
“You’re the one who hit me.”

“And you’re the one who burned my house to
the ground,” Moore snapped, pointing the gun at him again. “A woman
died in that fire, you son of a bitch. A good woman who was my
friend, a better mother to Alice than her own has ever been. You
had no goddamn right…”

There was more, but in his dazed state, it
took Andrew a moment to process. “What?” He shook his head. “Wait a
minute. You…you think…?”

Somebody firebombed his house,
Suzette’s voice echoed in his mind.
They think it might have
been a group of animal rights zealots. PACA, I think they’re
called. People Against Cruelty to Animals.

“You think I had something to do with that?”
he asked Moore, stricken. “You think I’m part of that group,
PACA?”

“What else would you be doing here?” Moore
demanded.

“I’ve told you. I was working out here. I
don’t know anything about your house or this PACA organization. All
I know is what Suzette told me. I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry
Alice’s nurse died, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. Why
the hell would you think that?”

From outside, they heard a sharp, sudden
burst of automatic gunfire, followed by another, then another.
Overlapping these came a sudden, reverberating shriek from
somewhere out in the forest, an agonized scream that, like the
gunshots, quickly echoed again and again.

“What the—?” Andrew turned to the nearest
window, startled.

“He sent the soldiers into the woods a little
while ago,” Alice whispered, eyes enormous with fright. “He told
them you were out there, that you were dangerous, Andrew.” Stricken
and trembling, she said, “He told them to kill you.”