The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy (23 page)

CHAPTER 38
You’re Free Now

The lights are dim, the hallway empty.

When we reach the control room, I crack the door and peek in. The room is dark, the workstations deserted. The LCD display is still on and the killing chair sits eerily empty.

We step inside and close the door quietly behind us.

Jimmy walks to the window and looks out over the pool.

“What the hell is it?” he says, almost to himself.

“Hell is exactly what it is,” I say, carrying my canisters to the door that leads onto the catwalk around the pool, setting them down, and examining the latch.

Jimmy joins me.

“What’s the plan?”

“When we step through this door, it’s gonna be way cold. We won’t have much time.”

“How cold?”

“Twenty below.”

“How cold’s that?”

“Remember the mountain?”

“How could I forget?”

“Much colder than that.”

Jimmy straightens, cradling his canisters.

“Whataya waitin’ for?” he says. “Load me up and lead the way. Let’s do this.”

I stack my canisters on top of his, only his eyes showing above the load. Grabbing the lever, I unseal the door. A blast of cold air hits my face, my breath smokes in the red light from the pool. I push the door open and step out onto the catwalk.

Jimmy steps past me, and I close the door and seal it with the lever on the inside. We shimmy left, away from the door, away from the window. I take the canisters one at a time from Jimmy’s arms and set them upright on the catwalk.

“This is some kind of cold,” Jimmy says, shivering.

“I know it,” I say, my teeth chattering already.

Together, we screw the lids off the canisters. I look over the rail at the red, pulsing water below. I see shadows of hoses and wires that look like sea kelp with brains floating at their ends, and I’m reminded of Jimmy’s family on that bloody day in that bloody cove.

“Okay, we have to dump it fast—”

Jimmy taps me on the shoulder. I turn and see why ...

The lights are on in the control room. We press ourselves against the wall and watch. Nobody comes to the window, but I see shadows playing on the glass. Minutes go by. My body shivers violently; I clench my teeth to stop the chatter clacking in my skull. My hands shake, my legs too. I know from biology lessons that my hypothalamus is taking over now, pulling blood from my extremities and regulating my core temperature. I look at Jimmy and see his nose is turning blue, his lips, too. His eyes are wide with fear. I feel dizzy, like I’m suffocating, and when I take a deep breath, the subzero air bites my lungs.

Still the shadows move in the control room ...

Jimmy’s legs buckle, straighten again. I grab him and hold him upright, sharing our body heat, watching the window over his shoulder. Finally, the light snaps off and the window is dark again. I shake Jimmy from his stupor. He looks confused, then he pulls his shirt off over his head.

“I’m hot,” he says.

“You’re not hot,” I say, pulling his shirt back down before he can get it off. “You’re hypothermic. I need you to focus. Do what I do. Okay? Come on, pal, I can’t do this without you.”

Jimmy’s eyes refocus, his mind coming back. He nods. We grab a canister each and balance them against the catwalk rail.

“Do it fast,” I say, my voice feeble and shaking. “Then the other canister, then we hit the door.”

We tip the canisters, but nothing comes out.

I tip mine back and look inside. The potassium crystals are clumped together in the cold, forming a kind of lid. I reach in and break the crystals free with my frozen hand. Quick now, all four canisters. We tip them again and the potassium pours out, mixing into a black cloud and landing in the pool.

We set the empty canisters down, grab the others, tip them into the pool too, smoke already rising from red bubbles there.

I love you, Mom, I love you, Dad. You’re free now.

We run to the door, but the door won’t budge. I check the lever, push again—nothing. I slam my shoulder against it, but it holds solid. I turn to Jimmy in a panic.

“The door’s locked!”

Jimmy tries it—no luck.

“Whoever was in there must have bolted it from inside.”

I look into the pool for one moment and see a bright-blue flame dancing on the water’s red surface. I rush back and grab two empty canisters, handing one to Jimmy. I bash the canister against the control room glass. Jimmy steps up and joins me. My hands are freezing, but adrenalin pushes away the pain. One two, one two—we smash at the glass in unison. I see a flash of white, a giant ball of flame reflected on the glass. Jimmy panics, hammers wildly against the glass, his canister bouncing free from his hand and falling into the pool with a splash. He runs back for another. I hammer on. A small crack appears. Another whack and it spiders larger. Jimmy beside me now, hitting the weak spot with me. Heat on my neck, the fireball growing, the cracking glass, sizzling chemical flames, potassium smoke, the water bubbling already in a boil. I pull back for one last mighty whack. The explosion shockwave rips the canister from my hand and shatters the glass and throws me through it.

I come to on the floor, flames licking against the broken window. Jimmy is slumped over the workstation desk, half in, half out. I jump to my feet and pull him into the control room, away from the fire. His ear is bleeding, his cheek cut.

I shake him conscious.

“We gotta go now, buddy.”

His head lolls, lifts, lolls again.

“Can you walk?”

Arm in arm, we exit the control room and limp down the hall, shaking from adrenaline, shaking from the cold.

Outside, in the red cavern glow again, we jog toward the dock, hoping we won’t be seen. I hear doors banging, voices shouting. A siren begins to wail. We scamper down the dock, step aboard the boat, and crawl down into the dark hull. I pull the panel closed and snuggle into the far corner with Jimmy.

“We did it,” he says, his voice loud, his breathing labored.

“Keep it down,” I say, “I think you blew out your ear.”

“You’s flew out of here?”

“You blew out your ear.”

“Oh,” he says, lowering his voice a little. “But we did it. Sure as that siren out there, we did it.”

It sounds like he’s laughing, but then I realize he’s actually crying. I take him in my arms, and rock him in the dark.

“We sure did, buddy. We sure did.”

CHAPTER 39
You Got a Better Plan?

“Fire,” Jimmy moans. “Hellfire run.”

I clamp my hand on his mouth. “Shh ... you’re okay.”

The boat is moving fast, the bow tilted high. Other than the rhythmic sound of the hull slapping the water, we ride the rest of the way in silence. The boat slows, the bow drops, and I hear Hannah calling out from the dock:

“Daddy! Oh, hurry, Daddy! Mom’s not well.”

The boat stops, the step plate folds out.

“What is it, honey?” Dr. Radcliffe asks, panic in his voice.

“She won’t wake up, Daddy. Come quick.”

The boat rocks violently as he jumps out. I crack the panel and watch him stride up the dock toward the house, Hannah running ahead of him waving for him to come faster. When they’re both inside, I slide the panel free.

“Come on, Jimmy. Let’s hustle.”

Jimmy crawls out after me, squinting in the light. He looks terrible. Dried blood in his hair, a garish gash on his cheek, one eye swollen shut. I appear to be unscathed, other than both my hands stained brown from digging the potassium crystals free.

“What’ll we do now?” Jimmy asks, peeking over the side of the boat at the house.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

“Ya mean out of the boat, or out of here here?”

“I mean out of here here,” I say. “The whole place.”

“What about Hannah?”

My heart hurts, my head drops.

“Maybe we’ll come back for her later,” I say, not really believing I’ll ever get the chance. “When things settle down, maybe. See if she wants to leave.”

“Well, ya wanna go in for any supplies?”

“Nah ... it’s too risky.”

I cross my arms and look longingly at the house, knowing we need to leave, but not really wanting to. Jimmy eyes me.

“Sure ya wanna leave?”

“We have to.”

“Okay,” he says, “I know this must be hard for ya, so I’ll make the plan. Let’s beat feet for the gate and get out of here. We’ll stop at Gloria’s, grab grub and my gear, pick up Junior. Then we can follow the river out until we’re safe away.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll make camp for the night.”

“And what will we do after that?”

“I dunno,” he says, irritated. “You got a better plan?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, realizing I’m being a jerk. “It’s a good plan. Anything’s better than sitting here waiting for Doctor Evil to come back. Can you run? On three. One, two, three.”

We scramble off the boat and run for it. Jimmy’s limping pretty good, so I slow down to keep his pace. When we get to the gate, it’s unlocked, as always. We step out, close the wooden door, and hustle along shore toward Gloria’s. The afternoon is quiet, the lake calm, and it feels funny to be running. Almost as if we’re playing some game and there isn’t really anything to be frightened of. And what are we frightened of? An old man and his sick wife? Then it hits me, what we’ve done. Or what we haven’t done. We haven’t solved anything by destroying Eden.

“What is it?” Jimmy asks, stopping and turning around.

I realize I’m standing still, my feet planted on the ground.

“It’s her, ain’t it?”

“It isn’t her.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’ve gotta go back, Jimmy.”

He kicks a rock into the lake.

“I knew it was her.”

“It’s not her.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“We destroyed Eden, but now what? Next month another train of retirees comes up. And what will they do with them? Slaughter them is what they’ll do.” Then I remember the safe room and the switches. “They’ll slaughter them if Dr. Radcliffe hasn’t drowned them all first.”

Jimmy bends over and picks up a stick. He flexes it in his hands, looking back over my shoulder toward the lake house.

“What are ya sayin’?”

“I’m saying think about the Park Service.”

“What about ‘em?”

“They’ll just keep on killing people, won’t they? I mean, they’ll even be hunting us once we leave this lake.”

Jimmy snaps the stick in two and looks at it in his hands, weighing the halves.

“Whataya wanna do?”

“I don’t know,” I say, pulling at my hair as if an idea might be hiding there. “We go back and buy some time, I guess. Try to get that doomsday key away from Radcliffe.”

“Ya dun’ think he’ll suspect us blowin’ up Eden?”

“He might suspect something if I don’t show up soon. But he didn’t seem to know we were his hidden cargo, and there’s no other way down there, so how could it be us?”

“So yer jus’ gonna go back like nothin’ happened?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Go clean up and lay low,” I say. “Wait.”

“Lay low and wait for what?”

“I’ll need your help taking over when the time comes.”

“Yer crazy, man,” he says, “straight crazy.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “You in or out?”

“I like ya crazy.”

“Does that mean you’re in?”

“I’m in,” he says, tossing both sticks in the lake. “But jus’ for the record, yer plan ain’t no better’n mine was.”

CHAPTER 40
Why is Courage Wasted on the Young?

The door is cracked.

I stop in the dim blade of light dividing the dark hall and check my appearance, smoothing my rumpled shirt, running my fingers through my hair. My hands are stained a deep shade of potassium brown, clearly visible in the low light. I stuff them in my pockets, nudge the door open, and step into the room.

The bedroom is large, soft carpet, thick curtains drawn tight, an incandescent lamp burning low beside a massive bed, and it smells of mothballs and iodine. I see them gathered there around her bed, already in some sad vigil. Mrs. Radcliffe lies propped up on pillows, her eyes closed, her arms resting at her sides. Dr. Radcliffe sits on the edge of the bed, Hannah sits next to him with her head buried in her hands, the soft light on her red hair giving her the appearance of Mrs. Radcliffe’s ghost mourning her own passing. And for a moment, I think she might be dead. But then I see Gloria, standing beside the bed inspecting a silver thermometer in the lamplight.

“Still running a fever,” she says.

She dips a towel in a bucket of ice water, rings it out, and lays it across Mrs. Radcliffe’s brow, slapping Dr. Radcliffe’s hand away from his wife’s cheek.

“Give the poor woman a little breathing room.”

Dr. Radcliffe opens his mouth to say something to her, but stops short when he sees me. His face hardens. He says:

“Where have you been, young man?”

I stand in the doorway with my hands in my pockets.

“Where have I been?”

“It’s not a difficult question,” he says.

“Daddy,” Hannah says, pushing his knee. “Not now.”

“Eden was destroyed in a fire this morning. Sabotaged. I’d like to know just where Aubrey was when it was set.”

Hannah turns to me, drilling into me with those green eyes through the slits of narrowed lids. She appears to be thinking, deciding something. Then, without looking away, she says:

“Well, Aubrey couldn’t have had anything to do with it because he was here with me all day.”

Gloria glances at Hannah, a confused look on her face.

I decide to act surprised.

“Did you say destroyed by fire?”

Dr. Radcliffe looks from me to Hannah and back again.

“It’s served its purpose anyway,” he says. “We don’t need Eden anymore. Let’s talk about this another time.”

“Served its purpose?” I say. “You mean you plan to let the retirees live when they come up?”

“I said let’s talk about this another time.”

“I want to talk about it now,” I say, stepping closer.

“This is hardly the place,” he says, nodding to his sick wife.

My hands clench in my pockets, the left one gripping my father’s tobacco case.

“You didn’t seem to have any problem talking about things right after you slaughtered my father.”

“Enough!” he shouts, leaping to his feet and pointing to the open door behind me. “Get out of here.”

Hannah tugs his shirt tail. “You don’t need to yell, Daddy. Aubrey’s right, we do need to talk about things.”

“Your mother is ill,” he says. “This is not the time.”

Hannah looks at her mother. “She’s dying, Daddy.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do. She’s dying just like the others.”

“That’s no reason to disrespect her here,” he quips. “Or to abandon her life’s work. Now, enough of this damn arguing. This is hardly the place, and it’s certainly not the time.”

Gloria removes the towel from Mrs. Radcliffe’s head, and dips it again in the bucket, the draining water loud in the heavy silence. I remember her telling me that the Radcliffes took her and her brother Tom in when they were both young, raised them like their own. But wasn’t it the Radcliffes who killed her family? At least the Park Service killed her family, which makes the Radcliffes responsible for it. I was planning to let things be, to wait for the right time to act, but I’m tired of all these lies.

“Why not now?” I ask. “You worried Gloria will find out that it was you who killed her family? You worried she’ll find out that you and Mrs. Radcliffe are the Park Service?”

Gloria drops the wet cloth with a splash, her hands frozen above the bucket. When she looks up, she eyes Dr. Radcliffe and cocks her head, her face scrunched up in confusion.

“That’s what you people do down there?” she says. “You run those evil machines? You hunt people?”

“That’s an oversimplification,” Dr. Radcliffe says, blinking.

“I guess murder is too simple a term for you,” I say.

Gloria shakes her head sadly, mumbling to herself.

“It’ not possible. Mrs. Radcliffe? It’s just not possible. Is it?” Then she reaches back into the bucket, wrings out the towel, drops it again. “Dr. Radcliffe,” she implores, looking up, “is it true?”

“I’m leaving,” he says.

I cross my arms, blocking the door.

“Nobody’s going anywhere until we settle some things.”

Dr. Radcliffe turns to me, his fists balled, his face red.

“You little bastard,” he slurs. “I bring you up here out of that grimy anthill home of yours. I show you our paradise, offer you the world to protect. I give you my beautiful daughter. And you’re gonna tell me when and where I’ll go in my own home?”

“I’m not yours to give to anybody, Daddy,” Hannah says.

“You know what I mean,” he dismisses, waving her off.

“No,” she says, crossing her arms. “I don’t.”

A strange but welcome confidence rises in me. I remember Jimmy’s mother talking about the butterflies. About needing to let part of ourselves die so another part could live. I decide to let my fear die and my hope live.

“I know this much,” I say, feeling bolder by the sentence, “we’re setting the people trapped in that grimy anthill free.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I say. “We’re opening up Holocene II.”

“We most certainly are not.”

“Sorry,” I say. “You’re not in charge here anymore.”

Dr. Radcliffe stands there shaking with rage, wide-eyed and lip twitching. A vein in his forehead swells, snaking its way across his temple. He looks from me to Hannah, as if wanting her to say something, to deny what I’ve just said. She doesn’t—she just looks down. Dr. Radcliffe lifts his chin and looks at the ceiling, as if asking some god above to intervene. Then, with the swiftness of a much younger man, he strides to the bureau, slides the drawer open, pulls out a pistol, and points it at me.

Hannah’s hand leaps to her mouth, Gloria drops the towel again. I stand alone in front of Dr. Radcliffe, staring at the gun.

It’s old, really old. The barrel is blued steel with delicate floral engravings that look cheerfully out of place on a weapon, and the wooden handle is stained black so that Dr. Radcliffe’s knuckles look as white as bone clenched upon the grips.

“Whoa, wait just a minute,” I say, holding up my hands. “There’s no need for a gun here.”

“So it was you, you little turncoat bastard.”

“What was me?”

Dr. Radcliffe waves the pistol at my raised palms, the dark potassium stains there plain as day.

“You plan to shoot me?” I say, trying to act unimpressed. “Really? You’ve stooped to this? I thought you were a pacifist?”

“Oh, I am a pacifist,” he says, “but sometimes a peaceful outcome requires violence. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you undo my work because of a lousy sentimentality towards humans.”

“You’re insane,” I say, shrugging and looking to Hannah and Gloria for support, but they stand mute with blank faces and fear for me in their eyes, so I turn back to Dr. Radcliffe. “Whatever. That old thing probably doesn’t even work.”

He cocks the hammer back with an audible click.

“Oh, it works,” he says. “I restored this myself. It’s from the American Civil War, you know. It was good enough for killing traitors then, and it’ll be plenty good enough for killing traitors now. So move out of my way. I’ve got work to do.”

I look at the gun, my guts growling with fear, and I almost step aside. But then I think about Jimmy’s slaughtered family. I think about my dad murdered in that chair. And I think about all those people trapped down in Holocene II. A strange feeling comes over me, maybe courage, maybe something else, but I know I won’t be able to live if I let him kill any more people.

I spread my arms, blocking the door.

“I’m not letting you leave here with that key.”

“What key?” he asks.

“I know what you’re going to do,” I say. “You’re going to flood Holocene II. I won’t let you.”

He shakes his head and lets out a laugh.

“Why is courage wasted on the young?”

Then he steps forward, leading with the pistol pointed at my chest. I stand firm. He pauses just feet from me.

“I’m giving you five seconds to step aside and then I’m shooting you dead.”

“I’m not surprised,” I say, “you’re nothing but a murderer anyway. Don’t even bother counting because I’m not moving.”

I look him in the eyes and hold his stare. He frowns, blinks three times. The room is silent. His fingers tighten on the grip, his wrist muscles tense. Then Mrs. Radcliffe lets out a moan. And not just any moan, but a sick bellowing moan that fills the room and fades away, leaving all heads turned toward the bed.

Hannah thinks faster than I do—

She rushes up and grabs her father’s arm, pushing the gun down toward the floor. He jerks free, whipping her face with the barrel, and she lurches back with a bloody gash on her chin.

I jump to her side and catch her in my arms.

Dr. Radcliffe steps toward the open door, but not before Gloria grabs his belt from behind.

He wheels around with the pistol and fires.

Gloria falls to her knees, her hand caught in Dr. Radcliffe’s belt, her arm wrapped around his waist.

Kneeling there in the fatal silence following the shot, she has the appearance of some shamed subject hugging her king’s legs and begging for his forgiveness. But it’s he who should be begging for hers. A red hole appears in the back of her yellow dress, growing as the fabric wicks the gushing blood.

The gun barrel smokes.

Hannah screams.

Dr. Radcliffe staggers backwards, Gloria’s head slumping limply against his legs. Then he turns to rush from the room and drags her body several feet, her hand clutched in a death grip around his belt. He panics, making little choking sounds as he waves the pistol at Hannah and me, struggling to loosen his belt buckle with his free hand. I move toward him, but Hannah pulls me back, tears welling already in her eyes. He steps into the hall, his belt slipping free of its loops and falling to the floor with a soft thud where it lays gripped by Gloria’s corpse.

Hannah releases me and rushes to Gloria, sinking to the floor and gathering her head in her lap.

I race after Dr. Radcliffe.

The house is shadowed now, the sun behind the roofline, but the grounds outside are washed in bright light, and I have an odd feeling of running past windows to some other world.

I plunge downstairs and into the dark basement just as the safe room door is closing, the wedge of light shrinking on the tile floor. Reaching out as I run, I snatch Hannah’s microscope from the table and dive for the safe room, sliding across the tile floor and thrusting out the scope and wedging it in the door.

“Damn stupid kid,” Dr. Radcliffe mumbles from inside.

He kicks at the microscope, attempting to dislodge it, but it doesn’t budge, and he stubs his toe and curses with pain, his shadowed silhouette hopping on one foot in the thin sliver of light leaking out onto the tile floor.

“Son of a bitch!” he shouts.

Noticing a fire extinguisher on the lab wall, I jerk it free and stick the nozzle in the crack of the door and blast the panic room full of white smoke. Then I hook my arm through the crack and slap blindly at the wall, feeling for the green button. I hit it and the door swings open.

I rush inside the smoke-filled room toward the sound of Dr. Radcliffe’s coughing, catching him just as he’s reaching into the panel that hides the doomsday switches. I smash his head with the fire extinguisher, a hollow ping echoing in the small room. Then I grip his collar, walk him to the door, and toss him out into the lab. I smash the keypad off the wall with the extinguisher, and chuck the extinguisher at Dr. Radcliffe where he lies bellowing on the floor. Then I kick the microscope free from the floor and palm the red button that closes the door.

It all happens so fast. I lean against the wall breathing hard and coughing myself. The smoke swirls, clears some. The key is in the switch panel, its chain dangling over the desk edge. The panel lid is open. Did he do it? I look to the monitors—

The lake is peaceful and calm. The Foundation cavern is hazy red in the smoke of Eden’s fire. The Holocene II Transfer Station is awake and working, loaders moving across the floor carrying pallets, men stacking supplies into open elevators.

I lean forward and look down. Both toggles are untouched with the safety covers in place. I let out my breath and laugh.

“You’re dead, you punk!” He pounds on the door.

I slap the red button again, just in case. Then I search the safe room floor. No gun here. That means he still has it.

The pounding intensifies.

“You’re all dead, you got that?” he screams. “You punk! You think I don’t have other ways to flood you parasites out? You think I’m that stupid?”

Then he stops. Then he’s gone.