The Scrubs (12 page)

“Keeler.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“Can we go now?”

“You bet, Davey.”

Keeler stood and helped the boy to his feet, then gathered him into his arms.
 
He ran over to Allard’s body, snatched up his machine gun and slung it over his shoulder.
 

“Are you up for walking?
 
I have to take you to a doorway.
 
We’ve got a ways to go.”

“No, we don’t.”

“What…what do you mean?”

“The Rift is here.”
 

The boy reached out a hand and touched a resistance in the air.
 
The resistance spread out until a shimmering haze developed over thirty feet in diameter in front of him.
 
The shimmering view of the dying forest disappeared as the Rift gained substance and the North Wing came into view within it.
 
The boy smiled at Keeler.

Keeler looked on in awe, unable to smile back.
 
The boy had the power to control the Rift.
 
He had even called it the Rift.
 
O’Keefe’s name for it, not his.
 
Keeler wondered how that could be.
 
The boy was one of Jeter’s victims.
 
He shouldn’t possess any powers.
 
Fresh fear knifed through him, but there was no time left to understand it.
 
He repositioned the boy so that he held him in the crook of one arm.
 
The boy wrapped his arms around Keeler’s neck and Keeler brought up the gun and aimed it through the Rift.

“Let’s go home,” Keeler said.

Chapter Nine

Keeler’s Return

The guards yanked Cady to his feet.

O’Keefe jammed his face in Cady’s and barked, “You’d better hope to Christ you haven’t done any lasting damage.”

Three technicians clung to the side of the Throne attending to Jeter.
 
Bennett, the balding technician, stood at the base of the Throne and hurled rapid-fire orders at his underlings.
 
Doused in green fluid from the spurting feed tube, one technician fought to get the tube back into Jeter’s nose.
 

The image from the Rift flickered as the rematerializing North Wall squeezed it.
 
The screech of stone rubbing against the Rift shattered the air.
 
Masonry dust belched out in clouds from where they pressed against each other.
 
Cady estimated the Rift had shrunk by at least a foot in diameter.
 
He couldn’t help but feel the satisfaction of a job well done.

 
“What do you think you can do to me…kill me?” Cady said.
 
“Don’t make me laugh.
 
It won’t stop the truth from getting out, O’Keefe.”

“You’re awfully cocky all of a sudden.”
 
O’Keefe grabbed Cady’s testicles and squeezed.
 
Cady winced.
 
“Just wanted to know when you grew a pair.”
 
O’Keefe released his grip.
 
“Don’t think I won’t kill you.
 
I can write it off as an accident.
 
The Home Office knows this is dangerous project.
 
They’ve budgeted for casualties.
 
I’m in no fear of reprisals.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about me.
 
You should be worrying about Jeter.
 
If you honestly think you’ve got a muzzle on that mad dog, then you’re crazier than he is.”

O’Keefe sneered, showing not a hint of understanding.
 
Cady shook his head in disgust.

“Can’t you see it, O’Keefe?
 
This project is a runaway train and it’s going to come off the rails.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cady had nothing more to say.
 
O’Keefe glowered at him, letting his gaze bore into him.
 
Bennett broke the deadlock.

“Governor O’Keefe, sir, we’re back online,” he shouted, unable to contain his relief.
 
“All systems are clear.”

O’Keefe whirled.
   
The Rift’s image had lost its flicker and had regained its hypnotic shimmer.
 
It had swelled to reclaim its full dimensions holding back the compressive strength of the North Wall.

“Seems you’ve been proved wrong, Cady.
 
Bring him,” O’Keefe ordered the guards.
 
“Give Mr.
 
Cady a front row seat.
 
He should be made to see the error of his ways.”

O’Keefe led the way back to the Rift.
 
The guards marched Cady behind the governor.
 
Two guards grabbed his arms while a third pressed a gun barrel against his spine.

Keeler had done it.
 
The boy was free of the oak and had his hand pressed against the Rift.
 
It seemed to respond to his touch, judging by the look on Keeler’s face.
 
The boy removed his hand.
 
Keeler adjusted the boy in his hold and pressed his own hand against the Rift.
 
It crackled when its tough surface stretched.

“He’s coming back!” a startled technician shouted.

“Prepare to fire,” O’Keefe ordered in his walkie-talkie.

Oh, Christ
, Cady thought,
this is it
.

***

A wave of panicked voices struck Keeler as he pierced the Rift and stepped onto the gnawed out ledge at the base of the North Wall.
 
His snake eyes picked out O’Keefe immediately.
 
The governor was all he could think about.
 
The bastard wasn’t going to do this to anyone else.
 
Deal or no deal, he wasn’t his guinea pig anymore.
 

All guns were trained on Keeler.
 
O’Keefe was sneering with his own gun pointed.
 
He stood next to Jeter who was fighting to break his bonds.
 
Cady was shaking his head in what looked like astonishment while two guards restrained him and another held a machine gun to his back.
 
A lot has happened while I’ve been away
, Keeler thought,
and a lot more is going to
.

“I bet you didn’t expect to see me again,” Keeler said.

“It wasn’t of much importance to us,” O’Keefe said, sounding bored with Keeler’s pathetic display.
 
“You’re not part of the bigger picture.”

“And what is the bigger picture?” Keeler demanded.

“None of your business.”

“Oh, yeah?”
 
Keeler aimed the machine gun at O’Keefe’s chest.
 
“How about now?”

“You are pathetic, Keeler.
 
You really think you’ll be allowed to squeeze off that popgun?
 
Not a chance.
 
Put the damn thing down and be sensible.”

“You would risk shooting the boy?
 
I didn’t think you were that callous, Governor.”

“Try me.”

The boy buried his face in Keeler’s neck and hugged him with all his strength.

“You’re a piece of work, O’Keefe.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t doubt you’d try your luck, but I doubt all of your guards are as committed to the cause as you.
 
Not many of them would fancy being a child killer.
 
Look at what it did for me.”

“So what’s the plan now?” O’Keefe asked.
 
“Go back to general population looking the way you do?
 
Or are you planning to just walk out of here and spill your guts to the first Fleet Street newshound you can find?”

“I don’t know.
 
Explain this.”
 
Keeler pointed at his new eyes.
 
“And I’ll think about hanging around.”

O’Keefe snorted and shook his head.

“It’s a game, Keeler,” Cady shouted, “just the next best thing in virtual reality games.”

Cady didn’t get to finish his condemnation.
 
O’Keefe backhanded him in the face, bloodying the younger man’s nose.
 
The two guards restraining Cady prevented him from hitting the floor.
 
Keeler’s hold tightened around the machine gun’s trigger.
 
The gun was only a pound or two of pressure away from opening up.

O’Keefe turned to face Keeler.
 
Murder boiled in the governor’s eyes.
 
Keeler knew O’Keefe was about to have him cut down by the armed hit squad.
 
Keeler wasn’t sure if it was his mutation that gave him the foresight or whether every person was granted a moment of clarity before they died.
 
Well, he wasn’t going to stand idly by and let it happen.
 

“Davey, I need to put you down now,” he whispered to the boy.
 
“Okay?”

The boy nodded.

“You get out of here.”

“Okay.”

Keeler lowered the boy to the ground.
 
The boy hopped down from the opening and tottered towards one of the few female technicians in the North Wing.
 
She broke ranks and knelt to receive him.
 
The moment the boy made the move towards the woman, Keeler opened fire.

The machine gun barked, bucking in Keeler’s grasp.
 
Everyone either hit the ground or took cover, but O’Keefe wasn’t quick enough.
 
Keeler emptied his clip into the governor.
 
The son of a bitch didn’t stand a chance and neither did Keeler.
 
He knew shooting the governor left him open to be cut down by the hit squad, but he didn’t mind.
 
He was comfortable with dying.
 
It was the best thing for him under the circumstances.
 
Death didn’t come though.
 
Allard’s machine gun saved him.

Bullets didn’t come from Allard’s toy—wasps did.
 
Yellow jackets cursed by Jeter’s Rift left the muzzle.
 
The oversized and disfigured creatures swarmed on O’Keefe.
 
He tried to dodge their attack, but they knew their intended target and followed his every move.
 
Stingers impaled O’Keefe’s flesh, injecting a poison.
 
Its intense corrosive strength dissolved fist-sized chunks of flesh.
 
O’Keefe crumpled.
 

Everyone froze.
 
The armed screws stalled on their triggers, not firing a round.
 
The technicians watched in fascination as the wasps stung O’Keefe.
 
This was way out of their league.
 
No one knew what to do.
 

Keeler looked on in fear.
 
O’Keefe’s agonizing death meant nothing.
 
The ability of the creatures of the Rift to exist in the real world meant everything.
 
Jeter chuckled through his dislodged muzzle.

“Cady, shoot Jeter!” Keeler screamed.
 
“He can make the realities co-exist.”

Cady understood.
 
He elbowed one of his restraining guards in the gut, snatching the automatic pistol from his grasp and pistol-whipped his other guard in one fluid motion.
 
He raced towards Jeter.

His action galvanized the guards in the gun nests.
 
Keeler saw them take aim at Cady, so he opened up with the machine gun again.
 
It dry retched, but that didn’t matter.
 
He just wanted to draw their attention away from Cady.
 
The guards took the bait and fired at him.

Cady bounded onto the Throne, clinging on with one hand.
 
He jammed the pistol up against Jeter’s temple and fired and fired and fired.

Bullets pulverized Keeler’s body.
 
Every round ate through his flesh, but he didn’t feel a thing.
 
His strength and abilities belonged to the more powerful Rift.
 
The real world couldn’t hurt him.
 
He reveled in his new power and O’Keefe’s misery.

Jeter’s head exploded.
 
Chunks of eggshell-thin skull and brain chased after the exiting bullets.
 
Green fluid, stinking of wormwood, spouted from what was left of his fragmented head.
 
Jeter’s muzzle slipped down and he roared with laughter.
 

It was too much for Cady.
 
He’d done all he could and it had to be enough.
 
It was a relief when two bullets ripped into his back and he crumpled against the side of the Throne.
 
As his strength flowed out of his wounds, he lost his grip on the Throne and slithered down the side.

For a soul-destroying moment, Keeler thought Jeter was unkillable.
 
The greater part of the serial killer’s skull was gone.
 
He was nothing more than a face that wouldn’t stop laughing.
 
But like a clock spring that needed winding, Jeter finally ground to a halt.