The Taint (26 page)

NINETY-TWO

After they got Nathan back into bed and Rachel had dressed the cut on his hand they went through the room, removing sharp objects and the glass items they found.

“Will he be all right?” Joyce whispered.

“I think so. I’ll keep him sedated until I can talk to someone who knows how best to counteract his illness.”

“It is an illness?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She looked at his still form. “It might be as simple as giving him a chemical supplement. Or . . . he might require dialysis to remove the impurities from his blood. I don’t know.”

“Thank God you were able to stop him . . .”

“I’m going to leave you the sedative,” Rachel said, going to the door. “I have to get in touch with Jon . . .” She paused. “Do you know who Daniel Hudson is?”

Joyce nodded. “One of the forest rangers. The one who’s been missing.”

“Of course, I knew I’d heard the name . . . listen, come down to the car with me. He’ll be all right alone now.”

Once at the car Rachel handed Joyce two bottles of Nembutal and several disposable needles. “I gave him a substantial dose, so you may only need to give half as much.” She closed the bag and tossed it into the car.

“Thank you,” Joyce said and watched as she got in and started the engine.

She switched from the hospital band to emergency and called the dispatcher.

“This is Dr. Rachel Adams,” she said. “It’s important that I reach Sheriff Scott.”

The nasal voice filled the car and she turned the volume down. “He’s off the air . . . ten-twenty is near the junction of Crest Road and the state park . . . looking for Nora Samuels.”

There was no point in telling her that Nora was dead so she acknowledged and turned back to the hospital band.

She drove slowly along Crest Road, hoping to catch sight of the Bronco. Nothing. She was near the boundary to the park and she turned around, going back for another look.

Fresh tire tracks going off to the left.

She stopped opposite them and looked up an overgrown dirt road. This had to be it.

Her car would not make it over the brush and she got out and locked it, looking both ways down the deserted road before crossing.

There was no sound to be heard.

It was quite a distance back to the cabin and when she reached it, it was at once obvious that Jon had been and gone. The door to the small building was standing open and she debated going in.

It was important to find him and let him know about Hudson, but there was something about the gaping door.

She looked around the clearing, still hesitant. There was nothing to be gained by wasting time, she thought, and started up the steps. A few minutes, no more.

She stood looking at the bloodstains on the wood floor. This was where the Davis girl was killed. Why would Jon look for Nora here?

Then she saw the opened trap door in the closet.

She stepped into the darkness, depending on her sense of touch as she felt her way down the stairs and into the small room.

If someone was hiding down here, they would have to have a source of light.

She moved her hands along the walls, along what was a bed of some sort and there, hidden beneath the folds of a blanket, was a lantern. She knelt and swept her hands across the floor just under the bed, and was rewarded by the discovery of a book of matches. She struck one and lit the lantern. Then, holding it up, she turned around in the middle of the floor, watching as the light cast its glow on the meager furnishings.

And on the wall.

Immediately she recognized the markings as being identical to the ones found at the shack. She crossed the room for a closer look, holding the lantern high. Her eyes darted from one sign to another, reading the words beside them.

Her free hand went into her pocket and she pulled out the black notebook, but there was not enough light to read the small print.

She stared at the figures on the wall, committing them to memory, at least until she could get back to the car and write them down.

She ran to the car, fumbling with the key when she got there, her breath ragged. When she got it unlocked, she was in the seat and starting the car in one fluid motion. She had to get back to the house and get the clay figures, and then she had to find Jon.

But first . . . she shifted back to neutral . . . she had to draw the figures in the little black book.

NINETY-THREE

Jon parked the Bronco and sat for a moment, surveying the empty lot, trying to decide the best way to get to the supply building which was situated a good thirty feet back from the Quonset hut.

There wasn’t a best way. He would just have to take his chances. With luck, no one would be watching.

He looked up at the tower. If someone was up there, it would take them a while to get down, and they would be in clear view along the way.

It would be better if he acted as if nothing was wrong, so he got out of the truck, gun still holstered, and walked at a normal pace toward the hut. There he checked the door, which was locked as he’d left it, and then headed back to the supply building.

The door opened and he stepped inside, leaving it open and crossing to the security trunks in the back. Where the dynamite was kept.

He had known it was here, under lock and key, since if by chance a fire swept through the area he would have to keep people out of an explosion zone, but the threat was somehow more benign then.

One of the trunks was opened, the lock on the floor in front of it.

He picked up the lock and turned it over in his hands. It had not been forced, nor could it have been picked. Someone had used a key.

Malloy’s keys had not been found.

Malloy . . . or Hudson.

He reached into the trunk and lifted a metal case of dynamite, hefting it, then looked back out the open door. He tucked the case under his arm and closed the trunk, fitting the lock in place and securing it.

When he left the building he put his own lock on the door and then he walked back to the truck, making no attempt to hide the distinctive metal case in his hand.

He climbed back in the truck and closed the door, picking up the microphone to radio dispatch while scanning the area as discreetly as possible for any signs of movement.

He began his preparations.

When he had finished he got back out of the truck, taking the metal case and the rifle from the side mount alongside the front seat. He put extra ammunition into his pockets, and walked toward the woods.

NINETY-FOUR

There wasn’t time to tell Joyce what was happening and she was grateful that she didn’t bombard her with questions.

She threw everything into her medical bag after having emptied it of most of its contents and hurried back down the stairs. She’d left the car idling and now she pulled a tight turn, heading back for the main road.

She didn’t slow down as she made the turn from the driveway onto the road and the little car hung close to the road as she floored it.

Jon was at the park.

She parked alongside the Bronco and got out, grabbing the medical bag and trying to guess which way he had gone.

If he didn’t suspect Hudson, and came upon him, he would probably not have his guard up. But Jon always had his guard up and for once she was grateful for his lawman’s discipline.

Now, all she had to do was find him in a deserted national park.

She decided to go west, toward the sun, which was beginning its descent.

She and Tim had played hide and seek in these woods, so many years before. The strong fragrance of the evergreens, then as now, filled her with a heightened awareness of being. There was no rush of time, of minutes passing too quickly, only the joy of now.

She could feel her feelings of long ago, held captive by the rich combination of earth and sky and the forest. Exhilaration and wonder, lungs aching with fullness as she gulped the fresh air.

It was the best place to hide.

She must think of it now, as a child. All of the places to hide. How had she found her brother?

It all came flooding back to her and she turned her eyes to the ground, looking for signs that someone had passed this way.

He was moving very carefully, barely leaving any signs at all but before long she could almost anticipate what his next move would be.

She sat on her heels, examining a small seedling which had two tiny branches caught together. She separated them gently, seeing which way the branch had been pushed.

He was moving more or less in a straight path, deviating only when required by the trees. Going somewhere, not just wandering, his stride long and even.

She was getting close.

She had to be careful that he didn’t hear her following. The deeper they went into the forest, the thicker the layer of needles on the ground. There was always the chance that something was beneath the pine needles; cones or dead branches from the small trees and brush.

She chose her footing cautiously and continued along.

She was not afraid any longer.

Finally she could see him in the distance, still moving purposefully ahead.

They were not far from the old quarry.

There was not much farther to go.

The caves honeycombed through the granite face of the cliff, dug, it was thought, by ancient Indians.

She saw him stop suddenly and turn around, looking in her direction but she was too quick for him and she took cover behind the brush.

Then he disappeared.

Into the caves?

It didn’t matter.

He would come back when she called.

When she felt the hand touch her, she smiled and turned.

“Jon,” she said.

NINETY-FIVE

“How did you know it was me?” he asked when they moved back to the cover of the trees.

“Your aftershave.”

“And . . . what in hell are you doing out here?”

“You know who that was?”

“I can guess—Hudson.”

She nodded. “I know what’s been happening, the whole thing started with that John Doe . . .”

“Him?”

“Look.” She dug the black book out of her medical bag and flipped open the pages. “These are the dates and places he’s been . . . Brisbane, 1980, Cape Horn, 1981, Johannesburg, 1981, do you see a pattern there?”

Jon considered and shook his head. “Nothing except that he got around pretty well for a bum.”

“He wasn’t a bum, he was a sailor. But that’s not important. In every one of these places he lists in here, and it goes back to 1967, there’s been an outbreak of sorts.”

“Outbreak?”

“They’ve blamed it on the flu virus of whatever season, but it was no ordinary flu . . .”

“He was a carrier of some kind?”

“The
carrier. I know about the epidemics because that’s what interests me, but I would bet anything that if you looked at police records for the same period of time, you’d find an increase in violent crime. Murders, in particular.”

“I don’t see . . .”

“There’s a legend that turns up in culture after culture, generation after generation . . . it’s the taint.”

“What?”

“The taint . . . bad blood . . . the evil . . . there are people who are shunned by their neighbors, because the mark is upon them.”

“Superstition, do you mean?”

“Legend, superstition.” She leaned forward. “In some cultures they would kill the infant if a seer determined that the blood was tainted.”

“And you’re saying this is fact?”

“I’m saying that the man brought whatever it was with him . . . and that’s what happened to Hudson, and Amanda Frey.” At his look, she continued: “He was selling his blood, the puncture wounds on his arm were made by fairly large bore needles. Both Hudson and Amanda received blood transfusions from the same donor.”

“But how do you know it was him?”

“You remember the markings on the dirt floor of the shack?”

He nodded.

She opened the book to the last page where she had crudely drawn the markings on Nora’s basement wall.

“These were at the cabin . . .” he said.

“And . . . they were at the shack. Nora drew these without ever having seen them.” She paused, looking toward the setting sun. “Maybe she was a seer.”

“But they don’t make any sense,” he protested.

“Not if you try to read them clockwise, which is the way most people would read a circular drawing. But . . .” Her finger ran a geometric design. “He suffers the taint, he calls the beast.”

“Rachel,” he said, “none of this is proof.”

“That’s what he was doing when he died, those shapes on the floor, the markings, the clay figures—he was calling the beast.”

“But he died . . . why would he bring on his own death?”

“Just like Nora . . . she came back to die.”

“Wait a minute, Nora’s dead?”

“Yes. She knew it was her time . . . and so did the sailor. He performed a ritual to summon the beast.”

Jon was silent, watching her.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but humor me. There is something in the blood which somehow interferes with the production of a chemical in the brain called Serotonin. If there isn’t enough of the chemical in the brain, the brain becomes overstimulated. The person can react in several ways; they can become depressed, suicidal, impulsive, and . . . aggressive.”

“This is fact or . . .”

“It’s not a product of my fevered imagination.” She looked him squarely in the eyes. “None of this is.”

Finally he nodded. “You’re the doctor.”

“It explains everything . . . a lot of people just got sick but those who were most directly exposed were most adversely affected.”

“What about the victims? Why didn’t they fight back or scream?”

“That I don’t know. It might be fear, or the certainty that they were going to die . . .”

“Then there’s a chance that we could react the same way if he got close enough . . . just let him kill us.” He looked at the caves.

“No,” she said softly, pulling the clay figures out of the bag.

He turned back to look at her, eyes questioning.

“I’m going to call the beast.”