Nathan, it’s me. We’re going to find your mommy okay? I’ll find her and make her safe and then I’m coming to help you.
He didn’t care if Nathan’s other him voice told him he had to do this alone. Ridiculous. He had been alone in the cave before when he was little like Nathan, and look how that turned out. That asshole voice had told him that Nathan needed him—needed something that was buried inside him—and he sure as shit was going to be there for him.
Okay.
Nathan’s voice sounded quite far away. Jason waited for more but heard only his own breathing and the pounding pulse in his temples. He opened his eyes and exchanged a quiet look with Jenny.
Jason took a blank sheet of progress note paper from the chart and flipped it over. With the pen Jenny had brought him, he wrote, “Do not disturb. Please see Nurse,” on the back. He clipped it to the door and then returned the chart to Nurse Janice. She smiled at him with saccharin sweetness.
“The little guy is completely exhausted,” he told her. “Let’s just let him sleep the rest of the night. I wrote an order to hold all checks on him and put a note on the door. I also spoke with his mother who will be back soon, so can you help me out and keep everyone out of his room?”
“Sure, Doctor,” Janice told him.
“You too, okay? Let’s let him get a little sleep.”
“No problem, Dr. Gelman,” she said.
Jason hustled back to the room where he kissed Nathan on his cool and pasty forehead, then smoothed his hair one last time. He positioned him back on his side facing away from the door just in case. Then he grabbed Jenny’s hand.
“Let’s go,” he said softly.
“Where?” She looked like she had very little left to give.
Jason kissed her cheek. “We gotta save Sherry and I guess Jazz, too, while we’re at it.”
She followed him out the door and together they hurried off the ward and toward the stairs.
Chapter
26
Nathan felt better knowing that Jason would find his mom. Images of Steve with his guts all torn out and the other man with his brains bashed in made him shudder uncontrollably. He had to stop the Lizard Men before they could hurt Mommy.
I have to kill them.
Nathan slid down the dirty path to the large room, intent on not being afraid when he had to go down the smaller tunnel with the scary glowing lights. He had no doubt that this would be the time he would need to go there. He was half way down the slope, watching Jazz who now stirred and mumbled, a long cut down the center of his belly oozing dark blood, before he noticed the other figure near the wall. She lay perfectly still, curled up on her side and facing away from him, but he knew immediately who it was.
“Mommy!” His voice sounded shrill and scared as it echoed off the walls. He ran to his mother’s side, nearly tripping over Jazz’s thrashing legs. “Mommy, Mommy,” he cried as he collapsed beside her in the dirt.
His mom didn’t move, but she seemed unhurt. Nathan couldn’t bring himself to look at her eyes, just in case they looked all white and dead like Jenny’s had, but he smoothed her hair from her cheek. Her face felt hot and wet and he leaned over to kiss her.
You have to get to work, Ranger. Time to Power Up.
I can’t leave her here. They’ll get her and hurt her.
They already have her. If you want to save her you have to defeat them. It’s the only way. She is too big for you to move by yourself.
Then Jason can come and help me.
The thought of leaving his mom naked and unprotected on the dirt floor was more than he could bear. He wanted to move her to the little cave they had hidden in before.
She’s no safer there, Nathan. Safety is an illusion here. You know what you have to do.
Nathan stood up, his small fists balled up at his sides.
“Power Up,” he mumbled. He made no attempt to mimic the movements of the characters from the TV show. He looked back at his mommy and tears streamed down his face. “I’ll be back in a minute, Mom,” he said.
Nathan took a few steps and then stopped for a minute and stared at Jazz, who now writhed in agony on the floor, his mouth open in a scream, his voice little more than a gurgle. Loops of intestines had spilled out of his open belly that now danced around in the dirt. Nathan stepped over him, his small jaw set firmly and his usually blue eyes turning deep crimson.
He headed for the passageway with its strange yellow glow.
* * *
The burning itch of the thick red wounds on his face did little to dampen the near sexual pleasure of feeding from the boy on the table. The surgeons had torn several large pieces of skin from James’s hip and side and worked now at stretching the skin taunt over the lower part of his chest—a tricky place to harvest skin because of the ribs that made the area all uneven, especially in a thin person like James. The dull light that poured out of his victim tasted like warm water at a holiday feast compared to the bright and pulsating light that he swallowed greedily earlier.
Mr. Clark caressed the still-wet wounds on his face, neck and shoulder gently and without awareness. His focus stayed completely on absorbing the power of his meal. The deep acid-like burns had become little more than background noise and he suppressed his own fear at the power of the boy who had wounded him. He needed the energy from this meal—needed it to be able to finish their work here and move on, but sensed the power he ingested now may prove less important than having the woman in their possession.
The older boy had been defeated years ago when his fear had been turned against him using his mother—and her death. That loss had been unfortunate. The older boy’s mother had been an unbelievably rich fuel source, her guilt and fear powerful and always close to the surface. He pushed the thoughts from his mind and sucked deeply in of the light that poured from James’s bleeding body. He knew, to the others in the room, he looked to be simply standing in the back and watching as they stripped the body of bleeding skin—the light would not be visible to them. He felt his skin tingle with the energy that filled him and his partner and closed his eyes in pleasure.
Soon they would go back in the abdomen and take the other kidney and then they would split open the chest to take lungs and heart. He needed to remember to interrupt his feed long enough to let James know that was coming—to bring his tapering terror back to a crescendo. For now he gulped greedily in his rapture. He failed to notice the door behind him open.
* * *
Jason squeezed Jenny’s hand in disbelief as he peered into the large operating room. After his recent trips to the other-world cave with its resident Lizard Men, it seemed odd that it would be the secret room in the hospital basement that his mind had the most trouble accepting. The taller Lizard Man in his long overcoat and low-riding top hat stood only a few feet in front of him, head tilted back as he sucked in pulsating light gushing out of the motionless body on the table.
Still, he found the sight of the operating team as they peeled another strip of skin from Jazz’s chest more astounding than the Lizard Man who fed on the boy’s raw terror. These were physicians, likely physicians he knew at least casually, who tortured this boy to death.
Jason scanned the room quickly and caught sight of the other one, the shorter one, farther to his left, also facing away from them. Like the taller creature, his head tilted back and his mouth gaped open as pulsating swirls of light poured into him. How could the operating team see such a thing and not be terrified by it?
He slipped the rest of the way into the room and moved quietly to the right. Another gurney had been pushed against the wall and on it he saw Sherry, a sheet pulled up to her shoulders. Plastic IV tubing snaked under the sheet from a bag that hung from the bed’s pole. On the bag someone had plastered a red sticker on which “SUX” had been written in black marker.
Succinylcholine? Holy shit.
The drug, a powerful paralytic used in anesthesia, was supposed to be combined with an anesthetic during surgery. By itself it would
paralyze a patient, but they would remain completely awake and aware and would feel everything. Jason couldn’t imagine the horror that Jazz must be experiencing—that Steve had experienced—as the surgical team tore them apart. The IV bag that hung on Sherry’s bed pole didn’t seem to be running, at least not yet, which explained why she wasn’t on a ventilator.
The creatures seemed completely absorbed by their feeding, and the two surgeons remained intent on their work, so Jason pulled Jenny behind him and quietly approached Sherry’s gurney. Gently, he turned her face toward him and raised her eyelids. The eyes stared back at him, unseeing, and he wondered whether she had been given a sedative or if she had been knocked down by the powerful images that the creatures somehow forced into people’s minds. Either way, she looked to be down for the count.
Jason stared now at the back of the taller creature only a few yards away from him.
Keep them from Nathan, Jedi. He needs more time to prepare.
Jason pulled Jenny beside him closely and whispered softly in her ear. “Stay behind me.” Her eyes were wide, her mouth slack and open, but to his relief she nodded weakly and moved behind him. With some difficulty he pried his hand out of hers and felt her hand move to his belt.
Use the force, Jedi.
Jason rushed forward, surprised at his own speed and balance, and slammed into the trench-coated back of the tall lizard man in front of him. Just before impact, as he passed through the pulsating light that swirled around the creature and then poured into his huge open mouth, he felt a strange tingle throughout his body and his mind filled with images of being torn apart alive, of a weak and sobbing voice.
Jazz.
Then his shoulder crunched painfully into the Lizard Man and the swirling light became disorganized and tumbled off into the room. His enemy screeched, not with pain, but anger and frustration, like a still-hungry infant when its bottle was pulled away.
Jason wrapped both arms around the creature. The trench coat fluttered in his face and blinded him as his momentum propelled them both deeper into the room. His right knee crashed painfully into the tile floor and he grimaced as the pain shot up his leg all the way to his hip, no doubt conducted by the steel rod that he still carried in his thigh bone. The breath hissed out of his chest as Jenny tumbled on top of him from behind.
Jason rolled quickly to his left and pulled Jenny with him, more worried about her than what the creatures might do. He turned his head back toward the Lizard Man, expecting to see the long, razor teeth heading directly at him.
Instead, the creature squirmed away with remarkable speed, the body twisting across the floor in impossible gyrations that reminded Jason of a frightened snake. As he struggled to his knees, he watched in fascination as the creature made it to the far wall—and then continued up the wall with the same reptilian gyrations of his body, apparently not subject to gravity at all.
When the motionless feet got just above floor level, the creature twisted around, floated a moment in space, and then—arms out and face turned up—he stopped hovering and dropped the few inches onto the floor. The head tilted back down and glowing red eyes narrowed in on Jason.
Jason scurried to his feet and forced Jenny backward. He had no doubt that the creature would charge him in a moment and felt just as certain that he would not survive the attack. He hoped only to buy Jenny enough time to get away.
“Take Sherry with you,” he shouted as he braced his body. Jenny squeezed his hand and then let go and moved away.
The red eyes pulsated. Instead of charging forward, the creature began to shimmer. As Jason watched, even the air around him seemed to waver; as the coat and hat disappeared slowly at the same time, that eerie face stretched and changed. For a brief moment he looked at the image of the Lizard Man he knew from the cave—long snout with dark skin and pointed teeth, caressed by a blood-red tongue—and then a blue light flashed in the room and the creature disappeared.
Jason’s nose wrinkled at the terrible, wet-shit smell. His peripheral vision caught another flash of blue and he turned to see the shorter creature disappear as well. The room fell silent and Jason became aware of the eyes of the two surgeons at the table that stared at him in silence. He looked back, unsure what to say. Then a sharp sound made him jump as one of them dropped a stainless steel instrument to the floor. The surgeon’s head fell back and he collapsed beside the OR table. The other man’s shoulders sagged and he leaned forward and steadied himself on the table.
“What the hell just happened?” Jenny choked out from beside him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jason answered, unsure that he knew anyway. “We’ve gotta get these people out of here.”
And then I’m going after Nathan.
You can’t help him, Jedi. The force is weak in you now. Your time is past.
“Bullshit,” he mumbled.
He went to the OR table and grabbed the still-standing surgeon by the shoulders. The eyes that looked back at him were those of a junkie on a binge and Jason shook him hard.
“Come on. Wake up,” he said in frustration.
The eyes cleared a little but filled with confusion. Jason pulled the surgical mask off and recognized the man as one of the more junior staff transplant surgeons.
“You need to get the hell out of here—now!” he commanded. “Go home. This was just a horrible dream, but I promise it’s over now.”
“Dream?’ the dazed man asked.
“Yeah,” Jason answered. “A terrible, fucked-up dream.”
The man seemed to understand and went to the other side of the table to collect his partner. He helped him from the floor and they headed across the room.
“It’s over?” he asked as he hesitated at the door.
“Yes,” Jason answered.
The man nodded again and tears spilled out onto his cheeks. “Thank God,” he mumbled, and the two of them left the room.
Jason looked down at the boy on the OR table. His eyes stared at the ceiling without moving, but Jason knew they could see. The ventilator hissed, but otherwise the room remained silent.
The wound in Jazz’s abdomen gaped up at Jason from his breastbone to his pubic bone. The thin, shallow pool of blood mixed in with the shiny rolls of intestines. Jason saw that the liver and spleen were intact, but there stood a bloody ragged hole stuffed with stained laparotomy sponges where the left kidney should have been. Jason hoped that the other kidney had not been harvested already—he could live with one.
He grabbed a pair of gloves off the back table, snapped them on, and then packed more of the sterile gauze into the gaping abdomen to keep dust and air out and to maybe stop the slow bleeding. Then he wet several more strips of the dressing material in the blue basin on the table and lay them across the stark white tissue that remained in the long strips where the skin had been stripped off. He wished he had some morphine to give, but he saw none.
Jason walked over to Jenny who stared at him.
“What just happened?” she asked again.
“Listen to me,” he said shortly. “I have to go help Nathan, but we have to get this kid to the ER and Sherry out of this room. I have to hurry, because I think Nathan may be in real trouble. Can you help me?”
Jenny nodded and wiped tears from her cheeks. “What do you need me to do?”
Jason hugged tightly against him. “I love you,” he said,
“I love you, too,” she answered.
“Here’s what we need to do,” he began.
* * *
Nathan hesitated. He had moved deep into the passageway with the weird glow and strange smell, well past where he’d ventured the first time when the other-him voice had asked him to check it out. He worried a lot about what caused the glow and the smell, both of which grew stronger as he moved deeper into the cavern, but that wasn’t what slowed him down. He looked at his bare and dirty feet.
The blood puddles had grown bigger and bigger and now joined to form a flowing stream than ran into the glowing passageway the
same way he headed. He had been able to stay out of the purple liquid for the most part, and the few times his toes had tickled into it he had felt the same tingling as before. His tummy felt a little bad like he might spit up. Now the stream nearly touched the walls, which bled from every surface and filled the stream with the gross stuff. Soon the stream would be a river and he didn’t know if he could stand the thought of having to wade through cave blood.
When will I be there?
Soon. I know it’s hard, but you have to keep going to save Mommy. The cave blood will make you feel a little sick, but it can’t hurt you.
What is it?
There was a long pause and for a moment he thought the other-him voice might not answer.
It’s the bad stuff that the creatures can’t use. It’s going to where they come from.
What will I do when I get there?
Stop them.
How?
This time the voiced stayed silent. Whatever he had to do, Nathan knew that his mommy’s life depended on it. He took a deep, shivering breath and moved on, pressing himself into the wall as best he could. He felt the nasty tingling of the cave blood up his left ankle and leg and his stomach tightened. “This sucks,” he said loudly as he continued on into the slowly brightening passage.
He felt he had earned the right to use big kid words today.
Chapter
27
Moving Sherry to the Pediatric Ward had been the easy part. Jenny checked down the hallway of the Pedi Ward and then Jason had carried her limp body into Nathan’s room and placed her on the big chair. He tucked the covers up on her shoulders to make her look to be sleeping, and then left her beside her similarly comatose son.
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