Curse (Blur Trilogy Book 3)

by Steven James

  She didn’t.

  “Drop it or I will shoot you where you stand.”

  She got rid of the Taser.

  He took another step toward her.

  “And that knife you carry.”

  After a short hesitation, she tossed Lucy into the mud.

  He was right in front of her now. “I oughta use a Taser on you four times too, just for fun.”

  “Oh, is that how many it was? I guess I lost track.”

  Poehlman backhanded her harshly across the face, then took the radio from his partner and told him, “Get the blind girl.”

  The man grasped Alysha’s arm.

  Mia brushed her finger across her bloody lip.

  Poehlman hit the “Transmit” button and said, “Doctor, we’ve got two of them out here. We’re bringing ’em in. The others are inside already.”

  The man that Tane had locked in the trunk earlier must have heard them out here, because he began crying out and beating against it.

  Poehlman found a way to get it open, freed the guy, and then the three men led the girls toward the door.

  Nicole rushed outside on her way to find Mia and Alysha, but as she burst out of the building, she almost ran into Poehlman, who had a gun aimed at Mia.

  “Oh.” He grinned. “And what have we here?”

  He gestured toward one of his men, and he started toward her, but Nicole drew out the pepper spray and blasted it in his face. He cried out and clutched at his eyes, but then the other guy wrenched it away from her and shoved her back into the hotel.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  8:55 P.M.

  5 MINUTES

  I’m leading Petra out of the stairwell when I see them in the hallway.

  Nicole. Alysha. Mia.

  And three men.

  Mia yells, “Run!”

  But Poehlman grabs Nicole and sticks the gun to her head. “Move and she dies.”

  I freeze.

  “You took my gun earlier. Hold it out nice and slow and set it on the floor.”

  As I do, Petra, who’s standing beside me, starts muttering, “Malcolm. We need to find Malcolm. And we have to call my dad. We have to—”

  “Where’s Deedee?” The guy that I’m assuming is named Sergei cuts her off.

  “Forget Deedee,” Poehlman says to him, then turns to me again. “Kick the gun over here.”

  I do.

  Then, he has the man whose eyes are red and bloodshot and is dressed as a security guard collect everything from our pockets, including our phones and all the keys to the vehicles.

  While Poehlman directs us toward the room where Ty Bell is, he sends his two men to the basement to find Tane and Malcolm.

  By the time we get to Ty’s room, they’re returning with Tane, who’s coming along more willingly than I would’ve thought.

  “Where’s Zacharias?” Poehlman asks him.

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t find him.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Yeah,” Tane says, “you know what? I wouldn’t believe me either.”

  Poehlman’s face reddens. “The condition he’s in, he won’t get far.” He sends the guard to the end of the hall to some sort of security room to unlock Ty’s door, then tells us, “From what I understand, this young man is an old friend of yours. Let’s see how well you can all get along.”

  But before the door clicks open, a man in his sixties with a tangle of unkempt hair appears down the hallway.

  I recognize him from the research we did on the chronobiology facility in Wisconsin: Dr. Adrian Waxford.

  He approaches, and then studies us, one by one.

  In the end, his gaze lands on me.

  “Daniel Byers. Young man, you’ve been on my radar screen for quite some time now. Yes. You and the others like you.” He eyes Tane. Then Alysha. Then Petra.

  What? How has he even heard about us?

  “We know what you’re doing here,” Tane exclaims. “About the prisoners you’re torturing.”

  “Well, torture is a loaded word, isn’t it? Justice is all we’re after. What is the point of handing out a sentence that we don’t expect someone to serve? There will never be justice when people are sentenced to time simply to make a statement or to be symbolic.”

  Then he says to his men, “I want Daniel with me. Bring him to my office. Lock the others in with #556234, then go find Zacharias.”

  Kyle shot around the final curve and came to the metal gate at the base of the dirt road.

  Unlocking the car, he climbed in and gunned the engine, but the loose soil along the roadside was too washed away and the wheels spun uselessly in the mud.

  He tried the phone.

  Nothing.

  Still too far up the mountain.

  He pounded the steering wheel in frustration, got back out and started running down the road again, hoping to finally get a cell signal so he could call for help.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  When we enter Dr. Waxford’s office I see a woman on the floor, slumped against his desk.

  Blood covers the bottom half of her shirt.

  Her breathing is shallow and quick.

  “Daniel, meet General Gibbons.” Dr. Waxford is holding a gun and points the barrel at her as he tells me her name. “She was being uncooperative. I trust that I won’t have that problem with you?”

  This guy is a complete psychopath.

  After going to his desk, he tosses me a pair of handcuffs. “Cuff your left wrist to that radiator pipe.”

  “Let me help her.”

  “I’m no expert on gunshot wounds, but I think it might be too late for that. Go on. The cuff.”

  I hesitate, but finally do it.

  My left arm

  My bad arm.

  At least it leaves my good arm free.

  He begins to prepare a syringe. “Who’s Sam?”

  “What?”

  “Sam. The person who’s been trying to stop my work. The person behind you being here. I’d rather not have to go through setting all this up again. The time spent doing so is too much of a distraction from my research.”

  “Is that what this is about? The blackmail? The ransom video? Finding Sam?”

  He asks me again, but I have no idea who Sam is so there’s nothing to tell him.

  “Why are you doing all this?” I say.

  “Justice.” He checks the drug level in the needle, then looks at the time. “Within the next two minutes the senator is going to send his email, but . . .” He glances at the dying general. “Things have become a bit more complicated. I acknowledge that.”

  I’m trying to figure out what to do, how to get out of here, but I’ve got nothing.

  “This drug,” he says, “I’ve been wanting to see how it affects people. With your hallucinations, I’m anticipating that the effect will be enhanced. It’s a chronomorphic drug. That means it’ll affect the way you perceive the passage of time.”

  Carrying his gun, he comes toward me. “I’m going to inject this into your arm. Considering my job here, I’ve had to learn to do this one-handed, but if you struggle, if you try anything, I’ll have to consider that being uncooperative and I’ll be forced to take unwelcome steps. Do you understand?”

  I’m still not clear on why he’s doing this, especially now.

  He’s crazy. That should—

  “Daniel?”

  “Yeah. I understand.”

  “Slide your shirtsleeve up.”

  After I do, he positions the tip of the needle against my vein.

  “Be assured,” he says, “this is all for the greater good.”

  Then he jams it into my arm.

  And depresses the plunger.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  9:00 P.M.

  Senator Amundsen hit “Send.”

  There.

  It was done.

  Now, at least, Petra would be safe.

  Then, he sent the second email.

  Resigning his seat in the Senate.

&n
bsp; Nicole stared at Ty Bell, who was standing just five feet from her.

  He was dressed in white.

  All in white.

  Tane, Mia, and Alysha were beside her. Petra sat crouched in the corner, trembling and mumbling to herself about how the snakes were after her, how they would get her, how they had to be stopped.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Nicole warned Ty, even though she had no weapons, no way to fend him off.

  She did have Tane, though.

  Ty, who hadn’t said a word since Poehlman and the other guards locked them in here, finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Nicole.”

  “Okay, and why are you sorry?”

  “For what I did last year. For when I tried to hurt you.”

  “Oh, well, I’m glad to hear you’re a changed person.”

  She was a little surprised by how genuinely contrite he sounded, but also, not that surprised. Being tortured here probably gave him a lot to think about.

  “And for threatening all of you,” he went on, “Daniel too. It wasn’t right.”

  “Wonderful. Good for you. Now—”

  “What can I do?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “To help. There’s no way they’ll let you go. Not anymore. You know too much. I don’t think they’ll let any of us go. When they were processing me, I heard ’em talking about being able to burn this place to the ground. It sounded like when they renovated it, they designed things so it would go down quickly.”

  “Do you really think they would do that?”

  He was silent.

  She took that to mean yes.

  Tane grabbed the steel chair and headed to the one-way mirror.

  “That won’t work,” Ty said. “I’ve tried.”

  “I haven’t.”

  And he hurled it at the glass.

  The drug doesn’t take long to kick in.

  Somehow, everything is beginning to move in slow motion.

  I blink, trying to orient myself.

  “So, the senator has sent the email.” Dr. Waxford’s words are thick and slower than they should be, as if they’re moving through liquid rather than air. “The inquiry has been called off. However, now with the general here, it looks like we’re going to have to take additional steps.”

  “What’s happening to me?” My voice sounds slurred, almost like people do when they’re drunk.

  “It’s the Telpatine. What’s it like?”

  My left shoulder is weak, and it’s that wrist that’s handcuffed, so I reach around with my other hand and try to yank the cuff off the pipe, but it’s secure.

  Dr. Waxford sets the handcuff key beside a small propped-up photograph of the mountains on a shelf not too far from me. The photo looks vaguely familiar.

  “I’ll tell you what.” He goes to type on his computer. “You solve the riddle of the camels and I won’t move your friends into room 113 with the man who tried to burn you alive last winter. You remember him? Killed eight people? He’s been deteriorating mentally ever since I brought him here.”

  His words stall in the air, falling toward me one at a time.

  The general—she’s going to bleed out. She’s going to die.

  Time stretches out, like it did when I was in the air flying toward that ditch after the truck hit me.

  That night, as I landed, time caught up with itself.

  I’m still waiting for that to happen now.

  I reach for the key, but it’s a few inches too far away.

  Dr. Waxford watches me try to retrieve it and smiles.

  He’s mocking me. Toying with me.

  “Well,” he says, “what do you say about the riddle?”

  I don’t understand why he’s taking time to do this.

  At least you can help your friends if you figure it out.

  Do that much.

  “Tell it to me.”

  “It’s an old Sufi story.”

  Adrian typed in the code to wipe the server, then walked over to the general.

  Kneeling beside her, he started relating the ancient puzzle as he shuffled through her pockets until he came up with the USB thumb drive.

  “Ah, there it is,” he mutters, then continues with the riddle about seventeen camels, about how they were supposed to be divided three ways after a guy’s death—

  I try for the key again.

  Fail to get it.

  Man, if I could just make it another couple inches I could reach it!

  I try sliding the handcuff farther over, but it’s already as far as it’ll go.

  Focus on what he’s saying, Daniel. Help your friends.

  So, one-half of the camels go to the first student, one-third to another, and one-ninth to the third. Then a caravan owner comes along and solves things.

  The more I lean toward the shelf, the more fire rages through my injured shoulder and I have to ease back to catch my breath and try to quiet the pain.

  Even though this drug seems to drag out everything else, it’s jacking up the pain, making it more intense.

  Just a few more inches.

  That’s all I need.

  But it’s not going to happen.

  “So, my riddle?”

  Poehlman appears at the doorway, “Doctor, there’s something—”

  “Just a moment, Henrik. He’s trying to solve it.”

  “But—”

  Seventeen can’t be divided by half, by thirds, by ninths.

  It’s—

  “A caravan owner shows up?” I say to Waxford.

  “Yes.”

  “So he has camels too?”

  “Yes, yes. He does.”

  “It’s eighteen.”

  “What?”

  “The answer is eighteen.”

  And then as I hear myself give him the explanation, my words are so drawn out from the effects of the drug that I hardly recognize my own voice. “The caravan owner offers them one of his own camels. Then when there are eighteen, the first student gets nine. The second student gets a third of eighteen: that is, six. And the last student gets two camels—or one-ninth of eighteen.”

  “Then what?”

  “When you add that up, it’s seventeen, not eighteen. So they just give the caravan owner’s camel back to him. Everyone gets their camels, no one is out anything, and the riddle is solved.”

  “You hear that, Henrik?” Dr. Waxford says proudly. “I told you before that this young man was clever.”

  “That you did.”

  “And see how he solved the puzzle?”

  “He did a fine job. Now, Doctor, I came here to tell you that I’ve received word that local law enforcement has dispatched two units. They’re on their way up the mountain, but there’s still time for us to get out of here.”

  Adrian peers at me with what might be a look of admiration. “Was that your doing, Daniel—or was it your father’s, perhaps?”

  It might have been Kyle. Maybe he got down and was able to make the call.

  The general is getting weaker.

  Hurry. Help her!

  “You said you’d let my friends go if I solved your riddle.”

  “No, I said I wouldn’t lock them in with a murderer. And I won’t.”

  Adrian assessed things.

  It was similar to the riddle he’d just told the boy: Sometimes the solution is right in front of you, but your preconceptions cloud your thinking. You need to consider all possible options, use your assets, think outside the box.

  Options. Assets. Solutions.

  He thought of his phone conversation with Henrik earlier in the day, when the topic of the hotel’s rapid oxidation system had come up.

  Yes.

  “Burn it down,” he told Henrik.

  “What about the subjects?”

  “Leave them.”

  “Burn them alive?”

  “It’s true that they won’t be getting the justice they deserve, but at least they’ll be getting the full extent of the justice that we can, in this moment, provide
. If we let them live, they’ll be returned to traditional incarceration. We can’t let that happen.”

  “So we kill them in the name of justice.”

  “We do what is necessary to serve the greater good. Start the oxidation.”

  “The kids too?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you mentioned earlier about loose ends—you were right. We should get rid of them all.”

  “Yes, Doctor. The controls are in the basement. I’d suggest you get going. Once it’s started, we’ll have less than five minutes before this place is fully engaged.”

  Adrian turned to Byers. “I would’ve liked to spend more time with you to see the Telpatine’s effects. I wish I could be here to record your progress for posterity, but it looks like the circumstances have ruled that out. Good night, Daniel. Goodbye.”

  He and Poehlman leave.

  I yank at the cuff again.

  Useless.

  Dark shapes begin to circle through my vision. At first I’m not sure if it’s the drugs, or shadows, but then I realize what they are.

  Bats.

  And then the boy from my dream appears right here, by my side—

  But no, it’s not him. This boy is a little older, nine or ten, maybe. He’s pale and ghostly and dressed in old-fashioned clothes.

  I don’t recognize him. He doesn’t look like I did when I was younger.

  “Who are you?” I hear myself ask.

  “You need to leave.” His voice is hushed and coarse. “You all need to leave.”

  It sounds like both a warning and a threat.

  When I reach out to touch him, my hand passes through him.

  A blur?

  A ghost?

  He faces the key and reaches for it.

  Just like the boy on the road reached out for my hand as the logging truck roared toward him.

  Just like the girls in my earlier blurs reached out to me so I could save them.

  So—

  My dreams.

  My blurs.

  My reality.

  The girl last autumn in the casket.

  The girl in December bursting into flames.

  All those blurs merging together.

  Bats flapping around me.

  Nearby, the general watches me, her breathing becoming more and more ragged.

  Follow the bats.