Rachel’s heart raced. She twisted back to where Peak was, only to see the archives door open, but no sign of her partner.
The world spun. The Sense pulled at her from all sides. The papers stuck to the ground flapped their corners and peeled away along with the dead bird. The crow carcasses and decayed documents swirled in the air around Rachel. She guarded her face with her arms as the typhoon of trash and dead things raged around her and obscured her vision. Rachel knew the rules of the Gift: the spirits of the dead came to her for help, Marked her, and stayed until she solved the crime. This was something new, as if the environment itself were an entity or a corrupted force of nature. That terrified Rachel.
Through the airborne debris, a figure stepped out of the darkness of the archives room.
“Peak!” Rachel called out, unable to make out the figure through the twister.
She stepped forward. A crusty document slapped her in the side of the head. She shook it off and kept traveling against the storm. The claw of a dead bird raked across her forearm. Another pelted her lower back, bounced to the ground, and started swirling again. The figure kept moving forward and made no effort to guard its body from the tornado.
Something scraped across Rachel’s forehead, opening a crimson gash that leaked down into her eyes. She winced at the sharp pain. She hesitated about going forward, but going back didn’t have much appeal, either.
She was only a few yards from the figure now. Keeping her head low, Rachel noticed the white high heels, followed by holey pearl-colored leggings and a nurse dress. She faced a woman with grey-brown hair with parted bangs, and a syringe in her hand. The trash phased right through her, and much like the crow, she had a bloody hole where her right eye should be. Scarlet lipstick painted her cocky smirk.
7
The Missing Ones
The demented nurse charged through the swirling paper debris, dead birds, and black feathers with the point of the syringe aimed at Rachel’s neck. Without a moment’s hesitation, Rachel strode back, taking more damage to her face and arms. The point of the syringe twinkled as it neared Rachel’s wide eyes. The nurse’s red smile widened, showing off her jaw of rotting yellow-and-black teeth.
The heel of Rachel’s boot scuffed the floor, and she went tumbling backward. Her elbow hit the tile, shooting a lightning bolt of pain up her arm, wrist, and hand. She was below the chaos that phased through the nurse’s ethereal body. Rachel scurried, sliding her bottom across the dusty floor and away from the Delinquent. The nurse reached out and took Rachel’s ankle. Her grip was iron and cold. Rachel rammed her other boot at the woman’s eye socket. Her foot flew into a vacuum and fell through the woman, hitting the floor. The nurse was unaffected. She pulled Rachel to her. Rachel’s desperate grasp found the middle section of a nearby door. It started closing as Rachel was dragged down to the deranged Orphan.
Rachel closed her eyes as tightly as she could, feeling the nurse crawl on her and prepare to inject her with whatever was inside of the rusty syringe. The needle’s cold point pressed against her bare skin. Rachel kept closing her eyes, reminding herself the dead couldn’t hurt her. But she couldn’t convince herself. Just as the needle punctured her flesh, the orphanage and children’s hospital went silent.
Terrified of what she might find, Rachel dreaded opening her eyes. Not overcoming the fear but temporarily setting it aside, she peeked her eyes open and looked around the silent hallway. The papers and dead birds were back on the floor. The nurse was gone. Rachel’s leg was free. She swiftly scrambled to her feet while feeling for any puncture wounds on her neck. Nothing. She couldn’t believe that. She checked again and thought she felt a bump, but perhaps it was only a bug bite. She brushed aside her hair. “Mallory? Peak?”
Her words bounced off the walls. The wind whistled through a shattered window.
Rachel brushed herself off. Her heart raged. She could still feel the Delinquent’s presence. She’s nearby, Rachel thought soberly. But I can’t tell where. She maneuvered into the employee lounge. There was a small table, an old fridge, cupboards, sinks, and the usual things one would find in such a place along with a few paintings of ships at sea and a lighthouse. Rachel swiped her mag light beam across the room in search of anything that would hint at Mallory’s location. The girl’s health worried Rachel more than Peak’s at moment, though the fact that Peak was experiencing the paranormal was a hard fact to process. As much as she wanted to spend hours theorizing about why they were all having supernatural encounters, her primary goal was to get her friends and get out. If she could get the archived files, awesome; if not, survival mattered more.
After checking under the table and calling out Mallory’s name a few more times, Rachel stealthily moved to the offices across the hall. They belonged to the head matron and lead doctor. Most had metal desks and a chair coated with an eighth of an inch of dust. In a cabinet where Mallory might’ve been hiding, Rachel found a few dusty bottles of scotch. She couldn’t even think about drinking right now. If anything, a smoothie would level her out. She started wondering why she never made an emergency one she could bring with her. Because it’s never been this bad before.
Rachel found a few old files in the doctor’s office, but none of them helped. She moved back into the hallway and tried a storage closet and a restroom. Children giggled in one stall, but when she peeked under it, there was no one there. She pushed it open and looked at the disgusting toilet. Black mold grew around the rim. She scrunched her nose at the stench and checked the other stalls.
Rachel walked by the musty mirrors, catching the nurse’s reflection in one. She twisted back to where the lady should be standing, but Rachel was alone. The hairs on her arms rose. The wounds from crow claws and beaks were only now recovering. Even the effects of the Orphans stay longer. Rachel pushed open the last stall in time to see the nurse lunge at her. Rachel slammed the stall door in her face and bolted out of the bathroom. Before the bathroom door could fully close, the Delinquent stepped out. Her heels clacked fiercely across the tile. Her walk was womanly, almost seductive in a way.
Seeing it was the closer option, Rachel darted for the archives room. She skipped over the dead crows and slipped into the black room. Not sure how much good it would do, she hid beneath a metal shelf loaded with cardboard file boxes, many of which had burst under their own weight and vomited rotted classified information across the floor.
Rachel put her hand over her mouth to mute her hastened breath. She closed her eyes again as she listened to the click-clack of the nearing heels. When she opened her eyes, the sound had stopped. She twisted to face the shelf behind which she cowered. Her fingers found the lip of the metal shelf, and she pulled herself up so she could peek through the gap between two boxes. Through the limited space, she could see the hallway with dim natural light spilling through the parallel windows. The coast was clear. Rachel took a breath. Someone else’s eye appeared on the other side of the gap. Rachel stared at it for a split second before she fumbled backward.
The figure on the other side grabbed one of the boxes of files and cast it aside. Rachel clenched her eyes again, really getting tired of near-death experiences.
“Rachel,” a familiar voice said.
She looked up at Peak standing before her. His copper hair was disheveled, and there was a bruised bump on his forehead that looked painful.
“We need to go.” He gave her his hand and helped her rise in a single motion. “There’s something here.”
“I know,” Rachel growled.
Peak grabbed Rachel’s upper arms with both hands. “You don’t get it. There is something unnatural here.”
“Save your existential crisis for when we get out of here.”
“If we get out,” Peak corrected with a dose of cynical terror.
Rachel wiggled out of his grasp and brushed aside a few bangs that covered the head wound. He winced and sucked air when she touched it.
“How did this happen?” she asked.
“The
re was something. Someone. I slipped and hit my head on a shelf. I woke up when you came in.”
“So you were trying to run away?” Rachel asked.
“Tactical retreat,” he defended himself. “I was in the process of searching the final boxes for the year Martin arrived when it happened.”
“Find anything?” she asked as she anxiously looked around the room of spilled file boxes, tall shelves, and even taller shadows. Many places to hide. To watch. A tingling feeling raced up her spine.
Turning his flashlight back on, Peak walked gingerly to the rows of shelves and returned with a box. He sifted through the files. Rachel chewed her fingernail, mentally shouting for him to hurry up.
“Get Mallory ready to go,” Peak said as his fingers landed on the M section.
“Mallory’s not here,” Rachel said.
Peak looked up at her, begging the question. “Then where?”
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t have a clue. She might have run off, or she might have been taken.”
Peak mumbled a curse. “She was your responsibility, Harroway.”
Anger flared up in Rachel. “Find the file already.”
He withdrew a file and tossed it aside. He did the same for a few others. Clenching his fist, he backed away from the box and looked as if he was about to punch something. “It’s not here. This was all a waste of time.”
Rachel ran her hand over her scalp. Her head throbbed. “Okay. We find Mallory and go.”
Keeping his mouth shut, Peak nodded.
They jogged through the hall, turning their heads from side to side and calling for the girl.
“You’re positive she’s not up there?” Peak asked as they hurried down the steps.
“Yes,” Rachel replied firmly. They reached the second story with the dorms and infirmary.
Peak swiftly darted his eyes to the end of the hallway. “I saw something move.”
Rachel saw it too, only instead of the shadow Peak perceived, she saw two twin big-nosed nurses wearing white stockings, heels, and red lipstick, carrying crude syringes and walking to them in sync.
Rachel helped Peak up. “The laundry chute.”
They went back through the employee door to where the stairs to the third floor were and beelined into the room with the clothes hampers. Rachel felt the Sense getting stronger and stronger. It felt as if a million tiny hands were tearing her apart. Peak worked the rope pulley system, raising the three-foot-wide elevator.
“You first,” he said.
Rachel opened the vertical sliding door and crawled inside. It was so cramped, she had to hug her knees to her chest. The inside smelled like sweat and decay. As Peak began to lower her, she saw the twin nurses round the corner behind him. They bumped into a hamper. Peak turned back, seeing the hampers move but not the nurses. The vertical latch closed without warning. Peak screamed.
Rachel shouted his name. The platform she sat on dropped. She put her hands on either wall to stop the fall but only skinned her palms. The elevator hit the floor below with a crash, jostling all of her insides. She snapped her teeth together when she hit, making her whole mouth ache.
The latch opened above her, and Peak stuck his head through.
Before she could say anything, the vertical latch opened behind her, revealing both of the nurses on either side. As swiftly as they appeared, they grabbed ahold of Rachel’s legs and sucked her out of the chute and into the laundry room.
“Rachel!” Peak’s shout ended when the latch shut.
Dragged to the floor, Rachel struggled as the nurses held her down and stabbed on either side of her neck with the syringes. The faces of the smiling nurses twisted as the drug took effect. One had a bullet hole in her eye. The other had a bullet hole under her chin. The warm liquid dripped down on Rachel’s cheekbone.
Blackness.
She awoke in a bed surrounded by wavy curtains on all three sides and a white brick wall at her back. Leather straps bound her wrists to the armrests and her legs to the leg rest. Rachel struggled in the bonds. They were so tight that her fingertips tingled. Rachel clenched her eyes shut, trying to make the Orphans’ effects go away. They can’t hurt me. But they were. Could this be a nightmare? If so, why hadn’t Rachel woken up yet? The silhouettes appeared behind the curtain. Two women exchanged words. Their voices were silky and quiet, the kind used on a late-night sex hotline.
“Where’s the girl?” one said.
“She got away,” the other replied.
“Shame. I’ll find her. Enjoy your little chicky-dee.”
There was giggling, and then one silhouette left. The other pulled aside the curtain. It was the woman with the missing eye.
“Vera,” Rachel made a guess, remembering that Peak brought up the twins’ names once. “Release me.”
The Delinquent clicked her tongue. “Not until you’ve had your nightly medicine.”
She hiked up her skirt and shimmied onto Rachel’s lap. Rachel wiggled in her bonds. The nurse pulled out a glass medicine bottle from her hospital coat’s breast pocket. “I want you to drink this. It will make your tummy feel better.”
“I command you to leave!” Rachel shouted so loud her voice cracked.
The nurse grabbed Rachel’s chin and pulled open her jaw. Rachel thrashed in her bonds, but her efforts were futile. After removing the cap with her teeth and spitting it off to the side, the nurse held the glass bottle a few inches above Rachel and slowly tilted it. The thick, translucent syrup slid to one side of the open bottle. Rachel could imagine all the children who had to endure this before. It made her sick and terrified. Closing her eyes wasn’t helping this time, though she did anyway. She could pray that Peak and Mallory got away.
Suddenly, a loud screech echoed through the infirmary. “Get out!”
Rachel returned her vision to the world, only to see that the nurse was gone. The leather bindings on her wrists and ankles were suddenly tattered and faded. Mallory Stix stood nearby and unfastened the buckles.
“They’re gone now,” she said with quiet determination.
“How did you…”
“Just like you said: I closed my eyes and told them to go. And they went,” Mallory said as she freed Rachel’s wrists.
Rachel gawked at the girl. She made it sound effortless. Rachel swiveled out of the bed and took the child’s hand. “I need you to be more careful. No more running off.”
Mallory cast down her face. “They tried to take me. I needed to lead them away from you.”
Rachel clasped the child’s hand more tightly. You brave, stupid girl. They moved through the dark infirmary. She spotted an open filing cabinet in the corner. Dare I? She dragged the girl with her as she rushed to the dark corner of the room.
“Stay close,” Rachel commanded as she flipped through the dusty files, looking for Martin Malone. Nothing in that drawer. She pulled opened another. Nothing. Her anxiety rose. She wasn’t the type to leave a job unfinished, and by no means would she ever come back to this forsaken place. She pulled open a third drawer, thinking, Now or never. She found the M section. She flipped through them until she landed on the name Malone. She coughed due to the dust as she opened it and scanned the pages. The fine print on the documents was impossible to read in the darkness. Her flashlight was probably still back in the laundry chute. She’d find it later. Her goal was to get Mallory to the car and then double back to Peak, hoping he could handle himself.
Clenching the file under her armpit and holding Mallory’s dusty hand, Rachel hurried out of the infirmary, checked her flanks, and sprinted down the hall. The run winded her, but she didn’t slow. Mallory kept up nicely, but Rachel got the impression that the girl was holding back.
“Don’t slow down on my account.”
“I’m not leaving you,” the child said defiantly as she quickened her step. The lobby blurred by them. The front door was not far now.
Suddenly, a bright flash of light blinded Rachel. She blinked, restoring her vision to Peak standing bef
ore her with a mag light in hand and a dust-smudged jaw. Without a word, the three of them charged out the front door into the overcast day.
Peak shut the doors behind them. They didn’t stop running until they were in the car. Within seconds, Peak had started the car and was speeding down the road. Woodhall Orphanage vanished. Watching from a broken window, the twin nurses held each other’s hands low by their sides and watched the car escape down the winding road.
Peak tossed Rachel her flashlight. She caught it and pocketed it.
“Never again,” Peak said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Rachel replied, still trying to slow her heart rate.
She opened the old file. Loose dust covered the aged paper. She turned over the various medical reports. Most of the contents were medical jargon she didn’t understand. With each page she skimmed over, the more hopeless she felt. Martin Malone was crazy. She didn’t need a report to tell her that. She needed an address. A name. Proof of adoption. Anything that would make this horrific trip worthwhile.
“There,” Peak said, tapping his finger on a form. Rachel brushed off the dust, coughed lightly, and read the passage. “Martin Malone was cleared for adoption on July 23, 1981. On February 2, 1982, he was adopted by Dr. Adrian and Tammy Louise.”
There was an address and phone number.
“He was sent to Woodhall in November 8, 1978. At least he only had to spend a few years in there.”
“I wouldn’t wish that place on my worst enemy,” Peak stated.
Rachel dialed the number. It was disconnected. She opened the laptop mounted to the dashboard, input her password, and searched Dr. Louise in the database. The man got a speeding ticket a year ago. His address was still the same. Good.
It was an hour’s drive from there.
On the way over, Peak’s car was relatively silent. Rachel’s partner had a pensive look on his face, no doubt trying to make sense of what he saw at the orphanage. Rachel was in the same boat. The Gift was acting differently than it should be. Rachel wondered if it was her own effort or Mallory that caused the change. The girl was definitely more powerful and more in tune with the spirit realm than Rachel. Nonetheless, she was so ignorant about Gifts and its various aspects. If she knew more, she probably would’ve told Rachel about it. Unless… Rachel looked back at the girl. Her forehead rested on the window. Her blue eyes watched the world go by. Unless she was holding back on me. That thought didn’t sit well with Rachel.
The Lost Orphans Omnibus: A Riveting Mystery Page 31