by Gina Ranalli
Somewhere down the hall—perhaps in another room just like his—a woman screamed for what he thought must have been the second time. Whatever was going on, screaming was not a sound one wished to hear while in a hospital.
He lay there for a moment, listening to the beep of the machines he was hooked up to, noting the needle stuck into his good hand and wondering if it was pumping more drugs into him or just keeping him hydrated.
Probably the latter, he thought.
His throat was dry and he looked for a cup of water on a nearby table, but there was none.
Sighing, he sat up, pushed back the sheet, and swung himself out of the bed. He was a little wobbly, but made his way to the bathroom, pulling the IV pole along beside him.
He used the toilet first then drank straight from the faucet until his thirst was quenched. Moving back to the bed, he was thinking about calling his neighbors to thank them and ask about Bruiser, but a third shriek made him reverse direction and head to the door instead.
As he pulled it open, he saw many people in doctor’s coats racing up and down the hallway, their faces panic-stricken.
“What’s going on?” he asked a passing nurse, who paused only long enough to tell him to close his door and return to his bed.
He watched the nurse disappear around a corner and was about to do as he was told when someone said his name. He turned, looking in the opposite direction, and saw a pretty brunette in a long black coat standing beside him.
“Yeah?” he asked.
She flashed him a badge and identified herself as an FBI agent.
Dan immediately had a bad feeling, which only grew worse when she said, “Would you mind stepping back into your room and having a word?”
“What’s this about?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You really have to ask?”
He nodded. “Those things, right? In the cocoons?”
“That’s right.” She gestured into his room. “Please?”
“What are they?” he asked as he entered the room and sat on the edge of his bed. He couldn’t help but notice the agent didn’t take the seat next to the bed and, in fact, stayed a good distance away from him. “I mean, I talked to those other agents earlier, but they weren’t very . . . uh . . . forthcoming. Basically told me not to leave town.” He chuckled at the absurdity of that prior meeting, but Agent Swanson didn’t seem to share his humor. “Can you tell me what happened to your hand?”
He frowned. “Why are you asking me a question when I’d bet dollars to donuts you already know the answer?”
Her face remained neutral, like an expert poker player. She asked, “How are you feeling right now?”
He ran his good hand through his hair and asked, “How do you think? I’m scared about . . . well, everything. I’m scared about those creatures’ about what the devil is going on in this hospital right now; why it seems like it’s running on emergency power; how I’m going to learn to live with less fingers.”
Swanson’s eyes narrowed just a fraction, as if she was studying a particularly strange insect.
“Guess I’ll never play the guitar now, huh?” he said, trying to lighten the mood for himself more than her.
“Other than scared, how are you feeling? Any odd physical sensations?”
“Yeah, my hand feels like it’s on fire. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty odd for me.”
“What about mentally or emotionally?”
He stared at her. “You sound more like a doctor than a fed.”
“Should I take that to mean you feel relatively okay in that regard?”
“Given everything that’s happened, I’d say I’m holding up okay. Of course, I’m pretty doped right now, too.”
She nodded. “That’s a good point.”
“What’s going on? I mean, here in the hospital?”
Before answering, a thoughtful expression passed over her face, as though she was debating something. She said, “You should just lay down and rest, Mr. Helpen.”
Dan felt a twinge of anger at being kept in the dark yet again, but he bit his tongue.
The agent turned to leave, then turned back suddenly. “One more thing. Your neighbors reported that when they entered your house, your kitchen faucet was on full blast.”
“Yeah, I tried sticking my hand under the running water. That’s what they say to do, right? With burns or cuts or whatever. So I did. Was the only thing I could think of. Didn’t work though. Made it worse. A lot worse.”
“The pain was worse?”
“Yes, ma’am. By about a hundred times.”
“What about the . . . the melting?”
“You mean did it get worse? Couldn’t tell you. I was pretty much down for the count by then.”
The door opened and a man with glasses stood there. Clearly not hospital staff, and probably another fed, he said to Agent Swanson, “We need to talk.”
“All right.” She wished Dan well and then they were both gone, closing the door behind them.
Sick of all the mystery, Dan pushed himself to his feet once more, dragging the IV pole, and hurried over to the door. He pressed his ear against it, guessing—correctly, it turned out—they wouldn’t go far to have their urgent conversation.
The voices were muffled, but Dan clearly heard the man say, “We’re on our own.” Swanson spoke more quietly and he couldn’t make out her reply, but then the man said, “No go on the hospital quarantine. Instead, they’re blocking off the town itself. No one in or out.”
Sounding angry, Swanson asked, “What good is that going to do?” This time it was the man’s answer Dan couldn’t quite hear, but a moment later, Swanson said, “They think those things are going to respect borders? This is the most ridiculous, irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard of.”
To Dan’s amazement, the man replied, “That’s why we get paid the big bucks.”
After that, he couldn’t hear any more and he assumed they walked away.
Slowly, he moved back to the bed, considering what he’d heard. All of Lockwood was locked off, then. The agents weren’t the only ones on their own—the town itself was.
He couldn’t imagine who had given such an order or why, but things were clearly even worse than he suspected when he’d been gathering up his camping equipment and planning on getting out of Dodge.
He eyed the bedside table again, but the phone he’d been hoping to find there didn’t exist.
More shouts from the hallway briefly snagged his attention, and his door burst open again.
This time it was several people wearing some sort of protective garments that made him think of spacemen. He knew those kind of suits were to protect people from hazardous material, but why would they wear them unless . . .
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Voices were distorted because they were behind huge, plastic masks; two of the men spoke to him at once. Dan could only follow one at a time and realized they were telling him to lie back on his bed.
He repeated his question, but instead of an answer, he was surrounded by four men, two of whom grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him back against the mattress.
Dan shouted in protest, but was ignored. Struggling only earned him two more men forcing him down, and between his injury and drugged state, he quickly decided resisting was not in the cards.
The strangers got him into position, his head on his pillow, and proceeded to tie him down with restraints at his wrists and ankles.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, trying to put up a furious front, but now he was very much afraid, the fear uncoiling from his belly and spreading throughout the rest of his body like a mass of enormous, squirming worms.
They put a mask over his face and he knew unconsciousness was only a moment away.
Through the moving bodies, Dan caught a glimpse of the doorway and saw the brunette agent standing there, her face creased with concern and, he thought, maybe sympathy.
Swanson, he thought dimly. Her name
is Swanson.
Then he closed his eyes and disappeared for a while.
Chapter 32
Although there was nothing ordinary about the moth creature on the steel slab in front of her, Dr. Quirk was most fascinated by the hands and feet.
They were the only part of the body, other than the general design, that appeared most humanoid. There was a short, opposable thumb and a baby finger. Though neither had any nails to speak of, she assumed the five-inch talon between them made up for that.
She hadn’t cared what the agents of Project Azure House had told her: she was taking this thing completely apart, whether they liked it or not. Besides, they were busy running around, doing who knew what. Besides, she didn’t work for them anyway.
She and the medical examiner, Thibault, were in the middle of the autopsy, puzzled at the fragility of the mothman. They suspected the creature was male. The reproductive organs were unlike anything either of them had ever seen, leading them to wonder if perhaps the creatures were hermaphrodites, knocking Quirk’s previous theories of there being both male and female subjects for a loop. Neither woman had much experience with insect anatomy and this puzzle would have to be further explored later.
Opening the chest cavity, they were once again amazed at the frailty of this thing before them. They discovered a heart and lungs and other organs, nearly all of them smaller than a human’s. Equally fascinating was the shell in which these organs were housed. It was not much more than tissue paper beneath a thin layer of skin covered in fine filaments of soft fuzz.
The limbs themselves appeared completely void of any real muscle mass, leading the women to question how these things were able to survive, let alone attack and take down human beings. The wings, though gossamer in appearance, were in actuality the toughest part of the moth creature, other than the talons.
Quirk was able to use a scalpel to cut off a tiny square of the wing material, but not without a good bit of struggling.
“I don’t think anyone in the world has ever seen one of these before,” Thibault said through the thick plastic safety mask that covered her face.
“People have seen them before,” Quirk replied, her voice equally muffled behind her own mask, “but there is no record of this.” She gestured at the body on the table. “No one has ever been given the opportunity that we have here. I surmise it is not unlike the first person who ever decided to dissect a lobster.”
The outer door burst open and in came the agents, much to Quirk’s chagrin. She sighed, put down her scalpel and stepped back from the table, her hands raised.
“Don’t shoot,” she said, clearly mocking.
Despite what she and Thibault had done, however, the agents seemed completely uninterested in the autopsied corpse. They barely glanced at it, instead focusing their attention on the two women. Their expressions changed when they saw the two doctors in full Hazmat gear. To Quirk’s eye, they looked positively relieved.
Hogan said, “Have either of you come into any contact with that thing? Any contact at all?”
The two women frowned. “What’s wrong?” asked Thibault.
“Apparently . . .” Swanson began, her usual cool demeanor clearly shaken, “they’re somehow . . . contagious.”
“What?” Quirk blurted. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Absurd or not, it’s the truth,” Swanson replied. “That cop—Clark—he’s upstairs right now, turning into God only knows what.”
“Preposterous,” Quirk said, walking around the gurney towards the agents. “We’ve seen nothing to indicate anything that could be a contagion with this subject.”
Behind her, Thibault said, “Wait.” All eyes settled on her and she continued: “I thought about this earlier and dismissed it as illogical, but what if whatever these things are covered in—this black dust—isn’t dust at all?”
Quirk snorted. “What else could it be? Moths come with dust. It’s part of their anatomy.”
Thibault shook her head slowly. “Usually, yes. But what if what we thought was just dust is actually spores of some kind?”
“Wait,” Swanson said. “If that were true—”
Hogan interrupted her. “We’d all be infected just by breathing them in, wouldn’t we?”
Hesitating only a moment, Thibault nodded. “Probably, yes. If the spores are light enough to be airborne, then absolutely.”
Everyone was silent for seconds that felt like an eternity, each of them considering this new possibility.
“If that’s the case,” Swanson finally said, “we’re all screwed. All of us in this room. In this hospital. Possibly everyone in Lockwood and who knows where else. We could have a major epidemic on our hands.”
“But, the point of my question,” Hogan said, “was that we’re all okay. We’d probably be showing some kind of symptoms by now if—”
A commotion in the hallway caused them all to look towards the steel doors. Both agents peered out one of the small windows set into the doors to see emergency workers pushing gurneys. Two more bodies had just arrived at the morgue, both concealed in black body bags.
Swanson pushed the door open, gestured at the bodies and asked, “What happened to them?”
“Car wreck,” one of the orderlies replied. “Hit a pole, the EMTs said. Neither one was wearing their seatbelts. Right through the windshield.”
“Have you seen the bodies?” Hogan asked.
The two orderlies looked at the agents as if they each had two heads. “No,” they said in unison.
The first one asked, “They were already bagged.”
“Why?” the second said.
The agents ignored the question and Swanson said, “I’d bet my last dollar it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill accident.”
“Probably being chased,” Hogan said.
She turned her attention back to the orderlies. “Did the EMTs say anything about alcohol or drugs?”
The first orderly, his tone tinged with impatience, said, “Lady, we just work at the hospital. They don’t tell us every little detail.”
Swanson frowned and turned away; the orderlies continued on their way to cold storage.
“I don’t suppose it would do us any good to examine the bodies,” she muttered.
From a distance, the wail of a siren drew closer.
The agents exchanged worried glances before informing Quirk and Thibault they’d be back in a few minutes. They wanted to greet the ambulance and try to gauge how bad it was getting outside, where night was rapidly falling. If only people would obey the curfew and stay inside, thought Swanson, maybe there would be a chance of more of them living through the evening. But people, she knew, had a habit of letting their curiosity get the best of them.
Chapter 33
Holding a lit candle, John stood in the middle of the kitchen in Jackie’s house, growing increasingly nervous. Shelly, Jackie’s mom, was going around the house, gathering flashlights and more candles while Jackie rummaged in the dark refrigerator, trying to determine what they should keep and what they should get rid of.
“The power might not even be out that long,” John said. “I don’t understand why you’re doing that now.”
“Because I don’t know what else to do,” Jackie admitted, her voice muffled as she poked her head further into the fridge.
“But, you’ll probably end up wasting stuff.”
When she didn’t respond, he sighed and walked away, placing his candle on the counter. He pulled out his cell phone and sent a text message to his dad, asking him if anyone claiming to be from the government had been to the house.
Jackie stood up and closed the refrigerator, her arms empty. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I feel helpless.”
From somewhere far away, an ambulance siren screeched and John looked up from his phone and into his girlfriend’s scared face.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, offering her his free hand.
She took it and moved in close to him, pre
ssing her body against his. He felt her tremble against his chest and wished again he’d been here when those goons had shown up. Not that he would have been able to do much, but he still felt guilty for not being around to at least tell them where they could shove their threats.
Shelly came back into the kitchen with a flashlight under each arm and holding several candles in her hands. She regarded the additional candles Jackie had pulled out of a kitchen cupboard and placed in the center of the table. “We have more than I thought,” Shelly said, adding hers to the bunch. “Probably enough to last a few nights, anyway. You found the spare matches?”
Jackie nodded and pointed to the box on the counter.
“Good.” Shelly seemed pleased, like a pirate assessing a small chest of gold.
John looked down at the phone in his hand, wondering when his dad would reply to his text message. He wasn’t particularly concerned; his dad sometimes didn’t bother texting back at all, but one would think that, given the circumstances of late, he might want to keep in touch with his youngest son.
Shelly lit another of the candles and placed it on the windowsill near the table. “It’ll be full dark soon,” she said more to herself, it seemed, then to them as she looked out at the encroaching night.
John only saw their reflections in the glass, dancing with the firelight. His unease grew. He debated just calling his dad when the window exploded inward, glass shards embedding themselves into Shelly’s face. He dropped his phone and let out a surprised yelp as Jackie buried her face into his chest, stifling a squeal.
Shelly, eyes wide, backpedaled away from the window, her hands against her face where blood was already gushing through her fingers. When her hands came away red, she shrieked.
The candle she had just placed on the sill somehow remained there, its flame flickering wildly as a black form smashed glass from the window frame, trying to gain entrance into the house.