The Panic Zone

by Rick Mofina

  According to Juan and Pauline’s study, this was the optimum time to collect samples. For a brief period of a few weeks, the females would be sedentary, docile and incapable of flying because at this stage they were lactating. This was the time to manually extract samples of the virus.

  “Okay, let’s start.” Juan’s static voice came over his radio.

  They each switched on their night vision and waited again for their senses to adjust before proceeding.

  “Be mindful of sinkholes,” Juan said. “Stay close to formations you can grab if the ground beneath you gives way.”

  Fiona released a small scream as a lone bat darted by squeaking.

  “Just a male checking us out,” Juan said.

  “Stay calm, everyone,” Sutsoff said.

  Colin sensed the cave floor was actually soft like padded carpet.

  “Kind of cushy,” he said.

  “Bat droppings,” Sutsoff said.

  “Eww,” Fiona said.

  “Stop, everyone,” Sutsoff said. “Fiona, behave as a professional scientist or withdraw now.”

  “Sorry, Doctor.”

  As they progressed, about a dozen more male bats strafed them, brushing against their helmets and suits.

  “The gear has been tested,” Sutsoff said. “Stay calm. It will protect you.”

  Fiona muted her disgust.

  “Careful, a steep step down,” Juan said.

  After a few hundred feet, they came to a mammoth chamber that was dwarfed by a magnificent cathedral with groves of stalactites, stalagmites and dozens of pillars.

  It took a moment to realize that the structures were trembling with life—clusters upon clusters of roosting bats.

  My beauties. Sutsoff was awed. My glorious beauties.

  “Let’s get started.” She set out her kit. “You know the procedure.”

  Sutsoff demonstrated by plucking a roosting female from a cluster and turning its docile rat-faced head toward her. Using a dentist’s pick, she pried the tiny mouth open, inserted a small cotton tip past its fangs, swabbed the oral cavity, then put the specimen in a bottle of diluent.

  “Like that,” she said. “We need as much as we can get.”

  While male bats flitted about, nicking and bumping into the scientists, the team worked smoothly.

  They had been at it for more than thirty minutes, collecting specimens, when they were distracted by an odd sound.

  Click-tap.

  “What’s that?” Colin asked.

  They looked toward the mouth of the cave.

  Nothing but darkness.

  Click-tap. Click-tap.

  Then a muffled cry.

  That’s not human.

  “What is that?” Fiona asked.

  They followed a furious thrashing and kicking as if some violent force were charging toward them.

  “I have to see!” Fiona switched on her white light.

  “Fiona, no,” Juan called out too late.

  A misshapen deer had staggered into the cave, rearing and swaying its neck. The group quickly realized it was not deformed but instead trapped within the writhing coils of a massive python. The snake’s jaws were extended over the deer’s muzzle in a hideous death hold.

  Pauline screamed and switched on her white light. “I want out!”

  A cloud of bats enveloped the deer, which dropped to its knees. Another cloud swarmed the scientists, pinging and nicking at their suits. The air filled with squeaks.

  “Everyone keep calm,” Sutsoff said. “Get those lights off now! Use night vision and pack up. Juan, take us out. Let’s go!”

  As the deer and snake thrashed, the team made its way to the mouth of the cave.

  “Christ!” Colin shouted. “I’m getting hit harder.”

  The plunk-plunk of bats strafing the team intensified.

  “Keep moving!” Sutsoff said. “We’re almost out.”

  Daylight painted the air as the group hurried from the cave.

  There was a collective sigh of relief as they cleared the cave and retreated toward the field station.

  “That was a nightmare,” Fiona said.

  “Incredible!” Colin said. “Absolutely incredible!”

  Juan started to take off his suit.

  “Why don’t you wait until we get to the station?” Colin asked.

  “I’m just so hot,” Juan said, tugging at his hood.

  He had unzipped his foiled outer layer and was working on his lime-yellow layer by the time the group arrived at the field station.

  Once Sutsoff placed all the samples in a protective case, the locals began helping her and the others out of their gear. Their faces were moist with sweat and the glow of accomplishing a deadly challenge.

  “I need some DEET,” Juan said, “got a mosquito bite.”

  Juan slapped the back of his neck but felt something larger than an insect.

  It was furry.

  On his fingertips was a bleeding bat.

  “Juan!” Pauline’s voice filled with fear. “Oh, God!”

  “Oh, Jesus, no! I’ve been bitten!”

  One of the local men pointed at a small tear at the back of Juan’s suit.

  Blood dripped down Juan’s neck.

  He stared at the quivering bat in his hand.

  “In here, Juan!” Sutsoff held out a plastic container. “Drop it in here!”

  She snapped it shut, then observed Juan as he spasmed.

  “Help him!” Fiona screamed at Sutsoff.

  Juan collapsed, writhing in agony.

  Colin held him. Sutsoff rushed to get something and Pauline scrambled for her medical bag.

  Juan’s eyes widened and he screamed at the sky.

  “Oh, God!” Fiona screamed. “Look at his eyes!”

  His eyes liquefied, melted in their sockets, rivulets of blood oozing from his ears, his mouth as he spasmed. The air cracked with the sounds of breaking bones as Juan’s back curved into a humped spine as he died.

  “Oh, no,” Fiona sobbed.

  The others looked to Sutsoff and were stunned by what they saw.

  She’d recorded the entire episode with her camcorder.

  44

  Santa Ana, California

  Sparks sprayed from the orbital sander in the open garage of a decaying duplex on Third Street, near the old Civic Center Barrio.

  Emma Lane stopped her rented Ford Escort out front.

  She checked the address she’d extracted from Christine Eckhardt at the clinic. Polly Larenski lived here. Emma approached the man working in the cluttered garage. Music throbbed with the grinding whirr of the sander.

  “Excuse me.”

  The man’s T-shirt complemented the muscles stretching his tattoos. He didn’t hear her until she’d interrupted him a second time. The sanding stopped. He reached inside the car, killed the music, then let his eyes take a walk all over her.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for Polly Larenski.”

  “The new neighbor?”

  “Polly Larenski,” Emma repeated.

  The toothpick in his mouth shifted. “Next door, baby.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She’s a little psycho. If she scares you, you come see me.”

  As Emma went around to the door of the adjoining house, the hip-hop music resumed hammering the air. She rang the doorbell and knocked on the door. Peeling paint ravaged the exterior walls. The picture window was cracked.

  No one responded, so she rang and knocked again.

  Emma peered into the house. She could see down a hall to a kitchen, right through sliding glass doors to the back. She noticed a shadow moving on the rear deck and started for the back, thinking that whoever was there could not hear her at the door.

  The music thumped as she went around the side and opened a gate. Flies swarmed the garbage overflowing from plastic bags and boxes leaning against the house. Emma noticed unopened envelopes that looked like bills addressed to P. Larenski in Los Angeles and remembered that Christine told her Polly
had recently moved and that when Polly had called Christine asking about her severance check Polly demanded she not reveal her new address because she feared collection agencies were stalking her.

  Polly’s address change might explain why police saw no link to the clinic in L.A. and the call coming from a public phone here in Santa Ana.

  Was this her only hope for finding Tyler?

  The hip-hop music thudded away like a distant drum of dread.

  As Emma went around the corner to the back of the house, she froze.

  A woman sat alone in a deck chair wearing a bathrobe and shawl over her shoulders. Her face was tilted skyward as if she were showering in sunlight.

  Emma didn’t make a sound, yet without warning, the woman turned sharply and her wide-eyed attention shot toward Emma. Sudden breezes lifted the woman’s hair in medusan strands. Her eyes fixed on Emma, the woman stood and calmly went into the house, leaving the sliding glass door open. Breezes made the curtains sway, as if inviting Emma to follow her.

  Was this the mystery woman who’d called her?

  As Emma entered the house, she heard music playing inside—the old hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River?” The place reeked of cigarettes. It had an open kitchen–living room layout. The living room was littered with cardboard moving boxes erupting with clothes, pictures, boxes and files.

  The small table in the eating area was buried under newspapers, more files and shoe boxes containing bills and invoices. An assortment of pill bottles stood next to several liquor bottles, empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays.

  “I have no money, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  Emma caught her breath.

  She recognized that raw voice.

  Your baby is not dead. Your baby is alive.

  It belonged to the woman who’d called her in the middle of the night, the woman who was now standing at the kitchen sink and had popped two pills in her mouth. The woman snapped her head back, chasing the pills with whatever was in the glass she was holding.

  “Are you Polly Larenski?”

  “Unfortunately.” Hair covered Polly’s face as she dropped her head to stare down into the sink filled with un-washed dishes, cups, pots and so much sadness. “Who are you, and why are you standing in my house?”

  “My name is Emma Lane. I’ve come from Big Cloud, Wyoming.”

  Polly stared at her in glassy-eyed confusion.

  “You’re not from a collection agency?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You called me a few days ago, Polly.”

  “I called you?”

  “Yes.”

  “In Wyoming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would I call you? I don’t know you. Or anybody in Wyoming. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You asked for me, specifically. You had my name, my address. You’d called to tell me that my baby was still alive.”

  “What? Who’s still alive? No, I don’t know anything about a call.”

  “Yes, I recognize your voice. The call came from a public phone near the Burger King on Civic Center Drive here in Santa Ana.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Polly massaged her temples.

  “We were clients of Golden Dawn where you worked.”

  “What?”

  “We had our baby, Tyler, through a donor there. My husband, Joe, Tyler and I were in an accident in Wyoming. My husband—” Emma paused “—my husband, Joe, was killed. I was thrown clear and police said our baby, Tyler, died when our car caught fire.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I saw someone rescue Tyler. Then, after my doctor informed the clinic about Tyler, you called me in the night.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “You called me and told me my baby was not dead!”

  Polly shook her head.

  “No, I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “I need you to help me find my baby.”

  Polly flashed her palms at Emma.

  “You should leave right now.”

  “Not until you help me.” Emma opened her bag and withdrew a file folder. “I’ve made a copy of my files from the clinic for you. I’ll help you remember—we can work together. I’ve attached the card of my hotel where I’m staying. It’s near the clinic. Maybe we could call them and—”

  Polly smacked the folder and the papers flew from Emma’s hands and fluttered to the floor. “Stop it! I cannot take it anymore!”

  The ferocity in Polly’s voice rooted Emma where she stood.

  Polly collapsed on the sofa, sobbing, trembling, as she poured a glass of whiskey, downed it, then covered her face with her hands.

  “My husband—” she sniffed “—my ex-husband, Brad, committed suicide a few nights ago in a Las Vegas motel after running up a forty-three-thousand-dollar gambling debt.”

  Emma sat beside her.

  “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, Polly.”

  “The maid found him in the tub with our family picture on his chest. He’d slashed his wrists.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “I’m being punished for my sins.”

  “What sins?”

  “I’m responsible for the death of our only child.”

  Emma took Polly’s hands.

  “No, that can’t be.”

  “Five years ago we were at the beach. Brad was building a sand castle with Crystal, our two-year-old. He was a district bank manager. He got a call on his phone and told me to watch her. He thought I’d heard him but I was sleeping under my sunglasses. He turned and walked away. Crystal followed the seagulls out into the water and a wave took her.”

  Polly poured another glass of whiskey.

  “We went into therapy. I blamed him—he blamed me. We withdrew into ourselves and accepted the fact it didn’t matter who was to blame.”

  “It was a terrible accident,” Emma said.

  “We were both guilty. I tried to cope by working long hours in the lab at Golden Dawn, becoming a workaholic and making other families happy. Brad drank and would disappear for days. A couple of times I bailed him out of the L.A. county jail. He lost his job, ran up gambling debts. We had a home in Santa Monica but lost it. Brad ran up more debts.”

  Polly stared into space.

  “You know, he told me that when he gambled he’d live in hope of a big payoff so we could get our house back, get our lives back and maybe try for another baby. That adrenaline rush kept him alive, but I told him he was chasing a mirage and had to stop because the bill collectors were not letting up. It was horrible. We moved around constantly until I divorced him. I did everything I could. I got bank loans, lines of credit, juggled credit cards, but they kept coming after me. The pressure took its toll and I lost my job at Golden Dawn.”

  Polly stared into her glass, took a big swallow, then followed Emma’s attention to a box of files that had the Golden Dawn Fertility Corporation insignia.

  “What’re you looking at?”

  “I’m sorry, Polly.” Emma nodded to the files. “I just thought maybe you could help me.”

  “What the—?” Polly’s face contorted.

  She stood. Woozy and dazed, she pointed to the door.

  “Get out!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You come into my home and accuse me of all kinds of crap. I don’t know who the hell you are!” Polly slurred. “You could be a cop, a bill collector. Get the hell out of my house now!”

  “Polly, please. I know you’re in pain and I understand, I do, but—”

  “Get out!”

  Emma left, stepping into the assault of the neighbor’s hip-hop music, hammering home the fact she had failed. The blue-white-orange flare of the welding torch blazed in her rearview mirror.

  Was it over? Did it end here?

  As she headed for the interstate, she glimpsed the dark sedan with dark windows behind her. It had departed Poll
y’s neighborhood at the same time from half a block away. Now it was several car lengths back on the freeway, but she dismissed any notion someone was following her when traffic picked up.

  With each passing mile, worry gnawed at her. Blood pounded in her ears. She could not bear to think that the only thread of hope she had of finding Tyler had unraveled and snapped in Polly Larenski’s living room.

  What now? she asked herself, as she reached her hotel, shifting her thoughts when she saw a dark sedan with dark windows creep by her.

  Again, she dismissed it being anything sinister.

  Must be a thousand cars just like that in Southern California.

  Emma retreated to her room.

  What do I do now?

  She repeated that question over the next several hours as she lay on her hotel bed staring at the muted TV. She bit back tears and surfed through the channels, struggling to divine an answer from them until she drifted off. She did not know how long she’d been asleep before the hotel phone in her room woke her.

  “Hello.”

  “Emma Lane?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Polly. I apologize. I’m going through a rough time.”

  “I understand.”

  “Pills, whiskey, Brad and—” she exhaled “—everything, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “I called you that night about your baby.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Yes, but it has to be confidential.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let me get myself and my files together. Can you come back tomorrow, say around ten in the morning?”

  “Yes, but will you tell me one thing right now? Is my son alive?”

  A long, tense moment passed.

  “Yes, I think he is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was chosen.”

  45

  Los Angeles, California

  “What do you mean, my son was chosen?” Emma asked Polly.

  A strained silence passed over Emma’s hotel telephone line until it was broken by Polly’s sniffling.

  “I’ve done something terribly, terribly wrong,” Polly said.

  “What was Tyler chosen for?”

  “I’m being punished for all the bad things I’ve done.”

  “What bad things? Where’s my son? Who has my son?”

  “It hurts so much. I have to sleep now.”

  “Polly, please answer me!”