“Yes, but this is a family emergency.”
“Oh. I had no idea Dom had… sorry, that was insensitive of me. Of course, Dom has family. Just a moment.”
Already Payton liked Dom’s shelter a thousand times better than Harmony House.
There was a sound on the phone, panting. “Hello?” Dom demanded. “Who is this?”
“It’s me, Payton. I’m in trouble.”
“What, you stole a phone?”
“No—.”
“You’re in the slammer and I’m your one phone call?”
“I wish.”
“You disappeared, man. We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I was mugged. It was bad. They took me to Van Gen, then over to this place called Harmony House, across the street from the hospital. They’re experimenting on homeless people here. They bring you in, all caring and wanting to help, then they start pumping you full of something that’s killing everyone as far as I can tell. Except me. I’m perfectly fine.”
“What? They’re… they’re what?” Dom was silent for a moment. “What do you want me to do?”
“Come get me.”
“I’m not exactly the cavalry. I’m a one man show. One and a half if Weazer’s willing.”
“You’re all I’ve got. I’ll get out on my own, I’m pretty sure. They think I’m asleep, safe and sound in dreamland courtesy of my nightly tea. I can make that work, but I’ll need a path to get away and hide once I’m out. They’ll come looking for sure.”
“Okay,” Dom replied, doubt creeping into his voice.
“This set up is big. It stretches from transit workers on the lookout for ‘candidates’, paramedics who winnow out those with nowhere to go, to something going on at Van Pacific Gen. I don’t think they even know what’s happening. Some nurse named Darla took over my case and before I knew it, I was here, getting plugged every morning and drugged every night.”
“Okay. Let me think.”
There was a long pregnant silence. Payton chewed his lip and gazed at his locked bathroom door, imagining it being kicked open at any moment. His heartbeat kicked up a notch. He needed to get back into bed, look asleep. They probably had a regular check system going and his bed was empty.
“Okay. I can be there tomorrow night, after dark, with a car.”
“You can get a car?”
“I’ve got all sorts of untapped skills, kid. I’ll wait behind the hospital, starting around midnight at the emerg. entrance side. I’ll wait all night if I have to. If you don’t come, I’ll come a’ knockin’ at daybreak and demand to see you.”
“No. Don’t. They’ll know I called you. They’re killing these guys, Dom. You would be just an obstacle to get rid of. We stick with me meeting you behind the hospital.”
“All right kid. See you tomorrow.”
“And Dom?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t be scared when you see me. My… my face is different now.”
“What?”
“Just warning you. Don’t be scared—it’s still me.”
“Now you really got me worried, kid.”
“I gotta go and be a good patient now. Tomorrow night—behind the hospital.”
Payton ended the call, turned out the bathroom light before he opened the door and slipped across to his bed, shedding his slippers and robe as he did, climbing beneath the sheets and arranging himself to appear asleep. Under the covers, he powered the phone down. Having no way to charge it, he’d save the battery for later. Plus, having a phone in his possession suddenly ring would be very inconvenient.
His door opened with a whispered change of atmosphere and his heart almost leapt from his chest in fright. Two figures approached his bed. Daring a peek, he saw it was the night nurse and Mark Peterson. They came to stand over him, doubtlessly gazing down at him in the darkness. His heart banged out his panic at their scrutiny. How was it possible they couldn’t hear it? If he’d been hooked up to a monitor now, he’d be blown as faking it.
“What’s your decision?” The nurse asked, the always singsong lilt she used when speaking to Payton gone.
“We’re getting nothing from him. He’s useless. I say we cut him loose.”
“Just like that? We discharge him?”
“What do you suggest, Ellen? He knows nothing, he’s no danger to the program.”
“I say we inject him and get rid of the body along with all the others. No loose ends.”
“Or we let him go and he talks up how well he was treated. We could have them show up at the door instead of trolling for them. With so many of the patients gone within a week now, inventory is always in crisis mode. These payoffs are getting expensive.”
“Not knowing we’re even here is what keeps us safe, Mark. This man is no good-will ambassador you can send out to recruit. He’s trouble; I can feel it. He has an attitude. Plus, the corporation has deep pockets. They’ll cover the extra costs of procurement, to ensure secrecy.”
I have an attitude? This was news to Payton. He was being so cooperative and agreeable. And there was that word again—procurement. It fashioned a horrific image in his head.
“All right,” Peterson sighed, his interest in pressing the issue already gone. “If you feel strongly about it, go ahead. I need to get back to the Hollis kid. He’s showing some good progress.”
They turned away, Ellen laughing softly now. “You mean the virus, don’t you? The virus is showing good progress.”
They were developing a virus! Intentionally? There was nothing about this in the histories!
“That’s a hundred percent success rate. The whole floor.” Mark’s tone was satisfied and laced with excitement. The door opened again, that same atmosphere of air pressure and temperature change sweeping through the room. “I’ll contact Travis, get him to do another sweep. We’ll need more recruits…” Mark’s next words were cut off by the closing of the door and they were gone. Payton wanted to be gone as well.
Did he still have street clothes available? He’d draw attention racing down the sidewalk in a robe and slippers. He listened for more visitors, heard nothing, so slipped from his bed once again and checked the wardrobe. Well there’s over-confidence for you. They’d left him his new street clothes.
He could steal out tonight, not wait for Dom, get back on his own somehow.
Mark’s last words echoed in his head. “We’ll need more recruits.”
He couldn’t just walk away. He had to stop this or there would be many more Hollises in Harmony House. He’d do some digging over the next twenty-four hours, get some evidence to shut this place down. He and Dom could drop off what he found at the cops, then he’d disappear onto the streets.
So, when was his last injection to happen? As soon as tomorrow morning, his “healing’”injection? He couldn’t let them poke him. How was he going to avoid it?
He looked at the clock; four-thirty a.m. Would they have prepared the injections on the night shift for the morning shift? Could he get to them and switch them somehow? It would seem cruel on the surface, but whoever he switched his injection with was already on his way out, according to Mark. If that person got Payton’s injection, they’d simply die sooner and possibly more kindly than by dying from the virus, judging by what he’d seen through the windows of the other rooms.
And he’d simply get more virus, which apparently, he was immune to.
This brought up another thought: Wouldn’t he be the most valuable patient here, having antibodies to this virus they were developing? From there, it wasn’t a big leap to the value of possessing a cure to a deadly virus, or so he thought. If I were an evil mad scientist, I’d sure want the cure.
Another reason to get the hell out now, before this idea occurred to the powers to be here in Harmony House.
He rose from his bed again, pulled on his street clothes and crept from his room. Either he would find and switch the morning injections and have fifteen, sixteen more hours to snoop or he wouldn’t and would break for
the door and run for his life.
BACK IN HIS BED, dressed in his hospital gown again, Payton looked wanly up at the morning nurse as she approached him. According to her name tag, this one’s name was Susan and she announced that this would be his last “healing” injection. His heart hammered wildly in his chest as she advanced with the needle. Never before in his life had it been more important that he appear complacent. Tamping down his off-the-charts fear, he sighed noisily for her benefit and watched her insert the needle into the portal in his arm. After the vial was emptied into his arm, she swiftly removed the portal. So, no more injections. Yup—he was scheduled to die sometime today. How he had no idea. If he did, he could fake the symptoms. He’d have to wing it.
“You’ve been so good to me here at Harmony House,” he murmured. “I’m thinking I’d like to get dressed today, feel normal. It might help me in my recovery.”
Susan’s eyebrows rose, and she tilted her head at his novel suggestion.
That’s right sweetheart, you play your part.
She said, “I don’t see a problem with that. They’re over in the wardrobe. Do you need any help?”
Like he wanted this ghoul’s hands anywhere near him ever again. “No, I think I’ll be okay. I don’t want to take up more of your time. But I thought I’d just check first,” he added, properly submissive. Let them feel comfortable with his passive behavior.
She nodded at his acceptance of her authority. “That’s good. You should always check first. Go ahead, get dressed and your breakfast will be delivered shortly. You could even eat at the table if you like.”
Just like a real boy.
Payton pasted a grateful expression on his face and watched Susan leave. He had no intension of ingesting one more morsel of Harmony House food.
As soon as the door closed behind her, he was at the closet, pulling the street clothes on again, tossing the gown, robe and slippers back in. There. Step two complete; they were now fine with him being dressed. It felt as if he had one foot out the door already.
Step one had been easy. He’d simply switched the sticky tape labels on two prepared needles just before shift change: His—Paul Whistler, ha ha, they hadn’t even gotten his name right—for Daniel Toews.
He’d controlled the injection and now he was street ready.
Time for steps three and four. It was his very good fortune they were having a staff meeting this morning after rounds in the lunch room. Ten o’clock sharp, attendance by all staff mandatory. He could hardly believe his good luck when he’d read the notation on the calendar behind the nurse’s desk.
He would have the run of the nurse’s station during that time and would take pictures and scan every document he could get his hands on with his stolen phone.
He opened his door and glanced down the hallway. Deserted. He slipped from his room, and hurried along the hallway, looking for Hollis’s room, step three in motion. It was four doors down from his and the door was not locked, nor were there any hazmat suit clad medical staff in attendance. He darted inside, approached the bed and was surprised to find he knew Hollis. Not well, but knew him from the soup kitchens, from the street.
The kid was obviously dead, his skin gray, his neck swollen and blackish, with angry red gouges, obviously self-inflicted while the poor guy fought to breathe. His eyes were open and milky, surrounded by dry, dark skin.
What the hell kind of virus were they pumping into a person that could change them this radically in under a week?
Payton raised his stolen phone slowly and reluctantly took a picture of the kid. A hell of a way to leave this earth. Lowering the phone, he gazed at Hollis and clenched his teeth before quickly snapping several more pictures, including the IV, the surrounding machines, the discarded vials from the garbage. In fact, he pulled a couple of the vials from the garbage to take as evidence, then thought better of it and left them. What if he was delivering death to the investigators?
He went back to the door and looked out the window. Still clear. He left the room and tried for the nurse’s station. It was still occupied by medical staff, so he moved back to his own room and set up step four, just in case.
When the nurse came back to collect his breakfast tray, he grimaced in her direction. “Sorry. Couldn’t get it down this morning. Not feeling so well all of a sudden. I – I think I’ll lie down now.”
She seemed happy with his symptoms and left. He wasn’t sure how sick he was supposed to get before he succumbed to whatever they had plugged him with, but apparently Act 1 had done the trick.
At ten, he headed to the nurse’s station once again and this time, he found it empty. Out came the phone camera and he snapped everything he could see, opening drawers, scanning documents, patient’s charts, purchasing orders, staff scheduling, anything he could grab. What they all meant, someone else with time on their hands could figure out. He’d provide as much raw data as he could, the rest was up to them.
He rushed around, recording all he could, dashing to the lunchroom from time to time, listening at the door to check the meeting. When he was certain it was still going strong, he’d go back and carry on. He was up into the four-hundreds with images when he detected the meeting was coming to a close. Powering down the phone, he hurried back to his room and threw himself across the bed, tucking the small phone into his back pocket.
Step five complete: That’s all the evidence he dared collect.
Step six, get the hell out of this death house, was up next and he had no desire to wait until midnight to do it. But he knew he had to. He was in no physical shape to run, they knew exactly how he was dressed and could describe him right down to the stitching on his scarred face. That and his tattooed head would call attention to him wherever he went. He had to go in darkness.
He’d grit his teeth, and play sick for his eager audience, fake an ever-increasing illness and wait it out. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. If he were lucky, he might even catch a few hours in preparation for his flight to meet Dom.
Surprisingly, he did sleep, waking when an attendant rolled a food tray into his room. Payton glanced at the wall clock and was shocked to see it was nearly six in the evening. They’d taken his sleeping for what? Weakness, letting him fade away? Now was not the time to spring from his sleep all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
He squinted at the attendant and groaned. “No food. Please, no food. Water.”
This seemed to be on track. The attendant produced a bottle of water, unsealed it and put a bending straw into it. Solicitously he helped Payton hunch up, guiding the straw to his patient’s lips. “Not too fast,” he murmured—like he cared—before easing Payton back onto the bed. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a gown?”
Payton grasped his wrist and gasped, “I won’t go back. I can’t give up now. I swear I’ll walk out of this place on my own two feet.”
The attendant nodded agreeably, obviously pleased. “Of course, you will. This is just a little set-back. Happens all the time. Have you been vomiting?”
“Yes!” Payton snatched at the prompt. He was supposed to be vomiting. Dialing it back, he groaned, pressing his face into his pillow with a show of despair. “I think I’ve puked up my entire stomach lining. There’s nothing left.”
“Why have you not called for help? That’s what we’re here for.”
Payton frowned his displeasure. So, they wanted to monitor his demise, did they? Ghouls. He snapped, “Yacking into a toilet isn’t my idea of a spectator sport.”
The attendant pressed his mouth into a thin line and took a moment to position the food tray closer to Payton. “As you wish,” he finally replied. “I’ll leave this here should you have a change of heart. We’re only a ring away if you need us.”
He turned and left the room without a backward glance. There was no offer to take Payton’s temperature, to provide medical relief for his nausea symptoms, or even to call in a nurse or doctor to help. Payton suspected the man didn’t expect to see him alive again.
>
Okay. It was after six, and it didn’t begin to get dark until around eight. If he was guessing right, he was on track to be dead before morning.
He waited an hour to be sure the attendant had in fact washed his hands of him and there was no second line of medical help on its way to his room. No one came. He heard the shift change, was appropriately asleep when the new shift made their rounds, witnessed the hall lights dim at eight as was the usual routine. Now the staff would hang out in the staff room and shoot the breeze until around ten, when second rounds were scheduled. He knew this because he could set a watch by them by now—if he had one. The hazmat guys? Their schedule had to be less predictable.
He blinked up at the ceiling. Or maybe not. Maybe they knew exactly how the virus killed its victims and worked their schedule around the timeline. How macabre would that be?
How did they look at themselves in the mirror?
Maybe the same way he did now, pretending not to see the scars on his face. Maybe they pretended not to see the face of systematic evil. He’d take the scars.
No one had been down to peek into his room for over an hour. When he cracked his door open, the hallway was silent. He ghosted toward the nurse’s station, which he had to pass to get to the front exit. Susan sat behind the counter, talking on her cell phone. Bad news. They’d be making rounds in forty minutes; he had to be gone by then.
He jumped when Susan trilled out a laugh. He thudded back against the wall, making a hell of a racket. She didn’t react, just leaned back and looked up at the lights overhead and swung her chair leisurely around…and around…
Could he dash across when her back was turned?
“Will not,” she declared playfully.
He edged closer, measuring the open space to the hallway opposite, leading to the front entrance.
“No. I will not.” She was giggling now. And turning, oh so slowly turning…
Her back was to him. She stopped turning. “No, you hang up.”
He ran out into the open, and lightly across the tiled floor in front of the nurse’s station, watching her as he did. She was turning…she would see him! He dropped onto his belly and laid still, out in the open, not daring to even breathe, praying she didn’t hang up, standup, look over the front counter.
Cursed Apprentice (Earth Survives Book 2) Page 7