While the Savage Sleeps

by Kaufman, Andrew E.

  The deadline is now.

  Bethany’s words still echoed in Kyle’s head as she threw on her clothes and rushed toward the living room. Cameron was already gone. On the table was a note:

  Gone into town. Back in a bit. Make yourself comfortable.

  -- Cam.

  She spotted Bentley lying on his side on the kitchen floor, legs splayed, snoring, his barrel chest rising and falling with each labored breath. He opened his eyes to glance up at Kyle, smacked his lips, and within seconds was fast asleep again. Her presence was no longer a cause for alarm, but it didn’t elicit much excitement, either. She decided she’d live with that.

  Kyle grabbed her car keys and moved outside—although she wasn’t sure why—then glanced around, taking in a whiff of fresh morning air, trying to decide what to do next.

  Then the words came back to her—the ones that had come straight from Bethany’s mouth, her parting message:

  Look up.

  Kyle did, but again saw nothing. Look up where?

  On pure impulse, she jumped into the car and drove toward town. As she did, something began to happen: the closer she got, the stronger the vibrations became. Kyle’s mind felt like a homing device aimed at its intended target, her grip on the steering wheel becoming so tight, her knuckles were turning white. Sweat formed on her forehead, and the nervous apprehension felt like it was chipping away at her. She turned onto Main Street, then to Oakdale. One more block and she’d be in the center of town. That was where she needed to go; she had no idea why, but something was drawing her there, pulling her in like a giant magnet. Something awaited her, something important.

  Kyle turned the corner and instantly knew that she’d arrived. She stopped the car, got out, then moved to the middle of the intersection. Her frame of mind had shifted; she could feel it. In a trance-like daze and blocking oncoming traffic, she hardly cared. A few horns blew while other people shouted—still, she didn’t budge, standing steady, immovable. Then she looked up, just as Bethany had told her to do.

  And she saw it.

  That was it. That was where she needed to go.

  Chapter Eighty

  Old Highway 10

  Faith, New Mexico

  Every road seemed to lead back to the Foleys—yet each time Cameron went there, it was like driving right into a brick wall.

  Or banging his head against one.

  Now, after everything that had happened within the past twenty-four hours, he was more convinced than ever that the answers he needed were still hiding there.

  Kyle, too, had seemed to feel that the Foleys were at the heart of the mystery. It all came back to that family, and still, nobody could figure out why.

  It was time to begin listening to his heart instead of his mind. It was time, Cameron decided, to go back to that house.

  * * *

  Cameron had barely put his car in park when he saw curtains yank open in Della Schumacher’s second-story window. Within a few moments, she was at his side. Lately, she’d fancied herself an integral part of the investigation. Cameron fancied her a nuisance.

  “Had the place staked out all day, sheriff,” she said, trying to keep pace with him as he walked toward the Foley house. “Subjects haven’t returned since their original visit, but not to worry. I’m still surveilling. Gonna keep a 5150 on the perimeter.”

  “5150’s the code for someone who’s mentally ill,” Cameron said, hands on his hips while staring up at the house.

  She jabbed the heel of her hand into her forehead as if she’d known it all along. “Of course. What in the world was I thinking?”

  There’s no telling, Cameron thought, then said, “Della, when those two men came poking around at the Foley place, where exactly did they go?”

  Della placed two lanky fingers beneath her chin and fluttered them back and forth, as if it were helping her think. She stared down at the ground a few seconds longer, then back up at Cameron. After all that, she replied, “Everywhere.”

  “More specifically?” Cameron asked.

  She pursed her lips. “Well … they didn’t go inside the place … that much I know. Mostly stood over there for a real long time.” She pointed toward the rear of the house where an open field lay. Beyond that was a small creek flanked by an old well pump and plenty of dry scrub brush. The area appeared as far removed from all the action as one could get.

  Follow the trail, Cam, he told himself. Look beyond the obvious. His eyes refocused, fixed on the area as he moved toward it.

  “They was up to no good. I can tell when someone’s up to no good,” Della shouted out to him, then appeared crestfallen when he didn’t respond.

  Cameron remained intent as he continued moving forward. He was onto something.

  The well’s pump clicked, startling him. He drew his attention to it, then at the vacant house, then back at it again. He knelt down to get a closer look. Immediately, as if being hit by a thought, he turned his head and gazed at the creek, no more than a hundred feet or so away. He stood straight up, looking at the waterway as if it had taken on a whole new meaning. Water, he thought, water that feeds right here.

  He moved forward again. Reaching an area with heavy brush, he let his gaze drop down toward the ground. Everywhere around him, mustard weed poked up through the ground, making it difficult to see beneath it.

  But someone had been through there. He could see spots where the weeds looked flattened. Foot traffic, Cameron thought.

  The tracks kept going, and Cameron kept following. They ended at the creek bed. He took a deep breath; it felt like the first that he’d taken since he’d started walking. Cameron knelt down and gazed upstream as far as he could see. The river fed the creek. The junction was even farther away. He looked at his reflection in the water as if it might somehow give him the answer he needed.

  And it did.

  All this time, that answer had been right in front of him or, actually, right below him. He turned around to find Della standing several hundred feet away and looking perplexed.

  “Sheriff, what’s going on?” she hollered.

  Cameron answered her with silence and then ran directly toward his car. When he got there, he pulled open the door, jumped inside, then sped off, leaving behind a thick cloud of dust.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Sentry Peak

  Faith, New Mexico

  The unpaved, serpentine road twisted and turned for what seemed like miles. Navigating her way through a sea of potholes, Kyle’s body jerked from side to side as she passed over each of them. Nobody had maintained it for quite some time—that seemed obvious; not that there was any need. Nothing seemed worthy of the miserable trip, certainly not the equally miserable building perched high atop its staggering peak.

  Her thoughts abruptly jumped to Cameron. Kyle had left in such a hurry that she’d forgotten to tell him where she was going. If anything happened, nobody would even know where to find her. She grabbed the cell phone lying on the passenger seat. No signal—that didn’t surprise her much; she wasn’t exactly in an area where there would be any.

  After rounding the final corner, Kyle slammed the brakes and looked on with astonishment at the massive, towering structure standing before her. Had she not known better, she almost could have sworn it was staring right back. Seeing it up close for the first time, she couldn’t decide which was bigger, the actual size, or the essence of evil that seemed to surround it.

  The place was in shambles, its brick walls crumbling in spots. Kyle zeroed in on the entrance where she found two stone gargoyles snarling back at her. Just above them, three angels hovered, scorn spilling from their eyes like raging waterfalls polluted by evil. Two gun turrets sat anchored on each side of the building, ascending beyond the rooftops, and leaning toward the heavens—they appeared awkward, out of place.

  Ugly as all that looked, it was the least of Kyle’s concerns. More troubling, was the razor wire and electrical fencing—rows and rows of it—hugging the entire structure. The tangled
mess was several layers deep and just as high, with a message that was abundantly clear: stay away.

  But she couldn’t, not after coming this far, not when she knew how much was at stake. Kyle stared out her window and for the first time realized it wasn’t the building she saw anymore—it was defeat, as big and as real as the fence itself standing before her.

  There are only two reasons to guard a secret, she thought, it’s either precious… or it’s dirty.

  Kyle had a feeling she knew which this one was. She also knew she needed to figure out how to get inside. Driving on, she leaned forward and gazed up through her windshield. Slowly creeping along the fence line, she circled the complex on a road that seemed to go on forever, looking for an answer.

  Then she saw one.

  A gate was propped wide open. She stopped the car and studied it, almost questioning her own eyes. While happy to discover the breach, she also felt wariness tug at her insides. Gates didn’t just unlock themselves, especially ones in a place as well fortified as this.

  Someone else is here, she thought, and with that, fear hit her mid-gut, worse than a hammer, worse than anything she’d ever felt. Kyle knew she needed to get inside, regardless of the cost, regardless of what awaited her there, and regardless, even, of the risk to her own life. She checked her useless cell phone again, then tossed it back onto the seat before getting out of the car and approaching the open gate.

  As Kyle moved closer, she felt an odd sensation—cold vibrations pushing through her body, gathering intensity with each step she took until finally reaching almost intolerable levels.

  Then she felt something else, something that made her jump: a sensation near the base of her spine, a warm hand—Kyle was sure of it—pushing hard, as if urging her forward past the intricate array of zigzagging steel, and closer toward the entryway.

  Toward the core.

  The vibrations and the feeling on her back suddenly stopped, and suddenly, Kyle saw a massive group of broad, colossal steps leading straight up toward the building. Higher and higher, she thought as she began scaling them, I keep going higher and higher.

  Fear and exhaustion met her at the top, and something else, too—those two hideous gargoyles, with a greeting she could have well done without. The close proximity did them no favor—they were even uglier than she’d first thought.

  She had to get inside but first needed to get past the enormous mahogany doors in front of her. Wrapping her hands around one of the large brass handles, she pulled, struggled, then finally managed to get the door open, wide enough to slip through.

  Once she did, Kyle knew exactly where she was.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Sentry Peak

  Faith, New Mexico

  Walking through the front doors was like stepping between the deepest folds of her subconscious. All of Kyle’s dreams, all the images—everything—they were coming to life right before her eyes. It was like seeing a movie after reading the book; it all matched.

  She was standing in the middle of that hospital, the one to which Bethany kept leading her through visions and dreams. Only now, she was there. Really there.

  Kyle turned a corner, found the stairwell, then went up it. When she reached the second floor, she gazed down a long, empty hallway and recognized it as the same one from her dreams, one of many with locked doors and agonizing screams. The steel gurneys were still there as well, scattered about, although now nowhere near as slick and shiny as she’d remembered them. It seemed there was only one thing still missing from this picture, perhaps the most important one of all: The people. Without them and their painful moans, the place seemed strangely quiet.

  Studying the hallways, Kyle could see how the whole layout fit together. They all seemed to lead back to one place, the nerve center, a round, raised platform surrounded by thick, steel mesh and yet another layer of dusty glass. Kyle had no trouble pulling the door open, which led inside. Although made of sturdy steel with a series of locking mechanisms, in their present condition they were barely functional.

  Inside, she studied the instrument panels running along the outer walls and their array of green and red buttons, along with a few chairs pushed up against them. For Kyle, the whole setup looked rudimentary, certainly by today’s standards, but for that era, it was probably state of the art.

  Then she looked out through the glass. An observation area, she thought as she studied the four hallways converging toward her like giant octopus arms. A lookout.

  The third and fourth floors appeared identical to the second: four curved hallways leading back to another glass-and-steel-protected observation booth.

  The fifth floor, however, was different—very different. At its core, was the infamous Subjugation Unit, and judging by her dreams, it was where all the horrors laid as well.

  She walked inside.

  Much as in her visions, the operating room seemed to be the unit’s focal point. Kyle studied her surroundings, then shivered.

  Beyond that, she noticed another room, one she hadn’t seen before in her visions. Curiously, she headed toward it, then inside.

  Only about twenty by twenty feet, it was barely a room, more like an enclosure. The walls were thick, solid concrete, but oddly, lacked any sort of ceiling. Along them, every few feet, were thick leather cuffs with steel buckles—worn from use—dangling by the ends of short metal chains. Torture devices of some kind, Kyle thought; there was no mistaking that. Looking them over, she estimated that even a tall person would still hang several feet off the ground once hooked up to the barbaric devices, thanks to the help of metal steps with locking wheels parked beside each station. Kyle walked along the walls, studying them, while at the same time, feeling a hybrid of disgust and horror: layer over layer of age-old bloodstains covered the cold concrete, much like a sloppy coats of red paint.

  Subjugation indeed, she thought, now I know how.

  But she still didn’t know why.

  Kyle wondered what happened to the patients after they robbed them of their minds. Where did they go after being subjugated?

  This was no hospital; this was a concentration camp, one designed with only one goal in mind: to break the human spirit, destroy the soul.

  And by the looks of things, they’d done their job well. This place, this hell on earth, posed as some sort of medical facility, but in reality, it did the exact opposite of everything she’d learned that medicine was supposed to do.

  Kyle began feeling queasy again. She didn’t just want to leave the unit; she wanted to leave the building. Where she once felt exhilaration over finding her answers, she now felt nothing but revulsion. It was all far worse than anything she could have imagined, more, even, than in her dreams and visions.

  Ugly outside, even uglier inside, she thought, nothing about this place is good.

  She backed away, eyes still fixed on the bloodstained walls, then heard a loud screeching noise beneath her foot. Startled, she stepped sideways and looked down, but hardly felt prepared for what she saw.

  A rat scurried away, and in its mouth was what appeared to be a bone fragment.

  She screamed.

  Kyle couldn’t take another minute of it. She ran out of the room, back into the hallway.

  Fast as her feet could carry her, she headed into the stairwell, pulled the door closed behind her, then leaned against it, drawing a steadying breath. After that, she hurried back down the steps, toward the main floor.

  But when she got there, something else caught her attention, something that told her she was wasn’t going anywhere; at least, not yet.

  It was a sign, and it pointed directly toward the basement: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  The last thing she wanted to do was explore any more of this Godforsaken place; but she still hadn’t found all her answers, and the sign told her she just might.

  Musty darkness met her at the bottom of the stairway. Flicking on her keychain light, Kyle moved cautiously into the room, smelling something as she moved forward. It wa
s the same strange odor that came from the brown liquid in her dream, only now, it seemed much more powerful. Overwhelmed by the fumes and feeling dizzy, Kyle threw her hand over her nose as she moved on, trying to take shallow breaths, but that didn’t seem to help. With each step, the odor became more potent. When she reached the end of the room, she came to another door with yet another sign … and another warning: NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT.

  A series of rusted but still-functioning deadbolts covered the door. Kyle turned each of them, then grabbed a large, metal latch and pulled it down. The door began to crack open, and as it did, the odor became even stronger and more volatile. Kyle walked into and down a narrow hallway. While she could smell a lot, she could see very little. Her key light was quickly losing power. Soon it would grow even dimmer, leaving her in complete darkness.

  Trying to compensate for the lack of power and time, Kyle increased her speed, trying to reach the end of the hall before her only source of light dwindled down to nothing. Then she came upon another door and pulled it open. Surprisingly, as she did, the odor seemed to lessen. It took her a moment to realize why: she was outside again.

  Kyle looked around, only to discover she was standing in the middle of a giant stockyard, surrounded by more razor wire and chain-link fencing.

  Steel barrels—rows and rows of them—were lined up and stacked tall. Beneath them, a thick dark liquid oozed out, leaching into the soil, which sopped it up like a hungry sponge.

  Kyle looked out past the fencing. No more than twenty feet away, a small creek ran alongside the yard.

  And then something hard and heavy struck her in the back of her head.

  * * *

  The two men grabbed Kyle’s arms and legs, then dragged her down a long tunnel, her body swinging violently back and forth, knocking hard against the narrow walls.