Death Without Company

by Craig Johnson

  When I got to the first floor there was a set of tracks leading down the steps. I placed my foot next to the prints and knelt down to look at them. The prints were of a different brand than the ones that had been left in the snow at the home, but they were larger than mine. Different shoes, but it was the same foot.

  I decided to forgo the conversation with Ruby that I had planned and continued down the stairs to the next security door, which was labeled, in large red letters, HOSPITAL PERSONNEL ONLY. I eased open the heavy door and looked down the corridor toward a steel screen-encaged bulb that hung about halfway down and that gave off a weak yellowish light. The footprints feathered away on the smooth sheen of the chemically coated concrete, and my only clue abandoned me.

  I quietly closed the stairwell door and moved along the wall to the first door on the right. I reached across and turned the knob. Locked.

  I glanced into the darkness between the next bulb and myself, another twenty feet away. The second door was on my side and an equal distance from the first. I moved along the wall and tried the knob. It was stiff but turned and opened. I glanced in, but the room was dark. I felt along the wall and flipped a switch. It was a storage room with cut-down trays and medical cabinets. There were sterile dressings, bandages, and utility carts, but no Leo Gaskell, so I flipped off the light and quietly closed the door.

  I thought I might have heard a noise, but I couldn’t be sure. I stood there for a moment, listening to the constant thrum of the building as it continued to go about its business of life and death. Join the club.

  The next door was locked as well, but I could see from here where the hallways joined at the center, just as they did on the two main floors. There were large pipes sticking from the wall that returned and disappeared into the concrete, and there was a little more light coming from the adjoining hallway. An old metal desk, crowded with papers and folders, was shoved against the wall. There was a chair kicked out to the side, and a faint set of boot prints where whoever had come down the stairwell had sat and waited.

  Waited for what? Waited for whom?

  It had been a while since I’d checked in, so I plucked the walkie-talkie from my belt. It was a calculated move, but I felt pretty sure about it. I switched the transceiver to silent so the only indicator would be the LED gain that hopefully one of my staff would notice. I hit the button. I hit the button again, clicking it off and on. Still nothing. I hit it one more time and got a response. “Where the fuck are you?” Good thing I had turned the volume down. “See anything?”

  “Footprints, you?”

  “Nothing. Do you need backup?”

  “No.”

  It was silent for a moment. “You suck.”

  The bottom drawer on the right-hand side was slightly ajar. I stooped and pulled out an impressive ring of keys, each one numbered and color coded with small plastic edges indicating the floor and wing of each. Why would someone leave an entire set of master keys in an unlocked drawer in the basement? I quickly flipped through the sequential numbers to Anna’s supposed room, each key clicking like an abacus. Key number 216 was missing. I entertained a dark series of thoughts as ice water flooded my bowels, and I turned the keys to the 100 series and found that key 132 was also gone.

  The initial response must have been that my left hand pulled the fore grip back, moving the action bar and bolt assembly of the Remington Model 870 back into a cocked position. This same hand must have then come forward as I dropped the keys and slammed a plastic shell with slightly imperfect and deformed buckshot into the action and locked it for fire. Then my right forefinger must have punched the safety through the mechanism, because it did not fire as I lurched forward, pushed the desk back, and ran into the darkness.

  I must have chosen the far passageway because it would give me a clear shot from the stairwell to the end of the corridor. I know it took no longer than a few seconds for me to make it down the hall, through the door, and up the stairs, but in the adrenalin-induced state it had all shifted into a hazed torpor. All I remember was yanking the door open to the first floor with the shotgun ready.

  My father had trained me; he was a precise and persistent shooting instructor who started teaching me when I was five. Most people are self-taught; they don’t shoot enough to acquire skill or even become used to handling guns. They stand wrong, hold their heads wrong, and even close one eye when they sight, thus cutting down vision and handicapping themselves in their ability to judge distance.

  Thirty-five yards.

  I clicked the safety off. “Sheriff’s Department. Freeze!”

  Only his head turned to me; his hands remained on the knob. He smiled with horrible teeth, and drew his shoulder back.

  I knew that I would make the shot, just as I was sure that there was a .38 caliber revolver waiting on the other side of that door that was being held in a two-handed, standing position by a steady hand with a set of beautifully manicured nails. At thirty-five yards the 12-gauge would more than hurt him, but at eight feet the .38 would kill him. It wasn’t that I minded Leo dead all that much, but I didn’t want Cady to do it.

  As his shoulder came forward so did mine, and I fired.

  Contrary to popular belief, even the most powerful of modern loads and weapons only cause the target to slump and fall; Leo’s attempt to push the door open was converted into an assisted collapse into the doorjamb where his knees buckled for a moment. He straightened as he turned to glare at me.

  “Sheriff’s Department, don’t move!”

  He did, of course, and transferred his weight into a galloping retreat down the corridor. One foot slightly dragged behind the other in his attempt to get away. I pushed off and started to pursue him. He was moving fast, especially for a man with a couple of extra ounces of lead in him. There were fire exits at the end of the hallways at Durant Memorial, but he turned the corner leading to the front entrance and disappeared in the direction of the desk and Ruby.

  I am not the fastest man in Absaroka County; I knew I wasn’t even the fastest man in the hospital right now, but I was going to have to do. I tried to make the corner at the entryway and bounced off the far wall in time to see the pneumatic doors at the front of the hospital slowly close. Ruby was standing at the reception desk waving me on as I approached. “Go! Go!”

  I slammed through the two sets of doors and onto the sidewalk. Surely they had heard the shotgun up on the second floor; I was going to need backup. He had changed direction and was running the length of the hospital toward the snow-covered golf course and the town park that were located beyond the drifts that had been plowed against the parking lot’s chain-link fence.

  Sixty yards, and I was keeping pace.

  The air was cold, and each step felt as if I were pushing a car. I cursed my laziness at not running for the last few weeks but watched with satisfaction as Leo slipped on the man-size mountains of plowed snow and crashed into the fence. I started to bring the shotgun up but, incredibly, his hands clutched the twisted top of the railing, and he threw himself over and into the darkness beyond; I was convinced he wasn’t human.

  I knew I had to gain all the momentum I could between here and there, so I lengthened my stride and pushed the car harder. The frozen crust held just long enough for me to use it as a ramp. I calculated my options, threw the Remington over the fence, and hit the top rail at about my hips. The continued momentum carried me over head first, flipping me and depositing me flat on my back onto the cushioning snow below. I forced the air into my lungs, lurched up into a sitting position, and searched for the shotgun; I couldn’t find it. I looked up to see Leo Gaskell making time as I scrambled onto my knees and looked for any disturbance in the snow that might indicate where my only weapon might be.

  Nothing.

  It was a dreadful decision, but the only one that made sense if I was going to catch him. I rolled to one side, pushed off with my back leg, and started after him unarmed. I could still see him in the distance as the moon struggled through the cloud c
over and the branches of the huge conifers that surrounded the ninth green and the Clear Creek reservoir where an awful lot of golfers lost their balls. The snow was almost to our knees, but his long legs made progress like some crazy posthole tamper.

  Methamphetamines, had to be.

  There was a gradual decline, which led to a flat and a few deciduous trees before you got to what looked like a break in the fence and the creek beyond. He just didn’t seem to be slowing, whereas my second and third wind seemed to be going the way of the first. My lungs felt like they were going to explode, but I could hear something coming up on my left. It was Saizarbitoria, and he passed me. His knees pumped above the snow like Leo’s, and I could see the Baretta 9mm in his left hand and the bare soles of his feet flashing back at me as he pulled away. It didn’t take long for him to get far ahead of me but, after a few more strides, I discovered that I could keep pace by running in Sancho’s naked footprints. His stride was only a little shorter than mine, and I gained speed going down the hill. Just as he got to the flat area, Leo disappeared through the sagging part of the fence.

  In the spears of moonlight, I could see where the bank dropped off down to another level area where the wind had pushed the snow pack from the reflective surface of the ice on Clear Creek. I saw Saizarbitoria charge through the fence, through the trees, and he too was gone.

  By the time I got to the flat, lumbered through the fence, and bounced off one of the trees, I could see them struggling at the creek bank. The elongated, stalklike shadow of Leo Gaskell struck Saizarbitoria with a hammering, roundhouse blow, and I watched as my deputy slumped, and Leo lifted him to slug him again.

  Up until this moment my size and weight had worked against me but, with only thirty feet to go, I put everything I had into Leo. He was just turning as I hit him with all the accumulated speed of the last five minutes; we carried Saizarbitoria with us as we went. I felt the breath go out of Leo as we flew over and out onto the middle of the creek. The three of us landed with a shuddering thud as the surface of the ice indented with a resonating sound that carried vibrations across the surface, through Leo Gaskell, Sancho, and into me. Almost immediately, the ice shattered and dropped us into the freezing water that traveled swiftly beneath the surface. Sancho wasn’t moving, and I could feel he was under us and was dropping faster as the edge of the ice crumbled from underneath.

  I closed one hand around Leo’s struggling shoulders and clasped the hood of his insulated coveralls with the other, the quick popping noise telling me it had detached from the rest of him. He lurched sideways in an attempt to free himself of me, but I held on with one hand and dragged him back to the black water behind us. I threw the hood away and slapped a hand on Sancho as the current yanked at his legs.

  I could feel Leo wrench away from me again. He was a monster; his huge shoulders and chest were disproportionate in comparison with his lean waist and limbs, and his head seemed like some block teetering out on the end of his stem-like neck. If my suspicions were correct, Leo Gaskell suffered from lack of appetite, insomnia, exceedingly high blood pressure, palpitations, and cyanosis with cerebral hemorrhage next on the list but, right now, he was just strong as an ox.

  There were fissures in the surrounding ice, and the thumping of the trapped air and water was as loud as our struggling. I could see large chunks of the ice breaking apart where Sancho was sinking. I tightened my grip and tried to drag him toward me, but Leo took advantage of my brief distraction to twist sideways again and bring his booted foot up and into my face. I heard the surprising crack and grinding of broken bone. I tried to stretch my facial muscles to check the damage, but nothing felt as if it were moving.

  I couldn’t hang on to Sancho and Leo; Leo slipped my grasp, getting half his body onto the thicker ice at the edge of the creek, and he watched as the ice surrounding Saizarbitoria and me broke off with the sound of pistol shots.

  The last thing I saw of Leo Gaskell, with my one eye, he was smiling, showing those twisted and rotting teeth.

  There wasn’t a lot of time to prepare for the effects of the water, and maybe that was a blessing. There’s a tingling and a high itch that shrieks in the back of your head when you hit water this cold, probably some kind of alarm that’s telling your body that this is a really bad idea. All I could think to do was keep a hold on Sancho’s jacket as I felt him slip down with me. I couldn’t feel the bottom, and the ridge of ice around us was breaking away in handfuls. My legs went along with the current, pushing against the undersurface and giving me just enough leverage to shove Sancho’s chest up and onto the ice.

  I turned my head sideways, trying to get the rest of Saizarbitoria’s unconscious body out of the water, and it was then that the ledge I was hanging on to completely let go. I released Sancho so that he would not be dragged under with me and scrambled with both hands to get another grip on the broken lip of the ice, but it was too late. I was cognizant enough to draw a deep breath as the ice broke beneath me.

  The sweeping current of Clear Creek yanked me below as my one eye looked for the surface by following the bubbles as they swirled away from me and began a stately rise to the air above. Paisleys of plum and electric green and the stark white of the moon reflected in the world I had come from. I hoped that I had gotten Saizarbitoria far enough up so that he would not be pulled under as well.

  I was bleeding adrenaline, and the areas of unprotected skin were now absolutely numb. There were shadowy, echoing sounds that approached from all directions. With a sudden exertion, I slapped my hands against the smooth facade of the underside of the ice as part of my remaining air escaped with a faint rumbling noise that matched the thumping of my hands against the hard surface.

  The one eye was still functioning, so I strained to see the bubbles, but the view was distorted and confusing and I continued to feel as if I were falling backward. The weight of my head pivoted me to the side and my arms trailed out behind me. I frantically tried to right myself and turn back, but my arms wouldn’t move, and my fingers felt motionless.

  The dull glow of the surface didn’t appear from above but seemed to radiate all around me. Somehow it was lighter now, and I could just see that the bottom of the creek was scattered with broken tree limbs and large stones. Everything seemed to glow with a pale light with no shadow, and grand sweeps of bubbles stood still in the frozen water with deep cracks that shone like knife blades.

  The back of my head hit something hard as I moved along, and a little more air escaped. I could taste a small amount of blood in my mouth, and my head was yanked down with the current and a sharp pain lingered in my side. There was a continuous thumping, but it was more rhythmical than before and was now accompanied by a continuous baritone that pressed painfully against my ears.

  The vertigo caused by the current had subsided to a dull ache of inverted velocity. The uniform horizon had shifted from green to an almost impenetrable black, and the only thing I could hear was the sound of the drums that pounded my skull against what felt like solid rock.

  With all the energy I had left, I pivoted to one side and tried to break free from whatever was holding me. I tried to drive my elbow into the ice above as the current knocked me back and forth. I shifted, this time keeping the movement more compact and not allowing the water to rob me of momentum: a resounding thump and then nothing. The bleeding adrenalin staunched, and air was now the issue. I slammed my hand against the ice this time, and the sound reverberated along with the drums. Shadows moved in the dull glow of the surface as I flailed against it with wooden fingers. I stretched my arms out in an attempt to widen my hunt and searched for any opening, but there was none. I almost laughed when the shadows appeared above me, and there was a strident sound, a shrieking din that sounded like the warbling pitch of Cheyenne plainsong, and I must have been hallucinating because it seemed as if a huge blade had knifed through the thickness of the ice. I fumbled a hand toward it, but it disappeared, and the pressure in my lungs built to the point of explosion. I felt m
y diaphragm tense as it prepared to blow my lungs clear of my last breath. I held it for a few seconds more, just as the broad blade of something like an axe appeared again.

  They say that your life passes before your eyes, but that’s not what happens. What happens is that you think of all the things you didn’t get done, big things, small things, all the things that are left.

  I exhaled and immediately drew in two lungs full of frozen water. There were still sounds, the echoing thump of the drums and the shrieking din of the discordant song, but they slowly faded as I wavered there in the current. The pressure pulled my chin down to my chest, and I noticed a white round speck lodged against the dark mud at the banks of Clear Creek just before the rushing eddies rocked me into the black.

  “How is my English?”

  Her voice came from the right and was slightly behind me. I dipped my head and looked under my arm to see a beautiful pair of naked suntanned feet. She was standing in the same swales of buffalo grass as she had before. I turned to look at her. “Good, better than my Basque.” She was gorgeous and was wearing what she always wore in my dreams, a flowing summer dress with small white dots on a dark background. A breeze drifted from the mountains and pushed the chiffon against her legs, and the sun glowed warm against the Big Horns. She was petite, and my first instinct was to place my hand at the small of her back and lift her up so that I could get a closer look at the perfect face hidden in the swirl of dark hair. She reached a hand out, then let it drop in resignation, and glanced toward the ridges of the canyon above. I followed her eyes and noticed that clouds had gathered where the mountains and sky met. There was a long line of Cheyenne warriors on horseback pressed in formation to the horizon at the break of the canyon. “Friends of yours?”

  She laughed. “Yours.”

  I looked back at the feathered headdresses, the beads, the fringe, and the weapons. The horsemen were painted, along with their horses, and their power stopped my breathing. One of them stood in the saddle and looked down at me, the hair a different color than the rest. “Is that somebody I know?”