“‘Bout damn time,” Raymond said.
“Took some time to figure out how to get in here,” Billy Ray said. “We lucked out, though. Fella that works the kitchen’s a customer of ours. He let me, ah--borrow this here cart for a little bit.”
Raymond smiled. “Never though I’d see you deliverin’ meals to shut-ins, Billy Ray,” he said.
The man grunted. He reached beneath the cart and pulled out a pair of Tec-9's, stubby semi-automatics that looked like oversized pistols. Long magazines stuck out from in front of the trigger guards. “50 round mags,” he said, “and these are converted to full auto.” He pulled out a silencer and screwed it onto the perforated barrel. He handed the pistol to Raymond, who took it with his free hand. “What about the cuffs?” Raymond demanded. “A fifty round mag ain’t gonna do me much good if I’m still tied to the bed.”
Billy Ray reached under the cart and pulled out a pair of long-handled bolt-cutters. “Watch the door,” he said as he began working on the handcuffs with the cutters. Raymond held the Tec-9 awkwardly in his left hand, tilting it slightly sideways facing the door. Billy Ray grunted as he chewed on the handcuff chain with the cutters. Suddenly, with an audible snap, the chain parted, leaving Raymond with a single cuff and chain dangling from his wrist. He transferred the gun to his right hand. “Alright,” he said. “Now where do we go?”
“Delmer is downstairs in the car,” Billy Ray said. He took a cell phone out of the pocket of the blue coverall. “I better call and make sure he ain’t gone to sleep. There’s some clothes for you in the cart.” Raymond located a pair of blue jeans and a shirt on a shelf inside the cart as Billy Ray dialed. As Billy Ray spoke urgently into the phone, Raymond searched the closets. “Hey,” he complained. “The sonsabitches took my shoes.”
“It’s a warm night,” Billy Ray said. “An’ we gotta go.”
At that moment, the door swung open. The blonde nurse Raymond had seen earlier chatting with the cop entered, holding a silver clipboard. Her blue eyes widened in shock as she saw Raymond out of bed and the guns in his hand. She dropped the clipboard which rattled noisily on the floor. Billy Ray strode quickly to the woman and yanked her towards him. He spun her around and wrapped one arm around her from behind. As the cop came into the room, he raised the pistol in his other hand and stuck it against the nurse’s ear. Raymond raised his own gun and pointed it at the cop. “Don’t do nothin’ stupid,” he said, “or he’ll scatter this bitch’s brains all over the room.” The nurse moaned in fear.
The cop raised his hands, as if placating them. “Easy, there, fellas,” he said softly. “Let’s don’t do something that everybody’s going to regret.”
“Good idea,” Raymond said. ‘Whyn’t you start by takin’ your gun outta the holster. With your left hand, two fingers. Or I’ll do somethin’ you sure as hell will regret.”
The cop hesitated a moment, every instinct warning him against giving up his weapon. Billy Ray yanked the nurse against him again, hard. She squeaked in fear, too frightened to scream. The cop shook his head. Slowly, he reached over with his left hand and unbuttoned the holster. He awkwardly removed the pistol, holding it between thumb and forefinger.
“Now put it on the floor. Slow.” Raymond said. “Then slide it over here with your foot.”
The cop bent over, his eyes never leaving Raymond’s face. He placed the gun on the worn linoleum. He slowly straightened up. “Okay,” he said. “Now what?”
“For you?” Raymond said. “Nothin’”. He pulled the trigger. The silenced pistol chattered. A line of red holes appeared across the the cop’s chest. This time the nurse did scream.
“Damn,” Billy Ray grimaced. He shoved the sobbing nurse towards the door, holding onto her collar with one hand and holding the gun into the small of her back with the other.
“He still had a radio,” Raymond shrugged. “He’d be on it as soon as we got outta the room. An’ I ain’t takin’ no cop along with us.” He followed Billy Ray out the door and into the hallway. A male nurse coming out of the room across the hall gaped at them as they came out. “Get back in there,” Raymond ordered. “And stay there.” The man obeyed, leaving the long hallway empty for the moment. Raymond knew that wouldn’t last; the hospital was a hive of activity at all hours of the day and night.
He looked at the ceiling. A row of widely spaced sprinklers ran down the center of the hallway, interspersed with heat and smoke sensors. “You got a lighter?” Raymond said. Billy Ray released the nurse long enough to fish a cigarette lighter out of the breast pocket of the coverall. Raymond flicked it on and held it up, directly under one of the sensors. After a few seconds, a loud klaxon horn blared, its ear-splitting honking repeating over and over. The sprinklers began spewing a soaking mist of water into the hallway. The nurse screamed again as the drenching downpour immediately soaked them to the skin, plastering their clothing to them. People began spilling into the hallway, nurses pushing patients in hospital beds and wheelchairs.
“No more water,” Raymond whispered, “but the fire next time.”
“Let her go,” Raymond said, motioning to the nurse. “She’ll only slow us down.” Billy Ray obeyed, shoving her into the crowd.
“He’s got a gun!” she screamed, and the crowd became a mob, pushing and shoving to get away from the water and the armed men. It was a scene of utter chaos, with people stumbling into one another and gurneys and wheelchairs colliding.
“Where’s the stairway?” Raymond shouted.
“Back this way,” Billy Ray said, backing up. He fired a quick burst into the ceiling above the crowd, increasing their panic before the two men turned and bolted around the corner. They located the stairway marked “authorized personnel only” and plunged down it, four steps at a time, past three floors and the lobby floor to the basement level. They burst out into a dimly lit hallway.
“Which way?” Raymond panted. The sutures across his side blazed like flames.
“I dunno,” Billy Ray said. “This wasn’t how I planned to get out.”
“Fuck,” Raymond said. He jogged down the hallway past a line of battered vending machines. He had to stop and catch his breath. It was then that he noticed the sticky wetness along his side. He looked down to see a slow seepage of blood coming through his shirt. Billy Ray pulled up alongside of him. He noticed the blood and grimaced.
“Man,” he said, “We get out of here, we better find you a doctor. I know a guy…”
“Later,” Raymond grunted. He saw a heavy pair of metal doors at the end of the hallway. He walked over and pushed them open. The doors led to a small grass courtyard with a rusty metal picnic table. The lights of the parking lots glimmered beyond. “C’mon,” Raymond said. “We gotta get out of here.”
CHAPTER NINE
Keller sat on the couch, drinking a beer as Marie cleaned up in the kitchen. She had asked him to stay for dinner. The meal had been a hectic affair, with Marie spending half her time trying to talk to Keller and the other half trying to ensure that more food got into her son than ended up on him. Now, with dinner over, Marie had banished them both to the living room. Keller took a sip of his beer and stared at a baseball game on TV without actually watching it as he listened to Marie clattering around in the kitchen. Ben seemed absorbed with a set of brightly colored wooden blocks a few feet away on the living room floor. It was such a normal scene that Keller felt out of place, like a visitor from another planet.
Keller looked up to see the boy standing in front of him, a thin book in his chubby hands. “Read,” the boy said simply. Feeling a little foolish, Keller took the book. It was a dog-eared and jelly-stained retelling of the story of the Little Engine That Could. The boy clambered up on the couch beside him and pointed to the book. “Read,” he said again, a little impatiently. Keller sighed, opened the book and began to read. He had gotten to the point where the Little Engine was puffing up the hill and was reading the Engine’s mantra of “I think I can, I think I can,” trying to pitch his voice with a suitably strained
inflection, when he looked up and saw Marie. She was standing in the kitchen door. She had covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her laughter but her eyes were dancing.
“You’re enjoying this,” he said.
“You better believe it,” she said. “Tough guy.”
“READ,” the boy ordered, then added, “tough guy.”
Keller sighed and went on. When the book was finished, Marie applauded. “C’mon, little man,” she said, sweeping Ben off the couch. She gave Keller a quick peck on the cheek. “It’s time for a bath and then to bed.”
“I wannanother book,” the boy complained, but allowed himself to be led towards the bathroom. Keller got up and stretched. “Stick around,” Marie said, waving him back towards the couch. “After that, you probably could use a little grownup conversation.”
Keller got another beer and sat down. He tried to sort out what he was feeling. What was going on between him and Marie seemed like a betrayal of Angela. But he knew there was no commitment with Angela, no relationship to betray. He thought again of Angela’s word that he was always looking for a damsel in distress. If so, he seemed to have no luck whatsoever in finding them.
After the boy was bathed and safely tucked in bed, Marie came back in and sat on the couch. Keller put his arm around her and she snuggled into the hollow of his shoulder. “It was sweet of you to read to Ben,” she whispered, and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“He didn’t give me much choice,” Keller said.
She laughed. “He’s not shy about letting you know what he wants,” she said. “Just like...” she trailed off.
“Like his father?” Keller said.
She bit her lower lip, then shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about him,” she said.
“Okay.”
Something in his tone made her look at him. She put a hand on his chest. “Jack,” she said. “I’m not trying to shut you out. Really. It’s just that--hell, I don’t know.” She paused for a long moment. “Talking about him makes me feel bad,” she said, “and I want to feel good right now, okay? I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”
“Thanks,” Keller said.
She laughed and kissed him again, harder. “You’re welcome,” she said. “Besides, I want to find out more about you.”
Keller willed himself not to tense up. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know,” she said lightly. “Where’re you from? What’re your folks like? Stuff like that.”
Keller took a deep breath. “I’m from Charleston. My grandmother raised me. Next question.” He cursed himself inwardly for the anger he couldn’t keep out of his voice.
She was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “If it’s something that makes you feel bad, it’s not fair to ask you to talk about it. I guess.”
Keller shook his head. “No,” he said, “don’t be sorry. You didn’t know. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
“No,” she agreed. “But it’s okay.” she moved closer to him and began rubbing his neck. Keller closed his eyes, letting her strong fingers relax the tension in him. Finally, he opened his eyes.
“I never met my father,” he said. “Mom said he was a sailor from the naval base. She said he was killed in Vietnam. I don’t know if that was true. Truth was--kind of a flexible thing with my Mom.”
“She left you?” Marie whispered. Keller nodded, unable to speak further. She pulled him close and kissed him deeply. His hand came up to caress her hair and she moaned softly.
“You can’t stay the night,” she whispered as they broke the kiss, “it wouldn’t be right for Ben to see you--well, you know.” She kissed him again. “But you can stay awhile longer.”
“What about--” he gestured towards the boy’s bedroom.
“Already asleep,” she said. “And when he’s down, you could stampede a herd of buffalo through his room and he wouldn’t wake up. But we’ll lock the door,” she said, “just in case.” She stood up and took his hand, leading him to the bedroom.
They began more gently this time, the need for quiet holding them to soft caresses and whispers at first. But as they moved together, they gained urgency until she stuffed the corner of a pillow into her mouth and bit down hard to stifle her cries. He buried his face in her shoulder to muffle his own sounds of pleasure as he joined her in climax. Afterwards, they lay entwined as their breathing returned to normal. After a few moments, she raised her head and kissed him on the ear. He rolled over on his back and drew her to him. In moments they were both asleep.
He awoke a few hours later. Marie was in his arms, her head cradled against his chest. He watched her sleep for a few moments, marveling out how good it felt to simply hold her. She stirred slightly, then opened her eyes and looked at him.
Her eyes had no iris or pupil, just dark red embers that quickly brightened to bright yellow, then white-hot flames. Her skin began charring and peeling away from the bone beneath, revealing a core of raging fire where her face had been. The blackened remnants of a skull grinned sardonically up at him, framed by cooked gobbets of flesh still clinging to the bone. Keller screamed and shoved the apparition away from him. She fell to the floor, then, impossibly, stood up, reaching out to him with fingers burned down to the bone. Her mouth opened and a long hissing shriek came out like steam escaping from a locomotive. A reeking cloud of smoke blew into his face, the stinking breath of a crematorium. He screamed again and struck out blindly at her.
He was screaming, she was screaming, but it was Ben’s cries that pulled him from the pit of the dream. Keller realized that he was on top of Marie, straddling her body, his hands around her throat. She was clawing at his wrists, her nails leaving bloody scratches as she tried to break his grip. Ben was pounding on the locked door and wailing in terrified incomprehension. Keller leaped up off the bed. He backed away from her so quickly that he slammed hard into the wall. She rolled off onto the floor, gasping for breath. Ben’s cries were rising to the point of hysteria. Marie stood up and grabbed her robe. “Get in the bathroom until I can get him calmed down,” she hissed at Keller. “He can’t see you here.” Keller obeyed numbly, his mind still reeling with shock.
He retreated to the bathroom until he heard her close the bedroom door behind her. He could hear her voice in the hallway, the words muffled by the door but the tone reassuring. The boy had stopped wailing, but he was demanding to know what was happening in a loud tearful voice. After a moment, Keller heard the door of the boy’s bedroom close and the voices were cut off.
Keller exited the bathroom and quickly gathered up his clothes. He dressed himself and stumbled to the door. As he passed by the doorway to the boy’s bedroom, he could hear the soft sounds of Marie singing a lullaby. He paused for a moment to listen. He rested his head against the door and reached up to touch it lightly with the fingers of one hand. Then he straightened up and walked down the hallway to the front door.
Once outside, he paused a moment to take a deep breath of the soggy air. He realized he was trembling. He sat down on the front stoop to gather himself. He ran his hands over his face as if trying to scrape something away.
He heard the front door open behind him. He knew it was Marie, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He was afraid of what he might see in her eyes: disgust, fear, or worst of all, pity. He felt her sit on the step above him. There was a brief pause, then she leaned against him from behind. Her arms went around his chest and hugged him tightly.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It was just a nightmare.”
Keller shook his head angrily. “I tried to--I mean I could have--and I scared the kid. I’m sorry.”
Another pressure of her arms around him. “He’s already asleep again,” she said. “It’ll be fine.” Keller said nothing, made no response to her embrace. After a moment, she released him and straightened up. “Come on back to bed,” she said. “It’s late.”
“No,” he said. “You’re right. I can’t stay th
e night. It’s not right with the kid--with Ben there.”
“Yeah,” she said. Her voice was puzzled and hurt. “Okay. I wasn’t talking about the whole night, but--okay.” He didn’t hear her move away. There was another long pause. Finally, she said, “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me, Jack.” He didn’t respond. He heard the door close. He turned around as if to say something but stopped as he heard the solid snick of the deadbolt. It was a loud as the slam of a cell door. He stood up and walked down the driveway to his car. When he got there, he picked up the cell phone and looked at it. He dialed a number he hadn’t dialed in years, but it was a number he knew as well as his own.
After a few rings, a deep voice, furred with sleep, answered. “H’lo?”
“It’s Jack Keller,” Keller said.
“Jack?” the voice said. “Jesus Christ, man, it’ s three-thirty in the goddamn morning.”
“I know,” Keller said. “I’m sorry to wake you up. I need to talk to you again.”
“Then call my office and make a goddamn appointment--okay, sorry. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“The dreams are back. And they’re worse.”
“How bad?” the voice said gently.
Keller took a deep breath. “I almost hurt somebody.”
The voice sharpened. “Did you actually hurt anybody? Is anybody in any danger right now?”
Keller looked at the closed door and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m gone.”
“How about you?” the voice said. “You feel like hurting yourself?”
Keller thought about that. “No,” he said finally. “So I guess it can wait.”
“But not long,” the voice said. “Call my office first thing. I’ll be in by 8:30. Someone else can take my group therapy session.”
“Thanks, Major,” Keller said. “I owe you one.”
“All you owe me, Sergeant,” the voice said, “is to let me finish the job this time.”
“Okay,” Keller said.
“Get some sleep, troop,” the voice said. “And no dreams. That’s an order.”
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