Total Silence

by T. J. MacGregor

  He exploded through the front door, collided with a couple on the sidewalk, but didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. He ran, his shoes slapping the pavement, until he reached his VW He threw himself inside, turned on the engine, and sat there with his hands clenched against the steering wheel, his eyes squeezed shut, the doors locked, the air blowing against his face.

  There are secrets here.

  Shit.

  Someone should pay for it.

  His eyes snapped open, he pushed in the clutch, shifted into first gear, and swerved out of the parking space. He drove like a Panamanian, whipping through traffic, squeezing between cars, tires slamming over curbs and through potholes. By the time he reached the Balboa, his thoughts were sliding through a well-oiled groove, the same groove that was true now and forever more: It’s not my business.

  Chapter 9

  1

  Mira’s eyes opened to a dim light and complete silence. She could turn her head, but her arms and legs were strapped down. Although her left leg came up an inch or so off the mattress, she nearly passed out from the agony in her right leg, which was also strapped down.

  She screamed and it came out as a pathetic whimper, then a silly gasp, then a stifled sob. Bile surged in her throat and she knew that if it came up, she would drown in it, suffocate in her own vomit. Panicked, she managed to raise up just enough—and threw up all over herself. Then she collapsed against the mattress, her mouth tasting horribly sour, her body burning up. She squeezed her eyes shut against an assault of tears, certain that if she cried, her nose would clog up or the tears would drip down her throat, and she would choke.

  “Rose!” she shrieked.

  Footsteps, pounding somewhere above her. Mira lifted her head slightly, saw a flight of stairs on the other side of the room, geometric shapes of light spilling across it, and now someone tore down the stairs.

  “Get me out of here,” Mira shouted.

  “Calm down, Christ, calm down.”

  Mira blinked and the wacko’s face came into focus. ‘Whatever you’re giving me makes me sick.”

  “It’s probably from the anesthesia. I’ll have to get some clean sheets.”

  “What anesthesia?”

  “I had to put you out for surgery.”

  Surgery? My God, what did she do to me? “What the hell did you do to me?”

  “You need to calm down or you’re going to get sick again.”

  “Untie me. Un... What’s that?” she demanded, eyeing an instrument in Allie’s hand.

  “A digital thermometer. You touch it just inside the ear. You’ve never seen one of these?”

  Mira blinked again, saw the thermometer. My eyes don’t work; my legs don’t work, my arms don’t work.... Her head dropped back on the pillow, she shut her eyes. Her chest felt as though it were filled with broken glass.

  “I’m going to touch the thermometer to the inside of your ear,” Allie said.

  “I’m having trouble. . . breathing.”

  “Shit,” Allie hissed, and quickly untied the straps that had been holding her arms down. “Look, I want you to sip this and swallow a couple of aspirin. I’ll lift your head and—”

  Mira’s eyes snapped open. “Don’t touch me. You’ve already done enough damage. Aspirin will make my stomach worse.”

  Allie stepped back. “I was going to lift your head so that you can take some Advil. It shouldn’t bother your stomach. You’ve got a fever.”

  Advil. Fever. Right. Yes, Advil was a good idea. “How high’s my fever?”

  “High.”

  “How high?”

  “Nearly a hundred and four.”

  Mira struggled to calm herself, to sound rational. But she couldn’t think straight, it hurt to breathe. All she wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep. “Just give me the Advil. I’ll take it. And don’t give me any more of what you gave me. It makes me sick.”

  “We already had this conversation. You got sick because of the anesthesia. But the antibiotic doesn’t seem to be working, so I’m going to try something else.”

  She helped Mira sit up and handed her bottle of cold water and a container of Advil. It looked like the real thing and so did the two tablets she shook into her hand. She swallowed the tablets with a sip of water, then capped it again and rolled the cool bottle over her face, her arms, not only because it felt so good but because she was trying to buy herself a little time. Think, think. Her mind stumbled along, struggling to piece together a plan, a move, an escape route, something, anything. Her arms were free, but her legs were still strapped to the bed, so it wasn’t as if she could leap up and run for the door.

  Allie removed the straps on Mira’s left leg. “You need to keep that right leg immobile for a few more hours.” Her nails brushed the skin on Mira’s leg, but she couldn’t pick up shit from fingernails.

  “Who’s Rose?” Allie asked.

  “What?”

  “When I came in, you were shrieking for Rose.”

  Rose, Rose. It seemed that she should know this name, but there wasn’t any time to think about it. Allie was turning, saying something about food, that Mira should eat some solid food, and Mira saw an empty syringe on the bed stand. A voice inside of her head whispered, Do it, do it, do it now!

  Her fingers closed around the syringe, then she lunged forward and sank the needle into the fleshy area between Allie’s shoulder blades. She shrieked, her arms flew behind her head, hands grappling to reach it. She stumbled, lost her balance, and crashed into a tray on wheels. It flew back across the floor and Mira lurched forward, clawing at the strap that secured her right leg to the bed.

  Her fingers fumbled, her fever raged, her vision blurred, her breath exploded from her mouth. The strap—white, thick, made out of some sturdy material—gave a little and she jerked her leg to the right, the left, the pain biting so deep that her peripheral vision darkened and she nearly passed out. Then her leg popped free and she swiveled her butt against the mattress and slammed her left foot against the bedside stand. It rolled back across the floor and struck Allie just as she was rising. She fell back into the wall and slumped to the floor.

  Mira stood, weight on her left leg, her good leg, and grabbed onto the railing to steady herself. Stairs. She would get to the stairs, somehow get up those stairs and through the door and out of the house and to a car or to someplace where she could hide. You will not pass out, you will not pass out, you will not...

  First step, second... Don’t look back. . . . She gripped the railing with both hands and, dragging her leg behind her, pulled herself to the third step, the fourth. She wore a hospital gown and socks, her teeth chattered, she could barely see, her chest burned and ached with every breath she took. But the door was closer. She would get to that door. She could see the wall just beyond it She could smell her freedom, smell...

  A horrible weight fell against her, trapping her body against the stairs, smashing her injured thigh against the edge of a step. She felt the stitches popping and a hot rush of blood. Ailie grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. In the seconds before she plunged a needle into Mira’s neck, she saw her own body hanging from the branch of a gnarled tree like a bloody slab of beef, skin flayed, in long, precise strips.

  2

  Allie pulled the syringe out of Mira’s arm, wrenched away from her, and sat heavily on the edge of a step. Her chest heaved, beads of perspiration tracked down the sides of her face. She looked at the spent syringe, at the drop of ketamine glistening at the tip of the needle, and hurled it across the room. She rubbed her hands over her face, the puncture between her shoulder blades stung. No telling what kind of bacteria rioted in there now. And had the needle gone deep enough to scrape against bone? Had it chipped a disk?

  A wave of despair shuddered through her. How had she come to this? A nosy neighbor, a botched surgery, and four people dead. Until last night, her professional life had been about the Hippocratic oath. Heal, rescue, save. On the rare occasions when her father snapped out of the d
eep throes of the Alzheimer’s that had governed his life for the last six years, he begged her to kill him. Just gimme a shot, let me go.

  She’d never been able to do it—and yet she had killed four people because they had seen her—they were witnesses, they had been in the way. She’d had no other choice. She had shot a woman to stop her from escaping and had driven her into another state and fucked up the surgery to remove the bullet from her thigh and had given her the wrong antibiotics. Now infection raged through her body, and what probably had been a cold or the flu had turned into pneumonia.

  But Mira hadn’t left her any choice, either. When she’d been running last night, the only obvious way to stop her was to shoot her. What else could she have done?

  Maybe it was time to shift into Plan B. But both plans required moving Mira. If she moved her, Mira would die. If she didn’t move her right away, she would improve enough so that she could travel.

  But why travel if she could kill her here just as easily?

  Allie didn’t want to kill her here. It wasn’t in the pattern of either Plan A or B. In her head she could see the pattern, like a map of interconnected roads and highways, cities and towns, a grid, the topography of a new world, the world Allie had created. And in that world, Mira couldn’t die here, in a home connected to Allie’s family. She had to die in one of two possible locations.

  In Plan A, Allie would take Mira to a wooded area in Cassadaga, near Spirit Lake, and hang from her an old live oak. In Plan B, Allie would take Mira to a now decaying farm in High Springs, Florida, where she and her family had lived at one time, and string her up on a tree she and her brothers used to climb. Both places held special connections to Dean and in either place she could take her scalpel to Mira’s body with the precision of the surgeon she was.

  Allie pressed the heels of her hand against her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply—in, out, in, out, over and over again until she felt marginally calmer. She stood, reached down, turned Mira over. Heat radiated from her skin, her breathing sounded ragged, blood soaked the bandage around her thigh.

  She’s going to die before morning.

  Unless Allie repaired the damage to her leg again and got her the right drugs.

  But that would entail going into town with a prescription she had written. She could do that in this state, she was licensed here. But the town was small, just fifteen thousand people, and that meant the pharmacists would know the local docs, would know that she didn’t belong.

  But so what? She didn’t intend to stay. As soon as Mira was strong enough to travel, they would leave.

  Back off, back off, you’re leaping don’t go there yet.

  First things first: that was what her father used to tell her when he was still sane, before her mother had died, before, before...

  Before Dean...

  Before Ray...

  Allie shook away the pervasive gloom that had invaded the basement and took hold of Mira’s forearms. She heaved her upward against her own body and moved her dead weight down the stairs to the bed.

  Once Allie had Mira back on the bed, she washed up, put on latex gloves, and removed the bandage from Mira’s thigh. The stitches had torn. It took a while to pick out the ripped threads, cleanse the wound, and put in new stitches. She bandaged the wound again, removed the soiled hospital gown, and dressed Mira in one of Keith’s flannel shirts. It would keep her warm, but make it easy for Allie to check the wound.

  She stripped off the latex gloves, then strapped down both of Mira’s arms and legs again. The restraints had frightened her, but if Mira moved around too much, if she tried to escape again, it would only prolong their stay here. Restraints were necessary.

  Allie placed the intercom box near Mira’s right hand so she could push a button when she needed to use the bedpan. Off came the top sheet, the only one with vomit on it. She replaced it with a fresh sheet and covered Mira with a thick, clean blanket.

  Now. The mess. She had to clean up the huge mess. Everything disposable that was soiled with blood went into the garbage can. Later, she would remove the trash bag and take it to the dump. She put the soiled sheet and hospital gown into the washing machine under the staircase and started a wash. Then she moved everything away from the bed—the hospital tray, the nightstand, even the floor lamp. She used Clorox to mop the floor, washed her hands, and checked Mira’s temp again. It had dropped a bit and would continue to do so for the next four hours. But as soon as the Advil began to wear off, the pneumonia would push her temp through the ceiling again.

  She was tempted to give her another shot of ketamine to keep her sleeping through the night. Instead, she trusted nature to do its work, and turned her attention to her own problem.

  The spot between her shoulder blades where Mira had stabbed her with the needle still ached and stung. Since she couldn’t reach it to swab the area with Beta-dine, she swallowed a couple of Augmentin tablets to cover whatever nasties Mira’s body fluids might contain.

  What else? Have I forgotten anything?

  She looked slowly around. The bed where Mira lay was off to the left side of the stairs, and a chest of drawers with a lamp stood nearby. On the other side of the room was a sitting area—futon, coffee table, entertainment center, even a PC and a printer. She had long since uninstalled the Internet software from the computer, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Keith also had an office upstairs that was much grander. Why a man who didn’t work needed two offices was beyond her, just one more in-comprehensible detail about her brother.

  Allie decided she had done everything she could do, and turned off the overhead light. There. Much better. The glow of the floor lamp in the corner funneled light up the wall toward the ceiling, where it spread like pale, melted butter.

  “Sleep tight,” Allie said softly, then hurried up the stairs and locked the basement door behind her.

  Moments later, she stood in the darkened kitchen, hands balled against her chest, trying to still the panic that fluttered in her chest like some small, trapped bird. Her head ached, she was starving, she could smell Mira’s blood on herself. She wanted to go upstairs and shower and fall into bed. But if she did that now, Mira would be dead by morning.

  Change clothes and get moving.

  The town of Prescott, Georgia, lay four miles northwest of Keith’s home and the river. She remembered coming here once years ago, long before the events that had clearly marked her life into ‘Before” and “After.” It had been a family vacation, Mom and Dad and her two brothers driving forever in the camper. The five of them, that perfect number. Ray hadn’t come along yet, so she must have been around fifteen, Keith had been thirteen, and Dean had been five. They had settled in a campsite on the other side of the river that had long since been replaced by expensive homes.

  Back in those days, the campers didn’t have satellite dishes and the TV reception was filled with static when it came through at all. So Allie and her two brothers had spent their days rafting on the river or swimming in a shrouded lagoon they had found farther downstream. Her memories of that summer vacation seemed idyllic to her now and she wondered if Keith felt the same way. It was the only explanation for why he had built his expensive retreat here rather than on St. Bart’s or Saba or on one of the other exotic Caribbean islands that he visited so frequently.

  She followed the two-lane road into town, relieved that it had been plowed, but dismayed by the temperature displayed in the digital window just above her head: 19 F. Although it was supposed to warm up into the low thirties tomorrow, snow was predicted. How much snow?

  How long would it snow? The cold front from Canada was definitely pushing southward, but due to prevailing winds at higher altitudes, no one could say for sure how far south it would push. So here she was, on the night of December 28, with a January 1 deadline staring back at her from the future, and she couldn’t say with any certainty whether she would make it.

  No. She would make it. One way or another, she would get to Cassadaga or to High Springs
by her deadline.

  Leave now. Tonight. It was a lovely thought, but she knew Mira wouldn’t survive the trip. Even if she did, Allie hadn’t finished outfitting the trailer yet and hadn’t picked the campground. Best to stay put until December 31, then drive like hell.

  Prescott still looked as it had thirty years ago, like a throwback to the 1950s. The main street was more than 130 feet wide and lined by businesses and shops that were, even now, mostly family owned. She supposed that when you were born in Prescott, you lived and died here as well.

  The brick courthouse that she now passed, a designated historic landmark, had been built in the early 1800s and was still in use. It shared the block with another landmark, the Prescott train depot, circa 1836. Some years back, it had been converted into a restaurant and a local-history museum. Five or six years ago, when she and her second husband, Steve, were still getting along, they had come up here for a long weekend.

  As a history professor, he was fascinated by old towns and had insisted on eating in the depot restaurant and going through the museum. Allie found most American history boring, but the Mound Builders who had occupied this land more than a thousand years ago intrigued her.

  They were known for their advanced agricultural techniques and she believed that they, like the Maya and the Incas, had known a great deal about medicinal herbs.

  She had traveled to many countries in search of information on medicinal herbs and now had an impressive library of information on the subject. At her home on Tybee Island, she had one large, sunlit room where she grew herbs. She often used them on herself—as immune boosters, for energy—and had experimented on her father, hoping that some combination of herbs would arrest the progress of his Alzheimer’s. She had at least two herbs in her arsenal that would work more efficiently on Mira’s pneumonia than any drug. But since she hadn’t anticipated pneumonia as a complication to her little mission, she hadn’t brought any herbs, so here she was, pulling up in front of Calvin’s Drugstore.