“Ellen,” Johnny called her name upon walking into the cryo-lab.
Her eyes stared forward for a moment and then Ellen turned around. “What’s up, Johnny?”
“We need to talk.”
Maybe Ellen was paranoid, but she had to wonder why Johnny as seeking her out so late at night and down in the cryo-lab. “Actually, I have to get up top.” She started to walk.
“No.” Johnny extended his arm stopping her. “We have to talk now.”
“Sure.” She placed on a fake upbeat demeanor.
“Two things.” Johnny’s voice was stern. “First. The medicine cooler. Why am I not allowed in there anymore?”
“It’s not just you. It’s everyone that isn’t me and Dean,” Ellen stated calmly. “Blame Henry. He totally zeroed out Dean’s trust in people. In fact, Dean said you don’t know who to trust anymore.”
“Are you sure Dean said that and not you.”
Ellen just looked at him. “I have to go.”
“The phone.” He pulled her back. “The pass code is changed.”
Almost too arrogant, Ellen shrugged. “Gee, I don’t know. Why would you know the pass code has been changed if you weren’t breaking your promise and using the phone again?” As she tried to get by him, he abruptly grabbed her arm. She shifted her eyes to his fingers. “Get your hand off of me.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
“No,” she said strongly. “I don’t think you understand. I will go to your father.”
“And what?” Johnny laughed. “Tell him I tried to call George. Do you think he’ll believe you?”
“Absolutely. In fact, you know I’m not pissing around with you. I’m going to him now.” She tried to pull away.
“You’ll do no such thing.” Johnny snatched her back to him hard and sprung out his hand. He clenched a fist full of her hair and yanked her head back. “Listen to me. You won’t say shit to anyone. Not yet. Not until I am gone.”
Ellen struggled. Johnny pulled so hard, her feet nearly lifted from the ground. “If you want out . . .” She fought, but the arching of her neck cut off her air and words. “Leave.”
“I can’t.” He brought his face closer. “I need to call George. Until then, you will keep your mouth shut. Open it, Ellen. Go on. Go to my father and I’ll kill him.”
Ellen’s heart sunk and her face tensed up. “You’d never get the chance.”
“You don’t think? He trusts me. How easy it would be to just take advantage of that. You don’t think I can? Watch me. And just so don’t get any funny ideas, I’m not the only one in Beginnings. If I go down, don’t think for one second my people don’t have the means, the opportunity, or the orders to take out, I don’t know . . . one of your kids.”
Ellen tried not to show her fear, but a slight whimper of panic slipped out.
Johnny’s fingers intertwined and pulled harder on her hair. “Who would it be, Ellen? There are too many people that you love. Who all would be protected?”
“If you’re so worried about me, why don’t you just kill me?” Ellen’s words were tense.
“Nah. I’d rather make you suffer.” On his last graveling word, Johnny, with all of his might, whipped away his hand, and released Ellen. She sailed across the lab, smacking side first into the counter. Her hands slid across the top as she tried to get her balance, but in a futile reach, she knocked over an empty cage and fell hard to the floor.
Johnny lunged at her.
Mid thought of ‘why can’t Ellen ever be where she’s supposed to be’, Frank heard the crash from the cryo-lab. “Ellen,” he called out and ran towards the lab..
“Frank.”
“El!” He barged inside and upon first view, he didn’t see anything. “El?”
“Dad,” Johnny called out. “She’s over here.”
Frank raced to the other side of the counter. Ellen was on her side, lying on the floor with Johnny squatting by her. “Oh my God.”
“She fell, Dad.” Johnny shook his head with concern.
“El?” Frank reached to her. “Sweetie.”
Ellen let out a single sob.
“El?” Frank lowered closer. “Do you need me to help you to the clinic?”
“No,” she whimpered out. “I’m fine. I just . . . I just fell.”
“Yeah, Dad. It was odd,” Johnny interjected. “We were talking. She was laughing and then she turned and tripped. Then again, she did say she was feeling dizzy.”
“Dizzy? Here.” Frank took hold of her arm and supported her back as he lifted her. “Are you hurt bad?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“Why were you dizzy?” Frank asked as he helped her stand.
“I . . . I wasn’t. I tripped over my own two feet.”
“That’s not true, Dad.” Johnny folded his arms. “She didn’t eat all day. She was too busy.”
Ellen shifted her eyes from Frank to Johnny.
“El, that’s not good,” Frank told her. “It’s a good thing Johnny was here. Can you imagine if you would have hit your head or worse?”
A hurt breath escaped Ellen. “I’m fine.” Holding her side and walking with a slight limp, Ellen headed to the door. “I just want to go home. I just want . . . to go home.” Slowly she left the cryo-lab.
“El, wait up,” Frank called out, took a step, and stopped right before leaving. “John, thanks.”
The smile that crossed Johnny’s face was the epitome of snide. He let out a pleased sigh as he turned to leave the lab. Everything seemed fine, but he had to think about it. Did he want to take the chance, any chance that Ellen would open her mouth? He answered that with ‘no’. Like she said, he could do the honors and just kill her, but it would have to be an accident. As he put himself in the mind-set to figure something out, Johnny reached for the main light switch in the lab. Mid finger extension, Johnny stopped. He looked at the switch again, smiled in revelation, shut off the switch, and walked from the cryo-lab.
^^^^
Dean almost had it. He was almost there. One more patient record and he would be all caught up with clinic stuff. That’s what he needed to do, get ahead so he could justify spending time in the cryo- lab on his experiments. He did have to hand it to Forrest. Everything Forrest did, he logged not only in the chart, but in the computer system as well. To Dean, he actually sounded as if he was a doctor at one time. A part of him really didn’t buy it, but since Forrest was relieving the pressure at the clinic and he hadn’t overdosed or killed anyone yet, Dean wouldn’t say anything.
Hector’s chart was last. It was one of the easiest and that was why Dean placed it in the final position. With Hector’s chart opened in his home office, Dean lifted his hands from the keyboard when he heard the front door.
He smiled, ran his fingers through is hair to straighten it, and sat back in his chair. He watched the door and waited for Ellen. Figuring the kids were asleep and he hadn’t seen her all day, he could get pretty far with the neglected husband bit.
Dean waited. Nothing. The front door wasn’t that far from his office. No Ellen. He didn’t hear her run to the bathroom. He wondered why she didn’t come in to say ‘hello’ as she always did. It was a given.
Worried, he stood and walked from behind his desk and out of his office. The living room was empty and he didn’t hear a sound. Concerned maybe it wasn’t Ellen, Dean headed to the hall and he saw her in the bedroom, climbing into bed.
“El?” he called softly as he walked to the bedroom. “Hey? Are we fighting and I don’t know about it.”
Ellen didn’t look up as she slipped into bed. “No, I’m sick, Dean.”
“What’s wrong?” He hurried to the bed.
“Just . . . Just sick.” She pulled the covers over her shoulder.
“In what way sick? Headache, stomach, cold . . .”
“Dean, stop. I’ll live. I’m just not feeling well.” Her face barely peeked out of the covers. “Can I just go to sleep?”
�
�I’m sorry. Yeah.” He bent down and kissed her. “You’re not fevered. Are . . .”
“Dean,” she sighed out. “Please, stop being a doctor. Just be a husband and leave me alone.”
“O.K. All right.” He kissed her again and stepped back. “I love you,” Dean listened. He caught it, a muffled ‘love you, too’ and that made him feel a little better. It confirmed that she wasn’t all that mad at him. But she had to be mad about something. He felt it. Dean was certain, if he thought about it, he would figure out what it was he did. It definitely wasn’t too bad or else Dean would have felt the wrath. Grateful he got off the hook that easily, he took advantage and left before Ellen changed her mind.
The second the door closed, Ellen turned and not only buried her face into the pillow, she buried the sounds of her crying as well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
November 22rd
And people called him dumb. Frank had to hold back his laughing as he was doing a sneak attack. It wasn’t much of one. He was north of the fields, about thirty yards west from the killer baby region. Frank had to admit it was very convenient being that close to the killer babies. Of course, he had to wonder if the babies would smell him instead. After all he was the meaty guy. The killer babies had found a home, expanded it some, and they kept their distance for the most part except when, every once and awhile, they’d do a leap and fry at the fence. The location wasn’t too far, but still a distance from Beginnings. That alone confirmed Frank’s belief that they could be trained. They marked it as their territory. And there were a lot. If it wasn’t for Dean’s semi-logical explanation that the Society kept dumping the rejected mutant children near Beginnings, Frank would swear they were reproducing. They fascinated him and in a demented way, he enjoyed watching them develop from killer infants, to babies, and well on their way to being killer toddlers. He awaited the day when they became killer adolescents, teenagers, and adults, and became more of a challenge.
Of course to Frank, having the killer babies in that region really helped the environment. They killed about three deer a day, and from what Frank saw about the country, the deer population was out of control. He guessed the hunter in him admired the killer babies for that.
But the big bonus to having them there was the very reason Frank stood in the woods, just before dawn.
A SUT.
Frank called himself the ‘twenty-four/seven’ head of Security guy. Realistically, with the Hoi tracking system, anyone, even Dean, could take out a single SUT without any problem. But Frank wanted to do it. Not only did he feel it was his responsibility, but his fun was limited in Beginnings. Because they went together so well, like arts and crafts, Frank viewed the SUTs and killer babies as sort of his hobbies.
He received the predawn radio call from Tracking. The position and speed the SUT entered was perfect. It wasn’t that far from his home and it gave Frank enough time to not only brush his teeth, but put on a pot of coffee to be ready for when he returned.
He positioned himself in the path of the SUT with his back against a tree. To Frank, they were the epitome of their name, Stupid Uniformed Targets. They had one direction, one purpose and the course of either never changed. He supposed he could have tromped out in the way of the SUT a hundred yards or so sooner, taken him out, and returned home in no time. But Frank stood and enjoyed his cigarette. He was close enough to the killer baby region to catch an ear glimpse of them. Though it was dismissed by everyone as his own demented imagination, Frank argued up and down and swore the killer babies were singing. It was in their own gurgled way, but they were singing, and Journey songs none the less. Everyone but Robbie laughed at Frank. He didn’t blame it on Frank’s imagination. He blamed it on Frank. The true test of killer baby communication–in Robbie’s theory–would be when they started gurgling the word ‘fuck’.
The SUT came closer.
With his head bobbing a little to what he thought was a bad killer baby rendition of ‘Don’t stop Believing’, Frank smiled. The footsteps were near and cracking against the ground, loud and steady. He timed it, he listened, he knew.
Though it wasn’t much of a challenge, it was still a SUT victory. Knowing when the SUT reached the exact point Frank wanted him to be, with his revolver extended, Frank rolled his back around the tree and landed barrel point blank to the SUT’s temple. “Hold it.”
The SUT shifted his eyes to Frank and then lifted his rifle.
Frank laughed. “Oh, man. You’re gonna try to shoot me? I have a fuckin gun to your head.” He chuckled at the pumping of the SUT’s rifle chamber. “No wonder they named you Stupid Uniformed Target. No, wait. I did.” Frank shrugged. “Whatever.”
Bang.
^^^^
Joe never did get up in time to enjoy the coffee Frank made while it was still fresh. It was an entire pot, untouched. He poured himself a cup, lit a cigarette, and set his mug down before his usual spot at the dining room table. Joe wondered if Frank had gone back to sleep since he didn’t hear the shower or see Frank. Stepping to Frank’s closed bedroom door, Joe debated on going in and waking him up. Deciding it would be more enjoyable to watch the rare occurrence of Frank scurrying because he overslept, Joe headed back to the table. He paused before sitting. Though it was earlier than usual for him to be awake, Joe had to check to see if the Hoi Review was delivered yet.
Still a little groggy, Joe opened the front door and without thinking, bent over for the paper. His head didn’t make it too far as it slammed right into Frank. “Goddamn it.”
“How the fuck did you miss me?”
Grumbling, Joe stepped back, rubbing his forehead. His hand slid slowly down when he saw Frank. Blood was smeared across Frank’s face in a splatter pattern. “SUT again?” Joe asked.
“Yep, but just one.” Frank stepped inside. “I’m gonna grab a shower. What are you doing up?”
“I have a breakfast meeting with Hal. And being a masochist right now, do you wanna come?”
“Nah.” Frank started walking toward the hall. “You know what? Yeah, I will. Here.” He tossed something to Joe. “Can you put that on the table so I don’t forget to put it with the others?”
“Sure,” Joe nodded. He wanted to get his paper, enjoy his coffee and cigarette, and mentally prepare himself for a breakfast with Frank and Hal. Just as he turned for the door again, he looked down to what Frank had thrown him. It was a patch with a gold ‘CS’ intertwined in the middle, seemingly ripped from the cloth it was attached to. “Christ, he’s collecting kill souvenirs now.” Shaking his head at his son’s dementia, Joe tossed the patch on the table and went for his paper.
^^^^
How long had it been since Ellen used a curling iron on her hair? It had been quite some time and she really didn’t feel like doing it, but she had to. Her usually flat hair would have just laid over the bump on the side of her head and the last thing she wanted was for it to be seen.
What was she thinking? She didn’t want to be obvious. She just wanted to alert Joe. It was a typed note. That was all. Not a single name was mentioned in the little note she left Joe with his phone. It was just a simple message telling him the insider had tried to break the code. Ellen never would have thought Johnny was back on the code breaking trail again. She found out not only did Johnny never give up, Johnny had a sadistic streak in his temper.
It happened the day before and her head still hurt. Johnny was so angry when he found the note. What was it he hit her with on the side of the head with? His hand? A cup? She didn’t recall. All she knew was that her balance was thrown off with that hit. Again she landed hard and again all she wanted to do was scream out ‘Frank.’
Why was she so afraid? More than anything Ellen wanted to open her mouth and run to Joe, Frank, Robbie, Dean. Anyone. But every time she got her nerve up to do so, the fear of not just Johnny, but the other insiders he spoke of, raced through her mind. She only could pinpoint Johnny and when she did that, she would open up her children to harm. Until Ellen figured out who all the
insiders were, she would stay silent.
It was funny to Ellen but she never realized that she actually trusted people. Had she been asked prior to learning the truth about Johnny, Ellen freely would have told anyone that trust was something she did not have. The meaning of mistrust was abundantly clear to her with each new passing day. She limited conversations with everyone. There were very few people that didn’t breed doubt in her. If Johnny, her own family, was an insider, then anyone could be. No one was above some suspicion, not even Dean. It was starting to get the best of her and Ellen fought with diligence to keep that distrust within the borders of reality instead of the realms of paranoia it hindered on.
She set the curling iron down to tease a section to create a hair puff that would mask the lump. Pausing to take a sip of her coffee, with her thoughts swarming, Ellen brought the mug to her lips when a knock happened on the bathroom door. Dean’s soft call jolted her so badly that the mug slipped from her hand and crashed into the basin.
“El?” Dean knocked again and opened the door.
Why Ellen thought she could pretend she didn’t break the mug was beyond her. Her mind was so frazzled, she wasn’t thinking. She smiled at Dean as she curled her hair again. “Morning.”
“Are you . . . all right?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I heard a crash.” Dean looked at the sink. “You broke your mug.”
“I did?” Ellen looked down. “Oh, I mean I did. Yeah.”
“El? Why are you curling your hair?”
“I want to look good.” Before Dean could ask her why, Ellen figured she’d cover that base. “I’m going to New Bowman today.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not? Oh, you’re right. I’m not. I’m going to see Elliott. He’s coming into town today for a treatment.”
“That was yesterday. I don’t think Elliott’s coming.”
“Sure he is,” Ellen nodded.
The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20 Page 200