The World Keepers 7

by Ty The Hunter

  “Nah, it’s cool. We’re the ones who made the mess. It’s our fault you had to shave the dog. We can deal with the grounding.” I believe what I’m saying, too. In this moment, what does being grounded matter at all? Being grounded is NOTHING compared to what Kat’s going through.

  “All the same, I appreciate how you guys have stuck with it.” She wraps her left arm around my shoulders and squeezes me tight to her side, and then she kisses me on the top of the head. I almost lose my resolve right then and there. It takes everything I’ve got not to come clean and tell her the entire unbelievable story.

  I don’t though, because I’m not sure she CAN fix it at this point, and if she can’t, the last thing I want is to drag her and my Dad into something they have no part of.

  A little while later, class ends, Thomas emerges, and we all pile back into the car to go home. We’re all shivering, so mom starts the engine to get the heater going. Thomas is in the front seat, which means he has a seat warmer, lucky dog. I huddle into the grey hoodie I’m wearing, pull the hood up over my ears, shove my hands in the front pouch and hunch down on myself.

  The weather is bitterly cold, so cold that even here in Texas, our pipes froze last night and we had no water for like 4 hours. Tonight is supposed to be just as cold. I can’t get over this insane weather. We’ve never seen anything like it, that’s for sure.

  Mom starts up the audiobook again, and I settle in to hear more about North Korea for the next half hour, the amount of time it takes for us to get home. As we’re about to pull out of the parking lot, one of the gym managers comes through the front entrance and beckons to my mom, needing to speak to her.

  “Give me a sec, guys.” Mom says. She presses pause on the audiobook, puts the car back in park, gets out, and walks back into the building. The door is glass, so she stands just inside, where we can see her, and she can still see us, but she’s out of the cold and wind.

  Once she’s safely away from the car, Thomas and I both look at the GPS screen. We know what’s going to happen next. We’re not disappointed.

  The fourth message is much the same as the third. The room is the same, Kat is still laying on the hospital bed, there is sound, and it’s all in black and white.

  We’ve been in Thomas’s class for an hour and a half, so there’s no way this can be live. Unless Portal Guy did something to her and then left her in precisely the same place, which I doubt. I wonder if any of it is live though, we have no way to tell.

  Portal Guy and the male nurse are standing at the head of her bed. The machine with the vat of liquid is on, humming and bubbling away. Portal Guy reaches down to the machine and picks up a tube that is attached to the vat of liquid.

  He holds up the tube. It’s quite small, something you’d see used for an IV in a hospital, perhaps a little larger in diameter, but not much.

  The end of the tube is empty. Portal Guy speaks to the male nurse, “Hand me a needle, please.”

  So polite when he’s hurting people, what a great guy. The male nurse walks out of the shot and comes back with a small, metal table. It’s on wheels, so it rolls easily with him as he walks. We can’t see what’s on the table, not in detail, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s surgical implements, stuff you’d see in an operating room.

  The nurse picks up what must be a needle, off the table. I can see the light glint off the sharp, silvery tip. There is a piece on the end, but I don’t know what it is, not right away. The nurse hands PG the needle, and PG slips the blunt end into the tube, twisting it.

  Okay, that makes sense, the thing on the end must be a fitting of some sort. He now has a needle fitted to a tube, the piece on the other end of the needle fits snugly inside, creating a seal that will prevent any liquid from escaping. He places the tube, with the needle attached, into a black plastic clasp hanging on the side of the table. It's designed to keep the tubing out of the way while also keeping it far from anything that might contaminate it.

  The male nurse unbuckles the top buckle, then pulls the sheet and blanket away from Kat’s left arm. She doesn’t move. Her eyes are still closed, either asleep or too weak to bother. He takes her wrist and rotates her arm so her elbow is facing the mattress, the “pit” of her elbow faces the ceiling.

  Portal Guy picks up a small, white packet from the surgical table, opens it, and pulls out a tiny, square piece of cloth, an antiseptic wipe. He smooths it over the big vein, cleansing the area, and I wonder WHY he’s bothering. Why does he want to make sure she doesn’t get an infection? What’s the point?

  Taking a yellow, flexible piece of rubber from the table, he lifts her arm, places the tube beneath, then brings the two ends together at the top, tying them tightly. He uses the fingers on his right hand to tap her vein, apparently trying to bring it to the surface so he can have a clean shot at inserting the needle.

  Satisfied, he again picks up the needle with the tube attached, places a hand on her arm, and gently slides the needle into her skin, piercing her vein.

  Briefly, we see blood travel part way up the tube, but Portal Guy clamps the tube shut, and the blood sticks, settling an inch or two up but going no further.

  Walking around the bed, he repeats the process on her other arm. This time he chooses a longer tube protruding from the machine to accommodate the increased distance. He drapes it over blunt, metal hooks suspended from the ceiling above Kat’s head. When he's done with this, he rolls the sheet and blanket down to her waist, leaving both arms exposed, and re-tightens the strap over each of her biceps.

  The male nurse hands him another needle, same as the last, and PG (Portal Guy) secures the needle to the tube. Once he gets the needle inserted into Kat’s vein, he clamps the end close to her skin and moves back to the machine. He pushes a button, and the device starts to beep in a steady rhythm. *beep…..beep…..beep…..beep*. It’s low and soft, almost soothing if it weren’t awful in its intention.

  Pushing another button, he looks at the display, makes a noise of confirmation, then turns and removes the clamp from the tube in her left arm. Blood begins to flow into the tube, drawn by the suction of the machine. This is when we notice that the vat of liquid has a thin, plastic separator inside of the container.

  As the machine removes Kat’s blood from her body, it drips onto the plastic “dish” that covers the top of the undefinable liquid. The pressure of her blood begins to push the dish down, compressing the fluid, and forcing it into the tube attached to her other arm.

  Liquid snakes down through the tube in her right arm, disappearing into her vein, and into her body.

  At this point, the video begins to fast forward, and we can see the blood dripping rapidly into the vat, filling it. At first, it's barely visible, then becomes a more substantial portion of the liquid in the container. All the while, the original liquid in the vat continues to drain into her right arm. A quarter full of blood, half full, three-quarters full….and then there is no liquid left, only Kat’s blood.

  “Is she alive?” I ask Thomas. I cannot imagine that she’s dead. Why go to all of that trouble just to kill her? No, it doesn’t make any sense.

  “I don’t know, Jed! How am I supposed to know!?” Thomas replies sharply. I can tell by the set of his shoulders that he's only snapping at me because he’s angry and scared.

  We sit there in silence, watching the video as it continues forward in fast motion. PG moves in and out of the screen, looking at the machine, raising Kat’s eyelids and shining a light on her pupils, using a stethoscope to listen to her chest, resting his fingers on her wrist as though feeling for a pulse.

  After a few minutes of this, we see him remove the needles from her arms as the nurse undoes the leather straps, letting them hang freely at the sides of the bed. There is more movement. Both men are walking quickly to different points in the room, but mainly converging near one of the empty, man-sized tubes against the wall.

  Working together, they move a machine out of the corner. It is large, taller than both of them
, a jointed arm on top of a long base on wheels.

  It almost resembles a human arm, if your shoulder were the base, sitting on the floor, and the arm was just like your arm, from biceps to fingertips.

  The arm looks like it’s designed to move, forward, backward, up and down. The bottom part of the arm extends straight up from the wheeled base, reaching 6 feet high or so before stopping at the joint.

  There is another piece, equally as large as the first, connected by a large bolt, allowing the top part of the joint free and fluid motion. The top part of the joint is longer than the bottom portion, probably 10 feet or so, meaning that if it were pushed up to its maximum range, it would be about 16 feet high.

  Plenty high enough to put something into those giant tubes.

  “No…” I breathe.

  My Mother has finished her conversation, she starts back to the car, and I know we’ve seen as much as we’re going to.

  The screen goes black.

  Back at home, Thomas and I take turns showering (he needs it WAY more than I do). We brush our teeth and hang out with our parents for a bit. He doesn’t get home until after nine on the nights he has Parkour, and bedtime is at 10, so once we’ve finished getting ready for bed, it’s time to go to hit the sack.

  I was hoping to hear more from Kat tonight, but now that it’s after 10, I can’t see how that would be possible. My mom has taken all of our electronics. I’m pretty sure Kat can only contact us through something that is connected to wifi, and as far as I know, there’s nothing like that in either of our rooms. At least not anything that also has a screen on it.

  Taking a chance, I tiptoe into Thomas’s room. I don’t want to wake my parents and chance angering my mom further, but I really want to talk to Thomas, it’s important. The hallway is dark, only a small light in the bathroom lighting my way. I take a running LEAP across the gap in the hall where my parents could see me if they were up. I feel like an idiot, but it’s like ripping off a band-aid, just get it over with!

  Thomas is still awake, of course. I can’t imagine either of us is going to sleep easily or soon, this evening.

  “What do you want, Jed?” he asks.

  He’s kind of surly, and I know it’s because he’s got a lot on his mind. Also, hormones. I mean, he’s only two years older than me, but we could not be more different. I still enjoy having fun. Thomas likes to brood. I like hanging out. Thomas gets pimples. I like it when Mom hugs me. Thomas turns bright red and makes sure no one saw.

  You get the idea.

  “I just wanted to talk is all.” I tell him. I can’t help it. Like I said, he might be “Mr. Big and Bad”, but I’m 10, I’m gonna need SOMEONE to pat me on the back and tell me everything will be alright.

  That’s just between us though, so zip it.

  “What do you want to talk about?” he says with a sigh.

  As though he doesn’t know? Really? Is this what being an almost teenager is like?

  “Oh, ya know. I just wanted to know what you thought of dinner, how you liked class, and whether or not you’re always going to be this annoying?”

  Sarcasm, thy name is Jed.

  Thomas rolls over and looks at me from between the rails on his bunk.

  “Jed, we can’t do anything about anything until we’re back online. Once we get our electronics back, we’ll log in, and we WILL get ahold of Adrian and Carina to figure things out. There’s no sense in worrying about it until then because we’re WITHOUT INTERNET!”

  “Well, jeez.” I reply. “I just thought we’d be able to come up with a better plan if we talked….”

  “Shhhh!” Thomas hisses at me.

  How rude!

  “Dude! I’m just trying…” I start to talk again, when he interrupts me, again!

  “Hush, Jed! Do you hear that?”

  He’s looking at me, but not really. He’s kind of got this side-eye thing going that means he’s trying to hear something. I stop talking, and go still, straining my ears.

  “Wish wash, brush em up, no more sugar bugs….”

  I do hear it! I know that song!

  “What is it?” Jed asks.

  “It’s the game mom used to make you play when you refused to brush your teeth….” I laugh. “Dude, you were nasty.”

  “Where’s it coming from?!” Thomas is climbing down the ladder from his bunk, searching for the noise.

  “Turn off the light,” I say, “if the display is on, we’ll be able to see it better to find it.”

  He’s busy searching through his BOMB of a room, so he doesn’t pay any attention to my suggestion. I walk over to the light switch and turn it off myself. My effort is rewarded when Thomas yells “Ouch! Dangit!” after stubbing his toe on something in his way.

  “You should clean your room more often, piggy.”

  I can’t help it. I like kicking him while he’s down. It’s how I show my love.

  “I found it!” I can see that he’s hunched over his toy box. Something laying on the very bottom partially illuminates him, or at least I think it must be on the very bottom, based on the fact that it’s getting brighter as he continues to toss stuff out, onto his floor.

  The light gets very bright. His face is totally lit up as he pulls up his old Leap Pad and brings it over to where I’m standing.

  “I completely forgot about this thing.” he says.

  Frankly, so had I. I mean, we both have iPad’s now, neither of us is interested in learning about dental hygiene from a digital frog named Tad. How funny that I remember his name is Tad, though. And now I’m humming the song in my head “No more sugar bugs, in my smile. BYE BYE Sugar Bugs!”

  Fun times.

  “I can’t believe the batteries still work.” Thomas says, turning the Leap Pad over in his hands. “I haven’t used it in like three years. I can’t believe Mom hasn’t donated it.”

  I refrain from telling him that she probably hasn’t donated it because it was at the bottom of his junk heap of a room. Thomas shrugs and drops the pad back into his toy box. Not even being grounded from electronics is enough incentive to bring out the baby toys again.

  He climbs back up into his bed, and I turn to leave his room, just as the Leap Pad starts blaring that awful music again.

  “Would you shut it off on your way out? He asks.

  “Yeah, sure.” I reach down, grab the pad, and punch the green “power” button. The screen flickers out, and the music stops.

  I’m just about to drop it back into the toy box when I see the screen flicker back to life, and the tell-tale fuzzy grey static we’ve come to know so well.

  We’re about to find out what happened to Kat.

  “Thomas! Thomas!” I look up at him, laying on his bed, and wave my arm.

  “It’s the video, the ones we’ve been seeing! She found a way to get in touch with us!”

  I thrust the pad up over my head, almost hitting him in the nose with it.

  “Stop, Jed! Hand it to me, then come up here. We can’t get busted by mom, so keep it down!”

  I scramble up the ladder, scoot in beside him on the twin bed, and pull the thick, feather comforter over both of our heads to block out any light. The video starts to play almost immediately; the angle is the same as it was in the last two videos, and Kat is still laying in the hospital bed.

  PG and the male nurse have positioned the arm looking thing over her body, and they’re lowering the top part down, so it’s just about level with her shoulders. This is when I notice that there is some other attachment to this piece of equipment. Protruding from each side of the arm beam, there is a rod, and attached to that rod (welded on, maybe?) is another piece that looks sort of like a metal “U”.

  Once they’ve got the machine in position, they each walk over to an opposite side of Kat. The nurse removes the pillow from beneath her head. I can see that there is something there. It was under the pillow and blocked from our sight before, but now that the pillow is gone, it’s clear it’s been there the whole time, over the mat
tress, but under Kat’s body. She’s been laying on it.

  It’s about the same color as the sheets, white, and dull, like plastic that’s been abraded, so it’s no longer slippery. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I can follow the line of it down from her head until it slips out of sight beneath the blankets.

  “It’s a bodyboard.” Thomas says. He must be thinking the same thing I’m thinking.

  “A what?” I say.

  “A bodyboard.” He repeats. “It’s the type of thing you see first responders use when they are trying to stabilize someone who’s been in an accident. They lay the person on a stiff board then strap them to it at their head, shoulders, arms, hips, and ankles. It’s to keep them still, to make sure they don’t move and potentially exacerbate any injuries they might already have.”

  “Well, why do they need it for Kat? They drained all of her blood, you saw it! She’s dead, Thomas, so why are they still messing with her!?”

  I know my voice is getting loud, I’m getting angry and upset. I want to cry, punch someone, and hug my mom, all at the same moment.

  “I don’t think she’s dead.” Thomas says. And I can tell by the way he says it, by the way his eyes stay riveted to the screen, that he doesn’t think she’s dead.

  “Why go to all of that trouble just to kill her?” he says. “You saw that Portal Guy, he was listening to her chest and feeling for her pulse long after they swapped her blood for….whatever that gunk was in the vat.”

  He’s right, I did see that, and I did think it was weird, but I cannot imagine how she could be alive. Not only did they do that stuff to her, but she was so thin, there’s nothing to her. They’ve had to have been starving her for weeks or months for her to look like that!

  As Thomas is speaking, then men on the screen move around Kat, strapping her body to the board, just like Thomas described. When they finish, PG takes a long wire with a hook on the end and runs it down the front of her body, on top of her clothes. He passes it beneath the velcro straps and hooks it on the last belt around her ankles. Once that’s done, they move back to the machine, pushing it forward, making small adjustments, apparently trying to get it in precisely the right place.