Lost Souls

chapter 42

Standing at a window in Room 218, Bryce watched a hospital janitor hosing off the area of parking-lot pavement where Travis had seen a man beaten and perhaps murdered. The boy said the man below was the same one who had swung the club.

In the armchair, crossed legs drawn up onto the seat, he said, “It happened. I didn’t imagine it.”

“I know you didn’t,” Bryce assured him.

Each half of the bronze casement window featured a handle with which it could be cranked open for ventilation. The center post was strong enough to support the weight of a climber. The distance from the windowsill to the blacktop appeared to be about fifteen feet.

Entirely plausible.

Bryce stepped away from the window, went down on one knee beside the armchair, and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There’s hardly any staff on this floor because they’re downstairs, and I think it’s because they’re helping to guard every entrance to the basement and every exterior door on the ground floor.”

“Why did they kill that man?”

“He must’ve seen something they didn’t want him to see.”

“What? What did he see?”

“Listen, Travis, we’ve got to hang tough. Don’t give them any reason to think you’re suspicious.”

“But it’s just like I told you, isn’t it? They aren’t who they used to be. They’re not real anymore.”

“They’re real, son, they’re plenty real. But they’re different now.”

“What’re they doing to people down in the basement?”

“Whatever it is, we don’t want them doing it to us.”

Bryce’s own voice sounded alien to him, not because the pitch and timbre of it had changed, which they had not, but because of the things he heard himself saying. He remained a writer of Westerns, but his life had changed genres.

“There’s something we can do,” Bryce said, “but it’s going to take nerve, and we’ve got to be cautious.”

He outlined his plan, and the boy listened without interruption.

When Bryce finished, Travis said only, “Will it work?”

“It has to, doesn’t it?” Bryce said.