The Soul Collectors

17

Darby lay propped up in the hospital bed with her hands folded behind her head, staring across the room at the clear Plexiglas door. Beyond it was a small, square-shaped area of spotless white tile. It covered the floor, walls and ceiling. The door in there was made of steel.

Two doors, both locked, both secured by keycard readers. You needed a card and a separate code for each door. Each person who came in here had a different set of codes. Some punched in three numbers. Others had six. One doc had seven.

She had stopped thinking about how to mount an escape. Even if she managed to grab a keycard from one of the docs or lab technicians who came in here to draw blood and then pump a cruiser-load of dope into her system, there was still the issue of the codes, and even with those there was the problem of whatever lay beyond these two doors. The BU Biomedical building, where she was currently quarantined, no doubt had top-notch security. A stolen keycard (and the codes, don't forget the damn codes) would get her only so far; they wouldn't open whatever doors separated her from the outside world. Then there was the staff to deal with, and guards — army boys, probably.

Would they shoot her? Unlikely. Would they Mace her or use something like a Taser? Most definitely.

Escaping wasn't an option.

Her thoughts shifted to the reasons why she wanted to leave here: the staff refused to let her use the phone to call someone on the outside. They refused to bring her a newspaper (although they brought her celebrity rag mags in droves and said she could read anything she wanted; she had asked for, and was given, Jane Austen's complete oeuvre). The TV in here had cable but they had blocked out all the news stations. They refused to tell her what she had been infected with and why they kept drawing her blood and shooting her full of drugs. Orders, they said, from the man sitting high on the mountaintop, Sergeant-Major Glick.

Even more infuriating was the fact that no one would tell her when she'd be released. She was still showing no sign of infection. No nausea. No problem swallowing and no problem breathing. Well, it did hurt to breathe, but that was caused by her ribs. There was a lot of talking about her lying down and resting, and for the first few days she had complied.

Not one single symptom and yet they were keeping her imprisoned here, and refusing to explain why.

She wondered what time it was. There wasn't a clock in here.

A lot of things weren't in here. A lot of things.

That was going to change. Right now.

Darby yanked back the rough white sheets and scratchy wool blue blanket, sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She didn't hop off, just sat with her fingers digging into the edge of the mattress, waiting for the dizziness to pass. It always took its sweet goddamn time about leaving, and when it finally did she had to deal with how her head felt afterwards, this throbbing cement block on her shoulders that kept screaming at her to lie back down — a side effect, she assumed, from the pain meds. The shotgun blast had fractured not one but three ribs, tearing a considerable amount of cartilage. Thankfully, the damage ended there. Her lungs and spleen had been spared.

The dope they were giving her, though, had another, more serious side effect: it clouded her memories. Some were fuzzy; others were, well, black holes.

She had no problem recalling the details of everything she'd seen and heard inside the Rizzo house. And she remembered, quite clearly, what had happened in the woods behind the old couple's home and what had happened after she'd been locked inside the mobile trailer's stainless-steel quarantine chamber, bumping into the smooth, cold walls when the trailer got moving, driving her, the elderly couple and their grandson all the way back to Boston's BU Biomedical lab. She remembered being escorted inside some sort of plastic-looking tube and into a painfully bright room of white tile, where two women dressed in biohazard gear stood by a gurney. One gave her another injection as the other informed her she had to go through a second decontamination process, this one more thorough. The sedative would make her relax and help with the pain. Both women removed her scrubs and strapped her down into the cold gurney. The last memory Darby had was one of staring up at the ceiling's humming fluorescent lights, watching as they whisked past her, blurring together, growing brighter and brighter.

Whatever had happened after that was lost.

When she woke up, alone, in the hospital bed where she now sat, the first thing she noticed was her skin. It had been scrubbed raw and gave off, along with her hair, some sort of medicinal smell that brought to mind the disinfectant and germicidal solutions used in funeral homes. Nasty odours used in treating the dead.

She wasn't dead, or even hovering close to it, and yet they were keeping her locked up inside this quarantine chamber straight out of a sci-fi movie: blue-padded walls, floor and ceiling; stainless-steel sink and a private toilet and shower stall. Anything that left the room — her hospital scrubs, magazines, food scraps and paper plates, cups and plastic utensils — was wrapped and sealed inside a bright red biohazard bag.

The dizziness, at least the worst of it, had passed. Darby slid off the bed and made her way across the padded floor in her bare feet, hearing the now familiar mechanical whine coming from the pair of security cameras turning to track her. These cameras monitored her movements, even at night when she went to use the toilet.

She reached the console and picked up the phone.

'Yes, Miss McCormick?' a male voice asked. She didn't recognize it.

'What time is it?'

'Almost noon. Are you hungry? I can bring you — '

'I want to speak to Sergeant-Major Glick.'

'I'm sorry, but he's unavailable right now.'

'I was told he would return today.'

'He did, early this morning. He came by but you were asleep.'

'Why didn't he wake me up?'

'Doctors' orders.'

'I want to speak to him. Now.'

'Sergeant-Major Glick is involved in — '

'In a matter that has required him to be out of the office for an indefinite period of time,' Darby finished for him. Everyone here kept reciting the same party line. 'He's carrying a cell phone with him, right?'

'I… well, I would assume so.'

'I want you to connect me to him.'

'I can't transfer your call. We don't have that sort of equipment.'

'Then bring a phone to me.'

'A cell phone won't work in here.'

'Then connect a landline.'

'I'm afraid your room isn't equipped. The phone you're speaking on right now is wired to come straight to the security console.'

'Fine. Have someone take me to a phone.'

'I'm sorry, but I can't do that until we know you're not infected.'

Darby felt an itch spark deep inside her head, right around the place where her spine connected to her brain stem. She squeezed the receiver, wanting to crush it.

'You and I both know I'm not infected.'

'These tests take time, Miss McCormick. We still don't know what you were exposed to, and until we do we need to monitor — '

'Who's your second in command?'

'Second in command? I don't understand what — '

'The army's running this place, right?'

No answer.

'I want to speak to someone in charge,' Darby said. 'Now.'

'I'll forward your request, but, as you already know, we're not allowed to speak to you about the New Hampshire incident. Maybe you should ask the FBI. I can call them for you.'

Darby had already spoken to the two agents sent over from the Boston office, a pair of Irish boys named Connolly and Kelly. They stood in the white-tiled room beyond the Plexiglas barrier, writing down her statement while asking questions through a two-way speaker. They claimed to have no knowledge of the investigation happening up north, in the Granite State, and promised to send along someone to answer her questions.

That was four days ago. Maybe five, it was hard to remember.

Darby switched the phone to her other ear. 'What's your name?'

'Howard.'

'And what do you do here, Howie?'

'Me?' He chuckled. 'I'm just a lowly medical technician.'

'Okay, Howie, I want you to pass along a message. The next person who enters my room is going to be carrying my medical file and all of my blood work results. Said person is going to hand those to me and then sit down and answer my questions — all of my questions, including everything that's happening in New Hampshire. If this doesn't happen, Howie, not only will this person not be getting any more of my blood, he — or she — will have to crawl out of here. Do you understand?'

'I understand your frustration — I honestly do — but you need to — '

'Do we have an understanding, Howie?'

'I'll pass your message along. Now, about lunch, would you like — '

Darby hung up and went back to lying on her bed, wondering just how long she'd have to wait until someone came to speak to her.

And what if they can't or won't answer your questions? What are you going to do?

Then she'd have to deliver on her promise.

Her thoughts shifted to the man she had cuffed to a tree in the woods — the thing with the veiny egg-white skin, missing teeth and tongue. There was no way he could have got loose by himself. Someone had cut him loose, either one of his buddies who had been near by, watching; or one of Glick's hazmat people. Maybe even Glick himself.

And that black plastic device I found sewn into his back… just what the hell was that thing? Some sort of tracking device?

It was maddening to wonder.

Now she saw the man claiming to be Charlie. Saw his mask of dried human skin with its cut-out eyeholes and mouth, the sutures attached to horribly scarred but healthy skin belonging not to a man claiming to be Charlie Rizzo but to Charlie Rizzo himself, the boy born with missing nipples who had disappeared all those years ago and who now, seemingly for no reason, had reappeared back in his family's house to hold them hostage.

No, there was a reason.

Charlie — and he was Charlie Rizzo, she could feel it deep in her gut — Charlie had called 911 and requested SWAT and a bulletproof vehicle. He dumped a body in the shrubs, and when she asked him who that man was, he said, I'm hoping you'll find out. That's why I gave him to you. Charlie wanted her to go inside the house alone so she could bear witness to his father's confession. What had Charlie said to his father? Here it was: I want you to tell Dr McCormick why I'm here… Don't be shy, Daddy. Start with the day I was abducted.

Mark Rizzo never explained — no, that wasn't true, he said, This thing is not my son. She took down Charlie and tear gas flooded the bedroom and then the people dressed as SWAT officers stormed inside the house. They hadn't come for Charlie; they killed him along with the rest of his family.

But not the father. They took Mark Rizzo… where? To the same place Charlie had been living all those years? And why had they allowed Charlie to remain alive all that time? What was the purpose?

You're assuming there is a purpose.

Maybe not a purpose, but there was a reason.

As it turned out, Darby didn't have to wait long. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the steel airtight door hissing open.