The Soul Collectors

15

When the BU Biomedical vehicles finally arrived — two vans and a mobile trailer, Darby saw, each one sleek and black and peeling down the street — she was sitting on the grass with her knees pressed up against her chest, her wet hair and naked, shivering body bundled underneath several towels and blankets courtesy of the home's elderly couple. They had offered to let her inside, but the hazmat team wouldn't allow it. The old man — deadly scared and barely able to speak — said there were plenty of old towels and blankets on the garage shelves and they were more than welcome to help themselves.

Hazmat members poured out of the vehicles. One of them was heading her way.

'Miss McCormick, please follow me.'

She stood, several of the towels sliding off her, and wrapped herself tightly in the blanket. She trotted in her bare feet behind the man, wincing in pain. It hurt to breathe. She didn't know if the pain was from the fractured ribs or if she was infected. Or both.

The man helped her into the back of the mobile trailer. Before the doors shut, Darby saw the frightened expressions of the old man, his wife and what she assumed was the couple's grandson, a toddler dressed in footy-pyjamas and clutching a stuffed animal, as they were helped down their front steps by a pair of masked and gloved men. A bullhorn ordered them to a waiting van to be decontaminated.

The heated trailer was packed with medical equipment, and also held three people dressed head to toe in hazmat gear. One was armed — state police, she guessed, maybe even army. He had an MP5 submachine gun strapped across the chest of his hazmat suit and he kept his gloved hand on the stock, his eyes watching her.

Syringes and vials glinted underneath the light. One of the unarmed people took a tentative step forward and said, 'You're having trouble breathing.'

She nodded. 'I think I fractured a rib. Shotgun blast.'

He helped her to lie down on a gurney. When he completed his poking and prodding with his gloved fingers and cold instruments — Darby nearly screaming when his hands touched her chest — he dropped a pair of scrubs on her stomach and told her to get dressed. She did, slowly, and after she finished he came back with a syringe. He didn't speak or answer any of her questions as he drew blood, filling numerous vials. She had stopped counting after six.

Next she felt a cold swab of alcohol on her upper arm, followed by the sting of a needle.

'What's that?'

'Something to help you with the pain,' he said. 'This way.'

Darby followed the man to the far wall, which held three doors. He pressed a code on the keypad and then she heard the hiss of the air-locked door opening.

It led to a stainless-steel room no bigger than a closet. A quarantine chamber, containing only a toilet.

Darby didn't move. The sight of any confined space made her uneasy.

The doctor, standing behind her, spoke for the first time: 'It's only temporary, until we know whether or not you're infected.'

'How long?'

'Until we know if you're infected? The blood work will take some time — it will go faster when we can isolate what, exactly, has happened here. Until then, we need to quarantine you. It should be only a couple of hours, then we can take you to the hospital.'

Darby still didn't move. The guard, sensing that she might put up a fight, had stepped up beside the doctor.

Finally she went inside. The door shut and she flinched when she heard the bolt slide home.

The space was warm, and she had a view, courtesy of the small, square Plexiglas window. One of the vials containing her blood had been placed in some sort of separating unit. She could see the device sitting on a worktop, and as she listened to the tiny whirl of the motor she watched the doctor, who was sitting with his back to her and typing on a computer keyboard. She could make out part of the monitor but was too far away to read the words on the screen.

She heard the sound of the heavy back doors swinging open. Footsteps thumped across the floor and then a masked face revealing only a pair of blue eyes and dark bushy eyebrows flecked with grey filled the tiny window.

Then the face moved away and Darby watched the man step behind the doctor. There was no talking — at least nothing she could hear. The man seemed to be consulting something on the computer screen. He stepped away, disappearing from her view.

A moment later she heard the ceiling speaker crackle.

'How are you feeling?'

The voice of the hazmat man she'd first encountered.

'So far, so good,' Darby replied. 'Can you hear me, Sergeant-Major Glick?'

'I can hear you fine. Any problems breathing?'

She nodded. 'I think I fractured some ribs.'

'We'll give you a chest X-ray and then treat them when we get you to our hospital. What about nausea?'

'No. What's the army doing at BU?'

'Consulting.'

'On what?'

'Various governmental matters that don't concern you.'

'Then maybe you can tell me about the man I left in the woods. What's his condition?'

'I wish I could tell you.'

Darby swallowed. Her eyes narrowed. 'If you want my cooperation, you better drop the bullshit and — '

'No, you misunderstood me,' Glick said. 'I can't tell you anything about it because we didn't find him. We didn't find anyone in those woods, Miss McCormick, not a single person.'