Afterbirth (27 page)

Intermittent darkness blurred Reid’s vision and made it impossible to see more than a foot ahead of him. He maneuvered through the small space above the drop ceiling and hoped that the virus would hold off. His shoulder burned and his hand was numb, making him wonder if he’d dislocated it again hauling himself up and away from those who killed Frank.

They were Nixon’s men, they had to be, but he didn’t wait around to I.D. them.

Air moved through the ductwork and blew dust from a faulty seal into his eyes. He reached up to wipe them and nearly fell through the tiles. He had to get down sooner than later. Another injury, especially one to his legs, meant he might as well surrender. He listened for voices, though his mind had already started playing tricks on him. The ventilation whispered and the shadows threw their heads back in laughter.

“You can’t beat this,” he said, but refused to believe it.

Frank’s last words were that the cure was there.

Whether he meant at the center, or in Strandville, Reid didn’t know, but if he could get to the last few shots in the basement, it might buy him the time he needed to find it.

He pushed aside the craziness--the echo of crying babies, the sounds of gunfire, and idling chainsaws--and listened to what was really around him. He laid, face-down, on a large, metal pipe and wrapped his legs tightly around it. The ceiling tiles, a half a foot below him, were just within reach and he moved one aside far enough to see an empty inpatient room below. He moved the tile a little farther to see that the door was closed.

He fought the contractions crippling his good hand and willed it to hold him steady as he turned around and lowered his feet through the hole. There was no other way down and he hoped the bed would break his fall. His stomach cramped and he waited for the worst to pass before shifting his weight and letting go.

He caught the elbow of his injured arm on the edge of the ceiling frame and let out a howl. A pain shot up his arm and nearly brought tears to his eyes. He landed on his knees and grabbed the mattress to keep from bouncing off of it.

Sweat poured down his back and he waited for the worst to pass before moving.

His legs felt rubbery as he slid off the edge of the bed and walked toward the door. White light saturated the formerly dark spaces and he prayed the power would stay on long enough to get to the basement.

He staggered in the direction of the first floor elevator, knowing that if he came across a single person he was as good as dead. Nixon didn’t need him to find Miranda now, not with the size of his entourage, but he enjoyed the game too much to stop it. His debt to Nixon hung over him like a sentence and, standing out in the open in front of the elevator, he waited for it to be carried out.

He held the wall and pressed the call button.

The elevator strained open and he pushed the “B” button for what might well be the last time in his life. Blood caked every surface of the cramped car and maggots squirmed along the corner of the carpet where the carnage had been the worst. The smell bordered on unbearable, but it was and always had been, the only way down.

He held his breath as the car descended and the next wave of cramps nearly drove him to his knees. He held the hand rail and gasped for breath when the door opened to a scene not much better than the one he was in.

He’d been to the basement a dozen times in darkness, but had never realized, other than from the smell, that things down there were so bad. The scene was pure carnage and death, worse than even the most graphic horror movie.

He stumbled out into the hallway and leaned against the wall until he was steady enough to walk. Blood and gore dripped, pulsed, and seeped toward him. The narrow space had its own heartbeat, one which he felt through his entire body. His peripheral vision went dark and the distance to the next lab seemed to stretch on for miles.

The power flickered off and when it came back, the auditory hallucinations returned in the form of a male voice.

“Come on,” it said. “It’s all right.”

Reid doubled-over, tightened his arm across his stomach, and headed toward the lab.

“It’ll be all right,” he whispered. His voice cracked and his mouth was dry. He reached for the door knob and wondered if he was hearing things after all.

Michael’s heart raced with panic. He looked under the table, inside the cabinets, and behind anything with a space large enough for Adam to have fit. Three sweeps around the room yielded nothing to indicate Adam’s whereabouts. The lights had only been out for a minute or two, but it was long enough for the man who stole Amelie to disappear and for Adam, who had been unrestrained, to go into hiding.

He must’ve followed the man out.

It was the only logical explanation and Michael went out in the hallway after him.

Blood covered the white tile floors and walls. Castoff sprayed the ceiling. He maneuvered through human remains, both intact and amputated, and when a door slammed, he chased the sound.

“Adam, buddy. Stay where you are.”

The thought of someone else finding his son first had Michael nearly breathless.

He pushed open the nearest closed door and let it shut behind him. A low, wheezing sound came from a partially opened cabinet beneath the lab’s sink.

“Adam, it’s daddy.”

Michael slowly pulled the door open. Adam was curled up inside. He had gnawed the bandage from his thumb and had the stump in his mouth. Blood covered his lips, but he didn’t attack the way Michael expected him to. Adam kept his face turned to the side and the shadows made it hard to get a look at his eyes.

“Adam, come on out of there, buddy.”

Michael reached in with both arms and prayed he was making the right decision as he eased the boy onto the floor. Catatonia replaced the feral expression that Michael had become use to and afraid of. Adam’s chest rose and fell as he drew ragged breaths, a sign of life Michael hadn’t seen in days. Michael took a stethoscope off of the counter and listened to Adam’s chest. Beneath the liquid sounds of lungs struggling to expand and contract was the faint sound of a heartbeat.

Tears spilled down Michael’s scruffy cheeks and he lifted his boy to his chest.

It had been days since he’d been able to hold him. Adam’s arms hung limp at his sides and the thumb wound bled from his recovered pulse.

It was going to be all right.

Michael, though more of a scientist than a spiritualist, read Adam’s return as a sign that Ashley was still with them.

He lifted the boy’s wilted body onto the examination table and scavenged the supplies he needed to tend to the bleeding. The skin left on Adam’s thumb wasn’t enough to cover the bone and even with power restored, medicine had been thrown so far backward that grafting was out of the question. Michael didn’t have the skill set for that kind of work and there just weren’t the supplies or surgeons to help him. Amputation was the most likely fix, but he’d have to wait until Adam was stabilized for that severe of a procedure. All told, the loss of a thumb was nothing compared with the alternative. Michael reapproximated the skin, restoring it to as close to its original position as he could, and applied a compression wrap and tape to hold it in place. He checked Adam’s eyes for the film that had, so far, left him.

Adam lay still on the table, staring at the ceiling without blinking. Gurgling breaths came at intermittent intervals and Michael wondered how long it would be until his organs functioned normally, or if they ever would again. Adam’s was an unprecedented resurrection after a prolonged death, and with no science to guide him in what to do next, he did what fathers do. He wet a paper towel at the sink and used it to wipe the blood from Adam’s pale face. Beneath the gore, his lips still appeared blue, a sign that he had not yet been oxygenated. Michael raked his fingers through Adam’s white-blond hair and washed the bit of blood from his bangs and his forehead. He watched and waited for something to happen, for the spark of recognition to return to his son’s dull eyes, and panicked when Adam’s body went suddenly rigid.

“Adam, son, can you hear me?”

His muscles became rock-hard and Michael was unable to move his arms or legs. He placed the stethoscope to Adam’s chest and the breath sounds disappeared.

“Adam, buddy. Come on.”

A heart beat, but he wasn’t sure if it was Adam’s or his own, echoed in his ears. He couldn’t think. Nothing made sense.

“You have to calm down,” he told himself. There was a reason physicians didn’t treat their own family members, especially in a critical situation.

He had to be better than this.

“Adam, come on. Breathe for me.”

He started compressions, careful not to crack Adam’s sternum in his desperation to get his heart beating again. Adam’s muscles let go and his lifeless body melted into the stainless steel table.

“Come on, buddy.” Tears rolled down his cheek, blurring his son’s image. “Breathe, damn it.”

He placed his mouth tightly over Adam’s and he started rescue breathing. Blood filled his mouth, Adam’s blood and a lot of it. The metallic taste made him feel sick and he spat on the floor, afraid of becoming infected. He wiped his face on his sleeve and cried out when Adam’s head fell to the side. “No!” Michael resumed frantic compressions, praying for another miracle. “Please don’t leave me.”

When Adam’s small body didn’t respond, he was forced to accept what he already expected all along--that the virus had done irreparable damage. The treatment would have worked if he had it days earlier, but it was too late. He hadn’t saved him, only returned his mortality so that he could have a peaceful, human death. There was no point in trying to pump life into his defeated body. He’d been through too much already.

Michael lowered his head and gave himself over to the crushing sadness. He cried so hard his back shook and he could barely breathe between sobs. Days of heartache and frustration, of fearing for his son, and longing for his wife poured out of him. He closed Adam’s eyelids and placed his tiny hands over his chest. Part of him wondered if the vicious infection was cyclical, if Adam would come back again, undead, or if this was it. When minutes passed without movement, he knew the nightmare was over. He took a clean sheet from one of the lab drawers and wrapped Adam snuggly inside of it.

He lifted him off the table and prepared to carry him out to the Yukon, but before he could reach for the door handle, the door opened and a tattooed man stumbled through it.

“Where’s the baby, Miranda?” Nixon asked a second time, not believing her story.

“I told you, she didn’t make it.”

“And what did you do with
her
then?” It was his first time hearing the child was a girl.

Scott brushed Miranda’s tangled hair back from her face. “We buried her.”

“Isn’t that what civilized people do?” Miranda wiped the tears from her dark eyes and held Scott’s hand.

“I can only imagine your devastation.” A sharp stitch came at Nixon’s side and he winced. He checked Miranda’s IV and examined her stomach, but his own pain kept him distracted. The bite wound on his hand throbbed as he palpated for the top of her uterus. “The bleeding seems to be slowed to normal. How do you feel?”

“Better.”

He nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. Scott, can I have a word with you in the hallway?”

Miranda held his hand tighter and he shook his head. “I told you I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

“And I told you that I would help you in exchange for a
favor
that you’ve yet to repay. I think you’ll enjoy this.”

Scott handed his pistol to Miranda and grinned at Nixon. “Looks like I need a new weapon.”

Nixon turned to Paul, the paunchy, middle-aged guard wearing the hat. “Give him your gun.”

Paul looked at Joe who shrugged. “Don’t look at me. He took mine last time.”

Paul handed Scott his gun and Scott thanked him, though it was clear he hadn’t much of a say in the matter.

“Now what’s this favor?” Scott asked. “You can tell me here.”

Miranda gripped Scott’s pistol until her knuckles turned white.

Nixon sat down on a metal stool, his head pounding to the rhythm of his heartbeat. “Max Reid is here, somewhere. He’s been here for the past seven months and I don’t think I need to tell you what a threat he is. He’s outgrown his usefulness and has been killing my men, which I’m unfortunately in short supply of. I need your help. I want you to find and eliminate him. He should be less of a challenge as I suspect he’s become infected.”

“Scott, no!” Miranda burst into tears.

“But if he hasn’t,” Nixon continued, “I believe both you and Miranda are in danger.”

Nixon knew Scott’s weakness, the same as he knew Zach’s, and in both cases, the women in their lives were likely going to get them killed.

Scott didn’t say anything for a minute. He looked at Miranda lying in the bed. “The bleeding’s slowed down, but what if it comes back? Reid’s had it out for us since I shot him. Nixon’s right. You’re in danger.”

“I’m in danger with
him
,” Miranda said, referring to Nixon.

Nixon sighed. “We made a deal.”

“I’ll do it,” Scott said. “Miranda, you have a gun and I know where you are. I’ll be back for you, I promise.”

“Scott, no.”

“I
promise
. Please, trust me.”

“Do what you have to.” She sniffled and turned away.

Nixon opened the door for Scott to leave. “Sooner you get out there, the sooner you get back.” He wiped the sweat from his face.

Scott nodded and left.

Nixon called for Paul and Joe to follow him into the hall. He closed Miranda’s door, and when Scott was out of ear shot, spoke to them, softly. “Any signs of Reid?”

The men looked at each other and Paul nodded that they had, in fact, seen him.

“And?” His patience had worn thin. “Why isn’t he dead?”

“He climbed into the ceiling,” Paul said. “We had him cornered, but there was a horde and this guy…”

Nixon narrowed his blurring eyes. “What guy?”

“Frank something or other.”

“Frank Krieger?”

Paul nodded. “Yeah, he’s dead.”

This was a repeat of seven months ago and he wondered how much of this he should’ve read from Scott and Miranda. “Have you seen anyone else?”

Both men shook their heads.

Nixon slammed his palm against the wall and let out a frustrated yell. “I can’t believe this.” The halls closed in on him and he couldn’t think.

“Are you all right?” Paul asked. “You don’t look so good.”

He needed Paul and Joe away from him. Only Corey knew, for sure, that he’d been exposed to the virus. Even if these others suspected it, confirming it to them made him weak and a target.

“I’m fine,” he said. “This goddamned thing won’t stop bleeding.” He held up his blood-soaked, bandaged finger. “I sent Scott after Reid because I need him away from here, but I want him dead. Miranda’s much more likely to comply if she doesn’t feel protected. The infant is here somewhere and she’s not alone. I want you to find her, and if you come across Scott or Reid, you take them out. Get Paul a gun out of the supplies and hurry.”

His teeth clenched and his hands tightened, igniting fire in his injured finger. He pulled his hand straight, hoping to alleviate the pressure, but it cramped up again. Waves of nausea came and went. His vision became blurry.

He waited until the guards were out of sight and resumed his search for syringes.