Backwoods (20 page)

“He’s lying,” Moore snapped.

“Like hell,” Andrew snapped back, balling his
hands into fists.

“He’s done something to Alice. I know it.”
Moore whirled to face Andrew. “Tell me where she is. She’s a very
sick little girl and she needs medicine to—”

“Yeah, I know all about your medicine,”
Andrew cut in. “The holes you drill in her head. Did he tell you
about this?” He glared at Prendick. “He cuts
holes into her
skull
to put this so-called ‘medicine’ into her.” Squaring off
against Moore, he said, “You’re not a doctor. You’re a monster. A
sick, fucking sadist who carves up his own kid, for Christ’s—”

Moore bellowed, an inarticulate, furious
roar, and charged again like a pissed off rhinoceros or a
linebacker with some kind of murderous vendetta. Shoulders hunched,
head tucked, he plowed straight for Andrew, and when Andrew danced
back, out of his path, he stumbled over a chair, knocked over a
lamp and crashed with them to the floor in heap. After a long
moment in which there were no sounds in the room except for the
thick, sodden sounds of Moore’s labored breathing, he sat up.

“Dr. Moore,” Prendick said, speaking in a
patronizingly patient tone of voice, as if addressing one of a pair
of malcontent children. “She’s not here. I’ll put together a patrol
and we’ll start combing the woods.”

Moore shambled to his feet, limping in a
semi-circle to face Andrew, his hair wildly askew now, a thin
trickle of blood seeping from his nose. Shoving one wavering
forefinger at Andrew, he said hoarsely, “The only monster here is
you. And if anything happens to Alice, I will hold you personally
responsible. I will personally make you answer for it.”

****

“Jesus.” After Moore and Prendick had left
the room, slamming the door behind them, Andrew lowered himself to
the floor, sitting against the wall, and allowed himself a shaky,
breathless laugh.

What the fuck just happened?
he
thought, massaging his neck with his hand, the area where Moore had
pinned him still sore.

“You shouldn’t have said anything about my
medicine,” he heard Alice say, and he jerked in surprise when she
poked her head out from underneath the bed. “Daddy said it’s
supposed to be a secret. That’s why he does it up in the apartment,
not in the lab.”

“Where…?” Bewildered, Andrew watched her
crawl out on her hands and knees, then stand up and dust off her
hands. “Your dad checked under the bed.”

“I was in the box spring frame. I tore a hole
in the liner, crawled up inside and lay across the wooden
slats.”

Andrew blinked at her.

She blinked back. “Why are you wearing a
towel?”

He glanced down, realized the way he was
sitting, with his knees drawn up, gave her an unrestricted view
past the hem of the towel all the way up to his balls and
immediately clamped his knees together. “Uh. I had to take a
shower. Someone puked on me.”

Her nose wrinkled. If memory served, it was
the first time he’d ever seen her show any outward sign of emotion.
“Ewww,”
she said.

“Tell me about it,” he agreed.

****

He managed to smuggle her out to the garage,
leading her across the darkened work bay to the back corner near
Dani’s desk, to the bathroom. As he fished the key ring from his
pocket, then fumbled to fit the right key in the lock in the
shadows, Alice studied the pictures and drawings around Dani’s
computer.

“She has kids,” she observed.

“Two of them, yeah.” While sifting through
the four nearly identically sized and shaped keys on the key ring,
Andrew noticed that rather than a plastic or metal tab, a goofy
charm or even vehicle remote control, Dani had some kind of small
folding tool at the end of her key chain.
Gerber Clutch
had
been printed on the black exterior. Being the owner of a Gerber
knife himself—said knife currently in his backpack, wherever that
had wound up—Andrew smiled appreciatively. Clearly, Dani knew a
good multi-tool.

“Here,” he said to Alice, as he found the
right key and unlocked the door. “You’ll be safe in here.”

She didn’t immediately answer and curious, he
turned to see her lingering in front of Dani’s desk. She’d taken
one of the framed photos in hand, one of Dani in extreme close up,
with Max tucked beneath one arm, Eme beneath the other, all three
of them grinning goofily into the camera. He could have sworn Alice
looked almost melancholy.

“I don’t have any pictures like this,” she
said when Andrew went to stand beside her. He folded his legs
beneath him, leaning over to look at the photo.

“You mean with your mom?” he asked. With a
sick bastard like Moore for her father, he found he wasn’t the
least bit surprised to realize she missed her mother, despite the
fact the woman hadn’t sounded much better than Moore, to have heard
tell of her.

Alice shook her head. “Smiling.”

It took him a moment to understand. “You
mean, you don’t have any pictures where you’re smiling?” he asked
and she nodded. “Oh. Well, uh…” If he’d had his iPhone, he could
have taken one for her right there on the spot, with its built-in
digital camera. “I’ll take one for you someday. How about
that?”

“No.” She shook her head again. “I mean, I
don’t smile.”

“Of course you can smile. It’s not like your
face doesn’t work.”

“No, but my
brain
doesn’t,” she
replied. “It mixes things up, so I want to smile but I don’t
remember how. Or I want to cry, but the tears won’t come out. I
didn’t say I
can’t
. I said I
don’t.
You’re doing it
again, hearing not listening.”

Once he’d settled her safely into the little
store room, Andrew made several clandestine trips between the
barracks and the garage, stealing through the shadows, bringing her
pillows, blankets, some snacks and drinks. He made a cozy little
pallet on the floor for her while she stood aside and watched. The
glimpses of uncharacteristic emotion she’d shared with him earlier
seemed gone now and her face had turned impassive again, her gaze
detached and aloof.

“It won’t be long,” he promised her. “Just
for tonight, maybe tomorrow.” He stroked his hand against her hair,
then led her toward the nest he’d made for her on the floor. “I
know it’s not much, but you’ll be safe here. No one can get in
without the key, see?”

Holding up his hand, he let the key dangle in
her view, then curled his fingers around it and tucked it into his
pocket. “As long as you stay quiet, no one will even know you’re
here.”

After she’d curled up on the pallet, he drew
the blankets snugly over her shoulders, kneeling down to tuck them
beneath her chin. “You hungry?” he asked, but she shook her head.
“Thirsty?” Another head shake. “I brought you some crackers, a
couple of bottles of 7-Up. They’re right over there, see?”

When he pointed, she followed the line of his
finger with her gaze, then nodded.

“I’ll come back tomorrow as much as I can and
check on you,” he promised as he stood again.

“I’m sorry Daddy hurt you,” she said, looking
up at him, the overhead fluorescent glistening in her eyes.

Andrew smiled. “He didn’t too bad. And it
wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was. He’s worried.”

“Alice.” He squatted again. “Listen to
me.”

How could he explain to her? Moore was her
father, someone she obviously loved and held in high, adulating
esteem, if only because in Alice’s young, idealistic and
impressionable regard, he’d rescued her from the mental institution
in which her mother had placed her.

“Your dad…” he said, then paused, sighed, ran
his fingers through his hair. “Look, your dad loves you. But what
he’s doing to you is wrong. He’s hurting you.”

“No, he’s not.” She shook her head. “He uses
local anesthetic before he starts to drill. All I ever feel is
pressure. Like a finger digging in really hard. Here. I’ll show
you.”

Stricken, Andrew caught her hand, stopping
her. “Alice, your father is sick. There’s something wrong with his
mind.”

“No, there’s not. It’s
my
mind doesn’t
work right. I told you. Daddy said it has something to do with
neural pathways. The electrical signals don’t go from one place in
my brain to another like they do for other people. Sometimes my
signals get mixed up, sent to the wrong place. And sometimes they
just dead end. It’s like the map in my head doesn’t work right, he
said.”

“And cutting holes in your head fixes
that?”

“No. But the medicine he puts in the holes
does. It goes into my cerebral sinuses. They’re sort of like big
blood vessels surrounding your brain. He goes through the
fontanels. The bone is newer there, thinner.”

Tilting her head slightly, she pulled back
her hair, revealing the stitches he’d noticed earlier near her
temple. He must have looked disgusted, horrified, because she
reached out, catching his hand.

“I’m better now.”

“But Alice,” he said, helplessly. “Your dad
didn’t do that by cutting holes in your head.”

“Yes, he did. The medicine makes new nerves
grow. It fills in the missing places in my brain. It makes the
electrical signals get to the right places. Daddy said that one
day, it will all be fixed. I’ll be just like you are.” She looked
at him earnestly, nearly pleading. “I’ll be just like everyone
else.”

****

Back inside the compound, Andrew stopped at
the infirmary to see if Dani was there and had any news on
O’Malley’s condition. He also decided he needed to make her aware
of Moore’s increasingly erratic and violent behavior, and poor
Alice’s delusions that his abuse was somehow helping to cure her
autism.

Maybe Dani can talk to her,
he
thought.
She’s got kids. She can relate better. Maybe she can
make Alice understand.

His footsteps faltered as he approached the
infirmary doorway and Major Prendick walked out, flanked on either
side by a pair of armed soldiers. All three wore bright yellow
hooded jumpsuits over their uniforms, with plastic shields covering
their faces and blue latex gloves over heir hands.

“Mister Braddock,” Prendick called out. “I’m
going to have to ask you to stop where you are.”

“What?” Bewildered, Andrew raised his hands
hesitantly, a reflexive gesture even though no one had demanded it
of him. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I need you to come with these men,” Prendick
replied. The two armed soldiers forked out, each keeping wary
distances from Andrew as they moved to either side of them.

“Where? What’s going on?” Andrew asked
again.

“You’ve been exposed to a highly virulent
strain of contagion. By military protocol, I’m to confine you to
your quarters until I’m able to determine whether or not you’ve
been infected.”

“What protocol? You mean like quarantine?”
Andrew asked. “You’re placing me in quarantine? You can’t do that.
Suzette said all I had to do was take a shower. Hey!” When one of
the soldiers reached for him, he jerked away, brows furrowed.
“Where’s Dani? Where’s Specialist Santoro?”

“She’s been restricted to her personal
quarters until further notice, as well,” Prendick said.

“I want to talk to her. I want to see her
right now.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mister
Braddock. It’s for her own good and yours. We need to make sure no
one else gets sick.”

The soldiers stepped forward, grabbing him
roughly, with enough force to prevent him from breaking free.

“Hey,” Andrew exclaimed, struggling. “Get
your hands off me!”

“I’d prefer that you do this voluntarily,
Mister Braddock,” Prendick said. “But I’m authorized to confine you
by force, if needed.”

“I said get your fucking hands off me,”
Andrew yelled as the soldiers began to haul him down the
corridor.

CHAPTER TWENTY

As he was shoved unceremoniously into his
room, Andrew stumbled and crashed to the floor, barking his knees.
“Hey,” he began, frowning, his fists bared as he scrambled up
again, but it was too late. The soldiers slammed the door in his
face and he heard the tell-tale
beep-beep-beep-beep
as they
locked it.

It was a moot point and he knew it, but he
tried punching in his own pass code anyway. He wasn’t the least bit
surprised when it didn’t work. There was no way they’d have been
that stupid,

With an angry, frustrated cry, he struck the
door. “Damn it!”

Spinning around, he shoved his back against
the door, then folded his legs, sliding his spine down until his
ass met the floor. Shoving his fingers through his hair, he closed
his eyes, tilted his head back.

Great,
he thought.
This is just
great. Now what the hell am I going to do? I can’t just sit here,
twiddling my thumbs, waiting to see if I’m going to get sick. I
can’t leave Alice alone in that closet or Dani locked in her room
downstairs. There’s got to be a way out of this mess.

He’d felt something in his pocket poking him
in the hip when he’d sat down, and shifted his weight now as that
uncomfortable pressure continued digging into his skin. With a
frown, he raised his hips, cramming his hand down his pocket,
meaning to take out whatever was in there and hurl it across the
room. Instead, when he pulled out Dani’s key ring—with her Gerber
multi-tool attached to the chain—he paused, cradling it against his
palm.

Less than three inches long, the Clutch had a
little heft to it nonetheless and curious, he slipped his fingertip
into the little grooves and notches, unfolding each of the
miniature blades and implements in turn: needlenose pliers, a small
knife, emery board, tweezers, flat head and Phillips head
screwdrivers.

“I love you, Dani Santoro,” he murmured even
though she wasn’t around to hear. Standing, he walked across the
room to his window, shoving back the drapes to either side. The top
three-quarters were unblemished glass, a picture pane designed more
for aesthetics than any sort of practicality. But at the bottom,
side by side, was a pair of casement windows. Like pop-out quarter
windows in older model cars, these were designed to open only as
far as the hinge would extend when fully unfolded, roughly six
inches. It was a security feature Andrew had seen in both his
college dormitory and hotel rooms, designed to prevent people from
falling out.