Mad Dogs (4 page)

8

When I got back to the Third Floor, everybody had their GODS in the Day Room.

GODS: Get Out of Dodge Soonest. The gear you grab when you gotta go. I.D.s. Cash. Credit cards invisible to hunters' computers. Clothes for cover, camouflage, and comfort. Protein pills and vitamins. Weapons are a hard call. You're a spy, not a cop or a soldier. You must protect your cover and weapons get you noticed. Plus weapons wipe out wits. When you strap on a gun or slide a shiv in your sock, you think you're twice as tough as you've ever been. You load your brains into the gun, so your first thought becomes:
squeeze the trigger.

Took me three minutes to grab my GODS. Paranoia propels preparation. We kept all our gear ready to go in plain sight of the Keepers. If they realized we were maintaining Op alert status in the safety of our homeland insane asylum, that awareness became simply more proof that we were crazy and right where we belonged.

What I stuffed into my black nylon computer case bag:

One set of underwear and socks, a polypropelene skiing shirt.

One toiletries kit—soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant. Like airport security guards, our Keepers rationed our razors, fingernail clippers, or scissors.

One notebook and two of the permitted felt-tip pens.

One leather flight jacket that held my wallet with $84 and my expired California driver's license.

One first edition of William Carlos Williams
greatest hits
that hid a snapshot of shy Derya on a roof, her cinnamon hair floating in the breeze of Kuala Lumpur.

One hand-sized souvenir of New York city that I didn't get there.

What I didn't stuff into my black nylon computer case bag:

Weapons we didn't have.

A palm pilot or address book of people who cared and would help.

Maps of the zero safe places I could go.

Five of us, geared-up to go, met in the Day Room by Dr. F's body.

Zane kicked two support planks out of the couch and Russell helped me lug Dr. F.

Hailey by-passed our Ward's locks, stepped into the Third Floor hall.

“Clear!” Hailey dashed toward the two elevators and pushed the DOWN button, her brown eyes flicking from one end of the corridor to the other, from one closed door to the next. Russell and I lugged Dr. F's body toward her and the elevator. Eric followed us, strapped to our GODS bags and swiped First Aid kits. Zane came last, carrying a metal folding chair and the two eight foot support slats he'd kicked off the couch.

Russell and I propped Dr. F face-out against the elevator cage's back wall as the others scrambled on board.

An engine whined and cables clunked for the elevator next to us.

Hailey jabbed the FIRST FLOOR button.

The other elevator clunked to a stop one floor up. Its unseen doors jerked open.

“Push the button again!” said Zane.

The other elevator whined
coming down
. Towards us.

Hailey's finger pecked our FIRST FLOOR button like a starving woodpecker.

“I can fake Dr. F's voice,” said Russell. “Vic, hold him. I'll say we're going—”

“Nowhere,” I said. “This fucking elevator—”

Clunk
. The elevator next door stopped. On our floor. Those doors whirred open.

As ours slid shut.

We dropped like a stone down the shaft through the heart of the Castle.

On the first floor, Hailey stepped off the elevator. Looked both ways.

Like we hoped, she saw an empty hall stretching towards the corridor crossroads.

The First Aid kits let us tape Dr. F's eyes open, then bind him into the metal chair. We taped his head level on his shoulders. Strapped our GODS on his lap. Russell dropped to his hands and knees behind a similarly posed Zane. Hailey and Eric taped a plank on their spines.

Hailey balanced Dr. F's throne on that plank while Eric and I scurried into position beside the other two kneeling guys. She taped the plank to us.

Four of us knelt strapped into a corpse-carrying caravan. Hailey crouched ahead of us. Fifty feet away from her dark eyes waited the corridor corner: around it was the door to freedom or the moment when we'd be caught.

“This is a sad and risky plan,” said Russell.

“Crawl in time.” Zane pictured the team-building/body bustin' drills in Special Warfare school where he and his squad jogged with a telephone pole on their shoulders.

“Wait!” said Russell. “Did anybody grab our meds?”

“Oh-oh,” said Eric. “Oh-oh.”

Meds at the Castle are locked up in a guarded pharmacy. The medicine cart for the five of us carried a vast rainbow of pills dispensed four times a day.

“Guess we just said ‘
no
,'” whispered Zane.

“We gotta go!” I said. “Need to go now! On zero!”

“We can't hear Malcolm counting!” argued Zane.

“Not Malcolm! On me! When I say! Three, two, one—”

Crawl.
By the third ‘slide,' we were crawling together. Sweat dripped off my forehead. Tapped on the ammonia mopped green floor tiles between my sliding hands.

“Aaaahhh!”

Like a scream ripped through the Castle, but this wail was a cacophony of voices.

Malcolm.

Our caravan scrambled around the corner—

Where the budget cuts saved us and no guard stood behind the hall counter.

A blue stripe painted on the green tiles from the counter to the wall marked the Castle's secured border. As our sedan chair moved Dr. F's face across that blue stripe, motion sensors activated an electronic hum. A blue band of light flowed over Dr. F's lifeless face. Found his taped open eyes. Matched his irises to stored data.

The metal cover over the EXIT door latch whirred and clicked, then slid up to reveal a touch screen beside the door release handle. The touch screen glowed to life.

We shuffled our burden as close to the door as we could. Hailey pressed Dr. F's dead left hand to the glowing screen.

The door lock buzzed.

And we were out.

9

A blue bus idled in the night mist of a Maine parking lot. From the bowels of the Castle beyond the parking lot came a wail. The bus driver's posture behind the steering wheel claimed he didn't hear that. But he heard the
Bam-clang! Bam-clang!
on the bus's folding door. The driver popped open the doors.

Standing out there in the night was a woman wearing a trenchcoat darker than her cocoa skin. She said: “Are you ready to go?”

An albino Jesus charged into the bus, dropped a grip of steel on the driver's shoulder, said: “Do you know the way out?”

“Ah, just past the gate guards, down the road 10 minutes an—Who are…”

“Do your job,” commanded white-maned Zane. Eric obeyed Hailey and got on the bus. Russell and I staggered towards the steps, our burden draped between us.

“Doing your job,” Zane told the bus driver. “Isn't that what life's about?”

“That guy those two are carry–
Hey
, you supposed to bring him on here?”

“We all gotta go sometime,” said Russell.

He and I dumped Dr. F in the seat RIGHT BEHIND the driver's chair.

“What's wrong with him?” asked the driver.

“Bad luck.” Russell slid into the seat behind that slumped-over passenger.

Zane said: “How's your luck?”

“
G-g
-good.” The bus driver's voice said he knew he was in trouble.

Curled on the floor by the Dr. F's shoes, I said: “Do you know who you are?”

“The… The bus driver?”

“
'Xactly!
” Zane plucked the 24-inch black steel Mag flashlight from its dashboard clamp. He flipped that black metal flashlight end over end, then chopped it through the night air as if to smack somebody in the head. “And we are
so
on the bus.

“Drive.” Zane flicked a flashlight beam toward the grimy metal floor of the front seat across the aisle from the driver's perch. “I'll be right there.”

The blue bus rumbled out of the lot, down the long and winding road, through the trees to the Security Gate where the two guards packed 9mm Glocks. Looking at the bus windows, the guards saw one passenger slumped behind the driver: the visiting shrink.

A guard held up his hand and stepped into the glow of the bus headlights.

From the bus floor, I told the driver: “Slide open your window.”

Footsteps crunched gravel outside in the night. The guard's words flowed into the bus: “Going back early.”

The driver said: “Just doing what they tell me.”

The guard said: “
Ay-yuh
. How you doing in there, Sir?”

I grabbed Dr. F's elbow, raised his limp arm above the window sill… waved his hand in a floppy salute.

“Good for you. See you later.”

The chain link gate clanked open.

I let the dead man's hand plop in an encouraging tap on the driver's shoulder.

The blue bus chugged forward and the chain link gate slid shut behind it.

We bounced through the night in that blue bus. Trees danced alongside us like Mardi Gras ghosts. Exhaust, oiled metal, and something sour perfumed our every inhale.

Ten minutes later, the bus drove alongside the brick building with the RAVENS plaque. Two dozen cars napped in behind the building in its parking lot's shadows.

“Shut it down,” I told the driver.

The blue bus engine died.

“Clear!” whispered Zane.

We took the driver's wallet with its $41. Taped his mouth shut and his hands to the bus's steering wheel.

“Here,” Hailey told him, “this will keep you warm.”

A wool blanket from the winter survival kit parachuted over the driver like a tent.

All he saw was scratchy darkness. He heard the accordion door pop open. Felt the blast of night air. Something dragged over the bus's metal floor. Clumped down the stairs. Shoes crunched on the gritty parking lot.

Then the door closed, and he couldn't see anything, hear anything, scream anything in that Maine night parking lot, in a blue bus, under a blanket.

10

Standing beside the blue bus, I pointed Dr. F's keys at the herd of empty cars, thumbed a black plastic button.

Bweep-boop!

Headlights flashed on a four door silver Ford.

“Wild!” said Russell.

“Saw that in a TV commercial,” I confessed.

Vision
hit me. An epiphany so pure and clear I was breathless.

Dr. F stuck to Zane like a drunk sophomore being held up by his Prom date.

“They know,” said Zane. “By now, for sure, the Keepers know.”

“How much?” said Hailey.

“That we're missing,” I said. “They might still think we're hiding or trapped on the grounds. That's logical. That's where they're looking.”

“But not for long,” she said.

“And Dr. F is getting heavy,” said Zane. “But if the Keepers don't know
proof certain
that he's dead, they'll have to deal with more contingencies.”

“Dibs on driving!” said Russell.

“That's mine!” Zane's outburst shook the corpse he held. “It's been 30 years!”

Their argument brought panic to Eric's face.

Hailey held out a calming hand: “It's OK, Eric. Don't worry. I'm driving.”

She glared at Zane.

Who frowned at her, flicked his eyes to Russell.

Who watched them both with the intensity of a base stealer dancing on second.

Zane blinked.

Hailey ran towards the silver Ford, her dark trenchcoat flapping.

Russell blasted off after her, his black leather coat billowing like a cape.

Zane swung Dr. F's body towards Eric: “Hold him!”

Eric caught our therapist on his right shoulder like a linebacker slamming into a pass receiver. Eric stumbled with the crash of the corpse on his shoulder, staggered, stood straight so he hefted Dr. F like a rolled rug.

Zane chased Russell and Hailey, his white Jesus hair flowing in the night.

The parked silver car seemed to zoom towards their charging mob. Russell and Hailey ran neck and neck, with Zane only three, now two lunging strides behind their flapping coats. Their hands clawed for a handle in the night air.

Bweep-boop!

Headlights flashed on the silver Ford and the racers heard door locks
thunk
.

Walking to the silver Ford, I jiggled the keys. Ignored their glares, just as they ignored Eric as he staggered behind me with a corpse thrown over his shoulder.

“Besides,” I said, “I know who killed Dr. Friedman.”