Strangelets (5 page)

“I lost mine,” the tall girl grumbled.

“No phone.” The Asian girl shook her head. “And … there’s another girl. I think …” her eyes darted to the taller girl. “I think she might be hurt.”

“Hurt how?” Declan asked, his eyes narrowing. Yosh seemed scared of the bigger girl. He reached into his pocket and tucked the longest pick between his fingers. It wasn’t sharp, but in the past it had worked better than knuckles alone in a fight. It would be ironic if he survived getting shot at, only to end up fighting these loons.

“She seems ill,” the tall girl acknowledged. “Although she might be faking.”

“Why would she be faking?” Zain asked, puzzled.

She jerked a thumb back over her shoulder. “Third door down. Go see if you like. I’m going to make sure you’re telling the truth.” She pushed past them, stopping dead at the sight of the card table. After a beat, she stalked off down the hall.

“Lovely girl,” Declan murmured. “Just the sort you want to bring home to mum.” He turned to Yosh and grinned. “You seem sane enough, though.”

Yosh flushed and lowered her eyes. “I think Anat is just frightened.”

“Ah, so you managed to get a name out of her. Clever girl. Well, let’s have a look at this other one.”

Yosh led them down the hall. The setup mirrored their own: two longer halls linked by a short one, with six doors
total. The door to the third room was ajar, the rest were closed.

The three boys exchanged a look behind Yosh’s back. In silent acknowledgement, Zain and Nico split off to opposite ends of the hall and started opening doors, checking rooms. Declan was relieved to see they’d been thinking along the same lines; all this was damned strange, and he for one didn’t care to be trapped in a hospital room when the next surprise showed up. Best to make sure the girls were telling the truth about them all being empty. And no offense to the fairer sex, but there must be a way out somewhere over here—there certainly wasn’t one on their side. The girls probably just hadn’t found it yet.

Declan paused on the threshold, then stepped into the room. Yosh had gone straight to the bed and stood beside it, wringing her hands.

A girl with dark blond hair lay on it. She looked dead asleep, the covers pulled up to her waist. Pretty, Declan noted, but pale and sickly looking, with dark circles under her eyes. Not as striking as Anat, but she had a kind of classic beauty, fragile-looking as a doll. Around his age, seventeen or so, wearing an old nightgown. Her chest rose and fell shallowly, her hands lay palms up on the blankets. From the looks of things, this girl actually belonged in a hospital. He scanned her room—identical to the one he’d awoken in.

“Any idea what’s wrong with her?” Declan asked, reflexively lowering his voice as he approached the bed.

Yosh hesitated, then said, “I think she had a seizure.”

“I did nothing to her.”

Declan glanced up. The tall girl, Anat, stood in the doorway. Zain and Nico peered over her shoulder. Judging by her tone and the way Yosh was avoiding his eyes, she was lying.
Declan raised his eyebrows and said, “Found her like this, then? ‘Cause Yosh here was saying something about a seizure.”

“A seizure, yes,” Anat said. “That’s what it was.” She looked at Yosh. “These boys are telling the truth. No way out on their side, either.”

“Satisfied?” Nico said with a snort.

“Now I am,” she retorted. “You checked here too, yes?”

“Of course.”

Warily, they sized one another up. “Israeli?” Nico finally asked.

“Yes.”

“Already started military training?”

“Yes.”

“Can you say anything but yes?” Nico asked bluntly.

Unexpectedly, she laughed. “I’m very good at saying no, too.”

“Not surprising.” Nico grinned.

Declan watched the exchange with interest—kindred spirits, apparently. Charming. Maybe later they could grab a pint and swap stories about beating the piss out of people on a lark.

“Is she all right?” Zain asked, approaching the bed.

“I think so.” Declan tried to sound reassuring. “Probably just recovering from a fit. My mate Michael used to have those sometimes, always slept like the dead after one.”

“What do we do now?” Yosh asked.

“We leave her,” Anat said, stepping into the room.

“Leave her? You’re going somewhere, then?” Declan demanded.

Anat waved a hand impatiently. “There must be a way out.”

“Hang on,” Declan said. “She might wake in a bit—”

“Anat is right, we need to go,” Nico said. “There’s no
food here, nothing but water. There are enough of us now to break a hole through a wall. We’ll take shifts.”

“I don’t know,” Yosh said in a small voice. “It seems …”

“Good idea,” Anat said approvingly. “We’ll look for a weak spot between the support beams.” She bent down and examined the bedrail. “If we can get these off, they should be strong enough to punch through. I will get the one from my room.”

“And we leave her alone here, with no food?” Zain said. “That seems cruel.”

“She’ll see the hole,” Anat pointed out. “It will be easy for her to follow us.” She gazed at each of them. “You’d rather stay here and starve?”

Declan had to acknowledge that she had a point. And he for one was eager to get back to Katie and his mum. It wasn’t as if he owed the girl in the bed anything, after all, and surely someone official would be by soon. They’d undoubtedly help her. “All right, then,” he said reluctantly. “We start on a wall. By the time we break through, hopefully she’ll have rejoined the living.”

This was getting old
fast
, Sophie thought, opening her eyes. She’d spent more time awake on her deathbed. Maybe she really had ended up in hell—because whatever this place was, it clearly qualified for bizarro-land. Apparently her hospital room had been slated for remodeling while she was zonked out, because there were giant holes punched along two walls and the air was thick with plaster. Inhaling some of it, Sophie’s nose wrinkled and she sneezed. From beyond her open door, she heard distant thumps and grunts.

Signs of human life. That was a relief. At this point she’d be thrilled to see anyone aside from that crazy girl from
down the hall. Sophie had a vague memory of being shaken forcefully.
They should really do something about the security around here
, she thought. “Um, hello?” she called out. Maybe the nurses had finally returned. She couldn’t imagine where they’d all gone earlier; maybe they had one of those walking clubs. Her favorite nurse at the hospice, Betsy, used to go on about how they circled the hospice twenty times on their lunch break. They must’ve screwed up and forgotten to leave someone behind.

At the thought of Betsy chugging along briskly in her hot pink scrubs and shiny white sneakers, Sophie felt a pang. She really wasn’t in the mood to start over with a new crew of nurses.

A head suddenly popped around her doorframe. “Oh good, you’re up. About bloody time, too.”

Sophie carefully eased up onto her elbows and examined him. Not a nurse, or anyone official-looking; just a teenage boy with a brogue. Plaster streaked his thick brown hair, and there was a smudge of white beneath his bright blue eyes.
Maybe someone from the contractor’s crew?

“Uh, hi. Could you find a nurse for me?” she asked politely.

“Would that I could, but it’s just us.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked, puzzled. “Just who?”

“Buncha feckin’ lunatics, to be honest,” he confided in a low voice, approaching her bed. “You look to be truly ill, though.”

“Well, yeah. Usually the patients on the oncology ward aren’t the healthiest.”

He stopped at the foot of her bed. She frowned; the only people allowed in her room were doctors, nurses, and immediate family. Yet this construction guy was acting like it was totally normal to hang out with a patient. Man, this was a
weird hospital. She almost never complained about her stays, even when they served the same meal three days in a row. But this was pushing it.

“Cancer, is it?” He looked interested. “Still got all your hair, though.”

Sophie ran a hand through it self-consciously; her hair felt oily and stringy. For the past week she’d told them not to bother washing it. Why stay clean when she was just going into a coffin anyway? Of course, she hadn’t anticipated receiving new visitors—especially not a teenage boy who was kind of cute, even if he was pushy. “I stopped chemo awhile ago.”

“Yeah? Feeling better then?”

“A little,” Sophie said. Which was true. Not quite as energetic as the last time she woke up, but all things considered she felt pretty good.

“Excellent.” He nodded at her. “You’ll come with us, then, if we find a way out. No luck so far, but we’re still at it.”

“Come with you?” Sophie asked, puzzled. “Where?” She wanted to add that he probably wasn’t qualified to discharge patients, but that seemed rude. She gazed past him toward the doorway, wishing for a nurse to show up and hustle him out.

He caught her expression and said, “Right, you’re probably a bit confused. You haven’t been out of this room yet?”

“I barely made it to the hallway.”

“Long story short, then,” he said. “This looks like a hospital, ‘cept it has no exits. No nurses or doctors, either. And no food, which is a damned shame since I’m feckin’ starving. Declan Murphy, by the way.” He extended a hand.

Bewildered, Sophie shook, then said, “Wait, what? This isn’t a hospital?”
He’s nuts too
, she thought. Even though it was fancy, this was definitely a hospital: convertible bed, check. Uncomfortable furniture, check. Tacky curtains and
bad art, check. Aside from the lack of equipment, it was a model hospital room, and she should know; at this point, she was kind of an expert.

“Madness, right?” He grinned at her. “We’re not sure what it is. And here’s where it really goes sideways. We all come from different places. You’re American, yeah?”

Sophie hesitated but couldn’t see any harm in answering. “From California.”

“Los Angeles?” His face brightened.

“Palo Alto. Kind of near San Francisco,” she explained, seeing the blank expression on his face.

“Ah, I hear that’s a lovely town. I’m from Galway,” he said. “Nico is Swiss, Zain Indian. Anat is from Israel, and Yosh is from—”

“Let me guess, Japan.”

Declan nodded. “Right. First, I thought they were having me on, that I’d ended up in an asylum somehow.”

“Me, too,” Sophie admitted.
Could he be telling the truth?
He didn’t seem crazy, at least not like the other girl. Remembering her, she said, “I think I already met Anat.”

“Bet that didn’t go well. She’s a charmer, sure. Anyway, we all started in different places and ended up here.”

“Regular ‘It’s a Small World,’ huh?” Sophie said, half to herself.

Declan barked a laugh. “You could say that, yeah. We’ve been trying to find a weak spot in the walls, but so far, no luck.”

She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around what Declan was telling her. Maybe she was still trapped in some sort of nightmare? But no, he seemed real enough. And that was definitely not imaginary plaster dust filling her nasal cavity. But as far as this not being a hospital, and them being
trapped inside … that all sounded bonkers. Still, might as well play along until someone in charge came along. “So we all come from different places, we’re locked up here, you haven’t seen anyone else, and there are no doors or windows. That about sums it up?”

“You forgot the part about the shite service, and no clocks,” Declan said. “Plus the shower pressure is terrible.”

“No shower pressure? Heck, then we definitely need to get out of here,” Sophie said gravely.

Declan laughed as if she’d said the funniest thing in the world. A giggle rose in her chest, too. It felt good—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d really laughed. She knew they were both overreacting to what, truth be told, hadn’t been a very funny joke. Still, even though it could be chalked up to a hysterical reaction, it felt good.

“What’s your name?” he asked after a minute.

“Sophie.” A flush rose in her cheeks. He really was cute, and he had a great laugh.

“Right, Sophie,” Declan said gravely. “It’s settled, we need to get out. Of this room, at least.”

“That would be a start,” Sophie agreed.

“You all right to walk?”

“I think so.” Sophie slid her feet out from under the covers and tugged at the hem of her nightgown, fervently wishing that she’d worn a longer one. This was an old favorite, a hand-me-down from her mom that featured a smiley face with a bullet hole in the center of its forehead. The hospice nurses had universally hated it; even her mom tried to persuade her to change out of it toward the end. But Sophie had decided a long time ago that she’d meet death on her own terms. Besides, it was the most comfortable nightgown she owned, even if it barely cleared her thighs. Declan decorously
kept his eyes up while placing a hand under her elbow to steady her. “Shall we?”

In spite of herself, Sophie had to lean on him as they made their way toward the door. They’d nearly reached it when Anat appeared, blocking their way. Wielding a long piece of metal coated with dust on one end, she growled, “Nothing!”

Sophie instinctively shied back. The girl looked ready to club something, and judging by the look in her eyes, she wouldn’t mind starting with Sophie.

“No luck still?” Declan asked.

“Just more cement.” The girl dropped the bar, and it hit the floor with a clank. “All the walls are lined with it.”

Sophie peered past her. More sloppy holes like the ones in her room dotted the hall.
Construction my ass
, she thought. They were tearing the place apart. And that must have made a lot of noise, she suddenly realized; why hadn’t anyone appeared to check up on them?

Could it really be true
?
Were they trapped
? Sophie brushed the thought away. Impossible. Odds were this was just some nutty morphine dream she was trapped in. Any minute now, she’d wake up on her deathbed. She closed her eyes and pinched her arm, wincing at the pain. She opened them to find Declan giving her an odd look.