The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series) (28 page)

“Like the samples,” he whispered.

“I’ve got to get her into a scan,” she said, the confidence returning to her voice. They finally had a lead, a place to start looking for answers. If it was a daunting task, at least it was a place to begin, and for that she was grateful.

“I’ll get a full body scan of them both, Brandon and the girl,” she continued, heading instinctively for the door. “You call Grace and have her pull another sample from them both, blood and tissue.”

“Should we get marrow too?” Thad asked, the suggestion clear in his careful question.

“Good idea. Check for hypoplasty of the stem cells; if his white cell count isn’t coming back, we need to know.”

And with that, she was out the door and heading for the psych ward. If she could diagnose it, then she could understand it; and if she could understand it, there was a good chance she could treat it. That’s what she always told her med students. So it seemed unreasonable to her, the hard knot of fear that gathered in her stomach as she made her way to where the girl was being kept.

She was only steps from the elevator when her racing thoughts slowed enough to register the atmosphere around her. The sterile halls were not heavily trafficked on this floor on normal days, but she was suddenly aware of the stillness around her. Glancing back and forth, she realized she was alone under the fluorescent lights that stretched away in either direction. But it was more than that. There was a charge in the air, a tense energy that made her shiver suddenly; at that moment, the elevator signaled, and the doors slid open. A frazzled nurse nearly bowled her over as she stepped out into the hallway, sending Karen reeling back on her heels with a grunt of surprise and irritation.

“I’m sorry,” the younger woman mumbled as she continued past.

“No problem,” Karen answered gruffly. She was about to step into the elevator when she turned back and called out, “What’s going on?”

The young nurse didn’t stop; she just called out over her shoulder, “The emergency room is completely packed. They’re saying there’s been a biochemical attack, and they’re sending anyone in this area complaining of symptoms here. The Marines are setting up a triage tent in the parking lot, and I’m supposed to check everyone on this floor before they’re done and start calling for help.”

She rounded the corner seconds after finishing her sentence, and Karen was alone in the hall again, her thoughts a tangled mess of opposing obligations. She felt compelled to rush to the first-floor emergency room and assist with triage, possibly even warn her colleagues about patients exhibiting symptoms like Brandon or the mugging victim. Simultaneously, she knew that she might do the most good in the long run by starting the scan on Brandon and chasing down their first lead in what could quickly become some kind of outbreak. The elevator buzzed at her finally, pushing her to step either in or out. Frustrated, she stepped inside, and after a moment of hesitation, hit the button for the ER.

The pitch darkness was disorienting. Kai kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, for some sense of location, of his surroundings, to emerge from the black, but instead, he began to feel a creeping vertigo. To his left, Jones would shift occasionally, the sound amplified by the complete lack of vision the black room afforded him.

He reached up slowly and felt for the doorknob to reassure himself that his ear was in fact pressed against the door and not one of the storeroom walls. His fingertips brushed the cool metal, and he moved it carefully back and forth a few times, testing to be sure it was still locked. It barely turned at all.

It had been a long time, he thought, since they had heard the strange calls through the door. Ben had kept his storeroom well secured, likely to discourage the ever-present cockroaches from getting into his supplies; the storeroom door was well sealed along the edges, and a formidable rubber flap breached the small gap that would have existed between the bottom of the door and the floor. Because of this, the room was devoid of any light, and almost no sound came through. Briefly, Kai worried about the air supply.

“Can you hear anything?” Jones whispered.

Kai shook his head, then realized his mistake.

“No. That barking stopped,” he responded quietly. The tension in his neck was beginning to ache down into his shoulders and spine; Paul had been out there, silent, for too long.

Jones’s raspy whisper picked up again. “What do you think it was?”

“I’m not sure, man,” he snapped back, irritated. His concern for Paul had mingled with his urgent worry for Sarah, and embroiled with the claustrophobia brought on by the close, dark room, it threatened to overwhelm his self-control. Despite his best efforts to think of a way to get out of the tiny storeroom, he was unable to focus his brain on anything other than the need to escape.

“How long do you think it’s been?” Jones whispered again.

His temper broke, and he whipped around to face the direction of Jones’s voice.

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” he hissed. “Too long!”

Just then, Jones’s face appeared, sallow and shadowed, his eyes squinting against the sudden light. Kai’s mouth dropped open, stunned. The younger man was sitting on the floor, wedged in between two cardboard boxes, his wrist raised to his chest, and he was examining his watch.

“Holy shit, dude. It’s almost midnight,” he said, looking up at Kai with wide eyes. When he saw the expression on Kai’s face, his own changed to a look of confusion, and then embarrassment.

“Oh . . .” he mumbled. The backlight on his watch went off, and the darkness closed in around them immediately.

“Turn that back on,” Kai growled, standing.

They spent the next few minutes searching the storeroom for something they could use to get the door open, finding only prepackaged foods and room-temperature sodas. Every minute or so, the room would go dark again, and Jones would curse, hitting another button on his watch to bring the tiny green light back to life. Finally, he thrust his closed fist into the air and exclaimed, “
Ha!
”

Kai turned to see a small screwdriver clutched in the other man’s hand, and for the first time all night, he smiled at Jones.

“Perfect,” he replied, snatching it away. Jones beamed with pride.

“Bring that light over here,” Kai ordered, and almost immediately the door was illuminated.

He worked quickly to remove the screws from the handle assembly, a job made more difficult by the fact that the head on the screwdriver was a few sizes too small to get good leverage. Jones had to turn the light back on three times before all the screws were out.

Kai yanked on the handle and found that it gave, but only slightly. Exhaling slowly in an attempt to keep his anxiety in check, he worked at the metal until he finally found an angle that allowed him to pull the assembly free.

“Yes!” Jones nearly shouted as Kai pulled the door open slowly.

Paul’s form lay in the same position where they had seen him fall, a small pool of blood congealing on the floor beneath his face. Rushing to him, Kai put two fingers to his brother’s neck. Relief washed over him like a warm wave when he felt the steady pulse moving beneath Paul’s skin.

“He’s okay?” Jones asked quietly.

Kai nodded.

“Alive, at least. It looks like the blood is from a cut on his chin. He’s definitely going to need stitches.” He looked up at Jones and saw the worry and exhaustion plain on his face. He looked like he might faint or throw up, or both. Suddenly sympathetic, Kai nodded toward a chair in the corner.

“Sit down, man. Everything’s going to be okay,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.

Jones nodded and stumbled over to the chair, plopping down and putting his head in his hands.

“So now what?” Jones mumbled.

It was a difficult question. Obviously they would have to wait for Paul to regain consciousness. Without the truck, there was no way to move him safely and remain alert for looters, or worse, out in the streets. The animalistic sounds they had heard earlier echoed in the back of his mind, sending a slight chill running down his spine. The urge to get to Sarah tugged at his heart, but the sight of his brother lying in his own blood kept him rooted to the spot. He reminded himself that she was with Mike and at a police station—a feeble attempt at self-comfort.

“We wait for Paul,” he said finally. “I’ll see if there’s a first aid kit around so we can bandage his chin, and when he comes to, we’ll have to walk to the station. I saw the sign for it a block back . . . it shouldn’t be too far away.”

When Jones didn’t respond, he glanced back over his shoulder to find the younger man sitting with his head back against the wall, his eyes closed. For a second, Kai wondered if he had fallen asleep. But then his lips moved slightly, and he said, “We have to walk?”

“Yeah. But we’ll be fine,” Kai said, his casual tone unconvincing.

It took a good deal of effort to stand and walk away from Paul’s motionless form. A small amount of diffused moonlight struggled through a thin, dusty window that ran across the length of the wall well above eye level; Ben had left the door leading from the back office out into the store slightly ajar, but Kai couldn’t make out anything from where he stood. He steeled himself to go back out into the relatively open environment, moving silently to the door and letting his eyes adjust to the difference in light before going any farther.

The store looked exactly as they had left it, and appeared to still be empty. He listened hard for breathing or the quiet sound of someone waiting, but he neither heard nor felt another presence in the outside room. As he pulled the office door open slowly, it swung easily on its hinges without a sound; he was grateful that Ben kept his store in good repair. Crouched and careful, he tiptoed across the store toward the aisle he thought might have some first aid supplies, gingerly stepping over the shards of broken glass and other debris.

The shelves around him were mostly empty, but some supplies remained, either shoved to the back or scattered on the floor. He searched thoroughly and quickly, gathering up two packages of cartoon Band-Aids, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a package of gauze. The sound of his own breath made him nervous; it was so quiet in the store that he could hear the wind as it brushed against the glass doors, rattling uneasily in their frame.

Once he had finished scouring the shelves, he turned to head back to the office, but a sudden thought struck him. He spun on his heel and padded over to the line of windows that faced the street, raising his head up slowly until he could just see out.

The truck was gone. A punch of disappointment mingled with anger struck him in the gut; he had known it wouldn’t be out there waiting for him, but he knew now that a small part of him had been hoping that somehow, Ben had changed his mind. Disappointed, he widened his focus to take in the whole street. While they had been locked in the storeroom, the clouds had rolled back in, and the asphalt glistened with moisture in the brief moments when the moon broke through.

A purple arch of lightning lit the clouds from the inside, briefly highlighting the mass and turmoil that stretched the length of the horizon and throwing the gentle slope of the island into contrast. Seconds later, a throaty rumble of thunder rolled overhead, and the first few raindrops splattered against the window, making him flinch. He was getting ready to turn away when a flit of motion caught his eye.

Down the street, a female figure trudged along, her feet moving lethargically, as if she had been walking for miles, the tips of her shoes scuffing along the cement. Her arms were wrapped around her torso, and she shivered with cold. As he watched, she lolled her head from side to side like she was trying to work out an ache or hear something faint and far away. She was getting nearer to the gas station, and he could see the raindrops as they fell against her ratty hair, matting it to her forehead. And then he saw the blood.

Long streaks of crimson ran down her arms, diluted in places by the falling rain. Her blouse was tattered around the neck and ripped near the left armpit. Bloodstains had blossomed near her collarbone, but it was difficult to tell if the stains were growing or if the bleeding had stopped.

“Kai?” Paul’s voice made him jump, and he whirled to find his brother leaning in the office doorway. At the same time, he heard the sounds of Jones stirring; he had obviously fallen asleep.

Kai gestured for Paul to stay quiet and wait where he was.

“What is it?” his brother whispered.

He turned back to the window and found that the woman on the street had stopped in the parking lot, her face turned out of the wind and toward the back of the store. Her features, which had been obscured by the darkness, were momentarily silhouetted by a flickering of lightning in the clouds, and Kai could briefly make out the ruined features. Her nose was broken, flattened horribly in the center and bleeding. A slab of skin was missing from her cheek near her mouth, so that her upper lip drooped grotesquely over the lower, the edge brushing against her chin.

He must have gasped, because Paul shifted behind him and repeated his question, his tone more urgent.

“A woman,” he muttered. “She’s been attacked, I think.”

The sounds of Paul moving through the store made him cringe, but he knew it would be impossible to hear the slight noises outside of the store, especially with the storm gusting around them. Still, he thought he saw the woman cock her head slightly when his brother crunched loudly over a pile of broken bottles. Finally, he felt Paul at his side, peering out the window with him.

“She needs help,” his brother murmured, but his tone betrayed his hesitation. Neither of them moved, and neither did the woman. She just stood in the rain, shivering.

“It looks that way,” Kai responded. But the way she shook somehow reminded him of his encounter with Brent, and he found he was without sympathy.

And then, abruptly, the tension melted out of her muscles, and she collapsed into a more relaxed posture. Her arms dropped to her sides, fingers curled in slightly. Her head drooped down toward her chest, and the shudders that had racked her body stilled. She stared with half-open eyes into the darkness, unblinking.