Night Chill (35 page)

Within seconds he felt his feet start to slip. Lonetree was too heavy.

Slowly, inch-by-inch, the rope pulled him forward out of position. Soon, he was looking down the length of rope at Lonetree struggling at the other end.

White water splashed everywhere around Lonetree’s hulking form. He was right at the mouth of the gaping hole where the river entered the rock wall. Working hand over hand, he was trying to pull himself up the rope, but the current was too strong. Lonetree’s helmet light shined right into Jack’s eyes, temporarily blinding him. When the light moved again, Jack could see Lonetree’s right hand held a knife. He was trying to cut the rope to keep Jack from being pulled into the water. 

“NO!” Jack shouted.

His feet slipped forward another inch.

He clenched his teeth and pulled back against the weight even as his brain surged with commands for him to stop.

Let go of the rope. You need to stay alive so you can save your daughter.

He ignored the warnings and cinched the rope tighter around his waist. He watched as his feet edged up the rock incline he was using for a brace. He had to readjust his position or he would lose all traction.

With a heave, he pulled back on the rope and tried to jam his heels back down to get a better grip.

His feet missed.

They slipped forward and suddenly all his resistance to the rope was gone. With enough torque to squeeze the air out of him, Lonetree’s weight yanked him forward headfirst toward the river.

Jack bounced along the rock floor like he was being dragged behind a truck. He reached out and clawed at the ground for something to cling on to, but he knew what was coming next.

Jack sucked down a lungful of air just as his body plunged into the water. He closed his eyes and curled up in a ball the best he could with the rope still tugging at his midsection.

He knew that in less than a second he would disappear just like Lonetree had into the black hole cut into the rock. In that one second a cascade of images burst through his mind, as if every synapse knew it was about to blink out forever and wanted to fire one last time. His family. His girls. His wife. And with the images came an unspeakably cruel understanding that he would never see any of them again. The black hole ahead of him was death. Cold, dark and silent. He focused on the images of his wife and daughters as he rolled end over end through the water, carrying his memories into the darkness with him.

He was sorry, so sorry, that hadn’t been strong enough to save his daughter. But it occurred to him that maybe he deserved to fail. After all, he had taken another father’s child away when he ran over and killed Melissa Gonzales. Maybe God did exist and He was settling a score, making sure all debts were paid off in the end.

Still, what kind of God would punish children for the sins of their fathers? Only a God who didn’t care or didn’t exist. Either way, Jack held no desire to meet Him. He expected that death would be as dark and lonely as the tunnel looming ahead of him.

Time snapped back into place and the world moved again in full motion. The river carried him into the rock wall, his helmet scraping against the ceiling as he tumbled through the water.

The narrow beam from the waterproof helmet light cut through the dark water and lit up the smooth walls as they flew by. Jack knew he was a dead man but still he reached out for something to grab on to, as if gaining a handhold was the only thing keeping him from clawing back upstream and escaping the clutches of the river. Both times he managed to grab onto a crack in the rock, the rope around his waist tightened and ripped him from the wall.

It suddenly occurred to Jack that Lonetree might already be dead. The thought of being dragged through the dark tunnel tied to a corpse struck Jack as a particularly gruesome way to die. He idly wondered where the river ended and how long he and Lonetree would be joined together. Maybe forever. Buried underground. Their bodies seeping into the ground water a little bit at a time.  

Jack choked down the little air left in his mouth and throat. His ears rang. He wanted to fight back, scrape and beg for every spare second, but he felt his muscles loosening, surrendering, as he started to float through the water instead of struggle.

The blood in his temples beat in a rising tempo, quickening. He couldn’t hold his breath much longer. He had only seconds left before his body betrayed him and sucked the lukewarm river water into his lungs.

Then rope around his waist went slack. The meaning of this worked its way through his oxygen deprived brain. Lonetree’s body was probably hung up in a crevice, or wedged between rocks up ahead. It occurred to him that whatever it was, maybe there was an air pocket.

But the burning in his chest had gone from pain to desperation and thoughts of survival disappeared.

Seconds later, even as he floated through coils of rope bunching up in front of him, his lungs gave way.

With a choked inhalation, Jack’s lungs filled with water and he lost consciousness. His brain burned off the last remnants of oxygen still available, then, without fuel, ceased to function. The rest of his body did the same.

Deep inside the mountains of western Maryland, in a dark underground river without a name, Jack Tremont’s dead body floated with the current, drifting toward  wherever chance might take him.

SEVENTY-SIX

Consciousness came like a sunrise viewed through antique glass, distorted and blurred. Pale shadows swirled in faded degrees of color. Muffled sounds reached her ears in undulating waves, like listening to a talk radio station through blown speakers.

 “She’s waking up,” someone said.

She recognized the voice, but she couldn’t attach a name to it. Hearing it made her feel comfortable. Made her feel safe.

Everything was confused, but she knew something bad had happened to her, she was sure of it. And the owner of the voice would tell her what it was. He would help her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the pain in her head to go away. The voice came back to her through the velvet darkness and asked her how she felt. It was just like Stanley Mansfield to ask such a question.

That was it. That was who the voice belonged to, Dr. Mansfield. 

It was just like him to look out for her. She smiled and tried to say hello but there was something wrong. The words wouldn’t form on her lips. She carefully opened her eyes, aware at some level that the bright light around her would be painful if taken in too quickly. Dr. Mansfield’s face hovered in front of her, blurry at first, and then sharpening into focus as if someone were fine tuning the reception in her head. Then, in a rush of images, she remembered what had happened. She remembered the basement in the hospital. She remembered Dr. Mansfield was not her friend. He was the Boss. The person in the crazy story Jack had told her.

In an emotional plunge that left her stomach turning, she remembered seeing Sarah.

The burst of adrenaline from that memory pushed her consciousness through the thick drug-induced blanket around her brain. She pushed herself up off the floor.

“Sarah? W-wh-where’s Sarah?”

Strong hands pulled her up to a sitting position. Dr. Mansfield’s voice came at her from what seemed multiple directions. “Easy. The drug is wearing off.”

Lauren smelled manure. And damp straw. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. They were in a barn. The interior was lit by massive halogen lights so that everything stood out in sharp contrasts. There, on the ground next to her, blond hair fanned out around her head, was her little girl, curled as if she were asleep in her bed at home. But something was wrong. She was too still, too pale. Lauren’s heart thumped hard in her chest.  She lurched forward but several hands held her back. She screamed in frustration and lashed out, but she couldn’t break free. Rope appeared and she sobbed as her hands and feet were bound, her eyes never leaving Sarah’s unmoving body.

“Is she alive?” she sobbed.

Dr. Mansfield crouched down in front of her, putting himself into her field of vision as she continued to stare at her daughter. “Yes, she’s fine. She’s had the same medication I gave you. Now, try to calm down, all right. You’ll feel the effects of the drug for a few more minutes.”

“Why are you wasting your time with her?” Huckley asked, spitting on the floor. “She’s going to die just like her daughter. What’s the big deal?”

Lauren’s eyes went wide. She struggled at her bindings until the rope started to cut into her wrists.

“You’ll just make it worse. Please calm down.” Dr. Mansfield said. “Please.”

Once she stopped struggling, Dr. Mansfield rose and faced Huckley. Lauren tore her eyes away from her daughter and watched the two men standing only a few feet from her. No words were exchanged, but Huckley stared at the ground, his shoulders slumping forward like a kid pouting from a parent’s reprimand. No, Lauren thought to herself, more like an animal’s show of submission. The simple gesture confirmed to her that the doctor was not only part of the madness but he was leading it. And if he was the leader, the one Jack called the Boss, was it possible that the rest of Jack’s story was true? Was it possible that these lunatics meant to kill her daughter in some kind of ritual sacrifice? Lauren shook her head, willing the thoughts to go away, as if that alone could change the situation she found herself in.

 “Moran and Butcher will need more time in the cave. Get the others around. Janney’s over at the house. Tell him we’re going down in half an hour.” Dr. Mansfield gave a slight nod toward the door and Huckley left the barn without comment.

 Lauren started at the sound of the sheriff’s name. Like snippets of a bad dream, scenes in the hospital basement pieced themselves together in her mind. The psychiatrist, Scott Moran, he had been there too.

 Jesus, who isn’t part of this?

  Then she remembered her last meeting with Jack. How she had refused to believe him and had run away just when he needed her most. He hadn’t been crazy, but trying to save their daughter. How horrible he must have felt when she turned on him while he was telling the truth.

It still didn’t explain why this was happening. It didn’t explain that poor girl on the gurney in the elevator. Or what Dr. Mansfield was up to. Lauren shuddered as she pictured the girl’s one open eye staring at her. Confused and in pain.

 “Will you tell me what the hell is going on? Why are you doing this?” Lauren asked. “What are you mixed up in?”

Dr. Mansfield sat next to her and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated. I’m just sorry you had to get involved. It wasn’t supposed to work out like this.”

“Whatever it is, you don’t have to go through with it,” Lauren pleaded. “You could let Sarah go. Help us get out of here. We wouldn’t tell anyone. We would--”

“You don’t seem to understand. Your daughter’s here because I ordered it. Huckley found her, but this is my decision,” Dr. Mansfield said. “I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong person for help.”

“This is crazy,” Lauren said, mostly to herself. “This is all insane.”

“I know it must seem that way. But you don’t understand the magnitude of what’s happening here. This is bigger than me or you. Or your little girl. This is something that could change the entire world. It could change everything.”

“What are you talking about? In the hospital I asked if you were conducting human experiments and you didn’t deny it. Did you kill Felicia Rodriguez?”

Dr. Mansfield nodded. “And others like her. But they didn’t die in vain. Some day they will be looked at as heroes. They were sacrifices for the greater good of society.” He stood up and moved closer to her. “It’s not like this is the first time it’s happened. Louis Pasteur used human subjects in his experiments, many who died, but now he’s revered. Would you have blocked the development of vaccines because of risks to the first human recipients?”

“What you’re doing is wrong. No, it’s worse than that. It’s evil. You can’t just rationalize it away.”

“Spare me the ethics lesson. If you only understood what I was--”

“Nothing is worth killing innocent girls. Nothing.”

“Are you so sure of yourself?” Dr. Mansfield stared up at the barn’s ceiling for several seconds before he went on, his eyes never leaving some distant point far beyond the confines of the wooden beams above them.

“Suppose God came down to this barn and sat next to us. He says there’s been enough pain in the world and He wants to put an end to it all. He offers you the ability to cure all disease in the world, all infections, all genetic defects found in the human race. In essence, God gives you the ability to end the suffering of the world. He gives you the gift of immortality to share with the world.

“But the gift comes at a price. To develop this universal vaccine, you have to sacrifice the lives of over a thousand innocent children. One thousand lives to save the suffering of six
billion
. As horrible as it sounds, who in their right mind would say no to such a proposition? Would you? Would you refuse to deliver to God His thousand deaths so that you might save the world?”

Lauren stared at the doctor, not aware at first that he was waiting for her to answer. The look in the man’s eyes as he spoke had shaken her. It was the glazed, distant look of the fanatic, as if he had already created the world he described and he was looking at it through a window visible to only his eyes. Gone was the reasoned, rational man she thought she knew, replaced by a lunatic with a religion to sell. Lauren decided she was already beyond help and she’d be damned before she gave into his vile logic.

“I think that if God asked for a thousand deaths, it would occur to me that it wasn’t God at all. What you’re talking about is evil. Unjustifiable evil.”

“Saving six billion people is not justification enough?”

“You’re not saving six billion people. This is crazy.”   

“Really? Do you want evidence? Would that make you understand?”

Dr. Mansfield produced a knife from his pocket. He held out his exposed forearm and slashed it with the blade. Lauren screamed as blood gushed out of the wound. The doctor grimaced from the pain but did not move his arm.

“It still hurts, but look. Look at what’s happening.”

Lauren didn’t have to be asked. She had already noticed how quickly the blood flow had stopped. Now the skin regenerated at the edges of the wound. Within seconds, the gash was completely healed. Lauren stared open-mouthed. “How is it…what did you…”

“Now you understand what I’m talking about. I’m working on a serum that could give this to the world. And you’re only seeing the surface of it. This same regenerative effect is taking place at the cellular level throughout my body. The serum halts deterioration. My body is immune to all viruses and bacterial infections. And without cellular breakdown, the body doesn’t age.”

“Are you trying to say that you can’t die? Are you saying you believe the same story Jack told me? About the Indians and the cave? That this is all about some sacrificial ritual that gives you immortality?”

 “Immortality isn’t technically correct. We’re as close as we can get. There are limits, of course. Massive trauma can kill me if it’s more than my body can regenerate. But without being murdered, or the victim of a terrible accident, I could theoretically live forever.” He lowered his voice, as if aware of how incredulous his next statement would appear. “In fact, I’ve already lived for over two hundred years and have yet to show any sign of physical deterioration.”

Lauren matched Dr. Mansfield’s serious look.

“So you’re saying Jack’s story is true?”

Dr. Mansfield nodded.

“You sacrifice people so you can be immortal and you’re trying to synthesize the effect in a lab so you can cure the world of all disease?”

The doctor nodded again.

 “And you’re going to sacrifice my daughter because you think she has some kind of special psychic powers that will help you with your study?”

Slowly, as if fearful of her reaction, he said, “Yes, that’s why she’s here.”

“And you’re 200 years old?” Lauren’s face turned red as she spoke the words. When the doctor nodded this time she erupted into laughter. “Jesus, you’ve gone off the deep end, you know that?”

Her laugh took on a maniacal quality to it, edged with tears and panic.

 “What the FUCK is wrong with all of you? I mean, I don’t know how you pulled off the little trick with the knife but that’s magic not medicine. What’s next? Are you…are you…I don’t know, going to put a woman and a box, stick it full of swords and when she pops out unharmed tell me you cured her?”

A dark cloud had come over the doctor’s expression, but she didn’t care. Tears poured down her cheeks. These men were insane. Both she and her daughter were going to die. Given the situation, she decided she might as well speak her mind. “This is the stupidest Goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.”

Dr. Mansfield turned, took one step toward her, and raised a hand as if to strike her. Lauren cowered to the side, fighting the rope around her hands in a reaction to fend off the coming blow.

Slowly, the doctor lowered his hand.

 “People don’t speak to me like that. You’re lucky I need your help.” He knelt down until his face was level with hers. “This is the most important scientific find ever. You saw it with you own eyes and still refuse to believe it. How can you explain away what you saw?”

Lauren met his eyes and stuck her chin out in his direction. She decided if the bastard moved to hit her again, she wouldn’t move. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “There are a thousand things. Hypnosis, for example. Or maybe you have developed a drug that put me into a hyper-suggestive state and are initiating my hallucinations.” Lauren said. “Give me a few minutes and I could come up with a dozen explanations.”

“But there wouldn’t be a single one that felt right. Come on, you know what you saw. You’re a scientist. Open your eyes to the evidence and let yourself look beyond the boundaries imposed by your limited knowledge of what is possible in the natural world. Make no mistake, this is a natural phenomenon. It’s not ghosts and magic, but a biological process.”