Desperate Times (27 page)

“Land of the free?” asked Jimmy.

“Home of the brave,” finished Jon.

Jimmy shook his head and followed Jon into
the wooded darkness. The path was well worn and the going slow and
easy. They marched down the path single file and entered a strange
new world; a world that had been vigorously shaken and mercilessly
dumped, upside down. Jimmy knew they couldn’t completely trust
anyone, not anymore. The sky overhead was dark and growing darker
with each passing minute.

These were desperate times.

Who was Dr. Ezra Pound and why did he spend
thirteen and a half years in a Washington, DC, mental institution?
The truth is he was being held as a political prisoner for speaking
his mind about what took place on Jekyll Island in the autumn of
1910 and revealing the terrible truth about the infamous Senator
Nelson Aldrich and how he helped create the Frankenstein’s monster
of banking known as the Federal Reserve System.

The town was completely dark. There wasn’t a
sign of human life to be found. The moonless sky offered only the
dimmest of starlight and they moved slowly and cautiously down the
empty streets. The night was warm and the air was still thick with
the smell of diesel smoke. A dog howled a lonely cry in the
distance. They continued walking, passing darkened homes with their
doors hanging open like hungry mouths. Occasionally, a dark form
could be made out on the lawns or the sidewalks. Some were family
pets; while others were not.

Ken had explained how to get to the hospital.
Even though their eyes had long since adjusted to the nighttime,
they had to get within a couple of feet of the street signs to read
what they said. They walked along as quietly as they could, their
guns at the ready.

The hospital was down Elm Street and a big
blue sign with an H above an arrow showed them the way. The final
two blocks had been as dark as the rest of town. They walked up to
the front of the long one-level building and made their way to the
canopy. The sign overhead read
EMERGENCY
. Jon tried the
door. It was open.

They were greeted to a dim, bluish light.
Probably a backup to the backup
, thought Jimmy. No doubt
these were solar lights. They walked in through the double doors
and into a lobby. Dark pools of dried blood covered the white tile
floor. The hospital looked more like an abandoned MASH unit.

“Hello?” called Jon.

“Is anybody home?” asked Jimmy.

The hospital was as quiet as an empty church
and the two continued walking slowly down the hall. They passed
open doors and hospital beds occupied with dead bodies. Some looked
to have been shot where they lay. Jimmy wanted to vomit, but fought
against it as the stench of death filled his nostrils.

They continued down the hallway, poking their
heads into rooms, calling quietly to anyone who might still be
alive. The eerie blue light added a dream quality to their journey.
The hospital seemed completely deserted. They continued on until
they came to the main lobby. Two men in brown uniforms lay sprawled
out on their backs in dark pools of dried blood. They wore
sheriff’s patches on their uniforms and their guns were missing.
They were beginning to bloat and looked to have been dead for at
least a day. The smell was overpowering and Jimmy wretched.

Jon leaned his gun against an empty chair and
pointed to the belt of one of the deputies. “Flashlight,” he
whispered. “See if the other guy has one. They’ll come in
handy.”

Jimmy nodded. He was glad that he hadn’t
eaten and he tasted bile in his mouth. He set his gun down and made
his way to the other man, looking down at his belt. The long black
flashlight was there, the business end protruding underneath the
fallen officer. Jimmy groaned. The man looked to be in his early
fifties, his salt and pepper hair was thin and combed over a bald
spot on top of his head. Somehow, the man still looked to be in
great pain. A purple tongue lolled from his open mouth, his
sightless eyes were open and vacant. Jimmy bent over and reached
down for the flashlight.

And Jimmy suddenly realized that they weren’t
alone.

“Get out of here!” screamed a charging shadow
from down the hall. “Get out!”

Jimmy nearly jumped out of his skin. He
turned to see a giant of a man charging them.

“Leave them alone!” he shrieked. “Leave them
alone!”

“Holy crap!” exclaimed Jon, who had fallen
over in a sitting position from the sudden shock.

The huge form continued his charge, his heavy
footfalls slapping on the tile floor. He was dressed in blue jeans
and a flowing white lab coat. His expression was insane, wild eyes,
teeth bared like fangs.

Jimmy scrambled back to the far end of the
lobby and took a defensive position behind one of the padded
chairs. He looked back at his gun, which was now twenty feet
away.

Jon had pulled his handgun out and was
training it on the approaching man’s chest. Jimmy had seen enough
bloodshed and he quickly found his feet. He ran to meet the giant’s
attack.

“Get out of
my
hospital!” screamed the
man as he crashed into Jimmy.

Jimmy was driven back like a small dog in
front of a school bus. The massive, bearded man tackled him and
large fists pummeled Jimmy as they fell. Jimmy covered up, hoping
to avoid most of the blows. The man had to be nearly seven feet
tall and he seemed nearly half as wide. He grunted like an animal
as he pounded his fists into Jimmy. Jimmy tried to turn, but the
giant held him down with a knee and continued to deliver enormous,
punishing blows. Jimmy caught a fist to his forehead and his head
slammed down on the hard tile floor. The last thing he heard before
everything winked out was the sound of a gunshot.

“Are you okay?” asked a strange man in a soft
voice.

Jimmy’s head pounded. He tried to open his
eyes, but the lids seemed too heavy to lift. He groaned.

“Don’t rush it,” cooed the man. “Just open
them up when you’re ready.”

Jimmy found the strength to open his eyes and
he gasped when he found himself looking straight into the eyes of
the giant. The huge man smiled, but it was a kind, reassuring
smile. A
doctor’s
smile, thought Jimmy.

“This is Doc Benson,” said Jon with a
chuckle.

Jimmy managed a smile. His head felt as if
it’d been cracked open from the blow the good doctor had delivered.
He sat up and Benson helped him into a chair. Ken had been
right—the man was a monster. His hands were the size of baseball
mitts, yet they were the soft hands of a man in his profession.

“I’m sorry about that,” Benson said, his eyes
growing wild again. “I just snapped. I hope you’re not hurt too
terribly bad. I’ve got to get a hold of myself. This whole
situation is driving me insane.”

Jimmy nodded. The giant looked as if he was
well on his way to getting there.

“I told him about Ken. He’s coming along with
us,” Jon said, unable to hide his smile.

“You told him about the marker?”

“He didn’t need to,” said Benson. “All he had
to say was the name Dahlgren.”

“Do you mind if I ask what the marker was
for? Ken didn’t say,” said Jimmy, rubbing the knot on the back of
his head.

“Do I mind? I don’t mind at all. Look around
you. Do you see that computer over there? Ken and Patty Dahlgren.
The new x-ray machine down the hall? Ken and Patty Dahlgren. That
new lab and most of the equipment? Ken and Patty Dahlgren. Do you
get it?”

Jimmy nodded, realizing yet another secret of
the people he thought he knew so well.

“They’re some of our leading benefactors.
We’d still be in the Stone Age without them. I’ve known Ken all my
life. We went to school together.”

“Wow,” said Jimmy, a thought playing at the
edge of his mind.

“And if you’re little Jimmy Logan, well, I
was a good friend of your dad’s. I haven’t seen you since your
fourth or fifth birthday. I’m sure you don’t remember that. I
would’ve been back for the funerals, but I couldn’t get away. I’m
terribly sorry, Jimmy. They were good people—the best.”

Jimmy did remember and he suddenly felt
foolish that he hadn’t remembered the man’s name. Memories of his
family flooded over him and he hung his head and wept. Would the
pain ever end? Jimmy didn’t think so. Even after ten long years,
the scab could be ripped from the wound, exposing raw nerves of
grief.

Jon turned away.

“Your dad was one
helluva
cribbage
player,” said Benson, patting Jimmy on the shoulder. “I always
wondered if he cheated. I never beat him—
ever
.”

Jimmy laughed at that. He dried his eyes and
stood. Dr. Benson took him into his huge arms and hugged him like a
baby. “The pain is a good thing,” he whispered to Jimmy. “It
reminds us of what we lost and where we came from. Your tears are a
tribute to those that have gone before you. Don’t ever forget that,
son. I still cry for my parents and they’ve been gone far longer
than your own.”

After Jimmy had regained his composure, they
followed the hulking form of Dr. Benson through the hospital. He
gathered up supplies, tossing them into a box with his soft
mitt-like hands. He opened a door with a key and they entered a
room full of bottles and vials of prescription drugs.

This is Bill’s idea of heaven,
thought
Jimmy. He watched Dr. Benson walk down the aisle muttering to
himself, grabbing a bottle of this and a vial of that. He placed
them gently in a blue vinyl bag with a long carrying strap handle.
He turned to them, paused, and returned down to the end of the
aisle. He scanned his stock and removed one last bottle from the
shelf. He then turned and walked back to them, holding the bottle
in one hand. “Here,” he said, twisting the top open and tapping out
three little orange pills into his massive palm. “Take one of
these.”

“What are they?” asked Jimmy, holding his
hand out.

“Don’t ask,” said Benson. “I could lose my
license for this. They’ll help keep us awake and give us some
energy. We’ve got a long walk in front of us.”

Jimmy watched as Dr. Benson dry swallowed one
of the pills. He and Jon followed his lead and each swallowed one
of the pills. They followed Benson out of the room and down the
hall where again, Benson paused.

“One more thing,” he said. “Come on.”

They followed him down the hallway, through a
door that read
CAFETERIA.
Inside the long room was a wall of
vending machines. The big man fished a set of keys from his pocket
and opened three of the machines. “Help yourselves,” he said. “We
had backup power until the soldiers arrived. Everything in those
machines should still be all right to eat.”

Jon and Jimmy loaded up, drinking Cokes and
eating sandwiches as they filled their backpacks. Dr. Benson
scanned the machines with the disinterest of someone who has done
so a thousand times. He chose a turkey sub and a bag chips. He
pulled a bottle of water from the open soda machine and sipped at
it while he ate.

Jimmy felt much better after he’d finished
eating. He wasn’t sure if it was from the food or the little orange
pill, but he felt ready to hike the dark miles back to Ken’s. He
checked his watch and found that it was nearly midnight. Had they
really been here that long? Jimmy shook his head in disbelief. They
shouldered their packs, each brimming with goodies from the vending
machine. Dr. Benson transferred everything from the box into
another of the blue satchels with the long carrying straps. He
slung them over his big shoulders and nodded toward the door. “Are
you two ready?” he asked.

“Let’s go,” said Jon. “Here,” he said to Dr.
Benson, handing him the pistol from his belt. “This might come in
handy out there.”

Dr. Benson shook his head. “No,” he said. “I
took an oath. I’ll just have to trust the two of you. Don’t let me
down. I’d like to see how this whole thing plays out.”

That struck Jimmy as an odd thing to say.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

Dr. Benson continued walking, the lines in
his face deeply furrowed as he thought about his answer. “Listen,”
he said after a long pause. “These are terrible times. God only
knows where we’re heading. I hate the thought of leaving my little
hospital, my home, my patients. It’s tearing me up inside. Do you
want to know what I do to get past all that?”

“How?” asked Jon.

Benson smiled. “I think about how we’re going
to put it all back together again. I’m excited about that. I’m a
doctor; I think of things that way. How can we cure this problem? I
think our government has gotten so far off track that it’s high
time something like this happened. All of these partisan
politicians: you can see where they’ve gotten us. They cultivated
this cancer, fought senselessly over how they should treat it, and
now they’re shocked to find that it’s malignant and spreading? I’ll
tell you how we need to treat it. We need to oust the
sons-a-bitches and bring the control back to the people. We’re
going to have to start this whole country up from scratch, using
the Constitution, of course. We need to stick a cork in all of
these special interests and get back to doing what’s best for us.
We’ve got this moment in history to set things right. Does that
make sense to you boys?”