Mine (25 page)

“I’m sorry,” the Translator whispered.

The Beast pulled at the restraints, the muscles in its neck and shoulders straining. “I swear to God I will rip your head off if you don’t get away from me!”

After all these years of sharing a room, the Translator knew everything there was to know about the Beast, like how the Beast absolutely could not stand anyone touching its head. The Translator moved around to the end of the bed, rubbed his hands over the Beast’s skull, and backed away.

The Beast began to flail on the mattress, roaring in anger.

The Translator hurried to the door and listened. No footsteps yet.

Back at the Beast’s bed, the Translator did it again, this time adding a tap-tap-tap against the Beast’s ear.

If the Beast’s yells had been loud before, they were deafening now.

The Translator checked the door again.

Yes, yes, yes,
he thought, hearing running steps.

He climbed back into his bed, pulled the cover over his body, and shut his eyes.

This only enraged the Beast further, its movements causing its bed frame to bounce off the floor.

A moment later, the door swung open and the light flicked on.

“What’s going on in here?” The voice belonged to the Night Supervisor. A big man who didn’t like problems. The Translator couldn’t have asked for a better responder.

The Beast continued to scream, most of it unintelligible, but with the occasional
kill him
and
weasel
and
rip apart
coming through clearly.

The Night Supervisor radioed for help. While the man waited for his Orderlies to arrive, the Translator thought it was a good time to “wake up.”

Blinking, he groaned and said in a sleepy voice, “Too loud, too loud. Why so loud?”

“I’m sorry, Michael,” the Night Supervisor said. “Try to go back to sleep.”

“Why so loud? Why?”

“Mr. Lowell’s having a little problem at the moment, and it would be a big help to me if you would just try to rest.”

“Okay, okay. Rest. Okay.”

“Thank you, Michael.”

“Okay. Rest.”

He rolled onto his side, facing the Beast’s bed, and squinted through his mostly closed eyelids. It was difficult at first to keep the grin off his face. He was pleased with how well he had played the part of himself, saying things the way he would have said them if he had indeed woken to find the Beast yelling and the Night Supervisor in the room.

The Night Supervisor tried to calm the Beast, saying it needed to quiet down so “Michael can sleep.” The Beast’s bed bounced so high at that, it made the Night Supervisor jump back.

Less than a minute later, two Orderlies rushed in. One was carrying a package with a syringe. The Night Supervisor took this and had the orderlies hold the Beast down as he stuck the needle into its arm. He told one of the men to fetch a gurney so they could transfer the Beast to one of the isolation rooms near the nurses’ station.

The Translator waited anxiously for the gurney to arrive, and then watched as the Beast was transferred to it.

Now came the tricky part, the most important part, the part that if the Translator got wrong, he would fail before he could even leave his room.

After the two orderlies wheeled the bed out, the Night Supervisor flicked off the light and turned for the door. The moment his back was to the room, the Translator silently slipped out of bed.

The door had an automatic closer attached to the top that, with a simple tug on the knob, would ensure the door shut. The bonus for the Translator was that it also slowed the door down so that it didn’t crash into the frame, giving him more than enough time to catch it before the latch clicked into place. He slipped over the latch hole the piece of Scotch tape he’d taken from the art supplies that afternoon, and then let the door close the rest of the way. He waited, rock still, listening to hear if the Night Supervisor would come back to double-check the door. But he didn’t.

The Translator had to fight the urge to pull the door open right then, but he knew the Night Supervisor might still be in the hallway.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

He counted to thirty, the numbers soothing him much in the same way those identifying the packets did. When he reached zero, he eased the door open and peeked into the corridor. Not a person in sight.

There were stairs at the end of the hall in the opposite direction from the one the Beast had been taken in. Stairs with a door that would sound an alarm if opened.

That was okay. The Translator knew a way around that. He’d been at the facility for so long, there was little about the place he didn’t know. Like how Ronald, one of the other residents, had gone through a phase when he’d pushed the door open whenever he had a chance because he liked the sound of the alarm. And how Nurse Sanders had hidden a key in the monitor’s desk in the busy room that would turn off the alarm.

Smart, very smart. Not Nurse Sanders, but the Translator.

He snuck into the now dark busy room, retrieved the key, and made his way to the stairwell door. He slipped the key into the slot on the arm and turned it.

So far so good. He put a hand on the bar, took a breath, and pushed.

S
IXTY-FIVE

Joel

T
HE SEDAN SAT
at the side of the main road, a dozen yards shy of the sign that marked the entrance to the Genesee Mental Care Facility. The building itself was hidden from Joel’s and Leah’s sight by a grove of pines.

Joel glanced at the car’s clock again—12:17. “Where is he?”

“We need to give him time,” Leah said, her gaze focused on the woods.

The clock ticked over to 12:18.

“He probably got caught,” Joel said. Genesee was a locked facility, after all. What were the chances Mike would be able to escape?

Two minutes later, the rear driver’s side door opened, and Mike, wearing only a pair of flannel pajamas and no shoes, smiled at them from outside.

“Get in or you’ll freeze to death,” Leah said.

As Mike climbed into the back, he said, “Not freezing. Not that cold.”

The moment the door was shut, Joel pulled the sedan from the curb, his eyes darting back and forth between the road ahead and the rearview mirror. “Did anyone see you leave?”

“No one, no one. Very quiet. I’m smart. No one saw me.”

Leah reached into the back and squeezed Mike’s knee. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad, too. Glad.” His smile faltered a little. “Do you think maybe, maybe…”

Joel looked at him in the mirror. “Maybe what?”

“Maybe we can stop for a cheeseburger?”

“I think we can make that happen.”

S
IXTY-SIX

Leah

T
HEY DROVE THROUGH
the night to put as much distance between themselves and Flagstaff as possible, finally
stopping after seven a.m. at a roadside motel near Grand Junction, Colorado, on the western edge of the Rocky Mountains.

Once in her room, Leah checked the Internet for any news about a missing Genesee mental patient. Nothing so far, but she knew that wouldn’t last. She thought she should call Mike’s parents to let them know he was okay, but that would bring questions she wasn’t ready to answer. Maybe after she woke up she’d feel differently.

She took a quick shower, climbed into bed, and was out within a minute. But she didn’t stay asleep long. Less than an hour after closing her eyes, a fist pounded against her door and jerked her awake.

“Leah!” Joel called.

“Huh?” she said, not loudly enough for him to hear.

“Leah! Wake up!”

She crawled out of bed, still half asleep, and opened the door just enough to see out. “What is it?”

“Mike. He’s…”

“What? Gone?” she asked, suddenly alert.

He grimaced. “Um…kind of.”

“What does that mean?

“He’s in, I don’t know, some kind of trance, I guess.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She pulled on jeans with the T-shirt she’d slept in, and hurried to Joel and Mike’s room.

Mike was lying on the bed closest to the window. His eyes were half open but unfocused, and his lips were moving rapidly as if reciting something.

“What’s he saying?” she asked.

“Numbers,” Joel replied.

She leaned in close and heard ones and sevens and twos and fives. It was like what he’d started doing at Genesee.

“You tried waking him?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Obviously it didn’t work,” he said, annoyed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Do you think you can reach him? You know, like before?”

“I can try.”

She stretched out on Joel’s bed and focused on slowing her heart rate. From there it was a fairly easy slope back into the half-sleep that would allow her to navigate her way to Mike’s Special Place.

“Mike, where are you?” she said when she reached the forever room. She turned in a circle, hoping he’d materialize, but she remained alone. “Are you all right?” No movement anywhere. “Can you even hear me?”

A gust of wind blew through the room, whipping her hair into her eyes, and then it was gone.

He could hear her.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

Nothing.

“Do you need our help?”

Nothing again.

“Mike, please. We’re worried about you. We don’t know what to do.”

The wind returned, this time carrying a whisper. “You can only wait. Wait, wait.”

S
IXTY-SEVEN

Mike/The Translator

T
HE RECLAIMER CAME
to the Translator as he slept.

::YOUR OUTPUT IS DOWN. WHY?

The answer was easy. Since fleeing the room he shared with the Beast, his mind had been occupied by real-world things. Naturally, his input had dropped. He’d been smart, though—very smart—and had begun limiting his dispatches so he could stretch out the finished packets he still had. Of course she would notice; he’d known she would. But he’d hoped it would have taken her more time.

I am-I am-I am not operating at my optimal level
, he said.

::EXPLAIN.

The…flu
, he said.
I-I vomited most of the night.
It was a good cover, yes, a good cover. Every time the Translator was sick, his output always decreased.

The Reclaimer was silent for a moment. He worried she would push him to show her his memories of this. He did have some from past incidents, but it would take time to recall them.

::HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE INTERRUPTION LAST?

He had to clamp down hard on his thoughts to hide his relief that she hadn’t pushed.
Medicine they gave me makes me very…tired. Very tired. A day. Maybe two.

::YOU WILL INCREASE OUTPUT THE MOMENT YOU ARE ABLE.

Of course, of course. Yes, of course.

::I WILL MONITOR YOUR PACKETS FOR A WHILE IN CASE OF TRANSLATION ERRORS.

I understand. I think everything, everything is okay. But good to check. Very good.

He concentrated on the packets, retranslating those that had already been translated as slow as possible to extend the process. Any thoughts of his friends and their journey he kept boxed away so the Reclaimer would not sense them. It was only the information that filled his mind, until…

Mike, where are you?

Leah. She was in his [
special place
]. The Translator glanced at the Reclaimer—figuratively, of course, because he could never see her, but he always had a sense of where she was concentrated. She made no indication she’d heard his friend.

It’s your secret place
, his small voice said.
Only you can hear things from your secret place.

While that was logical, he couldn’t help worrying the Reclaimer would somehow sense something was up if Leah continued to talk. He needed to stop her.

When Leah asked if he could hear her, he willed the breeze that ruffled her hair, hoping she would understand he didn’t have time for her right now. But she kept asking questions, and when she said she and the Joel didn’t know what to do, the Translator took a huge risk and sent a message with the breeze, hoping that would ease her concern.

The moment it left him, the Reclaimer’s attention whipped back on him.
::WHAT WAS THAT?

What was what?

::YOU THOUGHT A WORD: WAIT. EXPLAIN.

The Translator hesitated before saying,
Wait. Yes, yes. I did.

:: EXPLAIN.

“The translations. The translations are…difficult. In my current condition, I mean. I-I-I discovered one that was harder, harder than others, and-and I decided I should wait until my mind, my mind was clearer.”

The Reclaimer fell silent.

I can show you
, the Translator said,
but it will interrupt my translation schedule, and-and you will, you will also not fully understand it in its-its current state.

Silence again.

Then,

::ARE YOUR CHANNELS OPEN?

Yes.

::ARE YOUR RECEPTORS WORKING?

Yes.

::ARE ALL LINKS INTACT?

Yes.

The Reclaimer left.

S
IXTY-EIGHT

Joel

N
OT LONG AFTER
Leah went under, the numbers began flying off Mike’s lips nearly too fast for Joel to understand. And then Mike just stopped. The silence that followed was almost more disturbing than the counting had been.

Feeling helpless, Joel paced in front of the beds, his mind spinning. What if neither of his friends woke up? Would he have to try to reach them himself? Could he even do that?