Valley of the Shadow (15 page)

    Mitch lay there motionless, his arms and chest connected to a network of tubes and electrodes. His head was wrapped in gauze and his face was scarred. A breathing tube from the bedside ventilator had been inserted into his throat and taped at his mouth.

    A slight chill washed over Conner and he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He thought at first the nurse had returned, but except for him—and Mitch—the room was empty.

    Conner turned back to Mitch and watched him for a moment, listening to the quiet humming and beeping of the various monitors and pumps. He bent down to Mitch’s ear.

    “Mitch?” he whispered, watching for the slightest twitch or sign of acknowledgment. He glanced over Mitch’s chart, trying to make sense of the information, searching for any report of treatment or any indication that he’d been scheduled to be disconnected. He couldn’t find anything relevant.

    He bent down and whispered again, “I’m not going to let you die.”

    “That’s what I tell him too.”

    Conner straightened and turned to see a young woman in the doorway. She was in her early twenties, Conner guessed, and thin, with straight brown hair and large brown eyes.

    She offered him a meager smile as she entered. “I talk to him too. They said it can’t hurt, right?”

    Conner swallowed, not sure what to say. “Umm,” he stammered, “it’s been known to help.”

    She leaned over Mitch and kissed him softly. “Anything new? Any improvement?”

    Conner remembered his doctor’s garb and tried to recover. He cleared his throat and did his best to sound aloof and professional. “Uh… yes. Nothing noticeable, but I’m still optimistic.” He started to sidle toward the door.

    The young woman turned and held out a hand. “I don’t think I’ve met you yet, Doctor… ?”

    Conned smiled and shook her hand, trying to hide his discomfort. “I’m… Dr. Hart… man.”

    “Dr. Hartman? Linda. Linda Wilson.”

    “Ah, yes.” Before Conner could stop himself, he blurted out, “His fiancée.”

    She blinked and frowned. “No . . . we weren’t engaged. We were dating for a while. But… how did you know?”

    Conner felt as if a hundred icy needles had suddenly pricked his neck. “Oh, I . . . I’m sorry. I must’ve… I just assumed…”

    Linda waved it off with a smile. “That’s okay. I don’t think he was quite ready to make that commitment yet.” Then her smile faded. “I just hope he can remember me when he gets better.”

    Conner bit hard on his cheek, cursing himself. Mitch had mentioned that he’d been on his way to propose the night of the accident but never actually made it. He had to get out of here quick, before he made any further gaffes. “Well, we’re not giving up hope yet.”

    Linda’s eyes lit up. “Really? I . . .” She glanced out into the hallway and lowered her voice. “I get the feeling that no one else around here seems to think he’ll get any better. Are you that specialist they were going to bring in?”

    “Specialist? No. I . . . I had heard about Mi—uh… this case and wanted to stop by to familiarize myself with the, uh, with the charts. No. I don’t, I don’t really know anything about this case.”

    Linda narrowed her eyes. “But I heard you talking to him, telling him you weren’t going to let him die. I assumed you were going to be treating him.”

    Conner found himself nodding and sweating. “Yes, well I just wanted to, y’know, offer a word of… encourag—”

    “You’re not really a doctor, are you?” Linda’s eyes grew cold.

    Conner offered up a laugh. “Umm, yeah, but I was…”

    “What do you want with him?”

    Conner continued backing toward the door. “Nothing. No, I was just making my rounds and wanted to . . . y’know—this is an interesting case. So I stopped by for a minute.”

    Linda’s frown turned to a scowl. “I’m calling the nurse.” She pushed past Conner, out into the hallway.

    Conner caught her arm. “Look,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a friend. Okay? No, I’m not a doctor. I… I just wanted to see him. I don’t want anything.”

    “Who are you?”

    “I told you. Just a friend.”

    Linda’s eyes were still icy. “I thought I had met all of Mitch’s friends. How come I’ve never met you before?”

    Conner shrugged. “I only recently got to know him. I’m a lawyer, and I was trying to make sure—”

    “Is he in trouble?”

    “No. No, I just want to be sure he’s getting the care he needs.”

    “A lawyer? What did Mitch need a lawyer for?”

    Conner rubbed his eyes. “He’s not in trouble. I’m a friend of the family. Sort of. And . . . it’s a long story.”

    “You don’t think he’s getting the treatment he needs? Are you working on some kind of lawsuit?”

    “No. I just feel like . . . I get the feeling that Mitch’s father may be preparing to disconnect. He may be giving up.”

    Linda’s eyes widened. “How do you know that? Who told you that?”

    “I’ve been trying to contact Walter Kent—”

    “He’s very sick.”

    “Yes, I know. I’ve been trying to warn him . . . to tell him not to give up hope. I can’t explain it, but I really believe Mitch will recover.”

    “But who told you they were going to disconnect him?”

    Conner rubbed his eyes again. This was getting out of hand. He should’ve left when he’d had the chance. He never should have started talking to this woman. How much more could he reveal to her? He couldn’t tell her everything. She’d think he was crazy for sure.

    “I spoke to Mr. Kent’s assistant today. And she mentioned something about . . . final arrangements.”

    Linda backed away, shaking her head. “Final arrangements? What does that mean?”

    Conner sighed. “I don’t know. That’s why I snuck in—to see if I could find any more information.”

    Then a thought struck him. “Wait a minute. How come you’re here? How did you get permission to visit?” The policy was immediate family only inside the ICU. And Kent had made sure the hospital clamped down hard on that rule.

    Linda hesitated before answering, looked down. “I . . . I used to volunteer here. I know some of the nurses and they let me visit in the evenings. They knew we were dating, so they let me come see him when no one’s around. I just come and talk to him in the evenings. And pray.”

    Conner drew a long breath and glanced at Mitch. “Maybe that’s the best either of us can do right now.”

SMOKE SWIRLED AROUND
the approaching figure. Mitch’s vision was still blurry, but after a moment the figure came into focus.

    Nathan strode through the smoke. He was wearing a long black overcoat with what looked like a rocket launcher resting on one of his shoulders. He grinned. “Hey, pretty good shot, huh?”

    Mitch staggered to his feet. “Except that you nearly killed me along with it. Are you nuts?”

    Nathan chuckled. “You still don’t get how this all works, do you? I can’t kill you. I couldn’t kill you if I tried…. Not here at least.”

    “Yeah, yeah. I’m dead already. I know that.”

    Nathan dusted him off. “You didn’t listen to anything I told you. You’re not dead. You’re in a coma. This—” he patted Mitch’s shoulders—“is not your body. This is just a pseudo-corporeal construct generated by your spirit. It’s pure energy. You don’t have any bones to break, no blood to lose. No heart to stop. Get it?”

    Mitch groaned and rubbed his neck. “Odd that I should feel such vivid pain from a simulation.”

    “Ah, but that’s because pain is really just energy.” Nathan helped Mitch hobble back to his motorcycle. “In your physical body, pain was merely a set of electrical signals transmitted through your nerves and interpreted by your brain. And now your spirit remembers what your brain used to tell it. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re just responding to perceived stimuli.”

    Mitch tried to lift the Road King off its side, but it wouldn’t budge. He glanced up at Nathan. “Little help please?”

    “You’re not listening.” Nathan motioned for Mitch to step aside. Then he grabbed the handlebar with one hand and tilted the bike upright.

    Mitch blinked and stepped back. “Whoa. Dude. How . . . how did you… ?”

    Nathan sighed. “Because it doesn’t actually weigh anything. Or more accurately, it doesn’t have to weigh anything. You keep thinking you’re in the physical world. This ain’t it.”

    Mitch stared at Nathan, then back at his bike. He grabbed hold of the handlebars and tried to shake the motorcycle. He could feel its weight. He could feel its substance. “I don’t get it.”

    Nathan patted Mitch on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll work on it. But we should get going.” He glanced at his watch and gestured to the smoldering gas station. “Just like I can’t kill you, I can’t kill your friend over there either.”

    Mitch stared at the rubble. He thought he saw something moving in the debris. Something that looked like a charred piece of wood shuddered. It rolled and twisted itself through the clutter toward another similar-looking black stick. The two pieces slowly touched and then conjoined into a single piece.

    “What is that thing?”

    Nathan rubbed his jaw. “Not sure exactly, but I believe it’s called a Keeper. Think of it as kind of a guard dog. It’s one of the ways this place tries to prevent you from leaving.”

    “Why haven’t I seen it before?”

    “Because you never tried to leave before. As long as you stayed on the farm, numb and tranquil, everything was okay. But now that you tried to leave . . . well, let’s just say it won’t let you go without a fight.”

    “So what did you do to it?”

    “All I did was temporarily disrupt its unanimity. But we should get going before it coalesces again. C’mon, let’s put some miles between us.”

    Nathan turned and headed to a waiting car. Mitch stopped in his tracks when he saw the spotless red Ferrari F430 through the clearing smoke.

    “Whoa. Where’d you get that?”

    “Same place you got your bike . . . kind of.” He flashed a smile. “Only mine was intentional.”

    Mitch frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    His gaze traveled along the F430’s sleek profile. A bright red Spider convertible with a tan leather interior. Beneath the surface lay a 4.3-liter flat crank V-8. It could easily do zero to sixty in under four seconds.

    Nathan started it up, gunned the accelerator. “You coming or not?” He slid the car in gear and tore off in a fishtailing spray of gravel and smoke.

    Mitch whistled to himself as he watched the Ferrari rocket down the road. Then he shook his head and started up his Road King. A moment later, he took off as well, following the Ferrari west along the highway.

    Behind them, amid the smoldering debris, several black shapes were slithering toward one another.

A SQUAD CAR TURNED LEFT
onto Jefferson and rolled past the gravel parking lot toward Hubbard. Its headlights shone momentarily into the windshield of the Ford Tempo, parked near the railroad overpass. Devon slumped down and held his breath as the car flooded with light. The squad passed without incident. Without even slowing down.

    Devon sat up again. He was camouflaged well enough here, off the street, huddled amid a half-dozen other cars. He reclined the seat and cracked open the window. His mother would have reported the car by now. But really, it was just a beat-up old Tempo and wouldn’t be high priority for the cops.

    Devon knew he should probably close his eyes and get some rest. But his mind was still buzzing. He needed a plan. What was he going to do for cash? The car would get him only so far. He’d need to dump it eventually. Plus, he’d need to get some more food. The cold remains of a few french fries littered the seat beside him with the crumpled wrapper of the cheeseburgers he’d ordered at a McDonald’s drive-through. It was all he’d had since breakfast. Now he sipped down the last drops of his Coke.

    On the other side of the tracks was a six-dollar parking lot with one of those port-a-johns for the attendant. At least he wouldn’t have to go into a gas station or restaurant to use the bathroom. Less chance of being seen.

    He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

    “That’s right,” a voice said from the backseat. “Try to get some rest.”

    Devon glared in the mirror at the pale-skinned figure behind him. “Get outta my face.”

    “I’m not going anywhere. Besides, you’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

    “Doing what?”

    “Well, first you need to visit your boss. You need a gun.”

    “He ain’t gonna give me no gun. And I ain’t gonna kill no one.”

    Pale Man sighed. “Anybody ever teach you about using double negatives?”

    “Double what?”

    “Forget it. It’s kind of endearing.”

    “Man . . . just leave me alone.”

    “Alone?” Pale Man snorted. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be sitting in your cell.”

    “All you’ve done is get me in more trouble than I was already in.”

    “Son, you have no idea how much trouble you’re in.”

    “And I ain’t your son, either.”

    “Quit your bellyaching, chief, or I’ll walk you off a bridge. You should be thankful you’re even alive.”

    “Why are you doing this to me?”

    “Because I can.” Pale Man leaned forward. “You came into our world and got back out alive. You’re one lucky kid. You should’ve ended up like your buddy Terrell.”

    “Shut up!”

    “Know what he’s doing right now?” Pale Man started to giggle. “Screaming his fool head off. He’ll be doing that for, like… forever.”

    Devon clenched his jaw. His eyes stung.

    “Oh . . .” Pale Man’s voice softened. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I upsetting you? I’ll try to be more sensitive from now on. Really. We’ll be friends. We’re going to be great friends, you and me. Before you know it, you’ll forget all about Tyreek… er, Tyrone. You know… what’s-his-name.”

    “I don’t have to listen to you.”

    “Of course you don’t, kid.” Pale Man leaned back again, laughing. “You came back to life, all right. You just didn’t come back alone.”