Widow Town (16 page)

Ryan keyed the van’s engine off and gazed through the trees at the parking lot lights.

He gripped the steering wheel once
, making the synthetic gloves creak with the pressure. When he released his hold his fingers were numb, like the rest of him. He gazed at the lights for another minute and then climbed out of the vehicle.

The wa
lk through the woods was short. Arid twigs snapped beneath his feet, arteries of the forest gone dry. The cornfields spoke somewhere to his right, the parched language sounding like dead whispers in the night. Soon he came to a long clearing that expanded from the edge of the trees, ending at a paved parking lot large enough to hold several thousand vehicles, although at this time of night there were only a few hundred.

Wheaton Medical
waited beyond it.

Ryan stood there, dressed in black, part of the night against the
woods. His hand strayed to his belt where Darrin’s knife hung in a composite sheath. He fingered the pommel for a second, his eyes glazing before setting off again.

He circumnavigated the parking lot and its lights without problem. Only once a blazing ambulance flew by him on the service road, its
flashers throwing reds and strobes of white toward him as he ducked down, the scrub grass hissing beneath his weight. When it passed he continued until he reached the rear entrance to the hospital. A dark loading dock waited empty like a corpse’s open mouth. One of the lights flickered on the building, shadows vanishing and reappearing in its faulty glow. Ryan waited, watching the door for movement but there was nothing. No sound except for his pulse slamming constantly in his eardrums.

Springing from his hiding place, he ran, crossing the space between the brush and the building
in quiet strides. He drew the electronic key from his pocket and flashed it across the small eye built into the side of the door. The lock clicked, the light flipping from red to green. He stepped inside.

The drop in temperature chilled him and he shivered. The door shut behind him and he waited, listening for footfalls or telltale voices. A bank of stairs ran up and turned ahead of him. A similar set went down into the subbasement. Ryan set off up the stairs, counting each step without thinking about it. Sweat crawled over his skin like something alive and he swallowed the sick that kept trying to
rise in the back of his throat.

A door opened somewhere above him and he froze, the clang of feet coming
toward him the loudest sound in the world. He glanced to his right, his eyes those of a rabbit hearing the baying of a dog nearby. An alcove sat to his left, its cleft in the wall full of darkness. He swung into it, just as a man in a green jumpsuit rounded the landing above him. The janitor wore wireless earphones and bopped his head to the music only he could hear, his fingers clamping an unlit cigarette. He was there and then gone in Ryan’s line of sight, close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to slit open.

The janitor’s passage echoed in the stairwell and then two stories below, the outside door ope
ned and shut. Silence returned.

Ryan slid out of the niche in the wall and placed a hand on his chest, his heart hammering harder than it ever had before. An unquellible nausea ros
e and receded like an acidic, internal tide and he clenched his jaw several times before continuing up the stairway. He stopped outside the third story landing and found the bank of light switches. None were marked. His hand trembled as he touched the last one in the row and flipped it off. No lights went out in the stairwell. He found the doorknob and turned it, easing the solid steel door open.

A long hall stretched away, either side peppered with doors
. The corridor was empty save a medical cart loaded with gauze and blue gowns. The first thirty feet of the hall was unlit, only a neon exit sign throwing any light onto the shining floor. Farther down the corridor the lights continued to glow.

Ryan eased out of the
stairwell and turned to the first door on the left, his bowels threatening to give way. The door seemed to open on its own, and then he was in the room, a soft beep coming from a monitor above the bed. A single light in the ceiling set to its dimmest was the only illumination. The shades were drawn tight over the window and shadows covered the rest of the room in inky blankets.

Miles Baron lay in the bed’s center, a skeleton of a man. His eyes were closed, sunken eyelids covering them. One shrunken arm curled near his stomach, protective in the way a pregnant woman might cover her swollen belly. His skin
was yellow in the low light, parchment paper left to dry in the sun.

Ryan vibrated within his dark clothes, his hands struck tuning forks. He swallowed again as he stepped forward
, blinking to keep the moisture from flooding his eyes. Miles’s slow inhalations were the only sound in the room besides the man’s electronic pulse that would be gone within minutes.

He
readied himself, adrenaline pouring through his veins in a cold flood. Sweat dripped down his face and he wiped it on the sleeve of his shirt. The knife was in his hand, drawn from the sheath without him realizing it. The blade glimmered, almost asking to be used, bloodied, its curve made for sundering, nothing else. He stepped close to the bed, and brought the knife up, tears now streaking down his cheeks, his position the same as in the dried streambed except now there was nothing for the man before him to use as defense, no cranny or crevice in which to hide. The tip of the knife hovered over the prone man’s chest.

Miles opened his eyes.

Ryan’s arms jerked, the knife bobbing with his surprise before he yanked it back, his breath racing from his chest. Miles stared at him through a haze of drugs before recognition bloomed deep in his eyes. His mouth opened and a moan so quiet it was barely audible escaped his lips.

Ryan shook his head, the image of Darrin stepping on a partially crushed frog in their driveway when they were young.
He was suffering, Ry-Ry, did him a favor.

“I’m so sorry,” Ryan whispered as he stepped closer, bringing the blade up once again. His hands shook and the muscles in his arms tensed, preparing for the sickening sensation
of steel sliding through flesh.

The unmistakable sound of footsteps came down the hall and neared th
e door, slowing, then stopping.

Ryan’s head whipped around and he sidestepped away from the bed, sliding into the unlit bathroom as the door
opened.

A skinny form
sidled into the room and shut the door behind it before crossing to the bed. Ryan watched as David Baron stepped up to his father’s side and reached out to grasp the older man’s hand.

“Hi
, Dad. Hey, you’re awake! I snuck past the desk downstairs since it’s not visiting hours. Had to come see you again. How ya doing?”

Ryan hovered in the black doorway, watching his former schoolteacher’s face. His fingers squeezed the knife’s handle. Miles’s eyes jittered from his son to the bathroom and back,
a grimace tearing at his mouth.

“Are you okay,
Dad? You can hear me now, can’t you?” David said, stooping closer. “You’re here now, you’re safe.” The smile in the boy’s voice was solid, palpable happiness. Ryan inched forward, his mouth open wide to mask the sound of his breathing.

“You don’t have to worry,
Dad, you’re gonna be okay and you’re going to get better, the doctor said so. Mom’s so happy. After we left here this afternoon she baked three pies and made a turkey dinner. It’s the first time she’s been out of bed all day since you…” David struggled for words. “You were gone.”

A tear s
lipped free of Miles’s left eye and rolled down his cheek. His gaze glided from the knife in Ryan’s hand to his son’s face.

“It’s okay,
Dad, she’s gonna be okay, we’re all gonna be okay. Sheriff Gray got the…the bastard that did this to you. He killed him. It’s justice. You told me that once, that justice gets served in this life or the next. Well he got his in this life, and I’m glad.”

David wiped a hand beneath his nose and sniffled once. Miles’s Adam’s apple bobbed and clicked, more
tears coursing down his cheeks.

“Don’t cry,
Dad. It’s okay, everything’s going to be okay now, you’ll see. I took good care of the crops. The weeder’s pinion seal went out but Sheriff Gray got Gary Klennert to come and put a patch on it that held. So, everything’s ready for when you get back. But you can rest as long as you need to.”

Ryan stepped back into the recesses of the small bathroom, melding to the blackness withi
n. His teeth hurt from keeping his jaw open and his legs kept trying to buckle. With one hand he steadied himself on the wall and with the other he turned the blade around, placing the razor tip against his jugular. He could feel his own pulse through the steel, a solid thump of life waiting to be released. One little twitch of his wrist and it would be all done. He closed his eyes, holding his breath. The blade parted the first layer of skin and the pain made him jerk his hand away. David’s voice floated to him across the few feet that separated them.

“
We have a game coming up next week. Maybe you’ll be well enough to come home by then and you’ll be able to watch. Coach says I’ve got potential. He said he’s going to put me on A-squad next season.” David’s head dipped as if in prayer. “You’ll be home soon, Dad, before you know it and everything will go back to the way it was.”

David swiped at his eyes and released his father’s hand. Ryan stayed well in the darkness and prayed the boy wouldn’t need to u
se the bathroom before he left.

“I’ll let you rest now,
Dad. Mom and I will be back in the morning.” David moved past the bathroom and paused, his hand on the door handle. “Love you.” The door swished open and then clicked shut after an eternity. Ryan listened to the boy’s footfalls trail off into silence before stepping back into the room.

Miles watched him, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a rictus grin. His arm rose and fell sluggishly as his fingers tried to grasp the bed’s railing. Ryan moved forward, wiping a speck of his
own blood from the knife’s tip.

“I wouldn’t have killed him, Mr. Baron. I wouldn’t have killed your son, I would’ve slit my own throat
first.”

Miles’s lips came together, pressing themselves white. “Please,” he whispered,
his voice dry leaves rustling.

Ryan sobbed once, the hitching emotion breaking free of a larger piece in his chest. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, they’ll kill me if
I don’t.”

He raised the knife again and grasped it with both hands. His pulse filled the room. The world. The beats of
one life ready to end another.

“Stop.”

The voice came from the corner of the room near the window. Ryan turned so quickly he slammed his hip into a cupboard and fell into a chair, all the air rushing out of him. A man’s silhouette detached itself from the clustered shadows and walked forward, his shoes clicking against the floor.

“You’re here,” Ryan said, his words nearly dying in his th
roat.

“I’m always here, Ryan. I
’m always watching, you know that. You’ve done well even with your carelessness yesterday.” The shadow stepped closer to the side of the bed and Miles moaned again, taking in his face. The man’s eyes found the schoolteacher’s and held them as he nodded once. “Mr. Baron. You’ve been quite the conundrum. Inconceivably so. I never would have guessed you would be. Your spirit is admirable.”

Ryan watched as
he drew something out of his pocket and grasped the I.V. hanging from a fiberglass stand attached to the bed.

“Your loyalties are confirmed, Ryan. The
re’s no need for that knife now, it would ruin the ruse we have in place. Mr. Baron is going to suffer a tragic stroke tonight.” The syringe’s tip glinted once before it slid into the injection port on the I.V. With a quick plunging of his thumb, the man emptied the syringe and withdrew it.

Miles struggled on the bed, but his movement
s were weak, still hindered by the heavy drugs. His eyes rolled to each of them and then toward the ceiling.

“What was that?” Ryan heard himself ask.

“A mixture of fibrin and adrenaline. Untraceable within the body, something your father and the medical examiner will never notice.” he said smiling.

Miles spasmed on the bed, his back arching with bone-breaking effort. He began to pant, his breathing sounding like a boiler overheating. The heart monitor near the bed pick
ed up speed until it was almost a constant beep. The man leaned forward as Ryan watched, wide-eyed. He caressed Miles’s cheek lovingly, like a father touching his sleeping son.

“It’s beautiful. Wondrous in the way birth is.”
he said, his voice soft with awe. He seemed to come out of a trance and looked across the writhing man’s form to where Ryan sat. “We’ll need to leave now before the nurses are alerted by his monitor.”

Ryan nodded and rose from the chair,
his legs shaking with effort. He stowed the knife away as the man crossed the room and followed him out to the hallway. An agonized grunt came from Miles as he strained against the confines of his body, his eyes bulging at something only he could see. Ryan looked over his shoulder and saw Miles’s remaining bony hand rake a row of scratches across his chest before the door shut to the room.