Before I Wake (7 page)

She disconnected, slipped on a hooded sweatshirt, and stuck the phone in her pocket. “He got in a service door with a broken window.”

Eli and Franny both grabbed their shoes and put them on.

“Let’s find a night watchman,” Arden suggested. Adrenaline was still racing through her veins. “Hopefully he has a master key.”

Two pairs of eyes locked on her. “We can’t tell him Noah was roaming around, breaking into buildings.”

Of course, it would be much too anticlimactic to simply alert a guard. “He didn’t break in.”

Arden was glad she wasn’t their age anymore. Everything was such high drama, and Noah’s little performance an obvious plea for attention.

Eli tugged a gray sweatshirt over his head, then produced two plastic flashlights, one red, one yellow. “He could get kicked out of the study.”

He had a point. Not a very valid one, but a point.

“How old are you?” Arden asked as they headed out the door.

“Twenty-two,” Eli said.

Arden wasn’t so much older. Not in people years, anyway, but in FBI-agent years it created quite a gap. Agents grew up fast. But then, if you spiced that up with months of denial and shook well, it might just even out.

“Twenty-one,” Franny said.

Daniel had turned twenty-two in August. Arden had sent him a birthday card with her return address. No response. Was he okay?

The quest for Noah was nothing to do with her. A hip version of a lovers’ quarrel. The practical thing would be to continue to her room and try to catch a few hours of sleep before her eight-thirty meeting.

On the other hand, she didn’t feel comfortable leaving this bunch to their own devices. They were naive. Not that she thought anything would happen. It was just that they seemed capable of finding trouble without even trying.

But he’s in Cottage 25. You don’t want anything to do with Cottage 25, remember?

At the last minute, when she should have headed toward her room, she changed course.

Eli handed her one of the flashlights. Not wanting to attract the attention of the night watchman, they took the stairs, moving as silently as possible in shoes with soles that sometimes squeaked, using sign language instead of talking.

Shh.

This way.

Wait. I hear something.

Okay. Let’s go.

The only thing missing was Scooby-Doo.

On the first floor, Arden peered through the rectangle of safety glass. She motioned that all was clear; then they slipped out the heavy, noisy door.

The rain had stopped.

Arden pulled in a deep breath. The air was spectacular. Washed clean. She could see the stars.

Not nearly as spectacular as a New Mexico sky, but the lack of pollution was quite amazing. Her lungs didn’t know how to react to the absence of refinery fumes.

There was a brief flurry of conflict as Eli and Franny struggled for the leadership role. Eli relented and Franny took off, moving quickly through the wet grass, sticking to the shadows.

It was cold and damp. Arden wished she was dressed in more than a T-shirt.

As they hurried in the direction of Cottage 25, she began to recognize landmarks. The apple orchard was around a corner and down a hillside, near where Fury was staying. There would be a wide wooden bridge that led across a stream, and a circle of gravestones, broken and unreadable, covered with lichen, clustered at the bottom of a small hollow.

Like the other buildings, Cottage 25 was made of red brick. It wasn’t as tall or as big as the main structure, but it was every bit as unsettling. Four stories. Rows and rows of windows, all dark.

Franny waved them to follow. Moving single-file, they circled the building, checking doors until Franny ran down a short set of cement steps and came upon a door with a broken window.

Franny turned the knob and pushed open the door.
Come on
, she rapidly motioned.

Arden froze.

It was like the time she’d called Daniel and couldn’t speak. “I’ll wait out here,” she whispered, ashamed of the panic in her voice. She handed Eli the flashlight.

They went in without her.

The heavy door closed solidly behind them.

Franny and Eli hesitated, neither wanting to move into the belly of the building, away from the exit.

“I can’t believe she was afraid to come with us,” Eli whispered in the dark. “I mean, she’s an FBI agent.”

“
Shhh
.” Franny frowned even though he couldn’t see her. “She’ll hear you. And she
used
to be an agent.”

Eli returned to the door, his head bobbing, blocking what little light fell through the door’s small window. “She’s wandering around the yard,” he whispered. “I can see her up there.”

“I don’t blame her for not wanting to come,” Franny said. “I’m scared.”

Eli came away from the window to pat the top of Franny’s head. “Poor widdle girl.”

Letting out an annoyed laugh, Franny ducked and knocked his hand away. “God, I’m surrounded by lame-asses. And I’m five-foot-eight. Hardly widdle.”

“Don’t harass me. You’re always harassing me about something. I was just trying to keep things light.”

Franny didn’t know if he was really offended, or just acting like it. With Eli, you never knew.

“Well…” They’d stalled about as long as possible.

This whole thing was such typical Noah melodrama crap. Staging some elaborate scene to get Franny’s attention, make her feel sorry for him. Trying to project his neurotic behavior onto her, turning everything around to make her feel guilty for growing up poor.

She was one of those pathetic women who was attracted to instability. And high drama. She’d never been drawn to guys who were normal, even if they were cute and nice and smart. She had to have someone who was wounded and damaged in some way. Maybe because she’d never had much of a family. Maybe because nobody had really looked out for her. Whatever the cause, she felt a need to nurture.

She wanted Noah to be happy about who he was, but once that happened,
if
that happened, she’d probably lose interest in him. That was why the more messed up a guy was, the better.

Which was really messed up. Oh, but people were sick and twisted and weird.

“Come on.” Eli reached for her, grasping her hand.

Her heart jumped and fluttered and sank as the subtext shifted.

Here she’d thought this little adventure was to find Noah, and Eli was looking on it as an opportunity to touch. To be alone with her in a dark, scary place so he could maybe even put his arm around her.

Did guys ever outgrow that opportunistic way of thinking? Or was it part of their genes?

She didn’t pull her hand away. She clicked on her flashlight.

Eli did the same.

“Keep the light pointed to the floor,” she whispered, “so it won’t shine out any of the windows.”

Together, they moved slowly and awkwardly through the dark, cavernous space until they reached a pair of heavy double doors with wire mesh set in small, face-level windows.

Franny took out her cell phone, keyed in Noah’s number, and pressed dial.

No answer. She tried one more time before sticking the phone back in her sweatshirt pocket.

“Come on.” Eli tugged at her hand.

They went through the set of double doors, then down a hall.

Franny shone her flashlight along the walls, pausing on a bulletin board with a yellowed calendar pinned to it, left over from when the hospital was a working asylum.

That made her feel weird.

She tried Noah again. Still no answer. “He’s probably not getting a signal in here.”

“This is creepy as hell,” Eli whispered.

Was his voice kind of shaky?

She could feel his palm getting sweaty. Her own hand was freezing. Her whole body was freezing.

“You know what I think?” Eli whispered. They were standing really close. “I think he’s fucking with us. I don’t even think he’s in here.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? Of course that’s what had happened. He was probably lurking in a grove of trees, watching the cottage, laughing his ass off. No, Noah wouldn’t be laughing. He was too much of a masochist for that.

Franny tugged her hand free of Eli’s. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” She turned and hurried back the way they’d come, their swiftly moving footsteps slapping the floor, echoing loudly in the emptiness.

Through the cafeteria and down the hallway, to the double doors. With Eli on her heels, she threw her weight against the door.

And hurt herself.
Owww
.

The door didn’t budge.

She tried the other one, pressing down hard on the metal bar. Locked. Eli tried, with no better results.

Her heart was slamming now. “We have to find another way out.”

They turned and hurried back through the cafeteria of Cottage 25. Another set of doors led to another hall, then a ramped, linoleum-covered incline.

“We’re going down,” Eli said. “We don’t wanna go down.”

They stopped to catch their breath.

“Maybe we can find an emergency exit,” Franny said.

Eli checked out the surroundings, the beam of his flashlight bouncing off metal heating ducts and clusters of rusty pipes. “You’ve heard about that girl, haven’t you?” he asked. “The mental patient? The one who died in this building years ago?”

“Stop it.”

They hadn’t yet thrown themselves into each other’s arms. They hadn’t clutched each other in fear. For Eli, this was probably like taking a girl to see a horror movie, only better.

“You know the one I’m talking about?” he asked, wandering away. “The patient who hid down here somewhere until she died?”

“They didn’t find her body for six months.” Franny could play this game too. “That’s what I heard.”

Maybe they should start shouting for help. Maybe Arden would hear them. Even if she didn’t, she would surely become concerned when they didn’t return.

She would find the night watchman and he would let them out.

Right now, Franny would love to see the night watchman. “I heard she was dead for so long,” Franny said, “that her decomposing body left an imprint on the cement.”

“Hey—a door!” Eli shouted.

Franny turned and hurried toward him, her flashlight beam bouncing.

A windowless door painted over in layers of thick black enamel.

“It’s probably just a closet.” A smothering sensation washed over her. “Come on. Let’s go back the way we came.”

“You know what I’ll bet?” Eli ran his flashlight up and down the door. “I’ll bet this is the old morgue.”

He didn’t know that.

“Stop it, Eli.”

No way could he know that.

“Wait.” He stepped closer. “Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”

A tingly feeling moved up the back of her neck and across her scalp. “We need to get out of here,” she said. “We need to get out of here
now
.”

*

How much time had passed? Arden wondered.

It seemed like a long time.

Had it been a long time?

This was stupid. She was freezing. Her skin was beginning to feel tight and dehydrated. Her eyeballs burned. Sleep suddenly seemed very desirable.

And here she was, standing outside Cottage 25 in the middle of the night, while her new buddies raided the place. What would it be next? Pranks with toilet paper and shaving cream?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

A week ago, if someone had asked her to name the last place on earth she’d want to be, the Hill would have been her response.

But then, did you ever reach a point when things felt right? When you said,
This is where I’m supposed to be at this minute? This period in time
? Did that ever happen?

They’d been gone a long time.

She was pretty sure of it.

Two choices: Go after them, or find the night watchman.

Even though the situation had escalated into something extremely annoying, she didn’t want to get anybody in trouble.

Jeesus.

No flashlight. Black as hell.

She slid her feet along the cement steps, feeling for the edges as she descended. Five steps down and a turn to the right brought her to the damaged door. Before she could change her mind, she opened it and barged through. It closed behind her with a clang. A narrow passageway took her to a room with tall windows that were a lighter shade of black, giving everything the look of a negative.

Down a wide hallway, smooth linoleum underfoot.

It smells the same.

She remembered that smell.

Like people.

Lots of people.

Almost like a grade school. A uniquely human odor of hundreds of bodies packed into a space that was too small. Of perspiring heads and stocking caps that could use a good washing.

She didn’t want to be here. God, how she didn’t want to be here.

A little illumination, coming from a few rooms that were apparently being used as offices where electronic equipment hadn’t been completely shut down for the night. A bit of light from street lamps.

Not street lamps.

The windows faced east. The sky was beginning to lighten. Birds had started singing even though it was still dark. They knew dawn was coming.

A double door.

Had Eli and Franny come this way? How long ago?

It seemed years since she’d been at Grumpy Steve’s. Years since Fury had given her a ride to Building 50.

Arden slipped through the door. With her hand on the cold, clammy metal railing, she moved slowly down the steps.

In a hole. You’re a mole.

Smell was a time machine.

It hurled you back into another world with the jolt and intensity and immediacy of an electrical shock. Good or bad. You had no choice in the matter. Your olfactories never asked your opinion. It was just,
Here we are! Right in your face
.

If Arden had had a choice, she would have asked for a whiff of her grandmother’s cinnamon pancakes.

Or the scent of apple wood in the fireplace. Home. Her parents’ home.

A place of refuge. A place that was supposed to be safe.

Stop. Don’t think. Thinking never does a damn bit of good.

She wouldn’t have asked for the stench of a basement. Of damp wood and mildewed cement. The smell of the metal railing on her palm, penetrating her skin. The smell of water.

Not regular water. Salt water, with a touch of chlorine.