JACK KILBORN ~ ENDURANCE (29 page)

“
Do it,” Mal said. “Stitch up your neck. You can fix it. You’re a doctor.”

Jimmy nodded several times. “I’m... a doctor.”

Then he pinched the wound closed with his free hand and gouged the needle into his skin.

“
Keep going,” Mal said. “You can do it. In and out, just like that.”

Jimmy pierced his flesh, again and again, showing a fair amount of enthusiasm. But enthusiasm didn’t replace skill, and after six stitches the wound was still gushing.

He’d also sewn his fingers to his neck.

“
That’s it!” Mal said. He felt both ready to laugh hysterically and sob at the same time. He shook away both emotions, forcing himself to stay in the moment. “You’re doing it, Dr. Jimmy! A few more stitches and you’re done!”

Jimmy lasted one more stitch. Then he dropped onto his face.

Mal let out a breath, his head resting back onto the table. He closed his eyes.

It’s over.

Now I need to get out of here.

Maybe I can
escape.

Maybe
I can even find a doctor to reattach my hand.

It’s over.

The worst
is over.

Then his eyes went wide with panic when he heard the door open.

# # #

Deb stole a glance
at the framed poster of Ulysses S. Grant facing the toilet as she hid in Florence’s bathroom. Like the poster in the Roosevelt room, it seemed to be looking right at her.

Then she stared
at the door, straining to hear what was happening.

“
Granny, that was a big mistake.”

Florence was in trouble.

What do I do? Go out there and try to help?

Anything is better than waiting in here for them to find me.

Deb
flinched when she heard the gunshots. Two, in rapid succession.

Jesus, did they kill her?

“
Hi there, girly girly.”

Deb spun around.

The poster of Grant was yaw
ing open on hinges, and Teddy was slinking out into the bathroom through a hole in the wall.

He flopped onto the floor, reaching his hideous, double-thumbed hands for her, grabbing her prosthetics.

Deb cast a frantic look around, seek
some kind of weapon. There was nothing. Just a sink, a toilet, and a shower. She lashed out at the poster, trying to break the glass.

Plastic. The covering is plastic.

Teddy began to pull himself up her artificial legs, groping at her underwear.

“
How ‘bout you ‘n Teddy get familiar on the floor right here, girly?”

Deb felt herself losing balance, tipping forward. She reached for the toilet to steady herself, her hands slipping on the cistern cover.

The heavy, porcelain cistern cover.

She snatched it off the toilet tank, a flat slab of stone that weighed at least eight pounds. Without thinking, she slammed it down onto Teddy’s head.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

One the fourth strike, the cover cracked in half. Deb raised the broken piece, ready to bring it down again.

She didn’t have to. Teddy’s skull looked like a kicked pumpkin. His bloodshot eyes—popping from their sockets from the beating—stared at her accusingly. Deb pushed him aside, sliding his body across the spreading lake of blood, reaching for the door behind her, stumbling out of the bathroom to see—

BANG!

—
a third gunshot, Florence shooting a man on the floor in the head—

BANG!

—
the older woman fluidly bringing the pistol around and pulling the trigger as the Sheriff lunged at her, shooting him in the stomach. He dropped to his knees, clutching his gut.

“
Deborah? Are you okay?” Florence asked, keeping her eyes on the Sheriff.

“
Teddy... he got into the bathroom. He crawled through the walls. There are secret passages everywhere.”

“
Come over here. I’ve got some jogging shorts and a sweater in my suitcase. Put them on.”

Deb looked at herself, half naked, and sought out the suitcase next to the bed, making sure she kept far away from the dust ruffle.

The Sheriff groaned. “Lordy, you got me good, granny.”

“
The next one goes through your head, Sheriff. If you don’t want to end up like Grover here, tell me where my family is, and how many people are guarding them.”

The Sheriff shook his head. “Don’ matter none. I’m dead anyway. Wasted all my styptic on John.”

“
That’s not a fatal wound.”

The Sheriff grinned. “It is for me. So you can take that gun and shove it up your ass, old woman. I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”

Deb sat on the floor, fighting to get the shorts up over her Cheetahs.

When she heard the Sheriff yelp, she looked up and saw Florence grinding her heel into the man’s stomach wound.

“
Let’s get something straight right now,” Florence said. “I’ve seen some terrible things in my life. Things I promised I’d never do, no matter how desperate I got. But if you keep me from my family, I’ll break that promise and make your last moments on earth absolutely unbearable. Now I’ll ask you once more, and then I’m going to stick my finger in that bullet hole and pull your guts out. Where is my family and how many people are guarding them?”

The Sheriff made a grunting noise. Wincing, he said, “Rot in hell, you old bag.”

Deb’s mouth fell open as she watched Florence drop to one knee and jab her index finger into the Sheriff’s stomach.

The Sheriff thrashed for a moment, and then made good on both of his promises; he refused to talk, and he died.

Florence’s eyes went wide. She felt his neck. “He shouldn’t be dead. I was a combat nurse. It wasn’t a fatal wound.”

“
Look at all the blood,” Deb said, pointing.

There was a large pool of red on the floor around the Sheriff. Pints of the stuff. A similar amount surrounded Grover.

“
Styptic,” Florence said. “That stops bleeding.” She wiped her finger off on the Sheriff’s sleeve. “They’re hemopheliacs. Their blood doesn’t clot on its own.”

“
Teddy said something about needing my blood.”

Florence shot her a look. “Are you O negative?”

Deb nodded.

“
So am I. So are my daughter and granddaughter. Did you get the room for free?”

“
Yeah.”

Florence wiped her finger off on the Sheriff’s sleeve. “So did we. When we filled out the applications for
Iron Woman
, we listed our blood types. O negative is rare. Less than seven percent of the population has it.”

“
What are you saying?”

“
They lured us here for our blood.”

It was so ghastly, so unreal, Deb didn’t want to believe it.

Florence touched one of the Sheriff’s open eyes. She plucked off a contact lens, exposing an eyeball as bloodshot as Teddy’s.

“
Besides hemophilia, they’re also anemic. They may have other blood disorders as well. Without regular transfusions, they’ll die.”

“
That’s fine by me.” Deb tugged on a sweater. “Does he have any more bullets?”

Florence checked his belt. “No. But he’s got a knife.” Florence offered the switchblade to Deb.

“
I’ve got one in my room. I need to go back upstairs to look for my friend, Mal.”

“
I’m looking for my daughter and her daughter. Letti and Kelly. I’ll start on this floor, you start upstairs. If you find anything, yell.”

Deb nodded. “You do the same.”

Florence stood up. “Both of these men were big, strong. I’m guessing there are others. But a deep cut ought to stop them, even kill them.”

“
Shouldn’t we call someone?”

Florence pointed at the Sheriff. “Who? The police?”

Deb had no answer for that. “Do you have a car?”

“
No. Flat tire. But now I’m thinking they shot the tire out. It sounded like a gunshot.”

“
Us too. That’s what Mal said. A gunshot.”

“
When you find him, get out to the road, see if you can flag down a car for help. But be careful. We don’t know how many of them there are. Talking to Eleanor, I get the feeling there might be a lot. And she obviously has outside help, if she was able to see our triathlon applications.”

Deb nodded.
“I know one of them. An asshole desk clerk back at the event hotel. He’s the one who sent me here.”

Florence frowned. “Maybe we should stick together.”

“
We can cover more ground by splitting up. And we may not have a lot of time.”

Florence seemed to consider it, then held
out her hand. “Good luck.”

Deb shook it. “You too.”

They held their grip for a moment, and Deb sensed a finality there. She wondered if she’d ever see the older woman again.

Then Deb walked out of Florence’s room. The hallway was empty, silent. She took the stairs slowly, holding the
handrail. Previously, the inn had seemed kitschy and somewhat amusing. Now it was downright ominous. The floors, the walls, the ceilings—Deb could imagine secret passages and trap doors everywhere she looked. This entire building was a funhouse straight out of hell. Mal’s words of the many disappearances over the years kept echoing in Deb’s mind. Five hundred people had gone missing in this area, and this place was no doubt the reason why.

Eleanor and her family have been operating with impunity for decades.

How big has her clan become?

“
So big it needed the blood of five hundred people,” Deb whispered to herself.

She made it down the stairs without any freaks popping out at her, and approached the Theodore Roosevelt room.

Will it be locked? I left my key inside.

The knob turned.
She hesitated.

Is someone in my room?

Deb considered going back upstairs, asking Florence for help.

Just run in, grab the knife. It will only take three seconds.

Deb braced herself, bending her knees, leaning slightly forward.

I’ll go on three.

One...

Two...

Three!

She shoved open the door—the room looked empty—took four quick steps and ran to the bathroom—also empty—reached for her fanny pack on the sink—dug out her knife—flicked open the blade.

So far so good.

Next stop, the closet. Deb wasn’t going to leave her prosthetics in there. It would take weeks to get replacements made, and she needed to have spares on her in case something happened to the Cheetahs.

The closet door was closed. She approached it slowly, tightening her grip on the folding knife. Placing her ear against the door, she held her breath, listening for any sounds.

There was only silence.

She shifted from one leg to the other. Without her gel socks, the sockets on the prosthetics were starting to chafe, because they no longer had a perfect fit.

I’
ll snag them after I grab my legs.

Deb opened the closet door.

Two naked men were sitting on the closet floor, going through her suitcase, throwing her clothes everywhere. They had bulbous, bald heads, and crooked mouths. One had three nostrils. The other had an empty hole where his nose should be. The whites of their eyes were stop-light red.

Before Deb was even able to gasp, three hands reached out at her, grabbing her Cheetahs, pulling them out from under her so she fell onto her ass.

Deb kicked out, trying to pull away, but the two men were already crawling on her, pawing at her thighs, her hips, her chest.

And that’s when Deb realized, to her horror, that it wasn’t two bodies on top of her.

It’s one body with two different heads.

# # #

Kelly felt sick. Sick and scared and hurt and overwhelmed and most of all, young. She felt more like a first-grader than a teenager.

She looked at Mom, who was in a heated conversation with Maria about which way to go. The pregnant woman, Sue, stood there like a zombie, completely zoned out. JD was sniffing around, waiting for someone to tell him what to do. The only one who seemed to be okay was Cam. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking vaguely bored.

I wish I could act more like him.

Kelly was wracked with worry. Even though she
was out of that horrible cell, they were still trapped in these tunnels. And according to Maria, there were a lot of bad people who lived here. Kelly knew that even if they got away, they wouldn’t have anywhere to go. They were in the middle of the woods. The car didn’t work. Maria and Sue and Larry had been here for a long time, and hadn’t been able to escape.