Vile Blood (27 page)

Then something dropped down
through
the hole and rushed at him through the flames, something too big for the space, stooping as it
seized
him, and his fear of the
blaze
was replaced by a greater terror as he glimpsed animal teeth and slit eyes and claws.

But as the thing wrapped him up tight, smothering the flames on his body, pushing him up against the wall of the tank away from the fire, he smelled something else through the stink of rot and burning hair and flesh.

He smelled Skye.

Gene saw
the creature
diving into the
inferno
, engulfed by flames. He dropped the shotgun and pulled himself back to the car, grabbing for the microphone in the cruiser, praying the radio would have the range.

Heard Darlene’s voice through the hiss and crackle as he called for help, heard her say “copy that” and he let himself fall out of the car and, weak and dizzy with blood loss, he started crawling toward the hole, flames licking up into the night.

A car came bumping out from behind the ruined gas station and for a moment Gene thought Junior Cotton was going to run him
down
, but the Chevrolet drew up beside him and Cotton smiled at him and tipped him a little salute before speeding away onto the road, turning toward the border.

Gene crawled on, yelling, “Timmy! Timmy!”

But all he heard was the rumble and hiss of the fire. He dragged himself forward until he could move no more, lying with his face against the torn concrete, and as the world went black he saw flames spitting from the manhole, embers dancing like fireflies against the night sky.

56

Gene awoke with that unmistakable hospital smell in his nostrils, a blend of disinfectant, medication and inedible food. He lay on his back, a drip feeding into his arm, his left leg encased in plaster from below the knee, bare toes emerging yellow from the dazzling white carapace.

The curtains were drawn around his bed and he flailed at them,
the rings rattling on the metal rail,
until he found a gap and threw them wide. The bed was near a door standing open onto a corridor tiled in a checkerboard of gray and white.

“Hey,” he yelled. “Hey!”

An overweight man in the uniform of a city police sergeant appeared in the doorway, his one hand on his service pistol, the other holding a half-eaten hot dog. When he saw Gene wasn’t under attack, he waved the hot dog, saying, “You take it easy now, hear? Nurse’ll be along presently.”

“Where’s my boy?” Gene asked.

Before the cop could answer the curtain on the other side of the bed shifted as a small shape ducked beneath it and Timmy, dressed in candy striped pajamas, said, “Daddy?”

Gene stared into his son’s
face,
prepared to believe that he was suffering from some medication-induced hallucination, for the boy (aside from hair singed in patches to his pale scalp, a missing eyebrow and a bandage on his left elbow) seemed unharmed.

Gene
grabbed him
with his free arm, lifting him onto the bed. “Timmy, you’re okay?”

“Yessir,” the boy said. “I’m fine. You’re not sleepin’ no more?”

“No. No, I’m not. Where are we at?”

“The hospital. In the city.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Since last night when they brung us here in a helicopter,” Timmy said, his eyes alive with the memory. “They landed right on a big cross on the rooftop.”

Gene hugged his boy, tearing free the drip in his arm. Got the duty nurse clucking when she pulled back the curtains, trying to keep Gene still while she applied an adhesive bandage to stop the bleeding. Gene released Timmy, who bounced on the other bed in the ward, saying he’d slept here, right beside his daddy.

Gene turned to the nurse. “Was there anybody else brought in with us last night?”

Something in her eyes shut down and she left the room, saying, “Best you speak to the doctor.”

Gene, forced against his wishes into a wheelchair piloted by a gum-chewing orderly with dishwater hair and prison tattoos, held Timmy’s hand as they made their way out of the big silver elevator, the
rubber
of the wheelchair whimpering on
the tiles of
a corridor more hushed than the one on his floor, the faces of the nurses more earnest, tasked with the business of denying death its last claim on the living.

The big cop shadowed them. Another uniformed policeman sat on a chair outside a ward reading a gossip magazine. He stood when he saw his senior colleague, rolling the magazine into a tube.

A doctor in a white coat, stethoscope draped around his neck, emerged from the ward, holding a clipboard in his hand.

“You the brother?” the doctor asked, the skin under his eyes mauve with fatigue.

“I’m Gene Martindale.”

“I’m Dr. Strauss.” Glancing down at the clipboard, then speaking to the ex-con.

“Thank you, Orderly, you can take a seat.” The man nodded and sloped off. “Son, why don’t you go get yourself a Coke,” the doctor said to Timmy, digging in his pocket for quarters, pointing toward the dispenser in a waiting room near the elevator where the orderly sat staring into space like a man who’d had a lot of practice.

Timmy looked at his father, who nodded and the boy went off.

The doctor said,
“Being in law enforcement, I presume you’re familiar with the term crispy critter?”

“I’ve attended enough burned out auto wrecks.”

“Well, your sister was brought in with ninety-plus percent burns, most of them severe enough to be classified as fourth degree. That means the burns extended through skin, subcutaneous tissue and into underlying muscle and bone. Most people would have died on the scene. Only a few would have survived the journey here. None would still be alive.”

“But she is?”

“Yes, she is, and later today we’ll be transferring her to the burn unit at Memorial Hospital. But, and this is the part that has me beat, in just shy of sixteen hours a new growth of skin has begun to emerge and the tissue, nerve, muscle and bone damage is disappearing. She’s healing herself from within.”

“So she’ll recover?”

“Yes, and in time there’ll be very little visible evidence she was ever in a fire.” He looked deep into Gene’s eyes. “You a religious man, Chief Deputy?”

“No,” Gene said, watching Timmy walking toward him carrying a Coke can, his slippers scuffing.

“Me neither. But this has almost made me into a believer. We’re talking miracle country here.”

Gene said, “Can we see her?”

“Yes.”

Before the doctor could open the ward door, the elevator pinged and a man in a rumpled suit stepped out, carrying with him an aura of nicotine.

“Chief Deputy, I’m Detective Winslow. We need to talk about what happened last night.”

“Still reckon Junior Cotton headed north?”

The cop looked as if something had taken a dump in his mouth. “Appears not. And he’s gone off the radar.”

“He’s across the border, Detective.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybes.”

“Still, I’ll need a full account of last night’s events.”

“And you’ll get one, just as soon as I’m done visiting with my sister.” Gene looked up at the doctor. “Take me in please.”

The doctor pushed open the door and wheeled Gene inside, waited for Timmy to enter before he let it swing closed on Winslow who frisked himself for a cigarette, then remembered where he was and let his hands drop.

Skye was woken from fever dreams of blood and flame by the soft touch of a hand on hers. She opened her eyes to see Timmy standing by the bed, Gene in a wheelchair behind him.

When Timmy leaned in for a hug, Gene reached forward and pulled him away.

“Skye’s hurt, Timmy.”

But she knew that wasn’t why he was stopping the boy from hugging her and when she looked into his eyes she saw wariness and traces of fear.

“It’s okay, Gene,” she said.

Gene, holding the boy at his side, said, “
Timmy,
why don’t you go get Skye one of those Cokes? Ask that nice man in the suit for some change.”

“Sure,” Timmy said and he left the room.

“So he’s okay?”

“He’s fine. And I spoke to the doctor, he says you’re going to heal up real good.”

“And Junior Cotton?”

“Gone.”

She nodded and looked down at her arm lying on top of the bed sheet, a drip feeding into her vein, some kind of monitor attached to her fingertip. A fresh growth of pink skin was already visible beneath the blackened dermis. The Other repairing her, keeping her alive.

“How do I look?” she said.

“Like a bad day at a barbecue.”

“No, I mean, am I me? Or—?”

He nodded. “You’re you.”

“For now.”

“Yeah, for now.” He rolled the wheelchair closer to the bed, put his hand on the sheet near hers, but couldn’t bring himself to touch her. “Thank you.”

She shook her head. “I love Timmy, Gene.”

“I know you do and you saved his life. But that don’t mean I can forget about the rest of it. Even if I can’t pretend to understand it.”

“I don’t understand it either.”

“Doesn’t make it no better.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

They didn’t speak for maybe a minute, a machine hum filling the silence, then Gene said, “There’s a detective outside. Come to question us.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“That Junior Cotton stole Timmy and you saved his life.”

“Nothing else?”

Gene shook his head. “I don’t recall nothing more that’s relevant.”

“You’ll be lying again, Gene.”

He shrugged. “Soon as I’m able I’m taking Timmy and moving on. Leaving the state. I think he needs a new place to build a fresh set of memories.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The door opened and Timmy came in carrying the can of soda.

“Put it by the bed and say goodbye to Skye, Timmy.”

The boy clanked the can down beside the bed and stood close to Skye, his blue eyes level with hers.

“Bye, Timmy.”

“Bye.”

Skye took his hand and kissed it and had to turn her head away, staring at the beige wall.

Gene said, “Skye, you take care now.” He gripped the wheels of the chair and rolled back, Timmy falling in beside him.

“Goodbye, Gene,” she said, closing her eyes.

They left the room with a series of squeaks and squeals and then she was alone and felt a pain far worse than the agony she’d experienced when The Other had receded and she’d been lifted from that gasoline storage tank and rushed to a helicopter, the touch of the night air on her
charred
skin torture for her.

After a long time Skye opened her eyes and looked out the window, the buildings and the open land beyond softened by
a
gauze of pollution, sure she could see through it to the faraway hill country across the border.

She knew that Junior Cotton was down there in those hills.

And she knew that the secret to who and what she was down there, too.

Skye would wait, heal, carefully judge when her returning strength was sufficient for her body to host The Other, then she would leave and she would head south.

THE END

About the author

Max Wilde is the pen name of award-winning thriller writer Roger Smith. Visit his 
website

Copyright

 © 2012 by Roger Smith

All rights reserved

Vile Blood
 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without the express written permission of the author or publisher except where permitted by law.