Текст книги "Sleep Tight"

Автор книги: Jeff Jacobson

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

CHAPTER 60

12:39 PM

August 14

Tommy still sat with Don’s corpse. There were no windows, no clock. He had no idea how long he’d been locked in the room. The IV bags hanging from the rod that rose above his right shoulder were empty. The slick plastic bag attached to his catheter that hung down by his left leg was full of urine. He did not know if he had been asleep or awake; the edges between consciousness and oblivion were getting blurry.

Sometimes he thought he saw bugs. On the bed. Lately, on the floor.

Tommy wondered if he was starting to hallucinate.

Driven down to nothing, he went back to testing the leather straps, flexing each arm and leg, giving each side a chance to rest while he yanked with the other side. It didn’t work. No matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t recreate whatever combination of movements had led to that wonderfully elusive sound of popping thread. He worried that he was getting too weak. He had no idea the last time his body had gotten any kind of nourishment.

Now, instead of phantom flickers in his mind of Dr. Reischtal laughing at him from behind the monitors, of infected patients running howling through the halls, he could only see his daughter’s face. This was worse than anything. Watching her expression fall from warmth and joy to soul-crushing terror and pain as men’s hands groped and clutched and squeezed.

Tommy bucked and flailed at the wheelchair straps, howling and weeping, sobbing promises to Dr. Reischtal, to anyone watching, begging for release.

Something gave. More movement from one of the straps. He realized that it was the combination of jerking his left arm and right leg at the same time that gave him enough leverage. He tried it again. The tearing sound was perhaps the most blissful thing he’d heard in his life.

Soon, he had enough slack in the leather strap around his right ankle that he could pull his foot free. He used it to get a better grip on the plastic covering the floor, and pushed back around, away from the door, toward Don. The wall behind the bed and camera was filled with cabinets and Tommy was hoping for some kind of blade.

He stopped. Cold. At least five or six bugs were now clearly visible on the floor. He could only guess that they were leaving Don to come looking for the only warm body in the room. Using his toes, Tommy got the wheelchair rocking and angled it to the side, crushing a bug. Rolling back and forth, he used the wheels to smash every bug he could find, one by one.

He edged around the bed and tried not to think about the cold, clotted blood under his bare foot and hoped that the virus couldn’t survive for hours in a cool temperature. Once on the other side of the bed, the first thing he did was kick the camera over. It didn’t shatter like he had hoped, but it still felt halfway satisfying. Of course, he couldn’t do anything about the one in the ceiling.

Using his toes, he pulled the drawers open, swung the cabinet doors wide. Nothing useful. No scalpels. No bone saws. Just soft supplies, like rubber gloves, sheets, replacement paper towels for above the small sink. A goddamn bedpan.

He looked back to the door. Maybe he could push himself back, see if he couldn’t figure out how to unlock it. If he could get out of this room, he might be able to find something, anything that could help him get free of the wheelchair.

Tommy was halfway around the bed when there was a loud click, and Sgt. Reaves opened the door.

It wasn’t until the third bus was almost full that Sam had to make an example out of somebody.

They’d brought out sixty-two prisoners, splitting them between the three buses. Over half of these were low-level security concerns, mostly old white guys with three DUIs and black kids who still didn’t understand the difference between a federal charge of intent to sell versus the lesser Illinois charge of simple possession. These kids saw themselves as proud warriors, following in the footsteps of their fathers, uncles, and brothers. As if it was some kind of honorable career choice. However, they were still new enough that federal prison scared the living shit out of them. So they were fine, no trouble at all. Neither were the three or four junkies, so strung out that they thought they might be in hell.

The rest were career criminals, serial rapists, neighborhood narcotic kingpins, and guys who couldn’t manage to walk past a car without trying to steal it. For the most part, they were docile, and didn’t give anybody any trouble. The guards brought them down and out through the visiting area, further disrupting the prisoners’ expectations. All prisoners were normally moved in and out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center through a special passageway along the fifth floor of the parking garage. Instead, Ed and Sam had them led out into the plaza, then around to Clark, where the buses were waiting.

Trouble came with Inmate No. 928743.

Inmate No. 928743 didn’t want to get his wristband scanned. Every prisoner wore one. They were all brand new, made of the same plastic that was used in clothing store security tags. Shockproof. Waterproof. Came with a bar code that identified the prisoner. Ed had demanded that they scan the codes at every step, just to keep track, so a guard would scan the number of every prisoner as they got on the bus.

Ed monitored everything from inside, eyes flicking across a bank of monitors. He used his phone to talk to Sam. For everything else he gave orders to the warden, who passed it on to the appropriate personnel. He had just sent the first batch of truly dangerous repeat offenders out to the buses, mixed with an equal number of first timers.

The biggest threats to the MCC evacuation were the guys awaiting sentencing for heavy crimes like murder, aggravated assault, and rape. They’d already been found guilty, probably had burned through an appeal or two, and were just sitting around to find out how many years they were going to spend behind bars. They were the walking definition of nothing to lose.

Inmate No. 928743 clasped his cuffed hands at his waist when the guard held up the scanner and said, “No.”

The guard stepped back across the sidewalk, putting some distance between himself and the prisoner, trained to withdraw from one-on-one challenges. The two guards on either side of the bus doors watched and waited for an order. Ed watched it on the video monitors. He called Sam.

Sam answered with, “Already on it.” While Ed had been watching from deep inside the prison, Sam was outside, leaning against the wall, chewing a fresh stick of gum, and watching the prisoners step on the buses. He’d been expecting someone like this, an opportunist who could smell the insanity on the wind, taste the chaos impatiently waiting just under the crumbling surface of order, someone who would test the limits of authority.

Sam made eye contact with a guard who carried a twelve-gauge and made sure the guard was paying attention. Then he moved toward Inmate No. 928743. “Afternoon.”

The prisoner cocked his head and regarded Sam coolly.

Sam smiled. “Listen, I don’t care what your problem is. My advice, get over it. This is your first and only warning.”

Inmate No. 928743 planted his feet shoulder-width apart, and smiled right back, equally scary and empty. Amateur tattoos, bluish gray in the hazy sunlight, crawled up his neck and all over his bald skull. “My civil rights are being violated.”

“No, no, they’re not,” Sam said. “Not yet.” With no wasted movement, he brought his lower leg up, square and true, smashing the tibia bone into Inmate’s No. 928743’s testicles. The seismic shock had barely begun rising from the prisoner’s torso into his chest when Sam broke his nose with a fast little jab.

As a teenager, Sam had taken classes from an old ex-Israeli soldier who had showed the lanky boy a few vicious Krav Maga moves. The man’s fighting philosophy was basically that if anyone was threating you, then you hurt them before they had a chance to hurt you, and hurt them bad enough that by the time they’re even thinking about getting up off the floor, you’re far, far way.

Blood exploded from Inmate No. 928743’s nostrils the same time the devastating effect of his crushed testicles hit his brain. He went down like a rotten tree, every part of him collapsing into the concrete. Sam had to give the guy credit. Inmate No. 928743 still managed to crawl forward a few feet before he curled into a fetal position and vomited on himself. Urine stained the front of his pants.

Sam turned to the guard with the .12 gauge. The guard tossed the shotgun; Sam caught it, brought the stock around and cracked the prisoner’s skull. Fresh blood erupted out of the man’s shaved head, washed over the tattoos, and spilled down over his already bleeding nose and started a puddle on the sidewalk.

Sam had deliberately hit the guy in the head with the stock, instead of some softer, perhaps more painful location, because head wounds bled like a bitch. Both Ed and Sam wanted the rest of the inmates to see the blood. You could be borderline retarded, even damn near brain damaged, but everybody coming out of the prison would understand what blood on the ground meant.

The massive lobby of the Fin was cool despite the sunlight that flooded through the three stories of windows. The three soldiers pushed through the spinning glass doors and took a moment to enjoy the delicious chill as it settled into the sweat that coated the inside of their fatigues.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” one said.

“We got thirty seconds before McLeary is on our ass,” another pointed out.

“Hello?” the third called out, moving toward the sleek front desk. “Hello?” he called again. “Anybody here?” He turned back to the first two. “Hey, you guys know if this building’s been cleared yet?”

They shrugged. The third muttered, “Shit. Just what we need. Wasting time checking an empty building.”

The second shook his head. “They shouldn’t have. Supposed to be on our grid.” He pulled out a radio and spoke into it. “Command? This is Charlie one-two-seven, that’s Charlie one-two-seven. I need confirmation on a location. Over.”

A burst of static from the radio. It swelled, then settled into a low hiss. “Command, you copy? I need verification that a building has been cleared. Over.” Still no response. “Goddamnit. These pieces of shit.”

“What do you want, man? They work in the desert,” one of the soldiers said. “Too many fucking tall buildings here.”

The third soldier stuck his head in the back office. “Hello? Hello? Anybody here? Anybody?”

Deep in the back office, Janelle was hiding under one of the desks, breathing fast, almost hyperventilating, sound asleep. She had curled up under of the far desks, wedging herself into the tightest corner possible, like a lost lamb under a dead tree, frozen in both snow and fear.

“Fuck it, dude,” the other soldier said. “We don’t get back out on the grid, McLeary’s gonna shit a brick. ’Sides, isn’t Winston and those boys supposed to double back through, confirm that everything’s been cleared?”

“Supposed to. Let’s head back outside, see if the radio works any better.”

The first two soldiers groaned when they stepped back out into the sun. The third soldier hit the button on his radio again, suddenly shielded his eyes and pointed. The other two saw the rat at once, working its way along one of the graceful, curving flower beds, trying to remain hidden under the leaves. All three soldiers opened fire.

Chips of concrete, flower petals, dirt, fertilizer, and rat flesh exploded into a pink and brown cloud. When the dust settled, there wasn’t enough left of the rat to fill a sandwich Baggie.

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t fun,” one of the soldiers said as they wandered over to the flowers to look for any more rats. The gunfire attracted the attention of one of the grid commanders. Once he understood that it was only one rat, he sent a decon crew over to spray the area down with the sterilization foam.

Behind them, the lobby remained empty and quiet.

Sergeant Reaves said nothing as he surveyed Don’s hospital room. He wore a hazmat suit, minus the helmet. His expression never changed as he regarded bloody corpse, the tire tracks in the blood on the floor, the overturned camera, the open cabinets. He paused and tilted his head when he saw the dead bugs. When his gaze settled on Tommy, Tommy tried not to look like a child who’d been caught trying to steal a cookie and had accidentally knocked the cookie jar to the floor where it shattered. Sergeant Reaves’s gaze never wavered.

Tommy shrugged.

Sergeant Reaves blinked, took a deep breath, held it, and walked over to Tommy, rubber hazmat boots crunching on the dried blood. He leaned over Tommy, placed one gloved hand over his face. With his thumb and forefinger, he spread Tommy’s right eyebrow and cheek, widening the eye to painful extremes. He repeated the movement with Tommy’s left eye, peering intently at Tommy’s eyeball. Satisfied, he released Tommy’s head and spun the wheelchair around, so that Tommy faced the far side of the room.

Tommy had no idea how his eyes might give something away, and had a nightmarish flash that Sergeant Reaves was simply going to pull out his pistol and put a bullet in the back of his head. He tensed, waiting for that blast of oblivion, but Sergeant Reaves simply dragged the wheelchair backwards through the blood to the doorway and out into the hallway.

Sergeant Reaves exhaled outside the room. He wheeled Tommy down the hall to the elevator and they waited in silence for the doors to open.

Tommy wondered if he was being taken back to his original room. One entire wall had been covered with a heavy curtain, and Tommy was convinced it had concealed a window. If he could just get out of his wheelchair, he might have a chance at breaking through the window. And if he could break the window, he could climb out. He didn’t care if there was a ledge or not, he’d take the risks of climbing out of a twelve– or thirteen-story room compared to facing Sergeant Reaves or Dr. Reischtal.

Tommy kept his right foot pulled in on the metal footrest, nice and snug, as if the leather strap was still wrapped around his ankle. He had no idea how he might break out of the wheelchair restraints, but he had one foot loose, and that was a start. He just needed some time alone in his room where he could break the window.

The elevator doors slid open. Sergeant Reaves wheeled Tommy inside and pushed the button for the lobby instead of going upstairs. Tommy wanted to keep quiet, wanted to be a hard-ass, didn’t want to give Sergeant Reaves the satisfaction of hearing Tommy speak first, but as the descending floor numbers flashed, his will broke. “Where we going?”

For a long time, Tommy didn’t think Sergeant Reaves would answer. Tommy knew he had fucked up, and swore at himself for being weak.

Sergeant Reaves finally said, “Dr. Reischtal has given instructions to transfer you to a more secure location. This building . . . is no longer safe.”

Tommy didn’t know what to say. He stayed quiet as they dropped. The doors opened on the first floor with a happy ding. They came out behind the front desk and beyond it, Tommy could see that the waiting room was empty. Sergeant Reaves pushed him out a back door into the thick summer air that hung over the river. The tables between the hospital and Chicago River were vacant. Even the benches stood alone.

Tommy watched a bus push over the Madison Bridge; then, as if this was the last CTA bus in the city, the bridge split in half and began rising. From the wheelchair, every bridge he could see had been opened, as if the stitches on a fresh wound had been popped, that black thread cut in a hurry with a bone saw, sparing the clean flesh from the infection.

An ambulance was waiting on the sidewalk. Two more soldiers, completely encased in hazmat suits, rolled Tommy up a ramp into an ambulance. They locked his wheels. He hoped they couldn’t make out fine details with their plastic faceplates and wouldn’t notice the broken strap around his right ankle. One sat in the back on the opposite bench and stared at Tommy.

Sergeant Reaves stood a ways from the ambulance, his back to the river, and watched without expression as the other soldier slammed the back doors. He didn’t move. Tommy hoped it was the last time he ever got close to the man.

The other soldier climbed into the front and started the engine. He turned the lights on and drove through the sandbags until joining the parade of buses. Through the back windows, across the Chicago River, all along the river walk, Tommy could see trucks pulling massive tankers, arranging them into place next to the river, and more figures in hazmat suits uncoiling long hoses into the river. The ambulance turned onto Upper Wacker and the image was lost.

Tommy glanced at the soldier in the back with him. The man’s eyes, encased behind protective plastic, were blank and dead. Tommy might as well have been looking into the eyes of some deep water shark, something that went blind in the light and hunted by some kind of primitive, almost supernatural sense.

The buses pulled to the side for the lights and siren, allowing the ambulance to streak through downtown. They flew down Madison, and turned right on Michigan. When they hit Monroe, they turned left, heading into Grant Park, toward the Lake. As they broke free of the shadows of all the buildings, Tommy again turned to the back windows, looking at the afternoon sun. It was the first time he’d seen true sunlight in two days. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine he could feel the rays on his face, and that somehow the warmth and security of the sun could pass through the thick glass of the back windows.

They followed Monroe all the way to Lake Shore Drive and turned south, where they joined a convoy of CTA buses, all merging into one lane, the only lane through the blockade on Roosevelt, next to the Field Museum. Tommy leaned forward and could see the line of buses snaking along Lake Shore Drive past the parks, past the baseball fields, past Buckingham Fountain, and once they were through the roadblock, the buses turned east once more onto short McFetridge Drive, and curled down into the Soldier Field underground parking lot.

While the buses descended beneath the stadium, the ambulance left the line and continued east, toward Adler Planetarium. They turned south and pushed through the clustered knots of trailers, trucks, and military vehicles strung out across Northerly Island Park. The narrow strip used to be a landing strip called Meigs Field, until Daley Junior had a bunch of bulldozers rip up the runway in the middle of the night back in 2003. Now it was a flat, grassy field, full of emergency equipment. Everything was pushed back as far as it could go, their backs against the water, as though they wanted to get as far as possible from the stadium.

The ambulance driver pulled around and backed into a narrow spot among a group of FEMA trailers. The soldier in the back didn’t move and never took his eyes off Tommy. Out of the front windows, beyond summer docks and small boats, Tommy could see the line of buses disappearing under the northern end of Soldier Field. Out of the back windows, nothing but the endless blue expanse of Lake Michigan.

He heard voices outside, but couldn’t make out any specific words. There was a muffled knock at the back doors, and the soldier in the back with Tommy got up and unlatched the doors, swung them wide open.

Dr. Reischtal stood there. The sun was not kind to his skin. “Good afternoon, Mr. Krazinsky. Sergeant Reaves has assured me that, for some unknown reason, you have not only survived the night with Mr. Wycza but as of yet, there is no sign of infection.” His lips pulled back into a thin grimace that may have been a smile. “We shall soon discover why. A proper laboratory is en route. When it arrives, I will see for myself exactly what secrets live inside you.”

The soldiers slammed the doors, leaving Tommy alone in the ambulance.