Brett Battles - Sick

“At the freeway. North or south?”

She started nodding. “South. Definitely south.”

He headed for the on-ramp. “How far?”

She glanced at him again, then returned her gaze to the window. “Fifteen-point-seven miles.”

“Serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He hesitated, then said, “Okay. Fifteen-point-seven miles.”

“Almost point-six now.”

Since Ash knew he’d be shedding Chloe as soon as he didn’t need her any more, he was content to let the miles pass by in silence and avoid forming any kind of bond. For whatever reasons of her own, Chloe seemed fine with not talking, too.

The first thing either of them said came from Chloe at exactly fifteen-point-four miles from where they’d entered the freeway. “Next exit.” Once they were on the off-ramp, she said, “To the right.”

They were in a rural area, probably about fifty miles north of San Francisco. The area immediately surrounding them was hilly and green from recent rains. As they headed west the hills grew larger, and the trees started changing from scattered oaks and a few cottonwoods to a growing forest of evergreens.

“How far are we going?” Ash asked.

“At this speed, we’ll turn in nine minutes.”

Ash was tempted to go a little faster, but the road was only two lanes and had become winding with plenty of blind turns.

After a few minutes, Chloe said out of the blue, “They changed my face, too.”

Ash glanced at her, then back at the road.

“I’d be dead now if they hadn’t,” she added.

Unable to stop himself, he said, “Is that why you’re helping me?”

For several moments, she said nothing. Then, “I have to help. I have no choice.”

Ash frowned. “Are you telling me that Matt forced you to be here?”

“No. Of course not. After you get your children, if someone else needs help, you’ll have no choice, either. We have to fight them. We have to stop them.”

“You mean this Dr. Karp? Don’t worry. I’ll deal with him.”

“You don’t understand. You just don’t understand.” She shook her head, then looked back at the road. “There,” she said, pointing ahead. “Turn there.”

The new road was narrower and obviously less used. The centerline looked like it hadn’t been repainted in decades, and had become more of a faded suggestion than an actual demarcation. The road was dark, too, the sun hidden from view by a thick grove of conifers.

“Five miles,” Chloe announced.

Ash glanced at the odometer and noted the mileage.

“I’m sorry they took your children,” she said.

Ash didn’t respond.

“They took someone from me, too. But I can never get her back.”

Ash remained quiet for a moment longer, then said, “There’s someone I can’t get back, either.”

Again, silence descended.

After a bit, Chloe said, “Slow down.”

Ash checked the odometer, and saw that they had come almost four and a half miles. He reduced their speed.

The area was quiet. They hadn’t seen a single car on this road, nor had there been any houses or buildings alongside it.

Chloe patted her hand against the air. “Slower.”

Ash eased back on the gas some more.

Finally, she pointed at a spot just ahead and across the road. “There. Do you see it? Between those two trees.”

Where she indicated he could see the ghosts of two tire ruts running into the woods. They were mostly filled with dry pine needles, and looked as if no one had driven on them for a long, long time.

Ash pulled across the road and stopped just short of the ruts. He stared into the woods. As far as he could see, there was nothing back there but more trees.

He grimaced skeptically, then looked at Chloe. “My kids are back there somewhere?”

She hesitated. “The building where I’m supposed to take you is back there.”

“This isn’t even a road. It’s a path that no one’s used for God knows how long.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Would you rather I take you down the road they do use? Maybe right up to the front door so you can ring the bell? I can do that if you’d like. Except I’d probably just point the way and let you go on your own. I don’t want to die today.”

Of course she wouldn’t do that. What was he thinking? And if this really was a way in, wasn’t it a good thing it looked completely untouched?

“Right,” he said, then added, “I’m sorry.”

He turned the Accord onto the path.

Chloe guided him through a slalom course of trees, taking them deeper and deeper into the woods. Keeping their speed to a crawl, Ash still managed to scrape the sides a few times.

After they’d been going like that for about fifteen minutes, Chloe said, “You should turn the car around here. I’ll get out and guide you. Then we’ll walk the rest of the way.”

It took a little effort, but with Chloe’s help, Ash was able to get the sedan pointed back in the direction they’d come.

Once out of the car, he went around to the trunk and opened the weapons case Pax had given him. He grabbed one of the guns, then spent a few minutes filling its mag and the three spares. When he was done with that, he almost shut the case. Instead, he reached in and grabbed the box of little bangs before closing it up.

Chloe had been standing nearby the whole time, watching him. He wasn’t sure if she’d been expecting him to give her a gun, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They hiked for a quarter of an hour, then as they approached a ridge, Chloe motioned for him to get down on his hands and knees. When they reached the top, they dropped to their stomachs and looked down into the tree-filled valley.

At first, Ash thought it was as empty as the forest they’d just come through, but then Chloe pointed down and to the right. About a half-mile away he saw part of a roof jutting out from the side of the hill, like the structure was built right into the earth. If there was anything else around, he couldn’t see it through the trees.

She then pointed at one of the evergreens about ten yards ahead of them, then at another about the same distance to the left, then at another and another.

“Twenty feet up,” she said.

It took him a couple seconds to see what she was talking about. Attached to each tree at the height she’d indicated were some sort of electronic devices that had been colored to blend in. If Chloe hadn’t pointed them out, he would have never noticed them.

“What are they?” he asked.

“Motion sensors. They circle the complex. You can’t see it, but another fifty feet beyond that point is a fence.”

Ash studied the area for a moment. “I take it there’s a way through there.”

Chloe shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“But Matt told me you could get me in.”

“That’s true.”

He stared at her for a moment. “You want to stop being so cryptic?”

Several seconds passed, then she said, “This used to be an old mental hospital. It was closed sometime in the nineties and the land was turned over to the government, but don’t expect to find it in any of their records. The…others took it over and fixed it up for their own needs. It’s not one of their main facilities so they don’t always use it. But according to Matt, this is where your kids were taken.”

“You still haven’t told me how I get in.”

“There used to be a separate building where the mental hospital kept…problem patients. The building’s gone, but the foundation is still there.” She looked at Ash. “It’s outside the motion detection zone.”

“How does that help us?” Ash asked, still not following.

“They might have torn down the building, but they didn’t remove the tunnel that connected it to the main hospital.”