Scott Nicholson - Chronic fear

“I can meet you here in an hour with the money.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. Morgan. I know you gave me an A in neurochemistry, but I don’t owe you any favors. I need to go with the high bidder here.”

Alexis felt her own surge of anger and wondered if it was anything like what her husband experienced when the Seethe took control.

No. I’m in charge of my emotions. If the Monkey House trials proved anything, it’s that I can survive.

Even if no one else does.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.” She raised her voice. “Mark!”

Silver let his eyelids droop and shook his head sadly. “Man, everybody’s watched too many Coen Brothers movies.”

“Mark!” Alexis shouted again, the name slapping off the concrete walls.

Mark’s face appeared in the opening above the ladder. “Found a friend,” he said.

He gave a grunt of effort and then Wallace Forsyth’s wizened face emerged from the gloom.

“Hello, Alexis,” Forsyth said. “I see we’re both still engaged in the pursuit of happiness. But I think Mr. Silver there is happier than any of us.”

“Dude, did you get busted?” Silver said to the older man.

Forsyth tried to smile but his face curdled as if he’d smelled something unpleasant. “I’m too old to play hide-and-seek.”

Mark stuck his hand into the lighted space so that Silver could see the gun pointed at him. “Give Alexis what she wants.”

Silver giggled. “Hey, Dr. Morgan, you have a well-trained husband there. A regular monkey on a leash.”

“He’s quite capable of murder,” she said. Her coldness must have made an impression on the stoner, because his mouth fell open and he blinked rapidly.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “That’s the real bitch of the drug business these days. Used to be just people helping each other feel good, with a little spending money swapping hands. Now it’s all guns and gangs and fucking conspiracy theories.”

“Great,” Mark said. “A hippie with a conscience. I thought you said this guy had a brilliant scientific mind. I think he’s sampled a little too much of his product.”

“Please, Darrell,” Alexis said. “Your life is in danger.”

Silver glanced at Mark’s gun.

“Not just from him,” Alexis added. “But from the people who put you in the hospital, the people who got you out of the hospital, and the people who don’t trust either of those people. None of us are safe.”

“Shit, Doc, you’re higher than I am.”

“Give me the Halcyon.”

Silver looked up at the two men crouched on the garage floor above. Forsyth nodded at him and said, “Give them what they want.”

Silver slid off the table and knelt over a tiny steel drain in the center of the maintenance well. The concrete was sloped so that liquids would flow to the lowest point and presumably be carried to the building’s sewer pipes. Gallons of burnt motor oil, radiator fluid, and dirty water had probably swirled down the drain over the years.

Silver ran his fingers into the metal grid and twisted it. The drain fell open with a clunk. “Drug dogs couldn’t smell it down here,” Silver said. “Plus, they’re not trained for this shit, whatever it is. They only do illegal drugs.”

Silver ran his hand into the drain, digging and pushing until he was elbow-deep in the opening. After a moment, he pulled his arm back and held up an orange plastic vial.

“Every four hours or else,” Alexis said.

“What’s that?” Silver said, still kneeling on the floor.

Alexis took the vial and climbed the ladder. Mark moved Forsyth aside so she could join them on the garage floor.

“Hey, what about my money?” Silver shouted, his voice echoing up from the well.

“We’ll mail you a check,” Mark said.

“Seriously, what am I supposed to do?”

“I’d stick with Plan A and ride the Caribou Express,” Alexis said. “After the heat dies down, I’ll be in touch.”

She left him as he fired up another joint, muttering to himself that nobody knew how to mellow out anymore. “Go easy on that Halcyon,” he said. “It’s my best work.”

Outside, Mark said to Forsyth, “We’ve got a road trip planned, and since we can’t leave you here, and I’m not ready to kill you yet, I suppose you’ll have to come along.”

“I understand,” Forsyth said. “It’s not like I had plans. Besides being vice president of the United States, that is.”

“Give me your cell phone.”

Forsyth fished inside his jacket and gave his BlackBerry to Mark. They walked up the street, keeping well off the pavement to avoid the passing headlights. Alexis hurried after them, wondering how she’d convince Mark to take one of the tablets.

The car was parked on a gravel service road outside an electrical substation. When they reached it, Mark waved Forsyth into the backseat. Then he flung the BlackBerry into the briars surrounding the substation fence.

“We can’t have your pizza delivery boy using GPS to track us,” Mark said as he slid into the seat beside Forsyth.

Alexis started the engine, turned on the headlights, and pulled onto the highway, heading west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Roland had the dream again, the one in which he was running through a maze and the jagged metal sides of it were closing in. Something terrible was chasing him, and it wasn’t a creature of bone and blood that might be fought and defeated.

No, this was a texture, a spongy, nameless dread, something that would overwhelm him and consume him in its gray depths.

Even as he fled, he suspected that whatever waited ahead wasn’t so welcoming, either. But he could only flee in one direction, and he was about to turn that last terrible corner Roland awoke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding.

He stared up into the darkness for a moment, acclimating to the physical world and the cool spring night. Gradually, his senses settled and he was aware of the curtains shifting softly by the open window, the dim red glow of the alarm clock, the faint smell of mildew caused by the mountain humidity.

He listened for Wendy’s breathing, still nearly paralyzed from the nightmare, his muscles quivering. The unease had accompanied him on his escape from his sleeping mind, and he half expected that odd spongy texture to drop from the cloaked ceiling and cover his face.

Roland reached out in the darkness to touch Wendy, but her side of the bed was empty. He rolled toward her until he came to the edge of the mattress. “Wendy?” he whispered.

He sat up, feeling for the night table. After retrieving the revolver, he stood with the sheet wrapped around him. They hadn’t made love, so the sheet was dry and cool. But lately love had become something that wasn’t just made, it was jammed together with a frenzied desperation.

“Wendy,” he whispered again.

His mind raced down several avenues, all of them dead ends. She might have gone for a glass of water, but the bathroom was dark, no light showing in the crack beneath the door. No lights were on downstairs, either. If she were in the cabin, he’d easily be able to hear her.

That fucking liar.

He wasn’t sure which liar he meant, Wendy or the agent who called himself “Gundersson.” Roland hadn’t completely bought the agent’s story, but he figured the best approach was to play along while the truth revealed itself.

But the truth was a moving target.

And people could lie to themselves better than they could lie to others. Especially drunks like Roland.

There was another possibility, the one Gundersson had hinted at, of those “powerful elements” who might also be keeping an eye on them. Who might even abduct or kill them.