D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“You won’t end up in jail. Not once they know the truth.”

They who? But he was more than just a little intrigued by the proposition. Meeting Camilla Haywood would be worth the trip but how was he going to arrange to talk to a famous celebrity just like that. He wasn’t cop or FBI agent. Why would she even agree to talk to him? Still, maybe this is what he needed – a little vacation. He’d go find Camilla and if by some miracle he did manage to speak to her and she did know where Sarah was, he’d call Carl Moscovitz and tell him everything. It would also get him away from the mess his personal life had become. Give him some distance and time to start what would undoubtedly be a long and arduous healing process.

“All right,” Chris said slowly. “I’ll go find Camilla. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you let me take you to a hospital.”

Pell’s chin dropped onto his chest. “I don’t want to go to jail, Chris,” he moaned.

“It’s not negotiable. I’m not leaving you here to die and that’s that. Either you let me take you to a hospital, or I’m going to dial 911 right now and wash my hands of this whole thing.”

Pell drifted in and out of consciousness until finally he said, “She’s in Malibu, California. Here’s her address.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pants pocket and handed it to Chris.

“So you’re going to let me drop you off?”

Pell nodded but wouldn’t make eye contact.

“Good. Be right back.”

Chris grabbed his always packed overnight bag, threw it into Pell’s rental car and then dragged Pell’s limp, heavy body out of the house and placed him in the passenger seat. His face was a ghastly white, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets and his breathing was now completely inaudible. He’s wasn’t going to make it to the hospital.

Chris would take him to Mass General and catch a cab to Logan. Getting a flight to LA wouldn’t be a problem.

Once in the city he parked Pell’s car just around the corner from the emergency room at Mass General. Pell was unconscious.

“Good luck, Pell,” he muttered as he got out of the car.

He walked half a block and used the pay phone at a convenience store to call the emergency room. He stood outside the store and watched as ER staff appeared on the street and located the car. He could faintly hear them talking excitedly as he started searching for a cab.

Seth looked at Jerry. The western sun shone brightly on his two-day beard-stubbled face. The lush, green hills of Humboldt County stretched out below them. They were almost there.

Jerry had done all of the flying and he had been able to catch some sleep. His burns throbbed, but he had a feeling that once he dressed them properly he’d be doing a lot better. They had only stopped four times for rest and fuel, which they were running low on now, but it didn’t matter. Eureka was less than twenty minutes away, and then they would be on the ground, hopefully, for a long time. He couldn’t stand to sit for too long, and the past thirty hours had been torture. That and the constant whine of the engine had combined to give him a hellish tension headache.

“You okay?” Seth asked.

Jerry didn’t answer him.

“Jerry!” Seth said louder.

“What?” He asked.

“I asked you if you were okay.”

Jerry nodded. “I’m spent. Man, I can’t wait to hit the shower.” He sniffed the air. “You could use one too.”

Seth chuckled. They cruised on in silence for several more minutes before Jerry said, “I wish we could have given the others a proper burial. Dumping them in the woods seems so…barbaric.”

“If they’d have been more careful we wouldn’t have had to bury anyone,” Seth said. He didn’t have the time or inclination to grieve, particularly for failures and he still had to deal with Sarah. She was going to chew his ass out, guaranteed. Hell, he couldn’t remember ever shedding a tear over death – not for his mother or grandparents, definitely not for his load of a father. The last time he could remember lamenting a loss was when he was fourteen. He had found an orphaned kitten in a dilapidated house across the alley from his own. Big tough Seth had kept it in a box on the back porch. It had been tiny, defenseless, sick and he nursed it back to health. He called it Bo – a bright spot in his otherwise bleak teenage world. Thinking back, he could still hear its soft squeaky meows as it did face rubs with him. One day he came home and Bo was gone. He found it in the trash barrel, dead. His father had broken its neck for no other reason than he was a useless, angry drunk who hated his son. He had buried Bo and cried – for the last time.

“Do you think Sarah will be waiting at the house for us?” Jerry asked.

Seth forced himself back to the present. “I don’t know. We’re a little early. We made great time.”

“I hope she isn’t. I could really use some rest before we have to debrief on everything.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jerry. If she starts in with us, I’ll take care of her.”

“There it is,” Seth said, pointing to the Eureka city airport.

Jerry banked the plane, and they made a beeline for the landing strip. In a matter of minutes, they were out stretching their cramped, achy bodies.

Twenty minutes later they were driving through the redwood forest. Looking at the soaring, monolithic trees always gave Seth a feeling of peace. To him the massive trees represented a serenely surreal permanence in an otherwise transient existence. Jerry drove, and they rode in silence with their windows down.

It was clouding up. The next ten miles went by slowly as they turned off the main road onto a gravel-packed one carved out of the old-growth forest by a lumber company decades ago. The fertility of the land spawned tremendous greenery – lush fields, pristine forests and wildflowers. This felt like the Earth’s womb – a place where life begins. Just as the Midwest spewed industrial filth to kill the northeast’s forests and lakes with acid rain, this place spewed life in all shapes and forms. The air was sweet enough to taste and he savored it.

“When are the Carriers going to be here?” Jerry asked.

“Friday.”

In a couple of minutes, they turned onto an even narrower dirt road that led directly to the house. From the outside, it didn’t look like much – a two-story barn-like structure that had been built in the 50’s and was just under six thousand square feet. Jerry had spent three months here earlier this year getting it ready for them – retrofitting it with expensive solar panels and a generator and doing a bunch of general maintenance. Now they had a completely self-sufficient, out-of-the-way place to conduct business. In that respect, it was actually quite similar to where they had been in Maine except there was a good size city twenty minutes away.

The driveway was empty, the large house dark.

“Beautiful,” Seth said. “It looks like we beat them. Let’s go in and catch some sleep before they show up.”

“Sounds great,” Jerry replied through a yawn. “I’m spent.”

Inside the musty house each of them went straight for his room. Seth dropped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, contemplating the events of the past few days. Things had to take a turn for the better.

“We urgently need to question him,” Carl said to the doctor and his intern.

“My patient is not in any fit state to be questioned. I understand your urgency, but my priority here is for my patient’s wellbeing. He is still delirious and in very real danger of dying,” the doctor explained.