Sara Reinke - Backwoods

They hadn’t let him see her, or Dani, either, but he’d been able to overhear them at least in part from one of the neighboring bays as they’d tended to Dani’s injuries. She was the worst off of the three of them, and he’d caught a glimpse of her on a fast-moving wheeled gurney, with a crowd of harried nurses around her as they’d wheeled her away from the ward for surgery.

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” a male nurse asked him. “Andrew Braddock?”

“Yes,” Andrew said. “How did you know?”

“I’ve seen your picture in the paper,” the nurse replied. “You’re the guy who went missing a few days ago, back in the hills, right?”

“They’ve been looking for you,” another nurse said, taping down a clear plastic I. V. port beneath the bridge of his knuckles, then began fiddling with the line, making sure there were no kinks or constricting loops.

“Who has?” Andrew jerked again at the doctor’s light but painfully persistent prodding.

“The sheriff’s office,” the nurse replied. “Couple of good-sized search parties, too. Your disappearance has been the most excitement we’ve seen in these parts for awhile.”

She seemed friendly enough, sympathetic, and when she moved to leave his bedside, he caught her by the wrist.

“Please. There was a little girl with me.”

“She’s fine,” the nurse soothed.

“You don’t understand. Her name is Alice Moore. She’s autistic. Just let me talk to her for a minute. I can—”

One of the doctors did something to his ankle at that moment, which though unseen, felt akin to peeling back the flesh with a pair of needlenose pliers, then prodding the molten tip of a fireplace poker into the raw, exposed meat beneath. Andrew cried out sharply, and the doctor gave a nod to the nurse.

“Give him two milligrams per minute, morphine sulfate by push,” he said, and within moments, the nurse was fiddling with the intravenous tube again, this time inserting a filled hypodermic syringe into another plastic port in the line.

“What is that?” Andrew asked, alarmed, because the last time someone had poked a needle into him, as it had turned out, they’d been identifying him as a potential subject in a bioengineering experiment.

“It’s medicine,” the nurse said.

“It will help your pain, Mister Braddock,” the doctor told him.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” said the nurse and about that time, Andrew felt his eyelids drooping, his mind growing cloudy. The pain in his leg became something distant and vague, like a nightmare that upon waking, is nearly forgotten, with only the lingering unease it inspired remaining.

“Mister Braddock?”

Andrew felt his mind emerging from this subterranean bliss, a murky sea of clouded dreams. He was only dimly aware of something draped against his face, some kind of tendril-like tubing he could also feel against his arm in loose coils. When his eyelids fluttered open a dazed half-mast and a man came into view leaning over him, dressed in military fatigues, Andrew had a moment of stark and bewildered terror.

Prendick made his way out of the garage, oh, Christ, and found me!

With a gasp, he sat up, flailing his arms, trying to knock away what he thought were Prendick’s entrails that had reached out again to grab him. It took him a disoriented, frantic moment before he remembered where he was

the hospital in Pikeville

and that the tubes he’d mistaken for Prendick’s snake-like intestines were instead the IV lines delivering clear fluid and blood into twin ports in his hands. The soldier above him wasn’t Prendick, but a tall, lean black man, his hair shaved high and tight, his expression stern-faced and stoic beneath the rim of his hat.

“Mister Braddock?” he said. “I’m Captain Darnell Peterson with the Office of the Special Assistant Commanding General, U.S. Army Armor Center, Fort Knox.”

I’ll call my C. O. in New York, Dani had said when they’d arrived at the hospital. He’ll know what to do. There’s a base in Fort Knox. They can send someone to take care of things.

With a groan, Andrew glanced around, taking in his surroundings. A jumble of broken bits of memory flooded his mind all at once, from being wheeled into the emergency room to a series of radiography suites after that. He seemed to have fuzzy recollection of being asked for his signature on papers and forms, consent for surgery, a smiling nurse had told him. They needed to operate on his ankle.

“Where’s Dani?” he asked, his voice hoarse, little more than a croak. “Specialist Santoro. Is she alright?”

Peterson nodded. “She’s going to be just fine.”

“I want to see her.” Andrew grimaced, trying to sit up more in bed. His foot had been immobilized in some kind of soft, inflatable cast. It looked like a astronaut’s boot.

The Captain smiled at him, a practiced, polished and patently insincere sort. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mister Braddock,” he said.

Andrew frowned. “Why not?”

“She’s been transferred to the Keller Army Community Hospital in West Point, New York.”

“She’s gone?” Andrew asked, startled, and when Peterson nodded, he stammered, “But I…I didn’t say…” I didn’t get to say good-bye, he thought, stricken. I never told her that I love her.

“She was transported yesterday, shortly after Alice Moore left.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew asked. “Where did she—”

Peterson cut him off, cool and smooth. “She’s been remanded to the charge of the state of Massachusetts, a ward of the court.”

What?

“It’s my understanding that Edward Moore had sole parental custody of her, that her mother had signed away her rights in the last year. With no surviving family to take charge of her, until such time as Dr. Moore’s estate has been settled, guardianship reverts to the state.”

“But they’ll lock her up.” Andrew tried to swing his legs around, to get up and out of bed, but that damn inflatable boot was apparently hooked up to some kind of machine through a network of tubes, keeping it inflated, and thus hampered his efforts. “They’ll put her back in Gallatin, goddamn it! How could you let them take her?”

Peterson looked mildly insulted at this. “I didn’t let them do anything. I’m afraid the girl is well beyond the Army’s realm of responsibility, Mister Braddock.”

“What the hell is your realm of responsibility, then?” Andrew snapped. “What are you doing here? Get out of my room.”

“I’ve been authorized to debrief you on the events that occurred at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Appalachian Research Facility,” Peterson said.

“I don’t need debriefing. I was there. I know what happened.”

Despite the fact that Andrew was getting more pissed off by the moment, Peterson remained cool and collected. “You were injured in a motor vehicle collision. You were brought to the research facility for medical attention. While you were there, an incident occurred in which some National Guardsmen attempted to carry out an isolated act of domestic terrorism.”

“What?” Andrew shook his head. “That’s not how it happened.”

Just let me handle it, Dani had said. Was this what she’d meant?

Peterson continued, ignoring Andrew’s interruption. “Through the heroic efforts of others stationed at the compound, including base commander Major Mitchell Prendick, the attempt was thwarted. Unfortunately, several people, including Specialist Santoro, were injured and others lost their lives during the incident, including Major Prendick and Dr. Edward Moore, a civilian contractor working at the facility.”