Sara Reinke - Backwoods

‘ There’s a base in Fort Knox. They can send someone to take care of things. ’ That’s what she told me. That’s what this is, what this guy, Peterson, is telling me. They’re taking care of things—by sweeping it all under the rug.

He managed a humorless laugh. “You son of a bitch,” he said to Captain Peterson.

“That is all you are authorized to disclose about this incident, Mister Braddock,” Peterson said. “Any deviation from this account will result in your immediate arrest and prosecution for trespass on federal property.”

“Yeah, I know. Title Eighteen, Chapter Sixty-seven, Subsection Thirteen-eighty-something, am I right? Punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of five grand. I’ve already had that run down.”

“Good.” Peterson nodded once, that smarmy smile at last withering from his face. His mouth drew in a thin line and his brows narrowed slightly. “Then you understand how this works.”

Andrew locked gazes with him. “Perfectly.”

Peterson turned on his heel and walked briskly to the door.

“Captain,” Andrew said, making him pause and glance back over his shoulder, one brow arched. “What’s going to happen to the facility?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.”

“I mean, are you going to send more troops there?” To claim the bodies, he wanted to add, but couldn’t muster the words, not with visions of Dani’s squad mates, Maggitti, Reigler and Spaulding, all dead in the corridor of the house of pain, or Suzette’s body mangled and sprawled in the corner of a vacant office.

And then something Peterson had mentioned earlier came to mind: 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 .

How could he be sure Moore was dead?

He licked his lips because his mouth suddenly felt tacky and dry. “You’ve already sent troops there, haven’t you?” he asked with a sudden, sinking feeling.

The corner of Peterson’s mouth hooked wryly, as if he found Andrew’s visible apprehension amusing, pathetic or both. “It’s a fifty-one million dollar research facility, Mister Braddock. Fifty-one million. A containment crew was dispatched from the moment we learned of Specialist Santoro’s survival. Once they’ve secured the facility and assessed the situation, I’ll forward their report along to the appropriate agency personnel for further consideration and action. It’s fairly standard protocol.”

“Did they open the garage?”

Peterson looked puzzled. “Their orders are to sweep and secure all of the compound buildings and—”

“ Did they open the garage?” Andrew shouted, balling his hands into fists, making the little LED monitor near his bedside that had been monitoring his heart rate suddenly begin firing off a rapid series of beep-beep-BEEPs.

At this, Peterson’s lips puckered, as if he’d tasted something sour, and his brows narrowed. “I would assume so, yes.”

Then they’re already dead, Andrew thought, leaning back against the pillows. “You son of a bitch.” Again, he laughed, a hoarse, dismayed sound. It was either that or burst into tears. “You’ve killed them all.”

“They have horses, Andrew!”

One month later, Andrew sat on the couch in his apartment, feet propped on the coffee table, a freshly opened bottle of Harp in one hand, his replacement iPhone in the other, and listened as Alice chattered excitedly in his ear.

“They have stables and a barn and a riding ring and they said I could take lessons every day. They even gave my own horse! Not to keep or anything, not forever at any rate, but they said I could ride her whenever I feel like it, as much as I want. Her name is Sunshine and they let me feed her carrots. She eats them right out of my hand!”

“Gross. Horse slobber,” Andrew said, making her laugh, a high-pitched, happy sound. “I’m just kidding. I’m glad you like it there.”

“I love it!” she gushed.

As it had turned out, when Moore had sued the state of Massachusetts to have Alice released from Gallatin, in the process, he’d made sure that no one would ever be able to institutionalize her there again. He’d left specific instructions in his will, along with a sizable trust in Alice’s name, that placed her in the custody and care of Cochrane Academy, a facility in western Massachusetts specializing in the long-term treatment and care of autistic children.

“Two of the girls in my therapy group told me there are dance lessons in the fall, too. Ballet and tap. I want to take them both.”

“Wow.” He tried to feign the appropriate note of enthusiasm. “That sounds like fun.”

In the weeks since his return, Andrew had been keeping an eye on the internet, straining for any hint of news from the Appalachian region that might give him a clue as to what might have happened to Prendick.

A containment crew was dispatched from the moment we learned of Specialist Santoro’s survival, Captain Peterson had told him. Which meant that Prendick had, in all likelihood, been freed from his prison inside the garage. Suzette had told him the screamers would suffocate within a week, that the virus would cause growths to block their airways, but Andrew was no longer so sure.

Search Continues for Missing Hunters. That had been the headline on Google News, cached from the Times WV newspaper online edition two and a half weeks ago. The WV stood for West Virginia and the hunters who were being sought had disappeared from the heavily forested area surrounding the small town of Elkins in this very same state.

“How’s your ankle?” Alice asked him over the phone.

“Getting better.” As he spoke, he tilted his head back, took a long drink of beer, then looked at his outstretched leg, wiggling his foot experimentally. “A couple more weeks, and they think I can lose the cast.”

When Prendick had shot him, the bullet had ruptured his Achilles tendon, among other things. The moon boot from the hospital in Pikeville had been replaced with a plaster cast after he’d been hospitalized for more reconstructive orthopedic surgery in Pittsburgh. He’d worn the cast for several weeks, transitioning only recently into the walking variety that looked better equipped for hitting the ski slopes than the sidewalk. But his occupational and physical therapists had both been pressuring him to walk as often as he could, forcing upon him a daily regimen of exercises to support and strengthen the repaired tendon.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not at all.”

“Liar.”

His mother had come to stay with him upon his release from the hospital, and had only returned to Alaska a few days earlier. To his absolute astonishment, his father had flown in from Anchorage, as well, and Katherine had told him that Eric had kept a nearly constant vigil at his bedside during his first few days in the hospital, when he’d been in and out of surgery, heavily sedated.

Eric had come to the apartment only once, and if Andrew had answered the door himself things might have wound up differently. As it turned out, Katherine was with him, and she had let Eric inside. Andrew had hobbled in from the kitchen on the damnable crutches he’d been forced to use for a time, and he’d stopped in the living room, staring at his father face to face for the first time since that awful night at the Pagoda Restaurant.

“Dad. Hey,” he’d said, a non-confrontational greeting he’d since come to blame on the Percocet he’d still been taking pretty regularly for pain.

“I brought you some kung pao pork,” Eric had replied, looking anxious, as if expecting Andrew to throw another punch at him. He held a grease-spotted white paper sack in his hand, Chinese take out. “You…uh, used to like it best, you always said.”