Theresa Weir - Bad Karma

Birds called from nearby trees, and the sun beat down on his head. He walked along the path, noting that someone had been there within the last few days-weed stalks were broken, leaves crushed.

That didn’t mean anything. It was the perfect place for a party. He spent half the summer breaking up keggers.

The road turned to loose black dirt that was almost sand. The weeds were fewer now, the earth unable to hold enough moisture to nurture them.

Directly ahead was a barn. Red, like most barns in the area. Loco weed, mare’s tail, and goldenrod grew around it. On the cupola was the weathervane, just as Beau- and Cleo -had said. A sliding door ran on a track and was big enough to drive a combine through. Next to it was a regular door cut from the side of the barn, hinged, reinforced with a diagonal piece of wood running from top to bottom, and rehung.

Daniel lifted the metal latch and pushed, the bottom of the door dragging across a flat stone.

Inside, the support beams were hand-hewn, the pegs hand-carved. Old barns were a work of art, a piece of Americana that was vastly underappreciated, with more doors and hidden compartments than a magician’s box. He could tell the barn had been used for milking at one time.

Dark, slanted beams of light crept between rough boards, falling through a jagged rip in the roof. To the left were stalls that had once held cattle and horses, in the center, angled beams supported a second floor where hay bales had once tumbled off a conveyer belt to be stacked for winter. To the right was a tack room, just as dark and musty as the rest of the place.

The barn had been built on a hillside, giving it three levels, with the lower level partially underground. Beneath his feet, the wooden floor echoed hollowly, hinting of empty space below. He walked carefully, knowing how unstable the structure could be. The toe of his boot caught on something and he backtracked.

He kicked away straw to reveal a hatch. He slid a board aside, looped his fingers through a metal ring, and pulled, surprised to find that it opened easily.

Looking into the pit, he was barely able to make out a floor strewn with straw. Past the perimeter of light was nothing but a black void. He yelled into the darkness, the echo of his own voice the only answer. Then he heard a sound, a small, tiny sound. A kitten, he thought.

“Cleo?”

There was the cry again, louder this time.

Daniel grabbed a nearby ladder and lowered one end into the hole. He scrambled down, his feet sinking into the straw at the bottom. He repeated her name, thinking he’d lost his damn mind, searching the bottom of a barn for a woman who was a thousand miles away.

And then he heard a low moan that was definitely human.

In the darkness, he made out a shape on the ground, and his mind recognized lighter patterns as a person’s bare arms, a person’s bare legs.

He moved close enough to make out the curve of a pale face, the line broken by wildly curling hair. He fell to his knees in the straw. “My God.” His voice didn’t sound like his own. “Cleo.”

He touched her arm. Under his palm, her skin felt cold, bloodless.

“Sinclair?”

The question came without movement, with hardly a breath taken to carry the whispered name to his ears.

She searched, finding his hand, pulling it to her mouth, pressing it to the side of her face and holding it there. “Stay with me,” she whispered, clinging to him. “Stay with me in this bad place.”

Adrian Tyler’s words came back to him. My sister’s very fragile.

Daniel swallowed. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She pressed her lips to his knuckles, his fingertips, his palm. “Shh,” she said, her breath against his wrist. “It’ll be okay.”

“Cleo-” He slipped his hand from her grasp, then grabbed her by both arms, pulling her to a sitting position, where she slumped forward like a rag doll, chin to chest, arms hanging limply at her sides. He could feel the bones beneath the muscles of her arms. He could feel every tendon, every sinew.

He touched a finger to her chin, tipping her face toward his. He could make out the glow of her skin. “Cleo, I’m going to get you out of here.”

She nodded, her head moving sluggishly.

He stood. Then, with his feet braced, he pulled her to a standing position.

She was boneless; he couldn’t keep a grip on any part of her. He finally managed to get her upright, but as soon as he let go of her arm, she began to sink. “Stand up,” he coaxed.

For a fraction of a second he felt her stiffen. Just as quickly, she dissolved again. Before he lost more ground, Daniel bent his knees, hitched his shoulder under her diaphragm, then straightened, locking his legs once he was upright.

With Cleo draped over his shoulder, he grabbed the ladder with one hand, his other hand gripping Cleo’s legs. He climbed one rung at a time, the muscles in his arms and legs straining. When he was two-thirds of the way through the door with his bundle, he shifted her weight, resting her bottom on the wooden floor.

Out of the pit, he let her slump to her side, her legs, from the knees down, dangling inside the opening. Two more rungs and he jumped free of the ladder.

Now that they were in better light, he dropped beside her and lifted her arm, examining the place where needles had been inserted. Somebody had shot her full of drugs.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, his voice tight, his fingertips passing lightly over the damaged skin.

“The candy man,” she said thickly, laughing softly to herself.

She raised a hand to touch the side of her face, to touch a bruised cheekbone, a gesture that made his chest feel tight, that broke his heart. With her hand still hovering limply above her cheek, the vacant look in her eyes became more focused. “Daniel?” she asked in surprise. “’S-that you?”

He lifted her legs out of the way and closed the door. Then he scooped her up and walked through the barn, out into the blinding sunlight.

She let out a gasp and brought up a hand to shield her eyes. “So bright,” she said. “As bright as heaven.”

“Keep your eyes closed,” he told her softly but firmly.

He checked to see if she was listening. Her eyes were wide open. “Are you looking at the sun?” he asked, horrified. “Don’t look directly at the sun. Close your eyes, Cleo.”

She either heard him, or once more succumbed to the overload of drugs running through her veins. Whatever the reason, her eyes drifted closed and stayed that way until they reached the truck, where he quickly secured her in the passenger seat.

Hardly able to detect a rise and fall to her chest, he headed in the direction of Egypt and the nearest hospital. It seemed like a hundred miles, the frantic, heart-pounding ride spent with Cleo drifting in and out of consciousness, Daniel holding the accelerator to the floor while the old truck hovered somewhere between sixty-five and seventy.

At the emergency-room door, he honked, skidded to a stop, cut the engine, and jumped out. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he circled the truck. He scooped her up and carried her through the double automatic doors, falling into an old, familiar role. “Kidnap victim,” he explained as two nurses met him in the hallway. “She’s been pumped full of something-I don’t know what.”

A gurney appeared. He put her on it. A blood pressure cuff went around her arm.

They had some trouble finding a vein. “She’s dehydrated,” the nurse said, rubbing and slapping, finally drawing blood.

The on-call physician showed up, quickly assessing the situation. “Slight miosis and respiratory depression. Naloxone,” he ordered. “Slow drip, so she won’t get sick.”

They wheeled her away, leaving Daniel standing in the empty hall.