“Thalidomide,” Sue whispered.
Mal nodded, which made him slightly dizzy. He knew he was rambling, but it helped him feel grounded. “It caused massive birth defects. Real freaky stuff. Pregnant women taking it gave birth to children with some pretty terrible deformities.” Mal pointed to the well. “And it’s apparently gotten into the Inn’s water supply. The drugs have seeped into the ground. Anyone pregnant drinking from that well will... oh, shit.”
Mal’s addled brain remembered the woman who very obviously was with child.
“Are you saying,” the woman was gently rubbing her belly, “that my baby...”
“We don’t know that,” Letti went over to her. “We don’t know for sure, Sue. We’ll get you to a doctor when we get out of here.”
“But… this is Larry’s baby. It’s supposed to be normal.”
Letti patted Sue’s hair. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, Sue. Let’s focus on getting out of here.”
“I can’t have one of those freaks growing inside me. I can’t.”
Mal had been feeling pretty terrible before, but now he felt like curling up into a ball and dying.
“There’s the door,” Cam said. “Maybe that’s the way out.”
Cam led Kelly, by the hand, to the exit. Letti and JD followed.
“I’m so sorry,” Mal said to Sue.
“They did things to me,” Sue said. “Horrible things. I can’t have my baby be like that.”
“I’m sure it will be okay,” Mal lied.
Sue nodded. She and Mal walked toward the door, and then Sue broke off, heading for the well.
“Wait! Don’t!”
The pregnant woman gave him a sad, backward glance, then jumped into the hole. Two seconds later, there was a splash.
“Help!” Mal shouted. “Help us!”
Letti and Maria hurried over.
“She jumped in. She just jumped in.”
The three of them formed a ring around the well, staring down into the blackness.
“Sue!” Letti called.
Sue didn’t reply. There were no splashing noises. No sounds of struggling.
Just bubbles.
The bubbles of someone letting all the air out of her lungs and sinking.
Aw, Jesus, what have I done?
“It’s not your fault,” Letti said. “She would have found out eventually.”
Mal continued to stare into the well. Jumping in didn’t seem like a bad idea, actually.
“We need you,” Letti said, taking his good arm. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but we need to stick together to get out of here.”
“We can’t,” Mal said. “We can’t get away.”
“Yes we can.”
Mal pulled away. “They’ve been killing people for over forty years. More than five hundred people. No one has ever escaped to tell the world about it.”
“Then we’ll be the first.”
Mal stared into Letti’s eyes. They were strong, determined. Like Deb’s eyes.
Deb.
I have to find Deb.
“I guess I could lend a hand,” Mal said. “One, at least.”
He allowed Letti and Maria to lead him to the door. The next room was another storage area, thalidomide boxes stacked everywhere. There were three other doors, not including the one they came through.
“Kelly?” Letti said, looking around. “Kelly!”
But Kelly, the dog, and the boy were gone.
# # #
Felix opened his eyes to blurry, swirling lights. He took a breath and winced—add several broken ribs to his grocery list of things that hurt. Blinking, he realized he was on his back, lying in the woods. The two lights he saw were headlights, coming from a vehicle a dozen yards away.
The memories came to him in snippets.
...accidentally shooting John in the head...
...being taken here in a police car...
...the cougar attack...
...getting hit by the tow truck...
The tow truck.
Felix knew the tow truck was part of this whole nightmare. He needed to get away from it. Far away.
Biting his lower lip so the whimpering wasn’t too loud, Felix managed to turn onto his side. There wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t throb.
A stick broke, nearby. Someone walking through the underbrush.
Ronald? Or the tow truck driver, Ulysses?
Felix looked around, saw he was near a depression in the ground filled with dead leaves and pine needles. He rolled to it, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, coming to a rest on his back because he couldn’t breathe while on his stomach with his ribs hurting so badly. Then he put a stick in his mouth to bite down on, and used his mangled hands to scoop dirt and dead foliage onto himself, trying to cover his body completely.
The sound got closer. It was steady, rhythmic.
Footsteps.
If Felix had any doubt it was Ulysses coming for him, those doubts were laid to rest when he heard, “Don’ make me come find you, little man. You make me hunt around, it’ll be worse on ya.”
If Felix had any sense of humor left, he might have laughed at the irony.
Like things could get worse.
The footsteps got closer. Felix peeked up through the pine needles on his face, waiting for Ulysses to approach.
That’s when he noticed his cell phone.
He’d had it in his jeans pocket. It must have come out when he was hit by the truck, or when he was rolling. The tiny green light, indicating the phone was on, blinked like a homing beacon.
If Ulysses sees that phone...
Just then, Ulysses walked into the clearing.
He was big, every bit as big as John. Thick in the shoulders and the chest. A head as massive as a tree stump. Felix could only make out his silhouette in the moonlight, but he could see Ulysses was carrying something long and curved.
A crowbar.
Felix quickly reached out his hand, slapping his palm over his cell phone, covering the green light.
Then there was a burst of red. Ulysses had lit a flare.
The red glow illuminated the large man’s facial deformity. The right side of his face bulged out like he had a baseball under his skin. This stretched out his mouth, making it almost twice as wide as normal. Ulysses looked like he could swallow an orange, whole.
Felix stared, impotent, as the man stalked closer. Soon he was three steps away...
Two steps...
One step.
Please no oh please don’t step on...
MY HAND!
Ulysses’s work boot crunched down on Felix’s broken hand, prompting a pain so intense Felix had to gnash his teeth so he didn’t scream.
“Y’all put a dent in my truck,” Ulysses said, staring into the woods.
Get off my hand! Get off!
“When I find you, I’m gonna beat out that dent with your skull.”
GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!!!
Ulysses hacked and spat, hitting Felix on the cheek. Felix squeezed his eyes shut, feeling it slide down into his ear, knowing he couldn’t hold the scream in any longer.
Then Ulysses abruptly walked on, into the forest, the red flare growing dimmer and eventually disappearing.
With tremendous effort, Felix got up onto his knees, and shoved the cell phone back into his pocket using his thumb and pinky.
The Inn. I need to go back to the Inn and find Maria.
But with his mangled hands, he knew he was practically useless. He couldn’t hold a weapon. He couldn’t even open a door.
Are my fingers broken? Or just dislocated?
Squinting in the moonlight, he studied his bent digits. The bends and twists were primarily around the knuckles. But, incredibly, the two of the fingers Ulysses had steeped on looked better than before.