Helix: Plague of Ghouls (53 page)

“No,” Bridget whined. “We’re trapped in the open. We had to evacuate Halo County. That place was loaded with bonewalkers, too. Like, bonewalker ground zero. Except these ones were caught on camera . . . Along with me and the Padre, in full fur. Holly too.”

Mary Anne’s mouth fell open. “On camera?”

“What about Ishmael, is he okay?” Ferox asked.

Bridget uttered a bitter laugh. “No.”

“Because of this?” Mary Anne asked.

Bridget took the box from her. “What’s this?”

“The cure,” Mary Anne said. “For us. For the bonewalkers.”

Ferox nodded. “Gil used it on Ishmael before you took him into quarantine. And if Ishmael’s becoming human . . .”

Bridget was brightening. “Holy
shit
. This is it? This is the real deal?”

“Gil’s tried it on himself, too,” Ferox said. “I don’t think he’d do that unless he was extremely confident, especially after he created the bonewalkers.”

“Come on,” Bridget announced. She struck off toward her truck. “We’ve got to get this to Foster, pronto.”

“Where are we going?” Ferox asked.

“Back to Ontario.”

“With Dep? And Mary Anne?” She jogged to catch up.

“I have an idea how we can move him,” Bridget said. “With Mary Anne’s help, we can hide him pretty easily. We just need to upgrade our transportation, and I know where to find what we need.”

“But what about the
cameras
? And what about Shuffle and Helen?”

“They can handle themselves,” Bridget said. “But this . . .” She shook the box of syringes. “This is what sixty thousand people need, right now, before they turn on one another.”

“Wait!” Mary Anne said. “We need to make more of that, before you start doling it out. And if you’ve got Foster with you, all the better. Give us the tools, give us the time, and maybe we can make more of it. Gil left a copy of his research inside that box, but we’ll need a lab and some materials.”

“But we can’t go back to the lab,” Ferox said, pointing in the direction of the main house.

“There’s another,” Mary Anne said.

Bridget frowned curiously then her brow smoothed. “The bunker.”

“ . . . IN THE REFR . . .”

“OKAY, NO, TRY
the other one?”

A buzzing sound, winding up, dying down.

“No, what we really need is . . .”

“NO, LEAVE THE
lights off.”

I’m in a re-enactment of
RoboCop.

“Yeah, to save fuel. Okay.”

I’m being rebooted.

Ishmael had no feeling in any extremity.

He was tired, and he had a tube stuck down his throat.

“HIT THE FAN
,” she said. “Masks on.”

“Let’s do this,” Bridget replied.

Then there was no sound except for people breathing.

“Oh, come on, you son of a bitch,” Bridget said. “Snap out of it and do what you’re supposed to do. Come on.”

Silence again.

He felt a tingling sensation in his chest. He wondered if that was a good sign.

Of course it’s a good sign. It means you’re not dead yet.

“Anything?” Foster asked.

“Nothing,” Bridget replied.

“Heart rate steady. Blood pressure steady,” Mary Anne said, from the other side.

“Great, now wake him up,” Foster said.

But I am awake
.

The silence dragged on for so long that he went back to sleep.

Foster’s voice startled him awake. “We’ll have to—”

“Little blip on the heart rate monitor,” Mary Anne said.

They waited, breathing on him. He still had the tube jammed down his throat. He wanted to tongue it out of his mouth, but his tongue wasn’t responding either.

“Anything?” Foster asked.

“Nothing,” Mary Anne answered.

“Nothing,” Bridget echoed.

“We’ll have to go back,” Foster said. “We’ve got some of Grey’s original research now, we can use it—”

“We all agreed that would be a bad thing,” Mary Anne said.

“We’re running out of options,” Foster declared. “And time.”

More silence. More breathing.

Voices were muddled. They were going away. Leaving him behind to sleep.

“No, I don’t know what’ll happen in the end,” Foster said, in the distance. “Yes, there’s a chance that he might go wendigo. Yes, there’s a chance it might not take at all. But damn it.
Damn
it, I cannot let this man die. He—”

The tirade broke off suddenly.

“For everything he did back there,” Foster said, “we fix this. Because the only other choice we have is to put him back in the water. That’s the only decent way to let him go.”

After a while, Bridget spoke again. “At least he won’t feel it.”

Yes I will!
Hey! Yes, I will. I’m here. I’m here, damn it! I’m still in here!

They left and closed a door behind them.

HE RECOGNIZED THE
whirring sound now.

It was Gil’s centrifuge. It made a clatter because it was ever so slightly off balance.

We’re at Varco Lake. How the hell did I end up back at Varco Lake?

The centrifuge rattled to a stop.

Silence.

A microscope slide clicked under metal clamps.

Silence.

A woman coughed. He couldn’t tell who it was.

Silence.

A door opened, but it didn’t sound like Gil’s wheelchair accessible door, he figured.
Where’s Gil?

“You got one?” Mary Anne asked.

“Yeah. No idea if it’s going to work or not though.”

“You made it?”

“No,” Foster answered. “Buckle found some copper wire and an old car battery in somebody’s garage. Dep’s the one who found the railway tie.”

Dep made it
.
Thank God. What shape is he in? How’d he turn out? How’s Ferox?

“You think it’ll work?” Mary Anne asked.

“He did a quick demo. It’s strong enough to pick up filings,” Foster said. “So hopefully it’ll be strong enough for this.”

“If there even
is
a GPS tag or whatever . . .”

Someone pinched the skin of his inner arm. Drugs lured him deep into sleep.

“AND? ANY NEWS
from Elmbury?” Bridget asked.

A man replied, but he couldn’t make out what was said.

“No, I
get
that,” Bridget said.

He heard the man’s voice again.

“I know!” Bridget said. “I know what damage the flood did, but what choice did we have? Listen, given a choice between losing your home and being eaten by a contagious monster, which would you pick? Huh?”

The man asked a question.

“Yes, I do understand,” Bridget said. “Believe me—nobody else here understands what you’re going through better than me. But you need to give us more time. We’re doing everything with what we’ve got. You just keep us updated, all right? And I’ll check the perimeter after sunset.”

The man’s angry voice rose and fell, still too far off to be heard clearly.

“Yes, I
know
they all had families . . . but at least they came from all over the world, and in small doses. That should slow down the investigation.”

Another question.

“No, damn it! Stop asking. I already told you why. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

He felt Bridget’s breath blow across his face.

Another question.

A soothing touch brushed hair from his brow.

“No, no change. But at least he’s alive.”

A CLAMOUR OF
voices woke him, most of them he recognized, one he couldn’t place.

“Are you sure?” Bridget asked. “When?”

“They announced it last night, and they’re moving in right now.” The man’s voice was vaguely familiar. “It’s not just medical personnel anymore, Bridget. We’re talking military presence.”

“Shit. Really? How big is the perimeter?”

“All the roads into and out of Elmbury are shut down, and there’ve been four bonewalker sightings since we left.”
Skinny guy with glasses, in the basement, with us . . .

“Christ,” Bridget sighed.

“My
children
are in there,” the man said.
Buckle. Detective Buckle.
“So are we actually going to go and do something about this, or hide underground for another four days?”

Four days?
Ishmael’s eyelid opened like a gluey zipper. He made a noise against the feeding tube that sounded a little like “
Wavug?
”

Suddenly everyone was moving, Foster first, followed by Mary Anne, followed by a half dozen heads swirling above him. Bridget played traffic cop, clearing the space for Foster and Mary Anne, who hovered over him, moving wires and tubes and touching his forehead. They talked in medical jargon. Someone finally pulled the tube from his mouth, provoking a gag reflex. Foster snapped her fingers beside his ear, ran a pen up the arch of his foot, touched his sides—countless annoying little checks to confirm that yes, Ishmael was alive, and yes, he was awake.

“Four days?” Ishmael croaked. He tried to roll off the gurney. Bridget pinned him down. His throat was raw.

“Take it easy,” Foster said.

“Is she dead?” Ishmael asked.

Foster rolled her eyes. “Which
one
?”

“Wendigo.”

“Yes,” Foster said. “And we haven’t extracted the body from inside the mill yet.”

“Reason number eighty-two why we should be leaving now,” Buckle said.

Ishmael tried again to get off the gurney, despite the IV needle taped to the crook of his elbow and the IV stand he pulled off balance. Mary Anne caught it before it fell. “We’ve got to go back.”

“You’re in a bunker in Nova Scotia, and you’re in no condition to travel,” Bridget said.

“You’ve been in a coma,” Foster explained.

“Coma? How long was I out?”

Foster hesitated before replying. “Six days.”

“Six
days
?”

“Took us two days to get here,” Mary Anne said, from the other side of the gurney. “Back roads the whole way. Buckle thinks we were followed.”

“And I’m telling you,” Buckle said, “someone is maintaining a stakeout just out of the angle of our cameras. We can’t
stay
here.”

“He’s awake for the first time in a week,” Foster snapped. “For God’s sake—can you give us a minute to see if he’s even stable enough to move?”

“What happened to Dep and Ferox? Helen?” Ishmael asked Bridget. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Dep and Ferox are safe,” Bridget answered. “They’re here with us.”

“And?” Ishmael stressed. “Dep is . . . ? Is he . . .”

“Dep is . . .” Foster blew hair from her face. “Not a wendigo.”

“He looks like goddamned
Vengeance
,” Bridget said. “And he’s
stuck
that way.”

“Guys, stop,” Mary Anne said. “Patient first. Panic later.”

“Agreed,” Foster added. “Bridget can stay. Everyone else, clear the room.”

Ishmael heard Ferox ask a question, Buckle swore, and boots stomped across the floor. Seals hissed as a door opened.

“What do you remember?” Mary Anne asked Ishmael.

He wasn’t sure if he drowned first, or if he was eaten first. If he’d been eaten, the wendigo would have drowned with him in her stomach anyhow. “Water.”

“Anything else?”

“Does the Padre know?” Ishmael had killed the Padre’s last living relative, either daughter or niece. He’d never know which she’d been. “About the wendigo. Does he know?”

“He knows,” Bridget replied.

“Ishmael, focus, please,” Mary Anne said.

Foster checked vital signs and performed more reflex tests. Ishmael’s brain felt slow and dull. He lifted his hand, not because he wanted to see how much or how little his fingers had changed, but because he felt like something was missing.
A ring
.
Aren’t I supposed to be wearing a ring?

“Anything else you remember?” Mary Anne asked. “Do you remember anything about the bonewalkers, any clue where they might go if they escaped?”

Ishmael shook his head. “I don’t know. They were supposed to have waited for somebody before they came out of hiding . . . Revenge or something, against . . .”
Against who?
“They were planning with somebody . . . somebody I . . .”