Afterbirth (11 page)

Penny rolled her head to the side, the effect of the sweet-smelling inhalant making her woozy. The twin towers of the Nixon Healing and Research Center came into view and her spirits sank. A sense of dread gripped her and she feared she’d be sick. Returning to the place that had taken so much from her diminished her urge to fight. There was no way she could escape twice.

The truck rolled to a slow stop.

“Welcome back.” Reid took off the ski mask, folded to sit like a hat on his bald, tattooed head, and went around to the bed of the truck for the ladder which had been sliding around for most of their drive.

Penny pulled against the duct tape holding her wrists and ankles together, but there was no getting free. Even if she could, her leaden muscles, exhaustion, and the desperation of being right back where she had started, conspired to keep her in place. Reid picked her up and carried her over his shoulder. She couldn’t help thinking about how she’d treated Foster for doing what he had to.

No way was he coming after her this time.

“Why are you doing this?” She slurred.

Reid set her down in front of the elevator shaft and her emerging tears stung her eyes. He pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the duct tape. “Don’t even think about running. The harder you make this on me, the worse I’m going to make things for you.” He spoke quietly, as if afraid someone would hear him.

She teetered, unsteady on her feet, and was afraid to move.

“Get going.” Reid stuck the knife to her back. The sharp tip poked her sweatshirt and prodded her forward.

“Where?”

The knife tip advanced, an inch to the right of her spine, and split her skin. “Down the ladder.”

A warm drip of blood rolled down her back. “I can’t.” She cried, in pain and fear of what waited for her in the darkness. She looked down into the basement where Nixon kept his victims and shuddered.

Reid shushed her and lit a lantern. “Go.” His eyes widened as he issued the order.

There was no refusing him. She turned and stepped onto the ladder, each step punctuated by metallic groaning which seemed to make Reid more anxious. Her mind conjured a dozen fates and only stopped when she heard a distorted cry coming through a closed door. The noise started slow and intermittent, and then quickly became frantic. She held her breath, terrified to move, and stopped three-quarters of the way down the ladder.

“Move it.” Reid held his boot over the next rung, threatening to step on her hands.

Penny squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to take the last few steps. The cement floor radiated cold through her feet, and cold as she was, she began to sweat.

Reid steered her down the dark hall and the screams grew louder. The cries changed pitch and there was an animal-like quality to them that sent a chill up her spine. The sound wasn’t entirely human. She had lost the baby, but others hadn’t been so lucky. She wondered who else was down there.

A tiny lump, the baby’s hand or foot, moved across the strained fabric of Miranda’s blue, flowered maternity dress. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” She pulled down her straw hat until its floppy brim hid her face. “What if Michael recognizes us?” She stretched. Her body ached from sleeping all night in the rusted, old truck and her ankles swelled to the point that she wasn’t sure she could walk.

Scott holstered a pistol at his shoulder beneath his lined flannel. “He’ll know it’s us sooner or later. Besides, I don’t think there’s a choice. You need a doctor and I don’t intend to keep running.”

“What if he’s somehow back in with Nixon?”

Scott ruffled his shaggy, dark hair. “It’s a chance we have to take.” He smoothed his moustache, blending it into his patchy beard, and put on the aviator sunglasses. “Wait for me before you get out.” He kissed her cheek, tugged her hat down lower, and stepped around the front of the truck.

Miranda lifted her satchel onto her shoulder and, when Scott opened her door, let him help her out. A pain shot up her swollen legs as she stood. The cowgirl boots rubbed against her skin and clung to her calves so tightly she was afraid they were going to have to be cut off. She held the bag to her side, careful not to lose the manila folder of medical records they’d gone through so much trouble to get, and leaned against Scott as they made their way toward Michael’s office.

Plywood covered the broken windows and chunks of siding had been torn away. A high fence surrounded the postage-stamp lot and two armed guards monitored the flow of patients.

Miranda held her hand to her fluttering stomach when the infant rolled inside of her.

“Are you all right?” Scott asked, keeping his head down.

Miranda swallowed the vomit rising in her throat. “I’ll be better when we know that I haven’t made a terrible decision.”

Part of her wanted to turn around, to not have to face the truth, but when a third wave of cramps hit she knew she had no choice but to go inside.

“Keep your head down.”

They approached the gate and one of the guards put his rifle across the narrow opening. “Stop right there.”

Miranda tightened her grip on Scott’s hand and glanced at him from under her hat.

“We’re here to see Dr. Waters,” he said, still looking down.

“Eyes up and glasses off.”

Scott scratched his scruffy beard and peeled away the aviators, squinting as he lifted his head toward the guard with his back to the sun.

“This one’s okay,” he said. “Randy, let this one through.”

“What’d you say, Earl?”

The larger guard repeated himself. “I said he’s okay to come through.”

They were looking for signs of infection, the telltale white film Miranda had seen too many times at the center.

“You, too,” Earl said. “Hat off.”

Scott lifted Miranda’s hat. She angled her head in Earl’s direction, briefly meeting his icy stare before grabbing the fence and vomiting near the side of the gate.

Scott set his hand on her back and rubbed the place where she had ached for the past two months from endless heaving. “She’s sick, man. Pregnant, not infected. She needs a doctor.” He put the glasses back on.

Miranda spat and struggled to stand straight. “Please,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”

Randy, the younger and smaller of the guards, waved them past.

Earl wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Rinse that with a bucket of water,” he said to Randy.

Miranda took a shallow breath to keep from throwing up again.

Scott pressed his lips to the top of her head and shifted her weight onto him. “I told you everything’s going to be fine.” He held out a red and white swirled candy.

The strong peppermint filled her nose, sweetened her breath, and settled her nervous stomach as they went inside, so far unrecognized.

A late-twenties man flipped through a water-stained magazine that was well over a year old. He looked up from his reading and smiled, but he seemed distracted, listening to what was going on behind closed doors. His gentle, green eyes held concern for whoever was inside the examination room with Michael.

Miranda lowered herself slowly in a chair next to Scott’s and rested her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and was startled when a young child howled in the examination room. The sudden jerking caused the infant inside of her to shift, and the movement made her queasy. She didn’t know how long she was going to be able to sit without finding something to be sick in.

Scott set his hand on her stomach. “Hang in there.”

His smile reassured her.

The examination room door opened and the man with the magazine stood up.

A young boy ran across the waiting room and collapsed into his arms. His face was red from crying and there were fresh tears on the verge of spilling.

“Hey, kiddo. What do you have here?” The man lifted the boy’s sleeve. “You’re such a tough little man.”

The boy showed his father the Spiderman bandage on his bicep and shied away from the doctor.

Michael stood less than a foot away from Miranda and Scott and both of them lowered their heads.

“He’s going to be sore for a couple of days,” Michael said to the father. “Tetanus is a rough one so don’t be worried if you see some redness or swelling.”

The boy put his thumb in his mouth and turned into his father’s chest.

The young mother, who had been organizing her tote in the exam room, ruffled the boy’s hair and thanked Michael for treating him.

An armed guard escorted the family out.

“I guess that makes you next,” Michael said with a smile.

Scott adjusted the hat on Miranda’s head and helped her out of the chair. She followed Michael into the examination room and when he pulled the stirrups out from the examination table, she vomited in the trash can.

“I can’t do this,” she said, sweating and clammy.

Scott shut and locked the door. “You know you have to. I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on here?” Michael made a move for the knife sheathed to his leg and Scott pulled his pistol.

“Don’t move,” Scott said. “We’re not here to hurt you, at least not yet.”

The stale air smelled of sour vomit, which made Miranda sick again. She took off the oversized hat, wiped her chin, and stared Michael down.

Scott took off his glasses and tucked them in the breast pocket of the flannel. His pistol hand remained steady.

Beads of sweat formed on Michael’s upper lip and his mouth hung open. “Miranda, is that you?”

His excited tone confused her. “Hello, Michael.” She ran her tongue across her teeth.

“Scott?” Michael squinted. “What’s going on here?”

“Miranda, go sit on the table,” Scott said.

“I can’t,” she whispered, haunted by the memory of what happened at the center. A tear rolled down her cheek.

Michael handed her a tissue.

Scott released the safety on the pistol. “You have some serious explaining to do.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Michael said.

Scott cut him off. “You have no idea what I’m thinking. If you did, you’d be terrified. Why did you break into our house?”

Miranda took the manila folder out of her bag and slid it across the counter. A sharp pain radiated through her stomach and she grabbed the edge of the examination table to keep from falling. The paper runner crinkled, and if the contraction hadn’t lasted so long, she would have stepped away.

“Please, sit down,” Michael said.

Scott stepped back and allowed Michael to help Miranda into a chair, but he didn’t lower the pistol.

The baby kicked and Miranda started to cry. She buried her face in her hands and wept while Michael read her file.

“I had no idea things had gone this far.”

“So you
did
know?” Scott asked.

“I know
now.
” Michael set the folder down and twisted the cap off a gallon jug sitting on a table of assorted medical supplies. He poured a glass of water and handed it to Miranda. “You have to believe me when I tell you I never intended anything bad to happen to you.”

“How do we know that it has?” Miranda sipped the room-temperature water, finding it hard, with the nausea, to swallow.

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with unless you let me examine you, and even then, there’s so much I won’t know.”

Examine.
The word struck fear in her. Sitting in the examination room, the full weight of her fear bore down on her and she wondered how she’d ever give birth.

“Isn’t there any another way?” Scott asked.

Michael thought for a minute. “There’s one, but…I…It’s too risky. I can’t.”

Scott moved his finger to the trigger. “You owe us at least one.”

Michael chewed his lower lip. “There’s a generator out back,” he said. “I run the office without power in part because of the gas shortage, but more because of the noise. There’s a horde not far from here, a detention center up on the hill got overrun. I could do an ultrasound, but it’d have to be fast and I don’t guarantee it’ll tell me what I need to know.”

Scott agreed without hesitation.

Miranda crossed her arms over her engorged breasts and sniffled. She imagined the infants at the Nixon Center with their piranha teeth and disfigured faces in grainy black and white, or worse, 3-D on an ultrasound monitor.

Scott lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “I’m afraid, too,” he said. “But being afraid doesn’t change this. We have to know.”

The baby kicked, an affirmation of life each time Miranda felt it. “And if it’s one of them?”

Both of them turned to Michael.

Michael shifted his weight from one foot to the other and shook his head. “There’s no simple answer to that.”

Miranda could see that he was either uncomfortable or withholding information.

Scott stood, eye-to-eye with Michael. “Will you do the ultrasound?”

The room fell silent while Michael contemplated his decision.

He caved, but Miranda could see his reluctance. “I will,” he said, “but only if you agree to stand guard with the others.”