Mask of Flies (38 page)

“This whole thing is
crazy,” Calvin said.

“Alright, well, I
attempted to kill my grandmother already, twice: once by poison, and
once by strangling her. Something stopped me both times,” Elias
looked at the wall as he spoke.

“You’re saying you
couldn’t go through with it?” Nicolette asked.

“No, I could go
through with it. What I’m saying is that some force stopped me, got
in my head and shut me down.”

“So what happens if
you do get to her?” Nicolette asked, knowing that she probably
wouldn’t like the answer. Angeni was taken advantage of and opened
up to a place of madness. She was lost at the beginning of her young
life.

“I have no plan, like
I said. This Delgado asshole probably put an APB out for me if I’m
seen around the facility.” Elias extended a business card to
Calvin.

Calvin’s brow
furrowed reading the embossed print. “So Tony uses Yahoo mail
still? I had switch because my friends kept hacking my account.”

Nicolette crumbled up
piece of paper that she grabbed off the desk and flung it at Calvin.

“What was that for?”

“You’re going to
say how easy it would be to hack that email account,” Nicolette
said.

“We’re here to
help, right?”

Elias stood up between
the two and winced. “That’s enough. I won’t drag you both into
this.”

“By this, you mean
killing her— let’s cut to the chase.” Nicolette went silent for
a moment. “I know you lost everything because of this woman, and I
can’t imagine—”

“More people will die
if he does nothing,” Calvin cut in. “Three dead and more missing
and more at risk. At least we help him get her away from the old
folk’s home.”

Nicolette didn’t say
a word. She went out the door and slammed it shut. A framed print of
Leolyn’s exterior, circa 1920, fell off the wall and shattered.

“You going after
her?” Elias asked.

“She just needs some
time to cool down . . . you need my help.”

“I’m definitely not
worth the trouble. You should go.”

“Don’t worry about
her. She will come around. She sees everything in black and white at
first.” Calvin went silent, looked at the door, perhaps second
guessing not chasing after his girl.

Elias leaned forward in
his chair. “I fought with the very idea for years: killing her,
wrestled the same objections going through Nicolette’s mind right
now. I watched my family try everything; healers, spirit-talkers,
potions and poultices, but each failed. I always figured, if the
roles were reversed, if my spirit was turned inside out, I would want
somebody to end me.”

Calvin sat in an
armchair, examining the interior cavity of the jelly donut that he
had bit into. “I think most people would say that about themselves,
but I’m sure more than a few would change their mind when it came
to them dying.” He took another bite of his donut, made a face, and
then said continued with a mouthful, “You mentioned that you could
never talk to her, so I guess you never had the chance to ask her
what she’d prefer.”

“I’m not sure if
that’s true, her not being able to talk. She had her way, just
chose not to partake in any with me. Perhaps she left me alone to
keep her alive.”

Calvin held up the
business card. “Well enough about that, this Tony, let’s see what
we can find in his email.”

“What good will it do
if it’s his personal email address?” Elias asked.

“It's on his business
card, so I'm banking that this address is used for work. This is
good, easier. Why use an external account for work? I don’t know,
could be a budget thing, with all these cutbacks, lack of an IT guy,
or just an old, tech-adverse boss.”

The plan was better
than nothing. The kid mentioned that he had a password cracking
program on one of his old laptops back at his house. When he left,
Elias tried to get some shut eye, still exhausted despite the coffee.
But the sleep wouldn't come, and he found himself staring at the TV
set for a few hours that seemed much longer, running through worst
case scenarios. But it didn't matter, and maybe he would get to see
Meni again, maybe not.

Almost two hours later
Calvin returned—Elias had begun to think that Nicolette changed the
boys mind and found relief in this prospect. The baby-faced hacker
strode into the room, holding the laptop underneath one arm and
clasped a six pack of Labatt Blue in the other hand.

“Are you even legal?”
Elias asked.

“This from a guy
enlisting my services to illegally access an email account, and I'm
not even getting into the rest—disappointing.” Calvin handed the
sixer over, and he saw Elias winced in pain as he transferred weight
onto his bad knee. “Be careful there . . . If it's any consolation,
I'll be twenty-one in a couple months. I figure we're both having
woman problems, so a few brewskis should help ease the pain enough,
at least enough to focus on the task at hand.”

Calvin sat at the desk
and flipped open the laptop, and pulled a beer out. Elias followed
suit, sat in the armchair and had no problem falling to sleep this
time. A hand pushing on his shoulder awoke him after what seemed to
be only moments later.

“I told you his email
would be the ticket. I have traffic between him and some of his
coworkers going on about how the place has gone to shit.” Calvin
waved Elias over to the screen.” Here is the first thing I think
you should see. It looks like a spread sheet marking the status of
all the patients.”

The first tab was a
rather detailed map of the facility, broke out by level, and marked
with room numbers.

Calvin clicked on the
second tab labeled:
Patient
Locale.
“Search for Angeni, and alakazam, room 137.”
Calvin went back to the map. “She's in the hallway with all the
terminally ill patients, so I imagine it's relatively quiet.”

Elias nodded and
produced a hand rolled smoke.

“There’s an outdoor
entrance to the maintenance area at the rear of the facility, like a
small loading dock, so you could bypass the front offices and,
hopefully—your old pal Tony.” Calvin closed the email browser and
opened a folder on his desktop with several documents inside. “They
recently installed an electronic lock on back there. But, I found an
email with an access code for the construction workers, and it’s
good for through the end of this week. 5*137462 . . . I think it's
worth a shot.”

The plan seemed
plausible. Elias knew that the transfer process of all the patients
would be chaos. He thought he could get to her. It was a matter of
going through with what he had to do. The only potential lead he got
from the Farseer transcription was that Angeni had been a step ahead
of Ms. Roux the entire time and was able to escape.

“Good news. The most
recent activity involves the logistics of the upcoming patient
transfer. It looks like the Summer Hall, where your great grandmother
is situated, won't be able to transfer for another day, for
preparations at the hospital. Bad news is that the law will be
patrolling the hallways. ”

Elias thought the fewer
people in the facility the better. It would most likely get ugly. He
took a long pull off his cigarette and took a swig of beer.

“Another thing you
might want to look at is some traffic between Tony and a guy named
Marco . . . some pretty creepy shit. Tony claims to have seen one of
the missing patients in the kitchen—acting like an animal.”

Elias remembered Tony
saying that there was something else loose within the facility.

“I put all the
important emails into a folder on my desktop named: Delgado Emails.
The password to his account is in there too, so you can check up on
his new emails, just make sure to mark the new ones as unread when
you're done reading, so he doesn't get suspicions and change his
password . . . Pretty self-explanatory right?”

“Yeah I got it.”
Elias wasn't much into technology but was confident that he could
navigate email easy enough.

“Borrow the laptop,
like I said, it’s old and I have several others.” Calvin looked
down. “Humor me, but I kind of need reassurance that you’re not
going hurt anybody else, like if they are in the way.”

“I'll do my best.”
The only patients left in the facility would be the terminally ill,
as for the staff, he did all he could to warn Tony. As far as Elias
was concerned it was on him if his people got hurt.

Elias sat for a moment
and then sighed. “I really wish I didn’t have to bother you with
all this, and I am thankful for your help. There is one last thing I
need to ask of you: my dog; he’s a Beagle named Cody . . . he’s a
good dog” Elias wrote his address on a piece of stationary with
Leolyn Hotel embossed on the top. “I don’t know if I’m going to
make it back, I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you make sure
he’s taken care of?"

Calvin took the piece
of paper from Elias. “Of course, I’ll see if feisty wants to come
along—it might help keep the peace. Speaking of which, I should
probably go play damage control.

“Well, it’s been
real, real-crazy, Elias.” As Calvin reached out to shake hands, the
lap-top flittered, indicating a new e-mail to Tony’s account.
Calvin sat back down at the desk.

Elias noticed Calvin’s
expression intensify as he read. “What does it say?”

“Marco, Tony’s friend from the
emails, was found dead in the parking lot, from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound.”

It was past 3 pm when
he left. Elias thought on his prior attempts on his great
grandmother’s life, driving towards the interstate. It had been
just the two of them out in the woods, a relatively low-interference
environment, in seclusion. Certainly her mode of self-preservation
required a level of concentration. The nursing home a noisier
environment, more static, and he may be able to catch her
off-guard—at least the notion gave him some hope. Keeping the
advantage of surprise was of the utmost importance.

An hour prior to
leaving the old hotel, a new email had popped up in Tony’s inbox,
urgent and important, its contents an up to date schedule for the
mass transfer, and a roster of the facilities caretakers with the
respective residents listed under each responsible employee. The
itinerary stated that the upstairs apartments and Autumn Hall would
be moved that night, the less able patients of Spring and Summer Hall
would be moved the night after.

Angeni Kingbird was listed in bold
under a caretaker named Ellen McAvey. Searching the inbox for that
name, Elias came across a report of her encounters with patients from
the day prior, summarizing her interactions. Her email signature had
“Helga” listed before her surname. Elias clicked the reply icon.

Good Evening Helga,

I have an important request regarding the transfer. I think it
would be best to move Ms. Kingbird over to Autumn Hall once the
residents are moved tonight. Most of Summer Hall has grown uneasy
with Ms. Kingbird, and their unease could make things more difficult
during the move. Room 104 should suffice once emptied and cleaned.

Thank you,
Tony

Elias clicked back to
the map Calvin discovered and verified that Room 104 was next to the
Autumn Hallway's supply area access door. Circumventing the whole
gaggle of staff the plan, but Elias feared Angeni would know that he
was coming. Perhaps putting her alone will sharpen her awareness, but
at this point it was the only way. He read the email one last time
and hit send.

“Apocalypse Now”
was playing on the TV. As Elias stood from the desk, trying not to
put too much weight on his throbbing knee, Robert Duvall, playing
Kilgore, knelt next to one of his men and said, “I love the smell
of Napalm in the morning.” He loved it because it smelled like
victory.

Styrofoam and Gasoline.

The bedazzled cell
fell to the ground out of Rick’s grasp. He sat powerless, impaled
by the news that Allie was impregnated by the pretender, rattled
amongst the indignant voices of the residents from the tree inside
his head, enough to drive a sane man crazy, but he began to think
that he was never sane to begin with. He focused elsewhere to shut
off their chatter, but other things were heard through the walls—men
outside, too scared to come in the room. Listening through their
thoughts, and deeper, most of them were pitifully dumb creatures,
thinking of dumb things.

The night moved along,
slow and queer, the status quo in the strange body, but now with this
new facet of sight he could bend it slowly with seemingly boundless
range. Focusing on the cafeteria, the route mapped out in his head.
Rick heard voices and plates clanking, smelled the fish fry. The
younger residents of Autumn Hall and the second floor residents sat
at the tables, most of them with bags at their feet. A deputy stood
by the cafeteria entrance carrying on a conversation with a blue
haired woman with a large pink suitcase.

The woman spoke loudly.
“Those skeletons are all anybody is talking out. I had enough of
it. They can't get me out of here fast enough. And whose bright idea
was it for us to eat dinner anyway and where the hell is Tony?

“Between me and you,
Betsy,” The forty-something deputy said. “Tony was buckling under
the pressure. Haynes gave him a couple days off.”

“I always liked that boy, just a
bit sensitive. Get us to Silver Creek in one piece.” The woman
scooped up a spoonful of what appeared to be split pea soup and
upended the spoon, dribbling the soup back into the bowl.

Rick felt a hand on
his shoulder, and his vision cut back into his sleeping quarters.
Behind him stood the large blonde woman that was made out of granite,
Helga. She lifted the Jane's body out of the chair and sat it down in
a wheelchair. She pushed Rick out the door, down the hall.