The Phantom Limb (19 page)

Matt kept pushing the chair. Isaac knew he wouldn't have been able to do this himself.

He turned around and brandished the spiral aftereffect, holding it at eye level, spinning it all the way to number ten. He aimed it at their pursuers, all the while continuing to hurry backward, staying as close as he could to the wheelchair.

Two male orderlies and three female nurses were following. Behind them were the twins, disheveled and limping. Vicky wasn't there, but the others were coming fast. It took a few moments, but then their eyes were caught by the spiral aftereffect. Would they look at it long enough for it to work?

Isaac took a chance and stopped. If he stood still, they might focus on the spiral aftereffect and slow down.

The spiral aftereffect whizzed around.

Their pursuers did indeed slow down. Their eyes were riveted on the spiral aftereffect. One of the nurses crumpled to her knees, and then the tall
orderly tripped as well. Isaac started moving backward again, taking a quick glance around to see where Vera and Matt were. They had reached the elevators. He hurried to join them.

Matt was pressing the up and the down buttons furiously, just wanting to get away. Isaac started to panic. He grabbed the mirror box out of Vera's lap and held it tightly.

He knew he had to concentrate on the people following them. Luckily, those who were still standing were moving much slower now. There was, he figured, a slight chance that he, his mother, and Matt could actually escape … if the elevator came in time.

A chime sounded, and an elevator going up arrived. Isaac rushed in, stifling his claustrophobia. There were more important things now. Unexpectedly, the doors quickly slammed shut, closing before Matt and Vera could get on. There had to be somebody else on the elevator for the doors to close so fast. Isaac turned around to see who it was.

Candi.

 

ANDI WAS WEARING THE SAME TURQUOISE dress she had on when the mirror box showed her in her bathroom. She was carrying the large fake leather turquoise bag as well.

She smiled when she saw Isaac. “Looks like your friends aren't so trustworthy,” she said. “I knew I could count on Destiny. She called me and told me you were going to try to get your mother out. I rushed here immediately. My strict orders forbade your mother from leaving her room, and that she be kept on her medications. I'm the professional, and I know what she needs in order to get well.”

“There's nothing wrong with my mother, and you
know that. You hate her for some weird reason … for playing the piano.”

“You
!” she said. She was furious, even though she still spoke in her habitually soft voice. “It's all your doing, you little pest! I never should have allowed you on the floor. Well, I'll take care of that now. You'll never go anywhere again.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a long scalpel, so sharp that it glittered in the light. She advanced on Isaac.

Candi was inches away from him when the elevator stopped and the door behind her opened. Dr. Ciano stepped on. She jerked and looked suddenly alert when she saw Candi with the scalpel.

“Nurse Sharpe!” she shouted, grabbing Candi by the arm. “Have you completely lost your mind? I suspected it before, but now I know it. I'm calling security!” With her other hand she reached for the alarm button.

“No!” Candi wailed. “This is my whole life! This is everything I have!”

At that moment, the elevator reached the basement. The door in front of Isaac opened. Candi suddenly twisted away from Dr. Ciano and lunged for him, but he was a step ahead of her. He jumped through the door before it had fully opened and ran
as fast as he could, holding the mirror box in front of him, with the spiral aftereffect on top of it.

Candi swung the scalpel wildly at Dr. Ciano, grazing her arm, then took off after Isaac.

Dr. Ciano stood there frozen, paralyzed from shock. The door slammed shut with her still inside the elevator.

The basement. This was the dark hallway where Isaac had been sent for the hellish endoscopy and MRI. And now Candi was chasing after him with a deadly sharp scalpel. She was moving fast.

The map Kravetz had given him, the one that showed where the exit ramps were, was in his back pocket. But he had no time to stop, pull it out, and study it, especially while holding the mirror box and the spiral aftereffect. All he could do was hope to outrun Candi. He pictured the scalpel and knew that she was pointing it directly at his neck.

“You'll never get away from me, you little troublemaker. I know this place like the back of my hand, and you don't know it at all!”

He passed the torture chamber of the endoscopy room. Then the floor ahead of him sloped down, into a darker, smaller hallway, like a tunnel. Another
uncomfortably confined space. He had no choice but to follow its path. He kept running until he could barely see.

Thick pipes hung from the ceiling. The floor was uneven, making him stumble. He could hear Candi's heavy breathing getting closer.

In the dimness to his left he could barely make out a metal door. Did he have time to stop and try to open it? He glanced around for a second. Candi was ten feet behind him. As he watched, she dropped the scalpel, reached into her bag, and pulled out an amputation drill saw, just like the one Joey had showed him in the mirror.

Cradling the mirror box and the spiral aftereffect under one arm, Isaac pulled on the metal doorknob and the door opened. He rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind him. There was only a fluorescent light in here, flickering dimly, but it gave enough light for him to see that there was no lock on the door. He had run into a trap.

He looked frantically around in the few seconds he had before Candi entered, hoping there were tools in here that he could use as weapons. No tools. There was only a large machine with two big fat wheels of white gauze on a bar at the bottom, and above them
a complex structure that looked like a loom of some kind. He had no idea what it was for, only that it had no use for him to protect himself.

Candi pulled open the door with her left hand and slammed it shut behind her. Brandishing the drill saw in her right hand, she stared at Isaac. He backed up as best he could against the machine, but it was full of sharp edges and angles.

And then she smiled. “You're even stupider than I thought,” she said. “If you'd stayed out there in the tunnel, you could have gotten out on one of the loading ramps. But now you're stuck. That gauze folder will pierce you if you get any closer.”

She moved toward him.

She was right. He couldn't back up any more. He could feel the machine cutting into his T-shirt. The flickering light was dim, but there was enough for him to see the razorlike ridges of the saw blade coming closer and closer to his neck. Candi pressed a switch. The saw began to turn, its piercing high-pitched scream like the sound of a dentist's drill, only louder.

He kicked out at her, but it had no effect. Her abdomen was hard as a rock. Killing people was clearly better exercise than riding a bike. Candi was a lot stronger than he had expected.

The drill saw lashed out. If Isaac didn't think of something quickly, he was as good as dead. He looked down at his hands.

He set the mirror box on the floor beside him and held up the spiral aftereffect. He set it on ten and it began spinning.

Candi's eyes couldn't avoid it. They fixed on it immediately. She'd never seen anything like it before. She stopped moving toward him.

“I know what you've done, Candi,” Isaac said, gaining confidence because he had slowed her down.

Candi lowered the drill saw, completely transfixed by the spiral aftereffect.

“I know you killed Joey Haynes,” Isaac went on. “Because he played the piano. And I know you've killed other people before him. People who also played the piano. And now you want to kill my mother. What do you have against piano players, Candi?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I … I …” Her eyes were staring at the spiral aftereffect. Now Isaac had her trapped.

“You even killed your own brother!” he shouted at her.

“Don't talk about my brother!” she screamed, her voice suddenly returning to her. She viciously moved
toward him again, the drill saw now raised above her head.

Isaac quickly lowered the spiral aftereffect so that it was out of her field of vision.

Candi stumbled and fell to her knees. She seemed completely disoriented. “You've gotten in my way ever since you first showed up,” she said, sounding as if she was going to cry. She struggled to her feet. “And now I'm going to stop you for good.”

“You'll never get away with it. Dr. Ciano knows now. And security will be here any second.”

“I'll get away with it, all right. I know how to get out of here from the loading docks,” she said fiercely, her fury returning. “I'll disappear. They'll never find me. I've done it before, and I can do it again.” She swiped at Isaac with the drill saw and knocked the spiral aftereffect out of his hands.

He was helpless. He had no weapon to use against her. All he had was the mirror box. He had put it on the floor, and now he was shielding it from Candi, standing between it and her.

And then, without warning, incredibly—there was no other way to describe it—Isaac and Candi were
sucked into
the mirror box. It was just like the times it had sucked in the stick of licorice and then the
piece of paper with Isaac's questions on it. Isaac felt a rushing, pulling sensation. The box grew larger and larger. It was as though he was being dragged underwater by a powerful undertow.

And then they were
inside
the box.

But it didn't look like the inside of the box. He was standing in front of a gigantic cube, as high as a six-story building. It was full of square holes. He knew exactly where he was.

It was the Menger sponge—the strange object he had in his collection in which every chamber was horribly smaller than the one before. There was nothing else to be seen—he was on an endless plane with the sponge.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned around. Candi was running toward him, still pointing the drill saw at him. She was getting closer.

There was no place to go but into the Menger sponge. It was so big that the largest hole was high above him. He began to climb, using smaller holes to grip with his hands and put his feet in. It was amazing how fast he got to the top, and then he was inside.

He was in a vast hall with black empty windows all around. He heard Candi climbing behind him. He headed for the biggest hole. It was hard to move
quickly because the floor was pitted with holes. He reached the hole, climbed halfway up the wall, and got inside. Now he was in a space the size of a movie theater. He could still hear Candi behind him, so he frantically kept climbing. The next hole was the size of a living room. He began to sweat. He turned and looked behind him. Candi was just entering the room with her drill saw still turning.

He ran for the next room. This cubic space was the size of a bathroom. He could almost
feel
the walls closing in around him. A horrible sinking feeling set in, and he knew that he was really trapped now. He was like somebody in a horror movie, running from the monster by going up into the attic. Any room he went into would be smaller than the one he was in. But where else could he go?

Nowhere … except into the next room, which was the size of a closet. He could hear Candi breathing heavily right behind him. And on into the next room, which was so small he couldn't stand up. Then into the next, which was so tiny that he had to crouch down into a ball. He was panting, and his clothes were soaked with sweat.

And then he was shrinking, becoming so tiny that the space became the size of the first vast hall he
had entered. He climbed to the next biggest hole, but now he knew it was hopeless. Because what had happened before was happening again, repeating itself on a miniature level. Every space he entered got smaller and smaller. It was infinite. He was never going to get away from Candi. It was a cycle he'd never break. Never, never, never …