LIFERS Chapter Twenty Nine

Ella was again at one of the town hall’s windows; she looked down the length of Main Street as a dozen of the townsfolk surrounded her, their expressions vacant as they watched the rain. On a clear day she’d be able to see beyond the end of the street and into the trees past the police station, almost a half mile away, but today the rain obscured up to half the street’s length.

Arms across her chest, she finger-drummed her elbows as she mulled over the night’s events. Hal and Billy should have returned hours ago, or at least Zach should be back by now, with or without them. Things didn’t look too good right now, and all she could put it down to was that interfering private investigator. He must have somehow managed to escape again and was out there stirring things up. And if he’d gotten hold of Zach, Zach would have told him anything he wanted to know. It’s a small mercy that Zach wasn’t told about Mervyn and Sheldon keeping watch in the schoolhouse and garage, though she doubted they’d be any match for the investigator. They were good men, but their knives had a dull edge.

She should tell Thomas what had transpired over the last few hours, but it was something she didn’t want to do. There was no point in burdening him with something he was in no condition to do anything about. She left the others to continue watching as she made her way down to the steel hatch in the basement. En route she retrieved a cell phone from a pocket in her dress and punched in the number for Dane and Sam, but the recorded message for the tenth consecutive time, said, “This number is currently unavailable, please try─” Ella cancelled the call and returned the phone to her pocket.

When she arrived in the basement she noticed Zach had left the wooden hatch open. She paused, looked into the dark shaft, then kicked it shut and rammed home the two steel bolts to lock it. She also turned to close and lock the door she just came through, even though the others would remain undisturbed in their watching, she wasn’t taking any chances. She wasn’t to let anyone know about Thomas Martins. “Under no circumstances were they to find out about my condition.” He’d told her.

She took three deep breaths and turned toward the steel hatch where she entered a sequence of numbers into a small keypad. An indicator light changed from red to green and a dull metallic “CLUNK” sounded as the hatch started to open.

Ella stared down the steps where a solitary bulb at the bottom lighted her path, a button marked Open/Close had been positioned half way along the descent; as she past she pressed it and waited until the hatch closed before she continued down. At the bottom she moved aside a dark curtain and stepped through to be greeted by a four-foot-high wooden pedestal, she reached out to take a pair of surgical gloves from a steel tray and put them on.

To her right was an open fireplace, its demeanour cold, uninviting; its fire long since burned out and its coals a dull, silvery ash. Beyond the pedestal and against the wall across the other side of the room was a narrow lab table that held the usual vials, burners and beakers, and all unused for quite some time. On this side of the table was a single bed, and to the left of that, an old leather gurney, its straps left open and ready for its soon to be expected occupant.

A solitary wooden chair and a small set of drawers were positioned between the bed and an electronic device for measuring the body’s vital signs. The device was switched on and running, its ominous intermittent beep playing out the last remaining hours of one, Thomas Martins.

A half-empty transfusion bag that contained uncontaminated blood from one of the girls they’d recently taken, intravenously fed him, and although the leukaemia was gradually destroying his body cell by cell, Thomas Martins was still semi-conscious. But if Sam and Dane didn’t return with the girl soon, it may be too late, too late for him, and too late for the whole of the town. Everything had been prepared for Ella to oversee the bone marrow transplant from Marianna to Martins; a procedure he assured her, if such a donor existed, would cure him and save his people.

His current chances of survival were slim, his own immune system, once an impenetrable barrier, had become no match for the killer disease coursing through his veins.

Ella placed herself on the wooden chair by the bed and spoke in a soft voice. ‘Are you awake, Thomas?’

Martins looked pale, fragile, his hair had greyed at the sides and many thin lines were visible on his face. Although he was born one hundred and twelve years ago, he looked no older than fifty. The many injections he’d given himself over the years seemed to have served him well, and were probably the only reason the leukaemia hadn’t quite won the battle yet. He opened his eyes and his normally dark-red pupils were greyed-over, the yellows now a light shade of brown.

‘I can’t see you,’ he said, his voice no more than a whisper.

Ella put her hand over his on top of the bed. ‘I’m here, Thomas, be strong.’

‘Has there been any word from─?’

‘Yes,’ she said, saving him the trouble of asking. ‘I spoke to them only a few minutes ago, they are on their way with the girl as we speak.’

‘And is today a beautiful day?’

She looked at the monitor beside the bed and her eyes followed its green line as it snaked across the small screen in peaks and troughs. She looked away, could quite easily forget it was there, if it wasn’t for its unremitting beep that lingered like an ill-omened reminder.

‘It is,’ she eventually told him. ‘The sky is blue and the air outside is warm.’ She couldn’t bring herself to tell him the true facts of the last day and night, if he recovered, it wouldn’t matter, if he didn’t, she felt it mattered even less. ‘Are you in much pain, Thomas?’ she asked, though she knew he was.

‘No, just uncomfortable, do you have everything ready for the transfusion?’

‘Everything is as you instructed.’

‘And are you certain you remember the procedure?’

‘Thomas, I’ve been through it so many times in my head I feel as though I’ve already performed the transfusion a dozen times or more.’

‘And what about the others, do any of them know of my condition?’

‘Only one other, the rest have no need to know. One or two have mentioned your absence so I told them you were working on something new, something that would allow us to touch water again. They seemed very happy to accept that. So, after I carry out the transfusion and you’re well enough, perhaps that might become a reality?’

‘If the girl is as you say she is …’ he paused to catch his breath. ‘It will be a reality for all of us. But I have a question for you.’

Ella knew what was coming.

Martins continued. ‘If such a girl exists she would have to be one of us, from here, would she not?’ At that he coughed and although the pressure from his lungs was weak, a trickle of dark, almost black blood, oozed from his nose.

Ella took a clean swatch of white cloth from the top drawer of the unit by her side and began to clean away the blood. It was thick, very thick, like syrup; she managed to get it all before she tossed the cloth into a small waste bin under the bed. She let go of Martins’ hand and stood.

‘I must leave you now, Thomas,’ she said, avoiding his last question.

‘But you didn’t answer my─’

‘Thomas, they’ll be here soon, and I need to ready myself.’

He sighed. ‘Very well, I look forward to your return.’

Ella snapped off the gloves and put them in the waste bin, and after taking a last look at her patient, she pushed the gurney farther left of the bed and drew a misted plastic curtain between the two. She then left the room and pressed the “Open” button as she climbed from the shaft. On the outside she entered the same code as before and the hatch closed and locked with another dull, metallic clunk.

She looked down at the wooden hatch she bolted earlier and considered reopening it, but she knew the others were not going to return. Now it was time she rid Martinsville of that investigator once and for all, time he was found and dealt with.

She joined some of the others on the ground floor and snapped her fingers in the ear of one of them. ‘Meet with me in the basement in five minutes,’ she told him.

The remainder of the town continued to look from the windows, totally oblivious as to the entire goings on around them. The one she roused was Brett, he was to arm himself with a shotgun and search through the tunnels and all the connecting buildings. His orders were simple, if anything out there moves, kill it, and if he kills one of the missing by mistake, well that can’t be helped. Though any chance of the latter she doubted very much.