“O’Malley,” Andrew gasped, pawing at the iron-like grip on his throat. “Please!”
O’Malley threw him like a rag doll, sending him sailing across the room. With a rush of wind in his ears, Andrew slammed into the far wall. He fell the floor in a shuddering heap, panting for breath. Forcing himself to move, he stumbled to his feet, clutching his broken piece of IV stand in hand.
What do I do? Andrew forced his lips together in a tight seal, muffling his ragged gasps. He tried to be quiet, limping sideways, following the counter, cabinets and wall back toward the door while O’Malley, crouched again and dog-like, sniffed the floor and drew closer to his side of the infirmary.
What do I do? What the fuck do I do? Andrew panned a quick, frantic gaze around him. On one of the counters, he saw glass jars neatly arranged, some filled with cotton balls, others filled with paper-wrapped swabs and others filled with wooden tongue depressors. He inched toward these now, reaching out and slowly raising the metal lid from this last jar. It made a soft, nearly imperceptible scraping sound as the threaded grooves in the lid brushed the glass lip of the jar, but it was enough to attract O’Malley’s attention. Cat-like, he leaped, collapsing the distance between him and Andrew to less than three feet as he landed on all fours, hunkered near the floor, the bulbous, swollen mass of his nose twitching as he sniffed.
Holding his breath, frightened that the racing, pounding cadence of his heart would be enough to further alert him, Andrew dipped his free hand into the glass jar, curling his fingers around a cluster of tongue depressors. He eased them out then cut his gaze across the room, away from the door. With a deliberate flick of his wrist, he tossed one of the wooden sticks, sending it flipping end over end into the shadows. It hit the floor, skittered and spun, and O’Malley’s head snapped around to follow the noise. Again moving with preternatural, impossible speed, he darted across the room.
For each step Andrew took toward the door, he chucked another tongue depressor, luring O’Malley away from him, driving him to the opposite end of the infirmary. Just when he thought he was nearly home free, well within five easy strides of the door, he turned around, meaning to risk it and dart to the threshold, punch in his code and escape. Instead, he stumbled headlong into the same goddamn crash cart he’d tripped over on his way into the room, and as he fell, first against the defibrillator console, then to the floor, its little computer screen reactivated, its tinny voice loud and shrill.
“You have activated the Head Start Heart Smart.”
Shit, Andrew thought, scrambling to his feet as O’Malley wheeled toward the sound. Shit, shit, shit!
He ran for the door just as O’Malley charged, swinging his arms, plowing aside medical carts, shelves, anything and everything in his way. What he couldn’t knock away, he clambered over with terrifying speed and ease.
“Please follow the voice prompts provided for correct application and use of this electronic device,” the defibrillator said, milliseconds before O’Malley tackled the crash cart, sending it toppling to the floor.
As O’Malley grappled with the machine, tangled now in the cables connecting it to the red and yellow pads, Andrew reached the door. Oh, Jesus, he thought, pushing his hair out of his face, struggling to remember. What the fuck was the code? Was it one-zero, one-zero?
He punched this in before realizing this had been Moore’s old code, not the new one. “Fuck,” he hissed, then tried again. He was frightened and panicked, his hand shaking, and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the goddamn pass code. From behind him, he heard O’Malley thrashing, scrambling to his feet.
One-zero, zero-one.
He typed this in. The light stayed red. The door stayed locked.
“Fuck,” Andrew cried. Balling his fist, he beat against the window. “Somebody help me,” he screamed. “Get me out of here!”
He felt the floor beneath him shudder, O’Malley’s footsteps thunderous as he charged and Andrew whirled, clasping the ruined IV stand in his hands, shoving the threaded tip out ahead of him in feeble self-defense. When O’Malley barreled into him, the shaft caught him just beneath the sternum, punching into the vulnerable meat of his midriff. O’Malley’s own forward momentum drove it through him, impaling himself. A hot splash of blood flew back, soaking Andrew’s hands, his arms, slapping him in the face, and for a moment, he and O’Malley stood together, close enough to kiss, both of them leaning heavily, drunkenly against each other.
“O’Malley,” Andrew whispered, horrified, helpless. He turned loose of the shaft and O’Malley floundered backwards, wrapping his hands around the metal rod protruding from his chest. It was slick and he fumbled for purchase, pawing at it, uttering sodden, slobbering sounds like a cat trying to work a hair ball loose from its gullet. His efforts were hampered by the defibrillator. Somehow his arms had become entangled in the cords, the adhesive patches stuck to his skin and the console dragged behind him on the floor, bouncing and scraping along, its mechanized tutelage still rambling on, unabated:
“Please verify that the Head Start Heart Smart cartridges are correctly positioned on the victim’s bare torso and have not been applied over the nipples, any medication patches or implanted devices.”
Andrew watched, shocked and astonished, as O’Malley began easing the broken metal shaft from his torso, sliding it out centimeter by centimeter, panting heavily all the while.
Oh, shit, he thought, because at first he’d thought O’Malley had retreated because he’d been mortally wounded, that he’d fallen back because he’d been about to collapse, just like any normal human being with a rod through their torso would have done. But judging by the fact that O’Malley spared a vicious grin, a menacing, spittle-laced snarl in his direction, the shaft nearly yanked in full from his chest, Andrew understood he was about to be in for a serious world of hurt.
“Shit.” He spun back around to the door and punched again into the key pad. One-zero, zero-one.
The light stayed red.
“What’s the fucking code?” he screamed. He would have beat his head into the door had he the time. Four digits, binary code, seven options. It wasn’t ten. It wasn’t eleven.
“Twelve,” he whispered, eyes flying wide. “Twelve. The pass code’s twelve.”
He reached out to punch it in—one-one, zero-zero—and felt O’Malley’s hand, heavy and bloody, clamp against his shoulder. As he was whirled violently around to face O’Malley, then slammed back into the door with enough force to splinter the window behind his head in a network of thin, spiderweb-like fissures, he balled his hand into a fist.
“Get off me,” he yelled, punching O’Malley in the face. It felt as if he’d just socked a side of raw beef, one that had been left out to hang in the sun for awhile on a hot summer afternoon. Wet and spongy, the flesh yielded beneath his knuckles, squelching between his fingers. Even though it seemed to stun O’Malley momentarily, he kept hold of Andrew’s shirt, and with another furious cry, Andrew punched him again.
“Let go of me,” he shouted, hitting him again and again, driving O’Malley back. He could feel those nasty pustules and nodules bursting with every blow. Firm beneath the skin, upon impact, they would pop like overripe melons or overfilled water balloons, squirting pus and blood, thick and hot, against his hands, onto his arms.