And the cold. The ever-present chill that seeped through any protection Nature devised to guard Herself. Thick fur, layers of feathers, rough bark, all impeded the intruder but never stopped it. This was not a time for comfort, not like the fair days of the other seasons. This was a time for survival, a concept foremost in Lauren’s mind as she readied her eldest daughter to leave.
Becky allowed her mother to adjust the straps on her coat, fix the stocking cap that pulled down over her ears, push her gloves up over her fingers. She didn’t say a word and averted her eyes whenever her mother’s face drifted in front of her.
Lauren took her little girl’s gloved hand, gave it a squeeze and walked her out the door. She had exhausted every way to make her daughter understand why she had to go but without luck. Becky still pouted as she shuffled her feet toward the waiting car. Lauren wished she could make her understand, but ultimately all that mattered was that she was going to be safe.
Lauren loaded her daughter into the back seat of Sushma Bhasin’s Lincoln Navigator, made her promise to call when she got safely to Baltimore and gave her a kiss good-bye. Sushma, her diminutive frame and youthful dark skin making her look more like a hospital intern than the leading women’s health specialist that she was, stood a few steps away, careful not to intrude on their time. When Lauren closed the door Sushma pulled her friend into her arms and hugged her tightly.
“Thank you for coming up, Sushma. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”
Sushma stepped back and looked at Lauren in the eye. “Don’t even dare thank me. I’ll take care of Becky. I’ll let her do all the things you won’t. She’ll love it.”
“It’s just that she’s been at your house before and she knows you and…”
Sushma held her much taller friend at arm’s length. “Listen. It’s all going to work out. O.K?”
Lauren smiled and wiped away the tears she hadn’t realized were sliding down her cheeks. “How’d you get so tough?”
“Medical school. Brings out the animal in all of us.”
They shared a soft laugh, the reality of what brought them together hanging over them like the remnants of a nightmare. They hugged and said goodbye. Lauren waved at Becky and told her she loved her. She wasn’t surprised when her daughter gave her the cold shoulder. Not surprised, but still it hurt.
She watched as the car pulled out of the lot and disappeared into the fog. A thread of doubt flapped around in the torrent of thoughts flooding her head. Was she doing the right thing sending her away? Making that decision without talking to Jack about it first?
She stopped pulling the thread. It was done. Becky was safe, far away from what was happening here. She trusted Sushma completely. As a doctor, her mind was trained to compartmentalize problems, focus on the patient in front of her, not the patient that came before or the one that came next. With Becky safe, she pushed that worry into a box, closed the lid and moved on. The next compartment to open was like walking into a double trauma without a staff to assist her. Jack and Sarah both missing. Her husband in the middle of a bizarre emotional crisis. Her baby stolen out from beneath her.
She needed to get a hold of herself. Exhausted even before she had come to the hospital, the emotional ride of the last few hours had pushed her to the edge. In her frazzled state, the conversation with Janney kept replaying in her head. The faces of the other police in the room, so poorly hiding their judgment of Jack. Maybe she was the one being blind.
She hated herself for the doubts that crept through her head, but she couldn’t deny the possibility. On some level she hoped it was Jack. Even if this was a continuation of his delusions, they could work on it, get him help. At least their baby would be safe. There was no way he could ever hurt their little girl. Nothing in the world could make him do that.
A sob caught in her throat. She tried to hold on to her emotions but she was losing her grip. Out of view of the police, the nurses, the other doctors, the locals who had gravitated to the hospital as word of the missing girl spread through the town, Lauren allowed herself to break down. As she cried, the same thought came to her again and again, God damn it, Jack. Where in hell are you?
FIFTY-SEVEN
“Jack! JACK! What do you see?” Lonetree shouted, waving the glo-stick above his head.
Jack wanted to answer but he couldn’t. He was frozen in place, only able to move his eyes to track the glowing ball of light rolling down the wall toward them. The orb was a brilliant white, intense enough that it was painful to look at. Jack felt his eyes burning from the exposure to it, but still he couldn’t turn away.
Halfway down the wall of the cave, the orb detached from the rock surface and hung suspended in the air. Then, drifting slightly as if it were at the whim of the gentle air current in the cavern, it moved steadily toward Jack.
Lonetree watched the expression on Jack’s face change from amazement to rapture. “What’s going on? I don’t see anything!”
The ball of light floated over their heads. Jack strained his eyes upward to watch the strange apparition. As it came closer, he saw a spinning vortex at the center of the light, as if it were white hot lava draining back into the earth. Here, deep within the stark white light, Jack thought he saw vague forms and shadows rising and falling back into the light. As he watched, a swirl of vapor extended out from this churning mass, folding in on itself until it became an amorphous cloud outside of the white orb. Slowly, like clay being pushed into a form by invisible hands, the cloud changed shape. Soon the basic features of face covered the front of the cloud. It was nondescript, androgynous, but beautiful in its simplicity.
Then the eyes opened.
Jack felt fear cascade down his spine. The eyes were aware. Not the eyes of a statue or a mask, they were alive. They darted about, like a newborn taking in its first sights outside the womb. But when they saw Jack the eyes stopped and bore down on him.
Slowly, the apparition’s mouth stretched open. The luminescent wisps of light swirling around the orb began to pour into the black cavity as if there was some irresistible gravity inside. Soon strands of light were being sucked down into the mouth, both from the glowing orb and from the glo-stick still held in Lonetree’s hand.
A body started to form, building from the inside out as if the light devoured by the mouth was simply revealing a translucent body that had been invisible in the dark.
The digestive tract appeared first, shimmering organs disconnected from the malformed head that hovered above it. Then lungs. Arteries. Veins. A twitching heart that pumped yellow light. The mouth opened wider and pulled in the last traces of light. A skeleton materialized around the floating body parts. Layers of skin appeared, translucent so that Jack could still see organs jostling together inside the body. The apparition closed its mouth and lowered its head, the last details of its facial features filling out.
Nate Huckley.
The blood drained from Jack’s face. He felt like he was underwater. Pressure forced in on him from all sides. His ear drums felt as if they might blow out, shredded from the force pushing against them. He desperately wanted to claw at his ears to scratch away the pain. But he couldn’t move. The world was frozen. Everything except the approaching form of Nate Huckley.
“Can’t move?” Huckley asked with mock concern. “That’s too bad. Feels kind of helpless, huh? Kind of like…oh, I don’t know…lying in a hospital bed in a coma.”