But they had to attempt it.
Joan could see through the serving window opening onto the Dining Room that Residents were arriving. Meals were always served precisely on the hour and Residents were expected to be seated and ready to eat when the food was taken to the tables. So diners did not trickle in. They all came at the same time, and within two minutes the place was filled.
Tamar and Mary, the two women in charge of juicing the fruits, began pouring beverages into cups, while the Children chosen to serve came up to the window with trays and started taking the drinks out to the waiting Residents.
The Children!
Joan had forgotten about them. The ones who were integrated would be eating here with the other Residents, but those with severe mental and physical handicaps ate separately, in a different room at a different time, so they would not be affected by the eggs with the mushrooms. They would still be awake and conscious.
She saw in her mind the small man with the big head and the horrible dumb grin. The thought of running into him in an otherwise empty hallway made her shiver.
It couldn’t be helped, though. And even if any of the Children were to be wandering around, they would have no clue what was happening. They would not be aware that the three of them were escaping. It would be easy to slip by them.
Rebekah touched her back, getting her attention, and Joan knew that it was time to put her plan into action. Following the older woman’s lead, Joan moved directly in front of the stove, picking up the spatula with which she was supposed to scoop the eggs onto plates. Rebekah had disguised the powdery minced mushrooms by placing them into a glass jar identical to those that housed the herbs used for flavoring various dishes, and she handed Joan the open jar, moving into place behind her so as to block from view the fact that she was dumping the entire contents of the container into the eggs.
Rebekah’s hand was sweaty when she handed off the jar, and when Joan hazarded a look at her face, the woman seemed pale and frightened. But she shot Joan an encouraging smile, and as soon as Joan was hidden from the rest of the women, she poured in the finely chopped mushrooms, stirred and started plating.
They’d been told that sixty-six people were in the Dining Room for breakfast, and though Joan didn’t know how many Residents and Penitents were in the Home altogether, the tables seemed full. The only thing that worried her was the fact that more people ate supper than breakfast, so there were likely to be men and women still out and about. Nevertheless, the majority of the people were here, and of the ones remaining, most were probably in the Chapel. If the plan worked, they should still be able to get out of the Home with little or no problem.
What they would do when they got outside remained to be seen.
Run, she thought, and smiled to herself.
The first tray of plates went out.
Even if the heat of the scrambled eggs had not diluted or negated the effects of the mushrooms, Mark had asssured her that the drug would not kick in for three to five minutes. She ladled quickly, hoping he was right, because if some people started dropping or freaking out before everyone had had a chance to eat, they were screwed.
The food was going out, and she could see through the serving window that the diners were consuming it and liking it. That had been another worry, that the mushrooms would throw off the flavor, but Rebekah had promised that the taste was practically undetectable, and she’d been right. In the center of the room, not eating, was Mark. He was sipping slowly from his cup of juice, looking carefully around, making sure everyone else was eating the way they should be.
Joan finished sending out all sixty-six plates in less than a minute and a half, and though the women working in the kitchen usually started eating only after everyone else had finished with their entire meal, Rebekah had enough clout and had built up enough trust with her fellow cooks that she had convinced them to pause and have some eggs as well before sending out the apple slices and cantaloupe that came after.
Mary swallowed a big forkful, then held up her plate. “Aren’t you going to have any?” she asked Joan.
“I’m not hungry,” Joan said. She had never felt so tense in her life, and she kept looking from face to face among the women in the kitchen, searching for some sign that the mushrooms were having an effect. If this didn’t work—
There was a crash from the dining room, the noise of smashing plates and cups. It was accompanied by voices, but they were muttering, not shouting, and as Joan looked with the other women through the serving window, she saw Mark stand up slowly while all about him diners were falling backward, falling forward, or getting up and staggering about.
Next to her, Tamar let out a short, stifled cry, then stood in place, frozen.
Her pulse racing, Joan’s eyes met Rebekah’s across a chopping table.
It had worked.
Twenty-three
As they walked deeper into the Home, Gary was reminded of a hive. Not only were the intersecting corridors mazelike, but the few people they saw were all so focused on their own tasks and duties that they seemed to pay no attention to the fact that the three of them were dressed in street clothes, and that Brian not only had his arm around a Homesteader’s throat but was pressing a knife against his back.
The lack of interest was definitely strange, but Gary was well aware that this could be misleading, that they could be walking into a very carefully planned trap.
He hoped Stacy had called the sheriff.
“You’d better not be leading us to this ‘Father’ character,” Brian warned. “If I see anyone who even looks like ‘Father,’ you’re a dead man. A dead man. Do you hear me?”
The Homesteader nodded and suddenly stopped walking, turning back the way they had come and going down a hallway they had only recently passed on the right.
“Good call,” Reyn said.
“I know how these fucks think.”
Gary, bringing up the rear of their little party, had taken out his own knife and was carrying it at his side. He had never used a weapon against anyone before, had never even been in a real fight, but Brian’s knife was busy, and if they were attacked or threatened by anyone else, someone had to be ready to protect them, to fight back. And he was more than ready to slice his way through a whole army of cultists if it would get him to Joan.
A woman emerged into the hallway from a room that appeared to be filled with piles of white cloth. Her eyes widened as she saw them. “Isaac?”
She tried to approach them, but Brian twisted around so that his knife was visible. “Back off, shut up and Isaac will live.”
The man started jabbering in that weird alien language. The woman answered him in the same way.
“Shut up, both of you!” Brian ordered. He nodded at the woman. “You! Get back in that room! Close the door behind you! If you dare to come out of there, I’ll slit both of your fucking throats!”
The woman complied, sobbing, obviously frightened and obviously believing he was capable of such action. The man was still trying to talk to her as the door closed, and Brian tightened the grip around his neck, cutting off the words and causing the man to let out strangled, choking noises.
“When I say ‘shut up,’ ” Brian said menacingly into his ear, “I mean shut up.” The look he shot Gary over the man’s shoulder had none of the hard strength found in those words, but revealed instead a young man terrified, confused and in way over his head.
That makes two of us, Gary thought. He glanced at Reyn. Three.