Boone Read online

  She kept her hands over his ears. She kissed his forehead again. “You don’t hear anything now, okay?”

  He frowned, his eyebrows coming together. It made her smile. He’d never had anyone smile at him like that before. It was pure and genuine.

  When she put her hands over his ears, he heard nothing at all. He did not know how that was possible. But it was.

  There was only silence.

  “Silence,” he said, and smiled. It made her laugh. “Peace.”

  She smiled again. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Boone.”

  He closed his eyes. “Isabelle,” he said, “the Silence Maker.”

  ~

  “Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?”

  Leslie McGovern had been on his way out. It was getting later than he thought, close to 5pm already on Sunday, and this damn storm was holding him back in the worst possible way. Every time he got ready to leave, something came up to drag him back again.

  Sam told him if he wanted to keep his job, he’d better just buckle in and get comfortable. Many had evacuated the town, and Sam wasn’t too keen on people being on the road, especially in the lower regions of the valley. The Miramac was raging, and the best thing to do was to sit tight and wait for the storm to pass.

  But Leslie wasn’t concerned with any of that. He wanted to get the hell out, and he wanted to go now. He had a little dish waiting for him at the Super 8 Motel off the Junction 21 Turnpike, just south of Decatur Street. If that little harlot could follow directions, she’d be in room 216 right now with her soft little negligee on, ready and waiting, purring like a motor-driven Jaguar with a can of whipped cream in one hand, and a piece of cheesecake in the other. The thought made his heart rev.

  If he was careful, he could get home in time for the roasted chicken dinner his wife was making, too, one of his favorites. If that wasn’t the perfect way to spend the evening: sexual escapades, full belly, and a stiff drink in his hand, then he didn’t want to know about a better one. But this damn place was having one breakdown after another, and Les felt like he was about to blow a gasket!

  It was the activities room on the first floor, where they painted and did other arts and crafts. Some of those pieces of art (if you could call them that) were hanging in the main hallway. Leslie thought they were ghastly looking things. Most of them looked like the dinner he’d thrown up a week ago when his wife had served him that spoiled beef. It had taken him three days to get over that.

  “Sir, we’ve been trying to calm the residents, but I think the storm has them pretty upset,” Colette Draper said.

  She wasn’t the prettiest nurse in the hospital, but by golly, she had a gi-normous rack. He’d wanted to see them naked since the day he’d hired her, which was only several months ago, but holy roses! They were a sight! He could see them winking at him, begging him to come back to his office. He’d been having a little fantasy about suffocating under them for some time now. That might be worth another delay. He’d almost gotten her to sit on his lap once, too (something Nancy had been more than willing to do), until that damn Weasel Tarkington had knocked on the door. He should try Nancy again. He had a feeling Weasel had a thing for her, and that would just stick in poor Weez’s craw in the worst way, wouldn’t it?

  “Can’t you sedate them or something? I’ve never heard whimpers so loud in my life. A few are actually screaming. What the hell do I pay you people for?”

  His jowls were turning red. He grabbed his class ring and started twirling it. Thunder boomed right over the hospital, and he jumped. He felt it in his bones.

  Several patients erupted in wails from down the hall. One lady was sitting in a wheelchair and crying to herself.

  “Good God Almighty,” he said. “Get that under control. What the hell is the matter with everybody?”

  Colette looked like she was about to cry, or punch him in the face. She turned to Henry Pasternak, one of the residents in a wheelchair beside her, and put her arm around his shoulders. Desmond was trying to console a woman by the window. A younger man ran from window to window, eyes alight, enjoying every minute of the storm.

  “Did you see that one?” he said. “Man, that flash lit up the entire sky! Whew-eee!”

  “Would you sit down, Doogie,” Desmond told him. “You’re upsetting the patients.”

  Colette gave McGovern a hateful glare, the heat of which he could feel rolling off of her in waves. So much for getting his life choked out of him by those gi-normous boobies.

  Another crack of thunder sounded, making the walls and floors shake, and that’s when the lights went out.

  ~

  The lamp flickered beside his bed, the lights in the ceiling. The sound of screaming erupted from down the hall. Boone put his hands over his ears.

  Do whatever you have to do, Boone.

  The lightning flashed, thunder booming. There was a clock on the wall. It was after 6pm and getting darker. Out the window, night was coming on, and the lightning flashes brightened the world like day. The rain continued to pour, a noisome, heavy, ceaseless downpour.

  The lights flickered, then went out completely. He heard the lock in the door click. He’d seen the main control panel at the nurses’ station and how it controlled all the rooms. It was like being in prison. But in case of a power outage, the doors would unlock automatically. He knew that.

  When Boone heard the knob click, he got up and went to the door, putting his hand around the knob.

  It turned easily.

  ~

  But just as quickly, the power came back on. The door clicked, locking in place before he could open it. The emergency generator must’ve kicked in, locking the door when the power came back on.

  “Whatcha gonna do now, Booner?” said a voice beside him. It sounded like his father again. He didn’t think anything about it, but Boone could wait a while longer.

  He put his fingers around the knob and did something he’d never done before.

  He prayed.

  Chapter 3

  What he should have done, what he was cursing himself for, was the damn generator. He’d gotten so caught up with finding buckets, trying to locate the leaks, being in awe of the storm, easing the patients’ minds, and flirting with Nancy, that he’d completely forgotten the generator. It should have been his first priority.

  Of course, Weasel believed it was fine. It was natural to check it, make sure it was working all right, then make sure the rest of the hospital was okay. But what he was kicking himself for was that he should’ve checked it yesterday. Usually, they didn’t need it (in fact, he couldn’t remember a time they’d used it at all), so it was an easy thing to forget.

  Or so he told himself.

  Part of his forgetting had been Nancy. He loved working with her, turned downright giddy when he realized she’d been flirting with him. By all intents and purposes, she was making his day as cheery and bright as any day he’d ever had. Even the rain couldn’t tarnish that. He knew she’d gotten divorced a year or so ago. He suspected Leslie McGovern had tried to initiate something with her as well. He saw the way he looked at her, and something had happened tonight he couldn’t get out of his mind. When the power had gone out, Gov had gone for the grope.

  The cries were carrying through the hospital. Weasel could feel the tension in the air like warm syrup.

  But he couldn’t get the image out of his head, when the lights had come back on and Les and Weasel’s eyes locked. The sonofabitch had his hand right there on her thigh. Nancy looked and saw Weasel looking, and he knew in that moment that something had happened between them, probably in the not-too-distant past. It squirmed in his gut like the ink of a squid. No one else had noticed. But the guilty shame flowering across McGovern’s basset hound jowls had been proof enough.

  Their eyes stayed that way for several seconds before Weasel turned and walked away.

  McGovern tried to retain his dignity by collecting himself and straightening his tie. He turned his nose up
to the ceiling, then put some distance between he and Nancy, who was trying to console one of the residents. When Weasel turned back, he was pleased to see her giving Les the dirtiest look she could muster, and damned if the sonofabitch didn’t just stand there twirling his class ring.

  Weasel decided enough was enough and went outside to check on the generator.

  ~

  Leslie had had enough. It was time to go. If that good for nothing Weasel hadn’t seen the whole situation, he would’ve fired Nancy on the spot. He probably should have known better. He admitted that. But he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her when she was around. The uniform she wore hugged her ample hips and bosom, making it all but impossible to ignore. Leslie didn’t care what anyone said. A real woman had curves and Nancy was stacked like a three layer Oreo cheesecake with cherries on the top. Toothpicks didn’t turn him on, and though she wasn’t immaculate in the facial department, the body, most definitely, was in prime condition.

  He’d forgotten his briefcase. All the yelling and screaming distracted him. The storm had some of the patients upset.

  He’d tucked the number of the hotel in the briefcase, so he’d had to go back upstairs to the third floor. He liked the briefcase. He liked carrying it; it made him feel important, and it was a good excuse to get away from the first floor, especially after what had just happened with Nancy.

  But it was the Super 8 Motel he was thinking of. The Super 8 Motel and Little Miss Lingerie, waiting on a queen-sized bed with pouty lips and whipped cream on her fingers.

  ~

  Weasel couldn’t remember a rainstorm being so violent, and that was the perfect word for it. The raindrops didn’t feel like raindrops but balls of water descending from the sky. He might as well be standing under a waterfall. The relentless pounding actually hurt his head.

  He was soaked through every layer of clothing already. The ground was submerged in several inches of water. He could see his breath. It was technically still winter, even if spring was only a few days away, but it was damn chilly out here . . . and dark.

  Running to the generator—which was about twenty yards ahead—Weasel slipped and fell face first in the water, making a big, muddy splash. He sucked water up his nose and gasped. Then he started to cough. He spat it out, sitting up on all fours, his entire front soaking slick with dirt and mud.

  “Christ, Jesus!” he exclaimed, trying to wipe off as much as he could.

  He hurried the rest of the way to the generator and checked the chord plugged into the transom switch. It was just sitting here on standby waiting for the power to go out again. The fuel was . . . Jesus. It was low. He hadn’t bothered to fill it since . . . he couldn’t even remember.

  He looked at the cables and attachments. Everything seemed okay. But he was going to have to get some fuel from the shed.

  He jiggled a couple of wires, making sure they were snug.

  In the next second, he was plunged in darkness. The lights in the hospital went out.

  Screams sounded from within.

  Weasel looked around. Had he caused the power outage by jiggling the wires? That wasn’t the way a generator worked, but what else could it have been?

  But he had bigger problem now. The lights were off. The power was out, and the generator just sat there. It wasn’t kicking in at all. It wasn’t turning on.

  It was dead.

  More screams sounded from inside the hospital.

  He tugged at the wires again. They felt secure. Connected. Nothing had come loose.

  He didn’t have a flashlight, but he needed one now. The only flashlights he knew of were back in the janitor closet.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  He had to go back inside, get a flashlight, then get some gas from the shed . . . then he had to get back to the generator to see if he could fix it.

  But maybe it was the water. The water had gotten into the fuel line somehow. It was too dark to tell, but that had to be it.

  He felt around some more. The wires were connected, but he still needed the flashlight.

  “This is helluva mess,” he said, unable to believe it.

  ~

  For the second time, Boone watched the lights go out. The lock on the knob clicked a second time. He hadn’t moved in all the time he’d been waiting, as if knowing it was about to happen again.

  He put his hand on the knob, turned it, and opened the door.

  Boone stepped out into the hallway.

  ~

  “Gov, you gotta the missus something special. Maybe a hairdryer or some new perfume or something. Nothing says I love you like blowing some hot air, and I mean real hot insufferable hot air balloon air. You dig?”

  He dug. And nothing quite justified oneself like living in denial. He dug it about as much as you could dig anything, and that was good because a man needed a reminder. He needed a good reminder, one that would help him along the way to making up for lost time. The sad thing was he didn’t think he had time to make it to the Super 8 Motel. He would have to ix-nay on the ixen-vay. It broke his heart, and no doubt, she was waiting for him to call, sitting by the phone with her little can of whipped cream. Either that or she’d gone out and found a stud to put between two slices of what was supposed to be his lovemaking sandwich.

  Hurrying up the stairs, taking them two at a time even in the dark, Les tripped and slammed his knee into the steps. A sharp, lancing pain exploded outward, flowering across his kneecap.

  “Owww! Goddamn sonofabitchin-good-for-nothing—”

  He was breathing heavily, not realizing how out of shape he was. He looked up, and though it was dark, he could just make out a shape moving along the hallway in front of his office. He didn’t think much about it because he was thinking about Weasel Tarkington, how all that no-good-sonofabitch had to do was take care of a few things, and instead, had plunged the whole damn hospital into a black abyss. Now, all he could hear, besides his own labored breathing, was the steady drip-drip-drip of the water leaking down the hall and into the buckets, along with the hysterical patients on the floors below. There were doctors and nurses providing sedatives, that was true, and it was helping, but it was pretty damn chaotic, to say the least.

  He got up, holding onto his right knee, hobbling up the staircase to his office. He could barely see a damn thing. How come he didn’t have a flashlight, and what the hell was Weasel doing? Worthless redneck was probably out in the tool shed playing with himself.

  When he made it to his office, a flash of lightning lit the window. The rain was beating hard against the glass. He saw his briefcase on the desk and something else he’d forgotten. His keys. Damned if he wouldn’t have forgotten those, too. He remembered now . . . he’d pulled his keys out because Weasel needed them for the basement to see if the water was coming in. Leslie had completely forgotten. It was a good thing, too, because he would have gotten all the way to the car and realized he’d forgotten his keys.

  He just wanted to get out of here! He thought he could sneak away all right if he was careful. Sam wouldn’t like it, but this was urgent. The doctors and the staff wouldn’t like it, either, but he’d make up some excuse.

  He’d tried to call his wife earlier, but the phone lines were down. He’d noticed several orderlies and nurses trying to use their cellphones, and apparently, the storm was affecting the signals. They weren’t getting anything. His wife had been hounding him to get a cellphone for a while, if for no other reason than to keep tabs on him, he supposed. She suspected his infidelities but tolerated them because he paid the bills. She was a sport, but he should still get her a hairdryer.

  Leslie grabbed his keys, put them in his pocket, then grabbed his briefcase. He turned and made his way out of the office when he hit something so hard, he fell back onto the floor. Had he misjudged the wall because of the darkness? The door, perhaps?

  But it wasn’t a wall. It was a person. Someone was standing in his office, a giant hulking shape, the same one he’d seen moving along the hallway a minute ago
.

  “Who—” Leslie began, and got to his feet.

  But the shape just stood there. It didn’t move. Leslie couldn’t even hear it breathing.

  “Hello? Can I help you?”

  The man didn’t reply.

  “Hello? Can you speak? I’m trying to get out of here. Now, if you would kindly move out of the—”

  He tried to move to the left, but the man blocked the door.

  “Now, look you. I don’t want any trouble. I’m the director here, and if you would be so kind . . . ”

  Leslie frowned and started forward. The man reached out and put his hand on his chest. Leslie couldn’t believe it.

  “Now, look you, I’m in no mood for games. Are you gonna let me out or aren’t you?”

  No reply. The man didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  The first inklings of fear began to move up Leslie’s back. It was a feeling he hadn’t had in a long time. And why should he? His job was secure. His wife was home making a roasted chicken with potatoes, and there was a damsel writing his name in whipped cream across her golden bosom in room 216 of the Super 8 Motel.

  But this was different. He was in a psychiatric hospital. Most of the patients weren’t rational or sound. Some, he had to admit, actually frightened him. The man standing in front of him was a prime example. The reality of his situation and his predicament began to settle in. This was dangerous. He knew that. This was not a staff member but a patient, and by the looks of it, an unstable—or at least—unreasonable one.

  Some of the rooms stayed locked because the patients were a threat, but if the power went out, those doors unlocked, leaving the patients free to save themselves in case of a fire . . .

  Or a power outage.

  Leslie’s fear grew. It moved from the back of his neck, down his spine, and into the crack of his buttocks . . . a warm bead of sweat in a very cold room. He started to breathe heavily. His instincts were correct. He didn’t know who this person was, but he knew he was dangerous.