Lifers 48

Again, Ella was at one of the windows looking out along Main Street. The view she had looked more or less down the centre of the road. On a clear day, she’d be able to see beyond the end of the street, and into the trees past the police station.

But today the torrential rain obscured almost half its length. With her arms folded, she finger drummed her elbows. The others should have returned hours ago, or at least Zach should have been back by now, with or without them. Things were looking decidedly bad right now, and the only thing she can put it down to, is that interfering private investigator.

She realised she had little or no choice; she’d have to tell Thomas Martins what had transpired over the last few hours. It was something she didn’t want to do. She didn’t want to burden him, especially with something he could do nothing about.

Taking out her cell phone once again, she punched in the number for Dane and Sam. The recorded message for the tenth time simply said, “This number is currently unavailable, please try-” she pressed cancel and put the cell phone back into her dress pocket.

Leaving the window, she made her way down to the steel hatch in the basement. Once there, she paused looking into the dark open shaft of the tunnel, and with a booted foot, she closed it. The wooden hatch slammed, bouncing two or three times and throwing up dust before finally settling. She rammed the two steel bolts into place, grating them through their loops and turned closing and locking the door she’d just come through.

Even though the others were still watching the rain, she wasn’t taking any chances. She wasn’t to let anyone know about Thomas Martins current condition. “Under no circumstances were they to find out.” Those were her orders, and she’d stick to them.

After taking three long breaths, she turned taking two steps toward the steel hatch. Then, pressing a sequence of buttons on a small keypad, she watched an indicator light change from red to green. A dull metallic clunk sounded and the door started to open automatically. It stopped at 90 degrees vertical, and was as tall as she.

Ella looked into the hole where soft amber lights illuminated the steps leading to the inner chamber. He needs to know. He should know. This she told herself a number of times as she descended the stairs. When she reached the bottom she pressed one of two buttons, open and close. The door closed after her and she entered through another door. Before her now, stood a four foot wooden pedestal, she reached out taking a pair of surgical rubber gloves from a steel tray and put them on, just in case.

Another order she carried out.

Underfoot, lay a plush, deep pile, burgundy carpet, and the walls all around her were decorated in soft yellows, and pale violets. She walked through the first part of the chamber passing an antique leather sofa and chairs. To her right was an open fireplace, and the fire long since burned out. Directly in front of her, and at the other side of the room, was a single bed, to the left of that bed, a small table sat beside an old leather gurney, its straps left open ready for its next unsuspecting occupant.

To the right of the bed was a wooden chair and a small set of drawers, and standing next to the drawers was a device for measuring the body’s vital signs. The device was switched on, and running. And lying on the bed attached to it; lay a gravely ill, Thomas Martins.

A half-empty transfusion bag, containing some uncontaminated blood from one of the girls they’d taken recently, intravenously fed him. And although the Leukemia was gradually destroying his body, he was still conscious. However, if Sam and Dane didn’t return soon with the girl, it may be too late, too late for him, and too late for the whole of the Collective.

The old leather gurney was once again due to be called for duty, and everything was ready for Ella to oversee the bone marrow transplant from Marianna, to Martins. A procedure he’d assured her, if such a donor existed, would cure him, and save his entire Collective.

His current chances of survival were grave and rapidly deteriorating. His own immune system, though once an impenetrable barrier, was now no match for the killer disease coursing through his veins.

Ella sat on the wooden chair by the bed and spoke softly to him. ‘Thomas, are you awake?’

Martins looked pale and weak, his hair greyed at the sides and many thin lines began to appear on his face. Although he was born in 1898, he looked no older than his early-fifties. The two injections he’d sustained in 1919 seemed to have served him well. He opened his eyes, his normally dark red pupils were blacked over, and the yellows were now a pale shade of grey.

‘I can’t see you, Ella,’ he said, his voice weak and broken.

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

‘Has there been any word from-’

‘Yes, I spoke to them just an hour ago, they’re returning with the girl as we speak.’

‘And is the sun shining today?’

She looked at the monitor beside the bed, her eyes following its green line as it peaked and troughed. ‘It is,’ she eventually replied. ‘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, knowing he was.

‘No, just uncomfortable, but soon I will be my very old self again,’ he said, managing a smile. ‘Is 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 of 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 though. 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, if after I carry out the transfusion, and when you’re well enough to surface, perhaps that might become a reality?’

‘If the girl is as you say she is, it will be a reality, for all of us.’ 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 by her side, and after mopping away the blood, she tossed it into a small waste bin under the bed. She let go of Martins’ hand and stood. ‘I must leave you now, Thomas. They will be here soon, and I need to ready myself.’

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

Ella removed the surgical gloves putting them in the waste bin also. After taking a last look at Martins, she pushed the gurney further left of the bed, and drew a misted plastic curtain between the two. She then left the room closing the door behind her. When she climbed from the hatch, she entered the same sequence of buttons on the key-pad, and the hatch closed, locking with another dull, metallic clunk.

Looking down at the hatch she’d bolted earlier, she considered reopening it, but somehow she knew the others will not be coming back. It was time to send out a killer, if that investigator was the cause of all this, it’s time he was found and dealt with, for good.

She joined the others upstairs, and after snapping her fingers in the ear of one of them, she spoke. ‘Join me in the basement in five minutes,’ she told him.

The others of the Collective continued looking from the windows, oblivious to the entire goings on around them. The one she’d chosen was named Brett, he was to be armed with a shotgun and sent into the tunnel, to shoot to kill anything that moved, and not to bother bringing back any bodies. Even if they were members of the Collective he’d shot by mistake in the dark. Although, the latter, she doubted very much.