Frenzied - A Suspense Thriller Read online

  “The appearance of her skin,” Dr. Bailey said. “Reminds me of Stevens-Johnson syndrome.”

  “The marks on her?” Deacon asked.

  “Yes, the lesions. SJS is a form of toxic epidermal necrolysis. Typically it’s caused by medications, certain antibiotics. I’m doubtful that’s the case here, but it’s something I’ll have to consider.”

  “No stone unturned,” Deacon said.

  “SJS doesn’t have any adverse effect on neurological function,” Dr. Bailey said. “It’s primarily a skin condition. That’s why I have my doubts.”

  “Some kind of rabies, maybe?” Deacon asked. “Jim and I had a run in with a dog this morning, he looked rabid.”

  Dr. Bailey unclipped a pen light from her pocket. Inching closer to the woman, she shone the light in the woman’s eyes.

  The manager hissed like an agitated cat, lips pulled back and displaying her teeth. Dr. Bailey flinched, and Deacon touched the butt of his Glock.

  “Okay, I’ll put it away,” Dr. Bailey said, and flicked off the light. The woman resumed her song.

  “Sensitive, isn’t she?” Deacon said.

  “I need to get a blood sample next.” Dr. Bailey brandished a small syringe. “I don’t think she’s going to like it one bit.”

  “Let me call in Jim. We’ll hold her down if necessary. All in the service of science, right?”

  ***

  Emily was grateful to assist the CDC team. There was so much to do, and they needed as many helping hands as they could find. Working with Dr. Bailey and the others on a crisis situation that affected hundreds, perhaps thousands, of community residents was a worthwhile distraction from her own personal issues.

  She still hadn’t heard from her boyfriend, Zack.

  She still hadn’t told anyone, outside of her best friend, that she was pregnant.

  She had been in touch with her parents, both of them on vacation in Greece, and while they were frantic with concern for her and wanted her to leave South Haven immediately, she hadn’t disclosed her pregnancy. It was her little secret.

  She feared the worst about Zack, considering everything else going on in the community, and she refused to dwell on it too long. She forced herself to stay busy.

  The South Haven clubhouse had been transformed into a CDC command center. The CDC had brought in a lot of equipment from their vans, most of which had been set up in the largest meeting room the clubhouse offered: electronics and medical equipment primarily.

  Under Dr. Bailey’s direction, Emily and the clinic nurse, Jenn, had set up a station at one of the conference room tables and were reaching out via phone to the residents who had come to the clinic earlier that day seeking care. They had compiled a list of nearly fifty such patients, including contact information, and Dr. Bailey had supplied a series of interview questions for them to pose to each resident.

  The interviews weren’t going well. Most people didn’t pick up the phone, presumably because they either didn’t recognize the caller or were incapable of answering. In that case, Emily and Jenn left detailed voice mail messages with requests for a callback. Only a handful of people actually took their calls, and they were mostly incoherent, rambling unintelligibly—suffering from the symptoms Emily and the others had seen in the infected.

  Only one of the residents who answered their call was willing—or able—to speak. She spoke in a whisper, but confided that she had brought her husband to the clinic that morning, due to flu-like symptoms. She said he had begun to behave obsessively, and she pleaded for someone to come there to help. She was afraid to speak too long for worry that her husband would overhear the conversation and “fly into another rage,” as she put it.

  Emily assured the woman they would be in touch soon, and hurried to relay the details of the call to Dr. Bailey. Bailey was coming out of the ballroom with the security guys, Deacon and Jim flanking her, and it looked like she had blood samples in a plastic bag.

  “So we go see them,” Bailey said when Emily had finished recounting the details of the phone call. Bailey pulled her surgical mask down to her chin. “We complete the interview in person. That’s ideal anyway.”

  “That could be dangerous,” Deacon said. “I’d strongly recommend that you not go anywhere out there without armed back-up.”

  “I’m in,” Jim said, eyes shining eagerly.

  “I promised her that someone would come right away,” Emily said. “She sounded really scared, but willing to tell us everything she knows.”

  “Let me get this blood sample over to my team,” Bailey said. “Then let’s head out.”

  Chapter 18

  When Alex awoke, he was caged.

  He wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious. The room had no windows, and the light bulb that had been aglow earlier had been shut off. A weak slice of brightness came from underneath the closed door on the far side of the room; otherwise the chamber was dark.

  He felt for his wristwatch and found it gone. The warm, damp air caressed his skin. He realized that all of his clothes had been removed.

  Wayne had stripped him completely naked. A thin polyester blanket was the only material that separated his bare skin from the cold metal bars of his small prison.

  As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, he strained to see if the others, those sick people, the soldier and Wayne’s daughter, were still imprisoned in their own cages. The other enclosures appeared to be empty. He didn’t hear anyone else breathing or shifting around. He heard only his own pounding heart.

  What had Wayne done with the others?

  What was he planning to do to him?

  A memory surfaced in Alex’s thoughts, like a fragment of a dream . . .

  I need to draw some of your blood, Wayne said, gazing at Alex from outside the bars of the cage. His voice was muffled by the surgical mask pulled over his mouth and nose. Gonna run a biopsy, too. I think you’re healthy, but I need to see how you’re different than the infected folks.

  A spasm of coughing wracked Wayne’s rangy frame, and he brought his hand against his own forehead, on which had appeared trickles of perspiration.

  Shit on a stick, Wayne said. I’ll be damned if I’m not sick, too . . .

  Alex’s memory of the incident faded into blackness. He traced his fingers across his arms. He felt a bandage taped to his inner left forearm, and another on the inner part of his right bicep. The one on his right arm hurt the most; that was where Wayne had taken his biopsy, he realized. The wound on his forearm must have been from the blood sample.

  But there was another dime-sized bandage on the inside of his upper right thigh. It ached slightly. Alex didn’t know what Wayne might have done to him there. Another blood draw? Or something else?

  Wayne was treating him no better than a lab monkey, pricking him with a multitude of needles, and for that disrespect, Alex wanted to punish him. He might have willingly agreed to such tests if Wayne had clearly explained his intent, but to do this without Alex’s consent deserved a hurtful consequence.

  He just had to get out of this box.

  Alex tried to sit up and banged his head against the roof of the cage. Fresh pain traveled through his muscles, which already ached from being contorted in a cramped space.

  Alex grabbed the narrow metal bars and shook them. The kennel rattled, but held firm.

  “Let me out of here!” he yelled, and his voice came out hoarse. He shook the cage again. “Wayne, damn you! Let me out! Wayne!”

  No one came to the door.

  But when he’d shaken his prison, he had heard the faint slosh of water, nearby. His ran his fingers across the bars. He felt the shape of a plastic bottle, attached to the outer wall of the cage. A metal dispenser jutted from the bottom of the bottle.

  Alex tapped the end of it with his fingertip, and felt a trickle of cool water. Wayne had attached a water distribution system to the enclosure.

  Bending and twisting, the movement sending jolts of pain across his back muscles, Alex maneuvered hi
s lips to the dispenser, and licked greedily. Water had never tasted so good. The sweltering heat in the room had dehydrated him.

  When he’d had his fill of the water, he lowered his head, his fingers clutching the cage bars. He was trembling.

  He was furious, partly at Wayne, but mostly at himself, for winding up in this predicament. After eight years of evading the Cartel, here he was in a cage, every bit a prisoner that he would have been if the Cartel leadership had their way with him and had left him to rot in a private prison cell.

  And he was alone.

  No one, including the few acquaintances he’d gained over the past several years since he’d fled to Atlanta, had any idea that he was trapped in this man’s basement. Such things had happened before to people trapped in cellars, in the bellies of homes standing in seemingly ordinary neighborhoods, and no one had ever suspected the cruelties taking place in those dark, hidden places.

  Shouting, he punched the wall of the cage. It had only the effect of sending a spasm of agony across his knuckles.

  He slumped against the rear wall, breathing hard.

  It would be easy to drift back into unconsciousness. Traces of the sedative lingered in his blood. The remnants of the drug, combined with the layers of warm air in the room, had a sleep-inducing effect.

  No.

  He forced himself to sit upright. He shook his head as if clearing away dust.

  “Think, Alex,” he whispered to himself.

  The cage had a door; the door had a lock. He could either pick the lock (unlikely without an appropriate tool) or bypass it somehow.

  He reached for the section of the enclosure that he thought served as the door. He discovered a small hinge.

  A sound reached him: footsteps, in the corridor outside the room. Quick, feather-light, and approaching the door.

  His heart clutched.

  He wasn’t sure whether to celebrate this development, or fear what might happen next. Was it someone who had come to help him, or further abuse him?

  The door creaked open.

  Alex went still. He held his breath.

  The visitor let out a low ripple of giggles.

  It sounded like a woman who’d had one too many drinks.

  Wayne’s daughter, he thought, a wave of coldness trickling along his spine.

  Why had Wayne set her loose? What had happened to Wayne?

  Alex edged away from the door of the cage.

  A shadowed shape entered the room. A slim figure. It was too dark for Alex to discern the details of her appearance, but he remembered what he’d seen of her earlier: thick dark hair, blue eyes, olive-skinned complexion. She might have been an attractive young woman had she not been afflicted by the mystery illness.

  “Come to me pretties . . .” she said, in a hot whisper. She giggled. “Me pretties . . .”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. He doubted that she did, either. Her mind was blasted, her words no more coherent than the babbling of an infant.

  She approached the cage.

  Alex cocked his leg as far as he could. He was prepared to drive his heel into her face if she tried to attack him.

  She sniffed around the edges of the enclosure, like a canine questing for his scent.

  Another giggle. “Me pretties.”

  A jingle of a key. A lock clicked. She opened the door of his cage, the hinges creaking.

  Alex tensed. His muscles tingled in anticipation.

  Giggling, she retreated from the room. Her footsteps receded along the outside corridor; a door opened and slammed.

  He couldn’t believe it. She had set him free.

  Why? he wondered. What was her agenda?

  Nevertheless, he scrambled out of the kennel.

  ***

  Alex found the light switch and flicked it on.

  The room looked as he remembered before Wayne had drugged him. Several large kennels lined the wall, all of them empty. A small wooden table stood against the far wall, the surface covered with medical instruments and vials. A swivel chair was paired with the table.

  All of Alex’s possessions were piled on the chair: clothes, shoes, wristwatch, wallet, cell phone, gun. Nothing was missing; even the cash in his wallet remained.

  According to his watch, it was a ten minutes past five o’clock in the afternoon. He had been confined for several hours. It had felt like days.

  There was also a text message and a voice mail on his cell phone. The text came from an unfamiliar number, but it was some kind of community alert: people were being asked to remain in their homes due to a medical emergency, and more info would be forthcoming. When Alex listened to the voice mail, a young woman was saying essentially the same thing.

  So this really is some kind of widespread problem, Alex thought. Perhaps the right people were finally involved in fixing it.

  After he dressed, he reviewed the assorted items gathered on the desk table.

  There was a syringe, and vials of blood standing in a tray. An empty IV bag, too, the tube trailing from it; it appeared to have been used.

  Alex wasn’t a medical professional and had little knowledge of such things, but he knew that IV bags were used to administer fluids, and if this one had been recently employed, the logical conclusion was that it had been used to give something to him.

  He gritted his teeth, anger tightening his chest.

  He didn’t find any notes, and didn’t see any useful labels on the materials that gave him any indication of what Wayne had been doing. He would have to locate the man and demand answers.

  The Beretta was loaded, and he still had the spare magazine. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he had a right to know what the hell Wayne had done to him.

  Gun in hand, Alex crept out of the room, into the corridor.

  The hallway was dimly lit. To his left, it ended at the door that led to the entertainment area. On his right, there were two more doors, not including the one through which he had just exited.

  He didn’t see any indication of where his surprise rescuer, Wayne’s daughter, had gone.

  He opened the first one. It was a large storage area, the walls lined with wire shelving. All of the shelves were full of provisions: canned goods, paper towels, soaps, batteries, and more.

  He also saw several containers of freeze dried meals, too, sealed in large black plastic tubs with the words, “Emergency Food Supply” printed on the front.

  Wayne was one of those doomsday preparation guys, Alex realized. He could understand having provisions on hand for a few months, but Wayne had enough stocked away in here to sustain himself for years.

  But hadn’t Wayne himself developed symptoms of whatever mystery illness had plagued residents? All of that preparation he’d done might have been for naught.

  Alex backed out of the room. He tried the other door.

  It was locked.

  Shrugging, Alex turned. He stepped along the hallway and opened the door at the far end, to enter the main area of the basement and the rest of the house.

  It was steeped in shadows. The only light filtered from the hallway behind him.

  “Is anyone home?” Alex asked. “Hello!”

  No response. He heard just the hum of a refrigerator, and the soft patter of what sounded like rain.

  The woman had to still be there, somewhere in the house, but considering her damaged state of mind, he couldn’t expect a reply. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to speak to her, either. Although she had set him free for some reason, her behavior was disturbing.

  And what had happened to Clay, the soldier? Was he roaming free again? Muttering about insurgents and shooting people?

  Alex searched the remainder of the basement, and found nothing out of place, and nothing that told him where anyone had gone. He headed upstairs.

  No one was in the kitchen.

  “Hello?” he said, and received no reply.

  He looked out the front window. The world was awash in rain, the sky dark with thunderclouds.

>   He noted that Wayne’s F-150 was no longer parked in the driveway. He checked in the garage. The Toyota Highlander was still stored inside.

  Wayne apparently had gone, but where? Was he out there capturing more people to cage and pump with mystery fluids?

  Alex searched the rest of the house. Even the young woman had left, and she had been there only a short while before. Had she been waiting for Alex to wake so she could free him?

  Nothing made sense to him anymore.

  He walked out of the house via the front door, onto the covered veranda. The pine-floored porch included a couple of Adirondack chairs fashioned from weathered teak.

  Alex settled onto one of the chairs and checked his cell phone, which had recently buzzed. Someone had sent him another text message. It was a local phone number that he didn’t recognize, but the message apparently had been sent to a list of mobile phone numbers.

  govt is here we need 2 stick together

  meet at sanctuary book 7p back door

  tell only those u trust

  we cant let them kill us

  Alex frowned at the message.

  The earlier messages had made it clear that some official agency was involved in handling the wave of illnesses that was sweeping through the community. Was that a bad thing if it meant people were getting treatment?

  Perhaps it depended on what the government was actually doing.

  He understood the meeting location: Sanctuary Book Shop. It was a cozy little bookstore not far from his frozen yogurt franchise on Main Street. He and Melissa had visited many times. The owners were a nice, elderly couple, former teachers from what he recalled.

  We cant let them kill us . . .

  That statement worried him.

  He felt like the title character in “Rip Van Winkle.” He had gone to sleep and awakened into a world he no longer recognized.

  But one thing was clear: he knew where he was going next.

  Chapter 19

  The four of them loaded up in Deacon’s Ford Expedition: Deacon, Jim, Dr. Bailey, and Emily. Deacon hoped for a non-eventful drive to their interviewee’s residence, but upon consulting his marked-up community map, found that that home was located in a region that he hadn’t yet tagged as a danger zone, or a safe area.