“Ainsworth, calm down. The shipment will arrive within the next several hours. We’ll be fine.”
“What about the other? Grant is gone. Don’t think I don’t know what goes on. How are we going to have the treatment without him? We need fresh meat, Charles.”
“I can assure you, Ainsworth, we will have all the ‘fresh meat’, as you call it, in short order. I have it from reliable sources that Paul Grant and his little filly are on their way back here as we speak. Now, rest while you can. It’s going to be a long night. You’ll need your energy. Don’t worry, Ainsworth, I’ve kept you alive nearly a hundred years since we met. I’m sure another hundred are in your future.”
T
he Executive jet landed at precisely nine P.M. and Phillip Baxter sat waiting in his car next to his private hanger at Burlington Airport. He watched the gleaming white plane taxi to the parking area and come to a stop a short distance away. The cabin door dropped open and a small set of stairs was lowered to the pavement. A tall, slender figure emerged from the plane carrying a blue canvas bag. He hurried across to Baxter’s car.
Baxter lowered his window and exchanged glances with the unnamed man. “I take it everything is in order?”
“Yes, sir.”
Baxter popped the trunk and the man dropped the bag in like a well-practiced drill. He shut the trunk lid and walked back toward the plane. They both knew no other conversation was necessary.
The job was done.
As he drove slowly out of the airport, Baxter felt an immense gravity pulling him. Harbor View and the residents within were his immutable destiny. Heading home excited him and he could feel the tidal pull of the ‘treatment’ in his bloodstream.
Two hours later, Baxter pulled into the drive of Harbor View.
Baxter hesitated, then rubbed his eyes.
Something
was in his headlights. He turned the engine off and stepped out, leaving the lights on.
Dear God, I’ve got to hurry.
Ainsworth Abbott stood facing Phillip Baxter. His hair hung in unhealthy white strands and his face was ravaged with decades of accelerated age. He was stooped over nearly double. Baxter attempted to lead him inside and when he took Abbott’s arm, he heard it snap like a dry twig.
Then in slow motion, Ainsworth Abbott disintegrated before Phillip Baxter’s eyes.
Baxter stepped back in horror and looked down at the ground.
All that remained of Ainsworth Abbott was a robe covered by a pile of gray ashes and a few yellowed teeth.
S
heriff Tucker O’Neil fingered the pack of Marlboro’s in his shirt pocket and blew a ragged breath. He was annoyed at being roused out of his bed at midnight, annoyed that his deputy was over in Atlantic City, and annoyed at himself for letting some outsider convince him to drive over to Harbor View Nursing Home and question its owner, Philip Baxter. The call had come from an airplane, of all places, and if the claims they made weren’t so bizarre, O’Neil would have stayed right in his warm bed snoring away. As it was, he’d received another call earlier in the day from the mother of the missing nurse, the one that had supposedly eloped after her tenure at Harbor View. Not so, said the girl’s mother. She would not have done that. O’Neil had planned on checking it out tomorrow, but now, after the crazy stories of witch doctors and Amazon jungle trips, it was just too much to ignore. It would make a good story to tell his deputy when he came back, if nothing else.
He followed Highway 45 out of town, the ghostly nightscape passing by him from the window of the police cruiser. Here and there, a lonely car crawled along the road, throwing a yellow beam into the great darkness. North of the town limits, all lights ceased; beyond lay the mountains and vast woods of the Vermont-Maine border, uninhabited in many parts.
O’Neil shook his head.
It was one hell of a place to be at night.
A few minutes later, the road widened and O’Neil slowed down. He could see the massive granite facade of Harbor View in front of him, sitting atop a lone hill. He flicked on the high beams, but they only served to intensify the gloominess. He wheeled the cruiser to a stop on a granite driveway that encircled the facility and parked alongside the entrance. O’Neil’s eyes took in the conical turrets and the high crenellated walls. There were no lights on.
Strange.
He felt as if he’d passed through a time warp, back to fourteenth-century Transylvania.
Christ, the place was big!
He slid out of the cruiser and tossed his cigarette butt onto the pavement in front of him. Walking over it with a twist of his toe, he entered the back entrance gate, passing under the huge wrought-iron sign that announced HARBOR VIEW. He gazed around at the deserted courtyard and walked down the stone path toward the building’s back doorway.
O’Neil lifted the massive brass knocker that decorated the iron-banded wooden door. He let it drop twice
. I wonder if a toothless hunchback named Igor will answer the door.
The man who answered the door was neither toothless nor hunchback. He was tall with thinning gray hair and dressed in casual golf clothes. He could have been sixty or eighty, it was hard to tell his age in the dim light of the foyer. He looked haggard, but alert.
“You obviously are the Sheriff,” the man said, giving O’Neil the once-over.
“Yes sir, I’m sorry to bother you. You wouldn’t by any chance be Mr. Baxter, would you?’
“In the flesh,” he said with a bright smile, his hand extended.
Tucker nodded. “May I talk to you for a few minutes, Mr. Baxter?”
“Of course, Sheriff. Let’s go down to my study. I have some fresh coffee there.”
The hallway seemed endless, although it was hardly boring. Paintings and pictures of enormous plants and flowers and jungle scenery decorated the mahogany-paneled walls, the likes of which O’Neil had never seen.
The room they stepped into was a stark contrast to the facility’s oversized halls. It was small and intimate and looked more like a country cottage.
Please sit down,” Baxter said. “Now, how can I help you?”
P
ressing his nose against the window of the Cessna, Paul could see the broad expanse of ocean a thousand feet below. From the moment they’d taken off, with the exception of stopping to refuel on a small island, they’d been over water. Now as they neared the coast, the dark blue ocean became a brilliant turquoise, dotted with coral reefs, shoals, and true continental islands.
Paul was rife with anticipation. He was mapping out his plan in his mind as they neared the Florida coastline. With their quest to uncover the mystery behind Harbor View behind them, he was now ready to confront Baxter and stop him from killing anyone else.
“Paul, I don’t want you to panic, but hold on to your seat. We’re going to drop pretty quickly. The approach to this airfield is very quick and you might feel your stomach drop.”
He nodded. “I’m a veteran now. No problem.”
Paul had no more gotten the words out of his mouth when Jennie banked the plane hard to the right and they dropped a couple hundred feet. Paul felt his gut in his throat and he gulped air to quell his sudden nausea.
“You said, drop
pretty quickly
, Jennie. Not freefall.”
Jennie looked over. “Here we go again.”
The plane took another hard right and suddenly Paul could see the water coming up fast as Jennie lined the plane up with runway. Before he had a chance to say anything, he felt the thud of the landing gear hit the narrow asphalt strip. Jennie slowed the plane and taxied to a stop a few minutes later.
“Whew!” Paul said.
Jennie smiled. “Welcome to Key West. We’ll refuel and then head back to Vermont in an hour or so. I gotta check out the plane, so why don’t you grab us a bite to eat?”
Paul nodded. “Sure, just give me a minute. I have to wait for my stomach to return from my throat.”
“N
ow, what’s this all about, Sheriff O’Neil?”
“Well, a couple of things, actually. First off, you had an employee here last year by the name of Colleen Brady. Ring a bell?”
“Yes, of course. Colleen was one of our best nurses. The agency we use sent her.”
“Yeah, I know all that, but the thing is, I talked to someone here awhile back, after I got a call from a concerned relative. The lady who works for you...” O’Neil consulted his small notebook and looked up. “Here it is, I spoke with Margaret Melvin–“
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Melvin.”
“Well, Mrs. Melvin told me that Ms. Brady eloped with a young man she met here in town.”
“That’s right.”
“Here’s the thing; Cutting, as you know, is a small town and I see everyone who comes and goes here, yet I don’t remember any out-of-towner being here long enough to have a, um, romance at that time. Do you happen to know his name?”
“No. The whole thing was very sudden. One day she was here, the next, her things were gone and so was she. She left a note explaining her departure, though.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I believe I do. If you’ll follow me downstairs to the personnel office, I can look it up.”
“Okay. Lead the way, Doctor.”
“By the way, Sheriff, you did say there were a
couple
of things. Is there another issue I can help you with?”
O’Neil looked at his watch. “How about we talk as we walk.”
As O’Neil plunged deep into the bowels of Harbor View, the air became swamp-like.
“Welcome to the catacombs of Harbor View,” Baxter proclaimed with the tone of a Disney tour guide.
The tunnel entered a small series of rooms that Baxter explained were the various offices used to store patient and employee records. Baxter kept going until they reached a huge chamber whose crimson light cast an eerie glow on a huge pipe organ. The temperature dropped and water glistened on the walls and dripped down on their heads.
“What is this?” O’Neil asked.
“Isn’t it magnificent? It’s been in the family for hundreds of years.”
“Impressive. Does it work?”
“See for yourself.”
O’Neil stepped forward and pushed several keys on the organ. After a slight hesitation, a deranged sounding note bellowed out of the huge pipes hugging the stone wall. It reminded O’Neil of the
Phantom of the Opera
CD he kept in his cruiser. When O’Neil turned around Baxter had a gun pointing in his face.
“You should have stayed in Cutting, Sheriff. I can’t let you cause me all this trouble over one missing nurse.”
“You bastard! You did kill her.”
“Kill is such a cliché term, Sheriff. I like to think that we
reconstituted
her. She is helping a great many people. Isn’t that what nurses are supposed to do?”
“Give me the gun, Baxter. You won’t get away with this. My deputy is on his way here now.”
A grin spread across Baxter’s face. “Good, then he can join the party, too. Now move, straight ahead. And if you have any doubts that I’ll use this weapon, let me show you.”
Baxter pulled the trigger and the shot passed through O’Neil’s left arm. He let out a mighty scream that echoed throughout the chamber, and he was whimpering when he heard the gun cock again.
“Let’s go,” Baxter said, “the next one goes in your head.”
A
t the first hotel they found after landing in Vermont, Jennie and Paul checked in. Knowing it was too late to do anything tonight, Jennie had slipped into a deep slumber by the time Paul crawled into the warm auberge featherbed. She clung to his side throughout the night, her sleep frequently disturbed by feverish murmurings of jungle snakes and cannibal natives.
Paul’s nerves were shot as well. Several times, he loosed himself Jennie’s grip and went to the window. Except for the moths fluttering around the hotel’s lighted sign, all was still. But Paul was far from complacent.
Phillip Baxter had a long reach.
After a fitful night’s sleep, they were awakened by the bright sunlight flooding their room. They dressed and went across the street to a greasy diner for breakfast. Fortified with bacon, eggs and some strong coffee, Paul noticed Jennie had regained her usual sparkle.
“Should we go to the police?” she asked. “I doubt if Cutting’s sheriff is doing anything.”
“Baxter is rich and powerful, “Paul said.
“That doesn’t mean he’s above the law. Having met the Sheriff, I doubt he’d be swayed by money or position”
Paul nodded. “I agree, but what part of our story do you think they’d believe?
Cannibals in the Amazon
or
The Picture of Dorian Gray?”
Jennie frowned “I see what you mean. So what do we do?”
“Go back to Baxter’s lair. They tried, and damn near succeeded, in killing us. They
did
kill Findley. I don’t see any other options. We have to resolve this ourselves”
* * *
Paul and Jennie parked a half-mile away and walked through the woods until the ominous architecture of Harbor View was in sight.
“Maybe we should split up,” Jennie said.
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I’ll go to the front and try and get in, and I’ll meet you at the staff entrance. Hope my passkey still works. And, Jennie?”
“Yes, Paul?”
“Look, if this goes south, you run, as fast and as far as you can, ‘til you are safe.”
“We’re in this together, Paul.” Jennie stood on her tiptoes and kissed Paul. “See you soon, be careful.”
Jennie jogged away and soon found herself in unfamiliar territory. Despite the fact she’d just spent the last two days in the jungle, the forest she was in now seemed even more sinister.
The path divided. The main trail appeared to go off to the right toward a sharp descent. A much narrower path went uphill to the left, but it looked less used.
She was not sure what to do, whether to go forward or to retrace her steps and try to find another way. Neither of the two trails looked very inviting. She followed the main path and it took a sudden sharp descent, then turned into a muddy track. Jennie saw footprints and decided to follow them, cautiously, knowing how slippery the path might be. Yet after only a few steps, her feet shot out from beneath her. She slid helplessly in the mud, slamming against rocks, knocking the wind from her lungs.