were still relatively pain-free. “He got out,” he whispered. “Concentrate on that. And hold on.”
“We will,” Kalisha said. “Won’t we, Nick?”
“We’ll try,” Nick said, and managed a smile. “Although the idea of a guy as horrible at HORSE as Lukey Ellis bringing the cavalry is pretty farfetched.”
“He may be bad at HORSE but he’s good at chess,” George said. “Don’t count him out.”
One of the red caretakers appeared in the open doors of the screening room. The caretakers in Front Half wore nametags, but down here no one did. Down here the caretakers were interchangeable. There were no techs, either, only the two Back Half doctors and sometimes Dr. Hendricks: Heckle, Jeckle, and Donkey Kong. The Terrible Trio. “Free time is over. If you’re not going to eat, go back to your rooms.”
The old Nicky might have told this over-muscled lowbrow to go fuck himself. The new version just got to his feet, staggering and grabbing a seatback to keep his balance. It broke Kalisha’s heart to see him this way. What had been taken from Nicky was in some ways worse than murder. In many ways.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ll go together. Right, George?”
“Well,” George said, “I was planning to catch a matinee of Jersey Boys this afternoon, but since you insist.”
Here we are, the three fucked-up musketeers, Kalisha thought.
Out in the hall, the drone was much stronger. Yes, she knew Luke was out, Avery had told her, and that was good. The complacent assholes didn’t even know he was gone yet, which was better. But the headaches made hope seem less hopeful. Even when they let up, you were waiting for them to come back, which was its own special brand of hell. And the drone coming from Ward A made hope seem irrelevant, which was awful. She had never felt so lonely, so cornered.
But I have to hold on for as long as I can, she thought. No matter what they do to us with those lights and those goddam movies, I have to hold on. I have to hold on to my mind.
They walked slowly down the hall under the eye of the caretaker, not like children but like invalids. Or old people, whiling away their final weeks in an unpleasant hospice.
9
Led by Dr. Everett Hallas, Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse walked past the closed doors marked Ward A, Stackhouse rolling the trolley. There were no shouts or screams coming from behind those closed doors, but that sense of being in an electrical field was even stronger; it raced over her skin like invisible mouse feet. Stackhouse felt it, too. The hand not busy pushing Maureen Alvorson’s makeshift bier was rubbing his smooth bald dome.
“To me it always feels like cobwebs,” he said. Then, to Heckle, “You don’t feel it?”
“I’m used to it,” he said, and touched the corner of his mouth. “It’s a process of assimilation.” He stopped. “No, that’s not the right word. Acclimation, I think. Or is it acclimatization? Could be either.”
Mrs. Sigsby was struck by a curiosity that was almost whimsical. “Dr. Hallas, when’s your birthday? Do you remember?”
“September ninth. And I know what you’re thinking.” He looked back over his shoulder at the doors with Ward A on them in red, then at Mrs. Sigsby. “I’m fine, howsomever.”
“September ninth,” she said. “That would make you . . . what? A Libra?”
“Aquarius,” Heckle said, giving her a roguish look that seemed to say You do not fool me so easily, my lady. “When the moon is in the seventh house and Mercury aligns with Mars. Cetra-cetra. Duck, Mr. Stackhouse. Low bridge here.”
They passed along a short, dim hallway, descended a flight of stairs with Stackhouse braking the trolley in front and Mrs Sigsby controlling it from behind, and came to another closed door. Heckle used his key card and they entered a circular room that was uncomfortably warm. There was no furniture, but on one wall was a framed sign: REMEMBER THESE WERE HEROES. It was under dirty smeared glass that badly needed a dose of Windex. On the far side of the room, halfway up a rough cement wall, was a steel hatch, as if for an industrial meat locker. To the left of this was a small readout screen, currently blank. To the right was a pair of buttons, one red and one green.
In here, the broken thoughts and fragments of memory that had troubled Mrs. Sigsby ceased, and the fugitive headache which had been hovering at her temples lifted a