matches, and Teddy was staring at the name as the flame winnowed its way down the wood toward his fingers:
Andrew Laeddis.
As the match grew hotter, he looked over at Chuck, sleeping two cots over, and he hoped his creer wouldn't suffer. It shouldn't. Teddy would take all the blame. Chuck should be fine. He had that aura about him in general - no matter what happened, Chuck would emerge unscathed.
He looked back at the page, got one last glimpse before the match blew itself out.
Going to find you today, Andrew. If I don't owe Dolores my life, I owe her that much, at least.
Going to find you.
Going to kill you dead.
Chapter 14
DAY THRE
Patient
Sixty Seyen.
THE TWO HOMES outside the wall - the warden's and Cawley?s took direct hits. Half of Cawley's roof was gone, the tile flung all over the hospital grounds like a lesson in humility. A tree had gone through the warden's living room window, through the plywood nailed there for protection, roots and all in the middle of his house. The compound was strewn with shells and tree branches and an inch and a half of water. Cawley's tile, a few dead rats, scores of soggy apples, all of it gritty with sand. The foundation of the hospital looked like someone had taken a jackhammer to it, and Ward A had lost four windows and several sections of flashing were curled back like pompadours on the roof. Two of the staff cottages had been turned into sticks, and a few others lay on their sides. The nurse and orderly dormitories had lost several windows and suffered some water damage between them. Ward B had been spared, not a mark on it. All up and down the island, Teddy could see trees with their tops snapped off, the naked wood pointing up like spears.
The air was dead again, thick and sullen. The rain fell in a tired, steady drizzle. Dead fish covered the shore. When they'd first come out into the morning, a single flounder lay flapping and puffing in the breezeway, one sad, swollen eye looking back toward the sea. Teddy and Chuck watched McPherson and a guard rock a jeep off its side. When they turned the ignition, it started on the fifth try, and they roared back out through the gates and Teddy saw them a minute later, racing up the incline behind the hospital toward Ward C. Cawley walked into the compound, paused to pick up a piece of his roof and stare at it before dropping it back to the watery ground. His gaze swept past Teddy and Chuck twice before he recognized them in their white orderly clothing and their black slickers and black ranger's hats. He gave them an ironic smile and seemed about to approach them when a doctor with a stethoscope around his neck jogged out of the hospital and ran up to him.
"Number two's gone. We £an't get it back up. We've got those two criticals. They'll die, John."
"Where's Harry?"
"Harry's working on it, but he can't get a charge. What good's a backup if it doesn't back anything up?"
"All right. Let's get in there."
They strode off into the hospital, and Teddy said, "Their backup generator failed?"
Chuck said, "These things will happen in a hurricane apparently."
"You see any lights?"
Chuck looked around at the windows. "Nope."
"You think the whole electrical system is fried?"
Chuck said, "Good possibility."
"That would mean fences."
Chuck picked up an apple as it floated onto his foot. He went into
a windup and kicked his leg and fired it into the wall. "Stee-rike one!"
He turned to Teddy. "That would mean fences, yes."
"Probably all electronic security. Gates. Doors."
Chuck said, "Oh, dear God, help us." He picked up another apple, tossed it above his head, and caught it behind his back. "You want to go into that fort, don't you?"
Teddy tilted his face into the soft rain. "Perfect day for it." The warden made an appearance, driving into the compound with three guards in a jeep, the water churning out from the tires. The warden noticed Chuck and Teddy standing idly in the yard, and it seemed to annoy him. He was taking them for orderlies, Teddy realized, just as Cawley had, and it pissed him off that they didn't have rakes or water pumps in their hands. He drove past, though, his head snapping forward, on to more important things. Teddy realized he had yet to hear the man's voice, and he wondered if it was as