The doors to the dining room were wide open, but Gabriel was the first one there. He stood by the door, waiting for someone from the kitchen staff to seat him. When no one came, he chose a chair in the back, so he’d have a good view of everyone entering. He hoped Mickey Minkovsky or Bob Baker would show. Part of him even wanted to see Victor, though he was still worried that Victor might try to stop him.
He laid his napkin on his lap. Sitting there at one of the white-clothed tables actually felt nice, like going out to a restaurant.
A few minutes later, a blond-haired girl from the dining staff emerged from the kitchen. She looked at Gabriel with surprise. “Hey! I’ve never seen you in here before. Are you new?”
Gabriel smiled. “Might as well be.”
“Oh, okay! Well, the meal tonight is just a chicken sandwich. We’re kinda short-staffed. Plus, there’s not that many people eating in the dining room anymore.”
“No? Well, a chicken sandwich is okay. May I have a glass of cranberry juice, please?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back with that.” The frizzy-haired girl returned to the kitchen.
Alexandra Harrison, a tiny white-haired woman clutching a stuffed baby doll named Juanita, was wheeled in by one of the LNAs. She was placed at a table across the room from Gabriel. When the server brought Alexandra a glass of Coke, the elderly woman held the straw up to the doll’s mouth instead of her own.
Bob Baker rolled in with his usual scowl. A pack of cigarettes peeked out from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. He took a seat off in the corner, where his plate of hotdog cubes was quickly put in front of him. Baker looked down at the food then pushed it away. “Noooope,” he grumbled.
Evidently, the cubes had been cut too thin. The blond server sighed, took Bob’s plate, and hurried away to get a replacement. After giving Bob a new set of hotdog cubes, she brought a glass of cranberry juice to Gabriel’s table.
“Why is the dining room so empty?” Gabriel asked.
She shook her head. “It’s the virus, sir. We ain’t got nobody left to feed, now that everyone’s infected. There’s only three of us working in the kitchen.”
“I see. Thank you.”
The girl walked away with the look of someone who wished she hadn’t spoken. After about ten minutes, his meal came, but his table was still empty. The only other resident that had been pushed into the room was panic-eyed Henrietta Wilmington, hardly the most relaxing conversationalist in the world.
“Oh gawd!” Henrietta cried. “Why am I in this hospital? Why am I all strapped down? Who are you people?! Oh my, oh my.”
Henrietta, due to a history of disastrous falls—the evidence of which was a sharp bone that protruded from her knee like a tumor—was considered a fall risk. That meant that her chair was always equipped with an alarmed seatbelt, and a pull-away alarm was clipped onto the back of her shirt at all times.
“Please help me,” Henrietta begged the kitchen aide. “You don’t understand. I’m not supposed to be here. I have to go upstairs. Please, I have to go upstairs!”
The giant dining room had only four people in it, all of them sitting in opposite corners. He had come there to converse with his fellow residents, to get away from his usual isolation, if only for a short time. Instead, looking at these people, he could only confirm what he already knew. They had no relief. They were confused, disoriented, and lonely.
Gabriel finished his meal and left, skipping dessert. When he got back to his room, he phoned Melanie. His call went to voicemail.
Chapter 42:
Breakout
Gabriel packed his photos, notebooks, and the Nobel Prize into his backpack. He tucked an old photo of Melanie holding up her high school diploma into a side pocket. Call Melanie again, before you leave. DO NOT forget. In the other pocket, he added his favorite photo of Yvonne, which showed her standing on the beach in a beam of sunlight, arms raised to the sky. Staring at that photo, he felt a deep desire to tell her that he’d see her soon on the other side. But he knew there was no other side. As soon as he drowned in that ocean, he would simply disappear into the same eternal void that she vanished into years ago. Sentimentality and logic never went well together.
Inside a zipped plastic bag, he placed a washcloth-wrapped glass vial of the antidote. A microscopic drop would be enough to kill a whale, so an entire vial would certainly destroy the maelstrom. Next to that, he added an empty plastic vial. If the vial containing the antidote broke, he’d be able to use the second vial to rescue at least some of it. The plastic wouldn’t contain it for long, though, so he hoped it didn’t come to that. Next, in case he needed any kind of backup or needed to perform an emergency test, he put in a syringe containing the original Schist Vaccine. He rolled up the plastic bag and secured it in the inner pocket of his coat.
Back at his desk, he opened a notebook and popped the cap off a permanent marker. On the first empty page, he wrote a message in giant letters:
SCHIST VACCINE CAUSES BLACK VIRUS. DO NOT GIVE ANYONE THE SCHIST VACCINE! SEE THIS NOTEBOOK FOR ALL DETAILS – G.S.
If things went wrong, maybe someone else could pick up his research and succeed where he had failed. He’d called Melanie over a dozen times throughout the evening and left several messages, but she hadn’t returned his calls. The thought of never talking to her again stabbed deeply into his heart, but it was getting late, and he couldn’t afford to wait much longer.
He dialed her number one more time. Please pick up, Melanie. Gabriel waited for the sound of her voice, the way it always gently lifted when she said, “Hello, Dad.” But after two rings, the voicemail recording played in his ear.
“Hey there. You’ve reached Melanie. Just leave your name and number, and I’ll get back at you soon.”
Beep.
Gabriel realized that he had to deliver his goodbye, the final thing she’d ever hear her father say to her. He had no idea where to begin. All the perfect speeches he’d planned dropped down into his stomach.
He cleared his throat. “Hi, Melanie. I just wanted to call and say that I love you. I’ve been trying to reach you. I wanted to—” He wiped his eyes. “Look, I know this will seem out of nowhere, but I want you to know that you’re not only the most important person in the world to me but also the most wonderful human being—the best carbon-based life-form—that I’ve ever met in my life. I admire you, Melanie. I don’t say that enough. I’m terrible at properly showing affection, and I hate myself for it. But I hope I’ve been an okay father for you because you’ve been the most brilliant, beautiful daughter that a man ever could have asked for. I love you. Just remember that. Have a good night, Melanie. Love you.”
With a shaky hand, Gabriel put down the phone. He slung the backpack over his shoulder, on his good side and took one last look around the room. Seeing nothing he’d forgotten, he crept to the door and peered down the hall. Natty, the obnoxious night-shift LNA, was eating a sandwich and filling out paperwork at the nurses’ station. Harry Brenton, who was pulling another double shift, would be punching out for his break in another minute or so.
Gabriel stepped over to where Bernard was sleeping and gently nudged the trucker’s shoulder. “Goodbye, Bernard. You’re a good guy.”
Bernard stirred but didn’t awaken.
His goodbyes complete, Gabriel pulled the privacy curtain and walked over to the window. Trembling with anticipation, he grasped the pane and pulled upward. When the glass was out of the way, he started to put one hand outside, but his fingers hit mesh.
They’d put the screen back in while he was asleep. Great. That was annoying but not a big setback. Michael had taken it down with his antennas, so Gabriel was sure removing the screen would be no problem. He went back to his desk and grabbed a screwdriver. After unscrewing the sides, he wedged the screwdriver between the screen’s rickety frame and the wooden pane. He gave the screwdriver a strong push, but it didn’t budge. And it beeped. A high-pitched, ear-piercing alarm sounded out in the hallway.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Gabriel yanked on the screen again. It was stuck, bolted on from the outside. He tried to adjust the screen, to somehow shut off the alarm, but too late, he spotted a flashing control panel that required a numerical code. He covered his ears as the alarm’s blistering whine tried to pierce holes into his skull.
Bernard shouted, “Whoa! What’s that?”
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
