Chapter 15 Sullen
Sullen
“We need a hospital.” Karia’s voice is hushed beside me as the train whirs along the tracks, headed northeast, toward Haunt Muren.
But she decided we won’t immediately go there.
We’ll get off halfway, a stop in Dearly, North Carolina she found on the map, sleep through the day at a hotel I’m not sure they’ll have, then start again.
My eyes are heavy, the wound in my stomach, too, and I will do whatever she wants and I am not so sure it’s because I’m dizzy and exhausted and starving and feverish.
A chill tiptoes down my arms, beneath the sleeves of my hoodie. I bite down on my bottom lip to stop my teeth from chattering as I attempt to get comfortable in the stiff seat lined with worn, silver cushions and a trim of metal.
“He ran through the woods, we walked into town to find a ride to the station, and he was stabbed.” She lowers her voice and leans forward, as if she can shock Sanford Rule into listening, his own tired frame occupying one of the two seats facing us in the cluster of four.
“Please, tell everyone,” Sanford says drolly, but as I tear my gaze from Karia, still wearing my shirt—this will never not fascinate me—I know he’s only trying to needle her. It was eleven when we boarded in the darkness. While others got on the train, too, they aren’t in this car that I can see.
It’s Tuesday night, and even Alexandria sleeps sometimes.
A wave of sweat seems to crash down around my neck and I close my eyes tight, locking up my limbs so I don’t start to shake and draw more attention to myself. I don’t want to go to a hospital. In fact, for us, it should be entirely out of the question.
But Karia Ven is so very stubborn, if she notices I am getting worse, she will drag me there herself.
I hear the train’s wheels along the track, feel the slight shift in my body’s center of gravity as we curve along the railroad and even that small motion causes a wave of sickness and ice and pain to swell along my belly.
Maybe I should go to a hospital.
I let my head rest against the seatback and refuse to allow any expression to cross my face as presumably, Karia and Sanford continue staring off. I don’t know who will win that stalemate, but I have to fight against the urge to smile when I imagine it to be Karia.
The old man lived under a hotel, allegedly, for decades.
Karia would have long ago crawled her way out. To get to me. That’s the part I shut down and refuse to allow to enter my brain. It’s a fantasy, but it is a miracle she has come this far. She won’t continue to be by my side for long.
At last, though, as the train slows for the next stop—not yet ours—Sanford sighs.
Then he says, “Dearly used to have a twenty-four seven urgent care. Decades ago, but maybe it’s still there.”
“That’s… impressive,” Karia says carefully, and I wonder if she is as surprised as I am that I have not yet protested out loud to seeking medical help.
“Well someone has to handle all the corpses in that town.”
A lapse of silence fills our train car after my grandfather’s reply.
Then Karia says, “What?”
He sighs. “I never liked it. Only ever went there for business.”
“You never liked it? You, who owned a serial killer horror hotel?”
I want to laugh at her tone, but it would hurt too much to do so.
Sanford sighs. “Please keep your voice down.”
But Karia doesn’t. “There is blood on a knife in my bag that got thrown at us in a creepy forest behind this serial killer horror hotel by a person wearing a plague mask, my entire body is sore from throwing myself against a locked dungeon door, and now you’re telling me our destination of rest tonight scares you? ”
I frown at the part about her soreness. It physically hurt, hearing her throw herself against the wall that separated us down in the basement.
But Sanford only blows out a breath and mutters quietly, “I didn’t say it scared me.”
I can practically hear Karia rolling her eyes beside me. But after a moment, she decides to ignore Sanford and asks, her voice low, “Who was wearing the mask, Sullen?”