Endurance - Jack Kilborn [84]
“Clear,” she said.
They shuffled through the doorway, one by one. Rather than the exit, this was another room. It was large, a few hundred square feet. Concrete walls. Dirt floor, but muddy in parts. In the corner was a hole in the ground, several pipes leading into it. A pump and two water heaters stood next to the hole.
The rest of the room was packed, floor to ceiling, with cardboard boxes. Dozens and dozens of them, many of them crumbling and moldy.
Mal squinted at the nearest box.
DruTech Pharmaceuticals – Contergan.
He touched the cardboard and his finger went right through it, like tissue paper. Powder spilled out. Mal stared at the floor, and saw a great deal of the powder mixing with the dirt. Near the water pump, there was so much powder it had turned the mud a lighter color.
“What’s Distoval?” Kelly said, staring at a box.
“Distoval is another name for Contergan,” Mal said. He’d just read about this very subject when researching the history of Monk Creek. “It was a sedative, developed in the 1950s in Germany. They thought it was a wonder drug. DruTech was the company set to manufacture it in the US. But the FDA didn’t approve it. DruTech lost a fortune, and closed up their factory in town. They were supposed to dispose of their supply. I guess they paid off Eleanor, and it ended up here.”
“Why wasn’t it approved?” Letti asked.
“You probably know it by its other name. Billy Joel even mentioned it in a song.”
“Thalidomide,” Sue whispered.
Mal nodded, which made him slightly dizzy. He knew he was rambling, but it helped him feel grounded. “It caused massive birth defects. Real freaky stuff. Pregnant women taking it gave birth to children with some pretty terrible deformities.” Mal pointed to the well. “And it’s apparently gotten into the Inn’s water supply. The drugs have seeped into the ground. Anyone pregnant drinking from that well will… oh, shit.”
Mal’s addled brain remembered the woman who very obviously was with child.
“Are you saying,” the woman was gently rubbing her belly, “that my baby…”
“We don’t know that,” Letti went over to her. “We don’t know for sure, Sue. We’ll get you to a doctor when we get out of here.”
“But… this is Larry’s baby. It’s supposed to be normal.”
Letti patted Sue’s hair. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, Sue. Let’s focus on getting out of here.”
“I can’t have one of those freaks growing inside me. I can’t.”
Mal had been feeling pretty terrible before, but now he felt like curling up into a ball and dying.
“There’s the door,” Cam said. “Maybe that’s the way out.”
Cam led Kelly, by the hand, to the exit. Letti and JD followed.
“I’m so sorry,” Mal said to Sue.
“They did things to me,” Sue said. “Horrible things. I can’t have my baby be like that.”
“I’m sure it will be okay,” Mal lied.
Sue nodded. She and Mal walked toward the door, and then Sue broke off, heading for the well.
“Wait! Don’t!”
The pregnant woman gave him a sad, backward glance, then jumped into the hole. Two seconds later, there was a splash.
“Help!” Mal shouted. “Help us!”
Letti and Maria hurried over.
“She jumped in. She just jumped in.”
The three of them formed a ring around the well, staring down into the blackness.
“Sue!” Letti called.
Sue didn’t reply. There were no splashing noises. No sounds of struggling.
Just bubbles.
The bubbles of someone letting all the air out of her lungs and sinking.
Aw, Jesus, what have I done?
“It’s not your fault,” Letti said. “She would have found out eventually.”
Mal continued to stare into the well. Jumping in didn’t seem like a bad idea, actually.
“We need you,” Letti said, taking his good arm. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but we need to stick together to get out of here.”
“We can’t,” Mal said. “We can’t get away.”
“Yes we can.”
Mal pulled away. “They’ve been killing people for over forty years. More than five hundred people. No one has ever escaped to tell the