A Cure for the Ages

“We’re running out of time,” Sam whispered, staring intently over the ledge at the dimly lit barn in front of her. The sagging roof and decades-old charred wood stood creepily against the starry night sky. In several places the barn wore bullet holes, broken planks, and corners weathered away by termites. “I’m going in.” She stood up, preparing to climb the rocks, when Duncan grabbed her elbow.

“I don’t think so,” her partner replied sternly. “Certainly not alone. Who knows what could be waiting inside? I say we give them…” he looked down at his watch, finishing with, “six more minutes…plus, this place gives me the creeps.” As if on queue, the street sign reading ‘Quincy Rd.’ creaked and swayed in the wind. He shuddered.

“Im not waiting anymore. They’re already eight minutes behind schedule. If Chief can’t get his men to do their job, then hell, I’ll do it for them.” And with that, Sam stormed over the ledge and crept across the silent street, pressing her back to the front wall when she reached the barn.

“I guess we ARE going in,” Duncan sighed, rolling his eyes and standing up. He looked both ways down the street, then again at Sam, and followed her path to the barn. He softened his steps as he neared the door and turned swiftly to position opposite Sam against the barn. The two made eye contact and each pulled out the 38 caliber pistol in his waist holster, already cocked and loaded.

“On three,” Sam mouthed, “one, two…three.” Both partners spun towards the doors and kicked them inwards, holding their handguns firmly and pointing them straight out in front. They began to search the empty barn, never letting their weapons fall. Light beams from their barrel sights hit blank wall after blank wall.

“Nothing.” Sam sighed and lowered her Glock. “They’ve already come and gone.”

“Damnit.” Duncan inserted his pistol back into the holster, taking one last look around the old structure. Nothing but loose hey strewn about in a thin layer on the floor. He kicked around, searching for a trap door or hidden space, but he came up empty-handed. Even the upper tier of the barn was unreachable, the beams and loft having been knocked down or crumbled away from years of abandonment.

“Let’s go.” Sam’s high, ginger ponytail bounced and swayed as she stomped out of the abandoned building; Duncan followed.

Headlights softly spread along the road as two police cars drifted through the trees and up the hill. As they neared the spot where Sam stood, they slowed to a crawl and the leader rolled down the driver side window, revealing a familiar face.

“Reeves, Murphy,” Officer Hale nodded at each partner. “Well, well, well…” his demeanor changed from that of business to a mocking haughtiness. “What did we find?” He smirked and looked right at Sam, knowing full and well the pair had been unsuccessful.

“At least we showed up,” Sam retorted, the remark saturated with sarcasm, and flipped the bird at Hale. He scoffed and sped off, the second car close behind.

“Wow Sam, ‘lotta class you’ve got.” Duncan brushed by her and walked across the street.

“Really Duncan?” Sam chased after him. He rolled his eyes at her as the walked. They dumped their gear and vests in the bed of Duncan’s old pick-up.

“Get in the damn car, Reeves,” Duncan slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Sam huffed and hopped in the passenger side, slamming the door behind her. The truck ride was silent except police radio static and the soft tunes of an FM country station circling gently in the old truck.

. . . . .

Duncan pulled in slowly to the parking lot of Rhodes County Hospital, finding a parking spot near the front entrance. The place was emptying out, being that it was nearly eleven o’clock on a Wednesday night. Those with night shifts were settled in already, the day crew long gone; no ambulances had entered or left in hours. The half hour drive from the mission location proved beneficial for the pair; Sam was gifted with a refreshing rest, and Duncan with thirty minutes of peace. They stepped out of the car and met behind the truck, then walked side by side into the sliding doors of the hospital. As they neared the front desk, Duncan gave Sam’s hand a swift and firm but gentle squeeze, hoping she would understand. He knew that she did when she quickly looked back up at him, her eyes full of thanks but shiny with the beginnings of tears.

They reached the desk where a small woman with a mountain of curly, dark hair on her head greeted them softly. “How may I help you two?”

“Room 907 please.”

“Now ma’am, I can’t let you in there, that is a classified—”

Sam and Duncan flashed their badges before she could finish. She nodded in realization, pushing a button on her desk and giving them the go ahead. The doors to the first floor rooms swung wide open, and Sam and Duncan walked briskly through, finding an elevator immediately. The noiseless elevator took them to the ninth floor in just a few seconds, though to Sam it felt like an eternity. She rushed through the empty hallway with Duncan on her heels, coming to a brisk stop before the policemen who guarded room 907. They were quickly and lightly searched, their badges examined, cell phones taken. Both then stepped through long rubber flaps hanging from the top of the door frame that served as a door to the room.

Room 907 smelled like bleach and Germ-X had had a baby. The scent of over sterilization stung Sam’s nose as she pulled a chair up to the side of the hospital bed. Duncan crouched beside her. The young, innocent face of her sleeping niece lay crooked on the pillow in front of her. At least Sam wished she was just sleeping. Having been stuck in a coma for four months, Lindsay had been pronounced dead to the general public. With Sam's police badge and being Lindsay's legal guardian, Doctor Mund had agreed to grant Sam one more month of research and tests before they would pull the plug. It was day 28 of 31 of that month; the doctors had nothing, not even the faintest idea of what was wrong with Lindsay. 

“Sam, I’ll be fine,” Lindsay laughed. “I mean AUNT Sam. It’s just one night; Dad used to let me all the time. Pleeeeeaaase?” Sam sighed, scruffling Lindsay’s frizzy blonde hair. “Fine,” she replied, “But just one night, and I’m coming to get you at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Sharp. My shift starts at ten. And no soda!” She yelled after her twelve-year-old niece as she celebrated and ran out the door to the house across the street.

The sleepover. Sam’s biggest mistake. She began to feel a few small tears spill over her bottom lid. She wiped them away quickly.

Sirens wailed and police lights flashed. Sam peered out her kitchen window to find the lights and sounds coming from the Peters’. Lindsay. She hustled out the front door, not bothering to stop for shoes or close the door, screaming Lindsay’s name. A stretcher on the sidewalk held her niece, lying unconscious and being carried out by two paramedics. Sam chased after them, pushing past the first medic to get to Lindsay. “Lindsay?! Honey, can you hear me?” Sam pleaded, cupping Lindsay’s face as she moved with the stretcher. “Ma’am, please step away.” An officer stepped in front of Sam, blocking her way to Lindsay. Sam watched helplessly as they loaded Lindsay into the ambulance. 

“Sam?” Duncan shook her from her thoughts. She faced him as he searched her face, concerned. “I’ll give you a minute,” he finally whispered. He stepped out, and Sam looked back at Lindsay. The tears ran; there was no stopping them.

“Hey Peanut,” she spoke softly, smiling and stroking Lindsay’s wavy locks. “I don’t really know what to say…I miss you kid. Every day I think it’s going to be the day. The day that you wake up…the day you come home.” Sam continued crying. “I promise, kiddo, I’m doing what I can. I’m gonna catch those bast—guys.” She chuckled. “Remember when I signed your adoption papers? I could barely hold the pen — much less sign my name — ‘cause my hands were shaking so hard…” she trailed off, climbing into the hospital bed to lay next to Lindsay. If only she knew how to wake her up. Wouldn’t that be nice?

. . . . .

“Sam. Sam? Wake up. Sam!” Sam awoke to Duncan’s face inches from hers, and his hands violently shaking her shoulders. It was still dark outside, so she couldn’t have been asleep for long.

“What’s going on?” She rubbed her eyes drowsily.

“They’ve got an update on the flower!” Duncan whisper-yelled in response. Sam shot up, now fully awake.

“Well, what did they say?!”

“We’ve got to get to the station. Lincoln and Delilah have files to show us.”

The two sprinted through the hospital and out to the truck, Sam grabbing her gear from the bed and clambering to get it on as they rode.

Ring. Ring. Ri— “Hello?”

“Yeah, hey Lincoln, it’s Sam. Sam Reeves. Can you meet me at the lab in ten? I’ve got something I need you to test for me. You’ll want to see it.”

“Ok, sure thing Sam. Let me grab my files and I’ll head down.”

“Thanks Lincoln, I owe you.” The line clicked.

Sam jolted as Duncan sped over a speed bump. “Damnit. Sorry.” He apologized. Sam grinned. Duncan slapped the steering wheel in frustration as they came to a red light.

“So what’ve you got for me, Sam?”

“Well…” Sam pulled a tiny baggie out of her back pants pocket and set it on the lab table, “I’m not exactly sure.” Lincoln held it up in front of his face, squinting as the light shone through the clear plastic. He meddled with it for a few minutes, grunting here, shaking there.

“Lincoln,” Sam was growing impatient, “What the hell is it?”

Lincoln sighed and pushed his glasses onto his forehead, tufts of jet black hair sticking out in sprouts along the frames. “Well Sam, I figure I’ve inferred just about as much as you have. It looks like a fuzzy black flower petal.” Sam pressed on, “Well, isn’t that a little weird? How many times have you seen a black flower? With texture?”

“Ok, I’ll admit, yours is the first request of this kind. But—” he stopped, “Sam, why do you need me to test this? Where did you find it?”

Sam stiffened, but only slightly. She sighed, “I pulled it off Lindsay’s sweater before they put her in the ambulance.” Her words hung in the air.

“Your niece Lindsay?” Lincoln didn’t look sold. Sam nodded grimly. Lincoln’s face fell, but soon turned to a look of determination. “Give me a week. I’ll get your results.”

One week turned into five months. With all the fancy new technology and geniuses that the lab had access to, Sam would’ve thought they could produce so,etching sooner. But hey, at least they found something. Even if it was with only three days to spare.

Duncan’s pick-up truck sped into the station — on two wheels it seemed — just as the sun was beginning to rise. They hopped out and ran through the front doors and to the lab, where they were greeted by Delilah, Lincoln’s lab partner, who hurried them to Lincoln. He looked a mess: his eyes bloodshot, shirt untucked and wrinkled, hair in all directions. As soon as he saw Sam and Duncan, Lincoln’s eyes brightened and he grinned. He saw the worried looks, saying, “I’m going on forty-six hours without sleep…you might want to sit down.” Sam and Duncan took two stools. “Ok,” Lincoln began, “so, you know how we could never figure out what kind of flower this thing is? Well, it was because we’d never heard of it. No one has. Except one man. A Doctor Obadiah Matzik of Berkeley, California. He specializes in rare and ancient Flora species at the University of California Berkeley. It just so happens that he wrote an essay, thirteen years ago, on the Dayton flower.” Lincoln triumphantly held out a test tube, with the very petal that Sam presented him in the bottom. “This flower is so rare that it only exists in three places on Earth. The Danube River Delta in Romania, Lake St. Lucia in South Africa, and the Pantanal in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Naturally, we wondered how the flower ended up in the States. So—”

“Ok Lincoln, get to the point,” Duncan interrupted.

“Don’t rush ‘The professor’,” Delilah rolled her eyes but smiled teasingly. Lincoln remained unimpressed.

“As I was saying, we placed monitors, experts, sensors, anything we could think of in every airport, gas station, and bus stop from Rhodes County to the Missouri-Kentucky state line. Exactly 2 hours ago, a man was spotted carrying a half a pound of these petals through baggage in a small-town airport in Springfield. He was immediately arrested and he is being transported to this station as we speak.” Lincoln looked around the room proudly. Crickets could have chirped.

Sam cleared her throat, “Um, how exactly is this helpful?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Lincoln grinned, “This flower is said, by the ancient peoples who discovered it, to induce powerful and long-lasting slumbers simply by the scent that it releases when cut at the stems. Apparently they were used to transition into peaceful death or enhance dreams, i.e. hallucinations or visions. In today’s terms, as translated by Matzik, the slumbers—”

“Are comas.” Sam finished and stood abruptly.

“Exactly,” Lincoln pointed ecstatically at her. 

“We’ll I guess I’ll be the one to address the elephant in the room,” Duncan began, “but is there a cure? Or an antidote, I guess?”

“Yes, but you’re not going to like where it is.”

. . . . .

Five hours later, Sam and Duncan found themselves back at the old barn on Quincy Road. Not much had changed since they had been there last. The only difference was this time, the sun was still shining.

“So we know what we’re looking for this time?” Duncan muttered as the partners crept up to the barn, doors still lying in the hay inside.

“Yep,” was all Sam had to say. They searched the barn once again, this time more thorough, kicking through hay and twigs. For nearly an hour they looked and looked, again finding nothing. Then Sam felt a drip on her head. She looked up. There, before her eyes, a patch of soggy moss hung from the swinging remnant of a beam. The moss was almost translucent, with an unmistakable crystallized exterior. The antidote. Sam took one step backwards and pulled out her gun, shooting the beam where it still connected to the barn roof. One shot weakened the wood, and the next shot broke the connection. The wood fell to the ground before Sam, and she scraped the moss into Lincoln’s special Petri dish.

“Call Lincoln, we’ve got it,” she grinned up at Duncan, who smiled back and grabbed his walkie.

. . . . .

“Sam, it’s ready,” Delilah stepped out of the lab, carefully holding a tiny case with a syringe placed inside. Sam stood from where she had sat waiting for hours, it seemed, shooting Delilah a look of thanks. Delilah smiled back and closed the case, leading Sam upstairs to the room where Lindsay had been moved. Sam felt her heart racing with each stair step she took, unable to look forward but only down at her red Chuck Taylors. The floor changed beneath her: she was at the top. Now she was sure her heart would rip a hole through her chest.

Duncan met her at the door to the room, greeting her with a gentle hug. “This is going to work, I promise,” he whispered as she pulled away. She grabbed his hand as they stepped into the room, Lindsay coming into full view. Lincoln was already by her side, ready to receive the syringe from Delilah. He held it up, taking one last wipe at the needle to sterilize it for the hundredth time. He made eye contact with Sam. Duncan gave her hand a squeeze. Lincoln inserted the needle into a vein in Lindsay’s wrist. One could’ve heard a flea buzz by his ear. Sam held her breath. “Aunt Samantha?” An old voice was heard.