The Dream Thief, Kari Kilgore [reading well TXT] 📗

the Columns. Most of the residents were liberally dosed with enough Crumble during the day to help. That woman, Mrs. Labine, she might not sleep well.

Crumble not effective.

That didn't make any more sense to him in the middle of the night than it had standing beside her bed, and he hadn't had a chance to ask about it yet. Instead of settling down, Karl's mind ticked over each of his other patients, relentlessly scrolling through their names, faces, disorders, one after the other. Besides Mrs. Labine, each and every one of them was probably sound asleep.

Why wasn't he?

He turned onto his side and shoved at his pillow, rearranging it as if that had been the problem. Minutes crawled by, and he wasn't feeling calmer or even enjoying a brief time alone with his thoughts.

Karl was on edge, an internal alert growing stronger. He finally recognized his twinge, his gut feeling when something was not right around him.

Some of the other nurses who'd been around a while seem to have it, too. Just a sense, maybe some kind of caregiver's instinct that something disruptive was about to happen. No one had any illusion that sort of thing could be taught. All anyone could do was recognize it and learn to trust it.

Karl himself was pretty good at catching it in others, young nurses and orderlies alike. He sometimes caught a lack of it in doctors, but he'd learned to keep his mouth shut in those cases.

"I'll ask about Mrs. Labine tomorrow," he said. "I will."

Sometimes that helped, promising himself out loud that he'd do something about whatever was bugging him most. That strange woman raving about a thief had never quite left his mind since he'd wrenched his arm from her painful grasp.

Trying to figure out what to do about the pattern he and George seemed to have stumbled onto wasn't helping. Too many things competed for space in a head that should have been filled with the emptiness of deep sleep.

He considered swallowing a half dose or so of the Crumble Mrs. Labine was denied. He was far from the only one working at the Columns who took the lightest dose possible. Keeping his internal levels of suspicion and paranoia on the higher side kept him safer in the midst of so much madness. Still, tonight it might help him sleep.

Whatever was going on with that pattern around his family's house was too important to risk dulling his observations and reactions.

Karl shifted again, curling into a ball with the blankets pulled over his ears. He'd gotten into that habit sleeping in a noisy house as a kid. His lofty turret room conducted every whisper and creak from the three floors below.

Once he'd moved out here into this strangely quiet apartment, it had taken him a few weeks to adjust to the silence. Now he couldn't imagine sleeping somewhere so noisy.

"Okay, I'll pay a visit home soon, talk to Andy again. See if he's noticed anything else. I really need to get some more sleep. If I'm right, we're in for a hell of a day tomorrow."

That whispered vow finally did the trick. Karl's inner alarm continued, but he could put it away for now. At least enough to sleep.

Before Karl was halfway to midday, he was grateful for those extra hours of rest a thousand times over. Getting up in the middle of the night wouldn't have helped anyone as it turned out. Constant challenges and stress didn't prepare him for what was coming.

Hell didn't truly break loose for Karl until nearly the end of his terribly long day.

All of the patients were on edge and restless, almost as badly as when the ’ster had had a meltdown a few days before. Karl didn't see George at lunch to ask how the rest of the place was doing. He didn't take that as a good sign.

Hours later, when Karl was hoping to finally finish up and find George, his friend stepped into the doorway of a patient’s room.

"Hey, Karl? I need to talk to you."

"Just give me a minute, Georgie. This one's had a bad day. I have to change his bedding."

"This really can't wait," George said. "I'll help you."

The hesitant sound of his friend's voice brought Karl's earlier alarm back full blast. They worked silently, shifting the sedated man, cleaning him up, getting new clothes and sheets in place.

"Thanks, I appreciate that," Karl said. "He wasn't in any shape to cooperate." He followed George out into the hall before grabbing his shoulder. "What's so urgent? I've got three more to check."

"I got Karen to cover for you," George said. "Don't worry about them. There's something you have to see."

"Come on, what's happening? You're scaring me, George."

George nodded. "Good. Let's go."

Karl followed without another word, not sure what he'd say if he could manage to speak. Unfortunately, his imagination had always been better at scaring him than anything or anyone else. Andy's words and his own kept coming back, building on his worry about whatever was going wrong catching up to his family.

That didn't make any sense, but neither did calm, dependable George marching him out before his shift was over. They left Karl's building and headed across the plain grass lawn, toward the older section of the Columns. Toward the twisting brick towers where the ’sters were supposed to be.

"George, I can't go out here. I'm not authorized for this."

"Well, you weren't authorized to dig through records either," George said. "Any more than I was to get us in to see that map. No time to get scared on me now."

George tried to smile, but it looked horrible with his worried eyes. He pulled out his official master key and opened the heaviest black iron gate Karl had ever passed through, standing between the newer, cleaner towers where patients were kept and most people lived. Karl had only ever heard rumors about what lived out here.

"Is it... Are we safe out here?" Karl whispered.

He hated