Chapter 5: The Artifact in the Basin
The quarantine room at St. Jude Memorial was secured by two armed guards posted outside the reinforced glass door. Inside, the stainless-steel basin sat under the harsh glare of a portable examination lamp. Detective Vance stood on one side of the metal table, while Thomas stood opposite him, staring down at the object they had pulled from his son’s body. Sarah sat in a chair near the corner, her arms crossed defensively over her chest, shivering despite the warmth of the room.
The object was silent now, but it retained a faint, oily sheen that seemed to shift colors under the light, flickering between dark charcoal gray and a sickly iridescent blue. The fine filaments trailing from its base had curled inward, clinging to the metal surface of the basin like dying tendrils.
“It’s not organic,” Detective Vance said, breaking the long silence. He didn’t touch it, hovering a gloved hand inches above the rim. “I spoke with the federal liaison office about twenty minutes ago. They didn’t ask how we got it. They just asked if the container was sealed airtight.”
Thomas looked up, his eyes bloodshot and hard. “Federal liaison? Vance, my son is eight years old. He was sleeping in his pajamas in his own bed. What kind of federal agency is tracking things that get implanted into children with hot chocolate?”
“The kind you only read about in conspiracy forums, Mr. Miller,” Vance replied flatly. He pulled out a small notepad, though he hadn’t written anything down for hours. “The nurse who served that drink—her name isn’t on the hospital registry. Personnel checked her badge number against the state database five minutes ago. It belongs to a woman who retired in Maine six years ago. The woman in your house was a ghost using a forged credential.”
Sarah finally spoke, her voice dry and cracked. “Her name is Dr. Evelyn Vance—no relation to you, Detective. She worked on the Vanguard Project in New Mexico back in the nineties. My father... my father was the lead physicist on that site before he died in the fire.”
Thomas whipped his head around to look at his wife. The air in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. “Sarah? What are you talking about? What fire? You told me your parents died in a car crash when you were a teenager.”
May you like
“I lied,” Sarah said simply, tears finally spilling over her lower lashes without a sound. She looked at Thomas, her expression a mix of terror and profound exhaustion. “I lied because I wanted a normal life. I wanted to marry you, buy a house in the suburbs, have a little boy with brown hair and gray pajamas, and pretend that the things my father built in the desert didn’t follow us home. But they didn’t leave us alone. They never left us alone.”
***
