Voynich Shift - Pars Duorum (COMPLETED)

Chapter XX - Leonis, 1:12, 2:16 - Missing Memories

"Ribeye? Who's Ribeye?" Buck inquired and helped the man he knew as Adam from the clean tile floor. "You know Mr. Raymond?"

Ribeye was incredulous. He stepped slowly toward Arthur, eyes wide and then stopped a few feet away, gawking at him. "Knew each other, sheriff, but this ain't possible. The man I knew as Sergeant Raymond died just outside of Auschwitz, killed by a Nazi sniper nearly twenty years ago and that man right over yonder, he looks just like I last saw him in 1945...almost as if he didn't die and just come on over here to visit."

"Dang it! Mr. Raymond, stop Michael! He's getting away," Buck exclaimed and pointed down the hall.

Arthur shrugged, looking past Adam toward the law enforcement officer. "Let him run, Buck. It won't matter none. Because I am going to hunt him and every single one of his Nazi party brothers...and sisters, down like animals." Arthur returned his gaze to Ribeye and smiled. "And then, as a good friend of mine once said, I'll make sure they'll get a first class ticket to the lake of fire when I find them. Feel like huntin' Nazis, Ribeye?"

"Oh my Lord, it is you, Sarge!" the older man said and lost consciousness.

<<*>>

Ten Minutes Earlier...

"I think we are lost, Arthur," Abrina said. "Remember, we are here to see Faith. I do not understand why you had to stop to look at that strange machine, anyway? Are you hungry again?"

"No...okay, maybe a little. Still, did you see that fantastic selection in there, Abrina? My word, 1962, for all of its faults, does know its snack food, don't it? I mean, they put peanuts in M&M's...Think about that! First that shell and then peanuts. Genius!"

"Genius, right. Hey, Arthur?" Abrina's eyes widened as she began tapping the excited man on the shoulder with one finger and pointed down the hall with the other. "Isn't that the fireman called Michael?"

Arthur watched the hospital gown adorned Michael toss something into a wastebasket next to a nurse's desk and limp slowly down the hall with his squeaky IV pole in his hand, ass exposed and looking around nervously. Arthur waited until the man turned a corner then hurried over and extracted the balled up piece of paper from the metal can.

"What is it?" Abrina inquired, noting Arthur's contorting face.

"They're handwritten instructions." Arthur glanced up with fear in his eyes. "To kill Faith. Room 242."

"We have to get to that sweet girl before he does!" Abrina said emphatically. She glanced around and located a heavy-set, balding physician in a white coat strolling by. She grabbed the short man by the arm. "Excuse me, what is the quickest..."

The doctor's eyebrows slammed down over his eyes as he looked at Abrina's fingers wrapped around his upper arm. He turned to face her and attempted to remove the appendage from Abrina's vice-like grip. "Unhand me crazy woman! Don't you know you that this is a 'Whites Only' facility...I, uh..." the man began gasping for air as Abrina's hand unexpectedly shot forward. Eyes black, voice low and sinister, her fingers coiled around his throat and she lifted the physician from the ground.

"I will not ask you again. What is the fastest way to room 242?"

"Abrina?" Arthur said. "He's not the enemy!"

The woman cut her black eyes toward Arthur and he felt his veins run cold.

"Not now!" she said and then turned her head back toward the doctor held in her grip. The man's legs kicked frantically about searching for ground, the activity dislodging the glasses from the bridge of his nose. He produced a gurgling, gasping sound as his frantic activity slowed with each millisecond.

"He's going out, Bri," Arthur said, mustering up as much calm as he could, especially when every fiber in his being was telling him to run. "Let him go, okay?"

Abrina blinked and her eyes returned to normal. The doctor fell to the floor gasping for air at the woman's feet.

"Where is Room 242?" Arthur asked forcefully. "Or, I'll sick her back on you, doc."

"Okay, okay!!! Fastest...way to room 242. Down the hall...take stairs, then right," the physician said and lay back on the floor with his hands to his neck, attempting to catch his breath. "Now, please...leave!"

"Thank you," Arthur said, bent over, and patted the man on the shoulder. "Let's go, Bri," he said and grabbed Abina by the hand. He knew when this was all over she was answering questions, especially about her eyes changing from crystal blue to deep black just like the men back at the farmhouse.

The elevator dinged just as Arthur and Abrina ducked inside the dimly lit hospital room.

"Oh, no, Faith!" Abrina exclaimed, noting the hoses, machines, and tubes running into and over the comatose young girl. She ran over and lifted Faith's right hand, clutching it between her own. Abrina began to cry. "This is so terrible..."

"Shhh!" Arthur said with a finger to his lips, noting a shadow blotting out the light coming in through a crack at the bottom of the door. He quietly motioned for Abrina to join him in hiding behind a green curtain hanging from the ceiling.

The door slowly creaked open and Michael tiptoed through the doorway with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Once inside, he eased the door shut behind him, dropped the cigarette to the floor, and ground it into the tile with the sole of his slippers. "Okay, time to meet your maker, Jew," Michael said with a snarl. He looked around the bed and located the I.V. bag hanging over the girl's head. Extracting a syringe from a night coat pocket, he prepared to put its needle in the clear tube running to a vein in Faith's hand.

"Hey, Nazi!" Arthur said, startling Michael. The NSRP thug dropped the syringe to the glossy floor in response to the sudden verbal outburst and appearance of the frightening Arthur Raymond stepping from behind the curtain.

"What the...wait! This isn't what it looks like!" Michael exclaimed, backing away from Faith's bed toward the door.

Arthur stepped in front of Michael and pounded a fist into an open palm. "Really, now?"

The fireman's eyes became saucers as Arthur came for him...