Part 4
Raphael turned on his side, coughing faintly, and he burrowed into his pillow still half asleep. Then the fit grew stronger, the coughs kicking his chest until he woke fully with one hand already pressed over his gritted teeth. As he sat straight, he curled over himself and rocked as each cough grew stronger the more he fought to hush the sound.
"Might as well give in," Donatello muttered beside him. "I think we're all awake. Dragon coughs like that're hard to miss."
Raphael groaned and hunched up, flinching as someone turned on a lamp. Now that he was wide awake, he felt how far his cough had already progressed. His throat ached as if he'd swallowed a ball of pins and his head felt stuffed with hot rocks. A hand touched his forehead.
"No fever," Donatello called over his shoulder. "On either of them."
"'Them'?" Raphael glanced around for Leonardo, but the oldest was on his feet in the kitchen. Raphael looked over at Donatello, who looked fine as well. That left...
"What?" Raphael blinked as he finally saw Michelangelo curled on his side and hugging a pillow tight. He turned and put his arm out, touching his brother's shoulder. "Buddy...what's wrong? Did I give you this?"
Michelangelo muttered something under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut and pushing his face into the pillow. His shoulders hunched and he hissed as the blanket slipped off to one side, revealing skin in the cool air.
"I don't think so," Donatello said as he pulled the blanket back over their little brother. "We don't incubate colds that fast. Frankly, I think it's from taking a swim in the river's run-off. Who knows what bacteria and germs he swallowed?"
"I didn't go swimming," Raphael rasped, wincing at how the corners of the words scraped his throat.
"You went out in the snow," Leonardo said as if that explained everything, coming in from the kitchen with two cups of hot water, tea bag strings dangling on the side.
Donatello nodded at Raphael. "You sound like you went running around in a snowstorm. Don't worry. I brought some stuff out of the medicine cabinet before we left—it should take care of you both while we get more."
"Raph," Leonardo said, setting the tea on the floor by Raphael. "Stay awake if you can. Set an alarm if you have to—"
"Whoa, you mean you're going out now?" Raphael said, grabbing Leonardo's wrist. "Where?"
"Corner store," Donatello said. He patted Michelangelo's shoulder, then stood and retrieved his duffel bag from the kitchen, checking the locked door once for good measure. "We need pain meds. And cold meds. And...well, supplies in general. That's the last of the tea."
Raphael reluctantly sat back against the couch, glaring at his brother. "You can't stay awake five minutes."
"I can if I'm moving," Leonardo said, the edge in his voice warning Raphael not to argue. "And I'm not letting Donatello go by himself."
"Then Mikey..." his voice trailed off and he glanced over.
His little brother watched him from over the pillow, squeezing it as he gave a tight shake of his head, and his eyes shut as he burrowed under the blanket. Raphael sighed. Michelangelo wasn't going anywhere. Neither of them were. He took up the tea, and the thin sip felt like a fist sliding down his throat.
Raphael glanced at the window, the snow flurries hitting the glass. Was it just him, or was the sky just a shade lighter? He gave Leonardo a look, raising an eyeridge.
"It's still dark," Leonardo said. "And it's just a quick trip to the corner store. We'll be back before sun up."
Raphael grimaced, but he nodded and pulled the pillow onto his lap, hugging it close. He wouldn't be going back to sleep. As his siblings left, closing the door behind them, he listened for the click of the lock, the metallic rattle as Leonardo made sure the lock was in place. It reassured Raphael a little, and he settled against the couch to watch the fire.
Outside felt like knives in ice water as Leonardo and Donatello made a quick rush to the van. The cabin light came on, giving them a few seconds to buckle in and start the engine before the overhead glow faded, leaving only the dashboard lights flickering green and the headlights briefly illuminating the front of the house.
Leonardo set his hand on the door handle, gripping it, staring at the door.
"They'll be okay," Donatello said, putting the car in reverse. "It won't even take an hour."
"Right..."
Gravel crunched under the tires, and then they were rolling out onto the road, carefully following the fence posts that passed in and out of the darkness. The fence, gray trees, the salted road and snowflakes crushed against the windshield...Donatello adjusted the rear view mirror and sighed.
"Looks like red snow behind us," he said, shaking his head once. "I hate driving at night, but this is just nuts."
"'s eerie as hell," Leonardo said, eyes shut. "Do me a favor, turn on the radio?"
"Sure," Donatello chuckled, dialing up a low scratch of a religious station. "You flagging?"
"Kinda." Leonardo shook his head hard. "I usually just open a window if I'm trying to stay awake."
"Yeah, thank you, don't," Donatello chuckled. "Surprised the cold doesn't keep you awake. Bad enough the heater takes forever to warm up."
"The store is close by, right?" Leonardo said, shifting in his seat. "I didn't remember that wrong?"
"No, it's close," Donatello nodded. "Even by farm standards. But it's almost four...I'm just hoping the owner doesn't keep farm hours."
A moment passed. If they didn't hit the store now, they'd have to go a full day without anything for their siblings. And if they had to rush through the supply run, they risked forgetting something or, worse, leaving something askew that clued the owner in on the theft. They didn't want to draw any attention to the normally vacant Jones farmhouse.
"Did you get any sleep?" Leonardo asked, shifting again.
His head swam. If only he could lay back on the headrest...but if he fell asleep now, it'd only be worse when he woke up again. Maybe he should turn off the radio? The voice muddled in static was only making it worse.
"Yeah, I slept some," Donatello said. "Raph woke me after his watch, and I don't think he was in bed more'n a few minutes before he started coughing. Little at first, but man, it sure did ramp up."
Unspoken worries filled the space between them. Was it really just a cold? More than a flu? If it was something worse, they had no way to fight it. Living in the New York cisterns left them with a constant fear of infection and bacteria, and Michelangelo had to have swallowed some of that water.
Their headlights flashed onto an intersection and a rusted street sign reading McKenzie. Donatello turned right, and after another few minutes, they spotted the gold outdoor light against the edge of the general store, the sign Hochfeld Market weathered to faint outlines and splotches of paint on grey wood. Its windows were dark and the dirt parking lot in front of it empty.
"Cut the lights," Leonardo said, sitting straight. "Try to stay on the gravel."
Donatello nodded, slowing their speed and squinting to make out the road in the gloom. The van cut lines in the fresh snow, but on the gravel beside the store, their tire tracks weren't so obvious. If the snow kept up for the rest of the night, even those marks would fade. He brought them around the back, stones crunching under the tires, and he left the engine idling with the heater on full blast.
"Okay," Donatello said. "You get the food, I'll get the meds and everything else?"
Leonardo nodded. "Five minutes. I don't wanna be in there longer than ten."
"Got it."
Both of them took a deep breath, then at the same time stepped out into the snow. Frozen wind blew flurries of snow against their shells, but the van provided some cover while Leonardo knelt beside the building's back door and slid in his lockpicks.
Donatello came up behind him, sheltering him from the wind, but even so, his hands went numb almost immediately. Without feeling the tumblers, Leonardo relied more on previous break-ins to gently nudge the metal into place. To his relief, the owner had never replaced the lock with something stronger, and in a minute, they were inside.
Even before closing the door, they both scanned the store first, making sure they were alone. Weak moonlight came in through the windows, coloring the shelves gray. Wood creaked underfoot, and a refrigerator hummed in the corner. The wind blew against the walls, sending a draft that stirred up dust along the floor.
Neither of them spoke. Leonardo unfurled a sack and began filling it from the baskets of fruit and vegetables in the front, then went to the shelves and picked several cans from the back of each display. He couldn't hide their thievery completely, but if he was careful, he could disguise the fact that the store was missing enough to feed four turtles for a few weeks.
Donatello worked the other side of the store, picking out cold remedies, medicinal teas, cough drops, anything that could ease the symptoms he knew his brothers were suffering. A few boxes were under locked displays, but those were picked easily enough. He cast a longing look at the locked mesh door protecting the pharmaceuticals, but he didn't try for those. The lock was no challenge, but a theft of things on the shelves could be ignored. Stolen prescriptions would bring down far more attention.
Both of them brought their bags to the front register. Four minutes had passed.
"Three sixty," Leonardo whispered, tallying up the cost in a rough estimate.
Donatello winced. "Five ninety."
Almost a thousand dollars of goods. Both of them gave a small sigh. The more expensive the theft, the more likely it was that the police would be called. Not that anyone would be able to find fingerprints, but the Jones house was normally unoccupied. Now that it had lights on at night and a vehicle in the driveway, police or neighbors might make a connection.
"Medicines always cost so much more," Donatello grumbled, reaching into one of his bags. "If I leave the—"
"No. Take it all." Leonardo reached into a pouch on his belt, visibly counted a few flicks of his fingers, and then lay down several hundred dollar bills. "I had a feeling we'd need it."
"Do I even want to know where that came from?" Donatello gave him a look, but he didn't argue and instead set the full amount underneath the register, a small corner sticking out visibly.
"You have your talents," Leonardo said, shouldering his bag. "I have mine."
"Mine aren't felonies," Donatello muttered. When Leonardo glanced at him, Donatello shrugged once. "Just misdemeanors."
"Yeah," Leonardo chuckled, and he motioned him to the door. "Like that'll matter if we're ever caught."
He stiffened as they stepped back into the winter wind, cursing under his breath and locking the door again as Donatello moved past. They had to waste several seconds stowing the supplies in the back of the van, and Leonardo felt this second exposure to the cold seeping straight through his shell. To hell with wasting seconds going around the van. He crept up over the bags to close the doors from inside, and instead of coming over the backseat, he curled up against the wheel well.
In the front, another cold draft whipped through as Donatello climbed in. The doors automatically locked around them, and then they were rolling across gravel again, turning onto the quieter pavement of the road.
"You still alive?" Donatello asked over his shoulder. "I got the heat up at full blast."
"I'm good," Leonardo called back, but his voice failed halfway and he coughed, closing his eyes. "Dammit."
"Don't tell me you're getting sick," Donatello said, his voice serious.
"No," Leonardo waved him down. "Just same thing that's been hitting me since we left the lair."
"Bad karma?" Donatello angled the rear view mirror to better see him. "That excuse's starting to wear thin."
Leonardo opened his mouth to argue that it wasn't an excuse, then tilted his head and shrugged once. "Wake me up when we get back. I'll try something later, see if it works."
As his older brother fell asleep once again, Donatello's mouth pressed to a tight line. 'Try something later' probably meant some spiritual hokum again. He readjusted the mirror to see an endless dark grey sky with red flurries of snow across his tail lights. No one else dumb or desperate enough to be on the road, leaving him alone to think.
Hokum or not, he had to admit that ghosts were real. He and his brothers had killed...killed? He grimaced. How could he say they'd killed a ghost? They'd flushed all the bodies clean through—maybe they'd only passed the spirits on.
He cursed himself. 'Passing them on...' As if. Just listen to him, brainiac of the family reduced to speculating on whether ghosts remained with their bodies. This was why he didn't like indulging in nonsense about the spirit world. He'd dabbled with it during his younger years, but the lack of empirical data, no concrete evidence, had left him tearing pages out of books in sheer frustration.
And now he still had no real proof of spirits. Nothing had been recorded. All they had were some scraps of soggy paper and black streaks of dirty water around the lair. If he'd been in his right mind, he would have demanded they wait while he examined the wiring, checked for the real reason for their shared delusion of spirits. They would still be safely at home...
His hands tightened so much that the steering wheel creaked.
The thought of being in the lair even one moment chilled him worse than the snowstorm.
He made himself exhale, forced himself to relax and sit normally. Personal experience was data, wasn't it? He could write down every memory, record Michelangelo's dream and the strange shapes slithering through the river. A log wasn't as good as a photo or video, or even an audio recording, but he could then pick it apart and find something solid out of it. Even if only to stamp "inconclusive" on the cover and file it away, never to be opened again.
He didn't want to remember watching specters of the dead creeping toward him while he could do nothing but hold Raphael and look away.
That was Leonardo's world, ghosts and spirits and karma. It wasn't fair, but Donatello didn't like how it had begun spilling into his own neatly ordered world. Tools, parts and chemicals could be labelled and organized and put together to make predictable mechanisms. Spirits and karma...
Another car on the road. Donatello started to lean back but their headlights were over him and away again in a flash, and when he looked back in his rear view, the car was already halfway down the road. He grimaced. He was driving as fast as he dared but whoever was in that car was just begging to skid off the road.
The sky was just two shades paler than night as he pulled up to the farm house. They'd cut their thieving too close—people might already be waking up. Deciding to play it safe, Donatello drove onto the dirt and came behind the house, parking between the kitchen door and the trees. At least the van wouldn't be visible from the street.
As he left the warmth of the van, he found Leonardo already opening the back, yawning as he gathered up a handful of bags. Donatello grabbed the rest, turning toward the house while his brother locked the rear.
"Oh wow." Leonardo paused despite the snow. "Deer tracks."
Donatello glanced over his shoulder. A row of hoof prints ran through the snow drift, coming past the barn and in front of the kitchen, then going back into the trees.
"They must be hungry," Donatello said. "There's only bark for them to eat right now."
Donatello stared off into the forest. The tracks were fresh. The snow was only just beginning to cover them. He felt a little twinge that he hadn't been able to see them. Deer would have reassured him that they weren't the only life in the middle of the storm.
The kitchen door swung open, spilling a beam of light across the snow.
"Come on, brainiac!" Raphael called, his voice scratching over the wind. "'Fore you get sick, too."
"Yeah, yeah."
Donatello followed Leonardo in, handing the bags to Raphael and sighing in relief as the weight left his hands. He closed the door behind himself, and for a moment he stared out the window. The hoof prints, already half vanished, went up the treeline and disappeared into the darkness.
Only a the first row of trees were visible, bone white and skeletal. How on earth did anything live out there on a night like this? Logically he knew all the woodland creatures had their dens, but he couldn't imagine huddling up in a dark burrow against this cold.
Shuddering in sympathy, he gave the doorknob a short twist to make sure it was locked. No human would possibly try to break in during this weather, but he would sleep better knowing that they were safely in and the winter was kept out.
TBC...
Author's Note: Part of me loves that I've established so much of the setting and plot and character and the other part of me wants to quit dropping clues and get to the horror already.