ER/Stand Crossover




" Doug?"

He groaned and rolled away. It was early and unless it was his turn to make breakfast, he generally preferred to sleep in.

" Doug, come on. It's important."

It was her voice that got his attention. Jeanie was, out of the women, probably the most honest about her feelings. If she was happy, then she looked happy. If she was worried or upset, then she looked and sounded worried or upset. He preferred that to Randi and Kerry, who both had mastered the grim, determined, icy facade they wore so well. He also preferred it to Lucy's forced happiness. It was fortunate that Taris seemed to be bonding more with Jeanie, than with the other women. Jeanie was probably the healthier example for the little girl.

He opened his eyes and looked up at Jeanie. Sure enough, she looked the way she sounded, worried and concerned. " What's going on?"

" There's a problem. Get dressed and come down stairs." With that, she left. He took that as a bad sign. Jeanie was more than worried, she was frightened. Definitely not a good sign, he decided as he quickly dressed. It was six in the morning and from the sound of things, everyone was in the process of getting up. Again, definitely odd. They all tended to sleep in. There just wasn't that much else to do.

He was worried though. Over the last few weeks, he had felt that the relative calm they were in was false, that something was going to happen. He quickly dressed and made his way down to the first floor. It was still dark out, but the lights were blazing in the kitchen.

Luka was there, eyeing the refrigerator as though it was some sort of strange alien artifact. Doug didn't quite register what was wrong at first, but then he noticed the sizeable dent in the freezer section. He slowly picked up on the things that were wrong. The dent, the food that was sitting on the counter as though someone had intended to eat it. There was blood on the floor, and one of the carving knives was there, with blood drying on it. More oddly, a suture kit was unwrapped and obviously used, in a neat pile on the floor. He took a closer look at it. It was from Cook County, which at face value wasn't strange, but all of their medical equipment had been ruined and replaced months earlier. There was no way such a kit could be there.

" What happened?" he asked.

Luka shook his head. " Someone got hurt. Jeanie is checking on everyone. Who ever it was can't be badly hurt, but I'm worried." Luka said it as though the weight of the world had suddenly rolled back on his shoulders.

Doug considered that as Carter and Randi trotted into the kitchen. Randi was looking tired and when dressed in a heavy robe and pajamas, there was no hiding the fact that she was pregnant. He started to mentally count off the people in the house. He'd seen three, he was number four, he had checked on Lucy, so that made five. He had heard Taris chattering to Jeanie as he'd gotten dressed and he doubted that an eight year old would have walked away from something that caused a dent like the one in the refrigerator. That left Kerry and Dave. Doug felt himself grow cold. Dave was a good kid, but if someone or something attacked him, he would have raised holy hell. Kerry, on the other hand, was the sort to be quiet.

Sure enough, his suspicion was confirmed as the sound of Dave's worried questions floated in from the living room. " You know it was Kerry."

Much to his surprise, Luka simply nodded. " I know. I knew when I woke up. *You* knew something is going to happen. Something *has* to happen. The question is what."

Doug felt a cold chill. Luka was not only a pretty smart fellow, he was strangely perceptive. Luka was the sort of person that "had feelings" and most of those times, his feelings were on the mark. If their group had anything resembling a leader, it was Luka with his dark, brooding nature and his worry that made him look like a father whose children weren't in sight. Luka struck him as a loyal guardian and he had the senses to fit the role.

Just as foreboding was the fact that it was Kerry that had disappeared. She had always been insightful, in a creepy disturbing way, and that character trait had intensified since the plague. They hadn't discussed Flagg often, but when they had, Kerry *knew* things. She knew things she shouldn't. He had thought, months ago when he had first sobered up, that life and circumstances were playing cruel jokes on all of them. Kerry was, to the core, a practical minded woman. It had to be killing her to be acting as some sort of mystical guide. It went against her nature to not reason with the facts. Kerry was the sort that needed, craved, having a laminated checklist for everything, from her daily tasks to her feelings and when things went out of pattern, she was lost.

Whatever had happened, he realized, it had been disturbing enough to drive their resident mystic out in the middle of the night, and that scared Doug. And there was the troubling fact that while Kerry was completely capable of cutting herself, she hadn't been depressed. Not at all. In fact he could honestly say that Kerry had been happy the last few months. More to the point, he knew her well enough to know that even if she was depressed, she would have waited until after the baby was born to do something self destructive. He also couldn't conceive how she managed to put a head shaped dent into the refrigerator without help. Someone had been in the house. Someone had attacked Kerry and Doug knew without even thinking about it that she had left. Why and how, he didn't know, but he had a bad feeling that their idyllic days were over.

Randi toed the suture kit, her expression pensive. If Kerry was their mystic, Doug mused, then Randi was their warrior. Randi was less worried than angry, he could see that in the frown on her face. Randi was ready to fight. " Someone broke in and you two are debating about whether Kerry had a vision? She was *attacked*. Considering her track record, she's probably hiding somewhere in a closet with a loaded gun. Maybe we should look through the house before we jump to the conclusion that she's taken off."

She had a point, Doug realized. It was a big house and there was any number of places they hadn't even looked. We jumped to a pretty big conclusion, he thought. Still, it still left them with several concerns. Randi was right, someone had been in the house. Even at her craziest, Kerry couldn't slam her head into the refrigerator and if she was self destructive she wouldn't have taken care of herself after slicing herself up. " Why don't we search the house then?"

Before anyone had a chance to respond, Dave rushed into the room. He took in the scene with a glance. " Kerry's not upstairs. She got up... I thought maybe she wanted to be by herself so it wasn't weird that she didn't come back." He managed to look worried and embarrassed at the same time. " Her keys are gone. Has anyone checked on the vehicles?"

That was another interesting thought. Doug immediately glanced out the window, only to see the snow coming down. " All right, " he said as Jeanie, Lucy and Taris came in, " Let's do this calmly and rationally. Randi, Jeanie... you two can search the house. The rest of us will check outside."

Dave looked at him with annoyance. " She's obviously gone. Her jacket wasn't by the door and her car keys aren't here."

" We need to be sure." Luka said easily. His calm tone did a lot to get everyone back into a reasonable frame of mind. " Dave, you and I will head out to the garage and see if her truck is still there. I think the rest of you should really search the house carefully. Kerry's not very big, she could be hiding someplace and if she's hit her head, she might not be thinking rationally. The best thing to do is make sure she's not here before we get upset. Doug, get everyone organized here. Dave, lets go."

Doug mentally applauded Luka. The best thing for Dave was to keep him busy. It was true for everyone really, but Dave most of all. Doug doubted Kerry was in the house. He thought Dave had the right idea, that Kerry had left, but it was good to make sure. He quickly sent the others off to look, leaving him alone in the kitchen with Taris. Taris had been looking quiet and worried throughout the whole discussion and Doug realized that they had paid precious little attention of the girl. She must be frightened, he thought worriedly. " Taris, do you want to come with me?"

" Ok." She looked at him and then at the mess that was still on the floor. " I don't think Kerry's here. I think the bad man came and did something mean and made Kerry leave." Taris frowned and crossed her arms, as if annoyed by the whole business. Despite the seriousness of what was going on, Doug couldn't help but be amused at the way Taris had already picked up most of Jeanie's mannerisms.

" Taris, " he said after a moment, intrigued suddenly, " Where do you think Kerry is?"

" She went to get something to hurt the bad man with." Taris said easily. She picked up one of the half grown kittens and held it close. It was obvious that she was worried. Doug didn't like pressing a child but somehow he thought that she might know something. People, lately, had seemed to know a lot of things that they wouldn't have before.

" Do you know where she went?" Doug asked as he knelt down to her level.

" I had a bad dream." Taris said softly. " The bad man was here. He grabbed her and hit her. Then the ghosts made him go away. The ghosts were scared. They think someone has to go away like they did." She hugged the kitten. " I was scared."

" It's ok to be scared." Doug said. " Did they say anything else?"

She nodded. " One said that fire cleans. That's weird. Fire just burns things. Can we get something to eat?"

" Sure." Doug got up. There was no reason for the child to go hungry while they looked, and Taris had confirmed his feeling that Kerry was probably not in the house. He definitely had a bad feeling about everything, that was the truth.



Part 57
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