by Eve Langlais
“And you wonder why we had a clause put in the contract that prevents you from walking out our doors.” Sphinx shook his head. “It’s statements like that that make it impossible for us to declare you cured.”
“You never planned to let us go,” Janice accused.
In that, Janice was correct. Emma realized early on that, like that line in “Hotel California,” checking out just wasn’t an option. However, she never cared because the clinic proved to provide a better lifestyle for her.
“What’s happening?” asked a new groggy male voice farther down the line.
“Another one awake? Did we screw up the batch of gas?” Sphinx exclaimed. “Fucking animals. I told those idiot techs to triple the dose.”
The callous words had her chewing her lower lip. This was so unlike the doctor she knew.
“Was there an emergency?” she dared to ask.
“You might say so. It’s why you’re being moved to a new, more secure location.”
“What happened? Is everyone okay?” she asked, noting that when Sphinx lifted his arm and the jacket gaped open, there was blood on his shirt.
“No. Nothing is okay.” Dr. Sphinx shook his head. “Some cowardly thieves attacked the clinic late afternoon. Many guards were killed.”
“Oh no,” she gasped.
“Yes!” hissed Barry. “Death to all the clinic staff.”
The cruelty drew her gaze. “That’s a mean thing to say. They were just people, doing a job.”
“A job that involved experimenting on us,” Jacob retorted. “Barry’s right. I’m also glad they’re dead.”
“They deserve it,” agreed Janice. “I hope those people attack again and kill all of you.”
“You better hope we’re not exposed, Janice,” Dr. Sphinx replied. “Because we both know what will happen to you, to all of you, if the unaltered humans discover you exist. You think your cushy rooms with all the amenities are a harsh price? How about being strapped to a gurney, your torso splayed open so they can see what you look like on the inside?”
Emma put a hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp but couldn’t stop the slight panic at the suggestion. As frightening as it was, there was an even worse nightmare. She knew what happened to freaks. They got put into cages and treated no better than animals. Prisoners to be used and abused.
She didn’t want to be hurt ever again.
“You’re assuming the humans will catch us,” Barry retorted.
“And that they’ll want to dissect us or put us in cages,” Janice added. “Could be they’ll feel sorry for us and, instead, punish you.”
“Considering the government has funded part of our research, they are more likely to kill you and bury you deep.”
“Says you. I’ll take that chance. Let me loose.” Jacob was the one to reply.
“You know I can’t. You all signed an agreement.”
That contract and the moment flashed in her mind. She’d just left the hospital again, the prognosis not looking good, when that lawyer Lowry arrived with his briefcase. She’d barely read the fine print, just accepted the crib notes that said, in exchange for life-saving treatment, she’d remain with the Chimaeram Clinic for as long as the doctors in charge deemed necessary.
She was pretty good with forever, but not everyone liked that clause. They couldn’t see the benefit in getting a free room, food, clothes, and entertainment. Apparently, some would prefer to return to the big bad world where everyone was selfish and hurtful.
Not Emma. She missed her safe room already. Violence brewed in the air. She could feel it in every breath she took, the familiarity not bringing any comfort, more a weary resignation. Here we go again.
Unless she could somehow fend off the impending chaos. “Will the new place be similar to the old one?” Emma asked.
“In some respects, yes. I’ll make sure you’ll have your own room again, Emma.” She noticed how Sphinx’s tone softened each time he spoke to her.
Yet for all his friendliness, he has never asked me to call him by his first name.
“Is that what it takes to get preferential treatment? Getting on our knees to suck your dick?” spat Janice.
The insult slapped. “I would never…He never…” gasped Emma, her cheeks heating. “He’s like a father to me.”
“Which makes it even sicker,” muttered the man beside her.
“Dr. Sphinx is a kind and generous man,” Emma hotly declared, only to be met with derisive laughter.
“Thank you, Emma, but not everyone is a model patient like you. Hence their poor opinion. And why this is necessary.” The doctor approached Barry, needle upheld.
Barry strained again. “Like fuck are you doping my ass.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Dr. Sphinx jabbed Barry and depressed the plunger. It took less than ten seconds of screamed invectives before the drug took effect and Barry slumped over.
“Who’s next?” Dr. Sphinx grabbed another syringe from the wide-eyed nurse.
Janice gave him a baleful glare. “Is drugging women the only way you get laid?”
“You would know,” Sphinx whispered loud enough to be heard as he tranqed her next.
Emma frowned. “What does he mean?”
It was Jacob who clued her in. “It means that the man you consider a father takes his enjoyment with unconscious patients.”
“But…” She blinked, doing her best to not relive the past. “But that’s wrong.” She looked at the doctor. “Tell them you would never do that.” Except looking at his face, she realized it was the truth.
Sphinx lied to her face. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just making that up.”
Only he wasn’t. It was true, and with the knowledge, Emma’s mind spun.
“Did you…” She couldn’t ask. Couldn’t bear to know.
As she looked into his face, at the satisfied smirk, a horrible sick feeling filled her. Her stomach tightened into a knot as her faith and trust suddenly shattered.
He hurt me.
He would hurt her again if he got the chance.
The very thought quickened her breath, and she fought against the multiplying dark spots dancing in front of her eyes.
Not again.
She took deep measured breaths that turned into pants as the doctor made the circuit, jabbing away with his needles, quieting all those who dared protest until he reached Emma.
He stared down at her, and she had to know for sure. Had to ask. “Did you do things to me while I slept?”
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face as he opened his mouth. Even before he finished saying no, she blacked out.
When she came to, wind whistled through an open door. The guards were gone. Her shoulder hurt, and Sphinx lay dead on the floor. No point in checking for a pulse given his eyes stared sightlessly and his mouth remained pulled in a wide screaming rictus. Blood pooled around him.
A bad man now dead and good riddance. She didn’t feel sorry for him at all. More ashamed she’d been fooled again.
Shudder. The helicopter trembled, and she glanced at the cockpit. Gaped to see the pilot slumped and the helicopter wobbling, as no one controlled it.
And I don’t know how to fly.
She could only stare through the window as the ground rushed up to greet the chopper.
Then cry out as they hit the ground hard and darkness descended again.
Chapter One
The following spring…
“I’ll call you from the beach.” Oliver lied about where he was going. Work, family, friends. They all thought he was taking an overdue vacation. Good thing none of them checked his luggage and saw the much warmer attire he’d stashed inside. He had a more interesting location to visit.
Ever heard of the Chimaeram Clinic? No? Neither had anyone else in the world. Yet, according to his source, a state-of-the-art medical facility had recently existed in the Rocky Mountains. It provided unsanctioned, highly illegal medical treatments to hundreds of people. Until it blew up.
Literally. Kaboom with plastic explosives.
There probably wasn’t much of the clinic left. Especially given the harsh winter that just passed with record snowfalls. Didn’t matter. Oliver still wanted to see it, but he had to do so in secret.
People had gone to great lengths to hide Chimaeram’s existence, which meant there was an element of danger in exposing it.
Oliver didn’t care. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone deep undercover to lay bare a scandal. With the bounty on his head, he still didn’t dare go anywhere near the Middle East, but he’d hung up his political cap a few years ago. Thought he’d never find something truly worthwhile to write about again. Until this story fell into his lap.
Illegal human experimentation. Something out of a science fiction movie and still happening to this day. The story would be huge, a bestseller for sure just like his previous novels.
If he could find some evidence.
The clinic itself didn’t appear in any databases. No permits were ever issued for its construction. The land it sat on was technically owned by the crown.
If Oliver had not known its exact location—given by a source who was more than happy to spill everything he knew after imbibing a smuggled bottle of Scotch—he might have never found it. The most shocking part was the proximity to civilization.
For years, a mad scientist had experimented on people less than fifty miles into the Rocky Mountain range. And not just one doctor played God in that place. Although it was one doctor who started the travesty. Adrian Chimera–currently missing, hopefully dead, his Frankenstein secrets with him.
Despite his twisted medical vision, he’d had an army of employees all culpable in his vile act. Some of those on his staff even shared in the treatment like Doctor Cerberus, who’d gone public with what they’d done. Oliver still remembered watching in jaw-dropped shock as the handsome man with the dark skin and youthful appearance spoke at length about the things he’d accomplished.
“I’m here today to tell you that science has found a cure. A cure for missing limbs. Comas. Even those lacking mental clarity.”
“What kind of cure? Does it have any side effects?” a reporter had asked, her mien serious rather than incredulous at the boasting of an unknown doctor.
Cerberus had smiled. “The cure is multi-faceted and customized to the patient. As to side effects. Only minor things.”
“You call that shit minor,” exclaimed another reporter, pointing at the doctor.
The media event and the speech might have gone better if not for the pair of horns jutting from Cerberus’s forehead and the glowing of his eyes.
Dr. Cerberus only ever presented the one speech. Then he disappeared from public sight. The media went nuts trying to locate him. Theories abounded, from his claim being the greatest prank of all time to more nefarious musings about government agencies nabbing him and either a) testing and questioning him under strict guard or b) autopsying his ass.
Unlike some, Oliver knew the truth. Cerberus was in hiding. Not with the government. It was worse than that. He’d joined up with a pharmaceutical company very interested in what he had to say and how they could use that information to make money, a concept Oliver couldn’t comprehend.
The man was a monster, not just genetically but emotionally, too. Only someone truly depraved would have acted as Cerberus did. Taking innocent people—including his own daughter—some without the ability to speak for themselves, and conducting medical tests that were inhumane. Changing people into something else. Something inhuman.
He made monsters. Oliver knew this for a fact because the stupid bastards hired him to document their success. Gave him all the rope he needed to hang them.
A few of those poor patients had been recovered by the pharma company at great expense—mostly because greasing palms for silence was costly.
Those they brought back were caricatures of humanity—with a thirst for blood. Many weren’t even recognizable as people. As part of his undercover investigation, Oliver had seen them—the woman with the beak who cawed and laid an egg every time she squatted. He tried to talk to them—the one called Fez, clacking the mandibles by the corners of his lips. Each time he left their presence horrified. An expression he hid lest those running the mad house restrict his access.
The joke was on them. The book he would write would bring about their doom. He had to destroy them before they took over where the Chimaeram Clinic had left off.
How does someone do that to a person? What kind of evil did it take to think it was okay to experiment on people?
According to Cerberus, it started because of one man. One literally sick man. Adrian Chimera, once a cripple with a debilitating disease, had cured himself with unproven medical science. Then went on a power-mad trip supposedly saving others.
But Chimera was out of business now. On the run. Possibly dead depending on the rumor you listened to. His staff, those that remained, had scattered. Their names and locations unknown. The lab he’d once lorded over as king, destroyed. The Chimera Secrets that survived gone into hiding.
That should have been the end of it. But evil ever did flourish when there was money to be made. And who better to take up the torch than a pharmaceutical company that needed something big to earn a huge payout?
Someone had to stop this harmful cure from spreading. Had to tell the world the truth. Which was why, when the company hired Oliver to make a documentary and put a positive spin on things, he’d begun gathering evidence. Pictures. Reports. Interviews. Stuff acquired via less than honest methods.
His initial plan to expose the lies was ruined when all the info he’d been gathering disappeared. The files on his computer wiped clean as if they never existed. The company owner, the same one who hired him, had given him a dressing down and reminded him to toe the line or pay the price.
He agreed.
In other words, he lied. They think they can stop me. On the contrary, they made him more determined to dig deeper. To go back to the place where it all began. Surely, he’d find evidence there.
The defunct Chimaeram Clinic wasn’t easy to reach. Oliver didn’t dare hire a helicopter, because someone would surely notice and either stop him, or follow. So how to reach the remote location? He did it the hard way: Driving as far as he could with an ATV. He’d had to ditch it far too soon when the going got steep. From that point on, he hiked with a heavy backpack. Hiked for two days.
Fifty some miles might not seem very far, as the crow flew, but on the ground, a ground that proved mountainous, each mile west involved going up through mountain passes before making progress. However, the grueling trek provided a reward when he crested that last pass and beheld the description that spilled from Cerberus’s lips after a few glasses of Scotch.
“You’ll know it when you see it. It’s like a Garden of Eden. Lush and green. Seemingly untouched. The trees, towering monoliths opening onto a valley that is covered in grass. A weird thing to see in the mountains, and yet it’s like a carpet. If you get there at the right time in spring, it blooms all over with tiny blue flowers.”
“How did Chimera find it?” Oliver asked.
Cerberus shrugged. “Chance. Or maybe God did speak to him, after all. The things he could do, no man had ever thought of before.”
God? Oliver almost scoffed but instead went after more info. “Describe more of this valley.”
“It’s beautiful.” Such a strange thing to hear coming from the man who many in the media dubbed Satan. “There’s a lake on the edge of it, with crystal-clear waters. But don’t let it fool you. There’re things swimming in there that will drag a man down.”
“You going to claim he made mermaids, too?” Oliver scoffed, wondering how much he should believe.
“We only ever made one of those, and she left when the clinic blew up. I’m talking about other things. Dangerous things. Release the kraken!” Cerberus slapped the table, the harsh sound of it jarring.
And his exclamation surely a
jest.
Scanning the valley at hand, Oliver noted a body of water free of waves, the surface crystal clear. As to being dangerous? He shook his head as he spotted a bird sitting on its surface. More likely there was some invisible undertow that proved deadly. The only fish that usually attacked humans were sharks and most didn’t live in icy waters. He didn’t have to dip a toe to know the water would be frigid. Lakes that formed in the mountain from run-offs never went much above freezing, meaning hypothermia was a very real danger even if the submersion lasted only a few minutes.
Heading down the side of the mountain he was quickly enveloped by a forest. He paid attention as he travelled through the thick woods, what was left of them. The once tall forest had suffered a tragedy. The burnt stumps attested to the raging fire that had whipped through and left devastation in its wake. It must have occurred before the winter, as the ashy remains had turned to a sodden muck and already tough green shoots sought to reclaim the land.
The wide burn swath led him right to the grassy field where the remnants of an oval track remained visible, the area not yet recovered from the many feet that once used to wear it down to bare dirt.
Conscious the sun was getting low in the sky, Oliver quickened his pace, aiming past the track and the strip of grass for the concrete pad, barren of vehicles, and a stark stain worse than the fire because it was manmade.
The true object of his quest? The pile of rubble where a building once stood. Nature already sought to reclaim it, hints of green staining the stone. Leaves were caught in the crevices, and a hint of despair hovered over it all.
He couldn’t help but head straight for it, placing his hand on the broken frame of what might have been a window. Excited and, at the same time, shocked because as he’d trekked these past few days, he’d wondered just how much of what Cerberus said was the truth.
Because everyone knows the devil lies.
Despite his excitement, Oliver set up his camp first, pitching a tent on the concrete, using his light yet sturdy hammer to bang in the spikes, not caring of the cracks it created. His temporary home ready, he then unpacked his bag of all the necessities. Not just the rations and spare warm clothes he’d brought. He’d used up valuable space and weight in order to bring his laptop, a camera, and even his phone.