by Phil Maxey
Sam looked directly at her. “What you do to me. My parents will come here and kill you and that man.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, kiddo, but you heard what he said in regards to your parents…”
Sam turned back to the front, a mannequin’s smile growing on her face. “It won’t matter.”
Joan frowned then pushed her door open, got out, closed it then walked around the other side and opened Sam’s. “Let’s go see the puppet master.”
CHAPTER FIVE
7: 23 a.m. Bowlands School. Town of Greenstow.
Another school…
It was the third Jess had been inside of over the past two days. For some reason they always seemed the best port in the storm.
Sanchez looked through binoculars from the second-floor window viewpoint, then ducked, dragging Esther lower with him. “There’s still plenty out there…” He looked at the other woman looking out the other windows in the corner classroom. “What’s it like to the north?”
“Same,” said Jess. A huge dark mass was beginning to reveal its secrets as it moved out of the shadow of the large school gym and into the morning light. It staggered rather than walked. An impossible amalgamation of awkward limbs that dug into the frost-covered grass. It appeared to her to be an organic automaton, something constructed in a bygone era out of flesh and bone. She still had a hard time believing that the things that had been chasing her and her family for almost four days were once people. Once had lives and children of their own. All of that now reduced to a circus horror show.
A part of it swung upwards. Perhaps a head. She pulled back as a roar bellowed out sending a puff of white mist upwards.
“At least they’re not trying to break in,” said Esther.
“And you think they won’t try?” said Sanchez.
The younger woman frowned, sitting on the carpeted floor, stretching her legs out in front of her. A noise came from the hallway outside, the door opening.
Landon and Lachlan appeared, quickly closing the door behind.
“All the ways in are secured,” said Landon. “And they seem to be leaving the vehicle alone.”
Jess looked out, above the roofs of the small homes and spindly branches which blocked her view of the rest of the town and further still to the hint of mountains many miles in the distance. “He has what he wanted…”
“He? Who’s he?” said Sanchez.
“Your kid?” said Esther. “I thought it was this, ‘Joan’ woman that’s taken her?”
“She’s working for someone else,” said Landon, sitting on a table near his wife. He placed a hand on her shoulder but she moved away.
“You finally going to tell us why she was taken?” said Sanchez.
Jess looked away. “We don’t owe you an explanation.”
Landon caught the anger flash across Sanchez’s face and held his hand up. “But we’ll give you one.” He looked at Jess who was looking outside still, her thoughts no doubt with their daughter then to the man who asked the question. “Get comfy, this may take a while.”
*****
7: 35 a.m. South Denver.
The stench…
The odor of rot, flesh and otherwise was so strong it felt to Sam as if it was crawling inside her nose, penetrating her skull. But that was fine. She was being taken like a lamb to be slaughtered by someone even more crazy than the old woman. It was a fate she had accepted the moment she heard Joan’s voice in the store. But within her mind, a spark of hope burned. Not for herself because that train had left the station, but that those that were dragging her into the bowels of her mother’s workplace would see justice. She was as sure of that as she was of the insanity of Joan and the mysterious Lucas.
They walked through the narrow corridors, only lit by Joan’s flashlight. Sam tried not to notice the walls covered in bubbling brown and gray tendrils as if they were inside a living organism. Tried not to notice how they reached out for the two intruders walking past.
A bluish light was ahead, seeping from beneath double doors.
The end…
For a moment which lasted less than a heartbeat she thought about turning and running into the darkness. Trying to escape what was about to happen. Maybe go down fighting? But instead she continued walking towards the glowing door, her legs just about containing enough strength to propel her body forward.
She was a kid. It wasn’t fair. She should be home right now, ironically just ten or so miles away, chatting with Cass on the tablet. Gossiping over whoever was their favorite tv actor this week.
They all died...
A tear ran down her cheek as Joan pushed open the doors.
“What the hell…” The words fell from Joan’s lips.
Across a large room of flickering screens and refuse, a blue light methodically pulsed within Sam’s watery eyes. Her boot kicked something. She looked down at mess strewn across the floor of what appeared to be some kind of medical laboratory. A chaos of plastic, glass and papers filled every available space as if an explosion had taken place.
Joan’s attention though was on the far end of the room. “What is that?” she said to the figure of a man, some yards away.
Sam wanted to look at him, to see who was calling the shots, but she couldn’t take her gaze from the mass of organic material which was clumped across what appeared to be a capsule of some kind, standing at least ten-feet in height. Within was a misty swirling liquid and something—
The man had moved into the light, but she wished he hadn’t. One half of his face was covered in the same living tissue that covered the walls. She was sure it moved and slid, similar to what she had seen Joan’s face do hours before. The other, more human side of his face was a middle-aged man she didn’t recognize. He staggered forward, hunched over slightly, one of his hands in his pocket.
“What the hell happened to you?” said Joan.
“The vaccine had an unusual effect… as you can see. And the creatures attacked me before I could get here.”
Sam could tell the man’s appearance was a shock to the older woman. With some effort he turned to Sam and smiled. She took a step back.
“No, child… there is no need to be afraid.” He took another step forward, Sam doing the same in the opposite direction.
Joan held her ground. “You didn’t answer my question. What is that?” She emphasized the final word, pointing at the cylindrical apparatus.
The man turned to it. “This is the continuation of… the work that was done here…”
Joan walked closer as Sam walked further back then stopped when she realized she was getting closer to the living tissue on the walls. A small patch extruded in her direction. For a moment she felt as if she was underwater and was surrounded by a coral reef.
“Now the Keller child is here we can finish what… was started…”
Joan looked at him. “Okay Lucas, but what do you know about any of this science stuff? That was Rackham’s thing. And as far as I know he’s dead. You told me the thing’s killed him.”
“Yes… yes… but—”
As he talked Joan walked closer to the capsule and even from fifteen-feet away Sam sensed the older woman’s sudden jump in heart rate.
Joan shook her head then stepped even closer, peering through the swirling substance to what Sam couldn’t see. “No… it can’t be… He’s dead…” She looked at Lucas. “We killed Finn.”
Another misshapen smile crept across the man’s face. “Now the extinction gene—”
Joan’s head flicked towards the man. “Extinction?”
His smiled continued. “What else would we call Ellie’s genetics?”
She looked back to the capsule and what was taking shape within. “Why have you got Finn in…” she searched for the right word. “Whatever this is!”
“Finn was the one of you I had the most hope for. He truly embraced what he had become…” He turned to the back of the room and the girl who hoped she was hidden within the shadows. “And once we have extr
acted the parts we need from the Keller—”
Joan’s head flicked towards the man again. “Parts? You told me you just need to take a little blood from her.”
The smile had gone from the man, replaced with no emotion at all. “What I do with the child is not your concern. You are a soldier and you will be well compensated for—”
Confusion reined across Joan’s face. “You’re right I am a soldier. I completed the order you gave me. I kidnapped Jess’s Keller kid because—”
The sound of something bubbling made Sam slowly turn around, to look into the part of the paneling on the wall that was not in shadow. The material shifted, expanded and began to form shapes… was that a nose?… an eye came and went. Nausea came at Sam and she promptly grabbed at the side of a desk and heaved, but her empty stomach produced nothing.
—“You said she was important to fixing this mess, but I didn’t bring her here for you to—”
Sam heard the explosion of skin and bone, the ripping of clothes as she was looking at the floor, but she quickly raised her head, her eyes growing large, her dry mouth falling open. The thing that called itself Lucas was larger, broader. One of its arms was extended a full six-feet and was a tangle of vine like tissue and at the end its claw had Joan around her throat. The other thing, the one that called itself Joan, struggled to free itself, it too was different. Its arms flailed at the one holding it, its head bulged and shrunk, the features sinking into flesh then reappearing. Sam thought about running. This was her chance, but in all honesty she was morbidly fascinated with the scene in front of her. Two otherworldly things were fighting. When do you get to see that?
Lucas released his grip, dropping the Joan creature back to the floor, his arm retracting back into its sleeve. He turned to the capsule. “He will be my greatest achievement,” then swung around to Sam who backed into another desk behind her, knocking a burned out lamp to the floor. “Your family was always destined for greatness!”
CHAPTER SIX
8: 13 a.m. School of Bowlands.
Jess’s eyes were closed as she enjoyed the sun on her face but she felt no warmth. In fact, she felt nothing. She wasn’t sure if that was a response to possibly losing a child… for the second time. A psychological immune reaction to extreme grief. She was sure psychiatrists would make a fortune on a book about her mind.
“The insane brain of a half human mother…” she whispered, then scoffed but quickly stopped in case the outburst became sobbing which would never end.
A groan came from one of the things two stories below. She opened her eyes and looked down, over the wall of the school roof to creatures. Twenty? Forty? She didn’t know for they kept moving behind the nearby buildings and vehicles, before reappearing and growling or bellowing out into the chilled morning air. Either way, they appeared to be constantly circling the school she was in, as if they were patrolling, waiting for her to leave and kill her.
She looked up, above the other rooftops, then trees and could just see an impression of a city many miles ahead.
Sam…
She choked back a tear then suppressed the emotion which came with it in fear that it would overwhelm her and she would collapse into a catatonic state.
She’s alive… she’s alive…
She almost didn’t hear the footsteps come up the narrow metal staircase and then the door open behind her.
“Sanchez, might have something,” said Landon.
She remained looking out over the landscape. “Have something?”
“Yeah, a way into the city.”
She turned around. “There is no way into the city. It’s hopeless!”
Landon shook his head and walked towards her. He reached out, trying to embrace her, but she walked away.
“I… No… Please…”
“He think’s he can fly us in…”
The idea was so absurd that she almost laughed, instead she looked at her husband with a tinge of anger. “What?”
“Turns out the ‘import, export business’ involved flying things over the border.”
Her anger was increasing. She raised her arms. “Where is there a—”
Landon slowly smiled, raising his hand and pointing across the roof to the northwest. “There’s a small airport over there…”
She looked away again, shaking her head then looked back. “Is this real? He really can fly us in?”
“Yup.” He walked to the wall near to her and looked down. “We just need to lose these things and get there somehow.”
This time they both heard the footsteps and looked to the rooftop exit. It sprung open with Sanchez and Esther emerging.
“So we got a plan as to how we’re going to make it the three miles to the airport,” said Sanchez. He looked at the woman next to him.
She let out a slow breath. “Looks like you’ll be going on without me.”
“What do you mean?” said Jess, leaning back on the wall, something Landon wasn’t comfortable doing with the creatures circling not far away below.
“Esther is going to jump in Bertha and like the pied piper lead all of those monstrosities away from here,” said Sanchez “We then use your pickup and get to where we need to go.”
A dangerous emotion was beginning to replace the numbness inside Jess. Hope. She ignored it and looked at the two strangers risking their lives for her daughter. “Thank you.”
*****
8: 26 a.m. South Denver. Biochron headquarters.
The straps were tight. Too tight. The fabric already making Sam’s wrists and ankles sore. Her eyes were closed, the darkness of the inside of her eyelids preferable to the room she was in.
Parts…
It was a throwaway word for the monster that called itself Lucas, but death for the girl clothed in a medical gown and attached to the gurney in what looked to Sam like a surgical theater, except this one had smears of blood and other, living matter across the walls. She didn’t feel sick anymore. She didn’t feel anything anymore. She died some hours before. She was sure of it and this was hell. She was to be tortured for all eternity by a literal mad scientist.
A fizzing came from somewhere above, accompanied with flashes through the thin skin covering her pupils. In her mind she wanted to believe it was a fly or a moth interfering with the light in the ceiling. Yes that was it.
Don’t open your…
She opened her eyes. Something was crawling across the florescent tube ten-feet above. Directly above her. The same ‘something’ which covered most of the walls of the facility. Tendrils reached out, pulling, growing… she closed her eyes again but refused to think about her family. That way lay madness, instead she thought about her room in the apartment in Denver. Her favorite pair of pants, the bright red ones with the silver buttons, and then on to her small bookshelf where she kept the books she had read a hundred times but always returned to, despite the binding coming apart.
No matter what they do, I have my things. They are still there. Still in the—
A noise came from somewhere in one of the myriad of corridors, outside.
This is it. He’s coming to take my parts…
Her stoicism was failing. She wanted to throw up again, but this time she couldn’t bend over, she couldn’t move at all. She would drown in her own vomit. Perhaps this was also part of the torture? To repeatedly die in horrible ways.
The door creaked while opening but she didn’t look. It didn’t matter.
“Sam! You alive?”
She opened her eyes, which grew large at seeing Joan. The older woman was busy pulling the straps from her legs.
“What…” The flicker of shock which became hope, quickly dissolved. This was part of the torture. Make her think she was escaping.
“Come on! Sit up, quick!”
Sam did as asked, but remained strewn across the bed.
“What are you doing? We have to go!”
“I know this is not real. I know you’re just—”
An arm stretched around Sam’s ba
ck and pulled her forward, making her topple off the side of the bed and land awkwardly on the ground, where her bare foot slid on something warm.
“I’m risking my life for you, kid! Stop messing around!”
She looked up at the older woman. “You’re… helping me?”
“Yes! But not if you don’t get your shit together! We don’t have long. Are you hurt? Can you walk?”
Sam nodded in disbelief.
“Good. I don’t have your clothes. I don’t know where they are. But there’s a whole city of that shit above us. You ready to go?”
Sam nodded again, her mind a swirl of emotions and questions, the latter she was afraid to ask in case Joan changed her mind.
The older woman moved back to the door, pulling it open slightly and looked outside. She waved Sam closer. “Stay very close to me.”
“Okay…”
Sam hadn’t remembered much of the space outside the surgical room. Her mind was lost to terror when the thing carried her inside, then secured her to the bed. But the corridor was in flux, with walls of continuous movement. Ripples became faces which became tentacles, then snapped back to form a seething froth. They were going to have to move past it but Sam’s feet felt like lead.
“Now. We go now!” said Joan, pulling her hand.
They both ran down the center as parts of the wall bulged in their direction. Sam looked back and immediately regretted the decision. A human eye at least a foot wide was looking at her. She froze. Her appendages being drained of any will to move the rest of her. A hand grabbed her arm and tugged her through another set of double doors. She was running now, behind the older woman without any idea of where they were going. The light above flickered, giving her only glimpses of what covered every inch of the ceiling and most of the walls and floor. It squelched beneath her toes. Its stickiness wanting to absorb her, but she forced her feet off the ground and ran with Joan through another single door, this one leading to a narrow corridor and then finally stairs. Thankfully, the walls here were clearer.