Night Beckons

by Colleen Gleason

  They were just bigger than coarse-ground salt—tiny crystals that glittered in the bright lights.

  “Theo,” Lou whispered from across the room, drawing his attention.

  He went over and saw what had put the hushed horror in his brother’s voice. A long, four-foot walled channel ran along the edge of the room and through the wall. Inside it floated human bodies.

  “Good God,” he said.

  Lou was just about to reach into the gelatinous substance when Theo snatched his hand back.

  “We don’t know what that is. Better not fucking touch it,” Theo told him, staring down at the bodies.

  They were clothed in what appeared to be normal attire. Hair floated like seaweed around them, the hems of their shirts drifted. From what Theo could see, the skin of the victims was pale, not necessarily gray. Only one of the three who’d come through the opening in the wall faced upward, and she—it was definitely a woman—had her eyes open.

  As Theo looked down at her, she blinked and her mouth moved.

  “Holy God,” he whispered, realizing she was looking at him. “She’s alive.”

  Just then, the sound of a clank alerted them to Ballard’s return. With one mind, Theo and Lou dashed across the room toward the other door. Like the other, the door opened easily—there seemed to be no cause for extra security once inside the main walls—and Theo slipped through, dragging the slower Lou with him.

  They barely had time to look around the new space and determine there was no immediate threat, then close the door, before the opposite one opened.

  Now they were in a short corridor lined with three doors—one at the opposite end, and one on each side of the hall. No need to speak; they read each other’s minds and each of them approached a door on one side of the hall, first listening and then cracking it open in an effort to find a place to hide in case Ballard came through.

  “Hell, Theo, get over here,” Lou hissed as Theo peered around the door he’d chosen. It appeared to be a bedroom with a small kitchenette; obviously Ballard’s living quarters.

  Aware of the noise of human movement coming from the operating room, Theo closed the bedroom door and joined Lou on the other side of the hall. His brother shoved him through and followed him in.

  “Holy shit,” Theo breathed staring at the man-sized tubes that hung on the wall. There were a dozen of them, and they looked like massive test tubes. Inside three of them were bodies, suspended in a bluish-tinged liquid.

  He recognized two of them: Wayne and Buddy.

  “What the hell are we going to do now?” Lou asked, approaching one of the tubes.

  “Are they still alive?” Theo asked, walking up to the one holding Wayne and saw that at the top of the tube was a little pipe that extended into the liquid.

  Wayne’s eyes were open, and his face and hands moved sluggishly as he seemed to notice Theo. Terror blazed in his eyes and he jerked in the small space once, like a fish trying to escape a net. “God, they’re alive.”

  “What do you think is in the tube? They seem to be able to breathe whatever it is,” Lou was saying. Now he was moving a stool over to climb up and look into the top of the container.

  “I don’t know. How’re we going to get them out of there?”

  Lou shook his head. “We could break the tubes, but with what?—and whatever that stuff is could be toxic or dangerous, spilling all over the floor.”

  “We’ve got to—”

  Theo snapped his mouth shut and they stilled. Another sound had caught their attention, coming closer. The slam of a door. The ringing of footsteps, drawing near.

  Again, they thought as one, each darting behind an empty tube in the shadowiest corner. Wedged between the tube and the wall, Theo looked over at his brother. For being seventy-eight years old, the guy was moving as well as he was. But that didn’t mean he could keep it up.

  Which was why Theo wasn’t going to do anything reckless. Lou’s safety was of paramount importance. They had to get out of here without being seen.

  So he watched through the tube, his vision warped by the blue liquid, as Ballard entered the room. This was the first time he’d seen the man close enough to observe the details of his face. The man wore a white lab coat in the biggest cliche ever, and he had dark, white-streaked hair. Approximately fifty years old, he looked vaguely familiar to Theo. Ballard walked up to Wayne’s bottle and looked in, tapping the glass as if to measure the man’s response.

  “Good for you,” he said, speaking to him, then moving on to Buddy, whose movements were more lethargic than his red-headed companion. “You’re looking a little upset there, sir, but we’ll soon remedy that,” Ballard said with a little chuckle. And then he moved on to the third and final tube. “Very well,” he said to himself—or the room at large—as he turned away.

  Theo held his breath, hoping that Ballard wouldn’t look closely enough at the other tubes that he must know were empty to notice him and Lou. The man walked over to the wall where he paused at a panel of buttons on a low counter. Click, click, click…he pushed three of them.

  And then, as bubbles began to rise in the three occupied tubes, he turned and walked out of the room. Whistling the Jeopardy song.

  Theo waited until the door shut behind him before emerging from his hiding place and then he dashed over to Wayne. The bubbles were coming fast and thick and Wayne’s eyes had widened, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  The liquid in the tubes churned and swirled angrily and Theo ran over to the panel…but before he could determine which buttons to push, a loud swoosh—like the sound of a toilet flush—filled the room.

  He spun just in time to see Wayne disappear down in a vortex of bubbles, and then another swoosh! And then a third one.

  “Holy shit,” he moaned, running to the tubes as Buddy and the other person dropped through the bottom and were sucked into the ether.

  “What do you want to bet they’re on their way to that big tank,” Lou said, standing next to him.

  “Fuck,” Theo groaned softly, slapping his hand against the tube in defeat. He tried to look down into it, but there was nothing to see.

  “We’ve got to do something about Ballard,” Lou said, pulling his brother away. “I don’t know what he’s going to do in that operating room, but we’ve got to stop him.”

  “He’s making fucking gangas,” Theo said, putting into words what he’d suspected from the very beginning, when he saw the bodies suspended in the pool. “The guy is a zombie Frankenstein.”

  “Did you recognize him?” Lou asked as they started toward the door.

  Theo stopped. “What? Ballard, you mean?”

  Lou nodded. “Yeah. You didn’t recognize him?”

  “No.”

  “Lester Ballard,” Lou said, his hand on the doorknob.

  “Holy fucking crap,” he said for about the tenth time that day. “Doctor Lester Ballard?”

  “Yep. He’s got to be wearing a crystal under that white lab coat, because he looks the same as he did fifty years ago. I recognized him from the picture on the cover of TIME magazine.”

  “The guy who used stem cells to cure MS in ten different people. Sonofadamnedbitch.” Another member of the Cult of Atlantis. Which meant that he was going to be an extra pain in the ass to kill, because the only way to do it was to cut out the immortalizing crystal that kept an Elite alive.

  “Let’s go,” Theo said grimly, noting that the rifle Lou had been carrying wasn’t going to do shit for them against Ballard. “Let’s get out of here and figure out what to do.”

  Lou shook his head, looking at him through his new glasses. “No way, Theo. I know what you’re thinking—you’re not going to take any risks with your old grandpa here. Well, that’s bullshit. The longer we delay, the more damage this quack is going to do.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Theo began, but Lou’s arm shot out and shoved him in the chest, slamming him into the wall before he realized what had happened.

  “If you don’t ma
ke a plan with me right now, I’m going to walk out of here and walk my ass plain as day into that room and do what needs to be done. I’m tired of being relegated to the computers and the saferoom. If anyone is going to risk their life, it should be me—I’m practically in the grave myself.”

  “Jesus, Lou,” Theo began, shoving his brother’s hand away.

  “I’m going.” Lou started to open the door.

  “Actually, I was going to say,” Theo began, catching the door but resisting the urge to slam it shut, “that might not be a bad idea, much as I hate it. You walk in there, honestly, he’s not going to find you much of a threat. Maybe you can distract him and I’ll come in through the outside door behind him. I’m guessing I can get there through that door.” He gestured to the one at the end of the hall.

  Lou’s face relaxed. “I like it. I’ll do my best to get him talking and keep him facing away from the door. You come in behind and we’ll go from there.”

  “But you have to do something to make him think you’re alone. Otherwise—”

  “Christ, Theo, do you think I’ve lost my brains along with my ripped muscles? I’ve got it,” Lou said. “Get going. Give me ten minutes.”

  Theo hesitated, then nodded. “All right. It’s your funeral, bro,” he said lightly, even though his stomach was still in knots. “Ten minutes, and I’m in. And by the way,” he added as he started toward the door, “what ripped muscles?”

  Adrenaline spiked through Lou as he approached the door to the operating room. He had the rifle Theo had taken from the bounty hunters’ truck slung over his shoulder, and little else to protect himself—except his wits.

  He decided on the bold approach, and after giving Theo a few minutes to get outside, Lou opened the door and walked into the operating room.

  Ballard didn’t seem to notice him at first, for he was using a pulley and sling to drag the woman in the channel out of the goop. She hung there for a moment, her legs and arms moving sluggishly at first, and then with greater agitation as the slick matter fell from her skin.

  “Now, now,” Ballard told her. “You’re going to be just fine. Take it easy, my dear. Take it easy.” He shifted the pulley and maneuvered the woman over to one of the tables. Dropping her onto it, he moved quickly and attached one of her legs to the table before he slid the sling from her body.

  “Tell me,” he said conversationally, “would you like to know how long you’ve been under suspension? That state of…being in limbo.”

  She didn’t seem to have enough strength to fight him, and Lou watched in horrified fascination as Ballard restricted her other leg and torso on the long table.

  “How long I’ve….” she said.

  “According to my records,” Ballard replied, his back still to Lou, “you’ve been suspended—my term, you know—since June 15, 2010. That’s more than fifty years. Can you believe it? And not one gray hair.” He gave a gentle laugh. “If only you didn’t have to swim in that horrible gel.”

  “What?” the woman gasped. “What are you talking about?” She started coughing, hard, and Ballard looked up from where he was affixing her wrist, concern on his face.

  “Oh dear, already?” He made a facetious tsking sound. “That was quick. Well, we’d best work quickly. I don’t fancy having to dig another of your companions out tonight.”

  The woman managed to get her coughing spell under control, and she asked, “What are you—” Her voice broke and she started coughing again, wracking and arching under her restraints as she tried to catch her breath.

  “My dear,” Ballard said, sounding annoyed. “This is not going well. You’re going to need to stop that if you want me to continue. Perhaps if you calmed down a bit. We could chat, you could tell me about what you used to do…and then we can—”

  “You’re a long way from stem cell research, aren’t you, Ballard?” Lou said, unable to wait any longer.

  The doctor spun and paused when he saw the old man standing there. “Who the hell are you?” He had a pistol in his hand before Lou could blink.

  “I remember your picture from when it was on TIME,” Lou said casually. “But I never thought I’d meet you in real life. I figured you’d died with everyone else back during the hell of 2010.”

  “Who are you?” Ballard asked again, and he cocked the gun.

  “It’s not important. But I’m quite curious about what you’re doing here. It doesn’t look like you’re taking the Hippocratic Oath very seriously, Lester.”

  “Put your gun over there, and move slowly and carefully to that wall.” Ballard didn’t seem to be interested in conversation—at least with Lou. “You’re interrupting a very important process and I don’t have time to waste.”

  Lou moved slowly to place the gun where directed, relieved that the position Ballard pointed him to was on the wall opposite where Theo would appear. If he could keep him distracted, Theo would have the opportunity to slip in behind.

  Gun. He thought the message hard and sharp to his twin as he took his place near the wall. The gun still aimed at him with a steady hand, Ballard approached and clipped a wrist restraint over Lou. Meanwhile, the woman had been coughing and choking more violently, causing Ballard to keep looking over at her.

  “I’ll deal with you in a minute,” he told Lou, hurrying back to the woman. “This is not going well.”

  “What are you doing?” Lou asked. “Reviving her?”

  Ballard had moved over to the table with the utensils on it and rested his pistol there, well on the other side and out of Lou’s reach. “In a manner of speaking. They don’t usually react this strongly so quickly after being retrieved. She must be of weak constitution. But….” His voice trailed off as he became engrossed in selecting a huge hypodermic needle from the line up on the end of the table near Lou.

  Theo. Hurry up!

  “Now, my dear,” Ballard said, projecting his voice toward the woman. “If you would just calm yourself—perhaps answer a few questions—then you wouldn’t be in such distress. Can you remember what it was you used to do before this all happened?”

  Lou watched as the doctor moved with spare efficiency: testing the needle, priming it with the liquid in the small dish, and then carefully selecting one of the orange crystals and inserting it into the needle’s cannula, where it floated in the liquid inside. Oh, that can’t be good.

  The crystal glowed and the doctor turned back to his patient, who seemed to have begun to wither and wrinkle as time went on. The whole process reminded Lou of a sea creature being removed from the ocean and shrinking and drying up…trying to breathe, gasping for air.

  “What are you doing?” he asked again, at the same time as he thought Theo!

  The fact that neither of them answered gave Lou a bad, bad feeling.

  The woman seemed to have tried to respond to the doctor’s last question, but her answer came out more like a gasp or sigh than anything else.

  “What was that?” the physician leaned closer in an attempt to hear. “A teacher? Is that—no? An officer? Oh, a police officer. I see.” He moved toward the top of the woman’s head and palpated the crown of her skull with his thumb as she tried to shift and struggle in the restraints. “That’s too bad,” he murmured, holding the needle up and eyeing it, and then with a studied movement, as Lou watched in silent horror, he shoved the four-inch needle into the woman’s skull and pushed the plunger home.

  She screamed and writhed, coughing and choking, her eyes wide with torture. Lou flew into action, struggling at his own binding, trying to find a way to unlatch the cuff around his wrist.

  “My God, what are you doing to her?” he demanded as Ballard removed the needle, smiling in approval.

  “Watch,” the doctor replied.

  As if Lou could turn his eyes away.

  Just then, the door behind Ballard cracked open. Thank God. What the hell took you so long?

  You said ten minutes.

  That was the longest fucking ten minutes I’ve ever lived through. Lou
kept his eyes away from the door.

  Theo slipped through the opening, silent as a cat, and Lou saw his attention go to the woman on the table. He shifted, purposely clanking his restraint, so that his brother would see that he was limited in range and mobility. But…his eyes lit on the table next to him. He might be able to reach one or two of the needles.

  They didn’t need to meet eyes; the mental bond was there. Lou knew when Theo was ready to move, and he prepared himself.

  They both went into action at the same time: Theo leaping from behind, something long and flexible in his hands, and Lou kicking out with his foot toward the table. He hooked it and yanked it toward him as Theo lunged toward the doctor, slipping the hose around his neck from behind.

  Taken completely by surprise, as he’d been engrossed in watching his patient, Ballard dropped the needle and reached up to grab at the tube cutting into his throat. Lou scrambled, trying to reach something off the rocking table as it spilled needles and crystals all over the floor.

  Ballard was shrieking silently and ineffectively, and Theo was doing his best to swing him around by the neck and keep him off balance. The Elite were superhumanly strong, as well as being immortal, and Lou knew his brother was going to have to rely on momentum and surprise to best him.

  He managed to snag two needles, bending to scoop them up. My God, these are fucking huge. It was like shoving a straw into someone’s brain. Lou glanced at the victim on the table and saw that her skin had begun to turn gray…and she seemed to be changing. Stretching, growing, elongating.

  God in heaven.

  Theo looked at Lou and swung the doctor hard to the side, crashing his head into the wall, and then using the momentum to whip around and do it again. They were working their way toward Lou and he knew what he’d have to do.

  Scalpel. He looked at the instruments all over the floor and spotted one of the surgical knives. It was…just…in…reach….