by ID Johnson
“No,” Cassidy said again.
This time, it was Elliott’s turn to sigh. “Get on my back, little girl,” he insisted, turning to the side so she could do just that. Even as Cadence boosted her sister up, she could tell that Cassidy was trembling. As soon as her hands were clasped around Elliott’s neck, he jumped. This time Cassidy didn’t scream, but Cadence could tell she was terrified. Elliott landed with no problems, and then Cadence and Brandon found decent landing spots and flung themselves off of the wall to join the rest of the team.
By the time Cadence landed, Aaron was already several yards ahead of them, and once she made sure Cass was okay, she bounded off to join him. Andrew was walking toward them, and even though he seemed to be attempting to be stealthy, his footsteps were loud on the cold ground and he was not carefully picking his way through the shrubbery.
“What’s going on?” Aaron asked as Andrew came to a stop in front of them.
“These placements,” Andrew said, one hand on his hip, “my team is saying you told them all to cross the wall, but I told them to stay outside of the perimeter. Now, they don’t know what to do.”
“We want them on this side of the wall,” Aaron replied, and Cadence could tell by his expression that he was about to be fed up with this waste of time as well.
“Why?” Andrew questioned. “Don’t we need them on the other side so if Gibbon gets over the wall, we can chase him down?”
“No, we need them on this side of the wall so that Gibbon doesn’t get out,” Aaron explained, his voice straining.
“If he gets over that wall, he’s gone,” Cadence interjected, putting her hand on Aaron’s arm. “We won’t be able to chase him down.”
“Well, I still think it might be a good idea to have a man or two on the other side,” Andrew said, his voice teetering on condescending.
“I have an idea: let’s do it my way, and if I’m wrong, you can tell me about it tomorrow, okay?” Aaron asked and Cadence stepped in front of him. She wasn’t sure what had him so wound up, but clearly he was upset about something, and while Cassidy’s freak out and Andrew’s baby fit weren’t helping, he wouldn’t normally get this out of sorts about something like this.
“Andrew, tell them to get over the wall. It’ll be fine. Hopefully, they won’t even see Gibbon,” she said with a smile and as much patience as she could interject into her voice.
Andrew glanced at Aaron and then back at Cadence before he said, “Fine,” and disappeared into the foliage.
Cadence turned around. “Are you okay?” she asked, putting her hands on his shoulders.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said with a shrug. “Just tired of people not following directions. Which one of us do they listen to? How about me. Last I checked, I’m the one running this operation.”
“Calm down,” Cadence urged, running her hand down his arm. “He’s not very good at his job, remember?”
“Right. And I think I’ll replace him. Tomorrow.”
“Okay, but for now, we need to get in there. Come on. Did you hear Cale’s call that the medical team is in place?”
“No, but then, I guess I don’t usually pay as much attention to Cale as some people do,” he mumbled.
“What?” Cadence asked, turning to give him a sharp look.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Cadence definitely knew that something was going on now, and though she had no idea what it could be, she hoped it didn’t affect the hunt.
“Hey boss man, you sure you don’t want me in that watch tower?” Elliott was asking. “I know you said watch the halls from inside this little center chamber, but why don’t I leave that to the docs that are already here and head out there, in case we have a runner.”
“Sounds good,” Aaron said, though Cadence could tell by his tone he was acquiescing without even considering the options. Still, it did seem to make sense that someone should be up there, and now that Elliott was back, he was the best candidate.
“What about Cass?” Cadence asked.
“What do you want me to do? Take her or leave her?”
“Leave her with Jamie, Cale, and Scarlet,” Aaron replied before Cadence could even formulate a sentence. Then, just to Cadence he said, “I want her with the Healers just in case something should happen.”
“Okay,” Cadence nodded. Brandon was assigned to a group that would be actively looking for Gibbon, so he wouldn’t be around to keep Cass safe. Still, she had to trust all of her teammates, and Cadence felt confident that both Jamie and Cale could keep her sister from getting hurt.
Once everyone else was in position, Cadence and Aaron would approach the Klondike, hoping that Gibbon would simply be sitting in there waiting on them. Of course, she had a feeling it wouldn’t be that simple. Nothing ever was.
“Hey boss man,” Elliott said again, “I thought we believed there wouldn’t be any people here.”
“That’s what we were told,” Aaron replied. “What are you seeing?”
“Uh, well, it looks like we’ve got a security guard walking between the greenhouse buildings carrying a flashlight.”
“Great,” Aaron muttered under his breath. A few seconds later, said security guard came around the corner, only a few yards from Cadence and Aaron’s position.
“What do we do?” Cadence whispered.
“Nothing. If we stay low, he won’t see us. Christian, you’re sure there’s no alarms anywhere activated in any of the buildings, right?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Christian replied. He was also stationed in the main building, in the entryway. “I did a scan just a few minutes ago. I deactivated the simple alarm they had in place, and nothing is reading now. So if the guard has noticed it’s off, he hasn’t reset it.”
“Maybe this guy is a new addition since there’s been so many disappearances in the area,” Andrew chimed in, and Cadence felt Aaron tense up next to her.
“That’s a possibility,” she offered. The guard was still coming their way, and she realized they needed to move. They weren’t far from the Klondike; they just needed to get there and get inside before this guy noticed, or else he might end up having to be put out of commission for a while.
“If Gibbon is here, won’t he be after that guy?” Cassidy asked over the IAC to only Cadence.
“Not necessarily,” Cadence replied as she and Aaron lost themselves in the shadow of the main building. She could see the opening to the Klondike just in front of them. “Gibbon may not realize there’s anyone here. Or he may be hiding from us.”
Her sister asked another question, but Cadence couldn’t concentrate on that and what Aaron was gesturing for her to do at the same time, so she ignored Cassidy, thinking it probably wasn’t important anyway. There was a grate that needed to be moved, and following his lead, she hoisted one side up as he got the other. Then they leaned it against the building.
There was a long stairwell that disappeared into nothingness. She looked at Aaron and made an X with her fingers. Understanding that she was asking about his X-ray vision, he looked down the stairwell and then shrugged and shook his head. So he couldn’t really see anything from here. If they wanted to know if Gibbon was down there, they’d have to go look.
Aaron drew his weapon and began to make his way down the staircase. Cadence took the revolver out of her waistband and followed just behind him. The smell of dampness and mildew down here was overwhelming, and once they reached the bottom, Cadence could see that this place wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. The small walkway was full of pipes and other infrastructural support pieces, and navigating around them was not easy.
“No wonder they put a grate over the opening,” she muttered.
“They still let people down here, though,” he reminded her as they approached a heavy wooden door.
Aaron stopped on one side and gestured for her to go to the other, which she did. So this must be the Klondike, she thought. He gave her two short nods and then a long one, indicating a count to three and then bur
st through the door, which would have opened whether it was locked or not, and Cadence followed.
As soon as she stepped into the room, two things were evident. First of all, despite the pitch blackness surrounding her, Gibbon was most certainly not here. Secondly, the overwhelming stench of death hit her full in the face, and had she been human, she definitely would have retched all over the cold concrete floor.
“Holy hell,” Aaron mumbled, shoving his revolver back into its holster and stepping over to a pile of bodies deeper than Cadence had ever seen or imagined she might see. “I guess we’ve got more than twelve victims here.”
“Yeah. Looks more like… twenty.”
“I don’t think there’s any sense checking for pulses,” he continued, stepping back away from them himself. “Anyone who's been down here with this for more than a few hours is probably expired.”
“We can come back and do a recovery later,” Cadence nodded. While she hated to think of anyone lying down here in this hell, at least now, perhaps, some of the families would have some closure. It was difficult to identify anyone for sure considering how the bodies had been tossed aside on top of one another, but Cadence saw the head of a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties, her hair pulled into a messy bun. That could be the school teacher. She also saw a pair of Kicks sticking out from the bottom of the pile, which might belong to one of the teenagers, and a hand with bright pink nail polish. The remains of a broken camera littered the ground nearby.
“Boss man, sorry to break up your macabre party down there, but we’ve got a problem,” Elliott called.
“What is it?” Aaron asked, backing away from the bodies.
“Paul Blart is headed through the front door, right toward Christian’s team.”
“Affirmative,” Aaron replied. “We’re on our way up. Christian, be careful, but do what you need to do.”
***
Cassidy was standing in the middle of the spokes that went off in all different directions down dark corridors lined with prison cells. Elliott had told her to stay with Jamie, no matter what, unless the doctor told her otherwise, and while she didn’t mind any of the Guardians she was standing with, she didn’t really know any of them either. Now, she was on her first real hunt, in a dark, allegedly haunted building, practically all alone. And she knew there was a Vampire nearby.
She had wanted to call out to Gibbon the second she entered the premises, but so far, she hadn’t done so. Cadence had told her not to. Her sister was afraid she might tip the bloodsucker off to their whereabouts, and even though she hadn’t attempted to make contact with him, Cassidy was certain he was there, and he was close. Much closer than the others thought.
While she stood in the large circular room, she took turns looking down the length of one long expanse and then the next, wondering if the shadows she saw shifting in the distance were her teammates changing positions or if Gibbon was on his way. Though she couldn’t read his thoughts, she could feel him; it was an overwhelming darkness, like a soul void of feeling. He seemed to suck away the energy, the light, from wherever he was, and she thought that it must be miserable to exist as such a pathetic, evil creature.
Cassidy knew what he had been in life. She saw the news reports about The Jogging Path Slayer. He had murdered over half a dozen innocent young women, slashing their throats in cold blood. What could make a person do something like that? If she had the opportunity to reach into his mind, would she be able to see what could cause an ordinary person to turn into something so demonic?
She was peering intently down cell block four and saw nothing, and then her attention shifted to five. She thought Meagan and Shane were positioned down there, somewhere toward the middle of the row. Something began to move, and she realized there was a light coming up the hall. It couldn’t be her teammates—could it? Why would they have a light on. After a moment, when she was sure she wasn’t just seeing things, she nudged Jamie gently in the arm and said, “There’s a light.”
“I know,” Jamie said, nodding in the direction of the entryway. “It’s the security guard.”
“No, not there,” Cassidy replied, realizing now that another light was also approaching from the front of the building. “There.”
She pointed at cell block five, where the light was growing closer. The Healer turned his attention that direction, and over the IAC, Jamie said, “Meagan, Shane what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” Meagan asked.
“There’s a light coming your way,” Jamie replied, his voice a bit strained. “Probably weren’t even paying attention, dammit,” he muttered aloud under his breath.
A few seconds later, Shane’s voice came through. “It’s another security guard,” he replied. “He’s headed your way.”
“What do you want us to do?” Jamie asked Aaron, but before he could even answer, Aaron was giving directions to the Healer team to take cover so that the security guard could pass, hopefully without seeing any of them.
Cassidy followed Jamie’s directions, and the team slipped around in the shadows between some of the displayed exhibits, attempting to stay out of the human’s way so he wouldn’t have to become involved, though it seemed to Cassidy that there was no way they could take out Gibbon without him being aware.
Cassidy was still having difficulty figuring out how best to use her IAC. She tended to focus on the visuals she got from her sister, since those were most important to her, and then occasionally she would switch to Brandon, who was standing with Aurora in a cell doing very little. At least Cadence was moving, and she and Aaron had just about made their way up to the entryway of the main building behind the security guard, who was diligently checking windows before he shined his light down the main entrance and started heading their way. He would have to pass Christian, Ashley, and Mickey to get there.
The light from the second security guard was coming closer, and Cassidy decided to shift to Meagan’s IAC so that she could see if he’d passed their position. She could see the light bouncing around the hall, as if the guard was checking each cell. Meagan was in the corner of the cell, Shane on the opposite wall as the light approached the doorway. Then, suddenly, it began to bobble, and Cassidy heard the security guard let out a surprised yelp. At first she thought perhaps he had seen one of the LIGHTS members in the room, but then his yelp turned into a scream, and the flashlight fell to the floor.
“Gibbon!” Cassidy said aloud, before catching herself and switching to the IAC. “Gibbon has the second security guard!”
A few seconds later, Shane came crashing into the hallway, Meagan right behind him, their weapons drawn. Gibbon was there. Cassidy could see him through Meagan’s IAC. He looked nothing like the man whose mug shots had been plastered all over the news a few months ago. No, this man was much more musclebound, his arms disproportionate to his body. His hair was nearly gone, his eyes wild, and he appeared to be frothing at the mouth as he bit into the neck of the security guard, not bothering to suck the blood through his fangs as most Vampires tended to do.
Before Shane could interfere, the security guard slumped to the ground, his wound seemingly fatal, and as the Guardian lunged at Gibbon, weapon in hand, the Vampire grabbed the end of the revolver and swung Shane, also a very muscular man, into the air like he was a play thing. The Guardian hit the wall on the far side of the hallway and slid to the floor. Cassidy couldn’t tell if he was conscious or not.
Meagan’s hands were clearly shaking, but she fired at the Vampire anyway, and missed. Gibbon looked at her as if she were the stepmother he hated, and as he came at her, Cale took off down the hallway, his weapon drawn, yelling something about an unprotected Hunter. The other security guard must have also heard the shouting as he hurried across the room in front of where Cassidy stood, Jamie now shielding her with his body, and Cassidy considered yelling out to the human to stop; he didn’t want to go down that hallway.
The Vampire Hunter in cell block five, though she was young and small, had seen man
y things. Nothing, however, could’ve prepared her for this, and as Gibbon stepped out of her line of fire, Meagan seemed to realize she was in trouble. She screamed, something Cassidy had never imagined a Hunter might do, and Gibbon picked her up, tossing her down the hallway in the direction from which he had come. Her IAC went blurry and then dark, as if she had her eyes clutched, and Cassidy braced herself as a sickening crunch shook the girl’s small frame upon making contact with the concrete wall.
“Oh, my God!” Cassidy mumbled, switching her IAC to Cale, who would be the next person to come into contact with the Vampire.
She didn’t realize until she was halfway there that Jamie was dragging her across the room toward a small office near the hall that led to the entryway. If he had said anything to her, she hadn’t heard it. Where was her sister? Where was Aaron? What would Gibbon do to Cale?
“Stay here,” Jamie was saying, pushing her inside the room. “Scarlet and I are going to have to go help Cale.”
“Alone?” Cassidy cried, wondering why she was so scared of someone who was potentially so much like herself.
Jamie looked around, and by that time, Christian’s team was advancing from the front entryway up to the circular observation room. “Christian!” he shouted, not using the IAC. “Can you stay with Cassidy?”
Christian looked behind him, as if trying to decide what he should do. Cadence and Aaron came blurring down the hallway behind him and Ashley and Mickey, headed for cell block five. Apparently, he assumed they had it under control, so he said, “Yeah, sure,” and ducked into the little room with Cassidy.
“Thanks,” Jamie replied. “Lock the door,” he ordered as he took off behind Cadence and Aaron, and Cassidy wondered why in the world they should bother to lock the door when the monster on the other side could easily rip it off of the hinges, but Christian did as he was told, and Cassidy slid underneath a table, her knees drawn to her chest, waiting.