Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

“Click file and then properties. There!” he said. “Click source folder.”

  I did. A folder opened, revealing hundreds of documents. “Whoa,” I breathed.

  Some were word documents, some pdfs. Some were labeled with boring sounding school related file names; some were labeled ‘agfaegt’ like he had randomly hit keys. I click a random file and Lindström’s logo stared at us again. I clicked another with the same results. A third had a different logo with “Sterling Securities” at the top.

  “Isn’t that the guy who’s trying to take over the police department?” Nathen asked.

  “This is weird,” I said, forgetting his question as soon as he asked it.

  “Copy them,” Carina said.

  “On what?” I asked.

  “Find something.”

  Nathen rummaged through the desk drawers until he found a flash drive and plugged it into the computer under the monitor. Another folder popped up from the screen. I drug the whole folder with all the files into it. A bar appeared on the screen indicating the transfer progress.

  “It’s quiet,” Nathen said.

  “What?” I asked.

  He was right. The shock of finding Mr. Walker had made me forget all about our pursuers, but they weren’t outside the door anymore. The banging had stopped.

  “That’s weird,” I said. Then a thought jumped into my head and my eyes widened. “This isn’t good.”

  “What isn’t?” Nathen said. “Seems like them wandering off to find easier targets is a good thing.”

  “They don’t give up,” I said, “unless there’s a bigger predator to run them off.”

  The door, bookcases and all, exploded in at that moment. I snatched Nathen behind the desk just in time. Chunks of newly demolished wood peppered the entire room. A few hit Carina, but with her stone skin, she remained unhurt.

  I peeked my head over the desk to see the massive man who had beaten the crap out of me standing in the door way. Was it my imagination or was he even bigger?

  “Oh, crap,” I said

  “Dad?” Carina whispered.

  Chapter 20

  8:32 p.m.

  I was so surprised by his appearance that it took several very long moments for Carina’s whispered word to sink into my brain. The massive man and I stared at each other like a couple of outlaws in a showdown. I wondered if any of them ever wanted to wet their breeches because I felt the sudden urge to do so at the memory of my face feeling like tenderized meat after our encounter the previous night.

  “Dad, you’re okay.” Carina stepped toward the man.

  “Carina, no,” I said, reaching out a hand like I had some kind of Jedi force to stop her.

  “It’s my dad,” she said. “We’re safe.”

  “I don’t think…” I started but trailed off as her dad turned his blue eyes toward his daughter. They seemed to bulge a tiny bit less.

  “Dad, I was worried sick.” A smile appeared on Carina’s face and she took two steps toward him.

  “Carina, stop!” I said.

  “That’s my dad.” She must have been so traumatized by the events of the day that she couldn’t see the man staring at her wasn’t playing with a full deck of cards. Granted, it was dark in the office, but there was no missing the crazed look in his eyes. Well, it was either crazy or anger. I couldn’t tell which.

  Not to mention his sheer size. I had seen a picture of her dad when we were at her house. I hadn’t recognized the standard issue geek as the monster who had knocked me silly.

  “I think there’s something wrong with him,” I said.

  “What in the world are you talking about,” she asked.

  The large man turned his attention back to me. “I told you to stay out of our way, boy.” His voice sounded like he had recently gargled rocks.

  “Dad, what’s wrong with your voice? What happened to you?”

  Carina’s relief at seeing him unharmed definitely clouded her vision. He seemed even bigger than our first encounter. Veins pushed by hard muscle struggled to burst through his skin which was stretched so thin it was almost to the point of being translucent. Kind of gross, actually.

  “Something’s changed in him,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Carina asked.

  He took a step toward me. “You dragged my daughter into this?” He flexed his arms and I thought his skin my split open under the pressure.

  “Dad, these are my friends, Conor and Nathen,” Carina said, a note of worry finally creeping into her voice. “They were helping me look for you.”

  “You’ll only get in the way, won’t you, boy?” he asked me. “I’m just going to remove you like the virus you are before you ruin everything.”

  “Dad?”

  “He’s just one guy,” Nathen whispered next to me. “We can take him.”

  I shook my head, but he apparently wasn’t paying attention. He stepped around the desk. “Nathen, don’t.”

  Ignoring Nathen, Carina’s dad took a couple steps toward me. I didn’t think it wouldn’t be much of a barrier, but I was eternally thankful to have the desk between us. If nothing else, it would slow the man down long enough for me to… I don’t know what. Jump out the window? That seemed the only option at that moment.

  I couldn’t do that, though. Even If I managed to drag Nathen through the window with me, what about Carina? I wasn’t sure if she’d follow.

  At the moment, I had to worry about my best friend. Why did that idiot have to go to the other side of the desk? Was he trying to flank the monster or what?

  “Dad? What’s going on?”

  “Look, Mr. Hass, we were just looking for you,” I said.

  “Lies,” he growled.

  “We’ve found you, so we’ll just go home and wait for all this to be over.”

  “Lies!” he yelled loud enough to give Nathen’s ability a run for its money.

  Carina flinched at the booming voice. “Dad! I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to go home.” She stepped forward.

  Her dad swatted her away with a backhand hard enough that she left her feet and slammed into the wall. He didn’t seem to care he had just struck his daughter. His bulging eyes were on me and I saw murder in them. Madness. I was thankful she was already in her stone form or she could have been seriously hurt.

  Nathen slid between us. “These aren’t the freaks you’re looking for.” He waved a hand in front of Mr. Hass.

  “Nathen, don’t!” I called out.

  Nathen brought his other hand up and I knew he was about to clap them together. He didn’t get the chance. The large man planted a hand in the middle of Nathen’s chest and shoved.

  Nathen’s feet left the ground. He flew over the desk and crashed out the window.

  “Nathen!” Carina screamed from the floor.

  “Get out of here, Carina,” I said, my eyes on her father who had swelled to new proportions.

  “Dad, what are you doing?” Her voice croaked. She climbed to her feet and reached a hand out to her father.

  “Carina, no!”

  Mr. Hass lifted a hand to swat her away again, but I sprung over the desk and flung myself bodily into that arm. It was enough to knock the tree trunk-like limb away. I fell to the ground, rolled to my back and kicked the back of his knee. It didn’t move.

  He turned to look down at me. Oh, crap.

  He lifted the leg I had kicked, intending to return the gift in kind. I dove to the side as his foot slammed into the floor with enough force to rival a car crash.

  “Get out of here, Carina!” I yelled.

  I had a split second to feel a moment of relief as she took a few steps toward the window. It was short lived as her dad flung his hand back and threw a sweeping fist at me. I flopped to my back to avoid it. There was no doubt it could have taken my head off if it had landed. I picked two books off the ground, one in each hand, and threw them at his head. He swatted them away like annoying flies.

  The momentary distraction gave me a second
to try to find an escape route. My maneuvering had placed the door leading out of the office behind me, but Carina was still by the window.

  I growled. Why hadn’t she jumped out? Her stone skin would protect her from the fall.

  Mr. Hass loomed over me like a skyscraper. I scrambled away until I bumped into one of the heavy bookcases. He stepped forward, fists clenched together over his head. He snarled, a bit of spittle forming at the corner of his mouth, and brought his fists down, fully intent on crushing me with one blow.

  Before he smashed me to a messy goo on the floor, I braced my hands against the bookcase overhead and pushed as hard as I could.

  Crazy, spur of the moment life-saving plans rarely work. The way my luck had gone lately, I fully expected to be splattered beneath those two bowling ball-like fists. Surprisingly, my push sent me sliding across the well-oiled hardwood floor. I slipped between Mr. Hass’ legs as he brought the double fists down. Wooden splinters sprayed everywhere as I let my momentum carry me to my feet behind him.

  “Sorry,” I said as I hopped the desk and planted both feet right in Carina’s chest. She tumbled backward out the window.

  I landed on my back under the window, laying half on Mr. Walker’s body. I shuttered and hopped to my feet just in time to see Mr. Hass rushing toward me.

  He grabbed the edge of Mr. Walker’s desk and pushed it, intent on pinning me between it and the wall. I jumped and the desk slammed into the wall under the window, crunching the dead body instead of mine. I landed on the desk and noticed “Transfer Complete” on the monitor. As Mr. Hass whipped a fist back, I snatched the flash drive out of the computer and kicked the heavy piece of electronics soccer style. It slammed into his face.

  It didn’t do much damage. In fact, it didn’t affect him at all. It did buy me a few seconds, though. I turned and dove out the window.

  I’d love to say I performed some kind of acrobatic, gymnastic move. I didn’t. Far from it. I went out the window head first, thinking I’d summersault through the air and land on my feet. I found out firsthand that performing this maneuver from the second floor didn’t give enough room for an amateur like me. There wasn’t anything graceful about it. I flopped on my back. Breath rushed out of my lungs, but I quickly caught it and rolled to my feet.

  Carina stood nearby, eyes wide.

  “You kicked me!” she shrieked.

  “You weren’t moving!” I looked up at the window. Loud crashing echoed from it. I guessed Mr. Hass was in the process of violently moving the desk out of the way. “Where’s Nathen? Is he okay?”

  “You kicked me!” Carina yelled again.

  Mr. Hass appeared in the window.

  Squealing tires brought my head around as Nathen’s little car struggled around the corner of the school. He leaned out of the window as he accelerated toward us. “Get down and cover your ears!”

  Carina and I obeyed, dropping to the ground under Mr. Walker’s window. Nathen blew the little Toyota’s weak horn. It started off sounding like little more than an ambitious squeak toy but quickly grew in intensity. He blew the horn again, but that time, it came out loud and eardrum shattering. I pressed my hands tighter to my ears.

  The sound waves hit Mr. Hass and he back away from the window, clutching at his head. It also shattered every window on that side of the building. Possibly my eardrums, as well.

  My ears rang as I pushed myself to my feet and looked at Carina. She yelled something at me, but it sounded like a TV with the volume turned down too low to hear.

  Nathen’s car slid to a stop right next to us, leaving long black streaks in the grass. He yelled something out the window. Carina grabbed my arm and pulled me into the backseat. Nathen slammed the gas pedal to the floor and the car sputtered.

  “I thought—” I started, but my ears popped as my damaged eardrums healed themselves and I realized I was yelling. I finished quieter, “this piece of junk died.”

  “She just needed a little rest,” Nathen insisted, easing off the gas so the engine could catch up to what he was trying to do and start moving.

  Before the little car made that decision, Mr. Hass thumped to the ground right behind us.

  “Go!” I yelled on purpose that time.

  “I’m trying!” Nathen pumped the gas a couple of times. The car finally figured out what he wanted and started moving forward.

  It wasn’t fast enough. The large man jumped on the trunk. The front tires lifted off the ground and spun in the air for a second before the car righted itself.

  Carina’s dad punched the back window, raining glass down on us in the backseat. I swore, turned backward, and kicked both feet out the now vacated back window. The soles of my shoes impacted Mr. Hass’ face with a meaty smack. He let go of the car to try to catch me by the ankles, but wasn’t quick enough and tumbled off the car.

  Nathen pushed the accelerator as much as he dared. The car bumped out of the school parking lot, leaving Carina’s dad behind. He stood and watched us drive away.

  “You kicked my dad!” Carina yelled through tears streaming down her face. “You kicked me!” She punched me in the shoulder. In a normal situation, it probably wouldn’t have hurt much, but in her stone-like state, it felt like being pelted with a brick.

  “Ow!” I said, rubbing my shoulder as I twisted straight in the seat. “I had to get you out of that office and you weren’t moving.”

  “That was my dad!” she yelled and pulled a fist back to punch me again.

  I caught her wrist as gently as I could when she delivered the blow. She tried to yank her hand away, but I held on to it. “That might have been your dad once, but whatever is happening around here has affected him as well.”

  “I thought it was only affecting kids our age.” Nathen glanced into the backseat. “I haven’t seen any adults.”

  Carina’s shoulders slumped as she stopped struggling in my grip. Without a word, she leaned into me, burying her face in my chest. Wrapping my arms around her was an automatic response. She cried tears into my shirt.

  “We’ll figure things out,” I said, thinking about my own dad. Was he like Mr. Hass? Was he out there, out of his mind, beating people up? Killing people? I couldn’t imagine him ever acting like that. He was so mild mannered, but I guessed Carina thought the exact same thing until about fifteen minutes ago.

  “Where am I going?” Nathen asked over his shoulder.

  “Home.” I held up the flash drive. “We need a computer.”

  He nodded and turned on a street to set us on a route back to our neighborhood.

  “We need a computer to figure things out,” I said more for Carina’s benefit. “We will figure it out.”

  Chapter 21

  9:10 p.m.

  The ride back to Nathen’s place was uneventful compared to how the day had gone so far. We saw no police and few kids roaming the streets. Those we passed barely spared a glance if they looked our way at all. To the man (or woman), all of them walked towards downtown. Luckily, we were heading the opposite direction.

  I have to say I preferred the life threatening rush of the day over listening to Carina’s soft crying against my chest. It broke my heart. I should have been excited to be able to hold her, but I would have given anything for her to be in the front seat, smiling back at me as she and Nathen cracked jokes at my expense.

  A siren wailed somewhere off in the distance. I watched the muscles in Nathen’s neck tighten in the light from a passing streetlight. He reached to turn on the radio.

  “I’m really not in the mood for that, Nathen,” I said.

  “I’m just turning on the radio to see if there’s any news or something. Chill.” He pushed the on button and static greeted us. “Weird. Station must be out.” He clicked scan and the radio cycled through the numbers from 80 up to 106, stopping at places with nothing but the shush of static before going through the numbers again. He clicked through his presets before turning it off. “Nothing. That’s just super freaky.”

  We listened to
the sounds of the nearly bald tires on the road, the whoosh of wind through the missing rear window, and the slight squeaking from somewhere in the engine. Carina had stopped crying and sat still. I wondered if she had fallen asleep, but after a few moments, she pushed herself off my chest. I was a little disappointed, but at least she didn’t slide across the seat to the other side of the car. She brushed at the wet spot her tears had left on my shirt.

  “Sorry,” she said with a small smile.

  “It’s okay.” That was all I could think to say.