The first screams were distant, as if coming from the end of a tunnel. They didn’t even register at first. Their bodies continued to move to the driving beat, his thigh wedged between her legs, as close as they dared to get. The second round of screams were more of an irritation than a concern. The commotion on the dance floor below them pulled his concentration away from one of the only things in the world that deserved it.
It was difficult to make out what was happening in the darkness. The lights and music continued on unchanged as the crowd surged. Julian was reminded of a school of fish moving away from a predator, the crowd shifting from an unseen threat.
“What’s going on?” Harriet asked as if coming out of a daze.
A woman in a thin tank top ran by, her clothes and face drenched with an incredible amount of blood. Julian surmised in a second it wasn’t hers, the fear in her expression telling him all he needed to know.
Without a word, he pushed Harriet behind him. He scanned the room for exits, kicking himself at how lax he’d been when walking in. Another wave of shouts echoed through the vast warehouse, this time much closer. The strobe lights blinked on in a different sequence, the movements of the crowd becoming stilted and jittery.
One of Harriet’s friends loosed a scream to his right. He turned to see a muscled man with dark hair attempt to scale the railing from the dance floor, his bloody fingers slipping on the metal. The screaming girl took off her shoe to pummel him, delivering little damage. The attacker managed to get a foot on the lowest rung, looked up, and froze. After a deliberate blink, he resumed his climb.
Julian didn’t notice this exchange at first, but seized the opportunity. He stepped forward and planted the heel of his shoe on the man’s forehead with a swift kick. The man clawed at the hem of Julian’s trousers, grasping for a hold before plummeting to the floor five feet below. He didn’t waste any time checking to see if the guy got up.
“We need to get out of here,” he yelled to Harriet. The look of fear and complete trust she gave him swelled his cold heart. He resolved that even if it meant his death, he would see that she make it to safety.
Julian searched for the closest exit out of the booth. As he turned, he noticed the prep school loser who’d been trying it on with Harriet was completely still. With a quick glance, he traced a line of sight from the attacker he’d just dispatched. Maybe he was only in shock, but a deep, animal part of his brain screamed in warning. He might’ve been an asshole only out to fuck his sister, but he was easily twice Julian’s size. Better to strike now, just in case.
Making sure Harriet remained at his side, he grabbed a bottle of champagne and shattered it against the metal railing. Without provocation, he lunged at Chit’s neck. Julian barely noticed as the others in the booth scattered away, looking at him as if he were the real threat. He was too fascinated by the jagged flaps of skin. They look so much better than the dummies.
Chit turned toward them, his face calm and unperturbed by the fatal wound gushing blood from his neck. He made no move to cover it or stem the flow. For a long moment, they regarded each other until his head began to dip like a tired man falling asleep during his commute home.
Careful to keep their distance, Julian guided Harriet around the dying man to the edge of the VIP section. People trying to flee the bloodbath on the dance floor were climbing up the left side, leaving only the right as their means of escape. The house lights came on, casting everything in a white-washed glow as if it were time to leave at the end of the night. It certainly was last call for many. The music continued to pulse, a drumbeat for the macabre scene.
He picked Harriet up and lifted her over the railing and lowered her to the floor, vaulting across as soon as she cleared. With a little scrambling around the perimeter, they found themselves on the stage near the DJing equipment.
As exposed as he felt, it provided the highest and clearest view. Other than someone dropping down from the rafters above, he would see an attack coming from every angle.
He stopped short. To anyone else, the spreading horror would’ve appeared random. But as he focused, he finally read the pattern for what it was. Julian could see the flow of it as easily as a tide or current at the sea.
In the middle of the room, a man with spiked hair and a striped shirt stopped mid-stride. Rivulets of blood dripped from his fingers to the floor. Like scared prey, the crowd shrunk away from him, repulsed. Julian followed his gaze to a shorter woman with a tight ponytail at the edge of the group. The terror on her face washed away the instant their eyes met, as if a switch flipped.
“We have to go,” Harriet demanded through clenched teeth. She pulled at his arm, but Julian was transfixed to the spot.
The girl with the ponytail froze. The bloodied man blinked, just as the assailant had earlier, and resumed his pursuit. Julian began to count off the seconds. A thin man stumbled over a body on the floor, sprawling out at the killer’s feet at the most inopportune time. The man bent, grasped the guy’s head between both hands, and gave it a quick twist. As the body limply fell to the floor, Julian dragged his eyes back.
“Now!” Harriet screamed.
Julian put a hand on her shoulder and breathed the seconds to himself. “Seven, eight, nine, ten…”
The woman with the ponytail twitched. Blinked. Came back to life. From the throng, a woman in white burst through and tried to pull her to safety. This friend wrongly assumed she was frozen in fear.
“Julian!”
“Just wait!”
The woman with the ponytail turned. The friend thought she was finally getting her to move. She threw her weight into pulling her to safety, arms outstretched and center of balance off, but the woman wouldn’t budge. With a casual shrug, she shook off her friend’s grip, and dove for her face. The last thing Julian saw were her manicured fingernails disappearing into the dark pits of the woman’s eyes. They felt into a pile on the floor, a fresh scream added to the mix.
In that moment, he felt more betrayed by his father than at any other time before. He couldn’t have been more hurt than if the man had attacked him directly with his own bare hands. But the time for hurt and retribution would come later. Right now, he had to get Harriet to safety.
With an instinct he’d only fantasized about using before, he guided them through the back halls of the nightclub. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, every beat of his heart delivering the delicious sensation to where it was most needed. His eyes felt sharper. His brain worked quicker. Every sound was amplified, his reactions fast. The screams grew distant yet more intense before falling silent.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice breathless but relatively unafraid considering. “It’s the Seed, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” Julian lied as they came to a fire exit, the door ajar by a fraction of an inch. He rested his hand on the metal handle, hesitating. There was no way of knowing what they’d be walking into.
“Should we hide or—”
The fire exit burst open. Julian caught it just in time, throwing his body weight against it.
“Please! You have to let us in!” a woman screamed from the other side.
“They’re coming!” another yelled.
He squared his body and shouldered it closed. They pounded their fists on the metal door. As he kept his weight pinned against it, he looked over his shoulder.
“Check over there, to the right,” he said, nodding in the direction from which they’d just come. “We need to get out of the building. And not up. We can’t go up.”
Harriet kicked off her shoes and jogged down the dim hall. He hated letting her out of his sight even for a moment. The women’s cries on the other side of the door reached a new pitch. They slammed against it, but it was a pointless attempt to break it, and him, down.
“Please!”
“Will you fuck off and die already?” he screamed back.
“I don’t plan to yet,” Harriet replied with a smile as she strode closer. “I don’t know about
an exit back there, but I found this.” She lifted a heavy red fire extinguisher with both hands.
Julian nodded, running through the limited options they had. Before he had a chance to formulate a plan, a choked sob echoed from the end of the hall. Harriet braced herself, turning her back to him as if guarding them both.
In the pools of light from the emergency spotlights above, he watched as a terrified girl ran toward them. She didn’t look nearly old enough to be allowed in the club. Julian assumed there was a fake ID hidden somewhere in the little purse bouncing at her hip.
“Is that a way out? They… I lost my friends and…” She stopped just a few feet away from Harriet and rested her hands on her knees in an effort to catch her breath. “Thank God I found you,” she said as she straightened.
Harriet telegraphed the movement, but the young girl wasn’t anticipating it. She pulled the fire extinguisher back a touch before swinging it in a wide arc. The glancing blow to the chin only stunned her. Before she could react, Harriet brought it down hard on the backswing, using momentum to make up for her lack of strength.
The girl crumpled to the ground with a gurgle.
Julian leaned to the side to get a better look and noticed the dent in her skull. “Don’t think she’ll be sleeping that one off.”
Harriet shrugged and let the heavy extinguisher fall to her side. “Better her than us.”
“Too right.”
“Our friends are quiet out there,” she nodded to the door. “Think it’s clear?”
Julian took a moment to savor how incredibly sexy she looked. Just when he thought he couldn’t love her more, she went and surprised him like this.
He shook the thought clear and slowly released the pressure on the door. Pressing the handle down, he winced as the door clicked open louder than he would’ve liked. Worst case scenario would be two women standing stock still just outside of the door. Best case, an empty alley with a couple extra bodies in the way.
Opening the door just a crack, he could only see the bare leg of someone on the ground. He relied on his heightened hearing to listen for any breathing or footsteps. It felt like an eternity, but when he finally opened the door wide enough to look out, he found the space empty.
“Okay, come on,” he whispered. He took the extinguisher from Harriet’s hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You okay?”
She nodded with wide eyes, obviously nervous about going outside. The sound of emergency responders blared closer. Julian knew they had to move fast. He grabbed her hand and pulled her right toward the closest end, hoping they weren’t too late.
Whenever police, military, or firemen arrived at a scene, all vehicles in the neighborhood were sent on new courses to avoid congestion. If they didn’t get to the street in time, they might have a long and difficult walk to safety.
“Careful of your feet,” he reminded her as they picked up speed.
They slowed at the opening and scanned the narrow street up and down.
An ambulance swung around the corner, automatically sending the car in front of them to the side. Julian wasted no time. Before the ambulance had even passed, he smashed the closest window with the butt of the fire extinguisher, shattering the safety glass into a shower of sparkling diamonds. He reached in and opened the door from the inside.
Julian followed Harriet inside as the whirring ambulance blew past. An old gray-haired woman screamed, her face contorted, eyes squeezed shut.
Harriet shimmied onto the seat opposite while Julian shifted to his knees. “Shut up! Shut up, you fucking hag!” His deep bellow broke through to the woman. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He smiled when he realized they’d managed to grab a cab and not a private car. He wouldn’t have to break through the controls.
“Change route. SW8 1SP.”
The woman seemed to come to her senses as the car rolled away from the curb. “You can’t do this. I demand you take me home. I want to go home,” she cried.
“You can go home after us,” Julian replied without looking at her. His full attention was on Harriet. It was the first time he was able to take a good look at her. “You’re okay?”
She nodded, looking down at her bare arms as if surprised. Speckles of blood dotted her face and neck. “My feet hurt, but yeah. I’m fine.”
She looked so small in her little gold dress. He cupped her chin and studied her face. “Not hurt? No one touched you?”
“No, you got me out of there before—”
“You can’t do this to me!” the old woman screeched.
Julian gritted his teeth. “Vehicle, stop,” he growled. The car slowed to a stop at the next corner. They’d only made it a short distance from the club but the sounds of terror still swirled around them. He crawled across the open floor toward the woman.
She flinched. “What are you doing?”
He opened the door with his right hand, using his left to pull the frail woman to her feet. He wasn’t rough but left no room for argument. On her unsteady feet, she ducked out of the car, gripping her handbag like it was a shield.
“You can’t just leave me here!”
“No?”
He slammed the door and commanded the car to resume. A snicker escaped his lips as he caught a blur of the confused expression on the old lady’s face. But the humor of the situation was short-lived.
Their short trip back to his flat made it clear this event wasn’t isolated to just their nightclub. Pockets of violence seemed to flare up and die off as quickly as they started. Panic bleed onto the streets, the terror sometimes coming from inside the tightly packed units. It’s difficult to flee from an enemy when you can’t predict their attack. Something big was happening all around them and it made him sick.
“You didn’t do this?” Harriet asked as she watched the city fly past.
“No.”
“But if you didn’t then…”
“I don’t know.”
A strange feeling niggled at the back of his mind as they headed to the unit, the city imploding around them. It felt malicious, targeted, somehow pointed directly at him. Maybe he wasn’t used to being on this side of things. He and Harriet were simply out having a good time, minding their own business, and either one of them could’ve died… the thought was more than a little unsettling.
It wasn’t until they were safely home, doors locked, chaos avoided that he thought to check his messages. Nothing. Emails. Nothing. The silence was more frustrating than any warning could’ve been. As a way of gaining control, at least in his own mind, he could at least zero the website counter. But when he went to log in, he discovered it’d been hacked.
A 404 error. The site was still functional, but the front-end disabled.
Just below the error message was a hexadecimal code, just like the one he put up with each cycle.
70 72 6f 76 65 72 62 73 20 31 36 3a 31 38
With a flurry across his keyboard, he translated the text and corresponding line.
Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
So Dad was behind all of this. And what… it was a warning? Or is he trying to take complete control?
Chapter Twelve
Near Poughkeepsie, NY
For all the excitement and eagerness to help the night before, no one but Maggie and Neil were interested in taking her to the facility. The others’ fear only strengthened her interest. Alex had originally wanted them to meet because of the Seed and website, but the world moved too fast. At first she thought this mysterious facility might’ve been a good story outside of all that. When she heard they might be housing the catatonic patients who had disappeared, it became irresistible.
She was glad for the chance to talk in the car on the way, hoping to feel out her new partners in crime.
“So, how long have you known Alex?”
Maggie frowned before her expression cracked. “Oh! Hypnos, yeah. I’ll never get used to him having a real name. Um, I’ve known hi
m a couple years now, actually,” she replied, as if surprised at the realization.
“He seems like a good guy,” Kristine prodded.
“He’s smart and he’s never fucked me over, but how well do you ever really know someone you meet online?”
Her comment threw Kristine off for a moment. “He seems to trust you a lot more than you trust him. He couldn’t say enough kind things about you when we spoke.”
Maggie fidgeted with her cuff, avoiding her gaze. “That’s probably true.”
Kristine wasn’t unfamiliar with the art of using feminine wiles. She still wasn’t completely clear on what Maggie’s relationship was to Alex, but she was starting to better understand. Instead of pressing her further, she decided to meet her in the middle.
“To be fair, how well do you ever really know someone in real life?”
“Exactly!” she replied, perking up. “Like this one here, claiming he didn’t have a Seed,” she said, slapping Neil on the knee.
It pulled him from his thoughts and the window. “What? I don’t have to tell you everything. You aren’t my girlfriend, and when are you gonna stop bringing that up?”
Maggie scratched her chin. “Literally never,” she replied flatly.
Kristine couldn’t stop smiling. They were hilarious together, essentially siblings who enjoyed arguing like it was a hobby.
He rolled his eyes so she continued speaking to Kristine as if he weren’t in the car. “He used to give me such shit about my Dreamscapes, I never even told him I design them.”
“You’re pre-med,” he scoffed. “How do you even know how to do something like—”
“I don’t code the damn things! Hypnos does.” She crossed her arms and gave him a smug grin. “I’m the creative brains of the operation.”
“So that’s how you two know each other?” Kristine asked.
Her broad smile slipped a little, perhaps revealing a touch more than she’d meant to. “Yeah, but we haven’t really written anything in a while.”
STASIS: Part 3: Restart Page 9