Henrietta shrugged. “He stops at people’s houses, smoking drugs. I don’t know where any of them are. None of my business. Otherwise he’s usually in the pub on the edge of the estate, The Rising Sun.”
Prosper nodded, said his thanks and then walked away. Nature or nurture? Whatever it was, with parents like that, Peter Clarke probably welcomed having his memories wiped.
CHAPTER 31
Prosper spent a while mooching around the area, asking if anyone knew Peter Clarke, or if they had seen him lately. Most people were unresponsive and those who did answer replied in the negative. He also checked out the pub Henrietta had mentioned, The Rising Sun, an establishment surrounded by barbed wire, and more suited as a place of imprisonment than a place of fun and relaxation.
After he exhausted all avenues, he had Brundle drive them to the industrial unit prison that Peter Clarke had escaped from.
Once inside the building, he found the master controls for the lights and switched them on, then he checked out the interior, searching through every room, wondering what horrors had been perpetrated within their walls.
“So what are you looking for?” Brundle asked as she leaned on the corridor, arms folded across her chest.
Prosper shrugged. “I don’t know, but so far we’ve got diddly squat.” He looked into one of the cells, shaking his head at the horror of it all. “First, do you know which cell Clarke was kept in?”
Williams pointed along the corridor, back towards the entrance. “Second on the left.”
Prosper walked to the room, pushed open the door and entered. About eight feet by six, it was a glorified shoebox. There was a single bed and a metal toilet bowl. A simple light was recessed into the ceiling and there were no windows. He stepped across to the bed and crouched down to inspect some scratches on the wall which, judging by the blood ingrained in the brickwork, had probably been made by hand, literally dragging fingernails repeatedly across the masonry.
Close up, they just resembled scratches, but as he stepped back, he realised that they were actually rudimentary letters: Don’t trust anyone.
Prosper made notes in his pad, then slipped it back into his pocket. “So how the hell did he escape?”
Williams scratched his head. “The way I heard it, he somehow overpowered a guard and impersonated him. Then he simply walked out.”
Prosper looked up at the internal security cameras. “So where are the recordings?”
Brundle ran a hand across her face. “The killer wiped them before he escaped.”
“How did he manage that?”
She shrugged.
“Well let’s go ask Klement.”
Back in the vehicle, Prosper ruminated over recent events. Everything seemed to have happened so fast, his head was spinning. First he had feared that he was going to be revealed as a killer, and from there he had spiralled to kidnapping, a new job, human experimentation and escaped monsters. He could never have made it up.
Once they arrived at the prison, the guard at reception relieved them of their weapons and put them in a security box. Not that Prosper minded. He felt safer without the gun; too afraid he would end up shooting himself.
Prosper followed Brundle and Williams. He still hadn’t got an angle on them. They seemed efficient, but he didn’t know anything about them, which made him wary.
The first person he wanted to speak to now was Klement. He had lots of questions, but very few answers. As they approached Klement’s office, Prosper heard raised voices.
“We can’t let them keep interfering with the experiment,” a man said.
“It’s gone too far for that,” Klement replied.
“But they’re contaminating it.”
“Their access is limited.”
“That’s not good enough!”
Brundle knocked on the door and the voices fell silent. After a moment, Klement said, “Come in.”
Brundle entered. Prosper and Williams entered behind.
Klement was sitting behind his desk. The guard, Stuart Rogers, stood opposite, arms folded across his barrel chest. He glared at them each in turn.
“Gentlemen, ladies, how goes the search? Have you found 142345 yet?”
“Not yet,” Williams said. “It’s hard when the crazies all look normal.”
Klement exhaled slowly. “You do realise how important it is that he’s recovered, don’t you?”
“Of course we realise,” Prosper snapped. “Anyway, I’d like to talk to the guard that Clarke knocked out when he made his escape.”
“We’ve already interviewed him,” Brundle said.
“You have, but I haven’t.”
Klement nodded. He pressed a button on the desk. “Officer Johnson, please report to my office.”
“Is this necessary?” Rogers asked.
Klement stared at Rogers, his expression pinched.
“I’d also like to know what happened to the security recordings from the night Clarke escaped,” Prosper continued.
Klement clucked his tongue. “142345 destroyed the recordings before he escaped.”
“How the hell did he manage to do all that?”
“Dressed up in the uniform, and with the glasses on, no one realised he was impersonating a guard, so he had free access on the other side of the gate. I hold my hand up to it; we were lax. It won’t happen again.”
Prosper silently cursed. How the hell were they supposed to find Clarke?
There was a knock on the door and a man walked in. He was about the same height as Prosper, of medium build with short red hair. He took his glasses off to reveal blue eyes. He looked at the occupants of the room, and then at Klement.
“Sir?”
“Johnson, this man would like to interview you about 142345’s escape.” He pointed at Prosper.
Johnson nodded at Klement, then he seemed to notice Rogers and his posture stiffened. He bowed his head slightly and shuffled his feet.
“Is there somewhere we could go that’s a little more private?” Prosper asked.
“There’s a spare room next door,” Klement said.
Prosper indicated that Johnson should lead the way.
“Do you want us to come too?” Williams asked.
“No. I can handle it.”
“I’ll sit in,” Rogers said.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Prosper said.
Rogers ambled towards the door. “It wasn’t a request.”
Johnson swallowed and then followed Rogers out the door.
“You sure you don’t want us to accompany you too?” Williams asked.
Prosper shook his head. “I’ve got it. Besides, you’ve already interviewed him once.” He followed Johnson out into the corridor, and down to the next room along. “Please, sit down,” he said, pointing at one of the three chairs stacked against the wall.
Johnson lifted one of the chairs down and sat. Rogers leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest again.
“I’ve already told your partners everything I remember,” Johnson said.
“It won’t hurt to go over it one more time.”
Johnson cleared his throat and glanced at Rogers. “Well it was about nine thirty when it happened. I was coming to the end of my shift and doing a final check on the prisoners. When I came to 142345’s cell, I noticed he was curled up in a ball on his bunk. He’d been complaining he was ill for a few days, so I just assumed it was because of that. Anyway, I went inside to see if he was okay. He grunted that he was, so I turned to leave. Next thing I know, I wake up on the floor of the cell stripped naked.
“Damn bastard had whacked me over the head.” He lifted his cap and turned his head to reveal a bald patch with stitches.
“Do you know what he hit you with?”
“Not a clue. Due to the nature of the experiment, the prisoners don’t have access to anything that could be used as a weapon.”
“Okay. So tell me a little about yourself.”
Johnson frowned. “About me? What do you want
to know?”
“Yes, what’s that got to do with anything?” Rogers growled.
Prosper ignored Rogers, although he could feel his gaze boring into him. “What’s your role here?”
“I’m a guard.”
“Is that all you are? I mean, I presume there are other doctors here, like Klement, involved in the experiment.”
“No, I’m just a guard.”
Prosper turned to Rogers. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
What’s your role?”
Rogers clenched his jaw. “I’m in charge of the guards.”
Prosper turned back to Johnson. “So how did you get the job here and what did you used to do before?”
“I’ve worked in the prison service for years. I was approached and asked if I would consider a move, working for a new private security firm, offering better pay and conditions. Well, money’s a big motivator.” He chuckled, the sound cut short when Rogers cleared his throat. “Long and short of it, I had an interview, and got the job.”
Prosper nodded. “Well, does any aspect of this job, disgust you?”
“What do you mean, disgust me?”
“What you’re doing to those people. I’ve seen the beatings. The humiliation.”
Johnson shrugged. “Way I look at it, the prisoners aren’t really feeling any of it.”
“They’re not? And why’s that?”
“Well seeing as how they have their memories wiped, they’re sort of like, I dunno, empty, if you get what I mean.” He glanced at Rogers, who nodded his head slightly. “They don’t know any different. They’re not like proper people. And at the end of the day, it’s just a job.”
Someone screamed in the distance, the sound suddenly cut short. Prosper saw the trace of a grin on Rogers face.
Just a job. Prosper couldn’t get that thought out of his head as he thanked Johnson for his time and watched him and Rogers walk out of the room.
Just a job.
CHAPTER 32
Rivers scanned the street. Shift change was due just before 10 o’clock. He checked his watch. That gave him an hour. He knew he was cutting it fine, but damn it to hell, he didn’t have any time left to plan, so it was now or never.
He had decided to go with the smoke grenade option and had actually purchased some from a shop that supplied paintball equipment. Most people associated smoke with fire and only a fool wouldn’t evacuate if they thought they were going to burn to death.
Now the only problem was setting off the grenade so that the smoke went inside the building. He hadn’t been able to see much on Street View, but hopefully there was going to be a window, air vent or some other entrance pipe through which he could pump the smoke.
Backpack strapped in place, Rivers ran around the rear of the building. He didn’t want to attempt entering at the front and the rear provided more opportunities for climbing as there were ledges and protruding pipes in the brickwork that he could utilise.
Clouds obscured the sky and there were no streetlights at the back, so he had to wait a while to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He crouched in a corner between two buildings. Something flapped overhead and he looked up, saw a sheet of plastic fluttering from a window.
Judging by the state of the buildings, they had been abandoned for a long time. Water dripped beside him, a string of slimy black mould hanging from the overflow pipe. The water trickled into a drain in the road.
Once he could see well enough, Rivers started to climb, using his agility and strength to pull himself up from pipe to overhang to window ledge. The first window was set about ten feet above the ground. When he reached the five inch thick ledge, he scooted himself onto it, and pressed on the top edge to hold himself in place.
The glass was smashed and he peered inside, surprised to see that there appeared to be a building within a building, set about eight feet back from the window, so that it couldn’t be easily discerned from outside. The interior building seemed to stretch the whole length of the facility, which was about two hundred feet or more.
He knew that anywhere that had the need of guards would probably have a top-notch electrical security system too. The broken window allowed easy access, and he was confident that there weren’t any motion sensors as there was always the chance that a bird could fly inside, and they wouldn’t want the hassle of false alarms all the time, and if there were alarms, then they would be installed on the interior building. With this in mind, he slipped through, careful to avoid the fangs of glass still lodged in the beading. As agile as a cat, he landed in a crouch, eyes and ears alert.
The interior shell stretched from floor to ceiling and looked to be made of some sort of metal. There were no visible windows or doors. Rivers ran his tongue across his teeth, then crept towards the walls. He placed his hand against the cold metal, felt a slight vibration.
With no visible point of entry from the rear, he proceeded to the right hand side. When he reached the corner, he peered along the length. The building stretched all the way to the front, which was about one hundred and fifty feet away.
What the hell were they doing inside there?
His previous assumption that there would be high tech security now seemed unfounded, probably because there was only one access point, through the front, and the walls were undoubtedly impenetrable, so they had no worries about anyone breaking in.
At the far end, he saw something jutting from the side of the wall. An air conditioning system. He smiled to himself.
It would draw air in from the outside. And although it would have a filter, it probably wouldn’t be adequate enough to cope with masses of smoke.
Rivers unhooked the backpack, slipped it off his shoulder and withdrew the smoke grenades. He glanced at his watch. Had about forty-five minutes before the shift change. With no time to lose, he used some small zip ties to attach four smoke grenades to the wire mesh covering the air conditioning unit and then ignited them. Clouds of smoke billowed out. Lots of it rose up to the ceiling, but he hoped that enough would be sucked inside by the fan.
Satisfied, he reattached his backpack, then ran to the window, clambered out and dropped to the ground. He ran back to the front of the building and hid close to the archway, close enough that if the guards ran out, he could slip past unobserved in the confusion.
His heart was beating faster than he’d ever known, probably because he had never been in a situation as perilous as this before. But deep down he knew the worst that could happen was that they would arrest him. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen though. As he waited, he removed a full-face gasmask from the backpack. He had bought it from an army surplus store after he acquired the smoke grenades.
The presence of the guards had reinforced his feelings that there was something worth stealing inside; something worth the risk of getting arrested over. Besides, he had a good feeling about today, just knew that he wasn’t going to get caught. No, this was his lucky day. Be it money, jewellery, art or whatever else, this was going to be the big one. He could feel it in his bones.
He peered around the corner, drummed his fingers against his thigh. What was taking them so long?
Almost as soon as he thought about it, movement caught his eye and a figure rushed outside. He heard shouting; saw a cloud of smoke drift out of the doorway, followed by more figures, coughing and choking. Smoke continued to billow out, illuminated by lights inside the entrance. Rivers scuttled around the corner and into the courtyard, sticking to the walls where the shadows lingered.
A few guards stood bent over at the waist, hands on knees as they fought to catch their breath. Having seen what the guards wore when he saw them in the minibus, Rivers had dressed accordingly so that he would blend in even more. He left nothing to chance.
Some people stood rubbing tears from their eyes, and no one seemed to have a clue what was going on.
Taking the chance, Rivers dodged past and ran through the entrance, pulling the gasmask on as he went. Smoke swirled aroun
d him, making visibility difficult. Using his hands, he felt his way forwards, following the wall. Eventually he came out into a larger area and he continued on, passing a small desk. He could hear shouting and screaming in the distance; terrified screams that chilled his blood.
He passed through a door, then went through an open gate. He heard someone running in his direction; looked for somewhere to hide, but was lost and confused himself. White clouds of smoke drifted all around like cotton wool.
“This way,” someone shouted. “Quick.”
More footsteps thundered towards him, sounded like a whole crowd of people. Figures appeared through the smoke, a whirl of arms and legs. They were dressed in white, their features haunted.
Rivers reared back in shock; felt someone grab his arm. He tried to pull free, but the grip was too tight.
He punched out blindly. Someone punched him back, hitting him in the stomach and knocking the wind out of his lungs. Someone else grabbed his other arm; ripped the mask off his face. He tried to hold his breath, but the smoke filled his eyes, making them water. He blinked and eventually, he sucked in air, choked.
He didn’t understand what was going on. Who were all these people?
Someone shouted, gouged at his face, their nails tearing through his flesh, drawing blood. He felt a finger poke into his eye, actually felt it puncture his eyeball and he screamed. His eye socket felt as though it was on fire. He wanted to soothe the pain, but his arms were held fast.
Another hand clawed at his face again, fingers slipping into his mouth. He bit down, tasted warm blood spurt down his throat, but the attacker didn’t seem to react. Instead they yanked at his skin, pulled at his lips as though trying to pull the flesh from his bones.
The strength seeped out of his legs and he slumped forwards. Punches and kicks assailed his body, each one causing explosions of pain that made him scream in agony. He saw Gina’s face in his mind, then darkness seeped into his eyes and he choked his last breath.
CHAPTER 33
Prosper Snow Series Page 40