But it was too late. Grayson sliced through his carotid artery, from his ear lobe down to his Adam’s apple. Blood sprayed out and covered the wall.
Adam wrestled the giant on the floor, grabbed a fist full of her boyish hair and smashed her face against the floor. She struggled and lashed at him. Another heavy blow to the head and her body slumped to the ground.
Adam dashed over to Grayson and tried to stem the gurgling flow of blood from his neck, deep grooves of sadness etched in his expression.
“Why did you do that?” Adam asked, angry and upset. “We could have both got out of here alive.”
“I’m sorry,” said Grayson, as his eyes rolled back in their sockets and his life slipped away.
Adam wiped the sticky blood on his hands onto Grayson’s shirt. He picked up the scalpel that was lying in a pool of blood. Adam couldn’t hold back the tears as he gently laid Grayson’s body on the ground.
Adam looked at the giant lying peacefully and his blood boiled with anger. He clutched the scalpel tightly and stepped closer. On bended knee beside the big bitch, he raised the scalpel in the air above his head. His hands shook, and he hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Adam snapped out of his daze and searched frantically through her pockets. His search turned up empty as he ruffled through her coat pockets, but then he felt the jagged outline of a key in her pants pocket. He reached inside and pulled out the key. A surge of hope energized him again. He grabbed the key and ran. Ran as fast as his legs could carry him, skidding on the filthy floor as he turned corners too quickly. He could remember the way they’d come and how to get back to the main door. If the key fit the door he’d be free, and he clung to that hope like it was the most precious thought he’d ever had.
He knew the other two would be hunting for them. Martin and Iva would have heard the commotion and would, no doubt, be chasing right behind him.
He reached the main entrance and pulled out the key. It slipped through the hole in one fluid motion. Adam turned the key and there was a heavy click of the lock. The door opened a fraction of an inch and light streamed through the crack, blinding Adam.
He ripped open the door and ran into the light. Adam tripped over something hard and metal on the floor. He hit the floor with a thump, splitting his lip open as his teeth came down hard on his bottom lip. He spat blood onto the clean white tiles beneath him.
Adam looked up around the room. He was in a security office with banks of monitors in rows along the walls. There were no windows, and it was the only room in the entire facility that seemed to have a full set of working fluorescent lights.
Adam recognized the video feeds were coming from inside the bunker. He saw the operating theatre where he’d woken up, the rooms filled with caged animals, the museum of aborted fetuses and other hideous curiosities. And there was Martin and Iva leaning over the giant, palpating her neck for a pulse.
Adam choked as the giant raised her head, and Martin helped her back onto her feet. In an instant the three of them were running down the maze of hallways. Adam watched as they moved from one monitor to the next, swiftly making their way toward him.
He rushed back to the door he’d come through and slammed it shut.
“Fuck,” he cursed as he realized the key was still in the keyhole on the other side. He turned the lock and pulled up a nearby chair which he wedged beneath the handle. He knew it wouldn’t hold for long, but anything was better than nothing.
There was only one other door that led out of the room. Freedom was almost tangible, just on the other side of that door. He raced for the door and flung it open. There was a steep set of iron steps in front of him that led straight up into the darkness above. A row of full body hazmat suits hung up along the wall, five in total.
He could hear the key turning in the door behind him, and the chair legs groan as his pursuers tried to force the door open.
Adam climbed the stairs as quickly as his arms and legs could carry him. He disappeared into the darkness and his eyes adjusted to the low light. Above him, he could see a hatch door with a circular metal handle in the center.
Martin appeared at the bottom of the steps.
“We’ve got you now,” said Martin. “No point running.”
The giant woman pushed past Martin and growled up at Adam. She set one heavy foot on the lowest rung and heaved herself up the steps.
Adam tried to balance his feet on the ladder while using both hands to turn the handle on the hatch. Inch by rusty inch he turned it anti-clockwise. The steps shook violently as the big bitch stormed up toward him. Adam’s feet lost their perch and he was left swinging from the handle.
There was a loud click as the hatch unlocked.
Adam grabbed hold of the ladder and pushed up against the hatch with all the strength he could muster. It swung open above him, and he looked up at a clear night sky full of stars.
Adam reached for the edge and pulled himself up to the surface. He was in the middle of nowhere, a grassy field in the countryside. In the distance were an old farmhouse and a dilapidated old barn. Far away he could see the lights from the city.
Adam lifted one leg out of the hatch and got a footing on the rim to maneuver himself to freedom, but he felt a tendon-ripping tug on the other leg. He tried to pull himself free, but the giant had him trapped by the ankle.
She dropped with her hands wrapped around his lower leg, pulling him back through the hatch, and together they fell to the bottom of the steps. Adam had never felt such agony. His whole body ached from being bent like a contortionist and hitting every step on the way down.
Still, he fought back. He punched the big bitch in the face and dove at Martin. Martin wasn’t expecting the assault, and Adam’s fist hit him square in the jaw. Martin bent over in agony, clutching his face.
“You broke my fucking jaw, you American fuck!” Martin screamed through gritted teeth.
Iva ran to her boyfriend’s aid and shielded him from Adam’s assault. He hesitated throwing Iva aside. The giant woman got back on her feet, blocking the set of iron steps, and Adam’s only hope of freedom.
Martin reduced his dislocated jaw. The bones ground and cracked, and he winced in agony.
“You’re lucky I’m not allowed to kill you,” said Martin. “We’ve been watching you run around the facility like two headless chickens. It was fun, but you both fucked things up when your friend decided to… ” He ran a finger along his neck. “What a mess!”
“Fuck you,” said Adam. “Fuck all of you.” He pulled the scalpel out of his pocket and held it to his neck.
Grayson wasn’t a coward. What he’d done was braver than anything Adam had ever done in the name of courage.
A look of terror crossed Martin’s face and he held his hands up in the air in surrender.
“Okay,” said Martin. “Let’s not do anything too hasty.”
“Whatever you people are doing down here. It’s only a matter of time before you get caught,” said Adam.
Martin bowed his head in submission. “Please, we don’t want you to die. In fact, just the opposite.” He put an arm around Iva to comfort her, to show some vulnerability.
“What the fuck do you want with me?” demanded Adam. He held the scalpel close enough to his neck that he drew blood. He was cornered. There was nowhere to run. His only escape route blocked by the female version of Quasimodo.
“Just let me go,” pleaded Adam. “If you let me leave now, I promise I won’t go to the cops.” His voice quavered. “No one will ever know about this. I promise.”
Martin smiled.
“One day, the whole world will know. And you’ll be a hero,” said Martin.
A mobile phone rang at full volume, making everyone in the room, except the giant, startle. Martin fumbled in his pocket for the phone and handed it to Iva. She shook her head, but still he forced the phone into her hands.
“Answer it,” he ordered.
Iva answered the phone and disappeared back into th
e hallway to continue the conversation in private. She came back a moment later, ashen, and whispered something in Martin’s ear. He nodded. His eyes darted from side to side and his nostrils flared. Iva left the room, closing the door behind her.
Why is he suddenly so nervous? Who was on the other end of that phone conversation?
“Put the scalpel down,” said Martin, gesturing with his hands toward the floor.
Adam gently shook his head from side to side.
Martin reached inside his pocket and pulled out Adam’s mobile phone.
Adam's temperature rose as Martin tapped on his screen.
“I’m sure there's someone in here you would like to talk to,” said Martin.
Adam seethed but stayed his ground.
“No one?” Martin asked incredulously. “Surely there must be someone?”
Martin flicked his thumb across the touch screen, spinning through the list of contacts, old business acquaintances, forgotten hookups, and everyone else who Adam had screwed over in his lifetime.
“This is very sad.” Martin tutted his tongue. “Where is your mom? Maybe we could call her?”
Adam’s blood reached boiling point as every sad memory of his mother came flooding back to him in a tidal wave of raw emotions. He lashed out, slicing cleanly through Martin’s smiling cheek. Blood gushed from Martin’s gaping wound and the grin swiftly disappeared from his face.
Martin screamed, “Get him!”
The giant was on top of Adam before he had a chance to swing at her. She moved quickly for someone of her stature. She swatted his hand aside sending the scalpel flying across the room.
Adam threw a punch that landed in her side, hitting her bang on one of her kidneys. She swore and dealt him a fist to the head.
Adam's forehead split open, and a thousand bright stars exploded in his field of vision.
He fell back onto the ground. His head was still spinning as the giant heaved him off the floor and threw him against the opposite wall. His head hit the wall and his neck bent forcefully with a loud crack. The tortuous sensation of thousands of tiny shards of glass ripped down every nerve in his spine and then he felt nothing at all. His brain throbbed like a thousand pounding drums. He wanted to lift his head, but found he had no strength to do it. Any attempt to move resulted in nothing more than a flicker of muscular contraction. His neck was broken, and his spine severed by the impact.
Martin scuttled to his side and lifted one of Adam’s arms then let it drop. It flopped like a limp doll’s limb.
Martin screamed at the giant in utter fury. “You stupid bitch! What have you done?” He paced from side to side. “You can explain this to the Professor. Stupid fucking bitch.” He stormed out of the room.
The giant dropped to her knees and turned her head so she was looking directly into Adam’s eyes. He stared at her acne scarred face and deep frown lines. Her cold eyes bored right into his soul. She sighed and brushed her calloused, manly hand through his hair, almost an act of kindness, how someone would pet a dying puppy that had been injured by a speeding car.
The giant opened her arms and slipped her hands under Adam’s flaccid body. She lifted him up and carried him back into the darkened hallways from which he had just escaped. Her rubber boots thumped with every step.
Is this what it's like to be a dead man walking on his way to the gallows?
Adam shut his eyes and tried to imagine himself somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere warm.
He was thrown back onto the operating table under the bright surgical lights. The giant strapped his arms and feet to the bed, even though there was no possibility of him ever being able to move them again. He’d stopped trying to fight, shout or scream. Whatever they had planned to do to him, he was now powerless to fight back.
The giant woman never made eye contact with him. She proceeded through the motions like a robot. He was nothing more than a piece of meat to her.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Adam. “What are they giving you? Is it money? Freedom? I know people. I can help you get out of here.”
The giant ignored him and pulled up an IV cannulation trolley laden with needles, luers, and antiseptic wipes. She sat on a stool, grabbed a tourniquet and wrapped it tightly around Adam’s arm. His veins sprung up proudly from his skin. She chose a large bore, 16-gauge line and unwrapped the plastic packaging. A quick wipe to disinfect the skin, and she drove the needle into position. She secured the line in his arm, then brought the trolley around the other side of the bed where she repeated the procedure on his other arm.
“Please,” begged Adam. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this.” He spoke in Czech. “Please don’t do this.”
The giant startled when he spoke her language. She made eye contact and quickly turned her head aside, deeply disturbed.
“I know you can understand me,” Adam continued. “Help me, and I will help you.”
The giant pushed her stool away, grabbed a roll of adhesive tape sitting on top of the ventilation machine, and strapped it across Adam’s mouth.
She hung up a new bag of saline and connected the drip to one of the IV lines in Adam’s arm. From the IV trolley she picked up a large syringe and injected the contents directly into the bag of saline. The milky contents swirled and mixed with the clear water.
When she was done, the giant stopped and leaned her head against the ventilation machine, closing her eyes, deep in thought.
Adam watched her closely, praying she was deliberating whether or not to free him. She was his last and only hope. There was nowhere for the rage that consumed him to escape and his head nearly exploded as he silently screamed.
Chapter 7
Adam wasn’t sure whether he was dreaming or awake. There were screams, the crashing of metal objects, and doors slamming. A girl was crying loudly, begging. One man was screaming. Then another. There was a scuffle and choking. Then it was all over with one last blood-curdling scream.
Adam drifted in and out of sleep to the sound of Iva sobbing nearby. He opened his heavy eyelids and saw her standing beside him, adjusting settings on the ventilation machine, and drawing up anesthetics.
The giant took two paces across the room and slapped Iva hard across the cheek, sending her duck-billed surgical mask flying to the ground.
“Shut up,” the giant snapped at her.
The giant then walked over to a hand basin where she put on a surgical mask and scrubbed her hands with iodine.
Adam stared at the ceiling and saw a reflection of his surroundings in the chrome base of the overhanging surgical lights. He was lying on an operating table, naked, chest covered in electrodes, IV fluids running into both arms. He couldn’t speak because his mouth was taped shut. But realistically, there wasn’t any point in even trying to call for help. No one could hear his screams down there.
He studied the reflection of the room in the large round operating theatre lights. The floor around the operating table was filthy, marked with blood, shit, and mold. Behind him was a trolley with masks, syringes, and other anesthetic equipment. A ventilator was parked behind his head. There was another operating table a few feet away with another naked man lying on top of it. He couldn’t see the face clearly in the warped reflection on the chrome lights.
The giant finished cleaning her hands and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. She was wearing a dirty white gown covered in bloodstains. Adam wondered why she even bothered to wash her hands. She turned her back and started opening boxes filled with gleaming metal surgical instruments on top of a trolley. They looked as if they were the only clean things in the room. When all the boxes were open, she pulled the trolley laden with steel over to the operating tables and began setting up her surgical field.
Adam squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that it was all a bad dream. He prayed that he’d taken a hit of bad drugs back in his hotel room, and this was just a twisted trip that his damaged subconscious was taking him on, kicking and screaming. It was the only logical explanation.
This sort of thing didn’t happen in real life. Not to people like him.
Wake up, Adam. Please wake up.
Iva appeared behind Adam’s head with an electric razor. She roughly buzzed off his hair, the dull blades nicking his skin in several places and drawing blood. Adam winced in pain.
Iva adjusted his head, turning it to one side, allowing him to look across the room at his neighbor on the opposite table. Adam looked on in horror at Martin lying peacefully on the operating table. He had a tube sticking out at the base of his throat where a tracheotomy had been made, and the ventilator was now breathing for him, causing his chest to rise and fall mechanically. His face was covered in bruises, and his nose was bent broken at almost a forty-five degree angle.
Iva brought Adam’s head back to the neutral position. Their eyes made contact for an instant. He knew without any doubt that she was as much a captive in this scenario as he. What power did these people have over her? Iva looked away and wiped the tears from her eyes. She looked across the room at the giant, pure hatred burning in her stare, and the corners of her nostrils flared with each breath she took.
Far away, in the background, Adam could hear someone whistling. He couldn’t place the tune, but it grew louder as they approached.
Iva froze. Her hands started shaking, so she lay them on the operating table beside Adam’s head to steady the tremor. Her head drooped down to her chest and she exhaled, bouncing nervously on her feet. She inhaled a few deep breaths and readied herself, standing upright and calm.
Iva busied herself with tightening the connections on the peripheral lines running from Adam’s arms, and ran her eyes down the length of them, checking there were no occlusions.
The whistling man entered the room. Adam could only see the top of his hat in the reflection above, and a black leather briefcase in his hand.
“Good evening,” said the man, as he removed his hat and hung it on a hook behind the door. He spoke with a subtle English accent. His hair was grey and thinning on top, with a swirl of strands failing to disguise a bald crown.
Headhunter: An Extreme Horror Story Page 6