by A. P. Madden
The shoelace went around his neck and Luke pulled hard, wrapping the other end of the string around his other hand. Mark growled furiously and straightened up - his pain forgotten - and Luke was lifted off his feet. His hands ached as the string tightened under his full body weight, but he didn’t let go. He pulled himself up with his arms and tightened his grip.
Mark was only a few inches taller than Luke, but it felt like he was on a giant’s back. Mark roared and choked, and he tried to grab Luke over his shoulder. His hands grabbed Luke’s shirt. Luke wrapped his legs around the man’s powerful torso before he could pull him off.
Mark was shaking with fury and frustration. He pulled again and slammed Luke back against the bars of the cell. Pain exploded through Luke’s body, but he held on. He couldn’t let go. If he let go, it was all over.
Mark still wasn’t weakening, even though the string was still wrapped tight around his throat. Luke was sure he would have gone down by now, but something in his body, whatever was giving him his strength, it kept him going.
Mark slammed him against the bars again and Luke saw stars.
He had to end this now.
Luke let his legs fall from Mark’s torso and he lifted his arms, screaming against the burning pain in his muscles. He lifted himself higher and then pushed back with his legs. His shoes slipped on the bars, but then he got a firm grip and he shoved himself forward.
The sudden shift sent Mark stumbling forward, and Luke forced his body weight forward. He was on top of Mark now, almost over his head, and Mark’s unnatural strength finally failed under Luke’s weight.
They went down hard and the force of Luke’s fall landed on Mark’s head. The impact forced his grip off and Luke went sprawling onto the floor. He was stunned and his brain and body wouldn’t connect. Luke waited for Mark to rise and loom over him, grinning as he brought his fist down and finally ended it.
It didn’t happen. Luke could see the man on the ground in the corner of his eye. Huge, muscular, motionless. Dead or just unconscious.
Get up. Get up now.
Luke groaned at the voice in his head. He knew it wasn’t real, but it sounded like Caelan.
The others must have heard all the noise. You have to move.
“Can’t,” he mumbled.
They’re coming. Get UP.
Luke groaned again, but he got one hand beneath him, and he shoved himself up. Then the other hand, and then his knees were on the ground. He stood up and stumbled, but he braced himself on the wall until he could see straight again.
Mark wasn’t moving, and Luke stepped over him quickly. He locked the door behind him, just in case the behemoth of a man was still alive. Voices and footsteps approached from multiple directions, and Luke moved into the largest of the dark spots beneath the broken lightbulbs.
Luke stood silently in the shadows as the rest of them ran into the room. Four people, three men and a woman.
“Mark? What happened?”
“He’s locked in there!”
“Where are his keys?”
Seven of them had survived the attack. Mark was one. That left six. And four of them were standing in front of him.
Luke scanned the weapons available to him. Most of them had melee weapons - knives, blades, pipes and bats. Only two of them carried guns. He didn't know if they were out of ammo or the others chose not to carry them. It didn’t matter.
There was ice-cold fire in his chest, and it burned away everything else he was feeling until there was nothing left but intent. He knew what to do.
Luke stepped out and grabbed the machete in the closest man’s belt. The man frowned and turned, but Luke’s blade was already going through his neck. Luke spun and brought the blade around, slashing across the second man’s throat. It almost missed - Luke was moving too fast to aim - but it did enough to send him to the ground.
The other two were ready for him, but they didn’t have guns. He ducked a wild swing from the man with the bat and drove his blade through his chest.
The woman tackled him and he hit the ground. Her aim was off, so he wasn’t winded, but his machete skittered across the floor and they rolled away from each other. He backed away until he hit the bars of the cell, but she didn’t give him a chance to recover from his mistake. Her fist shot out and he barely dodged it. Her knuckles collided with the metal bar above his head and he caught a glimpse of bent metal as it buckled under her strength.
Luke saw his machete and lunged for it. She roared and charged at him. His fingers wrapped around the handle and he swung blindly. She gasped, and he felt the machete leave his hand as she fell.
It was over.
Luke’s hands were shaking hard, and he grabbed a gun to hide his tremors. His head was screaming, but he didn’t think it was physical pain. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew if he looked into that void for too long, he wouldn’t be able to keep going.
He didn’t look at the bodies. He walked out of the room, in the direction they took Amy. He didn’t know how many victims were still alive in this hellish place, but she might be. He would find her. Alive or dead, he was going to get her out of here. She didn’t deserve to suffer here. No one did.
Luke kept walking until he realised that there was only one way to go. Darkness filled the other areas, but he wasn’t afraid of the shadows. He walked recklessly onwards, leaving his back exposed to entire rooms that were filled with darkness.
He knew it was the experiment room before he opened the door. It smelled like sterile chemicals, but they failed to mask the smell beneath. Death and decay. He opened the door and stepped inside, and what he saw threatened to shatter the fragile shield he had built around his emotions.
***
Chapter 24 - Two of Us
There were so many tables, and each table had another person on it. They were strapped down, but there was no point. They were all dead. Whoever killed them didn’t bother to move the bodies after they were done.
Luke’s mind struggled to process what he saw - gruesome, twisted, insane things. Things impossible to imagine, let alone witness. The work of a sadistic madman. The bodies - the subjects - were contorted and frozen in their last motion of agony. Some carried signs of mutation, others didn’t, and the rest were so damaged that he couldn’t tell the difference.
The screaming in Luke’s head got louder, and he looked at the only person standing in the room. A tall, handsome man in a lab coat. His eyes widened with surprise when he saw Luke, and he smiled. His eyes were bloodshot and his irises were fully red, without a single hint of normal colour, and his pupils were fully dilated.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Warren. Have you come to see the experiment?”
Luke lifted his weapon and shot him.
The gunshot was surprisingly loud in the silence, and Luke looked at Warren hit the ground. A small patch of blood began to spread across his chest. Luke expected more blood, but the scientist was clearly injecting himself with the same mutant tissues, and it must have affected his blood flow.
Close to where Warren was standing, Luke saw someone move. It was Amy. The girl from the other cell. She was strapped to a table at the end of the room, and she was gagged. Luke stepped towards her, and she started shaking her head frantically.
Too late, Luke realised she was trying to warn him.
Pain exploded in the back of his head. The next thing he was aware of was being on the ground. There was someone moving around him, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him. A metal gas canister lay on the ground nearby, and his unfocused eyes skimmed past it.
Move, Caelan said. You need to move.
It was like the car crash or the prison cell - his body wouldn’t listen to him. Absently, he decided that he spent too much time struggling to make his body obey him.
Focus.
Luke felt the floor scraping against his back, but it seemed so far away, so unimportant. The person moved around him, and he saw them doing something to the table. Moments later,
a body fell to the ground, and they reached for him again.
He got his first good look at her when she heaved him onto the table she just shoved the other body off. It was a woman. Donna, he remembered.
She started strapping Luke to the table. He heard her muttering things under breath. Pumping him full of CSF from the biggest mutant she could find, setting up an IV for a blood transfusion, taking samples and transplanting tissues. See what it would do to him. See if he would react like the others.
Luke wondered if he deserved this. Was this a sign from the universe or a god that he had gone too far, done too much? Was this his punishment?
Amy whimpered, and his thoughts refocused. She looked terrified. Tears streamed down her face, and she pulled against the restraints. She was still fighting.
She doesn’t deserve to die.
Luke blinked, and he tried to move his body. One of his fingers twitched. He couldn’t see it, but he was sure it did. Donna was tightening the straps over his arms, and she moved down to his leg. Luke’s hands flexed and he curled his fingers. His leg spasmed, and Donna’s hand clamped down on his thigh while she pulled the strap tight around his ankle.
Luke remembered the body that had been here before him. Donna hadn’t moved it away. She just dumped it on the ground behind her. Luke waited until Donna straightened up and moved to grab his other leg. He lifted his foot and shoved it against her chest.
The woman yelped and stumbled back, and her foot caught on the body on the ground. She tripped and fell, and her head slammed against the edge of the table as she went down.
She wasn’t moving.
Luke didn’t stop to think, he just brought his wrist closer to his face and started pulling at the strap with his teeth. It took several minutes, but he was getting there.
Warren groaned.
Luke froze and stared at the fallen scientist. Warren started to move again. He wasn’t dead. He took a bullet to the chest and he wasn’t dead.
Luke clamped down on his panic and worked faster at pulling the strap off with his teeth.
He got it open just as Warren staggered to his feet. The scientist saw Donna on the floor, and his eyes found Luke. Their eyes locked.
Warren grabbed a scalpel and ran at him and Luke grabbed the other wrist strap. He pulled it off and rolled off the table seconds before Warren brought the scalpel down on him. He hit the ground, but his other leg was still tied to the table, and he had to twist around to free himself.
It took a few precious seconds to untie it, and Warren was already on top of him when he pulled his foot free. Warren leaped onto him and Luke rolled to the side, scrambling to his feet. Warren pulled himself up using the edge of the table, and he stepped over Donna’s body towards Luke.
“Alone,” he snarled. “You took her from me.”
Luke eyed the small metal tank nearby. It was the same gas canister that Donna used to knock him out.
“And now I’m alone-” Warren’s voice cut off abruptly, catching Luke’s attention. “Not alone,” he said, staring behind Luke.
Amy. He was looking at Amy.
“I’ll keep you alive,” Warren said, still staring at her. “Just the two of us, now.”
Luke grabbed the gas canister. It was heavy and awkward, but fear and adrenaline gave him strength and he charged at Warren. The scientist lashed out with his scalpel, slashing a line of fiery pain across Luke’s arm, and then the gas canister came down on his head.
Warren landed on the ground. Luke hit him.
Then he hit him again.
Warren’s struggle ended quickly, but Luke didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Something inside him snapped, and he saw red and black and rage consumed his mind. Eventually, Luke heard the gas canister hit the ground. It had slipped out of his hands. He wasn’t sure when he stopped hitting. The sight of the carnage - his carnage - turned his stomach.
“Luke.”
He did that. He killed- No, he destroyed that man. There was nothing recognisable left of him.
“Oh god,” he whispered.
“Luke.”
He stumbled away from the body and emptied his stomach by the wall. He wiped his mouth with trembling hands, and felt blood smear across his face. He looked at his hands and found them dripping with bright red blood.
“Luke.”
He looked up. Someone was talking to him.
“Luke, are you okay?”
A girl, strapped to a cold metal table. There was a dirty gag hanging around her neck. “Luke, talk to me.”
“I’m okay,” he said. That was what people said, wasn’t it? “I’m okay.”
“You need to untie me. We have to get out of here before any more of them come down here.”
Amy, he remembered. Her name was Amy.
“No more,” he said.
“What?”
He straightened up and the room spun. He had to grab the wall until it stopped spinning. His legs were stiff as he walked across the room.
“There are no more,” he said, untying her wrist. “They’re all dead.”
Her arm was free, and she hurried to untie the other straps herself. “Are you sure?”
“There were seven,” he said. “They said only seven survived the attack.”
She looked at him for a moment, and then she nodded. “Okay. Let’s get out of here, just in case, and we’ll find somewhere to clean you up.”
He let her lead him out of the room. He didn’t look at the bodies. He didn’t need to.
They were branded into his memory.
***
Chapter 25 - Saying it
A week later, Luke stood outside the factory. It was early, and the cold morning air filled his lungs and slipped under his clothes as he stared at the forest ahead. The sky was cloudy, hiding the sunrise and the last glimpses of the stars above. Luke tried to listen for birds or animals bustling around in the forest, but he couldn’t hear anything.
He imagined losing himself in the shadows and the trees, the freedom of being alone and anonymous and not responsible for anything or anyone. If it weren’t for the mutant creatures that were sure to be lurking in the darkness, it would be a very tempting idea.
“Mind if I join you?”
He glanced at the man walking up to him. It was Jackson.
Luke was tempted to tell him no, but he didn’t have the energy. “I’m finished, anyway,” Luke said, starting to turn for the door. “Just came out for some fresh air.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jackson shrugged and took a sip from the mug in his hand.
Wisps of steam swirled up into the air, and Luke wondered if he was drinking tea or coffee. Coffee was scarce, and they had distributed the last of their supply among the people in the community a few weeks ago. Tea, on the other hand, was plentiful. One of the families that joined them recently had brought several big boxes of tea, so they immediately became mini-celebrities within the factory.
Jackson saw him looking at the mug. “Coffee,” he said.
Luke just nodded and looked back at the forest. “You obviously have something you want to say, so get it over with.”
Jackson was quiet for a while, and the waiting set Luke’s teeth on edge.
“You’re off,” he finally said. “Ever since you came back from the lab, you’ve been different. Distracted.”
“I’m fine.”
“You just spent ten seconds staring at my coffee, man. You’re not fine. How long have you been out here?”
Luke glanced at him, and he realised that Jackson looked concerned. Not aggressive or patronising or angry. Luke knew how to deal with all of those versions of Jackson, but he had no idea how to react to this man standing in front of him with genuine concern in his eyes.
“Not long,” Luke said. “Like I said, I just came out for some air.”
“I don’t believe you. The way you were staring at the forest, it almost looked like you were thinking about goin
g in there.”
“You were watching me?”
He shrugged. “For a minute or two. I thought you saw me.”
Luke didn’t say anything. He was surprised at himself for not noticing, for not being aware of his surroundings.
Jackson frowned. Before Luke could stop him, he reached out and touched the back of his hand. “You’re freezing,” he said. “Your hands are like ice. Come on, let’s go back inside. I’m bringing you to Caelan. You need to talk to someone about this.”
“You’re not volunteering?” Luke smirked.
Jackson laughed. “Listening to you talk about your feelings is my idea of hell.”
Luke hid a smile and let Jackson guide him back into the building. “Does this mean we’re friends now?”
Jackson flipped him the bird.
***
Luke stood by the window in Caelan’s office. Jackson knocked on the door, shoved Luke inside, told Caelan why he was here, and then disappeared, leaving the two of them in awkward silence.
Caelan was sitting behind his desk, reading through their supply inventories. They didn’t speak for several minutes, but Luke knew that Caelan was waiting for him to break the silence. He was just giving him space and time to figure out what to say.
“I can’t get them out of my head,” Luke said.
Caelan looked up. “The victims or the people responsible?”
“Both. The people on the tables, the ones who were forced into those twisted experiments... Their faces were so horrible. I can’t believe anyone would do that to another living being. I wish I could go back and save them before it happened.”
Caelan was silent. He knew Luke had more to say.
“And the scientist,” Luke said. “Warren. What I did to him.”
“You saved lives,” Caelan said.
“It was too much. Way too much. I didn’t know I had that in me. I didn’t I was capable of...”