by Amy Cross
She stares at me for a moment longer, and then suddenly she turns her back to me. Startled, I realize after a few seconds that she's fiddling with something in her hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
I'm about to grab her and force her to show me, when she suddenly drops her hands and turns around.
I wait, but she's simply staring at me again. Something seems different this time, though. It's almost as if -
Suddenly she spits some kind of brown liquid at my face, and I pull back as I feel a burning sensation. Crashing down to the floor, I grab the front of my shirt and start wiping my face, and at the same time I can already hear the sound of the girl running off into the distance. Fortunately the burning sensation quickly passes, and by the time I get back to my feet there's nothing left other than a faint sting.
“What the hell?” I stammer, but the girl is already long gone.
I hurry after her, heading back into the main hall, but then I stop as I realize that realistically I can't possibly hope to catch up to her. For some reason, she suddenly decided she no longer wanted to cooperate, and apparently she just couldn't tell it to me straight.
“Crazy kid,” I mutter. “When I catch up to you, I'm gonna -”
Before I can finish, I hear a clicking sound over my shoulder, and I turn just in time to see the hidden door swing open. To my surprise, there's a middle-aged man standing in the doorway, wearing a white coat.
“Ah,” he says, with a faint, slightly embarrassed-looking smile, “from the looks of the saline solution that's soaked all over the front of your shirt, I see that you must have met my daughter.”
Elizabeth
“Don't fight it,” she whispers. “There's no need. Just let it all go.”
I try once again to scream, but I can't find my mouth. By that, I mean that the scream is entirely in my mind and I can't figure out how to let it out. I can't find most of my body.
“You're going to enjoy this,” the voice continues. “I very much look forward to seeing you on the other side.”
Thomas
“You must forgive the rather unorthodox welcome to Pentham,” Doctor Musgrave says as he continues to lead me down the winding stone staircase. “Polly can be a rather difficult child, sometimes. It takes a while to understand her sense of humor.”
“What is this place?” I ask, wondering just how much further down we can go. We must be well into the basement by now, if not even deeper.
“You're arrived at a former psychiatric hospital,” he replies, and his voice is echoing now in the cold air. “Pentham was an asylum until the 1960's, when it was shuttered due to concerns about the treatment of patients here. You know how things changed from time to time. The treatment regimen was considered absolutely fine, until suddenly it wasn't, and local campaign groups got into into their heads that everything about Pentham was wrong. Good doctors lost their careers due to the actions of a bunch of lily-livered idiots. After that, the facility lay empty for quite some time, until it was acquired and put to better use.”
“Sure, but what are you doing down here?” I ask.
Reaching the bottom of the staircase, I stop as I see that we've reached a long, low-ceilinged stone corridor. To my surprise, I notice several glowing circles on the walls, almost as if this place has power.
“A cutting-edge combination of phosphorescence and bio-luminescence,” Doctor Musgrave explains, stopping and turning to me, as if he'd read my mind. “A patented idea of my own, not that patents are of much use these days. Energy is stored above-ground during daylight hours and then diverted down here. It's not a miracle, and it won't last forever. The cells will need replacing and I have no way of doing that. For now, however, my work is greatly improved by this limited amount of light. Time, however, is very much of the essence.”
“Is my friend down here?”
“Your friend?”
“Her name's Elizabeth. We arrived here together two days ago, but she disappeared yesterday.”
“There is a girl, yes,” he replies. “I didn't know that her name was Elizabeth. You can't see her right now, but she'll be available shortly.”
“Why can't I see her now?”
“It's complicated.”
“Is she hurt?”
“My colleague is attending to her,” he continues, “and I assure you, she'll be absolutely fine. You just need to be patient.”
As footsteps ring out at the far end of the corridor, he turns just as the little girl comes running into view. She stops next to him, and he puts a hand on her shoulder as she stares at me with that same strange expression I've seen several times before.
“This is Polly,” he explains. “She can talk, but she won't. I choose not to force her. Polly is eight years old, which surprises some people. They think she's older. She's an extremely intelligent girl, a genius really. Her late mother and I decided very early on that we wanted to let Polly make all her own life choices. So far, I'm very proud of her progress.” He pats her on the shoulder. “Now Polly,” he continues, “why don't you go and clear the way? You know what I mean.”
She looks up at him, then she nods, and then she turns and runs back the way she came.
“Why are you hiding out here under an old hospital?” I ask.
“Nobody's hiding,” he replies. “It's just that this is the best place to conduct our work. If we were hiding, I'd have had no need to come up and greet you, and I certainly wouldn't have allowed you to meet Polly. This is a research facility. We're working on a cure for the sickness that has devastated the world.”
“And you just happened to rock up here after the world went to shit?”
“After?” He furrows his brow for a moment. “Of course not. No, this facility has been here for almost a decade now. It just so happens that we were set up in order to investigate certain types of sickness, so it made sense to seek out a degree of isolation. I never truly expected a pandemic of this nature to occur, at least not in such a manner, but it just so happens that we were well-placed to survive the early stages of a mass extinction event. Our long-term prospects are a little more difficult, but at least we're starting from a good base. Now tell me, are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Where's Elizabeth?” I ask, stepping over to him. “No more excuses. I want to see her right now!”
“That's not possible.”
“Then make it possible!”
“It's out of my hands!” He holds his hands up, in what seems to be some lame attempt to underscore that point. “We're all on the same side here, Mr. Edgewater.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I believe you told my daughter.”
“And she wrote it down and showed you?”
“Come this way,” he replies, before turning and heading away along the corridor. “I always find it so very boring whenever I have to explain the basics of our work here. I always prefer to show people what we're doing. Even if you don't understand the science, I'm sure you can marvel at some of the sights.”
“I want to see my friend!” I call out, but this time he ignores me. “Hey!”
He disappears around the far corner.
This whole set-up is starting to feel really, really wrong, and it's clear my concerns about that freaky little kid were spot-on. I can't leave Elizabeth down here, though, so I start making my way along the corridor while wishing that I'd had the foresight to bring some kind of weapon. Then again, this Musgrave guy doesn't seem too tough and his spitting daughter hopefully doesn't have any more tricks up her sleeve. I'm still not sure how she could hold that foul liquid in her mouth before spitting it at me, but I guess that's just one more way that she's peculiar.
Reaching the end of the corridor, I take a left turn and find myself at the entrance to a large chamber filled with various items of scientific equipment. There are beakers and test-tubes on a nearby bench, and microscopes and other things on another, and Doctor Musgrave is flipping through the pages of a book.
�
��Is this for real?” I ask.
“I beg your pardon?”
Spotting the kid, Polly, nearby, I turn and see that she's watching me with a pretty intense expression. I'm not sure I want to turn my back on her.
“You've got some kind of mad scientist set-up going on here,” I tell Musgrave, “but I don't care about that. I just want to see Elizabeth!”
“This so-called mad scientist set-up,” he replies, sounding a little testy now, “might be the key to saving the world.” He glares at me for a moment. “So you might want to pipe down with some of that crap.”
“Where's my friend?”
“I told you, she -”
“I want to see her. Right now!”
“That's impossible. I don't have time to be your nursemaid, young man. We lost two of our colleagues here the other day, which leaves just two of us left. Plus Polly. So as I'm sure you'll appreciate, we're rather short-handed.”
“I don't care what you are,” I say, stepping toward him, making my way past a bench filled with trays and specimens. “I'm not here to interfere with what you're doing, I'm only here to -”
Stopping suddenly, I stare at one of the samples on the bench. I feel a flicker of fear as I realize that somehow – bizarrely – I recognize this sample. It's a piece that was taken from Jane Kincaid just a few days ago, back when Sarah Carter was carrying out those hideous experiments. I tell myself that I'm wrong, that this is just a random little piece of flesh that could have come from anywhere, but deep down I know that I've seen this before.
No, I have to be wrong. How could she be here? At the same time, I suddenly notice the very strong smell of a very familiar perfume.
“Hello, Thomas.”
Startled, I spin around just in time to see Sarah Carter herself standing in a nearby doorway.
Elizabeth
There are gaps now. Gaps in my thoughts. I keep catching myself stopping for a moment, fading away as if I'm about to become nothing. Then I jerk back just in time, but the sensation immediately starts again.
And each time, it's getting harder and harder to find my way back.
Thomas
“I'm still awaiting news from Boston,” Carter says as she takes a step into the laboratory. “To be honest, somebody should have sent word by now. But let's not worry about that for the moment, Thomas. Isn't it a wonderful coincidence that we -”
“Where is she?” I snap, trying to hold back the sense of panic in my chest.
“Who?”
“Elizabeth?”
“I...”
Carter looks over at Musgrave.
“The girl,” he says nonchalantly, not even glancing up from his microscope. “The one he arrived with.”
“Ah, yes,” she replies. “Her.”
“Where is she?” I ask. “I swear, if you hurt her...”
“You made the right choice, not going to Boston,” she says. “You're a smart boy, you have a good instinct for self-preservation. I'm much the same, Thomas. Let the tough guys do all the fighting. After all, they seem to enjoy it. And really, the outcome of the fight in Boston isn't of paramount importance. One can always find a way to inveigle one's way into somebody else's trust, if one must.”
“But you...”
My voice trails off as I try to make sense of her presence here.
“Some things are too important to let idiots get involved,” she continues, as she heads over to one of the nearby benches and picks up some handwritten notes. “It's better to let Patterson and the others blow each other up. Either they'll die, or they'll get too tired to interfere. To be honest, that was also true before the -”
“I want to see Elizabeth!” I say firmly, as I head over to her. “What are you doing to her?”
“Doing to her? Why would I be -”
“I want to see her!” I snap.
She stares at me for a moment, with an infuriating expression that seems to be half amusement and half respect.
“Clever boy,” she says finally. “We might make something of you yet.”
Turning, she picks up a glass jar and holds it out for me to see. There's some kind of yellowish liquid inside, but I don't know why I'm supposed to be impressed.
“Great,” I say, “you're peeing in jars.”
“Don't be crude,” she replies. “This is the cause of everything, Thomas. It's the sickness in its liquid state. It can also exist as a gas, which is how it originally spread. The man who created this stuff was a genius, but he still wasn't quite as smart as he hoped. He made mistakes. He unleashed something that didn't do what he wanted. And now the whole world has to pay for what he did.” She pauses. “At least, until a cure is discovered.”
“And you're trying to come up with a cure, are you?” I ask, not feeling particularly impressed.
“Not trying, Thomas,” she replies. “Succeeding.”
“No way,” I tell her. “I don't believe a word of this.”
“The sickness -”
“That's nothing in that jar!” I add. “You're just crazy!”
“Oh yes?” She smiles, and then she starts unscrewing the jar's lid. “Let me -”
“No!”
I take a step back, horrified by the idea that she might actually let that stuff out.
“It's a nasty thought, isn't it?” she says as she screws the lid back into place. “Even for someone who has a natural immunity to the stuff, such as yourself.”
She sets the jar down.
“It's that immunity that allowed us to make such a quick breakthrough. This laboratory has been here for quite some time, hidden away from disapproving eyes. Some of my work has made me rather unpopular, Thomas. Unfortunately, we required subjects for our tests, which is where pretty little Polly came into the mix.”
I turn and see the little girl watching me from behind one of the other benches.
“Who could leave a lost little girl at the side of a road?” Carter asks. “She's very good at luring people up here, but I must admit I was shocked when I saw that you were one of her latest acquisitions. I was going to let you and your friend leave, but... Well, let's just say that I was overruled.”
“We need them,” Musgrave says firmly, not looking up from his work. “We can't afford to let anyone pass us by.”
“I know,” Carter replies, “especially when one of them has immunity to the sickness. That makes you very valuable, Thomas. Still, I don't want to carve you up. I think you have potential.”
“You haven't found a cure,” I tell her. “You can't have.”
“Again, you're very smart. We're close, though. We can slow the sickness down, in some cases we can reverse some of its effects. That's progress, Thomas, and we're making more each day. Soon we'll be ready to move on to the next step, which means deciding who gets to be cured and who has to be sacrificed.”
“If you've developed a cure,” I reply, “then other people will have, too.”
She raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“You can't be the only one,” I add.
“I'm the only one with this kind of equipment at her disposal,” she replies. “I'm the only one with a laboratory that was specifically designed to still function without electricity, even if for a limited period. And I'm the only one who has a history of being willing to bend the rules.”
“What rules?”
“Let me show you.”
She turns and heads toward a door on the far side of the chamber.
“Good luck in there,” Musgrave mutters, still not looking up from his work. “It's one thing to be willing to do this stuff. It's another to be proud of it.”
“Where's my friend?” I ask.
“Not for me to say.”
“If anything's happened to her,” I continue, “I swear -”
“She's in charge here,” he replies, interrupting me. “I'm just the help.”
I want to ask him some more questions, but I figure there's no point. Stepping over toward the far door, I briefly glance at Polly, and I c
an't help but feel that there's something seriously wrong with the kid. We make eye contact for a moment as I walk past, and then I head through the doorway and into another, longer room where the air feels much warmer and more humid.
Stopping, I realize I can hear a series of rattling sounds, along with grunts and moans.
“This way!” Carter calls out from around the far corner. “Don't let your stomach fail you, Thomas! I'd be very disappointed if you turned out to be a pussy.”
“Where's Elizabeth?” I call out.
I wait, but there's no answer. Instead, I can hear Carter talking around the corner, and the rattling and groaning sounds are continuing. I've got a nasty feeling about what might be happening here, but I force myself to walk toward the corner, and then finally I step around and see to my horror that I was right.
Carter is standing with her back to me, facing three cages. And in each of those cages, there's a snarling, angry zombie.
Elizabeth
“Lizzie? Are you okay?”
It's him.
In an instant, I realize I'm standing in the old apartment in New York. Night has fallen, but I can just about make out the bed on the far side of the room. Mom looks to be fast asleep, but Dad is sitting up and looking this way. I can't see his face in the darkness, but I know it's him.
“Can't sleep again, huh?” he says with a sigh. “This is happening a lot lately.” He shifts over and pulls the duvet aside. “Come on.”
Ordinarily I'd go straight over and climb in, but this time something stops me. I hesitate for a moment longer, and then I turn and start shuffling back out of the room.
“Lizzie?”
I stop.
“What is it, honey?”
I hear the bed creaking as he climbs out. Mom murmurs something, asking what's wrong, but she's not really awake and Dad tells her not to worry. Then I hear him stepping up behind me, and I flinch as I feel his hand on my shoulder.