The Creation: Let There Be Death (The Creation Series Book 2)

by The Behrg

  Verse IV.

  Faye Moanna was enveloped in darkness.

  The cowl pulled over her head kept her from catching even a glimpse of her surroundings. Her arms were bound tightly behind her back, with men both in front and behind her. Their uneven footfalls echoed through the hall or chamber or wherever they were.

  Something jammed into the small of her back, causing her to pick up her steps. For a moment at least. The rough flooring had constant catches and sudden gaps which made walking blindfolded a task requiring concentration. More than once she had brushed up against a wall, jagged edges pressing into her hand or arm just before the fall of a baton forced her back. She wondered, when they finally pulled the hood from her eyes, how much of her tattoo would be covered in a multi-hued collage of bruises.

  “A donde vamos?”

  Her captors never answered, regardless of whether she spoke English or Spanish. As for the alcalde, or head of this illegal operation, she had yet to hear from him since their arrival in this subterranean dungeon.

  She trudged along, each step jarring. Exhausted, hungry and frightened. The rank smell of mildewed rags pulled from a forgotten load of laundry permeated even through the mask she wore. Or maybe it was because of the mask.

  Her thoughts again turned to her father. Watching that smug Venezuelan bastard cut him down, the force of the bullets propelling Dugan backward.

  Her father’s shock, as if he had really thought he would live forever.

  A torrent of emotions overtook her, possessed her — emotions she never thought she would feel.

  Not for him.

  Hadn’t she come here to kill him herself? Why then did she feel so empty knowing he was gone? Was it the knowledge that she was finally alone in the world, without family? Or was it because she hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger?

  A hand grabbed her, turning her ninety degrees, then shoved her forward. The second left in this twisting labyrinth.

  Sweat dripped down the sides of her face, her arms, and the small of her back. Wherever she was being led, she knew it might be her final resting place. Destined to become just another name on a list of missing tourists. Another reason to stay clear of third world countries; vacation close to home.

  Her boyfriend, Donavon, wouldn’t come to her rescue. He’d try, maybe, but ultimately he’d decide she was dead before his search had begun. The famous action hero so many women swooned over was a pussy when it came down to it. A shame it had taken such extreme circumstances for Faye to uncover the truth about him. She wasn’t even sure if he would miss her before moving on to his next conquest.

  Grey might organize a search, but he’d try to go the diplomatic route. Contact the authorities or, more likely, reach out to someone in the States. Who would you contact for something like this? The FBI? Homeland Security? It wouldn’t matter; by the time there’d be any traction — if there were any — she’d be long gone.

  If only Sir William were still alive. Faye didn’t understand his connections or what the Englishman knew about this native her father had been chasing, but she felt confident the old astronomer would have been able to do something. He left far too many questions unanswered with his death. And what about this Indian her father had been after? This … Shaman. Would her father’s men give up the search with Dugan now out of the picture? Or would they come for him?

  Faye was suddenly lifted off the ground from behind, one of the soldiers carrying her like a bride across the threshold of a honeymoon suite. Though this bride kicked and screamed.

  The back of her head connected with a jaw and she was released, weightless for the brief second before she hit the ground. With her arms bound behind her, she hit hard, her chin knocking against rough stone. She came to rest against the jutting outcrop of a wall, the taste of blood in her mouth.

  One of the men rolled her over then spit on her, the force of his loogie actually knocking her head back. She found herself oddly grateful for the cover on her face. The smell of the room was harsher than where they had travelled before, ripe with rot and decay.

  “Where am I? Donde estamos?”

  Her only answer was the long creak of a gate closing, bars rattling in place. The voices of her captors carried down the corridor, fading away.

  A prison. But this wasn’t the same jail they had held the camera crew in when they had first arrived. This was a place people went to be forgotten.

  Los Disparacidos.

  The Forgotten Ones.

  If she was going to stay alive she had to be useful, provide something they needed, or make them think she knew more than she did. That, or find this Shaman, and pray that if her father’s men came for him, they would let her go as well.

  If he was being held in the same place as her.

  As ideas began to form, her mind was struck as if with a physical force — screams echoed from down the corridor. Not just the cries of those in pain or the distress of torture, these wails were animalistic. Savage. The final throes of someone being ripped apart.

  The voice went silent with a deafening finality, though the noises of flesh tearing and some creature — or creatures — eating continued for what felt like an eternity.

  Where the hell am I?

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  There would be no rescue. Her only hope was enwrapped in a single, desperate plea.

  That she would die quickly.

  Verse V.

  Doctor Zachary Morley depressed the button on the remote strapped around the arm of his hospital bed, the sickening yet sweet morphine spreading slowly into his veins. While it never quite deadened the pain of his crushed spine and pulverized coccyx and sacrum, it was enough to at least make lying completely immobilized in this miserable room somewhat tolerable.

  Drugs had always had a way of fixing things Morley found intolerable.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Come in.”

  His lab technicians had learned long ago to knock before entering a room Morley was in.

  Always.

  The door opened and two of his scientists entered, Dr. Greg Stafford and Anne something, he couldn’t remember. Greg was old school, had to be in his seventies, yet thin as a twig. He had small features: wafer-thin lips and eyes that made him look like he was always squinting or concerned. Anne had a grey dyke cut with long side burns and a face that was plaster-casted into a permanent frown. She was thick but not heavy, a lesbian, which was why they sent her to deal with him. They came in to check on him every time he hit a dose of Morphine, which was as often as he was able.

  “How ya doin’?” The question was perfunctory, Anne sweeping past his bedside to check the monitor with his vitals, not caring for an answer.

  “Peachy,” Morley said. “You know, you probably don’t need to knock. My dick’s as black and purple as the rest of my lower half. You’re not gonna catch me cuttin’ skin.”

  Greg cleared his throat near the door.

  “When are you gonna give me something that’ll actually take away this pain, or do you just enjoy watching me suffer?”

  Anne finished syncing her tablet with the terminal at his side. “You need to ask?”

  “Doctor Lowry’s clearing a room, we’re gonna get you in and see what we can do about rebuilding that hip,” Greg said.

  “You saw the X-rays?” Morley asked.

  Greg glanced at Anne quickly.

  “There’s nothing left to rebuild it from.” Morley reached out and pinched Anne’s ass, earning him a hard slap on his arm. The jolt shot all the way down to his spine, causing him to cry out in pain. It felt like someone was using a jackhammer on his lower back. His breaths came in ragged hitches.

  “Serves you right,” Anne said.

  “We should be ready within the hour,” Greg said.

  “No, we won’t.”

  The female’s voice swept over the wave of pain and nausea-inducing analgesic opiates that were slowly sinking into his nervous system. Morley’s vision lagge
d slightly behind his head movements, but it was impossible to miss the Ice Queen standing in the doorway.

  “Nice to see you too, Shannon,” he said, words drawling together.

  Shannon Escobar gazed at him coolly. The Director of the Facility’s personal assistant, most found her more formidable than the man under whom she served. Her golden hair was down today, straightened and shiny, as if she had just exited the set of a commercial for shampoo. Her gray pleated skirt showed more leg than a giraffe, though her purple top did look a little frumpy. Had she desired fame more than power, she could have been a celebrity. But she was smarter than that, Morley thought. Power always trumps fame.

  “We need you in the Castle,” Shannon said, referencing not a building but a room.

  Most of the rooms in the Facility were named after old Sci-Fi movies, the more obscure the reference, the more important the room. The Castle was named after actor-turned-screenwriter-turned-director, Nick Castle, who played the uncredited role, or puppeteering, of a beach ball alien in a 1974 cult classic, Dark Star. Castle later played the role of Michael Myers in the original Halloween franchise before moving on to bigger, and much greener, pastures. A summons to the Castle represented a Board of Directors meeting, comprised of Marcus Stanton, James Dugan, and Zachary Morley.

  And of course, the Ice Queen.

  But with Dugan out of the picture and Morley all but laid up, what stunt was Stanton trying to pull? Not for the first time since learning of Dugan’s passing Morley considered whether he should be concerned for his life.

  “You two can bring him. And no more drugs,” Shannon said. “I don’t care how much pain he’s in, we need him … coherent.”

  “Thought you’d at least bring some flowers,” Morley said. “Or a ‘get well’ card, with a picture of you, bending over.”

  Shannon’s lips stayed pursed.

  Greg and Anne went about decluttering the number of wires and IVs trailing from his body, unhooking them to enable his transport. Several of the machines beeped in auditory outrage at having been unplugged.

  The wheels at the base of his bed were unlocked, and Morley found himself being guided out through the open doorway, clanging into the doorjamb only once. He felt sluggish, his head heavy. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  “What could be so important that Marcus needs me?” Morley asked, as they traveled through the empty halls. “Shannon?”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  Both Greg and Anne kept quiet, looking as if they’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Is it Dugan’s men? Marcus can’t possibly think I have rapport with them. Umner Corp may pay their wages, but you know as well as I do, their allegiance was to him.”

  “And who’s your allegiance to?”

  Morley decided the question was rhetorical.

  After passing awkwardly through a few hallways, they arrived at the Castle. Shannon flashed her security card, and both Anne and Greg guided Morley through. The quarters were tight, the hospital bed taking up over half of the space. A flat-screen adorned the far wall of the windowless room, wirelessly connected to the mouse and keyboard set on a small desk the size of a rolling food tray in the corner. There were no chairs or tables.

  “Thank you,” Shannon said, letting Anne and Greg know they were no longer needed. They retreated quickly from the room.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, a section of the wall to Morley’s right opened, the hidden panel sliding back from its seamless junction. Marcus Stanton strode in, his boots clacking against the tiled floor. His eyes drooped, the permanent shadowed ripples beneath them more pronounced than normal. Compared with Shannon’s fresh uniform, Marcus looked like he hadn’t changed in at least two days, his button-up shirt laced with wrinkles.

  “Shannon fill you in on the way over?”

  “I was unable to,” she said. “We had … company, transporting him.”

  Marcus nodded. “There’s a lot happening right now we don’t have time to explain. We’ve lost communication with Umner and, well, the outside world.”

  “And let me guess, without marching orders you don’t know what to do,” Morley said.

  Marcus folded his arms against his chest in a defensive posture.

  “Well, have you sent Dugan’s men after the Shaman?” Morley continued. “They can’t have taken him far …”

  “It’s not necessary,” Marcus said.

  “Neither is sex, but how many celibates do you know? Look, I know I wasn’t there, but people talk. You’ve got to strike before those banditos get away with that man!”

  “Umner wouldn’t —”

  “Screw Umner, we’re talking about the key to the human genome! Immortality. Curing every disease known to man. You let that slip through your fingers, I’ll kill you myself.”

  “You’re in no position to be making threats,” Shannon said.

  “Marcus, can you please quiet your lapdog?” Morley relished in seeing Shannon squirm. “If Dugan’s men won’t go, we can contract someone else who will. People who don’t know what they’re chasing.”

  “Don’t you mean who?” Shannon asked.

  “I always mean exactly what I say.”

  “Enough. And leave Shannon alone,” Marcus said. She blushed beside him, though it might have been the warmth of rage in those flawless cheeks of hers. “We couldn’t go after him if we wanted to. A lot’s changed while you’ve been drugged up in a recovery room. Besides, we have something better.”

  “Better than the Shaman?”

  “At least more accessible. Not many people yet know this but, Dugan’s here.”

  Morley shrugged. “And what, you want me to dissect him as if he were one of those rabid natives?”

  “So you know he was healed.”

  “I heard. The Shaman did his voodoo, supposedly healed him from the fall.”

  “And the bullet wounds —”

  “Came too late, I know,” Morley said. “He should have waited to perform the healing. Hindsight’s a bitch, and all that.”

  Marcus glanced at Shannon, on the other side of the bed. “You mentioned immortality?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is that typically defined as a temporary state?”

  Morley waited for more. Marcus didn’t give him any.

  “Wait, Dugan’s alive?”

  Verse VI.

  While no two scientists will agree on what it means to be alive, it is uniformly believed that the following characteristics must exist for any organism to be considered living. First, there must be a defined structure, or organization of functioning cells, arranged in a hierarchical order of complexity. Energy transfer and transformation must exist within the organism, ideally reaching a level of homeostasis in which the input of energy and matter is equal to the output or dissipation of energy. The organism must be able to grow, develop, and adapt, in an effort to increase its chances of survival. Reproduction or self-duplication is a necessary attribute of any living organism to ensure the species’ continuation. And lastly, for an organism to be considered living, there must exist a life cycle consisting of birth, growth, and death.

  So what happens when we break the cycle?

  When we eliminate death, are we no longer living?

  These questions, and more, floated through James Dugan’s mind as he lay perfectly still, enwrapped in a mechanical cocoon. White light surrounded him on all sides, the heavy thrum of the microwave emitter sending its undetectable rays through his flesh and organs. He had been subjected to more tests today than in the last twenty years of his life. Though the chop-docs no doubt intended to keep him several days hooked up to machines, the scan would be the last of his voluntary contributions.

  They all needed Morley’s lab rats to uncover what the Shaman had done to him, but he also had more important things to move on to. Like taking the Shaman back. And rescuing his daughter.

  As the minutes passed, Dugan thought back to the last things he remembered.

  The helicopter going d
own …

  Zephyr furiously throwing switches, engine shuttering in mid-flight …

  The rocket …

  The explosion …

  Metal shriveling and shrapnel flying …

  And then falling. With the Shaman. The wind fluttering as the ground drew near.

  Wrapping himself around the native to cushion the Shaman’s fall.

  Was that why the Shaman had saved him? One selfless act begetting another? Dugan wasn’t so easily convinced.

  The screaming, the gunshots, flames bursting and engines roaring. Dugan remembered the liquid fire flowing through his veins as Takushkansh’kan placed his hands on Dugan’s body.

  His hands. There had been no ingestion, no inoculation. No miracle herb or concoction. Was there anything Morley and his team would even find?

  His memories grew shaky after that. The Shaman had somehow pulled back a veil from his mind. Or maybe Dugan had been so close to death, he had been teetering on the brink of this world and the next.

  You see. Not all can see.

  The Shaman’s words came back to him in spurts, breaking the oily surface of recollection, only to be pulled back under.

  The Creation [Destruction].

  You must play your role.

  Do not let him create Man.

  Stop him.

  Stop [Kill] me.

  The rack Dugan lay upon started to retract, his body leaving the concave tube. He sat up. His eyes adjusted quickly, revealing several more bodies in the room than when he had entered. A few of Morley’s staff were huddled around the monitors and terminals, but it was Dr. Morley himself who held Dugan’s eye.

  He looked terrible. His upper torso was bare, his hairy chest and flabby pale flesh almost glowing beneath the overhead lights. Face flushed with sweat, he leaned up on the hospitable bed he had been wheeled in on, his lower half covered in sheets. He eyed Dugan with a mix of suspicion and jealousy, no doubt brought on by the months of recovery that awaited him.

  Shannon stood near the door, her face masking any emotion, yet the men beside her telegraphed her intent.

  Men with arms.

  Men that weren’t Dugan’s.