The Culling (Book 2): The Hollow:

by Bell, A. C.

  “No! Stay there.” She barked. The wulver lunged at her raised voice. Then she did something I did not expect. Instead of fleeing out the window away from the beast, she took up a defensive stance in front of me, protecting me. I dove out of the way as he barreled into her and bashed her into the wall where I’d been. I didn’t pause to watch their fight and ran for the door at the back-left corner. A few pounds on the heavy metal told me I wouldn’t be able to break through it with any level of efficiency.

  “Help! Let me out, please!” I screamed desperately, continuing to bang on the door.

  The mechanism started to release as someone on the other side began to open it, likely assuming, as I’d hoped, that someone had mistakenly been left inside somehow. I quickly deactivated my splinter skill. The door opened and a man with an electric spear waved me through. As he sprinted to help Amelia, I flitted safely into the room beyond. Lab coats quickly shut the door and slid hefty locking mechanisms back into place.

  Someone touched my shoulder and I jumped and spun on the woman. She drew back. “It’s alright, you’re safe now. Let me bring you to the infirmary so you can be checked out.” I nodded, not wanting to seem suspicious. This lab opened into another hallway on the opposite side and she brought me to an infirmary down the hall. Windows lined this hallway as well, but the ones we passed were empty. Only one doctor was inside the infirmary, another woman. She brushed her dark hair behind her ear as we entered and I smiled at an idea. At a glance, the picture on her ID could look like me. “She was in the wulver’s cell,” The first woman explained.

  “I need to see your ID for the report,” the doctor said.

  I fumbled for my pockets as if to look for it, but of course came up empty. “I must have dropped it when the monster broke free.

  “Alright, we’ll find it later. I’ll need to check you for any scratches or bite marks. Over here.” The doctor pulled on a pair of blue gloves and directed me to a partition to give me privacy from anyone else who walked in while I undressed.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” the first woman said, retreating from the room.

  As soon as the door shut, I lunged at the doctor’s turned back and wrapped an arm around her throat. I didn’t apply enough pressure to kill her, but cut off her air until she stopped struggling and then lowered her to the floor. I tugged off her lab coat and glasses and hurried for the door before she woke up. I popped the lenses out of her glasses so I could see with them on and then scanned her ID to let myself out. The hall was empty now, but a cacophony of voices echoed from the other hallway. I hurried along to find my way out. Hands slammed onto one of the windows as I ran past and I jumped away.

  “What's going on?” I found wide chartreuse eyes staring at me. “Adeline?”

  “Raiden!” I scanned the ID on his door and freed him. He lunged forward to hug me, seeming surprised when I planted a kiss on him instead. I breathed him in for a few moments, feeling suddenly less afraid. I pulled back and he blinked a few times while his brain booted back up.

  “Was this you?” He pointed ambiguously to the alarm.

  I was only a little successful in restraining a smug grin. “Kinda,” I said in mock humility.

  He smirked, but it faded quickly. “They got Kendra, too, but they separated us hours ago.”

  My fear came back. “She’s probably in one of these rooms, then.” I hoped.

  A quick scan of the rooms in this hall showed that they were all vacant. At the fork at the end of the hall, we turned left; right would take us past the center hall with the others. I didn’t recognize the people in these cells, but I scanned my card on each door to let them out as I sprinted by. I was losing hope when I finally spotted Kendra in the second to last room. She wasn’t alone. Two doctors had Kendra strapped to an observation table. She was sedated. Michelle was also with them, though her back was turned to us. Over the wailing siren, I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I swiped my ID and yanked the door open.

  “Get away from her!”

  Michelle spun and I heard Raiden inhale sharply. Her eyes bugged. “Raiden,” she sputtered.

  “Get away from her,” I repeated.

  The pair of doctors backed away at my approach. Michelle didn’t move, frozen in place by her brother’s confused gaze. I moved around her and checked Kendra for a pulse. She was okay. I sighed in relief.

  “What’s going on?” Raiden asked.

  “Raiden, I…” Michelle fell quiet. Thinking of a story?

  “You can’t lie your way out of this. Just tell him,” I said over my shoulder. That’s when I saw that Raiden was no longer alone in the doorway. A security guard had a gun to Raiden and Amelia stalked heavily around them.

  “Step away or they’ll kill him.” she warned.

  I gritted my teeth and moved away from Kendra. “What are you gonna do to her?”

  “She’s slated for execution,” Amelia said coolly.

  I balked. “She’s our family!”

  Amelia’s face darkened. “She is not my family. She is one of the scourge I vowed to eradicate from this planet, so she will die.”

  “I won’t let you do either of those things!” As rage burned in my chest, I felt my hands turning metal. I knew I shouldn’t, not with Raiden in danger, but I felt the change happening and couldn’t stop it.

  Glass shattered loudly through the wailing siren out in the hall and everyone jumped, even Amelia. Had something else gotten loose? Gunfire erupted and then abruptly stopped, followed by screams. A wave of fear struck me. Which creature was it? Amelia looked to me again and stepped forward. I was having more trouble stopping the metal from spreading.

  “Stop or they will kill him,” she said.

  I shook my head fervently. “I can’t.” Fear seemed to make it happen even faster than anger. I looked to Raiden, terrified. His green eyes held mine, trying to calm me. “Please don’t hurt him,” I begged. Something struck the back of my head. No, that wasn’t right. It struck my mind, somehow. Drowsiness flooded my system and I crumpled heavily to the floor.

  The Great Pretender

  A familiar tingling sensation in my head brought me back. Raiden was looking down at me when I opened my eyes. The room was dim, with only a pair of small emergency lights above the door. The glow of his hand illuminated his face more than the lights as he healed my head. His worry-stricken features softened and even in the midst of all this mess, the sight calmed me. He helped me sit up and my vision swam a little, so I put a hand to my head.

  “I just need a minute. I didn’t know you could heal the effects of a spell.”

  “It’s all just chemicals. Healing balances them and puts everything back in order.”

  I nodded in understanding, noting that my vision didn’t sway as much now. “What happened?” I asked groggily.

  “One of the doctors was a sorcerer. I came to just a few minutes ago. They must have taken Kendra with them.”

  The table she’d been strapped to was, in fact vacant behind me. “If they took the time to remove her, then why leave us behind?” I pondered aloud. His shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug.

  “Any idea how to get out of here?”

  “There’s a door that only Amelia is supposed to be able open, but I should be able to do it if I can muster the strength.”

  “Of that I have no doubt.” There was an inveigling lilt to his words and a flirtatious spark to his eyes that made me momentarily forget my next point. A nervous chuckle bubbled up while I got my brain back on track.

  “The hard part is after that. I’m pretty sure the entire facility is underground.”

  “Maybe we can find a security room in this wing somewhere. They have to have something to connect them to the rest of the place.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Luckily, the power outage hadn’t left the door locked. I just hoped that the doors connecting the creature cells to the adjacent labs had remained locked. We needed to be wary of whatever had broken out after the wulver, a
lso. The silence in the hall chilled my spine. Whatever fight that had likely ensued between the two was clearly over. Would we find the wulver, or something else? The infirmary was the fifth door on the right, so we started checking other doors for any kind of security room with cameras.

  “Help!” Came a blood curdling cry that startled us both. It echoed loudly through the desolate hallway. An unpleasant stench stung my nostrils and my hand shot forward to catch Raiden’s arm when he moved to go help. My pulse quickened.

  “Wait,” I whispered.

  “She needs help,” Raiden said. I didn’t answer, but kept a firm grip on his arm to keep him from going.

  ‘Someone, please…” the voice came again, this time at a sob.

  “I don’t think that’s a she,” I muttered in a trembling voice.

  The stench of poorly digested feces got worse, closer. The creature reeked from being forced to sit in its own excrement. A chill ran down my spine. I pulled Raiden to the nearest room. We disappeared inside just in time for a gnarled mess of horns to peek into view at the end of the hall, the wendigo moving slowly to listen.

  “Is someone there?” It asked in its imitation of a female voice.

  I eased the door shut and backed away, right into Raiden. His hands rubbed my arms to settle me, but it only made me jump again. We appeared to have stumbled into a lab. Dark tables cluttered with all sorts of dark shapes were spaced about the room and cabinets lined the walls.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked. In the low light, I could see that this room was a lab. I ushered him out of view of the windows on the door before answering.

  “It’s the wendigo. That’s what got out.”

  His jaw dropped. “A wendigo? There hasn’t been a wendigo in over a century!” He whispered emphatically.

  “Maybe it’s been here for a century.”

  “Only an idiot would keep a wendigo.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I bickered as I nudged him further away from the door. “There’s a wendigo in the hall. Now shush.”

  Heavy bare feet slapped the tile floor in the hall, moving closer. The door nudged inward and I caught a glimpse of its snout, its mouth open and sharp teeth silhouetted against the faint light from the emergency lights along the floor outside. I pushed Raiden beside one of the cabinets, wide enough to hide both of us. I kept Raiden behind me and started to work up my splinter skill. It was difficult for some reason, metal only spreading up to my forearms and shins. I couldn’t muster it up any further, as if it were blocked. Could it be a residual effect of the knockout spell?

  I closed my eyes, trying harder until the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The sound of slapping feet moved further into the room and then stopped. I was too afraid to open my eyes, knowing what I would find. Raiden, apparently feeling me shake, squeezed my arms comfortingly. I steeled my nerves and forced my lids apart. Around the corner of the cabinet, probably out of Raiden’s view, the wendigo was staring at me with a spine-chilling stillness, the profile of its face still showing its bared teeth, maybe twenty feet away. Was it waiting to see if I moved to make sure I was really there? Raiden must have deduced what I was looking at because his fingers clenched tighter and, not realizing that the creature was searching for movement, pulled me closer to him into what he hoped was further out of view.

  A screeching wail filled the space and stung my ears as it lunged forward, covering the twenty feet between us swiftly. The long fingers of its massive hand wrapped around my middle and lifted me up. It thrust me against the cabinet. Glass shattered into my back and I cried out. The wendigo drew its lips back, large carnivorous teeth nearing to take a bite. I grabbed its jaws with both hands to hold it back. It was strong. A fearful sound escaped me, involuntarily giving voice to the panic compounding in my chest. Never before had I been faced with the very real possibility of being eaten alive.

  Raiden was on it quickly and a golden aura illuminated the beast, siphoning to him. I propped my knees on its clavicle to help hold it back and wedged metal fingers between the teeth of its bottom jaw and pulled down. A sickening ripping sound came from its cheeks as the skin and tendons split. Another piercing wail ripped through its throat, blasting me with a gust of breath so fowl it may as well have been a counter attack. It threw me roughly to the ground and I felt shards of glass bite into my skin.

  The monster fumbled away from us and fell to its knees, gripping its jaw and making a pitiful whining sound as its jaw failed to stay closed. I sternly reminded myself not to feel sorry for it as guilt tried to worm its way into my gut. Raiden moved closer to siphon its energy again, but the Wendigo swung its long arm out and swatted him over a steel table. It zeroed in on me again and stomped toward me. As I stumbled to my knees, I found a scattering of syringes on the ground, filled with dark liquid. I scooped a few up just as a beam of golden light pierced through the back of the wendigo’s chest. The creature paused for a moment before falling to its knees and then forward onto the floor. Raiden limped over and pulled me out of the room, just in case it wasn’t dead.

  I started off down the hall to get further away from it. My knees felt less than stable and I felt a painful pinch between my shoulder blades, followed by a light tickling sensation. Dizziness made my world sway. “Something’s wrong.” I slumped against the wall to rest my wobbling legs and ease my spinning mind.

  “No!” Raiden’s plea came too late and I felt a sharp stab in my back when I tried to set it against the wall. I winced and pulled away and Raiden turned me around to look. “There’s a shard of glass.”

  I felt it move when his fingers gripped it and I winced at the sting. The familiar warm tingling sensation of his healing dulled the pain a bit as he pulled the glass out, immediately starting to repair the damage.

  “Don’t use too much energy. You already used a lot back there,” I warned.

  “I took plenty from the wendigo.”

  After a few moments, the pain went away. I slumped against the wall to allow myself a few deep calming breaths. Raiden moved in front of me, cupping a hand to the side of my face. I sighed contentedly at the contact.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. He placed a kiss on my forehead. Just as he pulled back, the main lights flicked on in the hallway and the locking mechanisms in all the doors clicked shut. We both straightened in alert. Raiden met my eye, both of us frozen. We’d been set up.

  “They were watching,” I muttered.

  His secret was exposed. Something crackled at the end of the hall, where I spotted something small on the ground that was shooting out sparks. It quickened and as it burst, fifteen figures appeared. Amelia was in the foreground. I moved protectively in front of Raiden.

  “We’re not going to hurt him, not with such a precious gift.” Her heels clicked and clacked as she strutted forward. “You were right after all,” she said over her shoulder.

  Back in the group, only one figure wasn’t moving toward us. Michelle wrapped her arms around herself and glanced away. I ground my teeth, sickened at her continual betrayal. My fury flared to a peak when I spotted Lantz marching around her. His right arm was in a sling and he was bruised and obviously battered, but the fact that he was upright so soon filled me with such a strong rush of hatred that I had to fight to keep my feet planted in front of Raiden instead of running over and bashing Lantz’s head into a wall. His brown eyes met mine with equal fire. He drew his weapon and leveled it at me.

  “Step aside, Adeline,” Amelia warned.

  I clenched my fists, trying to come up with a course of action that would level the odds since we were outnumbered, but any plan seemed too risky. Raiden’s fingers wove around my arm.

  “It’s okay. I’ll go with them,” He muttered close to my ear.

  Emotion nearly choked me. “I won’t just let them take you and put you in a cage like one of their pets.”

  I felt Raiden’s nose touch the back of my head as he pressed a kiss to my hair. “It’s okay,” he whispered.


  Tears rimmed my eyes and I fought hard to keep them in as he stepped around me. Amelia grabbed his arm to lead him away. She looked to Lantz and jabbed her head in my direction. He kept his gun on me as he moved behind me and pressed the barrel into my ribs with a harsh nudge to tell me to move. Fire blazed in my chest. I did as he wanted and walked forward, slipping the syringes I’d nicked from my sleeve. I uncapped them and waited until Amelia turned around with Raiden. Lantz, as so many others, failed to understand that guns have a limited range of efficacy. In a fluid motion, I snatched the barrel of the gun and squeezed the metal shut as I spun on Lantz. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, so I aimed for his neck and stabbed the syringes into his flesh and pushed the plungers.

  A startled gasp escaped him and he backed away, eyes wide with panic. He dropped the gun and his hand moved to his neck. His skin flushed. A loud crack echoed through the hall. I only vaguely felt the pain. An instant later, my world became soft and foggy and then went black. A peaceful feeling fell over me like a veil. Warmth filled my chest as if someone had injected my heart with liquid sunlight. My lungs pulled in air greedily and my eyes sprung open. I was laying on the ground now with Raiden leaning over me. He took a deep, raspy breath and looked down to hide his face.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  His eyes were red when they met mine and his cheeks were streaked with tears. “You died. I had to, I’m so sorry.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, he lurched and coughed. Crimson spittle flecked his lips and began to dribble out quicker. Horror struck me. I sat up as he fell back. He started to convulse against the tile floor and I tried to hold him still without hurting him further.

  “No,” Amelia muttered.

  I looked behind me to her, where she stood watching her precious new specimen die with disbelieving eyes. She still held the gun she’d used to shoot me. “Do something!” I shrieked.