Fear of God (Trials of Strength Book 1)

by Matthew Bell, Jr

  Bright light filled the room in a flash, as the glass shrouded balcony lit up in a blinding white. I couldn’t see much, but a man with grey hair and green eyes stepped into view. He looked old, the lines on his face like craters. I looked quickly at Anna who backed away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and disappeared into the darkness.

  I heard a crackle, like static from a set of speakers, but I couldn’t see them through the black. I looked back to the man and almost collapsed.

  ‘Welcome,’ a voice I knew better than my own greeted me, ‘Subject 17.’

  My father was alive and well.

  The Enemy

  ‘Dad?’ I whispered, dumbstruck.

  The man above me just continued to smile sickeningly. It was almost as if he had no idea who I was, like he stared into a cage at a pet. It was him though, with his almost white-grey hair and dark green eyes that glinted. The lines on his face were as dark and ominous as the wide smile plastered on his lips. I continued to stare, and the silence was broken by a rattle of clinking metal.

  I dove backwards just in time.

  A screaming figure came barrelling out of the darkness cast by the glass balcony. I watched from the floor as my mother came to a halt, held back by the chains that wrapped around her wrists and ankles, trailing back into the darkness.

  ‘Mum?’ I gasped.

  Seeing her like this reminded me of what I had lost. The creature looked similar, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, but the warmth those eyes held was gone. My heart pounded in my chest and I heard my father speaking to someone. I was grabbed by two men in complete black, their faces hidden under balaclavas. They dragged me from the floor and bound my wrists behind my back with cuffs before I could blink. They pulled the gun from where it was still tucked in my trousers, and I cursed myself for not even thinking to grab it.

  ‘Bring him here,’ my father said coldly.

  I looked back at Richard Bishop, and a sick feeling settled in my stomach. What the hell was going on? Part of me already knew.

  The bars that had dropped in the doorway Anna vanished through had been raised, and a short staircase lay to the right. I was pulled up, pushed round my father and bolted with another set of cuffs to a chair. I sat dazed. The lights hurt my eyes, the brightness a startling contrast to the soft yellow ones that illuminated the tunnels. The room was also clean, tiled, and organised. I faced my father, behind him sat the door I’d come through, with a desk and chair to the right. A computer sat atop the desk, and bookshelves lined the wall to my right. To my left was all glass, staring down to where my mother rattled furiously against her chains.

  My eyes drifted back to Richard, and his smile had never left its place. The two men positioned themselves behind me.

  ‘Hello, son,’ my father said. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘What… What the hell is going on?’ I asked bewildered.

  ‘I think you’ve already guessed that, Lucas,’ he replied with a sigh. ‘Come on now. Say it.’

  I shook my head. I knew, I did, but the words refused to come.

  ‘Say it!’ he shouted, and I jumped.

  ‘You, you’re the enemy,’ I whispered. ‘You did this. You work for them.’

  ‘Come now, son,’ he laughed, the angry burst gone. ‘I not only work for them, I lead them.’

  It was as if the words shattered the air. My lungs gasped for it, but each breath felt like shards of glass tore my throat.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard enunciated. ‘Don’t fight it, Lucas, son. You can’t.’

  ‘Why?’ I cried.

  ‘It’s what I’ve done all my life,’ he said as he paced left and right. ‘I have worked so hard for this. I want to see it grow.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  Richard sighed and shook his head, as if the answer was obvious.

  ‘Let me tell you a story, son,’ he said brightly, and leaned against his desk. ‘A little over twenty years ago, when I was around your age, I was placed as the head of a new group, a top secret science division for the government. Of course, we operated on the fringe of science, trying things that, well, civilisation would abhor.’

  ‘But you’re a surgeon,’ I gasped stupidly.

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘I was never a surgeon, that’s why I told your mother never to bring you to visit me, see?’

  ‘Mum!’ I gasped. ‘You did this to her! You turned her into a monster, you son of a bitch!!’

  I struggled against the chair, but once the words escaped my mouth, my father crossed over and brought his hand painfully across my jaw. It stung, and I glared up into his eyes.

  ‘Your mother was weak,’ he spat. ‘She knew, oh yes, she knew what I had in store, what I needed to do. But when it finally came she panicked and tried to stop it. A heart attack? Please.’

  ‘What did you do?’ I growled.

  ‘Once we intercepted the call your mother made to the college, I removed her,’ he said casually. ‘Unfortunately it was too late, and you walked right through the door. To stop any further calls, we blocked all outgoing ones and took control.’

  I made some sort of choking sound and he stared at me, without warmth or care.

  ‘Luckily your mother is far more useful like this than she was before,’ he said.

  ‘You bastard!’ I screamed. ‘She loved you! How could you do this!? Why!?’

  Richard’s eyes flashed but I met his gaze. My anger was back, and this man, had destroyed lives, and for what?

  ‘As I was saying,’ he continued, ‘our practices were frowned upon. Even our superiors became concerned after a while. They shut us down.’

  His voice held cold fury, and I almost laughed.

  ‘So, Daddy got fired?’ I said.

  That time his fist brought blood from my mouth.

  ‘Watch your tongue, boy,’ he snarled. ‘It was no matter. Around the time this town was built, a century ago, the government built these tunnels first and used them for their dodgy experiments, hidden, with a town as camouflage. The perfect place to be ground zero, just block the exits and voila.’

  ‘This was a few months ago right?’ I asked. ‘That’s when you came to town.’

  ‘Yes and no,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve been here for twenty years, readying for this experiment in secret. But when the government decided we were too much of a risk and wanted us dissolved, I called in a chunk of my forces. The town welcomed us warmly, well, in saying that, they never bothered their backsides with us. It was perfect.’

  I grimaced. We were our own worst enemies.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, son. If only you had seen the signs,’ Richard chuckled. ‘Well, it’s what humans do best, no? You’ve seen it for yourself.’

  He was right. I remembered back to how the group of survivors had acted in the beginning. Vacant, easily manipulated and desperate to deny the new world they faced. It wasn’t so hard to believe they had already done the same by ignoring the newcomers.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘we’ve lived here all my life, how…’

  ‘How did I know I would need this place when those idiots in power shut us down?’ he laughed. ‘Always have a backup, son. I have this place, and the government can’t touch us. Not without admitting we were theirs in the first place anyway, lots of skeletons in this closet. So I made sure we stayed close to this base, just in case.’

  ‘What have you done to the town?’ I asked.

  ‘Now that would be telling now wouldn’t it,’ he smiled. ‘All in good time, son, you’re almost ready.’

  Before I could ask what he meant, he nodded to the guard on my right, and a door opened then closed.

  ‘You see,’ my father said, ‘you’re the reason I’m doing this. This is all for you, your future. I’m giving you a gift.’

  ‘A gift?’ I scoffed. ‘Don’t trouble yourself, Dad.’

  ‘I’ve told you to watch that tongue,’ he whispered. ‘Now watch it. Lose that anger, it do
es nothing.’

  ‘Why did your bosses ditch you?’ I asked.

  ‘My project, eh, led to a few mistakes,’ he winced. ‘I believe you’ve met a few of them.’

  ‘The people topside,’ I said, he nodded. ‘But how? Why are the rest of the people down here and I not like them?’

  Richard laughed as if I’d told him a great joke.

  ‘I thought that would be obvious,’ he said. ‘Each of you has a part to play. I thought Chris would have figured that out by now. Oh, I loved it, he thought bringing everyone down here was the safest and under our noses place.’

  ‘You wanted him to think that,’ I said.

  Richard Bishop nodded, and the guard who had left returned. He handed my father a syringe, returned behind me and two sets of arms pinned me to the chair.

  ‘You’ve done this to me before,’ I gasped. My nightmare flashed through my mind.

  It was like a window had been opened and I no longer saw it as a nightmare, but as a series of events that had happened. The man in my dreams cleared. I knew when Chris, Anna and I had entered that place what it meant, but I could never have imagined it was my father that had done it. He advanced with the menacing glint back in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

  ‘Yes, my son,’ he chuckled. ‘The first time I had to watch you like a hawk afterwards, we drugged you, but I had to make sure that you had indeed buried it in your subconscious, blocked it out like I hoped you would. Predictability, that’s your weakness, son.’

  ‘Please,’ I whispered and struggled. ‘Dad, don’t!’

  He ignored me. Plunging the syringe into my neck and I flinched. I waited for the moment I burst into flames, but it never came.

  ‘There’s no fire,’ I gasped.

  ‘What are you doing?’ my father said. ‘You look like you’re trying to shit yourself.’

  I blinked, surprised.

  ‘In my nightmare, I burst into flames after cutting my wrists trying to escape,’ I said.

  I hadn’t realised that either, in my dream my wrists always bled and there we pools of blood on the ground. Pools that weren’t, in reality, there.

  ‘Dreams, my boy,’ Richard laughed. ‘Filled with artistic flair.’

  ‘What is that!?’ I screamed. ‘What are you doing to me?’

  ‘All in good time,’ he repeated as he turned to the guards. ‘Go get her.’

  The same guard as before disappeared, and we stayed in silence. I wanted to ask more questions, but my father’s face said it would be useless. The guard returned, and another set of footsteps had joined him. The woman was tall and her smile wide. Her hair was violet and her lips matched. Her eyes must have been contacts because those too were the same.

  ‘Hello, Lucas!’ her familiar voice almost sang.

  ‘You’re the one from the calls,’ I whispered.

  Her smile only brightened, and she nodded.

  ‘You know what to do?’ my father asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Don’t worry boss. I got it.’

  Richard nodded, and with one final look at me, crossed the room and left. The woman went over to the desk, and the guard who had fetched her followed with a tray in his hand and set it down. She rummaged with its contents and finally brought up what looked like a small sword. A scream choked in my throat, and I started to pull at the cuffs.

  ‘My name is Bonnie,’ she said. ‘Bonnie Clyde.’

  ‘Obviously not your real name then,’ I gasped.

  Bonnie laughed and turned back to me. My two guards placed their hands back on my shoulders, and Bonnie advanced. There was no question about what she was going to do, the blade shone brightly under the lights, and I wanted to beg for my life. I didn’t though, and I wouldn’t give this stranger the satisfaction. My only regret was I hadn’t been able to wring my father’s throat before I died.

  Bonnie stopped in front of me and raised the weapon. The blade sliced the air as she brought it down like lightning.

  The Rescue

  I closed my eyes tight and waited for the inevitable pain. Instead I heard a strangled cry, and two grunts. I opened my eyes to blood pooling around my feet, and two bodies lying to either side. I looked up at Bonnie and her bright smile was gone, her face was stern and serious. Before I could ask anything, she moved behind me and unlocked my cuffs, freeing me from the chair. I bolted up and distanced myself from her, but she only sighed.

  ‘We do not have time for this,’ she said. ‘We have to go, now.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Lucas, sunshine, I just saved your life and now I’m getting you out of here,’ she chided, ‘so, how about less of the questions, and some more gratitude huh?’

  She had a point. Bonnie crossed the distance between us and grabbed my arm to get me moving. We travelled down the stairs I’d been dragged up, and down an array of tunnels.

  ‘Bonnie,’ I said, jogging to keep up. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can explain it as well as your father could, but even if I could, I don’t know much more than you do,’ she replied.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked bewildered.

  ‘The new head of outside security, only now instead keeping people out, I keep them in,’ she smiled. ‘Well, that’s not my only reason for being here, but again, that’s none of your business.’

  I was struck by how in a few seconds Bonnie had changed. Her voice had levelled, and became less flashy and more serious. I wanted to ask her about the rescue, but I guessed she’d just wave it off. It wasn’t hard to guess the answer though, she obviously didn’t work only for my father, and the way she acted around him was just that, an act.

  We travelled for around ten minutes before she stopped below a ladder and turned. I wondered where we were, but the tunnels were the perfect maze, and I’d never seen any other openings other than the ones Chris had led us to.

  ‘You’ve got a big task ahead of you,’ Bonnie said. ‘But you’re not gonna be able to do it alone. I know where your little friends are, so I’ll go get Chris, but you should get up there now.’

  She pointed up to the opening.

  ‘What’s up there?’ I asked.

  ‘Lovely, Anna,’ she replied.

  A chill ran up my spine and Anna backing into darkness flooded my mind. I must have shown the conflict on my face because Bonnie interrupted it.

  ‘Hear her side of the story before you do anything,’ she muttered. ‘Trust me. Right now she needs you.’

  She handed me the sword-like weapon, and I nodded and started up the ladder. Bonnie turned to go.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Where is she?’

  Bonnie looked round and smiled, ‘Look for the crane.’

  With that, she was gone. I shook as I climbed, wanting to turn and run and hide. I pushed aside the round metal cover, and stepped back into the warehouse my father had taken me to. I headed quickly to the door and walked into the dawn. I caught sight of the rusted crane, but there was no sign of Anna, and I bristled for a trap. Instead pleas hit my ears, and I looked up to see a tiny figure on the horizon, high up in the air. Anna had been tied to the crane.

  I had to fight down the urge to scream up to her, she was already drawing enough attention and if I didn’t move fast, the place would be swarming with those monsters. I sprinted to the base of the crane and stared at the ladders dubiously. Before I had time to judge whether the rusted metal would hold me, Anna let out another cry and a pain stabbed through my heart. I had to move.

  The rust flaked under my hands, but I made it to the first level without trouble. I moved to the next ladder and continued up. Anna’s screams had stopped, so I assumed she saw me climbing. I made it, level to level until I was at the control cabin. Then it got tricky, screams filled the air.

  I looked down towards town and almost collapsed. The height was unsettling, and tiny shapes were making their way towards us, lots of them.

  ‘Dammit,’ I whispered into the wind.

  I slid through the bar
s, trying to keep my balance as I made my way the long trail towards Anna. The rusted bars creaked under my feet and threatened to send me hurtling to my death.

  ‘Lucas!’ Anna screamed. There were tears in her eyes, and her wrists were bound to the metal on either side of her.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I called back. ‘I’m coming!’

  The monster screamed a few feet behind me, and I almost slipped. I had made it halfway across, and in that time, the creatures had scaled the towering crane and caught up. I turned and drew Bonnie’s weapon from the loops for my belt. I didn’t have time to think. I thrust the glinting metal forward and sunk the blade deep in the gut of a screaming woman. It unbalanced her, and she fell through the gap in front, screeching until she hit the ground.

  I never looked, just turned and raced to Anna. I put the bloody blade back in the loops and focused on my feet.

  ‘I can do this,’ I whispered, terrified. ‘I can do this.’

  I was a few feet away from my goal when another caught up.

  ‘Lucas!’ Anna shouted.

  I turned, but not in time. The man’s leg caught mine and I slipped between the bars. My arms flailed and caught the slice of metal I’d stood on for dear life as my lower body dangled in the air. Anna screamed, I screamed. I tried to swing, place my feet on the bar in front, but the man stood there snarling. I swung more, gripping tightly to the rust and forced my legs forward. I kicked at the creature’s feet, and he slipped and fell forward, almost dragging me with him.

  I groaned, my body ached as I wrapped my legs around the bar vacated by the man. I pushed myself back up, and reached Anna. I used the bloody weapon to cut her restraints and she grabbed my arm. I turned to look at the way I’d come. Four creatures stumbled as they raced towards us.

  The crane gave a bone shattering shudder, and the sound of twisting metal filled the air. I looked down towards the sound. Men and women threw themselves at the base, rushing towards us. But whatever strength they possessed was too much, the mob had pushed the broken bars to their limits and the crane snapped at the base.