by Kevin George
“You did it, Weller!” Martin said excitedly.
Weller remained several feet back as he stared down at Jason, whose convulsions came with less frequency as his transformation slowed. The man-beast wrenched back his thick neck and unleased a powerful growl that rattled the table, though it didn’t sound angry or pained like his earlier ones. Instead, Samuel could’ve sworn the growl was filled with sadness. Either way, the boardroom door burst open and Moretti rushed in, flanked by a pair of Mountain guards.
“Is there a—” Moretti came to a screeching halt and fumbled to retrieve the gun in his holster. “What the bloody hell is that?”
“Stand down, you fool!” Martin snapped at the guard. “Can’t you see we’ve created the most impressive physical specimen the world has ever known?”
“He’s not moving,” Betty said.
Jason’s bulky, white-furred form lay motionless on the floor. Samuel searched for the slightest sign of movement—the slightest sign of breathing—but he saw none.
“What’s wrong with him? Did it kill him?” Martin asked.
“I don’t. . . I don’t know,” Weller said.
Instead of hurrying to Jason’s side, Weller shuffled back a few small steps, inching his way toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Betty yelled. “Help him!” When Weller remained back, she turned to the rest of The Board. “Somebody do something!”
Though a few Board members shouldered their way past Samuel for a better view, nobody approached the body too closely. Betty glared at everyone before hurrying to Jason’s side, kneeling beside him. She shook him gently, his fur thick and coarse within her fingers.
“What do I do? I don’t think he’s breathing,” she said, her eyes wide as she looked up at Weller.
“There’s nothing to be done if he’s not breathing,” Weller said. “This is why testing should be done in my lab where I can—”
“You murdered him!” Martin yelled at Weller. Weller shook his head but Martin pushed aside the nearest Board members until he had a clear view of Samuel, at whom he suddenly pointed. “And you put him up to it! I demand these two men be placed under arrest!”
Weller made a break for the boardroom door, but the pair of guards cut off his path before he reached the handle. Moretti focused on Samuel, who slowly backed away though there was no place to go. As Samuel circled around the table, a few Board members grabbed at his arms but were promptly shoved away.
“You’re not going to escape this,” Martin said. “We know you had something to do with Jason’s death.”
“I told you not to inject anyone with the 2.0,” Samuel argued.
But the facts didn’t seem to matter and Samuel felt his life slipping away from his control. He imagined being banished from The Mountain, not unlike what he’d done to so many others, most of whom probably hadn’t deserved such a fate. He may have been more accepting of such a punishment had anyone but Martin LeRoque been the one stalking him down, ready and excited to pass down such a sentence. . .
“He’s not dead!” Betty called out excitedly. “He’s breathing!”
Martin’s satisfied grin faded and he glared at Samuel before turning toward Jason.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“Yes! See! His chest is moving up and down!” Betty said before leaning in closer to Jason’s snout. “And I can feel him breathing. . . and hear him—”
Jason’s eyes suddenly snapped open, which everyone in the room saw except Betty. She was also the only one that didn’t see the Jason-beast lunge at her throat just inches in front of him. Betty barely had time to let out the smallest of gasps—a noise echoed by a few others in the room—before Jason bit down with all of his newfound might. The sickening crunch of her neck bones cut off her gasp, immediately followed by the thud of her severed head smacking against the floor.
Blood erupted from the hole in Betty’s neck where her head had just been. The rest of the group stared in shock for a split second before full-blown panic erupted. Board members pushed and shoved and dove across the table to avoid Jason, who stood on his haunches, wobbly for a moment before finding his footing. He swiped with his massive paw, knocking down another member of The Board, pouncing on his prey before the man uttered a single scream.
Weller pushed past the pair of guards and threw open the door. Samuel circled the far side of the room, glancing over to see the chaos of Board members pushing and shoving one another in an attempt to escape. Bodies flew across the table, crashing into chairs, their screams joined by Jason’s growls, the crunching of more bones and the slurping of blood.
As Samuel approached the hallway door, Martin slammed his shoulder into him and escaped the room first. Samuel joined the two guards, the three of them jostling each other as they pushed through the open door. In the hallway, an entire squadron of guards waited, a few of the men backing away, asking what the hell could be making such horrific noises. The sight of so many guards told Samuel that Martin had planned his arrest all along, a strange thought to be having while so much carnage was being unleashed.
As more screams exploded from the boardroom, the guards stared at Martin in disbelief. He screamed at them to close the door, but nobody followed his order, especially as a few more Board members stumbled their way out. Martin finally started toward the door when Samuel grabbed hold of him.
“Give the others a chance!” Samuel yelled at him.
Through the open door, he saw Jason—who’d turned so beastly that he no longer resembled a human—on the far side of the room, where he had a pair of Board members pinned to the corner. Several more people scrambled their way out, diving through the open doorway. Samuel grabbed their arms and pulled them to safety, receiving thanks as guards helped pull them away. The sight of Samuel garnering praise from the others finally snapped Martin out of his panicked trance. He pushed Samuel out of the way and grabbed Moretti’s arm.
“Get in there and help those people!”
Moretti yanked his arm away and stared down at Martin, his face twisted in anger and confusion. Just when Samuel thought Moretti might ignore him—or, better yet, shove Martin back into the room—Moretti turned to his band of guards and started barking orders for them to subdue the beast. Not a single guard budged, looking at each other as if waiting for the first man to make a move (whether that move be into the room or in the opposite direction).
“Any guard who disobeys direct orders will be kicked out of The Mountain immediately!” Moretti yelled at them. “And your families, too!”
Guards finally streamed forward, their guns raised. With orders to take down the beast by any means necessary, they hurried past the final survivors hobbling out of the boardroom. The last thing Samuel saw was two trapped Board members in the corner of the room, the beast looming over them. The guards screamed on their way in, distracting the beast long enough for the Board members to separate and rush in different directions. Just when it looked like they might escape, the beast swiped its giant paw at one of the men—ripping his throat apart—before leaping toward the other man, tackling him to the floor beyond the large table.
Moretti slammed the door shut moments before another ear-splitting roar was interrupted by a hail of gunfire. Samuel slowly backed away until bumping into another person. He nearly leapt out of his skin until realizing he’d collided with Dr. Weller. Samuel looked into Nigel’s blank eyes, which stared at the door as if it were the least interesting thing he’d ever seen.
“Why?” Samuel asked him. “You didn’t have to give it to them. You could’ve kept quiet and none of this would’ve—”
“Arrest those two!” Martin screamed, pointing at Samuel and Weller. His voice was barely heard over the cacophony of screams, growls and gunshots on the other side of the boardroom door.
Moretti and the remaining guards didn’t turn away from the door—and their friends inside—until Martin yelled his orders again. When Moretti shook his head, Martin marched in front of him until their face
s were inches apart. Martin screamed for the third time but was promptly brushed aside. His eyes went wide with shock as he looked down at his chest where he’d been pushed.
“You’ll pay for that; your sons will pay for that!” Martin yelled at him. “Do you want them to stay lowly guards forever?”
Moretti approached Martin, sneering down at the smaller man. Just when Samuel thought Moretti might attack, he sighed deeply and turned toward him and Weller.
“What should we do with them, sir?” Moretti asked.
“Take them to the upper level cells!”
Moretti nodded and his guards rushed at Samuel and Dr. Weller. Samuel shook his head and slowly backed away, wanting to run but knowing that would give Martin the provocation needed to give another kill order. As the guards grabbed hold of Samuel and Weller, the gunshots finally came to an end, followed by one last animalistic moan. The surviving Board members huddled around Martin and after a few seconds of whispering, the Board leader called out a final order.
“Once those two have been detained, proceed to the doctor’s lab and confiscate all remaining dosages of the 2.0,” Martin said. “We’ll get rid of it by taking care of another problem I don’t want to hear about anymore. Have it sent to the villagers.”
“No!” Samuel called out, struggling in the grasp of his captors. “You just saw that it’s too strong! You’ll turn every villager into one of those. . . beasts.”
“Or maybe it’ll work the way you said it might!”
Samuel tried to pull himself free when pain exploded in the back of his head. His vision flickered to blackness and his legs felt like they vanished beneath his body. Everything sounded farther away and darkness crept in from the corners of his eyes. He barely had the strength to lift his head but when he did, he spotted Dr. Weller beside him, going willingly with his own guards. Nigel frowned at him before turning away.
“Wait!” Weller called out. “Don’t throw me in one of the cells. I’ll make sure your guards get all of the 2.0 to give to the villagers!”
“We can do that ourselves!” Martin yelled.
“I can offer you something else!” Weller cried. “Something you’ve wanted all along! Now that Samuel won’t be here, I don’t have to lie to you about it any longer!”
Samuel’s brain fought through fog to comprehend what Weller was trying to say. Once he understood, a wave of adrenaline fueled his body just enough to get his legs back beneath him. He pulled weakly, but the guards’ grip was too strong.
“Don’t. . . please, Nigel,” Samuel muttered weakly.
“Stop!” Martin called from down the hallway.
The door to the boardroom suddenly opened, moans escaping into the hall. Several guards hobbled out, but not as many as had entered. Samuel squinted away a few tears and saw them already dragging out bodies. . . at least shredded bits of human flesh that had once been bodies. One of the guards detaining Samuel suddenly let go and turned away, heaving the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Another guard standing beside Moretti did the same.
“Bring him back!” Martin called out.
Now that Samuel was being dragged back toward the boardroom, he wanted nothing to do with seeing the carnage within.
“Not him,” Martin said. “The doctor. Him you can take to the cells.”
As Samuel was taken away again, he begged Weller to keep his mouth shut, but the doctor didn’t even glance in his direction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Samuel sat in the corner of the elevator, his head hanging limply between his knees. The upward movement threatened his already-swirling mind with unconsciousness and he focused on breathing deeply, in and out, fighting off the urge to close his eyes and drift away. He imagined the upper level cells, the roughly-finished hallway with second-rate rooms that now held The Mountain’s prisoners and other undesirables. The only worse fate was being ejected from The Mountain altogether, or ending up as one of Weller’s test subjects, or being taken to the opening at the end of the upper-most hallway and being pushed over the edge. . .
When the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open, Samuel felt stronger than when he’d been brought in. Still, he closed his eyes and allowed his body to sag. He heard the guards sighing and braced himself for the inevitable kick. But with Moretti and Martin nowhere in sight, the guards grabbed Samuel beneath his arms and pulled him to his feet. He feigned a groan—not difficult to manage due to the splitting pain still in his head—and allowed them to drag him along.
After a few seconds, he cracked his eyelids and saw the dim, depressing hallway with craggy walls and poor lighting. It reminded him of the first sections of Mountain that had been dug out years earlier. A hollow wind echoed somewhere in the distance, a noise joined by the muffled cries of prisoners begging to be let out of their locked rooms. The wind grew louder as Samuel was dragged along and he wondered where the guards were really taking him. They approached a lone figure kneeling in front of one of the many doors.
“Hold onto him,” one guard muttered to the other before he let go of Samuel’s arm and hurried forward. Samuel pretended to collapse to a knee and forced the second guard to drag him back to his feet. “Hey! You there! What do you think you’re doing up here?”
The man stood slowly, showing his hands. “Just here to install locks on these doors. Done the locks on all these rooms so far, but still got a bunch left.” He looked in Samuel’s direction and squinted. “Is that Mr. Jonas? What are you fellas doing with him?”
“That’s no concern of yours,” the first guard snapped. “Any of these cells empty?”
The worker nodded toward the door in front of him. “Just finished up with this one here,” he said, opening the door and gesturing inside. “You sure it’s a good idea to imprison a Jonas? Without their family, none of us would be here.”
“We just follow orders,” said the guard still holding up Samuel.
“Unless you wanna end up in one of these cells, I suggest keeping your opinions to yourself,” the other guard said, pushing the worker aside.
As Samuel approached the open doorway, he was surprised to see that the room inside was well lit and larger than expected. Still, he knew that anyone sent to live in these rooms faced one bad ending or another. Before being pushed into the room, Samuel tensed his body and launched himself away from the first guard and into the other, slamming a shoulder into the unsuspecting man. The guard’s body lurched forward, his head slamming into a rocky outcropping, causing him to drop to the floor, unconscious.
Samuel rushed at the other guard, crashing into him before he had a chance to draw his weapon. The guard pushed back and they ended up in a struggle of tangled limbs, bumping into the wall on one side of the hallway, pushing all the way to the other side and collapsing to the floor within the doorway of the open cell. Samuel’s element of surprise served him well but was short lived. Having never been in a physical altercation in his life, Samuel had no idea what to do. The same couldn’t be said for the guard. The guard pushed Samuel’s head back enough before snapping his own head forward, their skulls cracking together. Both men grunted but only Samuel fell to the floor.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the guard snarled. “Moretti told us to make you soar if you didn’t do as we said.”
As the guard stomped toward him, Samuel crawled back. But his world was spinning and he couldn’t keep his balance enough to remain upright. Samuel wanted to quit, to stop fighting a losing battle against The Board, to leave this awful Mountain and this frozen life. If it wasn’t for Horace, he wouldn’t have fought as hard as he already had. But as the guard took out his gun, Samuel let out a deep sigh, allowing gravity to take over. He collapsed to the floor, whispering an apology to his son that he knew Horace would never hear.
A sickening crack was followed by the clatter of metal against floor, which in turn was followed by the thud of human flesh against floor. Samuel turned his head to see the guard, unconscious, a few feet away. A figure loomed in t
he doorway. Samuel needed a moment to focus his eyes on the maintenance worker who’d just been installing locks on the cell doors. The man scurried to Samuel’s side, offering a hand to pull him up.
“W. . . why?” Samuel croaked.
“I owe it to your father,” the worker said. “Not many handymen had the chance to survive the frozen world, and not many of their families either. But Charles Jonas gave me a chance. . . gave my wife and daughter a chance. He knew my name and always had a kind word. God rest his soul, he wouldn’t have been happy to see these thuggish guards threatening his son.”
The word ‘son’ snapped Samuel into action. He tried to hurry past the worker, stumbled as his vision spun before his eyes, took several deep breaths to regain control of himself, and then stumbled his way into the hall.
“Maybe you should rest for a moment,” the worker said. “Looks like a nasty bump on your noggin.”
Samuel shook his head, leaning a hand against the hallway wall as he headed toward the elevator, nearly tripping over the body of the other unconscious guard. The worker hurried to catch up, taking Samuel’s other arm to steady him.
“I can’t. . . stop,” he said. “Have to get to. . . lower levels. Have to. . .”—he reached the elevator and hurried inside, pushing the down button over and over—“. . . get to my son.”
The maintenance worker remained in the hallway, his eyes widening at the mention of Samuel’s son, his hand shooting out to block the elevator doors from closing.
“W. . . what are you doing?” Samuel asked, momentarily squeezing his eyes shut to push away the pain.
“You’re looking for your son? He’s up here,” the worker said.
Samuel forgot the pain in his head as his chest tightened.
“They imprisoned him already?”
The worker shook his head. “He came up here on his own. Don’t think normal Mountainers are supposed to do that, but I guess there’s advantages to having the Jonas name. . . at least there used to be advantages. Anyway, he usually hangs out near the end of the hall near the opening. Always talks about missing the fresh air and blue sky. Can’t say I blame him, not that I have the stones to get too close to the edge of—”