The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  Ryan pulled away, his eyes clearer. He looked down at the room again. “The main power generators should be at the other end of this room, through that door there.”

  The others had joined us from behind, not sure of how to react because of Ryan.

  “Is this really an I.Q. Farm?” Nancy asked tentatively.

  “It’s the same one I was taken to. I remember it now,” Ryan explained so everyone would know his personal stake in all this.

  “Whoa,” Bill said softly. I could tell the protective side of him wanted to reach out and give Ryan his support, but the jealous guy side of him wouldn’t allow it.

  Ryan grabbed my hand suddenly.

  “What is it?” I asked. His face had gone another shade paler, if that was possible.

  “I recognize a few of the kids.” Ryan swallowed hard. “They’re the same age.” Ryan turned to me, eyes wide. “Turner is giving them Age-pro.”

  We all stood in stunned silence.

  Giving Age-pro to kids was an unspeakable act. And it was a double whammy to think that Ryan could have been eight-years-old forever. I guess it wasn’t a surprise that Turner was capable of such perversion, but it rocked us all just the same.

  “They look like they’re in comas, it shouldn’t be too hard to get past them,” Jason observed callously.

  Nancy punched him in the arm. “Way to be sensitive, jerk.”

  “I’m sorry if I don’t want to die, but reminiscing on what could have been isn’t helping our escape here. Just because there’s no alarm doesn’t mean they’re not after us.” Jason rubbed his arm from Nancy’s blow.

  “He’s right,” Ryan said, though his eyes were still staring at the children below. “This vent is on hinges and swings outward.” Ryan reached over and popped the vent opening. “If we move it slowly enough, hopefully no one will see.”

  I placed both hands on the hinged side of the grate making sure the rate of movement was as slow as possible. Ryan was at the other side and moved the slab of metal as far as he could without falling to the ground below. I clasped my fingers through the metal slats and stopped the grate before it could hit the wall.

  None of the kids seemed to notice.

  All five of us were now as exposed as could be standing over the entire room like a framed picture.

  Jason jumped down first, his patience almost gone. I shouldn’t really be surprised. He did cry like a baby at the Virtual Reality bar. Why should being in my grandpa’s lair be any different?

  Everyone else followed him down, Ryan was the last. It was my turn to be the comforter in this relationship and I found that I felt more helpless than I ever did when I was being attacked by Turner’s lackeys. What could I possibly do to make Ryan feel better? He was in the very room of his nightmares and it was all because of me. If he had never liked me he would have never had to see or think about this place for the rest of his days. I should have seen this coming. I should have known better. Now Ryan has to face his personal demons, not in a healthy-let’s-talk-about-it kind of way, but in an in-your-face-welcome-to-your-own-personal-torture kind of a way.

  Yeah. I was a great girlfriend.

  “The entrance to the generators is on the other side,” Ryan said quietly and I squeezed his hand supportively. No matter what, I didn’t want him to feel alone in all this.

  We walked as casually as possible, not wanting any of the children to notice. We didn’t even know what they would do if they did realize we were there. Would they scream? Would they hit an alarm? Or would they do nothing?

  Nothing. It seemed to be the answer for the moment. The kids were so involved in what they were doing I think I could have sat on one of them and they wouldn’t care.

  Better for us.

  Ryan and I in the lead, we were half way across the room when a woman stepped in front of us. She came out of nowhere and I nearly leapt back a few feet from the shock of it. So much so that I didn’t even realize who she was until it was too late.

  Roberta. My Grandma. The Feline.

  The last time I saw her was in my mother’s vision and a giant snake was coming out of her mouth! If I thought she was scary in a dream, in person she was downright terrifying with her stretched and frozen face. She looked at me with such venom in her eyes I almost expected her to hiss. I wanted to look away. The only reason I didn’t was because I was afraid she’d eat me or something. She was taller than I expected, but everything else was the same as Mom’s vision. Even her black hair was pulled back in the same tight bun and her skin had that strange plastic shine. Her eyes were so dark and so intense they reminded me of the swirling chasms I see in the dead.

  “Finally! Someone who can help us. We were on our tour and got incredibly lost! Could you tell us how to get back?” Jason came up from the back of the group with a friendly smile, although I could tell seeing a Feline was making him uncomfortable.

  I realized then that no one else knew who she was. Only Gramps was on holo-tv. Roberta wouldn’t want the world seeing that she was a cat lady. Although, even if she looked like she did when she was twenty, she’d probably still look harsh and nasty. It came from the inside and she didn’t even try to disguise it.

  Roberta answered Jason in a silent stare that made his smile fade instantaneously.

  “We’re leaving now,” I said boldly and stepped in front of the group in case she tried anything.

  “Oh really?” Roberta smiled wickedly, though nothing else on her face moved. It only added to her creepiness.

  “We really did get lost…” Bill tried to back up Jason’s story, a little too naïve to realize we faced a foe, and apparently in shock at seeing a Feline in person.

  Roberta’s eyes turned white as she looked at Bill and he grabbed his throat from pain. Bill bent over coughing uncontrollably, his face turning red, eyes bugging out from lack of breath.

  Don’t mess with my friends.

  I punched her in the nose.

  Pretty hard, too, because she actually took a few steps back from the hit.

  But it worked.

  Bill stopped coughing and rubbed his throat in the aftermath.

  They all knew they faced real danger now.

  I didn’t want to look at them. I didn’t want to see the fear in their eyes. I kept my attention on Roberta.

  She was livid. She took a step toward me and slapped me hard on the cheek.

  That whole side of my face tingled from the blow, but I didn’t let my eyes leave hers.

  “How dare you!” Roberta hissed at me.

  “Get out of our way,” I hissed back.

  “Just like your mother,” she said malevolently.

  “Thank you.” I couldn’t help but truly hate this woman standing in front of me. How could someone like my father come from two of the most despicable human beings on the planet? There was nothing nice about her. Not even an inkling. Not even a shred.

  “Geoffrey told me about you. Told me how much like your mother you were. How stupid and filthy you were. Now I can see you are so much worse,” Roberta spat.

  “Thank you,” I repeated, not wanting to give her an ounce of a response.

  Roberta’s monstrous face grimaced and she narrowed her eyes. “Geoffrey and I tried for two-hundred years to have a baby and we finally had Franklin, a beautiful, wonderful, brilliant boy. I nearly died during his birth and it scarred me so I couldn’t have any more children. He was perfect for a hundred years until he met your mother!”

  Roberta’s eyes rolled back again, but I was on top of this trick now. I slapped her and her concentration was broken. She shrieked in rage, sounding more animal than human.

  “You killed my only son and you will die for that,” Roberta rasped from being jolted out of her spellcasting.

  “Like I told Gramps, you killed your own son and took away my only chance at a normal life. So, I’d be watching your back if I were you.” I was livid. No matter what I did I couldn’t seem to calm down.

  Roberta didn’t seem to hear, a
s if what I had to say meant nothing to her. Or everything, and she didn’t want to listen.

  “These are my children now.” Roberta motioned to the room. “Some of them for almost two-hundred years.” It was the first time I had seen anything other than loathsome hate from her.

  That’s when she finally noticed Ryan standing next to me. “Ryan,” she said and there was genuine love in her eyes. “You’ve come home.”

  Okay. She was nuts. A grotesque caricature of a human being.

  Ryan was frozen. I hadn’t realized it until just now. He recognized her from the start. She must have been involved in his kidnapping and it was all bubbling to the surface upon seeing her.

  Roberta turned back to me with malice. “You’ve taken another one of my children. He’ll be mine again soon. The guards are on their way. Ryan will live, the rest of you won’t.” She said it so matter-of-factly it was worse than when she performed her Voodoo eye stuff.

  BAM!

  Roberta dropped to the floor with a thud.

  Nancy stood behind her with a metal chair in her hands and a look of pure rage. “I was tired of listening to that cat bitch.” She turned to Ryan. “Can we get out of here now?”

  Ryan broke out of his trance. “Yeah,” he said quietly and started at a run to the other side of the room. All pretenses were down. No more trying to blend. If the guards were on their way then the kids freaking out wouldn’t matter anyway. The creepy part was, the children didn’t budge. None of what just happened, the yelling, the whacking, fazed them for a second. They continued their drone-like behavior uninterrupted.

  That’s when the guards came busting through from the side and middle entrances of the room. They were carrying stun clubs and among the comatose kids we were easy to spot. Not one of them dead. Turner was leading the charge and our eyes met. Then I did what I knew was a horrible thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I glanced over at the still form of Roberta and then back at him. It worked. He followed my gaze and saw the crumpled form of his wife in the middle of the room. He howled in rage and screamed at his men to capture us at all costs.

  We were all at a full sprint now, following Ryan like frenzied rabbits running from the wolves. I hoped he knew where he was going. It would be just my luck if this were the one time he had the directions wrong. Ryan reached the elusive door first and swung it open with his full might. And sure enough the room inside was filled with hundreds of twenty-foot fuel cell generators and a set of elevator doors on the far wall. After everyone was inside, Bill and Nancy slammed the door shut and set the bolt lock.

  “That’s gonna hold them for about ten seconds.” Nancy managed a small worried smile in my direction.

  As if hearing Nancy, the pounding on the door began. The hinges were already starting to squeak from the amount of force being applied.

  Ryan was already halfway across the room, heading for the elevator doors. We all followed in a huddled pack finding it hard to keep up with him. Roberta really spooked Ryan more than I realized. Maybe it was because of the way she looked at him after so many years. Whatever it was, Ryan wanted out, and he wanted out now.

  I reached the elevator doors with the others.

  BOOM!

  The guards broke down the door and were pouring through in waves of uniformed gray, heading straight for us.

  “Get to the other end.” Ryan nodded to Bill.

  Bill and Ryan pulled open the elevator doors with some exertion. We were going to have to climb, taking the elevator would be too risky. Turner could radio for a shut down and we’d be sitting ducks.

  “Move. Move. Move,” Bill yelled through gritted teeth.

  I didn’t need to be told twice let alone three times. I ran through the pried open doors and into the shaft. A security ladder leading all the way to the top was on my right. Just like Ryan said. Thank goodness for his brain. I made Jason and Nancy start the climb first. I intended to go last.

  Bill and Ryan counted to three and leapt inside the elevator shaft.

  One of the guards that was way ahead of the others shoved his arm in between the doors, stun club flailing, just before they closed. I knew within seconds they’d have the doors open and we’d be gonners, so I grabbed his club and whacked his arm with it. His hand and arm went limp and Ryan and I stuffed it through the door as the rest of the guards arrived at the scene.

  Bill started up the ladder behind Nancy and Jason.

  Ryan turned to me. “We’re not going to make it.”

  “Go! I have a plan to stall them. I’ll be right behind you!” I said and shoved him toward the ladder. I had no such plan, but I didn’t want Ryan to suffer for my sake. All of this was my fault and I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to my friends. Not if I could do anything about it.

  The guards were clasping on to each door, trying to pry the doors open like Ryan and Bill did.

  Ryan reluctantly started up the ladder, keeping his eyes on me the entire time.

  I glanced at him briefly and smiled. “I’ll be okay. Hurry.”

  Ryan shook his head and stopped mid-rung. “No. I’m not leaving you.” He jumped back down and joined my side. “What’s the plan?”

  “Ryan!” I said, not wanting to admit that I, in fact, still did not have a plan.

  “If we go down, we go down together. I’m not going to abandon you like I did last year.” Ryan kissed me quickly and even with the doors being lodged open to our doom, my stomach still did the proper flip flopping.

  “I appreciate you feeling guilty about ignoring me in school, but we could die here.” I gave him my serious face though I secretly wanted him to stay right where he was.

  The doors were almost open and we could see the hundreds of soldiers ready to pounce on us. Luckily for us the soldiers were trying so hard to get through they were stacked on top of each other making a traffic jam at the doors.

  Okay. Maybe we should have tried to make a run for it. I looked up at Nancy, Bill and Jason. They weren’t that far away. If I didn’t do something fast, we’d all be screwed.

  I concentrated. How sad was it that I was wishing and hoping for any kind of dead thing in the vicinity?

  Relief flooded through me. Rats. Hundreds of dead rats ranging from newly trapped to been-there-a-while rot. All in the walls. Blek.

  I’d be revealing to Turner that it wasn’t just people I could bring back, but he may have already found that out from Brady anyway. It was worth the risk. It was our only chance. I hoped these soldiers could scare because rats wouldn’t cause any lasting damage. I was about to find out.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said to Ryan and he gently embraced my hand for support. “I hope you’re not afraid of rats.”

  “Oh man.” Ryan took a deep breath preparing for what was to come.

  I took one of those myself and just as the first soldier had almost wriggled his way through the crowd I slammed into all the rats I could reach.

  I would have loved to see the stampede of rodents racing across the floor. A melee of decomposed corpses to freshly killed, all scraggly, all vicious.

  And…. Contact.

  I made them attack the guards with all their strength. Running up their bodies, biting any piece of flesh I could find, jumping, leaping, snarling, biting monsters.

  Screams of terror filled the air and it made my skin crawl, but I didn’t break concentration, I kept the battle of the zombie rats going full force.

  SHUUUNK!

  The elevator doors smashed shut.

  We could still hear the cries of terror through the wall.

  “I’ll keep the rats on them as long as possible. Let’s get out of here,” I said and found it awkward to walk over to the ladder and control the rats at the same time. I could feel their tiny teeth tear into the fabric of the soldier’s uniforms. I wanted to keep them occupied, but I didn’t want to do any serious damage. The soldiers were only doing their jobs even if they were working for pure evil.

  Ryan and I started our long c
limb up, me in front, Ryan in back. After doing the math, we had to climb about ten stories. I hoped I could keep the rodent onslaught going that long.

  The elevator whizzed up and down next to us giving a little extra cover just in case the guards decided they wanted to fight with rat corpses as their new uniform.

  I tried to pin point Turner’s location, give him an extra bite or two in the face (see how he explains that on holo), but I couldn’t differentiate between the men down below. I could only see the tiny swirling black masses of the rats. Just keep them fighting. It was taking all my energy to climb and control and I was draining fast. We still had eight floors to go and I was breathing heavily like I had already run a marathon.