Ravage

by Jeff Sampson

  My world was nothing but endless cold and I lost all sense of time. Sometimes I sensed lights brightening beyond my closed eyes, and then turning off and coming back on. Days passing, or maybe only someone coming in and out of a room at minute-long intervals.

  The only respite was my shocked body alerting my brain to sleep, black out, go unconscious, and let me drift off into dreams of loping wolves and flying cheerleaders and shadows that hovered in the sky.

  Then, one day, my eyes snapped open.

  All I saw were plumes of white fog curling in front of me, at first, anyway. My vision was blurred—normal Daytime Emily vision, I realized in the back of my brain. It didn’t help that my lids hung heavy, my crystal-laced lashes hanging in front of my pupils like icy bars. Vaguely I could see a solid, curved metal wall to my left and right, with plastic strips spaced at intervals.

  My mind came back to me then in a way it hadn’t before and I tried to move, but couldn’t. Panicking, I jerked my shoulders side to side, but if I moved it was only a fraction of a fraction, nothing I could feel.

  My breath was ragged, quick. The chill fog swirled up through my nostrils, frozen fingers that clawed at my brain and sent sharp lances of pain through my head. My lips parted, the skin sticking together and tearing until my mouth finally opened. Blood only marginally hotter than my skin seeped from my mouth and made tracks down my chin, but all the scant warmth did was remind me again that the rest of my body felt as if I’d walked naked into the Antarctic. Only without the numbness that soothed the freezing as they accepted death.

  I tried to scream, but my voice came out ragged and hoarse.

  Pull it together! I instead screamed in my mind. Go Nighttime! Go feral! Use your strength!

  I closed my eyes and willed my breathing to slow. My muscles twitched, vibrating beneath the shell of my skin. I wiggled my frozen fingers and slowly, slowly, they responded. A crunching, snapping noise met my ears, though the sound was dulled, distant. I hoped it was just ice breaking off of me and not my bones breaking apart.

  You can do it, I commanded myself. Fight this, Emily. Fight it!

  With a flex of my biceps, my forearms snapped up. I opened my heavy lids to find my hands intact, though they shimmered blue in the dim light that surrounded me. I raised back my fists then punched forward.

  Knuckles met glass, and the force of my motion sent fog swirling away to reveal a curved, opaque window in front of me. Light seeped through, and I could see shadows beyond the ice crystals that formed curling fractal leaves atop the glass.

  I was in some sort of upright tube or capsule or something. A Mr. Freeze chamber meant to keep in me in stasis. All I could think was I failed. Those BioZenith bastards got me.

  I didn’t know where I was or how I got there, but I guessed a sterile lab. I pictured scientists, possessed by shadowmen and driven mad in their messianic lust, hovering over my frozen body with scalpels and whirring saws.

  Not going to happen.

  I screamed again, and this time air scraped up my throat, past my vocal cords, and a tinny, enraged shout echoed through my chamber.

  My fists pounded against the glass again, and a dozen jagged cracks snaked away from where they landed. I slammed my fists again and the glass splintered, fragmented. The icy patterns split into a thousand pieces.

  I screamed.

  This time, when I hit the curved glass door, it shattered into a million tiny pebbles. They rained down, clattering and scattering atop white linoleum like hail.

  Bright, blue-white fluorescents hummed and flickered on behind the plastic strips in the back of my chamber. The freezing white fog whooshed out, and hot air took its place, melting my skin with its touch.

  But that just made it worse. I had been numbed, after all, and now every inch of me felt as if millions of tiny needles were piercing my skin. I stumbled forward, tripped on the metal lip of the door, and fell into a gleaming room.

  Lights seared my eyes, blazing as bright and hot as if I were looking right into the sun. Clutching my eyes closed, I collapsed on my hands and knees to the hard ground. Glass sliced into my palms, shredded the knees of the wispy white pajama pants someone had dressed me in.

  Pain. It was all I felt. The screeching of voices slicing into my eardrums. The needles digging deeper into my skin, into my muscles. The light trying to melt my eyes through my closed lids.

  Strong, rough hands grabbed me beneath my shoulders and hauled me up to my feet. The hands of those who had taken me captive, or those who worked for them. It didn’t matter. My heart beat an angry rhythm as it sent molten blood surging through my veins.

  I screamed again and shoved the grabbing people off of me. I heard a great, bright crash of noise as they landed against equipment, and one shouted while the other tried to speak to me in soothing tones, but I couldn’t focus on their words.

  Forcing my eyes open, I blinked and blinked until I could see again under the harsh white lights shining from above me. I was in some sort of white hospital room, complete with the countertops lined with gleaming silver medical equipment and vials of medicine behind glass cabinets.

  My eyes darted back and forth. Two men dressed in scrubs lay on either side of me. One had crashed into a gurney with leather straps connected to its railings. He cursed as he climbed to his feet. The other one, the one with his hands raised and trying to calm me down, had knocked over an IV rack. A plastic bag filled with syrupy orange liquid lay on the floor next to it.

  I stood equidistant between the two of them with my hands raised.

  “Stay away from me,” I said, my voice an undead rasp. “I will hurt you. You better stay away.”

  The calm orderly—or nurse, doctor, scientist, whatever he was—took a tepid step toward me. He was short and stocky, but had a kind face.

  “It’s all right, Emily,” he cooed. “You woke up earlier than we expected. We know you must be hurting and wondering where you are. We can help you.”

  “Yeah,” I spat. “Just like you helped me get freeze-dried in the first place.”

  I spun in a slow circle, meeting the two men’s gaze with narrowed eyes. On the back wall I saw the chamber I’d busted out of. It looked like a clear-lidded metal casket set on its end, only with wires and tubes snaking out of it, and blinking lights and LED screens on its front.

  Next to it sat another, unmolested chamber. Fog swirled inside and I could make out a shadowy figure.

  And for just a moment, the fog parted and through the frozen glass I could see Megan.

  Her eyes were closed, her face slack and neutral. Her skin and hair were as blue as if she’d been dyed. She was frozen. My friend was frozen!

  Only it wasn’t her at all. It was ShadowMegan, wasn’t it?

  The last events I remembered before blacking out came back to me in a rush.

  Rescuing Evan. Being forced to take Megan to the portal.

  ShadowMegan killing Mr. McKinney while the cheerleaders’ parents acted as if she was their born-again prophet.

  The vans showing up with the men in assault gear. The tranq darts shot into the bodies of my friends.

  And Anti-Anderson, the man in the suit with the glowing eyes who froze ShadowMegan and then froze me.

  “Emily, if you’ll just let us help you—” the short man said.

  I snapped my head to look at the bigger guy. “What happened to my friends?” I asked. “Who was the man that froze me? Where am I?”

  The big man sighed. “Look, vesper, I’m just here to make sure you don’t die. Don’t make me get rough with you.”

  “I could say the same thing,” I snarled.

  He smirked, regarding me with crossed arms. Then, with a shake of his head, he rushed at me, opening his arms wide to try and tackle me.

  I dodged to the right, letting him barrel past like a bull seeing red. I spun around and shoved him in his back, and he tumbled into the smaller orderly. They fell in a heap next to the fallen IV rack.

  I turned to the wall opposit
e the frozen chambers and saw the exit. Leaping forward, I grabbed the handle and swung the door open.

  And almost ran right into a large woman in a lab coat. Without missing a beat, she jammed a needle into my neck and pressed her thumb on the plunger.

  I tried to shove her away, but whatever was in the syringe acted quickly and my limbs slackened, went numb. I stumbled into her and the woman grabbed me around my middle, holding me up.

  “Go to sleep,” she whispered. “That’s a good girl.”

  Another stab, this time in my side, just above my hip. I tried to speak, but my words came out slurred, unrecognizable.

  And once more the world went black.

  21

  IT’S NOT THE FUTURE, IS IT?

  The squeaking of wheels over linoleum met my ears. With a sharp intake of breath, I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at a white ceiling. Big glowing rectangles of light whooshed by above me.

  I lay atop a mattress, so thin that I could feel the metal supports underneath it biting into my back. I was on a gurney, and it vibrated and thumped beneath me. Instinctively I tried to move my arms and legs, but thick leather bit into my wrists and ankles.

  Before I could think to summon my genetically engineered strength, a face appeared above my own. The kind man from the room where I’d been held captive.

  “You’re going to be a good girl, right?” he asked me.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  He shook his head. “You wanted answers to your questions, and the boss wants to speak to you. But we can’t put you in there unless you agree to behave. Will you behave?”

  I thought about saying no. About telling the man to screw off and then ripping the binds off of me and making a run for it.

  But I still didn’t know where I was, or how I got there, or where any of my friends had been taken. So instead, I kept my mouth closed and nodded.

  A door whooshed open just beyond my feet, and I tried to crane my head up to see, only to find that my neck was bound too. So instead I forced myself to relax as the short orderly leaned out of my line of sight, and the gurney moved forward once more.

  The squeaking of the wheels faded as we left linoleum behind and instead rolled over what I guessed was carpet. The top of the door frame flashed by overhead, and suddenly the ceiling was much higher up, and tan, and painted with shimmering gold hieroglyphics.

  The gurney jerked to a stop and rough hands fumbled with the straps that bound me to the mattress. That done, whoever had escorted me into this new room walked away, shadows out of the corners of my eye. The door whooshed closed behind me.

  I sat up, rubbing my wrists, and took in my new surroundings. I was in a wide-open office that was three times the size of my living room back at home. Whoever it belonged to seemed to have a thing for Egyptian-themed decor. There were small, potted palm trees in the corners, and gold-gilded chairs with the heads of ancient gods on each side. On the dark brown carpet I could barely make out symbols in a slightly lighter shade of brown—hieroglyphics that mirrored the ones on the ceiling.

  And opposite me, in the far back of the room, was a wide, gleaming black desk, a row of bookcases behind it. Sitting there with hands atop the lacquered surface was the man in the gray suit with the white hair and goatee.

  “Hello, Emily,” he said.

  His voice was deep, authoritative, but not unfriendly. Keeping my eyes on him, I kicked my pajama-clad legs over the side of the gurney and hopped down. The carpet was plush beneath my bare feet, and only then did I realize that the pain that had overwhelmed my body after I’d escaped my chamber was completely gone.

  “Ah, yes, hello,” another voice said.

  I darted my head to the right to find another man sitting in one of the ornate chairs. He was a slender, petite man wearing a too-large suit, with big glasses barely hanging onto his nose and his bald head gleaming beneath light cast from iron sconces on the wall.

  I recognized him immediately: Mr. Savage. The supposed grief counselor who had tried to wheedle information out of me after Spencer and I killed Dr. Elliott.

  “I suppose I should have guessed you’d be part of all this,” I said.

  Fumbling with manila folders in his lap, Mr. Savage got to his feet. He let out a nervous chuckle. “I suppose so.”

  “So what was your deal, then?” I asked. “Were you sent to spy on me? Is that why I saw you with Megan, too?”

  Eyes darting between me and the man at the desk, Mr. Savage’s head beaded with sweat. “Sort of. We caught wind of, erm, strange reports near BioZenith. I was sent to talk to any child around your age who had been seen acting strangely. But, ah, Vesper One—Emily—shall we? Mr. Handler is waiting. He’ll answer your other questions.”

  He gestured for me to walk ahead, and so I did, rounding the front of the gurney and striding down the center of the vast room to the desk. The man in the suit—Mr. Handler—sat there, watching me with a strange smile playing at his lips.

  “Mr. Handler,” I said as I approached. “Michael Handler. You’re the one who started all this.”

  He nodded at me. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  Squirrelly Mr. Savage rounded the desk and set the stack of folders to Mr. Handler’s right. Mr. Handler’s eyes darted to a flat-screen computer monitor to his left, then back to me.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Mr. Handler said.” He didn’t move, didn’t unfold his hands or lean back in his chair. He just watched me, his pale blue eyes filled with curiosity. “From many, many different sources, in fact. You have become more than I ever could have imagined.”

  Shrugging, I walked over to one of the nearby antique chairs and plopped down. I rested my hands on the gods’ heads—cats, so, Bast, if I remembered my ancient history right—and crossed my legs. Mr. Savage fidgeted with his glasses and looked back and forth between me and Mr. Handler, but Mr. Handler didn’t seem perturbed.

  “I never knew so many people would be so interested in me,” I said. “I mean, two months ago no one ever gave me the time of day. Now I have whole teams of people, like, obsessed with everything I do.”

  Mr. Handler smiled. “Becoming an important person changes things. And you are definitely an important person, Emily. You are one of my vespers. And that makes you precious.”

  Mr. Savage nodded. “Quite precious, quite.”

  Sighing, I glared at the squirrelly man, then back at Mr. Handler.

  “If I’m so precious, then why did you have goons shoot my friends up with drugs?” I asked. “And why did you freeze me in a chamber? Are they all frozen like me and Meg—like that shadowwoman?”

  “Akhakhu,” Mr. Handler corrected me. “Rebel is what we call her. And no, they are not frozen. They are…here.”

  I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “So why freeze me?”

  Smiling, Mr. Handler shook his head. He chuckled, and Mr. Savage tittered along with him—until Handler shot the small man a glare.

  “You’re the alpha, aren’t you?” Mr. Handler said. “The strongest of the bunch? I needed to make sure the other vespers were acclimated before we worked on you. That took some time.”

  My forced calm facade fell. “Time? How much time?” My voice shaking, I asked, “How long was I frozen? It’s not the future, is it?”

  “Oh!” Mr. Savage said. “Nothing like that, Emily. You were out for, erm…” He produced a pocket watch from his breast pocket, flicked it open, and peered down his nose at its face. “Ah, yes. A little over two weeks.”

  I leaped up from the chair. “Two weeks?” I shouted.

  Shrinking back, Mr. Savage mumbled, “And three days.”

  Running my hands through my hair, I paced back and forth, the soft carpet squishing between my toes. I couldn’t imagine all that could have happened in the time I was out—so much had gone down in such a short time even before that. They could have done all sorts of things to my friends, to my family, to bystanders like Dawn and Jared….

 
; Mr. Handler stood up and placed his palms flat against the smooth desk. “Your friends are safe,” he said as though reading my mind. “And if you cooperate, you might be able to see them again sooner rather than later.”

  I stopped pacing and glared into his pale eyes. Eyes that could cast an unearthy glow.

  “Cooperate, huh?” I asked. “If I don’t you’ll, what, wave your hand and break my body into pieces like Meg—like Rebel?”

  He shook his head, then walked around Mr. Savage and leaned against the front of the desk nearest me. He crossed his arms.

  “I’m not like Rebel,” he said. “For one, I am still human.”

  “Oh, so you’re still the same man, then,” I said, forcing myself to remain cool. “I heard all about you. You’re the pioneer who went to a new world and came back a cult leader.”

  He laughed. “A cult? No, cults are created by the charismatic mentally ill and are joined by the gullible and needy. The existence of the Akhakhu is not a guess. It is not faith. It is fact. You have seen them and interacted with them yourself.”

  “Yeah,” I spat. “They sure did a lot to mess up my friends and, y’know, destroy my…” My voice caught in my throat. The anger threatened to choke me.

  “Oh, you have it all wrong,” Mr. Handler said softly, his face falling. “You’ve been dealing with the insurgents, Emily. The seething, diseased masses that plague that world. They were led by the Rebel, the one that took over your friend.” He shook his head. “Poor Megan Reed. She couldn’t have known.”

  I uncrossed my legs and stomped my foot on the floor. “Don’t say her name,” I said between clenched teeth.

  “She couldn’t have known,” he went on, ignoring my outburst. “None of the fools at BioZenith knew how to distinguish between our true lords and those who would deceive us. The Rebel twisted their devotion to the true Akhakhu gods to make them aid her, and then she took over your friend in whole. That is not the way of our lords.”

  “So what is the way of your lords?” I asked.