by Terry Yates
Kyler pulled up one of the desk chairs across the room and placed it next to Lauren who looked as if she were in deep thought.
“Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?” Kyler asked, in his best, but god awful, hipster voice.
“I was just wondering…what life’s going to be like from now on,” she answered wistfully, not looking at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…everything seems to be changing. I don’t think the island’s going to be the same anymore.”
“Why not?”
Lauren looked at him.
“I’m eleven, Doctor, not four. I see what goes on around me. There are secrets here that were meant to be kept secret, but here we are getting further and further down into the building, discovering newer and newer things about what goes on around this place.”
“Well, what do you think goes on around here?” Kyler asked her, trying to keep his mind off of the fact that Nicholas Klefka had also talked about things changing.
“I don’t know,” she answered, “but when a husband and wife aren’t allowed to know what the other one does when they work in the same building, there has to be some sort of secret…a larger plan, if you will.”
A larger plan, if you will? Kyler’s jaw almost dropped open. He already knew that the little girl had a strong grasp of the English language. For all he knew, she could have a strong grasp of the Finnish language, and this was just three days after an emergency appendectomy.
“No one’s rescued us,” she continued. “And now there are werewolves on the island.
“A werewolf,” he came back.
“There were two, before Miss Munn died. I’ve heard my parents talk, and I’ve heard Col. Potts talk, and no one seems very comfortable with the fact that no one’s come to save us. When three people closely connected to the government are worried, you have to surmise that there is a reason for their stress.”
Joe let out a loud snore, causing Lauren to look away from Kyler to the dog. He wanted to get away before she began to venture off into astrophysics or any one of a thousand topics that she knew about and he didn’t. He did have to admit though, that she seemed to be right on the button when it came to all of them being nervous. Maybe Klefka was right. Maybe things were changing. Maybe Mother Nature or God or whomever had gotten sick of the human race and its decadence and lies and had decided that a major change was in order. He didn’t know and he didn’t want to know. He just wanted off of this miserable island, never to return.
Kyler placed his hand gently under her chin and turned her head toward his.
“You know, Lauren,” he told her sincerely. “You may be right about everything. Everything might be changing, but if it does, we’ll change with it. The human race is a hard thing to get rid of. God knows we’ve tried, but there is always good in the world, and that’s what you need to remember. I won’t lie to you and pretend to know what’s going on around here. I’m more confused than anyone, but I do think we’ll get out of this. I don’t know how, and I’m getting a little nervous about when, but the thing is…you gotta have faith that we’ll get out of here. If we give up, then there is no hope, but as long as we hang in there, we have a fighting chance. Understand?”
Lauren tried to manage a smile, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have it in her.
“How many bullets?” Potts yelled, startling Kyler and Lauren. Even Joe lifted his head.
“I’m guessing about two hundred…maybe two-fifty…” he heard Locklear answer.
“That’s it?”
‘”Colonel, there isn’t an endless supply of this stuff,” Locklear answered, his voice rising. “I don’t even know if it’s even going to work.”
“Well, get the dog back in the sauna,” Potts told him.
Before Lauren could protest, Ariella said no…and loudly. “That dog couldn’t last going back in there so soon. It would kill him. Isn’t two hundred bullets enough?”
“No,” Potts hissed back at her. “I want to blast him off the roof, then go down and blast him back onto the roof, so I can blast him off the roof again!”
The whole room became silent for a moment; everyone deep in thought as to what else might work against another attack.”
“Silver always works in the movies,” Hawkins said, breaking the silence.
“And where might we find some silver, pray tell?” Potts asked sarcastically. “Do you have your mother’s best tea set on you, Hawkins?”
“Mistletoe,” Lauren said as she stood up and faced the group.
“Mistletoe?” Potts retorted, turning around. He had to catch himself. Not even Potts wanted to berate the little girl, but he couldn’t help himself. “What are you proposing we do, Kid…kiss it to death?”
“Mistletoe works in traditional lycanthropic folklore,” she told him.
“Wha..likin’…what?” Potts asked, looking at the girl, his face twisted into a ball of confusion.
Lauren kept her calm. “In traditional European folklore, mistletoe works in killing werewolves.”
“Sorry, Kid, but I doubt we’re going to find a lot of Christmas decorations around here.”
“Wolf bane also works…as does mercury.”
“Mercury?” Locklear asked her. “Are you sure, Lauren?”
“Yes.”
They waited for her to explain, but she didn’t.
“Mercury…AKA…quicksilver” Locklear said to himself, moving away from the table. “There’s mercury here somewhere. I just don’t remember where I’ve seen it.” Locklear put his hand to his chin in thought. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “Ariella, come with me!”
The two started to run out of the door, but Kyler stopped them.
“Thermometers have mercury in them, don’t they, Professor?” he asked.
“Yes, Doctor, but unfortunately everything here is digital,” Locklear answered.
“They weren’t in the hospital. There were oral thermometers, anal thermometers…dozens of them. And if I’m not mistaken, there were room temp thermometers on each of the floors.”
“That’s great,” Potts said, disgustedly. “You’re gonna go back to the hospital and find enough mercury…that is if any of them are still there…and do what, get enough mercury for ten bullets?”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Kyler retorted angrily, finding himself moving toward Potts. “In case you haven’t heard, it might not even work, but if we can sting Klefka…”
Before he could finish the sentence, he noticed that everyone was staring at him, even Zora. Had he just said Klefka’s name? He wasn’t sure, but it felt like he had finally slipped and given the man away. He supposed he would find out any second.
“Who’s Klefka?” Potts asked.
Kyler felt himself beginning to perspire.
“It’s the man’s name,” he answered after a long pause.
“And when did you find out his name?” Potts asked. He was now closing the gap between the two of them.
Potts knew it. This was that crossroads that he’d been at, but now there were no more forks in the road, there was only a one-way street.
“Yesterday,” he answered.
“Yesterday?” Potts screamed, now completely closing the gap between them. He was now no more than three feet from Kyler. “When? How?”
Everyone had shrieked when Kyler said “yesterday”. He felt ashamed when he saw Zora, the O’Hearley’s, FranAnne, and Sam drop their heads.
“I saw him on the way back from the hospital. He jumped me from behind.”
“He jumped you from behind, somehow told you his name, you got away, and made it back here only to forget all about the incident?” Potts asked furiously.
“I didn’t forget about it,” he answered, now feeling himself beginning a full fledged sweat. “And I didn’t get away…well…I did, but…”
“But what?” Potts hissed, closing the gap between them to a foot and a half.
Kyler looked at Zora, who looked away, making him feel like even mo
re of a heel.
“I did get away. He was too weak to hold me.”
“You got away and you went back?”
Kyler took a quick step back when he noticed that Potts’ fists were clenched.
“And what did you do then? “ he asked. “Have a tea party…talk about the weather…or did you just have a nice little chin wag and make nothing but small talk? Do you know what it took for us to keep him off that roof last night? We had his blood splattering all over our clothes! If someone would’ve died last night, it would’ve been your fault…did you know that…your fault!”
This time, Potts was right up in Kyler’s face. Amazingly, Kyler didn’t take another step back, but stood his ground.
“The man was hurt…he was weak…I couldn’t leave him to die,” he said, looking over at Zora who had the most disappointed face that any girl in his life had ever given him, including his mother and Miss Mary Beth, his first grade teacher.
“Yes, but I could’ve left him to die. I would’ve been happy to kill the motherfucker myself!”
“I know that,” Kyler answered back. “That’s probably why I did it.”
Kyler was amazed at his calm. He couldn’t ever remember having been in a situation like this. He felt like the traitor in one of those movies where one person gives everyone away to the enemy, because of their cowardice. But he knew he wasn’t a traitor, and he knew he wasn’t a coward…well, enough of a coward to betray everyone. Perhaps he did betray them though, by not telling them. But as he thought about Nicholas Klefka, and the bad shape that he’d been in both yesterday and today, he still felt somehow right, even though he had pretty much wasted everybody’s time. He wanted to tell them about today, but they had more or less made him feel like a lowlife as it was, plus as angry as Potts was at that moment, he would probably shoot him right there on the spot.
“You disgust me,” Potts uttered in a voice that showed complete and unadulterated contempt.
Kyler looked at Lauren. He couldn’t tell if her expression was one of sympathy or contempt.
“And did this Klefka tell you how he could be killed?” Potts asked.
“He said there were ways, but he wouldn’t elaborate.”
“He wouldn’t? Well, what was one of them?”
“Beheading.”
“Beheading?”
“Beheading.”
“And where was he when you found him?”
Kyler glanced at the others. Everyone averted their eyes as he scanned their faces.
“Where was he?” Potts repeated.
Kyler remained mute. He had already sold the man out. He should tell them, he knew that, but he also knew that he couldn’t. He’d given his word, which shouldn’t have meant anything, but somehow it did.
“Where is he!” Potts screamed.
Before anyone had a chance to react, Potts punched Kyler hard in the stomach. He immediately doubled over, the air leaving his body in a loud, long grunt, before falling to his knees.
Potts moved behind him, took his left arm and twisted it behind his back sending searing pain shooting straight up to his shoulder.
“Where is he?” Potts screamed. “Where is he?”
Kyler’s teeth were clenched together, the pain excruciating, but this wasn’t the first time in his life this had happened. He’d had bullies all the way through Jr. high and high school do this to him…and he never relinquished…never said “Uncle” or “I’m a little fag”, or any of those things that bullies got off on hearing. He’d decided from an early age that he would take the broken arm before relinquishing to bullies.
“Where is he?” Potts kept repeating, as he tightened his grip on Kyler’s arm. Kyler hadn’t thought it possible to force his arm up even higher than it already was, but Potts was giving it the old college try.
“Where is he!”
It’s only an arm…it’s only an arm…he kept thinking to himself as tears of pain formed in his eyes. It’s only an arm. It’s only…
“Where is he!”
Potts’ voice was so high now that he could hardly hear him, plus the blood rushing into his ears and the pain he was feeling in his stomach and his arm almost completely drowned him out. He felt Potts’ grip get even tighter. He was going to break his arm. It’s only an arm…it’s only an arm…it’s only an arm.
Just as he felt that his arm was about to break, he heard someone yell.
“No! Sir! No!”
He had barely heard it, because now he was growling, the pain too much for him. He wondered if the arm would break or if he would faint first. But neither one happened, because suddenly, Potts released his grip. Kyler fell to the floor, sweet relief flooding over him. He rolled over onto his back; eyes still closed, and held his arm. He kept expecting a kick from Potts…or any one of them, for that matter, but it didn’t come.
He opened his eyes, but the tears of pain blurred his vision. He put his good hand to his eyes, and wiped them. Above him stood Potts, an angry look on his face looking at FranAnne, who had him by the arm. She looked nervous, but she also looked determined.
“Sir, he’s a doctor. We need him,” she said looking down at him. Her face was betraying her voice. She was pitying him while speaking matter of fact, as if she was trying to convince Potts to just spare him because of his usefulness, but her face showed concern.
When he had heard the voice, he assumed that it was Zora, but no, Zora had left him to Potts’ wrath. He supposed that was it with her. So long…that’s all, folks.
“If we get off this island, he won’t be a doctor anymore,” he told FranAnne.
Kyler found himself sitting up, and scooting back about three feet to the nearest wall, which happened to be the one next to the door. He held his arm in silence, keeping a sharp eye out for any sudden movements from Potts.
“Sir, we need him,” FranAnne repeated. “We know that he saw the man between here and the hospital. Maybe we just didn’t look hard enough.”
“That was over twenty four hours ago,” Potts told her. “He could’ve slunk to the other side of the island by now. How do we know he even went to the same place this morning?”
FranAnne didn’t answer. She just stood in front of him, her arms at her side now, having released her grip on Potts soon after she’d first spoken.
“Go sharpen your knives!” he told the soldiers, looking at his watch. “It’s almost eighteen-hundred hours now. We still have about two and a half hours of daylight left. We’ll save the bullets in case we don’t find him. If you DO find him, don’t wait for me. Separate his head from his shoulders!”
FranAnne, Cohen, and Hawkins saluted and began to run out of the door, none of them looking at Kyler as they exited.
“You better go and find that mercury and do whatever you people do with it, and finish these bullets,” Potts ordered Locklear and Ariella, who knew nothing better to do than to nod their heads and leave the room. They too, couldn’t look Kyler in the face as they left the room. Only Potts, Zora, and Sam were left at the lab tables.
“You two better go and prepare everyone else for another long night,” he said to Sam and Zora.
As he spoke, Kyler thought of the others. They probably wouldn’t let him touch them anymore once they heard what he had done…none of them but Samantha Gould, of course. Jesus, he thought no one could’ve hurt him worse than Samantha Gould had last night, but he’d been wrong. Her newfound strength hadn’t caused near the pain that Potts’ punch to the gut and his attempt to break his arm had.
“Oh Colonel…” Kyler tried to say, but his stomach was not allowing the words to easily find their way out. “Colonel,” he managed to repeat, louder this time.
Potts turned and glared down at him. Kyler looked at Sam and Zora, who were now looking at him. They both looked like strangers to him now, their eyes no longer friendly toward him.
“Don’t you say a word!” Potts told him. “Not another…”
“There’s one more important thing that you need to do bef
ore the sun goes down,” Kyler interrupted, now holding his stomach and trying to gasp for air.
CHAPTER 69
“Let me go!” Samantha Gould screamed. “Let me go!” She ended her last “go” by extending it a good three or four seconds, and sending her already high voice into an even higher register.
“This’ll go easier if you just keep still,” Potts said, trying to tighten the chains around her.
Kyler had warned them about Samantha and how she was now acting like Opal who had also been bitten by Nicholas Klefka. They had discovered her in the sleeping quarters, once again looking up at the blank television screen. Potts, Cohen, FranAnne, Sam, Cohen, and Hawkins had found her, jumped her from behind, and had tried to subdue her. They were surprised to find out that she wasn’t as easy to pin down as they thought she would be. She had punched FranAnne, scratched Hawkins’ face, and nearly pulled one of Sam’s ears off trying to escape them. They had all been careful not to let her bite them.
Gringo hadn’t been in the room, but had been lured away by Zora, who had discovered him lying on his cot, trying to find a comfortable spot so that his shoulder didn’t hurt. She had stood in the doorway, and waited for him to notice her. When he did look her way, she gave him a come hither look that would’ve given a blind an erection. He was up and off the cot in less than two seconds. He was now shirtless, but wearing fatigues pants. He moved toward the door, not even looking at Samantha to see if she was watching.
She moved into the hallway and began to sashay down the corridor. By the time Gringo had reached the door, she was disappearing around a corner and down another hallway. He ran after her, rounding the corner in time to see her coolly swinging her hips from side to side. It looked to Gringo like each hip was hitting a wall.
“Hey! Wait up!” he yelled, before walking after her.
Zora was shocked at the success of her plot to get Gringo away from Samantha. She had told Potts, Sam, and FranAnne that it wouldn’t work…that no one would be stupid enough to fall for…how did the Americans say it…that old gag. Potts told her that it would work on him. He would just think that she was some whore who liked men in uniform, and wanted to wear the colonel’s mini helmet. Sam said that he would probably fall for it as well, thinking that he had finally found someone as intellectually gifted as he was…either that, or she liked men who wore flashlights. It wasn’t until she saw the sweat on FranAnne’s upper lip and brow, did she begin to think that it might work. And it had worked, because there he was, following her like a Loony Toons wolf that had just seen Bugs Bunny, dressed as a woman, doing exactly the same thing, only Gringo didn’t put his fingers in his mouth and whistle strong enough to make his cheeks puff out so much that they take up the entire screen, and there was no cat calls or “aooga” horns blaring.