by HC Hammond
“I got tired of it you know, the chase,” Donald whispered. Besides that, the clicking of the dials punctured Harold’s ears with each turn. “I thought, settle down, change tactics, see if they can be fixed. It’s still exactly the same with every single one of you.”
He stopped turning the dials and placed a hand on a large lever in the panel.
“Although, I must say you all are being very creative in your attempts to fool me. I mean, starving yourself, because you knew you wouldn’t die.”
Donald chuckled, shaking his head. He pulled the switch. At first nothing happened, then Skellie’s body tensed, arched so severely Harold thought his back might be breaking. Skellie didn’t come out of the shape. Instead his arms and legs joined in extending the arch, moving further, impossibly further towards each other.
Donald watched this with a placid face. His right arm draped over the lever. Harold clung to the corner of the wall. His fingers digging into the plaster and sheet rock. He couldn’t stop himself from looking on as Skellie cooked.
The water around the skeleton filled with rising air bubbles. Tiny streams became larger rivers of bubbles boiling up steadily and turned into large, slow bubbles making their way to the top of the chamber beyond Harold’s view.
All the while Skellie’s body remained arched in a sharp, sad manner. Harold and Donald moved not an inch during the process. Skellie’s body changed. Perceptibly the skin darkened from candle wax yellow to a dark orange red, as the water cooked him alive. Long moments passed, so long and Harold couldn’t move for the horror in sight.
Donald flipped the switch and the watery chamber stopped roiling as suddenly. Skellie’s body remained locked in that shape as it slowly drifted down to the chamber floor.
Donald pushed a button and the chamber drained of water with swirling, sucking sounds. Harold turned and fled the room, flight instincts kicking in with the jarring noise.
He tore out of the facility on hell’s wheels, sounds of the chamber draining following him out of the laboratory and up the stairs, where he didn’t bother to soften his slapping footfalls. Signs of life teased Harold’s nose as he ran from the hallways to the lobby where Harold felt certain others, workers coming in for the day had passed moments before. He bumped into several chairs on his way out, leaving traces of his scent, but Harold didn’t care. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Harold made great leaps for his car once he left the building and panicked even more when he noticed it was perceptibly lighter outside. Morning was here. Soon, Harold could be cooked as quickly as Skellie. He dove into the phantom, fumbling again for his keys. Much cooler than Harold had ever been, the car turned right over with a purr.
He wasted several minutes driving aimlessly. Taking streets where he could and pulling further away from the building. Increasing traffic on the highway forced Harold to pay attention to his surroundings. He needed to get inside for the day and sleep. Not enough time to get to the casino or a safe house and no way he was going back to the halfway house. He realized he was close to the apartment. Maria might even still be home. She’d keep him safe for a little while. Might be pissed he left, but that could be smoothed over.
A large black van with a couple of large radio antennas attached to the roof was parked in the complex lot. He knew the scent, feds. Agent Potts sat in the driver’s seat. He had the gall to lean out the window with a smile and wave. They were watching his girlfriend. Harold stretched his neck and walked over to the man.
“Busy night,” Number two drawled at him, “better git inside, sun’s coming.”
“I’m going to ask you, politely, to leave.”
The fed reached out and rapped on the van’s side door with a thick arm. It rushed open, revealing Bergstrom reeking of death, coffee and cigarette smoke. As usual he wore large aviator glasses.
“Hey Harry,” he grinned, “dropping in for a quickie?” They both laughed and it really made Harold want to rip the door panel off the van and swing it into their faces. His horror was rapidly turning into anger.
“Maria has nothing to do with FEBs or your little job for me,” Harold said.
The two feds only looked at each other and snickered. Harold wondered how much effort it would take to tie them together by their neckties and stick them into the nearest sewer grate before sunrise. Not enough time.
“Everything about you has to do with FEBs,” Agent Bergstrom grinned, “besides I don’t think we’ll be here much longer anyway.” More snickering followed.
“Not her,” Harold pointed at the apartment, “I’m the one you’ve got doing your dirty work and, and if you want what I’ve got you’re going to have to follow my rules.”
This stopped them. Agent Potts straightened up in his seat, made like he was going to get out of the vehicle, but Agent Bergstrom stopped him with a word. Bergstrom stood up inside the van, placing hands on his knees for support. He was a tall man and he didn’t have an easy time moving around in the van. Harold only now noticed quite a lot of surveillance equipment in the back. Something beeped incessantly, waiting to be turned off or on, while a couple of monitors displayed grainy video of his apartment.
“Harold,” Agent Bergstrom said, “we’re the government. We make the rules.”
The agent hopped out of the vehicle and some of Harold’s earlier fear returned. This was not a game he had much experience playing. He wanted them to leave. So he could go to bed with Maria, warm, soft Maria and sleep this whole damn thing away. Harold edged a glance at the nearing sunrise.
“Just… Just leave,” he muttered.
Bergstrom tilted his head at Harold, as if he were analyzing some particularly interesting bug.
“Tell you what, we’ll go,” Agent Bergstrom said with a pointed grin at his partner, “if you finally have something good to give us.”
Harold sighed. Resigned to continuing with the game. “I’ve got something good,” he said, the dark, swirling chamber of water reared up in Harold’s memory, “I know what’s happening to group members when they graduate.”
Both agents leaned in. The van groaned from the weight of Agent Potts pulling half his body out the passenger side window to get closer to the conversation. It would have been funny if none of this had just happened.
Harold told them about the chamber and the medical facility. From the curls of their lips Harold could tell even the agents were disgusted. They were after all, different too. Agent Bergstrom and Potts squealed out of the parking lot at such a sharp turn the van almost tilted. But then, the busting of secret laboratories had that sort of effect.
He stared after them, allowing a small luxury of time to let the scene settle. Birds chirped. The wind blew. He always enjoyed listening to the birds as he fell to sleep. It was familiar, from the time before, when he used to wake to birds and fresh, morning air. Before the world reared up and bit him in the ass. The purple-red sky behind his apartment building hinted at a growing danger. Time for him to head inside.
He did not take a slow walk to his apartment, it was more of a running jump and Harold slipped inside right before the sun’s light peeked over the roof. He closed the door and leaned on it. First making sure all of the curtains were closed. No light was allowed to seep in, not even a sliver or a crack allowed to fall on the floor. Even the smallest amount of light could burn if he crossed into it. He checked first before moving, always this first.
His world safely ensconced in gray semidarkness, Harold proceeded to take stock of his place, mainly searching for Maria. She was here, but none of the lights were on inside the apartment and she obviously wasn’t downstairs. Harold called out to her, starting up the stairs when she called back in surprise.
Maria came to the top of the landing. “Stop right there.”
“What?”
“You are not supposed to be here,” she said, coming down and forcing him back towards the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey,” Harold muttered, avoiding the prod of sharp fingernails
on his chest.
“Don’t hey me.” She slipped by him, heading into the kitchen.
Someone’s awfully cold this morning, Harold thought. He followed her into the dining room, watching as she pulled an orange out of the fridge and peeled it. He tapped the dinner table with his index finger, contemplating Maria’s mood. Maybe he should just tell her about what happened earlier. Skellie’s arched lifeless body taunted his mind’s eye, leaving his throat dry. Harold didn’t want to relive that for a third time today.
“You shouldn’t be here, Harold,” Maria said, while chewing on orange pulp, “You sleep at the halfway house don’t you.”
“I wanted to stay here today, babe,” he said, “You don’t go into work until the afternoon right?”
Maria looked at him sourly and continued to masticate her pulp.
“I don’t want to fight. Let’s just lie down together for a while?” Harold leaned forward to stroke her arm with his hand, but she pulled out of reach.
“Oh, now that you finally remembered me?” Maria asked. She picked up another orange wedge and nipped it, plucking at the skin with her delicate fingers.
“What,” Harold said, running a hand through his hair, “are you talking about?” It was his turn to play the opposing part of their dance and pull away.
Maria glared. “Don’t act like I’m being crazy. I’m tired of being cast aside when you aren’t interested.”
“I’m not, I didn’t,” Harold said.
“No, you didn’t,” Maria said, “didn’t remember about our dinner date. Just tore out of here last week after showing up bloody and bruised.”
Oh. “Sorry babe,” Harold laughed, loud and obnoxiously. Dinner seemed so trivial, when he’d seen the world crashing down around him only minutes ago.
Maria’s eyes widened. She stopped, looked him over with a concerned pout.
“It’s been a rough week. I’m here now though,” he offered.
Maria continued eating her orange, but gave him a good, hard stare with her beautiful brown eyes. Harold knew the stare well, it was a woman’s final card in drawing out man’s worst secrets.
She was about to ask him how rough and Harold couldn’t handle that right now.
“Look, it’s late. I’m beat,” Harold said.
If anything Maria seemed hurt. “You can’t keep me out of your life,” she whispered, tugging at the last orange segment, “not if you want me around.”
“I do, I will explain,” Harold said. Fear exhaustion hit him in waves. “But let’s talk this out later.”
She took the remains of her orange to the trash and skirted him on the way out of the kitchen.
“I’m going to take a shower. You can do whatever you feel like doing,” Maria said.
Harold stared after her as she stalked upstairs. She made a point of noisily gathering up clothes and moving around. Fortunately, she took the time, in Harold’s mind a positive indicator, to close the bedroom window. She even closed the curtains too. A few moments later the running shower signaled it was safe to go up to the bedroom.
He crept upstairs to the edge of the room. All clear, the curtains were closed, definitely a good sign as far as Maria’s mood was concerned. He undressed on his way to the freshly made bed and fell into the crisp sheets with a groan. It took a moment, but he noticed Zork’s sluggy scent tickling his nostrils. Harold sniffed himself and decided he’d managed to track home Zork slime from some point of contact during the evening. He was too tired to shower and Maria probably wouldn’t appreciate an intrusion anyway.
Pushing down the covers, Harold vowed to shower as soon as he woke up. The bed sheets were cool against his skin and such an invitation to sleep. He sprawled out on his stomach and buried his face under a pillow, intent on blanking out the last couple of hours.
In the foggy distance, the shower shut off and Maria’s warm body crawled into bed with him. He pulled her close, mumbling words unintelligible, but asking for comfort none the less. She buried her fingers in his hair and nuzzled his scalp.
“Poor baby,” she whispered, “You’ve really had a hard time haven’t you?” Maria pressed her cheek against his head.
Harold enjoyed her warmth, scent and closeness. He mumbled again, absolving her of her transgressions.
“I’m sorry,” Maria said, but Harold was too sleepy to respond. He curled into her scent, and the covers and slept the day away.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time he woke in the evening, Maria was gone at work. Even though she had left him to sleep, he felt pretty good. The events in the medical facility now carried a certain distance. He could carefully examine the memory without the immediate impact of fear and disgust.
He’d seen with his own eyes what Donald was doing to group members who graduated. If he had to he’d bet Donald waited until members in group were at their very weakest before he picked them off. Despicable even by Harold’s standards.
Harold had no idea why PhenoChem was involved. The major company provided their fake blood products to the group and Donald had access to their offices and equipment. He decided to try and find out more about it online.
The computer was his last mental block to modern technology, so it took Harold a few minutes to log onto Maria’s desktop. Lucky for him Google was her homepage and Harold somehow ended up at Google maps where he pecked in the street address of the building.
It turned out to be Phenochem’s local offices and research facility. Phenochem had been developing tools and technologies to aid those forced to live “alternative lifestyles.” Vamps, bugs, zombs, ogres and other things going bump in the night were on their top lists of creatures to aid. They even offered regular and discreet physician’s checkups to non-normies. Harold figured it didn’t include what went on in the basement or maybe it did.
Phenochem did develop and offer the blood substitute Donald made everyone in group drink. It still left a bad taste in his mouth. Why, though, would a company working to improve life for creatures let someone like Donald do such terrible things in their facility?
Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they did.
Harold sat back and scratched himself. He had to figure out what to do now. This job was suddenly a whole lot more than finding a few addresses on graduates or failed graduates for FEBs or humoring a crazy vamp for some free blood. There were actual, real, painful, dangers involved, namely one Donald whom Harold still didn’t know anything about. A scary variable in a tough situation.
Last night, Harold fulfilled his obligations to the feds by sending them over to the PhenoChem building. He didn’t know if they would hold up their end of the bargain and let him off the hook. Plus, he didn’t know what might have happened after they left.
Then too, his deal with Mephisto. No real guarantees there. Harold could let that go, but it was such a good offer and all he really had to do was let Mephisto know what went down. Still it meant dealing with Orlen again. Even thinking about the woman set him to digging his nails into the chair arms.
Mephisto probably had the means to back up his offer of a free lifetime supply of blood. And God knew, Harold sure could use it. He didn’t want to get involved in anything like this ever, ever again. Not having to skim from the hospital’s blood supply could help him avoid getting in trouble with the law. He didn’t think he could stomach hunting again for a long time.
Harold knew what was going on in group these days and he didn’t want to risk sticking around for any more sessions with Donald. He didn’t want to end up in the chamber himself, like Skellie. Poor fuck. In Harold’s opinion it paid to be mobile. Maybe he needed to take action on his initial plan to skip town. To do it comfortably and to start a new life, he’d need cash, a nice buffer of cash. Mephisto had cash in spades.
He called the man. Harold didn’t trust Mephisto to follow through on his offer if he gave out the information over the phone. Instead Harold told the nice, young woman to give a message to Mephisto. Bring him a decent quantity of cash and enough
blood to fill the trunk of his car. On ice, of course. He arranged the meeting for the next night to give him enough time to collect the goods.
Harold hung up the phone. Idly sticking a thumb in his mouth. No group meeting tonight, it was after dark so everyone would be up. Maybe he could just stay here and hide out until he learnt what happened to Donald. Damn, he really wanted to know what the feds did yesterday. Maybe Donald was already in custody or dead or loose and looking for him. Donald seemed like the vengeful type.
He was getting hungry too. Maria threw out his blood stash in the apartment and all he had left were the lukewarm pints behind the radiator at the halfway house. He could go hunting, but the thought of engaging in more violence and risk made him queasy. He’d probably screw it up and get caught again anyway.
Harold would have to go back to the halfway house for his breakfast. With luck, Bergstrom and Potts had already picked up Donald. If they didn’t, well, he wasn’t any safer here than at the home. He might as well clear out his stuff and maybe let the slug know what happened to the skeleton. It was the least he could do.
Everything was normal, except for the fact that it was all normal. Harold stared keenly into the night around him as he headed into the house.
Inside he glanced into the recreation room. The zombies had Baywatch on again and were watching the glistening bodies with wide, wet eyes. He didn’t see Zork in there, but spent a respectful moment or two watching the life guards. When the women stopped running he moved into the kitchen where one of the female housemates poked around in the fridge. She popped out from behind the door when he walked in.
“Can you believe it? Donald took everything out of the fridge and replaced it with this PhenoChem crap,” She hissed and threw a plastic bottle at him, eyes burning bright red in rage.
Harold shrugged, backing slowly from the kitchen with hands raised. He knew better than to get in the way of an angry femme fatale, especially when it came to food. He had his own stash of blood to check on upstairs.