by Pam Jernigan
Leo felt frozen, unable to think. Like he would be, again, if Karen… no, he had to do something. To protect. He tried to focus, bring his thoughts under control. This problem needed careful consideration, and that could take a while.
The doctor turned away, satisfied. “Go get her now, Curt.”
Now?
Curt stood still, fear churning through him, but with a small spark of terrible anticipation.
“This morning, Curt.” The doctor said, already lining up test tubes. “Your choices are simple. Bring her to me, or… I use you as a subject instead.”
The fear spiked, and the uneasiness faded. “Yes, sir. I’ll bring her.”
#
She found her way outside. She turned towards the lab - and the cage - but angled away from the wall. She felt jumpy, understandable considering what she was trying to plan, but forced herself to stroll casually. She smiled at a guard as he passed by her. Just looking about, folks, nothing suspicious going on here at all.
The fence itself looked sturdy. Framed in two by fours, with close-spaced strips of barbed wire. The right tools might cut it, but unless she found some, that was a non-starter. Although there might be garden tools for the purpose. They’d built the fence to keep the Mindless out, not to keep the clever in. The sentry tower, though, would give a nice clear view of anyone attacking the fence. At least during the day.
Maybe under cover of darkness… that could work. She stopped at the point of the fence closest to the cage, halfway to the gate, and checked out the land beyond the barrier. Kind of flat, covered in scruffy grass. Not much to conceal them, once they escaped, at least for while. The land got a little hillier, further away, so maybe…
Yeah, maybe. If she could get the right garden tools. If she could get out here after dark. If no one thought to search for them for hours. Too many ifs. She chewed on her thumb, trying to think.
She walked further, then stopped again by the main entrance, stretching and assessing the gate. It was closed, but she couldn’t tell if it was locked. Or if they locked it at night. Her anxiety crept up another notch. Chill, Karen. Or at least fake it. She dropped the offending thumb; the hand began rubbing against the top of her pants, instead. Katrina is safe. So it doesn’t matter what happens to Karen. Nope, not working today.
She wished she was with Leo. For some reason, she tended to feel calmer around him. But she didn’t dare go hang out by the cage, not in broad daylight.
This would not be easy, and might not even be possible, but what else could she do? Abandon him? No. They were… allies. She had to try this, and she would find a way to make it work. It just might take longer.
She’d stall Pip, tell her she wanted to stay an extra day. When Pip woke up tomorrow and found her gone, along with one of the research subjects, she might put two and two together to make four, but by then it wouldn’t matter.
She fought to ignore the gnawing sensation in her stomach. The one that said she’d run out of time.
Okay, next step. She tried to focus. Garden tools; she needed to see what they had.
She ran into Curt as she re-entered the building. “Oh, hi! Listen, could you tell me where the garden is from here? I get so turned around…”
He smiled, but not in a nice way. His eyes flicked down over her body, lingering on her chest. Karen crossed her arms and frowned at him. “Curt?” she prompted.
He finally looked back up at her face, almost leering. What was wrong with him today? He hadn’t checked her out this blatantly before. This wasn’t admiration from a guy hoping to get closer. This was more like… inspection from a guy who already knew he’d be getting closer. Almost possessive. And Curt was nowhere near that status.
“The doctor wants to see you,” Curt said, a weird excitement in his voice.
“Okay… why?” He couldn’t know about her midnight excursions to the lab.
Curt took hold of her arm and began tugging her down the hallway. She set her feet and tried to resist, but he outweighed her. It was either walk or be dragged, so she decided to cooperate for now. “What’s with the caveman tactics?”
“Doc Borsa wants you.”
“Why?” Oh, man, what if he had cameras or something? Had she left fingerprints? She’d never thought about that. According to Leo, the doc had suspected something about his files. She hadn’t left any of them out, she was sure, and she had been very careful to return them to the correct places.
Curt glanced back at her, smiling coolly. “You’ll find out.”
#
Leo knew he was projecting his anxiety. His cagemates were stirring, but so what? Let them. He seemed to have lost much of his capacity for thought. Pictures of a Mindless Karen occupied his whole brain. She was in grave danger, and he was helpless to protect her.
Maybe she’d somehow left the camp already. He’d glimpsed her in the courtyard, had felt the anxiety that mirrored his own. Had she been plotting her escape? He hoped fervently that she’d snuck out. He’d never see her again, but that would be okay. Please, Karen, need you safe.
Those hopes were crushed when he heard voices at the end of the hall leading to the lab. Karen. Her voice higher-pitched than normal, her words faster. Agonized, he watched as Curt dragged her into the room, trailed by a confused guard. Her anxiety was shading into fear. So was his.
The Mindless began walking into the bars, attempting to get closer to the source of the emotions.
“Dr. Borsa,” Karen said, as she came around the corner, not even glancing his way. “Can you tell Curt to stop being a Neanderthal?”
Borsa smiled. Her fear grew.
“Curt, please, bring her over here and put her in the chair.”
“Well, that’s not the best way to ask a lady to have a seat, but okay…”
“Then tie her to it,” the doctor continued.
Curt… grinned, excitement beginning to emanate from him, sickly flickers of purple and green. Karen fought, but ended up fastened to a chair a few feet away, facing him. Her eyes met his, concern clearly written in them.
He needed to help her, but he could do nothing. Nothing but watch.
#
“Listen,” Karen said, breathing hard. “Whatever this is about, there’s no need for it. Okay, so I poked around in your files. I just wanted to know what you were doing.” He didn’t seem to be buying it, so she poured it on. “But you’re too brilliant for me to understand.”
“Be that as it may,” Dr. Borsa said, cutting across her explanation, “it doesn’t matter.”
Crap. He walked behind her; she turned her head but couldn’t follow him far. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
She looked over at the cage. Leo stood as close to her as possible, an understated look of horror on his face. That really wasn’t good. What did he know? She frowned at him. He didn’t wave her off, and even opened his mouth, maybe getting ready to say something. “No, don’t.”
“Don’t what, my dear?” the doctor said, walking back around into view. In one hand, he held a syringe filled with liquid, and she suddenly got why Leo looked so bad. Her insides were turning to ice, and her skin crawled. The pictures she’d seen in his file flooded into her mind, with an emphasis on the gruesome ones.
“Don’t… do whatever you were planning to do with that,” she managed, swallowing hard.
He smiled, carefully placing a lab notebook on a nearby table. “Oh, but I must. You see, I have this new formula, which I believe will restore the Mindless.”
Her gaze flew to meet Leo’s. He stared at her, helpless. Behind him, the others were getting more agitated. One began to groan, and more voices joined in.
“So why use it on me? I’m not Mindless.”
“Not yet,” he said casually, causing her stomach to flip over. He scribbled a note into his book. “I’ll soon fix that. But then, perhaps tomorrow… I test my new formula. Discover if I can bring anything back.”
In the background the guard shifted
his weight. “Um, doc?” he questioned.
Borsa looked at him. “Quiet. Don’t interfere. You know what happens if you do.”
The man stepped back, looking down. He might be bothered by what was going on, but not enough to do anything about it. She ignored Curt. No help there.
Much as she wanted not to know, she couldn’t help asking, “Bring anything back?”
“Cognitive function. Oh, not much, you understand.” Borsa paced slowly in front of her, gesturing with the syringe. “Just enough to be controllable.”
Oh, good, he was going to monolog. Anything to postpone the approach of that needle. “So that’s why you created them in the first place?”
He stopped, an eyebrow raising. “Figured that out, did you? These… creatures,” he said with distaste, pointing behind himself towards the moaning Mindless in the cage, “were never my intention.”
“Yeah, I got that,” she snapped. Her earlier anger was creeping back, the fire of it fighting against the ice cold fear. “You didn’t destroy the world on purpose. It just sort of happened, huh?”
Borsa scowled and resumed walking. “Fate works in mysterious ways. These last few years I’ve been working to perfect the serum, and to modify the already infected. That’s what I tested on that subject two days ago.”
She looked over at the cage again. The guy in the red tie stood next to Leo, now, looking very not-Mindless. “Did it work?”
“Not as such, no.” He seemed way too calm to be discussing one of his failures. “But I know why.”
“Oh, yeah?” She pulled again at the ropes holding her to the chair and felt only the slightest bit of give in them. She raised her voice to be heard over the groaning and shuffling. “Why’s that?”
“The subject had been Mindless for too long. There wasn’t enough brain function left to revive. That’s where you come in.”
“You’re crazy,” she told him. “You crazy bastard, you killed everyone, you destroyed people. Leo didn’t deserve this!” Her voice got louder all on its own. “Nobody deserved this! My dad shouldn’t have died; it’s all your fault!” She choked back a sob, breathing hard.
Borsa looked at her in disdain. “Temper, temper. I need a test subject where the rot hasn’t become ingrained. Therefore, I use my original formula on you today, and then try my new formula on you, tomorrow.”
It was getting hard to breathe. “Original? Hasn’t it changed since then? I hear it’s been evolving,” she said, stressing that last word. “If I’m injected with the old version, you still won’t know if your wonder potion works.”
His mouth twisted in a sour caricature of a smile. “Would you rather that I toss you to the monsters?”
She stared up at him. “Compared to you? Yeah, I prefer them.” Wait, she should have tried reverse psychology. Please don’t throw me into that cage. Her brain wasn’t thinking fast enough to keep up with her mouth. She looked over Borsa’s shoulder to meet Leo’s desperate eyes again.
She was doomed.
I’m sorry, she wanted to say. Even if she wasn’t sure what she was sorry about. She couldn’t save him, and he couldn’t save her, and it was all Borsa’s fault. “Katrina is okay,” she said, pitching her voice to carry, still looking straight at Leo. “So it doesn’t matter…”
Leo’s expression shifted from agonized to murderous, and he seemed to come out of the trance he’d been in. He looked away, moving towards the center of the cage. She craned her neck trying to follow, but Borsa’s body was in the way. She wanted to see Leo. She wanted her friend. Some reminder that she wasn’t entirely alone.
Bright side - if she were Mindless, she’d be with him. Leo would take care of her. He’d recovered, some; maybe she would, too.
The creatures in the cage got louder, banging against the bars. Borsa uncapped the syringe. She didn’t want to watch. Now, in fact, might be a good time for her life to start flashing before her eyes. That would be much nicer than the instant replay of autopsy photos her brain had supplied earlier. Stupid brain. Bye-bye…
The doctor moved to her right side, unblocking her view of the cage. She saw Leo, blinked in surprise, and began
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Leo had opened the cage door.
No one came through it, at first. They probably didn’t even realize the door existed, let alone that it was open. Leo frowned and herded them towards the exit. Red Tie helped, pushing the others from the far side, and the crowd converged in the middle, shambling out in search of their next meal. Or whatever.
Borsa regarded her sourly. “What are you laughing at?”
“You,” she said, laughing harder.
The guard yelled a warning. Borsa’s head whipped around and he paled. “Tranquilizers!” He stumbled backwards. The guard had his gun up, but was too close to the cage. He went down under a pile of Mindless bodies, with an abbreviated scream.
Even the ones not directly involved slowed and made a moaning noise that sounded almost like enjoyment. Leo edged his way past them. Curt and Dr. Borsa took off running, and the Mindless gave sloppy chase.
Leo was the only one to pay any attention to Karen, and he headed straight for her. She tried to stop laughing, but she wasn’t quite in control of herself. He touched her shoulder, looking at her with concern. She beamed at him. “Hi, Leo!” she said, still giggling a little. “I’m okay, just… can you loosen these ropes?”
“Hold on.” He moved behind her and began while she focused on breathing in and then slowly exhaling. Also on keeping her head turned away from the body by the cage door. Alarms shrilled, reminding her that the crisis was far from resolved. She was in control of herself, mentally anyway, by the time the ropes were slipping off her wrists. She stood, rubbing her arms to restore circulation. “Thanks.”
He came around to stand before her, staring intently into her eyes. “It… does… matter.”
She stared up at him. What happened to her mattered to him. Wow. Too touched to speak, she reached to brush his cheek with the back of her fingers, searching his eyes. You matter, too, she wanted to say. You’re amazing. Thank you.
After what seemed like an eternity of non-verbal communication, she cleared her throat and made herself look away from him. “Well, anyway. We’re not out of this yet.”
#
Leo gazed down at her as she looked away. She had touched him. Voluntarily. The sensation of her fingers on his skin had been fantastic, and the direct contact amplified her emotions. Gratitude, wonder, affection… she’d been terrified of him, only a few days before. Today… she’d looked at him with a soft smile, warm feelings flowing over him, reaching deep inside to fill the empty places… he never wanted it to stop.
But she was saying something, and she was important, so he tried to listen. Oh. He came out of the euphoric clouds, realizing that she was right. They hadn’t escaped. She wasn’t safe. “Don’t know what to do,” he said, distressed.
She looked back up at him, her feelings under control, and nodded. “I have a few ideas. And we have to move fast.” She scanned the courtyard, then grabbed one of his hands and towed him towards the cage.
He followed, not wanting to let go of her hand. Like, ever. He couldn’t allow himself to focus on the skin-to-skin contact of her hand in his, though. No matter how good it felt.
She led him right into the cage, and to the other side, pausing at the bars. She peered outside, into the sunlight, and his gaze followed hers. There was a lot of activity, people rushing around the corner of the building out of sight. He heard an alarm blaring.
“What the… oh, right.” She glanced up at him, then explained. “They’ve got Mindless on the loose inside their main building. That’ll grab all of their attention for a little while. Which is our cue to leave.” She reached for the bars. He had forgotten that there was another door there. After a brief moment fumbling at the latch, she swung it open. She stepped through the opening, looking all around, and he followed.
&
nbsp; She was right. There was much fear in the camp. It called to him, but was nowhere near as strong as the connection to Karen. She radiated a hint of anxiety and a lot of determination. The sense of her importance was overpowering, trumping the hunger for human fear. Even the death burst from earlier had barely registered to him, compared to the necessity of helping her.
She darted towards the main gate, but then dodged sideways, dragging him behind a shed. “Oh, Leo, we are in luck,” she said quietly. “Okay, see that white pickup?” She pointed, and he nodded. It sat in front of the open gate, rumbling. “That’s our ride. Let me go first and talk to the driver, but then you have to sneak onto the back. I’ll make sure she’s not looking this way, so she won’t see you. Think you can do that? The tailgate’s down; it shouldn’t be hard.”
He nodded again. He didn’t totally understand the plan, but it was her plan, so he’d go with it. He would follow her anywhere.
#
Karen squeezed Leo’s hand once, then let go and ran towards the truck. She was closer to the passenger side, so she crossed in front of the idling vehicle. Mere feet away from the open gate. “Pip!”
Pip was in the driver’s seat, half twisted around, her face taut with worry, looking backwards at the buildings. She jumped at Karen’s approach. “Ah… oh, it’s you, Karen. Don’t scare me like that. What’s going on?”
Karen stepped up on the running board, panting from the excitement and exertion. She planted herself in front of the driver. “There’s been an outbreak; I think the Mindless got loose.”
Pip paled. “Good Lord. What can we do?”
“I need you to drive me home,” Karen said, staring directly at the other woman to hold her attention. With her far hand, she waved a “come on” gesture, hoping Leo would see it, then ran her fingers through her hair to disguise the motion. “They’ll get the monsters under control pretty quick. I’m afraid they’ll decide I had something to do with it.”
Pip’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t let them out,” Karen said, truthfully, trying to get her breath back. Her heart was still pounding. “But I’m the new person and they’re going to blame me, you know they will. Please, get me out of here.”