“I have to inform you that this other patient over here is not quite secured.” Angela spoke. “Now, untie my other arm.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Folsom complained.
“Jeez, that’s the only sentence they teach you in nursing school? Now, release me before I send you to the morgue!”
Offended, Folsom did as told.
Almost at the same time, Piper injected a liquid into Folsom’s system through her left thigh.
“Just a little prescription for you, sweetie” Doctor Glory said to the nurse.
“Why are you doing this?” Angela asked Piper. “Why are you helping us?”
“Do I really have to tell you?” The doctor answered.
“As they say, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.” Joana said emerging from behind curtains.
“Now, hang on.” Piper said and grabbed Angela’s right forearm.
She took the scalpel from Angela’s hand.
“Do you really have to do this?” The woman asked trembling.
“Yes, in all three of us.” Piper replied. “Now, hold still. That’ll hurt.”
Doctor Glory made an incision in Angela’s forearm, from the elbow joint to a little above the wrist.
“AHHHH!!!” Angela screamed. “Doctor, you do have the gift of understanding!”
“Call me Piper, dear.”
A siren blared all over the medical center.
Men in military uniforms and black suits stood in attention.
“We have a breach.” A soldier with sergeant stripes announced.
“It’s in the lab.” A man in suit spoke looking at the monitor of his tablet.
“Let’s go.”
An armed contingent broke into the operating room. They found Doctor Blake still conscious on the hospital bed and helped him standing up.
“Doctor Piper and two subjects…” Blake mumbled to the soldiers.
“Don’t worry, doc.” Sergeant Knowles said. “We pinpointed the fugitives. They’re in the lab.”
“I’ll go with you.”
They closed on the lab. Two soldiers approached the door with guns in hand. It was cracked opened.
“Very stupid of them, cornering themselves like this” The sergeant commented.
“Yes, you know women…” Doctor Blake whispered.
The soldiers by the door raised weapons and nod at each other. They broke into the lab, pointing guns, ready to shoot. However, they only found Nurse Joyce Folsom in there, hair and clothes in total disarray.
“You guys are so cute!” She said. “I’d like to see both of you naked, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee!”
The other soldiers and men in suits entered the place, followed by Doctor Blake.
“Nurse Folsom!” The doctor said. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“You stole my sentence!” Folsom replied. “You’ll have to pay one… no, wait, six royalties, because you stole six words!”
Sergeant Knowles noticed red spots blinking through the nurse’s apron. He put a hand into her pocket.
“Hey! Careful, boy!” The nurse spoke. “My boyfriend’s watching!” She nodded at Blake, who seemed to get uncomfortable.
Knowles took three small chip-like devices from her apron pocket, stained with fresh blood.
“Damn it!” He cursed. “Somehow, the fugitives removed their subcutaneous tracers and put them in her pocket.”
“What we do now?” Blake asked urgently.
“Oh, we can do it right here and now!” Nurse Folsom answered instead of the sergeant. “Or perhaps you prefer the surgery table… Maybe we can use the couch in the waiting room, it’s comfier!” She giggled.
All eyes turned to Doctor Blake, who had to loosen his collar. He laughed nervously.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.” The doctor mumbled.
“Come on, love!” The nurse happily continued. “You know I only made it through nursing school because I let the dean bang me! I also did it with the whole soccer team, and once with teacher Delores…” She turned serious all of a sudden. “I don’t know what’s happening to me! Somebody please shut my mouth!”
Sergeant Knowles cursed under his breath and grabbed his walkie-talkie.
“I’ll have to call a city-wide search.” He informed. “I must talk to the Secretary and request advice.”
In dirty and dark back alleys, the three fugitive ladies walked furtively. Joana had to stop and sit down on the sidewalk, by a trashcan.
“I understand how you must feel, but we have to keep moving.” Piper said to her.
“Give me five.”
“We don’t have five. We don’t even have one!”
“I don’t feel so good, either.” Angela complained.
“I know, but we can’t stop.” Piper insisted.
“Give me a break, will you?” Joana said. “I’ve just had a drill bit in my vagina!”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop that.” Piper lamented. “I had to wait for the doctor to order the Luviximil.”
“I know.” Joana murmured. “I guess it’s not right to question your methods. Just give me a little help…”
Piper and Angela helped her standing up.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Joana assured the other two.
And they kept on going.
“What did you give Nurse Folsom?” Angela asked Doctor Piper.
“A little bit of Vasmisol.” Piper answered. “In small doses, it works like a mild hallucinogen and a powerful truth serum.”
“This place is horrible!” Joana complained. “What a smell!”
“That’s why we’re here.” Piper responded. “It’s the only quiet way out of town.”
“And what are we going to do out of town?” Joana asked anguished. “We don’t have weapons to fight the living dead.”
“We won’t give them a chance to get to us.” Piper replied. “We find ourselves a vehicle and get out of this hellhole.”
“And where are we going?” Angela queried.
“Condor City, I figure.” Piper answered. “We go there and ask asylum.”
“And why such beautiful girls would want asylum for?” A loud male voice echoed through the alley.
The women froze where they stood.
“Who’s there?” Piper shouted.
Five men appeared and surrounded the three women, blocking their way on all sides. They slowly closed on them.
“Please, mister, just let us go.” Joana said.
“Afraid I can’t do that, ma’am.” The biggest of the five said. He was surely the leader of the pack. “You see, this neighborhood is kind of dangerous. You ladies are going to need some protection.”
“Hey, look this!” The second guy grabbed Angela’s hand. She tried to resist, but his grip was too strong.
“Leave her alone!” Piper demanded.
“Hey!” The leader spoke. “You just talk to me, lady. No need to get rude in here.”
“Look at those stitches!” The second guy continued, pulling the woman’s hand and studying her forearm “Very professional work.”
The men’s beer loaded breath filled the air all around.
“They all have stitches.” The third guy noticed.
“Naughty, naughty, girls…” The fourth man also decided to join the conversation. “Removing your tracers like that!”
“I guess we came in the middle of an escape party!” The fifth man added.
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to try one of those pure ladies of the Arian race we hear so much about.” The second guy said. “Guess they taste like sugar.”
“They might even be virgins!” The third man spoke.
“Not a problem.” The leader said. “I promise to be gentle.”
“L-look, mister…” Piper stammered. “We did nothing to you. Let us go, please!”
“Like I said, it wouldn’t be any civilized of us if we left you ladies unprotected.”
“Enough foreplay…” The fifth man decided.
Two of the youngsters jumped on Angela and dropped her to the floor. Other two guys did the same with Joana.
The women cried and screamed in despair, begging the men to stop.
“It seems I was the lucky one, as usual.” The leader said coming real close to Piper. “I got myself a doctor. Those clothes of yours and the stitches don’t fool anybody.”
“Please, mister…” Piper started to sob. “Don’t do this! We just…”
She took one step back, but he held her arms. Piper tried to resist, but the man was just too strong.
“Now, now…” He said. “I’ve been feeling kind of tense lately. But we both know a very good prescription for that, right doc?”
He dropped Piper to the floor, jumped on top of her and began tearing up her clothes. She also cried, screamed and kicked, all in vain.
All of a sudden, the men froze at the same time. That was because they felt cold barrels of guns touching their napes.
“Sorry to interrupt, fun boys.” Secretary James said. “But the party will continue elsewhere.”
He nodded and a large group of men in black suits pulled the assailants away from the women. They forced the five hoodlums to kneel down on a corner, several machine guns pointing straight at them.
“Are you alright?” The Secretary asked the women.
“Not really.” Piper said, trying to pull herself together.
James took off his jacket and wrapped it around Piper. Two other guards did the same to cover Angela and Joana, whose clothes had been almost totally torn up.
“Enjoying your field trip?” The Secretary asked Doctor Piper. “I hope you learned your lesson.”
“Please, sir!” The leader of the pack said. “We were just having some fun!”
“And you will have even more fun!” The Secretary answered cheerfully. He walked to the five men and leant toward the leader. “Because I take you boys know where you’re going, right?”
It was the leader’s turn to put on a desperate look. The same happened with the other four.
“N-no!” The leader mumbled. “Please! Not there!”
“Congratulations!” The Secretary said standing up again. “You’ve just earned yourselves a one-way trip to the wonderful resort of Devasta Land!”
Angela and Joana frowned, but not Piper.
The five men on their knees began to cry all at once.
“Please, don’t do that!” The second guy said and suddenly turned to the women with a very pleading look on his face. “We were just messing with you, ladies! We were not going to do anything! Please, don’t let them take us!”
“Reverse psychology, the best way to deal with spoilt little kids!” The Secretary said playfully. “Take them, boys!”
The five crying youngsters were forced to stand up and later escorted out of sight.
Secretary James turned around and helped Piper to her feet.
“I’m very disappointed at you, Doctor Glory.” He said. “Perhaps we should change your name to Doctor Failure.”
DEVASTA LAND!
The group walked slowly, trying hard not to lose visual contact with the helicopter. All men had flashlights, but they could only see their own beams, despite the full moon.
“Man, this place gets eerie every time.” One of them said.
“Are you scared? If something attacks us, just shoot everything.”
“I heard bullets are no good in here.”
“Do you think they’ll come?” A soldier asked.
“They always do.” The platoon leader replied. “They need the seeds. And we need to dispose of the garbage.” He tapped the back of the head of one of the prisoners “Right, maggot?”
The soldiers kept on walking, dragging their five prisoners in chains. They heard unnatural sounds coming from the woods all around them.
“If there’re werewolves in here, we are sitting ducks.”
“Don’t worry. We feed them the prisoners. While they’re busy eating them, we make a run for it.”
Some men laughed.
“Sounds like a plan.”
The prisoners walked with their heads down, defeated. The shackles compressing their ankles and wrists made an unpleasant noise as they went, not to mention uncomfortably loud.
The point man raised a hand closed in a fist to signal the group to stop. The platoon leader came to him.
“What is it, Ahawi?”
“I heard something.”
“I hear a lot of things!” Private Norton complained.
“SHH!”
Shuffling sounds echoed around them.
“I love this Indian nose of yours.” Norton spoke to Ahawi.
“I guess he preferred to be called Native American.” A male voice resounded in the near distance. “For that’s what we both are.” The mysterious newcomer continued, becoming visible. “Only our tribes are different.”
The whole detail pulled out guns.
“Stand down.” The platoon leader ordered. “You act like you never did this before!”
“I never did this before, sir!” Private Norton retorted. “It’s my first assignment out here.”
“Nice seeing you again!” Ahawi said to the newcomer.
“Hey Josh.” The lieutenant greeted the man as well.
“Hello lieutenant. And my name is Joshua.”
Silhouettes of several people could be seen around them. But only Joshua was in clear view. He was a medium sized man wearing traditional ceremonial clothes. His face was painted with a variety of symbols.
“What are you?” Norton asked. “One of those Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, Emos, Gothics…?”
“Close” Joshua responded. “We are descendents of the old Palagwachokawashi.”
“Nice. Can you say that again?”
“Palagwachokawashi.”
“Again!”
“Knock it off!” The platoon sergeant barked.
“Just testing” Private Norton explained. Then, he turned to Ahawi. “What about you, chief? Who are your people?”
“I’m a Cherokee.”
“Great, but I stick to my Chevy, hahahahahaha!” He was the only one who laughed.
“So, what do you have for me?” Joshua asked the lieutenant.
“Those…”
The platoon leader nodded and five soldiers pushed the five prisoners forward and forced them to kneel down before Joshua.
“Scumbags?” The Native leader asked.
“Very much” The lieutenant answered.
“Good. The gods like them better.
“Far from me to disappoint the gods.”
“Now, pay the price for cleaning your society.” Joshua demanded.
“Sure thing” The platoon leader said and turned to his sergeant. “Gary…”
Gary gave Joshua a box. The Native leader shook the box close to his ear and he seemed to like what he heard.
“It looks good material!” Joshua said.
“The best!” The lieutenant replied “Corn, beans, soybeans, rice, you name it. All in there waiting to be grown, right from the best shelves of good old uncle Svalbard."
“Great!” Joshua spoke. “Nice doing business with you.”
“Likewise!” The platoon leader said. “Now, if you gentlemen excuse us…”
The lieutenant was turning his back on Joshua, but the Native held his arm.
“Not so fast.” Joshua said. “You forgot the bonus.” He opened a wide, white smile.
“Right” The lieutenant puffed.
The military man took the rucksack off his back, unzipped a compartment and reached inside. He produced a pack of Lucky Strikes and gave it to Joshua.
“Now our transaction is complete.” The Native acknowledged.
“This is bad for your health.” The lieutenant pointed out. “I thought you people were all natural, eating only vegetables and stuff.”
“Well, let’s say the gods are not the only ones entitled to have some fun.”
That being said, each group turned aro
und and walked away from each other. Joshua and his men dragged the prisoners to a camp nearby, while the lieutenant and his soldiers took off in the helicopter.
“Do you know what they do with the maggots we bring, Lt?” Private Norton queried.
“I’ve never asked. Does it matter?”
Very early next morning, the group started its long walking. The prisoners kept tripping on their own chains. They sweated a lot and their clothes were in rags.
“Please, mister…” One of them begged.
“Quiet!” Joshua said. “You’re food. And food doesn’t talk.”
“Could you please take these chains off?” The young prisoner insisted. “Where do you think we can go?”
“We don’t know how to take those things off.” Joshua replied. “But you shall not worry. They never bothered the gods before.”
Apocalily Series (Book 2): The Almighty Lady of Tomorrow Page 6