Rita Morse and the Sinister Shadow

by Holly Hook

The inside of the Conversion Chamber building was worse than I’d imagined. It looked like a mad scientist’s lab. A very rich mad scientist’s lab. Wires ran everywhere inside the dome and over our heads. Some even glowed with an eerie blue light. A computer monitor with a bunch of controls hung on one wall, along with an old-fashioned lever that might have once been used on an electric chair. In the back, a glass holding cell waited. And did I mention it was freezing in here?

  But that wasn’t the worst part.

  Something that looked like a very tall glass phone booth stood in the middle of the room, complete with a door. I realized it was the bottom of the dome’s middle tower. And instead of a phone, this booth had a pair of manacles hanging from the inside walls.

  Every ounce of strength drained from my limbs. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. Only a croak escaped me. So this was where they were going to put us, one by one. This was where we’d endure the horrible transformation. This was where our fight was going to end forever. And the worst thing was that there was nothing I could do about it.

  Behind me, Ryan gulped audibly.

  A. Gist reached the glass booth, turned, and raised a single hand. The door slammed shut behind us, followed by the clicking of a lock. Silence followed.

  I stared at glass booth and had to choke back a scream. I’d guessed what it was for. “No.”

  “Yes!” A. Gist said. He snapped his fingers and faced his minions. “Now take Penny and Ryan to the holding cell.”

  Ryan cussed at the top of his lungs as Gabe and Ted dragged him towards the back of the room. George and Monica followed with Penny in tow. She had her mouth closed like she’d throw up any second.

  A door squeaked open. I tried to stand taller to see what was going on, but Tera’s grip got painfully tight on my wrists. Ted muscled Ryan into the cell with his meaty arms and Monica pretty much just watched as George shoved Penny in. Some thumps sounded and the door slammed shut with a click. Finally the Shadow Ones moved out of the way. Ryan and Penny stood shut inside the holding cell, palms pressed against the glass.

  “Good work,” A. Gist said smugly. “It looks like everything will go smoothly now.”

  I gulped. They hadn’t bothered to put me in the holding cell, too. That could only mean one thing.

  A. Gist turned to face me. “Rita,” he said slowly, “you will be the first inside the Conversion Chamber.”

  Yikes. My legs turned to rubber as the full horror of what was about to happen crashed down on me. I fought to get some last insult out at him, but the words wouldn’t come. My throat had locked up.

  A. Gist raised his voice enough for everyone to hear. “Penny and Ryan will get to watch before it’s their turns. It’s a shame you didn’t get to watch the two conversions earlier.”

  I felt as if someone had slugged me in the stomach. The two earlier? “Dan? Sean? You already—”

  “Yes. You’re right! I brought Dan here this morning. We pulled him right out of his house as he was getting ready to go to school.”

  I swallowed. Dan hadn’t been in class this morning. I felt hollow inside with horror, like someone had scooped out my insides. A million insults raced through my head, but I only managed to get out one word: “Oh.”

  “You didn’t!” Ryan yelled from the holding cell. Even from here, his face looked like paste.

  A. Gist ignored him. “We pulled his short friend through at lunch, as he crept off down the halls to the computer lab. He was probably trying to find more stuff to warn you with.”

  I clenched my fists so hard my arms trembled behind my back. My throat finally unlocked. “But why them? I thought your beef was with me, whatever it is!”

  He adjusted his hat. “They knew too much and were spreading information about the Shadow Regime. That was enough justification for me. Now, if I could only find whoever keeps posting those videos…” he trailed off, muttering something under his breath.

  Bile rose in my throat. If A. Gist was right, Dan and Sean had already faced the Conversion Chamber. They’d already joined the Shadow Regime. They’d risked their lives to try to save us from this, and that was their reward.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” A. Gist mocked in a sarcastic, soothing voice. “You’ll see them both very soon in the Recovery Center. Friends should always stick together, you know.”

  Bang! Ryan kicked the inside of the holding cell. I jumped at the noise. Ryan’s face was purple. Yes, purple. No exaggeration. Even Penny backed away from him. “I knew Dan since kindergarten!”

  “Oh, it’s not like he’s dead,” A. Gist shrugged and let his arms fall to his side like this was no big deal. “Far, far from it. In fact, he will never die.”

  “What you did to him is worse than death!” Ryan pounded against the glass with all his might. He’d had enough, enough of losing all the people in his life, and now he was finally exploding. I prayed he’d break the glass, or at least distract the guards for a while. But the glass held up. And A. Gist stood there, unfazed by the temper tantrum. A little smile crept back onto his face as he watched. He was enjoying this. Right then, I had a lot of choice words for him, things along the lines of what Josh and Kristina were probably saying about him right now.

  Ryan gave up and fell to the back of the cell, chest heaving. He covered his face in his hands and slid to the floor. Penny squashed herself against the wall and watched with a quivering lip. It was official. My friends had given up hope. I couldn’t even find the words to stand up for them anymore. It was as if this room had sucked them out of me.

  “Why are you acting like this?” A. Gist asked innocently. “You should know all the things you’ll enjoy after your transformation. You will live forever and never, ever get sick. You will be ageless, so none of my rules will affect you anymore. And you’ll like being Shadow Ones!”

  Um…yeah, right. As if in agreement, Gabe Cruz stood behind the other Shadow Ones, shaking his head no. Monica looked down and ran her hand through her head of black hair, and Ted swallowed and wrung out his wrists. And those people out on the streets hadn’t looked too happy, either.

  “Before we begin, I must read you the official notice,” A. Gist went on.

  He waved his right hand through the air, and a brilliant flash of blue light appeared around it. I jumped, but it vanished a split second later. A. Gist held a piece of paper, one covered in shiny blue print. It looked like a legal document of some kind. He lowered the paper, stood taller, and began to speak.

  “Rita, Ryan, and Penny,” A. Gist read. He spoke louder. “You are sentenced to Procedure Number Twenty-Eight. You shall be placed, one by one, into the Conversion Chamber. Shadow energy shall be passed through your bodies until you become one of us. You shall then spend the rest of time as members of the Shadow Regime, completely under my command.” A. Gist smiled and rolled the piece of paper up, which vanished in another flash of bright blue light. He strode over to the Conversion Chamber (with a huge grin on his face) and opened the glass door to the towering glass booth. There he stood, holding the door open.

  “Gabe,” he commanded, “Tera. Bring her forward.”

  Gabe Cruz jogged at me, looking down at the floor. Tera released my left arm just as Gabe seized it. Great. I was outnumbered. I wanted to just scream, to just bellow insults at A. Gist, but nothing came out but a croak. Tera and Gabe forced me towards the Conversion Chamber, which loomed larger in front of me. The door stood open, waiting.

  Penny’s voice cut in, shrill and desperate. Finally she could speak. “It doesn’t have to be this way! Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

  A. Gist whirled to face her. “Yes, it does. How else do I maintain my power? What better way to deal with people like you?”

  I was two feet from the Chamber now. A panic I hadn’t thought possible exploded through me, and my dumb paralysis broke. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I raised my foot and la
nded it on the doorway.

  “You’re only making this harder on yourself!” A. Gist taunted. Like I cared. I was not going in there.

  Tera shoved harder. My muscles burned with the effort as I fought to keep my foot on the doorway. If it slipped, I’d go flying into the Chamber. And I knew what would happen after that.

  “Get…in!” Tera breathed.

  Something sharp rammed into the side of my knee. A jackboot. Tera had started kicking at my leg. Another kick came and pain surged up my shin. I gritted my teeth, refusing to move.

  “Oh, come on!” A. Gist said, standing there like an impatient little kid. “Are we going to have to break some limbs?”

  Yes, they would.

  The tall woman kicked me in the side of the leg a third time, this time so hard spots flared in my vision. And my foot slid off the door frame.

  Okay, maybe they wouldn’t. Because now I went flying into the Chamber itself. I hit the back wall, rattling the glass of the booth. I whirled around to get the heck out of there, but Tera yanked my right arm to the side. Something cold closed around my wrist. Crap. A manacle! Before I could react, Tera wrenched my other arm to the side, and the second manacle closed around my other wrist. I lunged forward, but they held and almost cut into my skin. Hope drained from me. I was trapped in the Conversion Chamber.

  “There,” Tera breathed, backing away. She glanced at A. Gist out of the corner of her eye like she expected him to start yelling at her.

  A. Gist slowly stood there, arms folded. George leaned against the wall with a smirk. Ted and Monica stood up against the wall, shifting leg to leg. Gabe Cruz stood two feet away, eyes darting back and forth. He looked almost as nervous as I felt.

  But that meant I might still have hope. Gabe went through this nightmare a few months ago. He would have to understand.

  I lowered my voice. Here I was, begging. It was unthinkable. “Gabe, help us.”

  Gabe twisted his face in thought. His gaze rolled down the floor as his chin quivered. He shifted from leg to leg. Bad sign.

  At last he spoke. “I can’t. I’m under orders. I’m not allowed to help humans unless they’re working for A. Gist.”

  “That’s right,” A. Gist said triumphantly. “He can’t help you, Rita. He no longer has any free will when I’m around. You’ll understand that soon enough.”

  “But…” I sputtered, “You know what this feels like.” I glanced at the other Shadow Ones standing around. “You all do. Please!”

  “I’m sorry.” Gabe shot me a narrow-eyed look. “I mean…just look at me.”

  “Move out of the way,” A. Gist commanded him.

  Gabe nodded to me and stepped to the side, like he was trying to communicate some secret to me. A. Gist took his place at the doorway.

  “I have another problem, Rita,” he said. “I do hope you can help. You see, I don’t know who keeps posting those videos of Gabe here, but I have a feeling you may be connected to them. I’d love information. As in, I want names. The more you give me, the more I will consider letting you out of the Conversion Chamber unscathed.”

  A. Gist’s eyes gleamed with delight. He’d never make good on letting me out. I stood against the back of the Chamber and shot him my dirtiest look. The thought of letting him terrorize others made me sick. And besides, I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. How was I supposed to know who posted those videos?

  “Do you realize what kind of situation you’re in?” A. Gist continued. “You have no other escape, Rita. Cough up some names. That’s all you have to do, and perhaps your sentence will be lifted.”

  Just behind A. Gist, Gabe Cruz shook his head no again. I couldn’t give him any names (even if I wanted to), but I had to find a way to stall, too.

  “Okay,” I said. “I know who did it. I’ll give you the names I know.”

  “First and last names, please,” A. Gist said.

  I sucked in a breath. “Santa Claus!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “The Tooth Fairy! Mr. Gorfel!”

  The smile dropped from A. Gist’s face and his mouth fell open. “You don’t want to escape, Rita?”

  “You said so yourself that no one’s escaped this. You wouldn’t have let me go anyway.”

  “You’re right, Rita.” His hand moved to the open door of the Chamber. “I was just hoping to make my job a little easier.”

  I would’ve loved to throw up on him just then. But my stomach was empty, so I settled on the next best thing. I spit. Yeah, it was gross, but I had to get one last stab at him before I lost my free will forever.

  A. Gist stood as if slapped. His jaw slowly dropped as his eyes grew wide with understanding. “I knew it,” he said. “It is you. I was right.”

  He slammed the glass door shut, sealing me inside the Conversion Chamber.

  I wanted to melt and die. This was it, this was really the end. My vision blurred, but I blinked the tears away. A. Gist wanted me to cry and beg, and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

  Total silence fell. A. Gist strode to the side of the room towards the computer monitor and the scary-looking lever. He pressed several buttons on the keyboard and the screen started to glow. Wait. Maybe Gabe had planted the virus on it. That must be what he was nodding at me about.

  If I saw the Blue Screen of Death right then, I swore, I would never gripe about computers crashing ever again. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. All I could do was wait for the virus to kick in and save my butt.

  It didn’t.

  Bright blue print rolled across a black screen and the monitor beeped. It was working. A. Gist hit a few buttons, leaned at the screen, and cranked down the lever. He whirled around, crossed his arms, and stared in my direction.

  Ice seemed to race through me. A whirring noise started up from above. I looked up the Chamber to realize I could see all the way up to the top of the tower and to the purple sky. The tips of the glass claws started to glow electric blue.

  A howl escaped me. I couldn’t help it. It was really all over. My days of standing up to anything—and being me—had come to an end. I’d never see my family or my home again.

  The blue glow got brighter above me. Glowing tendrils of light snaked down the glass at me like a hungry alien beast. I pulled against the manacles and shrunk down (no use), but the glow only came down faster. The glass walls around me started glowing. A blue light bathed the entire room and A. Gist stood there and watched, grinning wider and wider.

  Ryan pounded against the glass again. “Let her out!”

  My hair stood on end. The blue tendrils grew thicker and thicker around me, hiding the rest of the room from view. Now I stood inside a box of light. A tingle raced across my skin and filled my whole body. And I felt sick. Not just queasy, but I’m-going-to-die sick. I slumped in place and would’ve gone to the floor if the manacles weren’t holding me up.

  A flash of blue light exploded at me, and a vision of A. Gist standing there in front of the dark purple sky took its place. “You should have just accepted what’s true, Rita. There’s nothing you can do against me or my rules. That’s just the way it is.”

  “No,” I managed.

  With another flash, he disappeared. Only blinding blue light danced around me. My stomach rolled and protested.

  The blue light shot upwards, tearing through me like an energy hurricane. It sapped me of all my strength…Ryan and Penny screamed somewhere…my vision dimmed…a dense fog filled my mind …and then I was gone.

  Chapter Seventeen