by Bella Street
Seffy swallowed. Why did the nurse who knitted for a hobby need a large lab?
She wandered deeper into the room, her gaze skimming over glass stirrers, thermometers, scales, and jars filled with strange colored substances. In fact, the contents were primarily monochromatic.
As in red.
She quickly looked away and noticed a giant blackboard covered with complex hexagonal equations of nothing she'd ever seen in school, along with words like 'septicemic,' 'pneumonic,' and a long list of words under a heading of 'pathogens.'
Next to that was a stainless steel commercial grade refrigerator. She opened it up, doubting Olga had filled it with iced tea and left-over pizza. When she saw the racks of test tubes and glass bottles, she paused, thinking of her dream with Fiona.
God, I am prophetic—in a random, pointless way.
Reading the labels on the tubes, she half-expected to see words like 'despair,' 'misery,' even 'Seffy.' Instead she saw Mononegavirales, Y. pestis, Diazepam, testosterone cypionate, psilocybin, and Lysergic acid diethylamide.
Just like the words, nothing here made sense. Then she saw one marked benzoylmethylecgonine with the word 'cocaine' penciled underneath.
Cocaine. She blinked, suddenly remembering Olga saying something about finding traces of the drug in Trent's blood after being infected by a rabies-like virus. She read the other labels again, wishing she knew Latin. 'Testosterone' jumped out her. The nurse had also said she'd found anabolic steroids. Weren't steroids made from hormones?
Seffy had assumed Olga had discovered these facts by looking under a microscope or using some kind of indicative dye.
Fiona's words from the dream reverberated in her mind. They became marked the moment they lost hope. She swallowed hard. So, aside from seeing this place more or less in a dream—that's all it was. A dream. No place of lost hope. Right?
But why the bottles and tubes unless Olga was...experimenting?
Seffy straightened and closed the refrigerator door. The last object in the room was a chair. It was similar to a dentist's chair except for the leather straps at the wrists and ankles. There was no Fenn slumped in its metal embrace receiving foul injections by his lady love.
But there might've been.
A wave of dizziness assailed her as the ramifications of the room sunk in. Seffy grabbed hold of the nearest object—a rolling cabinet—and ended up knocking a glass stirrer to the floor. The shattering sound galvanized her forward. She had no business being in this place. Had no interest of why it was here at all. Olga was apparently a nurse hooked on extra credit and dark science.
Just because Seffy dreamed something didn't make it real. She was no prophet. She was just a scared girl with an over-active imagination who needed to leave.
Now.
“It's so cold and harsh in here, wouldn't you agree?”
Seffy whirled around at the sound of Olga's voice.
The nurse stood in the entrance to the room, her posture relaxed.
“That's why I often bring my projects into the kitchen. Much cozier than this cold room.”
A light bulb hung directly over her head, casting her in a sinister light. Seffy stared at her, wondering at her conversational tone. “I...was looking for Tylenol.”
“You'll find the Paracetamol in that rolling cabinet by your side. Top shelf. I like to keep it nearby when I work long hours on my research.”
Seffy kept her hands to herself. “Olga, what is this place?”
The nurse stepped down into the main area. “It's a lab. But I know you're smarter than that.”
“Yeah, I figured out the lab part.” She found herself backing up as Olga neared. “It's just a pretty intense hobby room for a nurse.”
“I do knit, you know,” she said, coming closer.
Seffy took another step back, still confused by the older woman's flat expression and demeanor.
“Well?”
“Well what?” One more step back.
“I'm waiting for you to figure out why this room is here.”
“To, um, study blood pathology?”
“You worked in a medical clinic, Seffy. I'm sure you can do better.”
“What was in the refrigerator? I saw something marked as cocaine.”
“Do you really want to know?”
No. “Yes.”
“There are combinations of what you would recognize as steroids, components of the Black Plague, and rabies, among other things.”
“How did they get there?” she asked stupidly. It made no sense that Olga would manufacture deadly concoctions. That would mean she was responsible for the zombie virus...for whatever virus had infected Trent. That would mean she was evil.
The room began to waver.
“I think you know the answer to that, too.”
“But it doesn't make sense.” Seffy took two steps backward this time and knew a wall was closing in.
The nurse tucked her hand in her pocket. “Doesn't it?”
Seffy was pretty sure Olga wasn't going to bring out any candy from that pocket. “I had a dream about this place, you know. Almost like a prophecy. Isn't that weird?”
“I'll add that to my chart.”
The nurse was a foot away now. Within lunging distance if Seffy's imagination got away with her. But Olga wasn't a lunger. Seffy was pretty sure of that. Especially for a stout woman in those practical orthopedic shoes.
Seffy backed up and hit the wall. Except it wasn't the hard cement block she expected. It was something slippery and noisy. She peeked over her shoulder at what cushioned the blow. Several silvery Haz-Mat suits hung against the wall.
Oh no.
She twisted back to face Olga, her heart trying to claw its way out of her chest.
“I'm guessing by now you realize my medical discipline goes beyond that of a registered nurse.”
“What's going on?” Seffy said, her voice betraying her level of freak.
“What I need for you to do is calm down.”
“Okay, you come into a creepy, hidden lab, acting like an evil scientist with stupid questions and you want me to calm down? You have Haz-Mat suits, Olga!”
“There were times I needed to hide my identity.”
Seffy didn't want to cry. She was sick of crying. But betrayal and realization bit deep.
She blinked back hot tears and lifted her chin. “How could you?”
Another rumble came up through the floor, making the test tubes rattle in their racks, distracting her for the space of a heartbeat.
Then Olga was suddenly upon her, injecting her thigh with only God knew what.
Seffy stared at the nurse in shock until her image faded.
I guess she was a lunger after all.
Chapter Thirteen
Fenn stood looking up through the skylights in his residence, listening to the vibrations from below. Hot pink light poured into the room in a spectacular, terrifyingly unnatural blaze of color. He knew he was running out of time, in just about every way possible.
Olga had stopped him from using the blood in the syringe Seffy had thrown at him.
He'd barely fought the urge to knock the nurse away and scrabble for it like some demented vampire. But he'd held onto what was left of his dignity and watched her dispose of it, wasting the precious potential of that liquid.
He glanced down at the inside of his arm. His skin itched and his bones ached. Bruises marred his flesh, taking weeks to fade. Old scabs remained from his heroine use, slow to heal in his decimated body. He could barely find the strength to stand more than a few minutes at a time now.
How long until his organs began to fail one by one, echoing each of his personal failures when it came to Seffy?
A soft snore punctuated the stillness. Fenn turned and looked at Fiona where she'd nodded off on the couch in prenatal exhaustion. She'd been furious with the changes in her body and was threatening to have an abortion on almost a daily basis now.
He tried to remember at what point in a pregnancy a
baby made itself felt—when the first fluttering movements were detected. If they could make it to that point, he was almost certain she'd stop using such threats.
But they were running out of time.
***
Seffy blinked in the harsh light above and became slowly aware of movement. As memories collided with her consciousness, she stiffened in fear. “Olga?”
“What? Hold still.”
Oh my God. She's going to kill me. “What are you doing to me?”
“Slicing you to ribbons, grinding up your organs, and draining every last drop of blood for Soviet-soaked conspiracies, of course.”
Seffy caught her breath at the droll tone, not comprehending at all. Suddenly the bright light flickered off and someone released her eyelid—which up until this moment, she hadn't realized was stretched open.
Olga's face came into view, complete with half-moon glasses and pursed lips. Seffy looked past her and saw she was in her own bed. Then she turned her attention back to the nurse, anxiety still on overdrive. “You stabbed me with a needle!”
Those lips became even more disdainful. “Seffy, when I saw that wild look in your eyes as you came to natural—albeit misguided—conclusions based on your immediate surroundings, I realized common sense would not prevail.”
Seffy opened, then closed her mouth. “You still stabbed me with a needle!”
“I have several delicate experiments in progress in that lab and I didn't need a hysterical female plowing into my equipment in an effort to escape. Plus I'm just too damn old for wrestling a grown adult, followed by a high speed chase through my lab and living room.”
Seffy peeked at the nurse through her lashes, not knowing what to believe. “What did you inject me with?”
“A sedative. You simply sagged neatly to the floor, for which my back is thankful. I had compound staff assist you into your room.”
Seffy scooted up in bed—her thigh hurt like hell—and glared at the woman. “What is this? What game are you playing?”
“There are no games, miss. Maybe prevarication at most, for your protection.”
Snorting, she edged away from the older woman. Who knew what other sharp things lurked in her smock pocket? “So you're not some evil Soviet scientist doing secret experiments on compound residents?”
“I'm not evil,” Olga said, sending her a pointed look over the top of her glasses.
“Holy crap.” Seffy scrambled from the bed and stood so it separated her from...Natasha Ratched. Sucking in lungfuls of air to oxygenate her brain, she tried to make sense of the woman's words. “I thought you were Finnish.”
“I am, by blood. But I was raised in the USSR.”
Double holy crap. “So you're some pinko-commie whack job the compound hired for evil intentions?”
“Since only part of that was English, I'll address what I can understand. My name is really Olga and I am, or was at one time, a registered nurse. I am now what you call a Clinical Cytogeneticist Scientist, with emphasis on Immunohematology. And I believe I already addressed the 'evil' issue.”
She paused, then lifted her chin when no response was forthcoming. “I became fascinated with blood chemistry during my nursing studies and came to the U.S. to study under the assumption that I would bring my new knowledge back to the USSR. Alas, I decided to defect. That coupled with the fact that my family was gone, I took refuge here.”
Seffy stared at her as if the woman had just torn off a mask and revealed...someone else entirely. “Um, why did Fenn hire a hard-core scientist unless it was to do evil experiments?”
“Fenn hired me, yes, to serve as a R.N, but he gave me the ability to continue my research. I had the resources, the privacy, and—”
“And unsuspecting compound residents.”
Olga pursed her lips even tighter. “You're confusing me with Popov.”
“Huh?”
“Popov was an American who became enamored of Soviet ways and came to Fugere.”
“Why would he come if it wasn't pinko-commie?”
“Let me backtrack,” the nurse said in a long-suffering voice. “The compound was originally built by people in the time of Sputnik.”
“Okay, now your English is lacking.”
“Some private American citizens built it at a time of intense Soviet paranoia. During the space race?”
Seffy sent her a blank look.
“At any rate, the rumors were started by Fenn's father—who was one of those concerned Americans—that it had been built by Soviets. The intention was to keep the curious at bay. Popov came anyway, wormed his way into becoming a security guard—”
“What a shock.”
“—and found out about my research.”
“Research to make zombies and werewolves?” The snark was there of its own volition. She couldn't help it.
“He used it for ill. I'm sure you know experiments have to be done to make inroads into cures for diseases.”
“Why doesn't anyone ever try to cure the common cold? Why use hellish pathogens and twist their DNA?”
“Because they're hellish. People recover from colds, but from the Plague—not so much. I wasn't making much progress until you came along.”
She paused for dramatic effect apparently. Seffy kept her distance.
“And you have to understand what a discovery your blood was. When we realized you survived the so-called zombie virus—and we know you were infected because initially there were traces in your blood—we began experiments almost immediately. We started with more serious pathogens because that's what we had on hand.”
“So Pathogens R Us was out of good ol' rhinovirus?”
“Seffy.”
“And what's with all this 'we' stuff?”
Olga sighed. “Primarily myself, and a couple other medical professionals who assisted with some of the initial experimentation.”
“They must've talked if Popov found out about the zombie juice.”
“Obviously. It's very difficult to keep a discovery of this nature under wraps.”
“Is that how Jared found out what you were doing?”
The nurse's face reddened. “I confess I once caught him in my residence, but he was in the living room. Said he was looking for me. I didn't imagine why he would have any reason to snoop in my quarters.”
“Maybe he got a hot tip from Popov.” Along with a key to the lab.
Olga frowned. “It's hard to say. But I deeply regret not following up on his unwelcome intrusion into my residence.”
“So Popov got a hold of the zombie virus and infected all those innocent people—”
“Yes. And it's why I had the extra locking door installed. Of course, it would help if I actually remembered to lock it.”
“And you expect me to believe Jared also took the rabies cocktail and used it on my husband.”
“That is correct.”
Seffy bit her lip, struggling to control her mounting fury. “And yet you're the only one who was ever around Trent with needles.”
“You force me to point out that Trent is no longer with us because of bullet wounds, not the pathogens Jared exploited for his own reasons.”
Seffy put her hand to her head, choking on a fresh wave of grief. It took her several moments to control herself.
“I brought you some Tylenol.”
She looked up at the nurse, numb beyond belief, dreading the answer to her next question. “Were you ever one of those people in the Haz-Mat suits?”
“Only a few times at the beginning, and never when you were in that room strapped down and tortured. The compound had been taken over by Popov's men at that point, because they'd heard about your strange blood chemistry.”
“But when it was you—”
“I only checked your vitals and took blood. How can you imagine I would ever want to hurt you?”
“Maybe because everyone else has.” Seffy sniffed hard, forcing her over-wrought mind in a different direction. “Is there any chance Popov was sent here by the
pinko-commies you ditched in Mother Russia?”
The nurse shrugged. “But you dispatched him and the compound dealt with most of his men...eventually.”
God. She put a hand out to the wall.
“And now you know why all those men chased you through time. Your blood is special, Seffy.”
“You mean after it kills.”
“Well, yes, with proper dilution and compositions, that is a wrinkle to be ironed out.”
“Is that why you haven't tried it with Fenn yet? How do you know my super special blood won't heal him?”
Olga was silent for the space of several heartbeats. “You said it yourself,” she said quietly. “Your blood kills.”
***
She caught her breath when she saw him. God, it had been so long. How had she survived these moments without him by her side?
Seffy watched Trent where he stood in the doorway of the old disco. The pulsating music rattled her. Flashing lights flared in time. Dancers undulated their way around the room. But her attention remained arrested on her husband.
Trent saw someone he recognized and his face lit with pleasure. It took a moment for Seffy to realize he wasn't looking at her.
Her smile faded and a cold wind swept over her, chilling her to the bone. Trent pushed the disco's door open a little more as if preparing to leave.
Seffy wanted to cry out but the music was too loud. Who did he see? Why was he leaving?
Suddenly, his smile evaporated and confusion crossed his features. She turned her head around to follow his gaze, wondering how he could see anything in the rainbow-hued mass of dancers.
A flash of pink caught her eye. Seffy saw a woman in a pink tracksuit frantically pushing through the crowd toward the back of the disco. The woman ran her hands along the walls apparently looking for doors. When she located one, she ripped it open, only to be disappointed with what she found. She spun on her heel and faced the front of the disco.