by C C Roth
The girl in the front sat up again. “They took my little sister a week ago. Do you think she could still be there? Alive?”
“I do. I don’t know exactly why they’re doing this, but I bet that’s where she is. I’m looking for someone too. We won’t know until we see it for ourselves.”
A glimmer of hope sparkled in her eyes as she nodded. She was in.
“Is anyone else missing people? Maybe they’re there right now. We can get them out.”
There were several nodding along who looked like they were on board and the rest looked content to follow but really what were they going to do if they disagreed? They were all tied up anyway and some crazy chick just jumped on a train and shot two people. I would’ve listened to me too if I were them.
The dark-haired guy finally shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Seriously? We’re just going to follow this girl into some crazy lab on the hope that her ridiculous plan will work out?”
No one said anything. He was alone.
“Okay, Crazy-pants, what do we do? Since you’re apparently in charge here, what’s the plan?”
I scowled at his nickname choice but tried to ignore it. “My brother and I will escort you all in as if we’re military. I have two handguns that I’ll give to two of you for when the time comes. That way you won’t be totally unprotected if we’re separated. Once we’re in and we find where they’re keeping everyone we get back out. All of us. Together. As long as no one freaks out and we keep quiet it should work. And if it doesn’t work, we have the guns. Really it’s no different than what was about to happen to you anyway but at least with my way you have an exit strategy.”
They nodded. After everyone consented it was time to get ready. My brother reluctantly helped me pull the female soldier out into the aisle so I could undress her then he went to her male counterpart and studied him for a moment.
“Sam, this won’t work” he called over his shoulder.
I was still awkwardly struggling to pull the dead girl’s pants down.
Things you didn’t think you’d be doing today.
“Sam?”
“What?”
“I said this won’t work.”
“Probably not, but we don’t have much of a choice if we want to see this through. Besides, I have to find out if Noah is in there. I owe Frank and Ellen that much.”
“No, I mean look. I can’t wear this uniform. I’m twice the size of this guy.”
I walked over and looked down at the crumpled mess of a body. He was all arms and legs and his position was a bit comical, of course probably not to anyone but me.
“Crap.” Mike was right. The dead man was much thinner than him. I looked around and studied everyone. The guy who’d spoken up first was the closest match in body type. He met my gaze and looked a little startled as I approached him.
“What’s your name?”
“Navin.”
“Navin, you just got promoted. Do you know how to shoot a gun?”
He hesitated and stuttered a bit. “I do. I’m not great but I’m okay.”
“As long as you don’t shoot me by mistake, we’ll be fine.” I bent down and slashed his zip ties free. “Suit up.”
His face was a statue as he rubbed his wrists with his free hands. “Sure, why not? You want me to put on a dead man’s clothes. Great. You’re going to get us all killed anyway so why the hell not?”
“Yeah, why the hell not? Or maybe I should put these back on?” I waved some zip ties in the air successfully shutting him up.
I still needed one more capable person who could take a gun. We would need it for sure and it would make me feel better to know that someone would have Mike’s back if we got separated. I looked around the train car again at the exhausted and scared faces surrounding me.
“Now, who else can shoot? Mike is getting a handgun and I need one of you to take the other for when it’s time to get back out.”
Two guys raised their hands reluctantly and I picked the oldest, hoping he’d had more training. I handed him the pistol and told him how to conceal it in his waistband so his arms lowered in front would hide it, but he’d still be able to get to it if his hands were bound. Hopefully no one would get searched.
“Just try not to look like you’re hiding a gun.”
He looked sweaty and super awkward.
“Try harder.”
With all of my accomplices ready to go it was my turn next. There wasn’t exactly a dressing room on the train so I went to the very back wall of the passenger car behind the seats and slipped into the dead woman’s fatigues, leaving Noah’s borrowed clothes in a heap on the floor. It was kind of funny that I hadn’t worn my own clothes most of the day and somehow it seemed appropriate that I was playing dress up again. First hiding in Noah’s clothes and next a soldier who I just stripped. I hadn’t felt like my old self in so long, trying on different people’s lives didn’t really seem that strange to me somehow. The uniform was stiff but fit well and I wondered briefly what this woman’s life was like before I ripped it away from her just so I could borrow an outfit. Had she been a good person once, before our world went to crap? Was she someone’s mother? She wasn’t that much older than I was. A deep part of me, the part that was still Sam, wanted to feel remorse but I couldn’t. Pieces of me had been slipping away and turning into someone else for a while now. I wish I had been frightened by it, but I wasn’t. This transformation was rooted so deeply in my soul that somewhere I knew this was always going to happen. My cold friend was smiling and holding me close. So closely that we were one and the same and I was more It than me. So there was no feeling of remorse or shame or doubt as I stared down at the woman’s lifeless body. There was only cold… and I liked it.
“Sam?” Mike’s voice jerked me out of my mental check-out and back to real time. “You okay? You look, I don’t know, not good.”
He won’t understand. He’ll be afraid of you if you tell him.
“I’m just tired,” I said, and gave a fake smile.
It wasn’t a lie it just wasn’t the whole truth. I’m just tired and I’m not Sam anymore, is what I should have said. But no matter how much my brother loved me or wanted to protect me, this just wasn’t something he could fix, and he wouldn’t be able to stand it. He wouldn’t be able to live with me this way. His moral compass had always held strong while mine was currently spinning wildly out of control. He wouldn’t be comfortable around me anymore. Or maybe I just liked the idea that someone would still see Sam when they looked at me.
I turned away to avoid him and pretended to busy myself. I emptied my ammunition supply into the pockets of my new fatigues then stashed my backpack under a seat. The two bodies had been laid out on the floor behind the back row in hopes they would go unnoticed. Someone’s dead foot had managed its way into the aisle and I quickly nudged it back with the toe of my new military boots. It was still dark out and pretty dim inside, so I wasn’t too worried. As long as no one climbed in to look around we’d be fine. The illusion was complete.
We could all feel the momentum of the train slowing and the trees outside weren’t passing as quickly. There was a sudden and visible emotional shift in the train car as if an incredible wave of tension slammed into all of us at once. No one believed this was going to work, not really. Navin and I were dressed and looked the part, hopefully no one would notice the youth on my face and the terror all over his.
I felt fine but everyone else looked like they were going to puke.
“Okay,” I said, “this is it. Everyone stick to the plan. As long as we stick to the plan, we’ll be fine. Stay calm and don’t panic.”
This seemed to offer no comfort. In my head I could hear Nia’s robot impression she used to do to make fun of me, Boop boop beep beep. I am a real girl. Boop.
The train was slowing even more and these kids were freaked. They needed to calm down or something would go wrong but I didn’t know what to say.
Mike saw it too and spoke up. “Think of whoever
it is that you’re hoping to find in there. Picture their face and know that you’re doing this for them. We can get out of this together if we work together. Just remember, this is where you were already headed but now you’re not a prisoner anymore. We are in control and we owe it to the others inside to try.”
They all seemed to lighten up and I could tell his words had sunk in and hit home with everyone. He always had been better at relating to people than me. I mouthed a thank you to him as a building came into view through the dirty windowpanes.
We’d been traveling through a heavily wooded area for several miles now so there hadn’t been much to see. Not to mention it was the middle of the night and there weren’t many well-lit areas anymore what with most of the electrical grid being shut down. Suddenly the trees ended, and we could see tall parking lot lights, burning brightly up ahead. Everyone craned their necks to peek out of the dingy windows. It was some sort of commercial compound with several office buildings and one large lot connecting them all. The type of place you’d find dental and legal offices. Visually it was a sharp contrast to the quaint and historic feel of Bloomfield, but it held the same ominous threat. There were three soldiers standing near a makeshift platform ahead of us, all of them armed. They had bored looks on their faces as if they’d been waiting for a long time. It was just now sometime around midnight so maybe they’d been on watch all night. The train coming to a complete stop felt like it took an endless amount of time. It was a loud process with hissing and bumping that ended on one final jolt forward. I looked to Navin and we both stood up and began the process of releasing everyone’s feet so they could walk. I gave my best impression of an authority figure as I moved about the passenger car.
The three guards were of varying age and build. Two men both with pistols holstered and one woman with what appeared to a semi-automatic rifle of some sort. It looked exactly like something from one of Mike’s video games he used to play. Of the three, she looked like the toughest. Short bleached hair with sharp angles as if she’d sawed it off herself using a hunting knife. The jagged scar across her forehead gave proof she’d been through a real battle before. Though it was clearly an older wound it was still pink and dominated the left side of her face under her hairline. She had a serious scowl and did not look like she was in the mood to be messed with, ever. I was going to need a distraction.
In a sudden wave of panic or genius an idea popped in my head. As I stood up from unlocking the last row of prisoners’ zip ties I ducked down and soaked up some of the blood from the dead soldier’s wound with my discarded t-shirt.
“Hey,” I said to the guy next to me. “Come here and hold still.”
“Eww, what are you doing?” He recoiled as I started to smear the blood down the front of his face.
“Just trust me.”
I took the same blood-soaked shirt and rubbed it on my elbow and sleeve. It looked convincing enough. Aside from the grossed-out grimace on his face he looked like a guy who’d just been whacked in the nose a few times.
“Now stop whining and try to look tough. Scowl or something.”
I grabbed a bottle of water from my backpack and dumped half of it down my left pant leg. Mike turned from the aisle with an irritated expression and mouthed “What are you doing?” but there was no time to explain.
I nodded to Navin and he opened the side car door and jumped down first to start helping each prisoner off of the train. It was a short jump onto giant stacks of plywood sheets then two makeshift steps down to the grass that edged the parking lot. The lot lights were burning bright and cast a glow over everyone’s faces. Fourteen kids jumped down then it was my turn. I made sure to make a bit of a show when my new partner in crime got down. I gave him a hard shove in the back right as his feet hit the wood platform and he stumbled forward onto his knees with a grunt. The guards took notice of the interaction and the blonde woman eyed me a bit.
Navin and I both nodded a hello to the three guards as we barked orders to our prisoners.
“Okay, line up. Let’s go.” I tried to sound as grown up and pissed off as possible.
The blonde guard walked over, holding her rifle across her front, and looked each of the kids over.
“I count fourteen.” She stopped in front of the one I’d bloodied. “What happened to this one?” she asked gruffly.
“He gave us a little trouble when I was securing his feet. Had to pop him in the nose.” I showed my elbow in explanation then gestured to my pant leg. “Of course, he had to puke on me.”
“Geez, you had an interesting ride.” One of the men said, scowling at my wet pant leg.
“Yeah, he got me good. I’ve smelled better.”
She looked annoyed as she sized him up then dismissed him and turned back to me.
“Our roster says to expect 15. Where’s the last one?”
I shrugged as casually as I could manage. “Couldn’t say. This is what they gave us so this is what we have. We didn’t ask we just loaded them up from the truck.” Apparently, I was imitating a soldier who was awful at her job.
She glared at me like I was an idiot.
“We’ll take it from here.” She motioned to her buddies as she took the lead at the front of the line and started motioning the kids toward the fence.
“If it’s all the same, I’d like to make sure he gets inside. He’s tried to escape more than once.”
She was not in the mood to suffer any fools and she could not have cared less about me. She stared me down.
“It’s not protocol for you to enter the facility. Which you should know. So like I said, we got it from here.”
I kind of shrugged and leaned my head in towards her in a gesture of confidence. “I know, I’m sorry. I really just want to clean this crap off me before we get out of here. I don’t want to smell like puke and blood all the way back. C’mon, you understand, right?”
She didn’t.
One of the other soldiers spoke up. “For shit’s sake, c’mon Grace, let ‘em come in and wash up for a minute. It’s not gonna hurt anything and we gotta get the hell inside. I’m tired.” He waved me on. “Let’s go.”
“Great, thanks a lot. Five minutes, I swear.”
Grace eyed me up and down, but I didn’t give her the chance to protest. Navin and I quickly fell in beside the line of unfortunates and started to walk on either side of the blood covered prisoner as we let the men in front lead the way. I held my breath and waited for Grace to say something again.
“Just make it quick,” she snarled.
Her eyes were burning a hole in the back of my skull the entire way. Lucky for me I’d had a lot of practice lying and some surly chick with a glare was not about to make me crumble. Navin was holding it together surprisingly well and the guy I’d soaked with blood was glaring at me which was actually helping to sell our little ruse. I looked around as we walked toward the front and noticed the lot had one unmarked delivery truck parked near the front of the building and only a couple cars so hopefully there wouldn’t be too many people inside. The entire building was lit up which meant someone was pumping a lot of electricity into this place but who and why? This was no small feat considering most of the electrical grid was shut down across this half of the country.
It doesn’t matter who’s responsible. Just end them. Someone was getting antsy again.
There was one guard at the glass doors, but really no other security measures seemed to be in place. It felt like an odd choice for a government operation. Why not a fortified military base or somewhere more secure? Or maybe there weren’t enough people out here for them to worry about security. Maybe the virus had taken care of that. The plaque embedded in brick near the door read, Lunis Laboratories and Research Facility. So, it was some sort of lab like the Train Man had said. The darkness outside had worked to our advantage in covering up our half-baked guise but the brightly burning fluorescents overhead had me worried.
There was a set of stairs just off the lobby entrance to the left that went
up and one that went down. The two male soldiers split up, one went ahead of the line and the other stood watch behind as the distraught kids filed down the stairs. Navin and I started to follow but Grace wasn’t having it. She took a stance at the top of the stairs and froze us out with her glare. Mike began his decent with the rest, giving me a concerned glance over his shoulder as he went.
“Bathroom is there.” Grace pointed through the lobby past a waiting area towards a small alcove labeled Restrooms. Her face said it all, scowling at me in full active-bitch-mode.
“Thanks again, I’ll just rinse these out and be gone.” I moved quickly not wanting to give her any more opportunity to question my motives. I was obviously on her radar by breaking protocol. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.
Poor Grace may not make it.
I nudged Navin and we both headed for the bathrooms. “What do we do now?” he whispered.
“No clue. Hope she takes off before we run out of time.”
“And what if she doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll deal with it.”
I pushed the ladies room door open and went in, leaving Navin looking awkward in the alcove. Grace was still standing at the top of the stairs with her rifle in hand. Geez, GI Jane was super annoying. I really did have to go so I used the restroom quickly and tried to think what the hell we were going to do in the next two minutes before Grace would come busting in and beat the crap out of us. We needed a diversion. Something to draw her away from the stairs. But we also needed time to look around and figure out what this place was so we couldn’t exactly have her chasing us around.
Get rid of her, we’ll have plenty of time.
It was going to be messy, but my friend was right. She had to go. I stepped out of the door quietly and stood next to Navin. Grace’s back was to us, but she hadn’t budged from her post at the top of the stairs.
“Okay, we both go at her and take her down,” I whispered to him.
“Go at her? Are you joking? Look at her! I’m not a trained soldier and neither are you. She’d kick my ass.”