Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (73 page)

Reluctantly, the nurse put the papers on the counter. As he signed, Dr. Metz tried to get his attention. “Before you leave, can we please step into my office?”

“Sorry, but we really have to be going.” He was
not
kidding as he finished signing and headed for the front door.

Dr. Metz cut him off. “It will just take a second. I’m worried about Fanny’s stability outside of her familiar surroundings.”

“She’ll be fine,” Rook stated. “As I told your staff, I am on an extremely tight schedule.”

Fanny stopped kissing Rook long enough to add, “Boy, does he mean it! Next thing you know, there’ll be some monster crashing through the window.” Despite Rook’s attempts to quiet her, Fanny kept going. “And sometimes they breathe fire out of their eyes, or others have tails, and you can try to ride ‘em. You know, they are usually trying to eat you, but that just makes it all the more fun, right?”

Rook couldn’t help but grin. “That’s right, Fanny.” After Dr. Metz’s extremely concerned reaction, Rook whispered, “I will keep up her antipsychotic medications.”

Before the doctor could respond, Rook made for the door. Once their escape was accomplished, Rook tried to set Fanny down. She sprang out of his arms, and then jumped on his back, riding him like a horse. Sighing, Rook made his way to the car. It was usually easier that way.

“Where are we going?” Fanny asked, chewing her gum.

“To fight some bad men.”

“Yippee!” Fanny exclaimed as they reached the car.

Rook opened the back door, but Fanny wouldn’t budge. “Fanny, please. We’ve got to get going.”

“But I want to ride in the front with Beauty.”

Rook pointed into the car. Using his best tempting tone, “But look who’s in the backseat.”

Without getting off his back, Fanny peered inside the station wagon. “OMG! Tomahawk!” She launched from Rook’s back into the car. “I’ve missed you so much!”

Now it was Tomahawk’s turn to be showered in pink love. Rook used the opportunity to get into the front seat before Fanny turned her abundant affections onto him again.

“Onward to the warehouse,” Rook instructed Beauty.

“You got it,” Beauty stated as she pulled away from the curb. “I’ve already scouted it.”

“Oh, my gosh! Beauty! You’ve got pink hair!” Fanny exclaimed, wrapping her arms around the Arranger’s neck. “We are like twins!”

Beauty laughed. “Yes, honey. We are soul sisters.”

“I am so excited!” Fanny clapped her hands. “We’re all back together again! Do you know what that means?”

“What? Death and certain destruction?” Tomahawk asked sourly. However, Fanny did not seem to notice.

“No, silly! S’mores!” Fanny clapped again. “Rook always lets us cook ‘em once we are done!”

Rook grinned. Not even Tomahawk could stay sullen around Fanny. “Yes. That he does,” Tomahawk said.

A moan from the rear of the car must have caught Fanny’s attention. She leaned over the seat and giggled. Pointing, she asked innocently, as only Fanny could, “Who’s he?”

* * *

Angela tried to rest, but her foot twitched on its own. Even after the more-than-thorough exam, they still could not decide if her pregnancy was normal or not. She tried to push that from her mind. Did the origin of her pregnancy really matter if she was stuck in this prison?

The lights flickered overhead. Was someone in the corner?

“When you are freed,” the mechanical voice whispered, “you must run up. Always up.”

“When will I be freed?”

“Soon,” the mysterious figure answered, “but you must run
up
.”

“But why?” she asked, and then the lights stopped flickering. She didn’t need to crane her neck to know that the figure had gone. Still, hope flooded through her as surely as the fluids going into her veins from the IV.

Whoever was behind the voice obviously circumvented security. But could this person actually break her out? And, once out, what would they want with her?

Angela rested her head on the pillow. There was only one way to find out.

As she waited, she muttered, “Up… up and out.”

* * *

Tomahawk lay on his belly at the edge of the roof, sweeping the infrared binoculars over the building across from them.

“Is it my turn?” Fanny asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“Not yet, honey,” said Beauty, guiding the girl away from the edge.

“But that’s what you said thirty-seven seconds ago,” Fanny whined.

Tomahawk sat up and turned to Rook. “Clear so far, but I don’t want to make any bets on the type of security they’ve got in there.”

“Why?”

“See those wires?” Tomahawk asked as he pointed to a cluster of wiring that ran from a pole to the building in question. Rook nodded, and Tomahawk continued. “They are drawing some serious juice into the building. My guess is for some serious surveillance and defensive equipment.”

“Achoo!” Fanny announced behind them.

“Fanny, are you sensing something?” Rook asked the girl.

The girl sat hugging her knees, rocking back and forth, no longer jubilant. Her voice was lower and more somber. “There is something. It tickles my nose.”

“Forces of good? Or evil?” Rook asked.

Fanny though, seemed in a trance. Her eyes glazed over, and her head weaved of its own accord. “I sense only hunger.”

Despite the answer not being particularly helpful, Tomahawk watched Rook pat Fanny on the shoulder. “Good job.”

Rook straightened and looked at Beauty. “I guess we might as well get this party started.”

Then, with no further explanation, Rook headed toward the metal ladder.

“So, do you have a plan?” Tomahawk asked as he joined Rook.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Mind sharing it with us?” he pressed as Rook swung a leg over the ladder.

Beauty joined them.

“Pretty much, I am going to walk in,” Rook answered, “and snatch the Virgin chick.”

Tomahawk waited for Rook to flesh out his intentions, but Rook just started climbing down the metal rungs. “That’s it? That is your
plan
?”

“Pretty much.”

Tomahawk glanced at Beauty, who lifted her shoulders in confusion. He turned to watch Rook’s retreating form. “You are, like, the king of really lousy plans, but this is the worst. They are
not
going to just let you walk in there.”

Rook looked up at Beauty. “They will, once Beauty calls the Cabal. Tell them to pull some strings.”

“Strings? What strings?” Beauty demanded. “This is an ultra-high security—”

“Hello?” Rook said as he started climbing down again. “We just saved the vice president’s nephew!”

Tomahawk looked over at the student, who was bound and gagged.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say ‘saved’ is the right word,” Tomahawk retorted.

Rook hopped off the last rung of the ladder to the street below. He craned his neck to look up. “But they don’t know that. Just get me in there, and I’ll get our mark out.

Tomahawk turned to Beauty, who seemed equally exasperated. When he turned back, Rook was gone, melting into the shadows as usual.

Beauty flipped her phone open. “I hate it when he does that.”

Tomahawk could not agree more.

CHAPTER 6

Rook stood in the middle of the maelstrom that his entrance into the warehouse had created. He counted at least six guns pointed at him, and Rook was certain there were several more that he could not see. Nearly everyone was on some sort of phone to some sort of supervisor. Clearly, they did not have a contingency plan for a casual visitor.

Two large, black doors burst open, and a trio of very angry and sweaty-palmed individuals charged toward him. The pasty one in the lab coat seemed to be in charge, but the two muscle-bound men in suits certainly appeared to be with an agency not in the public record. They had pull, or they wouldn’t be here.

“What is the meaning of this?” the doctor demanded in a thick Slavic accent.

“Let’s see…” Rook stated. “Your supersecret facility isn’t nearly as supersecret as you thought?”

“I assure you that I have no idea—”

“Angela Morrey,” Rook stated the name that he memorized from the file Beauty had furnished him. The chick who dragged him halfway around the world. “I need to confirm the reports of an immaculate conception.”

That got everyone in the room agitated again. Guess that was supposed to be supersecret, too. There wasn’t much on this plane of existence, or any other that the Cabal was not privy to.

The doctor stammered, unable to articulate his rage. However, one of the men behind him turned off his cell phone. “Do as he asks.”

“But—”

“Do it,” the man with no neck said, glaring at Rook. “Then
we
will escort him out.”

Oh, how adorable security men were when they thought they had the upper hand. Sure, they both outweighed Rook by fifty pounds of lean muscle, but the Shivates had poisoned claws and bloodcurdling magic, and look where that got them.

“So I take it, she’s thataway?” Rook asked, pointing to the large imposing doors that announced, “No Unauthorized Personnel.”

The doctor bit back a retort and turned on his heel, stomping off. The guy didn’t just have a Napoleon complex. Rook feared that the man actually thought he
was
the French dictator. Quickly, the doctor guided them through three pressure-sealed doors until they entered an observation room. The window looked into a fully stocked hospital room with only one patient.

A woman was strapped down in soft restraints. He could only guess—Angela Morrey. She must have heard the activity or the doctor’s huffing and puffing, for she opened her eyes and looked straight at him.

Her gaze held him almost against his will. Even though her hair was plastered to her head and she had an ugly bruise on her cheek, Angela was stunning. The haunted look in her eyes caught him off guard. This woman had seen some life. She knew that stories never ended “happily ever after.” If anything, people simply hoped to come out with their souls intact. Rook assumed that they would show him some sobbing teenager insisting that she didn’t know she could get pregnant the first time.

Angela was none of that—and so much more. Her dark eyes seemed to say, “Bring it.”

Oh, he would.

The impatient doctor stated, “There she is. Now you can leave.”

Without averting his gaze from Angela, Rook responded, “I need to examine her.”

Rook didn’t know how he was going to get her out, but he needed to get close to her, and then he would improvise. As per usual.

“You will do no such thing!” the doctor exclaimed, pointing to the room. “Only five people in the entire world have permission to access that chamber. It is the most secure environment in the world.”

Of course, that was about the time a huge explosion rocked the building. Everyone dove for cover as the walls shook and the room plunged into darkness. Screams and shouts echoed throughout the facility. Within moments, the red emergency lighting flickered on. Dusting off yet more debris, Rook rose and looked through the window.

Angela was gone.

“Oops, doc,” Rook commented. “Looks like you lost another one.”

* * *

Beauty watched the thin tendrils of smoke rise from the warehouse. Tomahawk lowered his binoculars.

“You think Rook did that?”

“Rook?” Beauty chuckled. “Honey, you have been gone too long. Rook can’t find a light switch in a lit room, I might add, without help, let alone blow both the power supply and the backup generator. I don’t think so.”

Tomahawk put his binoculars back in place, scanning the surrounding area. “So someone else is assailing the place?”

“Looks like it,” Beauty commented as she pointed to an approaching swarm on the horizon.

Tomahawk turned in that direction, and then snapped the binoculars down. “Crap.”

Fanny’s loud moans caught their attention. The poor girl was rocking back and forth so hard that Beauty feared she was going to hurt herself. While Beauty tried to comfort her, Tomahawk took Fanny’s hands in his own.

“Who approaches?”

“Them,” Fanny sighed. Her eyes rolled back into her head so far that they could only see the whites. That could not be comfortable.

“Who, sweetie?” Beauty asked. “Good? Evil?”

“Both,” she moaned.

Beauty looked to Tomahawk. This operation just got a whole lot more complicated. He chewed on his lip, and then made some internal decision.

“Get Chad downstairs and rev up the car.”

She did not have to be told twice. “And you?”

Tomahawk knelt. “I’ll guard Fanny. We need this vantage point until we can figure out what we are up against.”

Beauty urged Chad to his feet. “All right. Up and at ‘em, Mr.-I-Just-Had-To-Try-and-Escape-Ruining-Three-Hundred-Dollars-Worth-of-Nail-Art.”

As they stumbled to the stairs, Beauty glanced at the horizon. What had just a moment ago been a speck was now spread out across the sky, blocking the evening sun.

Rook had better have a good plan or… Well, he had just better have a good plan.

* * *

The building rattled again as another explosion tore through the facility. Even the emergency lighting flickered as Rook kept hidden.

“Find her!” the doctor bellowed, but the guards milled about.

“Shouldn’t we be looking for the intruder?”

The doctor pointed toward the hospital room. “The only thing that matters is what grows inside the
woman
. Get her!”

This time, there was no hesitation as the guards rushed from the room. Then, with one last curse, the doctor left. Which was just as well. Rook’s arms were getting tired. Carefully, he loosened his legs’ hold on the pipes that ran above the observation room, and then he dropped to the floor.

He really should get more credit for his brilliant plans, like this one. Clearly, if the Cabal knew of this facility, then half a dozen major players did. Someone was bound to hit the place—and hit it hard. Rook just needed to be on the inside when that happened.

Now, he hadn’t counted on Angela “rabbiting,” but where was the fun if everything went according to plan? Of course, he would never know how fun or not fun it would be, since nothing
ever
went according to his plan—or any plan, really.