Escaping Grace: A Turning Grace Novel (18 page)

“I was there. And so were Ian and Sonny. Bring them here and they will tell you what really happened.”

He looked down at his hands. “Grace, I’m sorry. I can’t do that. From this point on, you will all be on lockdown…”

My eyes were getting heavier, and it was getting harder to understand what he was saying. I tried to focus on his mouth, to keep my mind off the nauseating feeling in my throat.

“…you will each have a guard that will stay with you at all times and—”

“What…about…V,” I mumbled. The words were coming out slowly as I fought to hold back the bile. The room began to spin, and I clumsily searched for the edge of a chair to keep me steady.

“Grace? Have you eaten?”

I looked at Dr. Roberson, but he wouldn’t seem to keep still. He was floating around and around and my eyes followed. I looked up at the fluorescent lights of the conference room, which seemed to be getting brighter and brighter and burning my eyes.

I glanced around the room, trying to find something else to focus on. Something that would stop moving.

Next to me was a man sitting at the table with a clean-shaven face and a white lab coat. I squinted at him as he furrowed his brows at me.

I stared at his mouth and it appeared as though he was talking. I was trying to read his lips, but nothing would register. It just sounded like noise.

“I…I…” I didn’t know what I was trying to say. All I could see was a tiny red dot on his neck.

I zeroed in on what was probably just a cut from shaving his face that morning. But my body and stomach knew it was much more than that. Underneath that tiny dot was a whole mess of veins and arteries.

My mouth watered at the thought of how he tasted. How the layers of his flesh would probably taste better than the crunchy, greasy skin on a piece of fried chicken.

My stomach rumbled as I imagined his tender meat gliding down my throat and landing into the ravenous pit of hunger in my belly.

I bit my lip…hard…because I knew that what I was thinking wasn’t the right thing. I knew that what my body wanted to do was against all that I said I wouldn’t do again. My mind was in the right place, but it wasn’t about my mind anymore. My stomach was thinking for me now. And now…I needed to eat.

He had no idea what was coming. I lunged at him so quickly that he didn’t even have a chance to move a finger.

I went straight for his neck, mouth open and ready to bite down. From someone on the outside looking in, it might have looked like I was giving this man a hug and a kiss on the neck. But oh…this was no kiss. I sucked in the smell of his musk cologne through my mouth before the aroma of that tiny spec of blood on his neck took over.

I bit down.

Normally, I would black out at this point. Normally, I wouldn’t remember a thing if I was sitting down and having a normal (well, close to normal) meal. But strangely enough, while I was chomping away on this guy, I realized that it wasn’t the case when I was eating something with a pulse. I remembered things so clearly when I ate Fluffy the Cat, and Sonny’s arm, and my beautiful bestie. Phoebe’s situation was more like a dream state, but I still remembered what I did and what she tasted like.

Maybe it was because instinctively, I needed to be fully awake and lucid to be able to keep hold of my prey. Because let’s face it, I was a predator. A predator on the hunt for the freshest meat possible.

Using mostly my front teeth to puncture his skin, I twisted my head and pulled, which loosened the muscle in his neck. Blood began squirting out like a sprinkler, and I quickly closed my eyes to keep it from getting inside them.

I bit down again, this time ripping away a chunk and swallowing it whole. There was no time to chew. I needed more.

There was noise in the background. I could hear people shuffling, and my name being called, but I didn’t care enough to look up from what I was doing. The euphoria of every bite was taking over all of my emotions. All of my worry. All of my guilt. All of my anger and all of my sorrow.

The blood was gushing down the sides of my mouth and I was actually pissed about that. I didn’t want to waste one ounce of this guy. And speaking of this guy, either he was too shocked at what was happening, or I was just strong enough to hold him down.

It seemed incredibly easy. Maybe a little too easy.

I don’t remember this much blood coming from Sonny’s arm or even Phoebe’s body.

Was something wrong?

I pulled away for an instant to sneak a peek at the doctor’s face and what was going on. I found myself practically sitting on him as if he were Santa Claus. He and I were completely covered in his scarlet blood, and I could feel it dripping off of my face.

He was leaning to the side, practically falling off the chair. His head was hanging over, exposing his neck and the gaping hole that was now in it.

His eyes were somewhat open, but I could easily tell that there was no life in them.

I killed him.

Suddenly, there were hands underneath both my arms and I was being jerked out of the doctor’s laps and onto my feet.

My body was limp. I stared at the dead doctor sitting motionless in the chair.

He was gone. And I killed him.

My feet shuffled as the arms pulled me out of the blood-spattered conference office and down the hall. I was taken into an examining room, where I was slammed down into a not-so-cushioned table.

I stared up at the ceiling while I felt my arms and legs being spread apart and strapped down. Two straps were slung over my torso, locking me into place.

I killed another person. The body count was growing.

Ian’s back-story suddenly came to mind. How could he have killed all of those people and not feel an ounce of guilt or remorse while he was doing it? Death wasn’t something I thought about before I turned. And killing someone wasn’t something that I thought about beyond what serial killers did in horror movies. Sure, I loved blood and guts and Halloween and all things scary, but it wasn’t something that I ever had a desire to see in real life.

And now I have killed two people at my own hands…and others because of my actions. I could never get used to this. I could never get used to the empty feeling inside of me. I felt heartless…devoid of a soul. I felt like a monster.

Chapter 16

The Villain

There was a mechanical noise buzzing under my butt and suddenly the ceiling was moving. The table I was lying on repositioned vertically and a second later Dr. Roberson came into view.

He sighed. “Grace, on top of what you did at East Cocos, you didn’t eat the right amount of food today.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You have backed me into a corner here. I’m not sure what to do with you now.”

Just kill me.

“You were supposed to be the role model. You were supposed to be my best subject. You were the first to revolutionize Serum Z. If I hadn’t injected you, I may not have ever injected anyone.”

Would that have been a bad thing?

“You proved that my formula worked, and encouraged me to further my research.”

“What is wrong with Abby and all those people at East Cocos? What did you do to them?” I asked in a low voice. It was time to get some answers.

“Abby and the other subjects were part of an experiment I was doing to enhance the capabilities of Serum Z. Unfortunately, the experiment went awry.”

“How? Is that why Abby bit off my friend’s face?”

“As I said before, your friends attacked her first. But yes, you are right. The experiment caused my subjects to become more aggressive. It caused them to be unable to control their hunger,” he explained.

“You said V was in trouble. What’s going to happen to him?” I wanted to cry so badly. The thought of V’s life never being the same hurt me deeply. I never intended to bring him in the middle of this. He was a good person.

Dr. Roberson stared at me a moment before answering, as if he was questioning whether or not he should tell me. But he did. “It seemed that the particular serum we used on those patients mutated, causing it to have a viral agent. The serum that you carry in your blood is not contagious. As explained to you before, you cannot bite someone and make them what you are. However, those subjects at East Cocos can. They can infect another person. And they will attack anything and anyone. It doesn’t matter to them.”

Holy crap! “Are you telling me that they could cause a zombie outbreak? And why is their serum different from mine?” For months I have felt like I was in a horror movie and this confirmed it.

“I have created many different formulas over the years in an effort to perfect it.” He grinned. “But you don’t get it do you, Grace? You think this is all one of your horror movie scenarios. That I am the evil villain and you are all the victims. I am on the cusp of changing life itself! Every one of my subjects that have been injected is able to live forever. Do you understand that this goes far beyond anything you can comprehend? Do you not understand that I have created a whole new meaning of life?”

He was so proud of himself. His eyes were gleaming, sparkling even, as he explained to me that he was basically the new God. But there was something else in his eyes. It wasn’t about the possibility of making life better…it was greed. There was an unspoken power radiating off his skin and dripping off every word that came out of his mouth.

“So, what? Do you plan on selling this stuff to people?” I asked. I was trying to remain calm, but I was getting more and more pissed off at the sound of his condescending tone.

“Do you have any idea how many people I have already saved? Do you think you and the rest of the subjects here are the only ones that have been injected? I have spent years traveling the world, finding victims that have succumbed to death too soon.”

I was too dumbfounded to respond. The world? I tried to somehow use my math skills, but there was no way to accurately figure out exactly how many people we were talking about. I didn’t have the right numbers in front of me. All I could do was take a wild guess and multiply that by his massive ego.

“I have been a savior to many, and continue to be. With the benefits that Serum Z has, such as intelligence, strength, and healing abilities, there is no reason why disease or accidents or murder should even exist anymore. Death will no longer be an option. At least not so easily.”

“But you are killing innocent people! I saw your Freezer of Death. You killed Tristen!”

“Unfortunately with the good, comes the bad. Not all things are perfect, Grace. When things settle down and the formula is on the market, we will be able to weed out the human donors. Eventually, we will get to a point where we are only using people who don’t deserve a life. Prisoners, homeless people…our world has enough evil and useless people to feed everyone!”

“But Tristen wasn’t bad! He didn’t deserve to die!” My heart felt as though it were being squeezed into a million pieces. It was my fault that he was gone. I trusted Dr. Roberson and he paid for it.

“Tristen was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was only going to be a distraction for you anyway, Grace. I needed you to cut all ties with your life back in the States. All of my subjects have learned that this is their life now.” He placed a hand on my cheek. “He was mortal, and it would not have worked out between you two. But he served his purpose. He kept you well-fed. And what I said before about getting the proper nourishment was true. As much as you might hate it, human flesh is going to be the only way to stay alive.”

Well-fed? “What do you mean?” I felt like I was suddenly losing my breath.

“The morning you woke up in the Z lab and had that amazing breakfast, Tristen provided that for you from his own flesh. You see, Grace, he took care of you even though he was no longer with us. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use his entire body just for you. We like to rotate the meals.”

I could feel everything I had eaten earlier in the day begin to bubble up into my throat.

He fed Tristen to me? He fed Tristen to me!

I wanted to scream! I wanted to bust out of these restraints and choke the man to death before eating his entire body in one sitting! How could he have done this to me? How could I have been so stupid to come to this horrid, disgusting island?

I wiggled and thrashed my head from side to side. I tried with every muscle in my body to somehow maneuver myself out of the arm straps, but there was no way I could. Yes, I had just eaten a huge chunk out of that doctor’s neck, but it wasn’t enough to give me the Z strength I needed. And I knew that with all of Dr. Roberson’s high-tech toys, these restraints were probably made of some ridiculously strong material or something.

Dr. Roberson’s assistant came to the door. “Sir, there’s a problem.”

She didn’t look at me. Dr. Roberson turned around to face her. She whispered whatever the problem was. I moved my head to the side to see if maybe I could read her lips, but Dr. Roberson’s head was blocking my view.

“Well, you need to find him. Now!” he yelled.

The assistant scampered back out into the hallway. He took a breath and slid his hand through his hair before turning back toward me.

“Well, it seems that Agent Vito has disappeared, but not before costing yet another one of my subject’s lives.”

Oh my God. Who was it now?

“I need to get the rest of the subjects here. You will all be going to East Cocos tonight. Since I cannot trust that you won’t cause any more trouble on my compound, I feel that it would be safer to have you in a cell.”

He started to walk out of the door. “Dr. Roberson, wait!” I yelled.

I allowed my emotions to finally surface. I could feel the tears already fighting their way out, but it wasn’t because I was trying to pull off a ploy to possibly con him into some kind of sincere reaction. It was because I knew that I had lost so much tonight, and that I was going to have to really fight my way out of this one.

And maybe the ploy part too.

I let the tension in my body loosen so it seemed that I was really helpless. The tears began streaming down my face and I sunk into a sad, hopeless demeanor.

“Will I ever see my mom again? Can I at least call her?”

He slowly walked over to me and stopped about two inches away from my face. “Grace, you had your chance. You could have followed me, been by my side through this wonderful journey. Not only was I using your body for further experimentation, but I had plans for you.” He glanced out into the distance behind me, as if imagining it. “You were going to be the face of Serum Z.”

“Using my body?”

“Of course. Those checkup visits every few weeks were to make sure your body was functioning correctly, yes. But we also ran multiple tests while you were asleep. There is only so much we could see with the tests that were performed while you were awake. We had to physically see inside your body. Surgical procedures are performed all the time on my subjects. Even the ones at East Cocos. And being that you are a female, your reproductive system is vital to our research. But the beauty of it all was that with your healing capabilities, you would simply recover almost fully in just a few hours. And you never knew exactly what we were doing.”

I suddenly felt…violated. He was
inside
me, without my consent. There were so many lines that had been crossed. I just didn’t see them until now.

I was afraid to ask, but I did anyway. “What’s going to happen to us?”

He looked me straight in the eyes. “We will just have to wait and see. Once the serum is completely out in the world, and you see all the good it has done, then maybe you will voluntarily join me. The next few days are going to be hectic. I have meetings with committees and the FDA. We are waiting on some final approvals and the last of the papers to be signed.”

Was he serious? The Food and Drug Administration?

“Is the FDA okay with killing and feeding humans to…humans?” I asked, truly surprised. I didn’t think cannibalism was ever an option unless you were part of a tribe deep in the Amazon.

Dr. Roberson chuckled. “Oh, Grace. So naïve. So young and innocent. You have no idea how the world works. Of course the FDA is not okay with that. But that’s why I will be the sole distributer of the proper sustenance for the individuals who choose to have Serum Z as an end-of-life option. At least in the beginning. Once it’s out in the world, once we have high profile immortals such as congressmen and maybe even the president, they will be begging me to feed them. I’ve already got two Senators in D.C. with Serum Z coursing through their bloodstreams as we speak. Needless to say, they have been working to help get it out on the market.”

What more could I say to this maniacal psycho? He clearly had a plan, one that he had set into place for years now. He had multiple resources: money, power, a slew of people working for him, and apparently big time Zombrids on his side. I mean, if he was able to make Phoebe and Eric’s deaths seem like something it wasn’t, then he was pretty much capable of anything.

How was I going to get out of this? He was going to lock me away, lock Sonny and the rest of us away for God knew how long.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

I had to stall him. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

Where are you getting at, Grace?

“Uh…what about you? You aren’t a Zombrid. You aren’t immortal.”

Did I even know for sure if he was or not? I guess I would find out now.

He grinned and his creepily excited look was back. Yes, that was much scarier than pissed off Dr. Roberson.

“What a great question, Grace.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I actually have an appointment before my meetings. You see, it would be much easier to persuade people by showing them exactly what Serum Z can do first-hand.”

“You have an appointment? To what? Turn?”

“Yes. You and I will soon be part of the same club.”

“But you have to be dead.”

“Very good! Someone’s been paying attention,” he patronized. Then, without another word, he left the room.

I shut my eyes and banged the back of my head against the table in frustration.

I hated him. And I’ve always hated him. Why did I give into his lies and promises that I would be okay? I would have been better off at home, feeding off the neighborhood cats!

I wondered if my mother knew anything about Dr. Roberson’s plans. My guess was that she didn’t considering how protective she was of me. She would not have allowed me to be thousands of miles away from her with a homicidal maniac.

The straps around my arms, ankles, and torso were tight. I tried to wiggle out again, but was not successful.

How the hell was I going to get out of this?

Then, Dr. Roberson’s personal assistant poked her head into the room. She glanced around before walking in and shutting the door behind her.

“Grace, I’m going to get you out of here,” she whispered.

I was stunned. I didn’t even know this woman’s name! And now she was here to save me? “Get me off the island?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t do that. The boat isn’t docked here right now. But I can hide you until we figure out how.”

She hurriedly undid the straps around my body and helped me down off the table. “Listen, if Dr. Roberson knew I was helping you, he will have me in that freezer faster than you could even say freezer.”

I didn’t realize this before, but this woman was very pretty. Her olive complexion was flawless and she wore very minimal makeup. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail and she had on black slacks, a white buttoned down shirt and a blazer, reminding me of something a detective would wear. She couldn’t be more than in her late twenties and now that I was able to get a really good look at her, she actually looked familiar.