Ward Z: Revelation (20 page)
“No,” Crystal said firmly, standing at the cabin door, “
you
are going to listen to
me
. My name is Crystal Wallace and I have a lease on this land. It's my property, do you understand? I demand that you let me out of this cabin right now!”
She waited for a moment, before knocking on the door again.
“Let me out!” she shouted. “You have no right to hold me here like a common prisoner!”
“They'll let us out when they can,” Kirsty said, still sitting on the bed with her leg raised. “There's no point pissing them off.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Crystal replied, “but I think I know how to handle myself, young lady, thank you very much.”
“Whatever,” Kirsty muttered, looking over at Freeman as Crystal started banging on the door again.
“I saw this coming,” Freeman said calmly, sitting on one of the beds with his legs crossed. “I knew it, I said to my sister, I said... Sis, the government's involved in this somehow. I always know when they're mixed up in things, I get a feeling in my water.”
“Ew,” Kirsty replied .”That's gross.”
“You know what those things are?” Freeman asked. “They're the bastard creations of a government-sponsored experiment. Those idiots just love playing god, they probably create all sorts of things in their laboratories, only this time something escaped and now everyone's running around trying to cover their asses. Meanwhile, the supine mainstream media won't report a goddamn word about it, just like they kept quiet about the Leadenford Hospital incident.”
“So,” Kirsty said after a moment, “you're into, like, conspiracies and stuff like that?”
“I'm not
into
conspiracies,” he replied, “I merely recognize them when they smack me in the face. Who else do you think has the capability and resources to create these mutations, huh?”
She shrugged.
“I bet you any money that Washington's involved as well,” he continued. “The British government would never do something like this without America's agreement. They're probably looking to weaponize these things. Trust me, the online forums have been chattering for months about secret biological research programs.”
“Sure they have,” Kirsty said with a forced smile. “And those forums would be filled with, what, people like you?” She rolled her eyes. “Please.”
“Quiet down in there!” a soldier shouted from the other side of the door.
“I will not quiet down!” Crystal shouted back at him. “I demand to speak to whoever's in charge!”
“You're just gonna get darted again,” Kirsty told her.
“This is an outrage,” Crystal continued, banging on the door yet again. “I demand -”
Hearing a bolt being slid across on the other side, she stepped back as the soldier pushed the door open.
“M'am,” he said firmly, “I am telling you now, you need to stop with the yelling and screaming, and you need to calm down. Doctor Lincoln will speak to you just as soon as he's ready.”
“You're violating my human rights,” Crystal told him.
“M'am -”
“Oh God!” Freeman shouted suddenly, clutching his chest. “I think I'm -” He stared wide-eyed at Kirsty for a moment, before slumping forward and falling off the bed, landing hard on the wooden floor.
“Are you okay?” Kirsty asked, making her way down to check on him. “Are you, like, hurt or something?”
“It's my heart,” he gasped.
“What about it?” She paused, before inching away from him. “Is it one of those things?”
“I'm getting out of here,” Crystal said, trying to force her way past the soldier before he pushed her back onto the bed. “I demand to be let out of here!” she shrieked.
Pushing the door shut, the soldier made his way over to Freeman and looked down at him for a moment.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“He said it's his heart,” Kirsty said, climbing back up onto the bed while keeping her injured foot from touching anything. “I think it might be one of those creatures, though.”
“Sir,” the soldier continued, aiming his rifle at Freeman as he leaned down to get a better look at his face. “I have to advise you that you need to sit up immediately.”
“My... heart...” Freeman gasped.
“I think maybe he's actually sick,” Kirsty said, peering at him. “He's sweating a lot.”
“He's infected!” Crystal shouted. “Oh God, you were holding us in here with someone who's got one of those creatures in his belly!”
“Hold up,” the soldier replied, peering at Freeman for a moment longer before reaching to grab his radio. “Okay, I think I need to -”
Before he could finish, Freeman sprang up and tore the rifle from the soldier's hands before raising the butt and slamming it into the his face, cracking his cheek and sending him crumpling down to the floor.
“And that,” Freeman said, as he checked the rifle, “is how to disarm a man in under three seconds.” He turned to Kirsty. “I'd tell you where I learned that particular skill, but then I'd have to kill you.”
“You learned it on the internet, didn't you?”
“If I told you that, I'd have to kill you.”
“Are you insane?” she asked. “That man is a soldier!”
“And since the moment they put us in here,” Freeman replied, kneeling next to the unconscious man and going through his pockets, “no-one has told me a damn thing about my sister.” Taking the soldier's keys and pass-cards, he checked the man's pulse before getting to his feet. “He'll be fine. I'm off to find my sister. If you two want to sit in here like obedient little idiots, hoping that these people won't execute you for knowing too much, be my guest. Me? I'm going to get my sister out of here and then I'm running as fast as I can.”
“I can't run,” Kirsty pointed out.
Pushing past Crystal, Freeman hurried out of the cabin and stopped for a moment, looking around.
“I'm surrounded by lunatics,” Crystal muttered. “We're all going to die!”
“Something's not right here,” Freeman said, turning back to them. “I don't see any other soldiers around.”
“They're probably out looking for those monsters,” Kirsty suggested.
“And they left just one person to guard the cabin? I don't think so.” He paused for a moment, feeling another slight twinge of pain in his lower back. “There's no way that guy should've fallen for my heart attack trick. It was desperate and cliched. How many soldiers did you actually see when they arrived?”
“I don't know,” Kirsty replied, thinking back for a few seconds. “Four. Five, maybe.”
“That's not a lot, is it?” Freeman pointed out. “When you're dealing with a potential outbreak of a deadly mutant species, you send a lot more than four or five men.” He looked back down at the soldier. “Especially when those men can be so easily disarmed. He went down before I even got around to the second part of my counter-attack.”
“So?”
“So there's no way in hell that he's a professional soldier. They should have sent goddamn marines to deal with this situation, but instead they sent a bunch of untrained idiots. Something about this whole thing is definitely not right.”
“They still have guns,” Crystal pointed out. “I don't like guns.”
“I'm going to find my sister and then I'm getting out of here,” Freeman replied. “You two ladies are welcome to join me.” He turned to Kirsty. “I can even help you to move faster, despite your injury. Are you with me or not?”
“I -”
“Make your mind up!”
“I...” She paused, before starting to clamber off the bed. “I just want to get out of here!”
“Help her,” Freeman told Crystal.
“Me? What can I do?”
“Just help her. Get her outside and wait for me. This shouldn't take long.” With that, he turned and hurried away from the cabin.
“He's insane,” Crystal pointed out as she helped Kirsty toward the door. “I don't just mean that he's a little weird, I mean he's absolutely out of his mind.”
“I'm totally going that way too,” Kirsty muttered, gasping with pain as her raw and bloodied foot bumped against the wall. “I don't think I can do this! I'm only going to slow you down, you should leave me behind.”
“Okay,” Crystal replied, suddenly lowering her to the floor before taking a step back. “You're right. I'm sorry, I hope you manage to find another way out.”
“Hey -” Kirsty began, but Crystal was already out the door. “I... I didn't mean it...”
***
Leaning back against the side of a cabin, the soldier fumbled in his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. Opening the wrapper, he reached for his lighter.
Suddenly Freeman stepped around the corner and slammed the butt of his rifle into the soldier's head, knocking him out instantly and sending him slumping to the ground. Reaching down, he took the man's cigarettes before glancing around to make sure no-one else was watching.
“Professional soldiers, my ass,” he muttered. “Whoever these goons are, they're sure as hell not trained military.”
Making his way along the side of the cabin, he stopped as he heard voices coming from inside. Listening for a moment, he realized that a man and a woman seemed to be discussing some kind of medical procedure, with the male voice telling the female to pass several tools. After a moment, Freeman realized he could also hear a persistent beeping sound, as if a heart monitor was running. After checking that both his rifles were loaded, he made his way around the side of the cabin and then carefully peered through the window, only to see two medical staff-members working on a patient.
“No,” he whispered, trying to get a better look at the patient's face, before finally spotting a wisp of familiar black hair. “Hell no!”
Hurrying to the door, he pulled it open and stepped inside. Raising one of the rifles, he fired at the male figure, blowing a hole in his chest and sending him slumping against the wall as blood flowed from the fresh, gaping wound. Turning to aim at the female figure, his finger closed on the trigger before he stopped at the last moment.
“Scream,” he said firmly, “and I'll blow your goddamn head off.”
The woman nodded, clearly in a state of panic.
Pulling the door shut, Freeman made his way over to the table, while keeping his rifle aimed squarely at the woman.
“Holy God,” he whispered, looking down at Karen and seeing that her belly had been cut open, with a flap of skin pulled aside to reveal her intestines with several thick black tendrils running through her body. “What are you doing to her?”
He peered more closely and saw that one of the tendrils was moving slightly, as if it was slowly slithering across his sister's exposed liver.
“What are you doing to her?” he shouted, turning to the woman.
“An operation!” she replied, raising her hands in surrender.
“What kind of operation?”
“We...” She paused. “We had to check, we have to find out why she wasn't responding normally. Are you...” She paused. “Who are you?”
“None of your goddamn business,” he muttered, reaching out and running his hand along the side of Karen's face. “Sis, it's me. Are you awake?”
“She's sedated,” the nurse told him. “She can't feel anything.”
“Wake her up.”
“I...” She glanced at the drip that was running into Karen's left arm.
“What is this thing?” Freeman asked, looking down at the tendrils that were still slithering through his sister's exposed intestines. “Are you trying to get it out?”
“Not... Not exactly.”
“Then tell me why she's being carved up like this.” He paused for a moment, unable to stop staring at the mess in his sister's body, before turning to look at the nurse's terrified, blank eyes. Feeling a sudden rush of rage, he hurried around the table and pushed her against the wall. “Tell me!” he shouted.
“We're trying to find out why she's fighting back,” the woman spluttered.
“What do you mean,
fighting back
?”
“Her mind isn't dying the way it should.”
“The way it
should
?”
“She should have been taken over completely by now,” the nurse spluttered. “We knew some humans would be stronger than others, we knew there'd be problems, but she's been surprising us. We felt the best thing to do was to open her up and see what was happening inside.”
“You make it sound like...” Spotting movement nearby, Freeman looked down at the floor and saw to his horror that a couple of black tendrils were extruding from the side of the man he'd shot a few minutes earlier. “You're not soldiers,” he whispered finally, as he realized what was happening. “You're just like those things!”
“We
are
soldiers,” the nurse replied. “Just... on a different side.”
He turned to her.
Slamming him back against the table, the nurse grabbed an electric saw and hit the button on the side before lunging at him. Stepping out of the way, he grabbed her by the arm and pushed her hard against the wall before taking her wrist and cracking it over his knee, forcing her to drop the saw in the process. Twisting her around, he grabbed her by the throat and began to squeeze, while staring down into her eyes.
