Desperation would soon change people’s minds.
24.08.19
Frederick, USA
Reece looked around at her fellow prisoners and noticed that everyone else was asleep. Her slumber had been fractured, her mind not letting her rest more than an hour at a time, never enough for her to drop into the desert where fear and pain waited. Because of that, she wasn’t quite aware of what it meant. To her, it was still just an unpleasant dream. A belief that was about to change.
In the cell next to hers, Lizzy moaned softly, her legs moving as if trying to walk. Somehow, the duvet she had pulled up to her chin stayed in place shrouding her in its comfort. Bad dreams? With what Lizzy had been through, nightmares were hardly unexpected.
The big man hadn’t uttered a word to any of his fellow prisoners. When he was awake, he seemed to stare off into space, occasionally sending curious glances around at those he shared his fate with. A big part of that would have been the distance his cell was from everyone else. Being near the detention area’s main door, it would be difficult for him to have any kind of conversation without shouting. Good for a few words, but no use for a prolonged chat without going hoarse in the process.
The fact that there were still only four of them here was a worry to Reece. Firstly, it represented just how rare those immune to the virus were. Also, with so few of them, there was more chance for them to each experience the bizarre and disturbing experiments those in charge had in store for those trapped here.
The main door to the cells opened. At first, nobody entered, apprehension welling in the pit of Reece’s stomach. Who would come through? Who would be the one to start off the day’s entertainment?
“Attention,” an electronic voice blasted out from all directions, “all residents are required to awake for mandatory inspection. Attention, all residents…” Residents? What the fuck was the point of this fancy use of words? Couldn’t they just be honest with themselves at least? Residents implied some form of cooperation on the part of the immune. Nobody was here voluntarily.
“Clarice!” Lizzy almost screamed. Reece watched as the child leapt from the bed, stark terror engulfing her now that she had suddenly been ripped from sleep. She flung herself around her cell, screaming, the young mind battered into submission by the inability to even escape into the realm of rapid eye movement. What had the child seen in her mind to cause all this?
“Hey, kid,” Reece shouted. She moved over to the separating wall, did what she could to try and catch Lizzy’s eye but to no initial avail. The girl was manic. “Lizzy, look at me.”
“It burns, it burns.”
“Lizzy,” Reece yelled again. The girl finally looked at her and rushed over to the partition, her hair dishevelled, her breathing panicked.
“Where am I, where am I?” Lizzy was almost chanting now. The mania was seeping out of her, but her eyes still flicked this way and that, as if the child was trying to regain some sense of what had happened.
“It’s okay Lizzy, I’m here.” From the corner of her eye, Reece could see that Jessy was now awake and watching them. Still, nobody came through the door.
“Clarice, you’re here,” Lizzy said, almost amazed. She looked suddenly embarrassed, as if she didn’t know what was happening.
“Of course I’m here honey. Where else would I be?”
“I wasn’t here, though.” Lizzy, panting from her exertion, sat back down on her bed, the tears no longer streaming but the mind still bubbling on the edge of mania.
“Where were you?” Reece pulled up the chair so she could be as close to Lizzy as the prison would allow her. Despite her aversion to children, all Reece wanted to do was give the child a reassuring hug. That wasn’t possible, so Lizzy resorted to hugging herself, the thin duvet on the bed suddenly grabbed and wrapped around her tiny shoulders.
“It was so hot. It hurt so much.” The words hit Reece like a freight train.
“What did you say?”
“The desert. It burned.” With a shaking hand, Lizzy pointed at Jessy. “She knows. She was there.” Reece looked at Jessy whose pained eyes suggested she shared a secret with Lizzy. Jessy nodded.
“This desert, were you being…were you being chased?” Reece had to ask the question for the dream that Lizzy was recounting seemed far too familiar.
“Oh yes,” Lizzy almost squealed. “I’m so frightened.” Her head was almost swallowed up as Lizzy retreated further into the cocoon she had created from her bedspread. “Why did my Mummy have to die?” The words cut into Reece like a knife, the heartache the child felt almost infectious in its nature.
“I don’t know Lizzy. I really don’t.”
“Why do bad things happen?” Lizzy asked. She was looking up at Reece now, the eyes imploring, searching. All Reece could do was shake her head.
That had been the worst part of the job. The bloated three-day-old corpses, the vomit and the drug addicts going ballistic in the back of her patrol car she could easily cope with. But children in distress? Man, she had a problem with that which was undoubtedly part of her reticence in having children herself. Reece knew in her heart that having a child would have likely broken her from the endless worry.
“She’s telling the truth,” Jessy suddenly said. She had lowered the hatch to her door so she could be better heard. “I was there with her.”
“I don’t understand,” Reece implored. How could they both have had the same nightmare as her?
***
Big T could just hear the conversation, and it sent chills down him. He was not one to be afraid easily, but the trauma of the desert lingered with him. The first time was always the worst, and for Big T, it had been the most extreme dream of his life. He had been there in the desolation, fleeing something that was beyond the realms of fear.
He sat on the bed that was too small for him, the images from his rest quickly dissipating. There was sweat on his body, despite the neutral temperature of his cell, and he wondered how he was going to get a shower in this place. Likely he wouldn’t, the sink the only means of keeping himself clean. So much of his basic dignity was being denied him.
“Up and at ‘em,” a voice said as a soldier entered through the open door. The soldier was pushing a cart with folded clothes on it, the same colour that everyone incarcerated was wearing. “It’s laundry time.” The soldier whose name badge had been removed had a sarcastic sneer to his voice. He stopped outside Big T’s cell. “You first big man. Let’s be having all that shit off you.” As if to amplify the importance of his order, the soldier lifted a pile of clothes up and opened the hatch of the cell door. Because Big T wasn’t there to take the clothes from him, the soldier rested them on the shelf the open hatch made. “Pull your finger out there. Or do you want me to come in and strip you?”
“I’d like to see you try,” Big T advised. He saw the soldier fingering the Taser on his belt. “You better be careful trying to use that on me. You’re going to look awful stupid with it sticking out of your arse.”
“Strip, now,” the soldier insisted. “Or do you want to stink in your incarceration?” Big T actually considered it. Before he had drifted off to sleep, he had gone through the various ways he could have made his captors lives as difficult as hell for them. Forms of passive and active resistance mulled through his mind. From complete refusal to obey any order issued to depositing his shit out the hatch instead of into the toilet, all were eventually abandoned. As annoying as he knew he could be, any inconvenience he created wouldn’t be aimed at the true arbiters of his confinement. As much satisfaction as he might have acquired from taking his frustrations out on the grunts working here, it wouldn’t do Big T any favours in the long run. He had to pick his battles because there would be so few he could win.
Big T stood and stripped the clothing off of himself. He felt no shame being naked, this was no different to being in a gym locker room. He worried about the women, though. It wasn’t right that they should expose themselves to this knucklehead. On top of the fre
sh clothes was a plastic bag and Big T forced the sweat-stained items he had been wearing into it.
“Don’t I get a shower?”
“No siree Bob. That’s a negative on that. There’s a towel there. You can wash yourself in the sink.” Big T picked up the clean clothes and threw them on his bed.
“I’d like to complain to the management,” said Big T. “The facilities are not what I was promised on TripAdvisor.”
“Funny,” the soldier said. He held his hand out for the bag containing the discarded clothes, and Big T reluctantly handed them to him.
“Is whatever they are paying you worth selling your soul like this?” Big T asked. The soldier rolled his eyes dismissively and pushed his cart over to the other prisoners.
Reece watched the soldier approach. He stopped his cart outside Lizzy’s cell and lowered the hatch, which made the child jump in alarm.
“For Christ’s sake, I’m not going to hurt you kid.” The soldier’s voice bristled with frustration.
“You really are an arsehole aren’t you?” Reece chided. “Lizzy is scared, why can’t you see that?”
“Hey, I’m not here to play nursemaid.”
“Then why are you here? There are men and women out there fighting to defend this country, and what are you doing? Fucking laundry.” That didn’t go down well with the soldier. That barb cut deep.
“Hey bitch, I do my part.”
“Yeah. Well make sure you don’t mix any colours in with these whites,” Reece stated. That actually got a giggle from Lizzy.
“You can shut your goddamn mouth,” the soldier ordered, his face red with the growing humiliation. He was barely in his twenties and wasn’t used to be spoken to like this, not since joining the army at least. Memories of the times he had been bullied and mocked in high school flitted through his memory.
“Private Jackson, please remember we are on a strict timetable,” a booming female voice announced to everyone. It was easy to forget that you were constantly under surveillance, even with the cameras. That clearly applied to those working here too. Reece wondered who the owner of that voice was, having yet to meet the renowned Professor Schmidt. She would like to meet whoever it was, preferably down a dark alley and with her loaded service revolver to hand.
Jackson looked suitably admonished. In fact, as Reece looked at him, she realised there was more to it. The man actually looked scared, the voice clearly the cause of his fear-ridden eyes. Jackson deposited a small pile of clothes through the hatch to Lizzy’s cell a little bit too forcefully, causing the items to fall to the floor. Lizzy just sat there staring at them.
“Come on, kid. Don’t make me come in there and strip you.” The words were completely the wrong thing to say, and they set Lizzy off again, the child bawling at the prospect of being manhandled by this brute. Pleading eyes looked at Reece.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Reece said, astonished at how idiotic this man was.
“Hey, she just needs to change her clothes is all.” There was actual regret in the soldier’s voice. Even he seemed to realise he had stepped over the line.
“What, you want her…you want us to strip naked in front of you? Is that how you get your kicks?”
“Fucking pervert,” Jessy screamed through the now open hatch of her cell, adding to the condemnation that seemed richly deserved. Reece suddenly felt worried that bad words were being used in front of Lizzy, but how ridiculous was that considering what she had been through? “Do you jerk off to pictures of little kids when you’re all alone?” Jackson’s face was descending into anger. Reece and Jessy were clearly pushing him too far.
“Clarice, don’t let him touch me.” It was obvious to Reece that Lizzy was too scared to do anything but be scared. There was no way this could end well with a man like Jackson, a man who was very likely to do something stupid out of pure annoyance. Reece looked up at the camera in her cell. She needed to pull this back from the brink.
“I know you can hear me out there. Look, let me help her. Let me in her cell, and I will help get her dressed, okay.”
“That’s against protoc…” Jackson insisted before he was interrupted.
“Approved,” the ethereal voice around them said. “Private Jackson, please facilitate this.” Jackson looked shocked, but at no time did he show any desire to argue with the commanding declaration. With a flurry of his hands, he opened both cell doors, stepping back as if Reece was going to come charging out at him. She didn’t, there was no point engaging in that kind of rebellion. As bad as her confinement presently was, things could be a lot worse.
Reece stepped out of her cell and into Lizzy’s. For a second the girl just sat looking at her in bewilderment, and then she exploded off the bed, wrapping her arms around Reece’s waist.
“Hey, what’s all this?”
“I knew you would protect me.” Reece hesitated only briefly and then ran her hand over the child’s long blonde hair, careful not to touch the surgical dressing. Lizzy almost seemed to sigh at the touch. Bending down, Reece picked Lizzy up, the girl’s weight easy for her. Something came to her then, some instinct that she didn’t even know she possessed. Lizzy hugged into her, a wet cheek burying into Reece’s neck.
“I need a hairbrush, and I need your boss,” Reece said to Jackson. The soldier looked at her as if she had just spoken Klingon. “And turn your back for Christ’s sake so I can get this child undressed.”
“Or do you like looking at naked little girls?” Jessy added, continuing her taunting. Suddenly it was clear that Jackson didn’t know what to do with himself, and Reece wondered what would have happened if not for the invisible overseer. She had arrested people like Jackson before, bullies, full of self-hatred and doubt. They could be some of the most dangerous people to arrest. When they blew up, it sometimes needed a forensics team to pick up the pieces.
He didn’t turn his back however, going one better. From his pocket, he withdrew a small computer tablet on which he tapped the screen a few times. Suddenly, all the walls around Reece and Lizzy went white, just as had occurred in the experiment the other day. The door to Lizzy’s cell closed.
“I’m going to put you down now, Lizzy,” Reece said, but the child was reluctant. She hadn’t had any kind of loving human contact since she had been abducted from police custody. She was basically starving for any kind of connection.
“No,” Lizzy implored.
“Hey, it’s okay. And we need to get you dressed so that idiot will go away.” Lizzy sniffled, but her arms gave way a bit, and Reece was able to pull the child away from her. Gently, she placed Lizzy on the bed. Clarisse Reece, mother of the Armageddon.
The change of clothes only took about two minutes. Reece had to do most of the work, Lizzy more intent on sucking her thumb than helping out. Lizzy had been very close to going catatonic. If Jackson had been allowed to carry out his threat and strip the child, that might have been it, Lizzy’s mind switching off to avoid any more trauma. Sometimes the young came back from that. Sometimes they didn’t.
If they all got through this, the risk was that Lizzy would be emotionally damaged by her ordeal. It would all depend on how her little and immature mind processed what was happening here. If the world corrected itself and sanity returned, one thing was for certain. Lizzy would need a lifetime of therapy to counter the way she had been abused by the events of the last few days.
Reece sat down on the bed next to Lizzy and put a protective arm around her. She still felt awkward, as if she didn’t really know what to do to help this poor kid. It did make her own predicament seem almost tame by comparison. Reece could handle a lot of what was being thrown at her, so she made a promise to herself, there and then, to do what she could to protect this little human being. Lizzy’s only concerns should have been homework and icky boys, not being the victim of some mad experiment. Reece wasn’t sure how much she could effectively protect Lizzy, but she would do whatever she could.
“Okay, we’re done here,” Reece said
loudly. She had no doubt that microphones were listening to every word that was said in the cells. The walls stayed white only for another three seconds, and then the limited world around her appeared again. Jackson was no longer there. But Professor Schmidt was, and she opened the hatch, thrusting a hairbrush through.
“CR28HT, so good to finally meet you.” The cart was still present, so Reece picked up the bag she had filled with the dirty clothes, passing them through the hatch to Schmidt who had no hesitation in taking the bag off her. It was discarded onto the cart. The hairbrush, Reece threw onto the bed so that she could use it later to help calm the child.
“I have a name, you know.”
“Yes, I am aware,” Schmidt advised, “but for now you will be known by your designation. It does not pay to get too familiar with one’s test subjects. You can thus call me Professor.”
“I can think of a few other things to call you. And is that all we are to you, test subjects?”
“Yes,” Schmidt answered truthfully. “I have no desire to get to know you as a person. The work we do here requires a certain degree of detachment.” It was true. Schmidt believed she had to be able to distance herself from any suffering those who were trapped here were going to endure. She had to be able to take whatever steps were necessary to defeat the virus, and she couldn’t let empathy and compassion get in the way of that.
“What about common decency and humanity?”
“Oh, there’s no room for that. Not here. Your existence is now only for the purpose of my experiments.” Reece looked into the eyes of her jailer and saw nothing but coldness looking back. There was no emotion there. A reptile would have been more expressive. Schmidt made Carson seem like a loving human being by comparison. “The sooner you understand that, the better it will be for everyone.”
“You can’t expect a ten-year-old to comply with that. She’s scared, we all are.”
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 3): The Fall Page 28
