by S E Anderson
His speech gave rise to many nods of approval from the crowd.
“How many of you hear screams in the night?” Zander asked, climbing up on the table behind Peter. Almost all hands rose, some less eagerly than others. “Yet how many of you are actively doing the screaming?”
This time, no hands reached in the air. Of course not. These should have been the questions we were asking from day one.
“The truth is every single one of your screams. Yet not one of you remembers doing it. A few of you have vague memories. Faint images, places you don’t want to linger. Maybe you all do. Something terrifying hiding at the edge of your mind. Something you push back like the good doctors tell you to do.”
“Think!” Blayde shouted, making me practically leap out of my skin. “Use that brilliant brain of yours!”
“Um, sis, I am,” said Zander.
“Shut it. I’m not talking to you.” She shook her head back, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. “Come on. Shapeshifters. Terrorize victims. Stabby, stabby brain thing. Think.”
“Stabby what now?” Peter sputtered.
“It’s okay, bro,” said Zander. “Sometimes she’s like that.”
“Bro?”
“Pachoolee!” Blayde shouted.
“Yahtzee!” came a cry from the crowd.
“We’re playing Yahtzee?” asked someone else.
“I got it.” Blayde spun on her heels, snapping her fingers. “The shapeshifters? They’re from Pachoolee!”
Zander nodded in agreement. “Can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
I stared blankly. “Does that help us?”
“It just might,” said Zander. “What do you know about vampires?”
“Oh, please don’t tell me vampires are real.”
“They’re not,” he said, but my relief was short-lived. “But they’re based on a grain of truth. You see, the inhabitants of Pachoolee feed off Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that runs rampant on Earth. The parasites take up residence in the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear. The Pachooleeans have been living on Earth for centuries, clever enough to stay out of the limelight. Unfortunately, they got a bad reputation in the mid-1700s when they developed a terrible addiction to the chemicals excreted from the amygdala when the victim was terrified—thank you, plague victims! Replaced toxoplasma with chomping on the whole human amygdala. They took up the guise of vampires, seductive beings who could learn their victims’ fears before replicating them and feeding on the result. Bats and rats? Meant much more back then when the plague was still heavy on the collective consciousness. Terrifying. Trust me, I was there.”
“There are generations of them here,” added Blayde, “which explains why they don’t seem to know who we are. And why they have so much practice flying under the Agency’s radar.”
“So, now they’re here,” I spat, “where people are court-ordered to tell them their deepest, darkest secrets—and, more importantly, their fears. And no one would believe the victims if they suddenly decided to tell anyone what was happening. They’re creating trauma in order to feed off of it. They’re farming it.”
Zander nodded, glancing around the rest of the room with a sweep of his eyes, realizing that all their faces were intent on his, watching his every move with anxiety and confusion. He gave them a reassuring smile, but their stares did not break away. And no amount of reassuring smiles was going to dispel the disgust growing in my gut.
“So” —he turned to Barker—“now would be a good time to call your bosses.”
“I’ve been trying!” He replied, obviously distressed. “I’m not getting a response!”
He repeatedly banged furiously on a small metal button, his face twisted with fear. He knew what we were facing. At least now he believed us too.
“Hold on. Hold on,” I said. “I’m no neuroscientist, but if they take the whole amygdala, wouldn’t we not be able to fear them anymore? Not to mention the patients here would probably notice if part of their brains just up and vanished one day. There would be side effects to say the least.”
Blayde snapped her fingers. “They must be able to grow it back. That explains a lot, mostly why none of their victims bear any marks of their attack. They drug them, and the cells regenerate—like us, but less awesome and in a much less concentrated dose. That’s what happened to you. Your natural replicating cells were battling with the chemically-induced cell regeneration.”
“And the victims don’t remember anything before they roofie us on top of everything else,” I said. “I bet you anything the night nurses are just another form of theirs. This is a whole operation. Who knows how long this had been going on.”
“What are you three talking about?” a nurse asked, staring at us with wide eyes. “This ain’t no alien conspiracy. It’s a hurricane. Please, get off the table. We don’t want anyone to get hurt now.”
“What is everyone doing in here?” Blayde asked. “Shouldn’t someone be trying to get these shutters up? Or at least try to figure out what’s happening with the building?”
The nurse whipped out her electronic pager. A small message scrolled across it: “Assemble everyone in the rec room. Assemble everyone in the rec room.” Over and over again.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Blayde snapped, turning to the rest of the patients and nurses grouped in the small common room. “This is a trap.”
“No, it isn’t,” the nurse said comfortingly, placing her hands on Blayde. I could see the gears turning in her head as she fought the instinct to shake her off. “There is absolutely no need to worry.”
“Listen, health specialist.” She sidestepped her way out of the woman’s grasp. “I know you’re just doing your job. I know you think I’m crazy. But I’m done playing your games. We need to get all the patients out of this institute before it turns into a little house of horrors.”
“Please, calm down. We don’t want to frighten the other patients.”
“Frighten them?” Blayde laughed. “Frighten? If they’re scared now, they’ll be no match for what’s to come. They’ve got the worst fears coming at them to feed off their minds; they need to be warned. They need the truth.”
“I got a signal!” Barker shouted. Almost instantly, the image of him fizzled into nothing, a loud electrical hum filled the room, making our ears ring as we watched him disappear into thin air.
This was definitely an alien conspiracy.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A real PSA on the dangers of a PDA
Riots are a little overwhelming for everyone, so make sure you pack snacks. And I seriously don’t recommend you have one in a mental institution. They can be draining for everyone involved. Self-care, people. Self-care.
I was just as shocked as the patients were to see Barker disappear into thin air. Okay, maybe a little less; I’d seen people pull it off before—but never an Agency operative who I thought was as dull as a dishpan.
“The Alliance has teleportation tech?” I asked over the throng of casual screams.
“Call-backs! They’re called call-backs!” Zander shouted, which only made the patients cry out louder. He seemed more frustrated that Barker disappeared than anything else, practically sulking. His arms were crossed over his chest, and I swear I saw him micro-frown. “The device sends an electrical pulse through one’s body and sends the atoms to a home plate. Only works one way.”
“This is good, right?” I asked. “He’s bringing the Agency down here. They’ll arrest those Patch-whatever people for their secret human fear farm, right?”
“Pachoolee. And not if they find us first,” said Blayde. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
She hopped off the table, rushing for the staff door. I dove down after her.
“Is that Elvis?” Zander shouted above the throng. The screams of the crowd changed into something much more confused. A little bit better than panic.
“And leave all these people in the hands of the shapeshifters?” I stammered, as w
e pressed through the throng of people.
“The Agency will have no choice but to do something,” she said. She was a snowplow through the crowd, but they were too distracted to mind. “Same as they’ll have no choice but to arrest us, either.”
“But what if the Agency doesn’t send its people? Or what if they arrive too late?”
“Would you rather we all end up on an Alliance prison ship?” she spat. “You do you, but I’m getting out of this place before some shapeshifter who thinks they know me turns into my worst fear and tries to suck my brain dry. And if we find a way out, nothing’s stopping the others from following us to freedom.”
“I’m not leaving them in here,” I said. “Who knows what the doctors will do to the patients once they’re backed into a corner.”
Blayde reached the metal door at the back of the room, the one now covering the grated exit to the outdoor world. She grabbed the handle, giving it a sharp twist.
The door, unsurprisingly, did not budge.
“Wonderful,” she muttered, glancing in the crack between the door and the frame. “Not a glimmer of light.” She flipped the laser from her pocket, aiming it at the lock. It barely made a mark. “Shit. This place has been re-enforced with arctronian steel.”
“Let me guess, impenetrable stuff?” I asked. “What about the windows?”
She took few steps to her right, viciously attacking the handle of the nearest window. It didn’t move an inch. She pulled her arm back as far as it could go, bringing it forward full force to the glass. A deafening crack resonated in the room, making my spine tense. She shook her hand back into place.
Exasperated, she stared at the unyielding pane of glass. A snarl drew itself on her face, a snarl so vicious I was glad I was not the window that stood in her way. She dragged her laser against the transparent surface.
Not a scratch.
“That’s why they gathered everyone here,” she said, dropping her hands from the window and smoothing the fabric of her pants, calm as can be. “It’s expensive to reinforce an entire hospital. Probably saved a ton by focusing on just one room. Doors open in but don’t let out. They have to get rid of the evidence. They can’t let a single patient get away.”
“Well, shit, do something!” I sputtered. “Come on. You’re Blayde! The Iron or whatever! You of all people can think of a way out of here!”
“Don’t you think I’m trying?” she hissed. “What do you think I’m doing, watering flowers here? Veesh, Sally.”
I scanned the room for Zander, suddenly aware of his absence. In the din, I could hear him, his words wafting over the now quasi-silent room. While we had been running and slamming on things, he had stayed on the table trying to calm the patients. No one was paying attention to the two of us at all.
“Now, you’ve seen a lot in the past few minutes,” he said, his voice steady and warm. My heart fluttered with pride. That was my guy up there. That was my guy that everyone was focused on, who was calming down a sea of terrified, trapped people. “A guard disappeared into thin air right there. And, for some reason, we’re all rounded up in this tiny room. You probably want to know why. Right?”
Mutters of agreement rose from the crowd. He nodded along with them. If he were in a suit rather than hospital scrubs, I would have thought him quite presidential.
“This is the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and the only way you’re going to survive today is by following me without argument. Now, first things first, let’s get this over with. Your doctors—Smith, Winfrey, and Drew—they’re shapeshifting aliens.”
“Aren’t you a shapeshifting alien?” Daisy-May pointed out, inspiring the crowd’s collective gasp.
“Nope, time-traveling and immortal are what I am. Shapeshifting? Thank the stars above that I am not.”
“That’s so cool,” she muttered.
“Now, these doctors have been using you for their own gain. Giving you the terrible dreams you only barely remember and feeding off your fear. But we all know the screams. They managed to heal your wounds and stitch you back up, not disrupting your everyday lives in the slightest, though maybe giving you a strange addiction to oatmeal. But they’re not playing it safe anymore. The mere fact that they’ve trapped us in here shows that they are afraid. They are trapped, and the Agency knows they are here. And very soon, this nightmare—and all of our nightmares—will be over.”
“We can’t test them all,” I whispered, and Blayde nodded. “A shapeshifter could be in here. With us.”
I grabbed an entranced nurse, pulling a hair off his head. He yipped, but the strand was still solid in my hands.
“We’re all still breathing,” I said.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” he asked, rubbing his scalp. “If this is a coping mechanism, I would prefer you respect my bodily autonomy, thank you very much.”
“How do the vents work in the rec room?” I asked him, gripping his arm tighter than I should have. “How does the air still get in?”
“How should I know?”
“Does your building have blueprints?”
“Seriously, where in my job description is it written that I should know the building’s blueprints?”
“It’s a yes-or-no question.”
“Yes, they probably have blueprints. No, I have no idea where they are.” He paused. “But if you think that I’m gonna let claustrophobic patients clamber through vents—”
“They can put up with a lot and face many a fear when their life’s in actual danger,” said Blayde. “Adrenaline is a helluva drug.”
“Are you threatening them?”
“Me?” she asked. “No, I’m not. Weren’t you listening at all to anything that’s been going on?”
“I got lost at the part about the aliens.”
“Well, that’s pretty much the gist of it,” Blayde said with a shrug.
“But we can’t let our guard down,” Zander continued. “The–um–Space Police might not come at all. All we have is each other. And you know what happens when someone is trapped; they lash out. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: They. Want. To. Kill. You. Each and every one of you. They will turn into whatever you fear most.”
“Like boggarts!” someone cried.
“Good analogy.” Zander nodded. “But since none of us are wizards—”
“I’m a wizard!” said someone.
“Since not all of us are wizards, we need to stick together. I want you all to pluck a hair off the head of the person to your right. Then we do the left. If that hair does not remain a hair after leaving their scalp, just shout.”
“Zander’s got a handle on this here,” said Blayde, turning to me with a grin. So much for taking things seriously. “You and me, we’ll look for the building’s blueprints. But I have a stop I want to make first.”
* * *
Sneaking through vents. Jumping through grates to find the administrative wing. Blayde picked the locks with a keen precision that could only have been earned from years upon years of itchy fingers. The door swung inward, a row of shiny metal lockers covering the wall in front of us from the floor to the ceiling.
“Zapping the door would have gained us some time,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t always have to do everything rough. Can’t I just pick a lock now and then without being nagged with all these questions?”
“Well, sor-ry. What are we looking for exactly?”
“This,” she said smugly, punching a small spot on the bottom left of the metal locker. It popped open with a resounding whack. “Wait. No. The next one.”
Blayde repeated this on the locker on the right and reached inside. Out came her red leather jacket, her arms slipping smoothly into the sleeves, the veteran of ancient battles draped over her shoulders once again. Her journal went straight to her inside pocket, a smidge of weight off her shoulders.
She paused for a second, then ripped off the jacket and placed it on the bench in the corner. Without any modesty whatsoeve
r, she started stripping off her hospital clothes and stuffing them back into the locker, pulling her clothes back on. Her skinny jeans replaced the white unisex pants; the black tank top the white long-sleeved T-shirt; the creamy white cardigan; her raw red jacket. Off went the white Keds. On went the black lace-up boots.
“Much better,” she said. “Thanks for watching.”
“You never opened my locker!”
“Ah. True.”
She whipped out her laser and shot a beam at the locker in front of me. The door creaked open. “All yours. Have at it.”
“You’re gonna have to teach me how to do that.”
“Well, first, you take your clothes off, then you put the new ones on.”
I bottled up my frustration and kicked off my papery shoes. Despite the old ones being still sandy from the beach where I had been arrested, they were mine, dammit, and they made everything better. The rest of my clothes made me feel fully human again.
Blayde ransacked Zander’s locker next, pulling out his coat and clothes. I slipped the jacket on, though it was much too big and slid off my shoulders. There. Comfortably warm. It even smelled of him, all ash and stardust.
I didn’t dare look through the pockets. I could feel them stuffed with mysteries, but they were his mysteries, secrets the universe wasn’t ready to provide. I tied his jeans and tee together, flinging them over my chest like a sash. He’d be happy to have them when this was all over.
“Right. Now for those blueprints.”
The administrative offices were just next door, so we pushed our way through the unlocked entrance. Cabinets covered most of the walls: patient information, medical and criminal records. Patients, patients … patience.
No blueprints.
“Did you find anything?” I asked.
