Ahead, the tunnel funneled into a smaller area where the visitors to the museum were to wait for their turn to board the lift. There was no outlet there. Once they went into that area, the tunnel that they now crept down would be at their backs, and it would be their only avenue of escape, other than going up to the surface in the lift.
The gooseflesh upon her arms grew larger and she shivered in dread. She longed to tell Stone to be careful, but the words froze in her throat for fear that anyone guarding the lift would hear her.
She looked down at the gun in her hand and double-checked the safety to make sure it was off. She had the nervous urge to pull back the slide and view the bullet in the chamber again, just to make sure that she hadn’t imagined the first time she’d done it. Her hands felt clammy with nerves, so she carefully wiped one and then the other on her jean clad thighs to dry them, palming the gun in the opposite hand as she dried each one.
Behind them, an agonized scream erupted from the dining cavern. The raw sound of pain sent an icy blade of dread skittering down Jenny’s back. She glanced back toward the cavern. Stone turned too, and in that moment, their adversaries struck.
Two men, dressed in black protective suits, burst out of the blind spot just around the edge of the cavern’s excavated wall and were upon them in the blink of an eye. Jenny barely had time to notice that each held a stun baton at the ready before she felt a shocking burn upon her neck, then immediately felt her muscles seize up. Before she blacked out, she heard another sizzle of the baton and then a pained grunt from Stone, followed immediately by the sound of two rapid-fire gunshots. Her fingers clenched tightly before they relaxed without her permission. Her gun fell from her slack grip onto the saltcrete.
Her mind struggled to stay conscious, but her body lost the battle and slumped into darkness. The sound of the metal barrel of her gun clattering loudly against the floor was the last thing she heard.
Chapter Eighteen
Jenny regained consciousness what seemed to her as only a few minutes later, but in that time she’d been moved to a cot in the dining cavern. Both of her hands were now bound to the metal tubing of the cot upon which she lay, and a man in a bulky, white quarantine suit was taking a large vial of blood from the vein just under the skin in the crook of her left elbow.
“Hey!” Jenny said. “I didn’t say you could do that.”
She’d intended to shout at him, but the words had come out softly, mumbled and a little slurred. Her brain was still recovering from the effects of being stunned. Her mind, and her tongue, felt like rubber, and she was having a hard time marshaling her thoughts.
The man didn’t stop what he was doing. He didn’t respond to her at all. She was tempted to try to yank her arm away from him, but as her thoughts cleared, she thought better of the idea. She didn’t want to forcibly rip his needle out of her arm, or worse, break it off inside the vein.
Her second lucid thought was of Stone and the sound of the two gunshots she’d heard right before she lost consciousness.
Oh God, please let him be okay!
She frantically looked around for him and found him stretched out on an identical cot just feet from her own, his hands also bound at his sides, fastened to the metal tubing by thick plastic zip ties. His eyes were on her, and he held her gaze as she glanced at him. He seemed to be much more lucid that she’d been a moment ago. The stun baton must not have affected him as much as it had her, probably due to the fact that her body mass was so much smaller than his.
When she met his gaze, he nodded silently at her, but he didn’t speak. She raised an eyebrow at him, and his gaze moved to the man at her side, then back to her face. She understood. He didn’t want the man to know that he was awake yet, so he wasn’t going to speak.
Jenny gave Stone a slight nod, a barely perceptible movement of her head, so he’d know she understood, then she turned her attention back to the man at her side.
“I said I didn’t say you could take my blood,” Jenny said, this time quite satisfied with the volume of her voice. “Stop it right now. I gave a sample earlier, voluntarily, I might add.”
The man looked up from his task at her arm, his gaze meeting hers through the clear plastic of his hood. “I know, but we need more. We’ve finished testing the others, and you and your fiancé are the only two who have completely inert bacteria. All of the others are actively infected. We need more of your blood in order to try to find the reason that you seem to be immune, so that we might be able to find a cure for anyone else who becomes infected.”
Relief swam through Jenny in a wave. They were finally going to do something to help the other visitors. Perhaps she had been wrong about the CDC all along.
“How are the others?” Jenny asked, seeing no more reason to object to the man taking her blood. If they needed her blood to find a cure, then they were welcome to it, but it would have been nice to have had a choice in the matter.
“There have been twenty-eight casualties from the infection so far, with forty-two others in critical condition. I don’t expect them to last more than another hour or two.”
Jenny couldn’t hold back her horrified gasp.
“Twenty-eight people have died since we left? How can that be? We weren’t gone more than thirty minutes!”
“Yes, well, the toxins that are produced by this bacteria are like nothing I’ve seen before. They’re very fast acting and produce a vast array of symptoms. They have mutated rapidly as well, and we’re not sure what is causing the mutation. It is all very puzzling.”
“Perhaps they’ve mutated because they, and all of the people down here, have been exposed to a chemical agent that was released into the mines?”
The man gave her a disbelieving look. “While that’s plausible, there is no way to test that theory.”
“It isn’t a theory. Why do you think we returned? It wasn’t for our own safety, that’s for sure,” she pointedly stared at one of the zip ties shackling her arm to the cot, as if to emphasize the fact that both she and Stone were now no longer safe. “We found some sort of canisters, marked with toxic chemical warnings, that had been opened. There were vapors rising from the liquid that was leaking from the canisters.”
The man nodded, then very efficiently disconnected the vial that he’d been collecting her blood in, and deftly removed the needle from her arm. She had to admit, he was very good at what he did, because she hardly felt the needle slide from her flesh.
“You’re the specialist that the CDC was waiting on, aren’t you?” Jenny asked.
The man nodded, frowning at her through his hood. “Yes, my name is Dr. Shean. And, if what you say is true, it could certainly explain the rapid onset of infection and the amazingly fast mutations of the bacteria. However, it still does not explain your immunity. Or your fiancé’s immunity.”
Jenny shrugged, or she tried to. With her motion restricted by her bound arms, she wasn’t sure the gesture was very effective. “I honestly don’t know why we alone are immune. If I did, I would tell you so that you’d be able to help these people.”
The man shook his head, “Oh no, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. There’s absolutely no hope of developing a treatment before these people die. None at all, I’m afraid. The toxins are working very quickly. I estimate that all of these people will be dead in the next eight hours. Any treatment developed will be to treat others who may accidentally become infected in the future.”
Dr. Shean didn’t look very upset by his prognosis, but Jenny felt dread settle over her like a cold mantle. Surely that couldn’t be true? Over a hundred people, dead in in under ten hours?
“But, don’t worry my dear, the oxygen will run out before most of them will go through the final agony as the toxins kill them. Furthermore, Dr. Fasstine has developed a merciful solution. He will be administering a strong sedative to each victim so that none of them will feel any further pain. They’ll all just fall asleep peacefully.”
Jenny was flabbergasted. They planned to
kill everyone down here, instead of finding a cure? In effect, to euthanize them all, as if they were sick animals to be put down?
“But, why did you take my blood then?” Jenny asked, aghast.
“As I said, for a future cure, should one be needed. In addition to that, your blood is just too much of a mystery. I can’t possibly let the chance to study it slip through my fingers.”
Jenny found that she could think of nothing more to say to the man. She was utterly speechless. How could he be planning to end the life of over eighty people, yet talk about it as if he and Dr. Fasstine would be doing everyone a favor by not allowing them to feel pain in their final moments? Once sedated, the others wouldn’t have even the chance to try to escape what would soon be their airless tomb.
“Dr. Fasstine will be by your cot momentarily with the sedative for both you and your fiancé. Until then, do behave yourself. I’d hate to have to resort to violence in your last few remaining conscious moments.”
Dr. Shean turned and walked away.
Jenny was stunned speechless. They’d be by her cot to administer a sedative too? She and Stone weren’t even sick! What they were planning to do was outright murder.
“Like hell that’s going to happen,” Stone hissed as soon as the man was far enough away not to hear him.
Chapter Nineteen
Beside her, Jenny heard Stone struggling with the restraints that bound him to the cot, but she was too busy searching the room for Dr. Fasstine to watch Stone’s progress. The doctor was not in the dining cavern as far as she could see and that meant that he had not yet started with the sedative injections, for which she was eternally grateful.
As her eyes scanned the room, she couldn’t help but notice the remaining visitors and museum staff, all laid out on cots just like the one she was strapped to. And all of them were in very bad shape. Very few looked to be coherent. Several were moaning and holding their heads, and Jenny was afraid she knew all too well what would happen to them in the next few minutes. Others were covered in oozing lesions, as if the toxins were now present within their bodies in such high concentrations that they were beginning to move outward from the internal organs and into the bodies largest external organ, the skin.
Anger boiled within her at seeing these people in such horrible condition. The CDC had, presumably, been sent to help these victims, but instead they’d delayed treatment until it was probably too late and, on top of that, they’d cut off the oxygen supply and the means to leave the mines in order to seek life-saving medical attention elsewhere. Now they were practically personally signing these peoples’ death warrants by administering a “merciful” sedative.
There was a soft popping sound to her left, and then Stone’s low grunt of satisfaction.
“One down, one to go,” he muttered so softly that Jenny could barely make out his words.
She glanced over to see him half rise from his prone position and use his now free right hand to reach over to catch hold of the restrain on this left wrist and pull. Jenny watched in wonder as his biceps bulged and the ridged muscles down his side stood out in sharp relief against the soft material of his shirt.
A moment later, the restraint snapped apart as if it were made of paper, and Stone quickly rolled off of the cot and crouched, his eyes doing a fast sweep of the room before he duck-walked to her side, keeping low.
“This might hurt a little,” he said as he grasped the restrain that tied her left arm to the cot and pulled. The restraint bit harshly into her wrist for a moment, as it was stressed beyond capacity, then with a soft pop, it gave way and her arm was free.
Stone did the same thing with her other wrist. His big calloused hands then gently chafed the red marks where the plastic restraints had bit into her wrists as his eyes surveyed the room.
“We need to find a couple of weapons and get to that phone before its too late,” he whispered to her. “You ready?”
Jenny nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Stone stopped rubbing her wrists and stood, helping her to her feet in one smooth motion, and they both started toward the exit to the dining cavern. There were no armed men in black inside the dining cavern, nor any of the other men in the white quarantine suits, to raise the alarm. Jenny thought that was probably due to the fact that there was no one in the room with a chance of walking out of there under their own power, with the exception of herself and Stone, and they’d been restrained. To the CDC, there’d been no reason to watch the room at all.
Fortunately for her, they didn’t know Stone. Despite the gruesome scene around her, she felt her mouth tip up into a thin smile. Stone was a force to be reckoned with.
Jenny passed by all five of the security guards on her way to the exit, each one laid out on his own cot. Every millimeter of their exposed skin was covered in nasty looking lesions and red gaping sores. The sores wept blood and a slightly green tinted fluid that gave off a putrid odor. As she passed by John’s cot, the man surprised her by opening his eyes and reaching out a shaking hand to stop their progress.
He was too far away to actually touch either of them, but his questing hand caught Stone’s attention.
“Heard what… Dr. Shean… said. You’ve got to… do… something,” John wheezed.
“We plan to,” Stone assured him.
“Didn’t know… their plan… until… too late. My gun. Still on my belt. They didn’t… take it… from me,” John choked on a weak laugh. “No need… I guess. Not like… I’m any… threat. But you… can use… it.”
Stone nodded and stepped forward to carefully remove the gun from John’s holster. “Thank you.”
“Don’t… thank me… yet. Just hurry,” John gasped out, every word a tremendous effort.
Jenny reached out to take his hand, grasping it tightly between her own. “We will. We’ll hurry. Just hang on, John. Hang on, you hear me?”
John nodded and closed his eyes, looking as if the effort to hold them open was just too much for him. “I’ll... try,” he whispered.
His hand went limp in hers, and for one horrifying moment, she thought he’d died. Stone must’ve had the same thought, because he reached down to check the man’s pulse.
“He’s still alive. He’s just passed out. Let’s go,” Stone said.
Jenny gently laid John’s hand down, nestling it carefully along his side to avoid jostling his oozing sores, and then quickly followed after Stone, wishing that there was something more she could do for the guard, yet knowing her best chance of helping him lay with the phone near the lift.
Stone palmed John’s gun, a well-maintained Sig Sauer 1911, as they neared the exit. By the set of his shoulders and the determined expression upon his face, she could tell that, this time, he was taking no chances. As they cleared the two metal dividers that acted as a gate of sorts for the exit, he brought the gun up, swinging it side to side as he visually searched their exit route.
A millisecond later, Jenny’s eardrums were hammered by a sound wave as Stone fired and shot one of the black clad men who had accosted them earlier. The man had rounded the bend in the tunnels that led to the caverns just as she and Stone had cleared the metal dividers.
The man dropped like a rock, going immediately limp, blood spurting from a wound at center mass. The gun that had been clutched in the man’s hand fell uselessly to the floor. Beside him, Dr. Fasstine looked shell-shocked.
“Drop those syringes, Doctor, and put your hands up where I can see them clearly. Don’t even twitch, or you’ll join your friend there on the ground,” Stone said, his angry voice echoing harshly along the sparkling tunnel walls.
“Running off in to the tunnels will do you no good this time. We’ve just finished taking new measurements of the usable oxygen in the air. The oxygen levels are dropping dramatically for some reason. Much faster than expected. Our measurements show that it will be depleted in just over three hours,” the doctor said sourly, though his voice trembled with suppressed fear in the all-encompassing silence of th
e tunnel.
Stone smiled, “That’s why I’m borrowing your buddy’s oxygen and mask, and why Jenny will be borrowing yours.”
Dr. Fasstine took a hasty step back but Stone took aim at his chest with the 1911, and the man stopped and stood stock still, allowing the syringes to slip from his gloved fingers and fall to the floor.
“You can’t do that. I would be exposed and infected,” the doctor pleaded.
“Perhaps that will motivate you to try to help find a cure, then,” Jenny told the doctor. “You’ve done nothing to help them so far.”
“That’s not true. I’ve done everything that I was allowed to do to help,” the doctor said, his voice rising to a grating whine. “I was the one who suggested the sedatives. The injections will take away their pain. It is a mercy.”
Jenny couldn’t hold back the snort that erupted from her mouth. “A mercy? You think forcibly shooting them up and taking away their last chance at survival is a mercy? Perhaps we should use one of those shots on you after we remove your source of oxygen and see how merciful you find it then, Doctor.”
“No, please,” he shook his head beneath his hood. “You don’t have to resort to that.”
“Don’t worry, we need you for a few moments more,” Stone said as he stepped forward toward the doctor, then grabbed the man’s shoulder and hauled him around until he was facing the direction of the lift. Stone then grabbed the man’s left arm, twisting it up behind the doctor’s back as far as the bulky suit would allow.
The doctor groaned, but Jenny felt no sympathy for him. He’d been willing to kill them both, and let the others die in their sleep, all without lifting a hand to find a cure. He hadn’t even tried to find a treatment that would delay the effects that the bacteria were having upon their hosts’ bodies. No, the man deserved anything that Stone could dish out, and more.
“Walk, and don’t get any ideas. Your suit cannot protect you from the bullets in this gun. And, you’d better hope that your friends are not quite so mercenary as you are, or you’re going to be in real trouble.”
Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) Page 11
