The second thing Autumn understood was that Marianne wasn’t here. Marianne had disappeared the first time. But Alicia disappeared the second time. Autumn caught a glimpse of another familiar face—one from a picture of a son that his mother had showed her that day after the second round of vanishings occurred. What made the first vanishing different from the second?
Keegan walked up to Autumn and gave her an all-too-happy smile. “Your thoughts betray you.”
Autumn reluctantly looked at her. “You can’t read my thoughts.”
“I can feel your emotions. You’re afraid. You’re looking around this room and wondering why Marianne isn’t here.”
Autumn opened her mouth but didn’t speak.
“It’s simple, Autumn. Didn’t Marianne ever tell you about a Rapture? I’m sure she did. She was such a goody-goody. Always reading her Bible. Clinging to what it said. She was absolutely infuriating. If it weren’t for her prayers, we would have gotten our claws into you long ago.”
Autumn noticed two more guards moving in from her left and right. They had her boxed in. Even if they didn’t, she doubted she would be able to escape. She was no match for these spiritual entities.
Keegan giggled and beckoned Autumn to follow her. “I have someone waiting for you.”
Autumn shook her head. There was no way she wanted to go anywhere with this fallen angel…or any of the others that surrounded her. She wanted out of here, but she had no idea how to do it. Did she pray for it? But to who? God?
Keegan clapped her hands, breaking Autumn out of her thoughts. “Now, now. There’ll be none of that type of thinking here. Either you come along with me or they’ll carry you.” With a smirk, she added, “And if they do that, I can’t be held accountable for what they’ll do when they touch you.”
It was then Autumn noticed the guards’ pointed teeth and red eyes as they sneered at her. She didn’t have a choice. No matter what she did, Keegan would get what she wanted. Reluctant, she moved forward.
“Good,” Keegan said in a pleasant voice. “It’s nice to see that you have some common sense. Come along. Your friend has been waiting for you long enough. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”
Him? “You mean Alex? Did you bring him here?”
“Interesting. You have no need to worry about Alex. He’s one of us now.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Keegan turned on her heel and headed for the stairs, putting an end to the conversation, and Autumn had no choice but to follow.
Chapter Forty-Two
Devon stood up when he heard the door open. Keegan gave him a wink before she stepped aside. It took a moment for his mind to register who followed Keegan into the room with several guards surrounding her.
Autumn.
He tried not to show the horror he felt, but Keegan snickered. “I thought you two should be reunited,” she said. “Did you know she paid you a visit at the hospital?” She chuckled and put her arm around Autumn’s shoulders. “Silly me. Of course, you didn’t. You were unconscious.” She squeezed Autumn’s shoulders, and Autumn winced. “I can see why you’re attracted to her. She’s kind of cute, even if she is human.”
Devon closed his eyes and wished he could go back in time. He thought he’d been so careful when he saw Autumn, but for all he knew, Keegan toyed with him and made him believe Autumn was safe the entire time. He dared to open his eyes and look at Autumn, knowing there was no way he could adequately convey how sorry he was that she ended up here because of him. Autumn only glanced at him, the fear evident in her eyes, before she directed her attention to Keegan and the guards.
Keegan let go of Autumn and walked over to him. “Don’t feel too bad. You did fool me for a while there. I’m actually impressed you managed it for as long as you did.” She motioned to one of the guards. “Shut the door, hmm?”
He obeyed and returned to where the others stood.
Keegan cupped his face in her hands and made eye contact with him. “Level six reinforcement,” she whispered.
His mind flashed to what that code meant and what he was supposed to do when he heard it.
“Take her to the table,” she instructed a guard.
Autumn fought to get away from the two men who grabbed her, but she was no match for them. Keegan held her hand out to another guard who picked up a needle from one of the trays on a table. Devon’s attention shifted from a struggling Autumn to a very happy looking Keegan. Then his gaze went to the needle. The guard handed it to Keegan.
Keegan’s smile widened as she showed Devon the needle. “Luke, you know what you need to do for those who refuse the leader’s mark.”
Devon stood still for a moment, aware that Autumn was being strapped to the table. She called out for Devon to help her, and he had to fight the urge to wince. This was one of his nightmares coming to life.
Autumn screamed and one of the guards strapped duct tape over her mouth so her cries for help were muffled.
“Luke,” Keegan purred in his ear. “You need to do the right thing. She needs to get the chip.”
Devon’s mind flashed back to his last time at Dulce when they had created a new personality for him. Had the parasite they inserted into his spine not been removed, he wouldn’t have a choice. But he did have a choice. He glanced at Autumn who was secured to the table. Taking a deep breath, he did the only thing he could think of.
He slowly made his way toward her, bracing himself so he wouldn’t react to the tears she kept blinking away as she struggled against the straps that bound her. The look in her eyes told him she feared him and what he was going to do to her, and that pained him more than anything else. He hated the way she viewed him in that moment. A monster. A traitor. Someone who’d betrayed her trust.
His gaze fell to the cross necklace around her neck, and he leaned close to her, pretending he was ready to inject her in the forehead when he whispered, “Make the decision, Autumn. If you do, they can’t touch you.”
She stopped struggling and focused on him.
“The angel. Remember what he said when we were in the car? That night at the park? The night of the second vanishing?” He lowered his gaze to her necklace for emphasis.
Autumn’s gaze lowered to the necklace and she nodded.
He heard Keegan’s familiar steps approach, so he spun around and struck Keegan in the chest with the needle.
Keegan morphed into her Reptilian form and roared. “Guards!”
The guards morphed into black shapes that swirled around Devon and Autumn.
“You owe me, Devon,” Keegan hissed. “I spent a lot of time working on you to get you ready for hybridization, but now I can’t touch you because you’re covered under the blood of the Lamb.”
Encouraged, Devon used his body to form a barrier between the others and Autumn. Mustering the courage he didn’t feel he had, he closed his eyes and prayed for help. Keegan hissed and shoved him against the wall. The shadows leapt at him, and though he struggled against them, they kept him pinned to the floor and snarled, sulfur emanating from their mouths. He coughed from the stench, sure he was going to throw up.
Devon managed to wiggle enough so he could see what Keegan was doing. Even as the shadows hissed at him, he saw Keegan grab one of the needles and return to Autumn who wasn’t squirming on the table.
Autumn did it. She made the choice. That was the only reason she’d stop trying to escape. He recalled how he’d felt on the plane when he asked God to save him. As terrified as he’d been when he thought he was going to die, in the next instant a warm feeling of peace had come over him. And now that peace had settled over Autumn. She was protected, and nothing Keegan could do to her would cause lasting harm, which meant she couldn’t get the chip.
As he suspected, Keegan’s attempt to implant the chip into Autumn failed. Keegan growled and marched over to him. She lifted him up by the collar and shoved him against the wall. “I hate you,” she hissed, her eyes glowing red.
He couldn’t be su
re, but he thought he saw flames roaring in them. “I read the book, Keegan. I know how it ends. This big event you spoke of that night of the second vanishing… That’s the night man inherits the Earth. It’s when you and all those who follow you will lose.”
Her claws dug into his shoulders as she let out a low growl. “You can’t be sure. The future hasn’t happened yet.”
“You think you’re in control? You want to kill me, but you can’t because God won’t let you. You can’t do anything unless He gives you permission. This is His domain, and He’s promised it to man. He—”
“Enough!” She drew back one of her hands.
He braced himself for the blow of her impact, but she couldn’t strike him. Her hand remained frozen in mid-air. He felt her frustration and knew she wanted more than anything to kill him but couldn’t.
One of the shadows resumed human form and said, “We may not be able to put a chip into Autumn, but we can inject her with a disease.”
Keegan glanced from the guard and returned her gaze to Devon. With a sly smile, she told the guard, “Do it.” Still holding him against the wall, she chuckled. “I guess your girlfriend won’t be of much use to you after all.”
Devon knew he couldn’t physically stop the guard as he went over to the refrigerator and pulled out a needle, but if the angel would come… He began praying that God would send help when Keegan dropped him to the floor and stepped on him with enough force that it knocked the air out of his lungs.
“They’ll be no praying here,” she snapped.
The rumbling sound rolled over them, and before Devon could blink, Autumn’s angel led a group of other angels through the walls and into the room.
Keegan and the guards whirled toward the angels. “Chain them up!” Keegan ordered before she ran over to the door and pressed an alarm.
The angels lifted their swords and shields before they charged for Keegan and the guards. Keegan and the guards shot fire from their mouths to hold them back, but several held their shields up and advanced.
One of the angels helped Devon to his feet while another unstrapped Autumn, removed the duct tape over her mouth, and gave her the purse she’d brought with her. “Hurry,” the angel told him. “Take Autumn and get out of here. And whatever you see, don’t stop.”
Devon wanted to ask what the angel meant by the last part of his instructions, but another angel ordered them to go. Devon took her hand and hurried out of the room.
Chapter Forty-Three
As Devon and Autumn ran down the hall, the emergency alarm blared and the lights dimmed to the point where he had a hard time finding the door he thought might take them to the elevator. He found the door to the left and opened it.
Two Reptoids barreled down the hallway in their direction, so Devon motioned to Autumn to go back. He found the closest door that was unlocked and drew Autumn into the empty hallway with him so they could hide before the Reptoids saw them. He listened at the door and heard the Reptoids outside the door talking. He couldn’t make out their language, but they were probably discussing the nature of the emergency.
He turned and joined Autumn in running down the hallway until they reached another corridor and turned. Up ahead was a series of windows. As they walked by, he took a moment to look through them and saw labs. He’d heard of the human-animal and animal-animal hybrid experiments that were on this level, but he’d never gotten a look at the labs.
Even from the glass and dim lighting, it was hard to make out the hybrids in their cages, but he was sure he saw a horse with wings in one cage and a seven-foot batlike man in another. When he realized a few people in lab coats were retrieving their belongings, probably because they were instructed to evacuate the level, he motioned to Autumn to duck below the windows so no one would see them as they hurried down the hall. They made it to another door before anyone caught them and found an elevator.
He pressed the button to go up, but as he feared, it was shut down due to the emergency. “We’ll have to take the stairs,” he told Autumn.
She nodded and joined him as he hurried down the rest of the corridor. What he most hated about Dulce was the fact that the levels were like a maze. It was easy to go in circles or hit dead ends if one wasn’t careful. He found the stairs and opened the door. As they took the first step to go up, a vibration and assorted cursing from above made them stop.
A multitude of demons slithered down the steps, startling Devon who backed up and quickly led Autumn down another flight of stairs. There was no way they could avoid that many demons, nor was he interested in trying to get around them on a stairway. He thought to go down a few steps and wait for all of them to get to level six, but they seemed to keep coming.
“We’ll have to go through level seven,” he told Autumn.
“Level seven? How many levels are there?”
“No one is sure. No human is allowed below level seven, but some hypothesize there are alien culture centers from level eight on down.”
She shivered, so he squeezed her hand. “We’ll make a quick trip down through level seven and come back up another stairway. Right now all the demons and fallen angels are heading for level six. Once they get all of their reinforcements in, the stairs will be clear.”
“I hope so,” she muttered under her breath.
He led her to the lower level and cautiously opened the door. The dimly lit hallway led them straight out to a set of doors further up ahead. He hadn’t been below level six, but he knew enough of the alien language to recognize the symbol for the stairwells. All he had to do was follow the signs located throughout the maze of hallways. “Let’s hope this is quick,” he whispered and stepped into the hallway.
She joined him and they walked down the corridor. She inched closer to him, and though she did it for comfort, it comforted him as well.
When they reached the set of doors, he opened one and peered out of it. A knot tightened in his stomach. The large room contained jars of numerous genetic experiments. He glanced back from the way they came and debated going back, but then the door at the other end of the long hallway began to open and in his panic, he pulled Autumn into the large room with him. He held the handle of the door down so it wouldn’t make a loud click when he shut it. Whatever was behind them would be coming through here, and he thought of hiding until the thing passed, but then thought better of it. The angel warned them to keep going, regardless of what they saw and that’s what they’d do.
Holding onto Autumn’s hand, he weaved around the jars of various sizes. The small jars sat on tables while the jars that were taller than him rested on the floor. Autumn let out some gasps, and though he tried to keep his focus on the other door at the end of the room, curiosity won out and he turned his attention to the contents in the jars.
The jars were filled with liquid, and he couldn’t decide if the liquid was there to keep the hybrid offspring alive or well-preserved in death. The things didn’t seem to be alive, but then how would he know? His part in genetic tampering had been to help make super soldiers at Area 51. The stuff they were doing here was out of his league.
His steps slowed as he realized each jar had a number taped onto it. Furrowing his eyebrows, he started keeping track of the numbers as he and Autumn weaved around the jars, aware that the thing behind them was now in the room. As long as they kept quietly moving around the big jars, the thing shouldn’t be able to see them. He guessed they had another quarter mile to go before they reached the door on the other side.
Still, his gaze kept going to those numbers because it suddenly occurred to him that they were government employee identification numbers, and his was bound to pop up somewhere in here. All those experiments they did on him… Everything Keegan had done to him… The results had to be somewhere in this room.
Even as he inwardly shuddered and told himself to keep his focus on the door, he continued to study the numbers. They went up. That pattern led him further up ahead until he caught sight of his number. His steps came to a halt a
s he examined the two large jars and five small jars. Mutant children. One had no limbs and a Reptoid head. Another only had half a human body with Reptoid scales on it. Two in large jars seemed almost human except there were no genitals. When one opened its eyes and mouth, there was nothing there. Just skin. The other stretched an arm and its body shook violently. The fluid prevented it from making a sound, but it appeared to be in pain. A small jar contained an embryo with its heart and half of its brain on the outside of its body.
Devon shook his head and took a step back. He thought he was going to throw up. Even though he knew Keegan had to be making offspring from him, seeing the evidence hit him like a ton of bricks.
Autumn pulled on his hand. “It’s getting closer,” she mouthed and pointed toward several large jars three rows behind them.
Something in him snapped, and he followed her as she maneuvered around other jars that were large enough to hide them. They made it to the door and quickly slipped through it. Devon scanned the hallway that was lined with doors. He glanced at the door they’d just shut and knew he had to make a decision fast. Picking a door at random, he tested it. Since it was unlocked, he opened it, noting how cold it was in the room. The door they’d just shut began to open, so he urged Autumn inside and followed her in, making haste in closing their door before whatever was behind them could see which room they chose.
Autumn began to scream, so he clamped his hand over her mouth and drew her close so he could turn her eyes from the contents of the freezer. He guessed it was the size of a bedroom, but it contained human organs on the shelves, neatly wrapped, preserved and tagged. Taking his eyes off the many organs, he turned his attention to the door, wondering if the thing behind them would open it.
After a minute passed, he let go of Autumn and gingerly opened the door. The hallway was clear. Breathing a sigh of relief, he motioned to her that it was safe and she hurried out of the freezer with him. He peered down the length of the hall and saw some signs. Good. Now they were getting somewhere! He took her hand and strode forward, only mildly picking up on the sounds of human screaming as they got further down the hallway.
Return of the Aliens Page 25
