The Smiling Man Conspiracy (Evils of this World Book 2)

by C. J. Sears

  She amended her initial impression of the mansion. This place wasn’t a castle. The room reminded her of the nave of a cathedral or Roman basilica sans the melody of a pipe organ. It must have cost a fortune to build.

  Crusted dirt spoiled the red velvet rug that led from the door to a pair of curved staircases. No one lived here, but somebody was home.

  On either side of the duo, a legion of closed doors inhabited the walls. Donahue wasn’t sure which direction to take. If Kasey was correct, they didn’t have time for sightseeing.

  “Which way?” she asked her more experienced companion.

  “We’ll sweep this floor first. Maybe we’ll find the control room.”

  “Yeah, and then the Smiling Man will mess his pants so bad it’ll send the monsters scurrying.”

  “Well,” said Kasey, trying the second door on their left, “if that happens, you’re the one carrying him out of here.”

  The kitchen continued the trend of fanciful style. The granite countertops and stainless appliances were at odds with the gothic aesthetic, but that didn’t make the decor look any less expensive.

  “Would you like a drink, madam?” Kasey offered, pretending to be a handmaid as she checked the fridge.

  “No thanks,” said Donahue, “I don’t drink.”

  Not anymore.

  The blonde rolled her eyes. “You and Llewyn really are a pair, you know? I bet you’ve got a house with a white picket fence all lined up.”

  Donahue ignored the wisecrack. She pressed her ear against the counter and rapped her knuckles on the surface. It was rock solid, not a hollow partition to be found. There were no secret passages or trap doors in the dusty mist.

  They backtracked to the rotunda. With every room they inspected, the prevailing sense of an owner who didn’t understand the meaning of the word “cohesive” persisted. Between the drained indoor pool and the crumbling amphitheater, Donahue’s conviction only intensified. Only a child—or someone with the mentality of a child—could dream up a home so mismatched and absurd.

  There was an elevator in the alcove underneath the stairs. Of course, with no electricity, it wasn’t running. Donahue reckoned they should’ve been more thorough in their planning.

  “Now would be a good time for the power to come back,” she said.

  “I don’t think we want that,” said Kasey, nodding at the deactivated sentry gun above their heads.

  “That’s a problem, but we can’t just keep wandering aimlessly,” Donahue protested, facing the elevator once more. “Maybe we can pry it open.”

  She dug her fingers into the space between the doors. It was locked tight and wouldn’t budge, not even with Kasey’s help. Damn it.

  They started up the stairs. Outside, the relentless rhythm of the rain dwindled. As the storm ceased, the first pangs of silence consumed the grand foyer. Yet the eerie echo of their footsteps remained.

  She and Kasey paused at the top, scanning both ends with their flashlights, weapons trained at potential targets. Donahue had heard that when faced with the dilemma of two possible avenues, a person should trust their instincts. Her gut wanted her to go left. She chose right.

  Partway down the corridor, a section of the wall stood ajar. A ruined statue head lay beside it.

  “I think we’re back in business,” Kasey said, pushing the door with all her might.

  The hidden study contained a small library, but the most important book, Donahue discovered, was already open on the table. She recognized the peculiar image on the page. It was the symbol of the parasite, the Esoteric Order of Ein Geist’s chosen god.

  Angling the flashlight, she read:

  My name is Jackson Maverlies. My family was one of the fifteen that conspired to control the town of Lone Oak. My ancestors, as well as the Bradfords and other families, maintained every aspect of the town. They engineered its very fabric to suit their desires. Even the city’s water system was owned and operated by a Founder. No scheme was too small or too large for the cult to claim.

  The author’s name was familiar too. Wasn’t that the man who’d sent Detective James Black to Lone Oak and doomed him to his fate at the hands of Patrick Rhinehold?

  How did they achieve this? Through the use of a parasite they revered as their lord and their ultimate tool. This organism exerts immeasurable control over its host’s will.

  The relationship is meant to be symbiotic; in exchange for its food source, cerebrospinal fluid, the parasite enhances the strength and durability of its victim. However, the chemicals it secretes act as a drug, fogging the mind and preventing the body from performing tasks that would threaten its safety. Self-preservation at any cost.

  In my research, I have come to understand that it is possible to fight the infectious creature by consuming, of all things, other lethal, mind-altering substances. No one has ever recorded such an event.

  More worrisome than its individual functionality is its communal ability. When groups of parasite-infected beings gather, they operate as a hive mind. In this case, a special member of the species becomes the figurehead. The cultists dubbed this specimen the Master. Through the use of sound waves, the Master controls other parasite-infected creatures, issuing orders like a general during a war.

  She knew most of this already, but it stung to learn that Rhinehold’s accusations about her family were correct. The Masons had been one of the Founders, much like Maverlies and the Bradfords. Donahue didn’t think her dad was truly part of the cult. She and her brother attended a typical Christian church as children, so maybe her dad renounced the old ways.

  She thumbed through the book until she landed on the final page and read the last words of Jackson Maverlies.

  Today’s the day. Every heartbeat is a struggle. Even now, as the machines stretch the hours I must suffer, I can feel the light calling to me. As my one redeeming act for the misery the Founders have caused, I pray that the man I hired can put an end to that loathsome creature.

  To my grandson, Marcus: may you understand why I leave you to go on to the great mystery. Death is not the end.

  Poor old fool. He had no idea as he drew his last breath that his plan had failed. But he had hope and faith that his grandson might not repeat the mistakes of his ancestors.

  Except that something had gone wrong. This Maverlies fellow had a vendetta against the parasite and the cult. So why was someone operating an experiment in his abandoned home?

  “Irony,” Kasey suggested when Donahue voiced her confusion.

  “That’s a heck of a leap. But it’s not the plot we’re looking for,” she said, channeling Llewyn.

  “What do you mean?” asked the blonde, her interest piqued.

  “I have a theory. See if you can find a photo album somewhere nearby,” answered Donahue.

  They combed the shelves. Most of the books were biology texts, but there were a few fiction novels amongst the technobabble.

  “I think I’ve got something,” said Kasey, yanking a slender green volume from the top shelf. “It’s the scrapbook from a vacation Maverlies took in 1995.”

  This had to be what they were looking for. Donahue flipped the laminated sheets, searching for a snapshot that would cement her idea as the truth.

  “Well, would you look at that,” she said, resting her index finger on a discolored photograph.

  The young man in the picture was dressed in a corduroy business suit. He was a dwarf and twirled a rhinestone necklace in his right hand. With his left, he shook the hand of a government official. His face had been shredded by a serrated knife, a perpetual smile carved ear to ear. Below, the caption said: Marcus enjoys life post-surgery.

  “There’s our Smiling Man.”

  THE LABYRINTH

  Who were these women? They had to be federal agents, but from which agency? He was sure the company had bought off all the right people, but one of them must have cottoned on to the truth. Or one of the lower tier employees couldn’t keep their mouth shut.

  The Overlord see
thed and questioned which incompetent nimrod had let it slip that the experiment was going down tonight. They’d shut off the power, so he couldn’t hear them speaking, but he knew they were here to rescue the test subjects.

  He waddled to the generator room, cursing the engineers again for not upgrading the electric grid to an automatic redundancy system. Having to manually reactivate everything including the lights was a pain in the ass.

  Not to mention he was missing his entertainment. The last thing he saw on the camera was JO bleeding out and MK about to be ripped to shreds. He’d wanted FEL-01 to chase them into the maze on B3, but she was too good at her job.

  It was a shame that the company abandoned the biological weapons program. The Overlord thought they made for a complimentary asset to the more valuable super-soldier initiative. But the creatures failed to meet quotas and demands. Too primitive, too fragile.

  But they were useful in cleaning up containable messes like this one. He turned the corner and rammed through the steel door into Auxiliary Power. Once he restored operations, those girls were in for a rough ride. Even if they conquered the turrets, he had four fiendish friends which could seek and destroy them.

  He reached up and pressed every unlit switch on the control board. The generator rumbled and dim red light bathed the room. The Overlord laughed.

  A woman’s cool and unflinching voice came over the intercom. “An error has occurred. Defense mechanisms have experienced temporary malfunction. Rerouting power to mandatory systems. This process will take five minutes.”

  “You bitch,” he said.

  Raging, he slammed his foot into the machine, stubbing his toes. Hissing as he held his injured foot, the Overlord staggered away from the generator.

  He knew the snowstorm a week ago had done a number on the wiring, but he hadn’t expected systems to outright fail. He imagined today’s weather had only contributed to the whole fiasco.

  There was nothing else he could do but return to Control. By default, it was the room guaranteed to reboot first. He’d have video and audio feeds soon enough, could at least see where and when to deploy the rest of the freak brigade.

  With the defenses momentarily offline, he’d have to play things differently. The monsters weren’t complete dullards, and they didn’t obey orders. If one of them smelled him, there was a real chance he was in danger.

  He locked the door to Control and pushed his chair under the handle. It wasn’t enough to hold off a determined and hungry mutant, but the women wouldn’t get through without a key.

  And if they managed to breach the door, there was always his last resort.

  In the corner of the room, floating in a small glass vial filled with colorless liquid, a creature resembling an armored black shrimp swam from top to bottom. Its jagged, spider-like legs didn’t move. Whip-like tentacles emerged from its triangular mouth, carrying it through the clear fluid.

  The Overlord gazed longingly at the creature. So close. Why must it always be so close? The company insisted these tests were the future, and the formula would perfect the world of tomorrow.

  Couldn’t they appreciate its natural beauty? Its talents required no training, no special treatments, and no tests. It was inborn, a transcendent specimen of power and control in an untamable world. The Founders had understood that. Rhinehold knew it too.

  The company deemed the parasite too volatile on its own. They claimed it was a liability and would deal untold collateral damage if deployed in the manner to which it was accustomed.

  Imprudent suits. Their obsession with their particular goals misled them. If given the opportunity, they would sooner flush this whole facility down the toilet rather than let a most wonderful organism breathe.

  The defunct bio-weapons program had been numbers on a spreadsheet. Facts and figures. That’s what the Founder’s Formula represented. It was a product, a cure for the illness of voluntary ground warfare. For the company, the bottom line was the de facto endgame.

  He stepped away from the vial. Years of separation had not dampened their link, but now was not the time to embrace temptation. The Overlord squashed his wistful memories of contentment and of the loving bond between man and a being that was his equal.

  The parasite tapped on the reinforced glass, but there was no way it could turn the container over or knock it off the machine.

  Like every living thing in this profane palace, it was a prisoner of its own making.

  *

  The sudden shift from bland grays and bright fluorescents to the instant spread of blackness left Michael sightless. Somewhere ahead, the agitated monster groused the loss of its prey. He realized that the creature wasn’t designed for nocturnal hunting in spite of its feline resemblance.

  It couldn’t see him. But it could still smell and hear him. He had to take advantage.

  His eyes adjusted to the dark. All was soft and fuzzy but there was no mistaking the monster’s presence. It walked in hunched circles, reluctant to commit to any particular methods of attack. And it was in his way.

  Ortiz was dead at his back. He was mutilado. There was nothing he could do for the poor man who’d screamed himself raw seconds before the lights went out. Michael apologized to his lifeless body, praying that his brief companion found peace.

  The mutant freak parked itself in front of the door. It wanted its prey to come to it.

  He could return to the elevator, but without electricity it wouldn’t run. How much patience did the creature have? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  The Overlord had to know something was wrong by now. That asshole would lock down the lift before Michael pressed a single button.

  Think. He had to think. What could he do to distract the monster long enough to get past and through the door? Assuming it didn’t operate on electricity, in which case he was pretty much dead already.

  He had no weapons. His prisoner jumpsuit restricted flexibility. The smart watch monitor told him he what he already knew; he was scared shitless. No assistance there.

  If this was a test, it had no solutions he could visualize. Elevator, body, monster, door. Elevator, body, monster, door. The mantra helped him harmonize his surroundings with the impassible task in his mind.

  If he retreated, he boxed himself in. If he attacked, he had nothing to defend with. If he stood in place, the lights would eventually turn on and give away his position. Easy pickings. He had to act, had to do something, but what?

  The creature yipped and moaned, startling Michael out of his thoughts. A cat-human hybrid thing was making dog noises. This hodgepodge puppet of the Overlord’s whim was irrational in every respect. What in God’s name were they trying to produce at this outrageous facility?

  Elevator, body, monster, door. Why did it feel like a dentist had taken a cavity drill to his brain? He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t fight past the same four items buzzing in his head as if they were subliminal messages for a bizarre product ad.

  Wait. The body. He could use Ortiz’s corpse. If he grabbed a wedge of that mutilated leg, maybe he could throw it to the creature like a trained puppy. It had to prefer free food over a fight.

  Michael grimaced as he dipped his hand into the mess of ragged skin, punctured muscle, and exposed bone. His throat contracted as vomit scaled his esophagus. He swallowed and tried to shut down his senses as he clutched a handful of slack human meat.

  He tweaked the chunk and, with a harsh flick of his wrist, severed the loose tendons of the leg. Ortiz convulsed, his eyes opened. There was no one behind those hazy greens, just the final, involuntary reactions of his nerves.

  His stomach started to spasm, the bile rising again as he staved off a heaving fit. But he had his macabre trophy, his repugnant token of freedom.

  The dark made it difficult to judge his aim. The monster was speedy; Michael knew its vertical jump was at least as high as any big cat’s leap. He couldn’t outrun the creature, but if he timed his toss well, he might juke by it.

  He readied the
hunk of flesh and counted down from ten. When he hit zero, he sprinted toward the cat-man and swung the meat overhand.

  The monster’s loping gait outpaced the soaring piece of Ortiz. Drooling with anticipation, its jaws working, it pounced.

  Michael ran, thanking God he’d been on the school’s track-and-field team instead of debate club or quiz bowl.

  The cat-man’s maw closed around the meat, shaking it this way and that with its oversized fangs.

  And Michael was gone, overtaking the predator, his previously rubbery legs no longer hindering him.

  He felt the gleaming red eyes focused on his spine, but he never looked back. Not when he heard the growl of the animal gulping down its meal and not when he elbowed his way through to the next room.

  Not even when the crunch of flesh hit the door behind him and a row of blinding incandescent globes lit up, dispersing the shadows.

  *

  Zachary and the others hadn’t moved since the power failure. The shrieks of whoever it was being tortured or killed had receded, but that didn’t make it safe to go further into the next room. The Overlord’s first assignment for them had been a mere riddle. He doubted that held true for Test Chamber 2.

  The Overlord’s irritated voice blasted over the intercom.

  “Attention ne’er-do-wells. You may have noticed we experienced some, uh, technical difficulties. I assure you that will not happen again. Now that we have established an understanding of your limited cognitive faculties, it is time to progress to something more taxing. Welcome, subjects, to Test Chamber 2, otherwise known as the Labyrinth.”

  Whatever Zachary expected to deal with when the lights shined again, it wasn’t a maze. Their host wasn’t a predictable man by any means.

  “Your task remains the same: escape. There is no timer but you will find that there are certain parameters urging an expedited exit. If you wish to survive, you need only follow my commands.”