Under My Skin (Wildlings)

by Charles de Lint

  Rico slaps him. "Shut up. I don't care who was here or who gave the order. Just tell me what happened to Jenny."

  "Juh—Jenny?"

  "The girl who was in here with me."

  "I don't know anything—"

  He breaks off as Rico moves the scalpel in front of his eyes.

  "Remember what I said about you getting one chance to answer?" Rico says.

  "She's down the hall!" the man cries. "She's just down the hall! Second door on your right."

  "Your key card opens her door?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "That's all I need to know," Rico tells him.

  Then he slices across the man's neck and pushes him away so that the sudden spurt of blood doesn't get all over him.

  "Jesus Christ!" I yell. "Are you nuts? What did you do that for?"

  I run toward where the man's clutching his neck, blood spurting out between his fingers. Rico blocks my way. I don't know what I'd do anyway. Try to stop the bleeding, I guess.

  "He's a monster," Rico says. "He doesn't deserve to live."

  "And what does that make us?"

  Rico shakes his head like he can't believe me.

  "Trapped animals," he says.

  He picks up the man's key card. There's blood on it, which he wipes away on the man's pant leg. The man has stopped twitching. He slumps where he fell, blood pooling on the floor around him. I look away, bile rising back up my throat.

  "You coming?" Rico asks.

  I shake my head. "You're nuts. I'm not going anywhere with you."

  "So you're going to stay here and let them run their experiments on you? Since I'll be gone, I guess they'll only have you to cut up."

  "No, I—" I'm so confused. "I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'm not going to go around killing people."

  "Fair enough. If we're lucky, we won't run into anybody else."

  He turns away and slides the key card down its slot. The inside of the door whirs and when he pulls on the handle, it opens. I look back at the chaos we're leaving behind. Dead bodies. Broken glass and lab equipment. The wall of my cell crushing the tables and cabinets it landed on. The front walls of the cells on either side standing askew off the floor. Which, I realize, is how Rico got out.

  "Tick-tock, tick-tock," Rico says. "If you want to get out of here, we need to get to the ground floor and we need to get there fast."

  "And then what?" I ask.

  He shrugs. He turns away, letting the door close. I have to sprint to catch it before it locks again. When I slip through, he's at the second door on the right, sliding the key card through its slot.

  "I thought we had to go?" I say.

  "Not without Jenny."

  The door unlocks. He turns the handle and pushes it slightly open, but then just stands there. He doesn't go in. He doesn't even try to look at what's inside. Instead he leans his head against the doorjamb.

  "What's the matter?" I say.

  "You don't smell it?"

  I didn't. But as soon as he says it, I do. A foul, ripe odour mixed with something sweet and cloying. I don't recognize it.

  "What—what is it?" I ask.

  "The dead." He pushes himself upright and squares his shoulders. "You might want to stay out here," he adds, then opens the door and steps inside.

  I don't want to follow him, but I do. I need to know everything, even though I wish I wasn't part of any of it. Killing that woman. Watching Rico kill her companion.

  For a long moment, I don't know what I'm looking at. It's a much smaller room than the one we were held in, but just as sterile. Marble floors. White walls and ceiling. One wall is taken up with a bank of large steel drawers, the other has a long table with a computer and microscopes on it. It's cold in here—cold enough that I can see my breath, but for some reason, I don't feel the chill on my skin. The only chill I feel is inside. It's like I've got ice water running through my veins instead of blood.

  In the middle of the room is another operating table. There are lights above it—turned off at the moment. Beside it is a small metal table on wheels that holds a bunch of surgical equipment. On the table ...

  I want to look away, but I make myself join Rico where he's standing at the table, looking down at the body.

  "Is—is this …?"

  "Yeah," he says. "This was Jenny. She was alive when they took her away. Scared out of her mind, but alive."

  Making myself look at her is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I want to pretend I'm watching one of those CSI shows on TV. That this isn't real. But it's all too real.

  They've cut her open and removed her organs. Just peeled the skin and tissue back, leaving this awful cavity. The organs are in basins on a second wheeled metal table. The top of her head is gone, her brain taken out and placed in another basin. Thin slices have been cut from the main part and are laid out in the basin.

  She's not a person anymore. She's just meat.

  I feel sick again, but there's nothing left in me to throw up.

  "This ... this isn't right," I say

  "No shit, Sherlock. Still feeling bad about those freaks we put down in the other room?"

  I shake my head, but I'm not sure I really mean it. Then Rico bends down to kiss the dead girl's brow. The pain in his eyes when he straightens up makes me flinch. I've never seen hurt like that and something hardens inside me. I realize I am sure. I'm not at all sorry about what happened to the researchers.

  Rico walks over the bank of steel drawers. I don't want him to open them, but he does. One after the other. By the time we've gone through them all, we've found the remains of half a dozen other kids.

  Rico slams a fist against the metal, leaving a dent.

  I don't say anything. I want to hit something, too.

  Rico trembles with anger and turns away. He crosses the room, where he picks up one of the computer monitors and smashes it on the floor. Microscopes and the rest of the computer equipment soon join it.

  "We're not fucking animals!" he yells.

  He kicks at the broken pieces, then drops to his knees. He looks up at me.

  "They don't even know or care if we're human or not," he says. "Cousin, human, they'll take us apart just to see how we work. And even if they figured out the difference, they wouldn't give a shit, except for the time they wasted on the ones that weren't cousins."

  I don't know what to say.

  He stands up finally and gives the computer tower another kick. It's already cracked in two. The impact of his foot sends pieces flying. Drives, motherboard, circuits.

  "So much for their research," he says. "Let them try to salvage something from that."

  I wish I could let him believe that it's all been destroyed, but he needs to know the truth.

  "The data's all still there," I tell him. "They can still pull it off the hard drives."

  "What does a hard drive look like?"

  I'm no geek, but even I know that. So how come he doesn't? Still, I point one out to him.

  "It looks like there are three of them," I say, "but it won't make any difference. They'll have backups stored off-site."

  "Fuck!"

  His eyes are crazed looking. He picks up the first drive and hurls it across the room. The other two follow in equally violent succession. They smash the wall with such force that the pieces scatter in a wide radius. If the bodies of either of those researchers were in this room, he'd probably pick up the scalpels and start stabbing them.

  He looks down at the floor and takes a deep breath, collecting himself. When he looks up again, the craziness has been pushed to the back of his eyes.

  "Okay," he says. "We can't do anything about that. And we can't give the dead a proper burial. All we can do now is try to get our own asses out of here."

  As he heads for the door, I weigh my options. Do I want to go with the crazy guy who can turn into a snake and kills people without warning? Or do I want to stay here and take my chances?

  My gaze returns to the body of the dead girl. />
  "Tick-tock," Rico says from behind me.

  I make up my mind and join him at the door. Moments later we're running down the hall, looking for a stairwell because Rico says an elevator will just trap us all over again. My skin prickles along my shoulder blades. My bare feet slap the floor. I keep expecting alarms to go off. There are cameras everywhere. Why haven't the alarms gone off?

  We find the door to the stairwell at the end of the hall. Rico swipes his stolen key card and hauls the door open. As we start up the stairs, the alarms finally go off. Their high-pitched clarion is so loud that it hurts my ears.

  "We just need to make it to the ground floor," Rico says.

  He picks up his pace before I can ask why, moving with a Wildling's speed.

  I stay right on his heels.

  Marina

  My phone rings as we make our way across the road in front of Pep Boys. I reach into my pocket, annoyed that I forgot to turn it off, then see that it's Barry.

  "Hang on," I tell the others.

  "Oh, Jesus," Barry says as soon as I answer. "You guys really need to see this before you go in."

  "See what?"

  "Just get back here."

  I look at Chaingang to see what he thinks. I know that he, Elzie and Cory can hear both sides of our conversation.

  "Who was that?" Desmond asks.

  Chaingang sighs. "Just tell him we're coming."

  "It was Barry," I tell Desmond as we turn around again.

  "What does he want?"

  "He didn't say."

  We hurry back, moving fast. Desmond trails behind, trying to keep up.

  "This better be good," Chaingang says as he pushes through the hedge ahead of the rest of us.

  But judging from the smell of fear on Barry, whatever it is, it isn't good.

  "All hell's broken loose over there," he says. "Look at this."

  He pulls up a camera view on the laptop.

  "What are we looking at?" Cory asks.

  "It's an autopsy room."

  A trashed autopsy room, I think, as I take in the image. There are pieces of some kind of machine scattered all over the floor, but I can't quite figure out what it was.

  Barry points at the metal table in the middle of the room. I lean in closer to figure out what's there, then quickly turn away. My stomach lurches.

  "She was just a kid," Cory says.

  I feel scared and sick. I wish I'd never seen that image, but I'll never be able to forget it now.

  Barry nods. "Yeah. And it gets worse. Let's see if I can play this back. I saw them smashing up that computer, then backed the video up to what had been recorded a few moments ago, in the first room we saw."

  He hits a couple of keystrokes then mutters a few choice words under his breath when the screen shows an interior view of the building's foyer.

  "Just a sec."

  A few more keystrokes and we're back looking at the room with the weird glass cells, except it's from a different perspective. We can see more of the room now.

  "Is that …?" Desmond begins.

  "Josh, yeah," Barry says. "They shaved off his dreads."

  Poor Josh. It took him a long time to grow those dreads. He'd never let them shave him willingly. Now I notice that Josh isn't alone. There's a one-legged kid in the cell beside him.

  "Fine," Chaingang says. "So we've confirmed that it's him. Now if we can just get back on track ..."

  His voice trails off. Josh and the other kid are both standing up now, staring at a door at the far end of the room as it opens to let in a couple of people in white lab coats. A tall woman, a shorter man. The kid we don't know suddenly makes this amazing one-legged leap to the side of his cell and starts banging on the glass. At the same time, Josh shifts into his mountain lion shape and lunges for the front of his cell.

  "Aw, crap," Chaingang says.

  Barry's right. It gets far worse after that. We watch transfixed as the wall of the cell collapses under the mountain lion's weight. Instantly, Josh snaps the woman's neck with one swat of a huge paw. Everyone is struck dumb as the rest of the scene plays out. Even Desmond has lost his quick tongue.

  Barry swallows hard.

  "I called you as soon as—well—right after Josh changed and all this other stuff happened …"

  Maybe he'd already guessed about Josh, but he's white as a sheet and his hands are shaking. By now, he certainly suspects that the rest of us gathered here around his laptop are also Wildlings. Having seen two violent deaths play out right in front of his eyes, and imagining that the rest of us might have similar powers, I'm surprised he's holding it together as well as he is.

  As for me, I'm all light-headed and my legs feel like Jell-O. I've just witnessed two murders. I don't know the other kid, but why did Josh change and why couldn't he control the lion? But then I think of that poor girl on the autopsy table. Maybe they were coming to do the same thing to Josh and his companion. Maybe they had no other choice. But it's still impossible to relate it to the Josh that I know.

  "You were right to call us back, bro," Chaingang says. "Where are they now?"

  "Dude, are you sure you want to go near that snake or that mountain lion?" Desmond says. "I kind of doubt they need our help … bro."

  Chaingang ignores Desmond. "Barry," he says again. "Where are they?"

  Barry shakes his head as though waking from a dream and looks at Chaingang. "I was able to see them in the autopsy room after that. The other dude trashed the equipment. They left right after that, but I don't know where they went. That's when I called you guys."

  "You've got to kill the cameras," Chaingang says. "All of them."

  "I don't know if I can."

  "Now. Just try, before—"

  We all freeze as alarms start to wail in the ValentiCorp building. Or at least, all the Wildlings hear it.

  "What's the matter?" Desmond says.

  "There's going to be cops all over the place," Chaingang says.

  Cory nods. "Kill their power," he tells Barry. "Backup generators, too."

  "I'm trying, man."

  Chaingang points a finger at Desmond. "You stay here. The rest of you, let's motor."

  "Come on, dude," says Desmond. "Don't leave me out. I'm in all the way."

  But he's already talking to Chaingang's back.

  I touch Desmond's arm. "We know," I tell him. "but you won't be able to keep up."

  Cory and Elzie are already gone. I run after them. As we tear across the parking lot, I hear Desmond far behind us. "Wait up!" he cries, to no avail.

  As Chaingang races across one of the medians separating the various parking lots, he scoops up a big stone without even breaking stride. I think it's a poor choice for a weapon, but just as we're about to pass a big cherry-red SUV, I find out what the rock is really for. Chaingang smashes it into the driver's side window, then throws it aside. Opening the door, he sweeps the glass from the seat and pops out a piece of the dash from under the steering wheel.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Elzie yells. "We need to get our butts over there!"

  "Josh and the snake kid are going to need a distraction if they're going to get out of there," Chaingang says. "This is the distraction."

  The SUV's engine roars to life.

  "Oh yeah," Chaingang says with a grin as he gets behind the wheel. "I've still got it. Grab a seat, ladies and gent."

  He pops the locks open and the rest of us pile in. I'm still closing my door when the SUV takes off. Chaingang pushes it at high speed right toward ValentiCorp, weaving to avoid parked cars and other medians. In the distance, I catch the first sound of an approaching siren. It's still far away, but it's soon joined by others. They'll be here in a minute.

  "What's the plan?" Cory asks from the shotgun seat.

  "Well," Chaingang says, "I'm going to drive through their front doors and see what happens."

  "Works for me."

  Elzie and I gasp at the same time, then quickly fumble for our seatbelts. Once we're strapped in, I rea
ch for Elzie's hand. I think maybe she's too cool to need comfort, but as soon as my fingers find hers, she locks on to mine in a tight grip.

  A couple of the security guards appear, running from the side of the building as we roar up to the front. They draw guns from shoulder holsters and we all duck as they begin to fire. Except for Chaingang. He just laughs.

  "Payback time, fuckers!" he yells.

  I have time to think, great. He's gone nuts and we're all going to die.

  Bullets hit the car, pinging from the metal, shattering the windows. Then we're past them, up on the curb, heading right for the front doors. More men appear. There's more gunfire. They all scatter as Chaingang drives right for them.

  Then we smash through the doors, spraying glass and metal, and we're in the foyer. The SUV skids on the marble floor. Chaingang yanks the steering wheel left, so that we're pulling three-sixties right there in the foyer. We take out a reception desk, a waiting area filled with sofas, tables and floor lamps. There's a momentary lull in the gunfire as the security guards dive out of our way.

  Then suddenly the building goes black and the alarms that have been screaming are cut off. There's only the roar of our motor. The headlights of the SUV pierce the sudden dark. As we rotate, they pick out a side door opening and two figures in white pants and shirts who dart out. I see them for a flash, then the SUV spins some more and they're lost to my sight.

  The gunfire starts up again as guards begin to shoot down on us from the mezzanine above. A couple of bullets come right through the roof of the SUV and it's a serious miracle that none of us are hit.

  "Straighten out!" Cory yells. "Drive for that wall!"

  He points to the far side of the foyer where I'd seen the two figures in white a moment ago. They're still there, but now the SUV's headlights are picking out an impossible sight behind them. There's a weird flickering in the air—like a heat shimmer—and on the other side of it, I can make out a pristine, moonlit landscape. Instead of the glass walls that should have been there with a parking lot behind them, we're looking at a place that can't possibly exist.

  The two figures run right into the shimmer.

  "What the hell?" Chaingang says.

  "Just follow them!" Cory shouts.