Roland clutched Wendy in a protective hug, which caused Briggs to shoot him a menacing glare. “You married out of guilt, but we know your real fear, Roland. You’re scared somebody will count on you. Because you always fail them, don’t you?”
Before Roland could react, Briggs shouted, “Are you ready, Mr. Kleingarten?”
“Just give the word, Doc,” said the man on the sorter.
David Underwood’s weird ululations were the only sound, reverberating around the hulking machinery, gaining brittleness and depth from the steel and the high glass: “Where seldom is heard…a disss…kurrr-ajin’ word…and the skies are not kuhloudeeeeeeeeee…”
Briggs took a bottle out of his pocket. “In this vial is a special version of Halcyon. One pill each. These don’t last four hours. They will stave off the worst symptoms for maybe fifteen minutes, maybe twenty minutes. We don’t know yet.” He beamed at Alexis. “If we knew everything, we wouldn’t need to experiment anymore, would we?”
“…alllll…daaaaaayyyyy,” David wailed.
“So what now?” Roland said.
“We see which of you get out of here alive, just like last time,” Briggs said, leaning forward and placing the vial on the floor at his feet. “Susan was the weakest ten years ago, but I suspect it will be Wendy this time.”
“You fucking bastard,” Roland roared, rushing forward at the same moment Alexis went for the pipe.
“Now!” Briggs shouted.
There was a click and hum as the factory went pitch-black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Mark put his ear to the wall, but the insane man’s singing drowned out any hope of hearing what was going on. He thought he heard Alexis’s voice, but he couldn’t be sure. Then the lights went out, and he felt along the wall to the door, trying the handle for the tenth time.
A hissing emanated from somewhere to his right, and in the dark he felt along the wall. Inches off the floor was a tiny metal grill, and air was circulating through it.
No, not just air. Something vaguely metallic and acrid. He sniffed, trying to place it.
He retreated to the far side of the room and slumped in the corner, his heart slamming against his ribs. Someone pounded on the wall to his left. Burchfield had probably made the same discovery.
Now I know how prisoners in the gas chamber feel. Except I don’t know whether I go brain dead and forget who I am, or if I get lizard-brained and tear my own eyes out.
Mark yanked his shirt up, tearing buttons, and held the fabric to his face, hoping it would serve as a filter. He tried to concentrate on his breathing, but the panic caused him to forget and take huge gulps of the contaminated air.
He scrambled to the door, bumping into it hard enough to see lime-colored sparks behind his eyelids, and he wondered if he was hallucinating. He punched the door twice, and by then the acrid odor had permeated his nostrils and left residue at the base of his throat.
Shit. It’s in me, whatever it is.
He grabbed the handle out of instinct, and this time it turned.
The surge of relief was stronger than his wariness, and he propelled himself into the fresher air of the hallway, even though it, too, was in darkness.
“Mark Morgan, is that you?” It was Burchfield, somewhere to his left.
“Yeah. Briggs must have used a remote control to unlock the doors. Why did he let us out?”
“Because we’re free.” It was a woman, and it sounded like she was still inside her cell. Mark hadn’t realized there might be other captives besides the lunatic singer of “Home on the Range.”
“Who are you?” Burchfield bellowed in his authoritative voice.
“Anita Mann,” she said with a giggle. “Who wants to be first?”
“Where’s Forsyth?” Mark called to Burchfield. The hallway had a main door, which Kleingarten had unlocked when depositing them in their cells, then locked again upon exiting; the acoustics suggested the hallway was still sealed off. The cell doors must have been sprung by remote control.
“Wallace?” Burchfield called.
“Come on, handsome,” Anita said. “I have a cozy cot right here waiting. And you don’t have to take turns. There’s plenty for everybody.”
“Nuh-nita,” someone blubbered. Mark recognized the voice as the singer’s.
“David?” The woman now sounded almost normal, though groggy, as if waking from a dream.
“They…killed Susan.”
The woman screeched in the dark. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up! That never happened, any way you remember it.”
“Mark, these people are off their rockers,” Burchfield said. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Wallace!”
Mark heard Burchfield scrabbling and scratching along the wall, then a metallic ding opposite him as a door closed.
“Goddamned,” Burchfield said. “He went back into his cell.”
Or maybe Briggs didn’t let him out, for whatever reason. Although Mark recalled his door had a privacy lock as well.
“He’s probably safer in there,” Mark said, thinking the elder statesman wouldn’t be much good if they had to fight or tear their way out of the hallway.
He tried to recall the layout of the hallway, but all he recalled were glimpses of the rows of doors, the low ceiling, lights inset so there were no low-hanging fixtures.
When somebody has a gun on you, you can’t think about much besides that deep black barrel and whatever might come out. If I ever see that son of a bitch again, I’m going to shove that—
Terrible, red images flooded him and he shook them away.
“Okay, people,” he said as calmly as he could, in the direction of David and Anita. “We’re going to get out of here, but we need to work together.”
He felt something warm and moist near his cheek and then she was entwining her arms around him, like a slithering, sinuous snake. Her body was fervid and her breasts were soft, her hair brushing gently across his face, and then her tongue was on his neck. “Hey, lover,” she whispered, and he realized she was naked.
He tried to push her away, but her grip tightened, and then she had her legs around him in a scissors grip, the heat between her legs radiating against his crotch through his pants. Half of him wanted to slam her against the wall, to hurt her and shake her off, but another part of him pulsed in alternating bands of languid blue and brilliant yellow.
Her lips found his and he tasted the acrid chemical again.
Drugged, he recalled, but knowledge didn’t diminish the insanity. He was aware of his two minds, the one that was frightened and murderous and the one that wanted to surrender to the raging lust that sprang from some primitive, disturbing depth.
He kissed back, sickened at his lust, and Burchfield’s distant hammering and shouting came as if from underwater.
Then other hands were at his back, pulling, tugging, even as he pressed himself harder against Anita’s exposed flesh and his hands frantically explored her curves. But there was no sensuality in his touch, only a carnal craving driven by an almost sickening desire to possess and consume.
“Luh-leave her alone!” the man grunted and stuttered as he grabbed at Mark. “Not like Suh-Susan.”
“Come on, David,” Anita whispered. “Plenty for all.”
But David’s intrusion had turned Mark’s mindless lust to something else, and he turned, feeling for the man in the darkness. It was easy to grab one of his thin arms and run a punch toward the center of where he thought the man might be.
His fist landed with a dull thud, like hitting a sack of paste. The man wheezed and fell backward, and Mark got a sense of his victim’s scrawniness as he turned toward Anita again. But she was gone, slithering somewhere along the wall, chasing whatever mad obsession had seized her next.
Burchfield ranted about how he’d be ordering an investigation, NSA, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and the “fucking Boy Scouts of America.” He was as unhinged as Mark, who drove his fist against the wall hard enough to drive some of the madness awa
y.
With the spark of pain, clarity descended and pushed aside the conflicting demons of lust and violence. Or maybe they were all the same demon. He could feel them up there in his brain, explosive forces ready to breach their dams and flood him once again.
Pain. That’s the way to beat the Seethe.
Alexis could probably explain the chemical process, how pain was perhaps the most primitive part of the brain, less sophisticated, more essential, more basic, more human than fear.
But right now, he had to find her. Because if she was out there, and she was as bad off as he was, then she was in deep trouble.
And, for now, pain was his friend.
Forget Burchfield, CRO, and the FDA.
Pain was his only fucking ally.
Anita must have found Burchfield in the dark and was now working her seduction on him, and he proved less resistant than Mark. Their moaning and slobbering filled the hallway, and David, crawling on the concrete floor toward the couple, muttered the opening lines to “Home on the Range.”
Mark rubbed his bleeding knuckles, reawakening the pain. He used it like a totem, a beacon of sanity in the induced madness. He guided himself along the hall, hoping he was moving in the right direction.
He tried to think of the worst pain he’d ever endured, and recalled the time one of his dental crowns had popped loose. The arteries in the teeth ran straight to the heart, he’d heard, so they were significant.
By the time he found the door, Anita was whimpering in the throes of pleasure and Burchfield was grunting, and even though Mark hadn’t seen Anita, the memory in his fingertips hinted at her erotic prowess and moist potential. A tiny surge of regret and jealousy rocketed through him, but he knew it was false, and he raked his knuckles along the door hinges just to remind himself of what was real.
Pain. Pain is real. Maybe the only real thing in this world.
Then, girding himself and trying to picture Alexis’s face, he peeled back his lips and drove his mouth hard into the middle hinge.
He grunted as one of his incisors broke in half, splintering up into his gum. He fell away spitting blood and broken enamel, the agony sluicing through his head like lava.
The pain consumed everything for a few moments, and he wiped the blood from his mouth. He was plenty hurt, but it consumed his mind, and he was able to remember his task.
The hallway door was open. It must have been on the same switch as the cell doors. He slipped out into the cool air of the factory and eased the door shut behind him, making sure it was locked. He couldn’t withstand any more temptation.
Nor any more pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The party begins.
As soon as Kleingarten hit the remote switch killing the lights, Sebastian Briggs had backed away and reached for the night-vision goggles dangling from his back pocket. The facility interior wasn’t in absolute darkness, since the faint urban glow imbued the high windows with gray, but the subjects were cast in the bleakest night.
The goggles had their own infrared-emitting source, however, which meant he was broadcasting an invisible beam that would reflect on objects and allow him to see even in total darkness. There were places in the maze that were designed to be closed off from all light, and he didn’t want to miss an inch of the fun.
The goggles were a little clumsy, since they were strapped to his head and added a little weight, but at least his hands were free.
The trio staggered around, blinking, at their most helpless. He’d calculated correctly that Wendy was the most vulnerable to Seethe and Alexis was the most coherent. Alexis had always been astute, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had figured out his pharmaceutical game of cat-and-mouse. But apparently the Seethe was more powerful than he’d imagined, or else she wasn’t as smart as he had hoped.
She fumbled for the pipe that Wendy had dropped, and Briggs wondered if she would turn first on the others or look for him. Roland, who should have been the most confused, had the presence of mind to drop to the floor and crawl along, patting the concrete in front of him to find the vial. Wendy—
Ah, Wendy.
Moving as silently as possible, Briggs eased along the massive sorting machine that assembly-line workers had once used to piece together motors. Chains clinked farther down the corridor, and he knew Kleingarten must have made his retreat. He’d instructed the man to wait an hour, and then turn the lights back on, but he certainly didn’t trust Kleingarten.
But there would be time for Kleingarten later. Right now, he had Wendy.
She had recovered a little, although she stood wobbling like a foal, blinking against the darkness. She was twenty feet away from the others, forgotten now even by her former husband.
Ah, Wendy. I have missed you.
He stood close enough to smell her. She’d shampooed with a chamomile-and-honey concoction, but it had been at least a day before, because animal sweat, tainted with a faint touch of the chemicals decomposing in her body, were her dominant odors. He didn’t mind, though. He rather liked it.
His nostrils flared as he indulged again. She turned, possibly sensing his presence, and he froze in place.
“Roland?” she said.
“Stay where you are, babe,” Roland said from twenty feet away. “All this junk around here, you might get hurt.”
She obeyed, just like she always did. Sure, she’d been Briggs’s second choice in the beginning, but she’d proven the sweetest selection because of the deeply suppressed eroticism and hunger she’d hidden even from herself. Her yearning and seeking had manifested as an artist’s passion in her waking life, but Seethe had peeled away the conscious layer and exposed the carnal creature inside. Alexis would have been too much trouble, and like any good researcher, Briggs knew all windows of opportunity were brief, and he would rather indulge than match interpersonal wits.
A successful predator always knows how to pick out the easy meat.
He knelt, hoping his knees didn’t pop, and he leaned closer, trying to smell the rest of her.
“Got ‘em,” Roland said, shaking the vial before slipping it into his pocket.
“I’m losing it over here,” Alexis said, still feeling along the floor for the pipe. Her fingers brushed it, and Briggs smiled as she brought it up with the barest scrape of metal on concrete.
“We can’t trust that bastard,” Roland said. “Every four hours, every fifteen minutes, once in a fucking lifetime. He’s just playing with us.”
“I need one,” Wendy said.
“Not yet,” Roland said. “We need to hold out as long as we can.”
“We don’t have long.” Alexis squeezed the pipe and, crouching, she moved toward Roland, trying to keep him talking. “All we have is now.”
“This isn’t some dipshit sixties song, Alexis,” Roland said. “This is life and death.”
“You ought to know about death, after what you did to Susan.”
Roland turned toward the sound of her voice, the gap between them narrowing. “I didn’t do anything to Susan. You were the leader, remember? Little Mrs. Briggs, right there pushing our buttons.”
Alexis raised the pipe and, with a screech, rushed toward him. Briggs watched through the night-vision goggles, six inches from Wendy.
Roland flinched at the cry and rolled to the side, but he wasn’t fast enough. The pipe bounced off his shoulder with a bruising thwack, and he grunted, “Fuck.”
“Lex! You okay?” Mark shouted from the far end of the factory.
Briggs smiled in the dark.
Ah, the hero to the rescue. But a kiss won’t wake this princess. No, this princess is ruling with an iron hand.
“Lex!” Mark repeated, more frantically. A stack of boxes fell over somewhere, sending a spray of small metal objects—lug nuts, rivets, ball bearings—across the floor.
Alexis swung the pipe back and forth, probably hoping to find Roland so she could deliver another blow. But Roland had learned his lesson and was keeping his mouth shut, no
w staggering down the corridor, his left arm hanging limp.
Briggs took the opportunity to grab Wendy’s wrist and tug her in the opposite direction.
“Roland?” she whispered.
“Shh.” He moved quickly, not giving her a chance to get oriented. He loved it when the monkeys were lost and confused.
Alexis banged her pipe against the hulk of a tractor frame, giving away her location. Mark would be able to find her, with a little time and patience. However, if the Seethe Briggs had dispensed through the ventilation system had done its job, Mark would have precious little of either. And surely Mark now understood the risk of exposing himself to a group of raving, murderous lunatics, but like fools throughout history, he was sticking his neck out for love and a senseless notion of duty.
Love. If only I could invent a drug for that, we’d truly have a crazy world.
“Where are we going?” Wendy whispered, as though understanding the need to be secretive. It sent a shiver of delight through Briggs. Just like old times.
What they shared wasn’t love, not exactly, but it was the best thing he’d ever had. And what man wouldn’t take advantage of such a situation?
“Shh.” He pulled her along, the goggles revealing the turns in the heaps of scrap iron, towering stacks of rubber tires, and old wooden crates. He knew the layout well enough that he could have navigated it in his sleep.
“It’s the Seethe!” Mark shouted from the far end of the facility. “It’s making us freak out.”
“Mark?” Alexis called, from one corridor over, though her voice echoed throughout the cavernous shell.
“Be careful!” Roland yelled. “She’s gone violent!”
“I’m not violent,” Alexis said, followed by the sound of scuffling feet. “Now give me those goddamned pills or I’ll bash your brains in.”
Upon hearing Roland call out, Wendy resisted Briggs’s pull. “Roland?” she whispered. “How can you be in two places at once?”
“Because he’s two people,” Briggs said. “And I’m the good Roland.”
Wendy wasn’t convinced, and she tried to pull away, digging her fingernails into the back of Briggs’s hand. He yanked her close and grabbed her hair, pulling her ear to his mouth. He didn’t need to be quiet, because the others were shouting, but he knew the power of a whisper.
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