by Tate, Sennah
The noise alone was enough to overwhelm Gemma — shouting, cursing, animalistic growls and grunts, all punctuated the air — but that was only the beginning.
From the gaping hole to their left, people began to pour into the antechamber that Gemma and Carson had, only moments before, been occupying alone.
It took Carson a moment to survey the mob, but he quickly decided that his suspicions about a new drug in town were correct. The rowdy bunch of convicts trampled over the overwhelmed officers. Carson kept his arms tightly wound around Gemma as more and more snarling, foaming, crazed people crushed into them.
Every attempt the officers made of containing the situation only seemed to make everything spiral further out of control.
A mousy female officer raised her voice at a burly bear of a man.
“Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head,” she squeaked, pointing a stun gun at him.
The man had nearly half a foot on Carson and a beard that could make Paul Bunyan envious. He turned his wide unfocused eyes to the police officer and charged at her, teeth bared.
The small woman closed her eyes, wincing as she pulled the trigger, shooting two metal prongs into the man’s flesh.
He didn’t even flinch. He only stared at the barbs embedded in his skin with curious interest. Finally, he ripped them free and tossed them on the ground before rejoining the rioting mob.
The officer, Gemma and Carson all stared dumbfounded at the man that treated 100,000 volts like nothing more than a pesky fly on his arm.
Another officer attempted to wrangle convicts with handcuffs. He was doing a pretty good job of cuffing people, but there wasn’t a clear path through the crowd to get them into holding cells.
Gemma watched as a cuffed woman in front of her pulled at her wrists until the metal bracelets dug into her flesh. She was worried that the woman would hurt herself as blood dripped down her palms, her wrists still tugging against their confines.
With a final tug, the chain connecting the cuffs pulled apart like it was made of paper. Gemma’s heart thundered louder than any of the pandemonium around her. She was thankful for Carson’s arms wrapped around her, but she wanted to find a way out of this mess.
Like he read her thoughts, Carson pulled her behind the reception desk, instructing her to stay hidden under it.
“I’ll be right back. I’m going to find a way out of here,” he said, his eyes darting all over the room before coming back to rest on hers, “don’t move.” He pressed his forehead against her’s as a gentle reassurance before he disappeared into the mob.
She hugged her knees to her chest as silent dry sobs made her entire body shake. What was happening? This seemed like something out of a movie; none of this felt real, but if she peeked her head out of her hiding spot, Gemma knew that the chaos she’d find would be all too real.
She didn’t like being left alone. At least with Carson’s arms around her she felt safe and protected. Now she was abandoned, alone and vulnerable. She hoped that he really would come back for her.
Then a chilling thought struck her: was any of this related to Izzy’s disappearance? She didn’t know what made these people into frothing monsters, but had the same thing affected Isabel? Was she possibly amongst this mob? Gemma found it hard to believe that Izzy could ever be anything like these people, but that didn’t mean that one of these contaminated people hadn’t found her…
She didn’t want to think about that though. She had her own survival to worry about as her heart raced, pounding against her ribcage in a desperate attempt to burst free from her chest.
It felt like Carson had been gone for ages, but Gemma knew in reality it was probably closer to a minute or two. She couldn’t tamp down the panic that kept bubbling up inside of her. If something happened to either one of them it would be her fault. She insisted that they come here. She brought Carson into this dangerous situation and now he was risking his life to find a way out of it while she just hid under a desk.
The styrofoam ceiling tiles above her trembled and bowed under the creaking weight of something just over her head. She managed to peek her head out from under the desk to survey the commotion again, trying to find any sign of Carson in the crowd. She didn’t want to keep hiding for long. It made her anxious and she knew she wouldn’t be safe there forever. Eventually she was going to have to come out of her burrow.
Just as her head cleared the top of the desk, a pair of dueling men slammed into her safe haven. She ducked her head back down as quickly as possible, but one man already hefted the other over his shoulders before tossing him into the wall that Gemma faced.
The man lay on the cold tile floor, crumpled in a lifeless heap. Gemma’s first instinct was to see if he was okay, to see if there was anything she could do to help, but her sense of self-preservation told her that now was not the time to be a Good Samaritan.
The seconds seemed to drag on and on for hours. Every ragged breath that Gemma took felt like an eternity. She was just beginning to worry in earnest about the man on the floor only feet away from her. For all she knew, he could be dead; his back could be broken, his skull fractured or a lung punctured. She didn’t think she could just keep ignoring him when no one else was going to come to his rescue.
“Okay, Gemma,” she whispered, knowing that she would have to come out of hiding to crawl across the floor to the prone figure, “you can do this.”
She took a deep breath, but before she was even able to move, the man opened his eyes.
A gasp escaped her lips; his eyes were colorless save for the over-sized pupils that watched her as if she were in their cross hairs.
He picked his head up slowly, his movements jerky and inhuman. His hungry gaze never left Gemma’s face and she felt her pulse quicken impossibly in her veins.
“Any time now, Carson,” she mumbled, trying to back further away but the front panel of the desk halted her progress.
She was trapped.
The man tilted his head to the side with a sickening crack before he managed to pull himself into a sitting position.
Gemma swore she could see him salivating at the sight of her; blood trickled from his ears and down his neck unnoticed — his focus was absolute and reserved only for her.
“Carson,” she called, hysteria creeping into her voice even though she knew he wouldn’t hear her.
The crazed man crawled toward her on hands and knees; his joints flexed at odd angles that Gemma knew must be painful. What was powerful enough to override a person’s basic instincts?
In the next second so many things happened at once that Gemma couldn’t even process them all.
She pressed herself against the back of the desk as the stranger launched himself at her, mouth open like a hungry crocodile. She curled into a tight ball, trying desperately to protect her vital organs from the impending attack.
But the attack never came.
In one fell swoop, Carson grabbed Gemma’s attacker by the scruff of his collar and hurled him into the wall with a growl. The plaster cracked and crumbled from the repeated blows and dust rained down on the man, Carson’s fist met with the stranger’s jaw with a gut-wrenching crack before the man collapsed, once again unconscious.
Gemma’s heart didn’t slow a bit; Carson was acting just like the rest of them. When he stuck his head under the desk to offer her a hand, she cringed, shying away from him.
“Gemma, it’s okay. Come on, we have to go quickly.”
What choice did she have but to trust him?
The ceiling overhead creaked again and the florescent lights flickered ominously.
Her hand slipped into his and he dragged her out of her hiding spot through the raging mob. She tripped over her own feet and plenty of other peoples’ as he pulled her along without a moment of pause. He tugged her through the gaping hole that used to be a doorway and past the ruins of what was left of the station.
There was a window on the far side of the room, the floor around it was litt
ered with shards of broken glass and smears of blood.
“Carson…” Gemma tried to speak, but he wasn’t having any of it. He had to get her out of here as quickly as possible. There would be time to talk later. He had to get her to safety first.
He launched himself out of the window, landing on the patch of grass ten feet below with a wobble.
“Come on!” He shouted, holding his arms out to her.
She looked frantically around for some other way. It wasn’t a far drop, but it was far enough that she didn’t want to jump. Her eyes roved over the debris that used to be a functioning police station and she knew she couldn’t stay any longer.
Gemma perched herself at the window sill and looked down. The world swam before her eyes; the ten foot drop looked like fifty to her. Her muscles locked up and her brain shut down. Even the tamest of heights was enough to give her a panic attack.
“I can’t!” She cried, a tremor of hysteria edging into her tone.
Carson roared his frustration; people were pouring out of the station and their escape was doing nothing to temper their frenzy. They needed to get out of there ASAP.
“Gemma, you have to jump. I’ll catch you, I promise,” he pleaded, trying to keep his voice even and calm despite the situation.
She cast a furtive glance back over her shoulder, only to see people staggering back in around her. It was now or never.
She closed her eyes, squeezing a solitary tear out as she did; she was going to have to trust him.
The moment her hands pushed her from the sill, she regretted it. She was falling, there was nothing to support her, nothing to stop her from splattering onto the hard ground, nothing to keep her brains inside her skull if it slammed into the pavement. Before she even had the chance to fully realize her panic, Carson’s arms cradled her fall and set her gently onto her feet before he grabbed her hand and hauled ass toward his car as the building behind them began to crumble and collapse.
Chapter 7
Once they were locked back in the safety of Carson’s Camaro, they both took a pause to try to catch their breath. Gemma’s mind was still reeling with everything that had just happened. There were no words to describe the chaos and panic that swept over the police station. She didn’t know what to make of it all. But she knew now, more than ever, that they had to find Izzy as soon as possible. They had already wasted too much time.
Carson started the ignition, his hands trembling still. In the rear view mirror he could make out the brawling mob right outside of the station. People jumped from the windows, police ran for cover and smoke began to billow from the besieged building. This was insanity; he looked at Gemma, again thinking that she would prove to be more trouble than good. He wondered to himself why he came back for her. He could have easily left her to fend for herself. His mind filled with images of the crazed man lunging at her as she tried to protect herself; no, he couldn’t leave her alone — she didn’t even have a broom this time. She needed protection and he would be the one to grant it; there was no arguing the point, something in him refused to let her go even when his intellectual mind was trying to find a way to ditch her.
The tires squealed as he peeled out of the parking lot, narrowly missing an angry man that jumped in front of the car.
“Where are you going?” Gemma asked, her voice trembling with the effort of holding in her panic.
“To my office,” he grumbled, his forehead wrinkled with the firm line of his brow.
“What? No. We have to try another police station.” She shrunk away from the answering look he gave her — a look that said all too clearly that he thought she belonged in an asylum.
“You’re insane if you think the police can help us now, Gemma. Did you just miss all of that back there? It’s like a war zone.”
She nibbled on her lip, fighting to keep her eyes on the road.
“Yeah, but that was just one station… Maybe somewhere else…”
He brought the car to a screeching halt on the side of the road. The streets were abnormally clear for this time of day and this side of town seemed to be deserted.
“They couldn’t even keep control of their own station, what makes you think they have the resources to help us find Izzy?”
Gemma stammered, stumbling over her words as she tried to find a reasonable response.
“I… um… But they’re the police! They’re trained to deal with this stuff.”
His resounding bark of laughter startled her and made her instantly defensive.
“And you’re an idiot if you think they’ve ever seen anything of this magnitude. They don’t know what to do other than sit around with their thumbs in their asses. Trust me, sweetheart, if anyone’s going to find Izzy, it’s going to be me.”
She noticed his sudden omission of her from his plans and it rubbed her the wrong way. Just because she wanted to seek help from the proper authorities didn’t mean he had any right to laugh at her or her opinions. She was just going to tell him so, but he continued talking before she could defend herself.
“Look, you can join me or not. I don’t really care either way. Just make up your mind if you’re going to be with me on this or if you’re just going to keep wasting my and Izzy’s precious time.”
He didn’t know why he lied to her; he definitely cared whether she joined him or not. If she didn’t want to come along with his plan, Carson didn’t know if he would be able to let her face this new world on her own. He didn’t know what the next day would bring, he didn’t know how far this thing would spread or how easy it was to get caught up in it. He didn’t like the thought of crazed junkies roaming the streets, barging into her house while she was sleeping, doing God knows what… No. She had to come with him. He would find a way to convince her, even if it meant taking her to every police station in a twenty mile radius. He didn’t know what it was about her, but this strange woman brought out his deepest protective instincts. He couldn’t deny the primal urge her had to shield her from all of the bad things in the world. He couldn’t brush aside the irresistible desire he had to wrap his arms around her and soothe her fears. There was no denying his sudden affinity for her, but he was going to try to deny it anyway.
She sighed, her shoulders falling under what appeared to be an overwhelming weight. Carson felt a tug at his chest, wishing he could lift her burden. But there were more important things right now. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.
“Okay,” she conceded, “we’ll do things your way. What’s your plan?”
Carson wished he felt more satisfied with his victory; the slump of her shoulders and the hollow expression on her face made him feel guilty for being so harsh with her. He was letting the stress of the situation get to him; he knew he needed to make a concerted effort to keep his temper reigned in with Gemma. She seemed so fragile and delicate.
Carson cleared his throat, pulling the car back out onto the abandoned road.
“I have a few friends that may be able to help us.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
Gemma rolled her eyes.
“If you couldn’t tell, I was fishing for more information there,” she remarked with a hint of playfulness in her tone. The air in the car felt heavy and oppressive, she just wanted to lighten the mood a little bit.
“Right,” Carson answered, his fingers twisting around the steering wheel belying his cool facade.
“Well, we’ve all just been friends since grade school. We’ve gone our separate ways, but somehow all ended up back here fairly recently.”
“And… you think these friends of yours will be able to help us find Izzy?”
“If anyone can, yeah. I didn’t want to raise any alarms by bringing it up if there was nothing to worry about. Obviously, something’s going on though.”
Gemma nibbled her bottom lip thoughtfully. On the one hand, she knew that things like this were a job for the police or the national guard; civilians had no place crime fighting. On the other hand, Carson had
a point: the police seemed to be pretty ineffective right now. If she wanted to feel safe in her own town and her own home, they needed to figure out what was happening. It seemed like it might be a bit bigger than just Izzy, but Izzy had to be their priority.
A heavy sigh escaped her lips. No matter what he said, Carson couldn’t do anything to soothe her raging anxiety. She wouldn’t be able to calm down until she saw Isabel safe.
“Yeah… Don’t they have other things to do though?” She asked. It was one thing for an unemployed teacher to drop everything for a friend; it was reasonable for a brother to put his life on hold for his little sister, but what about his friends? They couldn’t just press pause on their jobs, relationships, and obligations to help him, could they?
He chuckled, a warm and welcome change to the stony expression he’d been wearing.
“You’ll understand more when you meet them,” he answered.
Gemma wasn’t sure that she would, but she agreed to go along with his plans so she kept her mouth shut and let him drive.
Chapter 8
Carson pulled into the back of a nondescript brick building, complete with rusted gutters and a fence hanging on by a prayer.
“This is your office?” Gemma asked, hesitating before she exited the vehicle.
“In a sense, yeah,” Carson grinned mischievously, a gleam of eagerness in his eyes.
“Oh… kay,” she replied after a pause. She didn’t get the joke; she felt like she was missing something but she didn’t know what. It was a frustrating feeling; she was out of the loop before she even knew there was a loop.
Carson casually walked around the side of the four-story building and opened the door that covered the stairs leading into the basement.
Gemma froze.
Okay, you followed him this far, but are you really about to go down into some creepy basement with a man you don’t know? Who even has a basement in Florida? She asked herself. Another voice chimed in, but he did save me, that has to count for something right?
Yeah, sure. But something isn’t the same as walking into the murder-basement.
