Liquid fear f-1

by Scott Nicholson

  “This is where we killed Susan,” Wendy said.

  “I wish you’d quit saying that,” Alexis said with quiet resignation.

  “Susan,” Roland said. “She was one of us, wasn’t she?”

  “Don’t you find it strange that we could have loved each other after that?” Wendy said. “We are horrible, disgusting people.”

  Susan’s death was just another dream image to Roland, but every time Wendy mentioned her, the girl’s face crystallized a little more in his mind.

  Her smiling, sweet, chubby face.

  And then the bloody and battered thing it had become.

  He pounded his fist on the steering wheel so he would have some pain as a distraction. “Now what, guys? Ram the gate like in a movie? Or do we try to find another way in?”

  “He’ll be expecting us,” Alexis said. “That’s what this is all about. He timed the doses to get us here now.”

  She was right. His every step had been guided from the very beginning, since he’d woken up in Cincinnati with a corpse in the bathroom. In an odd way, the idea of manipulation gave him comfort, because it probably meant he hadn’t killed her.

  But he could have. He was clearly capable. And probably more eager than he’d like to admit.

  But that was the Seethe talking. He could almost feel the effect growing, like a sentient being slithering through his nervous system and dispensing its twisted brand of poison.

  “Anita’s in there,” Wendy said. “One way or another, we have to go.”

  Roland was about to respond when the gate gave a jerk and then began retracting.

  “That was easy,” Roland said.

  Wendy touched his arm, and a tingle raced up his flesh. He was afraid the Seethe might be exaggerating his response to her, but he welcomed the contact. No matter what happened, it was right and fitting that they were together for this.

  “So, we all vote for going in?” Roland said.

  “No choice,” Alexis said. “We’ll be out of pills soon. And we’re likely to have a total meltdown then. We either lose it out here or take our chances on finding some Halcyon inside.”

  “You mean it gets worse? That we’re better off in there with Briggs than out here with Seethe taking control of our minds?”

  “She’s a scientist,” Wendy said. “We better trust her on this.”

  “We don’t know what we can trust anymore. Even each other.” He didn’t mean to say that last sentence, but he knew they’d all been thinking it.

  One of the wonderful side effects of this nutty joy juice was paranoia, apparently. But maybe that wasn’t such a big discovery. After all, if this thing trimmed existence down to the bone, there was nothing left but survival instinct.

  Kill or be killed.

  He eased the car forward, following the broken pavement into the trees. The building revealed itself through the treetops via its high band of narrow lighted windows, and then the brick facade came into view. The sight of it sent an icy spear of recognition up Roland’s spine.

  “I don’t see any other cars,” Wendy said.

  “Don’t worry,” Roland said. “They’re here.”

  “You think Briggs is alone with Anita?”

  The question irritated Roland because it sounded almost like jealousy. It wasn’t Wendy’s fault that Briggs had seduced her while she was vulnerable. After all, she was ping-ponging on Seethe and Halcyon. Hell, people did worse things. Like commit murder.

  “He’s trying to recreate the original trials,” Alexis said.

  “Except he can’t do that,” Wendy said. “He’d need David Underwood and Susan Sharpe, too.”

  “Nobody knows what happened to David,” Alexis said.

  “David’s in on this somehow,” Roland said, pulling the car to a gentle stop. “It’s all part of the maze, and Briggs has his rats jumping through hoops, looking for the next chunk of cheese.”

  “Why go to all that trouble, though?” Wendy said.

  “I think we have to go in and find out,” Alexis said, opening her door.

  “She’s the brains of the bunch,” Roland said to Wendy as they watched Alexis walk toward the building entrance. “But you’re the one not dulled by the Halcyon. So I’m counting on you, okay, babe?”

  “I’m afraid,” Wendy said.

  He touched her shoulder, and before he gave it a thought, he was leaning toward her, brushing her hair from her ear, kissing her cheek. It should have been wrong, but it was the most familiar thing he’d felt in days. Maybe years.

  “Roland,” she whispered, and then they crushed their lips together hard, the way people who might die would do.

  She tasted of raspberries and mint, but there was a metallic whang on her breath that Roland assumed was due to the chemicals in their bodies.

  “Let’s find Anita and get out of here,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

  They walked arm in arm from the car to where Alexis was waiting near the single metal door. She pointed to a dark wet spot on the pavement. “Blood,” she said.

  “I wonder whether it was somebody trying to get out or somebody trying to get in,” Roland said, leading the way to the door.

  He wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe a booby trap, maybe an ambush, maybe an avalanche of confetti and circus music and fat clowns.

  The door was unlocked, more proof that Briggs was ready for them. He peeked inside the opening.

  And ten years fell away in a heartbeat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Alexis glanced around the dim, cavernous interior and its clutter of broken machinery. The high fluorescent lights cast an alien glow over the chaos, accenting the shadows beneath metal armatures, shelving, and grid work.

  “It’s almost exactly the same,” she said as they navigated the main corridor. “But I don’t remember the ceiling being so high.”

  Wendy dug in a pile of tractor parts and brought out a jagged length of steel pipe. She swung it in an arc before her, grunting.

  “Hey, hey,” Roland said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “She’s due,” Alexis said. “She needs to take her next dose now.”

  Wendy growled as if threatened, and she backed away from them, her free hand upturned in a claw. The deterioration was sudden: one moment Wendy had been twitchy and distant, and the next she was feral.

  “Here, Wendy,” Roland said. “Put down the pipe and you can feel better.”

  Alexis was riding the Halcyon herself, now accustomed to its dulling effect. But the Seethe still stirred restlessly beneath it, as if waiting for its chance to erupt. She wondered if the two compounds were playing a Jekyll-and-Hyde tug-of-war inside their heads.

  Maybe the effect was like that suffered by a cancer-ridden Alzheimer’s patient who might emerge into awareness only long enough to realize how much pain he was in.

  She kept to the shadows while Roland closed in on Wendy. “Come on, hon,” he said, in a smooth imitation of lovey-dovey talk. “Who’s my good girl?”

  “Careful,” Alexis said. “I think the building has triggered some memories.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Einstein,” he said. “Like we come back here and suddenly it turns into a giant game of Candyland?”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Roland. I liked you better when you were flattened on Halcyon.”

  Alexis knew her anger was chemically induced, but as a neurochemist, she understood that all moods were the result of fluctuations in serotonin, glutamates, and dopamine. But where all the other brain researchers were still stabbing in the dark, Sebastian Briggs must have stumbled onto something so primal and obvious that she had no room to fight it.

  After all, the awareness that fear existed didn’t make it any less scary when the scalpel swept toward your eyeball or the shark fin appeared beside you in the ocean.

  “You were the first one to hit her,” Wendy said to Roland, the words squeezing out between clenched teeth.

  “No, no, you’re remembering it wrong,”
he said. He stood in place, repeating the shout he’d uttered when they’d first entered the building. “Briggs! Anita! Is anybody here?”

  Under his breath, he emitted a “Goddamn it” and turned away from Wendy. Alexis wasn’t sure whether he did it as a show of trust, but Wendy saw it as an opportunity and leapt for him.

  Alexis opened her mouth to warn him, but he must have sensed Wendy’s movement-Holy hell, we’re being reduced to animals-and he spun to the side just in time to miss her downward swing of the pipe.

  The momentum carried her arm forward and the pipe struck the concrete floor with a muted thunk. Wendy dropped the pipe and shook the shock from her elbow. Roland grabbed her and overpowered her, wrestling her to the floor.

  “Hurry, the pill!” he said.

  Alexis broke from her paralysis and yanked the vial from Wendy’s pocket, removing the last pill. She pushed it into Wendy’s mouth.

  Wendy nearly bit her hand, but Alexis kept her palm pressed against her friend’s lips until Wendy chewed and swallowed. Within seconds, her body relaxed.

  Alexis kept her hand in place while she glanced at the bottle. “Roland?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This was yours. D. Underwood.”

  “A pill’s a pill,” he said, keeping his weight on Wendy. “They’re all green.”

  “Briggs might have engineered specific dosage levels for each of us. That’s why we each had our own labels.”

  “Who gives a shit? I’m not that interested in protocol at this point.”

  “Roland,” Wendy said with a whimper.

  He looked down at her. “What, babe?”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “Sorry.” He helped her sit up. “You were freaking out.”

  Wendy leaned forward and dry heaved, then spat. Chewed bits of medicine scattered across the floor.

  Alexis glanced at the pipe, which lay about six feet to her left. Then she studied the pale angle of Roland’s neck above his collar. She could have the pipe before Roland noticed.

  But the bitch Wendy deserved to die, too. She’d risked them all by not taking her medicine.

  Before Alexis could make a decision, a loud clapping erupted. Sebastian Briggs stepped from behind a giant stamping machine, approaching them with the same arrogance he’d always displayed. He finished his applause and said with a smile, “My volunteers have returned.”

  He’d changed little, physically. The only difference was the first hint of gray at his temples. He was dressed in chinos and a blue shirt with the top button undone, looking more like a day trader than a researcher.

  “Roland and Wendy,” he said. “The happy couple reunited.”

  “Where’s Anita?” Roland said.

  Briggs ignored him, gazing at Alexis as if to hypnotize her. “Alexis. My star pupil. I’m hearing great things about you.”

  “It should have been mine,” she said, spit flying from her lips. “It was my fucking formula and you stole it!”

  “There would have been enough glory to go around, Alexis. But you had to commit that horrible, horrible atrocity.”

  A warbling wail arose from somewhere in the bowels of the old factory. It resembled singing, but the sound was so forlorn and tormented that Alexis couldn’t place it at first. All her attention was on Briggs and that smirk she’d always found insufferable.

  Every time he’d corrected one of her mistakes, every time he’d chided her for a theory he found outlandish, every time he leaned over her shoulder and pressed against her when he was studying her cellular images “‘Home on the Range,’” Roland said. “It’s his song. You’ve got David here, too, don’t you, you psycho son of a bitch?”

  Roland tensed as if to launch himself at Briggs, but he was stopped by the researcher’s chilling words. “You need me, Roland. I have the Halcyon. The real Halcyon, not that watered-down junk you’ve been taking. Without me, you turn into psychotic animals, and we all know how that ends, right?”

  Roland didn’t look convinced. Something clattered atop the assembly-line sorter to the left of them and a curved acrylic hood toppled to the concrete and cracked. A man crouched at op the machinery, his face obscured in the shadows.

  “That’s my Igor up there, so don’t go playing hero,” Briggs said. “He’s an excellent shot.”

  Igor. That’s what Briggs had called Alexis when she’d been selected as his graduate assistant. We’ll save the world, my little Igor, he’d say, patting her “hump” and letting his hand linger. And she’d endured it because she had a career to consider, and Briggs was gaining notice.

  Why am I just now remembering all this? Could he have developed a regimen that would have us all breaking down right here, right now?

  But of course that was what Seethe was all about. A timed disintegration, a mass-market chaos, insanity prescribed and delivered on schedule. Part of Alexis had suspected it, even back then, but she was so intent on the beneficial Halcyon research, she’d overlooked the dark side.

  “Oh, Alexis, I can see the disappointment on your face,” Briggs said. “I believe you understand now. But I wasn’t trying to steal all the credit. I was trying to protect you from the fallout.”

  Wendy, who’d been lethargic after taking part of the pill, stirred and said, “Where are we? Roland?”

  “Right here, babe,” he said, leaning down to help her stand. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Wendy,” Briggs said. “It’s really good to see you again.”

  Alexis noted the pathetic tremor in his voice. The schoolboy crush. It had been no secret the two had been carrying on. Back then, when Wendy was innocent and Briggs was still young and vital and charismatic, it had almost seemed normal. And the affair had lessened Briggs’s fondling of Alexis, so she was grateful for the reprieve.

  Now, though, it seemed like a terrible betrayal.

  Seethe. It was all because of the Seethe. We wouldn’t have done those things otherwise.

  “Here’s the deal,” Roland said. “We get Anita and David, and we leave. Nobody says a word about any of this. You can go back to boiling your witch’s brew and cutting livers out of rats for the rest of your life. But we’re out of it.”

  “Roland. You don’t mind if I call you Roland, if we’re indulging in fantasies? You’re in no position to make demands. The only two doors are locked, the retracting door has been welded shut for decades, and the only people who know we’re here are already here.”

  “Then what do you want?” Alexis said, eyeing the pipe on the floor. The urge to grab it and smash his head came and went in waves, one moment hot and pulsing and right, and the next repulsive and impossible.

  “Why, to finish the trials,” Briggs said, as if amazed at the simplistic view of a student. “That’s what we all want.”

  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 flo
or 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.