Transformation (27 page)

34.

The three men carrying Donna went by their last names Gordy, Boswell, and Chambers. They barely remembered their first names, it’d been so long since they heard them.

At Agnews, everyone was a number. If you were referred to by your last name that could only mean two things; you stood out for some special reason amongst all the other patients or you were not on the books. Standing out among the population was almost always a bad thing but being off the books was most certainly a terrible thing. It meant you lived in hell, out of sight of any visitors and most of the staff. The neglect, abuse, and torture both physical and mental heaped upon the poor souls of Agnews that weren’t part of the official system was inhuman at best.

In the cases of these three men, they had all been off book. If it wasn’t for Sherm, they’d have died a long slow death in their cages.

These men still wore the official uniform of Agnews. Upon check-in new patients went through the same routine. Their heads were shaved, they were stripped, and then they were hosed down. Next they were deloused, and then issued a set of blue and white striped pajamas. After that, the system swallowed them. They were sent to different wards and wings for various reasons, none of them based on patient wellbeing. Attractive females were sent to one ward despite their ailments. Catatonic and the more gesticulate patients were separated for the comfort of the staff. And then some had their records destroyed. These individuals went into the dark places behind unmarked doors.

While all the other former residents shed their outfits as soon as they were able, these three still wore them. They’d been wearing the same clothes for months and they were filthy-dirty, stained, and torn. Each man had new hair growth on their heads and faces. But most notably were the countless scars that peppered their bodies. There was scarring from surgical cuts, jagged wounds, burns, and punctures. Their craniums showed a great deal of trauma in the form of dents, scars, and lumps from horrific experimentation.

But Donna saw none of it. Even if she didn’t have the coarse cloth over her face it would have been difficult to discern much detail as it was so dark. And she was terrified.

She estimated that at least three people were carrying her. She was being abducted.
Again?
She thought in disbelief. Her arms were over her head, and one person held her by the wrists and another had her ankles. She fought when the third man pulled her shirt and bra up exposing her breasts. He started to squeeze them very hard. The person carrying her feet spoke in a sharp whisper.

“Stop it. Stop it. I’ll fucking kill you.” It was a gruff voice that sounded as if it were being forced through damaged vocal chords.

The hands went away, her breasts remained exposed. She relaxed for a few moments, planning an all or nothing fight for freedom, when suddenly she felt what had to be a face pressed on her crotch. She heard a loud long sniffing sound. She recoiled, the man holding her feet released them. The one holding her arms let one of them go but held the other tight.

“That’s it.” There was no more whispering, just normal speaking voices now.

“I’m sorry.” Another voice wailed. A high-pitched man’s voice with an edge of panic to it.

She heard the impact of flesh on flesh.

“Please no, stop. You know I can’t help it.”

There was another fleshy impact. A yelp.

Their volume was growing. Her other wrist was let go as her captor chuckled, seemingly distracted by the beating.

“I warned you.” The sound of a hard impact, a kick maybe?

Another yelp. Then crying and begging.

“Stop making noise. I’ll beat you until you are silent.”

Donna pulled the coarse cloth from her face. She was sitting behind three shadowy, hulking figures, two of which were beating the third.

She sprang to her feet and ran. She ran hard and fast. There was no way those portly bastards could catch her now. She had covered a significant distance very quickly. She turned to run up the ramp, and as she looked back it seemed as if the men were still focused on the beating. She stepped behind a pillar and watched their shadowy silhouettes, barely visible. She heard them talking, the one man was crying. Suddenly, she was missed.

“Where’d she go? Fuck!” Gruff voice yelled.

One shadow pushed the other to the ground.

She had trouble making out who was who, but they cursed and fussed and blamed each other. Blows were exchanged. While they were distracted once again, Donna sprinted to the nearest stairwell and up to the fourth level. She ran to the sofas.

Donna woke Lisa first. Even in her panic she remembered that Lisa needed more time to get to safety. She put her hand over Lisa’s mouth and shook her awake. She went to Ana and did the same. She found Wendy nearby.

“Where’s Jeff?” She hissed. “We have to find him.”

“What’s wrong?” Wendy tensed, ready to respond to whatever threat had Donna this worked up.

“Where is Jeff?” She asked again, but no one knew.

Donna forgot her shirt had been ripped open. The buttons were gone. She’d already, and unconsciously, pulled her bra back down. She tied her shirt closed using the tails as she explained the situation.
Almost abducted, got away, three of them
.

“Ana, take Lisa to the roof hideout and keep an eye out. These guys are noisy and stupid, but still be careful. Remember we talked about this kind of thing. Remember the plan?”

Ana whispered
yes
and walked with Lisa quickly up the ramp.

Donna wished they’d practiced the plan, and in the dark, like Dale wanted them to. They should have listened to him. Ron might be here right now with her if they had.

“Wendy, I think you and I can handle these guys. There’s only three of them and they seem really stupid.”

“OK. Well, I’ve dealt with my share of stupid.”

“Have you ever killed someone?” Donna asked.

Wendy didn’t answer.

Donna worried the men might not let themselves be taken prisoner and force her and Wendy into shooting them. She’d never even fired a gun. That’s another thing Dale wanted everyone to do that they all blew off. He wanted to teach everyone how to handle a weapon safely and how to load and fire them.

“Don’t worry about it.” Wendy held up a gun she produced from somewhere. “You know where the other weapons are, you should go get one just to have it.”

Donna ran to a nondescript footlocker under a table in the kitchen and opened it. She pulled out a large black gun. She wasn’t sure if it was loaded. She was terrified at the thought of even pulling the trigger.

Wendy held her small revolver high in her right hand. She looked as if she’d handled a gun before. It was a Beretta Pico, a small handgun, light, but deadly—especially in the hands of someone who isn’t afraid to use it.

“Where were they, last you saw?”

“Second level. Close to the back.”

The two women walked as quietly as possible down the nearest stairwell. It was pitch black and silent. They used the handrails so they wouldn’t fall. The musty smell in the stairwell made the darkness feel thick and dangerous.

Donna was behind Wendy and when she paused, she felt Donna’s gun tap the back of her head. She ducked to the side. Donna almost fell over her.

“Donna. Honey.” Whispered Wendy.

“What?” Donna whispered back into the darkness.

They cringed at their voices as they echoed in the empty concrete stairwell.

“You need to make sure your finger is off the trigger when you are walking around, and point the gun at the ground, please.”

“OK. Thanks.”

They crept on.

§

The second the three abductors noticed the woman missing, they sprinted (what most people would call a slow jog) to the nearest stairwell.

“All the way to the top,” one of them screamed.

When they hit the darkened stairwell, it was all whispers.

“Go. Go,” was whispered by all quietly and repeatedly. They had to rest every floor or so because they’d been sedentary for so long while at Agnews. Their inactivity, horrible living conditions, and high calorie diet had them all sweating and gasping for air. They came out onto the roof, a big open air space that made one of the three men happy. He put his hands out and spun around twice. He lost his balance and fell. He got a good kick for it too.

“I think I see someone. There.” One figure pointed to the other end of the roof. They saw two shapes moving towards them, but then they stepped behind a little building.

“Charge men!” One of the figures shouted. “At them!”

§

It took Ana a while to get Lisa to the rooftop and to the little building that provided access to the top of the elevator shafts. On the roof the moon provided enough light for her to see three figures skulking towards her from the rear of the structure.

Ana heard the men shouting just as she reached the door. She tugged and it didn’t budge. She almost fainted she was so scared. She pulled again harder and it opened. Whatever Jeff had wedged into the door to keep it unlocked also made it hard to open. She shoved Lisa inside and turned to pull the door shut. It stopped a few inches from closing. She pulled at it in panic. She heard a loud voice right outside the door.

“I did it! I got my foot in the door!”

Ana opened the door, startling the chubby man standing near it. She immediately rushed him, hitting the man in the chest with both forearms and drove him backwards and on his ass.

Lisa watched in horror as Ana flew out the door. She saw the door shut, heard the thump as it hit the frame and the click of the latch. She was safe but Ana was not.

Lisa made her way to the door as quickly as she could in the complete darkness and found the knob. She hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she could do to help Ana. She lowered her hand from the knob, her throat tight with emotion. She hated herself for being so fat.

So disgustingly morbidly obese and fat.
She started to weep for Ana and hated herself more each second. She stood in the darkness unable to help her.

I’m worthless. Totally fucking worthless.

Shaking with fear and grief she put her hand back on the knob lightly, but took it away. She put her face in her hands and sobbed.

35.

Cooper and Rachael were dropped off north of Morgan Hill on the 101. Still well south of San Jose and the airport. They walked down the center of the northbound lanes. He’d been here only days before but it felt like a lifetime ago. They walked slowly, keeping a sharp eye out for the dead and looking back every so often to make sure nothing was following them.

Cooper immediately started explaining his conversation with Trevor before another distraction prevented it. Rachael listened.

“So are you asking me to help?” she asked nonchalantly.

“No, just letting you know what I’m up to. Why I need to get there so quickly.”

“So you aren’t asking for my help? She looked at him as she walked on, thumbs hooked under the straps of her backpack.

“Like I’m not useful to you. Is it because I’m a girl? You think I am worthless because I don’t have a penis? What the fuck?”

Cooper was stunned, felt bad, confused, and was a little scared at the crazy outburst. He turned to her and she was smiling. She started to laugh.

“You are too easy.”

“Cooper smiled and muttered to himself. “Barrel of fun.”

She smiled, pleased with herself. Cooper smiled too. He loved a good sense of humor. His face went flat as the present reality soaked back in and his voice reflected it.

“Of course, you can come along.” He said “I’d welcome the help and the company.”

“Thanks. Sorry if I was messing around at a bad time. I know what you are talking about is serious.”

“Nah, it’s good. I appreciate the laughs.”

They both fell deep in thought as they walked on. Cooper never ceased his vigilant search of the surrounding area for any possible threat.

“This is exhausting.” Rachael said after about an hour of walking.

“Yeah.” Cooper spoke low.

“Ever since all this stuff happened, I’ve been hanging in one place. You’ve walked all over huh? I’m not used to all this walking.”

“Yeah.” Cooper looked annoyed at her.

“Everything OK?” She looked confused at his expression.

“Just trying to keep super quiet.”

“Why?” She looked about in alarm but saw nothing nearby.

Cooper slowed a bit. It hadn’t occurred to him that Rachael had far less experience with the dead than he did.

“Have you noticed all the corpses on the sides of the highway? Look between the buildings there and there.” He pointed. “They are attracted to living humans. Sight, sound, smell, it all seems to trigger them.”

“They can hear us? This far away?” She whispered.

“Not sure but they seem able to detect a human from a good distance, and I don’t know if it’s sight, smell, sound, all three.”

Rachael looked around, more vigilant than ever.

They walked a bit farther in silence. She whispered when she next spoke.

“I think I need a rest.”

Cooper was tired too. “Let’s go up there for a bit.”

They walked off the 101 and to an intersection. Cooper chose an uphill location as he knew it was likely clear of the dead. To their right was a big parking lot and beyond that a mall. Cooper was pointing at the closest roof which was over a large transit stop.

He boosted Rachael up to the roof. They sipped water and chilled for a bit.

“I never want to get down from here,” she said.

“I know what you mean. You know you can’t stay up here forever, but you feel safe up here. It’s hard to want to jump back down there.”

“It’s like the game we played when we were kids. At least I did.” She laid back on the roof.

“Yeah, I think about that game a lot, especially lately with all the roof climbing. It’s like jumping from table to chair to sofa—you can’t touch the ground.”

“Yeah, it’s lava.”

Cooper laughed. “I wonder where that came from, that idea for a game.”

“For me it was the fear of monsters under my bed.”

“Yeah I was afraid of Gollum. The Lord of the Rings came out when I was like five or six.”

“I don’t know what I was afraid of. I mean, I didn’t have a picture in my head or anything. I just didn’t like the idea there was that dark space between the floor and the bed.”

“Well, time to jump off the bed and onto the floor. We need to get a little farther today.” Cooper slid to the edge of the roof.

“Wait. I need to tell you something. It’s eating at me.”

“What?” Cooper leaned back, a million terrible things running through his mind.
What is she going to tell me?

She looked him the eyes and her face melted into tears. She was sobbing. “I saw him. I saw Ben in the car.”

“Oh.”

“He was trapped, fighting to get out as we drove by.”

“Well, we both know how bad he is.” Cooper pat her nearest shoulder a couple of times and gave her a thin smile.

She continued to sob. “Yeah, he was evil. I watched him murder innocent people, kids that were no threat to him. But what does that make me? That I let you drive by without a word.”

“I know it’s a lot to deal with. But never forget what he did, what he will most likely do now that he’s alive.”

She just nodded her head, she leaned against Cooper for comfort.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” she said.

“Understood,” Cooper said.

They were silent for a few minutes.

“We better go.” Rachael started down.

Cooper went over the edge, hung and dropped the last few feet. He helped her down. They saw a few of the dead coming at a distance and moved on and away from them.

“If it helps any, remember he’s still alive.”

“I still made the decision to let him die. Worse still, I did it with a smile on my face and my middle finger up.”

“Wow.”

“You think I’m an asshole.”

“No, but . . . wow.” He was suppressing a laugh. “That’s . . . I don’t know the word for it. I mean he deserved it so maybe apropos?”

She shook her head. “Who speaks like that? Apropos? Give me a break.”

“I thought the word apropos was apropos.”

“Wow, twice in one sentence. That is very un-apropos if you ask me.”

Cooper chuckled then changed the subject. “We should get a vehicle.”

“That would be very apropos right now,” she said.

They found a car and the drive was quick and smooth all the way to the structure. Cooper went on the elevated expressways as often as possible, but eventually he would have to drive down to get to the structure.

“It’s so weird.” Cooper was driving when a deep sense of sadness came over him. “In the world today, it can take days to travel a short distance because of all the crap, or you can zoom along unhindered. And as much as I hate being down there in the crap, it feels worse when things are easy and you have time to think.”

“I was thinking about Homeland.”

“The agency or the show?”

“The show. It sounds stupid but all this shit happened before the end of the season. Now I’ll never know what happened.”

“Big television watcher?” Cooper raised an eyebrow.

“No, but when I like a show I record it. When I like a show, it’s an escape I really look forward to. Now I don’t have that.”

“I wonder what the actress is doing. I wonder if she got infected or if she’s scratching along like we are.”

“I’d still ask for her autograph.” Rachael smiled. “I try to tell myself it’s just like having a show cancelled. I can deal with it, but it’s not. We’ll never get to do or experience so many things now.”

“But we can try. You will love the garage. We’ve made it pretty comfortable to live in.”

Cooper slowed as he came closer to the structure. He stopped the car and walked to the edge of the expressway. Rachael followed. Cooper pulled out his scope and popped the lens covers off and raised it to his eye.

He didn’t know what to make of what he was seeing. It took him a while to figure out what he was even looking at. He lowered the scope and looked at Rachael.

“What? What is it?”

“Another delay. A big one.”