****
They left the house, dusting off their clothes as best they could. It was
now completely dark, and Jarod led the way across the yard with his torch,
slipping through the barn door he had managed to wedge open. He walked through
the barn to the very back, waiting patiently as Miss Parker took in her
surroundings. The barn was empty, the ladder to it's loft long since fallen
down, half of it's pens collapsing. Above them, she could see the overcast sky
through holes in the roof.
As she approached, Jarod knelt down, dusting some dirt off of a steel
trapdoor. Parker knelt beside him, her fingers probing the edges for a catch or
locking mechanism. Jarod copied the action after a moment, and managed to find
a small space under one side, and attempted to tug it up. "Help me," he said
gruffly, and she went to his side, and they both pulled at the door, fumbling as
it began to rise slightly.
"On three," Parker said, as they both braced themselves, "One... two... three!"
They grunted with effort, their arms straining as the hatch began to lift,
the door perhaps three inches thick. Jarod gave one corner a shove, so it was
on the ground, and they managed to slide and push the rest of it out of the way.
Jarod picked up his torch again, shining it down to reveal a flight of stairs
leading into the inky blackness.
"Like Donoterase," he remarked, and stood, "Wait here."
He jogged out of the barn with his flashlight, returning a few moments
later with two guns. He gave one to Miss Parker, tucking the other into his
jeans. She hefted its weight experimentally, and checked the clip. They stood
over the opening, gazing down nervously.
"Ladies first," Jarod said with a small smile.
"Age before beauty," she said, and gave him a little shove.
Jarod grinned quickly, and then focused his attention back onto the hole
as he stepped down into it. Miss Parker waited until he had gone a few steps
down, flicking the safety off her gun as she began to follow. Jarod turned to
look at her at the sound.
"Think there's anybody down there?" he asked, resting his hand on the butt of
his gun. She shrugged.
"It's a Centre facility. There's got to be at least one nutcase that never
left."
Jarod chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment, then drew his own gun and
continued his descent into the darkness. The stairs seemed to go on forever, a
well of four landings and steep flights down into the earth, which they
navigated warily, before their flashlights showed a steel door ahead of them,
slightly ajar. Jarod stopped before it, and they both listened intently, but
could hear nothing, and he pushed it open with a soft creak. They crept
forward, shining their lights up and down the long corridor they were standing
in. When they realized the corridor was empty, they both tucked their guns
away.
"Hold on," Jarod said, and approached a circuit box he had spotted on the far
wall. He opened it, and began fiddling with wires as Parker shone her light on
it for him.
"Anything?" she asked after a few minutes, and Jarod flicked a few switches, but
nothing happened.
"No power," he said, and closed the box. They stood in silence for a moment,
looking up and down the corridor.
"Well. This is nice and creepy," she said softly, "Which way?"
"We could split up?" Jarod suggested, and Miss Parker glared at him. He smiled
weakly, "Left?"
They headed down the corridor, the air stale and dusty, making Miss Parker
sneeze. When she finished, Jarod passed her a hankie, and the only sound was of
their boots on the linoleum floor, a muted tapping sound. Jarod kept shining
his torch around, looking for any doors, but as they continued on and on into
the darkness, they still did not come across any.
"I don't like this," Jarod said after a while. They stopped, turning to look at
each other. Miss Parker shined her light the way they had come - the door they
had entered through was no longer in sight.
"Me neither," she said softly. They gazed each other, both slightly nervous.
"We could go back..." Jarod said softly, then paused, cocking his head
thoughtfully, "Did you hear that?"
Miss Parker widened her eyes. "Hear *what*?" she whispered.
"Listen," Jarod said, holding up his hand. Parker listened too.
"I swear, Jarod," she said, after a long moment of hearing nothing, "If you're
messing with me I'm going to-"
She stopped. She'd heard it that time. A definite, distant, THUMP. It
sounded as though it came from somewhere up ahead. Parker turned to Jarod, her
breathing suddenly harsh and erratic as her heart raced, adrenalin making her
mouth dry.
"What was that?" she whispered. Jarod looked just as fearful.
"I don't know," he said grimly, and drew his gun again. She did the same, and
they stared at each other for a moment.
"Well... go on," Parker whispered.
"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked. She gave him a disgusted look.
"Fine! I'll go first!" she hissed, and gave him a little shove in the chest for
good measure
She began to march up the corridor again, but had barely made it twenty
feet when the thumping sound repeated, and she paused mid-step. Jarod stopped,
directly behind her, his breath stirring her hair.
"You know... only monsters go bump in the night," she said unsteadily.
"Do you believe in monsters?" Jarod asked. She chewed her lip for a moment.
"I believe that the Centre has created so many unnatural things, we couldn't
begin to list them all," she said, her voice pained. He touched her arm
reassuringly, but she shook him off, instead striding confidently ahead.
They continued on, pausing just for a moment every time they heard the
thumping noise, which was getting progressively louder and occurring more often.
Determinedly they pushed ahead, Parker clutching her gun and focusing ahead,
incredibly thankful that she had Jarod by her side.
"There!" Jarod said in sudden excitement, shining his flashlight on a door,
perhaps twenty feet ahead, set into the wall.
"Finally..." Parker breathed, and they hurried up to it.
The door was solid steel, with a small, grimy window at the top. Jarod
reached for the door handle, but jumped when they heard the ominous thump again.
Miss Parker raised her gun, standing guard, and Jarod reached for the handle
again, turning it slowly. The door swung open with a creak.
"Got your back," Parker said dully, and he nodded.
Jarod stepped inside, shining his flashlight around, and Miss Parker
followed, her eyes searching every corner for any possible enemy. It took a
moment for her to register exactly *what* the room was.
"Oh... ugh..." she groaned softly, and Jarod wrinkled his nose.
"It makes a strange kind of sense that the first room we encounter is a morgue,"
he whispered.
THUMP.
"Shit!" Parker hissed, almost dropping her gun.
"That sounds close," Jarod said nervously.
"Well... let's look around and get the hell out of here!" Parker growled.
Shining her torch around again, Miss Parker eyed the old morgue with
distaste. There was an old lamp on an arm extending from the ceiling, it's
glass long since smashed. One old metal tray lay rusting in the centre of the
room. Jarod moved past her, towards the banks of drawers set into one wall. He
began randomly opening the doors, peering in.
"Metal crypts," Miss Parker muttered to herself, desperately hoping that Jarod
wouldn't find any remains in there.
"Nothing," he said after checking all the drawers. He jerked his head in the
direction of a door set into the far wall, "Shall we?"
Without a word, Parker followed him to the door, keeping a steady grip on
her gun as Jarod pushed open the steel door. They entered what appeared to be
an extension of the morgue; lined with shelves and refrigeration units. Jars
still lined each of the shelves, and Jarod let out a soft groan as he realized
what was in them.
"Failed..." he choked on the words, swallowed hard, and tried again, "Failed
fetuses."
Passing her flashlight over a row of jars, Miss Parker felt sick. The
jars still contained preservative solution, but some of it had evaporated over
time, leaving the fetuses contained within rotted or decayed altogether, with
perhaps the last few inches, still resting in the solution at the bottom of the
jar, whole and intact. It looked as if the disfigured babies were slowly
melting from the top down.
Miss Parker began to walk down the aisles, studying each jar in turn.
There had to be hundreds of failed fetuses here, perhaps even thousands. She
had to recall that the Centre had started cloning perhaps forty years before the
possibility was even made public, with poor technology in comparison to today's
standards. There would have been far, far more mistakes.
At the end of one line of shelves, she found one very small jar, still
completely filled with solution. Inside rested a tiny fetus, perhaps only the
size of her hand. The spine was almost visible through it's translucent skin.
Miss Parker picked the jar up, turning it, wondering what had caused this baby
to fail.
THUMP-THUMP!
Jumping with fright, Miss Parker dropped the jar, gasping when it
shattered on the floor. The preservative solution splattered on her shoes, and
the fetus lay on the ground, it's little spine broken. Parker opened her mouth
soundlessly, and crouched down beside it, reaching her fingers out hesitantly.
"What happened?" Jarod asked behind her, and Miss Parker snapped her hand back.
"The noise startled me... I dropped her," she murmured. She looked up at Jarod,
who regarded her sadly.
"Don't start thinking of it as-" he began.
"*It* is a baby!" she interrupted angrily.
"-As something you need to mourn. There are over a thousand here. You can't
grieve for each and every one," Jarod finished. Parker sighed.
"I know..." she murmured.
She took Jarod's handkerchief out of her pocket, gently picking up the fetus
with it. She cradled it in her hand for a moment, feeling how slick and
slippery it was as it soaked the thin material. After a moment, she wrapped it
up and placed it back on the shelf. She scanned the lines of shelves again.
"So many..." she muttered, and turned away.
THUMP.
They both startled, laughing nervously and without humor. Jarod led the
way to another door, and Miss Parker gave one last look to the shelves of
fetuses before following him. This time they appeared to be a laboratory of
some type, steel benches set around the perimeter of the room, with a few in the
centre. Jarod immediately went to a bank of file cabinets that sat against one
wall.
"Nothing... there's nothing here!" he hissed in frustration, then jumped as the
thumping sounded again.
They pressed on, continuing through room after room, twisting and turning
in a bizarre underground labyrinth of abandoned experiments. They found several
more rooms with jars of not only ruined fetuses, but what appeared to be body
parts. The thumping became louder and louder as they progressed, going deeper
and deeper into the catacombs.
Finally they came to a room, far bigger than all those that had come
before, where there rested a birthing table and an operating table side by side.
Steel sinks were set against one wall, a few trolleys near them. Miss Parker
lifted an old sheet, staring with horror at the rusted instruments that lay
there.
THUMP-THUMP!
She flinched slightly - it was now louder, almost as if they were
painfully close to it. She saw Jarod gripping the side of the operating table,
his knuckles white, his jaw set.
"What is it?" he rasped, and she shook her head, not knowing how to answer.
Fingering the handle of her gun, Miss Parker led the way to another door,
Jarod falling in behind her. This door had no window at the top, and she
gripped the handle, surprised when it wouldn't budge. No other door had been
locked. She glanced over her shoulder at Jarod, who shrugged.
THUMP-CRACK!
"Oh god!" she whispered fearfully, and felt a warm hand settling on her
shoulder.
"We can turn back if you want..." Jarod whispered.
"No... I have to know if my mother was here," she said fiercely, and his hand
squeezed gently.
She wrestled with the door again, doing her best to push it open. No
luck. She stepped back, and Jarod moved forward. He touched the handle
momentarily, then ran his finger over the lock. He dug a pen out of his pocket,
breaking it open and taking the spring, which he began to straighten.
"Oh!" he gasped, jerking one hand away.
He raised it, showing Miss Parker where he had accidentally stabbed
himself with the end of the spring. Blood was beading on the tip of his finger.
She gazed at it for a moment, before raising her own hands and holding his
finger steady. Then, while he watched, she brought his bloody finger to her
mouth, sucking on the end. She tasted salt and copper, and ran her tongue over
his finger, seeing Jarod's eyes darken with emotion.
THUMP.
Jarod drew his hand away suddenly, flushing, and turned to the lock with
his straightened wire. Parker smiled wryly, realising he was embarrassed. She
studied him as he focused on his task, threading the wire into the lock and
manipulating it carefully. The muscles on his back were rippling under his
tight black t-shirt as he worked, and she had an incredible urge to reach out
and touch.
"Ha!" he crowed a moment later, and turned the handle with ease, pushing the
door open. They both stepped inside, and looked around in grim triumph.
Files. Hundreds of them, littered over desks and cabinets.
"Eureka," Parker muttered.
Without another word they began to rifle through the files, looking for
anything of interest. The pages inside the manila files were yellowed with age,
crumpled and torn, but the print was still clear. Miss Parker began to sort
through a pile, opening each folder in turn, sifting through it's pages, and
tossing it carelessly aside.
"I don't even know what half of this stuff means!" she growled in frustration,
scanning her eyes over yet another page full of medical jargon.
Jarod put down the file he was looking at, coming to stand behind her and
looking over her shoulder. "It's comparing different genetic structures, with
particular concentration on subjects of higher intelligence and physical
stamina," he said after a moment. Parker let out a soft noise of anger, tossing
the file aside and picking up another one as Jarod moved away.
She kept half an eye on him as he wandered around the room with his
flashlight, only paying the barest attention to the files in front of her, so
she noticed when he stopped suddenly, hunching over a file cabinet.
"What?" Miss Parker demanded, shining her torch on him. He glanced up, and
shielded his eyes.
"This cabinet is labelled 'Subjects'," he said.
Parker dropped her file immediately, dashing across the room and almost
pushing him out of her way in her haste. Jarod set a steadying arm on her
shoulder as she knocked into him, but she did not so much as smile at him as she
grabbed the handle of cabinet and rattled it uselessly.
"Hold on while I-" Jarod said, raising his hand with his piece of wire, but
Parker had already backed up, holding her gun out in front of her.
"Move!" she growled, and Jarod jumped out of the way as she fired a single shot
into the lock. They both gazed at the smoking hole for a moment, and then the
drawer creakily slid out and crashed to the ground.
"Or we could do it that way," Jarod said tonelessly.
THUMP-THUMP!
They both started, sharing a nervous glance, and bent over the files that
spilt out of the drawer quickly. Jarod held his flashlight on them as Miss
Parker began to flick through. "I really don't like the sound of whatever that
is," she whispered.
"We'll just find what we need and go," Jarod whispered back.
Miss Parker said nothing, merely turning her head back to the task at
hand. She began to rummage through the files, suppressing her disgust at what
she found. 'Subject' profiles, women of childbearing age who were potential
surrogate mothers. Each profile was complete with medical history and a
photograph.
Her frustration growing, Miss Parker threw each of the files aside, not
finding what she wanted. She had almost given up all hope of finding anything
useful, when she opened a file close to the bottom of the pile. She opened its
manila folder, and stopped in shock. A small, cracked photograph was stapled to
the sheets inside, and while it was faded, it was most definitely Catherine
Parker.
"Mama..." Parker murmured, tracing her fingernail over her mother's face.
Catherine looked young in the photograph, as it had probably been taken years
before Parker's own birth. She felt tears welling in her eyes, and dashed them
away hurriedly, pushing the photograph out of the way to read the file.
She scanned over its contents, disgusted to realise it contained not only
Catherine's medical history, but also details of her menstrual cycle and sexual
history. Parker turned the page with a soft noise of horror, only to read the
same line over and over again.
"What...?" she asked in quiet disbelief.
Jarod craned his head to look, staring with blank surprise. On the very top
line, read; SUBJECT CJP235: INFERTILE.
Parker flicked back to the previous page, realising the details of her mother's
menstrual cycle included reports of abnormalities in her cycle since she was a
teenager, including late or skipped periods and intense cramps. Miss Parker
turned through more pages, reading of her mother and father's prolonged attempts
to conceive and a lack of success, and the resultant diagnosis that her mother
was infertile due to fibroids in her uterus at an early age. The final page was
a signed and sealed declaration by Catherine Parker herself, stating her
willingness to participate in an experimental intravenous fertilisation
technique.
"Oh my god," Miss Parker muttered.
THUMP-THUNK!
"What *is* that?" she hissed, closing the file with a snap. They stood up, and
she tucked the file under her arm.
"Do you want to find out?" Jarod asked, not looking too keen on the idea. She
looked over the files scattered all over the place.
"It's driving me mad..." she admitted, "I don't think we're going to find
anything else here. We know my mother was here - time to go."
Jarod gave a short nod of assent, shining his torch onto the far wall,
where another steel door loomed. He led the way over, picking the lock with
relative ease and pushing it open. They stepped into a large office-space,
where old desks and chairs lay covered with dust. They moved straight through,
not stopping to check the desks, to another door.
THUMPA-THUMP!
"Is it just me, or is that getting louder?" Jarod asked, pushing open the door
and emerging into another office area.
"We must be getting closer," Miss Parker said, and trying to keep her hand
steady as she swept her flashlight around the room.
"Lucky us," Jarod muttered.
They went through another solid steel door, stopping in surprise when they
emerged at the start of a long corridor. Parker, shining her flashlight down
it, could see a door probably 100 feet away.
THUMP!
Miss Parker shivered, feeling suddenly cold, and tightened her grip on her
gun. Jarod was standing directly behind her, and stepped closer suddenly, so
his chest brushed her back.
"It's okay. Whatever it is, we'll be okay," he said softly.
She didn't say anything, instead creeping up the corridor with her gun and
flashlight in front of her, Jarod close behind. Jarod brushed her back with his
hand, and she turned to give him a quick smile.
THUNK!
She jerked around again, the air resounding with the heavy noise.
Steeling her resolve, she took a deep breath and strode forward. It was best
they got this over with as soon as possible, she decided. Jarod kept pace
behind her, and they only paused a little bit as the thump sounded again.
"Okay. Nothing left but to open it," Miss Parker said, when they reached the
end of the corridor. They both stood silently for a moment.
THUMP.
Her hand trembling, Parker touched the steel door handle, forcing herself
to grip it firmly. She was ashamed to hear her breathing was harsh and erratic.
In one swift motion, she jerked the handle down and pushed the door open.
THUNKA-THUMP.
Miss Parker stared. "You're fucking joking me."
"My god," Jarod said roughly.
They were standing in a smaller corridor, perhaps ten feet long, at the
end of which a steel door was slightly loose on its hinges. The wind was
whistling through a small gap between the door and its frame, and with every big
gust was blowing open and banging closed again, causing the thumping sound.
"*This* is what's been making that fucking noise?" Parker yelled. She tucked
her gun into the waistband of her jeans, and strode up the corridor towards the
door just as a gust of wind caught it. It flew open, and rain splattered into
the doorway before it slammed closed again.
Jarod pushed past her, yanking the door open again and running outside.
Miss Parker followed, not caring that she was getting soaked with rain. She
stared up at storm clouds, then at her surroundings. The door let out to a
small rock outcrop on the side of the hill, far below the house and barn. The
storm clouds had thickened while she and Jarod were in the facility, and the
wind grown steadily worse and worse, so that the door had banged louder and
faster.
Turning her face up to the rain, Miss Parker began to laugh hysterically.
And when she couldn't laugh anymore, she began to cry.
****
It took September a moment to fully comprehend what she was reading. A
few minutes before, she had been working away quietly when Jarod's computer had
beeped. At first, she hadn't quite known what to do. December was outside, not
smoking one of her cigarettes, and September had finally, hesitantly, lifted the
lid on Jarod's laptop, and retrieved the email that had been the cause of the
alert.
Now she was glad she had. She reread the message, aware that her heart
was beating unnaturally fast. She heard the door bang, and December curse as
she bumped into something.
"Dec-December?" September called softly. She heard the other woman muttering
softly, before there was a thump that sounded suspiciously like her kicking
something.
"What is it?" December asked, entering the kitchen and going to the fridge. She
opened a carton of milk, drinking straight from it.
"I think you should look at this, Dec," September said, her voice wavering
slightly.
"What?" December asked. She came around the table, leaning over September's
shoulder and reading the screen.
The milk carton dropped to the floor.
"Oh. Oh shit!" Dec whispered.
There, on the screen, was a short email. CENTRE KNOWS LOCATION. RUN. -
CJ.
"We have to go," September said softly, and looked up at December, "We have to
go *right now*."
They burst into action. September started to shutdown all three of their
laptops as December ran out of the room, going upstairs. She was so intent on
disconnecting the laptops from their network cables, that the sound of the
screen door being pushed open didn't register, nor did the soft footsteps in the
hall.
"Well, Parker. Doesn't look like you're much of a hostage," a soft voice
drawled behind her.
September began to tremble. She would know that voice anywhere, and it
terrified her more than anything else on the planet. She clenched her hands
into fists, and turned around slowly. The man, leaning in the doorway holding a
gun on her, did a double take, and then grinned incredulously.
"Not Miss Parker after all," he murmured, looking delighted, "But my runaway
September!"
September ran her eyes briefly over the man, roughly her own height, who
was posed so nonchalantly in the doorway - as if they were old friends. As if
she didn't know the extent of his violence and sadism. He looked paler than the
last time she'd seen him, leaner. Her eyes dropped quickly to his gloved hand,
then back up to his pale blue eyes.
"Bobby," she whispered.
"September, my dear September," he said softly, and pushed off the doorway,
beginning to advance on her. September backed up nervously, but soon realised
she had nowhere to go - she had backed up to the kitchen bench, and there was no
way out.
"Leave me alone," she said harshly, almost sobbing with fear. One gloved hand
stretched out to trace the line of her jaw tenderly, and September shuddered.
"What's the matter, Sep?" he said teasingly, "Don't you miss me? We had such
some *fun* times together..."
September squeezed her eyes closed, knowing tears were squeezing out and
not caring, only wanting the man who had terrorised her, the man she knew as
Bobby, to get away from her. His hand cupped her cheek, and she let out a soft,
frightened sound.
"The rest of the team are on the way... but maybe you and I should have a little
time alone together first..." he muttered, his voice thick with arousal, and she
could feel his breath on her cheek.
"You son of a bitch!" came a sudden hoarse cry, and September opened her eyes
just in time to see December, absolutely furious, hit Bobby over the head with a
frypan. Bobby dropped the gun, and staggered around to face his attacker.
September, now shaking with fear, sank down into a crouch, and huddled
against the cabinets, leaving Bobby to December, who was more than happy to take
him on. The other woman promptly grabbed him by the shoulders, kneed him in the
groin and shoved him to the ground.
"Don't you EVER fucking touch her again!" December hollered, and Bobby,
seemingly astonished, grunted as she kicked him in the gut.
"What the...?" he gasped, and scrambled away, trying to rise to his feet.
December caught him when he was about halfway up with a vicious uppercut,
so he flew backwards and crashed heavily into the table. Still muttering to
herself, December went after him, laying blow after blow on him. September
closed her eyes weakly, blocking out the sounds of the woman she now considered
her sister avenging her past by putting her hands over her ears.
Sometime later, she felt gentle hands covering her own, and opened her
eyes to see that December was crouching in front of her, looking grim.
September took her hands off her ears, and looked fearfully at Bobby, who was
lying in the corner, not moving.
"We have to go right now, they'll be here soon," December said, and September
nodded.
December shoved the laptops in their carry cases, slinging them over her
shoulder. She took September by the hand, leading her out of the room. Just
before the door, September glanced back at Bobby. His eyes, though swollen and
bruised, were open, glittering with malicious intent, and he lifted his
thumbless, gloved hand in time to give her a little sardonic wave.
September bit her lip, turned her head and hurried away.
****
They left the house, dusting off their clothes as best they could. It was
now completely dark, and Jarod led the way across the yard with his torch,
slipping through the barn door he had managed to wedge open. He walked through
the barn to the very back, waiting patiently as Miss Parker took in her
surroundings. The barn was empty, the ladder to it's loft long since fallen
down, half of it's pens collapsing. Above them, she could see the overcast sky
through holes in the roof.
As she approached, Jarod knelt down, dusting some dirt off of a steel
trapdoor. Parker knelt beside him, her fingers probing the edges for a catch or
locking mechanism. Jarod copied the action after a moment, and managed to find
a small space under one side, and attempted to tug it up. "Help me," he said
gruffly, and she went to his side, and they both pulled at the door, fumbling as
it began to rise slightly.
"On three," Parker said, as they both braced themselves, "One... two... three!"
They grunted with effort, their arms straining as the hatch began to lift,
the door perhaps three inches thick. Jarod gave one corner a shove, so it was
on the ground, and they managed to slide and push the rest of it out of the way.
Jarod picked up his torch again, shining it down to reveal a flight of stairs
leading into the inky blackness.
"Like Donoterase," he remarked, and stood, "Wait here."
He jogged out of the barn with his flashlight, returning a few moments
later with two guns. He gave one to Miss Parker, tucking the other into his
jeans. She hefted its weight experimentally, and checked the clip. They stood
over the opening, gazing down nervously.
"Ladies first," Jarod said with a small smile.
"Age before beauty," she said, and gave him a little shove.
Jarod grinned quickly, and then focused his attention back onto the hole
as he stepped down into it. Miss Parker waited until he had gone a few steps
down, flicking the safety off her gun as she began to follow. Jarod turned to
look at her at the sound.
"Think there's anybody down there?" he asked, resting his hand on the butt of
his gun. She shrugged.
"It's a Centre facility. There's got to be at least one nutcase that never
left."
Jarod chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment, then drew his own gun and
continued his descent into the darkness. The stairs seemed to go on forever, a
well of four landings and steep flights down into the earth, which they
navigated warily, before their flashlights showed a steel door ahead of them,
slightly ajar. Jarod stopped before it, and they both listened intently, but
could hear nothing, and he pushed it open with a soft creak. They crept
forward, shining their lights up and down the long corridor they were standing
in. When they realized the corridor was empty, they both tucked their guns
away.
"Hold on," Jarod said, and approached a circuit box he had spotted on the far
wall. He opened it, and began fiddling with wires as Parker shone her light on
it for him.
"Anything?" she asked after a few minutes, and Jarod flicked a few switches, but
nothing happened.
"No power," he said, and closed the box. They stood in silence for a moment,
looking up and down the corridor.
"Well. This is nice and creepy," she said softly, "Which way?"
"We could split up?" Jarod suggested, and Miss Parker glared at him. He smiled
weakly, "Left?"
They headed down the corridor, the air stale and dusty, making Miss Parker
sneeze. When she finished, Jarod passed her a hankie, and the only sound was of
their boots on the linoleum floor, a muted tapping sound. Jarod kept shining
his torch around, looking for any doors, but as they continued on and on into
the darkness, they still did not come across any.
"I don't like this," Jarod said after a while. They stopped, turning to look at
each other. Miss Parker shined her light the way they had come - the door they
had entered through was no longer in sight.
"Me neither," she said softly. They gazed each other, both slightly nervous.
"We could go back..." Jarod said softly, then paused, cocking his head
thoughtfully, "Did you hear that?"
Miss Parker widened her eyes. "Hear *what*?" she whispered.
"Listen," Jarod said, holding up his hand. Parker listened too.
"I swear, Jarod," she said, after a long moment of hearing nothing, "If you're
messing with me I'm going to-"
She stopped. She'd heard it that time. A definite, distant, THUMP. It
sounded as though it came from somewhere up ahead. Parker turned to Jarod, her
breathing suddenly harsh and erratic as her heart raced, adrenalin making her
mouth dry.
"What was that?" she whispered. Jarod looked just as fearful.
"I don't know," he said grimly, and drew his gun again. She did the same, and
they stared at each other for a moment.
"Well... go on," Parker whispered.
"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked. She gave him a disgusted look.
"Fine! I'll go first!" she hissed, and gave him a little shove in the chest for
good measure
She began to march up the corridor again, but had barely made it twenty
feet when the thumping sound repeated, and she paused mid-step. Jarod stopped,
directly behind her, his breath stirring her hair.
"You know... only monsters go bump in the night," she said unsteadily.
"Do you believe in monsters?" Jarod asked. She chewed her lip for a moment.
"I believe that the Centre has created so many unnatural things, we couldn't
begin to list them all," she said, her voice pained. He touched her arm
reassuringly, but she shook him off, instead striding confidently ahead.
They continued on, pausing just for a moment every time they heard the
thumping noise, which was getting progressively louder and occurring more often.
Determinedly they pushed ahead, Parker clutching her gun and focusing ahead,
incredibly thankful that she had Jarod by her side.
"There!" Jarod said in sudden excitement, shining his flashlight on a door,
perhaps twenty feet ahead, set into the wall.
"Finally..." Parker breathed, and they hurried up to it.
The door was solid steel, with a small, grimy window at the top. Jarod
reached for the door handle, but jumped when they heard the ominous thump again.
Miss Parker raised her gun, standing guard, and Jarod reached for the handle
again, turning it slowly. The door swung open with a creak.
"Got your back," Parker said dully, and he nodded.
Jarod stepped inside, shining his flashlight around, and Miss Parker
followed, her eyes searching every corner for any possible enemy. It took a
moment for her to register exactly *what* the room was.
"Oh... ugh..." she groaned softly, and Jarod wrinkled his nose.
"It makes a strange kind of sense that the first room we encounter is a morgue,"
he whispered.
THUMP.
"Shit!" Parker hissed, almost dropping her gun.
"That sounds close," Jarod said nervously.
"Well... let's look around and get the hell out of here!" Parker growled.
Shining her torch around again, Miss Parker eyed the old morgue with
distaste. There was an old lamp on an arm extending from the ceiling, it's
glass long since smashed. One old metal tray lay rusting in the centre of the
room. Jarod moved past her, towards the banks of drawers set into one wall. He
began randomly opening the doors, peering in.
"Metal crypts," Miss Parker muttered to herself, desperately hoping that Jarod
wouldn't find any remains in there.
"Nothing," he said after checking all the drawers. He jerked his head in the
direction of a door set into the far wall, "Shall we?"
Without a word, Parker followed him to the door, keeping a steady grip on
her gun as Jarod pushed open the steel door. They entered what appeared to be
an extension of the morgue; lined with shelves and refrigeration units. Jars
still lined each of the shelves, and Jarod let out a soft groan as he realized
what was in them.
"Failed..." he choked on the words, swallowed hard, and tried again, "Failed
fetuses."
Passing her flashlight over a row of jars, Miss Parker felt sick. The
jars still contained preservative solution, but some of it had evaporated over
time, leaving the fetuses contained within rotted or decayed altogether, with
perhaps the last few inches, still resting in the solution at the bottom of the
jar, whole and intact. It looked as if the disfigured babies were slowly
melting from the top down.
Miss Parker began to walk down the aisles, studying each jar in turn.
There had to be hundreds of failed fetuses here, perhaps even thousands. She
had to recall that the Centre had started cloning perhaps forty years before the
possibility was even made public, with poor technology in comparison to today's
standards. There would have been far, far more mistakes.
At the end of one line of shelves, she found one very small jar, still
completely filled with solution. Inside rested a tiny fetus, perhaps only the
size of her hand. The spine was almost visible through it's translucent skin.
Miss Parker picked the jar up, turning it, wondering what had caused this baby
to fail.
THUMP-THUMP!
Jumping with fright, Miss Parker dropped the jar, gasping when it
shattered on the floor. The preservative solution splattered on her shoes, and
the fetus lay on the ground, it's little spine broken. Parker opened her mouth
soundlessly, and crouched down beside it, reaching her fingers out hesitantly.
"What happened?" Jarod asked behind her, and Miss Parker snapped her hand back.
"The noise startled me... I dropped her," she murmured. She looked up at Jarod,
who regarded her sadly.
"Don't start thinking of it as-" he began.
"*It* is a baby!" she interrupted angrily.
"-As something you need to mourn. There are over a thousand here. You can't
grieve for each and every one," Jarod finished. Parker sighed.
"I know..." she murmured.
She took Jarod's handkerchief out of her pocket, gently picking up the fetus
with it. She cradled it in her hand for a moment, feeling how slick and
slippery it was as it soaked the thin material. After a moment, she wrapped it
up and placed it back on the shelf. She scanned the lines of shelves again.
"So many..." she muttered, and turned away.
THUMP.
They both startled, laughing nervously and without humor. Jarod led the
way to another door, and Miss Parker gave one last look to the shelves of
fetuses before following him. This time they appeared to be a laboratory of
some type, steel benches set around the perimeter of the room, with a few in the
centre. Jarod immediately went to a bank of file cabinets that sat against one
wall.
"Nothing... there's nothing here!" he hissed in frustration, then jumped as the
thumping sounded again.
They pressed on, continuing through room after room, twisting and turning
in a bizarre underground labyrinth of abandoned experiments. They found several
more rooms with jars of not only ruined fetuses, but what appeared to be body
parts. The thumping became louder and louder as they progressed, going deeper
and deeper into the catacombs.
Finally they came to a room, far bigger than all those that had come
before, where there rested a birthing table and an operating table side by side.
Steel sinks were set against one wall, a few trolleys near them. Miss Parker
lifted an old sheet, staring with horror at the rusted instruments that lay
there.
THUMP-THUMP!
She flinched slightly - it was now louder, almost as if they were
painfully close to it. She saw Jarod gripping the side of the operating table,
his knuckles white, his jaw set.
"What is it?" he rasped, and she shook her head, not knowing how to answer.
Fingering the handle of her gun, Miss Parker led the way to another door,
Jarod falling in behind her. This door had no window at the top, and she
gripped the handle, surprised when it wouldn't budge. No other door had been
locked. She glanced over her shoulder at Jarod, who shrugged.
THUMP-CRACK!
"Oh god!" she whispered fearfully, and felt a warm hand settling on her
shoulder.
"We can turn back if you want..." Jarod whispered.
"No... I have to know if my mother was here," she said fiercely, and his hand
squeezed gently.
She wrestled with the door again, doing her best to push it open. No
luck. She stepped back, and Jarod moved forward. He touched the handle
momentarily, then ran his finger over the lock. He dug a pen out of his pocket,
breaking it open and taking the spring, which he began to straighten.
"Oh!" he gasped, jerking one hand away.
He raised it, showing Miss Parker where he had accidentally stabbed
himself with the end of the spring. Blood was beading on the tip of his finger.
She gazed at it for a moment, before raising her own hands and holding his
finger steady. Then, while he watched, she brought his bloody finger to her
mouth, sucking on the end. She tasted salt and copper, and ran her tongue over
his finger, seeing Jarod's eyes darken with emotion.
THUMP.
Jarod drew his hand away suddenly, flushing, and turned to the lock with
his straightened wire. Parker smiled wryly, realising he was embarrassed. She
studied him as he focused on his task, threading the wire into the lock and
manipulating it carefully. The muscles on his back were rippling under his
tight black t-shirt as he worked, and she had an incredible urge to reach out
and touch.
"Ha!" he crowed a moment later, and turned the handle with ease, pushing the
door open. They both stepped inside, and looked around in grim triumph.
Files. Hundreds of them, littered over desks and cabinets.
"Eureka," Parker muttered.
Without another word they began to rifle through the files, looking for
anything of interest. The pages inside the manila files were yellowed with age,
crumpled and torn, but the print was still clear. Miss Parker began to sort
through a pile, opening each folder in turn, sifting through it's pages, and
tossing it carelessly aside.
"I don't even know what half of this stuff means!" she growled in frustration,
scanning her eyes over yet another page full of medical jargon.
Jarod put down the file he was looking at, coming to stand behind her and
looking over her shoulder. "It's comparing different genetic structures, with
particular concentration on subjects of higher intelligence and physical
stamina," he said after a moment. Parker let out a soft noise of anger, tossing
the file aside and picking up another one as Jarod moved away.
She kept half an eye on him as he wandered around the room with his
flashlight, only paying the barest attention to the files in front of her, so
she noticed when he stopped suddenly, hunching over a file cabinet.
"What?" Miss Parker demanded, shining her torch on him. He glanced up, and
shielded his eyes.
"This cabinet is labelled 'Subjects'," he said.
Parker dropped her file immediately, dashing across the room and almost
pushing him out of her way in her haste. Jarod set a steadying arm on her
shoulder as she knocked into him, but she did not so much as smile at him as she
grabbed the handle of cabinet and rattled it uselessly.
"Hold on while I-" Jarod said, raising his hand with his piece of wire, but
Parker had already backed up, holding her gun out in front of her.
"Move!" she growled, and Jarod jumped out of the way as she fired a single shot
into the lock. They both gazed at the smoking hole for a moment, and then the
drawer creakily slid out and crashed to the ground.
"Or we could do it that way," Jarod said tonelessly.
THUMP-THUMP!
They both started, sharing a nervous glance, and bent over the files that
spilt out of the drawer quickly. Jarod held his flashlight on them as Miss
Parker began to flick through. "I really don't like the sound of whatever that
is," she whispered.
"We'll just find what we need and go," Jarod whispered back.
Miss Parker said nothing, merely turning her head back to the task at
hand. She began to rummage through the files, suppressing her disgust at what
she found. 'Subject' profiles, women of childbearing age who were potential
surrogate mothers. Each profile was complete with medical history and a
photograph.
Her frustration growing, Miss Parker threw each of the files aside, not
finding what she wanted. She had almost given up all hope of finding anything
useful, when she opened a file close to the bottom of the pile. She opened its
manila folder, and stopped in shock. A small, cracked photograph was stapled to
the sheets inside, and while it was faded, it was most definitely Catherine
Parker.
"Mama..." Parker murmured, tracing her fingernail over her mother's face.
Catherine looked young in the photograph, as it had probably been taken years
before Parker's own birth. She felt tears welling in her eyes, and dashed them
away hurriedly, pushing the photograph out of the way to read the file.
She scanned over its contents, disgusted to realise it contained not only
Catherine's medical history, but also details of her menstrual cycle and sexual
history. Parker turned the page with a soft noise of horror, only to read the
same line over and over again.
"What...?" she asked in quiet disbelief.
Jarod craned his head to look, staring with blank surprise. On the very top
line, read; SUBJECT CJP235: INFERTILE.
Parker flicked back to the previous page, realising the details of her mother's
menstrual cycle included reports of abnormalities in her cycle since she was a
teenager, including late or skipped periods and intense cramps. Miss Parker
turned through more pages, reading of her mother and father's prolonged attempts
to conceive and a lack of success, and the resultant diagnosis that her mother
was infertile due to fibroids in her uterus at an early age. The final page was
a signed and sealed declaration by Catherine Parker herself, stating her
willingness to participate in an experimental intravenous fertilisation
technique.
"Oh my god," Miss Parker muttered.
THUMP-THUNK!
"What *is* that?" she hissed, closing the file with a snap. They stood up, and
she tucked the file under her arm.
"Do you want to find out?" Jarod asked, not looking too keen on the idea. She
looked over the files scattered all over the place.
"It's driving me mad..." she admitted, "I don't think we're going to find
anything else here. We know my mother was here - time to go."
Jarod gave a short nod of assent, shining his torch onto the far wall,
where another steel door loomed. He led the way over, picking the lock with
relative ease and pushing it open. They stepped into a large office-space,
where old desks and chairs lay covered with dust. They moved straight through,
not stopping to check the desks, to another door.
THUMPA-THUMP!
"Is it just me, or is that getting louder?" Jarod asked, pushing open the door
and emerging into another office area.
"We must be getting closer," Miss Parker said, and trying to keep her hand
steady as she swept her flashlight around the room.
"Lucky us," Jarod muttered.
They went through another solid steel door, stopping in surprise when they
emerged at the start of a long corridor. Parker, shining her flashlight down
it, could see a door probably 100 feet away.
THUMP!
Miss Parker shivered, feeling suddenly cold, and tightened her grip on her
gun. Jarod was standing directly behind her, and stepped closer suddenly, so
his chest brushed her back.
"It's okay. Whatever it is, we'll be okay," he said softly.
She didn't say anything, instead creeping up the corridor with her gun and
flashlight in front of her, Jarod close behind. Jarod brushed her back with his
hand, and she turned to give him a quick smile.
THUNK!
She jerked around again, the air resounding with the heavy noise.
Steeling her resolve, she took a deep breath and strode forward. It was best
they got this over with as soon as possible, she decided. Jarod kept pace
behind her, and they only paused a little bit as the thump sounded again.
"Okay. Nothing left but to open it," Miss Parker said, when they reached the
end of the corridor. They both stood silently for a moment.
THUMP.
Her hand trembling, Parker touched the steel door handle, forcing herself
to grip it firmly. She was ashamed to hear her breathing was harsh and erratic.
In one swift motion, she jerked the handle down and pushed the door open.
THUNKA-THUMP.
Miss Parker stared. "You're fucking joking me."
"My god," Jarod said roughly.
They were standing in a smaller corridor, perhaps ten feet long, at the
end of which a steel door was slightly loose on its hinges. The wind was
whistling through a small gap between the door and its frame, and with every big
gust was blowing open and banging closed again, causing the thumping sound.
"*This* is what's been making that fucking noise?" Parker yelled. She tucked
her gun into the waistband of her jeans, and strode up the corridor towards the
door just as a gust of wind caught it. It flew open, and rain splattered into
the doorway before it slammed closed again.
Jarod pushed past her, yanking the door open again and running outside.
Miss Parker followed, not caring that she was getting soaked with rain. She
stared up at storm clouds, then at her surroundings. The door let out to a
small rock outcrop on the side of the hill, far below the house and barn. The
storm clouds had thickened while she and Jarod were in the facility, and the
wind grown steadily worse and worse, so that the door had banged louder and
faster.
Turning her face up to the rain, Miss Parker began to laugh hysterically.
And when she couldn't laugh anymore, she began to cry.
****
It took September a moment to fully comprehend what she was reading. A
few minutes before, she had been working away quietly when Jarod's computer had
beeped. At first, she hadn't quite known what to do. December was outside, not
smoking one of her cigarettes, and September had finally, hesitantly, lifted the
lid on Jarod's laptop, and retrieved the email that had been the cause of the
alert.
Now she was glad she had. She reread the message, aware that her heart
was beating unnaturally fast. She heard the door bang, and December curse as
she bumped into something.
"Dec-December?" September called softly. She heard the other woman muttering
softly, before there was a thump that sounded suspiciously like her kicking
something.
"What is it?" December asked, entering the kitchen and going to the fridge. She
opened a carton of milk, drinking straight from it.
"I think you should look at this, Dec," September said, her voice wavering
slightly.
"What?" December asked. She came around the table, leaning over September's
shoulder and reading the screen.
The milk carton dropped to the floor.
"Oh. Oh shit!" Dec whispered.
There, on the screen, was a short email. CENTRE KNOWS LOCATION. RUN. -
CJ.
"We have to go," September said softly, and looked up at December, "We have to
go *right now*."
They burst into action. September started to shutdown all three of their
laptops as December ran out of the room, going upstairs. She was so intent on
disconnecting the laptops from their network cables, that the sound of the
screen door being pushed open didn't register, nor did the soft footsteps in the
hall.
"Well, Parker. Doesn't look like you're much of a hostage," a soft voice
drawled behind her.
September began to tremble. She would know that voice anywhere, and it
terrified her more than anything else on the planet. She clenched her hands
into fists, and turned around slowly. The man, leaning in the doorway holding a
gun on her, did a double take, and then grinned incredulously.
"Not Miss Parker after all," he murmured, looking delighted, "But my runaway
September!"
September ran her eyes briefly over the man, roughly her own height, who
was posed so nonchalantly in the doorway - as if they were old friends. As if
she didn't know the extent of his violence and sadism. He looked paler than the
last time she'd seen him, leaner. Her eyes dropped quickly to his gloved hand,
then back up to his pale blue eyes.
"Bobby," she whispered.
"September, my dear September," he said softly, and pushed off the doorway,
beginning to advance on her. September backed up nervously, but soon realised
she had nowhere to go - she had backed up to the kitchen bench, and there was no
way out.
"Leave me alone," she said harshly, almost sobbing with fear. One gloved hand
stretched out to trace the line of her jaw tenderly, and September shuddered.
"What's the matter, Sep?" he said teasingly, "Don't you miss me? We had such
some *fun* times together..."
September squeezed her eyes closed, knowing tears were squeezing out and
not caring, only wanting the man who had terrorised her, the man she knew as
Bobby, to get away from her. His hand cupped her cheek, and she let out a soft,
frightened sound.
"The rest of the team are on the way... but maybe you and I should have a little
time alone together first..." he muttered, his voice thick with arousal, and she
could feel his breath on her cheek.
"You son of a bitch!" came a sudden hoarse cry, and September opened her eyes
just in time to see December, absolutely furious, hit Bobby over the head with a
frypan. Bobby dropped the gun, and staggered around to face his attacker.
September, now shaking with fear, sank down into a crouch, and huddled
against the cabinets, leaving Bobby to December, who was more than happy to take
him on. The other woman promptly grabbed him by the shoulders, kneed him in the
groin and shoved him to the ground.
"Don't you EVER fucking touch her again!" December hollered, and Bobby,
seemingly astonished, grunted as she kicked him in the gut.
"What the...?" he gasped, and scrambled away, trying to rise to his feet.
December caught him when he was about halfway up with a vicious uppercut,
so he flew backwards and crashed heavily into the table. Still muttering to
herself, December went after him, laying blow after blow on him. September
closed her eyes weakly, blocking out the sounds of the woman she now considered
her sister avenging her past by putting her hands over her ears.
Sometime later, she felt gentle hands covering her own, and opened her
eyes to see that December was crouching in front of her, looking grim.
September took her hands off her ears, and looked fearfully at Bobby, who was
lying in the corner, not moving.
"We have to go right now, they'll be here soon," December said, and September
nodded.
December shoved the laptops in their carry cases, slinging them over her
shoulder. She took September by the hand, leading her out of the room. Just
before the door, September glanced back at Bobby. His eyes, though swollen and
bruised, were open, glittering with malicious intent, and he lifted his
thumbless, gloved hand in time to give her a little sardonic wave.
September bit her lip, turned her head and hurried away.
****