CHAPTER 3
Greer trembled violently in the passenger seat, "Dad…not…stop…shaking." Greer mumbled through her seizer. Dr. Nelson turned from his wife, who was just told that their daughter is a mutant, "Oh, god she's having a seizer." The doctor grabbed a pen that was in his lab coat pocket; he intended to keep her from biting her own tongue off. Lifting her lips up, fangs protruded from the canine teeth and from the lower incisors. 'Damn it's happening too fast.' Dr. Nelson thought. "I need a stretcher!" He shouted over his shoulder. Two young men with lab coats on ran over, a stretcher in their hands. "What's happening?!" Marie Nelson screamed standing clear of the two orderlies. "I have to get her inside NOW!" Dr. Nelson was in a panic, "Marie, go home! There's nothing else you can do for her." "I'm not leaving her David!" Marie yelled. "Fine but stay out of our way and when I say you have to stay. You damn well stay!" The two techs had gotten Greer onto the gurney and strapped her down at the waist. All the personal rushed Greer and her family into the laboratories, Dr. Nelson barking orders to everyone around them.
Marie raced along her daughter's side. She had never been to David's lab before. She watched windows zip by that looked into, what looked like, hospital rooms, as well as windows to huge examination tables. She cursed herself for not being more curious of her husband's occupation.
They finally crashed through a pair of double doors to a room that had another door that looked like it belonged to a submarine. Dr. Nelson barked more orders to the techs around him, as the security personal had disappeared. Turning to his wife, "Marie, there is a observation room through that door. Stay there!" He pointed to the door behind Marie. She walked through the door, inside was a huge control panel that reminded her of an airplane cockpit but larger. Lights blinked on and off and needles of meters twitched back and forth. A window was in front of the control panel but it had a metal shield covering it, she wondered if that was were her daughter was.
Dr. Nelson disrobed his daughter as quickly as possible. Her seizer had stopped and she lay limply on the stretcher, exhausted from her tremor. "Greer wake up baby! You have to help me!" Her father pleaded. The other techs were gone; it was just him and his daughter. Greer grunted trying her best to stop her dad from taking her pants off. "We have to get you on the table. We're going to start your treatment to stop the mutation." Greer grunted a soft; "No." but her father didn't hear her. He prepped the table and filled the injection gun with fluid. Greer mustard up all her strength to get off the gurney and leave the room. She knew that if she took the treatment again it would kill her. A sense of, self-preservation, so strong she didn't understand took hold of her, telling her 'Do not get on the table!' "Okay, Greer honey." Her father said turning around, to see her naked body stepping out of the door, into the clean room. "No, Greer!" Dr. Nelson leaped over to Greer pulling her by the waist back into the room. "Greer, I know your confused but we have to stop the mutation." Greer struggled, she didn't know how but she wasn't going to get on the table. Her life depended on it.
Turning around in his arms, a feral growl erupted from her, as she pushed her father away.
In her attempt to escape, David was thrown to the ground by his daughter, a large gash bled steadily from his arm. His daughter wasn't that strong, he gritted his teeth in pain. 'No' he thought 'the monster is that strong!' Greer's father sprang up from the lab floor and grabbed Greer by her hair dragging her back into room. "I'm not going to let that monster take my daughter!" He said aloud, throwing her to the ground. Greer felt her head hit the hard metal floor before everything went black. Satisfied that his daughter wasn't going to struggle any longer. He picked her up and heaved her onto the table, strapping down her arms and legs as tightly as possible.
Marie waited patiently for something to happen. She didn't believe her husband would leave her in the dark about their daughter, but a nagging voice inside her said she didn't know what to believe. A loud bang erupted from behind her, turning around she saw her husband cradling his bloody arm. "David what happened? Is Greer alright?!" Panic and fear vibrated from Marie. "I'm fine! Get out!" Dr. Nelson grabbed Marie by her arm and threw her out of the control room, the door locking behind her. He then turned on the whole system. The equipment came to life with an electrical hum. Dr. Nelson took off his lab coat, wrapping it around his wounded wing. Checking all the meters he lowered the metal screen to view the examination room Greer was in.
Marie fell to the ground, hitting her chin hard. She could taste blood in her mouth. Getting up she had a full assault on the door she was just thrown out of, "David what are you doing!" She tried the door in vein and pounded on the hard wood until her hands hurt. She slid down the door hot tears of frustration ripping from her eyes, "What are you doing to our baby."
Dr. Nelson arranged the settings and began the procedure. Typically the serine fluid with the correct genetic coding was diluted to be genteelly absorbed, but the mutation was taking over his child, so he put in the full concentration of the genetic liquid. He wasn't going to let almost 20 years of research and study go to waste by losing his daughter to some flawed DNA. He had to hurry he could see his little girl stating to stir.
She looked at the metal floor beneath her as she had so many times before. She was on the table; she could hear the injection gun behind her humming with power. The sound of it was almost piercingly loud. Bringing her eyes up she saw her father in the control room, yelling as loud as she could, "Daddy please don't do this, PLEASE!" Her cries came on deaf ears and the gun behind her came to a roaring buzz. She screamed as the needle penetrated the soft tissues of her back. She squirmed against her restraints feuritly as the, unimaginable pain, swallowed her. She screamed again, her ears ached from the pitch, but she couldn't feel it, all she felt was the acid being stabbed into her spine. A roar erupted from her throat, a sound she couldn't possibly make.
The sound of a Jaguar like roar stabbed through the intercom causing Dr. Nelson to look up from his instruments, in horror. His daughter was screaming in lion like roars. 'NO! NO!' Dr. Nelson thought, 'I won't lose her.' He increased the percentage of dosage and speed. A second more blood-curdling roar ripped through the air. He could vaguely hear pounding on the door to the control room.
Marie Nelson cried and pounded at the door until she heard a scream pierce the air, "Greer!" She breathed. Coming to her feet faster than she was able to, Marie stumbled to the other door that looked like a port door. "GREER!" she screamed, pulling at the wheel she assumed opened the door. The wheel didn't budge. She looked at her surroundings for a bar or something to use, as a leaver but there was nothing. A second screamed cut the air, it sounded like a roar from a big cat. Marie screamed into the room, "Stop it you monster! You're killing our baby!"
Greer's only sense was the pain, the unwavering, chilling pain. Something screamed at her to 'Get up, get up now or you won't get up ever again!' She felt a burning pain somewhere else now, in her chest. It felt good though and she succumbed to the voice in her head. She let out what she couldn't understand and a power, pulsed through her stronger than her own blood. She ripped her arms free of the strapped restraints and roared, a blood chilling scream as the needle vibrated into the very bone of her spine from her movements. Tearing her legs free of the restraints as well Greer contorted her body in a way, she didn't know how, to avoid the needles blows. Greer glared at the control window, meeting her father's eyes. He stared back at her in shear horror. Greer could almost smell the blood that drip from his arm. The smell was driving her wild, she knew that this couldn't be her that felt like this. Something pulsed through her causing her to panic, as a mist cascaded down on her from above. She sniffed at it, her eyes wide with shock. She couldn't breath. She searched for her father's eyes to help her at the window but her father started to close the metal shield over the window, cutting his eyes from her view.
David Nelson saw the beast taking over his daughter, as she ripped the restraints off one by one. He bowed to the fact that his daughter was gone. He did the only humane thing he could think of and turned on the emergency halogen system. Tears of pain and regret burned down his checks. Her death would be quick and painless; he tried to comfort himself, but only bent his head down and raised the metal shield, to erase from view the horrible creature that stood in his daughter's place.
BANG! Two clawed hands tore at the metal shielding like paper. Shredding it into thin stripes with a shrieking whine. A smile of fanged teeth glared through the torn metal. Dr. Nelson stepped back, 'It can't get through the glass' he thought trembling with fear. Just as a large clawed foot scrapped across the glass cracking the surface into menacing spider webs. David rush for the door but before he could reach it, he heard the crash and she grabbed him by the back of his shirt. Her claws protruded slicing through his flesh to turn him around. Her fiery slitted eyes cutting into him, "What's the matter dad? Couldn't stand to watch, as you kill your little girl." David Nelson gulped the saliva in his mouth, vibrating with terror he whispered, "Your not my little girl anymore." She roared into the air throwing her father's body against the wall behind him. She leaped forward preparing to gorge herself on the substance still ebbing from his fresh wounds, when she heard her name. "Greer."
Marie could hear her screams still and she wasn't going to lose her little girl. Raising herself off the floor she really looked in the open room she was in. There was nothing here but she thought she might of have seen an emergency fire axe down the hall. Running furiously she found it. Raising it high above her head she hacked at the door handle slamming it open. A huge tiger leaped at her husband as the door swung. She was about to attack it, when it spoke. "What's the matter dad? Couldn't stand to watch, as you kill your little girl." Her husband said something else but she couldn't hear. The tiger, Greer, threw him across the room leaping on him. Marie spoke up, "Greer." Dropping the axe from her shaking hand.
Greer looked over to the open door were her mother stood. She had covered her mouth and was crying, the axe fallen from her hand. 'Why did she have an axe?' Greer thought. She looked at her father's bloody body and back to her mother, 'What am I doing?' Greer asked herself in shock. Bile rouse in her throat but she held it back. She leaped at her mother, which gave a shrill yelp.
Marie closed her eyes as her tiger Greer leaped at her, a yelp escaping her lips but she never felt the force of a blow. She opened her eyes to see nothing of her mutant daughter, just her unconscious husband on the floor moaning. Sinking to the floor, she sobbed.
