Two days Benjamin had spent hiding in the church basement from that hooded fiend. Twenty hours had passed since he had given in to his need for water and left his sanctuary.
Somehow, he was still alive.
The night he finally decided to leave, he spent a good while standing before the door with one paw on the handle before he had to nerve to open it. When he did, he grew even more anxious when he wasn't immediately set upon by that creature. Finnick and Honey had shown him enough horror films for him to know that silence, darkness and nothing were never a good combo. He'd ascended the stairs to the church above and crept through the stone path between the pews toward the exit. The ragged black makeshift curtains were still up, so the cheetah had only his flashlight to guide him. Still no creature. When he reached the doors and pushed one open, he saw that it was nighttime. Exactly what time it was he didn't have a clue. As for the date, he could only guess.
The doors had a keyhole, but without a key that little fact was useless. Besides, the creature was probably not even inside the church. Benjamin shut the door and reminded himself again to tell the police about the basement if he ever made it back to Zootopia. He wouldn't tell them everything he'd learned. They'd never believe it.
The clouds must have started pouring again at some point while he'd been in the basement, for the ground, walls and trees were dark with wet. Benjamin found water that had collected in an abandoned bucket beside at crumbling well, but he was still craving donuts. His stomach groaned when he set the bucket down on the edge of the well, making his heart pound with anxiety at the thought of wasting away in this ghost town. "Keep it together, you two." He muttered. He found obeying that little command was slightly easier after he discovered the treasure trove of evidence in that basement. No matter what, he had to get that information to Bogo and Honey. It could be the end of everything Cunninghorn, Slothfeld and their employers had set out to do.
He explored the area a second time, looking for something to remove the bar blocking the town gate, along the way discovering signs that he was no longer the only visitor in Swinetown. He'd returned to the mining elevator and saw that the button panel had been violently ripped off. There were prints in the soft mud, big ones warped into indiscernible puddles by rain. With his sucky luck of late, Sedor's prints were among them.
Benjamin was shocked when he returned to the gate with a broken shovel and found that the gate had been removed for him. The bar lay in two ragged pieces on the damp ground, bent nails sticking out like thorns. Benjamin looked beyond the gate, expecting to see a road leading into the forest. Instead he saw another part of Swinetown.
Benjamin dropped the broken shovel, threw his head back and groaned. "Evil conspiracies, mad scientists, crazy masked killers, monsters, and now more ghost town. I swear, if there's a blade-swinging Pyramid Head around the next corner…"
Nevertheless he pressed on, thinking about what he'd found in the basement.
Insidious. That one word summed up the lengths the Swintons had taken to cover up the truth about Roarcadia's fall. Honey had spent nearly a year of her spare time sharing conspiracy theories online, chief among them being that a nuclear meltdown had never occurred. Benjamin had been seventeen at the time, and impressionable enough to believe her claim that a tin had would keep the alien sheep from controlling his mind. He and Honey had read the messages together, several of them from acquaintances that had gotten their Geiger Counters close enough to Roarcadia to prove that there was no radioactivity in on the fringes of the city. Others had insisted that this proved nothing, as radioactivity would likely still be found closer to the power plant. The city was completely off limits, even to government officials, so there was no way to know which opinion was the right one.
Now Benjamin knew. There had been at least two reports in the basement concerning the meltdown, with one appearing to have been provided for one Thomas Swinton, written in a way that anyone who wasn't a physicist or an engineer could still understand. He had the report in his pocket right now, hoping that it would be enough to convince the ZPD.
Steam production is critical to the nuclear reactor, as the steam runs the generator to produce electricity as well as remove some of the intense heat the reactor water carries…
Benjamin hadn't known that, and like neither did Thomas, but he could imagine the infamously haughty pig scoffing with indignation at the investigator's presumption.
… The intruder was accosted by armed guards in the pump room, who in the process of attempting to shoot the intruder damaged the pumps, causing a trip and stopping the flow of feedwater to R-1's steam generators. 'Trip' means a piece of machinery stops working…
Benjamin noticed that this part of the town was larger, the buildings more closely built together, like the districts back at Zootopia. Perhaps this was where the town was expanded from the original settlement for the mine workers.
…When the feedwater stopped, the steam also stopped. As a result the plant's safety system automatically shut down the steam turbine and electric generator. The temperature of the reactor coolant increased, and the rapidly heating water expanded…
It started raining again. Benjamin stopped walking and stepped into the shelter of a porch. After a few minutes the rain had become a deluge. Benjamin needed to find a way out, but he wasn't desperate enough to risk a freezing, blinding rainstorm that seemed to be brewing up a lot lately. He entered the building, an empty dentist's, and sat down on a bench by the wall.
He looked out the window at the rain, smiling a little at the irony. He was waiting in a waiting room, for a rainstorm to end, without an appointment. And that wasn't even the strangest thing to happen to him.
… 73 hours after the accident began, we have confirmed that the containment protocols were in this case successful in preventing the release of lethal radioactive material into the environment. We will continue to monitor the damage to the reactor over the next five weeks, though we suspect that a partial meltdown has occurred. I personally recommend completely shutting down the plant until a full investigation is completed. Afterward we should discuss how much of the report you wish to be released to the authorities...
Honey had been right. Roarcadia wasn't radioactive. Discovering this hadn't made Benjamin feel better when he read it. If the radiation never escaped the plant, then what brought about the reports of mammals suffering disfigurements and radiation poisoning? He'd discovered the answer some time later, in another box of files, and swallowed back bile with every new thing he'd learned.
… six subjects, 300, 306, 333, 341, 381 and 466 are unaccounted for. We believe they have escaped into the streets surrounding the plant, which are still being evacuated. We should be able to locate and eliminate them before any citizens see them. Any citizens that do see them will be dealt with according to T. Swinton's orders…
Apparently those orders included reporting the sightings as disfigured victims or hallucinations brought about by ARS, and permanently silencing any mammals who tried to prove otherwise.
… the polonium planted in the clinics' medical supplies and the considerable death count has provided sufficient evidence that lethal amounts of radiation have escaped into the city, just as T. Swinton anticipated. The city is now completely off limits to anyone who may be opposed to our cleanup operation…
"That's pretty fucking sick." Benjamin said. He blinked, shocked at himself.
… It's a pity really, that the project had to end this way. All those borrowed predators, all those discarded failures, all those tremendous successes, all for nothing.
Theo came up with the idea after his latest proposal for ending the threat of predators fell on deaf ears. If he couldn't end their existence, he would at least make their existence more productive. An army of genetically engineered beasts, all under Roarcadia's command. The twilight of the dark ages. The last sunset before the dawn of the new global superpower. It would have been fantastic.
Tilda's been getting on my nerves about the whole affair. She may never have condoned the project, but she could at least pretend that she'd not unhappy...
When Benjamin had been done reading, he'd sincerely hoped that Thomas and Theodore Swinton had both died thinking of their sins. Even thinking about the things he'd learned made him weary. He lay down on the bench, staring up at the wooden beams that supported the roof.
… I still can't believe it. The day I'm supposed to return to the states to continue my research, we discovered something tremendous. Before they were terminated, two of the experiments had mated. The juvenile was found in an abandoned apartment two blocks from the power plant. The guards, shockingly, did the smart thing and brought it in alive. When the juvenile was brought before Theodore, I was sure he was going to personally kill it on the spot. Instead he was so thrilled he couldn't even speak properly!
Even at its young age it is obvious the creature will grow to be a prodigious killing machine, with its agility, high intelligence and paralyzing venom. I can hazard a guess as to which subject the father was. The vat-grown monstrosity Subject 466, the one infused with mole DNA to encourage burrowing behavior, but instead developed toxic saliva. The one that escaped captivity and escaped into the nuclear power plant, triggering the fall of Roarcadia. And now its offspring is the last remnant of Project Twilight. It's fate. It has to be. Why else would its existence have Theodore so excited?
Benjamin woke with a start. In the dream, Sedor had been too fast for him. Breathing heavily, he looked out the window. Without a watch, he couldn't tell if it was dawn or dusk, but the dirt street outside seemed empty. If there was anyone around, their prints and scent had long since been washed away. The droplets covering the glass shone like eyes of nocturnal creatures. He raised himself from the bench and left the dentist building.
The rain had become a light drizzle, with no effect on the cheetah's visibility, so he continued his search. The sky grew steadily darker as he looked for a way out of the town, which was surrounded by that seemingly endless wall of logs. A crescent moon was in the sky by the time he came across the Town Hall.
It was a plain building, pale blue in the darkness but white during the day, with two floors, a dozen windows and a clock tower with a missing minute hand. Benjamin stepped up to the entrance, going around a puddle that looked deep enough to wade in. There was something important about this place. He'd seen it mentioned in one of those documents in the basement. What was it?
… He has decided to name the creature Subject 0, the first of the second phase of Project Twilight. It will be years before we are ready to restart the project, and when we do, my behavioral altering collar will be my ticket to the top position. Slothfeld, meanwhile, is being sent back to Boarland to continue the special project Theodore had commissioned him. I wish him luck, for Theodore's sake…
The door was slightly ajar, the lock busted open. Benjamin shone his light inside the large hall. The red carpet draped across the floor between the benches was partly grey with dust.
Benjamin sniffed. There was something rotting, but it was very faint. Not faint as in distance, but in age. Whatever horrible thing had happened here had happened a long time ago. The hall, judging from the windows on every wall, seemed to encompass the entire building, except there was an open door beside the stage. There didn't seem to be anything else of interest here. Benjamin would check out the other room, then leave. He wished he could remember why the building had been mentioned in the files. He still had the key to that jeep in his pocket. If the mining elevator controls hadn't been busted he could be back at the other side of the mountain getting into that car by now…
Cable car!
Benjamin clenched the fist not holding the flashlight. That was it. The documents mentioned a cable car hidden under this building. He could have smacked himself for forgetting. All he had to do now was find it, and that door looked like his best bet.
On his way to the door the cheetah spotted something strange on one of the benches. It was some kind of metal net, two of the thick metal pins embedded in the wood. It looked a lot like one of the nets from that camp at the other end of the mine, the one with the rifles and the cage.
… Unsurprisingly, Theodore has decided to leave his daughter in the dark. After the incident, she has stated in no uncertain terms that she intends to exterminate every single experiment, whether her father wants her to or not. It's pitiful that Theodore has so little trust in his own daughter, but she brought it on herself by not playing along. We'll keep it in the old town on Founder's Mountain for now, in the Town Hall hiding the cable car connecting the town to the asylum. She won't find it there…
The room was a generic old-western office in a dozen shades of old. Cracked grey walls, drab brown floor, bookcase containing a single bible that hadn't been read in years, dented iron lamp, and a frayed, patchy red carpet with a heart pattern, dead body on the otherwise uninteresting wooden desk-
"O. M. Goodness." The cheetah whispered when he saw the skeleton on the desk, hacked in three pieces. The clothes were mostly black with camouflage combat pants, the shirt in complete tatters in the empty space where the ribs should be. A broken rifle hung by the trigger from one finger. A large cleaver lay on the desk beside the body.
"This happened ages ago. Sedor is long gone. You're safe." Benjamin repeated himself walked behind the desk, shining his light at any spot that could provide a clue. The beam froze on one of the marks on the desk; prints disturbing the dust covering one of the drawers. He pulled it open, thinking of the movies Finnick and Honey made him watch, and reached inside.
There was a heart-stopping click. The bible toppled onto its side as the bookcase slid open. Benjamin stared at the passage beyond, imagining the ecstatic fit Honey would throw had she been here to witness this. She'd jump through hoops for a mystery this big.
Benjamin stepped up to the passage and shone his light down the steel staircase. There was some kind of greenish blue glow at the bottom. Benjamin leaned into the darkness, seeing distant spots that could be electric lights-
He spun his head when the door opened, half-expecting Sedor.
The burly rhino with the study horn paused in the doorway, surprised to see him. Then those same eyes narrowed and he smiled gently. "There you are."
Benjamin felt every organ in his body lurch as the rhino stepped into the office toward him, forcing the cheetah to back away from the passage. "What, you thought I was dead? You know, I thought the exact same thing about you." With one bloodied hoof, Cunninghorn pushed the bookcase shut, causing the bible to fall in the process.
"St-stay back." Benjamin took a step back, fearing the look of hunger in the rhino's eyes. He looked like hell. There were bloody cuts on his sleeves, and his hooves and face were even worse. The face was the worst part. His curled lips wouldn't stop twitching, and his eyes were calm. Too calm. They were looking the cheetah's body up and down like a rapist's, but Benjamin sensed that he had a very different sort of pleasure in mind.
"Three days. Three days I've spent in this fucking forest, with no-one to talk to but myself. It's funny, isn't it? How much you take seeing another mammal for granted, let alone talking to one? Look at you. You've obviously had a better time of it."
"N-not entirely true." Benjamin stammered, recalling what Honey told him about psychopaths needing to be humored. Cunninghorn cocked his head, waiting for Benjamin to clarify. "Sedor's still hunting me. He's probably here in this town right now."
"Well, too bad for him. Finder's keepers, you know how it is." Cunninghorn drawled. "How many crazies are in this town?"
"I don't know." It was the truth, sort of. "Why me? Why did I have to get dragged into this? All I did was see Woolton die."
Cunninghorn shook his head. "No, you saw the Jabberwock die. At least that's what I heard the psychos calling him. He was there to turn you savage, did you know that? Pottermass sent him personally. You remember what I told you about Pottermass and his wife. I see that face. You do remember. But then Sedor snuck in and mauled the stiff bastard before he could shoot a pellet in you. You saw what happened next. You saw Woolton in that stupid wolf costume, and if that info gets out, Swinton is screwed. That's why everyone's after you."
Benjamin stared at the rhino, shock momentarily overwhelming his fear. "So Nick really was telling the truth?"
"Bingo, give the pred a kewpie doll. But this isn't about Woolton anymore." Cunninghorn stepped closer to the cheetah. The cheetah stumbled back. "This is about you ruining my life, you stupid fucking chomper. If you'd just let that fucking buffalo die, I'd have let Sedor have you. Whatever he's got planned's got nothing on what I'm gonna to do to you."
Benjamin nearly tripped over the bible as he backed away, his lips and paws trembling with terror. "No. No, you don't need to do this!"
"You have no idea how much I need to, Benji. On the force, I thought I was able to truly be myself. I could do whatever the fuck I want to you chompers, Swinton would cover it all up and there was nothing Bogo could do about it. But now thanks to you, I'm a dead mammal. No badge, no extra paycheck, no overpowered mayor covering my tracks. Or so I thought. But three days all alone in the big bag forest gives you a lotta time to think. And I've been thinking, I wasn't able to truly be myself. Sure, I could beat the tar out of your kind without getting in trouble, but the chains were still there. Elba. Trunchbull. Fucking Bogo. They were all there to keep me in line. But not anymore. Out here, without the badge and all its fucking protocols holding me back, I'm finally free."
Benjamin glared at him. "Spoken like a true predator."
"Three days ago that'd piss me off, but I can't really argue with that. Sedor had his chance, sweetheart, and he blew it. You're all mine. Once I'm done with you, I'm gonna find and kill every chomper on this mountain." He paused. "In fact, I'll wait before killing you. I've got unfinished business with that bear. I think I'll bring him to you, make him understand just how badly he's lost, and then I'll kill you both."
Benjamin shook his head, backing into the desk and hearing a rattling sound from the cleaver as it tried to roll. "You can't seriously think you can take on that monster!"
"And don't even get me started on what I'm going to do to Bogo." Cunninghorn growled, his lips twitching as the vicious words came out. He reached out for Benjamin with both lacerated hooves. "I'm gonna make him scream, Benji. I'm gonna make him wish he never tried to protect you. In the end, you're both dead."
Anger, not panic, sent the cleaver swinging into Cunninghorn's face.
Cunninghorn reared back, his scream drowning out the sound of the cleaver's wide blade hitting the floor. Benjamin dropped the broken handle and was out the door before it hit the floor beside its missing blade.
"YOU LITTLE FAGGOT!" Benjamin heard the rhino bellow and the desk being thrown across the office as he fled across the large hall and out the front doors. "YOU LITTLE SHIT! YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD, YOU'RE DEAD!" He slammed them shut, in his terror forgetting the lock was broken, and staggered back into the deep puddle outside the Town Hall. Muddy, cold water splashed up his pants. He hesitated, staring at the doors, and they burst open. Benjamin remained rooted to the spot, frozen in horror when he saw what he had done with the cleaver.
The left side of Cunninghorn's face was a horrible mess. Cracked teeth stained with blood peeked out from behind the slash in his lip. The gash widened, meat and blood glistening, as he roared at the cheetah. "You're going to wish you were dead!"
"Screw you!" Benjamin took off down the street, somehow knowing where he needed to go. Cunninghorn thundered after him with heavy, splashing steps. In minutes Benjamin was through the town gates. He spun round, glimpsed Cunninghorn charging through a long-streaked puddle, clutching his ruined face, and pulled the doors shut. He picked up the shovel he'd dropped earlier and thrust it into the bars. There was no way it would hold.
There was a bang and the doors pushed against the shovel. "You're only making this worse for yourself, faggot!"
Benjamin was too busy running to the church to answer. He barged through the doors just has he heard a crunching sound as Cunninghorn broke through the gates. "Nice try, Benji!"
Benjamin shut the doors, wishing again that he had the key, and ran to the other end of the room. On the way he stepped on cloth instead of wood. He stopped and looked down. It was some kind of black cloth, made from the same material as the curtains. He saw the rope belt and realized what it was. But it was still partly light out. Subject Zero should still be here. The doors burst open, starling him into dropping the robe.
Outside of the rain, Benjamin could smell the blood dripping down Cunninghorn's ruined shirt. The rhino spat out the blood collecting in his mouth. "You stupid kid. This is a dead end!" The rhino shut the doors behind him and advanced, fists tight and hard as clubs. The inside of his lip looked black in the dim light of dusk. "You think God gives two shits about you? You're even dumber than you look! Prayer's not gonna save you here!"
"That's right, keeping shouting, you three-lipped assbutt!" Benjamin yelled back. He used anger to hide the fear of what was about to happen. He'd rather die being an idiot than give the rhino the satisfaction of listening to him beg for his life.
Cunninghorn punched him into the altar, knocking the cross to the floor. Benjamin's vision swayed as he fought to stay conscious, and then a massive foot kicking him in the ribs had him gasping for breath as well. Before he knew it Cunninghorn was straddling him with his massive body, blood dripping onto the cheetah's face.
"This changes nothing, bitch." He snarled as his thick hands wrapped around Benjamin's throat and squeezed. "When you wake up, you're gonna wish this was the end." He avoided the arteries in the sides of the neck, focusing all the pressure on the windpipe. The sick monster was dragging this out as long as possible. Benjamin struggled, tugging at the thick arms and kicking aimlessly, but he was no match for an insane rhino. A shape flashed across the rafters of the church, almost pure white against the black spots that were gathering in his vision.
Benjamin tried to imagine Nick looking down at him instead of Cunninghorn's awful, ruined face. He would never see the real Nick again, but he had to apologise somehow. He should have believed him about the wolf. He was sorry. He wanted to make things right.
"You're going to wish Sedor killed you when he had the chance." Cunninghorn was starting to smile when his face suddenly starting rising up out of Benjamin's fading line of sight and his hands came away from the cheetah's throat. What the…
It took a moment for Benjamin to feel the pressure around his ankle and realize that he was being dragged out from under Cunninghorn between the legs, the interfering mammal sending him skidding across the floor and smearing the spots of blood left by the rhino. Benjamin came to a stop when he hit one of the pews, hearing Cunninghorn cussing in between his own coughing and gasping.
There was a shout of pain from the rhino, and the cheetah looked up to see him clutching his shoulder. Cunninghorn removed his hoof briefly to examine the bite, then looked up at the rafters, eyes flashing with fury. "What's the matter, asshole? Don't I taste good?"
Something leapt past the rhino's legs, a bone-colored blur that left behind a bloody bite on one of the ankles. Benjamin wasn't going to wait to see when the venom would take effect. He rolled onto his front, biting his lip at the pain it caused to his body, and started to crawl.
Subject Zero came prowling from behind a pew, pale yellow eyes locking with Benjamin's. The eyes shone like glass spheres full of poison. Benjamin stared, transfixed, unable to tear his gaze away from the eyes to see what the rest of it looked like.
Subject Zero pounced, its four paws landing on the cheetah and flattening him to the floor. For such a lean creature it was astonishingly heavy. He felt the long claws poking through his clothes. Benjamin covered his head with his paws, trying not to think about how much the bite would hurt. Then there was a bruising pain when the creature leapt off of his body, and Cunninghorn started screaming again.
Resisting the ache of his ribs and back, Benjamin forced himself to his feet. He had to get out of here. He didn't want to know what Subject Zero was doing to make Cunninghorn scream so much. He started toward the door, praying he would make it back to the Town Hall before Subject Zero finished with the rhino.
The doors opened. Sedor stopped in the doorway, his hat and coat shimmering with rainwater. Water dripped from the tip of the beak of his mask.
Benjamin stared at those soulless black lenses, imagining he was seeing the eyes beyond. "What took you so long?" Was all he said.
Sedor looked over Benjamin's shoulder, seeing Cunninghorn at the creature's mercy. The grunt he made seemed almost contemptuous as he lifted the cheetah off his feet and carried him from the church.
