Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (34 page)

I could barely see while hobbling over to it and it too...was low.  That was very odd to me that everything was so low.  It had to be some sort of children’s wing converted to a morgue.  Maybe it was an old school house, the ceiling, and the tables too.  I turned the water on and grabbed a hand towel to wipe my eyes with after getting it wet.  My scalp began to throb.  I tried applying pressure to it while I rinsed my eyes out blinded by pain.  Sticking my finger on a piece of glass was an even larger surprise and made me that much more furious.  The second and third pieces were insults to injury and dozens littered my scalp.  I gingerly began to pull them out and the blood flowed freely. 

I shifted my focus to my knees; more glass.  Frustration began to mount when I glanced over my shoulder in the room, and noticed a light was out.  The bulb had shattered and glass littered the floor.  Logic finally settled in and I realized I had broken the bulb with my head.  Feeling stupid, the cause of my injuries sank in.  Deep breaths helped alleviate the growing tension that kept getting the better of me.  Vowing to slow down, I grabbed another towel and cleaned my wounds.  With the glass no longer embedded in my skin, cleaning went much easier and my scalp felt a rush of heat.

Just as I finished with my fourth towel, the door opened.  It was the man with the plastic facemask.  He was not wearing it now as he stood in the doorway.  He seemed short.  Other voices in the hall were getting closer and the sound of the footsteps approached.  He just stood there in the door frozen again for about thirty seconds; then he pointed his finger at me. 

The room exploded into action.  Unseen hands yanked the man back as the room filled with what looked like soldiers.  They filed into the room brandishing weapons and surrounded me in a half circle.  I backed up and put my hands up. 

“What did I do?”  A bunch of little pinches hit my skin, I saw flashes and began to convulse.  It felt as though my legs might buckle amidst the shaking but my strength surged, and I remained standing.  Reaching up to pull out what attached to my skin on my torso, I noticed many wires.  After grabbing hold of the wires, electricity flowed into me, causing my grip to tighten.  I tugged.  Flesh ripped.  There was no pain.  Pulses hit me over and over…I roared and yanked hard.  Three out of the six men flew towards me and my other arm swung with the back of my fist.  A sickening crunch happened as I hit one in the nose.  He flew backwards and hit a table, knocking him and it over.  A corpse fell on the floor as well, landing partially onto the downed man.  Blood sprayed the room in slow motion as my other hand with the metal wires swept across the other two catching the first one in the side of the head and bowling him into the other.  I could now see the word swat on their vests.

The last three standing lost grip of their weapons and went for their batons in one motion.  They advanced on me.  I growled and kicked one of them in the chest, sending him over a table and against the wall.  The other two flanked and caught me each with a baton as my hands found their heads and slammed them together.  A quick glance of the room showed it cleared of men.  I looked into the hall.  Red beams of light hit me in the chest.  More men stood at the ready with guns trained on me, my hands slowly rose. 

“It wasn’t my fault, they attacked me!”  I said quickly, still running things over in my head.  I just downed not one but six police officers.  The excitement was intoxicating, but I had no idea how it was possible.

“On your knees, NOW!” they demanded repeatedly. 

The room had no other exits.  There was no place to run.  Moments went by slowly.  I dropped to my knees expecting to wince from the pain, but I felt nothing.  Police poured into the room surrounding me.  The second wave to enter saw to the fallen officers.  They carried the one with the broken nose out.  I felt bad, but they attacked me first.  Perhaps a judge would see it that way.  More commotion from the hall way caught my attention as the officers tried to put cuffs on while cursing.

“Dammit Mike, the bastard’s wrists are too big.  I don’t have any zip ties!” an officer shouted.

How was that even possible?  I knew I was a little taller than Jason.  The drugs must be affecting my hearing.  My head was still foggy.  A man in a suit stepped into the room.  He had a self-important look about him.  They referred to him as Sergeant.  Apparently, I was important enough to send in seven plus officers to collect, which bothered me.  Was I lost?  Tucked away but not lost?  “Sergeant” walked up to me and looked me in the eyes.

“My God, you must be over seven and a half feet tall...how long have you been lifting?  I bet it’s steroids you were after; it always is with you muscle heads.  What did your parents feed you?”  He paused. 

I could have sworn I heard him say seven and a half feet tall.
  Something clicked in my brain and things began to make sense.  The low ceiling, the scared man, the broken bulb, the low tables, and now hearing I am a giant.

“Officer, when I went to bed I was small.  I woke up in that room over th…”  I started.

“This is for assaulting cops!”  Knuckles met my face.  It hurt for a second as my eyes reopened to see him dancing around holding his fist in his other hand in obvious pain.  Someone rushed in from the hallway; I did not catch who it was at first.  My ears rang for a second.  Dizziness still affected my faculties.  I heard a voice.

“This is broken; you need to get up to emergency.”

“His face is like stone!” is all I heard from him followed by lots of cussing.

“Get this one up there as well.  He has a concussi…”  Then I heard a gasp. 

“Oh my God!” came a female voice.

That voice!

My favorite person in the whole world walked over to me with a look of horror on her face.  She was trembling so bad she could barely speak.  Her hand reached up for a second then pulled back suddenly.  Tears welled up in her eyes.  This had to be a mistake.  Even on my knees I was taller than she was.  Stopping about four feet from me she put her hand over her mouth, a sob escaped.  I smiled.  It felt like a year since I had seen her.

“Where have you been?  What happened to you?  All we found was a note saying you were gone and no one knew anything.  All the papers had been filled out and everything.”  She was still shaking and raised her hand up to touch my face.  So warm and gentle...my eyes closed.  I could not speak.  Her hand came away from my face.  I opened my eyes and saw her turn to Sergeant. 

“In case you are wondering this is one of our patients.  He suffers from some form of abnormal growth.  Someone signed him out.  I just witnessed your men attack him without provocation, and I am sure there is a good explanation as to why he is here.  So unless you want me to file a grievance against you for police brutality, I suggest you take your men and leave.”

The Sergeant was in the hallway glaring at me.  My eyes panned the room.  There were still four guns trained on me.  I knew I could take them if they did not back down... but they
were
police officers.  I felt bad for hurting them but was invigorated that six armed officers fell to me with no training other than what Jason had taught me.  She turned to look at him.

“Well?  Do I need to make some phone calls?” she said.

“Come to the desk in the hospital and make your report.  I’ll be in the emergency room.”  He glared at her and walked away motioning for the men to fall back.  The little man was in the corner looking at me from around the cabinets there. 

My eyes came back to Eryn.  She was radiant.  All I could do was gaze at her.  The officer behind me let go and stepped back after looking at his Sergeant.  I reached out to Eryn and touched her face; my huge hands covered most of her cheek.  The smile on my face spread ear to ear.  She closed her eyes at my touch.  Thoughts of how to explain this raced through my mind, but I had no idea what was happening. 

“I am here,” is all my voice could muster.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Eryn.  I woke up about fifteen minutes ago by my guess and was restrained in that room back there.”  I gestured with my head.  “I was alone and heavily sedated.  This man came in when I called.”  I paused then looked at him. 

“Are you the only worker down here?  How could you not know I was in there?  Wasn’t someone coming in to check on me or anything?”  He flinched a bit at her words.

“I only work part time and was told by my boss, David, to ignore any noises I heard back in here.  He said they ran out of rooms and that a patient was going to be using that room under heavy sedation.  I don’t know how long you have been in there.  Sorry, I panicked; I just wasn’t prepared to see a giant in there.”

I laughed and it was very loud.  “You weren’t prepared.  Imagine how I felt, waking up like this?

“I don’t follow sir.”  He hung his head.

I looked back to Eryn, who still had a surprised look on her face.  “Can we get out of here?  I am starving.”

“We need to get you back upstairs.  First I want to look at the room you were in.”  She walked over and opened the door.  She covered her nose and coughed.  “Oh my God, you were in here?”  She looked in and stepped back closing the door.  She pointed at the little man.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

He hesitated.

“Look you aren’t in trouble but you did see what the cops did and how they handled the situation so I suggest you stay out of that room and do not talk to your boss or anyone else.  In fact…” she reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card.  “You call me if they give you any crap or the police harass you into lying about their actions.  Can you do that?” 

He nodded.

She looked over at a folded pile of white sheets, walked over, and grabbed one.  She turned back to me and unfolded it like a sail, then threw it over and around my shoulders.  She had a concerned look on her face and I could tell she was dying to ask me what they did to me.

“How long?”  I asked.  By the look on her face, it had to have been a few days ago.  I cannot imagine they would be able to keep me a secret for very long.  The situation still baffled me.  I mutated into the monster.  She tried to fit this sheet around me and was not having very good luck doing it.  She kept losing one side or the other and was starting to get frustrated.  Tears began welling up while she tried to hold it together.  This side of her even with the weeks getting to know her had never showed itself.  I took her hand in mine and with the other took a hold of the sheet.  She pulled the other side of and made the two corners tie together just like a kid would try to make a cloak like superman.

She finished and stepped back smiling.  “There, you look like a super hero now.”

“How long Eryn?”  I asked again.  A little bit of irritation came out and she looked me in the eyes.  I was still on my knees.

“Seven weeks and three days.  I came into work; you were gone, and there was no information, only that someone transferred you to an actual mental hospital.  The discharge order did not say which one.”

I did not know much about the medical field and in truth anything other than the occasional television show or movie seen growing up but this did not sound right.  There was always some sort of paper trail.  Turning to the guy in the corner to ask him more about his boss, I noticed he had disappeared.  I glanced past Eryn to see if he had moved but could not see him. 

He was gone.

Just then the door to the morgue closed and another man walked towards the center of the room with his face buried in a clipboard and flipping through some pages.  He suddenly stopped and looked up, first at Eryn, then me, and jumped back.

“Holy shit, how did you get in here?"  He backed up to the door looking back and forth between us.  Something about his eyes was familiar.  I could not place my finger on it.  I had seen them over me before in a weird look on his face in some memory, still blurry from before.  Taking a long look at him made fidgety.  Perhaps he was one of the doctors. 

“Relax, I am a nurse here.  I am just giving one of my patients a tour.”  She held up her badge and pointed to the room in the back, “What do you normally keep in there and who is responsible for this facility?”

“What room?” he asked.  “The fridge?”

She pointed back to the room I had been in while I was getting to my feet.  I glanced back there.  To my shock, there was a solid wall.  All I saw was tile.  Eryn continued to rake the man over the coals and I began to tap her on the arm.  The man protested that he did not know what she was talking about and Eryn got more agitated.  I kept tapping her on the shoulder and she kept ignoring me while laying further into the man.  Finally, she got tired of my tapping, and looked over her shoulder and yelled, “What Dieter?”

My finger pointed at the missing doorway and shrugged.  She paused and turned to look.  The second she turned her head...clattering... and the man ran out of the room.  I gave chase catching the door and ducking to get in to the hallway.

An empty corridor
! 

This dumbfounded me. 

My head felt a lot less foggy than five minutes ago.  Two men had now disappeared out from under my nose within three minutes of each other and now there was an empty corridor with no place to hide and a missing room.  I ducked back down and looked at Eryn, she faced the wall where the room used to be and had her hand on her hip while the other touched her lips; trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened with the room disappearing.  I do not think she realized this guy had practically vanished.  I got to the door fast and he had just passed through it; there were no footfalls in the hallway.