New Title 1 (39 page)

CHAPTER 28

As Chase and Adam were goaded toward a squat building that sat hunched against the fog, the alarm fell silent. One of the guards punched a series of numbers on a key pad and the door hissed open. They followed a bright corridor, and were forced toward a door at the end, which one of the guards unlocked, pushing Chase and Adam through before shutting the door behind them with a metallic clang and locking it.

“Chase, is that you?”

“Jane, oh my god, Jane.” Chase turned to see her friend and she rushed over and embraced her. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. “This is all my fault.” Overwhelmed with relief, she couldn’t believe her friend was all right.

“What the hell’s going on?” Jane asked, her bruised face full of confusion.

“It’s an experiment,” Chase said. “A goddamned sick experiment with the food. It’s supposed to cure people of sickness, but it’s had the opposite effect.”

Looking around, Chase saw they were in a small windowless room with a single dirty bulb emitting a cancerous yellow light. Having been taken in an earlier truck, she spotted Mandy sitting on a bunk bed. The sedative must have worn off because she was crying. Then she noticed someone else in the room, sat hunched in the corner, almost hidden behind the bunk beds.

“Mat.” She hardly dared breathe in case he disappeared like smoke.

“Best leave him,” Jane whispered. “He’s not all there.” She twirled a finger at the side of her head.

But she couldn’t just leave him. She walked across and hunkered down and laid a hand on his shoulder. Mat looked up, shook his head and then lowered it again.

“Mat, it’s me, Chase. You know who I am. That’s why you tried to warn me about what was going on. Talk to me, please.”

“He’s got the change,” Mandy said, looking up. “Just like me.” She shook her head and started crying again.

“It’s like being locked up with a couple of loons,” Jane said.

“Mat, talk to me.”

Mat batted her hand away. “I know who you are,” he mumbled. “I wished you here.”

Chase frowned. “I don’t understand.” Why was he doing this to her?

“I conjured you from a picture. I’m the magic man.” He grinned.

Chase was confused. “You mean the photograph?” She took it out of her bag and handed it to him.

Mat snatched it from her. “I had almost convinced myself that you didn’t exist, that you were a figment of my imagination, someone I had dreamed. And then you showed up. I conjured you here.” He shook his head and looked up, his eyes moist with tears. “You don’t know what it’s been like for me. I knew there was no going back, I needed someone.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on. Why be so cryptic?”

“Perhaps
you’re
not real.” He reached out and pinched Chase on the arm, causing her to flinch. “If you’re a dream, I don’t want to scare you away. I don’t want to wake. But I am awake, aren’t I ... and you’re a part of my nightmare, a ghost from a past that I can’t remember. I conjured you from a photograph, and now you’re here, haunting me.”

“Oh Mat, what have they done to you.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. She turned to look at Adam who was still standing by the door. “Is this what you wanted? Take a good look. Is this the price you were willing to pay?”

Adam looked at the ground and didn’t reply.

“It’s okay Mat.” She turned back to him. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“Haven’t you realised yet?” Mandy shook her head and sobbed. “There is no escape, not for any of us.”

“Don’t give up. There’s always a way out. There must be a cure. Adam, tell them.”

Mandy laughed.

Adam shook his head. “They don’t know exactly what’s gone wrong yet, so how can they cure it?”

Mat grabbed Chase by the arm. “She’s right. There is no escape, not for us, but you need to get out of here. You need to tell people what’s happened so it can’t happen again. They’ve messed my head up so bad. Sometimes I don’t even know who I am.”

“I can’t leave you here. I
won’t
leave you here.”

“It’s out of your hands.”

Chase refused to accept what he was saying. Her head was spinning. Everything was so confusing; none of it seemed real. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up to see Jane.

“They’re right, sugar.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” Mandy asked, her chest heaving between sobs.

“We
can’t
just leave them,” Chase vehemently said.

“What choice do we have,” Jane replied. “You’ve seen what’s happening to them.”

Chase shook her head and put the palms of her hands to her temples. “I don’t know what to think. I still can’t believe what’s happening.”

Jane suddenly went pale.

“I ...
 
I’ve been eating the food they gave me.” She looked at Mat and Mandy. “Am I going to become like them? Oh god, don’t let me be like them.”
 

Chase stood up and hugged her friend. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”

“I do trust you, sugar. It’s them I don’t trust.” She looked back at Mat and Mandy.

“Well, we’ve all got to trust each other.”

“Does that include me, too?” Adam asked.

“That depends on you.”

“I thought we were doing the right thing.”

“And now?”

He momentarily looked at Mat and Mandy before lowering his head to stare at the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Well you’d better get off the fence. You’re either with us or against us.”

“Then I suppose I’m with you.”

Chase eyed him suspiciously for anything that might indicate otherwise, but Adam didn’t move. “Okay,” she said, turning her back on him, “Now we need to plan how we’re going to get out of this.”

“Haven’t you realised yet, we’re damned.” Mat looked up, his eyes dull and lifeless as though the spark of life had been extinguished. “We’re the new lepers. Unclean.”

“No, there’s got to be something we can do. Moon must be able to undo what he’s done.” Chase wasn’t going to admit defeat. She hadn’t found Mat just to lose him again. She wasn’t going to let him bury his head in the sand.

Just then the sound of footsteps echoed outside and a key turned in the lock. The door opened and two small figures were shoved into the room.

“Ratty!” Chase instantly recognised the young boy, relieved to see that he was all right. The other figure was a young girl. Drake stood in the doorway behind them, grinning arrogantly.

Ratty looked up at Chase and gave a half-hearted smile that suddenly melted into a fearful grimace. He backed away, protectively keeping the young girl behind him.

“That’s who killed the vicar,” he cried, pointing past Chase.

CHAPTER 29

Chase was confused. For some reason, Ratty was pointing behind her, into the room. She turned around. Adam stood behind her, along with Jane, Mandy and Mat.
 

She turned back to Ratty. “What do you mean, that’s who killed the vicar?”

“Him, he killed the vicar.” Ratty was still pointing accusingly.

Chase turned around again. Him! She stared at Adam and Mat. At the time of the murder, she remembered running to the surgery and bursting in on Adam and Mandy.

“How did you manage to get back to the surgery so quickly, and why on earth did you kill the vicar?” She eyed Adam warily and backed away. She had already seen him kill once.

Adam held his hands up. “Hold on a minute, you don’t think he means me do you? Tell her kid.”

“No, not him, him.” He pointed at Mat.

“You must have got it wrong.” Chase couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Ratty pulled the disc from underneath his T-shirt. “I saw it all on this.”

“I’ll take that.” Drake stepped into the room and grabbed the disc. “Didn’t you men frisk them before you chucked them in here? Amateurs.” There was an embarrassed cough from out in the corridor. “Well you’d better check them now. God knows what else they could have on them.”

Chase couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She looked at Mat, shaking her head. “Is it true?”

Mat frowned. “Why is everyone looking at me? Who are all you people?”

“It’s the change,” Mandy wailed. She put her hands on her head and began rocking back and forth as a guard entered the room.

“You,” the guard pointed at Mandy, “against the wall. And you, back away.” He pointed a gun at Chase.

When Mandy didn’t move, the guard shoved her, causing her to stumble and hit her head against the wall.

“I said against the wall,” the guard repeated as Mandy rubbed her head.

Chase knew that it was too late.

“Quick, Jane, Ratty, and you,” she pointed at the girl, “get out of here.”

“No one’s going anywhere,” Drake drawled, blocking the exit.

“Let us out, you fool,” Adam bawled, pushing past Jane. “Don’t you realise what’s happening.”

“You’re the fool.” Drake punched Adam in the stomach, causing him to double over in pain. “Now let my men do their job.”

“Back away,” the guard covering Mandy said, his voice rising slightly. “If you don’t back off, I swear to God I’ll shoot.” The guard took a step back, his gun levelled on Mandy.

“Drake,” Chase shouted, “Can’t you see what’s happening?”

“Shut it, whore.”

“For God’s sake, don’t just stand there.” As Chase spoke, Mandy advanced on the guard, her fingers flexing like claws.

“Drake, do something.”

But before he could reply, Mandy flew at the guard and a shot rang out, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. Chase heard the sound reverberating in her head and she watched Mandy fly back, the wall suddenly painted with a bloody splatter effect by an invisible artist.

“What the fuck’s going on in there,” Drake barked.

Chase watched in shock as Mandy’s body slumped down the wall, a glistening slug trail of blood left down the brickwork. Jane screamed, her hands covering her mouth.

“Don’t look.” Chase tried to shield Ratty and the girl from the sickening sight, but the blood trickling down the wall was too copious to hide.

“I warned her, I warned her,” the guard gasped.

“Get a grip,” Drake ordered. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me I’d have to kill someone.”

“Well check her then, you idiot, and if she isn’t dead, then make sure you finish the job.”

The guard approached Mandy’s slumped body and felt her throat to check for a pulse when she suddenly reached out and grabbed his hand. The guard jumped in a mixture of shock and revulsion and he accidentally fired off another shot, the bullet whining around the room.
 

Before the guard had time to react, Mandy bit into his hand, shaking her head from side to side like a dog with a rag. The guard screamed and instinctively hit out to get her to release her grip, but that only seemed to aggravate her even more, like swatting a wasp.