Nathan Hystad - New Threat

Skip’s radio chimed, and we were told they’d found much the same at Leslie’s room.

Grabbing the papers from the desk, Mary made a move for the door. “Let’s go see what the guard’s room looked like.” She was off, Skip trailing her determined strides, even though he knew where the guard barracks were, not her. I could see her frustration. We were sent to do what initially seemed like a simple task but were being handed something much bigger. It was going to be a lot harder to track these two down out there than inside a fenced-off university campus.

The guard barracks were across the grounds, and we took four-seater golf-style carts to cross the area quickly. There were already guards stationed at Clendening’s door, and when we approached it, the room was open. A large man stood in the opening, and when he turned to face us, he was white as a ghost.

“Sorry, boss. He’s dead.” The man stepped out of the way, and Skip rushed past him in the small dorm-style room. The man we’d seen in the surveillance video was slumped on the single bed, throat slit. Blood covered everything and had dripped down into a sticky puddle on the ground beside him. It was a callous, brutal murder, and I knew in my gut it was Leslie and Terrance who had done it. I pictured them smooth-talking the man, getting his help to spread their words across the fence; then, when they got his keys to leave, they’d killed him. In my head, I saw Terrance holding him down, a look of terror on the man’s previously trusting face. Leslie showing a hint of remorse as she slid her knife across his throat, ending the one man who’d been willing to help their cause. It was sick, and I fought back the bile that was threatening to push out of my mouth.

I left the room and walked down the hall, my ears ringing. The hallway was spinning ever so slowly, and I pushed past the dozen or so guards and made my way to the doors that led outside. I thought I could hear Mary calling my name, but I kept going. The image of the guard was stuck in my mind, and the horrible way the hybrids used and discarded him made me despise their cause all the more. We had to stop them.

It was a couple of hours later that we were in the surveillance room, combing through anything with Leslie, Terrance, or Clendening from the past week. The AC was cranked as the hot sun blasted the brick building, creating an oven simulation, and we sat in the cool room hoping to find a sign of where they might have gone. But nothing they’d done was out of place, other than that one thing we’d already seen. Clendening’s room had brought up nothing of use, either.

Dalhousie had called Mary, and we filled her in. She asked them to have Skip and his team continue to look for leads while they left, and met up at the secret facility. I wasn’t sure how they expected it to actually be secret with a massive transport vessel sitting in the desert, but it wasn’t any of my business.

“Stop that one again, the screen second from the bottom,” Mary said to Louise, who promptly zoomed in and paused the other screens.

“It’s on a loop! Where is that?” Mary asked.

“That’s the loading dock. Where we get food and supplies delivered,” she responded. “I think you’re right about the loop. They did a good job, because the clock on the feed is still going, but there’s a clock on the wall.” She zoomed more, and we could see the second hand smoothly ticking by. After thirty seconds, it was back on the twelve and heading for the one.

“Get guards to the loading dock! We don’t know what time they actually left. That loop could be from any feed they hacked into. Maybe they couldn’t get out.” Skip rushed out of the room, and we followed him. I was eager to find them and get back to Magnus and Nat, and I missed Carey at that moment.

Once again, we were heading across the grounds, and there were no hybrids in sight. Skip had ordered them all to their rooms for the time being. If Leslie and Terrance were still there, they could be pretending to be someone else, and it wouldn’t be too hard, since they looked like a hundred other people.

The sun beat down on us from its high perch in the middle of the sky, and I could feel the sweat already soaking through the lower back of my shirt. The fact that I was nervous and excited that we might find the two outlaws didn’t help the perspiration.

The warehouse on the edge of the grounds wasn’t huge but was large enough to accept multiple pallets a day and store anything that came in for a while. I imagined trucks backing up before the semester started, unloading skids of textbooks newly revised for that year, and the smell of paper and forklift exhaust sailing through the air.

We entered the main doors, using keys from Skip’s belt. The other guards were standing there waiting for his word. As soon as the doors pushed open, they quietly ran in along the large room’s walls, guns raised, looking for the threats. Mary raised hers and started in, and I set my arm on hers, shaking my head. Instead, I waved her to follow me, and we hugged the wall of the building toward the fence. I wanted to see what was on the other side there.

The fence was chain-link there, about twelve feet tall, topped with that dangerous-looking wire you always see around prisons. No one was getting in or out with that stuff on the top of the fence. I looked to the left. There were multiple unlabeled white trucks, two backed up to loading docks, and one dock was open, with no truck in front of it.

We went back to the entrance. Skip was standing at the open loading dock, his hands sitting on top of his head in an exasperated gesture. “How the hell did we let this happen? Clendening didn’t have the keys to get in here.” He stared out the door, and we walked up to the tense man.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Skip, but I think someone else here must have been in on it. Unless your dead guard stole the keys, or Terrance and Leslie did,” I said.

“Clendening never seemed smart enough to arrange something like this, but obviously I’ve been wrong before. Like when I thought no human would betray us all by catering to these damned hybrids.” He walked to the office area, and we followed him, Mae staying back after his last comment was dipped in venom.

Gun raised, Mary stepped in front of us and tested the handle. It was unlocked. Wait, no, it was broken. She didn’t even have to turn it. She pushed it instead, and it stopped short of opening. I saw her give it a heave; something pushed back, and the door closed again.

“What the hell is that? Get the lights,” Skip said.

He reached his arm into the dark room and turned them on. The door had a small glass window and he peered through it, turned to us, and vomited right at our feet, Mary and I both jumping back to avoid getting splashed. When he ducked, I could see what he’d seen: the bloated face of a hanged woman, swinging softly in the doorway.

The guards pushed past us, and soon she was cut down. It was evident she’d been hanged alive, as we saw the claw marks and boot scuffs on the inside of the door. The sadistic duo had really done a number here.

“Why put on all of this show for us? To make us mad? To throw us off?” Mary asked, her voice quiet.

Mae stepped toward us and said through pale lips, “To make you hate the hybrids. They hate us for giving in and not following through with killing everyone. They want to turn you against all of us and won’t stop until whatever they want is done.”

I hesitated, not sure I wanted to hear the answer to my question. “And what is it they want done?”

“What we were brainwashed to do: end humans,” she said. For a moment, I forgot she was our friend, the words came out so coldly.