Liquid fear

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Mark put his ear to the wall, but the insane man’s singing drowned out any hope of hearing what was going on. He thought he heard Alexis’s voice, but he couldn’t be sure. Then the lights went out, and he felt along the wall to the door, trying the handle for the tenth time.

A hissing emanated from somewhere to his right, and in the dark he felt along the wall. Inches off the floor was a tiny metal grill, and air was circulating through it.

No, not just air. Something vaguely metallic and acrid. He sniffed, trying to place it.

He retreated to the far side of the room and slumped in the corner, his heart slamming against his ribs. Someone pounded on the wall to his left. Burchfield had probably made the same discovery.

Now I know how prisoners in the gas chamber feel. Except I don’t know whether I go brain dead and forget who I am, or if I get lizard-brained and tear my own eyes out.

Mark yanked his shirt up, tearing buttons, and held the fabric to his face, hoping it would serve as a filter. He tried to concentrate on his breathing, but the panic caused him to forget and take huge gulps of the contaminated air.

He scrambled to the door, bumping into it hard enough to see lime-colored sparks behind his eyelids, and he wondered if he was hallucinating. He punched the door twice, and by then the acrid odor had permeated his nostrils and left residue at the base of his throat.

Shit. It’s in me, whatever it is.

He grabbed the handle out of instinct, and this time it turned.

The surge of relief was stronger than his wariness, and he propelled himself into the fresher air of the hallway, even though it, too, was in darkness.

“Mark Morgan, is that you?” It was Burchfield, somewhere to his left.

“Yeah. Briggs must have used a remote control to unlock the doors. Why did he let us out?”

“Because we’re free.” It was a woman, and it sounded like she was still inside her cell. Mark hadn’t realized there might be other captives besides the lunatic singer of “Home on the Range.”

“Who are you?” Burchfield bellowed in his authoritative voice.

“Anita Mann,” she said with a giggle. “Who wants to be first?”

“Where’s Forsyth?” Mark called to Burchfield. The hallway had a main door, which Kleingarten had unlocked when depositing them in their cells, then locked again upon exiting; the acoustics suggested the hallway was still sealed off. The cell doors must have been sprung by remote control.

“Wallace?” Burchfield called.

“Come on, handsome,” Anita said. “I have a cozy cot right here waiting. And you don’t have to take turns. There’s plenty for everybody.”

“Nuh-nita,” someone blubbered. Mark recognized the voice as the singer’s.

“David?” The woman now sounded almost normal, though groggy, as if waking from a dream.

“They…killed Susan.”

The woman screeched in the dark. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up! That never happened, any way you remember it.”

“Mark, these people are off their rockers,” Burchfield said. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Wallace!”

Mark heard Burchfield scrabbling and scratching along the wall, then a metallic ding opposite him as a door closed.

“Goddamned,” Burchfield said. “He went back into his cell.”

Or maybe Briggs didn’t let him out, for whatever reason. Although Mark recalled his door had a privacy lock as well.

“He’s probably safer in there,” Mark said, thinking the elder statesman wouldn’t be much good if they had to fight or tear their way out of the hallway.

He tried to recall the layout of the hallway, but all he recalled were glimpses of the rows of doors, the low ceiling, lights inset so there were no low-hanging fixtures.

When somebody has a gun on you, you can’t think about much besides that deep black barrel and whatever might come out. If I ever see that son of a bitch again, I’m going to shove that Terrible, red images flooded him and he shook them away.

“Okay, people,” he said as calmly as he could, in the direction of David and Anita. “We’re going to get out of here, but we need to work together.”

He felt something warm and moist near his cheek and then she was entwining her arms around him, like a slithering, sinuous snake. Her body was fervid and her breasts were soft, her hair brushing gently across his face, and then her tongue was on his neck. “Hey, lover,” she whispered, and he realized she was naked.

He tried to push her away, but her grip tightened, and then she had her legs around him in a scissors grip, the heat between her legs radiating against his crotch through his pants. Half of him wanted to slam her against the wall, to hurt her and shake her off, but another part of him pulsed in alternating bands of languid blue and brilliant yellow.

Her lips found his and he tasted the acrid chemical again.

Drugged, he recalled, but knowledge didn’t diminish the insanity. He was aware of his two minds, the one that was frightened and murderous and the one that wanted to surrender to the raging lust that sprang from some primitive, disturbing depth.

He kissed back, sickened at his lust, and Burchfield’s distant hammering and shouting came as if from underwater.

Then other hands were at his back, pulling, tugging, even as he pressed himself harder against Anita’s exposed flesh and his hands frantically explored her curves. But there was no sensuality in his touch, only a carnal craving driven by an almost sickening desire to possess and consume.

“Luh-leave her alone!” the man grunted and stuttered as he grabbed at Mark. “Not like Suh-Susan.”

“Come on, David,” Anita whispered. “Plenty for all.”

But David’s intrusion had turned Mark’s mindless lust to something else, and he turned, feeling for the man in the darkness. It was easy to grab one of his thin arms and run a punch toward the center of where he thought the man might be.

His fist landed with a dull thud, like hitting a sack of paste. The man wheezed and fell backward, and Mark got a sense of his victim’s scrawniness as he turned toward Anita again. But she was gone, slithering somewhere along the wall, chasing whatever mad obsession had seized her next.

Burchfield ranted about how he’d be ordering an investigation, NSA, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and the “fucking Boy Scouts of America.” He was as unhinged as Mark, who drove his fist against the wall hard enough to drive some of the madness away.

With the spark of pain, clarity descended and pushed aside the conflicting demons of lust and violence. Or maybe they were all the same demon. He could feel them up there in his brain, explosive forces ready to breach their dams and flood him once again.

Pain. That’s the way to beat the Seethe.

Alexis could probably explain the chemical process, how pain was perhaps the most primitive part of the brain, less sophisticated, more essential, more basic, more human than fear.

But right now, he had to find her. Because if she was out there, and she was as bad off as he was, then she was in deep trouble.

And, for now, pain was his friend.

Forget Burchfield, CRO, and the FDA.

Pain was his only fucking ally.

Anita must have found Burchfield in the dark and was now working her seduction on him, and he proved less resistant than Mark. Their moaning and slobbering filled the hallway, and David, crawling on the concrete floor toward the couple, muttered the opening lines to “Home on the Range.”

Mark rubbed his bleeding knuckles, reawakening the pain. He used it like a totem, a beacon of sanity in the induced madness. He guided himself along the hall, hoping he was moving in the right direction.

He tried to think of the worst pain he’d ever endured, and recalled the time one of his dental crowns had popped loose. The arteries in the teeth ran straight to the heart, he’d heard, so they were significant.

By the time he found the door, Anita was whimpering in the throes of pleasure and Burchfield was grunting, and even though Mark hadn’t seen Anita, the memory in his fingertips hinted at her erotic prowess and moist potential. A tiny surge of regret and jealousy rocketed through him, but he knew it was false, and he raked his knuckles along the door hinges just to remind himself of what was real.

Pain. Pain is real. Maybe the only real thing in this world.

Then, girding himself and trying to picture Alexis’s face, he peeled back his lips and drove his mouth hard into the middle hinge.

He grunted as one of his incisors broke in half, splintering up into his gum. He fell away spitting blood and broken enamel, the agony sluicing through his head like lava.

The pain consumed everything for a few moments, and he wiped the blood from his mouth. He was plenty hurt, but it consumed his mind, and he was able to remember his task.

The hallway door was open. It must have been on the same switch as the cell doors. He slipped out into the cool air of the factory and eased the door shut behind him, making sure it was locked. He couldn’t withstand any more temptation.

Nor any more pain.