Haunting of Superior

Chapter 5

Jamie woke to a loud blaring noise ringing throughout the building. Her head spun as she sat up, and she groaned, feeling a sore ache in her arm. She held it up to her face, wincing at the effort. Every muscle in her body felt weak and limp. What was happening? Her breath hitched as she looked around and realized Jack was not in the room. There was no trace of him. Jamie tried to stand up to go look for him, but her legs gave out underneath her.

"Jack!" she calked weakly. Her voice was choked and cracked in the middle of his name. Her head began to hurt more.

As she tried to stand up again, a wave of nausea hit her with the brute force of a baseball bat. She retched, fighting to keep the vomit rising in her throat inside. Her skin itched like fire, and she could barely process anything. Her body screamed to get rid of whatever was causing this. Jamie felt herself falling to the side and, panicking, shot her hand out and grabbed the bed leg before she collapsed. The effort caused her stomach to spasm, and she threw up. Her throat stung from the vomit, and her eyes teared up.

Through the hazy mist of her pain, Jamie heard the door open. In the corner of her eye, she saw a pair of feet walk towards her. They wore shiny black leather shoes, all polished and clean. Her headache increased as she looked up at the face of the owner of those shoes.

Antonio hummed thoughtfully as he gazed down at Jamie, all weak and sick. "It seems it had an affect," he noted. He looked down at the disgusting pool of whatever Jamie threw up. A frown crossed his face. Anger started to burn in his eyes. "Dang it!" he muttered. Then he took breath and forced himself to relax. "I can fix this," he said to himself quietly. "This will work."

Jamie let out a weak cry as her body spasmed in pain. Antonio snapped his fingers, and two of his minions came in like a pair of trained dogs. They picked up Jamie and carried her out of the room. Antonio proceeded to lead them to another section of the building. A familiar section. Jamie recognized it as the part where his kidnapped victims were stored. She had learned after going through some documents that Antonio had been forcing his employees to let their oldest child get experimented on; after they had run out of those kids, Antonio decided to kidnap kids from other people after his employees protested against using the rest of theirs. Jamie had decided everyone in this building was as heartless as Antonio to be selfish enough to be okay with sacrificing random children they didn't know for Antonio's terrible purposes.

Antonio unlocked the door to the room he had brought Jamie and Jack two weeks ago to check them out. The lights flickered on, and Jamie's eyes widened (she was unable to gasp) when she saw the long array of syringes full of strange liquids.

"After carefully inspecting the blood samples," Antonio began, about to go on a long wind talk about whatever he was about to do to Jamie, "I have created these variations of the normal formula in the hopes that it will succeed on you and your brother. I had the first one injected into you last night." He eyed Jamie up and down. "Unfortunately, it seems that someone swapped it with a poison. Luckily for you, I have the antidote." He picked up a syringe full of clear liquid. "Be still while I inject this, please."

Jamie was in so much pain already that she barely felt the needle sink into her arm, where that bruise she had seen earlier was. She could barely move and even breathing felt like an effort. Antonio set down the syringe and motioned for his employees to set her down on a cold, metal chair. To Jamie, it felt like ice against her skin, which was as hot as a stove. She dimly wondered what Antonio was going to do to her now that he had stopped the- did he say poison- in her system.

"Shouldn't she be asleep by now?" one of the minions asked, a touch of concern in his voice.

"Don't care," Antonio said, his mind immediately drifting off to his next task. "Go find that kid. I want to start the tests now."

The employees nodded and hurried out of the room. Jamie stared at the syringes on the metal table, fear rising inside her as she realized that Jack might die from the harmless-looking liquids inside. She closed her eyes, wishing she could go back in time and find a way to prevent this.

***

As it turned out, Jack didn't die. He never even got sick from the liquids injected into him. Antonio continuously modified them in the hopes that it would work on him only to discover that no matter how much he changed the formula, his experiments did not work on Jack and, by extension, Jamie. It had been like that for around five months until Jack had finally gotten sick and had to be left alone for three weeks. Fortunately for him, Antonio spent the next three months trying to perfect his creation. No matter how hard he tried, though, nothing worked. To everyone's relief, Antonio had decided to pause the human experimenting and focus on finding the right elements to replicate his glorified black goo.

Jamie was still forced to organize everything for her captors, and Jack was just locked up in their room. All the tests had increased his nervousness, and so everyone in the building deemed him worthless, except as a test subject. Over the two years since they had been kidnapped, Jamie desperately tried to comfort Jack and keep his hopes up that one day they'd be able to leave. Jack had believed in it at first, but as time went on he became more and more despondent.

Jamie was thinking of ways to cheer him up as she sat at her tiny desk, staring at the mess of employee garbage sitting in front of her. As she was thirteen, Antonio decided she would be the one to organize all of the employee records and resumes that he refused to look at. Somehow, Antonio was the "head" of a research company and yet also managed to handle his normal job with his sick psychotic extracurricular activities. Taking a sheet into her hands, she blankly gazed down at the words. She didn't recognize the names written in handwriting at the bottom of the page and examined them curiously. Multiple people had signed this paper, and Jamie noticed that most of the paragraphs on the page had been crossed out with black sharpie. Entire words were marked out, but some letters had been left unmarked. It looked messy and weird, and Jamie's eyes hurt trying to examine it. They widened when she realized that words were being spelled out.

Go to the entrance.

Jamie let go of the sheet. This wasn't any normal document. Someone had messed with this one and put it in with the others on purpose, but why? Who was it meant for? She flipped the page over. A large, thick three was scrawled across the middle of the back. A time? Probably. She bit her lip, thinking. This paper was definitely not meant for her; that would be a stupid thing to think. Almost all the people who worked at this lab regarded her like she was a horse whose only purpose in life was to carry their loads for them. The idea that someone had left this for her to find, knowing that she did all the laborious boring work around here, was stupid, and yet she wished to feel important anyway.

Should she go to the entrance? Her curiosity was growing by the second. Why was someone leaving a message to go to the entrance at most likely three A.M.? The past two years had melded together, and Jamie was practically dying for something interesting to happen. She didn't count the new methods of torture and pain Antonio put on her and Jack.

Maybe Jack would enjoy this new mystery that was practically handed to her. Jamie nodded to herself, her mind made up. She would go to the entrance that night, just to see what this note was about. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

***

"Getting caught and killed as punishment?" Jack responded sarcastically upon getting told of Jamie's plans. He was sitting on his bed, arms folded and legs crossed as he glared at his sister. It was obvious he disapproved of her idea, as Jamie could catch a trace of fear in his eyes. The fear of getting caught.

"If we do, we'll just run and hide," Jamie promised. "They won't be able to identify us if we get away quickly enough."

Jack heaved a heavy sigh full of the weight of a thousand anxieties. "I don't want you getting hurt," he muttered softly, rubbing his hand over the spot where they injected the tests into him. There was a band-aid underneath his dirty shirt, but it couldn't cover the mental wounds in Jack's mind.

"Neither of us will get caught or hurt." Jamie took his free hand in hers, trying to comfort him. He pulled it away, much to her surprise, and looked down at the floor. Tears had filled his eyes, and he seemed to enter a private world full of memories and fears he could not share.

"Everyone gets hurt here," he said. "We can't stop it."

"Are you thinking about them?" Jamie asked.

Jack sighed again and flopped onto his side. His knees curled up to his chest, and he rested his chin on them. He was adrift in a sea of thoughts that Jamie couldn't read, and she wondered if he would even listen anymore. Something had changed in her brother over the past two years, and it was becoming clear that it was a bad one. A very bad one.

In an attempt to cheer her brother up, Jamie started humming what she could remember of his favorite song. It had been a very long time since either of them had heard it, but Jack still perked up at the cheery tune. It was a bright and bubbly song, the type that made you bob your head and tap your foot to the beat. As Jamie was getting closer to the chorus notes, Jack sat up and wordlessly sang the notes with her. A giggle interrupted Jamie's humming, and she covered her mouth with a hand, trying not to laugh.

Jack broke off, staring at her with an offended look on his face. "What?" he asked sullenly.

"You're out of tune," she laughed.

"I don't know music," Jack defended himself.

"Yeah, but it still sucks," Jamie replied. She was pleased to see that Jack's whole face had lightened up; there was barely a trace of the bad thoughts left. "Not as bad as my singing, though," she added. "I could probably break glass, my singing is so bad."

Jack snorted in laughter. "Like that time I knocked over the vase because you startled me with your singing?"

Jamie nodded. "We were scared for our lives when Mom..." She stopped. The dark feeling was coming over her. It always came when she thought about her parents. Her breath hitched. They would know exactly how to comfort Jack when he had those bad moments. She wished she could channel their spirit, but she knew she could never live up to them. She grabbed Jack and pulled him into a hug. "Don't ever leave me, okay?"

There was a pause, a slight moment of hesitation. "I won't if you won't," Jack replied.

Jamie let go. "Of course I won't. I'd be abandoning my baby brother by doing that. And I would never do that to you."

Jack smiled, but it was tight and off. "I guess I'll have to come with you tonight, since you seem to be having death wishes lately."

"Do you really want to?" Jamie checked.

"It's boring here," Jack said, making a point by looking around. He was right; their room was just beds, a table, and a closet that only had clothes. It was barest room imaginable and not a place you'd want to spend ninety percent of your time in.

Someone knocked on their door, and Jamie went to open it, praying it wasn't to take Jack away for a test. Thankfully, it was just their food. It was as boring and unoriginal as ever. Just plain old bread and some salad. Like growing kids could ever survive off that. Why couldn't they get the nice stuff again? After the soup from a while back, they had gotten pancakes a month later. Ever since then, they'd get a nice, fresh meal once per month. Shame it wasn't happening today. They'd need the energy to stay awake. Jamie bit into her crusty bread, her thoughts as bitter as the bread itself.

Jack just stared at his food, his eyes dull with thought. He tapped his fingers against the small table they shared and looked back at his sister, his eyes coming back into focus. "Are you really sure you want to go?" he asked, his voice shaking slightly. Jamie could see the worry coming back into his expression.

Jamie reached out and gave his shoulder a reassuring pat. "I am sure," she said, making sure to sound firm, to hide her growing doubt from her brother. "This could benefit us. The more we know about our captors, the better a plan of escape."

Jack bit his lip. "You still think we can get out of here?"

Jamie opened her mouth to reply, but then Jack added, "Don't lie to me. I want your real thoughts."

Jamie set down the crusty, bland piece of bread and focused on the smooth wood of the table. There was a hole in the surface, revealing the lighter insides of the wood. Jamie rubbed her finger on it, not wanting to admit despair to her brother's face. He wouldn't give up, though. Not Jack. The truth was an important principle to him, and he hated being babied.

"No," she admitted. Her heart clenched, guilt running through her. That was all she could say. She could not bring herself to say more.

The conversation ended with cold silence. Jamie had made up her mind. She was not going to change it. It looked like their fate was set.

***

The sky was painted pitch black, the darkness pierced only by the glimmer of the stars that shone up high. There were no streetlights here, and the lights in the building were muted by the tinted windows which meant nothing prevented the stars from sending their light onto the world below. A person sat on the steps to the entrance of the building, staring up at the stars forlornly. He felt sick as he gazed upon them, knowing some people would never see these lights ever again. It hurt to think that most of those people were children.

A different bright light appeared in the distance. It was glaring and sharp; it was the headlights on a car. The person quickly stood up and brushed any dirt off his clothes, wanting to appear presentable to the people he was meeting. The car pulled up at least ten feet away from the building; the headlights turned off, and a flashlight shone out as the person- or people- inside climbed out of the car. The person on the steps turned on his own flashlight, alerting the other people to his location.

There were three of them, all adults. He nodded to them as they came closer and walked off the steps to meet them. The one holding the flashlight, a woman, stuck out her hand for the person to shake. He did, and the other two followed suit. All four of them were wearing dark clothes, to blend in with darkness in case some random person stumbled upon them. The chances of that were probably zero, but they did not want to risk their luck.

"So," started the woman. "Why exactly did you ask us to meet you in this faraway, discreet location at three in the morning?"

"I heard the rumor that you three are going to be transferred here," the person said. "Is it true?"

"Not really," one of the man denied. "We're being put on a 'test trial' to see if we're worthy of being promoted and moved over here." He shrugged. "Don't know what that means, but I need the money."

"Why would you want to know that, William?" asked the other man. His tone was sharp and aggressive, and he shifted restlessly on his feet, constantly glancing around. While the other two were completely oblivious to why they were here, this man had some idea. He had overhead some... interesting conversations about what happened here, and he was terrified of getting caught.

"Calm down, Isaac." William held up his hands to try and appease the anxious man. "Nothing bad's going to happen- that is, if we don't do something."

"Do something?" The woman began to look suspicious as well. "Do something about what? The terrible management?"

William's mouth dropped open, amazed that she had figured out the reason for why they were gathered there. Then he silently kicked himself, realizing she was being sarcastic.

"Actually, yes, this is partly about the terrible management," William admitted as the other man who wasn't Isaac smothered a giggle. "Although I wish it was just Antonio. Everything could dealt with so much easier if that was the case."

As he finished speaking, a harsh wind blew through, chilling them. It was fall, and the temperature was very cold at this time of night. William shivered and wrapped his arms tight around his body. The others felt it, too. They looked very unhappy to be out in the cold in the middle of the night. Thankfully, no other employees were out tonight. Secrecy of Antonio's activities were of the utmost importance to him, so some of the employees in his evil scientist club only came over to this lab twice a week. The ones in charge of the kids worked everyday; William wondered if these three were being put into that job. Less and less people volunteered to take care of the kids as more and more of them died.

"Let's go inside," he said, pushing the terrible thoughts away. The dark night was starting to spook him, and he wished to be in a well-lit room. He pulled out his key and inserted it into the door handle, twisting until it unlocked. The flashlight beams shone into the empty entrance. William stepped inside, looking around warily to check if anyone else was around. Nothing moved in the dark.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait outside? Isaac asked, not wanting to go inside. In his opinion, the building was creepier than the outside.

"It'll be warmer," William pointed out. "Or do you want to get out here and freeze?"

Isaac looked very dissatisfied, but, seeing that his companions were agreeing with William, he stepped inside, too.

"So," he grumbled. "Why are we here?"

"Antonio has told you how the program here is... special?" William began. "Well... it's very bad. Ethically speaking."

The trio of new guys exchanged uneasy looks. They had always viewed Antonio as rude and a bit on the cruel side, but he actually kept the work environment quite clean and safe. Even if it was just so he wouldn't get sued, what would be ruining ethics here?

"So... what's he doing?" the woman asked nervously. The look on William's face told her it would be an answer she'd dread.

William glanced around as he prepared to respond. He had been hoping a special person or two would have come tonight, since he had a left a hidden note specifically for them. Those two would help tremendously in proving his point to his trio of guests, and as he looked around for any sign of them, he was struck with huge dissappointment. Oh, well. He could just show his companions to the kids' rooms, but he was worried it would be too much for them and they'd freak out. They're going to freak out anyway, William reminded himself.

"This building is the location of, uh, a secret project Antonio is working on," William started. "He aims to make a special substance that can change people's DNA. The purpose of this is to, uh..." He gulped nervously, scared to say it out loud. "It's to, um, change everyone in the world so that they're, uh, not human anymore..." His voice trailed off, and he looked at the three, afraid they wouldn't believe him. They stared at him blankly, processing this sudden news.

And then, without warning, a loud sneeze came from just around the corner in the hall to the left. The four adults stared at that hall, wariness entering their eyes.

Isaac turned accusingly to William. "I thought you said this place was empty!" he hissed, anger burning in his eyes.

"But nobody's supposed to be here after hours!" William exclaimed. "The only people here are... wait..."

He walked into the hall to discover a girl and boy crouched behind a potted plant, staring up at him in horror and terror. The boy looked especially terrified, but he still managed to glare at the girl. It seemed like he was trying to silently tell her, I told you so. Neither of them stood up, though. They were not thrilled to see this man, who was obviously one of Antonio's employees. But then William grinned, pleased to see the girl and boy. He motioned for the three behind him to come over.

"Guys, meet Jamie and Jack," he announced, backing away so they could see them. "And they are the key to exposing Antonio."