The floor had since chilled her back and shoulder where she'd slept tucked next to Reid. For some time the residual warmth had been enough but, as the hours passed, the cool night air had invaded the room. Sitting up, she watched the steady rise of his chest, the sight striking memories of taste, sound and smell. He probably hasn't slept in days, she thought.
But in the chill quiet air, a realization came over her. Nothing had changed. They hadn’t run. They wouldn’t now. There was no way he was going to leave her side and she had no intention of changing her mind. In a handful of hours, they’d be on the road and by the end of the day, she’d be gone.
So where does that leave us? Ashley smoothed the stray hairs on his forehead aside. Reid stirred in his sleep, twisting with a sigh until he lay on his back.
Sleep, she thought, pulling the blanket up higher to his chin. At least one of us should. Sliding out from under the borrowed blue-pastel blanket, she rummaged in the dark for her clothes.
Once dressed, Ashley walked barefoot across the room and slipped out into the hall. She closed the door behind lest the dim lantern light wake Reid.
There was no guard, he lay inside, and besides the lantern he’d abandoned at her door, the hall remained dark. All but for the distant glow by Lancaster’s lab. The doctor should be sleeping, and perhaps he was, she considered. Lancaster was certainly absent-minded enough to forget to turn his lights off.
The floors of the hall were warm beneath her toes, insulated by rooms from the drafty tall windows. As she padded along lightly, she found herself drawn to the lab and light. At the main stairwell and the open balcony to the hall below, she stopped. Distant voices murmured, too far and quiet for her to make out. Probably the watch, she decided and carried on her way.
He wasn’t asleep. Ashley stood in the doorway watching Lancaster peer into his microscope. Twice he stopped, removed his glasses and wiped his tired eyes, before looking down into the bright light on his desk. So absorbed he didn’t notice as Ashley stepped into the room and leaned against the wall.
“When was the last time you slept?” she said and the doctor jumped.
“Miss Cazalla?” He breathed a sigh of relief before squinting at her in the dim light. “No escort? At this hour?” he asked, looking past her to the empty doorway.
“No, he’s….” She laughed trying to think of the right words. “Asleep.”
As Lancaster grinned, the light cast it in exaggerated shadow. “I thought I'd heard... snoring.”
She blushed.
Coming out from behind his desk, Lancaster waved Ashley closer. “While you’re awake, you could be of use.”
“More samples?” she asked, hesitant to move.
“No.” His smile softened. “I’ve taken more than enough from you for now.” He waved once more and Ashley pushed off the wall.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Look and listen,” he said. “Sharing my discoveries allows me to catalogue the information in far more effective ways. I find it also helps when the sandman beckons,” he laughed at his own joke. “Come.”
She reached his desk and Lancaster sat her down in his chair. “Do you know what makes you so unique, Miss Cazalla?” Every time he said her last name Ashley felt transported to a time hard to remember. Pleasant strangers, polite greetings. Anonymity in a bustling world.
“Yeah. I think so,” but she could hear the regret in her own words.
Lancaster frowned. “No, I do not believe you do.” He turned to the microscope and prepared a slide with a speed belied by his tired eyes. “Please, look down. I’d like you to see, not just hear, what I’ve discovered.”
She sighed. “Okay, but I kind of skipped a lot of normal kid stuff. Never used a microscope.” And sure enough, as she looked down Ashley didn’t understand what she saw. One dark congealed blob of red dropped next to another. They mixed. They seemed to combine into a mess she couldn’t decipher but, after a minute, the dark mass was gone.
“Ummm… I don’t get it,” she said.
“You can destroy it. The infection. M-Pathogen.”
Ashley looked up from the microscope, frowning at Lancaster.
“At this time, I’m not sure how implementation could work, that’s been my primary struggle. From this, I theorize a blood transfusion to an infected area could prevent the spread of infection in the earliest stages. It may even be possible to reverse tissue damage…” his voice trailed off as though he’d not spoken in days, croaking as he swallowed.
“Uh, doc. Not sure that I’ve got enough blood for that.”
Lancaster shook his head. “But there is, or rather, could be. In time, we may find a way to synthesize the conditions that allow for your blood to overcome infection in smaller volumes. True, we can’t help those too far gone, but immunization may not be out of the realm of possibility.”
Ashley laughed. “A wendigo booster shot?”
“No, but you seem to understand my meaning. And Doctor Black agrees. It’s why you’re not going to that ridiculous meeting at the airport. Certainly not at this time.” Lancaster barely paused as he started cleaning up the slides. “If we can continue to stall the Outreach, we could return to them with the blueprint for a cure, surely more valuable than one woman. You may not need to leave with them at all unless, of course, you’d like to.”
Her lips parted. Her mouth gaped. What he said rolled over in her mind. You may not need to leave.
“Wait, stop.” She reached out as he turned off the microscope. Her hand latched around his arm. “Say that again?”
Lancaster looked confused. “You… may not need to leave?”
“I’m not going tomorrow?”
“Today, actually. And no.” As Ashley’s arm relaxed, he removed his glasses and cleaned them. “Of course, you’re not going. The Outreach requires confirmation of your existence but that can be arranged with samples such as those you provided yesterday.” He gestured to the mini-fridge under his desk. “They will go in your stead. Doctor Black has her doubts regarding the Outreach’s motivation and the veracity of their evacuation arrangement. I had thought she’d have told you.”
I’m not going. Ashley let it roll through her and her whole body relaxed in a sigh. No needles. No helicopter whisking her away. No tight cells with bright lights. No heroics on Reid’s behalf. No goodbye.
An infectious hope spurned her lips to a smile. Before she had much a mind to think of it, she reached out and grabbed Lancaster. Ashley hugged him tightly.
For an awkward moment he patted her back muttering, “Yes, yes, a potential cure is an exciting revelation!”
“Yeah, the cure.” She pulled back and straightened the doctor’s shirt for him. “I’ll be back later,” she said. “Just need to go take care of something.”
“Tell your guard?” Lancaster winked and Ashley wasn’t sure whether to laugh or rush off embarrassed.
She stepped around his desk on the balls of her feet prepared to run to her room, when a shape darkened the doorway.
“What the fuck is all this?” The voice was painfully familiar, one she hadn't heard more than a peep from since they arrived at Casa Loma. Behind the first shape, three more emerged.
Ashley stiffened and stopped.
“You are not supposed to be up here!” Lancaster called out as Monte stepped into the room. “I do not want you in my lab, get out immediately.”
“Shouldn't you be in your cage?” Monte said to Ashley, ignoring Lancaster entirely. Greg and Gabriel stepped up to Monte’s sides and Brendan hung back behind. “How about we put you back there before something bad happens.”
“This is unacceptable,” Lancaster nearly shouted. At this, he finally caught Monte’s attention. No more than a nod was exchanged between Monte and Greg, and the two brothers moved forward.
“This is my lab!” Lancaster said, coming out from his desk in a huff. Ashley backed up to stand next to him, fists balled and ready for a tumble. This wouldn’t be like that last time, she’d decided.
But Monte lifted his hand. The gun barrel levelled with Ashley’s head. “Move and I shoot the bitch.”
Lancaster froze beside her. But she didn’t care if he shot her. Ashley lowered her head, her eyes glaring past the gun at Monte.
“Don’t worry, hunny, I didn’t forget you.”
With another nod from Monte, Brendan reluctantly stepped up. He held one of the rifles and raised it at Lancaster.
“Try anything,” Monte growled, “and we’ll blow the doc away.” He chuckled to himself, lips curved maliciously into a smug satisfied grin.
“Okay,” Ashley said, trying to force herself to look relaxed. She turned to Lancaster, who focused entirely too much on the gun pointed at him. “The doc will stay here. I’ll go back to my room. No one needs to get shot.”
“Aren’t you just the picture of cooperation,” Greg said as he pushed past her to stand behind Lancaster. His brother, Gabriel, pulled out a roll of duct tape and ripped off a strip. Greg guided Lancaster to his desk chair with a firm grip, pushing him down. Gabriel covered Lancaster’s mouth with tape, and they then worked at strapping him to it.
“He didn’t let me out,” Ashley said.
Brendan pointed his gun at her, a waiver in the barrel visible as Monte put his gun away. Monte then stepped forward and gripped Ashley’s arm.
“The doc is harmless,” she insisted. “There’s no need to tie him up.” But they weren't listening.
Out in the hall, she didn't try to struggle, knowing full well they would take her where she wanted to be. Monte’s grip remained firm and tightened with each step, his boots thundering where her feet landed softly. In her mind, she wondered what the hell they were thinking. They needed Lancaster and these bullshit strong-arm tactics weren’t necessary. Not now.
But at the stairs down to the main floor, they stopped. They didn’t continue forward to Ashley’s room, to where Reid slept. Gabriel had a strip of duct tape ready and slapped it over her mouth as Greg took up her other arm.
They started down the stairs.
No, not this. Ashley’s palm itched, her arm stung at the memory of what they did to her at the college. The dark tunnel, the cold and dripping room. The gentle tingle of her cuffs and chains on the floor.
Ashley dug her heels in. She pushed back against their grips but Greg and Monte lifted her clear off the stairs. At the landing, Gabriel ripped at the duct tape coil again. Monte and Greg pinned her to the railing and dragged her hands behind her back.
“Be a good girl,” Monte whispered against her, pressing her in place with his body.
She cursed against the tape, but their combined grip managed to pull her hands back. Gabriel wrapped her wrists together in a long strip before ripping off another. Though she opened her mouth and screamed, the sound was muffled. No one would hear her now.
Monte let go and Gabriel took his place, helping Greg lift and carry her down to the first floor. Brendan trailed behind.
Her protests went unheeded as they dragged her into the dark corridor, away from the stairs. Closer and closer to the way down to the basement tunnels. In her mind she played the scenario: no one to hear her. No one to stop them. Terror whispered that Monte’s self-preservation wasn’t quite as strong as his hate.
Make a sound, she told herself. Someone will wake up and hear it. Ashley calmed as much as she could and breathed in deep through her nose.
In the tighter width of the panelled hall, Ashley lifted her legs. Her full weight surprised Gabriel, and he listed to the left. Just enough to twist her body. She kicked out at Greg’s shin, and he dropped her arm. In a matter of seconds, she wrestled only the one brother, slamming her shoulder into his neck with as much force as she could muster. Greg cursed in pain, Gabriel gasped breathlessly, and she was freed to stagger forth towards Brendan.
He froze. The look in his eyes told her his heart wasn’t in this, but he didn’t move out of her way.
Make one of them scream. The thought solidified in her mind and she put aside the fear that shook Brendan from head to toe.
But a thunder came behind her. Boots on the hardwood floor. Curses danced from Monte’s lips as he ran, full tilt. He tried to hush his words, hissing “Stop her!” past Ashley at Brendan. “Shoot her if you have to!”
Brendan dropped the rifle.
Under the duct tape, she smiled. Ashley leaned forward with her shoulder and lunged. It connected with Brendan’s chest and the two toppled to the floor. Though her hands were tied, and his were free, she managed to stay atop. With one knee, she pressed down against his gut, finding a soft spot to strike.
She didn’t want it to be Brendan to suffer, he seemed the least likely to blow her head off. But, as she lifted her knee and slammed down into the spot just above his hip, she knew hesitation was death.
Shock lit his eyes, the scream caught with it in his throat. Come on, Ashley thought as she pressed harder. Scream goddammit! The pain would be incredible, enough surely to spark some sort of shriek. But before he did, Monte reached her side. His hand grabbed a hunk of her dark hair and he ripped Ashley off Brendan just as the young man vomited on the ground.
Monte tossed Ashley back by a few feet and her head slammed into the wall. The momentary daze didn’t keep her from using the wall to stand, but Monte’s shape loomed over her.
“This’ll be easier if she’s unconscious,” he said before slamming the butt of the rifle into her gut. The wind tried to pass from her lips but it met the tape and went nowhere. Her body doubled over and she dropped to her knees.
“We don’t know the dose,” Gabriel groaned as he stumbled to where they stood.
“Does it look like I fucking care? Just do it.”
They moved around her, her eyes wavering, spittle pooling behind the tape. She didn’t see the needle but felt its sting in her shoulder and turned in time to see the plunger depressed.
Past strands of her hair, in the dark corridors of the manor, she looked up at Monte’s shadow until her eyes reluctantly closed.
[MAD Wendigo - Prologue Narration]
So about that "not so long between postings" promise I'd made? Yeesh. Sorry about that folks. Thank you very much for your patience.
If you have any comments or feedback I'd love to hear from you.
