A Strange Little Desert Town - Chapter 12 (2/5)
A Strange Little Desert Town
Chapter Twelve - Accidental Truths
Part Two of Five
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A Strange Little Desert Town
Chapter 12 - Accidental Truths
Part 2 of 5
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The glass doors beside her desk slid open. The man with the glasses entered the reception. He nodded to the brunette with a smile. Were they an item? Or just well acquainted co-workers? Tim shook off the inexplicable pang of jealousy that had tried to grasp him. He watched the man with the glasses & the clipboard as he approached.
"You must be Tim," he smiled genuinely.
Tim nodded.
"I’m Marty," the man with the glasses continued. "I see that Jennifer has already had you sign the updated contracts & waiver forms. Fantastic."
So the brunette had a name. Jennifer. He filed it away into the recesses of his mind. There was always the chance that it might be useful later. The town was small enough; perhaps he would bump into her at the supermarket. Or something.
"I’m sorry, what?" Tim asked the man with the glasses, called Marty, realising that he hadn’t been paying attention.
"I was just asking if you’d please follow me," Marty repeated, still smiling warmly.
Tim nodded & allowed Marty to lead him to the glass doors. He shot a sideways glance to the left. She was watching. Their eyes met. She smiled at him. He couldn’t help but notice a deep sadness behind her eyes. He wondered what could have caused someone as wonderful as her to be anything other than happy.
Moments later they were past her desk & through the glass doors. They slid closed after the two men passed & there was an audible click as they latched. This was the corridor where he had last seen Cameron.
Sterile. Not almost, but totally. Devoid of Jennifer the brunette’s delicate perfume, the white tiles were sterile & bleak. They smelt overly clean, more so than even a hospital. Perhaps that was the lack of fear & death to taint the bleach & antiseptic. Such a long corridor too. They passed a number of doors; leading to storerooms, clinics, consult rooms, x-ray machines, a magnetic resonance imaging machine & a morgue. A chill ran down Tim’s spine.
They reached the end of the hall & Marty typed a 14 digit code into a panel to the left of a set of double, heavy metal & glass doors. He took a deep breath to steel himself. There was nothing to lose, yet the chances of so much to gain. They had paid him for this test. The money was in his bank already. The sound of the doors opening dragged him out of his reverie. Marty lead him into the lab.
A man in a side buttoned lab coat looked up from where he was frowning down the barrel of a microscope. He smiled & beckoned Tim to him.
"Tim, isn’t it?" the scientist asked. "I’m Professor Stripe. Are you fully aware, prepared & willing to participate in this trial?"
Tim put on a brave face. He smiled, wanly, & nodded to the professor.
"Yes & yes."
A machine whirred & made a pinging noise behind Marty. Tim looked up, startled, but neither the Professor or Marty had even flinched. He tried not to let his fear show. But he knew the odds. No one had hidden the chances of failure from him when he’d made his decision to take part. Plus, they kept giving him chances to change his mind.
They led him across the room to a reclining chair. He sat. Marty with the glasses leant over & shackled him to the chair. Wrists, bound to the chair’s arms. Ankles bound under metal fasteners. He couldn’t keep his emotions away from his face. Tim felt his features betray him & his fear of the situation.
The professor rubbed the back of his neck.
"I’m afraid the restraints are for your own protection," he explained. "Should you suffer an adverse reaction to the formula, they are to prevent you from doing damage to yourself in the chance of seizures."
Tim nodded.
"Are you ready?" Marty asked.
"Yes."
Professor Stripe took a syringe from his table & filled it with the glowing serum from the test tube Marty held out. It was pink. The fluorescence & radiance was the most disturbing part however. Tim could only watch, muscles tensed, as Marty with the glasses then prepared his arm & exposed his veins. The professor leaned over him, there was a sharp prick & then cold. Such cold. Tim could feel it coursing up his arms, as though it pushed the blood away.
Something was wrong.
Alarm sounds began blaring out of the monitors. There was a steady, constant tone like a heart monitor in a movie. Tim turned his head. There was a machine that looked just like the movie heart monitors, with a flat line running across it’s display. Am I dead?
"This isn’t good!" Marty with the glasses yelled over the din as he rushed about flicking switches & turning dials. The professor felt Tim’s throat for a pulse. He waved his hand in front of Tim’s eyes.
"What?" Tim asked, even more scared now than he had been before they had begun this trial. "What’s wrong?! What’s happening?"
Marty dropped a flash. Glass fragments scattered across the tiles. He looked at Tim incredulously, his mouth agape. Tim looked at the professor. His face was no better & there was stark fear painted plainly across it. Both of them seemed frozen to the spot.
"Am I meant to feel this cold?" Tim asked, before everything went black.
"What the hell, Doc!?!" Marty was horrified.
"According to all of these readings, the subject is dead," Mike’s tone was leaden. He sounded defeated. "Marty, get a stretcher & wheel him down to the morgue."
Mike took a scraping from the inside of Tim’s mouth. He took a fresh syringe & drew three vials of blood. He labelled all the cases meticulously & tidied them away. Marty entered with the stretcher & took Tim’s body away.
He returned to find Mike on the floor. He was shaking & muttering to himself. Marty couldn’t make out what he was saying. Jennifer looked up at Marty, clearly worried about their professor’s state of mind.
"Phone Ash," Jennifer instructed Marty, suddenly taking control of the situation as best she could. "Tell her there has been an incident & that she needs to come & get her father. She is the best person for dealing with this."
Marty ran for reception. Jennifer remained talking as calmly as possible to Mike in the hope that it would illicit a change.
She did not want to think about what she had seen as she passed the morgue.
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