"Unlock it, Mr. Fox. You're in enough trouble as it is.
Don't make it worse. Open up."
Screw you, buddy.
Instead, I pulled the curtains closed, hoping he'd
shut up so I could think for a minute. Unfortunately, I
didn't have that long. The door to the Bleeders' room
burst open, the overhead lights blazed on, and four
large bodies walked into the room. All of them had a
gun pointed at me.
"Hold it, right there," the man closest to the light
switch said. "Take it easy and nobody gets hurt."
The guard beside him lifted his walkie-talkie to his
m o u t h and said, "No worries, Drake. We've got him."
"Good," Drake's smug voice filled the air. "Just hold
him there. Fm on my way."
Guards in front of me and a guard behind, and the
chief screw approaching fast. Things weren't looking
goodi I didn't like my chances. I was starting to look
around for some sort of weapon to defend myself with,
when my eyes spotted a possible way out. Directly to
my left, between two of the beds, was a white metal
plate with hinges on the top, fastening it four feet up
on the wall. Written on the rectangular plate were the
words: W A S T E DISPOSAL CHUTE.
My mind started to spin. Could I dive into this gar¬
bage chute, ride it to the bottom, then still make a run
for it? It couldn't be that easy. The opening looked
more than big enough for me to fit inside, but what
scared me was not knowing where the chute went. Was
it an angled slide, or a straight drop? Seeing as I was
standing on the fourth floor, the chute likely went all
the way to the first floor, or even down to the basement.
That meant I'd have at least a four-story drop, maybe
five. If the Dumpster at the bottom was full of garbage,
I might be okay—sort of like a movie stuntman landing
on one of those airbag thingies—but if it was empty—
W h i l e I contemplated and weighed the pros and cons
of my possible suicidal plunge, Drake finally appeared
at the doorway, huffing and puffing and looking larger
and more dangerous than I'd ever seen him. He was
mad as hell. His eyes had that "I'm gonna lay a world of
hurt on you" look to them that scared me more than
the guns the men flanking him had. I decided there was
no way I was letting that psycho muscle head get his
hands on m e , so as soon as he took his first menacing
stride in my direction, I threw caution to the wind and
ran for the garbage chute.
Drake was fast, but not fast enough. By the time the
chief of security realized what I was going to do, it was
too late. Like an Olympic diver, I thrust my hands to¬
gether in front of me, tucked my head down in be¬
tween them, and launched myself through the hinged
gate. My marks for style wouldn't have been too im¬
pressive, but I made it into the chute nonetheless.
And immediately started dropping like a rock.
"Ob shhhhiimiiut!" I screamed, terrified of the dark
u n k n o w n void below me, but still enjoying the adrena¬
line rush of my crafty James Bond-ish escape from Drake
and his goons' clutches.
It was too dark to see anything, but I could sense I
was picking up too much speed. If I hit bottom going
this fast, my head would splatter like a rotten mush
melon run over by a truck. The chute was only a little
larger than my body width, so I tried spreading my arms
and legs against the smooth metal sides and pressed out
with all my strength, hoping that would do the trick. It
definitely slowed me down, but not a lot. N o t nearly
enough to save me if the Dumpster below wasn't full of
nice soft garbage bags. I closed my eyes and prepared
to die.
Just before I hit bottom, the chute must have angled
or tilted off in another direction because I found myself
not free-falling anymore, but rather sliding on my stom¬
ach. W h e n I hit, I hit hard, but someone in heaven
must like me because whatever I landed and rolled on,
it was soft and spongy. It hurt like hell, knocking the
wind out of me and nearly breaking my left wrist, but
when my head cleared and I finally got my breath back,
I was still alive and relatively intact.
W h e n I stood u p , my back was hurting pretty badly
too, up near my shoulders, but I didn't have time to
worry about my aches and pains. There'd be plenty of
time for that, once I was far away from here. W i t h that
end in mind, I started searching for the lid to this
Dumpster, the horrible stench j u s t starting to register
in my brain.
I hadn't expected it to be so dark. I couldn't see any¬
thing, so I was forced to grope around using my hands.
No matter where I searched, high or low, I couldn't lo¬
cate the exit. There were several entrance chutes like
the one I'd fallen through, but no doors or hatches any¬
where. I was confused and getting worried. It didn't
help I kept stepping in and tripping over waist-deep
piles of stinking goo.
God, what a stink!
I'd lived in and around trash for years, but I'd never
smelled such an overpowering odor before. It was mak¬
ing me seriously nauseous. If I didn't get out of here
s o o n , ! was going to puke. Worse still, the clock was
ticking. I didn't have time to be fucking around like
this.
Outside, I heard the heavy clamor of men approach¬
ing on the run. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I
cursed myself for taking so long. The opportunity I'd
had to escape was gone. I'd senselessly risked my life and
I was still trapped, no better off than I'd been in the
Bleeders' room upstairs. I couldn't see the guards clos¬
ing in on m e , but I easily recognized Drake's booming
voice as he started yelling something. N o , wait, Drake
wasn't yelling, he was laughing. Loud, gut-churning
laughter, that for some reason chilled me to the bone.
W h a t could possibly be so funny?
"Hey Mike?" Drake said, still laughing. "You're
priceless! Really, I enjoyed that little show. Pretty stu¬
pid thing to do, but damn brave."
"Yeah, real funny. Open the goddamned door and let
me out. It stinks like Hell in here."
This comment made Drake and the guards with him
laugh even harder. "Oh really?" he said. "And why do
you think that is? Let me ask you something, Mike.
Before you decided to dive into that chute, did you ever
consider that WASTE DISPOSAL might not mean GAR
BAGES
I'll admit that sometimes I can be a bit slow, and I
wasn't completely sure what Drake was talking about,
but by the time I heard a lock removed and a sliding
gate opened up on the ceiling of this chamber, I was
starting to get the drift. Even before Drake's grinning
face appeared in the rectangular opening and shone a
super-bright halogen lamp down onto m e ,
I knew what
I was going to see.
H u m a n body parts.
Under the intense light of the lamp, the inside of this
chamber was still dark—mainly because every square
inch of its walls were coated in blood so old and con¬
gealed it had long since turned black. Covering the en¬
tire floor and creeping halfway up the walls in the
spots directly below several disposal chutes, mounds of
soggy red meat and pasty-yellow bones lay heaped in
various stages of decay. Arms, legs, feet, hands, torsos
and even a few bloated heads lay scattered around my
feet. The level of carnage was astonishing, almost inde¬
scribable. It was as if someone had detonated a b o m b
inside a room crowded with people, and then j u s t
walked away.
"Getting rid of the failed experiments used to be
risky," Drake explained. "Obviously we can't j u s t put
this stuff into the trash, so Dr. Marshall had this incin¬
erator custom built. The chutes deliver the waste from
different areas in the facility: the labs, operating r o o m s ,
and upstairs on the fourth floor, of course.
"We usually burn it up at the end of each week, every
couple of weeks, max, but it looks to me like we've been
slacking off a little. This crud has probably been stew¬
ing for at least a month. I'd better make sure it gets
cleaned up soon. Maybe tomorrow, h u h ? "
Why was he wasting time telling me this? Why
didn't he j u s t toss me down a rope or slide in a ladder?
"Get me out of here, Drake. Please." I hated the
t h o u g h t of begging to this lousy bastard, but I was
getting desperate. I couldn't stand to stay in this hu¬
man abattoir another second longer.
Drake smile vanished from his face as he briefly con¬
sidered my request. "No, I don't think so. This is a
good place for you, Mike. Somewhere I know you won't
be sneaking away from anytime soon. Gives me piece
of mind, you know?"
"You can't leave me in here," I shrieked.
"Watch me," he said, withdrawing the halogen lamp
and slowly sliding the metal gate shut again.
I never did hear Drake replacing the lock on the gate,
or him and the other guards laughing as they walked
away. I probably would have, except at the moment I was
far too busy screaming.
C H A P T E R F I F T E E N
Someone much smarter than me once said, "what
doesn't kill us only makes us stronger." I wish I could
find that person and punch them right in the mouth.
W h a t the hell did they know? Force them to spend a
night sleeping in a pile of rotting human waste and see
if they're still singing the same tune. I highly doubt it.
Long after Drake and his boys were gone and I'd
somehow managed to stop screaming, the smell of the
dead flesh became too much for me. Ignorance had
helped calm my stomach earlier, but once I knew ex¬
actly what I was breathing in, there was no way to plug
the volcano. And man, did I erupt. I puked, and I puked,
and then I puked some more—the smell of my own
waste almost sweet compared with the unbearable stink
around me.
W h e n my stomach had nothing left to give, I blocked
everything from my mind and started stacking what¬
ever was within reach to build a high enough mound in
the center of the incinerator so I could climb atop it and
reach the sliding exit hatch. I was extremely thankful I
was in the dark again, and was unable to see whatever it
was I was grabbing. I doubt I'd have been able to touch
anything, had the lights been on.
It ended up being a stupid waste of time. The hatch
was locked of course, as I'd known it would be, and all I'd
managed to accomplish was thoroughly coating myself
in sticky black blood. N o t a total waste, I guess. At least
trying to do sometbinghad helped organize my thoughts,
redirecting them onto something constructive rather
than continuing to wallow in misery. I spent a little more
time trying to find another way out, but soon realized I
wasn't going anywhere until Drake came back.
I did eventually sleep, off and on, but I wouldn't say I
got any rest. Just a n u m b e r of exhaustion-fueled stressinduced power naps, with me curled in a tight fetal ball
trying not to touch anything soft and squishy. It was a
horrible, horrible night. I honestly don't know how I
managed to make it through with my sanity intact.
But I did.
Fuck Drake and fuck N a t h a n Marshall—I wasn't let¬
ting them break me this easily. In the morning, when I
awoke hearing the clatter of feet approaching, I j u m p e d
to my feet and made sure I was standing tall when
Drake stuck his big ugly head through the sliding door
again. If he even noticed my pathetic little show of defi¬
ance, he certainly didn't show it.
"Good sleep?" he asked-.
"Screw you!" I hissed back, venom practically drip¬
ping from my mouth, but all Drake did was laugh.
"In a bad mood, Mike? Maybe I should come back
tomorrow? See how you feel then."
Drake started to slide shut the hatch, and damned if
I didn't fall for it. "No! Wait!" I squealed, my bravado
evaporating under the threat of spending an entire day
in this nightmarish place. The gate slid back open again
see he'd had no intention of leaving me down here.
He'd j u s t wanted to put me back in my place, make me
understand it was him calling the shots here.
He lowered a twelve-foot aluminum ladder down to
m e , with only half of it needing to come through the
opening before it came to rest on the mound of flesh
and bones Fd stacked up during the night.
"Take those clothes off and leave them where they
drop. Everything, Mike. You're not coming out of there
with those filthy stinking rags on."
Fair enough.
They were ruined anyway. Anything to get out of
here.
Drake watched me as I literally had to peel my goresaturated T-shirt, pants, socks, and undies off, then
stepped back as I climbed up and out of the incinerator.
I hesitated at the top of the ladder, not at all comfortable
with my nakedness. I wanted out of the chamber in the
worst way, but now that I was standing fully exposed in
the open air my self-conscious nature was kicking back
in. Unfortunately there was n o t h i n g I could do about it.
I had n o t h i n g to cover myself with and I sure as hell
wasn't going back into the incinerator.
W r i n k l i n g his nose in disgust, Drake pointed to an¬
other ladder propped against the side of the tank.
'You first. Move."
Before climbing to floor level, I took a m o m e n t to
notice my surroundings, comprehending I was now be¬
neath the medical center proper. The basement, with
its cobweb-shrouded ceiling and poured concrete floor,
was being used as a vast storage room. Natural light
filtering in through small dirt-streaked windows on the
foundation walls illuminated the area j u s t enough that I
could see the available floor space was cluttered with
boxes and crates of all shapes and sizes.
There were also two other large containers similar to
the incinerator I stood upon, but they were more
globule-shaped, standing together over on the far side
of the room. A myriad number of pipes, all painted
white, rose from the spheres, branching out across the
ceiling before snaking their way up into the medical
center through holes drilled in the floor. For the life of
m e , I couldn't fathom what their purpose was.
Drake gave me a whack on the back of my head and
told me to get a move on. N o t wanting another, I did
what he said, moving over to the ladder and starting
down. Six guards waited at floor level, making me feel
more vunerable and uncomfortable than ever, but they
backed away when they got a good whiff of me de¬
scending. One guard—the same blond-haired guy with
glasses I'd locked outside on the trellis last night— re¬
luctantly moved forward and clamped a handcuff
around my left wrist. Holding his breath, he half-walked,
half-dragged me toward a wooden door not far away on
our left. Instead of leading me through the doorway as
Fd expected, he grabbed the other end of the handcuffs
and attached me to the door's large brass handle.
What the bell?
W h y would he chain me to the door? I tried y a n k i n g
on the handcuffs, but they were on securely. I tried
opening the door, but found it locked. It wasn't until I
turned around to face D r a k e , and saw two of the other
guards unrolling a length of fire hose that I started to
get the picture.
"We're not taking you to see Dr. Marshall smelling
like that," Drake said, tossing me a fresh bar of Irish
Spring soap. "Turn on the shower, boys."
I started to protest, but an icy spray of water hitting
me full force in the chest shut me up in a hurry. It felt
like a million needles being repeatedly jabbed into m e ,
almost stripping the flesh from my bones wherever the
water touched me. Christ, it hurt. I tried to cover u p ,
ducking and spinning and even curling into a ball, but
there was no place I could hide, no position I could
stand which didn't leave some area of my body exposed: