Sara was strapped to a hospital cot. She was bound by her wrists and ankles. A strap even went over her abdomen. A single light bulb dangled over her, swinging slowly in a pendulum motion that didn’t seem to stop. She seemed to be in the emergency room of a hospital. Looking left and right, she could see two others strapped to hospital cots too. But they were in much worse shape than she was. One was struggling to breathe, the other was suffering from seizures. Both their surgical gowns were covered in blood. The room was filled with moans and gasps. It was sickening.
The sound of a door opening echoed through the room, followed by the chatter of a few people. She could only catch a few words like ‘ready’, ‘suffering’ and ‘dead’; not to mention an ‘oh God’. A set of footsteps came closer to her cot. The face of a man with spectacles loomed over her. He seemed to be wearing a white lab coat. A stethoscope hung from his neck. It was hard to see anything else with the light in her face.
“I was told your name is Sara,” said the man.
“And who told you that? Reid?” asked Sara.
“Close,” he replied, matter-of-factly. He wasn’t really paying attention to what Sara was saying.
“Where is Reid?” Sara tried again.
It received no response. He seemed to be inspecting her body.
“Oi, my eyes are here,” she said, louder.
“Thank you for the information Sara,” he finally replied. He pulled out a torchlight. “Now say aah.”
Sara spat instead. It didn’t travel very far up; it landed somewhere on the floor.
“Ugh, you might infect someone here, Sara,” he said, disgusted.
“Oh, like you are keeping them all healthy, eh?”
She was ignored again. The man lifted her shirt and placed his hand on her stomach. Even though Sara was bound, she rattled the cot enough to scare him off.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” she barked.
The man simply readjusted his glasses. “I’ll perform the preliminary checkups on you after I’ve put you under,” he murmured to himself.
Well Sara wasn’t going to have it as long as she was awake. “Where’s Reid,” she asked again.
With his initial task postponed, he paid attention to her talking. “Mr.Reid’s a busy man. He must be doing something or the other.”
“I want to see him,” she demanded.
“And what, do you think he will attend your summons, my queen?” he said sarcastically. “Well maybe you’re in luck. As per his routine–”
He was interrupted by a loud bang. He turned around towards the door and he cowered slightly.
“Ah, Dr. Milton!” a familiar hoarse voice spoke. “What’s the status here?”
“We were very confident in this serum,” the man next to Sara spoke. “But unfortunately, even this one seemed to cause negative effects. We expect the others to have the same symptoms too. The subject died of–”
“Ah, so unfortunate,” the voice said, interrupting him again. It actually sounded genuinely heartbroken. “How close are you to achieving perfection?”
“So, so close,” assured Milton. With a few more tweaks and a few more tests, we can attain the perfect solution.”
“The solution to all our problems…” the voice said in thought.
More footsteps seemed to walk up to Sara’s cot. Reid poked his face over to see her. “You know, we went through quite some trouble to get this one here,” he said.
“Is she special, sir?” asked Milton.
“Oh no, not at all.” Reid replied casually, but his expression turned serious. “Nothing like that. Just that her partner caused us a lot of trouble. Killed Mutt, chucked Horton off a bridge, then threw himself off too. But Miss Sara here, she was too scared to follow him. For that, I thank you, miss,” he said, bowing in her direction.
Sara was shocked. Daniel threw himself off the bridge?
Reid went on. “You should’ve seen your face, Miss Sara! It was quite humourous to behold. You seem to be of the weak sort. All you had to do was follow Mr. Danny, and you wouldn’t have been in this precarious situation. Was it perhaps the fact that you had witnessed Mr. Danny kill someone? I agree, miss, it does seem kind of barbaric.”
But… will he–
“He’ll survive the fall, miss,” said Reid, interrupting her thoughts. He knew exactly what she was thinking. “But what happens after that? He’s in God’s hands.”
“Why… why, tell me why!” Sara screamed. A cacophony of groans filled the room.
“Miss, please! You’re disturbing the other scientists and doctors!” said Reid, now irritated. “I’ll have to ask Milton to put you under if you keep that up, understand?”
Sara shut up instantly. She was scared now. She had an idea of what was going to happen to her, but she didn’t know how it was going to take place.
Reid studied her for a few seconds. “You seem interested in what’s happening around here! Milton, let’s give her a tour.”
With that, Milton picked a remote and clicked a button. The half of the cot under her back began to rise up, getting her into sitting position. With her eyes no longer directly under the bulb, she blinked a couple of times to clear its afterimage before looking around. Others in white coats swarmed the area, flitting from one to the many other hospital cots that she couldn’t see before. Each one had a ‘subject’ on it, seemingly fighting for life. Curtain rails hung from the ceiling, but they were all devoid of any curtains. Tube lights were only on where the doctors were working on something, though a few made small checkups using the light bulbs dangling above every cot. Racks with solutions and surgical tools stood next to every cot.
“You said all of them are going to die?” Reid asked Milton.
“Unfortunately, yes sir. They were all given the same formula.”
“Don’t you think we use up all the people we catch too quickly?”
“No sir, no!” Milton was visibly scared. “We were expecting different symptoms in different subjects and we wanted to study them all! Not a soul goes to waste!”
Reid nodded his head in acknowledgement.
“So this is what you do? Bring people here and kill them?” asked Sara.
Unexpectedly, Reid turned around and slapped her in the face. The smack silenced everyone in the room. “Don’t you dare make it look like a slaughterhouse in here. Each life contributes to a better future!”
Sara couldn’t hear half of that. Her ears were ringing and her head was spinning, reeling from the assault. Reid walked up to one of the subjects and stuffed his hand into his throat. Sara felt like gagging, watching the subject do the same. Reid plucked something out from in there, pinched between his point finger and thumb. It was a tiny black worm-like thing. He brought it over to Sara.
“Sir! That’s dangerous! You’re neither wearing gloves nor a mask!” Milton warned.
Reid didn’t seem to care. He addressed Sara. “This little teeny-tiny thing is the reason this city is in lockdown! We don’t know where this came from, or–”
“Actually, there’s a theory, sir,” Milton interrupted. “We already know that hairworms can control crickets and grasshoppers. We believe they managed to mutate to control higher–”
In turn, he was interrupted by Reid’s piercing glare.
“Now where was I…” Reid continued. “Ah! See, these little parasites drill through your inner throat and reach the… the… the middle-of-the-what?”
“The medulla oblongata, sir,” Milton corrected.
“Ah yes… that,” said Reid. “You know what then? It eats your brains till it grows enough to be able to control your whole nervous system. Then it latches on to that ‘Medusa’ thing and takes charge. Acts like a brain itself! It then continues feasting on the brain slowly as it grows even more.”
Sara was positively sick hearing that.
“So you see, the more it grows, the more fluent its control gets. And where your friend has washed away… Well…”
“What? Tell me what?!” Sara demanded.
“Well let’s just say that the parasites in the leeches of that area have grown… a lot. Hey! Maybe Jenna will find him!” He burst into a fit of laughter, and Milton chuckled with him.
Her worry for Daniel grew. She didn’t know who Jenna was, and she had no idea if Daniel was alive or not. What would Jenna do to him if she finds him, given he survived the leeches?
“Who’s Jenna?” Sara asked.
“She’s a little cuckoo. For all you know, she’s dead. Went out to prove a point and I haven’t seen her since. What he should be worried about, are the leeches. So unless Mr. Danny gets caught by one, I guess he’ll be able to survive,” Reid said casually. He inspected the worm wriggling in his fingers closely, much to Milton’s discomfort. “See, these things can fertilise themselves. When the leech grabs someone, the parasite shoves its tail into the victim’s throat and transfers the eggs there, where they hatch. The fittest of them makes its way to that meddling thing and starts the process all over again.” Reid almost sang that last part.
Sara couldn’t believe how playful he sounded. “You’re unstable,” she commented.
“Fight fire with fire!” he replied. “I’m the one who will save us from this unstable situation!”
“You’re fucking insane!” Sara screamed. Decency was off the table. “What the fuck are you going to do to me?!”
“Not me,” Reid said. He pointed to Milton with his thumb. “He will.”
He made for the door. “Now Dr. Milton, I’ll take my leave. I had such a lovely chat with this young woman. Goodbye, miss!”
Sara was livid. She had to get out of this place. She also wanted to stab Reid in the throat. She struggled against her bonds, shaking the whole cot. Reid squished the worm in his hand and threw it in a bin as he disappeared through the doorway.
“Now now Sara, calm down!” Milton said desperately. “Maybe in our next trial, the serum will make your body kill the parasite when it tries to drill in! You’ll live!”
“What?” Sara was flabbergasted. “You’re going to… put that worm in me?”
“Yes! Wasn’t that obvious?”
Click here for Locked Down | Chapter 6
