Black Bear Fall: A BWWM Paranormal Romance (Black Bear Saga Book 2) (20 page)

Grace screamed and then she was running. Her feet sank into the cracked mud and the harder she tried to move forward the less progress she made.

The man bent and picked up another baby and threw it into the pit. He turned his back to Grace and began shovelling dirt into the hole.

She broke free of the cloying mud and started to sprint. I have to stop him she thought. The tree beside the man burst into flames and then he to caught fire. He continued to work as the flames grew higher and started to move in a burning wall towards her. A wall of scorching heat hit Grace and threw her backwards off her feet. The flesh on her arms began to burn and blister and she opened her mouth to scream and intense heat flowed inside her.

Grace grabbed her chest and started to cough. She was awake and already sitting up in bed. The sheets kicked off onto the floor and her body covered in a cold sweat. She stayed that way afraid to sleep, until the first weak light of the morning started to fill the bedroom and the image of her burning body finally began to lose its power over her.

T
he world was black
. The world was soundless. There was only one over riding sense and that was smell. The creature, for that was how it thought of itself lay on its back and rested its cheek against the cold metal of the floor. Its skin burned, flaring up in painful patches causing the creature to shout out in pain. The sound only registered as a dull vibration in the creatures chest as its ear drums had been punctured sometime before. The creature knew in some unformed way that things had not always been this way. Was it going mad when it dreamt of walking on soft grass, the blades tickling its feet and hearing a child laughing in joy. The creature thought it was a cruel trick of its mind to think there was something before. There had always been the box. There had always been the pain. There had always been the relief and ecstasy of the nectar the doctor sometimes awarded the creature.

The creature reached up and ran its fingers across the smooth surface of the roof of the metal box it lived in. It knew every inch of the surface, had traced its fingers over every welded seam. The back right corner had a small sharp raised piece and the creature sometimes ran its finger across it until the finger tip bleed. A rush of sensation would fill the creatures body when it tasted its own blood, nothing compared to the nectar it waited to taste again. Without nectar the creature would of wished to be dead a long time ago. Now it waited in the dark ticking off time until its next dose and the world opening up like a star going super nova. The creature in the centre of that white hot light, expanding outwards and consuming all living life around it.

It felt a vibration in the floor of its cell. Someone was coming. Could it be time already. The creature had no way of telling how long it was between doses. It existed out of time and in a limbo of blackness until the time came to be called on again.

Slattery walked along the raised corrugated platform and checked the dials on each hatch as he passed. Each small chamber was temperature controlled to keep its inhabitants cool and docile. There were six hatches in total and each chamber behind them was close to twice the size of of the units used to store bodies in a morgue. Four of the units where occupied at the moment with some of the most successful candidates from the doctors latest experiments. Slattery checked the labels on each hatch as he passed, each door had a white sticker on the front with F1, F2, and on in sequence. Under the number was the name of the inhabitant. Slattery stopped outside the hatch that read F4 Zoe.

Slattery rapped his knuckle four times on the metal door and waited. All of the inhabitants had been trained to back away from the door when they felt the staccato rhythm of the taps on the hatch. Slattery stepped back, unholstered his side arm and checked it and then holstered it. The small touchpad lit up with a soft blue glow when he pressed his thumb on the glass surface. A red light blinked twice and the electromagnetic lock was released. Slattery swung the hatch open and peered into the darkness. In the gloom he could just about make out the huddled shape against the back wall. He tapped out an order on the floor and stepped back from the hatch and off to the side. He rested his hand on the gun at his waist ready if anything went wrong.

It was like a a pale spider extracting itself from a matchbox and Slattery involuntarily shivered, he always did when the feral’s left their metal tombs. Pale thin arms hooked out of the open hatch and pressed their palms against wall. Spindly legs flopped out and everything about the two set of limbs was angular and pointed. The thin arms trembled with effort as they pushed against the opening and the feral’s body slowly crept into view. The arms and legs twitched spasmodically and the person fell from the hatch and landed on all fours and looking in the direction of Slattery.

He knew the creature couldn’t see him. The first thing the doctor had done was remove their eyes when they were first brought to the lab. After that their vocal cords were snipped so that the feral’s could only communicate in whimpers and grunts. The final stage was puncturing the ear drums all with the goal of heightening the one sense they needed in a good tracker.

At one point the feral creature down on all four and sniffing the air in front of it had been a young woman in her late twenties. Where she came from and what her backstory was Slattery didn’t care to know. The creations that the doctor created in his lab were works of genius. New forms of life that never existed until the doctor and his team created them from the raw materials of flesh and blood.

Slattery stamped his foot on the metal floor and the feral turned and tilted its head in his direction. A few lank strands of dirty blonder hair hung down the side of the ferals pale white head. It wore a loose pair of grey shorts and a faded black t-shirt. Its feet were bare and the legs and arms where pale, blotchy and hairless. The creature had been living on one substance now for months and as the doctor had only said recently they were pushing into uncharted territory. The ferals skin had taken on a waxy quality with patches around the joints looking stiff and immobile.

The feral stalked forward on all four and sniffed Slattery's hand. The creature had been conditioned to obey certain scent signatures and Slattery was one of those imprinted from the beginning of the experiments. The doctor, his staff and Tulimak were the others that the feral was trained to recognise. The metal box it was kept in was kept cool and was fed with triple filtered air cutting out all errant scents. The feral was kept free as possible from distracting smells so that everything was heightened when it came time for her dose.

He stroked his hand across the pale skull and the feral rubbed her cheek against his hand. The flesh of the feral felt cold and clammy almost as if this pathetic creature before him was already dead. Slattery could feel his stomach churn as he looked at the creature rubbing against his hand and showing her appreciation for a small bit of kindness. I should put this creature down he thought as he glanced at the butt of his gun.

Slattery wiped his fingers on the leg of his trousers, his lips curled into a snarl of disgust. He turned and walked away from the creature and headed towards Tulimak's office. The feral sniffed the air and followed on all fours in a stiff limbed jerking motion as it swung its head from side to side sniffing the air.

T
om slowed
the car to a stop on the edge of town and switched off the engine and headlights. Main street was deserted and the only light came from a single lantern burning in the window of elder Franklins hardware store. Oishin's eyes snapped open when Tom touched her on the shoulder. “We are here. We will walk the rest of the way. We don’t want anyone seeing your arrival,” Tom said.

Oishin looked at the darkened main street and said, “What’s next? The elders must have something planned if they had their best man rescue me,” she said and her tone of derision was not lost on Tom.

“Once I get you through the front door of Franklins store my duties end. You know how the clan has always operated, they only tell me what I need to know.”

“You haven’t changed at all. You’ll defend the integrity of the clan until the end, even when they treat you as nothing more than a blunt instrument they can deploy to keep their hands clean. If you only knew what the elders are really like I don't think you would be so happy to serve them,” Oishin said as the baby in her arms let out an anguished moan while it was deep asleep.

“Why don't you fill me in then,” Tom said as he swore to himself that he would not let her get to him this time.

“It’s best you get the veil ripped from your eyes through your own discoveries. It’s not up to me to educate you,” she said with an icy coolness.

“You talk about me not changing. You’re the same since I last saw you. There is nothing you seem to enjoy more then dismantling someones beliefs bit by bit. I could never believe a thing you say anymore Oishin. That time has passed,” Tom said and got out of the car. “Lets go,” he said and started walking into town.

I just want to rid myself of this woman and get back to Grace he thought as Oishin joined him by his side. Tom scanned the dark windows of the closed shops as they walked along main street. Nothing stirred in any of them as they got to Franklins store and Tom tapped gently on the door frame. In the back of the store a pale yellow light flickered on and elder Franklin stepped out from the back office. The light made his skin look sickly and left his eyes in deep shadows making them look like they had been burned out of his head leaving only hollows behind. When he saw who was at the door he beckoned for them to enter.

“You haven’t changed,” Oishin said as she passed by elder Franklin and entered the small back room.

Elder Silas rose and nodded as he stuck his hand out to Oishin. She looked at it and said, “You’ve been around humans too long, you’re even picking up their pointless mannerisms,” she said.

Silas withdrew his hand and said in a soft voice, “Good to see you after all this time.”

He’s pissed, Tom thought looking at Silas’s face which betrayed nothing.

Silas looked at Tom and said, “We have some bad news, events have sped up in your absence.”

Toms whole body froze as he looked at Silas, the whole room seemed to fall away as he concentrated on him and the words he was about to deliver. She is dead he thought feeling a heaviness in his chest.

“Grace is ok,” Elder Silas said and then filled in Tom about everything they knew about the mongrel kidnapping Grace and Anne.

Relief mixed with a growing anger filled Tom as he stayed standing with his hands clenched into fists by his side. “What do we do next?” he asked.

Elder Franklin began to take out his tobacco pouch and arrange it on the table in front of him. “We are still in the process of deciding our next step. Things have changed since Tulimak took power. I fear our peace time is coming to an end.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to your human,” Oishin said in a voice that contained barely any warmth.

“Where is she now?” Tom said ignoring Oishin.

“She is resting in the apartment above the diner. She has been through a lot,” elder Silas said.

“Can I see her now,” Tom asked.

“Leave it until the morning. You need your rest. Clear your head and she will be waiting for you tomorrow,” Elder Franklin said in a low voice.

“Yes sir,” Oishin said and shook her head.

Tom looked at her as if she was a stranger, the distance between them was now more than one of time. He couldn’t believe that at some time he had not only loved her but been in a deep dark hole of obsession that he never thought he could escape from.

Tom nodded his head feeling exhaustion starting to kick in. His body felt drained of all energy from the effects of the healing process.

“We can debrief in the morning. Get some rest,” Elder Silas said.

Tom turned to leave and as he opened the door to go Oishin said, “Be seeing you around.” She laughed a dry humourless sound that felt like someone was running fingernails through Toms brain. He didn’t respond and left her and her manipulative ways behind.

T
ulimak popped
the lid on the insulated box sitting on his desk. He extracted one of the five double walled reinforced glass tubes and held it up to the light. The light green liquid moved inside the tube with a thick oil like viscosity. This box contains enough bile to kill a hundred men, he thought as he tapped the black metallic cap of each tube. Tulimak knew that he had only began to scratch the surface of what bile could do. Even after a hundred years of illicit research he was discovering new and interesting effects on both humans and the unlucky shifters who came under his care.

He had seen humans drop dead within a second of a drop of bile administered to the tongue, others had taken days to die as they screamed in agony while their internal organs failed, or liquified or haemorrhaged. Tulimak had seen a sixteen year old girl break a mans arm twice her size and then punch chunks out of a solid concrete wall, all while seemingly oblivious to the pain as the bones in her hand shattered.

During the war when his access to subjects was at its easiest and his testing at its most prolific a young Polish man had survived his first dose of bile with little to no side effects. He complained of a dry throat during the night and was given some water. When the guards checked on him the following morning they found a mass of thick dark hair like strands in a tight web in the corner of the room. When they approached it the whole structure shook with the sound of a rattle snake about to lunge. At the centre of the tangled mat of strands the guards could see a pulsing fleshy centre.

Tulimak had two of his most expendable workers don protective gear and approach the tangled pulsing corner of the cell. As they approached the hissing sound increased, the men looked back in fear at Tulimak peering through the slit in the closed cell door. As they drew nearer a sound like wet cloth being ripped emanated from the centre of mass and a sharp smell of bleach filled the room. The men staggered back coughing and spluttering, never taking their eyes off the corner.

Steam rose from the mass of tangled hair as strands began to snap with a loud twang. The thick strands fell away revealing a throbbing fleshy blob in the corner of the cell. It glistened with a slimy sheen as the rough surface began to split and rivulets of dark liquid began to pour out of it. The fleshy blob began to deflate like a ballon as the noxious liquid poured out of it and pooled on the floor. Wisps of steam rose from the tar like fluid as it splashed on the concrete floor with an audible sizzle.

The men banged on the door begging to be let out, tears streaming from their red raw eyes. The corners of their mouths began to blister as they shouted in fear. Tulimak watched with cool interest until he felt a sting at the back of his throat and backed away.

The area had to be sealed off and two more men died from poisoning during the clean up operation. Tulimak became obsessed with recreating those results and the next time he vowed to let what ever was growing in the tangled mess time to mature. It never happened again and over time he lost interest in recreating it. His interests changed course and he started experimenting more on humans. It was all too easy to procure specimens. Sometimes all that was needed was the promise of a warm bed and a good meal to get people to go with his men. That was a lot of humans main weakness, the belief in the possibility of human kindness even when life had let you down. He had seen it again and again, even with those that had been discarded by society. If someone approached them with a warm smile even the destitute would let their defences down.

With a steady supply of subjects again, Tulimak concentrated his efforts on the effects of massive doses of shifter bile on the human form. Like any true artist Tulimak let his research lead him down any path it would take him. His experiments produced physical aberrations, mental breakdowns and the complete eradication of any kind of human traits. Some subjects reverted to near animal behaviour, the bile seemed to be a conduit to something buried in the humans subconscious.

The real breakthrough was when Tulimak discovered biles connection between human subject and the shifter the bile was extracted from. The humans seemed to form a link with the shifter whose bile they received. The onslaught of sensory information from shifter to human drove most of the subjects mad, some chewed off their tongues, others endlessly bashed their heads against cell walls until the link was broken. For most of the first batch of subjects whose doses had been large, death was the only way to break the link and finally bring quiet to their fevered minds.

Tulimak thought back to the day of one of his greatest triumphs. He had been dosing three males for weeks on daily bile administered by droplet on the tongue. All three men had started to lose a grip on reality. They paced their cells, talked to people that weren’t there and twisted and contorted their bodies in painful configurations and then held the one position for hours. Things had been progressing without yielding anything of interest. That was until one of the three men escaped. He had been faking his symptoms all along and the bile was not effecting him. He over powered a guard bringing him his morning meal and managed to get free of the compound. He was free and on the run for three full hours before anyone noticed his absence.

When Tulimak was alerted to the escape he went down to the cells. He ordered his men to lock up the guard who had allowed himself to be duped. This guard would now be one of Tulimak's subjects. One of the test subjects was screaming louder than usual about how it burnt and he wanted it out of him. The other was much calmer and he was listing off information about a location, going over every detail. He was speaking in a non stop stream of words, how the soft earth felt under his feet, the texture of the leaves brushing against his shoulder, the sound of cars coming from a road running close to the forest. On and on the man spoke in a rush of word.

The man rocked back and forth as he spoke, his eyes glazed as he stared off into the middle distance. Tulimak approached him and put his hand on the mans shoulder who didn’t seem to notice. The man started to describe a faded sign with an image of a smiling pig wearing an apron and serving up links of steaming hot sausage to a smiling man at a diner counter. Tulimak looked down at the man hardly believing what he was hearing and knowing he could have a major breakthrough on his hands.

Someone knocked on the door of his office dragging Tulimak out of his memories. “Enter,” he said in a booming voice.

Slattery came in and following him a few feet behind on all fours was the feral. As soon as it entered the room it froze and sniffed the air, its bald head swaying from side to side. The feral passed by Slattery and made its way across the wide open office and towards Tulimak who was standing at the windows overlooking the compound. When it got close to him the feral made a low humming sound coming from deep in its chest.

“Is it ready?” Tulimak asked as he looked down at the feral before him.

“This one has been thoroughly conditioned to your scent. It knows you are the alpha,” Slattery said.

“And what about the preparation with that black bear bitches bile,” Tulimak said.

“We start the first dose now. The first few hours the feral will be useless to us as it assimilates Annes bile. After it goes through that painful process it will be ready to track Grace. Twice daily doses of bile will keep it attuned to Graces scent no matter where on the planet she goes,” Slattery said with obvious pride in his voice.

“You’re sure of that?” Tulimak said with a raised eyebrow.

“Nearly one hundred percent. As far as we have been able to ascertain the feral is some how connected to Grace through ingesting Annes bile. Part of it is smell, the rest we are not so sure,” Slattery said.

“Very good and how many doses of the bile do we have,” Tulimak said in a cold voice.

“Enough to keep an eye on Graces location for a very long time. By my estimation we can keep track of her for up to a year. Where ever she goes our feral here will be able to track her down,” Slattery said.

“Prepare the dose,” he ordered Slattery.

Slattery took a metal tube from his inside pocket and handed it to Tulimak. “We have designed the lid so that when you screw it off it extracts the exact amount of bile needed. You touch the end of the dispenser against the feral’s tongue and the bile is administered. Not a drop is wasted.”

The feral was on all four in front of Tulimak and when he reached out and stroked the pale skin of its head the deep internal humming stopped. The feral rubbed its cheek against the side of Tulimak's hand and sniffed at his skin. It sat back and looked up at him with its mouth open and the nub of its tongue flicking from side to side in its mouth. Heavy black cord had been used to sew its eyes shut over empty sockets, making the whole face look flatter and lacking the definition of a humans face.

“It knows whats coming,” Slattery said. “It just doesn’t know that it’s a new shifters bile. Annes bile will work its way through the ferals body burning away all traces of the previous bile we have dosed it with. If its survives the purge then it is ready to go.”

“How many die when a new shifters bile is introduced to the host?” Tulimak said with cold indifference.

“Fifty percent,” Slattery said.

“Acceptable odds. Do we have more on ice?” Tulimak asked.

“Several more ready to be deployed if this one fails you,” Slattery said.

Tulimak unscrewed the metal tube and withdrew the dispenser. It was a clear glass tube with a bubble half way up the stem. Inside the glass bubble was a dose of the pale green bile, no bigger than a pea.

The ferals fingers began to drum on the floor when the scent of the bile reached it. Slattery rested his hand on the butt of his gun ready to react if the feral darted forward. Tulimak stroked the back of the ferals neck and tilted the creatures head back. It tried to extend the jagged edge of the stump of its tongue out of its mouth, hungry for the bile. Several of its teeth where missing from experiments on alternate bile delivery mechanisms. Tulimak touched the glass dispenser on the rough surface of its tongue. The ferals tongue looks no different than a pigs Tulimak thought as he remembered seeing one being slaughtered when he was a young shifter.

He stepped back and resealed the metal tube. The feral began to moan in an inhuman tone, high pitched and like a dagger to the ears. It thrashed its head from side to side and the fleshy nub inside its mouth jutting forward. It rolled onto its back and thrashed around and then curled into a ball wailing in pain.

“Shall I take it back to the cells? It can take bile introduction a few hours to destroy the previous one,” Slattery asked.

Tulimak looked down at the creature on his floor as its body shuddered with spasms of pain, the muscles in its arms flexing in painful cramps. “No. Leave it here to ride it out. Do you have any updates on Graces movements?” he asked.

Slattery took out his notepad and flipped through a couple of pages and then said, “She was picked up by our man and driven into town. She had no suspicions about him. She booked herself into a motel for the night and she told our driver that she was heading north in the morning. As instructed we will observe her until she leaves the town.” Slattery put his note pad away and watched Tulimak for a reaction.

“Very good. When the time is right she is going to walk us right up to the front door of the black bear clans town all thanks to our creation. Make preparations for me to return to the city tomorrow. Have quarters readied for the feral, it will stay in the pit until we need to call on it. There are interesting times ahead for us Slattery. Things are going to start ramping up very soon. Can you imagine anything like this happening under my fathers rule,” Tulimak said looking at Slattery.

Slattery shook his head.

“He moved at a glacier pace. Always weighing up every damn angle. Making progress for the clan over hundreds of years. It’s time that a new generation took over and sped up the process. I’m tired of waiting for things to unfold over hundreds of years. Thats the old way. The new timetable is here and everything is about to change a lot quicker than the black bear clan could ever expect,” Tulimak said turning his back to Slattery and looking out the window.

“What do you want to do about the mongrels that left the compound last night? We believe they are part of a roving band of possibly one hundred of the creatures,” Slattery said.

“You have eyes on them?”

“They are being tracked and we can intercept them at any moment,” Slattery replied.

“Good. Lets not rush in yet. I want to see how this plays out. Those freaks are up to something. Keep me up to date on their movements.”

“And when we know what they are up to?”

Tulimak didn't hesitate and said, “Kill them. Fly some guards in from the eastern compound and have them ready. When a weed has taken hold the only way to get rid of it is to scorch the earth and then salt it.”

“Some of them might be worth keeping for experimenting on,” Slattery said in a halting voice.

Tulimak turned and faced Slattery and his lips where drawn back in a snarl. “Good thinking. Have we ever had the chance to experiment on a mongrel before?”

“This would be our first opportunity. It might open up some interesting avenues of research,” Slattery said.

“Sometimes Slattery, you impress me. It’s that kind of thinking that will make a case for keeping you around,” Tulimak said letting the implication hang heavy between them. “I leave in the morning and this compound will be left in your hands for the time being,” Tulimak said turning away again and signifying the meeting was over.

Slattery glanced down at the writhing feral on the floor as he passed and left the office without saying anything else.

The ferals pitiful groans of pain faded away to background noise as Tulimak stared out the window. I was always in your shadow, he thought, would you be proud of me now if you saw the strides I was making towards one clan of shifters ruling everything. I don’t care what you think anymore, you became an out of touch politician more interested in keeping the peace than any kind of conflict. How could you let our clan drift so far from our original ideals, we are a warrior race and living side by side with those other shifters is not something we should ever have to stomach. I saw how the powerful men of our clan used to look at you father, they respected and admired you. It made me sick to think that a once great shifter who was feared by all was now respected by his generals as a politician. What happened to the great beast who single handedly killed four treacherous shifters at the battle of Red Lake three hundred years ago.