Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25333848-20140825231639/@comment-25333848-20140828205437

Part II: Skittering

''A man in a white lab-coat sped down the east main hallway, a large stack of papers in his arms, clutched firmly against his chest, bearing a somewhat stressed look. An obsessively punctual man, the idea of being any less than 10 minutes early for a meeting made him more than a little anxious. He turned his head to look at the digital clock on the wall. Four minutes to reach the board room. Fourteen for the average, less obsessive man. He turned his head back just in time to see the face of the man who knocked into him, sending him falling onto his back and spraying his papers around them. "Ah shit, doc. I didn't see you there." The man in the coat grumbled and began picking up his lost papers, the other man quickly leaning his M4 on the wall and joining in. The doctor raised his head to read the name-tag embroidered on the soldier's vest.''

---

Corporal James Erikson. I had met him during a "high-speed collision", as it were, about a year ago. We--as well as some of the other guards and researchers--had gone drinking the few times where our holidays coincided. He was a nice enough guy. Not quite a friend, but more than an acquaintance. Which was why I was more than a little saddened to see him sitting on that toilet, with a crater in his forehead and his brains splattered on the wall. His face was twisted in the queerest mixture of terror and relief. Whatever had scared him enough to do this to himself, he seemed quite happy to be rid of it

"Fuck..." I muttered to myself as I reached down to grab the Beretta sitting at his feet. I released the magazine and counted the rounds. Four, presumably with a fifth in the chamber. Not ideal, but it'd have to do. I loaded the magazine back into it, reached back, and stuffed it between my belt and my trousers before fishing through his pockets. No spare mags, but I did find a full canteen. A water fountain or sink was never more than 30 feet away at any given spot in the facility, but they were part of the uniform, thankfully. I pocketed the container and continued my search. I didn't find anything else worth taking. I did, however, notice that his knife holster was empty. Perhaps he threw it during... whatever it was that happened here. No way of knowing for now.

I sighed and patted his shoulder, before standing up to leave. Just then, I heard a noise. A skittering sound. Not unlike a cockroach or a rat. I reached back, prepared to draw my weapon, when it stopped. My heart was pounding in my chest. I leaned against the entrance-side wall of the stall and slowly poked my head out. Nothing. Not a damn thing. I sighed in relief and and walked out of the stall, giving my friend one final look, before leaving the bathroom. Something was different. The pile of pills seemed different from before, as though someone had been rifling through it. And then I saw it. My blood was gone. I walked over to where it should have been and knelt down. Not a trace.

This was getting weirder by the second. I needed to know what the hell happened. "The cameras." I looked up and saw one of the many reflective dome cameras dotting the facility. If I could get to the security office, maybe I could get an idea of what was going on. Mercifully, it was in the opposite direction of the wall of rubble 10 feet ahead of me. I turned around and began my walk, relieved to put that body behind me.

Before me stretched a few hundred yards of rooms full of examination tables, nuclear diagnostic machines and other state-of-the-art medical amenities. It was a researcher's wet dream. But then, so was this building as a whole. I, myself, had been in every one of these rooms at one point or another, intaking people desperate for treatments, doing scans, what-have-you. If a doctor ever asks "what would you do to be cured?", you had better mean it when you say "anything". Because sooner or later, you may find yourself standing next to a black sedan, a man in a suit and sunglasses telling you about a "special government research trial", and then you will find yourself somewhere like this. In one of the many underground military facilities where rules and ethics and "do no harm" no longer apply.

The walk itself was rather uneventful. The door read "Security Office: Clearance Level 3". "Something tells me no one is going to I.D. me." When I reached for the doorknob, however, I heard it again. That damn noise. This time I was faster, drawing my weapon and turning around in a single lightning-fast movement. The hallway behind me was as empty as it was before. My fear left me, to be replaced with frustration. Was I losing my mind? I growled softly under my breath and turned to face the doorway once more, turning the knob and entering the room.

The place was even more of a mess than the hallway in which my journey began. The few monitors that weren't shattered or showing static were playing the same few seconds of footage over and over. The whole system was fucked. "God DAMNIT!" I shouted and pounded my fists on the desk. I was back to square one. Back, that is, until I remembered a certain bit of lunch-room banter from a few weeks prior. It was easy enough to forget; one of the junior researchers was talking about his part time work restoring old home movies. McKenna, I think it was.

It was a long shot, and the locker rooms were a bit of a way away, and even then, he may not have even had his laptop. But it was all I had to go on. I scanned the floor for the system chart. I grabbed it and set it down on the desk. I looked for the monitor displaying the spot where I woke up. The masking tape below it labeled it as 16-W. Like the other "functioning" screens, it was replaying the same 5 seconds over and over: me, un-moving in a small pool of blood. I lowered my eyes back at the chart, to the hard-drive table. #40. It took a bit of work to get to the lower shelves of the hard-drive rack, but I got it. I stuck the unwieldy piece of metal in my left pocket.