He tried to recall the layout of the hallway, but all he recalled were glimpses of the rows of doors, the low ceiling, lights inset so there were no low-hanging fixtures.
When somebody has a gun on you, you can’t think about much besides that deep black barrel and whatever might come out. If I ever see that son of a bitch again, I’m going to shove that Terrible, red images flooded him and he shook them away.
“Okay, people,” he said as calmly as he could, in the direction of David and Anita. “We’re going to get out of here, but we need to work together.”
He felt something warm and moist near his cheek and then she was entwining her arms around him, like a slithering, sinuous snake. Her body was fervid and her breasts were soft, her hair brushing gently across his face, and then her tongue was on his neck. “Hey, lover,” she whispered, and he realized she was naked.
He tried to push her away, but her grip tightened, and then she had her legs around him in a scissors grip, the heat between her legs radiating against his crotch through his pants. Half of him wanted to slam her against the wall, to hurt her and shake her off, but another part of him pulsed in alternating bands of languid blue and brilliant yellow.
Her lips found his and he tasted the acrid chemical again.
Drugged, he recalled, but knowledge didn’t diminish the insanity. He was aware of his two minds, the one that was frightened and murderous and the one that wanted to surrender to the raging lust that sprang from some primitive, disturbing depth.
He kissed back, sickened at his lust, and Burchfield’s distant hammering and shouting came as if from underwater.
Then other hands were at his back, pulling, tugging, even as he pressed himself harder against Anita’s exposed flesh and his hands frantically explored her curves. But there was no sensuality in his touch, only a carnal craving driven by an almost sickening desire to possess and consume.
“Luh-leave her alone!” the man grunted and stuttered as he grabbed at Mark. “Not like Suh-Susan.”
“Come on, David,” Anita whispered. “Plenty for all.”
But David’s intrusion had turned Mark’s mindless lust to something else, and he turned, feeling for the man in the darkness. It was easy to grab one of his thin arms and run a punch toward the center of where he thought the man might be.
His fist landed with a dull thud, like hitting a sack of paste. The man wheezed and fell backward, and Mark got a sense of his victim’s scrawniness as he turned toward Anita again. But she was gone, slithering somewhere along the wall, chasing whatever mad obsession had seized her next.
Burchfield ranted about how he’d be ordering an investigation, NSA, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and the “fucking Boy Scouts of America.” He was as unhinged as Mark, who drove his fist against the wall hard enough to drive some of the madness away.
With the spark of pain, clarity descended and pushed aside the conflicting demons of lust and violence. Or maybe they were all the same demon. He could feel them up there in his brain, explosive forces ready to breach their dams and flood him once again.
Pain. That’s the way to beat the Seethe.
Alexis could probably explain the chemical process, how pain was perhaps the most primitive part of the brain, less sophisticated, more essential, more basic, more human than fear.
But right now, he had to find her. Because if she was out there, and she was as bad off as he was, then she was in deep trouble.
And, for now, pain was his friend.
Forget Burchfield, CRO, and the FDA.
Pain was his only fucking ally.
Anita must have found Burchfield in the dark and was now working her seduction on him, and he proved less resistant than Mark. Their moaning and slobbering filled the hallway, and David, crawling on the concrete floor toward the couple, muttered the opening lines to “Home on the Range.”
Mark rubbed his bleeding knuckles, reawakening the pain. He used it like a totem, a beacon of sanity in the induced madness. He guided himself along the hall, hoping he was moving in the right direction.
He tried to think of the worst pain he’d ever endured, and recalled the time one of his dental crowns had popped loose. The arteries in the teeth ran straight to the heart, he’d heard, so they were significant.
By the time he found the door, Anita was whimpering in the throes of pleasure and Burchfield was grunting, and even though Mark hadn’t seen Anita, the memory in his fingertips hinted at her erotic prowess and moist potential. A tiny surge of regret and jealousy rocketed through him, but he knew it was false, and he raked his knuckles along the door hinges just to remind himself of what was real.
Pain. Pain is real. Maybe the only real thing in this world.
Then, girding himself and trying to picture Alexis’s face, he peeled back his lips and drove his mouth hard into the middle hinge.
He grunted as one of his incisors broke in half, splintering up into his gum. He fell away spitting blood and broken enamel, the agony sluicing through his head like lava.
The pain consumed everything for a few moments, and he wiped the blood from his mouth. He was plenty hurt, but it consumed his mind, and he was able to remember his task.
The hallway door was open. It must have been on the same switch as the cell doors. He slipped out into the cool air of the factory and eased the door shut behind him, making sure it was locked. He couldn’t withstand any more temptation.
Nor any more pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The party begins.
As soon as Kleingarten hit the remote switch killing the lights, Sebastian Briggs had backed away and reached for the night-vision goggles dangling from his back pocket. The facility interior wasn’t in absolute darkness, since the faint urban glow imbued the high windows with gray, but the subjects were cast in the bleakest night.
The goggles had their own infrared-emitting source, however, which meant he was broadcasting an invisible beam that would reflect on objects and allow him to see even in total darkness. There were places in the maze that were designed to be closed off from all light, and he didn’t want to miss an inch of the fun.
The goggles were a little clumsy, since they were strapped to his head and added a little weight, but at least his hands were free.
The trio staggered around, blinking, at their most helpless. He’d calculated correctly that Wendy was the most vulnerable to Seethe and Alexis was the most coherent. Alexis had always been astute, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had figured out his pharmaceutical game of cat-and-mouse. But apparently the Seethe was more powerful than he’d imagined, or else she wasn’t as smart as he had hoped.
She fumbled for the pipe that Wendy had dropped, and Briggs wondered if she would turn first on the others or look for him. Roland, who should have been the most confused, had the presence of mind to drop to the floor and crawl along, patting the concrete in front of him to find the vial. Wendy Ah, Wendy.
Moving as silently as possible, Briggs eased along the massive sorting machine that assembly-line workers had once used to piece together motors. Chains clinked farther down the corridor, and he knew Kleingarten must have made his retreat. He’d instructed the man to wait an hour, and then turn the lights back on, but he certainly didn’t trust Kleingarten.
But there would be time for Kleingarten later. Right now, he had Wendy.
She had recovered a little, although she stood wobbling like a foal, blinking against the darkness. She was twenty feet away from the others, forgotten now even by her former husband.
Ah, Wendy. I have missed you.
He stood close enough to smell her. She’d shampooed with a chamomile-and-honey concoction, but it had been at least a day before, because animal sweat, tainted with a faint touch of the chemicals decomposing in her
