“Now, for the next part of his sentence.” Charity tapped a control box she’d been carrying. The white light turned on, as it had before. Unlike the last encounter with the mock sun, the man screamed in agony as he stood there.
“What are you doing to him?” she said, almost too quiet to be heard.
Charity stepped next to her. “Fascinating, isn’t it? His technology really has changed the world.”
“Yeah, if you like futuristic torture chambers.”
The woman’s eyes seemingly caught fire. “That’s not what this is. As usual with you American fools, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This isn’t about destruction; it’s about touching creation.” The older woman watched the bright light for a short time with apparent wonder, as if the machine was a newborn being introduced to the world.
When it turned off, it took a few moments for Tabby’s eyes to adjust. When she was able to look into the chamber, the guards had the door open for the crazy guy to walk out. As she got her first look at him, she assumed it was a practical joke.
“Where’d the other guy go? The one you infected with…with…” She didn’t know what could have infected every square inch of someone’s body. Tabby couldn’t finish the sentence without sounding stupid.
“You are more correct than you know. He was infected with everything we could find to stick inside him. We pumped him up with cancers, bacterial infections, non-communicative viral payloads. You name it. But David always has a reason for doing things. Today’s plan was for this man to return to the chamber a second time to complete your lesson.”
She cast a guarded look over to the woman. “You mean it was supposed to happen this way?”
Charity appeared satisfied at the man’s condition. “Not exactly like this, but close. He wanted you to know what would happen to your friends if you crossed him. Lucky for you, he knew you would fail to stay away from the exit door. It provided an easy way to teach you the facts of life here.”
Tabby was crestfallen. The man’s suffering had been all her fault.
“I was in the cage,” Audrey interjected. “I feel fine.”
Charity turned to Tabby, ignoring Audrey. “Your girlfriend was placed in the light earlier today, too. David did it as part of his benevolence. He cured your friend’s diabetes.”
“No way!” Audrey exclaimed, yanking at Tabby’s hand.
“No way,” Tabby echoed, sounding the opposite of the other girl’s excitement.
Charity pulled the mystery man closer but spoke directly to Tabby. She acted as if Audrey and the man were props, rather than living people. “If you’ll notice, this man Dwight no longer has the unfortunate conditions he bore as when he went inside.”
“Thank you!” Dwight gushed. “Me and Poppy couldn’t take another second of the pain.”
“But he won’t get too comfortable,” Charity added. “It’s late in the evening. The day’s over. David will infect him again in the morning. He’ll spend tomorrow suffering with another dozen afflictions. Then, at dusk, he’ll cure him again.”
“Far out,” the man replied, seemingly high.
“You people are insane,” Tabby said, not sure if it would get anyone in trouble.
Charity flashed a crooked smile. For all her facial beauty and hourglass figure, her teeth were far from perfect. “The message here, Ms. Tabitha, is we have the power to make your friends’ lives absolutely miserable, just like I warned you. Your responsibility is doing as you’re asked with good cheer. If you aren’t going to play nice, David’s next meeting with you will be to show your two friends how many diseases can be inserted into a person’s gene structure at the same time.”
The man, Dwight, stared at various points in the room as if everyone was famous and he was touring the inside of the White House. If she didn’t know better, she would guess he’d emerged from the box stoned out of his mind. When he saw her studying his actions, his face lit up. He looked her square in the eye.
But he didn’t really see her.
“Poppy! That box is one far out trip! I died and came right back to you.”
CHAPTER 14
Wheatland, WY
“This is a nightmare that never ends,” Kyla remarked, still looking behind her. Most of the convoy continued south on the interstate, but a long line of flatbeds hauling construction vehicles exited at the same place Meechum tried to escape the flow of trucks. “They’re exiting here, too.”
“We do seem to have bad luck these days,” Meechum said in her understated way.
“What do we do?” Kyla asked. “It seriously looks like we’re leading this parade.”
Their black pickup truck threw up dust as they drove the gravel road away from the highway. Half a mile back, the lead vehicle, also a pickup truck, had its headlights on as it followed. There were more tractor-trailers than she could count, and they were still coming off the highway.
“We do have a bit of good news,” the Marine said dryly.
Kyla turned around to face the front, sure the other woman was about to sock her with bad news. Nothing seemed to rattle the fighter.
“I think we can lead this group to where they’re going. Doesn’t that look like the kind of out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere place a crew of construction guys might go?” Meechum pointed to three tall smokestacks peeking over the tops of the trees lining the creek.
“What do you make of it?”
The driver shrugged. “I’m a Marine, not a tour guide.”
“It might be a factory…or a powerplant.”
“I’d go with powerplant. Why would anyone put a factory way out here?”
Kyla thought about it for a few minutes. The trucks behind them weren’t in pursuit. No one would chase them with flatbed trailers full of tractors and cranes. The most likely scenario was they’d chosen an exit
