[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
“Troubling Gifts”



**~A Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Waste~**



**~Chapter Twenty-three- No Real Cure~**



The thick door swings open and Riley, leads the way into a deserted darkened room. He scans quickly through the black darkness to find anything that could give away their presence. The yellow orb of light form the flashlight searches the dusty wooden planks of the floor.



“What do you see?” A.J. whispers, holding his breath, hoping that doesn’t give them away.



Riley shakes his head and whispers, “Darkness.”



Kevin smirks and pats A.J. on the shoulder, “Be quiet, we can get in trouble cause of you.”



Riley politely shushes them and then continues walking into the obscurity. “This is the first place one would take a trespasser, but I think they already rushed her to the upper levels. This room is empty, nothing in here but a few broken wooden chairs and an empty glass vile.”



Kevin looks around the room and noticed a odd smell coming from on the vents in the room. “Do you smell that?”



A.J. gave Kevin a disgusted look and mumbles, “Man that’s Kev. There’s a time and place for everything and this is not one of them.”



Kevin sucked his teeth, “No retard smell. Don’t it smell like some gas in coming in here.”



Riley suddenly stops and faces Kevin. He strains to see the form of what looked like the form Kevin standing in front of him. “You’re right! Damn! The room is getting is filled with poison, we gotta get the hell out of here!” And with that races to the front of the dark room. Riley’s flashlight begins to blur and blink and a few seconds later turns off.



A.J. lets out a low profanity and stares around at the dark room. The only light was coming from the moon which is shining through the dusty cracked circular glass windows all about seven feet above them. The room seems huge judging by how many windows surrounded it. About five windows covered one side and five more on the other along with three of the windows in the center on white cemented wall.



Riley reaches the door knob and turns it only to find it locked from the inside. “Oh man, we’re in trouble. The security has reached its limits. It seems somebody programmed the computer to do a lock down. It looks like we’re stuck in this room now.”



“What about that smell?” Whispers A.J. nervously, brushing his fingers through his black hair.



“Try not to inhale it.” Riley calmly states.



A.J. sucks his teeth, “Oh yeah, it’s that easy, what the hell you want me to do? Stop breathing?”



“J calm down, don’t freak out. Listen to Riley we’ll get off out here, I know we can!” Kevin states, his voice though sounded unsure.



Riley sits on the floor and gazes around the room, “You think we can reach those windows. I just thought of something. Let’s grab some of those broken pieces of the chair and throw it at the windows.”



Kevin nods his head and blindly searches the floor until his hand feels the thick wooden leg piece of the chair. “J, come help. Don’t just sulk.”



A.J. grumbles, blindly kneels down and crawls on his knees, he reaches Kevin. Riley smiles and does the same.



‘K, this is the deal, We got limited pieces of this chair. If we break the windows, we can get some air before the gas gets to us.” Riley states. The moonlight cascades down on Kevin, A.J and Riley.



“Fine, how the hell are we getting out of here? There’s the windows and that door. I’m thinking we could break open that door and get out. The windows we can’t reach, it’s too far up.” A.J. whispers, his voice cracking in fear.



“Aight, nice, let’s do that.” Kevin states rushing over to the door, “At the count of three we bum rush the door. K ready?”



The other two men nod, blindly standing up and rushing towards the door as Kevin says three. The door is slammed with the bodies and makes a cracking noise.



“Nice, we’re getting it! I think two more times and we can break this down.” Riley whispers excitedly.



The gas begins getting thicker and A.J. begins coughing terribly.



“J, come one, we’re almost out of here, try not to breath it in!” Kevin shouts out nervously.



Riley touches AJ.’s shoulder , he can feel A.J.’s body tremble as he begins coughing hard.



Kevin almost in panic races over to his friend, both down on their knees, they crawl to the locked door. Riley and Kevin continue slamming the door as A.J. painfully coughs. Suddenly the door breaks open and crashes to the ground loudly. Standing in front of them armed, are two soldiers pointing their rifles at the guys. “Freeze! Don’t move! Under the orders of Roy, we shoot if you move!” One of the masked men states roughly.



Kevin stares at the soldiers and feels his eyes beginning to burn. Out of his eyes shoots out the two dark red lasers. It strikes the men on their flesh and burns through their skin as they scream out in pure agony. Smoke and burning flesh infiltrates in the room. The smell so nauseating that A.J. begins gagging.



Another soldier appears down a hallway and begins shooting. With one look, A.J. stares at the masked man eyes. Suddenly the soldier drops his weapons and begins screaming in horror as he covers his ears. The soldier dressed in all black crashes on knees and begins shaking terribly. Crimson blood begins to drip down the soldier’s ear and staining the floor. The soldier screams out one last time and falls face down on the ground, his masked soaked in blood. The pistol floats in the air as new bullets are placed in by an invisible hand. Riley watches the scene in shock as Kevin stares at A.J.



“Wow! You blew the guy’s brain out!” Shrieks Kevin in dismay.



A.J. stands up with the help of Riley and smiles. “Yup the looks of it. Looks my power did come in useful.” A.J. says happily.



Kevin narrows his eyes and wipes his finger above upper lip. “You’re bleeding, you’re nose is bleeding.” Kevin whispers, looking at A.J.



Chocolate eyes pierce at Kevin, “I’m fine! I guess my body is still adjusting to the powers.” A.J. whispers and brushes past Kevin down a new hallway.



Kevin watches A.J. walk down the deserted hallway who is wiping away streaks of blood that is trailing from his nose. Kevin jumps in fright as Riley places his hand on his shoulder.



“Calm down Kevin. Something’s up with him. I say we keep a watch on him and tell him to hold his head up, he’s leaving behind a trail with his blood, we gotta go the either way now.” Riley says softly as A.J. reaches the end the hallway.



A.J. throws his arms in the air in frustration, “Well are we going or what? Come on, time is of the essence.” A.J. whispers loudly, tapping his black boots impatiently on the grey tiles.



Kevin looks at Riley and Riley in response shrugs his shoulders.



“We’re going down this way.” Riley states.



“Put your head, so you won’t leave behind a trail.” Kevin whispers softly.



A.J. glares at him, “Oh I’m sorry if my injured nose is messing things up!” He says angrily, firing a daring glance at Kevin. His voice full of anger and sarcasm as he walks back to the two guys.



Riley hands A.J. a tissue and pats him on the arm. ‘Don’t get mad. We’re working as a team, you gotta calm down. You shouldn’t be bleeding from your nose after using your powers, I’m thinking the virus in you body is acting up with something else.”



“Oh so now it’s a virus! That’s great, real great!” A.J. grumbles as Kevin places a tissue over the bleeding nostril.



Riley bits his lower lip as Kevin sighs. “Looks like it’s gonna be long night.” Riley whispers, leading the guys down the other hallway. They start walking and step over the three corpses on the ground never looking back to see the spilt blood from A.J. bubbling and burning a tiny hole in the ground.

~*~



The door crashes to the floor as Howie, Brian and Nick enter the empty laboratory room.



“I don’t wanna be here.” Grumbles Brian, fear evident as he speaks.



“Rok, it’ll be fine. We just gotta get the medications and join the girls quickly.” Howie says softly looking around the room.



“The camera!” Nick shouts as Brian shoots the small black box tucked in the corner of the ceiling. The bullets shatters the box and it falls down in broken pieces.



“Nice shot, B! Direct hit! You sure you never handled a gun before?” Howie says smiling. Brian shakes his head and manages a grin.



“Nope, Kevin never took me deer hunting, so this is first time I used a gun.” Brian says getting a laugh from Howie and Nick. Brian, Nick and Howie adjust the strap over their shoulder that’s holding the magnums.



The peaceful moment was broken suddenly when the walls in the laboratory room begin shaking. A large iron wall emerges from the ceiling and blocks the front exit and only door in the laboratory room.



“AW, hell no! We getting out of this place!” Shouts an aggravated Nick as his eyes lit up to a fiery blue.



“Easy now Nick, don’t use it until later. It’s not important now. Let’s just the medicine and head out!” Brian states as he tries to calm down Nick.



Nick stares at his friend and whispers a quiet no and with that a trail of fire shoots out from his hand, hitting the iron door. “Give it a few, it’ll burn.”



“Are you sure we’re in the right room? I mean, shouldn’t we have seen the bodies of the doctor and that soldier?” Howie questions, his soft brown eyes examining the room.



Brian nods his head, “AW man, we’re in the wrong room, I knew I should have went with Riley.”



Howie glares at Brian, “That’s foul man. You saw the stupid map too, you should have been paying attention to it!” Howie snaps at Brian.



Brian surprised at Howie’s sudden outburst, smiles. “This is getting to you too huh? You never get mad this quick.”



Howie sighs and nods his head, “I guess so. Either that or I’m hanging around Nick too much.”



Nick looks at them and grumbles, “I ain’t got no anger problem. I just snap every once in a while. It’s not a big deal.”



Brian rolls his eyes and holds back the laughter that was bubbling inside him, “Ok, ok. You’re right Nick, sorry. D didn’t mean anything by it, right Howie?”



Howie rolls his eyes and runs to a large metal shelf where tubes of different colored liquids are in. “Hey you guys, look! We found the medication. Let’s take this back to the doctor and get the heck out here.” Brian and Nick nod and race over the metal shelf. They saw rows upon rows of different solutions in tubes.



“Oh, this is real smart, some of the tubes don’t have label on it.” Mumbles Howie.



Nick smiles and accidentally not noticing his moves, he tips over a cart filled with colored tubes which splashed on Howie’s caramel tan hands.



“NICK! You’re a freakin’ clutz! This crap is on my skin!” Shouts Howie in panic.



“Oh man, I didn’t mean it, I wasn’t watching where I was moving.” Nick states suddenly feeling nervous over the red concoction that landed on his friend.



Brian finds a napkin and help wipes the red liquid off Howie’s skin. “Nick, do you know what that tube contained?” Brian whispers calmly, not wanting to frighten Nick.



“No, I’ll check now. It doesn’t say anything, no label on it.” Nick states, his voice close to stuttering when he’s scared.



“Ok, don’t worry about it for now. Let’s get the chemical off Howie and hope that nothing will happen.” Brian calmly says yet inside he was screaming in pure horror. What if that liquid kills him? What if it’s acid? Come on Brian don’t think that way, Howie needs you, Nick needs. Calm down I can do this.’ Brian thinks to himself smiling at Howie and patting Nick’s shoulder.



Nick leads Howe to a sink to help wash off reminisce of the liquid as Brian quickly searches the cabinets and drawers for the medications. After a few minutes of wander less searching, Brian found what he was looking for. Hidden in a glass case, capped tightly in five different tubes, the labels stated what he wanted. A small glass tube filled with blue liquid has the label Aqua24. The dark purple one next to it is labeled Acid12. Following that tube was one filled with yellow liquid labeled Gebain2. A black liquid tube next to that one is labeled Mystil 4 and the last one in clear liquid the tube is labeled Nystan2.



“K, we got the stuff, let’s hope D don’t get sick from that junk.” Nick whispers nervously. He stops and notices the big grin on Brian’s face and sees the colored tubes inside a tiny glass case in Brian’s hand.



“Oh man you found it!” Howie joyfully shouts and runs to see the glass tubes. Nick stands next to them and laughs. All three hug and laugh.



“We’re gonna be ok you guys!” Brian shouts gleefully.



Suddenly a hissing sound erupts from the walls as a thick green smoke emerges from the wall. Nick lets out a small profanity and watches the green smoke creep over to their direction. “Uh, guys, maybe we should leave now!” He shouts running to the door which is locked from the inside. The iron wall had burned down enough for the door to be reached but it was of no use. The door was locked and they were trapped.



Howie scans his eyes over the thick smoke and starts banging on the walls in desperation. “We have to get out here!” He shouts. Brian backs away from the oncoming smoke and reaches for a knife off an operating table. He begins to stab the wall hoping to get some way for escaping but that was of no use. The walls weren’t hollow and the three men stand there feeling helpless. Howie feels his body burn up with the electrical currents of his gift. His eyes begin glowing a bright red and a voltage shoots out. The electrical energy strikes a hole in the wall enabling them access to an exit. They quickly file through the large gaping hole in the wall and escape the smoky room.



“That was a close call.” Brian says as Nick, the last one climbs out of the hole in the wall. They all nod and walk away with the hissing smoke left to wander in the room. Brian holds the glass case and walks away believing everything is going to be ok. But no one turned back around to see the live electrical currents from Howie’s gifts glow a bright fiery red and melting the room.

~**~



**~TO BE CONTINUED…~**