Secrets and lies

Hospitals always had a strange smell, a mix of antiseptics and sterilizing soaps that permeated the halls and rooms on every floor. On some floors, there were background scents, something you noticed while passing a room along your way; others were so obvious and pungent you wondered to yourself if it was meant to mask over something worse than what flooded your nostrils, a punishment for being so curious. The long stretch of tile and wood finish had a soft ambient light overhead, and from LED lights under the wide wooden hand banisters bolted to the walls, therefore, for those too weak to walk under their own power or recuperating from whatever they suffered from before coming here. All around, a pleasant melody from an oldies radio station played in the background through intercoms, occasionally cutting abruptly for nurse calls and secretary invoices.

Walking softly, even with heavy leather boots on, Officer John Clemens made his way down the intensive care wing of the Saint’s Peace hospital, his patrol hat held near his chest as he looked through each door window to check where he was going. Making his way to a single large room marked 4B, he looked over into the wide door window to spot the back of a doctor writing into a report clipboard as rows of beds lined the walls ahead, nearly a dozen on each side. Tapping the plexiglass window to get their attention, the doctor turned to see the officer and nodded, letting him in. The ageing, grey-haired man stepped back to give the officer room to enter as the door clicked shut behind him. The faint hiss of disinfectant filled the corners of the doorframe as the two shook hands.

"Hello doctor, you wanted me to see something, right? Something about an animal attack?" Asked John as the doctor nodded and led him down the room.

"Attacks, plural, but yes, come with me, I'll show you." There was a clicking sound with every second step the man took, the sound of a copper brace hitting the tiles as his prosthetic leg helped him along, walking somewhat hobbled, but quickly, showing he had worn the fake leg for some time in his life. "At first, we contacted animal control once the first couple of folks were wheeled in, and we diagnosed their wounds... But they just kept coming, more people were being brought in overnight, our ambulance drivers were having a fit just getting them here fast enough."

As the man talked, Officer Clemens looked to the rows of beds he came across, each one occupied and each one a sorry sight. The man felt his limbs go cold when he caught sight of a ten-year-old girl asleep with a morphine drip to her arm and a bandaged stump where her right leg once was.

"Are you listening to Officer Clemens?"

"Hmm? What?" Blinking the afterimage out of his mind, he turned back to the stern look of the Doctor he walked with as the older man tapped at his clipboard in annoyance.

"I said we first believed these attacks were from some vicious animal, but now we're not so sure."

Pointing to the people in the beds to his left, he continued. "Just look at the officer, see anything unusual?"

Swallowing hard, John took a slow walk around five occupied beds, each heavily medicated after their operation with a bandaged stump. But he did notice a pattern, one so glaringly obvious the prospect of it being random evaporated from his mind. "Their right leg... They're all missing their right legs."

"They are NOW, they had to be amputated after the trauma they endured before arrival, it's not enough that something tore at their flesh, but the bones were very nearly pulverized, we had to act fast, or these people would have bled to **** or suffered severe infection from their lacerations."

"So, what are you telling me? We've got some sadists in our town. Someone with an attack dog striking these people, maybe one trained to bite a specific spot?"

"No! Heavens no, if it WERE a dog, there would be bite marks. No dog in the world is big enough to do what these patients endured. These people were mauled with claws, and we're talking BIG claws."

Stepping over to a sleeping patient, his clicking foot echoing in the room, the doctor lifted a clipboard from the nearby bed and flipped it to a page of X-ray photos. "A Rottweiler has the biting strength of over 300 pounds. Whatever tore through this man's leg made gashes two inches deep, then crushed the leg bone with the **** of 1200 pounds!"

Pointing to the image of the bone splintered like shattered glass, he flipped to photographs of the wounds before operating. John brought his arm up to cover his mouth in the hopes he wouldn't throw up on the spot. Blood caked, foaming, and mangled over the table, the patient's leg wounds looked like something out of a shark attack video.

"This is NO dog, Officer, I don't know what wounded these people, but I do know it was big, vicious and above all else... Methodical. Here are the locations these people were picked up on the nights they were discovered and called in."

Pulling a piece of paper out of his coat, the doctor handed it to John, who quickly unfolded it and read its contents. Although none of the addresses were localized to a single spot, they did have one thing in common: they all dotted the borders between the town of Golden Maples and the forests, particularly along the freeway's outskirts and at Gullywood farm.

"Thanks, Doc, I'll let you know if I can find what did this, p-please let me know if and when your patients wake up and let me know if they remember anything from when they were attacked."

Nodding, the good doctor made to go back to one of his patients when something caught his attention. Reaching into his coat pocket, the man pulled out an orange sheet of children's paper and handed it to John to look at for himself.

"Well, there is this. One of the children you passed by drew this before we gave her a sedative to help her sleep. Kept saying it was watching her at night from the window of her bed, the same thing that took her leg... Poor girl."

Giving a nod of thanks to the older man, John turned and stepped out, coughing out a breath of revulsion as he folded the list into his vest pocket and cleared his mind of the pictures he saw. Regaining his composure, a thought came to mind two weeks ago, about a car crash just outside the freeway leading into town, just a mile from Gennex Laboratories.

"Sara Avanti... " Remembering the car door and the woman found outside the wreckage, he had to wonder now, did this 'attacker' first start with her? And if so, why didn't it hurt her like the others? Was she involved? Was there anything he missed? Planning, John Clemens took a very quick walk out of the hospital, his mind swimming with questions as he tried to digest the facts he received. Remembering he still had the orange-coloured paper in his hand, he unfolded it and looked at the drawing with confusion and worry.

The girl used a black crayon to draw a shaggy-looking thing standing over her; a couple of smears of yellow crayon wax made out the thing's eyes, along with the long claws on its arms and its teeth. Folding it back up, he put it in his vest pocket for safekeeping.

"I don't feel good about this..."

***

She felt fantastic!

Sara smiled to herself as she held a vial of her completed work delicately between her fingers. She had done it; using the blood samples she had taken from Doctor Simmons and the other Amalgams in the woods, she had concocted a working serum from their Phage-poisoned genetics. A serum that could offer temporary spontaneous regeneration WITHOUT being turned into a twisted hybrid of animal genes in the process. It was a long and difficult process; she didn't want to do too much to the Phage already running through the samples she had taken days before. It was so sensitive to manipulation that it practically disintegrated if a single gene was misaligned during splicing. But now she had it, a working serum in the palm of her hand. She couldn't contain herself.

Dr. Avanti was so pleased with the results she practically giggled like a schoolgirl, spinning in her stool with uncontained glee... Which, sadly, grabbed the attention of her two lab partners nearby.

"You look pretty chipper." Spoke Dr. Gregor, leaning back in his stool to feign interest in Sara's personal jubilation. "What's that you have there, anything worth sharing?"

"No, Edwin... Just a side project I've been working on, and none of your business either." Putting the vial into a metal container with a few others she had been working on, Dr. Avanti placed them in a safe built into her desk, spun the tumbler to ensure it was locked, then stood up when she was done, turning to her curious co-workers at the exit to their lab. "But speaking of projects, aren't you both supposed to be helping me on the cell-regen serum? How far have YOU come?"

Backed into a proverbial corner, the two scientists looked to each other with wounded pride before glaring back at Sara, her smile returning when they couldn't produce an immediate answer.

"Well... We... We just haven't found much inspiration with the data we've come across. Most of this research burned up in the explosion, honestly, what do you expect us to find here?!"

Smiling wider at the two gentlemen across the lab, Sara was about to rub in her success when the overhead PA sounded. ~Dr. Avanti, Dr. Sara Avanti, please come to the front lobby. There is Officer Clemens here to see you. ~

"Ooh... BUSTED!" Jeered Roberts, pointing at her with both hands like mock revolvers as Dr. Gregor gave a face of jovial worry. Rolling her eyes and stepping to the door, she swiped her ID card over the door lock and looked over her shoulder at the two, giving each other a high-five as they laughed.

"Maybe he's here for you two, the both of you are so stupid it's almost criminal..."

Stepping out as the plexiglass door closed and locked into an air-tight seal, both Edwin and Dave looked at each other before turning back to their work.

"Fucking bitch... Like that bimbo has one over us."

In truth, neither man had anything substantial to show their superiors; what little research survived the explosion two years ago consisted of the documents on the failed attempts and scribbled notes from the four late scientists involved. With nothing to start from, they had nothing to progress with. It was only a matter of time before the company would look at their empty hands and start asking whether to keep them on board for the project. Seeing the door and back to their missing compatriot’s desk, the two doctors traded looks.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Asked Edwin out loud as he turned to look at the safe at Dr. Avanti's desk, his fingers twitching together. "How far along is SHE that she can do pet projects during her work hours?"

***

With her heels echoing a clicking noise in the busy hallways and corridors of the lab complex, Sara huffed out in exhausted annoyance. Looking to the neighbouring labs attached to her own, she passed a pair of researchers on their way back from lunch. The two, oblivious to her presence as they walked back to their lab room with a stack of open documents shared between them, had Sara move to the left to get out of their way, then kept walking toward the exits, making a sour face as she continued. Steeling herself, she closed her eyes and controlled her breathing, centring herself to calm her nerves.

Dozens of scientists and doctors were busy with the Phage retrovirus and the serums it had helped Gennex create. It was such a magnificent piece of genetic research that it opened thousands of possibilities in medical sciences and practices. To be able to borrow the gifts of other life forms and use them for yourself; To make the blind see again, the weak and feeble to regain the strength to stand, the mentally diminished to take their dignity back from such diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, and plain old senility. There truly was no limit to what this research could accomplish, but it could also cause horrific damage. Dr. Simmons and her... The pack was proof of that. She and the others had spent at least a year on the cell regeneration project, and all their efforts were rewarded with being turned into monstrosities and banishing themselves to the wild for their own safety.

In a way, she pitied them.

Opening her eyes and regaining her calm, she flashed her ID card at every door leading her way out. Sara huffed in annoyance again as the archways between doors sprayed a dusting of disinfectant over her hair and clothes before letting her out, the door sealing itself behind her with an electronic lock as she walked on to the elevator down to the main floor. Wrinkling her nose, Sara scoffed to herself alone in the elevator car, her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall and whispered to herself.

"Annoying little weasels, I'd be surprised if those two self-serving buffoons I'm stuck with could actually come up with something they COULDN'T plagiarize!" Closing her eyes again, she practiced her breathing, calming herself down, steadying her heart.

By the time she made it to the lobby, she had gone through four disinfectant screenings and a hundred yards' worth of long hallways. Irritation was written all over her features as she came up to see the policeman standing with his back turned, his hat held at his side, while a heavy folder was tucked under his other arm. He tried to look interested in a potted plant decorating the front automated doors when he caught sight of her at the sound of her heels across the hallway.

"Officer Clemens? I believe you wanted to see me?"

Turning sharply and placing his hand out to greet the young doctor, John smiled before asking Dr. Avanti for a place to sit. Nodding her head, she gestured to a grey 'L' shaped couch and coffee table set up at the corner of the lobby, the tall glass windows showing a view of the parking lot and high fencing that bordered the lab complex as the two sat down and talked.

"Dr. Avanti, do you remember me from a couple of weeks ago? The car crash just outside the freeway? I have some questions. If you could answer them, they may be relevant to your accident from back then."

"Why... Yes, I do remember you. Is there a problem, officer?"

Placing the folder out onto the coffee table, John opened it and spread out a series of files and photos for the woman to look at, her glance widening as some of the photographs revealed disturbing pictures of mutilated people lying in stretchers and hospital beds.

"Over the last few days, there's been a series of attacks around the area where your car crashed. The doctors have told me these might be animal attacks, but they're not so sure..."

Gathering the photographs from the coffee table and setting them back in the folder, John pulled out the case files for each attack and a map showing the locations and times of the attacks.

"From what I can tell, we have a psychopath out in the woods, and there might be a chance that you were his or her first victim."

"Victim?"

A cold feeling crept up Dr. Avanti's legs after looking at the photos, making her nervous as she instantly recognized that the spots on the map were at the edge of the forests bordering the town, just a couple of miles from the Amalgam's cave out in those very woods.

"But I didn't see anyone, all I saw was the deer before I swerved out of control and then... Nothing."

"And I believe you, but I checked with the repair shop in town, who went over your car, and what they told me was that the damage to your driver's side door was caused by something tearing it off, and NOT by your impact."

The pictures from the folder were of Sara's sedan. The front of the vehicle was folded into a horseshoe shape by the tree she struck, with the left side crumpled and dented, and the driver 's-side door missing.

"From what they described, it was as if your door had been grabbed by a hydraulic cutting tool and pried off by its own hinges."

Hugging herself, Sara breathed in deeply, her eyes still lingering over the pictures the officer brought with him from the hospital. It took his voice to break her away from the photos.

"What I'm asking Dr. Avanti is, can you remember ANYTHING from that night? Anything at all?"

Sara bit her lip, hesitating to answer as she went over the photos. Were Dr. Strentum and the others attacking people? Why? Have they always been doing this? No. He said these were recent. Just what had she gotten herself into?

"I'm only asking because I'm worried for you, these attacks are... Inhuman to say the least, and the last thing I'd want is for you to get hurt."

Looking up at the man's brown eyes, down at the folders, the table, and then back to him, Dr. Avanti closed her eyes briefly before exhaling a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Sorry officer, I-I just don't remember too much about what had happened, it was dark, and it all happened so fast..."

Nodding slowly and gathering his things, John tucked the folder under his arm before pulling a card from his pocket. "Well... If you DO remember anything, here's my extension number from the sheriff's office."

Accepting the card, she looked it over and found a scribbled number at the back.

"What's this number?" Seeing Officer Clemens as he put his hat back on, he seemed to look pensive before answering.

"It's my home number, just in case." Stepping out with the automatic doors sliding open to give the man space, John walked out of sight as he went to his car.

Sara tucked the card into her lab jacket as she watched the man disappear into the throng of parked cars out front, then turned sharply and walked back to her lab.

"What is going on here? They never said anything about hurting people. Have they been doing this the whole time?!" Making her way alone to the elevator, she pressed her back against the side wall as she pulled the card back out to read, doubt in her eyes as she worried more and more.

"Still... It was nice to see someone interested in my well-being, handsome too."

Catching herself blushing, she tucked the card back in her coat before walking out of the elevator doors as they creaked open, steeling herself for another series of anti-septic sprays to her lab door.

***

Officer Clemens parked his police cruiser on the curb of the road. The cut from the freeway leading between Gennex Laboratories and the town farther down ahead of him was layered with fresh, falling snow. The mid-day sky grew dark and churning as the snowfall continued gently, without a breeze to direct it. In the background behind him, the noise of honking cars and trucks from the freeway was an audible mess as he began his trek up the road on foot, leaving his cruiser behind him. He stepped over to the crash site from two weeks ago. With the foliage now bedding the ground after autumn's pass and the coming winter bringing the first flakes of snow, the trees looked like blackened fence posts, tall and gnarled even without leaves; they made a darkened maze he had no desire to venture into.

Making the short walk to the crash site, Officer Clemens took out his flashlight to get a better look at the area. Crouching down as he sifted through the leaf litter and snow, he found bits of broken bark and metal chips from the impact. The tree that bore the brunt of the head-on collision sported scars and flayed bark from the crash; the ground, once wet and muddy, still had the tire tracks from when the car was towed, now frozen with the coming cold.

"Nothing new here." He said to himself, shaking his head as he helped himself back up, wincing somewhat as he turned to the other spot of his interest.

Walking across the road, he went over to where the car door had landed. Unlike the vehicle it belonged to, the thing remained on the ground, leaves and snow caking its remains as the police officer wiped away the dirt and muck to look at it more clearly. The metal surface was gouged, as if something had carved into it. Looking at it more closely, John pressed his hand against the door's surface and slowly lined his fingers and thumb with the rusted scars.

"It almost looks like..."

Narrowing his eyes, he set the door back down on the dirt and gravel, standing back up to his feet as he scratched the back of his head in confusion.

"There's no way that it looked like a handprint, absolutely no way, how could someone be strong enough to grip into solid metal like it was paper?"

Then something caught his eye. Across from his cruiser, he could see car tracks frozen in the dirt. Even with the dead leaves and falling snow, he could make them out as he walked over to inspect them. Someone has been coming here regularly. John could make out some of the tracks crisscrossing into each other until ditches in the frozen mud had begun to develop.

"Who's been coming here all this time? Could it be the attacker?" Crouching down again to look at the tire marks on the ground, he traced his gloved finger over the distinct tracks, the cold mud yielding to his fingers. "Whoever it is, they were here recently, but why?"

Looking up to the edge of the treeline, he began to wonder if the answers he was looking for were in there, in the maze of the forest between the road and town. Just as he got up, he heard something, or more precisely nothing, the space becoming deathly quiet as the local birds stopped chirping and the commotion from the freeway far behind him lulled in activity. A light crunch of snow behind him made John tense as he felt someone behind him. The instant he turned around, a bellowing roar boomed out as he was met with a backhand so strong it sent him on his back across the other side of the road. Rolling as he landed roughly, Officer Clemens looked up with panicked eyes. There, standing twice his height, was a monster, covered in dark red fur and baring teeth as long as butter knives. The giant abomination snarled as it slowly approached, brandishing its claws like sickles.

"What the flying FUCK ARE YOU?!"

Holstering his sidearm, John aimed at the creature mere meters from his spot on the frozen mud, breathing hard as his heart boomed in his chest. The monster regarded his weapon briefly before John fired a full clip into its chest and stomach. Lurching back with each shot, the thing roared and gurgled with pain as blood splattered from its wounds.

Coughing up blood, just as John went to reload, the beast snapped up with lightning speed and grabbed him by the neck, swatting his gun away like a toy as he was brought close to the creature's flaring nostrils.

"Grrr... So, I was right, the tiny bitch DID betray us and brought this squirming morsel to our forests..."

John gasped for air as he looked eye to eye with the beast holding him up, gripping its massive arm for dear life. He tried to turn his head away from the furnace-hot breath the thing possessed, the rank stink of blood and rot wafted into John's face and nearly made him puke as he was shaken roughly in the creature's claws. The monster looked like some werewolf, only werewolves didn't have giant horns or a big, long tail swatting behind them, with big spikes jutting out of its back. The fact that it spoke stunned the officer into silence before he found the strength to gasp.

"The fuck... Are you... Freak?"

With a smile that revealed a twisted bear trap of a grin, the beast hissed in mirth as he tossed the police officer into the windshield of his own cruiser, the man's cries cut short to the sounds of shattering glass and breaking bones.

"I am an AMALGAM human; I am the future of these woods... And you are not."

Stomping up to the side of the car as John fumbled numbly inside. John was throwing up blood from the impact when the Amalgam grabbed hold of the door and pried it off its hinges with ease, tossing the offending metal object over his hunched back as he watched Officer Clemens struggle to escape inside.

"So weak... So pitiful..."

Grabbing onto the man's leg, he pulled John out of the open side, dangling him from his broken ankle as blood dripped from the wounds in his back and arms. "Shall I eat you here? Or take your leg like the others?"

Raising his prey higher to look at him better, the Amalgam was caught off guard by the flare gun John had raised and fired point-blank into its open mouth, having found the emergency flare in his glove compartment before he was pulled out. The monster dropped John like a stone. The deafening roar made the man double over into a fetal position on the frozen earth as the Amalgam screamed in pain. The flare had fired straight into its open mouth and ignited, the fur and flesh along its face catching on fire as it thrashed in blind pain. Stumbling backward and clawing the flare from its gaping mouth, the Amalgam howled in agony as it dove into the trees, its cries growing distant as the monster disappeared, even after the smoke had faded in the cool winter air. Coughing and rolling onto his side, John grimaced as he found he couldn't move his legs, dragging himself back into his cruiser. It took him 3 minutes to grab hold of his radio with bloody fingers and call in dispatch for help. He passed out in the snow when shock finally claimed him.

***

"Come now, this has GOT to be the right combination!"

With the hallways dark and most of the staff gone for the night, Dr. Gregor kept his ear to the safe as he slowly rotated the combination dial. Dr. Roberts sat nearby, tapping a pen on his counter, impatiently watching the man work.

"Are you sure about this? How do we know she has anything worth looking at in there? For all we know, her pet project was Jasmine food colouring."

Snorting in disgust, Edwin continued to slowly turn the dial, waiting for the click of each tumbler he set off, then carefully moved the dial in the opposite direction for the next piece in the combination. "If you don't mind, this is very delicate work, so please be quiet."

With a pause, he went back to the safe's lock dial. David and Edwin had stayed behind after Sara left, giving their higher-ups the memo that they would remain for extra research. They suspected their co-researcher, Dr. Avanti, was keeping a few secrets from them, secrets they felt needed to be shared with them. For over an hour, Edwin had been tinkering with the padlock to Sara's desk safe, twirling the dial back and forth to find the combination.

"By the way, Edwin, how'd you ever learn to crack a safe?"

"Oh, it's something you can pick up easily if you have the patience for it; it certainly helped out when I finished my papers on selective cellular mitosis."

Snorting at the man's answer, Dr. Roberts skimmed through Sara's paperwork before dropping it on the lab table. "So, it WASN'T you who wrote that little gem? Why, then, did they?"

Smirking as he leaned his ear against the safe door, Edwin looked over to his accomplice with a knowing look. "Can't seem to remember, last I checked, he's made a lovely home for himself in a refrigerator box off by the railroad tracks in Boston... Or was it Detroit? Hmm... Well, that's what happens when you don't write a patent for your work quickly enough." The two shared a quick laugh until Edwin raised his hand to tell David to be quiet.

"Almost... (click) There." With a final tick, the lock finally gave way, the door popping open as the smiling doctors pulled it open to look inside. There, sitting on its own, was a small tray of vials, along with a binder filled with Sara's research notes and findings. "Well, well, what have we here?"