The Farm. 17:12:56, Monday July 22, 2002
"Long time no see, Emrys," said Inmate Five to Emrys' ghostly, astral form.
It's been a while, Emrys replied.
"You never came back for me," said Inmate Five. "After your breakout. I ought to kill you for that. However, I'm not entirely surprised."
No, Emrys replied, the voice clear in Inmate Five's head. I didn't think you would be.
"So, then, what now?"
Now ... Emrys said, as the shutters to Blue Sector slid down behind him and the lights went out, now you go back into captivity.
As the air conditioning system began to roar and billow out a cloud of anaesthetic gas into the room, Inmate Five stood, watching the apparition fade. "You know what's coming," he said.
Emrys nodded. I can feel it in the air. Like ... slimy fingers on my skin.
Inmate Five coughed, folded over and sank to his knees. Emrys faded out of the room.
I know what's coming, my dear brother, he said, his words a faint echo heard by nobody. Nobody conscious, anyway.
The Farm. 18:32:04, Monday July 22, 2002
The monitoring room.
"What do you mean, they've gone?" Smudge bellowed down the commlink.
"Sir, they've bolted," came Michaels' voice. "One minute they were okay, and the next ... they were breaking out of the place and stampeding down the road."
"Damn!" Smudge said. "Of all the ..." He paused a moment to compose himself. "Do you have any idea why the cows might have bolted like that?"
The surface.
"None, sir," Michaels said, gazing at the dark, filthy sky outside the big, empty milking shed.
It had been pouring down since about four that afternoon. In spite of that, the temperature had continued to rise, making conditions difficult up top at best. Everyone was drenched with sweat despite the heavy rain outside.
Michaels looked across the courtyard to where the gate had been trampled to the ground, and followed the trail of hoofprints as it led away from the farm, away from the valley and along the main road into town, some ten miles away.
Michaels turned around to look at the injured men. Todmorden and Williams had borne the brunt of the cows' escape attempt. Todmorden had been knocked aside by one of the herd leaders, and Williams had been kicked by another. Both were in a bad way, being tended to by Dr Wilson and Dr Toynbee.
Michaels caught Dr Toynbee's eye. The red haired doctor with the goatee beard looked up from Williams, glanced back at the Corporal, then back at Michaels. He shook his head, sadly.
"Too much damage," he said. "Too much internal bleeding."
Michaels looked over to Todmorden, who'd suffered a concussion and a broken arm, but who was otherwise going to live. Dr Wilson looked up: he looked grim, considering the circumstances, but otherwise his expression gave Michaels hope that at least one of them would survive.
"What can you do, Paul?" Michaels asked.
"Nothing, now," Dr Toynbee said.
"Okay, well I don't want my men to die lying in cowshit," Michaels said. "Can you move them?"
Both doctors gave agreement.
Michaels got back onto the RT unit. "Mother, this is Prodigal Son. Get me Bandler and Smith to help carry the men back home."
"Er, Michaels ..." Smudge said, "we just found Bandler. I'm afraid ... he's dead."
19:56:25.
Corporal James Bandler had been murdered, and the body stuffed down the laundry chute. They'd recovered the body, and brought it to the Infirmary, where it was kept in a sealed room away from Todmorden and Williams.
"Inmate Five did this?" asked Smudge.
"Probably," replied Dr Toynbee, scratching his beard.
"His neck's been broken," said Dr Wilson, touching the face and moving the head; Bandler's head rolled about unnaturally. "Bare hands job, judging by the bruising here." He indicated the bruising on the neck. "Hyoid bone snapped; spinal column snapped here; he did a thorough job."
There was bruising all over the body. "He put up quite a struggle," Smudge said.
"Not really," Dr Toynbee replied. "Inmate Five didn't seem to have so much as a bruise on him. Now unless he has some incredible healing ability we don't know of ..."
"He might," said a voice from behind them. Everyone turned, saw Libra standing in the doorway.
"Civilians are not allowed in here -" blustered Dr Wilson, stepping into Libra's path. Smudge put a hand on Dr Wilson's shoulder.
"He's with me," Smudge said. "Go on."
"Are you aware of the strange gift possessed by one of us?" Libra asked.
"Yes," Smudge said. "We are."
"Well," Libra said, jerking a thumb towards the secure unit nearby, where Inmate Five was being held, "the funny thing about gifts like ours is, you never know who's got what gift. And some of us can heal bruises in a matter of minutes, broken bones in hours." He glanced towards the solid steel doors. "Don't know why or how it happens. It just happens."
Dr Wilson stepped aside, grumbling: but Dr Toynbee couldn't take his eyes off Libra.
"Tell me again about these ... gifts," he said. "How do you come by them again?"
Libra shrugged.
"Are they somehow tied to your ... mission?"
Again, Libra shrugged. "Beats me," he said.
"Can you ... train in them?"
"If I ever heard of anyone training up in their powers, like pumping iron to build muscle," Libra said, "I never heard of it. We just ... have them. No idea how, or why. We just do. And that's the best answer I can give."
Dr Toynbee shook his head in puzzlement, turned to Dr Wilson. "Alan, what you said, about the learning curve of power, and experience acquisition factors ..."
Dr Wilson shook his head. "I don't know, Paul. These people just ... they're nothing we've ever seen before. Vampires get more power, the older they get: and I've met mages who definitely acquired more power, the more they studied, but ..."
"Gentlemen," Smudge said, "this is no time for academic debate. You have patients to care for, one of whom is dying."
"Not any more, he isn't," Libra said, with a huge grin.
Williams was still unconscious, and Todmorden wouldn't be up for another hour or two.
But Williams, to Dr Wilson's and Dr Toynbee's surprise and shock, was going to live.
Somehow, the internal bleeding had gone, the broken ribs had knitted and the damage to the tissues and organs had repaired itself, almost instantly.
But Mary Chesters was almost comatose.
"The strain of repairing all those tissues nearly killed her," said Anastace Deveraux, looking up at Smudge from the bed where Mary had been placed. "She did what she could, but it was almost too late for Williams."
"Why?" Smudge asked Anastace. "Why did she do this?"
Anastace Deveraux looked Smudge right in the eye. Her gaze was calm, almost beatific. "We chosen are not all mad butchers like Five, Colonel. We all have the same mission: to heal the wounds of the world, to somehow help humanity." She looked down at Mary. "Some of us have a great gift of healing, and a great responsibility to the world to use it."
"You do know that she was insane when we caught up with her," Smudge said. "Popping tranquilisers like Smarties, she was. She wanted to end it all, when we brought her here."
"I know," said Anastace. "I'm aware of her ... past."
"Did you know she was also living in denial of her suffering from Munchhausen's By Proxy?" Smudge said. "All those kids she fed Temazepam to in that care home ... mixing it into their food, making them ill ... just so Mummy could kiss it better."
"I am aware of her shortcomings," Anastace said.
"Three children nearly died," Smudge said.
"Yes," Anastace replied. "But since we met, I have been able to coax the pain out of her. We have regular sessions ... I call upon my own gifts and draw out the poison in her soul ... and as a result, she has been able to live a happy and normal life."
"Define happy and normal," Smudge said, taking in the striplights, the steel fittings and the whitewashed concrete walls.
23:58:45.
All was quiet again.
Inmate Five was under sedation in the Infirmary. Todmorden and Williams had been moved out to their quarters to sleep off the worst of their injuries. Somehow, a quiet word and a hand on Todmorden's shoulder by that Brummie Dawson lass had done his arm the world of good - he swore it felt better already as he was leaving the Infirmary.
Libra and Smudge stood by the elevator. They shook hands.
"You've seen the best of us," Libra said, "and the worst of us."
"I think I understand," Smudge said. "You're not really some new sort of ... Thing, are you?"
"Nope," Libra said. "We're just people. Including me."
"Maybe," Smudge said. "You've changed, though, since I knew you, Peck. More ... thoughtful, somehow. Less prone to being a ..."
"Hardnosed bastard?"
"Yeah," Smudge said. "Like you've had your hard corners filed off."
"Chalk that up to the love of a good woman -" Libra said; then his face became pained.
Vestal.
Susan.
He looked at Smudge. "I have to find my woman," he said. "The police said they found her body when they came for me, but it wasn't her. Then they said she hadn't been seen for weeks." His eyes showed genuine concern. "Please, it's been months ... I've got to know ..."
Smudge looked at his old friend. "I'll see what I can do," he said. "But I can't let you leave here." He shook his head. "I'm sorry."
Smudge turned to enter the lift. Libra placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Smudge, wait -"
23:58:57.
On the surface, the rain continued unabated, as it had done continuously since four that afternoon.
Above, there were only two soldiers minding the farm: Corporals Savage and Smith.
"Still no sign of them, Ellen?" asked Corporal Savage, as Corporal Smith ran into the farmhouse, hunched over against the pounding rain.
Ellen shook her head; water flew from her close cropped blonde hair. "No," she said. "Those cows are long gone, Graeme."
"Damn," said Corporal Savage, frowning and running his fingers through his dark hair, "that means we're on black coffee until someone can get to town tomorrow. If the trucks are still running, we can get one of them into town."
"They're running. I fixed them all earlier today. What do you mean about the milk, though?" Ellen said. "It was fresh this morning!"
"I know," said Graeme, holding out the cardboard milk carton. "It just up and went sour, all at once. I can't explain it."
Ellen looked at the milk inside the carton, recoiled in disgust. It hadn't just gone sour. It had grown crusted with fungus of some sort.
"Jesus, it stinks!" she said. "It looks like it's weeks old!"
Graeme ventured a look inside, saw what was happening, dropped the box in horror.
The box bounced on the floor. Rotten, stinking milk and green stuff spilled out of the opening, across the floor.
Graeme looked down, saw the mess, turned to retch -
00:00:00. July 23rd, 2002.
Above, a brilliant flash of lightning cleaved the air and filled the farmhouse with eerie pink light. Thunder rolled, rattling the windows and doors and forcing the soldiers to their knees, clutching their ears in pain.
When the last echoes of the thunder died, they found themselves kneeling on the floor in pitch darkness, an awful ringing in their ears.
Below, as Libra's hand landed on Smudge's shoulder, the lights flickered, dimmed, went out.
The storm had begun.
By: Fiat Knox
Copyright © Fiat Knox, 2001