The Diseased Heart

Chapter 10

Uh oh, what did I do?

I cautiously glanced around at the police officers who lined the walls of the exhibit, straining my eyes to keep them open in the light. Only a handful of people were in sight, but few were within the exhibit. Many stood at the wide doors. The light was stinging my eyes something fierce, but it was bearable for now.

My mind was racing as my heartrate quickened, trying to figure out why they were here. Did one of the three from last night tell? Did I knock something over and they saw? Maybe the security guard actually did see me last night and they checked the cameras. It was possible they were here for something else entirely, but the wsy they looked around the exhibit told me otherwise. It was something about this room or myself.

The way the officers eyed me suspiciously, I had to assume they knew something about last night, they just had to. Even some of the people outside were giving me weird looks. I was getting increasingly more anxious.

I scanned the small group of people that were in this room. One man in a fancy suit seemed to be holding the most of the conversation, while someone in a pristine labcoat motioned toward myself every once in a while. He looked very serious, with short blonde hair that came to just below his chin. He held a file of sorts in one hand, though all its contents were spread out across the nearest table. It's safe to assume this was bad.

That was when I saw Olive walk in, why was she allowed in but the other people weren't? She walked up to the well dressed man, who waved a hand to her as if telling her to wait a moment, before turning back to the scientist or reasearcher or whoever they were. That reminded me of what Olive said last night, her dad owned this place, of course she would be allowed in restricted areas with him around.

We made eye contact. She seemed sad or ashamed as she walked up to the glass. She looked up at me before carefully sticking a paper to the back if the plaque in front of me, somewhere only I would be able to see, before leaving the room again, she didn't say a single word. It seemed none of the offocers around noticed the placing of the small green post-it.

I looked at the note, and squinted slightly to make out the words better with the blinding lights around, but careful so that no one saw. What the note said shook me to my core, and gave some answers I didn't know I didn't want.

I'm sorry. My dad had a tracker on my phone and saw we were at the museum last night. He owns the place, so he checked the security cameras, He saw you.

They know you are alive, but I don't want you to die because of us. You have to find some way to escape and find me and Maple outside in the forest just past the zoo. We can work things out from there.

I looked back at the officers in the room. If they already knew, maybe I could take them off guard enough that I could get an upper hand. I looked for the one who seemed the most jumpy, which was a struggle to find. I settled for the one who was shifting his weight from foot to foot slowly. I made direct eye contact. He was simply looking around the room, and it took him a few minites to look at me. When he did, he did a double take, and I could almost smell the fear off him from across the room. He was more focused on my face, teying to figure out if I had been looking at him before or not, and he didn't notice my Crawler leg extending towards the latch on the door ever so slowly.

I flicked it open in a swift, yet tiny motion. Wait for it...

I watched the rest of the room, but kept facing the one officer. I waited too many minutes in the scorching light for most of them to be looking away from me. Now was as good a time as any.

I snarled loudly at the cop, before I yanked the door wide open and lunged out at him. He screamed full voice and tore his gun from his hip, sending several shots out into the room. Thankfully I wasn't hit, but the rest of the officers may have a say in the matter. They were all shooting at me at this point, radioing for backup, or trying to taser me. I had planned to startle them enough to stall them for a moment, this did not go to plan.

I had to admit, the tasers stung a fair bit, and left pins and needles where they hit, but I could still run. I was stronger than the humans they were built for. Climbing against the wall to run out the door, I caught a glimpse of Olive's father running out the door, and the labcoat wearing somebody staring wide eyed at me. Not in terror, but in astonishment.

I lunged at the opposite wall, using it to spring toward the opening of this room, hoping to evade the officers as much as I could. They were being slaring wirh their shots, as I was now between them and the panicking crowd outside. I took in a deep breath, and ran at my top speed toward the main entrance, doing my best to avoid the mass of people. They all scattered and screamed around me, one person even managed to stab me with a pocket knife, but had run quickly when I snarled at them. The knife was still lodged in my shin, though I had no use for my human legs when running like this, so it slowed me none.

I burst out the front doors, sending shards of blue glass scattering in all directions, a few digging into my skin, but very few actually managed it. The sunlight was being filtered out by the clouds above, but they would soon pass, and the light out here was already causing tears to run down my face. I had only one thought in my mind. Run.

Olive said I needed to meet them in the woods past the zoo, I could see the blurry green mass of shapes from here, but the only safe way there was to run across the zoo. And in broad daylight when I could hardly see, surrounded by terrified people, it still wasn't a safe way. I had no other choice.

With a heavy sigh, I raised my head and let out a Crawler screech at the top of my lungs. People shrieked and the animals all cowered, knowing a top predator was here now, and not wanting to be caught in the middle of what their instincts told them was a hunting session that they could very well be part of. I took a breath and launched myself off the ground, over the roof of the museum, and back down into the pathways of the zoo. People scattered like flies.

I didn't even process what was around me before I bolted, only focusing on what was in front of me. I heard gunshots behind me, but kept running. At one point I had no choice but to cut through one of the enclosures, as a crowd of people stood ahead of me. I climbed over the tall chain link fence, and almost immediately got jumped by a panther. I kicked and slashed at it, but being careful not to truly hurt the poor animal who was just afraid it was my next meal. It aboided my warning strikes, and darted backwards within a second of it attacking me. I had a shallow scratch on a few Crawler legs, but it could be a thousand times worse. I kept running.

I finally managed to get the outer fence in view, or at least the grey wall of splotchy color, and ran to it at full speed, still hearing the chaos unfold behind me. I jumped the fence with no issue, and continued to the treeline where I could already smell Olive and Maple somewhere within the trees. They must have passed by this way for me to catch their scent, which I was definitely glad for, as I could find where I was going much easier by scent right now rather than sight.

I hoped I could find them before someone else found me.