Chapter 24: Running
Jodi’s grandmother had always been a great believer in fate. She believed everything, no matter how small o large an event, was there to serve a greater purpose. Jodi had always been skeptical of this theory, but now enough had occurred already to make her question her skepticism.
The accidental meeting of Nate, Alice and Richard in the woods had been the beginning of events that had shaped her life for the past two years; such profound events that it was difficult to imagine that they might not have happened had Jodi flown the motorbike even half a kilometre on either side of where she had. Grandmother would have claimed it was fate that had guided her steering then.
Not just event, but her grandmother believed that event the people she had met and mere yet to meet was all part of a greater plan. Perhaps Jodi was right to be skeptical, or perhaps her grandmother was more right than Jodi would ever comprehend.
For mere days after Laurie had told her story to Jodi in the back of a truck heading to Melbourne, here was the person Laurie had spoken of. The impossibility sent her head reeling.
“but you –”she swallowed. “but you’re supposed to be dead!”
Aaron blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Laurie!” Jodi stood up, “Laurie killed you! You were a vampyre, how can you be here?”
Aaron reached over and grabbed her wrist to stop her backing away. “you know Laurie?”
Jodi gulped and nodded. “But she told me you were dead. You killed you children.”
Aaron eyes grew wide and a choking sound was released from his throat. He let go of her wrist and fell back, the heel of his palms were pressed into his eyes.
“no.” He moaned.
Jodi watched him for a long moment, unable to make sense of what was happening.
Finally he let out a loud sniff. “I always knew it was a possibility. In fact I knew deep down they must’ve died. But hearing it...”
He shook his head and looked at Jodi. “I wasn’t there, remember? That day I was with Jonas. I’d left the kids in the care of my brother.”
Jodi’s eyes widened in comprehension; he must’ve been the vampyre Laurie had killed. “was your brother wearing your leather jacket?”
Aaron shrugged. “don’t remember. It was too long ago. But he liked that jacket. It’s possible he could have put it on.” He sighed. “so he’s dead too, huh? All dead ... except Laurie.” He spoke to Jodi with a heart-wrenching yearning in his voice. “where’s my wife?”
Jodi’s mind started working again at his words. “I don’t know. She’s with the others, remember?”
Aaron stood up abruptly. “my wife’s back from the dead. God can’t keep her away from me now.”
Aaron began walking towards the wall behind him. Carefully he began opening one the cupboards under the counter that was bolted into the wall.
“what’re you doing?” Jodi watched as he pulled out glass instruments out of the cupboard and placed them quickly but carefully on the floor beside him.
“escaping.” He replied.
Jodi watched him pull out the inner shelf of the cupboard and position himself in a crouch as he placed his right leg in the interior of the empty space he had made. To her it looked as though he was going to climb into the hollowed out cupboard.
“I don’t think you understand the concept of escaping” Jodi said to him.
“what do you mean?”
“I believe hiding is not an acceptable form of escape.”
Aaron rolled his eyes and didn’t answer. He drew back his leg and then slammed his foot into the wall inside the cupboard. There was the sound of wood splitting and then a hollow slap, as though a board had fallen flat on the ground.
“what the...?” Jodi exclaimed.
“you coming?” called Aaron as he crawled into the cupboard and disappeared.
Jodi squatted on the ground and peered into the space. The wall on the back of the cupboard was now a tiny doorway. Beyond it she could see the darkened interior of a separate room. Bewildered, she bent forward and crawled through, until she found herself in a dark, long storeroom with doors on either end.
“I made this escape way back and the beginning of the thirteen years I’ve been here. Just in case.” Aaron said as he helped her to her feet. He nodded over to the door closest to them, which had light shining through the crack below it. “that door is unlocked. We’re in the interior of the building so it would take a while to get back on the road, but right now, that’s not where I wanna be.”
“me neither.” Jodi said, her anxiety building as she thought of her friends, injured and trapped somewhere in the building.
At least, she hoped they were in the building.
“where do we go?”
“now hang on a minute.” Aaron placed a hand on her shoulder. “your friends should be with Laurie, right? I’ll free them. You get out of here as fast as you can.”
Jodi shrugged of his hand. “this place could be crawling with vampyres. We’ll be better off if we stick together.”
“even if we did come across the mutants, you have nothing to ward them off. You’re their prisoner. They’ll see you’ve escaped and rip you apart!”
“oh I’m sorry. Were you locked in that room because you wanted to be?” She bit out sarcastically. “face it, mate, you’re as much a prisoner as I am.”
They glared at each other for full minute before Aaron sighed. “fine.”
“fine” Jodi agreed. “but you did have a point. What are we going to do if we come across the vampyres. They’ve changed so much, I can’t use their old weaknesses against them if they don’t have them anymore.
“what do you usually do?”
“blow their heads off with my gun.”
“Ah ... classy.” Aaron chuckled, though there wasn’t really anything comedic about the situation. “but we have no weapons like that. Which means, we’ll need to make plan.”
Jodi felt impatience cause a bristling feeling all over her body. sit down and make a plan? While Jake was out their being tortured by vampyres. And Nate and Damien? “we don’t have time for that!”
Aaron shook his head. “going without a plan would put us in danger. And that means there’ll be no one to save Laurie.”
“monsters are out their eating my baby brother, while we stand here wasting time!” Jodi hissed, panic beginning to cloud her judgment. An image of Marge as she was consumed before her flashed in Jodi's mind. What if that was Jake right now?
“that’s not going to happen. Calm down Jodi.”
“don’t tell me to be calm!” Jodi's voice became unintentionally loud and suddenly there was a noise outside the door behind Aaron. Jodi covered her mouth to suppress a gasp and riled against her own stupidity. Silently, they waited for something to identify the noise.
Seconds ticked past and Jodi felt moisture build on her upper lip and in the clothing under her arms.
Another sound ... followed by several more in quick succession; The sound of bare feet slapping on linoleum floor. The steps were irregular, as though the owner had a heavy limp.
Or was deformed.
Jodi desperately looked around for any weapon to use when the owner of the footsteps discovered them.
The footsteps grew louder and louder, until a shadow interrupted the line of white light that shone from beneath the crack under the door. For Jodi it seemed that moment happened in slow motion, her adrenalin was so high.
One shadow ... then two; the shadows of legs. They moved in time with the footsteps.
For a full second the shadows remained in sight before the door. And then they receded.
Jodi breathed a sigh of relief.
Until the footsteps stopped.
The sound of a key being inserted into a lock and then turned.
A click as the lock was released.
Then a tiny tap of metal against metal, that was magnified in the suffocating silence.
A door handle was being turned, fully.
The next sound would be the sound of metal sliding on metal and the hinges were released when the door of the room next to them was opened.
The room that they had just escaped from.
Jodi spun around to face the gap in the wall that was still there. When the owner of the footsteps discovered the room was empty, they would inevitably seet he cupboard that they had crawled through, that Jodi had carelessly left open. A quick peek would reveal their escape route ... and them!
Aaron was faster than she was. He grabbed the handle of the door in front of him and timed the opening to coincide with the other door, so that the sound was disguised. A quick peek out and then he was running, Jodi just behind him. The sudden light hurt her eyes and she strained to see. He reached the doorway of the other room and slammed it, locking the door automatically. A shout was heard from the inside of the room.
“lock that door!” Aaron yelled and Jodi slammed the door behind her, hearing the click of a second lock.
Aaron grabbed her hand and dragged her in the direction that footsteps had entered from. Jodi’s eyes were adjusted to the light now an she saw they were running down a long corridor and through the door at the end.
“why ... are we running?” she gasped when she heard the slam of the door swinging closed behind them.
“he still has a key.”
“who –” Jodi gasped out,, unable to ask the question between breaths, her adrenaline forcing her to breathe too quickly.
“mutant.” He answered. He led them down a maze of corridors. Left, right, right, through a door, right, down three flights of stairs, left, left, left.
“where ... are we ... going?” she panted out as she bent down and grasped her knees, when they’d finally stopped to rest.
“if ... if Jonas has all of them imprisoned together ... they’ll be somewhere where a lot of mutants ... can ... watch them.”
“Aaron.” Jodi caught his eye. “where are the mutants that were ... supposed to watch us?”
“what do you mean?” he responded, his breathing finally slowing down. “we locked that one up.”
“we locked one. You’d think that Jonas would keep as least a back up, and why isn’t the one we locked up coming after us? Do you think ...” Jodi paled at the concept. “do you think they’re going to ambush us? That the one we trapped went off with the back up to trap us somehow?”
Aaron shook his head. “mutants aren’t capable of such forward thinking. “
“two weeks ago I would’ve agreed with you. But the vampyres that attacked us last night definitely had a plan. They somehow spontaneously gat smarter.”
Aaron frowned in confusion, and then a look of realisation crossed his face. “he’s activated the satellite.”
“what?” Jodi was confused. “I thought the satellites were always on.”
“remember I told you Jonas has been working on something to do with the satellites ever since the attack. Something that he’s been making me help him with? He made me build the control base that could activate the satellites remotely an upload new programs to control the mutants. He’s moving on from the gradual process. He’s making them smarter, less resistant and more powerful.”
“I don’t under –“
“he’s making his humanoid race. As we speak the plan is being set into motion.”
Jodi felt horror seize her insides. “what do we do?”
“deactivate the satellite.”
“how do we do that?”
He looked at her. “no we. Me. Laurie and your friends still need to be saved. You need to get to them. Try the basement, that’s where the containment cell are. You’ll recognise them, you were locked in them before.” A memory of the thick walled room where she, Jake and her grandmother were trapped during the attack came to Jodi, and she nodded. Aaron acknowledged this and continued. “ I’ll deactivate the satellite. The mutants can’t survive without those satellites.”
“what if the vampyres trap one of us on the way?”
Aaron glanced behind her.
“I think it’s too late to consider that.”
Jodi turned to see what he was looking at that had made him suddenly so pale.
Behind her were shapes shining in through the large floor to ceiling windows. They were climbing up the outside of the glass, even though they were several storeys up, scaling the glass with lizard-like ability, so silent that Jodi could still hear her own breathing. “two, three ... no five.” Jodi counted under her breath as they appeared from outside the view of the window. Their eyes gleamed wetly, catching the light reflected off the windows. The rest of their faces were in shadow, silhouetted against the sunlight.
With determined purpose they moved towards the only open window, at the very centre of the wall to wall panels. A single, deformed hand with six, thick calloused fingers and a thumb reached under the sill and opened the window wider.
It opened reluctantly, the screeching sound sending a jolt through Jodi’s body, and finally, as her heart began racing louder, her mind started working again.
“Run.”
Aaron glanced at her, blinking as though waking up from sleep
The adrenaline rush came to both of them at the same time, as though their brains had been jumpstarted.
“Aaron ... RUN!!”