The Shoebox Pursuit - Part 2 - Footsteps and Shadows

CHAPTER SEVEN

  For the longest of times the house sat still. Its aged wood creaked, and a cold chill whipped throughout the building, causing the place to gently breathe like it was a great entity, rocking and swaying against the outside storm that ravaged its decrepit exterior. If one had an extensive enough imagination, it almost appeared as if the mansion was manipulating the weather, forcing it to lash out at the lone haven, keeping itself encircled by the terrorising conditions.

  At long last there was movement within the structure. Slow, unsteady, feeble. But there were also inquisitive eyes deducing things, making theories, piecing bits of the story together and exploring a trail that had thus far been overlooked. There he was, the most unlikely of heroes, as always looking rather out of sorts in such a place - Specks. It was evident he was in pain, clutching at his stomach with one hand whilst pushing his glasses up with the other, shuffling his way around the house. For once, his compactness had worked to his benefit, and after following a very short trail of scientific breadcrumbs unnoticed, he had discovered more than anyone would believe. How he had got in the mansion and why, he didn’t know. But what he did know was the current situation, and just how life-threatening it really was! After eavesdropping for as long as he could stay hidden, mumbling through an abundance of his own calculations, eradicating all immediate possibilities, he had reached his conclusion. And right now there was only one man that could help him - Billy Random.

  So he searched, little by little, gaining as much distance between himself and the discovery he had just made as possible. He was riddled with shock from his revelations, jumping in fright every time a roll of thunder ripped through the house, and every so often he carefully peeled away the duct tape on his stomach to get a better look at the surgery, which looked yellow, sore, and appeared to be secreting a clear liquid ooze. He shuffled his way deeper into the house, room by room, avoiding eye contact with the creepy paintings, keeping as much to the light as possible and under no circumstances chancing a look in any of the huge and magnificent mirrors, overwhelmed with the fear of something rather sinister lurking behind him in the reflection.

  ‘Billy,’ he whispered in every doorway he came across. ‘Billy, are you there? It’s me, Specks. If you can hear me, say something. The audible responses will make it sufficiently easier for me to locate your whereabouts.’ But there was never a reply.

  His search was tediously sluggish, and seemed frugal, as empty rooms piled up. Until at long last, purely by chance, he landed eyes on his target. Yet it was all too obvious that Billy was in as bad a shape as himself. The young man was slumped up against a wall, barely on his feet, his head hanging low with a few choice bruises apparent on his face, and blood stains on his shirt.

  ‘Billy?’ called out Specks, overjoyed by a bit of good luck at last. His comrade looked up, instantly smiling at the sight of his friend. But as he took a step forward, the intensity of his injuries revealed themselves and he fell to the floor, defeated. Specks moved as quick as he could, wincing with pain as his haste aggravated his wound, finally giving in and dropping to his knees, crawling the last few steps. ‘Billy. Are you well? What happened to you?’

  Specks tried to roll him on to his back, but he lacked the strength.

  ‘What didn’t happen to me!’ mumbled Billy facedown into the carpet, before rolling himself over and forcing out a short, painful chuckle. ‘You okay?’ he exhaled.

  For a while the pair tried their best to help each other. They struggled between themselves to recuperate, finding a way of moving without causing their bodies too much pain, until finally giving up and resting against the wall of the hallway, in an uncomfortable slouch, a little too close for comfort. But neither could be bothered to move again.

  ‘So, what did happen to you?’ asked Specks, studying Billy’s concoction of bruises. He waved off the question with little more than a grunt. ‘Billy, pardon me for asking. But who did this to me?’ he questioned, cautious to mention the subject, but pointing to his wound nonetheless.

  ‘Ha. Me and Charlie. Impressed?’ Even through his exhausted and battered state, Billy seemed proud of himself.

  ‘Unfortunately not.’ Specks pushed his glasses up his nose with a trembling hand, before beginning a stuttered and nervous dissertation, concerning the surgery. ‘The wound itself is infected. This is probably brought on by the exposure to the unsanitary, unsterilised copper you have used against my raw flesh. Or perhaps it’s due to the adhesive glue that’s lining the tape, that is more than likely seeping its way into my open wound. It’s also likely that whoever’s hand entered the wound was soiled, contaminated and left behind toxins my body will try to reject. Everything needs to be removed, cleaned and redone by a skilled hand with sufficient equipment, and under the correct conditions.’

  ‘So… you aren’t impressed?’ asked Billy, a little too hopeful.

  ‘The wound can wait, for now. That’s not what puzzled me.’ He delicately pulled the duct tape away, wincing and quietly squeaking as he did so. He once again pointed to the wound, but more specifically he pointed to some yellow puss formulating around where the copper met the flesh. ‘You see this yellow matter surrounding the insertions and exits? This is where the wound is trying to heal itself around your stitching.’

  ‘And that’s good, right?’

  ‘How long do you think we’ve been in this house?’

  ‘I dunno. A few hours maybe?’

  ‘Billy, this is three or four days’ value of healing,’ explained Specks.

  ‘You what? Not possible,’ interrupted Billy.

  ‘My estimated recovery time is accurate.’

  ‘But… how can that be?’

  ‘Sometimes the obvious answer is the only answer.’

  ‘Eh? What does that mean?’ snapped Billy.

  ‘Billy, my wound has been healing for three or four days,’ replied Specks, being deliberately slow with his words. ‘Now, come with me. I need to show you something.’

  Specks led a puzzled Billy back through the mansion to the room where they had all taken sanctuary. The small geek shuffled over to a seemingly insignificant grate on one of the walls, and ran a finger along the rim of it. He presented it to Billy, covered in a fine white powder.

  ‘This is called oneirogenic general anesthetic. Do you know what that is?’

  ‘Know it? I can’t even say it!’ replied Billy, insulting himself.

  ‘It’s an incapacitating agent, better known as knockout gas. And there are its remnants. It leaves behind a harmless white powder such as this.’ Specks dusted off his finger. ‘Billy, this room has been continuously pumped with sleeping gas for several days. And in closed quarters such as this, multiplied by our own general exhaustion, and the lack of any fresh uncontaminated air supplies, it would be quite effortless to keep us unconscious.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘So my next question was why,’ continued Specks, ignoring the question.

  ‘I think I’ve got a pretty good idea!’ answered Billy, thinking back to his own grave encounter, not so long ago.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m unaware of what happened to you, Billy. But I believe we were induced into our comatose state, to open up the opportunity of time and zero resistance for experimental gain.’ Specks shuffled towards the alcove and flicked the light switch multiple times in quick succession. As expected, nothing happened. ‘No electricity, correct?’ Billy nodded, hopeful this little lecture might lead somewhere of relevance soon. ‘And it’s the same in every room. I checked.’ Billy followed Specks into the hallway. ‘However, there is one exception to the rule.’

  ‘Blimey Specks. Can you hurry this up? We’ve got to find the boys, and fast.’

  Specks reached over to another light switch on a nearby wall and flicked it on, pointing a shaky finger towards the downwards staircase. Sure enough, down there, in the darkness, a single light bulb was lit, slowly swinging from side to side, surging with light, inconsistent in its flow.

&nbsp
; ‘Okay, well done. You’ve found a light that works,’ mocked Billy. ‘But how come there is power down there, but not anywhere else?’

  ‘That’s what I wondered.’

  Very gradually the two injured soldiers made their way down the steps, clutching onto each other like walking aids, until finally they reached the light. They were at the bottom of the stairs, and before them sat a single red door, interesting only in the fact that it boasted a massive succession of locks. Yet they were all unlocked.

  ‘Specks, did you do this?’ asked Billy, intrigued.

  Specks simply grinned in response, his eyes falling to an electrical box to the right of the door, which was open and had clearly been tampered with. Wires were twisted and reconnected in such a way that it was obvious this was the handiwork of the little scientist. Billy hit him on the shoulder in pride, causing them both the utmost of unnecessary pain. Without thinking, Billy went to open the door, Specks grabbed at him, trying to pull him back, almost failing.

  ‘Billy, I feel I must warn you,’ he stammered, his nerves getting the better of him. ‘Especially as you have that temper of yours… and without the presence of Charlie to keep you in check.’ Billy threw Specks a dirty look. ‘Billy, you are going to see things in there that are going to make you very… angry.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I’m a castle of composure!’ quarreled Billy.

  ‘Ha. Yes. Quite. But all joking aside, I’ve not seen anything quite like this before. Definitely nothing of this magnitude. I mean the sheer technology behind it is fascinating. As soon as I understood the purpose to the design…’ But Specks realised his own excitement, and came back to the issue at hand. ‘You have to promise me you’ll keep yourself calm.’

  After a brief argument, consisting of Specks cowering every time Billy moved too fast, Billy eventually gave in, inevitably promising to behave himself within the levels that his comrade begged. As quietly as they could, they opened the door and entered the room. What they saw took Billy’s breath away.

  Specks instantly ducked down behind a metal barrier, dragging Billy with him as best he could. Together they peered over the top and took it all in. Of course they were in the basement, but it had been immensely kitted out, and the room itself was unusually huge. The most imposing and immediate strangeness was the noise - a repeating churn of metal on metal, with a dull undertone of power constant in the background. The entire room had been sculpted out to create a large circular space, rigged with metal girders, which were holding up the rooftop, and running the full length of the room, from left to right, and front to back. Specks and Billy were standing on a metal grilled walkway high at the top of the room, which circled the entire outskirts, with four staircases leading to the bottom. Downstairs, in the centre, surrounded by a profusion of mechanical devices, pipes and cables, was a massive metal structure, similar to a drum - cylindrical, with a wheel repeatedly spinning around in it at an incredible speed. The whole experiment was sitting on a raised metal grated platform, which was very slightly above the uneven ground beneath. However, the real shock was what was plugged into the metal drum.

  There they were, their missing comrades. Charlie, Yankee and Doodle, unconscious, each strapped into individual metal body harnesses, which looked like open coffins, hanging above the ground via thick ropes. They had wires coming out of them, skull caps on, all connecting to a large panel resting just behind their heads, which itself, led back to an unusual control panel on the metal drum. All the while a group of Nazi scientists buzzed about, exchanging ideas and taking notes, paying particular notice to a group of monitor screens that had numerous moving images flashing up on them.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Billy, overwhelmed by the sight, his instincts preparing him to attack. But Specks pinched him. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘You promised,’ he whispered, pointing an anxious finger at the man.

  Billy was furious. ‘Okay, tell me then. What the heck is going on?’

  ‘I listened to the scientists comparing notes. It seems like it’s some kind of virtual simulation machine. It projects images, harnesses your dreams, keeps you suspended in a false reality of your own making. It’s designed to lower the captive’s inhibitions, open up the mind, and learn their secrets.’

  ‘And I bet Charlie was the target,’ remarked Billy, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘I imagine you are correct. Right now they could be getting coordinates for base locations, weaknesses to all our best weapons…’

  ‘Hang on, how come I haven’t been taken and experimented on? What, am I not important enough or something?’ demanded Billy, defensively, sounding rather put out about being excluded.

  ‘How do you know you haven’t already been?’ replied Specks, giving Billy a pensive look over the rim of his glasses. ‘We’ve all been here for an adequate amount of days. Enough time to carry out a considerable quantity of experiments, on five unsuspecting subjects such as us. A number of things could have happened, and we wouldn’t have ever known about it.’

  Billy slyly peered over the top of the barrier and studied the area again. By his count there were twelve Nazi scientists, all of whom looked puny and posed little or no threat. However, stationed far at the back of the room, resting up and smoking were another twelve Nazi soldiers. Half of them looked out of shape, the other half very young, but all were armed. He pulled himself back down and thought for a moment.

  ‘Well, I suppose I can drop down there and get the jump on the soldiers…’

  ‘That is a very illogical idea, Billy,’ said Specks a little uneasily. But he was right, even with his skills, Billy was in no fit state to attack a squadron all by himself. What Billy liked to forget was that every time things had got too much for him, Charlie had always been there to pull him out by the skin of his teeth. The situation was very different to what they were used to. Between the two battered soldiers, the pair had a significant lack of force against an amount of enemies such as this. ‘Besides, it would be highly likely that a gun fight would ensue, and we can’t risk stray bullets flying about with the Captain and the boys down there. No, for this to succeed we will have to try something different.’

  ‘So, what do we do?’

  Specks took off his glasses and fastidiously cleaned them, raising them into a better light to ensure they were smudge free. He pushed them back up his nose, before returning his attention to the situation at hand, slowly peering over the barrier and surveying the extra-large science experiment. His eyes immediately fell to the metal floor holding everything up - he wasn’t sure, but he theorised he could just about squeeze underneath. Almost automatically his eyes snapped to the right of the room, where spools and spools of copper wiring sat on oversized reels - he could always find a reason to use wires! His mind was racing with ideas, but every time he worked them through, they failed, save for one. It was cumbersome, rather outlandish and could be hazardous to the boys - but it was all he had.

  ‘I may have a theory, but I’m missing something. I need a conductor of sorts.’

  ‘You what?’ asked Billy, a little short with the man.

  ‘A… a conductor,’ he stuttered. ‘Something that will not only attract electricity, but also something strong enough to harness it. A thick heavy metal rod.’

  Straightaway, Billy remembered being outside in the storm, apparently days ago, and how eager the lightning was to hit him - it must have been because of his arm.

  ‘I’ve got one,’ he said, pushing his smooth metal arm over to Specks, offering it. Specks shook his head, instantly pushing it away. ‘Will it work?’ But the man refused to answer. ‘Will it work?’ demanded Billy, his voice startling Specks.

  ‘Yes. But…’

  ‘But nothing. You needed something to make your idea work, and this is it. We’ve got to save them.’ Specks looked over at Billy, concern etched across his face. ‘Unless you have a better idea?’ Specks considered all the possibilities for a minute, but shook his head in reply. ‘So what’s
the plan?’

  ‘Overload,’ he replied, grimly.