The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
Chapter 6
At the door that led to the private labs a guard sat in a chair fast asleep, his gun beside him. Tukluk reached into his pocket and found a single key that fit the lock. Leading the way down the darkened stairway to the basement he was followed closely by an excited Chuck and a nervous Mike. At the bottom of the stairs was another sleeping armed guard snoring loudly, a pistol strapped to his belt.
“How long will he be out?” asked Tukluk.
“I gave each one enough to keep them out for at least two hours. It was hard to know without their exact body weight, but I’ve seen them around the cafeteria and estimated pretty closely. When they wake up they’ll be too embarrassed to tell anyone, afraid they’ll lose their jobs,” said Chuck.
“Quick, check his pockets. See if there are any keys in there,” said Tukluk.
Mike bent down and carefully checked the guard’s pockets, but he shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Tukluk motioned them to follow him and they found themselves going through another doorway and down a long, gray corridor. At the corner was another armed guard splayed out on a bench, an uzi tightly clasped in his grip.
“Down there,” said Tukluk, pointing to a door at the end of the corridor. “That’s where Todd is. And over there is the new patient,” he said pointing to a door on the opposite end where a guard slept in a chair.
“This is great! I feel like James fucking Bond,” said Chuck.
“Come on.”
Tukluk approached the cell, a large, square room with bars across the front and one barred window on the back wall. Todd was asleep, his back to them as they stood watching him.
“Todd...Todd,” whispered Tukluk.
Todd stirred, then awakened, turning his face toward the entrance of the cell. Seeing Tukluk and two strangers in lab coats, he sprung out of bed and approached them cautiously, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
“What time is it? Who the fuck are they?” he asked, looking at Tukluk.
Chuck moved closer to get a better look at the intriguing stranger in jeans and a black t-shirt. He was tall and fit and had long, golden-brown hair, almost to his waist and his face was ghostly white and fine, with a trim goatee and arresting green eyes bearing a wild, dangerous expression. A long, curved scar ran along his right cheek, a disfiguring blemish on an otherwise perfect face.
“If they want more of my blood they’re going to have to kill me for it,” he spat, with a murderous sneer, eyeing their lab coats suspiciously, placing his hand over the fresh band-aids on his arm.
“Sh-h-h, quiet, Todd. They’re friends,” Tukluk reassured him. “The guards are asleep. We knocked them out.”
Todd rushed up and grabbed the bars.
“Get me outta here!”
“We’ve been checking for keys, but we can’t find any.”
Todd closed his eyes and sighed with disappointment.
“Reese and Crespo are the only ones with keys to this cell,” he said looking at the intricate series of five color-coded locks along the door. “ They informed me of that themselves,” he said defeatedly, walking away from them, leaning his head against the back wall. “I’m never getting out of here.”
“Who are you?” asked Chuck.
“Todd Manning.”
“Where are you from?”
“Llanview, Pennsylvania.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Mike, approaching the cell.
Todd looked up at a nerdy young man, with thick glasses and shaggy, dark hair.
“I have no fucking clue. Three years ago I was lying in my bed, in my home, when a bunch of men in black hoods came in with guns, shot me up with something and brought me here. They told me I was safe, and that my...confinement...would be temporary,” said Todd, looking up at them. “You know if they find you down here, they’ll kill you. Everyone who’s come down here has mysteriously disappeared.”
The men all looked at one another.
“Are you an industrial spy?” asked Chuck.
Todd laughed, looking at the preppy blond man before him.
“Well, there must be a reason why you’re here,” said Mike. “You have no idea?”
Todd stood up. Walking over to a stack of books, he picked up a legal pad and brought it over.
“I have some idea who’s behind it. I have lots of time sitting around this cell, so...I play word games to keep my brain from turning to marshmallow, seeing how many words I can form from one large word. One day I started playing with the name of this place...The Drolrotciv Institute. I got dozens of words...but, when I reversed ‘Drolrotciv’ it read...Victor Lord,” he said, turning the pad toward them.
“Who the fuck is Victor Lord?”
Todd stared at the name.
“That was my biological father, a rich, depraved, twisted bastard who died years ago. He trashed me at birth, but left me lots of money later on,” said Todd. “Maybe this is his way of getting back at me.”
“But you just said he died years ago.”
“Yeah...as far as I know, he did. I don’t really get it.”
Tukluk stepped up.
“The benefactor of this place is referred to as “the old man” and he founded this institute in order to insure his own longevity. Apparently, he wanted to live forever. It’s rumored that he died recently.”
Todd stared at him, a chill running through him at the thought of Victor Lord being alive all this time?
“How would this place insure his longevity?” asked Todd, looking confused.
Chuck smiled.
“Don’t you know what they do here?”
“No. Tukluk is the only one I talk to and most of the time an armed guard is standing nearby so that we can’t talk at all. All my other attendants didn’t speak English. What do they do here?”
A loud bang came from down the hall. They all jumped.
“What the hell was that?” asked Mike, jumping and peering down the corridor.
“I don’t know,” said Tukluk, “but we’d better go.”
“No! Don’t go...please,” said Todd, desperately. “Help me get out of here. ”
“We will, my friend. I promise. But we need to find out what that was. One of the guards might be waking up. We’ll return as soon as we can with a way of getting you out of here,” said Tukluk, shaking Todd’s hand and moving away from the cell.
Tukluk, Mike and Chuck crept slowly toward the sound. It was coming from behind one of the doors at the other end of the corridor where an armed guard sat sleeping. Tukluk tried the knob and found it turned easily.
“It’s not locked.”
He opened the door slowly and pushed it back.
As they stepped carefully by the sleeping guard they entered the room. It was stiflingly hot and filled with all sorts of medical equipment and monitors flashing and beeping, while an entire wall was covered with lighted x-rays of every conceivable body part. In the corner there was a man slumped in a wheelchair, watching them weakly. His eyes were half shut, and he was pale as death.
The three men stared in amazement at the sickly man before them, bewildered by what they saw.
“Oh...my... fucking...God!” whispered Chuck Springer.
*****
2003 Copyright by Trog
FanFiction Home
Home
