26.
A plan has formed itself inside of my head. Utmost stupid I didn’t think about it earlier, but that’s just the way it often goes.
I now know Noël or someone else is probably keeping an eye on me at this moment on the television screens and this makes the success of my plan difficult, but not inoperable. All I need is a good portion of luck and hopefully an observer that can’t master his sleep.
I pull out the dress and put on my shirt that, in the meantime, lies washed and dried on my bed, after which I get in bed to supposedly go to sleep. I shouldn’t have drunk that much wine, because it makes it harder to stay awake. I’ve got the feeling Selena will honor me with an injection visit again tonight and so I need to perform my plan beforehand, before I’m to weak to transform well.
I wait about two hours by counting the seconds and minutes as carefully as possible. Deadly dull, but a necessary evil. It’s a guess, but I think that Selena’s visit will be around midnight.
I pretend to grab a pillow to hug it, but slide it carefully underneath my blanket. Afterwards another pillow, the bed is after all covered with them.
Quickly I drop myself to the floor next to the bed and stay there for a while. My breathing is far too irregular so I close my eyes for a while and concentrate on it.
The plan isn’t solid at all and the chance to be discovered is huge, but I can’t think of something else to do for now. I hope that when my peeping Tom is looking on the screen he still thinks I’m underneath the blanket.
When my breathing runs smoother, I sneak on my hands and feet to the door. Also now they can see me, but that’s a risk I just need to take.
Arriving at the door I transform my hands into tongs. A brace would be handier, but it would make to much noise.
Breaking the door handle is extremely hard and I puff like a madman, especially because it needs to be done quickly. The beads trickle down my forehead and my muscles cry out, but I don’t give in and go all out. The pain becomes almost unbearable and at that moment I succeed to break off the door handle. Right on time, I threaten to lose consciousness through the effort and exhaustiveness.
I transform the tongs into fingers and sneak out of the room. I cautiously close the door behind me. I get cold because of the transformation, but also because I’m only dressed in panties and a shirt and not wearing shoes. Now let’s hope the cameras in the hall and the rest of the house aren’t on, otherwise it’s going to be very hard.
I take a closer look at the doors I walk past. The hall has on both sides three doors behind which, according to my suspicions, are all bedrooms. Selena, Ed and Noël probably rest in there.
I hurry downstairs, into the showroomish living room and to the windows. I don’t hesitate for a second and transform my hands into little demolition hammers. The strength that still remains me is very little, but I still make a swing towards the window. Right before the hammer hits the glass, I shrink back frightened.
All of a sudden two Dobermans stand in front of the window, their fur as black as the night. The only clearly visible things are their sharp teeth and sparkling eyes. They snarl at me and let me unmistakably know what will happen if I dare to put a step into the garden.
Goddamnit! I know and feel that my body doesn’t have the energy to transform into an even more dangerous dog. I know the body language dogs use to show who’s boss and wouldn’t have doubt about transforming into a wolf or Pit Bull, but it just doesn’t work.
Out of pure frustration the tears well up in my eyes. Shit, shit, shit!!!
It doesn’t seem I’m too sharp for them by trying it on the other side of the house. Also there they’ll be awaiting me and the dogs are much faster than I am.
Now what?
I can return to the bedroom. And then what? Patiently wait for what is to come? No, damn it, by no means. Maybe the dogs go lie down and sleep at a sudden moment. Wishful thinking, Manon, dogs are smarter than that. And besides, the chance is big that Selena or someone else discovered I’ve left my room by then.
Suddenly I hear a soft cry, as if it comes from far or is being muffled. I listen more carefully, but don’t hear a thing anymore. In my opinion the cry came from the cellar, I’m almost sure about that.
I can do two things right now. Go back to my room and be good or go out on a research. I choose option two, a lot more thrilling. The chance that someone is in the cellar is big, but I hope to find a computer before I get caught.
I run to the cellar stair and carefully descend.
The door of Noel’s office is closed and I don’t hear a movement. I softly touch the handle, but the door is shut.
Left across Noël’s office is another door. I hold my ear against it and hear nothing. I grab the door handle and this one luckily gives in. First I still look quickly inside, but no one is in there.
The room, about three by three meters, is full of filing cabinets. Unfortunately I can’t detect a computer or a telephone. But curious as I am, I wonder what’s inside of those filing cabinets and walk to the first cabinet.
N.V. Borgax is on the outside of it. I open a drawer and hastily look at the paperwork. Apparently Noël has especially earned his fortune by making CGI for roofs. His perpendicular sheets of corrugated iron were sold all over the world and he doesn’t just have a company in Belgium, but also in Poland and a few other countries. Not interesting, so I close the drawer.
The second cabinet doesn’t have a title with respect to the content. I open the drawer and find files that are in alphabetical order. The names don’t ring a bell.
I open the first file, of a so-called Pat Hendler, and then it begins to dawn on me. Pat is an angel, apparently gets a level number of four and lives in Germany. Her details are detailed and fully scribbled down. Everything; where she was born, her age, whom she’s married to and that she has a daughter. Even her strengths and weaknesses. A second file is the same, but then about a so-called Turid Hoekstra, an elf, level five.
How did he get his hands on these? Even Jabar doesn’t own such information. Actually no one to my knowledge. We do have a list with names and addresses, but that’s everything.
Of course I go to the M, where, indeed, my file is to be found. Next to my name stands: level three. That’s all? I’m only level three? And what does that mean further on? What’s the highest level? Five?
I skip the general details and immediately go to the for me interesting part.
- Strengths: Jiujitsi, shooting expert, doesn’t give up easily (just be sure about that), inventive.
- Weaknesses (now we’ll get it): absent-minded, bad memory, insecure (well yeah), high-spirited (is that negative?), gets lost easily, influential (what gives that idiot that idea!).
Still I can’t totally disagree with what’s listed and they seem to know me better than I know myself. It stings and certainly because the list of weaknesses is longer than the one of strengths.
I close the drawer and walk to the third cabinet on which stands nothing as well. Also here are files in the drawer. I take out a folder on which stands an Arabic name. Nevertheless, in the folder itself is nothing, not a single piece of paper. The rest of the folders are empty, except for the names on the outside.
Again I hear a weak cry that seems to originate from someone who’s in pain. I decide not to waste my time any longer in this room and leave it. The concrete floor is so cold it cuts through my skin. Stupid I didn’t put on socks. Next to the smell of disinfectant, I think I smell vaguely something else. My eyes turn wide when I realize what it is.
Blood!
And it must be quite a lot, because otherwise I wouldn’t smell it.
As I walk into the hall further on, the metal-like smell becomes stronger. I hold my hand before my nose and breathe superficially. On the left and the right are two other doors, but my intuition lets me go past them and walk directly towards the room at the end of the hall. The heavy metal door is ajar and I vaguely hear a movement. And more moaning.
I pop through the chink and can’t believe my eyes! I think I saw it wrong and look again. But I did saw it well. I seem to be ended up in a horror movie. This is clearly something I shouldn’t have discovered. Well, than they should have locked the door.
By accident I bump against the door with my left shoulders by which it opens a little more. Frightened I suck in my breath, but there seems to be no one inside of the room. At least, no one isn’t completely correct.
There are a lot of person in the room, only it doesn’t seem they’re conscious or even still alive. What I see before me is too horrible to be put in words.
In dozens of glazed tubes stand or hang naked people. The eyes are closed and their heads nod a bit forward. I walk closer to one of the tubes and see the person inside of it is still alive. The chest goes weakly up and down and the eyeballs move underneath their lids. They are both women and men and several wires disappear in and out their body. They’re connected to a kind of support that’s attached on the outside of their prison.
The support consists of a screen on which several values can be read: the EEG, EOG, EMG, EKG and resp. According to my limited medical knowledge (mainly from television series like House M.D.) the freakish lines next to it mean that their brain activity, eye movements, muscle tone, heart rhythm and breathing are measured. The heart rhythm of the man in front of me is slow and regular, but his breathing and eye movements show peaks and are irregular. Next to each tube is a drip standard with liquid that steadily trickles to the tube through a pipe. Probably a kind of food or anesthetic, I guess.
Full of disgust I run past the other tubes that bring forward a lightly buzzing sound, so subtle it’s hardly audible. Some persons have the slightly pointed ears that elves have, on another man I see a birthmark that’s especially typical for witches and on a woman I count six toes on her right foot. So they’re all otherkinds. Why doesn’t that surprise me? I count ten tubes of which one is empty. Are they planning to put me in it? I’m so shocked by what I see that I unwittingly skipped the most horrible part. Some of them are scalped! And I don’t mean it in the strict sense of the word like in the past with the Indians, but the entire upper side of their skull! From the exposed brains run dozens of tiny wires. I turn my head away until I hear a loud moan. The women I’m standing in front of, a chubby elderly woman with grey-turning hair made the sound!
Suddenly she opens her eyes and looks straight at me, as if she’s expecting me there.
I shrink back frightened, right in time to suppress a cry. Her dark blue eyes look so sad at me I become nauseous. She clearly wants to tell me something, but maybe she can’t move her lips. Nevertheless, her eyes speak volumes; they ask me for help, begging. A tear slowly runs down her cheek.
I can’t bear to watch the misery any longer.
With my lips I silently form the words: ‘I’ll get help’, put my right hand on the place of my heart and then turn around abruptly. It wasn’t until now I realized the smell of blood doesn’t come from this room. First the smell is less strong here and second I can’t see stains anywhere.
I actually want to be out of here as quick as possible, but then discover a computer on a little table. I run quickly towards it and take a seat in front of it. A post-it note hangs above the screen with Thurs. 20 May 20:00 on it. I save it in my memory; you never know what it’s good for.
Please, let luck be on my side and make sure I can send an e-mail to Jabar!
I push on the on-button and the buzzing sound of the computer drowns out that of the tubes. I hope that no one else is in the cellar, although the walls seem to be fairly thick and because of that isolate the sounds from every room. You may call it a miracle that I heard the woman in the tube, at least if it was her I heard, but the door was also open. Or they forgot to close the door or it means someone can walk in any minute from now on. Of course they don’t want the painful screaming of their victims to be audible outside, although that seems unlikely to me. The territory that’s around the house is so wide you could even slaughter a pig in the garden without anyone hearing it.
What bugs me is the fact that I don’t know much about the location in which I am right now. I was unconscious in the truck during the entire drive and still when they lay me on the bed. How long did the drive last? I’ve got no idea. The only thing I can say is that it’s a glazed house and a wide territory surrounds it. That’s awfully little.
What I was afraid for becomes reality.
A password is asked. Shit!
Still I want to give it a chance and try the most obvious; otherkind, elf, witch, vampire, angel, devil, transformer, human.
No result.
Next attempts: Noël, Selena, Ed, even Jabar and finally Morgan.
Nothing.
Damn it!
Then I hear a door go open and being shut again and footsteps! Tensed I keep sitting as quiet as a mouse and hold my breath. Shit, the sound of the computer!
The footsteps are coming closer, I’m sure about that.
Now what?
I don’t see the possibility to hide in or behind something anywhere. The tubes are closely next to each other and against the wall. And besides they’re made of glass and therefore transparent. I don’t see a closet and underneath the table on which the computer stands isn’t enough space and it’s too visible.
There’s nothing else to do but hope that the stuff they’ve been injecting in my body for days is starting to wear off and…
No time to think, just a little bit more and the panic will paralyze me completely.
I adjust all my energy to the transformation.