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Old 03-15-2017, 03:55 AM   #100
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default In the Hall of the Rodent King?

As our heroes walk through the dark tunnels under the Manhanock Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Taylor goes first, but instead of being able to stalk silently, he is carrying the front end of the stretcher for Mrs. York and has secured the IV drip to his back, so she can continue to receive fluids and nutrition as they walk. Dr. Anderson carries the rear part of the stretcher and has to make sure that the IV line stays steady, as Cherry Bell absolutely refuses to come any nearer ‘that lizard bitch’ than she is forced to do by keeping one outstretched, gloved hand in contact with Dr. Anderson’s elbow.

Dr. Anderson is no longer wearing the night vision goggles he scavenged from the guard barracks, as experience and Taylor’s advice has convinced him that without IR lighting, they are not powerful enough to allow him to see anything in darkness this absolute, anyway. And Taylor has forbidden them from using IR light, saying that guards with good NV optics mounted on their rifles will spot it long before they could spot the guards. So Dr. Anderson is walking without the benefit of vision, having to trust Taylor to pick a route where nothing can trip him up.

Taylor chooses to follow the obvious tracks where a group of guards carried two wounded people and wheeled the third, almost certainly ‘Special Agent’ Vicente Berrocal, along with them in a wheelchair. He notes that the man in dress shoes, who seems to have been O’Toole, also followed this trail, walking slowly and stopping frequently to ensure that he never came close enough to be detected. There were eight men walking this route, four of them carrying two wounded, one wheeling Berrocal and two walking close enough to make it plausible that one of them was roughly leading the other by arm.

That leaves one man walking point. That one was wearing the same kind of boots as the rest, but they were probably size fifteens or even larger. Warden Tyrrell looked to be about six foot six, when they’d seen him briefly at the docks. There could be other large guards, of course, but if the Warden came down here, which Taylor figured he did, would he carry a burden while someone else walked point? Probably not. ‘King’ wasn’t a title for the modest or shy. So these were Warden Tyrrell’s tracks. Taylor feels a strange sense of unreality following in the footsteps of his enemy while he knows every step takes him further away from the barracks, where he could have finished this.

Taylor forces himself to focus on the blocking element that must be somewhere in these tunnels. Between two to four guards, Taylor guesses, possibly with armed orderlies to assist. Judging from James and Gilbert in the barracks dining hall, any orderlies are unlikely to want to be there and would probably not react quickly to a violent encounter. Sherilyn Bell ought to be able to befuddle them long before they decide to shoot, as long as Taylor is careful to spot the ambush before walking into it. From what Dr. Anderson has said about these tunnels, there was only one sensible ambush location remaining, since they weren’t at the T-intersection close to the barracks.

The guards couldn’t be certain which route they’d take after that, but once close to the main complex, there was a wider corridor which linked all the tunnels running to the different wings. Anyone wanting to cut off somebody moving from barracks to some part of the main complex would almost have to set up position there, unless they knew exactly which route their target would take. Before they enter this main corridor, therefore, Taylor stops for a good long minute, holding his breath and listening intently. Once the minute is up, he looks back at Dr. Anderson and Sherilyn Bell, mouthing: “Nothing. They ain’t here.

In the darkness, neither of them see a thing, of course. Sighing, Taylor stabilises the stretcher with a thigh for a moment as he taps Dr. Anderson’s arm in the sign for ‘Follow me’. They walk over the wide main corridor, taking the branch which the tracks of the guards still follow. If Taylor remembers Dr. Anderson’s lecture on the tunnels correctly, that would be the direction to the D Wing and the quickest way to reach the main building from the barracks.

Once in the tunnel heading to D, Taylor stops suddenly. There is a smell he ought to have noticed earlier, a rank, acrid ammonia stench. It’s not quite as musky as the urine of Terry Amiti and, in fact, Taylor is pretty sure it is not human. He can’t really explain how he knows, as he certainly doesn’t have the biochemistry background to define the difference, but he’s usually found his instincts accurate when it comes to what he can sense. Now that he’s out of Fort Leavenworth and off the drugs they were giving him there, perhaps he’ll even be able to learn to differentiate consciously between various odours. He just wishes he wasn’t starting with different types of urine and faeces.

Taylor stops and taps Dr. Anderson again, this time with the signal to stop. Listening carefully, he can hear something odd up ahead, inside an abandoned laboratory off to the side of the tunnel, maybe fifty feet away. It’s breathing, but breathing usually too faint to hear that far off, except it seems like it’s coming from numerous sources at once. In fact, it sounds like breathing played on a lot of stereos at once, as it seems to be harmonising perfectly. Though since there is no feedback or distortion from mechanical devices, maybe it is a lot of tiny beings breathing in perfect unison in that room.

Cherry Bell [whisper]: “Why are we stopped?”

Taylor grimaces. The breathing stops for a second and then starts again, more energetically. As if the small beings are moving around in there, but retaining their synchronised breathing exercise. From the open door of the abandoned lab comes a single tiny form, a good-sized rat, maybe weighing around a pound.

Taylor [quietly, not whispering]: “Rats. We’s going back. Doc, guide us the long way ‘round to the compound.”

They back away slowly. Taylor draws his Bushman survival knife with the stretcher resting on his hip, which causes Dr. Anderson to wobble. They stop so that Taylor can find the the bottle of isopropyl alcohol he used to wash his armour earlier and start to pour some of it in a line on the floor. The lone rat runs toward them, looking like it is trying to make it before the line is finished and Taylor whips his knife at it. The Bushman transfixes the rat through the stomach, giving rise to a shrill dying squeal of pain. All the breathers in the laboratory hiss in unison. Then they all start running. As they come into view, Taylor can see at least forty rats, perhaps a lot more. They seem to be moving with uncanny coordination, spreading out to the sides like the fingers of a hand grasping for something.

Taylor: “Lynnie, I needs something flammable that I kin throw a good long distance.”

Taylor takes a Zippo lighter he found in the guard barracks from his pocket and lights it. Then he and Dr. Anderson back away with the stretcher between them as Cherry Bell, with a disgusted look on her face, digs through the medical supplies in the crash kit fastened to the stretcher. She triumphantly turns up another bottle of surgical alcohol and starts to make a Molotov cocktail using a bandage she wets in it. Taylor notices that when the rat swarm reaches the dying rat with the knife through it, a knot forms in the running swarm and the squeals die away. Some six rats break away from the swarm holding the bloody knife between them.

As the rats reach the line of isopropyl alcohol on the floor, they stop short. With military precision, individual rats investigate if there are any breaks in the line, but do not seem to find any. They stay far enough back to indicate that it is not only the smell that bothers them, but that they might be afraid that the substance will hurt them. Taylor is probably too far to reach it with the Zippo, at least while it is still lit, but even if he did, he doubts he’d kill a single rat. Of course, in ten seconds or so, when the fumes have had time to spread slightly, it might be a different story. It can’t take much flame to ignite the fur of a rat.

Taylor’s ears can hear sounds in a wider range than the ordinary human ear. He can tell that the rats in front of him are not merely making random chittering and squeaking sounds as they gather around the line of alcohol on the ground. When half of them rush off running in the other direction, it comes as a nasty confirmation, but not really a surprise. What does come as a surprise is when Taylor realises that he can make out individual words among the high-pitched squeaking of the rats. In broken English, like what somebody might pick up by listening to others speak without ever interacting with them or having any concept of grammar.

Rat swarm: “Why man? Kill man! Man kill! Pain! Hurting! Why man? Why?”
Taylor: “Doc, if’n somebody were to cut across the next tunnel yonder from here, might could they happen to sit plumb across our long way ‘round to that there main complex?”
Dr. Anderson: “If you mean the tunnel running diagonal to that one to the right, yes.”
Taylor: “Ain’t that a fine howdy-do. Them rats gots more tactical know-how than them guards an' they's better at cussin' than Warden Tyrrell, too. Guess we ain’t going the long way ‘round nowhow.”
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Last edited by Icelander; 03-15-2017 at 06:16 AM.
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