Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 73

“Matilda. Matilda wake up,” said the voice.

She blinked her eyes tiredly, and looked around for the source of the voice she heard.

“You can’t see me, but I can see you. Don’t ask me to explain, I’m not sure I can.”

Sitting up, she saw the nice lady who gave her food was missing. Her brother was still asleep in his bed. There was no one else here.

“I need you to understand a few things, starting with, don’t talk about me. Don’t talk to me out loud, I can hear you when you think. If others found out about me, I could get in trouble.”

‘Where are you?’ she thought, rubbing her eyes.

“I’m a prisoner of the vampires. They like to do bad things to me, to see how I react. It hurts a lot. They don’t know I can think at you, though, and I want to keep you safe.”

‘Why?’ She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them.

“I’m hoping you help me escape. The people who saved you and your brother are the only ones that can save me. I hope you can help me.”

‘I can help you, but vampires are scary monsters.’ She hugged her legs to her even tighter at the thought of how scary they could be.

“Your brother and two of the people aren’t normal. They can keep you safe from the vampires. If you do what I tell you, you can get them the information they need to save me and many other people the vampires have prisoner.”

‘Okay, what do I need to do?’

–

When Byrd came back into the room, carrying some more wood for the fire, she saw that Tommy was still asleep. The blankets were rumbled into a big pile on Matilda’s bed, so she ȧssumed she was still asleep too. It wasn’t until several hours later, when Tommy woke up, that she realized she was gone.

Xun was just coming back into the room with the others behind him, when Byrd started freaking out. He watched her try to explain to Gerald that she hadn’t been out of the room for long, and that the girl couldn’t possibly have left through the door they had been using.

“Fan out, everyone. There must be another exit out of this room.”

Xun helped his father by running his hands over every inch of the walls. They were just about to give up, when Tommy found a vent cover under a box on the floor. A ladder descended into the darkness.

“I’ll go first,” said his father, climbing down the ladder without any problems.

“Byrd, you stay here with Tommy, we’ll be back as soon as possible.”

She nodded at Gerald’s words and the rest of them headed down into the unknown again. Xun stepped off the last rung and looked around. The tunnel only headed in one direction, with light showing down dimly through holes in the ceiling. His eyes had already adjusted enough that, while dim, he could see fairly well.

The rest of the group hadn’t waited for him, as there was only one way to go, so he hurried to catch up. The tunnel didn’t go for very long, before ending in a room. Matilda was sitting in a chair, staring at a computer screen. Gerald and the others were standing just behind her, watching silently, whatever was on the screen.

“Is that a vampire?” she asked, looking up and pointing at the monitor.

“I think so,” whispered Gerald.

“I wish there was sound, so we could hear what they were saying.” Xun’s dad was breathing hard.

The moment the vampire left the room, they could all see the incision sight regrowing. Within minutes, the tissue that had been removed was restored.

Craig moved over to another computer monitor, and sat down to start typing. Xun didn’t pay attention until he called them over. It took a lot of willpower to pull his eyes away from the screen where the two remaining vampires were flitting around checking statistics on medical equipment. If he didn’t know how fast a vampire could move, he would almost ȧssume the video was skipping.

“It’s got more information about the bunker near the compound. There’s a list of experiments that were supposed to be done, along with a list of people who had been used. No names are mentioned, only numbers.”

“Didn’t they ȧssign us numbers when we joined?” asked Gerald.

Xun shook his head. “If they did, I don’t know anything about it. I had only been on the council for a short while.”

“It looks like they were doing human experiments alongside animal experiments. There’s a failsafe in place so that if anything gets loose, they can lock it down. The only animal listed is rat, but it looks like they were planning to expand to others.”

“Does it mention the kids that we just found out about?” asked Xun’s dad.

“Briefly, apparently the people in control decided that it was too dangerous to continue the experimenting so close to a breeding facility, and it was decided to move the experiments to another facility. It doesn’t say where though.” Craig typed a few more things before sitting back with a heavy sigh of frustration.

“What do you mean by breeding facility?” asked Xun, suddenly getting a bad feeling in his gut.

“I don’t know. It’s just a comment by someone. It doesn’t say anything more. The rest of the system is locked down and inaccessible.”

“It seems we need to return to the compound and see if we can find this bunker. Perhaps we can find out something more there.” Gerald picked up Matilda, who was still watching the screen, where the vampires looked to be trying to move the werewolf into a different container.

Xun was watching the screen. “Where is this feed coming from? We don’t want to go running into a nest of vampires.”

Craig turned back to the monitor, and started typing again. The minutes ticked by as he tried to find out the information. “It looks like this is a location south of here. Run by a Dr. Achak, who is in charge of all laboratories in the country. It says he was ordered back to a main base, but refused orders and is now a most wanted criminal, to be captured and brought back alive. I can’t figure out where they want him, or who this group is, though.”

“Dr. Achak?” said Xun and his dad at the same time. The amount of horror in his father’s voice was far worse than his own.

“That person needs to be killed. He’s the one who figured out how to turn people into werewolves. He’s a vampire scientist.” His dad shuddered.

“So, if we kill him, does that mean all the labs will crash and burn and the vampires will lose this stupid war?” asked Craig.

“Probably not, see those other two vampires on the screen? It looks like he’s got several other vampire scientists who can continue on his work if he’s taken out,” said Gerald.

“But it says he’s a criminal. I wonder why he’s suddenly going against the other vampires?” wondered Xun.