Page 19 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

Keaton

The man who stepped inside the room was surprisingly fresh-faced, with frizzy red hair and freckles that stood out starkly against his pale complexion.

He wore a lab coat that had presumably started off white, but had long since resigned itself to being gray.

He was tall enough that it stopped at mid-thigh.

Beneath the lab coat were grubby blue jeans and trainers of two different colors, one black, one blue.

Most shocking was that he didn’t look a day over eighteen.

He beamed as he looked between the two of us. “You’re awake!”

August and I shared a look, a silent question passing between the two of us that asked who was better equipped to handle this. The slight tilt of August’s chin said he would. I was happy to let him try. We’d already established how good a liar he was, and perhaps this situation would call for it.

“We are awake,” August said quietly. “And there seems to have been some sort of misunderstanding. I assume your… safety measures…” The deliberate pause said that hadn’t been his first choice of word.

I assumed it had replaced trap. “…are designed to keep out biters, and probably to catch animals as well. And I’m sure it’s difficult to tell whether we’ve turned when we’re dangling ten feet above the ground, so you took precautions.

Understandable precautions. But now we’re having this conversation, you can see we’re not biters.

” He looked to me, the message clear: talk to prove you can.

“Not biters at all,” I agreed.

August lifted his leg, the metal chain giving an obliging jangle. “So… how about you unlock us, give us back our stuff, and we can get out of your hair and be on our way?”

“’On our way,’” I echoed.

The stranger tilted his head to one side. “Are you hungry? You’re probably hungry. I can get you some food.”

“You don’t need to trouble yourself,” August said quickly. “We don’t want to take advantage of your hospitality.”

I nearly laughed. Hospitality, and being caught in a trap, drugged, and then chained to a wall were eons apart, but I could see where August was going with it.

The man flashed another smile. “It’s no trouble. Honestly, it isn’t.”

It occurred to me that perhaps he wasn’t all there, that there were a few neurons misfiring. “Are your mother or father here?”

A frown replaced the smile. “My mother’s dead.”

“And your father?” I prompted.

“He’s here.”

“Yeah?” It was difficult to keep the relief out of my voice. “I’d love to meet him.”

He stared at me for a long while, his eyes blue like August’s, but such a pale blue you could be mistaken for thinking they were gray. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll get him. He enjoys meeting new people.”

He left as suddenly as he’d arrived. August and I instinctively let him get far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to hear us before we spoke. “His father will come,” I said. “He’ll have the key. He’ll release us, and we can be on our way. I will get to Dover.”

“You will,” August said. “I’ll help you. And I’ll help you kill the bastard that took your sister.”

“Yeah?”

When he nodded, a warmth filled my chest, and I had to look away in case he could see the emotion on my face.

A few minutes passed before footsteps sounded outside the room. Two sets. I pictured a scenario where the father would apologize profusely for his son’s cautious approach to strangers and we’d talk man to man and sort everything out.

It came to a crashing halt as the door opened and someone—or maybe something was a better word for it—erupted through it.

He came straight for us, snarling and snapping, saliva dripping in long strands from his chin.

August and I scrambled backwards, our escape coming to a premature end when our chains pulled taut.

The biter also jerked to a stop, the reason not becoming clear until I registered the wire around his neck.

Our new ‘friend’ had him at the end of a dog catcher pole.

Had he waited any longer before hauling him back, the biter would have been on us.

As it was, he was less than a foot away, straining to get closer, jaws snapping open and closed like he could already taste us.

“You’ll have to excuse Dad,” the man said cheerily from behind the drooling biter. “He likes strangers, but he can be a bit overeager.”

August looked like I felt, my heart thudding in my chest and the sudden rush of adrenaline making nausea pool in my gut.

There was never a good way to meet a biter, but this certainly wasn’t it.

If his hand slipped even an inch on the pole, we would be finished.

And who was to say how far this lunatic—because, given what had just happened, he was one—would take it.

“It’s lovely to meet him,” August said in an admirably calm voice for the situation.

That, and it had to be the biggest lie he’d ever told.

It was not lovely to meet him. It would never be lovely to meet him.

That possibility had expired on the day he’d turned.

And from the looks of him, it had been quite some time ago.

“But perhaps he could step back a bit. He’s a little close. ”

The man took a step back, dragging his reluctant father with him. “He’s eaten today. I don’t want you thinking I starve him. You should see him on a day when he hasn’t eaten.”

The biter kept straining at the leash, determined to get to us, forcing his son to dig his heels in and pull with all his might to stop it from happening. “Not yet, Dad. I have plans for them.”

There was nothing in that sentence that wasn’t ominous. The ‘not yet’ insinuating that eventually he would feed us to his father, and the ‘plans’ part sending a chill down my spine as my imagination went into overdrive about what those plans might comprise.

He had no more to say after that, all his energy required to manhandle his father back out of the room. The door clicking shut carried with it a measure of relief this time, August and I both staring at it for a good while before sinking to the floor.

“Fuck!” August said in a perfect facsimile of what my brain was screaming. “He’s not just crazy. He’s batshit crazy.”

I took a deep breath and let it out, willing my racing heart to slow before I was sick. “Let’s agree that we don’t ask to meet any more of his family.”

A laugh erupted from August. “Yeah, one’s enough.”

He left us alone for some time after that, August and I filling it by searching for a weakness in either the chain, the manacle, or the ring on the wall. Unfortunately, we found no weaknesses in any of them. The only way we were getting out of here was if he unlocked us, which wasn’t good news.

The next time the door opened, he was alone. He stood in the doorway beaming as if we were old friends. In one hand, he had a clipboard, and in the other, a pen. “Question time,” he announced in that cheery tone that was already beginning to grate on me. “For the records.”

“What records?” August asked, his voice carefully modulated. “Maybe we should go back to the beginning. We don’t even know your name.”

The man’s jaw dropped. “Oh, my God! I’ve been so rude.

Please forgive me.” He used the pen to point at himself.

“Osvaldo Conway at your service. Osvaldo is quite a mouthful, though, right? So you can just call me Oz. With a Z, even though my name is spelled with an S. Is that weird?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

“I don’t suppose it matters if it is. It’s my name.

I get to choose.” He pulled the clipboard in front of him. “Anyhoo… questions.”

“What records?” August repeated.

“The lab records, of course.” He rolled his eyes as if we should have already known that. I guess the lab coat should have been a clue.

August nodded. “So… this is a lab. What do you do here?”

“Dad and I are going to reverse the effects of the virus. A cure. He started the work years ago, and I used to help him. But then he got bitten. Now, it’s the other way around. He helps me.”

“So you test things on him?” I asked.

Oz shot me a filthy look. “No! I have other test subjects. I’m not going to risk my dad’s health until I know it will work.”

“Of course not,” August said smoothly. “We’re not scientific people. We don’t really know how these things work.”

“Science is wonderful!” Oz’s expression turned dreamy. “Did you know RRV13 replicates faster in the body than any other virus in history?”

“No,” both August and I replied.

“It’s a beautiful virus! Have you ever seen it under a microscope?”

August said “no” again while I shook my head.

Oz laughed. “Sometimes I feel guilty for being its adversary.” He frowned. “But Dad always reminds me that having a cure doesn’t mean I have to use it. I could cure him and then destroy it. Is that selfish?”

I let August take that one. “Of course not,” he assured him. “If you’ve created something, then it’s your god given right to decide what happens with it.”

“Right,” Oz said, pointing his pen at him. “Thank you.” He hitched his clipboard a little higher. “We’ll start with you. Name, please.”

“Tobias Breeze,” August said without missing a beat.

Oz scribbled the information down. “Age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

I had no idea whether that was the truth or a lie, when it wasn’t a conversation we’d ever gotten around to having. He looked around that age, so I guessed it was the truth.

“Infection status?”

“What do you mean?” August asked.

I frowned. Even I understood the question, and I had about as much scientific knowledge as a gnat.

“Immune, partially infected, or fully turned?” Oz gave a giggle that made him sound even younger than he was. “Obviously, you’re not fully turned or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Partially infected,” August said.

“How long ago?”

“Five years.”

Oz nodded as he recorded the information. “And last, I just need a bit of background information from you. How did you get here? Where were you going?”

“Does it matter?” August asked.

Oz smiled. “I’m just curious. You were out walking in the middle of nowhere. You must have walked a long way.”

“We did,” August said.

Oz made a little tsking sound in his throat. “Not quite true that, is it? I already have your bike here, so you don’t need to worry about giving away its location.”

It was like being hit in the solar plexus.

“You put the oil on the road,” August said after a pause.

Oz didn’t confess, but he didn’t need to; his smug smile said it for him.

Everything had seemed like bad luck up to this point, but it turned out none of it was, that he’d nobbled us, and then just waited for us to walk into his trap.

Which meant there wasn’t just one trap. No one could be that confident of someone stumbling into it with just one.

He must have scattered them all over. Presumably with different bait.

Some people might pass by a sword. But food or water? A first-aid kit?

Oz turned his attention to me and asked the same questions he’d asked August. I answered them truthfully because there didn’t seem any point in lying. Apparently satisfied with what he’d found out, he left again.

August was the first to break the silence left in Oz’s wake. “If you get a chance to get away, make sure you take it and don’t look back.”

I frowned. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

August smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “A sensible one. A determined one. A man who has something he needs to do.”

“We’ll both get away.”

“Maybe.”

More confusing than his words was his refusal to look at me. “August?”

He shook his head and refused to say more.