Bad Jack ((Ascension: Book 1)) (6 page)

Chapter 14: Going into the Bowels

Jack followed the shrunken
, fat old man down one corridor after another.

The
Doctor tried to make small talk asking how he liked it so far and whatnot but Jack kept his answers short because his mind was elsewhere.

They arrived at an elevator Jack hadn’t seen before and the
Doctor needed to put a key in to get the doors to open. The doors were thick enough to be military style blast doors as they slowly opened. The Doctor had to use his key again once inside. As soon as he turned it the elevator lurched downwards. The ride only took a few seconds but by now they were easily four stories underground.

There were no guards waiting for them and the
Doctor answered Jack before the question could leave his lips, “Very few people have access this deep. You are now one of less than a dozen people who have ever been down here.”

Jack wanted to act amazed or bug his eyes out or something to prove he appreciated the gravity of what the
Doctor was doing for him but he couldn’t force it because he was pissed to see corridors snake out before him. He wasn’t unfit or lazy but enough was enough with this shit. Maybe he could ask for a bike or something just to get around.

He followed the
Doctor. The corridors down here were dirtier and not as well lit. He guessed that of the dozen people allowed down here, a janitor was not among them.

His
ears pricked as he started to hear faint, ghostly noises up ahead but the Doctor kept moving toward them so he had to too. The Doctor was amazed by him but that amazement would evaporate in an instant if Jack cowered behind because he thought he’d heard a ghost.

The
y came to a final doorway that had one security officer in front of it armed to the teeth. Judging by the figure, the guard was female and a badass female she was. Jack saw fucking grenades hanging from her belt. She held an assault rifle in her arms and had two pistols holstered to each thigh.

She lifted the visor on her spaceman
style helmet when she saw the Doctor approach. “Show it Doc” she said as she smiled warmly at the old man.

The
Doctor handed her his weathered ID and she scrutinized it as though for the first time. She ran her scanner over it and handed it back.

The smile vanished
from her face as she said to Jack, “Sir I need you to hand me your ID card.”

She spent twice as long on his and when she gave it back Jack was a little surprised when she smiled at him too.

“Welcome to the pit fellas.”

She held some fingers up to the security camera above the door and only then did Jack notice that there was a kind of gun affixed to the camera, like a wall turret or something.

The door behind her opened and once inside the boxy room they were subjected to clean room fans and UV.

Jack wished the guard would accompany them. Her smile was
genuinely sweet and her face was pretty and for some reason the guns were a turn on. It was hard to see her butt but he tried anyway. She caught him staring just as the clean room doors shut between them. He was glad she caught him looking.

Mild flirtations were a near
ly adequate distraction from all of the unnatural shit he had to deal with lately.

What Jack beheld as the doors whooshed open made him want to curl up
on the floor in a ball and suck his thumb.

Chapter15: Creature discomforts

The warehouse was as big as the one above but with an open floor plan. Instead of shelves of inventory the place was filled with various barred cages that held creatures within them. It was like a creepy zoo down here except these weren’t your run of the mill animals.

The first creature he saw looked like a cross between a goat and a giraffe. Its eyes were obsidian black and it spat at them.

Then it did something that ma
de Jack’s brain do a somersault. It said, “Fuck off,” but not in a goaty kind of voice. It had a perfect English gentleman’s accent.

The
Doc grabbed him by the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about him, that’s all he can say. He just spits and says ‘fuck off’ all day long. Let me know if you need to take a mental health break at any point. It can be overwhelming down here the first time.”

Jack
barely heard what the Doctor had said. He kept staring back at that goatraffe as he was led away.

They stopped in front of a glassed in cage that was woven through with wire mesh. Inside were about a hundred green and yellow bats. But the
strange colors weren’t what struck Jack as odd; each bat had wheels, four wheels each, two at the end of the wings and two more on the hind legs.

When they swooped low enough they’d skate along on their wheels for a bit and then take off again. One bat in particular just flapped right in front of the glass and Jack could swear he heard it
make a revving sound as the wheels spun out.

The
Doctor asked, “What do you suppose the symbolism is here?”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh idiotically as he said “They’re Bat-mobiles.”

“Huh, we never considered looking at it that way. Maybe you’ll be useful after all.”

The next cage was iron barred and held a white tiger that had a blow-hole
on its back like a dolphin. The blow-hole bubbled with what looked like blood. It erupted once, splattering goop all over the corrugated steel suspended above it, obviously installed as a blood shield.

Jack was mesmerized and horrified at once.

The
Doctor had to physically move him to the next cage. This cage was empty but the Doctor stood there for a few seconds so Jack leaned against it figuring they were taking a break.

The
Doctor grabbed him and pulled him away from the cage just as something else from inside the bars grabbed him too.

Jack felt a pressure on the back of his hand before the invisible force released him.

The Doctor said, “We don’t know what it is but it’s invisible and it does really weird things. We were lucky to even capture it.”

Jack looked at the back of his hand and the
Doc leaned in too. There was a pink heart stamped onto his skin with the word ‘love’ inked within.

The
Doctor just shrugged and said, “You’re lucky that’s all it did. Usually it plays mean pranks. It wrote ‘die nigger’ across my forehead with something painfully sharp before I learned to keep my distance. I had to wear a hat for a while to cover the scratch marks. It picked up a tech and dangled her upside down by the ankle about a month ago. She said it felt like it was punching her in her crotch the whole time. When she went to the bathroom to assess the damage she said all her pubic hair was gone except a patch that spelled out ‘dickhead’. I don’t know what any of it means and now I’m even more curious since it seems to have taken a shine to you.”

The
Doc was enjoying the tour; clearly the man needed more friends.

The next row of cages around the backside of the first row was just as strangely inhabited.

One had a werewolf that made Jack say fuck a whole bunch of times.

The
Doc reached his hand inside and ruffled the enormous beasts pelt. “Believe it or not, this one’s pretty docile. This next one’s a bitch though.”

The cage
next door had something that looked exactly like an extraterrestrial alien inside.

Jack said, “I fuckin knew it.
All this shit was created by a marooned alien super race?”

“No Jack. The truth is far stranger than that.”

The alien hissed its fanged mouth and a scream issued from it that sent the Doctor careening off the floor clutching his ears.

It didn’t affect Jack quite the same way. There was something haunting in its scream.

Jack picked the Doc up and the alien’s screaming ceased.

Its reptilian eyes flashed
angrily at the Doctor momentarily but when they settled on Jack he almost imagined he could commune with the thing. Its eyes became softer, soulful, when it looked at him.

“
I forgot to tell you to put some ear plugs in, sorry buddy.” He waved a hand at an earplug dispenser attached to the outside of the cage. “They don’t help much but they’ll help you keep your feet.”

He paused and looked Jack up and down just
then realizing that Jack hadn’t hit the deck like he was supposed to.

“Maybe you don’t need them after all.”

He shrugged and moved on.

“If you’re anything like me you’ll like this next one.
”

Inside the next cage was a roiling, sweaty mass of naked women. The sensuality of it caused a momentary twitch in Jack’s pants.

The Doctor said, “It took me three weeks before I could look in here without getting turgid and faint.”

Jack understood exactly what he was talking about. There must have been eight or nine beautiful women inside, naked and oily and breathing heavily. They weren’t penetrating one another, no, nothing so base, they were just moving against each other.

“I almost fired an assistant after I found him in there with all his clothes off. The women ignored the poor bastard no matter how hard he tried to get involved. They only have eyes for each other, those girls.”

The
Doctor moved to the next cage but Jack couldn’t take his eyes off the erotic display. It had been a long time since the last time he’d seen a woman in the nude. And Samantha was a cold fish compared to these hot blooded babes.

He
reluctantly peeled his eyes away and followed the Doc.

He immediately regretted it.

He watched in horror as a giant toad ate a tiny scaled down version of a human. The human was androgynous, naked, and about a foot tall. The toad was the size of a Volkswagen beetle. It snapped the mini person with its tongue from five feet away and whipped it into its gaping maw. Instead of swallowing the little fella the toad chomped greedily. After it had mashed it to a pulp it finally swallowed.

Jack turned his head away but the
Doc said, “Look.”

Jack turned in time to see the toad shit out another androgynous humanoid just like the one it had eaten, maybe the same one Jack thought. The little person
plopped to the ground with a wet thud, got to its little feet, staggered around for a bit and finally settled down on its naked butt against the bars of the cage.

“It just keeps eating them and
crapping them back out whole. It’s the damnedest thing.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. What an understatement.

“We think it might even be the same guy each time but we put a rubber band around its little wrist and waited to see if the toad would shit one out with the rubber band but no such luck. Maybe one day…”

There were a couple pedestrian animals in the next couple of cages. A hyena followed by a pot bellied pig.

The Doctor stopped and said in a serious tone, “Now I want you to brace yourself for what you are about to see next.

Jack shrugged
with manufactured nonchalance. “Can’t be any worse than what you’ve shown me already.”

He knew deep down that th
at wasn’t true.

“When I met you yesterday, I had to try and hide my shock at seeing you. This is the reason why.”

What Jack saw in that next cage took the breath from his lungs and almost sent him running. Inside the cage, wearing clothes last worn by him about a week ago was Jack Mayberry.

Jack stared at himself through the bars. The Jack on the other side smiled a little but otherwise remained unmoved by the
unexpected meeting.

“How’
s this possible.”

A calmer Jack might have postulated about cloning or a long lost twin or simple trickery like a weird reflective surface, a carnie funhouse mirror but more sophisticated - but Jack was not calm.

His vision was swimming as though through a rolling wave of heat, everything shimmering and undulating. His right hand kept opening and closing reflexively and his heart felt like a bag of crickets.

The
Doctor said, “We’ll get to that tomorrow at 1400 ok Jack. It must be more than mere coincidence that you are here now and this copy of your body behind these bars is a pretty good indication of that. Had I known you existed in the real world I would have sought you out much sooner and for different reasons than the ones you were brought in for. But how could I know? It’s fortuitous to say the least and not a little unnerving. Let’s call it a day unless you have any questions.”

Jack stared at the
Doctor and said, “Are you nuts, of course I have questions, millions of questions I never in my wildest dreams thought I might need to ask. Like, where did you buy your werewolf or why do you keep my clone in a cage or how come the little dude doesn’t just slip through the bars to get away from the toad? Those are just off the top of my head you understand.”

The
Doctor raised his brow and looked around as though he was dealing with a nut-job and he was embarrassed.

“Get some rest and we’ll talk tomorrow afternoon. Trust me; this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Jack spat out “Fine then, can’t wait.”

The
Doc looked befuddled but ignored the outburst and led him back to the clean room, past all the monstrosities held in their cages.

Over the past half hour during the grand tour of hellish nightmares, Jack’s brain simply decided to give up. It had enough. It took a leave of absence to get itself straight. Needless to say, Jack was struggling with how to attenuate his m
ind to all the new horrors he’d seen.

And the worst part, he thought, tomorrow there would be more.