I wake up again, this time locked inside a plastic cage hanging from the ceiling.
I lie facedown, my body pressed against the hard surface, suspended eight feet above the ground. And below me, Zeke moves calmly, cutting pieces from the bodies of the women he has killed.
They are positioned to face me.
Their eyes are wide open. One of them is still alive. A cloth is stuffed into her mouth, muffling her screams as he cuts into her. Her body jerks weakly, fighting what she couldn’t escape.
A voice recorder plays in the background.
It is the voice of Dr. Alistair Cermer Morrell.
“I figured if we take cells from the lungs of the same blood type and make them consume it, we could actually make them work as a defense mechanism and let their body fight the disease,” he says.
There is a pause.
“But this is just a theory for now.”
The recording continues. A child cries somewhere in the background. Footsteps approach, and a woman’s voice enters. I knew that voice. Music hums in from a distance.
Dream a Little Dreamplays faintly.
“Stop working,” the woman says. “It’s time for lunch.”
My chest tightens.
“Mom,” I whisper.“It can’t be.”
Zeke laughs below me. He removes the white mask from his face, picks up a severed hand, and lifts it into the air. The fingers sway as he waves it slowly.
“Hello.”
My stomach twists. I gag, bile burning the back of my throat.
“In 1987, he got a daughter,” he says. “I have no idea if you are actually made from his little swimmers or if you are a clone of someone else.” He laughs. “But when I started digging for more tapes so I could listen to that genius mind, I found a file with your name all over it.”
“This can’t be happening,” I say, staring down at him.
He stuffs severed limbs into black trash bags.
This felt wrong. He always wanted to be seen. This didn’t make sense. But just as thought creeps in, he answers it for me.
“It’s funny how methods change,” he says. “When I worked with Zayne, I wanted to be seen because he was always the best.” He chuckles. “Now, with him trapped inside the Institute and no one to get him out, I prefer not being seen. Not being found.”
He turns toward the woman who is still alive.
She jerks as he slices into her chest. Her scream dies inside the cloth stuffed into her mouth. Blood spills over her skin, and her body goes limp as she passes out.
He forces her ribs apart. I can hear bones cracking as he reaches in and pulls out her heart.
It’s still beating.
Its drumming feels like a clock on the wall.
“I like to taste it while it still beats,” he says.
He bites into the heart.
Flesh tears as his teeth pull it. Blood spills down his chin as he looks up at me, his eyes bright and rolling as he moans. My stomach finally gives in. I retch, vomiting against the inside of the plastic cage, my body folding in on itself.
