Bred in Captivity

Animals, cages and the murder of a guard

“So tell me what these things are.” Jamison had been going on all night about what they were. What they were capable of. What would happen if we introduced foreign bodies into their blood stream…he didn’t realize that this was all information above his pay grade.

I sighed leaning back in my cold chair and looking at him, “You know what they are.” I said finally. He rolled his small beady eyes. I was surprised he could see.

“I can guess what they are but I want conformation.”

I sighed standing up and playing some of the older tapes we had. “This was what they are.”

It was one of the earliest tapes we had.  I dropped back in my chair and waited for the show to begin. Of the few specimens we had managed to capture this was the first.

Male

 6’11”

220 pounds

Eye colour: red

Skin colour: white

Hair colour: brown

Heavy jaw, wide shoulders, handsome.

They all were handsome. It made it easier to hunt, easier to get us to trust them. And much easier to trick, they relied on nothing but their own set and never expected humans to be able to come up with a few of our own.

 The camera angle was cut off so you could only see about 60 degrees of the room. Only the center, where the light touched the ground was truly in focus. The rest of the room was grainy…the shadows were dark and you couldn’t see where the room ended. We watched as he paced. His feet were bare, and you could see where his nails had been digging into the concrete floor. They were stronger than they had predicted. The poison had worn off. And he was fresh meat. He was at his strongest and there was nothing we could do about it. Jamison watched. He jerked on his straight jacket but thankfully they were too strong. They had thought to intertwine them with blessed thread. For some reason it weakened the animals. Made them unable to break free of them. It was the only thing they had predicted that did its job properly.

The screen showed a dark cell, the moon cast a little light through the opening in the wall, but it wasn’t large enough for them to slither though. The thing was pacing back and forth back and forth across the cramped cell. There was a movement by the door and he froze, taking several steps back into the shadows. The camera could see him but the idiot at the door couldn’t.  All he could see were the red rims of his eyes. But the animal knew that and kept them downcast. So the light from the moon wasn’t reflected in them. For a beast he was smart. We’d only had a few that could match him in mental capacity. He had been the perfect specimen. Too bad they weren’t ready for him yet.

They had expected him to still be under. But he had fed before they had poisoned him. He had bounced back earlier then they had expected. We watched as the guard stepped in the room. The feeding bag clutched in one hand and the baton in the other. It was charged with ten thousand bolts, but it wasn’t enough to down one of them when they were filled. Like a tick. You could see the thing as it crouched down, becoming smaller so the guard couldn’t see. I was glad it was muted. Jamison was going pale at the mere sight of the video.

 The door slammed shut. The guard jumped.

They hadn’t known at the time that they could control things with their minds. They had known about their ability to read our minds. And use them. That had been their first mistake. This was there second. The guard threw himself to the gate dropping the blood onto the floor. Red spilled across the ground, glowing iridescently on the patch of moon light. I sighed  leaning back in my chair as the scene unfolded. Jamison on the other hand leaned forward he was fascinated the gross little prick.