CAPTURED

Chapter 4: Death Machine

Charlie's brain was in so much pain, it seemed to rattle inside her injured skull. She tried to pull her arm up to her throbbing head to make sure her skull wasn't fractured, but her arm wouldn't budge. Great, now what? Charlie thought impatiently. She painfully craned her head up and examined the soft hospital bed she was placed on. Thick leather straps were tightly wrapped around her arms, stomach, and legs.
Charlie shifted uncomfortably to find a more suitable position, but was unsuccessful. The straps were too tight.
Was this really happening to her? The first time was bad enough, but now it's even worse. She was back. She was really back. How did she not see it coming?
Shame, anger, and sadness. Those were the three emotions she was feeling right now, and it was not fun. Her heart was racing, her throbbing mind was flooded with a billion thoughts, she had the strong urge to break free. Unfortunately, she couldn't. She was too weak and the straps were too tight. Even if she did manage to break free, they would kill her in two seconds. Oh, where was her friend when she needed him most?
Fear suddenly replaced her other three emotions when the sound of a metal door squeaking open filled her ears. This was going to be it. She was actually going to die in the worst way possible. She was going to be turned into one of those ravenous beasts. She would lose all of her emotions, her humanity, and worst of all, her mind.
She couldn't take this. It would only make her disorder worse. She had to escape, but there was no way, for they had just wheeled her into the room with the mysterious machine.
The death machine was sitting in the center of the room, six empty cylindrical tubes surrounding it, awaiting its next victims. She was possibly the next one.
Through her blurry vision and muffled hearing, she could make out a deep voice speaking behind her, "Ah, I see you have finally caught her," the voice paused for a moment, "but where is the boy?"
"Dead," another voice simply stated.
Max? No, he can't be dead. That's impossible. He was supposed to be escaping and saving her.
"Send her over to the tube," the deep voice called out again.
The wheels of the bed squeaked as they rolled her over to the death machine. There it was, towering above her and everything else in the room. She was up close and personal with it. It was the worst thing ever, besides what happened two months ago.
The bed came to a halt when she finally reached one of the empty cylindrical tubes. This was going to be it. A slow, painful death that would end with her being transformed into a hideous monster.
They lifted the bed up until she was practically standing on her feet. The thick leather straps were still tightly wrapped around her stomach, arms, and legs, keeping everything tightly strapped to the bed, except her poor head. She was too weak to hold her head up, so she let it dangle down in front of her chest.
Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed her face and violently jerked her head up. She could barely see who it was, though, because of her blurry vision.
"Put her in," the strange, deep voice called out.
The person standing in front of her untied the leather straps. After the last one on her stomach was untied, she immediately fell against the person due to her extreme lack of strength.
"Damn, she's heavy," she heard the person call out. She could feel their body vibrate every time they talked.
They dragged her to the tube and threw her in, immediately shutting the see through door afterwards. She wanted to escape so badly, but her limp body wouldn't move. It felt as if she was dreaming and she had no control over her body. Unfortunately, this wasn't a dream. It was completely real and she was really going to die.
Next to the cylindrical tube, the person pressed a button and the machine quickly whirred to life. Metal restraints wrapped around her arms and legs, preventing her from escaping, even though she didn't even want to try.
"Starting experiment in," the person next to the tube paused, pressed a few smaller buttons, and then began to count down, "Five...Four...Three...Two...One."
They pressed a button after saying one. Her mind suddenly went blank and her pupils completely covered her iris. She was now catatonic.
The cylindrical tube filled with a sticky black liquid, covering her entire body and practically drowning her. Her vision then went black and she drifted off to another unknown world inside of her unconscious mind.
Meanwhile, in the dark corner of the lab, Max was watching everything from behind a rectangular flashing machine. It made small whirrs and beeps as the small square buttons flashed a bright red and blue.
Maxwell peeked out from behind the whirring machine, staring at the death machine with a frown on his face. He needed to get Charlie out of there before the machine transformed her. And he had the perfect plan.
"All right, guys," Max turned his head to the left and stared at the patients he had helped out of their prison cells. He couldn't wait to tell that story to Charlie after he saved her. If he could save her. "You ready?" He whispered the rest of his sentence and waited for their response.
The patients quietly nodded and pulled out their holographic devices Max helped them retrieve. That was another story he couldn't wait to tell Charlie.
Max grabbed the machine gun that he had placed against the smooth concrete wall and held it in his right hand. On his way down to the lab he had run into a small group of SWAT soldiers that were chatting. There was only three, but he didn't feel like messing with them, so he waited for two of them to move away leaving one lone soldier behind. He was able to sneak up behind him, twist his head until he heard a loud snapping noise, and then he stole the machine gun from his dead body. Thankfully, he didn't have to use the machine gun on his way to the death machine. Now, he was going to have to use it. Unless he could use stealth.
When Max saw Ben disappear into the next room and the doctors and guards begin to chat in a circle, he turned toward the patients and nodded silently, giving them the cue to throw the holographic devices out. They pressed a small button on the side and then chucked them out into the open, startling the group of men. The devices flicked on and realistic holograms of patients appeared, yelling and screaming at the men to "come get them."
"Hey! Stop right there!" One of the officers yelled, pointing his gun at the four holographic patients.
The group of men slowly approached the patients, the soldiers still pointing their guns at them. This was their cue.
Max and the real patients quietly approached the confused men and grabbed their heads harshly, twisting them until a loud SNAP of their necks was heard. Their bodies fell to the floor limp, leaving one doctor behind who was still unaware of the dead bodies behind him. Max approached him, pushed him to the floor and forced his foot onto his throat, leaving him gasping for breath.
The doctor flailed his arms around and clawed at Max's heavy leg, but soon gave up when his throat caved in. His arms fell to the floor and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, showing just the whites. His mouth hung open, revealing a warm glob of spit inside.
Max turned toward the patients and nodded while giving them a thumbs up. They smiled and nodded back. He then quickly jogged over to Charlie's closed cylinder and began to push buttons on the panel next to it. The machine hissed and the door to the tube came unlatched. Black ooze poured out of it revealing the unconscious Charlie inside.
The patients stood behind Max, curiously watching everything with wide eyes. They stared at the black ooze and stepped back when Charlie's limp body flopped out into Max's arms.
Max pressed two of his fingers against her neck right below her jaw, feeling for a pulse. He sighed in relief when he felt a steady beat underneath his two fingers.
"Is she alive?" One of the patients asked in a deep, sturdy voice.
"Yeah, we got her out just in time thanks to you guys," he replied.
In the other room, Ben stood watching from the bulletproof glass. He stared at Max with a calm expression on his face, four other soldiers standing behind him. They were also watching Max, but they weren't as calm as Ben.
"Sir, we need to do something! They'll get away!" One of the soldiers whispered with panic in his voice. He wanted to step down into the next room and kill them. The soldier hasn't seen any action in forever.
He began to move out of the room.
Ben put an arm out in front of him. "Don't do anything yet. I wanna see where this goes," he replied with a smirk on his face.
Max shook Charlie's limp body until her eyes opened, revealing their normal hazel color. She stared at Max and then looked around the room sleepily.
"Max? You came back," She rubbed his chest making sure it wasn't a dream and then smiled at him.
He smiled back and said, "Yeah, I came. I wasn't going to leave you here to die." He brought her face closer to his and stared into her glistening hazel eyes.
"Go now. End their love-fest," Ben whispered to the eager soldier while motioning for the others to follow him.
The eager soldier nodded with satisfaction and marched out of the room with the other soldiers.
"Hold it right there," the first soldier yelled, pointing his gun at the two lovers. The other three soldiers had their guns pointed at the four patients.
"Run!" One of the patients yelled.
They all scattered away from each other like roaches under a light, covering the back of their heads with their arms, acting as a shield from the bullets that were about to fire.
The soldiers shot at them, their arm shields useless against the bullets that easily penetrated their soft flesh. All four patients fell to the floor, their bodies toppling over each other. The white floor was now drenched in crimson blood.
Max and Charlie stared at the soldiers and backed away from them. They both collided with one of the empty cylindrical tubes causing it to shake violently.
"Max," Ben started as he stepped down the small flight of stairs, joining the small group of soldiers, "you came back." He spoke in a mocking voice and finished his sentence with a devilish smirk.
The soldiers continued to aim their guns at them.
"I don't know why you're doing this, Ben, but it needs to stop," Charlie said while on the verge of tears.
"Stop? Why should I stop? I'm so close to developing the perfect technology to create a perfect world. I'm making millions, Charlie," Ben spat at her.
"You didn't do anything with that technology. You weren't the one to develop it. The only thing you did do is kill innocent men with those disgusting experiments. You really think that's going to 'create a perfect world?' Well, here's what you should do...tell your boss to take that death machine of his and shove it up his ass!" Charlie screamed at Ben, leaving him and the armed soldiers speechless.
Ben gritted his teeth and yelled, "Get them!"
But Charlie and Max didn't give in this time. No, they weren't going down without a fight.
Max waited for one of the soldiers to approach him, grabbing him by a piece of his gear, and slamming him into one of the other soldiers. The two of them went down yelling. Then, the other two approached them, one grabbing Charlie by the throat and the other one grabbing Max by his arm.
"Let go of me!" Max yelled. He pulled the soldier closer and slammed his knee into the only vulnerable spot on his body: his crotch.
The soldier groaned in pain and squeezed his thighs together, tripping himself in the process. Max then ran over to the soldier that had Charlie and yanked his head back.
"Damn you, boy!" The soldier screamed.
Max pushed him to the ground and stepped on the side of his face, purposely digging the heel of his shoe deeper into the side of his masked face.
"How does it feel to be treated like dirt! Treated like tra—" Max was cut off by a sharp pain in the side of his neck. He painfully turned his head and saw Ben standing behind him with an empty syringe in his hand.
"Max!" Charlie reached for Max's hand, but missed as his limp body fell to the floor, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Only a small sliver of brown was showing.
"What the hell did you do?!" Charlie screamed while kneeling next to his body. He was still breathing steadily.
"Don't worry, he's not going to die. He's just sleeping...and now it's your turn," Ben replied while calling someone from behind her.
Charlie turned around and saw Agostino standing directly behind her with a syringe full of a liquid. "Goodnight, my darling," he whispered while grabbing the side of her face and pulling her into his body, shoving the syringe into the side of her neck.
"We're going to take you somewhere special. A place that you'll never be able to find your way out of," Ben smirked, staring into Charlie's hazel eyes that were getting heavier by the second.
"Now sleep," he said in a soothing voice as Charlie's body fell completely limp and her vision completely faded.