Memory Logs

Animal Instinct

6. Animal Instinct

[ Encounter 32; Léry's Memorial Institute. ]

"How long did you know?"

Those eyes were watching him again; those horrible, wicked black eyes that represented anger, hatred, greed - but also power... strength... fortitude. Sometimes Evan was grateful to have received his mother's deep green eyes... other times he wondered if having dark eyes like his father would make him less weak. "I... I didn't," he stammered, looking up at the dark figure looming over him.

"If you're going to lie, at least be good at it," Archie MacMillan hissed, raising a hand.

Evan braced himself for the pain, but did not whimper, did not flinch. That would be showing weakness and would only make the beatings worse. He had to be strong, accept his punishment without so much as blinking. Then - maybe - his father would look at him as anything other than a maggot.

The fist came down and pain bloomed across his cheek; at fifteen years old he'd had more than a lifetime's share of these beatings. He knew what to expect. Looking straight at the ground and not daring to let a groan escape his throat, Evan took each strike Archie laid upon him.

He lied. He knew about the Union. He'd been helping his friends - Bob, Jim, Drew, and others - even though his father had told him not to. Told him speaking to the maggots - making friends - was for worms. Powerless people who aimlessly floated along in life, not those born for greatness.

And so he sat, accepting his punishment. After all, he deserved it.

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Anger twisted the killer's gut as he strode forward, clutching his machete in an iron grip. It seemed the Fog was no escape from the horrors of his life before it, and his father's wicked voice never left him, constantly commandeering from his shoulder like the devil. He'd long since accepted the fact that he was a monster and his soul - whatever fraction he'd been born with - had been taken away by both genetics and his father's cruelty.

And the Entity now manipulated him to its heart's content.

The Trapper - after all the things he'd done, both here and in the real world, he no longer had any right or desire to be referred to by his former name - carefully and methodically placed a bear trap underneath a windowsill as he moved further into the treatment center of Léry's Memorial Institute. He hated this place; it was cramped, dusty, and proof of the Doctor's debauchery was around every corner. The Trapper much preferred the open skies and woodsy aura of Autohaven... or, dare he admit it, his own home. Mixed feelings swelled in his chest; the MacMillan Estate was familiar, but filled with a myriad of painful memories that constantly stirred his brain.

Shaking himself out of it, he lurked around a corner, hearing the telltale sounds of a half-working generator. If he could guide the frightened little survivor toward that window, it would be an easy catch. Looking through a set of windows and an open doorway, he found not one, but two of them working hard on the machinery; and one of them was his Little Rabbit. He should have known - he could see that ever-present red string coming out of his chest and stretching along the hallway and around the corner. And he could see the other end of it... attached to her.

He still didn't know what it really was or why it connected them, and perhaps he never would. What he did know was that the petite, lithe red-head had fully captured his attention; something of an obsession, even. Only carefully controlled countenance kept the Entity from intervening further and keeping her from him. With the girl was a boy with shaggy brown hair, a dark blue jacket, and a little cap on his head; the Trapper did not know his name, but he'd seen the teen before - and he seemed very close to Meg.