The Whitechapel Project

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Previously on Whitechapel

Mister Rich revealed some tantalizing information about Six’s past, although he was wary of Six’s true intentions. After Six had some food, a shower, and some new clothes, Mister Rich was followed by two police officers to the run-down motel that they were staying at. The situation escalated, and Six killed one of the officers with his mind while Mister Rich was wounded in a gunfire exchange with the second officer. Six realized that the cops were fake, but just as he was pulling Mister Rich’s car around to get him to a hospital, a black van showed up at the other end of the motel parking lot.

Episode Eight – The Van

Fuck this. I’ve killed enough tonight – I can’t let someone else die because of my negligence. I lean over Mister Rich and slide my arms under his armpits. I try to pick him up, but his muscular bulk makes it feel like I’m trying to lift a boulder. I switch to his legs to drag him to the car. The fluffy snow helps to slide him along, leaving a red smear on the frozen ground behind him. It’s slow work, and the whole time I look for some kind of super-strength or telekinesis or something that might be lurking inside my brain, but all I get is a bigger headache.

It feels like hours getting Mister Rich to the car, but the van hasn’t moved. A couple of men are standing on either side of the van, wearing thick, black wool coats over button-down shirts, ties and slacks. One is walking toward the pile of meat that used to be Cochrane, and the other is talking into a cell phone while scanning the area.

I realize that how I’ve parked Mister Rich’s car next to the police cruiser effectively hides me and Mister Rich, as long as I stay low. I finish dragging Mister Rich to the car, wincing at every snap of a twig or bounce of Mister Rich’s skull. Once I get him to the open door, I try to fold his upper body up and shove him into the back seat. I’m sure I’m breaking a thousand medical procedures, but he only might die if I get him into the car, instead of certainly dying if he bleeds to death in the snow.

I keep pushing, and Mister Rich finally flops forward with a solid thump. I breathe a sigh of relief, and quietly close the rear door before crouching toward the front door and opening it softly. I grab the keys from my pocket and slide into the driver’s seat.

Mister Rich’s phone rings. I feel a scream rise in my throat out of surprise, but I manage to clamp it down. I look at it to check the ID of the caller, but the screen just says “ZM Lacuna,” same as on the cop’s credit card. Why would the company that issued the credit card that a fake police officer was carrying be calling Mister Rich?

I throw the cell phone on the passenger seat along with the pistols and the clothes, and I settle into the driver’s seat, crouching low. I put the key in the ignition and turn it just far enough to unlock. I ease the car into reverse and take a deep breath. My hand grabs the key, and starts to turn it.

Suddenly, there’s a pounding on my side window. One of the men from the van is pressing his face against the glass, holding his hand next to his eyes in order to see through the window tinting. I can barely make out a muffled “Marsh? Are you in there?”

I briefly consider taking on the disguise of Mister Rich, but the memory of Dr. Tucci’s skinned corpse comes back. No. No more killing.

I crank the key hard and stomp on the gas. The car shoots back as I turn hard on the steering wheel, and I can feel the back wheels start to slide. The man pounding on the window falls back and rolls out of the car’s way as I hit the breaks. I slam the car into drive and hit the gas again. I can hear the tires spinning for a second before the car lunges for the turn out of the parking lot.

My life becomes nothing but a series of turns. Hard left. Try not to swerve into the trees. Hard right. Watch out for the truck. Hard right again. I try not to think about where I’m going – I just pick random turns and focus on keeping my car on the road and going as fast as I can.

Which is probably why I ended up driving past a police car at 110 miles per hour.

I hear the siren kick in behind me. Fuck. I risk a glance in the rearview mirror, and I can see his lights flashing. Behind the cruiser are a pair of large, bright headlights, but it’s too dark to make out who they belong to.

I glance around the dashboard, looking for inspiration. I notice that Mister Rich has a built-in GPS system, and I get an idea. Quickly tapping the screen, I program in a course for the hospital. If I can get to the hospital before I’m pulled over, maybe the police will help me get Mister Rich inside, and the presence of real police might shelter me from the men in the van long enough for me to think of another way to escape.

I listen to the soothing electronic voice giving directions while I try to keep one eye on the slowly scrolling map glowing in the darkness of the car. Merge right. Straight ahead to the highway. Take this exit. Ignore the police officer screaming for me to pull over through his mounted bullhorn. Another three miles. Two miles. My destination is on the right.

The lights move alongside me, and I can see a cop angrily gesturing for me to pull over. I start to shake my head, but realize he can’t see me. The glowing sign for Mercy Anderson Emergency Room jumps out at me, and I yank the wheel hard into the turn. The cop car speeds past, but I notice out of the corner of my eye that it manages to make another turn into the hospital campus.

I park the car in front of the emergency room drive-up and rush inside the automatic doors. “Help, I have a man bleeding in my car outside!” A few people dressed in scrubs rush out with me, one of them bringing a gurney with him. I turn around and head back outside to lead them to the car.

The police are already there, pointing their guns at me. They start to shout orders, but I raise my hands and point to the car. “Wait! A man is bleeding to death inside my car! Let me open the car for the ER team, please.”

The cops pause for a moment, and then one tells me to throw him the keys to the car. I do so, and he picks them up while his partner covers me with her pistol. I tell him to open the front door and look for a button on the dashboard.

He has the door open when I hear a crack, and I feel like someone has kicked me in the side, knocking me over. I try to scramble back up to see what happened, but my body won’t respond. My muscles are stiff, locked rigid. I can hear the cops shouting at someone else, and something about a taser, but out of the corner of my eye I see one of the men in the black wool coats holding a shotgun and showing some kind of card or badge to the police officers.

I feel myself being rolled onto my back, and I look into the eyes of the other wool overcoat. He’s holding a device in his hand that crackles electricity. I feel my jaw loosen a bit, and I manage to ask “Who are you?”

The man looks bored with the question. “We’re your owners. And you’ve been a very bad dog.”

He presses the device to my flesh, and I black out.

Where will I wake up?

Back in my cell?

In a hospital?

Or in a bedroom?

The choice is yours.

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Episode Nine – Two Wakings