Chapter 5 - The Glass Laboratory
I drove three hours south into the dense, rain-slicked pine forests of rural Indiana, far away from interstate highways and state police traffic cameras.
The rain hit the cracked windshield of the stolen utility van like a barrage of tiny nails. Beside me, Chloe was slipping in and out of consciousness, her body shivering violently despite the heater blasting warm air directly onto her legs.
The black roots on her chest had reached her rib cage. They were glowing—a faint, bioluminescent violet pulse that throbbed beneath her skin in five-second intervals.
My phone, which I had stripped of its SIM card to prevent GPS tracking, lay on the dashboard. But I didn't need GPS.
Thirty minutes after escaping the hospital, I had remembered something.
Eight months ago, before my ex-husband had abandoned us and left me with a mountain of medical debt, he had worked as an electrical contractor for a high-security industrial facility hidden deep in the woods near Blackwood Creek. He used to complain about the non-disclosure agreements, about the armed guards in black uniforms, and about the bio-containment seals he had to install on the subterranean levels.
“They call it the Vanguard Bio-Tech Facility,” he had muttered over a beer one night. “It doesn't exist on any map. But if you follow Route 9 to the old logging road behind the limestone quarry, you’ll hit the perimeter fence.”
If this parasite was stolen from a logistics depot, Vanguard was where it had been manufactured. And if Vanguard manufactured it, they were the only ones who possessed the antidote.
At 6:15 PM, as dusk settled over the forest, I saw the chain-link fence through the fog.
It was ten feet tall, topped with razor wire, and marked with yellow warning signs: RESTRICTED GOVERNMENT RESEARCH ZONE — EXTREME BIO-HAZARD — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
I didn't stop. I didn't look for a gate.
I gripped the steering wheel of the heavy steel utility van, told Chloe to hold on to her seatbelt, and smashed the vehicle directly into the center of the chain-link fence at fifty miles an hour.
The metal fence snapped with a deafening screech of tearing iron. The van plowed through the wire, bouncing wildly over the ditch, and slammed into the side of a concrete security booth, coming to a dead stop in a cloud of steam and shattered glass.
Alarm sirens instantly cut through the rain-drenched forest—a loud, warbling shriek that echoed off the trees.
I unbuckled Chloe, pulled her into my arms, and kicked the damaged passenger door open.
Ahead of us was a massive, subterranean concrete structure built directly into the side of the limestone quarry wall. Double blast doors stood open, a team of three scientists in white containment suits scrambling to secure hazardous materials crates into the back of a military transport truck.
They were panicking. The break-in had caught them completely off guard.
I ran straight toward the blast doors, holding Chloe close to my chest, my clothes soaked with rain and motor oil.
“Stop her!” one of the technicians in a hazard suit screamed, dropping a steel tray of vials. “She’s infected!”
A guard in a black tactical vest reached for his holster, but I didn't stop. I grabbed a heavy stainless-steel bio-hazard canister from the transport truck and swung it with all the strength left in my arms, slamming it directly into the guard’s helmet. He went down hard, his rifle clattering across the wet concrete.
I snatched the keycard from his belt, sprinted past the shocked scientists, and slipped inside the blast doors, sliding the keycard through the wall terminal to seal the heavy steel doors behind us.
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The pneumatic locks engaged with a deep, echoing CLACK.
We were inside.
