Chapter 7 - The Source
The clock on the dashboard read 11:45 PM as I parked the car in the shadows behind Oak Creek Elementary.
The school looked entirely different in the dead of night, resembling an abandoned prison rather than a place of learning.
I checked on Chloe, who was sleeping exhaustedly in the passenger seat with the gauze still taped to her neck.
According to the files, the parasite remaining inside her was dormant because it was severed from the main hub.
But if I did not completely destroy the central server, the remaining synthetic wires would eventually regenerate and kill her.
I locked the car doors, wrapped my coat tightly around myself, and walked toward the back entrance of the school cafeteria.
I used a heavy rock to shatter the glass panel of the metal door, reaching through to unlock it from the inside.
The cafeteria was pitch black, smelling faintly of old floor wax and stale bread.
I turned on my cell phone flashlight, casting a narrow, trembling beam of light across the lunch tables.
I walked slowly toward the kitchen, my footsteps echoing far too loudly in the massive room.
The federal files indicated the entrance to the underground server was hidden behind the industrial walk-in freezer.
I pushed open the heavy kitchen doors, aiming my flashlight down the long corridor.
I froze entirely, my breath catching painfully in my throat.
Standing perfectly still in the middle of the dark hallway were at least thirty small children.
They were all students from the school, wearing their winter pajamas, completely silent in the freezing darkness.
Their heads were bowed, and their arms hung limply at their sides.
"Hey," I whispered softly, stepping cautiously toward a little boy I recognized from Chloe's reading class.
The moment I spoke, every single child snapped their head up in perfect, terrifying unison.
Their eyes were completely pitch black, reflecting my flashlight beam like shiny obsidian stones.
They did not attack me, but they immediately linked their arms together, forming an impenetrable human wall blocking the freezer door.
"You are trespassing," thirty different children spoke simultaneously, their metallic voices layering over each other in a haunting echo.
"The hive must be protected."
I slowly backed away, knowing I could not physically fight my way through dozens of innocent, mind-controlled children.
I needed a way to break their concentration without hurting a single one of them.
I looked up at the ceiling and saw the red metal box of the school's emergency fire alarm.
I grabbed a heavy metal frying pan from the kitchen rack and smashed it directly into the glass alarm box.
The deafening, piercing shriek of the fire siren immediately exploded through the entire building.
The children all screamed in absolute agony, clapping their hands over their ears as the high-frequency sound overloaded their synthetic hearing.
They collapsed safely to the floor, curling into defensive balls, completely incapacitated by the noise.
I stepped carefully over them, rushing to the freezer and pulling the massive steel handle.
The fake wall swung open, revealing a glowing, high-tech staircase leading deep underground.
I ran down the stairs, bursting into a massive server room filled with blinking lights and humming computers.
Standing at the main control console was a woman wearing an expensive corporate business suit.
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She turned around to face me, holding a suppressed pistol aimed directly at my chest.
It was Mrs. Henderson, the school nurse.
