Author's Disclaimer: here it is! Enjoy it and please, comment your thoughts. I need feedback on my writing and I greatly apreciate it. I thoroughly apologise for delay, but as I've said before, I'll never abandon writing this series.
Chapter Five
‘You three look terrible. Let me offer you a pick-me-up.’ Jill said, going to the other side of the room. She pushed on a device on the wall that blended in with the others. A red light blinked, and a nasal, metallic voice was heard. ‘Yes, Doctor Nebra?’
‘I’d like a tray of tea with hot toast, please. Four cups, for my guests.’ Jill spoke on the mic. ‘Comin’ right up.’ The voice replied, and a cracking sound was heard, as the connection was severed. Jill sat back on her armchair. She removed her high-heeled shoes, and cracked her toes. ‘Sorry. I’ve been so tired lately.’ She said, and began massaging her own feet. ‘Do you have any other questions?’ Jill asked. Quigley, who apparently had been hipnotized looking at Jill, took five seconds longer to notice she was talking to him and his siblings. There was something strange about Jill Nebra.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.’ Quigley said, blushing. Jill was a very attractive woman, it has to be said. ‘It’s alright.’
Sheding a side glance at her brother, Isadora decided it was time to ask a pertinent question. ‘I’m sorry Jill, but what exactly was Jeremiah Hudson’s involvement in this laboratory’s experiments? And why exactly is Olaf in a photograph with Vladimir, Jeremiah and Dr. Lugae? We found the photograph inside Mr. Hudson Senior’s journal.’
‘His journal?’ That piqued Jill’s interest. ‘Do you still have it?’
‘Y-Yes. It has been a guide to us. This and his survival guide.’ Jill looked very riled up from that bit of information. ‘I must ask you one more thing, Quagmires. Bring me that journal, after you’ve had your tea. I’d like to take a good look at it.’
That was an odd request, but there was no argument against it. Jill was an aloof, somewhat distant ally at best, but
did have her niece and nephew’s well-being in her interests. A knock on the door was heard. Quigley went to open the door. Upon opening it, he had quite a surprise.
‘Oh.’ Rose Hawthorne said, holding an exquisite teapot and four cups, a sugarbowl, some biscuits, toast, on a silver tray with doilies on one hand. ‘Well, well, well. Quigley Quagmire. We meet again.’ Quigley closed the door almost by shock, but Jill was already behind him, and opened it once more. ‘That was uncalled for.’ Rose said, pouting as Jill let her into the office.
She was wearing a warmer version of her Gothic Works uniform, but a crimson rose still decorated her lapel. Quigley got a whiff of her scent and blushed. One didn’t have to read minds to know what he was thinking. ‘Oh, and your siblings are here. Were we ever formally introduced? I don’t remember!’ Rose said almost cheerfully. I say ‘almost’ because Rose was by definition an enemy. A member of Gothic Works, an organization devoted to murdering volunteers. No ammount of sweet talk could make the Quagmires forget it.
‘I see you’re well acquainted with Doctor Nebra.’ Rose commented, nibbling on a biscuit she picked up from the tray while she layed it on Jill’s desk. ‘Interesting.’
‘Are you a servant now, is that it? Why did you come here, Rose?’ Jill asked, handing Isadora a hot cup of tea. ‘Oh, no. I was merely asked to deliver a message from Dr. Lugae, so I took the tray from Igor. The Man didn’t take the time to give me the message himself, of course, our Dr. Lugae is a very occupied man. He had Doctor Sheffield tell me.’
‘Doctor Sheffield?’ The mention of that name made Jill grimace for a reason. ‘Yes. He told me to tell you Dr. Lugae commanded you to bring our new
guests to him in his tower. He would like to ask them a few questions. Dr. Sheffield assured me it will only take a moment. He said Dr. Lugae is very curious about the survivors of the Deluge Dam disaster.’
That gave the Quagmires quite a chill. They didn’t expect to be taken directly to the man himself so soon. If only they had the time to plan his murder…
‘Alright. I’ll take them once they finish their tea. You can leave now.’ Jill said coldly. ‘Oh, by the way, we’ll all be having dinner tonight. Together. In the main dinner hall. At nine.’ Rose said as she turned around, stopping mid-way on her walk towards the door. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Did you not hear me, Doctor Nebra? I said we’ll
all be having dinner tonight. The Quagmires included.’ Rose smiled.
‘No we won’t.’ Quigley said. ‘I won’t sit at a table with a bunch of murderers and monsters.’
‘It seems to me you forgot about your recent actions, Quigley.’ Rose said, smiling. ‘You’re a murderer too.’ Quigley frowned. ‘A murderer, yes. Me and Duncan killed a man who was trying to kill us and our sister. We didn’t massacre countless people for their previous ties to an organization that no longer exists.’
‘Just what on Earth are you talking about?’ Rose asked. Jill got up on her feet, her bare skin touching the cold stone floor. ‘It’s time for you to leave, Rose. Now.’ Rose barely had time to say a word before Jill pushed her out of the room. ‘I didn’t expect Dr. Lugae would summon you so soon. Whatever you might be thinking, forget about it for the moment. Answer his questions with prudence. Do not lie, but do not give him everything either. I have to go secure Cindry, but I’ll accompany you to his tower.’
Soon the Quagmires were trailing behind Jill Nebra on the way to the doctor Lugae’s tower. They were not too happy about it. Murdering the doctor would prove difficult in a field of his own advantage. Yes, it’s sad, but the Quagmires, or at least, Quigley and Duncan were consumed with such intentions, as they later reported. However, being so used to deceit, they managed to conceal their enmity, a word which here means ‘the intention of putting as many bullets into Dr. Ludovico Lugae’s body as they could’. The laboratory staff were an army of faceless mooks wearing white coats, sometimes aprons, and the masks and rubber gloves which all gave them an inhumane appearance. They averted their eyes when they saw Jill and the Quagmires, or at least, seemed to do so. It was hard to tell from the other side of those dark glasses.
‘The dark glasses protect the scientists eyes from hazardous lights.’ Jill commented, seeing the expression on the triplets’ faces as they walked into an elevator, this one down the hall from Jill’s office and across a couple of other rooms where unimportant staff conducted lesser experiments. On their way they had seen several caged animals being injected with all sorts of fluids. One was undergoing such process when the poor creature – a rabbit or possum – began to inflate horrendously, prompting the scientists – or torturers – to quickly run a screen around the table, and a disgusting sound was heard, the poor beast had exploded, and the screens became red with blood.
‘This place is worse than we thought.’ Isadora muttered, thinking loud. ‘Yes, but do yourself the favor of not reprimanding our activities in front of Doctor Lugae.’ Jill adverted. ‘He does not take kindly to any of his experiments, even the lesser ones, being met with words of reproach.’ Jill was sweating, and constantly pulling her long, cascading blonde hair behind her ear. She was visibly nervous, quite a contrast from the aloof, standoffish scientist the Quagmires had recently met. In the elevator, something caught the eye of Quigley. Somewhere in time during their leaving her office, Jill had taken the anti-surveillance device, which blinked faintly in red inside her lab coat. Jill walked around in a bubble of void, so to speak. That intrigued Quigley, he later commented. What could make her so afraid she felt the need to be on the defensive at all times? They knew she was an important piece of the Grimstone Research Team. It would be improbable for her to be killed before she had outlived her usefulness. But she had her reasons, as the Quagmires would be sorry to know later.
In the fifth floor, the elevator doors opened, and the triplets were quick to follow Jill outside. The rain had let up, at least for a while. ‘This is the only way to the tower, at least to anyone that isn’t staff. I can’t go with you, but you just walk straight across the bridge and they’ll let you inside.’ The Quagmire’s face must have been quite incredulous, because Jill soon added. ‘Don’t worry. It’s quite safe. Trust me, if Doctor Lugae wanted you dead, you would be dead already. Come meet me afterwards. I’ll go check on your friend, as well. The comatose one.’ Jill disappeared and the Quagmires were left out in the gelid rain. ‘I wasn’t expecting to deal with heights this soon after the mines.’ Duncan confessed. The mines were cruel, but they were the only possible way out of Ghastly Gorge after the destruction of Deluge Dam, and the flood that followed. It was either the Mines, or taking their chances climbing down the face of the rock, an even more vertigo-inducing task. But alas, the Quagmires had survived, if only for the time being. Lugae Laboratory was as far from civilization as could be, sitting on a rock that rose from a deep lake, surrounded by mountain on all sides. There, on the fifth floor, outside, the Quagmires could see faint lights in the distance. Could be a town, or a village. The forest surrounded the area around the laboratory. Mist covered the world below them, much like the mist back at Cronenberg Apartments, the mist to which Rose had jumped without hesitation.
‘Let’s get this over with. We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it.’ Quigley said with a brave smile. Isadora had to laugh at the pun, while Duncan lightly punched Quigley’s shoulder. ‘This is no time to be making puns. Damn you, Quigley.’ But Duncan was smiling.
Before, when he was alone in the world, surviving on what he could find in the woods, before he had met Jacques Snicket in that abandoned house with the now empty Reptile Room, Quigley dreamed of reuniting with his brother and sister, more than anything. He still dreamed of his parents, but that was a different dream. Quigley had no way of knowing they were even alive, but somehow, he kept believing in it. Now, he dreamed of Violet, but not once did he forget that he at least had his siblings with him. And for that Quigley Quagmire was thankful.
The so-called bridge Jill Nebra had mentioned connected the annex of the laboratory to the tower looming across a deep ravine of stone, both built and natural. Lights flickered in the dark, giving an idea as to how many basements the laboratory had. It was indeed a very large operation. The bridge was a walkway at best, with one short parapet that ran all the way across, the other side empty, as if it was a bridge cut in half. Several columns rose from beneath to support the walkway. But with one look the triplets automatically knew it would take one slip for anyone to fall into the abyss.
‘There has to be another way into his tower.’ Quigley examined their surroundings as best as he could. Next to the eponymous Lugae’s tower was the second tower, with the observatory on top. The telescope was withdrawn, however, and the observatory was closed. There was a much safer-looking structure connecting the observatory tower to the main building, for convenience’s sake, the
castle. But other than that, they saw no other similar structures between the tower and the castle part of the laboratory. Apparently, Jill had not lied.
‘What is this, a villain’s lair in a fantasy novel?’ Isadora complained. ‘Well, I can certainly see the appeal. An old, isolated, ruined castle is just the type of place
begging for a villain to turn it into a lair of some sort. Or a mafia hideout.’ Duncan was most prone to engage in reading police novels and stories of murder and crime. Isadora prefered fantasy novels when she wasn’t reading poetry. ‘Anyway, let’s go. All talk and no walk isn’t gonna get us to the other side.’ Quigley said. The Quagmires began their crossing, wary of the wet stone, the missing half of the bridge, the howling cold wind and the rain drops falling softly with large intervals. ‘From the looks of it we can expect more rain soon. Let’s hope we’ll be back with Jill before that. I wouldn’t want to cross this bridge in the rain.’
‘I wouldn’t want to cross this bridge
now.’ Duncan said. As soon as Duncan said that, however, lighting flashed in the sky and
too close, turning the sky white for a split second, while an ear splitting thunder followed in short sucession. Disoriented, Duncan put a foot in front of him, and felt nothing. Later, he said his heart stopped for a moment, as the sky became dark again, the echoes of the thunder still roaring around them, and as he began his fall, and the moment where his left hand slipped from the wet stone parapet, and he felt his body weight shift into the other side, and he remembered distinctly seeing the abyss beneath and clearly thinking “This is it.” Before he felt a had grab his foot. Then he felt another hand. Voices, one male, one female. Both desperate. A name. It was his name!
‘Duncan!’ Quigley and Isadora cried as they attempted to pull Duncan back to safety. Quigley had a firm grasp, and both his hands concentrated around his brother’s ankles. Isadora pulled on his coat, giving Quigley enough support that he could move one hand and grab Duncan’s belt, pulling him up. Duncan had been deafened, and his siblings’ voices were muffled sounds as they pulled him up. Soon Duncan was staring up instead of down, and he found himself laying on the stone bridge staring up at the sky above, where storm clouds hung almost so close he raised his hand to touch them. It was only when he saw two faces, that of Quigley and Isadora, that he came out of the moment’s stupor.
‘Duncan! Be more careful where you put that big old foot of yours! You almost died!’ Isadora was crying. ‘Seriously, man. Mind where you walk!’ Quigley was sweating from the effort of pulling Duncan to safety. ‘I think we should sit here for a while.’ Duncan said. ‘I don’t think I can walk right now.’ He felt still somewhat numb, and he was shaking.
‘Yes, let’s take a break for now.’ Isadora sat next to Duncan and hugged him.
There, on that fragile walkway, the Quagmires sat in silence, above the abyss once again. The cold night air, the threat of rain or another lightning bolt, or worse, entering the tower which they didn’t want to enter, their hearts still thumping from the adrenaline coarsing through their veins. They still had half a bridge to cross, but they would cross that bridge when they would come to it.
