Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight, Andrews, C. [classic books for 10 year olds .TXT] 📗

The sting was singing louder, however, and the churning that had begun in my stomach turned into nausea. I faltered and M'Lady One came to my side and kept me from falling.

“This is going to be good,” she said. “The Ice Room on top of it all. I tell you, Phoebe, I couldn't do it.”

“Me neither,” M'Lady Two said. “Glad it's you and not me.”

“You're all a bunch of wimps,” M'Lady Three said. “Phoebe's going to show you up. Aren't you, Phoebe? Girl of the streets, tough.”

“I think I'm going to throw up,” I said.

“Get her in there before she does. I hate the smell,” M'Lady Two said stepping back.

M'Lady One twisted my arm and pushed me through the doorway. There was a bunk, but at the head of it, there was what looked like a helmet with wires attached.

“What is this?”

“We've told you before. It's your worst nightmare,” M'Lady One said.

I tried to resist, but her hold was so firm, I thoughther fingers would break through my skin and flesh. She turned me into the room, and together she and M'Lady Three forced me to lie down.

“I'm sick!” I screamed. “I need a doctor, medicine!”

They put the helmet over my head and strapped it on tightly. I resisted but I couldn't keep my arms from being straightened and then a strap was fixed over my chest, just under my breasts. It was just as it had been when I'd woken up in the plane that had brought me to this hell.

A visorlike part of the helmet was lowered over my face. It was dark and their voices grew more muffled because of the earphones over my ears.

“Enjoy,” I heard, and heard them leave the room, closing the door behind them. Their voices drifted away and there was only silence.

What was this? A helmet over my head with a visor to keep me in the dark and in the quiet? It was stupid. The coffin was worse, I thought. This isn't so bad except I felt so sick and the pain was still as sharp as ever in my foot. I was getting hot, too, and it wasn't just from the stuffiness in the room. I knew I was developing a fever. The nausea built up until I started to vomit, but I could only turn my head a little to spit to the side. Finally, that stopped, but it left me feeling so tired, so weak.

I'll just sleep, I thought.

I'll beat them. I'll sleep and get better and beat them. This wasn't so terrible.

Ice Room?

There was nothing icy about the Ice Room. It was just as I had suspected, a lot of intimidation, a lot of scary talk and nothing else. Robin just couldn't take being locked up and strapped down and forced to be indarkness. I'm stronger than she is. I can wait it out. I'm stronger than the whole lot of them, even the buddies, I told myself. I am special. Dr. Foreman was right about that.

I'll sleep, I assured myself. I'll sleep and I'll get better. Keep telling yourself that, Phoebe, I chanted. You'll get better. You'll beat them. Think about something good. Think about Wind Song and Natani and the beautiful desert sky and the horizon and tomorrow. Tomorrow, yes, getting out of here, getting away from here. Remember what he said about the hogan. Don't let them into your house. I wouldn't.

I can do this. I can win, I thought.

And then.

It began.

Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight

Dr. Foreman's Spy

At some point your screaming becomes so high-​pitched it seems to be coming from someplace else. It's like someone else is screaming in the distance and you can barely hear it, but that sensation doesn't happen immediately. First, you practically blow out your lungs with the effort and your vocal cords strain and you grow hoarse.

It all began with the sound I heard through the earphones in the strange helmet, an all too familiar squeaky sound that quickly built into a horrific chorus. First, I could hear only one, then another and another until I knew there was a pack of them.

Rats.

I don't know what the helmet and the visor were, but what I saw and heard was truly lifelike. I soon realized it was something I understood to be called virtual reality, but to me no virtual was involved. They were allover me, crawling, sniffing, nibbling. It was reality. I could actually feel their cold noses, their tiny teeth, their slimy tails, and their little claw feet.

They didn't just run over my body. They gathered and began to explore every part of me, going up the leggings of the coveralls and over my thighs, between my legs, under my panties, then under my shirt, pushing themselves under my breasts, sniveling around my nipples and climbing up my throat to my mouth, pushing between my lips, shoving their heads into my mouth. They were at my ears as well, worming their way into my head. Their fur was wet, their tails long and slimy, the tiny nails in their claws painful.

I could even smell them, smell this putrid, stale odor that they picked up from wallowing through piles of garbage and dead animals. Waves of revulsion traveled up and down my entire body to add to the nausea I was experiencing from the scorpion sting.

And I could do nothing to drive them off. Because of how tightly I was strapped onto the cot, I could barely wiggle, not that it would have helped, of course, since they weren't actually on me.

It was no good closing my eyes. The images were projected through my lids, and in these images, the rats were at the lids, forcing them open. I screamed and screamed.

And then suddenly, as quickly as they had come, they were gone. I don't know how long they were there, but they were gone and there was just darkness, the relief of total darkness.

Moments later Dr. Foreman's voice began softly.

“Phoebe, my poor Phoebe. I'm