Chapter 1

Breakout

Chapter 1

    Brock Douglas woke up one morning and found he wasn’t in his bed. His first thought, Where the hell am I? He attempted to survey his surroundings. He could barely move his head. He struggled to turn it. It felt heavy as a boulder. Why can’t I move?
    To his surprise, he was laying in a metal bed, with a thin mattress. His arms and legs were strapped down. When he tried to lift his hands, he couldn’t bring them up. He was in a small room, maybe ten feet by eight feet. There was a dirty, steel toilet in the corner. Next to it was a sink, the bottom caked with grime and scum. It was a cell, but not a jail cell.
    A massive, blue door with chipped paint stood in the middle of the wall at Brock’s feet. Brock again tried to move, this time to get up. His legs felt numb. They wouldn’t budge. He wanted to call out for help, but he couldn’t form the words with his mouth. What the hell is going on, here!?
    With a loud ‘buzz’ the door slid open. A tall, stocky man in white walked in. He had an apron and a mask on. Out of his pocket he pulled out a large syringe with a needle the length of a grown man’s index finger. “Time for another dose Mr. Douglas,” he said, with a smug smile.
    Jesus Christ! He isn’t gonna stick that in me? What the hell! Let me outta here!
    The man stepped up towards Brock’s bed with the needle and unstrapped his arm. All of the sudden, there was a loud crash and the building shook and groaned. Another explosion. Another tremendous shake. The wall at the head of the bed crumbled and fell in on top of the man. The bricks barely missed Brock. Oh, thank God.
    Buzzing, the door slid open.  Brock heard door after door after door. From outside his door a woman screamed “S**t! The power grid’s been knocked out! Contain the patients! Contain the patients!” People ran through the halls. Everyone was in a panic.
    A brick fell on Brock’s head.

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    When Brock woke up his head was pounding. There was no noise outside. He reached his hand up and rubbed his head. It seemed like nothing at first. Wait, I can move again! The drugs have worn off! His hand was sticky. When he looked at it, there was blood.
    With his free hand, Brock reached to his left arm and unstrapped it. He sat up. Sharp pain shot through his back. He let out a scream of agony and arched his back like a cat.
    Once the pain subsided, he leaned down towards his feet and loosened the straps on his ankles and slipped his feet out. He swung his feet over the side of the bed. The floor was tiled and ice cold. When he stood up his legs shook, very weak. How long have I been laying in this damn bed?
    Brock shuffled his feet across the floor until he reached the door. He looked out, both ways. Fires crackled and popped in piles of rubble. There were bodies all over the place. It’s a psych ward! They locked me up! I’m a loony! But how did this happen? He couldn’t remember anything but the explosion. He turned left from the door and started down the hallway. As he passed, he looked in all the rooms, hoping to find somebody alive. Room by room, he searched. There has to be somebody here!
    He searched the building for hours, not anything but rubble, fire, and bodies. Finally as he rounded a corner he saw someone. He was rather tall, though not as tall as Brock and was dressed, head to toe, in black. He wore a bullet proof vest and carried a long black gun across his back, like a machine gun you would see in a game.  “Hey, you there! Help me out here! I heard an explosion and was knocked out! Next thing I know, I’m waking up to this! What’s going on, man?”
    The darkly dressed man quickly spun around and pulled the gun off his back, aiming it at Brock. Brock raised his hands in front of his chest. “Hey, hey! I’m not an enemy! I’m just lookin’ for some help! Take it easy!”
    The man didn’t lower his gun. He lowered his head, not taking his eyes off of Brock and said into a small radio, “Survivor located. Permission to open fire?”
    The radio gave off static then a voice came, “Negative. Capture him.”
    At hearing this, Brock whipped around and bolted off back down the hallway he had come from. The man in black followed, but by the time he had started running, Brock was long down the hall.
    Brock glanced around when he came to a stop, at a dead end with a locked door. Where now? He spotted a large air duct in the wall. He yanked it open and crawled in, replacing the cover.
    The man in black ran to the end of the hall, followed by two more, both also carrying machine guns. Brock sat watching them for some time before they left.
    When he was sure they were gone, he began crawling through the duct, looking for a way out. As he rounded a corner he heard a little girl’s giggle, real faint and distant. What the hell was that? Another giggle, more distant this time. “Hello?” he called out. Nothing.
    Brock crept slowly the rest of the way through, until he came out in a large room with drawers and cabinets and what looked to be an operating table. The table was covered with blood and surrounded by all sorts of medical machinery like you see in hospitals. What was going on here? And where did everyone go?
    The girl giggled again, seeming much closer than before. Then there was whispering. It sounded like more than one person. Brock checked around the room. Nobody there.
    From down the hall came an echo. A deep voice. “Spread out, sweep the area. Find him and report back.” Feet pounded the ground. They were coming closer and closer. I’ve got to break out of here.

Author's Note

If you read, please review. Always looking for things I can do better.

Reviews

[ytiger]

Hello, nice to see another young writer. I too am 14 (or 15 I'm so scattered brain that I can't remember). I have some critiques and comments. First of all I loved the line, "the man in black followed..." it's reminiscent of the first line in Stephen King's epic series entitled the dark tower, "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." (It's a good series if you haven't read it, a little hard to get into at first though). Second of all I think you need a better beginning. While it could be effective sometimes simple sentences are very boring to read. Only make something that needs to be thought about a simple sentence such as, "He pulled the trigger." Otherwise it feels laggy and that is how I felt about the first paragraph. The first sentence needs to be more interesting such as, " Brock Douglas' eyes shot open. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong."
Even though I'm using simple sentences they had a sense of urgency.
excited to see more from you.
(btw check out my short story, your beginning reminded me of it)