Chapter 8: The Run

There was a heavy rain pour and the clouds had covered the sky, making the place pitch dark, except for the neighborhood landscape lights at Freeda. The trauma of the fierce looking rat still remained each time I got into the lab, even after days had gone by. The lab even though cleaned up, was still untouched and the rest of the samples were still there. Balley and I had planned on getting rid of the remaining samples, but he couldn't make it because of his family time at home, so I had to be the man for the job this time, at least taking the baggage out would be the first step. The samples were packed in a pick_up truck of about 2 crates of glass vial specimens, while I drove through the neighborhood pathway leading to the road, just a few meters from Harley's house, when I heard a loud crash at the back of the truck. "What the hell". I said, coming out of the truck in the heavy droplets of the rain. One of the crates of the glass vial, which contained the samples had broken, spilling on the peonies that were planted on the driveway and was rolling out over the grasses in the rain water, from one plant to another, going into every nearby plant and making it impossible for me to scoop it back in. I wanted to get rid of it but not in this way, I just hoped another rat wouldn't come to get a taste of it, it would be disastrous. The glass vials were broken into pieces and there was no salvaging it. With everything that happened in the week, I didn't want any other surprises, so I quickly picked up the broken glasses and tried scooping out some of the spilled samples, even if it was of little or no use. I was interrupted by Balley's call, as I entered the car to drive.

'Hello bro, are you done?' 'Something just happened again' I hit the steering wheel with my left hand in anger. 'What's wrong bro?'

'You won't believe it, I just lost one crate of the damn sample' my voice had a shaky tone to it. I wouldn't blame myself though, the whole week had been a scary one for me and this sure put a cherry on the cake. 'Com'on, not again...' Balley sounded stressed out. 'I think I'll need you to join me tomorrow, so we can get rid of it. We could do it early tomorrow morning.' 'Alright, just call me when you're ready.' I could hear from Balley's tone that he just wanted to get it over with, somehow we had to get rid of this nightmare.

I drove the truck into my lawn after few hours of driving. With so much caution when I arrived at the house, as I entered through the automatic doored garage. I didn't want Girra to ask me questions about the truck and wasn't exactly ready to tell her more lies. I was half way in, when I looked in the rear mirror to see a figure which was standing outside, gazing at me with an umbrella. It was Girra and it was like she knew that I was up to something. I panicked a little at a glance at her. I mean, I didn't expect to see her behind me at the moment I thought of her. I came out of the car, running quickly under the rain drops to where she stood with her umbrella. 'Hey hun' I said with a kiss, as she stood there with an expressionless face and didn't say much of a word. 'Hello, how are you?' she said, still making some glances at the garage and then continued. 'How was work today?' 'Fine fine, everything was fine. Com'on let's go in.... It's raining' I tried avoiding the whole situation, by trying to lead her into the house, as she shrugged her shoulders a bit. 'So what's in there?' she asked, now looking straight at the garage. 'It's nothing, just some laboratory apparatus from the lab.' 'So why did you bring it here?' 'I need to deliver it to someone.. by tomorrow morning. Let's go in....' I pinched myself a bit as I got into the house; Of all things, delivery? "O God, I'm so dumb" I said under my breath, as I thought of the excuse I made. Somehow I knew Girra didn't believe me, but what could I do.

I barely slept, not with those samples in the garage and Girra being all suspicious about it. Even though I dozed off for a bit, getting a good sleep seemed harder by the hour. Balley put a call through as early as the cock crow and was waiting for me outside. This time I woke Girra up, telling her I was headed to deliver what was in the truck and even though I knew she won't totally believe it, I didn't want more suspicions. Unlike me, Balley looked wide awake, I'm sure he had gotten a good night's rest, but anyways we got into the car and hit the road.

'Hey bro, where are we headed? what's the plan?' I asked Balley, as he looked more focused on the road than the conversation. 'I have a plan' I looked at him, eager to hear what he'd say next, as he continued. 'So there's this place, it's called "Kenwood". it's a forest or woods, you know, with trees...and tree_lined roads..' Balley demonstrated with his hands, making glances at me, with his eyes still on the road. 'Okay... go on!' I was more interested in the other part of his plan. 'So, there's a large gallon at the back of the truck..'

'Okay...' I nodded.

'We're gonna put the rest of the samples into the gallon and do some digging with the shovels at the back, then we pour it in. When we're done, we say goodbye to this nightmare' Balley took his hands off the wheels for a second, taking a deep breath. It was a risk we were taking, but we just had to do it anyways.

'Okay then, are you sure this place Ken..w_'

'Kenwood, it's Kenwood' Balley cut in. 'Are you sure it's safe to get rid of it?' 'Sure bro, Kenwood is like a no man's world, you could call it dead, the only living things are trees and plants'

'I hope you know if we get caught we're dead meat' I glanced at him with my side eye, trying to get his attention, as he gave a little tap on my shoulders with his right hand, holding the steering wheel with the other. 'Don't fret bro, we've got this.' Balley seemed a little more confident at it than me, which helped boost my confidence too. We kept on driving on the tree lined road, until we got to a sign board, which read "Kenwood"

'This is it' Balley said, as he parked the car on the road path. 'Don't just stand there bro, we've gotta work something out.' The plan seemed like a good one though, but at this point I was a little out of it, a lot ran through my mind. We walked some few kilometers into the woods, Balley held the crates, while I was with the shovels and gallon. Even though it was morning, the clouds were still dark and a little misty, so we put on our torches to get a better view of where we went, as we got deeper into the woods, I mean... if we were getting rid of the samples, we had to do it properly.

'O man... I think we're good' Balley said, breathing heavily and dropping the crate on the ground. We opened the gallon, pouring the liquid sample into it. 'So what do you think is in this thing Willy?' 'How?' I asked, raising my eyes at him from my bent down position. Even though things were quite obvious, we tried to avoid the topic of the sample, not until Balley spoke up. 'I mean, why did it turn that rat to a freaking monster, what's Inside it?'' this time, he dropped the glass vial, looking at me wide eyed. 'I don't know bro, I think it's some kind of_'

'shh_shh_shhh...' Balley interrupted, standing upright, while turning his face to the other direction. 'Can you hear that?' 'What! what's that' I said in a higher tone. 'No no, I can hear something, listen' he motioned with his hand to the left. 'Com'on we've gotta get out of here' Balley looked uneasy, as he carried the shovels. 'I thought you said this is an unknown place, why the hell are we hearing voices, and lest you forget bro.. we're not done here.' Even though I knew it was risky and we had to get out of there immediately, I also knew that getting rid of the sample was as important and carrying it back to the truck would be a whole lot of work.

'Com'on, we could dig up fast' Balley jumped on to one side, under a scanty looking tree where we stood. We had started digging, but the voices were getting closer. 'Com'on Willy, let's get outta here' Balley said with a shaky voice, as he pulled me up. 'Whatever is coming is not sounding good and is going to meet up with us!!'

'Okay, okay' I tried to carry the crates and the gallons, but it seemed like an impossible task. In the moment, it was like whatever was in the woods knew where it was going because of the rumble we made. There were flickers of light, from what seemed to be searchlights, as we dropped the shovels and took to our hills. In no time, we reached the area where we parked the truck.

'Where are the keys bro!!' I said, as Balley fumbled his pockets for the key. 'I think I dropped it back there' Balley frantically paced round the truck, glancing at the ground. 'Okay, Okay....' I said in a lower tone, feeling a bit nervous. 'Just calm down and think, when last did you see it?' 'I don't know... I don't know bro' he turned, looking into the woods, as the lights got closer. 'Com'on bro, it's here' Balley found the keys, as he rushed into the car, turning on the car's ignition, with me jumping in as fast as I could. 'Wooooaaaahhh!!' Balley yelled, stepping on the gas with much excitement. 'What the hell though, what's that for?' I asked, really confused at the moment and looking behind to see if we were totally safe. 'I'm sorry bro, but I've never felt so much adrenalin rush in years, com'on that was something else' he said, sounding the horn for some few seconds, as I glared at him. 'Bro, I know this is a whole adventure and whatsoever you want to call it, but do you realize that we have not disposed of that thing properly and people are actually living there. Do you even know what was after us back there? and what if we got killed? Think and leave the fun for now bro' I said in a harsh tone, feeling uneasy and at the same time, holding myself back from telling Balley how stupid he was to be making fun of the situation at hand and he knew I wasn't comfortable with his sardonic attitude at this point. 'Alright' Balley slowed down a bit, checking the rear mirror. 'What the hell was that tough...? Okay, first calm down, life isn't that serious. Secondly, this week has been the best week of my life. Remember we were looking for some adventure and then the monstrous rat came and now this!! No offense though.' he raised his hands off the steering for a while, then gave a faded smile. 'We've gotten rid of the damn sample, it's no threat anymore, let's just hope it doesn't cause any harm.' Even if it was not what we planned, there was a bit of satisfaction that the samples were out of sight. The rest of the journey home even though silent, left me thinking of the reality of having the samples go wrong again. Well, I could do nothing but hope everything doesn't go haywire.

'Thanks bro' I broke the silence. 'Anytime man!! let's just hope we didn't give room for more monsters' Balley said, now looking serious. I couldn't exactly say for Balley, but with all the drama that happened earlier I needed some sort of distraction and going to work was not the exact distraction I needed, but of course, we had to be at work. We took the truck back to Freeda and headed immediately to Runa hospital.

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