Night of the Squirrels: Dawn of the Interns

By Rachel Smith

There's something very wrong with McWikken Academy. Students disappear. Some come back "different," perhaps with an inability to speak, a metal part, or giant pointy teeth and a hunger for rabbits, if they come back at all. Unidentifiable men in black coats stalk the campus at night. Sometimes they are wearing sunglasses. It's hard to concentrate on getting to the top of the pyramid if you go to art history class in the morning and wake up bleeding on a path by lunch. And who are those interns?

Regan Krieger really wants to know. She wants the one boy who hasn’t made fun of her eye patch back. Before her senior year starts, she will endure broken relationships, forced school spirit, supernatural attacks, and sparkles to get the answers. Unless someone erases her memory first.

The information Regan’s hunting is closer than she thinks. Perhaps there’s sympathy lurking just underneath her window. Someone who has finally gotten a job with room for advancement after years of academic toil, who is now encountering a very long list of things he did not expect to do. An intern, gone rogue, who is just doing his job injecting unaware students with purple stuff, watching them at night, and running through the woods with a tranquilizer gun while waiting for his chance to start resurrecting some extinct species. There’s nothing really wrong with that, right?

Dawn of the Interns is the first in the Night of the Squirrels trilogy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Smith
• Release date: Apr 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301259472

Rachel Smith

Rachel Smith is a Queer cartoonist living on the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples (Cambridge, Nova Scotia). They’ve had illustrations and comics published in anthologies from Cloudscape Comics and Vagabond Comics, among others. They are also the creator of the autobiocomic Skull and the cozy forest fantasy comic Pog & Zella. Rachel has a certificate in Comics & Graphic Novels from Camosun College.

Book preview

Night of the Squirrels:

Dawn of the Interns

Rachel Smith

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Rachel E. Smith

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional. All references to public figures, historical events, and popular culture entities are done with love and respect.

For the herd, everything is always for the herd

****

Table of Contents

Chapter One – Fear and Sickness

Chapter Two – Closer

Chapter Three- His Prescription...Pain

Chapter Four – Something I Learned Today

Chapter Five – Living is Suicide

Chapter Six – Sleeping in Blood City

Chapter Seven – Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Chapter Eight –Everything in its Right Place

Chapter Nine – Black Wave

Chapter Ten – Rid of Me

Chapter Eleven - The Step and the Walk

Chapter Twelve – Dead Sound

Chapter Thirteen – Train Escape

Chapter Fourteen – Two Tribes

Chapter Fifteen – Colby and Jenkins, Goin' Rogue

Chapter Sixteen – Wolf Like Me

Chapter Seventeen – Dress

Chapter Eighteen – Killing the Light

Chapter Nineteen – Thirteen

Chapter Twenty – Wash the Day

Chapter Twenty-One – Use Once and Destroy

Chapter Twenty-Two – Is She Weird?

Chapter Twenty-Three – Heads Will Roll

Chapter Twenty-Four – They Call Them the Diamond Dogs

Chapter Twenty-Five – Kings of the Wild Frontier

Chapter Twenty-Six – Jackals, False Grails

Chapter Twenty-Seven – I'm Your Villain

Chapter Twenty-Eight – Violet

Chapter Twenty-Nine – Last Caress

Chapter Thirty – What Difference Does It Make?

Chapter Thirty-One – There's Something Very Wrong with us so Let's Go Out Tonight

****

fear and sickness

Colby scampered into the van, the bag lunch crumpled in his fist nearly spilling out with his excitement. He was finally going to get to use his graduate degree.

He’d heard about McWikken Academy while completing his Master’s in forensic zooarchaeology. McWikken’s head scientist, known as Nurse Dash, had articles published in every obscure and bizarre journal in the sciences. His studies covered everything from sleep to zoology and the sheer amount of studies completed at McWikken made it a scientific researcher’s dream space. At the least, it was clear that they had consistent funding. He, or she, Colby wasn’t sure as Nurse Dash hadn’t appeared in photographs or in public, also allowed interns to get some glory and work on their own topics. The paperwork that came with his acceptance letter denoted a one year period in which he’d work alongside Nurse Dash on academy projects and then he’d be allowed to put forth proposals for further research.

Colby had been applying to become an intern since he read Nurse Dash’s article The Squirrel Came Back the Very Next Day on reanimating the tissue of road-killed squirrels. It seemed like Nurse Dash wanted to save the entire animal population and resurrect the extinct. Colby had similar ideas, ever since he watched Dawn of the Dead and tried to reanimate his (former) pet guinea pig Stasis. Now he’d finally made it. He was ready to be christened an Intern and really get down to business resurrecting some species.

Colby stared out the window as the van carrying him and three other brand new interns drove past the great green lawn and Gothic buildings making up McWikken Academy proper and headed onto a densely wooded road. All of the interns looked around and at each other.

Maybe that wasn’t actually McWikken. One with aviator style glasses and thick brown hair said.

It was. There was a sign. One with red hair sitting in the far back yawned.

Maybe they’re taking us to be subjected to experiments instead of conducting them, aviator glasses said and raised his pointed eyebrows.

What? The intern sitting across from Colby on the middle seat scoffed.

Maybe Dash wants to knock out competitive minds, not encourage them.

Be quiet, Intern Myers, the van driver said.

The thought that Nurse Dash was driving the van flashed in Colby’s mind. The driver had been silent the entire way except for that one outburst to quiet Myers and his voice had been so authoritative. Colby decided not to say anything to the others. So far Myers seemed like an ass and the red head in the back might be just as annoying. He wasn’t here to make friends. Necessarily.

The van crackled down a gravel driveway and stopped in front of an ivy covered brick building. The driver got out and stood to the side while they grabbed their bags. Once they were all facing the building the driver removed his newsboy cap and smiled at them. He had a soft face with very pale blue eyes; however his face was unnerving, as though nothing existed behind it or under his floppy strawberry blond hair.

If this was Nurse Dash, which would make sense since he appeared to be sizing them up instead of driving away, Colby thought, he was not very intimidating.

Interns, this is the McWikken Academy Infimary. The building is known as ‘Wilde Hall,’ that’s how you’ll see it on all the campus directories. This is where you’ll be living unless I dictate that you become part of the general student population, undercover, of course. This is also where you’ll gain entrance to the lab. He stopped and pointed at the red head. Intern Jenkins. He gestured to each in turn and said their names, along with Jenkins, Myers, and Colby was a slight looking man named Madison. In case you haven’t gathered by now, I’m Nurse Dash.

Colby patted himself on the back mentally.

Follow me. I’ll be giving your tour. Nurse Dash turned around and moved towards the door. He stopped abruptly and turned back to them, putting his hands to his mouth in a prayer-like fashion. Oh, and don’t respond to any of the staff that I do not directly introduce you to. Unless, once again, I ask you to join general population undercover. The rest of the staff are not involved with the experimental side of the academy and most do not need to know anything about it.

They followed Nurse Dash through Wilde Hall. The building was set up like a typical hospital: linoleum, fluorescent lights, institution-green hallways and medical staff sitting, bustling, and taking charts back and forth.

They’re readying the building for the students to return, they come back tomorrow and will inevitably be infested with something or other.

Students? Intern Myers asked as they piled into an elevator.

Students. McWikken Academy is not just a scientific repository, it also happens to be a high school. Full of students. Although being so isolated, occasionally their numbers dwindle.

Nurse Dash grinned and Colby hunched his shoulders. There was something about Nurse Dash that truly bothered Colby, beyond the fact that Dash looked more like an athletic golden boy than a scientist and what he’d been saying. Maybe he’d genetically altered himself using material from students.

The elevator took them to the third floor where Nurse Dash instructed them to drop their bags in the rooms corresponding to the keys he handed out. Colby’s room was number nine. Myers was in ten, directly across the hall. Colby was not so excited about that. They were not to unpack as they were going to view the lab and be assigned their stations first. Work would start first thing tomorrow and Nurse Dash didn’t want them dillydallying about the downstairs.

They resumed their places in the now roomier elevator and Nurse Dash pushed a button Colby hadn’t noticed at first, it had the letters SL on it. Science Lab seemed too obvious a translation. He noticed a grimace on Intern Madison’s face that suggested he was thinking the same thing. Maybe Madison was okay and he was trying too hard to seem alienated by never looking anyone in the eye or at anything but the floor.

When the elevator doors opened all they could see was white space. Colby put his hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding glare.

Forward march, Interns, Nurse Dash said and stepped out.

Madison followed first; stumbling and peeking through his fingers.

After a few blinks it wasn’t quite so bad and the interns stopped tripping as much as they followed Nurse Dash down the white hallway. They passed through one set of white doors and the hall became very different. Exhibits of preserved animals were displayed in wooden cases down one side of the hallway and posters of bodily systems lined the other.

Colby winked at the nervous system as he passed. Myers noticed and narrowed his eyebrows at Colby. Colby blinked back at him as if to say, What? He wondered if Myers had a problem with the nervous system. Myers looked like the type who knew the Vulcan nerve pinch a little too well. Colby didn’t need his judgments.

Nurse Dash’s path to their assignments seemed to stretch on forever. The hallway exhibits went from real stuffed animals to fake wax human casts and finally a very zombified looking wax sculpture of an entire human- a teenage girl. It was what Colby expected to see if he’d accidentally gotten stuck in a horror movie but instead he worked here. He congratulated himself again and winked at the grey-green teenage girl vivisected on the right wall. There was a stuffed squirrel in the display with her, unlike any squirrel Colby had ever seen. It was white with a hump on its back and had bright red eyes. The squirrel’s ears were also strange, featuring tufts that curled towards the middle over its ears and very directly resembled horns. Colby looked down at the plaque on the display and read, Futura.

Oh, you noticed her? Nurse Dash had stopped a few feet further down the hall at a grey fire door. She’s a representative of our future here at McWikken, one of the few, the proud, the initial test subjects.

Colby wanted to ask what that meant but Nurse Dash had already entered the fire door. He really wanted to know if Dash meant that our future involved zombies and creepy hump-backed squirrels co-existing, because that seemed ludicrous.

Nurse Dash divvied up the assignments quickly. It turned out that Colby and Jenkins were assigned to Project 679 in the room with Futura to the right. Myers and Madison were assigned to Project 668 across the hall. 679 would have one test subject coming in the next day and 668 would have one subject just starting out and one subject already in phase five of the project. Nurse Dash did not explain what any of this meant. He told Madison and Myers to be ready in the lab by six AM and Colby and Jenkins were to be in by nine. Colby and Jenkins high fived, Madison and Myers looked at the floor.

"There are a few team members that you’ll need to meet prior to starting work tomorrow, they’ll give you the tasks that the previous interns were doing so that you may complete them. These projects are very important. The subject in 668 that has reached phase five has been a total disaster thus far, I need to make you both aware of that. He cannot be saved or put back on track; in fact we’ve had to take drastic measures with him to ensure that he will ever prove useful to the academy at all. So remember, interns, this work is not all success. It is hypothesis and human error.

Now that you’ve seen where you’re working I’ll show you the break room and get you all your clearance cards and then you’re free to familiarize yourself with the campus although I don’t recommend it as, once again, the cardinal rule of being an intern who is not yet assigned to the general population undercover is that you do not respond to the others on campus. No one who is not a part of Steve’s team.

Now Colby was wondering who Steve was. Steve’s team? He exchanged confused glances with Jenkins.

Nurse Dash’s entire tour explaining the rest of their lives at McWikken took two hours. He showed them every door they couldn’t open, pointed out the fact that they were not allowed to leave campus unless he personally assigned their task, and then they all had their pictures taken and became full, labeled, Interns.

Colby had not expected it to be quite like this. McWikken seemed to involve a lot more secrecy than he imagined and who the hell was Steve? He brought it all up to Intern Jenkins over dinner in the kitchen of their Wilde Hall floor.

Really? I expected it to be a little protected. I mean, it is the most controversial and successful lab in the country. Jenkins shoveled hamburger into his mouth.

Yeah. I guess. It just seems weird to me I guess. The way Dash talks, for instance, how many times did he say ‘general population undercover’?

Man, that was weird. Intern Myers entered the kitchen. Why can’t we even speak to the other people that don’t work in the lab? That doesn’t make any sense. And we have to meet ‘team members,’ but we didn’t see anyone the entire time we were down there.

I wonder if we have been sent here to die. Not to do research, but to step away from the entirety of the world and to wither within science. Madison’s first speech unnerved the rest of the interns.

No wonder you didn’t smile in your photo. Lighten up, Madison. Jenkins put his hamburger down.

Colby sighed. Madison seemed a bit extreme in that line of thought, but it also seemed highly possible. He pictured himself shellacked to the wall like Futura. Her eyes had been bulging out like the last thing she experienced was a great shock. Colby wasn’t too keen on that.

At nine AM he and Jenkins headed back down to the lab. When the elevator doors opened Jenkins said, This is what it’s supposed to look like when you die. I don’t think I’m going to get used to it.

Colby regarded Futura on his way into Project 679, this time with a grimace.

He and Jenkins didn’t get far in the room before they were accosted by a short blonde man with too much energy and black glasses.

Team Member Simon! His voice was high pitched and nervous. Colby didn’t know if he could take hearing that kind of voice day-in and day-out. Which one of you is Jenkins? Colby?

Jenkins raised his hand.

Colby? Simon asked.

No. Jenkins pointed to Colby.

Jenkins?

Colby pointed to Jenkins.

Right. We’ve got the specimens coming in today. Phase one, untouched, ready to get their scholarship money.

What? Colby asked.

Nurse Dash didn’t tell you anything about the project?

Not yet. Nurse Dash’s voice came from behind Colby and Jenkins. Colby thought he figured out who shocked Futura into her expression.

Nurse Dash strolled into the room and slapped a manila folder onto one of the black stone work tables. Project 679 is about making a better man. A stronger man. A potentially hairier man. That’s what it’s about. That’s what we’re doing. And our test subject, Mr. Dulac, is not a strong man. He isn’t even much of a man, he’s a junior. A laconic junior. You probably won’t ever have a conversation with him for two reasons. Number one, he’s laconic and number two, you’ll mainly be giving him his injections and watching him in the field to see how he’s progressing.

Colby and Jenkins looked at each other and then at Team Member Simon and then back at Nurse Dash.

The field in this case means McWikken Academy. He is a student and will remain a student for as long as possible. Team Member David will be delivering Mr. Dulac as soon as he’s settled in his room. Mr. Dulac’s room is in Ocampo Hall like all of the other male students, but you’ll know that as soon as you read and memorize the dossier I’ve put on the table. Good day, Interns. Nurse Dash nodded at Simon and left the room in a swirl of lab coat.

We’re testing things on humans? Jenkins frowned at Simon. Isn’t that illegal and dangerous?

Maybe. Simon giggled. They’re scholarship students. It’s what their parents sign them up for in order to get them an education at the academy and out of their hair.

A buzzing noise sounded and Simon jumped up. Delivery! He held the door open and a sullen Team Member David pushed a gurney into the room.

The boy on the gurney appeared extremely fragile or possibly dead. He was half covered on the gurney by a white sheet that nearly matched his skin. They could see the lines of veins running up and down his limbs and chest, leading to the fan of jet black hair on his head and in sparse tufts on his chest and arms.

Which one of you wants to stick him? Simon drew a purple fluid into a large needle.

It was the kind of needle used to inject horses, not humans, Colby noted.

What are we putting in him? Colby asked.

He and Intern Jenkins stared down Team Member Simon.

Something to make him stronger and hairier. You heard Nurse Dash. This is Project 679. Simon handed the needle to Jenkins. Maybe next time he should screen the Interns better for chickens.

Jenkins bit his lip and found a vein on Dulac. Directly after the injection the body convulsed and it seemed to Colby to sparkle for a second. Colby thought something that made someone stronger and hairier should probably not also make them sparkle. Perhaps a flaw in the design of the fluid.

Simon ran to the wall and tapped on the intercom, calling for Team Member David to collect Dulac. As soon as the body was collected Simon tossed Jenkins and Colby all weather notebooks and explained that they were to keep track of every detail of what Louis Dulac did with the rest of his day. How long it took him to wake up, what he ate, who he spoke with, everything he did and when. They had specialized equipment to listen in and to see into his room from outside. They were not to be noticed by the general population. They were now undercover until Louis Dulac’s next injection one week later. The first shift was eighteen hours. Simon gave them caffeine pills and some dehydrated food. When their shift was over the academy’s security camera system would take over until nightfall. Jenkins and Colby were allowed ten hours between shifts.

Later that night while hiding in the bushes next to Ocampo Hall, Colby decided to begin keeping a list of things he hadn’t expected to happen when he became an intern.

Stalking.

Add going into the light. That hallway is a killer. Jenkins was poised with the binoculars. He hasn’t woken up yet, but some dork in his room has. Do we have to write that down?

I don’t think we have to. Not till he really wakes up.

This is amazingly boring. Jenkins shifted on his elbows.

I wonder what that stuff we injected him with does though, maybe it will get interesting.

It better. Watching dudes sleep is not my idea of science. I’m not even measuring anything.

‘It will make him stronger and hairier,’ I wonder if we’ll be measuring his muscle and hair growth.

That’s not what I want to be measuring. I hope this is not the one thing we’ll be working on for the entire year.

Colby nodded. The listening devices were focused only on Louis Dulac so that Colby and Jenkins could hear what Louis heard without the extra noise of the people and animals that were passing in front of their current hiding spot. The tall, dense bushes around Ocampo Hall made Colby wonder how many of the students had been watched in this manner by interns, if the landscaping reflected the need for stalking and not aesthetics.

***

closer

So you’re telling me you don’t have to watch yours after its injections? This is total crap! Jenkins was shoving food in his mouth again.

Well, what good would it do to watch someone not talk? It’s not like we can’t surmise what happens, Myers said.

Except that we’re neglecting the point of scientific experiments and the importance of observation. Madison barely raised his head.

Myers rolled his eyes. Outpatient. Project 668 is an outpatient experiment.

What are you doing to yours? Colby scraped sauce from his plate onto a chunk of steak.

What are you doing to yours? Myers regarded Colby as well.

Madison gazed at Colby as he chewed his meat.

We’re injecting some scrawny little shit with purple stuff, Jenkins said. Yours can’t talk? Could it ever talk?

Yeah, I guess, I think he can still talk. Myers paused for a beat, staring at the ceiling as though it would give him answers. I’ve never heard him talk, but Ethan said that altering speech abilities is what the serum does. Apparently he can talk if you poke him with a stick, that’s the one in phase one anyway. There’s four phases technically but the first subject had a weird reaction. Total system shutdown.

What’s happening to him now? What’s phase five? Colby stared at Myers.

Well, Ethan said they’re replacing him piece by piece. His organs failed, now he’s not really human anymore.

Because of a serum related to speech abilities? Jenkins said with his mouth full of mashed potatoes.

Myers grimaced at Jenkins but didn’t answer.

Curiouser and curiouser.

What does your serum do? Madison whispered.

WELL- Jenkins jerked his head toward Madison. So far he sleeps and his roommate won’t shut up and he stares at some blonde girl. She’s okay, I’d do her. And he takes a really long time picking out his clothes even though everything he owns is black. He’s a dipshit. The serum so far is allowing him to remain a dipshit.

Nurse Dash said it will make him stronger and hairier.

It makes him sparkle when we put it in. Jenkins leered at Madison.

Like the sparkles, do you? Myers grit his teeth.

A bit. Jenkins took a large gulp of his beer and slammed the glass down on the table.

What are you supposed to be observing? Madison asked Colby.

Everything.

One week later Colby and Jenkins were in the elevator and blinded by the white hallway on their way to the lab for Louis Dulac’s second injection. Team Member Simon was as tetchy as the first time.

Maybe we’ll see some results tonight. The second one’s usually got more powerful stuff.

Is it pink then? Jenkins leaned on the work table and exhaled.

Intern Jenkins, the lycanthropic serum will only ever be purple. The roots it’s derived from dictate the color, not dyes.

Sorry I’m not as excited as you are, Simon. I’d much rather be dissecting something. Preserving something…

Making a suit out of dead girls, size fourteen? Colby looked at Jenkins.

No. Fetal calves. Suits are smoother, more pliable. Jenkins sniffed.

Wait, did you say ‘lycanthropic’? That’s how you’re making him stronger and hairier? You’re making him a werewolf? Colby wondered when he’d signed up for the internship in pseudoscience. He didn’t recall any articles about werewolves in Nurse Dash’s published oeuvre.

It’s not real, silly. Simon guffawed. It’s simulated similar effects to those of a werewolf in order to make Mr. Dulac’s body more capable, and as stated, hairier.

You guys are sure concerned about that. Unpredicted ice age coming? Jenkins asked.

Intern Jenkins, you are ridiculous.

The buzzer sounded, indicating Mr.