ABOMINATIONS

BRETT

The street lights flickered as the two made their way down the sidewalk along the woods. “I don’t even know where to begin,” Brett muttered to himself, glancing over his shoulder at Quincy to make sure that he was still there. They were nearing the big department store on the edge of town, though it was closed for the night, as it was past nine P.M. Not that anything in a shitty department store could help them anyways.

    Brett was pissed off. He was pissed off at Quincy, at Quentin, at his equipment and the straps that weren’t able to hold his subject and prevent him from rampaging and then escaping. He didn’t even want to think about how much of his research had been destroyed, and how much this was going to set his experiments back. He just wanted to go home. His side hurt. He was covered in chemicals and dried blood. He definitely did not want to be wandering around the streets at night with Quincy Cooper. And yet here he was. 

    He stopped walking, Quincy stopping just behind him. His head was turned towards the dense treeline, impossible to see anything beyond the first few trees in the darkness that had fallen on the city. 

    “You think he’s in there?” Brett asked.

    “It’s possible,” Quincy said, sounding unsure of himself.

    The woods were some sort of natural forest. The department store was the last building before the road stretched on, nothing but trees on both sides. The only thing breaking up the monotony of green were the public trails and building for those who operated the organization side of things for the forest. It spread across approximately 1500 acres of land, some of it marked by hiking trails and popular fishing ponds, much of it dense brush with no proper way to navigate. If this is where Quentin was hiding, it was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

    “Maybe we should look in the daylight?” Quincy suggested. “We don’t really, uh, know what could be out there. Like snakes or something.”

    Brett shook his head. “No. This forest is a hotbed for tree huggers and people who like nature and shit. We’d look out of place.”

    “I dunno. I doubt he’d be anywhere near the trails. Especially not now that he’s like, wanted by the police. I’d think he’d be hiding out somewhere in the parts of the woods that people don’t really go to.”

    Brett nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “You might be right. Well, I suppose we can head back. I probably have an extra air mattress or something.”

    Quincy balked. “What do you mean? I can just go home.”

    The younger man turned and looked at him, his thick brown fringe shadowing his eyes. “No. Not until we find your brother. And it needs to be fast, before Carmelo finds out that we failed.”

    At the mention of that name, Quincy shivered slightly, and just nodded.

    The two of them set off back in the direction of the old storage building that acted as Brett’s lab. Housing Quincy was not particularly on his agenda, however he knew that they had to find the subject in a timely manner, and he couldn’t let Quincy leave. Who knows if he would run off or not, leaving Brett to take the full brunt of the consequences for fucking up. Carmelo was generous enough to supply him with the space he needed to conduct his research, but if he didn’t start producing results soon he knew it wasn’t going to end well for any of them.