He had survived three tours, six IEDs, one ambush, and even three rounds to the chest. But he was done now. He was going to die down here, in the cold darkness at the bottom of the ocean, and there was nothing he could do about it.
His slid his last magazine into his weapon, the clatter of the empty one as it hit the floor drowned out by the deafening roar of small arms fire in the tight corridor.
“Oorah, motherfuckers!”
***
The ops room was a mess. Upturned chairs, shattered glass, and torn paper were scattered all over the floor. There was blood on the walls and ceiling, like some twisted modern art painting, but no bodies.
“Fucking hell,” Calder said, lowering his Sig.
The enemy had probably hit the ops room first, taking out the lights in The Kingdom. And then, what? Headed to the submarine bay to let in reinforcements?
What the fuck are we fighting?
Calder grabbed a chair and sat in front of the bank of monitors. Most were smashed to shit, but a couple were still working. Grabbing a keyboard and mouse, Calder started tapping keys.
He was trying to bring up the cameras nearest the battle, but was getting nothing, meaning they weren’t working. He swore and instead called up the next closest ones. The first picture he got was of Priya, Anna, Thompson, Jones, and Eric. The security man was shouting something and directing fire down the corridor.
There was nothing Calder could do for them, so he moved on. He didn’t find Jackson and his group on any of the cameras. On a couple, he caught a glimpse of something shooting past, but it was too quick to get a clear picture of what it was.
He switched to the medical bay feed. The first image was that of Billy, pressed up against the door, a look of pure terror in his face. Another camera switch, trying to get a view of what he was seeing. But all Calder got was an image of Ekkow’s back. His friend was readying his shotgun, getting ready to enter the quarantined room.
Calder tried his radio, trying to get Ekkow to respond, but the man didn’t seem to even register the call. Calder swore again. A quick glance at the map on the wall showed him what he already knew. That the shortest way to his friend was through the chaos, and he couldn’t risk it.
The Kingdom was basically a big central area, where all the shops, ballroom, casino, restaurants, and bars were, with the rest of it laid out in a circular pattern that surrounded the middle. Corridors led off from the centre area to the staff quarters, guest rooms, maintenance places, submarine bay, and medical bay. There were also several side sections dedicated to power, oxygen, and other essential things that kept the facility running.
Calder considered his options. Ekkow was in trouble and he had a choice. If he stayed in the control room, he could try and direct escape efforts—although with most of the cameras out of commission, including those in the submarine bay, this wouldn’t be of much help. Plus, he’d be leaving Ekkow to fend for himself against an unknown threat.
The fastest way to get to his friend was to cut through the middle of the facility, then veer off at a right angle toward the med bay. If he legged it, he would take about ten minutes. Assuming he didn’t encounter hostiles.
“Buggeration,” Calder said.
He let his instincts take over. Ekkow had saved his life in Afghan. Dragged him from his vehicle after the IED hit, while under heavy enemy fire.
Time to repay the favour.
Calder took off running.
***
Goldstein was struggling to carry George as fast as he could manage. He could hear the screams behind him. The man was heavier than he looked, and his arms were aching. They just needed to get a little way down the corridor. He wasn’t going to leave him behind.
Which was why he was so confused where the man disappeared.
Goldstein skidded to a stop. What the hell had just happened? He was there one moment and gone the next.
He looked around the corridor, and then he noticed the open door. Moving cautiously, he advanced toward it. Inside was nothing but darkness.
“George?” he asked.
A whimper came from out of the pitch-black room in reply. Then something shot out of the darkness and wrapped itself around Goldstein’s foot. He let out a cry of surprise as it pulled him off his feet.
He hit the ground hard, his head bouncing off the floor. Dazed and confused, he only barely aware that he was being dragged into the darkened room toward an unknown fate.
18
Gunfire. Inhuman screams of terror. People scrambling past, climbing over each other to save themselves. It was like being back in a war zone. And on some strange level, it was making Jones feel alive.
The five of them were trying to back away from whatever was coming, but the stampede of panicked people was making it difficult. Eric had tried shouting for calm, but whatever these people had seen made them blind with fear. Every now and then, they heard the boom of a shotgun or the shots from a pistol, but even that was almost overwhelmed by the screams.
The corridor smelled of blood, sweat, fear, and cordite. The group fought their way through the stream of people, Jones using his stocky build as a battering ram to clear a path, Anna’s hand clenched tightly in his own. In the middle, Thompson gibbered incoherently as they moved. Priya was right behind him, with Eric bringing up the rear.
“I need a sitrep.”
Eric had been trying to get a hold of his men for ages, but all he was getting was confused, incoherent reports. Jones didn’t hold out much hope on the security men stopping the threat. He knew it wasn’t human.
There was a feeling in his bones. A feeling that something dark and sinister was coming to slaughter them. He could feel its perverse glee as it killed the people behind him, could sense the joy it was having. He didn’t know how or why, but the thing was there, in his head, and it was grinning. They had to get away.
Ahead of them was a door that led off to the left, and Jones slammed himself against it as they passed, dragging Anna in with him. The others followed, Eric slamming the door shut behind them.
“What the fuck is going on?” Anna asked, panting.
“Something is coming,” Jones said.
He looked around. They were in some sort of service tunnel that continued on for about five meters before ending in a T-junction. Pipes lined the walls.
“What about those people? Surely we can try and save them?” Priya asked.
“We need to look after ourselves,” Jones said. “Forget those outside. They’re panicked, scared, and have to look after their own. The only people that matter right now are the ones in front of you.”
“We can’t just—”
“Jones is right,” Eric cut in. “I know it seems harsh, but we need to focus on ourselves.”
“Where are we?” Jones asked, trying to change the subject.
“Service tunnel. If we go left, it leads to medical, and right ultimately ends at the rooms.”
“Ekkow is there, isn’t he?”
Eric nodded. “Jackson perhaps. I’d say it’s our best choice. More guns won’t be a bad thing.”
“What about Calder?” Priya asked.
“He said he’d go to operations,” Eric said, “so that he could get an idea of what was happening. I’ve had no contact since.”
“Where’s ops?” Jones said.
Eric pointed over his shoulder. “Back there.”
“Medical it is then.”
Jones went first, Anna gripping his hand tightly. Every now and then she flinched as a scream of terror, pain, or both came from behind the door. He did his best to block it out, like he used to do when he was in a combat zone.
Jones turned the corner, Anna and Priya followed, and Thompson went left. He walked slowly, seemingly unaware of what he was doing.
“Mr. Thompson!” Eric said, starting after him.
Priya grabbed Eric’s arm, told him to stop, and jogged after the billionaire. She took him gently by the arm.
“Not this way. Come on. Take
my hand.”
There was a deafening wrenching sound and something hit the end wall of corridor with an almighty crash. Priya spun around, realising that it was the twisted remains of the door they had just come through.
She stared at the wreckage, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Then it hit her, and she felt bile rising in her throat. Eric had been caught by the door as it was blown toward the wall. His left arm had been crushed against the wall and half his head was missing. His right eye remained open, staring unblinking down the hallway. Blood was everywhere.
Movement attracted her attention, and she saw Jones backing up, dragging Anna away and desperately motioning for her and Thompson to do the same.
There was a dreadful ticking sound coming toward them. It sounded like claws on metal, the tic tic tic of a dog’s paws on a solid surface. But Priya knew that it was no dog.
She grabbed Thompson’s hand and started backing up as fast as she dared. The man didn’t resist, instead just following meekly. The ticking was getting closer.
Tic tic tic.
It sent chills down Priya’s spine. She felt the goose pimples on her back, her hairs standing on end, every single fibre of her lizard brain screaming that there was danger nearby.
Jones had reached the door at his end. He opened it slowly, scared that it would make any kind of sound, and shoved Anna through. With one last glance behind him to make sure Priya was doing the same, he went through and shut the door behind him.
Just as Priya was closing her door, she saw a part of the creature come into view. A set of claws came around the corner, slick with blood and fluids, glimmering slightly in the stark lighting. The creature seemed to notice Eric’s dead body, and there was this dreadful, inhuman hissing sound, which was the last thing she heard before she closed the door on the horrific scene.
19
Something was crawling into the medical bay, slithering its way through the vent into the room. Ekkow couldn’t describe what it was, his brain just refused to make sense of it. Black, glistening, and wrong, it forced the mind to rebel, to reject what it was seeing.
The thing made the big man freeze in his tracks, his mind recoiling in horror. Billy was screaming hysterically, pounding on the doors with his fists, tears streaming down his face. The thing reminded him of the horror stories his gran had told him as a boy, about the things that dwelled in the dark and preyed on naughty children.
“Help me!”
Billy’s frantic cries finally spurred him into action. He readied his weapon and slammed the button that disengaged the locks on the door. It slid open with a whoosh. Billy fell through, and Ekkow fired.
The pellets hit the creature, little dimples forming in the gooey black substance, but it made no sign of pain or distress. It just kept oozing into the room. Ekkow slammed the button again, sealing the thing in the room.
“What the fucking hell?”
“That’s what attacked me in the tunnels!” Billy yelled, scrambling to his feet. “That fucking thing made me eat it, then forced its way out of me and into Frank.”
“It made you eat it?”
“Yes! Now let’s get the fuck out of here!”
The thing was still oozing slowly, heading for the door. Ekkow watched it carefully as he backed up. But something else was bugging him.
“You hear that?” he asked.
“Hear what?”
“Exactly. No gunfire. The fight is over, and I think we lost.”
***
The silence was almost deafening. Calder stopped in his tracks, his mouth held open to cut out internal sound, and listened. Briefly, he considered the radio, but that wasn’t a good idea. If anyone wanted to maintain radio silence to stay hidden, he’d be giving away their position.
He considered his options. The first was to head back to the ops room. He dismissed that immediately. Chances were that Ekkow still needed help.
Sticking with my second option then.
He moved fast but silently, rolling his feet to prevent his boots from clanging on the cold steel floor. So far, he hadn’t come across anyone else. The corridors were empty and undisturbed. The eerie silence gave his surroundings a surreal quality.
Calder blinked. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t place it. He stopped, listened, scanned for movement. The hallway was clear, and yet…
He took a deep breath, blinked again. Observed what was in front of him, weapon forward. Then he saw it. It was the walls. They were glistening.
He recoiled away from the wall closest to him, putting himself in the middle of the corridor. Something was oozing down the left and right walls. It glistened in the dim light, rippling and moving perversely. There was something else—a voice.
It wasn’t distinct. More like a murmur, one that was trying to worm its way inside his ears, almost as if it was fighting to be heard. Calder couldn’t describe the sound. It was like a buzzing, whispering, unnatural voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. The sound wasn’t even physical. He wasn’t hearing it as much as becoming aware of it. Or it was becoming aware of him.
Calder knew that the stuff on the walls was alive. And it was talking. For a moment, he couldn’t move, trapped by some unnatural force. It wanted him, he could feel it. The whispering was becoming more distinct, going from jumbled garbling to letters.
The ex-SAS man shook his head. He needed to run, and he needed to do it now. Each step was a mission. His felt as if they were held down by weights, the soles of his boots glued to the floor for good measure. Out of desperation, he fired at the walls, the rounds being slurped up by the sticky black substance.
And then it screamed. A piercing, inhuman shriek that burst into Calder’s mind like a pane of glass had just exploded inside his skull. The pain was almost unbearable, but he noticed that he could move again. He stumbled forward, putting more rounds into the walls, not caring where they went as long as they hit the substance.
The screaming continued, but became less and less prevalent in Calder’s head. He started to regain his senses, breaking out into a jog, and then a full-on sprint. The thing was still trying to get into his head, unintelligible whispers still worming their way around his mind.
Suddenly, it was gone, but Calder kept running until he reached the med bay and collapsed into the room. Ekkow was by his side in his a moment, concern etched in his face. Billy was still staring at the creature in the other room.
“What happened?”
“Something… On the walls,” Calder panted.
“Easy, easy,” Ekkow said, moving his hand over Calder’s pistol.
He realised he was still pulling the trigger, the firing pin clicking on the dry chamber over and over in a staccato rhythm. He stopped, ejected the spent magazine, and slowly slid in a fresh one before standing.
“We’re not fighting a human enemy,” Calder said.
“I know. Come and look at this.”
Ekkow led him to the quarantine room. Calder peered through the window at the substance, which was still inching closer and closer to the sealed door.
“We have to move.”
“Fucking A, man,” Billy said, already heading for the door.
Ekkow stopped him. “Stay between us, mate. You can’t go walking into these things headfirst.”
“Calder, Ekkow, anyone, come in,” came a voice over the comms. “We need someone with a very big gun right fucking now.”
20
Jones stood with his ear against the door, listening. He wanted to know if Priya had gotten out alright. Instead, all he could hear was a sickening squelching sound that he dared not think about.
He gripped the pistol in his hand tighter. It had skittered across the floor toward him after the door had killed Eric. The weight of it gave him some comfort, although he doubted it would be much use judging by how much firepower had already been thrown at their enemy.
“Did she make it?” Anna whispered.
“I think so. Come on, we’ve got to move.”
“But where?”
Jones didn’t speak. He was thinking. Priya would need help, but he wasn’t equipped for rescue at the moment. So he and Anna had to get to Calder or Ekkow. But where were they?
“We need to get a radio.”
“Where?”
Jones looked back at the closed door. Anna shook her head.
“You’re crazy.”
“Look, we need to get in touch with the soldiers. And apart from the submarine bay, which might be swarming with whatever that is in there, Eric’s radio is the only one within reach.”
“Fuck. Do you have a plan?”
“Yeah. Don’t get killed.”
He smiled at her, raised his finger to his lips, and put his ear against the door again. The sounds had stopped. He listened for a bit longer.
“Anna, if something happens, I want you to run, you understand? Get to the medical bay and find Calder or Ekkow.”
The young woman nodded. Jones gave her a half-hearted smile. He took a deep breath and slowly pushed the door open, listening for any sign of the movement on the other side. Hearing nothing, he went through before he had a chance to second-guess his decision. Like his father had said, never give yourself the time to talk yourself out of what needs doing.
Wishing that this hadn’t been the first time in years that he’d held a weapon, he swept the corridor beyond. It was empty, except for the mangled door, and an unrecognisable mess of blood and cartilage on the floor that Jones could only assume was what was left of Eric’s body.
Jones resisted the almost overwhelming urge to sprint down the corridor at top speed. He knew it would likely be suicide, so he forced himself to listen to his instincts. Trying to stick as close to what the soldiers he’d worked with had taught him, he stalked toward Eric’s mutilated remains, his weapon going where his eyes went.
His heart was threatening to burst its way out of his chest as he moved. Everything seemed fine, but Jones couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. The impulse to turn around nagged at him, making the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He fought it, focusing on keeping the pistol he had trained in front of him.
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