Stranger

by Simon Clark

  “Too many,” I shouted. “Zak, hold still.” I reached into the backpack on his back and pulled out a bundle of dynamite. “Get back into the stairwell.” I pulled the lighter from my pocket.

  A tall man with sores on his throat stumbled through the doorway. As if he’d suddenly decided to relax there for a while, he leaned against the wall. He looked down at his chest with a puzzled expression. A dark stain spread through the material of the torn-to-crap shirt he wore. He pulled it open to see a bullet hole above his breastbone that pumped big fat drops of crimson down his chest. Still puzzled, he fingered the wound. I found myself unable to tear my eyes away as he touched the bullet hole with his fingertip, then pressed harder. His finger slipped into the gory hole, his fingernail dis-appearing. With a look of astonishment, he watched his finger smoothly slip inside his chest as far as his knuckle. He began to rock his hand, and I realized what he was doing: He was trying to locate the bullet with his finger. Even as I watched he worked the finger inside the hole, rotating his hand from side to side, as if he’d found an object there that he couldn’t quite— suddenly he coughed.

  A stream of blood spurted from his mouth. His knees gave way, dropping him dead to the floor.

  Tony shook me. “Snap out of it, Valdiva. Come on!”

  I touched the flame to the fuse. The moment it caught I lobbed the dynamite into the middle of tunnel. Hornets packed the place so tightly, they walked with their hands on the shoulders of the ones in front of them, grunting with bloodlust, their eyes locked on ours. A hungry kind of look that fairly hollered their craving to get hold of us and tear the skin from our bones. The dynamite bounced on the head of a bald man, then slapped into the face of a woman with boils clustering ’round her eyes. . . . Hell, these people were goddam monsters . . . you couldn’t describe them any other way. Ugly creatures driven by an overwhelming urge to kill.

  I waved Tony and Zak away from the entrance. I followed, ducking into the open doorway of the sick bay as my homemade bomb erupted with a roar.

  We didn’t waste any time. After the tunnel entrance sneezed out a huge ball of black smoke we ran back to the shattered doors. Through the smoke I could see that the explosion had toppled the hornets like a crowd of mannequins. They lay flat, covering every inch of the floor.

  I didn’t wait; I ran into the corridor. With no floor showing through the fallen bodies, some lying on top of the others, I ran across that mat of once human flesh. Most were dead, with hideous facial wounds where the blast had ripped at them. Some held up bloody stumps to stop me passing, but they weren’t going to slow me down. No way!

  As I ran, my boots crunched down on faces, chests, stomachs, throats. And as we raced across the torn bodies some of them began to recover consciousness. Immediately the air filled with a deep groaning. A great fat bass sound like a choir of madmen singing. The sound grew louder. Moans, groans . . . a deep, DEEP sound that made the teeth in your head vibrate.

  A guy with a beard that reached his chest sat up, his hands outstretched to grab me. I snapped the muzzle of the rifle down and fired, exploding the top of his head. I ran over his still-twitching body and felt his hot blood spray against my bare arms. Tony and Zak, too, fired as they ran. Now the deep bass moan bore a mixture of rising shrieks as bullets ripped into bodies.

  Then, ten seconds later, we were out of that gloom filled tunnel. Ahead lay the main bunker. A huge door attempted to slide shut to seal us into the tunnel. But men and women had been hurled back by the blast to fall in the doorway. The heavy door made a mess of their bodies, but still it couldn’t close fully. I slipped through the gap, screening out a sound like cracking eggshells as the steel door crushed hard against torsos, cracking bones, rupturing lungs and bursting stomachs.

  I stood for a moment, blinking beneath the bright lights of the bunker. So this was it—Phoenix’s den. My stomach muscles spasmed. This was where he nurtured the hive, feeding it with human captives.

  The corridor ran away in front of me. Doors led off on either side. Where now, Valdiva? Where now?

  Fifty-two

  The main bunker looked far bigger than the little brother annex where Michaela and I had stayed. Room after room lined the corridor. Storerooms. Pump rooms. Bedrooms. Mess rooms. Rooms with air-conditioning plants. Rooms full of computer terminals. The place was the size of a battleship. Corridors ran off at tangents. Stairwells led to higher levels. Elevators plunged to unknown depths.

  “Where’d we go?” Tony called as he snapped a fresh magazine into the machine gun.

  “I don’t know . . . We’ll have to go through all the rooms one by one.” I kicked open a door to reveal a sick bay. Spent hypos covered the floor. This must be one of Phoenix’s little joy cabins, where he sent himself on cosmic journeys at the point of a needle. With narc habits like that it’s a wonder the guy survived.

  A hornet ran screeching from a corridor, waving an iron bar with such ferocity it flashed with blue sparks every time it struck the wall. I dropped him with a single rifle shot to the gut.

  More hornets spilled from a side corridor. Tony’s gun clattered. Men and women went tumbling to the ground.

  “Greg, there are hundreds of rooms here. I don’t think we’re gonna have time to search them all.” Zak blasted a pair of hornets with a single shotgun shell.

  Tony pumped a tracer into the swarming bodies. “Hey, the bad guys are coming thick and fast.”

  No sooner had he said that than Phoenix’s voice boomed in the confined space. “Move into the corridor to your right.”

  “Yeah,” I yelled. “As if we should trust you!”

  The voice echoed. “You can’t shoot them all, Valdiva. There are hundreds down here!”

  “And who’s to say you’re not inviting us to run into their open arms?”

  “Trust me, Valdiva.”

  “Yeah, like hell I will.”

  From a doorway a heavyset man flung himself on Tony. He fell with the man straddling him. The monster put a pair of huge hands around Tony’s throat and began to squeeze. I used the rifle butt to crush the guy’s skull. He crumpled like an empty sack.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here. There are too many.”

  No understatement. Around fifty hornets surged along the corridor we’d just run through. Ahead, three corridors ran away into the distance.

  “Come on, Tony. Get up.” Zak pointed the twelve gauge in the direction of the surging mob. “You can’t lay there all day.”

  Tony grimaced. “Looks as if I will. The big ape’s gone and busted my leg.”

  I glanced down to see Tony gripping his shin. His face was tight with pain.

  “Come on, buddy. You’ve got to stand up.”

  Tony shook his head. “It’s broken. . . .” He pulled the machine gun toward him. “I’ll stay here and cover you.”

  “No fucking way . . . Zak, grab him by the collar and drag him.”

  “Which way?”

  “I don’t think it matters; just move as fast as you can. Go!”

  The mob started to run. There were so many hornets, the sound of their feet came like pounding drums. I fired the rifle until the magazine was empty, dropping the leading bad guys. Some behind tripped over the fallen bodies. But I wasn’t stopping them all. I glanced back to see that Zak had grabbed Tony by the collar and dragged him into a sitting position farther along the corridor. I followed. “Not that way. That’s where Phoenix told us to go. If I know him it’ll be a trap.”

  “Where, then?” A desperate note sounded in Zak’s voice. “Where the hell do we go?”

  The pounding grew louder as the hornets ran at us. Now they were maybe thirty yards away. I drew a handgun. In a strangely dislocated way I aimed and fired. I felt calm. I knew I’d simply aim and fire one round after another until the hornets overran us.

  I aimed at a guy with a red beard. Bang. He went down with a hole through his cheekbone. Then I focused on a wiry-haired man with a hooked nose. Bang. Clutching his sto
mach as the bullet tore his liver, he did a kind of forward somersault roll. Immediately the mob charged over him. If the bullet doesn’t kill him those crushing feet will, I told myself in a cool way that seemed as remote from this as if I was watching TV. Bang. A woman with black jagged teeth was next. The bullet popped her eye like a soap bubble. Bang. Another guy went down with blood pouring from his mouth.

  Scrreee!

  I stood and stared at what happened next without any real understanding. I was going to die. That’s all I knew. But suddenly a steel gate slid across the passageway, blocking it from floor to ceiling. A second later the mob slammed into it, hands thrusting through the bars, trying to reach me. I stood for a moment before the truth wormed its way into my head. They’d been stopped dead. For now we were safe. I glanced back to see Tony lying there, supporting himself on one elbow, and Zak standing with his mouth hanging open. It took a moment for them to realize, too, that the mob couldn’t reach us.

  I turned to them. “I don’t know how long that’s gonna last. Tony, grit your teeth.”

  After handing Zak the rifle I picked up Tony and hoisted him across my shoulder. I heard him gasp with pain. Now I could see the kink in his shin where the bone had snapped. “Zak, keep moving. If you see any-thing blast it.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  I walked hard with Zak covering me. Tony’s weight nearly broke my goddam back, but I wasn’t putting him down yet. I wouldn’t leave him to those monsters. We’d walked perhaps twenty seconds when we passed through a set of swinging doors. I looked down because something funny had happened to the floor. I panted hard, trying to get the oxygen to my lungs, as I stared at the floor . . . That was it—carpet. We’d entered the residential area. I made my way straight toward a door marked NO. 3 LOUNGE. This was a bigger version of the one in the annex, with a dozen comfortable armchairs and couches. Sweat rolling down my face, I lowered Tony as gently as I could onto a couch. He grunted as I eased him onto soft cushions. Dazed by pain, he looked ’round at the soft furnishings. “Christ, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  “Not yet,” Zak murmured, looking ’round in awe. “But close, old buddy—damn close.”

  “Zak, help me get the table against the door.” As we barricaded the doorway the voice of Phoenix came padding into the room. “No need for that, guys.”

  “So what have you got planned for us, you freak?”

  “That’s not nice.”

  “Nice it ain’t . . . but true.”

  “Valdiva, that’s the second time I’ve saved your neck.”

  “Saved me for what? For that thing’s lunch?”

  “Listen, you people. You are safe from them in here. They cannot pass the gate.”

  “Unless you open it for them.”

  “You think I’d do that?” Phoenix still sounded scared for some reason.

  “So we’re not going to come to any harm?” I reloaded the rifle.

  “I can’t promise that.”

  I murmured, “Great, here comes the next mood swing.”

  The TV screen on the wall suddenly sparked into life. I found myself looking at a close-up of Phoenix.

  I nodded. “Tony, Zak, meet our host.”

  They gazed in awe at the white-painted face and pharaoh-style eyes, surrounded by thick painted black lines, and framing the face itself flowered a mass of black hair.

  Tony grimaced, still clutching his leg. “Hell, he’s not a pretty sight.”

  Zak let out a whistle. “Would anyone, if they locked themselves down here on a diet of narcotics for months on end?”

  I looked up at the screen. “What now, Phoenix?”

  “I want you to see something.” He looked away from the camera lens. I could hear a keyboard being tapped. “Remember this?”

  The TV flickered. Instead of Phoenix we were suddenly seeing a bathroom. The walls were stained with a tarry substance. More of it slicked the floor like straw-berry Jell-O. Beyond the doorway I could see the poor bastards who’d been drained of their blood. They lay there, as dry as Egyptian mummies, still wearing the fucking stupid rubber shoes.

  “We’ve seen this before, Phoenix. We don’t want to see any more of your sick camera work.”

  The scene cut to Phoenix in ultra close-up. His bloated face filled the TV screen, his bloodshot eyes burning out at us. “But don’t you see, Valdiva?” he hissed. “The room is empty.”

  “You’re telling me the thing has hatched out?”

  “Not hatched . . . it has completed its metamorphosis. Look!” He stepped out of the shot to reveal a figure standing behind him. Desperately he whispered into the mike, “Help me, Valdiva. Please help me.”

  Fifty-three

  Wherever Phoenix was in the bunker he worked the camera control. On TV I saw the image expand to fill the screen. I heard Zak and Tony breathe in sharply, as if taken by surprise. I found myself staring hard, feeling an electric shiver run up my backbone as my eyes took in a figure behind Phoenix. A girl of around twenty sat with her back to the wall. Dark hair with odd apple-red tints poured down over one shoulder. Her skin had an amber glistening appearance, as if she’d poured olive oil all over herself. Her eyes were lightly closed. She seemed to be dozing with her back to the wall, her knees raised upward. One open hand rested lightly on her knee, palm upward, fingers slightly curled. She was entirely naked.

  Phoenix’s voice came over the speakers in a breathy whisper. “The hive changed when you left. Its color deepened to crimson. It began pulsating as if it became agitated. Then a couple of days later I woke to find that the membrane had ruptured, releasing the fluid onto the floor.”

  “You’re making it sound like a birth, Phoenix.”

  “That’s exactly what it was. . . . Later I found her wandering ’round the corridors.”

  “You sure she came out of the hive? I mean, she isn’t someone from the outside?”

  “Sure she’s from the hive. This place is locked down tight. Not even a bug could creep in here without me knowing.”

  I looked at the close-up of the girl’s sleeping face. You could even see individual lashes resting on her cheeks, while her black eyebrows formed two slender arches above her eyes. A lock of dark hair hung down over her forehead.

  “So you’ve got yourself company, Phoenix,” I said at last. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “You’ve got to help me, Valdiva. She won’t let me out of here.”

  “Come on, Phoenix; she can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.”

  “I—I can’t explain it, but she’s got into my head somehow. She makes me do things . . .”

  Tony caught my eye and touched his temple. Nuts.

  “Yeah, don’t forget I see you, too, guys. I’m not in-sane. This is for real. She can get inside my head. It’s like sleepwalking.” Phoenix sounded agitated. “I black out and find I’ve sealed all the doors to the command center. Then I find I’ve opened the outer door to let those crazy bastards in. I mean, what the goddam fuck’s going on? I can’t stop myself . . . I feel like my head’s gonna explode. And all she does is sit there for hours and hours. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even look at me. Jesus Christ, I’m—”

  “Phoenix! Has she said anything to you?”

  “No . . .” He took a breath to steady himself. “No.

  Not one word. Like I said, she can reach into my skull. . . . Please, it’s freaking me out, man. I want out of here.”

  “Phoenix—”

  “She’s really scaring me. I know that makes me sound yellow, but she gets inside my head, and I see what she sees. Then I remember what it’s like to be in the hive. I see myself in all that pink shit. . . . It feels like I’m drowning . . . and—and I’m hungry all the time. I’m so fucking hungry I feel as if my guts are going to explode. Jesus, guys, it’s a nightmare . . . a fucking nightmare.” Phoenix’s face suddenly ballooned onto the screen, the eyes huge and pleading. “You’ve got to do something! Please, Valdiva. I saved your neck twice. You owe
me. A blood debt, you understand? You’ve got to stop her doing this to me.”

  I watched the screen as he backed away, his face shrinking back into focus. Behind him the naked woman sat on the floor. During the man’s panicky rant she never moved a finger. The hand still remained there limply palm up, like someone waiting for the first drop of rain on a summer’s day.

  Meanwhile Phoenix whispered over and over to him-self, “I gotta get out of here. I gotta. I can’t take it any more. Please, man, I can’t take any more . . . please, please . . .”

  “Phoenix, just open the doors and walk out of there.”

  “I can’t, I can’t, she won’t let me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you hear me right, Valdiva? She’s screwed’round with my head. I’ve tried . . . I get up to walk to the keypad. But then . . .” He clicked his fingers. “I’m sitting back here again. It’s like being trapped in a dream.”

  Zak spoke in a cold voice. “Kill her.”

  “You don’t think I haven’t tried? Jesus H. Christ, I must have tried a thousand times. But the moment I move toward her I black out and find myself back here in this fucking chair again. Listen to me, she’s inside my head. She works me like I work this damn computer.”

  “Why do you think she’s allowing you to speak to us now?”

  “I don’t know. . . . I don’t think she—it!—is fully formed. It needs to stay here until it’s ready to leave.”

  “So why did she allow you to save us from the hornets? Surely she knows we must be a threat.”

  “Sure she knows all about you.” Phoenix gave a grim laugh. “I’d wager she’s hearing and seeing you right now. Either through my ears and eyes or in some way I know shit about . . . What do you say to that, guys?”

  “So why save us from her bodyguard?”

  “Valdiva, you still don’t get it, do you, man? Are you deliberately being stupid or what?” Phoenix lurched forward to fill the shot again. His eyes blazed out from the TV screen. “Valdiva, you and she are the same. You are both the product of the hive . . . Am I getting through? You . . . are . . . both . . . from . . . the . . . fucking . . . hive.”