Givens picked himself up, ejected the mag from his rifle, reloaded, and then stumbled after it, Perkins just behind him. Givens clicked his mic three times, but couldn’t tell if it was still working. Even with his hands over his ears, the grenade had punished his hearing, a loud, droning tone rattling through his skull.
He lowered his head and squeezed through the giant, misshapen hole in the wall. The creature had smashed into a storeroom and was still moving. With each step, he managed to regain his senses. He caught sight of its broad back just as it crashed through the next wall. Even with its large bulk, it moved faster than he thought possible.
Knocking debris out of the way, he shuffled through the room as quickly as he dared. And then he saw the hallway beyond and the sign for the nursery. Givens silently cursed and followed it through the gaping, savaged hole in the sheetrock.
Chapter 50
Sarah whirled. Debris covered the floor of the hallway intersection, but what stood upon it stopped her cold. Another creature, this one larger than a goddamned car, filled the hallway. Its skin bubbled and smoked; the eyestalks waved with frantic motion and its legs beat a clicking tattoo on the tile floor. The creature’s mouth yawned open and it took a step toward her. Sarah instinctively stepped backward. In that moment, she knew it was over—they were all going to die. And then the eyestalks focused on the other creature in the hallway.
The original assailant, smaller than the thing that had just crashed through the wall, swiveled and retreated. The huge, hulking monster clipped the edge of the wall as it followed its new prey. Sarah and her men watched in horrified fascination. The larger creature pounced on the smaller monster. Even through the ringing in her ears, she heard the crackle and spit as the large creature seemed to instantaneously change from a nightmare into a waving oil slick. The tsunami of black oil coated the other creature, the tile steaming and smoking from where it touched the floor.
There was no scream from its prey, no sound of struggle or pain, but the smaller creature writhed beneath the cover of the liquid blanket. As she watched, the massive surge of black liquid dropped closer to the floor. It was dissolving the other creature and yet growing at the same time.
“Throw a grenade!” someone screamed from the hallway intersection. Sarah knew that voice. Givens, his uniform and armor covered in white dust and filth, pointed down the hallway at the pool of liquid.
Sarah didn’t know why she was doing it, but she pulled an M48 from her belt. She pulled the pin and lobbed it into the center of the pool. “Fire in the hole!” she yelled, and ducked low behind the credenza. Epp and Schneck followed suit. And then the grenade went off.
The concussion wave rocked the building. Even behind the credenza’s steel shell, the blast knocked her over. She was smart enough to keep her hands over her ears before it went off, but they rang anyway. When she pushed herself back up, she rose above the wall just enough to see over the station and to the hall beyond.
The pool of black had erupted into flame. The fire alarm screeched and wailed. Sprinklers sprayed water from the ceiling, but the black continued to burn unabated. Waves of heat broiled off its surface, setting fire to the sheetrock and singing the hair beneath her helmet.
She stood up and stared into the blaze. Bright orange and yellow flames licked from floor to ceiling and scorched the sheetrock walls. A second later, the fire alarm started and water cascaded from the sprinkler systems above them. The two nurses huddled together in the spray of cold water, still afraid to leave the station’s relative safety. Sarah didn’t blame them.
The water splashed down the walls extinguishing the flames. The pool of black, however, continued to burn. Givens stood next to her, his rifle still pointed at the stuff.
“Boss?” he said in a voice she barely heard over the ringing in her ears, “what do we do now?”
Yes, she thought. What now? She thumbed her mic. “Moore! We need the sprinkler systems turned off. Now!”
The flames licking from the pool of black stuttered and started to go out. There was simply too much water falling from the ceiling. If it continued, the thing was going to either escape or kill everyone on the floor.
The whoosh of the water slowed and then stopped. The flashing lights and piercing shriek of the fire alarm ceased. The hallway was drenched with water and tendrils of gray smoke drifted upward from the remaining pool of black. The flames had disappeared.
Through the ringing in her ears, the crackle and spit of the pool was nearly inaudible, but the small, misshapen area of lighter color chilled her just the same. It was going to grow more appendages. It was far from dead and if they didn’t stop it, it was going to kill them all.
Celianne shook her head. “No, no, no.” The base of a tentacle formed on its surface. “Oh, fuck no!” she yelled.
Epp stood up, blood dribbling from one of his ears. “Do you have a lighter?” he screamed at the nurses. They looked at him in dumb confusion. He made the sign of thumbing a lighter wheel. “LIGHTER!” he yelled louder. The male nurse slowly nodded and pulled a black Zippo from his scrubs. He held it out to Epp. The SWAT member palmed it.
Sarah knew where this was going. She sprinted into the nurses’ station and picked up a pile of damp papers from the desk. She crumpled a piece and tossed it to Epp. Givens swiveled his rifle until it hung by its sling and then opened his hands. She tossed him paper as fast as she could crumple it.
Epp had already moved around the nurses’ station. He was mere meters from the black pool. He’d unfolded part of the paper and dipped it into the yellow-orange teardrop flame. Celianne watched as the paper caught.
“Look out!” Perkins yelled from behind them.
She tore her gaze from Epp and focused on the hallway. The tentacle was nearly a meter long now. The smoking pool shook and contracted as the creature pulled its mass together. A small, solid branch poked out of its oily surface. An orb appeared at its end.
“We’re fucked,” Givens said at her side.
Epp stumbled toward the thing, eyes narrowed, the fiery pieces of paper held between his gloved fingers. The small eyestalk followed his movements with interest. Sarah snapped out of her shock, pulled up her rifle, and fired a round. The orb detonated from the metal bullet. The tentacle which had been tracking Epp cut aimlessly through the air.
Without slowing, Epp made his way to the pool’s edge on unbalanced steps. Givens quickly followed and steadied the man by the shoulders. Epp leaned out over the pool, his eyes following the tentacle’s swaying motions, and then dropped the paper.
Givens pulled him backward just as the flames hit the black liquid. Fire once again rushed across the pool until every centimeter was ablaze. The hallway echoed with the constant sizzle of the burning creature.
“Everyone back!” Sarah yelled.
The nurses looked at her in confused horror. She reached for them over the credenza as the fire swept closer and closer. The pool, although burning, was still moving toward them. If anything, the creature was moving faster now as if trying to escape the fire. The two nurses finally got their wits about them and ran from their station.
Sarah and her team ran backward as fast as they could. The creature continued to follow and then slowed. Its impossibly black color was fading, turning from obsidian to a lighter shade. A moment later, the creature had disappeared leaving a thick layer of gray ash on the tile floor.
She breathed in choking gasps. The hallway was filled with thick smoke and smelled of mildew, rot, and burned hair. Her vision blurred for a moment and she shook her head to clear it. Big mistake. Her skull felt like it was full of shrapnel. Goddamned flash bang.
“Boss?” Givens said from behind her.
Sarah turned. Givens held Epp by his shoulders. Epp held his hands out as if in supplication. Through burned and melted patches in the gloves, she saw raw, red flesh. He’d burned the hell out of his hands. “Shit,” Sarah said. She looked at the two nurses cowering behind the credenza. “You! Get my man some aid. Now!�
� They looked at one another and then back at her. She snarled. “First aid, goddammit!”
That got them moving. They stood from the wall and walked to Epp. Givens released him and the two nurses took him to a small room off the hallway. Sarah watched them go and then looked at Givens and the rest of her team. “Glad you guys could join the party,” she said.
A thin smile lit Perkins’ face. “Least we could do.”
She tapped her mic. “Moore? You there?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. I’m here.”
“Any others on this level?”
Pause. “We don’t think so. The majority of the activity is on floor six. The other two floors look to be clear. Lieutenant. Can you tell me what happened?”
No, she thought. I really can’t. She took a deep breath. “You didn’t see it?”
“No,” the voice said. “We don’t have any cameras in that hallway. What did you do?”
“We threw a flash bang grenade at it.”
Pause. When Moore’s voice spoke again, Sarah was certain the woman was smiling. “Oh, my. I take it that started a fire.”
She knew Moore couldn’t see her, but she nodded anyway. “You could say that. Goddamned sprinklers almost ruined it.”
“There were two entities on that floor. Did you get both of them?”
Sarah turned slightly and saw the look on Givens’ face. He looked confused. She felt the same way. “They’re both gone,” she said. “When can I bring my team out?”
She could almost feel Moore sighing on the other end of the line. “When you deal with floor six.”
“What’s she talking about?” Perkins asked.
Sarah held up a finger to her lips and glared at the man. “What’s on floor six?”
“We don’t know,” Moore said. “The cameras went out a while ago. We only know one of the entities is on that floor.”
“What kind of potential casualties are we looking at?” Sarah asked.
“Floor six is ICU, nuclear medicine, and other testing including MRI. According to the hospital records, the ward is completely full.”
“Christ,” Perkins muttered.
“Any idea how many staff?” Sarah asked.
“No. But that floor is fully staffed around the clock.”
The SWAT commander grimaced. “How long since you had a camera view up there?”
“Just before you left for floor two.”
She looked at her watch. That was at least thirty minutes ago. Forty if she was being generous. She looked at the huge hole in the wall where the larger entity had burst through and the destruction in the rooms beyond. These hadn’t even eaten much. And they were big. Big. How large was the one upstairs?
“Do you have spotters?”
“Yes,” Moore said. “We have surveillance teams on the other buildings watching Ben Taub with infrared and night vision scopes.”
Sarah frowned. “Night vision scopes? Why do you need those?”
“The lights are out up there,” Moore said, her words clipped and formal. “The emergency lights seem to be working, but it’s hardly enough light for normal vision.”
“And what’s the assessment?”
“That’s the problem,” Moore said. “There are no heat signatures apart from the lights themselves.”
Sarah exchanged a glance with Givens. The Kentuckian’s face was impassive, but she saw something in his eyes she’d never seen before. It was fear. “And we’re supposed to go up there and deal with this how, exactly? We have no weapons apart from the remaining flash bangs and our nearly useless rifles. And we’re running low on ammo.”
Pause. “We understand your situation, Lieutenant. Our team is coming up with suggestions.”
“I’ll give you a goddamned suggestion,” Schneck said.
Sarah glared at him. “Gonna have to do better than that, Moore. The two we dealt with here damned near ate all the babies in the maternity ward. We almost lost everyone in the process of stopping it.” She pulled off her helmet and rubbed a sweaty hand through her cropped curls. “If one of those things has been eating everyone on floor six, there’s no telling how large it is.”
“Can’t be that big,” Moore said. “We can’t see it through any of the windows.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “You can’t see it because it’s on the floor, or maybe in the ceiling, or maybe it moved to another floor. You don’t know shit.” A drop of spittle flew from her mouth on the last word. Moore didn’t reply. The seconds seemed to stretch into infinity.
You can get out of here, a voice said in her mind. You can get your team out of here. You’ll find a way. You just need to—
“I understand your frustration, Lieutenant.” Moore’s clipped words sent a shiver down Sarah’s spine. “Be advised we do have a contingency plan in case you’re unable to stop it.”
Schneck shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“What kind of contingency plan?” Sarah asked, although she was pretty damned sure of the answer.
“I won’t go into details,” Moore said, “but I promise you that no one in that building will be alive afterward.”
“Fucking great,” Perkins sighed. “Ship my ass back to Iraq.”
Sarah paced behind the credenza. The nurses hadn’t brought Epp back yet. “How long do we have?”
“Two hours,” Moore said. “That’s all I can give you. And if we lose contact with your team, it’ll be much faster than that.”
She nodded to herself. Made sense. In a hideously fucked up way, it made sense. If she was honest with herself, she was surprised they hadn’t blown them all up by now anyway. This thing was dangerous enough to warrant nuking a city, let alone a damned hospital. What were a few hundred or a few thousand people in the face of something that seemed to grow exponentially and ate everything it came in contact with?
“Let me get back to you, Moore.”
“Standing by,” she said.
Sarah muted the mic and turned to Givens. “You still remember ordinance training?”
A thin grin spread across his face. “Think I remember more about the creation than the disarming.”
“Good.” She pointed at Perkins and Givens. “You two go scout for some materials. Ask those nurses where they keep their supplies. If need be, we’ll scavenge on the way upstairs.”
“Yes, Boss,” Perkins said. He clapped Givens on the shoulder and they headed down the hallway at a fast jog.
Sarah turned as something made its way through the hole in the wall. Kilfoil walked into the hallway, Bradfisch’s arm around his shoulder, one foot in the air.
“Shit,” Schneck said. “What’s up with him?”
Bradfisch’s face was pale and his eyes seemed to swim in his head. The man’s raised foot dangled at an awkward angle.
“Goddamned thing hit him,” Kilfoil said. “We need to get him to a doc. Quick.”
Sarah nodded. “Schneck. Grab his gear.” She pointed down the hall in the direction the nurses had taken Epp. “Kilfoil? Get him down there. Find the nurse. They’ll get him comfortable.”
“Sorry, Boss,” Bradfisch muttered in a dazed voice.
She smiled at him. “You did great, soldier.”
He didn’t respond as Kilfoil led him down the hall.
“Boss?” Schneck asked. “What the hell happened? You know, after that big one came in here, it practically ignored us.”
She turned and stared at the misshapen hole in the wall. He was right, of course. The big one, the one Alpha and Beta had chased, burst through the wall and then made a beeline for the smaller creature. It could have killed them all right then and there, but it didn’t. It was—
“Boss?” Schneck asked.
“Hungry,” she muttered. Sarah exhaled hard and then studied the layer of gray ash covering the floor. “Was it hungry?”
“What, Boss? What do you mean ‘hungry?’ It’s been eating every damned thing in the building. Including a lot of people.”
She pointed at
the ash. “Maybe something else. Why would it want to consume the other entity?”
Kilfoil appeared in the hallway and walked up to the edge of the ash. He dragged his boot toe through it. She half-expected the toe to melt into nothing, but the ash merely snuffed out the boot leather’s dull gleam. He let out a breath she didn’t know he’d been holding. He looked down at her and grinned sheepishly. “Wasn’t sure.”
She nodded. “I wasn’t either.” Sarah stood from her crouch. “How bad is Bradfisch?”
Kilfoil shrugged. “Broken ankle. Concussion. He’s not going with us anytime soon.”
She fought a sigh and lost. Bradfisch was out. They were down one man, possibly two. That wasn’t going to make the job any easier. Especially when the damned things weren’t even predictable. The creatures were willing to ignore a meal just to kill each other. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“That it wouldn’t want us?” Schneck asked.
“Yeah.”
“Territory,” Kilfoil said.
Sarah turned and looked at him. “What?”
He blushed a little and cleared his throat. “Territory. Maybe they were fighting over us.”
“Nah,” Schneck said. “If it was just territory, they would have fought. The big one just ate the little one. I mean, what species does that?”
“Cannibals,” she said and nodded to herself. “Something like that. But why would they kill each other if they’re from the same, I don’t know, base entity? I mean they’re smart, smarter than what’s good for us, but they seem to get more intelligent as they get larger.”
Schneck’s face lit with excitement. “Maybe that’s the trick. What if the big one absorbed the other to, I don’t know, add its essence? Or grow? Or something like that?”
“Kind of makes sense,” Kilfoil said. “In a John Carpenter fucked up Saturday horror matinee kind of way.”
Sarah looked back at the ashen floor. Adds to itself. When it was a single entity, it moved with purpose, consuming as much as it could and getting as large as it could. And after it ate, absorbed, or whatever the hell it did to the smaller entity, it grew damned fast. In seconds, it was much larger than it had been.
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