“What?” Mathis asked.
She broke from her stupor and looked up at him. “Sorry?”
“You said ‘what else could it be?’ What’d you mean?”
She blushed. “Just got lost in my own thoughts.”
He nodded and then gazed at the desk. “A lot of that going on,” he said. “So how the hell do we do this? Run up and hit it in the ass?”
Harrel resumed her stare. How were they supposed to get to it? And worse, with that covering it had, would the electricity even manage to get through?
The floor rumbled. Harrel flinched and then stared at the steel door. “What was that?”
Mathis walked to the door and peered through the peep hole. He stayed there for a moment, eyes searching the narrow field of view. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “But it has to be close if it’s making that much noise.”
Carter held his head in his hands. “Just trying to pay for goddamned college,” he said. “And now I’m going to be fucking eaten for it.”
“Shut up,” Maxwell said. He looked up at the CDC doctors. “What’s the problem?” He pointed at the unit with the extendable leads. “We just open up, let it get close, and then zap it.”
“And die,” Mathis said. “Our colleague says it will explode. Violently.”
Maxwell blinked. “Oh. So, um. Yeah. We draw straws?”
“No,” Harrel said. “Not unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”
The floor vibrated again. “Shit,” Mathis said. “That was closer.”
“We don’t have a lot of time, gentlemen,” Harrel said in an even voice. The panic animal was doing its best to take control. She wanted out of this goddamned room, out of the goddamned ER annex, and trapped safely in a metal box. Like I am now, but without the creature outside.
But there was no way out. Moore had closed the partition between the annex and the hospital. They couldn’t even get through the basement now. There was nowhere to go, and that thing would get in here. If it was large enough to make the floor shake, it sure as hell could beat its way through the door and walls. Or maybe it would just shed its form, turn back into liquid, if it could do that, slide beneath the door, and eat them from the feet up.
She shivered at the thought. She wondered how Sharma died. The nice Indian doctor had seemed harmless, concerned about his staff, and good at his job. So had the others. But they were all gone now, all part of it.
The floor beneath her feet seemed to tremble.
“Shit,” Carter said. “I think it’s in the cafeteria.”
“Oh, good,” Mathis said. “More stuff for it to eat.”
Harrel shook her head. “Not helpful, guys. Come on. Think!”
“You think!” Maxwell said. “All I can do is pop holes in the damned thing with my gun. And we already know that’s not going to do shit to it.”
“Wait a second,” Mathis said. He turned to Harrel. “That thing still had some liquid. The underbelly and its proboscis, or whatever the hell that was.”
Harrel shook her head. “Good luck getting close enough. One of those tentacles will take you out before you get near it.”
“Distraction,” Mathis said. He looked around the room. “We need a distraction. Something to occupy it.” He eyed the small fridge in the corner and pointed at it. “You got food in there?”
Carter and Maxwell both nodded. A smile slowly made its way across his face and his eyes glittered. Between his helmet-head hair style and the torn and scuffed CDC jumpsuit, he looked like some mad scientist villain from the movies.
“We got this,” he said. “Man, have we got this.”
Chapter 60
The plan was stupidly simple. Or simply stupid. Mathis wasn’t sure which, but he thought it would work. And if it didn’t? Well, they were dead anyway.
The thing liked to eat, so they’d give it something to eat. Something to distract it. Something to keep it busy while they tried to fry it. The only trick was making sure they didn’t get dead before they had a chance to attack. And that meant having a little luck and a lot of balls. And the two security guards didn’t seem to have an abundance of reckless testosterone. He didn’t either.
They’d discussed his plan for a few minutes, everyone in the room jumping anytime the floor shook. And those tremors were getting stronger.
“You’re sure the range is three meters?” Harrel asked. She held the black and yellow Taser in her hands, testing the weight.
Carter nodded. “Yeah. The company gets us the big boy model. It’s expensive, though, so most of us just have the stun guns.”
“Three meters isn’t much,” Mathis said. “Might be enough. Might be.”
“It’ll have to do,” Harrel said. She met his gaze. “Unless you thought of a better plan?”
Mathis shook his head. “Not me. How about you guys?” Carter and Maxwell shook their heads. “Then let’s get moving.”
The two security guards shuffled closer to the table. They’d removed a paper tray from one of the desks and piled the contents of the fridge on it. They had a tuna fish sandwich, left-over pizza, a small bottle of milk, and some cheese. They also had toaster pastries and doughnuts, but Mathis preferred the items that had meat or protein. It probably didn’t matter. Trying to compare the thing to any other life form on earth was ridiculous. Apart from eating biological material, the creature had no other analogous properties. They didn’t know if it could smell, if it could taste, and whether or not it could actually “think,” although Mathis was more and more convinced the latter was not only possible, but a certainty.
Carter picked up the paper tray with both hands. Maxwell had his Glock in his holster, his left hand on its butt. Mathis picked up one of the stun guns. If something went wrong, he could use it as a last-ditch weapon. But if things went that wrong, he was most likely dead anyway. Still, the plastic and metal rectangle made him a feel a little better. He fought the urge to hit the trigger and check that it was charged. The battery status showed “100%,” but seeing was believing. Manufacturing any kind of faith this evening was almost more than he could manage.
Harrel looked like she was going to throw up. Mathis didn’t blame her. She had the easy job, too. She just had to stand in the doorway and watch their backs while they placed everything. But ultimately, she was going to have to fire the Taser at it if they didn’t have time to properly set up. She had a range of three meters to work with, but they didn’t know if the target was even vulnerable through its carapace. And that meant she’d have to hit just the right spot to have any effect at all.
Mathis took a deep breath and stood by the door, his free hand on the handle. Carter stood a meter away, with Maxwell behind him. Harrel stood at the side of the door, ready to pull the trigger if they opened up the door and the thing was right there waiting for them.
While the office temperature was near 70°F, he shivered like he was in the Arctic wearing a bathing suit and nothing else. He knew it was fear mixed with the last dregs of adrenaline still left in his body, but that didn’t stop him from shaking. The door knob rattled beneath his trembling hand. He tried to talk, but his voice came out as nothing more than a guttural hiss of air. Mathis took a deep breath and focused. “Ready?”
“Ready,” the three responded, Carter sounding more nervous than Harrel.
Mathis nodded to himself. “3-2-1.” He twisted the knob and put his shoulder to the door. He banged off the heavy steel, his shoulder screaming with pain. “Goddammit,” he yelled.
“Fucking kidding me,” Maxwell said. “Unlock it!”
The fear was instantly swept away by blushing embarrassment. He reached and released the door bar. “Now.”
The door swung wide into a cave of shadows. The dim emergency lights barely cast enough illumination to see the floor, but the edges of the wide area beyond the security office seemed to swallow the light. Carter stepped through the doorway while whispering a prayer. Maxwell followed and quickly stepped to the left to both cover him and make
enough room for Mathis. When it was his turn to step out into the artificial twilight, Mathis held his breath and walked on stiff knees. He’d never been this terrified in his entire goddamned life. And considering what he’d already been through tonight, that was saying something.
“We don’t know how big it is,” Carter whispered. “So how do you know where to put the food.”
“I can make an educated guess,” he lied. Nothing educated about it. You have no idea what it has consumed, no clue what its growth rate is, and no proof its body will even remotely look like it did earlier.
That was all true, of course. The look on Harrel’s face when he said he knew how big it was let him know his deception hadn’t worked on anyone but the guards. But since she didn’t challenge his assertion, he figured she knew just as well as he did how hopeless a guess it was.
They’d discussed tying up the food and tossing it out there, able to pull it in if they needed to move it closer. They’d discussed throwing the bait, hoping the creature would chase the food rather than them. Mathis had imagined the thing completely ignoring the bait and heading straight at them, its eyestalks bent forward in a lifeless stare while mandibles clicked around its liquid maw. He quickly ruled out that idea.
He continued walking on bent knees as he glide-stepped further into the gathering shadows. The two security guards followed a few steps behind. He was far from silent, but he still thought he was making less noise than the two young men. He hoped like hell for the thousandth time that the creature couldn’t hear.
Around the corner, he saw the partition. The great metal door that separated the hospital from the annex looked thick and impenetrable. Given the amount of water that flooded Ben Taub and other hospitals in the low-lying areas during Tropical Storm Alison, pressurized doors and partitions had become the new fashion in Houston construction. The new doors enabled better control over flood waters via compartmentalization. And since the annex sat even lower than the hospital, it made perfect sense.
He glared at the door. Makes perfect sense until it’s keeping you trapped with a goddamned monster, he thought. He turned and faced Maxwell and Carter. “Here. We’re going to do it here.”
Maxwell glanced over his shoulder and whistled softly. “You sure, man? That’s a long way from the office.”
“Yeah,” Mathis lied. “I’m sure. We put the food down here.” He pointed to a spot between him and Carter. “And then we get things ready. We need a trail to lead it here.”
“What’s the big meal?” Carter asked.
“The smelly sandwich, of course.”
“Hey,” Carter said, “that’s my sandwich.”
Maxwell laughed, nervous tension lying just beneath the forced mirth. “Yes, it is. And it stinks.”
Carter removed the sandwich from the tray and placed it on the floor. “Now what?”
“Put the pieces of pizza about a meter apart from the sandwich. We want to keep walking toward the office.”
The security guard shook his head at Mathis and then followed his instructions. A few minutes later, a trail of food led back to the security office. The only thing left was the bottle of milk.
“And this?” Carter said and held up the bottle.
Mathis grinned. “That’s our honey pot.”
Boom. Boom. Click click click click.
The three men turned to face the hallway between the cafeteria and the security office. “Give me the bottle and get your asses back in the office.”
Neither security guard said a word. Instead, they both ran for the safety of their office. Mathis watched them go and spun the top off the bottle. He took a sip from the warming milk. His throat thanked him, but his taste buds revolted. Skim milk. Just had to be skim milk.
The guards were at the door. Carter had turned back to face Mathis. “Hey. You coming? Get your ass—”
Something the size of a jet black fire-hose shot out of the inky shadows. It struck Maxwell in the shoulder. The guard flew forward into the office’s steel door. It banged shut. Carter turned to face the hallway, his mouth open in a wide “O.” Another tentacle unfurled from the darkness. The hooked talon popped his skull like an egg, a cloud of brain matter and blood exploding into the air. Maxwell crumpled to his knees.
“No! Goddammit, no!” Mathis shouted.
Carter’s body slumped to the floor with a thud, his arms and legs still twitching. Maxwell groaned in pain, his hands reaching for his shoulder. Mathis wanted to scream something, warn him, shit, anything, but it was too late.
The black tentacle, its end still dripping with Carter’s blood, reared back and then pistoned forward. It punctured Maxwell’s back and clunked into the steel door. Maxwell grunted and looked down at the impossibly black talon poking through his chest. Blood bubbled from his mouth. He started to say something and then he was screaming as the tentacle pulled him into the darkness. The scream cut off and then all Mathis could hear was the sound of frying bacon.
“Mathis!”
Someone was yelling his name. Someone was trying to tell him to do something.
“Fucking answer me!”
Oh, it’s Harrel, he thought. Wonder if she wants to talk or something.
“Goddammit, talk to me!”
The voice was coming from his radio. “Harrel?” His voice was little more than a husky whisper. “It’s here.”
“The door slammed on me.”
“Yeah,” Mathis said. The sizzling sound retreated as though someone was slowly turning a volume knob. “Lucky you.”
The tentacle reappeared, stabbed into Carter’s corpse, and pulled it into the darkness like a dead fish on a line.
“What do I do?” Harrel asked.
Good fucking question, Mathis thought. He stared at the bottle of milk. “I have an idea, but you’re going to have to be quick.”
“Tell me,” she said.
He took a deep breath. The sizzling started again, a crescendo of pop rocks in a moist mouth. “I’m going to give it something else to eat. It will have to come near the door to get it. And it’s not going to be able to grab it. So I’ll tell you when to open the door.”
“If you have food, send it somewhere else. Get your ass back in the office. We’ll figure something else out.”
He shook his head. “No. There’s no other way.”
“Mathis? Goddammit, don’t you dare!”
He loosed a mirthless giggle. “When have I ever listened to you? Just be ready.”
The sound receded. He had a minute, maybe two, if he was lucky, before the thing ventured in search of more food. He reached down to the floor and retrieved the cap. He’d need it after all. And he needed the sandwich.
Mathis ran and picked up the bait. If the thing required a little more persuasion, he could always fling a piece of pizza or two, but he’d rather save those in case he needed them for an escape.
There isn’t going to be an escape, you moron, he told himself. You’re either going to get blown to smithereens, or worse, eaten by that goddamned thing.
The sandwich shook in his hand. Milk slopped out of the quivering container. Just a tendril, but still. Get your shit together, asshole. If nothing else, you can save your boss. He smiled. “Live through this,” he said aloud, “and you get a fucking promotion.”
The sizzling sound faded into silence. He either did something now, or he’d be facing that thing with no protection. He ran back until he could see just the corner of the office door. He twisted the cap on the bottle of milk a quarter turn. Should be enough. He hoped. He waited on quivering legs. “Get ready, Harrel,” he said into the mic.
She sounded as scared as he felt. “I’m ready.”
“Remember. If Ellis is right about this, you’re going to have a hell of an explosion in your face.”
“Right.” She let out a sigh. “Any idea what the difference is between a defibrillator’s current and a Taser?”
“Not a clue,” he said.
“Great. So we don’t even know if this
will work.”
“It’ll work,” he said. “Has to.”
She didn’t reply, but he knew what she was thinking. And he was thinking it too. They were both going to die.
Chapter 61
The creature hung back in the shadows. It had consumed the remaining digestible matter. Its scion hadn’t left much in its wake, but it had found more food behind an easily destroyed metal partition. The matter was barely digestible and it had sprayed the remaining chemical waste through the exit hole in its shell.
When it saw more food, living food, it leaped at the chance to consume. The two creatures it snared quickly enabled it to change shape. To fit through the hall, it had had to reconfigure itself. But in the open space beyond the hall, it could grow again. And then it would find a way out. Somewhere beyond the walls, somewhere that had no lights to threaten it. Somewhere with food it could consume until it could become.
Its three eyestalks waved in the air, the orbs searching for movement and temperature changes. Something flew past the hall entrance and struck the floor. Liquid spread out in a pool. The creature fought the urge to scuttle to the substance and determine its digestibility. Instead, it flung a tentacle around the hallway corner searching for an attacker. The hooked talon sliced into hard, but pliable, cellulose. It switched directions and checked the other side. Nothing but more of the barely digestible material.
It would have to be careful. Something was wrong, but it didn’t understand what. Its seven legs dug gouges into the hallway, knocking studs and pipes aside. Its squat, long body scraped across the exposed materials. It headed for the substance, its insatiable hunger propelling it forward.
Chapter 62
Mathis took an unconscious step backward. The thing had smashed its tentacles on either side of the hallway opening, probing, checking. For what? What are you doing, you bastard? It didn’t matter. He just had to get it out of there. And get its…what…mouth? Whatever the hell it used to snarf up human goodies. He had to get that next to the door so Harrel could shoot it. And after that, the fun would begin.
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