The Black: Outbreak

by Paul E. Cooley

  The milk had poured out over the floor just as he expected it would. When it landed, the barely secured cap popped off and rolled to the wall. The milk, on the other hand, dumped out of the bottle a mere meter and a half from the door. That was a good range for Harrel, but there were no guarantees. It all depended on where the thing’s vulnerable parts faced.

  A scraping nail-on-chalkboard sound filled the hall. The thing slowly emerged. Mathis’ mouth opened involuntarily. The tentacles dragged along the ground next to its spindly legs. The squat body was no longer roundish, but elongated like some massive beetle. Its mouth, for lack of a better word, hid beneath a hood of shiny black shell. Between the dim light and the shadow cast by the forward sloping carapace, it was impossible to see the vulnerable point, but he was sure it was there.

  “Harrel? Stand by.” The words came out in a croak barely above a whisper.

  The creature continued scuttling toward the bait, tentacles dragging across the floor. The hood slipped back slightly and an impossibly black, viscous tongue-like appendage slipped out. The tongue lengthened and reached for the substance on the floor.

  “Harrel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Now.”

  Chapter 63

  She was standing by the door, hand on the knob, when she heard a squeal in the hall beyond. Her heart thumped faster in her chest, and she shivered with gooseflesh. When Mathis spoke, her heart stopped for a beat.

  “Harrel?”

  She managed to get enough breath in her lungs to answer him. “Yes?”

  “Now,” he said over the radio without a pause.

  Harrel breathed deeply and then swung the door open a 1/4 meter. She nearly stepped back in horror.

  All she could see was a shape made of space-black shadows. Through her narrow sightline, she couldn’t see the legs holding the creature up, or its tentacles hanging off to the side. What she could see was the rush of liquid from the thing’s head. The thick appendage sizzled as it absorbed the milk on the floor. And then she saw the eyestalk.

  It jutted from the head, waving in barely perceptible movements. But the black orb atop it seemed to stare right at her. The appendage rose from the milk and pointed at the door.

  It sees you! a voice screamed in her head. Harrel, paralyzed, watched the tongue lengthen again and reach for her.

  “Now, goddammit!” Mathis’ voice shouted through the radio. With a primal yell, she pulled the Taser’s trigger. The device clicked and the two leads flew from the plastic and metal casing. The metal passed through the black tongue’s surface. The tongue reared back. She hit the button.

  The capacitors emptied their charge and electricity flowed through the leads with a buzzing sound. Blue arcs swirled on the thing’s appendage. The monster shook in a seizure. “Die, you fucker!” Harrel screamed at it. But the liquid didn’t catch fire or explode. It did nothing more than shake. The buzzing stopped.

  “Hit it again!” Mathis yelled.

  She pressed the button again, but nothing happened. The capacitors were recharging. “Dammit!” Harrel shouted. “It’s got to charge!”

  She heard Mathis curse over the radio. And then something began to happen. The thing had absorbed the electricity, but its carapace started to change colors. “What the hell? Are you seeing this?”

  A tentacle shot out and smashed into the wall next to the door. The force knocked her on her ass, the Taser falling from her hands. She scrambled backward, one hand reaching for the Taser while the other helped push her away from the door. An eyestalk peered in at her, its lifeless eye tunneling into her soul. Harrel finally managed to palm the Taser. A tentacle slid across the floor and found the doorway. The sharp hook end scraped the concrete with the sound of two rocks rubbing together. Harrel stared at it and then looked up. The creature was moving closer, its long, cylindrical tongue sizzling as it dragged across the concrete. The eyestalk waved as if in hello.

  Harrel pulled the trigger again. The Taser buzzed. Even though it wasn’t fully charged, it sent a flood of electricity through the leads and into the thing. The tongue shook and then the eyestalk started too. A blue arc of electricity danced inside the thing’s mouth. The foul stench of burning garbage filled the room, her eyes watering from the stinging scent. The tentacle lashed out against the wall in blind rage or pain. And then the tentacle hit the door. It shut with a bang that made the room shudder.

  “The Taser’s dead!” she yelled into her mic. “Mathis? Is it—”

  The room rocked with an explosion. She fell backward and the back of her head kissed the concrete. The shock wave vibrated her bones and the sound of glass crunching and metal clinking filled the air. Ceiling panels fell to the floor unleashing a cloud of dust and flakes.

  Harrel didn’t move. Her eyes blurred and then slowly cleared. She stared up at the ceiling, heart pounding, skull aching.

  You’re concussed, she said to herself. Better lie here and—

  The monster. The thing outside the door. She’d blown it up. Or had she? She rolled onto her side with a moan. A lightning bolt of pain shot through her brain as she slowly fought her way to her feet. On woozy legs, she stumbled to the heavy steel door.

  A large dimple marred the upper part of the door and it no longer fit right in the frame. She put her hand on the handle and immediately let go with surprise. The handle was hot to the touch. For some reason, she knew she shouldn’t open the door. Something about fire being on the other side, but those thoughts cartwheeled through her head without finding a mooring. She put her hand back on the handle and then pushed the door open.

  Chapter 64

  They stood on the landing. Although Sarah was far from telepathic, it was easy to tell what the team was thinking. She’d been around them long enough to pick up on their body language. Whether they were storming a crack house, taking care of a hostage situation, or responding to a mass shooting, she knew from how they spoke, how they moved, and how they held their bodies. And right now, everyone, including herself, was stressed to the edge. Even Givens was taut and stiff. This was it.

  “Remember. We get one shot at this. And if it gets us, it gets everyone in the building. And that includes the infants we already saved. Understood?”

  “Yes, Boss,” the team muttered.

  She stamped her foot, her face a mask of anger and frustration. “UNDERSTOOD?” she yelled.

  “YES, BOSS!” the team responded, their words echoing off the concrete walls.

  Satisfied, she pointed her rifle at the floor, checked to make sure everyone’s lights were on, and then gestured to the door. “Perkins. If you would do the honors?”

  He stepped in front of the door, Givens taking up position next to it. Perkins held up one hand with three fingers outstretched. They fell one by one, and he swung open the door.

  The darkness on the floor above had been oppressive, but at least some ambient light had managed to stream through the windows. Here on floor five, on this side of the building, there were no windows, no way for the outside light to get in. Sarah craned her neck to get a look, but Givens’ rifle hardly illuminated the inky darkness. Nerves sizzling with fear, she held her breath as Givens stepped through the door and into the abyss.

  She saw dark teeth against a backdrop of impenetrable blackness. Something wriggled and flung itself. Sarah heard the whistle of air as it moved just above Givens’ head and then—

  He stopped in the middle of the hallway after carefully checking both sides for a threat. Givens held up a fist and then opened his hand completely. All clear. Let’s go.

  She clicked her teeth together and took a deep breath. Her imagination was getting on top of her. Next time, she might literally die because of fear. If she froze like that when they actually faced the creature, there was little question she’d be a meal. Or worse, she’d get one of her team killed.

  Perkins swung in behind Givens. The two men spread themselves a meter apart, their backs facing one another. Kilfoil blocked the door from closing. S
chneck went forward through the doorway. Sarah followed after a three count. As each team member entered the hall, Givens and Perkins increased their distance. Every three seconds, they kept moving. Each new member took their position, lights joining those of their brethren.

  When Sarah cast her light down the hallway, she realized the darkness was more complete than she’d first thought. The LED light seemed to vanish a few meters out. “Form up,” she said. Kilfoil replaced Perkins at the rear and faced the opposite direction. Perkins walked past her and Schneck to take his place to the side and a meter behind his partner. She tapped her mic. “Constant communication, men. Givens? Lead us out.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The team walked silently across the tile floor. Every few steps she glanced down at the floor. The ambient light from her rifle made the tile shine. It had been here. It had been in this hallway. She glanced to the right. The wall separating them from the inner building was scored with rips in the sheetrock. In some places, meter wide ragged holes scarred the walls.

  “Boss,” Givens said, “coming up on an intersection.”

  Sarah’s trigger finger twitched slightly. “Slow, team. Slow. Alpha? Sandbox style.”

  “Boss,” Perkins said.

  Up ahead, the inner wall ended in total darkness. Givens moved to the outer wall while Perkins moved to hug the inner. Givens slowed to let his partner reach the corner. When Perkins was in position, Schneck moved up ahead to stand less than half a meter from Givens. She moved in behind Perkins, her rifle raised far over his shoulder. Kilfoil continued walking backward until he was parallel to her.

  “In position, Boss,” Kilfoil said.

  She wanted to pause. She wanted to stop. She wanted to hug this wall until the building fell apart, but her training wouldn’t allow it. “Go.” The word jumped from her mouth as a command. The team moved.

  Givens walked forward along the wall, hips rotated to face the building’s interior. When he was a few meters away, Schneck followed suit. Once they gathered together, the team walked into the darkness with Givens in the lead.

  Their lights illuminated destruction. Surgery Waiting Room One once had four rows of vinyl-covered chairs. Only piles of twisted metal remained. The reception station cubicles looked as though dozens of chainsaws had ripped through them. Shattered glass and bits of metal covered the gleaming tile floor.

  The team panned their white LED lights around the room. Everywhere she looked, she saw more damage. The ceiling had been pulled down along with electrical wiring and duct work. The smell of rotten meat was punctuated by the eye-watering stench of melted plastic. The thing had done a hell of a job. And they were only in the first large room.

  Givens stopped a few meters from the wall separating the waiting area from the actual operating suites and the recovery room. His light played over the entrance to the first surgery wing. The doors were gone and the frames had been completely blown out. Something the size of a large pickup truck had slammed through the room with reckless abandon. And it was still here. On this floor. Waiting for them. Or—

  “Boss,” Givens’ voice said in her ear. “If it’s in this wing, it’s down that hallway.”

  “Agreed,” she replied.

  “Gotta be careful here,” Perkins said. “Don’t want to get trapped in that hallway with it. We’d have no place to go.”

  Sarah walked until she stood next to Givens. Down the dark hallway, she saw openings like little cubicles. She grinned. “Listen up. I think this is where they bring the patients before surgery. You know, change clothes and all that shit. I think it’s too goddamned big to be in one of them, but it’s a good place to hide if it comes down here.”

  Givens nodded. “Good plan, Boss.” The Kentuckian’s expression was difficult to read in the dim glow cast by the rifle lights.

  “Kilfoil. Cover our ass. Schneck, stick with him. I’m going with Alpha.”

  “Boss,” Kilfoil and Schneck said.

  Perkins looked back at her, eyebrows raised. She gave him a curt nod. He returned his attention to the hallway and she took position at the rear. Alpha expected her to remain with Kilfoil and Schneck, the least experienced of the team. But they were safer here in the waiting room. If it was in front of them, Alpha would be between it and them. And if it was elsewhere on the floor? They’d have a good chance to see it coming and find cover.

  “Schneck. Kilfoil. If that thing comes at you, you make sure you let us know.”

  “Boss,” Schneck said with a mirthless laugh, “if it comes in here, you’ll hear me yelling without needing the radio.”

  “Alpha. Let’s go.”

  Givens moved forward into the murky darkness, she and Perkins just behind him.

  As with the waiting room and the rest of the floor they’d seen thus far, the tile gleamed as though newly shined and polished.

  If we could distill that shit into something that didn’t want to eat us, it’d make a great household cleaner, she thought.

  Then the image of one of those eyestalks peering at her from inside a glass bottle filled her mind. She shook it away and refocused her attention.

  She and Perkins matched Givens step for step. Their lights stabbed through the darkness illuminating metal cellphone skeletons, keys, jeans rivets, and other unrecognizable metal parts. Much like in the waiting room and floor six, the walls were scarred and mostly destroyed.

  Givens swiveled his hips and cast his light into the first prep room on the left. Sarah and Perkins kept their lights facing forward, looking for anything that might try and rush him. He held up his right hand in a fist. Perkins and Sarah came to a halt. Givens walked into the room and was lost from their sight for a moment. Her skin prickled with nervous tension. Or was it fear? “Clear, Boss,” his voice said in her ear. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding.

  “Status?”

  He walked out of the little room and retook his position in the lead. “Don’t think it went in there, Boss. No signs.”

  “Let keep moving.”

  “Boss,” Givens replied and restarted his patrol.

  The next two prep rooms were the same. The creature either hadn’t bothered to go in them, or somehow left no trace. More than likely it had just ignored the rooms since it was too damned big to get in them anyway. That made more sense.

  Do you really want to know how much it’s grown? a voice said in her mind.

  She ignored it.

  The further they traveled down the hall, the more isolated she felt. She quickly checked behind them, but could only see the pinpoints of the rear guards’ lights. “Kilfoil. Schneck. Status?”

  “All quiet, Boss,” Kilfoil said. “Nothing moving but the rain on the windows.”

  “Same here,” she said. “We’re nearly out of the hallway. Stay sharp.”

  “Boss,” Kilfoil and Schneck responded.

  “We’ve reached the corner,” Givens said. “Only goes to the left.”

  “Take it,” Sarah said.

  Givens waited until Perkins moved into position for cover, and then he stepped from the main hallway and into the adjoining hall. She looked at the watch on her wrist. The timer was at 12 minutes. They had to stop fucking around and get moving.

  “We need to hustle, men.”

  “Boss,” Alpha responded. With that Givens plunged into the darkness, his combat boots making little sound on the tile floor. She and Perkins followed.

  The hall ended in two destroyed doorways. One was marked “Recovery” while the other “Surgery Suites 1-4.” Each doorway was large enough to accommodate a wheeled stretcher as well as personnel. The recovery room’s doorframe was a mess of scorched and splintered wood. It had been here. The only question was whether or not it was still in here.

  “Recovery first,” she said.

  Perkins pushed open the door and Givens flashed his light around the large room. The LED barely illuminated the space. If the creature was hiding in the back of the room, they’d barely have
enough warning before they ran smack into it. Sarah’s skin prickled. For the first time she could remember, she actually heard Givens breathing into his mic.

  “Cover your eyes. I’m going to light this place up,” she said. Givens moved aside to give her room. She pulled a flare from her belt, pulled off the top, and flung the cylinder into the room. Powerful crimson light lit the room in a ten-meter radius. Beyond that, they could still make out the shadows of large objects. But where the hell were the people? Then she saw what she’d feared: metal pieces scattered around the floor. “Shit,” she said.

  Givens sighed. “Well, at least we know it’s not in here.”

  The floor trembled. She and Givens exchanged a glance. “What was—”

  The building groaned like a wounded animal.

  thump…Thump…THUMP!

  “Boss?” Kilfoil’s voice said through the radio. “I think we have a big fucking problem!”

  “Move!” she yelled at Alpha.

  The three of them turned back into the surgery hallway and booked it to reception. The moment they could see into the main hallway, the trio came to a stop. Through the destroyed doorway, their lights shined on the backs of both Kilfoil and Schneck. The two men were backing up, their rifles pointed at something in the far shadows. And then Sarah realized what she was looking at.

  The shadows were the creature. The thing was huge, the size of two tractor trailers blocking their egress. It had been in the other wing all along.

  “Get in here!” she yelled through the mic. Kilfoil turned and started to run. Schneck fumbled with something on his belt. “Move, Schneck!”

  “I got—” Something whistled through the air and decapitated him. A dark cloud of fluid hung in the air before falling to the tile floor. Schneck’s body stood there for a moment, an object falling out of either dead hand, and then the body crumbled to the floor.