Steve picked up the flashlight and turned it on. The bright beam cut through the darkness to reveal a room filled with scores of pistols, rifles, and machine guns. The entire place looked like a war room. “Do you think they’ve made it to the central transformer?”
“It’s like I said earlier, those things are relentless—eating everything they can.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed as his mind drifted to another frightening situation. “If those things cut through enough power cables, no one will be able to connect with the computers. The whole base will go into meltdown.”
Neil nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. Look, there is a flamethrower in the closet in the corner. We might have to use it to get from this blockhouse to the central hallway. Then—”
“Neil, are you there?” crackled Jenny’s voice over the walkie-talkie in his pocket. “Answer me! Where are you?”
Neil snatched the talk-box from his pocket. He then gripped the device tightly as he placed it up to his mouth. “What in the hell are you doing? We are on an open line. We have to maintain radio silence. Diamond Jack could be listening.”
“I know, but we have no choice. That maniac is blasting things on the ground from some kind of weapon in space. He has already obliterated an eighteen-wheeler, an airbase, and a missile silo. We are going to have to get to the basement control room before he does more damage. Come on, where are you?”
“Steve and I are trapped in the blockhouse. Those things have covered this chamber completely. We might have to risk using a flamethrower to get out of here.”
“No, there are too many of those things running loose down here. If you use heat on them, they’ll swarm. You might get as far as the main hallway, but when the flame machine runs out of fuel, both of you will be killed.”
“We have to take that chance!”
“Wait, I know a better way,” she said. “Just hold on a little longer. I can get you both out.”
“No, Jenny,” Neil blurted, “stay where you are. Those things can’t get to you in that isolation chamber.”
“I can’t sit by and do nothing,” Jenny whispered. “Don’t worry, I have everything under control.”
Neil gripped the walkie-talkie even harder. “Jenny, stay where you are. That’s an order!”
There was nothing but static coming from the other end. Then, even the static disappeared and was replaced with nothing but silence.
Steve moved over to the table containing multiple machine guns and shined the flashlight’s beam across the room again. “Is Jenny still on?”
Neil shook his head. “I don’t think so. She is going to get herself killed.”
“Call Eddie,” Steve said. “Maybe he’ll be able to activate some of those fancy defense mechanisms in this place. Hopefully, they can keep those bugs back for a little while. At least we can give Jenny a fighting chance.”
Neil again shook his head. “I can’t contact him. When the power went off, so did the transformers from the underground cell phone tower above. We’re too far down to receive unaided signals. However, there is this alien device in my pocket that may work.”
Steve thought for a moment. Maybe, he could use the flamethrower to activate this building’s sprinkler systems. Water may have an effect on those bugs. However, he’d have to get out of this chamber to use the flamethrower. And if the water did not work, he’d be a dead man. “It looks like we’re going to have to use that torch and a couple of machine guns to make a last stand.”
Neil looked over at Steve. “Last stand! I still have a few tricks in my hand. Just across the room outside this chamber are propane tanks. Once we open the door, you light those things up with the flame gun. When they start to swarm, I’ll take the rifle and shoot into the tank. The explosion will engulf most of the room outside. Enough of those things will be caught in the blast for us to head for the central hallway.”
“Then what?” Steve inquired. “We’ll have an army of those things after us before we make it a hundred feet. Besides, we don’t know what will be waiting for us on the other side of the central hallway. Those creatures are everywhere down here.”
“We’ll have to chance it,” Neil snapped. “I don’t have any options.”
The lights suddenly came on. They were dim at first and then the bulbs shined brightly. The air conditioning system, however, just sputtered and choked to life.
Neil nodded his head. “See, I told you that the lights would come on soon. At least now we’ll be able to better see what is out there.”
Steve looked past Neil at the window ahead. “What the hell is that?”
Neil turned around and gazed back at the window himself. “Oh my God!”
The entire window was now covered with a brown paste that had been secreted from those creatures. In fact, nothing could be seen beyond the dark goo on the glass. It was like looking into a black void.
“They are sealing us in,” Neil blurted. “That stuff is like super glue. It’s what they make hives out of. On the island, they covered entire buildings with that stuff. It took chain saws and torches to cut through that honey wax.”
Steve’s mind locked on another throught. “How will we get the door to this blockhouse open? If that stuff is as tough as you say, we probably can’t even kick the door open. What in the hell are we going to do?”
Neil tensed and looked toward the flamethrower in the closet across from them. “We’ll have to burn our way through. Remember, they can still be roasted alive. Also, if that steel door gets hot enough, the heat will melt the wax on the other side.”
“That’s until that flame gun runs out of fuel.”
“What choice do we have!” Neil yelled. “Come on, the wax has not had time to completely harden. We need to get moving now!”
“Okay, I’m with you,” Steve said, almost whispering.
Behind them, there was a sudden noise. It sounded like a drain cover being opened. The dull scraping sound of the floor vent cover coming off was unmistakable. In fact, it came off with enough force to overturn the small table that was sitting on top of it.
Neil turned in the direction of the sound. “Those things have found a way in!” He grabbed a machine gun from the table and aimed it toward the floor vent opening. “Steve!”
“I’m right on it!” Steve replied, also grabbing another machine gun and slamming in a full magazine of bullets. “Remember, short controlled bursts. We have to save ammunition.”
Neil frowned and glanced at Steve before looking back in the direction of the floor vent. “We’ll need to push something heavy over this hole after we’ve blasted the first of these creatures.”
Steve gripped the gun tightly. “Ready, aim!”
“Don’t shoot!” Jenny’s voice echoed from within the floor vent tunnel. “It’s me. I’ve found a way out!” Her head came out of the opening and then the rest of her body. “Hell, if those things don’t kill me, the two of you surely will.”
Steve lowered the gun and reached down to help Jenny climb out of the vent hole. “Oh God, I thought that we were done for. I didn’t know that the floor vent shafts were large enough for a person to climb through.”
“Yeah,” Jenny replied. “ Most of the vent seals are also in the locked position to each room. We can go through now. However, it will not take those things long to eat past the seals and enter the vent shafts.”
Neil walked over to the shaft opening and looked down into the dark void. “Jenny, you said most of the seals are in the locked position. Which ones are not?”
She looked back at Neil. “The one to the engine room is still open and so is the one behind the boiler room.”
Neil swallowed and started to climb down into the vent shaft. “Listen, we are going to have to split up here. You two head for the boiler room. Take the flame gun with you. That’s the only place those things could be coming from. A
queen must be down there. Light her up! I’m headed toward the engine room. From there, I can shut down the power to the lower central room and stop Diamond Jack from sending more signals up to that death machine in the sky. Then, I’ll open the central door and go after Diamond Jack myself. Come on, time is wasting!”
Steve nodded and moved toward the closet that had the flamethrower in it. “Once we’ve destroyed the queen, we’ll be headed up to assist you.”
“Thanks, I’ll appreciate all the help that I can get.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Steve and Jenny rapidly moved down the vent tunnel toward the boiler room. With it only being four and a half feet from the floor to the ceiling, both of them had to run in a crouched position. Steve was in front and he tightly gripped the flame gun with both hands, ready for anything. With its connected tank on his back, the extra weight made his steps shorter. Jenny followed closely behind. Their eyes strained to see in this dark void. The only external light came from various vent openings that were placed every few feet along the way. Outside, the loud buzzing from those creatures echoed throughout this place.
“Steve, wait up,” she whispered, quickly catching up to him. Ahead, the tunnel split in two directions. “We’re taking the left tunnel. It heads down toward the boiler room.”
He allowed her to move in front. “About how much further is it?”
“Just a couple thousand feet more. Then we’ll come out into another hallway, pass through two sets of doors, and make our way into the lowest chamber. The boiler room is at the end of that hall. But we still have to be careful, it’s a maze down there. We also don’t know how many of those things are loose in that section either. Finally, the queen is somewhere nearby too. And she is the biggest and strongest one of them.”
“Yeah, but she’s not fireproof. I’m looking forward to torching that thing’s butt.”
She nodded. “Be sure that you do not miss.”
He moved down the dark tunnel for another five minutes before saying anything else. However, a thought just kept coming up in his mind. “How much longer do we have before the next Termicide truck is sent this way?”
She looked back and shook her head. “I don’t know. Nobody does. In fact, the truck that Diamond Jack blasted earlier was supposed to have been carrying Termicide. If that had been the case, everything on this side of the Trinity River would have been wiped out by the gas cloud. The army is taking no chances with a criminal who can read minds. That first truck was a decoy. Now that we know he’ll use that death ray on anything approaching this place, the army will probably send hundreds of decoys this way with only one or two carrying the real Termicide. And nobody knows—not even the actual driver—who is actually transporting the deadly chemical.”
“How in the hell will the drivers get far enough away when that stuff explodes?” Steve asked with concern. “The saturation area of Termicide is almost twenty miles.”
She reached the vent opening. “Don’t worry about that because they won’t be using trucks anyway. This time the stuff will be transported in jets. The Termicide will be placed in the nose cone of air-to-ground missiles. Over twenty planes will fly over and drop their payloads. There is no way that Diamond Jack will be able to know which one will be carrying the Termicide. Besides, several fighter jets cruise over this area every single day because of that nearby military base. At the present time, they are evacuating the area above for about twenty miles in all directions. Even the freeway will be closed off.”
“But Diamond Jack destroyed that airbase,” Steve snapped. “Won’t it look strange for jets to be flying to a base that’s already been destoyed? Diamond Jack will just turn that death ray on the planes.”
“Not really. The military will be sending fighter jets there for reinforcements. He is indirectly providing cover for our operation. Diamond Jack will think that the fighter planes are the military’s way of flexing its muscle, just saber rattling. Don’t worry, we’ll be okay.” Jenny carefully opened the vent door and looked around. “We’re good to go.”
The hallway ahead was clear. It was about a hundred feet to the door at the other end. However, the buzzing sound of those creatures in the above vents was as loud as ever.
Jenny climbed out and reached back for Steve. “Once we reach the door at the end of the hallway, we’ll really have to be careful. The hallway leading to the boiler room is electronically wired. One wrong step and we could be electrocuted, gassed, shot, or even sliced in half by laser beams.”
“Why is all of that down here?”
“We’re getting close to the central reactor. If anyone gets to that and damages it, the entire facility goes into meltdown.”
“Understood,” he replied, suddenly turning toward Jenny. “Something else has been bothering me for the last few minutes.”
“What?” she replied, while rapidly moving down the hallway.
Steve swiftly followed behind her as they moved through the door. “Why are we down here trying to torch this freaking bug queen when most of those things are running loose in the chambers above? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be helping Neil deal with Diamond Jack and his space weapon? I mean, when those jets drop the Termicide on this base, all of those things will be destroyed then—all of them.”
She looked back and smiled. “That’s good thinking, but there’s kicker. Those bugs on the upper levels are products of other bugs. They are the products of other bugs who were born pregnant.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Anyway, these second generation bugs can’t live in temperatures below sixty degrees. That’s a type of safety switch we have. Those things can cause major trouble if they get loose from this facility, but they’d still be confined to very warm climates. However, the queen can survive any environment on Earth—sub-zero temperatures or even under the surface of water. So can her eggs. If the queen escapes this facility, she can fly hundreds or even thousands of miles to another location and this hell starts up all over again. The bugs that hatch from those eggs can also survive any temperature on this Earth. What’s worse, they are evolving too. From what we found out on the island is that the germs in our atmosphere cause these things to mutate into larger and even more aggressive beasts. They act like giant killer bees on steroids. We have to destroy the queen and all of the eggs she may have laid in the lower chambers.”
Steve frowned as another thought came into his mind.“If we miss eggs somewhere, will the Termicide kill those creatures that haven’t hatched yet?”
“We don’t know. The shells on those eggs are pretty thick. It is possible that the Termicide might not get through. We have to make sure that we’ve destroyed every single egg.”
He shook his head. “That’s not very reassuring. Come on, we literally have some eggs to fry.”
A crash erupted behind them. Then, the buzzing sound grew even louder. They both turned to see that a large section of sheetrock had fallen from the ceiling. Next, a dozen of those creatures had emerged and were flying their way.
“Oh God!” Jenny yelled. “I think they smell our blood. Come on, we have to get to the next chamber.”
Steve turned and lifted the flame gun. “Don’t worry, I’ll just light these bastards up right now.”
“No!” she yelled. “That thing only has a limited amount of fuel. We’ll need it later in the bottom chamber to roast the queen and her eggs. Come on, we have to go!”
He turned and ran down the hall behind her. The giant bugs were in hot pursuit. In fact, at least twenty more of them had come out of the hole in the ceiling and joined the chase.
She quickly opened the door ahead and ran through. He followed behind her and slammed it shut. Seconds later, the bugs hit the wood like bullets. In fact, they sounded like hail stones striking a tin roof.
“I don’t think this will hold them for long,” he said.
“You’re right. H
owever, we don’t have far to go.”
The hallway ahead resembled the one they’d just came from. The only diffence was that the floor was made of steel and the walls and ceiling had small holes in them.
“Come on,” he said, tugging on her arm, “why are we stopping?”
Jenny grabbed his shoulder. “Wait up.” She reached in her pocket and took out a small glass tube that was no larger than a marker. She then tossed it ahead of them. The tube shattered on the floor and a blue gas quickly filled the hallway. “This will help us navigate a path into the next chamber. You’ve forgotten that this chamber is rigged.”
Just ahead, the blue smoke allowed them to see several sensor beams that bisected and trisected the hallway in over a dozen places. These thin beams of light looked like yarn that had been strung up by a child. They were almost impossible to walk through without touching at least one of them.
“If you break one of the sensors, energy beams will come from those lenses along the walls,” she said. “They ‘ll slice you to bits within seconds. Also, a type of poisons gas will come from the vents above each door too.”
Steve halted and looked at Jenny. “Well, do you have any ideas?”
“I used to be an exotic dancer, and I am still quite flexable,” she said. “I can make it.”
“Then what?
“Once I reach the other side, I’ll insert my key card in that other door,” she replied. “That will shut off the electronic defense system for the hallway. You’ll be able to come through then. Next, we can make it to the boiler room’s security door. Once there, I’ll open it and we’ll be in business. Finally, you can start smoking those suckers.”
“Be careful.”
“Thanks, I’ll need it.”
***
The lower central control room was bathed in a dark green light. The illumination from many different computer screens flickered against the dark blackdrop. The large screen up front showed a colored view of the flaming remains of the airbase and missile silos. Still seated at the console chair, Diamond Jack gazed into the large screen and smiled at the destruction that he’d caused. The time to reflect was at hand.
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