FLOOR 21: Descent (The Tower Legacy)

by Jason Luthor

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says as he guides me down the wall. “First time can be tough on some people. You did your job though.”

  “Job? I freaking killed someone.”

  “Three someones,” he replies with a smile, which is just super creeper and puts a shiver in my spine. “It’s no joke, but you do have to get used to it. Cultists don’t care about us and we can’t afford to care about them. Believe me, you’ll get used to it. Nobody will miss these guys.” He gets up and wanders off to one of the bodies before he pushes the dead guy over. “Will you, buddy? Only good Cultist’s a dead one.” He whistles as he looks around, and he’s wearing that big smile of his, but now it’s just creeping me out. Every time he spots one of the dead men on the ground, that smile of his gets wider. It’s not even like he’s just okay with all this. It’s more like he gets a little happy at the killing, which just thinking that makes me feel even sicker. Eventually he looks off at Valerie, who’s inspecting the survivor that jumped the couch. “How is he?”

  Valerie looks our way. “Alive, but if you want him to stay that way, he’ll need bandages to stop the bleeding.”

  “Well, get him some bandages then,” Sunny says as he gets up. “Do you think we can get him back to the room?”

  “Stuff his mouth and secure his hands. That should do it. The wound’s not going to kill him right now, but we don’t want to push him too hard.”

  “I don’t care about whether he’s comfortable or not. We're not room service,” he says before gesturing at me. “No time to rest, Jackie. We need to learn what we can from this guy, and I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to.”

  “Yes, sir,” I agree as I pull myself back up. The way those two talk, I dunno, it gets to me. Killing these guys was no big deal to them. Just another part of the job, I guess. But to not even be bothered a little? I shake my head as I get my first good look around the room. It’s just an apartment, nothing special or anything. At least, nothing special besides the heavy beat and the flashing lights. The place is filled with Creep though, and not in the normal, ‘infested’ way. They’re all bottled up samples in big tubes on a table in the back. That’s when I look at one of the bodies and realize he’s got a hand full of the stuff wrapped halfway up his arm. “What the hell? What was going on here?”

  Sunny chuckles. “You’ve never actually seen how the Junkies take their medicine,” he jokes, but it’s just creepy and I’m not smiling. Like I said, the fact that he’s having a good time in a room full of dead guys throws me off. “They grow samples to strap to their arms. After they’re done tripping, they heat the sample on an oven or something like that until it falls off. Gives them one hell of a high, though.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Well, don’t worry, you just played doctor. Cured them, didn’t you? Permanently, anyway.”

  I can’t take that last comment, and I just wander away, staring out of the door as the music continues to beat into my skull. He probably doesn’t realize it, but I can see Tommy staring at me from his side of the room. Poor guy’s worried. Well, I guess I don’t blame him. This isn’t exactly happy fun times in the Deep Creep.

  The thing that’s getting to me is, when I stop and think about it, I can’t figure out if that was the first person I’ve ever killed or my second. The first one was Sally. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but it’s always in the back of my head. The dreams. Those hallucinations I’ve seen of her. I might not literally be seeing her right now, but I’ve got two faces stuck in my head: that kid I just downed during the attack, and Sally’s. I’m not a murderer, but I’ve got blood on my hands. That guy I just shot . . . I wonder if he was thinking about the same thing Sally was thinking about when she died. His mom and dad.

  Mom and dad.

  Wish you were here.

  Recording Twenty-Eight

  It’s hard to record what’s been going on. I mean, there’s just so many crappy things about this situation, and I’m not even talking about getting the prisoner back to the room. I kinda wish we hadn’t even done that. I mean, that was the easy part. What happened after that, well . . .

  I don’t get to see the interrogation. None of the rookies do, actually. Not that we don’t hear it. I mean, the walls between the rooms aren’t that thick. There’s a lot of talking and some shouting once in a while before it all goes quiet. For a second, I think the commander’s about to come out, and that’s when my ears split with the sound a gunshot. It hurts my teeth, and I can . . . I don’t know, I just feel my heart stop, but I’m not about to ask any questions. All I know is the commander seems to know where we’re going once he gets out of the room. Thing is, if the prisoner told us what we needed to know, why shoot him? Maybe I’m just some naïve kid but . . . I dunno.

  Abbott doesn’t even talk about it when he steps outside “The Cultists have one of ours. That confirms my suspicions,” he says as he folds his arms. The vets all take a stand behind him, and I can’t help notice that it’s Sunny who has blood on his uniform. “According to our former hostage, a little over a month ago there was an explosion a few levels up. Obviously, we all saw the proof when we were upstairs. Afterward, Scavenger Team One ended up down here, alive but trying to find their way back up the Tower. Now, we can’t say for sure, but somewhere in that time there was an incident. A massive Creep growth flooded these halls, and it’s likely that’s what contributed to the lockdown on our floors last month. At any rate, most of the team was lost. Since that incident, the Cultists have been looking for one person in particular, although our hostage didn’t know why. All he could tell us was that it was a high priority for their leaders to find the target. He also couldn’t tell us who the Cultists had captured already, but that’s not surprising. It’s not as if they have any access to records from the upper floors.”

  He holds up a finger. “He was able to give us a location, though. A place where our Scavenger is being held. If we’re ever going to understand what happened to the team, then we need to find and rescue him, and that’s going to be the next phase of our mission. From here on out, there will be no more splitting up. We’re in this together, but it’s going to be a good walk before we reach our destination. That means we have to head out immediately. Understood?”

  Of course, nobody disagrees, and we’re moving as fast as Abbott can get us out of the room. Soon, we’re jogging through dark halls and under popping electric lights, but, at this point, I don’t care that I feel lost, and I’m thinking more about all the people we just killed. I get that they would’ve shot at us first, but I mean, they had to have come down here for some reason. People aren’t just born monsters, are they? Something had to have happened with Tower Authority to make these guys go on the run. Right? I remember what Sunny and Jamila said about how hard it is just to get food on the lower floors, and you know, maybe that’s all this is about. Maybe if we just bothered taking care of people, instead of threatening them with Reinforcement, we wouldn’t have them running away. But what do I know? I’m the one that’s having dreams about flipping out at my friends and watching them getting eaten. Then my mind jumps back to that guy I shot to the wall. His body’s still just sitting there, staring off into space, with nobody that will ever care about him dying. Even if it was self-defense . . . I’ve got blood on my hands. I mean, I would’ve died if I hadn’t fired, but what about what we did to the prisoner? Is it okay to shoot someone that’s already been captured? What was he going to do to us?

  I have plenty of time to burn through my thoughts as we take a few hundred turns deeper into the Tower. The only thing that gets my mind back on my surroundings is the change of view. We’re back in a research area, and things look bad. Real, real bad. The Creep’s breaking through the ceiling in trunks as thick as trees and stretching out on the walls like veins. It’s not like the ground’s comforting, since every time we move I sink ankle deep into saliva and tissue. Pretty much like always, though, it’s the air that gets me. It feels like
there’s a ball shoved down my throat, and my skin’s shooting bullets that soak my collar. Honestly, I feel like I’m being crushed by invisible pillows. If it weren’t for the commander keeping us moving, then I’d be having a panic attack. Instead, I just keep forcing my steps, one, two, one, two, one after the other. My head’s down, and I keep following the feet in front of me, listening as we pound the floor. It’s all I can do to keep my stomach from flipping inside out. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little thankful when Abbott stuffs his tablet away and motions for us to stop. Ahead of us, the juncture’s covered in these weird shadows that keep dancing as the lights overhead swing back and forth, barely holding onto electrical wires that vanish into the building. Sparks fly and light up a floor flooded with mucus, and that’s about when I notice how sticky the floor’s become. Every step I take has trails of gunk grabbing at my heels. So, when Abbott tells us to take a knee, it’s just ten times worse than normal. I’m literally glued to the ground as I sink into the floor.

  The commander looks around the corner before he glances at Sunny, who motions to me. Long, gluey strands of tissue stretch and snap from my leg as I pull myself out of the gunk, and all I can do is try to ignore the moist sensation in my pants as I sprint down to the juncture. Sunny turns his gun into the hall, and I’m over his shoulder with my rifle drawn too. At the far end, we can see another intersection, and running against the wall is a long window that’s been busted open, so that there are only these razor sharp glass panes left. The light there’s super bright, and after a long time in the dark, I feel like it’s burning into my eyeballs. I squint as I try to adjust to the spots flooding my eyes, and it takes me a second to realize the captain’s waiting on me. Finally, I snap back to reality, or whatever this passes for, and get a good look ahead.

  It’s not pretty.

  There’s blood just painted along the back wall in big buckets of red, and for a second I can feel a tingling in my skin as I spot figures leaning against a row of computers. There are men and women who’ve been dissected into a few pieces and the puzzles not completely put together. Big tendrils have them pinned upward or suspended in the air, and you can see the mucus and tissue that’s starting to dribble down over their heads and shoulders. The Creep must be taking its time absorbing them. Whatever’s going on, my eyes are burning so hard into the bloody room that I almost don’t notice Sunny slowing down. I nearly ram him with the side of my rifle as he comes to a stop. He shoots me this look, and his eyes are cold, like he’s dead. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him look so . . . angry. It actually makes me lose my breath for a second. I keep remembering when we first met, and his smile was actually comforting. Then it became really creepy, and now this look makes me feel like he’d turn his gun on me if I annoyed him enough.

  Anyway, his face shoots away again when a howl like a siren starts to echo down the hallway. It drags on and keeps pitching higher until my ears feel like they’re about to bleed. Right when I feel like they’re going to pop, my vision goes jumpy as someone passes below the bursts of light. The movement’s quick, like a shadow when it disappears, and I can’t really make out any details until the figure stops. This guy’s hunched over with his chest and shoulders exposed, and it only takes a second to see the mucus sliding off the large tumors piled up along his collar. These huge masses slide down over his eyebrows as he looks at the roof and opens his jaws. My heart freezes between beats as I watch the creature stop and flick its tongue into the air, the muscles on its neck rippling before an ear slicing screech fills the hall.

  But, for a few more seconds, the creature’s just standing there, and I just keep hoping it’s not going to move. Then I hear this popping, like a bone snapping into pieces, as its face jerks at us. Its head is bent at an angle so sharp that it looks like its neck is broken, and its eyes roll our way before it leaps through the window and starts barreling down the hallway. Sunny doesn’t bother looking back as he screams, “Incoming!” Then it takes just a breath before everyone’s got their weapons shouldered and firing. The hallway’s singing with a chorus of bullets, and I watch as the creature’s chest is punctured by our guns. Somehow, its legs keep driving it at us until so much muscle’s been shredded from its bones that only its momentum keeps it moving. Bits of tissue decorate the walls before the creature finally goes rolling into the ground.

  We don’t even have time to inhale before the hallway’s groaning, and we all watch as a huge seam opens up above us. For a second, the roof sags before a stream of thick fluid starts to pour into the hall. It floods through the crack and forces us to back off as a ball of tissue crashes to the ground. I’m putting my shoulder between me and the shower of gunk splattering my uniform when I see tendrils bursting out at my team. As I’m twisting to get the barrel of my gun aimed down the hall, I see the commander’s rifle get swallowed up in a swarm of tentacles that toss it into the darkness. Still, the minute his rifle’s gone, Abbott’s already got his sword launching from his hip. As a second wave of tendrils fly at him, his blade starts burning the air, and I watch as pieces of squirming Creep go splattering against the floor.

  My gun is raging as I fill the large blob of tissues with a full clip of gunfire, but my eyes are pulled further downrange. At the end of the hall, I catch the hovering corpses starting to jerk and swell up as the Creep tendrils start pumping fluid through the dead bodies. Gigantic growths spread down the arms and over the heads of the victims, and I almost gag as I watch the bones in their fingers tear through the skin before extending into long, cutting blades. It’s just a few seconds before the corpses are released and the hall is flooding with rushing figures, all of them still dressed in torn lab coats and shredded pants. Their limbs are like pistons that pump along on calves powered by baseball sized growths. You can hear their howls mixing with the pounding of their feet as they pop in and out of the flickering light, showing up for a split second before crossing huge distances in the dark.

  I can barely follow any of them, but I lock onto one, and it’s only an instant before the bursts from my gun are lighting up the figures ahead of me. The hallway’s punctuated by bullets that send the monsters rolling along the ground, but they just swing back onto their feet like they don’t feel pain and keep closing the distance. They’re so close, I can actually see the muscle ripping away as they streak through our gunfire, and I feel myself sucking a breath of relief when they finally start stumbling to a stop. Then I just get angry, like I’m offended they’re attacking us, and I end up spraying down the hallway with the last of my clip. Everything feels so intense that I hardly notice the crack opening to my side, and I’m barely turning to see what’s happening before my body’s flying through the air. I pummel the wall, and the world lights on fire as I feel my back burning up with pain. I can't breathe as I go collapsing to the ground, and I’ve barely looked up before a massive tendril of Creep’s driving me back down into the floor. It hits me before I can see it, this tentacle so huge that it’s thicker than a refrigerator. I’m feeling for my gun, but through my blurry eyes, I realize something’s wrong. My weapon’s gone, but I think I see it half soaked in a pool in front of me. My fingers are stretching for it when I scream as my arm nearly snaps, pinned down by Creep while another tendril starts reaching for my neck. All I manage is a flinch as it speeds at me, raising my free hand to defend myself, only to go blind as an orange glow slides through the shadows. Half a second later, my vision’s clear, and I see the squirming piece of muscle as it’s falling to the ground. A trail of fire is still burning the air as Abbott flies in front of me, his sword chopping through a dozen tentacles that’re slithering into the hallway. I’m sucking hard at the as air I force myself up, grabbing at my flamegun and emptying the canister. It sounds like a hungry animal as a cloud of fire explodes out of my hand and papers the wall, the ball of flame getting larger and larger until I hear the mass of saliva and muscle screeching back at me. The Creep withers up into a wall of grey goop, and the second I can snatch my rifle
back up, I’m swinging the barrel at the wave of beasts rushing at us.

  The creatures are literally swarming inside the walls, but this time I know where to shoot, and I watch as their legs explode and send them slamming into the ground. A few crash just feet from us, and one jams his shoulder under the barrel of my rifle. It puts him out of my line of fire, but I’ve got my bat flying into my hand and swinging so fast that the creature can’t react before I’ve nearly knocked its head half off. I’ve got him falling backward in time to see Tommy about to get pinned to the wall by one of the Creepers, and immediately my bat’s turning another circle. I hear the crunch of bone as the next monster hits the floor in a heap, but I don’t have time to check on Tommy.

  “Flame, flame, flame!” I hear Sunny shouting. His voice grabs my eyes, and I watch as another wave of tendrils punch their way into my sight. For a second, I watch a massive crack split down the wall, and the next moment, the entire hallway is exploding apart with a roar so loud that my ears start ringing. I’m showered in clouds of dust and plaster, and when they vanish, I’m staring into the face of a towering, solid mass of Creep. My gut tells me to move, but my arms stop working when I see a seam opening up along the wall of muscle. Lines of mucus stretch and snap apart, and then . . . I’m looking into this gigantic eye that’s staring at us from behind a wall of small mouths that start flying our direction. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even with Creepy Sally, and I’m so distracted that I almost don’t see Dodger’s body flying through the air as she’s ripped from the ground. At the last second, I catch sight of her whipping by me, and then time starts crawling to a stop as her scream drags out for what feels like forever. My gut locks up into knots as I remember that horrible nightmare of her getting eaten alive. I can see her mouth hanging open, and my ears are rattling with the sound of her voice begging for help. Last time, she was gone, but last time, it was just a dream. This time, it’s real, and when time starts winding back to normal, somehow my muscles push off with power I didn’t even know they had. Before I understand what I’m doing, my body is flying at her with my flame knife flipping into my hand. Its orange light is sizzling and, even if it’s not nearly as long or cool as Abbott’s sword, when it buries into the tendril’s muscles, I hear the Creep screaming in pain. For a second, I’m wrapped around that long cord of wrestling muscle while my vision fills with the sight of that gigantic, blood-stained eye. It’s quivering as my knife slowly drags through the skin of its tentacle. I’m holding on for my life as my knife drags through the Creep, my gut revolting as I slowly carve through this thing and yank hard in one last cut. The last bits of skin and fiber snap, sending me and Dodger collapsing to the ground while huge clouds of fire erupt over our heads. Everything in front of me gets blurry as heat bubbles out from the streams of fire carpeting the wall, and for a second, all I can hear is a song of screams and gunfire. Then the Creep’s groaning as its tendrils go limp and fall to the ground, its slick pink and yellow muscles turning ash grey while the fire continues to burn into it. My heart’s exploding out of my chest when I realize I’ve got Dodger underneath me. She’s panting hard and staring at me like I planned to save her. I didn’t. It was just instinct because, I mean, it was the right thing to do. But I’ve got to admit that if I’d have lost Dodger that I’d . . . I dunno.