by Mark Tufo
"Move it," I yell at Dom as the creature’s wails are met with the cries of the others. They are down here with us. Typical Dom, he leaves me in a cloud of dust as he scrambles away.
"Bix. Go!" I hear Luke yelling at me, and I glance his way, relieved to see him and Kelly dragging Badger between the two of them. The relief is short lived however, as I see the shadows behind them. I turn and follow Dom.
Stumbling from the ruins, I suck the cleaner air gratefully into my tortured lungs. Kingsley and Gordo are at the gate, pacing nervously back and forth. I can’t see any of the others, but I’m hoping they made it to safety on the other side. Gordo spots us and starts screaming something, but it gets lost on the wind. I get the gist through his wildly waving arms. Move your asses.
I run toward them like some Olympic sprinter, knowing full well Kingsley won't wait for us to clear the building before setting the rest of the explosives off. He’ll bring the whole damn thing down if those bastards are anywhere close to getting out. He's not above sacrificing a few if it means saving the rest.
I haul ass, planting my hands over my ears as I watch Kingsley raise the detonator in his hand. He isn't about to wait any longer. I pray to God we’re far enough away to live through it.
The blast hits and I go airborne. The chaos around me suddenly goes quiet as I sail through the air, and I'm afraid my eardrums have burst. I land on my chest and slam against the stone wall. Every breath of air is knocked clean out of my lungs, and I start gasping like some fish out of water.
Deaf and struggling to breathe, I raise my arms over my head as debris starts falling from the sky. Plaster, wood and metal shards fall around me like deadly rain. A cry I can't hear escapes my lips as a missile shreds my jacket and tears into the exposed skin. I bite my lip in pain; the coppery taste of blood filling my mouth as my screams mix with the cacophony that suddenly shatters my deafness.
And then just like that, it's over. A strange stillness settles over us. Cautiously, I raise my head from my arms and peer through the dust cloud encompassing everything. Even through the murkiness, I can see all that remains of St. Joseph's is a towering mound of rubble and wreckage. A smoking tomb for the deadly creatures trapped underneath. We hope.
Chapter 38
Dazed and exhausted, my ears still ringing from the explosion, we pile into the safe house. It had been an extremely grueling past eight hours since our narrow escape. The struggle getting here had been real. Badger’s and Cal's injuries slowed us down tremendously. And the rest of us aren’t in much better shape. On top of that, it had pissed down rain for the past two hours. It wasn’t the best of days.
Soaked and chilled to the bone, tired from trying to keep Cal and Badger upright in the muck, our mood is as dark as the clouds above our heads. Only consolation, we hadn't come across any leeches or ravagers other than the single creature in the abandoned gas station. Luke had taken him out easily enough with a single shot, but I’m glad to finally be behind some locked doors and have access to more knives. They aren't my Bowie knives, but they’ll have to do. I’m lost without my old titanium friends and I feel vulnerable without them.
Wordlessly we get the lamps and fire burning, while the survivors of St. Joseph's huddle in the corner, useless. How the hell had they even lasted these past eight years? They don't seem to have any skill set between them. They are definitely not survivors of any of St. Joseph’s hunters or guards, that’s for sure. The tiny blonde keeps watching Luke like he’s the second coming for Pete’s sake, and for some reason it pisses me off to no end. I have to stop myself from snapping her head off.
"Hey, you," I yell to her, and her eyes flick my way. "Yeah, you. Hand me that jug of water behind you on the shelf."
She does as I say, handing me the plastic jug.
"My name is Jessica," she says to me in a quiet voice.
I glance down at her as I fill the metal pot on top of the paint can burner. "I really don't care," I say equally as quiet, but Luke overhears and gives me a harsh look for my rudeness.
"Thank you, Jess," he says, the frown replaced by a smile now, but it’s meant for her only.
I snort as I go on with my task. Whatever. Pot finally filled, I throw in a couple of the herb mixtures and wait for it to boil.
Mike and Wentworth are busy setting up our injured comrades as comfortably as possible on some sleeping bags on the floor. Cal isn't looking so good. He doesn't cry out as Mike elevates his obviously swollen foot, but his skin is clammy looking, and he appears as if he’s about to pass out any minute. Not sure if his ankle is broken or sprained, but either way, walking on it for the last eight hours hasn't helped matters much. I turn from the boys to the white-haired doc.
"You...Doc Howarth. Make yourself useful and have a look at those two over there, will ya?" My words seem to pull the old man out of his listlessness. He nods slowly at first, then more rapidly as if confirming to himself that he can do it.
"May as well have a look at that one too," I nod towards Dom, whose injury had been washed clean by the rain, but is now starting to show signs of deep bruising. As much as I believe any blow to that block head can only be an improvement, I don't say as much. We don't need to be dragging his ass as well tomorrow.
Being busy obviously agrees with the doc however, because by the time our soup is ready he has all of their wounds tended to. Even mine. My wounds are superficial, except for the gouge on my back. He informs me that one will need stitches. All in all, we seem to have fared pretty well considering we just tangled with monsters.
But those two on the floor are another story. Cal has a break all right and Badger is in rougher shape than we thought. Good thing Kingsley had requested a cargo wagon along with the team meeting up with us tomorrow. We’ll be able to move faster without having to carry those two. And the quicker we get back to the Grand, the better. Even though I know those things were probably taken out by the explosion, I don’t feel the least bit safe.
The room is warming up and the soup in our bellies is causing our internal fear to finally thaw out as well. No one had mentioned a thing about those creatures in our desperate flight. Like we didn’t want to jinx ourselves and have them appear. But now, the questions in our heads are like an elephant in the room. Luke is the first to ask.
"So, I guess we’d all like to know. What the hell happened back there? What were those things? And how the hell did they get inside St. Joseph's?"
The old Doc shifts from side to side and looks around at the last remaining survivors of his people. Three women and four men. Seven people out of possibly three or four hundred. What the hell happened there in the past few days? The tiny blonde immediately starts to cry again, and I have to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. One of the men--a much younger man with tousled brown hair--gives a slight nod to the doc, almost as if giving him permission to speak. It’s subtle but I see it. Who is that guy? And permission for what?
"And just as importantly, how did you all survive while the rest were massacred?" I ask it as a question, but it seems to come out more as an accusation. There’s just something about their behavior that doesn't sit well with me. I reach for the knife strapped again at my waist without thought. Its presence reassures me.
"We are the last of the Medical and Psychiatric teams from St. Joseph's." The old doc does the talking. "We are alive...the only reason we’re alive right now is because we were having a meeting that day in the psych ward. We were already locked away when those things attacked."
"What exactly are those 'things'?" Luke asks. "And how did they get in?"
The doc pauses for a minute as if unsure how to answer. The younger guy decides to speak up.
"They are the same alien life form you already know, like the leeches. But these are a more advanced version. Leeches 2.0, if you will." He flashes a weak smile at the lame joke, but the smile falters as none of us join in. He clears his throat. "I guess the best way to describe them...the easiest way rather, would be very similar to a bee colony.
We have come to believe the leeches we are used to seeing are the worker bees and this new version, the queen bees. We believe this queen bee, or queen leech for lack of a better term, has learned to adapt to human DNA and evolve very rapidly into a more complex organism. These organisms picked the human genes it desired and adapted them for new functions. A genetic infiltration that allowed the parasite to assimilate to its host body."
I stare at the dude in confusion. What the fuck is he talking about? Queen bees and genetic infiltration? It all sounds like something straight out of The Twilight Zone. Luke seems to have a better understanding than I do.
"Is that even possible? And correct me if I'm wrong, but a queen bee is the only one that can reproduce right? So are you saying that these new queen leeches can reproduce by infecting us again?"
The guy nods. "Yes. They have that ability. Not everyone at St. Joseph's was slaughtered. Some were infected, or turned into worker leeches for a better explanation. The rest..." he trails off, as if not wanting to talk about it anymore. I still don't quite understand.
"How do you know this? Is this all just assumption? Guessing on your end?"
The white-haired doc looks at the younger guy in resignation. "We have to tell them, Roger. Everything. From the beginning."
I don't like the sound of that. "Yeah, Roger. Why don't you tell us everything?" I say with quiet menace, narrowing my eyes at the younger man.
Roger pinches the bridge of his nose as if fighting against a terrible headache. Finally he nods and takes a deep breath.
"Very well. About ten months ago, one of our searcher groups was on a routine outing when they came across a couple of warehouses on the outskirts of the city. One was a treasure mine of supplies. While they were clearing it for retrieval, they noticed the second warehouse had a hell of a lot of leech activity going on. Precise and organized activity, which was very surprising. We had always thought these creatures to be an unstructured lot. Our belief was that they were a primal species, scouring the universe with only one basic priority; to find a habitable planet with host bodies that could sustain them and an adequate food supply. Luckily for them and unluckily for us, Earth seemed to fit that requirement.
So with this belief in mind, the leech behavior they were now witnessing was totally puzzling. Our people watched the warehouse for a few days and realized that the comings and goings of the leeches was almost military in its precision. They came and went at almost exactly 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Every day. A parade of them, in and out. Our curiosity was peaked. Why did they keep coming back to there? Was the warehouse their form of a hive? So some of our guys were sent inside to investigate. What they found was...amazing and terrifying to say the least. This second warehouse was filled with people. Humans that didn't appear to be infected at all. They seemed to be in some sort of stasis, covered in a mesh like cocoon, but still very much alive. It was thought the worker leeches were coming back every day to somehow feed them."
An old alien movie I had seen as a kid pops into my head and, against my better judgement, I mutter under my breath, “Where’s Ripley when you need her?”
“What?” the doc questions me, his face a mask of puzzlement.
"Never mind,” I wave a hand in dismissal. “Tell us about the people? Where they able to talk to you? To tell you who they were and where they came from?"
Doc Roger shakes his head and a strange wave of disappointment washes over me. He motions to the little blonde. "No, they were completely unresponsive. Jessica and I were appointed to go with the retrieval team and check it out. Nothing we did elicited any reaction. We couldn't awake them from their stasis. We needed to study them more thoroughly, but we couldn't do that under the constant threat of exposure by the worker leeches. So the decision was made to transport some of them back to the hospital, to study them in our lab."
The silence that follows the statement is one of disbelief, broken only by the snort of derision that escapes my lips. Really? How the hell could they do something so amateurishly stupid? They brought possibly infected people straight into their base? Nothing like just asking for trouble. Roger’s eyes flick my way, but he keeps talking.
"We needed to do this. To see if it could help us understand the aliens. Help us find some way to defeat them. The more we studied them, the more we realized this stasis was actually a regenerating stage. The bodies were undergoing major metamorphosis. Nothing we could see physically, but their vitals were telling us a different story. It was fascinating, really."
Fascinating? I could think of a few more appropriate words like stupid or idiotic. Dumbassery was a good one.
"I've met Craig Donaldson, the leader of St. Joseph's, a few times," Luke interrupts the rant going through my head. "He was a damn smart man. There's no way he would’ve sanctioned you allowing these things to mutate right underneath your noses like that with no idea what would come out of it."
The look that passes between Doc Roger and old doc is unmistakable.
"He didn't know, did he?" Luke accuses.
"You have to understand...we were trying to figure these things out. We even dissected a few, trying to figure out its physiology. And you know what we learned?"
"That you can't bring infected into a building of survivors and expect it to end well?" I say in disgust. Is he seriously trying to justify their actions?
He ignores my biting remark. "We realized that unlike the alien parasite that attached itself to the heart and brain of its human host but still remained a separate entity, these things actually became one with the human host. It literally combined itself with the human DNA and produced an entirely new species!"
He sounds so excited by this prospect. Like it’s some kind of major breakthrough. All it does is leave me with a sickening sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.
"What does that mean?" Cal asks from his position on the floor. I don't think the ashen sheen of his face is caused by his ankle alone anymore.
"It means, boy that we’re fucked." Kingsley says quietly from the side.
I rub the back of my neck in exasperation. "I still don't understand. I thought we were immune to these things. How can they be infecting us again, even if they are queen bees or whatever the fuck else you said. How can this be happening all over again?"
My tone sounds desperate, even to my own ears, and I clear my throat to hide my panic.
The old doc takes over the conversation now. "We did believe that at first, yes. When the invasion happened eight years ago and some of us were left unscathed, we thought it was immunity. But as we researched that over the years, we’ve come to another conclusion. Do any of you here know your blood type?"
I did, since numerous trips to the emergency outpatient’s room as a kid has it burned in my brain.
"O negative," I say, only to be echoed by other distinct voices saying exactly the same thing.
Doc H. nods. "Same goes for me, and every other survivor of St. Joseph's. Anyone left uninfected from eight years ago had the same blood type. O negative. Universal donor."
"So that's the immunity factor? The blood type?" I question, but he shakes his head.
"We don't believe any of us carry immunity at all. O negative, like I said, is the universal donor blood type. Less antibodies, less risk. I believe we are not immune, just simply more palatable. Easier to digest. We were left alive for a reason. To be a regenerating supply of bland food, if you will."
The room falls as silent as a morgue. How the hell do you respond to something like that? He was actually saying that we weren’t used for host bodies simply because we made much better food. Like dessert left to enjoy at the end of your dinner. A dessert that kept reproducing. I can't tell if the shiver that passes over me is one of revulsion or fear.
"I still don't know how you managed to sneak the fact that you had mutating humans past Donaldson's nose. You said the people you brought back looked normal, so why did the ones we see look like that?" Luke, the bulldog that he is, refuses to give up on this train
of thought. "And why did you not warn everyone? How could you have let this happen?"
The old doc flaps his lips but no words come out. Instead he drops his head and starts to blubber like a baby. Doc Roger clamps a hand on his shoulder in reassurance, but all that does is make him cry even harder.
"We didn't mean for any of this to happen.” The younger doc picks up the conversation. “The people we brought in did look normal. And they were in complete stasis. We—I considered them harmless." He closes his eyes briefly for a moment. "This was the opportunity of a life time. A chance to study this alien life form and possibly find a weakness. A chance to try and eliminate it. We tried to help the people we brought in, to rid them of the parasite inside of them. We thought we could bring them back. The methods we tried only seemed to have the adverse effect. Instead of killing the parasite, our intervening seemed to accelerate an entirely different change. The parasite responded in a way we could never have predicted. Within weeks of raising their body temps, the bodies started to mutate. By the time we realized what was causing the change, it was too late. The alteration was drastic and irreversible. Almost like the alien DNA reacted with a defensive mechanism to our intrusion. And we certainly didn't realize they had the ability to infect others again, else we would have ceased all research. We didn't know what to do. We lowered their body temps again and tried to put them back in stasis. We thought it had worked..." he trails off, clears his throat. "We were scared to go to Donaldson about the transformations. Scared he would blame us for allowing this threat to stay in St. Josephs. Scared he would kick us out for our ignorance." His dark eyes turn to us, begging us to understand. When none of us respond, he continues on. "The day of our meeting...the day it all happened, we were actually discussing to come clean to Donaldson about our discoveries. To tell him everything and to ask for his help in killing off our test subjects. But we were too late. They reanimated and reacted. I don't know how they did it, possibly an airborne spore of some sort, similar to the mist from eight years ago. Maybe from physical contact; we aren’t sure. But they infected the two guards we had watching them. They in turn, set them free. You know the rest."