Hissers II: Death March

by Ryan C. Thomas

  “I sing Johnny Cash tunes and rescue young girls from psychopaths. I also eat a little too much, like strong whiskey, and speak baby talk to puppies. What I don’t do, is hurt people so get that outta your head right now. I certainly don’t like people accusing me of anything unethical. And if you don’t believe me, Amanita is right over there. Ask her yourself. Now, are you gonna help me open that locked door downstairs and try to save the world, or are you gonna generalize me based on my appearance?”

  He took a step back, folded his arms. The building shook again as the spider monster continued its barrage.

  He had a point, she thought. If he wasn’t on the up and up, Connor would find out from Am and she’d know soon enough. Amanita’s wounds could be from anything. It’s not like she and Connor looked fresh from a beauty contest either. She offered her hand. He took it, gave a firm shake. “Okay, Doug, welcome to our party.”

  “And you’re welcome to ours. Now, first things first—”

  “First things first,” Connor said, “we need the airlock override code.” Olive hadn’t seen him sneak up with Amanita by his side. These kids could be stealthy when they wanted to; that would come in handy at some point.

  “And how do we find that?” Amanita asked. “It’s probably something on a secret file or something, maybe a key card.”

  “Wouldn’t the lab rats already know it?” Doug asked. “Let’s just get down there and they can shout it to us through the door.”

  But Olive saw where Connor was going with this: if they got down there and found the scientists dead or unconscious, they’d be going into an enclosed space with hissers with no way of opening the door to their salvation. It would be best to know the code first. But with the power off up here in the offices, there was no way of getting into any computers and finding it.

  “We’ll need it if they’re dead,” Connor said.

  “If they’re dead then we’re fucked,” Am said.

  “Maybe not. If their equipment is still working down there like we think, we can use it. They have a radio, you said. It’s conceivable they’re on a backup generator power. Labs like this are built to withstand massive power outages, right?”

  “How do you know this?” Doug asked

  “I don’t really.”

  “He’s a gamer,” Olive said. Then, when she saw the look in Doug’s eyes: “He plays video games. They’re a little more advanced now than they were in our time.”

  “Guess so. Donkey Kong never taught me nothing about wiring in a building. Times have changed. Alright we’re on limited time here. Assuming there’s a backup generator we might have a chance to do this. Let’s split up and look for something that might have the code on it. Be superfast about it or our boys down there are gonna be toast. Connor and Am take these few offices on this side of the hall. Olive and me will take the other side. One minute per office and that’s it. If we don’t find anything then I guess we go down with just our prayers.”

  Well, at least he can lead, Olive thought, even if this was a dumb plan. She decided to add her own leadership intuition to the mix to make sure there was some sense involved: “And look for weapons while you’re at it. Anything that’ll penetrate or crush a skull.”

  The building shook again, and this time, though it was distant enough to only be an echo on the wind outside, she thought she heard yells. It could have just been the building groaning, but it sounded like people begging for help. God, she thought, I think they are alive down there.

  SUNDAY 9:01 AM

  Amanita and Connor threw open office doors and scouted the desks for anything useful, but they found nothing related to the secured labs downstairs. What they did find were reports about pharmaceuticals, numerous science and medicine magazines, and printouts of various types of genetic research that meant nothing to them.

  “Shit,” Connor said, slamming another desk drawer.

  Amanita came out of a closet. She was holding a five pound barbell. “Someone was exercising on their lunch break.” She hefted it, swung it about. “I think this will crush a skull.”

  “Yeah, if you’re right on top of the creature. And if you can stomach crushing someone’s skull that close up.”

  “They’re not somebodys anymore, they’re just dead meat. But you’re right, I’m not gonna get that close.” She let it fall to the floor with a thud. “C’mon, next office, King Geek.”

  “And I thought you were getting nicer.”

  “Old habits, Connor. Just makes me feel a little more human. I’ve been stuck with Doug for a while now…I need someone my age to talk to.”

  “You mean make fun of.”

  “God, you boys. It’s called flirting sometimes.”

  Connor felt himself blush, remembering her kiss again. “Are you flirting?”

  “Make it out of this alive and I’ll tell you. Now c’mon, next office.”

  Together they entered the final office in the line, and per the routine, Connor checked the desk and filing cabinet while Amanita checked any bookshelves, jackets, boxes, and other miscellaneous containers. There was no working clock to tell the time so Connor judged its passage by how many drawers he went through. It was the same situation, nothing to use. No key cards, no operating manuals with entry codes. He closed the drawers and looked at the pictures on the gunmetal desk. A woman worked in here. Two photos of her with young girls, one of her with her husband and another of a small dachshund. A pad next to the phone had appointments on it that would never be met, including one that said Girls Night Out at the end of the month. “Sorry,” Connor whispered, hoping she might hear him, wherever she was.

  “There’s jack-all here,” Am said, throwing down the raincoat she was pilfering through. “And no weapons either.”

  “I know, we’re gonna need a better plan.”

  “There’s no time.” Olive stuck her head in the door. “We have to either do this or move on. I’m not going to lie about caring about the people down there, but I care if they can help us. Doug’s already going downstairs to see if he can get a situation report. He wants us waiting by the door.”

  The creature outside slammed into the building again. It had been quiet for the last few minutes and Connor had almost forgotten about it. In response to its attack, there came another rumble from the other side of the building. “There’s more of them,” he said, seeing the realization in Olive’s eyes. “I don’t think we can leave even if we want to.”

  The three of them moved back toward the lounge, stopped at the stairwell and waited. It was another minute before Doug returned, his forehead glistening with sweat. “It’s hot down there,” he said. “No more AC working.”

  “What did you see?” Connor asked.

  “A tunnel that leads to the labs. There are doors that have been ripped open, walls that are smashed in. Blood everywhere. I didn’t make it to the lab itself, had to stop halfway down when I saw them undead things. There’s a lot of ’em, all slamming on a pair of metal red doors at the far end.”

  “Must be the lab.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I can’t be sure, but I think I saw someone inside the lab looking out. Had a tiny window in the doors, you know. Swear I saw the most panicked face on the planet stare at me for a second. Guy’s eyes were just about bulging out of his head. Of course I could have been imagining it…but I wasn’t. Also, there was some kind of keypad outside the door, but it’s been destroyed. Wires dangling. So you ask me, they’re trapped down there and we’re on borrowed time.”

  “How do we get the door open?” Amanita asked. “It’s not like we have a crow bar or bazooka.”

  “No, all we have are the scientists on the other side. We’re gonna have to rely on them telling us what to do.”

  “Which goes against everything we said said we were gonna do. You know, not just go down and hope they can talk to us.”

  “Yeah. I recognize the familiarity.”

  The building shook, and this time it was followed the sound of screeching metal and sh
attering glass. “It’s inside!” Olive shouted.

  “Downstairs, go,” Doug ushered everyone into the stairwell. They snuck down as quietly as they could, careful not to let their feet echo on the cement steps. When they passed the first floor they could hear the creature inside the building, tearing up walls and busting through furniture. It was so big it probably kept getting stuck, but judging by the racket it was making, it was adept at freeing itself.

  Connor watched Amanita go down in front of him, noticed from behind how much skinnier she’d gotten. She’d always been thin, but she looked almost skeletal now. Her backbone rose up with jagged ridges and her behind was all but flat. Part of him wanted to just grab her and hide her somewhere safe, but what good would that do? She’d just be found by the creatures eventually. The other part of him wanted to grab her and hold her. Maybe say goodbye.

  No, don’t think like that, he thought. You’ve made it this far, it’s entirely possible you’re going to get out of this alive. Maybe.

  Three more stories down below ground level, Olive opened the doors marked PERSONNEL ONLY. As soon as they swung wide Connor could hear the rising sound of hisses swimming out of it.

  Man, that sounds like a lot of them, he thought.

  “Stay close together,” Doug said, now taking point and leading the group farther into the darkness.

  The heat rose as they advanced, and the last of the light disappeared as they took a turn at an intersection. How Doug had traversed this earlier in the dark was beyond him. But then again the sound of the hissing was focused down one hallway, so he guessed it wasn’t that hard to figure it out.

  “Hold up.” Doug thrust up his hand to stop them at another turn. “We’re here. Look around the corner, but be careful.”

  Connor, Amanita and Olive all stuck their heads around the turn. Nobody spoke. They didn’t need to. It was obvious what they were all thinking.

  Shit.

  The pack of hissers began in the middle of the hallway and extended another twenty yards to the metal red doors. A window in each door let brief illumination out into the hallways, as if someone inside the lab had a fire going. The beasts swayed and moved like maggots over one another, writing and gnashing their teeth, trying to open the doors. Like Doug had said, a barely visible black keypad panel had been torn out on the side of the door.

  That’s too many, Connor thought. There’s no way we can get past them. And any second now they’ll smell us. As he was about to duck back, he caught a glimpse of someone’s face on the other side of the door. A woman, her eyes wide, her tongue swollen in her mouth.

  Connor turned back to Doug. “They’re dying. I can see them. They’re choking. If we don’t get it open right this second—”

  “I know.”

  “What?” Amanita said. “Another distraction? I can’t run anymore and we’re in the dark. It’s just stupid to keep doing that.”

  “We don’t have to run,” Connor said. “There is this game I played once, all about stealth, and you had a team of people you could control—”

  “Again, who knew video games would save the world?” Olive added.

  “—and anyway there was one level where you had to get these guards out of a house. All you had to do was make noises outside and they’d coming running out out. You hid behind a car and then you snuck in and locked the door.”

  “There’s no car here, kid.”

  “I know, but the premise is the same. We open the doors to the stairs, let the noise from the monsters upstairs come down, and these guys all go running up. Then we shut the door and block it up somehow.”

  Olive shook her head in confusion. “They’re so loud, how would they hear it?”

  “We can make our own noise,” Am said. “I can scream pretty loud. I’ll do it.”

  “Now hold on,” said Doug, “these things aren’t stupid. They don’t chase their own kind. Might go after a girl screaming but they might also lose interest in what they can’t see or smell. Let’s not forget we’ve seen ’em sniffing the air like dogs. They can track.”

  “Leave that to me,” Olive said.

  SUNDAY 9: 10 AM

  They all backtracked to the stairwell and propped it open with a corkboard they took off the wall. With a grunt, Olive picked up one of the many shards of shattered glass on the ground and drew it across her bicep, opening up a deep gash.

  “Ouch. Careful.” Amanita winced at the sight of it, but knew the purpose behind it. If these things could smell untainted blood, this was as fresh a scent as they were going to get. Quietly, she and Olive entered the stairwell as Doug and Connor figured out an alternative route back to the lab; the tunnels down here all seemed to connect somehow, like a grid system, and they would need to double back as soon as the plan was in motion. Up and down the railings Olive wiped her blood, as well as on the walls and floor and stairs. Outside the door she smeared it on the tunnel walls, back toward the populated corridor, leaving them a trail to follow.

  “You’re on,” she said, turning to Amanita.

  Guess I am at that, Am thought, my yelling voice is finally good for something. She ascended the stairs back toward the floor level. There were no doors on the two levels in between, just isolation and the dimmest of natural light spilling in from cracks above. She stopped on the landing before the first floor, listened through the door as the spider monster crashed around in the halls. If she times this right, she could create a bit of a two way stampede that would buy them even more time.

  “Here goes, Am. Let loose.” She drew in a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could. In the concrete stairwell it echoed off the walls like the squealing metal of a car wreck.

  “Am, hurry, they’re coming!” It was Connor’s voice, urgent and pleading.

  She took the the stairs back down two at a time, hit the bottom floor and flung herself into the dark hallway beyond where Doug was waiting. He grabbed her and shoved her into the blackness of the tunnel to her left, then farther down until she could barely see. Behind her she heard a thousand racing footsteps coming her way.

  “In here,” Doug said, opening a door to some room that smelled of rotting meat. Amanita backed into a counter, played her hands over it and found a sink. They were in some kind of kitchen. The stink was either garbage or a dead person. She didn’t feel around anymore to find out.

  Outside in the halls the thunderous footfalls began to reverberate and rise above them.

  Alternatively, she could just about hear the door on the ground floor being torn apart.

  “It worked!” Connor’s whisper was jubilant.

  “Okay, now’s our chance.” Doug raced out and turned right. “This way.”

  “Connor.” Amanita held out her hand and he found it, led her out the door. His palms were sweaty and his nails were long (hygiene was a back-burner ideal these days) but she found comfort in his grip. In the halls, they took two turns and found themselves spilling out into the hallway that was just moments ago filled with the undead. A mournful blue light played through the windows in the red doors. Doug and Olive went to work banging on them, doing their best not to shout to the people inside. Connor assessed the keypad damage, but whether his video game knowledge or sports prowess would fix it was anyone’s guess.

  Am stood on her tip toes and looked into the room beyond. She saw bodies on the ground, arms and legs splayed. A dozen or so computers were working, but she couldn’t tell what was on their screens. But it was amazing to see real electricity. Various machines flashed multi-colored lights like the set design of a bad sci fi movie Seth probably would have loved.

  And then a face. Gasping, wide eyed. Filling her view, staring back at her.

  She stifled a scream and fell back. Olive grabbed her, steadied her, while Doug waved at the dying visage. “We’re trying to save you. We heard your message. Are you infected?” He spoke the words almost without sound, carefully using his lips to convey his question.

  The face, an older woman with graying red hair, sh
ook her head, mouthed please hurry back to him.

  “The keypad is broken. How?”

  The lady nodded, knew their predicament. Locked. Hermetically.

  Am wasn’t sure what that last word even meant, though judging by what’d she heard so far she assumed it was nerd speak for air tight. English had not been her favorite subject, nor math or history or pretty much anything that didn’t include fashion. She was a girl, sue her.

  “A backup?” Doug asked.

  Now a second face appeared in the window, a younger bald man with glasses. His face was awash in sweat and the veins under his reddening eyes were jutting out from lack of air. He spoke fast until Doug told him to slow down. Sorry, he said, it’s fixed on our side. Just connect the wires to the faceplate.

  “Quick,” Doug said, grabbing Am, “C’mere and hold the faceplate.” As he sorted out the various colored wires, Am held the keypad up in front of her. Doug used his teeth to strip off some of the rubber coating and started touching the exposed copper to the connectors inside. “Olive, help me, there’s too many for me to hold.”

  Breaking away from the dying woman on the other side of the door, Olive reached over Doug and tired not to bump his hands out of the way. He had four wires touching soldered points. She took the remaining two and tried to gauge were they went. “I can’t see the colors,” she said.

  “The green one on the left,” Doug instructed.

  “I can’t see green. Everything looks grey.”

  “Your left hand wire goes on the left. Hurry!”

  A sound from the end of the hall caught Am’s attention. She saw Connor running toward her; he’d been playing lookout apparently, and the message on his face was pretty clear.

  “We’re gonna have company,” he said. “Open the door!”