by Dark E
As if conjured by his thoughts, a hissing noise like the leaky pipes of some magnificent steam boiler came from a source near the rear of the group.
"Company," Ryan said softly as he whirled and quickly spotted the lurking presence of a single chu- pacabras at the wide bend where the stairs turned to wind their way up another level. The large unreadable eyes of the creature peered down at them impassively, as if the goatsucker were waiting for them to make the first move.
Unlike the one that had landed on Ryan, this chu-pacabras was at least two feet taller, and much more muscular. Dean decided to himself that he'd prefer to stick with the younger muties, if given a choice in the matter.
"Wonder what he wants?" Dean asked.
"Hungry. Mebbe," Jak replied. "We snack."
"We're on his turf. Must've come in behind us somehow," Krysty said. "Or perhaps he's angry that we chilled his little buddy."
"He can stick around and be curious all he wants as long as-" Ryan didn't get to finish his sentence as the hissing creature decided to attack, swooping down in a half-gliding, half-falling motion and landing close to the waiting group. The spines on the monster's back undulated, and the unearthly rainbow wash of colors Soto and Jorge had previously mentioned radiated outward in jagged beams of light.
"Trying to hypnotize us," Soto cried.
"Too late," Ryan replied, and fired a single burst from his pistol. Despite the baffle silencer, the noise of the shot was distinctly audible in the confines of the stairwell. The 9 mm bullet launched from the powerful blaster hit the squatty creature in the throat and careened up through its neck. The high-velocity impact lifted the four-foot-tall mutie off his feet and hindquarters, raising him until his powerful legs came crashing down, kicking and flailing for balance.
Since Ryan had fired up at an angle, the bullet exited out the back of the horror's head, taking a fist-sized chunk of misshapen bone with it.
Threads of blood and brain tissue sprayed out in a fine mix of red and gray. The head of the chupa-cabras then lolled back and forth in a half circle on its thick neck before coming to rest awkwardly on a scrawny shoulder, then the entire corpse tumbled down to a resting place on a level floor landing of the stairwell.
Ryan had watched impassively as the sack of dead guts flipped past his combat boots.
"Wonder how the bastard thing got behind us?" he mused. "I've had more than enough surprises come slinking up from the rear."
"Perhaps he followed us from outside the cave door," Jorge said. "Back from another part of the forest of El Yunque."
"Knew we should of locked the damn door behind us," J.B. noted.
"Well, I don't know how it snuck up on us, lover, but I can tell you something else," Krysty said in a worried tone as she rested a hand on one of Ryan's broad shoulders. "The way my head's been ringing since we set foot in this redoubt, the one you just chilled isn't traveling alone. This place is as cold spiritually as they come. Went through a graveyard after dark on a dare once back in Harmony when I was a little girl. Picked a night with no moon. Half- way in the boneyard the whole world seemed to go quiet. This place gives off the same kind of feeling."
"In other words, we should get out of this redoubt," Soto said.
"Ready," Jak said succinctly. "Go back lock door."
"Scared?" Dean challenged.
"Hell, no!" Jak retorted as he turned his ruby eyes on Dean. "You?"
Dean cocked his head over at Ryan. "Not with Dad here."
"Appreciate the confidence, but there's nothing wrong with a little caution, Dean," Ryan replied. "A man who isn't a bit scared of the unknown might find his nerves are too dead to be much good to him or his allies. Besides, we can't leave. Not yet. Not until we've found the nest and made sure there aren't going to be any more of these things."
"This one must've been coming down the stairs for a reason. I don't think he was intentionally following us, otherwise why attack now instead of waiting for a better opportunity? We were just in the way. His home must be down farther in the redoubt," Krysty pointed out.
"Okay, we find this home. And then...?" Jorge asked, a sheen of perspiration plainly visible on his neatly trimmed mustache.
"And then, once J.B.'s dismantled any of the remaining safety sec systems in this redoubt so we don't get foamed or blasted by fire-retardant gas, we blast this entire redoubt...with whatever sick kind of genetics lab they have precisely at ground zero."
"Senor Cawdor, what I said earlier back in the camp? I take it back. I am beginning to like the way your mind works," Jorge beamed.
"NoiSE," Jak said, tapping Ryan on the shoulder. "Hear it?"
Ryan held his breath and listened hard, but heard nothing more than the heartbeat in his inner ears. He looked down at his friend and shook his head. His hearing was good, but Jak's was even better.
"I don't hear anything," Dean said.
"Well, I do," Krysty replied, confirming the albino's detections. Like Jak, the woman possessed uncanny abilities of sight and sound, and drew upon them now. "Can't identify what the sound is, though."
Jak didn't say anything else, choosing instead to kneel on the metal floor of the redoubt, placing his hands flat on the ground, turning his head sideways, his fine white hair extending outward from the crown of his skull as he leaned his ear against the cool alloy for a closer listen.
There were no other sounds but the rhythmic in and out of their own individual breathing patterns. Far off, around a corner, Ryan could just catch the mechanical whir of the redoubt's vent system as it cycled air through the complex. Jak stayed in place, prone on the ground and listening hard, his eyes shut. All eyes were on him, as he strained to listen.
"What is it?" Ryan finally asked in a whisper.
Jak opened an eye and peered up at Ryan. "Vibrations," the albino said. "Hard tell. Floor solid, metal on rock."
"You don't really hear them, you just feel them," J.B. added, shifting the M-4000 scattergun from the crook of his left arm to his right.
"Uh-huh," Jak agreed, standing.
"Must be something big, or lots of somethings big to cause enough of a vibration to be felt on flooring as solid as this," Jorge said.
"Could be the chupacabras nest, Dad," Dean added.
"Still not picking up any vibes, lover. Earlier on, I could. Now, there's nothing. Almost like I'm being jammed by the little bastards."
"Jammed?" Ryan replied. The term didn't seem to fit in with life functions.
The redhead shot him a look, her fiery hair undulating about her face and shoulders. "Best word I could come up with for how I'm feeling."
"The chupacabras have long been rumored to possess the power to cloud the minds of men and women, Krysty Wroth," Soto said. "Make them feel weak, powerless, sick enough to vomit. Entire groups of people have been driven to nausea when faced with a single chupacabras. Your special gifts might indeed be compromised in combating the goatsuckers."
"Which way you think the vibrations were coming from, Jak?"
The teen pondered Krysty's question for a few seconds, then pointed at the left fork of the twin corridors. "Down there."
Soto stepped over and looked at a laminated wall map. "That passage leads to an area called Research and Development. Entry Absolutely Forbidden To All but B12 Cleared Personnel."
"Good thing we've got a B12 clearance isn't it?" J.B. said.
THE DESIGN OF THE LAB was reminiscent of others they'd previously seen in military redoubts. Entry-ways provided by polished air locks of silver chromium rings irised open and closed at the touch of a keypad, each hexagonal-shaped chamber leading into a massive central control area. That, in turn, looked either out and across an interior room or down on med-sterile arenas where the actual grunt work was performed, and in the case of genetic manipulation and the creation of mutants, where the products of said experiments were housed and caged.
The lab area below was dim. All of the fluorescent strip lights that usually illuminated redoubts had either burned out
or had been broken and removed. No movement could be seen among the darker shapes of the tables, cages and other pieces of larger gear on the lab floor.
One of the cages was close to the ob window, and allowed the group to see that it was made of clear armaglass on three sides and solid steel on top and bottom. A fourth wall was a mix of vanadium bars and a sliding armaglass portal. From his viewpoint, Ryan noted most of the other cells also appeared empty.
The closest of the confinement cages showed damage-claw marks.
Massive panes of thick and clear armaglass kept the overlords separate from their charges. A series of interior vid cameras were mounted high along the ceiling. Black-and-white vid monitors that took the images seen by the cameras and played them back in the ob booth were mounted in a wire rack next to the armaglass. At the moment, most of the monitor screens were dark. The two still functioning replayed views of what they could already see on the main lab floor below.
Down at the other end of the ob window, Soto gave a startled shriek.
Hell eyes gazed back at him through the glass.
Then, unexpectedly, more eyes appeared as a mass of the chupacabras hovered inside, silent, like a swarm of angry insects.
"How many you count?" J.B. asked.
"Eight. Nine. A dozen. Shit," Dean replied.
"Wonder how they're getting in and out? That section below looks sealed," Ryan noted.
The voiced question was answered when a wall-mounted vent covering clattered to the floor, followed by a beating sound of wings and a hissing noise almost painful to the eardrum.
"They're in the redoubt's air ventilation system," Ryan said in disbelief.
"Bastards must be contortionists," J.B. replied, setting the sights of the M-4000 scattergun and preparing to fire. He blinked once, twice, and focused. One thing about using the scattergun-precise aim was the last thing a man needed to worry about.
The scout for the chupacabras delegation came bounding over, a fleshy ping-pong ball with bat wings and glowing eyes. J.B. didn't hesitate as he gently caressed the trigger. A double load of fle-chettes burst from the wide bore of the blaster, spinning for their intended target.
The squat beast exploded like a burst party balloon, spraying blood and entrails in all directions. A pungent stench of sulfur wafted into J.B.'s nostrils and he straggled to hold back a sneeze, but failed mightily.
"That's one," J.B. muttered, sniffing lustily.
A trio of the hell-beasts bounded out this time, keeping their distance from one another as they came at the party of humans. Krysty rolled across the ob floor toward the cover of a fallen table, hoping for a clear shot. She was moving on instinct in a desperate series of maneuvers, keeping low as one of the creatures zeroed in, hissing in triumph. Her bare arms and hands hit broken glass where beakers and other glass paraphernalia had fallen and shattered after the table had been overturned.
"Dammit!" she cursed as a half-dozen cuts and punctures oozed fresh blood from her skin. The injuries weren't life threatening, but they blazed hotly with pain. She lifted her left hand to her mouth and using her teeth, gingerly pulled one of the larger slivers of glass from her throbbing palm.
The scent of blood sent the pursuing chupacabras into a spastic dance of joy. The ugly beast waved its arms, waggled its wings and shook its pear-shaped abdomen, all the while cocking its head and sniffing the air. A hop, two more and it was on the spot where Krysty had just left a few drops of crimson fluid behind as she rolled away through the jagged hunks of glass.
A long, pink tongue lolled out of the beast's mouth and stretched out and down to lap at the fresh blood. While the creature was distracted, Krysty scrambled onto her stomach and crawled on her bleeding hands and knees behind the sanctuary of the fallen lab table.
Across the room, Jak pulled the Colt and fast-sighted, pulling back the hammer of the blaster in a one-two motion so quickly that the twin shots fired sounded like one. The first round missed by less than an inch the creature approaching Krysty. The second landed on target, hitting the mutie high in the general area of the shoulder and driving the beast backward and to the ground.
The chupacabras unleashed a wail of pain, and Jak was beset by one of the creature's brothers. Jak went for lower ground too, taking a dive like an Olympic swimmer and rolling nimbly with the agility of a born athlete as he came up into a crouched position with Colt in hand next to Krysty. Even in the taut danger of the moment, Krysty couldn't help but notice the lithe albino wasn't even breathing hard.
The youth fired two more bullets, and both rammed home, blowing a fist-sized hole in the chupacabras's midsection. The mutie flipped backward from the force of the gunshots, screeching in agony for a few long seconds before dying.
"Need practice. Not good with gun as knives," Jak said casually to the woman at his side.
"Good enough," Krysty answered with a smile.
"I think we have found the nest, Ryan Cawdor," Soto called out, his face flushed red with adrenaline and fear.
"You think?" Ryan replied, biting back a more sarcastic remark. "We've been lucky so far, but I think we need to back off. J.B., we got enough in the way of those grens you boosted from Jamaisvous to close this place down?"
"Yeah," the smaller man replied, patting a pocket of his jacket.
"Everybody head for the stairs!" Ryan bellowed. "J.B. and I will lay down covering fire. We're going to blast and seal them in!"
Ryan didn't have to give the order twice. There was a scramble as Krysty, Jak, Dean, Soto and Jorge hit the silver ring of the air lock. J.B. had the Uzi set on 3-round bursts, periodically fanning the duct where the creatures had entered the deck of the lab.
"Everybody's out."
"Okay," the Armorer replied, taking out one of the four unusual, small, yet deadly high-ex grens he'd taken from El Morro. "I'm setting the timer for twenty seconds."
"See you outside," Ryan replied, and exited the room.
J.B. flicked a small timer switch and gave an underhanded toss, landing the gren inside the open vent of the circulation system, and then he was gone, out of the room, through the air lock and into the outside hallway, running with the others even as the walls shook and the loud sound of the gren explosion echoed through the lower section of the redoubt.
The group kept moving, Ryan now in the lead, as they made their way back to the emergency stairwell.
"Missed a few!" J.B. bellowed, and fired off a stream of lead behind him, taking down one of the pursuing chupacabras that had waddled out of the haze the high-ex gren had created.
The stairs reverberated the terrific clatter as the group climbed higher and higher, continuing their way to the top.
And below, more of the fearsome chupacabras gathered, ten or more by the Armorer's quick count. Apparently there had been more of them elsewhere in the redoubt, or more likely, in the air circulation system. They were joining forces, as if a silent, psychic message had gone out to all of them to garner their strength to take on the threat.
"I'm going to drop another gren in ten seconds," J.B. warned.
"In the stairwell?" Jorge asked. "You'll kill us all!"
"Keep moving," Ryan replied. "J.B. knows what he's doing."
The Armorer threw a second gren behind him, counting down loudly as he ran, relying on the decreasing numbers to speed his comrades. He'd set the timer for ten seconds, but as always with old ordnance, trusting the fuses to perform accurately was like plotting the path of a lightning strike. You always heard the thunder after the bolt had fallen.
Ten seconds later, and the stairs underfoot seemed to try to grab their own ankles in an attempt to lift themselves from then- moorings, hurling all those on them into the air. Each member of the group had known to keep at least one hand on the railing, and some had placed both for an extra-secure grip near the end of J.B.'s shouted countdown, but such precautions were still not enough to keep them on their feet once the gren went off in a massive exhalation of fire and concussive force.
"Help!" Soto cried as he pitched over the rail, his legs dangling into the rising cloud of smoke and debris. Managing to grab the bottom rail, he hung on for dear life until Ryan and Dean could reach over to rescue him from plummeting downward.
"Help, somebody!" he screamed again as they tugged. "It's got me, one of them's got me!"
Krysty was there, thumbing back the action on her.38-caliber Smith & Wesson blaster and firing three bullets, one-two-three in rapid succession as she pulled the trigger, taking aim not so much at the horror that had attached itself to the squirming Puerto Rican hanging over the banister, but instead taking greater pains not to shoot the man who needed the assistance.
The chupacabras was nearly completely hidden in the smoky haze of the damaged stairwell.