by Kevin Lucia
He rested his head on cool concrete and glanced at Therese, standing next to him, Webley held to her side. Her hair was tangled, clothes soiled. He imagined he looked far worse.
His chest twisted and he doubled over in a hacking fit. Slowly, it passed. He wiped a blood-clotted hand on his trousers and straightened.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
He began to object, but when he found Therese’s gaze, he stopped. He couldn’t lie. “Yes. It is.”
“How long?”
“Hard to tell. An hour. Maybe more. Maybe less.” He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “So, you’ve no idea what part of campus this’ll bring us to?”
“No clue. The intersections all have arrow systems painted on them,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, “but … uhm … I think I wrecked that one.” A pause. “So, the talisman is past this door?”
He checked the scanner. “Should be. Something nearby is creating waves of confluential energy.”
“What do you think has happened up there?”
“Hopefully Bothwell achieved containment. I’m sure she came up with something. She cleans up all my messes.” He frowned. “Well, most of them.”
“Hiram?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For everything. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, really, except …”
He nodded. Sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “Likewise.” More silence, something almost like peace, until Hiram waved a hand at the door. “It’s all yours, love. Be my guest.”
Therese nodded, raised the Webley, and pulled the trigger. It roared in the confines of the tunnel as she blew away the door’s lock. He led the way and she followed into the shadows beyond.
Hiram quickly lit the new flare affixed to the Franchi and led Therese into a cramped custodian’s office. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. He pulled its cord, and the room sprang into sickly, orange gloom. They crept forward. Hiram noted shelves packed with spare parts, a pegboard off which a variety of pedestrian tools hung, and an oil-spotted, grungy metal desk to their right, pushed against the wall. Paper littered the desk’s top, of the usual sorts: ‘to do’ lists, purchase orders and receipts, memos.
Apparently, this custodian fancied himself a handyman-philosopher. Several books sat on the desk’s corner: Leaves of Grass, Walking, a collection of Rumi’s poetry, even Sun-Tzu. Atop the books, of all things, sat an origami bull. His gaze lingered upon it.
“Hiram...”
A slight gust blew the far door ajar. They froze. Nothing moved, there was no sound. After several more seconds, they approached the door. Hiram probed the opening with the Franchi and its sputtering flare. Nothing. He pushed it open. A short stairwell led up. Sunlight crept down from above. Hiram entered the doorway, held out his hand. Soft wind caressed his skin.
“It’s so still, like nothing’s left alive except … us.”
Hiram tilted his head. “Maybe Bothwell evacuated the place, saved thousands of lives.”
“Or maybe there’s no one left to save.”
Hiram nodded. “There’s always that, too.”
He leaned out as far as he dared, tried to see the floor above, but save some greenish wallpaper, a ceiling fan and rafters, he saw nothing except a brown, leathery object at the top of the stairs.
He squinted. A shoe. On a foot, twisted at an odd angle.
His chest spasmed. He ducked back into the custodian’s office to stifle his cough. For the most part, he was successful, but the pain … a tightness burned across his chest, like steel bands wound around his heart. The Hive pulsed on the edge of his thoughts. He couldn’t tell if it came from nearby, or from the things inside him.
The spasms eased. He sighed, leaned on the door frame, and closed his eyes. Flushed and chilled, he both sweated and shivered at once.
Damn you. Move your ass up those stairs … now.
He swallowed. Licked his lips. Opened his eyes and assessed the stairwell. He didn’t like it. Too narrow. If they were attacked while climbing, they’d have little room to move. There was no other way, however.
He checked the scanner. The indicator light burned deep orange, almost red. The summoning talisman had to be above. He stepped back into the doorway, pocketed the scanner, ripped the flare off the Franchi, and tossed it into the stairwell. Reaching into his satchel, he gathered the remainder of his supplies—a magazine, a speed-loader, and the last brick of C-4—and pocketed them. He withdrew the last four flares, tossing the now empty bag aside, and lit them all in turn. With an underhanded lob, he pitched them onto the upper landing. They spun—spitting, hissing, bright little suns—up and over the railing, each landing with a light clatter. They rolled and came to sputtering rests.
Nothing. No hisses, no slithering. Silence loomed, save the crackling of the flares. He nodded to Therese, and they ascended. Each step took momentous will. His calves cramped, his temples ached.
The smell hit near the top. Behind him, Therese gasped. A rank miasma of decay bloomed as they stepped onto the first floor. The object at the top of the stairs was indeed a shoe, the foot inside, however, only extended to a ragged mess about mid-ankle. Flies and ants crawled everywhere.
“Sweet mother …” He heard Therese gag and vomit, presumably back down the stairs.
Dismembered bodies littered the floor. Gnawed limbs strewn about. Maybe ten corpses; maybe fifteen or twenty. He couldn’t be sure, not with such a jumble of discarded body parts and glistening wet meat.
The stink of spoiled blood and greasy bodily gases saturated the air. Therese staggered back to his side. For a brief moment, she looked ready to vomit again. “My God. It’s so horrible.”
Hiram stepped over the severed foot and picked his way through spilled innards and pooling juices. He stepped on something rubbery. He gazed down, and even his stomach swirled as intestines squelched under his shoe.
“Those things inside you … will they become…?”
Hiram shook his head, kept the Franchi up as he stepped past what was either a shredded young girl or two girls sludged together. “No. Not enough in me, I don’t think. They’re doing considerable damage, though.”
He consulted the scanner, looked down the hall to his left. “Not this way.” He turned the opposite direction. The indicator bar turned red. “Down this hall, on the right.”
They turned. He immediately regretted it. The body count loomed higher this way, with piles of intact, bloated corpses. Horrible, death-frozen screams contorted the faces.
Therese inhaled sharply. “Yes,” he murmured. “Horrible, isn’t it?”
Therese grabbed his arm. “That’s not it. Hiram, are you sure that thing is reading right?”
Hiram frowned. “Yes. It should be down that hall, through the doorway at the end, I think.”
“Hiram, the wall. Over the community bulletin board, near those chairs and plants. It says …”
“ … Whitaker Hall, I see that. I’m not sure I …”
“Whitaker Hall.” She looked at Hiram, her lips shivering. “These are the upperclassmen rooms, next to the nature preserve. My home.”
Her eyes widened, glinting a faint cobalt blue. “My home, Hiram. Why are we in my home?”
“Hiram,” Therese persisted, “why are we here? How can that thing… the talisman … be in my home?”
“I don’t know. Let me think … wait.” He examined the corpses, every detail. “Therese, if you live here … don’t you know these people?”
“I … no. No, I don’t. Some of them are so … gone … it’s hard to tell, but the others,” she waved at the piles of bloated corpses, “they don’t live here.”
“They were brought here, then, because …”
Something splattered amidst the piles of intact bodies. The dead jiggled. The room’s stench worsened as gases trapped in bloated bellies spilled into the air. Therese’s eyes widened as bodies quivered and deflated.
“God. That’s horrible. Do corpses always do
that?”
Hiram frowned. He gripped the Franchi tighter. “Occasionally, but something’s not cricket …” Wet sounds ripped along the bodies in rapid succession.
“Hiram, what’s happening?”
He pieced it together. On one side, mangled piles of melted flesh; on the other, preserved, bloated corpses, waiting for …
A memory surfaced, of a tentacle punching into Vice-provost Stemmins’ gut, pumping and pulsing … something into him …
“Oh, hell. We’re in a lot of trouble.” One side was a desecrated trough—a feeding ground. The other side, however, bodies preserved and whole …
“What is it?”
He aimed at the corpses, but he’d no idea where to fire first. “It’s a nest, Therese. A damned nest.”
A thin tentacle—only the width of an index finger, but repulsive all the same—burst from one of the distended bellies closest to them with a soggy tearing sound. A high-pitched squeal pierced Hiram’s head as Tanara’ri younglings screamed in newborn hunger.
Thin tentacles punched through rotten flesh. Younglings squealed. Therese pointed the Webley everywhere, arms shaking. “What do we do? Will they …?”
“I wouldn’t bet against it.” He winced. “I can hear them … calling to the things inside me …” Hiram set his teeth as he dug into his pockets. “We have to get through, Therese. Whatever we do, we have to get to that room at the end of the hall.”
“That’s my room, Hiram! Mine!”
“We’ll sort that out when we get there.” His fingers closed around his last brick of C-4. “Somehow, you’re the center of all this. This whole thing has been about you from the very start.”
He pressed the C-4 into a lopsided sphere, watching the field of tentacles struggle amidst melted flesh. His stomach lurched, thinking of snakes writhing and twining around one another.
“Hiram, whatever you’re doing, please … there’s more of them coming out. God, holy shite …”
A ripping sound. Something flipped and writhed in viscous fluids. “Hiram … they’re getting free! What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m either going to blow a path through, or blow us to hell. I’ve never been that good with C-4.”
“What?”
He tossed the ball into the air once. “If I don’t blow us to hell… run. Don’t stop. I’ll follow and cover. Just run, hard as you can. I imagine once this starts, it won’t be long until Mama and Papa show their ugly heads. They’re probably coming already.”
Therese nodded once. She held the Webley out to him. “Take it.”
Hiram frowned. “Love, you’ll be defenseless …”
“I’ll be running, not shooting.” Something flashed in her eyes. “It’ll slow me down.”
Hiram saw the icy blue in her eyes and nodded. He palmed the C-4 and hooked the outstretched Webley’s trigger guard with a finger. He felt horrible leaving Therese weaponless, but couldn’t deny a flush of satisfaction at having his faithful revolver back.
He holstered the Webley. “Now, get ready to …”
An enormous, fleshy belch interrupted him. A chorus of squeals pierced his mind. Tentacles snapped and thudded against dead flesh. A small crater had blown outward from one of the bodies. Dozens—perhaps more—of Tanara’ri younglings surged forth.
“Here it is.” He tossed the C-4 underhand. It flew in a shallow arc, then descended. Hiram raised the Franchi and waited. Slowly at first, then with gathering intensity, the air around them rippled. Power flowed off Therese and lapped against him, like soft eddies in a stream.
The explosive landed amongst surging Tanara’ri newborn. “Right then. Tally-fucking-ho.”
The fire and shock wave of the Franchi’s special round set off the C-4, and the resulting explosion dug a jagged trench through the corpses. Younglings blew to pieces. A unified screech filled the air. Knocked off balance, Therese fell. Hiram went down, as well, sprawling onto crushed bodies. Somehow, he held onto the shotgun. Struggling to his knees, face pinched and flushed, he gestured at the burning trench. “Go!”
Therese slipped in blood as she scrambled upright, ignoring the fleshy clumps sticking to her legs. She tensed to push off when something crashed. Adult Tanara’ri bounded through the front doors. Gestating hybrids scrambled behind. Hiram shot the first creature, blew it in two. Three more took its place.
A throbbing drone pounded her brain: FEED, FEED, FEED!
“Run, dammit! Run!” Another Tanara’ri exploded. Another clack, another blast. “RUN!”
She vaulted over a half-eaten torso and sprinted towards the cleared path. Her legs pumped, feet pounded. Something stirred inside. Fueled by white fire and dark pain, Therese ran, while explosions thundered all around. Fire raged and monsters screamed.
A great picture window to her right shattered into thousands of jagged shards. She ducked as she ran, but glass still sliced her hands and cheeks. A Tanara’ri had burst through the window. Therese ran harder, fueled by panic … but it didn’t pursue her. It screeched, tentacles snapping.
There was a rush of air and Hiram sailed high overhead. He smashed into the glass-covered bulletin board and rolled to the floor in a shower of broken shards, still clutching the Franchi. He didn’t rise, however. He shuddered on the ground, blood quickly soaking through his jacket at one shoulder.
Therese scrambled over smoking corpses to him. He moaned, his breath shallow, reedy.
“Hiram! Get up! Please, get up!” A horrible coldness filled her belly. Where his suit darkened with blood, a jagged piece of glass poked out. Hiram tried to rise, but his arms shivered and he collapsed again.
Therese closed her eyes. She ignored the oncoming beasts and the younglings squirming all around, blocked out their minds, which buzzed against hers. Blindly, she reached down and yanked the shard from Hiram’s shoulder.
He screamed, his cries mingling with those of the hungry.
Pain blazed through Hiram’s body and mind, muffled the buzz of the Hive. A mixed blessing, because it hurt like hell.
“Hiram, please! We’re going to die if you don’t move!”
“Right, love. Let’s get on that.” Breathing deeply, he pushed himself to his knees. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming, and a coppery taste filled his mouth. His head throbbed. A Tanara’ri—a big one—had crashed through a window, caught him by the neck. He’d fired; there’d been a lurch … then a rush of wind. Impact. Shattering glass, and an explosion of pain in his right shoulder. Then he’d fallen. Now, here he was: on his knees, bleeding all over, wrenched with pain.
“Come on, then. I’m Hiram Grange. This is what I do, dammit.”
He staggered upright, leaned on Therese for support. They turned and faced the advancing wall of writhing tentacles and blinking eyes. The Hive screamed in his head. Hiram sagged, almost collapsed. Somehow, Therese spun them away, down the hall.
Therese lugged Hiram forward. The calls of the Tanara’ri faded. Nothing existed for her but that door at the hallway’s end. She’d feared it all her life, but the time had come. She needed to see what lay on the other side. She was no longer afraid.
Hiram slipped off her shoulder and staggered on his own. She sprinted forward, grabbed the knob, twisted, slammed the door with her shoulder … it was locked. She always locked it, of course, and her keys …
… were gone. She’d jammed them into the Reggie-thing’s eye. They’d been destroyed.
Somehow Hiram rallied enough strength to limp along on his own. A psychic pressure pounded him from behind. Ahead, Therese slammed into the door. She jerked the knob, slammed it again.
“It’s locked!” She looked at him, face wild. “I lost my keys back at the bus terminal!”
He aimed and pulled the trigger—the Franchi was empty. He grabbed the last magazine from his pocket, slapped it in. A wasted shot, he knew, but without shelter, one more bullet wouldn’t matter.
“Move!”
Therese’s eyes widened. She jumped clear.
In th
e close quarters, the shotgun roared. The doorknob blew apart and hot shrapnel bounced off floor, walls and ceiling. Tiny bits burned his cheeks. The Tanara’ri screamed behind them.
Therese leaped to her feet. “How will we close it?”
“Do you have chalk and some salt?”
“What?”
“Do you have them?”
“Yes, but I don’t …”
“Get them! NOW!”
She ran into the room. Hiram turned, ignored the burning pain in his shoulder, and took aim. The narrowed hallway had bottlenecked the Tanara’ri, which gave him some time, but not much. He was nearing the end, he knew. Five more shots. Then nothing. It would have to do.
He aimed and fired. The hall filled with heat and greenish flame as a Tanara’ri exploded. Charred remains clogged the hall, forcing the others to slow down. One of the creatures scrambled over its dead fellow, eyes bulging as it screeched. Hiram waited for it to crest the remains. When it did, he fired, adding to the wall of necrotic tissue.
A smaller Tanara’ri bounced off the wall and flew at him, tentacles snapping. Hiram shot and missed, hit the ceiling. Spongy tile blew apart, lights shattered. He fired again, hit the mark. Oily chunks sprayed him.
A heartbeat had passed. Only one shot remained. He fired, and blasted another scampering over the pile. More dead added to the barrier, for whatever it was worth.
He pulled the trigger, just to be certain. It clacked empty.
Side-hand, he whipped the Franchi at the closest beast, not bothering to watch it bounce off the leathery hide. He spun into Therese’s where she waited, face white, hands shaking. In one hand a jar full of chalk, in the other a bag of cooking salt. He grabbed the salt, spilled half its contents in the door’s opening, then swept the jar to the floor, where it shattered. He knelt, snatched a piece of chalk, glanced up as another of the creatures clambered over its dead fellows, and quickly drew an arc between both sides of the door frame, closing a circuit around the spilled salt.