“Honestly, Doctor Owen, he’s been harassing me for days. The only reason I went around was to get him to back off.”
“Did it work?”
I shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know. Was he outside this morning?”
Coughlin shook his head. “My associate is watching his house. As far as we can tell, he hasn’t left since you visited him.”
A shiver of excitement ran through the shadow as the memory of Spencer’s body lying beneath the television surfaced.
“Perhaps he’s given up.”
Anger flared in Owen’s eyes, but for a change it wasn’t directed at me. “It’s too little, too late. Hunter Neurologics has every intention of prosecuting him to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do, I’ll be happy to help. The work we’re doing is too important to let a shortsighted idiot like him get his way.”
It was a little over the top. That sort of rhetoric played better with Hunter than Owen, but he seemed satisfied.
“Good. In that case, go to your—”
The phone on the desk interrupted him. Owen grabbed the handset and barked into it. “Doctor Hart, what seems—” His eyes widened in surprise. “Prep for the procedure. I’ll contact Hunter.”
Without waiting for any reply, he put down the phone. “Taylor, get downstairs. We have a new candidate on the way.”
I didn’t wait for Owen to ask again.
Outside, the offices were full of activity. Half a dozen of my colleagues scrambled to find their laptops. A couple of them looked at me. I could see suspicion in their eyes. I felt exposed, vulnerable, my inner shadow laid bare under their gaze.
Hart was at her desk. She looked up at me as I passed. “The hospital has sent us another patient. They’re already unloading him.”
“Right, sure. I’ll just get my stuff…” I trailed off and hurried to my desk. My notebook was neatly stashed in the desk’s top drawer, but I spent a few seconds pretending to search for it.
With all the confusion, it would be easy to leave the office. I’d saved a decent amount of money. It was more than enough for me to start a fresh life somewhere else.
Kozlov leaned over my cubicle wall. “Taylor, come on! Hunter’s already down there.”
I held up my notebook and nodded. He turned and almost ran toward the elevator. I briefly considered heading back to the ground floor and leaving through a side exit, but it was the wrong choice. Owen and Coughlin knew that I’d been at the journalist’s house. When his body was found, they’d piece together what had happened pretty quickly. I had no doubt they’d go to the police.
I knew the answer before the shadow whispered it to me. They both had to die.
Taking a deep breath, I counted to four, grabbed a pen from the container on my desk and went downstairs to the lab.
The body hadn’t arrived when I got there, but I was the last person through the door. Owen glared at me as I took up position next to the metal cart. Doctor Kozlov brought in the case containing the latest batch of serum. He opened it and placed two syringes on top of the cart. I straightened them then nodded to Owen.
“Okay, team,” Hunter said. “Remember, you’re—”
The door to the lab crashed open, and orderlies wheeled in the familiar gurney. Kozlov and Hart were on top of it in seconds. They took over from the orderlies and locked the gurney in place.
Hunter held out his hand. He said something, but I didn’t hear the words. I was staring at the body on the gurney. I was staring at Doug Spencer.
Chapter 10
290
My thoughts spiraled out of control. Spencer was there, alive but in a coma. I was aware of someone shouting my name, but I couldn’t parse the words. The shadow swarmed through me.
A hand grabbed my shoulder, and its touch pulled me back to reality. It was Doctor Hart. She looked at me questioningly.
Hunter’s hand was stretched out toward me. His face was a red ball of rage. I grabbed a syringe from the cart and almost handed it to him before I realized it was the serum. He needed the marker first.
I switched syringes. He glared at me as he took it, then leaned over Spencer’s comatose form.
The countdown said 07:38.
The image of Spencer’s brain appeared on the display. There was a large patch of darkness at the back of his head. A thick, carrot-shaped finger of black reached from the dark patch, almost to the front. The memory of Spencer’s skull slamming into the mantel came flooding back and brought the shadow with it.
Owen was holding Spencer’s jaw open, but he was looking at me with a mix of horror and confusion on his face. I could almost see his mind piecing together what I’d done.
Hunter straightened up, and I swapped his empty syringe for the one containing the serum. He watched the time until it reached 06:30 and then made the second injection.
This time, the countdown only reached 02:53 before the orange threads began spreading through the image of Spencer’s brain. They moved more quickly, too. Within seconds, the dark patch was covered with an intricate orange web.
A smile broke out over Hunter’s face. Owen was more cautious. His face was a mask.
Hart’s and Kozlov’s reactions were subdued. They smiled tentatively, but there was a pensive edge to their expressions. Akimoto and Gleeson were in the observation room looking equally nervous. No one was celebrating yet. Everyone in that room had seen the black liquid pouring from the last subject’s body.
On the screen, a wave of brightness swept across the web. It looked like some sort of bizarre orange lightning strike. Spencer’s right fingers twitched.
Hunter addressed the room. “This is it. We’re about to make history.” The words were tinged with an almost manic excitement.
“Doctor Kozlov, increase the nitrogen filter by five percent,” Owen said.
Kozlov tapped his keyboard a couple of times, and the machine beeped.
There was another pulse of orange. It spread from the back of Spencer’s brain to the front. As it moved, it flared even brighter before fading away to nothing.
Spencer’s hands shuddered. Owen took a step back from the table. Hunter leaned in closer.
A thick, oily liquid seeped from the corners of Spencer’s eyes. Hunter gently pulled Spencer’s eyelids up. His eyes had become slick black orbs.
Hunter released Spencer’s lids, but his eyes stayed open. They gazed sightlessly up at the ceiling. I barely suppressed a shudder of my own.
The seconds dragged by with no one daring to move. Then Spencer’s fingers hooked into claws. His right leg convulsed, and the silence in the room was broken by the soft cracking of bones as he arched his back. He lifted up until only his heels and his shoulders and head were touching the table, moving so quickly and so violently that his spine seemed about to snap. A dry, ragged breath escaped his lips.
Most of those close to the table, myself included, moved farther away, but Hunter’s eyes were wide and filled with wonder.
A low growl came from somewhere in Spencer’s throat. He relaxed again and flopped back down onto the table. His jaw clenched, and there was a crunch. Black fluid leaked from the corners of his mouth. His lips pulled back into a rictus grin that exposed two rows of cracked, splintered teeth flecked with black oil.
A flicker of revulsion passed over Owen’s face. “Kozlov, get the midazolam.”
Hunter’s head whipped around. “No!”
“We need to shut this down.”
Kozlov hesitated, torn between his two masters.
“No, we’re too—”
Hunter’s words were reduced to a strangled cry as Spencer clamped one talon-like hand around his throat.
Spencer rose, lifting himself off the table as though he was using Hunter to pull himself upright. He sank his teeth into the researcher’s throat. Hunter screamed.
I backed away and swung the cart between me and the operating table.
Owen shouted at Kozlov again, but the Russian was a
lready retreating, his face a mask of horror.
Spencer ripped his head away from Hunter’s throat, bringing strips of skin and muscle with him. Gobbets of blood and flesh arced through the air. He tipped his head back, and the scraps of flesh hanging from his lips disappeared into his mouth.
Hunter’s screams turned to a wet, strangled moan. His legs gave way, and he fell to the floor. Spencer rolled, letting Hunter’s weight carry him off the table and out of sight.
A siren began to blare.
Kozlov was fumbling with the door out of the lab. Doctor Akimoto stared through the glass, his hands pressed against his mouth. Gleeson was hunched over, vomiting.
Owen pushed past me. “Dammit! Kozlov!” He grabbed a cylindrical container from a shelf and removed a plastic-wrapped syringe.
Kozlov had gotten the door open and was already in the observation room. He was arguing about something with Akimoto. A red light above the observation room door pulsed in time to the siren. The lab was on emergency lockdown.
Hart was standing in the door, frantically beckoning to me. “Come on!”
Wet, slobbering sounds came from the other side of the table, interspersed with guttural moans and growls.
Owen tore the wrapper from the syringe.
“Don’t, Owen. Let security deal with it,” Hart said.
Owen waved her away and stepped toward the source of the moans.
I moved behind him to get to the door. Halfway there, the shadow stopped me in my tracks.
Spencer was lying on top of Hunter’s body, what remained of it anyway. He’d torn away Hunter’s shirt and begun to eat. All that remained of Hunter’s chest was a tattered mass of shredded flesh. Blood ran across the tiled floor to the drain in the center of the room. Both Spencer’s and Hunter’s clothes were stained scarlet.
As Owen approached him, Spencer looked up. Those black eyes locked on to the doctor. They were cold, somehow soulless, like a shark’s. A ragged lump of skin was caught in the side of his mouth. He chewed at it, almost thoughtfully.
Owen took another step forward. He had the syringe clutched in his hand with the needle pointing down as though he was holding a knife. He was looking for a way to get closer without exposing himself to any danger. Spencer tracked him as he moved.
I heard raised voices behind me, and the sound broke the shadow’s hold. I joined Hart at the door, and we moved just inside the observation room.
There was a low-pitched growl. Spencer, or the thing he’d become, was crouching now. His hands were balled into fists, and his knuckles rested on Hunter’s chest. He growled again and slowly got to his feet. His mouth opened and closed, chewing the air. A stream of blood, streaked with that black oily substance, ran down the front of his chest.
Owen still held the syringe in his hand. He kept shifting position, looking for an opening.
Behind us, Kozlov was shouting. “We need to open the door!”
“We’re on lockdown,” Akimoto said, “we’ve got to stick to the emergency proce—”
“Screw that! Open the door.”
Kozlov lunged past Akimoto and slammed his fist against a button on a nearby console. A high-pitched note chimed. He flung the door open and ran from the room.
Gleeson had finally stopped throwing up. He pulled my shoulder. “Come on.” He didn’t wait for my reply.
Akimoto stood by the door, looking conflicted until Hart said, “Go! We’ve got this covered.”
A relieved look came over his face, and he followed the others out.
Hart looked at me. I’d expected to see fear in her eyes, but there was none that I could find. She raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.
I held her gaze for a count of four then swung the door to the lab closed and hit the lock button. The LED above the button turned red, and a speaker in the wall buzzed.
Owen must have heard the mechanism lock because he turned toward the glass window. He saw me, and his eyes widened in rage. He screamed my name, the sound muffled by the glass.
Seeing his chance, Spencer-thing came at Owen. Owen heard his approach and turned, raising his arm to fend off the attack.
Spencer’s fingers clutched at the doctor’s face. Nails caught flesh and left dark-red tracks down his cheek. Spencer cried out in anger and pain. Spencer pushed forward against Owen’s arm in an attempt to get at his throat.
Owen jabbed the syringe into Spencer’s neck and thumbed the plunger. The Spencer-thing staggered back. The syringe was sticking out of his neck, but he made no attempt to remove it. He stumbled, dropped to his knees, then pitched forward onto the floor.
Owen screamed at me. “Open the damned door!”
The siren was still wailing, and the emergency light cast an intermittent red glow across Owen’s features that mirrored his anger.
Hart appeared beside me. “We should really let him out.”
“Yes, we should.”
A dark shape rose up behind Owen. Spencer.
I smiled as the shadow rose up, too, its movements matching Spencer’s.
Owen slammed his hands against the window. “Open the doo—”
His eyes widened in shock as hands clutched his shoulders and pulled him back. He grabbed one of them and tried to pry himself free. Spencer leaned in and clamped his teeth around Owen’s hand.
Owen screamed as he ripped his hand free of the creature’s jaws and twisted around. Instinctively, he raised his arms, trying to fend off his attacker. Blood poured down his arm. Spencer ripped into the meaty flesh of Owen’s forearm. Owen fell back against the window. The two of them slid to the floor. Blood smeared the glass. Owen screamed.
The shadow and I looked down at the two men with quiet satisfaction.
“We should go,” Hart said.
I nodded. “I’ll catch up with you.”
Hart watched Spencer sink his teeth into Owen’s face, then turned and left.
I watched her leave, puzzled at her reaction. She’d seemed so calm, and it had been as though she wanted me to lock Owen in the lab with Spencer.
When I turned back to the window, the Spencer-thing was standing again. The black orbs of his eyes bored into mine. He raised his hands and clawed at the window, leaving dark, sticky trails of blood down the glass. His mouth dropped open, and a thread of black saliva dripped from his chin. Owen’s partially eaten corpse lay on the floor behind him. Blank eyes stared up at nothing.
I raised my hand and pressed it against the window. Spencer tried to grab it through the glass. I swept my hand from left to right, and Spencer followed it, growing ever more agitated.
Slowly, I walked along the window to the lab door. The Spencer-thing followed me. I stared at him through the door. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth against the glass. His jaws moved as he tried to chew his way through to get to me.
The shadow watched, fascinated. This was the real Doug Spencer—not the impostor who’d hidden behind a facade of human decency. The serum had freed the darkness that lurked inside him, that lurks inside everyone, and set it loose upon the world.
There was movement on the floor behind Spencer. Hunter’s body twitched.
I looked at the lock button beside the door.
Spencer pressed his forehead against the glass, smearing it with black-red gore.
Footsteps streamed past in the corridor outside the lab.
The siren wailed.
I reached out and pressed the button. A high-pitched chime rang out, and the LED above the button turned green.
I pushed down on the handle, and Spencer’s weight swung the door open.
Chapter 11
Free
A thick, rancid smell—blood and death—flooded the room. Pressing my arm across my nose and mouth, I staggered back away from the door. The Spencer-thing let out a groan and stumbled toward me. His movements were sluggish but relentless.
As he advanced, I retreated until I was standing in the door to the main corridor. Even over the siren, I could hear confused shouts an
d people urging everyone to evacuate. Someone called out that there was a fire. Another that there’d been a biohazard spill.
Spencer groaned and took a quick double step toward me. The smell was almost overpowering. Thick black threads had spread across his face, giving it a strange, veined texture. The skin around his lips was drawn tight, and there was a split running from one corner of his mouth and halfway across his cheek. Black fluid oozed from the wound.
He took another step toward me, but I found myself rooted to the spot. The shadow was holding me there as it examined the creature Hunter Neurologics had created and that I had let loose. The thing standing in front of us was the perfect embodiment of the guilt that my shadow-self sees so clearly. The serum had unlocked that guilt, made it tangible and real. Now everyone could see what the shadow had shown me so often.
Spencer reached toward my face. The movement was slow and clumsy, but my body refused to react until the last moment. I pulled back, and Spencer’s hooked fingers brushed past my nose. It was enough to break the shadow’s spell over me. As I tried to back away, Spencer’s hand caught my chest. Clawed fingers dug into my flesh. I shouted in pain and tried to knock his hand away, but his arm was like iron.
His other hand grabbed my shoulder and hauled me forward. His mouth opened wide, and the shadow’s survival instinct finally kicked in. I jammed my arm across his throat. His teeth snapped closed inches from my face. Liquid, warm and wet, dripped onto my arm. We struggled for a moment, then I managed to get enough leverage to push him back. His shoes squeaked on the tiled floor as he slid backward.
Grunting, I shoved my arm hard across his throat. I had no idea whether he needed to breathe, but his grip loosened enough for me to pull free. I gave him one last shove that sent him staggering away from me and then backed into the corridor.
Serial Killer Z (Prequel): Infection Page 5