The BIG Horror Pack 2

by Iain Rob Wright

“Don’t be. Those fuckers out there don’t know I’m ill, so they’ll take me as a fucking piece of meat and let you go.”

  “I still can’t leave you,” said Parker. “I can’t leave you to live even one day with those monsters.”

  “You won’t have to. As long as you do one last thing for me.” She whispered into Parker’s ear and he nodded. Then he smiled. It was a good plan.

  “Okay,” shouted Anderson. “I’m coming out, but Parker is going out the back and round the access road. You let him go peacefully and I’ll be the best fuck you ever had. You try to chase him down and I’ll struggle and bite until not one of you has a dick left. Deal?”

  “Deal,” said Mack impatiently. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Anderson stepped out into the warehouse while Parker hurried for the back door. It felt wrong leaving her, against everything he stood for, but he had something he needed to do. As he fled the building, the sounds of Mack and his men tormenting Anderson turned his stomach. At least she wouldn’t be suffering for long.

  The fresh air of outside hit Parker like a slap in the cheeks. He hadn’t realised how stifling the rotting atmosphere of the supermarket had been. He was glad to be out of there. What had at first seemed like a haven had instead turned out to be another sanctuary of nightmares.

  He passed by the gate and soon realised that it was still padlocked. He looked around and quickly spotted a row of wheeled recycling bins. Parker grabbed the nearest one and yanked it with him towards the gate. Once it was in position, he hoisted himself up on top and managed to claw himself over the chain link, ignoring the pain of flesh grating from his palms.

  Once his boots were back down on the tarmac, he sprinted across the car park, heading in front of the supermarket. The flaming remains of an old Volvo saloon stood in a blackened mess against the barricade trucks and Parker couldn’t help but marvel at the amount of explosives Mack must have possessed. He kept on running, cutting between abandoned cars and trolleys, heading for where he and his men – all dead now – had left the Warrior. When bedding down on the night previous, they had covered the tank with a green canvas tarp. Luckily, Mack and his men had not noticed it up on the bank between the trees. As much as Parker had hated being tied to the rolling coffin the last several weeks, it now looked and felt like home. He was glad to return to it – he just felt great sorrow that he was returning alone.

  Parker pulled back the tarp and leapt up onto the Warrior’s flanks. He examined the vehicle’s twin rocket launchers at its rear and was glad to see that they were all still primed and loaded: eight high-explosive rocket-propelled grenades.

  Parker opened up the command hatch and slid himself down into the cockpit. He switched on the console and breathed a sigh of relief that the tank’s battery was as healthy as when they had left it. The targeting readout flashed up and showed him a black and white picture of the trees in front of him. After tapping in a few commands, the display switched to display something else: the supermarket.

  The large, square building in black and white seemed sinister, more like a prison or asylum. He would be glad to bring it to its knees. Parker tapped in the relevant commands, targeted the twin grenade launchers on the back of the building, where the warehouse was located, and then sent the orders.

  With a fizz not unlike the sound of champagne being uncorked, eight rockets hurtled high into the air. Parker could not see them from within the cockpit, but he knew that they would be about to reach the apex of their climb, before tilting in mid-air and falling back down to earth; their unmoving target was a certainty.

  Parker watched on the screen as the supermarket bloomed white in a violently shifting cloud. A split-second later, the tank shook and his ear drums popped as the air pressure became charged. With a grim smile, not of happiness but perhaps of satisfaction, Parker climbed out onto the roof of the tank and surveyed the chaos of the rubble that had once been a supermarket. The hollow building, lacking in central support had crumpled like a stack of cards, so flat that no one inside could possibly have lived. The area was decimated and all that now lived was a smattering of fires. Anderson was dead; so were Cross, Schumacher, Carp, and Dennis. But so were Mack and all of his men.

  Parker didn’t know if the sacrifice of his good men was enough to make the death of Mack’s evil men worth it. He hoped it was. One thing was for sure, the nightmares of this world were not yet over. Anderson had proved that The Peeling was not yet finished, and, as Parker looked up at the dawn sky and saw unnatural lights filling it by the thousands, he started to understand that the disease that had destroyed the world was not the end of things to come, but just the beginning of something worse.

  The lights in the sky were getting bigger.

  THE PEELING: PATIENT ZERO

  The spacious minibus cut through the English countryside like a scalpel through flesh. From within its air-conditioned cocoon, it would be easy to forget the sweltering sun that beat down its summer rays. The tinted windows made the world outside seem dark.

  Dr Gregory Penn watched the farms, fields and forests roll by and wondered how long it had been since he last saw a building. Being so far away from London gave him an unsettled feeling that he did not like. It was like he was somehow leaving civilisation behind.

  I’m fleeing. Escaping my life so that I might find another.

  But it was a choice he had made. Greg had finally sold out to the big money offer and was working for the Government. No more helping sick people in hospitals, no more saving lives; now he would spend his days researching whatever his new bosses told him to – whether it was a weapon of mass destruction or an anti-wrinkle cream.

  The black-suited driver of the mini-bus turned down a wooded lane and reduced their speed. The vehicle began to bounce on its axels as the road became uneven and rocky.

  “Are we nearly there?” Greg asked. The long drive was giving him too much time to think. He was getting anxious, doubting his decision.

  Am I really cut out for this? Chief Virologist at the age of thirty-eight?

  Well, I’m not cut out for anything else. Was never any good at being a friend, a husband…

  “We will be there in less than ten minutes, sir,” replied the driver.

  Greg sighed. It was a relief to be close after so many hours of driving. With all of the back roads they’d taken, he wasn’t even sure which part of the country he was in anymore. They could even have passed north into Scotland for all he knew. They’d certainly be driving long enough since Lewisham.

  Up ahead, the minibus encountered a chain link fence. The driver slipped a mobile phone from his pocket and made a call. A few seconds later, a section of the fence slid aside on rails and the minibus passed through.

  An automatic fence in the middle of nowhere…Very cloak and dagger.

  A short while later, the muddy road opened up into a wide clearing. The area between the thick woods was almost a perfect circle – unnatural in its perfect curves. In the centre was a single building no bigger than a garden shed.

  What the hell? This is the UK’s finest Medical Research facility?

  “Please exit the vehicle,” said the driver. “Then proceed to the building ahead.”

  Greg didn’t move.

  “Sir, please do as I’ve instructed.”

  Greg cleared his throat and then unclasped his seatbelt. He pushed open the door and scooted along his seat. Twigs and dry leaves crunched beneath his feet as he stepped out of the minibus. The sounds seemed immense in the silence of the clearing. He slid the door closed behind him and headed up to the front of the vehicle. He leant towards the driver’s window and tried to see through the tint.

  “Excuse me,” he said through the glass. “I think there must be some sort of mistake. This is-”

  The minibus took off in reverse. The brakes squealed and the vehicle spun around to face the way from which they had come. Then it sped off into the woods, leaving Greg alone in the clearing.

  Really not enjoying my firs
t day so far.

  He took a few tentative steps towards the small hut ahead of him and then stopped. He looked around, expecting someone to jump out of the trees laughing and saying that this was all one big joke. When it was clear that that would not happen, he carried on walking.

  The building ahead had no windows. Just a single, metal door set into a concrete surround.

  Greg reached the structure and placed himself in front of the entrance. The door did not appear to have a handle, or even a lock, and when he tried to push it open it held tight.

  Great! What am I supposed to do?

  A thought occurred to Greg and he banged on the door with his fist.

  Anybody there?

  The door opened, moving aside gently as if in the hands of some unseen butler. Beyond was a steep staircase that headed straight down into darkness. Greg stared in disbelief. It felt like he was looking down into the bowels of hell.

  Despite his anxiety, Greg took the first step. Then the next. Then several more. He seemed to descend for ever.

  It wasn’t long before he was surrounded by shadows on all sides. The door at the top of the stairs had closed and with it, so too, the light from outside. The only thing preventing absolute darkness was a blinking green light lower down the staircase. Greg continued hoped it represented the end of his confusing journey.

  Go towards the light, Gregory.

  It turned out that that the green light was affixed to a security camera. Greg stared into its lens and imagined he could see someone at the other end watching him.

  There was a hiss in the darkness up ahead and then a vertical sliver of golden light appeared. Slowly the sliver widened into a gap and a brightly lit hallway appeared beyond. Greg found it hard to breathe, but he managed to keep going and passed through the newly opened entrance.

  He entered a featureless, white corridor. A voice from above startled him.

  “WELCOME DR PENN. PLEASE ENTER THE SECOND DOOR ON YOUR RIGHT WHERE YOU WILL BE MET BY AN ADMINSTRATOR.”

  Greg noticed that the corridor was lined by dozens of doors on each side. The one he had been directed to was no different to any of the others. He did as instructed and opened the second door on the right.

  Inside, a diminutive, bespectacled man sat behind a large, aluminium desk. He stood up immediately upon Greg’s arrival.

  “Dr Penn,” the man said, heading out from behind the desk and offering his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Dr Matthews and I am one of the administrators here. I am also the site’s physician, so I will be required to give you a health check tomorrow morning.”

  Greg shook the man’s small hand and smiled. “A Pleasure. I have to say, I’m a little put out by all of this.”

  The man nodded and laughed as if he understood exactly what he meant. “We apologise for the clandestine nature of your arrival. I’m sure you understand that this facility is an extremely sensitive Government secret. Only the Americans know about it. The entire structure is erected beneath the ground and the lack of buildings up top is to avoid detection by satellites. Google Maps is the enemy.”

  Greg frowned at the man.

  “That was a joke, Dr Penn. We may be secretive, but we still have a sense of humour.”

  “You keep saying we,” Greg commented.

  “We’re a community down here, Dr Penn. It has to be that way with the nature of things. You understand that you will remain in this facility for the next three years?”

  Greg nodded. He remembered signing the paperwork with a trembling. “I didn’t realise I would be staying in a hole in the ground, though.”

  Dr Matthews stepped up to the Greg and placed a hand on his back. He began leading him back out into the corridor. “I think you will find that things are more than to your liking. But the only way for you to believe it is to see it with your own eyes. Come on.”

  Greg allowed himself to be ushered back into the corridor. Dr Matthews led him opposite, to a door on the other side of the corridor. Without word, he opened it and pushed Greg through.

  Inside was a vast catacomb of wonders. A space the size of several football fields was laid out with numerous partitions, office cubicles, and blinking electronics. Hundreds of lab-coated personnel rushed about in a fever of hard work and commitment. Huge air conditioner units roared overhead.

  “We just call this area, The Floor,” Dr Matthews told him. “It’s where we conduct most of our theoretical research and low-level experiments – blood work and the like.”

  Greg scanned the area with wonderment. He was aware that his jaw was hanging open but did nothing about it. “It’s…It’s…”

  “Yep, it’s something, alright. You probably won’t spend too much time here, though. A scientist of your ability will no doubt be more at home in one of the private labs. Shall we?”

  Greg did not speak as Dr Matthews continued with the tour. The man introduced him to the luxurious staff lounge, crammed with televisions, videogames, pool tables, and many other forms of entertainment. There was even a modest library crammed with mass market paperbacks.

  Next was the canteen, which had a menu which would put most restaurants to shame. Dozens of people ate there, while some worked away on laptops and tablets.

  “It’s open twenty-four hours a day,” Dr Matthews explains. “Most of our more committed researchers often work odd hours, so the cafeteria never closes.”

  Greg’s stomach rumbled as he thought about eating. “Great. So what’s next?”

  “I suppose I should take you to your lab to meet your team. Then you can settle into your apartment.”

  Greg balked. “Apartment?”

  Dr Matthews smiled. “Why of course. We don’t expect you to spend three years in a bedsit. As a department supervisor, you will have one of the facility’s larger suites. I think you’ll like it.”

  “I…thank you. I would like to meet my team now.” Greg was beginning to find the ground beneath his feet. He was here to do a job, to lead a team of scientists. Now that he had fallen down the rabbit hole, he was ready to get to work.

  Dr Matthews led him back out into the main corridor and over to a steel door at the end marked RESEARCH LABORATORIES. B.S. lv 3, 4, 5.

  Greg frowned. “Level 5? Bio Safety levels only go up to 4.”

  “Not here they don’t.”

  “So…what is level 5?”

  Dr Matthews looked at him like he was dumb. “More dangerous than level 4.”

  Greg sighed. “But what on earth is more dangerous than a level 4 containment facility?”

  “Anything that can cause extinction.”

  Greg felt his jaw drop again.

  “You see,” said Dr Matthews. “There are other reasons we built this facility under the ground in the middle of nowhere. Very good reasons. And you, Dr Penn, are about to be placed in charge of several of them.”

  ***

  Greg’s lab was deep underground. They had accessed it via an elevator ride that seemed to take forever. It turned out that all of the staff in the Level 5 labs had apartments nearby – Greg’s included. It would allow him to roll out of bed and be at work within two minutes. He had a feeling, however, that the adjacency of their living quarters may well play into potential quarantine scenarios.

  Keep us all bunched up together in case something gets inside us.

  Dr Matthews led him down a sterile hallway and directed him into a large office. The long, walnut desk in the centre of the room already had a name plate with Greg’s name and qualifications on it. He had worked at many of the UK’s finest hospitals, but he had never had a desk like this. He went over and picked up the name plate. DR GREGORY J. PENN, BMSc, DSc.

  “You like?” Dr Matthews asked him.

  Greg placed the name plate back down and nodded. “I do. My team?”

  “I’ll send them right in. They can brief you from here.” Dr Matthews stepped forward and shook Greg’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Doctor. I’ll see you in the morning for your medic
al.”

  “Good to meet you, too. See you soon.”

  Dr Matthews left the office and Greg headed behind his desk. He sat down on the plush leather chair and slid his legs into the foot pass of his new desk. He felt at home already. A little over five minutes later, three young doctors entered his office: two gangly males and a dowdy looking female. All three of them were pale and sickly looking.

  Lack of sunlight? Or overworked? Will have to find out and see if I can do something to improve working conditions. That will make them loyal to me.

  “Good to meet you all,” he said to them. “While I intend to lead this team from the front, I will be relying on your for the next couple of days to help me get settled. I imagine you are three of the brightest minds this country has to offer. I look forward to working with you. In the meantime, would you please introduce yourselves briefly?”

  The female of the trio stepped forwards. She had short brown hair and looked like a mousy librarian. “My name is Elizabeth Wilson. My speciality is infectious diseases. I’ve been at the facility for just under two years after transferring from a private research company.”

  One of the two men stepped forward. He was the taller of the two and had the beginnings of a blond goatee. “My name is Thomas Fenton. My specialty is Allergy and Immunology. I have only been at the facility for eight months. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  Well, I know who the suck up is.

  The last of the young doctors stepped forward. He had much darker features than the other man and seemed a few years older. He was plump and short, but had an air of authority about him. “My name is Dr James Button. My speciality is in Endocrinology, Haematology, and Internal Medicine. I have been at the facility for six years and have been running things recently since Dr Doherty moved up into senior management.”

  Greg whistled. “Very impressive. I can see why you were left in charge.”

  Greg caught a glint of resentment in Dr Button’s eyes. Perhaps he felt that the supervisor role should have been his. He was certainly qualified for it.

  Letters after your name doesn’t always mean you’re fit to lead, though. I’ll have to make sure I stamp on any subordination the moment it happens.