by Ian Woodhead
“At least I still have a choice.”
He hurried through the conference room and through the next set of doors, looking for the stairway. It would be beneficial to his journey to find some sort of tool, something to aid him in breaking into a building should the need arise.
He abruptly stopped beside by a red fire extinguisher hung off the corridor wall. He had just realised that he still didn’t know which direction he ought to be going in. the Institute was in the centre, that bit he knew. Miles should have used the opportunity to locate the place while he was on that roof.
“You’re a bloody idiot, Miles. That’s what you are a …”
He shut his mouth and pressed his body against the wall; he’d heard something shuffling towards him. Miles lifted the extinguisher off its bracket. There was no way that he was going out without a fight. The noise grew louder. He twisted the handle and jumped out, screaming.
A long haired man, wearing a black jacket and a bright blue pair of flared trousers screamed back at him before falling backwards with his filthy hands covering his face.
“Oh, Jesus,” gasped Miles. “I’m ever so sorry. I thought you were one of those things.”
He put the extinguisher down on the carpet and helped the stranger up.
“I’m fine,” replied the man. “Wow, talk about a close shave. Who’d thought an extinguisher could be used as an offensive weapon. The buggers are everywhere aren’t they.”
The man smiled, displaying a perfect set of white teeth. They seemed so out of place in such a haggard looking face. Miles wondered if they were false.
“Listen to me rabbit on, old motormouth, that’s me.” He held out his hand. “Sorry, it’s been just ages since I’ve seen another face.”
Miles gripped the man’s hand, trying not to cringe, his flesh felt odd, spongy. “I’m Miles.”
“Cool name. I’m Dustin. My woman is downstairs; she’d love to meet you.”
Miles nodded, glad of the company, even if he did appear to be a bit weird, he mentally shrugged, say that, Dustin didn’t seem as odd as Alistair. He looked harmless enough.
“I don’t suppose you have any beer on you?”
Miles shook his head, he then grinned and pulled out one of the chocolate bars.
“Not quite beer but you can have it if you want.” He said, handing it over.
Dustin received it as if the bar was pure gold. “I’m almost speechless,” he uttered. “For me? Man, you hardly know me yet you’re offering to like break bread. Oh, hell. This is so uncool.”
He pushed the bar back into Mile’s astonished hands then fled down the hall. “I’m so sorry.” He shouted back.
Miles blinked, what the hell had he done wrong? Had he just offended him?
“Wait up!” Shouted Miles but the man had already gone. Miles ran after him, he had to know what he’d done. More importantly, Miles wanted to find out how the man had stayed alive.
Miles saw a set of doors slowly closing at the end of the corridor and put on an extra burst of speed, he didn’t want Dustin to get away from him. As he reached the doors, Miles thought he saw something bright blue out of the corner of his eye but when he looked back, there was nothing there.
“Fuck off, Mr. Imagination. I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment.” Miles pushed open the doors and found himself on a staircase. He gazed up and down the stairwell but saw no sign of him.
“Shit, I’ve lost him.” Then he remembered Dustin saying his girlfriend was below and raced down the steps. Miles heard a door a few flights down swing shut; he nodded to himself, knowing he wasn’t far behind. Miles reached the bottom floor and pushed through the doors, grinning. He saw his quarry stood statue still, a few metres away. Miles still had the chocolate bar in his hands.
“Are you not hungry?” Shouted, Miles.
The man slowly turned his whole body, “Oh, man. Why did you have to do that? Now she’ll want to meet you and that ain’t gonna end in smiles.”
A human-like head attached to a black serpent neck slithered out from between Dustin’s leg. Miles backed away but found his path blocked by a dozen of the bright red beetle creatures.
“You should have stayed where you were,” whispered Dustin as tears cleared a pink path down his dirty cheeks.
Chapter Twelve
The short burst turned the two attacking creatures into several chunks of bloodied green fur. Jackson changed his magazine and fired another volley into the advancing swarm of creatures. The things finally appeared to be getting the message. Jackson watched several of them break off from the rear and slither into a ventilation shaft. He wondered if the little bastards had been taking pointers from that now dead frigid chick.
“Good work, Jackson.”
He nodded to Colonel Hall, wishing he’d have put this twat in the cage along with Tyler. “We’ve still got a fair way to go yet, Sir. I’m not sure if the ammo will hold out.”
Hall slung his assault rifle over his shoulder and removed a long dagger from his side. “In that case, chaps, we had better conserve what little ammo we have.”
Jackson looked at Brickman who shrugged back. The Colonel may have been a pompous fucker but he wasn’t a coward. Jackson grinned and followed his superior’s example. Hall’s spontaneous actions had just bought him a few more minutes of life.
“They’ve all gone,” said Brickman. He looked at the Colonel “Do we keep to the planned route or follow Jackson’s idea, Sir”
“Why are you even asking me that bloody stupid question? Of course we stick to the planned route, I’ve no intention of allowing these nightmares to kill any more innocents.”
Jackson decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to inform this dickhead that his men had already disposed of the civilians. The three of them were the only live humans left on this level. The rest of his men plus the few chosen girls were already on the roof.
Jackson pulled out his own knife and carefully inched forward, keeping his eyes on that broken grille. They were going to the wrong way, deeper into enemy territory. They’d already passed the stairway that would have taken them straight to the roof a couple of minutes ago. In retrospect, it may have been a better idea to kill Hall there and then, but just before they’d reached the junction, a huge swarm of the furry bastards had almost turned him and the others into burger meat. At the time, it made more sense to keep him alive, they needed all the help they could get.
“Look out!”
Jackson felt something hard scrape across the back of his ankle, a moment before Brickman shouted his warning. He dived forward before spinning around with his knife out in front of him. Jackson saw a large red insectile animal scuttling towards him, its overlarge pincers clacking like crab claws. Jackson shouted out before thrusting his knife deep into the creature’s soft underbelly. The thing screamed before rolling over. Jackson grunted then pulled the blade out.
“You’re knife’s dripping, old bean. Best get it cleaned up before we continue.”
Jackson stared at Hall. He got to his feet and walked up to his superior without taking his eyes off the man. “Brickman.”
The other man snatched the long knife out of the Colonel’s hands.
“What’s going on!” shouted Hall. “Answer me.”
Jackson watched the thick blue fluid drip off the metal then sighed loudly. It didn’t seem right that those fuckers should piss out blue blood, it just wasn’t normal. Jackson lunged forward and pushed the knife up through the base of the Colonel’s jaw. The man let out a surprised ‘ack’ before falling back and collapsing against the wall behind him. Jackson watched Hall’s crimson life fluid bubble out of the wound and nodded in satisfaction.
“Look at that, Brickman” he said, grinning. Jackson wiped the bloody blade across the Colonel’s trousers. “At least he still bleeds the proper colour.”
Brickman nodded then quickly turned away. Did Jackson just notice a touch of doubt in the big man’s face just then? He pressed the tip of his index fing
er against the blade, and then drew tiny circles across the metal.
“It had to be done, you know that don’t you?”
Brickman took the magazine out of the Colonel’s fallen weapon then searched through the officer’s pockets.
“Did he really need to die? I mean, couldn’t we have just left him here?” Brickman turned his head. “Tyler was a cunt; he got what he deserved, but Hall looked after us.”
He crouched down and rested his hand upon the big man’s shoulder. The man didn’t flinch. Jackson smiled; he gained reassurance that Brickman trusted him completely. It would be so easy to thrust this knife into the man’s chest.
“I didn’t want to do it, Brickman. You need to believe this. There are certain things that I should have told you about him, about those fucking scientists.”
He looked at the small pile of items that Brickman had pulled from the Colonel’s pockets. Buried underneath some small change and folded photograph was a laminated ID card. Jackson picked it up, not all that surprised that Hall had been in on it as well.
“Have you any idea what this is?” he said dropping the card into Brickman’s open palm.
Brickman shrugged, “I’m sorry, I’ve no idea.”
“I didn’t expect you to recognise it and I’m glad you didn’t.”
Brickman then noticed Jackson pointing Hall’s pistol at his gut.
“You see, if you had shown even a flicker of recognition, I would have had no choice but to kill you.”
“What are you talking about? For crying out loud, William, I’m your friend. Probably the only one you’ve got.”
“I’ve found out the truth, Brickman.” Said Jackson, nodding, “you see, our so called superiors plus a select group of high foreheads have played us all for fools. Keeping stuff hidden from us, thinking they knew better. Doing what they’ve always done.”
“You mean they know what this is?”
Jackson laughed. “They don’t have a fucking clue but they do know why it’s happened and who’s…”
He jerked his head to the side, Oh, bollocks! They were coming, from the sound of it; there were hundreds of them in here now.
Brickman had heard them too; he raised his gun and took aim. “We need to move, now!”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean not yet? Have you lost your marbles? Those fuckers are almost on top of us.”
Jackson lunged for the man and grabbed the back of Brickman’s collar. “We’re not going anywhere until we finish with Hall.”
He snatched the Colonel’s bayonet out of Brickman’s hand then pushed him towards the door. “Go on then, I dare you. Run for the chopper and see how far you get.”
He kneeled beside the corpse, then used the bayonet to cut down the front of Hall’s jacket.
Jackson heard him rushing forward but couldn’t move out of the way in time. Brickman put his hands around Jackson’s throat and dragged him back.
“I can’t let you do this, Jackson, this is defiling the dead.”
In panic, Jackson swung out with the knife; he heard a distant voice curse and the pressure around his neck lessened. He dropped the weapon, grabbed both of Brickman’s wrists and pulled them forwards. The big man flew over Jackson’s body and landed on Hall’s head. Jackson didn’t wait for the man to recover, he saw masses of the things piling into the room. Jackson picked up the knife, pushed the blade deep into the officer’s stomach and drew it down towards the groin.
He leapt up and ran to Brickman. “Watch, you fucking idiot.”
Two bright blue nightmares rushed ahead of the main pack and dived onto the man’s open stomach. They both locked their gaze upon the soldiers before simultaneously burying their armoured heads deep into the gash.
Jackson pulled the unresisting man to the side as the other Type Twos pounced on the corpse.
“I never knew that so many had got in?” whispered Jackson.
One of the creatures suddenly looked at Brickman. It jumped off the body and slowly crawled towards the two men.
“Jackson watched it get closer, not understanding why it seemed so fascinated with them. He glanced at Brickman, then saw the shallow cut in the man’s shoulder.
“Oh, fuck,” he said.
Jackson slammed the blade into the animal’s back, pinning it to the floor. “Get that wound covered up, you idiot. Hall won’t keep their attention here for long.”
They both pushed their way through the mass, toward the open door. Jackson saw the steps and the way to freedom just a few metres from where they were.
“We’re nearly there.”
Both men froze when a single shot rang out.
“I thought we were the last ones,” whispered Brickman.
They cleared the swarming creatures and hurried over to the stairs. Another burst of gunfire reached Jackson’s ears. Brickman pointed to another group of Type Twos heading for them.
“It must be Hayder and Pembroke. Go to the roof, Brickman.”
The other man shook his head, “No way. I’m not leaving you here.”
“You’re a liability. Those things will smell your blood. You’ll slow me down.”
“Bullshit.” Brickman winked at him then raced toward the source of the gunfire.
Jackson sighed then set off in pursuit. He jumped over a yellow furry abomination and thanked the lord that the fuckers were still docile.
He’d made sure of that, not only with Hall’s sacrifice but ensuring he’d sated the other one, the huge monster. It would hopefully not call out to the Type Twos until they’d got out of here.
“Wait up, Brickman.”
Jackson ran past an open door; he’d already explored that room and found that unlocked computer terminal and the terrible secrets it contained.
“The stupid arrogant bastards,” he muttered.
He heard another burst of gunfire, louder this time. He hoped he was in time to save them. Jackson couldn’t afford to lose any more of his men.
How would Tyler have reacted if he knew that his death was partly just to test a theory?
Another creature stood motionless in the middle of the floor; as Jackson neared, he saw it was busy cleaning up a spot of fresh blood. He’d have to deal with Brickman’s arm when he caught him up.
There was no way that he could afford to lose his right hand man. “I shouldn’t have cut him.”
Jackson knew that he should have shared the new information as soon as he found out. Instead of just expecting him to blindly follow orders.
“That’s what the officers would have expected.”
As Jackson approached the next fire door, he heard the unmistakable sound of murmured conversation emanating from the next room. He grabbed Hall’s pistol, approached the door, and ran his thumb up and down the mottled grip.
He cautiously pushed open the door. “Don’t open fire,” he said, not wishing to become a casualty. His men were well trained; even so, he had no desire to find himself riddled with bullet holes.
Hayder and Brickman both nodded. He was more than relieved to find at least one more of his men still in one piece; but Pembroke, on the other hand.
“I’m ashamed to say that I thought you’d given up on us,” said Hayder. “This place is like a fucking maze.”
Jackson had given up hope but he had no intention of telling him that. “You know me better than that,” he muttered. Jackson’s eyes were locked on Pembroke and in particular, his arm held in a makeshift sling.
“What happened, son?”
Pembroke hung his head, “One of those little fuckers bit me”
Jackson saw Brickman stiffen, he hoped the other two didn’t notice that.
“I stamped on the bastard,” he laughed,” You should have heard it squeal. As for the arm, it’s only a scratch, nothing to worry about. It’s not like it hurts or anything.”
Jackson nodded and slowly reached for his knife. He promised himself that he’d make this quick and painless for the unfortunate lad.
Hayder abruptly backed away; Jackson saw panic appear in the man’s eyes. Did Hayder suspect what Jackson was going to do? Jackson suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of Hayder’s rifle.
“Jackson, behind you!”
Brickman’s shout unfroze his feet, he spun around and almost laughed out loud when he spotted a fluffy green Type Two crawling up the door.
“Put that fucking gun away,” he snapped, “That thing won’t harm you.” He then saw another blood splat by Brickman’s feet and sighed.
“For crying out loud, Brickman. Will you get that wound covered up? It’s your leak that attracting them.”
“I’m sorry, Sarge, but we were unable to find your woman. Believe me, we looked everywhere.”
Jackson looked to his left and grinned, he tapped an air vent with the tip of his knife, “You didn’t look in the right places. Don’t you let it worry you, I’m sure you did your best; besides, the bitch has been found and dealt with.”
Brickman took a pace back when Pembroke took a step towards Jackson. “When do we leave then?” asked Pembroke. “I’m anxious to taste that fresh Scottish air.”
Jackson nodded, “Soon,” he said, smiling.
“Before we do leave, I need to explain a couple of things. The situation has changed. Our starting afresh plan has gone out of the window. The days of enjoying life and shagging with have to wait for a little longer.”
He spun around and plunged the knife into the creature’s body, pinning it to the door. At the same time, Pembroke let out a tiny whimper. Hayder gave his colleague a curious look. Jackson wondered if the penny had finally dropped.