Subhuman

by Michael McBride

  “There has to be another way out of here,” Evans said.

  “Not without the Skyway,” Richards said.

  “We could belay each other down the cliff,” Roche said.

  “With what rope?” Kelly asked.

  “We could always jump,” Evans said. “If there’s enough snow drifted below us, we’ll just sink into it until we lose momentum.”

  “The wind hardens the upper layers,” Richards said. “It would be like landing on concrete from this height.”

  Friden tuned them out and concentrated.

  He and the others couldn’t just sit around waiting to either be rescued or freeze to death. They didn’t have a prayer of surviving the elements, which meant that sooner or later they were going to have to take their chances with the creature inside in the station. If only he’d been given a better opportunity to study the organisms that had subsumed Scott’s body, he might be able to predict the creature’s behavior and calculate a way around it, but so far the only trait any of the transformed beings had displayed was unrestrained aggression. Even Speedy, who’d never once bitten him prior to being infected, had immediately demonstrated overt hostility.

  Friden sensed he’d just touched upon something important and retraced his thoughts.

  For the alien organisms to elicit so much unbridled rage from their hosts, they needed some sort of catalyst. The production of hormones could trigger violent behavior, but such complex interactions with the endocrine system would likely be short-lived and fade altogether when the hormones diffused into the bloodstream.

  He remembered how the metamorphosed archaea had resembled the axons and dendrites that innervated the human body, from the dense matter in the brain to the narrowest peripheral nerve tracts in the digits. What if the organisms’ transformation wasn’t simply structural, but functional as well? Was it possible that the network they formed—which he’d already demonstrated conducted an electrical charge—could actually be used as an interface to send neural impulses directly into the host’s brain?

  Spores of the Orphiocordyceps unilateralis fungus infected ants and released chemicals that hijacked their cognitive functions and caused them to climb to a suitable location for the dispersal of the fungus’ spores before dying. The horsehair worm developed inside the gut of a cricket until it was ready to emerge, then caused the cricket to drown itself so it could slither out into the water. Was it so hard to believe that this species could do the same when all of the available evidence supported that theory?

  If the pyramid had been designed to accelerate the next phase in evolution, then there needed to be some sort of intermediary, something capable of altering the DNA at a cellular level and suppressing the pain response as the body was subjected to rapid and surely agonizing physical alterations.

  He remembered the wound on the back of Speedy’s neck and the tendril-like appendages knitted into the mouse’s bloody flesh. From there, the archaea could have gained access directly to the central nervous system itself via the spinal cord.

  And then it hit him.

  Neither Scott nor Rayburn had been inside the chamber with Rubley at the heart of the pyramid, which implied that neither of them had been exposed directly to the organisms, the sound, or the electrical charge, which could mean only one thing.

  Somehow they’d been infected while transporting Rubley’s body from the pyramid to the surface, and if Roche was right about seeing their lifeless bodies in the elevator, then they were potentially dealing with a species that not only had the ability to animate the dead, but one whose numbers could be multiplying at that very moment.

  49

  JADE

  Jade shivered and rubbed her arms. It was as though the walls were made of paper. She’d lost feeling in her toes and the tip of her nose, which seemed to run with a will of its own. She could positively feel her lips chapping. The lack of sleep was finally catching up with her. Her eyelids grew heavier with each passing second. She would have physically held them open if she could have made her hands stop shaking long enough.

  It suddenly hit her that she was on the verge of hypothermia. She had never examined it in person, but she’d read more than her fair share of case studies. She’d often wondered why the dying didn’t recognize their impending demise and attempt to do something about it. Now she knew just how easy it was to simply allow her body to shut itself down, like someone walking through a house and switching off the lights, one room at a time.

  She forced herself to stand and stomped her feet. It felt like there were spikes embedded in her soles.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said through chattering teeth.

  “We’re safer in here than anywhere else,” Roche said. He coughed into his bright red hands. “It’s been an hour and nothing’s so much as attempted to get in here.”

  “How many degrees has the temperature dropped in that hour? Just imagine how cold it will be an hour from now.”

  “Better cold than dead,” Evans said.

  “If we wait much longer, that decision will be out of our hands.”

  She descended the stairs to where Kelly leaned against the railing, her hood drawn over her head and her chin tucked to her chest.

  “Get up and move around, honey. You can’t let yourself fall asleep.”

  “Just for a little while.”

  “Don’t you all get it?” Jade said. “The human body is designed to minimize the pain of dying. The symptoms of hypothermia progress from shivering and fatigue to drowsiness, loss of coordination, and lack of concern for your own health. From there, it’s only a matter of time before you stop shivering, your pulse slows, and you begin to lose consciousness. If we stay here any longer, this is where we’ll die.”

  “You’re being melodramatic,” Evans said.

  “Is anyone else here a doctor?” Jade asked.

  Nearly all of them mumbled some version of yes.

  “Medical doctors, you idiots.” She stamped her feet and tried to wiggle her toes. “That’s what I thought. So you need to listen to me when I—”

  Thump.

  Jade stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling. The noise almost sounded like it originated somewhere above her head, although with the acoustics of the stairwell she couldn’t be sure. When she looked back down, Anya was staring at her with a panicked expression that confirmed her suspicion. It was the same sound they’d heard in the duct above the clean room.

  The others rose one by one and moved closer to each other at the top of the stairs.

  Roche shined his flashlight along the silver ductwork, from one side of the room to the other. They’d decided to save the second flashlight in case the first one’s battery died, but she figured under the circumstances no one would object to a little more light. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket and directed it at the barricaded vent.

  Thump.

  The aluminum dimpled directly above her, a mere five feet from the lone outlet.

  “It’s up there,” Kelly whispered.

  “It’s probably just the metal contracting as it gets colder,” Richards said.

  “No,” Anya said. “We heard the same thing before. In my lab. Above the clean room, where we found Mariah’s body.”

  Thump.

  The metal bowed outward in such a way that Jade was certain she could make out the impression of two knees.

  “We can’t stay in here,” she said.

  “I’m beginning to think you might be right,” Evans said.

  Thump.

  “We need a plan,” Roche whispered. “We can’t just run blindly into the station.”

  “There are blankets in the residential wings,” Kelly said. “We could barricade ourselves in one of the rooms—”

  “The cavern,” Richards said. “It’s deep enough inside the mountain that it doesn’t freeze. That’s the whole reason we used it for the labs in the first place.”

  “That’s where all of the ducts converge,” Jade said. “Where we first encoun
tered it.”

  “But it’s not there now, is it?” Evans said

  Thump.

  Jade conceded his point with a worried glance at the ceiling.

  “There’s an entire network of natural formations back there that we haven’t even begun to explore,” Richards said.

  “Do you really think now’s the time to do so?”

  “The ducts don’t run back there.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Evans said.

  A scraping sound overhead, followed by a clatter.

  “There’s no time for debate,” Roche said. “Surely we can reach the cavern faster than it can, especially if it stays inside—”

  More scraping. They’d covered the vent with the AREA 51 sign from above the door and used the same nails to punch through the aluminum. One of the corners bent downward, far enough to reveal a sliver of darkness.

  Jade’s legs were so stiff she wasn’t sure she’d be able to run.

  Roche leaned into the door leading back into the station and braced his feet. Evans blew out a long breath and did the same. Jade squeezed past them and curled her fingers into the slot where the door fit into the wall.

  A popping sound, followed a moment later by the ping of a nail striking the bare floor.

  Roche shoved first and the others followed suit. The door skidded into the recessed wall with a deafening screech. The moment the gap was wide enough, Jade slipped through, leaned her back against the door, and pushed it open.

  “Go!” Roche said.

  Jade shined her light into the dark station and sprinted toward the spiral staircase. Her footsteps echoed from the computer room and the library. She didn’t risk a glance in either direction. Her sole focus was on getting through the maze of passageways by any means necessary. Surely by now any element of surprise they might have had was lost, and the creature was frantically crawling overhead in an effort to keep up. If it hadn’t dropped down from the ceiling and was already nipping at their heels.

  She stumbled down the stairs, slammed into the bend, and managed to get her feet under her before she tumbled down into the cafeteria. She blew past the kitchen and ran toward the scientific wing.

  Shadows passed to either side, seemingly animated by the darkness itself. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her primal instincts eliminated all extraneous functions not related to her immediate survival.

  The flashlight beam knifed through the dark corridors far faster than her mind could make sense of the input from her eyes. She heard the footsteps of the others behind her, but was too scared to look back to make sure theirs were the only ones. Roche’s light cast her wild shadow across the floor and up the wall ahead of her. She hit the staircase and descended into the lower level of the residential wing. Raced past closed doors as her beam constricted against the wall at the end of the corridor and the blind turn leading to the stairs to the sublevel. She shouldered the wall, shined her light down the stairs, and was halfway to the bottom when she heard a sound that stopped her dead in her tracks.

  Thump.

  She swept her light from one side of the corridor to the other. All of the doors stood wide open, but she couldn’t see into any of them from this angle.

  The others thundered around the bend and nearly collided with her.

  “Shh!” she whispered.

  She eased down the last few stairs and stepped silently to the ground.

  There was no sign of movement. No sound whatsoever.

  Jade was certain she’d heard it, though. Distant, which made it hard to pinpoint its precise origin, but far closer than she would have liked.

  She shined her light into Mariah’s lab as she passed the doorway. Everything appeared just as it had earlier.

  Thump-thump.

  She whirled and swung her light deeper into the corridor, toward the source of the sound. There was no doubt in her mind that it had come from the end of the hallway, somewhere above where the modular clean room sat at the crossroads of ducts.

  They were out of time.

  Jade ran straight toward it, through the open door, and toward the gap between the modular structure and the cavern wall. Their lead had evaporated, and they had no idea where they were going or even if there was anyplace ahead of them in the darkness to hide.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  She shined her light across smooth granite walls adorned with petroglyphs as she ran, searching for any branch that might lead deeper into the mountain, and prayed Richards was right about there being an entire network of natural formations in which to hide.

  50

  EVANS

  Thump-thump-thump.

  The creature was coming in fast. Evans could practically see it scurrying through the pitch-black duct as it raced to intercept them. If it made it out of the vent before they found a suitable place to barricade themselves, they were in big trouble. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.

  Kelly and Anya rounded the side of the clean room ahead of him and vanished into the darkness.

  Evans broke away from the others and ran straight into the clean room. If he could somehow block off the duct, maybe he could prevent it from getting in. Worst-case scenario, at least he’d be able to buy the others a little more time.

  “What are you doing?” Roche shouted.

  “Keep going!”

  “We don’t have time for this!”

  “Just go already!”

  Roche’s light cast Evans’s shadow across the dried blood on the floor and up the cabinets at the back of the room, where the inhuman skulls stared down at him from behind the glass. He hurried between the rows of workstations to either side, watching the ductwork branching from the hoods as it converged—

  There. A ragged hole fringed with razor-sharp metal slivers. He needed to fix that spot in his memory before Roche ran away with his light and stranded him in darkness. If he could drag one of the units underneath the hole and somehow wedge the stainless-steel examination table on top of it, he could block off—

  Thump-thump-thump.

  The sound echoed from the orifice above him. It grew louder and more insistent, until it was all he could hear.

  He grabbed the fume hood by the sides and jerked it away from the wall, but it didn’t budge. He bellowed in frustration, spun around, and tried the same thing with the closest Class II unit. It didn’t even wiggle.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  The cabinets!

  He rushed to the back of the room and tried to get a grip, but the cabinets were fitted so tightly together that he couldn’t slide his fingers between them.

  “Will these things still work without electricity?” Roche asked.

  Evans turned to see Roche holding what looked like a slender candlestick connected to a rubber tube. It took him a second to realize it was a Bunsen burner. Roche cranked the knob on the side of the workstation and produced a hissing sound. The smell of butane filled the room.

  Thumpthumpthump.

  “You’re out of your mind,” Evans said.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  Evans thought he just might. He turned back to the cabinets, threw open the glass doors, and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. Several rechargeable stainless-steel drills stood beside a charger filled with batteries. They reminded him of his cordless drill back home, only sleek and streamlined, like pistols with long grips. Each had a different attachment. He’d worked with them in grad school. They were bone saws. He recognized the different bits. A Stryker saw. Cranial burs. Oscillating saws and various rasps. And the one he wanted: the bone drill.

  He slapped a battery into the handle like a clip into a semiautomatic. Pulled the trigger. The drill bit spun with a high-pitched whir.

  Thoomthoomthoom.

  The noise grew louder and more distinct. The creature couldn’t have been more than ten feet away and closing fast.

  Click.

  Click-click.

  A bluish light washed over Evans from behind
.

  Roche cast aside the safety lighter and dialed up the burner until it issued a flagging golden flame.

  “I’ll draw it to me,” Roche said. “The rest is up to you.”

  “I’ve got this.”

  “We’re only going to get one shot.”

  “I said I’ve got this.”

  Thoomthoomthoom.

  Evans had expected it to pause long enough to survey the room below it, but it didn’t even slow down. It dove headfirst through the hole and crumpled to the floor. It was on its feet a split second later.

  Evans pressed himself back against the cabinet. It lowered itself to a crouch in front of him, so close Evans could have reached out and touched its misshapen skull, over which the scalp appeared to be miraculously healing. If it so much as sensed him behind it, he was in deep trouble.

  “Over here!” Roche shouted and waved the flame in front of him.

  The creature hissed and struck at the fire.

  Roche retreated several steps and allowed the creature to advance.

  “That’s right. Come and get me.”

  Evans needed to seize his opportunity the moment it presented itself. He watched the creature’s neck. The skin was raw and ragged where the organisms had entered along the spine. The wound was held together by material that almost looked like a wasp’s nest. The spinous processes of the vertebrae bulged from beneath the pale gray flesh, almost as though in an effort to break through.

  It arched its back and released a guttural clicking sound.

  Roche feinted with the flame.

  It swiped at him and nearly knocked the burner from his grasp.

  “We don’t have all day!” Roche shouted.

  Evans steadied his hands as best he could. Summoned every last ounce of courage he possessed.

  Roche swung the flame at it again, only this time the creature was faster. It swatted the burner out of his hand. It hit the ground and immediately went out, leaving Roche to lunge for his flashlight on the countertop beside him.