by Alan Baxter
“Wait!” Kharrn said. “I came here to help you.”
Kharrn knew the creatures this thing was based on were extremely intelligent and capable of human language. Some of them had once been human. But this one wasn’t listening, and if it was capable of speaking, it didn’t have anything good to say.
Kharrn unbuckled a strap that held a flat leather case across his back. He swung the case around and unzipped it with the speed and ease of much practice. He reached into the case and withdrew a huge double-bladed axe. He didn’t want to hurt the creature, but it looked like that decision had been taken from him. The thing had gutted one of the soldiers with ease. Kharrn didn’t plan on sharing that fate.
The fish-man lunged forward, swiping at Kharrn with its claws, trying no doubt, for the same disemboweling cut that had finished the fallen soldier. Kharrn evaded the cut and returned one of his own with the axe.
Despite the keenness of the blade, the axe didn’t penetrate the creature’s thick skin, through it left a deep gouge in the hide. That was something else the bio-engineers must have done. The creatures Kharrn had encountered before didn’t have that sort of skin.
Missing the cut had left Kharrn too close to the thing, and he paid for it when the fish-man’s claws tore through his fatigues and the flesh of his shoulder. Kharrn threw a kick which stopped the creature’s forward rush and made it stagger backward.
The fish-man roared in frustration and lunged forward again. Kharrn blocked with the haft of the axe and the creature grabbed onto the weapon with both clawed hands, attempting to wrest it from Kharrn’s grasp.
As close as they were now, Kharrn was looking directly into the thing’s eyes. He could see nothing of the intelligence that had built great cities in the deep, nothing of the skilled artisans who had crafted intricate gold filigree on bracelets and tiaras. Just an unreasoning, mindless fury only death could stop.
Kharrn let his own fury match that of his opponent, calling upon the sheer savagery born before the memory of man, which had carried him down the long years. He twisted the axe away from the fish-man and drew it back in one motion. Kharrn grunted with effort as he aimed a blow at the creature’s neck. The axe sank deep and brackish blood spurted and the fish-man stumbled back.
Kharrn pressed forward, cutting again and again at the creature until it finally collapsed from the sheer force of the blows. Kharrn stood, breathing hard, and glaring down at the fallen fish-man. He felt no surge of pleasure in his victory. Someone had made this being into something that couldn’t be reasoned with. That same someone had forced Kharrn to kill the creature. And that someone would pay.
* * *
Phone calls made the difference. Back in the time before technology allowed for phone calls, it was often a game of waiting and hoping that someone would get to him via postal service and later by telegram.
He smiled at the thought of Mister Slate, his companion back when telegraphs allowed the first glimpse of fast communication. The man had once asked him how it was that he could come into a town and have a telegraph waiting for him. Not giving his friend a straightforward answer had proven a very amusing diversion.
That was a long time ago, back when most firearms were single shot and the notion of a telephone was impossible for most people to even consider.
The cell phone in his pocket was all that was needed for most people to call on him in their time of need. Small wonder he was always busy these days.
This time around the call had come from Jacob Parsons, a dabbler in paranormal research who made good money off his bestselling novels and movies. He was nice enough, but Crowley had no doubt the man would get himself killed if he kept going. He'd come close enough times.
“Hi, Jonathan.” As was often the case, Jacob’s voice had a dreamy quality when he called.
“What's on your mind, Jacob?” Sometimes he had a pleasant conversation with the caller, mostly because it amused him. They seldom remembered the calls.
“Well, a few years ago I went on a trip to Golden Cove, Massachusetts. Have you heard of the place?” Crowley admitted that he had not. “It's a hell of a story, Jonathan. Hell of a story.” Parsons spent almost an hour filling him in on the details of Golden Cove. The most important first detail was the fact the town had once been known as Innsmouth.
After that the story came down to a man who understood the denizens of Innsmouth, and their progenitors, the Deep Ones, were chimeric in nature. They could quite literally mate with anything.
“What's your point, Jacob?” Crowley kept his voice pleasant enough, though he had already turned his car around and was once more heading for the Eastern Seaboard. The idea of going home and resting had been a pipe dream, same as it almost always was.
“My contact says they're doing genetic research on the Deep Ones, Jonathan. That has to be a bad idea. That has to be the worst idea I've heard in years. I don't handle that sort of thing. You know that. I'm strictly ghosts and demonic possession.”
Crowley bit back a few comments regarding what Parsons called work. “Are you asking me to look into this, Jacob?”
“Yeah. Yes I am.” The man sounded relieved.
“So go have a nice day. I'll look into it. Tell your wife I said hi.” He killed the call.
Parson's wife was another story. She actually had a modicum of talent. She was also deeply distracting in the best possible way, which was yet another reason Crowley avoided the two of them.
All of which came down to another busy day in the life of Jonathan Crowley.
Currently that day was getting very stormy, very fast and with a lot of help from outside sources. He could feel the magics in the air, summoning rain and fog and harsh winds. What better way to hide their presence as they came from below, from the ruins he thought long abandoned.
Crowley pulled off his shoes and prepared for dealing with the two men who had just walked past and never seen him. He hadn't wanted to be seen and once he was invited to a party, he tended to mostly get his way about things. Crowley had a great deal of power, so much so that he'd actually set limitations on himself to make abusing that power very difficult. First, he had to be invited to act before he could use any of his abilities beyond the sorcerous. Second, he virtually never carried weapons.
That the two men were highly trained was obvious. They moved with great care and made certain to check their environment. Both had night vision capability. Neither was using it. There was enough ambient light that it was more a hindrance than a help. Crowley took his time moving closer and finally reached down to grab his weapon of choice.
“Gentlemen.”
Just the one word, which had exactly the desired effect. Both of the men turned toward him, giving him enough of a view of their faces to allow the sand to blast into their eyes, blinding them for a moment and also causing extreme enough pain to distract.
While they were trying to recover Crowley kicked the one on his left – the one who was already recovering – in the side as hard as he could. The man grunted and sailed ten feet back. He had armor, and the blow would not kill, but it certainly incapacitated.
The other man got three fingers across his throat in a hard slap that had him gagging for a moment before Crowley slipped behind him and caught him in a proper choke hold. They were soldiers and they were doing their jobs. They were also trained killers and he was in their way. He wanted them down and out, but not dead.
The one he'd kicked was starting to get up. Crowley kicked him again, this time in the head and hard enough to rattle his brain in his skull. The man fell flat, very likely with a concussion.
Both of the men actually had zip-tie cuffs. He took away their helmets and used the ties to truss up the soldiers.
After that he was heading for the facility. There were likely more soldiers, possibly they would even see him first, but he had to hope. Besides, Kharrn was along for the show. Crowley usu
ally preferred to work alone, but there were exceptions to every rule. The giant of a man was good company, just as no nonsense about how to handle situations, and capable of fighting off half an army on his own. Also, he had history with the creatures they were dealing with and that helped.
Just enough moonlight to let him see the shape that came for him. That it wasn't a pure Deep One was immediately obvious. The thing had all the standard characteristics: bulging eyes, a flattened, almost non-existent nose, the thick-lipped mouth so reminiscent of a catfish, and a powerful body better equipped for life in the sea. Webbed hands and feet ended in thick, deadly claws, and it let out a nearly deafening croak-roar as it hop-lunged toward Crowley.
Large? Yes. Deadly? Absolutely. Coordinated? Not really. Whatever the hell they had done to the thing, it had no real training and seemed barely capable of walking.
But both of those deceptively long arms went up and came down with terrifying strength. Crowley managed to not be where they hit, which was the only thing that saved him from massive injuries.
He caught one of those arms and bent it back until the bones creaked and the elbow joint popped out of shape. The beast let loose with another sound that was unsettlingly human, and then thrashed its body hard enough to toss Crowley aside. He rolled with the blow and bounced off a rocky outcropping, feeling his flesh tear and his muscles pulp. Good enough to avoid broken bones, bit painful just the same.
His healing abilities kicked in instantly and the nearly fiery itch of his body recovering from severe trauma left Crowley scowling.
The thing charged for him a second time, dragging one ruined arm along at its side.
The mouth of it opened and revealed teeth that would have intimidated a shark. Crowley smiled and crouched, waiting. “Come on then, you little fuck.”
Crowley waited until it was close enough and then reached into his pants pocket for the package he'd set up earlier. The cloth tore easily enough and let his powdery concoction spill into his hand. At his whispered words the dust tore through the air, against the wind and ignited as it touched the sea-beast's flesh.
Did it scream as it burned? Yes, yes it did. And Crowley was pleased. If he was truthful, yes. He hated the Deep Ones and this bastardization could only make matters worse.
Above all things the Deep Ones valued secrecy. They had likely already heard of this facility. They were likely already watching.
Soon enough, unless Crowley and Kharrn managed to defuse the situation, the Deep Ones would come to handle the matter themselves. They would be far, far deadlier.
The idea he and his companion would do less damage when cleaning up the situation was amusing and frightening all at once.
Still, the notion made Crowley smile. Or maybe that was just the fact he'd be meting out bloodshed against those who richly deserved to bleed.
* * *
“And how the hell did they get out?” Salk was angry. He had every reason to be angry. This facility was his to control and at the moment that control was sadly lacking.
The building had no name. The location was considered classified. Currently the only people who were supposed to know about it were in the building and doing their best to control what could only be called a clusterfuck of epic scale.
The specimens were escaping. That should never have happened.
Five years of research with the Chimera cells offered up by MIT, five years of research that showed the cells were amazing and complex and could be introduced into other specimens with remarkable ease. Infusing the cells through a blood sample into twenty-five volunteers had led to twenty-five cases of mutation. Each and every single case resulted in a much stronger end result than anticipated. The specimens – all prisoners with a promise of early release they would have never gotten without the agreement – had grown from fifteen to eighty per cent in size. Each had shown the exact same sort of result initially, what Dr Sterling identified as a perfect example of an almost forgotten medical condition called the ‘Innsmouth Look’ – skin rashes, joint deformity, bulging eyes, hair loss... all of which, ironically, lead to increased stamina and strength and the development of gills.
Look deep enough and you can learn a few things. The closest actual town was Golden Cove, a commercial property with a growing tourism business and a steadily increasing population, some of whom also suffered from early stages of the Innsmouth Look.
The specimens they treated with the Chimera Cells, however, were changing faster. There had been talk of trying to increase the alterations. Adding predatory cats to the mix or even something with wings, but they had not progressed to that level, the only exception being a declawed Maine coon cat that had changed as dramatically as any of the human specimens. First it increased in size. Then it grew new claws – a lesson learned the hard way – and then it had started exhibiting the exact same traits before it was killed and the body incinerated.
All of which came down to the same thing: Salk was looking to blame somebody for everything that had gone wrong, and mostly he was looking at Marcos to take the fall for him.
“Look, Tom, I was on vacation. I just got back yesterday. I don't know what went wrong because I was not here.” Javier Marcos had no intention of being anyone's patsy. Ever.
Salk looked at him and shook his head. “This wasn't me, Javier. I had nothing to do with this.”
“Who the hell is in charge of security?”
“Lipmann, but he's dead. Killed when the first one broke out.”
“So point at him. In the meantime, are any of them left here?”
“Of course. Seven got out. The rest are in containment.”
“Oh. Only seven,” his voice dripped with sarcasm. “And have we contained any of them?”
“No. I had to report it, Javier.”
“What?” One sentence and his pulse jackhammered. “God, Tom. They'll crucify us and that's if we're lucky. Do you know how they deal with breaches like this?”
“No. I'm just a research guy.”
Tom was looking a bit pasty around the gills. Ha ha, get it? Around the gills? Javier cracked himself up, but he suppressed the laughter.
“With extreme prejudice, you asshole! We need to get the hell out of here and burn the rest of the specimens.”
“Burn them?” Salk's voice cracked. “Do you have any idea how hard I've worked to even begin understanding them? I haven't even finished mapping their DNA yet!”
“Good! All the better. Get your personal belongings and get out of here. I'm going to start erasing files. All of them.”
“We can't do that, Javier! There's so much I've already started to uncover. These things, they don't even get cancer. They're like sharks. We could find the key to nearly immortal life in the data we collect.”
“Not going to matter if we get our fool heads blown off! Get your things, Tom.”
Salk looked at him and pouted, but nodded. Javier liked the man well enough. Which was a pity. He was obviously going to have to kill him. Salk would never be able to keep his mouth shut about what he'd discovered.
The alarms started up as he was heading for the mainframe and computer room.
There was only one reason the klaxon scream of the alarm would start. More of the damned things were trying to escape.
* * *
Captain Kevin Younger was running scared. Something had come out of the mist and torn Sergeant Patton to pieces and had almost gotten Younger too. Younger had only escaped by shrugging out of his equipment vest as the creature had sunken its claws into the garment.
Younger had lost his rifle. He had his .45 sidearm gripped in one fist and his folding knife in the other. He stumbled through the fog, jumping at every sound and striking out with the knife at every moving shadow. He had lost all sense of direction. The wind had died down and the fog had become thicker, so that even the lights of the research facility were obscured. And h
e knew it had to be close by.
The sharp, discordant clanging of an alarm started somewhere off to Younger's right. That had to be the facility. If any of his men were still alive, that was where they would go. They would head toward the alarm just like he was.
Younger started in the direction of the alarm and within a few moments he could again make out the facility's lights. It wasn't that Younger was trying to complete the mission, that had been over when Patton's head had gone rolling across the sand. No, Younger had lost his flares with his vest and he needed to find some way of signaling the transport ship to pick him up. His superiors wouldn't like that he had scrubbed the clean-up operation, but that came under the heading of too fucking bad.
Now Younger could see the blocky, white shape of the facility. All the lights were on, which meant the place probably had its own generators. He became aware of the sound of the surf off to his left. The facility had been built on a rocky slope near the water, far above the tide line.
Younger sensed movement before he saw it. He turned to look at the ocean. The light from the facility allowed him to see there were several people standing in the shallows.
No. They weren't people. Not regular people. Their shapes were too hunched and somehow... wrong. Younger couldn't see their eyes but he could feel all of their gazes upon him. Even as he raised the .45 he felt something reaching into his mind. Fiery tendrils of alien thought.
Younger clamped his hands against his temples and fell to his knees in the sand, knife and gun forgotten. They were in his head. He couldn't keep them out. They were in his...
* * *
Master Sergeant Brent reached the facility and took cover behind what looked like a tool shed. He could see a door in the side of the main building. Not the primary entrance. But maybe a way in.
Brent had hoped some other members of the A-Team might have made it to the facility, but he couldn't see anyone. Brent had recovered his rifle and his .45 and he had managed not to look at what was left of Gentry long enough to scavenge the dead man's ammo and ruck sack. Brent figured he would need all the equipment he could get if he was going to get off this island alive.