Crimson Judgment

by Robert Lyons

  The dogs’ display of behavior was so inexplicable that Phillip began analyzing every available clue. There was the option of an open route from the broken window to get inside. Yet, the canines reverted back to a passageway with far more resistance to end up at the same destination. When Phillip peeled his eyes away from the door that was dancing on its hinges, he gazed at the vacant, shattered window.

  The glass shards that were still wedged in place on the bottom of the windowsill were coated with the sticky blood from when the first dog tried to claw its way in. That was, right before Jake eliminated the threat with a deafening shotgun blast. Was it possible that the other dogs noticed the danger the glass shards imposed and decided to circumnavigate to another route?

  No … that’s impossible! Could a dog actually—?!

  One of the hellhounds suddenly poked its massive head in, turning its neck around curiously to catch a glimpse of what was inside of the building. It then dipped its mangy head and smelled the blood that coated the shards of glass.

  As soon as Phillip caught sight of the canine, man and beast locked eyes. Phillip opened his mouth to warn Jake, but he found that his voice had disappeared.

  Despite Phillip’s refusal to believe that there was something more to these dogs, the truth of the matter was that that monstrous hound was performing reconnaissance on the occupants of the pub.

  The massive canine then opened its mouth as wide as it could stretch. Phillip braced for a yowl that would surely make him tremble, but his expectations were not met. The strange lines in the fur suddenly lit up. Bioluminescent dots lined down the back, much like the deep-sea anglerfish. Bony spikes began to sprout from the back, giving the dog an extraterrestrial appearance.

  The mutated canine unleashed a human scream. To be exact, it mimicked the same scream that Kelly let loose when she was previously attacked.

  “Oh my GOD!” Phillip hollered, jumping back and landing on his backside.

  KA-BOOM!

  Jake turned toward the source of the screech, firing both barrels. The buckshot tore through the head of the dog, ripping flesh and bone apart into a gory mess. The dead body now came crashing down on the glass, impaled on the shards of glass still stuck on the bottom of the windowsill.

  Staying in the pub any longer was certain death.

  “The ladder in the back! That’s our only option!” Phillip yelled, grabbing a hold of Kelly’s delicate wrist. “You’ll run out of ammo before you can kill them all! When the door breaks down, it’s over! We can argue until they get through or we can leave this place and have a drink later! How’s that sound?”

  Jake looked at his friend with uncertainty. Their options were limited to holding out and cutting down the voracious dogs with the high risk of depleting their small stock of ammunition, or they all could ascend the ladder to get up to the roof and get stuck up there for a length of time before Badger 14 showed up. The second part was successfully slipping into the vehicle without getting mauled to death.

  After a moment of hesitation, Jake’s smile started to form.

  “It’s open bar! On your tab!”

  “Shot for shot ‘til we all drop!”

  The three humans hastily retreated to the back of the pub, ascending the ladder and reaching the roof by the time the front door was broken down. The pack of dogs gained entry to the now-empty bar.

  Once they relocated on the roof, Jake slammed the access door shut after kicking the ladder over.

  “Cutting it a bit close, Jake!” Phillip threw his head back, trying to catch his breath. “They got through the front door way faster that I thought!”

  “Phillip, look!” Kelly exclaimed, pointing her gloved finger down the street.

  The small group of humans found their saving grace rolling up in the form of a second transport vehicle, designation Badger 14. Two guards were carefully poking their guns out of the top hatch, shooting at the canines that followed the vehicle to this location. The rifles they were armed with had giant, spiral-type magazines slapped into the receivers, reducing the intervals of reloading the guns.

  After the transport drove directly under the edge of the roof, Phillip, Kelly, and Jake jumped on the top, slipping in through the hatch and squeezing in beside the other scientists who were fortunate enough to evade the sudden invasion of mutated dogs.

  The pack of over a dozen dogs that rallied to the pub from all the commotion were quickly dispatched by the two gunners, allowing a small recovery team to advance on Badger 13. However, after visual confirmation, the two guards and the driver assigned to Badger 13 were merely scraps of meat by the time Badger 14’s crew arrived.

  “You saved our asses!” Jake let out a shout. “Thank you so much, but we got to go! Critical decontamination on our hands!”

  The driver of Badger 14 nodded.

  Those dogs, Phillip recalled the transformation in the window. No, those weren’t dogs … what the hell were they?!

  The quarantine section was going to have a new admission. Phillip looked to his side where Kelly Smith was seated. He reached out, feeling the flesh of her arm through two layers of NanoXLabs bio-suits. He could faintly sense her warmth. The sudden contact got a hold of the woman’s attention.

  “Thank you, Phillip,” Kelly whispered.

  Now that there was no threat to be engrossed with, Phillip was able to notice an alteration within her irises. Between now and when he first saw her, there was a chromatic disparity.

  The color of her irises shifted from mahogany brown to a slight purple.

  6.

  The monstrous dogs that appeared from other avenues with blood-soaked jaws walked around the abandoned Badger 13. The canines were struck with a sense of emptiness now that the prey had escaped. The pack sniffed around the truck, carrying on their business as though the carnage had never occurred.

  A humanoid appeared to have materialized out of thin air. His bare feet slapped against the wet cobblestone street. The dogs snapped their heads in the direction of the approaching being, their mangled tails tucked between their legs. Some began to whine out of fear.

  “You all did well. I couldn’t be more proud.” The voice’s pseudo-praising tone was chilling as the words were spoken in the Chroma’s native tongue. “…But you didn’t get all of them. I’m disappointed.”

  The canines walked away from the deserted transport, slowly joining the human-shaped entity. The animals kept their heads low, avoiding eye contact.

  The humanoid raised his head.

  The red, right side eye brilliantly glowed in broad daylight. There was a twisted grin on his face that emphasized his excitement. “May this bring us closer to refining the gift given to us by our golden-eyed goddess, Agomi.”

  PHASE 06

  Claustrophobic Slaughter

  March 17th, 2037. Local Time; 19:00

  North American Continent, State of Montana.

  Inside of Intel Gathering Facility

  1.

  BOOM!

  When the door was more than halfway closed, the warped hinges were no longer grinding, allowing the door to effortlessly swing the rest of the way shut with a thunderous slam. Five seconds later, the numerous Bifol in pursuit crashed against the metal surface, scrapping away and trying to get in.

  Captain John Kubovics took a step back, still keeping his SCAR-FN pointed at the door as he stared down the sights with one eye. Knowing better than to trust the questionable state of the door’s lock, John was prepared in case the Bifol managed to break through. His breathing was out of control as sweat poured down his face. The Aeonian armor’s cooling system was working overtime to counter the rising body temperature.

  “Status!” John shouted.

  “Armor integrity, seventy percent. Damage detected: shoulder plates, chest plate, helmet. Lacerations detected: arms, lower abdomen, back. Medical attention required.”

  John and the remainder of the raid team were fully exposed for only twenty seconds. The group sustained heavy damage from multipl
e angles during their mad dash for the door.

  Pulling up his team’s health report, John saw that nobody was wearing armor that had an integrity rating higher than seventy-five percent. Considering the circumstances, he was dumbfounded at how the team managed to get this far, considering the growing influx of threats.

  “Is the medical officer alive?” John asked in a raspy voice.

  “She’s fine!” Steeljaws grunted softly, clutching his side with the hand that wasn’t propping up his rifle.

  “Captain! The level one locks won’t hold forever!” Zoe panted. “You two stand guard while I power up this room!”

  “Gunnar, let me see your wound,” Sandy said in a hushed tone.

  “Don’t worry about me.” Steeljaws removed his blood-smeared hand from his side, hoping that showing stability would somehow convince the medical officer that he was suddenly better. It was backbreaking to simply stand in place. He took a deep breath.

  “Sandy, help Zoe! I’ll be fine!”

  Sandy was about to protest, but swallowed her words and nodded. Despite the fact that the team was in need of medical attention, locating the escape route took precedence. Turning away from Steeljaws, she regrouped with Zoe without objection.

  The room the team retreated into measured around fifteen feet wide by thirty feet in length. The red blinking lights overhead located in each corner provided just enough ambient light to make navigating past toppled furniture and shattered equipment possible. The limited light also revealed more victims of the Chroma, their corpses strewn about the floor like discarded garbage.

  “If I go down, Gunnar, Zoe is next in the line of command,” the captain began. “The primary objective—get the medical officer out of here. After you kill all of the Chroma, grab the data drive. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Steeljaws nodded.

  In this line of work, HAWK fighters were riding the narrow edge of death every day. The only reason John’s current team stayed together up until this assignment was because of their extensive training and just a little bit of luck.

  The plate reading “Intel Gathering Room No. 2” was situated next to the door that formed one of two exits. Zoe turned her head away from her left, which was where the computer terminal was located. What was left of a guard’s body was smashed up against the wall. The entire facility was filled with the overpowering smell of decaying flesh, but this room’s air in particular was thoroughly saturated with the stomach-wrenching stench.

  “Oh God…” Sandy groaned when she caught sight of the bloody mess that was left in the corner. She raised her hand to her mouth, trying to fight back the urge to vomit again.

  “Stop staring if you can’t handle it!” Zoe’s voice was more irritated than usual. “Give me a hand over here!”

  Utilizing the flashlight fixed to the end of the Kriss Vektor to light her path, Zoe walked up to the door at the far end of the room. There was a narrow window situated next to the closed door. Zoe peered through the opening for a moment, visually confirming the next room wasn’t set up for an ambush. Once she verified that there was no other threat in the vicinity, she reached down and pushed a button on the console located right in front of her.

  “Go to the desk mirroring this one over there. Hit the same orange button I’m pressing over here,” Zoe instructed.

  Sandy stopped for a moment when her eyes rested on the mangled corpse again. An involuntary shudder ran through her spine. The medical officer began to mutter something under her breath, but she swallowed her words as soon as she spotted Zoe’s helmet facing in her direction. With the faceplate concealing Arsenault’s face, Sandy couldn’t see Zoe’s expression, but she didn’t have to.

  “Get it done or get eaten for all I care!” Zoe barked out, a vein on her forehead beginning to swell under the skin. “Got it?!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Sandy forced herself to take a step forward, only standing a pace away from the corpse. The face was unrecognizable in the current condition and the sparse light, but there were characteristics that gave a vague idea of the guard’s age.

  “Simmons?” Sandy tried to keep whatever was left in her stomach from spilling out. She found this to be challenging, since not even a day had passed since she was laughing and talking with this man. The only thing that was still identifiable was the reflective Velcro patch with his last name embroidered on it.

  The second button on the opposite console was pressed and the lights overhead began to flicker on. The generator that was dedicated exclusively for this room spun up and began providing power. The light-gray walls reflected the overhead lights, nearly blinding everyone in the room.

  “Engage the slug locks!” John yelled.

  The medical officer looked down at the panel in front of her. To her relief, every switch was labeled. She toggled the switch for the hydraulic pumps installed in the walls to activate. Quarter-sized, hardened steel rods slammed into the slots and secured the vault door in place.

  “That should hold them back.” John sighed, relieving himself of guard duty by dropping his rifle and letting his sling catch it.

  “What about the entry pad on the outside?” Steeljaws asked, still keeping his weapon trained on the door. “It won’t take long for that Chroma to pick up a swipe badge from any one of the dead bodies!”

  “No worries.” John chuckled for the first time since he entered the gory hellhole. “We can’t hide all of the keys, but we only have to worry about one lock.” Raising his hand from his side, John held a small box-like object in his gloved hand. “Good thing I had a split second to slap some of that C-9 ‘boom boom’ on the badge swipe on the way in here.”

  2.

  Just outside of the sealed room, the five Bifol that gathered in front of the door exhausted most of their stamina trying to pry the door open. The door’s level-one lock integrity was dwindling as the Bifol continued to tear away, but with the metal slugs jammed in place, it would take a significantly longer time to open.

  The purple-eyed Chroma stood a little distance away, dissatisfied with the assignment’s increasing difficulty. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted his Bifol, but he let himself get carried away by staying back to meet the one human who accomplished bringing down one of his Bifol.

  The creature grit his serrated teeth, letting out a fierce shout of anger in the monster’s native tongue. “Worthless! Every! Last! One!”

  The five Bifol looked at each other, stunned.

  The purple eye, upset with the performance of his troop, suddenly advanced. “Get out of the way! I’ll open that door!”

  Using the average human as a reference, a red-eyed Chroma could achieve up to three times the potential of a human’s output in terms of relative strength. Armed with increased speed, a vast amount of stamina, a far more ruggedized body, and aided with the ability to see clearly in the dark, it was no wonder why humans were losing their place on the top of the food chain. This predator was truly superior in every way. Taking the comparison a step further, a purple eye possessed three times the potential of a red-eye Chroma.

  Such an unbalanced advantage between purple eyes and humans was the reason that John knew better than to hold his ground. Retreating and regrouping was the team’s only chance of surviving an encounter with the current weapons they had at their disposal.

  “…And stop,” a voice, originating behind the purple eye, spoke up with amusement. “I find no fault with being eager to kill humans, but walking up to that door is dangerous. You should’ve relied on your own strength, instead of making your Bifol do the work for you.”

  “Shut your mouth, Cora!” the purple eye snarled, throwing a glare over his shoulder, which found its way to a faint purple glow that was about six feet away in the dark. “I cannot wait anymore! The goal is beyond that door!”

  “Finally gets a purple eye and now he thinks he can do whatever he wants? Have you not learned a single thing from the humans while you still had that red eye in your skull? Keep that reckless attitude up an
d you’ll end up dead,” the second voice chimed in from behind.

  “If you believe that you can do better, Lume, then by all means go ahead,” Focol growled.

  “Focol, it’s only a commentary.” Lume shrugged, expressing her neutrality to the situation. “Not trying to control what you do.”

  Cora snorted. “He’s excited, Lume. It’s Focol’s first time using Bifol in combat. Let him make a mess before he has to impress the golds.”

  “I’ll kill these humans and then you can keep running your mouth about making a mess.” Focol took a step forward, until Lume’s pale hand slammed down on his shoulder.

  The tension in the air grew thick.

  “Focol—wait! Get your Bifol away from that door!” Lume warned, picking up on the hidden indications of a trap.

  “What?” Focol’s body tensed.

  “Call them back! Now!” Lume shouted.

  Once everything settled down and there was nothing disturbing the air, Lume’s heightened senses dialed in and located the trap that she assumed was set up for their arrival.

  However, this group of Bifol was tasked to serve under Focol. They wouldn’t heed Lume’s warning, let alone take orders from anyone else but the one they considered to be their master. By the time Focol tried to issue the command to call his Bifol back to his side, the trap was sprung. A bright flash enveloped the front of the door.

  Liquid fire erupted from the card reader’s panel, engulfing anything standing within a six-foot radius. The screeches of the Bifol faded away, replaced with the popping and sizzling of burning flesh. What was left of the bodies continued to burn by the special, unquenchable flame.

  “They’re getting clever,” Cora hissed. “You barely caught on to that one, Lume. That would have been trouble—even for us.”

  Focol roared, charging at the door and trying to pry it open with his own hands. Lume and Cora both stood back, watching their companion go wild.

  “I won’t be mocked!”

  Lume sighed, a small smile dancing on her lips.