by Justin Bell
Mora saw his face and her own eyes parted to mirror his.
"What did you see?" she asked, her arms going rigid. Her entire body locking into a firm flesh and bone statue. "Hudson what the fuck did you see?"
"Don't move," he whispered. "Just stay still."
Goose flesh sprinted down Mora Krieger's arms, prickling her flesh under the fabric of her commando sweater. Her heart lurched as if it would start racing, but then seized and halted, frozen in her chest.
"Just stay still," Hudson repeated.
Mora felt the impact, a rushing slam at her right shoulder, shoving her helplessly aside as the mammoth, dark form surged forward in a blinding rush of fur and howl. Hudson had just started to scream when the shape enveloped him and knocked him to the floor.
What came next was something she was not prepared for.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the several years she'd worked with Blaine Hudson, she'd never seen even the slightest hint of fear or intimidation in his eyes. For all of his brusque nature and his faux outrage, he was one of the most stoic, bravest men she'd fought alongside, and even when things seemed lost, his eyes never betrayed his sense of confidence.
None of that seemed to matter now. As Mora Krieger watched, his eyes grew wide, revealing milk white pools. The cloth balaclava pulled tight around the clenched and taught muscles of his face. Even now she didn't see fear in his eyes. She saw unfiltered, unbridled, abject terror.
She was so focused on his face that she barely heard the low, rough scrape of claws on the carpet just behind her. The bizarre, foreign sound was so out of place within the confines of the dimly lit fitness center that it registered a moment too late, and before she could turn and identify the source of the noise, the shape barreled into her right shoulder, knocking her aside before appearing to swallow Blaine Hudson whole.
Krieger stumbled wildly, barely regaining her balance as she turned towards the hunched mound that had Hudson pinned to the ground. Before her widening eyes, the formless shape reared back, revealing a long, jutting snout and picket fence rows of jagged teeth, then plunged forward with a muffled howl. The fierce scream was muffled by the dry snap of bones and the wet rip of fangs through flesh.
Her hand tightened around the handle of her weapon, but shock and fear pushed aside the inborn fight-or-flight response. As if mesmerized, Krieger focused on Hudson's stricken face with his wide eyes now vacant and staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing.
Suddenly, the response kicked in. She ran. There was nothing more she could do for Hudson.
Dashing towards the double doors leading back to the locker room, she punched through the twin panels with her shoulder and she stumbled into the tiled room where lights still flashed and buzzed above her.
She heard one last growl and one last snap of jaws, and she knew whatever this was finished with its meal, and was coming after her.
She narrowed her gaze towards her left, looking down past the row of stalls, but when she heard claws on carpet behind her, she could almost sense the coiled muscle of the beast preparing to chase her down. She pushed forward to reach out and sling open one of the lockers, then pressed herself inside and quietly closed the door in front of her. Drenched in darkness, and soaked with sweat, Krieger stood lock tight with shoulders pinned within the metal coffin.
Don't think of it as a coffin.
For a brief moment she thought she heard a low squeal of hinges, but then nothing followed. Within the locker, the noise of her ragged breathing blocked out any noise from outside. She struggled to listen for claws clacking against tile floor, a low, guttural growl, or any other signs that some strange beast was approaching.
What the hell was that thing?
It was too big to be a dog, too fast to be a bear, too ... fuck, too unnatural to be any fucking thing.
She pinned her back against the rear wall of the locker, wedging her shoulders in place. Her HK416 crossed over her legs, only just fitting within the confines of the locker, especially with the added suppressor. Nearly every inch of the narrow metal box was filled with her frame, and sweat crept across her forehead and down her neck. Soon it would be everywhere.
There was silence outside. She heard nothing. She felt nothing. Through the narrow cracks that served as ventilation for the locker, the lights continued to flicker, darkness then light, dimming then brightening. Suddenly, there was a muffled pop, then blackness. It was a black that seemed more complete and permanent than pauses between flickers, causing a feeling that perhaps the generator had given up the ghost.
Mora still heard no claws on tile and no heavy breathing or ragged growling, just complete and utter silence.
Mora Krieger closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, moving gently and quietly. She leaned forward, pressing the side of her face to the vent slots in the locker, trying to position her ear to listen. Her balaclava covered face pressed tight to the metal, she could feel the cool, smooth surface through the thin cloth material. She lowered her head again, pressing her cheek tight to the door, feeling the ridges of the vents.
All was quiet.
Cool metal against her cheek ...
A sudden hot jet of dank breath shot through the vents and splashed over her face, scalding her through the thin cloth of the face mask.
"Ugh!" she grunted and pulled back from the thick stench of putrid rot that instantly brought tears to her eyes. She flattened tight against the rear of the locker and her eyes widened as she stared out through the narrow ventilation slits. Twin green eyes narrowed back at her, surrounded by dark flesh and thin scrabbles of hair.
The locker banged, the door jerked, and her hand tightened on the grip of her rifle. With one loud, wrenching crack, the door was pulled away from its hinges, and thrown across the room, revealing the creature.
Even as she looked at it, her mind couldn't rationalize what she was seeing. The thin green eyes punched into muscular black flesh above an elongated snout. A round, black nose perched at the end of the snout with nostrils flaring. Just underneath and around the creatures extended face were rows of ill-fitting, jagged fangs thrusting in various different directions. Some of them were still caked with red.
Hudson's blood.
It was taller than a man, seven feet at least, with sloped, wide shoulders draped in tufts of dark, brown fur. Fur covered its shoulders, arms, ribs, and legs, but a wide strip of leathery skin ran the length of its torso, from bushy neck to narrow hips. Another swift blast of hot air blasted from its nose as its eyes widened, then narrowed again, and its muscles tensed.
Krieger snapped into action. Even as her mind tried to translate what she was seeing in front of her, instinct took over, her arm lifted, and her finger squeezed the trigger of the HK416. She barely latched her left hand around the barrel to steady the weapon, so it thrashed in her hand. The suppressor barely muffled the rapid thumps of gunfire.
The creature didn't hesitate either. It charged right, sliding just past the onslaught of 7.62mm rounds, which screamed through the air and struck tile, knocking chunks of floor up into the air and pounding cratered divots into the far wall. Like the florescent lights had moments before, the gunfire illuminated the darkened locker room with a staccato flashing.
Krieger lunged right, pulling a magazine from a pouch in her vest. As she slapped it home, she charged forward, her boots whacked smooth linoleum, and she ran faster than she'd ever run before.
#
The mechanical room was bathed in a pale orange light. As the generator struggled to keep the overhead lights illuminated, a significant chunk of its power was going to the equipment in the mechanical room, including the heating and ventilation systems which rattled and clunked as they attempted to continue operating in spite of the limited power available.
Several pieces of arcane equipment within the crowded room were illuminated by faded green lights to prove their operation. Strickland and Lundquist relied primarily on their night vision goggles, peering through the haze of artificial ligh
t as they entered the room and navigated through the large, blocky equipment within.
Through the translucent gray sheen of night vision, Strickland approached the interior of the mechanical room with his 416 lifted and directed towards the far wall. Assorted equipment, stacked fuel tanks, and a dual-tank boiler system blocked his view. Just beyond the boiler was a rectangular series of futuristic looking air intake systems, designed to draw in outside air, filter it, sanitize it, and distribute it throughout the facility. It was cool and dry inside the room, a calm emanating from the low humming of machinery. Lights flashed along the equipment though the florescent bulbs along the ceiling remained dark and silent. Just to Strickland's right, Kai Lundquist emerged from the door, the SCAR up in his shoulder, his free hand wrapped around the contoured grip underneath the barrel.
Within the confines of their goggles, nothing moved. All was silent. The only things in the room appeared to be the scattered geometrical shapes of air, water, and heat exchangers.
Strickland halted as he approached the first of the fuel tanks on his left. Even through the dull haze of his ATN PVS-7 night vision system he could see a break in the metal surface of the first tank, a strange series of lines interrupting the smooth, brushed metal of the cylindrical container.
He let his weapon drop, barrel pointed at the floor as he looked over towards Lundquist and signaled him to keep moving forward. Pressing his fingers to the metal he felt along the surface until the tips touched a series of carved trenches. The metal itself had torn, shearing away layers of material and leaving ditches half an inch deep within the hard surface. Flayed edges of hard material had peeled away and were lacing the edges of each carved trench, four of them in all. The fourth one was a good deal more shallow than the other three, with the two in the middle the deepest of all.
Strickland looked at his own fingers, then back at the strange marks, his mind making some frightening calculations. His eyes darted nervously towards Lundquist, who had approached the halfway point of the long, rectangular room, and was looking down towards the floor as he approached the gap between the boilers and the air intake system.
"Boss?" he whispered. "You're going to want to come check this out."
"Shit," Strickland whispered. He clenched his fist and peeled himself away from the marks on the tank, lifting the weapon and moving forward.
Lundquist was up ahead framed between the rows of boilers and air intake, kneeling down and looking at a huddled mass on the floor. A familiar mass that he didn't even need to guess to identify.
"How many?" he asked as he approached.
"Least two," Lundquist replied.
Strickland came up on his left and looked down at the floor. Two bodies were intertwined there, one on top of the other with lab coats splayed out from their supine bodies. Even in the dull light of their goggles they could see distorted torn and frayed flesh on the chest of the top body, and the severed left arm of the body underneath was quite evident.
Strickland eased the night vision apparatus from his eyes and locked it to the top of his head, then activated the tactical light underneath his weapon. Tracing the floor and wall he saw erratic splashes of dark crimson stained on the paved floor and sprayed in hectic wild abandon across the air intake system. More rows of clawed slashes raked the corner of the intake appliance, and as he moved the light left, it fell upon a lump of discarded refuse, which he identified as the missing arm of one of the bodies in front of them.
"The fuck is doing this?" Lundquist asked, falling into unexpected profanity. Lundquist had always been the strong, silent type, a rule follower and straight laced professional. Even around Hudson and Cruz, he managed to keep his composure.
Until now. Whatever he was seeing, however this vision was rolling around in his head, he had not found an appropriate professional response to it. All he could think was ' the fuck is doing this' ?
"Your guess is as good as mine, Lundquist," Strickland replied. He followed the path of his light as it traversed the room, wrapping around the metal containers and reflecting from rough metal. At the end of the long, narrow room, he saw another heaped pile, a larger one, bunched up in the corner as if they had been penned in, with nowhere else to go.
"Dammit," Strickland whispered, not knowing what else to say.
"More?"
He was already walking down the length of the room with his weapon raised and easing left and right, covering the empty space ahead. There was no motion evident, no noise beyond the gentle hum of machinery, but he was taking no chances.
"Looks like three more," he replied as he drew close and got a clearer view of the pile in the corner. As he walked towards them, his foot kicked something and sent it rolling. He held up with muscles tensing. Twisting, he shone the light down towards the opposite corner just in time to see a severed head rolling through the path of his flashlight. The glint of two wide, vacant eyes looked back at him.
"Mother fucker!" he shouted in a hushed whisper, moving the light away.
"That bad, huh?"
"Yeah. That bad."
Strickland dropped to a knee, letting his weapon hang from the strap on his shoulder. With a gloved hand he pinched the edge of the lab coat on one of the bodies and peeled it away. It was slick and heavy with congealed blood, and once he freed it from the suction of the open wound, he could see that the victim had been torn apart just underneath his left rib cage. The top two ribs lay exposed underneath shredded fabric and torn flesh, and strands of thick muscle clung to ragged bone. He replaced the coat and searched the chest pockets, looking for some kind of identification, but found nothing.
GenTech. This place was owned by GenTech. At least that's what Davies had told him, but so far he had found no evidence of this. There were no signs on the walls, no branding on the computers, and no corporate tags on the lab coats. This place was in the phantom zone.
Strickland pulled himself upright, wrapping his hand around the handle of his weapon again, then turned back towards Lundquist.
The sound was faint, muffled, and as close to silent as if a hundred miles away, but it was distinctive.
"Was that gunfire?" Lundquist asked, but even before he could say the words, Strickland had broken into a run and charged back towards him.
"Out to the office! Now!" he barked as he ran. Lundquist dashed behind him, wondering who was firing and at what.
#
Just your normal run-of-the-mill cube farm. Well, besides the dead bodies.
Rogelio Cruz walked slowly and carefully through the rows of desks, his weapon held high and tight, barrel pointing out over the cube walls as he crept forward by touch. He let his left hip brush the desk, guiding his path as he kept his eyes up and directed through the night vision goggles, analyzing the office space in various shades of dull green and gray.
As he passed a desk in the middle row of the cube farm, he saw a darkened smear in the night vision and slipped the goggles up to the top of his head, shining a flashlight down on the desk. A light red hand print smeared red streaks along the wood grain like an over-ambitious child getting into the finger paints.
"Damn," Cruz muttered. "This is some fucked up shit."
Not wanting to stare too hard, he turned away from the smeared red desk and veered through two more rows of desks, weapon lifted at the ready. He tipped his goggles back down over his eyes, framing the darkness in scant brightness. The office was a large, square, space with the cubes in even rows throughout the first half. Near the back half things opened up into what seemed to be a pair of meeting areas with conference tables and chairs and a waist high counter all along the back wall.
Perched in the center of the rear wall was a thick, rectangular door emblazoned with a sign that warned of Restricted Access - Authorized Personnel Only.
Cruz stepped forward. "I think this is all the authorization I need," he said, gesturing with his weapon.
Freeing himself from the rows of cubicles, he crossed the empty floor towards the conference tabl
es, noting scattered paper along the floor near one of the tables. He leaned down to inspect the fallen documents, tried to flip through them, and found the papers stuck together with a thick, gluey liquid.
They appeared to be some kind of research documents. He let his weapon hang from his shoulder and lowered into a deep crouch to peel away the paper. As he did, the red, smeared stain of blood showed him precisely why the papers were stuck together. Most of the thick document was coated in dried crimson.
Cruz slung the document back down on the carpet, letting it land with a dull thump, the papers staying together as it landed. Scooping up his weapon once again he continued around the conference table, dragging his gloved fingers over its slick surface, then he halted, spotting a crumpled heap on the floor on the other side. A quick check confirmed that the huddled mass was unmoving, yet another ravaged victim of this thus-far unseen killer that seemed to have an affinity for dull edged weapons.
At least he hoped the injuries were caused by dull edged weapons.
Moving away from the corpse and maneuvering around the darkened stain on the carpet he approached the counter along the back wall, just to the left of the sealed door. Three large metal basins set into the carpet with extended goose neck faucets. As he looked along the counter he spotted several test tubes, a pair of beakers, and a microscope which had been toppled and broken apart in whatever struggle killed the man on the floor. One beaker in the middle sink, was smashed and scattered along the curved, silver bottom. Cruz turned towards the sealed door with its brushed metal surface and bolted sign preventing unauthorized users staring back at him in mock stoicism. Pinned to the wall like some faceless sentry, the door stood tall and wide and unyielding. As Cruz approached, he narrowed his eyes, looking at a trio of jagged marks along the front of the door. With a sweep of his hands he tipped his goggles up to the top of his head once again and shone the tactical light on the surface of the door as above him, florescent lights in the ceiling throbbed and hummed. His fingers traced the marks, three deep gouges that had actually torn into and peeled away some of the metal surface of the door, and now that his goggles were off, he could see scattered sprays of dried red in wide arcs across the door's surface.