by Justin Bell
Unauthorized personnel, indeed.
Cruz spun as a noise caught him by surprise. It was close, but not in the same room. One room over maybe? He couldn't tell where, but he had definitely heard gunfire, and it had come from the direction of the locker rooms where Krieger and Hudson had been.
"Shit!" Cruz shouted as he lifted his weapon, turned, and ran.
#
Almost simultaneously, Cruz, Strickland and Lundquist emerged near the front of the cubicle farm where they had first split up. All three of them had their goggles back over their eyes and weapons lifted, facing towards the locker room door where the muffled sound of gunfire had echoed only a few moments before.
"Did you hear that—?" Strickland started to ask, but before he could even frame the question, the door to the women's locker room slammed open, framing a frantic Mora Krieger within the open space. Her eyes pulled tight and wide, her goggles askew on the top of her head, and her weapon clutched tight to her chest. She halted, glaring at them, her head jerking from one to the other in wild thrusts.
"Don't ask. Just run."
Four simple words. Strickland opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, a blurred black shape leaped from the room behind Krieger, wrapped thick limbs around her and hauled her back in, the door slamming shut as she vanished back into the room, a scream strangled in her throat.
"Mora!" screamed Strickland, charging forward, pressing his weapon tight to his shoulder.
"Fuck fuck fuck!" shouted Cruz, coming up on Strickland's rear, his own gun directed towards the locker room.
Precious seconds rattled by as Strickland led the trio to the door, lifted his leg, and slammed his boot forward to crash into the thin door and knock it back into the room, springing apart the top hinge and sending small metal screws flying. The door banged back against the wall, echoing in the tight confines of the tiled room. He lurched inside, waist swiveling, weapon firm and level, looking for something to shoot.
He saw nothing. At least nothing at eye level.
Strickland took another step inside and smelled before he saw the rancid, pungent stink of blood and rotted food and impending death.
Not wanting to look down he closed his eyes and peeled his goggles off and turned on the tactical flashlight underneath his weapon.
Mora Krieger was lying on the tile floor with her hands clutched around her stomach, but he could already tell whatever she was trying to hold in had already come out. The floor was already slick with puddled water, and the water was cloudy with her blood, swirling into a drain, already staining the pale tile floor. Her eyes were wide and tears streamed from the corners as her mouth moved, trying to work out what to say.
Strickland didn't know what to say either. As lights flickered above, he lowered himself down to her and touched a gloved hand to her cheek as she gasped for breath and choked on blood, trying to come up with some dramatic last words.
She never did. Her mouth closed, then opened, releasing one final gasp of breath, then she was gone.
Cruz came up behind him, crossing past the showers, cordoned off with pale green curtains, and he glanced over Strickland's shoulder at the shredded form of Mora Krieger.
"God fucking dammit," he whispered.
"On your toes," Strickland replied. "Whoever did this is still in here somewhere. We'll have time to grieve later."
At least some of them would.
Cruz turned toward Lundquist as he walked in after him, his eyes darting to the shower.
"Kai, heads up," he said, gesturing towards the green curtains.
Lundquist started to turn, but before he could even get his weapon around, the locker room roared with a guttural scream of rage, violence, and hunger. One of the curtains exploded outward as a darkened form burst from the shower howling with an animal rage that none of them had ever heard before.
"Fuck me," Cruz grumbled just as the beast slammed into him headlong, smashing him back against the lockers. He struck the metal row, caving in two of the thin doors, his head banging loudly off the surface behind him. Sparks danced in his eyes and dark unconsciousness swarmed over him as a taste of copper rose on his throat.
Strickland whirled, lifting his weapon as Lundquist moved right, swiveling and lifting his own. Their eyes widened as the creature before them reared back its sloped head and drove it forward, opening its gaping maw. With swift ferocity it plunged forward, slamming teeth together on Cruz's neck, snapping vertebrae and tearing through muscle, the jagged fangs punching straight through, then slammed together.
With a feral grunt, the beast thrashed back again and Cruz's severed head arced high over the creature before landing with a dull, wet thud on the floor behind it.
Strickland's heart raced, dashing throughout his chest, looking for some other place to go. It took all of his focus to keep his muscles firm and still, his hands clamped on his weapon, his eyes affixed on this unnatural thing before him.
The creature was of wolf origin that much was clear. It stood well over six feet tall, vertical on two legs, covered from head to toe in slick, dark fur. Pointed ears extended out from a broad mane which ran in a thick carpet over its shoulders and back. Narrow, green tinged eyes glared out at him through a dark, muscular face. Its nose extended into a dog-like snout with steam puffing from flared nostrils. With a deep growl it split black lips, revealing red caked fangs and strands of drool extending from both sides of its mouth.
As Strickland watched, unable to move, the creature dropped down into a crouch, holding itself up with massive, clawed hands. Its large head lowered with unmoving eyes firmly set on Strickland's face. Its back arched and its leg muscles tensed as its claws clicked on the tile floor. A low, rattling growl echoed in the small room as the lights above flickered with an uncertainty that Strickland now shared.
CHAPTER FIVE
Everything happened at once.
The creature crouched before Strickland, tensed and ready, but Strickland was just as ready. Moving left, he swung his cradled HK416 up and squeezed off three swift shots. The 7.62mm rounds thumped through the silencer, searing the air, echoing with their sonic whine as the wolf surged right, slipping just around the gunfire.
But Lundquist, moving in concert with Strickland, stepped towards the creature with his SCAR up in firing position. The suppressed barrel leaped in his hands as he fired a volley. The creature wasn't fast enough to dodge those rounds.
With a howl, the beast lunged forward, twisting as two rounds punched into its left side and clouds of fur and flesh sprayed up into the flickering light. Strickland back pedaled away from the creature, twisting to bring his weapon back around, but the wolf thrashed out, knocking the 416 aside so the next series of shots pounded into tile, knocking apart ceramic and plaster.
Lundquist adjusted his aim, but the creature started left, then hurtled right, sprinting from the locker room on all fours at a swift gallop causing the next series of shots to miss it while shattering a mirror and blasting a chunk out of one of the porcelain sinks.
Smoke hung in the locker room, illuminated with each flash of florescent. Everything was silent. The fading echo of silenced gunfire, the clatter of falling porcelain and the steady breathing of Strickland and Lundquist were the only sounds.
"Jesus," Lundquist whispered, looking around him. Krieger's lifeless eyes still stared at the ceiling. Cruz lay crumpled on his left side with his head resting several feet away. Blood stained the floor and streaked the walls, even leaving an arching path across the ceiling.
In all his time in combat, he thought he'd seen it all. He figured there was nothing left on this planet that could take his breath away.
He'd been wrong.
And now Krieger and Cruz were gone, Hudson was nowhere to be found and this random operation, tacked on to the end of something unrelated, had torn his team apart.
Was GenTech responsible for that thing?
"We going to let that bitch get away with this?" Lundquist asked, taking two steps forw
ard and slamming home a fresh magazine into his SCAR close quarter.
"Hell no," Strickland replied, though he still felt as if he were in a thick fog. Falling in behind Lundquist, he took one last look back at Cruz and Krieger, shaking his head, but pushing them to the back of his mind. There would be time to remember them later.
They both pushed through the door towards the fitness area with weapons raised.
Hudson was laying there, about ten feet away, splayed out next to a weight rack. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, the carpet beneath stained dark with blood.
"Fuck. Hudson, too?" Lundquist shook his head as he veered right, directing his weapon towards each dark corner. Without any verbal communication, Strickland repeated the motion, only in the opposite direction, covering each corner that Lundquist didn't, the two men in perfect harmony through their many years of service together.
"I've got nothing," Strickland said.
"Same," replied Lundquist. "Place is empty."
The door to the other locker room stood before them and Strickland nodded towards it, eliciting an affirmative nod from his his teammate. He pulled his weapon against his chest and pointed it towards the ceiling as he moved towards the door, then pressed his left shoulder against it, looking back towards Lundquist.
The other man nodded and Strickland drew back, inhaled deeply, then charged forward to barrel through the door and bang it back against the wall with his weapon lowered into firing position. Lundquist was at his hip, repeating the motion and as they pushed their way into the other locker room with weapons sweeping left and right They saw nothing but more emptiness.
"Back out to the office?" Strickland asked, boots squeaking on wet tile.
"Whatever it takes," Lundquist replied. Methodically, the two men walked through the locker room, back out into the office, back where they had begun. Back where it all ended.
Strickland scanned the area, looking at the conference tables near the rear of the room, the counters with built-in sinks at the back, and the door marked Authorized Personnel Only. Rows of cubes ran up and down the front half of the office, and behind any one of the five feet tall cubes could be that thing, crouched and thirsty. The room was silent and dark, the only sound the scuffing of their boots on rough carpet.
Strick walked determinedly through each row of cubes as they took turns advancing, swiveling, covering, then advancing again, keeping their silenced barrels pointing forward and their fingers hovering near the triggers.
They saw nothing. The office was truly empty.
"Do you think it went back outside?" Lundquist asked. Strickland shook his head. He wasn't sure why, but no, he didn't think it went outside, and he also didn't think it would leave this building until everyone inside was dead. The commando couldn't be sure why he believed that, but it was a feeling he was completely and utterly sure of.
They crossed the threshold and approached the door to the mechanical room.
"Deja Vu," Strickland said quietly.
"Was that door always open?"
Strickland halted, looking in the direction that Lundquist was pointing.
His eyes narrowing, he looked back towards the Authorized Personnel door and saw that yes, indeed, there was a gap between the edge of the door and the wall, and no, it had not been that way before.
"No, it wasn't," Strickland replied. "It was closed up tight."
"Oh goody," Lundquist said.
As they drew closer to the door, Strickland shined his light on the left edge and saw what he had suspected. A series of wildly hacked claw marks ran vertically down the left side of the thick door, leaving huge, ragged hunks torn from the wall and deep, uneven gouges dug like foxhole trenches in the edge of the door itself. Rapid slashes had been laid on top of each other until the creature had burrowed down deep enough into the metal and wood to free the latch.
The door was ajar and a pale light was visible beyond. Strickland looked back at Lundquist curiously.
"That might explain why the generator is struggling with the rest of the building," he replied in a hushed voice.
Strickland pressed his fingers against the curled handle of the door and eased it open, moving forward, sliding between the narrow gap with Lundquist right behind him.
The room beyond was so bright it was nearly blinding, a stark white blast of artificial illumination only made brighter by the even rows of glass chambers spaced throughout the space. Strickland blinked a few times to clear his vision, then looked down the length of the room. A large sign posted on the wall to his left sent a rash of goose flesh running up his arms, over his shoulders, and down the length of his spine.
Danger: Live Specimens
He turned and glanced at Lundquist, who shook his head softly. The room was far longer than it was wide, stretching on far beyond where the wall ended in the main area. Glass windows lined the far wall, revealing medium sized chambers all along the back of the room, though they all appeared to be empty from Strickland's current point of view. Two even rows of tall glass containment chambers took up the middle of the room. Narrow, square and mostly transparent glass chambers, ran from mechanical bases on the floor, up into more elaborate technical devices embedded in the ceiling. Various tubes coiled from the ceiling and fastened to each containment unit. These units also appeared to be empty.
"Eight," Strickland whispered as he took a cautious step into the room.
"Plus the six along the back wall," Lundquist replied, perfectly understanding what Strickland was referring to.
"All empty."
"Affirmative," Lundquist nodded, breaking off and walking towards the rear wall, his SCAR elevated and ready. Angling around the center rows of glass containment chambers, he walked past the back wall, glancing into each small room extending off the rear. As he walked forward, he looked down towards the far wall and noticed something.
"Strick, we have another door back here."
"I'm coming towards you," Strickland replied, weaving between glass units with his is eyes narrowed to focus through the distorted reflections against the smooth surface. He could see Lundquist walking along the back wall. His body appeared to be contorting and inflating as he passed the glass containers. His shoulder blew up into large, bulbous growths, then slid back down to normal.
He brushed past the chamber to his left and neared Lundquist, coming around to look. The door he was looking at resembled a freezer door of sorts with thick metal and a triple-clasped lock. Emblazoned on the metal was a large radioactive symbol warning of the contents of the room.
Strickland came up on Lundquist's right, they exchanged a brief look, then returned their gazes back to the door. As they approached, Strickland slowed his walk a little, turned his head, and listened.
"You hear that?" he asked.
Lundquist halted, his muscles tensing. Swiveling at the hips, he swept his weapon across the expanse of the confined room, glancing through each transparent chamber as he came to it. He halted, then moved the weapon back towards the door.
Yeah, he'd heard it. "I heard something," he replied. "Not sure what."
Strickland took another step towards the door. "It's coming from there," he said, nodding his head towards the slab of metal in the wall. "Someone's knocking."
"Someone?" Lundquist asked. "Or something?"
Strickland was already at the door, leaning his ear towards the metal. "It's knocking. Human knocking," he said.
"How can you tell?"
"Hello?" Strickland shouted at the door and the knocking paused. "Who's there?"
"Help me!" a faint voice shouted. "Please! Help!"
"Who are you?" Strickland asked. Lundquist turned away from him, keeping his weapon trained on the other side of the room.
"Come on, Strick," he whispered. "Let's not tell that thing where we are, huh?"
"Maybe whoever is in there knows what we're dealing with."
"Please!" came the voice again from behind the door.
"How do we get in there
?" Strickland asked.
A muffled slam echoed throughout the room. A slam that sounded disturbingly like it hadn't come from behind the sealed door.
"Mother fucker," Lundquist growled.
A series of ratcheting clanks rattled the door.
Almost inaudible, a low, rumbling growl resonated throughout the large room, seeming to echo from the smooth, glass surface of the chambers.
"Strickland... it's fucking in here!" Lundquist shouted.
"God dammit!" Strickland shouted. "Open the fucking door! Now!"
He could hear two more clanks from the other side, then the latch separated, and the door clunked as it broke free from the locking mechanism.
"Is it there?" a voice asked frantically, sharp and on the edge of insanity. The door pulled open only a few inches and a small, pale face looked out. A thick mop of dark hair swept over a face that was slick with sweat and eyes that were open wide. He would have looked comical if Strickland hadn't thought of what he might have seen before they arrived.
"Who else is left?" Strickland asked.
"Just me," the man replied. "Rest are dead. All dead. God help us."
Another growl rang off the walls of the room, louder and longer.
Strickland whipped his head around.
"No!" the man shouted from behind the door. He pushed the door hard, but Strickland moved faster and shoved his foot between the door and the wall.
"Don't do it!" he shouted. "Lundquist? What do you see?"
Lundquist took a step around the nearest transparent chamber with his SCAR up and ready and his eyes alert.
"I don't see a thing, Strick," he replied. "But I can hear the son of a bitch." He walked around another glass tube, glancing around the smooth material, weapon at the ready.