by Jason Parent
The creature had become Sergei. Have I, too, become the creature? If so, he couldn’t understand why his will was worthless. He should have had some control over the beast or, better yet, some means to destroy it.
Where he couldn’t exert his will, he instead let known his voice. “Did it hurt?” he asked. “Did it hurt when those guards lit you on fire? Did it hurt when your skin melted and your blood boiled? I hope so.”
“Why does this one linger? Its time is over. Its world is no more. Its time is over!” The creature’s voice hissed from countless mouths, crying in unison from all points of the research center. The human mouths it employed spoke its words fine. Other mouths garbled, gargled, and spewed guttural sounds that were at best broken-mirror reflections of human anger and frustration.
Many of Sergei’s trillion eyes had become linked in body as well as spirit. The creature itself was the sum of its parts, and those parts were congregating. They were becoming one. But one what?
Sergei owned the creature’s sight but not its mind – not yet anyway – but he wasn’t ready to give up on that front. He didn’t know why the beast had summoned its parts. The best he could tell was that some base need, some instinctive herding, called the parts together, making them whole. More parts were coming, the central mass growing, changing, evolving. With every new addition, an electrical cooing shot from particle to particle like synapses from nerve endings. Sergei could sense its need – no, its necessity – to be whole with those it had spawned.
A weakness? Sergei wondered if it was one that an opportunistic soul might use to his advantage if wise enough to spot it. He waited for such a soul to present himself. When that moment arose, he promised himself he wouldn’t be so helpless.
No. He would be ready.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dante stood in a hall not unlike the one he’d started in that morning, when he’d thought it a brilliant idea to head haphazardly toward a clean room containing a deadly disease that had been just waiting to get out. So far, he’d been able to outrun it. But now, we’re just running in circles.
Also, he was standing in a circle. Across from him was that rigid Russian guard, Belgrade, crouching near the hatch cover. No one helped him as he slid the hard-to-grip weight back over the hole.
To Dante’s right was Monty, not one Dante readily trusted. But the one-eyed SOB still had his shit together, which was a good thing, since Dante was short on ideas.
Except blowing everything to hell. That was and would always remain the idea of champions. Why wait for the facility to do it for me when I have the means and the wherewithal to do it myself?
“Had the means,” he muttered under his breath. He glowered at Jordan, who paced in and out of their huddle, his hands empty.
Dante lost his cool. He rushed at the botanist, grabbed him by his god-awful green sweater, and ran him back-first into the wall. “The explosives!” he demanded. “Where are they?”
“I-I-I don’t know.” Jordan glanced around for help, but none came to his aid. “They must still be down there.”
“You….” Dante felt a hand, firm but not threatening, land on his shoulder. Monty. He roared and pushed Jordan away from him. “Merda!”
“We have to keep moving,” Anju said. She was propping up Dr. Werniewski, who still seemed out of it.
Dante watched her narrowly, daring any sign of infection to rear its pretty mutant head. He was ready to blow Anju’s head clean off.
“Agreed.” Belgrade said. “Monty, come help me with this.”
“The detonators?” Dante asked.
“Lost,” Belgrade said, grunting as he heaved the coin-shaped cover nearly back into place.
Monty stopped him within a few inches of closing it. “Don’t worry,” he said to Dante. “I have something just as good.” He pulled an incendiary grenade from his pack.
Dante crouched and looked him dead in the eye with a mixture of concern and excitement. The facility was already set to blow. Monty risked blowing a breach in the shutter and letting those things out. Or killing those already underground and preventing them from getting through the bulkhead. He wished he had more time to think Monty’s plan through. “You’re crazy. It’ll set off the other bombs—”
“I know.” Monty winked. “Best get back.”
“But the foundation—”
Monty’s smile disappeared. “Like I said, best get back.”
Dante shook his head, trying to figure out why he was debating the act. Isn’t this what you wanted? He thought about it while he sprang to his feet and rushed toward the others. Yes, but I want to make sure it’s done right.
“We have to move!” he shouted. “Hurry!” He gripped Anju and Jordan by the elbows and herded them away from the hatch.
Anju pulled Dr. Werniewski along with her. “Where do we go?” she asked. “Does anyone have a plan?”
Dante didn’t answer. He hadn’t the foggiest idea.
“To my lab!” Jordan blurted. “Come on! It’s just around the corner here.” He pointed up at the next intersection of corridors.
“Move!” Dante shouted. Around a corner is a damn good start.
“Fire in the hole!” Monty yelled then added, short of breath, “Literally.”
Belgrade came sprinting up like a cheetah behind them. He shoved Dr. Werniewski around the bend as the entire building shook beneath their feet. The incendiary grenade went off with a flourish of heat and sound. A succession of roaring blasts followed, and the resulting earthquake went well above average on Richter’s scale. The group huddled close together, crouching and covering their heads while the blasts crescendoed like a bass beat on a thousand speakers turned up way too high.
Glass shattered. The lights went out. Cracks appeared in the floor and continued up the walls and across the ceiling.
“Where’s Monty?” Dante shouted over the roar.
Belgrade started to answer, but before he could, a barrage of flames burst across the intersection. A figure within it dove toward them and rolled across the floor, screaming. Fire ate away his clothes in several places.
Dante ripped off his vest and whacked Monty with it, smothering the small patches of fire that the man’s rolling hadn’t doused. Jordan followed suit with his lab coat. Black smudges of ash and grime smeared Monty’s skin. His clothes were flaking and charred, matted in a few areas where they had fused against his skin. Other than those red, tender spots, which would likely need serious burn treatment, Monty seemed okay. In fact, the SOB was smiling.
“That was reckless,” Dante said, helping him to his feet.
Monty took his hand and stood. “You’re one to criticize, mate.” He wouldn’t stop grinning. “Besides, that was a whole lot of fun.”
“My recklessness puts only my life in danger, not everyone else’s,” Dante said. “I should have let you burn.”
“Aw, don’t say that.” Monty feigned pouting as he dusted himself off. “Anyway, no harm, no foul. At the very least, we have less of those things chasing our tails. At the most, maybe we’ve got a way out. Let’s go back and check out the tunnel.”
He started back toward the hatch cover, the others slow to follow. A burst of gas and flame blew the hatch off, sending it bulleting through the ceiling. They waited for it to come down, but it never did.
Monty ran to the hole. “The entire tunnel below is an arsonist’s wet dream.” He slapped his thighs. “Well, we’re not going down there.”
“Facility purification will commence in ninety minutes,” the English gentleman’s voice said over the intercom.
“Well, at least that’s still online,” Dante grumbled.
In a moment, so was everything else. Though dimmer, the lights came back on where the bulbs hadn’t shattered. Sparks flew from those that had and from other electronics that were now malfunctioning or in pieces. Systems rebooted. All facili
ty essentials – HVAC, lighting, data storage, et cetera – were fully operational in less than a minute. With more backup support systems than a manned satellite, the research center was designed to withstand all catastrophes short of a nuclear explosion.
Dante smirked. It was a good thing the center had that capability, too.
“So the tunnel idea didn’t work,” Monty said. “What say we head for this rover thing?”
Belgrade frowned. “There are other tunnels we could try. I doubt this” – he huffed – “space vehicle will fit all of us.”
Monty laughed. “It’s a long way between here and the north entrance to the hub. I have a feeling fewer seats will be needed by the time we make it there, if you catch my meaning.”
“What’s gotten in to you?” Dante asked. “There are civilians—”
Monty sobered. “Maybe you haven’t read my shirt. I’m not army anymore. I’m guessing you ain’t either. We’re all civilians, and we’re all stuck deep in this shit show. So, nothing’s gotten into me. I’m just being pragmatic. And the way I see it, we’re pretty damn low on options. Instead of criticizing, if you’ve got a better idea, then out with it.”
Dante held his tongue. “The rover. Sounds like a plan.”
Monty softened. “We’ve got one more shot of making it out of here, assuming that ship hasn’t sailed. What say we make it a corker? I say, if we’re going down, we do it fighting. I’m getting really tired of running.”
“I might be able to increase our odds of getting to the hub alive,” Jordan said, inserting himself in the danger zone between the two unspoken leaders of their group. “My lab’s right there,” he said, standing at the intersection and pointing two doors down on the left. “Please, follow me.”
Belgrade pushed through Monty and Dante and said, “We’re following,” in a tone that left nothing up for debate. Jordan smiled nervously then led everyone to a door marked Botany Lab. After scanning his badge, he opened the door and let everyone inside, leaving Monty and Dante standing in the hallway, their issues not quite resolved.
After a moment, Monty punched Dante in the arm. “You win some, you lose some, mate.” The guard started walking toward the lab. Dante followed.
Once inside, with the door closed behind them, Dante raised his flamethrower. He pointed it at Anju. “Don’t move.”
Anju gasped and froze.
“Jesus Christ!” Jordan blurted and scampered out of the way.
“You have about three seconds to explain yourself,” Belgrade said. Out of the corner of his eye, Dante could see the Russian’s gun aimed at his forehead. Though he could no longer see Monty with his eyes trained on the young graduate student, Dante assumed the other ASAP guard had his own gun raised.
Belgrade was right. He had some explaining to do, and the quicker the better.
“Jordan,” he asked without looking for the scientist, “is your lab equipped with a scanner like that in the microbiology clean room?”
“Yes,” Jordan said.
Anju stomped her foot and gnashed her teeth at Dante. “I already told you I am fine.”
Dante ignored her and the guns pointed at him. “Activate it.”
“But we already know the flowers carry a biological enzyme that the scanner will pick up,” Jordan said. “The whole lab will register as infected.”
“Just do it.” Dante took his eyes off Anju long enough to shoot a fierce glare at the botanist, giving him no reason to doubt his severity. “If she’s not infected, she shouldn’t mind being scanned. And if she is infected, we’ll know soon enough.”
Belgrade’s aim switched from Dante to Anju then back to Dante. He frowned. “Run the fucking scan already, Dr. Phillips.”
Jordan sighed. He sat down at the computer at the center of the room. Against the wall across from where he was sitting, a giant screen blipped to life.
“I told you,” Anju whined. One leg was shaking so badly that her heel was tap-dancing, clacking repeatedly against the floor. “I am not infected.”
“I hope you’re right,” Dante said softly, but he did not lower his weapon. “I’m sorry. We have to be sure.”
Anju began to sweat. She looked as though at any moment she might panic or bolt. Her reactions were becoming increasingly unpredictable.
“Look at me!” she shouted. “I am nothing like them!”
“Initiating scan for biological contamination,” said that same flat computerized-woman’s voice Dante had heard earlier.
Belgrade’s aim shifted to Anju. Jordan swiveled in his chair to watch her. She took a step back.
When a dull tone sounded, Jordan said, “Everyone, close your eyes.”
Anju didn’t right way, so neither did Dante. “Don’t you move,” he whispered.
Ultraviolet light and heat radiated from massive lamps propped along opposite walls where they met the ceiling. Anju closed her eyes, and Dante copied her. A sound like a shaken soda bottle being opened filled the room and warmth tingled his skin.
“Scan completed,” the computer said.
Dante opened his eyes. Anju’s were already open, staring at him with fear and distrust. Still, she hadn’t moved an inch.
“I am not infected,” she said, barely audible, as tears streamed from her eyes. “I’m not.”
The screen on the wall showed an x-ray of the room. “Unknown organism detected,” the computer said.
Dante gave a quick glance toward the screen. Everyone’s white-and-silver outlines were uncorrupted against a black-and-gray background, depicted along with everything else in the room. There wasn’t any red on the screen except for a tall, reedy object with a bell-shaped head at a far corner of the lab.
“One of the lilies,” Jordan said.
“Unknown organism detected.” Again, an object on the screen turned red.
“Another flower.” Jordan rose to his feet. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose and walked up to the screen for a closer look.
The scanner began to rattle off unknown organisms. The bottom half of the screen filled in quickly. The red dots and lines were progressing toward their position near the top of the screen.
Dante tried to watch both it and Anju closely. He caught the outline of one in their group beginning to shake on-screen, as if the firmness of the human form was deteriorating. He looked at Anju. It wasn’t her, but her lower lip began to quiver. She raised a finger and pointed it at Dante.
“Wait, I….” Dante’s confusion dispelled quickly. Anju wasn’t pointing at him. She was pointing past him.
He whipped around in time to see Monty’s face bubbling, purple blotches moving beneath it, as his growing maw latched on to Dr. Werniewski’s neck. His teeth tore at the flesh, ripping a chunk of skin and muscle loose and spraying Monty’s face in arterial blood.
Dr. Werniewski shrieked and fell to the floor. He instantly began to seize.
“Get out of the way!” Dante shouted at Jordan, who stood between him and a clear shot. The scientist froze.
Belgrade apparently had a clear shot, though not with his flamethrower. His AK-47 put several rounds into Monty’s head even as his jaw continued to stretch, contorting him into something that was all mouth and sharpened teeth.
The sound of gunshots shook Jordan from his stupor. He scrambled away from Monty as the infected guard lunged toward him, snapping at the air where Jordan’s head had been just a second before.
Dante unleashed fire. “I knew I should have let you burn.”
Monty burst into flames, flailing wildly and ran out into the hall, an inextinguishable fireball.
In the back of Dante’s mind, an idea was forming, one that made him sick to his stomach. There was no way Monty, who’d seemed perfectly normal, or human anyway, only minutes ago, who’d single-handedly wiped out a whole army of liquid creatures when he dropped that incen
diary grenade into the tunnel, had become infected between the time he blew up the tunnel and the time he entered the botany lab. Unless the disease had become airborne…or had lain dormant inside him, waiting for its opportunity to strike.
“Merda,” he muttered. Either way, every last one of them could already be infected. He raised his flamethrower toward Anju. The sprayer trembled in his hands. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing?” Belgrade shouted.
Anju screamed. In his moment of hesitation, she bolted from the lab. Dante lowered his weapon. He’d failed his mission. He’d been unable to pull the trigger when it had been hardest to pull.
“Don’t you see?” he asked, his heart collapsing beneath the weight of sorrow and defeat. “We are already lost. Look at Monty. I bet we’re all already infected.”
Belgrade punched him hard enough across the chin to crack open his lower lip. “You goddamn idiot! If we were already infected, why would the infected still be trying to kill us?”
Dante straightened and raised a fist, but Belgrade’s words hit home. His fire and rage vanished as quickly as it had consumed him. Belgrade was right. They weren’t all infected, though that didn’t mean all of them were clean. He had to ask himself if he was willing to burn them all to find out which were which.
A question for another time. Dante hadn’t failed his mission. Not yet. But he’d failed Anju.
“We have to find her,” he said. He was just coming out of his thoughts and didn’t have time to recoil when Jordan tore the flamethrower from his hands.
“Well, we know he’s infected.” He doused the seizing, twitching Dr. Werniewski with a steady stream of fire until the nozzle sputtered and went out.
Jordan looked angry as he stood over the burning mound of flesh. “I guess it wasn’t the oatmeal she had for breakfast.”
“What?” Belgrade asked.