by M. K. Krys
Panic and terror blazed through Beacon’s body.
“Go faster!” Arthur hissed.
“I’m trying,” Beacon cried.
He shuffled forward as quickly as the tight space allowed.
They had no flashlight this time, so they moved in the dark. It didn’t take long for Beacon’s already sore knees and palms to hurt like bruises being prodded. He thought of the acid rain, of the effects he’d witnessed in that lab, and pushed past the pain.
They’d only been traveling for a few minutes when Beacon heard a noise behind them. He froze, and Arthur bumped into his feet. His grandma muttered, “What in tarnation?” farther behind him.
“Shhh!” Beacon turned his head to the side, listening. There was thumping and slithering below them, muted from the thick drywall. But that was it. Paranoia was getting the better of him again. He was just about to keep moving when he heard the creak of metal.
Someone else was inside the shaft.
22
Arthur gasped.
Beacon was trying to figure out how Victor had managed to fit inside the shaft when Arthur’s grandma could barely fit at half his size, when he heard a girl call out, “Don’t bother running!” in a calm, singsong voice.
Every nerve in Beacon’s body tingled.
Jane.
Of course. Victor was too big to fit, but Jane wasn’t.
“Go, go, go!” Arthur’s grandma yelled.
“There should be an intersection up ahead,” Arthur said. “Move!”
Beacon crawled forward as quickly as he could in the cramped space. Behind them, the shaft rumbled with noise. It felt like the shaft went on forever, and he started to worry that they’d gone the wrong way or that Arthur’s map was outdated. Finally, Beacon reached an intersection of shafts that branched off in three different directions.
Arthur frantically tapped his back, gestured to the path to the left, then put his finger over his lips. Beacon instantly understood. If Jane went the wrong way, it would at least buy them some time.
Beacon banked left, sliding quietly through the shaft. Sweat dripped off his forehead, splattering onto the metal beneath him. Beacon hoped and prayed that Everleigh or Daisy wouldn’t try to communicate with them just then. They’d be so totally screwed if the radio in his pocket went off again.
“Hmm, now where could you have gone?” Jane sang from farther behind them in a faux-curious voice. “I wonder if it’s the shaft with all the hand and knee prints in the dust?”
They were so totally screwed.
“Forget about being quiet,” his grandma called. “Just move your butts!”
They scrambled forward, but Beacon didn’t know why they bothered. It was only a matter of time before Jane reached them.
Then he saw light up ahead.
“That’s not on the plans,” Arthur said.
“Who cares?” Beacon said. It was an exit.
Beacon crawled toward the light like he was stranded in a desert and he’d just spotted an oasis. Only his oasis turned out to be some type of maintenance access covered with an iron grille. A set of ladder stairs fed from the shaft onto a platform that circled nearly the entire ceiling of the mechanical floor. Which was absolutely crawling with Sov. But they had no choice but to go down there. And fast, judging by the clambering sounds coming from behind them.
Beacon gripped the grille and pulled with all his might. The cover came away easily and he slid it aside. He swallowed hard, then crawled through the access and stepped down, into the open. So far none of the Sov had spotted him, but he felt as exposed as if he’d just walked into his classroom naked.
Arthur was right behind him, then his grandma. As soon as they’d descended, they scurried into the shadow of a huge pipe. And bumped into someone.
“Nixon?” Beacon said.
Arthur’s grandma yanked Beacon behind her, glaring at Nixon’s Junior Guard uniform.
“It’s okay, Grams,” Arthur explained. “Nixon’s on our side. He’s immune to the antidote, too.”
Nixon made frantic throat-cutting gestures at them, then peered anxiously past the pipe.
“What are you doing here?” Beacon whispered.
“Trying to hide,” Nixon said.
“What happened to trying to free the prisoners?” Beacon said.
“I was trying to free the prisoners, and then everyone went wild! It’s like no matter what I did, they wouldn’t stop following the Sov guards. What are you doing here?”
“Trying to get to the generator,” Beacon said.
There was a loud thump. When Beacon peered around the pipe, he saw Jane dusting off her hands at the bottom of the ladder. The Gold Star hummed a cheery tune under her breath as she strolled along the platform with a giant tentacle bulging out from between her torn-open buttons. Arthur’s grandma yanked Beacon behind the pipe. Nixon brought a finger to his lips, as if anyone needed a reminder.
Out of the corner of his eye, Beacon saw the tentacle slithering left to right. Without warning, it slid around the pipe. Arthur’s grandma clapped a hand over Arthur’s mouth to keep him from crying out. They kept as still as possible as the appendage writhed around the pipe, inches from their faces, so close that Beacon could see the blood pulsing under its wet, translucent skin. Then as fast as it had come, the appendage retreated.
When they were sure she was gone, Beacon let out a huge breath.
“You don’t get used to it,” Arthur’s grandma said, swallowing hard.
Nixon peeked around the pipe. “Why do you need to get to the generator?” he asked, even more quietly than before.
“We’re trying to hack the system that’s controlling the prisoners. But we can’t do that without power. The generator must be somewhere in this room.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Nixon said.
They gazed out at the mechanical floor. It looked like a scene out of an apocalypse movie. One where the humans were about three seconds away from being cornered by a mob of flesh-eating zombies and eaten for lunch.
They could really use one of Everleigh’s distraction techniques right about now. Beacon was wondering if he should risk radioing for help, when Arthur pointed at a big yellow contraption that looked like a train car.
“Over there!” he said.
The generator was in the middle of the room, and there were at least seven Sov between them and the machine. Beacon chewed his bottom lip. There was no way they’d get there without being clobbered by squids first.
“I’ll cause a distraction,” Nixon said. “Then you need to run for it.”
“No,” Beacon said firmly. “We saw a squid try to kill Perry and Sumiko. They don’t care that you’re a Gold Star or a Junior Guard anymore. If you get caught, you’re dead.”
“Then I better not get caught,” Nixon said.
He launched himself out from behind the pipe, curls bouncing as he ran across the platform.
“Hey, over here, you slimy scumbags!” Nixon yelled and waved his arms in the air. All of the squids whipped around to face him. There was barely a millisecond of hesitation before they were moving toward the stairs to the platform like gulls spying a french fry at Deadman’s Wharf.
“Idiot,” Beacon muttered.
“What are we waiting for?” Arthur’s grandma said. “Let’s go!”
They scampered across the platform in the opposite direction, then descended the stairs to the main floor, moving quickly and quietly. When they reached the generator, Beacon and Arthur’s grandma took cover while Arthur immediately bent over the engine.
“How do we get it running?” Beacon said.
“It should have booted up automatically when the power went out. Something went wrong.”
“No, duh,” Beacon said.
Arthur didn’t dignify that with a response.
Beacon
anxiously looked over at Nixon. The narrow platform stairs had slowed down the Sov, forcing them to ascend single file, but they were catching up to him now. Nixon raced to the end of the platform, then stopped abruptly, pinwheeling his arms.
The platform had ended. Nixon would have to circle back to get to the stairs, and about a dozen squids blocked that route. One had even figured out that it could forgo the stairs altogether and had launched itself up with its powerful tentacles. Now it clung wetly to the underside of the platform. Nixon tried to back away from a squid that thumped toward him, almost stumbling over the rail. He looked down, and Beacon knew what he was thinking: that if he jumped, he would break something. Probably a lot of somethings. He might even die.
He was trapped.
The squid reared up on its hind tentacles, towering over the Gold Star. Its tentacles rippled and curled at its sides. Beacon didn’t know how he knew, but he just did: It was Jane.
“Unbelievable,” Arthur muttered. Beacon assumed he was talking about the horror scene taking place in front of them, but he was looking at the engine. “It wasn’t even set to auto. Who do they have running this place?”
“Just get it working,” his grandma hissed.
Arthur said something back, but Beacon was barely listening. He couldn’t wrench his eyes away from Nixon’s impending death.
He couldn’t let this happen.
Beacon made a split-second decision and jumped out from behind the generator, running for Nixon. But someone walked out and blocked his path.
A wolfish grin split Victor’s face. “You’re so predictable,” he said. “Always playing hero. What is with you? Don’t you have any interest in self-preservation?”
“It’s called being a good friend,” Arthur called from behind Beacon. “You should try it sometime.”
Victor laughed riotously, as if Arthur had said the funniest thing in the world.
The main lights blinked on suddenly. Machinery hummed as it came to life. Arthur must have gotten the generator up and running.
Victor’s smile faltered. His eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Speaking of friends,” he said, stepping forward, regaining his composure, “I just had a conversation with one of yours. I have to admit, though, I never really liked the guy.”
It took Beacon a moment to realize who Victor was talking about, and when he did, his stomach sank with dread.
“If you hurt Galen, I’ll kill you,” Beacon said.
Victor stared at him dead-on. “I’d love to see you try.”
He fell onto all fours like a dog. By the time his hands hit the ground, they were already tentacles. There was the sickening sound of goo squelching under wet tentacles, and then Beacon’s feet went out from under him. A strangled cry left his mouth as a tentacle wrapped around his body, locking his arms against his sides.
“Let him go!” Arthur screamed, pounding on the tentacle.
“He’s just a child!” Arthur’s grandma clawed at Victor.
Without breaking his grip on Beacon, Victor plucked Arthur into the air with another tentacle and threw him against a wall like he was nothing but a pesky bug he was swatting away. Arthur’s grandma let out a horrified cry right before the tentacle swung back around and clomped her across the chest, sending her flying in the opposite direction. She landed with a horrible, dull thud that couldn’t mean anything good for an old woman.
The tentacle gripping Beacon’s chest strangled his scream. He tried to suck in a breath, but he couldn’t get air. Stars burst in his vision.
Victor rose on his hind tentacles. The mouth on the underside of his body yawned open, revealing row upon row of razor-sharp teeth dripping in slime. There was movement deep in the shadows of its mouth the moment before a gooey pink organ slid out. Beacon had seen this before, back in the underwater UFO. A Sov posing as a human had eaten a hamburger this way. He’d watched the organ close around the burger and dissolve it in a hiss of steam. They’re like sea stars, Everleigh had said. They evert their stomachs outside their bodies to eat. The digestive enzymes absorb the food, and the liquefied food is then absorbed through the body and transferred to other organs. Pretty neat.
Yeah. Neat. He was going to be eaten alive.
Beacon swallowed hard—as hard as he could with the tentacle wrapped tightly around his chest, restricting his breathing. Victor lifted him up as the pink organ pushed out farther, widening like gum being stretched between fingers.
Beacon squeezed his eyes shut.
He’d heard you were supposed to think of happy memories in stressful situations, so he thought of Jasper. Maybe it was because of the recurring nightmare, but the first thing he thought about was their games of hide-and-seek back in LA. One time, Jasper had found the best hiding spot. It had taken Beacon over an hour to find him, but when Beacon had pulled aside the rolls of wrapping paper in the hall closet and Jasper was there, the pleased grin on his face had told Beacon that the long wait had been worth it.
Beacon almost smiled then, because he could see Jasper’s twinkling brown eyes and the dimple that popped out on his cheek so clearly.
Almost, because he was about to become squid food.
Or was he? Beacon had a half a second to wonder if he was imagining things, or if the viselike grip around his chest was loosening, right before he was unceremoniously dropped on the ground. He landed with an oof, sprawling across the floor. He scrabbled back from Victor as fast as he could, but the squid wasn’t even paying attention to him. Victor was looking at the tentacle that had held Beacon up moments ago, slowly coiling and uncoiling the appendage. His movements were as slow as molasses, as if he’d suddenly been shot with a tranquilizer dart. What was going on?
Just as Beacon had this thought, Victor started to go down. Beacon rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a flying tentacle as Victor hit the ground. A thunderous boom resonated through the mechanical floor. Beacon scrambled up as Victor let out a screech so loud, Beacon winced and covered his ears. He didn’t have to understand alien to know exactly what Victor was trying to say: that he was furious, that he’d get his revenge, and that he’d destroy anyone who stood in his way. And then make a meat pie out of their remains.
Another thunderous boom sounded. Then another, and another.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Everywhere Beacon looked, squids were hitting the ground and screaming in rage.
Arthur and his grandma stumbled over. Beacon was so horrified and confused by what was happening all around him that the relief of seeing them safe barely pierced through his fear.
“We need to get out of here,” Arthur said, shaking his arm and jolting him back to the present. “Where’s Nixon?”
Beacon scanned the platform. Nixon was picking his way over Jane, trying to avoid her flailing tentacles.
“Nixon, you okay?” Beacon called.
“Never been better,” he shouted back, slipping and sliding in goo.
“What’s happening?” Arthur shouted.
“I—I think they’re dying,” Nixon answered.
“But . . . why?” Arthur’s grandma said.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Arthur chimed in. “What would make every single Sov keel over at the same time like this?”
Every single Sov.
The realization hit Beacon like a lightning bolt.
“Galen!” he gasped.
He was one of the Sov, too.
Victor reached up a tentacle and grabbed Beacon’s leg, but his grasp was so weak that Beacon easily broke free. Beacon ran, skidding through the halls, around flailing squids and over one that wasn’t moving at all, before he finally reached the room where they’d left Galen. He shoved aside the file cabinet with shocking ease, then realized that he needed a keycard to enter the room now that the power was up and running again. Just as he had this thought, Arthur, Arthur’s grandma, an
d Nixon ran up.
“What’s going on?” Arthur said, gasping.
“The keycard!” Beacon said, shaking his hand desperately at Arthur’s grandma. “Hurry!”
Arthur’s grandma frantically dug inside her pocket, then produced the card. Beacon snatched the card and swiped it over the access panel. The door slid open. Beacon had hoped that whatever had happened to the other Sov wouldn’t have affected his friend, but Galen was slumped in front of the computer. His skin was so pale, Beacon could see the veins pulsing weakly underneath his eyelids.
Beacon rushed over and dropped to his knees in front of his friend. “Galen, are you okay?”
It was a stupid question—he obviously wasn’t okay. But he didn’t know what else to say. He patted Galen from head to toe, trying to find the source of the damage, but he couldn’t find anything wrong.
“Galen, wake up!” Beacon shouted, shaking his shoulders. A wild, untamed feeling roared through his body.
Galen’s eyes fluttered open.
“Oh, thank God,” Beacon said. “I thought you were dead. Don’t do that ever again.”
“We did it,” Galen whispered.
Beacon frowned. “Did what?”
“You hacked the computer?” Arthur asked.
The others crowded around Galen. Arthur’s grandma checked Galen’s temperature with the back of her hand. She pursed her lips and didn’t say anything. Nixon hovered awkwardly behind him, looking like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
“What’s going on?” Beacon asked again.
“What happened to you?” Nixon added. “All the Sov are down.”
“Is there something we can do to help you?” Arthur’s grandma asked.
“What about an EpiPen?” Arthur said hopefully.
But Galen only shook his head.
“There has to be something we can do,” Beacon said. “Someone get him a glass of water or something.”
“There’s got to be a first aid kit around here somewhere,” Arthur’s grandma said.
“Don’t.” Galen swallowed hard, as if speaking had taken a lot out of him. “That isn’t going to help.”