by Tony Lewis
The phials were all labelled differently. The first had a capital L on it, the second a capital I and the third a capital C, and it was this third tube that he was interested in. The C stood for Combination. It was a mixture of the werewolf and the invisibility genes.
Cowan stared at the syringe, as if it were some ancient relic to be worshipped and revered by all those who laid eyes on it. The golden liquid inside glistened and sparkled like some kind of viscous Christmas decoration, belying the terrible nature of its contents and the awful cost of getting it to this stage. He glanced around once more to be sure that Meredith wouldn’t interrupt him, and that no others would enter the lab. He tentatively reached for it, his hand trembling as if he were freezing cold. He swallowed audibly as his hand closed around the tube. It felt warm against his palm, but whether this was due to the latent heat of the exposed contents or because of his nervous excitement, he wasn’t sure. Realising that he had gotten ahead of himself he replaced the syringe on the table, and took off his dress tunic before rolling up a shirt sleeve. Then, without further hesitation, he exposed the silver point of the needle and plunged it into his arm. At first, a warm glow seemed to travel along his arm, both towards his hand and upwards towards his shoulder. It felt as if he had lain on it for a few minutes and it was now coming back to life. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, just a little disconcerting, like having a slightly drunken limb. He withdrew the needle and paused for a few moments with it a few inches from his flesh before throwing it to the floor.
It doesn’t seem to be going too badly, he thought to himself as a fiery, fuzzy sensation spread throughout his entire system. Maybe not a feeling you would want to experience on a regular basis, but not altogether objectionable. In fact, at that point Cowan noticed that his heart rate was rising rapidly. He was a reasonably fit man and was proud of the fact that for a guy of his age he could boast the metabolism of a much younger person, but this new feeling was pushing him to the limit extremely quickly. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead, which now felt cold and clammy, and his respiration increased, forcing him to gasp for air in great, big, rattling gulps. His vision blurred and an almost euphoric dizziness overcame him as the laboratory and everything in it swam in and out of focus. Like from a great distance, almost as if he was having an out of body experience, Cowan could have sworn that he was floating above his own head, observing what was happening. Perspiration was now flooding from every pore of his body and the muscle spasms that had recently started were increasing in ferocity and frequency. His hands rose unconsciously and began to tear the remainder of his uniform off, trying to be rid of the now seemingly rough material that was irritating his skin to the extent that it felt like an extreme allergic reaction. It felt like fire breathing insects were burrowing through his flesh and gnawing away at his bones, attempting to gain access to the succulent marrow within. He clawed and dug at his skin until tiny orbs of blood broke the surface. It was whilst scratching his right forearm, eyes wide in fascination and horror, and teeth clenched tightly together with lips curled back in a rictus grin of pain and wonder, that he noticed the hairs. Thick, black strands of it were erupting on every inch of his body. By now he had divested himself of every item of clothing, and he looked down and gawped in abject amazement as the last remnants of his white skin were lost underneath a mat of dark, lustrous fur. The half beast, half man dropped to the floor, ending up on all fours. It glanced to its left and saw its reflection in the glass of the refrigeration unit. There was just enough of Cowan left for it to recognise itself, but that was rapidly being usurped by the emerging monster from within. The searing heat in its system had abated, and as it continued to stare its body was overtaken by a new sensation. A surge of lactic acid coursed through its innards and the most severe case of the cramps that it had ever experienced assailed every muscle in its body at the same time. The beast had ceased to watch itself as new pain racked it, as every muscle fibre went into overdrive as if a massive dose of adrenalin had been pumped directly into its bloodstream. It seemed as if every cell in its body had suddenly become hyperactive, behaving in a way that nature has definitely not intended. It felt as if a million burrowing, stinging ants were biting their way out of him. The beasts’ skin rippled and bubbled like grilled cheese and then slowly faded away as the invisibility gene kicked in. When the transformation was finally completed from man to monster, it let out a low, ominous growl. Major Buddy Cowan was no more.
* * *
Ollie, Stitches and Flug left the office and reconvened in the corridor, about fifteen feet from the gross pile of former marines.
“Those guys need to pull themselves together,” said Stitches. “Look, they haven’t even polished their boots.”
“Nice,” responded Ollie. “Right, we need to find this bloke. He’s going to be rather annoyed, so I suggest we get on.”
“Shall we split up or stay together?” asked the zombie, glancing up and down the passageway. “There’s quite a lot of rooms.”
“Let’s stick together. This is serious, not an episode of Scooby Doo,” said Ollie.
“Shame. This would be over a lot sooner if we just found a caretaker hiding in an abandoned fun fair and pulled his mask off.”
“I suppose so.”
“And I never trusted that Freddie anyway. How come he always got to go off with the two girls? I bet his memoirs are a good read.”
“Can we please get back on track,” snapped Ollie, getting ever so slightly miffed.
The three of them then methodically searched every room on the first floor. There was a kitchen area, various offices and storage cupboards and some sleeping quarters, in which Flug found some very exotic magazines that would take a hell of a lot of explaining. Of the major, however, there was no trace.
“Okay, next floor,” directed Ollie.
The ground floor seemed to have just as many rooms as the one above, but the majority of these seemed to be dedicated to research. Nearly everyone looked like the set of a science fiction film and if it wasn’t for Cowan’s beguiled confession, none of them would have had a clue what any of the equipment was used for.
As they rounded the last corner and entered the first corridor, Flug spoke up and pointed.
“Door moving.”
Ollie and Stitches gazed towards the double entrance doors. Both were indeed swinging back and forth about six inches, as if someone had just passed through them.
“I think our friendly host had left the party early,” speculated Stitches. “How rude.”
“Seems that way. Let’s go see.”
Neither Ollie nor Stitches could decide who was the most courageous out of the two of them, so Flug went first.
Flug didn’t have any idea what was going on. Even though Ollie had explained it to him several times, he was still as confused as a group of German tourists told that they have to queue, and that they didn’t, in fact, own the whole of Europe and every sun bed therein.
He barged through the doors and stomped into the compound, his size eighteen feet loudly announcing their presence to anyone or anything within a hundred meter radius.
“That was stealthy,” complained Stitches.
“Flug, mate,” implored Ollie, “try and be a bit quieter, please.”
“Sorry.”
The three of them stopped about five feet from the doors. Now that Flug had stopped doing his impression of a herd of angry elephant’s tap dancing in lead boots on a slate floor, it was surprising how peaceful and still the night was. There was no wind at all and not a thing was stirring, except that is for Ollie’s delicate stomach, which was currently performing a robustly intricate gymnastic routine at the sight of the all the soldiers’ bodies littering the compound.
“Wow!” Stitches exclaimed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “Ethan wasn’t kidding when he said he took care of business out here. I haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Lawnmower Riots of 1886.”
Ollie closed his eyes for a moment, in
an effort to blank the scene before him, but there are some things that you just can’t unsee.
“Why don’t we save the history lesson for another time? Pretty grim though, isn’t it,” he said.
As he mulled things through he put his hands into his pockets, where his right one bumped into something. He retrieved the remote control that he had completely forgotten about and flicked it on.
“Wassat?” asked Stitches.
“It’s the location device that Crumble gave me. Maybe it’ll help us find our man. It’s made from an old TV controller.”
“Oooo, TV. Can we watch Herman the Naughty Ghost?” asked Flug hopefully.
“Not now,” rasped Ollie. “Okay then, we’ll scan the compound whilst we’re moving that way,” he pointed towards the forest. “As soon as this thing lights up, at least we’ll know that we’ve found something. Hopefully it’ll be our target.”
“Makes sense. What’ll we do if we do find him?”
“We’ll have to figure that out at the time. Right, let’s sweep the whole place. Everybody, twenty feet apart and slowly forward.”
Flug moved next to Ollie and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Boss.”
“What now, Flug?”
“Me can’t do twenty feet apart. Me only got dis one and dis one,” he said, helpfully lifting up his legs one at a time.
“God Almighty. Go and stand over there and when we move, you follow. Okay?”
“Okay.”
When they were finally in place, and with Flug no longer worrying about his apparent lack of limbs, Ollie held the location device out in front of him and walked forward flanked by his colleagues, Stitches to his left and Flug to his right. There was no sound except for the rustle of their feet and the swish of their clothing.
Then the red light flickered hesitantly to life.
“Hold it,” said Ollie.
“You got something?” replied Stitches nervously casting glances around the area.
“Maybe. Hang on a sec.”
The glow became stronger and more insistent until it stayed on, continuously indicating that something had to be up ahead. Either that or Crumble had stuffed it up completely and the unit was telling Ollie that he was now tuning in to Herman the Naughty Ghost after all. The thing that perplexed him, though, was the fact that the light was getting brighter. We’re not moving, he thought, so the only way that it can be is if… He was just about to shout a warning to his companions when all three of them turned at the sound of a loud crash behind them.
A small man in a blood splattered lab coat staggered out of the building. He was as pale as a corpse and was holding his right arm close to his body, probably in an effort to stop it dangling uselessly as he ran. Judging by the slope of his shoulder it was badly dislocated. Blood dripped from his elbow and fell to the ground.
“It’s Cowan,” he shouted breathlessly, as if the effort was draining the last reserves of the little energy that he had left. “He’s injected the sample. He’s transformed and he’s invisible.”
“RUN!” Ollie bellowed as loud as he possibly could. As he said this he felt a rush of air pass by him. It was like standing by the side of the road and having a Land Rover drive past you at sixty miles an hour. The only difference was that Land Rovers don’t snarl and leave drool on the floor.
Ollie took off towards the trees but managed a quick look back, just in time to see the man in the lab coat being tossed into the air by the invisible force. He jerked and danced above the ground as if he were performing some sort of grotesque ballet or had fallen into the hands of a sadistic cosmic puppeteer. As the blood flew and the man screamed his last, Ollie turned away and concentrated on the forest that seemed oh so far away.
It was now that he was wishing that the box set of fitness DVDs that he’d gotten for his birthday a few years back had been put to their intended use, and not as makeshift frisbees.
Arms pumping and quadriceps straining for all their worth, Ollie sped towards the forest, and even though he was as breathless as an asthmatic at altitude and panicking like a Grand Wizard on holiday in Harlem, his mind suddenly cleared and he had a moment of clarity.
He pictured himself becoming as light as feather, able to defy the laws of gravity as he soared up into the black night sky. He imagined his clothes getting looser and looser and falling away from his body as he became free of all earthly confines and gained altitude.
The remarkable thing about Ollie’s transformation to bat, apart from it being remarkable that he had actually managed it at all, was the self-awareness that he retained. Unlike his shape shifting brethren, Ollie’s personality remained completely intact so that he was wonderfully cognisant of what he had achieved.
He gained altitude quickly, his leather wings pushing down on the air as he banked to the right and headed back towards the building. The stranger in the now not so white lab coat lay in a tangled heap, not far from the door. Scanning the area now with his improved nocturnal vision, he could see Flug once again slumped against a wall. He was dead to the world, but more worrying from Ollie’s point of view was the slowly growing pool of blood that was forming on the ground around him as it dripped from the stump of his right leg, which had been ravaged and severed mid-thigh. Thankfully, Flug’s slow metabolism meant that it would probably take a week for him to bleed out. Ollie grieved for his friend but there was little he could do about it right now, because even with his enhanced sight, he had no idea where the invisible monster was. Luckily though, Stitches seemed to have made something of a getaway. He was hiding behind a large clump of undergrowth about twenty feet into the woods. He must have vaulted over the fence. He was reasonably well concealed but it wouldn’t be long before he was certain to be discovered. Even though Ollie had the advantage of height, it was no match for a rampaging creature charging around the place at high speed. And he was sure that its sense of smell would be far superior to his enhanced faculties.
Ollie flew around, racking his brains trying to come up with a plan that didn’t involve flying to the top of the nearest tree, folding his wings around himself and closing his eyes whilst thinking nice thoughts. Anything would do because he had the feeling that he was rapidly running out of time, and any options that he did have were steadily becoming less and less feasible. Banking left and dropping a few feet, he once again traversed the area where he had started to flee the invisible spectre.
Suddenly, off to his right, he heard a snuffling grunt and saw a puff of earth pop into the air. Looking more closely now, he saw a dent appear in the ground, which was at once flanked at its head by four smaller punctures. Ollie arced round to get a better view when it struck him what the beast was doing. It was tracking wildly about, searching for a scent because it had lost Stitches’ trail. The zombie had no functioning metabolism, so the wolf had nothing tangible to lock on to.
As he continued to circumnavigate what he guessed was the wolf’s current position, he saw the paw impressions advance towards his discarded clothes, dumped during his own shape shifting episode. The unseen snout prodded at the cloth, nudging it gently, and trying to pick up a scent which it inevitably would, but it would be the wrong one. His black coat was flicked over and he noticed something long and yellow fall from out of a pocket. It rolled a few inches, then came to rest after rocking back and forth for a moment. In a flash Ollie swooped down, his bat legs outstretched and his claws extended. Diving in, he lost the wolf’s position momentarily and, as he targeted the item, his right wing brushed its nose which knocked him off balance temporarily, giving the beast the opportunity to match the scent on the clothes to his own. He felt the whoosh of air as, what he assumed to be a giant paw took a swing at him. Dodging, he came in for one final pass and grabbed the tube, and headed upwards once more. As he climbed he chanced a glance down, and even though he couldn’t see it he could hear a grunt of effort, quickly followed by a thud as the wolf landed after jumping up at him.
Flying in a tight circle to keep its i
nterest on him, Ollie craned his neck forward and brought his legs up. Opening his mouth he exposed his fangs and bit into the cardboard and ripped it open. He pulled it back as far as it would go until with a final twist, the package burst open and a shower of fine but grainy white particles exploded into the atmosphere before quickly dropping onto the creature below, covering it in a fine, gossamer dust that outlined its head and shoulders.
Another loud crash emanated from the area of the building. Ollie turned and saw Ethan step into the compound. He also noticed the blank look on his face as he scanned the whole area, confused because he couldn’t find them.
“Ollie! Stitches! Where are you?” he shouted, his left hand framing his mouth.
At the sound the wolf stopped jumping and locked its sight on its brand new target. Ollie then realised the one limitation of being a bat, wolf or any other creature. He couldn’t warn him, and it appeared that all he was going to be able to do was watch as Ethan was ripped to pieces.
“ETHAN,” came a very loud voice from the other side of the compound. “IT’S COVERED IN SHERBERT AND IT’S COMING RIGHT AT YOU.”
Ethan looked away from the hobbling Stitches after getting the message loud and clear. He took a firm stance and concentrated on what he had been warned about, as it was in front of him and closing in fast.
As if in slow motion the shape coalesced, the white outline becoming more distinct the closer the invisible mass came, until he could hear its footfalls pounding into the ground as it thundered towards him like an express train.
“LOOK OUT,” screamed Stitches, his voice filled with terror and anguish.
It seemed as if Ethan was too late, but at the very last moment he bent his knees, raised his arms and pulled the trigger of the weapon that was clasped in his hands.