“The next step would normally be to transplant the blastocyst into a womb and let it grow like a normal child.” He withdrew the larger needle from the side of the microscope and held it up for them all to see. “But that’s not exactly how this little gem works. No womb required. No father. Though I guess you could technically call me the father.”
Bonnett rolled the stool over to the fridge and opened the small door and took out a water bottle. He unscrewed the cap, took a swig, and smacked his lips. “Ahh.” With his thirst apparently quenched, Bennett took the syringe, placed the needle inside the water, and injected the newly modified blastocyst. He swirled the water around and said, “Now comes the really fun part.”
After capping the bottle, he rolled over to the gurney and stood. He gripped the sheet covering the body and pulled it away like a magician, revealing his recently reassembled assistant. DeWinter lay on the gurney. What was most shocking about the revelation was that she looked fine. She wore only a bra on top, but hadn’t been mutilated, or even hurt. She wasn’t conscious, but the steady rise and fall of her chest revealed that she was alive.
“Jackie!” Jones shouted. “Jackie! What have you done to her?”
“Nothing,” Bennett said. He removed smelling salts from his pocket and wafted them in front of Jackie’s nose. She came to a moment later, but was groggy. Drugged. She blinked her eyes, trying to focus. She showed no fear of her situation, or of Bennett.
She hasn’t been conscious since she was taken, Hawkins thought. She has no idea not to trust Bennett.
Before he could shout a warning, Bennett took the cap off the water bottle and held it to Jackie’s lips. She took three long drinks.
“Jackie!” Jones shouted. “Don’t! He’s—”
DeWinter’s eyes closed slowly and she once again fell unconscious. The smelling salts couldn’t compete with whatever drug had been used to sedate her.
Jones’s lips quivered. All he could do was stare.
“Don’t worry, Grandpa,” Bennett said, carefully capping the bottle. “She’s not dead yet. In fact—” He crouched beside DeWinter and leaned his ear against her belly. He feigned a gasp. “I think our little family is growing!”
Bennett hustled to the fridge and took out another water bottle, this one labeled “active” with black marker. He moved quickly for the door. “Kam.”
The dutiful Kam followed at his heels.
Bennett leaned his head back in the room as he closed the door. He didn’t say anything, he just grinned, looking at all of them with frantic energy. Then he was gone and the door slammed closed, and locked.
While Jones shouted for his daughter, and Blok paced uselessly in his cell, Hawkins began an awkward dance, reaching for his side and spinning in circles.
“Ranger?” Bray said, sounding concerned.
Hawkins stopped spinning and pushed his hip against the bars separating his cell from Bray’s. “Get my knife!”
“Your knife is gone,” Bray said.
“My knife was broken,” Hawkins explained. “Just the blade is in there. Kam knew about it. His speech about the weapons was a message.”
Bray’s eyes widened and he fumbled with his bound hands to unbutton the sheath holding the razor-sharp blade.
About the time the button popped free and Bray got his fingers on the knife, DeWinter’s stomach started to bulge.
40.
“Dammit,” Bray said as the blade slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor by Hawkins’s feet.
The knife nearly struck Hawkins’s foot, but he jumped away in time to avoid being impaled. He picked the knife up and sat on the floor with his back to the cell bars.
Jones saw what they were doing. “Hurry up! Get me out of here!”
Hawkins ignored the man’s pleas. He knew Jones just wanted to get to his daughter, but the real ticking clock was however long it took Bennett to reach whatever room received the camera feeds. Could be a few minutes, or maybe right next door. Bennett could be watching them right now.
Hawkins placed the blade between his feet with the dull side against the floor and the sharp side facing up. He positioned his wrists to either side of the blade and brought them down fast. The plastic cuffs came apart with one smooth cut. A moment later, Hawkins was on his feet and opening his cell. He moved to Bray’s cell next, unlatching the door.
“Get me next!” Jones shouted. “Hawkins! Let me out!”
Hawkins focused on Bray. It was a tactical decision. Hawkins knew the big man would fight if Bennett returned. But Jones was going to be all but useless with his daughter undergoing some kind of transformation. He could hear her starting to groan. Whatever was happening inside her belly, it wasn’t good—for her, or for them. Hawkins felt sure that Bennett would be watching by now and that he wasn’t returning meant he believed they still weren’t a threat. He cut through Bray’s bindings and hurried to Jones’s cell.
As he unlocked the cell door, Hawkins glanced at Blok. The man stared past Hawkins, watching DeWinter. His face slowly contorted into a mask of fear. Hawkins realized that Blok and Jones had been taken from the Magellan and brought straight here, possibly without even seeing the big chimera. Their exposure to the island’s horrors had been minimal. And while Blok responded to DeWinter’s condition with paralyzing fear, Jones’s actions were fueled by one part appropriate concern for his daughter and one part naiveté. But he couldn’t stop the man, any more than one of them could stop him if it had been Joliet strapped to the gurney.
Jones shook his bound wrists at Hawkins as the cell door slid open. “C’mon!”
Hawkins cut the plastic cuffs. “Jones, listen. You need to—”
Jones shoved Hawkins aside and ran to DeWinter. Hawkins didn’t watch. He moved to Blok’s cell and unlocked the door. Blok’s stare remained unflinching.
“Blok,” Hawkins said. “Blok!”
The man snapped out of his daze. Hawkins held the blade out and Blok seemed to register for the first time that they were breaking out. He held up his wrists and Hawkins set him free. “Thanks.”
Hawkins nodded, but didn’t say a word. If Blok knew the kind of hell they’d soon be facing, he might have opted to remain a prisoner.
“Ranger,” Bray said as Hawkins turned around. He handed the machete and captive bolt stunner to Hawkins. “At least he left us with an arsenal.”
Hawkins looked at the pegboard holding an array of surgical tools. Bray had taken a knife that looked like a long fish filleting blade and a frightening thick-toothed bone saw. Hawkins was satisfied with the machete and attached it to his belt before motioning to the tools. “Blok, grab something to use as a weapon.”
“Are we going to have to kill something?” Blok asked with a shaky voice.
Jones’s desperate voice filled the room. “What’s happening to her!”
“Probably,” Hawkins said and then turned to DeWinter for the first time since escaping his cell. Jones leaned over her, blocking most of his view, but what little he could see of her belly was severely distended.
And moving.
He stepped closer and got a better look. Her whole body twitched and her light brown skin looked washed-out. “Harry,” he said, his tone half-apologetic, half-warning.
Hawkins placed a hand on Jones’s shoulder and tried to pull him back, but the man shrugged away. “No!”
Bray stepped over and put his fingers on her neck, searching for a pulse. “Jones, she’s gone.”
“She’s still moving!” Jones said, clinging to DeWinter’s shoulders.
“That’s not her,” Hawkins said, stepping back. The convulsions grew more violent. “It’s what’s inside her.”
“Shut up!” Jones screamed, waving them all back. “She’s my daughter.”
Hawkins drew the machete.
Bray stood ready with the bone saw.
Blok backed into his cell, unarmed, and slowly pulled the door closed.
Hawkins raised the machete. He could end this now. It would feel wrong—awful—b
ut he could stop whatever was about to happen with one swing. “Jones, step back.”
“Stay away!” Jones said, eyeing the machete. “Don’t touch her! She’s—”
The convulsions stopped. But DeWinter’s torso was swollen to the point where light-colored stretch marks had streaked across her flesh. Jones moved toward her head, cradling her cheeks in his hands. “Open your eyes, baby. I’m here.”
Her belly shifted in response to Jones’s voice.
“Jones,” Bray whispered. “Back the hell up.”
Jones clenched his eyes shut, squeezing tears onto his face. “Bray, I swear to God, if you—”
Hawkins had only just registered the tearing sound when an explosion of movement burst from DeWinter’s belly. Long black limbs, coated with thick, pointy hairs and dollops of flesh, reached out and locked on to Jones’s upper body and face.
Jones let out a shriek and reeled back, pulling the creature free. The thing had the head and limbs of a giant spider, the spiky protective carapace of a snapping turtle, and a long, black prehensile tail, which had already wrapped around Jones’s waist. Hawkins had only just begun to recover from his surprise when a stinger emerged from between the tail and shell and jabbed Jones three times in the gut.
Jones shouted in pain and fell to the floor. The creature’s tail unwrapped and it jumped away, landing on the operating table. The entire attack had taken just seconds. Jones convulsed. His eyes rolled back. And his belly began to expand.
The time between DeWinter drinking the water offered by Bennett and the emergence of this fully formed monster was just over a minute.
“It must be genetically engineered to crank out growth hormones,” Bray said. His eyes were locked on the creature, and the bone saw was raised to strike. “I think it ate DeWinter from the inside, metabolized her flesh, and grew fast. Really fast.”
The creature studied them, shifting its four eyes from one man to the next.
“But here’s the thing about animals that grow too fast,” Bray said. “They’re fragile. I doubt that shell is even solid yet.”
That’s all Hawkins needed to hear. When the creature turned back to Bray, Hawkins charged and swung with the machete. The spider eyes turned back toward him with impossible speed, but the monster couldn’t avoid the descending blade. In fact, it didn’t even try to.
The eight long legs and head snapped back inside the body just as the blade struck the carapace and deflected away. The blade struck the table hard, sending a painful vibration up Hawkins’s arm.
Just as quickly as the head and legs disappeared, they shot back out and took action.
Bray charged, but was too slow. The creature leapt at Hawkins, eight arms splayed wide. Hawkins dropped the machete and caught the thing on the underside of its carapace. He tried to fling it away, but the tail had already wrapped around his waist. When the weight of it struck him, he fell back and stumbled into a glass cabinet. Shattered glass rained down as Hawkins and the monster fell to the floor.
“Bray!” Hawkins shouted, but his voice was barely audible over Jones’s rising shrieks. Unlike DeWinter, Jones was fully conscious when the parasitical spider thing started to eat him from the inside out.
Bray appeared overhead and started swinging with the saw, but it had no effect on the hard shell.
“The tail!” Hawkins shouted. Despite shoving up with all his strength, he could feel the tail constricting, pulling the body—and stinger—closer to his gut. Once that stinger got close enough to strike, Hawkins would be finished. “Cut off the tail!”
Bray adjusted his aim. He swung hard.
And missed.
Hawkins’s hands slipped across the blood-covered carapace and the creature lowered into striking range. The tail tightened, squeezing Hawkins’s stomach. Hawkins shouted in fear, knowing that in just over a minute he’d be dead and giving birth to yet another of Bennett’s chimeras.
And then it happened.
With a quick twitch, the stinger rose and struck three times.
41.
The stings felt like little more than dull thuds. For a moment, Hawkins wondered if the stinger was coated in some kind of painkiller so the victim might not even know he was stung. Then he registered the sound that came with each stinger thrust—a dull clunk of metal.
“Got it!” Blok said.
Hawkins hadn’t even seen the man appear at his side, but there he was, holding a metal tray between Hawkins’s stomach and the stinger.
A surge of adrenaline flowed into Hawkins’s veins, courtesy of nearly being implanted with a fast-growing chimera embryo. Instead of pushing the spider thing away, Hawkins wrapped his arms around the shell and squeezed, pulling the chimera close and wedging the sheet of metal securely between them. “Charge the defibrillator!” he shouted at Blok, who nodded and ran for the equipment cart. He looked up at Bray. “Get that tail off!”
When the jagged teeth of the bone saw bit into the base of the creature’s tail, the thing started twitching. By the second stroke, it struggled to break free from Hawkins’s embrace. He could feel the tail struggling to unwrap from his body, but it was pinned beneath them, and the spider legs, while strong, were no match for Hawkins’s rage-filled grip.
The high-pitched whine of the defibrillator charging filled the air. A moment later, Blok shouted, “Charged!”
“Bray?” Hawkins said.
“Almost there!”
Hawkins looked to his left and saw Blok, live defibrillator paddles in his hands. “Get ready!”
With a grunt, Bray pushed hard and cut through the forearm-thick tail.
The creature convulsed, lost in a torrent of pain. Hawkins let go, slid his hands beneath the carapace, and shoved. The forty-pound monster flipped through the air and landed on its back. Eight legs twitched madly, searching for purchase that wasn’t there. Its oozing stump of a tail shifted pitifully back and forth. Then Blok descended on the creature, placing the paddles on its softer, blood-soaked underside and triggered the shock.
All eight legs went straight and riqid for the duration of the jolt. The overloaded paddles began to smoke and Blok pulled them away. The legs fell flat on the floor.
The monster was dead, but there was no time for back patting. Jones’s belly looked ready to burst, but he looked different than DeWinter. Where she had one bulge, Jones had three smaller ones. Hawkins’s mind replayed the attack. Jones had been stung three times, with each sting inserting a new parasite into the host.
One of them was bad enough. He didn’t think they’d survive three.
Hawkins scrambled to his feet, picked up the machete, and ran for the door. He tried the handle, but it was locked. Bray arrived and started viciously kicking the door. Despite putting all his weight into each kick, the door held.
“They’re coming!” Blok said.
The door and its frame were solid. “The door is steel,” he said to Bray. “You can’t kick it down.”
“We have to try,” Bray said.
“I have a better idea.” Hawkins reached into his cargo shorts pocket for the captive bolt stunner and was surprised to feel several spare cartridges still in his pocket. Kam left us a way out. He pulled the bolt stunner from his pocket and placed the muzzle against the flat inner-door lock. He pulled the trigger. Two inches of stainless steel exited the barrel traveling at the speed of a bullet. The impact didn’t sound like much—just a cough of air and a single whack, like a hammer on the head of a nail—but when Hawkins stepped back, the lock was gone, launched into the hallway on the other side.
Hawkins flung open the door and ran into the hallway, thinking there might be at least a chance they would survive for at least a few more minutes. That hope disappeared when he looked to the right and found the long, white corridor filled by the immense and deformed girth of Jim Clifton.
Whatever signal Bennett used to send Jim into a murderous rampage had clearly already been sent. The moment Hawkins’s feet fell on the hallway floor, Jim was in motion. He wasn
’t a fast man, but there was no getting around him, or the swinging blades extending out of his wrist stumps.
Bray was halfway out the room when he caught sight of Jim. His eyes went wide and he managed to turn himself around in time to remove himself, and Blok, from the giant man’s path. At the same time, he also brought them dangerously close to Jones’s body, which looked close to bursting.
Hawkins backed away, matching Jim’s pace and using the machete to parry any swing that got too close. He flinched when the machete struck flesh instead of stone, but Jim showed no reaction. He just kept coming like he could see out of those hollow eye sockets. Hawkins wanted to turn and run, but couldn’t leave Bray and Blok behind. He also had no idea what was behind him. There could be another creature lying in wait. Hawkins took one fast step back, intending to look over his shoulder. Instead, he collided with something solid.
A wall. The hallway was a dead end!
With just ten feet separating the pair, Hawkins wedged the machete between his legs and held it there. He fumbled with the captive bolt stunner, looking for a way to open it. He found a small button lock, pushed it in, and slid it forward. The bolt stunner snapped opened.
The sound of the stunner opening focused Jim on Hawkins’s position. The big man swung wildly, and with renewed vigor, but the swings were broad and slow. Despite Bennett having turned Jim into a mindless killer, he hadn’t done anything to improve Jim’s health. The big man was tiring.
Hawkins slipped a new cartridge into place and closed the stunner. The blades attached to Jim’s arms whooshed past Hawkins’s chest. Dangerously close. He could charge forward and attack with the stunner or the machete, but didn’t think he’d manage a killing blow without also being skewered. So he aimed to immobilize.
Jim swung and missed by mere inches. While he was overextended, Hawkins brought the machete down on Jim’s arm, cutting through the tube feeding him morphine—he hoped—into the man’s ravaged body.
Hawkins ducked Jim’s next blow, the blade zinging across the concrete wall over Hawkins’s head, leaving a trail of bright orange sparks in its wake. Hawkins swung for the other arm and connected, successfully severing the second liquid-filled tube. Jim staggered briefly and Hawkins took the opening to dive past him.
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