by Kyle Aho
Chapter XI
The gap between the door and threshold was quickly widening as black spiny talons and gnashing teeth squeezed through. Panic spread instantly. Some women went into nearby offices and barricaded them shut while others hid under desks or ran to the back laboratory toward the second exit. Anything to make them feel like they had hope for survival.
Displaying courage no one else felt, Dante squared off with the widening door, grabbed one of the desks he had used to barricade it with, and started using it as a colossal club to beat back the limbs clawing their way in. The surgeon helping Bren detach his cranial bomb dropped her tools and ran.
“Oh c’mon it’s almost off! Son of a bitch,” Bren shouted. The bomb started beeping. “Yeah, yeah I know you stupid piece of-”
“What’s your backup plan if this room is compromised?” Apate asked Dr. Vilmonroe.
“This is the backup plan,” she replied.
“You don’t have another place to fall back to? Somewhere to hide or defend yourselves?”
“That’s what we were doing before you showed up!”
Apate bit her lip and tried to think. With their refuge compromised, they were all destined for a painful, gruesome death and everyone knew it.
“All right, everyone move to th’back of the lab. Try and remain calm and grab any supplies y’can carry with you,” Alistair said as he ushered panicked women through the lab.
It probably wouldn’t save them but at least it gave them purpose and kept everyone moving in one direction.
Dr. Vilmonroe and Apate retreated to the back laboratory to discuss how Apate would find her child and recover the data necessary to create an antidote given this most recent unlucky turn of events. Bren was frustrated and in searing pain from the incisions made around his scalp in order to remove the cranial bomb. Then he got an idea. He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea but it was an idea.
“Dante, move!”
Dante looked back at him and dropped the desk he was using as a club as Bren ripped the cranial bomb from his skull and threw it, along with a generous amount of his scalp, at the doorway. Bren’s agonized scream covered the steady increase in beeping that warned the wearer that it was about to explode. The bomb landed on top of a desk barricading the door with a wet thud, blinking rapidly before it lit up solid and sounded a high-pitched beep that signaled detonation.
Dante and Bren shielded their eyes for the imminent explosion while everyone else was corralled into the other lab and unaware. They waited. The beasts outside squeezed through the door and tore through the metal desks as if their talons were made of torch swords.
They waited. Dante put the pieces together in his head and scrambled away from the door. He got up and ran for the refuge of the back laboratory. Bren stared at the cranial bomb still attached to a fist-sized chunk of his scalp and winced as the tender nerves screamed behind his head. Hot blood dripped down the back of his neck.
“That bastard!” he shouted. The cranial bomb attached to his skull was just a scare tactic. He was never in any immediate danger apart maybe from ripping the device from his flesh and the resulting blood loss. “I’m gonna kill that frakker! I am so damned pissed right now,” he growled, gritting his teeth against the pain as he slapped some pain gel he had on standby over his seeping wound.
“C’mon chief, we gotta go!” Dante shouted as he stood at the threshold to the back office and waved Bren in. A giant spiny raptor tore through the doorway and sprinted toward Bren, which encouraged him to follow Dante’s instructions. Bren ducked under Dante’s chainsaw bayonet as it came up and met the pouncing raptor with messy efficiency. Black blood and entrails sprayed everywhere as Dante carved the creature in half. He watched a horde of smaller creatures pour in from where the towering reptilian had entered as two halves of the beast fell away with a splash of thick ichor. Dante ducked into the next lab and shut the door behind him. Alistair stood next to the door with an inferno pistol and started using it like a welding torch to seal the door and buy them a little more time.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” Dante asked.
“Jus’ thought of it now,” Alistair shrugged. Dante shrugged back and used a nearby lab coat to wipe himself clean of gore. Bren grabbed some gauze and wrapped it around his head, making up for all the lost time by saying such vile and insulting things that outer abyss pirates would have blushed. Some of the women present shot him disgusted looks that he simply ignored.
Alistair continued welding the door as a cacophony of noises assailed it from the other side. Perspiration gathered on his brow, which wasn’t unusual given the stressful circumstances and the high heat he was working with but his face felt increasingly warm. A quick flick of his thumb turned the inferno pistol off. The heat persisted. He took a glove off and put his hand on the door. Heat generated from the other side and was only getting hotter.
Apate detailed the route on her holo-pad with Dr. Vilmonroe and tried to ignore the panicked shouts of everyone else in the room. Dante, unable to maim or destroy anything, felt useless. Bren nursed his scalp with a mix of appalling profanity and medi-gel. He glanced over and saw Alistair’s growing concern at the door in front of him.
Glowing now, detailed features on the door blurred and changed shape. “It’s melting,” Alistair shouted, “we have to go.”
He was already making his way to the back door.
“What the flying frak did you guys make that is melting the frakking door?” Bren growled.
He didn’t receive a straight answer from anyone in particular but he was certain he heard someone say ‘dragon’. That seemed unlikely since the closest drake species was three planets away but then again the closest form of raptor was a whole system away and they were prancing around like puppies so he wasn’t going to take anything for granted. Bren made his way to the back door and prepared to jump from the frying pan and into the fire. Together he waited with Alistair and Dante as they all looked to Apate, who was getting the last bit of information they needed.
“Please don’t leave us in here!” one of the women shouted.
“We’re going to come back for you, everything will be OK,” Dante said.
“What if they get through? Where will we go?”
“Calm down ladies, we’ve got shit to do,” Bren said.
“You’re going to leave us?” another woman shouted.
“No, well yes but we’re coming back,” Dante said.
“Please try and remain calm,” Alistair added.
“We’re about to be overrun by these things!” the woman said.
Apate turned to leave once she was satisfied with the amount of information she had but Dr. Vilmonroe grabbed her arm. The senior scientist hesitated. It looked like she was weighing a decision in her head before finally saying, “There’s something you should know,” just as a large spiny four-armed creature slammed through the melting door.
It splashed slag into the room that covered a handful of helpless scientists. Molten metal flicked around the room with each angry movement from the beast, igniting flesh and incinerating bone as it landed on nearby scientists. A mix of terrified screams and bestial shrieks cut off Dr. Vilmonroe’s next words. Scientists ran in all directions and were quickly mauled by incoming creatures, a typhoon of blood spraying in all directions that covered the room in seconds. A hog-like creature bit off one woman’s leg at the knee. She fell awkwardly toward her stump and was torn apart by smaller creatures.
Heat poured into the room as a plume of flame spewed through the door. That reminded everyone of the fire-breathing creature in the other room. It was too large to fit through the space and spat fire in protest. That was a sobering thought considering the door was wide enough for two men Dante’s size to stand shoulder to shoulder and still have elbow-room. The slag covered four-armed creature smashed into a metal table and tossed it across the room effortlessly. A multitude of bones broke on impact.
Everyone with a weapon tried to quell the tidal wav
e of carnage that poured through the melted frame. Each creature they killed was instantly replaced by several more. It didn’t take long to realize they were fighting a losing battle. Apate, Alistair, Dante, and Bren all fired into the horde as they backed toward the rear exit. They pushed through the scientists and slew hideous creatures on their way to the door, desperate to reach the only escape before they were overrun.
Bren was the first to exit the room, even going so far as to toss a woman blocking the door out of his way before he sprinted into the hall. Alistair and Apate followed as Dante helped the woman up. He blasted a spiny raven out of the air and ushered a few people out the door before realizing his own safety would soon be compromised. Dante ducked his massive head and shoulders through the threshold to catch up to his comrades. His gait allowed Dante to close the distance without much effort. He stayed behind a few paces to give them room to use their weapons freely. More women ran out of the lab behind them, screaming for their lives only to get torn limb from limb by the vicious mutants swarming them. They were all experienced enough to know a lost cause when they saw one and self-preservation was higher on their list of priorities than valor.
Leading the retreat, Apate struggled to navigate in the darkened halls. Auxiliary lighting made it possible and the spears of light coming from salvaged flashlights mounted on their weapons helped but with all the commotion around them it was still difficult to get her bearings and direct them properly. She needed a chance to think and consult her holo-pad without the threat of dismemberment. She shoved open the nearest door and ordered everyone inside.
Condensation dripped down the walls and pooled on the floor. Thick fog limited visibility any further than ten paces. The room felt as though it had been a freezer at some point and was slowly thawing, likely due to the power failure. Cables, wire, and pipes festooned the area. The chaos outside echoed as if in another plane of existence. Dante covered the door with his shotgun and glanced over his shoulder occasionally to keep an eye on things.
Apate was lost in her holo-pad, trying to locate where they were in relation to the lab where her son was held and if there was a way to get to the data banks in between. Bren and Alistair fanned out into the room just to make sure they were alone. It was so quiet that they could hear individual condensation droplets hitting the floor. On either side of the room, tucked against the walls, Bren and Alistair found a row of upright cryo-storage tubes.
Entombed inside the storage units were horrifically mutated men, presumably infected male scientists or miners. Each one had a different mutation but all were covered in that black spiny carapace that encased every other infected creature thus far. One had long, knife-like claws, another had an oversized maw, and still another had inverted knees and massively enlarged legs, an adaptation well suited to jumping and chasing prey.
“Ok, I’ve got it mapped out, follow me,” Apate said. She walked through the fog toward a back door.
“’Ave a look ‘ere,” Alistair said as he stood in front of what he hoped was a sleeping mutant. Dante and Apate followed his voice to meet him. They both understood what they were looking at.
“Should we kill them?” Dante asked, already leveling his shotgun.
“What if there is a cure?” Apate said. She put her hand out and lowered the barrel of his gun. She knew the man in the cryo unit and didn’t want to admit a bias to keeping him alive if possible.
“What if there isn’t?” Dante countered.
“I’ve seen this movie before. If one of these ugly frakkers opens his eyes I’m punching it in the face, I don’t even care,” Bren said as he walked down the line of cryo-storage units. He looked curiously at the varied monsters within. Towards the end of the row he came upon a pair of open units. He rushed over and examined the area. Flashing red lights on the cryo unit indicated a security failure. A trail of footsteps disappeared into the fog. Bren swung his light up to the next cryo unit and looked inside. His stomach dropped in horror as the monster within squinted against the brightness of his light.
“They’re awake!” he shouted.
Everyone turned toward his shout in time to see a giant boney cleaver slice through the air toward them. They jumped out of the way and the giant cleaver shattered the glass on the cryo-storage unit they were examining. With a tortured grumble the mutant lifted its giant meat cleaver and rallied for another strike. Black ichor spewed out of the wounded inhabitant of the frozen tomb next to them. As the mutant lifted its weapon into the air they realized that the giant cleaver was actually its arm. The flesh of his fingers fused together into a solid mass of thick black bone ridged with spiky protrusions along the top and a sharpened blade on bottom.
Apate ran toward the back of the room and yelled for everyone to follow her. Another cryogenic tube opened behind them and sent a hiss of coolant into the air. As the exit sign grew clearer she failed to notice the mutant lurking above the door. Its mutated talons dug into the wall and helped it cling to the sheer surface like a spider. Apate approached the door and lifted her hand to punch the access panel.
Shrieking madly, the creature launched from the ceiling and smashed Apate into the ground. Without hesitation it vomited blood into her face. She tried to scream but choked on the mix of blood and bile. Bren tackled the creature off her and impaled it with his fist-mounted harpoons, using them like punching spikes to pummel the creature in an adrenaline-fueled rage.
Alistair helped Apate to her feet as Dante rammed his shoulder into the door and ejected it out of the threshold and across the hall with a reverberating clang. Apate did her best to clean herself off and run at the same time, spitting out black ichor as she went. Bren heard a growl over his shoulder and saw the mutant with the meat cleaver arm raise his weapon once more.
“Oh shit!” he said before a quick shoulder roll got him out of the way. The giant cleaver missed Bren and instead hacked into the mutant that had pounced on Apate. Both creatures were equally surprised by this turn of events. By the time the massive creature had removed his cleaver from his fallen ally Bren was already half way down the hall running after his comrades. A few of the remaining scientists ran aimlessly around the halls as they attempted to find a hiding spot or an escape route. Anything to survive. Mutated creatures came from all directions. Any attempt at making sense of the chaos while running through the dark was overwhelming. Dante risked a glance over his shoulder and watched Meat Cleaver Arm disembowel a scientist.
The crew’s lungs protested every movement with misery as they followed Apate through the dark and blood-soaked halls. Wails of fear and agony filled the area. Animal cries mixed with human shrieks taunted them and the sounds of flesh and bone tearing apart made the already horrible experience that much more nightmarish. Survival was the only motive for every living thing in the facility. It was pure savage anarchy.
They reached a part of the facility that had large windows on the walls, similar to the observation labs at the entrance that allowed a view into the corresponding labs. As they ran, Apate searched each of the labs for any sign of her infant son. A woman ran screaming down a nearby hallway as the mutant with knife claws flayed her to pieces. His guts trailed behind him like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. He didn’t seem bothered.
“You’ve gotta be frakking me,” Bren said as the mutant charged them.
Toward the end of the hall Apate stopped dead in her tracks. Her flashlight illuminated the body of a small child in a hermetically sealed chamber. Her eyes welled up with tears and for a moment she was stunned. Apate ran back toward the door of the laboratory where her son was held captive. Dante stopped her almost immediately.
“No time, c’mon!” he said. She protested and he was forced to snatch her holo-pad from her hands and simply throw her over his shoulder to keep moving. Knife claws sprinted toward them. Apate screamed and beat her fists on Dante’s back but quickly realized that Knife Claws was gaining on them. She drew her gun and held it at an awkward angle given her position. She emptied the weapon down
the hall as the creature simply bobbed and weaved around the cone of fire with remarkable agility.
Dante glanced at the route detailed on her holo-pad and shouted instructions to both Alistair and Bren as they took whatever shots they could at the mutated creatures exiting from surrounding labs. Apate tried to reload her gun and dropped her magazine while bouncing around on Dante’s shoulder.
“Put me down asshole!”
“No time, we’ll go back for him.”
She grabbed another magazine and slammed it into her weapon just as Knife Hands pounced. She held down the trigger and unloaded it into the beast’s face as it flew through the air toward them with extended claws. It was unable to dodge the shots while in mid air and most of the bullets hit their mark and tore the creature’s head apart. Momentum kept the body moving and it slammed into Dante’s back as he ran. He tripped and made an effort to toss Apate forward to avoid landing on her. Dante rolled onto his back and fired a massive slug into the corpse of the monster that hit him, unaware that it was already dead.
Apate stared up at the ceiling, her vision a blur. Something scuttled into her line of sight. She struggled to get her bearings as a massive black spider descended onto her. Eight spiny legs wrapped around her torso and finger length fangs gnashed down at her dripping with venom. She barely had enough time to bring her forearms up in defense, struggling to keep the thing at bay as she screamed.
Dante heard the scream and looked back. Any shot he took would hit her too. He scrambled to his feet and started down the hallway before footsteps thundered behind him. A glance over his shoulder was all he could manage before the inverted knee creature jumped and pummeled him into the ground. Although his bones were laced with titanium, Dante was positive he felt something in his chest break from the impact. His shotgun was ripped from his grip and slid aside.
Bren loosed a harpoon down the hall and watched it embed into the abdomen of the spider attempting to eat Apate. A quick jerk on the chain tore the creature off of her. He then activated the winch in his forearm and gauged the time it would take to reel the creature in. With a grunt he slammed his other spiked fist into the squealing arachnid at the last moment.
“Boom, bitch!” he yelled as the arachnid writhed on his harpoon. Bren’s gloating was short lived as the spider wrapped its long boney legs around his chest and pulled him into its dripping fangs. Bren lifted the creature with both arms and slammed it down onto the concrete. It struggled for only a moment before its legs relaxed and he was released from their grip.
Alistair ran down the hall toward Dante, thankful for the steel toe in his boot as he kicked the armored creature in the face before shoving an inferno pistol down its throat and pulling the trigger. It bloated strangely and the creature’s body hissed as heat escaped through the carapace like a boiling crustacean before it crumbled under its own weight. Dante shoved the crispy corpse off him and wrinkled his nose at the smell of burnt flesh. He grabbed his shotgun and they continued their escape.
Fortunately, after such a violent struggle they weren’t far from the data bank. It appeared as though the creatures had given up temporarily on the team in favor of easier prey around the facility. Everyone staggered into the data bank and used whatever chairs, desks and other equipment they could find to bar the door.
“Boys, the doors slide open. Blocking them won’t help,” Apate said.
They all looked at her.
“I’ve locked them, we should be fine.”
“Those things don’t know that,” Bren said before putting a nearby waste bin on top of the pile.