by Maxey, Phil
Scott pulled the iron free and with Jess pulled the shutter up.
They ran into the cold air, surrounded by a riot of movement. Growls, screeches and roars were as thick as the putrid air, but even louder was the constant gunfire from above, shots pinging off the ground just yards either side as they ran across the concrete. Scott flung back the truck’s door, jumping up into the driver’s seat, Jess the passenger’s and everyone else the back.
Luci and Sanchez stood in the rear opening, firing as two creatures dodged the fire from above, bullets tearing into limbs that appeared to ill fit with joints and torsos that contained heads or was it just a mass of eyes? They didn’t care, as the truck’s engine roared. The wheels straining for grip as Scott steered them a path between as many of the things as he could, smashing into those he couldn’t. They bumped over muddy, uneven ground, then across the sidewalk, hitting another creature head-on. Its body disintegrated, but its appendages, spiderlike clung to the windshield then they themselves sprouted other limbs.
“Get that.. those things off us!” shouted Scott trying to see past the organic matter growing across the glass.
Jess slid her window down, leaned out then sharply back as a claw scythed through the air just inches from her head. She leaned out again, the others in the back still firing, tilted her gun around to the left and fired best she could, hoping she wouldn’t hit the windscreen. Fleshy, sinewy parts flew into the air, and she dropped back into the seat, scouring the frost covered parks, parking lots and entrances for more danger, but most of it was now in the rear mirror. She looked at Scott. “How far?”
“Five minutes maybe.” He glanced behind as Luci appeared in the opening to the rear cabin.
She looked at Jess’s pack.
“Oh, yes, here,” said Jess, handing it to her.
“I’m hoping you got some idea of where Sam is?” said Scott.
Fear almost made the words get stuck in Jess’s throat, but anger forced them free. “Yeah, with him.”
He glanced at his passenger. “Who?”
“Rackham.”
*****
2: 53 p.m. Biochron.
Am I dead?
Sam didn’t know for she felt nothing from her body. No sensation from her limbs, which were now mostly bone at their extremities.
I’m worse than dead. I’m undead. Zombie…
A manic laugh bellowed out. Not from her lips which were torn and decayed but within her mind. She knew insanity had taken her, she had allowed it. A refuge from what had happened to her physically. But the liquid she floated within had not taken her thoughts. Not yet anyway. Nor most of her senses.
She wondered of the world outside her specimen jar, for that’s what she called her watery prison. Had it been six days? Had the world beyond the weird subterranean hell she was in, returned to normal?
She almost laughed again.
No more normal for the world.
But she did think about those still out there. Those that unlike her, had survived the end of everything.
Her mind turned to her mother then father and finally her little brother. Were they still breathing? Had they, made it?
Something told her they had. She hoped her passing would not hold them back from starting anew.
Outside, voices raised. She had heard the mad scientist muttering to himself as he went about whatever work he did, but now the cadence of his talk had changed to one of anger… or was it fear? What would he be afraid of? He was the master of this domain and the creatures. What would stir such emotions inside the monster?
She made some effort to move forward, to the edge of the curved glass to see beyond. To get a glimpse of what was causing him grief, but her limbs lacked the strength to do anything other than cause gentle waves within the viscous substance.
Quietening her mind she listened the best she could. Muffled shouts became louder as he moved closer to the back of the room, where Sam’s capsule was located.
“They won’t make it in here. There are too many.” This was a new voice. Perhaps the thing that the scientist had created. The thing that lived in the other capsule before her arrival.
“She has proven particularly effective at surviving. I wouldn’t put it past her. And she has help. Some military from what my children tell me.”
“There must be a thousand of them around this building. They won’t make it to the entrance above, let alone down here. And if they do. I’ll take care of them… What?”
“From what I have taken from her spawn, I have almost enough serum to stop the degeneration… but she may expire before the procedure is complete and as you know it is taking time to administrate. The process is slow.”
“So what do we do?”
“There is another possibility. The extraction will be less effective because of the patriarchal link but it should be enough to…”
The voices dimmed as they moved further away but fire burned within Sam’s mind.
No! No! I won’t allow it!
Blood or some other form of sustenance flowed within what was left of her muscles bringing her forward until her breathing apparatus bumped up against the glass barrier and she squinted to try and see where they had gone, but the room beyond was empty of vaguely human life. The former part of the conversation then hit her just as hard and emotion welled within her rage.
Mom…?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
3: 00 p.m. Southern Denver.
The truck was traveling fast, too fast for the two in the back being thrown around the cabin like toys, but Jess could see what they couldn’t. Scott weaved around an overturned van but failed to avoid the creature behind it, shearing off its arm or something which acted as such. It staggered back, roaring its displeasure at not being able to stop the few tons of metal.
“How’s it going back there?” said Scott over his shoulder.
“If you could drive straight for more than ten seconds, maybe I don’t blow us up. Yeah, yeah I’m getting it done. Mr. Sanchez is helping. I think he’s used plastic explosives before.”
Sanchez scoffed. “Just once or twice… okay, maybe more.”
Luci concentrated again on placing the pins gently into the block of clay-like substance. “They… do… come… in useful.” She looked up with a smile to the man sitting opposite her. “Done.” Then stood, walking forward while holding on and handed Jess’s backpack to her. “You got four bricks with detonators attached. Lift the cover, flick the switch, then you got sixty-seconds to get the fuck away. Try not to blow yourself up.”
Jess looked at the four packages, nodded and closed and secured the flap. Just a week before, the idea she would ever be in a SWAT truck with a bag full of explosives would be so insane it would not even be laughable. But as they sped along the four-lane road, creatures staggering and running across parking lots and green spaces towards them, it hardly registered as strange.
Scott glanced in her direction. “Going by your directions, we’re just a minute or two away. And the—” A brown blur smashed through a fence that bordered the road, hammering into the side of the truck forcing him to struggle with the large wheel to correct the back end from sliding. They clipped the side of a silver sedan ripping its fender from its body. It clattered over the concrete, coming to a rest at the feet of another creature which ran to keep up.
Luci tapped Jess on her shoulder. “Let me sit there.” As the sergeant sat in Jess’s spot her radio came alive with Miller’s voice.
“The party goers are leaving. Over.”
“Good to hear you’re still alive,” said Luci. “Where they heading? Over.”
“Hard to say, but the general drift is towards your destination. Over.”
“Get yourself back to the base. We’ll be there after the fireworks. Over.”
Scott glanced over his shoulder to the cabin and Jess. “You recognize where we are?”
She leaned forward. They were passing banks of beige grass, sprinkled with snow which bordered the two-lane road. Th
e occasional well manicured tree obscured the roofs of low, wide modern office buildings, some with only dark jagged holes where windows used to be. “Yes, we’re…”
The truck had moved above a slight incline and all saw what awaited them a mile off.
Scott immediately hit the brakes, rapidly slowing to a stop. “How much of that explosive stuff we got?”
The road dipped down, winding between green areas and leafless trees. In the distance sat the Biochron complex, but nearer was a sea of movement.
“I’ve… never seen so many in one place,” said Luci.
“So much for the creeping up to them, plan,” said Sanchez.
They all stared at a wall of misshapen things which stretched from the fields and other buildings to the left, across the road, sidewalks and parking lots to Jess’s workplace on the far right. Dozens deep, so close together it was hard to make out one creature from another. Within the seething mass were glimpses of claws on semi-human limbs, animalistic heads and torsos which twisted and morphed. As each in the truck tried to absorb what they were about to engage with, the obvious was even worse. The things had been waiting for them.
Thousands of orifices attached to vocal chords roared in unison. A battle cry bellowing out into the late afternoon sun, shaking the ground the truck sat on and the wall of abominations surged forward.
Luci had already pushed her door open a few inches and let a brick of light-gray drop to the ground.
Jess eyed the numerous buildings to the right. She jabbed a finger in their direction. “We need to get there!”
“I suggest you back us up, Scott!” said Luci. “Forty seconds and counting!”
Before the last word had left her mouth they were charging backwards, Scott steering best he could back up the slope, but the fury of sound from the wave about to crash upon them drowned out even the V8 engine. He started to slow as they neared the crown of the hill.
“Further!” shouted Luci. “Keep—”
There was a flash accompanied with a boom and heat which made it through the windscreen. It shuddered so hard those in the front covered their eyes thinking it would shatter.
Scott dropped his hands back to the steering wheel, the air already full of the stink of what lay a hundred yards ahead of them. A beige smog sat above a crater, surrounded by quivering appendages. Other things, further afield appeared momentarily confused, staggering into each other.
“Yeah, fuck you!” shouted Luci.
“This is our chance,” said Scott. He turned the wheel and pushed down on the gas, the truck bumping over the sidewalk, then up and over the grassy bank towards the nearest of the glass and steel, three-story buildings. “Get another one of those—”
She pulled the plastic cover up and flicked the switch, holding the brick of explosive up. “Already on it!”
Sanchez looked out of the thin slit of the left side window. “They’re… not dead… reforming…” he said under his breath, watching as the scattered, torn parts of what used to be, grew new tendrils, reaching out, combining with others. The truck swerved between trees which sat outside the Biochron parking lot.
Luci leaned out through the open window, throwing the brick in the general direction of the horde which had rediscovered its target. The explosive quickly sunk within them as screeches rang out and the hideous things scurried over the muddy ground.
The truck almost leaped onto the concrete of the parking lot, scratching along the side of an SUV, taking the wing mirror with it.
Jess spotted the bland walls of the garage she had walked from in the dark, days before. “There! Take us back inside…. Sam?” An image of her smiling daughter was before her, as if the girl was actually standing in front of her. The scene obscured everything else, then with a blink it was gone. “She’s—”
A boom echoed out as a cloud of smoke rose into the air beyond the building. Scott heaved on the big wheel, turning the truck in a sharp turn when with a loud clunk, something dropped on the hood, covering the windshield. From memory of where the entrance was he drove forward, jolting the truck left and right to shake what was clinging to them and drove through the opening into the large garage, then slammed on the brakes. The thing flew forward hitting up against a square pillar, but landed with its multiple legs on the ground intact. Stalk like eyes which protruded from a human skull raised just as projectiles from two assault rifles took it apart.
Jess had already jumped out and with Sanchez pulled the heavy metal shutter down, locking it in place. Outside came screeches and roars but she turned back to the truck, then ran alongside. The other two climbed down from their seats, their rifles aimed at the quivering mess on the smooth floor and fired off another volley, this time separating even more what was already trying to reform. Something clattered against the garage door, making most momentarily flick their attention in that direction, Jess though was scouring the nearby walls. She ran to a series of metal closets, pulling each one open until finding what she needed and ran back to the mound of malformed flesh on the floor which had already become something with burgeoning eyes. She poured the contents of the plastic container across it, making the fresh skin and organic material froth and bubble. Before the others could comment she looked the ten or so feet to her right, at the door to the staff room and the stairwell beyond, almost falling against the pillar. Sam was standing in the doorway. She took a step forward.
“What do you see?” said Scott, raising his weapon towards the open doorway.
She looked at him. “What? It’s my—”
The space where her daughter had been was empty.
Another crash came against the garage shutter, which rippled in reply.
“Not going to hold,” said Luci.
Scott climbed back up into the driver’s seat, fired up the engine and reversed until the back was up against the shuddering barrier. He climbed back down, joining the others. “Not sure how long that’s going to help.” He looked to the entrance to the guard lockers, shaking his head. “Really did not want to be back here… ever.” He looked at Jess. “Any idea what floor she’s on?”
She touched her temple hoping the buzzing from the things outside and within would quieten, to allow her to better concentrate on the task at hand. “I don’t know…”
“Right. Then we go level by level.” He took a step forward before she spoke again.
“He’s here…”
“Who?”
“The thing you thought was Lucas Winters. I think it was Rackham.”
Scott’s brow tightened. “I don’t know what that thing was, but it wasn’t the chief crazy.”
“I’m telling you, it was him. I don’t know how he looked the way he did. But I’m sure.”
A brief glance moved between Scott and Luci.
“Okay then.”
They all moved forward into the hallway, sliding the beams of their flashlights across the lockers. They looked the same as before.
“What… is… that…” said Luci.
Everyone else swung their lights, joining her’s, towards the entrance to the stairs, some tens of feet away. The gap had been replaced with strands of what appeared to be blue-green skin, or muscle. None of those standing aghast could make sense of it.
“Is there another way down?” said Sanchez, a tinge of fear in his voice.
“There’s a staff elevator on the other side of the building,” said Scott. “I’m not full of hope that it will be any better.”
“If we could even get to it,” said Luci.
Sanchez looked back to the membrane, his mouth moving, lacking words to describe what he was seeing.
Jess walked forward and with a scythe of the barrel of her weapon tore holes in the organic material which flapped and waved then suddenly slid back together. She shook her head, turned, jogging back to the garage and retrieved the container of gasoline, picking up another and handed it to Scott. “This should work.”
He looked at the mostly full jug. “This is our defense?”
“You want us to go into that?” said Luci.
Every inch of the walls, ceiling and floor was covered in the same material. A slime soaked covering which appeared alive with welts and constantly moved as if beneath its surface were an infinite number of microscopic creatures.
Without another thought, Jess walked over the threshold, her boots sinking an inch into the soft, fleshy substance. She waited a few seconds, expecting it to come alive and attack her, but instead it simply continued to throb and pulse. “It’s safe. We have to go down to the next level.”
They reluctantly followed, each having to pull their boots from the floor as if they were walking through viscous mud and descended.
Jess approached the entrance to more staff quarters. This door was only partially covered by the inhuman substance and was partially open. She poked her light into the gap but something told her, her daughter was nowhere within the deep shadows of the other doors in the corridor beyond. She turned, shaking her head. “She’s not on this—”
A clang echoed from below, making everyone flick their weapons towards the new set of stairs they were about to move down, and then lower as Scott peered over the edge, hoping his flashlight strapped to his weapon would illuminate the six-floors to the basement level, but the light gave up after three. “Why do I get the feeling we’re being watched.”
Jess walked down the steps. “Because we are.” She knew what covered the interior of the Biochron underground labs was an extension of the chief scientist. If hell truly could exist on earth, Rackham had found a way to bring it to life. And Sam was down there, being held by something that was no longer a man or even human. This was his domain and despite the creatures’ efforts to kill her… or worse, absorb her, she knew now she had made it here, he would try to capture her and that gave her an advantage. Not much of one, but it was something.