by Chris Ward
The bear’s lips stretched back in a snarl, then he bit down on Kaede, his teeth sinking into her back and stomach. Soundlessly her legs kicked as the bear lifted the girl and the chair into the air, then they fell back to the ground as Lolo chewed Kaede’s upper half down into his stomach.
Bee stared openmouthed. Lolo kicked the remains of the girl aside and lifted his head, eyes narrowing as his lips drew back in a snarl.
Bee pushed off the floor and flung himself down the steps, trusting to luck. He bounced off the concrete halfway down and rolled to his feet, his hands battered by the hard steps as they searched for a grip. His body exploded with pain, but his legs were still working, so he shoved through a door out into the smoke-filled recreation room on the bottom floor. Not pausing to see if Lolo could get down the tight concrete corridor or not, Bee ran through the smoke and through the door into the swimming pool changing rooms, and then through another door into the pool area itself.
The fire that was slowly engulfing the rest of the Grand Mansion hadn’t yet reached the gym and the pool on the lower floor of the west wing. With the heating off, the swimming pool had partially iced over. Bee ran past it, heading for the back of the complex, looking for another way out.
Behind him came a huge crash, followed by a thundering roar. Lolo had broken through into the changing rooms.
Bee had just seconds before the bear was on him. Near the wall was a small blue cubicle, its door hanging open to reveal cleaning equipment. He climbed inside, sat down on an upturned bucket, and pulled the door shut.
The air in the pool room was freezing, leaving the pool covered in a thin layer of ice, but it wasn’t the cold that was making his teeth chatter. He clamped a hand over his mouth and squeezed until his cheeks hurt, trying not to think about the way Lolo’s jaws had separated Kaede’s torso from her legs like a knife slicing through a square of tofu. She hadn’t even cried out.
She wasn’t good enough, he thought. She wasn’t good enough for the king of all beasts. She was some dirty high school slut, when what he wants is a princess. A starlet…
The cubicle shook beneath the force of Lolo’s roar. Bee squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head into his knees, hoping it wouldn’t hurt when the teeth came for him. The ground trembled as Lolo broke into the pool room, several light-fittings detaching from the roof and crashing down onto the poolside.
Lolo roared again, and Bee heard the monster turn towards him, nose searching for the scent of his prey’s fear. Tears pressed into Bee’s eyes and tried to hold the sobs down, but he had never felt terror so strong, so complete.
Then there was a huge splintering sound, and a wave of freezing water splashed over Bee from above, soaking him through. Lolo roared again, but this time it was in anger and frustration. There was the sound of scrabbling limbs, then the crush and crack of breaking glass and masonry.
Bee sat still, trying not to shiver as the cold permeated every cell of his body. Nothing came from behind him but silence.
Lolo was gone.
Slowly Bee stood up, knocking water that had pooled in his lap onto the floor, and pushed the door of the cleaning cubicle open.
Most of the wall where windows had looked out on to the courtyard was gone. The pool’s ice had shattered and it had lost a couple of feet of water.
Making a direct line towards where Bee had been hiding, Lolo had stepped on to the ice.
Bee shook his head. Too close, too close. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again, trying to sell Lolo short with some cheap slut. The next time would be different.
With one eye on the empty courtyard through the gaping hole in the pool room wall, Bee crept around the pool and back to the changing rooms, hoping first to find a towel and a change of clothes, then to find someone a little more appropriate to tame the greatest forest creature of them all.
39
A battle underground
‘Leave me alone.’
‘But where are you going? You can’t be going out there, surely. It’s suicide.’
Ken shook his head. ‘I don’t care. I’m done with this.’
Ogiwara grabbed his shoulder and tried to turn him away from the door. ‘Stay here or you’ll end up like the rest of them!’
Ken looked up from the floor. Every movement felt like a huge drag on his energy. Before O-Remo’s death he had felt the fight, but now it was gone. One by one they would be picked off, and they would die. It was better to go on his own terms.
‘Look after yourself, Ogiwara,’ he said. ‘Make sure you bolt the door when I’m gone.’
‘You crazy bastard, you can’t go out there!’
Ken pushed him away. He could feel the strength in the boy’s arms, but Ogiwara didn’t resist. In his eyes was understanding. The boy could hold him back all he wanted, but in his mind Ken was already dead.
‘Bolt the door,’ he said, then he pulled it open and stepped outside.
Ogiwara stared at him for a few moments through the crack in the door, then shook his head. ‘Good luck,’ he said, then shoved the door shut. Ken heard the bolts being drawn back across.
He turned to look out across the snowy landscape of British Hills. He took in a deep breath of clear highland air, and it didn’t feel so bad. He felt a constricting feeling in his throat, but as he soaked up the atmosphere he began to feel relaxed, for the first time in forever, it seemed.
He didn’t need to look at the bloody body parts on the ground or the trail in the snow where the bears had been. He looked at the pristine forest and the beautiful replicas of Medieval British buildings, their eaves and overhanging roofs draped in snow. He saw the red telephone box outside the quaint little teahouse, and he smiled at the serenity of it all.
Then he began to trudge across the snow, back towards the courtyard.
He saw several trails where the bears had passed, but no sign of the creatures themselves. The wreckage of the helicopter was still there, the bodies of the pilots, Mika the receptionist, and the young man from the pub poking up through drifts of snow blown by the buffeting wind, their dead faces and limbs draped with a layer of white.
The Grand Mansion was burning, flames flickering behind the windows on the upper floor, and the fire had now spread to the dining hall. In the west wing, there was a hole in the glass wall of the swimming pool room, and the tracks of some great bear in the snow, crossing the courtyard and heading down between two of the dormitory buildings into the forest.
Ken went up to their van, fingers running over the faded logo on the side. Plastic Black Butterfly, his life. With a dead singer and drummer and a missing—presumed dead—bass player, the final nails had been driven into the coffin of his dreams.
He pulled open the back and began to unload his gear. It was time for one last, mournful sonata, before the harsh, murderous arms of the world closed in around him.
‘What are we looking for?’ Jun asked as he pushed through yet another door into yet another storage room. ‘I mean, shouldn’t we just get out of here in case one of those things comes back?’
Akane shook her head. ‘I think we’ll know what we’re after when we see it.’
‘Here,’ Karin said, peering through a small window beside a closed door. ‘This is it.’
‘It’s got a keypad lock. How do we get in?’
Karin lifted a piece of metal pipe she had picked up off the floor near the enclosures and slammed it down onto the keypad. Sparks flew and the door fizzed as it popped open.
‘Primitive security,’ she muttered. ‘I doubt they expected anyone to ever get inside.’
Akane went first with Jun and Karin at her shoulder. She took a few steps into the room and stopped, letting out a small gasp.
‘That’s not good,’ Jun muttered.
The room was filled with dozens of glass incubators, each with a tiny bear cub inside, attached to a series of wires and pipes. Jun went up to the closest one and peered in through the glass. The creature, about the size of his palm, was already fitt
ed with metal plates and inserts that pulsed and shifted as it breathed through a mask attached to a pipe. Moving across the room, he found larger ones in a different section, and through a glass wall saw several others in cages. Some had their fur shaved off, and the metal parts of their bodies visible through their skin.
‘That sick bastard,’ Karin said. ‘You think they bred these or snatched them from the forest?’
‘Bred, I think,’ Jun said. ‘I don’t know how, but we know why. What do we do about them?’
‘We destroy them,’ Akane said quietly.
Jun looked back towards her and gasped. She had opened one of the incubators and was cradling a tiny bear in her hands.
‘What are you doing? Put that back—’
Akane turned towards him. ‘These are not animals,’ she said. ‘These are someone’s twisted idea of the future.’ She lifted the animal over her head. ‘We don’t need this.’
It was Karin who cried out as Akane threw the thing to the ground. It made a tiny yelp that reminded Jun of a puppy, then it lay still. Akane stamped on it, her foot coming away in a mass of metal and blood.
‘This is fucking sorcery,’ Akane said. ‘Scientists shouldn’t be doing this. We have to destroy them. We have to destroy them all.’
‘How?’ Karin asked.
‘There’s nothing that will burn down here,’ Jun said.
‘The power,’ Akane said. ‘They’re all attached to computerised feeding systems and regulators. All we have to do is switch them off.’
The others followed her over to a computer mainframe against one wall. She began to frantically press buttons, stabbing at them in frustration. ‘One of these must turn those things off—’
‘This might help,’ Jun said, lifting up a heavy metal chair. As Akane stepped away, he slammed it down on the computer console, battering it like a hated enemy, letting his anger pour out. Sparks flew and wires broke. From somewhere behind him came a sharp hiss.
‘What’s that?’ Akane said.
Jun turned around. Karin had gone to the far door to look through at the cages. ‘You just released the locking mechanisms, she said. ‘The cages have opened!’
‘The bears?’
‘They’re out!’
Something the size of a large dog slammed against the door separating the incubation room from the cages. A second creature crashed into the glass, creating a hairline crack down the centre.
Jun grabbed Akane’s arm. ‘I think now it’s time we got out of here.’
He turned towards the door just as Karin screamed. He saw something feathery blur across the room and then sharp claws raked across his face. He fell to his knees as blood dripped down onto his hands.
‘You stupid meddling fools!’ screeched the intruder. Jun looked up to see a monstrous creature with the body of a man but a deformed, birdlike face. Arms and legs ended in twisted limbs that resembled talons.
Karin threw her length of pipe at him, but Professor Crow caught it in one deft hand, and swung it towards Akane’s head in the same fluid motion. Jun jerked her out of the way and it crunched harmlessly against a computer terminal. Crow screeched again, but Akane stood up and screeched right back in his face. Her absurd mockery made Crow hesitate, and in that moment Akane leapt at him, grabbing him round the neck and shoving him back against the wall.
He slashed at her face, but Jun pulled her back before Crow could get to her eyes. ‘Open the door!’ he shouted at Karin, as behind him another young bear slammed into the crack-riddled window.
Crow leapt forward at Karin, but she ducked and jerked the door open at the same time. A young bear, its face and body glinting with metal inserts, rushed out of the door, straight into Crow’s path. Jaws snapped at Crow’s face but he threw the creature aside.
‘Come on!’ Jun shouted, pulling Akane towards the door. They tumbled out into the corridor as a bear came after them, growling and snarling like a wild dog.
‘Where’s Karin?’ Akane shouted, kicking out at the creature as it snapped at her legs.
‘I’m here!’ Karin shouted, running out of the door. One of the bears followed her as she ran away up the corridor. ‘Get yourselves out!’ she shouted at them. ‘I’ll find you!’ Then she was gone, turning down a branch in the corridor, several of the dog-sized bears in pursuit.
Jun kicked the small but vicious creature away and pulled Akane after him, back in the direction of the enclosures. ‘We need to outrun them,’ he gasped. ‘You sure they can’t survive away from their life support systems yet?’
Almost as if predicted, the nearest of the bears suddenly let out a low squeal. It squatted back on its haunches, took a sudden deep breath, and keeled over on its side. Its legs twitched a few times, then it was still.
There were a couple of others following behind it, but one keeled over before it reached them, and Jun slammed a door into the face of the third. He pushed through another door and they found themselves back out by the large enclosures.
‘We made a wrong turn,’ Akane said. ‘That’s the door we came in on up there.’ She pointed. About fifty metres deeper into the cave they could see the first catwalk. The catwalk they stood on stretched across to the other side of the cave, but then turned at a right angle and joined up with a third catwalk further along. There was no way back to the door without retracing their steps.
‘There’s a ladder down over there,’ Jun said. ‘If the bears got out somewhere, perhaps we can get out the same way.’
They started off across the catwalk, but Jun suddenly stumbled as sharp claws dug into his neck. As a deafening squawking ripped through his eardrums, he turned back to see Crow bearing down on him.
‘You bastards let my children out, you’ll pay for this!’ Crow screeched, shoving Jun away towards the edge of the catwalk. The metal barrier at hip-height dug into Jun’s back, and he knew he was only a single hard shove away from a date with the electrified netting below.
Crow cuffed him across the side of the face and Jun staggered to his knees as talons shredded the jacket on his back. Jun tried to throw a punch, but Crow easily blocked it and shoved him backwards again. Jun’s lower back hit the metal barrier and this time he toppled over. He stuck out a hand and caught hold of one of the lower rungs in the side barrier, the metal cutting into his palm, but his legs and his other hand flapped uselessly in the air as Crow swung himself over the rail, taloned feet stretching to push Jun off.
‘Hey, you ugly bastard!’
Crow looked up. Akane was clutching something in her hand. She held it up in front of Crow’s face.
The monstrous thing squealed in terror, hands letting go of the catwalk, coming up to cover his eyes. Akane reached forward and shoved him; his feet lost their balance. For a moment Crow hung in the air, hands clutching his face, then he plummeted towards the ground, bouncing up off the electrified mesh in a hail of sparks. He twisted and bounced again, then fell through a hole torn in the mesh and disappeared into the trees below. They heard a thud as he struck the ground.
With Akane’s help Jun climbed back on to the catwalk. ‘What … what did you do?’ he gasped.
‘I showed him his own face,’ she said, eyes downcast. She held up a woman’s makeup mirror. ‘Did you notice how there are no reflective surfaces anywhere? None. Everything is grey and dull, even the steel is unpolished. There was one mirror in his apartment, a tiny thing about two centimetres across that was sitting on the dinner table. That poor bastard despised the sight of himself.’
Jun nodded. He understood her feelings, but with the hideous creature’s talons raking at his face he hadn’t felt the same levels of sympathy. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They headed across the catwalk and carefully descended the metal ladder rungs set into the rock surface. On the ground they found themselves in a mock forest, only the huge glowing floodlights in the ceiling above breaking the illusion. Crow had fallen into a part of an enclosure that was still fenced off, but from where they
stood they could see where one huge beast had passed, ripping through each fence in turn.
‘It’s colder, isn’t it?’ Akane said. ‘And the light’s different somehow. Not so … artificial.’
The bears were long gone. As they stepped from one enclosure into another as the tunnel arced around in a curve, Jun understood why.
At the end, the whole tunnel wall had fallen in, and cold winter light shone down on them. Several catwalks and what looked like a guard building had been crushed in the rock fall, ripping through the fence nearest to the end.
‘That avalanche,’ Jun said. ‘It must have cause this. The wall of the cave collapsed and they got out.’
They climbed up over the fallen rocks, hanging on to each other as the loose rubble groaned and shifted with every footfall. As they neared the top they found an increasing covering of snow, while the air temperature dropped dramatically.
The opening in the cave was about thirty feet high. A huge mound of snow almost covered it, perhaps the result of some secondary avalanche. They climbed up the side, the snow much more difficult to negotiate than the rocks as it crumbled and subsided underfoot. By the time they reached the top and looked out on to the forest they were both exhausted.
The sun had passed down behind the hills to the west, and the temperature was beginning to drop below freezing. Jun held Akane’s arm as they climbed out on top of the huge snow bank and looked down into the chaotic mess caused by the avalanche.
‘Jun, look!’
At the bottom of a gentle slope in front of them, something rectangular was lying on its back, half buried in the snow, surrounded by yellow police tape.
‘It’s the snowmobile they took the other students away in!’
Jun didn’t want to look, but Akane was already wading through the snow towards the vehicle. Jun followed, trying not to look at the brownish stains on the snow just below the freshest layer which her boots had disturbed.