by Tom Abrahams
No. The decision was instantaneous. There was absolutely no cause to tell the general or anyone else outside the facility what was happening until he had it back under control.
He grabbed his magnetic card key from the desk and set off through the complex catacomb of hallways and laboratories that made up the clandestine facility, his handgun raised.
Red swirling lights gave the hallways a hellish glow as he jogged down them. The buzzing alarm grated at his eardrums on his route to the control center, better known as the MCC. It separated the two primary areas of ESEF—the labs on one side of the facility, barracks and offices on the other. One couldn’t get to the other side without moving past the MCC.
It was the perfect place from which to have eyes on the unfolding situation. From the security of that room, he could task those under his command to stop the threat. He swallowed, thinking about the threat, and considered for a brief second that he should pray. He reconsidered, remembering that he’d long ago forsaken such things when he decided he should play the creator and destroyer of man.
Gibson pushed through another doorway, which hummed and clicked as he waved his magnetic pass across its locking mechanism, and wound his way closer to the MCC. Each time he went through a door, he brought his gun up and scanned the hallway. He leveled the weapon, sweeping it as a first line of defense. It found no targets.
Where were the sentries? None of them were at their posts. Every door, protected by coded card keys, should have had two guards. Not now. Not as the alarm droned deafeningly through the facility.
He stopped and spun around, taking note of the desolation along the path he’d already traveled and the distance ahead. He was nearly there. He sucked in a breath of the cold, dry air and marched toward his destination. He waved his card across the magnetic lock at the MCC entry. It buzzed and turned green. He then punched in a six-digit passcode and shouldered the heavy metal door inward, weapon up. He was barely into the dark space, awash with the bluish gray glow of television monitors, when the door nudged past him and slammed shut.
The mind-numbing buzz of the alarm was muted beyond the thick metal door that protected the MCC from the rest of the complex. Now it was part of the chorus he’d heard over the phone: the sounds of battle.
Gibson’s eyes adjusted to the dark room and focused first on the bank of monitors that lined a wall across from him. There were seven monitors, their screens split into quads. Four images graced each of the boxy displays. It was state-of-the-art equipment, technology not available to the rest of the world yet, but it was far from perfect.
The grainy images of the darkened spaces were only somewhat visible because of the flashing red lights and the automatic gain in the wall- and ceiling-mounted cameras. They compensated for the low light by adding pixels of white into the moving images. The cameras were not outfitted with infrared. Auto gain, then, was better than nothing. Though in this case, as Gibson saw the horror unfolding on some of those displays, nothing would have been better.
Of the twenty-eight camera monitors available to the MCC, eight were black. They weren’t functioning, or there was no light at all to feed the cameras. He knew four of them were cameras dedicated to the lab where they’d secured Lieutenant Brett. Two of them were inside the lab and two more were in the hallway immediately outside the lab’s lone, secure entrance.
In some way, Gibson was relieved to see nothing on those square imageless screens. It would have been irrefutable proof of his own incompetence. As if the rest of the displays weren’t proof enough of that.
Ten displays revealed empty hallways. An armed guard limped from the bottom of one screen and through the top. The injured man repeatedly glanced over his shoulder, his lame left foot leaving a dark smear along the middle of the corridor.
Flashes of the red line drawn on the map of Vietnam snapped in his head. It was a deep, dark, indelible red line that traced the power and violence of the thing he’d created. Gibson blinked at the image after the man was gone. He waited for something to follow, to give chase, but nothing did. His eyes moved along the wall, stomach lurching at the gore.
Eight cameras on two screens revealed the carnage left behind by Lieutenant Brett.
There was blood. Pooled and splattered.
There was flesh. Shredded and splayed.
There was bone. Sharp and broken.
Gibson’s eyes flitted from one working display to the next, searching for his creation that had left behind another red line. The last two didn’t reveal anything new.
As he moved down the monitors, he still couldn’t see Brett, but he could hear his handiwork. The screams, the futile cries for mercy, the exclamations of fear and resignation all crackled across the communications system and clung to the walls of the MCC with a resonance that wormed its way into Gibson’s ears and into his core.
“Major,” said one of two men in the room, sitting at a bank of phones and computer terminals on the broad desk beneath the displays. “Major, I didn’t see you there.”
Gibson’s heart thumped as he instinctively leveled his 1911 at the men. He’d not seen them either, having been fixated by the grainy, blood-soaked images on the monitors above them. His wide eyes darted between them, and he lowered the weapon.
He exhaled, happy to see live soldiers. “Turn off the alarm,” he said. “It’s not doing anyone any good. We all know what’s happening.”
The guard nodded, returned to his keyboard, and punched out several commands. The flashing lights went solid. The two-tone blare silenced.
Gibson swallowed, suppressing the burn of bile in his throat, and acknowledged the young man, whose name was Lawson. He was more of a boy, Gibson thought. What was he? Nineteen? Twenty? The average age of the men who’d died in Vietnam was nineteen. How old had Lieutenant Brett been when he’d shipped off, when he’d been ordered to take the dose of VX-99?
Gibson didn’t have time to talk. They needed action. They needed to soothe the beast.
“Where is he?” he asked.
Lawson opened his mouth to speak but closed it again and glanced over his shoulder at the other guard. The young man, pimple-faced and wide-eyed, shrugged and shook his head. He mouthed the words “I don’t know” and glanced past his comrade to Major Gibson.
Gibson grunted his disapproval, stepped forward, and shouldered his way past Lawson. He motioned for the pimple-faced recruit to move aside, which the man did. He found a lever at the base of a gooseneck microphone and, yanking the mic closer to his mouth, he pressed the lever down. Stenciled above it were the words ALL CALL. When he held the lever, the incoming communication ceased. It was muted. The silence inside the MCC was deafening. He could hear the hiss of clean air filtering through the vents in the ceiling and floor. “Lieutenant Brett,” he said, “I know you hear me. This is Major Rick Gibson. I am ordering you to stand down.”
Gibson let go of the lever and leaned back in the chair to eye the monitors. Four more were recently dark, and none of the others showed any movement. The cries that echoed through the halls and bored into his bones had stopped.
Was that a good thing? Likely not.
Gibson pressed the lever again. “I know what you are, who you are, Trevor,” he said. “I know you served your country and your country did not serve you. Semper fidelis was a one-way street for you, Trevor.”
Gibson’s eyes darted from one working monitor to the next. He kept his finger pressed down on the lever. He licked his lips, hoping for a connection.
“I know about Stacey Arbuckle,” he said, hesitating after saying the woman’s name aloud. “I know she hurt you, Trevor. I know she was the love of your life and you sacrificed it for your love of country.”
Gibson’s eyes found his own long, extended finger straining against the lever. He craned his neck to one side, releasing the tension to the sound of a crack in the vertebrae. Then he searched the monitors again. Nothing.
“I know where…” He considered his next words for an agonizing three second
s before he continued. “I know where Stacey is right now. I know where she lives. She’s in Richmond. It’s not too far from here. We could make arrangements.”
He didn’t specify the sort of arrangements he was offering. The truth was he had no idea where he could find Stacey Arbuckle. He didn’t know for sure the woman was even alive. And if he did, it wasn’t as if he’d ever arrange for anything involving her.
He let go of the lever and exhaled, just now realizing he was holding his breath.
Lawson, the young guard, whispered behind Gibson’s shoulder. “Who is Stacey Arbuckle?” he asked. “Do I need to—”
Gibson held up a hand to silence the young guard. He didn’t answer the question. His attention was on the monitors and the sounds coming from the spaces outside the MCC.
Nothing at first. No movement. No sounds other than the silence between pops of static. Gibson searched the desk in front of him and found a volume control. He spun it to the right, elevating the audio inside the protected space. The speakers built into the walls hissed. And then Gibson saw movement in the corner of his eye. He glanced up to see the beast, his beast, standing front and center before a ceiling-mounted camera.
“Where is he?” Gibson asked. “What part of the building is that?”
Brett’s puckered, dark red lips made popping sounds. His face was spattered with blood, as if he’d dipped his face into a fruit pie and moved it back and forth to slurp up the filling. The gore stained his uniform and exposed flesh.
Gibson moved his finger back to the mic lever and held it there, hovering above it and waiting for Lawson to confirm. The young man leaned in for a better view.
“Where?” snapped Gibson.
“Corridor four,” said Lawson. “It’s corridor four.”
“That means nothing to me,” said Gibson. “Where in relation to—”
“Major Rick Gibson,” the voice hissed through the speakers, filling the MCC, “you know…nothing.”
Gibson turned down the volume and touched the standing hair on his neck. The adrenaline that coursed through his body was a strange mixture of excitement and fear. His finger, the one hovering above the mic lever, was trembling uncontrollably.
The monster looked to the left and then to the right. He eyed the camera lens again, glaring straight through Gibson. He spread his sucker lips as wide as they would open, revealing inhuman teeth stained with bright red at the pale gums. His thick tongue waggled in and out of the hole, scraping along the jagged edges of his teeth. His knees cracked beneath the fleshy muscles that framed his thighs.
Gibson lowered his finger, pressing the mic lever. “I know you have a soul, Trevor. I know you’re still inside there. And I know you don’t want to do this. I can make it so you don’t have to do it.”
Of course, Gibson was as likely to find and reconnect Stacey Arbuckle with Trevor Brett as he was to figure out how to stop the electrical impulses that he knew VX-99 pulsed through Brett’s morphed body, but he was out of options. He was grasping. He was playing politics, as he’d done for a dozen years.
“I want to help you, Trevor,” he said. “That’s why you’re here. We want to help you, not hurt you. We will make you whole again.”
As Gibson spoke, Lawson displayed a map of the complex on the desk. He pointed to the spot where he believed Brett was holding court. Lawson traced a finger toward the MCC. It was close. Gibson released the lever.
“How soon before the reinforcements are here?”
“I called for them immediately,” said Lawson. “Any second now.”
Brett popped his lips again and then flexed his talons at his sides. “You can’t make me whole,” he said through the fog in his voice. “But I can tear you apart, Major Rick Gibson.” He licked his lips again. “I can’t wait to find out how you taste.”
Before Gibson could respond, before his heart could beat or his eyes could blink, the Ma Trang exploded from the floor toward the camera. The display filled with static and then went black. White noise filled the MCC.
— 32 —
Odenton, Maryland
May 1, 1980
The alarm ceased and the lights flickered off, shrouding the hallway in darkness. Brett took a moment to wipe warm blood from his eyes and blinked into the shadows. They could kill the lights, but that didn’t affect his sight. His vision had adapted for conditions just like this. Hunting in the jungles of Vietnam and avoiding enemy patrols had made him an apex predator. Transformed him into something most soldiers only dreamed of becoming.
The soldiers pursuing him through the corridors had no idea what they were hunting, and had made a very fatal choice to pursue him, thinking they were the hunters.
Fools.
Brett had already shown a dozen of the men what the face of the devil looked like, and now dozens more had shown up to learn firsthand. It was the last face they would see on this Earth.
Kill them all and take new trophies! The crackly female voice tempted Brett to continue his killing spree, but he had grown stronger over the years and ignored her when he knew it wasn’t in their best interest.
Memories of battles that should have left him dead played in his mind, sending spurts of adrenaline coursing through his modified blood. The time when he was being pursued by ten hardened Vietcong soldiers through the jungle. Men that had hunted in the deadly terrain for their entire lives.
She had screamed at Brett then, urging him to skin the men alive and hang their bodies from trees. But Brett had hidden in a cave and waited for them to pass. His patience had countered her hunger. That night, he’d entered their camp and killed them one by one after taking out the guards.
He had feasted well. When the sun came up, his full belly slowed him on his way back to his underground lair. She’d reluctantly congratulated him on his victory but urged him to do more.
You are invincible. You are perfection. You can have whatever you want. Take it with the gift given to you!
Over their time together, her voice had become almost soothing. The familiar rocky tone was, in a way, the closest thing he had to a friend. She was always there, the only person he hadn’t killed, always encouraging him to keep fighting.
Turn around and kill them! she shouted now. Her voice dripped with vitriolic impatience.
Brett ignored her again. There was only one person he cared about dispatching right now. The others were obstacles to that end and nothing more.
He ran harder through the passage, away from the shouts following him. A muzzle flash followed by the chatter of automatic gunfire came from the next intersection, and he dove under the spray. The rounds peppered the wall and ceiling, taking out a bank of lights. The shower of glass rained down on his body as he scrambled away and bolted in the opposite direction.
Another guard charged around the next corner and went to bring up his rifle, when Brett launched his body into the air. He wrapped his legs around the man’s chest. Before his prey could scream, Brett sank his sharp teeth into his neck, pulling away a strand of gristle.
The satisfying gurgle that followed filled Brett with joy. They landed on the ground in a heap, and he wasted no time going to work on tearing the man’s face off with his talons. Brett had done this a hundred times before, and like any person with a skill, his was sharp tuned.
But this time he didn’t have a chance to finish the job.
More gunfire cracked behind him. Brett quickly reached down and grabbed the soldier, rotating his body to use as a human shield. The rounds peppered the dead man’s back, jerking his body in the grotesque, weightless dance of a tangled puppet.
Brett dropped the warm corpse, bolted away, and made a run down the next corridor. At the intersection, he slid on a trail of blood that had pooled out of the two dead guards he had previously gutted. He tried to steady himself by reaching out with both arms, but his naked feet skidded and he crashed to his back.
Gunfire lanced through the air where he had stood a moment earlier. In the glow from the muzzle flashes, he
identified three more shooters, all wearing full body armor and night-vision goggles.
He pushed himself back up and made a run for cover, but when he reached the next pile of crumpled bodies, he saw there was nowhere else to run. He had mapped out the corridors in his mind, and if the map was correct, then the reinforcements were closing in from all directions.
There was only one way past the guards.
Looking up, he saw a broken camera lens. He jumped up and grabbed the metal limb of the video camera, using it to hang from the ceiling with his back to the wall. Pushing up with his head, he tried to move the vent cover, but it was secured with several bolts.
Kill them! the old female voice shouted. The only way out is to kill them!
Brett knew better. Killing these men would result in his death. And while he hadn’t feared the reaper in more than a decade, he didn’t want to die without completing his new mission—destroying the man who had turned him into the monster he’d become.
Gritting his teeth, he slammed the metal vent cover with his skull over and over until the cover popped up. He slid it into the passage and climbed through the opening. Then he carefully sealed the vent and looked through the grate at the floor below. Voices sounded in the passage, and several helmets moved underneath the grated vent. He waited until they had passed before moving on all fours in the opposite direction.
The narrow passage made movement difficult, but he wasn’t like most men. He could squirm and squeeze his popping joints through places much smaller than these.
Another memory surfaced of the tunnels in which he had hidden during the war that seemed like a lifetime ago. The dirt caves crawled with all sorts of tasty creatures, from nutritious bugs and snakes to plump rats. He had lived in one of the abandoned tunnels for several months. It was the same tunnel in which he had killed a dozen soldiers during the war.
He felt safe underground.
Brett continued crawling through the dark passage, blood dripping from his prison uniform and his arm. He stopped to feel the injury where a bullet had grazed his flesh.
