by Phil Maxey
Off in the distance the meat frying noise was now echoing around the stairwell.
It’s getting closer Abbey thought without understanding what it was. She just knew she couldn’t stay where she was for too much longer. There must be some kind of floor plan or map. She looked through the various binders that were on the desk, but without any success.
She did see a page with, “COUNTER MEASURES: ONLY TO BE USED IN MASS INMATE BREAKOUT,” followed by a number of options the authorities had to quell any insurrection. One, which caught her eye, involved the use of XH12 gas. She had heard of XH12 from her hacking days and knew it was pretty nasty stuff. She was surprised it was even down as an option.
The frying noise now filled the stairwell. Whatever was causing it seemed just outside the door. Abbey tore the counter measures page out of the binder and moved swiftly into the stairwell without looking upwards.
The sound of wood and metal smashing into each other came from above. The makeshift barricade she’d discovered had given way. Filing cabinets, chairs and whatever else was used could be heard tumbling down the stairs and smashing up against the wall in front of it. Without pausing Abbey ran down the flights of stairs to the level below and was confronted by a closed door.
Closed! How can it be closed! She pulled on the handle but it would not budge, standing on tiptoe she looked through the glass to an empty hallway and gloom beyond. It’s close, keep moving warned the voice in the back of her mind and she turned and ran down the stairs, leaping three or four steps at a time, turning at the bottom steps she abruptly stopped. Standing in front of her were two men, and a severed arm on the ground.
One was older with hardly any hair, the other was maybe in his late thirties stocky build and dark graying hair.
“They housed females here as well? Who would have guessed?” said Ray smiling. Abbey stood breathing heavily in front of Zach and Ray.
“You caused that racket above?” said Zach standing his ground.
“We have to get inside it’s just behind me!” yelled Abbey while running past both men and into the hallway they had just left. The stairwell was full of the strange sound, which was now more recognizable as scurrying. Zach wanted to be sure there was a real threat above and walked to the front step and looked up.
“What… run!” He turned and ran back to the hallway pulling Ray with him. Not having time to close the stairwell door they still managed to make it into the control room and closed the door behind them. Crouching down they waited for the source of the sound to arrive. They didn’t have to wait long.
“What is that?” Ray peered through the glass of the door towards the stairwell. “Is it oil?” A black mass, which could best be described as having the consistency of tar, flowed past the stairwell entrance.
“That’s not a liquid, look more closely,” said Abbey and they all squinted best they could. For what on first glance looked like a single mass was actually hundreds of smaller creatures, but of what type it was hard to tell.
“Insects?” said Ray.
“I’ve not seen any insect like that, and how they move it’s more like a flock of birds,” replied Zach.
The mass flowed around the stairwell like a liquid being swilled around the bottom of a glass, until it stopped in front of the floor’s entrance. Looking at it was like looking into a nest of ants, a continuous moving mass but somehow overall seemed to have purpose. The mass rose up to form a monolith that completely covered the entrance like it was searching.
“What is it doing?” said Ray slightly panicky.
The mass melted down into a form about the size of a small car and slid along the hallway towards the control room. They all crouched lower.
With no warning the mass leaped forward, landing on the outside of the control room window, and slowly started to spread around all sides.
“Do you know what that is?” said Zach while looking at Abbey.
“How the hell should I know what it is? Can’t you see I’m an inmate like you?” She indicated her orange jumpsuit. “I don’t know what it is, I just know the guards tried to set up a barricade floors above and lets just say it failed…” Her voice trailed off as her attention turned to the computer screen. The message regarding the doors was still there.
“That work?” Zach nodded towards the charge baton. Abbey put her hand on the handle unsure to be honest or not.
“You can keep it I just wondered if it’s going to be any help.”
Behind Zach Abbey noticed “BATON CHARGE POINT”. “Here, I have two, charge them both there.” Abbey handed both charge batons to Zach and pointed to a socket on the wall. “I might be able to help our situation,” said Abbey, standing up in front of the screens. She pulled the crumpled counter measure page out of her top pocket and placed it next to the keyboard. Hundreds of needle legs swarmed around the control room windows, constantly moving, searching. The white noise, which had now been replaced by the sound of glass being scraped and scratched, was incessant.
“We can use the gas,” said Abbey, intently scrolling through menus on the computer monitor.
“What gas? And how are you going to make that happen?” replied Ray sitting on the floor half under one of the desks. Zach picked up the lamp taking care not to shine the light directly on the windows.
“XH12. It’s similar to mustard gas, our lovely hosts had it as a last resort kind of thing.”
“Why didn’t they use it against whatever the hell that is?” said Zach standing next to Abbey.
“No idea, maybe never got the chance. Just need a few more seconds to target it.”
“What about us? Won’t the gas get us in here?” Ray looked worried.
“I don’t see any gas masks, so I’m hoping these control rooms are air sealed, either way we are about to find out.”
A message on the computer screen changed to, “GAS ACTIVATING IN” together with a countdown. “Here we go, I’m Abbey by the way.”
Zach and Ray gave up their names and they all watched the swirling mass. An alarm sounded and all the doors around the control hub closed then hissed.
“Is it working?” said Ray while seemingly trying to hold his breath.
“Breathe. We need to give it time,” replied Zach, sitting on the floor in front of the computer screen. Abbey leaned against the computer desk.
“My friend here thinks the world has ended, what’s your take?” Zach looked at Abbey trying to get a read on her.
“Some years back I used to hangout on conspiracy forums on the web, there was some pretty kooky shit on there, but nothing like this. Military experiment gone wrong maybe.” Her head sank.
A whimpering sound could be faintly heard, like the sound of an injured dog and the creatures that made up the mass slowly started to fall away from the windows, landing with a thud on the paper littered floor around the control room. After a few minutes the windows were clear.
“How long until we can leave?” said Zach looking out of the windows towards the stairwell door.
“We have to wait for the all clear. The message on the screen above me will change. It might take a while.”
Ray was breathing heavily, his face looking flushed.
“We would be dead by now if the gas could get in here,” said Abbey, looking concerned at Ray. Ray’s breathing picked up pace, his eyes were widening, his hands tensed trying to grip at something that wasn’t there.
“So how long you been in here?” Abbey said with urgency looking at Ray, while her eyes glanced at Zach.
“Since the early eighties.”
“Wow, how you not crazy?”
Ray smiled. His breathing seemed to slow down. “Maybe I am, and I never left my cell.”
“What about you?” Abbey looked up at Zach who was still watching the stairwell.
“Does it matter?”
“Guess not.” Abbey looked away.
A clunk then a click sound came from the control room door.
“FLOOR 7/12 CLEAR” flashed up on the
computer screen. Zach reached for the door handle.
“Hold on, I might be able to find us a way out.” Abbey spun round, and flicked through various interfaces, pausing on a screen which displayed a plan view map and various red dots.
“This is a scan of the facility. Obviously we are not alone down here.”
Zach and Ray stood behind her, all watching the neon dots move around.
“How do we know who are us and who are them,” said Ray while swallowing.
Abbey looked towards the stairwell.
“We don’t.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Cal was dreaming. He did this a lot. He was a kid visiting his grandparents in the summer. The sun baked the earth so hard it felt artificial, but his grandma’s homemade ice drinks made the heat durable. This was the summer that he first learned to fire a rifle. His grandfather used to take him out back and in movie cliché fashion taught him to fire at rusty cans. Never at people Cal his grandfather used to tell him, never people. The scene changed, he’s in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Part of a unit that has been sent to watch a local village, to make sure Al-Qaeda don’t infiltrate a local meeting of elders. The sun is strong above him like when he was a kid, so strong that he can feel the skin on his forehead blistering. His cap isn’t doing its job. The villagers are going about their daily routines, women in huddles, children playing. The sun is too hot; his face is burning. The only way to cool down is to start shooting so he does. He starts shooting at the small figures in the village. One after one they go down in a cloud of pink mist. He’s now completely on fire, but he keeps shooting, he reloads and keeps shooting.
Cal awoke. His clothes were wet through. He blinked a few times and sat up. After seven years he was still dreaming the same dream, he stopped calling it a nightmare long ago. A cool breeze washed over him, which brought him to his senses. Door’s open. He looked at the open door of his cell and stood unsteadily.
“Hey, you out there?” he shouted into the gap, prepared for a sarcastic remark. No response, just the cool breeze mixed with a kind of metallic smell. Walking forward he peered out into the hallway expecting to see guards but there were none. Part of him was still in the dream, still burning, he wondered if he’d finally lost his mind. Uneasily he walked into the hallway and looked down towards the control hub area. It was gloomy but lit with a red light and still no guards to be seen.
What’s that smell? And where the fuck are the guards?
The metallic smell was stronger now he was in the hallway, but he couldn’t quite pin down its source. The cell door next to his was wide open but was completely empty. He’d spent seven years confined to this tiny space, but he’d never felt more alone than standing in this hallway.
“The cell doors are open!” Cal shouted towards the control room. He was tempted to go back into the cell. They are going to bust on me for being outside. I know it. But the temptation to explore, to expand his world was even more tempting and with that he walked down to the control hub entrance.
The whole of the control room was bathed in red light. Walking onto the floor of the hub Cal realized what the source of the metallic smell was. Usually he was far away from the killing. That was the only way he could do it. A feeling of lightheadedness crept over his skull, down his face and started to close down his vision. Too much blood. Cal fell to his knees, partially because he had no choice and partially because it removed from his sight what was inside the control room.
A mixture of limbs, faces, body parts covered in dark red blood lay in the bottom of the room. Cal could feel the floor starting to move independent of his head and raised his hands to his face to stop the motion. Get a grip. He stood up, avoiding looking into the control room and started to move away when he heard a noise from inside. It wasn’t much of a noise but Cal recognized it for what it was, breathing. He turned his gaze back to the inside of the control room and searched the scene for movement. Amongst the scene of death one of the bodies was intact and was looking straight at him.
“What the fuck?” Cal jumped back while still looking at the blood-covered whites looking at him. The body started to rise from the others until it was standing on the opposite side of the control room’s window.
“Name’s Michael.” A slim man of Asian descent emerged from the control room while wiping the blood from his face.
Cal took a small step back. “What happened?”
“Beats me, brother, I figured the animals got loose somehow and tore up the place, when I saw you appear from your cell I jumped in amongst that mess hoping you would pass me by.”
“You from the other cell?” Cal pointed behind him.
“Sure am, nice to finally meet my neighbor.”
“You seen anyone else? Guards?”
“Other than these, none.”
They both looked back in the control room. This time something else caught Cal’s eye, one of the computer screens showed dots moving around on a plan view map with the words, “FLOOR 7/12”.
Cal moved uneasily into the control room, side stepping bodies and wiped the blood from the screen.
Michael peered over Cal’s shoulder. “What you see?”
“There’s people on floor seven, two floors above.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Abbey stood in the stairwell, Zach and Ray slightly behind her. All of them were silently listening.
“I vote we go up,” whispered Ray.
“All I know is that’s where those things came from, and there was also something in the cell next to mine that I can’t explain.”
They had all seen the glowing heat signatures in the facility. This represented life and it was above and below them. There were also two exits, one directly above them many floors up and one through the lowest level, level twelve.
They stood, uncertain on the direction to take.
Zach walked towards the down steps. “We go down.”
Both Zach and Abbey had a charge baton, which now appeared to be working. They slowly descended. The lights in the stairwell were bright meaning shadows were at a minimum, which helped. They arrived at floor, “8/12” moving into the hallway, the hub’s door was open but hanging off its hinges.
“Jesus.” Ray looked closely at the door.
Zach indicated to Abbey to look inside the control room, while he walked around the opposite side to the cell’s entrance. She knew from the facility scan that there was nothing alive on this floor but who knows if those things even were alive. Nothing could be taken for granted. She opened the control room door slowly, for an instant the image of the guards’ bodies floors above flashed across her mind, but the place was empty. The screens flashed warnings, and more binders similar to before lay scattered amongst upturned swivel chairs. Abbey picked up one of the chairs quietly and sat down in front of the terminal. There must be something here about what happened.
Zack looked down the hallway to the two open cell doors. There was no noise, no life at all. Smears of blood on the floor created a trail which linked both cells together. Zack looked more closely at the smear, amongst the red flow were shapes.
Footprints, a guard’s boots? There were no other clues to be seen. Zach joined Abbey in the control room. Ray was also there. “Anything?”
“She’s a smart one,” said Ray.
“It seems there was some kind of disease outbreak, created mass panic amongst inmates and guards, caused some of them to go crazy and kill the rest,” Abbey said, intently looking at the pages of text in front of her.
“Do you think we are infected? And where is everyone?” asked Zach.
“I don’t know.” Abbey switched the display back to the facility scan.
“Originally there were twenty-four inmates and it looks like sixteen guards, count the number of heat signatures.” Ray and Zach leaned forward, their eyes jumping from one fuzzy red dot to another.
“That makes no sense,” said Zach.
“Does anything about this make sense?” replied Abbey.
“How
can there be forty-four heat signatures?” questioned Ray.
“Can you get any other info?” said Zach.
“If it was connected to the net absolutely but they used an intranet, no outside connection. From what we can see most of the heat signatures are in the lower levels.”
“Can you see who the inmates are on each floor?” said Zach.
Abbey clicked a few times and a scrolling list appeared of stone-faced individuals. “These are or were the inmates below us,” replied Abbey.
“FLOOR 9/12
CAL RODRIGEUZ: INMATE 34:
MARINES SNIPER
RANK: CAPTAIN
CONVICTED OF MASS HOMICIDE 2009.
LENGTH OF SENTENCE: 24 years.
MICHAEL CHANG: INMATE 35:
NAVY
RATING: CULINARY SPECIALIST
CONVICTED OF MASS HOMICIDE 2011.
LENTH OF SENTENCE: 22 years.
FLOOR 10/12
DALE CLAYMAN: INMATE 36:
AIRFORCE
RANK: COLONEL
CONVICTED OF MASS HOMICIDE 2002.
LENGTH OF SENTENCE: 14 years.
