Onslaught
Page 27
Budd smiled as the creature tilted back his head and appeared to howl. No noise came through the soundproofed glass, not even a dull thud as the former-mechanic beat his grease-stained hands against the panes.
A scream from behind Budd ended his minor celebration and he turned to see that Jack was now fighting both of the technician-creatures.
And he was losing…
Annabel was on her back, pale-faced and wide-eyed. There were bite marks on her face and part of her nose was missing. Blood gushed from a rip in her neck. Strands of flesh and sinewy muscles bristled out of the crimson wreckage. Her fingers on one hand opened and closed as she waited to die.
Budd jumped towards Jack and swung his shotgun at one of the technicians, who had blond hair and dark blood around his mouth. Budd’s blow struck him on the back of his head.
Immediately limp, the lab worker slumped to the floor.
The other technician turned to confront Budd, snarling as he came on. While he was distracted, Jack attacked him, gouging at his eyes. The creature shrieked as he tried to escape, but Jack held on, pushing his fingers deeper and deeper into the soft membrane until the eyes burst and warm fluid drained out.
Even then, Jack kept pushing his fingers inward, not stopping until a shudder went through the scientist’s body.
The corpse crashed to the ground.
Jack eased his fingers out and then rushed towards the blond-haired lab worker, who was still dazed by Budd’s blow. Jack beat him with his fists while trying to kick away his legs. Budd went to follow, but a scream behind him sent him spinning around, looking for danger.
His first thought was the door, but he found that the creatures were still doing nothing more than futilely punching the toughened glass. He kept turning, sweeping his vision across to where Juliette stood, to where the scream had come from.
Budd didn’t react straight away.
He saw Juliette holding Becky, clasping the little girl in her arms as she had before. Then, he realized that something was different. Both Juliette and Becky were struggling, and when he caught sight of Juliette’s expression behind the blond pigtails of the young girl, there was panic splashed across her face.
He threw down the shotgun and ran towards them. Grabbing Becky around the waist, he tried to tug her away, but the little girl held Juliette’s hair and clung desperately to it, refusing to let go.
Budd yanked, and the clump of hair ripped from Juliette’s head, sending her and Budd reeling in opposite directions. As he toppled backwards, Budd threw Becky from him and then landed on the hard floor, which knocked the wind from his chest and slowed him getting back to his feet.
By the time he had, Becky was already up. She was standing with her lips stretched tight over her teeth and her small hands shaped like claws. Her eyes flitted between Budd and Juliette.
“If I’d have known,” Budd said, raising one eyebrow. “Then I’d have called you Slime-nose.”
Becky charged.
Budd kicked out and the little girl flew back through the air. He was on her in a flash once she’d landed, kicking and stomping on her as she writhed on the ground. He only stopped when his boots were slick with blood and her head was nothing more than a misshapen lump.
He stepped back, fighting to regain his breath.
“No,” Juliette screamed, dragging the word out as long as the air in her lungs would allow.
Budd turned to see Jack on his knees, his face peering out from over his back; his head was twisted so far around that his neck had snapped. Standing behind the grim carcass, the blond-haired technician lapped up the blood from around his mouth. He let go of Jack’s head and the body slumped.
“I guess that means you want some too?” Budd said, scooping over to pick up his shotgun.
He could hear Juliette sobbing behind him, but he didn’t dare turn and look; he simply kept staring at the final creature in the room.
The technician-beast came forward, tempting a swing from Budd’s shotgun. He ducked back at the final moment. He snarled a challenge, lunging with one hand after the other, but when Budd advanced the creature backed away, maintaining the distance between them.
“Oh, I see you’ve learned how I smashed up your buddies. So you think you know how to beat me then, you ashen-faced freak? Well, I’m more than just a one-trick pony.”
The blond-haired creature straightened and lowered his arms. His head tilted sideways to an uncomfortable angle and his teeth-exhibiting lips formed a ghoulish smile.
Budd hesitated. “Wait a minute. You understand me?”
“Are you so simple?” the blond-haired creature asked, his voice filled with mocking amusement. “Are you so simple that you still don’t understand?”
“Understand what, freak boy?”
“What you’ve done, of course.”
“What have I done?”
“Given me more years to rule this world,” the lab worker-thing answered with a laugh. “You have sent me back even further, where I will conquer this world again.”
“Sent you back? But we sent back-” Budd began, although his words trailed away as his mind raced to catch up.
Oh…
“I am everywhere,” the blond technician said, and then he took a bow, sweeping down low and standing up again with a smile.
Outside the chamber, on the far side of the glass, all of the other creatures made exactly the same movement, at precisely the same time. When the technician started to speak again, they each mouthed the words he spoke. “After I have taken full control of your puny bodies, I can see through each set of eyes, hear through each set of ears, and I know everything that was known to you before. And you have given me another time to conquer, just like that fool Deacon did.”
“Sorry, buddy, but last time you pulled this, the containment fields were down. This time, you’ll find yourself trapped in a glass prison. They’ll kill you before you do any harm.”
The creature chuckled. “You watched me go back holding a revolver. Do you think your glass prison will stop that? I’ll escape.”
“What do I care? Right now, it’s just you, the girl and me. And you ain’t welcome.”
The blond-haired lab technician frowned and then shrugged his shoulders. “You are trapped in here, and I have no more use for you. Not now that you have given me so much. I would rather watch you starve than occupy your bodies.”
“You’re not missing much; I’ve never been a great host. So quit talkin’ and start fightin’,” Budd said. He readied his shotgun above his shoulder as though waiting for a pitch.
Slowly, the technician-thing walked forwards, seemingly oblivious to the shotgun’s wooden stock as it arced towards his head. The blow landed cleanly and sent the creature reeling to the floor. Budd stood over him, smashing the butt down again and again until the lab worker’s face was unrecognizable and the blond hair and white coat were covered in red blood.
Outside the chamber, the other creatures looked on.
Budd glanced around them, a strange collection of lab technicians, engineers, kitchen staff, warehouse workers, maintenance personnel, office staff, doctors, and even one man dressed in blue-and-white striped pajamas.
They all smiled right at him.
Budd’s left eyebrow hooked upwards and his face cracked into a peculiar smile. He raised the middle finger of his right hand.
Beyond the soundproof glass, the creatures began to laugh.
60
Budd let the empty shotgun clatter to the floor. He turned to Juliette and found her leaning forward with her head between her knees, sobbing quietly. Rushing over, he knelt at her side and stroked her hair. “You okay, sweetheart?”
With his touch, Juliette’s crying eased and she wiped at her tears. She sat up and looked him in the eye. “What have we done, Monsieur Ashby?”
“Our best,” he answered. “What happened to Snot-nose?”
“There was no warning. She changed. Could she have been that way since we met her?”
“Do not give up, Monsieur Ashby. We can think of something. We must put right what we have done.”
“I think we might’ve left it a little late for a heroic comeback, baby.”
“There is always a chance.”
“I just don’t believe they tricked us. They must’ve been those things since before we got here. Was this whole thing staged to get me to tell them Deacon’s code?”
“There is no way we could have known that, Monsieur Ashby.”
Budd rested his head in his hands. “The last thing Deacon said before he died was that they could talk. I thought he meant that whole telepathy mumbo-jumbo he kept goin’ on about. I didn’t think he meant like us. Or to us. Why didn’t that stupid genius explain it better? Maybe, just maybe, we’d have worked this out in time.”
“Maybe, but maybe not, Monsieur Ashby.” Juliette said. She stood up and kissed him on the top of his head. “Perhaps we can still do something.”
Budd shrugged his shoulders and lowered his head further.
Juliette walked across the corpse-ridden floor. She moved between the computer panels one by one, examining the screens. “There are five empty spaces here, Monsieur Ashby,” she said when she reach the terminal Professor Samson had used. “Do you still remember the code?”
“Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Omega,” Budd said half-heartedly, although he did look up from his blood-soaked boots to watch as Juliette typed onto the terminal’s keyboard. She paused for a moment, reading something that flashed upon the screen. Hesitantly, she touched another button.
The blue lightning returned across the three sides of the platform, blazing between the columns.
Budd jumped to his feet. “What’d you do?”
“The computer asked if I wanted to keep the existing parameters the same,” Juliette said, a smile on her lips. “I said yes.”
Around the outside of the chamber, the creatures started to move again, their faces suddenly agitated. Several of them went to use the door’s control pad, their rage growing as the lock continued to hold fast. Behind them, other creatures appeared to be searching the laboratory floor, rummaging around the wreckage on their hands and knees.
“You’re onto something, sweetheart.”
Juliette crossed the room and ran her hand over Budd’s face, her soft fingers rubbing against his stubble. “If this works, maybe you can go back as far as Monsieur Tony did. You can go back and stop him. You must try.”
“What do you mean, me? You’re going first, sugar, and then I’ll follow. We’re both getting outta this joint.”
Juliette slipped away from him and knelt beside Annabel. She raised the dead-woman’s arm and removed something from around her wrist. With the item clenched in her fist, Juliette walked back to Budd. “Do you remember I told you that Annabel was wearing a bracelet that I once gave to Jack? It was my Grandfather’s,” she said as she took hold of Budd’s hand and pressed an object into his palm. It was small and cold.
And sticky…
“Monsieur Ashby, I want you to go back, and when the time is right, I want you to bring it to me and tell me all that we went through.”
Budd brought up the diamond-studied bracelet to look at it closer. He shook his head. “Baby, I told you, you’re going first.”
“Promise me, Monsieur Ashby,” Juliette whispered. Her voice was barely audible above the powerful, flame-like crackling of the blue energy. Tears streamed from her eyes. “Promise you will come and find me.”
“You’ll think I’m a nut.”
“That necklace will be proof enough.”
“You’re going first, sweet stuff, I told you. Now hurry.”
Juliette stepped back and pulled down the collar of her leather jacket. “Becky bit me when she changed. I am going to be one of them, Monsieur Ashby. I cannot come with you.”
“No,” Budd said, staring at the small wound. The teeth marks were clear to see on the bloody, broken skin. He shook his head. “You can’t be…”
“I am, and there is nothing you can do,” she said, wiping away her tears. “Except go and stop this thing from causing more hurt. Save me, back then. Save the world. And when you are done, and I am old enough, find me,” she said, leaning forward to kiss his lips.
When she finally pulled away, Budd staggered backwards, unsure what to say. She led him by the hand to the platform steps.
The whole thing was moving too fast for me—I was lost for words. I desperately tried to think of a way to keep Juliette with me.
But she was right; there wasn’t anything I could do to help.
It was much worse than my five divorce hearings—most of those women were glad to see the back of me. Or vice versa.
This was different.
Maybe I’m just a sentimental old fool, but I really think that Juliette and I could—oh hell, it doesn’t matter now…
“Juliette, I… I can’t go without you.”
She smiled and then stood on her tiptoes and kissed him again. “Budd,” she whispered into his ear, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He looked beyond her and watched as one of the white-coated lab workers who’d been hunting around the laboratory floor came forward brandishing a revolver. The scientist aimed it at the center of the inner chamber’s glass wall and fired. Although the bullet didn’t penetrate, cracks appeared like strands of a spider’s web across the glass.
A second bullet spread the cracks further.
It was only a matter of time.
“You must go, now,” Juliette said, pushing Budd up the steps.
He walked onto the platform and Juliette flicked the switch that Professor Samson had used to allow the energy to cross the fourth side of the platform.
Budd peered through the blue haze, his eyes locked on Juliette as the light and crackling intensified. He watched her standing there, a smile on her face, her dark hair bobbing back and forth. She waved at him with one hand and shielded her eyes with the other.
Budd struggled to keep watching her for as long as he could, but soon the blue light was too bright, the sound was too loud, and he felt the sensations reaching into his brain, pressing on his mind.
He felt as though he was being crushed.
And then there was nothing.
THE NEW DAY
61
Time travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In fact, it isn’t very much at all.
One second I was surrounded by the blue-light show, feeling like I would implode, and the next I was down on my knees, my hands clasped to my ears, suffering from what I can only explain as the worst damned jetlag you can ever imagine. I was also unable to see anything because the room I was in was pitch black.
At least, it seemed pitch black for a while. But then I saw a small light, a flickering flame, just a few feet ahead of me…
Budd brought up his head, trying to shake off the time travel’s effects. He felt groggy and tired, and his limbs were fragile and light. “Hey, someone switch on the lights. Is this how you treat visitors from the future?” he called out, directing his voice towards the fist-sized ball of fire.
Gradually, his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness. By shielding them with his hand from the flame, which, from the way it moved, ghostly and fluid, he guessed was a makeshift torch. He was right: a burning rag wrapped around a pole soon became what he saw, and he was able to see a face reflected in its glow.
Tony.
Just in time, Budd saw a flash of silver and rolled to his side, away from the path of the revolver’s bullet.
It buried itself into the floor.
“You can’t run forever,” Tony said.
The revolver fired again and the muzzle flash gave Budd the cha
nce to see his environment. They were still in the central chamber, although one of the glass walls was now nothing more than a jagged hole thronged with shards of glass.
Budd kept himself low as he moved, keeping as quiet as possible.
“It’s just you and me now, trapped here together,” Tony shouted, sweeping his flaming torch from side to side.
In the corner of the room, Budd searched through the debris on the floor until his hands located something suitable. It was yellow-white in color and chalky to the touch. His fingers slipped inside the vacant eye sockets.
Carefully, he lifted the skull from the ground and then waited until Tony was facing the other way. As soon as he was, Budd tossed the bony lump across the room so that it landed in the opposite corner.
The clattering noise drew Tony’s attention.
The torch spun around and the revolver fired, but in those few seconds, covered by the noise Tony created, Budd climbed to his feet and charged the short distance towards his old friend.
Reacting to the approaching sounds, Tony swung the revolver but Budd was already too close, sailing through the air.
His full weight was behind the blow when it landed.
Tony toppled back and released the torch and the handgun, both of which skidded across the floor in different directions.
Budd scrambled after the silver revolver, chasing the weapon until it halted against the platform’s lowest step. He picked it up, his finger easing onto the trigger and then he spun a hundred and eighty degrees.
Tony was right behind him, his hands like claws and his white teeth gleaming in the darkness.
“Stop,” Budd said.
Tony came to a halt, his eyes staring down the weapon’s barrel.
Budd smiled. “That’s a good space mutant,” he said, shuffling his body so that he was seated on the platform. He rested his feet on the bottom step. During the move, he never took his eyes, or the revolver, away from Tony. “You do understand me?”