Cannibal

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Really? ‘Cause I got the distinct impression that was the one place we should avoid.”

  It wasn’t like Rook to question his decisions, especially under fire, but then this was an unprecedented situation. Rook was also aware of what was going on, both with their friends and back at Endgame, and King could not ignore the possibility that the other man might be right. “I’m betting one of those tunnels down there leads to the pyramid,” he replied, as much to rationalize his course of action for himself as for Rook. “That’s our best chance of beating the trap and helping the others.”

  “Oh.” Rook hefted the machine gun into his arms. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  King took a fragmentation grenade from his gear pouch and stripped off the safety band. “Ready?”

  At a nod from Rook, he pulled the pin and lobbed it in a high arc, out over the field. The explosion that reverberated through the stone floor was like a starter pistol, and both men leaped over the wall of the ruin.

  King half-expected the move to be met with a fusillade from the cartel fighters, but instead there was only an eerie silence as they pounded through the rubble-strewn maze. The destruction of the TOW system probably meant that they were nearly invisible again, so maybe the enemy did not yet realize that they were moving.

  The silence was broken, not by shots fired at them, but by the sound of multiple reports from underground, as their teammates engaged with an unseen enemy. King took some comfort from the fact that they had anticipated the possibility of another encounter with Beltran’s hell pigs, adding shin guards to their protective equipment and upgrading both their weapons and ammunition. A high-velocity 5.56-millimeter M995 tungsten-core armor-piercing round would have a better chance of penetrating hide and bone than the 9mm pistol rounds they had been packing during their previous encounter with the beasts. But even with those measures, the three trapped in the tunnels below would not be able to hold out forever.

  King’s injured leg was throbbing from the dynamic leap over the wall. Further complicating matters, the shape of the path through the ruins had changed. Enormous pits had appeared in the avenues and under several of the already broken down buildings, reminding King of the tabletop game, Labyrinth, where the goal was to steer a marble through a maze riddled with holes. The collapse that had sent King’s three teammates into the tunnel system had evidently not been an isolated incident.

  The implications of this became another item in King’s complex mental juggling act. Their enemy had a plan, and so far, they had executed it almost perfectly, first cutting off the team’s escape, then driving them into the ruins where pre-rigged pitfalls waited to deliver them into the waiting jaws of the omnivorous boars.

  He skidded to a stop a stone’s throw from the pyramid steps and raised a hand, cautioning a panting Rook to stay quiet.

  “What is it?” Rook whispered, so softly that King would not have been able to hear without the glasses.

  “He’s got us playing his game,” King answered in the same low tone. “We need to turn this around.”

  “Turn it around?” Rook countered. “Right now, all I care about is making sure that Queen doesn’t become pig chow.”

  King did not fail to notice the singularity of Rook’s intent, but he let it slide, focusing instead on the three icons navigating the faintly visible maze below, like the ghosts in a Pac Man game.

  Suddenly, the ground beneath him lurched. The noise of another explosion filled his ears, and the stone pavement erupted in a cloud of smoke and shattered stone, right above the place where his trapped teammates had been only a moment before.

  30

  Manteo, North Carolina

  Anna Beck reacted without hesitation. In a smooth motion, she reached under her light jacket and drew a compact SIG P228 from the holster clipped to her belt at the small of her back. She did not fire, but instead used the muzzle of the semi-automatic pistol to smash through the glass doors separating her from Sara Fogg and the onrushing monstrosity. The shattering noise not only removed the barrier, but also had the effect of making the beleaguered disease investigator duck, which provided Beck with a clear line of fire. She stabbed the pistol toward the creature and squeezed off a pair of shots.

  Her first round caught the tall gangly thing almost dead center in the torso, where its heart would have been, if it had been human.

  She was pretty sure it wasn’t.

  The second round hit about eight inches higher, near its left shoulder. The impact caused it to careen away from its intended victim and crash into the wall, but a moment later, faster than Beck could shift her aim, it was back up and bounding toward the doctor that accompanied Sara. Beck pushed through the broken remains of the door to get close enough for a clean shot before it reached him.

  She almost succeeded.

  Her shots had definitely had an effect on the creature. Long streams of brownish blood were flung in all directions, spattering the walls and floor, and when the creature reached out for the man, only one of its spindly arms seemed to be working. The man threw up his hands to ward the thing off and was knocked back, which was exactly the break Beck needed. She fired again, point blank, and took the top of the creature’s head off.

  The man scrambled backward, narrowly avoiding being pinned beneath the creature, as it toppled forward and skidded a few feet before coming to rest. Beck kept the pistol trained on it for a moment until she was sure that it was not going to get up, and then she hastened to Sara’s side.

  “Are you okay?”

  Sara gaped at her for a moment, but then seemed to gather her wits. She nodded to Beck then moved quickly to the doctor’s side. “That was one of your nurses.” Sara’s voice was taut and breathless. “It’s spreading.”

  The doctor stared up at her in bewilderment. “I don’t—”

  He broke off suddenly, doubling over with an agonized groan. Sara jerked backward as if she had touched a live wire.

  Beck didn’t need to see more. She grabbed Sara’s arm and drew her toward the exit. “Let’s go.”

  To her astonishment, Sara pulled away. “No. I can’t leave.”

  Before Beck could argue the point, the doctor threw back his head and let out a blood-curdling wail. In that instant, Beck knew that the crisis she had just walked into was far from over.

  Her brain struggled to process the transformation that was taking place right before her eyes. Beck was no stranger to such things. Even before she had become a part of Endgame, she had witnessed the monstrous results of Richard Ridley’s perversions of science. Her prior experience was probably the only thing that kept her from freezing up or running away in a blind panic, but the spectacle still terrified her.

  In the space of just a few seconds, the doctor had become something else, something like the creature that Beck had just killed. She could see his skull shifting and growing beneath skin stretched almost transparent. His hair and beard were falling away in huge tufts. His teeth were growing larger, twisting behind lips that were pulled back in a feral rictus of pain. Beck would not have been surprised to see them burst from his mouth like exploding kernels of popcorn. His arms and legs were lengthening, as if his bones were made of rubber. Even his fingers had nearly doubled in length. Yet as horrible as the process was to behold, what truly chilled Beck was the memory of Sara’s earlier comment.

  ‘It’s spreading.’

  She did not need to be a CDC epidemiologist to figure out what that meant. Sara had come here investigating a disease to which she and everyone in the hospital had been exposed. That contagion, whatever it was, was transforming people into monsters.

  And now I’ve been exposed, too.

  Beck, who had in one form or another, been a soldier for nearly all of her adult life, was used to threats that could be answered with force. How was she supposed to deal with this, an invisible enemy that struck without warning?

  An enemy that might have already killed her?

  As if in response to the doctor’s howling
, a cacophony of shrieks sounded from further inside the hospital. Then, inexplicably, came the sound of a pistol shot. And then another.

  The reports shocked Beck into motion again. “Whatever this is, we have to go.”

  Sara, still transfixed by the doctor’s metamorphosis, offered no argument, but when Beck reached for her arm, she jolted again as if struck by a memory. “Ellen.”

  “Who’s Ellen?”

  “Our only chance of figuring this out. We can’t leave her.”

  Beck grimaced in frustration. Too much was happening, too fast. “She’s in there?”

  A nod.

  “Are you sure she’s still alive?”

  A shrug.

  Damn it. “Is there a cure for this?”

  “I…” Another shrug.

  The stricken doctor continued to convulse violently. Aside from the clothes, which hung loosely on the now oversized frame, the thing was almost identical to the creature that had attacked only moments before. Then, the seizure abruptly ended and the thing looked up at them with eyes that seemed all too human. There was nothing human, however, about the snarl it uttered as it thrust a grotesquely elongated head in Beck’s direction. Beck stepped back quickly, and as the hideous teeth snapped shut on the air where her leg had been an instant before, she lowered the pistol and fired a single round.

  “That cures everything,” she muttered.

  Sara stared in disbelief for a moment, but then met Beck’s eyes. “Make sure you save a couple for us. Just in case.”

  “Love your bedside manner, Doc.” Beck stared down the corridor. There were still intermittent shrieks issuing from the depths of the hospital, but no more shots. That was a very bad sign, but Beck had a feeling that trying to dissuade Sara would prove fruitless. “You follow my lead and stay behind me, got it?”

  Sara nodded again.

  “And be sure to let me know if you…you know, start feeling a little monstery.”

  “Definitely.”

  With her SIG pointing the way, Beck started down the corridor, checking each intersection and doorway, partly to make sure they would not be ambushed, but also identifying possible fallback positions. About the only thing in their favor was the fact that the creatures did not seem particularly difficult to kill.

  As the women pushed deeper into the building, the howls and shrieks intensified, as did Beck’s apprehension. Several times, she thought she glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye, but a second look revealed nothing. She was about to demand a retreat when Sara hastened forward to a closed door.

  “This is her room.” Sara turned the doorknob, but the door refused to budge.

  “Ellen!” She pounded on the door. “It’s Sara Fogg!”

  “Shhh!” Beck cautioned, though it was too late to make a difference. She stepped past Sara, training her weapon down the corridor in anticipation of a concerted response to the clamor.

  “Ellen,” Sara said, reducing her volume to a stage whisper. “Are you okay?”

  “Go away,” a small, high voice replied, and Beck immediately thought of a child hiding in a closet. Probably not far from the truth. “You can’t come in.”

  “Ellen, we need to get out of here. I have a friend with me. She has a gun. You’ll be safe. Just let us in.”

  “That’s about the worst thing you could have said,” Beck muttered, and was surprised when the door opened a crack to reveal a slender face framed with red hair.

  “They’re everywhere,” the woman whispered. “I can hear them.”

  Sara extended a hand and spoke in a kind but urgent tone. “I know. We have to get out of here. Go somewhere safe.”

  Something moved at the far end of the hallway, and this time it definitely was not Beck’s eyes playing tricks. Three long-limbed figures loped into view, so tall that even bent over nearly double, they were almost scraping the ceiling. One of them was tangled up in what appeared to be a tan police uniform shirt and neck-tie. There was one other noticeable difference from the creatures Beck had already dealt with. The misshapen faces of this trio were streaked with blood, and crimson gore dripped from their mouths.

  They had been feeding.

  “Too late,” Beck shouted, and pushed Sara through the door, into the hospital room. She slammed it closed behind her and threw her back against it. “Can these things open doors?”

  Sara and the woman—Ellen—exchanged an uncertain glance.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Beck said. “Shove that bed over here. We’ll use it to—”

  The door lurched behind her, as someone—something—tried to force the door open. Beck lowered herself, bracing her back flat against the door, legs extended at a forty-five degree angle. The door shuddered again.

  “Move it!”

  Sara leaped into action, quickly finding the foot pedals that disengaged the brakes on the bed. Ellen belatedly joined her, and a few seconds later, they were trundling the bed across the room. Beck felt the creature hit the door again, and this time, it opened a few inches. Spindly fingers slipped through. Beck felt the soles of her shoes losing traction as the creatures pushed harder. “Hurry.”

  Sara steered the bed next to Beck, and then drove it forward like a battering ram. There was a sickening crunch as the slender fingers were smashed flat between the door and the frame, and from beyond, an anguished wail that sent a shiver down Beck’s spine.

  Sara locked the brakes in place. “I don’t know if that will stop them.”

  “We only need a few seconds.” She nodded toward the windows on the opposite side of the room. “Get those open.”

  “I tried them,” Ellen said. “They only open a few inches. We’ll never fit.”

  Without hesitation, Beck leveled her pistol and fired. The report, deafening in the close confines, made the other two women jump, but instead of shattering the double pane window, the bullet punched a neat hole clean through.

  Beck muttered a frustrated curse. Stuff like that never happened in the movies.

  The door shook with another impact, but the sturdy hospital bed held it shut. She pushed off and crossed the room, picking up the bedside chair and hurling it toward the damaged window. This time, the thick glass yielded to the impact, exploding out in a spray of jagged shards.

  Beck clambered over the sill and dropped down onto the lawn outside. “All clear,” she said over her shoulder. “Move.”

  Sara cajoled a panicky Ellen through and then followed suit.

  Beck urged them forward. “Come on.”

  Out in the open, the horror of what she had just witnessed seemed like just a bad dream. The quiet pre-dawn twilight underscored the sleepy nature of the little island town. It was impossible to believe that monsters could exist in such a place. Beck fought against the inertia of perceived safety, increasing both her pace and her vigilance as she skirted the building toward the small parking lot where she had left her rented Nissan Versa.

  “Where are we going?”

  Ellen posed the question, but Beck realized that, beyond reaching the safety of the car, she didn’t know what the next move would be. Her attention had been consumed with the not inconsiderable task of escaping the flesh-eating mutants. Only now did she have time to stop and think about what had caused that transformation in the first place, and wonder if it was going to happen to them next. She stopped at the corner of the building and peeked slowly around the edge.

  Something was moving in the parking lot. Pale bodies, tall and gangly, gleamed a sickly hue in the overhead lights as they roamed between the cars. They moved like wolves or lions, indifferent predators casually on the lookout for a hapless animal to devour. Beck gestured for the other women to remain silent. She mentally measured the distance to her car. Fifty yards, perhaps. If they ran all out, they might get halfway before any of the creatures noticed. The tricky part would come at the end: getting the doors open and climbing inside.

  Two more figures emerged from the hospital, but even as they came into view, the others
moved out into the empty street. The creatures weren’t hunting them per se; they were looking for any prey, and the unsuspecting townspeople would be easy pickings. Or, if what had happened to the doctor was any indication, fertile ground for the infection to spread.

  And we were all exposed, she thought.

  Sara’s safety was her top priority, and all the more so since she was probably the only person who had a grasp on what was really happening. Her job was to find a cure, if there was one, or to initiate the proper containment measures.

  As the two creatures moved past the car, Beck gave the signal to move out, but she kept a slow stealthy pace. The creatures remained oblivious to their presence. Beck kept a close watch on them while constantly checking the Emergency Room doors, lest another emerge from within.

  One excruciatingly cautious step after another, they crossed the distance unnoticed. It was only when they were within a few feet of the car that Beck switched the pistol to her left hand to take out her key. Instead of using the remote to unlock the doors, she slowly slotted the key in and turned it, manually unlocking the driver’s side door with barely a sound. As she eased it open, the overhead light flashed on, and she cringed, but the subtle change went unnoticed by the departing creatures. She motioned for the two women to climb in.

  In the near total silence, every noise—the brush of hands on the upholstery of the car seats, the creak of the suspension as weight was added—seemed as loud as a gunshot, but the monstrosities did not look back. By the time Beck was seated behind the wheel, they were barely visible in the distance.

  She pulled the door shut, grimacing at the soft but audible click of the latch engaging, and then she let out the breath she had been holding in a long sigh. Beside her, Sara was already in action, dialing a number on her cell phone.

  Ellen spoke from the back seat, her voice a rush of panic that had been bottled up too long. “We have to get away from here.”