“Why are they all coming here?”
“They’ve piled the bodies up so that he can climb over?”
“Perhaps. Either that, or he’s just using the crush of bodies to his advantage.”
“Yes, but why? Why are they so desperate to get over the fence?”
“In the city, the infected would drag the bodies back to wherever the creature was hidden to feed it.”
“And you’ve got one of those creatures here?” Ellie’s voice is incredulous.
“Yes. We brought the one from The Stacks-”
“That monster in the basement? You brought it here?”
“Yes, we needed to study it in order-“
“You idiots! You absolute, bloody idiots!”
Taylor agrees with the woman’s conclusion, but ignores her outburst.
“Then we need to find it and kill it.”
“What?” She almost screams. “You don’t even know where it is?”
“It escaped.”
“What!” She stares at Taylor as though he has grown two heads.
“Hey. It wasn’t my fault. I was just following orders.”
Her eyes spear Helen Blaylock. She holds up her hands. “Me neither. I’ve just been roped in as an advisor. I’m here under duress I may add.”
A rough voice speaks up. “It was me.”
“Colonel. You should be resting.”
“Resting? How can I when I’ve got this mess to clean up?” He leans against a chair, Su-Li at his side, and checks the screens. “Killing the creature will confuse the horde. We can deal with them. The biggest problem we’ve got is the fog. If we can stop that, then we’ve got a chance of snuffing out this infection once and for all.”
“The fog is on the base, Sir. It escaped with the creature.” Smaller jabs a finger at screen five where the fog twists, turns, and seeps beneath a door. “It’s contained in D-Block at the moment.”
“That’s only the next block from here.”
“It is, but this room is hermetically sealed and has its own supply of air. We’re safe here.”
“But what about everyone else on the base?”
“It’s unstoppable. Look at what it did to those people on the road.”
“We’re immune,” Mimi adds.
“And I’m pleased about that, but the soldiers out there might not be.”
“Mac killed it.”
“Yeah,” Todd adds with excitement. “Mac zapped it dead.”
“How?” Taylor asks spinning to the man.
“Fire. When we were trapped in that room, before those spider-things came through the vent shaft, the mist came in.”
“Yeah, and it didn’t bother with us. It wanted Mac.”
“So, you’re not immune ... and you’ve been exposed to the mist ... like Tina, the girl who went crazy in the car?” Taylor reaches for his gun.
“Yes, but ... no! Hey, I’m not infected. Let me finish.”
“Go ahead.”
“The fog came at me, and all I could think of to do, was try and burn it with my lighter.”
“And it worked?”
“Like a dream! Every time it got near a flame, pouf! It went up in smoke.”
“You used just a lighter?”
“Well, at first, then we got any paper we could find and lit it.”
“It was awesome! There were fireballs everywhere.”
“It did ignite, then black specks fell to the floor. When we ran out of paper to burn, it had all gone.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t get infected?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“You thought Tina wasn’t infected.”
“She wasn’t. Not until the mist from Josh got her.”
“The mist from Josh.”
“Yes, the mist was hiding in Josh.”
“Hiding?” Taylor takes a step back.
“Seriously? Listen, I’m not infected. I would know if I was.”
Ellie speaks up. “I’m sure he’s not infected. He would have shown signs by now.”
“Taylor, he looks fine to me.”
Taylor continues to stare into Mac’s face, scouring his skin and eyes for any sign of change. “Maybe he is, but I want him as far away from me as possible.”
“This is dumb.”
“Just go and sit over there.” He points to the seating by the door where a soldier stands on guard. “Braithwaite, keep an eye on him. Any sign of change, twitchy, black lips, red eyes, stinks like shit – you tell me.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“One false move from you, mister,” Taylor says as Mac steps away, “and I put a bullet between your eyes. Got it?”
Mac throws him a glare. “Just burn the fog.”
Satisfied as Mac sits beside Braithwaite, Taylor returns to monitor the screens. At the perimeter fence, the infected continue to pile up at its base. A man hauls himself to the top and in the next second he’s thrown back. He falls back to the pile, the back of his head now a bloody mess. On screen seven, the fog swirls.
“Burn it all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the basement, Nate takes shallow breaths, desperate to remain unheard. He whispers to Josh to remain still as he listens. From the corner comes shuffling, and something scraping against the damp bricks. Although light filters through the narrow pane of glass, it doesn’t extend across the basement, and whatever lurks there remains unseen.
“It’s just rats, Dad,” Josh whispers.
Something tacks on the floor.
“It doesn’t sound like rats.”
Tack! Tack! Tack!
The noise of scraping continues along with a slithering.
“A snake?”
Nate shudders. The thought of rats was bad enough, but snakes made his flesh crawl. “Perhaps we should get out of here?” Outside, the alarm has stopped although the shouts and footsteps of men marching across the yard hasn’t. In the distance the sound of gunfire continues.
“But what if the mist comes again, Dad?”
The tremor in Josh’s voice makes Nate’s heart ache. “I won’t let it hurt you. I’m here this time.”
Tack! Tack! Tack!
“That’s not a snake.”
The noise is louder this time. Josh pushes against Nate’s shoulder. “Whatever it is, it’s giving me the willies!”
“OK. This is what we’ll do. We leave this basement, then we’ll find a vehicle and head up north to the highlands.”
“But Mum’s expecting me.”
Nate resists the urge to be disparaging and replies, “We can contact your mum as soon as we’re safe.”
Josh agrees and begins to stand, but stops at noise from outside the basement’s door. It opens and light brightens the concrete steps, pooling around their base until the silhouette of a man blocks the doorway. The figure shambles forwards, stamping down the steps. As his eyes adjust to the light, Nate recognises the doctor the mist had infected back in the medical room. Behind the man something thuds. Pain in Nate’s chest reminds him to breath.
Unable to take his eyes from the figure, the advance of the creature in the corner goes unnoticed.
Arms crooked at the elbow, his hands clamped around her feet, the head of a woman bounces on the concrete risers with each staggering footstep. Skirt rucked around her waist, sunlight glints on her nylon tights, and the pink flowers of her knickers are exposed for all to see.
The slow tacking of horned feet on concrete mingles with the thudding of the woman’s head on the risers, and the scraping of her body against the floor, as the creature lifts its long and bony black legs and creeps from the dark side of the room.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Josh grabs Nate’s bicep. “It’s here!”.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Tapping its horned leg on the concrete, its abdomen pulsating, the creature’s membranous snout unfolds.
In his quietest, most insistent voice, Nate whispers, “Don’t ... move.”
The doctor continues to
haul the woman across the floor. Her blonde hair is stained red and she leaves a trail of blood on the concrete as she’s dragged along. Brown liquid oozes from the doctor’s blackened lips, and he stares at the far wall with glazed red eyes. Hardly daring to breathe, they wait as the doctor shuffles past. As he reaches the creature, he drops the woman’s legs, then shuffles to the wall and stands in a stupor with his head pressed against the bricks.
Black and angular legs crawl as the thing climbs onto the woman’s belly and straddles her, the horned tips of its bony legs pressing into her flesh. The leathery proboscis extends and its body heaves. Fluid spatters her face. The skin sizzles beneath the orange vomit, the gouge that had marred her face melting. As vapour rises, the tube-like membrane feels around her head then wraps behind her ears.
A sickening slurp accompanies thuds as the doctor slams his forehead against the wall. Minutes pass as the creature continues to feed and the doctor thrashes.
Nate pushes up with excruciating slowness. “Let’s go!”
As Josh moves to follow, the creature retracts its proboscis and the tail of something black disappears into the cavity where the woman’s brain had been. The thing steps back from the body and the doctor turns from the wall. Half crouched, Josh freezes. Nate’s heart pounds; any sign of movement and the doctor could attack and Josh is far too weak to defend himself. The seconds pass in an agony of rigid muscles and barely filled lungs, then the doctor turns back to the wall, and continues his thudding.
Nate snaps.
In two strides, he is at the doctor’s back. Shorter than Nate by at least six inches, he takes the doctor’s head in his hand and, with one quick jerk, snaps his neck. With a single strangled grunt as the air is twisted in his throat, the doctor slips to the floor, completely lifeless.
“Dad!”
Josh’s anxious cry alerts Nate. As he spins to look, the creature is only feet from the boy, its horned foot ready to strike. Raised on its legs, its bulbous abdomen hangs at least a foot from the ground, its head, if it has one, on a level with Josh’s face. Josh steps back against the wall. The thing closes in, moving each of its bony legs forward. Its proboscis extends, its leathery lips quivering as it feels towards Josh’s head. At any second, acidic vomit will spew across his face. In a rage, Nate roars and pelts forward, swinging his foot at the pulsating abdomen. The impact is like kicking a medicine ball, and pain shoots through his ankle, but the thing topples, skids across the concrete, curls bony legs as a cage around its soft parts, then rolls back into the dark.
“Run!” Grabbing Josh’s sleeve, he pulls him to the steps. Behind him, from the dark, a wheedling squeal fills the basement along with the rapid tack, tack, tack of scuttling feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Where did the doctor go?” Taylor demands as the chaos on the screen intensifies. The fog has escaped D-Block and found its first victim, a young squaddie Taylor recognises as Michael Belton. The lad’s head had jerked back as the long finger of mist had shot up his nose, and he stands rigid outside the block. Taylor watches in horrified fascination as he turns from teenage soldier to psychotic monster in less than a minute. As the rictus grin spreads across his face and his blue eyes haze over and grow red, he lifts his rifle and shoots. Drawing his head back, he cackles then sprints forwards disappearing from view.
Taylor gives the order to evacuate D-Block and sends in a ‘decontamination’ team. To kill off the fog, and with Littleton’s approval, the order is given to set the area around the compound, and any other affected areas, ablaze. The infected at the perimeter are to be exterminated, along with any stragglers making their way towards the base. Teams are sent out around the base to track down, and burn, any escaped mist.
“What about the infected on the base, Captain?” Smaller asks as the screen shows Private Belton raising his now empty rifle and sprinting after a soldier.
Taylor hesitates. He knows what has to be done, but giving the order to kill men he’d trained and fought beside sticks in his gut.
Leaning up against Smaller’s chair, Colonel Littleton relieves him of the decision. “Kill them. And that’s an order.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“What about the creature?”
Taylor straightens. “I’m going in for that.”
“If you can find it.”
Taylor points to the screen as the young soldier comes back into view. “They’ll lead us to it.” Over his shoulder is the body of another soldier. As Belton passes, the injured man’s hand twitches.
“Jesus! He’s alive.”
Taylor recognises the injured man as Sergeant James Johnson, one of his own, and rage finally kicks in. “No, fucking way. You are not having him.”
Sixty seconds later, Taylor is armed and combat-ready in a protective chemsuit complete with respirator. He runs to the point where the soldier was last seen on the screen and follows the trail of blood. The squaddie and the injured veteran quickly come into view. The younger man is slight compared to the soldier he carries, and his progress is slow.
A waft of mist glides towards Taylor and he stops to hold a flame beneath it. The mist ignites with a flash of colour, fizzles then drops as black specks to the ground. The remaining mist retracts, undulating as an irritated cloud. Taylor feeds back the information about its location then continues to follow the infected soldier.
He catches up as the soldier takes the first steps down the concrete stairway to the basement of F-Block. Waiting until the soldier’s head disappears, he follows him down the steps.
Spiked feet clatter as the thing scuttles across the concrete floor. Taylor has only seconds to act, and steps into the basement.
The mist follows him unnoticed.
Bursting through the door, he scans the room. It is surprisingly full. Sergeant Johnson lies on the floor next to another body, his head almost touching the stripped skull of the nurse’s corpse. Melted flesh clings below her jaw and a membrane of slime glistens across dark and empty sockets. Johnson groans and his fingers twitch but his eyes remain closed. There is no sign of the creature, but slumped against the far wall is the body of Dr. Brickman. Neck obviously broken, his head sits at an impossible angle. To Taylor’s left, Gareth Smaller’s old buddy, Nate Penrose, stands pressed against the wall beside his son.
Belton shuffles across the room. Taylor aims his rifle dead centre of the man’s skull and pulls the trigger. Blood spatters and Belton drops. Taylor scans the room for the creature.
“Where is it, Penrose?”
As Nate points, the thing scuttles in the dark space behind a bank of industrial-sized cylinders. Taylor crouches beside Sergeant Johnson. Unable to feel his pulse beneath the thick protective gloves of his chemsuit, he pulls at the man’s eyelids. They’re clear, and the pupils contract.
“Find the lights, Penrose.”
As Nate searches for a switch, Taylor steps beyond the cylinders. His headlamp illuminates the dark, and movement catches his eye. The creature, its bony legs wrapped around its abdomen, sits pressed into the corner. As Taylor raises his rifle, and a red dot appears in the centre of the black mass, it extends one bony leg and then another. The red dot tracks the pulsating abdomen. The wart-like skin glistens. As Taylor fingers the trigger, fascinated by its creeping movements, light illuminates the basement and the boy shouts.
Twisting to the noise, particles of mist sparkle above the steps. It undulates, swirls, and twists towards the boy. Nate punches at the air. The mist retreats, reforms, and renews its efforts.
Unnoticed, the thing in the corner scuttles across the concrete.
“Burn it!” Taylor shouts fumbling for the lighter.
A bony leg rises, its horned and poisonous leg only inches away from Taylor’s femoral artery.
“Catch!” Taylor throws the lighter to the boy. He reaches out to catch, fingertips touch plastic, but the lighter clatters to the floor.
The creature pulls back, jabs its horned leg as Taylor lunges for the lighter, and misses.
With a quick twist, lighter gripped tight, Taylor sinks his hand into the fog, and flicks. The flame ignites. The fog crackles, fizzles, and explodes as fist-sized fireballs.
The creature rears behind Taylor on back legs.
“Find something to burn!”
In the next moment, it pierces Taylor’s suit with its horned leg.
THE LIGHTER SKITTERS across the concrete as the Captain Marks falls, a long gash appearing in his protective suit where the creature’s horned leg had sliced through the camo-print fabric, and, from the man’s scream of pain, deep into his thigh too. Grabbing the lighter, Nate holds it aloft. Fireballs burst into flame as the mist dances above them. The soldier rolls away from the creature as it makes another effort to spear him. It misses his belly, but catches the suit. Another gap appears in the fabric. The fog begins to descend, sensing another suitable host.
Behind him, Josh rises and steps forward.
“Get back, Josh!” Nate shouts and steps between his son and the thing as it rears on its back legs. Its proboscis extends, feeling towards the soldier, as the mist above them undulates. The creature’s body heaves as it readies its bile. In the next second, Josh snatches the lighter from Nate’s hand. Before he has time to object, foot-long flames shoot beside him. The creature squeals and scurries back as fire singes its skin. Fireballs pop and crackle as the mist burns above the captain, set alight by the tongues of fire spouting from a small cannister of Lynx deodorant.
Captain Marks rolls then scrambles to his knees. Protected from the mist by Josh’s improvised flame thrower, he aims his rifle at the creature and fires. The first bullet hits the creature’s leg, shearing it off at the knee. Orange liquid oozes from the stump. The second bullet hits the abdomen and its force propels the creature across the room. As its body slides across the floor, Captain Marks follows, firing bullet after bullet into the creature. When the firing stops, three of its legs are severed below the knee, another two have been chopped close to its body, and a mess of gore is all that remains of the abdomen. The proboscis lies severed, several feet away. Orange, oozing, and sizzling blood spatters the walls. The creature dead, the last remnants of mist disappear in an explosion of brilliant, green, orange, blue and red flames as black speckles dance in the air before spattering the floor.
Mortal Skies Omnibus Page 32
