by Warren Fahy
“Jesus—!” Geoffrey gasped.
The guards fired dozens of rounds at it, filling the cave with cacophonous echoes until the apparition finally fell again.
Geoffrey waved them off and crept forward to look at what was left.
“Tell me what it is!” Maxim shouted.
“It’s got suction cups on the bottom,” Geoffrey said, shaking his head, incredulous. “I think it’s a freaking octopus.…” He looked at Maxim in astonishment.
“It’s not from Henders Island?” Maxim asked.
Geoffrey looked at him. “What?”
“How did it do that to him?” asked one guard.
“It possessed him,” answered another. “Like a devil!”
“It is the Devil,” said another.
“Shut up, you idiots!” Maxim ordered. “Geoffrey?”
Geoffrey looked down at the squirming flesh that was ruptured by exit wounds on the man’s back and limbs. The mollusk’s mass had seemed to grab hold of the man’s arms and legs like an external musculature and, with beaklike suction cups, vise-gripped his bones at the hips, knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows, and wrists. “It’s using him like a puppet,” Geoffrey muttered in awe.
The giant muscle contracted on the guard’s back, and the dead man’s arms and legs jerked into a crouching position before them as Geoffrey jumped back with the others. The mollusk’s amorphous head looked at them with glistening black eyes, foaming red blood from its loose mouth.
“Look!” Another guard pointed at the wall beside them.
Three more ovals the size of men slid down the rock face toward them, blending into the rock as they moved.
“More!” Geoffrey said.
The distant sound of breaking glass echoed in the cavern.
The guards turned and bolted down the stairs toward the cars waiting below as Geoffrey pushed Maxim after them.
As they descended, Geoffrey saw a green swarm below flooding over the road toward the vehicles. Up the street, he could see it pouring like a firefall out of a window in the warehouse. He knew, as he looked at the cloud of creatures and heard their whining buzz, that nothing he had seen in Pandemonium glowed this particular shade of green. And there was nothing else that made this sound. Geoffrey heard slaps behind him on the stairs and glanced over his shoulder.
The ghostly octopus was actually using the guard’s body to stumble and lunge down the stairs behind them now.
The green cloud of bugs on the road ahead split about eighty yards to their right, one half flying up over the smooth slope toward the dimly lit windows of the power plant, the other heading straight for the cars below.
“What are those?” The guard in front of Maxim pointed at shimmering creatures springing in thirty-foot leaps ahead of the swarm rushing down the road.
“Rats,” Geoffrey hissed, dumbfounded.
“They don’t look like rats!” another guard said.
“Henders rats,” Geoffrey muttered.
As they headed toward the bottom of the stairs, he realized the guards ahead of them would make it to the limo in time to avoid the wave of predators, but he and Maxim would not.
Maxim looked over his shoulder and saw the shambling ghost-octopus picking up speed as it perfected its method of locomoting, pulling itself forward with the guard’s arms and using his torso like a gruesome sled as it accelerated down the stairs behind Geoffrey. Ten yards from the street, the man-puppet pounced and Maxim pushed Geoffrey down.
“Duck!” the Russian growled, and he crouched with Geoffrey against the stairs as the ghost sailed over them, shooting white tendrils from its head that stuck on the nearest guard’s back like gooey ropes. The flying chimera reeled the tendrils in, soaring over their heads and into the guard’s back, knocking him into the guard ahead.
All three rolled together down the stairs, landing in a balled heap beside Maxim’s limo.
“Wait!” Maxim whispered. He held Geoffrey back, watching.
Maxim’s men writhed below as the swarm arrived and struck into them on the street below.
“You said this worked on Henders Island,” Maxim said. “You were right, my friend!”
Geoffrey watched as the screaming men were bombarded by the voracious wave of glowing creatures. The mollusk manipulating the headless guard peeled off from his body as it was attacked, and it shot thick goo-ropes through the strange locusts that descended upon it. Animals the size of giant rats launched down the road and dived into the pile. Columns of white bugs streamed down the road, rolling toward the writhing heap with wide, long legs like shock absorbers, and flung themselves into the frenzy like discuses.
Maxim waved. “Come on!”
Geoffrey vomited as he saw him jump to the left side of the stairs and slide down the smooth surface, braking with his feet. In another instant, Geoffrey was following him, his heart pounding like an engine. The feeding animals raised an unholy din as they feasted on the street zooming toward them.
Maxim hit the street by the limo with Geoffrey landing right behind him. They darted away from the slaughter, around the front of the car, and opened the door on the far side, jumping in and slamming the door behind them.
“Go, Boris!”
The driver gunned the limo backwards over the pile of bodies. Then they pealed down the street, looking through the rearview mirror as glowing bugs splattered on the rear window. Illuminated by the headlights, two bodies ensnarled in the glue-ropes were still stuck to the vehicle. The creatures that had been heading for the feeding frenzy now turned and chased them in the other direction as they dragged the men’s corpses.
“Turn off the lights!” Geoffrey yelled. “And for God’s sake, don’t slow down!”
Maxim translated to Boris, who immediately complied.
The swarm chasing them only gathered. “Try to shake that off of us!” Geoffrey shouted. “We’re leading them on!”
Maxim fired a translation in real time at Boris, who wheelbarrowed down the road in reverse, swerving from side to side as he tried to tear away the grisly lure.
The stampede followed them, thinning as clusters stopped to feed on cast-off pieces of their bait and the road kill crushed under their run-flat tires. As they approached the warehouse where they had issued, a flow of creatures came at them from the front as well, spilling over the skyroof, until they finally reached the source and passed under the shattered window through which the cataract of creatures had sprung.
“They’re breeding in that warehouse,” Geoffrey said. “These things look like … God damn it, tell me I’m imagining things, Maxim!”
“You are imagining things,” Maxim repeated with shameful obedience.
Backing around the corner, the driver spun the limo, its tires chirping over the cobblestones, and he shifted into forward, accelerating down the final stretch.
“Have them close the hatch as soon as we get through,” Geoffrey said.
Maxim looked dazed.
“Maxim!” Geoffrey shouted angrily.
“Get us through, Boris!” Maxim pushed a button on his phone. “I will call ahead.”
“I need to see!” the driver shouted, switching on the headlights.
The road ahead was clear, but in the rearview mirror, Geoffrey saw that they were still dragging a stringer of body parts. A flying wedge of predators followed it. Farther back, a group of much larger animals appeared, moving over the others in giant leaps. “Get that off us!” Geoffrey screamed. “We’re still dragging bait! Get it the fuck off us, Boris!”
The driver fishtailed the limo, and the rear tires finally tore away the sticky ropes. Geoffrey watched the horde descend on the train of carnage as it dropped behind them on the road. The limo squealed around the last corner and charged through the opened gate just as the guards were closing it.
Boris pulled the limo to a screeching stop in front of the hospital.
Miraculously, nothing appeared to have made it through the gate.
“Garage, Boris!” Maxim ordered, bangi
ng twice on the partition.
“Yes, boss.”
The car flew around the corner of the hospital to the right onto a side road. They turned right again down a driveway to the building’s basement. The driver pressed a remote attached to the visor, and a steel garage door opened. They drove in, and the driver closed the door behind them.
“What in the fucking fuck is going on?” Geoffrey yelled.
“Come with me, Geoffrey,” Maxim said grimly, opening the door.
“OK, but you tell me! What the hell is happening!” Geoffrey knew he didn’t want to know.
“Please,” Maxim said, stepping out.
Geoffrey climbed out tentatively as Boris ran up a stairway. Maxim followed, waving at Geoffrey to follow.
They mounted three flights of stairs to a hatch.
Waiting at the top of the stairs, Galia Sokolof greeted them and whispered in Maxim’s ear.
“Please, Geoffrey.” Maxim pointed to the hatch, his expression desolate but absolute. “In there, you will find answers. I need you to share everything that you know with your colleagues now. I’m sure you know how great the danger is and how urgent. I will join you, shortly.”
Galia opened the steel door solemnly and invited Geoffrey in, with an unequivocal nod. Geoffrey noticed all the other scientists inside, terror contorting their faces. He went inside as Galia closed the steel door behind him.
10:07 A.M.
Geoffrey found himself in a brightly lit room with rows of lab counters crammed with scientific instruments both archaic and modern, microscopes and laptops, notepads and iPads, baby bottles and juice boxes. The entire right wall of the long room was dominated by a window. In front of the window stood Otto Inman, Katsuyuki Fujima, and Dimitri Lagunov. Two armed guards escorted Geoffrey into the room and positioned themselves against the wall opposite the window.
Otto turned around and saw Geoffrey first. “Oh, my God, dude,” he moaned. The round face of the ponytailed scientist was ashen, his eyes hollow. “It happened.”
Geoffrey approached the window, which looked onto a rectangular room the size of a tennis court. Three illuminated chandeliers hung over explosions of green and purple splattered on the floor. On the other side of the glass Geoffrey saw a camera moving on a horizontal track that ran above the window. Apparently it could be slid from side to side and rotated up and down on a pivoting arm.
“Watch out!” Dimitri shouted as Katsuyuki rotated the camera down.
Dimitri stopped the camera just before it crashed into the glass.
Otto looked at Geoffrey with baleful, hollow eyes. “We’re fucked,” he said. “And that psycho isn’t going to let us go.”
“Please, please!” Dimitri said. “We need your help, Dr. Binswanger.” He clasped Geoffrey’s hand in his own ice-cold hands, which Geoffrey noticed were shaking.
Geoffrey stared back into his eyes and let go of his hands as he spoke words that only came out in a whisper. “How could you?”
“I am the one who requested your help, Dr. Binswanger. I never dreamed that we could actually get you, of course.” His eyes apologized with sudden tears, though his face was blank. “Maxim is very persuasive.”
“Tell me what is going on,” Geoffrey demanded, closing his eyes.
Dimitri smiled weakly. “This is the maternity ward of Pobedograd.” The scientist swept a thin hand across the window nervously. “Relatives could view their babies here after delivery—that was the idea. I decided to use it as an observation chamber.”
“For what?” Geoffrey took a few more steps toward the window. On the floor inside the “maternity ward,” he noted color splatters made up of thousands of tiny protruding fins. Each fin had three straight edges, and none was larger than a playing card. Together they formed three rosettes of petals tilting like solar panels to catch the light of three chandeliers above them. Each circle of geometric scales was tinted green in the center surrounded by rings of yellow and red and finally purple at the edges. “Oh, God,” Geoffrey breathed, recognizing the growth’s characteristics. As he moved closer, he saw a stream of fast-moving white bugs branching down the other side of the glass, rolling with disk-shaped bodies.
Otto nodded at him. “Disk-ants.”
“From Henders Island,” Katsuyuki said.
Geoffrey stumbled, dizzy as he leaned against a lab counter behind him. He saw the flying creatures looping through the air around the chandeliers inside the maternity ward. One landed on the window and tried to drill into the glass with its yellow abdomen. “Drill-worms,” he sighed.
Katsuyuki nodded.
The dissolved remains of what looked like two people were sprawled on the left side of the maternity ward. Their outlines formed natural reeflike blooms of clover, purple hives, and budding Henders “trees.” It was not a dream, a nightmare, or a posttraumatic flashback, Geoffrey realized. It was the last thing he wanted or ever believed he would see again.
A wave of nausea overcame him as he turned away, and the chill of shock spread over his body. He saw a five-gallon glass water container on the lab counter in front of him. Inside, Henders wasps, drill-worms, and resting disk-ants suddenly jumped and pressed against the glass at him. A steel ring was fixed to the mouth of the bottle on top. A length of glass tube reached up to another valve. Three extensions of retreating air locks had been added.
“We’re trying to see what poison works on them,” Dimitri explained. “So far we haven’t found one. Please, Dr. Binswanger. Help us.”
“You brought Henders organisms here.” Geoffrey grabbed Dimitri by the shoulders. “Why?” His head was spinning as he broke out in a cold sweat and a molten rage simultaneously.
“Please, Doctor!” Dimitri said. “Are you feeling all right?”
Geoffrey looked at the armed guards in the room behind them, who were pointing their guns at them, and he lowered his head. “So,” he said. “A WMD lab?”
“What?”
“Is that what this is? These species!” Geoffrey sneered. “Was Maxim hoping to sell them to the highest bidder?” he screamed. “Or was he planning to use them himself? Do you think this is like selling off plutonium or old missile parts? This isn’t a dirty bomb! This isn’t a suitcase nuke! This is the end of the world, you goddamned fool! It’s ten times more dangerous than ten times the world’s WMDs!”
“He’s right,” Otto said.
“Yes,” Katsuyuki nodded.
“Help us!” Dimitri said. “We think that it breached this containment chamber.”
“You think? I just got back from the power plant!” Geoffrey shouted. “This stuff just ate five men, and at least a dozen more only a few days ago! It breached the containment chamber, all right, and it’s breeding in Sector Four!”
Dimitri bowed his head. “Forgive me.”
“That’s above my pay grade!”
Otto shook his head. “We’re fucked.”
9:19 A.M.
“Newspapers are confirming that Alexei has been kidnapped.” Galia said coldly, “They are now saying that the kidnappers will cut off one hand unless you comply immediately with their ransom, Maxim.”
Maxim combed his fingers through his long black hair, spreading it back from his widow’s peak. The Russian magnate was strangely composed as he replied: “I will activate power plant. We will exterminate these pests. Tell those murderers they have seven days to release my son before what happened to Kremlin happens across all eleven time zones of former Soviet Union.”
“Maxim!”
“They will use those seven days to try and bargain with me, so that they can locate and attack us. But they will be too late. We will be secure and impenetrable by then, Galia. No one can leave now.” Maxim reached for the hatch to the lab. “Do what I ask or I will have you killed.”
Galia’s eyes teared as he no longer recognized his friend. “Do you not see what is happening to you?”
“Shut up!”
“You have become him!”
“Don’t you ever�
�!” Maxim sputtered. “I do what I must do, Galia! They will kill Alexei anyway, even if they have not already. They are liars, Galia! They are barbarians! Never forget that! They will give in only if they are overpowered and defeated. That is Alexei’s only chance! That is our only chance. Where is Nell Binswanger?”
“We have not been able to locate her.”
“Find her now! And bring her here.”
9:20 P.M.
Dimitri clutched Geoffrey’s arm urgently. “Doctor, please,” he said. “We have no wish to destroy the world. You must tell us how we can control them.”
Geoffrey laughed tragically, glancing at Otto hopelessly. “They can’t be controlled. Where did you get them? Why?”
“Maxim has access to exclusive dealers.…”
“The island was sterilized with a nuclear bomb,” Geoffrey scoffed. “That should have been enough! Are there more?”
“No,” Dimitri said. “Only one sample was available.”
Otto shook his head, nauseated. “That’s all it will take.”
“Where did they come from?” Geoffrey pressed.
“I think I know,” Katsuyuki said. “It may be why I was invited here. A small colony of Henders organisms was recently discovered on an uninhabited island north of Japan.” The scientist shook his head sorrowfully. “We don’t know exactly how they got there but apparently some species from Henders Island had colonized the island. We thought that we eradicated them in time. But before authorities discovered the infestation, somebody must have collected some specimens.”
“How?” Geoffrey asked.
“A crab fisher retrieved a sample,” Dimitri said. “Two of his men died trying to collect it. All of this came from one sealed metal suitcase.”
“Did they sterilize the island?” Geoffrey asked.
“Yes,” Katsuyuki assured him. “I was on the team sent ashore to make sure. It caused an international incident, which you may remember. The Japanese government claimed they had used the island for war games: target practice.”
“Oh, yeah,” Otto said. “I remember seeing that on the news. Russia was super pissed off.”
“How did you sterilize it?” Geoffrey asked.
