by Phil Maxey
He grabbed hold of a clump of grass and roots and pulled himself onto the ground, immediately dropping to his stomach.
He turned his head behind expecting to see the prison in the distance, but instead there was only the bank of a small hill, covered in a group of trees. From where the prison was you wouldn’t even know they were elevated, but it was high enough to completely obscure the buildings on the opposite side of it, and the road leading up to them.
He crawled forward, slithering eellike through the grass, and down the bank until he reached the concrete of the lot.
He wiped at his eyes as the rain streamed down his face.
A door, which he hadn’t even noticed due to its similar color to the wall around it, opened.
He was exposed. No way the soldier wouldn’t see him.
Except the soldier was too busy trying to get to the next building along without being soaked through by the storm.
Donnie froze. As soon as the soldier’s back was facing him, he raced across the edge of the lot, to the corner of the closest building.
At the back of his mind, the voice that had been telling him to turn back five minutes after he set up started to shout once again. This time being harder to ignore.
What am I doing?
A door opened and closed in the distance just audible through the rain beating on the solid surfaces around him.
The sky boomed and crackled once again.
He wondered if being a werewolf made it more or less likely he could be hit by lightning.
He jogged alongside the side of the building and peered around to the front.
Humvees, three of them, sat alongside each other just yards from an entrance.
Seen enough, have to get back.
He turned, pulling his radio out of his pocket, and instantly fell backwards as something solid slammed into his skull knocking him unconscious.
*****
Joel walked through the mazelike corridors, each one as bland as the other, until reaching his destination; the prison workshops. He lightly knocked on the green door. Someone inside told him he could enter.
The smell of sulfur and dust filled the air.
Each of the large worktop tables had become the domain of a separate scientist, with piles of books, sketches, notes, and empty plastic beakers filling up the space.
Joel walked past the others and moved to Bill’s workstation which seemed to contain the most equipment.
The tablet was connected with wires to a circuit board which in turn was connected to a laptop.
“Any news on Donnie?” said Rachel from behind him.
“None,” said Joel. “There’s only a few more hours left of daylight. If we don’t hear back from him soon then we’ll have to find another Alkron to go down there.”
Bill looked over the top of his glasses. “You do realize this could be part of their plan? Draw us out? The Alkrons are our biggest asset.”
“I’m aware, but I’m not leaving that kid out there.”
“Could they be creating tunnels?” said Rachel.
Bill looked at her.
“They have done it before,” said Joel.
“How do we stop them if they are doing that?” said Josh, the anxiety clear in his voice.
“If they are creating tunnels then they could bring the walls down for the vamps to walk right in…” said Max.
“Or just use the tunnels to bring them direct into the prison from below us…” said Rachel. She looked at the floor as did Josh.
“One problem at a time,” said Joel. He looked at Bill. “You wanted to see me?”
Bill looked at the other scientists then at the tablet. “We have been discussing what they were doing in the Cheyenne complex—”
Joel took ‘they’ to mean Josh, Rachel, and Max.
“We found a way to trigger the tablet without you,” said Rachel. “With your blood.”
“We wondered if we could take a drop or two?” said Max.
Joel looked at the scientists’ eager expressions, he then remembered the ‘thing’ that he saw in the lab. “You’re not going to go all Frankenstein again?”
Rachel looked down.
Bill smiled, placing his fingers gently on Joel’s arm. “Not on my watch.”
Joel smiled. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do you have a knife or something?” said Bill.
Joel slid his pocket knife from his jacket, and Bill handed him a small bottle. He produced a small slit in his finger, and let a few drops flow into the glass container.
“Do you need me to hang around to see the results?”
Bill took the bottle and shook his head.
“Okay.” He started to walk back to the door when he noticed Rachel was still eyeing the tiles beneath her feet. “If they were tunneling beneath us we’d know about it before they come up.”
She gave a nervous smile in reply then looked back at her notepad.
A short while later, Joel was back in the staff room.
Holland was pacing up and down. “So, now we ain’t got any water? I thought you sent that vamp kid down there to see what was going on?”
“Yes, and he’s not come back,” said Carla.
“So, what am I to do about that? It was your idea to come here!”
Nobody had noticed Joel standing in the doorway. “They could be creating tunnels under the walls…”
Carla looked at him shocked.
“What?” said Holland. He spun around throwing his arms up in the air. “Well, that’s just great. So much for your invincible prison! Everyone will be safe!”
Boyd looked concerned. “We got this, Pa.”
Holland looked at his son. “Did you hear what the man just said? They gonna be coming up from below us!” He looked back at Joel. “So, what you going to do about it?”
Joel looked at Carla. “We need to send some people out there, find out what’s going on, and we need to send someone else into that tunnel. You got any idea of who else is left that would do that?”
Carla nodded. “I think I might…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kizzy looked at the small space in front of her. “Yeah, I don’t know if I want to do this,” she said, looking back at Carla.
Carla offered her a handgun which she took greedily. “Something moves and isn’t Donnie, shoot it.”
“I hear that, Captain.”
“Not a captain.”
“Okay, Captain.”
Carla shook her head. “We can’t send anymore in after you, so go as far as you can in about twenty minutes. If you can’t find Donnie or you come across bad news just come back.”
Kizzy saluted. “Aye, Captain”
Carla sighed. “Be safe, and come back.”
Kizzy replied with a nervous shake of the head.
Carla closed the hatch.
Kizzy fumbled to turn on the light on her hard hat. Her fingers trembled but she eventually flicked the switch and the circular tunnel in front of her lit up. She crouched, moved forward, then stopped.
Why am I crouching?
Even before the question was finished, her muscles and bones began to change form, until she was a few inches smaller. Her hands were also wider, giving her extra grip as she pulled herself forward.
She waddled along the pipe and quickly got to the point where it plunged into the ground.
She looked down into the depths. “Why did I agree to this… Because, Kizzy, they know you’re a shape-changing freak that can fit in tunnels.”
She sniffed at the air below her.
“Don’t smell too good.”
She took a step forward and dropped the twenty feet to the lower level. She felt a bone break, but the pain only lasted a second as the fibers knitted back together.
“Ewww… it stinks down here.”
She was pretty sure that wasn’t right for a pipe which fed in fresh water from an aquifer deep in the ground. Or maybe it was. She wasn’t sure.
She conti
nued onwards.
“Donnie?” she shouted. Her voice leaving a strange ringing echo.
There was no response.
She looked at the watch on her hand. Ten minutes had already passed.
She wanted to turn around now, but the young guy might be stuck or something.
She pressed on, quickening her disjointed method of movement. The spiked metal teeth of the pipe breakage came into view of her flashlight.
“So that’s why the water’s stopped. Check.”
She quickly got to the precipice, looking out into a darkness so thick it appeared to push back against her light.
“Yup, not going down there.”
She went to turn around when she heard the sound of mud and rocks falling. Taking a deep breath, she slowly turned, and peered over the edge.
Her light’s beam showed her ten feet of cliff face, and then nothing.
The sound repeated, this time it was more substantial.
Bats? Vampire moles?
Deep down she knew both were equally unlikely.
“Okay, I’m out of here.”
She turned and started to move back down the pipe when the rocks and dirt falling became a cascade. With it came the sound of breathing, multiple layers of wheezing as the lungs of the things in the pit pushed their limbs upwards.
Kizzy moved faster. “So not going in a pipe again…”
She quickly got back to the vertical section and looked up.
“Hell.”
The sound of twisted metal echoed along the darkness to her. She briefly dared to look back, but there was only a wall of black.
Something’s coming.
She sprung upwards, and made it half the way up the entire height, and then threw her legs and arms out gripping the sides. She slid back a little, but then stopped.
The sounds now reaching her from below were grunts… screeches… scuffling things that were trying to reach her.
She reached up with her hands and feet, each side of her in turn finding what dimples and rivets she could in the metal surface.
The volume of hungry creatures now invaded all her senses.
They’re close.
She heaved herself up, and back onto the flat part of the pipe, and half staggered, half ran forward, back to the entrance.
As she did, she hammered on the inside. “I’m coming out!” she repeatedly shouted.
A square of light appeared on the pipe wall ten or so yards ahead of her. She hurtled towards it while a wave of noise came upwards behind her.
She clambered towards the hatch, pulled herself out, and fell onto the floor.
“Cloo… close…” her words fought with her shortness of breath.
Carla looked back at the opening, and then at the pipe at the far end of the room. Something was moving along it.
Grabbing the heavy cylindrical door, she pulled it shut, immediately spinning the wheel and locking it.
A boom rang out against the inside of the hatch, making Carla step backwards. She instinctively raised her gun.
The whole basement was now alive with drumming just a few inches away inside the large pipe.
Carla waved her weapon left and right wondering if the steel would hold.
And then the room fell silent.
Kizzy climbed back to her feet. “Oh… yeah… you got vamps in your water system.”
*****
“Did you see how many?” said Holland to Kizzy who was leaning back in the chair, only two legs of it on the staff room floor.
“A lot,” she said, tilting back and forward.
Holland looked at the others. “This stays in this room. If people find out about it they’re not going to want to stay, and then we got a bigger problem.”
Carla, Joel, and Anna nodded.
“So, what’s the plan?” said Holland to Carla.
She looked at Joel.
“They can’t be far away. They’re probably in a valley or hidden somewhere out of line of sight.”
Carla looked down at the sketch of the prison again. This time it had a thick red line tracing the water pipe route to the outside. “I say we go take a look at the direction the water pipe goes.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until daylight?” said Anna.
“This can’t wait,” said Joel.
Holland looked at Art. “Get some of the boys ready, we’re—”
Carla shook her head. “No, this needs to be done quietly—”
The older man’s face tightened. “Have you broken into a bank’s vault before?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Then don’t talk to me about ‘quiet.’” He looked back to Art. “Tell Reaper and Caz they’re up.”
Art nodded and left the room.
“Okay, myself, my team—”
“And me,” said Joel.
“—Joel, and Reaper, and Caz, will leave in twenty. We’ll drive part of the way in one of the pickups, and then hike the rest on foot. The storm should give us good cover.”
“I’ll see if Marina or Evan—”
“Nah-uh,” said Holland. “I want the vamp people to hold down the fort here. If those vamps manage to get out we’re going to need them.”
Joel nodded.
A short while later, Joel looked up at the blanket of light gray shafts falling from the dark heavens. He pulled up his jacket collar around his neck.
Carla passed him an M4 while walking past and getting in the driver’s seat of the pickup. Reaper, Caz, Keller, and Bishop were already in the back, trying to stop a tarpaulin covering them from flying away into the night.
Joel got in, each of the three gates swung open, and they drove onto the country road and headed north.
“This is strictly reconnaissance, got that?” said Carla.
“If Donnie’s there I’m bringing him back,” said Joel, checking the magazine on his rifle.
“The plan is to not be seen. If Donnie is still alive—”
“He’s alive. He’s too valuable to them not to be.”
“—If he’s still alive and goes missing. I think they will know.”
“I’ll make it look like he escaped.”
“Just… take my lead. We go in slow, scope out whatever we find.”
He looked across to her. “Been doing exactly this kind of work for over a decade. I know what I’m doing.”
She pulled a small paper map from her pocket and tossed it to him. “Found this in the library, it’s a map of the area. Shows some possible spots they could be hiding.”
Joel switched on his pocket flashlight, and moved it across the map. “There’re some hills about six miles to the north of the prison. They’re not high, but they could shield some buildings.”
“Then that’s our first stop.”
The sheets of water battered the front window with the wipers not making much headway. Carla strained to see through the deluge hitting the windscreen.
“Your kind hate the rain as much as we humans do?” she said, trying to keep the pickup from aquaplaning.
“No, we vamps love it.”
She briefly looked at him and caught his smile.
He looked back down at the map. “We should stop up ahead and walk across the fields.”
Moments later, Carla skidded the pickup to a stop and turned the engine off. “Mark where we left the pickup on the map, I don’t want to be wondering around out here. Too easy to fall into one of the canals.”
Joel scratched away at the paper until it frayed, he then put it in his pocket.
The others were already standing outside, resisting the buffeting they were getting best they could.
Carla and Joel fought with the wind, opening their doors at the same time, and got out.
The gusts howled around them as she pointed to the nearby gate and the field beyond.
Most nodded, and they all set out, leaning into the wind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Marina looked up at the constant drips of water which fell from the
cellblock’s roof. In what used to be the prisoners’ common area, buckets lay scattered trying to catch what rain they could.
Despite there being no windows or skylight above, the sheets of rain battering the prison complex could be clearly heard.
A woman darted out from one of the cells, her form just being visible amongst the light from the few candles that burned on the tables, grabbed a bucket then slid back into the shadows.
“Mom?” said Jess covered in a blanket on a bottom bunk.
Her mother looked back at her. “What is it?”
“How long until the storm passes?”
“Don’t know, maybe—” A crack of thunder played out in the distance and the small window, which was their only view on the world outside, momentarily lit up.
Flint whimpered.
Marina went to walk back inside the cell from the balcony when she heard the sounds of angry voices below her.
She stretched over the guard rail. Three large men stood outside a cell. She couldn’t see who they were shouting at, but they wanted something and the person in the cell wasn’t giving it to them.
She sighed and turned around. “Jess, Jasper, both of you stay here with Flint. I’m going to lock the door—”
Jess’s eyes widened. Her mother stepped inside, sitting on the side of the bed, and placed her hand on her daughter’s knees. “Hey, I’ll just be downstairs. I need to do something, and then I’ll be right up. Just a few minutes. The door will be locked, you’ll be safe.” The window lit up once again, this time the clap never came. “I’ll be right back.”
Marina got up, walked outside, and locked the cell door. The voices rising up from beneath her were now angrier and greater in number. She also heard a child crying.
She went to jump over and drop the fifteen feet to the ground but realized the suicide netting would stop her halfway, so instead she ran the length of the balcony and quickly descended the stairs.
Coming out to the ground floor, there was now a crowd of around ten men, all seemingly wanting whatever was inside the cell they were all facing.
She went to walk towards them when a few of them turned to her.
