by S. D. Perry
“Rebecca?” This time, he sounded afraid.
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, wondering how to explain what she was feeling, what was happening. She decided it would be best to just start talking and let them figure it out.
“Look at my ear,” she said. “Look for blood or clear fluid, I think I’ve had a concussion. I can’t seem to gather my thoughts. Other ear, too. I was shot and I think the bullet lodged in my ischium. Pelvis. Lucky, lucky. Shouldn’t be bleeding much, I can disinfect it, wrap it if you’ll hand me my pack. There’s gauze and that’s good, though, the bullet could’ve snapped my spine or gone low, chewed through my femoral artery. Lot of blood, that’s bad, and me the only medic being hurt—”
As she spoke, David shone the light across her face, then gently lifted and checked the other side before resting her head in his lap. His legs were warm, the muscles twitching from exertion.
“A little blood in your left ear,” he said. “Claire, take off Rebecca’s pack, if you would. Rebecca, you don’t have to speak anymore, we’ll fix you right up; try to rest, if you can.”
No CSF, thank God…
She wanted to close her eyes, to sleep, but she needed to finish telling them everything. “Concussion sounds minor, explains displacement, tinnitus, lack of equilibrium—may only be a couple hours, maybe weeks. Shouldn’t be too bad, shouldn’t move though. Bed rest. Find my temporal pulse, side of my forehead. If you can’t, I could be in shock—warmth, elevation…”
She took a breath, and realized that the darkness wasn’t just outside anymore. She was tired, very, very tired, and a kind of hazy blackness was encroaching on her vision.
That’s everything, told them everything—
John. Leon.
“John and Leon,” she said, horrified that she’d forgotten for even a moment, struggling to sit up. The realization was like a slap in the face. “I can walk, I’m okay, we have to go back—”
David barely touched her and somehow, her head was in his lap again. Then Claire was lifting the back of her shirt, dabbing at her hip, sending fresh waves of pain coursing through her. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to breathe deeply, trying to breathe at all.
“We will go back,” David said, and his voice seemed to be coming from far away, from the top of a well that she was falling down. “But we have to wait for the helicopter to leave, assuming that it will—and you’ll need time to recover…”
If he said anything else, Rebecca didn’t hear it. Instead, she slept, and dreamed that she was a child, playing in the cold, cold snow.
* * *
Desert!
There weren’t any animals in sight, they had to be on the other side of the dune, but Cole thought he knew which ones belonged to Phase Two. Before John or Leon could get even a step away, before Cole’s ears had stopped ringing from the Dacs’ terrible cries, he started babbling at them.
“Desert, Phase Two is a desert so it must be the Scorps, scorpions, see?”
John was pulling a curved magazine from his hip pack, scowling into the artificial sunlight that beat down from above. It had to be at least a hundred degrees in the room, and between the white walls and glaring light it felt a lot hotter. Leon scanned the shining sands in front of them, then turned to Cole, looking as though he’d just eaten something sour.
“Wonderful, that’s just great. ‘Scorps’? Scorps and Dacs… what are the other ones, Henry, do you remember?”
For a single second, Cole’s mind went blank. He nodded, wracking his brain, all of the sweat on his body already evaporated in the bone dry heat.
“Uh—they’re, they’re nicknames, Dacs, Scorps… Hunters! Hunters and Spitters, the handlers all had these nicknames—’’
“Cute. Like Fluffy, or Sweet Pea,” John interrupted, wiping his brow with the back of one hand. “So where are they?”
All three of them looked across Phase Two, at the massive sand dune that towered in the middle of the room, glittering beneath the giant grid of sunlamps overhead. Twenty-five, thirty feet high, it blocked their view of the southern wall, including the door in the far right corner. There was nothing else to see.
Cole shook his head, but he wasn’t telling them anything; the Scorps were elsewhere, and they’d have to cross the bright and burning sand dune to get to the exit.
“What were the other phases, mountain and city? Have you seen them?” Leon asked.
“Three is like a, whadayacallit, a chasm, on a peak. Like a mountain gorge, kind of, real rocky. And Four is a city—a few square blocks of one, anyway. I had to check the video feeds in all of the phases when I first got here.”
John looked up and around, squinting against the harsh light. “That’s right, video… do you remember where they are? The cameras?”
Why would he want to know that? Cole pointed left, at the small glass eye embedded in the white wall some ten feet up. “There are five in here; that’s the closest…”
With a huge grin, John held up both hands and extended his middle fingers to the lens. “Bite it, Reston,” he said loudly, and Cole decided that he liked John, a lot. Leon too, for that matter, and not just because they were the only ticket out. Whatever their motivations, they were obviously on the right side of things; and the fact that they could still joke at a time like this…
“So, we got a plan?” Leon asked, still looking at the wall of yellow-white sand looming in front of them.
“Head that way,” John said, pointing right, “and then climb. If we see something, shoot it.”
“Brilliant, John. You should write these down. You know, I—”
Leon broke off suddenly, and then Cole heard it. A chattering sound. A sound like nails being tapped on hollow wood, the sound he’d heard when he was fixing one of the cameras only last week.
A sound like claws, opening and closing. Like mandibles, clicking…
“Scorps,” John said softly. “Aren’t scorpions supposed to be nocturnal?”
“This is Umbrella, remember?” Leon said. “You have two grenades, I’ve got one…”
John nodded, then said, “You know how to work a semiautomatic?”
The big soldier was watching the dune, so it took Cole a second to realize he was talking to him.
“Oh. Yeah. I haven’t ever used one, but I went target shooting a couple of times with my brother, six or seven years ago…” He kept his voice low as they did, listening for that strange sound.
John looked directly at him, as if sizing him up— then nodded, and pulled a heavy-looking handgun out of his hip holster. He handed it to Cole, butt first.
“It’s a nine-millimeter, holds eighteen. I got more clips if you run out. You know all the gun safety rules? Don’t point it at anyone unless you mean to kill, don’t shoot me or Leon, all that stuff?”
Cole nodded, taking the gun, and it was heavy— and although he was still more scared than he’d ever been in all his thirty-four years, the solid weight of it in his hand was an incredible relief. Remembering what his little brother had told him about safety, he fumbled through checking to see if it was loaded before looking at John again.
“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. He’d lured these two guys into a trap, and they were giving him a gun; giving him a chance.
“Forget it. Means we won’t have to worry about covering your ass on top of ours,” John said, but he wore a slight smile. “Come on, let’s move out.”
John in the lead and Leon behind him, they started east, walking slowly through the changeless environment. The sand was really sand; it shifted underfoot, and with the blasting heat, it made for a real workout.
They’d only gone a short distance when Leon called for a halt.
“Thermal underwear,” he muttered, holstering his handgun before pulling off his black sweatshirt and tying it around his waist. He wore a thick, textured white shirt underneath. “I didn’t realize we’d be hitting the Sahara—”
They all heard it, only a second before they saw it—before they saw them,
three of them, lining up at the top of the dune. Tiny rivers of sand trickled down from beneath their multiple legs, each as thick and stocky as a sawed-off baseball bat. They had claws, giant pincing claws that were narrow and black, serrated on the inside, and long, segmented bodies that dwindled to tails, curling up and over their backs—and tipped with stingers. Wicked, dripping stingers at least a foot long.
The trio of sand-colored creatures, each five or six feet long, maybe three feet high, started to chatter— the slender, pointed, tusk-like projections beneath the rounded arachnid eyes tapped against one another, beating out the strange tattoo of clicks that they’d heard before—
—and then all three of the creatures, the monsters, were sliding down toward them, perfectly balanced, scuttling through the moving sands with ease.
And at the top of the dune, another three appeared.
FOURTEEN
“Shit,” John breathed, not even aware that he’d spoken as he raised the M-16 and opened up.
—bambambambam—
—and the first of the scorpion-things let out a strange, dry, hissing sound, like air being let out of a giant tire, as the bullets hammered into its curled body. A thick white fluid burst from the wounds that had opened in its insectile face, a face of drooling tusks and spider’s eyes, a face with a black shapeless hole for a mouth. Writhing, claws raised, it fell on its side and twisted wildly, digging its own shallow grave in the hot sand.
Leon and Cole were both shooting, the thunder of the nine-millimeter drowning out any more hissing, producing even more of the pus-like blood in the second and third of the Scorps. The white liquid spewed out in glurts, like puke, but there were three more of the creatures coming down—
—and the first one, the one that John had drilled full of holes, was getting up. Getting up unsteadily, but getting up all the same. The openings were oozing with that viscous white goo—and even as it took its first step toward them, John saw that the liquid was hardening. Plugging the wounds as efficiently as plaster filled a hole in a wall.
“Go go go!” John shouted as the other two creatures, taken down by Leon and Cole, started to move, their wounds already scabbing over. The second threesome was halfway down the dune and closing fast.
Gotta get out.
There were still two more “environments,” and they’d already blown at least a third of their ammo; this ran through John’s mind in the split-second it took him to spray the Scorps with a hail of bullets, as Leon and Cole ran east.
He didn’t even try to take any of the six down, he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The line of explosive rounds was to hold them back until the other two men were clear, his mind grasping for a solution as the impossible animals waved their jagged claws, scrabbling against the shifting sands and spurting more of their bizarre epoxy.
—grenade but how do I get them all, how do we avoid taking shrapnel—
The closest of the Scorps was perhaps a dozen feet in front of him when he turned and ran, moving as fast as he could through the blazing heat, his adrenaline up and raging. Leon and Cole were fifty meters ahead, stumbling through the sand, Leon running sideways— watching front and back, sweeping with his semi.
John risked a glance back, saw that the scorpion creatures were still coming. Slower than before but not faltering, their waspish bodies dripping white, their bizarre elongated claws raised and snapping. They were gaining speed, too, faster with each skittering step, a pack of undead bugs looking for lunch—
—pack, in a pack—
They might not have a better chance. John dropped the rifle, the sling hanging awkwardly around his neck, and jammed one hand into his pack, still managing a decent run. He came up with one of the grenades, jerked the pin free, and turned, backing up in a shambling jog. He tried to evaluate the distance, the M68’s process running through his frenzied mind, the Scorps sixty, seventy feet behind.
—impact fuse, armed two seconds after it hits, six-second backup—
“Grenade!” He screamed, and threw the round canister up, praying that he’d judged it right as he turned and lunged, the grenade still ascending as he dove into the side of the sand dune.
John swam into it, pushing with all his considerable muscle, burrowing into the hot grit blind and breathless. The sand was cooler underneath, waves of the unpacked stuff pouring across his face, trying to force its way into his nose and mouth, but he couldn’t think of anything except pulling his legs in—and what the blast-projected slivers of metal could do to human flesh.
One final, desperate kick and—
—KA-WHAM—
—there was a huge shift all around him, an incredible pressure slamming into him and into the moving wall he was embedded in. He felt the weight on top of him press down, forcing the air out of him, and it took all he had to force one hand up to his face, to cup it over his mouth. Breathing shallowly, he started worming his way back out, wriggling and kicking.
Leon, did they get down in time, did it work—
He fought against the still sliding currents of polished granules, taking one more breath before using both hands to swipe at the heavy sands. In a few seconds he was out, rivulets of grit streaming off of him, his irritated eyes watering. He wiped at them one handed, raising the M-16, looking first at the threat—
—which wasn’t a threat anymore. The grenade must have landed right in front of them; of the six mutant scorpions that had been pursuing them, four were in pieces. John saw a still-twitching claw lying across the sand in a puddle of white, a tail with stinger still attached sticking out of the side of the dune, a leg, another leg; the rest was unrecognizable, great hunks of wet mush splattered in a rough semi-circle.
The two Scorps at the rear of the pack were still whole, but were definitely not going to get up again; the bodies were intact, but the eyes and mouth, the strange mandibles, the faces were gone.
Blown all to shit, in fact. No amount of white goop in the world’s gonna plug that up…
“John!”
He turned, saw Leon and Cole striding back toward him, expressions of amazement on both their faces. John allowed himself a brief moment of completely unchecked pride, watching them approach; he’d been brilliant—timing, aim, everything.
Ah, well. The true soldier takes no accolades for a job well done; it’s enough that he knows it…
By the time they reached him, he’d managed to get over himself; thinking about their situation was enough. They were in a psycho testing ground being put through their paces by an Umbrella madman; their team was split up, they had limited ammo, and there was no clear way out of it.
Pretty much, you’re screwed. Patting yourself on the back is kinda like giving aspirin to a dead guy; pointless.
Still, seeing the faint hope on the other men’s flushed and sweating faces… hope could be misguided, but it was rarely a bad thing.
“There could still be more of them,” he said, wiping sand off of the M-16. “Let’s get out of here—”
—clickclickclick—
That sound. All of them froze, staring at each other. It wasn’t close, but somewhere over the dune, there was at least one more Scorp.
* * *
David had spotted a moving light, maybe a quarter mile southwest of their position, but it had come no closer; if it wasn’t for the cold, Claire thought she might feel relieved. The chances of anyone finding them in the endless miles of dark were somewhere near zero; the Umbrella guys had blown it. Even with the helicopter’s searchlight—which they apparently weren’t going to use—it’d be pure luck if they ran across the three of them…
…although maybe it’d be lucky for us. Maybe they’d have blankets and coffee, hot chocolate, spiced cider…
“How are you, Claire?”
She made an effort to keep her teeth from chattering, but it failed. It had been at least an hour, probably more. “Pretty goddamn cold, David, and yourself?”
“Same. Good thing we dressed warm, eh?”
I
f it was a joke, she wasn’t laughing. Claire snuggled closer to Rebecca, wondering when she’d lose all feeling in her limbs; as it was, her hands were numb and her face felt like it was freezing into a mask, in spite of near-constant changes of position. David was on Rebecca’s other side, the three of them huddled together as tightly as was humanly possible, spoon fashion. Rebecca hadn’t woke up, but her breathing was slow and even; she was resting comfortably, at least.
That’s one of us…
“Shouldn’t be much longer,” David said. “Twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes. They’ll post a man or two, then go.”
“Yeah, so you said,” Claire said. “How do you figure the time, though?” Her lips felt like popsicles.
“Perimeter search, perhaps a quarter-mile round— assuming they have six or less men still able-bodied, I’m estimating four—”
“Why?”
David’s voice shook with the cold. “Three sent to the back door of the building, two men down inside— and from the sounds, I’d say there were three to seven at the front. Eight or twelve men; any more, and they wouldn’t have all fit in the helicopter. Any less, they wouldn’t have been able to cover both entrances.”
Claire was impressed. “So, why twenty to twenty-five minutes?”
“As I said, they’ll cover a certain distance all the way around the compound before they give us up. The size of the compound, tack on a quarter- to a halfmile, and how long it takes an average man to walk a fourth of that distance. We saw that light perhaps an hour ago, and since they most likely would have each taken a direction and searched that single segment… well, twenty to twenty-five minutes. That’s including the time it would take to look through the van, as well. That’s my guess, for what it’s worth.”
Claire felt her frozen lips attempting a smile. “You’re bullshitting, aren’t you? Making it up.”
David sounded shocked. “I am not. I’ve gone over it several times and I think—”
“I’m kidding,” Claire said. “Really.”
A short silence, and then David chuckled, the low sound carrying easily through the cold dark. “Of course you are. Sorry. I think the temperature has affected my sense of humor.”
