by S. D. Perry
A deep breath, and David pushed the door open, registering that the light was low as he slid inside and closed it behind him. He leaned against the door and counted ten, then relaxed, inhaling the warm air thankfully as he studied the interior. The warehouse-type structure had apparently been divided into rooms—and the one he’d stepped into was packed with computer equipment, thick cables trailing across the floor and up the walls, dish connectors…
…everything that links this facility to the world outside…
David hit the wall switch, turning off the single ceiling light, and grinning, opened the door for Rebecca and Claire to join him.
* * *
“Back against the wall!” Leon shouted, and Cole did it before he even knew why. The phlegmy rattling sounds seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead—
—and then he saw the creature coming slowly toward them from behind, making it impossible to retreat, and barely held back a scream. It stopped fifteen or twenty feet away, and Cole still couldn’t seem to get a good look; it was just too bizarre.
Oh, Jesus, what is it?
It was four-legged, with split hooves, like a ram or goat, and was about the same size—but there was no fur, no horns, nothing else that even remotely resembled a natural development. Its slender body was coated with tiny reddish-brown scales, like a snake’s skin, but dull instead of shiny; at first glance, it looked like it was covered in dried blood. Its head was somehow amphibian, like a frog’s—an earless flat face, small dark eyes that bulged out at the sides, a too-wide mouth—except there were pointed teeth sticking up from a protruding lower jaw, a bulldog’s jaw, its head also covered in the dried-blood scales.
The thing opened its mouth, exposing only a few sharp teeth, upper and lower, none of them in the front—and that terrible wet rattling sound came from the darkness of its throat, the bizarre call matched by others, somewhere on the other side of the artificial mountaintop.
The call built, going louder and deeper as the thing raised its head, turning its hideous face to the ceiling—
—and in one sudden, jerking motion, it dropped its head and spat at them. A thick, tarry blob of reddish semi-liquid stuff flew at them, at Leon, across the wide open space—
—and Leon raised his arm to block it even as John started to shoot, stepping away from the wall and spraying the monster—
—Spitter—
—with bullets. The goop hit Leon’s arm, would have hit his face if he hadn’t blocked, and in response to the hail of clattering rounds, the Spitter turned and jumped up the sculpted mountain—in long, easy jumps that took it to the top in seconds, that didn’t denote panic or pain or any stress at all. It loped back about twenty feet, then skipped nimbly back down to the ground, stopping in front of the connecting hatch. As if it knew it was blocking their escape.
And it didn’t even flinch, holy shit—
The multiple cries from just out of sight didn’t get any louder, but they didn’t retreat, either. The gargling noises stopped, one at a time, the lack of targets giving them no reason; suddenly, it was silent again, as quiet as it had been when they’d entered.
“What the good goddamn was that?” John said, grabbing another magazine from his pack, his expression one of total incredulity.
“Wasn’t even hurt,” Cole whispered, holding the nine-millimeter so tight that his fingers started to go numb. He barely noticed, watching as Leon touched the thick, wet handful of maroon goop on his sleeve—
—and hissed in pain, drawing his hand back as if he’d been burned.
“Stuff’s toxic,” he said, quickly wiping his fingers on his shirt and holding them up. The tips of the index and middle fingers on his left hand had gone an angry, inflamed red. He immediately stuck his handgun in his belt and pulled the black shirt off, carefully avoiding contact with the acidic ooze, dropping it to the stone floor.
Cole felt sick. If Leon hadn’t blocked…
“Okay-okay-okay,” John breathed, his brow furrowed. “This is bad, we want out of here as fast as possible… you say there’s a bridge?”
“Yeah, goes over the, uh, trench,” Cole said quickly. “Like twenty feet across, I didn’t see how deep it was.”
“Come on,” John said. He started walking toward where the path turned out of sight, striding quickly. Cole followed, Leon right behind. John stopped about ten feet short of the turn and backed against the wall again, glancing at Leon.
“You want to cover, or me?” Leon asked softly.
“Me,” John said. “I step out first, draw their fire. You run, Henry, right behind him—and head down, got it? Get across, get to the door—if you can, help me out—”
John’s face was solemn. “—if you can’t, you can’t.”
Cole felt a by-now-too-familiar rush of shame.
They’re protecting me, they don’t even know me and I got them into this… if he could do something to return the favor, he would, although he was suddenly quite sure that he’d never be able to even things out; he owed these guys his life, a couple times over already.
“Ready?” John asked.
“Wait—” Leon turned and jogged back to where he’d dropped the sweatshirt. The Spitter by the hatch stood as silent and immobile as a statue, watching them. Leon scooped up the shirt and hurried back, slipping a pocket knife out of his pack. He cut off the offending sleeve, letting it fall, then handed the rest to John.
“If you’re gonna be standing still, keep your face covered,” Leon said. “Since they don’t seem to notice bullets, you won’t need to see, to shoot. Once we’re across, I’ll give a yell. And if it’s not safe, I’ll—”
The rattling, peremptory calls had started up again, making Cole think of cicadas for some reason, the almost mechanical ree-ree-ree sound of cicadas on a hot summer night. He swallowed hard, trying to pretend to himself that he was ready.
“Outta time,” John said. “Get ready to go—”
He held up the sweatshirt, then—astoundingly— grinned at Leon. “My man, you must invest in a stronger deodorant; you stink like a dead dog.”
Without waiting for a response, John put the shirt over his head, holding it open at the bottom so he could see the floor. He jogged out into the open, his face down, Cole and Leon both tensing—
—and there was a rapid patpatpatpat, and the black material over John’s face was suddenly dripping with great strings of the poison red snot, and he jerked his hand at them—
—and Leon said, “Now!” and Cole ran, head down, seeing only Leon’s boots sprinting in front of him, a blur of gray rock, his own thin legs as he sprinted. He heard a gurgling cry to his left and ducked down even farther, terrified—
—and there was the thump of wood in front of him, and then he was on the bridge, flat wooden slats rippling underfoot, tied with scrawny twine. He saw the vee-shaped gorge underneath, saw that it was deep, that it had been dug into the earth beneath the Planet, forty, fifty feet—
—and then he was back on gray land, before vertigo could even occur to him. He ran, thinking of how wonderful it was that all he needed to think about was Leon’s boots, his heart hammering against his breastbone.
Seconds or minutes later, he didn’t know, the boots slowed, and Cole dared to look up. The wall, the wall and there was the hatch! They’d made it!
“John, go!” Leon screamed, taking a few running steps back the way they’d come, his semi up and ready. “Go!”
Cole turned, saw John rip off the black hood, saw the handful of Spitters grouped loosely in front of him, six, seven of them, calling once more. John tore through their ranks, and at least two of them spat, but John was fast, fast enough that only a tiny bit hit his shoulder, at least as far as Cole could tell. The monstrous creatures started after him in their jumping, hopping movements, not as fast but close.
Run run run!
Cole pointed the nine-millimeter in the direction of the Spitters, ready to shoot if he thought he could get a clear shot, as John hit the bridge—
—and disappeared. The bridge collapsed, and John disappeared.
SIXTEEN
John felt the bridge drop an inch or two about a half second before the ropes snapped. He instinctively put his hands out, still running, thinking he’d make it—
—and then he was falling, his knees slamming into a moving wall of wooden slats, his hands clenching the second they touched solid—
—and all he heard was a whoosh sound, and then the knuckles of his right hand crashed into rock, and he was dangling over a very deep chasm, a slat of loose wood in his left hand. He’d managed to grip one of the pieces still attached to the now hanging bridge; both ties that had anchored it to the north side of the rift had snapped.
John dropped the useless slat, hearing it clatter to the bottom of the chasm along with several other pieces that had come untied. He reached up to get a better grip—
—and thwock, a gob of red mucous suddenly appeared in front of him, less than a foot to the right of his face, sliding down the chasm wall in a melting rope.
—shit on toast—
Bambambam, someone was shooting a nine-millimeter, and the rising rattle of Spitters getting ready to spit told him that he definitely needed to get out.
He reached up again, his biceps flexing, straining against the fabric of his sweatshirt as he grabbed one of the slats above and pulled himself up. Above, more shots, closer, and a shout from Leon that was cut off as more bullets thundered.
Kick ass, boys, I’m coming—
Hand over hand was a bitch, particularly with bleeding knuckles and an automatic rifle hanging from his neck, but he thought he was doing pretty well, reaching up for the next handhold—
—and hot wetness hit the back of his right hand, and it hurt, it was like acid, burning—
—and he let go, flinging the gelid acid away, wiping at his shirt wildly. He held on to the shuddering bridge with his left, but just barely, the pain like a fire, maddening. It was all he could do to resist his natural instinct, to clutch at the screaming wound— and with the way his fingers were starting to tingle, he thought he might not have that much longer to worry about it.
“He’s right here!”
A cracked, hysterical shout from directly above. John tilted his head back, saw Cole crouched at the lip of the chasm, his work shirt pulled up over his nose, his gaze frantic and scared.
“John, give me your hand!” he screamed, and reached down as far as he could, flakes of concrete falling from beneath his sliding boots. If he said anything else, it was lost in another series of explosive rounds as Leon worked to hold the Spitters at bay.
It only took a split-second for John to react to Cole’s command, and in that instant he understood that he was going to get out. Henry Cole stood all of five-eight and probably weighed one-fifty sopping wet. With his clothes on. What was more, he looked like some mad turtle hunkered down in the shell of his shirt.
Too goddamn funny. Funny, and touching in an idiotic way, and although his hand still hurt like a son of a bitch, he’d actually forgotten to feel it for a second or two.
John grinned, ignoring Cole’s trembling fingers, forcing himself to concentrate on pulling himself up with his injured hand. There were more rattling cries from behind him but no spit-bombs for the moment.
“Tell Leon to use the grenade,” he gasped, and Cole turned, shouting over another burst from Leon’s semi.
“… says grenade! John says use a grenade!”
“Not yet!” Leon screamed back. “Get clear!”
Thwap-wap, two more globs flew across the chasm, one hitting Cole’s boot, the other only inches from John’s sweating face.
Put on the power, John—With a final, deeply felt grunt, John grabbed the wood at the very top and pulled himself up, pulled and then was pushing down, bringing his knee up to climb out.
“I’m good, go!”
Cole the mad turtle needed no further incentive. He took off running as Leon continued to cover for John, as John crouch-ran toward him, jamming his injured hand into his pack and pulling out his last grenade—he’d already popped the pin when he saw that Leon had his grenade in hand.
“Do it!” John yelled, reaching Leon, Leon winding back and then lobbing the powerful explosive at the Spitters, throwing high. Then both of them were running, John shooting a look back to see that three, four of the animals had already leapt into the chasm.
No time to think. John threw low, threw as hard as he could, his grenade disappearing into the rift as Leon’s landed in front of the others—
—and they were diving and rolling, the blasts almost simultaneous, KA-WHAM-WHAM, the sound of powdered rock raining down, an incredibly high-pitched squealing coming from somewhere—
“You got ’em! You got ’em!”
Cole was standing in front of them, a look of unabashed glee and not a little awe on his narrow face. John sat up, Leon next to him, both turning back to see.
They hadn’t killed all of them. Two of the four still on the other side of the chasm were mostly intact, alive—but blind and broken, their legs splintered, black fluid obscuring whatever was left of their faces as they squealed in fury, the sound like a guinea pig being stepped on. The other two must have been directly in front of the blast; they were just bleeding, shattered bags, bones sticking up from the liquid piles like—like broken bones. From the man-made gorge there were more of the screaming squeals, and nothing leapt out to attack. For all intents and purposes, it was over.
John crawled to his feet, studying the back of his hand. Contrary to how it felt, the skin hadn’t melted off. There were a few small blisters forming and the flesh looked scorched, but he wasn’t bleeding.
“You okay?” Leon asked, standing and brushing at his clothes, his youthful features looking a lot less youthful to John.
I’m not calling him a rookie anymore.
John shrugged. “Think I broke a nail, but I’ll live.”
He saw that Cole was still beaming at them, his body shaking with the adrenaline aftermath; he seemed at a loss for words, and John had a sudden clear memory of how he’d felt after his first battle, the first in which he’d acted bravely. How helplessly elated he’d been. How incredibly alive.
“Henry, you’re a funny guy,” John said, clapping his hand on the smaller man’s shoulder and smiling.
The electrician grinned uncertainly, and the three of them started for Four, leaving the furious squeals of the dying animals behind.
* * *
When the dust cleared and the three men were still alive, Reston slammed his fist against the console in anger and rising dread, his stomach lurching, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“No, no, no, you stupid shits, you’re dead!”
His voice was a little slurred, but he was too shocked to give it much notice, too upset. They wouldn’t survive the Hunters, he knew that—
—but they weren’t going to survive the Ca6s, either.
Reston couldn’t believe that they’d made it this far; he couldn’t believe that of the twenty-four specimens they’d encountered, all but one Dac had been left either dead or dying. Most of all, he couldn’t believe that he’d let it continue, that his pride and ambition had kept him from doing what he should have done in the first place. It wasn’t that he was out of his league, he was in the inner circle, he was past that kind of insecurity—but he should have talked to Sidney, at least, or even Duvall; not for advice, but to cover all of his bases. After all, he couldn’t be held totally responsible if he’d had counsel from one of the other, older members…
It wasn’t too late. He’d put a call in, explain his plan, explain that he had some concerns—he could say that the intruders were only in Two, that would help, he could fix the video times later… and the Hunters had been tested before, after a fashion, not the 3Ks but the 121s. There had been some loosed at the Spencer estate; from the data recovered, he knew that the three men would be killed in Four. Even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to get out, and wi
th the backup from the home office, he’d be mostly in the clear.
Satisfied that it was the right decision, Reston reached under the console and picked up the phone.
“Umbrella, Special Divisions and—”
—and silence. The smooth female voice at the other end was cut off in mid-sentence, without even a hiss of static.
“This is Reston,” he said sharply, aware that a cold hand was settling around his heart, squeezing. “Hello? This is Reston!”
Nothing; then he suddenly realized that the quality of light in the room had changed, brightening. He turned in his chair, hoping desperately that it wasn’t what it seemed to be—
—and the row of monitors that showed the surface were all spitting snow. All seven, off-line—and only seconds later, before Reston could even digest what had happened, all seven went black.
“Hello?” he whispered into the dead phone, his whiskey breath hot and bitter against the mouthpiece. Silence.
He was alone.
* * *
Andrew “Killer” Berman was goddamn cold, cold and bored and wondering why the Sarge had even bothered putting anyone on the van. The bad guys weren’t coming back, they were long gone—and even if they did decide to come back, they sure as hell weren’t going to try to get to their vehicle. It’d be suicide.
Either they had a backup car or they’re frozen solid out on the plain somewheres. This is total bullshit.
Andy pulled his scarf up around his ears, then readjusted his grip on the M41. Fifteen pounds of rifle didn’t sound like much, but he’d been standing for a long goddamn time. If the Sarge didn’t get back soon, he was going to get into the van for a while, rest his feet, get out of the cold; they weren’t paying him enough to freeze his balls off in the dark.
He leaned against the back bumper and wondered again if Rick was okay; he didn’t really know the other guys who’d been cut up by the frag, but Rick Shannon was his bud, and he’d been all bloody when they’d loaded him into the ’copter.
Those assholes come back here, I’ll show ’em bloody…
Andy sneered a grin, thinking that they didn’t call him Killer for nothing. He was an excellent goddamn shot, best on his team, the result of a lifetime of deer hunting.
