by S. D. Perry
Food ran at it, hard to see but smelling quite strongly. Food raised a claw and swiped at Fossil, crying in fury, its desire to attack and kill; Fossil knew this because of the smell. Within seconds, Fossil was surrounded by food, and again, it wanted. The animals that were food howled and screamed, dancing and leaping, and Fossil reached out and picked up the closest.
Food had sharp talons, but Fossil’s hide was thick. Fossil bit into the food, tearing a great chunk from the writhing body, and was fulfilled. Its sense of purpose was met so long as it chewed and swallowed, hot blood dripping down its throat, hot flesh ripping between its teeth.
The other food animals continued to attack, making it easy for Fossil to eat. Fossil ate all of the food animals in a short period of time, and its metabolism used the food almost as quickly, giving Fossil strength to find more food. It was an extremely simple process, one that continued as long as Fossil was awake.
Finished with the dark and cavernous room that had housed the screaming food, Fossil licked blood off its fingers and opened its senses, searching for its next meal. In seconds, it knew that there was more, living and moving close by.
Fossil wanted. Fossil was hungry.
TWENTY-TWO
The girl was sick, her skin clammy, her attempts to get away from him pathetic and weak. Reston wished he could get rid of her, just drop her and run, but he didn’t dare. She was his ticket through the forces on the surface; surely they wouldn’t kill one of their own.
Still, he wished the stupid girl wasn’t so ill; she was slowing him down, hardly able to walk, and he had no choice but to continue dragging her along, north through the back corridor, then east at the far corner of the facility, heading for the connecting door to the cell block. From the cells the service elevator was a two-minute walk.
Almost there, almost done with this impossible, incredible night, not much farther…
He was an extremely important man, he was a respected member of a group that had more money and power than most countries, he was Jay Wallingford Reston—and here he was being hunted in his own facility, forced to take a hostage, to hold a gun to the head of a sick girl and sneak out like some criminal; it was ludicrous, just unbelievable.
“Too tight,” the girl whispered, her voice strangled and rasping.
“Too bad,” he answered, continuing to drag her along by her slender throat, her head tucked through his arm; she should have thought of that before she decided to invade the Planet.
He pulled her through the door that led into the cell block, feeling better with each step he took. Each was another step closer to escape, to survival. He would not be gunned down by some pious, self-righteous group of visionless thugs; he’d kill himself first.
Past the empty cells, almost to the door—and the girl stumbled, falling into him so hard that she almost knocked him down. She gripped him tightly, trying to regain her balance, and Reston felt a sudden insane rush of anger at her, of rage.
Stupid bitch, assassin, spy, I should shoot you right here, now, blow your slack, stupid brain across the walls—
He regained control before he could pull the trigger, but the loss of composure frightened him a little. It would have been a mistake, and a costly one.
“Do that again and I’ll kill you,” he said coldly, and kicked at the door that led into the main hall, pleased at the merciless quality of his voice. He sounded strong, like a man who wouldn’t hesitate to kill if it served his purposes—which, he was coming to discover, was what he was.
Through the door and into the hall—
“Let her go, Reston!”
John and Red were at the corner, both of them with weapons trained on him. Blocking the path to the elevator.
Immediately, Reston dragged the girl back, they’d just have to go back into the cell block while he decided how to handle—
“Forget it,” Red growled. “They’re right behind you, we saw them tailing you. You’re trapped.”
Reston pushed the gun barrel against the girl’s head, desperate, I’ve got the hostage, they can’t, they have to let me go—
“I’ll kill her!” He backed up again, moving toward the anteroom of the test program, the girl staggering to stay on her feet.
“And then we’ll kill you,” John said, not a whisper of lie in his deep voice. “If you hurt her, we’ll hurt you. Let her go and we leave.”
Reston reached the closed metal door and reached around for the control panel, hitting the button that would unlock the gate and the hatch into One.
“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that,” he sneered as the sheet metal slid up; there was only one Dac left alive and he’d left their kennel open—I can climb, I can still get away from them, it’s not too late!
At that second, the door to the cell block opened and the other two stepped out—stepped in between the gunmen and him, and he acted before he had time to think, taking his chance.
Reston pushed the girl away, hard, throwing her toward all four of them and he jumped left in the same motion, hitting the hatch with his shoulder. The door into One flew open and he was through, slamming it closed. There was a bolt and he threw it, the metal making a sound like music.
As long as he stayed away from the clearings, he was safe. They couldn’t touch him.
* * *
Strong hands caught her before she could crash into the ground—and she could breathe again—and John and Leon were alive… the relief was an ocean of warmth rising up over her, making her feel even weaker than she already was. The extended chokehold had taken most of what little strength she’d had. In fact, now that she thought about it, Rebecca felt an awful lot like death on two legs; like crap on a cracker as she used to say when she was a child…
Claire held her steady—it was Claire’s strong hands that she’d felt—and everyone gathered around her, John picking her up easily. Rebecca closed her eyes, relaxing into her exhaustion.
“Are you alright?” David asked, and she nodded, relieved and happy that they were together again, that no one had been hurt—
—no one but me, anyway—
—and she knew that once she had a chance to rest, she’d be fine.
“We have to get out of here, now,” Leon said, an urgency in his voice that made Rebecca open her eyes, the warm and sleepy feelings instantly gone.
“What is it?” David asked, his voice going just as sharp.
John turned and started carrying her down the hall, quickly, calling back over his shoulder. “We’ll tell you on the way up, but we’ve gotta go ASAP, no joke.”
“John?” she said, and he looked down at her, throwing her a small smile, his dark eyes telling a different story.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, “you just relax, start making up stories to tell us about your war wounds.”
She’d never seen him look so uneasy, and she started to tell him that she was wounded, not stupid—
—when a tremendous, thundering crash came from somewhere ahead, a sound like walls being torn down, like glass exploding, like a bull in a china shop—
—and John spun around, running back the way they’d come—then she couldn’t see but heard Claire’s gasp, heard David say, “Oh, my God,” in breathless disbelief, and felt her tired heart start to pound in fear.
Something very bad was coming.
TWENTY-THREE
Goddammit, not fast enough—
In a cloud of dust and rubble, cracked concrete and plaster, Fossil burst into the hall across from the elevator like a vision of hell. Its snout and hands were red, splashes of violent color against its sickly white skin, its giant, impossible body filling the corridor.
“Clip!” Leon screamed, not taking his gaze from the looming monster, still a hundred feet in front of them and not nearly far enough. He drew his empty H&K and ejected the clip, barely aware that it was Claire who handed him another as Fossil took a step toward them—
—and David was firing the M-16, the clatter of rounds blasting thro
ugh the long hall, Fossil taking another huge step forward as Leon slapped the clip home. John was suddenly next to him, grabbing a rifle mag from David, Claire on David’s other side, all of them targeting the creature.
Leon found the monster’s right eye and squeezed the trigger, the roar of his nine-millimeter lost in the combined explosive firepower, all of them firing—
—bambambam, the sounds blending together, deafening, Fossil tilting its head to one side as if curious, taking another step into the wall of bullets.
“Fall back!” David shouted, and Leon backed up a step, horrified by Fossil’s lack of wounds. If they were causing it any pain at all Leon couldn’t see it, but it was all they had. He tried for the eye again—
—and heard Claire screaming something, glanced away long enough to see that she had a grenade out, that she was handing it to David.
“Go, go, go!” David shouted, and John grabbed Leon’s arm and they turned and ran, Claire pacing them, Leon praying that they were far enough away not to be hit by the shreds of hot metal.
* * *
Claire ran, terrified, thinking that she’d never seen anything like it. A blood-painted fishbelly nightmare, a curved grin of wickedly sharp teeth and its hands, the too-long fingers stained red—
—what is it, how is it—
“Fire in the hole!” David screamed, and Claire pushed off the cement, trying to fly, seeing in that airborne second Rebecca’s pale, strained face, the girl slumped against the back wall still a hundred feet away—
—and BOOM, she was flying, John to her right, a warm body falling against her back—and they all hit the floor, Claire trying to take it on the shoulder, landing too heavily on her arm instead.
Ow ow ow!
David had thrown himself against her, either on purpose or from the blast, and as she sat up, turning, she saw him grimace in pain. She saw two, three pieces of dark metal stuck to his back, pinning the black fleece to his skin, and reached out to help him—
—and saw the monster still standing. Brushing at its chest and belly, at the blackened patches from the frag grenade. A few shards had pierced its flesh, but she thought—it was hard to tell from its silence— from the way it took another step toward them it looked seemingly unfazed. It opened its mouth, its heavy lizard jaws—exposing strings of some unknown meat stuck between its jagged teeth. Silently, it took another step forward, grinning its carnivorous grin, and Claire imagined that she could smell the bloody meat of its breath, of whatever lay rotting in its guts—
SNAP OUT OF IT!
She crawled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her arm, reaching down to grab David’s outstretched hand and pull him up. The second he was on his feet she pointed her nine-millimeter and started to fire again, knowing it wasn’t enough, not knowing what else to do.
* * *
Four points of injury, all in his upper back, all burning and sharp. David hissed air between his teeth, decided the pain was bearable, and put it aside until further notice. The freakish monster wasn’t down, it may have slowed but it wasn’t stopping, and they didn’t have anything bigger to throw at it than what they’d already tried.
Run, we’ll have to run—
Even as he thought it, he was opening his mouth to shout, to be heard over John and Leon and Claire as they emptied their weapons, the rounds as useless as the grenade had been.
“John, get Rebecca! Fall back, we can’t stop it!”
John was gone, Leon and Claire sidling backwards, firing just as he was—on the slim chance that it was doing some damage, that one of the rounds might hit something that could be hurt.
“David, we could go through the test, reinforced steel!” John shouted, and David wasn’t sure what he was talking about but he understood “reinforced steel.” It probably wouldn’t stop the mutant animal, but it might slow it down enough for them to regroup, to work out some plan.
“Do it!” David shouted, and the monster took two, three strides toward them, apparently no longer interested in a hesitant approach. At that speed, it would be on them in scant seconds.
“Run, after John!” he screamed, and gave Leon and Claire a heartbeat of cover before he turned and ran after them.
Steel, reinforced steel—A mantra that looped through his racing thoughts as he sprinted, Claire and Leon turning the corner, the cement curve whipping past him as he saw Rebecca and John in the room at the end of the hall. The room where the madman had gone.
“David, hit the buttons, close the door!” John shouted, and David saw the controls, the small lights above the rounded knobs, and veered toward them, still at a dead run.
Claire and Leon were inside. David shot his arm out and slammed his open hand into the largest button on the panel, hoping he’d chosen the right one—
—and he was through, even as a sheet of metal guillotined the air behind him, close enough for him to feel it on the back of his neck.
He spun around just in time to see the heavy white body of the hybrid creature slam into the door, its chest smashing against the thick, warped window set into the thick metal. The door shivered in its tracks, and David could see that it wouldn’t stand for long.
Please hold, just for a moment—
He turned, saw Leon at the smaller hatch on the south wall, saw the horror in his eyes, the color leached from his face, his trembling hand on the door’s lever.
“Locked,” he said, and outside, the monster smashed into the door again.
* * *
Reston heard the noise when he was trying to figure out how to climb into the Av kennel. The pen was about twelve feet off the ground, an open hole in the wall, and there was no ladder; the closest tree was a good seven feet away, impossible—but his only other way out of the test was the way he’d come, and he didn’t dare go back out into the main hall. He’d about made up his mind to attempt climbing the tree to try the jump when the rending crashes had seeped into the room from Phase Two.
Reston walked toward the connecting door, curious in spite of his fear. The phases were heavily soundproofed; a noise like that could only be from a bomb, or a wrecking crew…
…which means bomb. They’ve planted explosives after all, the monsters.
Reston waited by the door for a moment, but didn’t hear anything else. The lone Dac let out a cry from somewhere across the chamber, the fight apparently taken out of it with the loss of its siblings; it hadn’t tried to attack.
Explosives… .
Phase Two was directly behind control, a doublethick wall between them, which had to mean that the renegades had blown up the control center, the most important—and most expensive—room in the Planet. They couldn’t have chosen a better target; the facility was practically worthless with control destroyed.
But perhaps they’ve given me another way out… Reston wasn’t going to make any bets as to whether or not the barbarous mercenaries had finally gone, leaving the broken remains of the Planet behind—
—but if they have…
If they had, he’d be able to walk out. Maybe just walk away—and not just from the Planet, but from White Umbrella. He was reasonably certain that Jackson would kill him for what had happened… but not if Reston disappeared.
A few hundred thousand to Hawkinson, a ride to a safe place.…
It could work, if he timed it right, if he changed his name and identity and went far, far away. It would work.
Nodding to himself, he cracked open the door to Two, not sure what to expect—but it was still a surprise to see the massive, gaping holes in two of the desert’s walls and the cement and wood and steel blown to pieces; each ragged opening was at least ten feet across, perhaps twenty feet high. He didn’t see smoke anywhere, but imagined that the saboteurs had used some high-tech compound, some material that scum like that always seemed to have access to.
The heat was still high, and the lights were blazing, but it was definitely cooler with the new ventilation— and though he stood for long seconds listening, he didn’t he
ar a sound that might indicate their presence. Unless it was some kind of trap…
Reston shook his head, amused by his own paranoia. Now that he’d decided to be free, to leave behind the ruins of his life, he felt a kind of elation. A sense of new possibilities, even of rebirth. They were gone, their mission accomplished, the Planet wasted.
Reston walked across the hot sands, stepping over the pieces of Scorp scattered about, finally climbing the shifting dune to peer into the hole.
My God, they managed to get everything, didn’t they?
The destruction was nearly total, the gaping hole almost exactly where the monitor wall had been. Thick shards of glass, bits of wire and circuitry, a faint scent of ozone—that was all that was left of the brilliantly designed video-retrieval system. Four of the leather chairs had been knocked off their welded mounts, the one-of-a-kind marble table had actually cracked in two—and in the northeast corner of the room there was another giant, ragged hole surrounded by debris.
And through that hole… .
Reston could actually see the elevator. The working, running elevator, the lights engaged, the platform recalled.
Was it a trap? It seemed too good to be true—but then he heard a distant pounding, somewhere off by the cell block, and thought that luck was finally with him; the employees had left, the sound could only be the blasted ex-S.T.A.R.S. team. Far enough away that he’d be halfway to the surface before they could make it back.
Reston grinned, amazed that it would end like this; it seemed so anticlimactic somehow, so mundane…
…and am I complaining? No, no complaints. Not from me.
Reston stepped through the hole, moving carefully to avoid the sharp glass.
* * *
The battle with the food animals had made it hungry, had made it crave; that there was a strong wall in Fossil’s way made it only more eager to eat, to fulfill its purpose. It pounded at the strong obstacle, feeling the matter shift, becoming less rigid—
