Brain trumps brawn every time.
The effect is immediate. Helper 9’s hand goes limp. Rivulets of gooey blood hurry down my head, and I’m dropped to the floor. I scramble to get up, leveraging myself against the greasy wall, but I’m too covered in filth. I fall back down, gasping for breath and waving the push dagger in pathetic swipes to keep my adversary at bay.
Despite its injuries, Helper 9 isn’t out of the fight yet. Blood gushes from the wounds on its wrist and thigh. It looks straight at me and bellows from deep within its meaty hide. The primal howl hits me harder than a punch. Something about it speaks to my animalistic core and shuts down my defenses. My hand with the push dagger falls by my side. I can’t explain why, but I feel ready to die.
“Finish him. Finish him!” Doctor X says through the speaker like the doped up maniac he is.
Helper 9 raises its uninjured leg above my head. Were my mental and physical faculties more coherent, I would’ve driven the push dagger into the bottom of its foot. I’m in no condition to react, though, and the calluses look too thick to penetrate anyway. I swallow and accept my fate.
That fortune cookie wasn’t a typo after all. I really will die in a mad scientist’s lab next to a pile of chimp shit.
But just as Helper 9 is about to bring its foot down, help arrives in an unexpected way.
23.
In a scene that reminds me of the haunted forest attack in The Wizard of Oz, a stream of irate chimpanzees pours through the hole in the wall. They must be coming from the repository on the other side, where Helper 10’s attempts to control the situation apparently failed. The chimps look like worn props from a movie. Their hair is matted. Their skin is too pale to be healthy. Their eyes, the remaining ones, look cloudy. The stench wafting off their crusty, pockmarked bodies is almost unbearable.
But it’s their teeth that capture most of my attention. They lodge in the neck of Helper 9, releasing pent up frustration tooth-by-tooth, bite-by-bite. It takes only a moment for Helper 9’s form to be replaced by a writhing haystack of bloody hair. The humanzee’s life drains down the backs of the chimps it helped imprison.
I imagine the chimps will turn to me next. As unassuming as I can, I limp through the gash in the door, taking a deep breath once I hit the hallway. It’s much better out here in the fresh air, if you could call it that. This is still a cave, after all.
I hear a shout from behind one of the doors. It cuts through the miserable moaning coming from the others.
“Chase, Chase. I’m in here,” the voice says.
Hillary.
I sprint as best I can to the door. It only locks from the outside with a spinning wheel, so I should be able to open it with a few quick twists.
“Are you OK in there?” I say and work the wheel.
“I can assure you she’s not,” Doctor X’s voice says through a speaker above my head. “While Helper 10 gets the chimpanzee specimens back under control, I’ll tend to Ms. Carter with my machines.”
“Hurry, Chase,” Hillary says from the other side of the door.
“I’m coming,” I say and spin the wheel faster. I give the door a tug. It still won’t open.
“The lock is disabled, Mr. Baker,” Doctor X’s voice says. “The machines will take care of her now.”
I hear the sound of gears grinding from inside Hillary’s room followed by a shriek.
There must be a way inside.
Before I can give the wheel another try, I feel a weight press down on my back. I collapse to the ground and feel the hot snort of a chimp plug my ear with snot. My arms try to grab ahold of the animal and rip it from my back, but its perch between my shoulder blades is as cleverly positioned as any wrestling move. Two rough paws grab my head and slam it into the floor, cutting a deep gash across my forehead. Fortunately, the grease from my environs prevents the injury from being too serious, but I’m not so sure about the next blow. The chimp picks my head up by the hair and slams it into the floor again. I start to lose consciousness, but the pain keeps me from going dark.
I need to get this monkey off my back, and for the first time I don’t mean that figuratively.
Before the chimp can go for a third bashing of my head, I kick with my legs until my boots get a grip. My weary arms manage a shaky push-up, and I rocket to my feet.
You’re a confused animal as tired of being in this lab as I am. Sorry I have to do this, but it’s you or me, and only one of us knows what’s on the line.
The chimp screams in frustration as I fall backward with as much force as I can muster. The weight of my fall stuns the chimp long enough for me to roll off, stand and put a boot over its throat. It claws at my leg, ripping my pants to pieces, but I manage to stay put. With steady pressure, the chimp expires under my boot, its windpipe crushed.
Sorry. Really.
A rush of energy turns my attention back to Hillary’s room, but I’m interrupted once again by a chimp. Scratch that. There isn’t one this time. I count a troop of five staring at me from a few feet away looking every bit as pissed off as I’d expect.
“Chase, the machines, they’re starting. Hurry before they…,” Hillary says from inside her room. The sound of mechanical grinding cuts her off.
“Helper 10 will be around soon to sweep up what’s left of you when the chimps finish tearing you apart. Enjoy your last few minutes of life, Mr. Baker,” Doctor X says through the speaker.
I look down at the push dagger still secure against my knuckle. I can barely make out the blade’s shape beneath a haunch of impaled gristle. I probably don’t look any different. There isn’t an inch of me that isn’t covered in gore. It’ll take a bath in maggots to clean everything off, assuming I make it through this. It’s not looking likely.
One of the chimps howls, and the troop takes a slow step forward.
“Hey, Doctor X,” I say with a croak toward the speaker above my head. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?”
“I’m familiar with that expression, yes,” Doctor X says. “But right now, you look more like a piece of shit than I do. That’ll go for double once the chimpanzees finish digesting your body.”
“Speak for yourself. They’ll come for you, too,” I say and lean against the wall.
“Of course I speak for myself. Who else would speak for me? You Americans and your phrases don’t make any sense.”
I’m about to get my last words in when the troop moves toward me a final time, closing the distance in a single, unified leap. I close my eyes and feel the heat of their bodies surround my own.
Please tell me this is a bad dream. I’m ready to wake up.
24.
Once again, a chimp relieves my seemingly impossible situation.
Instead of attacking me, the troop pauses while one of the more haggard chimps “talks” to the others. Opening my eyes, I see that it’s a combination of rudimentary sign language and babble.
Maybe the chimps developed a form of language to communicate with each during captivity? Stranger things have happened.
Far be it for me to tell what they’re talking about, but it seems pretty important. The chimps screech and howl, but they don’t attack me. In fact, they back off completely, looking at me expectantly as if I’m supposed to issue an order. It’s like they’re saying, “We’re free. Now what?”
I look over at the chimp I unfortunately had to kill.
Is that the chimp that would’ve led the troop? By killing it, did I become their leader?
Seeing the troop in front of me, I don’t need to be a humanzee to know the answer. Even in captivity, separated by cages and restraints, the chimps maintained a social structure. Doctor X couldn’t break their will. It’s downright human.
Why bother with hybrids? We already share 99 percent of the same DNA.
It reminds me of a Buddhist I met in Florence, Italy, where I have an apartment. She owned a vegan restaurant I stumbled into by accident, having had a little too much vino. After wondering aloud why the menu la
cked everything but “rabbit food,” she asked me a question in return.
“Can you think of a way to separate all animals from all humans?” she said.
I answered with a quick, sarcastic, “humans aren’t animals,” but to this day it’s a question that sticks to the back of my mind every time I cut into a juicy steak or rip apart a chicken leg between my teeth. Sure, there are plenty of things humans can do that animals can’t. Animals didn’t set foot on the moon. Humans did. But if that’s the litmus, are the humans who didn’t go to the moon on the same level as animals? If the human species as a whole should get credit for walking on the moon, should every animalistic overlap be hoisted upon humanity, too?
I eventually came back to religion and spiritually. Humans have souls, while animals do not. Then again, I consider myself a god-fearing atheist. If I’m not sold on religion, how am I any different from an animal?
“Animals and humans, we are all the same. You wouldn’t eat another human, would you?” the restaurant owner said.
She didn’t win any converts at the time, and I doubt I’m ever giving up my position at the top of the food chain, but I see her point now. How am I any different from those chimps? Stuck in this shithole, I didn’t lose my sense of being, either. And now we’re bridging the gap between our species without Doctor X’s hideous methods. We’re becoming a hybrid in a different way.
I’m their alpha now. I killed to get here, and it’s no different from a military coup. The law of the jungle goes for everyone.
I point at the door to Hillary’s room. It’s thick and made of metal, but the chimps go ballistic. Even I’m surprised by the raw strength and creativity they display at ripping the door from its hinges.
I slip into the room ahead of the chimps to find Hillary strapped to a table in what I’ll call a mating position. There’s no need for further detail on that point. The chimps trash Doctor X’s machines while I help Hillary collect herself. She’s more pissed off than frightened.
“I call first dibs on the asshole who put me in here,” Hillary says. She looks me up and down. “I’d kiss you, but I’d probably contract a disease. You look like washed up whale shit.”
“I don’t blame you,” I say, feeling the proverbial wind against my back. Hillary and I are free from our rooms, Helpers 8 and 9 are dead, a troop of chimps elected me their leader and my gonads are still where I left them. Now we need to get to Doctor X, stop his plans for good and recover that Iceman.
Turning back into the hallway, we’re greeted by yet another hurdle between now and then. Helper 10, a hybrid somehow even more gnarled and hideous than its two predecessors, stands between us and the exit into the main cave. In its hands it holds my .45 and my ESEE knife, and I don’t think it’s here to return them to me. Slung over its shoulder is that icon of Soviet firepower, an AK-47.
“Ms. Carter. Mr. Baker. Meet Helper 10,” Doctor X says over the speaker.
25.
I freeze in my tracks at the sight of my own .45 aimed at my chest. The chimps won’t move unless I do, so they hurl growls and shit at Helper 10 while remaining in position behind me. Gauging the distance between us, there’s no way I can get the drop on the pistol before Helper 10 can plant a hunk of lead into my heart.
“Not so smart now, are you?” Doctor X says over the speaker with a cackle. “Helper 10 has the brains of my creations. Note the fine motor skills in its hands, capable of working firearms and other machinery. It’s my greatest work to date.”
Despite his masturbatory glee, Doctor X is right. Helper 10 might be the ugliest of his sink clog creations, but it’s also his most human. Its hands resemble my own. So do the eyes. If they’re the windows to the soul, Helper 10 is the pope of hybrid super-soldiers.
I’m curious why Helper 10 wields the .45 instead of the AK. I know how much ammunition the .45 can hold with a full magazine, and it’s going to take some expert shooting to put us all down. The AK, on the other hand, could sweep this hallway clean of life in a few seconds.
Maybe it’s not as smart as Doctor X made it out to be?
The tension of watching Helper 10 debate what to do with the .45 nearly knocks me over. Literally. It’s getting harder to stand. My injuries need medical attention before I succumb to infection, not that I’m necessarily in any rush to get back to a hospital.
“What does it want?” Hillary says to me, motioning at Helper 10.
“To kill us, but it’s hesitating for some reason,” I say.
Itching for a chance at revenge, Hillary snaps her fingers in the air like she’s trying to attract a waiter’s attention. “Hello? Anyone home, ugly?”
Helper 10 looks through Hillary with what I’d call a thousand-mile stare. It sighs.
“Don’t be bashful, my beloved Helper,” Doctor X says through the speaker. “You can put a bullet in each of their heads before any of them can blink. We talked about this. Stop being so hard on yourself.”
They talked about it?
Indeed they did. Helper 10, bred for brainpower over horsepower, opens its mouth and speaks.
“I…no…to you…,” Helper 10 says in a gurgle that sounds like it’s talking through a throat full of raw hamburger.
“Shhh, my baby,” Doctor X says. “No words this time. Just kill them.”
Helper 10’s all-too-human eyes shift between the .45, Hillary, myself, the chimps and the speaker.
“…friends…all dead…,” Helper 10 says in a whimper.
I’m getting the picture now.
“Your friends are all dead?” I say.
Helper 10 nods its head. Because of the way its disfigured body mashes muscle and bone together, the motion rocks its entire upper half.
“…can’t…,” Helper 10 says, looking at the .45, then at the chimps.
Helper 10 is sad.
“Stop hesitating, you stupid oaf,” Doctor X says through the speaker. “Kill them. Now!”
Helper 10 doesn’t kill us. It stares with those sullen eyes, twisting the .45 over and over again in its hand.
The merger of humans and chimps went a little too well for Doctor X. He couldn’t breed out the parts of humans that make them human. Remorse. Reflection. Empathy. The more successful Doctor X’s experiments, the more this trap door revealed itself. There was never going to be a deployment of these hybrid super-soldiers, these humanzees, at least none capable of thinking for themselves. Deploy Helper 10s to the battlefield, and they’ll come back with all the psychological baggage of typical human soldiers, minus any way of treating them.
“…tired…of…killing…no friends left,” Helper 10 says, referring to Helper 8 and 9.
“Kill them. Kill them!” Doctor X says, sounding more desperate.
Oh, man and his follies. Same shit, different day. I’m looking at a biological Titanic ready to sink.
Helper 10 raises the .45 to its head. I swear I see a tear roll down its eye. The chimps behind me howl in delight, eager to witness the death of one of their cruel handlers.
Hillary, too, pines for blood. “Do it, you waste. Pull the trigger,” she says.
“Kill them, kill them, kill them,” Doctor X says in a fever pitch.
I think back once again to that conversation with the restaurant owner.
“Can you think of a way to separate all animals from all humans?”
Remorse. Reflection. Empathy.
Empathy.
I raise my hand, look directly into Helper 10’s eyes and say, “Stop. You don’t have to do this.”
Helper 10 isn’t convinced. It shores up its grip on the .45.
“Didn’t Doctor X say there are others like you?” I say.
“…lies…all dead…,” Helper 10 says.
Doctor X’s voice is suspiciously absent from the speaker above my head.
“You’re still not alone,” I say. “Doctor X, he has something called a Minnesota Iceman. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“…Iceman…yes…but fake,” Helper 10 says.
/> Even the human-chimp hybrid thinks the Iceman is a fraud.
Hillary snaps back into businesswoman mode. She says, “A fake? Not on your life. It’s either the real deal or my Museum of the Bizarre was robbed and destroyed for nothing.”
Hadn’t thought of it that way.
Helper 10 lowers the .45. It’s still unsure what to do next, so I push it to see things my way.
“Help us. Show us where Doctor X keeps the Iceman, and I promise you’ll see you’re not alone,” I say.
“…help us?” Helper 10 says. “You…are Helper Us?”
The poor thing’s logic is so simple, I forgot to check my vocabulary. It thinks I’m one of them, the Helpers.
“Yes. Yes, of course. Helper Us,” I say. “And Helper Us needs Helper 10 to find that Iceman.”
Helper 10 drops the .45 to the ground and kicks the gun toward me. It gives the ESEE-5 a light toss. I pick both up, happy to be reunited.
“But first, show Helper Us where that prick Doctor X is,” Hillary says. “We need to have a quick word with him.”
Helper 10 slips the AK across its chest and racks the gun’s charging handle. “Will…show…come with,” it says.
With that, our motley crew of a shit-stained adventurer, an unfortunate entrepreneur, a troop of irate chimpanzees and a human-ape hybrid super-soldier with a machine gun head back into the main cave to pop a mad scientist jacked up on an invincibility serum in order to prevent World War III.
Just another day at the office.
26.
The Jeep, flat tire and all, thankfully still rests at an awkward angle inside the main cave. Missing, however, is Doctor X, which is curious since I’m looking at nothing but rock walls.
Did he take off on foot down the two-track road that leads into the cave?
Chase Baker & the Humanzees from Hell (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 8) Page 8
