Black Melt_Mother Fountain

by Indy McDaniel

  “Reassuring,” Zoey nodded. “But ultimately irrelevant. Whether intentional or not, they’ve introduced an unknown, extremely pathogenic fungus into nearby populous. If current state of Miss Kurylenko any indicator, this fungus is most certainly a killer. Which makes them killers by proxy. Do I get a gun?”

  “What?” Stark narrowed his eyes on the doctor. “No, you don’t get a gun.”

  “If contaminated, Mister O’Malley may not be in a proper state of mind. Could be dangerous.”

  Stark popped the door of the car open and slid out of the driver’s seat. “So stay here,” he replied firmly, shutting the door behind him. He saw his suggestion wasn’t going to do much good, as Zoey was already halfway out of the car to follow him. “Or not. But know this, if you follow me up there, I’m in charge. I ask the questions, I call the shots, I shoot the gun. If it comes to that. Which it won’t.”

  “How is it you’re so sure?” Zoey asked. Either she was terrible at sarcasm, or she was legitimately curious.

  “Cuz I’m just that charming,” he grumbled, turning away from Zoey and heading towards the apartment complex. The place looked like a real dive. Hardly the sort of place he’d expect to find any kind of successful felons. But stranger things had happened. He held the door for Zoey, who seemed baffled by the kindness but shuffled through the door anyway. “According to the file, they’ve got an apartment on the fourth floor. It’s possible O’Malley might not even be up there. The state his girlfriend was in the last time he saw her, I wouldn’t be surprised if he skipped town.”

  “Hope not,” Zoey muttered. “Would make my job much more difficult. On other hand, challenge can be fun, too.”

  As they stepped onto the elevator, Stark lifted a perplexed eyebrow at the shorter woman. “Yea, nothing like a game of chase the infected guy across state borders to really put some extra pep in your step.”

  Zoey turned and gave him a far too bright smile. “My thoughts exactly, Stark.”

  * * *

  The elevator doors slid open, revealing the fourth floor of the apartment complex. It looked as dingy as the rest of the building. Stark stepped out of the elevator, taking the lead. Just because Zoey was weird didn’t mean he was going to let her get into trouble. “Stay behind me,” he told her. “And do what I tell you. I say hit the deck, you hit the deck. Got me?”

  Zoey nodded. “Will do everything in my power to not disappoint you, Stark.”

  “A simple yes would’ve been fine,” he muttered as he made his way down the hallway, checking off the apartment numbers until he got to the right one. He moved to the right side of the door and motioned for Zoey to stay to the left of it. He didn’t know whether O’Malley had a gun and – if he did – if he was willing to fire blindly through the door, and that was exactly why he didn’t want either of them standing directly in front of it. He reached out and knocked on the door, loud enough to be heard by anyone inside. “Gavin O’Malley,” he called through the door. “This is Agent Nicholas Stark of the FBI. Could you open the door?”

  There was no response.

  “C’mon, O’Malley,” Stark tried again. “You got enough problems as it is. No sense in you losing your security deposit on this shit hole, too.”

  Again, there was no response.

  “Alright, step back,” he told Zoey as he drew his sidearm from its holster and stepped in front of the door. He waited for Zoey to back up a couple steps before reaching out for the door knob. He twisted the handle and found the door to be locked. Stark stepped back, steadied himself, lifted a leg, and kicked out. With a sharp crack of splintering wood, the door slammed open. Stark surged forward into the apartment, sweeping his gun from left to right. Aside from a whole lot of clutter, he didn’t see much else. Certainly not any raving, fungus-infected lunatics. “Clear,” he called back to Zoey.

  Stark moved further into the apartment, surveying the general clutter. “Guess it’s the maid’s week off,” he muttered, looking back to the doorway to see Zoey coming in. “I’m going to check the rest of the place. Don’t touch anything.” He turned away and shimmied his way through the haphazard piles of boxes and other stuff. The further he went, the more disturbing signs he spotted. The bathroom was a proper mess. The dark splotches of slimy goo oozing down the side of the toilet bowl drew up memories of the hospital room. Pondering whether or not he should have kept the hazmat suit on, he moved on to the bedroom.

  The bedroom was even gooier than the bathroom. The bed was drenched in the sticky black sludge. Several large pools of it stained the floor. Thankfully, the room was small enough that he didn’t have to enter it to confirm it was empty. He backed up into the central living area. “Bad news and worse news,” he said to Zoey as he holstered his weapon. “Bad news is, O’Malley isn’t here. Worse news, whatever those hospital walls were painted with, there’s more of it here. Bathroom and bedroom.”

  “Both of those things equally bad,” Zoey replied. “Your bad news actually worse than your worse news. Contamination here is contained, can be cleaned, dealt with. If O’Malley isn’t here then he’s out there, spreading the infection.”

  “I meant worse news for us,” Stark shot back. “What’s the deal? Are we infected now?”

  “Unlikely,” Zoey said, shaking her head. “The fungal matter in the hospital released a number of airborne spores, but they dissipated fairly quickly. Safe to assume, this fungal matter a good deal older than the outbreak in the hospital. Spores would have settled. Just don’t kick any of it. Kicking would be bad. Stirs up spores again, leads to contamination, long stay spent in a small room.”

  “Fair enough,” Stark said. “Call your people in to lock this place down. In the meantime, is it safe enough to look around? Sludge kicking aside, I mean.”

  After putting in the call for a quarantine and clean up unit, Zoey pulled her messenger bag off her shoulder and set it down on the floor in front of her. She opened it up and pulled out something that looked like a cross between a computer tablet and a slender hose. Powering it up, Zoey rose to her feet, holding the end of the hose in one hand and the tablet in the other. She began to sweep the hose through the air, slowly stepping her way through the apartment. Stark could see a read out on the tablet, a series of bars slowly rising and falling.

  “What’s the gadget?” Stark asked.

  “Portable digital mass spectrometer,” Zoey replied, keeping her eyes on the screen. “Scans air for potential contaminants. If bars move into redline area, warning tone will sound. At the sound of the tone, we’ll be forced to seal the apartment and wait for further assistance and cleansing.”

  “Here’s hoping for the sweet sound of silence,” Stark said as he watched Zoey continue her systematic scanning of the apartment. It took another ten minutes, but the bars never rose high enough to get into the danger zone. Zoey finally clicked the gadget off and returned to her messenger bag to repack it.

  “Advise against going into bedroom or bathroom until proper cleansing is completed,” she said before standing back up. “But this room and kitchen are well within safety zones. Feel free to search.”

  Stark nodded and looked around. “Great. Where the hell do we start? We could have a team of people going through this mess for a week and not find anything.”

  “Incorrect,” Zoey cut in. “Contrary to initial assessment, level of organization within this apartment is subtly and surprisingly efficient.”

  Stark looked around the place, scanning over the clutter and trying to see some sort of order in it. He could not. He looked back to Zoey. “Seriously? I’ve seen dorm rooms better organized than this place.”

  “Could show you what I mean, but it would require me to touch things.”

  “Is there a reason why you can’t touch things? Is it safe to touch things?”

  “Safe, yes. But you told me not to.”

  There was a beat of silence between them. “Okay,” Stark finally said. “You can touch things. Just show me this subtly efficient organization
you speak of.”

  A bright, beaming smile spread across Zoey’s face. “Gladly, Stark.”

  * * *

  Five minutes into Zoey’s highly technical and fast-worded explanation of how the apartment was organized, Stark held up a hand to stop her. “As yawn-inducingly fascinating as that is, can you skip the explanatory part and get to the part where you tell me where any relevant information might be pertaining to where this fungus came from or, maybe more importantly, where O’Malley may have gone?”

  Zoey let out an exasperated sigh. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place, Stark?” She turned to the computer desk. “All of that can be found right here.” She pointed to an open duffle bag. “Tools in that bag not meant to be stored there, means they’re the last ones used. O’Malley and Kurylenko didn’t have time to properly store them after last job performed. Alarming, because that means infection struck at rapid pace. Makes identification of infected subjects easy, but containment of infection infinitely more difficult.”

  “Stay on target,” Stark cut in, not wanting her to get off on another random tangent.

  “Sorry, right,” Zoey said, shaking her head clear. “Proximity of duffle bag to computer means whatever they stole most likely computer data. Contamination and spread of infection just horrible accident. Most definitely not terrorist act. So information as to where infection came from on computer almost certain. Information on O’Malley’s whereabouts not nearly as certain, or as digital.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Zoey reached down and snagged a flier for a strip club off the desk. She held it out to Stark. “A frequent customer coupon,” she said. “In times of stress, people tend to return to places they’re familiar with. Since he’s not here, might be there.”

  “I donno, sounds pretty thin to me,” Stark said before nodding to the computer. “Let’s check the computer before we go running off to any strip clubs.”

  Zoey set the strip club coupon flier down and turned to the computer. She turned on the monitor and as it powered on, was treated to the folders of information pulled from the CyberWolfe lab. She skimmed through the documents contained within the folders, going unnaturally silent as she did. Stark watched from over her shoulder, but the technical data might as well have been in a different language.

  “Well? Anything useful?” he asked.

  Zoey nodded. “Appears as if our two thieves broke into CyberWolfe Industries research lab. Quite fascinating, really. Fungal life discovered within fallen meteorite.”

  “What, like alien life?”

  “Appears so,” Zoey said. “Haven’t heard anything of this discovery, through channels public or private. Highly valuable. Highly dangerous. Worth stealing, killing for. Especially to protect company.”

  “What’re you talking about? Try using full sentences, dammit.”

  “Fact that CyberWolfe hasn’t released discovery, paired with current release of fungal infection means something went wrong in lab. Cover up. Attempting to avoid liability.”

  “Are you trying to say that CyberWolfe intentionally infected Kurylenko and O’Malley to protect their secret?”

  Zoey looked up at Stark from the computer, her brow furrowed. “No, that’s ridiculous. CyberWolfe sealed lab in order to contain infection and information pertaining to. Kurylenko and O’Malley broke in later. Unwittingly released contagion. But CyberWolfe may not be too happy with us having this information.”

  “Then I guess they’ll just have to deal with being in a bad mood,” Stark said. “Because as long as this information is relevant to my investigation, they’re not getting it back.” He nodded to the computer. “Anything else of use in there?”

  “Dossiers of personnel originally stationed in lab,” Zoey said. “Could prove valuable for further investigation of initial cause of infection.”

  “That’s for later,” Stark said. “For now, we need to find O’Malley. Pull the contacts off the email. That might get us somewhere.”

  Zoey did as Stark said and printed out the list of contacts she found on the computer. By the time she finished with that, the team she’d phoned in had arrived. Suited up and bearing even fancier gear than Zoey had in her bag, the team went to work at sampling and cleaning the fungal infection in the back areas of the apartment. “They can handle this,” Zoey told Stark. “We should continue to look for O’Malley.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth,” Stark said, motioning to the door. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  * * *

  “How the fuck did you figure out where I live?”

  Erin Moone let out a startled scream as Gavin answered her question by shoving her apartment door open and knocking her back to the ground. She kicked out against the floor, scooting herself backwards to put some distance between herself and her former customer. He looked a good deal worse than the last time she’d seen him. Dark, flaky crud crept from the edges of his lips and curled from his flared nostrils. His wide eyes were similarly tainted with the black ink. He looked down at her with an expression of overwhelming hunger as he fumbled to push the apartment door shut behind him.

  Not knowing what kind of disease Gavin had contracted and not wanting to, Erin pushed herself up and turned to flee further into her apartment. She could hear him giving chase and forced herself to move faster. Living alone in an area that wasn’t exactly the greatest – not to mention the number of shady guys her work exposed her to, in more ways than one – she’d given a lot of thought to the potential outcomes of a home invasion. And while she’d vowed to try and make the best of things if said invader had been armed, Gavin was not. So as far as she was concerned, fuck keeping her head down and offering him anything of value that wasn’t bolted down. It was clobbering time.

  Erin snatched up the wooden baseball bat she kept propped up beside the fridge and spun to face Gavin. She brought the bat up and back, clenching it tightly as she readied herself to swing with everything her lithe form had. “Get back, asshole,” she growled. “I will go hardcore Babe Ruth on your sorry ass, I swear to fuck.”

  Gavin only let out a disturbed snip of laughter and continued to charge towards her.

  Well, I warned the prick, she thought as he got within range and she let swing. He didn’t even bother trying to dodge the blow. The bat nailed him in the left arm and Erin could hear the snap of his bone, but to her horror, he didn’t recoil in pain. He kept coming, a wide grin of triumph on his face as he reached out for her with his uninjured arm. Eyes stretched open with shock, Erin released her hold on the bat and let it clatter to the kitchen floor as she backpedaled away from the crazy bastard. Forget offense, she told herself. Time to grab the cell phone, lock yourself in the bathroom, and wait for the goddamn cavalry.

  Turning, Erin darted her way to the living room. She spotted her cell phone resting on the coffee table. She reached out for it as she ran, chest heaving for air. It had probably been less than a minute since Gavin had forced his way into her apartment, but it felt like so much longer. She managed to snatch up the cell phone but as she did, Gavin collided with her from behind. Letting out a fresh scream, Erin toppled forward with Gavin clinging to her back. She landed on the coffee table, shattering the glass top and buckling the wooden legs. The wind was knocked out of her, causing her to let out a strangled cry of pain as shards of glass cut into her. It took her a moment to realize that during the tackle, she’d lost her grip on the cell phone. Lifting her head, she saw it lying a few feet away near the rickety excuse for an entertainment center.

  Erin attempted to squirm her way out from under Gavin, stretching out an arm for the cell phone. Even if she couldn’t lock herself away, she could at least call for help. She doubted her screams would conjure up the assistance of any of her neighbors. It wasn’t that sort of apartment complex. She’d known that before even moving in. She’d pushed aside the concern of living alone in such a place – not just from her friends but from her own mind – maintaining that she could handle whatever shit life t
hrew at her. Awesome work, Erin, she thought as she strained her arm outwards for the phone. Your stubborn, tough chick against the world mentality is gonna make you just another damn statistic in a minute if you don’t get this asshole off of you.

  She managed to slide herself across the broken coffee table – gaining a few more painful cuts and splinters as she did – and felt a wave of relief as her fingers brushed against the smooth plastic case of her cell phone. Just another inch or so and she could grab it. In all the terror-fueled excitement, she hadn’t noticed the muttered words Gavin was oozing into her ear at first.

  “Tasty little whore,” he hissed. “She knows what’s in store.”

  “Fuck off!” Erin yelled at him, bringing her hand away from the cell phone and pulling her arm back to slam her elbow into the side of his head. The blow caught him off guard and shifted his weight enough for Erin to scoot forward the rest of the way she needed. She snatched up the cell phone and hit the button for the number pad. Should’ve programmed 911 into my contacts, she thought. Just in case. She moved her thumb over the touchscreen as quick as she could, but before she could hit send, Gavin was on her again. She flailed, trying to knock him away but he outweighed her by enough to keep her pinned to the floor.

  “What do you think you’re doing, bitch?” he snarled at her. The voice sounded different than the previous one that had hissed out the disturbing little rhyme. Like a completely different person. The shock of it distracted her from completing her call long enough for Gavin to slam a shard of broken glass into the back of her wrist. She howled out in pain as the glass impaled her wrist. Her fingers jerked from the pain, once again flinging the cell phone out of reach. She stared in horror at the blood gushing from the wound, blinking hot tears from her eyes. Gavin ripped the glass shard out of her wrist and gained another scream from Erin. He brought the shard in closer to her, hooking it under her chin and pressing it against her throat.