“Hell if I know.” He took out his own flashlight and backed against the wall next to her. With his free hand, he wiped the wound on his cheek, smearing more blood over his face. The creatures started encroaching on them, flitting between the legs of the shelves and boxes. “Those things aren’t…you don’t think…”
She knew the thoughts flying through his mind weren’t far off from her own. “Maybe.” With her flashlight in her left hand, she took her nightstick out from her utility belt with her right. Miguel followed suit. Guns would be unwieldy, even dangerous, in such close quarters with so many small targets melding into the shadows. “But let’s worry about that later.”
The creatures grew more brazen. With their tails flicking back and forth, they crept out of the shadows and directly into Ana’s flashlight beam. Their talons clicked along the concrete, only slightly louder than a whisper. Each cocked its head back and forth. Intelligence seemed to shine from their golden eyes. They formed a hissing pack, blocking Ana and Miguel from the chicken coop room. There would be no easy retreat. One, leading the group, lowered its skinny neck. More and more poked their heads out between the shelves. Ana watched the creatures and wondered which would make the first move. Their snouts looked too similar to a chicken’s beak, albeit the teeth made a distinct contrast. If she squinted, she could see what the creatures might look like if the white feathers poking out behind their head covered the rest of their body. Had Kaplan actually done it?
She didn’t bother ruminating on the question. There was one far more pressing. “There’s another door to your left,” she said in a low voice, trying not to incite the little beasts to attack. “Should we take it?”
Miguel reached a hand out slowly as the pack leader sauntered forward. It let out a high-pitched squeal. Several creatures launched themselves from the shelves as another half dozen dashed straight at Miguel and Ana. Ana’s nightstick batted away the first two. One caught the front of her jacket and ripped into it. Its mouth pulled away, bringing with it tufts of artificial down. She kicked one of the running monsters while swatting at another clinging to her chest.
Her nightstick flew out, knocking away one monster after another. Flashes of green-and-brown leathery bodies along with high-pitched reptilian cries muddled her senses. Adrenaline surged through her vessels, numbing the pain pulsating through her torn and battered limbs. Miguel’s grunts and the yelps of creatures flying away from him told her he was still alive.
“The door!” she yelled, beating back another creature. Its jaws snapped, and it bit the air as it dodged her strikes. Another jumped and latched its claws onto her utility belt. She heard the door open, and dim blue light washed into the room. Miguel. He beat back three of the monsters as a fourth chewed and slashed his boot. Ana kicked the monster attacking his boot and grabbed Miguel. They tumbled through the doorway and she slammed it shut behind them.
Ana grabbed the creature from her utility belt and tossed it across the room. She helped Miguel knock out the three creatures stubbornly attacking him. When the monsters were beaten, Ana panted, gasping for breath. Miguel’s chest heaved. He wiped away the blood still streaming from the lacerations on his face. Scratching claws and high-pitched shrieks drifted under the door as the monsters tried desperately to come after them. Ana ignored the trapped creatures and turned off her flashlight.
The room was awash in an ethereal azure glow emanating from glass vats. Her eyes widened. In each of the liquid-filled vats, large creatures were suspended by an array of hoses leading into their nostrils. Bubbles drifted from their intubated mouths. Their open jaws revealed a mouthful of serrated teeth. Long, thin necks snaked from bodies that seemed to consist only of ropey muscles and leathery skin.
Ana’s thoughts whirled around the creatures they’d just faced and these ones in suspended animation. If these creatures had been reversed engineered…
“Would you say these things are about the size of an ostrich?” She approached one of the vats and pressed her palm against the glass. It was warm. She could almost feel the creature’s heart beating within.
“I don’t like this,” Miguel said, pulling out his comm card. He tapped on the holoscreen as he stood in the middle of the room. “No service. Shit. Too deep underground.” He joined Ana and stared at the creature. “Won’t be long before we get backup now.”
Ana snapped out of her trance. “We still haven’t found whoever it was that was screaming.” She stared around the wide room, peering between the rows of vats. “I don’t see any signs of a person. Just more of these damn vats.”
Her boots smacked against the cold concrete floor. Each footfall echoed in the wide room as she looked for a door, hall, or anywhere that led away. Her stomach dropped, and she froze. “Miguel.”
“What’s up?” he asked. Then his gaze caught what she was staring at. From her peripheral vision, she watched his mouth go agape.
A puddle of liquid seeped across the floor. Hoses hung, pumping red and blue liquid out that mixed and bled over shards of glass. A bank of blue LEDS pulsated light over a broken vat.
It was empty.
6
Ana looked around at the vats nervously. She probed the shadows with her flashlight, but no dinosaur—hell, was she actually calling it that now?—appeared. Miguel crept beside her, and they snuck to the other side of the room where another door stood cracked open. An eerie sensation of being watched kept her moving. The farther away she got from those vats, the better she felt.
“You don’t think one of those things got loose and”—Miguel gulped—“got someone, do you?”
“Could account for the screaming.”
Miguel nodded, unnecessarily clicking back the hammer on his pistol. They reached the door. Brackish light seeped through the gap between the door and wall. Ana stowed her flashlight and then pulled the door open slightly. More harsh yellow light poured over them. A familiar smell assaulted Ana’s nostrils. It contained hints of the ammonia and poultry smell from the chickens, but there was something distinctly different about it that Ana couldn’t place. As she slinked through, she soon saw why.
“Eggs,” Miguel said.
Warm heat rolled over them, and the humidity in the room threatened to suffocate Ana. She waded through the uncomfortable atmosphere, trudging between clusters of eggs protected by clear acrylic enclosures. Each egg was the size of a football.
“Just the right size for an ostrich-sized dinosaur,” Ana said.
Miguel raised his eyebrows and shook his head as if he too didn’t want to believe what was unfolding before them. She couldn’t believe what she’d come to accept as reality in the past few minutes, either. Inwardly she yelled at herself to wake up from whatever nightmare her brain had conjured. But she had no success in jarring herself away from the strange sights.
“Check that out,” she said, nodding to a portion of the room that looked more like the labs she was used to. Except for the eggs, the place appeared like other illegal genie facilities she’d busted. Microscopes and genetic replication equipment sat on a lab bench. She spotted several centrifuges and even an entire biosafety cabinet suitable for experimenting with cell cultures. Beside the lab setup, a holoprojection rotated in the air.
It pulsed with a vivid green glow. Strands of spiraling DNA were being split and cut apart in a 3D simulation. Various letters and numbers floated over proteins inserted along the DNA strands. She noticed these proteins seemed to turn various genes on and off during a simulated genetic replication phase. A whole bevy of molecules floated away from the DNA, spinning in the air. She thought she recognized the names of some hormones and growth factors, but the sight of so many detailed molecules overwhelmed her. Her undergraduate biology degree had never prepared her for the complexity of molecular reactions that the holoprojection depicted.
“What the hell is this?” Miguel asked.
Ana squinted, trying to understand its purpose. Then it came to her. “It’s like a notebook. Someone keeping track of their expe
riments.” She turned the projection off. The exit door to the lab was stuck halfway open. It seemed like it was supposed to slide automatically shut, but something had knocked it off its track. Instead, a red light flashed above it, and the door jolted every couple of seconds, making a grating sound. A shredded rubber lip swung around each time it attempted to close.
“Come on,” Ana said. She stalked down a hall with several more doors. The first three were closed. Each had a single rectangular window with wire-reinforced glass. She shone her light through one, but the window was too small for her to get much of a view. The first room contained several haggard-looking cots. A single large metal can sat in one corner. The room seemed better suited for a prison than a laboratory. A second room seemed completely barren, with only a drain in the middle of the floor. The cinderblock walls were mostly a dark gray except for a storm of long light-gray lines. The patterns made Ana think of the claws she’d seen on the ostrich-sized dinosaurs. The third and fourth rooms appeared to be nothing more than storage, filled with boxes emblazoned with the logos of laboratory supply companies.
A fifth door led to a pile of black bags and out wafted the smell of rotten meat. The door hung off one hinge. The others had been broken. Ana’s arms started to tremble as she wondered what could have done that kind of damage. The dinosaurs they’d seen appeared vicious enough, but she wouldn’t have guessed they possessed that kind of strength. She almost considered retreating.
Almost.
The thought of those haunting screams urged her on. She and Miguel snuck through another open doorway. Clusters of bright white lights illuminated a chamber like a surgical suite. Several blue curtains hung around the room, partitioning it into several smaller sections. The sounds of slurping and tearing sounded from behind one set of curtains.
Ana wanted to yell, “Police! Come out with your hands up!” But she knew there would be no hands. Just claws. Flesh-tearing claws. She nodded to Miguel, and he flung open the curtain.
7
A reptilian beast looked up from its prey. Crimson rags of flesh hung from between its teeth. There was no doubt in Ana’s mind this was the missing suspect from the broken vat. The dino hissed, then dropped the shred of meat. It lowered its head, and Ana started to squeeze her pistol’s trigger. But the beast disappeared behind a surgical table before she could get a shot off.
“Watch it!” Ana said. She stepped back and started to move around the left side of the table. Miguel took the right.
Her pulse quickened with each step. Every nerve in her body screamed, and her instincts demanded she run. But she fought those impulses and inched around the table.
A flash of talons and teeth erupted at her. She dodged to her right, but something tugged her backward. One of the curtains fell around her, and her whole body was whipped around violently. The dino had gotten one of its talons stuck in the front of her jacket. She felt a sharp pain along her breastbone, but the bullet-proof vest took the brunt of the creature’s thrashing. The dino’s struggling tossed her around, and she lost hold of her pistol. The flashlight, too, went clattering across the floor.
“Ana!” Miguel called. She could hear his frantic bootsteps near her, but couldn’t see him.
She tried to tear the curtain away from her face. The dino continued struggling, further entangling them both. The curtain twisted around her, and she fought to reach her utility belt. A kick from the dino slammed against her right arm. There was a snap, and a sharp pain rocketed through her wrist. She bit her bottom lip to refrain from yelling and continued trying to unravel herself from the creature and the curtain. With her left arm, she felt for the hilt of her knife. She tugged it free from its sheath and cut herself free from the curtain. The dino, too, shredded ribbons of blue fabric from the curtain, but its talon was still stuck in her jacket and shirt. One swift flick of the knife cut away the tearing fabric around the talon, and the dino freed itself.
The monster hopped to its feet. It tucked its clawed arms close to its chest, and its yellow eyes measured up Ana, then Miguel. Miguel leveled his gun at the creature. The monster seemed to sense the threat and whipped the officer with its tail. The blow knocked Miguel off his feet, and his head cracked against the floor with a sickening thud. His eyes rolled back, and the gun skittered from his loosened grip.
Ana jumped to recover her own pistol, but the dino was faster. It leapt, talons slicing through the air. She dove out of its way and barely turned in time to avoid another attack. She spent more time dodging and weaving, unable to recover her pistol or Miguel’s. Her muscles ached. Her right arm was on fire, and she was gasping for breath. Adrenaline hardly assuaged the exhaustion threatening to overtake her as she jumped and tried to run from the genetically engineered predator. But it was too fast, too intelligent. It almost seemed to be toying with her, enjoying the chase more than making a kill. After all, it had already eaten. Maybe all it wanted was a bit of morbid playtime.
The monster’s tail flicked back and forth. It lowered its head, and she swore it almost seemed to smile as it bore its glistening teeth, still dripping red saliva. Ana circled the surgical table, keeping it between herself and the monster. She saw the corpse the dino had been feeding on from the corner of her eye and stepped over the poor disemboweled person.
Briefly she wondered if they’d already failed. Was this who they’d heard screaming? Was this a victim of whatever twisted science was going on down here?
The monster screeched, interrupting her thoughts. It pounced over the table. This time, Ana didn’t dodge. She parried its slashing talons with her nightstick. Using the creature’s momentum, she grabbed hold of one ankle. The creature weighed surprisingly less than she expected, and she diverted its trajectory, despite the pain throbbing in her right arm. The dino’s eyes went wide, as if it hadn’t expected such a brash move. It flew into the curtain. Its claws and talons caught hold of the fabric, tearing it down from its pole. Once again, the dino struggled fiercely, entangling itself completely.
Ana sprinted to her pistol, scooped it up, and spun on the flailing monster. Four quick shots pierced through fabric and flesh. Crimson stains blossomed in the curtain wrapped around the beast. It let out a shrill cry and crumpled. Its limbs trembled and then went still. A pink, snake-like tongue drooped out of its open mouth. She kicked the monster in the ribs. It let out a death rattle, but didn’t move. Satisfied with its death, she ran to her partner.
“Miguel, buddy, come on.” She tried to gently prod him, afraid of worsening any injuries he might’ve sustained.
The officer’s eyes opened slowly. He blinked once, then twice. His eyes went wide. “Where is it?”
“Dead,” Ana said. “You’re okay.”
Miguel put one hand on the concrete floor and pushed himself to his feet.
“Careful,” Ana said, grabbing his upper arm.
He looked at the carcass the dinosaur had been eating. “Guess that explains the screams. We need to get the hell out of here so we can make sure backup knows what they’re getting into.”
“Wait,” Ana said. She knelt next to the corpse. “This looks like a man. Those screams were distinctly female, don’t you think?”
“Who knows?” Miguel shrugged, rubbing the back of his head. “I just want to get the hell out here. I’ve had enough of this place.”
Ana glanced at the surgical table. There was a fresh cloth placed over it, and several silver tools lay in sterile packages on a nearby counter. She glanced at the corpse again. The man’s white coat was splotched with red stains, and blue gloves were still wrapped over his hands. “Seems like this guy was about to operate on someone.”
“Or something,” Miguel said, gesturing at the dead dino.
“Don’t think so,” Ana said. “This bed’s human-sized. It wouldn’t even fit that big sucker.”
“Well if that’s the case, then where’s the patient?” Miguel asked, slowly rotating and taking in the various curtain partitions still hanging from the ceiling.
&n
bsp; Ana tore at one curtain, then another. She rushed through the chamber, tearing down curtains and revealing the rest of the room. Wheelchairs, more surgical equipment, canisters of anesthesia. Frustration boiled over in her until she pulled down yet another curtain. There she found a large metal door. The door was unlocked, and Ana pulled it open. A cool blast of air washed over her, and she shone her light inside. It was a walk-in cooler like the ones Ana had seen in all types of biology labs. But this one wasn’t filled with plastic boxes of refrigerated supplies.
It was filled with bodies.
8
Ana shuddered, and Miguel gasped.
The bodies lining the shelves were human. Or at least, they had been.
Ana and Miguel walked between the shelves. Their flashlights played over the frozen bodies. Under the layer of white frost covering the corpses’ skin, several had strange scaly growths covering their bodies, not unlike the chicken- and ostrich-sized dinosaurs Ana had already confronted. One man had twisted claws protruding from his frozen hands. Another had a strangely thin neck and a massive underbite that showed off a mouthful of serrated teeth.
The genetic experiments on the birds, the data in the lab, and the bodies here all started to fit together in Ana’s mind. “They used the birds to identify dinosaur-like genetic material.”
“Then developed genies based on the dinosaur DNA,” Miguel said, finishing her thought. “And these were their test subjects. This is sick.”
Ana opened her mouth to agree, but heard scuffling to their left. She held up her flashlight with her left hand and reached for her sidearm with her right. Pain radiated through her injured wrist when she grabbed the pistol grip. “Who’s there?”
Another soft scuffling sound. She waited for a dinosaur to pounce. Or worse yet, one of those mutated bodies.
“Come on, you’ve got nowhere to hide!” She wanted desperately to hear a human response. Maybe catch the bastard that was responsible for all of this. Then Miguel’s flashlight beam lit something up. It moved to run away.
The Jurassic Chronicles (Future Chronicles Book 15) Page 3
