by John Shirley
Slowly, Sam sat up and looked around for an egress. There was a tunnel, the way they’d probably come in—but it was on the other side of the imp. She couldn’t get to it without being noticed.
She spotted a metal maintenance ladder, rungs built into the wall, running all the way up the air shaft, passing through narrow crawl apertures beside the fan blades. Better than nothing.
Moving slowly, trying not to make a sound, she got her feet under her and stood. Wincing at the pain in her head, the bruises in her limbs, she edged carefully toward the ladder.
Sam reached the ladder and began to climb. She was several steps up when her foot slipped, the toe of her boot clanking on a lower rung. She froze—but the imp lifted its head as if listening. It turned with a roar and saw its prey trying to get away.
She started up the ladder again, forgetting her throbbing head and aching muscles, clambering as fast as she could. She reached the opening, and just managed to squeeze through the narrow aperture beside the fan blades’ framework when the imp closed its talons around her ankle and nearly jerked her back down.
No. She wasn’t going to let it end like this.
Sam kicked downward, going with the motion of the imp’s tugging, and slammed the genetic demon hard in the face with her bootheel, grinding into its optical membranes. It squealed in pain and its grip loosened. She wrenched free and pulled herself up onto the little platform, next to the slowly whirling fan blades. The imp was reaching through the aperture, raking its claws at her, but she was well out of reach. It couldn’t fit its wide shoulders through the opening to this level—it’d grown past human proportions.
“That’s right, you bastard, I’m getting away from you!” she yelled. Releasing pent-up fear and fury. “Fuck you!”
She continued up the ladder, then paused about halfway to the next set of blades when she heard the imp chattering, making a sound close to laughter. She looked down to see it had taken hold of the fan blade, was being spun around, not particularly rapidly, like a child on a playground toy. It slung its legs up over the blade, and began to climb onto it, still spinning around as it climbed. The blades were going so slowly that they weren’t much obstacle.
“Shit,” she muttered, and resumed climbing, trying to urge her aching limbs into greater speed.
But moments later Sam heard the imp chittering in triumph and looked down to see it leaping from the top of the big fan blade to the lower rungs of the ladder she was on. It leered up at her and began to climb, moving much more rapidly than she could.
“Oh fuck…” Riding a surge of terror-charged adrenaline, she redoubled her speed, and reached the next aperture, pulled herself through just ahead of the imp. It raked at her leg, slashing a bit of her left calf away, but she managed to slip through ahead of it.
She turned to see it leap at the fan blade, catching the slowly spinning metal with the agility of a giant chimp, chattering to itself as it spun around and around, doubling up to wrap its feet around the blade.
Despite the pain, she started climbing again. Trying to see what was above that last whirling blade…air ducts, going off in three directions. Big enough to move through, hunkered down. But the imp could fit into them, too. It would follow her and catch her before she got fifty paces.
She spotted something else, next to the platform beside the air ducts, above the topmost fan blade…
She was panting for air in her effort to keep ahead of the imp, sweat running down her back and pasting her hair to her forehead, blood flowing from her injured leg. Sweat on her hands threatened to make her lose her purchase on the rungs—she almost fell into the imp’s arms, and it roared in anticipation, snapping at her heels with its jaws.
“No!” she shouted, reaching the final aperture. She reached up and did a pull-up—something normally she hadn’t strength to do—and wormed her way through, banging elbows and knees in her haste.
The imp was already poised to leap at the fan blades.
Sam stood up and opened the metal box on the wall, the controller for the fans she’d spotted from below. There it was—the setting she had hoped for.
FULL POWER
She looked to see the imp just about six feet away, clambering up onto a blade, halfway up, legs dangling down below the fan. In another second it would be up—and upon her.
She turned the control knob and the fan blades responded immediately—although the lights dimmed a bit as it drained more of the emergency power—turning faster, faster, becoming a blur like helicopter blades, humming…
And slicing the imp in two.
It shrieked, and its upper half tumbled atop the blades, dancing about like a chunk of meat when first popped into a blender, before being chopped to pieces. Black blood splashed the walls, pieces of talon and teeth and bone flew everywhere…The increased turbulence from the fan made her stagger, bouncing her back against the wall so that she nearly rebounded to fall into the blades. Blood from the imp became a horrific rain caught in hurricane winds, bitter as it struck her mouth…
She caught a stanchion and held on, caught in an artificial windstorm, her hair streaming, eyes drying in the roaring wind. She reached out and fumbled at the knob, switched it back to normal speed. The fan blades slowed, the gale abated, and she got her balance again.
Sam sat on the platform for a few moments, back against the wall and knees drawn up, resting, cleaning demon’s blood from her face and hair as best she could. Then she caught a distant chattering, clicking sound—coming from the tunnel opposite her. She stood up, listening breathlessly. Yeah, there it was again. And it was getting louder.
A genetic demon was coming down the tunnel toward her—she couldn’t see it but she knew it was coming, hunting her.
She turned and darted into the round air duct to her right—maybe it wouldn’t take this one when it got to the air shaft.
But less than a minute later, as she made her way hunkered over in the narrow, dark metal tunnel of the duct, she heard a low chattering growl echoing from behind her. She could smell the imp; she heard its urgent, clicking footsteps…
She turned and looked down the circular tunnel, saw the silhouette of an imp, against the light, its quivering shadow stretching ahead of it, as if reaching out for her in anticipation. It was closing in on her.
Sam turned, hurrying on—then heard a hissing sound and instinctively threw herself flat. The imp’s tongue flashed over her, susurrating as it passed close over the back of her head, unrolling out of its mouth—just missing her before reeling back into its toothy maw.
She was up and scrambling down the tunnel, then—and came to a grating, for a vent down into a room under the duct. She could see through the slats, into the room below—a bit. There was a desk and a chair down there; she couldn’t make out anything else. The rest of the room might be filled with monsters. But the imp in the duct was almost upon her again, and there was no time to worry about what was below.
She slammed her elbow into the grating, hard enough to make blood flow, and the grating popped out, clattering down. She felt the demon’s breath on the back of her neck…
It was too big to get through the vent opening. It was her only chance.
Sam dropped through headfirst, trying to break her fall on the desk with her hands—but she never struck it, though it was directly below.
The imp had gripped her lower legs, just above the ankles. She was dangling there, head down. It was running its long, long tongue down her right leg, spiraling it around her ankle, down her calf, wet and raspy, probing toward her crotch. She could feel the barb on it, dragging across her skin, looking for the right spot to strike, like a cobra aiming its fangs.
Sam’s hands were dangling over the desk…and on the desk—a nice big pair of scissors. She couldn’t quite reach them.
She strained for the makeshift weapon. The tongue was slinking along her, stretching…leaving a trail of drool on her skin.
She caught the edge of the scissors with the tip of her index fin
gers, managed to tease them toward her, scooped them up, bent at the waist, reached up and—working her fingers with all the strength she could get into them—severed the tongue where it issued from the thing’s mouth.
It screeched as she dropped heavily onto the desk, striking it painfully with her left shoulder, rolling, clawing at herself to get the tongue off—it slithered away, like a frantic snake, thrashing.
She kicked at it, backing away, stumbled over a wastepaper basket, got to her feet, threw the metal can at the rippling, bleeding tongue.
Sam still had the scissors in her other hand, but she was afraid to get close to the severed tongue—it seemed to have a life of its own.
Overhead, the imp was really pissed off . It was shaking the duct, ripping at it, tearing it free from its supports, bits of ceiling coming down.
Sam looked around, saw she was in an unoccupied, dimly lit administrative room, with cubicles and desks. She started off between the cubicles—stiff, in pain and bone-tired but urging herself on. The imp would break out of the duct in seconds.
She got to the corridor, stepped out, turned—and saw another big imp standing just forty feet from her, a massive burly figure barely fitting into the hall, seeming to suck the light into itself.
The big imp had its back to Sam, was looking down an intersecting passage, sniffing the air, growling low in its chest. She could feel the growl resonating in the walls, the floors, in her bones…
She backed away down the hall—and the imp was staring off in another direction, leaving her. But she could hear the other imp breaking loose in the room she’d left, the thump when it dropped down on the desk.
Sam realized she still had the scissors in her hands.
She had reached another doorway, open into a storage room that connected two hallways. The big imp was going—and she threw the scissors at its back.
Then she ducked into the storage room.
Sam heard a roar—the shears had struck the big imp, not hurting it but getting its attention. It turned—
Which was exactly when the smaller imp came out of the other door, looking for Sam.
The big imp knew that someone had struck it and, as Sam had hoped, it decided it was the smaller imp, the only other individual it could see.
Sam peeked around the corner of the door and saw the imp she’d provoked rush the smaller one, roaring—the smaller imp turned to defend itself, leaping on its assailant’s chest, like a panther onto a wild bull, sinking its jaws into the bigger demon’s chest.
That ought to keep them busy for a while.
Sam turned, slipped through the storage room to the next hallway. Where was she now? How was she going to find John?
Sam had to get downstairs. She had a vague memory of where the elevators were. They were frozen but the stairway was nearby. She hurried down the corridors, wishing she had a weapon of some kind.
She heard more chattering, something rumbling, not far ahead—the direction of the elevators. She slowed, heart pounding, when she got to the cross hall and looked cautiously around the left-hand corner, trying not to show any more of herself than she had to.
Three half-turned genetic demons were crouched, about fifty feet down the hall, over a heap of torn meat. Feeding.
Sam stared, thinking they’d torn some poor bastard to pieces, until she realized that an overturned cafeteria refrigerator lay beyond them. They’d dragged it out here and pulled the deli meats out—she could see all the wrappers now. Almost reassuring to know they ate something besides human flesh. But it wouldn’t stop them from killing her.
One of the half-turned was wearing a uniform. It could almost be identical to her brother’s. Only it wasn’t—was it? She tried to remember what his uniform had been like.
Could that be John? Could he be one of them?
She stared…and though the light was dim, she could see that this man had red hair. Not John.
Still…John could be one of them right now, somewhere. Her brother hunting through the corridors like an animal…hunting Sam.
She wouldn’t believe it. She would believe, until she saw him, that he was all right. He wasn’t one of them. He was alive. He was trying to find her…
But he’d never look up here. She had to find her way back to him.
She looked to the right, saw the elevator about a hundred fifty feet down the hall. It was open—there was a naked, bloody man’s body lying in the way of the door, which kept trying to close on it. The door would close against the body’s shoulder, then triggered by the blockage, would open, then pause, closing again—breaking the body more, and more, and more with each closing. Beyond was an empty elevator shaft. Where was the elevator? Stuck somewhere below? Then how had the door gotten open? Probably the man had pried it open, trying to find a way to escape—and then the half-turned had caught him. She could see that most of his right leg was torn away…
“Hold the door for me,” Sam muttered.
She was going to have to go that way—the stairs were down there. But then, she’d never make it down before the half-turned caught up with her. They could be fast.
A rumbling snort from the half-turned—she turned to see one of them looking right at her. The others looked up one by one—and they all stood and bounded toward her.
“Oh fuck…”
She had no choice now. It was the stairs or…
There was another possibility. Only, it was crazy and she’d probably die in the attempt.
But Sam was already running toward the elevators, going full tilt, hearing the howling half-turned harrying after her. She glanced over her shoulder, saw that two of them were down on all fours, like unfinished werewolves, loping toward her—all of them had their mouths open, ululating with blood-lust as they came.
Up ahead was the elevator, and on the left, the door to the stairs. The door was closed. It might even be locked, or blocked from the other side.
The elevator shaft, though, she knew was open.
The half-turned pursuing her were close, close, very close behind. She could hear them panting almost on her heels, catching up: a second or two more and they’d bear her down. One of them reached to grab the hair streaming behind her and yanked, tore some of it out by the roots, trying to stop her. But she kept going, a few strides more, just a little more—
The elevator shaft was looming…the body…the doors closing, opening, closing…opening!
Sam leapt over the body and out into the elevator shaft.
The cables she’d glimpsed were there—and seemed a bit farther than she’d anticipated. But her hands closed over them, lower than she’d planned, her breastbone smacked into them, she closed her legs around them…and began to slide down—
Even as the three half-turned, unable to stop in time kept going, floundering over the body in the doorway, falling headlong, tumbling past her, down the shaft, shrieking in fury and fear as they plummeted—to smack messily into the top of the frozen elevator four stories below.
Their howling abruptly stopped.
Sam was sliding down the cables, her hands burning, skin ripping away from her palms, gritting her teeth in pain. She was pressing as hard as she could with her feet and knees to slow her descent…and after a few more seconds of hand-scouring agony her slide eased almost to a stop.
Not quite within reach, beyond the cable, was a ladder, built into the farther wall of the elevator shaft. She worked her way around to the other side of the cable, grimacing with the agony in her hands, clamped herself in place as well as she could, and leaned back, grabbing for a rung.
She caught one—and then thought: I’m an idiot. I can’t let go of the cables, my weight will pull me off the rung. I can’t go back, I’m leaning too far, I’ll fall…
She was stuck, spavined over the void.
She decided on the ladder. She’d just have to hold on. And she was losing her hold on the cable…sliding down…
Sam let go of the cable and—feeling absurdly like a primate in a tree—she sw
ung over to the ladder, kicking a foot toward a lower rung, trying to get a hold.
She missed, and fell to the end of her right arm, and shouted in blinding pain—almost losing her grip, nearly dislocating her arm from her shoulder. Sam whimpered, and felt with her toe, looking for a rung, found one, got a foothold and what a blessed relief it was to take the weight off her arm…
She clung to the ladder, gasping, for ten long seconds, feeling sweat dry on the back of her neck, her forearms. Then she made herself start down. Her right arm ached at the shoulder, but it seemed intact.
She was almost to the bottom of the ladder when she heard the genetic demon snarling, and she turned to see it crouching beside its dead fellows, preparing to leap at her. Its left arm was broken, turned crazily wrong in the socket, bone ends sticking out. Blood coursed from the corners of its mouth…
She moaned in frustration and started back up the ladder—and then the thing leapt and grabbed her by the neck, jerked her off the rungs. She fell shouting wordlessly, falling on her back at its feet. She looked up—seeing it upside down, dripping blood and saliva on her face as it ducked toward her, opening its mouth to tear into her throat…
A thud and it staggered—and fell across her, the back of its head shot away.
With a yelp of revulsion she pushed it off her, rolled and got her feet under her—looked up to see Sarge standing there, gun in hand.
“Hello, Sam,” he said.
Twenty
REAPER WAS IN darkness—but behind its cloak was a powerful humming sound…like a great dynamo thrumming somewhere…What was it? The sound of the universe going on without him?
So this is dying, Reaper thought. I don’t think I like it much. But I always thought it’d be worse than this…But then again, my dying ain’t over…Maybe it gets worse—maybe Hell’s coming next…
No, wait a minute. I just came from there.
Hold on: if I’m still thinking, can I really be dead? So maybe…Maybe I’m not going to die yet. Maybe I’ll survive this thing. The pain is gone. Strength coming back…but almost too much. Like I might explode with it…
