Lampreys

by Alan Spencer

  "Yes, I'm sure. Lower your weapons. Now open those boxes."

  "TWO MINUTES BEFORE ENTRY."

  Duke did as his father told him.

  Everybody's jaw dropped.

  Henry smiled. "So everybody else failed to complete their mission in this place, huh? At least it looks like we have a fighting chance now. Let's go tear this place a new one."

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the giant door leading into the installation closed behind them, Conrad was shoved onto the ground by a snarling Bavardi. The lights on the platform were all on, painting everything in blue-white. It was storming hard, and Conrad was drenched and cold to the bone. The helicopter that had opened fire on them had touched down next to the Mi-17.

  "On your knees, NOW!" Bavardi barked. "You know how long it takes to beat a man to death? You're going to find out, Conrad. I still owe you from earlier."

  Conrad pointed at the helicopter. What he saw was grotesque. "Look!"

  Conrad was kicked on the side of the head. What he saw in the helicopter vanished from his registry. He rolled sideways, blinking the stars from his eyes. He had to keep his eyes shut, because the white hot flashes of pain were so intense. That would make two instances of severe head trauma in a short period of time. Conrad clutched his hands with both hands.

  Bavardi shouted, "No, no, no, this can't be happening!"

  Conrad had seen the blood caking the inside windows of the helicopter. The shells of two ravaged bodies were slumped over in their seats. They looked like red smears through the screen of hard pounding rain. The details didn't matter. The end result was the same. Both pilots were dead.

  Bavardi opened one of the doors, shoved aside one of the bodies, and tried to use the radio. "Somebody's destroyed the radio." Bavardi was overwhelmed. "Whatever got to them will try to get to us next. Jesus Christ, what is happening here? Those bodies were...eaten. Just like Amati."

  Conrad wasn't sure what to do now. He stayed on the ground waiting for the aching swell in his head to subside so he could think clearly. Bavardi kept whispering flustered nonsense under his breath and pacing the platform. The main thing Conrad heard was, "I'm not getting eaten. Fuck a bunch of that."

  Conrad stayed quiet. He didn't want Bavardi to come out of his head. The man might remember how he wanted to beat Conrad to death. The problem, Conrad couldn't stay quiet. From behind the chopper, from out of the shadows, someone was creeping up behind Bavardi.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Weapons galore!

  Henry and his newly formed team basked in the array of arms. Six Gatling guns, a case of hand grenades, and enough ammunition to miss a hundred times and still kill something comprised the arsenal.

  "ONE MINUTE UNTIL ENTRY."

  Henry had to strategize, and quick. "Arm yourselves. Take what you can carry. We're not sure what we're up against here. We stay together as a unit. Just like our other missions."

  Before Henry could finalize a plan, there was a banging sound coming from the ceiling. Henry could see the ceiling cave in and dent outwards. Whatever was coming, it was gigantic and powerful.

  "Look!" Duke shouted. "What the hell is doing that? It has to be huge."

  Amati's body lay there dead one second, the next, up from the floor, burst three dark black eel-like monsters that were twenty feet long. They had flat heads and circular sucker faces. Teeth jutted out in a circular fashion—and was it Henry's imagination, or were their teeth spinning in circular fashion too? Behind those teeth was a raw pink muscle bound throat ready to drag down the bits of whatever it consumed. He imagined the teeth to be motorized weapons. Each face dug into Amati's corpse, latched on, and sucked in deep. They dragged Amati's corpse through three separate holes in the floor after tearing his body into crude pieces. It happened in seconds.

  Amati's body was gone.

  Whatever was making the banging sounds at the ceiling had moved on.

  "What the fuck was that?" Fryer said. "They were like snakes."

  Henry remembered what Amati had said earlier about lampreys.

  "Come on, we've seen worse before. We're trained for this."

  "Have you seen worse than this before, Henry?" Keyes demanded. "I don't know what missions you've been on, but I've never seen anything like that. Shit! That was horrible."

  Dirty Poncho and Scoop came out of their shock.

  "Did you see those hideous teeth?" Dirty Poncho posed. "Teeth can't spin in place like that. They have meat grinder faces."

  Henry had to calm his team. He had to calm himself too. "Like Amati said before he was executed, they're lampreys on million forms of chemicals and steroids. There's nothing natural about them."

  "No wonder they want them killed by us," Scoop said. "If they blew this place up, who knows what might fall into the ocean and swim to land. Normal people would be defenseless. We'd be sushi to those things."

  Duke was standing over the holes punched into the floor. "There's slime all over these holes. Nasty shit. I guess they can lubricate their own way. What I don't get is, if they're so strong, why haven't they escaped by now? They should be long gone."

  The intercom crackled on. A disturbed man spoke, “Because she's not ready to leave. She's needs her strength. Soon, we'll be ready to leave. We're all so very hungry, and you're on the menu. Come on in. The door's open. Let me be the first to welcome you inside."

  The entry door into the installation opened and stayed open.

  The words repeated in Henry's mind. The way the voice spoke, the person sounded mentally unbalanced.

  "Okay, it's time to show some balls," Henry said to everybody. "We've seen this kind of action before." He looked at Keyes. "Okay, not exactly. The same rules apply, though. Shoot to kill, being careful not to gun down any survivors. Whatever happened here, they might have some answers for us. You know what to do. Lug what you can carry, and let's move out. Different enemy, same end result. We live, they die. Now mother said to clean house before she gets home or we don't get any supper. Grab your guns and let's go kick some ass."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bavardi gave a start when he too saw the man coming at him from behind. Conrad stayed back while Bavardi motioned to take the stranger down. The problem, the man's hand snapped off at the wrist when Bavardi grabbed it. Conrad's eyes tripled. Bavardi cowered backwards with disbelief playing in his wild eyes.

  Conrad kept blinking rainwater from his eyes. The storm hadn't let up. The strange figure was a man with long and stringy white hair. He was wearing a bloody white lab coat. The man's face was gray as a mushroom and his eyes were deep dark wells in the sockets.

  "You step any closer, I'll shoot you in the face." Bavardi had his pistol raised. "Now who are you? Identify yourself."

  Bavardi saw the fresh blood dripping from the man's lab coat.

  "You killed the pilots? Why did you do it? Don't you want off of this installation?"

  "Of course I do, but only when her belly is full."

  Bavardi gave Conrad a confounded stare. It was the first time he could view Bavardi as a human being and not a savage animal.

  "You're obviously out of your mind right now. Tell me your name. Did one of those things get to you?"

  "I'm Dr. Sutherland. This is my project. I thank you for your contribution to science ahead of time. Your body will digest quite well. She can handle just about anything, even a big man like yourself. Her hunger is voracious."

  "Whose hunger?"

  Dr. Sutherland raised the stump of his hand up to his face. He regarded it with little concern and much fascination. "I feel nothing, not a single bit of pain. They've given me such power. I'm her vessel. I exist only to serve her. I feed what needs to be fed, and right now, the hunger pains in Mama's belly are unbearable! Damn the hunger pains!"

  The doctor bent in half, clutching his belly. His voice was stilted, doubling in power and verve. "SHE MUST FEED!"

  Conrad watched in horror when the doctor's severed hand started to vibrate on the ground. Th
e doctor picked up his hand, and out from the stump of his hand shot out dozens of worm-sized creatures. The worm creatures wove themselves together, and the hand reattached itself. Then the doctor wiggled his fingers.

  "Look, his face!" Conrad watched the doctor's eyes roll into back of his head and tiny jagged teeth sprout from the edges of his sockets.

  "Stand back!" Bavardi said, opening fire. He emptied the clip, and the shots tore through the man with no effect.

  The doctor's transformation wasn't complete. The man opened his mouth wide. Conrad could hear the uncouth snap and dislocating of his jaw. The man's mouth doubled in size. The mouth formed a circular shape, and out from the soft stretched tissue sprouted those jagged triangular teeth. The teeth spun like a fan in a circular motion as did the teeth in the man's eyes.

  "Run, Conrad! Find your father. Tell him I'm sorry for everything. This was a terrible mistake! We should never have come here!"

  Conrad wasn't sure where to run. When he finally did decide, Bavardi howled in pain. Conrad wasn't sure what to make of what was transpiring. The sound of high winds, then that suction sound of an impossibly giant fan swishing through air, the skin on Bavardi's face twitched and was sucked outwards. Then in a ripping motion, squares and strands of meat from his face was torn and dragged into the three holes in the doctor's face. In seconds, Bavardi's face was almost stripped down to the skeleton, and the man was still screaming in pain.

  The doctor lifted up his shirt with both hands. From the chest down to his navel writhed a giant circular mouth made of intestinal tissue. Around those pink visceral lips sprouted six inch teeth just like the ones at the doctor's mouth. A stronger current of suction ripped Bavardi's guts from out of his belly. Bavardi was forced into the high speed mouth-belly. Conrad retreated in horror.

  The platform was covered in puddles of rainwater. He couldn't complete five steps without feeling like he was going to hit the deck. Conrad stopped, searching for an escape. He refused to turn around, hearing Bavardi's body being disembodied.

  That was what the doctor was doing.

  Devouring him.

  Conrad knew he'd be next. There was no control panel to get back inside the installation where he'd last seen his father and brother. Would he dare to throw himself off the edge of the platform and plunge himself into certain death?

  Drown or be dissected alive, which was better?

  He chose neither.

  Conrad spotted a ladder going up over the building and onto the roof. He raced to it, climbed its length, and crawled onto the roof. The installation went on and on from his vantage point. In pure darkness, he had no compass to decide his next move. He chose his steps carefully. There had to be an access down into the building somewhere. Conrad shivered in the cold rain. He was soaked through and through, but what chilled him more was watching Bavardi die.

  Minutes passed, and the sound of rain pounding against him was drowned out when he felt that tugging sensation at his back. He lost his footing and tumbled to the ground. Conrad was being dragged by invisible hands. Pure force, pure suction, pure terror, Conrad released howls of alarm as he dug his fingers and feet into the ground, but he couldn't stop the momentum.

  Conrad was headed straight for the doctor who had joined him on the roof.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Henry took the lead when guiding his well-armed team deeper into the installation. The door closed behind them after they each entered the next part of the building. No way out, Henry thought. They had no choice but to fight. The quicker they searched the place and wiped the place clean of the lampreys, the sooner he could search for Conrad. He prayed Bavardi didn't do anything to his son. Bavardi was sound of mind when he wanted to be, but otherwise...

  They headed down a very long and narrow channel. Glass walls and class ceilings were everywhere. He imagined a high-end scientific lab of the future.

  "This isn't what I expected," Henry said to his team. "There isn't a spot of blood anywhere."

  Through many walls, they heard the hollow banging against steel. Walls were being punched through. There was also the uncouth sound of grinding bones.

  Crickcrackcrickcrackcrickcrackcrickcrack.

  The group heard a fierce yawp of pain.

  "People are alive in this place," Duke said. "Or, they were alive."

  "Keep moving." That was the best advice Henry could give his team. The hallway, the channel between two buildings, extended for what seemed like the length of a football field. When they approached another doorway, the coded key panel was turned inside as if someone had tried to lock in whatever was inside.

  "Dirty Poncho, see what you can do to get us inside."

  "You got it," Dirty Poncho said, putting down the heavy Gatling gun. "I'll have us inside in no time. Looks like someone did a rough job of disarming it. It won't take much to get it up and running again."

  Henry pictured the creatures that ate Amati's body. This place had to be full of them. Would their weaponry be enough? He could fly them off of this rig if need be. As long as that Mi-17 was still parked on the platform, they had an exit strategy, but he wasn't leaving without Conrad.

  Scoop kept eyeing Fryer and Keyes with disdain. Scoop hated the fact they had to work with people who essentially put them in this situation. Henry couldn't help but wonder what the other teams who'd died here had encountered.

  Someone was sabotaging them from within, Henry knew. The voice over the intercom was a clue. It wouldn't only be the lampreys they would have to worry about. The odd assortment of weapons Amati's team had delivered here was also a concern. Gatling guns and grenades weren't typically used during ENTECH's missions. This wasn't a mission to better serve the country. This was somebody's operation. Somebody wanted them to carry around the hot shit guns for a reason.

  "Got it ready to be opened, boss," Dirty Poncho reported. "Tell me when you're ready to go in."

  Henry raised a fist in the air, clenched it, and then when he dropped his hand back down, Dirty Poncho engaged the door. It came open with a hermetic hiss. The way was dark inside. Henry was about to instruct his team to get out their flashlights when every light on the other side flickered on.

  Now Henry knew someone was alive in this place working behind the scenes.

  "Take universal precautions," Henry said. "I'll take point."

  The heavy-duty lights saturated the hallways. There wasn't anything in the area but closed doors. Dirty Poncho tested a few of the locks. "These aren't on an electrical system. They're good old fashioned steel. Should I pick a door?"

  "No, leave it." Henry wanted to stay quiet until he was sure they absolutely had to make noise. "Save your ammo. These lampreys aren't going to hide behind locked doors. I can't believe I'm saying this, but what we saw eat Amati was real. We didn't have a mass hallucination. This is something we've never been up against. When in doubt, pump it full of bullets until it's dead. This isn't a scientific exploration. This is a slaughter. Whether it's our slaughter or theirs is entirely up to you. Keep your heads on straight and your balls tight and we should make it out of here just fine."

  They kept searching down a long stretch of hallways. There weren’t any signs of violence or life. Fifty rooms later, they happened upon an elevator. It was stopped on their level. Everybody in the group except for Henry jumped when the elevator dinged and came open.

  Duke ran to stop the elevator on their floor. Keyes, Fryer, and Scoop backed him up while Henry studied the six corpses occupying the inside of the elevator. Wild splashes of blood had congealed on the walls and floor. Henry imagined that these corpses had been stuffed into a microwave and cooked until they popped. Lab coated men and women were riddled with holes. He pictured lampreys the size of garden snakes boring tunnels into the bodies. The bodies were picked clean of seventy percent of their insides and muscle tissue.

  Scoop noticed the female scientist's hands. Curled up like a claw, she had grabbed a lamprey in her dying moment and pulled into two halves. Both halves were ro
tting husks in her death grasp.

  "Those teeth," Scoop said. "Christ, they're hideous. They latch onto you, slice into you with those gnarly teeth, and eat away. It's like a deli slicer on speed."

  "I don't know a lot about lampreys," Keyes said, "but I took some science classes back in community college before I dropped out. We learned a little bit about these guys. Most lampreys aren't parasitic. They don't latch onto things and eat them to death. They don't have spinning teeth like that either. Nothing does. I saw what they did to Amati's body, goddamn blender-faces. They've been severely altered. I can only wonder what God-awful things these scientists are doing here to make them that way."

  "Keep the elevator locked on this floor," Henry said. "I don't want anybody sneaking up on us that walk upright. Somebody is here, and they're either helping us or throwing us into harm's way, and I'm going to find out which."

  The hallways were shaped in a square. The rooms were sealed off, but Henry wasn't so sure about busting down every door just yet. The building had three levels. They were on the bottommost level. Henry decided to take it floor by floor until they reached the top.

  The group entered the elevator, doing their best to step around the corpses.

  Dirty Poncho hit the button for level two.

  Chapter Seventeen

  What is with this guy?

  Dr. Sutherland was a blur through the curtain of rain and darkness. Conrad could only see that giant sucker mouth gaping wide open as it sucked in more air to draw his helpless body into its deadly maw.

  This time, the suction was much more powerful. The steel roof was denting and crumpling under the force.

  Run you fucking idiot!

  Conrad was an English Professor. He read books, drank expensive coffee, and read undergraduate papers. He didn't battle monsters!