by Alan Spencer
He stomped on the shelf, bursting open packages of frozen vegetables. When he was done with his angry fit, he was out of breath and realized how pointless it was to act out. Getting in touch with his emotions did nothing but affirm death was looming.
Wait, what is that?
Conrad traced it with his eyes. It was the outline of a door. That outline was crusted with ice. It couldn't be a doorway, he thought. He touched the outline with his finger. It wasn't his imagination. Conrad located a small mechanism that resembled a car door's handle and opened the door. He walked through the door and was relieved to feel room temperature air again. Conrad shut the door. What he'd found was a secret passage. The short hallway led to a single doorway. That doorway was cracked open. He couldn't resist. He walked inside the room and discovered more horror.
Chapter Thirty-One
Dr. Sutherland was standing in one of four security rooms located throughout the installation. He studied the wall of televisions, monitoring the intruders' progress. Every lamprey inside him was squirming beneath his skin anticipating Mama's travels. He pinpointed the whereabouts of Henry, Scoop, Conrad, and Duke. The lampreys were swiftly stalking them. Soon, nobody would be left alive to stop them. He had to act fast. Soon, ENTECH, or TECHMODE, or whoever was watching the show from another shore, would send in rockets to turn this place into a big burning inferno.
He wasn't sure what TECHMODE or ENTECH were up to now. Dr. Sutherland did know this. The lampreys wouldn't be used for environmental purposes anymore. They would be used as a weapon. Who needed atom bombs and nuclear technology when you could infest an entire nation in a matter of weeks?
Dr. Sutherland exited the security checkpoint and returned to the lab where Mama waited in her tank. He could barely see her gargantuan profile in the dark waters. Mama pressed her sucker face against the glass wall. Her mouth was almost three stories tall. People could be impaled from anus to their heads on those teeth. And the suction power, he hadn't had the opportunity to count how many metric tons of force her body could produce.
"Soon, Mama," Dr. Sutherland said, pressing his hand on the glass to comfort her. "I promise I'm not stalling you. I can't take any risks of them coming in here and stopping us. Once they're all dead, we can leave."
Pain clenched his brains. The lampreys hiding in his gray matter dug their teeth in deeper. Mama doubted him and his ability to grant her safe passage off the installation.
"I swear to you I will keep you safe! I am your vessel! Let me serve you. I beg you!"
Dr. Sutherland could hear the wet squish of his brains. His limbs jerked in nervous responses. The lampreys under his flesh bit down, and Dr. Sutherland screeched, "They won't come to stop us! By the time they show up, we'll be gone!"
Biting down ever deeper into his brains, Dr. Sutherland was on hands and knees struggling to deal with the pain.
"You want out? Is that what you want? I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, you've waited so long. I haven't been stalling. I only want your safe passage to the United States. You're so very hungry. If you can't wait, then fine, but you must consume more meat first. You know what you need to do!"
Dr. Sutherland clutched his aching skull. "What now, Mama? What do you want from me? Make the pain stop!"
The doctor could sense what Mama was thinking. Images of his private lab flashed in his mind. He also saw Conrad wander into the secret lab.
"No! He must not disturb my work!"
Dr. Sutherland fled the room in pursuit of Conrad.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Henry moved swiftly and silently down each corridor. So far, he hadn't come upon a single lamprey. The blood drenching his body had long since gone cold. His adrenaline had spiked earlier, and now, it was declining. Exhaustion was setting in deep. There was no time to rest or replenish himself. Determination was hard to enforce in this situation, but that supply increased itself when he spotted a strange man lurking in the nearby corridor. He had exited a lab and was ambling towards a door. The man had lampreys sticking out of his exposed brains. He was chattering to himself things Henry couldn't understand.
He waited at the turn in the hallway. The doctor was inside the room for a while, and then he returned to the hallway. The door to the private room was slowly closing. Henry rushed it, slipped through the door, and entered. The doctor hadn't spotted him. He was too busy talking to himself to notice Henry.
Inside, Henry looked at every security monitor. The monitors showed every corridor. He saw Duke move in a strange laboratory full of broken glass displays. Scoop was moving in the shadows of a room he couldn't place. Dirty Poncho's badly mutilated body was dumping random appendages into a huge pile. Once the piles were tall enough, the lampreys from the ceiling stuck their sucker faces down to eat the human remains.
Henry knew little about the science behind the lampreys. One thing was obvious. A plan was being executed here. He could only guess they were scraping for food. And when that food ran out, what came next was escaping the installation in search of more sustenance. They would swim in the ocean and seek out more meat. Henry couldn't let that happen.
He searched for Conrad.
His son wasn't showing up in any of the feeds.
Conrad had to be dead.
Henry kept eyeballing the monitors. Come on, son. Don't be dead. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you.
A multitude of things could've happened to his son. Conrad could be waiting outside the installation. Bavardi had forced him outside, so why not? There wasn't any camera feeds outside. That had to be it; Henry had to believe. He needed that spark of hope. Conrad could possibly be alive.
Henry found the naval radio. He could call for help. He decided to take a chance and call up ENTECH. Henry didn't have the full story yet on what was really going on. He had worked for ENTECH for nearly two decades, and they hadn't done him wrong before now. Henry understood things can change, but he still had to try. Anything was possible.
ENTECH replied immediately. Roger McCormick, a trusted contact at ENTECH, spoke to Henry.
"Forget the mission," Roger reported. "ENTECH has been bought out by TECHMODE. TECHMODE doesn't play by the rules of morality. Every project is being re-evaluated by TECHMODE. I'm hiding in the main office. Those TECHMODE deem unfit for duty are being executed. They'll find me soon, Henry. I'm so sorry I can't help you. Save yourself. Trust no one."
Henry begged Roger to explain the double cross, and the reason for this installation.
"All I know is PROJECT EV-180 PREY was originally started as an environmental cause. But the lampreys latched onto certain scientists, possessed them, and the lampreys took on a new life. Certain experiments took place because of this, and one of the lampreys has grown to enormous size. ENTECH wanted to pull the plug on the project to save lives, but when TECHMODE bought them out, they wanted to see what else the lampreys could accomplish on the installation. They're exploring other uses for PROJECT EV-180 PREY. They'll risk public contamination to make a profit.
"You can't let a single lamprey escape into the water. Oh no, I hear them coming. They've found me. I'm next to die. Save yourself. Kill every lamprey on that installation before it's too late. The fate of humanity is in your hands..."
Roger's response was cut off. He imagined what fate would befall his trusted contact at ENTECH.
Another voice picked up on the line.
"Your friend is dead, Henry Garfield. TECHMODE is your boss now. There is no more ENTECH. Keep those creatures busy. They need something to chew on until we figure out what the hell to do with them. We're still trying to figure out how to market them. You're putting on a good show. I've been watching the live feeds. The longer you survive, the longer the lampreys will stay on that installation. That's why we've been sending teams onto that rig. As long as they're fed, they have no reason to leave. So do as I say, and remember something. If the lampreys don't kill you, we will."
The line went dead.
Henry couldn't give up. He tried other
channels. He reached out to anybody who would pick up.
There was only static.
Henry needed his team back together again, and fast.
The doctor was using this security room to speak to them via the intercom system. Henry decided to do the same. Henry heard his voice amplify throughout the vast corridors of the installation. He told whoever out there was still alive to meet him here in this wing.
Now Henry would sit tight, wait for his team, monitor the security feeds, and try to come up with a solid plan to kill every last lamprey on this rig.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I can't turn back now, Conrad kept telling himself. There's no other way to go. I must search this room. The room was horrible. He left the freezer only for something else to chill him. The lab was secreted from the rest of the installation. The walls were wood bared to the grain. Doorways were painted over and bolted with heavy duty locks. The smells in the room tested Conrad's gorge. Things lived and died in here. This was a testing room of some kind. Tables strewn with notebooks were covered in bloody fingerprints and laptop computers were grimy along the keyboards with blood and hunks of puckering flesh.
Conrad kept moving and searching for any other exit. He had no choice but to look at this chamber of horrors. A glass box contained a giant pink stomach. It was spliced in half so Conrad could see hundreds of teeth lining the inside of the stomach. Connected to the stomach was an elongated esophagus that led up several feet to a lamprey throat and sucker face.
Wooden pallets were stacked in a corner of the dank, disgusting room. Conrad read the label on one of the broken up crates that had been stacked on one of the pallets. The label was wet with humidity. The ink was smeared. He could only read a few of the words.
Live Cargo
Open Immediately
Broken crates were spread out on the floor. He read other partial labels. Many of them labeled variations of "Live Cargo" while others listed foreign countries. China. Indonesia. Taiwan. Peru.
There was one crate left on the pallet that was unopened. Conrad couldn't help but wonder what was inside of it. It was obvious once he grabbed a crowbar leaning up against the wall and smashed the damn thing open.
Within heavy plastic bags, he discovered torsos, appendages, and organs from human beings.
"God-damn!"
Conrad clutched the crowbar and retreated from the pallet and the body parts.
"Feed me," a voice said. "All you have to do is drop those body parts in my cage. It doesn't matter if they're rotting. My body can consume rancid meat. It won't hurt me. On the contrary, it'll be delicious. So just dump them in my cage. That's all I'm asking. I won't hurt you. I have no reason if I'm fed."
Conrad searched the room and couldn't pinpoint the voice. He weaved through steel gurneys with torsos of half bodies strapped down, the corpses gutted and limbless. Some dead bodies had lampreys trapped in their bodies, and those lampreys were rotting husks. They were failed experiments of some kind, Conrad imagined.
Black body bags were strewn on the floor. These were other human specimens. Corpses, Conrad thought. These scientists were trying to merge dead bodies with lampreys.
He imagined Bavardi up and walking, talking, and stalking him. Whoever made decisions here was one sick individual, he thought. Some advances in science came at too great a cost. The things in this room were truly sadistic.
That sadism didn't end with the bodies dead on stretchers, butchered, and surgically altered to allow lampreys too occupy their anatomies. There was a line of Plexiglas enclosures. Each was slathered in red, obscuring what was inside, except for one cage.
"Feed me," a woman said again. It was the same voice as earlier. Her body was covered in lampreys from top to bottom, their bodies crisscrossing each other. They looked like black amphibious rope, how the lampreys bodies hugged onto her body. "They're locked onto me like this for a reason. If I don't feed them soon, they'll feed on me. The scientists wanted to see how long the lampreys could survive without food, when they eat, how they choose to eat, and what parts of the body they prefer.
"Dr. Sutherland and his team turned on the interns. They used us for gruesome experiments. Dr. Sutherland replaced male and female reproductive organs with lamprey parts and forced them to have sex with each other. It was a bloodbath. They flew in dead human body parts to keep the lampreys fed. This project keeps costing more and more human life. I don't know what good can come of this—ahhhhhgawwwd!"
Lampreys bared down their sucker faces on her body. From head to toe, she was shredded, sucked, and devoured. Just like the rest of the Plexiglas fronts, hers was also slathered in blood.
Conrad bumped into a wire cage with a man hunkered down chewing on dead lamprey bodies. His face was covered in the putrid black jellies of lamprey innards. The human-turned- savage hissed at Conrad, and then went back to devouring the lamprey bodies. The man was digging into a deep trough of dead lamprey bodies and feasting.
He couldn't take anymore. Conrad did his best to avoid details of the room. He only focused on finding another doorway. Conrad located one, opened it, and wandered down a hallway, made two right turns, and he opened the next door he located. It turned out to be a conference room. And a familiar person was waiting inside.
Scoop.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Duke couldn't believe he was following after Bavardi. Bavardi had cleared the way of the dead scientists just moments ago. Even in death, Bavardi could kick some ass. Duke was still reeling at the sight of Bavardi. The man's body was infested with lampreys. The sound of the wet bodies occupying tissue and bone was sickening enough. On top of that, Bavardi was fighting a battle in his mind. He kept growling, cursing, and clenching his face and arms in nervous spasms.
"They're trying to control me," Bavardi said through clenched teeth. They turned down another hallway. "I will beat them. They don't realize what I've been through. They don't know the power of my mind."
Before Duke could say anything to Bavardi, the man pointed at a steel door. "Your father is in there. That's where he made the report over the intercom. The lampreys know all. They look into me, and I see into them. I have things to do if I'm going to save your lives."
Bavardi turned in the opposite direction.
"Wait, where are you going? You don't have to fight this alone. Something can be done to help you."
When he said that, Duke knew it was a lie. The man was badly mutilated. It was a miracle, or an abomination, of science, that Bavardi still existed.
"I'm going to stop Mama."
Duke didn't know what to say to Bavardi's comment. He didn't have time to ask him who "Mama" was. He let Bavardi go his way. Duke approached the door and knocked. When the door opened, his father greeted him with open arms.
I am not your vessel.
I am a lamprey killing machine.
Bavardi snuck into the lab where Mama stirred in her tank. She knew he was in the room, and there was nothing Mama could do.
My mind is stronger than you.
I am going to kill you right here.
Go suck yourself in hell.
Dr. Sutherland wasn't in the lab. Bavardi wasn't sure where the man had disappeared to, but this was his chance to end the situation. He knew if Mama was stopped, the rest of the lampreys wouldn't know what to do. Mama was their queen. Kill the queen, the servants die with her. The lampreys were no different from ants.
Bavardi could climb to the top of the stairway into Mama's enclosure, but he couldn't reach the ceiling. He would have to do something insane to kill Mama.
He imagined it, and his body followed the commands. Both of his arms unlocked from his body, propelled by the lampreys under his command. Those arms slithered across the floor, up the wall, and climbed to the ceiling. The arms tore through the paneling walls and exposed thick black rubber electrical wires. The arms and lamprey suckers worked in tandem to rip those cables from the ceiling. The frayed ends of the cables were shedding blue sparks. Those cables d
ropped into Mama's tank.
Mama sensed trouble. She thrashed unseen in the dark waters. Waves crashed, spilling water over the top. The second the wires touched down, the water boiled, jolted with staggering amounts of electricity.
Fry Mama, you bitch!
Chapter Thirty-Five
Conrad shut the door behind him, blocked it with a long conference table, and hurried over to Scoop. She lay on the ground. Her uniform was covered in blood and she smelled of heavy smoke. She was happy to see him. He offered to help her up, but she wanted him to sit down next to her.
"Are you hurt?"
Scoop nodded. "I've been running from room to room avoiding those things. I used the duct systems when I dropped down into this room, and my ankle gave out on me. I can't run. If I can't run, I might as well be dead."
"No, don't talk like that. If I've made it this long, you can survive easy, bad ankle or not."
Scoop seemed loopy. She noticed Conrad look at her funny. "Yeah, I took a pain pill. I'm a little funny in the head, but I can still focus. The pill loosens me up, that's all."
"I could use a pill or two," Conrad said. "Don't go out there, by the way. There's some sick shit going on. Whoever is running this place, they've done some experiments that go far beyond wrong. Insanity's a good word."
Scoop put her hand on the back of Conrad's head. "Your brother talked about you a lot. He said you were a pansy and you weren't cut out for the military. I say who cares. I don't like that machismo bullshit. Life shouldn't be a pissing contest. Every guy I've met in the service wants to talk about how big their dick is and how far it can piss. You seem modest to me. I like a man with a brain. He can teach me things, and I can teach him things."
Conrad hadn't been touched by a woman since before his wedding disaster with Arielle. And Arielle never looked at Conrad like Scoop was eyeballing him. Those eyes were enticing, and Scoop's voice was silken lust.
