“We can get you help,” Lexi said. “You’re different to the others. There may be a way.”
“I’ll be dead within the hour,” he said. “I can feel my body shutting down. I can barely breathe. I have just long enough to see things through. You say your father is going to blow this place up? When?”
“When we leave,” Lexi said. “If you keep us here, he won’t do it.”
“Well, that’s a shame. I suppose I will just have to deal with you myself and hope that the clean-up team does their job. I can’t see that they won’t. They’ll probably nuke this entire place.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hopper said. “We came here to help, not destroy.”
“Funny then, how one of you has their finger on a button somewhere, ready to blow this place up. Are you really trying to tell me that your mission wasn’t to contain this however necessary?”
Hopper glanced at Lexi and she could tell he was thinking about what her father had told them. The mission always had been to contain the situation, however necessary.
“Just let us go,” Lexi almost begged.
“I’m afraid I can’t. Humanoid units, I command you to use lethal force against these two criminals.”
The five humanoids all looked up as one, their blue eyes glaring into Lexi and Hopper. “You have been condemned by Grand Galaxy Amusement Park Management. Surrender now or lethal force will be used against you.”
“I’m really starting to hate these things,” Hopper said.
Lexi took a step back. “Don’t blame the computer, blame the operator.”
They were completely unarmed; fighting the humanoids would be suicide. Lexi started moving away and had to grab Hopper to get him going with her. The humanoids stalked towards them slowly, their design too primitive to allow them to run. It was the only advantage they had. Lexi headed towards one of the reception desks, hoping to place a barrier between her and the machines hunting her. But before she got there a shot rang out and something stung her. The pain radiated throughout her legs and back and sent her sprawling into the area behind the reception desk.
Hopper saw she was hit and ran over to her. He rolled her onto her side and ran his hands all over her. “Damn it.”
“What?” Lexi said, fighting the urge to vomit. “Where am I hit?”
Hopper shook his head. “The sonofabitch shot you in the ass.”
Lexi groaned. She was in so much pain.
“SURRENDER NOW OR FACE LETHAL CONSEQUENCES.”
Over the din of his humanoids, Cog shouted a final warning. “Give yourselves up and we can sit it out together. You’re not leaving here, but you can still have a final few hours of peace.”
“The only peace I’m going to be having is out of your ass,” Hopper said. He turned to Lexi and sighed. “That sounded really wrong, didn’t it?”
Lexi shivered with pain, but managed to say, “I think he got the point.”
One of the humanoids made it around the desk and spotted Lexi and Hopper hiding.
Hopper put his head under Lexi’s arm and pulled her to her feet. As soon as their heads went above the desk, another shot rang out from Cog’s revolver. It went wide.
Hopper and Lexi crouched down and moved away just as the humanoid snatched at them. The rest of the humanoids were nearby and approached the desk. Lexi was numb from the waist down. Every step she took was clumsy and Hopper was obviously struggling to keep hold of her.
“SURRENDER NOW.”
Hopper snarled. “Bite me, you overgrown food blender.”
Lexi saw Cog lining up another shot and yanked Hopper down. “Duck.”
The shot hit a sign placed on the wall behind the desk.
“We’re surrounded,” Hopper said, finally sounding desperate.
“I have an idea,” Lexi said. “The people mover.”
“You want to drive out of here?”
“Something like that.”
“There’s no way we can make it back to the people mover,” Hopper said.
Lexi nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m going to distract cog while you go.”
Hopper was confused, but when she quickly explained her plan, he nodded and said, “Okay, it just might work.”
“Then get moving.” Lexi shoved Hopper away and threw herself out from behind the desk. The numbness in her legs was now complete and she tumbled to her knees, but kept her hands in the air. “Okay, okay, I surrender.”
The humanoids stopped coming towards her.
“REMAIN STILL. A MEMBER OF SECURITY WILL COME TO ARREST YOU SHORTLY.”
Cog took a cautious step towards her, keeping his revolver pointed at her face. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Still hiding behind the desk,” she lied. Hopefully Hopper had already snuck around the back and started heading towards the people mover.
“Either you both surrender or no deal. Your partner has ten seconds to come out and join you or I put a bullet between those lovely eyes of yours. DO YOU HEAR ME? COME OUT OR I SHOOT YOUR PRETTY LADY.”
Hopper didn’t come out. Good, Lexi thought. If you surrender then this whole thing is finished. We’ll never get out of here. Stick to the plan, Hopper.
“Come out now,” Cog snarled. “I am not a lenient man.”
“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” Hopper’s voice was far off. He had managed to sneak away.
Cog’s swollen eyes narrowed. “What are you doing over there?”
There was a soft whirring of an electric motor and that was Lexi’s cue. She willed her numb legs to wake up for just a second and threw herself at Cog. She had six feet to cover, but his attention was taken up trying to discover where Hopper was and what was making the noise. By the time he spotted Lexi, and tried to turn his gun on her, she was tackling him to the ground and landing a punch in the centre of his face. The black veins ruptured and his skin peeled away, revealing blackened tissue and weeping pus underneath. Her knuckles were caked in gore, which she quickly wiped on his overalls.
She was about to climb to her feet when something crushed down on her shoulder and yanked her up painfully. “YOU HAVE COMMITTED ASSAULT. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. LETHAL FORCE HAS BEEN AUTHORISED.”
Lexi felt the pressure on her shoulder increase as the humanoid squeezed harder. She cried out in agony.
“YOU HAVE FAILED TO SURRENDER. LETHAL FORCE INITIATED.”
Lexi’s eyes rolled back in her head as the pain dragged her towards unconsciousness.
Suddenly the pressure released, but before it did, the hand around Lexi’s shoulder pulled her to the ground. She gasped and then wailed, every muscle in her body aching. The humanoid hit the floor and slid a dozen feet across the floor on its back. Something had struck it hard.
Hopper pulled the people mover to a halt right beside Lexi and flung open the passenger door. “Get in!”
Lexi couldn’t get to her feet so she crawled, reached up for Hopper’s hand, and then dragged herself up into the cabin. She couldn’t get the door closed fast enough and a humanoid appeared and grabbed her by the arm. It started to pull her right back out again. Hopper grabbed her other arm and tried to keep her inside. He couldn’t hope to match the strength of a machine, though.
Lexi was halfway back out the cabin when somebody came to her aid. The man was middle-aged with thinning, receding hair. One of his eyes was missing and his lower jaw hung at an unnatural angle. The dead man didn’t intentionally come to her rescue; in fact it wanted to get at her, but the humanoid took it as an offensive action and released Lexi in order to grab the dead man by both shoulders. As it began to squeeze, the sound of the dead man’s collarbones snapping echoed off the glass dome above their heads.
Lexi pulled herself back inside the cabin and slammed the door closed. Hopper pulled the lever and got them moving.
The humanoids now were surrounded by the dead and sought to arrest each and every one of them. They did not understand that the former guests were no longer human. “YOU ARE UNDER ARR
EST,” they squawked, but the dead did not listen.
“Look out,” Lexi said.
Cog stood in their path, his ruined face discernable only by the bulging red eyes. He raised his revolver but did not fire. When he turned the weapon to inspect it, it was clear that he had run out of ammunition.
Hopper stared ahead with grim determination, but he had one last comment to make before they headed down the gantry towards the Hermes. “Nothing like a vacation to make you realise how much you love home.”
The people mover smashed into Cog hard enough that his virus-ridden body tore apart. One of his arms came loose and went up the windscreen, but the rest of him went under the big rubber tyres and came out the back as a sticky black puddle.
Chapter Seventeen
Several dead guests broke off from the crowd and followed the people mover into the tunnel. Like before, it was only the fastest that could keep up.
Hopper slammed on the brakes and turned the vehicle sideways, blocking off the corridor like he had the road into the terminal earlier. Then he leapt out. Lexi dragged herself across the seat and went out the same way, as the dead guests were coming up on her side.
A dead man threw himself across one of the benches of the passenger section of the people mover and started climbing out the other side. Lexi hobbled over to him and started punching him in the head.
“Leave it,” Hopper said. “We need to make it to the Hermes.”
Lexi realised he was right. She couldn’t fight the dead with her fists alone. She gritted her teeth and followed after Hopper, who wasn’t much faster. Both of them were done physically, neither having anything left in the tank. They reached the end of the gantry and Hopper collapsed against the wall beside the airlock control panel. He pulled the zipline from his comms unit and accessed the door controls.
Lexi stood anxiously, watching the dead guests climb their way over the benches of the people mover. The man she had punched was already through and was now hurrying towards them. “Hey, Hopper, you want to hurry it up?”
“I’m just synching up. One second.”
“You have half-a-second.”
The dead man was on them. It reached out for Lexi, teeth gnashing in anticipation of biting her. Lexi pressed her back against the wall, too weak to put up a fight. The wall suddenly disappeared and she was staggering backwards. Hopper caught her and the two of them stumbled inside the Hermes. As they entered, the interior lights switched on. The systems were back online.
The dead man made it inside, too, but Hopper had enough energy left to boot the man in the stomach and send him back out. Then he bashed the airlock control button and the door began to slide back down again. The dead man tried to get inside but the door came down on top of him and cut him in two. The airlock closed. They were safe.
Lexi and Hopper both collapsed at the same time onto the cabin’s passenger bench. Lexi moaned while Hopper panted.
“W-we made it,” she said, wincing and rubbing herself in a dozen places.
Hopper leaned forward on his knees and let his head hang. “I’m too old for thrill rides.”
Lexi looked down at the top half of the body trapped in the airlock. We can’t leave that there.”
“We’ll put it in the hold. It’s airtight. We can warn them when we land.”
They took a five-minute breather and then got up. They grabbed the dismembered torso by each arm and lifted it easily, surprised by how much lighter a body was without its legs and waist. There was also a lack of blood; just a concealed mess from a system that no longer worked, a heart that no longer pumped. There was a sticky mess beneath the airlock door, but there was little they could do about it until they landed. They could request quarantine procedure and a HAZMAT team would hose down the entire craft.
They shoved the body into the airtight lockers at the rear of the cabin. They were designed to hold food and supplies on longer trips, but they would do just as well as quarantine containers. Hopper slammed down the lid and engaged the lock. “Let’s get out of her,” he said.
“Lexi, is that you?”
Lexi spun around, her heart leaping into her mouth. Her father’s voice.
“The radio,” Hopper said, pointing. The cockpit was lit up again, working as normal.
Lexi went over and flipped the switch to open communications. “Dad, is that you? Are comms back online?”
“No, they’re still down. I’m on the dead captain’s radio. Short wave still works since Hopper removed the jamming signal. I’m still in the comms suite. When you engaged the airlock it came up on my screen. Are you alright?”
“Yes, dad. I’m…alive. Hopper is still with me. We’re about to disengage and get out of here.”
“Good. You have no idea how much it means knowing you’re going to get out of here alive.”
Lexi reached out a hand and touched the radio unit, wishing it were her father and not just his voice. “Are you still going through with it?”
“Nothing’s changed. If they send a clean up crew here, there’s a chance the virus may make it back to Earth. Other nations will try to interfere, demanding to know what happened to the guests. It’s too much of a risk. I have everything set. Just get out of here.”
“Dad…I’m going to miss you.”
There was a brief silence, followed by, “I could have been a better father, Lexi, I know that. But I’m proud of you. Commander Sharman – dad – over and out.”
The radio crackled and went silent.
Lexi tried to get her father back but it was no use. He was gone.
Hopper placed a hand on her shoulder and made her wince. The muscle there had been reduced to mush. “Sorry,” he said. “We need to go.”
Lexi nodded and went and took her seat in the navigator’s chair while Hopper took up the flight seat. He ran through the pre-flight checks as quickly as was safe to, then ran the disengagement protocols.
There was the obligatory loud clunking as metal parts shifted and uncoupled, followed by the Hermes’ thrusters igniting. Then they were away, floating sideways away from the airlock and into space. Hopper kicked the thrusters into gear and they took off, fast enough to force Lexi back in her chair.
“Sorry,” Hopper told her. “My nerves are a little shot.”
“I’m sure you’re still the best pilot in the corps.”
“Damn straight.”
Once they were safely away, Hopper dropped their speed to something a little more comfortable. Lexi stared out of the cockpit window at Grand Galaxies and no longer saw an impressive feat of human engineering but a place of horror and nightmares. Mankind’s relentless efforts to exceed itself would one day bring about its ruin, she was sure of it. The closer they came to being gods, the closer they came to extinction.
“Would you buy a return ticket?” Hopper asked her as they passed by the Astronomer’s Finger. Lexi tried to see her father somewhere near the top, by the giant satellite dish, but it was impossible. She shook her head. “Not a chance. I hope my father manages to wipe this monstrosity off the surface of the moon.”
“I think he’s about to. Look!”
Lexi looked out the window and saw a huge expanse of the moon’s surface opening up. From beneath the crust a platform began to rise. On the platform was a cannon twice as long as the Astronomer’s Finger. She also noticed that sheets of metal, moved into place to stop the guests ever seeing the true purpose of Installation 23, now covered the glass sides of the Finger tower, making it look like a giant bullet.
Slowly the cannon began to swivel on its base. At the same time it changed its aim from directly upwards to more horizontal. Eventually it aimed directly at Grand Galaxies.
“Time to get out of here,” Hopper said. “Hold on.”
Lexi gripped her armrests and leant back into her seat as Hopper kicked the thrusters into overdrive and whipped them away from the surface of the moon. The windows filled with only the blackness of space and the twinkling of distant stars. Then the entire cockpit f
illed with light and they began spinning and vibrating. Alarms went off, warning them that control had been lost. Lexi grabbed her control panel, priming the stabilising thrusters, but before she managed to activate them, Hopper held the ship steady and got them back on course. A couple of minutes later, he banked to the left and gave them a view of what they were leaving behind.
The moon had a new crater.
#
It was about ninety minutes later, almost halfway between the moon and the earth when somebody hailed them on a restricted channel.
Hopper gave Lexi an anxious look then answered the call. “SABA vessel 416-19. Authorisation code: Hotel-Lima-Tango-One. Flight Master Hopper.”
“Master Hopper? Is that really you, sir? Wow, it’s an honour.”
Hopper sighed loudly and gave Lexi a smile. They could both tell from the clear British accent that they had SABA on the line.
“Yes, it really is me. I have Lieutenant Sharman with me. We’re the only two survivors returning from aborted a mission to secure Facility 23.”
“I’m aware of the mission, Master Hopper. Please report.”
“The facility is gone. Commander Sharman turned the weapon systems in on themselves and levelled the entire area. All assets lost.”
There was a clearing of a throat, followed by, “Weapons systems?”
Hopper sighed. “Probably above your pay grade, my friend. Requesting safe landing at London Terminal. Quarantine procedures advised.”
“Negative. Flagship Destroyer Kestral is in your sector. They will take you in and conduct quarantine protocols there and receive immediate debriefing.”
“Copy that.”
Lexi was relieved. The blood under the airlock door worried her and she was glad that quarantine would take place on a Destroyer faraway from Earth. She knew the Kestrel well, had flown many sorties based out of there. Its commander, Johnson, had been a friend of her father’s. Her father had had a lot of friends.
Hopper brought the Hermes to a holding position and they waited for a little over twenty minutes until a small grey speck appeared before them. Gradually that speck grew into a hulking great monolith that filled their entire view.
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 111
