He knocked the scientist to the floor before the man’s face had even registered surprise, and paused for a moment as dim red lights flicked on, illuminating the group of human soldiers who surrounded his prison, pointing their pathetic weapons at him.
Jake laughed in delight as he saw the bullets floating toward him, drifting in his direction like feathers carried on a soft breeze. Avoiding them—even in his weakened state—was no more challenging than blinking or drawing in his next breath.
When the roar of the weapons gave way to confused, delectable whimpering and the frantic click of pointless reloading, Jake pinned the scientist to the floor, and felt the human’s heart beat once—a single glorious, deliciously terrified pulse—before Jake tore away the man's right leg and consumed it.
Energy flowed through his deformed veins, lighting him up like a city at night.
The man's screams were almost as delicious as his blood.
Jake heard retreating, scrambling footsteps as the soldiers beyond the cage took the only option left to them and ran.
Heard a human voice screaming lock it!
Another voice responding that it was impossible; that there was no power.
He smiled. No lock could hold him in any case. Not now that he had fed. And now that he understood the weapon they had used against him, no human would get another chance to use it again. Ever.
The human beneath his foot writhed and screamed as his body's precious fuel pumped out of the torn stump that had been his right leg seconds earlier.
Jake allowed himself a moment to drink it in; savouring the man’s agony like it was his first kill all over again, the one that had confirmed to him that he was different to everybody else. The one that told him he was something better, long before his body evolved and transformed belief into undeniable fact.
He stooped, until his face was inches away from the screaming man's pudgy mask of unhinged panic, and took a wrist in each of his huge hands. When he extended the man's arms fully, he saw horrified awareness replace the fear and pain that twisted his pitiful face.
"The old man," Jake rumbled. "Where is the old man?"
"On another ship," the scientist wailed.
"We're on a ship?"
"Yes, yes! Sullivan is with the main fleet."
Jake leaned even closer, until his face was almost touching the scientist's. He licked his deformed lips slowly before speaking.
"Where?"
"F-f-five miles east of here. Please, I-"
Jake ripped the man's arms away, taking an enormous bite from one and shuddering in ecstasy at the power the warm meat sent coursing through him.
There was more meat nearby. No need to gorge himself on this one.
He looked at the scientist's other arm for a moment; dangled it in front of the man's horrified face so he could see what had been done to him, and cackled when he saw the broken insanity boiling in the man's eyes.
So much fun.
Slowly and deliberately, Jake inserted the scientist's dismembered limb into his own mouth, forcing it down into his throat so that he too might understand just how delicious his flesh tasted.
As he filled the man's throat with his own arm, Jake doubted very much that the man understood.
But he did stop screaming.
Chapter 29
Kyle erupted into the corridor adjacent to the cargo hold, frantically searching for his brother and seeing nothing, when he heard Phil Sanderson's bloodcurdling scream cut off abruptly.
Sykes’ team followed Kyle out of the hold, and judging from the looks on their faces, all of their combat training had left them just as unprepared for what was happening as Kyle himself was. They bolted in all directions, scattering chaotically like someone had just called in a bomb threat in their vicinity.
Seconds later Kyle heard glass breaking, and knew that the mutation had smashed its way into the adjacent monitoring room.
There was no sign of Tom. Kyle hoped to God that his brother had already realised how wrong he had been, and had made for the chopper.
More screaming. It sounded like the soldier who had been monitoring the mutation had had his shift ended, though not in the way he hoped.
There was no time to think about Tom; about what might happen next. Kyle put his head down and pumped his legs, rocketing along the narrow corridor and hurtling up a set of grated steel steps to the next deck.
He heard a crash behind him.
It sounded like the creature was done in the monitoring room, and had decided that rather than exit through a door, it would simply smash through the steel wall.
Somewhere behind him, Kyle heard more screaming. And then more. At least three of Sykes’ team sounded like they had been put down in ways so painful that Kyle’s mind couldn’t even conceive what might have happened to them. Half the damn crew had already gone and Kyle himself hadn’t even travelled more than about forty yards.
The speed of the creature wasn’t just bewildering. It was impossible.
He tried desperately to increase his pace, urging his muscles to match the speed of his terrified thoughts. His breath began to feel like acid spewing from his throat and dark spots flashed across his vision as he pushed his muscles beyond their limits, straining every sinew to squeeze every possible ounce of speed out of his legs.
What the fuck is it?
The question burned his mind as the oxygen burned in his lungs, but on some level he knew it didn't matter what it was. All that mattered was getting as far away from it as possible.
Another scream that ended in something that sounded horrifically like a wet tearing.
It's too fast. You have to slow it down.
Kyle's eyes swivelled frantically as he ran. He thought about toppling things in his wake: that's what people did when they were being chased in the movies, and it tended to work for them.
Not if they're getting chased by something that breaks through solid steel like it's warm butter.
Kyle heard another crash behind him.
Much closer.
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh—
PULL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
The sign loomed in front of Kyle's eyes and he felt his heart leap.
Noise damaged the mutation; hurt it in a way that Kyle didn't understand. Sanderson had talked about low frequency noise, and a fire alarm wouldn't produce anything like that, but it was all Kyle had. The creature would be on him in a matter of seconds.
Kyle drove his fist into the safety glass and yanked the alarm lever down.
A half-second later an ear-splitting wail began to reverberate around the ship. Kyle didn't stop to see if pulling the lever had worked; didn't dare even to look back for fear that he would see the monster hurtling towards him.
As he ran, he thought he heard another noise mingled with the wail of the siren. A shriek that didn't sound like pain to Kyle's ears.
More like frustration.
*
The noise blinded Jake. It didn't have the same catastrophic effect as the booming, poisonous sound that the old man had introduced him to with a sneer, but it effectively blurred his vision and made bright sparks of rage burst chaotically across his mind. Where before he had been able to target the retreating human's footsteps as easily as tracing powerful spotlights on a dark night, he now found they were dissolved in an ocean of unrelenting sound; impossible to pinpoint.
Jake clapped his hands to his ears, trying to muffle the noise, trying to hear the sound of the human that he knew existed somewhere beneath the shriek of the siren, but he saw nothing. Everything was noise and light.
He howled in frustration.
It took several seconds for the rage that gripped him to ease up enough for Jake to think.
You have other senses. Use them.
He sucked in a deep breath through his deformed nose, and caught the scent. Faint, but unmistakeable.
Fear.
Following the trail by smell would force him to move much slower, but in some ways that didn't ma
tter. In fact, he thought, hunting might be fun.
Grinning widely, Jake did his best to block out the shrieking noise of the siren, and followed his nose.
*
The problem with conspiracies, Nathan Colston had decided, was that nobody involved could trust anybody else, and everybody knew it.
Following Sullivan's gassing of more than three thousand men and women, Nathan's indecision about how best to proceed with his future had been cleared up nicely. He was going to get as far away from Sullivan as possible. As far away from the madness of the fleet and Project Wildfire and whatever the hell the old man was trying to accomplish with the horror on the McIntosh ship as he could.
The only possible way he could see to achieve that goal that was to take a chopper, and that meant finding a pilot.
Which was where the lack of trust came in.
Until a few hours earlier, Nathan could reliably have called on any number of potential pilots and been safe in the knowledge that word of his imminent desertion would not get back to Fred Sullivan until he was long gone.
Unfortunately those pilots were all dead, and in the process of being tossed overboard like chum before their corpses began to stink up the place.
He had an idea that the beaches along the northern coastline of Scotland would soon be awash with bodies, though it was unlikely anybody would be around to notice.
Maybe in the far future the sheer scale of the bodies entombed in the rocky sand would baffle archaeologists, though Nathan doubted that too: the blow that had been dealt to humanity by Fred Sullivan and Chrysalis Systems meant that even if humans managed to live through Sullivan’s apocalypse, it could well be millennia before people ever occupied themselves with frivolous pursuits like archaeology once more.
They'd be too busy trying to eke out a living. Trying to survive.
Nathan dismissed the line of thought as unhelpful and returned to more pressing matters. Thanks to himself, the people remaining aboard the Conqueror were all loyal to Sullivan, and Nathan didn't trust any of them not to squeal if he started asking questions about getting the hell away from the ship.
He considered the boats.
There were plenty aboard the carrier; lifeboats mainly, but most had engines and he would at least be able to control one all by himself if necessary. He could slip away quietly, make for one of the other ships, perhaps. He had a good idea that at least a couple of them were on the brink of all-out revolution and would gladly seize on an excuse to flee.
Informing them that Sullivan had just murdered thousands in cold blood would probably do the trick.
The trouble was that a boat would be slow. The chance of his departure being noticed was high, and the chance of Fred ordering someone to fire on him even higher.
Too risky.
"I think they could use your help, Mr Colston."
Nathan flinched and turned to see Fred Sullivan standing behind him on the deck. The old man's eyes glittered, and Nathan had the uncomfortable impression that his thoughts were emblazoned above his head like a speech bubble floating over a character in a comic book.
He flushed guiltily as Fred Sullivan pointed beyond him, across the deck.
When he followed the direction of the old man's finger, he saw a group of soldiers hauling the bodies of the men and women who had been their comrades only hours earlier up to the deck and tossing them over the side into the freezing water.
"Uh, yes, Sir," Nathan said.
As he walked toward a grisly duty that made his stomach do nausea-inducing back flips, Nathan resolved that he would take a boat as soon as it was dark enough for him to slip away. He had a feeling it would take a miracle for him to escape Sullivan's clutches, and miracles no longer existed, if they ever had.
Only suffering existed now.
A boat might end up getting him killed, but Nathan had a strong feeling that his days were numbered in any case, and the number wasn't that high.
He would give it until nightfall, and then he would take his chances.
Fred Sullivan watched Nathan heading across the deck toward the pile of corpses for a moment with an intrigued expression on his face, and then made his way back into the superstructure that loomed over the deck, making for the bridge.
Chapter 30
Kyle rocketed through the room that he had waited in earlier with Sykes and his team. He didn’t slow his pace for a second, tearing through the room toward the door that led to the deck.
He burst into the crisp air like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle, travelling at a velocity that he hadn't believed his legs to be capable of.
Sullivan's security team—as utterly useless as they were surly—were still clustered around the chopper, waiting nonchalantly for the scientist to return with the precious cargo they had been told to escort back to the Conqueror. Judging from the expressions on their faces, they felt very little of the fear that had gripped the people inside the ship. If anything, Kyle thought, they looked bored. The realisation made him feel strangely furious.
Kyle closed the distance between himself and the chopper in what felt like a few enormous strides, and saw the stoic masks on the soldiers' faces crack, just a little. Presumably the terror that pulsed in his mind was written clearly enough on his face to unnerve even them.
"We have to go," he gasped as he neared them.
A large hand materialised in front of his chest and put a sudden halt to his momentum.
"Hold up, Sport. Go where? Where's Sanderson?"
Kyle shook his head, struggling to draw in the breath required to provide an answer.
"It's free," he panted. "It's out. We have to go."
"The fuck are you jabbering about, boy?"
"It's free!" Kyle screamed. "Don't you understand? Do you even know what's on this fucking ship?"
Kyle saw a sliver of doubt pierce the soldier's confident gaze, and understanding hit him so hard that he found all he could do was laugh. He was bordering on hysteria, but it felt like the only sane response.
Sullivan hadn't told them anything either. Project Wildfire wasn’t just built on lies and secrets. It was built on a rock-solid foundation of omitted facts and diligent ignorance. It was no wonder the world at large hadn’t had a clue what Chrysalis Systems was planning: even the people involved knew nothing.
Before he could begin to frame words that he hoped might persuade the security team that a goddamned monster was coming for them, the crackle of gunfire ripped through the misty air and did the job for him.
He saw the soldier's gaze flick across the deck in surprise. The entire team hoisted their weapons as one, pressing them into their collarbones and staring down the sights. It was a smoothly-practised manoeuvre that at any other time might just have engendered a feeling of safety in Kyle; a sense that these were trained guys who could handle any situation thrown at them.
The trouble was that Kyle knew what was coming and knew that bullets might as well be balloons for all the damage they did to the creature. The soldiers readying themselves like characters in some dumb action movie simply looked ridiculous to him.
You’re all going to die.
"Stay here," the soldier growled, and motioned at the others to follow him. They crept forward as one, heading for the ship’s small superstructure, their weapons trained on the door in front of them.
Kyle watched them go in stunned disbelief.
He turned to face the chopper and hauled open the door to the cockpit, staring pleadingly at the pilot. He received a grimace and a shake of the head in return.
"Not moving without orders, mate," the pilot said.
Kyle seethed in frustration and despair.
Behind him, he heard one of the soldiers cry out in surprise and span on his heel to see Tom sprinting from the door, making for the chopper at top speed. Somewhere behind Tom, Kyle heard another eruption of gunfire. Another scream.
How many is that now?
Kyle had lost count, but he had a feeling that Sykes’ entire t
eam was gone.
Which meant the mutation had only one place left to go. One person left to follow.
Tom.
Kyle couldn’t understand what had taken Tom so long. He should have reached the chopper long before Kyle did.
“Run!” Kyle screamed, aware even as he did so that Tom didn’t need encouragement. His brother’s eyes were wide with terror, and he clutched the assault rifle like a security blanket as he ran.
When Tom was close enough that Kyle could hear him whimpering in fear—a sound that reminded him starkly of being back in the van with Volkov—Kyle ripped the gun from his brother's hands and pushed Tom into the belly of the chopper.
Once Tom was inside, Kyle leapt into the cockpit next to the pilot and jammed the barrel of the assault rifle into his neck.
"Now you've got your orders," he snarled.
*
Jake burst onto the deck just as the chopper lifted into the sky. He saw a group of humans dashing toward it, screaming for it to come back and laughed.
Some of the humans would get away, but it mattered little. The helicopter headed east as it moved away from the ship, and thanks to the dead scientist, Jake knew exactly what lay to the east. He had a feeling he would see the chopper again.
The group of soldiers turned to face him, putting all their faith in the weapons they clutched in trembling fingers.
Jake plucked the guns from their grasp before they could begin to squeeze the triggers, and he tore their soft bodies apart with ruthless efficiency. The ship was deserted now, and out on the deck, away from the hollering of the siren, he found himself able to think clearly at last.
Only one thought ran through his mind; burning brightly.
Sullivan.
Before the ruined bodies of the soldiers had even finished tumbling to the deck, Jake launched himself into the sea, clawing his way through the water, moving like a torpedo.
Reaction (Wildfire Chronicles Volume 6) Page 16
