by C. J. Waller
“Shit!” I exclaim, and jump back.
My double doesn’t. Instead, it keeps growing upwards, outwards, until it merges with Brendan’s doppelgänger, twisting their forms together until they no longer resemble humans, but some kind of grotesque humanoid soup.
We should be running. We should be, but we aren’t. We aren’t, because we’re transfixed, too horrified to even breathe. The oozing pile of limbs and eyes stretches up even further, its edges blurred and forever changing, until it reaches the top of the tank, where for a moment, its progression is halted whilst it splits, forcing itself into the tubes; tubes which run away from us, into the darkness.
One of us sighs. There is time. Time to escape-
With a sound like a shotgun, a thin, spidery crack radiates down from one of the pipes and quickly skitters downwards across the glass. Another one joins it, and the tank groans. The jelly within the tank pulsates, and the cracks multiply again. One of the tubes splits with an unpleasant, flesh-tearing sound. Droplets of gel, like blood from a scratch, ooze through these cracks, dripping down the surface of the tank, towards our feet.
“Holy sh- Run!”
No one needs to be told twice.
As one, we all turn and flee. We run back up the gantry, and just as we reach the malfunctioning door, the squeal of tortured glass gives way to a nerve-shattering crash.
We keep running.
One by one, we duck under the door and sprint down the corridor. We know we can close that door, but the sound of that shattering tank fills my mind. Will the door be enough to stop it?
Marcus dives under it first, followed by me, then Brendan and finally Janos. Janos slaps the panel and the door shudders to life, but it isn’t fast enough.
“Oh, come on… come on!” I hear myself moan. In the distance, I can hear a schlepping noise, and my imagination obliges by supplying an accompanying image of that thing dragging itself along the floor with what looks for all the world like my arms.
“You have to hold it down,” Janos pants. “Just run. I’m fast. I’ll catch up.”
“No,” I say. “We’ll do this together!”
“Fuck it, Meg – go on! We all need time to climb the rope – hopefully this door will stop it for long enough. Last thing we need is to wait by the ropes. I am a fast climber, and if you are all up top, you can help me. It is quicker this way,”
Marcus stares at him, and to my utmost surprise, nods.
“What? You can’t be serious! We can’t-”
“Yes, we can. We have to. It makes sense. Come on.”
Without another word, he darts off.
Brendan gives Janos and me a wild look, and follows him.
“Go,” Janos says. “Go with them.”
The liquid sounds are now closer. The door is almost closed, but the gap is still big enough for the gel to squeeze through.
“I hate this,” I say.
“So do I,” Janos murmurs back. He reaches out with his free hand to touch my cheek. A furious lump bubbles up in my throat. This isn’t fair. Why him? “You have to go now. I will catch up.”
“And if you don’t?”
He grins. “Then I’ll give that gelatine bastard the worst indigestion ever. Now, run and do not look back.”
He leans over and kisses my cheek. His stubble feels sharp against my skin. Then, realising I’m just about paralysed, he give me a little push. “Go! Now!”
And I do.
The rattling sound as the door slowly scissors shut decreases as I sprint away. It’s amazing to think how long it took us to traverse the corridor first time around – now I make it in no more than five minutes. My lungs are screaming at me as I stagger up the ramp towards the Throne room, and my legs are already wobbling. I’m not unfit by any stretch of the imagination, but the strain of the last day (has it really only been a day? It feels like a decade) is taking its toll. Behind me, I hear footsteps, quick ones and that heartens me. It has to be Janos. The thought of something else mimicking him crosses my mind, but I push that away with each laboured pant. It’s Janos. It has to be.
I push myself through the throne room and up the next section of ramped corridor. My throat is tight, my head light. I'm already exhausted, so how am I going to climb a rope at the end? Best not think of that. One foot in front of the other. Just keep going.
Below me, I hear the shriek of tortured metal. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this place was in the process of collapse, but no, it’s something far worse. A clang echoes through the complex as the door gives way. It is muffled through the layers of rock, but loud enough to make my heart skip and flood my system with a much needed burst of adrenaline.
It’s through.
Oh please, oh please, oh please, let Janos be behind me. My mind gibbers like a stuck record, sending prayers up to a God I’ve never really believed in, but hoping if He is up there, He’s as benevolent as the God Botherers say he is.
I’m all but staggering now, my breath coming out in short, agonising bursts. Past the viewing room. I don’t even glance in there. The monster in the water could be staring right at me, and I wouldn’t stop. Not when I am sure, I can hear the whispering schlub of something not quite solid, not quite liquid oozing its way up behind me.
Just a little way now and I’ll be at the hole. I stumble. My legs protest as I try to maintain my balance. I bash into the wall, which feels freezing against my sweating body. It’s hard to breathe now. My ribs are like steel, preventing my lungs from working. Every part of my body shrieks as I haul myself upright. My vision swims.
Must. Keep. Going.
The footsteps behind me (below me?) are closer now. Oh, please let that be Janos! I have to keep going. Who knows how close that thing is behind him. I have to clear the rope for him. I have to be out of the way. With each commandment, I drag my feel, bullying them into compliance. Run, damn you – run!
With gritted teeth, I force my body once again into action. Everyone has heard the phrase ‘running for your life’ – well, my friends, this is it. I’m running for my life. And it is agony.
The corridor opens up and my headlamp spies a thin piece of heaven dangling down, seemingly out of nothingness.
The rope.
The blessed rope.
It’s moving in an awkward, jerking manner. Someone is still climbing it, but I can’t wait. I have to start climbing, or I won’t ever make it up there in time. I grab its flailing end and from above there is a grunt.
“Meg?”
It’s Brendan. His voice is hoarse, exhausted.
“Yeah,” I manage back. “I’m gonna… climb.”
He doesn’t protest, so I grasp onto the rope. My mind goes blank.
How do you climb a rope?
Oh, fucking hell! Meg – pull yourself together! You can do this! I batter down the adolescent me who always baulked at the prospect of rope climbing. Back then, it always seemed such an impossible task, but I’ve had years of training since then. Remember that. Always remember that. I haul myself up, grateful for the grip on my gloves – I am sure the rope would have slipped through my sweat-slicked hands if I didn’t have them on - and grit my teeth against the collection of tiny supernovas that explode in my body. I wrap my legs around the rope, using by feet to grip the bottom, and slowly, I begin to drag myself up.
Two beams of light filter down, illuminating my way. I don’t look up. I don’t want to know how far I have to go. Instead, I concentrate on the simple task of hauling myself upwards. The rope jerks, and my exhausted limbs spasm. I slip, a fraction of an inch, and my heart skitters around my rib cage.
“Hold on!” I hear someone call from above. “We’ll try to help!”
The rope jerks again, and I feel myself lift. Marcus and Brendan, who must be as exhausted as I am, are pulling the rope up. I risk a glance up. A disc of grey is cut against the infinite blackness.
The hole.
I’m closer to the top than I think.
Unchecked tears of relief fill
my eyes.
I’ve made it.
But what about Janos?
I strain my hearing. There is nothing. Where is the thud of his boots? Any elation I felt at my imminent rescue flees.
“I… I can’t hear Janos,” I manage to pant as a pair of hands seizes the back of my suit and drag me upwards. I try to help them by grasping the edge of the hole, but my hands have seized up. The best I can do is force my knee up and help them lever me out.
“He’ll be coming,” Brendan pants. He rolls over, his face an ashen grey. Marcus is sitting next to him. Dark circles rim his eyes, and I can see the trembling of his limbs from here. He lets go of the rope, dropping it back into the hole. We cluster around it, lying on our bellies, listening, trying to hear something – anything – above the rasp of our own breathing.
Finally, we hear the exhausted slap of boots against rock. I can’t do anything but grin. I look up – Brendan’s grin mirrors mine, but Marcus looks less than happy. A monstrous urge to slap him rears up within me. How dare he? Janos has saved us! How can he look like that?
The rope jerks, pulling me out of my fury. Our headlamp beams are strong, but not quite strong enough to pierce the murk of the room below, so we can’t see Janos, not yet.
“Hold on!” I croak, and take up the rope again. Brendan struggles to his feet and takes up a spot behind me. The rope is jiggling quite wildly, which make it hard to pull.
“Janos – be still,” Brendan calls, or at least tries to. “Marcus?”
Marcus gives the hole one last look and then nods wearily. He joins us, and between all three of us, we pull.
The rope still whips around, making a hard job almost impossible.
“Janos,” I say. “Keep still.”
“It’s coming!”
There is no mistaking the stark terror in Janos’s exhausted voice.
It’s coming. Two words we don't want to hear.
We pull by mutual agreement. Everything hurts, but still, we pull. Slowly, the rope is dragged up, its wriggling prize on the end. Now we can all hear it, a nasty, slithering sound, full of pops and burps and gurgles.
It’s coming.
For a moment, I fancy I can hear words, unarticulated gibberish, amongst the slurping.
It’s coming.
From the hole, a high-pitched shriek. We pull and pull and pull, until finally, Janos is within reach. He catches the edge of the hole and we scrabble at him, not caring what we grab onto, and pull him from the darkness. He is shaking, his eyes wild. Below, the light from my headlamp catches a glimpse of something huge not unlike a mass of bubbles, writhe.
The rope goes taut.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Brendan panics. “It’s going to use the rope! It’ll slither up! Cut it! Cut it!”
Marcus staggers to the ring, and with a swift yank, the knot that had tied us so securely unravels. It whips back, narrowly missing his face as it runs through the ring and snakes over the floor to disappear down the hole.
We are paralysed. Is that enough? Visions of it being able to climb the walls and ooze up through the hole, like sludge in a blocked drain, trip through my mind.
“We have to get out,” I whisper. That’s all I can manage.
No one argues with me.
As one, we stagger over to the entrance. There is a Three Stooges moment when we all try to fit through the doorway at once. We have no idea how to close it, since it disappeared the first time, and we are reduced to slapping the walls of the tower, desperately looking for the trigger mechanism. Just as I'm about to give up, Brendan lets out a whoop. I whip around, only to find the door has once again sealed itself. I don't know how we did it, and quite honestly, I don't care. All that matters is the thing is sealed in.
For now, anyway.
Chapter Ten
Silence reigns.
I don’t think I could move, even if my life depended on it, which, ironically, it would do, if that door gives up the ghost. I don’t have a clue if the bubble-thing (naff name, I know, but I’m too exhausted to think up anything else. So sue me) managed to get out of the hole, but I’m buggered if I’m going to go and look. By the looks of the others, they pretty much feel the same.
We’re lying on the beach. Nowhere else to go now. The Tower is out of bounds and there’s nothing else on the island left to explore. A depression has settled over us, a dark shroud that only allows us to breathe and hurt.
No one has said it, but we all know it.
We’re dead.
***
I must have fallen asleep, because I don’t remember anyone getting up. A sharp pain in my ribs brings me back to consciousness. I grunt and try to turn over, but the jabbing sensation won't stop. I open my eyes.
It’s Yuri.
My heart jumps, and reflexively, I go to sit up. Every muscle complains. I hiss, as if that will help quell the fire within.
“You saw them, didn’t you?”
The wildness in his eyes doesn’t seem so out of place now. I expect we’ve probably all got a bit of that look to us now.
“I don’t know,” I say. “We saw something.”
Yuri nods, nods over and over and over until I want to reach over and stop him, because watching him is making me feel sick.
“They made it,” he whispers, and sidles up, uncomfortably close. “It’s what they use. They take over worlds with it. Entire worlds. But it is dangerous. Very dangerous. Even to them. They made it, but it will rebel. Rebel against them. Then nothing will stop it. It eats and eats and eats until it consumes the world. I’ve seen. Seen it all.
I lean away from Yuri, but not because I don’t believe him. I don’t want to believe him, be sure of that, but it’s becoming harder and harder to dismiss his ravings. What that says about my state of mind, I don’t know. Should it worry me that Yuri is beginning to make some kind of horrible sense to me? Probably. Does it matter?
Probably not.
Not since we’re all going to die down here.
I don’t know where this sense of absolute certainty is coming from. I’d always considered myself something of an optimist. Now I’m not. Not now I’ve discovered you can’t have a half full glass of anything without a glass.
Out in the depths, I hear a splashing sound. Oh, goody – our friend is back. All heads turn towards the sound, bathing the midnight water in torchlight. Just as the beams fade, a huge, whitish mound rolls.
Yeah, well fuck you too, monster.
Yuri leans in even closer. I shudder at his sudden proximity, but my shattered reflexes don’t allow me to move backwards quickly enough before he can whisper in my ear.
“Don’t trust him.”
I freeze.
“What?”
“Don’t trust him. He knows more than he lets on.”
I frown. What the hell is he babbling on about? Who knows more?
Yuri nods once, gives me an odd, knowing look and scampers off, away from our makeshift camp, back into the unknown darkness.
He knows. Don’t trust him.
Him.
One of three. Or none of three. There’s no doubting Yuri’s crazy. He’s probably making it up.
But still.
Him?
One of three.
Roll the dice and make a choice.
I shake my head, as if that might dislodge the thought. A bolt of pain shoots down my neck and branches out, setting my shoulders ablaze. I wince. Don’t do that. I can’t think like that. We’ve been through so much together.
But still…
Funny how some seeds, once planted, just die, no matter what you do to nurture them. But others, usually the unwanted ones, the weeds, take root and grow. They not only grow, but they flourish.
One of three.
Take your pick, Meg.
My gaze travels from one to the other. First, Marcus, who is lying still, the crumpled photo of his family clutched to his chest. Then Brendan, who is doodling in the small traps of sand, and then to Janos…
Janos?
Where is he?
My heart thuds just once, hard enough to make me feel dizzy. We’ve lost so many recently. Have we lost one more?
Gingerly, I find my feet, my body full of pins and static. Two headlamps swing my way, but neither of their owners say anything. I think we’re at that point now – that point where we simply do no know what to do. For now at least, I’m kind of grateful for it.
Now I’m up, I feel like I have the worst hangover ever. My head is pounding, my throat parched. I reach for my canister and wince at the warm, slightly salty water it contains. No matter how far technology goes, they never can get water treatment right.
I clamber up the rocks, my body cursing me with every step, and poke my head over the top. There, in the distance, is a pencil-thin beam that can only be Janos’ headlamp. For some reason, that makes me feel better. It does strike me that maybe he’s found a little hole to be alone, for whatever the reason, but I’m feeling selfish. We haven’t spoken properly since I left him at the door, and the need to talk to him, to reason all of this out with him, is like a craving.
As I get closer, I hear a mutter. I stop. Voices? My first thought is Yuri, which sends a shudder down my spine. But no… Yuri is nowhere to be seen. I listen. It’s coming from Janos.
I can’t make out what he is saying – and chances are, I wouldn’t understand him anyway, but by the pauses, I would say he’s having a conversation. Which is nuts, because everyone he could be having a conversation with is either back at the camp or a stark-raving lunatic.
I don’t know why, but suddenly my need to find Janos and talk to him falls away. I creep closer, careful to keep my body low. It feels kind of wrong, but I have to know who he is talking to.
I get close enough to make out words, and as predicted, don’t understand any of it. But whatever it is, it sounds heated. He blows a deep, angry sigh and clenches his fists before saying one word I do understand.
