by Jacob Rayne
The car thundered towards the guard crouched by the rock, making him break cover and run, screaming, down the bank.
Duggan ran behind the car, dodging a few badly-aimed bullets.
As the flames reached a crescendo he pulled the door open and crawled in, grabbing Mark’s arm and dragging him towards the open door.
The smoke started to choke him and sting his eyes but he ignored it and continued to pull Mark.
It seemed to take forever and burnt fresh agonies into his muscles, but he managed to free him.
The falling car slammed into the rock where the guard had been hiding.
The guards ceased their panicked flight from the car and turned their attention towards Mark and Duggan.
Duggan dragged Mark to the front of the car where they crouched for a moment before sprinting across the uneven ground.
Hammett and Jeffries passed through another room with a display case on each wall. Like the last room, there were three full rooms and one empty.
‘This is the penultimate generation,’ Jeffries said. ‘One of these is a test subject which escaped a few days ago.’ He pointed to a bulky male in his early thirties who slumped with his back against the display screen. ‘He managed to get out and made his way out of the facility. He was recovered in a mall, which led to the execution of a hundred and fifty five witnesses.’
‘Where’s the subject from that cell?’ Hammett asked, pointing at the empty cell.
‘He got out with him. We are currently trying to find him.’
‘Doesn’t sound like you’ve got a secure lid on Pandora’s Box here, Mr Jeffries,’ Hammett said, his voice dripping with scorn.
‘I assure you we’ve tightened security significantly since the breakout. We had to with the progress of Subject I anyway.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘He’s in the next room. The most advanced test subject yet. It’s amazing.’
Hammett stared at the three subjects.
They seemed docile, but he was aware of how fast and lethal Morgan had been.
He wouldn’t be taking any of them for granted but there was something hypnotic about the way they moved, making fighting them the furthest thing from his mind.
‘Trust me, Subject I makes these look like nothing,’ Jeffries said.
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
They moved into the next room.
Hammett started as he saw the man Jeffries referred to as Subject I.
His skin was pale to the point of being transparent. All around his muscular body were dark black veins, so prominent they were almost bursting through the skin. The veins pulsed in and out in time with the rapid beat of his heart.
Hammett also noticed that the lump on the back of Subject I’s head was much larger than the others. The lump was also surrounded by a knot of pitch black veins, pulsing so hard it looked like it was about to tear through the paper thin skin on Subject I’s skull.
Subject I turned and Hammett felt ice water sluice through his veins.
The subject’s eyes were jet black and they gleamed with a malignant intelligence. The lips were drawn back over the teeth in a permanent grin. The nose was just a hole in the skull.
‘Beautiful, isn’t he?’ Jeffries said.
‘I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use.’
‘Oh, I am. He’s the perfect combination of technology and biology. If you thought Morgan was hard to kill, you should see this one in action.’
‘I think I can live without that.’
Subject I paced back and forth across the width of his cell. His eyes never left Hammett and Jeffries.
Hammett couldn’t stand the scrutiny.
‘Subject I seems to have taken on more traits than the others. We’re trying to determine what makes him different to the others that we bred at the same time. We think it’s because the creature we implanted in him was a little older, but we don’t know.’
‘Here’s something for you to think about; what if this thing gets loose like the others did?’
‘I assure you that will not happen. Subject I will only get loose when we want him to. Until that day he’ll stay under lock and key and do as he’s told.’
Hammett looked at him as though he was stupid.
The creature’s black eyes seemed to bore into him.
He suppressed a shudder at the thought of it ever leaving the test facility.
Duggan scooped up Mark and ran in a zigzag across the field.
Bullets whizzed past them, ricocheting off rocks and trees.
Behind them the car’s fuel tank went up.
When they looked back they couldn’t see their pursuers for the cloud of smoke and dust and fragments of metal.
The wave of heat hit them but they were far enough away to escape injury.
Duggan risked another glance behind him and again saw nothing but the flaming wreckage of the car and the cloud of smoke surrounding it.
He saw an opening in the rock face to his right and ducked inside.
‘That was a fucking close one,’ he said, his heart still pounding hard in his chest.
He rolled Mark onto his back and felt for a pulse. For a few frantic seconds he didn’t feel one, but then it came through, slow and weak enough to almost be non-existent.
Mark didn’t appear to be breathing so he pinched his nose and sealed his lips to the boy’s and blew hard.
He repeated this for a while, until the boy coughed and spluttered and sat up, wild-eyed and staring.
‘Jesus, you had me worried,’ Duggan said.
Mark just stared at him, not seeming to understand the situation.
‘So what do you think of my life’s work?’ Jeffries said.
‘I think the place wants burning down. You’re messing around with things you can’t control here. You’re asking for trouble.’
‘But you can’t deny the importance of these findings, can you?’
‘I can and I will. You can’t play God, Jeffries. This is all going to go hideously wrong.’
Jeffries scoffed.
‘I hope you change your tune, because you are going to be Subject J. I see such potential in you. You’re already a killing machine so the benefits of the embryo should be even more spectacular. I wanted you to meet your extended family, so you had a chance of becoming a part of all of this.’ He swept his arm around majestically.
‘I would rather die than be a part of this,’ Hammett said. His fist was halfway to Jeffries’ chin when he felt a sudden paralysing shock at the back of his neck. He spasmed wildly, saliva pouring from his mouth, then slumped forward.
Blake pulled the Taser away from the base of Hammett’s skull and smiled at Jeffries. ‘Can’t have him kicking off, can we?’ he smiled.
‘Absolutely not. Well done.’
‘Thanks, Sir.’
‘Get him back to his cell and prepare him for integration.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Duggan shook Mark and managed to get him to talk.
‘I’m ok,’ Mark said. ‘I just don’t have any idea what’s going on.’
‘The car came off the road. You hit your head when we landed.’
Mark furrowed his brow.
‘You don’t remember that? What about the gas-masked guys with guns?’
A flash of one of the customers in the sports shop being shot in the face with the shotgun, bloody pieces of his skull and brain flying into the air like scarlet confetti, flooded into Mark’s mind.
‘Oh, I remember those.’
‘Well, keep on your toes. There might still be some of them out there, looking for us.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know, kid. Just keep running, I guess.’
Bass opened his eyes and took in the world from a new perspective.
The pain and terror he remembered from the last time he’d been awake were gone, replaced with a sense of calm confidence.
The back of his head tingled.
It was an alien sensation but not an unpleasant one.
He tried to smile, found he couldn’t.
But that was fine.
He had things other than smiling to consider.
Abbott found that the pain in his leg had intensified since he’d fallen asleep. It was no good. He needed to be mobile.
He felt the best thing to do would be to go and search for Hammett, but then he realised he didn’t have the slightest idea where he’d gone.
It seemed Hammett had been taken as he’d been gone for hours.
After a moment’s debate, he decided he was better off moving on.
If Hammett had been captured, a skilful enough torturer would get the silo’s location out of him eventually. Nowhere was safe but they’d come here to look for him.
As he gathered his weaponry, he heard footsteps coming down the silo towards him.
He stiffened and raised his gun in the direction of the footsteps.
Hammett woke to the sound of screaming from the next room.
He struggled to his feet and pressed his face to the window.
When he saw what was going on in the next room he jolted; a man was strapped to a bed, his arms and torso and legs restrained by thick leather straps.
One of the moth creatures was flying around him, beating its wings at his face.
His cheeks and forehead were already scored with dozens of cuts from the spikes on its wings.
It flew at him again, this time clamping its wings onto each side of his forehead.
He threw his head around in an attempt to dislodge it but it was stuck fast.
Then it moved down his face and started to crawl into his open mouth.
Hammett could watch no longer and turned away, putting his hands over his ears to block out the agonised screams.
‘Hold it, ’less you want a gutful of lead,’ Abbott called out into the gloom.
The approaching footsteps slowed then stopped altogether.
He hated the feel of eyes watching him from the gloom.
‘Come on out of the shadows, you slack-jawed weasel,’ he shouted, snacking the pump on his shotgun to emphasise his intent.
‘Captain Abbott, please put down the shotgun,’ a voice he didn’t recognise said from the shadows.
The face that came into view wasn’t familiar to him either.
‘Captain Abbott, I’m a friend. You need to trust me. Your friend has been taken by the forces of the enemy. I know all about you. We need you to fight on our side.’
‘You tell me who you are and what the hell you’re talking about before I splat you like a bug on a windshield.’
‘I’m a friend, Captain Abbott. I know all about the experiments being carried out at the Jeffries Research Facility. I know that soon the creatures in his test facility will be free to roam the earth and destroy everything in their sight. Join us and fight before it is too late.’
‘What the hell, you convinced me. But don’t fuck me over or I’ll have to kill ya.’
‘Ok, Captain Abbott.’
The figure helped him to his feet and led him out to a car which waited outside the rear entrance to the silo.
Duggan was jolted out of his sleep by the sound of a stone falling and clacking against the rock floor.
His ears were fine-tuned to such sounds and he was aiming the gun in the direction of the noise before he had even fully opened his eyes.
He nudged Mark awake with his foot.
It wasn’t clear whether the vague outline in the cave entrance was friend or foe, but the way things were going lately he figured it had to be an enemy.
His finger tensed around the trigger when he recognised the outline of a gas mask.
He paused for a second, thinking that the gunshot would give away their location.
Instead he shooed Mark into the corner and made his way to the opposite wall.
The guard seemed badly hurt, holding a hand to his belly. His concentration was taken up by the effort of walking with a severe limp, and he didn’t seem to have seen either of them.
Duggan picked up a large rock from the cave floor, waited until the guard was level with him and flung himself forwards, smashing the rock into the back of his neck.
The guard landed hard and didn’t move.
Duggan readied the rock for a second strike, but there didn’t seem any need.
He hauled the mask off the guard’s face.
‘Might need this,’ he whispered.
Mark nodded and took the gas mask from his guardian.
Duggan felt for a pulse that wasn’t there to find.
‘Hope they’re all as easy to kill,’ he smiled. ‘While we’re up, I’ll check if there are any more lurking around.’
He carefully made his way to the cave entrance and peered out.
A thorough scan of the horizon revealed no lurking guards. It was easy to see, as the smouldering remnants of Duggan’s car still lit the darkness like a beacon.
‘No one there,’ Duggan said. ‘Let’s get a few hours more sleep and move on.’
Bass felt much faster and more powerful, like he’d been supercharged. This theory was reinforced by the ease with which he tore loose the handcuffs. He felt much more alert too, as though every sense had been honed to give the best possible performance.
And there was something new too, a whisper in his ear.
Guiding him.
Telling him it was trapped and it needed to be set free.
Who am I to argue? Bass thought and set off towards the source of the voice in his head.
The man took Abbott to a rural church.
‘I’m not normally a praying man,’ Abbott smiled. ‘But given the circumstances I’m willing to give it a try.’
His driver smiled at him.
‘Who’s in here, then?’ Abbott said.
The man said nothing, just indicated the door.
Abbott pulled it open, keeping a hand on the butt of his handgun in case of trouble.
In the dim light cast by the scores of candles at the far end of the church, Abbott saw two bedraggled men.
Neither of them looked particularly evil, but you never could be sure.
‘Have you checked him, Alfie?’ said one man without looking up from the floor. By his tone, Abbott could tell that this man was in charge.
‘Yes,’ said Alfie, the man who’d come for Abbott.
‘Good. You can take your hand off your gun, Captain Abbott. We mean you no harm. Come, sit with us.’
Abbott obeyed the second request but not the first.
The man who had spoken looked pale and gaunt, but his eyes were piercing.
Despite his diminutive stature, he exuded power.
The other man was larger but not as confident. He smiled at Abbott as he sat between the two men.
‘What’s the story?’ Abbott asked.
‘We are the few who know what is to come,’ the first man said. ‘We are the only ones who can stop this.’
‘What’s gonna happen?’
‘The Jeffries laboratory contains inhuman monsters,’ the man said. ‘And they will soon be loose.’
‘How do you know all of this?’ Abbott said.
‘Because I share their thoughts. You see, Captain Abbott, I am one of them.’
Bass looked up at the house on top of the hill.
The calls of his kind came from the ground beneath the house.
Beneath his feet.
There were a few indistinct voices, distantly muttering in his ears, but there was one that stood out above all the others.
It called to him specifically, asking him to do its bidding. He knew he could not refuse and didn’t want to.
The fence around the house was electrified, his heightened senses picked up the thrum of the voltage in the air. Armed guards stood sentry on every edge of the perimeter.
A sniper sat in a nest on the roof of the building.
None of it mattered to Bass.
Not the guards, not the electric fenc
e.
Not the cameras or the terrifying plunge into darkness to locate the underground lab.
None of it would stop him in his quest to liberate his brethren.
Home time was an eternity away for Jason Mills, the security officer on patrol at the Jeffries test facility that night. He glanced at his watch, stifled a yawn.
Watching the monitors all night was thirsty work, so he had packed a big flask of his wife’s Thai soup. He poured a mugful, settled back in his chair and watched the screens.
The first showed the security barrier that guarded the main gate.
The second gave him a bird’s eye view of the entire compound.
With trained ease, he flicked his eye from one to the other. Nothing of any importance was going on.
He dipped a prawn cracker into the soup and raised it to his lips.
When he looked back to the first screen, he threw his soup all over himself.
The emergency vehicle by the main entrance was upside down on top of the mangled fence.
Sparks of electricity shot up from where the car touched the fence.
Soon the sparks were joined by muzzle flashes as a trio of guards appeared onscreen.
One of them gingerly reached out for the front of the car.
‘No,’ Mills shouted.
A second later the guard’s hand was stuck to the car and he shook as if possessed.
The guard’s torment seemed to last an age on the silent screen.
Then, finally, he fell to his knees, noticeably charred on his hands which were now clamped to the fence.
The other two guards stared at him in disbelief as he continued to twitch.
‘Knock the fence off,’ one of them shouted down the intercom.
Mills’ eyes were wide at the plight of the guard who was still stuck to the fence. He quickly pressed the button to knock off the power to the fences.
The guard slumped to the floor, still trembling a little.
His colleagues downed their weapons and ran to his aid.
Bass watched from the woods just out of range of the cameras. The frantic scenes before him gave him a rush of excitement that made him feel alive.
While the guards dealt with the mangled car, he snuck around to the other side of the compound and began to scale the fence.
