by Jacob Rayne
The other five men were in a rough horseshoe around him, keeping their distance but thrusting the sticks at him.
If they hadn’t had the sticks he’d have torn them apart in seconds.
They’d still die, but it’d take him a little longer.
The man nearest him got too brave and thrust the light stick at his bare belly.
Subject I turned the man’s arm back so the stick touched its bearer’s neck. His grin widened as he pulled the trigger.
The man lit up like a Christmas tree and started to twitch.
Subject I gave him a good dose then let him slump down. He flailed the stick at the guards, catching one in the thigh. He fell, his leg numb and useless.
The three remaining men became much more reticent.
One dropped his light stick and pulled his gun. He pumped a full magazine into Subject I’s body and head, but it did him no good.
Subject I fell upon him and crushed his throat with one squeeze of his hand.
The two remaining guards looked at each other and ran back to the ladder where they fought to be the first to climb.
Subject I grabbed the loser of the fight and slammed his gas-masked head into the wall.
The guard fell to the floor, blood pissing out of his shattered skull.
The last guard looked down the ladder to see Subject I flying up the rungs behind him. He let out a cry of dismay before Subject I hauled him off the ladder and threw him to the floor.
Subject I reached the top of the ladder and climbed out into the house.
There was another group of guards heading across the grass towards the house, but he’d let his kin have some fun with them.
Instead he sprinted towards the fence and started to climb, heading for his first taste of freedom.
Hammett was relieved when another group of armed guards appeared in the underground complex. The freed test subjects were running amok, killing the scientists and the remaining guards.
He’d escaped the attentions of the test subjects so far, but he’d noticed one of the females staring at him.
He backed into the shadows as far as he could, but could still feel her eyes crawling over his skin.
Mutants ran amok in the corridors, their faces and hands covered with blood, dead and dying guards trampled beneath their feet.
Scientist and subject alike fell as the new group of guards took it upon themselves to mow down everyone in sight, despite their orders to merely subdue the escaping subjects.
The subjects survived the hail of bullets, but were much worse off for it. Entire parts of their bodies were missing, but still they came forwards.
The guards swept through the labs, destroying everything that was not secured in a cell.
Hammett watched the guards on their seek and destroy mission, hoping they’d managed to take out Subject I already.
This was highly unlikely, but he would continue to hope so until proven otherwise.
He moved into the lab where the woman stood.
Though he knew he could live to regret it, he decided to go towards her rather than risk certain death at the hands of the armed guards outside.
Her stare made him go cold and tingly, but she didn’t make any move to hurt him. Instead she held out her hand for him.
For better or worse, he took it.
Mills watched the guards mow down a group of scientists cowering in the corner of one of the labs.
The unarmed men had no chance.
They fell, their bodies pouring blood from dozens of bullet wounds.
He shook his head in anger.
The armed guards were going berserk, just taking out everyone they saw whether they were friend or foe.
He watched the guards move into the next room, ready to send another scientist to meet his maker.
The scientist’s mouth opened in a silent plea for mercy.
Then the next bullet took off the top of his head.
Upon taking the girl’s hand, Hammett felt a cold rush shoot up his arm. It felt like a severe case of pins and needles and made him think he was having a heart attack.
After a few seconds the tingling stopped.
He looked at the girl.
She was pretty, but wore a stunned expression and already had black veins poking through her skin.
Then she was shoving him into an open cell and locking the door behind her. He slammed his hands on the Plexiglas, screaming for help.
She gave him a hand gesture that was a sick parody of a wave then disappeared into the gloom.
He saw a group of guards appear in the room onto which his cell looked.
Their guns spat fire, tearing holes in the assembled scientists.
They peered in through the glass of his cell then carried on their way, going the same direction as the young girl.
Though he was pissed off at being locked up like one of the test subjects, he realised that the girl had probably saved his life.
Mills lost track of the girl as she ran into an area where the cameras were out.
He tried to warn the guards, but the power outage had knocked out the communications unit.
There was no way he was putting himself in danger by going in and warning the guards.
Besides, by the time he got there they’d probably already be dead.
He used the remaining cameras to search for the girl, but she had vanished.
Roughly a minute later he heard footsteps behind him.
‘Shit,’ he muttered.
Somehow the girl had managed to get out.
How she’d done it he had no idea as the entrance was a long way away.
But still, here she stood.
She wore a sickly grin as she approached. He fired every round from his shotgun until the trigger was just clicking on empty.
The rounds had taken off part of her right cheek and a chunk of her neck.
Blood oozed out from her pale skin.
The grin didn’t leave her face.
She fell onto him, her hands clawing at his face. He felt like he was drowning, her snarls blurring as though he was underwater.
Then she grabbed his head and twisted until it was facing backwards. The motion made gristly pops as she twisted his head back and forth.
When she was sure he was dead, she moved through the corridors until she reached the exit.
The darkness swallowed her as she ran out into the night.
II: Reproduction
Florence Bates was having one hell of a bad day.
The icing on the shitty cake had been her sacking from her job as a store clerk for giving one of the lecherous customers a mouthful of abuse. The prick had been drooling down his chin as he ogled her tits and arse. His hand had been suspiciously close to his crotch too.
She’d given the freak a very colourful piece of her mind and her manager had given her the boot.
It didn’t surprise her; the manager of the store was almost as much of a perv as Mr Drool.
As she drove home she toyed with the idea of burning down the store as retribution.
Her foot instinctively stamped on the brake pedal as the light changed to red.
The car behind her almost compounded her misery by skidding into the back of her. His horn blared as he pulled up mere millimetres from her back bumper.
She slowly and deliberately wound down her window and stuck out her left hand with the time-honoured middle finger.
As she sat at the intersection, the heavens opened.
Her windshield was more water than glass. She pulled the lever for her windscreen wiper. They moved across and back, shoving the water away.
Almost as soon as the water was gone, it returned. The downpour was unbelievable.
She pulled the wiper lever again. They moved across this time, but on the way back, the driver’s side wiper lodged at a forty-five-degree angle.
This was a problem that had been occurring for a while now, but she’d never found the time to fix it.
‘Fuck’s sake,
’ she muttered.
The driver behind blared his horn.
Through the haze of water on the windshield, she saw that the light had changed to green.
Very tentatively, she pulled forwards. She kept at around 15mph, as a result of her non-existent visibility. It was like driving through a waterfall.
She prayed no one would walk out in front of her as she’d have no chance of seeing them.
After winding her window all the way down, she leant her head out, trying to look for a safe place to pull over and not hit anything at the same time.
The asshole behind overtook, cutting her up as he pulled back in front.
More water sluiced onto her windscreen, making visibility even worse.
She brayed her horn and again flipped him the bird, then pulled over by the roadside.
She’d have to be quick, this part of town was no place to be hanging around after dark.
Although the rain’d probably keep all the weirdos inside.
She popped the hood, reached under and clipped the wiper back onto its runner.
It was a simple problem and quick to remedy, but it meant stopping every few minutes to lift the hood. She dropped the hood down, made sure it was sealed properly and went back to the driver’s side door.
As she did so she heard a moan, as if someone was in pain but didn’t have the energy to scream.
She turned to see a naked, blood-smeared woman lying in a doorway.
The woman was emitting a low groan and had a hand clasped to her belly, as though she’d just had a gut-buster of a meal.
‘Shit, are you ok?’ Florence said.
The woman looked as pale as a corpse. She said nothing, just groaned again.
Florence took a few steps towards her, trying to see through the veil of shadows.
Rain drops scudded off her head and shoulders.
She noticed the woman had a number of wounds. As she got closer the woman staggered to her feet and moved drunkenly towards her.
Florence noticed her belly, swollen with child, and suddenly understood what was happening.
‘Shit, you’re in labour,’ she said.
The woman grunted in response.
‘I’ll drive you to a hospital. Just get in the car. Here, I’ll help you.’ She moved forwards and held out a hand to support the woman.
The woman’s face was pale enough to be transparent. Florence could see all of the veins in her face. In the gloom the veins looked black.
A tingle went up Florence’s arm when she took hold of the woman’s hand.
The woman didn’t resist. She didn’t seem worried about Florence, in fact she seemed to be smiling.
Something about the grin unnerved Florence so she avoided looking at it.
She helped the woman into the passenger seat and ran round to the driver’s door.
Florence settled back in her seat and heard the woman let out a cry of pain as a deluge of liquid gushed from between her legs.
‘Ah, crap,’ Florence said.
Rain bounced off the car, making sounds that would have been soothing under different circumstances.
Florence looked and saw blood between the woman’s legs. She didn’t know much about labour, but she knew that wasn’t good.
She had to get her to hospital as soon as possible.
Now not caring about the rain or the near deadly combination of driving fast and blind, she floored the gas pedal and set off for the hospital.
Duggan woke feeling like he’d done ten rounds with a champion boxer then drank his own body weight in beer. He used an arm to shield his eyes as light stabbed his retinas.
‘Ah, you’re awake,’ Mark said.
Duggan looked around and was surprised to find himself still in the cave where they’d hidden from the gas-masked men. He saw Mark, sitting cross-legged, the shotgun cradled like a new-born child.
‘The fuck we still doing here?’ Duggan said.
‘You fell asleep. When no more guards came, I thought I’d let you get some rest.’
Duggan nodded, moved his neck from side to side, trying to get a crack. His shoulders felt tighter than hell.
‘How long was I asleep?’
‘Bout twelve hours.’
‘Jeez. I’m getting too old for this shit.’
‘Are we still moving on?’
‘Reckon we should, yes. Those fuckers are bound to find their way back here eventually.’
Duggan stood and arched his back, groaning as he did so. ‘Feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.’
‘I’m aching everywhere too.’
‘I need a piss and something to eat. Badly.’
‘Be my guest,’ Mark said, indicating the scarred wall of the cave.
Duggan nodded and went into the corner.
When he’d done, he cleared his throat and left the cave, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun.
‘Feel like fucking Nosferatu,’ he grimaced.
Mark laughed and followed him out.
The plain below them was baked hard by the sun.
The wreckage of the car, surrounded by a halo of blackened land, looked in keeping with the end of the world vista before them.
One of the guards still slumped on the floor, a patch of rust-coloured land beneath him.
‘Hell of a view,’ Duggan said, rubbing a hand across his mouth.
‘Yeah.’
‘Only problem is, without a vehicle we’ll be walking for hours.’
‘Maybe get back to the road and hitch a ride,’ Mark said. ‘The highway’s only up there.’ He pointed to the ridge above where the car had fallen. It seemed like years ago instead of only yesterday.
‘Guess you’re right. Longer we stand here gabbing on, longer my belly’s gonna be growlin’ at me.’
They set off across the scorched, arid landscape.
Florence took out the rear bumper of a black Chevy as the car aquaplaned into the hospital’s parking lot.
She parked across two bays and dived out of the car then helped the pregnant lady into the hospital.
Dried blood clung to the insides of the girl’s legs. It did not look promising for the health of the child.
‘I found her on the street,’ Florence told the receptionist. ‘I think she’s going into labour.’
‘The pimps kick ’em out if they’re with child,’ the receptionist said with a tone of authority on the subject.
A stretcher came for the pregnant girl. Florence went into the delivery room with her.
‘She looks in a bad way,’ the midwife said. ‘I don’t like the look of that blood.’
‘Me neither,’ Florence said.
The girl started to make high-pitched noises.
Her chest rose and fell with frantic breaths.
Her face was even paler than it had been before, the prominent veins much darker in contrast.
‘Deep breaths,’ the midwife said.
The girl ignored her and carried on as she had been.
She pushed hard, the effort making sweat stand out on her brow.
One of the dark veins pulsed hard in her temple, looking like it was going to tear right through the skin.
After twenty minutes of pushing and sweating, the baby’s head started to crown.
‘I don’t think it’s breathing,’ the midwife said.
The girl didn’t react to the news, just kept on pushing.
Florence felt for her.
The baby’s face appeared and his head was blue. There was no movement.
The midwife tried to hide her concern, but Florence saw it.
Still the girl didn’t react to the panic felt by her companions, concentrating on the task of expelling the baby instead.
When the baby’s pale form fully emerged, the midwife wore a sympathetic expression.
Florence started to cry.
‘I’m really sorry,’ the midwife said. ‘But your baby’s—’
‘He just moved,’ Florence said.
The girl slumpe
d back, staring at the still form of her baby.
Sure enough, the baby’s head and arm twitched.
‘This is strange,’ the midwife said as the baby’s head moved again.
While Florence and the midwife stared in disbelief the girl’s smile returned.
A black tube roughly the size and thickness of a pencil appeared from the baby’s mouth. It wavered like a flag in the breeze, giving Florence the impression that it was sniffing the air.
Florence and the midwife looked at each other in bemusement as the black worm crawled out of the baby’s mouth.
In seconds, five more crawled out of the open mouth, crawling over the baby’s corpse and dropping onto the floor.
A hole appeared in the baby’s leg and one of the black worms crawled out.
The vile worms made Florence’s gorge rise.
One crawled towards her, moving faster than it should have been able to.
She let out a cry and stamped her foot down on it.
The worm curled up into a horseshoe shape, writhing as if in agony.
The midwife screamed and Florence looked up from the injured worm to see a hole appear in the top of the baby’s skull. More of the black worms crawled out.
Holes appeared all over the baby’s body and dozens of the black worms emerged, swarming across the dead flesh.
Florence stamped at them, but the worms seemed resilient. They writhed in pain, but her boots didn’t seem to crush them like she had hoped. It felt like stomping on a wire.
Finally Florence came to her senses and ran to the door, dragging the midwife behind her.
Something woke Abbott and he watched through a gap in his open eye.
Ray, the man who claimed to be one of the test subjects, was pacing back and forth, his face one of worry and dread.
‘What’s wrong?’ Abbott said.
‘They’ve gotten out.’
‘The test subjects?’
Ray nodded. ‘Yes, two of them. The male is the most powerful of our kind. The female is ripe and has already started to reproduce.’
‘What?’
‘She is bringing new life into this world as we speak.’
‘Holy shit.’
‘Indeed. We need to destroy the offspring before they transform.’
