by Cronan, Matt
"Easy," he said. "Just getting the key. It's in my pocket. Don't cut my head off."
"I'm not making any promises."
"Well aren't you a ray of sunshi—"
Sam slammed the handle into the General's mouth. The blow sent him reeling back. And then the tears returned, and he started to sob.
"Stop crying and open the damn door," Sam said. "No one here feels sorry for you."
Soto wiped his cheeks on his sleeve and then pulled the key from his hip pocket. The clack of the lock sliding open boomed through the silent cavern and Sam's heart jumped into her throat. A hideous squeak followed and Sam held her breath. The room beyond the doorway was somehow darker than the pitch-black cavern.
Soto flipped an unseen switch and light burst forth from the room. Sam shielded her eyes and for a the briefest of moments she felt absolutely defenseless. If the General was going to try to escape then this would be his moment to do so. Instead, Soto stepped into the room and Sam followed without hesitation.
Sam stared in awe as her eyes adjusted to the bright fluorescent overheads. Giant monitors covered the entirety of the walls surrounding them. Every square inch from floor to ceiling. The screens were blank and their black frames were shiny, and at the bottom-center of each frame was a silver logo. A large C surrounding a tiny silver skyline of a city. It caused her stomach to twist into a violent knot.
Concordia.
Sam jumped and her attention was torn away from the logo as the metal door slammed shut behind her. She spun on her heel. Cole looked at her wide-eyed and then apologized. He placed Alex in an empty chair by the door and Doc grabbed the penlight from his pocket and began to reexamine her.
The interior of the room consisted solely of two large wooden desks that mirrored each other. They sat in the center of the room, one facing the doorway where they stood, the other facing the largest of all the monitors which encompassed the entirety of the rear wall.
"These monitors…" Sam said. Her voice trailed off.
"These monitors are how we protect our citizens," the General said, finishing her sentence. "Our watchful eyes in the sky. This is…was the President's private monitoring station."
"Turn them on," Sam whispered.
"I don't think—"
"Do it," Sam commanded.
Soto limped to the center of the room. He made a dreadful whimper with each step. He took a seat at the leather chair in-between the two desks and rolled up to the computer facing them. A moment later, he began typing on an unseen keyboard.
The entire computer unit was hidden from view. As Sam approached the desk, her battle ax still at the ready, she saw an embedded piece of glass in the center of the desk. Underneath the glass a flat-screen monitor angled up at the General. Soto typed commands furiously into the keyboard, his one eye scanning back and forth with each keystroke. Sam wondered if giving him free-reign to the computers had been a good idea but then the screens surrounding the room turned on simultaneously.
"Holy shit," Cole said. He pivoted and ran his fingers through his damp gray hair. "Pardon my language, Miss Sam."
"You're excused," Sam said as she gaped at the screens.
The images displayed around the room shed light on what Soto's 'watchful eyes' truly meant. On one wall, the screens were filled with dozens of rooms resembling lesser versions of the President's chambers. A section of screens monitored the gaudily decorated hallways and another on various rooms throughout the complex. Sam saw the hospital rooms and the dining hall. She cringed at the sight of a handful of screens focused on operating rooms.
She turned to the opposite wall and gasped as she got her first look at the children. The screens were tinted night-vision green, and each displayed heartbreaking scene after heartbreaking scene. Dozens of children littered each screen working furiously as they tunneled through the mines. Dirty children. Skeletal children. Hundreds of them in total. Hundreds of lost angels.
"You're monsters," Sam whispered.
Soto didn't answer her.
She walked down the length of the wall as she scanned through the screens. Midway down, her eyes fixed on two monitors. Neither possessed the green tint. One was fixed on a dozen men sitting around a long conference table.
The other displayed a room full of young girls ranging from 13 to 30. Most of their faces had been horribly transfigured by plastic surgery. Sam's skin crawled at the sight of them. Not out of disgust for the girls but rather at the men who did this to them.
The monitor above showed a bird's eye view of two stone structures; perfectly square in shape, with a pathway running in-between them. A fleet of soldiers surrounded the two buildings. Sam guessed one structure housed the girls, and the other contained the royalty. The rapists. The enslavers.
"Where is this?" Sam asked.
The General snorted and continued typing.
"You better answer the lady," Cole said.
"Those are the safe houses. They're in the heart of the mine," Doc said. "Not too far from where we are now. The pathway outside leads to a large opening within the cavern and the two buildings are there."
"Silence," Soto hissed.
Doc seemed to consider this for a moment and then continued, "The royalty are in the building on the left and the girls in the other. There's a supply bag in the room with the royalty. It's full of supplies. We keep it there for situations such as this one. In case of an intruder or a breach. In case they're trapped down there for a long time."
"I said silence," Soto snarled. "Why are you aiding them?"
"Because they're right," Doc said. He turned back to Alex. "We are monsters."
"You're a traitor," Soto seethed.
"Perhaps," Doc said. He lifted Alex's eyelid and flashed the penlight at the pupil. "A traitor to a city that's turned its back on its citizens. A traitor to traitorous men. Rather poetic, no?"
"It doesn't matter," the General said. He waived a dismissive hand toward the doctor and leaned back in the desk chair. "They're all in lockdown and you're ill-equipped to breach the safe houses. The city of Lost Angel will survive just like it so many times before. Even if you were to save a handful of workers, the men in that room will continue to repopulate this city. But that is a big if, isn't it?"
"You think we'll fail?" Sam asked. She couldn't believe the General's smugness after everything that had happened. "Do you honestly think you're prepared enough for—?”
"Prepared enough for you?" Soto roared with laughter and Sam felt the reproachful ire bubble in stomach. "We've lived through worse than you. Our people survived the fallout. We survived for a thousand years in this bunker. You don't think we'd let a couple of outsiders derail us, did you?" He flashed a spine-chilling smile and resumed typing.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked.
"I've taken a calculated risk bringing you here," the General said. He looked up at her. "While there is a computer in this room that says Concordia, the true reason I brought you here was to ensure you couldn't cause any more damage." He smiled again and then resumed typing.
"Stop what you're doing," Sam said and gripped the handle of the ax so tight her knuckles turned white.
"I don't think so," Soto said.
The room slowed and Sam's vision focused. Her heartbeat pounded between her ears and her muscles tensed. Every imperfection of the wooden ax handle amplified in her hands and she could feel every notch and groove. Sam took a step toward him.
Soto looked up and flashed the smile Sam had grown to loathe. Then he lifted a fist straight out ahead of him. He extended his index finger and pointed it to the keyboard.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked.
"I'm initiating the contingency plan."
"Don't move another in—"
Soto dropped his fist and his finger mashed down on the button. "Whoops."
Air hissed from the door and Sam watched in horror as it began opening on its own.
"What's happening?" Cole asked. "Close it back."
Soto ignore
d him. "Now, if you would focus your attention to the monitor above the door…" he paused and waited for them to look,"…our show is about to begin."
The screen above the door had remained blank, but the General hit another button and it flickered on. The camera was aimed at a steel door, similar to the one in front of them. The door on the monitor also began to open and Sam shrieked as its contents were revealed. A mammoth creature slunk from the doorway and then sprinted away. She only got a glimpse at the elongated face and beady orange eyes, but she recognized it at once. It was the creature from her dreams.
"What the fuck was that?" Sam yelled, not willing to accept what her brain was telling her.
"I think you know, Samantha," Soto said.
"I need your help, Cole." Sam dropped her ax and ran to the door. It was completely open. She shoved it but the heavy metal door didn't budge. Above her, the pneumatic door closer had extended fully. A locking mechanism had dropped into place to prevent it from shutting.
Cole joined her and the two pushed. Even with his added strength, the door refused to move. Cole looked up and began pawing at the device.
"We need you, Doc!" Sam yelled. The doctor was already on his way and he took the free spot between them. He threw his weight against the door, slipped and fell.
Soto burst out in laughter.
"Close the door, goddammit!" Sam screamed.
Soto laughed harder.
"I think I can get it," Cole said as he tore at the metal rod above the door.
Sam's blood turned cold as her heightened sense of hearing detected the thunderous footsteps echoing in the distance. "We have to hurry." She slammed her weight against the door and Doc did the same. She pushed with all her might, but it didn't move an inch.
"Keep working on it," Sam said and spun away from the door. She picked the battle ax off of the ground and marched back to the General.
"You know your weapons will be useless against them," Soto said evenly.
"Yeah, but they're not against you." Sam lifted blade above her head. "Close the door…now!"
"My dear, why do you think I brought you here?" The General leaned back in his chair and cupped both hands behind his head. "This is the end game for you and your little friends. This is assurance that the royalty will be safe. I will die as the honorific leader who sacrificed his life to make sure that the great city of Lost An—"
Sam swung as hard as she could and buried the ax deep into the top of his skull, splitting it straight down the middle. A geyser of blood erupted from the gore and covered Sam in buckets of red. General Soto slumped in the leather desk chair, the two halves of his face hanging from either side of the blade. After a moment, his lifeless body slipped out of the chair, and collapsed onto the concrete floor.
Sam gaped stupidly at the gruesome scene she had created. Where had this killer instinct had come from? Something shrieked outside of the room and she snapped back to the present. It was the same unearthly scream from her nightmare. She knew what was coming for them.
It was a midnight runner.
"How's it coming on the door, boys?" Sam asked. She sat down in the desk chair and turned to the computer.
"This damned lock won't give," Cole said. Veins popped from his head and forearms as he pulled on the rod.
Sam's heart thumped wildly in her chest and she focused on the computer monitor. If the Soto opened the door with the computer then she could shut it. She had to believe that.
The screen was black with a single word displayed in the upper left hand corner:
Override
And beside it:
(Y/N):
A green cursor rhythmically appeared and then disappeared.
The beast shrieked again. It was much closer. Sam's skin turned to gooseflesh and the thin hairs on her arm stood on end. The monitor had cycled to an open doorway and Sam could faintly make out the lower half of a computer desk. Her computer desk.
"Any luck?" Cole asked. It drew her attention back to the computer.
The keyboard was smeared in blood, but she could read a portion of the buttons. She quickly tapped the button marked 'Y', hit the 'Return' button and held her breath.
The word 'Override' disappeared and was replaced by a far more daunting one.
Password:
Sam's heart sank into her stomach. There was no time to guess what could be an infinite number of words, or letter/number combinations. They were doomed.
"Miss Sam?" Cole yelled. "Something's coming."
"Think!" Sam yelled at herself.
David is the key, Jordan whispered from the recesses of her brain.
Her eyes lit up. It was a moment of clarity similar to the one in the dining room after her skull was slammed into the table. A distant memory, one from long ago, flashed through her mind, and this time she grabbed ahold of it. She typed a word and then looked down at the screen. Her heart lurched.
Password: David
"Miss Sam?!"
She let her finger hover for a split-second and then mashed it. The screen filled with green text and then a hiss filled the room. A wave of relief washed over her as the door began to close.
"It's not going fast enough!" Cole screamed.
Sam ran back to the door, lodged herself in the middle and the three of them pushed. The door continued to close at its own speed. A scream ripped through the hallway. Sam stepped back from the door and looked to the monitor. Her heart seized.
There wasn't one beast outside of the door. There were six of them. They stood in a cluster on the other side of the door as it closed as if they were waiting for a cue to enter. The door was a little more than halfway shut, but there was still room for at least one of them to get in.
Sam gasped and took a horrified step back. She signaled for Cole and Doc to stop and they did. She held a finger to her lips and pointed to the monitor. The two men stepped away from the door and looked. Their eyes grew wide and their jaws fell open in unison.
"Christ in a hand basket," Cole said and when he did one of the monsters lunged forward.
"Grab your gun," Sam screamed.
Cole snatched his rifle from the floor and wheeled on the door which was now three-quarters of the way shut. Doc sprinted to Alex who was closest to the door. He grabbed her and carried her towards the rear of the room. Sam turned back to Soto, grabbed the ax handle, and tugged. The blade held firm, lodged deeply between layers of muscle tissue and bone.
Sam pulled again, and the blade pulled free. She spun back to the door and a large scaly arm emerged from the darkness. Sam gasped. The arm was long and muscular and the skin of the beast was orangish-pink. Sharp jagged claws dug into the metal door frame and created a blood-chilling screech as it pulled itself into the doorway. The door vibrated against its arm, still trying to close.
"Whatever happens," Sam said and gripped the ax handle tighter, "I just wanted to say thank you…for everything."
"Miss Sam, with all due respect, we ain't come this far to die here."
Cole lifted the muzzle of the rifle and squeezed the trigger. The sound of gunfire melded with the screams of the beast as round after round lodged into its arm. Instead of retreating, the midnight runner lurched forward and shoved its shoulder through the door.
Sam didn't wait for Cole to reload. She ran toward the door, ax held high over her head, and let out a primal scream. A scream almost as unearthly as the one emitted from the creature behind the door. A scream from deep within her.
"Sam, no!"
But Sam didn't listen. She swung the blade and connected with her target. The sharp edge of the ax plunged into the creature's bicep. Dark red blood exploded from the wound and the midnight runner screamed out. Sam dislodged the blade but didn't give the creature time to withdraw its wounded appendage. She lifted the ax again and when she swung she found the same spot with extreme precision. This time the blow severed the creature's arm, and it fell to the ground. Blood sprayed wildly from the wound, and a second later, the monster disappeared.<
br />
The door shut.
There was long moment of silence and then a loud THUD.
The noise caused Sam to jump, her heart still thumping in her chest like an ensnared jackrabbit trying to kick its way out.
THUD.
Sam backed away from the door and looked up to the monitor. The creature lifted its good arm slowly and banged against the door. THUD. A bloody stump dangled at the other side. The other five stood behind their leader, motionless.
THUD.
THUD.
After a moment, the banging sped up and Sam watched as the rest of them joined in. They slammed their giant fists against the door. She stepped back slowly, still clutching her ax. She was worried the door would give way to the creatures' massive weight and power. In the corner of the room, next to the door, the severed claw was clinched in a fist and it gyrated with each bang on the door.
Ten minutes later, the thudding finally stopped.
"What now?" Cole asked.
Sam looked up at the monitor. The creatures had stepped away from the door, but they were still out there. They huddled together in a tight group as if they were a football team coming up with some sort of trick play to fool their opponents.
"Now, we wait," Sam said and dropped the ax to the floor.
9
The monitors encircling the room continued to cycle. All except one. The wall-sized monitor remained dark. Sam stared at it for a long time and then turned her gaze to the others. Cole had taken on the added responsibility of nursemaid and helped Doc lay Alex's broken body out on the floor. The girl still hadn't moved and Sam wondered if she would be able to leave her if their lives depended on it. Killer elite or not…Sam didn't think so. If push came to shove, she didn't know if she could leave the Doc either. But she wouldn't let him know that.
The Doc went through his routine of shining the penlight into her eyes and checking her pulse. Groan. Repeat. An hour had passed since the door had shut and he reemphasized the pressing matter of getting Alex back to the medical offices numerous times.
Sam ignored each one.
Not because she didn't care. Sam cared about the girl immensely and knew time was of the essence. But no matter how much she cared, Sam didn't have a plan for dealing with the monstrosities on the opposite side of the door. Doc looked up at her and she promptly spun a quarter-turn to her right to avoid his menacing glare.
