Shandra’s relief filled her scent as I blinked away the afterimages of the overhead lights and let my pupils adjust to the increased brightness.
“Now let’s find the lab—”
“RRROOOAAARRR!!!”
The walls shook with a sound so awful it woke a primal fear in me. Dr. Gupta cried out, her whole body locking up as fear froze her in place. I felt the same fear sinking into my bones, an emotion I was growing past, suddenly so strong I could taste copper at the back of my throat and my bowels loosened.
“RRROOOAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!”
“Ahhh!”
The second roar of that dreadful beast drew a whimper from Shandra, who sank down where she stood, and my own feet felt heavy as lead. But Dee’s terrified shriek a second later flipped off my terror, and my body moved, desperate to save my pack-mate.
With one powerful hand, I snatched up Shandra by the scruff of her neck, dragging her behind me by a fistful of coat while she screamed in terror and clawed at my hand, desperate to be anywhere but nearer whatever had made that sound.
I let out a sharp growl, and the woman’s fear lessened somewhat, her eyes regaining their focus, but I directed my attention up the hallway of buttery yellow light where a wide staircase led up. The sounds of some monstrous animal crashing through walls and furniture as it tore after Dee was plain, but of the silver-haired woman I couldn’t hear anything over the tumult.
“This way!”
I shouted at the top of my lungs, and would have cursed myself for a fool because my plan was nonexistent, but black-leather-clad feet darted down the steps a second later.
Donatella was in a full-on sprint as she took the stairs four at a time, her slender legs stretching out. The fear clawed at my throat when I saw how wide and white her eyes were. The female Alpha spotted Shandra and me at the end of the hall and with a look of blind terror turned to the right, darting into the shadows and out of the barreling path of the beast on her heels.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the horrific creature careening down the staircase a half-second behind Dee wasn’t it.
“AHHHHHHH!!!!”
Chapter 11
Dr. Gupta’s scream nearly deafened one of my ears, especially when the beast within me surged up, its terror matching my own as my senses ratcheted up. I didn’t have time to wince as I spun on one heel and fled, turning down the first set of stairs I saw, wincing inside when I felt Shandra slam against the wall, but unable to shield her anymore in my haste.
A creature dreamt up by a madman raced behind me, careening off walls with a sickeningly wet sound as it roared and snapped its slathering chompers. Even though I ran down steel stairs into blackness, I could still see that wide head, sunken down between malformed but powerfully muscled shoulders. Eyes as big as basketballs sat one atop another, above a mouth as wide as my arm span, filled with what looked like thousands of oddly angled and sized teeth in multiple rows.
I’d barely registered the shaggy body or the clawed hands and feet, but I could feel them nipping at my heels as I smashed into the wall at the bottom. Naked terror fueled my motions as I ripped a thick steel door open and threw Shandra inside. The stench of wet dog, musk, and rancid meat was so thick I could taste it as I threw the steel door closed behind me and felt a colossal weight smash against the other side.
“NNGGHGHGNNGKGKGKG!”
“Fuck!” I heard myself scream
Terror clouded my thoughts and made my limbs heavier than normal, but also fueled me as I pushed my back against the door, legs nearly buckling as the monstrous creature slammed against it again. Its screams and the overpowering musk of its body wouldn’t let me think straight, triggering more fear every time I tried to master the emotions.
I couldn’t say how much time passed, but the staccato fire of a shotgun steadily firing drew the beast’s attention, and it charged back upstairs with another roar of rage. Legs rubbery and weak, I sank to the ground, my ass hitting the cold concrete as a wave of shame and embarrassment swept in, following the fear taste leaving the back of my throat.
“CT, we need to barricade the door, come on!”
Shandra’s words roused me from my exhaustion, and with an act of will, I stood and dragged the whimpering beast back into alignment with my being. Hands shaking with exhaustion, the doctor and I shoved several heavy filing cabinets against the broken door. Eventually, I felt certain it would take that horrific thing a while to tear its way through, if it even could.
We finally staggered back from the small room and found ourselves in a large lab with red flashing lights. I collapsed into the first chair I found and dug into my backpack, pulling out a bag of jerky, and began eating monotonously to fill the empty space in my gut, tasting nothing. When I pushed the backpack back in place, I noticed the shotgun hanging at my side, forgotten in my blind terror.
“I think we know what was birthed in that horror show you and Dee found,” Shandra said, stepping over to one of the computer terminals and tapping the keyboard until the screen flickered. “Outstanding, the system is up!”
She glanced over to me and I drew in a firm breath and gave her a nod that I was okay, even though the fear still rankled inside. As Shandra checked over the testing machines and systems, I went around the lab, trying to remember what I’d seen on the map above and double-checking that we were secure.
I’d just stepped out of one of the side doors when a roaring and crashing sound announced the monster had returned. By the time I raced back into the small room at the base of the steps, heart hammering and fear gripping my throat tight, it had given up after a few seconds of beating on the door. I could hear it lumbering back up the steps, great breath huffing out its horrific mouth.
“This shouldn’t take me more than a couple hours,” Shandra said, fear making her voice tight as she fiddled with the dials on a small machine and pulled out the Styrofoam container she’d stored the vials of Brianna’s blood in.
“I’ll check if there’s another way out of here,” I said, moving off.
My thoughts strayed to Dee, but I told myself I couldn’t worry about that now. The woman was the most capable person I’d ever met, and if anyone could survive up there, it would be her.
The downstairs didn’t have another exit that I could find, but I did find a weapons cabinet with two pump-action shotguns and shells. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I loaded both 16-gauge weapons and slung them over my shoulders. I didn’t think a shotgun was going to be enough to stop that monster, but having the added firepower made me feel a bit better about exploring the dark basement.
The second lab and all the offices were empty, with nothing of interest in either, but the last two rooms I checked both held treasures. The first wasn’t exactly a room, but more of a closet-sized wall safe. The massive steel door had a spinning tumbler and finger ID, in order to unlock its great tumblers, but with the power off, the lock must not have been engaged, because I was able to slip a crowbar into the gap and work it outward.
Steel screeched something awful before it finally popped open. But when it did, I found three racks of vials neatly labeled and filled with different-colored liquids.
The top shelf’s rack was empty save for one vial of green liquid labeled: Enkyos Prime. The second shelf had a dozen small vials that were fully sealed, the glass neatly pinched together at the top. Each was half full of a muddy brown liquid and wrapped with a small label that read: Balpha Reversion Viral Agent. The third rack had the most vials, all filled with a milky white liquid and labeled simply: Viral Base.
I wasn’t sure what any of it was, but the second shelf gave me pause and I grabbed one of each and hurriedly finished my search of the basement. When I got back to Shandra, she’d managed to switch the overhead lights from flashing red to a steady glow that cast the room in an eerie light.
“Look at what I found,” I said, holding out the vials for her to scan.
Dr. Gupta looked in her element with her glasses pulled down to the tip o
f her nose, a wheeled stool beneath her as she hunched over a microscope with a machine spinning beside her. She peered up, and I caught her scent, still strong in fear but alive with a curiosity that was stronger than any I’d scented.
“Fascinating, set them on the table here, and I’ll see if I can find any notes on them on the servers.”
“Do you need help with anything?” I asked, feeling useless.
“Not really,” Shandra said, peering back through her microscope. “It’s really just waiting for the tests to finish running—”
Another terrible roar from above alerted me that the monster still was on the prowl, and I cursed myself silently when a shiver of fear ran through me.
“That’s unsettling, isn’t it?” Dr. Gupta asked after her trembling ceased. “Do you think Donatella survived?”
“She must have,” I said, biting off the rest of what I was going to say when my voice warbled with emotion.
Dr. Gupta patted my arm, and from her concerned scent and expression, she knew what I was feeling.
“I’m going to explore this floor some more,” I said, needing to be moving and busy. “Call if you need anything.”
“I will, and you be careful. If anything happens to you, Ava and Madge will never forgive me.”
I’d already given the basement a quick once-over, but searching it in greater detail allowed me to focus on the terror and fear the monster awoke in me. The instinctual response was so powerful it had overridden all my other instincts and desires earlier. I felt the beast within me shying away whenever I thought of that scent.
The fear was understandable, I told myself, for who wouldn’t be terrified if they saw a mutated monster with a mouth as wide as a man’s shoulders and claws for fingers?
Fear was necessary to all living beings, but what I’d experienced didn’t feel natural. As I puzzled over the feelings and how they’d affected me, I poked in cabinets and pulled out drawers, nosing my way through every room.
One room, that I’d mistaken for a utility closet because it was filled with tall, locked cabinets, turned out to house a large video library. One of the cabinets held an old television and a VCR, while the other cabinets held stacks of VHS tapes clearly labeled.
Most of the tapes were in chronological order, with a tape for every day stretching back years and years. Some of the dates extended back into the 60s and 70s, before VHS was even invented, and I figured they must have transferred film over to the VHS at some point.
There was a small stack of tapes in one cabinet that weren’t in chronological order. The top tape was labeled: “First Contact.” The second said: “First Breeding.” And the third tape read: “Testimonial.”
Chapter 12
Checking that the VCR and TV were working, I popped the first VHS in and winced when static erupted out of the speakers. A few seconds later, a grainy black-and-white film began rolling, showing a short woman in a white lab coat, seated across from a large fellow with wide shoulders and a heavy brooding brow.
Historical Record Of Test Subject #2: Initial Agreement With Alpha Candidate
An electronic hiss and pop emitted from the speakers, and a second later sound emerged from the woman as she spoke with the man, motioning to a folder of papers before him.
“Let me explain,” the woman said quickly. “From historical evidence in human blood, it appears that a few special individuals spread these powerful traits widely, and from those lines they’ve matriculated down into the wider population. Take, for instance, the desire to triumph over tremendous adversity… In nature, most animals would roll over and die, but because Genghis Khan spread that trait so widely, we’ve benefited from it for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, the results of our study won’t be publishable for a generation or more, but the doctor and I believe we can see the truth of it here, in you, sir.”
“In me?” asked the man.
“Oh yes, Dean.” Her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink as she went on. Drawing out a long sheet and reading down it, she said, “I established the testing criteria based on the doctor’s assessment of beneficial traits. We’ve run nearly three thousand tests on different men, and none have come back with more than a thirty percent match. But you, Mr. Williams… you check every single trait we’ve been searching for. It’s almost a miracle.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“The catalyst Dr. Wagner’s designed will only activate if it reaches a certain threshold of synchronicity with its host.” Seeing the confusion on his face, she went on quickly. “It’s more effective the higher your percentage match is.”
The video dissolved into static once again, and I rewound the tape and played it again. Seeing Dee’s grandfather made me wish the young woman was down here with me. I could see the similarities between the two, from the sharp-eyed stare to their habit of pinching their eyes together when they frowned.
More interesting than seeing Dean Williams was hearing about the Catalyst. Dee hadn’t mentioned anything about percentage matches. Popping out the tape, I slipped in the second one and hit play.
CATALYST METABOLIZED @ 92%, BASER INSTINCTS STILL RULE MUCH OF THE SUBJECT’S PSYCHE.
100% METABOLIZATION MAY CONTROL/DIMINISH THE “BREEDING DRIVE,” A POSITIVE OUTCOME BUT PROJECT ENKYOS IS UNLIKELY TO ACQUIRE A SUBJECT WITH THAT LEVEL OF SELF CONTROL.
SUBJECT IS NONVIOLENT, UNLIKE SUBJECT #1: BALPHA
The thick stenciled lettering scrolled up from the bottom of the screen, and I was still sorting through the new information when another grainy black image appeared. There was no sound this time, and the perspective was from the upper corner of a room.
The first clip showed Dean Williams again, this time dressed in a robe that looked to be lined with something heavy. The man had changed since the last video, but I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. His muscles were more defined and his hair thicker and more lustrous, if not longer. I couldn’t make out any details with the old, grainy footage, but it wasn’t the man that held my interest but the cute nurse trembling before him.
Dean said something to the woman, and she fell to her knees, eyes gazing up at the tall man with something like worship in her eyes. I knew that expression and expected what came next as Dean whipped the heavy robe off and flung it aside. He spoke again, or perhaps growled, I couldn’t be sure without sound, and the woman dove forward, her head disappearing into the man’s crotch.
Before I could hit fast forward, the scene skipped to show another room where a group of beautiful women lounged. I was wondering what I was looking at until a piece of string hanging from one of the ceiling vents began wafting, as if the vents had been opened, and the women reacted immediately.
It was like a wave passed through them, affecting some more than others. The women fluttered their blouses and blinked rapidly. Two even stood and walked closer to the vent, heads tilted back as if they were scenting the air. One of the women pressed a hand between her legs before glancing around shyly and noticing others doing the same.
“The pheromone effects are unexpected”—a male voice, thick with a German accent, began speaking over the recording—“but evidence of the awakening of the hidden traits I theorized. By harnessing dormant alpha traits, we seem to have tapped into a new paradigm. Or perhaps merely an ancient one that mankind lost along the way.”
The image switched once again to a scene of carnal bliss as Dean Williams bent a gorgeous black-skinned woman over. Another beautiful woman lay with a blissful expression on her face. Once more the narration sounded over the video, as the image shifted to show another wild orgy scene, the footage too grainy to make out much detail.
“The potential of such a being… one who almost fully metabolizing Enkyos Serum, is nearly limitless. But I fear their baser instincts will constrain them even more than they do mankind. Fear, lust, these emotions can rule them. My suspicion of a base intellect, a primordial mind subsumed by higher thought may prove true, and if it does, integration with the psyche will be
paramount but nearly impossible, I fear. Subject number one was clear enough evidence of that.”
The video clicked off after the voice stopped speaking, and I rewound it again, memorizing every word the man said. Hearing that I might not have full control of my faculties awoke a deep anxiety in me and also confirmed my worst suspicions. So far, I’d managed not to give in to the desires. I’d kept my honor back in Olympus when opportunity and beauty surrounded me, but how long would my control last?
The thoughts disturbed me more than I wanted to admit to myself, and I set them aside for now and pulled out the third tape. I almost didn’t want to hit play, fearing what else I might learn.
The video clicked on and showed a slender man with a haunted expression and dark rings around his eyes. Even with the old black and white film, it was clear he’d just gone through something rough and was still shaken. The female voice from the first video spoke from somewhere behind the camera.
“Please describe your experience once the Catalyst took hold and be as descriptive as possible please.”
“It’s like I told the other doctor,” the man said in a rough voice. “Soon as you put that shit in my arm, the lights and sounds pressed in on me and… I felt things.”
“What things precisely subject number one?”
The man’s eyes grew hunted, and he shifted in his seat, clasping his hand before him and pausing before he went on. “I wanted… women. It’s all I could think about. It’s shameful to admit, but I suppose that drug was the cause. But if you hadn’t put me in that cage, I’d have done something terrible.”
“Once the mutations took hold, you mean?”
“Yes…” The man looked away, his eyes haunted as they gazed into the distance. “I could smell you… your nurses… the need in your bodies to be dominated by a man of power. I needed to be that man, to… to fill you.” He shook his head and fell silent.
New World Alpha: Book Three (A Harem Fantasy) Page 6
