• not gonna make it—
Even as she realized that they’d be overtaken, she
heard David gasp out, “Next turn—“
• and as they reached the end of the empty stretch where the tunnel curved again, Rebecca whirled around, raising the Beretta in her sweating, shaking hand, training it back on the last turn they’d taken. John and David flanked her, gasping, nine-milli-meters aimed alongside hers. Twenty meters of blank passage, filled with the now deafening cries of their unseen pursuers.
As the first of them tore into view, all three of them fired, slugs ripping into the creature that at first Rebecca thought was a lioness—then a giant lizard—then a dog. She caught only a mad, patchwork vision of the impossible thing, seeing parts of it that her mind fit into a whole—the slitted, cat-like pupils. The giant snake head, a gaping, slavering jaw filled with bladed teeth. The squat and powerful barrel-chested body, sand-colored, thick legs bowing in front, mus-cular, springing haunches propelling it toward them at an incredible speed—
• and even as the bullets found its strange, reptili-an flesh, there was another behind it—
• and the first explosive rounds that smacked into the thick body of the closest creature knocked it off of its clawed feet, staggered it backward as blooms of watery blood spattered the tunnel walls—
• and, shaking its head, screaming in ferocious sorrow, it launched itself at them again.
• oh shit—
Rebecca squeezed the trigger again, four, five, six, her mind screaming as loudly as the two monstrous animals that ran at them, eight, nine, ten—
• and the first went down, stayed down, but there was still the second and now a third, tearing down the tunnel, and the Beretta only held fifteen rounds—
We’re gonna die—
David jumped back, behind the line of thundering fire. An empty clip skittered across the floor, and then he was next to her again, aiming and squeezing, the Beretta jerking smoothly in his practiced hand. Rebecca counted her last round and stumbled back-ward, praying that she could do it as fast as David—
• and saw that the third animal was stumbling back, its wide chest gushing thin streamers of red. It collapsed into the puddle of watery fluid it created and stayed there.
Nothing in the tunnel moved, but there were at least two more around the corner. Their wailing cries continued to wax and wane through the tunnel, but they stayed back, out of sight—as if they knew what had happened to their siblings, and were too smart to charge into waiting death.
“Fall back,” David said hoarsely, and still aiming at the blind corner, they started to edge backward, the shrieks of the hybrid creatures rolling over them in lonely, terrible waves.
Griifith moved quickly away from the door when he heard the key in the lock, not wanting to be too close to whomever Alan had brought along. He had Thur-man already standing ready, just in case there were any sudden moves—but when he saw the young man and his passive partner step into the lab, he
doubted he’d have any trouble.
What’s this? A few too many drinks, perhaps? An unseen mortal wound?
Griffith smiled, waiting for him to speak or for the woman to move, his heart full and warm with good humor. It had been so long since he’d talked to someone who could respond without prompting, and the fact that his fine plan had worked made him all the merrier. Behind him, Alan sealed the door and stood blankly, holding two weapons on the unlikely pair.
The young man gazed wide-eyed around the labora-tory, his dark gaze settling on the wide airlock win-dow in something like awe. The woman’s head was down, rolling across her chest.
He had the deep, natural tan of a Hispanic, or perhaps someone from India. Not too tall, but sturdy enough. Yes, he’d do quite nicely . . . and since this might even have been the one to destroy Athens, there was a certain poetic justice being served. - The youth’s darting gaze finally rested on Griffith, curious and not altogether as frightened as Griffith would have liked.
We’ll see about that. . . .
“Where are we?” the young man asked quietly. “You are in a chemical research laboratory, approx-imately twenty meters below the surface of Caliban Cove,” Griffith said. “Interesting, yes? Those clever designers even built it inside of a shipwreck—or they built the shipwreck around the lab, I forget ex—“ “Are you Thurman?”
Such manners!
Griffith smiled again, shaking his head. “No. That fat, hopeless creature standing to your left is Dr. Thurman. I am Nicolas Griffith. And you might be...?”
Before the young man could speak, the woman rolled her head up, a wobbling white face looking around in fixed, helpless hunger.
An infected one!
“Thurman, take the woman and hold her,” Griffith said quickly. He couldn’t have her damaging the fine specimen Alan had managed to catch—
• but as Thurman grabbed for the female, the young man resisted, pushing at Louis with fast, angry hands, a sneer of bravado on his face.
Griffith felt a pulse of distress. “Alan, hit him!” Dr. Kinneson brought his hand up quickly, crack-ing the struggling youth a smart blow across the back of his skull; he stopped fighting just long enough for Thurman to pull the woman away.
“She’s gone,” Griffith said forcefully, wondering why on earth anyone would want to hang on to one of those. “Look at her, can’t you see she’s not human anymore? She’s one of Birkin’s puppets, one of the pathetically altered hungry. A zombie. A Trisquad unit without training.”
Even as Griffith spoke, a fascinating turn of events took place. The woman squirmed around in Thur-man’s grasp—and with one quick movement, darted forward and bit into Louis’s face. She pulled back with a thick, bloody mouthful of his cheek and started to chew enthusiastically.
“Karen, oh my God, no— “
For as upset as he sounded, the young man didn’t move to do anything about it. For that matter, neither did Louis. The doctor stood calmly, blood pouring down his face, watching the T-Virus drone lustily swallow the piece of tender flesh. Griffith was trans-fixed.
“Look at that,” he said softly. “Not a grimace ot pain, not a flutter of emotion .. . smile, Louis!” Thurman grinned even as the woman lunged for-ward again, managing to snag his protruding lower lip. With a wet, tearing sound, the lip ripped away, exposing an even wider grin. Blood gushed. The woman chewed.
Amazing. Absolutely breathtaking.
The young man was quivering, his deep tan under-shot with a sickly pallor. He didn’t seem to appreciate what he was seeing, and Griffith realized that he probably wouldn’t; the woman must have been a friend.
Too bad. Pearls before swine . . .
“Alan, take hold of our young man, and hold him tightly.”
The youth didn’t struggle, too absorbed in the apparent horror that he was experiencing. The female got another piece of cheek, and Louis’s smile wa-vered, probably from muscle trauma.
As much as Griffith wanted to continue watching, there was work to be done. The young man’s other friends might manage to put down the Ma7s—and if they succeeded with that, they might come looking for their bright young man.
But by then, he’ll be my bright young man.... Griffith walked to a counter and picked up a measured syringe, tapping the side of it with one finger. He turned to the silent guest, wondering if he should reveal his brilliant scheme for catching his friends. Wasn’t that what “villains” always did in movies? He considered it only briefly, then decided against it; he’d always considered it a foolish plot point. And he was far from villainous. It was they who had invaded his sanctuary, threatened his plans for creating worldwide peace. There was no question who the evildoers were in this story.