When the human’s smile replaced his agonized expression, EV1L sensed danger—a trap. She screeched a warning to her young as she collapsed into a pool of Black mercury.
The explosions killed Ramirez and every creature in the vicinity instantly. It bulged the surrounding walls before they disintegrated and sent wreckage flying out in all directions. The blast carried flame, smoke and debris along the corridor until its force dissipated.
“Warning. Evacuation protocol in process. Nine minutes until detonation.”
While Krisztina squeezed up between the elevator and wall, Richard glanced down at the large creature almost upon them. One of its long gangling arms reached up for him, its claws grasping air menacingly. Linking an arm around the ladder, Richard pulled Colbert’s pistol from its holster and aimed at the creature’s head. Six shots echoed loudly through the shaft. The creature screeched with each shot jerking its head back. The bullet holes blasted through it, but its face and body quickly reformed. Richard altered aim and fired at the claws wrapped around the ladder. Bullets sliced through its clawed fingers. It toppled back. Gripping on with its feet, it slammed back against the ladder. Its head merged through its body and grew out of its stomach. Its evil eyes looked at him. Its vicious lips snarled.
Ears ringing from the loud reverberating pistol retorts, Krisztina scrambled onto the top of the elevator, slipped the rifle from her shoulder and moved to one edge. She peered down between elevator and wall, took aim on one of the two smaller creatures and fired a short burst.
Flinching from the loud weapon fire, Richard watched one of the small creatures blasted from the wall. Short tentacles thrust from its body failed to find a purchase to halt its tumble down the shaft. Aware it would survive and return and trusting Krisztina had his back covered, Richard holstered the gun and climbed up to her.
To avoid the same fate as its brethren, the second smaller creature melted into sludge and slithered up the wall.
Krisztina turned her attention to the larger creature pulling itself upright on the ladder and fired a short burst. Believing her bullets had been responsible when it burst apart, she changed her mind when tentacles shot out and snaked up the side of the elevator.
“You coming?”
She turned to Richard’s voice and saw him drop through the hole in the elevator roof. She hurried over, passed her rifle down to Richard and lowered herself into the elevator.
With weapons ready to repel any aliens they encountered, they stepped into the darkness shrouding Level 1 and flipped down their NVGs. Richard kicked away the chair preventing the doors from closing—a delaying tactic at most for the creatures in the shaft certain to follow—and joined Krisztina’s rush for the exit elevator.
Richard and Krisztina heard the blast Ramirez had set in motion, twice. A brief boom over Ramirez’s radio before it was obliterated and a longer, louder explosion that rumbled through the facility.
“What the hell was that?” asked Krisztina when Richard pulled alongside her.
“Hopefully Ramirez clearing us a path.” Richard halted at a junction. “Which way?”
Krisztina jerked her weapon right. “That way to next junction, then left, right and at end left again, and elevator will be there.”
“Let’s hope Ramirez is waiting for us with the elevator ready to take us out of here.”
“Warning. Evacuation protocol in process. Eight minutes until detonation.”
They pressed on.
CHAPTER 29
Detonation
Turning a corner, Richard and Krisztina headed towards the gradually thinning smoke lingering in the corridor, evidence the explosion they’d heard a short while ago originated nearby. A few paces farther they stepped over debris and glimpsed the destruction the blast had caused. Through curls of swirling smoke, wrecked walls revealed themselves. Barely recognizable as its former self, it was only the smoldering shells of the CCTV monitors that identified it as the security office.
Richard ran his eyes over the destruction. “Ramirez sure did a number on this.”
“Do you think he was attacked?” asked Krisztina.
“It’s the only reason I can think of for him to have done it,” reasoned Richard, his eyes searching through the choking, drifting smoke for signs of the Black. “Let’s continue to the elevator, he’s probably there waiting for us.” He unnecessarily aimed his mouth towards his mic. “Ramirez, we’re just passing what’s left of the security office and will be at the exit elevator shortly. Colbert, power up the ‘copter, we’re coming.”
Shifting wreckage a few paces away halted them and directed their eyes at the dark shadow rising from the floor.
Wreckage that had rained down upon EV1L, shifted and clattered to the floor when she drew in the edges of the Black pool she had formed to escape death. Her increased mass progressively bulged and grew as she formed into a creature that would provide a defense against the humans she sensed nearby.
*****
Raising their weapons, Richard and Krisztina stepped back and fired at the shadow within the smoke. They ceased firing when the dark phantom disappeared.
Puzzled, Krisztina looked at Richard. “Where did it go?”
Richard shrugged. “Not far I expect.”
“Warning. Evacuation protocol in process. Seven minutes until detonation.”
“Seven minutes,” warned Krisztina.
Richard peered into the smoke. They needed to move, but the alien could be a puddle on the floor, a stain on the blast-blackened walls, a single monstrous creature or a hoard of tiny devils that would flow over them, and anything in-between. He needed to do something fast. Think, Richard, think!
A piece of wreckage fell from the ceiling and clanged to the floor in a nearby blast damaged room. Richard cast his gaze at the sound. The creature was creeping up at them from the side. He grabbed his last grenade from his vest, pulled the pin, showed it to Krisztina so she knew what was coming, and threw it at the sound. “Run!”
They sprinted through the smoke and along the corridor.
The blast wave funneled through the corridor pressed against their backs, almost toppling them to the ground. The already weakened ceiling crashed to the floor behind them. They kept running.
Spotting the elevator ahead and cursing Ramirez for abandoning them, Richard screamed into his mic. “Send the elevator down, now!”
“On its way,” replied Dalton immediately.
Skidding to a halt at the lift, they rushed inside when the doors spread open. Richard thumped the up button, and both, expecting the Black to appear and rip them from the elevator, anxiously watched the gap between the doors get narrower until they met.
Relief flooded over them.
Krisztina turned to Richard when the elevator jerked into motion. “I don’t believe it. We did it.”
Richard shrugged and grinned. “Just another typical day for a hero like me.”
“Every hero deserves a reward.” Krisztina leaned toward Richard and kissed him on the cheek.”
Richard smirked a little lecherously. “I’m hoping that was just an appetizer for what will follow.”
Krisztina smiled. “Brave, resourceful and funny.”
“Just a few of my many talents I’m eager to share with you.”
“You may have impressed me, Richard, but I not sleep with you.”
Richard shrugged.
The elevator trembled, re-awakening their fears.