56
Guthe’s body started changing shortly after the guards
bundled it onto a stretcher and carried it away, but as it was
hidden beneath a sheet, they didn’t notice. There were
strange sounds coming from it, popping and crackling
sounds, which they just took for the sounds of strain in the
stretcher or the scuffling of their boots in the passageway.
They took it to one of the labs and slid it onto the table,
the sheet still on top of it. The three dissectors had followed
them at a distance, whispering, holding on to their icons.
They filed into the room as the guards left.
“We should contact Field,” the first of them said. “He’ll
want to know.”
One of the others nodded. “I’ll contact him,” he said, and
activated the room’s comlink.
A strange, wet sound came from under the sheet,
followed by a snap, like a bone breaking. The sheet
fluttered.
“What’s that?” asked one.
“Just the body settling,” claimed another.
“It didn’t sound that way to me,” said the first.
“Hello, Field?” said the third into the comlink. Field’s tired
face appeared on the holovid.
“Hideki,” he said. “Why are you calling me so late?
What’s wrong?”
Another crack came from the sheet, even louder this
time. The shape underneath it had changed noticeably.
“What was that?” asked Field.
“Just a minute,” said Hideki.
“That’s more than a body settling,” said one of the others.
“You’re right,” said the third.
Slowly, they moved forward. One of them reached out,
tugged the sheet off, let it fall to the floor.
What lay beneath hardly looked human anymore. The
head was still there, but was now embedded in a curtain of
flesh, some deformation of what had once been the
shoulders. It was animate, moving slightly, what was left of
its chest heaving up and down with rapid movements. The
legs had atrophied and the arms had lengthened. The body
had flatted and ribs and skin seemed to have spread out to
create a winglike structure between the wrist and what was
left of the ankle, like the body of a manta ray. It was an
unhealthy, morbid color. The eyes were sunken in and had
a strange gleam to them.
“Professor Field, are you seeing this?” asked Hideki.
“What is it?” said Field.
“Oh my God,” said one of the other two.
There was another cracking noise, and the body
changed further, what was left of the face receding,
becoming lost except for the eyes and the mouth, which
was now little more than a hole. It split open at the end,
dissolving there into a mass of tentacles or antennae now,
almost insectoid. The hands and feet shriveled, and hooks
of bone sprouted in their place. It made a shrieking sound
and began to struggle.
Field shouted at them to run. The alarm started to sound
again. Professor Hideki Ishimura fled, his only thought
being to get as far away as quickly as possible.
The other two researchers were paralyzed with fear.
“Run!” Field kept yelling at them. “Run!” But they didn’t
move. The creature flipped itself over. It sat there, draped
over the edge of the table, wheezing slightly, body bobbing
up and down.
One of the scientists gave a little cry and rushed for the
door. The creature leapt, wrapping itself around his
shoulders and face, pressing itself wetly against his face.
He was screaming, and then the scream was suddenly
stifled. Through the vid feed, Field watched as a strange
proboscis suddenly sprouted from it with a tearing sound
and stabbed through the researcher’s eye and deep into
his skull. It pulsed, pumping something in.
The other slid into the corner and, moaning, clenched his
eyes shut. “Run!” Field screamed again, but he didn’t pay
any attention.
The first researcher had collapsed in a heap, the
creature retracting its proboscis and slowly moving off him.
A minute later, maybe even just seconds later, he started to
change, his body beginning to shake. As Field watched, his
skin changed to a deep lavender, almost purple. There was
a wet tearing sound, and blades of bone sprouted from his
shoulders, his upper arms suddenly fading into his chest,
his forearms and flexing fingers now seeming to sprout
from his stomach wall. His hair fell away, his eyes growing
hollow, his ears oozing down his face to join with his neck.
Slowly it stood and stumbled toward the lab door.
The last scientist was still crouched in the corner,
whimpering slightly. The creature that had been Guthe,
clumsy on the floor now, dragged itself awkwardly toward
him, and then leapt. Field cut the feed so as not to have to
listen to the screams.
57
He was dreaming. He was walking down an empty beach,
holding Ada’s hand.
Michael? she asked.
“Yes?” he said.
Do you love me?
He didn’t know how to answer, so so didn’t. He loved Ada;
he was sure of that. But he didn’t understand how she had
changed. How they had moved apart.
I need you to do something for me, she said.
“What?” he said.
I want to have a baby, she said.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
She nodded. That’s what I need, she said. It’ll bring us
closer together.
And then in the dream there began a faraway insistent
sound. At first he hardly noticed it, but it grew louder and
louder. Ada was still speaking, almost as if she didn’t hear
it, but he could no longer hear what she was saying. And
then both she and the beach around them began to be
eaten away by darkness, slowly coming unraveled, and he
woke up.
The sound was still going. Someone had triggered the
alarm again. He got out of bed, got quickly dressed, and
went out into the hall. It was deserted. In the room behind
him, he heard the comlink go live.
“Altman?” it said. “Altman, this is Field. Are you there?”
He went back, switched the visual on. “I’m here,” he said.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Field said. His face was
bone white. “I saw it, but can’t hardly believe what I saw. It’s
horrible, absolutely horrible. Get to safety, Altman, as quick
as you can.”
“Calm down, Field,” said Altman. “Tell me what you’re
talking about.”
“It sprouted swords,” said Field. “Just had them sprout
out of its back like—”
Somewhere in the background came a scream. Field
whirled around, and Altman saw he was holding a gun. The
vid clicked off.
Down the hall he heard screams. He poked his head out,
saw a researcher running toward him.
“What’s wrong?” Altman asked. “Wait a minute. Stop!”
But the man kept running. “They’re everywhere!” he
called back over his shoulder. “You shoot them and they still
keep coming at you.” And then he was around the corner
and gone.
I’m still asleep, Altman thought. He closed his eyes and
shook his head, and then opened his eyes again. No, it
was still as it had been, more screams and now even the
sound of gunfire.
He rushed back into the room and looked around for a
weapon. Nothing there. He went out again and down the
hall in the direction the man had run, walking very quickly.
Rounding a corner, he saw the corridor barricaded by a
laboratory table turned on its side. He headed for it, and
shots rang out, thunking into the wall beside his face.
“Don’t shoot!” he cried, raising his hands above his
head. “It’s me, Altman.”
A chorus of shouts, and the firing stopped. Someone
from behind the table waved to him, and he moved to the
table and pulled himself over it, down among them.
“Altman,” said Showalter. “I’m glad they didn’t get you.”
“Get me?” said Altman. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t exactly know,” said Showalter, his eyes darting
nervously from side to side. “I’ve only seen one of them, but
I wish I hadn’t. It was monstrous. It had bone scythes
instead of arms and legs and it scuttled like a spider. Its
head just hung there, swinging, staring down at the floor, but
it seemed to see us anyway. I don’t know who it used to be,
but you could tell from the remnants of clothing that it used
to be someone, that it used to be human. It sure as hell isn’t
human now. Something’s gone horribly wrong.”
“I gathered that,” said Altman. He looked around. One of
the other men was someone he vaguely recognized. White,
he thought his name was. The third he didn’t know.
“Here,” said Showalter, and handed him a gun. “Got this
off a guard who had his head torn off. Don’t know that it’ll
help much. When you shoot them, they don’t seem to die.
They just keep coming.”
Altman took the weapon. “How many people left alive?”
he asked.
Showalter shrugged. “How do I know? The four of us
counting you,” he said. “Probably a few guards. There’s a
few others running around.”
“Field vided me not long ago, so he’s still alive,” said
Altman. “It must have started down here. Maybe it hasn’t
made it to the top part of the facility yet, to the part above
water.”
“Maybe not,” said Showalter.
“Vid Field,” said Altman. “Tell him to get up there and
seal the lock, wait for us on the other side. We’ll fight our
way up and once we’re there, he can let us through.”
Showalter passed the order along to one of the other two
men with him, someone called Peter Fert, who took out his
holopod and got to work.
From the far end of the hall came an eerie bellow and
then something shuffled around the corner. It stood roughly
as tall as a man, but the arms it had looked like the arms of
a child. They protruded from its stomach. From its
shoulders had sprouted two jointed scythes of bone, like
the wings of a featherless bird. Its skin was mottled and
seeping, disgusting to look at, and it smelled faintly of
rotting meat. It was humanoid, but Altman wouldn’t have
guessed it had once been human if the tattered uniform of a
guard weren’t still clinging to its torso.
“Holy shit,” whispered Altman.
“Keep trying to contact Field, Fert,” said Showalter,
keeping his voice low. “We’ll hold it off. Oh, and if you can
help it, men, try not to send too many bullets into the walls of
the passage. Last thing we want is to be flooded out.”
White, Altman saw, was holding his gun so tight that his
knuckles were white.
The thing shuffled slowly in their direction and then
stopped dead. It made a grunting sound and then, with a
cry, rushed at them.
“Fire!” screamed Showalter.
All three of them fired at once. The shots slowed it a little,
but didn’t seem to permanently harm it. It just kept coming.
Altman aimed carefully for the head and fired three times
quickly. At least two of the shots connected—he saw the
bursts of flesh and blood as they went in—but the creature
continued forward unfazed.
And then it was on them, looming over the barrier. They
crouched down and kept firing, trying to keep it at a
distance, but with remarkable ease it leaned in through the
hail of bullets and plucked up White.
The man screamed and tried to run. The creature’s
scythes were gouging into White’s back, which had already
grown bloody. It pulled him close like a lover and leaned in
to bite his neck.
It was terrible to watch, White flopping like a fish out of
water, screaming in a way Altman had heard only once
before, when a rabbit had been shot in the head but lived
long enough to realize it was desperately hurt. The creature
was making a grotesque mumbling sound, drooling as well
as biting, and shaking its head so bits of flesh and gore
spattered about.
Altman’s first impulse was to run. The only reason he
didn’t was because of a fleeting selfish thought. If I don’t kill
it, he thought, I’ll be next.
He moved as close as he could and put the gun’s barrel
up against the creature’s neck and rattled off four shots. It
was enough, at point-blank range, to tear the thing’s head
mostly off, to get its teeth away from White’s neck. But even
without the head, the body kept moving.
“Don’t these things ever die?” shouted Altman.
Showalter just grunted. He was imitating what Altman
had done, holding the pistol at the joint of the scythe. He
pulled the trigger and fired and the blast tore it off.
“That’s it!” said Altman. “Maim it!” He brought his gun low
and shot three times, until the thing’s leg collapsed and it
tilted to one side and went down, taking White with it.
Altman vaulted the barrier and was on top of it. He fired and
stomped on its remaining limbs, kept stomping until it was
in enough pieces that he didn’t think it could do any
damage. Even then, he wasn’t sure it was dead. He was
only sure that it was incapacitated enough that it couldn’t
hurt him.
He stepped back, stunned. His shoes and legs were
slick with blood, blood spattered on his chest and arms,
too. White, he saw was still alive, but in shock, his back a
bloody mass. Altman knelt down beside him and slapped
his face, tried to get him to pay attention. The man’s eyes
flicked slightly and then clouded over. He was dead.
“Is he all right?” asked Showalter.
Altman opened his mouth and gave him artificial
respiration for a moment, trying to breathe him back to life,
tasting the dead man’s blood on his lips.
Showalter touched his shoulder.
“Leave him,” he said.
He looked up and shook his head. He was just turning
back toward the mouth when he heard a crack, saw White’s
torso convulse.
He pushed away from it and scrambled back. The body
seemed to be going through a fit, shaking and contorting.
And then it began to change.
Altman watched, horrified, trying to keep his panic under
control. “What the hell is going on?” he said.
“He’s changing,” said Showalter. “He’s one of them now.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” said Altman.
“I’m afraid there’s one more thing we have to do,” said
Showalter.
“What’s that?” asked Altman.
“We need to take steps to make sure he doesn’t come
after us.”
Altman nodded, his lips grim. “You mean . . .” he said.
“We’re going to have to dismember him.”
· · ·
The two of them were standing together, breathing heavily,
staring down at blood and gore on the floor, the pieces of
the creature, and of the partially transformed White. I’ll
never be the same, thought Altman, and he could tell by the
way Showalter dodged his gaze that he felt similarly. He’d
been having nightmares before, but he had material for an
entirely new set of them now.
“I got through to Field,” said Peter Fert. “He says as far
as he can determine, the creatures are still all in the lower
levels. He’ll try to get to the airlock and shut it, and then wait
for us to contact him.”
“If we’re going to make it, we’ll need something other
than guns,” said Altman. “Bullets don’t do enough. They
barely even slow the things down.”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Showalter.
“We raid the labs and janitorial closets as we go,” said
Altman. “See what we can find. Anything that’ll cut off a limb
or get partway there.”
They found, in the first lab they came to, a handheld
plasma cutter, which, by unscrewing the guard, could be
made into a close-combat weapon. Showalter recalibrated
a laser pistol taken off a dead guard using the tools of the
next lab to give it a wider beam, something with a little
slicing power. Peter Fert dug up a laser scalpel, modified it
to cut through an object as thick as a wrist.
“Probably won’t stop them,” said Altman.
“First thing I’m worried about is cutting through their
scythes,” said Fert. “If I can get that far, I’ll be lucky.”
“All right,” said Altman. “What do we have to lose? Let’s
go.”
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