Holes in the Ground (46 page)

“You believe in all that? I mean, you’ve killed people before and you guard a prison full of monsters. You still think there’s a God.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I just think that God has his hands a little fuller than we would believe. As much as I believe in Him, I also believe that there’re evil forces that work against Him.”

“So you’re saying that there’s, like, an evil God as well?”

“People like to question God for letting bad things happen. Doesn’t it make more sense that it’s because he isn’t in total control. I’ve always believed that God does what he can but that there are forces which seek to bring him down. Seeing the abominations in this prison has only increased my belief of that.”

Jerry sighed. “I don’t know what to believe. All I know is that the world was a pretty sucky place before you showed me all of the monsters you have locked up down here.”

Rimmer raised his fist in victory as the back panel of the radio popped off and fell into the sand. There was an immediate burst of static letting them both know that the unit was once again live.

Rimmer started trying to reach people right away. He pressed the transceiver button and spoke in clipped tones. “This is Rimmer. Report back. Report back.”

There was no answer from any of the people Rimmer tried.

“You think everybody is dead?” Jerry asked.

“I hope not.” Rimmer twisted the dial on the handset a few more times and then rubbed his beard as if he had a thought coming to him. “Hold on a minute… Yes, almost. There!”

The radio speaker broke free of static and picked up the clear sound of voices.

“Who is that?”

“It’s the conference room,” said Rimmer. “I’ve tuned into the intercom on the desk. I think… I think it’s one of my men, West, and… Is that Andy Dennison?”

Jerry nodded. “Definitely. Let him know we’re here.”

“I can’t. We can only listen.”

“So how does this help us?”

“It doesn’t. But at least we know we’re not the only ones alive. If we sit tight, things might turn towards the better.”

Jerry frowned. The sound of slithering and creeping beasts in the corridor told him otherwise. He placed his head in his hands and fought the urge to weep. Dying like a man suddenly seemed important.

Why couldn’t I be trapped in a cell with Nessie instead of this arsehole?

Shit, Nessie? Is she okay?

Jerry looked up. “Did you hear Nessie’s voice on your radio? Is she with Mr Dennison?”

They listened for a few moments to the hushed conversation that was going on nine floors below.

Rimmer shook his head. “I hear a couple of my men, Andy Dennison, and a few of Dr Gorman’s lab assistants if I’m not mistaken. No one else though.”

Jerry’s head dropped. “I hope she’s okay.”

“You really like her?”

“She was nice to me; seemed to like me. That’s pretty rare.”

Rimmer placed the radio down on the sand carefully and looked at Jerry. “Seems to me you set out to make people not like you.”

Jerry shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know why I do it. I’m just kind of an obnoxious dork.”

“No, you’re not. You act like an obnoxious dork so that people don’t like you. I think you do that because you can’t take people not liking you for who you really are. You can’t accept rejection so you make sure that nobody gets a chance to learn who you really are. Textbook single-parent upbringing. You feel rejected by your father and you developed natural defences against being rejected by anyone else.”

Jerry huffed. “I didn’t realise you had a side gig as a psychiatrist. How you know so much about me anyway?”

“I pulled up your file when you arrived. British Government only lists a mother for you, no father.”

“And you think you know me because of that?”

Rimmer twiddled with his beard. “No, I think that because I know myself. “I didn’t have a father either. Drifted through life, acting like an asshole, getting in fights, pushing people away. I joined the army just to separate myself from society.”

“So that’s why you’re such a hardass, then?”

“Nope, I’m a hardass because it’s my job to be. If I’m not, people die. I came to terms with who I am a long time ago. It comes with age. Back when I was your age, though, I was pretty screwed up.”

Jerry nodded and spoke quietly. “Are you trying to say I should cheer up, that things will be better in the future? Because I’ve heard all that shit before.”

“I’m no fortune teller. I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going to happen to you in the future. All I know is that you went running back into this hellhole as soon as you realised that the Dennisons might be in danger—people you’ve only known for a couple days. There’s a lot to be said about loyalty and courage like that. Made me realise there’s more to you than a wise-cracking limey.”

Jerry laughed. “Thanks. Guess you’re not the arsehole I thought you were either.”

Rimmer cackled heartily. He grabbed a handful of sand and through it at Jerry. “You’re lucky I don’t kick your ass.”

Jerry was still laughing when there was a thud against the cell door. Both men turned and looked up.

A man stood at the glass hatch, bleeding face pressed up against it.

“What the hell?”

“That’s Newman. I saw him get ripped apart earlier by that spider.”

Jerry looked at the man’s torn open face and swallowed. Then he watched as the Basilisk re-appeared in the hatch. It was holding Newman’s dead body by the neck.

“What’s it doing?” Jerry asked, jumping up and peering out of the glass window.

The basilisk grabbed a hold of Newman’s hand and shoved it against the LED screen beside the cell door.

“Oh, shit,” said Jerry. “It’s accessing the cell. You think she’s going to get in?”

The siren above the cell began to sound and the door unlocked with a
clunk
.

Rimmer drew his weapon. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she is going to get in. I also retract my statement about not being a fortune teller. I can see the future very clearly now. We’re both screwed.”

Now that all immediate threats were dealt with, Andy turned his mind back to his wife. Sun lay unconscious at his feet, a nasty looking gash along her forehead to match the sickly wound on her neck.

Andy dropped down beside her. “Sun? Sun, wake up?”

West popped a new magazine into his smoking assault rifle and came over. “Is she okay? What happened to her?”

Andy shook his head. “I don’t know. She was like the nurses, possessed or under some sort of mind control. I’ve never seen her act like that. I need to help her.”

“How?”

Andy fought back tears. “I don’t know. She’s been unconscious since Lucas blew the steel fence out of his cell and hit her.”

“Sorry about that, lad.”

“Bring her to my lab,” said Dr Gorman, entering from the rear of the conference room. “There are medical supplies there. I can see what I can do for her.”

Andy craned his neck. “Dr Gorman. I’m so glad you’re okay. Do you think you can help her?”

“Of course. Bring her.”

West helped Andy get Sun up off the floor and they carried her through into the lab complex. The area was completely deserted and seemed eerie without people in lab coats rushing around or staring into microscopes.

“In here,” said Gorman. “Set her down on the examination table over there.”

Andy did as instructed and carried his wife up onto the oversized padded table in the centre of the room—it was obviously wide enough to accommodate the inhuman creatures of the Spiral. Sun murmured softly as they laid her down but she did not awake. Her eyes were swollen behind her eyelids, stretching the delicate skin and making tiny red veins visible.

“What are you going to do for her?” Andy asked.

Dr Gorman quickly came towards them with a syringe pointed in the air. “I’m going to keep her out for the time being. The human body is far better at healing when it’s resting. Mixed with this tranquiliser is a broad-spectrum anti-biotic. Infection is the biggest fear with an open wound like this. Hopefully it will fight off whatever got into her and made her mad as well. Can you remove what’s left of that bandage, please?”

Andy peeled away the rancid shreds of bandage from his wife’s neck and almost gagged as a jet of yellowish pus leaked out.

“The wound is bad. We’ll have to clean it.” Dr Gorman spoke with one of her nearby lab assistants who had survived the encounter in the conference room. The young man set about collecting alcohol wipes and a bottle of rusty coloured liquid, and then he got to work on Sun’s wound.

“So,” said Dr Gorman, “would anybody care to share with me what in damnation is going on in this facility. All of the cells are open, on all floors. General Kane has no doubt set the emergency protocols to begin and we have a mere matter of minutes to live.”

Andy’s eyes went wide. “All of the cells are open? How do you know that? And what do you mean, we’re all going to die?”

Gorman strode across the lab to a desk in the corner. She tapped her sharp index finger against the computer monitor there. “I have a computer. That’s all I need to know what’s going on around here. I accessed the floor cameras and witnessed the cell doors opening myself. I also checked the root directories to see what Kane’s recent activities on the network were.”

“You can’t do that,” said Ward. “Kane will have your job.”

“And perhaps I would care, if not for the fact that Kane entered the facility’s destruction command. The Spiral is about to become a large chunk of concrete beneath the ground.”

Andy felt the colour drain from his cheeks. “We have to get out of here.”

“Impossible. The elevator is on lockdown and there is no way to resume control of it. Even General Kane himself is set to perish.” There seemed to be the glimmer of a smirk on the woman’s face as she said that.

“Well, can’t we stop the destruction sequence?”

Gorman shrugged her shoulders. “Only Kane can do that, I’m afraid. He initiated the sequence and only he can reverse it. It’s his facility after all.”

West sighed. “If all of the cells are open, there’s no way Kane won’t destroy this place. He has to. He took an oath. We all did.”

“I fucking didn’t,” said Andy. “I’m getting my wife out of here, no matter what.”

“A noble sentiment,” said Gorman. “But nobody is getting out of this place; not us, and—more importantly—not the scum that we swore to contain down here.”

“So why the hell did you even bother trying to help my wife? Why give her antibiotics if she’ll be dead within the hour?”

“Because I am a doctor, and it is my duty to provide care. Besides, Kane may well change his mind. If he does not abort the sequence, then he will die right along with everybody else. It’s only at times like these that we can know the true measure of a man. If he has a backbone, we die. If he’s weak and cowardly, then we may just live out the evening.”

• • •

Kane sat in his office and rubbed at his forehead. The men and women outside in the Nucleus were close to panic and the only thing keeping them under control was the handful of loyal security guards who believed as much in the oath they had taken as he did.

It is our duty to die if it means keeping the facility secure. The creatures inside this hole simply cannot be allowed to surface.

It is the only way.

I have no choice.

Still, the deaths of the men and women left inside the Spiral was enough to burden any man’s heart. Many of them had devoted years of their life to the Order and to die now, so hopelessly, was an affront to their loyalty.

It’s all their fault. That English fool letting out the mongrel and then Mrs Dennison letting out the batling. They no doubt had something to do with all of the other cells opening too. Dr Gorman was right. I should have listened to her.

Now Thandi’s locked me in this hole to die with everybody else.

Perhaps I deserve it.

I’m going to die a failure. After so much distinction; this is how things are going to end.

Kane looked at the camera feeds on his computer. He hovered randomly over each thumbnail to bring up the individual feeds. He watched Dr Gorman take control of a small group of survivors on subbasement 10. He saw Rimmer and Jerry cowering inside a cell on subbasement 1. He witnessed the bloodshed on all other levels in between. The inmates were loose in the asylum and the masters had become the slaves.

At the top of Kane’s computer screen was the countdown for the Spiral’s containment measures. 8:52…8:51…8:50…7:49…

Less than ten minutes to live. A life Kane had been truly honoured to have lived. Being a guardian, a keeper of secrets was the pride of Kane’s life. He would leave this world knowing he had performed his duties admirably, and that when things had gone wrong, he had done what was right—even if his last assignment had ended in disaster, he hoped that his colleagues would see that.

He would see the countdown through. Nothing inside the Spiral could be allowed to live. All must die.

It was for the greater good.

I’m a hero. A hero in the truest sense because almost nobody will ever know of my sacrifice.

God will greet me with open arms.

Kane picked up his phone from its cradle and dialled in the number for his counterpart in Tallahassee. It would be good to say goodbye to an old friend. Nobody should die without having said a few last words.

The phone rang.

And rang.

Odd, Robson always picks up. Calls get routed straight through to him wherever he is.

It was some time before the call was answered. When it was, it was not his old friend Robson speaking but a woman.

“General Robson?”

“No, no, this is Hilary. I’m the logistical head of this facility. Who am I speaking to?”

“General Kane. Where is Robson?”

“I’m sorry to report, General, that General Robson is dead.”

“What? Impossible?”

“I’m afraid not. We have had a serious security breach at our facility. We’ve lost more than half our personnel. I am initiating destruction sequence now and evacuating—if that’s even that option anymore.”