Holes in the Ground (51 page)

Rimmer caught the sucker and buried his knife in its ribs. It hit the ground, taking the knife with it and out of Rimmer’s hands.

The sucker on his left grabbed a hold of him again, sinking its teeth even deeper into his bleeding wrist. This time the bite ruptured veins and arteries. Rimmer immediately felt light-headed as his blood started to escape into the monster’s sucking mouth.

He smashed his fist into the sucker’s face but no matter how hard he struck, the thing kept its jaws clamped tightly against his wrist. There were slurping sounds as the thing drank his blood.

The sucker with the knife lodged in its ribs got up and grabbed Rimmer’s other arm, biting open his other wrist and draining yet more of his blood.

Rimmer slumped down onto his knees, arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross. He felt himself growing pale.

The batling swopped down so that it was a mere foot from his face. “Enjoy your final moments, slug, as we devour your flesh as you humans would a helpless lamb. That is all you are now: lambs ready to be slaughtered.”

Rimmer snarled and spat at the batling. The wad of phlegm missed the batling, but it was enough to incur its wrath.

The batling swiped its claw and opened up Rimmer’s throat. Barely three seconds passed before all went dark.

• • •

Andy hurried deeper into the lab, searching for the room that held his wife. He found it up ahead and burst through the door. Sun was still sleeping but Dr Gorman was nowhere to be seen. What concerned Andy the most was the respirator mask over Sun’s mouth accompanied by the soft hissing sound of an open valve.

Andy grabbed the mask and threw it aside. He grabbed his wife by the shoulders and shook her. “Sun! Sun, wake up.”

“What is that stuff?” Jerry asked, pointing to the cylinder that was attached to the respirator mask.

West squinted and read the label. “It’s nitrous oxide. We use it to keep the prisoner’s under sedation while conducting tests.”

Andy had fear in his eyes. “Is it fatal?”

West shrugged. “At too high a dose, I’m sure it is.”

Andy shook his wife again. “Sun, wake up.”

“It’s too late, Mr Dennison.” Dr Gorman entered the room from the rear. She held a black revolver in her hand that was almost as big as her wrist to her elbow.”

“What are you talking about?” Andy asked.

“I mean that your wife is dead.”

Andy opened his mouth but no words came out.

“Crazy bitch!” said Jerry.

Dr Gorman snarled and pointed her gun at Jerry. “This is all your fault. When Kane let three strangers down here, I knew it would all end in disaster—even warned him of such.”

Nessie placed her hands up. “Thandi, why are you doing this? Nobody here is to blame.”

Gorman laughed. “Are you fucking joking? Between them they managed to sabotage this entire facility. I watched Mrs Dennison myself open up the batling’s cell.”

“She wasn’t herself,” said Andy, tears in his eyes.

“Well, now she’ll never be anything.”

Andy lunged at Gorman but West shoved him aside just as a shot went off. Andy hit the floor, panting in anger. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

“I did your wife a favour. We’re all going to get ripped apart by the savage beasts that you yourselves released. It’s poetic in a way.”

“You’ve lost the plot, luv,” said Lucas.

“Yeah, she’s a bloody nutcase,” said Jerry.

“One more word out of you and I’ll shoot you in the stomach. Do you have any idea of the pain caused by your stomach acids leaking into your bloodstream and dissolving your organs from within?”

Jerry shrugged. “Is it as painful as listening to you talk?”

Gorman cocked her revolver.

Jerry flinched.

Instead of pulling the trigger, Gorman sighed. “Everybody sit down. West, place your weapon on the floor. I’ve noticed your trigger-finger twitching and I can’t say I care for it.”

West placed his rifle down on the desk and took a seat on a nearby swivel chair. He moved gingerly and Andy wondered if the man had been hurt.

“Now, we’re just going to sit here like good boys and girls until either Kane rediscovers his balls and destroys this place, or those creatures burst into the lab and rip us all apart.”

“Neither option sounds very appealing, Thandi,” said Nessie. “Is there not a third option?”

Gorman snarled. “Nessie, unlike you, when I pledged an oath to Deus Manus, I made the commitment to die one of two ways: defending this facility or destroying it. I will not try and escape. The only reward for doing so would be utter disgrace at what has happened here. While the rest of you may lack integrity, I intend to die with honour.”

“You speak of honour,” Andy spat. “You killed my wife while she was sleeping. You have no more honour than any other murderer.”

Gorman marched over to Andy, gun pointed down at him where he still lay on the floor. “How dare you speak ill of me. You came here and ruined my life, everything I worked for. I had plans, aspirations, and now they are nothing. All. Because. Of. You.”

Gorman pressed the revolver against Andy’s forehead. He reached up onto the table and grabbed a hold Sun’s hand. It was still warm. Then he closed his eyes. “Just do it already. Pull the trigger.”

“You don’t deserve an honourable death, Mr Dennison. You deserve to be executed.”

“Then do it,” he growled.

In Andy’s peripheral vision he spotted movement.

Gorman fired a shot but her arm was forced wide and the bullet buried itself in the ground beside Andy. She fired again, struck Andy in the stomach.

He fell to the ground, winded, but quickly realised that the bullet had lodged inside the thick book he had stuffed down his pants. He’d had a near miss.

Sun threw herself off the operating table and landed on top of Gorman. She let out a screech and began slashing and biting at the doctor. Gorman cried out for help, but no one stepped forward to oblige her.

Andy lay on the floor and watched in horror as his wife tore out Gorman’s eyes with her sharp fingernails. The resounding wail of agony was like grinding machinery.

Andy managed to get to his feet and grab his wife. He pulled her away from Gorman. She scratched and kicked like an enraged feline. Andy had to squeeze her tight in a bear hug to keep her from clawing out his own eyes.

West picked up his rifle from the table.

“No,” cried Andy. “She’s my wife.”

West sighed, turned his weapon on Dr Gorman who was writhing on the floor, blind and dying. He let off a single round, firing into her skull and ending her suffering.

West pointed his rifle at the floor and looked at Andy. “How can we help your wife?”

Andy fought to keep a hold of Sun. She bit at his arm, drawing blood.”

“She’s like a wild dog,” said Jerry. “No offence.”

“We have to help her,” Andy said.

“You cannot help her,” said Sun in a voice that was not her own. “Her mind is lost to the shadows of our will.”

Sun broke free of Andy’s grasp and smashed her elbow into his jaw. He went sailing backwards into a wheeled filing cabinet.

Sun pounced on West just as the man sought to raise his weapon. She struck aside his rifle and shoved him backwards.

Jerry ran at Sun but was swatted to the ground like a fly.

Andy tried to grab her from behind again but she turned to face him. He grabbed her wrists and the two of them began wrestling.

There was a sudden
clunking
sound.

Sun recoiled.

Andy looked left to see Nessie standing in the centre of the room, holding a large metal box. It was the source of the
clunking
sound
.

Sun recoiled again, shielding her face with a hand and screeching.

“What are you doing?” Andy said. “You’re hurting her.”

“No shit,” said Nessie.

Another
clunk
.

Sun dropped down to her knees.

“Stop it,” Andy cried. “What are you doing to her?”

The machine in Nessie’s hands began to wobble, its weight becoming a burden. “I’m trying to help her.”

“How?” Jerry asked. “What is that thing?”

The machine
clunked
again.

“It’s a mobile x-ray machine,” said Nessie. “At Samhain, Bub’s only weakness was radiation. Perhaps whatever fugue has come over Sun came be broken by the same thing.”

Sun screamed and yelled, trying to get back to her feet but failing.

“Stop,” Andy yelled. “You’re killing her.”

“If we don’t help her, then she’s dead already.”

Andy grabbed a hold of Sun and cradled her in his arms. Her pupils were dilated and her nose was bleeding. Her chest heaved in and out in pained gasps.

“Sun, Sun, please, just come back to me.”

“A…Andy?”

Andy’s breath caught in his throat. He spluttered, tried to find words.

There was one last
clunk
and then Nessie set the x-ray machine down on the table.

“Andy…what…?”

Andy smothered Sun’s face in kisses. “Sun, thank God. Are you okay?”

“I…I don’t know. What happened?”

“You don’t remember anything?”

Sun shook her head, her eyes rolling back and forth tiredly.

Andy had tears in his eyes, but his relief turned to concern as West slumped unexpectedly to the ground.

Kane woke up on the floor of his overturned office. His cherry wood desk lay on its side against the back room and his desk chair had fallen across his shins.

For the most part he was completely numb, save for a stabbing pain in his left elbow. When he looked he saw the bone sticking out of his arm. He winced and fought back vomit.

He tried to roll onto his good side but found it hard to move. He shifted his legs up…

Only his legs did not move.

He prodded and poked at his thighs and was dismayed to find that they were devoid of feeling. As much as he focused, his legs would not respond.

I should have buried us all when I had the chance.

Kane closed his eyes and battled with the shame of what he had done. He had allowed his pride to contradict his duties. He had hesitated at a time where decisive action was required. It was a failure that he could not allow to stand.

I need to fix this. I made an oath to God.

Kane rolled onto his side and began dragging himself across the carpet. His legs dragged behind him like rubber tubing. Three feet away on the floor was Kane’s laptop, lying on its side. The screen was cracked, but lights on the keypad still blinked.

Kane’s vision went dark at the edges. He felt his heart beating in his chest. As he peered back behind him he saw that he was leaving a slick trail of blood behind him like a nightmarish slug.

Kane dragged himself the last few feet over to his laptop and rolled onto his hip. He reset the laptop into the correct position and tapped a key.

He held his breath as the cracked screen remained dark and the hard disk chattered and whined.

The screen flashed on.

Kane blinked. Then he began typing with one hand, his movements slow and jerky. He managed to login and bring up the facility’s systems.

SHUT DOWN FACILITY Y/N

Y…

EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS Y/N

Y…

TERMINATE FACILITY Y/N

…

Y…

CATASTROPHIC SHUT DOWN TO OCCUR IN 60 MINUTES Y/N

N…

IMMEDIATE SHUT DOWN Y/N

…

Y…

TERMINATION PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED.

Kane collapsed onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

Then he died.

• • •

Jerry and Andy grabbed an arm each and got West up onto the examination table. The blood was coming from beneath the man’s uniform; the source was not immediately clear.

West growled as they poked and prodded at him, but he did not resist. Andy pulled up the man’s shirt to find a blood-slicked torso with a dark red wound at its centre. The books he had used as armour had not been thick enough to stop whatever had ripped him open.

“I-I got shot. W-when Gorman fired her gun.”

Andy’s eyes went wide. “Why didn’t you say?”

“Everyone was a bit…busy. I-I didn’t realise she got me so bad.”

Nessie knelt down and checked West’s back. She straightened back up with a grim expression. “No exit wound. The bullet must still be inside him.”

West let out a long breath.

“Get me a scalpel,” said Sun. She still sounded dazed, but was slowly coming back around to her old self. Andy’s heart swelled seeing that she okay.

Nessie set about the lab, searching in cabinets and cupboards. “Gorman was pretty stringent with her lab. I don’t know where anything is.”

“Just get me whatever you can find that might help,” said Sun.

“Let me help.” Jerry moved up alongside Nessie and adding to the search.

“Just hold in there, fella,” said Lucas. “You’ve cheated death this far, would be a shame to see you go now.”

West frowned at Lucas, but said nothing. It was clear from his expression that he was in agony but fighting it.

A siren sounded, loud enough to make everybody cover their ears.

Andy grimaced. “What the hell is that?”

Nessie looked at him. He rosy face suddenly turned alabaster. “It’s the facility shut down alarm.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we have about ten minutes before the place starts filling with cement. The Spiral is about to become a tomb.”

Andy shook his head. “Kane must still be alive somewhere. He would have done this. Jesus, we can’t catch a break. We need to get out of here. Somebody help me grab West.”

“Andy, lad,” said Lucas. He was standing beside West on the examination table. “I think the fella is going to rest right where he is.”

Andy walked over to see West’s gaping jaw and grey pallor. He checked the man’s neck pulse. And then sighed. “West is dead.”

“Then we need to get out of here right now,” Sun said.

“How,” said Andy. “Those things are still out there. The batling will be on us the moment we step out of the labs.”