Holes in the Ground (52 page)

Nessie patted the top of the x-ray machine and smiled. “This might keep the batling at bay.”

Andy nodded. “Okay, but what about the two suckers?”

Jerry picked up Gorman’s fallen pistol and placed it next to West’s assault rifle. “Anybody know how to use these?”

Andy shrugged. “I can probably handle the revolver. Not sure I’d be much use with the rifle.”

Nessie moved over to the rifle. She picked it up and ejected the magazine, examined it and then pushed it back in. She cocked the weapon and held it across her waist like a soldier on patrol. She noticed them all staring at her and gave a little shrug. “Let’s just say I didn’t always have my head in a book growing up. Dad was a bit of a gun nut.”

Jerry whistled. “Is it wrong that I find you kind of sexy right now?”

Nessie winked at him. “You’re just thinking about what other weapons I can handle.”

Andy cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should save the flirtatious banter for when we get out of this godforsaken place.”

Jerry blushed.

Andy picked up the heavy revolver and checked the cylinder. There were five bullets left. Then he stood in front of Sun and kissed her.

“What was that for?” she asked.

“To give me strength. If I’d lost you then there would have been nothing left for me to fight for. Long as you’re with me, I’ll fight whatever this screwed-up world can throw at me.”

Sun laughed. “I never saw you as one for grand speeches.”

“Before we got married, I had nothing important to make a speech about.”

“Time to go, me thinks,” said Lucas. “If what the young lass says is true, then you only have a handful of minutes to get yourselves out of here.”

Jerry hoisted up the mobile X-ray unit. Nessie turned the safety off her assault rifle. Sun held a table leg they had brought from the library in one hand and a scalpel in the other.

The troops were ready.

“Okay,” said Andy, getting a firm grip on the revolver. “Let’s go.”

Nessie led the way, seeing as how she had the biggest weapon. She led them through the corridors of the lab complex, heading towards the conference room. The silence that followed them was eerie; but despite the lack of sound, each of them knew that chaos and bloodshed filled every floor of the facility.

They reached the door to the conference room. Nessie unlocked the door, nudged it open. Jerry was right on her heel, staying close to her. Andy held onto Sun as he moved with his revolver pointed ahead. Lucas took up the back, unarmed as always.

The conference room was empty.

The siren was louder and there was a flashing strobe light spinning on the ceiling, but there was no other movement or sound. All of the room’s computers—the one’s still left standing—had switched off, leaving the room in near darkness. LED floor strips lit up amongst the debris, pointing a path towards the elevator. Not that the route offered any salvation.

“Where have they all gone?” Jerry asked.

Nessie scanned the room with her rifle. “I don’t know. Keep your eyes open.”

“I know where they’ve gone,” said Andy. “They’re trying to get out of here, same as us. The batling must know that the place is going to self-destruct.”

“He probably wants to join up with his buddies from the other facilities,” said Jerry.

Andy stopped. “What do you mean?”

“Rimmer told me that there were batlings at other facilities—they just showed up like they did here.”

“The cave paintings,” said Nessie. “The pictures of all the batlings leading armies of monsters.”

“That’s what all of this is about,” said Andy. “The batlings are trying to liberate an army. We have to make sure nothing escapes this place. Bub’s planning to start a war on humanity.”

“What if the other facilities have all fallen like this one?” asked Jerry. “What the hell will we be returning to even if we managed to get out of here alive?”

“We can’t think about that. We just have to focus on getting out of this place and making sure nothing gets out along with us.”

“Okay,” said Nessie. “Let’s head for the library. That shaft is our only hope of getting out of here.”

Andy grimaced as he stepped over a gobbet of flesh on the floor. There were puddles and swamps of gore everywhere; not to mention the mutilated bodies of the suckers that had been gunned down by West and Rimmer.

“Do you think Rimmer’s still alive,” Andy asked. It was almost a stupid question, but the fact was that nobody had seen him die.

“I hope he did,” said Jerry. “We had a bit of a bromance going on.”

Rimmer appeared before them, stumbling out from behind an overturned computer desk. His neck had dropped forward and now jutted out in front of him like a Halloween lantern on a stick. His beard had become a slick, glistening rope flesh that thrashed about like a newly-acquired limb.

“Something tells me he didn’t make it,” said Jerry.

“He certainly looks a bit under the weather,” said Lucas.

All around Rimmer, the random gobbets of flesh began to vibrate. Andy watched in horror as a pool of blood at his feet began to coalesce into something more solid. The glistening puddle rose up, first forming a pyramid-like shape, but then reforming into something else entirely, something indescribable. It looked like a spider, but had as many legs as a scuttling millipede.

“I don’t know what that is,” said Jerry. “But I really don’t like it.”

“I need one of my books,” said Nessie.

“No time to do research.”

“No, I mean so I can splat that disgusting thing into oblivion.”

Rimmer lunged at them, his head hanging out in front of him and his slick, thrashing beard taking on the shape of a dagger.

Andy shoved Sun behind him and fired off his revolver. The kick almost took his shoulder off, but he fought the sudden, unexpected pain and managed to fire again.

Both bullets hit Rimmer, the first taking off a section of his cheek bone, the second going wild and hitting him in the shoulder.

Chittering
sounds filled the room as more gobbets of flesh turned into many-legged spiders. They all started skittering about, under tables and along walls.

Jerry wobbled on the spot and looked like he was about to pass out.

Andy grabbed him. “You okay?”

“I just don’t like spiders, man. They’re kind of my nightmare fuel. That and being buried by snow—don’t ask me why because I don’t know.”

Rimmer came forward again and this time Nessie let off a burst of fire from her assault rifle. The bullets missed Rimmer’s thrashing head and buried themselves in his chest. The glistening rope of his beard lashed out and grabbed a hold of Nessie’s rifle.

She fought to hang onto it, but found herself sliding on her heels towards Rimmer’s snarling jaws.

Sun leapt forward with her scalpel and swiped at the slimy beard, severing it in two like a piece of gristle on a bad steak.

Nessie tumbled backwards, the rifle still in her hands. Rimmer let out a pained snarl as viscous black fluid expelled from the open wound at the tip of his beard.

Andy took his opportunity and aimed his revolver carefully. He squinted, pulled the trigger, and then flinched as Rimmer’s head exploded in a fountain of gore.

“Sorry about that, Sergeant.”

One of the spiders fell from the ceiling and landed on Andy’s back. He immediately felt the pressure as the thing tried to bite him. It hissed right beside his ear.

Primal panic took over; he began spinning and thrashing on the spot like a mad man. Sun grabbed him and threw him forward over a table, doubling him over.

He was blind to what was happening but the pressure on his back increased for a second but then removed itself completely. The hissing stopped.

Andy turned around anxiously, only to see that his wife held the dead spider upside down on the end of her scalpel. She was smirking at him.

“Glad to have you back,” said Andy.

“Somebody has to save your ass. Just like old times.”

Andy laughed.

Hissing filled the room all around them as the remaining spiders scuttled out of their hiding places. “Time for us good guys to make an exit,” said Lucas.

Andy frowned. “I don’t think somebody who calls themselves the devil can claim to be a ‘good guy’.”

Lucas grinned. “My days of mischief are behind me, lad. Lucky for you.”

Jerry shuffled side to side, scratching at himself and glancing around nervously. He held the bulbous X-ray machine in his arms and appeared to be struggling. “Can we go now, please?”

A spider flew at Andy’s head. He just managed to duck in time. “Okay, let’s vamoose.”

The group ran towards the library, dodging hissing spiders that leapt at them from all angles. Nessie got hit by one and fell to the floor, but Jerry came to her aid and booted it away. He helped her up off the ground and they carried on running again.

“They’re everywhere,” cried Nessie. “Hundreds of them. We’ll never make it through.”

“I have an idea,” said Jerry. “Everybody keep running.”

Jerry skidded to a halt. Andy looked over his shoulder as the kid fiddled with the bulky machine in his arms. Spiders converged on him from all sides.

“Jerry, come on.”

“I got this, dude.”

There was an electrical humming followed by the familiar
clunking
sound as the X-ray unit started working.

Andy was forced to face forward as he made it across the room with the others. He was positive that Jerry was a dead man.

The
clunking
sound was joined by dozens and dozens of pained squeals and screeches.

Andy reached the library and wasted no time in yanking open the door. Everyone flooded through and closed the door behind them just as another kamikaze spider lunged at them. Andy felt it hit against the other side of the door.

“We have to go back for Jerry,” Nessie cried.

“He’s screwed,” said Andy. “He was completely surrounded by those things.”

“There’s no way he could have made it,” Sun agreed.

“We don’t know that,” said Nessie. “Open the door.”

Andy chewed his lip and then huffed. “Fine.” He grabbed a hold of the door’s handle and yanked it open. “This is going to get us killed. There’s no way he could have-”

Jerry came flying through the door like a bullet. He hit the ground and began thrashing around like a lunatic. “There’re on me. Dude, get em off.”

There were no spiders on Jerry but Nessie still knelt down beside him and batted and his arms and shoulders.

Andy looked at his wife in surprise.

“I guess his plan worked,” said Sun.

“I feel bad.”

“So you should,” said Nessie with an angry frown on her usually friendly face. “Shall we get the barricade back in place now?”

Andy shook his head. “No time. We have to get out of here before the concrete starts filling in.”

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, fellas, but I think the horse may have bolted on that one.”

Andy followed Lucas’s pointing finger and saw several hoses jutting out of the wall two inches from the floor all around them. They had started to release a fine mist of steam, but after a violent
clug clug
, a hot jet of grey liquid began to spew forth and cover the floor.

Andy shook his head. “Shit! We have to get moving right now.”

“The facility fills from the bottom up,” said Nessie. “The more dangerous levels go first with the Nucleus and the living quarters going last. If we can keep moving up we can outrun it.”

Andy rushed over to the open shaft at the back of the room. They had left the sturdy bookcase in place beneath it, but the ladder was still a good ten feet up from the top.

There was no other option but the climb the bookcase. The hot, setting cement was almost at their feet. Nessie hopped up onto the bookcase just as the pool was about to envelop her shoes. She looked like an old lady avoiding a mouse in the kitchen.

They all clambered onto the bookcase and climbed to the. They looked at one another as they balanced precariously, side by side.

Andy laced his fingers together and nodded at Jerry. You need to get yourself onto that ladder above. It’s our only way out.”

Jerry nodded and used the boost, flying upwards and managing to get both arms around the bottom rung of the ladder. He dangled for a few moments, grunting and heaving, but slowly he managed to hoist himself up.

Nessie went next, her small frame easy to hoist. She landed high up on the ladder and quickly climbed up after Jerry.

Sun stood opposite Andy, a concerned expression battling with her delicate features. “How are you going to get up, Andy?”

“Let me worry about that. Just go.”

Sun nodded sadly and took the boost. She grabbed the ladder with one hand and effortlessly swung herself up to the higher rungs. Her athleticism was still as impressive as always; especially considering what she had just been through.

Andy looked at Lucas. “You’re next, buddy.”

Lucas shook his head. “No, you are.” The Irishman laced his fingers together and nodded to Andy. “Don’t worry about me, lad. You get your arse up there.”

Andy shrugged and then stepped onto Lucas’s hands. He felt a brief spark go through his ankle and then he was sailing upwards, launched like a child by his father. He grabbed the ladder so high up that his head almost collided with Sun’s rear. They all managed to keep a grip, though, and moved upwards in a line.

Andy looked down at Lucas and worried about the man’s fate. But then Lucas leapt ten feet in the air and grabbed the ladder just beneath Andy.

“Woah,” said Andy, shocked by what had just happened.

Lucas grinned. “Being a supernatural being has its wee perks now and then.”

The hiss of pouring cement set their minds back to task. Each of them hurried up the ladder as if their lives depended on it.

The batling swept through the corridors of subbasement 1, rallying his troops and leading them to the surface. The facility was consuming itself from the bottom up and it was imperative that he liberated his army and joined his brethren in the war ahead.

I will not miss out on the glories to come.