Protect All Monsters (33 page)

Dr. Kasum shushed her. She waited another moment as Dr. Kasum pressed his ear against the door and listened. “I can’t hear them anymore. They’re not shuffling or banging on the door. It’s like they’re gone.”

“Is there a way out of that room, maybe an exit we didn’t know about?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“That doesn’t do us any good.”

The crackle of static. The room went quiet.

It was Cynthia’s walkie going off.

Chapter Forty-Six

Richard searched through channel after channel of carved-up concrete. The effort proved fruitless until after twenty minutes of stalking shadows. An exit popped up that spit him back into the living quarters. It was the same access Addey had escaped through when she’d discovered these strange chambers. What he walked into was the aftermath of chaos. Every door in the living quarters was smashed to pieces or wide open, the inhabitants fled or forced out. Blood slathered the floor, their bodies dragged, their resistance limited to smudges and streaks of red.

He kept quiet, knowing the monsters could be near. Listening hard, he heard the constant emanation of burping, licking, gnashing teeth, chewing, vomiting, bleeding, cracking of bones and the merciless rendering of tissue and fat, as if he was listening to amplified mastication.

Everybody in the facility had been dispatched.

He had to reach the elevator double quick and rush to Brenner’s office on the third floor to remain unseen. He stuck to his resolve to murder as many of them as he could before they finally decided to leave the island.

He peeked out the window of a ransacked room, curious as to their activities beyond eating. They were gathered in the courtyard dining area. Bodies were splayed butchered, gutted, bleeding, mashed and turned inside out. They were currently feasting on the remains.

That’ll keep them busy for maybe an hour.

Richard eyed the boats near the shoreline. They really were going to ford the seas and attempt to reach land on the other side. And if that happened, he thought, kiss humanity good-bye.

He raced east to the elevator, flanking the battle-strewn hall. He lucked out. The elevator was wide open. Stepping in, he shut the elevator and prayed those outside didn’t hear the turning of cables.

Shooting up two floors, the elevator doors came open. He aimed the twelve-gauge he’d taken from Brenner in front of him, fearing who he’d encounter.

“Okay,” he whispered, checking every angle around him for aggressors. “Just keep moving.”

The third floor, the vampire quarters—every door was wide open, but nobody was home. Blood squished under his feet, the carpet sodden. He eyed the break room and how the tiles were dyed a death-rust orange.

We should’ve seen this coming a long time ago
, he thought.

He crept on. Brenner’s office was located down a hall south of him. Making the journey safely, he unlocked the door with Brenner’s card key he’d swiped off his corpse. He entered the room. He prayed the armory wasn’t another shotgun and nothing more. How much could the man be hoarding? Maybe a few handguns and knives maximum, if that. Reserving his speculations, the first thing he noted was the desk strewn with random papers, opened file folders and a pager acting as a paperweight on top of an especially heaping pile of paperwork.

Richard moved straight for the payout, ignoring the clutter, and shuffled past the office. He pushed the only bookshelf inward, one stocked with encyclopedias, war memoirs, and notebooks of the island’s policies and charts of who’d come onto the island, what jobs they’d done, and for how long. They were dated all the way back to 1949.

He pushed forward, doing his best to complete a two-person job. The shelf opened enough that he could slip through, though barely, the rotator device in the floor rusted and stubborn.

A motion-sensor light flickered on.

“Oh Jesus!”

He backed up, crashing into the wall. Blood covered the floor and the walls in random sprays. Torture devices occupied the room: tongue pliers, nail shears, hammers, rubber ball gags and an assortment of scalpels and knives. This was Brenner’s interrogation room. The corpses were missing, probably sent down the chute for the level twos to enjoy.

“How many have you killed in this room, Brenner?”

He noted the door to the left of him. He opened it, and again, motion sensors were activated and lit the way. The urge to smile couldn’t be subdued. “Where—the—hell—did—he—get—all—of—this—shit?”

Two M-60s with belt ammunition were closest to him. He pictured himself as Rambo among the monsters, cutting them down with bullet spray.

Taking mental stock of the weapons, he continued to scan the room: tear gas canisters and shooter, two M-16s, a Browning .32 caliber sniper rifle, one Uzi, two flash grenades, four incendiary grenades, a captain’s sword and a bulging military pack, its contents unknown.

On the table of grenades, he picked up a bottle of whiskey. He enjoyed a slug and rotated his neck, popping bone. He drank again, emboldened by the weapons, but turned a coward by the prospect of fighting them alone.

Take as many as you can with you.

On the rack holding the two M-16s, there was also a walkie-talkie device. Taking it, he spoke into it, turning it to channel one. “This is Richard Cortez, assistant director of the complex. If you need help, please answer me. Is anyone out there alive?”

Empty static replied, so he then tried channel two to no avail. Channel three was the final frequency. He repeated his message twice. Nothing.

He squeezed the device, very disappointed. “Damn it.”

He loaded the backpack with the grenades, the Uzi, and the tear gas shooter. He kept the gas mask around his neck for quick access. He stored extra clips of ammo and then strapped the pack to his back. The sniper rifle and the M-60 were his immediate weapons.

Backpedaling to the office again, he peered out the window and saw the monsters were gathered in the courtyard.

Shooting vampires in a barrel.

About to peer outside again, the walkie spattered the words, “This is Dr. Kasum, are you there, Richard?”

He remembered Dr. Kasum as a curious man. The doctor studied the monsters by checking blood samples. The doctor tried to trace the origins of their mutations and perhaps curb them. But his work had come to no concrete results. The monsters were monsters, and they were going to stay that way.

“Dr. Kasum, this is Richard Cortez. Is there anybody else with you?”

“Yes; there’s Cynthia Wells, Herman Ratcliffe, Grace Mooney (Richard grimaced), and Addey Ruanova.”

“Where are you holing up?”

“We’re trapped in the medical unit, my office.” Sharp crackling and static muddled the rest of the response: “…they’re everywhere…numbers…we’re alone…dead…”

“Stay where you are. I might know a way to reach you without them knowing. Give me five minutes, and I’ll reply again.”

He scanned the shelf and selected the notebook that charted the general blueprints of the facility. He thumbed to the medical unit page. There was an underground tunnel beneath the med unit to sneak living bodies onto the premises without the workers knowing.

He noticed the holding area for the monsters in the medical unit was connected to a different tunnel. There was an access ladder from within the med unit that led to it. He wasn’t sure how he could reach it from his present standpoint without being seen. The tunnel ultimately led back into the facility near the docking port. It would be another place to hide. The longer they remained undetected, the better the chances they might leave without being slaughtered.

He reported back. “Dr. Kasum, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“In the monster holding area of the med unit, there is an access to a tunnel—you’re familiar with it. Lead the others below. I have a key to your building’s door. I’ll meet you in the tunnel.”

“But when do we go down?”

“You’ll know. Just keep an ear out. I’ll keep them busy. You’ll hear it.”

Richard stayed in Brenner’s office and stood vigil at the window, the spot he’d shoot from. Once he fired, they would turn the place over until they located him. He needed a better plan than cut and run. All he had to do was race through the courtyard and enter the medical building. The tear gas had a life of ten to fifteen minutes before it dissipated. It would take two to three minutes to clear the elevator. Maybe that much time to run from the building to the courtyard. And then he had to avoid what monsters might reach him.

“Richard…please help me.”

The whisper issued from the hallway outside of Brenner’s office. Another survivor. He was careful leaving the room. He checked each end of the hall for anything dangerous.

“I’m hurt…I can’t move…I can’t move at all.”

The hall was clear. The words of agony were coming from one of the vampires’ rooms.

He was hesitant to reply, treading softly and taking in shallow breaths. His feet kept squishing over the bloody carpet. It was impossible to be silent.

“They attacked me. I saw you, but I was scared…”

The voice was female. It was coming from the other room next to him. Standing on the threshold of that room, he spit out one word. “Addey?”

She was sprawled on the floor with her legs chewed up, her stitching undone. A headache burned him upon the sight of her.

“How did you get here?”

Addey frowned, the expression spelling out anguish. “I was doing my job on the third floor. Then the vampires attacked me. They overtook me and disappeared into the slots in the wall.”

“But Dr. Kasum said you were with him.”

“He’s a liar. They’re setting a trap. Dr. Kasum wants to save the monsters. It’s his work, his passion. He won’t give it up. So he’s luring you to him so he can finish you.”

“T-that doesn’t make sense.”

“You two want different things. Think about it. You want them dead. He wants to save them. Isn’t it obvious?”

He considered his options, and his head was on fire. White-hot pain emanated from behind his eyeballs and dug deep into his brains. This wasn’t just a headache, it was an infliction. The intensity wavered when he took a step back from her.

This couldn’t be Addey, he was thinking. Dr. Kasum wouldn’t fight to save the monsters. He was determined to fulfill his duties, but once the obligation was done, so was his work ethic.

He did what he always did when he didn’t trust somebody.

Let’s play some Q&A.

“How’s your brother, Deke? He’s still working on the sublevel, right? Did he make it out safely?”

Her eyes were unblinking. “God, I can’t think. I’m in so much pain. Will you come here and help me? Please, Richard…I can’t do it by myself. I want you to hold me. Kiss me. That night we kissed, I wanted more. Just kiss me one more time. You’re the closest I have been to being in love in years.”

“What about your old job teaching preschool? You miss that?”

Again, she attempted to avoid the question. He could detect another attempt at stalling, so he pointed the barrel of the M-60 in her direction. “Answer my questions, or I’ll shoot you.
Now talk
!”

She screamed. Her mouth extended into a snout as sprouts of coarse hair shot out from her body in random patches. He emptied ten rounds into her chest, and the half-formed beast flew into the glass coffee table. The wolf’s flesh deflated, the skin sagging and melting. Thinking it was dead, he was about to turn back when a vampire ripped through the human cloth and crawled on all fours at him. Instinctively, he shot it through its head, the lower jaw unhinging. The vampire’s face dissolved into a rotten jelly mudslide and revealed a zombie. This time, he swung the butt of the M-60 repeatedly until the bouillon-colored brains oozed out of its broken eyes and ears.

He stood watching the remains. Waiting, he considered what had happened. It had mimicked Addey. And the monster changed three times over after each death.

I bet the PSA doesn’t know about any of this.

“Enough of this waiting bullshit.”

This required bold tactics. If one monster knew he was here, who or what else did?

He charged back into Brenner’s office to the window.

“Now it’s my turn to play some games of my own.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Addey perked up at Richard’s voice speaking through the device. It was a hopeful note among many disharmonious ones. Everybody else shared in the excitement except for Grace Mooney. She was withdrawn, keeping to the wall nearest the monster holding area. She was clutching her Winchester for reassurance.

“You think we’re going to get out of this mess?” Addey asked Herman.

Herman seemed hopeful. “Another door or barrier between us and the monsters is fine by me.”

Dr. Kasum waved them to the back of the room where Grace was already positioned. He was concerned and enlightened by the prospect of escape. “I’d forgotten about the underground tunnel. I’ll be honest about it. We carted living humans via that tunnel to bring here for the monsters to eat. I’m not proud of having my hand in murder, but it is what it is.”