The Containment Team (16 page)

Pete pushed open the door just far enough to kick the still moving dog out of the way so that he could push it shut. Once it was closed, he held his weight against it as the dogs on the other side slammed into it. It wasn’t their usual coordinated attack but it wouldn’t be long before that was what it became.

“The twisted heap of wood isn’t going to hold long.” He tossed me his card. “It will work on the next door. I just couldn’t get into this one.”

For the first time since entering the room, I looked around and realized it was just a small enclosed space with a door on the other side. There were restrooms to either side and showers that had biohazard buckets right beside them. The signs underneath said ‘This water is extremely hot. Danger of burn.’ Apparently, I wasn’t the first to have figured out that hot water would remove blutom from a person’s skin.

Pete had walked past these signs every day. He’d known.

Growling, I took the card and crossed the room, swiping the card as soon as I got there. It didn’t work.

“Hurry it up!” Pete cried out. “I won’t be able to hold this much longer.”

Taking a deep breath, I looked at the instructions above the card reader and realized I had the card the wrong way. I turned it around and tried it again.

The door buzzed. I turned the handle and yanked it open.

“Go, go, go!” Pulling shells from my ammo belt, I loaded them into my shotgun. “Not yet, Slammer! Not yet. Ron, drop that gas can there.” I pointed with my gun, “and light something on fire and put it in front of it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Ron was pale but did as I asked, looking at the door while he moved, afraid the beasts on the other side would be on us at any moment. 

Pete strained against the bulging door. “Hurry! Hurry! I won’t be able to hold this much longer. Ackh, you should smell their breath.”

I loaded the last shell my shotgun would hold and pumped one into the chamber. “Ready.”

The door buckled and I wasn’t sure if Pete heard me or if he hadn’t been able to hold it any longer. Regardless, he sprinted towards me when he saw me aiming my shotgun his way. I had to wait precious seconds before he was safely past.

As Pete ran, the door opened and the dogs in front tumbled in as those behind jumped over them. They were a ferocious sight. The lead dog’s fur was blackened and its eyes were a milky white, its ears looked as though they had burned off. It had several large gashes on its face that were deep purple, looking as though it was blutom that had burned. Smoke trailed off its back. It threw back its head and howled, the other dogs answered in a chorus of the damned.

My blood ran cold as I fired the first shot, aiming for the lead dog’s shoulder. It went down, tripping those immediately behind it. Others swerved around and took its place. I didn’t have time to properly aim as I walked back through the door and shot into the pack of oncoming dogs. I completely removed one of the monster’s heads.

“Move!” Mad cried, “I can’t shut the door.”

“Hang on.” I aimed at the burning unbroken Molotov cocktail Ron had left in front of the gas canister. When I fired, the buckshot propelled the flames back into the gas can which exploded, sending it’s now flaming contents all over the oncoming dogs. I fired another shot, trying to keep the pack back before I finally stepped away from the door.

Madelyn slammed it shut and then slapped me. “Don’t you ever be so reckless again!” Her eyes were red but I didn’t see any tears. The blood returned to her face. “If you do I’ll kill you myself.”

When she put her back to me, I couldn’t hide my smile. Ron was lathered up in sweat. His sides were heaving and he was red in the face. As he watched her walk away and then looked back at me, he turned even redder, as if just realizing something for the first time.

THE LAB WAS bigger than I expected, it had bare metal ceilings that were at least twelve feet tall. The wires and ventilation ducts were exposed above us, giving the overall room an industrial feel.

The room looked to be similar in dimension to the operations center on the floor below, but it seemed a lot more spacious without all the cubicles or offices. Along the far wall were several large refrigerators and a deep freeze. Through the middle of the room were rows of tables with glass cages. From what I could see, they all contained rats. A table along the right wall had a row of computers and stools.

I rubbed my jaw as I examined the door that Madelyn had just slammed shut. That woman could pack a wallop. It was easy to remember what it was that had attracted me to her in the first place. I always did like a strong opinionated woman, but I also couldn’t stand it when somebody tried to control me.

Unfortunately for me, those two traits usually seemed to go together. Perhaps a psychologist would tell me it had something to with the way I was raised. Pete just said I was crazy and had poor taste in women. 

Whatever the reason, it meant most of my relationships with the fairer sex were usually quite volatile and didn’t last long. Madelyn had been my longest relationship. I had just begun to think I’d finally found a woman I could relate to when it became apparent to me her manipulation tactics were a lot more subtle than what I was used to.

Most of the women I interacted with liked to just tell me what to do. That worked until my initial attraction wore off. After that, I began to resent the demands that I’d originally found cute or endearing.

Madelyn had been different, or at least that is what she’d seemed to be at first. There had been times where I’d been at a loss as to how she’d been able to get me to do the things she wanted me to do, but I’d just let it go because we’d been having so much fun.

When I had finally paid attention to the little things she did, I discovered she’d become very good at getting what she wanted without directly coming out and asking for something. A little suggestion here with the right smile and a flick of her hair made me putty in her hands.

The funny thing is that it hadn’t bothered me as much as it did with the others even though Madelyn was far more manipulative than any other woman I’d been with. I was onto her and knew what she was doing, but I didn’t lose interest.

It became my personal mission to do things for her because I wanted to, not because she connived a way to get me to do it.

Then one day I’d made the mistake of calling her on it. At first, she’d denied it but I’d persisted until she’d finally opened up and confessed that she had twenty-five different smiles that she practiced on a daily basis. With a very sly grin and a smug look, she’d told me stories about the types of things that she’d been able to get men to do for her.

I hadn’t realized the mistake that I’d made until it was too late. Once she figured out I was actively trying to thwart her attempts, she’d lost interest. It quickly became evident to me that for her, the fire and passion had dissipated until she was only going through the motions.

Our relationship might have still been recoverable even then, but I ignored the warning signs until it was too late. 

It had been invigorating for me right up until the end. Just when I’d felt like we had been making progress and I’d been thinking of taking things to the next level, she’d broken up with me. She’d said it was because she felt like we were drifting apart but I’d known the truth. It was because she couldn’t control me in the way that she once had.

Oh, what a fool I’d been. I’d thought I’d broken into a new layer of intimacy with her. It didn’t bother me when she used her manipulation techniques on me because I now had the choice. And when she’d employed them on others I’d felt as though we were sharing a secret bond with one another.

Perhaps that was why I couldn’t stop grinning like an idiot, happy about my sore jaw. She had just demonstrated she still cared for me. This wasn’t some sentimental feeling over an old shirt. No, she was scared. That had been the true Madelyn shining through, without pretense or machination.

The real her—the one she rarely let anybody else see—still cared for me.

The dogs barked on the other side of the door but they were muffled. This door looked considerably stronger than any of the others we’d put between us and the blutom monsters we’d been fighting, but I figured it too would eventually succumb to the pure brute force of their attack.

“Well done, Mr. Sanders. Well done.”

I spun around, bringing up my shotgun as Pratt walked out from a dark corner of the room I hadn’t noticed.  Pete glowered at Pratt and was about to move closer until Pratt held up a pistol.

“I had thought you would be in the bellies of the dogs or on your way to ascending.” A mirthless grin broke across his face. “My kind that take on the form of your animals sometimes find it difficult to properly harness the bestial urges and aren’t always the best at following instructions. It was about the same chance that one over the other would happen. Either way, the problem you pose would have been resolved.”

“Your people?” Madelyn asked. “You mean the blutom monsters?”

“Such an ignorant people, yet you have such pliable bodies. It will be a pleasure to watch your species be completely consumed by mine. Now drop your guns—”

The nice thing about a shotgun is the point and fire aspect of it, especially when shooting from close range. While Pratt had been focusing on Madelyn, I had raised my shotgun a few inches and fired without aiming. The boom from my gun rattled the glass of a nearby cage, causing the rats inside to squeak.

Pratt’s hand was ripped to shreds and his pistol was blown back against the wall as the buckshot chipped the cinderblocks behind him. My actions had caught the others by surprise as well, for a brief moment, nobody moved. The only sound to be heard came from the rats. I couldn’t help but wonder if they had shifted and were offering words of encouragement to Pratt.

Pratt brought up the mangled claw that had been his hand and looked at it, curious about what had happened. He had made no sound of pain when I shot him. Madelyn let out a shudder of horror as the flesh of his hand grew back.

“Yes, such marvelous bodies. Easy to repair.” His hand was whole again, but instead of the pink fleshy color, it was replaced by a dark red. He waved his hand at me. “Fancy another shot?” A cold laugh escaped his mouth. “As you can see our eradication of your kind is inevitable. You can’t destroy us.”

The stunned silence that followed was only punctuated by the dogs that were now thumping in unison against the door. I’d underestimated the strength of the door. For all of its impressive design, it was weaker than the others. The hinges were already buckling, we didn’t have long before they would be upon us.

Growling, I took a deep breath. We needed to run and Pratt was between us and the exit on the other side of the lab. He didn’t give any indication that he was going to become unhinged in the way that his other fellow blutom monsters did, but I didn’t like how close he stood to Madelyn.

I charged, pumping my shotgun as I did. The empty shell flew off and hit the screen of one of the computers. As I pulled the trigger, Pratt jumped and flew up fifteen feet in the air. The buckshot from my shotgun ripped into a refrigerator that had been behind him, clawing a hole the size of a human head. I could hear the pellets as they ricocheted around the inside and hoped that there hadn’t been any blutom in there to be set free. The thought of it oozing out behind me as I spun to follow Pratt made me clinch the stock of my shotgun.

Pratt broke through a glass cage as he landed on the table, squishing one of the rodent occupants as he did. Purple ooze splashed out onto the glass wall. I fired again, this time hitting him right on the side. The force of the shot knocked him off balance and he overturned the table, both crashing to the floor.

Madelyn and Ron hadn’t moved during the entire exchange, but Pete grabbed Ron’s shotgun and fired another shot into Pratt. It was more of the trap shot and did little damage. If anything, it only served to annoy Pratt further.

At first, it was hard to hear the laughter over the dogs pounding on the door, but when I did, it sent a bloodcurdling chill down my spine.

“Run!” I yelled, but it was too late. Pratt was back on his feet, I barely had time to fire a shot as he charged towards me. Even though I hit him square in the chest, he had enough forward momentum that it didn’t appear to have any effect on him. I was racking back the slide of my shotgun just as he reached me. I fired as he leaped upon me, toppling me over backward onto a table. My shot went wild and though I heard it hit somebody in the room, I wasn’t able to tell who. Judging by the sound of the cry, I doubted it had been a direct hit. Perhaps one of the buckshot pellets had grazed them.

Glass shattered from the cage behind me and the rats screamed in terror as we went over. Pratt lunged as if to bite my neck and I rammed the barrel of my shotgun into his mouth. Given the angle I had on the front of the gun, I was unable to load a new shell into the chamber. I jammed the barrel forward into his mouth, chipping his teeth as I did. He wrapped his hands around my neck as I pulled out my pistol and fired it one-handed into his hip. His tight grip evaporated in the onslaught of my assault. After three shots I did the same to the other and crawled back, yanking my shotgun away as I did. 

His waist looked like hamburger and as he tried to get to his feet, his legs crumpled underneath him, sending him over onto his stomach.

Holstering my pistol, I racked another shell home and leveled my shotgun at his head. I went to pull the trigger and found that I couldn’t. I’d never before killed a man, and this seemed too much like the real thing. Intellectually, I knew this man to be a monster, I’d seen the flesh of his hand retwine. I had just pumped half a dozen rounds into his hips and he hadn’t even squirmed, let alone made a sound.

“Do it.” Pete urged. “The door won’t—”

With a final thud, the door on the far side of the lab crashed in, sending the dogs sprawling over one another.

Madelyn and Ron were already at the exit and disappeared as soon as the dogs came in.

“Shoot him!” Pete yelled.

I was unable to will my finger forward. Based on my experience with the other monsters I knew that a gunshot to the head wouldn’t be fatal for the blutom monster and at best it would only slow him down. Even knowing that, it felt just too much like killing a real person and I wasn’t able to do it. Pratt pushed up on his hands as if trying to get to his feet and toppled over, his head banging against the floor.

Pete swore and ran for the door with me close on his heels. Once we were out we swung it shut just as the dogs reached us. There was a sequence of thumps as all of them pounded into the door.

Ron stood with his shotgun at the ready and Madelyn held a lighter in one hand and the gas container in the other. Somewhere along the way she’d managed to scrounge up a rag that she’d stuffed into the top. It wouldn’t make a very good Molotov cocktail, but with the burning rag on top she could light and leave it, trusting that I would blow it up and send the flaming contents back on the animals.

I liked the way she thought. She gave me a tight smile when she noticed me looking, though, it was obvious she still hadn’t gotten over the last scare I’d given her.

“Why’d you hesitate?” Pete asked.

I shook my head. “Blowing off his head wouldn’t have killed him.” I took the opportunity to focus on reloading my shotgun. If we got out of this alive, I was going to upgrade my weapon. I was getting tired of only having five shells before I needed to reload. I could either get a tube extension or buy a new gun. I’d probably do the latter. There were a number of models that could hold up to ten, possibly more, I didn’t know. I’d never done the research. Five shells had always seemed to be enough before, but I’d learned the hard way I was wrong.

“It would have slowed him down and bought us time,” Pete said. “It could be days before he was fully functional again.”

I opened my mouth, bridling at his tone, but paused and thought about what he’d said. “You’re right. He looked too human. I froze.”

“Too human?” Pete growled but didn’t say anything more as he crossed to the other door that led to the stairs. It also required a card to open and Pete’s card didn’t work when he tried it. After a dozen rounds of .40, the lock was broken up enough that we could get through. As everybody else disappeared down the stairs, I took a last look at the hinges on the door to the lab. The thumping in unison had been going for only several moments and the hinges were beginning to buckle.

I slammed the door shut behind me and ran down the stairs after the others.