Stranger

Fifty-two

The main bunker looked far bigger than the little brother annex where Michaela and I had stayed. Room after room lined the corridor. Storerooms. Pump rooms. Bedrooms. Mess rooms. Rooms with air-conditioning plants. Rooms full of computer terminals. The place was the size of a battleship. Corridors ran off at tangents. Stairwells led to higher levels. Elevators plunged to unknown depths.

“Where’d we go?” Tony called as he snapped a fresh magazine into the machine gun.

“I don’t know… We’ll have to go through all the rooms one by one.” I kicked open a door to reveal a sick bay. Spent hypos covered the floor. This must be one of Phoenix’s little joy cabins, where he sent himself on cosmic journeys at the point of a needle. With narc habits like that it’s a wonder the guy survived.

A hornet ran screeching from a corridor, waving an iron bar with such ferocity it flashed with blue sparks every time it struck the wall. I dropped him with a single rifle shot to the gut.

More hornets spilled from a side corridor. Tony’s gun clattered. Men and women went tumbling to the ground.

“Greg, there are hundreds of rooms here. I don’t think we’re gonna have time to search them all.” Zak blasted a pair of hornets with a single shotgun shell.

Tony pumped a tracer into the swarming bodies. “Hey, the bad guys are coming thick and fast.”

No sooner had he said that than Phoenix’s voice boomed in the confined space. “Move into the corridor to your right.”

“Yeah,” I yelled. “As if we should trust you!”

The voice echoed. “You can’t shoot them all, Valdiva. There are hundreds down here!”

“And who’s to say you’re not inviting us to run into their open arms?”

“Trust me, Valdiva.”

“Yeah, like hell I will.”

From a doorway a heavyset man flung himself on Tony. He fell with the man straddling him. The monster put a pair of huge hands around Tony’s throat and began to squeeze. I used the rifle butt to crush the guy’s skull. He crumpled like an empty sack.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here. There are too many.”

No understatement. Around fifty hornets surged along the corridor we’d just run through. Ahead, three corridors ran away into the distance.

“Come on, Tony. Get up.” Zak pointed the twelve gauge in the direction of the surging mob. “You can’t lay there all day.”

Tony grimaced. “Looks as if I will. The big ape’s gone and busted my leg.”

I glanced down to see Tony gripping his shin. His face was tight with pain.

“Come on, buddy. You’ve got to stand up.”

Tony shook his head. “It’s broken…” He pulled the machine gun toward him. “I’ll stay here and cover you.”

“No fucking way… Zak, grab him by the collar and drag him.”

“Which way?”

“I don’t think it matters; just move as fast as you can. Go!”

The mob started to run. There were so many hornets, the sound of their feet came like pounding drums. I fired the rifle until the magazine was empty, dropping the leading bad guys. Some behind tripped over the fallen bodies. But I wasn’t stopping them all. I glanced back to see that Zak had grabbed Tony by the collar and dragged him into a sitting position farther along the corridor. I followed. “Not that way. That’s where Phoenix told us to go. If I know him it’ll be a trap.”

“Where, then?” A desperate note sounded in Zak’s voice. “Where the hell do we go?”

The pounding grew louder as the hornets ran at us. Now they were maybe thirty yards away. I drew a handgun. In a strangely dislocated way I aimed and fired. I felt calm. I knew I’d simply aim and fire one round after another until the hornets overran us.

I aimed at a guy with a red beard. Bang. He went down with a hole through his cheekbone. Then I focused on a wiry-haired man with a hooked nose. Bang. Clutching his stomach as the bullet tore his liver, he did a kind of forward somersault roll. Immediately the mob charged over him. If the bullet doesn’t kill him those crushing feet will, I told myself in a cool way that seemed as remote from this as if I was watching TV. Bang. A woman with black jagged teeth was next. The bullet popped her eye like a soap bubble. Bang. Another guy went down with blood pouring from his mouth.

Scrreee!

I stood and stared at what happened next without any real understanding. I was going to die. That’s all I knew. But suddenly a steel gate slid across the passageway, blocking it from floor to ceiling. A second later the mob slammed into it, hands thrusting through the bars, trying to reach me. I stood for a moment before the truth wormed its way into my head. They’d been stopped dead. For now we were safe. I glanced back to see Tony lying there, supporting himself on one elbow, and Zak standing with his mouth hanging open. It took a moment for them to realize, too, that the mob couldn’t reach us.

I turned to them. “I don’t know how long that’s gonna last. Tony, grit your teeth.”

After handing Zak the rifle I picked up Tony and hoisted him across my shoulder. I heard him gasp with pain. Now I could see the kink in his shin where the bone had snapped. “Zak, keep moving. If you see any-thing blast it.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

I walked hard with Zak covering me. Tony’s weight nearly broke my goddam back, but I wasn’t putting him down yet. I wouldn’t leave him to those monsters. We’d walked perhaps twenty seconds when we passed through a set of swinging doors. I looked down because something funny had happened to the floor. I panted hard, trying to get the oxygen to my lungs, as I stared at the floor… That was it- carpet. We’d entered the residential area. I made my way straight toward a door marked NO. 3 LOUNGE. This was a bigger version of the one in the annex, with a dozen comfortable armchairs and couches. Sweat rolling down my face, I lowered Tony as gently as I could onto a couch. He grunted as I eased him onto soft cushions. Dazed by pain, he looked ’round at the soft furnishings. “Christ, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“Not yet,” Zak murmured, looking ’round in awe. “But close, old buddy-damn close.”

“Zak, help me get the table against the door.” As we barricaded the doorway the voice of Phoenix came padding into the room. “No need for that, guys.”

“So what have you got planned for us, you freak?”

“That’s not nice.”

“Nice it ain’t… but true.”

“Valdiva, that’s the second time I’ve saved your neck.”

“Saved me for what? For that thing’s lunch?”

“Listen, you people. You are safe from them in here. They cannot pass the gate.”

“Unless you open it for them.”

“You think I’d do that?” Phoenix still sounded scared for some reason.

“So we’re not going to come to any harm?” I reloaded the rifle.

“I can’t promise that.”

I murmured, “Great, here comes the next mood swing.”

The TV screen on the wall suddenly sparked into life. I found myself looking at a close-up of Phoenix.

I nodded. “Tony, Zak, meet our host.”

They gazed in awe at the white-painted face and pharaoh-style eyes, surrounded by thick painted black lines, and framing the face itself flowered a mass of black hair.

Tony grimaced, still clutching his leg. “Hell, he’s not a pretty sight.”

Zak let out a whistle. “Would anyone, if they locked themselves down here on a diet of narcotics for months on end?”

I looked up at the screen. “What now, Phoenix?”

“I want you to see something.” He looked away from the camera lens. I could hear a keyboard being tapped. “Remember this?”

The TV flickered. Instead of Phoenix we were suddenly seeing a bathroom. The walls were stained with a tarry substance. More of it slicked the floor like straw-berry Jell-O. Beyond the doorway I could see the poor bastards who’d been drained of their blood. They lay there, as dry as Egyptian mummies, still wearing the fucking stupid rubber shoes.

“We’ve seen this before, Phoenix. We don’t want to see any more of your sick camera work.”

The scene cut to Phoenix in ultra close-up. His bloated face filled the TV screen, his bloodshot eyes burning out at us. “But don’t you see, Valdiva?” he hissed. “The room is empty.”

“You’re telling me the thing has hatched out?”

“Not hatched… it has completed its metamorphosis. Look!” He stepped out of the shot to reveal a figure standing behind him. Desperately he whispered into the mike, “Help me, Valdiva. Please help me.”