“You first,” said Andy, who immediately started climbing up the cables as the cement came within inches of his feet.
“Andy, are you okay?”
Andy looked up. Sun and Nessie had reached the top of the shaft. They were leaning out of the open elevator doors above.
Andy was tired, weary. His legs barely obeyed him. Every inch up the rope was a battle of will. A single missed step or a moment to catch his breath would spell certain death.
Andy let out a growl as he fought to find the reserves deep inside of himself. He crawled up the cables, pushing with his feet and pulling with his sliced-open arms.
But he could go no further. He had nothing left. His hands would not even close around the cable anymore. His wrists had turned to stone.
The cement came up beneath Andy like an embracing blanket. He fell backwards to meet it.
A hand grabbed the back of his shirt. Then another.
Andy looked up to see Sun and Nessie hanging down to grab a hold of him.
“Grow a pair,” said Sun.
Andy took a breath and found a single ounce of effort buried deep within his gut. He kicked out with his legs, shoving himself up the rope and into his wife’s arms.
Sun and Nessie managed to heave Andy up into the alcove of the elevator exit.
Sun smothered Andy in kisses. “Goddamn you, you almost gave up on me.”
Andy had no breath left but he managed to utter the word, “Almost.”
• • •
To everybody’s relief, the exit hatch opened when they reached the top of the stairs. Nessie still had her employee keycard which activated the lock automatically.
The blinding glow of sunlight caused them all to shield their eyes as they stepped out into the open-air. After so many hours of being surrounded by the stink of blood, the fresh air of the forest was divine. Andy managed to catch his breath back and filled his lungs with the pine-scented air of the clearing.
“Freeze!”
Andy looked around to see a line of black-suited soldiers pointing automatic rifles at him. Sun put her hands in the air and so did he. Nessie chose not to, instead she addressed the man in front of the line who seemed to be the leader. She held her employee card in front of her.
“My name is Gwen Nester. Senior Apprentice rank at facility 26, the Spiral. With me are Mr and Mrs Dennison, gifted associates brought in by General Kane.”
The soldier lowered his gun slightly. “Where is the General?”
“I assume dead. Do you know if anybody made it out before us?”
The soldier nodded. “Several dozen employees have already been evacuated. Another helo is en route.”
“Did anything…else get out of here?”
“We have multiple readings of creatures escaping into the forest. We have a lock on their GPS tags, but we’ve found a few discarded. Seems like some of the creature’s have managed to dig them out of themselves. Don’t worry, though, we’ll get them rounded up in no time.”
Andy sighed. As much as a disaster had occurred, at least these men seemed to have the situation is under control.
“The facility has now been completely destroyed,” said Nessie. “They’ll be nothing else through that door.”
“Roger that. You’re the current ranking officer of facility 26. You’ll need to give a full report upon arrival at the Albuquerque facility.”
Andy sighed. “I really can’t cope with another facility. “Of course not,” said the soldier. “We’ll take your report en route to where ever you wish to go. Then you can go back to your honeymoon. You’ll need to swear secrecy, of course.”
Andy nodded. “I know the drill. How do you know we were on Honeymoon?”
“I’m the Director of Homeland Security. It was me that requested you be here. I had a feeling that the batlings were planning some sort of attack on our facilities; seems I was right. Tallahassee fell a few hours ago and Toronto is currently under attack. We have it under control, though. Now that we know the play, we have armed forces converging on all of our sites. I’m eager for you to return to your lives as quickly as possible, Mr and Mrs Dennison. There’s nothing for you to do here anymore.”
“Amen to that,” said Sun.
A brief movement caught Andy’s eye, making him peer into the woods. He could not be sure, but he thought he saw a man staring at them.
Andy squinted harder.
Lucas?
But whomever Andy had seen had disappeared between the trees.
Just then, a helicopter came in for landing, ready to take them far away from the nightmare. Andy held his wife and prayed that they had seen the last of Bub and his batlings.
Somehow, though, he knew that his prayers would end up going unanswered.
But until then, he had a honeymoon to enjoy.
The batling crawled up the final steps and out of the hatch. It had taken many hours to claw itself free of the hard-set concrete, but like anything solid, it could be broken.
Like bones and flesh.
Still, such effort had left it unbearably weak. Unable to use its wings, it clambered into the clearing on foot. The moonlight hurt the batling’s eyes, but the darkness gave it renewed hope.
In the trees were humans with guns, clearing up their messes and trying to erase their trespasses against his kin. He only hoped that his brethren had succeeded in liberating their own armies elsewhere. He would return in shame, but he would return alive and join the cause. There was still glory to be earned in the battles to come. Redemption was possible.
Skulking behind a nearby bush, regaining its strength every minute, the batling prepared to take flight.
“The first glory I will achieve will be ending the Dennison’s lives, after first making them my lowly pets and breaking them. If they think this is over…”
The batling stifled a laugh, lest it be discovered. “This is just the beginning. The beginning of the end.”
The batling took flight, rising above the treetops and heading to its next destination.
Little Sally O’Malley gave her father a great big hug. She loved the school breaks where she could stay home and help her daddy on their San Bernardino farm.
Sally loved the outdoors. Loved the feel of sunshine on her face and the sound of birds chirping. So much better than school where the only thing that covered her face was the shadows of bullies. Having a lazy eye was not the “beautiful difference” her daddy told her it was. Still, school was out for the week and she was here on the farm, ready to get her hands dirty.
“What can I do today, Daddy?”
Her father smiled, his cracked lips creasing between his salt and pepper beard. “Today we’re going to paint the old barn a new shade of red.”
Sally hopped. “Yay! I like to paint.”
“I know you do, honey. Now, go on and fetch me a bucket of paint from the storage shed. I’ve already pulled out the one we need.”
Sally shot out of the front door and onto the porch, before flying down the four wooden steps to the lawn. She raced across the sun-baked dirt towards the rickety old storage shed where her daddy kept the old ride-on mower and the tools he rarely used.
She rolled in the number code on the padlock dial and popped the lock. She yanked open the door and stepped inside. Sure enough, the pot of paint was right where her daddy had said it would be: sitting in the centre of the room in front of a bale of hay.
Sally took a step forward, her arm already outstretched to grab the paint can.
There was a soft growling sound from deeper in the storage shed. It sounded like another stray cat. Those pesky felines were forever taking root in the farm’s various outbuildings. Before her momma had died, she always warned Sally about feral cats and the diseases they could carry. Sally had made it a point in her life not to try and pet them when she saw them.
She approached the hay bale carefully, mindful of the dangers of a startled animal. If it was cat it could have her eye out in seconds.
The soft growling continued.
Sally took her steps slowly, kept her approach quiet, but not completely silent. She didn’t want to creep up on the thing so well that she scared the bajesus out of it.
Sally stepped around the paint can and looked over the top of the hay bale. The inhuman things which she saw hiding in the loose hay made her scream like an honest-to-God banshee. Her momma had never warned her about monsters.
• • •
Ted heard his daughter’s screams and immediately dropped the pitcher of lemonade he carried out onto the porch. The pitcher was a family heirloom, but that didn’t matter none; Sally was all the family he had left.
The screams continued and Ted felt his bladder loosen as he raced across the lawn. He couldn’t dread but think what had made his sweet little girl holler so mightily. The sound she was making was the worse torture he’d ever endured.
But the screaming stopped, replaced by silence. Somehow Ted found that even worse.
He made it over to the storage shed and spotted the open padlock. His daughter was most certainly inside. What made Ted pause and take a heavy breath was the thick red puddle leaking beneath the door, sending the dirt and hay a deep crimson.
Oh Jesus Christ no…
Please, no…
Frank kicked open the door, ready to face down whatever wild animal or heinous pervert had found its way onto his land.
What he found, however, was nothing.
There was a sound, soft and delicate, coming from behind the hale bale in the centre of the room. Frank stepped forward carefully, mindful of the sticky puddle beneath his boots.
He approached the hay bale, needing desperately to see what was on the other side, but also being unbearably afraid of what he might find.
If something had taken his little girl away, he would march right up into the farmhouse to fetch his shotgun. He’d put down whatever was responsible and then stick the barrel-end right in his own mouth. Sally was all he had left. If she was gone…
“S-Sally? You there, sweetheart?”
There was another soft sound.
Giggling.
Ted leapt forward and leaned over the hay bale. What he saw was like something out of a dream.
Sally looked at her daddy with sparkling green eyes. “Daddy, look! I found some friends.”
Ted studied the scene. He saw the messy paint can, red paint staining the sides. The puddles on the floor were obviously from a clumsy spill—not blood as he had dreaded.
But that was forgotten about now. What concerned Ted was the pack of creatures surrounding his daughter. The pale-skinned little critters had pointed ears and swishing tails. They were a little bit smaller than his daughter and were jumping and tumbling all over her, making happy squeaking sounds that mixed with the delirious laughter of his little girl. They looked like little devils with earthworm-like skin, but they were acting like puppies.
Sally looked up at her father, tears of happiness in her eyes. “I fought they was gonna bite me, but they just want to play. Can we keep em, Daddy? Can we?”
Ted looked at the bizarre little creatures and found that they were becoming cuter and cuter. The way they played, the way they squeaked. Frank shrugged his shoulders. “I…guess. I guess we can keep em.”
And so they did.
Joe Konrath is the author of more than twenty novels and dozens of shorter works in the mystery, thriller, horror, and science fiction genres. He’s sold over two million books worldwide, and besides Tracy Sharp he’s collaborated with bestsellers Blake Crouch, Barry Eisler, Ann Voss Peterson, Henry Perez, Tom Schreck, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson. He likes beer, pinball machines, and playing pinball when drinking beer.
www.jakonrath.com
Iain Rob Wright was born in 1984 and lives in the United Kingdom, with his loopy cocker spaniel, Oscar, his fat old cat, Jess, and his beautiful wife, Sally. Writing is the passion that fills his life during the small periods of time when he isn’t cleaning up after his pets. He is currently one of the UK’s most successful horror writers and his current novels include the critically acclaimed,
THE FINAL WINTER
, the deeply disturbing bestseller,
ASBO
, and the satirical screamfest,
THE HOUSEMATES
. He will soon be releasing the first book in an exciting action-thriller series; featuring acerbic protagonist, Sarah Stone, and her ongoing mission to stop a terrorist threat.
www.iainrobwright.com
Ravage
Savage
The Housemates
Sea Sick
Sam
The Final Winter
Animal Kingdom
ASBO
The Peeling
Straight Up (with J.A. Konrath)
Whiskey Sour
Bloody Mary
Rusty Nail
Dirty Martini
Fuzzy Navel
Cherry Bomb
Shaken
Stirred (with Blake Crouch)
Last Call (with Blake Crouch)
Lady 52 (with Jude Hardin)
Shot of Tequila
Banana Hammock
Jack Daniels Stories (collected stories)
Serial Killers Uncut (with Blake Crouch)
Suckers (with Jeff Strand)
Planter’s Punch (with Tom Schreck)
Floaters (with Henry Perez)
Truck Stop (short)
Flee (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Spree (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Three (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Hit (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Exposed (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Naughty (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Babe on Board (short with Ann Voss Peterson)
With a Twist (short)
Street Music (short)
Jacked Up! (with Tracy Sharp)
Racked (with Jude Hardin)
Straight up (with Iain Rob Wright)
Symbios
Timecaster
Timecaster Supersymmetry
Wild Night is Calling (short with Ann Voss Peterson)
Shapeshifters Anonymous (short)
The Screaming (short)
Afraid (writing as Jack Kilborn)
Endurance (writing as Jack Kilborn)
Trapped (writing as Jack Kilborn)
Haunted House (writing as Jack Kilborn)