J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House) (25 page)

Andy was sitting with his arm around her, and he couldn’t be sure if she was trembling, or he was.

“This could be interesting.” Dr. Belgium got up and headed for the Red Door. “I think I’ll watch.”

Andy said, “Be careful. Race said those charges were large enough to…”

Oh no.

“Large enough to what?” Belgium asked.

“We have to stop him.” Andy got to his feet. “Call Race, we have to stop him from setting off those bombs.”

“Why why why would we do that?” Belgium asked.

“Do it!”

Andy knocked away a chair from the Yellow door barricade but Sun held him back.

“You can’t go in there. That thing will tear you apart.”

“Call Race!” Andy said. “He can’t set off those bombs!”

Andy broke away from Sun, but rather than the Yellow Door he went for the Red Door. He half stumbled, half ran down the Red Arm.

Bub wasn’t near the gate. And Andy saw why.

• • •

Race took a deep breath and choked on the blood. There wasn’t an inch of him that didn’t hurt. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the detonation switch. Race was going to send Bub back to hell, where he belonged.

The phone rang. Race ignored it. He crawled to the side panel along the wall. There were several buttons and switches. Race turned on the power for the remote, then activated the radio transmitter and disengaged the safety.

“This is for you, Helen.”

He hit the detonation switch.

• • •

Andy could see the gate, twenty yards ahead. Resting on the bars, near the lock, were two stainless steel pellets each about the size of a baseball. Even from that distance, Andy could see they were slick with blood.

Andy knew why the demon had taunted Race earlier.

Bub had dug the bombs out of his body and set them on the gate.

The linguist turned tail and ran back to the Octopus.

“Get down!” he said, slamming the Red Door and pulling Sun to the floor.

The explosion rocked the complex, blowing the Red Door off of its hinges. Andy felt the floor vibrate like a mini earthquake, shaking so hard he bit his tongue. The
BOOM
was painful to his ears, and immediately followed by a wave of heat and smoke, which drifted through the Red Arm and into the Octopus.

Andy looked down the hallway, straining to see through the haze.

The titanium gate swung open.

“Reaaaaaaady or not,”
Bub said.
“Heeeeeeeeere I coooooooooome.”

The demon crawled forward.

“What happened?” Sun said.

Andy ignored her and rushed to the computer terminal, grateful that it wasn’t damaged. He booted up the main screen and searched for the
SECURITY
window. There were a dozen headings;
COMMUNICATION
,
INVENTORY
,
HELP
,
PERSONAL
,
SECURITY
…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaandy!”
Bub bellowed.

Sun said, “Jesus! He sounds close. Did he get through the gate?”

Andy glanced down the Red Arm and saw Bub making his way down the hall. He was about forty yards away, moving in a crouch.

“This is not good,” Belgium whispered.

“Andy, what are you doing?” Sun shook him. “Can you stop him?”

Andy clicked on SECURITY and the password window came up. He typed in lockdown.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

Andy retyped it, making sure he spelled it right.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“Godammit, Race!” Andy smacked the desk with his fist. Race said
lockdown
, one word no breaks. Andy tried lock down.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“Andy, whatever you’re doing, do it fast.”

Andy chanced a look over his shoulder. Bub was twenty yards away and closing.

“I’m not worried.” Dr. Belgium put his hand to his chest. “I’ll have a heart attack before he finally gets here.”

Andy typed lock-down with a hyphen.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

Andy hit the HELP button. It read PASSWORDS ARE CASE SENSITIVE.

“Caps. It’s all caps.”

“We’ve got to run,” Sun said. “He’s almost at the door.”

Andy typed in LOCKDOWB.

“Stand clear!” he yelled.

He hit ENTER.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“Oops. Typo.”

“He’s here!” Belgium screamed, high-pitched and frantic.

Andy pressed BACKSPACE, erasing the B. Then he hit N and ENTER.

LOCKDOWN ACTIVATED.

Six titanium gates dropped from the overhangs above all the doors in the Octopus, simultaneously sealing it off with a ground shaking CLANG!

Bub barely pulled his arm back in time, or he would have lost it. The demon stared at the new set of bars and scowled. He grabbed one and gave it a violent tug. It held.

The demon screamed, an unearthly wail that sounding like hundreds of souls being tortured.

Andy let out a deep breath. The adrenaline was wearing off and his whole body was shaking badly.

The phone rang, prompting Dr. Belgium to scream again.

Andy grabbed it.

“Did I get him?” Race asked on the other end. His voice was wet and sickly.

“No, General. He used the bombs to blow up the gate. I had to go into Lockdown.”

“Dammit.” Race’s voice held none of the authority Andy had become used to. “I did just what the enemy wanted. Some soldier I am.”

“He fooled us all, Race. Can we make it to the exit through, uh, Helen?”

“No,” Race coughed and spat. “She turned into a demon like Bub, smaller but deadly. I’m bleeding to death. There’s no way to get through. It doesn’t matter anyway. When you activated Lockdown, a gate dropped over the only way to the surface, plus four more on the exit stairs.”

Despair hit Andy like a punch.

“When we aren’t there to be picked up, won’t the Army come in?”

“This is a top secret base, son. They don’t even know it exists.”

“Can’t the President—”

“The President’s two top priorities are to keep Samhain secret, and to keep Bub contained. The safety of the staff is a long third.”

Andy wanted to throw the phone across the room. He settled for swearing.

“Do we have any weapons? Guns? Explosives?”

“Nothing,” Race’s voice was solemn. “I don’t even have my sidearm down here. No one ever thought we’d need anything.”

“So what next?”

Race sighed, a bubbling sound. “I don’t know. We wait for the President to call. Have you heard from Father Thrist or Dr. Harker?”

“We haven’t seen Thrist or Harker.”

Bub laughed, deep and cruel. His rage had vanished, and he sat in front of the gate, lotus style.

“Here’s some of Faaaaaather Thrist.”
Bub spit a glob of something out between his teeth.

“So all we can do is wait,” Andy said.

“I’m sorry, son. I am. I won’t be able to make it back there, so let me know when the President calls. We’ll think of something.”

“Try to hold on,” Andy told him.

“You too.” Andy hung up.

Sun went to Andy and cradled his head in her arms. Andy put his hand on her cheek and closed his eyes.

“What now?” Sun asked.

“We have to wait for the President. There’s no other way out of here.”

“What about food?” Sun asked. “Or water? We can’t get to the Mess Hall.”

Belgium squinted. “Hey, where did Bub go?”

The demon was no longer by the titanium gate.

Sun stood up and walked over to the Red Arm. Andy didn’t want to go with her—anywhere Bub went was better than him here, taunting them. But he went anyway. He wasn’t sure the exact moment it happened, but he’d become extremely protective of the veterinarian.

“See him?” Sun asked.

Andy gripped her hand and tried to peer down the hallway. There was still some residual smoke, and some of the overhead lights had blown out when the bomb went off.

“Looking for meeeeeee?”
Bub said in the distance. His vision was apparently better than Andy’s.

Bub came into view, dragging something behind him.

“Oh, Jesus,” Sun said, backing away.

“You all remember Raaaaaaaabbi Shotzen.”
Bub pulled the two halves up to the gate.

Andy didn’t want to look at the ruined mess, but he couldn’t help it. The body no longer looked human. It was just blood, guts, and bones.

“I’m ressurecting hiiiim. Would you like to seeeeeeee?”

Sun turned away. Andy glanced at Dr. Belgium, and saw him taking his own pulse. He faced Bub.

“We’re not afraid of you,” Andy said.

Dr. Belgium cleared his throat. “Actually, um, I am.”

“Shall I bring the rabbi back to life, Fraaaaaank?”

“No no no, I wouldn’t like that at all, Bub.”

Bub stroked his chin with his talons, as if in thought.

“How about this insteaaaaaaaad.”

The demon touched his claw to one of the larger parts, and a moment later, it began to shake.

T
he corpse’s arms and legs rolled and squirmed as if they were boneless, like the tentacles of a squid. Organs inflated and split. The rabbi’s skull expanded like a water balloon, undulating and jiggling.

Sun had witnessed death, up close. She remembered being a med student, visiting the morgue for the first time, and how creepy it felt even though she’d been prepared for it. Sun had encountered burn victims, and fatal car accidents, and once even operated on a man who’d gotten his hand caught in a meat grinder.

This was most horrible thing she’d ever seen.

And then it got worse.

The flesh began to blister and bubble, and when the bubbles reached the size of baseballs they separated from the body and shot into the air with a loud
PHLOP
sound. A few at first, and then all at once, like microwave popcorn.

Several of the chunks flew through the bars, landing at Sun’s feet with wet thuds. She watched, holding her breath.

With frightening speed, the flesh took shape. Curled up at first, like an embryo, maturing in fast motion. The head formed, arms, legs, a tail. It stood up, about the size of a large vampire bat, with matching bat wings. Black and red, sporting tiny horns, and claws that looked like fish hooks. The thing opened its mouth, revealing rows of needle sharp teeth.

“A little Bub,” Belgium gasped.

Sun watched it waddle over to her and leap onto her shoe. Fear had paralyzed her, memories of her childhood and that horrible bat in her bedroom assaulting her mind.

The thing chirped like a bird and stretched open its jaws, ready to bite her leg.

Andy kicked it across the room.

More fist-sized chunks sailed through the bars. Dozens. A few took to the air and began to fly around the room in quick figure eights.

Sun still couldn’t move. A demon landed on her shoulder, screeching like nails on a chalkboard. It was going to bite her, and she couldn’t get her muscles to work.

“Ow!” Dr. Belgium yelped. He had a nasty gash across his cheek. “They’re like flying razor blades!”

“Move it!” Andy smacked the demon off Sun’s shoulder and yanked her away from the gate. The Octopus was full of them now, flapping and squealing, diving at the group with claws out and mouths wide. Fifty or more.

Andy pushed Sun under a desk and pulled another desk over, trying to seal her between them. The things, the batlings, circled around and around, diving in and taking bites out of Andy’s hands and head. Sun could glimpse the blood through the swirling tornado of monsters.

Belgium picked up a chair and swatted at them, knocking several out of the air. When they fell he picked up his knees and stomped marching band-style, crushing them with his heels.

One managed to escape the stomping, and hopped over to Sun’s hiding place.

Damn it, Sun, move!
her mind screamed.

But her body didn’t listen.

The batling jumped up onto her shoulder. It’s maw stretched open, bloody drool leaking down its chin.

MOVE!

But she didn’t.

The demon bit into Sun’s shoulder, hitting a nerve, doubling her over.

The pain galvanized her. Sun clenched the batling in her fist, feeling the pointy little bones snap under the pressure. She threw it aside and scrambled out from under the desk.

Fear be damned, she was ready to fight.

The demons saw a new victim and swarmed.

Sun grabbed a computer keyboard, yanked it free, and began to whack batlings left and right. But for each one she hit, ten hit her. The pain came from everywhere at once, pain like gigantic bee stings, sharp and burning. Nipping at her arms and back. Going for her eyes.

They’re eating me alive
, Sun thought

Something bit into her ear and she smashed it against the side of her face. Another became tangled in her hair, clawing and gnawing at her head. She pulled it off, taking some hair with it.

Bub’s giggling filled the room—a disturbing sound like a small child being tickled.

Sun could no longer see. Her torn scalp bled down into her eyes, burning like salt water. She wiped a sleeve across her face and saw a figure fall to his knees, covered with batlings.

Andy.

In four steps she was at his side, rearing back the keyboard, smashing it against his chest. Eight batlings dropped off. She repeated the move with his back, putting all of her strength into the blow.