Floxham Island ~ Sinclair V-Log AZ267/M (5 page)

“Hi there, my
name’s Sam,” I smiled. “What’s yours?”

“Jena Marks,”
she replied quietly.

“That’s a
pretty name,” I continued. “Now Jena, you’re a real grown up young
lady so I want you to do an important job for me okay? Do you think
you can do that?” She nodded and stopped crying. “Great. Now Eddy
here is real scared so he needs you to be brave for him.” She
nodded. “You’re the only one I can trust with him.” She nodded
again. “Good girl. Now we will be back in an hour, after we’ve had
a look around so don’t think we’ve forgotten you. We’ll come back
for you in one hour, I promise.”

“Can you find
my dad and bring him back?” she asked quietly and I frowned.

“Your Dad?” I
asked and then realised he must be an inmate. “Oh is he an inmate
here? What’s his name?”

“No he works
here,” she replied. “His name is Randy Marks and he’s a guard.
We’re going on holiday together to Arrenar Prime.”

“Oh I see,” I
nodded and smiled. “I’ll look out for him okay?” This seemed to
placate her a little so I smiled and stood up. It was only then
that I saw what the old guy was doing. He was crouched down beside
Eddy and was gesturing to him with his hands. At no time did he
speak, but continued gesturing until the boy nodded and scooted
over next to Jena. As I turned to leave the room I caught sight of
the thinker guy and his expression made me stop in my tracks. He
was watching the old guy with a frown, which soon turned to shock.
Before I could ask him what was up, Flark barked at us once
more.

“Okay people
listen up. There are ten of us so we’ll split up into two groups of
three and one of four and scout the place out and be back here in
one hour. I’ve found a plan of the complex. Here look.” He spread
out the large sheet on one of the desks. The prison was laid out in
the typical way, with a large oblong central building with eight
long wings leading off it in a semi circle like the rays of a sun.
“This central section is where we are now and there are four
floors, so I vote for now we contain our search to this central
building first. Now who here is competent with firearms?” The
military guy, the plain woman, Meesha, Cap, Luggs and me all raised
our hands. “Okay,” Flark continued. “This room here,” he said
pointing to a small square on the plan, “is the armoury so I vote
we make our way there first before we split up. We must make sure
each group has at least one competent gun with them too. Any
questions? Okay let’s go.”

Slowly we made
our way to the armoury and let ourselves in. This was somewhere I
immediately felt at home so I knew what I was looking for. It
didn’t take long for me to find the appropriate hardware and I
helped myself to a powerful short range laser rifle and a laser
pistol. As I helped myself to several spare ammo clips, I saw the
thinker guy looking bemused so I went over and introduced
myself.

“Sam Sinclair,”
I said, extending my hand, which he shook nervously.

“Ronjo
Beghart,” he replied.

“Ever fired a
gun?”

“Never, but I
sure wish I had,” he smiled. He was obviously scared so I took pity
on him and took a quick look around to see what was most
appropriate from the hardware on display and smiled when my eyes
fell upon a rack of rookies. The AB11 Rookie is the first weapon
given to new military recruits, many of whom will never have used a
firearm before. The Rookie has a very short effective range but
it’s lightweight and easy to load and fire. Reaching up, I fetched
a couple down with several spare ammo clips.

“Here ya go,” I
smiled. “Anyone with a few brain cells can use one of these;
they’re real easy. Just hold it like this, aim and fire. Each of
these clips here will give you a hundred shots and when you’re
empty you just pull this here, like this. Drop it and click another
one in like this. Here, you try.” Crossing my fingers that he was a
swift learner, I watched as he changed the clip remarkably well and
smiled at me. It’s always been a firm belief of mine that an armed
man will feel safer in even the most hopeless of circumstances and
I reckoned there was always a chance that this guy might just save
my hide before we got off this rock. Once we were all armed we
split up and I found myself teamed up with Luggs, Cap and Ronjo.
Not a bad haul considering what else was on offer. We decided to
take the second floor so with a deep breath, we set off up the
stairs.

CHAPTER
THREE

My mood was
almost fearless as we began climbing the stairs but as we continued
climbing and the silence closed in around us, a sense of unease
again crept in. As we reached the second floor I’d decided that I
was mighty glad to have Luggs nearby and mentally apologised to him
for my low opinion earlier. A throwback to ancient times he may be,
but he was damn fearless and ready to take anything on. He strode
forward with purpose and I couldn’t help but admire him.
Embarrassed at not being the first to move, I tried to emulate him
and strode after him. Cap was behind me and Ronjo, shaking with
fear, crept along at the back. Looking back on what we must’ve
looked like as we crept our way around the second floor offices; a
fearless throwback, a law enforcer, a terminally optimistic
engineer and a terrified civilian, I can’t help but laugh and
although we were a motley bunch, we were no pushover.

The first three
offices we found revealed nothing of any use to us, either by way
of explanation or assistance and we were beginning to relax as we
continued down the corridor. Luggs snorted with annoyance and swore
as he hefted the ridiculously large laser rifle he’d helped himself
to in the armoury. It turned out that he was ex military too and
was firearms trained so we felt safer with another competent gun in
our group. As he continued onwards with his huge gun at the ready,
he reminded me of one of those characters in vidicom games. You
know the type; massive shoulders and eyebrow ridges to match and no
language to speak of other than the occasional grunt. Oh and always
the obligatory huge gun. Even his name matched the look and I
couldn’t help but smile.

We approached
the fourth office in the corridor and saw at once that something
awful had happened here. The remains of the door lay in pieces on
the floor and the bit that remained hung flaccidly on its remaining
hinge; giving silent testament to some previous and terrible
assault. Each of the pieces bore huge scratches almost an inch deep
and as I looked, I couldn’t imagine what manner of beast made them,
nor with what. We looked at each other, eyebrows raised and eyes
wide in shock as we took in the scene.

“What the hell
could’ve made those scratches?” Ronjo exclaimed, verbalising the
thought each of us was silently wrestling with.

“More to the
point,” Luggs said, “is it still inside there?”

“Well you’re
more than welcome to go and find out,” Ronjo responded immediately,
“and I’ll wait out here for ya.”

“On your own?”
Luggs grinned at him. “Sure buddy, okay. See ya later,” he snorted
as he stepped towards the door and ducked under the wood that hung
limp from the wrenched hinge. There was no way I was about to drop
any further down the pecking order just yet, so I stepped in after
him, swiftly followed by Cap. The interior of the room looked like
the aftermath of a hurricane. One desk was smashed to matchwood;
the other was still in one piece but upside down with one leg bent
at a most unnatural angle. The remains of computer consoles lay in
pieces on the floor amongst other assorted debris; the flotsam and
jetsam of prison administration cast unceremoniously aside in what
must’ve been one hell of an attack. Cap produced a flashlight and
swung it around the room and we all saw the body at once. Propped
up in one corner, the abdomen flared open to display the contents
within that none of us wanted to see.

“Holy fuck,”
Luggs exclaimed as we heard Ronjo gasp behind us and run out into
the corridor; his heaving and gagging almost as unsettling as the
sight that lay before us.

The man sat in
the corner, his eyes staring unseeing into the room. One arm hung
down, hand in his lap while the other was tucked behind his back.
The two flaps of skin splayed apart as the contents tumbled out
into his crotch, reminding me of those darkly gothic and cheaply
made vidicom horror movies I watch from time to time. Cap trained
his flashlight on it and the bloody mass glistened at us as we
stood there revolted but unable to look away.

“Whatever the
fuck killed him ate his insides but didn’t touch anything else,”
Cap whispered. Unsure of what he was getting at, I frowned and he
nodded to the body. “Look at the rest of him Sam, not a scratch on
him.” We looked and found to our horror that he was right; whatever
killed the man was only interested in what lay beneath the skin.
Luggs and I came to the same realisation at the same instant as Cap
said what we were thinking. “That means he was alive when it
started eating him.”

We found Ronjo
breathing deeply out in the corridor and set off once again. Up
ahead the corridor turned ninety degrees to the left and no matter
how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but imagine all sorts of horrors
waiting for us around that corner. It occurred to me that the
others might be thinking the same and I almost asked them in an
effort to lighten the mood, but then realised that Ronjo would
probably lose it if I did, so I held my tongue. What we found were
three more bodies, all with their insides torn out but otherwise
untouched and the floor was sticky underfoot with congealed blood.
We squelched past them and headed for the nearest office to find it
ransacked in a similar manner to the last one. The corridor walls
were littered with the same deep gouges that we’d seen on the
wrecked doors and in one place there were several holes in the
ceiling. As I looked at those holes and wondered what had caused
them, a pattern suddenly leapt into place. Three holes side by side
and another behind; those were claw holes made by something hanging
from the ceiling.

“Hey guys,” I
whispered, “make sure you keep a look above as well as all around
huh.” Everyone looked up and I noticed Ronjo’s face pale by several
more shades.

“Shit,” Luggs
hissed as he looked up. “What the fuck have we gotten ourselves
into here?” Just as I was about to make a remark we were all
silenced by a screech from somewhere above. As one we all looked up
and listened, holding our breaths. Another screech and then a human
cry that made even Luggs gasp in shock. Someone was dying horribly
somewhere above us and from what we’d already seen, we knew what
they were going through at that moment. Several shots rang out,
accompanied by shouts that grew gradually fainter told us one of
the groups was now down to two and that those two were running for
their lives. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Luggs said as he wiped a hand
over his head. “I’m a co pilot on a two bit passenger liner. I
shouldn’t be dealing with this shit on what I get paid.” He was
right and I understood perfectly how he felt and nodded.

“Yeah well I’m
just a law enforcement guy,” I replied, “and I’m happy to deal with
murderers and crazies anytime over this shit. Come on, let’s get
this going before we lose what nerve we have left huh?” Luggs took
a deep breath and rolled his neck around before nodding and
stepping forward.

By the time we
found ourselves back at the stairs, we’d found several more bodies
and all but two of the remaining offices were torn to pieces. We
were about to start down the stairs when we heard footsteps above
and looked up to see Flark and the elderly guy coming towards us.
They both looked white as sheets and the elderly guy had large
sweat stains under his arms.

Where’s
Meesha?” Luggs asked. “We heard it all going on.”

“We lost her,”
Flark sighed.

“Aww shit,”
Luggs replied. “What was it? We’ve seen the damage it does.”

“It’s like
nothing you could imagine,” Flark responded and the elderly guy
nodded. “It’s like a big bird but with teeth instead of a beak. It
was waiting for us in one of the offices; just hanging from the
ceiling and watching us for over a minute before it dropped down
onto us.”

“We had no idea
it was there,” the elderly guy gasped. “It was just hanging there,
silent as the grave and watching us. Oh shit I’m too old for
this.”

“Take it easy
Kitt,” Flark soothed. “You’ve done great so far, don’t lose it yet
okay?” So that was his name huh? Kitt. He didn’t look like a Kitt
to me but then you can never really tell and I was pondering what
name he did look like when we heard more footsteps coming down from
the top floor. We were then joined by the military guy, the plain
woman and the blue eyed plank pilot. All looked scared out of their
wits but all were alive. So we’d made our tour of the central
building with just one loss and we’d identified one of the
creatures. It seemed we’d done okay, for now. “Let’s get back
downstairs, do the ground floor, get the kids and go find somewhere
to hole up as base camp.” Flark suggested and everyone nodded.

We started down
the stairs but Flark suddenly stopped and turned to me. “Oh by the
way Sam, we have a new problem too.”

“We do?” I
replied, wondering what the fuck else could be worse than this.

“Yeah I’m
afraid so. Kitt here went to take a piss before we started and
found your prisoner gone,” he looked at the old guy who nodded and
shrugged apologetically. Oh shit, this was just what we didn’t
need.

“What?” I
yelled a little more sharply than I should’ve done. “How the fuck
did that happen? That’s all we need right now. As if being stranded
on some rock surrounded by creatures who want to snack on our
insides isn’t enough, we now have a murderer running loose around
the place.” This was going from bad, to worse, to unbelievably
shitty in quick succession and I was beginning to lose my
temper.