Ultimate Thriller Box Set (29 page)

“Yeah?” Andy yelled back. He was sitting next to the doorway to Yellow 6.

“Bub's gone!” Belgium said. “He's not in the Red Arm. I checked the others and he's not there either.”

“Keep your eyes open,” Andy replied. “I don't see how he could have gotten through that gate, but he's a sneaky bastard.”

He sure is,
the biologist thought, paranoia creeping up. He could feel the demon's eyes on the back of his neck.

Belgium walked around the Octopus again, to make sure Bub wasn't in the room with him. Satisfied he was alone, he sat down at the computer terminal and accessed CONTACT, clicking on EMERGENCY.

Then he waited nervously for the President to answer.

*

Andy wiggled his fingers and tried to make a fist. He could only close his hand halfway. That wouldn't be good enough; if they were to dig their way out of there he had to be able to hold a pick.

He tried again, straining with effort, and managed a little better. So intent was Andy on his injury that he didn't noticed the movement to his right until it was within ten yards.

When he turned to look, his breath caught in his throat.

Bub was snaking silently out of the ceiling vent twenty yards to his right. The demon had somehow stretched its body to over eighteen feet in length. He moved like an inchworm, his middle section rising up in a hump as his rear section met his front claws.

“Aaaaaaaandy.”

Bub's elastic face split into a toothy grin. Andy opened his mouth to scream, but Bub was on him before he had the chance.

*

Dr. Belgium tapped his fingers on the desk, waiting for the President to get on the damn video phone. He heard movement far behind him and felt the hair on the back of his neck spring to attention.

Belgium swivelled around and stared down the Yellow Arm.

Bub had Andy.

*

Andy had never felt so helpless. Bub had him clutched tightly in one claw. The other was pressed over his mouth, the talons tickling the back of his head.

The demon looked surprisingly different; like a sea serpent or a long, thin Chinese dragon. His face was elongated, reminding Andy of the times as a child he'd pressed silly putty onto a comic book and then stretched and distorted the figures. But the bloodshot eyes and the evil grin were pure Bub.

“Has the bomb been deeeeeeeactivated?”
Bub whispered, bathing Andy's face with decay.

He removed his claw so Andy could answer.

“No,” Andy stammered.

“Liaaaaaaaaaaar.”

Andy felt the talons dig into his sides. He was being crushed and couldn't draw a breath. Tears were squeezed from his eyes.

“It was shut off,” Andy whimpered.

Bub released his grip slightly and Andy gulped in some air.

“How do I get out of heeeeeere?”

Andy thought about the Green Arm, digging into the original tunnel. If Bub found out about it, it could very well mean the end of the human race.

“The Yellow Arm,” Andy said with as much emotion as he could muster. “There are four gates blocking the exit.”

“That’s the only waaaaaaaay?”

“Yes.”

“Liaaaaaaaaaaar.”

Bub moved his claw down Andy's body.

“Here comes the paaaaaaaaain.”

*

The phone rang in Yellow 6, giving Sun a major startle. She picked it up with more than a little trepidation.

“Bub's in the Yellow Arm,” Belgium's voice said in a whisper. “He's got Andy.”

Sun thought fast. Already in the enema was enough liquid sodium secobarbital to kill an elephant. She filled the remaining space with the potassium cyanide she'd been looking at and snapped on the nozzle.

Before opening the door she put her ear to it.

Andy was right outside, whimpering.

Sun took a lungful of air and swung open the door.

*

Bub had heard the phone ring and was ready for Sun. When the door flung open he had a long spindly claw outstretched to wrap around her.

What he hadn't anticipated was her weapon.

As the giant talons encircled Sun's body, she jabbed him in the wrist with some kind of small spear.

This amused Bub, but his demeanor quickly changed to shock when he felt the foreign liquid pulsing into his body, burning as it went.

What had she done?

He shoved Sun away, pushing her back into the Med Supply room, and then tossed Andy aside to yank the weapon out of his palm.

Bub stared at his hand, watching as the hole healed, but his expression was pure bewilderment. The nictating membranes over his eyes fluttered once, twice. His head swayed back and forth, and then his chin hit the ground with a
SLAP.

*

“Run!” Dr. Belgium yelled at them from the Octopus, looking at them through the gate. But they didn't need to.

Bub was sprawled out on his face.

Sun limped out of Yellow 6, staring at the demon.

“Is he dead?” yelled Dr. Belgium.

“I’m not sure.”       

She moved closer, reaching out her hand to take Bub’s pulse.

“Bad idea,” Andy grabbed her shoulder.

“We have to make sure he's dead. If not, I can get more drugs and...”

Bub's eyelids flicked open and his claw shot out at Sun.

Andy yanked her out of the way and they stumbled down the hall to the air conditioning vent. Sun went first, up the book case Belgium had pushed into the hallway for his ascension. Andy followed quickly.

Bub flopped over onto his belly and moaned, but he didn't chase them.

Maybe the bastard was going to die after all,
Belgium hoped.

The computer monitor beeped. Dr. Belgium dragged his attention away from the Yellow Arm and went to the desk. The message bar read VIDEO INTERFACE ACTIVE and the President came on the screen. He looked as he always did; rosy cheeked and rested.

“I see Protocol 9 has failed,” he said.

Belgium frowned.

“We turned off the nuclear device. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we’re all still alive.”

“I didn't like the decision, Dr. Belgium, but I don't regret it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You can understand that.”

“Yes I can, Mr. President. I can also understand what it’s like to live with innocent blood on my hands. It isn't pleasant. Though perhaps your political bearing makes you more tolerant of it than I.”

“You do realize the area still has to be neutralized.”

“Neutralized. That's a nice way to put it. Like spraying a smoky room with disinfectant. Five people have already been neutralized by this ill-conceived little project. I don't want the rest of us to follow suit.”

“I'm sorry, Dr. Belgium. My hands are tied.”

“Look, we've managed to knock out Bub. He may even be dead. And we got rid of the thing Helen turned into.”

“This is the way it has to be, Frank. We cannot allow for the slightest possibility that the occupant may escape. You knew this when you signed on at Samhain. You voluntarily accepted the risks.”

“Yes yes yes. But if there's a chance of saving us and still destroying Bub, shouldn't it be considered?”

“I am sorry, Frank. I truly am.”

He didn't look sorry. Not a bit. He might have been talking about the economy or the budget.

“How long do we have?”

“Operation Slim Bob has already begun. It will reach completion in eighty-seven minutes.”

“Can we have more time?”

“That's impossible.”

“No chance of a rescue?”

“Your country recognizes the sacrifice you're making, Frank. May God be with you.”

Belgium rubbed his eyes and let out a deep breath.

“There is another favor, a personal one, that I would like to ask.”

“If it is within my power, consider it done.”

“It is within your power, Mr. President. And you could even do it right now.”

“Yes, Frank?”

“Go fuck fuck fuck yourself.”

Belgium hit the disconnect button.

“Eighty-seven minutes,” he said softly. “That isn't enough—”

CLANG!

Belgium jumped six inches out of his chair and spun in the direction of the noise.

Crouching in the Orange Arm was another creature. Bigger than a hippopotamus, covered head to toe with coal-black scales. The thing cocked its head and stared at Frank with a bloodshot eye the size of a dinner plate.

It was on all fours, and its back nearly touched the hallway ceiling.

The animal moved backward, much quicker than Belgium would have anticipated for something so large, and then reared on its hind legs and charged the gate again.

CLANG!

The ground shook and Belgium watched in amazement as the titanium gate bent slightly inward.

“What the hell is that sound?” Andy asked.

The biologist turned and saw Andy and Sun were now in the Red Arm. The Orange Arm was to their right, so they hadn’t noticed the latest complication.

CLANG!

“It's, um, proof that things can always get worse. We'd better hurry.”

“Get out of there, Frank,” Sun said. “Meet us in the Green Arm. What's Bub doing?”

Belgium tore his eyes away from the ramming demon and looked down the Yellow Arm.

“He's still there. But he's... changing.”

“How?”

“I think he's turning back to his regular size.”

“Good, then he can't get through the vents.”

CLANG!

“I talked to the President. We only have about eighty-five minutes,” Belgium said.

“Find the digging equipment. We need to get the blueprints.”

Belgium nodded. He stole a glance at the Orange Arm gate.

CLANG!

The lower half was bending away from the doorway.

Belgium hurried into the duct, not daring to look back again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Check that cabinet,” Sun told Andy. “They're in a brown folder, legal sized, about an inch thick.”

Sun was pretty sure she'd filed them away rather than left them in one of her growing piles, but she wanted to double-check. She quickly sorted through the large Samhain pile on the desk, then for caution's sake went through the Bub pile.

Something caught her eye.

Not the blueprints, but an old report on Bub's stool samples. She picked it up, trying to figure out what her subconscious was trying to tell her.

Since Bub had been brought here, he'd had several bowel movements while in the coma. Back in 1921 the stool had been analyzed with a newly acquired mass spectrometer, which found it contained an ample amount of uranium.

It hit Sun like a slap. Now it finally made sense. What she'd been searching for in Red 3. How Bub had been buried in Panama. Why it took him so long to wake up. His spaceship, the hieroglyphs...

“The hot rock,” Sun said.

Andy looked up at her from the file cabinet.

“It's uranium. Bub's got such a highly advanced genetic structure, he's very sensitive to radiation. Radiation destroys DNA, it kills cells. The ancient Mayans probably covered him in uranium ore when he was sleeping. That's the hot rock they were referring to.”

“It put him in a coma, and they buried him,” Andy said. “It fits with the glyphs.”

“But there's more. The capsule, his spaceship, had lead in it. To protect him from the iridium in deep space. That’s why he’s been in a coma so long—it took him that long to get all of the uranium out of his system. The radioactivity slowed his metabolism down to a crawl. And being here made it even worse.”

“How?”

“Look around,” Sun said, picking up a handful of files. “X-rays. Thousands of X-rays. The X-ray machine was invented before the turn of the last century. They bombarded Bub with radiation on a continuous basis up until the 1970s. I'm surprised he didn't glow in the dark.”

“Why'd they stop in the 70s?”

“Two guys took over, Meyer and Storky. They did other tests on Bub. But not anything involving radiation. I wonder why...”

But Sun realized she already knew.

Dr. Meyer had died of cancer. Kaposi's sarcoma. A malignancy of the skin. He continued to work at Samhain through his illness, getting radiation therapy at the compound. Radiation in cancer treatment had to be carefully monitored. Meyer couldn't have worked on Bub if there was radiation involved. The human body could only handle so big a dose without getting sick, or dropping dead.

“Is the X-ray machine still here?” Andy said. “Maybe we could use it as a weapon.”

Sun shook her head. “We've got something even better than that. Let's find those blueprints.”

“It was a green folder?”

“Brown.”

“Like this?”

Andy held up the folder full of blueprints. Sun hurried over and spread the folded document out over the floor.

“There,” Andy said, pointing at some faint gray lines. “In Green 11. See the wall there? The lines continue beyond that. I'll bet that's the tunnel.”

“How thick is that wall?”

“Got me. Probably eight inch cinder block. Could be even thicker.”

“Let's go,” Sun said, folding up the blueprints.

They left Red 3 and hurried down the hallway. Sun tried not to look at the blood stained walls and tried not to breathe the smell of violent death. Poor Rabbi Shotzen. There were bits of him everywhere.

Andy bent down and picked something up. A disposable lighter. He flicked it once, and the flame shot up two inches.

“Want to break for a smoke?” Sun asked.

Andy put it in his pocket. “Might come in handy.”

In Red 14 they cleared off a desk and pushed it out under the ceiling air vent in the hall.

Sun went first, hiking her shirt up over her face to make breathing in the dusty duct bearable. It was slow going, and to get to the Green Arm they had to pass over the Orange Arm, the ominous
CLANG
from below becoming louder and more frightening.

When Sun crawled over the grating she looked down, nervous to see what was making so much noise. It made her catch her breath.