nothing happened, he gathered the one nerve he had left and stood once more. Not a sheet of paper or usable computer was in sight. The outlines of what were once people, or possibly something else covered the ground. He no longer felt the need to count after thirty.
These men and women were scientists. They’d been brought here by him, or someone just like him, with promises of saving the future, curing cancer, rainbows or ponies. As he looked down, he thought of Dr. Covington, and wondered what became of him.
Arthur sprinted up the stairs when Smith screamed. By the time he arrived, she’d emptied her M4, but it still clicked as she held down the trigger. He grabbed her, the gun, and then looked into the room ahead.
He shut the door and leaned against it. “Those aren’t offices.” Arthur fumbled to reload the rifle.
“What the hell was that? Please tell me it wasn’t what I think it was,” Smith pled.
Arthur didn’t respond. He took a mental inventory of what was in his bags. Not thinking about the other room seemed like the best course of action for right now.
“Answer me, dammit! I came here with my husband, because I was told I’d get to work with you. I’m one of the few people in the scientific community who believe in your work, but if this is the kind of crap you’re mixed up in, I overestimated you,” Smith yelled.
Arthur wanted her to be quiet. “Look, I was approached by them to study rocks, for God’s sake. I had no idea about anything else they were doing. Hell, I just arrived here about five hours ago, I haven’t even unpacked. I need you to stay focused.” Arthur handed her the M4, reloaded, and set it to burst.
“As for what that is beyond this door, off the cuff I’d say that it is experiments gone wrong,” Arthur said.
Smith nodded. “Gone very wrong, I’d say. Benson went through here. Do you think he knew or just ignored it all?”
Arthur knew that no matter how much someone tried to blind themselves to the atrocities; there was no way to do it successfully – unless you knew about it.
“I think he knew about it, but we need to keep moving. Keep your eyes open, this floor will definitely have some sort of badass security protocol in place. You know something like this would destroy Sunset if it got out to the media.” Arthur checked Dixon’s Sig, and pulled the door open.
“Right, as opposed to developing something that’s transmitted by air, kills, and then reanimates you,” Smith mumbled.
Arthur agreed with the validity of her point, but didn’t say anything. The focus for now had to be survival.
The floor was lined with eight rows, extending the width of the corridor for about eighty feet. The rows were comprised of large capsules of a sort, more like hanging bags with clear solution inside of them. A person or what at one time was a person, was in the center of each capsule in some sort of stasis.
Arthur noticed with irritation that the lights flickered, as usual. He paid more attention to them this time, because he dared not look at what surrounded him. The on and off pattern of the bulbs seemed purposeful, almost as if it was being done on purpose.
“Smith, you know Morse code?” he asked.
“No, why?”
“Just curious, keep moving, we need to get out of here before--”
The words were out of Arthur’s mouth a second before a snap echoed throughout the room and one of the hanging coffins hit the ground with a splat. Then another, and another… Arthur realized someone was toying with them.
The hooks holding the containers in place were being released around them. Within seconds, over a dozen bodies surrounded them on the floor. He wondered why they would do this. They were mutated dead things, not a threat.
Then one of them moved with a small twitch at first, a spasm, and then full body animation. When the shock wore off, Arthur took in the sight of dozens of bodies made grotesque by experiments, with removed limbs, organs, eyes, patches of skin, and they had attached other things in place of them. What made the scene truly horrific was the fact they were getting to their feet, or using their hands as they ambled toward him.
Smith started to panic again and Arthur yelled at her, “If you empty that gun, we’re both going to die. I get that you’re scared.” He stopped talking to take careful aim and take down a man with two feet stitched to his elbows, and another with some sort of lizard-like skin grafted onto his chest. “I am too, but you need to calm down.”
“Right, dead things persevered for reasons unknown, but we can assume they weren’t good ones, are coming after us. I’ll just take a seat, because this is something people see all the damn time,” Smith hissed.
Arthur took out two more, unsure what to call them. They weren’t like the things they referred to as contaminated, because they were dead first and then reanimated. This brought into question how they were infected, since they didn’t breathe.
Smith fired off several rounds and managed to take down a few more. Arthur finished them off, grabbed a new magazine to slip into his Sig, and watched with relief as Smith did the same. He moved forward, pushing her along. He noticed her reading the plastic labels on some of the intact pouches.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
Arthur stared at her with an incredulous expression. “
“Okay, nothing makes sense, but what I mean is the labels don’t make any sense. They’re years old in some cases. Seem to be bodies donated to science, but what’s been done to them is nightmarish at best, and serves no scientific purpose.” Smith stared at one body in particular as she spoke.
Arthur noted it was male on top, but goat legs had replaced the bottom portion. He thought of the mythical creature Pan. Aside from an attempt to bring back ancient mythology, he saw no reason for any of this.
“I remember reading an article in a journal about meshing humans with other species to see which ones blended together the best. Sounded like it was far from actual human trials,” Arthur said, “what I don’t get is why they came back. They’re dead, so how the hell did they inhale anything?”
Smith looked at him with a horrified expression. She ran to one of the back walls and read dials and knobs that meant nothing to him. As she did, his heart almost stopped when he realized whatever the security measure was on this floor, it hadn’t kicked in, unless it was dropping giant water balloons on them, which he doubted.
“They weren’t dead; they were in a state of suspended animation. According to the notes on the files, they were put into this condition seconds prior to death. They’ve been feeding them a solution mixed with oxygen from here.” Smith turned with unfocused eyes.
“Okay, that’s horrible, but it certainly explains how they came back so quickly, and supports the airborne contaminant theory, so now let’s get out of here.” He grabbed Smith and dragged her a few feet before she yanked her arm away.
“I can’t leave them like this, it’s inhumane.” Smith fired her weapon at the rows of hanging bodies.
“Are you insane? Do you want to die?” Arthur yelled.
“I have no intention of dying, but if it were you in one of these bags, would you want to be left like this?” Smith started firing, not waiting for a response.
Arthur yelled at her to aim for the head at least, so they weren’t releasing them from one hell, only to unleash a whole new one on themselves. She didn’t hear him, but after the third warning she did her best. Doing a quick count, he realized there were well over a hundred bodies, and more bags still hanging.
He squatted as he took aim and blew the heads off the ones Smith missed. His ears rang and he needed to stop every few minutes to reload his weapon. When Smith’s magazine emptied, she tossed the weapon down and used the Walther P99 until Arthur handed it back to her, newly loaded. He didn’t know when their positions reversed, but for the moment, she was kicking ass, so he went with it.
The Sig worked like a charm and he decided not to think about how desensitized he’d become to shooting someone in the head and turning a blind eye to the gore and bone bits flying in every direction. Or how a well- placed bullet ended up with the skull erupting in a shower of dark colored brain matter.
One especially nasty shot got one of the hybrids in the teeth. Arthur watched as the lower jaw was knocked loose, but not free. A gaping hole in the center of its face let a tongue slither its way out as if locating them like a
