for?”
She pursed her lips for a moment, then sighed and answered, “Bennett left us here. For a long time.”
“He said a year,” Bray said. “Why didn’t you just leave?”
Green turned around and lifted up her straight, black hair. A small device, the size of a black pack of gum, was attached to the back of her neck. “If we leave a certain radius, it explodes. The only way we can leave is if we’re within one hundred feet of Bennett’s remote.”
Hawkins tensed. What these people had done was wrong, even under the circumstances, but no one deserved this.
“We have access to our quarters, bathrooms, a kitchen, and food storage. We’ve been living in just these few rooms for the past year. It took a lot of trial and error, but we repaired a satellite phone we found in one of our… deceased colleague’s quarters and powered it with some old batteries. It worked long enough to make a call.”
“Who did you call?” Hawkins asked.
“Michael Castle,” she said. “He recruited all of us, but I never got the impression he knew what went on here. He sounded genuinely shocked when I spoke to him.”
“Still,” Bray said. “Why not call the DARPA director? You said you were friends.”
“She was scheduled to retire a few months after I accepted the post,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure no one but Castle knows where the island is. He called back an hour later. Before the battery died, he told me to expect extraction today. Bennett wasn’t here at the time. We’re not sure they’ll be prepared for his response.”
“I’m not sure you’re prepared for
“And I hate to break it to you,” Bray said, “but your job here was a life sentence. Whoever is really running this program, they’re not going to let you leave. I doubt they’ll let you live. You’re a liability, especially after what Bennett has done. They’re not going to take any risks. Smart thing would be to incinerate the whole island and wipe out anything with a DARPA logo.”
“When are they coming?” Hawkins asked urgently.
“Sometime today,” she replied, a worried look creeping into her eyes. “Probably soon. If you can get the remote—”
A scratching noise from above cut her off and drew the eyes of all eight souls toward the ceiling.
43.
“What the hell is that?” Bray asked.
No one answered. They were too busy listening.
When the sound repeated, everyone jumped back a few feet from the source—a ventilation duct.
“They’re in the air system,” a man said.
Tapping and clawing sounds emerged all around them. Several of the things had worked their way inside the ducts and were now searching for a way out. He watched the metal duct above him bend and flex under the creatures’ weight.
Hawkins looked around the room, counting four vents, all large enough to accommodate the spider things. It wouldn’t be long before one of the creatures found the way out. “Blok?” Hawkins said.
“They’re still out there,” he replied.
Hawkins took hold of Green’s shoulder. “Is there another way out of here?”
“There are three exits,” she replied. “They’re all locked, but…”
“Right,” Hawkins said. “You can’t leave.”
He wasn’t sure what to do. They needed to leave. Not only were the creatures bound to find a way inside the room, but there was also some kind of strike force en route. If he didn’t find Joliet and get off this island soon, they would all die here. Still, he didn’t want to leave these people to die. They were wrong, and responsible for the things they’d done, but they were also pawns.
“If you can get the remote and come back for us,” Green said.
Bray rolled his eyes. “I don’t—”
“We’ll try,” said Hawkins. “But I’m not sure we’ll make it out of the—”
The sound of wrenching metal drowned out Hawkins’s voice. A vent on the far side of the room burst open and vomited a black blur that landed atop the nearest man and took him to the floor.
Screams and panic filled the room. One of the women ran for a far door.
“No!” Hawkins shouted, but she opened it to a clear hallway, turned left, and ran.
“Lock yourselves in your quarters!” Green shouted to the two remaining staff. The man and woman turned and ran for an open door at the side of the room.
Green moved to follow them, but Hawkins took her arm. “Get us out of here. It’s your only chance.”
She gave a curt nod and motioned for them to follow her. As they moved through the room to the far door, Hawkins got a look at the fallen man. The spider was just beginning to unravel its tail. They ran into the hallway. The far wall was lined with windows that looked out into an atrium complete with a koi pond and sandy Zen garden.
Blok slammed the door shut behind him. He was aided by the force of a striking spider thing. The door shook, drawing a deep frown from Green. Her path back to the safety of her quarters had just been blocked.
“Which way?” Hawkins asked.
She pointed to the right. “Follow this hall to the end. Turn left. Then right. First door on your right is a stairwell that will take you to the bottom floor and an exit.”
A scream spun them around. The woman who’d fled tore around a corner, heading toward them, face twisted with fear. She made it just three steps when a large spider creature tore around the corner, leapt up, and tackled her. As the woman toppled to the side, the thing wrapped its legs around her torso. The tail constricted her waist. Then—
Then an explosion.
The blast wasn’t massive, but the force of it was contained within the small atrium. The remaining windows burst, showering the hallway with pen-size glass shards. When Hawkins took his arm away from his head, he found one such shard embedded in his forearm. He plucked it out and tossed it to the floor.
“Hawkins,” Bray shouted, pointing toward the end of the hall. Two more of the monsters rounded the corner and charged toward them. Without thought, they ran. And Green ran with them.
Thirty feet into their run, a loud beeping filled the air. Green skidded to a stop. Hawkins stopped with her. Bray and Blok slowed, looking back, but kept moving.
“If I go any farther, it will detonate,” Green said, tears filling her eyes. She had nowhere to go and her choices were limited to a three-story plunge, giving birth to more of the killer creatures, or blowing herself to bits.
“Turn around,” Hawkins said. “I’ll yank it off!”
She shook her head. “It will explode! Just… just go!”
“But—”
She looked back to the spider things. The slippery coating of glass covering the floor slowed their progress, but they were closing the distance quick enough. “Go! Now! Let me do this!”
Hawkins understood that the desperation in her voice wasn’t just fear of death. It was also fear of some kind of afterlife and a God who might judge her. She wanted to die doing something right. She wanted atonement. And he wouldn’t deny her. “Thank you,” he said, and then ran to catch up with Bray and Blok.
Green stood her ground. The device on the back of her neck chimed incessantly. As the creatures closed in, she opened her arms as though to embrace them, and in a way that’s exactly what she did. The spider things sprung up as one, striking her body with a tangle of spindly black legs, twisting tails, and jabbing stingers. Green stumbled back under their weight, but had been ready for it. Instead of falling straight back, she stumbled backward
