them across there. I saw it in my mind’s eye. How he’d sprayed them with disinfectant, then drugged his victims, then forced them face forward to that pulsating, membranous sac. And then what? Maybe it had grown wormlike tubes that had reached out of the pink JellO and pierced the victim’s’ skin. The monster had drained them of their blood like some filthy vampire.
“I warned you,” Phoenix shouted. “But you wanted this… you were greedy to know things that were secrets… my secrets…” His voice trembled with anger. “This is payback time, guys… I don’t get mad, I get even!”
“You’re a monster, Phoenix!” I yelled back. “In fact you are the fucking monster. Not that thing! You fed children to it. You’re a-”
Phoenix turned and gave a little wave with his fingers. “Bye-bye, losers.”
I watched the screen as he made an exaggerated show of lifting his hand above his head, showing his middle finger with a fuck-you flip. Then with the same finger he pressed a computer key. Instantly the giant booster screen blanked. I looked down at the computer. Its screen crashed to black, too.
“That’s it.” Michaela sat back, her hands lifted up in resignation. “He shut us down.”
“It’s time we got out of here. We don’t know what stunt he’ll pull next.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
As she stood up I heard a loud echoing click from the speakers. Then, with a crashing roar, thunder tore through the room.
An explosion, I told myself. The mad fuck had detonated a bomb. I saw Michaela reel back with her hands over her ears. Only this was no explosion. This was the voice of Phoenix amplified to a head-splitting decibel.
Out… out! Michaela couldn’t hear me above the thunder of that amplified voice. I mouthed the words. Her dark eyes fixed on mine. She nodded. I followed her out the door, slamming it behind me. But the voice of Phoenix smashed through the air from speakers in the corridor.
He ranted at us like a demon. “MORONS. THAT’S IT, RUN. RUN! RUN AS MUCH AS YOU WANT. BUT THERE’S NOWHERE TO RUN. AND NOWHERE TO HIDE! YOU’RE LOCKED IN A CONCRETE BOX WITH NO WINDOWS. LISTEN TO ME, GUYS. I
OWN YOU NOW. I FED YOU UP NICE AND PLUMP.” The voice became gloating. “YOUR VEINS ARE FULL OF SWEET RED BLOOD… FULL OF VITAMIN GOODNESS, OOZING WITH YUMMY NUTRITION.” He laughed. “HEY, YOU KNOW SOMETHING, GUYS? I SEE YOU RUNNING. THAT’S IT, UP THE STAIRS INTO THE LIVING ROOM. YOU CAN’T SEE ME, BUT YOU STILL HEAR ME, DON’T YOU?”
I thought Phoenix already had the volume cranked high. But he turned it higher still. We ran with the palms of our hands crushed to our ears, but that sound seemed to take a shortcut right through our skulls.
Where we were running I don’t know. Right at that moment I knew I had a burning need to escape the thundering voice. It felt like a crazy man hammered hot nails through my eardrums. I glanced at Michaela. The sound hurt her so much her eyes bled tears.
“YOU ARE IGNORANT FOOLS, AREN’T YOU?” Phoenix spoke, pitying us now. As if we were stupid kids who’d burnt our fingers in a campfire. “DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT I AM DOING HERE? I AM NURTURING THIS ORGANISM YOU CALL A HIVE. THAT’S INSULTING. IT’S NOT A HIVE. THIS IS HUMAN EVOLUTION. THIS IS NEW LIFE IN A LARVAL STATE. SHE WILL GROW INTO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. THE FINAL STAGE OF A METAMORPHOSIS IS THE IMAGO. BUT YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD, DO YOU? IMAGO? A BUTTERFLY IS THE IMAGO OF THE UGLY LITTLE GRUB THAT EATS LEAVES.”
We ran from room to room. Now I was looking for a way out. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Phoenix had plans for us. And those plans centered on feeding us to that monster in the bathroom.
“THIS IS THE END OF THE HUMAN RACE AS WE KNOW IT. AND DON’T YOU FEEL FINE? MEN AND WOMEN WERE THE MONSTERS. YEAH, YOU HAD ALL THOSE WARS AND MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN. YARDY-YARDY- YA… BUT WHERE DOES IT START? I’LL TELL YOU, PEOPLE. IT STARTS IN THE SCHOOLYARD, WHEN KIDS WITH CRAP FOR BRAINS PICK ON DECENT KIDS. WHEN YOU’RE BULLIED FOR BEING DIFFERENT. WHEN YOU GET PUSHED ’ROUND THE LOCKER ROOM BECAUSE THEY SAY YOU TALK DIFFERENT. OR YOU SHOW AN INTEREST IN THINGS OUTSIDE THEIR CRUDDY LITTLE WORLD. RING ANY BELLS, GUYS? WERE YOU DIFFERENT TO THE OTHER KIDS? DID THEY TRIP YOU UP IN THE LUNCH ROOM SO YOU SPILLED YOUR LUNCH TRAY ALL OVER THE DAMN FLOOR? DID THEY TWIST YOUR ARM OR SPIT IN YOUR EYE AND LAUGH IN YOUR FACE? DID THEY, GUYS, HEY, DID THEY?”
I ran through into the kitchen. Still the voice followed. It shook the plates in the rack and when Phoenix boomed: “LISTEN!” a glass on the table shattered.
Grabbing Michaela by the shoulders, I swung her ’round so my body was between her and shards of flying glass. A burning sting flared in my cheek. When I touched my face I saw blood.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I shouted. “He’s going to do something.”
The voice roared: “LISTEN. THIS IS THE END FOR YOU BARBARIANS. THERE’S A NEW MAN COMING. ONE YOU WOULDN’T BE FIT TO LICK THE CRAP FROM HIS FEET… THAT’S IT! RUN! RUN! BUT YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE!”
I kicked open the door to the locker room. There was a way through the decontamination chamber to the outside. But those doors were pneumatic. There were no handles. Nothing even to grip on to to try to rip it open. Phoenix controlled those doors from his command center.
“OK, GUYS. YOU’VE HAD YOUR FUN. NOW PHOENIX IS TAKING CHARGE.”
I stopped dead in the room. Michaela grabbed my arm, a scared look on her face. The guy was going to start playing his Mr. Sadist tricks. The sound of his respiration came over the speaker. It sounded like storm winds… in… out… in… There was excitement there now that carried into his breathing. Hell, the amplification was so loud I could even here the deep bass sound of his heartbeat. The mushy beat pounded through the tiled room, and all the time it was overlaid by the sound of him sucking air through his wet mouth.
My ears still rang from the sheer volume of his voice. But I sensed the sounds in the bunker were different now.
Michaela got there first. “I can’t hear the air-conditioning.”
I held out my hand to one of the ventilation grills. Nothing. “He’s switched it off… This place is airtight. He’s trying to suffocate us.”
“There’s enough air in here for days. What’s the point in-”
“I’M A PATIENT MAN, GREG. I CAN SIT HERE FOR A MONTH AND WATCH YOU AND YOUR BITCH SLOWLY RUN OUT OF AIR. I CAN WATCH YOU PANT AND SEE HOW YOUR EYES BULGE AS YOU SLOWLY… SLOWWWW… LEEEE SUFFOCATE.”
“Aw, go fuck yourself, you jerk.”
Michaela added, “Yeah, that’s what he probably does anyway.”
“GO ON, MOCK… MOCK! BELIEVE ME, I GREW UP WITH THAT. I’M USED TO IT. I’M ARMORPLATED NOW. NOTHING CAN HURT ME… BUT I’M GOING TO HURT YOU. I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU CRAWLING ON YOUR HANDS AND KNEES
BEGGING ME FOR YOUR LIVES.” He laughed. “BUT STICK AROUND, KIDDIES. I’VE GOT SOME SURPRISES FOR YOU. AND THEY’RE COMING REAL SOON.”
Forty-one
“LISTEN… GREG? MICHAELA? LISTEN TO ME. WE CAN HAVE SOME FUN HERE. YOU TRY TO GUESS WHAT I’LL DO NEXT. I’VE GOT ALL THESE OPTIONS UP ON THE SCREEN IN FRONT OF ME. COME ON, GUYS, TAKE PART… GUESS WHICH BUTTON I’M GOING TO PRESS. HEY, TALK TO ME.”
As the voice pounded my ears I looked ’round the locker room. No way was I going to surrender to Phoenix. Something told me he’d mess with our minds before he fed us to the hive. That guy craved some nice juicy kicks. If he had his way, we were going to be his toys. No way, crazy man. No way.
But what the hell could I do? I couldn’t open the door to the decontam chamber. It was fucking steel. And if I got through that there was another steel door as thick as your mattress to the outside world. Michaela and I were about as safe as two bugs caught in some loopy kid’s glass jar. How long before he decided to pull off our wings? Michaela looked ’round, too. But what the hell was there? It was a locker room. So there were tiled walls-no
