Slimer

She walked down between the row’s of cages, hoping to find a way out at the other end. There was still a strange, eerie atmosphere in the aquarium and for the first time that morning she began to feel slightly ill at ease. Maybe it hadn’t been a wise move to go off wandering on her own. The events of last night came back to her with painful clarity. The terrible sound that thing had made as it had tried to get into Paul and Linda’s cabin…

Rochelle began to quicken her pace. Suddenly she wanted to get out of that room. Badly.

Then she came to an abrupt halt and gasped with astonishment.

There was a body in one of the fish tanks.

A dead body.

Her heart pounding, she moved closer. It was in the big tank — the one bearing the mysterious label ‘Carcharodon’…

It was a woman. She was floating face-down near the bottom of the tank. She was wearing a white lab coat and had short blonde hair. She seemed fairly young.

Transfixed, Rochelle bent down beside the tank trying to see the girl’s face. Then she recoiled in horror. The girl’s mouth was open and protruding from it was a mass of black tendrils. It seemed as if some sort of plant or fungus was growing out of her. And the tendrils were moving in the still water.

As Rochelle continued to stare at this bizarre sight the girl in the tank turned her head and looked at her through the glass.

Eight

‘How do you feel?’

‘My side still hurts when I breathe in,’ said Paul, wincing. ‘I think I might have cracked a rib.’

They had given up trying to break the door down. Paul was leaning gingerly against the console, still looking shaken, while Mark sat there flicking the camera control switches. He was trying to find the others but wasn’t having much luck. The recreation room was deserted now. They’d spotted Rochelle briefly on one of the screens but Chris, Linda and Alex seemed to have disappeared. Nor was there any sign of Dr Carol Soames. Or anything else, thank God. If, as she said, ‘Charlie’ was on the prowl again he was at least keeping a low profile.

‘I can’t get over how strong she was,’ said Paul wonder-ingly. ‘It was amazing. She threw me across the room as if I didn’t weigh anything at all.’

‘Shelley was stronger than normal, too. Remember the way he got loose from Alex? Whatever they’re infected with affects the strength. Or maybe they’re just crazy. I read somewhere that schizos can be abnormally strong at times…’

‘She didn’t seem sick or crazy,’ said Paul. ‘She was quite rational compared to Shelley last night.’

‘Until she threw you across the room,’ said Mark dryly. ‘Yes…’ He rubbed his side again. ‘And I was so relieved to see her at first, once I got over the surprise of recognising her…’

‘You mean you’ve met her before?’

‘No. I’m talking about her photograph. Remember that clothing we found with the identification badge on it? That was hers.’

‘Oh.’ Mark nodded. ‘I wondered why her name sounded ' 66 '

familiar. I don’t suppose she told you why she’d abandoned her clothes like that? Or what happened to the owners of all the other piles of clothes?’

‘Afraid not,’ said Paul. ‘We didn’t get around to that, unfortunately.’

‘Unfortunately is the right word,’ said Mark. Then he frowned. ‘When we found her lab coat last night her identification badge was pinned to it, right?’

‘Yes. I just told you I recognised her from the photo on it.’

‘Well I’m sure she was wearing it just then. How could that be?’

Paul shrugged. ‘She must have more than one. I don’t see the point you’re trying to make.’

‘I don’t know either. It just struck me as odd.’ He shook his head. ‘Have you come up with any new theories yet?’ ‘Well, from what she told us, if we can believe her, this ^/ artificial gene Phoenix must have got loose in the air or something and infected them all. She did say it was like a virus. Perhaps it drove them all mad and they attacked each other…’

‘I suppose that’s possible.’ But he didn’t sound too convinced.

Paul suddenly stabbed a finger at one of the monitors. ‘Hey, stop right there and don’t touch any more switches. We’ve found Alex!’

Mark looked at the screen. He could see Alex in long-shot. He was kicking and pounding at a door and appeared to be quite drunk. Then Mark saw something glinting in his hand and realised he was holding his switchblade. With a sick certainty he knew what was happening. ‘Christ, the girls must be in there!’

Paul slammed his fists down with impotent fury onto the console top. ‘And we can’t do a fucking thing to help them!’ he cried.

Rochelle backed away from the glass tank, her mind filled with disbelieving horror. This can’t be real! I’m having a nightmare! It’s all that cheap shit we were smoking in Morocco… Anymoment now I’m gonna wake up in the hotel room…

But she didn’t. Instead she was forced to watch as the woman emerged,from under the water and began to climb out of the tank. The mass of oily black strands hung out of her mouth like a slimy beard. But the strands continued to move, twitching feebly with a life of their own.

Rochelle screamed. She’d always thought of herself as the type who would never scream, no matter what happened. It was only stupid women in stupid movies who screamed, or so she’d believed until now. But this was just too much. She couldn’t handle this…

As she began screaming she turned to run. Her intention was to get out the door she’d come in. But she’d only gone two or three paces when she did something else that women in stupid movies always seemed to be doing — she slipped and fell.

There had been a small pool of water there that she hadn’t noticed. As her right foot skidded in it she felt a burst of blinding pain in her ankle. She fell face-down on the floor, catching herself a hard blow on the chin. She was stunned, but only for a few seconds. She struggled to rise, looking back over her shoulder.

The woman was out of the tank now and walking slowly towards her. She was less than two yards away. The water was dripping from her white coat and her short blonde hair was plastered flat to her head. Despite her overwhelming terror a small part of Rochelle’s mind registered the fact that the woman had very attractive green eyes. Sad eyes…

The black mass hanging out of her mouth was longer now. Even as Rochelle watched more of the stuff emerged. It looked like a monstrous black tongue.

She screamed again and pushed herself backwards. Using her heels and her elbows she slithered across the floor, away from the apparition, for several yards then scrambled to her feet and made another dash for the door. She was vaguely aware of the agony in her right ankle but her panic enabled her to ignore it.

She was a few feet from the door when her ankle simply gave way beneath her. Once again she was sent sprawling onto the hard floor. As she lay there, barely conscious, she heard the approaching footsteps of the woman behind her.

The sound of a distant scream penetrated Alex’s befuddled brain. He frowned. It had sounded like Rochelle. Yeah, Rochelle. What was wrong with the silly bitch? He stood there trying to think, swaying slightly from side to side. The door in front of him was heavily marked with cuts and grooves from his knife but it remained firmly closed. He’d made a few attempts to break it down with his shoulder but got nothing but some bruises and headache for his efforts. He couldn’t seem to get his body to do what he wanted… he felt sluggish, heavy… confused. Maybe I’m drunk, he thought.

He gave the door one last frustrated kick and began to stagger off down the passageway. Those bitches in there could wait until later. Right now he’d better go find Rochelle. But