Only, it wasn’t there. What the fuck?
Dust sprinkled down, into Portman’s hair. He didn’t think much of it for a second — then realized…
The ceiling overhead was shaking. He looked up…
A kind of fatalistic paralysis gripped him. He knew. He just knew, somehow — it was too late. He could run — he stood and prepared to run — but even as he did it, he knew.
And that’s when a huge-taloned rawboned hand smashed down through the ceiling from above, making ceiling tiles and insulation tumble down — as it reached for him.
“Aw shit…” Portman muttered. His last coherent words in this life.
After that, there was only screaming — as the massive arm encircled him, plucked him up into midair. The comm unit fell, his gun with it — he grabbed at his knife, as the thing hauled him upward, into the shadows of the crawl space, Portman jerking the blade from its scabbard, slashing at the brawny, scabrous arm.
His knife had no effect — and then that big arm pulled him up into the ceiling.
Still at the comm console in the wormhole center, Pinky slammed a fist against his wheelchair in frustration as he watched on the guncam — Portman’s weapon was leaning against the toilet, pointing upward — as Portman was yanked into that crawl space, vanishing for a few seconds only to be lowered by the ankles, smashed back and forth in the stall, battered from wall to wall like the clapper in a frantically tolling bell — blood splashing, his screaming was the bell’s ringing.
Pinky swore under his breath. It was bad enough being trapped in this cyborgian wheelchair the rest of his life — but watching as other people were torn to pieces, one after the other…
Portman’s screaming came over the comm in filtered distortion, muffled but somehow all the more awful for it.
Then Portman was jerked bodily upward one more time, vanishing entirely into the darkness of the hole in the ceiling.
The image shuddered with a vibration — then went dark as Portman’s blood rained down on the guncamera’s lens.
Reaper and the Kid rushed into the lab’s bathroom, firing as they went, the Kid letting go with both autopistols, Reaper chewing the ceiling up with his machine gun. Knowing damn well that Portman was dead — and all they could do was avenge a fellow Marine.
They paused — not sure if they’d had any effect.
And then Sarge pushed in between them, shouldering them aside.
“Step back,” he said.
And he let go with the new gun he’d brought from the weapon’s lab: the BFG.
They stepped hastily back as Sarge’s weapon emitted a multicolored fireball that engulfed the stalls, the ceiling, the bloody remains of Portman, and the creature that’d killed him, all of it merged into a puddle of molten metal and smoking flesh.
Sarge lowered the gun. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing but a crater that encompassed floor, wall, and a big section of the ceiling.
“Did we get him?” the Kid asked, somewhat ridiculously. No one bothered to answer him. “We must have, huh?”
Reaper looked at the barrel-shaped gun in Sarge’s hands. “What the hell is that?”
“BFG,” Sarge responded, calmly, patting the gun affectionately.
“What’s a BFG?”
Sarge smiled thinly. “Big Fucking Gun.”
Reaper could only nod.
Duke was watching Sam work on the imp trapped in the nanowall, amazed to see her start an IV on the thing. A section of the nanowall opened, to one side of the creature, not disturbing its immuration, and Sarge came in, walking backward, dragging Destroyer’s body. Reaper came after him, dragging another of those unsettling lumpy ponchos, this one containing pieces of Portman, mingled with the monster that’d killed him, like ingredients mixed in a casserole.
“Destroyer!” Duke blurted, running to Destroyer’s body.
Sarge noticed Duke’s emotional reaction. He’d known Duke and Destroyer had grown up together. But he didn’t like sentiment getting in the way of focus — Duke had better get frosty, and fast.
“Portman, too,” Reaper said.
“What the fuck’s that?” Sarge asked, looking at the gore on the observation window.
“Goat,” Sam said. “He killed himself.”
Sarge gave her a chill, skeptical look. “What do you mean he killed himself? He was already dead.”
Duke was standing over Destroyer, wracked with sobs but not shedding any tears — the sobs were silent. He wouldn’t let them out. But his body shook with wave after wave of them.
Sam went to Duke, pushed him out of the way, hunkered to check Destroyer’s neck — she was looking for the telltale neck wound that seemed to presage infection. But Destroyer’s neck was one of the few parts of his body that wasn’t lacerated, burned, or broken.
Reaper pointed to the poncho where bits of Portman were mixed up with the thing that had killed him. “That’s all that’s left of the thing we were chasing. And we found two more dead scientists in the dig. Clay and a balding guy with glasses.”
“An imp…” Sam said, glancing at the poncho.
“A what?”
“Imps. Just a scientist’s urge for classifying — what isn’t classifiable.” She looked over at the imp on the gurney, muttered, “Dr. Thurman…”
Suddenly feeling exhausted, she sat on the floor, knees drawn up, rubbing her eyes. Trying to think. “Did you check their necks?”
Reaper’s look said it for him: Their necks? Why their necks?
“Were there wounds on their necks?” she persisted, sounding like a weary teacher with a dense student.
“They were dead, all right?” Reaper replied, irritated with her supercilious tone. It was back to the condescending Sister Scientist again. “We were in a firefight; we weren’t conducting a goddamn field study.”
Sarge ran a hand over his head, struggling, like Sam, to collect his thoughts. There were just too many X factors here to organize into one clear picture. “We came here to find six scientists — anyway, the six big shots in the facility. We got four known dead and Willits is probably KIA down in that sewer. So all we’re missing is Carmack.”
They all thought about that a moment. Remembering that Carmack had vanished from his gurney — after he’d seemed dead. Then Goat had gone living-dead. Was Carmack where Goat had just managed to keep from going?
Sarge turned to Duke. “Carmack shown up yet?”
Duke pointed at the imp trapped in the door. Drooling, barely alive. “Oh he’s shown up all right.”
The others stared, not getting it. Maybe not wanting to.
“Look at the left ear,” Sam said.
Sarge went over to the trapped creature — close enough for a good look, but not too close.
He stared at its head. It was missing an ear — like it had been crudely carved off. Just the way Carmack had ripped away his own ear in his madness, when they’d caught him in that dead-end corridor…
“Son of a bitch,” Sarge murmured.
Sam pointed at the imp cadaver she’d been dissecting. “I think that one is Dr. Willits. I’m going to run the DNA, check it against his med records.”
Sarge turned to her and voiced what all the men in the room were thinking:
“What the fuck were you people working on up here?”
Twelve
SAMANTHA DIDN’T ANSWER immediately. She only had suspicions, after all. She couldn’t be sure…
They waited.
Finally, she said, “In my part of the facility, we analyzed bones — and artifacts.” She nodded toward the imp. “We weren’t doing anything like this.”