She caught the edge of the scissors with the tip of her index fingers, managed to tease them toward her, scooped them up, bent at the waist, reached up and — working her fingers with all the strength she could get into them — severed the tongue where it issued from the thing’s mouth.
It screeched as she dropped heavily onto the desk, striking it painfully with her left shoulder, rolling, clawing at herself to get the tongue off — it slithered away, like a frantic snake, thrashing.
She kicked at it, backing away, stumbled over a wastepaper basket, got to her feet, threw the metal can at the rippling, bleeding tongue.
Sam still had the scissors in her other hand, but she was afraid to get close to the severed tongue — it seemed to have a life of its own.
Overhead, the imp was really pissed off . It was shaking the duct, ripping at it, tearing it free from its supports, bits of ceiling coming down.
Sam looked around, saw she was in an unoccupied, dimly lit administrative room, with cubicles and desks. She started off between the cubicles — stiff, in pain and bone-tired but urging herself on. The imp would break out of the duct in seconds.
She got to the corridor, stepped out, turned — and saw another big imp standing just forty feet from her, a massive burly figure barely fitting into the hall, seeming to suck the light into itself.
The big imp had its back to Sam, was looking down an intersecting passage, sniffing the air, growling low in its chest. She could feel the growl resonating in the walls, the floors, in her bones…
She backed away down the hall — and the imp was staring off in another direction, leaving her. But she could hear the other imp breaking loose in the room she’d left, the thump when it dropped down on the desk.
Sam realized she still had the scissors in her hands.
She had reached another doorway, open into a storage room that connected two hallways. The big imp was going — and she threw the scissors at its back.
Then she ducked into the storage room.
Sam heard a roar — the shears had struck the big imp, not hurting it but getting its attention. It turned —
Which was exactly when the smaller imp came out of the other door, looking for Sam.
The big imp knew that someone had struck it and, as Sam had hoped, it decided it was the smaller imp, the only other individual it could see.
Sam peeked around the corner of the door and saw the imp she’d provoked rush the smaller one, roaring — the smaller imp turned to defend itself, leaping on its assailant’s chest, like a panther onto a wild bull, sinking its jaws into the bigger demon’s chest.
That ought to keep them busy for a while.
Sam turned, slipped through the storage room to the next hallway. Where was she now? How was she going to find John?
Sam had to get downstairs. She had a vague memory of where the elevators were. They were frozen but the stairway was nearby. She hurried down the corridors, wishing she had a weapon of some kind.
She heard more chattering, something rumbling, not far ahead — the direction of the elevators. She slowed, heart pounding, when she got to the cross hall and looked cautiously around the left-hand corner, trying not to show any more of herself than she had to.
Three half-turned genetic demons were crouched, about fifty feet down the hall, over a heap of torn meat. Feeding.
Sam stared, thinking they’d torn some poor bastard to pieces, until she realized that an overturned cafeteria refrigerator lay beyond them. They’d dragged it out here and pulled the deli meats out — she could see all the wrappers now. Almost reassuring to know they ate something besides human flesh. But it wouldn’t stop them from killing her.
One of the half-turned was wearing a uniform. It could almost be identical to her brother’s. Only it wasn’t — was it? She tried to remember what his uniform had been like.
Could that be John? Could he be one of them?
She stared…and though the light was dim, she could see that this man had red hair. Not John.
Still…John could be one of them right now, somewhere. Her brother hunting through the corridors like an animal…hunting Sam.
She wouldn’t believe it. She would believe, until she saw him, that he was all right. He wasn’t one of them. He was alive. He was trying to find her…
But he’d never look up here. She had to find her way back to him.
She looked to the right, saw the elevator about a hundred fifty feet down the hall. It was open — there was a naked, bloody man’s body lying in the way of the door, which kept trying to close on it. The door would close against the body’s shoulder, then triggered by the blockage, would open, then pause, closing again — breaking the body more, and more, and more with each closing. Beyond was an empty elevator shaft. Where was the elevator? Stuck somewhere below? Then how had the door gotten open? Probably the man had pried it open, trying to find a way to escape — and then the half-turned had caught him. She could see that most of his right leg was torn away…
“Hold the door for me,” Sam muttered.
She was going to have to go that way — the stairs were down there. But then, she’d never make it down before the half-turned caught up with her. They could be fast.
A rumbling snort from the half-turned — she turned to see one of them looking right at her. The others looked up one by one — and they all stood and bounded toward her.
“Oh fuck…”
She had no choice now. It was the stairs or…
There was another possibility. Only, it was crazy and she’d probably die in the attempt.
But Sam was already running toward the elevators, going full tilt, hearing the howling half-turned harrying after her. She glanced over her shoulder, saw that two of them were down on all fours, like unfinished werewolves, loping toward her — all of them had their mouths open, ululating with blood-lust as they came.
Up ahead was the elevator, and on the left, the door to the stairs. The door was closed. It might even be locked, or blocked from the other side.
The elevator shaft, though, she knew was open.
The half-turned pursuing her were close, close, very close behind. She could hear them panting almost on her heels, catching up: a second or two more and they’d bear her down. One of them reached to grab the hair streaming behind her and yanked, tore some of it out by the roots, trying to stop her. But she kept going, a few strides more, just a little more —
The elevator shaft was looming…the body…the doors closing, opening, closing…opening!
Sam leapt over the body and out into the elevator shaft.
The cables she’d glimpsed were there — and seemed a bit farther than she’d anticipated. But her hands closed over them, lower than she’d planned, her breastbone smacked into them, she closed her legs around them…and began to slide down —
Even as the three half-turned, unable to stop in time kept going, floundering over the body in the doorway, falling headlong, tumbling past her, down the shaft, shrieking in fury and fear as they plummeted — to smack messily into the top of the frozen elevator four stories below.
Their howling abruptly stopped.
Sam was sliding down the cables, her hands burning, skin ripping away from her palms, gritting her teeth in pain. She was pressing as hard as she could with her feet and knees to slow her descent…and after a few more seconds of hand-scouring agony her slide eased almost to a stop.
Not quite within reach, beyond the cable, was a ladder, built into the farther wall of the elevator shaft. She worked her way around to the other side of the cable, grimacing with the agony in her hands, clamped herself in place as well as she could, and leaned back, grabbing for a rung.
She caught one — and then thought: I’m an idiot. I can’t let go of the cables, my weight will pull me off the rung. I can’t go back, I’m leaning too far, I’ll fall…