The one-eyed baby instantly emitted a defensive growl as it crouched down on four small stubby limbs before turning to face the water and began crawling towards its edge.
Quentin recovered his senses as he used both hands and aimed with the Glock’s iron sights. The first shot kicked up a tiny column of sand near the baby, before Quentin adjusted his aim and fired again. The second shot hit the one-eyed infant in its side, and it looked up and uttered an ear-piercing wail before a third bullet put a hole into the side of its head.
Nick shifted sideways as he placed two fingers on Kim’s throat, checking for a pulse. His daughter had stopped breathing, and her eyes were closed. Blood continued to ooze out of her exposed stomach.
Cathy couldn’t stop weeping, her hands still cradling her daughter’s head. “No!”
Nick was in a daze. The last few moments seemed unreal, like a horrid dream he couldn’t wake up from. A part of his mind still couldn’t believe what had just happened. He staggered to his feet and looked down at his daughter’s still-warm corpse.
55
SCOTT DIRKSE CONTINUED to stand near the entrance of the security room, his small feet glued to the floor the moment he heard the screaming and crying. The boy jumped when the harsh, deafening sounds of gunfire reverberated along the winding corridor. He couldn’t see much from his vantage point, but it looked like his parents were huddling together, with Quentin Everett standing a few feet away from them, looking at something small and red on the beach.
He cupped his hands while shouting. “Mom? Dad? Are you okay?”
It was Quentin’s voice that answered. “Don’t come down here!”
“What’s happening?”
“Stay up there!”
INSIDE THE ENCLOSURE, Quentin took a few steps forward and stared at the remains of the small baby thing lying on the sand. He felt no guilt, for it seemed like he had killed some sort of parasitic insect instead of a human being. The tiny corpse’s stubby limbs ended in small black claws, and there were protruding needle-like teeth along the sides of its mouth. The single, lifeless yellow eye remained open.
Nick held up his hands and stared at them silently, his fingers and palms still covered with his daughter’s blood. His mind was a blank, and it felt so unreal.
Tears continued to stream down Cathy’s face. She still held onto Kim’s head, her fingers continuing to gently stroke the long matted hair along the sides of her daughter’s face. It had all happened so fast, and her heart continued to believe that Kim would still somehow recover from the ordeal by opening her eyes.
The Indian woman beside her seemed to jerk up to an almost sitting position before she began to scream.
Quentin suddenly knew what would happen next. He turned and aimed the Glock pistol towards the lump on the Indian’s stomach. “Get out of the way!”
His shouts snapped Nick out of his mental lethargy. He slid sideways until he got behind Cathy before grabbing her shoulders. “Move, move!”
But Cathy hunched forward, continuing to hold her daughter’s head with both hands. “She’s still alive!”
Nick grimaced as he tried to pull his wife out of the way, but she wouldn’t let go.
The Indian woman had arched her back and made ear-splitting caterwauls. The lump on her stomach had also begun to expand, whatever was inside of it threatening to burst forth at any second.
Quentin grimaced as he aimed at the unidentified Indian woman’s disjointed abdomen and fired two successive shots. An inhuman cry was heard coming from the spot where he’d hit the protrusion, and the woman slumped back down onto the sand once more, the light quickly fading from her eyes.
Cathy heard the shots, but she was too focused on her daughter to react. She felt a slight gust of air in her palm while cradling Kim’s face, and she looked up at the ceiling, her endless despair suddenly transformed into hope. “She’s breathing! Kim’s alive!”
All three of them heard a low growl coming from the water. In less than a second, the muck partially covering Kim and the Indian woman suddenly began to shift, the rubbery substance pulling them towards the water’s edge with terrific force.
Nick kept his hold on his wife’s shoulders, but he knew the tug of war was already lost. “Cathy, I can’t hold you, let go!”
Cathy shook her head violently as she kept grasping her daughter’s neck while being dragged along the sand. “No, she’s alive! Help me!”
Quentin moved alongside Nick, trying to help him keep the other two women in place, but his weakening strength quickly gave out, and he could only watch helplessly as Nick and his wife were drawn along the sand, ever closer to the murky water.
“Cathy!” Nick screamed as he tried to plant his legs on the sand, but there was a sudden surge of opposing strength and Cathy’s shoulders slipped away from his stained hands. “No!”
His wife cried out as both she and Kim were quickly pulled into the water. Cathy finally let go, but something below the surface had gotten hold of her leg, and she was dragged screaming into the depths.
Nick got up and ran into the water, reaching out for his wife’s outstretched hands but it was too late. He managed to touch Cathy’s fingers and saw the terror in her eyes before she suddenly went under.
SCOTT COULD BARELY see anything from his vantage point due to the muted lights in both the corridor and inside the enclosure. He ran back into the security room and looked at the screen above the keyboard. Holding the computer mouse over a set of virtual options, he quickly spotted the indoor lighting controls. When he clicked on the icon, a new box on the screen popped up, asking for a password.
The boy typed in “admin,” hoping it would work, but it came back negative. He tried again, this time putting in “Emeric,” and that one was accepted.
He quickly began adjusting the virtual controls, hoping that something would happen.
NICK WAS WAIST DEEP in the cloudy water, his arms thrashing along the surface as he kept looking for any sign of his wife. “Cathy! Cathy!”
The floodlights above the enclosure suddenly blinked out, and the only illumination left came from the reflected lights along the outer corridor. The entire chamber was now in deep shadow.
Quentin saw a large ghostly form suddenly rise up by the water alongside Nick. He tried to aim the gun, but he knew there was a chance he’d shoot Nick instead. “Look out, to your right!”
Nick turned, and he only had enough time to stare back at a pair of malevolent, glowing yellow eyes that focused on him. Something akin to a pale tree trunk smashed against his chest, and it sent him flying backwards into the water, an exploding pain in his ribcage.
The lights above suddenly came back on again, only this time they were fully powered, filling the entire chamber with a supernova brightness of white.
Quentin felt blinded for half a second before his eyes adjusted. What he saw made him stagger backwards, and he slipped and fell onto the sand.
The creature was in full view as it held up its massive webbed hands while bellowing in discomfort due to the blinding light.
Quentin stared in equal parts of disbelief and fright. It was at least twice as tall as him, with huge rippling muscles and segmented body fat all along its pale, hairless body. Vaguely resembling a man, its hunched shoulders and disjointed thighs made it seem fashioned out of granite and clay. There were clusters of blue gills along its back, like those of the slug-like nudibranchs of the ocean reefs.