“Finish him,” Mason yelled. “Finish him now!”
Gideon unscrewed the cap on the gas can. Even with the weight of two men on top of him, he was able to tip it over. The liquid splashed out onto his thighs, onto his stomach, onto the two men who were hacking and biting him. The man was crying, laughing, howling as he did it. In another life, it would have been a sight to fuel Mason's nightmares, even with all he had seen.
The sound of a metal click snapped his attention back to the other man. On the ground, Dutch had uncurled.
He was holding the flare gun.
5
“Do it!” Gideon yelled. “Do it!” He was laughing as he yelled it, laughing as they tore him apart.
Dutch didn't know which gas Gideon had been carrying: the good stuff, or the inert sludge. If it was the latter, he was dead.
It wasn't.
A red ball shot from the tube and hit Gideon in the leg, the flame catching before it even made contact. A ball of orange fire engulfed the entourage, spreading up and over the ground.
Mason leapt from the deck of the ship and grabbed Melvin, pushing him out of the way as the fireball exploded. Christian was not as lucky. He was at the nexus when it hit, the fireball washing over him in a giant puff. He stood as a flaming pillar, then lumbered towards the exit, his arms thrashing like a B-movie caricature.
On the floor next to him, Gideon's body burned without a sound, and Dutch knew he was dead.
Poor Gideon.
He found his feet and ran, following Christian's howling figure out the door. The burning man made it to the beach and fell into the water, dousing himself with a terrible hiss. Later, Dutch would ask himself why he hadn't finished Christian right there and then as the man lay helpless, but that was no mystery. Henry Jones, elite sniper and security guard, was scared. He was scared out of his mind, and he was hurt. Blood still flowed from between his ribs, the spot where the knife had cut him. He needed to find help, and fast.
Behind him, Mason was stripping off his clothes, peeling burnt cloth and skin from his back in layers. When he tried to run after, he stumbled, his wounded leg finally giving out beneath him. He howled with rage, staring at the fleeing man with hatred in his eyes.
Dutch didn't look back. He ran on, his mind reeling with terror and confusion.
How? How, how had they survived?
But he knew the answer. They were them now, their skin blackened and their minds twisted. Now, they would stop at nothing.
As he made his way along the beach, jogging up the coast towards the fortress, he looked up to the sky and saw the sun had finally fallen below the horizon.
Chapter 20: Fire Telephone to God
1
At the door to the lab, Dominik watched his own sun slip below the water. The lights around the base began to flicker, casting an ugly yellow glow across the grounds. Even with all that had happened, even with Kriege missing and Zimmer dead, the commander's schedule was flawless.
And that meant he would be coming.
Richter had been so pleased with their progress that he wanted to see the solution for himself. So he would, but not in the way he expected. Dominik had managed to delay him until this evening, and that was all the better. The night of the first sunset happened to coincide with the day before Lent, and the men had taken this as an excuse to throw a party. In a few hours, every watchman on the island would be stone drunk inside the officer's bunker, and the commander would be in the lab. It was almost too good to be true.
The other prisoners were waiting for him in the basement when he arrived.
“We're here,” Ari said.
Ettore wiped his brow. “It's just you. Good.”
Dominik didn't think he'd ever seen the man so nervous. It had been a risk bringing him into the fold, but he and Ari decided it had been a necessary risk. Counting Lucja, they were now four. Four souls resolved to violence and escape. The only man not aware was Thomas Frece. Frece was as scared as the rest of them, but he was a coward, and cowards were unpredictable. When the time came, however, he would stand with them… or he wouldn't. Dominik saw him studying charts in the corner and hoped it would be the former.
Ettore sidled over and held up a small vial. “The chloroform you wanted.”
Dominik nodded.
They'd had to manufacture it themselves by sneaking in acetone, ethanol, and bleach, but it was used by surgeons the world over, and the risk was worth the gain.
“You ready?”
Ettore nodded. “I'm sure it will work. I've never seen this used on a person before, only on pigs and dogs.”
“You are using it on a pig,” Ari said.
Dominik took the jar and unscrewed the lid. “We can do this. Never doubt it.”
“It will be different than on the boat. Richter is a killer. You know that, don't you, Dom?”
“I do. And in some ways, it makes things easier. It takes choice out of the equation. We have to do it for real this time, Ari. For me, and for you, and for Lucja.”
Lucja was another matter, and Dominik said a silent prayer to keep her safe. She would be on her way to the vehicle depot soon, ready to sabotage any chance of vehicle pursuit. He had wanted to send Ari with her, but there wasn't any way for the man to get close without arousing suspicion. She had to go it alone.
The day before, they had decided Ettore would be the one to wield the cloth. Richter always kept a close eye on Dominik and Ari, but he seemed to ignore their stoic companion. After some argument, Ettore had agreed, at last giving in to cold logic, as Dominik knew he would. Cold or not though, the man was sweating now.
There were so many things that could go wrong. The search party hadn't found Doctor Kriege. They had no idea where he was or how dangerous he had become. The search had wreaked havoc on the base patrols, all of which were now unpredictable. And as for the commander… what if he showed up with other soldiers?
Nonsense, Dominik thought. Richter was too proud for bodyguards.
The door above the stairs swung open, and all four men froze, listening. Dominik counted the footsteps, trying to ascertain who was coming. Then, he knew: there was only one pair of boots. As he turned towards the doorway, he saw the commander pacing towards them, and his heart gave a jolt. Luck, he thought. Luck is with us!
Richter entered the laboratory with the air of one bestowing a great favor upon an unworthy underling. “So,” he began, looking directly at Dominik. “Tell me about your results, Mister Kaminski. Tell me what it is that you have discovered.”
A drop of sweat fell off of Dominik's eyebrow and plunked onto his lip. It almost made him blabber, but he forced himself to speak calmly. “As you've heard, Commander, the key is formaldehyde. At room temperature, pure formaldehyde is a gas, but when distilled into a liquid form or a mist, it becomes extremely effective at containing the growths.”
“Go on.”
“We've known that the growths borrow characteristics from multiple phyla, but at their core, they're a fungus like any other. Their individual traits are traceable to any number of other species. And formaldehyde, well it's been proven to be an especially effective fungicide, especially against black mold. Our friends share quite a few characteristics with black mold, as you know. The chemical causes the cells to disintegrate, but not in a way that's going to implode the whole structure or cause them to release their spores. The spore sacs themselves wither and die when hit. I think what we have here… it's exactly the tool you've been searching for.”