Gant's instincts kicked in. He rushed the scientist, punching him square in the jaw; the bone there shattered but the tech did not feel any pain because he immediately lost consciousness. His body did not hit the floor, however, as Thom grabbed it and hauled him back inside the specimen room, where he found and pushed a red button. To his relief, the door slid shut just as those marching boots rounded the corner. Gant could not hear whether they had kept on marching, but he had the distinct feeling that the guards might have halted outside the room.
When the bulkhead did not immediately open again, Thom relaxed — a little — and took stock of his new surroundings.
Again, white was the predominant color inside the specimen containment room, but the doors lining the two long walls were a soft red and included small observation windows. It did not surprise Thom to see those doors labeled with numbers running from one through thirty with even numbers along one wall, odd on the other.
Two rows of three pillars each helped support the ceiling, where fluorescent lights offered a sterile illumination from behind frosted glass panels. The entire rectangular chamber stretched nearly forty yards from front to back and was half that distance wide.
About a third of the way back stood a raised platform with a semicircular console sporting lines and columns of buttons and switches. Thom figured those buttons and switches controlled the numbered portals.
In addition, at the other end of the chamber was a half-wall divider separating the bulk of the room from an area cluttered with counters, cabinets, and examination tables. The walls there were not quite as bright; Gant could see blotches and stains where splashes of blood had been mopped and scrubbed away. He did not want to imagine exactly what horrors had occurred in that corner of this nightmare.
The smell did not help with his growing feeling of dread: a moist, muddy odor like rot in a jungle hovered over the area and competed with the aroma of cleaning alcohol for his olfactory attention.
With the Makarov pistol in one hand, he walked around the room in a nervous pace. The feeling of dread did not go away. In fact, it increased. He wondered if he was something like a mouse in a maze who now realized that finding the cheese would not be a good idea.
He approached cell number one. The window there looked in upon a dimly lit area where Gant saw three former-people standing nearly as still as mannequins, until they saw his peering eyes. When they noticed his movement at the window, the trio shuffled forward.
Gant saw that one had lost half of its original left arm, but the parasitic organism had grown a bundle of thick white cords into something approximating what the body had lost, albeit thinner and hanging loose, resembling more a twist of white wiring than flesh.
Each of the specimens in cell one lacked all but the barest shreds of clothing, suggesting they might be rather old. Their skin had decayed and run, revealing bones and rib cages.
As scary as they were, there was also something very sad about them. Thom remembered that these bodies had once belonged to human beings, and while the people who had once lived there were now gone, the cadavers were memories of lives.
He had spent the last day treating the creatures as "hostiles" and viewing them from a distance through the prism of a tactical problem in need of solving.Yet these had been people once. With families and friends, jobs, hobbies, favorite foods, lost loves, hopes, dreams, and regrets. Waters and Monroe had stolen all that and subjected those poor souls to unspeakable horrors in the process. The fact that those two madmen tried to justify such high-tech savagery in the name of a noble cause made him all the more angry.
His heart beat a little faster and his eyes narrowed. At that moment Thom Gant decided that, if given the opportunity, he would kill everyone involved with this project. They would receive no more mercy than they had showed Agent Costa or the people of Tioga Island.
He stepped away from cell one, skipped over cell three, and next looked in on cell five. As he approached the observation window he noticed that above each of the doors hung a nozzle attached to a network of silver piping. It reminded him of either a sprinkler or a halon system, although the positioning made him think it had more to do with the prisoners in the cells than with combating fire.
Behind door number five he found an even more unusual creature mixed in among a group of four typical examples.
On the floor behind the other zombies, Gant saw a bundle covered in what first looked to be a spider web. As he stared inside his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting and he realized he saw a person curled in the corner; what had once been a young woman.
Her mouth was open incredibly wide, to the extent that the jaw had clearly broken. From that mouth sprouted dozens — hundreds — of string-like lines that had crept out like ivy and encased the cadaver in fungal roots. It did not appear to react in any way to his presence, and Gant had the distinct impression that it was immobilized, perhaps giving up the ability to move in order to transform into some kind of nest. He did not know enough about fungus or zombies to figure out what it was up to, only that it seemed even more grotesque than the others.
After a moment the four specimens that could move crowded out his view as they rushed to the window, pressing against it in the hope of pushing through and claiming another victim.
Thom stepped away and decided to cross over to the even-numbered chambers. However, he stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed a security camera hanging from the ceiling just as it swiveled around and focused directly on him.
A split second later the main door opened, revealing that, yes, the group of marching boots that had sent him seeking shelter inside the specimen containment room had, in fact, stopped outside the door and waited.
Six guards rushed in brandishing AKMs. Gant fired blindly but focused more on retreat, first weaving behind one of the support pillars then sprinting for the half-wall divider at the rear of the chamber. Bullets chased him all the way. He felt one clip his shoulder, tearing away a piece of his uniform, while another hit the short wall just as he dove over.
He stuck the Makarov pistol out from cover and squeezed the trigger twice, acutely aware that his ammunition was very limited.
In response, a blast of automatic gunfire flew over his head but then stopped as Waters called out, "Major Gant! I'll give you ten seconds to come out with your hands up. I still have a variety of tests for you to endure."
The major lay on the floor and crawled to the end of the divider wall to peek around. He saw six guards positioned behind pillars, against the walls, and kneeling. Behind them he saw the raised control panel and further back the open bulkhead door leading to the main hallway.
Fortunately, Thom saw that that particular door was not the only way out. Behind him was another exit, this one nearly as long as a garage door and opening horizontally into the ceiling. However, he did not see a release button, suggesting that this particular entryway could be opened and shut only by the control console in the room or possibly the security station.
Waters stood brazenly at the forefront of the squad, wearing a big smile and nearly begging Gant to take a shot … and expose himself in the process. It occurred to Thom that Waters might be less interested in tests and more interested in eliminating him. If the guards knew he had killed two of their number, they might not be interested in taking him alive, either.
"Come out, Major."
"Tell you what, Doctor, why don't you come back here and collect me?"
Waters did not speak, but his guards did respond. More shots were fired at Gant's position, some hitting the wall, one actually punching all the way through and just missing his leg, most hitting the wall and the door behind, where a heavy metal cabinet suffered gunshot wounds and a tabletop took a direct hit, sending several vials of pharmaceuticals smashing to the floor.