"No — please don’t …"
"Begging again, Ruthie?" Briggs snarled. "I thought you said never. I thought I wasn’t good enough for you."
"I’ll do anything," she said, forcing herself to caress his hand again.
"Everything you like … all those things …"
"Why would I want that now?" the thing in Briggs's body asked. "Soon I’ll take any woman on the planet. I'll call them and they will come running to me. What would I want with you? I’m throwing you away, Ruthie. I’m throwing YOU away."
Briggs jammed his lips onto hers in kiss that shared more in common with a bite. Then as he pulled away he ripped her shirt, exposing sagging, worn breasts on an emaciated body.
"Children, kiss your mother goodnight."
And the mob took her. Claws, ragged teeth, dug into the woman who had given them birth. Her upper body disappeared into the center of the trio. Gant saw only her legs, kicking and slapping the ground with little strength. Blood splashed out from the slaughter and streamed across the concrete.
Jolly just stood there, and while Gant figured the creature probably did not even realize what had happened, his exhales sounded like a soft, insane chuckle as one demon enjoyed the sport of others.
"You told me, ‘never,’" Briggs said again.
The creatures dragged her away. Her legs still kicked, a little, and Gant saw her fingers clench and unclench, but whatever life remained in the research assistant named Ruthie was quickly draining away.
Briggs watched Ruthie’s body disappear out through the double doors with his eyes bulging and a thin smirk on his face making an expression Gant translated as some kind of perverse satisfaction; a petty child settling a score.
Then the entity that inhabited what had once been a leading human scientist turned and locked eyes with the soldier. Calmly, casually, the thing told Thom: "Time to go."
"Well, then, I suppose this is the end of the road for me."
He did not want to die, particularly not at the hands — claws — of the children. But he could not defend himself. Hell, he could barely stand on his bad knee, and his left arm would be useless in a fight.
However, the entity said, "Not quite, Major. You’re coming too. We have to make way for your friend, Captain Campion. He’ll be here any minute and we don’t want to disturb his work."
Jolly kept an eye on Major Gant but also found and pushed the bag holding the V.A.A.D. batteries to the center of the room, just in front of the cloth covering the ancient radio.
If there is actually still a radio under there, Gant thought.
Once the big guy had taken care of that particular task, he motioned the barrel of the MP5 at Gant and then toward the exit. The major understood perfectly, and although a bolt of pain shot up his leg, he walked in that direction, careful not to slip over the trails of blood leading out the door. He could not discern which of the trails belonged to Twiste's body; all the blood had sort of merged together into one wide track.
"Why don’t you just go without me. I don’t think I’m going to be able to climb all those stairs, anyhow."
"Don’t worry, Major. You won’t have to. Now keep moving."
Gant pushed open the double doors and led the three up the hall under the glow of track lighting to the four-way intersection where he and Twiste had paused several hours ago. There he heard the entity's kids feasting on Ruthie's corpse, but they did their nasty business behind the door marked for biohazard disposal. He recalled seeing several sets of ghastly fingers poking out from there during the trip in.
Thom lamented his injuries — if it were only his shoulder or only his knee, he might have been in a position to get that gun from Jolly. Perhaps to shoot the entity, perhaps to shoot himself. But with both injuries he knew he simply would stumble and fall. Not even worth the effort.
"Around the corner, Major, and straight on," Briggs commanded from behind. Thom did as instructed, entering the passage where the spinning siren lights sent flashes of yellow and red. It seemed like forever ago that he and his friend had come through this way, passing the observation windows that looked in on dead scientists.
Eventually they exited the Red Lab section, working their way into the antechamber with the plastic chairs, the phony plants, the security counter, and the CONTAINMENT sign that, once again, filled the area with its glow.
At this point, Briggs pointed them along a different path, no longer tracing Gant and Twiste's journey in. The passage they walked grew darker, and Gant wondered what kind of dead-end the entity had in mind until Briggs's voice commanded, "stop."
Major Gant glanced around, his eyes struggling to adjust to the lack of light. He saw something set in the walclass="underline" an elevator.
At that instant it seemed to Major Gant as if the entire complex exploded in front of him. A brilliant flash of light erupted as if the sun engulfed the corridor. His arm rose instinctively and shielded his eyes but he could not shut them tight enough to keep out the light.
With the light came a mechanical, churning noise vibrating along the walls and turning the silence of the dungeon into a cacophony of sound.
"Ah, right on time," Briggs’s voice commented.
Thom slowly lowered his arm, then cautiously opened his eyes.
No explosion. No sun. No super-flash of any sort.
Just hall lights. Yet it had been so long since he had seen normal lighting that the fluorescents were like brilliant spotlights overpowering his retina.
The noise also seemed to his ears much more powerful than in reality. He heard the elevator motor coming to life. Yet in the still silence it had seemed a boom.
"What is this?" Gant gasped.
"And so I said, let there be light," Briggs smirked. "They are rolling out the red carpet for me. Like I said, it’s time to go."
32
"So what do we do now?" Corporal Sanchez asked Colonel Thunder.
The two stood outside of the main building on the surface. Liz desperately needed a cigarette but fought off the urge. Sanchez desperately needed direction. Both felt some fresh air might help them better judge the situation.
Liz glanced away from the building. Through the trees she could barely make out spots of color that she knew was a helicopter resting on the landing pad.
Well, we could bug the fuck out and head for the hills to wait for Armageddon.
Somehow she did not think that was what Sanchez wanted to hear.
He asked, "Who can stop this? Is there someone in Washington who can override the general?"
Thunder chuckled. "Override General Harold Borman? Are you kidding? The guy wrote the book on unconventional enemies. He made Red Rock what it is. All he has to say is that you and I are under the influence of whatever is down there and we’d be locked up, or get a bullet in the noggin."
"His face, man," Sanchez recounted their confrontation with Borman. "He was not even there. He was some sort of mannequin or something."
Thunder put a hand on his shoulder and told him, "Yeah, and you lied right to his face. You should’ve dragged him out of there, not me."
"You think?" Sammy was genuinely apologetic. "I don't think he would have cooperated. I thought it was best just to get us out of there."
Again Liz reminded herself that last week this kid had shot to death another colonel.
"This is totally whack," Sanchez said.
Thunder paused and managed a smile.
"Totally whack? What the hell is that?"
Sanchez looked over at her. He was confused and upset and not in the mood for sarcasm. Hell, he probably would not recognize sarcasm if it bit him on the ass, at least not at that moment.
"Okay, look," she said. "We’ve got to handle this, you and I. Who can help us?"