Despite the seeming inevitability of his demise, William struggled on, desperate to escape. He wasn’t prepared to admit defeat just yet. The man’s survival instinct wouldn’t let him. He had worked too damn hard to let that happen. So, on rickety legs, the doctor made for the stairwell, adrenaline pumping vigorously through his veins and fuelling his hurried retreat. Craven set foot on the bottom rung and prepared to launch off—
—as he felt something connect with his back. Working like a battering ram, the article – at first, he wasn’t sure what it was – punched its way into the man’s back. Skewering him, the piercing object went through flesh first, followed by the bones in his ribcage, before emerging out the other side. The ageing gentleman cried out in agony as he felt his flesh being penetrated and his body lifted up off the ground.
Craven hovered in the air, completely amazed he was still breathing. Head lolling, he looked down at the gaping wound in his torso. At this distance, the doctor’s old eyes were just able to make out the thick forearm and clawed, webbed hand that had smashed its way through his frail, liver-spotted flesh. Grey-blue in colouration, and lined by the occasional tract of darkened veins, the muscular limb held him aloft for a few moments longer, the doctor’s assailant seemingly admiring its handiwork. The clawed digits at the end of the powerful limb flexed and contracted, gore dribbling off them like strands of falling treacle. Behind him, lingering just by his right ear, William could hear his finest achievement sniffing as its teeth chattered feverishly. The beast was breathing in the doctor’s scent, ostensibly revelling in the moment and relishing its victory over him.
“Papa…” came a guttural voice.
Then suddenly, Craven was falling through the air. It was a short fall in any event. Retracting its mighty limb from the gore-rimmed cavity, Carcharis let the doctor plummet unceremoniously to the floor. With a heavy and sickening splat! the doctor’s body impacted with the cold, metal flooring. Still, Dr. Craven wasn’t dead just yet. He lay there flush against the chilly surface, quivering and sniffling, his fingers twitching involuntarily as blood pooled around him. Unable to do anything else, Craven simply waited for the end to come.
It didn’t take long. Carcharis made sure of that.
Lightning-quick, William felt fingers take a hold of his egg-shaped cranium. The pressure exacted by the collection of digits was phenomenal, pain inching over the top of his skull while the hand holding him squeezed tighter. A split second after this, Craven’s head was flicked left then right in swift succession, causing bones to snap and cartilage to crack with the sharpness of the action. The light went out in the old man’s grey eyes then. Next, the doctor’s killer wrenched his slumping head backwards, tearing it away from the rest of his lifeless body. The elderly victim’s spinal column came with it, pink-red tendrils of ragged flesh hanging loosely from several portions of the serpentine-like vertebrae.
Carcharis slinked away, his dark, spiny frame disappearing into the swirling curtain of smoke, clutching his trophy gleefully.
“Papa…”
Meanwhile.
John Andrews’ glistening, big, brown eyes were wide with fright, his sharp features illuminated by the red-orange glow emanating from the fire blazing to his right. Tendrils of flame licked at the base of several empty towering, tubular specimen containers lining the far wall. Generated by the spreading conflagration, a haze of grey smoke wafted overheard, stinging the man’s eyes and irritating his lungs.
The young security officer couldn’t believe what he was seeing; the scene before him was one of utter chaos, violence, and butchery. The screams of men and women – dying and injured – filled the smoky air. It was like the ship’s main laboratory had suddenly descended into a state of pure madness – but what had caused it? This wasn’t what he had expected to find when the ship’s alarm first sounded some minutes ago, and his superior ordered him to investigate the lab.
Amidst the panoply of workbenches, computers, and various other scientific instruments, Andrews watched as men and women – colleagues – turned on one another, engaging in the most brutal of acts. The man stood transfixed, wondering the whole time what could have induced such madness in people. One woman wrestled with a man, forcing him down against a benchtop and knocking over an expensive-looking microscope as she pinned him against the surface of the long table. The man struggled frenziedly, trying to free himself from her clutches, but in the end, the demented woman was too strong for him. She clamped her teeth down on his nose, biting it off with a gut-churning crunch! Clutching at the hole in the centre of his butchered face, the man squealed like a stuck pig before collapsing onto the floor and Andrews lost sight of him.
At the far end of the lab, Andrews caught sight of two other members of the ship’s security detail dressed in the same navy blue fatigues as him. The swirling fog of acrid smoke made it impossible to identify who they were exactly. Both had their Berettas raised and were firing into a small group of approaching laboratory technicians positioned at the opposite side of the room. Unperturbed by the wave of red-hot slugs, the lab techs vaulted over work stations to get at the two armed individuals, seemingly immune to the bullet wounds they were sustaining in the process.
Are they on drugs? What the fuck is going on?
Jaws agape, Andrews watched stunned as two of the lab-coated figures clambered over a work station littered with instruments, bullets battering into them still with seemingly no effect. The array of equipment in their path didn’t slow them down that much either. Pausing for a second, the white-clad pair sat back on their haunches like animals lining up their targets; one of whom was in the process of reloading, and the other firing off the last of their rounds. A moment later, both lab techs were flying through the air, arms outstretched, heading straight for the two security officers: predators pouncing on their prey. Then shouting and screaming, all four figures disappeared from view as they went down to the ground, more or less coalescing into a single thrashing mess of limbs.
Starting to come to his senses, Andrews removed his Beretta from the holster on his hip. Flicking off the safety, he chambered a round. It was only then that he noticed the two figures moving about over to his left. He raised his pistol preparing to fire, but stopped when he realized they weren’t a threat. Hugging the wall, the man and woman – both attired in laboratory coats – crouched low, trying to remain hidden from their marauding, seemingly psychotic colleagues.
“Hey!” Andrews called over the din.
He managed to get the man’s attention first.
“Help us!” the man yelled out.
“Follow me!” Andrews waved them over to him encouragingly.
Looking about cautiously, the pair checked left and right, their actions similar to children crossing the road, before they made their dash for Andrews. Coming to stand by his side, Andrews quickly appraised the pair. The man was short, but well-built, with big hazel eyes just like Andrews’ own. His dark African skin was drenched in sweat, salty beads rolling down his bald head. As for the woman, she was Caucasian and tall, with short, dark brown, almost black hair. In the changing light, Andrews couldn’t decide if her eyes were blue or green.
“Come with me,” Andrews told them.
Exiting the main laboratory (or A-1, as it was known to the vessel’s staff), the trio scurried into a rather claustrophobic corridor leading to an adjacent smaller work area known as B-2. About half the size of A-1, B-2’s function was quite simply to the support the larger lab. It was here where most of the research data was pored over by the junior technicians. Whereas the actual experiments were conducted inside A-1, B-2’s workers simply analysed the results of such; cross-referencing and collating the available information into reports and the like. It was boring stuff, but necessary to the overall operation nonetheless. So for the most part, B-2 was chock-full of desks stacked with the likes of computers and hard drives, and little else.