Last Chance--A Novel Read online

  But he didn’t.

  The monitor showed that he’d flung himself onto the mister line itself. His body stuck on the pipe, liquefying. His bubbling flesh plugged the spray openings, providing a clear lane through the mist for the others.

  “Fall back,” Patrick said.

  Laura staggered toward the stairs and elbowed a big red punch button on the wall. The Lucite door behind us slid open. She gestured at the spiral staircase beyond. “Go, go, go!”

  The scientists shoved us forward, so we stumbled onto the landing. Then they piled through after us. One of the scientists banged into a rolling chair and fell over. He looked up at us.

  The rest of us were already through the glass door on the landing above the twisting steel stairs.

  Another Hatchling hit the cracked window. The fissures spread to the edges of the pane. A chip of glass spit out and tapped the floor.

  Looking across the threshold at the comms center, Laura lifted her hand to the red button on our side of the doorway. Her palm hovered an inch away.

  “Please,” the scientist said. “Please wait.” He used a chair to pull himself up, but it rolled out from under him and he toppled over.

  Another Hatchling struck the window, the glass cascading away.

  Laura jammed the heel of her hand into the button, and the glass door whipped shut.

  The scientist on the floor shuddered. His eyes went to ash and disintegrated. He rose. We stared through the tunnels of his head. Through them we could see the shattered window.

  Hatchlings jammed the narrow gap, bent arms and legs and snapping faces. The neighboring window gave way next, clogged by Hatchlings clawing to get through.

  The first batch of Hatchlings fell.

  Directly into the saline tanks.

  They screeched and thrashed, and the water turned a boggy orange.

  Then the others tumbled through. They spilled over the consoles, onto the floor.

  That got us moving.

  We flew down the stairs, our feet hammering the steel steps. At the bottom another containment door. Alex hit the button, and we stumbled through, banging into one another, nearly tripping.

  We ran through the airlock toward the heart of the warren. My only thought was to head for the relative safety of the main research area and living quarters. Alex waited to close the door behind us.

  We managed a brief sprint before hitting the next wall. Another button, another wait, another brief sprint. We made balky, painstaking progress.

  As the next wall sealed before us, we looked back down the corridor through the four Lucite doors we’d put between us and the horde.

  The Hatchlings were piling against the door at the base of the stairs. It looked like a wall of orange. Only a few twitching limbs and blinking eyes were distinct.

  The door gave way.

  A female Hatchling, large and rotund, bounded out ahead of the others. She gathered speed as she approached the next door and leapt at it, curling up. She shattered through with battering-ram force.

  She fell to the floor, stuck through with shards, a quivering mass. The others charged over her, pounding her into the tiles.

  We moved frantically down the next segment of corridor, this one leading into the main research area. Laura ran ahead, reaching the next threshold. She fished a digital key card from her pocket and held it over the inset panel, ready to open the next door the instant Patrick got the one behind us shut. The halting movement was torture. Each delay felt like an eternity. The airtight chunks of hall smelled of sweat and fear.

  Hatchlings were making up ground, sprinting and crashing through door after door like rampaging hurdlers.

  Now they were in the airlock chamber right behind us. The door between us and them slid shut in seeming slow motion. Patrick kept jacking the red button as though that could make the barrier move any quicker.

  The throng closed in on us, shoving their putrid scent before them. At last the door sealed right between us.

  It was clear there wouldn’t be enough time for us to get to the next section.

  As the lead male hurtled at the glass, Patrick stepped back and squared to fight. Behind us Alex snatched the key card from Laura, tapped it to the panel, and then shoved Laura through into the next airlock chamber. Alex slammed the key card to the panel again to close the door between her and Laura. As it rolled shut, Alex Frisbeed the card down the hall past Laura so it would be locked in there with her.

  Laura fell over, nearly losing her horn-rimmed glasses. Then she rose and ran for us. The closing door sealed and she pounded her fists against it.

  An instant later the male’s torso punched a hole right through the door by me and Patrick. The Hatchling hung there a moment, jagged glass teeth sunk into his gut, his juices leaking down the pane beneath him.

  Contaminated air breezed through. All around us the scientists shuddered and transformed into Hosts. JoJo screamed, the noise so high-pitched it sounded like a whistle.

  Other Hatchlings smashed their way through.

  As I turned to face off with the scientists, Patrick fired a few shells from the Winchester, a rock-salt fusillade tearing through the lead ranks. The Hatchlings screeched and writhed, their bodies gumming up the gap.

  I spun through the scientists, swinging the baling hooks, tearing out throats and impaling heads. Murdering these people who had been so good to us. Moments ago they’d been our friends.

  Next to me Alex made fast work of the others with her hockey stick. Laura watched from the other side, one hand pressed to the Lucite, sobbing.

  Alex jabbed a finger at Laura, indicating the next chamber and the waiting key card. Go.

  Laura turned and ran.

  Rocky and JoJo were backed into a corner, a scientist Host lunging at them. His hands were inches away when I caught him through the temple with the tip of my baling hook, slamming him into the wall. He fell down in a broken-doll sprawl.

  JoJo hopped up, snatched the key card from the dead Host’s belt, and tapped it to the panel. It did nothing. Laura wasn’t yet through the next door. JoJo waved the key card again and again over the panel. At last Laura tumbled through ahead, the door zippering shut, allowing ours to glide open.

  Patrick held the rear, walking backward and firing shot after shot. Barely holding off the horde. We’d left plenty of bodies as obstacles. Some of the Hatchlings seemed confused by the recently turned Hosts, snatching at them with their jaws and then turning on one another.

  We’d bought a little time.

  We ran through, sealed the door behind us. UV lights beamed down, sterilizing the air and making us sweat. We caught up to Laura after the next door. We’d wound up in the nexus near the main lab, the corridor splitting off in two directions.

  The Hatchlings had finished their brawling over the Hosts. A multitude of heads lifted, staring through the two barriers at us.

  The effect was unsettling.

  Laura was breathing hard, her face red and swollen. Though she was no longer crying, she was still catching her breath. “… rear stairwell … this way … another tank filling the rear misters…”

  At the end of the corridor was a large steel door with a heavy cylindrical handle.

  “We’re there,” Alex said, charging down the hall. Patrick, Rocky, and JoJo followed.

  I hesitated. Then I grabbed Laura’s key card and ran the other way.

  The halls were parallel, so Patrick could see me through the glass walls. For an instant we were running side by side. He looked pissed.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled.

  There was no time to answer. I peeled away, watching my brother fade from sight. Behind me the sound of shattering glass, scrabbling nails, and grunts carried up the corridor.

  I ran across the lab and slapped the smoky glass with my palm. The high-containment storage facility on the far side came clear. I tapped Laura’s key card to the panel, and the door slid open.

  I stepped into the swirling mist. The window behind
me morphed from transparent back to its smoky glaze. The metal canisters were cold to the touch. My fingers almost froze to the latches as I unclipped them. I grabbed two syringes, shoving them into one of the cargo pockets of my scrub pants.

  I started for the rear door.

  The smoky pane exploded in at me.

  A huge female barreled into the canisters, knocking them all over the place. I raised my baling hook, but she backhanded me as she rose. I’d been kicked by horses before and I can tell you: She hit me much, much harder. I slid across the tiles and knocked my head into the wall, my cheek burning, yellow spots dotting my vision.

  A large clawed foot set down inches from my nose. The floor shook as her other leg stomped down. She was straddling me.

  I managed to turn my aching head to look up as she leaned over me.

  ENTRY 58

  Claws and jagged little fangs.

  That’s all I saw.

  They zoomed in at me.

  My baling hooks were twisted behind me, held to my wrists only by the nylon loops. There’d be no time to grab for the handles. My hand groped the floor around me.

  It seized on a spinning canister. The latch had been knocked open. I shot my hand inside. My fingers closed around the syringe filled with cloudy white fluid.

  I could feel the Hatchling’s breath now. A drop of saliva fell, striking my neck and sizzling.

  Grabbing the syringe, I jammed it through the top of the Hatchling’s foot and depressed the plunger.

  The effect of the viral vector was instantaneous.

  She reared back, her mouth gaping. She didn’t even have time to screech before she disintegrated, her jaws opening ever wider as her skin and muscle melted from her head on down, a sheet of orange slop puddling to the floor. I rolled free before the spill hit me.

  More Hatchlings poured into the main lab; I could see them through the shattered window. I ran to the rear door, used Laura’s key card to get through. As the Hatchlings barreled at me, I closed the door. One hand curled around the edge at the last second but lost its purchase as the glass whipped shut.

  The hall behind me ended with another steel door. I ran to it, my breath and footsteps echoing like crazy. I could hear the Hatchlings approaching, but I didn’t look back.

  I reached the steel cylindrical handle and yanked to turn it. It didn’t give. I put more strength into it, and at last it spun. I whipped it around and around, banging it with my palm, ignoring the sound and the stench, closer every second.

  As last the lugs released, and I ripped the door open. It wasn’t until I slipped through and turned to tug it shut behind me that I dared to lift my eyes.

  Hatchlings filled the corridor—not just wall to wall but leapfrogging over one another, crowding the space from floor to ceiling in their eagerness to get at me. One was near enough to reach through the gap and swipe at my face, his claw opening a thin seam on my cheek. Roaring, I slammed the door against the weight of them. As it banged shut, it lopped off the Hatchling’s finger. The crooked digit lay at my feet, twitching.

  I gulped in a breath and stepped back.

  Something rustled behind me.

  I yelled and spun around, but it was Patrick.

  The others were there, too. We were in a tiny metal room protected by steel doors on either side. A rear staircase rose to a third door that led outside. Apart from a small tank of saline solution feeding the mister pipes through the walls, the room was bare.

  I was panting. “I got two syringes.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Alex said. “A brave idiot.”

  Hatchlings pounded at the steel doors.

  Laura fumbled her glasses into place. “You have to go,” she said.

  “The spores,” Alex said. “If we open that door, you’ll die.”

  A dent appeared in the metal, but it looked like it would hold.

  Laura raised her slender arms to gesture to the four walls. “This is the last safe place on Earth for me,” she said. “I’m dead already.” She pointed up the brief run of stairs. “Open it,” she said. “Go.”

  None of us moved.

  “I won’t have you die for nothing,” Laura said.

  More banging. Another dent. Now the drywall at the edge of the frame started to crumble. Rocky yelped, and JoJo pressed Bunny’s head over her eyes.

  Laura climbed the steps. Put her hand on the doorknob. She smiled back at us. “‘The future rests in your hands,’” she said.

  Then she opened the door.

  Fresh air rushed in. She stiffened on her heels. Shuddered. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses, her eyes turned to tunnels. Then she tumbled down the stairs.

  Her head smacked against the floor, and she was still. Her glasses spun away. Her necklace was pulled to one side, her locket cracked open.

  It held a tiny photograph.

  Of Zach.

  That tiny locket tore a hole right through my chest. But I had no time to dwell on it. Alex and Patrick were already at the top of the stairs, peering through the outside door.

  “Get up here,” my brother said.

  I jogged up and peeked through.

  The parking lot was overrun with Hatchlings. I looked past the groundskeeper shack and onto the quad, but that, too, was covered with bodies swarming toward the building. More and more clawed up the cliff edge, pouring over the stalled gondola.

  We had nowhere to go.

  I scrunched my eyes shut. Opened them.

  “Guys?” I said. “I have a plan.”

  * * *

  In tight formation we burst from the doorway, Patrick and I holding the tank of saline solution on either end, with Rocky and JoJo flanking us. Alex took the lead with the shotgun. The tank—no bigger than a giant picnic cooler—was heavier than you could believe. It was slippery, hard to grip. The water slopped up our arms as we ran. My baling hooks twisted from their loops, clattering against the side of the tank. We ran-hobbled toward the groundskeeper shack twenty or so yards away.

  The element of surprise let us get about halfway there before the Hatchlings took note. A single head swiveled to note us, and the rest followed in a wave, like cornstalks rippled by the wind. Hatchlings charged us from all sides.

  Alex fired, pivoted, fired, pivoted, sending out wide sprays in every direction. Ducking beneath the raised shotgun, Patrick and I did our best to keep making progress. When Alex twisted to get off another shot, a surge of Hatchlings threatened our exposed flank. Rocky swiped at them with Alex’s hockey stick, but it had little effect. JoJo dipped her hands in the tank and flung salt water at them. Scalded, they stumbled back, knocking into the others behind them.

  Still holding one side of the tank, Patrick smashed into the shack, knocking the rickety door off its top hinge. We tumbled inside, losing our grip on the tank. Somehow it kept from shattering when it landed. Salt water sloshed over the sides, but most of it held.

  Alex filled the doorway, facing out, firing, jacking the shotgun, and firing again.

  “I don’t mean to sound pushy, Chance,” she called over her shoulder. “But if you could do whatever you’re doing in fast-friggin’-forward, that’d be swell.”

  As Rocky redipped our weapons in the salt water, I tore through the cabinets. Watering cans, hoes, shovels. For a terrified moment, I thought I’d misstepped—that there wouldn’t be one here.

  But there it was, collecting cobwebs in the corner.

  A weed sprayer.

  I thumped the plastic four-gallon sprayer on the floor and spun off the cap.

  Alex held down the doorway, keeping Hatchlings—barely—at bay. They thumped the walls. Wood splintered. Shadows flickered between planks. The shack wouldn’t last long.

  JoJo grabbed a watering can, dipped it in the salt water, and flung it out from between Alex’s legs. The Hatchlings leapt away, their bodies sizzling as the saline ate through their flesh. The others kept a few feet back from the wet grass, afraid to step forward.

  Patrick and I picked up the saline tank
and tipped it. The first pour knocked over the empty weed sprayer. Rocky set it upright and held it, and we managed to direct the stream from one corner of the tank through the small opening.

  In the back a few planks splintered inward behind the wall-mounted shelves. Sinewy arms twisted into sight, knocking stuff over, clawing the air. Just out of reach.

  At last the sprayer tank reached full and started overflowing.

  I screwed the cap on. Ripping off my backpack, I tossed it to Rocky, who put it on. Then I picked up the weed sprayer by its straps and slung it over my shoulders. I wielded the fiberglass wand and pulled the trigger.

  A spray shot out.

  Perfect.

  “Ready?” Alex shouted.

  JoJo handed her watering can to Rocky and filled another with what was left in the tank.

  “Ready,” I said.

  From there it went like clockwork. Alex turned and tossed Patrick his shotgun. Rocky tossed Alex her stick.

  Patrick stepped through the doorway and fired twice. Rocky and JoJo darted out beside him and flung salt water from the watering cans in wide, arcing sprays.

  As Rocky and JoJo parted, I shot between them, filling the air around us with saline mist.

  The Hatchlings screeched and bucked, in total disarray. You’d have thought I was wielding a flamethrower.

  We forged forward into the sea of Hatchlings. They folded into place behind us. I waved the wand in a 360, keeping a constant sphere of mist around us.

  We made slow but steady progress toward the edge of the cliff. I’d thought I’d be able to ration the saline solution, but the Hatchlings were too dense. I had to keep the trigger depressed. The tank was already half empty.

  We made it to the cliff, several Hatchlings waving their hands frantically against the mist before tumbling off the brink. As they plummeted, they took out several Hatchlings scaling the walls. At last we reached the edge. I sent a cloud of salt mist down over the cliff face to protect our rear guard. More Hatchlings peeled off and fell away. Now we only had to fight facing in one direction. We moved sideways along the brink, the ground crumbling behind our heels. When I glanced back, the drop seemed bottomless. The tank on my back—now three-fourths empty.